That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula races IRONMAN 70.3 BOISE, performance plateaus, and more!

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

This week, we're recording from two continents. Eric and Paula are in Bend, OR, while Nick checks in from a DIY training camp in Croatia. We kick things off with an in-depth race recap from Paula’s 70.3 in Boise, Idaho, then roll into a Tour de France-themed TTL Spelling Bee, and finally dive into listener-submitted questions. Topics this week include:What Eric and Paula would still optimize in their own trainingThoughts on the aquabike categoryBreaking through performance plateaus, mentally and physicallyWhether triathlon makes you tougher outside the sportManaging swim panic during a non-wetsuit raceA 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

Hello, everyone. Welcome to that Traathlon Life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldstein. Can you tell that was take two of the beginning of our podcast? Paula is a little bit critical of how quickly I talk sometimes. And to be fair, yeah, I do sometimes when I'm starting in the podcast. But I'm not a professional podcaster as of yet. I am a professional athlete.

Paul is a professional athlete, Nick is a professional musician, and you have stumbled into our triathlon themed podcast. Welcome. That we just do purely for fun, so we're not that good at it. So give us a break. That's part of our allure, I think. If this is your first time tuning in here, we do live a little bit of a hectic life all over the world. This week is a little bit more so even than usual.

Nick is on vacation in Italy. are you actually in Croatia right now? I'm actually in Croatia right now. Yeah, but we got a great show for you today. Paula just finished up Boise 70.3. I just finished up supporting Boise 70.3. And like I said, Nick's over in Croatia. So we're going to go over that.

And then we're going to do podcast questions from all of you who've written in and give us something to talk about. So thanks so much. Paul, are you alive? How do you feel? I'm pretty tired. Today is Monday.

I raced on Saturday. and we drove home yesterday. So I think it's like the normal post race. I feel physically fine, but I'm pretty, I feel a bit sleep deprived and hungover is kind of the feeling. It's good for me to just keep some like regularity and momentum. And I swim and I bike today. So I'll get back into it quick.

I just got to get some sleep, you know. Yeah. I'm feeling fairly similar. I think a big part of that was that it was like 97 degrees. in Boise the entire time that we were there in the afternoon

obviously the race was over by noon and it was not quite as hot but we got there in the afternoon tried to do it an afternoon training session you're just hanging out in the sun the whole time

and it really does zap you doing that day after day on top of racing I didn't realize that it's also it's not at I mean obviously it's not at sea level but it's nowhere near sea level do you know what the elevation

of the race is at? It's about the same as Ben like 3,000 something feet? Yeah, I think the lake itself was like at 3,100. I remember seeing a 3,000 foot elevation sign as we were driving up to the lake, and you drop down just slightly from the lake to into town where the race finishes and where the run is.

Okay, well, I have a bunch of stuff for us today, but I do think that I would love to hear about the race, also because I haven't heard much about it. We talked right after, but this was the first time to have done this race since you guys have been 70.3 athletes. Is that right? Yeah, I think it's been about 10 years since it was on the calendar.

So when we saw it on the schedule as a pro race, although not a pro-series race, I kind of planted the seat about doing it. So I think I said last week, like we did it because we could drive there, and it was like a little bit of a lower stress race without the pressure of a pro series or a T-100 and slightly smaller field. and I was the favorite to win, but as I was getting closer to the race,

I was thinking, like, you can be a favorite, and on paper it can look like, oh, I should win this easily, but you still have to do a 70.3, which is extremely hard. And to do it at the speed that I'm capable of doing it is not easy at all. So I just, like, that kind of dawned on me

as the day's approach, the race. And I was like, I don't feel that great. I am not that excited. about racing. I don't know. I just had this like dread almost of like the expectation of having to win it and that is almost sometimes harder because you're

like something could happen. It's not like I can just go easy and win this. I have to like still try really hard and so I don't know it's kind of a weird feeling to know I could do it but also know I had to go through a very hard thing in order to accomplish it. This is funny because I'm thinking

about how you felt going into St. George which definitely had higher stakes and is a famously hard course, and you were excited about that. And do you think part of this was the unknown that you haven't done this race before? Yeah, maybe a little bit. The race is actually quite similar to St. George. Not really the profile. St. George has much more climbing, but the point-to-point, the reservoir swim,

a lot of elements of it are really reminiscent of St. George. But yeah, I was going in blind to the course. I hadn't ridden any of it or driven any of it because the roads are quite busy. And for the race, they were completely fine because they closed off a lane for us. But that was the first time in a while that I've gone into a race without knowing what I was what to expect. And not that it was a super complicated bike course, like in terms of the technicality of it, but still just not knowing when the climbs were coming or what the road surface was like definitely added a little bit. to the nervousness, but I just physically felt a bit tired.

I think mentally I was like, I'm not going to taper really for this. I did some hard sessions leading in, and that kind of like made me worried because I always taper for races and I always feel like pretty fresh at the start line. And it was not the case on Saturday. So, yeah. Wait, so I'm curious. So you, and I definitely want to talk about the swim too, but for the bike specifically, since you had not written the course.

And sorry, spoilers, but you led the bike. Did you at any moment think, damn it, I wish I would have ridden the course or I wish I would have driven the course? No, absolutely not. In fact, Eric was like way at one of the turnarounds, like so far out of town. And I was like, why are you here?

This is insane. It's so far away. I'm so glad we didn't drive it. It's so far to drive 90K. It's like insane that we ride it. Yeah. The last time I remember driving or attempting to drive a 70.3 was it, what is it, what do they call? Steelhead in Michigan. Wait, didn't you win Steelhead, Eric?

Yeah, he won. Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, that's nice. But it's like a pure out and back thing and it's a pretty boring course. And I got like, within 20K. I mean, I made like two-thirds of the way to the turnaround before I was like, F this. This is way too far to drive. I'm going back and laying down.

