That Triathlon Life Podcast - Oceanside 70.3 triathlon post race talk, Nick's song wins a Grammy, rest and recovery, race questions, and more!

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

What a weekend. Our first time recording the podcast in the same room! Well, technically we were in Eric and Paula's Van, but still. We start with Ironman 70.3 Oceanside race talk and get to hear what Eric and Paula's races were like. The next day, Nick went to Las Vegas for the Grammys, where a song he produced ended up winning as part of the best blues contemporary album. Finally we get to some questions about the race sent in from all of you. For more, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to That Trarappelin Life podcast. I'm Paula Finley. Hi, I'm Eric Hoggrestrom. I'm Nick Goldston. And we are coming to you from our campsite, and we're all three in the van. And this is our first ever recording with all three of us in one place. Can you believe it? It's pretty awesome. I feel like this is how I imagine the podcast would be and the ultimate feelings that we would have. Like, we're hanging out together legitimately in one place. No headphones, no FaceTime. Yeah, so we're pretty much just continuing our podcast would be.

conversation that we've had all night while trying to start a fire for two hours while eating hot dogs for the second night in a row while succeeding to create a fire after two hours oh so i don't know succeeding is a pretty generous word for which has happened we used all our fire starters we got it so let's just give a quick update of like what the actual timeline is at the moment we are actually on our way home from ocean side 70.3 eric and i both raced nick was there with us and the day after Oceanside, Nick drove to Las Vegas, to the Grammys, and won... The day of Oceanside, actually. The day of Oceanside. I drove to Vegas. That's true. And won a Grammy. So wild roller coaster weekend for Nick. And same with Eric and I, like racing at

70.3 is a big emotional and physical thing to do. So we're kind of recovering from that for a couple days. And then we're going to make her way back home to Ben tomorrow. Do you guys want to maybe just like talk through your day? day on the race and we'll kind of like chronologically go through what happened until this point now. Yeah, I think that sounds good. And then at the end of the pod, we have like three or four questions that people have sent in that are specifically related to Oceanside and racing and stuff, so we can go through those as well. But we'll try to do a little bit of a better recap of the race because then we won't need to go into quite as much depth on the vlog this week.

Also, you might hear some grumbling and some whining, and that's because Flynn is also in this tiny space with us. And sometimes he gets a little jealous when we, don't give him attention. Or some like swooshing because we're all wearing puppy jackets because it's cold. Okay, let's start with Eric going through his race because Eric had an amazing run. Best ever. Best ever with a 70.3 run on that course. Why don't you just go through it, Eric?

Okay. So Oceanside is now an ocean swim. You used to start in the harbor and now you start actually running into the beach, which is the thing that I love, the bigger the surf, the better. So the swim went off great for me. I was pretty comfortably sitting on Alistair Brownlee's feet behind Ben Canute, but I was side by side with Sam Appleton and Steve McKenna. And that's pretty much how the entire swim one. We came out of the water together. I had a pretty good T1 and came out of T1 in third position behind Steve McKenna and Ben Canoe.

The bike was a bit frustrating for me. I feel like I had kind of one of these bikes that I've had in the past where my legs don't really feel like they show up and I never quite get my hip issues that I have under control. And it really was just kind of a struggle to produce power. But I hung into the group that I was with for about 10 miles before kind of an unfortunate thing happened. Steve McKenna got a penalty for trying to pass the whole group and wasn't able to.

And then had a little bit of disagreement with the ref. and that just sort of was enough of distraction and a lot of gap open that I was kind of already pushing pretty hard and wasn't able to, I was able to bridge back up to the group, but after that wasn't able to stick in the group for much longer. So I ended up doing a lot of the bike ride. I wouldn't say solo, but I was with Andre Lopez and then eventually Jason West. And that's how he came into T2. There were quite a few moments on that bike ride where I felt like, if it had been a multi-loop

course, I definitely felt like I wanted to quit. but being at it's ocean side, the fastest way to be done is you have to ride the whole race course and get back to T2. The neutral support sag trucks don't come very often. It's like I might as well push watts. Might as well get back to the hotel. But then I headed out on the run and I just, I was feeling pretty good. I was feeling, I wouldn't say comfortable, but under control. And I just, I built the run the entire way.

And it was kind of one of those magical days where you feel like you keep trying to go for another gear, push a little bit more, push a little bit more, and you've got it and you can do it. So, you know, whether or not that was just really good run fitness or not having the best bike or whatever, I ran a 11-09 half marathon, which is a minute and a half-half at least faster than any other half marathon I've done in triathlon. And that was a really cool to just like to see that, that I was at a pretty unhappy place on the bike, but I was able to bring it back. overall, I would say, have a good race. Finishing an eighth. It's funny because I feel like we all know that races have ups and downs, but it's hard to believe that you went from wanting to pull out on the bike to running your best ever have.

