That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula races the T100 Ibiza Triathlon, chainring sizes, and more!

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

This week, we hear all about Paula's race in Spain at the T100 Ibiza triathlon! We are back at our respective homes this week and after the race recap, we dig into your questions! This week we talk about:Chainring sizes and whether it's "cheating" to size downStaying warm for a cold water triathlon swim like xTri CanadamanKeeping the top half of your tri-suit off under your wetsuitTaking a week off from training, and how it affects your fitnessA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hello, everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Eric Loggestam. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our triathlon podcast where we come to you every week with race recaps, a little bit about what's going on in the triathlon world, in our world. And most of all, we answer questions from the listeners, which is you guys. Every week we get so many good questions from beginners, from experienced athletes, and we like to answer them. So that is what we do here. Eric and I are both professional triathletes, Nick. is a professional musician and a very fast amateur triathlete, but brings a little bit of the real life view. I've been saying upper middle class triathlete. We'll accept upper middle class as well. Yeah, well, Nick just told us he's in the best shape of his life and across all three sports, so I do think so.

Heading straight for the upper class. You can change your stars. You know, it's funny, I was just doing my run workout. I felt really good, and I'm like, it's crazy to think that other amateurs are so much faster than I am so much faster and I work pretty hard but their people are so much faster than I am. A lot of amateurs are like borderline pros

I would say. It's like in the pro field they'd get destroyed but in the amateur field they're so good. It's like this really weird middle ground. Yeah, the secret is to work for a tech company and have a great severance package and then get fired and basically have like six months to just train professionally while

being fun employed. If we're being honest, do you think that if I had all of the resources possible, do you think I could really get there because I feel like I could not. Raise professionally? No, no, just like we want to the top amateurs. Yeah, I feel like we're not ever going to know until you decided to take the leap to paying like $400 a month for professional level coaching.

Then that's the only way we're going to know. So maybe we need to like, for the sake of the podcast, like sponsor your coaching for like one year to see what is possible. What physiologically can we squeeze out of this lemon? Yeah, we're also going to need you to give up on music and start. and abetted in normal time. There are going to be stipulations with this sponsorship, but I think it would be worth it for the content.

Anyway, the small text. Today we are going to do a little recap on my Ibiza T-100 race that I just did two days ago, which is wild, because I've traveled 10 years since then. It was just almost yesterday. And then we'll answer a ton of questions that we have. It's crazy to think that last week we were recording this podcast from a little bedroom in Zurich,

where we were staying with a lovely family. And since then, we traveled to... Oh, no, we actually recorded it from Ibiza last week. Yeah, we did, yeah. The week before that, we recorded it in Zurich. The week before that, we recorded it in CERC. The week before that, we recorded it in Bend. Yes.

So, Ben around the world. These boys just made me do a fake take for the YouTube channel. So I'm just basically an actress and a podcast post. I just do the concise soundbite. And I try to come top five at T-Bet at T100 races. That's secondary though. This is why you are or who you are.

Yes. Doing it all. Anyway, we are very jet-lagged, Derek and I. We got back at 3 a.m. this morning because our flights were very delayed. And then we were up at 7 a.m. to go get our dog because we could not wait. One more minute.

I couldn't wait to see Flynn. The royal we. And then I basically spent the entire day like just reorganizing my unpacking, cleaning the house, doing laundry. I think the vacuum was off for about seven minutes. That's not true. I didn't vacuum all day.

But for me, like, I was looking at the calendar. I'm like, oh my God, T-100 Las Vegas is in like two weeks. D-100 Lake Las Vegas? There's barely any time to like get back into a rhythm before you got to go to the next race. And I didn't realize that. I was like, wow, when I get back from Abiza, I'm going to be like on a two-week vacation. but I just realized Las Vegas is right around the corner

so I basically had to start training tomorrow yeah the T-100 got mad at us because we called Las Vegas not Lake Las Vegas. It's mostly a joke but yeah it is called the T-100 Lake Las Vegas

It's our new joke It's quite a far away outside of Las Vegas I want to make a graphic with Lake bigger than Las Vegas so that people really get it yeah I interrupted my thoughts

Sorry sorry you go right ahead Oh yeah so I have to start training tomorrow basically, like you should probably do a tempo run tomorrow or something. And so in order to do that, me as a person, I need to be completely organized in every other aspect of my life. I need to have the house clean, my laundry done, my bags unpacked. So I spent today just making sure that that box was checked. And then tomorrow, it'll be a lot easier for me to get into my training routine. Now I know that like a lot of things in life are done. The fridge is full of groceries, the laundry is finished, etc. So that was today's priority. What else did you do though in terms of exercise?

I did like a two-hour gravel ride. Easy. No swimming. No running. I should have probably swam today. Oh, my gosh. So out of my rhythm of swimming. But I'll run all swim tomorrow.

No running. Okay. Okay. So, but let's go back to Ibiza here because we are delaying that. So you're in Spain, training. It's not the best place to train, as you said last week. Yeah, we talked about that last week. But the race was like perfectly organized.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. The race was very well laid out, very clear. where the course went. Extremely windy day, which is not my favorite conditions to race in. Like block headwind heading out and then super fast tailwind coming back.

I would say this is better than a crosswind, though. Yeah, but part of it was a crosswind because the course was a bit you-shaped. There were sections of the bike that were very cross-windy. Yeah, it was kind of a weird feeling going into this race. It was like, in my mind I had to keep telling myself that I care about it. I'm like, you need to be more nervous. You need to care more. because it's not that I didn't care,

but I was also just like so not nervous that I was like, do I care? That's interesting. You're usually like for T100 race is like a wreck kind of. I feel like this is a bit of a byproduct of being sick for two weeks straight

and just like number one goal was just not be sick for the last two weeks. Oh, instead of perform well after race. Right. Yeah, I guess like the pressure leading in was off. But it's so funny because now at this point after the race,

I feel like I haven't trained for a month because we got to Europe and I was sick and I like barely did anything and then tapered for Ibiza and now we're back home and I'm like, wow, I wish I could live my life like that, like race really well, but barely trained. Well, yeah. You can't coast off that for too much longer. Yeah. That could be kind of a crazy realization and you're like, when was the last hard workout that I did? Yeah, like a month ago. Some stringing races together wins, wins, top fives. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

That just shows you that when I was sick and I was trying to like force some sessions and Paula was like, no, when you're sick, you just need to get better and not do that. But it just shows you how much your body remembers how to go hard. And you don't actually lose that much fitness in like one or two weeks. And there was a question about this on. Yeah, I put it in actually. Yeah. Yeah, we can talk about that later. But you do have a little bit of like muscle memory and turnover from all the hard months and months of work you do before.

