That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula races Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells triathlon, race shoes, clipless vs flat pedals and more!

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

This week we started with Paula's riveting recap from Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells,  and then we move onto your questions about swimming faster, running shoes,  breaststroke swimming in a race, and more! To support the podcast and submit your questions, head over http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon live podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. I'm actually taking off this week's podcast because you're going to be hearing a lot of Paula talking. Paula and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a very good friend, amateur triathlet, but a very accomplished professional musician. And this weekend, Paula just raced a 70.3. I did not. So you're going to get a long, awesome, in-depth racer cat from her. before we do any of that, this was the last race of your season. How do you feel like the season went as a whole compared to maybe how you thought it would go and maybe even like halfway through the season, how you felt it was going versus now? And how do you see it like setting up your next year? Yeah, this was my last race of the season. Eric decided not to race, but I think ultimately that was best for all of us. He was able to support me really well.

He didn't feel super fit and ready for it. So it kind of worked out well that Nick and Eric were there watching me race. And I needed all the support I could get. It was a really, really tough race. Overall, I feel like I don't really think at the beginning of the year about how I expect my season will go because I know that it's all dependent on if I'm healthy or not. And if I cannot get injured and have to take significant time off running, this is the kind of season I expect out of myself. So that's what happened. I didn't get injured. I was very consistent with my racing. And yeah, it looks like really good on paper. I'm really proud of it. It's not easy to string that many races together that are all pretty good. And so yeah, I'm proud of that. And I think that is a huge testament to like just being healthy, really and happy and staying not just injury healthy, but Eric and I never got sick a single time this year, which was huge. Didn't get COVID, didn't get the flu or anything.

Do you feel like not getting injured, not getting sick? Is there something that you look back that you could attribute it to that you could even impart on the listeners? Or do you feel like it was like a lot of luck was involved? And then of course you did your homework and you did all the training. Yeah, it's not really luck. It's having a smart coach that I listen to. It's having access to soft surfaces to run on, which we've set up for ourselves in Bend really well, having a treadmill that we love. not overdoing it.

Like I did have a lot of weeks strung together that were like 70K of running, but that's the highest I did this whole year. So it's not a huge volume relative to maybe some other athletes. But for me, it was the top of what I could probably tolerate before getting hurt. So, yeah, just kind of balancing everything well, I guess a bit of luck, but just being smart, getting a massage once a week. Yeah. Eric, what about you, since we're just on the subject?

Is there anything that you feel like, is there anything that you feel like you learned? this year about you as an athlete or about how to maximize anything? I guess like Paul and I were actually talking about this as we walked along the beach here and I was reminiscing back on when I came and raced L.A. Try. Stay at your place, rode my bike to the start, just like really loved the whole experience. I think back on it pretty fondly. I think for me, like the big takeaway of the season is like really just doing races that I like feel an emotional connection to.

So a race that like I'm excited about a certain component of the competition or the course or the city where it's at. And I feel like that makes my training better going into it. That makes my racing better versus a race where I'm like, oh, this is a big race and I should go there because everyone's going to be there. Like that's not it versus Alcatraz. Like it's just so poetic in my mind or, you know, there's things like this. And I'm like a pretty, I'm kind of like an artistic emotional kind of guy.

like ramp up myself up for things like in this yeah kind of like yeah storytelling type of mode and maybe that kind of goes well into this next part here which is the last time that you guys did Indian Wells Paul you won it Eric you got second right that was last time in 2019 I also did that race and I saw you guys on course but we didn't know we didn't know each other yet though yeah so funny that was only three years ago and we made a vlog about it back then and it was kind of fun to go re-watch that vlog and see how we've changed as athletes and how just our lives have changed overall. And the highlight of the weekend for me, again, was just how many people came up to us, said, hi, I wanted a picture, shouted to me on course. And not just on the

bike, on the run course, on the bike course, people were yelling my name. Like, you're going super high speeds on the bike. And the age groupers all coming the opposite direction on one of the out and backs were like hollering my name. It was really, really cool. And it's just like shows how this community's grown really well over the last couple years and it's fun for us. So a huge thank you to everyone that was there and did come say hi to us. I know sometimes people get hesitant to ask us for a photo or something because they'll be like, oh, I don't want to waste your time, but can I get a selfie? And we're like, of course.

Like we, that's what we love doing at races. So it's never, ever a bother for us. Yeah, yeah. I also made a comment about that while we're walking after the race. Just like, it's a really, it's so cool how triathlon in this particular community, like operates because let's say you're a fan of lebron james you can't ever talk to him you can't get close to him he's got a bodyguard or let's say you're a fan of but you can go watch a game like let's say you're a fan of just somebody who's exclusively on youtube but they don't do a sport or something

you're never going to run into them like there is a there are like eight or nine chances a year that you might run into us at an event and it's like that is just so cool to feel like it crosses over from just the internet and this is not to say we think we're lebron james but we do realize there's people. I would love to see LeBron James on a triathlon course, though. Called out. Yeah, it's just really cool how unique triathlon is with like the pro amateur interaction. Yeah, like I was putting my wetsuit on yesterday and in the middle of a field with like thousands of age groupers.

And they like half of them were staring at me like I was doing something special. I'm like, I'm doing the same thing as you. Like, you know, I'm not doing anything different. I do think an Iron Man definitely knows this when they put on these races. is like they know that for age groupers, it's valuable for us to see that the pros are just doing the same race we are. And for the most part, they have to deal with the same rules that we have to deal with. It makes us feel like, I don't know if it makes us feel more connected to the pros, but it does make us feel more excited about the sport. Yeah, that's cool.

Well, I'll do my race recap because we do have a couple questions to get to as well to keep this kind of on our normal format. But we do like to veer a little bit into the race recap direction after one of us. or all of us have raced on a weekend. And as much as I don't love diving deep into a race, I've had probably 10 people over the weekend be like, we can't write for the podcast recap. Like, please go into detail. We love it.

So if you don't want to hear the race recap, please skip to... Every number one through nine, and then I'll just like, twine, three minutes. Three, four, skip to that minute. Yeah. That's great. I love that. That's great.

Okay, so here we go. My initial thought was doing this race was that post-world championships, I was on a high, you know, you finish a good race, you're like, that was amazing, I just want to race, I love racing, that was so fun. So I thought, okay, I'll go do Indian Wells because I could drive there with Eric. Hopefully it won't be as, well, it definitely wasn't as competitive of a field as every other race I've done this year. It's a course I'm familiar with. So I thought I could dial back my training a lot and still have a good shot of winning. So that's kind of what my motivation was going into it. Race morning, I ended up waking up not feeling very excited. Just the thought of doing a full 70.3 hard was kind of sound. It made me sick to my stomach. I was like, I don't feel like doing this at all. The fact that Eric wasn't doing it, I was just jealous of him a little bit. And everyone has these feelings on race mornings, but they were like particularly pronounced for me on a December 4th race at the end of a really long. season knowing. Can I just jump in really quick and say, yeah, you jump in any time.