And that's a super fast time. Yeah. I think it's a good lesson to anyone racing who's going through a hard patch at any point in the race, swim, bike, run. Like, it's not over till it's over, right? And oftentimes, I think when you don't have as good of a bike ride, you do run better because you've maybe saved a little bit in your legs from going as fast as you possibly can on the bike. So there's that positive, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it's a good building point because Oceanside last year I had a phenomenal bike ride. I didn't get a run because I crashed. And now I've had a really good run. And I'm just like really excited to put it all together in one race. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I was very exciting to watch you guys from the tracker.

I was watching Eric. And at first, I knew he was going to swim well. And then when he was hanging with that group of guys, I was like, oh, boy. I was kind of, like, scared because I thought, I think he's putting it all out on the line to try to hang with those, that front super gross guys. And then he still ended up having a great race. Yeah. And what did you get overall? Eighth place overall.

Yeah. Like some of the fastest guys in the world. Yeah, the podium had Lionel and Rudy and Alistair and Jackson Laundry had the, Jackson Laundry had the, race of his life. The race of his life so far, which I just real quick want to say, I think Jackson Laundry's been building towards this for a while. I think he's just been putting in quietly a lot of really good, consistent work over the years and, you know, keeping the ego and checked just enough that he's not burning himself

out along the way. And it's, I'm like really, really happy to see him doing well. He deserves it. And he's a great guy. Agree. So nice. He came up to me after my race and was like, how did you do? And I, like, had no idea what happened in the men's race.

and I was like, oh, I'd like, let's do you raise. And he's like, I said, how did you do? He's like, I won. And I was like, what? Like this race, Oceanside, you just won. Because while I was racing, I saw Alistair in the lead. I didn't see like the crazy finish and the dynamic changes at the end. I just was like, oh, Alistair won.

So that was hilarious. The finish was so excited, even just like from where I was watching it, from the out and backs, basically. of, yeah, Alistair kind of made a move, and then Jackson and Rudy were behind, and then all of a sudden, Jackson's running with Alistair, and then to hear that he won later was wild. What an exciting race. It'll be really cool. I want to see what outside TV does with the footage and everything, because that should be exciting. Nick was there actually at a media pass, so you were right at the finish line.

Yeah, I'm not trying to... Picture of the day? I definitely want to, like, go through your thing. I don't even really want to talk about race, but I will. But let's talk about you being a photographer. So our friend Eric Quinn, who he works for slow Twitch and he gets media passes. He asked us, he's like, hey Nick, would you want like a media pass?

I'm like, yeah, that would be great. What do I have to do? He's like, don't even worry about it. So show up race morning and he gives me like the full-on vest. Yeah. With the land yard, I look so legit. And I'm like, I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm running around with a camera like an idiot.

So I'm running around the whole day. I'm trying to get footage for you guys. Yeah. I'm also trying to get photos for slow Twitch, and I'm trying to also do the TTL Instagram live as like trying to get like selfies with TTL Nation on the course and like trying to get both the you and like checking the Iron Man tracker as much as I can. And finally I'm like, I remember that like, oh, and they they want you at the finish too. I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm going to do at the finish, right?

Like there's all photographers there. Like Eric and I are winning. Yeah, right? So I get there and there's like, it's like me, the guy filming for like, outside TV and like maybe one or two other guys. So I'm like, uh-oh, this matters. So I put the camera into like burst mode, which means it takes like a lot of pictures in a row.

And I'm standing there waiting for Alistair to win because he's been leading for a lot of the run. And then all of a sudden we hear, and I think Jackson Laundrie just passed out. He's 38 seconds ahead of Alistair. Jackson Laundries went from second to 38 seconds ahead as far as we knew at the finish. So people start freaking out.

Jackson crosses line, which is great. I mean, we know him. He's, like Eric said, he's super nice guy, and obviously his fitness has been really building. So that seems exciting. And that is like the most exciting thing was just about to happen. All of a sudden, we thought Rudy was going to get second. And Lionel catches him with like 200 meters to go. And they are running neck and neck all the way to the finish. And I'm just like, uh-oh, start taking pictures. And I take like 20 pictures in a row. And it's just like, you see their faces. They're just contorted and like giving up. everything they got, they like cross over the line, they're on the ground. I like squatted down and got this picture of Lina like giving a hand to Rudy as they're on the ground. It was like one of the most epic finishes in the 70.3. I mean, has the 70.4-3 ever ended that neck and neck? I don't think so. Like there's still a debate over who won. Oh, that's true.

I'm not sure it's ever been actually TBD like undetermined. The problem is there's no finish line. It's like the arch. Right. And because there's usually not Prince finishes, you don't need to have a line. And someone was just standing there with an iPhone. So, like, from a certain perspective, it looked like Lionel was second. I don't know.

