That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula moves up to #3 female long course triathlete in the world, understanding the PTO points systems, Power pedals, swim skins, and more!

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

This week we start by discussing the new PTO points and ranking system which has  put Paula as the #3 female long course triathlete in the world! We then move onto questions about vegan diets and performance, how many hours do pros really train, how good are swim skins, swim speed stagnation, and much more! To help support the podcast, as well as submit your questions, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Erica Loggestrom. I'm Paul Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And if you're new here, this is our podcast where we talk about all things triathlon. We try to work in a little bit of culture, a little bit of some sort of science-y type stuff. We're not scientists. Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is our very good friend, amateur triathlete, professional musician, and he sort of brings some more, I don't know, down-to-earth viewpoint on some of the things that we might talk about. Speaking of down to earth, I had something happened today that I think is worth mentioning. I was feeling very dead and was not excited to go to the pool and I showed up to the pool and the pool was closed.

Yes. Oh, my God. And I am enjoying swimming more lately, but wow, did I need that today? I really needed it. I was meeting my friend there and I show up to the parking lot and no one's in the parking lot and I just breathe the sigh of relief. I'm like, oh, please tell me it's closed. Yeah, that's like every child's dream as you're doing. driving up to the pool. Yeah, it's like, oh, the pool's closed. Or like, sometimes if the pool is, like, attached to a public portion and someone has an accident, they got to, like, close it down, shock the pool, chlorinate it. Oh, an accident. You get to get out. Lightning. Lightning. Yeah. All those uncontrollable variables are really a treat. Yeah. I mean, it's great because, like, you kind of don't want to swim, but you also, you know, like, you don't want to let yourself down by declining to swim. But lightning. Yeah, I mean, divine intervention.

I'm just going to cut us off because we go on tangents about swimming at the start of every pod. So, no, shoot. Okay, okay. Next thing, great. Great, great. Well, the first thing I wanted to talk about was last week we kind of did this little deep dive into women's health and training and racing and triathlon. And I had a listener send me this very interesting study. It was published in the journal of Applied Physiology.

And it confirmed something that Paula said last week that was really interesting. We also had an endocrinologist write in and confirm kind of what Paula was saying was accurate. But this study was really interesting. It's called the exercise power duration relationship is equally reproducible in humanoreic female and male humans, which means females that have menstrual cycles and men. So they tested males and females at maximum effort test to define their power duration relationships at three separate time points. And the results were that the powderation relationship does not differ through the menstrual cycle. And reproducibility was similar between males and females.

And the conclusion was that the reason the study was done is that when they're doing tests on women, a lot of times they're concerned about how menstruation is going to affect different points in the testing. But this study confirmed that the menstrual cycle phase does not need to be controlled when conducting severe intensity, aerobic endurance performance research on females without menstrual dysfunction. They did find differences between men and women and how they perform, but it was unrelated to women's menstrual cycles. Yeah, I think in like simple terms for people listening to this podcast, it means really that even if you have your period or you're at a certain phase of your cycle during a race or at a race week or at a high training week, it shouldn't really affect your performance. it might affect how you feel and how difficult it is to, I don't know, get motivated for that particular activity. Right.

But it's kind of reassuring to know that, yeah, maybe scientifically with this assumingly correct study that it doesn't necessarily have to impact the outcome. Yeah, that was really interesting. It was funny when you said that, when you said that you can like fight through it and just still perform well, I was like, well, Paul is just, you know, an amazing athlete. But apparently it's a physiological thing. Yeah. I think like a lot of people reached out to me after that podcast last week. We certainly didn't like do it for attention or anything like that. But it was a really positive feedback from people that, mostly that have young kids or

up in coming athletes, you know, who are in their teenage years. And it's kind of an awkward subject to bring up with them. So just playing the podcast kind of helped to like break that awkwardness. So really cool for us to be able to, I don't know, contribute a little bit to that awareness. and I was not super prepared for it. Like, you guys kind of put me on the spot. I didn't know we were going to be talking about it. So I hope it came across, okay, from all the feedback we've gotten, it did.

So thank you for listening to it. And yeah. Speaking of Paula, Paula, the PTO kind of, for people who don't know, the PTO is a professional triathletes organization, and they have a world ranking for men and women. And last year, well, up until recently, the way they calculated those points was a little bit behind closed doors, right?

We didn't really know exactly how they calculated those points. Yeah, there was algorithms, et cetera, but not as clear as people wanted it to be. Yeah, it wasn't, we weren't totally sure where like a little bit of subjectivity and objectivity like kind of crossed and, you know, how much of it was an algorithm versus a little bit of, man, we heard there was a headwind

and it should be slow. Right, yeah, exactly. And now they have recalculated. Well, I don't know how much they've recalculated. But the way they calculate their points now has changed and it has become public knowledge. So you can see exactly what math they use to calculate the points for any given race. Yeah. And they've retroactively gone back and applied the new ranking point system to 2022 results. And therefore the rankings were changed. And they don't have, it doesn't have any like financial.

financial significance or anything. I moved up from eighth to third, but it is kind of cool to be ranked third and just show that if I perform well this year at similar kind of races, then that kind of outcome could have some financial benefit. And it's just cool to be third. Yeah, I mean, obviously this favored some athletes like you,

and then some athletes have to take the other side of that and went down because of this. Yeah, I think a big, you know, one of the things that I'll just say I was critical of, and I think some others felt the same way of the old system was that it felt like it favored Iron Man athletes a little bit disproportionately when like the PTO events up, you know, are half distance essentially. Just because they were trying to be accommodating for, you know, Iron Man athletes only being able to race one or two events a year versus 70.3 athletes. So they're putting some bonuses on the Iron Man's. There's basically tiers of races now. Diamond tier, platinum, gold, silver, bronze.

and that accounts for a certain percentage of someone's score. So the higher, the payout or the prize money at that event, the higher it'll be ranked up. And Kona is still ranked in the top tier. Roth is a really high tier. So you can still race Iron Man races that are ranked very highly on the tiering system, I guess, and get a lot of points. But it definitely does encourage racing at their own events, which are the PTO Open races, and people that perform well at these PTO open races

will get higher scores and score higher up. So I think it's a lot more transparent and a lot more fair. The way it works is pretty cool. They have three components to how the scores are calculated. They have the race position score, which is 40% of the score. And that's just wearing... First, second, third, fourth, fifth.

Exactly, exactly. And then they have the strength of field score, which they weigh the top five athletes and their rankings, and that makes up the strength of field score. So whatever their rankings were going into the race. And that's 30% of the score. And then the last 30% is your race time score. So if you get first, you're still incentivized to go as fast as you can.

