That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula races IM 70.3 Chattanooga, developing triathlon mental toughness, and more!

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

This week we hear all about Paula’s experience racing through the highs and lows of IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga, but not before hearing Nick’s trail running adventures in Maui, Hawaii, and getting an update from last week’s mysterious Mr. Smith. When we finally got to listener questions, we discussed:Washing your sweaty cycling helmetRiding with someone who’s always pushing the paceMaking parts of training intentionally harder to build mental toughnessA 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 Lachistram. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstein. If things get a little wonky on this, it's because we have quite the delay. Nick is sitting on the side of a highway somewhere in a rental car in between his trip to Hawaii and his trip to tell you ride. Nick lives a rough life. Tough. But he is taking one for the team and his parents are like taking a hike in the woods or something right now while he does the podcast. So if there's a bit of a delay or if you don't like this podcast, that's why. You're going to blame that. Yeah. If you're new here, Paul and I are both professional athletes. Nick is a amateur triathlete, and he's like our golden retriever.

He's just always in a good mood. So welcome to the podcast. We talk about triathlon and stuff. I feel like I've turned into, like, I don't know what you call this, a stage race ultra runner in the last week, just running once or twice every day in the trails. And let me tell you, it's pretty fun. Runs every day. I am now a trail run stage racer.

I'm into it. You can join my sister because she actually does that. The only caveat to these trail stage races is you have to carry all of your food for the entire five days. So you can be losing some weight, my guy. And I think they also, they run quite the distances. It's quite the distance. But you know what? I think you can do it.

I believe in you. And if you do, I will make the film. Great. It was really fun. We had a great time. I think we hit every major trail on Maui, got to run in the volcano, ran. in the woods, ran and like what felt like rainforests along the coasts. It was really fun.

Had a great time. Highly suggested a trip option for people. If you can go with a bunch of friends, get a cheap Airbnb, and just trail run every day. Instead of, you know, go into a, there's great resorts there too. And if you have the money, that's really fun. But if you're more of an adventure seeker, it's fun that way too. So I'm just curious, like, how difficult was it for you to find trails to run? Like if somebody goes over there, can they just use Strava heat maps or trail forks, like, how are you figuring this out?

Because I know there's a lot of private land there and you don't want to, you know, walk out the wrong spot. Totally, totally. Yep. No, you're right. As we have all three of us said many times before, Strava heat maps are such a great tool. So we used mostly the Strava heat maps. And then, you know, we'd see the trailhead that's there on Strava and like Google it and see what it says and see if there's reviews or see if it's, oh, it's closed. You know, it closed last year. was a fire or whatever. And we pretty much, with that, we were like batting a thousand. We did all these amazing trails that were all open. And some of them were, you know, it can get muddy or a little overgrown, but nothing that we couldn't handle. So yeah, Strava. And people sent messages to and just like, hey, you should do this. We met people on the island. We did a run club. They said, oh, you got to do the Pali Trail and you can just do it one way up or whatever. So yeah, it wasn't,

nothing that anyone else couldn't figure out on their own. My brain went to when you and I went for a run when we were filming Look for Things where you can find them and we were following heat masks. We just fully ran into like a completely private resort but apparently plenty of people run inside of that private resort. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that.

You at your own risk, Strava Heat Maps. You could run into someone's backyard. Right. When I was first, first starting triathlon back in like 2007-8-ish time, I was on the junior national team and Simon Whitfield, Kyle Jones, all the senior national people. And at this point, Simon was like an Olympic gold medalist. So there was a lot of funding in triathlon Canada.

But they would go to Maui as their like location of choice for training camps. And we did, because the pools are free. You probably didn't even try to go to a pool, but they are free. And the riding is obviously amazing. And then for runs, we would do them like through the cornfields and stuff. like we just do boxes around cornfields and do intervals and the most vivid memory I have there, because this was like my first few years in triathlon. I used to wear underwear under my bibs.

Cover your ears, Harper. Cover your ears. And for some reason that really stands out to me because I had a conversation with someone on a ride there. Like you shouldn't do that. And then it never again did I do that. But I was like, are you serious? You literally have to wear a new pair of bibs every day. That's crazy.

It's not as crazy, but it's expensive. Wait, so Paula, you had said, so there's a very famous road for everyone who doesn't know on the island called the Road to Hana. And usually people will drive it and then go back the same way they came, but you can keep doing it as a loop. And when we did that, we encountered this beautiful, beautiful winding paved road that no cars were on. And to me, it looked like it had just been paved for a cyclist to ride and no one was on it. But when I sent you guys a photo saying, we need to ride this. Paula, I thought you were joking. You're like, oh, I've ridden that road a lot.

So do you remember, did it look just as pristine when you did it? Well, we never did the full loop because when you get to the back side, a back from the road from Hannah, I get super gnarly. You're like bushwrecking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the road to Hannah is super nice. I mean, we did that a bunch of times. Wow, that's crazy to think of you doing that. It's so, so, so beautiful.

Yeah, it's so nice there. Anyway, you bring a bike next time. Yeah, they'll be bringing a bike next time. Enough about that, though. Last week, as we learned, was not, we were not calling it race week. It was a week that had a race at the end of it, though. Yeah, it's kind of funny because even in Chattanooga, there were people coming up to me being like, not race week. Yeah.

Like, oh, yeah. People actually listen to this podcast. Oh, yeah. No, it was a good, it was an okay trip. Like our travel was completely smooth, no issues. Our bikes arrived. We flew into Bellingham, which is like a much calmer airport. Birmingham.

Birmingham. Much calmer airport than Atlanta. Stayed at a cool hotel the first night in Birmingham. Did the easy drive. Like all of it just went really smooth. And we were staying at this cool hotel downtown that was like a converted bank that used to be a bank. that used to be a bank. That speakeasy in the vault?

