That Triathlon Life Podcast - Our favorite Frankenstein Triathlon, draft legal racing for young-ins, sports psychologists, heat acclimation, cake or pie, and more!

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

Back to our usual selves, Eric answers some questions in our segment "Bike Tech with Eric", we touch on how That Triathlon Life started, and then move onto questions sent it by TTL Nation. Clip on bars or full TT setup? Pedicure or tinkering? Cake or pie? Head to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey, everyone, welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. Eric and I are pro-traathletes. Nick is a pro-musician, amateur triathlete, and we're here to answer all of the questions we've accumulated this week, which is a lot. Well, I have a question right off the bat. Beyond or Impossible, meat. Is this a rapid fire? I thought we already went over this. It's not a rapid fire. We're just warming up. We talked about it in private, and I don't

think we came to a conclusion. Oh, well, no, it's funny. We actually had Beyond Burgers just now for dinner. And I would say Beyond probably, but I don't even know why we like them. I like meat burgers better. I think the big thing is just if you're going for something that is the closest representation of meat, I think the... Beyond. I feel like the Beyond is just like a really good flavor and it does not make me think of meat.

I just like it for what it is. And the whatever the other option is, kind of is a little bit more, I think they tried to imitate meat. That's my feeling. Wait, which is the one that when you cook it, like it's pink like meat and then it browns like meat? Only one of them does that, right? Beyond. Beyond does that. I see.

But we're not vegetarians. I think we just started eating them to try them and they just like come in a chew pack and safe way and they're an easy dinner to have. Legitimately, I mean, I love the beyond ones. Me too. I like them a lot. So we don't just talk about burgers. Eric, something I wanted to talk about before, we haven't really talked about, is how the brand that, triathlon life started. Like, what was it born out of? Where did the idea start? Why was it created?

Did you and Paul create it together or was it originally just your idea? I'd say it's kind of like the continuation of just a feeling that I've had for a long time of wanting to bring a lot of excitement to the sport. Like I watched a lot of like snowboard and surfing films growing up and and like the excitement and the energy that I got out of those. I wanted to try to bring that into triathlon and hopefully get new people. excited about the sport, but just kind of like communicate the energy that I feel when I go out on bike rides. So that's like where the media side of it came from. But as far as turning into a real brand, that that certainly didn't happen until Paula came along. And there was more to it than

just me making movies about myself. I didn't have anything to do with calling it that trathlon life. At first, I thought it was so dumb. Still think it's a bit silly. I honestly thought it was dumb when I came up with it too. But it kind of stuck. I was like, oh, of course it's called that trathlon life. But we reached out on Instagram because after doing several vlogs, we thought maybe we should have a logo more for the intro of the YouTube videos, less to put on clothing. That was never really the intention. So we just kind of called out on Instagram.

Does anyone have a background in designing logos? Does anyone have any interest in helping us with this? And like a miracle that Ralph Dunning reached out to us, who is just a pioneer in the everything, I don't know. Branding, exactly. Branding, exactly. He was the guy who said that Sorvello should put the E, like on the head tube and on the down tube. Yeah, he was, that was him.

Sorvello hired him to, like, do a full rebrand for them around, like, the CSC days. And I guess he'd been watching some of our blogs and said he'd help with our logo, which is amazing. Am I crazy? Is he not the Foreign Rider guy? Yeah. Yes. Same guy. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, he's Jesus. So his brand is Foreign Rider. If you're listening to this, you should look that up. He is based out of Toronto. and all of his clothing is what we aspire to create. And basically he kind of pushed us to make it into a full-blown brand. Like a couple of people had asked if, you know, if we were ever going to make a T-shirt or something like that.

But we just wanted to have a pro look for the YouTube. And he, like, really talked me and I eventually talked to Paula. And anyway, he convinced us, like, this is a real thing. This should be an actual brand. Like, people identify with this and it's got power. which was awesome to hear, a good confirmation of what we were kind of headed in the direction that I was dreaming or hoping. That's funny, because you say that, like, you know, the idea was yours originally and Paula. You're like, you just kind of came in.

But now, like, Eric tells me straight up, he's like, basically if Paula wears it, I know it's good. But if she doesn't, I know no one's going to like it. Paula is the litmus test for all the clothing. She knows what works and what doesn't work. To a certain extent, yeah. I think a lot of triathletes have a different style than I have. I'm a little more subtle and cool colors, but the other end of the spectrum is really bright, big logos.

Yeah, that's true. Actually, most of triathlon seems to be bright, busy, big logos, right? Yeah, so we have to find a gentle balance of the two. Yeah, good question, though. Nice. Yeah. No, it's an ever-evolving thing, man. It's really, it's super fun.

Even the stuff that you guys like teased today on Instagram for Ocean side that's like the specific stuff that's only going to be like do you think you're only going to sell it at ocean side you think you might also sell it on the site yeah we got really limited numbers of them but i guess if we have extras we'll put them on the site yeah cool yeah i think we only have um don't tell the numbers okay well not a ton 10 you better be there we have five shirts so be there um that's great well eric today also texted me with the workout that he did I'm assuming you guys both did it. You guys swam,

biked and ran today? Yeah, real hard for a big day. If we just lose our train of thought at any point, that's why. That's great. That's great. And Nick, you're racing the L.A. Marathon next weekend. Yeah, it'll be my first time not walking a marathon. My PR is eight hours.

You told me your goal was under 345, and I think you're going to run closer to three hours. Oh, well, I'm not going to run closer to three hours because I won't even let myself run that. Unless maybe at the last like 10K, really like, wow, I screwed up, I should have gotten harder. We'll see. Yeah.

I'm going to put in a surge and go from 3.30 to 3-hour marathon. Yeah, I'll just be running five-minute miles the rest of the way, just screaming. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I have a lot of friends doing it. Really, I'd just like to be able to run the whole thing. Right now, it's just to get a marathon under my belt before trying to do it at the end of an Iron Man. Yeah. Just to remember what that feels like.