Not just barely get first, but get first by as much as possible. That'll boost your score even more. And together they weigh those and you get an overall score. And then your top three scores for a 52-week period make up your overall score, and that's what they use for the world rankings. So it's a pretty cool system, and there's a lot of math, and it's very transparent on how it's calculated. If you're, you know, third place in a platinum race or fifth place in a silver race, and this is valid for all races that are longer than Olympic distance that have a prize purse of $10,000 or more. So it opens up to a lot of athletes to potentially get scores and get real rankings. And I like that it's transparent.

I mean, it's great for the pros and it's great for amateurs like me who love watching pro racing and want it to be fair. Yeah. I think everyone knew that there needed to be a change, but there wasn't really a straightforward way to do it. So this committee, I guess, of five athletes that are currently competing got together and made this proposal. And I really do think it takes into account a lot of things that people are like, well, what if this? Then what if this? And what if this? It does account for those things.

Like, for example, an outstanding performance where someone wins by 20 minutes. You have to reward that. So I think that it captures all of those things that could potentially unfold in a race in a really fair way. And yeah, it definitely rewards the people that are racing at PTO events at Kona at 70.3 World Championships. But you should be rewarded for that. That's where everyone shows up, but that's where the prize money's big. And those are the hardest races to win. And these points and the rankings that are associated with the points,

they're not just bragging rights, right? They're not just a tool to use to show potential sponsors. No, at the end of the year, the person with the highest ranking makes an incredible amount of money. Second place also makes an incredible amount of money. There's a $2 million year-end payout, yeah. So first place gets $100,000. second 90, third, 80, fourth, 70, and so on, all the way down to 50th place for 20203. So let's say there's three races in the year and you won all three of them.

Each one you'd win $100,000 at plus you get $100,000 for the year and bonus for being ranked first. That's a great year. Incredible. Yeah, that's a great year. I mean, yeah, that's like a dream year. It's a little bit like what happened to Ashley last year. Yeah, I was going to say Ashley. Ashley Gentle obviously did really well last year.

and now is ranked number one. Yeah, because of the old system didn't factor in the strength of field, all of that. She wasn't ranked first, but now I think rightfully so, she is. So if you look at the top 10 ranked or top 20 on the men and women side,

you can't really argue that they're wrong in any way. I truly think that they're accurate. Although I don't think I really deserve to be third, to be honest, but that's another thing. Under this new system, your best Iron Man still does get a little extra boost, bonus, whatever. Right.

And is the thought behind that because as an Ironman athlete, you just need a little more time to recover between races. So it's harder to get as many races under your belt? I guess you just can't race as much in the year doing a full Iron Man. And then typically the athletes, not always, there's a lot that are good at both, but the athletes that are strong at the Iron Man distance aren't necessarily the same athletes that are winning the 100K races.

And there's three or four opportunities throughout the year to score at the PTO. 100Ks. So it just, yeah, gives them the opportunity to bump their Ironman score a bit. Yeah. Well, I love it. I think it's really cool. And it's something that I get excited about now when the race happens to wait until the scores are posted to see how, if positions have shifted, it's like following any other pro sport where you see, you know, what team is doing well. And I don't know, I like it.

And I think that before the race even happens, they're like putting on the PTO website, this is a bronze tier race, this is the field, this is the start list, this is the strength of field, all of that. And theoretically, or not theoretically, I think definitely, the points will be updated really quickly after each race. So there will be this constant evolution of the rankings, of the scores and all of that. You won't have to rate, wait like two months or whatever it was last year. It's supposed to be less than 24 hours. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah. Cool. Well, I just want to, I mean, the PTO reached out to us specifically, knowing that we have a podcast, that people listen to. And they went through some bullet points of like how to explain this to our audience, the correct terminology to use. So they really are making an effort to make sure that it's a point system that's understood by the public to like increase just everyone's understanding of it.

And I think that they're accomplishing that pretty well. And I haven't heard really any negative feedback about the point system. So bravo to the PTO. We're excited for 2023. And if you guys have any questions, just email Nick. DM Nick on Instagram. I'm becoming a professional Instagrammer at this point. Don't do that.

But you can look at what the PTO posted and read through the documentation. It's very thorough. He's thorough. Good man. Get a glass of wine. It's a good man. He's thorough. Okay, well, if you guys are okay with it, I think we'll move on to questions here.

Yeah, let's move on. Great. So, as you've noticed, we don't do ad reads on the podcast, and that's because the generosity of the podcast supporters. Thank you so much to all of you. You can also support the podcast and submit your questions for the podcast at That TriathlonLife.com slash podcast.

First question this week is from Rich, who is still loving his TTL shorts, by the way. Hi, TTR crew. I know that you're sponsored by Yahoo for the bike computers and watches for sure, but what about the speed play pedals? I know they integrate seamlessly with the whole Yahoo ecosphere,

but have been reading up and there aren't a lot of people using them as they aren't that stable of a platform due to size, and therefore most are using the Garmin SPD pedals if they have a power meter in. I don't have a power meter in the crank, so power meter pedals are my way to go. Therefore, the Wahoo Speedplay or Garmin Vectors.

If I go for the Garmin vectors, how easily it will be to integrate with Wahoo Element, watch, and Bolt computer, thanks, Rich. So, like, from our perspective, we've been sponsored by SRAM, which has quirk power meters for quite some time now, and Wahoo, you know, merged with Speedplay and bought that power pedal technology.

So we have not used it because we're already, you know, linked up and happy with our power meter situation. But Nick, I think do you have some experience with the power pedals? Like I know all about speed plays, having worked in a bike shop and set some up. They're great for like fitters to like dial and float and stuff. But I don't really actually know much about the power technology and the stability of the system like firmware-wise and everything.

I have used, I've used Garmin pedals. I've used regular Shimano SPD pedals. I've used the, and now I'm on the speedplay pedals. And exactly what you said. The reason I switched to speedplay is because I was having an injury issue. And the fitter really loved speedplay because they offer different spindle lengths and a very large amount of float, which lends itself to like, for some athletes, a healthier pedal stroke. And so I kind of was like, okay, I guess I'll switch over to speed play.

and I now that's what I use on both my TTI bike and my row bike this thing about they don't have a stable of a platform due to the size I man maybe maybe you can feel it I cannot feel any difference once you're clipped in they feel super solid I mean especially like I'm more of a sprinter than anything else and when I'm putting out my max power they feel super super solid I don't feel like they're you have any loss at all. And it's nice that they clip in on both sides. This might be a dumb question, but do all speed play pedals have a power meter built in?

Like to yours? No. No, they don't. They don't. They don't. But you can get speed play pedals with power built in. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So I've heard nothing but bad reviews. I'm not just saying this because we're Wahoo athletes about the Garmin power pedals. I've heard that they don't always read accurately, that they break or they just stop working altogether. So I also, I'm always a supporter of keeping all your gear in the same ecosystem like this person's talking about. If you already have a Wahu bike computer and a kicker and the pedals can seamlessly integrate, I think that's definitely the way to go. But the speed play pedals do have a different feel to them.

