That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula Findlay wins Ironman Lake Placid on her full triathlon distance debut — full race recap

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Paula Findlay wins Ironman Lake Placid on her very first full distance triathlon attempt. Setting the bike course record, ringing the first-timer's bell, and crossing the tape after one of the most composed performances of the year. Nick and Eric were both on course for the day, and this week all three of us sit down to relive every moment: the cold non-wetsuit swim chasing Chelsea Sodaro, the wind-whipped bike ride where Paula refused to let the gusts derail nine months of preparation, the broken flask on the run, running a 1:24 half marathon split before her quads staged a full revolt, talking herself through lonely miles of River Road, and what it actually felt like to turn into the Olympic oval.This week we discussed:Paula's full Ironman Lake Placid race recap: swim, bike, run, and every mental moment in betweenRacing without a wetsuit in cold windy weather — staying warm, not panicking off the bike, and why the cold nearly derailed the first 45 minutesRiding through 28mph gusts: how Paula stayed in her aerobars when everything in her said sit upThe Marta Sanchez dynamic: running together through the first half, trusting her experience, and slowly stretching the gapQuad cramping from mile 13 of the marathon and choosing to keep running anywayRinging the first-timer's bellThe med tent, the wheelchair, and what "empty" actually feels like after an IronmanHow Eric and Nick tracked splits all day: whiteboard shorthand, the Iron Man app, texts from people on course, and educated guessesWhat Paula discovered about herself: long activities are a mindset, not a personality typeThe timing chip chafe solution that actually worked (and the neck chafe that still didn't)TTL team finished 4th in the team competition — in their first year150 people at the Lake Placid donut run and the volunteer team who drove 45 minutes for donutsIs it better to race a new distance naive, or knowing what's coming? Paula answers just days after finding outLong run advice for Ironman training: why 30K is probably enough, and why Paula wishes she'd run more pavementTTL Kona merch is happening, and so is NiceSamantha Skold qualifies for Kona off the back of a career-best run at Lake PlacidA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive — this pod has no ads, and your support is what makes it possible. To submit a question and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. This is going to be a good one. We had an incredible weekend. Paula just won Iron Man, Lake Placett, her first ever Iron Man. Nick and I were both there. We both feel like we wanted it as well. To back up just a little bit, welcome to our podcast. Paula and I are both professional athletes. Paula is admittedly the star of the family now that she's an iron. Iron Man champion. Nick is an amateur triathlet lover of the sport. And we like talking about a trathlon here on this podcast. Take a lot of questions from people who ride into us. So thank you if you do that. Also, we just talk about what's going on in the triathlon world and in our trathon world. So that is how we're going to kick off this show. Paula, do you feel different? Do you feel elevated? Are you floating? Do I feel different? Now that we're back home,

I don't feel different at all. I just feel very sore and very tired and very wrecked, which I expected. But no, I'm really happy, obviously. Just kind of like it was a surprise to win, but the amount of attention it's gotten is just way, way beyond what I would ever expect for a result like that. Eric, I felt the same way. I mean, of course, we knew a lot of eyes would be on this,

and specifically your debut, Paula, but don't you feel like it's kind of outpaced what we expected? Definitely. For sure. Yeah, I think it's a combination of it just being my first one. Like Placid has history. It's a cool race. It's a pro series race.

It's a big deal. There was a lot of curiosity about how I would do from everyone and myself included. I had no idea if I would even finish. even up to the last 5 or 10K, I didn't know if I'd finish. So it was cool that it was so well broadcasted and people could actually follow it and watch it and feel like they were part of it and invested in it more versus just seeing the result on paper. There were a lot of amazing pictures taken at the finish line. The emotions were real. So I think people love that.

And then just what we did all week with TTL, having the donut run, having you guys there, having like our team be part of the whole week. it was a bit risky to me because we drew attention to this and I didn't know what the outcome would be. We were hyping it up. We were making t-shirts. We were doing the donut run. And it was like more pressure because people had eyes on it. So, but I think the combination of all those things made it so that the result was a little bit more seen by people or, you know, people cared a lot. It felt like. You know, I know it's not the same because the stakes were so different. aren't now, but just for a little inside baseball for all the podcast listeners, Eric, I'm sure you're going to agree with me and we've talked about it, but I have not seen Paula so calm

leading up to a race. And so it's just like accepting of whatever was happening. Yeah, I was, I think, relatively calm and in a good mood heading into this race, but it's because I had done good training. I was healthy. I didn't have expectations necessarily. because I didn't know what would come of this. Like if I'd even like it, if I'd get to the end,

I could have had a catastrophic meltdown during the marathon. I could have hated every minute of the bike ride. Anything could have happened. So to not really expect to win, like I do of myself in other races a lot of the time, was a bit of a freeing feeling. And of course, having you guys both there being in a great place, like Placid is amazing. Like all that adds to the vibe of,

being relaxed, being happy, being excited for what's coming. So Oceanside brings that too, though. We love that place. So maybe that's a little bit of it. But I would say my mentality was quite different between the two. Yeah, I think the feeling of calmness started a long time ago. I kind of felt like I noticed it three, four weeks out even as the Iron Man, quote, Iron Man build was going on and workouts were just, there was nothing flashing and incredible.

She never came home and said, oh my gosh, you know, I just said this. crazy workout PR and anything like that. It was just like consistent stacking of training and never digging into this hole that we've seen other Ironman athletes get into where they get so tired from doing so much volume that they don't even make to the taper without exploding. So that's a great segue into a curiosity I have for you, Paul is how much do you attribute to the success of the actual result to the changes you made? to the changes you made in your training that are specific to Iron Man? Versus just being an athlete that's trained forever, having a bit of experience with the sport itself. No, you do have to train for these specifically. And I was joking before, like I don't like the word Iron Man training because it feels like

I have this bank of aerobic fitness from 20 years of doing the sport. but I have a coach and he gave me weekly structure workouts that were different from what I would do if I was preparing for a 70.3 and yeah, four by 40 minutes, that type of thing at Watts that are not necessarily exciting, but the fact that I could do it was really cool. And I'd come home from these rides that were longer than I'd ever done before and feel like pretty good after. So I think doing the type of training that was required, but then also not having it completely destroy me and feel like I was hating it and coming home tired and didn't want to do the next day, I was kind of cool because I'm like, well, this isn't that different from what I

have to do on race day, this bike ride that I just did. So my confidence, therefore, was pretty good leading into it that I could at least complete a lot of the activity. Of course, the unknown was like the last hour of the run. I'd never run over. two hours before. And I do think my run prep was a little undercooked. And my coach, Paolo, said this as well. I hadn't done many long runs. I hadn't done a lot of running on pavement, which I think in retrospect was a bit of the reason of the muscular breakdown I had. But it's kind of exciting because I think with more run training specifically for this, I can do better because aerobically I felt good the entire time. It was just my legs really were what failed

me in the end, but not failed me. They still got me to the finish line. The reason for that is, like, the end of last year was, was not a success by your own, you know, admission or wording. You were injured through the end of the last season, the process by which you, you know, the rate at which you can ramp up your running to just get to where you were at prior to that injury, let alone getting to the longest runs you've ever done in lining up like four, two-hour runs. I think you built up as quickly as you possibly could. For sure.

And like back to your initial statement of like you've been training for this your whole life, like that got you through plus the huge amount of bike volume and fitness that you built. Yeah. And I think it was interesting as I was talking to Paulo about going to TT Nationals, which was about three weeks out or four weeks out from this race. And I was really concerned about it being disruptive to my quote unquote Ironman build with this effect my race.

I have to miss too many long endurance days if I go to this race. And his answer, he was good with that kind of either way because he wants athletes to race what they want to race and what they're excited about. But he thought it would take the pressure off a little bit because sometimes when you're doing this Iron Man build, you do too much. And you're like, I need to do long runs. You know, every three days, I need to do this many kilometers. And I think for me, with an injury history, being a little more cautious with the run ramp up

and the run intensity was critical to get to the start line healthy and maybe a bit undercooked on the run, but without any injuries. So, yeah, starting the year at Oceanside, I was still in pain when I was running. I should not have even been on that start line to get to the point where I was confident I could do a marathon for the most part was kind of a miracle in itself. And I just like a testament to the slow ramp that we had to do and that we successfully did. So yeah, you're right, Eric. Eric, think about when we were in Marbea

and we were so worried about her to think that she won an Iron Man last week it just feels crazy to me. It does kind of feel like a miracle. She tried to race again after Marbea. She tried to do T-100 and just like further dug that hole. And so that was a big thing.

We went skiing over Christmas break, tried to take like complete rest from running and everything and just low impact there. then the day before Christmas, she tweaked her knee coming down from a hike that we did in the snow, thought she was never going to be able to run again. And just, I couldn't, it blew my mind that. I think I said that to you as she was doing the end, at the very far end of the course on River Road at the turnaround end, it just kind of really hit me. It's like, I can't believe she has to come all the way back here. That's freaking insane. That seems impossible. I don't know. I'm still, I'm just like still in

disbelief. And I'm really appreciative of the work that Paul loved. and Paul Lowe put in. Even if I had finished the race and come eight, it would have been a miracle. Yeah, exactly. Just finishing it. Getting to the end. It was just mind blowing.

