That Triathlon Life Podcast - Mental health among athletes, an interview with TTL Devo Team athlete Zack Cooper, and more!

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

This week we packed in a full-length episode plus an interview with TTL Development Team athlete Zack Cooper at the end. We discussed:How personal safety has shaped race choices for Eric and PaulaHow often you actually need to replace a helmetWhat to do when your smart trainer starts reading way offThe minimum training load for a 70.3How Paula finds inspiration for her race kit designsSRAM blipsWhat feels worse: a DNF from your body or a mechanical?Mental health as athletesA 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 Loggersome. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. Welcome to our triathlon podcast. Paul and I are both professional athletes. Nick's the professional musician, amateur triathlet. And most of the show is carried by the questions that those listeners, those of you who send in questions, we answer them. That's how we keep it going. So if you do that, thank you so much. But at the beginning here, we tend to talk about stuff that's going on in the trathlon world. stuff that's going on in our triathlon world. Welcome to the show. Paula, are you wearing a quarter zip right now? Nick, you already asked me this earlier. And you said, oh, I'll save it for the pod. Well, because I kind of want to ask how much are you aware of the invokedness of quarter zips right now? Are they cool?

They're very invoked right now. They're the subject of a lot of social media stuff. Oh, making fun of it? People are, like, skating in them, and there's, like, a whole aura around quarter zips right now. This is a vintage quarter zip from 19, no, 2013. It's a race in 2013 called Around the Lake, give or take 30. Give or take 30. It's like a race sweater.

I got it at my sister's store. So you're saying that you had it before it was cool? I'm saying it's from 1993, and it's still cool. Got it. No, I mean, I get so much on stuff. and it's all, there's a lot of quarter zip, so I'm like, okay, this is cool,

I'm right, because it's Onn. Oh, I see. So On's making quarter zip stuff too. So many people are. I don't understand why this is such a revelation. Because like a year ago, you would have looked at a quarters of him and were like, oh,

what is that? I certainly did. Our fuzzy TTL outdoor research things that everyone wants are quarters of us. I mean, that's a kangaroo pouch. That's slightly different. This is just like a country club quarter zip. It does look cool. It looks very like,

I can't tell if it's England racing green or like golf club green, but it's kind of somewhere in between that. It's like, yeah, like manicured putting green green. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. This is really great podcast content for people who can't even see what we're talking about. Yeah, they're coming out hot with our extremely relevant information here. That's right. So speaking to hot, it's not hot there. It is full winter and bend. I mean, it's not like, you know, we don't have a layer of snow on the ground. We're getting frost.

We rode in minus two Celsius today. I saw you guys in puffies. Oh, we've been wearing puffies since September. Those are also trendy. That's just like standard issue. You move to bend, you got to buy at least two puffies. I see, I see, I see. Okay, fair enough.

No, but it is pretty cold here. And we got us pretty serious frost a couple days ago. Today, I took a picture, actually, while we were finishing up our gravel ride today. It was minus three Celsius, so whatever that converts to in Fahrenheit, you know, like 27. or something, 28. It's chilly, but it's a dry cold. It's a dry cold. So as long as the sun's out, we're still going for it. Paula, are you, I saw you did some gravel today. It was my first ride outside in a week. I rode 12 hours on Zwift last week. And I do ride my crocs in the winter. I don't really take my road bikes out just because there's grit on the road as well. So that,

we did that ride together, that Seismore ride up, rode out to sisters. Yeah, it's not super chunky or anything. it was nice to be outside. Nice. Well, not to rub it in, but I'm going to be riding a ride around here this weekend called Circle of Doom, and it goes up into the mountains. And we're worried that we may encounter some snow on some roads. So yeah, you're not going to even going to bring our warmers. I was going to say, are you bring a jacket this time? I think I'll bring a jacket. Yeah. I think I'll bring a jacket. I think I'll bring a jacket. But that's in the San Gabriel mountains, and those go kind of high. But around here, we're still short bibs, short

out sleeve shirt, maybe a vest. Well, vest, it is fashionable, if nothing else. Yeah. I just sent you a video from the gravel ride, Nick, if you want to look at it and decide if we're just like fomoing about your riding or not. I mean, this looks like a dream. The cold, dry dream. No, this looks great.

I mean, the gravel you guys have there, wow. That, wait, is that Jefferson? That's Mount Jefferson. Yeah. So good. so pointy. It's the mountain-iest mountain you can imagine. Old Jeff, be still in my heart. That's so great. Yeah, the gravel you guys have in Bend

is what gravel bike companies assume everyone has, I think. That's the best kind of gravel. You can ride fast, you can ride far, and the roads are pretty smooth. You don't have these huge cracks. You don't have the rain making divvits in them the way that we have here. I mean, I've just taken you on the buttery stuff. Oh, I see. I appreciate it. that. You can get right if you want. Okay, we're going to get into the main stuff here. And just so

everyone knows at the end, after all our questions, we're going to have Zach Cooper on, who is a TTL development team athlete, and we're going to hear all about his experience racing worlds and his experience as a professional athlete this year, the ups, the downs, he raced a lot. Eric and I just had the honor to talk to him. But we're going to do a full normal show before that. Yeah, we had an awesome conversation with Zach. He was one of our outstanding performers on the development team last year. Raced an insane number of times. And also, if you haven't been made aware already, the development team applications for 2026 are now open. They'll be open for a couple more days. So if you or someone you know is in a position to be on that team, we're looking at athletes

who have already taken their pro card or are going to be starting on their pro journey this year, send them to our website so that they can apply. We have a lot of questions, and we even have a supporter segment going out this week. If you are one of our beloved podcast supporters, you'll be receiving that in your inbox as well. We're going to talk about SRAM blips on bars, and Eric even has a visual aid to help. So we can show you on these bars what's going on. The segment itself is going to be sent out to supporters in a few days while we deal with some technical difficulties with the video stuff. Not our fault, by the way. No one here's fault. But we're getting

it figured out and we'll get it sent out as soon as possible. If you're new here, you can submit questions to that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. I was just thinking about Eric when you said, you know, the portion of people who listen who actually submit questions, it's an irremarkably small percentage of the people that listen. Everyone else is just lurking or something. Yeah, it's like insane. So if you are listening, come on, send something in, send something in with a little spice. And I'm going to go a step further and say, flex your creative writing skills. Make it creative.

Make it fun to read to the audience here. We always appreciate those. That's a good idea. Just keep it under two paragraphs. Yeah. Yeah. No, here's when I don't pick it. Whenever I see this type of a question, this is when I don't pick it.

If there's literally a list of questions and they're numbered, I fully skip to the next. I don't even read it. Yeah. We'll send four different emails. Yeah, under pseudonyms. I mean, in that case, I actually will read them all. Right. Okay, so that's the hack, people.

Because it's a digestible. We're not going to sit there and go through a list of one person's questions. I agree. I agree. We are not going to do that. And I'm not going to be like, oh, yeah, number three is the best. Well, I guess I could do that. What if they were all just fire?

Just like four bangers. I mean, I usually read the first Biddle lit. First bit of lit. First little bit of it. To catch the vibe. And it's also, these types of questions are normally extremely specific for that person. Right.

