That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula races Ironman 70.3 World Championships, calf sleeves for triathlon racing, race day transition bags, and more!

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

This week we start by hearing about Paula's experience racing Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Lahti, Finland. We then move onto your questions about XTERRA training, modifying shoes to fit rubber bands, and more! To submit your own questions, as well as become a podcast supporter, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Lagerie. I'm Eric Lagerstam. I'm Nick Goldston. And on this podcast, we talk about triathlon and our lives and what we're doing and what we're doing in racing. Eric and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, amateur triathlete. We are all back in our respective places with our own microphones. We just traveled home yesterday from Europe after a huge whirlwind of a trip. And we are extremely jet-legged, Eric and I. If you've noticed, if you listen to this podcast before, we don't do ad reads.

One of the arms of our business is that we have some apparel. And so rather than do ad reads, we've got that. And then we have our podcast supporters, which you can go to that trathonlonlife.com to see what that's all about and submit your questions. I have a question. Where do I go on the website for getting two flats in one ride? Is there a section for that? It's called get new wheels that are tubeless compatible

and don't ride tubes. Yeah, we got to set up the tubeless store on TTL. We were just joking because we're like our whole platform and basis of this podcast is that we don't do ad reads.

People like asking us if they can sponsor the pod. And we're like trying to stand by our principles of like we don't do ad reads. We have supporters and they donate every month. But you know, some of these offers for Zerbid enticing.

So maybe we will do ad reads sometimes. And Nick needs a new bike. Yeah. Like if we tell you guys what we're buying with the ad reads, maybe it'll be okay. Actually, we will do ad reads in exchange for one bicycle, how? Yeah. Just kidding. I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. But yeah, Nick just got back in an Uber from his bike ride. And that's why we're a little late to start this. But what's the solution, Nick? I don't know. Eric and I were just talking about it. The issue is that my bike is from 2017 and the wheels I have. They're very nice carbon wheels like deep section wheels, but technically they were not designed to be set up tubeless.

And at the time, I didn't really understand that. It's like, okay, just put rim tape in there and set it up tubeless. But apparently it's not that simple. And I'm going to do some research and figure out why I can't do that. Because I just got two flats on a very short ride today. and that was very annoying. Yeah, I've definitely set up wheels that were not designed to be tubeless compatible

as tubeless compatible, I mean, as a tubeless wheel tire. And I mean, if you think back to when they invented tubeless in the first place, no wheels were designed to be tubeless compatible. So I'm not really sure what we're thinking the issue might be, and I think I might just go for it. Yeah, I don't really get it. Because as we were saying, like, you run lower PSI,

on a tubeless setup. So it seems like it would be less stressed on the bead part of the rim. Like what's the worry here? You set it up tubeless, but it's not tubeless compatible. You crash. You go for a ride.

He sues the guy. Yeah. Oh, so the worry is that you would crash, not that you'd just like get a flat on it. Right. Yeah. I guess. Like the tire would just explode off of the rim.

Gotcha. So it's much more dangerous than just getting a flat. Okay, okay. Got it. That's the potential concern, yeah. But I don't really. get like, it's not like an inner tube keeps the tire on the rim at all. It doesn't help with that.

So I don't see. The other, I can certainly see the opposite of this where you're trying to put a, you're trying to set up a non-tubless tire as tubeless. That would be a definite no-go. The tire has to be specifically made for tubless as install. Yeah. Okay. Anyway.

What a tangent. I love that. Yes, that is a wild tangent. And actually, we have much more interesting things to talk about. Also, this is here, Nick, from one hour in the future. After we recorded this whole podcast, we realized that Paula's mic was not really properly plugged in. And so we only had audio from Eric's mic. So that's why things will be sounding a little different.

Hopefully it's not too annoying. Yeah, we actually have two audio files, but they're both my mic. But they're identical. That's how we didn't realize it until too late. And may I also add that it's not my fault? I'm not in charge of this. That's true. sitting here, showing up with two idiots.

One, two. Idiot! Oh, gosh! The town is that way. Yeah, but so hopefully that works out. Back to our regularly scheduled programming here. Paula, you raced 70.3 world championships in Lottie Finland, and you did quite well.

I don't want to give away how it all went. So maybe start with your mindset going into this race. I feel like it was quite different then I don't feel like I know that it was quite different than how it's been going into previous races even just this year. We're just going into it. Is this kind of like Paula's question for the press conference where the post-race press conference and the MC just asked her. Paula, can you take us through the race? Yeah, just like, is that your question?

Oh, wow. I was thinking like, how did you feel when you woke up in the morning? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a long answer. but I'll do it for you guys because we have all the time in the world here on the podcast. But wait a second, I did ask a specific question and it was how did you feel going into the race beforehand? Oh, I don't know, Nick. Like, you know, the day before, I felt like I was going to throw up all day.

I didn't want to eat. I hated it. Like the huge. In my opinion, it was more mellow. You were calmer than you have been at a 70.3 in a while. Yeah, and part of that was due to the fact that I got there so early. We recorded a podcast from the. there. So last week's podcast, we were already there, like kind of set up ready to go, had all

our luggage, didn't have to stress, knew the course really well. So all the little things that kind of come into play when you drop into a race a bit later, that was kind of eliminated. So I would say my stress levels were lower. My excitement levels were slightly higher because the course was suited to me, I think, like with the temperature and the type of course that it was, I was actually like excited for a lot of parts of it. Wow. Versus a race like Milwaukee, which is a looped course and it was supposed to be hot. That didn't appeal to me as much.

