That Triathlon Life Podcast - Pacing a windy triathlon bike course, run shoe types, and more!

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Happy New Year! 🎉 This week, we’re keeping it classic with “Bike Tech with Eric” to kick things off, followed by a variety of listener-submitted triathlon questions. Topics include:Essential tools for building up a new bikeUsing an ultrasonic cleaner for wax prepHow hard pro triathletes really push in racesPacing strategies for headwind/tailwind out-and-back bike coursesAvoiding the dreaded raccoon eyes12-speed bike compatibility on an 11-speed trainerEric and Paula’s ski/snowboard gear setupNavigating different running shoe typesInterpreting running stats on a treadmillA big thank you to our podcast supporters who help keep the podcast alive. You can become a podcast supporter as well as submit questions for the podcast at ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hello, everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Eric Loggersstrom. I'm Nick Goldston. Happy New Year is January 1st, as we're recording this. We are so excited to be in 2025, now, fresh new year. Eric and I are professional triathletes. Nick is an amateur triathlet and a professional musician. And every week we answer your questions. We do race recaps. We talk about a little bit about what's going on in the triathlon world. And yeah, but the biggest bulk of the show is, answering questions from the listeners and hopefully shedding some insight into all of our accumulated knowledge that we've built up in the sport over decades and decades of racing and training. Paint a scene. What is it like in Bend right now? It's a bit cold. It's a bit chilly. We've actually been at the Oregon Coast for the last five days, which has been

super nice. It's like wet out there, but not cold, so it doesn't snow or get icy, but here in Bend, it's kind of hovering around zero. So a little bit of snow, a little bit of ice. The air temperature is not that bad, but it's just a little bit yucky on the ground. Yeah, it makes it hard to get out on the trails and stuff because somebody walks on them. There's a little bit snow and then that becomes ice and then that kind of happens a couple days in a row. And all of a sudden, you have like a potholey ice rink death trail situation and now we've got to run the road through the treadmill. Is there a name, like a colloquial name for that? Actually, I think there is.

I just can't think of it off the top of my head. For what? For the like divity ice when it's, you know. you know, like just all the footprints and... Bad for your ankles. Bad for your ankles, one word. Treacherous. There's a word for it.

And you guys swam today for the first time in a minute. Yeah. Well, we realized that Bosu were swimming that we actually didn't swim a single time in the pool while you were in New Zealand because we would just swim in the lake. The last time we sat in a pool was probably a month ago. Yeah. It's crazy. It's the longest period of time I've taken off since COVID.

And during COVID, how long had you taken off? Oh, I can't remember. It's all a blur. We were doing like stretch cords and like all that stuff that everyone was doing. But I don't know. For some reason, today felt worse than even in COVID when we'd sporadically swim. It felt real bad today. But that's fine. But you have been, you have been skiing. You guys have been going up to Mount Batchel and doing skiing stuff. And Eric, usually you do a splitboard, which is this kind of cool thing where you can ski uphill, but then it buckles together and then becomes a snowboard so you can snowboard downhill, but you actually skied up and down this time,

which was the first time, right? This is the first time I've skied since I was, you know, like six years old. I started out skiing, skied about three times, and then switched to snowboarding because it was so much cooler. Of course. And now, since we do a little bit more touring, which, yeah, like you said, is walking up and down, it's much less annoying to take my snowboard in half and put one half on each foot and then walk up the hill and then try to put it back together and do the whole thing.

versus skiing, it's just, it's like half as many steps to just walk up on the skis, take the skins off, ski back down on the skis. We have a pretty good relationship with Solomon and they sent, well, we ordered some skis from them and some boots and got like a good setup for him. But on our first ski that we did, I titled my Strava Baby's First Ski. Oh, God, people, people. Eric's first ski. And I didn't think anything of it at all.

It was like, I was kind of funny because Eric's baby. and then people started saying congratulations on my Strava. And I was like, are they congratulating us on like our first ski? They think it's our first time skiing ever. Like I was so confused. And then it dawned me that people thought that I was pregnant. And this is the baby's first ski. I was like, oh my gosh, I need to change the stravatator right away.

Get your mind out of the whatever. Whatever. You say when someone's talking about babies all the time. That would be a fun announcement though. But yeah, I am not. then it was Eric's first ski so um that's a funny story yeah sorry to burst your bubble everyone Eric did you find that you your ski skill had kind of magically over the years progressed even though you haven't skied like were you so bad pleasantly surprised oh really no thanks babe

well I thought he was gonna like Eric's just good at everything you know right so I assumed anyway with the skiing he'd be instantly like better than me. But the motion is so different from snowboarding that it was like watching a little bit like Bambi with the edges on the skis and stuff. So he was not, he was not good at it. Eric texted me and he was like, I get why people wreck their knees skiing. Yes. I was far from the worst person on the hill, but I was not instantly a pro by any means. It's just, it's completely different. And the thing is, is I'm trying to unlearn snowboarding, which is just in skiing. And, you know, And I just kind of learned to surf and I've longboarded and done and wakeboarded.

And everything I've ever done is like your right foot does everything and does all the control and your left foot's just kind of stabilizing. Yeah. And now it's like I'm having to unlearn that because every time I turn right or left, I just want my right foot to do it all. And I'm like, oh yeah, you got to like freaking pick up your left foot or now you have to like actually balance entirely on the left ski. And it's more of a like rewriting or unlearning the snowboarding. and greened thing. How much do both of you think that this is a good activity

for triathletes to do in the winter? Man, I don't know. Like, honestly, skiing, it feels real risky for your knees. Ah. For me personally, anyway, relative to snowboarding, you're so locked in.

It's like, you're not tearing ACLs as much or at all on snowboarding, but that's like the risk factor. If you grew up skiing and you have a little bit of a, you know, competence with the turning. And I personally take it pretty careful on the downs.