And not really like, my VOTU max is this. And I'm wondering how many minutes I can hold. No, not even that. But just like the question itself is not going to really be useful information to a broader audience. And I think that's also something to consider when you say. send questions in? Not to make criteria, but if you, we do get plenty of questions enough to fill a podcast and more.

So even though it's a small fraction, we still sift through them. I think that also it's a little bit like when you go to a restaurant and there's too many things on the menu, that's what it feels like when your question is very long or has many facets to it. Just like, give me something. Give me the point, you know? Like four or five really good items. Let me choose from those.

Fast-fed burger. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so like I said, you can submit questions at Thattriathlonlife.com, and if you're interested in becoming a podcast supporter, which is the only way you can really directly support the podcast right now, and it's very much appreciated, you can do that in the same place. This week, as I said, podcast supporters are going to get a special little video with a question that's only going to be answered on that video. So, first question here is from Dave.

Salue to Tiel Nesh. How often has your personal safety played a role in your decision-making process when considering which races you'd like to compete at around the world? The upcoming grand finale in Qatar sparked my curiosity on the subject, seeing as there was a bombing there this September, all the best, Dave. I was going to ask you guys if we should put this in or not. It's pretty much never occurred to me until Qatar. right same same so it does it change your mind now this time does it actually move the needle for you

or is it just something that came into your head and you're like no it's fine i'm okay no it's obviously when i when i saw that happen i thought oh it's going to be canceled yeah i remember when you that's the assumption that's like oh are we going to send a bunch of triathletes there definitely not. Yeah. But I don't know that much about it and I don't feel good about it, no. Yeah. But what are we supposed to do?

I mean, it's our job and that's where the final is. Yeah. It's a bit, we're a bit trapped. Yeah. I gotta think there's Europeans who may have second guessed coming to the United States lately to race just due to our political climate. Oh, totally. I think it's a fair thing to take into consideration.

I mean, we know of people who literally did not leave the U.S. because they were afraid they couldn't come back. Yeah, so let's tweak this question a bit. What about your personal safety in terms of the safety of the race course itself? Not because of a political thing or a violence thing, but because of the turns or the water or... No, I think that like each governing body has like a pretty stringent safety thing. I don't know to make sure that it is safe.

You know, the safest race I've ever done, or at least this year, was the Fray-Jus T-100, where we did a one-loop course past thousands of driveways, and they had someone manned at each entrance. Like, that was the most high-level closure I've ever seen. But in Iron Man race, yeah, I have a lot of trust that they're blocked off properly, maybe too much trust, I don't know. I mean, there's a certain degree, like, anything could happen anywhere, so you just got to be the master of what you're doing in that moment. But, yeah, it's just because somebody got hit by a car this race five years ago. Is that going to make it happen this year? No. If anything, maybe that's made them take it more seriously.

But, you know. And if anything, I think that, well, for bacterial issues and stuff in water, they do have pretty strict guidelines for that. So if I think it's on the edge of potentially being too dirty, I just won't swim in it till race day. I don't know. Like after Beijing International last year, I got so sick. People got sick after Paris.

I mean, it's like, it happens even at important big races. That's the thing is like it doesn't feel like you can make a decision on whether or not to go to a race. It's just a complete luck of the draw. If the race director on that day, measures the lake in a certain spot or was afraid to cancel the swim or it's, you know, it's just like you kind of just have to. Also, the rain beforehand, obviously. Relinquish some control. Yeah. In Beijing, it rained three days before the race.

So it's not even that the body of water is dirty. It's like the climate. Right. Same thing happens here. If it rains, you're not really supposed to swim in the ocean for the next few days. Totally. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for the question, Dave. Next one is from Justine. Straight to business here, TTL folks. See, this person, Justine's really, she knows how to get through to Paula here. The helmet that I have was made in 2021. I use it for road cycling. I've had zero crashes, falls or drops of the helmet. I do leave it in my garage. I live in South Georgia where it's hot and humid. Is that a factor or car when traveling? How often should I get a new helmet? I see differing things online about aging and safety. I'm curious about you. y'all's thoughts Justine I'd look this up a bit

and like keeping it in a hot place and a humid place can very much speed up the aging of the film so we want like a hermetically sealed

container ideally no I think you need to get a new helmet every five years at most yeah they do make cabinets for camera gear that is like you know humidity controlled

you can keep your helmets in there make them last forever That's so ridiculous That was not serious I'm trying to have some fun here So how often do you guys replace helmets I feel like this is a bit irrelevant Since you guys get helmets from Specialized

Specialized sends us one A new set each year Right Yeah I just wear mine for a year So that said We're going to be doing a garage sale again As soon as I Am back in an off season

So keep your eye out on the Excel spreadsheet link that will post on TTL. I'll post it on my Instagram and has like all the gear that we are trying to get rid of. It's a really fun time. Paula, this is maybe Paula's favorite thing is the TTIA garage. It becomes my full-time job. Yeah. And normally I would probably recommend against buying secondhand helmets, but you guys are such a trustworthy source that maybe a secondhand helmet would be okay to buy off the garage. yeah most helmet manufacturers you can even go on their websites we'll say three to five years

and it it depends on how what those three to five years look like how much you sweat you know if you're in Georgia and it's super humid and you're keeping in your car like that will accelerate the aging process of that foam that's that really is the protector you know not the shell as much as your your brain crushing against the foam I feel like this is a thing you know Like the price of a thing in an expensive store, if you have to ask, you should probably just replace it. It's your head. Yeah, if all of the liners are falling out and I can see cracks in it, should I, if you have to ask, you just. You should replace it.

Get yourself, treat yourself to some safety. Yeah. Also, I feel like a helmet is such a integral part of a cool look. And it's cool to switch it up every once in a while. Exactly. Yeah, I can change your look. That's true. Oh, for sure.

Wait, okay. Here's an opportunity for something. Do you guys have any rules about helmet color and shoe color? No. Or helmet color and sock color? I mean, white does just go with everything. White helmets and white shoes just, they do look really good. I say that as owning black shoes, by the way.

I haven't had a non-white helmet in a while. Yeah. Think of it. The only problem is if you have a giant head like me, white make your head even bigger. Black is slimming. Isn't it like... It's like that off, like ivory kind of white, but I think I would do maybe black for the next one.

I'm not sure. It'll be a game time decision. Let's try it out. So how often will you replace your helmet? Every like three to four years, I'd replace it. And I'm coming up on that time, actually. Crazy how quick three years goes by. I know.

What is the next helmet going to be? I don't know. I had the specialized prevail right now. Yeah. Which is there like climbing air. like non-era helmet. Yeah, I do like that. But what I had before that was the cask

and they were just like regular helmet and I really liked that one too. Blue one? No, that was a Bambino. That was the cask T-T helmet. I had like a cask road helmet. It was like black. You probably wouldn't remember it.

But I really like casks like the way it feels on your head, they have this like suspension system that is really, really comfortable. You might like the pock then too. It's kind of similar. Yeah, I've seen people wear that a lot. And you got a big dome. And I feel like that's just like

good looking large helmet. Yes, correct. I had the same thought. I had the same thought, yeah. All right, Justin, just buy a new helmet and get a fancy one. Why not? Next question here. Hi, TTR crew.