I'll just find out later. A good little tip, though, for anyone who can't preview a course beforehand is if you go to Strava, if the route is saved on a Strava map or route, for example, you can go into Strava and hit play on the route and it'll take you through it in 3D and show you. Like, not the road's surface, but it'll show you where the climbs are and with the gradient. is and then what point in the race that you're at. So I went through that whole Strava route before the race. So I knew exactly what kilometer marker. The U-turns were at and the turns were at and the hills were at. So although I hadn't seen it, I was like very familiar with what to expect. So that's kind of a good tip. If you're going in without having done a race, like Oceanside, for example, where you can't ride it before, you can always use the Strava map to do a little preview.

visualize it a little bit. That's great. I forgot because I use that after I've done a ride, but you can do it for pre-made courses as well. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Okay, so let's go back to the swim here.

This was in a reservoir. So there's none of the fear of open water waves and choppiness, right? Oh, no, it was very choppy. It's a huge reservoir. And it's kind of like perched up on this really big hill. So it gets the effects of wind. pretty significantly. So it was probably the choppiest swim I've done all year in terms of just being able to see and getting slapped in the face with waves. And it was like an 800

meter walk to the start because it was kind of more point-to-point swim. So it's kind of crazy. I saw this picture today of the swim and the buoys were completely not lined up. Oh, no. They were just all over the place. So I was swimming with the lead group on the way out. didn't cite a single time I was just following feet. And then on the way back, it looked like they were way off course. And I went to the left following the buoy line. But I think they were also thinking they were following the buoys because it was just so messy.

Oh, wow. So I lost the feed of the lead group on the way back in. I could still see them ahead of me. But I thought, like, I'm taking the smart line and they're taking the – But no, they were – as soon as they cut back over to the last turn buoy, they were like 30 seconds ahead of me. So I came out alone, but wasn't that worried about it. Like after the first big descent and climb, I'd made it to the front of the race

and maybe burned a few matches, like riding really hard up the first hill. But anyway, that's what I had to do to get to the front. And then once I was at the front, keep riding really hard to not let anyone come with me. So that was kind of my plan. So that was a conscious decision, though, once you got to the front, Did you wait at all or did you as soon as you got to the front you kept hammering? No, I had to keep hammering. I mean, if you get to the front and you ease up, it's like so easy for everyone to sit on.

Right. Within the 12 meters. So I almost had to like break their souls like thinking that's how fast I was going to ride the entire time. Right. I'm a 300 lot person just try to get on my wheel. Yeah. Don't even consider trying. Okay, got it.

I did, you know, settle down after five or ten minutes. but I was still hurting. Like at no point in this race did I feel good and smooth. And I ended up getting my period the day after the race, which is a sign that that's why I felt so bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like honestly the worst day to get to have a race because I was like moody, grumpy, feeling tired, all these things. And no wonder. And honestly, at the start line, I was like, I'm going to get my period during.

race. And that's all I was like stressed about that before the start because I was like, I knew it was like coming. And I thought it was going to be in the next hour or two. I was like, I'm going to be asking Eric for getting me some supplies for on the run. Like, what a mess. Babe, help me. It happened after. And I kept looking down on the bike. Right. Here we go. It was this TMI. But that's what I felt like.

Didn't this also happen in St. George to you? Like this year, St. George? No, Vancouver the day after it happened to, I got it, which is a month apart. So it makes sense, right? Right. Oh, God. Don't they know your schedule? Geez, come on.

Just on this horrible race plan. Okay, so the bike was also not without his drama, though. Do we want to talk about this whole thing? Yeah. This is kind of a controversial. Yeah, we should talk about it because it was a problem and it is a problem. And I, for sure. I don't want to come across as, like, complaining or anything about it because it's nobody's

fault. It's not the male, the pro male's fault. It's not my fault. It's not even Iron Man's fault because it's just been this way forever and changes should be made but haven't yet. And the gap between the pro men starting and the pro women starting is five minutes for this race. It was 10 in St. George, which was amazing. But five, when the male pro field is like 60 plus guys and a lot of them are like, you know, more like elite, it's not quite pro men males. it's too short of a gap. And I was by about 20K on the bike, I was riding straight past a lot of pro men,

and I never saw them again, which was awesome. That's kind of what you want to happen. But by 40K, and by the way, 40K, my split was like 56 minutes. This course is so fast. Whoa. And that's with 250 meters of climbing. Like it was a really, really,

really fast course. And I hadn't seen any men ahead of me, aside from the ones I'd gone straight around until that point. So anyone that thinks that my time's super fast because I was sitting on dudes wheels the whole time? It's not the case. I was riding super well. My watts were good. And I was, you know, I don't know, it almost felt like we had a tailwind for most of the race, which is crazy. I never felt like we were into this hammering headwind at any point. So It was around the first U-turn where I caught this little group of, like, three men that were riding together. And that's where it gets really challenging. Because for me to go around a guy requires a huge surge and effort.

And to go around three men is not impossible, but, like, really requires a huge conscious three-or-four-minute surge. So I did that and got around them. but the issue is they then come back around me. And so all this work that I'd done to get in front of them. And as I'm going around them, I'm kind of like asking them if they'll just ease up for a few seconds so I can get in front of their wheel before my time runs out because there's a ref right beside me watching this. And at one point I like didn't think I was going to do it. And I had to do this like crazy 500 watt surge to get in front of the first, the guy,

that was leading the pack. Crazy. That's crazy. It was so crazy that this was happening. I mean, it's not their fault either because they're just riding their race. And I don't think that they should necessarily like surrender to me or, I mean, they're trying to get best times. They're trying to get the most out of themselves as well. So it's a tricky situation for everybody involved.

But I think it's, if possible, to let the pro female like ride away a bit before carrying on. Because if I pass that group and then that's. they remain 12 meters behind me, of course it's going to feel easier for them because they're now dafting me, right? So now they feel like they need to get it back around, especially at any point where there was a descent. They're just better at descending. They're heavier. They're more arrow. They're braver at descending. So they'd all come back around me. So I don't know. It was messy, but I would say in general, I'll be like full transparency. The last 10K, I was riding 12 to 15 meters behind the guy in front of me who I just like, it was a slight downhill.

We were almost at transition. And I'm like, if I'm going to do one more massive surge to get around him, we're not going to go any faster. So I rode pretty easy behind him getting back into transition. But yeah, it at least added something to think about the whole time. I don't know, like other than being solo. But it's... Right.