Yeah, I just had... I love that. We love Chattanooga. It's like really good food, good coffee shops, um, easy race logistically. But I don't know. I feel like maybe I trained too hard the week before or something because we traveled Monday or we traveled Wednesday and I felt awful like every workout we

did leading up to the race. And we did a loop of the course and it was busy. It was windy. The roads were shitty. I was like in a horrible mood basically from then onwards because I don't know I said to Eric after we did that ride where there was cars just buzzing past us constantly with no shoulder like people were very curious to be fair but there were just it was busy there's no other sport really that I can think of where you're literally putting your life in danger when you go and practice for the said sport and cycling of course cyclists pro cyclists they go out and pre ride courses. but they have a follow car. They've got like, you know, 10 other team members. And Eric and I were just out there on our TT bikes in the wind by ourselves on this course,

trying to do a recon, and it's so dangerous. And at that point, I was just like, this sucks. I'm sorry, but this sucks. This is so dangerous. Why do I need to pre-ride this? I don't. But you feel like you have to because it's my job and I'm trying to do a good job and know the course. So I don't know.

This is nothing against Trandagia in the race. It's an amazing course when the roads are less busy. But yeah, basically from that point onward, I was in a pretty shitty mood. You know what, you're right, though, because, like, you know, I think of climbing or surfing or, you know, backcountry skiing. Those have danger too, but it's not, it's not human-driven danger like a car can be. Yeah, exactly. You are making the decisions. Yeah, yeah.

And it's in your control. That is tough. Do you think of any other sport where, like, someone. else who's doing a totally ordinary activity like driving could hit you or kill you or whatever. There's no other sport on earth like that. It's like just walking through a gun range. Yeah. If I'm going to join Paula on the extreme pessimistic.

It's not that gory, but it's also very scary. And I think I just like reached my fucking limit with it on that pre-ride. I was like, I'm never doing this again unless I know it's safe. I'm bringing a trainer to every race. This is not worth it. I'm only riding roads that I know in Ben that are like quiet because it sucks. That just sucks. You know what?

I think sometimes you get the reputation as someone that, I don't want to put ideas in people's heads, but someone that like, oh, like, why is she so upset on the bike all the time? It's not, I think that you really, really don't like traffic specifically. I think if you could ride in a place that had zero cars, I think your love for cycling in general would be so, so, so much higher. Am I right? Yeah, I think I agree. Zero wind, though.

I agree. Because, no, I can do the wind if there's no cars. That's the thing, Eric. Yeah, that's true. But, like, there's this weird time and bend in the spring before roads open to cars, but they are open to bikes and there's no snow. Harper! What the fuck?

I've never seen a dog do that in my house. Harper just butt did the thing where your butt hole it is and scooted herself across the carpet. Oh, and scratch it. I feel I've only seen like French bulldog type dogs do that. Anyway, I did not mean to turn this into like a whatever ripping on cycling. But people, you're not alone. You're not the only person. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I set the tone for the whole thing. I think the issue is that it set the tone versus being able to, I was trying to say on the ride like, this is not the race. The race will, man, we're going to get to that, but. Because I literally, I think. The race was not significantly better from the sounds of it. Yeah, the problem with the, is that I was so mad and I wanted to get around the loop so quickly,

but I didn't want to ride Arrow because it was too scary with the cars. So I just sat up the whole time riding like 220 watts and I rode way too hard the whole time. And maybe I like burned a lot of matches mentally and physically, getting around the 60K of hell. Wow. this pre-ride really backfired. Because it was so windy, and I had an 8-58 on, Eric had a 4-5-4 on his road bike.

So we tried to swap wheels, and this is the picture I sent you, Nick. But then we realized Eric has, like, basically mountain bike tires on his tarmac, and they don't fit on the shiv. I see. They don't clear. 32s are not that big, but okay, got it. They're pretty big. They got to be bigger than 32s. Like, I tried to go, and it was just stuck.

It's like, hey, swap them back. Yeah, yeah. That's great. Rough. Anyway, do you want me to keep complaining? Yeah, yeah. No, we want to hear the truth. Going to the East Coast from the West Coast

requires some specific preparation before the day of travel. I realized this because we were waking up at like 9 a.m. in our hotel room feeling like we were completely jet-legged and not wanting to move. And then I thought the day before the race, like, wow, We'll be literally almost on the bike tomorrow and I can barely open my eyes right now.

So physiologically, your body is not going to just swap into being on the time zone just because it's race day, you know? On the contrary, though, on a positive note, that means that going to Kona you'll have the opposite effect, right? In the world where you race Kona. I'm not going to Kona, dude. You'll be so ready to freaking rock on. race day. Well, I've done so much thinking about this, but I think it's why some of my best races

last year were the T-100 races where you race later. Can we just all races should start at 9 a.m. Agreed. It's not that hard. Wouldn't that be so, so nice? Why not? How much extra would you pay for a 9 a.m. start? 50%. As someone who is very frugal, to put it nicely, I would spend a significant amount money more. Massively enhancer enjoyment of the thing.

Totally. Do you want to go watch a movie at 3 a.m.? No. Just not even starting to end the question. This is not going to happen. It's too the bike cutoff. You know how they put like, you're starting to move man. We're getting t-shirts. Mile marker bike cutoffs.

One of them was at like 1 p.m. And I was there at 8 a.m. I'm like people the race is so spread out. You can't make it start later. It's spread out. Later. It spread out. But, okay, so you went into the race day feeling frustrated to say the least.