I have a three-year-old Saris smart trainer that started registering incorrect wattages below the actual wattage. That's, you really don't want that. You want the opposite. You want the opposite. For example, the Erg workout says I'm doing 250 watts, but I'm actually pushing to 7. according to my Wahoo Powerlink pedals.

I know the pedals are accurate because I've tested them on another smart trainer and they match. I have calibrated and updated firmware. Zaris customer service said that there's nothing

that can be done to fix this. So if I want to have an accurate ERG workout, I need a new smart trainer. So in this situation, would you just deal with the inaccuracy and let the trainer work you a little extra hard? A little.

20 watts? That's not a little. I'd be no for me, dog. If I had to do an extra 20 watts of most of my workouts, I would be dead. There's no way I could do that. Or would you artificially lower the FTP rating to approximate the correct wattage, or would you spend 1K to get a new trainer? Okay, so a few thoughts here.

First of all, ooh, sorry, so you're going to get smoked on this podcast right now. That's not great advertising for you. Does there still exist? They said, they told them they could buy a new trainer, so I guess. Wow. For some reason, I thought they didn't exist anymore. I know nothing about smart trainers, so I can't say. But Eric, do you have experience with them?

Oh, yeah. I mean, my very first power meter was a Saris power tap, you know, hub-based power meter. Nice. And like, prior to Wahoo coming along, Seris, I think, was, like, pretty dominant next to, like, elite and compi trainer in this indoor training category.

Yeah. But they also make bike racks and some other stuff. Anyway, if money is not like a huge, deal. I would honestly take advantage of like the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever sales that Wahoo's got going on right now and get yourself, you can do a core. The cores are great. The full blown kicker is awesome too. Hopefully you've already done this. We are sponsored by Wahoo, you know, just in case you missed that episode where we made that incredibly clear. So we're a little bit biased, but we also love the stuff. But if that's not an option, then I would,

and have done the thing you're talking about like biasing the offset of the trainer a little bit to like get it to where your power meter is reading correctly. I wonder if there's a, and maybe this is irrelevant, but just for the sake of discussion, I wonder if there's a thing where it's off in a non-linear way. So at 250 watts, it's 270, but at like 400 watts, it's 460, you know? Yeah, I think this is going to be such a pain in the butt, unless you're just like literally typing in, you know,

the number that you're going to do for the next 25 minutes or whatever, then you could just up and down it, like the Wahoo app, works like that where you just like plus plus minus minus so then you can dial it in relatively easily and just look at your power meter and don't look at what the Sarah says but if you're trying to do a scripted workout yeah what are the chances that it's often like a percentage right like that so once again our advice is buy a new one get get yourself that nice shiny new thing next question here is from bethany hi guys i love listening to your podcast thank you so much for all your insider tips i got into triathlon pretty recently i raised my first

70.3 last summer, and my second 70.3 this summer. I used a 20-week training plan about 10 workouts per week while studying full-time and working. I felt very prepared for the races, but now I'm starting PA school, which will be much more rigorous and demanding than undergrad. The question is, what would you say is the minimum amount of training needed to prepare for a 70.3, would I be better off just focusing on two disciplines and doing a 70.3 relay? Thanks again. bethany very subjective question but what do you guys think i i feel like we've tried to talk our way through this exact question but relating to iron man or relating to you know different different things and it's real it's up to you like are you trying to get across the finish line in a speed

that makes you excited or happy or is just getting across the finish line period and experiencing the race course and the distance and the time doesn't matter then I feel like you could probably do a 70.3 on three hours of training a week and just it's going to be long and uncomfortable but you can get through it. You know, this reminds me of

I was riding back on PCH years ago and I was on my T-T bike and there was a guy in a road bike going up this mini climb I mean like a two-minute climb and he was like an older guy and he was clearly not like an elite athlete by looking at him.

It's a judgment I'm making about him but he was on the side of the road and he looked so dead that I stopped and was like hey are you okay and what he said to me is like I'm never going to be able to finish the Malibu Triathlon

you know he was so broken his spirit was so broken and the Malibu Triathlon's like a sprint right so this question the reason that's so subjective is if you stop training Eric for six months and then you sign it for a 70.3 you'd still be in the top like

2% of the field. If someone who's never trained before trains as hard as they can for six months, they're still going to be nowhere near you. So the question is for this person, for Bethany, if you finish 70.3s,

like to do what Eric is saying, it's just to finish, you could probably just roll up and do it. But if you want to do it as well as you did, it's like, I don't know. Is there really an upper or lower-level because either you're the guy on the side of PCH you can't do it or you're Eric on the other end of that

and then there's the entire triathlon competitive audience in the middle somewhere. Yeah, I feel like I see somewhat regularly on Instagram people doing an Iron Man or a 70.3, I don't know if, you know, but on like 9 to 10 hours a week. It's doable, of course. So it's doable. So it's just you got to come up,

look at your schedule and look at how much time you have and decide if you feel good about that. Unfortunately, I don't think we can answer that question. Would you say there's a problem? what would you prioritize with the minimum amount of time? Biking. Yeah, I mean, you, yeah. Get in like a, some, like the longest ride that you can on the weekend and like get in runs when you can because those are efficient and then focus like in the mid.

Like one to two swims a week or something? Yeah, like one to two swims a week and then like hit some interval type stuff on the train. trainer for efficiency sake, you know, just like do some Zwift, like high-intensity, 75-minute trainer V-O-2 sessions. 45-minute, I'd say 45. If it's intensity, yeah. So like an intense bike day, a long bike day, ideally one long run at least a week, right? And then scatter those runs in like you're saying, Eric, and then one to two swims.

I don't know if I'm a fan of the long run while doing overall. Yeah, I would almost say skip that. Really? Because it's just like your injury risk is going to go up. Yeah, you don't run, don't run, don't run, run, run 25K? Yeah, yeah. No way. You're better off doing non-10K, non-10K than none, none, non-20K.

Right, right. I think. That's wise. We're just, I mean, we're spitball in here, so we're not professional coaches, but we're not doctors. I think that out of all three of us, I'd be the best coach. Yeah, well, you have the, you're the only one that's actually done it a little bit, too. actually I take that back I think Eric would be a good coach

I do think Eric would be a good coach but he doesn't he's not good at like coming up with swimsets and stuff but I think he gets the periodization I've just learned if I just like stand there looking dumb someone else will come up with this swim set

I don't have to yeah yeah that's great okay next question here from James my wife told me my Christmas present this year is a custom trisuit you all have talked in the past about Paula working with an artist to design her kit every year, especially the 2024 one.

And I was wondering what that process looks like. Where do you pull inspiration from? Do you have any sources you use for ideas or examples or what you like? Do you have any software you use to do mock-ups? Any info would be greatly appreciated, James. This is fun. This is great. And Paula, I'm thinking about some of the stuff that you had sent in the group chat with your inspiration.

I would think it would be really cool if you could share what kind of things those are. Okay, what I submit, so basically I have a folder on Instagram and any time I see anything cool on there that's like a coffee bag or a bottle of wine or a kitchen that looks like a cool color palette or a car. I save it into a folder

and that's like my kit inspiration folder on Instagram. And I also do the same thing with just like things I see in the wild like a book or a, again, a bottle of wine. I think we've done this with coffee if we're just like traveling and we go to a cool coffee shop. Save those photos of my phone to a folder. This is like a year-long process.