It's, like, really hard to actually say. The pictures I have go back and forth. Yeah. Like, there's a picture, like, Rudy posted them on his Instagram. And, like, the picture that he has first, he's clearly, like, his foot is ahead. Yeah. He looks ahead. Yeah.

But then if you look at, like, the picture, like, right at the line, it looks like, Wynnell's maybe, like, two inches ahead. It's so insane. Like when it comes down to that margin, you're like, and you do little things in the race that are stupid, where in the time you're like, oh, this won't matter. It's like one second. Right. You're like, oh, it actually matters. Yeah, that was crazy.

But, I mean, that's so exciting and we rarely get to see moments like that in the sport. It felt so special that happened. It was great. Yeah, very cool that you were there too. Anyway, Paul, I know you're not this most stoked, but I think TTLNesh deserves to hear your experience because we've all had days that weren't our best. I mean, it wasn't a terrible race. but I ran like just so, so, so slow. But the day really started off on the wrong foot with the swim for me.

I was, for some reason, had this mental block of the waves. And I've swam in waves before. I've done Oceanside before. I haven't really had that many issues with waves. I knew I had to dive under them, grab the bottom. But I had a couple of experiences the day prior where I tried to get through the break. And I got like super tumbled and my goggles fell off and I just like panicked. So I had that in my memory

And then I went on race day and thought Okay, a race is different I could get through them for sure Like you're in race mode But I had the same feeling It was like everyone was running in dolphin diving And I was like so hesitant To dive in

It's like I just didn't even want to do the race It was so weird And it ended up not being that bad of waves But it was just the head space I was in It was like not the right thing To latch on to the front group So after the getting through the break I was completely by myself

and I'm the kind of swimmer where I'm like strong enough to hold on to people's feet, but I'm not strong enough to bridge to anyone or to like lead a pack myself. So I lost a lot of time, was kind of just really trying to sight well and take the right line and caught a lot of pro males actually, which kind of helped the time pass. There were like 60 pro males signed up for the race. A lot of pro males. And they only started three minutes ahead of us. So that kept things interesting at least.

and then got on the bike right ahead of Janiella and Chelsea and knew the gap was pretty big, but I was confident enough in my bike that I could probably catch some of the people ahead of me. Like I think Holly was in front and then Taylor Nib. But really on that course you don't get a lot of feedback of time gaps or anything. You see them once on the out and back. So I knew Holly was like within striking distance and same with Ashley Gentle, but Taylor Nib was pretty far ahead at that point.

My bike split was only two minutes slower than Taylor Nib. I like to think that on like a better day, I'd be a little closer to her than that. And if I had a good swim, maybe I could ride with her. But I had the second fastest bike split. Felt pretty good on the bike. It was kind of funny because, like, in October when I raced, I was completely solo. So I could really just do consistent power. But this time I had people passing me.

Like, Danielle came around me. My wads dropped a lot, riding with her for a bit. And I wasn't sure if that was just an effect of, like, riding in a pack, because I don't often get to ride in a pack. So maybe that was just a, you know, thing that always happens. But then I went back around her when I thought, like, okay, this is a little bit too easy for me and she wasn't having a great day. Caughts Holly. So it was interesting.

Like, I was catching other people, but that also affects, like, your average watts overall because you end up sitting on people's wheel on the grass zone and stuff. Anyway, so got off the bike and forth right behind Holly and just felt so unmotivated to run. It wasn't even really a physical issue. It was just I could not get my head in it, and I couldn't imagine running 21K, and I didn't want to. So the first full lap of the run, I was thinking like, where can I pull out? Where's Nick?

I was hiding. That's what I was doing, because I knew if, like, I didn't want her to see me. So I just, like, let you do your own thing. But I saw Flynn on the course, because Jordan Blanco was looking after Flynn, and I was like, oh, I should just pull over to fly. I told them, I was like, make sure you're on the run course.

I think Paula might like it. Yeah. No, I loved seeing fun. But what kept me in it was like, okay, you're not injured. You're still ahead of a lot of really good athletes, so it's kind of disrespectful to drop out just because you don't feel like you're having a good race. So I sort of kept myself mentally checked in as much as I could.

And then the last lap I saw my gap to Chelsea behind me, and I was like, okay, just try not to let another person pass you. And then I actually started running a lot better. I was running like 10 seconds per K faster. So I still had it in me. It was just for some reason not into it. So finished in sixth. And a time that was not that much different than my time in October when I won.

So this race was just crazy competitive, crazy fast. We've been saying it a lot. But it felt like everyone's been saying it. It felt like a world championship field in a lot of ways. There are only a couple people missing from making it that. Totally. And it felt like that kind of field without having all. all of the tools in my fitness toolbox to race with that kind of field.