Okay. But isn't it, do you guys have, Paul, honestly, you don't have to pander, especially since now there's two Iron Man's on this podcast. But do you have a, a different perspective

on age groupers that even just finish the race now? Or did you, already have this kind of respect for the distance, do you think? I already had the respect for the distance and a fear of the distance. And it's one of the reasons I didn't do one until now because it seemed crazy to think about finishing that. And I think a lot of that feeling came from my experience in the half distance and thinking about finishing those and doing it all over again was like no way I could do that. But that's not the mentality you're in

when you're doing a full. You're not thinking about doing a half twice. You're thinking about doing a full once. So I was totally accepting of the distance. It was like on lap one of the swim, I was like, this would be nice to be done after one lap, but we're doing two laps. Giddy up. That's what's happening today. So it's not the same as like one plus one is two. It's like a totally different sport. And if anything, I mean, it didn't make me respect the distance any less, but it made it seem a lot more digestible and doable now that I've done one and know that that headspace you're in when you're doing it is like warrior get to the finish line. But it's unbelievable that so many people actually do it. So yeah, it's crazy. It's such a crazy sport. It's the hardest thing I'd ever done

in the last hour of the race. But up till then, I was really enjoying it. So I know fun is not totally the point when you're a professional athlete. And I think if you're that kind of person and if you're lucky, fun can be a part of it. But do you feel like the full distance is more fun than 70.3? That's hard for me to answer right now because winning is fun. So I have this a little bit of a It's covered by the wind. Yeah, rose colored glasses of this distance because I had such a good experience on my first go of it. It was fun to do something new. And I think that's the biggest takeaway here. It's not that it was any more or less fun than I have. I've had fun in halves. I've had zero fun in halves. You've had no fun in halves that you've won. For sure. Yeah.

That's a good point. But Eric has done so many new things lately. He's he's done the mountain bike 100 mile race. He's done ultras. He's done swim runs. You haven't done something that was new in a while and you've done amazing jobs at which you've done. But this is the first new thing. Maybe the time trial also. Time trial. Felt new. Which had a similar feeling, honestly, when I was first new to it.

Yeah. Yeah. So do we feel like that's a thing that anyone should feel guilty for trying something new? Like, does it, should you? What a crazy question. You know, because it's easy to feel like, oh, I just gave up on this thing that I've been doing to chase something new. And it's, you know, I'm going to go be a. beginner at it and like you could i did like you said nick i did those three new things in one year and

didn't like necessarily commit to any one thing and i had a blast but plenty of people could look at and be like oh well you're just not serious about anything yeah or you're just like eventually you run out of new things you can't just keep doing new things you know yeah yeah i'm sure you can yeah i think you can nick it's a big world but yeah i i think that's it's so exciting i think especially because people who are in the world of triathlon who have heard you speak and maybe who even listen to the podcast, they've heard you and Eric talk about full distance as this thing like that you're never going to do or maybe you'll do. And for you to then do it and seem like you really loved it and then do so well out of it. We all saw ourselves in you when you crossed that line.

I got so many messages from people telling me that they were crying when they watched you when I'm sure you did. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Are we going to do, do you want me to do like a little play by play? No, not a little play by play. We want an all-out play-by-play. A one-hour play-by-play. But I think just to set the expectation, if you guys want, like, I can, this podcast can go as long as we possibly could want. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to give, people watched it. So I don't need to give a play-by-play of what happened, but I think some of like the feelings I had and the thoughts I was having before.

And like, that might be interesting for people. Yeah, I agree. We want to know about what you were thinking and what you were feeling more so than, well, within the context of what actually happened. So race morning, we found out for sure no wetsuit. Did that mean anything to you? No, that was expected. It was, the water's been warm all week. The air temperature was cold.

It was like 10 degrees Celsius, but feels like 7 degrees, said the weather app because of the wind and all of the, you know, whatever, overcast. of the day. But it worked a bit to my advantage. There were a couple athletes in the field who really don't like the cold. And I think I don't like the cold. I don't enjoy being cold, but my body can tolerate it. So my strategy was to stay as warm as I possibly could until the second the gun went off. I didn't get in for a swim warm up. Most people didn't, it seemed like. And I never felt cold in the swim at all. So I would have liked a wetsuit just because it's more comfortable, I would say, but it is what it is. The first lap was pretty smooth. I was on Chelsea's feet. She was swimming really well, and I was struggling to stay on her feet. It was an effort to stay there. And I didn't

know where we were relative to anyone else. I just knew it was her because she has the white swim skin, and I knew the color of her cap. And she had no one in front of her at first. So yeah, she was swimming extremely well. And then the second lap is where you start to overlap the age group athletes that are starting their first lap. And they do tell the age group athletes to stay to the left of the buoys and pros stay to the inside of the buoys until the turn buoys, of course, which for the most part was a thing that the age group athletes respected. And it seemed mostly like it was, you know, I could navigate through the age group people. Chelsea obviously was doing the most of that work because she was in front of me. But around the last turn boy, so with about a thousand meters to go,

there was a lot of people around. The Turnboys were the worst part and I lost her feet. Because you still have to, of course, navigate around the buoys, right? You can't cut the corner there. Yeah, you can't cut the corners, of course. Re-insert yourself with all of the age groupers each time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was really choppy.

The wind on the day was really high. I think like 28 mile an hour gusts, which is a lot. So the waves on the water were creating chopping conditions. It was not a fast swim. I think it has the ability to be a fast swim if it's flat water because there is the awesome sighting buoys, but it was not necessarily a fast day. And then that second lap must just be way slower than the first for most people because of the like navigating people. So I lost Chelsea's feet but didn't panic. Before the race, I was thinking like the swim is important, but it does not make her break the day.

So no matter what happens during the swim, do not freak out. you can be five minutes back and you could still catch the front of the race. So I was able to maintain like a lot of composure even though I ended up swimming alone for the last part. And Nick, when I got out of the water, I thought I heard you say Lisa Perter are five and a half minutes up. Did you say that? No. Because, well, it wasn't true. So obviously you didn't say that.

Well, actually, we have it on video what I said. So we could go back to whatever. Yeah. But actually the fastest swimmers were only two minutes up. Yeah. So that was actually good. And when I exited transition, Eric told me that, which I was like, okay, two minutes is not that much at all, especially to people like Rachel's Alinkas, who's a great swimmer. So I still tried not to do what I always do in 70.3s where I get on my bike and I try to catch everyone as quick as possible.

I got on my bike, and first of all, I was freezing my butt off. It was so freaking cold. And Polo had told me to put like arm warmers on and stuff, but I knew it was going to warm up later, so I didn't really want to have extra clothing on. But in the moment I was like, oh man, I wish I had a winter jacket on him so shivery right now. Looking back now, do you feel like it was the right call to not put them on and just kind of deal with the cold temporarily? Yeah, because after about 30 minutes, the sun came out and it warmed up a lot. So it would have been annoying to have too many clothes on. But I was kind of riding over my bots that I wanted to ride because I was trying to warm up.

So I'm like, is this going to burn me later? But I can't not ride hard because I'm so cold. So, but I talked to Martin after he felt the same way. I know it was Lisa as well. It was, it's tough to get out of cold water, be wet and ride fast in cold weather that's under 10 Celsius. The leaders must have been really riding hard because, well, Chelsea wrote up to them. She did what you just said you didn't do, rode up to the lead group of three. Almost immediately, you kind of held the gap until the bottom of of that keen descent.

Yeah. Yeah, there was this funny little out and back on a toboggan. hill that you could see the gaps to everybody, so I knew what the gaps were, which was really helpful. But that descent that's about six minutes long and really fast was so scary the first time because of the cold. I was like, I couldn't stay an arrow. My hands were going numb. I was like kind of just sitting up on my bars thinking, get down this safely. This is not going to make or break the race. And then you can start riding again and get warm. But that was kind of consuming my thoughts for the first 45 minutes of the race was the cold.

My biggest concern with this was that you would lose like two minutes or something on that dissent because the day before, two days before when we wrote it, there was a crazy headwind. It was terrifying. It was not fun at all. And I've like when you got to the bottom of the dissent and hadn't lost any time, Nick and I were just like, high five, let's go. Now we now it begins. I was riding fast down it. When we pre-wrote it, should I tell everybody this? It's up to you. We were filming a fighting chance, so Toffer and Petey wrote with us, they were in the van, and I was like going to ride the descent to practice it.

I got so freaking scared. I was like hyperventilating and I had to get in the van to do the descent. They're like, just get in the van, we'll drive you down. I'm like, do not put this in the video. And then people were messaging me after I did the pre-ride like, what speeds did you hit on the descent? I'm like, 20 kilometers an hour. It was a scary descent As fast as a speeding minivan

It was a scary descent because of the cars I mean it was not like a huge shoulder Whatever it was fine in the race It's just high speed It's not technical It's just wind in your face and cars busy highway On lap two though When you were riding with Marta

You descended really well behind her Yeah I can descend well in the race It was the pre-race stuff that was scary But I guess was it scary on lap two Because you said it was scary on lap one Yeah, but I was like, you're staying with Marta. Yeah, yeah, right. You got to do what you got to do.

What was the thing you said? I forget what it was. It was like many podcasts ago. You're like, sometimes you just got to do the hard thing or something like that. Even if it's scary. Things are hard and you just do them. Yeah. So yeah, I knew the back half of the course was all uphill.

So I didn't want to like burn all my matches catching everybody on like the flatter parts midway. and I could see them up the road. It was only a minute and a bit of a gap. So I wasn't like freaking out. But I did see that group of three plus a million motorcycles that were helping them, obviously. I mean, that's just the nature of the front of the race. But once I caught them, it was on one of the climbs out of Jay. And there were a couple pro men in the mix with their group.