Like I'm doing this constantly because I'm just always thinking about colors and good things that go together, even if it's not in relation to my kit. And then I take all those things and make a little collage for Kristen. And she kind of knows my style and my vibe already. and if I wanted to be kind of more retro-looking or more girly flowery or what color palette I'm thinking. I don't know.

So that's how I do it. Just make a little collage. But it does help if the person knows you really well. Did we ever talk, I don't know if this is allowed to be talked about, but did we ever talk about your, when Kristen did your bike, the shiv? The mock-up. Yeah. Kristen made my, well, obviously, designed my kit this year

and then Specialized, made that gorgeous shiv that I absolutely love, but it doesn't really match the kit. So Kristen wanted made a mock-up of a shib that matches my kit. It's super cool. Honestly, I think it's one of the coolest bikes I've ever seen. Yes, it's one of the coolest bikes I've ever seen as far as the paint job is. It almost makes me feel like it should just be your bike next year somehow.

Well, I think I could take this year's kit and we could do a different take on it but keeping the same theme, you know? Yeah. And then you could do the same bike as she had mocked up. Yeah. I know I care about this stuff so much, like the cohesiveness and the, I mean,

obviously Eric and I and Nick are all into that design stuff. But it is tricky if you're just like going to a designer at Castelli or going to a designer at Zood and saying, can you mock me up some kits? because they're going to do a very, most likely a very generic job with the colors and stuff. I don't know. Not everyone is going to read your mind. It's just a matter of finding a designer that has the style that you like. And this has been the process that I've gone through, that we've gone through with TTL. Like Kristen has helped us with some design stuff.

I've designed a couple kits. We've started using, we're working with Christian Dunn. He's a fantastic designer. He came up with a team TTL look. Danny Gardner. who came up with shred to bed and multi-sport energy supply. So it's like finding people that align with what you want. And ideally, they send you over things that are just three times better than anything you could have even thought of. That's the dream scenario. But you have to find that person.

It's not like a, you know, it's like finding a therapist. The first one is not going to be the perfect one every time. I also find that if you're just sending the person other kits that you like, that's not always necessarily the best way. Wait, expand on that. Because then I think their brain is going to go into creating something that's like too similar. Whereas if you're just sending them labels or book covers, they're the ones that are like putting that into what it will look like on a triathlon kit. That's funny because there's a similar phenomenon that happens in music production.

Yeah. Like people tell you not to say I want it to sound like vampire. weekend meets the strokes because then you end up it's just like a weird copy of those things instead of a genuinely new sound yeah i agree wow like if you just send the canyon tram kit and you're like i like this yeah they're going to make something that's like almost exactly the same right yeah right maybe that's what you want i don't know but if you want something super super specific like that, sure. Next question here is going to be our supporter segment.

So we're going to read it, but then, unfortunately, the answer, unfortunately, or very fortunately, if you're a podcast supporter, you'll get this in your email. This is from Sejel, from Ottawa. I-Team was wondering if you could talk a bit about SRAM blips, what bikes can use them, pros, cons, have any of you used them? Cheers and go Team TTL. So we'll catch you on there. side if you're listening to the podcast. And here's Eric with a visual aid of the handlebars right

in front of him to give us an actual answer. Life-changing information. If you missed it, you missed it. Sorry, next time be a podcast supporter and you won't miss it. And you get to see Paula's quarter zip too. So that's a gift that that's a replaceable. Like for everything else there's MasterCard, but you can't see Paul's quarter zip unless you're a podcast supporter. Never to see that gold zipper anywhere else. Okay, we have two more questions here, and one's a real thinker, by the way. This one's also a thinker, actually. Good morning, Team TTL.

This is from Melissa. I've waited to ask this question because, quite honestly, I've been mourning my DNF at Marbea. I'll try to keep this short. It's not short, by the way. You failed, Melissa. I went to Marbea for the World Championship, and like so many others, had issues with my luggage arriving. My bike did make it, but I was missing bike shoes and my wetsuit. after going back and forth from the airport

after they promised it would be there boy have we heard that one I bought a super cheap pair of bike shoes and borrowed a wetsuit thanks to Sean and Mark with Zoot they were total lifesavers those guys those guys are legit

typical Mark and Sean behavior doing nice things taking all the glory uh huh yeah got my bike issues fixed and checked in for the race that I thought wouldn't happen everything was going great

I finished the swim was trudging through the bike and mile 40 my chain broke so I had to walk 45 plus minutes until a mechanic finally came to help I was so relieved until I hit T2 and they stripped me of my timing chip

and told me I couldn't continue because of missing the intermediate time cutoff I was heartbroken and shocked I felt great and would have had an amazing run so to the question which do you think is worse a DNF due to your body not being able to finish

or having a mechanical cut your race short. I'm curious as to what all of you think. Paula, I saw you speeding down the hill at Marbea. You all were going so scary fast, keeping my fingers crossed, you make it to guitar. Thanks, Melissa. Scary fast. Scary fast, Paula.

How's that feel? I mean, I was. To be described as scary fast. She's like, I was scared and going fast. So first of all, let's go back a second here. Breaking a chain in a triathlon. Okay, first, let's roast you for this. Kind of. Well, I'm not going to roast Melissa for this, but I'm curious, what leads to you breaking, I'm trying to think of a nice way to say this. You're probably not putting enough power into that chain to snap the chain. There's not a nice way to say that. But people doing like 1,500 watts sprints and the chain has to be in kind of not great shape for that. So what's going on? Chains hold. Chains hold for people doing 2,000 watts sprints.

Right. So, but I'm sorry, I got to back up too. Like, Was this a borrowed bike, or was this the actual bike that ended up arrived? This was the actual bike. I mean, I don't think we can just, like, I don't think we can blame anybody necessarily, but this chain failed. It shouldn't do that. If chains are worn out, they're more likely to fail. I feel like that's as into it as you can get, really.

If you're, before a world championship, I would just replace the chain. New chain for a world. unless the chain is like one month old. Just why not? You've put so much time and energy and money into this. But is there a chance that it was a brand new chain like you install for me every time I race and it was just not installed properly?

Yeah, there's a chance that the QuickLink was like not fully locked in on both sides. I think that's the only explanation. Either way, I think the lesson here is I think a chain actually snapping like that is so rare. I think what often happens is people reuse the Quick Link too many times and that fails.

Yeah. So, like, don't be stingy with quick links. I forget who says it. You see the Shaman or Sramm that says they are not reusable. Once you take it off, you put a new one in. Yeah. Eric doesn't follow that rule, though. I don't either.

I mean, I reuse them for training. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter if it snaps when you're training. Yeah, not for racing. It matters if you go over the bars a little bit. I'm just kidding. I feel like that would be the scariest feeling if you're fucking chain snaps. Yeah.

