That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula get's 2nd at the T100 French Riviera Triathlon, Team TTL unveil, and more!

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

This week we had an extra exciting episode. Paula gets into detail about her best-ever T100 finish, taking 2nd in the French Riviera. Eric also unveils Team TTL, and we even get to questions this week. Our topics included:Who would win a 70.3: Ledecky, Pogacar, or Kipchoge?Picking between Ironman 70.3 Victoria and T100 VancouverUsing poles in ultra racingPaula's skin and hair care between sessionsHow we all deal with photo and video storageA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey, everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And you've stumbled in to our triathlon related podcast. We love talking about trathlon. We're all good friends. Paul and I are both professional athletes.

Street Sweeper is about to go by. Please hold. Paul and I are both professional athletes. Nick is an amateur triathlet, professional musician, and gearing up for his, what do you want to call it? Your redemption at Iron Man, Wisconsin. That's what people have been telling me is that it's my redemption race. Yeah. Not quite yet. So we're not going to dive all into that this week. What we are going to

dive into this week is Paula's experience at T100 French Riviera, which was her best T100 performance to date, at least in the era of the T100, not just the PTO. And we have a very exciting announcement about TTR stuff. So you're in for a good one. Nick, is your race this weekend, though, Nick? It's this weekend. You sounded so Canadian when you said that. This is the last pod before your race. Correct. Yeah. So I guess we can, you know, crack the hood on that one. But for what you all really want, the next race recap, that'll be next week. Okay. Yeah. It might not be as in-depth as the last one we did, but we will definitely get to it.

I mean, all we can hope is that as an epic of a story and it is as in-depth. But, you know, also wouldn't hate for you to have a relatively uneventful. I guess the main question is what's the weather forecast? So the weather is so right. So the weather is going to be very cold. The coldest it has been all summer on that specific day. The low is 46 degrees, 47 actually, and the high is 64, but it's going to be sunny. So I am not concerned about it at all. For those who are not aware, Nick had a rather harrowing experience. Is it two years ago now? Three years ago now. And one of our most popular podcast episodes, his recount of his DNF at Ironman, Wisconsin,

in rain, the most heinous weather conditions one can expect in a triathlon. And it was my first and only Iron Man attempt. So this is attempt number two on the same course. You're still not an Iron Man. Eric, you also won Santa Cruz 70.3 that same day while I was racing. So I think that's what made that episode extra kind of special. Yeah. I would love to say that I'm.

racing 70.3 Santa Cruz again at the same time, but I'm not ready for that. But yeah, you can go listen to that podcast if you want to hear that backstory and just get all frothed up for next race this weekend. Yeah, I hope to, I hope, well, we'll talk about it in a second later. I have some just light thoughts on the whole thing. But first of all, Paula, this race that you just did, I was telling you yesterday, and I'm not sure if you had seen this on your own, that this was the best PTO points ranked performance that you've had since you won Daytona in 2020.

Does that feel right to you? Ooh. No, I would think my performance at 70.3 Worlds was better. Yeah. In 2022 when I podium there. I don't know. It's hard to say because, like, I came away from it thinking, like, my swim was so bad that I wasn't even happy with my race execution, really.

Like, I'm proud that I could come back and ultimately, come second, but I don't know. That was just like such a glaring bad thing that happened to have such a poor swim. So I don't think that, I mean, the PTO points are so skewed towards T100 races. Of course. You're going to have a high score at those. And they're weighted very heavily. They're diamond races, whatever.

So, but yeah, I'm happy that I got a good score on the board. I mean, I don't even think the points mean that much anymore because they still have the world rankings, but there's no payout for it. So it's cool to be ranked as high as I can in the world. But ultimately, I think it's better that I came second and just got a lot of T100 points. Yeah, yeah. So I can be ranked as high in that series at the end of the year. Okay, we're going to talk about the race in depth soon, but we have a few other cool things that are happening here. This is something, I mean, Eric, I'm going to let you do all the explaining, but this is the coolest thing that has happened in a while for TTL, at least from my opinion.

Yeah. Yeah. Where to start. But for a while now, for the last three years, we have done the TTL development team as fueled by the TTL Nation kit order. And it has been our intention all along to turn the TTL age group component into something a little bit more robust, bring a little bit more value. We have a lot of people message us specifically me saying like, oh, it would be so cool if you did X, Y, Z with TTL or with the team and stuff. And so far we have not had the bandwidth to do so. Paul is still racing at a very high level. I'm still trying to race YouTube, podcast, all the things. But we've made a very exciting and big move for TTL and we've hired someone to help us. And basically the goal with that is that we are going to be able to do all those things, those X, Ys and Zs that have just been piling up on a note that I have on my phone of all these awesome things

that I think we should do for the community, but just haven't been able to get to. Such as? Such as the top item, make team TTL. Wow. So we are going to be formalizing the TTL nation concept. We're not going to be calling it that. We're going to be calling it Team TTL,

but we are going to have, I guess, for lack of a better word, an age group team that is formalized. The point of the team is not to go and win, you know, the Kona team championship or something. something like that, but we want to crank up the value that you get by being aligned with what we're trying to build with TTL by, I mean, the sky's the limit. And kind of what I wanted to do here on the podcast is announce that we are doing it. We're super excited about it. We have a list of things that we think are cool and exciting. But also, like, I want to make this the best that it can possibly be

for the people who are going to be on the team. I, you know, it's like, I'm not going to be on the team. I'm trying to help and Jordan, who we hired, is working like day and night on making this cool and ramping up as quickly as we can. But I want input from the people who would ultimately be on the team. What has been awesome for you on teams in the past? What do you wish there could be? And I'm going to just start a discussion on the app, on the TTL app that's around that. But basically, this is a big old stay tuned. I would recommend if you're not already, sign up for our newsletter and then checking out the app and feel free to direct message us with your excitements. But we are super excited and this is going to be a thing we're doing

in 2026 and we're just hoping that we can take the value of being a part of TTL to a new level and also just like set this community and this brand for lack of a better word up for a really long and successful existence and so it can accomplish things that you want it to. So my question is that I'm sure other people will be asking too because like the application window to apply for like the win team, the Zoot team is happening right now. Yep.

Is everyone that applies for Team TTR going to be on, going to be accepted? Well, we're going to be weeding out people who are like obviously assholes or you know, just like do not align with what exactly. Like that guy on YouTube who all his shits on us. Gabe Duran is not getting on the team. Exactly. Wow. Sorry Gabe.

Yeah. That guy needs to be fired. He's not going to know about it anyway because he's going to be blocked. He's already blocked. But yeah, we're not going to have a super rigorous making the team. There's going to be more than 10 people on the team. Hopefully we want it to be very inclusive. But we are going to have an application process.