You have to get used to kind of like the float and the clip in and depending on what you're used to. That's definitely different. You can get used to it though. I'm totally used to it now, but it took me a while to get used to the clipping in for the speed play. It's a little, it's not as easy. as regular like Shimano or something

Shimano yeah pedals like that but I I like it a lot this person is asking if the if you have a

if you have Garmin vector pedals will they read on a Wahoo by computer yes they will read that you might not get all of the tiny metrics that maybe you can get on Garmin

like if you're out of the saddle or not the way that the vectors can give you that information if you find that to be useful maybe that's something worth

considering. But yes, the power numbers, your left-right power is all going to come through if you get the dual-sided versions. But I agree with Paul. Like, if you're a Havahou by computer and you're trying to figure out

which pedals you want, you're going to have to buy new cleats anyway. You might as well do the speed play ones. Yeah. I just think they look so much cleaner too as compared to like the Garmin. The Garmin's a little chunky. Yeah, it's chunky.

The speed plays are small. It look good. Yeah. Very arrow. Yeah, they are arrow. And they even make like aero-specific ones. So there you go, Rich. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the speedplay pedals now.

And I don't know if they help me get healthier or if it was a bunch of other things, but I like that they have a lot of different customization options on them for different athletes. Next question is from Raymond, from Laguna in the Philippines. Hey, Paula, Eric, and Nick. What's your take on vegan or plant-based diet for triathletes? I've been on plant-based diet for one year and four months already.

I felt lighter during the race and during my training. But my worry is when I do my next training program for the standard distance race, which will have more volume and intensity versus a sprint training program, I'm worried that I may not be able to enjoy my training plan. Thanks in advance, guys. I appreciate it. More power to the team, Raymond. Interesting.

Yeah, very interesting. I mean, we're not nutritionists, just a disclaimer. We just have experience with ourselves in our eating. And we're also not vegan. So we do kind of experiment with not having meat every night. So far from vegan and vegetarian, but it is something that we're conscious of. I do think it's really possible to get enough calories, protein, nutrients from alternative things like beans, legumes. But it takes a little bit more of an effort versus having a steak or a chicken or something that's like a little bit more.

Or eggs, even we eat a ton of eggs for our protein. Yeah. So I think that as long as you're like caloric deficits are being replenished appropriately, so you end up, you know, not under eating, it is a possible and feasible way to train off of that diet. And there's also a lot of like protein powders, bars, stuff like that that are vegan as well. So if you're like making a giant shake after your ride or something and you use a vegan protein powder, that could be enough and just the same as having a non-vegan protein powder, you know? Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

I've gone pretty far down the vegan pathway, like in my life, like 2017, 18, maybe. And I felt fine, but it was definitely, like Paula said, just it was more work. And we're living in a pretty golden age right now where you can find vegan options at most restaurants and there are vegan protein powders and et cetera and et cetera. But it's still like, I think you got to make sure you get those liquid aminos and put those on things. and you've got to make sure you try to find a B vitamin source and kind of like always being on top of it and like the shopping is a little bit more complicated

than just grabbing some chicken and grabbing some steak and just, you know, I found that if I wasn't like really focused and had a bit of a plan when I went to the grocery store that I would really not have the right things around the house. But it's not even just protein. Like people think, okay, you're vegan, you're not going to get protein, but it is like Eric just said,

it's a lot of the micronutrients and vitamins that are in meat that you'll miss if you don't eat meat. So, yeah, things like amino acids and B vitamins and stuff like that. Yeah, just have to be more cautious, but I think it's possible. You can miss those things, but I think a lot of this is like you guys are alluding to this, but it's because the world is designed not around vegan diets. I think if the world were, those things would come much easier. But it's just hard because every restaurant you go to, unless it's a specialty restaurant,

is centered around people who eat meat, right? And vegetables, of course, who eat everything. So we've seen world champions be vegan. Triathlon world champions be vegan. So if they can do it, it means it's possible. It doesn't mean it's the best thing for you. And Raymond definitely our advice is to talk to a nutritionist, talk to people who this is their job and they're licensed at this

to see if it can work for you. But is it possible? Yeah, it's definitely possible. Yeah, another thing I would say is maybe start supplementing with an iron supplement. Sometimes if someone cuts out red meat, they start to feel like a little weaker. Like, I've heard that before from athletes. And the solution to that could be just to introduce more iron in your diet through supplementation or other sources.

Yeah. And if you have the means, I don't think it would be a terrible idea to get a blood test right now and then get another one in a year or just like pick a time after you've done the vegan diet and make sure that you didn't just like massively drop off in some category, you know. Is there any service that they should use for the blood test? Yeah, you can use inside tracker if you want. We have a code. This is not meant to be an inside tracker plug by any means, but.

But we do have a code. What is it? I think if you just go to inside tracker.com slash that track on life. Yeah, you can get a discount and stuff. But that would be. This does not count as an ad read, everybody. Yeah. We're not getting paid to do this.

Next question is from Neil in Estero, Florida. I've always wondered how much pro-tra athletes really train. You guys are so transparent about your workouts on Strava. Is this really everything? I know your swims aren't there, but on average, how many hours a week do you guys really put in training in the height of the season? Also, just for fun, what are your guys maximum heart rates?

Thanks again for indulging me and for creating TTL Nash. Best of luck in your seasons, Neil and Estero, Florida. Do you guys know? Do you have an idea of how much weekly hours you do? Yeah, we don't put our dog walks. We don't put our swims. We don't put our strength workouts. But mostly because we just don't wear a watch in the pool

and we're not just going to go manually do it. But we do keep track also on training peaks where everything auto uploads. And I would say that like we're not too worried or fuss about like what our weekly hours are. I think that's something that a lot of age group athletes kind of obsess over. I think it's like a very important number. but I would say it's a little bit more like the quality in those hours than just doing the hours. And that's especially important for age group athletes who have a full-time job. Like no one's impressed that you're training 20 hours a week if a lot of that is like, you know, fluff and not really purposeful training versus 13 hours of really structured and intent, you know, throughout your training plan.

So I don't, I think we need to do like 24 hours a week maybe. Yeah. Yeah. that's still higher than 99% of age groupers. Yeah, and I would also just say, like, that's the whole year. We don't do this like three weeks up, one week down, like, any of that. It's just that is the whole year, and it'll maybe go up to 26 and maybe come down to 22 and a half, but it's just constant load through the whole year.

Well, I was actually going to ask you that, because today's the first day for me of my recovery week, and I'm, like, so thankful for it. I've, like, definitely felt the fatigue building. and was looking forward to this week to like kind of absorb the training and recalibrate and attack the next week with intensity. You guys don't drop down at all every once in a while, or do you do it based on like if you're feeling extra tired? You don't have it already built into your training?