So it was a little bit like, I mean, everyone's at the same point in the season, so everyone's in the same boat. But that was not a super fun way to start the year, feeling like I was so, you know, inferior to everyone. And I think there's like a lot of improvement I can make on the run with just more time running. But I still think for me the biggest, like your head space was the biggest thing about I know your fitness is there. You've been running consistently.

Like, maybe not race-specific workouts, but being in the right attack mindset is, I think, the biggest. Yeah, totally is not. I don't think we're not walking away from this, like, oh, my God, you just are a bad runner now or something. You know what? I bet if you would have passed Taylor Nib on the bike at the end and started in first, I bet you would have had a completely different run.

You would have been really motivated by that, and your confidence would have brought you to a new level. It's so easy to say after a race, like, what if, what if, what if I had a good swim? And I was out with the lead pack and I had ridden with Taylor and I, yeah, who knows? But it's really hard for me to be that far back. I was going to say after the race, we did a little pop-up where we sold some cool t-shirts. Yeah. And we still have two t-shirts and a few sizes and two hats, too, that we're at some point I think we're going to put on.

the website. So stick around for that. Yeah, we did a pop-up before the race. Eric can talk because I've been talking now. I know. I mean, we made a California-specific collection just for Oceanside. We were really excited about, and I think a lot of people online have said they liked the look of it as well. And we got to meet so many cool people. We love doing the pop-ups so, so much and getting to meet everybody and hear stories and whatnot. But we do actually have a few things left over, and we will, I've talked to,

warehouse and we should have everything up on the website this weekend. Oh, really? That soon? If it all goes well, which you never know. But yeah, the cool blue hats and we've got some black hats. They're like our original trucker hats and just a couple really cool t-shirts. So I think if you were asking, they'll be up on the website. I think they're also kind of, they're kind of unique. And I don't know if, I feel like if people like them, they should get them because I don't know when the next time that you guys will do something that has this kind of vibe to it. I mean, with anything, if they

sell out super fast and that's a good indication for us that that's a style or a color palette that people like and we could do more things. But yeah, I mean, if you've paid attention, we haven't done a lot of doing the same thing a second time. I think it was kind of

challenging. The pop-ups are fun, but it was very challenging for us to coordinate them while we're trying to get ready to race. So we did our first run on Thursday with the Saturday race. Didn't have one Friday when I think most people might have come to it. And then we tried to kind of scramble together something on Saturday after the race when everyone's completely not thinking about it and kind of in post-race mode. So strategically, I don't think we set up the pop-ups

the most conveniently to get the most people to come and meet us and get some of the stuff. So that's why we have leftovers, which I think is a good thing because we've had so many people ask about buying them online. So we've sent everything back to the warehouse and they'll, yeah, like these guy said they'll be up online but thanks to everyone who actually came out to the pop-ups in the ocean side it was super fun are you are you saying that it's uh it's a little difficult to have a professional race and also run a store out of your van yeah and it's hard because like if we could just have someone else do it for us that'd be great but that's not the point of them it's like people want to meet us we want to meet people but doing it the Friday before the race would

just be like a death sentence for the actual race itself I even feel like 30 Thursday was a stretch for me. It worked super well in St. George because Paula wasn't racing and that's not great, obviously, but if we could do it perfectly, one of us would be racing, one of us wouldn't be racing, and we could drive to every race and have a hangout and

an after party and yeah, it would be nice. So the real big thing that happened over the weekend, not that we got all that out of the way. At 4 p.m. after a second pop-up that was mildly successful but not really successful at all. We told people about it as it

started. So yeah, it was a little hard. Nick got in his car and drove to Las Vegas, picked up Toby his girlfriend, and... Got to Vegas at two in the morning. Went to the Grammys. Then the next day we woke up and Toby had to... We actually, like, the hotel we stayed and was not nice, so we did an early check-in for the next one so Toby could get ready.

Went to the Grammys, fully expecting to be like, all right, obviously we're not going to win. Can you back? Go back up. Nick was nominated for a Grammy. The best contemporary blues album. Nick has a song on this album as a producer. Played every single instrument. I arranged this song. I played every

instrument. I mixed and mastered this song. Yeah. Which is a lot. It's amazing. Can we tell everyone what the song is so they can go listen to? Yeah, yeah. The song is called rock and roll and the artist is, his name is Kingfish, one word. I think on Instagram it's Chris Stone Kingfish Ingram. But yeah, if you just type in Kingfish, song, song's called