Anyway, this is not the point of the question. I think honestly, I don't know if bikes cutoffs are the same for every 70.3 no matter what the terrain is, but if they are, it should be longer for this race. It was so steep, so hard. The climbs were long. As we were pre-riding it, we're like, we can't believe that, you know, they're having everybody do this. This is so hard. This could take some people a while. It's so steep. Yeah, so it's kind of sad. Like, obviously, if you had been riding the whole time, you would have made the cutoff, so the mechanical really sucks. But, But I do think on a flat course, you could have had the mechanical and still made the cutoff. So hopefully the cutoff time was longer. I mean, the brutal part about this is that if the mechanic had shown up, it just happened to be on the course near where you were, you wouldn't have missed the cutoff. So, I mean, a lot of things went wrong here. But I guess to answer the main question of like mechanical versus body letting you down, I don't think this is a comparable situation.

I don't think they're, they both suck. And both of them are like, you go and wonder like, okay, what could I have done differently? How can I fix this for next time? Yeah. Is there anything? And you get to work on that. Yeah, I think there's a learning opportunity out of both scenarios. The mechanical, you're going to say, you know, you might say it's out of your control,

but a lot of the time mechanicals are in your control. It just requires some pre-long. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, sometimes, just you have to have a couple of these to, just like really start being super anal about all your gear. Of course

like a catastrophic flat is not your fault. You ride over something on the road but you can do a lot to prevent mechanicals from happening and you can do a lot to prevent your body from failing. Damn, dropping truth bombs. It's true. That's true. You're right. But we are sorry. I feel like we're a bit harsh on her.

I am really sorry. I mean I had DNFed as well. I know the pain. Oh no, yeah. Traveling home after not finishing is It's so bad. It's so rough. But you know what? There's going to be more racing.

The chain's not going to snap again because... That's a lightning strike situation. It's like a once in a lifetime. Eric, it's happened to you in a race, but Paula, has it ever happened to you racing or training? I thought it happened to you? Oh, no, the guy in front of you. No, it's one in front of me. Yeah, so it has happened to none of us.

Do you guys think that if you miss the bike cutoff, they should let you run, but you'll be a DQ? Or is it just they're taking too long on the course? they need to close things down. Yeah. Because in this person's scenario, she's like, oh, I felt great. She's going to run fast.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think she'll make the overall cut off. She should have been given that opportunity right. Yeah. I mean, just like thinking how a way of big corporation would think, you're going to have somebody there who's like,

okay, explain to me what your PR and the half marathon is and how good you feel and you're sure you're not bonked. I mean, right. Like, I'm sure that they make these like fairly conservative to begin with. but then you know it's still going to suck for somebody

if it's a matter of course closures but I mean everyone's paying the giant entry fee I was wondering if it's not more of like a no it's like we need to keep the standard high and so if you don't make the cutoff no no I think it's more of a course closure thing like every you know every minute

that you keep the course open is dollars just kachinga chingga chingga chingga yeah yeah anyway sorry I'm sorry Melissa it's not going to happen again though. As long as you take good care of your chain, because who knows what happened there. Okay, last question here is from Martina.

And there was also another question that was similar to this that I did not include that had to do with handling training when you have major life stressors going on. But I felt like this was similar enough that we kind of could make it one question. Hi, TTL Squad. I love the pod. I find that a frequent topic of conversation on the podcast and among athletes in general is physical health. On your podcast, you have talked about various injuries, rehab, as well as some more serious health topics such as Paula's breast cancer scare. I'm curious what each of you do to take care of your mental health. Also, as it relates to

your athletic performance, have any of you worked with sports psychologists or other therapists to assist in this domain? I greatly appreciate the openness each of you have, though I appreciate this may be sensitive, so of course, no pressure to share anything you are not comfortable with. Martinez. So I feel like we all have different experiences with this. And I don't know if maybe our experiences differ from what we would recommend, kind of like a do as I say, not as I do situation. But Eric, would you be willing to speak to your experience on this? Yeah, I've worked with sports psychologist and regular psychologists, and I think it's massively valuable, and I think everybody should do it.

People, my family, members of my family have. I haven't heard anybody talk about it and say like, that was stupid, you know, unless they stopped after like seeing one person one time, but anybody who like was committed to talking to someone, I think of it as like a checkup with a doctor. Like you're not going to go 10 years without going to see a doctor. just to, like, see if you have cancer or get a colonoscopy, et cetera, et cetera. And, like, your brain is so important and can just, like, have such a massive impact on your happiness out of the sport, in the sport, et cetera.

It's just, man, if you have any ability to afford it or get it covered under insurance, I just think go in, even if you don't feel like you need it and just, I feel like personally lucky currently in my life that I have you, Nick and my father and some people that I ride bikes with that I can kind of have like little blow off valves in moments here and there. And that said, I still feel like on a weekly basis, man, I should I should find somebody professional just to chat too, like, because it's had such a positive impact on my life in the past. So that's why everybody should talk to somebody pitch. I'm like, I'm not ashamed of it. I don't think anybody should be ashamed of it. And I think it's a good thing to do.

Oh, I definitely don't think it's anything to be ashamed of it. I know. I mean, I'll speak openly and say that I am currently in therapy. I started like a year and a half ago when I had kind of like an acute depressive moment and I've tried to maintain it ever since. But Eric, have you ever thought about something that I thought was really helpful for me

and it bleeds over into sport as well is do you do any kind of journaling or any kind of writing or any kind of communication through like a chat GPT style thing or anything like that? I don't know. I guess I think an outrageous amount, in my opinion. I haven't talked to anybody else about how much they think. You haven't thought in anyone else's head before? No, I haven't. And then video, and for me, it definitely feels a bit like journaling where I think about a lot of my life in terms of how it involves the story and what it might translate to and film. And like, I take photos and reflect on the photo and my emotions in that moment.

Like if I wasn't able to go for a bike ride or a run kind of and just think by myself, I think I would probably go insane. So I guess I sort of meditate in that way, but I don't physically write things down. Yeah. The reason I ask is because there was something that I never considered doing until I was in therapy and was feeling a little frustrated and the lack of like real understanding I was getting from certain therapists. And so I started journaling with, at the time, it was like Claude, which is the one that Jarris likes. But now with ChatGPT.

And I was, it gave me like the biggest breakthrough in terms of my stuff around my own personal stuff. But then I also used it to try to understand my relationship with sport and my distaste around racing and my anxieties around racing. And I felt like I got, I got further with that than I did with. a therapist, and I think it might have just been, like you said, like, Eric, you have to match with a designer at Zood or Castelli. I feel like there's a similar thing, and everyone's heard this with therapy. You know, you need to match with a therapist that understands you that you can, that you vibe with. But I felt like for me, talking to chat GPT, it's like you can't, you can't outsmart it really. Like, you can get, it can get as deep with you as you get with it.

Yeah. And it was super helpful to me. Just what I don't, like, fully understand. I guess what I've seen is like cautionary tales from the stuff that I've read about using chat GPT or any AI model as a therapist. Is like, do you have, since you've done it, do you have any thoughts or advice for anybody who might do it on like correct prompts or places that you went to find a good prompt? You know, because I feel like I've read that it can sort of like tell you what you want to hear versus what's, you know, if you just, hey, chat, GPT, I'm feeling bad today. Am I insane? You know, versus like an intelligent

prompt. Totally. It's something I do all the time that was super helpful for me, especially when healing from this thing I went through, was taking the other person's side and pretending like role play from the other person's side and try to understand something from someone else's perspective.