This is exactly how I felt at 70.3 worlds. Like I had three weeks, four weeks earlier, had a really good race in Santa Cruz, just felt like this great emotional, like that went great. And then trying to make it all the way to 70.3 worlds, I had this sort of same feeling in the last couple days. It's not uncommon, I guess, near the end of the season, especially if you've had to have good races. Yeah, it's definitely not uncommon. I was just going to say that I think this is valuable insight for age groupers to hear this because we obviously know that we're not the same as you. And to know, though, that you do have these feelings because I definitely think I definitely have these feelings in race morning. It's just like, what am I doing?

Like, this is going to be five hours of just suffering and like, oh, the pros, like, I'll never be fast. Because all the fast people, they wake up and they're like, ready to race. But probably not. I mean, sometimes it's even easier for the pros. because at least for me, I know like, okay, this is my job. Like, not everyone loves their job all the time. I have to do this. I'll make money doing this. It's important for a lot of things in my life. But people that are signing up for it voluntarily to race purely for fun, I guess. I don't know. Or for like self-satisfaction, training towards a goal. There's a bunch of different reasons. But I feel like it might be even harder to motivate yourself at the end of a season like this. But again, for a lot of people, like Indian Wells may have been their first race of the year and their only race. of the year. So a huge spectrum of like situations here. But another looming factor for this race was the water. It was five, six Fahrenheit, like very, very cold. And it's kind of hard to know, like, how do you warm up your body for that? And it was different than St. George, where the water was

actually warm, but the air temperature was cold. I decided not to get in until the men started at seven o'clock. So I had two minutes to kind of stand there, get used to it, splash my face with water to avoid the shock factor, but not go in to warm up and come back out and stand there to get cold. Like that would have been worse, I think. At least I was warm up until the start of the race. I started next to Jeannie Metzler, who I knew was a good swimmer. And the whole race in the back of my mind, I was like, Tamara Jewett's here. She can run really fast, potentially five or six minutes faster than me. So I need to get, like, to be comfortable eight to ten minutes on her on the swim and the bike. and that's possible. It's what I've done in most races this year. So I knew I could do that, but it wouldn't be easy. So I swam pretty hard, biked really hard. Actually, when I came out of

the swim, I had been sitting on Jeannie's Feed, and I knew that was a good spot to be, had a good transition, got to my helmet to put it on, and the clip fell off. Like, it slipped out of the straps onto the ground. And as I was running through transition, I see Lionel right ahead of me. He had started two minutes ahead of me, but I was like, wow, this is amazing. Maybe I can, like, ride with Lionel for 30 seconds. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Things I also think to myself. Like, if I have a fast transition, I can get on my bike before Lionel. And then this stupid helmet strap thing happened, and he was gone. But I, you can't ride your helmet, wear your helmet without a strap clipped, not just for, like, potentially getting disqualified, but also just for

your own safety when you're riding 40 plus kilometers an hour down the road. So I took probably like 45 seconds to like pick up the clip, rethread it through those things and excruciating a long time in your brain when you just like put time on people in the water. Ooh, that could have made a difference too. I'm super. I'm super. Wow. Yeah, that's a good point.

I'm super impressed and glad you were able to get it back on because that's not a guarantee. Sometimes you thread it through there and it just comes right back out. I couldn't believe it's safe. I couldn't believe it stayed. I was like, I was almost having like nightmares about it last night after the race was already over. Like, what if that hadn't worked? Like, I couldn't tie it. The straps are too short to tie it.

I would have been totally screwed. Yeah. And I don't think I would have been comfortable just getting on my bike without it clipped up. You know, like I said, for safety reasons. So lucky that actually worked. I was kind of flustered. So had a terrible mount on my bike. Got my shoes in eventually.

But I was pretty cold. Like the air temperature was nine. Celsius, so I was shivering, trying to warm my hands up. But Indian Wells is in the desert, so it is cold in the mornings and then rapidly heats up as the sun comes up. So my decision to not put any clothes on was based around the fact that I knew it was going to warm up pretty quickly as the ride went on. And having a jacket on or a base layer or gloves, you might regret that later. But the first hour of the bike, I was so, so cold to the point where I was like riding Olympic distance watts. Like I'd look down and see

280 sometimes just to stay warm and not really feeling like it was that hard, but just like thinking about how cold I was, but knew I was probably burning matches for later on in the race. But my strategy for the start of the bike is there's an out and back at about 20 kilometers

and I wanted to ride as hard as I could to 20K so that everyone who saw me coming back, the gap was as big as possible and just kind of like this out of sight, out of mind mentality. You wanted to break their hearts and their spirits. But I was, because of my helmet fiasco, I wasn't like that far ahead of the people that I wanted to be ahead of. I was like maybe three minutes ahead of Tamara and Jeannie.

So I kept riding really hard. That bike course is a little boring, a little bit flat, but my strength this year has been just like putting my head down and time trialling hard. And those were my favorite parts of the race is when you could just like not have a corner coming up, go straight, hardly even need to look up and just like go as hard as you could. I was wondering, would you prefer, like, do you prefer riding at the front by yourself, or would you prefer to be, even if you have someone behind you, riding with you, that isn't necessarily a threat on the run? Just to have someone with you? Yeah. Well, that, interestingly, that is where some of the slower pro men came into play. Because a lot of them, we passed, GNA and I passed probably like 10 pro men in the water. And then those pro men slowly started chipping by me. And they were, riding faster than me, so I never worked with them or sat on that. Like, I try to keep the men and women's race as separate as possible, since that's the only fair thing to do. But it kept me engaged, you know, if someone's coming by you, you're focused on that and focused on dropping back.

And I did catch a few pro men and have to go around them. And it's really tricky because a lot of the pro men, I'm like kind of similar speeds to. So sitting behind them is too easy. But when I come around them, they think it's too easy. So they're trying to repass me. And it's just this kind of like cat and mouse thing where I don't want to mess up their race, but I'm trying to win this race. I'm almost like, feel bad that I'm going past them because I knew it's going to make them ride not as hard as they want to, but it's too slow for me to go behind them. Anyway, that's a whole different thing. But it did help me keep mentally engaged with the whole race, having some men on course.