And something that I'm playing with that I think would be sweet is I want to have a few team captains. basically people who want to be extra involved. Nick, you could be a team captain, another person, I'm sure people are familiar with, Bethany, who helped us out with our activation at T100, Las Vegas. If you feel like you have something extra to bring and you want to volunteer a little bit of time to help make sure that events in your area happen

and that it's just as kick-ass as it can possibly be for everyone, that would be a thing that's like slightly more prestigious. But, no, I don't anticipate sending out a whole bunch of rejection emails. And it's not performance-based anyway, right? No. It's, it is, do you fit the culture? That's what we want to make sure of. Unless I just get like 700 emails saying we want it to be performance based and that's what people actually want. No, we're going to, this is about having an awesome time. And I really think of it as like ambassadors for the TTR brand and the ethos of what we're trying to put out at there in the sport. We're not trying to make us closed off little groups. Like, you are the people who are the most excited and that we can count on to go to races and make a race a better place.

Okay, so more of my questions, since I'm fully been isolated from this project, because I race T-100 and need to focus on that shit. Amen. Fire away. What if you don't race triatholic? Does it include a race kit? When is the race kit going to be revealed? Because I truly think that a lot of the motivation for people to sign up for, like, team win or team Zoot is what the kit looks like. Sure.

It's exciting to wear a kit that looks cool. And, yeah, of course, it's about the community. But I don't know. What if you don't like the kit design? Yeah, we have a couple of different artists that are playing around with some kit design right now, most notably Christian Dunn, who has helped us out with a lot of artwork. And then Kristen Mayer of Betty Design, who designed Paula's kits in the last four years, has agreed to take a crack at a couple of concepts. We do have like a logo or a team mark that we're pretty excited about already, but then we're working on translating that into what a race kit would look like. To answer your question about being on the team and a race kit are not racing, Basically, there's going to be an entry level zone where you're going to get the perks of being on the team. Discounts from some of our sponsors, access to early drops and to the camp experiences that we're looking at for next year. Hot T's there.

Another of those XYZ items were psyched on. But it will not mandate like buying a race kit. You will have the access to buy the team race kit and socks and hat and whatever items that you might choose. but then there will be the all-in package that does include a race kit in it, as well as a few more, you know, a pretty sick group of items that we've put together. And that's like the full package that kind of gives you the best deal on the race kit plus a bunch of other little fun things. Yeah. Okay, sweet.

So we're maybe like slightly behind the eight ball with the other teams that are. Just because everyone has gotten, it's like Black Friday with the team things. It's like we've got to start sales six weeks ahead of Black Friday. I know, but what I'm saying is like, so now you know that this is going to exist. And every year we've always put our kit release out in December when most people are like, I'm already on this team and I already bought a kit. So now you know that this is going to be an option. And hopefully that encourages people to, like, I don't know, wait until this is fully set up in the next couple weeks.

Don't sign your life away. With another team. Yeah, yeah. But yeah. If, you know, we're not pushing this super hard on anybody. We do think it's going to be freaking awesome. and we are, I mean, we started TTL as a community. This is a community first thing.

And then we have always gone with the guiding principle of like, what sounds awesome? What do we want to see? Okay, let's figure out how we can not go broke doing that. And that's going to be the same way with this team. This is an effort for us to make the TTL experience for the people who listen to this podcast and watch the YouTube and go to the races to be as awesome as possible.

And we'd love for anybody who's excited about that to be involved. Yeah, I love it. It's been something that you guys have talked about since the day I've met you. Something like this. Yeah. Awesome. Can't wait. And I accept to be a team captain, of course.

That sounds so fun. All right. So we'll submit your application and check me. I'm interested in being a captain. You guys are going to background check me? I have some skeletons in my closet. We do not have the resources to do background checks, no. Awesome.

Okay. Well, can we talk about this little shakeout run plan? Yes. Okay. Another, man, we're just, we're doing cool shit right now. We're doing cool shit. We're doing cool shit. Nick is, uh, Nick is going to be hosting a shakeout run at Iron Man, Wisconsin,

um, which is, I mean, that's going to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys, hey? I mean, barrel of monkeys sounds fun too, but we're going to be doing on Friday. So the day after this podcast comes out and it'll also be, we're also going to have a Strava event. And so you can look at the course ahead of time. But, uh, we're going to do a shakeout run at 10 a.m. on Friday. It'll be 5K, really comfortable pace. So everyone, it's a no drop run. But it is a point-to-point run. Point-to-point shakeout run. That, I mean, that's got to be a first. Vision is required. So we're going to start at Brittingham Beach, which is just like southwest of Madison,

the center of Madison, where the square is. And we're going to loop around Brittingham Bay. counterclockwise, and then we're going to end in Madison at Wonder State coffee. It's just a little over a K to walk from the end to the start. So you might want to park at the beach or you might want to park at the coffee shop, but we're just going to do a little run and then end at coffee, and we're going to take photos and should be fun. So it sounds like if I'm stressed about running that long, and I go look at the route on Strava and join that group activity and the TTL Strava Club.

because it's awesome. I could theoretically get dropped off like halfway and wait for the group to come running by and just finish the coffee shop. You absolutely could do that. All right, cool. You absolutely could do that. There's really no rules.

No rules at all. Just a bunch of fun people are going to be heading this direction. Yeah, and I'm not sure how many people will actually be there, but we're going to, several people have expressed interest in that. Let's just say this. If you have Strava and you have the ability to do so, go in like RSVP yes or say I'm going. to the Strava activity on Strava,

that is the best way for Nick to know how many people he's going to have to buy cupcakes for at the coffee shop. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that we might do a little we might do a little something fun of the coffee shop. At the very least, we're going to take a group photo. So please come to that.

You should go buy donuts somewhere. We'll buy them. They're on me. Wow. And then everyone can eat those at the finish too. Yeah, I might call the coffee shop today. and just ask them if there's anything that we can do. Yeah, some sort of like bulk treat order.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. We'll take it out of the podcast budget. You know what? I think I can handle this one. I appreciate your generosity. The budget will be made.

Like I said, we just think of cool ideas and then we'll find the money somewhere. Okay. So that'll be fun. And that's it. And then we race. The 70.3 races on Saturday and the full races on Sunday.

And both looks like we have good. weather. Yeah, they do that every year. They do the 70.3 on Saturday and the full on Sunday. That's wild. I didn't know that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I don't know how similar there are courses to hours, but when I did it three years ago, the Saturday was like perfect weather. It was sunny and kind of hot. And then the rain started in the evening and then went through the entire day, of course, until the next day after that, too. Just luck of the draw, man. Yeah. I want to say something about the race coming up. I was obviously put a lot into the race the first time

and was not expecting to DNF the first time. I thought, of course, I had the fitness to do this. And we point to the weather as being really bad, and it was really bad, and that made the whole thing memorable, to say the least. But really what stopped me was like IT band pain due to an injury I had with my biceps femurist tendon. And since then, I have done a lot.

That's the hamstring for all y'all. You don't know what that is. It's like the tendon or the two tendons hook up to the back of your leg from your hamstring. It's the one on the outside. Anyway, so close to the IT band. So that ended up stopping me, and that's still an issue that I kind of have now, and it hasn't really gone away. So I'm fully prepared for the same thing to happen again.

But this time, I just, I don't know, I feel so excited about just doing the race, and I feel really proud of the work that I've put in. So I say this. So if you're following along on Sunday and you see that I DNF on Sunday too, I don't, like, it's all good. I'm going to do everything I can to finish that race. Like I will not stop until I cannot move anymore. But if it happens again, it happens again. It's not going to destroy me.