That way, that bias that you're talking about swings in the other direction and you can see a different perspective on it. I find it to be a really helpful way to deal with all kinds of interpersonal stuff and this is a little like outside of sport but yeah that it's like people have realized that it's built to kind of validate your opinion sometimes yeah yeah i just wanted to bring that up just in case somebody like listens to this and it's like oh i'll just go to chat tpt and

i want to make sure that like if you have any resources to like make sure that's as positive as possible i think it's super interesting because a lot of us are in endurance sport because we have i mean this is like This is not new ground. But like, you're running from some demons here. If you're doing, you know, Iron Man, 50Ks and like these big things. And sport can be extremely helpful for that for many people. But if you can give it like the one-two punch with that and some kind of therapy, whether it is like in-person therapy or journaling on your own or making films or writing songs or writing poetry or whatever,

I feel like it can go a long way. Yeah. 100%. Paula, we skipped right over you, though. No, I don't want to answer this question, but I was just listening to you guys as if I was on the listening to the podcast. I thought you gave really good answers.

Oh, really? I thought you were there like, guys, why are we talking about not into this stuff? I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that. No, I liked listening to your answers. She said that if it's too personal, we don't have to talk about it. So I'm taking that option.

Right, right, right. Of course. Yeah, you know what? I would say that I would say that I would love to see a sports-specific therapist, though. I think that would be really interesting because I'd definitely have my own hang-ups around certain aspects of training and racing that would be interesting to talk to someone who knows, like, really knows about this stuff.

Yeah, you know what's always interesting to me is I think about that of like, because I've talked to sports psychologists, I've talked to regular, you know, like non-specific psychologist, and like the sports psychologist sometimes like will, get caught up in like the ecosystem of the sport and like i think the mastery there is is whether or not they identify nick you're not concerned about the race you're concerned about not being good enough because you don't have enough hair or whatever and that's like leading over into race you know yeah let's bring it back to that like can you get to the basis like issue versus like slapping a band-aid on like the sport specific thing not just like dealing with

the race day anxiety but like where does that come from yeah that's a deeper thing at least at is like from a professional athlete standpoint I see I've seen a lot of you know professional athletes that like have an issue that manifests in training and racing and like I got to think that they might have some like actual life basis versus Nestle than sport and I don't that's just interesting I'm just kind of like talking now but well final thing

and Paula I feel like you can answer this as well is how often compared to non-athletes do you find that pros at your guys level feel like they have a healthy mental balance or conversely do you think that there's a necessity for some kind of neuroses some kind of issue that leads to excellence in endurance sport

yeah I don't think any high level super high performing athlete has balance really you can try to get some balance but I don't think anyone has balance. That's pretty cool. I think Michael Phelps said balance?

No, he was... No, no, probably not. Like, I'm talking about the best people in their prime. I mean, at least like from the outside looking in, it's not going to look balanced, quote unquote. Like this might be that person's, this might be balance. This might make this person feel like fulfilled and at peace knowing that they're doing every last possible thing for the sport.

And so like, is that balance? Because they feel at peace? rather than if they didn't do that thing on Monday that's going to eat them up all week long and therefore they're unhappy. I think we're just naturally project what our feeling of balance is onto other people versus I think everyone has like different chemical composures

and different things in their brain going on that make them feel happy or sustained or sustainable at peace in different varying amounts of work-life balance. The amount that it requires to be the best in the world is something athletic is, what was I going to say? I can't remember now. It's not healthy or balanced? Yeah, exactly. And it's not sustainable. No. So even if you think you're balanced and this is sustainable, like, because I did yoga on Saturday.

And I'm not even talking about me because I'm not necessarily the best in the sport. I think, like, I'm thinking of Serena Williams, you know, the best, best ever. The intensity that that takes to be the best is not at sustainable, even if physically your body could keep doing it. It's like there's mental burnout for every athlete. But I'd venture to say that even if you're the top 20 in any sport, this is the case. No. You don't think so? That was my question.

My question was like top 20 in any sport, you think, and let's say balance, instead of balance, let's say, do you think they would check the box of, I'm happy, I'm satisfied with my life? Man, that's going to be so person specific and sports specific. I'd say the top 20 in some sports, yes, the top 20 in other sports, maybe not. Depends on how mature the sport is. And then you just have some athletes that are so transcendent, you know, whatever. They're not as like crazy selling out, you know, missing everything in their life to be at that level. So you think balanced equals is the same thing as saying someone's happy?

No, that's why I changed it. because I think balance you're right like can you even be balanced and be a top level pro athlete I feel like those are contrasting. No but you could definitely be happy right you can be happy and I think that's why I'm more interested in that

in that answer Is every top level athlete happy though? Also no Absolutely not like it's like you hear this like they talk about this Kobe Bryant he didn't like winning

he just hated losing yeah I'd say that's from my experience, from people that I've witnessed, that's the most common at the very poigniest end of the spear. It is interesting, right? Because sport is this artificial thing that we have made up within our society. There's no realness to it.

And yet it is such a huge area of interest for people who are outside of the sport. And of course, when you're in it, it is all consuming. I think it goes across all walks of life, business too. You know, their business is competition. and there are people who are never going to sleep because they're busy building the biggest company and do they need $10 billion versus $8 billion? No, but they just can't be satisfied

unless they're winning every minute. So it's like, it's fine, but it's a one brain type. Yeah. Well, we'll cap that question there, although we could talk about it probably for another hour. And Eric, did you want to mention something about the TTL development team applications as well? So as we're kicking off into Nick and my conversation with Zach here, don't forget, the TTL development applications are now open.

And they will only be open for a couple more days as of the time of this podcast coming out. Great. Awesome. So stick around for our conversation with Zach. This is going to be like a bonus very long podcast episode. And yeah, and then we'll see you next week. All right. This is an awesome conversation that Nick and I had with Zach Cooper. He had an incredible incredible season this year. I felt like every time I checked Instagram, he raised another Ironman. But here's a quick rundown of the results that he had. He got sixth at Ironman Austria. He went 748 at Challenge Roth, got 11th place. Fourth at Ironman Copenhagen and got the last slot to qualify for world championships in Nice. We love this guy. He's well spoken.

And he had a great season. So enjoy. brr-r-ring B-r-r-ring. Cooper speaking. What's up, man? How you doing? You go by your last name when you pick up the phone, Zach? Dude, it's awesome to have you here on the podcast.

We actually started right now. Yeah. I thought that was a test run, you know? I don't want people to think I'm like, you know. Zach, I feel like our instructions could not have been more clear. And he just wasn't expecting a double ring, I think. Oh, I see. Okay.