And I was like, you guys need to get out of the women's race, please. Like go up the road or back or whatever. You said this to them, right? Yeah. I said this to them. And then what's really hard about the nature of the motorcycles is once I got to the front, there's a motorcycle beside me, not in front of me. But that's creating this like triangle effect for the person in third or right behind me. So it's really hard to get away. It's really, really hard unless there's a giant climb. So I couldn't really shake people as quickly as I was like wanting to. And Marta ended up staying with me. I kept looking back and she was gone. And I thought, okay, I've broken the plastic and then she'd get back on. So yeah, for her having like the carrot of me being there and then the motorcycles around, I think adds to like, she was, she's a really strong cyclist and she actually came around me probably three times or maybe four times, which I get annoyed by because she comes around me and then I have to fully sit up and break to get out of her red zone.

So it just breaks the flow, but it's the nature of these races. I would prefer to just time trial all by myself at the front, but it's racing. So she was there. It helped in some ways to have company. But for the most part, it was just a bit annoying because then also when I was behind her thinking like, okay, just recover for a couple minutes here, I'd get into her red and then have to go 300 watts to get around her in time. So it makes the ride a bit spiky if you're riding with another person around, which was

okay. I mean, after lap one of the ride, I still felt totally good. I wasn't like, oh my gosh, we have to do that again. I was thinking, oh, well, I've taken care of myself. I've ridden what I wanted to ride on my watts. I can do that again. I'm fine. I was going to ask about that.

You caught people, dropped most people, except for Marta. How was the wattages, like the amount of spikiness or just the overall average? How are you knowing that you were like doing the right thing or writing too hard or not hard enough? I was kind of looking at like my normalized power for the whole ride, which was like spot on what I wanted to average. So my average obviously was a bit lower, but what Paulo said before the race is you really don't want to spike too much in an Ironman. Like don't go over this X watts on the hills. Don't come out of the corners and spike up just to get back up to speed,

like really try to be steady. And looking at my power file, I definitely spent way more time than I maybe should have over 270 watts. But again, it was a punchy course. There's some dynamics with passing people being in groups that, kind of forced that to happen. But it was a bit of a learning experience. Like that does zap your legs more than just riding steady the whole time. So yeah, but I still felt good on the second lap. I was still like holding the watts I wanted to, moving well, fueling well, having fun in some ways.

The second lap was the part where you pass age groupers, which is one of the things I was most anxious about in this whole race was the overlap with the age group athletes. And it's hectic. It kind of takes away your thought of how long the race is because you're just focused on that. Like, on your left, on your left. And most of them stay right, but you never know if they're going to make a last minute move to come left. So you're always on edge a bit with this. Eric and I saw Martin almost get taken out by an age grouper when we were watching the stream. Well, the last minute swerve. The aid stations are the worst part because everyone's trying to get a bottle. Yeah. And you go in to get a bottle, but you're moving twice as fast as someone. You

almost have to like slow down to their speed to make it safe. So it's hairy, but it's kind of what a lot of Iron Man races have going on. I feel like they need a motto, like whatever, a quarter mile ahead of the lead male and lead female. They do. It's a lot to ask. It's a police car. It's just like beeps or something. Well, that was a bit of the, there was a police car a kilometer ahead of me that I could see, but he

He wasn't honking out of the way, out of the way. He was just riding there. And the dangerous part was there was such a big gap between the police car and me that age groupers would kind of get on the police motor's wheel in a way or like maybe unintentionally, but they'd kind of drift over to where the motorbike was. So if anything, I think having that motorbike up the road for the lead was making it worse. I feel like this was the case in combo. like we had in Cabo the leaders would have a moped in front of them

and almost every single person that they passed would try to jump on the mopeds wheel for a half a second to get a draft and almost take you out like over and over again. Damn. Anyway, I don't know, it's tough. It seems like the perfect thing would be like 400 yards or whatever we just deem the non-draftable distance and then laying on the horn

and then some sort of sign on the back that's like, lead female lead male do not follow but for 90% of the time it was fine and they were actually cheering for me and excited when I passed them

so it was okay it ended up being okay but still on the way back into town like the last rollers I was like this is gonna hurt I was expecting that before the race but it didn't feel as hard as I thought it would be

and I was still it was like try to ride like 220 to 230 coming back and I could do that it was fine do you know if you both in terms of negative of time and wattage, even spill it, even paste?

No idea. The laps, okay. But if you want to check, you could check. No, I was just curious if you, like, knew or had a sense that you sped up or slowed down. No, actually, what I was looking at is I knew what Lisa and Marta rode last year. And I was kind of trying to stay in that zip code. I think they averaged like 36 kilometers an hour. And after the first lap, I was averaging high 37.

So maybe I slowed down a bit on the second lap, but I knew I was riding fast. than they had ridden last year. So I didn't really care about Watts as much as my speed and my time, because that's what matters in racing. And you did get the course record. I did get the course record. And I will say it was not necessarily faster than last year. It was insanely windy. The crosswinds were crazy. The headwinds were crazy at parts. And I felt like the headwinds didn't even really flip to help you on the way back because it was so twisty. and there were trees, and it would almost, it's like gusts would hit you when the trees opened up. So, of course, it was good conditions from a temperature perspective, but from a wind perspective,

it's the type of wind that would have freaked the shit out of me if I tried to do this a year or two ago. I think I've gotten much better at riding in the wind and staying arrow when it gets scary. But it was scary. And a lot of age group athletes were like, most of them that I passed were out of their arrow bars sitting up. So, yeah, not perfect conditions, but I was able to overcome that scariness. But there were certain points where I'm just like swearing out loud because I'm getting pushed by the wind so much. You know. But it was windy.

Every day we were there. I do you know. Every single day we were there, it was windy. Eric. Eric does know. Like, fuck this. A couple times I said that. But that's as negative as.

I got. That's the negative as I got. You were very positive all day. And this was, that was my primary concern with this whole thing. I felt like your training had been very smooth. I felt like you were fit. You weren't over cooked or anything. It was just, will something with the conditions, like, throw you off enough, like with the wind or if it rained or like whatever it is to like create this like growing frustration snowball that threw you off your game and it didn't happen. So that was, that was my fear. As I was riding in the gusts and the wind, it would have been really easy to sit up and be scared. But I'm like, I'm not letting the wind derail this entire circus. Like, I got here. I trained for this. Everyone's here. Everyone's watching. I'm excited for

this. I'm not going to let a gust of wind ruin my entire day. Wow. That's growth. That's growth. That's growth. That is growth. Well, I mean, it's growth and it's also just something that you really truly cared about and it decided to do for yourself. And like, that was deep down. And it is a true statement for anyone that's listening to this who races in the wind sometimes, that if you stay in your bars and push watts, it's not as bad as if you freak out and sit up and break. It truly keeps your bike more stable. And that's what I've kind of realized over the last year of riding my bike better is that pushing power, staying low makes the bike stable. It's what the bike wants to do. You're not going to get blown off your bike because of wind.

You might get blown into traffic, so that fear is fair. but you're probably not going to crash. Awesome. Man, just a quick little aside. I feel like Eric and I are still on such a high. I know you are too, but what an honor it was to be there to watch this happen. I feel like this maybe is a little hyperbole, but it feels like we were part of triathlon history is what it felt like.

No. Maybe not. For us in our lives, it feels like it. It feels like it. It feels like it. It feels like it. You know, like, and we, you know, we were in the thick of it and cared more about

this than anyone else. Yeah. Does it matter if anyone else cares? We had an amazing time caring. This is the lens we see it through. And God, it was, it was also just a perfect day. Like, it was a beautiful day and nothing went wrong for you. It just felt like this fairy tale kind of situation up until,

Well, I don't want to spoil the ending, even though everyone already knows the ending. So you get off the bike and what were your expectations to feel like when you were running? Someone, one of the commentators on the live stream said that they saw a grimace from you. I had heard that, but I didn't see it. Did you have a moment? It was probably when my flask broke. F that flask. That's right.

That I bought it, REI. Wait, we got us, that's a little callback to last week. So you had got these fancy flasks. They're not fancy. They're just ordinary ass flasks. They're like, I don't want to lose them. Yeah, because they, whatever. So when you come into, I've never done a race where you have like your shit in bags that you have to like grab while you're going through.

I've only done races where you rack your own bike, put your shoes on that you leave at your bike and then leave. So it's an Iron Man thing, I guess, where you hand your bike to a bike catcher. That's crazy. Yeah. What a luxury. Oh, yeah. And then the first couple steps were like Bambi kind of, but fine. And I just told myself, don't think about running a marathon right now.

Just run. You cannot think about how long it is or you will just freak out. So I grabbed my bag. Mardo was with me in T2. We went into the change tent where it feels like this little haven of like nobody can see, which is nice. I kind of liked it. Volunteers are amazing. They know exactly what to do.

They help get all my stuff out of my bag. laid it out, put everything on. Oh, and you were the first two women into the tent all day. Yeah. They didn't even have the experience yet. Well, they knew what to do. Yeah, yeah. They had more experience than me, probably.

Right. So, yeah, helmet goes back in the bag, hand it to the transition people. Yeah, they do so much for you. It's crazy. It's like catered T2 fully. You don't have to barely do anything except put your own shoes on. It's actually interesting real quick. The photographer who took that incredible picture of Paul and I,

he wrote a little blurb about that, about relative to any other sport, he's seen how the volunteer attentiveness to people in Iron Man's is just so next level and makes everybody, like somebody grabs you when you cross the finish line, walks with you for a while, make sure you're okay, they're dedicated to you and getting water and cooling.

