That Triathlon Life Podcast - New Ironman World Championship Qualifying System, Smart Goggles in Triathlon, and More!

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

This week we talk Challenge Roth, dive into what it takes to qualify for the Ironman World Championships (both full and half distances) and weigh in on Race Ranger. And that’s all before we even get into your listener-submitted questions. This week we covered:Choosing the right gravel tiresAre smart goggles allowed in races?Swimming strokes other than freestyleIs it OK to move someone else's bike in transition?Understanding the emotional highs and lows of long-course racingCan heat really make your tires explode in transition?Random acts of kindness on race dayThe reality of healthcare for up-and-coming pro triathletesEric’s potential swimrun futureA 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, everybody. Welcome to the TTL podcast. I'm Eric Loggersham. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. And we got an exciting action-pack episode this week. There's a lot of stuff that's going on in the triathlon world. Nick has done, quote, a ton of research on this week's questions. Wow, outing me. Yeah, really digging into the science of the sport this week. You know, it's not just fun and games around here. Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, not just our research guy. and we like talking about multi-sport and everything here.

Oh, yeah. Okay, you guys, it's hot. It's hot here and it's hot there. It's full summer. Yeah, we're, Nick and I are both rocking the TTL pennies, basketball tank, whatever you want to call it, just trying to, uh, fucking not to like sweat down my chair here. Those are going on sale this week, Sunday? Yeah, well, basically what we're waiting on at this point is for Sweet Nick

to come here for my birthday, at which point we can all take turns being models and photographers so we can have some pictures up on the website of said beautiful new pieces that we have made. Other than the new pennies, what's going to be released? Oh, we got two different hats. We've got this is the like cotton version of the surf hat, which has been a huge hit for everybody and this got a really sick oversized logo. So there's a navy version and a tan sort of like Carhart tan canvas version.

And then we have a very, very cool women's specific shirt, which we haven't done a little while. It's kind of lilat colored, boxy. Paula's been wearing it every single day, which is, every time that happens, I'm so excited because if Paula likes it, the people will like it. Thank God. If you build it, they will come, the kind of mentality. If Paula wears it, they will come. Yeah. If I wear it, nobody cares.

Yeah. Well, Paula is our ultimate model, the ultimate TTL model. The pennies are pretty cool, though. They're reversible. Yeah. I do. I love them. They work with every outfit.

This one's very exciting though, Nick, because this is it. This is one side. So we want this cool stripe. And then the other side's like the classic. Yes. So, you know, yeah, you can, it's totally different vibes. I'm psyched. So if you guys want to grab something, they'll go on sale on Sunday morning and limited quantity, as usual, on TTL.

Yep. So if you want it, you got to get it early. You know the drill. Okay, I'm going to interrupt here and right away go, because we have. a lot of questions this week, and they're great questions. And there was some significant news in the triathlon world this week. So this is some news from the week. First of all, we have the new Ironman qualification system for aid troopers.

Not as relevant to you, Eric and Paula, but it is a change that I think was spurred. They say they've been talking about it for years, but I think this, the kind of contentious nature of release of the single-day Kona news a few months ago, I think probably accelerated the onset of this new system. Do you want to give a little brief synopsis of what it is? Yeah. So the way they are trying to structure this is they go into length on their post about it. But essentially, you're going to be given a score that should reflect your performance across

all age groups. So you can, a nine-hour finish time might be just as good of a performance in your age group as an 11-hour finish time in a different age group. And that's all, they all did a bunch of math and graded against world championship finish times and each race will have this, what should be a fair way to compare athletes in different genders and different age groups to each other. And once you get this score, you're placed in a long. list with the highest scores up top and the lowest scores at the bottom and the roll down will then be according to that list, not according to the list of how you finished in your age group anymore. Is there a roll down at each event or just at the end of like all potential qualifying events? At each event, each winner of each age group will be given priority to take their slot.

So if you win your age group, regardless of how poorly or well you did in this performance score, you're in, you're in. And furthermore, if first place doesn't take it, it will roll down to second or third place, but not beyond that. Okay, podium only. Podium only. Real podium only, not Iron Man podium only. And then, for example, if no one takes any of those three, then it goes into the back on that general pool. And then at the end, you go there. And so you could have gotten, you know, second in your age group, but it wasn't that great of a problem. performance and you will you could be really low on that overall list or conversely you could have gotten fifth in your age group but be like seventh overall in performance and so then you are given

the opportunity to take your slot so i personally love this because i want world championships to feel like the best of the best are there and i know this will maybe take the opportunity away from some people who have stuck around at awards and who were like, you know, 20th in their age group or something like that or 30th or 40th and it rolls all the way down to 40th place, those will be much less likely to happen now. But then you have people who are in, like, for example, a lot of women were complaining about very few spots available to women in certain age groups when performances were really, really good. That shouldn't happen anymore now. So it's a bit of a, I think it's a fairness equalizer in a lot of ways.

Yeah. You know what my takeaway is? Everybody's got to stay at awards the whole time. Yeah. Because they go through all the age groups. You're right. And now they start going through the roll-down at the end. We're going to sell way more bottled water at the Expo.

It's a marketing tactic. It's all making sense. So I guess it's a little bit like the PTO rankings where they're assessing people's performance with a point system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

That makes sense. Cool. Well, that's great news. Yeah. And as far as I know, pros, you guys still are going to have your regular roll-down stuff. There's no points. You're all professional. They assume you're all at that top level. Right. Yeah, although in the pro races often, it does roll down pretty far. Yeah. Later in the year. Later in the year. So, well, it's cool, Nick. Thanks for explaining it. Of course. I hope I did a good job with that. I really read it many times to try to get a full understanding of it.

I feel like this is a good opportunity where we should start a little thread on the app. I already did. Okay, sweet. So go check the app. Hot Tees, the Android version is moments away. Yes. Sorry all the Android people, but we are almost there. It's imminent.

Yes, it's imminent. Okay, the next thing is that Challenge Roth happened this weekend. And we have several friends of the podcast who raced it and who did very well. So first of all, if you've been following in the pro-traathlon world, Sam Laidlow, former Iron Man world champion, has been having a rough go past a little over a year. Unexplained underperformance

syndrome, I believe is what he coined it. He created that himself, yes. Bro was tired from a lot of training. Exactly. And going hard. He was tired. And I think people were worried him, included that he would never really race

at that level again, and he won the race excitedly. So good for him. And then our very own, on the men's side, our very own Zach Cooper also did the race from the TTL development team. And just outside the top 10, but this is such an

iconic race. He was in 11th place, but we were super proud of him as well. And if you followed Zach, he's a great follow on Instagram, by the way. He did a whole lead-up set of posts and everything cataloging his race in Roth three years ago, two years ago, and the time that he was hoping to go this year,

he's been hacking like 30 minutes a year off at a time. So just you got to go follow the guy. He's awesome. He actually has a background in media with the UCI so he knows how to storytell. And he's, I mean, just one of the sweetest dudes we've ever had the pleasure of having on the team