So anyway, very off track. No, that's not off track at all. So you woke up. There you were. This is the thing. Eric wants to double dip and use my audio podcast, race recap. Oh, you're telling them all the secrets here.

So now I have to be like so formal. No, you don't have to be formal. I just, you know, like we can. Yeah. Okay, first of all, I want to say that before the race, I Orca sent me a prototype swimskin while we were in California.

and I just completely lost it. This is cannot like me. But it's nowhere to be found. I've searched the house up and down, and it's a really nice swimskin. So I've just been using the old swimskin. But right before the race start, Lucy Byram, who's also an orcathlet,

said she had two of the prototype swimskins. Would I like to wear one? Can you imagine how generous and nice that is? That is extremely nice. Thank you, Lucy. So I took her up on it and I wore it and I like beat her by one place, which I felt kind of bad about.

But she's such a, such a, such a, such a. nice person. That was another question in this week's pod. What is like the most generous act of kindness that someone's ever done in a race? That might be one of them. Oh, that's nice. So thank you, Lucy. I do actually listen to this. Fortunately, the result of this race had almost nothing to do with swim though. Yeah, I dove into the water. And this swim is so beautiful. If you want to come do T-100 Ibiza next year, I would put it high up on the list of one of my favorite courses that you see like the bottom of the ocean, the entire way. And the only thing that made it really challenging on our particular race day was the wind and the chop.

Ocean swims are just, you know, unpredictable in that way. And it was also hard to see. Like the sun was in our eyes. There were a lot of buoys out there and trying to navigate was challenging. So I was with a group of people but didn't know who they were. And when I came out on the first Aussie exit, because you run out of the water after 1K, I was with like Ann Hogg and like people that I need to be swimming faster then. I was stressing a little bit.

Bad swim. And like the whole time in the swim, I'm like, fuck, I have not swim enough this month. Like swimming matters. You really have to swim to swim well. Don't say that. I know. I hated realizing that.

What are the other options for swimming well? Can I just buy for any other places? Well, I thought I could just like be generally fit and swim since I was like 11. And maybe that would carry me through. But no, you have to actually swim. So I was, it's weird. because my heart rate was low, my effort was, it felt like I was trying hard,

but my heart rate and my perceived exertion was low in a weird way. Where were you trying hard? In your shoulders and your back? Like my turnover was like a billion strokes a minute. Like I was just swimming so inefficiently. It was hilarious. Okay. But my heart rate was fine and I was completely fine.

I was like, I just want this to be over. This is taking way too long. But I'm like turning my arms over like a cartoon character. Yeah. And like having trouble sighting and whatever. So I was just like so happy to get out of the water. And I knew that flora and all the fast swimmers must be so far up the road. But kept my cool, got on the bike, got around all the people I had been swimming with. And I was riding really well. Like I felt good on the bike. And the nice kind of fun thing about doing a time trial before a triathlon, like I did the UCI worlds, was that, The watts for a triathlon are like 50 watts lower. Yeah. Which feels so easy. So I kept looking at my power meter and I was like riding good watts at fairly low effort into a headwind.

So I was, you know, breaking away from a lot of people and then also catching the front group of Flora and Taylor Spivey and people that had got out of the water ahead of me. So I was riding well. That's the killer combo. That's what you want. Yeah, totally. Where this course kind of killed me a little bit was on a little bit of the roundabout technical nature of the turnarounds and then the super big tailwind coming back. I didn't really have the right gearing and I was spinning out and I basically led the whole way into the tailwind with like a group behind me. And then on the way back, people were coming around me because they were just had more gears to push big watts into a tailwind, which I was kind of. an oversight on my end of not having a begin-off chain ring. Oh, I see. You did go up in chain ring size because prior to the UCI worlds,

you were running a 50-tooth front ring. Yeah, I would have been F'd with a 50. You were at a 2-by with a 52 on the front for this. Okay. Yeah, but I needed like a 56. 56. Wow. I mean, all the boys were like upgrading their chain rings for this race, like getting 60s and 68's shipped in from their sponsors.

And Eric was making fun of them thinking this is so unnecessary. And then I on race day didn't have a big enough chain ring. So it's stupid. People do 68. No, 58. No, over 60. I think Kat had a 60. I don't know why, but I did not know that that ever happened in triathlon.

It didn't used to be a thing. This is like you're going slightly downhill with a tailwind and you like to ride 70 RPM. That's what we're talking about. And your bike is a sail. And you want to be in the middle of the cassette. Right, I see. For a straight chain line, like all these things. Okay.

Wow. Amazing. So, yeah. I mean, if we wanted to adhere to that school of thought, I think, of 56, sure. I mean, you didn't have to worry about climbing up anything, so it would have been fine. Wow. Yeah. I mean, there was a bit of a hill on the way up, but what, we climbed like 500 meters total over 80K, so not crazy.

Did you feel, you know, we hear all the time that a big part of swim training and becoming a good swimmer is, is so that when you get to the bike, you're not as fatigued. You said you felt like not as strong on the swim, but it didn't affect your bike at all, right? No, 100% not. Okay, good. I was completely in control on the swim. It was just like almost like a muscle memory weakness, weirdness.

I see. But yeah, it didn't really impact my bike at all. I got on the bike and felt fine. Yeah, I can see on the out and backs, we were like holding the gap to Indyli, who was in second. Taylor Nib is just irrelevant in these to me. so far up the road. And then I was riding with like Imogen Simmons and Lucy Byram,

who were both really good on the bike. So, yeah, it was a good little group. And I knew that Ashley was coming up behind us and Emma was behind us and Flora was behind us. And Ann Hogg was not that far back. So when I went on to the run in about fifth or sixth with those four behind me, you were worried. I'm like, this is what I don't like about T-1. 100. I'm having a good race and I'm going to come 10th. Because those four are going to run past me.

And so that's, but still I was able to just like kind of focus on what I was doing and I felt good running. And so that helped. But the lap nature of the course was that we, there was a ton of people like a ton of crowd support. You pass the music a bunch of times. So my overall motivation for the run was relatively high, even though I thought these super runners were all running me down. But the thing that did help was that I was catching Lucy Byron and Imogen Simmons, who got a little bit of time on me on the last bit of the bike. And that was motivating. So at one point, I'd run up to fourth. And that was before Ashley had come up. And I was putting a bit of time into Emma Palin. So like all these things were happening that were kind of positive and trending in the right way. So that kind of helped me stay in it and stay motivated. And a seven lap course can be really challenging. if you're not in it, because it feels like an eternity if you're having a rough day. So when you keep saying these names of these people that sometimes run faster than you, sometimes you run faster than they run.