Rock and Roll. You'll love it. It's a cool song. It's so good. So that song came out as a single like a year ago and then it did really well so they put it on his album as a bonus track I'm just gonna say if we all stop talking

it's because Flynn is absolutely ripping him in here and I'm on the brink of passing out this is a very small space it's a very enclosed space oh my gosh okay but anyway Nick Nick told us so I asked beforehand like what are the chances

of you winning and I think you said logistically 20% but realistically about 5%. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, technically it's 20% because there's only five nominees. Yes. The other nominees, like for people who know music, the Black Keys were one of the nominees, Joe Bonamassa. These are big names. We were definitely the least well-known name on that list. Underdog, for sure. So when they, you know, there's two Grammy ceremonies. There's the ones that's like mostly performances and a few awards. And then there's the one that's not televised on CBS. That is like all the awards that are for like the people whose lives, these are.

actually changing. It's like, you know, like best jazz album. That's not on TV, but people work really hard on that. So they named, they called us and we went up and we didn't go up. He went up. Chris, Christone went up and we were just jaw on the ground. We could not believe it. We were so stoked. We lost our absolute minds. You called us. I did. I did. I was Eric's like, did you win? I was like, I won. He's like, what? No. No, you did it. He's like, Paul, Nick won. We lost it, dude. I'm like, what did he win? You didn't win the Grammy.

Like, obviously not that. My parents too were like, wait, what? They were in Italy and they just woke up. You need to explain what this means. That's not right. But did you tell first, your parents are us? No, I told you guys first because they were sleeping. Yeah. That's amazing.

Yeah, we were totally shocked. And it was just Kingfish, his manager, who I'm really close with. And then me and Toby. That's all of it. Everyone from the album that was there. So it was a very emotional, strange, surreal kind of like, oh my God, I can't believe this is, this actually just happened. I mean, no one was more shocked in kingfish. He just turned around when it happened.

He just goes, oh, shit. And he got up out and just started walking. But he's like, I didn't even know what to say. He didn't think of anything. Zero speech prepared. Yeah. So that's awesome. So that's the story.

And then we went out and just like walked around and watched the fountains at the bellagio felt like, you know, like I was transported to a different reality. Ocean's 11. Yeah, full Ocean's 11. And then we fell asleep watching Ocean's 11 in the hotel room. Of course you did. Perfect. And then after that, the next day, woke up and drove out here to this secret location

that is like one of the most beautiful places we've ever been. And we're just camping. It's just so much solitude and natural beauty. It's like... It's so beautiful. You wonder why it's not packed with people. Yeah. Because it's a bit remote.

It's really, really far out from... It's five and a half hours from the closest city. Yeah. And we're definitely not going to tell any. of you guys where it is. Sorry. There's a lot of pictures on our Instagrams about it.

But even with those, it's really hard to know where it is. Yeah. Anyway, that's our stories. We had kind of a crazy weekend and we're still like on a high from it from different points of view. But I think we could do some questions

if you have some. I do. Paula has a laptop, so she's going to go for it. I've assembled the questions that are a little bit related to the race just to keep this whole pot on a certain theme. So if you submitted a question and I don't read it, it's because we'll answer it in a different week. Paula and Eric, I guess Nick, too, you'd probably do this.

Why do you sometimes wear one AirPods when you're on your bike? So we don't die. Please, please never wear two AirPods on your bike. Especially the AirPods Pro, it's like fully noise cancelling. Do not walk on trails with two AirPods in. Do not do anything. It's, yeah. But to be, maybe they're asking like, why do you even wear one?

Why don't you wear none? That's fair. That's fair. Because I find it, even with one, a little danger sometimes. Yeah, it's true. But I'll do intervals always with one air pod and listen to some music for a hard ride. But Eric, like, I mean, having a podcast in, it's not like blaring music in your ears. So it's, I think it's relatively safe. Just put it on the inside ear, the traffic on the outside.

I think even better if you can do it is get those like bone-conducting earphones so that your ear canal is unobstructed. Yeah. That's a good idea, too. My friend friends, he only uses them and he really likes them. I've never heard him. I've only used those kind of headphones underwater in the pool and they work really well for that. Because I'm a nerd. Yeah, we don't sound like music, but.

If I saw him alone, I would. Okay, Eric, next question is for you. Heard you mentioned Formula One in an episode. Which team are you cheering for? Are we Formula One fans or are we drive to survive fans? I don't know. At this point, what's the difference? I mean, we don't watch every single F1 race live.

We've watched none. I like watching the extended highlights. But definitely big time to drive to survive fans. I feel like, yeah, I don't know. Watching anything, we don't watch a lot of stuff on TV. It just takes up so much time so it's hard to get into. Like, fully being sports, true sports fan level. It's been a roller coaster trying to decide who's.

who's the good guy and who I want to. Is Red Bull the bad guy? No. No. No. Is Mercedes the bad guy? No. I don't think anyone's the bad.

They're just different, you know. I just really like Haas racing. I think I like McLaren. McLaren? Yeah, I really want McLaren. And we're talking about the personalities, right? Like, that's who you fall in love with. The personalities of the team, like, directors and the personalities of the race car drivers.