Sure. I mean, that's a positive, yeah. It's not just me. And I wouldn't have called this out if it was like just a one-time bubble. isolated situation, but it happened in Lake Placid where Lisa Parder was around men and got a penalty because of it, and it's

just happening more and more in every single professional race. So I think it's something that, if possible, should be either like make it bigger gaps or make it harder to get a male pro card or verify that people actually are qualifying for their

pro card again and again. I don't know if that's actually happening. Right. but yeah We have some fairly reliable information that one does not actually need to re-qualify for one's pro card the providing of evidence

has been pretty lax lately and I won't say where that came from but somebody that I trust pretty well who has personal experience and friends with personal experience of just saying hi I'd like to renew my pro card and there's a box where you have to show what result you did

they got within 15% of the winner's time on a race. Just leave that blank, no problem. We don't know for sure if that's a fact. So if that is in fact true, that is a U.S.A.T. problem, not an Iron Man problem. Right. Yeah, because they're the one giving you your elite license in order to get the pro card for the pros, Iron Man thing. So, Paula, do you think the issue is more so that women are getting faster, or do you think the issue is that the men's pro field is getting, let's call it larger?

Yeah, I think it might be the getting larger thing. Because I remember even back in like before 2020 when I was racing in Santa Cruz, Sarah Crowley caught all the men and was riding with them. And so it's always been a thing. But I think it's happening more and more. And of course, the front of the women's poignant race is getting quicker. And with Taylor Nib, like imagine if she was in that race, she'd be catching people even more men than me.

Also, I think that generally the level of women's swimming has been getting better and better. And like the back end of, yeah, the slower swimmers on both men's and women's sides are probably remaining the same. But faster swimmers are coming in. Yeah, and I'm not about amazing swim or anything. But that swim was interesting because it was long. We all swam super freaking slow.

And the distance was like, you know, long on a GPS map as well. So the guys who were already slower swimmers was exasperated by the. fact that they swam for five or six minutes longer than we should have been swaming. So that was unfortunate as well. Maybe they would have had like a little more time ahead of me. Even if they had, you know, an extra four minutes out of the water, three minutes. I might not have caught many of those guys. So. Yeah, but I mean, for the most part, the men are really respectful when I go by them and they

cheer for me and whatever. They're not like agro and trying to fuck with me or anything. and they're not like pissed that I caught them. I mean, maybe internally they are pissed that I caught them, but they're not taking it out on me. It doesn't feel like. It's just, it's almost like maybe if a girl comes by them,

it like kicks their ass into gear a bit. And then they're like, oh, I actually do have 20 more watts I'm being a pansy. So it's like so psychological as well. I mean, it's hard to fully put like the cause at any one thing. It's like multifaceted. here. But there were refs on course. I mean, I saw a guy shuffling his book and I'm like, fuck, I'm getting a penalty right now. Yeah. But I talked to the ref. I was like, what do you

want me to do right now? Because I'm a female athlete trying to get around all these guys. And you're looking at your penalty book colors like you're going to give me a thing. And he's like, you need to get past that guy. He told me that. And I was like, okay, here we fucking go. The front of the three guys. Yeah. Here we fucking go. It does help if you talk to the ref and you're like, obviously my intent is not to cheat here. Like, please tell me what you think I should do.

And they, he worked with me and told me the answer I didn't want to hear. I used to do this all the time pre-race Ranger. Because I'd be in a pack of dudes in my mind is like, there's no way we're all riding legally. And there's a ref right next to me. And I'm like, is this good? And it gives me the thumbs up. I'm like, okay.

This doesn't feel like this is okay, but I, all right. Yeah, anytime I was behind a pro male, which wasn't actually that much time, I mean, people look at our bike splits and they're like, you probably drafted the entire way because we rode so freaking fast. Like everyone did. Every female, every male rode fast. But I left 20 meters because I'm used to that with the T-100. I know what it looks like. I didn't want to get anywhere within 12 meters. And there was no race ranger at this race because it's not a pro series race.

Right. Anyway, I've talked about this for way too long, but it is a thing I think needs a little bit of like verbal explanation versus me just doing a three-sentence Instagram post about it. Okay. So just so that people don't pull out their pitchforks against Iron Man, can you explain why doesn't Iron Man just fix this? Why don't they just do a 10-minute gap between the pro-man and pro-lione? It's just like a road closure thing And I think that there's really strict Time limits with which they need to clear athletes off the road

And they have it down to a millisecond It just seems like five minutes is ridiculous Like just give them five minutes You wouldn't think I mean it's a bigger thing in Oceanside Because Pendleton's like yeah you have the base till two That's it So

Right Depending on the race I think that's why in St. George they can be a little bit more lenient with the times, but it really is not like they have all day to get all the athletes through. So that's the...

I mean, I would start five minutes earlier. I think at a certain point, you fight up against visibility with water support and stuff like that. But I can't imagine most races really, yeah, Nick, five minutes at most races. Come on.

Shouldn't be that big of a deal. Ten minutes and a 70.3 will never be a problem. If we're catching guys with 10 minutes were you're immediately out. Right. Sorry. You're done. Pro card revoked.

Anyway, I came off the bike and I was like, okay, I can win. I have six minutes on the second person. Except for Jocelyn McCauley, she rode really well, but she ended up not running the whole thing. But I was like, I still have to run a half marathon. Oh my gosh. I don't know how I'm going to do this. So I, it just took. a lot more mental effort than normal. But I could still make myself run. I was like running

350s per K, like not bad, not slow and not blowing up. So I think like my fitness and my health and my resiliency and like haven't had an injury for a long time, that carried me through this. But if I had any kind of like, yeah, sickness or injury or whatever, it might have been a lot harder to do this. But I just forced myself to get around the course. And Eric told me on the last lap, I could ease off if I wanted because I had five minutes. But at that point, I just wanted to get to the end. I was like, what this to go through? Yeah, yeah, of course. So I crossed the finish line pretty empty and happy to be done and relieved. Yeah, I think you came off the bike with about six minutes to Danielle Lewis, who we thought was going to be the main, I don't know, it was a skis. I don't

a scare factor for a fast run split. And I think she took 30 seconds out of you in T2 and then maybe another 15 seconds, 20 seconds in the first 3K. And then the gap just stayed there for the rest of the time. I'm having this problem in T2 at every race this year. I come off the bike and my shoes are like bucking my bike around because they're like still spinning. Oh, right, right. And I hit the ground and my bike like is like a bucking bronco. I don't remember this ever happening in the past, but every race this year, it's a huge problem.