I feel okay with whatever results happen. I'm just going to do my very best. So I was just saying nobody send Nick. I'm so sorry for you messages afterwards if you DNF. Is that what we're saying? Yeah, yeah. We're just putting out sandbags right from the start. If I DNF on the tracker, I'm okay, but it's because I'm injured a bit.

Yeah, we're just going to be massively disappointed in you. I mean, probably disappointed, but I'm going to, I will not accept it until that is the final option. Like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do enough if I feel bad. I am going to make it till the end. You got to crawl across that finish line. Yes, absolutely. And since it won't be as cold this time, I could literally crawl. All right.

Can't wait. Yeah, I'm excited. And good luck to everyone who's racing this weekend. I can't wait to meet people out there. Okay, let's get to the real deal here, which is Paula's incredible performance. So, Paul, do you want to give a little preamble here? No. I think what my, so I have a question, and I have a lot of questions, actually, as one who even watched the race.

Well, no, I do have a little bit of a preamble. We have listened and watched every single mill. a second of UTMB, including Dylan Bowman's podcast afterwards with all the winners and podium people that finished UTMB. What a machine. And we loved his interview style. He was interviewing Jim Wamsley, and it wasn't just Jim giving a play-by-play of the whole race. Dylan asked really insightful questions and wasn't over speaking over Jim or anything.

Just asked interesting questions, sat back and let Jim answer. and I loved every single interview that Dylan did. So if you guys are interested in trail running at all or just like sport and overcoming the crazy races, like I would highly recommend going and listening to some of the post race interviews. But I think Eric's idea was to kind of implement a little bit of that. So I'm not just rambling and giving a recap of my race.

Yeah. So let's see, Eric, if you can do better than Dylan Bowman. I absolutely cannot. But I did write down some things that, you know, were just like passing thoughts that I had while watching the racing and night while on our long flight home. Okay. Well, I will start by saying that we were there 10 days early and the weather was perfect every day.

But the day before the race and the morning of the race, insane winds. 50 mile an hour, 50 kilometer an hour gusts, biking over into a block headwind, flags going crazy, choppy water. It was really on a bike course that was already going to be challenging for me, the wind added a whole other level of fear and nervousness about it. So that's what we were dealing with first thing in the morning. Yeah. That was my second question.

What I thought was really interesting is I was watching the broadcast and then you said this in your Instagram post after the race. You said the night before the race, you had the feeling that you could win the race, which is not a sentiment that you shared with me during the week, which I would have loved to hear that. but I'm curious like what led up to that

there were some people that dropped out last minute and you know like this was really interesting to me that you saw this T100 as an opportunity that you could win and how did that feel? Well I didn't fly over there thinking that

because as most people know that follow this series there was a start list and it changed throughout the week and a lot of the top athletes Julie Duran Kate Woff dropped off the start list So as that happens, it makes it more realistic for me to have a good performance in terms of the number and the result and the dynamics of the race and how it plays out.

So you can really only race the people that show up. And it's, I mean, a lot of people, even after the race were like, well, if the top four people were there, your best finish would have been sixth or something. But who cares? Like I raced the people that were there and I came second. So, yeah. Yeah, I think looking at the course profile, my strengths, the people that were on the start list, I could have won that race on a good day. And I was only like less than a minute from the win in the end after a really bad swim for me. So, I mean, I wasn't wrong, but you have to have a little bit of that belief, I think.

Yeah, I feel like this was not a linear thing either. Like you didn't show up thinking that. I don't think like midweek you were thinking that. I remember the first time we rode the course. You said, I can't believe we came to this. this is the most technical course I've ever seen. But so like, I guess what would you say to like to somebody who has that like nerves going into a race of like this isn't this always this linear thing? And do you think it was like more helpful that this was like a later breaking realization rather than coming into it like day one that we landed there and you feeling like I could win this race?

Well, it's the difference in mindset of like if I go to a 70.3 and I expect myself to win or, you know, podium. but I go to a T-100 and I just hope I can get top five. You know, it's like a totally different kind of racing and totally different kind of headspace going into it. But, of course, riding the course more, getting comfortable with it. I don't know. Yeah. It felt like a very, like a very calm T-100 race week to me. Yeah.

Where I felt like you were calm and we were just going through the process and it wasn't too stressful. So, man, whatever we can do to replicate that. You already mentioned this a bit. But yeah, race morning we wake up. We turn on UTMB because Heather Stowe. racing. She started the night before. She kept racing after Paula was racing. We had it on to just, Paula said, turn on the race or something to like keep the pressure low. And then we walk out of the hotel for the first time. And yeah, I mean, you've already

painted the picture a little bit, but hurricane winds. Palm trees are going sideways. We have to ride straight into a headwind. Paula tries to, she puts on her T.T5 helmet and the visor's too smoky. We try to take the visor off so that she can ride to the race start. It breaks. I have to stay back and like super good while she rides the race start. Yeah, of course it impacted the fact that I thought I could do well at all. I mean, the conditions did not play to my strengths at all. When it's windy and bend, I ride the trainer and I sit up on my time trail bike. So yeah, of course, I'm like counting myself out immediately as soon as it's windy like that.

It's a little bit of wind is okay, but really strong gusts like that I'm really scared of. Yeah, especially on an already technical course. Yes. And the way that the wind was that was going to be kind of a cross-tail wind on the way out of the coast, which is where the most technical turns were. And of course, then you're just taking them at higher speeds. So none of this was like, oh, this is great for me. You know, the water was choppy or not great for me, all these things. So. Yeah. So gun goes off. You dive into the water. First lap. I was a bit nervous for you. I looked like you would, I think you were a minute down. down at the end of the first lap. Can, like, any thoughts on the first lap? I don't know if I like this format. Like, do you, I mean, this is like the one thing in the race where you said, you know,

you're not psyched on the swim. Everything else seemed to go pretty well. I've come to the conclusion that I really think that we're, I'm not actually swimming that badly. Like in training, I'm swimming fine. I feel good swimming. But I just haven't had good races this year on the swim. And I think a lot of it comes down to my warm.

up and my approach into the start of the race. And every race this year, I've woken up and felt so tired. Like, I just want to keep sleeping for four more hours, and then I'll be able to race. So I don't think that the warm up I'm doing is warming me up enough to be fired up to go out as hard as I need to in these and be in the pack. Because once I lost the main pack on the first 400, I'm swimming super easy and comfortably. Like, it's not hard at all. So I know that if I could just get into that front pack, I'd be fine and be able to stay there.

But yeah, the first 400, I just kind of like am floundering a bit and not, I'm a bit disoriented. I don't really know what position I'm in and then come out on the first lap and I have this big gap to the people I should be swimming with. So yeah, of course, that's disheartening and get off onto the bike and hear these huge numbers and kind of count myself out from there a bit. Now, did you feel like on that lap too that you had the ability or the power? or whatever to like make any inroads into that gap? Or you're kind of like, this is where it's at and I'll do work on the bike. I mean, I swam really hard on the second lap as hard as I personally could. But yeah, I don't know.

Once the gaps open, it's. Yeah. Okay. So, onto the bike. So I actually had like the second fastest transition at a T1 out of all the people, which I did hustle when I got out of the water and saw who I was with and got into the transition and saw bikes that were all gone that. of people I wanted to be riding with.