So I was, yeah, a little bit less nervous leading into it. I'd had a couple really good workouts. Eric was there. I knew we could come home after. It wasn't like there were plenty more races to do. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, it was like a multitude of factors.

But I would say overall my attitude was a bit better. whether I was kind of just like telling myself to have a better attitude or it was just I had a better attitude because of all these things. I don't know what came first, but it definitely helped with the enjoyment factor of the week. Yeah, I mean, what's the difference, right? Who cares? Yeah, as long as you are actually feeling those things, like your perception is a reality, right? And that matters a lot for racing. Regardless of how the pre-race week went, which was actually quite enjoyable, the pre-race day is always all.

awful. Like the bike check, the run gear check, the weighting, the counting down. It's all the same. And it's amplified when it's a world championship because there's more on the line and I'd done well last year. And it's kind of sad because I had this really good result last year. And I didn't even get to like hold on to it for a full year. You know, it's only been 10 months since the last world championships. So in my mind, I really wanted to be on the podium again, although I felt like that was a stretch because of the field. I don't know. I didn't know what to expect, and I was trying not to think about the outcome too much, but it was really fun to finish second last year.

So I wanted to do that again. Yeah, of course. I mean, that's understandable, even if it is, you know, a stretch goal. But last year when you got off the bike with Olympic gold medalist and Lucy, like, you know, it seemed like a stretched outrun them, and then you did that.

Oh, yeah. So anything's possible on any day. And I would say, even in the field that there was yesterday, coming second wouldn't have been out of this world, you know, or unreasonable to think. It was possible. Right. Right.

So, yeah. Race morning was kind of strange because it was really foggy in the mornings there. So foggy that they delayed the start for 30 minutes. So we were all putting our wetsets on and then they made that call. So we had to, I don't know, 30 minutes isn't totally enough time to fully go relax and switch your brain off. you are still kind of on edge and everything and I'd already warmed up so it kind of delays that.

You're kind of just sitting there. So I didn't love that, but it was just like a safety thing. You couldn't see to the tour. Was it the right call? I mean, with all the age groupers heading out, yeah, probably. I think it was a very safe call. Like, they could have opened the water earlier than they did,

I would say. Got it. Yeah, they wanted to be able to see to the first turnboy, which is reasonable. It's like 500 meters. Yeah, okay. And the swim went smoothly? Yeah, I didn't like the swim.

It was a wetsuit swim with a pontoon dive start. I just find when we have wetsuits on, it equalizes everyone way too much. Like there's people that I wouldn't normally be around swimming on top of me at the turns. And usually with a non-wetsoot swim, I can kind of clear out of all of that mess before that happens. So when that starts happening to me, I get really panty. my stroke gets short. I just like start hating it and then I get even slower. So I got out of the water okay, but I was with people that I didn't want to see after the swim, expecting to have kind of a gap on them like I would at a PTO race or at a race that's a non-wetsuit. So there was a quite a big

group of us coming out of the transition together, like maybe 10. And it was super messy. Like so many bodies on the road trying to sort out so that we weren't drafting, but I think the refs are a bit lenient for like the first K while everyone's kind of just getting their shoes on and figuring it out. And I just

kind of sat at the very back of that huge mess behind Daniela and watched her kind of get ready to go and it was really interesting how calm she was and how she just did her process of tightening her shoes, making sure her calf sleeves were smooth, tightening her helmet. And I'm like, okay,

Daniel is getting ready to turn on the jets. That's right. And my ticket to doing well at this race is to stay with her, no matter what she does. So that's how I approached the first 30K was kind of staying behind Daniela more than 12 meters because I was so scared of getting a drafting penalty. And you were right to be scared because, oh, my God. They were handing out penalties. The refs were giving you up penalties. And I was witnessing.

I mean, that doesn't always happen. Not that you ever really want to see anyone get a penalty because it sucks for them. I was riding really hard behind Danielle. She was clearly trying to put in a pretty good effort and especially up the rollers. She was going really hard and I stood up and didn't look at my power too much, but it was definitely a hard effort. Oh, interesting. I was going to ask you that. I was going to ask you how much you felt in control during that, like how comfortable you felt.

You're saying it was actually pretty difficult to stay with her. It wasn't hard to stay. Like I was never worried about getting dropped, but it was not easy sitting 12 meters back. There were parts that were easy, and that's something I find really hard with this type of racing and sitting in a zone of people, like sitting behind Danielle, is just the mental focus it takes to remain outside the draft zone and never drift into it. And if she kind of goes harder, I have to go harder, and if she uses off, I ease off, that takes a lot out of me. and it breaks up the flowy feeling that you can get into in, for example, a time trial race where you're just going as hard as you can by yourself and not worrying about anyone. This is a completely different dynamic than what I would prefer.

And that's just to ride at the front or by myself at my power. Do you feel like Race Ranger decreases that mental load a little bit or no? It definitely does because you're looking at the blinker instead of it, just making an educated guess for yourself. A judgment call. Yeah, yeah. So it would have been nice to have that for sure. But I think that 12 meters is so short.

It's such a small gap that it makes it hard for groups to get away or for people to get away. You definitely get a draft effect when you're 12 meters back. So the pack, when we turned off at 30K, Daniela kind of set up and looked back and saw that I was still there, Kat was still there, Emma was still there, and you could see she was getting frustrated, like visibly kind of annoyed with it. So she eased off and I went around and rode pretty hard and then Kat came around me and rode pretty hard. Like we were all, after Daniela kind of pulled off, me and Kat swapped leads for the rest of the way.