Because that way transition was like, I had to basically carry my bike through transition. It was... Because that bottom bracket is so silky. Yeah, maybe that's it. Just letting the shoes spin around a little bit more. No, this happens to me too. I've seen it with other age groupers where they're like hand carrying their bike and the, you know, the shoes hit. And it's like riding a fixie and you clip, you know, you clip on a turn, you clip, no, no, this is a bad reference.

But yeah, the bike jumps, right? The bike's jumping and the shoes are getting totally destroyed on the pavement. Never wear any bike shoes in a race. They're just going to get ruined. So, yeah, that was that. Great race. I would recommend Boise to anyone that lives in this region or to travel to it. Boise is cool.

The river's awesome. Yeah, tons of cool restaurants and coffee shops and all sorts of fun stuff to do for the family as well. Yeah, totally. Eric, do you have any spectator tips for people who are going to do this race next year who want to support their athlete? It's a little tricky because it's the point-to-point. Yeah, you got to sleep in and just go to the run. Yeah.

Is that the move? Yeah, you really can't drop your person off at the lake. They have to get on a shuttle bus and go all over there. If you go out there, you get pretty locked into the lake. the cops at the intersection are pretty serious about no parking right, you know, outside of the lake and walking across the bridge. So you're better off to just say bye-bye and see them when they come off the bike. This sounds like St. George, really. Yeah, yeah, a bit for sure. There is, there were a couple of spots on the bike course where you can get out and you can see them do a

U-turn and then still make it back. But like Paula said, when she saw me out there, I was 30 minutes of driving from town and then 30 minutes back in to just be like, hi, at a, at a, at a, a U-turn, which if you don't have anything else to do, go for it. But the run is really fun, especially if you can get on one of those lime bikes or scooters. Like, you can see your person running down around the waterfront because there's all these little bridges that crisscross the waterfront. The course is totally open, which is entertaining if you're racing, dodging morning joggers. But you can get all around and see your person a whole bunch of times, which is pretty sweet. Yeah. So the podium was me, Danielle Lewis, Jody Simpson, and the men was Sam Appleton.

Jackson Laundry and Justin Reale. Apo, laundry, Reale, Matt Sharp and fourth. I'm throwing Matt Sharp out there, our favorite Canadian. We love Matt Sharp. There's going to be a video about this. This will be our fifth installment in the Paula Long Game

with Iron Man. That'll come out on Iron Man's YouTube channel. I'm hoping that they'll have space for it to come out this weekend. Because I'm pretty fired up to edit it. I think it'll be fun. Wow, Eric, you haven't been fired up to edit it. race video in a long time, I would say. Yeah, I don't know. The one that we put out last weekend, I was a really big fan of. I just had great vibes. It was us going down and watching Heather

at Western States, and I'm just kind of like channeling that same frame of mind with this video. The first few Iron Man videos were I was really trying to go, you know, a little bit more structured and feeling like something that might come out on Netflix or like actually on television. And I'm going to strike a balance between that and just doing our. normal thing and keeping it a little casual. So stay tuned for that on the Ironman YouTube channel. Yeah, I can't wait for it. Okay, so there's a few fun little updates for loyal podcast listeners here that I think

will be a change of pace. So a few weeks ago, we did the Spotify poll on what people would be preferred to be called as non-professional athletes. And the options were amateur age grouper, slow. or no preference. Slow? Yeah, slow because Paula. Paula wanted that to be an option as well.

So we had 12% of people said slow. So there was that. And then we have very close in third place, no preference. And then in second place with 22% of the votes, amateur. And as I suspected, people prefer largely at 46% age grouper as the term. So there you go. You know, what's funny is, it's like we need a word to describe, to talk about it. But if you are an age group athlete and you're talking about your friend, I feel like who is also an age group athlete, do you need to specify in that situation?

Oh, my friend who's a triathlete versus you're in need of a word to describe. Right. The professionals are like everybody else. You're right. in very specific scenarios. Yeah. Okay, great, great point. That and then like the Kona broadcast basically

as they're jumping back and forth between the pro race and the age group athletes that are the life, blood of the sport, you know? Yes, yes, that's right. The one thing I wanted to mention is that amateur in French means lover. Right. You know, and I love that.

And Italian too, amateur means lover. And, you know, that's a cool meaning to that word. That makes the most sense possible because you are doing it because you love it, not because it is furthering your career. It's not making, paying your mortgage. It's very likely doing negatives to both of those, actually. Yeah, exactly.

Okay, and then another little update here is that we talked about where to find swims when you're traveling and a bunch of people message me and let me know that there's a great website called Places to Swim.com. And I checked it out and it's pretty good. It's not, you know, it's all fed by users, but it's pretty good. So use that as a reference in addition to what Paula was recommending. And then finally, I did want to read another update. So we talked a few weeks ago about if triathlon is as healthy or not.

And we all landed on this idea that it is, in fact, healthy. You know, maybe there are aspects of if you push yourself too far when you're not supposed to, especially as a pro, that it can be unhealthy. But this was something that Sarah wrote in. No real question, but a quick, funny story that hopefully makes you laugh. I did Iron Man, Lake Placid last weekend. And my husband and I listened to the podcast where you talked about if triathlon is healthy. on the drive up from the Albany Airport.

I went to wake my husband up at 3.55 a.m. on race morning, and he mumbled, I disagree with Eric and Paula. This cannot be healthy. And then Sarah said, it's not too bad. You need to give it a try. He's never done a triathlon. And then he said, no, no, no, it's not healthy for me, your supporter. So I thought that was a fun twist.

That's like, yes, I could see how it's not healthy for the people around the athletes. Yeah, it's cutting their sweet sleep. Yeah, of course. Of course. And then Sarah finished and said, I reped my TTL gear around town and saw some other TTLers. I also qualified for Kona in 25 to 29 age group for the first time. Thank you all for your inspiration and content.