Right, right. Yeah, that sucked. But I did have a fast transition, and then there was a little out and back hairpin type of turn thing on the first bit. So you did actually get to see where you were in relation to other people. Because after that first out and back, which was only within the first couple of kilometers, you had no information because this was a one loop course. There was no information out on the course.

Like spectators and our supporters couldn't really get out there because the road was closed. So it was really the first. I mean, more similar to a 70.3 where you're setting out on a one loop course and you don't get a lot of feedback about where you are in the race. So my only tactic at that point, I was with Laura Madden, who's a good rider, but I just needed to like start seeing people to keep my motivation high. And thankfully, we started picking up a couple people on the coast. And then when we got to this climb, which is like a 25 minute, not super steep, but I knew that was my chance to like, make up ground and save my race if I could. So my power meter actually didn't connect right from the get-go. So I didn't have power and I was super annoyed by it. But there was like the swim went bad and the power wasn't connecting. So all these things were kind of like not looking good. But I just,

instead of being pissed, I switched it to the map screen and just used the map screen to see the upcoming corners and the hairpins and just it actually is really helpful on a technical course for me to see what's coming up. So it was riding with no power, no splits, just riding as fast as I could, which I think in the end probably was a good thing because I wasn't looking at data. I was just trying to ride fast. Do you think it was actually affecting your like your mood during it as well? Forget about the fact that it may have been a faster overall time. Did it feel better to not look at that once you switch to it. To the map?

Yeah. Were you like, wow, actually, I think I like this better? It was my plan all along to have the map screen up for most of it, but I wanted to have the option of like lapping at the bottom of the climb and targeting a certain watts on the way up, which I couldn't do. But it's all good. I kind of know what 250 watts feels like, what 280 watts feels like. I have an intuitive sense of what this effort level is.

So that's what I was going off of. And I think if I could look at my power meter after. towards and it was working, I'd be pretty close to where I thought it was. So that's the advantage of just training with power, but also having a little bit of like knowledge of my own body and heart rate and feelings. So did it automatically eventually connect? No, I think the power meter battery was dead. We haven't actually checked. Because this happens to me at almost every single race, is that I start the computer while it's in transition. I do the swim and when I come back for whatever reason. The power meter is kind of

timed out with a computer and I have to, while peddling, go to sensors and select the power meter and then it clicks. It clicks in. I've never had to do that. I've never had to do that. But my power meter or my Wahu computer just did turn off because it was waiting in transition for so long.

It's like, wow, she's swimming slow. I'm just going to go off. Oh, you have to start it. Then it won't do that. I had to power it on. Oh, I'm saying if you start it before the swim and then it will not turn off. Okay, yeah, well, I did not do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Never done that in my life. Oh, maybe it was a long time. We've talked about it on the podcast. I did want to talk about the climbing because the tracker was doing some weird stuff and showing things that were clearly not actually happening. But what did seem consistent is that you put in an insane effort on those climbs

and you made time back on everybody on the climb. So how much were you like taking a real, risk by doing that versus it was just like, nope, this is what feels right to do right now. No, I wasn't taking a risk. Even if I was further up in the field, I would have climbed that same effort level. Okay. I knew that the descent was going to be like a five or six minute recovery type thing almost. Like you could pedal the descent, but it was the opportunity to bring your heart rate back down. And I personally know climbing is my strength. So that's where I had to put the effort in if I wanted to make a difference. And I caught probably like six or seven people

while I was climbing and got to the front of this group and continued to push really hard so that I would have a gap by the top of the hill and would have a bit of time to descend on my own, knowing that's not my strength. So I think I probably had like 30 seconds or a minute at the top of the climb and descended pretty well for me. The whole road was closed. So we could cross the center line. We could use the whole road, which was really a, really a cool situation. That's never happened even in a, any kind of 70.3. I think usually you have to stay on the right lane. But by the bottom of the climb, Hannah Berry and Lucy Byram caught back up to me. So the three of us kind of rode together for the last 20K on the insanely windy flatter sections taking us back

into transition. And at that point, I think had it in not been windy. I was feeling good enough that I could have pushed harder, but I was pretty scared. Like the crosswinds were insane. I was taking all my might just to like stay in the bars and not get freaked out and sit up or anything. So I would say I wrote okay, but I definitely would have preferred like a calmer day to be able to just keep putting, keep pushing instead of thinking about the wind so much. Do you feel like that's the one spot where like you could have done better? I'm just, I'm like really curious about like the time. along the coast at the beginning before the climb,

like if you just had like all the bike skills in the world, do you think you could have pushed harder there? And do you think that would have been like more beneficial to your time? Or do you think that like the fact that you couldn't go like 100% along there made your climb better and ultimately a faster time overall? Just like pacing. No, I was going hard along the coast. And there were also a lot of climbs along the coast too.

They were shorter. But it was still punchy. So I was trying to climb at like 300 watt effort level. up those. So I was still going extremely hard along the coast and then using the times where there was a bit of a descent or a corner to like breathe and recover. Like if you had a power file for this race, it would be very spiky. You're not putting out consistent watts at any point. So you're going up a climb, pushing hard, not pedaling a lot. I think probably the average powers would be quite low for this race just because there is so much time of, you know, not pedaling or not pedaling as hard as you can

around corners. So not the type of course where you're just going flat out for two hours. It's very up and down. Sweet. Okay. And then how much did you think that this run, sorry, that the bike with being as spiky as it is, which I think we kind of all feel like that's the kind of race that takes the most out of your legs, or actually maybe you don't agree, but how much you think, were you

thinking, oh boy, this run is going to be tough with all those spiky efforts? No, I didn't think that would impact the run, really. I mean, every bike is hard. You get off it feeling you should anyway, get off of feeling like it was very hard no matter what the course is. But the interesting thing about this race is I think 10 athletes came off within a couple minutes of each other, which is the first time that's ever happened in a T-100. Usually there's these big gaps and the outcome of the race is somewhat predetermined, just based on where you get off the bike, or at least the podium is kind of set. This race was like pretty close for everybody off the bike. And some of the super, super runners like Julie Duran, weren't there.

So I thought I was running well. I got off the bike and I was feeling good running. So yeah, I was just kind of focusing on myself. And with a couple of unknowns like Georgia Taylor Brown was up the road, but she's never, she hasn't done many of these races. So you didn't know how she was going to fare over 18K. and Ash was not that far back from me. So a lot going on, but I was feeling fine on the run.

So did you like out of transition have in mind like a dream scenario of like I could definitely get to X place and set about on that? Or just it was like two up in the air and just start running and see what the splits say? I mean, when I got off the bike, I was just thinking could I podium? And I thought I could. But I didn't think I could win anymore because Ash was so close to me. For me to win, I would have needed a bigger gap off the bike, and that would have required a better swim, obviously. So, but then I thought, okay, if Georgia's first, Ash is probably going to pass me, maybe past Georgia, so maybe I could be third. Okay. So for reference here, first off the bike was Alana Sifford, two minutes and 10 seconds to Georgia Taylor Brown, 2.15 to Hannah Berry.