and just knowing we've got to get him on the podcast again. He's been on before. We've got to have a follow-up meeting with him, also with Lydia after her great race and 70.3 a few weeks ago. I also just want to give a shout out to Jonas Scha because like massive respect for the way that guy raced challenge roth like the same way that i raised him in back in the it u and the draft legal days and this this guy was just 100% of the

time creating a break off the front just killing himself like in spectacular fashion and he you know did the exact same thing in challenge roth and what i mean sam caught him at like 10k to go or something amazing performance yeah he was out of amazing swim amazing bike just always i just always want to give respect where respect is do there because I think a lot of time people are like, well, this is so dumb. He's like, you know, just use an extra. No, go for it. Love it. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Great stuff. On the women's side, Laura Phillip showing that she's still in incredible form dominated. And Grace Thick, who is someone that I have been kind of talking to a lot because she's,

her and her husband have been in L.A. She got second, an amazing performance by Grace. That is pretty unexpected. Yes, I would say so. And fantastic for her. Maybe she expected it, but yeah, that's really great. Really, really great. And then the final thing is that the tour has started. The Tour de France has. If you do not follow the tour, this is your sign.

You don't have to watch it live also because the time is so brutal for most of us. But there are really good extended highlights that go up on YouTube every day. They're incredible. They're like drive-to-surve level put out within one hour of the finish somehow. Yes, they're miraculously. They're fantastic. Are those NBC sports, I believe, are the extended highlights?

I think so, yeah. It's right. It's NBC. Yeah, it's NBC. And Paula, I'm curious what you think about this. I'm not sure if you saw this, but at Roth, they, actually Sam Lidlow was the one who kind of spearheaded this, but they said they were going to make Race Ranger data public after the race.

Yeah. What do you guys think about that? I think it's really good. although I do think there needs to be some consideration for athletes like a Sam Long who's coming out further back in the swim. And he's actually going to spend quite a lot of time in the blinking red as he's passing people. And that does not mean that he's drafting. So I love that it's transparent and that people are going to be able to see. And I do think that it'll make people be more cautious.

But you just have to take it with a grain of salt for people that are doing a lot of passing throughout the race. because their time in the red zone will be higher. That's a great point. I think if there was magically possible to do so if we had some education around it and like an expert breakdown right alongside the data to say you may think that Sam Long, you know, whatever, blah, here's the explanation for that.

And if you, you know, take out the number, the amount of times that he was passing and, et cetera. Like a little bit of explanation. Interpretation of the data itself. I feel like there's so much content on the internet right. now that people just throw up completely out of context because they know it'll be fantastic and it'll get a whole bunch of people being like, I can't believe they did that until you know the backstory. So like I, Paula, that's such a great point. Some corroborating some some extra

interpretation for people. Yeah, that's really, that's a great insight, Paula. Thank you. Okay, next thing we're going to do is a little bike tech with Eric. A crowd favorite. I was teasing the idea of a spelling bee. Maybe we'll do that next week when we're together. Yeah, we haven't done a segment in a long time. like an other segment. Like one that I could do. We just talked with Paula last week. Yeah, that's lame.

That's a whole week ago. Lots happened. That's not a real good segment though. That's not like a fun segment. Okay, Paula, what would make your heart happy as far as a segment? I don't know, a this or that, a spelling bee. Oh, yeah. No one sent in this or that in a while.

Yeah, if anyone wants to come up with a this or that, we'll do it in the pod next week. They'd be good, though. Shredder bed. Don't be like, would you rather jump off a bridge or off the Empire State Building? We got so many, we got so many good games. Yeah, we do. All right. Let's knock out some questions, though, hey?

Yes. For the bike tech with Eric. For the bike tech with Eric, the first thing we have is, this is from Cresinda. For the five-day Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder that just finished, what tires would be best suited for a mix of gravel and pavement? I have a 2023 diverge that is set up for tri-racing, Olympic length, and it. is a 10 speed, what else would be a cost-effective upgrade for that type of race? I plan on doing the Settlers version of the race. You guys are the best.

Thanks for all you do, Eric Paul, Nick and Flynn. So the Settlers version is 65-ish miles, 2,800 feet of climbing, and about 55% gravel. And, Eric, I'm assuming you know the kind of terrain that goes on over there. Yeah, it's our backyard. Yeah. So what would you, what tires would you suggest? And follow-up question, do you ever suggest running a different tire front and rear? I guess you could.

That's a little bit more of a mountain bike thing to run a different tire front and rear. Like you would potentially run a little bit faster rolling tire in the rear and a little bit grippier tire in the front. But, yeah. I don't know. I guess you could potentially do that. The two tires that I was going to be in between, the tires that I know the best right now are in the specialized line.

and they have the tracer and they have the Pathfinder. So the Pathfinder has a completely slick center tread and it has got some side knobs. And if you feel pretty confident in your bike handling ability, that's a tire I would run. Paula is currently running that tire. I am currently running the tracer,

which is the next step up in rowdiness, you could say. And that's the tire that I took to Patagonia. And so if you're like a little bit unknown about what the course is going to be like or if you are just thinking, I want a little bit extra traction to make sure that don't wash out. I think the tracer is pretty darn good.

Very fractional rolling resistance penalty relative to the Pathfinder, even though it has a good center knob and a little bit more aggressive side knobs. So I guess where I was ultimately going with that, if you wanted to try the two-tire setup, you could go with the Pathfinder in the rear

and the tracer in the front. Now I'll just give you a little bit extra protection to not wash out the front, lose traction in the front as you're doing a little bit more technical turns. What we have here in the central Oregon area is a lot of volcanic moon dust, we call it. So it's like really hard to corner in no matter what tire that you have, but a little bit extra side knob action is definitely helpful.

And what width would you try to max out the width that's available on that frame? Is this a 2020, did we say diverge or crux? Yeah, 2023 diverge, which is a 10 speed somehow? I didn't even know that was an option. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a little bit surprised about the 10-speed thing. I hope that's just not right. But, yeah, I would go with whatever the widest tire you can run on there.

Even with it being 50% road, you still would prioritize. I mean, unless you're just like really trying to win, and then you might be talking about, you know, going with a 40, you know, or a 38 instead of a 45. But then you'd have to be a real good bike handler for the dirt parts. Yeah, that's the difference. I kind of, unless you just are really, really good, great bike handler, why not go with the tire that is going to give you the greatest chance of not flatting or falling over

and just like feeling a little more comfortable and enjoying it? That's my feeling. The pros can like split hairs over 40 versus 42 and wind resistance and all that, you know. Right, right. Cool. Okay. Well, thanks for the question, Cresinda. and thanks for the answer Eric.

Okay, sorry, guys. We are dealing with some technical difficulties here. Not our fault, by the way. But we're going to move on to questions here. You can submit questions to the podcast at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. We got some really great questions this week. I think that's due to Paula.