We never saw a single other person come through. They were just sitting at the back of this huge draft pack. So that was annoying and that really got to my head. Like it was hard for me to go to the front and ride hard when I knew that I was towing a bunch of people. Of course, yeah. And the whole ride was just kind of fragmented and not smooth. And I don't know. My power was okay for the first half.

And then it kind of dropped off when I lost the wind in my sails, realizing that we were all just going to come into transition together. And I was going to have to run against these super fast runners. And you didn't know anything about the like Holly, Ellie, and Tamara, for example. getting penalties? I knew Ellie had one because I witnessed the slotting in, but I didn't know about anyone else. No. And I also

didn't know that Emogyn Simmons was up the road. I thought it was just Taylor Nib. There was very little feedback out on course with time gaps or positions or anything. That blows my mind because like over halfway through the run I was giving her a split and assuming that she knew there were two people

Nib and Imogen were up there and she didn't know. at that point. Yeah, I thought it was just Nib. Like to the point where I actually asked Kat on one of the points where I passed her on the last hill, is it just Taylor in front of us or is there someone else? And Kat said, no, it's just Taylor Nib. So she didn't know either. So both of you, both of you didn't know. That's so funny. And even when we came into transition, it wasn't like third to seventh coming in, you know? It was, still had no idea. Yeah. Right. And then I was, so when I got off the bike and started running, also, this is annoying. When you lead most of the bike, me and cat, and then coming up the last hill, people come around us that we haven't seen for two hours.

Yeah, right. That's not cool. That is not cool. Like, just stay in your place and let me come into transition first. Oh, that is so annoying. But in the big picture, it doesn't change your outcome of the race. It's just respectful, I guess. Yeah, it came into transition and had a decent transition.

Cat had a really good one and got out pretty quickly. Emma came by me. So at this point, I thought it was just Taylor Nib, Emma, and Kat in front of me. I thought I was in fourth. Right. Right. Right. Of course. I was like, oh, fourth is like the worst position. I kind of want to come fifth, not four. Well, well, that's your lucky day. So I was like, maybe Laura Phillip will catch me because she's like 90 seconds back. But I didn't ease, obviously I didn't ease up. I was still running really well, really smooth. that I actually felt great on the run and really enjoyed that run course.

It was hilly, but the hills, as they were, meant that there were big downhills as well where I felt like I could aerobically recover. And so it broke up the run really nicely, like kind of grind for 4K, get a huge downhill where I brought my heart rate down, and then it kind of rolled back to transition. So yeah, really cool run course. And at one point I ran past Talbot and Eric. Because again, it's not getting information from anyone. And I was like, am I safe?

Do I have fifth place, like, kind of locked if I keep doing what I'm doing? Because I was in fourth, I thought I was in fourth. So I was kind of asking them, like, is Laura the only one running fast behind me? Is Daniela gaining on me? Is anyone else gaining on me? And Talbot's like, uh, it's definitely not on lock. Oh, Talbot. Oh, Talbot was, no.

Oh, oh, that little into it. I thought you're talking about the second time that you went past them, I guess. No, the second time I came past them, the second time I came past them, I yelled to Eric, like, please give me some useful information. I was actually the first time. No, the second time. You yelled that in me at the first time. No, it was the second time.

The second time as well. Maybe. The second time as well. I texted Eric at some point. Laura's running the same pace as Paul is and she's two minutes back. There's no way she's catching her. She has fifth on the lap. I was watching the tracker as well.

And what I thought was useful information to tell Paula was no one else behind you is running faster than you. Yeah, that would have been useful. And that's a lot all I could get out, you know, in the one second that you have is they're running past. Yeah, that was helpful. The problem I have with running past spectators is they tell me splits to who's in front of me, which is good. But they're running faster than me. The gap is growing. Right.

And I am not going to close it today. Right. Today is not that day. Right. We talked about this before where it's like the splits are nice, but you have also kind of like know what's happening. Like who's behind them running faster and like who's the people that you're actually interested in. Not helpful. It's definitely helpful to get gaps to who's in front of you if the gap is coming down and you're gaining on them.

That is very motivating. But if every time you run past someone and they give you gaps and it's growing, it's not really that helpful. Because it's not like I was running poorly or suffering or suffering or. slowing down or anything, but I was running what I could run that day, and I wasn't going to magically run 15 seconds a K faster. But I kind of wanted more information on what was unfolding behind me, just so I could hold the spot I was in. So if you happen to be out on course at an Iron Man and you see a professional athlete come by you, make sure that you've been watching the race for at least 15 minutes and you have the tracker pulled up on your phone so you can give accurate

splits to the person in front only if they're getting closer and the rest of the time, give What's the people behind? So write this down, people. Right, take your notes. On a whiteboard. Only to the people behind that are closing the gap. Yeah, bring your whiteboard. Bring your whiteboard and hold that up.

That's even better. Or just don't give me information. I mean, the thing is, like, the run feels so long that it is nice just to, like, get some information just for entertainment purposes, too. The one piece of encouragement to not do is the, like, you're almost there. Or give an incorrect, completely incorrect thing of, like, the distance that is remaining. Yeah, just a couple more miles. It's like I'm halfway, dude.