You were 2.45 back, and then Ashley was 328 back. So Ashley was 45 seconds behind you. and you were, whatever, what is this, 30 seconds, 30 seconds behind Georgia. And you knew all of this, Paula? No, I didn't know the gaps, but I could see people. And I didn't really know Alanis that well. She was a late addition to this race after someone withdrew. And obviously, as an amazing swim biker, didn't know what her run was like, but we were reeling her back pretty quickly.

So I think I passed her around 6K on the run. Okay. Yeah. And Ashley, behind you, you kind of found. like, all right, if she's having even a normal day, she's such an unbelievable runner. She's going to come get you at some point. And the Georgia Taylor-Brown thing, I mean, obviously everyone was pretty interested in how that would go.

It seemed at first that she was running well. And then she said she was maybe a little sick or something. But like- She wasn't sick going in, but she is having a bit of, I think, struggles with just getting a nutrition all right for a long-course race or whatever, middle distance, whatever you'd call this. Yeah. But when I think we were running the same splits, her and not.

just 45 a minute apart. But this course was good for being able to see pretty far ahead. And then there were some out and backs on the run where you could take splits yourself. And I had splits from Eric and kind of knew exactly what was going on. If I was catching people, if they were catching me, while I was running second fastest on course aside from Ashley. So, yeah, there was a lot of feedback on the run,

which was opposite of the bike. And honestly, in the first three or four K, you and Ashley were not running significantly different speeds, like to my, from my splits. There was a moment where I was like, I don't know if Ashley would necessarily catch you if you kind of both continued the same trajectory. As a spectator being there,

this was the most exciting race that I've watched this year. Paula, you told me it was so windy that when you were running in the crosswinds, you're like heels were hitting your legs. Like it was still so windy on the run, too. Did that affect your run or is that just a bike thing for you? I mean, it doesn't make me nervous. It just is not pleasant.

Yeah. But there were some, yeah, it was like a looped course. So there were sections where you felt like you weren't moving forward because the headwind was so strong. And then using the tailwind to like open up my stride and use that section to recover a little bit, it's almost treating it like hill repeats. Like this is my heart rate's going to be higher going in the headwind. And then you almost change your run. form as you have a tailwind and can recover and let your heart rate come down a little bit

on that part. So just being a little bit strategic with the wind direction and stuff, but it's the same for everybody. And it's not like you're, it's not like biking where the just technique and comfort levels are so different for everybody. Running is running. You're not going to fall over. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Did you get emotional at all ever when you were like, I'm getting second at this race? This is nice. No, not really. I mean, it's not like a, of course, I was so happy. And it was almost like this relief that we'd done this big trip and we'd been there early and we'd ridden the course. And I was scared about the conditions. And it was almost just relief that I had a good day.

And it's not like, oh my God, I've been dreaming about this all year, podiuming at a T-100. Or it's not like how I would have felt if this was World Championships. It was a different kind of feeling. So I was, of course, happy. but I wasn't like crying with happiness. Yeah, yeah. No. And I understand.

I think people have to have the perspective that Paula, when was your first race as a professional? How old were you? I don't know. I never made this like, now I'm a professional distinction. Like I raised junior and then I raised U23 and then I raised elite.

But again, this is what I'm saying is like Paula's been racing at this level for so long. Like some people listening to this podcast are as old. this, Paula, has been racing at a world-class level. So, you know, it's, I get it that even a second place at a T-100, which seems unbelievable. It's kind of like your brain has just been there before us so many times. Yeah, I don't think that's the reason that it wasn't, um, emotionally triggering or anything. And it was more just, um, yeah, I don't know, there's so many of these races and it's hard to explain but it's not like I raced outside of what I of my ability.

Ah, right. So you need to like, you need to excel beyond what you think is possible of yourself to get that emotion. Yeah, I don't know. I understand that. I understand that. I understand that. And I don't know, just like what other markers are there, you know, to indicate this is a great performance. Like they're how, what other athletes are there, you know, it's not a known course. It's, there's like, you know, the things he would necessarily, that I would at least grab on to is like, here's what makes this, gives this meeting or, you know, less defined than like at 70.3 worlds. Yeah. The positives of this is that I think even with that 10 days in riding those crazy roads and being in my bars,

like I have improved my bike skills even over that, just short two week camp and through that race. And I felt like I was running like a runner again. Like I was racing on the run. I was being caught. Indially was right there and I was able to push hard and felt like I had more gears. And it wasn't like this complacency on the run where a lot of the time I get off the bike and I'm like, this is how fast I can run today. You can catch me.

I'm probably, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm staying in this position. But I really felt like I was racing it, which I think was maybe an indication that I fueled well on the bike or that I was like, I've been doing some track workouts and the running's a little different than I'm used to doing. So the run is a little different. is what I'm most encouraged about, I would say.

But it's really hard for me to get past how bad I swam and just trying to puzzle piece how I can not let that happen. Because if that kind of a swim happened when Nib was there and Lucy was there, like, I'm out of it. So it's so... But doesn't it make you, doesn't it comfort you to know that when you got out and you kind of are like, damn, I need to swim now, then you stop the bleeding. Like, you can do it.

On this course, I did because of the big climb. I was able to make up time. it's so course dependent and obviously those women who are extremely fast swimmers are also very good on the bike so the race I mean you could say what if what if this person was there this person was there but that's like an unacceptable level of swimming that I that I had it on that day for any hope of performing well in a more competitive field so yeah just it's kind of confusing because I'm like I swam my best when I was like 14. I was a swimmer.

I won every junior national race because I swam so fast. And I got out of the water ahead of everybody and time trialed the bike and ran fast. So it's like so foreign to me to be like a bad swimmer now. I just don't know what to do differently. Like I'm training really hard. I swim over 20K a week. I put just as much effort in as I did two years ago, three years ago. But yeah, I don't know what the problem is.

And I'm just trying to, you know, figure out. what I can do better, whether it's warming up better, whether it's working on my start speed a little more. So, yeah, anyway, that's the thing about racing as you come out of it. And even Taylor Nib, who won every race she did last year, probably finished the race and thought about the things she didn't do well. Oh, she did for sure. She would talk about it in interviews.

Yeah, so that's how I felt after I, you know, you always pick apart all the things you could have done better. Okay, well, let's say a positive. This was a question that you had put in for the selecting pool that I didn't choose, but since we're talking about this, what do you think? And they asked in terms of percentage, but I'm going to ask in terms of seconds or minutes. How much do you think the work you did with Carmen, specifically around bicandling, cornering, actually made a difference in the race in terms of seconds?

If you could put a number on it, and maybe you can't. Yeah, I can't put it. Would you say it's closer to five seconds or closer to a minute? Of how well I would have ridden if I didn't get there early and didn't. If you hadn't done like the bike skill stuff with Carmen, or really the opposite is how much do you think it saved you? I mean, we didn't go do bike skills. We were just riding the course together with someone who's super knowledgeable about

how to handle a bike and could give me cues along the way. It's not like we were going out there and doing parking lot drills. Corners or stuff like that over and over again. Like, ultimately, I've been doing this for so long. I know how to ride my time trail bike. But getting the cues from her of, like, things that even deep down I know, but I just wasn't doing was a good reminder. So it doesn't matter how many seconds it saved me.