Paula, whenever you ask for questions, that's when we get a huge influx and really good ones too. Yeah, there are really good ones this week. I was excited about some of them. And you can also become a podcast supporter at that same link. That helps keep the podcast going. It's the only way the podcast makes any income. Here we are, bearing our souls to you. So we'd really appreciate your support. Last week, we sent out a TTL supporter segment, which was fun. There's always a little video component to it as well.

And we'll keep doing stuff like that. So thank you to our supporters. And here's our first question of the day. From Jackson. Hey, you guys, two-part question about the form swim goggles or other goggles that display real-time data. One, do any of you guys use them? Why or why not? And two, are they legal to use in triathlon races. Thank you. As part of my research, I'll say that number two, yes, they are legal to use in races and USAT races, all-world triathlon races.

I mean, this is basically just like, you know, a bike computer attached to your face. Bike computers are legal, so. The form goggles, I think, are, they couldn't be a good tool for training. I've actually never tried them open water training. I think that's where I would actually be potentially interested in them.

if they were accurate to measure while swimming open water. Yeah, we've tried them in the pool. And to me, they're just a little bit too data heavy. Like, I don't like seeing numbers in front of my face when I'm swimming. You get a lot of that on the bike, you get a lot of that on the run. And growing up swimming, I just like the pace clock and normal goggles. But I do think they're a really good tool for people that want to have structured workouts or feedback in their stroke or their stroke rate or whatever.

in the pool. But I've never really seen anyone use them for racing. I was thinking about using them for racing because I like to, I don't know, I get in my head about how much I've swam. And so on my watch, I have it buzz every 500 yards. But it would be nice to just actually have it on my goggles. And there's also now a new feature that you can tell you where you're swimming. If you're swimming in the right direction, I'm not sure how functional that is. But The reason I don't wear them is because I have a weird face and they're just not comfortable for my head shape. Yeah, that is interesting, hey? And to be clear, regular goggles aren't comfortable for me either.

I have to wear like the Orca ones that you guys have given me in the past. Those fit amazing. I love those. Those ones are like pretty large. They're large. All the goggles I use are large. They're not like Stomers goggles. Yeah, it's funny that form has, because goggles are very individual I've found.

And it's like those are the goggles. If they don't work for you or they don't fit, you just can't use form goggles versus having maybe like a range of different models or different shapes. Maybe that could be down the pipeline for them. But in terms of the technology of it, I do think that they're really cool tool for keeping track of your sessions. Yeah, I think if I were to use them in the pool,

I would want like just data at the end of the interval. Like if there was a way to just like, okay, see some truncation. of what happened over the last 100, and I'm doing 10 by 100. But, like, constantly in my face as I'm, like, swimming is just a more of a flowy thing than the other two sports. Yeah, I agree. When you see people, or when you're swimming with people that are using them, it's almost like they're completely not even on Earth.

They're not present. They're like looking into space, like looking at their freaking timer on their goggles instead of looking at the pace clock. It's just a really weird, non-human, like, non-interested. active experience if you're swimming with other people. But if you've got to go to a swimming pool and you're the only one there crazy enough to be swimming lapsed, then sure. Yeah, I get it. I get it. But it's, yeah, they're very

polarizing. You know what it reminds me of? Is that funny meme? It's like one of those four panel memes and it's two guys sitting around. One of them's looking at his sports watch, his GPS watch. And he's like, I just ran 13 miles at 745 pace and I burned 1,200 calories. And the other guy's like, okay, but was it fun? The guy looks at his watch. She's like, doesn't say. Yeah. Right. I love that.

That's the stereotype. We're not saying swimming's fun, but it is a flowy sport where you want to like. We're not saying swimming swan. Don't quote us on that, please. Yeah, heaven forbid. But one could definitely make the argument that like thinking about pushing water back is more effective than seeing what your stroke rate is at any given time, for example. Yeah, I see.

Breathing sooner. So like these simple cues for technique. I see. By the way, just to paint a picture for everyone, Paula is now. holding her a glass of ice water to her head to cool herself down. That's how hot it is over here. It's got to be like 85 degrees. You used to have a gin and tonic in it, so I'm kind of drunk.

That's why she's so smiley on this episode, huh? I'm not smiley, but I do feel like I'm slurring. One week gin and tonic later, and we're having a great day. I've had a hard week. Yeah. Do we want to get into that at all, Paula? Yeah, we didn't do updates on Paula. Is that a new segment?

Next to that from the news. I barely talked for like 20 minutes as you guys talked about Roth and tires. That's true. That was really big hard week. Here we go. We're talking about it in such a jovial way, but it's actually pretty intense stuff that happened this week.

Yeah, it was not fun. No. Well, I think it's just a good thing to talk about because I think like some awareness of this is good. Agreed. For women. And men. And men, actually.

And men. But more common. women. But I was lying in bed last week and I felt a lump in my breast. And it was pretty big. It wasn't just like, you know, a little bump. It's a pretty big bump. Like grape. Like grape sized. Oh, that is big, yeah.

Yeah. Like you could see it. Because my boobs aren't that big, obviously. There's not a lot of like tissue. So you can see the bump. So anyway, I went to the after freaking out, I went to the doctor and I was so grateful and lucky to get in the following day. Actually, no, the day I called, I could get in within an hour. That was crazy. Went to see the doctor and immediately they ordered an ultrasound and a mammogram. And I've never had a mammogram because I'm not 40 yet. And usually they're like a routine thing.

If you're either 40 or older or you have a history of breast cancer in your family, which I don't. but again, so grateful that I could get in within three days to get a mammogram and an ultrasound, which was honestly like the worst three days I think I've experienced in recent memory, maybe in my life. Can confirm. I was so stressed, like thinking worst case scenario, thinking like, I don't know, I'm being maybe dramatic, but I was thinking about like I don't want to die, I don't want to have cancer, like just the worst news you can receive, right? and I know that breast cancer is a very curable cancer, but it still would be extremely traumatic and obviously very scary.

So I went to get the mammogram, which is, I don't know if you've never had one. It's a pretty, I thought painless, like it's uncomfortable, but it goes by quick. And they called me back in to do some more images after I'd gotten my first round of images. So I'm like, oh, F, like nothing about it made me feel like this is going to be a okay. Like it was very scary. And then I went in and got ultrasounds on all the spots that looked suspect, including this bump. And then 20 minutes of sitting in the room alone later, the radiologist comes in and confirms that it's a fibroandanoma, a benign tumor, not cancerous from what it looks like. It's like got smooth edges and it's... You can like push it, move it around a little bit. Yeah, it's

not behaving like a cancerous tumor. So he said my options are to biopsy. it to remove it or to keep an eye on it every six months and get more ultrasound. So yeah, I'm just kind of in the phase of deciding what to do, but obviously a huge relief that it's not cancerous. And just for any women that's listening to this podcast, it's good practice just to like do a breast exam and make sure that you don't feel anything. Because obviously catching things early is the best way to avoid any problems or cure things if they are a problem. So that happened. And then literally two days later, I had a stomach virus from hell and like could not get out of bed for two days. And I'm trying to think like what could this have

been from? Is this like a stress thing? Because I was so stressed all week. In retrospect, we know or think that it's a stomach virus. But in the moment, this was like like pancreatitis, pancreatitis, whatever. Oh, that intense, huh? We thought it could be appendicit. We thought it could be a gallbladder. Like I was in so much pain I couldn't move, except lying on my right side alleviated the pain a little bit. So I was like 4 a.m. to the next morning in pain couldn't move from bed. And we have a really good friend who's an ER doctor who came to check on me and make sure that like we kind of ruled out some of the worst case things. But of course, then another day thinking I'm going to die.