And I'm wondering. Like who? Like Emma. Emma Palant, I'm thinking. She always runs faster than me. But for some reason she had an off day. Right. So an off day.

So do you think an off day is more likely due to just like literally you wake up and it's the luck of the draw? Or do you think it has to do? with the last couple weeks of training, how the taper went, the eating? Or do you think there's just like days you wake up and your legs are ready and days you wake up and your legs are not as ready?

I don't know. There's so many factors. The travel, everyone's coming from different parts of the world. Yes, the taper, the heat, the conditions, how hard the bike was for that person relative to other people. There's so many things. But to be completely honest,

in the last year or two years, I haven't really had a triathlon where I've just felt so off that I'm way back. Like some days I feel better than others, but I'm kind of consistently top five in races. Obviously, people have off days and on days, but I think if you're fit and you are smart about your traveling and stuff,

you should be able to fall back on your training. I do think that we're getting to the point in this season, where it's later in this season, and that starts to play an impact on people, on like we'll just say the consistency of the field as a whole, people are getting tired, people have gotten sick, like shit is happening that makes it so that people that maybe you're just, you can count on a certain level of performance from these people at the beginning of the season, it gets more hit and miss as we get to this time of the year.

For everybody, yeah. Like as I was sick before this race, and I'm sure other people were too, you just don't know, you know, what people went through to get to the start line. Yeah. Okay, so at what point were you like, or maybe this happened earlier on where you're like, this is actually a good day and I'm happy with this result that I seem to be about to have. Yeah, well, up until the very end, I thought Anne was going to catch me in it. Then at the point of the last couple laps, it became just a self, you know, my own game of like,

can I beat Anne Hogg and not let her run me down? And no one else cared about that. We were running for like fifth place. Okay, Eric cared. Eric and Paula were having quite the conversation about Paula's splits and me and Hogg split. I literally no else on Earth knew about this little battle that I was having. Right. Like the race, Taylor Nibon won and whatever.

But you do have to find those moments of like what can be a challenge for me in this race that I'm not going to win. And I'm not going to podium at this point. What is the best result I can get? And if I fight a little harder, can I finish one spot higher? And I'm proud that I didn't just like accept that she was going to pass me. And I did really fight for it. And it ended up being like, I don't know, 20. seconds in the end that she was running me down. So yeah, I managed to hold her off and finished

fifth, but it wasn't about coming fifth or coming sixth. Like, who cares at that point? It's a $1,000 difference, I guess, if you're thinking about money. But it was more just about like, how will I cross the line feeling like I did my absolute best? And that's not so it did it. You're describing the plight of the age grouper here. This is exactly what 99% of age groupers are doing. They know they're not going to win. They're not going to place top. And their age group, they are creating an artificial battle in their head and battling that to feel satisfied at the end. Yeah.

We are absolutely no different than everybody else in that regard. The thing that matters the most is the storyline that you make up at your head and the thing that you assign importance to in your head, the money is like awesome that it's there. Yeah. That's great. Another cool thing about this run is that, well, I didn't really talk about the bike at all, but that's fine. It's really fine.

But I wore the on light speed, like the new shoes with no laces that Helena O'Biri wore at Boston. Oh, there's a light spray. Light spray. Either the light spray or the stray sprike or the lights. They're the light spray. They're not available to the public yet. But I went to visit on in Zurich a few weeks ago and got a couple pairs of these with no obligation to race with them. They have a really good option of different race shoes right now.

so I could choose for many of them. But I tested these shoes out like two days out from the race. Loved them. Super comfortable, fast-feeling, roll forward, better than any race shoes I've ever used. I was a bit concerned about, like, are they too loose for my foot? Are they going to feel different if my feet are wet? Are they going to be too hard to put on? Like there were a lot of unknowns about wearing a brand new shoe for race day.

but I'm kind of at the point of my life slash career why I'm like, who cares? They're so cool. Nobody else has them. They're on's best shoe. Helen O'Berry won big marathons in them. I'm wearing them. Yeah.

If they're not ideal, like that's fine. But they ended up being completely ideal. And I was thinking about it several times in the race about how much I love them. So they're not out yet, but I... That's awesome. This is like a true real-life test. test and they're my favorite ratio. I'll wear them forever now until they come up with something

better. A lot of people ask me on my Instagram messages if they're hard to get on. And I'll say they're a little bit harder than elastic laces on a regular pair of shoes. But with a bit of technique practice and how to hold them as you're slipping them on, not a problem. Yeah, I included it in our YouTube video a little bit, like literally her first attempt at putting them on as quickly as possible. I got better though. Yeah, and I didn't include the second attempt and the second attempt was twice as fast and I would say like equally as fast as putting on like super whatever shoes with, you know, laces in them. But it's funny because it's a very stiff, it feels a bit stiff. It's like plasticy almost. It's not a fabricy feel on top. It's really like. It feels like

packing styrofoam. Yeah. The stuff that they fill boxes with that's like a paper but it's styrofoam. Yeah. So they're not super, they're not flexible at all. They're just kind of like, they have to be stiff. Otherwise, that upper wouldn't work because they would be too unstable. Anyway, I wore those and I felt cool wearing them. It looked cool. And I looked cool, too. And I don't think you mentioned the process and the place with which you crossed the line.

Yeah. How'd that had an hog battle turn out. Oh, yeah. So I came fifth in the end. I beat Anne. Basically, I was running in fourth. No, I came off the bike in six. I passed Lucy Byram.

I passed Imogen Simmons. I thought Emma would pass me. She didn't. But then on the second to last lap, Ashley Gentle passed me. Then I'm in fifth. And Ann Hogg, you see her on every turnaround just like gaining time on me. Right, of course. She's probably going to catch me.

But I'm going to try to make it to the end. And then she didn't catch me. Turned on my afterburners for the last K. Yeah. Yeah, you had a good run too, right? It's not just that whatever. It wasn't just other people. For me, it was a good run.

Yeah. And I attribute a lot of that to just like not giving up, staying in the moment, wearing really fast shoes. You know, enjoying the crowd support and the music. Like every time I passed the finish line, the music was so good. I'm like, damn, this is like our wedding. The DJ is so good here. I was feeding them suggestions. I was singing in my head like the whole time.