No. It's basically when you get ready for a race, you're tapering and then the week after the race. Our coach will send us a schedule whenever we request it. We usually get back on a schedule like Friday. after a race. And that, those kind of two weeks there, a little bit of your mental reset and freshen up a little bit. And obviously you have the fatigue from the race in your legs.

But still typically by the Friday after a race, I'm feeling a little better than I did, like one week out from taper time. Yeah, I think that our training is not so crazy and difficult and wildly impressive that you need a full week of like recovery. I think that Paolo's philosophy is we have two lighter days per week, the rest are pretty challenging. But there is this natural cycle of like you're just slowly adding on a little bit every single week. Like when you do a 30 minute tempo, the next week it's 35. The next week it's 40, then it's 45.

Then you're tapering, then you're racing. So it's the slow build, the slow burn, never really frying all your matches so that you need a giant break. And of course, if you do or you do have like some kind of fatigue or you're running yourself into the ground, getting sick. There's room for, like, discussion and making things lighter. But in general, Polo's philosophy is just, like, consistency, consistency, nothing epic, but just keeping the work going at all times. And you don't take full rest days.

You take days that are slightly lighter, like you said, to a week. But you're not, you're never on the couch for a full day, unless it's post race. The easiest is, like, a swim only day. Which is kind of a new thing. I've worked with Paulo for 10 years now. And this, now on Thursdays, we have just a swim in the morning. And it's like a 5K swim, so it's not nothing. And then we have the whole day.

And we'll typically do a lift later in the day. But that feels like, that is heaven. Yeah. Having that huge chunk of time when normally is like we've got three workouts and you're like, you know, two hours on, hour off, two hours on, hour off, two hours on. That just feels so nice. And like the mental reset is huge. I wonder if you guys have the same feeling I have with this.

So yours, your, your, your, your, your, your, Day is Thursday, that swim day? Yeah. Okay, that's also my rest day is also Thursday. So on Wednesday nights, I have a little bit of that like Friday night feeling where I'm like, oh, tomorrow is going to be like a lighter day. It's not going to be like I'm going to have time to do stuff. It feels like a mini little weekend.

Yeah. That's how we feel too. Yeah. Especially on Sunday nights. Monday's a little easier too. And Sundays are really busy for us. So we always look forward to Mondays. Yeah.

And do you have a max heart rate that you're willing to share? I don't know what my max heart rate is. No idea. We don't know how many hours a week we train. We don't know our max heart rates and we don't know our thresholds. I'm classic age grouper. I know like everything down to the decimal point. What is your max heart rate?

I hit 183 in a race and I've never hit more than that. And I remember that feeling like my eyes are about to explode out of my head. So I think that's it. What kind of a race? Well, so it's probably not my max heart rate because it was in a bike race. It was in the only bike race I ever did. and it's at the sprint finish. Oh, okay.

That could be there, yeah. And so then what do you do with this max heart rate data? Some people like to calculate their training zones based off their max heart rate. There's a lot of models that do that. Gotcha. People who can't afford to go into a lab and actually figure out the training zones, use max heart rate to do it. For sure. For 100%.

I was just curious if you did anything special with your max heart rate besides like heart rate zones. I know you train with a power meter and that's kind of like the more important metric. I don't use the heart rate, really, in my training. Yeah. Okay, well, next question is from Sam. As a newbie, I have a question about pool etiquette. My local pool only has four lanes available for public use. When I go in the mornings, as the swim club uses most of the pool,

but the end lane is extra wide and seems to be mostly used for people doing rehab-type stuff in the shallow end. So there's really three lanes to swim in. Whenever I've gone, there's a lot of equally very slow people spread all across lanes, and sometimes there's a couple who paddle while sitting on pool noodles. take up a whole lane, which seems like a dick move. I love that. My pace is not super quick, around 150 per 100, and I need a lot of breaks, but pretty much everyone else is doing three or four minute one hundreds.

I have no idea how I can get decent training, and should I ask people if they could move lanes or just let them know I'll be going a little quicker? Thanks, guys, Sam. Have you ever experienced this? We get pretty lucky with our pool because we basically usually have like 16 lanes to choose from in the morning and most of them are empty. But I do feel extreme frustration and sympathy for this person. I don't know if there's like a real straightforward answer that's going to feel very comfortable to

either way you're kind of either awkwardly asking someone to move or dealing with it, which is not great. What would you do, Eric? Or Nick. I was thinking, talk to the manager of the pool and explain to them your problem and say, hey, I want to be swimming, you know, athletically. And it's fine that other people are here doing whatever else they need to do. But is there something you suggest that I can do?

And maybe they'll tell you like, oh, well, if you come at 3 p.m., that's when the real swimmers come. Or, yeah, let me go out there and set up a slow, medium, fast board so people know where to put themselves. I'm surprised they don't ask. Yeah. Because that's what there should. I mean, that's what there should be. Most pools have that, like, fast, medium, slow.

So I feel like that's a fairly reasonable request. Yeah. And then if they have a fast board up and someone is in the lane doing four minutes per hundred and you get in and start swimming fast, it's kind of like goes without saying that you should maybe move over. Yeah, the lifeguards at our pools even sometimes go and enforce that. Yeah. Oh, wow. Like not often, but if the pool is very full and somebody decided to jump in and do like, you know, whatever, breaststroke kick with a noodle and the fast.

lane and we're just kind of standing there awkwardly waiting to get in. They'll come and politely ask them, hey, could you move over two lanes? There's a couple other people with water noodles doing breaststroke kick over there. Y'all get along great. This is the fast lane. And no, I haven't ever seen anybody get super upset about that. Most of the time they're just kind of in their own world, not realizing. That's what I was going to say is I could see myself in this situation just talking to one of these people with the pool noodles and being like, hey, you know, talking about how are you? I'm going to be swimming here. I'm going to be trying to kind of swim fast.

What's the best way for me to do that without getting in your way? And then hopefully when you phrase it like that, they can be like, oh, let me, don't worry, I won't bother you. I'll stay on my side. You can swim over here. And then you've had a nice interaction with someone and you both get what you want. That's a very nick approach. I like it.

Just like become friends with them and then they'll for sure move over. Yeah. And then you made a new friend too. It's a win, win, win. Yeah, but don't talk to them too much. Get in the pool and do you work. Yeah. Talk to them a lot.

Talk to them a lot. Talk to them a lot. left in your swim slot. Well, I'm guessing this person doesn't have a swim slot because otherwise the easy solution is to show up right at the beginning, start swimming fast, no one very slow is going to get into that lane. And to start with a hard 50 butterfly. Yeah.

Butterfly, that's the best way to scare people away in the pool. That is true. Nick, I think you're the last pool on planet Earth to have swim slots because of COVID. Oh, God, I know. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Okay.