And then I remember seeing you at mile like 55, like, or 54 or something. Yeah, right there. And I was like, I know, I have this info how far ahead she is. She's six and a half minutes ahead. I can't wait to give her this information. Like I was there. I had my camera, but I'm like screaming at you. And I was like, six and a half minutes up. And I see you shake your head and no. I'm like, what could possibly be bad about being six and a half minutes up? Because I wanted 10. I wanted 10 minutes up. Well, yeah, let's not spoil the rest of the race, I guess. But yeah, so anyway, keep going. Yeah, I was, I, there's like three or two out and backs on the course where you can take splits. And I'd put a lot of time on. them by the second out and back it was about five minutes i think um and i just get that by like lapping at the turnaround and then seeing what the distance that time is to when i see them and doubling that so it's a pretty accurate way to tell but i had five minutes and i was like oh i need to keep pushing really hard they're riding together so it was like jeanie tamra and lisa perterer oh wasn't didn't it daniel may have come came by them at one point but they had a little race going like

they had they had company they had clearly riding in pack dynamic and is faster than riding solo, mentally, physically everything. Saving yourself for the run. Yeah, like watts are just going to be lower. And I've seen that in every race I've done this year where I am in kind of a pack dynamic. My watts are a lot lower. But it was my only choice. I had to ride hard.

I put time in them. I was happy about that. But when I saw you at the last corner and it was six and a half minutes, I was just selfishly, not wanting to have to worry on the run. You know, I'm like, I came to this race as an end of season fun thing. I'm willing to bury myself on the bike, but what I don't like is having to like run scared or make it a foot race. I didn't have the mental capacity for that. I was like, I just want to tempo run this race and win.

So, I don't know, six and a half minutes was on the fence. I thought, like, what if she runs a 1.15? Which was possible. Right, right. Well, you came by me a mile into the run or something or three quarters of a mile. And I told you the split of seven minutes. Yeah. Because I think you had like $5.45 to Danielle Lewis, and we didn't think she was going to be a threat from there.

And then you had like 702 to Jeannie and Tamara. And I was like seven minutes. And he's like, that's not enough. Yeah. And I like called her texted you, Nick. And I was like, Tamara's going to have to run like 30 seconds a mile faster. Like what could possibly be the problem? And then for the first two miles, she ran 40 seconds a mile faster than you.

And we all just, I mean, it was stressful. It was not enjoyable. Yeah, that was stressful. Part of the difficulty for me was I started the run and I didn't feel good. I was like, oh gosh, this is going to be such a grind. You slammed the bike. The golf course is hilly. There's sandy patches.

You can't get into a rhythm. It's hard. And like, all I wanted to do is win. And I just like my body didn't feel good enough. And it was if it was literally any other athlete that I had put six minutes on, I wouldn't have to worry. But with Tamara, she's so fast on the run. And I knew that her motivation was high, like having someone ahead and having the split be six minutes. And her brain, that's an achievable gap to close.

So I knew she was going to be, like, gunning it. Also, extra backstory. You and Tamara used to race each other as youngsters in Canada and cross-country, right? Yeah. That's a pretty fun story. We're both Canadian. We're both the same age, like same year at university. She raced for the University of Toronto.

and I raced for the University of Alberta. So we raced cross-country against each other. And then even before that, when we were juniors, racing just for club cross-country and club track and field, we would run into each other at nationals. We both actually qualified for world junior cross-country championships on the same team in 2008. So we both raced in Scotland together on a Canadian national team.

Like, we go really far back, so it's cool that she's in the sport now. And I had no idea she could swim and bike, but I think she's, like, rapidly improved at those two things. But yeah, we used to race and like kind of go back and forth. Like sometimes she'd win, sometimes I win when we were like 18. But now she's just like in another level of running. So I don't know.

Maybe I have that in me somewhere. But anyway, back to the race. I had, I think, three minutes and 15 seconds on her after the first lap. So that means she'd eaten up four minutes on me. And I was like, oh, God, she's going to catch me. This is over. that's when we started having that realization too of like and it's funny even if you watch the broadcast the two presenters one of them was saying it's like oh this racist you know paula just needs to keep

consistent and she'll have this easily and then matt leado was like uh well if you look at the math here like actually that's not the case yeah because no one imagines no one imagines that seven minutes is not enough for someone at your level right it's like of course you're gonna keep that's the thing i wasn't even running that slow i was running like some of my splits were like 340 350 I wasn't running slow. I was running similar to 70.3 worlds. Yeah, and I was trying to be on course and somehow give you anything that would be encouraging

while also telling you that you're hemorrhaging time. And I was, in my mind, I'm going, like, she's running as fast as Sam Long, who is, like, currently winning the race. She has to blow up at some point in time. And I was trying to communicate that. Like, she's running so fast, you're still running really well.

It's not like you're having a bad day. Like, just keep going the same, speed and there's no way she has to slow down at some point. Yeah. She did, but not massively. Even her slowing down. Barely. Yeah, I don't know. But I did have so I felt like garbage and then I took a gel and then I took another gel and then I made my Morton

move. Boom! Martin move. And then I, no, truly I did take two Morton gels and then I kind of found another gear and in my mind when I'm close-ish to the finish line like 6K from the finish 5K from the finish I can like sniff the finish line so I can push myself harder I'm sure everyone's like this but when you're like

19k from the finish you're not like okay I'm gonna pick it up now because you know there's like an hour and whatever of racing left do you feel like the gels actually like do you think that was a kind of a was it a pivotal moment when you took the gels I'm not saying it was because they were morton branded I'm saying gels in general yeah yeah totally so I don't usually take, I definitely don't take two gels on the run, but this time I took two, maybe even, no, I just took two, but I took three on the bike, two on the run. Zero stomach discomfort. No stomach discomfort. And usually it's just a matter of like, oh, I can't be bothered to take a gel. I don't feel like it. It doesn't sound good. But this time I was like, I think I need it.

Panic gel. Yeah, panic gel. Like last resort, try everything you can, put some fuel in the tank, see if that'll look like in 10 minutes bring you a little bit of energy. So I think it did because I did get this, whether it was because of the gels or because it was the race was almost over and the gap was closing. And my competitive nature kicks in like halfway through the run. I'm like, okay, this is over. She's going to catch me. And then 5K to go, I'm like, well, maybe I could try to win. We just sold 10,000 Martin shells. Right there. No. I'm not sponsored by Morton. Just what's on course. Yeah. Do you think this experience will be more, add motivation to have two gels in the future.

Yeah, I mean, why not? Yeah. And the thing about the Morton gels is there this, like, jelly consistency where you don't taste them. So I find for the run, actually, they're kind of nice to take because they go down easy,

and you're not tasting like the sweet, sugary taste that you kind of are over by that point in the race. So not to plug another person that we're not sponsored by them. But they were good for that. I'll give them credit for that. So I got...

like 3K left to go. I got out of the golf course. And that's, at the point out of the golf course, there's like two miles left maybe, a little less than two miles. And I come out and this is the part where then now the curves and the sand and the hills are over so I can finally get into a rhythm

and start running well. And I looked down at my watch and I'm like 335s per K, 338s per K. Like, okay, I'm running fast. If she's going to close a minute on me in 2K, she'd have to run three minutes per K. So I thought, I think I can do this. I think I can maybe do this.

but still never confident. I knew I could maintain that speed, but who knows what she was doing back there. So, yeah, cross the line with, I think it was maybe a K to go. I knew I was safe because I had like 45 seconds on her at that point. And that's too big of a gap to close in a minute, usually, unless she ran like a 230 or something.