I'll do a single ring this. time. Hello. Zach, how's it going, man? Good, good. I wasn't expecting this call at all. Right, right. I know. It's so out of the blue, right? But we just, it was a Hail Mary, but we're glad you picked up. Yeah, it's good to be here, guys. Yeah, I was just rattling off your results for the year, and oh my gosh, you have

raced so much. I feel like you've put in like 2,000 kilometers of Iron Man's. this season alone is what it feels like i know i mean i don't think i'm quite on the level of camworth yet but um yeah i have uh i've done all right yeah but the results have been it's it's not like you're just filling up the back of the pack or anything every time i look it's like single digit you uh had fourth at ironman copenhagen that was i would say like is that challenge roth like those potentially do your two proudest moments of the year yeah i think um i think um i think Copenhagen might just might just get it um i think yeah for like for one it was like the time i did like seven hours 33 which some people said it's like brit british british record

others say i think kieran linders might have gone 20 30 seconds quicker but i think the frankfort course was short so yeah i don't know like records and triathlon they're not that important but still it was uh yeah it was a time i wasn't expecting to expecting to get and and then also like getting the qualification for Iron Man World's and Nice like that was super special and unexpected

yeah I mean course variation aside anything that is 7, 3 something yeah this is not like the difference between 7 and 8 this is like completely in the middle of the 7s smoking fast time yeah super impressive man

it's just been a blast to watch think about how hard it is to go four hours in a 70.3 and then to do that back to back, it feels crazy. Yeah, especially being such a bad swimmer. I mean, it makes it exciting to watch. I personally have high aspirations and hopes for your swimming ability, but also, man, it's entertaining to like, oh, Zach out of the water and whatever, 20th place, and then 18th, 16th, 15th, 12th, into the, you know, approaching the podium throughout the entire day. Like, that is ultimately very entertaining to watch. I've been told that by many people and so I'm kind of almost thinking I'm maybe I should

just like leave the swim as it is because people seem to get excited by me coming through the field so maybe I'll just get to a point where I'll become such a strong bike and runner that I don't even have to train the swim. I mean this is what all of our dreams are made of if you can make that happen and you like make a book on how to do that like you'll sell a million copies and you you won't even have to race anymore um but yeah i think if you could pick one of the three things to be super phenomenal at it would it would be the bike many people have made a great living in the sport being an uber biker and just throwing down ridiculous splits so it's fun yeah yeah absolutely that's that's the aim like i think actually my last race i'm an arizona that would have

i actually picked up a penalty for drafting like whilst i was riding through the field um and yeah I'm still a bit, like, bemused with that whole penalty situation. Like, uh, tell us about it. Nothing against the Americans, but I think there's a lot of Europeans that got penalties. Well, I mean, you guys are generally more sketchy. I do agree. See, we have real rules here, okay? This is America.

Well, wait, can you talk us through what happens, Zach, with that penalty and why you're, uh, as you put it bemused by it? uh yeah um i mean i had a swim which was uh yeah i suppose towards the back and then i was running through the field and i just happened to have two guys kind of tag along with me and one of the guys went ahead and yeah i suppose i've used race range of quite a lot this season so i kind of like i definitely not in the 12 meters um but i looked back and saw the referee and as soon as i saw the referee I was like I think I'm going to go ahead here because I don't want to be I don't want to have any chance of getting pinged for drafting but looking back on that maybe she thought to herself are you know hit this guy's just seen me he's going to the front you know and and they were

quite far back as well so I think like the perspective as well is is different when you're kind of back and so yeah I potentially looked suspicious like you're running from the cops or something Yeah, I think that could be it. I mean, yeah, speaking to a lot of guys after the race, it's something similar happened with them as well. I think it was just bad timing because I was, you know, riding through the field trying to catch groups and...

I mean, theoretically, this shouldn't have been an issue, right? Because you can see a blue light from 200 meters away. They could just look at your race ranger, correct, or the guy in front of you and see that you were not drafting when they saw you. There wasn't a race ranger though, right? Oh, there wasn't a race ranger. yeah there wasn't okay okay this makes more sense yeah that's the bummer is like he's saying like he's out of practice of of the 12 meter yeah all right but you got your head back in it and uh rest of the race

turned out okay yeah exactly um so i think i would have just gone under four hours for the for the bike which which would have been the course record but sam long's got it now so i'll uh i'll give that to swim. I'll have to try and get them on the next race. But, um, that stinks. Yeah. And then I'm, I managed to run like decent off the bike to finish, to finish six. So nice way to win the year. Yeah, man. I'm, I guess one of the questions that I had written down was just like that I was, I'm really impressed that you were able to come back, have such a good race there after the disappointment of Nice. You got that last slot going into Nice. Like, you've raced an insane amount. I didn't have personally, like, massively high expectations for that Nice race. Like,

go experience it, see how it goes. You know what? Like, you could have a great day, but anything could happen. Had it ultimately DNFed, but like, coming back and then having, like, I guess how did you regroup or get excited and to be able to go and have a good race at Arizona and work through that? Yeah, it's a really good question. I think I, yeah, after Nice, I was, like, disappointed but yeah a bit kind of angry and you know like when you've had like a bad race and you're just like I just I just can't end the season on this I just need to like refocus and like get on it and sometimes yeah the best way to move on from a race is like having something else planned and so yeah I kind of came off nice and originally I was going to end my season but I was like yeah

let's just kind of have one final race build you know I'm fit and um yeah like had a few mates going out so uh yeah i just wanted to hopefully finish the season well and plus it was on my birthday you know i'm an arizona i was like perfect perfect combo iron man build for your birthday yeah yeah it was a it was a big one the number three zero yeah i mean that's it's awesome one next thing i'm curious like now how many iron iron man did you race this year four uh four uh four yeah, yeah, four, four, I finished. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

And then Nice, like, anyway, so you raised a ton. Are you taking an extra long off season? Are you doing anything different to, like, thinking like three year, five year, Zach's life of the impact that racing four Iron Man's at a year have? How are you, like, kind of dictating the length in offseason and stuff? Yeah, it's, I'm definitely taking a decent break now. I'll take probably until the end of the year of just like super unstructured like I haven't touched my my bike box I'm sure many triathletes out there they'll get back from a race and they'll

probably not redo their bike for I don't know how long I may mean to like beat the record for that so I'll probably leave it in there for at least a month yep guilty um and yeah I'll just get get slowly back into it just doing stuff that I enjoy um and then to be honest i think like i think it's still possible to race a lot consistent consistently um iron man's just without how the sports involved with like carbohydrate intaking and like if you're super on top of fuel even like during the race itself it just has such a massive impact on like how you recover from an iron man so i know i'm kind of on the extreme like side of things but i think i average 200 grams an hour of carbs on the bike

in Arizona and then 170 on the run. What? 170 on the run? And no problems. No, no problems. That was a gift. Yeah, I think that's my one strength. Oh, come on.

Do you have, do you have an idea how much money, if you were buying it at retail, you're in nutrition costs for a month of Ironman training? that's so much sugar it's a lot of sugar um i i think we're talking for all of my training probably like yeah 400 400 to 500 bucks a month that is unreal that is so yeah that's so much this is the world we're living in now i know yeah but i think that's that's the next yeah we've seen like crazy performances over the past like couple of years, especially like the Norwegians. And I feel like when I was training in the

south of France, like with Sam Ledlo and some other world class guys, like just the whole carb intake was next level. So I've managed to kind of, yeah, do that. And yeah, and it's, I think it's showed in my performances this year. It's like one of the main things that's helped. 100%. I'm curious. Since you've been throwing down some really fast bike splits, almost got the course record, et cetera. And part of, I feel like, I'm trying to figure out how to word this, are our bike sponsors like knocking down your door now? Because I think some people think, oh, I'm going to go win my first race

or I'll get a bunch of podiums in one year and all of a sudden, like, I'm responsible and I've made it. Like, how is that going for you? And you're a very marketable guy. You have a background in video. You put out beautiful content. How is that progression as, you know, as you are part of our development team and trying to develop to the point of making a full living and sport.