Well, let us know. Sam, if you figure anything out. Next question is from Richard. I'm an Australian that currently lives in London and heading over to Oceanside for 70.3 in a bit over a month. So we, Richard, hopefully we'll see you there. Three quick questions. One, do you have any general tips for the course?

Pretty strong on the bike and okay in the swim and run? If everything goes well, I'd like to be around four and a half hours finish time. Pretty fast. That's real fast. Both of you have done well there. So is there anything you could recommend for a first time? I mean, I remember that steep hill on the bike. That's all I can really think of.

Yeah, there is a big steep hill on the bike. I think it takes a few minutes. I don't know actually how long exactly it takes for age groupers, but for us, I think it's like two and a half minutes. It's a very rolling course. I think you have to kind of carry your momentum up and over the hills. Exactly. It'll be hard towards the end.

And a lot of the time, the last stretch has a headwind. So you kind of have to pace yourself on the bike. Otherwise, I've had this experience several times where I've kind of blown up the last 10K and had a real big stretch. struggle getting back into town. Yeah. Yeah, if you can do it, if you can really work at, like Paul said, maintaining your own momentum when you bottom out, you know, you're going down a hill and you're about to go back up another hill and then also kind of like over the top of hills without going too far into the red line. Yeah. And an interesting thing about this race is you actually go on into

Camp Pendleton, which is a military base and you aren't allowed to pre-ride the course because it's kind of closed to the public most times of the year. So for this reason, it's, it's hard to kind of visualize it or practice it. You can't really see the hills unless you've done the race before. But that's all okay. I just think you have to be like keep your head up and there are some places where there's speed bumps and you have to go through some gates and it's very straightforward. And speed limits. That's true, Nick. There is also a place where there's a speed limit on a descent. And they'll go through that in detail in the pre-race chats and everything. They really hammer that home. Yeah. Yeah, you have to like sit up, put the brakes on. Otherwise you get disqualified.

You actually get disqualified. They're not just threatening that. People actually. They're totally disqualified. Yeah, don't let that scare you. It's like very clearly marked when you need to sit up and slow down. But there are some interesting pieces like that throughout this race. The one other thing that I would say about the run course is for the most part, it's very flat. Just a little bit of rolling in it. But you have to basically go, like run up a boardwalk essentially.

It's so cool. It's such a cool little moment in the course. Yeah. It's like a 9% hill for 30 seconds. and my best experience is taking that on the more relaxed side, like not absolutely tacking my heart rate because then your next 500 yards are just wheezing and dying and maybe you will reconnect with your pace, maybe you won't.

Right, right. To be honest, that that Oceanside Run Course for me has always felt like it goes on forever. I've never felt really, really good on the run in that race. It kind of drags. The surface is really hard. You're running on concrete for a lot of it. And if you pre-bike the run course, you're like, this is so long.

How could we possibly run all this way? So I think it's a mentally challenging run course personally. And it's early in the year. You're not at your peak fitness necessarily. But yeah, I would just be prepared to kind of suffer on the run. But it is beautiful. You're right along the water the whole time. And there's a ton of spectators.

It's very cool. And you come back by the pier and everything. Like, it's a vibe. It's awesome. That's what makes this race so cool. Yeah, totally. Yeah. The second question is my wife and I are staying a week after the race,

and neither of us have spent any time in California. What would you say to do for a week post race? I think Oceanside's really cool because you can go down the coast and hit like Carlsbad, Encinitas, all the way down to San Diego. Yeah, and all those little towns along the coast are really cool. We trained down there a little bit back in the day and really miss it. Good weather, cool stores, cool people, cool coffee shops. It's really fun.

And Sanitas is one of my favorite places. All those towns along the coast going south are one cooler than the other. Yeah, I agree. So don't stay in Oceanside. I mean, Oceanside's amazing, but kind of drive down on the coast if you can. Yeah, if you're looking to do cool bike rides, there's very down south of San Diego. There's something called the Great Western Loop,

and then the Mount Palomar climb, which is like pretty much directly east from Oceanside. Those are two like big classic rides down there. And if you have the time, I think if you can drive up to like, it's pretty far from Oceanside. But if you drive up to Big Sur, taking the coastal highway there,

it's one of the most beautiful drives in the world. But that's definitely quite a trek. It's something to consider. And the last question here is, will you be hosting any pop-ups so I can buy some more kit? Do we know the answer to this? Are we allowed to say the thing?

So, I mean, we don't know exactly what it will look like. Okay. But we will be getting hats specifically for Oceanside, and I think we'll have three options. Eric actually just finished designing them today. Cool colors, surf vibe kind of thing. And we've found that pop-ups where we're both racing, it really is a lot simpler to just keep it at hat. So we don't have like all these sizing things with T-shirts, and we're trying to shuffle through that in the van.

We really like meeting people, but we're also like trying to, you know, get ready for a big race. So, yeah, we will have hats. And we'll post more information as we get closer to the race. where we're going to be and how you can find us and all that. Yeah, I would, is there a way to, like, say, like, make sure you notify me if TTL posts something on Instagram? Yes, there is, but I think are we not just going to do stories? Yeah, we'll do stories. Yeah, so if you have the technical prowess to do so and you want to, like, set a reminder, get a notification when we post something on the TTL Instagram during race,

week, that is where we will kind of, you know, two days out saying, oh, we're going to do it at this parking lot or, you know, whatever. What's the Instagram handle for the, for the TTRL? If you put in that trath on life, it'll come right on. It'll come right. Start searching that. It'll come up. Yeah.

Cool. Well, there you go, Richard. So stay tuned and hopefully we'll get to meet you at Oceanside. Next question is from Chance. Hey, gang, day one are here. So I'm qualified to say the best part of this entire podcast last week since the inception was when y'all solicited us for FTP info, then promptly called us all liars. Good stuff. My FTP is 390, by the way. I hope that's true. I also wanted to thank you, Paula, for having such an

honest discussion about sports health issues unique to women. I have an 11-year-old daughter who loves running in sports, and just hearing your perspective really open my eyes to stuff I had never come close to thinking about as a man. Things my daughter might be facing in short order. She might be too young for that book you mentioned, but I'll keep it on my radar for her for sure. Here's my question. How do you go through the troubleshooting and treatment process? How long will you try to fix a tweak or strain yourself before you look for professional help? And then where do you go first? P.T., massage, chiropractics, physician. I'm dealing with a minor but nagging hip injury that I can't seem to make go away on my own, wondering what kind of clinician I should look to first. Thanks for all you guys do, chance. Well, thank you for all of those nice words. I'd say that the first person Eric and I go to, just because we regularly see him and he knows us really well as our massage therapist, we see him once a week, whether we have an injury or not, just because of training load, it helps us recover. And he's amazing.