Just to see how much it sucks. It sucks. It's going to suck. It's going to be terrible. No, I'm really looking forward to it. I think it'll be great. And the weather's looking to be really, really good for it. Did you want to know about our workout?

Yeah, well, you did. Before Paula, just, like, quickly. You did text it to me, and I thought it was a typo. So why don't you tell us what you did? We started off the day. We did a swim. It was about a 4,500 meter swim, and it was 10-200s. We do short-course meters.

And the leaving time was 250. I was coming in around 220 and then we I don't know what Paula was doing. I was coming in under 230 but it was really unfair because when he puts leaving times Eric gets 10 seconds extra rest than me. Right of course. It's a completely different set.

It is a different set. So I'm working harder. Yeah, you are. Who knows though? Was it am I getting 10 seconds more rest? Yeah, I would say. Paula getting 10 seconds less rest. Who is it designed for? We should just go straight in the middle. Paulo's just trying to torture you guys.

Yeah. Yeah. And then we took a little bit of a break, just like had some bagels or whatever, and then we had this real rough bike workout. It actually went pretty well. Four by eight minutes with two minutes rest. Very hard. Yeah, well above 70.3 pace. Oh, no. My goal pace. Oh, really? They were above my actual 70.3 pace. I'll say that. The watts that Eric said me were definitely above his 70.3 pace. Yeah. I was crazy. I was too. I was.

went 285 on all of them. Yeah, that's, I mean, you're awesome, Paula. You're not holding 285 for a 70.3. I'm not confident. There are quite a few guys who would be pretty happy if they held that for 70. Yes, definitely, definitely. That's right. And then what about the run?

Just a chill run, 45 minutes. We took Chimmy, Lindsay Corbyn's dog, and Flynn. We did VO2 lactate testing last Friday, which was really interesting. I've actually never done a V-O-2 max test before in all of my years of being approached. You've never did. Like Canada didn't even make you do one for the Olympics and stuff? If you're just crushing everything, they're just like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. They just leave you alone.

No, so anyway, that's why our numbers were so high, because based on our power, our lactate results and all of those things, our coach gave us now very specific zones or wattages to hit. So, like, having good tests means that now our training is harder, which is good and bad, I guess. that's why the targets were so insane. Is that kind of daunting, though, when you're like, wait a second, I felt like I was working hard before, and now you're telling me all my training zones were too low? Like, I'm supposed to be working harder? Or were you like, oh, no, this is great.

I'm stoked. I get to work harder. It's not, like, astronomically higher than what I used to do, but Palo never really gave us ranges before. He would just say solid. And in my mind, I'm like, okay, if I hit 250 to C60, that's pretty good. But I would always, like, actually do 280. And I felt good about myself. So now I'm like, oh, I have to do 280.

That's on the schedule. Right. It's more realistic. I don't know. But it also doesn't leave any room for feeling bad and having like a bad workout, quote unquote. Right. Because before you could have a bad workout but still meet the demands, whereas now a bad workout is below what you're supposed to do. Right.

Cool. Well, I think we'll move on to before we do questions, I want to do a little bike tech with Eric. Bike Tech with Eric Yes Timely because he's building my bikes right now Oh my gosh People don't even realize I've seen some of the photos

And some of the footage That bike is crazy cool That frame is one of the most beautiful Colorways I've seen Yeah I know I can't wait to Can't wait to post about it Slash ride it Right

Well the first one I had for you Eric I had five little questions for you The first one was saddle angle flat nose up nose down do you feel like there is a right and wrong way is it fully just preference I feel like one of those might be wrong

but but you just tell me honestly I don't think anyone is wrong it just depends on the person there's like a school of thought that having the saddle a little bit nose up allows you to like really relax your hips a bit and you're in your core because you're not feeling like you're sliding off the front you have less weight

on your hands on the bars and you can actually, you know, like, keep more weight on your saddle, unweight the handlebars. And then just a lot of people feel like they need to go nose down just for like pressure relief in the front there. But like I said, with the last thing, you know, the converse, the flip side of that is you are putting a lot of weight on your elbows, which isn't always good.

And you got to scoot back and stuff too to compensate. Yeah, yeah. Like if you look at my saddle, like the front on the TT saddle is very level, but then the back swoops up a little bit, which is I think that's probably where most people should end up, but like 0.5 degrees one way or another can make a big difference in terms of feel and everything. So something kind of to play around with. And Paula, what about you? Do you know if your saddle is like level or pointed in either direction? I think it's a little bit nose down, but I don't know. Yeah. Because I have a cyclone bag that you don't have to take the seat or anything off, I just, it's always there. Like leave it how it is. Although last year before Daytona, I was messing around with it so much. It was crazy. Remember, I'd be like in the middle of a workout, and I'd be like, Eric, I need my saddle tilted down. I kept on it again tilted down more.

So, I don't know. It definitely is a feel thing. You just have to do what's comfortable. Yeah. If you've been riding bikes for quite a while and you get your fit as close as you can, but then you go out on the actual road and something feels a little bit weird, like moving the angle of the saddle or raising the saddle, like go millimeters at a time and remember what you did, like have a mark. I don't think it's necessarily the worst thing to like dial in a little bit. feel on the road. Yeah, I agree. Right. Cool. Okay, next is, how often should people be looming their chain? Once every year, right? That's what I do.

That's what Lindsay does, too. Yeah, good. Me and Lindsay are perfect. Sounds like an 18-wheeler's coming down the road. Lindsay does listen to this, but that wasn't supposed to be mean. But she should oil her gravel bike chain. No, I mean, that is, like, we will, I think depending on how attached you are to a bike, the more you lube it or don't loob it.

So if it's like your tarmac, your super high-end, like top-of-the-line favorite bike, you have a, that's what you have, no, you have a Venge, Nick. I have a Venge, yeah. You're probably going to lube it, like, twice on a ride.