I'm using it as a exercise on the apps and it's hard and it's aerobic and it's good training, I think. And then on the downs, just kind of dialing it back a little from full on to be extra cautious. I would say it's probably a better, it's better suited to training for an ultra where there's a lot of vertical stuff. And I would say cross-country skiing, like skate skiing is maybe a little bit more suited. to triathlon where there's not so much of this like crazy glute uphill thing and it's more just like full aerobic the whole time. That's my feeling. Oh, I see. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, I kind of forgot about that. And people do a lot of cross-country skiing and bend as well, right? Yeah, it's kind of nice. If you can do both, generally when the skiing, when the downhill skiing sucks, the cross-country skiing is good and vice versa because it's like kind of two different types of snow. I've never cross-country skied. This is just what I've gathered from listening to people talk about it. Right. Cool. Well, I'll be in Bend in two days.

I'm flying up. We did make it work. We figured out a way to make it happen. So that'll be fun. But there will be no snow in the neighborhood, probably, right? I don't know. There's snow in the neighborhood this morning. Forecast says rain, but hopefully that will somehow...

It's not very far to make that rain into snow, though. We just drive for 10 minutes. There's a quick drive. Yeah, right. Right. Cool. One exciting thing that happened today, January 1st, as we announced the development team for 2025.

This is year three. We had a ton of applications, and we narrowed it down to about 10 who we interviewed on the phone over the last few weeks, and then cut that down to six. And John Reed is back on the team. Zachary Cooper is back on the team. Those guys did an awesome job last year, and we're interested in being a part of it again. So we offered two kind of spots to last year's members, and then we have four new people. three women and one man. And one new guy.

Yep. Guys, we just go down the list. But if you check on Instagram, we did a cool announcement video, similar to what we did last year, where we show each of them and where they're from. And that's going to kind of kick off this entire week on Instagram. We'll be introducing two athletes per day for the next few days. We would love it if you guys could go to our post

and just follow all of them on Instagram. And I think we're encouraging them to share their stories and throughout the whole year, their progress and everything towards how they're becoming a professional or continuing their pro pathway. We have another short course athlete on the team this year, Liam Donnelly from Canada, which is exciting. I think that when we started this program, we initially thought long course athlete 70.3 middle distance focus was our target. But John on the team last year focusing on ITU, I think was, really cool to kind of open up that world to our audience in the short course world. Eric and I both

came through that pathway as we were getting into 70.3. So we have a soft spot for that Olympic dream and that chase that these guys are on right now. So who knows, maybe both of them will step up to 70.3 one year. But for now it's really cool for us to have TTL represented on the short course side as well. And I think, Liam and John both have a good shot at making the L.A. Olympic team, Liam for Canada and John for the U.S. So, yeah, that's a fun little, I guess, difference to this year's team versus last. Yeah. On the women's side, we signed on a girl named Laura, and she's from Slovenia, which is where Tade Pogacha is from. So we're expecting, you know, like world-class level bike splits out of her, no pressure.

We're expecting 320 watts in Zone 2, just like Todd. Exactly. She's a student and she's kind of focusing now more on racing primarily because she's done school. Yeah, but she is the only female professional triathlete in Slovenia, which is freaking awesome. We have Mimi Carlton from Great Britain on the team. She was in Taupo actually and she had the fastest age group female bike split of all the amateur female athletes there, which is really cool. She's still racing amateur but hopes to get her pro card next year. And our third, Third girl on the team is Lydia Russell. She is American. She's been through the short course pipeline, but she's jumping up to 70.3

middle distance racing next year. So it'll be exciting to see her race in Oceanside and kind of all over the North American circuit. She was a U-23 American national team kind of athlete and is interested in doing some long course. So that's the team. Yeah. We'll try to get them on the podcast at some point. And then also I've got some fun ideas with content-related stuff visually next year. So got a lot of fun stuff brewing.

And thank you to all the people who bought the TTL kits that help fund the TTL Devo team. It's so cool that that gets funneled into supporting these young athletes. It's a beautiful system. Straight up would not be possible without that. The other way you can support the team is we do actually have a Devo team support, like donation link on our website. So if you miss the kit drop and you want to just support the team that way, it goes directly to them and the stipends that we're giving them every year.

If you're interested in helping out that way, that would be amazing. But no pressure. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Well, this week, we're getting back to our normal show. We've had a lot of strange and interesting shows. And I think I'd like to announce that this year, 2025, this podcast, we're going to try to level up.

We're going to try to make things. even more interesting and compelling for all the kids, for the listeners. We're going to try to be a little bit more proactive about getting really interesting and only very special guests on the podcast. And I think we're just going to try to level up the whole thing. Not that anyone asks us to, by the way. We're just always at the search to make it even better. It never ends.

It's only natural. But today's just kind of like we're doing a traditional episode today. and I want to start with probably our most requested and fun segment. Bike Tech with Eric. Hi, Paul, Eric, Nick Flynn, and TTL Nation. I have a Bike Tech with Eric question. My next road bike is one I'm going to build by myself. Nice.

I've been super inspired by your videos of Eric building y'all's bikes in the garage. My question is, if starting from just the pure basic bike maintenance tools, multi-tool pump tire levers, what would be a full list of the minimum tools you would need to complete a bike build. For reference, I've got some SRM red drive terrain I'm putting on, still deciding on

frame set and handlebar stem. Cheers and Happy New Year. It's kind of complicated, right? Because it's like, are you building wheels? Are you like, what is happening? Nobody's building wheels anymore. People specialize in wheel building. Don't take that on.

Yeah, I guess, so a good I wouldn't use a multi-tool. I would get some actual Allen wrenches. You could do it with multi-tool in a pinch, but you're probably going to need a set of Allen wrenches. You are these days probably going to need a set of torques wrenches,

which are the ones that are kind of like a six-point star, but look like Allen wrenches. And then you're going to need like a chain-breaking tool. You're probably going to need a break bleeding kit. that may or may not come with if you're doing SRM, it's dot fluid

and if you're doing Shimano stuff, it's mineral oil. If your bleed kit doesn't come with that. You need some tire sealant. If you're doing tubeless, you need your new tires. Yeah, you need all these tools, but you also need to know how. Of course.