So yeah, finish first. Just overwhelming relief to cross the finish line. never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Indian Wells 70.3 would be like the deepest I'd have to dig of the whole year but it was and I'm glad I did I think it would be would have been so much easier to just surrender come second do a tempo run run four minutes slower and my run's time was actually pretty good it was like 220 flat so I've never run like a super ripping fast half marathon off the bike because I always override. But that was actually pretty good. And I was happy with that. And obviously, Tamara's run time was insane. She ran a 114, six minutes faster than me. And I rode seven

minutes faster than her. So kind of equalized. If I didn't have that helmet slip up, maybe it would have been a little more relaxed. But whatever, that's just she ran 30 seconds slower than Sam Long, who won the men's race. And Matt Lieto on the broadcast was saying that to his memory, and we don't know this for sure, but to his memory, like, the only person that's run this 70.3 and raced well, faster than that?

He's Hanhawk. Even close as An Hogg. And the two results he named were actually slower than what Tamara ran. So it might be the fastest ever, 70.3 pro runs. I think she herself has run a 113. In a race? Yeah, in a race.

Oh, wow. Okay. But from what position, though? I don't know. It's just triathlon is so interesting. She's improving on her swim and our bike a lot. But if you have to ride 30 watts higher to ride faster, you're going to run slower. So there's just like this give and take and triathlon inherently. And like if I rode 30 watts slower, I might have been able to run not six minutes faster.

But it's like this balancing act. And the way that she races is super terrifying for anyone that's ahead of her because that is a huge amount of time to close down on a run. and her ability to do that is like you're never really safe unless you literally have 10 minutes. So yeah. Also the dynamic of this race was like I didn't have a Lucy Charles or a Daniela or a Flora to ride with to make it easier on me to ride that fast and that hard. So just a different race than a world championship quality of field. But either way, it's nice to have experiences with like both ends of the spectrum and be able to perform well each way. And yeah, huge congrats to both Tamara. And then Danielle Lewis actually had a really good race too.

She came third coming off of Iron Man, Arizona. And just, yeah, both of those two are just improving year after year. So it's pretty cool. I think I speak for Eric and me when I say, I never want to go through that again. You either got a win by five minutes or get second by five minutes. I can't take that. That was so stressful. Well, I call my dad after the race, and he's like, I don't think I've heard your mom say,

as many times as she did in the past. two hours of that race. Like, my mom's a bit like me. She, like, stress swears. Like, this is horrible. F*** she's gaining on her. Yeah, she called me when you had, I don't know, like 8K left to go or something.

And she did not, I mean, she was not trying to hide her emotion or mood at all. She looked intense. Oh, my God. Well, I just, like, my mom's sometimes. Tell her to go. Tell her to go faster. She can't lose.

Like, I just, I don't think she's not. I think she's trying pretty hard. I have a good mom. She just has a, she swears sometimes, but. Oh, she's great. And she's super competitive, but like incredibly supportive, but also as competitive as you are. Yeah. That's why she sometimes can't even watch the races.

I couldn't even believe they were watching the live feed because sometimes they just tune out. Your dad said he just, like, stopped on the side of the ski hill for two hours or something to watch it. Well, it did make. It was an exciting race, I suppose. Oh, yeah, yeah, I think if you weren't, if you weren't, if you weren't, as attached to you. If you're just a fan of the sport, it was an amazing race to watch.

It was too much for me. It was like so stressful. Well, also, so a highlight after the race was being able to walk like 200 feet. I'm speaking in feet for some weird reason because they kept describing the sand patches length in the golf course in feet. And I'm like, what the hell is 500 feet of sand?

We just make up things. A foot? Like a human foot? Is that what we're measuring? Who's human foot? 12 inches, obviously. I was like, wow, 500 feet is long when you're literally running on sand. But 200 feet from the finish line was the van parked, and we turned on the hot water.

I had a shower in my bathing suit, of course, out the back of the van after the race. It was the best feeling experience. I went from like the worst feeling experience on the racecourse to the best feeling experience in recent memory. And it was so nice. And as I was showering, I'm like, now I'm like, now I'm. I get why these fans are so expensive. I mean, this is a peak life experience. Being able to shower in hot water, literally wherever you are.

So, shout out to Mercedes-Benz for that feature, storyteller. Nice. Yeah. But, yeah, Eric, do you want to, like, just real quick, talk about how you felt during the race and watching her and not being racing? Yeah, I mean, I'm very happy with my decision not to race, first and foremost. I had a lot of people ask me that, and they're like, why aren't you racing? For sure. Why not? And just completely confused. And I mean, if you go watch Lionel's video, if you watch Sam's video, if you watch some of these guys there, I think we were all kind of on the same page of, oh, man, I don't know. I'm pretty tired. I don't know if I want to do this, but it's there. I mean, I don't have anything else going on. But I just, that's like not, like I said earlier at the beginning of the podcast, that's like not the way that I know that I'm going to have a good race. And it's going to put me in a bad mood. And not, you know, that's going to be in the back of your head the next time.

do want to race. So I'm very happy to support Paula. I think it was definitely, it was hard to watch, but I think I was pretty focused on trying to get her the most useful information as much as possible. Flynn and I were driving all over the course, trying to get a little video in the meantime. So I was like very engaged and felt like I was doing a job, not just sitting there helpless. You looked like it. Yeah. I was like, I got a job to do. I got to make sure she knows what's going on and calm her down or whatever. So, you know, for next season, I think we'll probably do this a little bit more often. I obviously seem to race pretty well when I go and do my own thing

and feel kind of self-sufficient and can get all emotional about it. And Paula seems to do pretty well when I can be there and fix her bike if it breaks and time or give splits or whatever. And luckily we both perform well at different types of races. I love things that are more technical and as many turns and hills and potential opportunities for death as possible. Paula likes flat drag races and the opposite of that. So next year I think that'll be fun.

And we did learn some stuff. And I'm looking forward to that. Nice. Well, are we cool with moving on to questions? Yeah, I just want to say real quick, a big, well, I already thanked all the TTL people who came to say hi. But thank you to Nick and his parents who drove out to watch us. Thank you to Jamie, our swim partner and Ben, or swim buddy and bent. He was there.

Kathy Hall was there. There were like a lot of fun people at the finish line who I didn't even really know we're coming to the race. So that was really cool. Judy, our friend Danny, who does our website, his mom, we stayed at her place the night before the race. She came. She watched from the bike course.