But if it's, you know, if it's your mountain bike. Lube in the Jersey pocket. Yeah, if you just got your mountain bike off Craigslist, you probably care a little bit less. But, I mean, ideally, especially if it's wet

or anything like that, just like kind of get in the habit of wiping it down before each ride and putting a little bit more on. It should never be dripping or anything like that, but I just, I think doing it every ride, just a little bit doesn't. A free ride, oh, I thought you were kidding. Oh, I, I, okay, well, again, this is totally, totally conditioned dependent. Like, you live in a fake place that has no

dirt or wet or anything, but when we go ride, there's always dirt on the road and we ride on dirt roads or it's raining a little bit. So, yeah, if you can hear it, it's too late. I'll often do it before a hard workout, like an important ride. Yes, right, got it. Like, oh, everything has to be dialed for this ride. Loob the chain, pump the tires, all that. And then how often should people be degreasing their drive train, do you think, Eric? Like, putting the degreaser on there, brushing it off, hosing it down, cleaning it off.

A few weeks? Like, I mean, whatever your threshold for that is, I guess. Every few weeks, you're like putting degracer on your chain every few weeks. I mean, I'm not, I'd say, like, he's not, I'd say once a month. Wow.

I spray it with degreaser. Right. So just like some WDD 40 degrees or stuff. So I'll spray it really well with that and like, wipe, wipe, wipe. But I'm not like getting out of toothbrush. I'm not doing that. I'm not pulling the chain off the bike.

Yeah, cool. Wow, that's still a lot. You guys really do take really good care of those bikes. I just, I just think it gets a lot dirtier here, man. That's all. Yeah. You know, like when I was in California,

probably never. I'm doing it like once every, six months or once a year. But I'm doing like a full, clean with it. Yeah. I honestly think that's still totally fine. As long as you're really wiping down the chain well. Just when you do the lube process.

Okay, cool. Typically you want to like lube the chain and then wipe off access and some grease, dirt will come off with it, you know. Okay, cool. And then I'll save this other one for another day because it's a long conversation. But I do have one quick question for you guys. Neither of you have those oversized jockey wheels.

Do you think that's worth it? Is it just blingy or what do you think? Blingy? When you spin them, there is a noticeable difference between those and like a bushing jockey wheel. And I've had them before. I had some ceramic speeds like four years ago. I don't, unfortunately, I don't think they're worth $300, $400, $500 or whatever it is. Who knows what they claim.

Yeah. If money is no object, they look pretty cool and go for it. Why not? but I think you're way better off to really upgrade and have the best tires you can. You can get like five, six, seven watts out of really nice tires. Right. Right. Cool. Well, unless you guys have anything else, I think we can move on to the questions, right?

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. So once again, you can send questions into that triathlon life brand at gmail.com. Okay, so the first question is, hey, Paula, Eric and Nick, if you could choose swim, bike, run segments from 70.3 races, what would be your dream favorite 70.3 triathlon? So he's saying, like, you can pick any swim from any race, any bike from any race, and any rum from any race, and kind of Frankenstein them together.

Sweet. Wow. That was a great question. None. Just kidding. I mean, I would vote for that swim from couples try. That was a great swim. That was good.

Yeah. I did like that, so I'm very flat. But he's talking about 70.3 races that people would maybe know. I really like the ocean side swim because you get to go out into the waves and it breaks it up a lot at first. But then you swim back in the bay so you don't have to go into the waves and take advantage of like the currents coming in, which is sometimes really hard to nail. So oceanside swim. Yeah, so basically you get the sucky part of swimming in the ocean and none of the fun part.

Of riding the waves and right. Yeah. If we could just reverse that, it would be great. I'd love to go out in a lake and come in in Hawaii. Yeah. So, yeah, can we use the first half of one 70.3 and the second half of another 70.3 swim? No, I would agree. That's pretty fun.

Oceanside's a fun swim. Bike, I would pick St. George and run. I would pick Santa Cruz. Oh, that's great. Oh, the Santa Cruz run is so good, yeah. How about you are? Because you do part of it on the road, then you go into the bluffs, and it's on trail. It's so beautiful.

I did a workout with you guys on those trails. Yeah. That was really fun. I honestly also really like the Oceanside bike. Like it's kind of a toss-up for me between the Oceanside and the St. George bike. Oh, the Montchon Blonde bike's pretty cool too. But probably Oceanside just for like total, it is a lot of different stuff. You're riding by the ocean and you ride inland and then you're doing rolling hills and it's kind of got a little bit of everything.

some wind to deal with. You're not going to get bored. Yeah, that's fun. And what about the run, Eric? No, yeah, I totally agree with the Santa Cruz run. Santa Cruz run. For sure. Nick, have you done enough races to be able to answer?

I don't think so. I was going to say, for the swim, Santa Cruz, because you go around the pier, and then for the bike, St. George, because it's so, I mean, so beautiful. It's not just, people just see Snow Canyon, but there's a lot of it that's really beautiful. and then for the run I would say I would say Santa Cruz as well but I've only also done like Santa Rosa and Indian Wells

like I haven't done that many other races yeah I did like the Santa Rosa run actually that was all on path It was it just wasn't very scenic No but it's good for the joints The original Santa Rosa Good for the old joint The Vine Man course that was supposed to be

legendary. Right. I'll never get to do that now. Fun question. Yeah. And then this person who is unnamed, but also said, have you ever worked with a sports psychologist before or have you ever felt the need to? Yeah, I did work with one back when I was kind of on like the Canadian national team. And there's a whole support staff that surrounds you when you're in that environment. So a physio, a sports psychologist, a coach. And so we'd have like weekly meetings. And it was moderately helpful, I think. I think an important aspect of that is really liking your sports psychologist and trusting them and not just being, not that it was forced upon me, but it's not like I picked who I was working with and had a really good relationship with them necessarily. But I know a lot of athletes who

have benefited enormously from working with someone that they really trust, really like, and it doesn't have to be in person. It can be over Zoom or over phone calls. I do think it can be a super critical part. I feel like I'm lucky to have like Eric and my mom and Nick and friends that I really trust that I can talk to about things. But it just takes it one step further if you want to keep sort of like life and sport a little more separate and need help with specific things. Yeah, I've never worked with a sports psychologist before, but I've worked with just a regular straight up psychologist.