Sarah, that's amazing. Congratulations. That is amazing. Good job. I also qualified for the 26th, 70.3 World Championships in Boise. In Boise. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, because the window for 2025 is closed.

Oh, my God. So now every 70.3 qualifies you for next year. Wow. Isn't that insane? I'm like, I guess I'll accept it. I don't know what I'm going to be doing next year. But that's kind of fun. Okay.

Okay, that is fun. That's great. Yeah. How many slots were there and how far did it roll down? Danielle and I took it because I think this is one of the very first races. Right. So it didn't roll at all. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Cool. All right. Well, the first half of this podcast was about Paula. And now, Eric, you're in the hot seat because we're going to do a TTL spelling bee. TTL spelling bee. Wow.

And I'm sorry to report that all of these words are in French. So let's see how your Canadian wife is going to affect these spellings. And this was written in by Cody. And we said, we specifically said that's, okay. We did. We did say that. And yet here we are. Well, they're like words that you'll know, though.

Why don't we just do ones like in freaking elvish? Oh, that could be good. Kling on. That could be good. Someone who knows the Silmarillion well can get some elvish spelling bee words. Wow, I just seem like a real Lord of the Rings nerd there, which I'm not. You nailed it. Silmarlyne.

That was a great vocabre. Thank you. Okay. So this is from Cody says maybe a week late since Tour de France will be over. But either way, here's a tour de France theme spelling bee. No, it's not over. The Tour de France, Femme of X, Zwift. Yes, that's right.

It's still the best part is yet to come. Totally. And all of these words are applied to the Tour de Femm as well. Okay. Okay, good. Yes. There were some really easy words in there that I took out, like Colnago. Like, no, we're not doing Colnago.

The Italians that have phonetically spelled language is too easy. We're doing all French. Okay. So first one here, and I put these in order of difficulty, is bidon. which is the French word for like a cycling water bottle. B-I-D-O-N. Nailed it. Okay, first one down.

Next one here. And let's see, you know what? I'm going to see actually if you can define these for us as well. So I'm not going to give these away. The next one is M-U-S-E-T-T-E. Yes, that is correct. Do you know what it is? Yeah, it's your little bag that you pick up in the feed zone that's got your same accent.

Correct. Correct. A little man purse. A little M-U-S-E-T-E-E-E-E-E-R-S action. Okay, next one here. Domestique. D-O-M-E-E-T-I-Q-U-E. Okay, that is also correct.

And what is Domestique? Helper B-Bitch for the big, bad leader. Helper bitch. I'm sure that's what they'd love to be referred to us. No, no. They're a helper. It's your job to go get the bidones, or go get the Muzette with the Bedones in them

and bring them to your leader and paste them up the hill. Sprint finishes, all that sort of stuff. It's not your job to win. You assist them to win. Although it can happen sometimes, right? It does happen. From time to time, the Domestique is given to go ahead to jump in a breakaway or take one for the win because they're a leader crashed, et cetera.

Yeah, cool. Okay, next one, these start to get a little harder. The commissaire. C-O-M-I-S-A-I-R-E. You're very close. You're missing. And what's funny about this one is that Cody actually submitted it and misspelled. So I double-check the spelling.

It's a double M. Correct. Yeah, I couldn't. That was my cause. I couldn't decide it was double Lines or not. We'll give you that one. So the way that Cody sent it in is like some Russian like police officer or something. Comey S.

But the wrong word. But the wrong word. N, S. Yeah, double N-D-A-S. Okay, next one here, the Pyrenees. Paula, do you think you know these? EY.

R. Yes. N. Yes. E E E. Oh, so close, no E at the end. But yes, E E E S. Bravo.

Chapeau. Chapo. Oh, very nice, Eric. Okay, and the last one here, I would never get this right. And I will, you don't now have to use the exante goose here. But this is the Champs Elysee. D-H-A-M-P-S-S-E-L-S-E-E-E-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-S-E. S-A-S-A-S-E-E-E-S.

Yeah, well done. Yeah, but that's a... There's accents on the first two E's in E-E-E-E-E-A. And what is the Champs-E-E-E-E, Eric? This is the magnificent finish of Le Tour. Yes. Sprint on the cobbles underneath the heart to triumph. That's correct.

They do a bunch of laps, don't they? They do a bunch of laps, yeah. And they start with the champagne flutes, don't they? That's right. The, uh, the leading team. generally starts with champagne foods because the GC is pretty much decided. No one's getting any time bonuses or anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, well done, Eric. That was a really hard one. I feel like you did really respectfully there, even with a phone of friend with Paula. I appreciate that. It's also 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which is peak brain deadness. Okay, great.

Okay, well, we're going to move on to questions. listeners, we love you, and you can submit your questions. We've been getting really good questions lately, so keep them coming. You can submit your questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter, which is your way to show us that you are lover of the podcast, a consumer of the podcast, and that you want to see the podcast continue on, even when we're in two different continents.

Okay, first question here. Hey, guys, if money, access, or geography, weren't limitations, what's one thing you'd add to your training or recovery that you're currently not doing? Is there something you know would move the needle? Maybe even marginally, but you've always held off on due to cost, logistics, location, or even just lack of desire. I'm always curious what high-level athletes know would help them, but still can't quite access. What's your white whale in training recovery? P.S. Congrats, Paula, on a hard-fought win in Boise. Thanks guys for all you do. Not having a house or a dog. Yard work, cleaning things.

ideally having a butler to cook. A butler. Yeah, I think if you could get your meals made for you, whether it's like a weekly thing where you pick up seven meals or you have a, someone deliver them or that would be huge, I think, because nutrition is so important for recovery. And sometimes it's just really challenging to grocery shop, get enough food, make enough creative meals.

You almost get bored of eating when you're having to eat so much and be creative with making healthy things. It would be so cool to have, I mean, maybe if it wasn't even someone making it, but just someone like putting together a plan for you. So you had a little bit of some fresh ideas of what to buy and make. But it's time consuming when you're tired. Yeah. Yeah. I say those things just because I feel like we do have nutrition. And a lot of our things are a lot of our recovery pretty well dialed.