It wasn't behaving like food poisoning because I had no vomiting or diarrhea or digestive issues. It was just like stabbing pain. So the following day was just like nausea and the pain kind of was dissipating. But that was yesterday. And today I feel relatively out of the woods. In the middle of all of this. Was it the same day that you went to get the, yes, it was. The same day that you went to get the mammogram, you did a fucking bike test.

Oh, yeah. I had an FTP, like, physiology test at the lab. The morning of my mammogram, which was like, in retrospect, way too much. Like, it's basically a ramp test every three minutes. It increased 25 watts until max that I had the mask on my face and lactate. And I have had this plan for like a month. So I went to do it. it because yeah I have a lump on my breast but I wasn't like in pain or suffering or you know I'm

physically capable of doing it but mentally I was not and I put that face mask on and it just felt like I was having a panic attack for 27 minutes um so anyway I I just like it was one of these days where I just felt like I'm like yeah I can do everything and then after the mammogram I did like a three hour ride and a 40 minute run like I was just so dumb that day I should have just taking a chill pill and just gotten the mammogram and done nothing else. But it's another lesson to everyone listening.

Be nice to yourself. Be flexible with your plans. I was so stressed about like, okay, the mammogram's done, it's good news, but I got to fit in a three-hour bike ride. It's like, just take your breath and appreciate that nothing's wrong with you. Yeah.

Smell the roses. Smell the roses. Okay, now that I've talked, about myself for 10 minutes. I also want to just piggyback on that and say that for men, you can also check for lumps for testicular cancer. You can Google

exactly how to do that and what you should be looking for. But similar to what Paul experienced, you can also check yourself and catch it early. So if we can save one life with this, then... Everybody check your... Check yourself. I mean, I don't want to create a bunch of...

What do you call it, hypochondriacs? Yeah, yeah, yeah. scared of getting a, because now I'm a little bit like, well, is this wrong with me? Why do I have a headache? You know, I don't want to be like that. But if you find something that's like very unusual that's, I mean, the fact that they got me in so quickly for all these images was like proof that it was urgent. So something like that is worth checking. Anyway, thanks for listening to Paula's problems. Yeah. Should we make a jingle? Check yourself for lumps. Paula's problems.

Check yourself for lumps, everyone. Really, though. Okay, so that was somehow our form goggles question. And now let's move on to our next question from Lindsay. Yeah, we don't wear form goggles in the pool. Maybe for open water. I'm going to be using

them in open water coming up. We're curious. Yeah, we're curious about the open water. Please report back. Okay. Next one here's from Lindsay. Hey, yo, tripod. I'll spare you the novel about how great and inspiring you are. Thank you for all you do to encourage us to get out, explore, and push ourselves to be our best. Thank you, Lindsay. My question is, I'm an adult onset swimmer, so I have plenty to improve upon. I've recently joined my local master's swim, but I wonder,

knowing I need so much work on my freestyle, is it worth it to do the drills that incorporate other strokes? Or should I really just focus all my efforts on my freestyle? Thanks, Lindsay. This is a really good question. I thought about it for a while when I read it, because I do think master's swim groups do tend to do more I.M. or more other strokes than a more triathlon specific group, or if you had just a triathlon coach, maybe they wouldn't prescribe as much. And that's because often master's groups have a lot of people who grew up swimming and they're just used to doing butterfly backstroke, breaststroke, in their training growing up as collegiate swimmers or whatever it was. They're like good swimmers who are now adults and just want to maintain their fitness and keep, you know,

They're good at all four strokes, so they want to keep doing them. And I personally think that if you're just an adult onset swimmer who's trying to do triathlon, I would just focus on freestyle. And I think it's okay to do a little bit of the other three because they're just overall, like, strength building and being a little bit more like multidimensional than just freestyle. But it's, it is, I think, more of valuable use of your time to just focus on freestyle. What do you think, Nick? Do you ever do other strokes? Well, what this made me think of is something I've been experiencing lately with putting the fins on.

I just think when you are so beginner like I am and like Lindsay is, the other strokes can kind of teach you a feel for the water that you might be a little numb to of doing freestyle over and over again, but that then you bring over to freestyle in a way. But still, I mean, today I did 100 back and 100 breasts in the middle of my swim. But it's never much more than that. Yeah, I think backstroke could be good just for like loosening up your shoulders and like having a little bit of a easy hundred or something. And then breaststroke can really help with your catch because it is more of like a high elbow stroke. Yeah. So that can mimic freestyle. So I think you're right.

That totally can cross over to freestyle. but spending the time to like perfect the technique in those other three strokes, it's so drastically different than freestyle than it could potentially be better use of time to just focus on free. Do a little bit I am if it's sprinkled into the set, but don't do like 10-100s breaststroke or something. Like I used to do that when I was a swimmer, but not anymore. What do you guys do as pros? How much non-freestyle do you do as pros?

Zero. Almost none. Yeah, okay. Just like warm up and cool down. Yeah. But I'm super, I used to be a 400-I-MER. Like, I'm pretty competent in the other strokes. But I just think that our time spent swimming now is so much less than when I was a real swimmer.

That it's, yeah, it's just better off. Yeah. We swim four or five days, four or five times a week instead of nine. Yeah. Brutal. You got a lot of time for other stuff in nine swims. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Next one here is from Abby. Hey, T-TL. I just competed. in my first 70.3 in Muscoa, Ontario, this past weekend. It was hot and humid, but it was a lot of fun watching hard work pay off and saw many TTL kits on course. Heck yeah. Yeah. Speaking of it, there were three TTL swim caps sitting in the pool. Three? I was one of them. That's crazy. We still got more. Yep. While checking my bike in for the race, I got there early, so it was lucky to snag a spot on the racks at the very edge. I was hyped that I would have some extra space in

transition to be able to quickly get my bike off. When I arrived the next morning to set up the rest of my gear, I noticed a couple of people had moved my bike and put their bikes on the edge. I was rubbed the wrong way by this. Not only did I not want anyone touching my bike the night before a race, but also was under the impression it was more of a first come, first served thing. Have you guys experienced this? Am I wrong about first come first served?