Jet legs, mad, tired, didn't want to warm up, super lethargic. But I still thought it could win. I mean, I was like training super well for the past month. And that's the only reason I went was like, I'm going to, I think I can win this race. It'll be a great confidence booster. It'll be a great low-key way to set this season off on the right foot. So despite all this stuff going on in the background, and obviously that does impact my ability to be positive in any way, I still thought I could win. But I had this happen in Oceanside too.

It's like from the first stroke of the swim, I feel like someone's pulling my legs down and I'm like panicking and I can't swim properly. And it's, I think it's probably a problem of not warming up hard enough. I dive in the water five minutes before the race and kind of like, you know, float around for five minutes. But I never do that in training. I always warm up for at least 20 to 30 minutes in the pool with some hard efforts before I do a main set. So why wouldn't I do that in a race, you know? Damn it. You're so right.

I hate it, but you're so right. So it sucks to warm up. It sucks. I know. But it's, I really need to do that next time. So that's lesson one. Lesson two, I didn't get new goggles for this race. I got into the water and my goggles were so foggy.

And up until like five seconds before the gun, I was like rubbing him, trying to get them on fogged. Didn't have any baby shampoo, like our trick that we talked about on this very podcast. And so I was so blind. I was thinking during the swim, I might as well have cotton balls in my goggles. I can't see a freaking thing. This is great. I was just trying to stay around people, but like no idea who I was around. I stopped three times to defog, like just sat up, tried to get the fog out.

And the goggles weren't that old, but they were, maybe it was the temperature differential or something. I don't know. Anyway, finally got out of the water. And the swim in Chattanooga is extra long because they anticipated down current swim. But there was basically no current. So it took us like eight or ten minutes longer than normal to do this. Oh, so I saw that everyone's swim times were slow. Okay, that's what it is. Interesting.

Yeah, it's like 1.4 miles. And usually it equals out because of the current, but it was standstill, basically. Got out of the water. Wearing my new Rudy Project helmet because it tested the fastest in the wind tunnel. Right. I was like right beside Jackie. I was like, okay, I'm just going to nail this transition. get out ahead of everyone and go 300 watts for the first 20 minutes.

And I get to transition, put this helmet on. Cannot do the buckle up. It is so hard to do the buckle. I struggled with it before the race, so I practiced it. It's like this magnetic buckle. Everyone on earth wears this helmet. And I've never heard anyone say the buckle is a problem. So I was like just suck it up and get it right.

Because everyone on earth has been given this helmet and feels bad. I, this is not like a knock on rooting. Well, it kind of is because the buckle sucks, but the helmet is fast and the helmet is comfortable and a good visibility. And they sent it to me for free. So I'm not trying to like bash on it. But the buckle is not intuitive and it's not easy and it doesn't just clip like it should. So I stood there for probably a minute trying to get it on,

fully panicking, calling for help. I volunteer, like, launched himself over the barricade to try to help me. So I, like, took the helmet off, tried to, like, figure out how to do it, make sure it wasn't fully broken. Put it back on, finally got it. But at this point, I'm like, another minute behind the leader and then a minute behind all the girls I came out of the water with. Wait, am I happening to Deja Vu? I swear I just saw a reel of another female pro triathlet who could not get her Rudy Project helmet on. And a volunteer came and helped her, like two weeks ago.

Send it to us. No, it's not. I was trying to find it. And she was just like very frustrated and couldn't figure it out. Maybe you were having a dream about me. Maybe I was having a dream. Wow. Okay.

So, okay, that's not great, obviously. So at this point, when that happens, and just because this kind of stuff happens to us mortals as well and not necessarily a helmet buckle struggle, but something that prevents us from, whatever, making the most out of our transition. Is your headspace after that, like, I got to go extra hard, or is it like goldfish brain just back to the plan?

Forget about what just happened. Oh, I never had a plan. I mean, it was, yeah, it was catch them now. Go extra hard. Yeah. So whatever that meant. And I did go really hard. I was like, that was my plan.

I thought I would catch grace eventually. And I caught all these people within like 3K or something. something. So I don't know. I was riding really well, but by myself for the first like 45K, two guys came past me, but I didn't ride with them. But I wasn't catching grace. I was like not feeling that well. And this like the mental game is so big here. I just kind of gave up in my mind and started really just wanting it to be over, questioning my entire life decisions, questioning why I do this anymore. Of course.

All the things, you know. Thinking like how am I ever going to run a half marathon off the bike? All the super negative things I shouldn't have been thinking. This is like a very, very raw recap. Holy shit. I wasn't even going to talk about it. I love it. Do you think the people that are listening to this podcast have been had the feeling of

how the fuck am I going to get through this bike? Forget about the nightmare of a half marathon that's going to follow it. You know, we know what that feels like. It's not great, but you get through it. Yeah, it's true. This was not a closed course, by the way, and it's a bit of a lollipop. So you come down on a road, lollipop it and go back. And so there's like masses of age groupers going out as we're coming back in.

But cars interspersed with them, trying to get around them and coming into my lane to pass. And I got to like the right-hand turn where you're supposed to go back into town. And there's like a 25 car pile up. I'm like, how do I get around these cars that are just dead stopped on the race course? So I had to kind of like weave into the bike lane and thank God that had no cars in it. But definitely sit up and be aware so cars aren't cutting up and cutting me off. But I get an Instagram message DM the day after the race. This is what I was trying to remember.

Is this it? Okay, Eric. Let's go. Totally random message from like someone who has no idea what a triathlon is. And it was the two people in the car that were behind me on the course. It was not a closed course. So they were just in their car going back from their farm into Chantanuga with their dogs and took like 60 iPhone photos of me and sent them all to me. Some are pretty solid. And they were like, we came up behind you and we just decided to like watch your pedal stroke and it was so mesmerizing. And we started cheering for you and rooting for you.