Yeah, it's cool. It's very impressive. It's true. Even for age groupers. Yeah, exactly. Especially for age groupers. Yeah. About 70% of the town of the town

of like Placid volunteers for the race because there's more racers than population. Yeah. So it's a hugely like big part of their history in that town. Started the run but then yeah, my flask, the nipple fell off. And then water was squirting everywhere. Not water, sticky shit, sticky tailwind was squirting everywhere. And I was like, I can't just gulp all this down right now.

That would go bad. So I took a few sips and then just emptied it onto the ground. and ditched the flask at the first aid station. But I had two gels with me, and then I knew there was my special needs bag halfway, and then a lot of aid stations and support on course, so didn't freak out about it. But the first 5K is all downhill. We had a tailwind. Marta took off, like, a bat out of hell.

And I know I'm a good runner, and I can run with Marta, but I didn't know if I could over a full. but I also didn't want to lose her. I didn't want to let her go because I wasn't confident in my ability to bring her back later. She's very experienced at racing full Iron Man's. So I stayed with her, but I looked at my watch. We're running like 340 per K down the hill and I'm like,

Lord, I think we're going too fast. And she said, because at this point, I think we felt a little bit like we were helping each other in some ways, even just emotionally, being together. Of course, we were racing, but it's a long day and having each other's company was nice in a lot of ways. So she's like, don't worry we're going downhill with the tailwind. Like, it's okay to run this fast right now.

So I kind of trusted her with that in a weird way. And never felt like, oh, I need to drop her. I just felt like she knows what she's doing. Be patient and stay with her, even though this feels like it's too fast. And I felt really good the first 10K, which everyone told me I would. You're going to feel great on the first 10K. And slowly was kind of stretching. elastic to her, but I wasn't trying to drop her. I was just like run what feels comfortable

right now. And I, another thing that's confusing to me about Iron Man is you don't want to go out too hard, but I don't think that going out 10 or 15 seconds per kilometer slower would have made me feel any better in the last 10K because it was total muscular failure. It was not aerobic. Right. So you're like, I might as well. Yeah. Like you have to control yourself to a certain extent. But it's, I don't necessarily think that going way slower at first saves you for later in these things. Maybe it does. Maybe I'm wrong. But that was a little bit my thinking. So, I just tried to like take care of myself. I was taking gels at aid stations. I was eating. I was drinking. I was like looking at my watch, trying not to think about how long I had to go,

taking it chunk at a time. I broke the course into chunks in my mind before the race. So I knew like out and back on River Road. You did that. that three days ago. It felt so easy. Just do that once. And then we'll tackle the next thing. So it was very pieced out in my head. And Marta was hanging back there. Like she was only 30, 40 seconds back for me most of the way. So it wasn't like I'd, you know, dropped everyone and had a huge gap. She was there. And Chelsea was also running really fast at first. So I really thought that she was going to pass me and probably win. That's what I was thinking in the first lap. Chelsea's coming. When she passes you, remain calm, just keep doing your race. Anything can happen in these things.

We thought that as well in the first two miles. Yeah. Chelsea's an amazing runner. She never was on pace to pass you at the pace you were going. But if you had slowed down the way that everyone eventually did and she had kept the same pace. Yes. Yes. She could. And just going off of her historic, you know, fastest run times. Which Chelsea could. She's sought to get runner and obviously has experience at racing this distance. And I didn't know how fit she was. None of us knew. She hasn't raced in a year.

So just going off of the Chelsea I know, who's an amazing runner, I'm like, she will catch me, but that's okay. Just keep racing your race. And at about the end of the first lap, I opted to not get my special needs bag, but I think it's because I was like, I was okay with eating the Morton's on course and I didn't want to mess with my plastic bag and I didn't, I was mad at the flask,

so I didn't want to get the flask, have that break on me again. So I passed on the special needs and just kept on doing aid station gels and electrolytes. But my quad, my right quad was like, it felt like I had a Charlie horse in it after the first lap.

I was like, oh boy, is this a cramp? Like I didn't really know if it was a cramp because I could keep running, but it was really, every step was like pain, pain, pain. and the downhills especially were just so excruciating. And then that cramp and that one quad soon moved to both quads. And it was just everything I could to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And it sucks because I felt so good aerobically.

I never felt like my heart rate was out of control. I never felt like I was suffering in other ways that sometimes I do. I felt like I had energy, but it was just my legs. And that's kind of what I expected before the race was this will probably happen. But it was scary when it started to happen only at the half marathon. It's like, oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah, and I'd gone through the half split in like 124 or something,

which is not even that much slower than I run a 70.3 at. And I still felt like I could do that again. But the quads thing was just so hard. And that's as much a byproduct of this. course as it is of the length of the race. A lot of people that even have done tons of iron mans were like that run course is so hard and you get so sore after. But you did predict this. You've said recently, I get to the end of a half and I feel like I could keep running. And you said you feel like you could do the full marathon at the end

pretty well, but that you would have muscular fatigue. And this is exactly what happened. You could keep running aerobically. And you had this massive muscle. fatigue, which, you know. Yeah. I've never had this feeling of like the crampiness, though, which was a bit, um, I mean, it's okay if that happens with 10K to go, but with 21k to go. It's, it was scary.

And I still to this point, I didn't know Chelsea was walking yet. Mardo was right there. I was like, this is not, this is far from over. Anything could happen. I could DNF. I could have to start walking. Like, you don't know what's going to happen. So just, I was actually like talking to myself out loud as I started

the second lap. I was like just relaxed, staying control, all these things talking. The out and back on River Road is so lonely. That was the worst, that was mentally the worst part of the race on the second lap. So far. Nobody's out there and you're just, I mean, the person on the one wheel was with me, Tauffer's brother, which was nice. I loved having him there. But we weren't talking. He was just, you know, another human around. And the gap tomato was growing, which I could see on the out and backs.

And I remember when I was doing the pre-run on River Road, I saw the sticker on the ground for 20 miles. And I was like, holy shit, can you imagine getting to 20 miles and still having to run back to town? Yeah, back to town plus two out and backs in townbacks that are uphill, right? Yes. And then that moment came and I was like, here I am. I'm at the 20-mile sticker. I feel like this is the hardest thing I've ever done. My legs are totally failing. It's all uphill to get back. But it's only 10 kilometers.

How many times have I run 10K in my life? Every day of my life almost I've ran 10K. You can do this. And on the uphills, my quads didn't hurt as much. So I was actually really appreciative of the uphills. I was like, you could run uphill for the rest of this race. And it would be way better than doing any other downhills, which ended up being correct.

because any little downhills on the way back were way worse than running up. I got to like the junction where you have still two out and backs, but you're close to the finish lines. There's a lot of crowds. And Eric showed me the board for course record. And I was like, that is not even. I cannot run faster if a bear was chasing me. And that bear is named Marta Sanchez.

I went back and forth a lot on whether or not to show that to you. It was cool. I was like, oh, okay, well, at least I'm running a respectable marathon here. That was the gamble I was willing to take that you were like in an okay enough space. That would be just like a cool thought to you rather than pick it up. F that, why would you? Yeah, I'm not telling you to pick it up. Just like you're going fast.

Well, I don't think it was on our radar really. The course record, or I don't know if it was for you. Lindsey Corbyn messaged me about it. Oh. Well, I'm saying before the race. No, no, not at all. So for her to see that is like, oh. Damn.

Also, like, I won it last year. She has the course record, right? Yeah, exactly. So to know I'm an all even in the same universe as the time she did last year was cool. Exactly. I still had 8K to go or 5K to go at that point, which were the hardest 5Ks I've ever done in my entire life. Nick, remember we did that easy run where you kept saying, you're going too fast, you're going too fast, three days out.

Yeah. I was like, you just need to run literally what you did with Nick when he was pulling your ponytail to slow you down. And you will win. That's right. But the feeling was crazy. It was so, so painful. And Paulo had told me this before the race. He's like, you need to tell your support people to cheer for you and support you in a non-overhyped way.

Because when you're really in the hurt locker, you can kind of get annoyed at people if they're jumping up and down with so much energy. So when we drove, when we were running past the crowd and Toffer on the one wheel was trying to hype them up. Like he was like, yeah, let's go. Make some noise. And I was like, Toffer, no, remain calm. I actually told him that. I was like, I'm hurting so much. No amount of hype will make me feel better.

When you're at the limit, when you're pushing as hard as you can, getting hyped and like that adrenaline boost can be harmful. That's been my feeling because it's pushing my body into a place that it's already trying to avoid. Even with the last out and back to go, which is only 3K, I still didn't necessarily think I was going to win. That's how much I was like struggling to put one foot in front of the other. And I rewatched the race parts of it and it doesn't look like how I felt. I still looked okay.