And the biggest thing that I got out of that was just like a mindfulness and being able to take a step back and think, okay, why am I thinking this? Where is that coming from? and you don't want to have that mental process every single day but being able to check in with yourself and take a step back is I think really important. I was just talking to my girlfriend about this earlier, how a good therapist, they don't necessarily just like, okay, here's the fix to your problems or just, or stop doing this or start doing this.

It's more bringing certain attention and awareness to certain things. And I would imagine a good sports psychologist does the same thing, right? It brings awareness to certain things and makes you aware of certain like maybe self-destructive tendencies that you have. And then it's still up to you to take steps to fix them. It's not like they just give you the answer and you run away with it or anything. Yeah.

Yeah, I think ideally that's like a guided meditation almost and you're having the realizations for yourself and it's much more powerful that way than someone saying, this is wrong, fix this. You know, if they can show you the way and you have that realization yourself of, oh man, I just really get worked up for no reason or whatever, then that's going to stick and be more powerful.

Well, he has one more question, or she has one more question. Have you ever witnessed other pros self-sabotage themselves? Examples, but not limited to parting days before a big race. So they internally have an excuse as to why they didn't perform well. Yes. Like I was thinking of Paula, like changing her seat a bunch, and I was like, I was like, oh, I reminded me of this question because I had just read it earlier. I was trying to self-sabotage myself.

I didn't even, that was like, COVID-times. You ended up winning the race, so. I've never seen it with anybody partying just to use your example but we see people all the time that'll look like oh I just you know they go for a four hour bike ride two days before 70.3

And you're like What are you doing? I can already see the Instagram like post right now oh not the day I was hoping for but you know I'm in a big build and I did a four hour ride two days just like

just don't go to the race if you don't want to. It happens a lot. It happens a lot. Yeah I don't really hear either of you ever make excuses Not into it. Yeah, especially you, Eric, I feel like

something I really, really like about you is like you won't be on the podium and you'll still tell me that you feel like you had a really good race for whatever reason because you're looking for the positives and you're like, this is something I've been working on and I did a really good job at it today. Yeah, Eric's good at that.

And even like in Santa, in Oceanside last time, you know, when you had that kind of gnarly crash, I remember like the first thing you were telling, It was like, I was feeling so good. Like, it's a really good sign for my fitness. And I was like, this guy is so positive. I love it. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to it, you know?

One thing that, like, bothers me for sure is when somebody goes and gets third, and then they make an entire post about how they, oh, it's not the day. And all they're just, we're pushing training watts and, oh, you know, and it's like, how many people are never going to make it on a podium? And that's all they've ever dreamed of. And, like, why do you think that you should win every race by 10 minutes? and like there's got to be something that went right here you know yeah um totally so i just yeah i just there's there's there's always something positive and of course you want to do better but to always

act like you should have just destroyed everyone and i don't know why i didn't it's like i wonder if it's just part of the mindset that it takes to be a professional athlete is that like is you never good enough like the only thing you like more than winning is not losing like you just everything, everything is just, no, it's not enough, not enough, not enough. Because any normal person's like, okay, this is enough. Like, I don't need to suffer more than this. For what reason? Like, why am I making myself do this?

And I think the kind of personalities that do that, they are kind of like, they never stop. Yeah. Sure. But I don't know. I don't really necessarily think you need to, like, bring that out into the open and dwell on that super hard. And there's so many people out there that are just doing it for fun and trying to get to the finish line in the age group field and everything. and to like just perpetuate that cycle of never being satisfied with you know she's like hey you got to go and do triathlon all day long on the weekend and you're probably getting paid

to do it like how bad is life i just think you got to remember that people don't expect you to win everything you know like they're just they're excited for you and if you tell them you had a good race and you're excited for it they're gonna fuck yeah awesome he's excited about it you know but if if if you win world championships and say you're disappointed they'll be disappointed with you Yeah, no, that's exactly right. You're setting the kind of character that you are and the expectation of who you are after races when you say those kind of things.

Okay, next question is from Tim Dickerson. He says, I'm an age grouper who just so happens to have registered for Iron Man St. George prior to it becoming the 2021 World Championship. I guess he means, oh, it is 2021, right? Yeah, because there was no 2021 World Championship. I raced a 70.3 in 2019

and struggled to a great deal in Snow Canyon on the bike and on Red Hills Parkway on the run. Mainly the heat hit me the hardest, being from Spokane, Washington, getting access to dry intense heat can be tough without traveling to the desert south. What are your suggestions for preparing for the intense sun and the heat of the St. George course? The week of the race suggestions, do you have any race day suggestions for the heat, i.e. clothing, fueling, et.

And also says, though you may not be racing, will TTL be in St. George for the World Championship race? Probably not. But I do have a good answer to the question. I'd say if you live in Spokane and you're racing St. George in May, you could start a heat protocol, like a prep right now. And that usually includes right after your last session of the day or one of your sessions in the day, go into a sauna and increase the amount of time you spend in there,

just to get your sweat response going and to get used to that kind of heat. If you don't do any heat prep at all and you go into St. George and it's a really hot day, that's going to be hard. That's what happens to me. And I think St. George in May could be not hot. Like, historically, it's kind of unpredictable. So it's good to be prepared for anything. And I would say there's nothing really race week you could do to prepare for the heat.

In fact, you should probably stay out of the heat as much as you can race week. Don't go like try to hang out in the sun to acclimate in the week of. That's great advice. That's really good advice. Because some people may mistakenly think, oh, finally it'll get used to the heat. That's too late. It's too late at that point. You're just going to dehydrate yourself.

Yeah. It really does start. five weeks out, I think, the heat prep. And it's, it's not a ton. If you don't have access to a sauna, you can, like, do it at your gym or you could even do a hot tub protocol. We've done that before, where you'll go sit in a hot tub right up to your ears for 20 to 30 minutes after hard sessions, and it's super uncomfortable. I don't know if it's on the internet, but there's also a protocol that was used before Beijing where you, like, sit in your bathroom with a shower on, basically, and just ride at, like, a very easy power output on your trainer.