Honestly, I've been a little. sour about T-100 racing all year because I just haven't enjoyed it, but I did actually enjoy this race, like, at certain points. Yes, it was, like, one of the hardest races of the year that I've done, but it never at any point in the race did I think I want to stop. That's great. So, I don't know, my, I think a lot of that has to do with just my attitude heading into it of just being more chill, being like, this is just another race. Nobody cares how I finish. I just telling myself that helps a lot. Do you think it's something that you could carry into a future T-100 race?

Yeah, I'm going to have to. Well, I mean, it would be nice to, but it's easier said than done a lot of the time. Yeah, well, I'm not dumb. I'm just going to do that. Okay, good. Eric, did you hear that? She said it on the podcast. Hell yeah.

I'm in. Yes, there were so many factors that made it easier to do that. I was like, I had a good race in Beijing, had a decent time trial. I get to go home tomorrow. just get this done. That was, that helped with like the low stress feel of it. But it makes the whole week more enjoyable. And I actually thought to myself as I was like in race week, you can choose to make it not stressful.

Like you can be nervous, you can be stressed or you can just choose to like enjoy looking at the ocean and enjoy race week. And I was like having a, I'm my own sports psychologist. This is crazy. I don't need a sports psychologist. I am my own. Do you want to be my therapist, Paula? Jeez, that was good. And it makes it 10 times better leading in

if you're not hating every second of it. Well, yeah. Well, congratulations. Eric, what about from your perspective? What was this race like? I mean, I think externally, yeah, I was acting a bit nervous. Yeah.

But internally, I wasn't wanting to quit triathleth. So I didn't even feel that bad, but I did make Eric feel that bad. Yeah, if you had asked me, my perspective on the weekly mood and everything, slightly different, but I will say, I do think there was definitely this, like, just a huge relief to not be wildly sick. Yeah. And that it was, that took a bit of the edge off of, like, how am I going to perform?

And, like, I have to get the most out of myself. It was just like, wow, we actually were able to go to the swimming pool. We were actually able to, like, execute a run with intervals without a complete break. down and run into the bushes every 30 seconds. So it was, it felt like we were already winning. That's great. As far as getting sick, I feel like the timing of it was actually ideal. Like, if you had to get sick on this trip for the amount of days you got sick, you fit it in

the perfect day. I squeezed it in between China and Zurich. Yeah. But I honestly barely trained. I thought it would really impact my abysa race. It did on the swim, but nothing else. Eric, did you get any FOMO or were you like, I'm happy to not be doing it? That's a good question, Nick.

I asked them that several times in the week. Yeah, of course. If I had the ability to, I would love to be their racing. And that format excites you, too. Like that race course, that kind of thing with the seven laps and the whole thing. I have always enjoyed racing triathlon and competitive races where you're like head to head side by side with people and going for it. the thing that's turned me off and made trathon hard for me the last few years is my hip ongoing injury and the huge question mark at the beginning of each race of

like will my leg go completely numb immediately and I'll get dropped on the bike and just be in suffer mode the whole time and I this year have not been willing to put myself in that position but I would yeah I would I would really enjoy to be there racing and mixing it up with those guys so But also, like, I'm also having a blast in the position that I'm currently in. I think I've taken some of the best pictures of my life. I think the video from this race is some of the best cinematography I've ever done. And I'm really enjoying working on that.

And the stuff we have gone on with TTL and supporting Paula. So I, you know, I don't have that much phone-mo because what I am currently doing, I'm also loving. What we need to work on, though, is that I feel guilty. That he's there for me and he's not racing. Yeah. Because I'm like, wow, imagine all the things you could be doing at home if you weren't here with me. Like, you could be doing that race that you wanted to do, that mountain race or whatever. Or working on so many other things.

So I just have this, like, insane sense of, wow, you're trapped in Europe with me and I'm sick. I mean, he's trapped with the love of his life, but sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, like, Abiza sucked for running. And Eric's, like, it's all he could really do there, yet he couldn't do it because it was so bad. So it's, but I just have to get over that because this is ultimately a team thing. And if Eric wasn't there, would I have raced as well. And I don't know.

There's so many. Yeah. I made the decision to be there. I'm a big boy. I can choose things for myself. And, and, you know, it's, I, yeah, I, as long as you can be happy for that and just appreciative, and then I'm happy. And, you know, I don't want you to feel guilty.

That kind of ruins it, you know, the gift that I am giving of my. time and support. But, I mean, my impression of the trip is overall still net positive despite the sickness and all the turmoil and everything that we went through. And I'm incredibly happy to be home, but also I feel like I was important and needed. And that gives me the most satisfaction of anything. Yeah. And how quick, I mean, obviously, T-100 Lake Las Vegas is coming up.

So how soon are you going to drive down? Are you going to try to go down early at all? kind of normal time. I have to be there like the Tuesday out. Oh so yeah quite early. Maybe I'll stretch it to Wednesday. I don't know. I don't know. It's kind of funny because they're like you have to be there five days out. And then I get an email two days before that's like, you are not needed for any media things. See you with the briefing on Thursday. So it's like you have to make everyone come to make it fair, but like we don't actually need to be there that early. Right. So it's a bit confusing. Vegas will be a little bit better though because, I mean like

Aaron Royals going there for 10 days beforehand. It's like Abiza was... Yeah, you could actually train in light class, I guess. I did have one good bike ride in Abiza, but it's like 40 minutes of driving through like trucks and buses and craziness to get to the good, fun, Majorca-esque riding. And then the running just, you had a good luck. Yeah, bummer about the running, I guess.

Especially if you live there. You just try to run, I guess. I did want to say, you just. say though, like because we were a bit down on it early in the week and in the YouTube video, it's not going to like paint it in a super positive light. But the other side of the island and just like anything except for like the clubbing zone, I am intrigued to explore more. And if we could have had it any way, I think we would have been there for like four days and then just come to the race the day before the race to preview the, I don't even know what you really needed

to preview, just like a little bit of the bike course maybe. And that would have been actually pretty dreamy. The other, well, last thing about this place is the amount of noise going on at the hotel for an athlete getting ready to race. Last complaint about this race. It's not even a complaint, but it was comical, Eric. Like the concerts that were going out on Outsider Window? It truly was. Like they were just these show people who sing and dance in till midnight, every single night, extremely loud

right outside her window. And like, I wasn't even mad because it was so ridiculous. Right. Some people are loving it. Your ear plugs don't help. I was wearing, like, these AirPods Macs over the ear. Noise cancellation. That sort of help, but they're kind of hard to sleep with.