What? Then I spent all evening trying to find out who you. were and I found you and this is amazing and now I'm a fan and this Instagram message was like the highlight of the whole weekend. It was so cool. I'm like Peggy Sue the Farmer from Georgia.

Amazing. That is so cool. It is so cool. So they sat behind me for like 20 minutes and kind of I guess blocked traffic for me a little bit. Right. Right. You're welcome. But I mean I wasn't

I wasn't going that slow. So they didn't have a too bad. But I was, I couldn't have done anything different. I was riding super far right, like as far right as I could get, you know. Yeah. Eric, good call, by the way. It really was just like the story that I was telling before the podcast. It really is a very similar thing. Yeah, like a crazy connection sort of thing. Yeah. Like the pictures are kind of nuts of her like rolling up on literally a 20 car pile up at a stop sign. And we knew multiple other people who were racing and somebody told me they had the same.

exact experience, like, you know, an hour and a half behind Paula of having to ride on the left of cars, on the right of cars, anything they could do to like continue making forward progress as these cars were like stuck inside of the line of people racing. I mean, it's, it just is kind of, is this why cities don't want to host races anymore? It's so disruptive. You can't fully close the course. But then when you don't fully close it, it's so dangerous for the riders. It's really a dilemma

And you think you're doing it early enough But this is on a Sunday And people are going to church And it's like church o'clock So hard So is this every year in Chattanooga? Is this something? Because you race this

You guys have been there a bunch of times It's never happened to me before like this. Yeah, I didn't experience it four years ago. Yeah, maybe this year was just extra Extra Maybe it's because the swim was so long So there were like more age groupers That were taking more time.

Oh, I see. But normally they'd be cleared out from there, like an extra 30 minutes even. It just kind of felt like somebody messed up on like the timing or the traffic control or something. You know, they always talk about this at length in the Oceanside briefing of like, when's the last cyclist going to be initiating the loop relative to the first male cyclist and like this overlap on this part of the course where it's two-direction traffic. And if you don't nail that, yeah, you can have these cars backed up because they just can't get across the line of people or whatever. Okay.

So if this happens to you in a race, what do you recommend someone does? You keep yourself safe first priority. Like, I was, there was no way I was going to cross the center line to pass the cars. I mean, I guess there is a way if I'm fully blocked. This is a pro versus an age year. There's an age group where we cannot recommend you to do anything dangerous. But thankfully, there was a bike lane here so I could go on that. You just kind of do your best and slow down.

Yeah. I would ride as though this is how. happening on a regular ride. Yeah. Like, how would you act? Do not do anything in the name of speed. Like, get out of the aero bars, get on the base bar so you can break. Because these people don't even know what you're doing.

They're just annoyed with you. They're like, what is going on? It's a bicycle race. Okay, so you finish the bike. And is your headspace when you start the run similar to what you said before of, like, how am I going to get through this half marathon or have things shifted at all? No, they have not shifted. They have not shifted, but I did still think I could win.

I was like, I'm two minutes back from Grace. I'm four minutes ahead of Jackie. I can run two minutes faster than Grace. So I still thought I could win. Somehow in my like horrible, horrible head. I thought I could win. That's interesting, yeah. Go out of transition and it's like 2K uphill.

I feel like I'm running six minutes per K, feeling absolutely awful. I don't think I've ever felt this bad in any race, by the way. Because I saw you, Eric, and I was like, I think I need to DNF. I can't make forward progress. I'm just like dizzy and loopy and, oh my gosh. And I was feeling the same way that Paula just said. If you just tempo run, like you will podium. You will get second.

You might win if you just have like an okay, just finish. But you seem pretty concerned about even that. I couldn't fathom doing another hour of that activity. but I took a couple caffeine gels that actually did help slightly. And then on the second loop, I've said this before. When you start running with the age groupers, it is helpful. They're like so nice to me. Everyone's saying my name when I pass them.

It's a little bit of like a at least something to look at, you know, or something to distract me. So I really enjoy the looped courses on the run for that reason. And for as slow as I was running, I was still passing people, which also is its own confidence boost in a weird way. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, I kind of like just accepted I was going to be second. But I mean, I didn't even care at that point.

I was just, I was like, let's just finish, get a little bit of prize money to pay for the rover. The rover. Who now has to take care of two dogs. So wait, the question I think everyone's curious about that you may or may not want answer and we can take this out if you don't want to but you you DNF three races before this because you were hurt and then so far I have not heard you even mention the fact that you were hurt so how did that go uh I was not injured I didn't feel like I had an injury and therefore I had no real good reason to stop other than extreme uh anger and hatred I mean dad is

a massive, massive, cannot understate how much of a relief that is for me. Yes, that's a huge win. So let's look at what's actually written on the board. Like world championships, I was like, we are potentially doing extreme long-term damage here. No, the only, the thing that actually, it's not even the hip injury that really was the big problem the last six months. It was that knee injury at Christmas where I was like, I'm never running again. I went to an orthopedic knee surgeon. You did say that, yeah.

So, I mean, to finish a triathlon after thinking that in December is a good thing. It would have been, of course, nice to, like, have won the race, but also just finishing is, that is a good thing. I acknowledged that. And you got second, Paula, and Grace had a very, very good race. That's also a great race. She did a great job. As I was racing, I was thinking about all the wrong things. But I was like, how do I even articulate this?