You looked totally fine the whole time. But the way I felt was not how I looked. Did you ever, I know it was very hard. You said many times it's the hardest thing you've ever done in racing. But did you ever mentally go into a people call it like a dark place, a place of not just of fatigue but of kind of like depression? kind of. Did you ever feel that? No. No. The thing about doing an Iron Man is I was thinking it would be this like crazy different feeling and this monumental thing where every single second of it felt like a brand new experience. But to me, it really just felt like I was doing another triathlon. And it wasn't like I had this different mindset or different approach to it. Of course, I was pacing it and fueling differently. But I was like, I've done this so many times before. I've been in this heartline. lock or so many times before. It's not a brand new experience. So I never went into these really low

moments. Like I never really, maybe I'm just lucky and this will happen in future Iron Man's. But throughout the whole day, I was fairly level-headed and not delusional or hating it or wishing I had never started, you know, things like that. I never went into these really, really dark patches where people say you often get into in an Iron Man. So maybe I just got lucky. I would, I would wager that potentially you've had 70.3s that felt longer? Longer? No. That last 10K was so long. Did you have a sense during the thing of like,

oh, this is a long time? Or were you just like doing a good enough job of staying focused on what you were doing at that moment, that time kind of flew in. No, I was thinking about how long it had been. I wasn't on the bike, though, because a few times I caught myself thinking like, you've been riding for four hours and 20 minutes. This is freaking insane.

Yeah, right. Hard the whole time. Yeah. And I was worried I would get like a sore back or something being in TT that long, but I never did. So I guess my position's good. You know, little things like that where I was worried about just the unknown of how I would, how my body would react to this distance of things. Like everything kind of went smooth. Okay.

So then the last five, ten minutes, last couple Ks, maybe it does sink in that you're like, I'm getting to the finish line. And there's no way anyone can catch me. did you have a shift emotionally? Did you have a, this like an overwhelming feeling of any kind there? I mean, you rung the bell, which everyone ended up loving that was watching the broadcast. But did you,

did your feelings shift at all? I just had such an overwhelming desire to stop running. Right. Like it was crazy. And I was totally in shock. Like I think my face was just in shock that I'd gotten to the end. It wasn't even that I was winning. It was like,

I cannot believe I finished how long this activity is. I stopped my watch actually as we're going into the stadium because I'm like, I might actually have to walk this. The marathon ends now. Just try to enjoy this as much you can. But even until I like crossed the finish line, it was in so much pain. And I rang the bell because it's my first Iron Man ever, which was cool. And then exhaustion.

Like I fell over or I lied down at the finish line. It wasn't even like in an emotional way. It was truly in a, I am totally empty. That was everything I had. And my legs are never going to function again. Did you tell me that you're, while you were running, you were like, what am I going to do about my legs after this race? Yeah, I didn't think I'd make it home. I felt so terrible after in the state of almost like shock and maybe, I don't know what it was,

but they took me to the med tent because I was a little bit like glazy-eyed. Well, yeah, you just sat down on the ground. and then kind of did this very slow, like, sort of lay down onto the ground. And I shook you and like, babe, are you okay? Do we need to go to the medical tent? Anything like complete non-responsiveness? And at that moment, a medical person came over and asked if we need anything or we should go to the medical tent. And I just was like, I can't tell.

Better safe than sorry. Marta was trying to chat with me after and I would have loved to chat with her, but I couldn't be like coherent to have a conversation. So it was kind of funny. It's like you're so wrecked after these things. how can you possibly like enjoy the moment to its full potential? Because you're so destroyed. And the other girls didn't look that destroyed. So maybe it's just experience and it'll get easier. Maybe not. But wow, that was like the emptiest I've ever felt. And I went to the med tent and I was like,

I knew I wasn't going to die. I was completely cohesive in terms of like knowing what was going on. But I needed to just lie down and be left alone for five minutes. And there was like 10 people hovering over me, taking my blood pressure. I'm like, I'm like, I'm okay. Okay, just let me lie here in silence. And then they wanted to do the awards and the interview, and they weren't going to let me leave. And I'm like, tell me what I need to do to pass a test to leave here because I will make it happen no matter what. Like, I'm fine. So the medical people were great.

I mean, it's nice to have that many people who care at the finish line and they were there to help you in case of an emergency or worst case scenario. But I ended up being okay. The wheelchair was mostly just because I really couldn't walk. My legs were so... Even getting you into the wheelchair was not great. Yeah. So that was that. Wow.

So, okay, you said that you didn't get to experience the emotional high of crossing the line. I mean, I'm sure you did. No, I totally did. I totally did. Yeah. But did it 30 minutes later, an hour later, did it sink in differently? Yeah. I mean, it's still sinking in a little bit.

It's like having you guys there, having... There's so much to do after a race. Like I had doping control in which I peed super quick. I'm really proud of that. Yes, we're so proud of you for that. We're so thankful. I hydrated so well. And then you just have to get all your stuff, get back to the hotel room.

And actually, Lindsay Corbyn said to me, like, before the race, have you had your last shower before the race yet? Because that's going to be the last shower you enjoy in a long time. After the race, you're like chafed and your toenails are missing and you're just like showers hurt. So I was like psyching myself up for my shower. it was kind of just like any other race after you finish. But of course I was happy my aunts and uncles were there. We went out for dinner. Packed my bike the next morning.

The soreness was kind of humorous in some ways because I couldn't even sit down on the toilet. But it's kind of novel. It's kind of novel, you know? I did this, but it was worth it. We had dinner with the family, and then we went out with some friends and had a couple of,

libations and then we made it over to do the golden hour. We had to stay up for golden hour no matter what it took. Yeah, Martin and I gave out some medals to the finishers around midnight. Really cool. I'd say most of them are so tired that they don't even look up or know who we are which is totally fine. It's still fun to give out the medals but the few people that did kind of recognize who we were was really,

really cool. And it just like that the experience is we're all all doing the same course. Like, they're doing what I had just done. And that's what makes Iron Man so cool. Same course, same day, same conditions. It just took them two times longer. But the finish line was the same.

So it was cool to, like, be back there to bring them into, after all of the mental ups and downs they went through on their own days. So it's cool. Eric and I are obviously so proud of you for winning, for starting, for completing the thing. But the things that, even now hearing you talk about it, the things that are sticking out to me, and I'm sure Eric feels the same,

but Eric, you speak for yourself, is all of these, there are so many things that happened or that could have happened during the race that normally I would expect to kind of derail you a bit, at least mentally, maybe not in your performance,

but coming out, you know, like swimming the first lap with Chelsea and then she kind of had a gap on you by the second lap, not letting that get to your head, getting on the bike and not surging to them, playing it smart, riding well. You also fueled really well on this, which is something that you're recently getting better and better at, not freaking out, not letting the distance worry you when you're running with MARTA, not letting that affect you too much. I feel like there were so many things that happened on Sunday

that showed this level of athletic maturity that you just dialed it into. for this race at the perfect time. And it makes me feel like, I don't know, proud, I guess proud, like I feel so happy for you. And that's the stuff that sticks out to me. I don't know, Eric, you're there every single day and you see this stuff. Like the wind, you know, how much that usually gets to you, like at like a core level and you just rode through it.

And that's the stuff that makes me so happy to hear. Well, a lot of that is headspace going in, being in a good place. And then you just can't discount, race experience. I've done hundreds of triathons in my life. They haven't all gone smoothly, but I was a rookie at this, but I'm like far from a rookie at dealing with things in races.

And yeah, sometimes I don't handle them as well as I did on Sunday, but I was kind of open to anything, which I think was the key to this. And no preconceived ideas of what was going to happen. Nick nailed it. Like that's why I'm impressed. It's got nothing to do with winning or being better than anybody else.

Like that's awesome and a cherry on top. But executing all those things. And like Nick said, things that have historically been a challenge. Like you're being modest, like getting all the nutrition in, grabbing bottles while riding, riding, not getting freaked out by the wind, et cetera. These are things that you've struggled with. And you pushed through and had an answer for all of them. And that was what was super incredible and exciting for us to see.

it's not one or two things. It was a lot of things. And you did them all really well. At a place where everyone's eyes were on you where there was a lot of pressure on you, you still kept it together. Yep. Bravo. Thank you guys.

That was our, that's the best ever race recap we've done on this podcast. No, I think next recap is better. Absolutely the best race recap we've ever had on the podcast. Nick's DNF podcast. We should let people know what episode that as they can go back and listen to your episode. Because that was also real popular. I was DNF and also I won Santa Cruz.

Yes, Eric won the same day. It was like this would be the classic argument. Our Nick and Eric's most epic race creakaps ever, equivalent to Paula's. No, I think this was better. I think this was the best we've ever had. Well, it's a combination of a lot of things, but I just loved, even though we've heard about it a lot, we've talked about it a lot, the three of us, I still felt like there was things I didn't hear and I feel like I'm talking to a new person is what it feels like.

Okay. For real. You guys, stop fluffing my feathers so much. I don't need to fluff your feathers. I don't get anything out of fluffing your feathers. But you were, you had such poise and total balance and elegance the entire day. And it paid off with a win, but that is, that's just the cherry on top. Totally.

Thank you. All right. I have a couple of things to say. Sam's cold also qualified for Kona. I believe she was the last person to get a Kona slot. Yeah, she's on her team from the development team. Came back from, admittedly, she said she had a bad swim, but had a fantastic bike, best run of her life. So there's going to be. Yeah, it was cool to see her on the out and backs. Yeah. It was super cool. Not to bring this back to being about me, but it's, this is relevant. Anytime I saw anyone I knew on course except for you, Eric and Nick, I totally ignored them. My aunt, my uncle, Ralph, Sam, Fiona.

any friends that were racing, I was so worried about being distracted in a way that would take me out of this kind of like total focus I had that I just completely ignored anybody who was cheering for me. And including Sam, who was like shouting to me on the second lap, I wish I could have returned the hype, but I didn't. But it was cool to see her out there. She's wearing the kit. She's had a great race and she's going to Kona now. That's fun. Oh. Also, team TTL.

we had 15 people racing and they got fourth place in the team competition. That's so cool. We got a plaque for that. We got two trophies, baby. Oh my gosh. Fourth place team division. Yeah. Not bad considering we're in the first year of the team and I think the competition is like

Zoot, you know, that's had a team since whatever, 1991. They're a little bigger than we are, but we are on the rise. And Zoot's like, we love Zoot, but they're in apparel brand. We're a community kind of. And we, of course, we make apparel. Well, no, Zoot is an Ohana and we love Zoot. They're a family. It's just a bigger team than we've got.