Yeah, Eric's done that. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I'm sure it's published on the internet. Simon Whitfield did it and everything. It's a few years old, but it's effective. It's like a poor man sauna. You just make your own sauna. Yeah, the smaller the bathroom, just turn on the shower

and get it super steamy in there and just sit and kind of like spin. Yeah, just as an anecdote, I did St. George 70.3, and I felt fine on the swim. I felt great on the swim. I felt great on the bike and did really well. and then halfway through the run, I just started getting lightheaded and not feeling great at all.

And I had done no heat prep for it at all. It was just a little too hot for me. And you guys were done way earlier, obviously. Yeah, and that's the benefit of the pros. Well, it's the benefit of the 70.3 over the full. That too. Everyone's going to be in heat if it's hot in St. George and May this year. Oh, yeah.

Like, there's no avoiding the heat. Yeah. In terms of on-course things, is just cooling with ice as much as you can. and if it's hot, I'm sure they'll have ice on course. And electrolytes on the bike, like just anticipating the heat that's going to come later, if it's not hot right first thing in the morning when you start the bike. It's a long day and the temperature is going to change.

So just, you know, get prepared for that. Yep. I mean, those are just like all the anecdotal things. You can, of course, go get sweat rate testing and all that and get super scientific about it. But if that's not an option, just do the best. Oh, yeah, I forgot because you can measure how much sodium loss you have when your sweat rate, right? Yeah. You could go crazy.

But then, like Paula said, it could be snowing in St. George. It could be 89 degrees. You know, you don't really know. Right. Cool. Well, thank you, Tim, for that question. Our next question is from Lydia, and I'm going to read the pre part to it. She said, hi, Paula, Eric and Nick.

Since there's Kate, I can't claim to be the number one fan of TTL, but I'll settle for number one European fan. Kate, if people who don't know, is our youngest and number one fan. How old is she again? She's 10. She's 10. Yeah. It's not like her friend who's,

nine. Yeah. Okay, so she says, here's my question. I'm moving to Germany for three months for research and I really, really want to bring my bike with me.

What are your tips for traveling with your bike, both in terms of logistics of travel and packing it and sending it versus carrying it with you? Lydia. Well, I don't know if they happen in Europe,

but over here we have tri-bike, no, no. Bike flights. And tri-bike transport, but that's for races only. That's for races. So the absolute simplest thing and most expensive thing that you could do is take it to your bike shop and say, I just want it packed in a box and send to this address and they'll probably charge you $200. And it'll arrive there and take it to a different bike shop and have them build it for you. Then the other thing, you could take matters into your own hands and watch some YouTube videos, get yourself a bike travel case, which you would use for a race and learn that whole process.

I would say that's worth it if you anticipate ever flying again with your bike. And I really like having my bike a long. with me while I travel. Most likely chance of getting it there on time with you, although bikes get lost in flights, but it's happening less and less. Knock on wood. We have Saicon bike bags. We're not sponsored by them, but we actually both just ordered Tooley bike bags because we have a good relationship with Tooley, and they are beautiful bags. They'll protect it really well. They're really easy to pack. And the Saikons are just really popular because it requires the least disassembly. But the Tooley, I'd say, is way more protective. of the frame and everything.

Yeah. Just kind of hard-sided versus soft-sided. We haven't had any issues, knock-on-wood, with the psychons, but, yeah. It feels like we should have an issue. It's shocking. It's crazy, and those bags are not, like, reinforced at all. It doesn't seem, like, they're fully soft bags. They're so floppy.

I think, like, part of the way, the reason it works is because it all moves. None of it's, like, super rigid, so it can kind of just, like, amoe about other bags and stuff. Yeah. Carbon and amoeba don't really mix in my mind, though. Amoe about. I don't know. What word is that?

Well, you know, like an amoeba. I know. I would have never thought of that in the top of my brain while saying. It makes a creative, okay? He comes up with these things on the spot. I haven't used that word since like grade nine science. Yeah. But if you have like a hard-sided case, sometimes I think they just take that as liberty to stand on it.

You're right. You're like, oh, this one's hard. Like put 12 other bags on top of it. Wait, am I right? Doesn't Tully have a hard case that you don't have to take the base bar off? Like, you don't have to take handle bars off? No. That's called bike box.

Allen. It's from the UK. Oh, okay. Also a good option, but it's hard to get in the U.S. And they're probably crazy big. Yeah, they're pretty big and heavy. But to answer Lydia's question, I would say, travel with it on the airplane. Yeah.

Invest in a bike bag. Go for it. Yeah, just try back. Yeah, bike flights is just... I think unless you're someone who is like moving from one place to another and never going to move again and isn't racing, the correct answer is always just buy a bag, learn how to do it yourself. Yes, totally. Or have a boyfriend who does it for you.

Yeah. I can do it myself. I can do it. Bad. Sometimes Eric's just like, I'm doing it so I don't have to like get called on. Yeah, like you go make dinner. I'll pack the bags and this will be super efficient. Win, win for me.