Because I have a following. I have an audience. I have to acknowledge my whatever, this race that's. going on and whatever I finish. And I came second and I'm not going to downplay my competitors. Jackie's an amazing athlete. She came third. I mean, this is not about my placing or where other people finished. My extreme sadness and hatred of everything when I crossed the finish line was just like, I don't want to do this anymore. That was awful. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been doing this for 25 years and I don't want to put myself through another one of those. So that's why I just

was like crying for all the entire day. And I mean, it's not fixed. It's not like just because it's three days later. I'm fixed and it's all better and next time's going to be fine. It's like when I cross that finish line, I 100% decided I was going to be retired. And this isn't just saying that because I'm like being dramatic. That's how I felt. And so I don't know what the rest of the season holds. I mean, I'm going to try. I love the day to day. And I've been extremely happy the last two months training. Like in a good mood, this isn't the case for me always, but I've been really diligent about doing everything right or doing gym twice a week.

We're eating super healthy. We're going to bed early. I'm doing all the training. I'm in a good mood for 95% of the training. And I felt like I set myself up for having a good race. So to go to a race and feel that bad and not do as well as I expected. was so disheartening and I'm like, never again. Maybe this is too much to say on the podcast.

But that's why I was upset. That's why I was upset. It wasn't because I got second. I don't give a shit about what place I came in. I probably would have felt the same. No, I don't know. Whatever. You would have felt the same if you'd won.

I just, no, I didn't. I know you. I think I would have. Yeah. I think I would have. I mean, it's also this funny thing because like, I'm okay doing things that are hard. I do that every single day.

We all do it every day. I push through discomfort and pain and training all the time. But it's so different in a race when you're like, I should be tapered and ready and able to push myself. And it's not that type of pain and discomfort. It's like the inability to even go faster than four minutes per K. What the hell is wrong with me? I did this in a race.

Yeah, inability to push. I did this in a training session last week. Like, I, that's always kind of baffled me because people have talked about this before. and I'm generally able to like have good performances and no matter what make myself go fast. But for some reason it was like I had, you know, a weight vest on or something. So maybe it was physical, but I'm not sick. Like I said, I trained really well. I think it's a lot in my head.

Like it's a really big part of performance is the mental part. And why can't I take that day-to-day training enjoyment and wanting to push myself. and happiness, for lack of a better word. And why can't I implement that in the racing? Is it because it's too stressful? And is it because I feel like I have to win this race? Maybe it's too much pressure and thinking about that instead of just do what you do every day. I mean, that would be great.

But it's so much easier said than done. Yeah. Well, the first step is realizing it. Even as your friend, I feel so, I feel so seeing. about this thing about like why can't the training be why can't I bring that same joy or even like purely performance from the training into into the race and to know that it happens even to people at the top of the professional field I think is is comforting to hear and maybe we'll take the sting away the next time it inevitably happens to us as age groupers as well. You're not alone. Definitely not. not alone.

I mean, Eric, do you feel like this? I feel like you kind of, you kind of performed really well in races. I've definitely experienced this. In the past. But also, I think I'm just like slightly weird and that most people out there like Paula included have like, my training is like,

I train at my race power and then I go do my race power. Like I don't have this ability to like throw down these insanely, like, great workouts, like, plenty of people do. But, like, I just can, like, kind of do the same thing in training as I do in racing versus, like, I feel like I hear about people over-training all the time and, like, oh, yeah, my race watts are 320, but, like, I did five by eight at 420. 400. Yeah, yeah. I just, like, I just can't do that at all. It's not a willpower issue. It's a physics and biology issue. But I do this. I do. think what Paula said early on about like potentially just feeling a little bit too tired coming

into the week. Like that's when I have had this sort of feeling in the past, in my younger years, especially of like arriving at race week feeling like, holy shit, I need this taper so bad. I'm so tired. Yeah. Once your body, you give your body a little taste of like what rest is, then it kind of just like, let's hibernate. Yeah. Instead of just keeping the momentum rolling a bit and maybe just dialing it back a little bit. Yeah. The previous weekend, the previous weekend was I had the sports bra workout. Right. Which is a total, like...

We will revisit that, don't worry. Tormenting experience. I think like the level, like how quick, how insane she was about the sports bra is a little bit indicative of the level of fatigue. Also, lack of F's left to give. Also, F this. I got my period again, like two days before the race. Of course. Literally every race I have my period.

Maybe that's the problem. to be honest. There's a lot of factors. A lot of ends. Like, I haven't even had a race in the last year without being on my period. Yeah, you do have a bad streak of that. And unfortunately, the next race I have is in 28 days. Of course, yeah.

I'm just doomed. Perfect. And the next slide. Okay, that's my racer recap. Thank you, Paula. Sorry for the negativity. Sorry for the negativity. I have not yet retired from podcasting.

But I am TBD on the trathom. I don't know. I feel like you have a tendency to sometimes get negative, but I feel like that was straight up just real. I agree. Totally agree. And I can appreciate it. And it feels good to,

you know, feels good to hear. But we can edit it as much as you want. Yes. We're going to go back to a quick change here to a question we had last week from Mr. Smith, if everyone remembers, very spicy question.

Everyone remembers. Everyone has been waiting. Yeah. So we got a follow-up from Mr. Smith. If you all remember, Mr. Smith has a love interest in someone in his triathlon group, in his triathlon club, and both... Clubmate, if you will? Yes, club mate, exactly. Both Mr. Smith and said person are already in relationships.

And so Mr. Smith wanted to know if it was worth reaching out to them and exposing his truth. So this is what Mr. Smith followed up with. G'day, which I think is also interesting. Cheers for the top-tier advice. I had a bit of a think, and I've decided to keep it under my hat indefinitely. No sense in blowing up the club or our lives. I'll just put that extra heart rate into the hard yaka instead. Okay, what is yaka?