Well, I'm just answering the question. Eric, do you think someone could go from doing just basic repairs like tires and whatever replacing a chain to building a bike just via YouTube. Yeah, of course. The thing with any repair, whether it's home repair or bike repair or car repair,

is you got a way, are you going to do this one time or are you going to make this your future thing and do you plan on working on your bikes because it's definitely going to be cheaper to just pay someone to do it for you versus buy all of these tools and do it one time.

So that's the main question. Something I thought about Eric is you mentioned the torques, like the head that is used, like the shape, the torque's shape, but then there's also a torque wrench, which is not the same, which to build a bike, if it's a carbon bike, you almost certainly will want to have as well, right? Yep. Torx bits are TORX, and a torque wrench is T.RQE. Yeah, yeah.

Is this a detail spelling bee? We should do that. We haven't done that segment for so long. One of these weeks, we need to bring it back. I'll consider it. All consider it. It's our 150th episode next week. Yeah.

We can challenge him. He's got that next level spelling ability. Not before dinner. I'm up before dinner. I'm a little bit of low brain glucose right now. Oh, got it, got it. There's another bike tech with our question here. This is from Kinley.

Hit me. What's your procedure for using the ultrasonic cleaner for wax prep? What solvent do you use and at what temperature? So what Kinley is referring to is a waxed chain. So instead of using regular lube on the chain, some people wax their chains. Eric waxes all their chains. So Eric, what are they talking about with this ultrasonic cleaner?

I think an ultrasonic cleaner can be, well, basically what an ultrasonic cleaner is, is it's a tub that has some water and a little bit of solvent added to that water, and then it usually heats up, and then it also uses like ultrasonic waves to clean your chain in your cassette and whatever you put in there, and it makes a lot of very loud noise. Usually with wax chains, you can just boil that chain or put it in silka has like a wax stripping solvent of some sort. You can just do that. So I wouldn't say that the ultrasonic cleaners necessary.

I kind of like to do it just for an extra step. And then I take the chain and then wash it. I don't know why, but I just kind of like doing it versus using the solvent. I'll do the solvent if it's just a race chain. And like Paul has used it twice. And it's not a dirty. Got it all. So anyway, that's the process.

You put the chain in there, you turn the machine on, you let it get up to temperature, you run it for 10 or 15 minutes, then I take it over to the chain out, take it over the sink, wash that all off, put it back in for another 10 or 15 minutes, wash it, scrub it all off,

and then I go through the wax process. I kind of like to do it twice, and you have to let the chain dry as well. Right, before you can put that wax on there. Or waxing. Right, cool. Great. Well, thank you, Eric.

We always appreciate your expertise here at Bike Tech with Eric. Okay, let's move on to regular scheduled questions here. Our questions are submitted, as always, by our beloved listeners. You can submit questions to the podcast at That TriathlonLife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter, which is the only way that this podcast makes any money. We really appreciate the podcast supporter so much. This week, we're picking a random podcast supporter

to get a very sick piece of orca gear. And Cliff Tillman, congratulations. You won some cool orca swing. wag, let us know where to send it, and you'll be getting that pronto, now that we're all back in our respective places here. We've got to be getting close to running out of that, right? We're getting close. We're getting close, yes.

Man, it feels unlimited at this point. We've been riding high on the orca, on the orca gear giveaway train. First question this week, other than Bike Tech with Eric, is from Sebastian. Hi, guys, what is the interplay between training and mental fortitude, especially as it relates to performance on race day. I keep hearing professional athletes both in trail running and triathlon, seeing some version of, it wasn't my day. The weather and course conditions weren't quite right, didn't feel just right or motivated, et cetera. When I think of Killian Jernay, who fell and dislocated his shoulder about 14 miles into Hard Rock 100, and continued on to win the race with his arm in a

sling and in considerable pain, maybe I am betraying my ignorance as a non-professional athlete, but shouldn't all the high level training significantly help athletes rise above the whatever circumstance come their way in what are after all endurance sports? Thanks, Sebastian. So I feel like this is this question is kind of like I feel like it's asking two different things here. But how much do you guys think that like mental wanting it, mental fortitude is actually affecting results on race day? It's a little bit like insulting to pros a little bit in a way because he's saying we make all these excuses when things go wrong oh I wasn't feeling well I didn't have a right taper I was sick

yet he sees Killian go and win a race with a broken shoulder or something isn't that what we should all do and just there is no reason to have an excuse ever you just push through and you do it yeah I mean sure I guess if there's like this rubric of what is it worth, right? For Killian, he could tape up the shoulder and get out there and still go win. For plenty of pros and for what it takes to win a 70.3 or, you know, get whatever the result is that you're after, it's, you don't have 18 hours to work with like you do in an ultra. And I just think it's, you have this little, this little window of time. And if something goes

a little bit wrong, you could instantly be out of the money making potential, but there is a chance that you could go next weekend and race a different race and make money. You know, is it world championships? Was Killian at, you know, a race where he could make $100,000 to win via sponsors? And it's... Yeah, it's so circumstance-dependent. And also, I think potentially pro-tra athletes racing 11 or 12 times a year, sometimes more, maybe race more than Killian does.

So it's really feasible that in that many of races, you're going to have days where your body just doesn't feel well for one reason or another, whether it was travel or sickness or missing your tape or whatever. And that's not necessarily an excuse. I think it is a genuine physiological thing that happens sometimes when you're trying to perform your best this many times a year. Yeah. And you've got to take to consideration too that we're not in it to complete. like there's a significant difference between everybody and somebody who is trying to make a living at something. Like completing it doesn't do anything for us

except maybe it preserves a mental thing where we don't feel like a quitter. But for it to be a success and for us to get what we need out of it, there's a higher standard than completion. Not to say Killian doesn't have that standard. I think this is kind of a weird, comparison a little bit.