So, yeah, if I would suggest staying in a hotel that's like off the main strip a little. But the hotel was nice. So good breakfast, et cetera. Well, nice. Well, we're happy for you. Glad the trip went well. Glad you guys are back. Yeah, being home is nice. Okay, are we cool to go on to questions now. Questions are submitted by our wonderful listeners. That's you.

And you can submit your questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter. And we are so grateful to our podcast supporters. Our podcast supporters are the only way that this podcast actually makes any money. So we appreciate that. And this week, we're going to. to do a special little treat for our podcast supporters. One of our questions is about swim warmups and like dry land swim warmups. And we're going to do a video portion to that as well. So the audio will be on the podcast, but there will also be the video part. And that'll be for the podcast supporters only.

We also something else we're doing here is picking a podcast winner. So a random podcast supporter will get TTL branded bottles and socks. And this week, the random podcast supporter is Seth Johnson, congratulations, Seth Johnson. You are a winner this week. Thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. Okay, first question here is from Kelly. Hey, TTL, I'm a terrible climber on the bike.

Even in times of peak fitness, I feel like my cadence quickly falls off, and then I just grind it out and spike my heart rate. Bike tech friend of mine recommended swapping out my 54-39 crank set for a 50-34, and dropping my crank length from 170 to 165. I'm only 5'2. I'm wondering if this feels like cheating. Do I just need practice more? Get stronger, or is it okay to make bike changes

that will possibly make this easier on me? Appreciate your feedback, Kelly. Have you ever thought of changing your chain ring size as cheating? I've never even considered that. I think she's just thinking like, I'm not strong enough for this chain ring. do I just need to get stronger and tolerate this chain ring? Yeah, like, is this chain ring motivation to get stronger?

I run compact chain rings myself. Yeah, I ran compact for a while. Actually, they came out with a cool combination back in the middle of my, like, tail end of my ITU career that was like a, instead of a 5339 or a 5034, it was like a 52-36. Right. It was like right smack in the middle, and it was freaking perfect. Because you can spend 99% of your time in the 52, and then just occasionally, for bigger hills drop down.

It felt really nice. Well, the reason I included this question, or I submitted it to Nick for inclusion in this podcast because I had a bit of an experience like this in Switzerland where I went to Beijing with a one-by, a 50, and a super-tight cassette in the back to race with on a super flat course. And then I got to Switzerland, and it's like the land of steep hills. Right.

And I wrote around on a one-by with a slightly bigger cassette. set in the back, but it honestly, this is the first time in my life where I had to get off my bike and walk up a mile hill because it was like so steep and I could not get up with my bike. So when I got to TT Worlds in Zurich, Schram swapped my one by for a two-by because I thought for the race I might need a two-by. And I had like PTSD from riding around with a one-by in Circe for 10 days because it was so hard. to get up even not that steep of hills. And once I put the two by on, I like enjoyed riding again.

Right. It's like, okay, I can get up hills like I do on my road bike by dropping into the small train ring. So it's not cheating. There is a range where if your cadence is just too grinding and the hill is too steep for what you have, you're putting in way too much effort. You're loading your legs more than you need to. And you're going to suffer later on. Well said.

I agree. Just because you want to put out 300 watts to use the lowest gear that you have doesn't mean that is the best option here. Like if 200 watts is what you have, then like get the appropriate gearing to be in the correct power band. You know, like they give cars very specific gears based on how much horsepower they have and how much they weigh and everything. So this is not cheating. It's just optimizing. That was the problem in Switzerland. I had to go over 300 watts to get up hills.

I can do it, but I don't want to do it on an easy ride. So that was the light switch of like, this is why people have two buys and don't ride one-by T-T bikes in Europe. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like you wouldn't do a triathlon on a beach cruiser. You do it on a specific bike that gets you the most out of yourself. Or you'd get like a really perfect gear on that beach cruiser. Yeah, right. I have definitely thought about since I've done St. Anthony's enough times now and won it

and accomplish the things that I want to. They're doing that on a single speed T.T. Because you could totally. You could totally do it. You could do that in Beijing, too. It's so flat. The new course, yeah. If there's no wind in any direction.

It's kind of a fun idea. A single speed, like a track bike. Yeah. I was a little bit like this person before where I'm like, I just ride one bys on my TT bike. I don't need two buy ever. Like I can do any race on a one buy. It's better.

You don't have to worry about your chain. dropping until I got to Europe. And then I'm like, okay, no, I cannot write a one buy in Europe. So there are purposes for two buys, but there are also our courses where a one buy is better. Yeah. I think you probably could have gotten away with the one buy still, but we would have had to go like a 1036 with Sramm's new derailer and get you on like a 52 instead of a like it would have been. these gear jumps would have just been like aggressive. The thing about it is for the TT itself, I could have done a one-by.

But I went with the two-by just for peace of mind. But in the race, you're going over 300 watts anyway, so you can get up any climb in the one-by in that particular course. Yeah. Yeah. But when we're traveling like this,

it's like in order to do a full gear swap, it's like you've got to call a favor from SRAM and get a front derailer. It's like a huge process. So I kind of did. the best with what I could in Abiza, even though I actually did need a bigger chain ring. Not to make it about me.

Now, if we can make this about anybody, it was a huge, huge thank you to Sram for sending us that to you by setup and to specialize for overnighting a front derailer hanger for her shift. Incredible support. Yeah, that was crazy. Because not only do you need a front derailer,

you need to attach that to your bike and we didn't have that piece with us. Wait, always a hanger. There are, I never considered front derailer hangers. Yeah, they're removable on TT bikes now. Oh, I see. Cool. Wild. Well, thanks for your question, Kelly.

Next question here is from Charles, and this is going to be the one that is for the podcast supporters. Paula is stretching out her legs. This is a question about swim warm-ups, but I'll read the whole question here. Not sure if I can make next week's podcast with this question, but giving it a shot. Racing X-Try Canada Man 140.6 next weekend.

Whoa. And wondering if you have looked at that? Yeah, it looks pretty cool. Okay. Do you want to give us a little rundown of what it is? Can you speak to it at all? You swim in a lake like normal and then you bike like a pretty aggressive hilly bike course, but still I think you would be on a TT bike for the most part. But then the run kind of goes back and forth between on road and off road

and you finish running up. It's like Mount Magantik or something and like finish at a freaking observatory. So it's like basically a mountain run. Where is it? to finish. It's in Quebec, I believe. And you're wearing trail shoes, would you say? I don't see. That is the huge question mark. But I think the thing that they do with X-Try is, like, you can have a support crew that follows you in a car. And I think the move would probably be to like wear super shoes right up until like the last...