Does anyone know? but he's dropping hints, super hard. I think he's dropping hints, like G'day and Yaka. Anyway, nice try in the geolocating. You're warm, but I'm staying incognito. I'll just say I'm hailing from the southern hemisphere where the coffee is strong and the sun's even stronger. I know this person listens to the show,

and I'll forever be hopeful of a sign. These lines from Walt Whitman capture how amazing I think this person is. Here it is. I see and hear you, and that contents me. you are so much more to me than you think you are you contain all that is best in the world when I am with you I am happy cheers Mr. Smith

it's going to go into hibernation at least temporarily but that is the update with Mr. Smith what do you guys think about this yeah I think that's the right call the more I thought about it the more I'm like you need to just not say anything you can't say something

especially when you're in a relationship you can't You can't do that. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. Thank you for the follow-up, though. Yeah, thank you for the follow-up. There's another little thing here. To Nick the Romantic, you're writing a love song about Mr. Smith and his clubmate.

How does it end? I think it ends, just like the end of La La Land ends, which is they're both living their lives. Maybe there's a subtle acknowledgement, a look, but that's all there is. The magic lives only in our imaginations. Doesn't La La La La Land end a little bit unconclusively? like you can kind of make up the ending how you want no not really it's i mean spoiler alert if you haven't seen la la land yet you should have by now because it's great but um uh she shows up to his club with her now husband and baby daddy and he has the club of his dreams and he's playing

jazz but it's over like it's not going to work out between the two of them yeah okay and people were kind of upset but i think it's a beautiful ending i really i really enjoyed it okay um Let's move on to questions here. We don't have much time for questions, but we do have some good ones here. You can submit your questions to the podcast at Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast,

where you can also become a beloved podcast supporter for the cost of, get ready for this, one of the day-old croissants and cookies at the bakery in Maui I went to was $5 for the day-olds. Those Hawaii prices, man. Yeah, those Hawaii prices are brutal. Anyway, so for the cost of, a day old in Maui a month.

You can be a podcast supporter. And, you know, it's your way of showing appreciation for the podcast. We really, we're very thankful. As you can tell, you have not heard any ads so far today. So this is the only way that we can monetize pot. Okay. First question from Kyle. Tips on helmet washing.

I feel like nobody talks about this. Or maybe it's just not glamorous enough for Instagram reels. But as the summer starts creeping in, I'm becoming more aware of how nasty this thing probably got last summer. And I never took care of it. Anything different for a road versus arrow teardrop. Thanks and much love from Virginia. Kyle.

I literally washed the front pad of my helmet for the first time ever today before I went riding. And you didn't even know about this question, right? No, I don't know. I don't see any of the podcast questions before we do this. Only Paul and Nick do. But I just felt like my forehead had been getting a little bit irritated and just kind of tender, so I just like ran underwater in the sink and rubbed that front

thing and it went from feeling like all slimy to like nice again so yeah, I've done it. Like take out the Velcro things and clean them? You could fully take them out. I just was in a hurry and rinse it out with my, you know, while I was in the helmet.

Yeah, that's actually true. I never really wash it, but that's nasty. I wash mine kind of off, not often, but like once every a few months, I'll wash mine. But imagine if you wash, like, people are sweating so much. Like, imagine if you only washed your sweat band every two months. You're right.

Or like a hat. Like, I bring my hats into the shower every time I use them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Yes, we do approve of washing those things, yeah. Officially.

Yeah. I think this is going to be a little, I bet you most people listening to this, don't wash them. Yeah. This would be a little reminder to wash them. Or people will be like, you never wash your helmet. You guys are disgusting. Yeah, it's going to be polar. It's just like you're never washing your swim towel for five months.

I know. I got a lot of heat for that. That is really disgusting. It's just going on my clean body. The towel washes me. I don't need to wash the towel. So next question here is from Anonymous. And you'll see why, hey, TTR crew, we had a question about competitiveness in training

relationships. I have someone close to me who is extremely competitive on the bike to the point. to the point where even an easy endurance ride starts turning into unspoken races. They'll surge during zone two rides, push the pace when nobody else is trying to, and then kind of act like it's all accidental or just how the ride unfolded.

It's also become clear that a lot of their motivation and training decisions are driven by comparison, whether that's mileage totals, Strava uploads, or trying to outdo the people around them day after day. Over time, it has made riding together less enjoyable, and I've found myself avoiding training conversation or not wanting to ride with them at all to keep the relationship healthy.

I'm guessing this isn't unique to cycling or triathlon and that a lot of athletes deal with training partners, friends, or family members whose competitiveness starts to affect the relationships, both subtly and not subtly. How do you handle someone like this? And if you recognize that trading yourself, how do you keep healthy ambition

from becoming exhausting for people around you? Love the pod. Anonymous. I do this. I definitely do this And I'm just realizing that it could be a real bummer to other people

It is Wait, you do what, Nick? I like I'm often the one like attacking or pushing the pace And I really like that But I didn't think that Like in my head, if you don't want to go with that

I guess you don't have to But maybe like this person's saying That's affecting their relationship with that person Yeah, my advice and what I do is just I don't right with those people. Like, do you want to ride with me or do you want to like get some emotional boost out of this ride? And if you want to ride to me, we should be right

inside by side and having a conversation unless we need to go single file for some reason. Not like, oh, you weren't there. I didn't realize anything. You know, because I was just like, I got some better than you. Well, Nick, the thing about it is like, if you're the one attacking and feeling good and riding hard,

you feel good doing that but if you're getting dropped it real it's the opposite it sucks so much I'm not this is not a dig at you at all but this is probably

what this person is experiencing I think with any with almost everything in life and this as well I think communication is huge and I think a lot of the time that the person like Nick could just legitimately be having a fun time

and the person that's not Nick could be like this is the dumbest thing ever this person's trying to race me and I think it's dumb versus if the person on either end had a little bit of said something and you were like, you know what, I'm feeling frisky today, I just really want to push up this next climb, I'm going to go, this would probably be okay. Or if the other person said, you're like, hey, dude, I just want to