Because it's a totally different sport. He is by far the best at his sport, and he can still win, like Eric said, even with this serious obstacle. I think what Sebastian, in my mind, is conflating here is that the issue when, whatever, not my day or the weather or the taper or whatever, the thing that Sebastian is saying here is that some kind of like mental strength could overcome those things. And I think that's the incorrect assumption is my mind, the reason I asked about how much you think mental strength actually plays into race day is because I think all professionals are pushing as hard as they can with their body on that day. It's not about they didn't want it bad enough.

I mean, maybe there's a select few who don't. But in general, I feel like when a triathlete makes that excuse, let's call it, it's because they're trying to make sense of why their body didn't do what they were expecting it to do on the day, not because they didn't want it enough. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a mental strength component to it, but I think there's also like a mental preparedness. It's probably a bigger issue there of like, how tired were you going into the race? What did you have inside of you to push through adversity? And there are just certain things you cannot push through. If you are completely bonked or you, whatever, name the thing, that yes, you can push through and complete and finish.

You know, we just watched the Sam Laidlow documentary. He pushed through and completed Kona. That's awesome. but also he didn't make any money there like that was a personal thing he wanted to complete it it's

once things went south yeah once things went south he started off wanting to like trying to win it obviously he's not mentally weak for just not pushing through and continuing to hold that pace on the marathon like there was an insurmountable

physiological issue there that mental strength can only get you so far that being said I do think there is like a bit of a cultural thing to use that verbiage in our sport and our in endurance sport. It's not what I hope for, not the day. You know, it's like, and it's just, it's like one blanket terminology that just gets thrown over a whole bunch of different issues and maybe people don't feel like making a specific excuse about, you know, quote unquote excuse about why their day wasn't good. I mean, a big part of this is just social media and you feel like you need to explain

yourself after every single race, whether it goes well or not well. Back in the day, even 10 years ago, there was no social media to share your results. So if you had a bad race, nobody remembered, nobody knew, and you just move on to the next one. But now it's like, okay, people know I went. I did this big buildup. I made a thing of it. Now I did it. Now I need to explain why I had a bad.

There's just more access to see people's performances and this expectation that you're going to explain why things went a certain way. When you guys think of the pro-tra athletes that that, that you know, do you see a big variance in how mentally strong? Do you feel like each one of these people, I don't want to say mentally strong, how much people are able to push themselves mentally on race day? Or do you feel like it's more consistent across the board? And it's more about the training leading up to the day and the mental fortitude and the training leading up to the race. I think you wouldn't be at the professional level if you didn't have like an abnormally high ability to make sure that you showed up on race day. Like that's how you get to this level. It's not that

you are able to push harder in training. I think a lot of people are able to push really hard in training. But being able to push the right amount and show up to race day, ready to give your best, that's the sauce. Yeah, cool. I love it. Thanks for the question, Sebastian. Next one is from James.

Hey, all, today I was riding and the wind was blowing pretty hard, probably 15 miles per hour with gusts to 30 with mostly tailwind on the way out and headwind on the way back. that's about equivalent to like 25 kilometers to 50 kilometers. I realized after I finished my ride that I've somehow never raced in windy conditions like that over the last 10 years and got wondering to what is the best way to pace your ride when you've got a straight headwind for half the bike course and tailwind for the other half. Outside of staying as air as possible in the headwind, I'm not sure what best practices are. I imagine it's more complicated than just even watts the whole way. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, James.

So you guys have, Paul, I feel like unfortunately you have dealt with this quite a few times in the past couple of years. Is there something that you think about when you're racing? It's really rare that you have like a headwind and a tailwind. That's extremely rare. Mostly it's like crosswind, side cross. There's like variable wind conditions, very, you know, even if it is a headwind tailwind, the courses are not pancake straight one direction. You know, you're turning and cornering and all that.

So the wind is changing. So I don't know. You kind of just have to... Personally, I push harder into headwinds and less into tailwinds, similar to kind of treating it like a hill, I guess. You're going to get more out of it if you're going harder in a headwind, but...

I'd say the exception to that rule would be is if you're in a group and you're leading the group to absolutely not be pushing harder into the headwind. Yeah, because then everyone else is just sitting there. You're getting this crazy exaggerated draft behind you. the draft tail is like twice as long. That's true.

So I would attack with the tail and wind. So yeah, I mean, but if Paula is or whoever you are, don't have somebody right on your wheel, then sure. And if you're feeling good, that's a good time to tighten the screws and make it hurt extra bad. The biggest thing is just staying arrow, like this person said, more arrow into a headwind. But when it's crosswind and gusty,

sometimes the tendency is to come out of the bars because it's scary. the more you can stay in the bars and push power and overcome that fear, you're going to be actually more stable than if you're kind of sitting up and easing off and all that. So paying attention to staying in the bars, even if you're like kind of drifting around a bit with the wind, is faster. Yeah, that's just scary. It's just scary, but sweet.

Okay. Next question here is from Sarah, from Iowa. Dear Paul, Eric and Nick, I am an AOLA. which is an adult onset swimmer, and also suffer from raccoon eye syndrome. Whenever I finish my swim workout, my goggles leave massive rings around my eyes. I'm so thankful that they don't leak,

but no one at work believes I ate lunch during my lunch break. I'm training for Iron Man, Texas, and I'm just trying to squeeze in workouts wherever I can. If you can squeeze in an Iron Man swim workout in the middle of your workday, that's pretty great. I've tried multiple brands,

but wondered if there is a trick to adjusting the straps, or do I just need to get used to water in my eyeballs, or just buy stock in makeup to cover my eye circles? I'll take any suggestions as a desperate time-crunched athlete. Thanks for everything you do. Seeing you at Lake Las Vegas T-100 was one of my favorite moments of 2024. Sarah, thanks, Sarah. Yeah, after two weeks of no swimming, I went to the pool today,

and I had huge rings around my eyes, and I'm like, man, there's really no way to avoid this unless you get the big scuba-ish. That's what I was going to say. Then you got massive rings around your whole face. Yeah, I mean, you're still, you can only loosen them so much before they start leaking. So obviously you can play around a bit with the straps. They're not so tight to your eye sockets, but you don't want it to be so loose that straps are coming off when you push off or you're getting water in your eyes. So there's no real way to avoid it.