Swap-A. Where it does all the crazy climbing on trail, because there's a ton of road up until that point. And that was the thing that made me not to decide not to do it. I got invited, but it looked like the run was predominant that was like more road than trail with the exception of the very finish and the shoe choice and all. There was a whole bunch of logistical things. But do you need a support crew

or is it one of those races that you can kind of have it or not? I think it might be a mandatory. At least when I was looking at Padigan Man, which is also part of the X-Try thing, you have to have a support vehicle with you because they do not have aid stations. It's point-to-point, etc. Which is cool, but more to think about.

Yeah. Okay. wondering if you have any tips for dry land swim warm up and prep for extreme cold water swims. We'll be wearing booties and gloves for the first time in a race, but tested them out for a mile plus already. Thank you for all you do in this amazing and crazy community of endurance sports and triathlon, Charles. So let's talk about before even the warm up stuff. Are there any things that you would do that don't necessarily qualify as a warm up for a very cold race? Yeah, I've experienced

from St. George, 70.3 World Championships in 2022. I think it was like 2 degrees Celsius in the air and the water was cold, but obviously not as cold as the air. I remember. It was freezing. Yeah, so I went through a whole... Eric actually raced the day after me.

It was slightly warmer, but also freezing. Yeah. But I think I did a good job of what I decided to wear in my warm up for that race, so I can talk about what I did. Yeah, that's great. And the key to this is it's such a long race. You don't necessarily need to be like physically primed to go at this point,

but you do need to stay warm. So my coach, Paulo, told me stay as warm as you possibly can before the start, like so that you're hot. Even though it's so cold outside, you do everything in your power to make yourself hot. So that's staying inside the car as long as you can. I bought winter gloves from Walmart. I bought an extra jacket. Two-tooks.

I bought winter boots from Target that I could just kind of leave and not worry about. Two-tooks, double-beanies, if you're not Canadian. It's a Canadian. Double-beanie. Yeah, so I had all of this clothing on, and then I did a warm-up jog. So I was actually sweating, even though it was so cold. What were you wearing for the warm-up jog? All of that stuff.

running shoes. And then once I finished the warm-up jog and put my wetsuit on, put all the clothes back on. So up until the moment where we were like called to the start line, I was wearing all of this clothing and I was hot. So that made it so that when I got in the water, I was warmed up. And even though I wasn't, I didn't do a swim warm up, obviously, I was not shivering. And that made it so that I never felt cold in the water. And had you end up finishing in that race? I came second. Second at words.

Out of the water I put a Castelli jacket on and gloves. That was the race that Holly wore like nothing but her suit and got very cold, right? Yeah. And I felt cold too even with that clothing on, but it suited me. I like the cold. And I'm assuming if this person's racing this cold race, they also don't mind the cold. Maybe they just like achievement. There's no way you would sign up for this if cold wasn't, at least not too much of a concern.

Yeah. Oh, another thing I got was like ski glove. You know, when you go skiing and you get these like shaker hot things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I put those in my gloves and I got a couple more to put in my shoes. Hand warmers. Yeah. I went so overboard with being hot. And would you ever like take some water and put it in your wetsuit first to try to warm up the water? Yeah, you could bring like a thermos with hot water and put that down your wetsuit. Again, just anything to make yourself hot. And then what about, are you suggesting that muscularly, there's nothing that you would really do to warm up for the swim? Well, I did a little jog. You could like bring stretch cords or something. That's bringing stretch cords and putting them over like a barrier and doing, you know, like fly pull downs is a pretty standard. Which is what, Eric, since we have video for this, those are these where it's pulling that way? Yeah, you like loop the band over like a barrier or something and then you're basically

doing this to try to warm up your lats and your back. Mimic the pull of a swim stroke. Yeah. And I've seen people like, you know, kind of then flip around and do it backwards where they're like sort of lifting a little bit. Just anything that makes it feel like you get blood into your shoulders, essentially. So you don't hit the water and just feel like you haven't moved your shoulders since yesterday. What about this thing that you see swimmers do all the time, not triathletes, but swimmers,

like this thing, the, you know? Yeah, like arm swings and stuff, of course. Yeah. That doesn't really warm you up. up. That's more like in the category of limbering up, but... Limbering. Yes, yes. Very nice. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Arm swings. All that stuff. You do some push-ups. I did push-ups before a race once.

Where you got like one hand down and you're like... The thing about all this stuff is like mentally it's just checking a box of like, I'm doing something. Yeah. But is it going to make you swim that much faster in your 13-hour race? No. You seems like for you, the priority by far is on staying warm more than you. getting your muscles primed for an effort. Yeah. Even in Abiza, it was not, it was like a hot day, and I did a swim warm up, got out, and I was shivering.

Because just being wet with a bit of wind makes you so cold. So even in warm races, you kind of have to be cognizant of like just getting warm again after the swim warm up when you're just sitting around and waiting for the start. So actually in the last couple of races, like San Francisco, Tram Blanche, Beijing, I didn't even do a swim warm up, just in the interest of staying. warm and comfortable up until when the gun goes off. Maybe sacrificing a bit of the activation, but whatever. Wouldn't you be worried at all about the cold shock kind of response that some people get for this if they don't get in the water first?

No. I feel like if you're actually a warm, it's just less of a shock, I feel like. And when you're racing, that's not as much of the thing. Yeah, the difference between like you being at body temperature and your face hitting really cold water and you being physically feeling hot and your face hitting cold. water, I don't think there's a difference there. I don't think you're enhancing that effect. Right. I'm not a scientist.

Interestingly, remember I said a few weeks ago on the podcast, that a friend of mine who is an Italian triathlete statistician, and I was going to have him look into the heart attack rate of Italian triathletes versus American triathletes. Because they have to go through that. Because they have to go through that rigorous thing. By the way, my friend Kathleen, who just raised 70.3 in Italy, had to go through it here and do amazing.

million tests to go through it. It was like crazy the stuff she had to go through. Anyway, in Italy they have to do that before they race, and he found that there was no statistical difference in the amount of athletes that got heart attacks in Italy versus in the U.S. with this, even with the additional health checks for them. Freak accidents. Freak accidents.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Well, there's like barely any races in Italy, though. Well, there's barely any 70, Iron Man, Brandon Semmel. 3s, but there's triathlons in Italy that are local races. And we're just going deaths per capita, not total, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, that's on a light note. But thank you podcast supporters who are watching this video. And for anyone who wants to become a podcast supporter, we really appreciate it. And once again, you can do that at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. By the way, none of us are wearing any clothing. What do you mean? Oh, we're all naked.