You know, this is our job. And we keep, like, protein powder in the van. So if we're, you know, at a place that requires 30-minute traffic at home, we have something pretty quick or we stop and get a burrito. And, you know, we have optimized a lot of things. But the only things I can think of are, like, working on our bikes or mowing the lawn or... We get massage once a week already. Just basic life things that need to be done.

I think the massage once a week is really critical. If we go two or three weeks without one, if we're traveling or something, I can tell. And I think it's been really key to me not getting injured. Because if I don't have a PT I go too regularly, but if I tell our massage therapist Scott, like, this is sore, this is bugging me, he'll work extra on it and usually resolves itself in a day or two. So just staying on top of stuff like that and getting body work is really, really important. And it's been a big game changer for me. I feel like blackout shades in the summertime. Because it does stay light pretty late.

And we have like one of those in window air conditioner things that prevents a little bit of like total blackout. And I just noticed that I sleep so well when we're in the van. And I think that's the big difference. It's pitch black versus close to dark. Eric, have you ever thought about putting like either an eye mask or like a t-shirt over your head? Because that's what I do now in the mornings.

Yeah, I think I just move around enough in my sleep that it gets knocked off. And also, like, I have an issue as, like, being too hot when I sleep relative to haul up. So I'm already fighting, like, a thermal thing. So I need, like, a face mask with cooling. And ideally. A ventilated face mask. You tie one of those omious things around my eyes, right on my face. Perfect. Perfect.

Next one here is from Aiden. Hi, tripod. I found your podcast earlier this year and it inspired me to do my first triathlon this January. I'm also, wait a second. You went from found the podcast to doing a triathlon in less than a month? That's amazing. Yeah, we are so inspirational. Did he say January?

I mean, that's like tons of time. From earlier this year to January, that's the same year. Earlier this year, probably next January he's doing his first triathlon. Oh, got it. This January. Okay, I see. You're right. The future.

He probably lives in Australia. Hopefully. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. I am also a competitive Irish dancer. Maybe Aiden lives in Ireland. And unfortunately, after the triathlon training developed an Achilles injury that has not gone away, leaving me unable to run.

I've switched gears and moved into the aqua bike world, but I was wondering your thoughts on aqua bike in general. I'm very near to the community, but I see it's not offered in a lot of local races around me in the Midwest. Okay, we got all our answers to all our questions here. Thank you for everything you do, Aidan. We got a guy from the Midwest, he's doing a triathlon in January and is a professional Irish dancer. A competitor Irish dancer.

It could be a female. It's a female name too. Oh. Yeah. Doesn't matter. But, um. Wow. Uh, well, I guess the aqua bike thing, yes, that's just not super, it's not super common.

I think they have it at, um, ITU world championships. And then I think just if sometimes a race director has, you know, has some history with like an injury like you're talking about, they will include it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I don't see it very often. It's very niche. I mean, if I were you, I would prefer to just do, I would do like straight up open water swim races or straight up bike races. But finding one that incorporates a swim and a bike and no run is really hard. What you could do while you're recovering from your injury is just stop after the bike. I don't know if that's good advice or not. But. it means you could enter any race and not finish. It's just like, all right, I'm out. Yeah, you get the most out of yourself from the swim bike. It takes away a little bit of the fun of.

People do that, though, when they've signed up for something and they just can't run. Yeah. But we support it, right? Like, if it brings you joy and it gets you training and gets you outdoors doing the things, go for it. Oh, sure. Yeah, it's cool. Of course. Just hard to find.

Zero problem with it. It's great. Yeah. I would also just say that I wouldn't lose all hope. And I think you can heal from your Achilles. Yeah. They on the PT and all the good things. Anecdotally for me, my Achilles stuff is always better when I'm stretching my calves,

but I think that is a rare solution to that problem for most people. But it does work for me. Maybe that's the secret ticket. Maybe. Okay, next one here is from Jen. How to my favorite triathlon trio, this one is for all three of you. You're hitting all your target paces and power numbers and workouts, but when you show up to race day, your performance seems not to reflect the work you've been putting in.

Zooming out over time, you notice that you continue to progress and get faster in training. How do you manage and get through performance plateaus, especially when they last for a year or more? I'm curious both about managing on an emotional level and on a physiological level, what do you think helps you get a breakthrough? Thanks so much. Always rooting for all three of you, Jen. Does this resonate for either one of you, by the way? I've never had a year-long plateau.

Oh, I guess I've had some plateaus. No, I haven't really been in this situation. I think I'm, for whatever reason, like I don't have a whole bunch of gears above whatever gear that I have used in racing. I've always tended to be relatively unimpressive relative to a lot of my peers in training and then kind of just race that same speed.

So not something I've dealt with as much. I think the problem a lot of people have is they go out and do really good. a training in the individual three sports, biking, running for shorter amounts of time, see progression in their 20-minute interval or their threshold power or whatever. And it happens to professionals all the time as well. And you go into a race where you're stringing them all together in a four-plus hour event and you're swimming really hard before you're trying to bike these intervals and these powers that you did in training when you were a little fresher and didn't swim

just before that. So there's this part I think of triathletes where they forget that putting the pieces all together for a really long race, like, of course it's going to feel hard to run your quote-unquote race pace because you just rode your bike really hard for two and a half hours. You've never done that in training before. You're just going to the track, warming up, and then your race pace feels easy. So I think just keeping that in mind that have some leniency with yourself in an actual race and look for progression

within the races and not necessarily compare everything to what you're doing in training. Yeah. Yeah. Because even like a lot of my friends that are pro triathletes, they're like, I'm running this. Why can't I do that in a race?

Like, well, it's because you did that run at the end of a race. Right. Have you ever gone out and like done a two-hour time trial on the bike in the morning. Right. And then even just in the afternoon, done a 10K all-out time trial. Right. And hit the numbers that you are thinking that you're going to hit in a race.

That's a big ask. It's a whole different beast to do a race. And I think the more years you do it, you accumulate race experience and this gets easier. It's like the first race of the year is a shock to the system. At the end of the year, your body kind of knows what you expect and how much you can push yourself on each thing. But I don't think it's like a sign that you need to train slower or anything. I think still like bumping up against like faster things swim bike run is important.