If you say just a couple more miles and I have 2.7, that is not okay. It's funny when you're running the laps and like a two-lap course and they have K markers every K. But then on the first lap, you see the K markers for what you will be on the second lap. Yeah, like 15K or whatever. Yeah, you're like, no, no, no. I can't even imagine what world I'm going to get to this point.

Next lap. That just seems. That's an interesting thing that you guys feel that. Because us age groupers, at least for me, I know that feeling too. And sometimes I feel like it's unique to me not being a great, like a great athlete like you guys. But it's funny how like, you get fitter and fitter, but that still sucks to see when you're at mile two seeing mile, whatever, eight. You know, it's like, oh, mile eight, no, I can't do that. I'm never going to get there.

That must be why I like Santa Cruz so much. It's just one big. One big. different, interesting loop that I don't have to see. Yeah, the second loop. Yeah, it's like, I have to run the rest of this loop and then come back to this point.

I can't even imagine finishing this loop. Yeah, exactly. Let alone finishing it twice from here. Yeah, that's how I feel. But I did feel good on the run, though. I was eating well. I was enjoying the crowds. I was enjoying the variety.

And then I crossed the line and thought I was fourth, but I was fifth, but whatever. It's kind of what I wanted anyway, right? If I wasn't going to be third, fifth is for sure better. And the top five technically is an Iron Man podium. So you got all your wishes. Financially, no. Yeah, financially fourth is not.

But yeah, they do take the top five in for the little post-race press conference thing. So I felt like I had somewhat of a meaningful result. Compared to the men's race, which I feel like was just very strange. The women's race to me was I loved seeing, I mean, Taylor winning, I guess we all kind of saw that coming, but cat running that well and swimming that well and having that bike was interesting. Imogen, having that kind of race, that was really interesting too. It was kind of a fun race.

And to see you up there was, for us, at least, was really, it was very entertaining as far as as racing goes. Yeah. There hasn't been a, I mean, we talk about consistency a lot and I've been pretty consistently in the mix, right? There hasn't been a race in the last two years where I haven't at least been in the mix. So that's a nice feeling. And I felt like, I feel like my running is progressing.

I feel like I'm not riding to my potential in these races because of the dynamics and the way it plays out. But that's something that I can work it on and improve, I suppose. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. If you could go back now and you could talk to yourself 10 minutes before the race started, would you tell yourself anything to do anything differently? Or do you think that was inevitable? Like fifth was the best you could have gotten and that was the day. Like, the way that I train is so much better.

I'm so much better at training than I am at racing. I basically did a workout on the course the week prior. It was like four by five minutes, three by 20 minutes, with almost the same normalized power as I had in the race. So I train light years better than I show in races from a power perspective. And that's with like sitting up and recovering in between and spinning a warm. arm up and toodling back home. So I think that I have like untapped potential that I'm not tapping into in races, but I am in training for some reason.

And I don't know if that's just like scared of the run after or I don't know. But Paulo's like, if you want to ride hard in a race, you just ride hard and you don't care who's behind you. And I definitely got sucked into like who was sitting back there, who I was with. It was super annoying. They should come through and work. Cat came through so I used up and I don't know. It was just like the mental game obviously of racing versus when you're just out doing a workout hard by yourself with no consequences

is different. So I think I need to work on bringing some of that go hard mentality into races and not just into training sessions that don't matter. Damn, that's kind of like for me to hear you say that and knowing like how consistently well you've done this year, it kind of gives me chills a bit. Like, oh, like there's a whole other level of potential here that you could reach on the bike and your run is progressing. That's kind of exciting. I mean, it's easier said than done. I don't know if I can actually ride much better. And then when you get a couple, the motors were really good in this race. They weren't sitting in front of us, but they were inevitably beside us and the technical officials were beside us. And it does create a little bit of a vortex

of air that's moving forward. So the further you are back in that little pack, the easy it gets. So there's an effect, but it's always going to be like that and it always has been like that. It's just amplified when the roads are kind of narrow and the gap is only 12 meters. Wow. Well, Eric, I mean, do you want to add anything that you feel like from your perspective of seeing this from the sidelines what it was like? It was really crazy. And we've been talking a lot about that lately, just like friends that I have who kind of are triathlon adjacent, just pay a a little bit of attention, have brought it up with me. And it's like, I looked at the results and I don't know anyone.

I wasn't sure if I was looking at the right race. I feel like we all had that moment in the U.S. when we woke up and we looked at the results. And I think all of us had this moment of I'm looking at the wrong race results. Yeah, I think so. Because I don't know any of these people. Like in the top eight, I guess I knew Frederick Funk and Mark Dubrick, and I knew no one else.

I had never heard of any of the other people. Maybe I'm wrong that I'm not plugged in enough. From an American perspective, for sure. And we don't know maybe how popular or something. of these guys in the top eight are in Europe necessarily, but from an American perspective, it was like, I don't understand what I'm looking at necessarily because I don't have much to compare this to. And if Sam Long and, you know, I was 12th or 13th or whatever, did he just have a bad day? But it was, like, hard to, like, understand or, like, really get your head

wrapped around what may have happened. But, like, having watched it on the broadcast, you know, like had an idea. But yeah, it was just a crazy event. It was kind of one of those situations where the front swim group managed to stay away. And they're all good runners. Yeah, that was kind of interesting. That was kind of the crazy thing. Like I was standing there and watched all the swimmers come out of the water.