We're all naked. So if you... Better go sign up or don't. If you get a podcast supporter, then you're really missing up. Plus Nick said he has a sick pack for the first time ever in his life. So if you really want to see that, you can become a podcast supporter.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. You know what is a cool, like, side benefit of the new app is that we, you can now access all of the podcast supporter content at any given time versus just like having to dig through your email. emails.

So. Oh, thank God, because some people don't get the emails and it's a nightmare for me. I don't, there is, yeah, there's some dark magic going on that is preventing some people's getting emails. I still suspect spam filters, but, yeah, I don't know. We spend a lot of time trying to figure that out. Okay. Well, on to the next question here.

This next question is from Yisheng. Dear Eric Paula and Nick, I noticed that in wetsuit legal races, some triathletes will fully wear their one-piece trisuits under their wetsuits, while all the other. Others will just wear the bottom half and put on the top half after removing the top half of their wetsuit. Why is this so? Do you guys have a preference? Thank you, regards, Yishang. This is actually more common in a swim skin situation because swim skins are usually sleeveless, but swim race suits are sleeved.

And if the sleeves bug you when they're exposed to the water, a lot of athletes will have their suit rolled down, just their swim skin on. And then as they're running to transition, take the swim skin or the wet suit off and pull on the top. Right. It's like pretty common to see that actually. It looks so annoying to me. It's wet. It's hard to do. It's so incredibly annoying.

I would be worried about like tearing it or something. Yeah. These fabrics are so delicate. So what do you guys think? Opinions. On what you should do? Yeah, on what you guys do, for example. It sounds like you don't run it out.

We definitely wear the sleeves on. Like our Castelli suits are so tight. in the shoulders in terms of like how on there. They're not loose. Yeah, they're, they would be very difficult to pull on. And I don't feel any degree of restriction while wearing them up.

I think that's an incredibly, incredibly well-designed suit. But it doesn't feel like you're naked up there. So I can see just like people who are really hung up about wearing a sleeved wetsuit versus a sleeveless wetsuit and just having any degree of feeling like there's stuff touching you. I think that's why. we see people, you know, do the run through transition while trying to pull on a tri-kit top.

Right. Yeah, but I personally always wear the kit on. Also, it's just like less things to think about in transition and worry about. Yeah. You already have it on. I already have my gels in my pocket for the swim, even with a wetsuit on or a swim skin. Oh, you have your gels in your kit underneath your wetsuit. Yeah.

Oh, nice. Slowing me down in the water, apparently. I know I had a bad swim. I'm like, way down. By Morton Jells. That's what it was. That's what it was. Okay.

This next question here is, as for Eric, because I think Eric does most of the bike cleaning and the family. Hey friends, bike cleaning, how often what products, any certain order or procedure, thanks, Kinley. So you guys live in Dustville over there. Extremely dusty, yeah. So what's the procedure? And do you use like muck off or like any of those things you could buy at bike shops? Yeah.

I actually don't even know. So, curious. Yeah. ideally if possible if time allows as soon as we get back from a ride I just hose the bikes off and then if there is extra time we'll like wipe them down with a microfiber towel to just kind of get the the spraying doesn't necessarily get all of the all the dust off and everything and are you careful about like pressure into bearings and stuff nice paula nice i love questions are the answer

in the question. My favorite type of podcast question. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about that before, but try not to spray high pressure water directly into bearings. I use the nozzle setting on our multi-nauzle

hose that's like a flat, gentle spray, just enough to knock dirt off but not be penetrating into anything that's important. and then yeah i'll like wipe down the drive train a little bit with the microfiber towel and just try to get it dry and then the next phase if i'm feeling like extra fancy or if the race is coming up or whatever once the bike is fully dried off then i'll use squirt lube cleaner they have this bike cleaner which

i am a massive fan of they actually it's an eco-friendly thing too they send you one squirty bottle with like three packets that you just mix with water. That's nice. And then you just buy more packets. So instead of like constantly just going through another squirty bottle thing, it's pretty eco-friendly. And it actually works incredibly well. I often will just not even do the whole like hose phase.

If we have not been riding in the dust, like it's not a mountain bike thing. It's more of a road bike thing. And that stuff like leaves the bike looking incredible, gets all the dirt off. Big fan. Nice. And then the final step would be maybe I'll hydra-

hypersonic clean the chain, or I'll just wipe it down really well and then put on some squirtlebe wax-based loop. Nice. That's great. And that's like after, you said after every ride if you have time. Yeah, I mean, every ride if I have time,

just knocking the dust off is really satisfying the hose We have a great little setup with hose and gravel next to the house. And this is not just for gravel bikes and mountain bikes. This is for your road bikes too. Not the road bike. The road bike doesn't get that dusty. The road bike I can definitely just go straight to spraying it down with the squirt loop cleaner and wiping it down and have to clean the chain much less often.

But the gravel bikes in the mountain bike are just like you go for one ride and they are just coated in a layer of dust. And your legs are coated in a layer of dust. It's pretty neat. Yeah, yeah, cool. Thanks, Eric. That's great. And then final question here is from Jamie. Hey, yo, F-Pen.

Oh, that's a new one. Do you really lose fitness by taking a week off? This is the question we were referencing earlier. It's hard for me to think that if you have a solid base, taking a week off would lead to fitness loss rather than restoration. Do you think it's more perception or psychological, like I'm used to training and feel off if I don't, then actual fitness regression?

Love all that you do for the sport, Jamie. That's a good question because even we can answer, like, no, you're not going to lose fitness in a week. And then when you're in the middle of that week, you start feeling like you are and questioning everything. Yeah, halfway through the first day, you're like, oh, gosh. I can't, I'm so out of shape. The short answer is no. In a week, you're going to benefit more than decrease your fitness. Like, you'll be more rested, you'll be more motivated.

that's why people take mid-season rests or if you're sick for a week and you take a week off, you'll be fine. I think that's kind of the sweet spot of like regenerating yourself but not losing all the fitness you've worked really hard for. Yeah, there is a definite point to taking a rest week. They're there for a reason. They don't make you weak if you want to,

if you take one. and typically, like, if you're taking one, it's because in three weeks from now, if you didn't take one, you're going to be in such a deep hole and hate your life. So necessary process. Coming into workouts fresh the next week,

you can see gains and benefits that you never would if you were just perpetually tired. And it's hard to, like, accept that in the moment. Totally, that's the problem. If you get antsy, do some foam rolling. Mow the lawn.