I don't know. That's obviously an impossible question. Yeah, someone just asked, and I didn't know if you could be like, I think actually quite a bit. I think it saved me 73 seconds at 0.5. I need a math here. But no, for sure it's just even my confidence going into the race. It was like, okay, this course was scary for me on the day I arrived. Now I know I can do it.

And I know the course so well. So it's a mindset thing more than anything. It's just having confidence in my ability to do it when at first it was super scary. Yeah. I would say completely invaluable. It's more like an on-off thing. Yeah, yeah. That confidence was there so that, you know, the bike could go well.

The run, she was not just like emotionally wrecked by the time the running. even started and et cetera. Yeah, it's so many, so many factors. Love that on-off thing, Eric. That's really interesting. That's cool. Okay, well, we do have some questions here. We don't have much time for them, but we do have some questions. You can submit your questions for the podcast. Oh, my gosh. How have we been going for an hour? Yeah. Well, we had a lot of exciting things to talk about at the beginning, and then I thought the race was really scintillating and captivating. It was an interesting race, yeah. We're here to talk about triathlon and have fun. The questions are just an avenue to get to that. And if we don't need them, then we talk about triathlon in our own way.

Okay, let's hear them. Oh, but you can continue your... My spiel? Your spiel. You can submit your questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And also, for the cost of a fancy donut a month, you can become a podcast supporter. We really, really love a podcast supporters. And also, if I see anyone out there in Wisconsin and you're a podcast supporter, let me know. And I'll give you a big hug. I'll never let Okay, first question here. This is from Pat.

Easy one. And we've talked about this. I don't think we've talked about it in the pod, but we've talked about it, the three of us. Who would win a 70.3, Ladeki, Pagacha, or Kipchoga. And would the distance matter? Pat.

So this is Katie Ladeki, All-Star swimmer, Tadipagacha, Tour de France winner, amazing cyclists, and L.A. Kipchogi, amazing, maybe greatest of all-time marathoner. Who would win a tributtal?

Aathlon out of those three? Who would win a 70.3 specifically? If they all started at the same time. I'm going to say pagacha. I think Todai, for sure. Is that bike he would just put so much time? Yeah. He would bring back a ton of time on Katie.

And I think he could just like will himself do it. Okay, half marathon just like on fitness. I just, I think there's no way that Kipchoga is going to make it through the swim. I'm just just guessing. I think, I don't know about Todai either. but I feel like Tata has a slightly better chance of making it through the swim. I feel like to be elite marathon,

I don't know, I guess it's the same for both, but to be an elite marathoner, you have to be so hyper-specific on just that thing, whereas maybe cycling is a little more, I don't know, a little more dynamic. Yeah, you've like involved your arms slightly more in this activity, so maybe...

No, I just think this is like pointing out an actually bigger point about 70.3 is that the bike is just so important. And it makes up obviously the bulk of the time of the race. So even if Katie can put 15 minutes on those two on the swim. Yeah, just no chance Katie could win. Which, I mean, Katie would put 15 minutes on them. Right.

Maybe even 20. Oh, at least. Oh, my God. Yeah, at least. 30 minutes, we'll say. She would bike an hour slower than Pagotcha or more. Yeah. So it's so important.

You can't win the race on the swim, I don't think. It's so nice to be a good swimmer. It's so important in T-100 race. but I think you guys are right that the bike is just, you know, his position is dialed. Even if Kipchoga was a swimmer, he couldn't get his bike position into the right way to like be good at riding 90K hard. I don't know. And we've just seen plenty of runners that have not translated to bikers.

Like that type of torque resistance versus bounce is like very different versus I think a lot of cyclists can kind of just grit their way. through a 5K or something just based on like V-O-2. I think Tade does some running as well. I will say that would be a hell of a relay though. Yeah. Yeah, that would be a hell of a relay. Oh my gosh.

That would be fun to see. Although, yeah, is Kipchogi the best half-marathon runner in the world? I don't know this. I would imagine he is, but are there people who are just maybe fast- It doesn't matter. We're going with like a, we're going with a high-profile team is like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. That's very high profile. Maybe someone slightly faster than him, but

that's the coolest team possible. Love it. Okay. Next question here is from Jennifer. Another fun one. If you had to choose, would you race Ironman Victoria 70.3 or T-100 Vancouver? I live in northern Alberta and only swim in lakes. Love the podcast, Jennifer. I feel like this is, I feel like I know your answer, but can you expand on why? What would you say? What do you think we're going to say? I mean, Victoria, for sure.

I've heard Victoria is one of the most beautiful 70.3s in the world. Yeah, Victoria for me. Okay, I love Victoria. That's an awesome course. But I think in terms of what I've witnessed at T-100 events, Vancouver was the coolest age group experience in terms of a course for me. And yes, it's an ocean swim, but if you're not familiar with ocean swimming,

it's not like an ocean in terms of having surf and waves and scariness. It's very flat. So I don't think it is any different. really than swimming in a lake, so I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be deterred from that. But I don't know, it's interesting for an age group athlete who's done 70.3 Ironman-branded things to go try a T-100 race. I love it. I think it's an interesting experiment to like see.

It's a little bit different, you know, you get to watch the pros race. The swag is a bit different. The courses are usually looped. It's just a fun change. I think the loop. I think that's the difference maker here. It's like does running through the. the transition zone with people cheering and everything and having slightly more people on course

sound better than running like on this trail around a pretty lake and not seeing anybody for an hour and a half on the half marathon. Yeah, just to elaborate on that, Victoria 70.3, you basically run around the lake on a hard-packed dirt trail. So very pretty, but you're not going to see people cheering out there. Yeah, a little more solitary. And as someone who does Iron Man Racing and also, or Iron Man Branden Racing and also local races,

we have this big difference of like, you can do the Iron Man Racing and there's the bags and the branded check-in and the big expo and there's the fanfare. And then you do the local races and it feels like the opposite. It's like mom and pop set up kind of more of grassroots and it's fun in that way. T-100 feels like this other big fanfareful event. And so if you like the Ironman style branded stuff, this is like just a different take on that that I've really liked.

The T100 races and the old PTO races also were like this, feel really high production value races in the similar way that Iron Man branded races do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so they're both great in different ways. I wouldn't say every single T100 age group course is amazing, but I do personally think the Vancouver course was pretty cool. I would agree with that, yeah. But you can't, Victoria is our favorite 70.3, so this is a really tough question. Okay, the next one here, this is mostly for Eric.

Hi, Paul, Eric, and Nick. Hope you're all doing great. This time I'm writing to ask Eric about his thoughts on using poles for those trail races with significant vertical gain. I've seen some videos in posts of him racing and I have not seen him using them. Thinking about this latest experience on Y is 50K, I personally do find them a great tool to unload the legs and gain some speed on the long up-hills. I trust Eric is more than skilled with the use of these poles given the skiing background and upper body strength. So curious on why he does not use them. Thanks and hope you guys all have a great second stretch of the racing season. The big thing here, I think, is like the difference between a 50K and 100K.