Should I have said something? Thank you, Abby. I'm just taking those bikes and throwing them on the ground. Yeah, I've never heard of that And it's definitely ever happened to me That's unbelievable I wouldn't actually throw them on the ground But in my mind I would be fantasizing about it

That's not cool at all Don't do that anybody What's strange to me is that usually The Ironman branded events Have numbers on the racks So you can't really choose where you put your bike It goes where it goes But maybe Muscoca's run differently

This was Muscoca is that any person? Muscocca is more like a franchise versus an Iron Man run event. It could be slightly different. Yeah, I think it feels a little more grassroots than Iron Man run ones. But I kind of like the first come first serve if everyone actually just respects the... Well, that is what we... That is what my understanding is completely... I think this is what happened to this person is totally inappropriate.

Yeah. Completely. It's one thing if like there's no room left on the rack and you want to like move one person's bike an inch to the left and another person's bike an inch to the right so that you can make room. Right. And you have to be on that rack because it says numbers 100 to 150. But it's another thing. Like, we all know that's prime real estate.

The edge. Everyone wants to be on the edge. Come on. Yeah. That's why if you're ranked number one as a pro, you're right on the edge. Yeah. That's your reward. So would you have said something?

In the morning? If the person was right there? Yeah, in the morning. Yeah. Me too. I would definitely. I'd try to be kind. It's like, hey, did you happen to move my bike?

Because I had put mine on the edge, I noticed now that yours is here. Was there a windstorm? Or was it the tri-fairy? Whatever. No, I would try to kindly bring it up and assume the best that they didn't know or something. Be like, hey, asshole, next time. Don't fucking touch my bike. I wonder if maybe she put it like slammed against the edge

or if she made it look like there was still a spot there. Sounds like she was pretty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would just never do that. I would always assume that they want that spot and find somewhere else. Totally. Yeah. I mean, if you listen, none of the people that are doing this type of thing

are listening to this podcast. So I don't think there's any lesson to be learned here. Sadly, I think you're right. Making somebody feel terrible about themselves. Exactly. Okay, so the next question here is probably the longest thing we've ever read on the podcast. But it's a good story. This is from Brendan.

Greetings from Roth, Germany. I usually listen to your podcast from my hometown of Kelona, British Columbia. Paul, you know where this is? Colona? Do we know? Of course, Nick. We and Eric trained there. Yeah.

For like months. Am I stupid? Am I ignorant for not knowing Kelona? No, no. This just predates you. A little. A little. But I got to listen to your most recent pod while in Roth, Germany, preparing to race Challenge Roth, which happened today. I just finished the race a few hours ago, and I wanted to tell you about my really unusual race experience. Congratulations, first of all, for finishing the race.

As usual, the challenge group does an amazing job planning and carrying out an excellent event for so many athletes. What was out of the ordinary was how my personal race played out with wild swings in the world. my condition from good to strangely terrible and then astonishingly good again. It started with a good swim. The first 60 kilometers of the bike were okay, but it went downhill from there. At 90K, I felt completely exhausted. All I wanted to do was pull over and go to sleep in the ditch. The only thing stopping me was thinking that multiple people would probably come to check on me so I wouldn't actually get any sleep. I don't know what was wrong with me. I didn't feel sick at all. I was riding at what should have been a fairly easy power level.

I was taking in enough calories and I was well hydrated. I felt so bad that I seriously contemplated quitting the race, something I have never done before. But I thought about how long I had trained for this, how far I had traveled, how much my wife was supporting me with my training, and how several of my friends back home were following me on the racetracker app.

I decided I wouldn't quit, so I mustered some courage and plan to drag myself to the bike finish, no matter how slow I got and how terrible I felt. I battled through the rest of the kilometers and eventually finished the ride going quite slow relative to the perceived effort level I was giving. For comparison, the first 70K of the bike, I averaged 162 watts,

about 65% of my FTP, and then for the other 110 kilometers, I averaged only 113. In T2, I got my running shoes on and then lied down on a bench, but my neck back and legs ached, and I couldn't find a comfortable. position. I spent 25 minutes in T2 trying to rest and have some food before venturing out onto the

run course. As soon as I began my run stride, I realized the aches were nearly gone, and I was surprised by how manageable my goal pace felt. Amazingly, I was able to hold around my goal pace for nearly the entire marathon running the whole time, except for some very brief walks and aid stations. In the end, I was able to hit my wish goal time for the run, something I thought would only happen under ideal circumstances. I'm so glad that I didn't give up. I'm at a real loss to explain how I felt so bad on the bike and then how I felt unexpectedly good on the run. For a little more background, we got to Europe a week early and I think adapted poorly to the nine-hour time change due to not sleeping comfortably as we stayed in a few different hotels in Germany, all without AC

during the hot week before the race. Have you ever experienced dramatic swings in your condition during a race, especially an improvement in your condition, and what factors do you think influence swings in those races? Brendan. So, long, but Brandon said this was really strange. I feel like this is the classic story of a full distance Ironman. I've never done one, so I don't know, but I do witness it often, where people go into a race and they just can't hold even close to the power that they train for.

Yeah. even like especially pros the bike situation and feeling does sound like some extreme jet lag could be like the easiest answer there and then I don't know my mind goes straight to like is the time that you when you started running is that somehow aligned with like when you would normally wake up back home or like how to explain the run turnaround is

is a little bit trickier like a circadian rhythm thing it's such a long race that I think often even in a 70. If you have a poor bike, you're just fresher for the run. And often that can just lead to a fast runtime. That's happened to me several times where I've been kind of off on the bike. And I don't write it off because I know that's such a long race. There's anything can happen.

And then the run actually ends up pretty good. That could have been the thing. He's riding like 160 watts. Okay, now he's fresh to run a good marathon. Yeah. We wrote 113 for the second half. Yeah, exactly. You're just like perfect warm up. Yeah, it is just crazy though?

Is this just something that happens in our brain when we get to T2? And like, oh, this is now a new different thing. And you're able to reset just enough when you weren't able to on the bike. So this is part of the research I did on this question. There's this thing called the central governor theory. And Eric, you just touched exactly upon that. Where the feeling that Brendan had on the bike that felt so bad may not have been an accurate reflection of what,

what was going on physiologically in his body. He may have been able to push out much more power, but there was something in his brain that was kind of in like a protective mode. And once you get a break, and once you are on to the final leg of your race, your subconscious kind of realizes like, actually we're okay.

So I will allow you to use the full ability of your physiology in this. And this is apparently something that happens quite often and can be made much worse by things like jet lag or heat or nutrition mistakes. I was going to say heat. Yep, I've definitely experienced this with heat. So that's what could be happening.

This was what happened to me in Wisconsin as well. I felt so horrendous on the bike. And then when I started running, I somehow felt a thousand times better, which makes no sense. So I think this is common for full distance. You're like, I can do this. I can definitely do this. And you're subconscious like, no, we're signs point to death.

Yeah. All signs point to know. Yeah, we're going to crank the throttle down. You're dumb. Yeah. So you guys have had this happen even in 70.3s, though. It's not just a full distance thing. Sure, yeah.