And the first like four or five guys was like, man, I don't know who these kids are, but they must just be like fresh out of college swimming or something. Yeah, yeah. They're going to have a rough rest of the day now. It was the Bogan guy Who was like the first dude that I saw and thought that And to have all those guys Yeah swim that well bike that fast

They rode like 155, 156 Wild And then to just to pull off a 111 run That's another level Like Lionel didn't put like those fast bikers in the back that we know They didn't put any time into them No You know like Paul has been looking at some slow

Twitch and stuff. You know, the negative look at this is just like nobody big was there. But obviously a huge part of being the world champion is being there on the day that counts. And if you decided not to get there or couldn't

get there or 100% or like whatever, like that is unfortunately all part of the equation. It's not just given. Yeah. So I like, I congrats to RICO. I think it was an awesome result. And I'm certainly not looking at it as some sort of one that needs an asterisk or anything like that

because it has just been a challenging year and getting there. Well, it's funny that you said that about the asterisk because I feel like a lot of this has been a little bit overshadowed by a penalty or a disqualification that was given to Lionel for this thing. And I don't know if we want to address that or not, but it feels like a lot of people are very emotional about it. I think people have gone into it enough. Our key takeaways from it is just that moving forward with refereeing. It's just the consistency is everything.

You can't have one race where people are bobbing it out of eight meters away and nothing happens and then they go to the next race and if they go to 11 and a half, boom, they're popped instantly. Right. Correct. And you can't have one race where the center line rule is super

hard and forced and it's talked about in the meeting to another one where no one mentions it at all. And it's just like you just have to be consistent with the referee and the training, and I like a very harsh approach. It just has to be the norm everywhere.

With men's race, women's race, everything. You say from race to race it needs to be consistent. But even within the same race, like Iron Man themselves posted a video of Christian overtaking someone, and he went over a painted center line. Yeah. And Taylor Nib was taking the fastest

line through this single lane road as well. I mean, it's just, obviously, we all would. With the, you know, it's keeping in mind that you need to make sure that you're not blocking anybody coming from behind. So you can only do that if you're in the front or you're confidently going faster than everyone else. Yeah, even when you're in a train like I was for some of it, you don't want to ride on the left for any amount of time because of the blocking. I wasn't even thinking about the center line rule because there

literally was no line. It was a country road. So it was more just of a blocking thing where I was staying right. But there were parts of the road where it was quite rough at some sections, but cleaner on the left side. So everyone was kind of riding around to the left to get around it. And typically that's just understood is riding safely and riding in a way that makes sense and you're not obviously not. The key here is establishing that someone is trying to gain an unfair advantage versus in the case of Lionel, he was passing a group at a great speed differential and they had at that time, unfortunately, gone three wide. So his options are to slam on the brakes and therefore get a not passing everybody penalty or on this road that appears to be fully closed.

You don't go around and avoid a collision. It's pretty rare for an Ironman race to have a fully closed course. I don't even think Neese is fully closed. When we did it for the 70.3, it's not. So in that case, it's really important not to cross the center line. But this was totally closed and a one way. It's not like they had out and back race traffic either. Are we certain it was it one way?

It was a one way for race traffic, yes. Okay, got it. There were no out and back points where you were crossing paths with other cyclists. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, we don't need to talk about that anymore. It's really sad for Linal. I feel terrible for him. I think he's dealt with it really professionally.

And there's nothing he can do, I guess, except maybe, like, about the result itself. Maybe there's something that can be done about refereeing. But I just know if that happened to me, I'd be so devastated. Oh, yeah. It costs so much to get over there. and not only financially, but emotionally, and his whole family was there. So, yeah, I feel for him.

We all really like Lionel, and watching his story is really compelling and to have that be his experience at Worlds. It's just, like, kind of crushing. Yeah. Congratulations, Paula, on your result there. I know it's not quite the technical podium, but it's the Iron Man podium

and still top five in the world for 70.3 is pretty great. Yeah, yeah, it was okay. I do want to say really quick that I was, like, crying a lot after I finished, not because I was like super sad and mad and disappointed, but it was like almost like I'd been bottling up this whole thing for the last month and so much had happened. And it was so hard for me to imagine a month ago when we were packing up the end of it all

and that it could possibly ever be over because it felt so, like such a monstrosity of a month to get through Milwaukee and both World Championships. and to finish all three with decently good results and no disasters. So that's why I started crying after it was like relief more than anything. And of course, like the disappointment of wanting to do better and having this goal and not really achieving it outright. But still it wasn't so bad that I was crying over the result. It was just like all of the emotions that I hadn't been letting out all week.

Man, I wonder when you look back at that. this period in like 10 years from now when you look back, which you'll think about it. It's like, wow. Well, that's the thing I'm also reminding myself of is in WTS years when I was winning races in like 2010, 2011 on the biggest stages. I never really appreciated it.

It was like on to the next thing. Okay, I won that one. What's the next one? Yeah, I'm just doing this. I was supposed to be winning. And I never sat and appreciated it at all. So I'm not, I didn't win any of these races, but I had pretty good results.

So I just like keep having to run remind myself that I've had really, really bad races and really bad times in the sport and this is not one of those times. Like these results are pretty good. So I just have to keep that in mind. Okay. Well, we're going to move on to questions here.

And you can submit your questions and also, as Eric mentioned earlier, become a podcast supporter at that triathlon life.com slash podcast for those things, but also check out the other stuff that's on the site. We've got a lot of cool stuff. First question here is from Timothy. And as Paul

was reading this one to me earlier today on FaceTime. She was giggling. Hey, it's me earplugs, L-O-L. I just listened to the most recent pod and was dying laughing that once again the earplug issue was mentioned. This is the guy that actually initially asked the question. We're giving him a lot of preferential treatment here by making his question. Yeah.