Get on some stuff that, normally doesn't get done when you're tired and shattered from training. Or do, I think, like, easy riding and easy swimming that doesn't take a physical toll on you, but as an emotional reprieve from boredom and getting stiff and not moving? Like, we all know you, as obsessive athletes, you do feel worse if you don't move a little bit. I'm just assuming that this rest week has some sort of parameters to it. Yeah, I wonder, well, what I just was just thinking of when Paula was saying that is, would this a good time to, instead of going and swimming hard in the pool or even swimming easy,

is like focusing on drills and on the bike instead of going out for like a nice coffee ride, which you could do focusing on drills on the bike. Well, the problem with that is it takes a big mental toll. Oh, even that. Like if I go out and I'm practicing bike skills, that's actually like mentally hard for me. Exhausting mentally. I think the key here is like if it doesn't, if that sounds fun, if that's your personality type, great. But like for me, the biggest thing about any rest week or an off season is arriving at the end of it, kind of itching to train.

Yeah. And not scratching that itch on day one and doing what sounds good. And, you know, I just don't feel like going for a run this afternoon. Normally I would make myself go. But instead, I'm going to watch a movie like, you know, that's what actually sounds good. And this is my one chance to like do that and feel okay about it and let it come naturally. Yeah. I'd say in the last two months, we, if on paper, I would seem to be less fit and undertrained than I would ideally like to be for like big races like I just did.

Because we had the wedding and then we both got sick for two weeks. Remember that, Eric? Yes, intimately. And then you got sick for another two weeks. And then I went to China with like one week of training. It was okay. And then I immediately got sick again. and then tapered for these next two races. So in the last month, or two months, I haven't done a ton of hard sessions, but I still raced really well a few days ago. So that to me was just real life confirmation that you do get a lot from base fitness

and all the months of hard work leading into a period where maybe you're not doing on paper what's optimal for racing perfectly. And not just months of hard work, but like years. like your body kind of remembers how to how to do things. Yeah. Yeah. That alleviated my stress a little bit.

Although now I feel like, damn, I actually really need to train. It's time. Two months is a little long. Not that I didn't train at all, but, you know, if you think, if you imagine a training camp that's like uninterrupted and you're working super hard for months and months, that's the opposite of what I just had. But you know, you're also healthy. You're not injured.

You've been healthy. year, that's good. And I wonder how much of that is a product of this kind of up and down. For sure. And that's also a potential benefit of this person taking a week off. A week off. Preserving some, you know, healthiness and not getting injured. Yeah. Wonderful. You take two. But don't get to the point where you're like, oh, I don't want to do triathlon anymore. Yeah. That used to happen to me after like my off season month off. is I'd have to start training again and be like, why do I do that?

Why would I spend all this time and energy on this thing? Yeah. If the break is too long, that happens. You get out of the habit and your brain just does funny things. And then you start getting into these thought process. Like I've gotten in this thought process with swimming in the last couple months. Like, oh, it's not going to make that much of a difference if I don't swim today. Dangerous.

Who cares? That's dangerous. That's dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. So you just have to get back on the horse. You have to have something on the schedule. Yeah.

You don't have something that's coming up, you know, what feels like soon-ish enough. You mean like T-100 Lake Las Vegas? Yep, exactly. Definitely motivated to go back to the pool tomorrow. You guys, if anyone wants to do Lake Las Vegas, T-100, we may have a T-TL discount code that we're going to post on our app.

Whoa. It may already be posted on the app inside of a question about a code for Lake Las Vegas. So if you were to go find said thread using the search feature, you will benefit. You will benefit greatly. The benefit. We weren't really supposed to talk about it on the podcast because we don't want to make the people that have already signed up mad. Right.

But also, I want the T-100 to survive. Well, we all do. Everyone does. We all want it to survive. And the age group numbers are just, it's so hard to compete with. Ironman and 70.3s that are established and that have this brand and this recognition. So I think the T-100 races are an amazing experience when I just see the age group. I mean, you've done them next, so you know. But it's just no secret that the number of people doing them is lower than they want. I actually talked to three different people while you were

racing that said that they were going to be racing the next day and that they had done a T-100 race before. And I asked, what was your experience like? Was it good? How does it relate to Iron Man? They all had good things to say and said that it was maybe not quite the level of people around of an Iron Man, but the experience, the professionalism of the course organization and like the attempt at making it a cool vibe and everything were all there and they were back for a second one. Yeah. Yeah, so you guys please come to Lake Las Vegas, T-100. It's going to be so cool.

And we're going to have a freaking kick-ass cheering section during Paula's race. And then for all the significant others of the people who will be there with nothing to do while you are racing a race, cheering section that day too. Also, I realize when this pod comes out, it's going to be like two weeks away, which is so short. But imagine this. In Abiza, T-100, they were a bunch of late withdrawals because of niece, understandably. So they called up Kate Karan, one of our Devo team athletes, Lisa Norton, Grace Thack, two days out from the race. Right. And they were able to do it.

And they all flew in and raced. Yeah. So sometimes little prep is the best prep. You're not stressed. You're not nervous. You've been training, but not with this pressure that's like a race is coming up. So I would say like entering last minute is kind of fun. Yes, yeah.

That is very fun. Just do it. Just do it. Come out. We'll see you. It's going to be a blast. And the last thing, too. about Kate racing, that was really cool to have a Devo team athlete in a T-100 race.

Yeah. Never did I ever think that would happen. No. Like these races are so hard to get into and Kate's been racing super well all years. So her ranking is climbed and she raced in Ibiza and came 15th. That's great. Great experience for her and extremely cool for us to see the kit. Super cool.

It was a crazy story. I mean like T-100 calls like, hey, do you want to race? Yeah, tomorrow. Oh. And she got on a plane and just did it. Oh. I mean, it helps that she's not in the U.S. But.

Well, these opportunities are, I think someone like Kate would have been like, my goal in triathlon is to be racing with these people to get into the series one day. And when you get called up and you're offered a spot, you don't turn that down. You take every opportunity you get with the hope that like they come again. So that's what she did. I think she had to. I would have done the same thing. Good job, Kate.

Completely. Good job T-100. Anyway, we'll see you guys in Lake, Las Vegas. Yeah, hell yeah Either be square And next week, of course We hope. Yeah, talk to you guys later

Bye, see you in.