But just have some like realistic expectations when you're racing. I don't know if that's answering the question. But it's something I realized even this past weekend talking to people that were, you know, didn't race as they thought they would or whatever. As a as a non-professional, I'm happy to speak to both of these things. On the emotional side, what I started to do that helped this a lot is in training, instead of using the race as my carrot to push myself and work hard. I use donuts. I mean using the race as your donut?

There's no carrots where I go to get my sweet treats. But it's just to use the training as just know that you're getting faster. And then that is the goal. It's like, and that way when you don't perform well in a race, if that happens, it doesn't hold as much weight in your head, at least for me. that was helpful. And then the biggest thing for me physically that actually did help me get better is really respecting the long sessions in all three sports.

I think I used to like kind of cut corners there if I could. And instead like doing the true long ride, the true long run and in some cases a true long swim, that's what made the biggest difference in actually being able to hold more power during the race itself. What corners were you cutting and what do you mean by true long ride, long run? Just like not stopping for coffee seven times or like. Right. Writing in L.A., you get, let's say I have a four-hour long ride.

Well, if I go out and ride four hours, I'm peddling for like three hours and 20 minutes of that, maybe. Right. Because I'm climbing a lot, which is fine, but I'm not making up for the difference that it is to not pedal for 30 minutes as I descend. So it's like, no, you want, you know, it's like four hours on the trainer. basically, you know? So going out and doing all that. And then, yeah, I also do stop a lot. So then I add on even more time. And my rides and long rides, it will be often an hour and a half, two hours longer than my prescribed long ride, for example. And for long runs, I just literally wasn't doing them as long because I didn't want to. So that's not a corner. That's cheating.

That's just like stopping. We've talked about on the bike before using the concept of kilojoules. If you have a coach or if you've experienced that before. And that's a way to accommodate for what Nick's talking about if you live somewhere that's got a lot of stoplights or downhills or, you know, etc. Okay. Next one here is from A, from Italy, by the way. Hi, TTR. Do you think being a professional endurance athlete or maybe amateur age group slow athlete in next case?

I appreciate that. Has made you a mentally stronger human being and other aspects of your life. I've noticed that since I started doing triathlon, I feel like I can handle difficult situations at work or at home, for example, better. I say to myself, this is easy compared to a triathlon race. Am I just getting older and wiser? Does triathlon really play a part in that? Thank you for all you guys do in our wonderful sport.

I feel like my brain just immediately went to coming up in endurance sports, specifically growing up in endurance sports, specifically swimming. The epitome of delayed gratification being on common. comfortable, nobody caring that much, like intrinsic motivation. And I think, you know, maybe that can play a part later in life as well. Just you get better and better at, you know, realizing that you get past this little hump and it's worth something and you work through that long ride on your own instead of, I don't know, going to chat GPT or taking it.

There's like no shortcuts. And that probably reinforces some like positive neural pathways and stuff to overcoming hard things. For sure, yeah. I think sometimes if I'm super tired from training, it actually decreases my ability to deal with adversity in other arenas. Right. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Right. If you're just like extra grumpy or extra hungry or extra, you know, training is so hard that it can stretch your limits of like dealing with shit that comes up. But at the same time, my initial thought when I read this question was absolutely. It makes you a more rounded person. And I think training within like a reasonable amount makes you so much happier and confident and able to then face things that come up at work or come up in the family way better than if you were just miserable and like wish that you did more for yourself and like taking care of yourself first, then it allows you to be a better person. and in other scenarios. And like Eric said, growing up an endurance athlete

and doing competitive sport through university and being forced to be this really diligently scheduled person, I think played a role in just me having success at school and in sport. So it is really important, I think, especially for kids to get into something like this that pushes them every day in a different way than just what they do at school. Yeah, being a successful person in general will always require you to do a lot of things that you don't want to do all the time. And triathlon training has plenty of that to practice on.

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Or sure. Even the race itself you might not want to do. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I woke up at 350 and the first thing I said to Eric was, I do not want to do this. Why am I doing this?

I mean, I think a lot of us have those thoughts when we make up better. Oh, for sure. Pretty much every time. Pretty much every time. But I do feel like I'm tapping near the end of my ability to be like, okay, we're just doing it. Like, how many more years can I do this for? Anyway, that's a different topic. That was actually one of the things when I was reading this question, I thought about the specific example of when I have to wake up really early in the morning and I don't have to race.

It's for another reason. I'm now after doing triathlon, I'm like, I got this. But before it was like, oh, why? Now I'm like, oh, I don't have to swim now. I'm good. I'll be fine today. Yeah. Yeah.

When you put everything in comparison to, like, when I went to get my mammogram and she's like, does it hurt? And I had just done a lab test on the bike. I'm like, hell no, this doesn't hurt. So yeah, it changes your perspective of what hard is or what physical pain is, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Okay, that's great.

Last one here is from Gabby. Hi, Eric, Paul, Nick, and Flynn. I recently competed in a sprint triathlon where the water was too warm for wetsuits. Since I had never practiced open water swimming without a wetsuit before, I was a little nervous about how the swim would feel. However, I have comfortably swam the half-mile distance both in the pool and open water with a wetsuit. For context, I'm an adult onset swimmer and I've done a handful of open water swims beforehand.

A couple hundred yards into the race, I started to panic in the water, which had never happened to me before. Not 100% sure what caused this, but I'm thinking a combination of trying to cite the buoys with sinking legs, getting touched and hit by other swimmers, and high heart rate before the race. I managed to get a handle on the feeling after a couple of minutes by breaststroking, taking deep breaths, and remembering my training. Remember your training. But I'm nervous this feeling may happen again in future races. Any advice for how to manage the panic feeling in open water when so many of the variables such as swimming with so many other people without my usual crew are hard to simulate in training.

Additionally, any input advice on open water swimming versus without a wetsuit. I definitely underestimated how helpful the wetsuit is when trying to sit in open water. Thanks for all you do for triathlon. Gabby. Yeah, this is scary to be panicking when you are in the water for sure, especially without a wetsuit that's not this like basically buoyancy cork that is attached to you. Yeah. Yeah, it's really rare actually for age group athletes to have a non-wetsuit swim.