I've just bought some really nice eye create. for the nighttime. This is no affiliation with this company, but it's called Youth to the People is the brand. And it's the dream eye cream. So every night I put it on. And it's almost like a mask for your eyes. It's like the super thick cream.

And it just stays on overnight. Can you confirm. It's very thick. That doesn't really help with the post-swim eye marks. But I just think in general, it's got to be destroying my skin if I'm getting eye marks every single day after the water. So I just,

I think this just helps in the nighttime to repair a little bit, my skin. I think depending on how uncool you're willing to be, the bigger goggles, just they definitely take, they definitely do not need as much pressure to not leak.

Yeah. And they, they will not leave the raccoon eyes in the same way. They don't for me, and that's what I use all the time because the regular goggles you guys use, don't seal them.

Do you look in the mirror after getting out of the pool? Because I'm just realizing now that I actually have no idea if I even have raccoon eyes. Yeah. I was going to say, I don't get him, but then I realized I don't know. Eric, I don't know if you do.

Paula, you do, though. Yeah, definitely. I do. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. The skin around your eye socket might be more delicate than a little bit further out on your cheeks. So maybe some of the bigger goggles.

And also, like, there's the gasket material, and some of the bigger ones have, like, a more smooth gasket. Much smoother, yeah. Whereas the smaller ones that I use. have a tinier gasket and that's just putting more pressure in a smaller area. It's just like harder too. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's kind of unavoidably, but you just, you can play around with different types of goggles.

I know that's an expensive venture, but. Yeah, just generally finding the goggle that you can wear the loosest as possible that doesn't leak. Honestly, the Orca one that you, the Paula, you've given me a couple pairs of that one. Like the killer? Yeah, the killer. That rides the line of, it doesn't look as nerdy as the bigger, bigger ones, but does not leave like the raccoon eye thing.

Yeah, you can show that. I think that's the sweet spot. Yeah, because those huge roco ones you use are super ugly. Yeah, I use those for racing and nothing else. And open water swimming in general. Yeah, I'm not using my farm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, good luck. Yeah, good luck, Sarah. Okay, next question here is from Kizzy. Hello, Paula, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. I'm getting a new bike, and it's a 12-speed SRAM group set. My kicker core is an 11-speed Shimano. Do I need to upgrade my cassette on my kicker?

And if so, do I need to choose a SRAM cassette over a Shimano one? How do I know if the 12-speed cassette will fit my kicker? So many questions moving on to a 12-speed, and I feel overwhelmed as I don't want to wreck my new bike. Thanks for the help. Kizzy. This feels like it got lost on the way to bike tech with Eric. Yeah, this is like a bike tech with Eric question. It was, it was.

but I figure like we're throwing it in there because it's kind of a more a basic question. I don't want to say it's basic. I don't want to say it's basic. Got bad news. You are going to need

a new free hub for your kicker and a new cassette. You can use whatever cassette came with your bike. You'll just have to swap it back and forth between your race wheels and your kicker. Would not recommend that

if you can get away with it. There's like the cheapest like SRAM cassette that you can get that is a 12 speed is going to be necessary. And then I, I think you can just go and if it's not obvious on the Wahoo website, you can call in and say, hey, I need, I got SRAM 12 speed and they'll ask you a couple questions and they'll send you the correct little unit that actually plugs into the kicker that your cassette then bolts onto. That is different between Shimano and SRAM and it's different between SRAM 11 and 12 speed.

But you don't need to get the highest end cassette, like you said. You can get the cheapest cassette for your kicker. It doesn't matter how light it is, doesn't matter how fancy it is. But it needs. to be 12 gears. The issue with 11 speed versus 12 speed is the width of the chain because they've crammed 12 gears into the same space that they used to put 11 gears, the same space that they used to put 10 gears. And so the cogs have just gotten smaller. I mean, narrower or narrower every generation

and you just need to match that chain width with the cog width. One thing you can do though, I've used a kicker that's 11 speed with my 12 speed bikes and you can ride it in an erg mode just staying in one year. It's not great. I wouldn't super recommend that

for a long-term solution. I would just kind of bite the bullet. I don't think this is going to be like a $700 thing. I don't think that new Freehub body is that expensive. And you can probably get a used or just a bottom-of-the-line

Sram cassette for not that bad. It'll be worth it for the ease of use. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And not wearing. out anything else on your bike by having a mismatched chain and all that. No, you don't want to... Which is what she's worried about is ruining her bike.

Wrecking her bike. You don't want to deal with that. Yeah. Okay, thanks, Kizzy. Next question is from Jeff. Spelled G-E-O-F, the cool way of spelling Jeff. Everyone knows that. Hi, TTL parents, avid cyclist, and beginner triathlet here with a totally unrelated

question. What's your setup for skis and snowboards? We'd love to hear a bit about what's in your quiver. With, camber, bindings, anything. One ski board quiver or many sticks. Grazie, Jeff. Wow. Wow. We touched on this a bit at the beginning, but...

This is like, I feel so dumb because I buy all the nicest things and think I need a full quiver of skis. And then I ski like three times a year. But I love getting this stuff. You ski more than three times a year, but yeah. But we went on this backcountry ski trip, not last year, but the year before that. And it was like all in powder and I borrowed these one-tenths. with from Shelley who owns the lodge and they were amazing. So I got home immediately bought the same pair, one-tons.

Haven't used them a single time, but they're brand new DPS skis. Nice. They were like two-foot deep powder. But they were so nice because I brought 96s to this trip. And I was wearing using them all week. And then the last day I borrowed Shelley's skis and I was like, oh my gosh, this makes such a big difference for powder. Yeah. Yeah.