And then, of course, the steepness of the race that you're doing. The second half of the 50K that I did on Mount Hood, I think one definitely could have made an argument for polls. but just being that it was a little bit faster race didn't end up doing it and I don't have much experience at all with polls but that's not because I'm opposed to it or anything that's just because I haven't done a race that it was like a no-brainer

to pull those out where there's obviously a 45-minute hike that is unrunnable as soon as I do 100K or find a course like that then I'll get a lot more into the polls yeah Paula what do you think about this do you have any feelings about polls versus not polls? Well, listening to the UTMB recaps,

I think it's a personal preference. I forget who it was. Maybe it was Francesco Poopi. He was saying on a couple of sections of 100K, him and one other guy weren't using poles. Well, two other guys were using poles. So it really is so individual based on how comfortable people are with them and how steep the terrain is.

And a lot of people just are more efficient jogging. Some are more efficient hiking. Didn't Tom Evans say that he thinks the biggest difference for him in winning was his hiking ability? Yeah, he could hike so efficiently and when other people might have been suffering, he could hike and still move really quickly. And taking food. Yeah. Less drosselin. So he's obviously using poles for that.

But I think the faster the race gets, the shorter the races, maybe the less likely people are to use them because they're much more runable than a race that's so long that you actually. actually have to hike a lot of it. I think there's like the transition is a thing and some people are really good at taking the poles out and putting them back away. But still you got to look at a climb and if there's going to be, if it's 10K of climbing and there's like a kilometer that's super steep and then 600 meters that's not that steep and then another 800 meters that's super steep, et cetera. And you're looking at it like I'm going to take my poles in and out like five times

or I just have to run with them in my hands. This is now, you know, probably like more headache than it's worth. Yeah, getting them in an outlook. annoying. Yeah. We just don't, we don't have a ton of terrain here, at least not in Bend, but you know, you might have to go into Colorado a bit to get like, over in Chamon, they've got like, you're going to be going up for two and a half hours at like an average gradient of a 17 percent. Yes, polls 100%. Of course, yeah. Without question. Well, I think also polls, it's a huge learning curve. If you have never

skied before, you've never backcountry skied, cross country skied, it's going to feel really awkward to just get the timing right even of how to effectively use them. So it's obviously something you have to practice and get used to if you come from a road running background and have no experience skiing. Eric, do the polls you get, are they the ones that break into thirds that have that thing through the, through the all of them? Yep. That's what you got to have.

That's necessary for trail running, right? Yeah, don't get the hiking ones that like telescope out and then you have to tighten that feels like a lot of extra work. Like you definitely could. If you've got those on hand, like, sure, go give them a try and see and whatever while you're saving up money for your $400 collapsible carbon pools. Unfortunately, I have the telescoping ones. Nice and carbon fiber when I thought I would be using them for backpacking. Should have gotten the trail running ones.

That's the whole thing. I'm looking forward to getting into it, but I think we need a camp and can more to really get into pole mode. Nice. Okay, sign me up. Yeah, you're invited. Okay, here we have a two for one. It's from Kate and Preston. So I'm going to ask these two questions, Paul, and you're going to kind of.

answer them together. Hi, TTL. I'm an amateur triathlet. I'm constantly having post-session issues with my frizzy hair, tan lines, blisters, sore nails, and every other triathletes first world problem. Paul always looks so cool, stylish, and presentable. What are your between session tips? Also well done on the T100 second place. Amazing. Lots of love that. I was from Kate. And now I'm going to go straight into Preston's questions, which is similar. Hey, guys, quick question about skin care routines for post-pool. I feel like my skin gets wrecked by chlorine, like itchy and irritated. The only way to fix it is a full shower and lots of moisturizer. Since you all swim in the pool so much, how do you deal with this? Any skincare tips or routine to combat that gross chlorine skin feel? Thanks, Preston.

I also want to add to this that last week I had to swim in a different pool for the first time up in Glendale and my skin felt so weird after that. And so I think the kind of pool that you're swimming in, even if they're both chlorine pools, it can have an effect on that. Yeah, yeah. I think different pools use different levels of chlorine and salt. And I agree with you. It's so different based on different pools. It made me feel really lucky that I swim in my pool because I just rinse off after and do a little bit of their soap and then I feel great. I try not to judge a pool after one swimming it because sometimes maybe the chemicals got off and they just had to dump in a crazy amount of chlorine right before you got there. But yeah, they're not all the same. But that's a nice call. But that's a nice

compliment that I always look so put together. Sure way to hear your question right on the podcast. Flattery will get you far with us. I mean, I disagree a bit, but I appreciate that that's how it appears. Oh, I fully agree. Eric, don't you? Of course, but, you know, this is. Yeah, she is your wife.

This is why she's great. Because I'm like, no, stop. I'm not put together. Stop. I'm not fast. Stop it. Stop it. But don't stop.

I mean, I don't know. I think that a lot of the key to my having good hair and skin is that I don't put a lot of shit on it. Like I use shampoo and conditioner, but I don't use, like, heat styling products. I don't really wear makeup. I use good quality moisturizer. Like, I pay a lot of money for good skin moisturizers because I think that's really important rather than just picking one off the shelf at Safeway. But yeah, I've never dyed my hair. That

helps. So I think that I just have taken care of it by like not overdoing it in some ways, if that makes sense. People that dye their hair a lot or straighten their hair every day, I think that can cause a lot of frizziness. But one of the products that I actually do think helps so much with frizziness is the bumble and bumble hair oil. Not the first second or third time we've mentioned it on the I've said this before. But I, so after every single time I swim, I have a shower with shampoo and conditioner at the pool. If I don't shower after the pool, I feel a gucky. And this can also help with the skin feeling gross after pool.

And then I get home and put the hair oil in, moisturizer on, brush my hair, tie it back in a ponytail. And that's the extent of it. And this might sound like this is a process, but I mean, I had no idea she does this, to be honest. It takes no time. So it can't be that much of a process. No. It's not holding us back from getting burritos or getting on with the rest of the day at all. Well, yeah.

When I get home, it takes 30 seconds to brush my hair, put the hair oil in, and put my fancy skin cream on. I'm really curious. How does one assess the fanciness or the quality of a skin cream? Because I would have no idea. Is it just the dollar value? A little bit. And it's like, I mean, it's so, you know, it's like marketing too. and branding. It's like anything. You're buying a bike or a clothing. You just want what's cool. So I use

youth to the people. I think it's a super cool brand. I think they have good ethical marketing, like the things that they believe in. I don't know. I just like the brand a lot. And they're, I mean, I'm not saying I spend thousands of dollars on cream, but it's like $60 for a jar of it. You're not picking the on sale one. Last me a month. At Safeway or something. Yeah. And I also have a different, so they have like a nighttime cream and a daytime cream and an eye cream and I use all of those because I like having feeling like I'm going to bed with a little bit of like a thick, masky cream on. Oh, interesting.

I do not. I do not like this, but I tolerate it for the youthful skin. Yeah, Eric thinks my face looks so greasy when I go to bed. But I think there is some like repairing nature in the cream overnight that when it's sitting on your face like that. Add it to your regimen, man. I mean, Eric's never put cream on in his life. I don't know.