Cool. Cool. Okay, next question is from Chris. He says, what are your thoughts on putting arrow bars on a road bike for long distance? I'm guessing you's talking about clip-ons for long-distance triathlon, specifically 70.3. There's a lot of debate around the ability to achieve a proper triathlon position on a road bike with arrowbars or if this is a worthwhile endeavor. However, I think the results of Gustav Eden in 2019, 70.3 worlds, and obviously Taylor Nibb at 2021, 70.70.00 and Collins Cup, prove there are

no major handicaps with this approach. So as long as you're in good shape. I understand... As long as you got a F, if you've got a VO2 of 90, you're going to be fine. Let's see. I understand the triathlon bike is the most... ideal choice, however. For most age groupers who aren't vying for any world championships or breaking any records, I don't see it economically viable to purchase a tri-bike in addition to a road bike. Yeah, I agree. Then don't. I would say, anyone who asks me if they should get a tri-bike or a road bike, I say a road bike, because you're going to ride it more because it's so much more comfortable, so much more enjoyable. And the clip-on bars are a good option. I think you just

have to change the saddle position a little bit. And some bike companies actually have specific bikes that are kind of meant to be ridden with clipons like truck has a bike specialized i don't know there's there are bikes it's not ideal quote unquote and it's not going to ride quite like it was designed to be ridden as a road bike and it's not going to quite ride like a t-tie bike should be ridden but it's possible the thing is is yeah i don't know i would just like get a road bike and like throw the clip-ons on there and not like mess with the fit way too much and then if you decide you're super serious and want to keep doing travel and go really fast and get a cheap TT frame will get you with just a lot of extra speed just

getting into that better position. The things that come to mind for me are road bikes don't have hydration built in. They don't have a bento box where you can put food built in. So I'm thinking of Taylor Nib with all the gels taped onto our top tube, that's, I think, a pretty big difference. And then, like, as you were saying, saddles for the UCI legal bikes, saddles can't go certain amount forward beyond the bottom bracket. So most road bikes, you just can't get as far forward as saddle position as triathlon bikes.

So that's another little thing. There are things that start to add up. But as far as aerodynamics, clip-on bars get you like 95% of the way there. I agree. As far as your body position. Bottom line, I did my first trathon, a road trathlon on a mountain bike. Anything will get you across the line and having a good time. We're just talking about speed at this point.

I think the other thing is there are people like me who they want to try hard. and work harder when they have cooler gear. So for me, like, I want the TTIBite. I want the triathlons specific bike because I feel like I'm more of a triathlet when I do it. But some people, that doesn't even enter their mind at all. They're like, no, I just want to be out there having a good time. Then you definitely don't need a triathlon bike. Yeah, get one really nice road bike and put clip-ons on it.

That's way better than buying two average bikes, I think. Cool. Well, thanks for the question, Chris. Okay, next question is from Ella. Ella, eh, eh, who remembers that song? Okay, next. In the last episode, Eric talked about. more non-draft opportunities for Olympic distance races. I'm 16 years old and got into triathlon

a few years ago. The draft legal path USA triathlon encourages doesn't really suit my strengths. It's been really hard to find a competitive non-draft races for my age group due to the emphasis on junior draft legal circuit. So anyways, I was wondering if you wish you had more options as a teenager getting into triathlon besides the traditional draft legal Olympic pathway. Do you wish there was a more solid pathway for younger athletes who are interested in racing 70.3 and now PTO races when they hit the age requirement. Yeah, this is so hard. I didn't do my first draft legal race until I was like 17. My parents just said, you're not flying to triathlons. That's ridiculous. We've got five that are within driving distance and you just do those every year.

It's really hard because there used to be the LA, I mean, the lifetime fitness series. But I think she's talking about her specific age group. And even at those races, there's not really an age group that caters to 16 and under athletes. But I think the answer to this is you kind of are setting yourself up well for racing long distance and non-draft races. If you just dive into the draft legal racing, it makes you a better swimmer. It makes you a better bike handler. And it makes you a fast runner. And it's a really good developmental pathway to get into long distance racing. Even if it's not your strength and it doesn't suit you for one reason or another, regardless of that, I think it's really important as a young athlete to give that a try. And then as you get older, as you get towards 18 or 19, you can start doing some non-draft races because they do exist. And if you have the foundation of non-draft, your skills will just be better, I think. So what do you think? I mean, the only thing that came to mind with that is like if you are just awful at swimming

and you're off the back of, and you're not in a pack ever and you're doing it solo, that can be super disheartening. So, like, we both have the advantage of being good swimmers coming into that. But if you're only 16. I agree with Paula. You should improve your swimming anyway. Yeah. It is so terrible to be in a draft legal race and have the pack just putting minutes on you.

Right. And then you're by yourself right at the beginning of the bike, right? So I don't know. I would also just add to that, like, go to local races, go to any local non-draft that you can and just try to win them outright in the meantime. And then try to go to a couple of different. draft legals to dip your toe in that if you can each year. Yeah, and if swimming is your

weakness, just swim a lot. Like maybe join a swim club, I don't know. It is going to be a limiter when you get to non-draft too because of the how elevated the level is now and everyone's coming from the non-draft. From the draft legal world and they're all good swimmers. So we're not picking on ella here.

It's just we don't know why it doesn't suit her strengths. But if it is swimming, I think learning to swim as a younger athlete is a lot easier than learning to swim when you're in your 20s or 30s. I was just going to say watch Lionel's videos and you'll see how hard it is to learn how to swim as an adult. He's struggling with it so hard and he's an unbelievably fit athlete and still having such a hard time with the swim. Yeah.

I mean, the reason that we kept going on about this, we don't have like a super killer answer. This is just a huge, it's a big struggle with the pipeline these days. So it's a good question. But it's becoming more and more of a relevant topic as the PTO is putting up races that are a lot of prize money and long distance is becoming more appealing for athletes. They don't want to go to the Olympics. They want to race an Ironman or a half Ironman or a PTO event, you know? So it's a good question, even though we don't have a good answer.

So yeah, our advice is it's hard to look further than like this year or next year, especially when you're that young. But you got your whole life ahead of you and you might as well do those races now because like I don't even know where I would do a draft legal race. Yeah, they're actually really fun. Can I do it as like a no one? 30-year-old? They have age group races now for draft legal.

Oh, wow. You have to really seek it out. Got it. Okay. Well, there you go. Well, Ella, thank you for the question. Our next question is from David, and he said,

I just got a four-month-old high-energy puppy, and I'm having trouble balancing, taking care of her while also staying consistent with training. I was training about eight to ten hours a week beforehand, so I can't even imagine training full-time with a puppy. How do you balance having Flynn and all his energy with your training?