So I bought a pair of powder skis. they're really beautiful and I just admire them every day. So it's not like they're totally useless. They're out. They're out on display. Yeah, they're out on display. We've actually had fantastic power out of the last few days here, but... We haven't been skiing.

But we also got a pair of... So Eric and I just got 86s for ski up and down on the resort because they're a little bit lighter. They have lights, Solomon pin bindings. and obviously like the backcountry kind of boots. We got the solemn boots. The difference between I've been doing splitboarding and the difference between the weight of all the splitboard set up

versus these these 86 skis with like true touring boots. Oh my gosh. I just say seriously, one third the weight. It's absolutely insane. They're a little bit, you know, you could have a better experience going downhill for sure. but as far as a total package up and down, magical. It's a little bit like bikes.

You want a gravel bike. You want a road bike. You want a mountain bike. All different snow conditions are going to need a different ski. And for a while I was playing with the idea of getting schemo skis, which are like 72 and short. Because they're so light that you can like get QOMs uphill. But coming down, they're not very fun. They're like kind of sketchy because they're so narrow.

Basically cross-country skis. So if I could just get rid of all my skis, and get one pair of skis that are like 96, that are an all-arounder. I think that's the best solution for me who barely skis. But instead, I've got like an 86 and a 110 and a 96, and I want a schemo pair. And I got cross-country skis. And Eric has a splitboard and a pair of 86es. Pretty dialed.

My split board is a powdota, powder-specific board. So if it's a good power today, I'm just going to still support. blipboard and then if we're doing like exercise ski slash just trying to get as many laps and I'm learning to ski now which is pretty fun. Then we're using the 86s. Yeah. Eric, are you committed to learning to ski? Yeah, I've been three times now and it's, I'm fully in. The thing about going up and down the resort is that it takes 40 minutes to get up and five minutes to get down. So yeah, the five minutes down, he's like this learning, frustrating experience potentially, but the way up is so much better with the skis.

Yeah. So it's worth it. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. It's like skiing down the resort. Like when I go, Paula likes to do that. Like if I want to go do backcountry a little bit more, then I can take the splitboard and go on my own or one of my friends.

And like skiing down the resort on a splitboard is like not exactly the most fun experience anyway. So like why not be on little skinny skis? It's kind of like where I'm at with it. Yeah. If we ever go back to Potter Creek, I'm bringing my one-tenths. Yeah, you are. I think 365 days from now we might be there. Yeah, we just got invited again.

Nick, you want to come? You want to come? Yeah, it would come. Jonathan Lee's going to be there. I know. I love Jonathan Lee. Would you do it, Nick? Yeah, I would.

Yeah, I would do it. We got to tell them by like tomorrow. Yep. Oh, my God. For next year? We also got to start a piggy bank going. Yeah, well, Powder Creek Lodge. It's this amazing lodge in Canada.

We went two years ago. They invited us in. best food, best company, Wi-Fi for only like 20 minutes a day, it's amazing. Yeah. And we didn't go this year or last year, but they book out like two years in advance.

What? Wow. It's so popular. Yeah, but they reserve a week for like family friends or whatever. Yeah, there are only so many weeks per year that you can work out with that's good, skiable snow. We'll talk about it off, off air. Okay, off the air, off the air.

Okay, great. You get real into the weeds on that. Logistics, great. Okay. Well, next question here is from Bryson. Hey, TTL crew, thanks for everything. I hope you're having a great break and can't wait to see what the next year brings you. My question is about picking running shoes.

I appreciate the lesson that having a few different kinds of shoes, race shoes, tempo shoes, long run shoes, et cetera. But how do I filter through the marketing copy on the website to understand what kind of shoe is the right kind of shoe for each running purpose? Are there key words to look for, specs to look at? As an example, On has the cloud monster that has energy return, and the cloud surfer that is good for everyday training, and the cloud drift that has the custom speedboard. All three are listed as good running shoes. No clue which of those is the right one for my long runs

and which ones should be my race day shoes, or even which one is better. Any tricks would be helpful. Thanks a bunch. Bryson. On's shoe line is so out of control. I cannot even, I can't even keep track. You know what?

I think that Solomon's system is actually like fairly decent. Okay. And I think that when I remember like looking at Brooks, I think Brooks was like fairly understandable as well. But trail is a little bit different and you can put in like, I'm trail racing. Like this is like the cool system that I think every shoe company should like get to is you can put in like, I'm racing and I, it's usually wet and whatever, I pronate.

And like, it kind of spits out a shoe. And it says, this one you can run in frequently. This one's a race day shoe and this one's a, but on, to be fair, I'm not complaining about on, but on is innovating so fast that they have like a new cloud strike or like a new race shoe or a new like kind of fast training shoe that's coming out of it. it feels like every six months, and it's just hard to stay on top of. The universal shoe that everyone likes with On is the cloud monster, obviously.

We've talked about that tons on the podcast. But I think they do do a good job on the website of explaining what each shoe is specifically for, and then you can kind of find your niche. Like the cloud eclipse is even cushier than the cloud monster. And if I'm running primarily on pavement, that's the one I'll go for. if I'm doing a fast tempo run, the cloud boom zone is amazing. It's not carbon, but it's like a fast tempo shoe. So, I mean, I guess I know because I've done so much research and trial of each individual one,

but if you go on the website, it does have a bit of a filter system to say, what type of runner are you, what surface are you running on? These are the ones that you should try. It seems like On kind of stays away from some of the more traditional terms that other running shoe brands use to describe where their shoe lines. I don't know if they use the word stability ever. Not really. I feel like that's kind of phasing out. Yeah, maybe that is phasing out, which is interesting because I like, I need for, I pronate and I kind of need shoes with like a little arch support, for example.

That helps me like stay healthy. And so I like to sometimes be able to search for something like that. What On has, which a lot of shoe companies don't have, is so many pairs of everyday casual kind of walking shoes. Right. You can immediately X those out if you're looking for a running specific shoe. See, they'll say like everyday wear, comfort lifestyle. Everyday wear, travel, urban. Those are ones that are going to be primarily geared towards walking.