More reputation. Zoot is Ohana. Yeah. What? Zoot is an O'Hanna. I almost feel like I'm part of the Zoothoiada. Just saying that is so funny to me. Harper's wearing a lay.

Paul is saying Zoot is Ohana. What is F is going on around here? I never thought I hear Paul say those words in earnest. Oh, gosh. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, thank you to everyone who reped the team. That was the only time that I actually did kind of get jolted out of my focus was when I saw someone wearing a TTL kit.

I was like, this is insane. I'm winning this race and there's people wearing kits that are like representing this thing that me and Nick created. It's just crazy. That was cool. Can I brag for a second? Wish you would. We showed up to Lake Placid.

We did a donut run. Made t-shirts. Made t-shirts. Made hats. Guys, this donut run had 100. 50 people at it. This was no little at least 150 people. Yeah. Yeah.

We do this podcast. Paula does the podcast. Every freaking week, sometimes more willing than other weeks, but she does it every single week. Freaking week is the right way to say it. Yeah. We make films. There's photography. And then she still goes out. I really, this feels like we're bragging too much.

But then she still goes out and wins the race. It's, this is, this is so peak. like this is as good as it gets guys. No, I think what was, this is like a little bit parallel to Oceanside when you guys released the film. Yeah. And we did the donut run and then I won that race. It's a little bit, a little bit parallel to that.

It's nice when it comes together in every aspect of what we're doing. Because like I said earlier, doing the donut run, doing the t-shirts, making the hype about it with TTR, doing the podcast two days before the race, that can all, it's dangerous territory of being distracting and adding too much pressure, but it also brings me energy. Like being there and seeing all these people show up for TTL, doing the run, having the amazing team TTL volunteers who went to pick up the donuts and hand out the T-shirts, having be there to coordinate all that, having Jordan coordinate it from afar. Like there's so many people that are part of it.

And it's like, it brings more meaning to that being just there for me to perform, right? 100%. Oh, for sure. For sure. and I think we are lucky, but also, I think you are lucky. Yeah, kind of. Like, if you're a podcast listener and you've listened to all, every episode, what a cool thing to be on this journey with these two professional athletes and experience this huge buildup into, I mean, if to see Paula win this race right now, it's, it feels like, damn, how, it's like my face.

favorite TV show. That's what it feels like and all the characters are excelling. I don't even know if we should do any questions, but the questions were good. You could stop listening now or you could carry on and we'll answer like a couple questions, but I need to charge my headphones and my computer. Do you want to take a little

pause and charge the headphones? Do we want to do that? Or can we just keep rolling until they die? We can keep rolling until they die for sure. We'll just end abruptly. This is kind of like the Iron Man model. Keep rolling until you die. But if you're new here, you'll get a little of a taste of what we normally do. Also, Nick, you should tell people now that they should become pod supporters because the only

ads we do on this pod are zero ads. That's right. And the only way it makes money is through podcast supporters, which we appreciate and love dearly. You can either do five or ten dollars a month. You do it, Nick. You do it. No, if you're feeling so inclined, you've been crushing it so far. I'm almost finished. Now it's like, seize the moment. Yes. Yes. Yeah. No, you can submit questions to the podcast at That TriathlonLife.com slash podcast. And on that same page, if you feel so inclined as a way to show your appreciation for the podcast specifically, right? There's other ways to show appreciation for TTL, like purchasing the hats and the shirts.

But for the podcast specifically, you can become a podcast supporter. And we really appreciate that. I particularly really appreciate that. We don't do ads like Paula said. And it's the way that the podcast earns some money. So we would be very thankful. Five or $10 a month you can choose. $5 a month, guys.

That is. Think about how much it's $70.3 cost. It would take you years to eclipse that. You're going to raise the prices, man. Yeah, I know, I know. No, it's, so anyway, thank you for all the podcast supporters also. But let's do this, let's do some questions here. Okay.

We have a lot. I don't know how many we want to get through, but we do have a lot, and I do think they're so good this week. This first one is from Ruth. Congratulations, Paul. epic day. I will make this a quick question. Classy move ringing the first timers bell. As an age grouper, it made me cry. When did the idea to ring the bell enter your mind? Was it before racing as you entered the Olympic speed skating oval or was it spontaneous?

Please tell us all about the finish. Thanks, Ruth. Yeah, by the way, every question is about the race. So if you're over it, now's your time to leave. I didn't think about it at all. And I also didn't even expect it to have a, any kind of impact or attention. I'm just like, this is fun. I've been suffering for like nine hours. This sounds fun. Right.

Yeah. It's like first time our Iron Man. Dang it. I didn't think anyone would even notice, but it's cool. And I think Will McCoy was like, the old bell to tape. I wonder if that's the first,

that can't be the first time that's happened. I know it's not the first time a debut Iron Man has, led to a win. But is it the first time a debut Iron Man has a Iron Manor has rung the bell and then broken the tape?

I don't know. Are there bells at every Iron Man? I don't even know that. I had never heard of it to be honest. I had heard of it, but I didn't know. I don't know if they're at every race. We're going to get so roasted for not knowing this.

I don't remember. Also, I didn't get to, the first one I didn't finish. I don't know if it counts on the second time. But I didn't ring a bell my first time. Speaking of things to get roasted for just in case, I don't want to perpetuate an incorrect saying.

It's a personal needs bag. Not a special needs bag. I've heard other people say special needs to us. I don't know if it's just because they heard it on the podcast. I feel like this used to be what was called and they changed the name, but that could be, it could be completely, completely wrong. It could be a Mandela effect thing. It is a personal needs bag.

Personal needs, yeah. And I say special needs? We all say special needs. All of us have been saying it. Well, I am extremely sorry if that. I don't think it's necessarily offensive. it's just wrong. We're not using it in a pejorative way.

Yes. And certainly if anyone interpreted that way, we did not intend for it to be that way. Anyway, moving on here. Next question is from Rachel. Hey, Fentf. Oh my gosh, it's getting so long. First, massive congratulations of Paula for crushing Placid

and becoming the second Ironman in the tripod. Has anyone congratulated Nick recently? I think all of Team TTR and the Nesh got emotional watching you ring the bell and take the tape. Two quick questions about Placid. one esoteric and one practical. One, what did you discover about yourself, either during the prep or during the race? And two, what was the solution for the chafing timing chip strap?

Thanks for being such an inspirational inspiration and looking forward to watching the rest of your season, Rachel. I found out that doing long activities is a mindset. I used to think I didn't like them. You guys would tell me I don't like long rides. and it becomes a thing. Yeah, but it got perpetuated to the point where I'm like, I don't do long rides, therefore I can't do an Iron Man. And I think that like if you're just committing to doing it,

the way that you approach these things mentally is what makes them doable or not doable. And yeah, of course, I didn't like them, quote unquote. There were a lot of long rides where I didn't enjoy them. And I thought I liked going hard and doing intervals way better. But throughout this process, I realized that I do actually enjoy the long stuff when I'm in the right headspace for it and when I know what's coming and there's a goal at the end of it. So you can adopt that mindset too if you think that you're a bit scared of long stuff.

For the chafing, I took my cycling shoes and I cut them because I have a really big protruding tendon in my ankle, which rubs the edge of my cycling shoes and the timing chips. So I cut my shoes so that it didn't rub. And then I just vaseline the crap out of my ankles before I put the chips on. and then I didn't put my socks over top of the timing chip in T2. I left the socks just below them. So if there was any issues with the rubbing, I could stop and quickly fix the timing chip. It wasn't buried deep under my socks.

So it was no problem. My ankles are fine today. My neck on the other hand, that's something we need to like. It was so bad. A lot of people. Eric, did people tell you anything about her neck when they saw you coming out of the swim?

A ton of people. They're like, oh my God, what happened to her neck? It's crazy. He didn't get eaten by a velociraptor. It's red. I was worried because of how worried people were. I did a lot of creams, but there needs to be a physical barrier next time I do a race, especially Akona where there's salt water.

There needs to be tape. There needs to be something there because this is unbearable and honestly like so uncomfortable after the race too. Next question here is from Claire. Hey gang. How exactly did Nick and Eric DuPala splits for Placid? Perfectly. Do you make, we did nail it.

Wallace. Or actually, Paula, do you feel like we nailed it? They were good. Yeah, you gave you the wrong split for out of the water. Well, you didn't. I think I must have just misheard you. Okay, okay. But you gave me a split at halfway on the bike, Eric on the whiteboard, and then splits throughout the run.

And it's so funny in a full Iron Man because the splits are a bit less helpful the later you get into the marathon because there's nothing I could have done to change what was happening. What I mean by that is like if Marta had been catching me, I didn't have a little. a lot of extra oomph to really pick it up. Yeah. To a certain extent, like, of course, hearing the gaps were getting bigger was helpful and hearing what was going on with Chelsea was helpful. But the exact splits and who was there and who was around were less critical in some ways, I'd say.