like ride with you and I'm like riding chill. Can we ride chill? Like you would understand that this person is out to do that rather than like a little race maybe if it feels right, you know? Because like that can easily happen and sometimes if both people are in that mindset, it can be so fun. But if one person is absolutely not in that mindset and set it on that ride to just chill and smell the roses, it's like, what, why? Yeah, yeah. You know, as I think about it, I don't actually think I'm as egregious as this person here because I do try to communicate and we do talk in these groups. But it's good to know that maybe if you're always the person at the front, always the person pushing, maybe you're not seen as a hero, but you're more seen as a villain. And I think like what your

experience, what you're talking about doing is more and more allowable, the larger the group. If you're two people, what the hell are you doing? You know, if it's three people, you're still probably in that zone. But if you're riding with 20 people and two or three people are feeling like racing up the next hill, I just, I don't care. I feel like that's kind of expected in a group ride. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, if you're with two people, if you're going out with your friend and then you're dropping your friend, I think that's pretty, you're half wheeling. You know, like, That's like, what are we doing here? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. All right, that's great advice. Okay, next one here. This is kind of a funny one. Random question, but if you had to name a boat, what would it be? And if you had to name a racehorse, what would it be? This is from T.J. And I tried to keep it triathlon-y in my naming.

But I don't know if you guys have anything. The thing that immediately jumped into my mind is there's a horse that one, I think, it's like race 10 or 11 or something of the Kentucky Derby this year, which I don't know what that means, but good friend of the pod, Hank Whalen told me this. And its name was Shred the NAR. Which I think is...

Hands down, the best horse name I have ever heard when normally they're like, puppies on the veranda or whatever. Yeah, right, right. I don't know if I could talk to talk to that. I liked... Oh, I guess I don't know.

I had multidextrin Mustang or watch me nay-nay. I thought, Either one of those could be fun, you know, for going the comedy route. You're like porn star horses. Sugar Cube stallion, yeah, why not? You know, porn star stallions exactly. I feel like the horses generally need to be named something that has nothing to do anything.

Like bagels on the veranda. Oh, I see. You're right. You know. I don't know any of these things. Midnight cruiser. I would probably name a boat P.F. Flyer. P.F. Flyer. Nice. And I would name

I think there's wagons that are PF flyers Red wagons I would probably I had a radio flyer A horse Golden Espresso Wow Where did that come from?

That was good That came from my brain Yeah that's good My boat name was I'm just realizing How not funny these are propeller powered pull paddle and it's like my swimming

boating crossover name although what I really wouldn't want to name my boat is the unsinkable too which I think is kind of funny it's like yeah the first one sank so this one's really unsinkable I've seen that online somewhere it is actually fun to walk around the coast

at the harbor and you can see all the boats and they all have like really clever names it's kind of entertaining okay next thing here it's not really a question but I guess it's a another follow-up on something we said last week and by we I mean me.

I am the, once again the villain here but this is something we got from someone. Hey, big fan of Pod and TTL more broadly and am not here to be critical or cranky or anything, but I was quite surprised

to hear Nick say on this week's pod when discussing Paula's tight bra, multiple outfits adventure that endurance athletes typically don't have big boobs. Good sir,

I beg to differ. You may not see a lot of us in the pro ranks, but we are everywhere else in the endurance sport community. When I first started running as a teenager, I had to wear two sports bras to keep the girls in check. And it took years before sports bra brands made anything larger than a flimsy ass C cup that hardly did the job in a yoga class. Fast forward many years, the proper infrastructure is available. I love this writing, by the way. I can run comfortably with a single miraculous bra, and I'm happy to see many other larger chested athletes out on the course.

but let's keep the positive momentum rolling and let's be sure that TTL continues to send the message that there's a place for people of all shapes and sizes in sport once we strap these pomellos down and get to work there's no stopping us much love to all of you I mean I don't disagree at all and I don't know where it came across that I was speaking negatively about big boobs

I went back and listened these are my exact words Paula said I mean I don't really have that big of boobs. And I said, and I quote, but how often do endurance athletes have big boobs? It's uncommon. And maybe that's not true. Maybe I am wrong,

but I don't, I've got nothing against big boobs. We pre-discussed this a little bit before we started recording, and I think Paula made the best point that in our markets of like Bend in Santa Monica, it may be slightly less common than whatever. But I agree.

in no way at any point in time did I get a negative vibe out of what you were saying at all? Just like it was a, you know, potentially incorrect statement. But, Nick kind of generalizing that most endurance athletes do not have large breasts. But he was in no way saying that those people, like being exclusive of those people are saying it's a bad thing. But I do think that, yeah, it's much. much more common than any of us realize to be dealing with, you know, how to get a properly fitting sports bra to make it a comfortable experience to run. Super bouncy sport. Even like pro athletes who generally have really small breasts, if they have kids and get pregnant, their breasts

get bigger. And then it's a thing. So no matter what, like, things can always change, you know. But we apologize if it offended anybody. And by we, we mean me. I apologize. And I just want to be clear, we 100% support people of all shapes and sizes in triathlon. Of course. I mean, when we make our clothing too, we make all kinds of sizes. So everyone can be a part of the community here. I mean, I feel like that seems obvious. I mean, you're going to be hard pressed to find another podcast that's more all about the lifestyle and less performance at all costs, no matter what, you know, you have to eat and not eat, etc.

us. Correct. Right. Anyway. Yeah. Well, there you go. And thanks for writing in. Thanks for caring.