I mean, to use, like, the same laid-lose thing, unexplained underperformance. You just, like, get on the bike, and you just feel like absolute trash. And you cannot figure out why everything was going great. And then maybe it comes around later. It hasn't happened really to me, and I'm always so confused why it happens to people.

Because you hear it after races all the time, on like race recaps, just wasn't feeling it. And it's like, but I saw your Strava. Like you're training like a maniac. You're definitely fit enough to do it and rested for the race. What's the disconnect here? Like, why can't you go and push even 80% of what your goal power was for this, for this bike? And I think so much of it is mental.

It's like, of course, racing is so uncomfortable and you have all of the stress and the pressure that comes along with it. So that adds a stressor of making it maybe. feel more difficult. And then just like the, it's so different than a workout when you're by yourself and nobody cares if you're not pushing the right wots. It's like it feels like it really matters. So if something is not going right, it almost is like this exponential drop off where it's so easy to just totally give up in the moment. Yeah. And I think by mental, you're not saying you're mentally weak, but we're referencing this like central governor. This is not like

mitochondrial issue. This is not a carbohydrate issue. This is a, your psychology is telling something. Yeah. Chill. If I could just, if all of us could just turn off our brains, I think we'd race a lot better consistently. Yeah. But I wouldn't discount in this specific situation, the jet leg. It's really challenging to travel internationally to race. And especially if you don't do it often, like Eric and I are very experienced with it and the feeling of kind of overcoming it and tricks to make it not so bad, but it is really hard on your body if you're not used to it. And it's different than going on vacation in Europe. You're like changing time zones and trying to perform at your highest level ever. That's really a lot to ask. And it's not a surprise that it just felt really, really bad

like your body was supposed to be sleeping. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Well, congratulations on finishing Brennan and getting through that low period. I feel like at the end, it does make the achievement sweeter when you know that you made it through that hard time. And I think this question just can apply to everyone because everyone's going to feel this way on the bike at some point and to not just throw in the towel. Yeah. Like you might have a great run.

Try to have your best marathon split ever, whatever it is. Like there's ways to turn it around and it sucks when it happens, but it's not like all lost, you know? You don't have to quit. I wonder if there's some sort of a way to short circuit this, you know, it was like micro goals of like, I'm lapping the watch and I'm just going to like, or you know, give the next telephone pull, whatever it is, like these little things.

I'm going to do 20 minutes at, you know, 20 watts lower than my goal power, which is 20 watts higher than my current power. Like make these little micro goals and try to like freaking short circuit or trick that whatever you called it, Nick. Yeah, the central governor theory. I'm convinced that you're, I'm convinced you're right because I do think this is really due to the brain knowing that a marathon is coming. Yeah. Like that sounds impossible. You're an idiot. Yeah.

You're an idiot. Why? Yeah. I love it, though. Great advice, guys. This next one here is from Sarah. Hey there, tripod. My question is about tubeless tires

sitting out in the heat and direct sun. Last year, I did a couple races where I had to check my bike in the day before. Someone gave me the advice to let some air out of my tires so the tubes wouldn't pop from expanding in the heat and sun. I have new tubeless tires this year and a hot race coming up this weekend

in Muncie 70.3. is the potential heat expansion an issue for tubeless tires and are there potential issues from deflating too low? For reference, I typically inflate them to 60 PSI in most conditions well below the max of, I think, 80 or 85. Also, they're Victoria Corsa's next 30s, if that matters. I would love your thoughts on this to help put my pre-race nerves at ease. Thank you so much. Sarah.

So, Eric, I feel like this is for you. I think you're going to be totally fine. You're so far from the upper limit. This idea of letting air out of your tires in transition definitely comes from the age of 120 PSI is the maximum rated pressure for the tires, so we're all pumping our tires up to 120 PSI. Versus now with tubeless,

they're rated for 80, and most everybody should be running them somewhere between like 50 and 65. I just can't imagine if you drop your bike off, like in the middle of the day, at the hottest part of the day, they're not going to get that much, hotter to like go up 20 PSI.

Yeah. In the afternoon. Yeah. Correct. What does the data? What does the data say, Nick? The data says that you get about every 10 degrees, you get about like one to two PSI more. So correct.

It's a, it's not an issue. Not an issue. It's a wife's tale. It's a bit of a, I mean, it does, it does have an effect, but not nearly enough to cause an issue here. So it's not a concern. Yeah. I'm going to guess more often when you hear like, a tire pop in transition. It's because

somebody needed a new rim tape. Or they had like, the tire wasn't quite on there, just right and whatever, or they had a pre-existing little flat in some way that just got pushed over the limit by this one to two PSI increase in tire whatever. Yeah. Not that

it went to 150 PSI. And as Eric said, and as a public service announcement, you definitely should not be inflating your tires to the max rated tire pressure on the tire. Please don't. Please don't do that. that. Okay, next question here is from G. Day one listener, second try asking a question. Try

TRI by the way. So we got a punny guy here. T.TL. Sense says hello from Kalamazoo, Michigan. I submitted a long question once and then took a melodramatic TTL hiatus when it never got red. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. It's nothing personal. But I can't stay away, catching up on pods and keeping it brief this time. What's a race day act of kindness you'll never forget, experience, given, or witness? You brighten so many days keep doing all the things, G.

Can you guys think of anything? I thought long and hard about this and I came up with one. First off, that's a great question, G. I don't know, podcasts people say that a lot, but that is a great question. Best act of kindness. Yeah, I had to borrow somebody's helmet once

at St. Anthony's. Yeah, my arrow helmet, like, somebody pulled the sticker out or the sticker came out in the humidity and I didn't know. We were five minutes away from diving into the water. Like I'd gotten out of the water from doing my swim warm up and somebody came running up to me like, your helmet's not compliant. You're not going to be able to race. They checked the sticker. Yeah, they checked the sticker. So right there on the spot, somebody said, I'm just here watching the race.

I'll go to transition and I'll put my helmet next to your bike. What's your bike number? and I just dove into the water and hoped that there would be a helmet at my bike. And it was not a narrow helmet, but it was a helmet. Wow. That's amazing. And do you remember how you did? I don't think that was my best, St. Anthony.

Okay. Let's blame the helmet. Yeah. Not the person, the person, the ultimate kindness, but. I think I was still like either top three or top five. Nice. Nice. Paula, can you think of one?

Yeah, it was like last year in Abiza, I was, Orca made this new swim skin and I'm not I don't usually lose things but I fully lost this prototype swim skin that they gave me and Lucy Byram had two so before the start in Abiza she gave me her spare one to use because I was wearing like the old one that didn't really fit me properly and kind of let water down the neck and I didn't even ask her she just fully offered it to me she's like oh I have an extra of the brand new swim skin do you want to use it and of course I did and she's This is like pro-level racing where we're competing against each other for points, for money, for, you know, so many things. And so for her to just to like offer that.