I feel like in 70.3s, you've usually wanted splits to know if you could slow down a little bit and be more, you know, less prone to blowing up. Maybe, yeah. Like less risk of exploding in the back half, you know. Yeah, well, often in 70.3s there's like really fast runners running me down. But I knew on all the out and backs that like Tamara was 20 minutes down. And I knew I had buffers to these people that had the potential to run really, really fast marathon. So, but you guys did great.

I mean, even splits aside, it was like I enjoyed seeing you guys. It gave me something to look forward to. And I purposely told you guys to split up so that I wasn't seeing you both at once. And that was it. I would see Nick. And I'd see Eric. I'd see Nick. I'd see Eric.

And that was helpful. Yeah. So back to the question here. This is, I guess, a question more for Eric and slightly myself. Do you make educated guesses about who she's going to want to know splits from at various points? If so, based on what? Who's near? Who's moving through the pack? Then how do you get an accurate and up-to-date split, given so few on the Iron Man app? Do you know trusted people around the course who can measure and text to you? How do you make it big and clear enough so that tiny whiteboard for her to see is legible when moving quickly? quickly, how do you yell them clearly without seeming like you're just yelling super aggressively at somebody who was already killing themselves out there? Do you ever get the chance to not give a split and just yell something like you're incredible, we love you? Thanks, Claire. Yeah, as it ended, that's what you guys were yelling at me. You guys can answer that. Yeah, it is a lot of an educated guess. And I try to ask Paula before the race, who does she think is going to be a threat and who does she going to want splits to and stuff? But then in the moment,

And we didn't know Mardo was going to be the primary threat. So we kind of, I never showed Paula. I think I showed Paula a split to Tamara at the end of the first lap of the bike. And that was it. On one side of the whiteboard, I had CS for Chelsea. And I had Lisa Perder. Lisa Berder. And so I had just those LPS and then the time gap.

And then I try to also say it out loud, you know, like you're putting time into them. something like that. Like the gap is growing. But yeah, you're just making it up as you go. And there were several times where I would see her, but the split, you know, on the Ironman tracker hadn't updated in time. So I just had to say, I'm going to give you a split later. Yeah. You know, like last I saw, it was this. Yeah. The thing about the run is I was taking my own splits. So we could have just sat in the VIP tent and yeah. Like I knew I had five and a half minutes to Chelsea and then I was getting and close to town and people were telling me three minutes and I'm like, you're wrong. I just took a

split myself. So sometimes the tracker is not as reliable if they haven't done a recent split. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, you're keeping an eye out for anybody on the tracker that's moving quickly, moving through the field and trying to make a guess of if that's going to be a problem or not. And, you know. And then, yeah, at some point in time, it's, we start trying to say, you've got this, no stress. And she never really wants to hear that. she still wants to know the splits, even though, you know, we're like, you could walk for a while, and it would be okay. Well, speaking of walking, something that, to answer this question is we do look at the app, and like, one of the things we were looking at is the app will predict the finish time. So we were predicting, for example, Paula, your finish time to Chelsea's finish time. And even at Chelsea's fastest, you are still two minutes ahead of her.

But something that happened is, we got texts from people that said, oh, Chelsea's walking. So then, you know, if I'm running, around. I don't have the stream up. I don't know that. And so I'm able to relay that information to you. And I apparently, people had already told you at that point. No, no. You were the first person to tell me that. Yeah, you're like, Chelsea is walking. I'm like, there's, that's, I didn't, I didn't believe you. It's like, that's crazy. I just saw her. She looked amazing. Right. Yeah. But it is a combination of things. And luckily, we do have people on the course like, you know, Brad or other people who would text us when they saw you or when they saw someone else that you kind of piece all these puzzle pieces together.

Kind of like when you're sighting for a swim and you just like barely can see the booies. You paint this mental picture. Yeah, totally. Okay, next question here is from Kenny. Congratulations to Paula for taking the W in Placid. I'm so glad you guys got washboard donuts for the donut run. So that's what they were, right? There was no donuts in town.

So they came, they were imported. Our fantastic team TTL volunteers imported these donuts from 45 minutes. away. Amazing. No Placid donuts. It's the best hole in the wall donut shop in the Adirondacks. I just got half a dozen today. We ate them in the car and went back for another half dozen for the ride home.

Amazing. Oh, my. That's amazing. You were good. Yeah. As a middle of the pack, A. Trooper, two questions I thought of as I was racing Iron Man Lake Placid. One, do you think an elite pro could finish a double Iron Man in the 17-hour age group cutoff

time? No way. Maybe, maybe Martin. but like Paula wouldn't have, even if she kept up the same exact paces and doubled it, that wouldn't have worked. No, I could not have run another kilometer, let alone twice that. But in time wise, maybe it's, yeah, I mean, if you told like, it's the same thing I was talking about about doing a half and thinking about doing it twice, if you knew you had to do the Iron Man twice, your mentality would be totally different. You'd pace it differently. And I think, yeah, a lot of men, maybe some women would do it under 17 hours.

I do wonder how much it really changes physiologically. Because we know the difference between running 100 meters and a 5K is huge. But that tapers off the longer you go, right? So I really wonder what the difference in pacing would be for an Iron Man versus a double Iron Man for an elite athlete if you had to do it. It's such a ridiculous question. Well, Iron Man is ridiculous. This is long enough. This is long enough.

We all agree. And then the second question is, it's fun for us to share the course with pros and watch human race cars go by us. But I was constantly watching the pros have to pass age groupers three wide when it was bunched up. How annoying and wasted energy was this is for the pros. Kenny, we ended up answering this. But is there any additional thoughts? Well, for the most part, I mean, it was, everyone was pretty respectful and stayed to the right.

A few times I came up on people riding three across chatting to each other. and I was like on your left and then I said to him as I pass like please stay over there's pros coming and he said you need to speak up I'm like I was speaking up what's the heck but that's the only kind of like snarky interaction I had for the most part people are really good and it's it's energy draining but everyone's dealing with it

and I think it is what makes triathlon cool is that all these people are racing on the same course as the pros that doesn't happen in any other sport maybe in like marathon running but it's cool for, it's kind of cool. Like, pros are never going to come blowing by you in a major marathon, though. That's like a triathlon specific. That's kind of the scary part is in some places we're moving three times quicker.

So it's dangerous. You have to be really alert. And it's risk, you're taking a risk. Every time you pass an age grouper who's doing a bit of swerving in the wind, you're taking a risk. and you're like, this, there's stuff on the line for me. I need to be brave and go past this person, but it's scary. Yeah. Yep.

Okay. Next question here's from Andrew. Congrats, Paula. I'm one of the most thrilling, I'm going to read all these, by the way. Thrilling athletic achievements, my eyeballs have witnessed firsthand. Truly extraordinary. Oh, my gosh. You continue to be such an inspiration.

I want to know besides the sweet, sweet taste of athletic glory, what else did you feast upon post-race? where your post-race cravings at Lake Placid different than your usual 70.3 post-race cravings. All the best for your kona prep, Andrew. Fala texted me from the airport lounge and she said, I just had three bowls of pasta today. Six. Oh, six, sorry. Yeah, the hunger didn't set in until yesterday.

Because even on Monday, I wasn't that hungry. Or nothing sounded good. But, yeah, Tuesday and even now, I'm quite hungry. But yeah, after the race is so funny because my family wanted to go out to dinner and I'm like, I just really want to lie down. Of course, I want to visit with people, but I don't feel like eating anything. So I didn't even order anything. I was just kind of eating everyone else's food. So nothing struck me as being particularly desirable, still felt a little sick.

Yeah, I don't know. But then after that, the usual, like having a burger the day after sounded kind of good. And when you're on the road and I've been kind of eating boring, shitty all week, I do just want vegetables. Eric and I both feel this way. We're coming home. We're like, we just want a salad so badly. Give me some broccoli. So that's kind of the overwhelming desire I have now is to eat healthy again.

Get back onto like more of a routine than just eating rice and whatever we can find on the road. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Next question is from Arnault. Hello, Team TTL. First congratulations for the win in Lake. Placid, what a great start for the long distance.

Average, like real average, always in the middle of the ranking, fellow Canadian and French, triathlete for 10 years, and I still haven't figured out how not to get sunburn after a race. I did an Olympic triathlon in Kingston, Ontario this weekend, and despite having put a ton of sunscreen on at the start, I still ended up with a semi-red lobster tan. Any advice? Thanks for the great work. Arnault. Paul, you're the most sunburned.

Well, now you look fine, but after the race, you're the most sunburned I've ever seen you. Yeah, it was bad. I didn't put sunscreen on before the race. I usually do, especially on my face. But it was projected to be kind of overcast. It ended up not being overcast at all. It was very sunny. And I didn't really process the fact that in a half, I'm usually done by 11 before the real heat of the day.

And in a full, you're racing until 4 p.m. where you're just running directly through the brightest, most intense UV rays of the day. But there are aid station, or there's a station in T2 as everyone's running out of transition to sunscreen up. And I would take that opportunity for sure next time you're doing a race because it feels like I just like it was such a preventable mistake and I hate getting sunburned. I feel like I'm ruining my skin. I'm going to get skin cancer. I'm usually really good about looking after my skin. So it was a one-time thing.

The hat helps, right? You didn't wear a hat. For some people, a hat would help. Yeah, that's a lot of people in bucket hats. Should have worn a hat. Yeah, that's something I would put on my list of to do next time. For a full. Put sunscreen on my face.