Team principals. Yeah, like, where the team's been and what they're trying to, where they're trying to get to and everything. And I think I definitely identify more with the people who are like in, you know, constantly in third or fourth position trying to get to the top step versus the people who are, yeah. Yeah.

Have been there and are just defending it, you know. And that's why Drives to Survive is such a cool show because you really become in touch with the personalities more than just watching the races. Top to bottom. From the last person on the grid to the top step, they do a really good job of showing the whole dynamic. I don't know if it's just a triathlet thing or if it's an athlete thing, but There seems to be a crazy crossover between triathletes and Formula One and Drive to Survive.

I think just a lot of the country has gotten into Drive's Reservid. That's what I'm not getting. It's like the number two documentary on Netflix. Okay, okay, okay, got it. It's kind of, I think it really has revived Formula One fan base. Certainly be sure. People that don't even know. The subreddit for Formula One now is like constantly on the front page because of, I think, because of the show.

Like even everyone's parents are fans. Yeah. Next question. Nick, do you have a favorite instrument? I'm curious to hear about how you got into music. Oh, yeah. Well, I got into music because I think I heard Elvis Presley like singing on the radio, and I sound like a lot of girls like to.

I heard a lot of cheering from women, and I was like, wait a second. Is that going to work for me? Music. So I'm going to be music. I think it did start from that. But now when I look back, I was kind of like the, I was, I think I was cut out for it. I don't think I was necessarily talented for it, but I was cut out for loving it.

And so my first instrument, my mom wanted me to play piano before anything else. So I started the piano and I think just lessons and folk, a lot of piano lessons at the beginning focused a lot on playing classical music. And I think that's a big mistake. I think kids should learn what chords do and how they feel, because that's the music they're listening to. And then they can kind of like make their own music and then, sure, you learn the classical stuff. Then I got into guitar.

I got really into guitar. Guitar was my main instrument is what I went to college for. but now my main instrument I play a lot of different instruments I'm back to the piano because as a producer it allows you to actually play a lot of different instruments

a lot of people who don't know this but the music you hear a lot of those instruments aren't live recorded instruments they're played on a keyboard and then they were made to sound like other instruments like a violin or a drum set

or a bass guitar so it's really important to be good at keyboard and even now piano is still my favorite instrument to play I think it is more than guitar More than guitar. I still play a ton of guitar and I love it, but the piano is, I don't know, there's something, you can be much more complex with piano. Yeah. You can play ten notes a month. Yeah. It's really, the guitar, the way the strings are laid out, it's very hard to play certain things because they overlap in funny ways, whereas the piano, every single note is right there laid out in front of you.

So it's very visual, you know. That's why if you're really good at any instrument, usually you can play piano pretty well if you understand the way music works. Yeah. It's a good way to start. too. Nick, did you know that I could play the piano? I've seen a video. You sent me a video and it's, people, you would be shocked at how good she is at it. Like, it very much sounds like you took some kind of lessons or something, right? Yeah, took piano.

Yeah, and, like, your technical skills are pretty impressive for someone who obviously doesn't play much. You guys don't even have one at home. Don't even, well, like, my mom has piano. She's very good at me. Yeah, but I mean, in Ben. Yeah, I don't. No, you sound like someone. I can play two songs, that's it.

You sound like someone that really plays, so I'm impressed. And Eric plays a tiny bit of guitar, too. Just enough to wear the ladies. Very, very tiny. Very, very tiny. That was a trumpet was my instrument. Oh, nice. Cool.

Well, yeah, thanks for that. Next one. Do you have any pre-race rituals to get yourself in the right headspace? Well, I can say that the last two races have been out with Eric, I brought him ice cream the night of the race, and then both times worked pretty well. So I think that's a pre-race ritual. Yeah, our race ritual is to bring Nick to us to the races now. I don't know if it goes.

I don't know if it makes you guys do any better, but it's fun. It does. We have fun. It does. I think something I learned in this race specifically, potentially, is that I need to, like, do a little more downtime before the race. There were very few times in the week leading in that I was, like, in bed, horizontal, watching Netflix.

For some reason, it just felt like it got busy, and I tell myself this every time, and somehow race weeks just get so busy. Well, there's a lot of stuff. There was stuff that, some of that stuff was under your control. to pop up, right? Yeah, but that was our decision. Yeah. But a lot of the stuff isn't.

Like, I was with you guys. You had media stuff and you had to go to the, see people. You got to see sponsors. Taking all that into account. But I think things like trying to find a battery for power meters, like that's all stuff that kind of happens at the first race of the year. And now that we have all that sorted, it's hopefully going to be smoother going forward. So spend as much time horizontal as you can.

Next one. There's two left. favorite and least favorite dog toy of Flens. Oh, boy. I'll tell you what's not my favorite. The logs he's finding in the river here and bringing over to a soaking wet. Yes, least favorite. I don't think I have a favorite, but I do have a least favorite.