The airport. And they have some that are like for the gym specifically. Versatile gym workouts, high intensity training. But then the ones that are meant for running, they'll say road running, max cushioning, that type of thing. So just read the little three word description under each shoe. Blurbs. I mean, if everybody, anybody, shoe company ever like fully dials this to where you can rock up to a shoe website and you've never heard of the shoe brand before and you come away from it with knowing exactly what you're getting. getting and exactly what it's for, they're going to take over. But it's so, it's just like a complicated

thing. It's a bit of the problem with online shopping now because you used to go to a running shoe. When I was younger, I went to like the running edge. And I'd try a Mizuno and a Brooks and a sockany and a A6 and whatever one I liked the best running on the treadmill I would buy. And the shoe specialist would be like, oh, it looks like your arch collapses. So I'm going to kind of like steer in this direction and get you six shoes to try. And you really feel which one you like the best. And there are obviously still shoe stores, running shoe stores where you can go and try them. What kind of sucks is if you go try them and then you go home and buy them online, that's kind of... Absolutely do not do that.

Not fair to those shoe store. But for On, I don't think they mind if you do that, Nick, do they? They don't mind at all. I've said it many times. They're like perfectly fine, yeah. Because it's on and then you're buying from the On website. It's not... Yeah, if it's different one, it's just an On store.

Yeah, it's not like a local small business. business. No, I feel like the on-stores, like, they could almost operate at a loss, and it's still worth it for them. I mean, the on-stores I've been, and certainly do not appear to be operating at a loss. They're, like, packed with people at all the times. But yeah, I think they're like corporately funded. I don't know if they're franchise the way the other rental shops are. Somebody was telling us about this, and I don't know if it was somebody who worked it on or if it was Ralph at Foreign Rider. Or I can't remember who it was, telling us about, like, the shopping experience, I think, oh, it was our friend Hannah who works it on. and she's like in charge of some store-related things. And she said in China,

like it's becoming more and more of a thing that a store for a brand is more like a showroom and like a concept experience. Like you're not expected to buy anything at all. It's like almost like a museum experience situation and you just fall in love with the brand and then yeah, you go about and go and shop online or whatever. That's what we've been shopping for some furniture

and that's what schoolhouse is. Yeah. You go into schoolhouse and you can't buy anything. It's a trendy furniture store in Portland. It's a trendy cool furniture, store in Portland. You can buy some stuff, like a rug or maybe a light, but for the most part, you're going in there, scanning

the QR code and ordering it online, which is super annoying when you just want instant gratification of the item. Give it to me now! I'm here, to be here and walk out the door with the thing. Yeah. Tell you what they do have, though, is the sale section, which was firing.

With real things. We cleaned up in the sale section. Yeah, we're trying to get, anyway, it was very on. Sweet. If you live in Portland, it's worth going to the school house showroom. Next question here and our last question for the day.

Merry Christmas, CTL crew. My question is about running on a treadmill. When you do your workouts on a tread, which pace are you using? Your watch or the tread? Most of the time, my watch and the tread only agree on the amount of time I have been running. Never the distance, the speed, the incline, etc. And I want to get the most out of my workouts. I use the treads at my work, fire station, so changing the type of tread isn't an option.

What would you recommend for getting the best workout? Thank you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. P.S., if you come back to specialize and have a child's a desire to ride around in a fire engine, let me know I am local to the area. That's fun. That's fun. We do need to go back to Morgan Hill for another little arrow sash. Yeah.

Yeah, Eric and I are riding specialized again this year and next year and the year after that. Awesome. That's great news. We are specialized. Yeah, we don't want to ever change bike. I'll also take a ride in the fire truck, though. That sounds sick. Yeah.

In terms of watches, they're very inaccurate for treadmills. Completely off. I'll be running like four minutes per K, and I say I'm going seven minutes per K. Sometimes I'll just wear my watch because that's what's connected to like training peaks and my coach sees that. So then after the runs over, the watch gives you the opportunity to correct. the distance and I'll just go based on what the treadmill shows that I ran and then it fixes the average pace and everything. So it's not super accurate by any means. I think one thing that the watch can keep track of is like your cadence. That'll be accurate on the treadmill, your heart rate.

But in terms of pace, it's very off. The treadmills are, I would say there's a variety of accuracy within treadmills based on how old it is, if it's been calibrated, if it's a good quality treadmill or not, but a lot of the time with treadmill running, you kind of just have to go by RPE, like your perceived exertion. Yeah. Even our Woodway versus our kicker run, which we both

just use the kicker run primarily now, unless we're both running at the same time. Even those feel different. Really? Even those read differently. They don't read differently necessarily, and maybe they're both completely accurate, but they feel different because the surface is different. Yeah, yeah. It's like harder versus having a more

bounce and it's so dependent on the actual machine. Yeah. How hard or easy it feels relative to outside. Yeah. What you could do if your watch has heart rate on it is you could start to just like build a mental data bank or an Excel spreadsheet with like generally when I'm running at this speed, my heart rate was this. And then sort of make a decision in real time based on your RPE and your heart rate and what the treadmill says to kind of try to find a thing that seems appropriate. Yeah. Yeah.

Just keep in mind that your watch is only using like accelerometer data from your wrist to try to predict how fast you're running on the treadmill. It's like really hard to get right. It's just trying to guess. And a lot of the time my cadence is like lower on the treadmill, at least when I'm running easy. Like more lopey or something. So then the watch thinks I'm going extremely slow. Yeah. And the watch also doesn't know what incline you're at.

Definitely does not know the incline. No. But you would think, it'd be interesting to talk to somebody who's in watch development and stuff, like you would think that if you wore the same watch for three years, that it would be intelligently while you were running a tempo run and a slow run outdoors, it would be getting a better feel for like if Paula is doing this and this much torque and stride and everything, she's running this pace and it would like build a profile for you. It would get to learn you. Yeah, that would be accurate on the treadmill. It was like, I'm never actually running 10 minutes per K.