But it's just too good. So if you have time for the next pod, can you break down the Iron Man bag system? I'm confused. This is my first event. September 10th, will I be able to set up my transition area, or do I have to dig everything out of the bags in T1 and T2? Am I overthinking it? I am racing in a tri-suit and will be carrying minimal nutrition and hydration, not sure what the purpose is. Can you help shed light? Thanks to all of you, keep the earplug jokes and jabs coming, L.O.L. Timothy.

This is a great question, because this was the entire basis of all of my questions before my 100-mile mountain bike ride. Like, oh, there's 4A stations, three of them I can draw bags at. what kind of bags, what can be in the bags? Is someone going to hand me the bag? Yeah. Like, are they in the shade? Are they in the sun? I will say that for Iron Man races,

it could be a little different for each one. Yeah. That's the most important part of this, I think. But I think the norm, and it's also different for pros and age groupers. So I don't want to speak out of line here, but you'll get three bags at your check-in, a red bag for run, red for run,

a blue bag. Really? Red for run. This is why they do it. No, my gosh. No, I never, I did not realize that either. Blue for bike. Coincidence.

It is not a coincidence, you guys. Iron Man is way too smart for that to be a coincidence. Wow. And what about the morning bag? Isn't it just white? It's gray. It's M for M for M for M. M for morning.

It's gray. Whatever. It's gray. But so what you'll do is you'll put your everything you need for the run. in your run bag. So your shoes, your gels, which is red, your glasses. And I think that as triathletes that maybe grew up doing some more local races

where you can lay everything out perfectly on a towel and have your socks tucked in and rolled down and ready to go. A bucket for your feet so they're not sandy. Yeah, like you don't need all that. It's actually not that bad to just pull everything out of the bag and put it on. So that's likely what's going to happen. Same thing for the bike. You put your helmet, your sunglasses, whatever you need on the bike,

in the blue bag. and when you run out of the water you'll take your helmet and put it on take everything out of that bag and then put your wetsuit back in that bag and pass it to a volunteer. So it's a very organized system

that Iron Man has created because your numbered bag is being handed to you and then all of your stuff's going back into that numbered bag. So after the race it's very smooth to pick everything up. Very clean.

And honestly that saves a lot of headache after the race as well for gathering all of your things without getting things lost like your cap, goggles, wetsuit will I'll be back in the blue bag. The same exact thing for the run. Everything that's in the bag, dump out of the bag and put your back stuff inside. And put your helmet back inside it.

Yeah. So you're basically always putting your belongings in a numbered bag. And it just keeps a clean transition. Nothing's lost. Trust me, you're not losing any time by rummaging through your bag because you shouldn't really even have that much stuff in there. Like keep it simple. And you have to drop these bags off the night before the race. sometime in the evening.

So organizing them the day before. I think it takes a bit of stress out of race morning because half the work's done. You get there and you've already got your pegs ready. So it should be explained in like the little race briefing pamphlet thingy, but that's the basis of it. What I was going to add to that is

this is why I still, for all my Iron Man brand of races, I still read whatever the race material is. And I go to one of the talks. because first every race can be a little different. At some races maybe, for example, if you're doing a full, maybe you get your special needs bag. And in some races, you don't get that bag back. If you leave something in there and you don't stop for it, it gets thrown out.

For example, in Wisconsin, they told us, like, but if you have family there, they can go get the bag. So it can be a little different each time. So I do think you should go to those race meetings, even if you've done a bunch of them, just to make sure you know how the bags are handled. Yeah, they'll lay it all. out. They don't just expect you to know it right now.

Yeah. Yeah. But September 10th is close. So you should have, like, a lot of that should be in your, in the race, like reading the literature material that you can have through the app or through an email or whatever. Because go read the literature for your race. That's right. But good luck to you, Timothy. That sounds like it'll be a lot of fun. And you know what? You can, I don't know if we'll put on the podcast, but we're curious to hear how your race goes, especially how the earplugs situation pans out. Next question here is from Mike. Hey everyone, but especially Eric.

Greetings from Zurich, Switzerland. This summer in Canada, I raced Exeterra Sudbury. The whole time I had Eric's advice about keeping the bike effort at a nine out of ten in my head, and it worked. It was the perfect cue. I stayed on course. I didn't crash. And I qualified for worlds.

See you in Italy. Heck yeah, Mike. I'm such a good coach. Do you have any other advice for triathletes who are making the switch from on-road to off-road similarities and differences, how to train, prepare, and race. Thanks, keep rocking that triathlon life, Mike. P.S., if your adventures bring you through Zurich, say hello.