Yeah. Eric, did you get burned? I don't think you did, right? Nope. You guys wore hats, I think that was the key. I had a hat on. I wore a long-sleeve sweater all day. Yeah, I had this TTL hat on underneath my helmet when I was riding.

and then when I was off the bike, I was putting on, I have like a canvas bucket hat. Yeah, that's the thing about racing and whether that's not like hot, hot, is you don't think as much about UV damage. Yeah. But it was still intense on, right? Yeah, I was still like jumping into the shade

in each opportunity I had. Yeah, no shade on the run course. Okay, next question here is from Brian, and this is just to set the expectation. Epic Race Paula. Now that you're headed to Kona, will there be a TTL Kona merch drop. Looking forward to seeing you guys on the big island, Brian. Eric, is it too soon to talk about such

things? Assuming, I mean, we've been talking about doing a TTL, Kona, Shindig, merch, whole situation like we did in Oceanside. Oceanside was a bit of a dress rehearsal trial for some of the stuff that we want to do, regardless of whether Paula went. I think just because we're going to have some team TTL athletes there and it's a whole thing and this year the men and the women are back together we want to be there and be a part of that history and that experience and culture so we will be doing something for sure the we will for sure have like a poster and a and a and a shirt in the same style as the ocean side and like placid we'll be doing the same thing for niece by the way and i got some special stuff planned for team ttl athletes that are going yes yes yes stay tuned

The shirts are a hit. I really wish we could have a booth with the shirts there because I think we did a pre-order only. Everyone who pays attention to TTL and wanted one, ordered one. But I think we could have sold twice as many if we were just set up there because it's such a generic. You don't have to know who we are to want one.

It's a cool graphic. It's a little bit different than anything else. When we were at the finish line, and Paul had just finished, he was clinging on to consciousness. And one of the volunteers, he saw me wearing this shirt that I'm wearing now, the plastic shirt. He's like, oh, I've been all week

going into the stores in town to try to find where to get that shirt. Where did you guys buy it? Yeah, exactly. Sorry, dude. Yeah. Exactly. So my guess is for Kona, we will do what we normally do and if you want to make sure you get one pre-order so don't skip that, but then we'll make

enough extra to bring for people who didn't follow and saw. Yeah, but maybe not enough. Maybe not enough. I would not rely on that. We're always going to play it safe. We don't have any venture capitalists behind us or anything, so it's just our money,

and we're hoping that we get the sizes right and all that. Okay, we have two more questions here. One is from Kylie here. Hi, TTR gang, Paula, congrats on an amazing Iron Man debut, and of course, still congratulating Nick on this Iron Man. Okay, we don't have to read that. In a recent long game YouTube episode, Paula mentioned that two hours was the longest run she's ever done

and the longest ever Iron Man training block. I know that pros like Paula can cover much more ground in two hours than us amateurs. But what would you recommend as the ideal max runtime or distance for a competitive age group or training for an Iron Man? I did Iron Man Wisconsin two years ago and had a few three hour runs, but damn, did my knees start hurting after two to two and a half hours? Does your answer change depending on where you're training? Hilly terrain, concrete versus gravel, altitude, etc. Kylie. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not an, I'm obviously not an expert at this. I think I would have run longer if I had more time.

We were slowly ramping it up. I would do 90 minutes, an hour 45, then got to 2. So if had more weeks, maybe we would have got to 2.15, something like that. But most of the friends I've talked to, like Lindsay and Heather, who have done tons of Iron Man's, never really ran over 30, 32K in training as their long runs. You definitely don't have to do 42K. But getting up to the 30K zone is probably smart. And I think one of the things I'll change heading into any other Iron Man I do is doing a little bit more pavement running.

Most of the long runs I did were on trail, or not really trail, but just like soft surface, dirt paths, logging roads. And that definitely doesn't have the same muscular impact as it does running on pavement. I always avoid pavement because I'm like paranoid of injury. but to a certain extent it's actually necessary to harden your legs up a bit, I think. So doing it cautiously but intentionally is probably a good approach. But obviously you can do an Ironman off of a two-hour long run. I did that. But 30K is pretty close to what people who are training for just a marathon do.

Yeah, yeah, right. So it makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I did 28K in that run, 27 in a bit. so almost 30K. So I knew I could get to that far. Yeah. Okay, last question here. It's from Sarah, and it's a thinker.

Paula, huge congratulations on your Ironman Lake Placid win. It's a testament to the great community you all have built that many of us were crying tears of joy watching the live stream, seeing you ring the bell and take the tape so freaking cool. My question is for Paula, but also applicable to Eric and Nick when they've done new events or distances for the first time. When you think about doing that distance again in the future, is it better or worse now that you know what it feels like? In other words, which do you think is a bigger benefit?

Knowing what to expect so you can prepare mentally or going in naive and curious with no expectations, but also no intel about how your body will respond. Thanks for everything you do for the triathlon world and all the best with your recovery, Paula, Sarah. It's a good question. It's a great question. What do you think? I think the first ones are pretty special because you take it crazy seriously. You don't want to mess it up. So you like dot all the eyes and cross all the T's.

You don't have that burden of knowledge of exactly how it's going to feel at each point in time. You don't have this like expectation of if I don't do this and that means bad. And what, you know, so I think you get all of the benefits of wanting to prep and do well without like that fear of knowing. it feels like already. That's my personal experience. But it does remove this question mark of, is this even possible for my body to do this? Which maybe for you guys is not as relevant,

but for age groupers, it's a real question of, forget about willpower. Is this possible for me? Will my body be able to complete this? Yeah, that's part of the fun though. Exactly. For sure. But in doing it the second time,

uh, there is the sense of less, fear around that question. The fear around the pain maybe is increased. Yeah, which I would take the, I would take the rookie never done it before. You like the ignorance. Ignorance is blessed. Anytime.

But I think now that I've done one, I'm less scared of it. I'm less like, it's, like you said, feeling impossible. It feels less impossible. But it's for sure

a nicer feeling to just not know what is going to happen. how it's going to feel. And then, to be honest, throughout the whole day, I kept being pleasantly surprised. Because my brain went to worst case scenario anytime I was thinking about potential challenges. And I never really faced any until the last part of the run.

So it just was like a very positive confirmation every time something, nothing bad was happening. Like something bad is going to happen soon, but it never really happened. A second one will be new in its own way. No course is identical. This course was particularly suited to me with the terrain and the way you could break up the bike ride really easily in your mind.

It was the perfect race to do for my first one. I don't know if I'll ever do another Iron Man that I like the course as much as that one, from what I've seen of other courses. So I chose correctly, but you can't do the same race. You have to do other races too. So I'll hopefully be able to find some enjoyment and fun things about other courses. And I've read a couple things about people speculating how I would do in Kona.

Oh, she doesn't like the heat. She's not going to get top five. Whatever. I don't care what people say. But it's not that I don't like the heat. It's just a really specific element you have to prepare for, which inherently is more unenjoyable than preparing for a race that's not in the heat. To anybody, regardless of how good you are in the heat.

I mean, heat training sucks. It's so hard. It's very draining. And I don't love it, but you don't either. No one does. But you can be sure that I will prepare for Kona conditions. Maybe they don't suit me or whatever you think. but you see lots of athletes perform well there

who maybe it doesn't suit. Solvig grew up in Norway. You think it's like Kona conditions in Norway? I think it suits being the fittest and being controlled. Yes, that's true. Being smart. So, yeah, Kona might be a little bit more unenjoyable of a race from like a conditions perspective,

but it has other special parts of it. Yeah. So that counterbalances it. This is maybe my favorite pod we've ever done, guys. Getting choked up. No, you're not. You're just like got shit in your lungs. Yeah, I just rode my bike.

Speaking of exercising, I do feel like exercising right now. It's Wednesday. Yeah, I feel like swimming. Wow. Do you, Eric? It's hot. I'm going for a bike ride. Oh, you're going for a bike ride.

Okay. I feel like going for bike. I feel like I could ride my bike too. I won't go with you, but. No, I'm going mountain biking. Also, Eric and I were. so drained the day after the race. I felt like I had exercised all day the day earlier.

I'm still so, so cooked, man. Like, you were like, oh, we're riding this high. And I crashed. Yeah. In the back of my brain, it's like, this is awesome. This is awesome. But in the front of my brain is, like, I just want to kind of lay down on the floor wherever I am right now.

Yeah. Well, we knew this going in. Spectating has equally as hard of challenges as doing the race. No, it does not. It does not. It is some ways. I hate that. I feel like our state of being minus like the soreness has been quite similar of just like this mental fatigue load let off.

You know, the build up and then the release afterwards once the thing has been done. But yeah, I can walk up a downstairs, no problem. I actually walked up to the office without using the railing just now. Wow. Yeah, so it is crazy how the body recovers. Like, you think there's no way I'm ever running again. I saw someone running the day after the race, like not a competitor, a different person. And I was like, oh my God, running.

I'm never doing that again. I can't even get in the car. But your body recovers. It's just like you muscles repair themselves. Yeah. You don't even have to do anything except eat and they repair themselves. Yeah, that's true. Okay, well, we'll be back next week, back with the normal pod.

If you're a new podcast listener, I hope we've made it feel like you should come back and listen more. Yeah, we don't do race recaps every week. Usually we answer questions that are really fun. Really fun. And if you have not caught in enough, there will be a long game episode about Placid. So, oh yeah. If you want the visual experience,

stay tuned for that. That'll come out on Iron Man YouTube. Nice. Yep. All right. Thank you, boys. And thank you for listening. Record long pod. Over and out. Over now. Over now. Podcast reporter. Bye.