Why are you telling me that on the treadmill? Yeah. Right. I mean, that would be cool if I could learn that. Something interesting about the way MyWatch displays running pace outdoors is that it has the GPS data, of course, but that is kind of like a lagging indicator a bit. So what they do is they try to also leverage the accelerometer data,

so if they notice an increase in whatever in torque or in cadence, they will bump up the pace on the watch before the GPS has reflected it. To give you a little more, up-to-date idea of what's happening there. Did David tell you this? No, this is, it's Garmin. This is a while ago.

I remember watching something on this. And then later, when you look at the data on training peaks or whatever, it will just totally disregard that accelerometer data and only go by the GPS data. But while you're running, it gives you kind of a more up-duty thing. And I do find it to be helpful and relatively accurate. Do all watches do that or just... I don't know. We can neither confirm nor deny any additional watches doing that.

That's interesting. I don't like just for me personally, I don't really put any stock whatsoever an instantaneous pace on a GPS watch. I always am going off of what isn't the average pace for the kilometer that I'm in currently. And then I'm just like checking in with it occasionally. Otherwise you're going to be frustrated at some point. For the most part, I'm the same. I have instead of the kilometer, I have whatever lap I'm on is the pace.

And that's what I'm paying attention to as well. Yeah. Well, who's not making their watch anymore? No. Discontinued thing. That's a fact. So Eric Nica and I have been wearing the chorus watch and loving it. And what do you think of it? I love it. I think it's accurate. I love the Velker strap. I think it's easy to see.

Yeah. One kind of issue we've had with it is that it ought to the buttons are so pressable that sometimes it'll automatically pause if you're just like messing around with your sleeves or something. Well, yeah. If you bought a tree and put your hand on the tree. That happened to Eric, yeah. But you can lock it so that it will only unlock if you hold it for three seconds. Yeah, I need you to show me how to do that. You got to play around with it a bit. But that's the only flaw we've noticed.

The Velcro strap, no matter what watch you have, that is the solution. Essential. If you're not on Velcro, I don't know what you're doing. It looks zero percent cool, but it is 100% functional. It's all, I've been racing with it. It's amazing. I just got excited about it because you can put load a map on there and for trail running. That's freaking awesome to not have to bring your phone.

I'm not really sure why Wahoo, who decided. not to keep doing the watch because their bike computers are so good. And their treadmill is so good. I guess watches are just such a, you need to devote so much resources to make it. It is a good question. So good that maybe it was just not worth it. Yeah, the hardware is a specific issue, getting the hardware dialed. It's not the same as a byte computer.

No, it's like smaller and like that market is so incredibly saturated. Well, I think Wahoo is staying in their lane now because they're making the, best bike stuff. Yeah, that's it. They tried going out of that lane and they got right back in it.

They got in the treadmill lane. Which actually makes a lot more sense. Yeah, like home indoor workout ecosystem. New Year's episode.

We didn't do any New Year's resolutions yet. I'm not really into that kind of stuff, you know? It's the same as yesterday. Today's the same as yesterday. I mean, it is kind of a,

if it helps you and motivates you to have a blank slate, and a fresh start to things. But I don't know, my year goes so much based on the triathlon race season. Yeah, yeah. December is January, is February. I mean, it's so blended together.

I think we kind of did it last week. My goals are the same. We did. We did do it last week, yeah. We talked about kind of what we did last year, who we were in one word and what we wanted to be next year. And I think that general gist is like,

rather than writing down a list of things that we're going to do better, it's like, here's kind of what I feel like my feelings and my vibes and what I personally want to do better next year. And it's, it's like a lifestyle change, almost like on a small level. And self-reflection. It's a good time of the year for self-reflection because that does have a meaning that the year is flipping and turning. But I don't think there needs to be this big, revolutionary, you know, major change in your life just because it's now January 1st versus December 31st. Yeah, no, we're just making

major changes because it's the end of the triathlon race season. although we're not changing any sponsors. I was thinking about that today. Like I could wear last year's race kit and it would be fine. That is true. Which is cool. We're at the point of our career where we're not like getting dropped and we're not needing to go find anyone new because we love all the stuff we have.

So nice. So nice. That's been great. Anyway, that's a tangent. But thank you guys for listening. Nick will be here next week in person and we're going to do a really fun podcast, similar to our 100th episode where we call you guys and ask you to ask us a question so we can answer you similar to radio station. So we're asking you to give us our phone number so we can ask you to ask us a question.

Well, what we're going to do is we're going to put up an Instagram story on the TTL web Instagram that says if you want to be in the pool of phone numbers for us to try calling you, put your phone number in. we will call you at a random time that's not going to be known to you. If you pick up, great. If you don't pick up, that's fine too. We'll go to the next number. But if you pick up, have a question ready for us. And we'll have a little bit of discussion with you live on the phone. And that will be the podcast episode that we'll do a video and just a recording of.

Do we know what day we're going to record that just to like preemptively say, have that in mind? Well, if next get in here, we could just do Monday. Yeah, Monday's our day. I think we might need to do a bit earlier in the day so that we don't like wake up the East Coasters. We'll reiterate that. But we're not going to tell them the time. I mean, if you just need to be available the entire day if you want to get called potentially. All right.

Well, we'll reiterate the exact day in the Instagram story. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. It's going to be fun. I can't wait. Apparently Nick is on a no sweets January, which is insane. So we're just going to have to. I predict that falling apart immediately.

It's going to fall apart when we start buying donuts. What is a sweet anyway? Is that like a bagel with cream cheese on it? Bagel's not a sweet. No, bagel's not a sweet. Bagel is a health food. Okay, so that's a health food. For sure.

Okay, well, next week we got to do a sweet or health food segment where we go down the list of such baked items and decide if they count. I like it. I like it. All right. Can't wait. Okay, well, we'll see you then, everyone. Talk to you next week. Later.

Bye. Thank you.