So obviously this is a pretty open question, but can you think of any things that you would specifically tell Mike? Mike, after my experience in Germany last weekend, just do hill repeats all day, every day. Don't bother with any other sort of training and do like four-minute, five-minute, super hard hill-repeats on the bike because they're making these courses savage. It's a lot of just like straight up climbing

that blasts your legs. What about on the run? Is it also very hilly? That's more varied. But in Italy? I haven't actually looked at the Italy run course, but I did see on their like preview of the thing. There's looks to be some significant amount of section

where they've got a rope that you can grab on next to the trail and people are just full sand ladder, you know. It's like sand ladder, yeah, Alcatraz. So I'm mentally prepared for that. but I just broke down the bike course profile and everything with Apollo this morning and so I'll look at the run course tomorrow. The other thing I would say is just like

really having strategies for different surfaces. So like I bring two different shoes to exteras now, like a true trail run shoe and then my kind of, the cloud boom echo, not the cloud boom echo three. Just the original one is a little lower stack so I can run that on some trails, but not if it's muddy. And then on the bike having like a dry tire option

and a wet tire option with you. It's a lot to do, but you just kind of have to get used to that because something that we don't have an on-road try that is a big thing in off-road try is traction and the equipment that you choose on the day has a huge impact. Interesting. Well, Mike, we'd love to say hi to you in Italy when you're there, so make sure to reach out.

Is Nick's going to? I don't know how much time we'll have, but... Yeah, we're bringing Nick out. Yeah, I'm not racing, but I will have my dad's epic hardtail, so I can hopefully ride some of the course or something. something with you, Eric. I don't know. We'll see. What if we just magically get you qualified in the next weekend? That would be awesome. The only problem of, well, yes, I would do it, but the problem is I'm

there to kind of help film, so I wouldn't be able to do the whole point of being there. But yes, yes, I would love to. Oh my gosh. I would absolutely love to. I've thought about it before. I just think like qualifying is hard. It's really hard. I think it's more reasonable for you to qualify for that than maybe for 753. It is. It is. It is for sure. I have some technical ability. But I still think those guys are so, so strong. We'll see, you gotta do one to run. Oh, I'm doing one for sure. I really, I've always

had my kind of eyes on Xera. It's completely right after your alley, Nick. You suck at swimming. You're good at, you like mountain biking, and you trail around all the time. Yeah, that's true. It's like created for you. It doesn't mean I'm good at it. It doesn't mean I'm good at it. Paul is making a joke about sucking at swimming because

Xera athletes do not have a great reputation for swimming, but they're just savage mountain bikers. Yeah, right. No, you're right, though. It is kind of built for me. It is built for me, but I just get the sense that they're so fit. But I'm going to try it. I want to do it for sure.

I really would love to do an Xtera. Nick, Xterra, 24. That's right. Speaking of 2024, before we move on to the next question, Paul, I don't know if I can out you like this, but you had an Instagram post today where you kind of teased and joked about signing up for a full Ironman. And someone in the comment said that we should sign up for the same one and kind of like parallel our training and see how the age grouper and the performance.

go towards finishing their first Iron Man. Yeah, that was a funny suggestion. I wrote that post kind of in a delirious state. I was so tired this morning, but I'm also just a bit confused of what to do for the rest of the year. So it just came to my mind as something that would be funny, but zero percent serious about it. And then people started, it did catch more attention than I thought it would. I truly wasn't doing it for attention. But people are like fanatical about Iron Man's.

Yeah, well, of course. I don't know, it raised my interest level from like 0% to 30%. It's just like programmed into everyone's brain to like, oh, you did a half. When are you doing your full? It's like the next thing in the code. It's called a half. Like it built into it, it makes you be like, okay, what about the other half? That's why they changed it to 70.3.

They didn't want it to seem like this chunk of the experience. The PTO races are slightly less than a 70.3. They're 80K on the bike and 18. K on the run. And let me tell you, when I got to 18K of 70.3 worlds, you were ready to be done. Yeah, 3K extra is a lot.

It's like over 10 minutes extra of running. I think that's just natural. Anytime you get to 18K. Double, a 21K. Although I was thinking to myself on Sunday, which is only two days ago. That's insane.

Or on Saturday. I think I could have done two more laps of the run on that particular course. Wow. Oh, really? Two more? Yeah. You did.

Like, I would have obviously gone a little slower. Yeah. But I wasn't, like, blown to pieces to the point where I, like, wanted it to be done so badly. Wow. So maybe I didn't go harder. Foreign concept for me. Yeah, I was, I did like the recourse. And the shoes that I'm wearing, the cloud boom tries are really save your legs.

Like, the super shoe effect of not getting sore is insane. That's so funny. I've never once in a race. thought I could run like 20 more steps. I feel like I'm always at the end. Yeah, that's what I usually feel like. I'm quitting the sport. I'm done.

I felt like that on the bike this time. It was like, get me off the bike. I hate this experience. But on the run, I honestly didn't hate it. That is a good sign. Part of it was due to the temperature. Like the, it was about 15 or 16 degrees, so never overheated.

It was constantly eating gels. Like, that's the secret. It's just pick a race where it's not hot. Well, that's what I did, and I got hypothermia. Not that cold, though. Not that cold. Not as cold as next race. Okay, next question. Wow.

A lot of bombs were just dropped there by you, Paula. But we'll move on. Next question here is from Suzanne. Hey, all, I just learned today that, oh, and this, when I read this, this is the first time I'm understanding this. That referees at Iron Man races are volunteers. I'm completely blown away. I've always assumed they were paid. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this as professionals who rely on fairness

to make a living at these races, are PTO refs volunteers too. Thanks for all you do, Suzanne. So we actually did a little bit of research here, and we could not figure out what the correct answer was. We're either getting that there is some amount of money that is paid to the refs, but it's still on a volunteer basis. So if you are part of USAT or you know this, or if you've ref for Iron Man before,

we would love to hear the answer to this, especially since it's kind of a hot topic right now. Yes, please. Yeah, go ahead and DM those to Nick. Okay, please not. everybody, just if you actually have qualifications here to answer this question. Only two of you. Only two of you. The email need to be. I am a blank, blank referee.