I run with him every day. Yeah, so you do all your training plus then you also run with him. No, no, we work him into our training. In the wintertime, basically right up until summer, we can't take him out in the summertime because he gets hot too quickly. But in the winter, we'll try to take him on one run a day or every other day with us, like what we did today, our easy evening run. But sometimes, like, just every morning as well,

we have to, we take him to the pool with us and we play fetch for 15 minutes, and then he sits in the car while we swim, and then we play fetch for 15 minutes, and then we go home. It's a freaking, it's a thing. We don't always love it, but we're lucky to have a dog that actually is a really good runner,

and he did 10 miles of, like, tempo running with Eric on the weekend. Like, he can run fast. So it used to be 10K was the limit. Well, that's still pushing it, but the... Like I said, heat dependent. Yeah, it was like kind of snowing out. He was totally fine.

He's not injured anymore. He's not injury prone anymore. So our ideal scenario is to kill two birds with one stone, take him on our run with us. He gets tired. We're doing our training. Yeah. He's pretty good, though, too. If we just take him for a walk, he just bounds through the forest insanely.

And you can just kind of walk slowly and he'll do the bird dog thing and, like, sweep the entire forest while you walk in a straight line. But, like, as far as puppies go, he's a COVID puppy. We got him during COVID. If we were racing professionally while trying to make it through the puppy phase, I'd be hard. We just never did. We didn't do it. COVID was the only opportunity we had to get through the puppy phase.

What's Flynn's V-O-2 max, in your opinion? 2000? We were wondering about this because he's just like, he's like a lung attached to the four little spindly legs. His whole torso is just lungs. Yeah, so it's probably over 100.

Right. I wonder. I wonder that. Okay, great. Thank you, David. Our last little question here is from Aaron, Jamie, Sennah, Emmy,

and Zulu from Ann Arbor. Michigan. So it's a joint question here. So their question is, being that as a triathlet couple, you have both your professional and personal lives overlapping daily, much like my husband and I, what is your go-to self-care slash solo activity to unplug and make some time for you? Paula, do you even have one? Well, I get manicures and pedicures now as of last month. I noticed that. I noticed that, actually. I noticed that in Florida. I was like, Paula is a pedicure. It was actually a funny story.

As she's getting ready to go to the pedicure, our friend Samantha, who actually takes some pictures for us for TTL, talked her into it. I was like, no way Paula thought of this on her own to get a pedicure. Was not a spontaneous thing, no. And she's telling me, oh, I can't believe this. This is such a waste of time. I did not say

that it's a waste of time. I went because I wanted to hang out with Samantha. Not because I wanted a manicure. You thought the pedicure was a waste of time. You just were like, I'll hang out with Samantha because she's cool. Yeah, it's a cool time to like, know, socializes someone. So I guess this isn't really my solo time, but it could be. You could go by yourself and I really liked the outcome. Yeah. Paul comes back. Oh my God.

I should get manicured, pedicures all the time. I should go like once a week. That was so fun. I love that. Total about face. That's great. And Eric was like, what a transformation. He sees my toes, colored. That's great. I'll like sign me up for that. That's funny. Eric, what about you? I have an idea, but I didn't even know what the question was. I got so curious. It was, what do you do that's like personal away? It's not with Paula. That's not professional.

Like, I really like just tinkering on things. So I've got a motorcycle that doesn't run currently and going and rebuilding the carburetor on that for the 17th time. If I'm not trying to build a bike like for the video, sometimes I'll just go, you know, like tune up the bikes or whatever, just hang out in the garage and chill. Yeah. That's like my.

space and put on some good music. Yeah, you build the playlist too, like the TTL sweat. How about you, Nick? Jeez, I have like too many. I have so many things. I'll work on little videos that I really like. I'll work on songs that will never have an end point just to try new stuff out. I love, like, trying new software for things out.

I like, like, Eric just sent me some footage today that I wanted to try a new stabilization technique on. So just like, I like learning about, like, music and film software stuff, I guess. Yeah. then also like I love It's a little bit work though It's a little bit worky

Yeah I guess Normally I'm like I love socializing I like hanging out with people And meeting new people That's yeah I really like that Yeah no solo time

There's a big difference to you Between like when you have to do a thing Just like what we were talking about With the work The training schedule and the numbers and stuff Like you stabilizing a software clip That's not even going to get You're stabilizing a clip that's not even going to

Yeah you tell me like it's not going in I'm like yeah I just wanted to try it out Right Right. Yeah. That's fun in learning. Learning is fun. I just want to say, and you can take this out or not, or whatever, like, we were kind of debating whether or not we should read an entire, you know, like the letter that someone writes, and then the question that comes after it, because they are super heartfelt and we read them and we love them so much, but it feels like maybe they're too long to read. But just in case we didn't actually write you back and we just read off your question, just want to let you know, we love reading them so much and we do read all of them. Yeah, Paula reads all, every single one of them first, and then she sends me, I think, most of them. And then I pick, of those, I pick the ones that I think would be best to be read on the podcast itself.

But like, Paula reads every single one of them. I also read all the ones that she sends me. I get the best ones. You do. She sends me the best ones, and then I, you know, I cry about it. Yeah, they're really nice. I mean, people are really nice. And I'm not sure if it's like this week we tried to just read the questions.

and not read the whole thing. But I'm not sure if that's the best thing because it's kind of nice to have that little, well, we'll see. Those are all the questions, but before we end, we want to do a quick little rapid fire with Paula. And we have gotten tons of hate mail

saying that we don't do rapid enough that we go too far in depth. It's mostly just my girlfriend who complains to me that the rapid fires aren't rapid. Toby, we're trying. We're trying. I tried to make the questions much more simple.

You'll just spit out the top thing that comes to your head. Yeah, like what is your favorite movie? It's not a rap. Like, that's a 30-minute thinking process. Goodwill hunting. Goodwill hunting. Easy. Easy. Okay, are we ready to dive into this?