She walked from the bike course. So yeah, just an overall feeling of gratitude for the whole season. And I feel like we could do a whole podcast kind of going over the season in the year and what's been good and what's been bad. And we won't do that right now. But I think it would be cool to do kind of like a 20-22 wrap. and yeah, talk a little bit about next year. Like Spotify raps, but TTL wrapped.

Kind of, kind of. And to bring up Spotify as well, the number of people that tagged us in their, like, top Spotify podcast listens was completely. I screenshot at the ones that I was tagging, and it was like 35 different people. It was a point where I'm like, okay, we can't like repost these because that's an awful.

Yeah, the first company was like, oh, this is amazing. I'm going to screenshot this and save this, and then it's like, bl bl bl blub, bloop. Yeah, yeah. So thanks to you guys for, listening. Oh my gosh. We have some good questions and a lot of the ones that filtered in actually today and yesterday were a little bit related to the race. So we're going to focus on those ones just to keep this overall themed of Indian Wells and they're not race specific questions, but they do

like, you know, allude back to it. They tie into it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So first of all, you can submit your questions and support the podcast at thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. We're super thankful of our supporters. We're cooking up new cool little perks for you guys all the time. We're always trying to think of what would make this even more valuable. But thank you for everyone who's already a subscriber. Really makes this whole thing like work. First question from George. Amazing performance at Indian Wells, Paula.

Super stoked for you guys. Give us your views on the on shoes. What were they and how are they versus the vapor flies, which are the Nike super shoes, the alpha flies also Nike super shoes, and the meta speeds, which are the A6 super shoes. So I think it's obvious if you pay attention to shoes that I've been running in Ons lately, and not an official partner potentially could be next year, but I won't share any info about that yet. But I was sent a pair of their Cloud Boom at Echo 3s, which are their newest model of race shoe. I don't think it's available yet.

Oh, I know it's not available yet. It's a prototype shoe. It's also not what Gustav raised gone in. Yes, that's a good. Yeah, it's a different shoe than what Gustav wore. That was like special Gustav. super stack height shoe which is now

officially illegal right I think well I don't know I don't want to get into it I don't want to get into that it could be illegal or in stores tomorrow who's to say so I was sent these shoes with no strings attached like see if I like them

and I've been training in them for like some brick runs and some tempo runs for the last month and really really liking them so I thought it would be cool to try them in a lower stakes race like this one, which the run ended up absolutely being critical, but I didn't obviously predict that being the case. But either way, they were super comfortable. They are a little bit narrower than the Nike, but I feel like they're a little more stable on my ankle that is very fussy. The ankle issue seems to flare up a little bit more when I'm in

the Alpha Fly or something that's a little bit more unstable. Although the Nikes are very fast shoes, and I've worn in the A6 a little bit this year too. So I'm kind of just trying to, a little bit of everything. And on this particular course, there were a lot of corners, ups and downs, hills on the golf course that were just not normal terrain. So having the on-shoe was, I found a lot more stable through corners and stuff like that. It just felt like I had a little bit more control, like the right tires. You know, it's like picking the right tires. You have more control on the corners. You're not slipping. You're not rolling your ankles. It's just stable. Yeah. Matt McElroy, who is super fast running around in college and ITU guy,

said right after the race, like the first thing he said to me, oh, dude, the vaporflies were the wrong call. I don't know if it was vaporfly or alpha fly, but he just felt like he was going to roll his ankle over and over and over again on that golf course. Yeah. I think On is a super cool company. They're clearly very progressive and they're like caring about athlete performance, signing on really big names who put trust in them to like create the shoes that are going to be the fastest shoes on Earth. So it's cool to have had the opportunity to try those out and hopefully I'll wear I'm next year a bit. And yeah, we'll see where it goes. But long story short, amazing shoes. Awesome. Yeah. Cool. Next question is from Chris. She said,

Hi, Al, huge fan of the vlog and pod just received my TTL travel mug and I'm a huge fan, especially someone who spills often. Thanks for everything you do. It's all really motivating out there. So Chris is a super amateur triathlet. She's just done a few sprints. She had a severe shoulder issue that makes freestyle swimming painful and it seems like even after PT it's not really possible. So she's wondering if she could do breaststroke for the swim in a race. She said she doesn't care at all about positions in races just finishing and says, I'm guessing maybe breaststroke is fine as in complete under the cutoff time for sprints and Olympic distance, but maybe not for a half or full.

What do you guys think about this? Kind of depends how faster brush stroke is, I guess. But we always joke. I think you won the lottery in terms of injuries. We're always like, how come we never get swim injured? Right, right, right. We get run injured and you can't go running. You can't, like your bike, your hip hurts.

Like, wouldn't it be nice to just have a thing? I can't swim today. That's too bad. Yeah. But no, I feel like, unless your breast stroke is just terrible, you should be able to make a cutoff, I think. Yeah, if your only goal is making the cutoff breaststroke is okay. I think breaststroke is an insanely slow stroke, like twice as slow as freestyle.

Also a lot more muscularly taxing, like you're using, weird muscles in your legs that you might not be used to. Like I'd say if your plan is to swim breaststroke in a race, you should definitely be training some breaststroke. So you're not like pulling your groin as you breaststroke for three miles or whatever it is. Could we do a side stroke? That's what Paul and I were talking about when we were talking about this question. They teach you sometimes like if it has like a recovery stroke.

A side stroke is a better thing because you can breathe all the time. You don't have to worry about that. And for sure, like you say, Chris says that breaststroke doesn't aggravate her shoulder, but it's hard for me to imagine that she can't swim freestyle, but you can just straight up swim breaststroke all the time. So I feel like doing something that has a side stroke where maybe one arm is just extended, but you're not using it to pull water.

Yeah. Could be a nice compromise there. Yeah, depending on which side you do. Yeah. When I read this question at first, I kind of giggled, and I was like imagining a person just like bobbing up and down doing breaststroke for a half and how miserable that would be. But if it's literally our only option,

the swim is the shortest relative part of this whole race. it's just like a necessary evil to get to the fun part. We all feel like that. So if your only way through it is breaststroke, just do it. Don't kick anyone and then enjoy the rest of the race. I would prepare for your adlectors to be. Oh, that's going to feel rough. This is a random anecdote, but I don't know if this is a cultural thing or what,

but in China, if you go to like a pool where there's lap swim happening, 100% everybody's swimming breaststroke. Nobody's swimming freestyle. And then when we went and did the Beijing International Traathlon, and they have a sprint distance the day before, and I went down to, like, do a little warm-up in the water. Everybody swam breaststroke. In the race.

In the race. Even like the age groupers. There was like maybe, you know, one out of every seven people was not doing breaststroke. Why is that a weird anecdote? That is extremely relevant. Well, I mean, it is relevant, but it's a weird story. Yeah. It's funny just because you wouldn't guess.