Yeah. Rarely see that. Roth this year was a non-wetsuit. Yeah, I feel like they'll do anything they can to find a little patch of water in the lake that's cold enough to necessitate wet suits. Yeah. You know, I think obviously, mental issues can be what they are and they're hard to get around but if it is possible i think

practicing this is as much as you can with friends you can even do it in the pool and just we're all going to like swim a 50 kind of fast uh like side by side by side in a lane and get bounced around and try i don't want to say get comfortable but get used to that feeling of maybe you got some water in your mouth and you missed a breath and it turned out okay and normalizing that hecticness a little bit. It might help. Yeah. I don't know what it's like at the start of an age group race, but I would imagine there's some areas of water that are cleaner, even if you're swimming a little more, like maybe get out of the really messy, busy part. And the sighting part is tricky, but I think what you have to

remember is like if you're kicking your legs, they're not going to sink. So in a non-wetsuit swim, kicking becomes slightly more important in order to keep a good body position. And it's the reason that weaker swimmers actually benefit enormously from wet suit swims in the pro races because you float. So you're just like everyone's naturally in a good body position without even trying. So that too in the water like maybe working on your kick a little bit in the pool so that you can take that and implement it in your stroke when you're doing the sighting might help. But what you did and doing some breaststroke and taking some deep breaths is 100% what I'd recommend that you do. Yeah. You did the right thing.

It's so funny. I have a list of things that I researched that you're supposed to do with this. And you guys hit all of them, basically. It's all of it. It's like, Eric was like, first of all, practice without a wetsuit. You know, simulate those things, like swim side by side with people. And basically, it's all about habituating yourself to this thing. You miss a breath.

You've got some water in your lungs. And you were okay. Like, and your brain like learns this pattern. Just like you said, the only thing that that was added here is, like, adding some, like, panic drills, in quotes. So, like, close your eyes while swimming, you know, like, open water by yourself or, like, breathe every five strokes and, like, try to do something that might, like, simulate panic and then keep swimming through it and know that you're okay. Force yourself to have a panic attack. Yeah. Talk about things that you don't want to do.

Alternate 25s of not breathing. and not looking. And also let the lifeguard know before you start doing this. Yeah, that's right. Give them a safe word. But yeah, and then finally, Paula, like you said, the breaststroke or like backstroke and like slowing down and just focusing on your breathing, that's what to do when you're panicking in the water, for sure. Yeah.

Like you're obviously not as floaty without a wet-sew, but if you do roll on your back and kind of just like skull and kick, you will float. Yeah. You're not going to drop like a rock to the bottom of those. the lake. So it's a scary feeling, but you can calm yourself down. And I will say that the more races you do, the easier it gets. She's right. It's hard to practice this in any real life scenario. Unless you get a hundred of your best friends to go to the lake with you. Those are some good friends. But if you just do a little bit more racing, it becomes more normalized. And what was interesting

in Boisey is all of the buoys had blinking lights on them. which I'd never seen before but it really did help with the signing and not that I did a good job of signing because it was so choppy but hopefully that shows up more at races because I did like that.

Battery powered buoys. No, it's probably just like a bike light attached to the buoys. Oh, okay. Damn, I'm so dumb. I think they do this. Not like the whole buoy was flashing. I feel like they do this in the X try like the Norseman type things

because they start so early in the morning. Oh, right. I think I've heard about that. It's pretty cool. Wow. Yeah. Also, another last thing. If you get a swim skin, those things are kind of floaty, aren't they, Eric?

I mean, a teeny bit more than... They at least have less drag. Yeah. Which the feeling of like your pockets filling up with water or just like having drag can definitely impact your body position. And add to the panicness. Yeah. So maybe if you didn't have a swim skin, that's something to consider.

God, this has never happened to me but I feel like having a panic attack in the water is probably such a scary thing. I don't even think I've had a panic attack on land before. I had a borderline panic attack in Hamburg, WT, C, S. Wait, you had it in the water, Eric? Yeah.

Really? In IT races, yeah. Yeah, like, so scary. Tried to get a breath like five times in a row got smashed and slammed around a booing. Like, I might actually suffocate. Yeah, ITU racing is a whole other level of this because if you get dunked, you can't come up for air because there's so many bodies above you. And they're all just savagely trying to get around the buoy.

And you're at maximum sprint effort. So it's not like you have any oxygen despair. I'm getting panic attack. He's just thinking about ITU racing. I don't miss that. Man, that is so, yeah, that's not. And it's also like, you're not an age group or you can't just like, oh, let me stop and regroup. You know, you can't.

Absolutely not. You're like, no, the race is in front of me. I got to keep going. Yeah, this is my life. Breastrook isn't on an option. Well, good luck. Breastrook is not an option. Guys, the internet connection, it hung on by a thread, but it hung on.

We made it happen. Yeah, we're basically like talking through cups right now with a string attached all the way to Italy. That's our technology level, but we made it work. We made it work. We made it work. Yeah. Paul, congratulations. on another. This is one of your best

ever seasons, am I wrong? Just on paper? No, I don't know. In terms of number of wins. Yeah. No, my best ever season is 2020. Don't race at all, win the biggest race of the year. Years over. That's my best year of racing ever.

No, it's been good. I mean, winning 3, 70.3s in a season and it's only July. That's really great. I think I've won three before, but I like tacked on a couple at the end of the year. Like Cabo and Indian Wells. Right. Right.

So anyway, no, it's been really good. I've been healthy. I've been liking my new training. And I do, as much as when I woke up, I didn't want to race, I do really enjoy going to Iron Man events. So, yeah, it's a great success. Great. Great. Well, next week, I will be talking to you guys from Spain.

I'll be in Gerona. and we'll do the podcast from Gerona. All right. Hopefully they got a little bit better cell service there. Yeah. Yeah. Please come on Spaniards. Hook it up.

And if you haven't done your Strava art yet to win the Zwift headphones, last reminder, that's due on Sunday. There were some good ones. There's still a place for winning. Yeah, we did not do a podcast support giveaway this week because we were just giving everybody a little bit extra time to get those Strava art submissions in. But we did ship out the first pair to our winners. I saw that week.

So they should be on their way now. All right. Cool. Thanks, guys. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week.