I feel like I've regretted this in the past now because my Instagram becomes unusable for four or five days. Okay. So next question here. Love the podcast and YouTube channel. I had the privilege of meeting Eric at the U.S. Open in Milwaukee and was able to email him a ton of photos of Paula that I was able to capture. My question is regarding the loop you put on the back of your shoes in the latest video. It looked like you cut a small piece of shoe lace or something similar. What did you use to connect it to your shoe? It looked like glue, but assuming it wasn't. Those are me, that's a shot of me putting that setup on my shoes for mountain biking. The guy's asking why?

Oh, why? Yeah. So you can put rubber bands back there to attach your shoes to your bikes, so you can just slip into them immediately while riding. because some people, for example, there's certain age group races where you're not allowed to clip your shoes in of the bike. So it would be a non-factor. Yeah, right. But it is a good question because usually shoes that we wear, road shoes, don't come with that loop. But we always super glue on like a rubber band or something or a shoe lace so that we can attach them to our bikes. Yeah, it's zero percent functional as like a thing to grab onto like shoehorn style.

It's just to use a rubber band on the bike. Oh, so you're not using them at all to actually pull the shoes on. You still have to do that the old-fashioned way. Yeah. Okay, and last question here is from Aaron, from Surf City. I'm watching the replay of 70.3 worlds, and I'm noticing Paula's calf sleeves. I don't think I've ever noticed her wearing them before. What made you decide to wear them that day?

So this was the first time you've worn them, right? Yeah. So I haven't tested them myself in the wind tunnel, but I've heard, although lots of these things are very individual, they have the potential to be quite significantly faster, like three to six to eight maybe watts than having just skin on your legs. So when it's a wetsuit swim, you can put the calf sleeves under the wetsuit and you don't really feel it on the swim. It's not really a possible thing if there's no wetsuit because then you're swimming. with them and they're actually slower in the water. But I practiced running with them. I practiced riding with them before the race. It was a colder day, so it wasn't a heat issue. So I thought, even if they're not faster, they're not bothering me. And if they are faster, I have to do it.

So that's why I did it. And everyone's kind of doing it now. It's, I don't think it's a fad. I think that there is some concrete evidence that fabric is faster than skin. everywhere. So especially there where it's just like hitting the air directly. So I, yeah, I used them. And I don't think they look that bad either because everyone's using them now. So it's kind of just a just used to it. It's just an accepted look. But I liked it. I'll probably wear them again, especially for wetsuit races that aren't hot. I feel like we've bashed them before on the podcast. And now here we are. We've bashed the bottle down the kit, but I don't think we've bashed calf sleeves. I think we've explained the difference because they're 0% meant for compression.

They're just an arrow. Right. Right. So I think we've clarified that before that they're not compression socks. They're just meant for arrow and then on the run. They do actually have like a bit of a squeeze to them so that they actually stay on. I was going to ask you, what do they feel like? Yeah, not as tight as compression socks, but you can feel that there's something there. But I liked it. It was not constricting, but it did. give a bit of support it felt like on the run as well. That would be an interesting thing for us to test out next time you're at the wind tunnel. Oh, for sure. If I go back to the wind tunnel, I think I'll have a lot more things I'm interested in trying now than I did last time.

Yeah. Yeah. Helmets. Sizes of helmets. Yeah. Stuff like that. Okay. So the last thing here, this was the last thing on your schedule, Paula. Eric, you have Xera worlds coming up. But is there anything that you are kind of eyeing?

I know you obviously you joked about the Iron Man, although maybe now it's not a joke. But is there anything that you'd be willing to share with us that you're kind of looking at before the end of the year? I'll definitely do another triathlon, another 70.3 or something. If I feel like it's too early in the year, I mean, it's still August. I can't end my year now. But if I get picked for Pan Am games for the TT, I would go to that.

That's in the fall. But that's all dependent on getting selected for that. So it's a bit unknown at the moment. But we just got home yesterday, so I'm trying not to, like, stress too much about it. Get Eric ready for exterior worlds. And then make a more solid plan over the next couple days. Yeah. Yeah.

Love it. Love it. Well, congratulations. That was a crazy few weeks there of traveling all over the place and you guys separating for races and then coming back together and now you're back in Bend. Except our bikes are back in Helsinki. Yeah, of course. The airport was a total mess. Like thousands of people checking bikes in that day.

And it sounds like no one got their bike. So that gives me a bit of comfort. Like everyone's bike is together in a room. They know that they have a bike issue to resolve. It's unavoidable. ProTri News did a poll on it. If like if you race, did you. Did your bike make it?

And there were a lot of nose. I'm hoping by the time we record this pod next week, we have our bikes back. Mostly because Eric's mountain bike is there. And he needs it for his Xera. We kind of need it. He's like, oh, maybe if I don't get it back, I can get a new one. It's always an option. You wouldn't mind a new World Cup.

Yeah. We all want new bikes. The stress level of not having our bikes is much less than the stress level of, not getting my luggage before while we were overseas. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We have plenty of backup bikes over here. Yeah, very fortunate.

Okay. Thank you, everyone for listening. We'll be back next week. Back kind of like a more standard week where we just answer your questions. Yeah. Finally, not a race recap one. Yep. Yeah.

We'll just be like talking about fetch and going on bike rides and stuff. That's right. Back to the good old Dave. All right. See you guys. Later. Bye. Bye.