In a sport where we're like trying to pick like every lowest hanging fruit to go as fast as possible, you'd think swimming the fastest stroke, widely available data, you would do that. Or you just trying to. a little date. You're just trying, maybe you're just trying to get to the finish, man.

You're in the 100-mile trail-run mindset. You guys don't see this, but I see a droopers all the time swimming breaststroke. With my thought being, this person is more comfortable with breaststroke,

they just want to get to the end. They want to do their thing. Totally fine. The other thing is like, I mean, if you get into like Michael Phelps level of swimming, breaststroke is an extremely

technical sport, but for like the average Joe, it is probably the most comfortable stroke to do poorly. Yes. If you're not a good swimmer, you can still do the breaststroke. You're not going to be fast at it.

You're not going to be like doing it necessarily well. Your head's like fully and controllably out of the water. Yeah. It just crushes my spirit when I have to do it like once a swim session. And I look at the ropes, what do they call the swim ropes? Swim lines. Lane lines. Lane lines.

And it's like between strokes, I almost come to a complete stop. Yeah. It's just like, oh, what am I doing? Well, it's such a backwards stroke. It's like you're pulling water and going up, which is kind of like moving backwards. before you project yourself forward. So I was a breaststrokeer and swimming.

That was what I was best at. And I think a lot of that is like, if your legs are strong, you tend to be good at breaststrokes. And that's like, I guess, maybe what I don't know. I wasn't good at freestroar or anything else about brush stroke.

Chris, I hope you have strong legs. Or if not, we would love to hear if you actually try this for a 70.3 or a full how it went. So make sure you email us back when you do that. Next question here is from Chris.

This one's about swimming again. Okay, great. Let's do a different one. Sorry, I didn't organize them this time. I just pasted them in. That's not, yeah, let's skip that one. Next question is from Scott. That's not a good one either.

Okay, great. Next question. Fuck you, Scott. That's right. Next question is from Sam. Podcast question. First off, congrats, Paula, and your win at Indian Wells. I was cheering you on whilst getting ready for work.

My question is about swim to bike transitions in the first 15 minutes on the bike. This is really interesting because I wonder if we're split on this. but I really struggle with putting a proper level of power out in the first part of a bike leg in any distance. I'm mostly a 70.3 in full distance competitor, but I had to go to an Olympic for the first time in the weekend. My average power for the whole bike leg was 268. Wow, that's real high. The first lap, two lap course, I averaged 2-11. What? And so what did you average for the second lap?

Jeez. Three, like 20 or something. Yeah. Okay. And I biked around 300 watt mark for the second lap. Yeah, that's wild. Also, my heart rate getting onto the bike was only 163 and as max is 197. So I wasn't cooked.

Anything I can do to make sure I can push early on the bike, or does it just suck? So are you guys, do you feel like you're more likely, if you're going by rate of perceived exertion, RPE? Do you feel like you're more likely to over bike in the beginning or under bike? Always overbike. Yeah, I don't know. This is kind of opposite of what I experienced. What about you are? Do you have to warm into it and get up to your power?

Or do you feel like, oh, this is too high? I need to ratchet it back, even though I feel okay. No, I think I'm more struggle to, like, get my legs pushing at the power that I need to. I think I do, perceived exertion-wise, like relative to Paula anyway, go a little harder in the swim, though. Oh, I see. Which I think that can impact that. Even if your heart rate isn't that high, just because you've, like, gone through transition, you've stood there for a few minutes. Like, getting, I don't know, that switch over.

is hard. Yeah, for me, I always, if I'm going off of RP, always overbike the first, like, three, four minutes. I'm like, whoa, 300 watts feels easy. Yeah, you got to raise, like, adrenaline, the excitement, you're not, you're not hot yet. Yeah, there's a bunch of factors. And so what do you think? Like, do you think he's just potentially swimming too hard? No, because his heart rate is not overly high, but I would say, um, well, I would say just force yourself to go harder. In the beginning of the bike. Yeah, I mean, with, the knowledge that then you can ride less hard in the second half. I mean, 211 has got

to feel easy if you're actually averaging 270 by the end of this race. I feel like you wouldn't be messaging. Yeah, one way to practice this, I guess, is to do brick workouts that are actually swim to bike. Oh boy. But you're really logistically difficult, maybe impossible. We used to

set up our trainers on the side of the on the side of the pool. If this is something your pool would let you do, and do a hard swim, like a 500 swim, and then get on the trainer and push hard watts for 20 minutes. Is this from your ITU days? It is from the ITU days, but in particular here, if you're having this issue, having that transition from swim to bike and just learning to switch into that mode right away might be helpful, like actually training it versus just

like hoping it'll change if you try harder. I don't know. I notice there's a huge difference for me. Like, I do not have this problem where I can't get going fast enough when I ride to the start of races. Anytime I can do a bike warm up, not an issue. But I mean, I mean, obviously most 70.3s you can't do that anymore. So I don't know what the solution is to that other than maybe experiment with like some hard strides on the beach before you like get into the water or just doing a more of a run warm up, something. It's probably a good open water swim activity to try to do the brick then. And I'm even thinking like try to like run in waste deep water after you swim to simulate that like leg movement.

It's not the same as biking, but if you're your only option, maybe it's better than nothing. if the swim to bike brick is the thing that you would recommend. Yeah, I would also say just like maybe don't look at your power meter. Just get on your bike and go hard, harder than you want to go. But if he's looking, he's already looking at his power meter's like, why is it all the way down at 211 when I'm like dying? It's an interesting conundrum. You guys have said in the past to like the last little bit of the swim to like start kicking to get your legs going.

Oh yeah, that's an option. So I wonder, maybe it's that or the opposite. If you're not doing that, do it. If you're already doing that, maybe try to lay off the legs for the last, like 200. Take some deep breaths. Actually, I listened to a few Chelsea-Sidaro podcasts after she won Kona, and she was talking about earlier in the season, she was having trouble with this exact thing, getting out of the swim and not being able to push while it's like she does in training.

And she went to see a specific swim coach who actually advised her to kick less in her swim stroke, two-beat kick, whatever. This is actually one of the questions we skipped over because then your legs will be fresher for the bike. So, yeah, I'd say the two-beat kick, don't over-kick during the race during the last 100 meters of the swim, maybe pick it up and get a bit

just to like warm your legs up. But in general, not over-kicking for the swim might give you more energy on the bike. Next question is from Graham. Hey, Eric, Paula, Nick and Flynn. Just watched Paul crush Indian Wells. I'd like to say, never in doubt, but I did get a little nervous between miles six

and 11 on the run. Yeah, join the club. Congrats on an awesome finish of the year. My question is about van life. What advice or recommendations would Eric and Paula give someone looking for their first van for a weekend travel trip to races? Absolute must have pitfalls to avoid. Love the show and all you do for triathlon from Graham.