In fact, we are envious of you. In a way, in a way, we are envious of you. You probably look way better in dresses than I will ever look. I just can run without a sports bra when it doesn't fit properly. Right. Right. You know, you've got to take the wins where you can get them, though. Pros and cons.

Last question here. This one is from Ross, from, Seattle. Hi, tripod. Love the podcast and how you balance lightness while putting real effort into what you do. Oh, perfect. My question is the opposite of trying to optimize your life. Are there any strange little habits you've taken up to make some task harder with the thought it might make you a better triathlete? I thought of this on a short bike commute to work where I put in an extra book in my bag to help make me get fitter on the dreaded hill of my commute. I extremely doubt that it's doing anything, not measurably at least

but I thought you might have fun with an answer thanks Ross from Seattle is there anything you can think of that you intentionally make harder for yourself that's not maybe not like so directly you know not like more watts in an interval something less direction yeah I'm thinking of the thing but first off

I love this type of thinking I just I'm so rocky and I freaking love it and like this is how my brain worked as a child like putting the book in the bag to make it harder? Yeah, exactly. Just like, oh, I'm going to take the hybrid route

and work a little harder than everybody else. Like, oh, yeah, so epic. And for me, it was definitely like riding in the rain growing up. Like, we, I lived in Portland, absolute shitty weather. And it's just like, I'm going out and I'm hard and like, just like the guys in Perry Rubei. And like, I'm becoming so tough

when all those soft people are riding around in Florida. You know, I for sure thought that. That's a thing. Yeah, that's great. And I feel like that way that my brain worked and thinking like that definitely like when I won Alcatraz the second time and just like races that are tough that have like weird shit with like bumpy roads or like super high winds or like things that go wrong or canceled or whatever. Like I generally like get fired up and feel like this is my moment. There's a bunch of people who don't generally handle this adversity or whatever. And like this is like even more epic because.

the conditions are shit. And it's not even, it's, I don't know if you could call it placebo, but it's kind of like dress for the job you want kind of thing. You're like, I'm out here doing this hard stuff and it tells you that you're the kind of person that can do that, whether or not it's actually preparing you for those specific situations. Right. Every time you like do that thing that's like challenging, it teaches you that you can, right? And it just reinforces that instead of like, I need perfect X, Y, Z to like perform or, you know. And like, maybe, there are situations where I could have had a better workout if I'd done it on the trainer or something,

but I actually kind of, it like fired me up in this like weird epic way. And I think I got more out of myself. So yeah. The book and the bag, maybe similar sort of thing. If that goes into your brain at the end of every day that you're like putting that extra little hay in the barn, then heck yeah. And I think like you're, even if you're not conscious of that on race take on the next race, like that's a thing that fit into the grand puzzle piece of mental performance. Love it. The only thing I can think of is my little habit, my stupid habit that I have of cleaning the entire house before I leave for any workout. I think that's like self-sabotage a little bit. But it makes me a better athlete in a way because I'm so like Zen then when I go

train and then I come home to this clean house and I could just like fully start recovering and resting. But this isn't really a good answer. It's the only thing I can think of though. well it's better than scrolling on your phone by in killing time you know at least you're doing something that is helpful you think of i can't think of anything that can you think of anything i do i can think of anything that is that you do that specifically exactly like this but i think i will take this opportunity to say that i am massively appreciative of your ability to follow through on tasks that are not exciting and i just i like saw a thing on instagram the other day that was kind of I felt like it was calling me out specifically of I'm like this like ADHD type of brain where

I get just excited about things that feel epic, but then like these little mundane tasks that need to be done that are actually the thing that like builds the house besides just just starting the house. Paula is so good at that of like following through on the things that don't excite that aren't like necessarily inherently epic or interesting and it's just like it freaking keeps the ship running. And I have a, there's like a crazy amount of respect for all that sort of stuff that you do that it's just, it's not the glamorous, necessarily glamorous, but you get it done and it like, yeah, I keep this ship running.

You know what? That's how champions are built. You are, you are really good at that. You are really good at just like, it has to get done. It's not fun. I'm going to do it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like similar, but not exactly the question, but. That's what I was thinking.

You're incredible at that. Why of appreciation moment. This is not fun, but it has to get done. Wait, what was it? Didn't, didn't we have something about that? It was something so into that It's like six months ago Oh, do you guys remember what I'm talking about?

It was something about... It's like itching a memory cell like way back in my brain But I don't know what you're like... It's hard, but I'm going to do it anyway. It was something like that. Right. It was like you being like...

Sometimes things are hard, but you do it anyway. Yes, it was something like that. Talking about like... Something like that. Riding in the wind and sun never... Nick, it was when you and I were together riding in some kind of awful conditions. No, no, it was when we were driving to get to meet Heather at the end of Black Canyon.

Oh my gosh, am I just having too many deja vues right now. Yep, yep. And you were like, and it's a scary road kind of. No, it was when I was driving your stupid Tesla. You're right. It's scary, but you're just deaf to do it. It's scary, but you just have to do it. That's what it was.

That's what I was. Yep. I love it. Something like that. And it was about driving your Tesla that is so hard to drive because it doesn't break. It just, you take your foot off the gas and it breaks. Right.

Yeah. Very hard. Not intuitive. I love it now. I really love it. It feels like the right way to drive, but I feel that it is different. I could see myself liking it too after some practice. Anyway, that's off topic.

This is fun. I feel like we got a lot of things that are happening that we got to get caught up on, but we can hit him next week. Yeah, Nick's got to get driving. His parents are waiting. We're driving. Still got two and a half hours of driving and it's almost a minute. You are a legend. Everybody, to show your appreciation for Nick, go become a podcast supporter right now and we will see you next week.

That is the best way. Thank you. Yes, definitely. Nick say thanks to your parents too. I will. I will. Bye, everyone. Bye.