And I could have beat her by one spot. She could have beat me by one spot. Like we're always really similar in the results. So that was really nice. That's amazing. That's sweet. I remember that story. It gives you hope.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the women that we race are extremely nice. and would do something like that. So I feel really lucky to be amongst those types of people. And it does take the stress away pre-race. Like we kind of have each other's backs, even though we all want to win. Yeah, yeah, that is nice. My story is that when I was doing Iron Man Wisconsin,

similar to Brendan, I was in T2 for over an hour because I was so cold. And I definitely did not think I was going to keep racing. and a TTR podcast listener was there, and he gave me his sweater. I still remember that. Sean Butters, thank you, Sean. And I was so sure I wasn't going to keep racing, and he kind of talked me into him and several other podcast listeners

that came in and saw me looking like I had died a thousand deaths, convinced me to at least do a mile of the run. And I remember that first mile, and I started crying because I was like, oh, I'm going to do this. I actually am going to finish this race. I can do this. Of course I didn't, but at the time I thought I could.

But yeah, thank you, Sean, once again, for letting me use that sweater, which I eventually did mail back to him as well. Amazing. Yeah. We got a lot of good people in the sport. Oh, for sure. Except for the people that move people's bikes in transitions.

Yeah, fuck you. Get out. Oh, God. Find the door. All right. The next question here is from Kate. Hey, fam, I've been thinking a lot about the people who will be affected by the Medicaid cuts, and it got me wondering, what do pro triathletes do for health insurance in the U.S.?

I'm assuming those under the age of 26 just stay on their parents' plans if possible. What about those who are older than 26 or don't have the option? Especially those who are early in their careers and maybe who aren't making enough money for private insurance. Nick, curious what this looks like for early career musicians too. I think folks forget that entrepreneurial types need health care too. appreciate you all, Kate. First of all, Kate, believe it or not, I'm not an early career musician.

This is the promise land I'm in right now, and yes, it's still a struggle to get health insurance. I'm not sure Kate was insinuating that. That's what she said. You obviously were at some point in time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so what do you guys do for health insurance? And then I did some reading on this stuff,

so I can clear up some of the mystery around this as well. we pay for it. We are now at a point in our lives where we are incredibly fortunate enough to make enough money to pay for decent health insurance. But that has not always been the case, at least not for me. I feel like this is an advantage that Europeans have over Americans to a degree. Like insurance has been many years my largest expense. And there were a couple years where I could not afford it. And I just, it was a little bit scary.

Yeah, I grew up in Canada. up until I had like a P1 visa living in the U.S. more permanently. I was not having to worry about this or think about it. And now I have insurance through Cigna, which is like kind of a global insurance company because I'm not a permanent resident. Like I don't know my green card yet or anything. I think once I get that, Eric and I will go on the same insurance. But like Eric said, one of our biggest expenses and we're really fortunate to be able to pay for it.

But it's so crazy to me that even though you're paying this. insane amount of money for insurance, you still have to pay so much money to reach your deductible unless something catastrophic happens and you have something that requires, you know, tons of money. And even then they may deny care for that thing. That's the other part of it. You're not guaranteed care. Right. And we're definitely not doing so well that we can get, you know, an insurance package that has no deductible. Like that does exist, I believe, and it's just insanely expensive. But I don't really, Nick, what is Medicaid? So it's a government program for certain people.

Often people who are below a certain level of income or who have certain circumstances. And it's a state-by-state thing. So generally speaking, more progressive states will offer Medicaid to a larger amount of people who are in need. More conservative states choose to leave that up to the individual. to figure out a way to pay for their health care. So it is a state-by-state thing, and there were some COVID-enacted measures. Leave it up to the individual to figure out a way. I'm trying to be.

I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be. Obviously, I have my biases as well, but I'm trying to be as neutral as possible here. Speaking of which, at the end of this question, it says, if you choose this question, feel free to edit to reduce my clear political bias. But I read it as is. So, yeah, it's, it's, because during COVID, there were a bunch of things enacted to allow for more people to have access to health care.

And now the time is up on that. So certain states are deciding to, a lot of people will not have health care because of this. That's the end issue. And a lot of people who are in poverty will not have access to health care. If they fall just outside of the poverty line that is established by the state or if they miss a deadline for some paperwork, This is where the drama is around right now. This is why Kate is upset about this. But the way it looks like for me is I'm guessing the same way you guys do it is the Affordable Care Act.

There's a website where you can – there's a marketplace for different health care packages. And I just usually choose the most affordable one. Do you think the pro triathletes are on Medicare? I would say just based on what we know to be the earning potential of, you know, like the average pro triathlete that there could be a lot of pro triathletes on Medicaid. You would hope, but in most states that poverty line is so low that it's probably not the case. How low? I mean, I guess we could look it up. I don't want to make up numbers, but this is, from what I was reading online, this is what the anger is around.

Yeah, I mean, to bring it back to triathlon, I just, I think there is going to be way, way more people, Nick, than you think. Then I would imagine. Yeah, just based on like how much. much your sponsors contribute and what your racing expenses are to like pay a coach and pay for the swimming pool and pay for flights and pay for hotels like there were a lot of years where my like I had no to pay no taxes because I was not actually making any money and this was like I was supported by USA Traathons so like my apartment was covered on and off and like some of my travel was covered and I think I think that's a lot of people any pro-traathletes that do not also like Moonlight as an accountant

or have some other job. Well, that's why a lot of other, a lot of professional athletes also coach or do something else supplement it. But it's such a complicated issue because, I mean, I guess I'm just super fortunate to be able to afford it, but the fact that I could get in within two days

to get an ultrasound on something that was extremely concerning, like my parents said that probably would not have happened in Canada. Right. I would have had to wait weeks for that. So, just for reference, in 2025, the federal poverty level for a single individual is $15,650 annually. And for a family of four, it's $32,150. No way.

15,000. So that's really, really low. What does that come out to be? Making like $3 an hour? I mean, some people can't find work. Some people live in places. Is that possible? Where the minimum wage is extremely low.

I thought it was going to be like $25 to $30,000. to be poverty. So, and I'm sure, God, this is so complicated and the three of us do not understand it as much as it needs to be understood, but if you want to know the reality of how too well to do professional triathletes and a medium-to-do musician do it,

this is, it's definitely a big expense in my monthly budget, like huge expense. And I imagine it still is for you guys as well, all things considered. Yeah. We've long fantasized about, you know, like a large organization. like USA Triathlon or like the PTO

stepping in and getting a group policy of some sort that pro-traithlates could opt into for like a reasonable amount of money or sliding scale based on, you know, something. But for some reason that's incredibly challenging. Well, the reason is challenging is because not all pro-triathletes live in the U.S.