So that's our first step. And sometimes he'll be able to, like, you go see him for a massage. He'll focus on one spot that's maybe a little bit of an issue. The next day, it's better. So for us, that is pretty effective most of the time. My next step would be a PT to diagnose something that's kind of lingering and not going away just because they generally have a good understanding of like biomechanics and anatomy and like all the things that it possibly could be and maybe give you some corrective exercises more than just manual work on that thing to help fix it outside of swim by ground or training or whatever you're doing. last step would be a physician if it's like a bony injury or a laboral tear or something that needs like an MRI or imaging or surgical intervention that's kind of the third step which we've definitely had I mean this there's a lot of different levels of pain like when I got my one and only stress fracture I was I like couldn't walk I didn't go to a massage therapist I didn't go to a PT I went straight to the doctor yeah got an MRI to confirm that I was not going to be doing anything. anything for six weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a... Sometimes you just know. There's a continuum. Yeah. If it's like you had to walk 10 minutes back to the car, you're not, we're probably not going to the massage therapist.

We're going to go straight to PT, start trying to get some... And it's not that our massage therapist can't work certain things out, but like he does very specifically massage, but a PT might do some ART and some grass in and like something a little bit more deep and focused on a specific spot. And then they should have a pretty good idea right away. Like, hmm, this. isn't responding to this, this, or like I tapped it in this way, let's do an MRI or get an x-ray. Seems like part of the sport is listening to your body and its injuries and figuring out what is

discomfort and what is like pain, you know, like what, it's hard. It's hard. And it's just like comes with experience, I guess. Yeah, a bit. Like, what is tightness? How much tightness versus that's a sharpness that, I mean, a lot of the times you, I think you have a bit of an You know, you just don't want to believe it. You don't want to fully admit it and you go for one more run and then you really know. Yeah. And especially with stress fractures, if you've had them before, that tends to be people's first worry. Like, oh, I feel a pain.

It's probably a stress fracture. Oh, my gosh. But it isn't always the case. So don't panic and freak out right away if that happens. But definitely stay on top of it. Don't go out for a run the next day. you know, do activities that don't bother it. And like, I wouldn't panic and go to a practitioner immediately necessarily.

I think there's a lot of things you could do at home before you take that step. Like icing, ibuprofen, rolling, rest, do that for five days and see if it goes away. Because a lot of the time that'll resolve the issue and that's what the PT will tell you to do anyway. Right. I mean, so often our issues are from overuse. So the rest is like the most powerful tool. Cool. next question here. I feel like Eric, I really want to hear your perspective on this.

Here's another swim question for an okay swimmer, middle of the pack. Would you recommend buying a swimsuit slash speed suit for a 70.3 where it's almost certain that there are no wetsuits allowed? How much does it even help in terms of buoyancy and speed? Another podcast, I heard that swimsuits are made of pretty delicate materials and you should only wear it for your races to keep the effect of it intact. Your take on that? All the best for your upcoming season. I hope to bump into you, including Nick, sometime in the future. from that. Good question.

It makes a lot of difference. Really? It's several seconds per hundred. Yeah. It's, I would say just like roughly speaking, relative to like swimming in a normal swimsuit, I would say it's like half the difference of getting to a wet suit,

maybe slightly less than half a difference. Oh, wow. And especially if we're talking about just swimming in your tri-kit that has like pockets and zippers and is not, most likely not crazy skin. tight, that's the bulk of what a swim skin is doing. It's getting you back to like tight swimsuit.

It's a sausage casing. Yeah. Right. So like if you have the means to, if that's in your budget, definitely worth it. And they last a long time if you take good care of them. You like rinse them out. Yeah, the coating is very delicate and they're better when they're new. And they kind of repel

water a little bit. If you dump, pour water on it, it'll like roll off, that kind of a material. Yeah. But rinse it after the race. Don't put it in the washing machine. hang, dry it. Don't wear it in training. There's definitely no need for that. If you want to try it out in training,

like swim in the first 400 of your workout in it. And then take it out. And then take it out, take it off. And if you've got showers on deck, I would rinse it off immediately. Just try to get that chlorine off of it. And like that should be it.

It'll last you a few seasons. Just know what it feels like. And it'll last a while. But as far as buoyancy goes, almost no difference, right? It's just about how hydrophobic it is through the water. You're going to feel more buoyant. Like it might not actually be buoyancy, but you're going to have that sensation.

It feels that much more slippery through the water than your skin or a trisuit. Yeah, it's like when you shave your legs and you have that feeling of being a dolphin, it's like that. Right, right, right. I think they're expensive for good reason. Like it is a technical fabric. So it's just one of those things in triathlon that you have to like bite the bullet and do. Nick, do you have one? Not to name drop, but Christian Blumenfeld gave me his.

So I do have one. I don't know if that's going to fit you on your, that's going to be a little loose on the chest. You never know. He's shorter than I am. So maybe it'll even out a little further south. Yeah, I got that, I got the lower part is a little thicker for me right around the belly button. That's hilarious. So it's a Dabor.

It's a Dibor, yeah. So it's top of the line. I have his Dibor. He gave me his Dibor. wetsuit, too. I don't know if I'm allowed to, I hope I don't get him in trouble for this, but. That's so funny. Well, the deborg, the deborke guy is Jordan Bryant. Yeah. So, so thanks, Jordan. Don't get cushion in trouble, please. Thank you. Oh, man. So, yes, now I have one. But most of the races near me are wetsuit legal because of how cold the Pacific Ocean is.

Totally, yeah. It's kind of rare to have a swim skin for an age grouper because the cutoff is so high. And they usually just want them all in wetsuits, so they just float, you know? Right. They is in you all. Right. The big exception is Kona. And I feel like people who are that serious usually have a swim skin. Kona, Mexico.

I'm assuming a lot of Australia. Maybe Australia. Yeah, maybe it's more common than we think. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. Next question.

Hi TTL crew all the way from Melbourne. Speaking of Australia. Any tips for reducing fog in your goggles? Recently got some fancy new R1s that are marked. marketed as anti-fog, but sadly, I don't think they're any better at preventing fog from my old cheat pair. Do you use any sprays, et cetera, or have any tips you swear by? High-fives all around and paths for Flynn. Claire. Eric's sticking his tongue out at me. Because he wants to lick those goggles. He's licking those goggles. Clear goggles and his tongue's just like,

yeah, yeah. So maybe saliva has like a little bit of an anti-fog property. So the reason I started doing that is because I was reading like an article by a prominent surf cinematographer, and he talked about that. He would like spit on his, like the dome for his camera lens and rub that around with his tongue, basically, in between shots because that would prevent the water from like pooling up on his thing, on his camera thing. So I was like, oh, maybe I'll just like try looking my goggles.