Everything that squeaks is the least favorite. Eric, care to answer? My favorite would be the Frisbee. He's so fun at the Frisbee. The Frisbee is a game for me, too. trying to throw it just perfectly so that he can catch it out of the air, but not be too far. And that's like the most interactive, I guess, and like bonding of his toys. Eric is really, Eric isn't like 10 out of 10 annoyed with Flynn at the moment.

So sense the tone. I mean, let's talk about Flynn's activity today. We woke up and he sprinted around here with a checkout for an hour. Then after that, we went for a run for an hour. And by the way, at no point is he, like, like that's enough. He's like, please, please, I haven't run in years. And so we do that. Then we come back in the year. Hold on. The run was total garbage, not even a real run, because he hurt his paw. We had to sit with him in the snow for 20 minutes

trying to get his paw to stop bleeding. So he ruined the run. Ruin the morning. And then we came back here and he was ready to go again. It's like just whining and squeaking because we would not throw a stick for him after an entire morning of activity. He's out of sorts. If we're in band, he's better. It's really just, I told Nick, it's really just like anything that is too much of anything.

I love Flynn, he's a great dog, but like when you can't get away from him at all like 24 hours a day, you can get tired of anything. Yeah, totally. Okay, on that, happy note. Next question. And last question of this series, maybe

last question of the pod. Yeah, we can make it last question. Any YouTube channels you recommend. getting into the technical side of bikes, building parts, etc. Have you ever, I don't know if you watch YouTube videos for that because you're pretty technically... I watch a lot. I mean, if you're watching, if you're trying to build SRAM stuff, SRAM's YouTube channel is basically about how to do literally anything on SRAM parts. I think the Park Tool YouTube channel is really, really, really, really good.

The only thing I'll say is that they are very generous with what tools of theirs you need to do certain jobs that you don't necessarily need, but they break it down really, really, really simple and I feel like they often point out common mistakes, which is something that a lot of other walkthroughs do not do. I don't think they assume that you know anything. And it's helped me through some bike tech stuff. So yeah, the park tool YouTube. Okay, next question. Hey, Paula, Eric and Nick. It was so fun sharing you both on from Canada this weekend and a shout out to Nick for the instant updates.

Watching TTL and listening to the pod is a fun couple's activity, my partner and I do together each week. We have, we both run and bike, but have yet to get into swimming. Sam. Don't fault you for that. Paula and Eric, do the results of this race change anything for you as you continue training for this season?

For me, the biggest thing will be continuing to try to dial in exactly what like foam rolling, self-AR-T work, strength kind of cues will help me to make sure that I always have a good, feel good on the bike because I feel like my bike performance

was more of an issue of tightness and I don't want to necessarily even say bike fit, but my bike workouts leading into it were phenomenal and I don't feel like I expressed fitness very well, but then I had a great run. So it seems like my body was doing okay, but a bike-specific

feeling issue and figuring out how to make, try to get as consistent as possible with that. But it's not like Lionel is going to fire your coach, new bike, running shoes. No, I'm using the exact same bike fit, same exact bike because I had last year when I felt great in Oceanside and felt great at 70.3 St. George in the world. So I don't have, haven't lost confidence in that or anything, but I definitely, my body just goes

through weird phases where I'll just get really stiff for a week. And when it happens on race week, it's, it's frustrating and trying to figure out how I can, you know, reverse that cycle a bit. Yeah. I think it's easy after a race that doesn't go well that you don't win to want to change absolutely everything and I've gone through that phase the day of the race I was like oh I'm doing this I'm doing this I'm doing this this can not happen again but I think realistically is you kind of just have to stay on the right path and maybe focusing on a little bit more on like doing less

extracurricular stuff and you know being a little more diligent with strength and getting massages and eating a little healthier and all that that kind of naturally gets more focused as the season progresses, and we've approached Oceanside as a really early season race, so therefore we've allowed ourselves some opportunities to go skiing and just do some things that are more fun and knowing that it's a long season ahead. So I think not much can drastically change aside from maybe just getting a little bit more focused on things like Eric said, strength and all of that. And for me personally, I think I realized that a lot of the races I had planned,

like some of the shorter distance Olympic distance races maybe will need to come off my schedule just so I can totally focus on the PTO races in the summer and on World Championships and Chattanooga 70.3 and just the races that really matter for getting PTO points, getting bonuses, like making a living and not making myself tired like traveling a bunch for Olympic distance races that aren't quite as important to me. But that's kind of like TBD. Sometimes I wonder if it's not even about like, oh, you know, I didn't have the best day I had, but it's that. I mean, I guess that is part of it. But it also is like, some people just had really good days too, right? Yeah. You could have had a really good day too. I mean, Paula, you still like, I mean, let's, Danielle Reeve is like, you know, that name is ubiquitous with excellence and she didn't have a great day. Same with Heather Jackson. Totally. You know, she also didn't have the day that she wanted to have. It's like. It happens to it happens. Yeah, it happens. Even if you're the best in the world. Yeah. And you can't just go back to the drawing board every time it happens. No, of course. No. Of course not.