Yes, okay. Wait, how do we want to do this? Is like, should Eric do one and then I do one and then Eric do one and I do one? Or should we both do? You'll both do both because most of them are one word answer. These are pretty quick. These will be rapid. Okay, so if you're out walking,

for example. Would you listen to a podcast or listen to music? Music. All right. Cake or pie for dessert? Oh, damn it. Oh, God. Pie. I'm thinking of a specific pie. My mom makes this German silk, French silk pie. I think pie. My mom's pecan pie. Wow, you guys are savages. I don't like pie at all. This is wild. Paul's mom is fantastic in making pie.

And her and Paula don't like pie. Well, that's great news for you, Eric. That sounds like a home run. Christmas is a dream. The only reason my dad married my mom is because she makes pie really well. Okay, work hard or play hard? Play hard, obviously. Oh, my God.

Yes. Yes. Well, my work is play, so that's why it's easy. That's what we feel like to do. Yeah, play hard. Well, today was not all play. Today was so hard. I still feel sick.

Okay. Would you rather have a nice house or a nice car? house yeah house emphasis on location yeah location I'd rather live in a shoebox in a cool place

and in a nice place and an uncool area yeah totally whatever cool means to me I guess yeah ocean or mountains on that topic

probably mountains I guess I would say mountains too really even though you live by the ocean well I like that the oceans are next to the mountains the ocean is next to the mountains Got it, yeah. So both. I need both. I need oceans and mountains.

Wow. Selfish. Yeah, sorry. Just kidding, not selfish. I mean, I would love to live near the ocean. Would be great. But I like mountain activities more, like skiing and running in the mountains, versus like surfing or swimming in the ocean. Although the beauty of the ocean is undeniable. It's the visual beauty of the ocean. I'm more attracted to rather than being inside of it.

This rapid fire is really going downhill. Okay. Okay, hamburger or taco. Taco. Dorito. That's not one of them. Okay, fine. Eric.

He's such a rebel. Okay, pancakes or waffles? Waffles. On that note, we need a waffle iron. So if anyone has a suggestion of the best waffle iron you can buy, let us know. Can we get a cross section of the best slash some sort of affordability factor? It's like the $2,500 gourmet French waffle. I went on to William Sonoma to buy a waffle maker and you can get like a $600

Waffle maker. I'm like, Eric, we should just get this one. It's so cool. I was like, point to the reasons why it's 600. William Sonoma. Card games, board games or no games? Board games. Board games.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah. Board games. This is like a little bit of a sample question for future merch. Krew neck or hoodie? Crew. Crew.

Crew. Crew, for sure. Crew. Hoodies make me feel like loungy, you know, like I'll wear it in the house, but I don't really wear hoodies out. I think you need like a, it needs to be a really nice, like, fitted hoodie instead of just like a bag. Yeah, hoodies, crews are just a little more, I guess, elegant and can be worn in more places. Very versatile. Very versatile.

Especially the crews we have coming in June. Oh, they're so nice. Cannot wait. Those are so cool. People have, people will have no idea. They're not ready. I have no idea what these are going to be. You'd have to, yeah, you can rent to a nice restaurant or you can write to a

triathlon. Yeah, exactly. Last question, and this was actually a question Eric came up with, is your favorite kind of bubbly water. Since there's so many options, you go to the grocery store, there's like a billion brands. I usually just buy what's on sale, but my current favorite is Spindrift, which is like a little bit of juice in it. So, I like, obsessed with it, but it's the most expensive.

So I like try to only have one a day, but usually I have three a day. Are we surprised that Paula likes the most? expensive one. Of course not. I came up with this and I honestly can't think of more than two right now. I'm like a Costco brand

or Vaughn's brand. There is a definite difference in the taste quality of like a no-name brand versus a La Croix. I'm going La Croix. I think for me it's my, the one we make here. We make it, we have a soda stream

and then we have a little flavor thing. That's my favorite. We should really do more soda stream. It's so, oh my God, life-changing. Target is tragically far away from us. We have a soda stream, but we need to replace the cartridge. It's my terrible excuse. I actually just had a late-breaking realization polar.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's my favorite. Yeah, polar is good. I think if you, in the U.S., all of a sudden people like sparkling water, but it's a recent thing. In Europe, sparkling water has been a big deal for, for a long time. So if you grew up with that, now knowing that you can just make it at home, it's like a huge life hack. Yeah, that's true. That's very cool. Because I remember going to Europe when I was young. At cone gas. When I was, yeah, and I would always be asked gas or no gas.

And I didn't like sparkling water back then. So I'd always say just still water. But now it's like, yeah, somehow becomes so popular in the U.S. and now it's flavor. Is Canada the same as the U.S.? Where you guys like pretty much don't have it? But now all of a sudden everyone wants it? Totally, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Even Jelly Belly makes, even Jelly Belly makes sparkling water now. That's outrageous.

So about like the jelly beans? Yeah, stick to what you're, you know, that's candy. Coming next week, TTL Bubbly Water. That's not a bad idea. Might as well. Make millions. It's actually on Shark Tank. It seems like every single episode there's somebody

pitching up bubbles of some sort. Well, that was pretty quick for Rapid Fire. Hopefully Toby approves. the bubbly water got a bit out of hand, but I expected that. A few of them did, but I feel like there was someone that were really good. And at least Paula was talking a lot for the bubbly. It wasn't just me and Nick, which I'm sure is probably why Toby doesn't like Rappapagher. She's like, oh, Nick and Nick version two are just talking the whole time.

Okay. Right. Well, I think that's it, right? We went through some questions. Yeah. You know, Monday comes around for us so quickly, and that's when we record, and we're like, are we doing this too much? but we have still been getting pretty good feedback and we think it's really fun.

So thanks so much for listening. And we hope to see as many of you as we can in Oceanside in a couple weeks, although we'll have a couple of pods before that. Yeah, good luck to Nick and his marathon next weekend. We're so excited to follow. Thank you, guys. It's going to be so fun.

Sub three. Sub three. Sub three project. I'm going to be on course for 3.45 and then the last 10 minutes will be like, let's fucking send it. That's what we expect. Cool.

All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, us.