Yeah, I think it's definitely harder than probably a lot of people think, whether that's like where the bike industry is at the moment. But I think I'm still at a point where, yeah, my name has kind of got out there a lot more this year. But yeah, there's such like a, it's not just about doing it. doing, I mean, as you know, Eric, like, you know, amazing performances on the bike, but it's such like a bigger image with, like, how I am on, like, social media. And I think I put out okay content, but my community is still quite small. So, yeah, I definitely haven't had, like, Pinarello or Civello calling me

and me having to then decide amongst he's going to offer me, you know, the most money. but yeah i've yeah i think i'm confident that if i keep going on the trajectory that i'm on then hopefully that will that will come but uh yeah in the meantime i'll just be riding my setup that i've been on for the past like six years and it's working it seems to be it seems to be pretty fast so um yeah yeah i can't complain i think i think it's going to work out like you're in a very similar position to where i feel like i was in prior to winning escape from alcatraz in 2015. I won escape from Alcatraz. I won three Continental Cups. I won just Beijing International Triathlon. But I had the foundation laid of content so that when I ultimately won a race

and lifted the banner and it was like the boom that got people's attention, there was things for them to go like dig into on YouTube or on Instagram and like you're there. And I think it's it's a difference between like almost getting the bike course record and actually getting it and poteming or getting it and winning. And then all of a sudden it's like, who is Zach Cooper? Everybody can go find out immediately. So I feel like you're so close and you're but like the trajectory is awesome. So keep it up. Yeah, thanks man. Zach, I had a question for you about swimming. I'm curious as someone who is trying to improve their swimming, are there any aspects of it that you feel like have been particularly like key unlocking moments or certain things that you've noticed that

have been more helpful for you than others? And I'd be especially interested to hear if any of them surprised you or if they're contrasting with what you expected yeah um there's one thing that really um sticks out in my mind and that's just like intensity in the swim because i think as like non-swimmers we're we're not that really in tune with how hard we're actually working a lot of the time and so like i've started working with heart rate in the pool and there was a period like at the start of the year where I thought I was working really hard, right? And then I was looking at my heart rate after the session and it was so low. And I feel like, yeah, compared to bike and run where I'm just like a lot more natural, yeah, to it,

then I can get my heart rate up a lot higher. But just, yeah, making sure you're actually swimming hard enough in the pool has actually helped me a lot. and then yeah combine that with just like swim with people i think that that's one of the main things as well swimming with people that are faster than you definitely it's a hard balance to strike of like getting your heart rate up and trying hard enough without like trying so hard that your form falls completely apart like that's a very interesting like neuromuscular pressure on the water thing to get the hang of yeah absolutely like that was the other thing that i noticed as well and yeah for me like I'm definitely not technically the most gifted person there so it's

taken me a long time to try and find that balance between as you say like technique and intensity I feel like I'm getting there but yeah it's it's not quite playing out in racing yet but I mean I think a lot of probably you know adult onset swimmers as we like to call ourselves a struggle when it comes to open water as well and so I know noticed that I had my best swim like during the summer because I was just swimming open water so much. And so yeah, that's another thing which which has helped me. I think is just like going out of my comfort zone and yeah, for sure like when I first started triathlon like being in the midst of like 100, 200 different people like trying to fight for positions is

something you're definitely not comfortable with. And yeah, if I'm honest, I still struggle with that like at the start. It's trying to like fight to get into a good group. but I think yeah the more you put yourself in like yeah those type of positions and the more you're going to kind of become at ease with it yeah but we used to when I lived in San Diego and we were training for Olympic distance we would go out at least once a week and do like starts and around the first buoy and like all sorts of open water high intensity in and outs and stuff as a group of like five or six of us and that I just like it completely changes your frame of mind, I think, when you're open water swimming, to be able to do that and to like feel,

okay, this is what it's like. I'm bumping into people all the time, but I'm still going hard and every single stroke is less important, but it's more about like the momentum and state of mind and remaining columns. So more of that, as much as you can do. Everybody, if you don't have a lake nearby, just move so you can swim in a lake and find some friends. Right. It's that simple. Exactly. And I would, I would have loved to have done that prior to Iron Man, Arizona as well. but I don't know if you've been there before but Tempe like the lake you look at it and you're like

there's no way they can do a triumph on there well you're not even allowed to swim in it right no you're not and so each time like the locals would come up to me and be like oh you hear for the Ironman and they'd be like oh where are you swimming I'll be like oh just in the lake here and they could not believe we were swimming there yeah so yeah

same thing like with New York City try Yeah, right on. Well, we're running low on time here, but I had like a couple just stock type questions. Biggest, like, thing or takeaway learning thing from the year, like what was a growth or an aha moment that you had? And then, like, what's next season looking like and are we going to be hanging out in Kona?

Most important. Just before, Eric, does that mean you're going to try and qualify for Iron Man World Champs? by by me i mean we the team that i'm a part of so me and paula will all be attempting to qualify paula that's right that's right so yeah we'll be there um yeah the biggest moment i think this year is just like belief because it was like yeah that that first race i had like i'm an austria um you know top top 10 there it was like okay like all of a sudden made you like I have my place, like, amongst pros, and, like, whereas last year, you know, I was

predominantly back of the pack. And I think, yeah, once I had that belief, then it just kind of, it was like a domino effect, and like each race I got more and more confident. So, yeah, that's the number one thing I think I've learned from this year. And then next year, oh, I mean, I don't think I'll do as many races. I might calm, calm down a bit. Oh, really? Yeah.

just quitting it's you're a quitter basically taking the easy route is what you're saying only can do three yeah yeah well i'm like anyone like we say we're not going to do as much and then like all of a sudden yeah we'll spur of a moment like sign up to another one but um yeah i'd love to start my season to be honest um either in oceanside or or texas um just with it being part of the pro series like the whole reason i got into the sport is to race some of the best guys as well. So yeah, that's, that would be a great start to the season if I can, if I can do that. And as you said, yeah, Kona would be an amazing goal. Like I had the experience of racing a world champs this year. And now I feel like, yeah, want to actually have a good result this time.

Yeah, I think you're on an awesome trajectory, man. We are going to be in Oceanside. Our plan is to go as hard as we possibly can with TTL things and hangouts and we're just going to like pull out of the stop so. We'd love if you're there. And then it's kind of sounded like we might be in Texas as well. So I think we're going to have a lot of hanging out next year, which I'm psyched on. Awesome. I hope Nick's going to sign up to both Oceanside and Texas as well. I don't know about Texas, but I'll be in Oceanside. Yeah, we'll work on them. Well, thanks for hanging out here. This is awesome, and we can't wait to continue watching your journey.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. We're going to be able to see.