Although, I don't know. Lionel seems to do that and somehow he still keeps coming back. I think Lionel's on a good path right now. He's on a really good path. He's sticking with McColl. It seems to be working really well for him. Yeah. He's in a good spot. Next one's for Nick, and you kind of touched on this already. But from your photos, it looked like you were right at the finish line. What was like seeing Lionel and Rudy sprint to the finish? It was freaking amazing. I couldn't believe I was there to get that.

It was really, I mean, I think that. The pictures I took you to do a good job by capturing it, but you just don't expect that at the end of a 70.3, that, like, they were absolutely bleeding from their eyeballs when they crossed that line. So you were looking at it through a lens? Like, were you looking in the tiny little square on the camera? Yeah, yeah. So is that, like, different?

I can't remember now. Because at first I was looking at them, I was like, oh, my. It kind of clicked in a second. Like, I'm at the finish line at a very, very, this finish is going to be well-known for a long time. Yeah. I was like, okay, I have to like fully concentrate and get these photos. Because there's one aspect of like, you're a fan of the sport and you want to watch it. And then there's the other part which is like thrown onto you all of a sudden and like, oh, I'm like working here sort of.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a photographer, which you're not used to. No, I'm not at all. So if it were me, I would have like forgotten to take a picture probably. You also were not being paid. No, no. Like if you didn't get the picture, it would have been okay. It would have been okay. It would have been okay.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Eric Windows was just being really nice. But yeah, it was crazy. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have been there for that moment. It was, I definitely didn't do enough to earn that. Yeah, you have. Well, I felt very lucky to be there, and I'm glad the camera cooperated. It was Eric's camera.

The pictures are so cool. Yeah, I think you're as talented as photographer as anybody who was standing behind there. Well, thanks, I think at that moment it was less about being a photographer and more about, like, emotionally figuring out what the right thing to do was. That's photography. Yeah, it's true. Like, when they were on the ground. That's the most important part.

All the other photographers were just like not, they were just like ready for the next guy. Yeah. And I'm like, this is like a moment. Because the next guy was Alasher. Yeah. This is like, this is a moment right here. And I squatted down and got down to their level. And like, to me, actually pictures more special than the actual, like, finishing pictures.

Go look at next Instagram if you want to see his most liked ever post. It's true. It's true. Over thousand likes at this point, which has never ever happened. Yeah, big. Also, everyone just go. follow Nick, which you probably do already. I think it's already happened.

Yeah, I think it's going to happen. My followers since this podcast has started to have skyrocketed it. Okay, and the last question, which Eric will roll. This is the fifth last question. This is the last, last, last question. This is a five-part last question. No, this is a fun one to finish on, although Eric will disagree. Okay.

For everyone to answer, if Flynn was a human, what would he do for a living? Door to door. Yeah, door to door salesman or something Yeah, yeah Maximum amount of running Male delivery man I don't know

That's a good question Like who would Who what human Best represents Flynn Telemarketer He's just like Three second attention span I'm just like

I want to go now Now now no now He's just always on the go Yeah He's really just He's like a two year old He's like a toddler or something It's

It's What was that? Oh, the grumble. He knows. He knows we're talking about him. He's like, you guys suck. I am not a telemarketer. If anyone heard that, it wasn't an earthquake.

It was Flynn on the ground that just let out a big moan or a snore. I don't know what that was. Oh, we don't have a good answer for it. If anyone has an answer for us, send it to me on the email. Anyway, we are, like, as we said in the beginning, we are, We feel great. We feel very lucky to be in this exact position at this exact time. We're in this amazing place. And we finally got to record our first podcast together in the same, I don't want to say room, in the same van. The same van. And if it's not like our best podcast ever is because

it's 10 p.m. We're a little tired. It's my favorite podcast that we're because we're finally in person. But yeah, the auto quality might be a little different, but I still think it was. It's probably just going to feel super raw and organic. That's great. And real. That's what we want. Yeah. hope so. But as always, send your questions into that tariff on life brand at gmail.com. We'll get back to a more normal episode next week. Thanks for listening to our recaps. Thanks for everyone for everyone who sent us messages, everyone who sent us messages. Congratulations again to Nick.

Thank you. You're the man. We are so impressed. We are honored that you're in this van with us after getting a Grammy. Inspired to do better at our jobs. Oh, please. That's my honor. Cool. Thanks for listening, guys. Thanks, everybody. See ya.