As we were getting ready to record this podcast, someone sent in a rapid fire that was related to vans. Should we do it? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, cool. As a lot of people know, we have been borrowing the storyteller van from Mercedes. and kind of testing it out to see if that's like one of the builds that we want.

In terms of the inside, the layout. In terms of the interior, yeah. And we've absolutely loved it, as I already said with the shower and everything. But every van could use tweaks to suit your own lifestyle and what you were going to use the van for. These people sent in a rapid fire. Number one is give up open access to the back while driving or give up back storage space.

So a lot of vans, you can just get up out of the passenger or driver's seat and walk to the back of the van. Would you rather have like a wall there so you can't access the back and then have additional storage space? Or would you rather have that open so you can walk to the back? I think walking to the back is absolutely critical and one of our favorite things. I agree. I agree. 100%.

But some people like it for the more security or for having more storage. But yeah, I agree. Being able to get up out of the seats and walk back to the back of the van is very key. You can like grab a snack. You can get changed, all those things. Mostly grabbing snacks. Let's be real. That's the primary function.

Totally, totally. And having place to, like, put Flynn. Yeah, Flynn could not do it. Yeah. Number two is an electric portable plug-in stove top or a gas stove top that's installed in the van. Oh, the electric portable, whatever that was. Pull-out stove-top. Yeah, we have that in the storyteller?

Fantastic. Absolutely in love with it. Because we could, like, flip down the outdoor table, take the stove top outside, plug it in and cook oatmeal like outside. So instead of having it built into the van where you're kind of stuff. out cooking standing inside the van, we could do it outside, which was amazing. And there's just a slight advantage to it, like, a gas fire stove normally. Like, I guess I don't see that so much anymore. The gas thing is just more economical, typically.

It's easier to, like, plummet in a propane tank and cheaper versus you need a lot of battery power to run an electric cooktop. But the storyteller has that. A enormous amount of battery, you're never going to run out cooking oatmeal. In our van that we built out, we just did a portable Coleman stove, which you can also cook inside or outside, much. cheaper option. Number three is a compost toilet or just do road bathroom stops.

Number two, road bathroom stops. It's just not such a, not having lived it, it just feels like this extra headache and thing to manage when you have a compost toilet. Totally. The thing is like we've been sleeping in the van and in the morning

the first thing you have to do, everyone on planet Earth has to pee. And if you're sleeping like in a residential area or something, it's impossible. Yeah, that's annoying. So road-tripping, for sure, to stop. Yeah. The one solution to that, you know, hopefully this doesn't gross you out,

but having a wide-mouth malgene to take care of the midnight bathroom. It grosses me out. A pee-only, mal-chain. A pee bottle. You're not using that for water. That's disgusting. But the compost toilet is also disgusting, takes up space. It's actually not disgusting.

I think they're actually quite clean and don't smell bad, but it's a space thing. They take up, like, you know, a toilet-sized amount of area. Yeah. Number four is more walking space or more bed space. Well, I guess I just feel like there's a bare minimum of bed space that you need and in a sprint or anyway that pretty much takes you from the back door to the slider door. And if you have anything less than that, you can't sleep front to back. You're sleeping sideways like that and then you're bumping into each other. So I think that's just like the minimum and then whatever you got left over for walking.

So I guess the bed space is more critical. Well, also we have the flares built in. The storytellers have these flares on the back windows. Did you already say this? No. Okay, so you can actually sleep widthwise in the van instead of lengthwise. A lot of people aren't quite short enough to fit widthwise without the flares. It kind of adds an extra like six inches of space.

So that's what we have in the storyteller. We can both fit widthwise and then that leaves more floor space. So the flares are designed. They're basically they're extra little room for your feet. Yeah, like your head sticking in long, your feet are in the room. Are they, do they have to modify the van like for that? Or it's when they build it, they're just very careful and they make it as thin as possible against the sides of the van. Like from the outside, can you tell?

Yeah, you can tell. Oh, yeah. They look like big old, like blisters or something. Oh, yeah. Got it. So Mercedes vans, there's no Mercedes vans that comes with those. Yeah, it's like called flare space. It's the aftermarket.

Yeah, you cut a hole in the side of your van and glue these on. Got it. Last one is Wi-Fi in the van, I guess with one of those like router things or planned Wi-Fi stops. well how could you even how could you even not want the plan I mean it's so obvious there's no downside to them having

Wi-Fi and the band except for maybe expensiveness but we just use our data most of the time we're not so remote the phone hotspot yeah yeah exactly yeah I mean this is not a little bit of a cop-out answer

but we also love going to coffee shops anywhere we go so that is just like a bonus little Wi-Fi moment where we can upload a picture or something so both I think that covers the van segment for this episode So thank you Roli for sending in those questions That was fun So we're not doing the

We just did that instead of the advice for VandB Well I think this also offered a lot of That was advice That was great advice That was great advice Yeah that's true Yeah I'm trying to think of anything that you've told me

That might be pitfalls to avoid Just like putting a bunch of stuff in there based on what you think you're going to use versus going camping a little bit. Trying it out first a bit. Nice. Next question is from Lexi. Hey, answers of questions. I have a question for you.

How do you recommend watching the latest TTL swag? I just recently bought the Forest Sport camper hat, and I love it. I use it for a lot of my runs, so it gets pretty sweaty. I wanted to check in with you guys and get your opinion before washing it, so it lasts a long time. Also, kudos and congrats to Paula for the win this Sunday at Indian Wells. Best of luck in the well-deserved off-season. You guys are such an inspiration and keep me much. motivated thanks Lexi.

So are we putting these in the washing machine, Eric? I don't put mine in the washing machine. Eric's never put anything in the washing machine. Oh, called out. Ouch. Burr. What Eric does is brings them in the shower with him. When they start to feel crusty, I just bring them in the shower

and then hang them up to dry in there and grab them next day. You know what I do is I take my eye under the heart rate strap and run to the heart rate strap too. So when I just take that off and get me to the shower, I put it in the sink and run the sink. And if I have the hat on, I just throw the hat into the sink as well. And let it soaps. And so they're just soaking in warm water, not, we're not doing soap. Yeah, no soap.

So it would probably be okay, but I mean. Yeah, the problem with, like, maybe putting too much soap and not rinsing it properly from the showers, and it gets, like, soapy. You know, if you don't, you got to really make sure the soap gets rinsed out. But they do have really specific sportswear detergent that you could probably, like, hand wash it with in the sink, like you're saying, Nick. Like, put a few drops of that in with your heart rate strap, your TTL hat. I'm not letting them soak usually. I'm running water over them and like with my hand just like rubbing against itself of it. Just like get like the salty sweat out.

Yeah, on a day-to-day basis. But if it's like you want to do a deep clean every other week, maybe a little bit of deterrence. That sounds like Apala advice. I'm like deep clean. What have I had this for 10 years? What I guess like the concern with putting it in the wash is maybe some of the logos can peel off. And we have had that issues with some of our other hats. But these ones are actually made pretty well.