And I feel like it, I'll like kind of alternate. I'll lick them like twice a workout and the rest of the time. kind of just like rub them with my thumbs and it seems to work okay. And growing up as a swimmer, this is just a thing that is just like, I don't even think about it until somebody asks this question. Yeah, me too. Oh yeah. Every like every 400 if I'm at the wall for more than five seconds, I just clear my goggles. Clear my goggles. Yeah. I'm not annoyed by it. It's just a thing I do. And then you continue on. Yeah, I find the goggles when they're new, they're really good at staying anti-fog and then it only takes a couple swims.

Rubbing them with your fingers sometimes gets rid of the antifogor properties quicker. The longer you can go without rubbing them the first time, the better. I think people do not know that. I think people do not know that that coating is very sensitive and you not want to rub it with your fingers. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it'll last like a couple months longer, but a good strategy if you're worried about this for a race is to just have a new pair of

goggles for every race. Like they cost $20.30. Exactly. Yeah. If you're going to invest in doing a triathlon, I think it's a worthwhile thing. I use a brand new pair for every single race I do. Yep. And it just is totally worth it to be able to see the whole time.

And in a race, you're obviously not stopping to defog like you are in the pool. So it's a worthwhile thing. I will say, I don't know the exact name of them, but one of the kids that we swim with, I guess he's not that much of a kid. He's like 22. We're all kids here. Yeah. Andy, sweet little Andy, he just swore to me that he loves these goggles by Arena.

Arena. They're like the Arena Cobra, swishy, anti-foggy. They're like a $65 goggle. And he... 65. He is swearing that he's had him for a couple months and they don't fog. Supposedly, they've got some sort of coating embedded in them that is actually activated by like rubbing them with your fingers.

Whoa. And you know if sweet little Andy was not swearing by them, I would just laugh hysterically at this snake oil thing. But I'm like I have them in a cart in my like Amazon or whatever right now. And I think I'm going to pull the trigger. So I should report back on those. Yeah. That's a good idea.

Report back. We want to hear that. We want to use some funds from the pod donations to buy these goggles to give you guys feedback. Yeah, that's right. for research. I want to give a piece of advice

that Eric gave me. You guys are going to roll your eyes when you say this, but it was really helpful to me, so I want to share it with the listeners. If you don't want

to buy a brand new pair of goggles for your race because you don't want to spend the money, if you experiment, and I would definitely recommend experimenting with this in the pool

before you do it in a race, but just a little bit of water, enough to roll around in the inside of the gogg. I used it in a race, and that, it kind of like, like, remember like a, and like screen savers or like the DVD thing

would like go around and hit all the different places like that little beat of water. Exactly. Little bit of water kind of does the same thing and streaks and takes away the fog on the inside. I used it in the race and it worked really, really, really well. You just have to find the right amount so it's not getting in your eye when you breathe

but that it is getting rid of the fog on the inside. And I love that. Yeah, I'll always kind of wet my goggles before I swim or before I race So there is a little bit of water on the inside to do exactly what we're talking about. I think that's a really smart idea. This is why you're here, Nick. This is like things that we just forgot that we do.

Genius little ads that you're like, that is smart. That is actually good. Yeah. That's just for my good looks. Keep talking, Nick. Keep talking, Nick. Making us feel important and valuable. Good, good, good.

Okay, next question is from Julia. Hi, TGL team, question for the pod. With indoor season coming to a close, what are things you do on a seasonal basis to make sure your Wahoo kicker or any smart trainer is fully functioning. Thank you for bringing authenticity, insight, and joy to the endurance world. I love and gratitude, Julia. This is our new best friend, Julia, who might watch Flynn while we're away. Oh, nice.

She lives in Flagstaff. Nice. I saw that here. I just didn't read that part, but yeah. She actually has a wire hair pointer as well. And she lives in Flagstaff. And she was like, if you guys need any help and flagstaff, and I was like, well, actually, we need a dog sitter.

We have a horse that we bring with us occasionally. I'm not holding her to this, but she did offer it. It's very, very nice of her. And honestly, my number one stress when we're thinking about, oh my gosh, there's a PTA race in a Bisa, what are we going to do with a dog? That's the only stress in my life related to traveling is the dog. So it takes off a huge load and we can leave them with someone that that we trust and is really nice. So thank you for the offer, Julia.

What was the question, though? It was about Oahu. Yeah, so how to keep the kicker maintained well? Like, you know, in a car, you change the oil, you change the brakes. Right, right, right. Is there an equivalent for the kicker? I mean, you want to make sure you lube your chain through the winter. Yeah, that's important. So that your cassette doesn't wear out and your chain doesn't wear out any quicker than normal. But I don't know, I was talking to something about this the other day. And it's, it's like, it's incredible that Wahoo is, is, like, doing great because, like, these, they don't ever wear out. Right.

It's like, you buy it once and now it's yours forever. Yeah. It's like, kicker V4, you know, they're on V6 now or whatever. Like, they just don't break. Yeah. They don't wear out. They don't get worse. Like, honestly, we don't do anything to maintain them other than, like, occasionally I'll wipe them off so they don't look all dusty and everything and I'll lube our chains while there's bikes are on there.

Yeah. That is it. You say you don't do anything, but let me just reassure the listeners that you keep your bikes so clean. So I think, like what you said, keep the chain clean, keep, and that'll keep the kicker in working order. But even then, you can always replace the cassette on a kicker if it's worn down. So the kicker itself, the machinery of the kicker and the bearings, all of that, we've never had an issue with. Our friend Jordan Bryden, who is like a tank on the bike and can push like a thousand watts for an hour probably. He did manage to break a kicker, but I think that's like a one-off thing.

Is that true? I think he broke, I think he broke like the core, like the base, the lowest end model, which is not rated quite as highly. And yeah, literally Jordan warms up at like 270 watts and does like 420 watts. Yeah. Just, you know, training for Iron Man's. So, and he lives in can more where it's like blisteringly cold for like seven months straight. So like that thing is getting some abuse. Yeah. And Wahoo replaced it. Yeah.

Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. But yeah, the answer to this question is we really don't do much, which is maybe good news. You don't have to do anything to it. Yeah. Just work year after year. The thing weighs like a small car.

So it's built really tough, really solid. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Great. Julia, there you go. And our last question here, Hey, TTL started binge listening to the podcast two weeks ago. While I'm still about eight episodes behind you, I may as well ask.

Do you ever feel there are swim workouts that are making your form worse? I've been working with a coach for a few weeks, and I noticed my 100 splits are getting slower over the last two months. I don't know what more I can do with my form, and I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the idea. I'm at a pace to swim a 150 iron man. I'm at the point of feeling my swim workouts are yielding no benefits and would rather focus that time on the bike or run. Should I find a new swim coach? What role does strength play compared to technique?