Well, and it's also just very expensive, I think. The PTO has talked about it, but it just gets so complicated with, you know, multinational. I do actually think U.S. I say triathlon does it for like their absolute tippy top tier level of funding for like you're an Olympic gold medal or like you know contender they do yeah yeah I see yeah I see cool so yeah okay and then last question here is kind of for Eric but hi TTL crew I was curious Eric has been dropping hints

lately and make me think he's considering a swim run I'd love to learn more about what he's planning I'm doing my first swim run this August after Alcatraz 24 inspired me to look for more adventure races. Since signing up, I fall in love with the whole ethos of swim run and look for things where you can find them. Hit me right in that same spot. Is swim run next on your list? If not, is it something any of you are interested in?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us every week, Felicia. Let's start with Paula. Paula, is swim run something because you could be really good at it. Even though biking is your strength, I could see you being very good at that. You're really tough and resilient at a great swimmer and great runner. I could be interested in it. Yeah. Like when I retire from triathlon, I never want to do another triathlon. Like when I retire professionally from it. But I do see myself doing, yeah, more fun things like that. So I don't know how technical the courses are. And I imagine they're all very different. But the thing that I think is kind of interesting about it is you swim with pole boy and paddles, which I love. We love that. So I don't know. Yeah. It's definitely a cool. up-and-coming sport.

And remember the guy last week who was swimming with his socks in the Super Try? Of course. There's an element of that and swim run as well. That guy emailed me a bunch of pictures from his race.

Oh, really? Yeah, he's really invested. I love it. In that question. Yeah. Can we get him to just like make a thread on the app, posting pictures on the app

so we can measure this? Yeah, make a thread on the app. Yeah. Don't share him with just us. Okay, Eric. So spill the beans. I do really want to do a swim run. Yeah. I feel like I would be quite good at it.

I was always very good in super sprints of the ones that involved diving back into the water after running. I always crushed that second swim. And like it is ultimately a bit like a 50K when you just take out like 10K of the running and swap it in with some swimming. At least until you get to World Championships, it was just like iron length of time. and the tricky thing for me over the last couple years I've been wanting to do this for a couple years is finding a partner so finding somebody who

A, I can is a compatible swimmer B is a compatible runner and C like we can hang out together for like six hours I'll do the swim run with you jeez and that that has not been that's not been super easy to do

the new thing that I've discovered or that is like kind of become a thing lately is that you can do them solo. The half distances that would take me like four hours, not the full Otollo in Sweden, you can actually do those solo now. So that's kind of allowed me to get over the hump of asking Orca for all the necessary gear

and mentally telling myself I'm going to do it because even if I were to sign up and find somebody who could be a good match with me and they ended up bailing, I could still do it solo. Yeah, yeah. So I think it looks like a crazy amount of fun and is right up the alley of the look for things where you can find them

and overland triathlon that we did back in the day of, you know, you're like traversing the terrain under your own power in a very natural aesthetic way. And that just looks super cool. I do think that the only people that can be really good at this at the highest level are triathletes. Because think about it,

if you take a really good trail runner, they're sinking like a rock. If you take a really good swimmer, they're not going to be able to do trail running. I think you're right. It is this really unique skill set where the best people in the world, I think, would come from the triathlon pool,

whether they're retired or they're still racing triathlon. And even just for an age grouper that wants to try it, I think triathlon is the perfect demographic of people that already have those two skill sets and teaching a runner how to swim or a swimmer how to run is so challenging that I think those people wouldn't even have interest in trying this. And to make things even better,

Eric has already proven to be an extremely competitive standalone ultramarathoner. Yeah, I mean, there's no one better I can think of than Eric who would be like the world champion at this. I agree. I agree.

And we want to see it so bad. I honestly can't think of a single person because if you think of every trail runner that's better than Eric, they're not swimming. Right. So who could be better? There could be another triathlete potentially, but that's it.

Yeah. But can you think of any triathlete who's a better trail runner than Eric and open water swimmer? Well, how technical are these trails, Eric? That's my question. I know that there's like a technical element to like the going in and coming out of the water

because you're generally like running up and down some rocks. But you know, the actual O to Low, there's almost no videos about this. I've looked, GTN did a little bit one on it. And it looked like the trails were fairly winding. And if you have good, strong ankles and you know, you're not tripping on a wrist. As we've seen in Western states, just not putting a foot wrong is a huge component.

So I think I'm pretty good at that. And I don't know. I think there are some pretty badass dudes who like swam in college and then ended up in a town where they trail run or like more maybe cross-country skiers or something. And they're just like absurd V-O-2 max in long capacity. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, this is why I'm not trying to say I'm going to be the best in the world of this. but this is why it's been hard to find a partner. Because the people that come to mind are like Josh Hamburger, Ben Canute.

That's what I was thinking, Ben. Like people who are fully committed to triathlon right now versus like feeling like they want to be a little experimental. But I think you could reach out to those guys and be like, hey, do you want to be a world champion with us? Yeah, yeah. I did. I floated this to Ben like three years ago.

Chris Lieferman could be good. I don't know. I can think of a handful of handful of triathletes. That's a good one. I asked Chris. Yeah. Yeah. There's a handful of triathletes who can trail run who would be. who would fit the bill.

I won't lie. That's the ultimate fantasy is I want to try one out, just see how it goes. And then, you know, like, yeah, could we bring a world championship home to America? That would be pretty cool. Maybe a pipe dream, but pretty cool to think about. Oh, I love it. And can you describe to our beloved podcast

listeners who are maybe not as familiar? What's the difference between swim run and a quathlon? Oh, again, aquathlon is, I think, just exactly like a triathlon, and you just don't bike. So one swim, one run on pavement with super shoes. Yeah. And a swim run is like, just imagine it was born in Sweden and it's an archipelago, a string of little islands and you're running across one island, jumping into the water, swimming to the next island, running across

that island, swimming to the next island, over and over and over again. It's an adventure race. Yeah. Point to point. So you could have like 10 swims and 10 runs and they're completely dictated by the terrain. How big is the island and how far to the next island? Yeah, cool. They actually had one in Edmonton last year in the river. We'd like swim across the river, do a run, swim this way. But it's so hard that I don't think it was that well attended. I don't know.

It's just such a crazy hard thing. It's very niche. But I think as potential. Because an Iron Man's hard too when people do it obsessively. It's growing really fast. Yeah. Apparently. Well, let's get you in on that world championship.

Eric, that would be a very important. Anyone wants to be Eric's partner and you have some stats you can send us? Taking applications. But the first one that I was hoping to do was Whistler. This is next weekend. I didn't get a suit in time and I'm not quite ready. My elbow's just now feeling good to swim with big paddles. But my next opportunity is going to be Orcas, Orca Island, outside of Seattle in like another couple months.

So that's what I'm gotten for. That's cool. Yeah. Cool. Well, that was a long pod, you guys. That was really long pod. People have been asking for that lately. They like the longer pod.

So here you go. We deliver. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm completely soaked through my shorts. Yeah, sorry. But this tank tops that looks freaking dream. Primo.

It's so hot up here. Well, thank you guys for sticking around. The next time you hear from us, we will all be in the same room, which will be so fun. I'm flying out to Bend on Wednesday, and I'll be there for a week with these two. So fun. We can't wait. Eric's birthday. on Saturday, too. And don't forget to watch for our TTL drop on Sunday morning.

It's going to be good. Oh, bye, guys. All right, everyone. Later.