We haven't had any of the silicone stuff peel off. So it would probably be okay, but I don't want to say, like, yeah, throw this in the washing machine. It would just avoid hotness. Yeah. That would do my thing. I also just don't love putting things with Velcro in the washing machine because sometimes it can attach to something else and start to fray the fabric of it. Yeah, for the longevity of the hat, avoid the washing machine, but it would probably be okay if it's an accident. I'm actually surprised people put hats in the washing machine.

Yeah, me too. Like when people were complaining. Never occurred to me to do that. People were like sending in, I know. want a refund on the hat at the logo peeled. I put it in the washing machine. I'm like, why are you putting it in the washing machine? That's crazy. It's a hat. It's not like a t-shirt.

I'm surprised to hear you say that, Paula. I feel you're such a clean person. Will I wash them by hand? Oh, wow, that is next level. You're right. There's a few drops of sports sophistication. Right. We don't throw Flynn in the washing machine because it's convenient, you know. That would be. That would be nice. We hand wash Flynn as well.

Take him in the shower. Hand-wash and we hang to dry. Yes. Okay, well, last question for the day. Hi Eric Paula, Nick and Flynn. Day Warner over here. Love the videos and I'm going to my first Exteratriathlon in 2020. Thanks to your inspiration.

Also, congrats on the Indian Wells Wind, Paula. And a hell of a year for you, Eric. Looking forward to following more Xera races from you. First to comment, as I'm listening to last week's podcast, you're all talking about bib shorts and missing one of the biggest reasons to switch to them. For us folks with, let's just say, non-triathleted bodies, which there's no such thing as, by the way, but it keeps her gut tucked in.

For us with bellies, the bib shorts keeps everything in place while the normal shammie shorts, the waistband often rolls down and causes chafing, just wanted to add the discussion. I'll say this, even for me, I'm not like a fitness model, but I'm like somewhere in the middle. I do notice that the bib shorts also, they're flattering for my figure. So I do appreciate that about them. So good, good call, John. Yeah, thanks for that's a good point. Now, question is for you, Eric. I have 10 years of riding clip list, but recently switched to flat pedals on my specialized Epic Evo, which is a cross-country mountain bike that's kind of like a little more slack geometry.

I feel more confident on flats and have enough skills to do pretty much everything I did when clipped in. When I start training outside again, should I switch back to Clipless for my Xera prep or keep the flats? How much efficiency am I losing with Clipless? Thanks, all, John. That was an awesome bike, by the way. I really want one.

I think the easy answer here is you're definitely more efficient with Clipless pedals. for anybody he doesn't understand clippless is a weird word it actually means your feet are attached to your bike you're actually clipped in clipped strange why it's apparently comes from

the toe clips right which were terrible toe cages would have been like a way more word it's all bad it's all bad those weren't clips no throw it all away okay so anyway yeah

being able to pull up and push down and like have that totally locked in thing is definitely going to be better but you know like if you're more comfortable theoretically you might ride a little bit faster on certain sections, have just a little more confidence. So I would almost say, like, maybe time yourself, like, get on a road and do like a five or

10 minute or like whatever you think feels reasonable amount of uphill and just like kind of do a power test with both options and see if there's like a huge difference for you between clipped in and not. You might just be like a super quad dominant peddler and it's not the big of an issue. The problem I have is I remember like for people who ride on the road, yes, being clipped in is great. But when you ride mountain bikes and you're going up something that's very steep and you're worried about losing traction in the rear wheel, to be able to like really, really evenly distribute torque throughout the pedal range is only possible being clipped in. So it feels like there's this, yeah, it's even more beneficial for mountain biking.

But then how often on a road bike do you want to, do you have the instinct to put a foot down? Right. You never have anything. Whereas on a mountain bike, that happens all the time. So you really have these two extremes that are playing. So I get what he's talking about. Yeah, yeah. If you feel like you're going to be in this situation where you,

with your shoes attached your bike where you're clipped in and you're not confident enough to put out really big power because you feel like you're going to have to unclip, then maybe the flat pedals were better for that situation. What do you think about those pedals that are, they have clips on one side and they're flats on the other so you can kind of like mid-ride, unclip, flip it over ride flats for a bit. It's definitely not the same as riding like with gummy sneaker bottoms

on flat pedals with like spikes in them. But is that a good compromise? Do you feel like get into one or the other? I'm not huge on compromises. I mean, yeah, it sounds great. It's like, oh, logically, that makes a lot of sense. But then if you're trying to clip in quickly and you get into the side that isn't clipped in,

then you're like probably falling over from the result of that. I would say just like really get completely at home and second nature with whatever system you want to go with. And my gut is to definitely say just like stick with the clip. Stick with clipping in and just own that if your goal is to do Xtera versus something predominantly downhill because Xtera is like predominantly uphill, let's be honest.

Yeah, yeah. And I wonder if he's more thinking about the uphills or the downhills when he's thinking about this decision. Yeah. Cool. Well, there you go, John. That was our last question. Thanks again to our podcast subscribers. You can subscribe to the podcast

and submit your questions at That TriathlonLife.com slash podcast. Paula, congratulations on an amazing year. An amazing race. Eric, congratulations on an amazing year. I think we are going to do a TTL wrapped episode, maybe as our final episode of the year. Yeah, I would say all three of us had an amazing year, Nick.

Yeah. You're part of this team. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We started the podcast this year. Yeah, and can you believe we've done three podcasts in a row from Nick's recording studio? Oh, yeah. We need to f***leave.

No, I've loved it. My parents love you guys. It's been great. Yeah, we've definitely overstayed our welcome, but we feel very welcome. Not at all. It's hard to leave. It's hard to leave. But thank you for listening.

and thank you for cheering for us supporting us this weekend and always. Yeah, it's amazing. Thanks for everybody who said hi. It's so cool. This is the off season, but we're not going to stop the podcast. We're still going to be answering questions

and having a good time. If I were Nick and Eric, you're probably thinking, maybe we could do two pods a week. Yeah. Maybe we'll just add to our things. That's right. It did cross my mind.

But then very quickly, before Paul has said that, like, I'd rather, I want to take like a break from some things, but the podcast is too fun to take a break from it. Yeah, this is just like us chatting. Like we do every day anyway. Like people, you guys don't realize we FaceTime like six times a day every day.

We could put out two podcasts a week just with FaceTime. Yeah, for sure. Maybe that'll be a perk for a subscribers. We'll like record one of our conversations. A FaceTime call. But I think the goal should be, it should always be that one of the parties doesn't know they're being recorded.

So it keeps it. That is fun. Yeah. If possible. And illegal in some states. Yeah. Which makes it even better. All right.

Thank you guys. See you next week. Later. Bye.