Thanks, Kevin. Before you answer that, there's a question I've been wanting to ask, Eric, and I keep forgetting to ask you, and now we're just going to do it on the podcast. I have the same question as Kevin has about technique here versus fitness. Eric, if your brain, with your understanding of how swim economy, of how the body is supposed to go through the water. If we put that in my body with my fitness and my strength, how much faster do you think you could go? How, that's, I'm curious, like, where's the line here, you know? Right. What comes first, the fitness or the technique? Know-how. And how much? Like, so, so, so for me,

I'm swimming, like, if I do an all-out 400, it's going to, 400 yards, it'll be like 1, 26 per 100-yard pace. how much faster with my fitness do you think with your awareness could I go? I just to like throw out a round number, I would guess like five seconds maybe. Really? I don't think it's like this huge jump because like personally my feeling

with a lot of this is like I in my brain, I can imagine being on top of the water and I know what it feels like and I can do it for a 25 and then I fatigue out. So it's like even though I know and maybe like in my past life of being a swimmer in high school,

like I can remember what that feels like. I 100% disagree. Really? Wow, I love this. I think that swimming is like the most technical base sport, definitely out of the three, but maybe like in the world. And if you had the technique and not just the technique, but also like the body proportions,

you see Michael Phelps swimming, world records, gold medals in every sport, every event. he has like size a million feet and perfect technique. Do you think he's way fitter than like the gold medalist in the marathon? No, he has way better technique. I think he has very swim specific strength to be able to hold body position properly. Yeah, which you have over next. Well, of course.

Of course. That's what I'm, yeah. That's my whole point is that if Nick just had my brain inside of his head, wouldn't be that much faster. It wouldn't make this huge difference because he lacks the strength and fitness to maintain that stroke. That's my perception too is that as I've gotten faster, I don't get the sense that my technique has gotten that much better.

I get the sense that I'm fitter now and I can maintain the technique that I already knew of before, but now I can actually hold it and feel stronger in the water. I agree. Yeah. I think this is why it is possible to kind of have quote unquote, breakthroughs in swimming, whereas that really doesn't happen so much in the bike or the run.

Because you can kind of have this thing where like one component is lagging just a little bit behind and your fitness is boosted, your fitness is boosted, and you're like massively strong, but you're just doing something a little bit wrong, and then somebody tells you the right cue,

and it clicks, and you actually do have the strength of core or whatever, or lots to like activate on that versus if that cue had come eight months earlier, you might not have that. and not actually be able to even execute it. Yeah, that's interesting. That's a really good point.

That's a really good point. Swimming is so, so complicated. To answer this person's question of my times are getting slower, I'm getting frustrated, should I just give up on swimming and put my efforts elsewhere? Should I fire my coach? I think no. Like, I actually read this question to Eric when we were eating breakfast because I thought it was kind of funny. Because we all feel like this when we're in the pool.

You'll have a bad day. Everything's slower. You don't know why. You're the same human. you know how to swim. It's not like our technique has changed one day to the other. It's a fatigue buildup. There's so many variables in swimming.

And often you don't know until you dive in the water how that swim's going to go. Right. Yeah. I would start by letting your coach know how you feel and what's going on. And what I self-select and do sometimes when I show up to the pool and it's like, today is a terrible day. And we have five by 400 on the thing. I'm like, okay, we're going to do five by 400 broken into 50s or whatever.

You know, we're going to do like, whatever that is. 850s on like kind of short rest and then a little bit more rest at the end of those 850s. And we're going to like try to break it up into smaller chunks where I feel like I can manage my stroke. And I don't feel like my stroke is just going totally to shit through the course of this 400. I think that's the cool thing about swimming. And the reason that we do so many intervals in swimming is to have that little mental reset. and physical reset at the wall between intervals so you can push off and feel a little bit fresher again.

And then as you get fitter, those intervals might get longer. So it's totally fine to do 50s, maybe next month you're doing hundreds, then 200s and so on. Yeah, try to reconnect with that pace at a shorter distance. Yeah. And then come back to that longer distance as you maybe feel a little fresher, or even if that freshness is mental.

And compared to cycling and running, do you feel like, obviously, if you're really tired, your bike workouts and your run workouts suffer. Do you feel like that happens to the same degree in the pool or is it actually immune to that? Maybe even more.

Yeah, I would say more in the pool. Just because of the high level of technicality of it. And like neuromuscular fatigue of like trying to do this technique properly. The bike is like pretty freaking basic. You know, it doesn't require a lot of brain function to pedal your bicycle properly

versus just like smash down on the pedals, like push through the fatigue. There's a certain point in swimming where it doesn't matter how hard you want to push through the fatigue. You just don't know where your hand is in the water and it's making no sense.

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. That's the opposite of what I thought. So that's good to hear. Very technical. This is just our opinions though. We don't know if we're right. Yeah, well, I don't know, Paul.

You're third in the world now, so I think your opinion holds some weight. The new PTO rankings have made me more credible on this podcast. Right, right, right. Of the three sports, we do have the most experience with swimming by a little bit. And that is also the reason why if you're a childhood swimmer like we are, that technique is so ingrained in our bodies that we've talked about this a lot already on the podcast. But it's really hard to pick up those tiny details and technique when you're an adult.

Yeah. If you love your kids, throw them in swim team for like, you know, a six months just in case they like it and just in case they become a triathlet someday. I was going to say if you hate your kids, throw them in swim team for six months and see what they do. It goes both ways. Just let them try it. Just let them try it. My parents threw me, my brother and sister, all into swim team, and I'm the only one that sort of liked it, I guess. And they didn't force it upon my brother or sister at all. They were allowed to quit week one.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wish I had it now. Now I really wish I had it just because I can see that everyone that swam as a kid is fast. And I'm still struggling in the pool. Yeah. progress. Think of all the fun things you did in your life from like 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

I had so much fun. I had so much fun. You're right. You're right. I had so much fun. I would not trade it. We had no childhood. I would not trade it.

Well, that's it. Those are all our questions. I don't know what it's going to edit down to, but I think this will still be our longest podcast ever. Very long. Well, that was fun. Thanks. Thanks for your great questions. And were you going to finish off with something?

Nick. I was just going to tell people where they can submit questions. They know. Well, I hope they know. Trust me, they know. We still all get, we still, I mean, Paula, do you get messages with people asking questions for the podcast on your Instagram? Rarely. But I think, Nick, people perceive you as the host and they're like, if I send this to Nick, it'll get asked, you know?

Yeah. Kind of shortcut the system. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I just point them to the, I point them to the website every time. That's good. That's not going to work.

Yeah. No, we really like your questions as always. Keep sending them in. And thank you, as always, for listening. And you guys can't even give feedback on the podcast. Maybe half of you hate it as well, but you're listening until the end. I may have figured it out, by the way. Well, more on that, more on that next week.

Okay, cool. Yeah. I don't know. I was going to say, I'm turning off comments on the YouTube. Yeah. We're going to other direction, actually. Right, right, right. Close this feedback, dude.

Thanks, everybody. Bye. See you.