It's not much of a guy thing. Neither have I. I'm just rolling with and hoping that the rugged look is going to carry me through. Yeah, that's right. Oh, man. I don't know. I feel like I didn't even answer that. But I would say less is more and good quality products are worth the money.

You answered it great. And also I want to add that something that one of the many really great things about you, Paula, is that you take, I'm serious, you take zero minutes to get ready when we have to do something. zero you are just like ready to go i'm i feel like i'm lucky that i have also dated women that are like this but but i could see that being really frustrating when it's like no i got to do my hair i got to do the skincare i got to do the thing i got whatever my lashes my what you know the whole thing i love that when the three of us are together it's like we're going to go let's go yeah totally my takeaway from the from the whole thing was like being a little bit content with what you have

and not trying to turn yourself into something else. So, like, the less is more thing, rephrased. Okay, wonderful. Well, last question here is from Kinley. This is kind of a fun one. And I suspect we'll have three different answers for this. All of you take a fair amount of pictures and videos to document your journey.

We love to see them. But how do you manage the storage of all these memories? I'm assuming the answer differs from those captured with your phone versus the incredible cinematography with real video cameras and such. Thanks, Kinley. Paula, do you want to start?

Isn't this more of an Eric question? I think each one of us represents a different sect of photography to people. Let's say you take a picture that you really like and makes it on Instagram. You've probably taken it with your phone. How do you edit it? And does it just live on your phone forever? That's where it stays? Yeah, I rarely delete photos on my phone because they just go to the eye cloud.

And I don't even know how that works. But I have hundreds of thousands of pictures on my phone. I don't know if that's good or bad. It's probably bad. But to edit pictures, Eric and I have a shared Lightroom account, so I'll import pictures I like into Lightroom, use their photo editing options, whether that's a filter or just me like tinkering with the colors and everything. And then I'll post it. And I like doing that for stories or just main feed posts. I don't know. I like stories to look good, even though it's just a story that's going to disappear. I know that Nick can relate to this.

I definitely. So that's my process. I also technically have this Fuji camera that Eric uses more than me. And I think it takes kind of fun retro pictures. But obviously your phone's just with you all the time. And you see something and it looks artistic or it looks cool. And you just, it's so simple to snap a picture of it. But it is also fun sometimes to use a real camera.

And obviously Eric's pictures that he uses as good camera for, it turn out so much better than a phone ever would. So it's just what you've got with you. Yeah. So from my side, I'll do the same thing. I'll take pictures with the phone, put them in Lightroom to edit. But really Lightroom is kind of like the main collecting point for all our stuff. When Paula takes a picture with the Fuji, when I take a picture with my Sony or the Fuji,

they go into Lightroom. So everything's catalogued there by date. Generally, it has some smart stuff in there that can tell, like, these are pictures of Paula. These are pictures of Eric. If I'm really on it, I'll go and tag the pictures and say like Orca or swimming in the ocean to give us some keywords so that they can be searchable later. but luckily, Paul and I can both pull that up on our phones. I can edit it on my laptop.

It's all cloud-based, so it goes with us everywhere. I can send a link to our sponsors with some photos from a swim trip and six months ago and they can pull them straight out of there too. And you have to pay for the extra storage because I'm sure you have run out of the 100-gigabyte one that comes with the minimum account. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm tapped out on the 1 terabyte now.

Yeah, I'm tapped out on the 100 gigs too. Yeah, I don't do a good job of going in there cleaning up things that are duplicates or throwaways. So it just kind of keeps ballooning. I think there's like 80,000 photos in there now. And what do you do about your video stuff? That all lives on hard drives. Separate hard drives that you just kind of like buy another one,

buy another one, buy another one, buy another one. You never get rid of this stuff. No, I feel like I totally could, but it just feels a little bit strange not to. And if somebody ever wanted to like put together a documentary of the foundations of TTR or something, like they could have at it and I've got it all. Yeah, my answer is the same as Eric, to a T.

Take photos on the phone, edit them in Lightroom, take photos on my camera, edit them in Lightroom, and for video stuff, store it on drives. Yeah, which makes it awesome. Nick and I can have a collaborative album on Lightroom, where we can both add photos, we can both edit the photos, we can both export the photos,

which is what we did for the photos from look for things where you can find them. The Foreign Writer stuff too. Yeah, that's super fun. Yeah, so it's not, it's not, It's not something we concern ourselves with too much the storage, right? The cloud thing is really nice to be able to have access to this stuff from anywhere, from any device. Yeah, and we're just trusting that lightroom's never going to disappear.

Yep, you're right. We are trusting that. Okay, well, Paula, we got through so much. Team TTL, the shakeout run. Paula, your race, end questions. What an episode. We didn't even hit any games. No, I purposely kept those out this week because I knew we'd run out of time.

Yeah, that's fine. Next week, games. Next week. Next week. Race recap. Nick's imminent death and then games. Next one hour recap. Yeah.

I'm excited for that. I promise we won't. It won't be a crazy recap. Even if it's a crazy day, we'll keep it. We'll keep it nice and tidy. You don't have to say, people want it. They frothed. Yeah, yeah.

I just, I'm trying to like not get into my head about it and just go as far as my body will go that day and be happy with whatever that is. Yeah, dude. We're not here for. like hearing a story about it going perfect, we're here for stories. Good. So like, just go. When it's not going well, that's what I'll think.

I'll think, well, at least I get to share this freaking disaster. Here for whatever comes. Here for the story. And if it's like, if that's not the end of the story, if it's the beginning of the story, if it's the middle of the story, the only time we'll tell. Yeah.

One thing that's like kind of a, like if you're having a bad race, for example, or a good race, I don't even know what I'm trying to say here. but I think it's like a really brave thing to go to a race and just like putting your eggs in that basket. Like for example, I was going to sign up for Santa Cruz this weekend in case I had a bad race in T-100

and needed some redemption mojo ju-ju. But I was like, no, I'm just going to focus on T-100, do my best there. It goes how it goes. I don't need to like stack up. No, but it's similar with you with Wisconsin. And you're like, you've put a lot into it.

You've been training for this specifically. You're not like, oh, I'm going to have a backup thing in case it doesn't go well. You're like, just do the best that you can do. And if it goes shitty, yeah, maybe that's extra shitty because you can't like redeem yourself right away. But that's kind of how racing goes. I'm okay with it. I don't say I'm okay with it. I'm just so proud of all the effort and the hard long days that I've done.

That means more to me than if something out of my control happens on race day. that prevents me from finishing. Because the things that are within my control, I have done and will do my very best. Yeah, okay. That sounds good. So I don't even know what my point was there. I guess it was to say that I'm not racing Santa Cruz.

I was trying to say that it feels good to be all in on something. Yeah, yeah. Especially when it goes well. Yeah. I am considering doing 70.3 Augusta. Ooh. Some people just got very upset to hear that. Except the freaking hotels downtown are like $400 a night.

So anybody wants to share a bed? What? Yeah. What? Nick's, you know. Yeah. It's an inside joke. It's an inside joke.

Is that not, is that in the pre-podcast? Yeah, that was in the us talking. Scratch that. You got insert money to hear that. Yeah. Insert token here. Okay, well, we'll see you next week, guys. Okay.

Bye. Later.