That Triathlon Life Podcast - Paula's T100 San Francisco race recap, low cycling cadence, and more!

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

This week, Paula walks us through her T100 San Francisco race experience, Eric brings us the latest triathlon news, and then we dive into your listener-submitted questions. This week we discussed:Mentally handling open run coursesAre there any races left with truly challenging swims?Fixing low cadence in cyclingOur amazing parentsA 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

How's it going, everybody? Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Erica Laughnessd. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Nick Goldston. And we got a special show for you today. Not that every show isn't special, but we just got back from T100 San Francisco. So Paula raced that, got fourth place. Very strong result. We'll be going through that. We've got some questions, some fantastic questions that are backlogged from the last couple weeks. Nick and I did our best to chat and keep you a little bit entertained earlier this week. if you're new here, normally, and if this just happened to be like your second episode and what you listen to before this was just Nick and I, don't worry, Paul is here, she is the life of the show and she's going to give us a great race recap. It's true. It's all true. Well done, Eric. So two of you are professional magicians. Is that right? Yep. Yep. All our lives. And I'm a Formula One racer. That's why we have this podcast together. That would be a, I would listen to that podcast, actually. Unfortunately, we're both professional triathletes and Nick is an amateur triathlet professional musician.

So we're going to do our best to keep you entertained anyway. That's right. Shall we kick it off with some news? Yeah, we have some cool news. Eric, you're the news man, but I'll put the little news jingle in here. Okay. This was like a gigantic race weekend across triathlon for sure, but we got a little bit of non-traathlon to sprinkle in there as well. we're going to talk about the T-100, so that'll come later.

But Laura Phillip, Ironman Hamburg, wow, smoking fast. We were secretly hoping that Jackie Herring was going to come away with the win because we are Jackie fans and friends here on podcast. But Laura had an all-time fantastic performance in 803, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, 803, yeah, just so fast. And I would say Kat also had an insane race that's unfortunately being overshadowed by Laura's race, but I think almost equally is impressive.

And she kind of like set the tone for that marathon because she took off and Laura was basically chasing her into the last 10K. No way. We got to sit down and watch some highlights, or maybe the whole replay. That sounds crazy. I think Kat went through the half marathon in 118 or something like that. They both did. They're kind of running the same time, I think.

That's so fast. That's bonkers. So what was the final marathon time then? Like 236 from 238. 2. 38. Okay. I'm I'm getting confused, the six with our other crazy triathlon result. Some dude ran a 130, no, a 226. 226, yeah. The numbers are not making any sense, but first time anyone's gone under 230, this is at Iron Manor, Massius.

He ended up getting second, but just the most bonkers runtime ever in an Iron Man triathlon. Yeah. I want to go back to second what Paula said that it's so crazy that everyone's talking about the Laura Phillip time, but she wasn't alone there. There was two women. It's really impressive that this is where the sport is at. Well, we just did the freaking sub seven, sub eight thing where Cat Matthews, I think, was the fastest person there, right? And it was like towed around by a peloton of other female cyclists and like the whole, and just to go sub eight and now we're about, like, Kat, they both almost might have gone sub-eight if those transitions had been shorter, right? These were like really long transitions in Hamburg.

Yeah. But yeah, just, I mean, freaking amazing by both of them. Heather Jackson, another friend of the podcast, won the Unbound Excel, which, if you're not familiar, 350 miles of riding because the normal unbound is not, you know, big enough. They have an Excel one, and you go straight through the night. You started like 6 p.m. 3 p.m. The day before the normal unbound starts,

and you ride all through that night. And what was her time? 24 hours? 20 hours? And then into the next afternoon. Totally nuts. And it's self-supported. You stop at gas stations and spigots along the way

and carry your own stuff. You don't have a crew. You don't have any of that stuff. It's like the pure thing that gravel started out to be, but you just have got to do it for 20 hours straight. Bonkers. Yeah. I mean, you know, anyone who has rid in a century or even done an Iron Man bike, that feels so long. Okay, now, like, triple it and it's on dirt. That is so brutal. She did have aerobars, though. She looked really good on her bike. Yeah. Yeah. We were having Kona flashbacks. Some of these slow-mo, Heather and the TT bars put on dirt. It was awesome. It was awesome. We're going to hang out with them this week and hopefully get some more low-down details on that whole awesomeness.

last but not least john reed 13th in w tcss nick you maybe you can know how to say this alcaro it's in italy oh i don't even know let me i got to see the spelling a l g h ero algero yeah algero yeah the g means a g sound if it's g e it's a j sound gotcha nice uh yeah uh yeah so that is uh nothing to be you know sneezed at or sniffled at or whatever uh 13th place in w tcS that's the best guys in the world and those are the dudes who will be lining up for the Olympic game. So John's on the development team. We're psyched every time we could have watched him race. Yeah. Awesome. Speaking of best people in the world, Paula, you raced against the best people in the world on Saturday. It's funny how we, I feel like we got used to triathlon being this sport where you go to races and there's some people

here, some people there, some people there, some people there. And then T-100 words, everyone is there every time ready to go. Well, there's, I mean, that's not totally true. It was a really start list, but Lucy Charles wasn't there, Kat wasn't there, Laura wasn't there. That's true. That's true. There's people missing. But yeah, it was a really strong start list on that strength of field that the T-100 puts for every race based on everyone's world ranking. It was like a 97 point something, which is like only slightly below world championship, 70.3, which was like a 98. So about that caliber of race, which is crazy. Is the maximum 100 or can it go above 100? Yeah, I think the max is 100.

Yeah, pretty sure. I don't know if we've ever seen that before. I mean, if you look at it, I'd say there's a high likelihood that the top two people that were there will be on the podium. You know, like the podium at 70.3 worlds or the wins the T100 overall could very well have all been at Vegas, not Vegas, at San Francisco. Yeah, like the people that Paula listed off, they could factor in there. They also could not. It's, that's, you know, it was that good. up one spot in the overall rankings.

I saw that. That's funny. I got 94 points for San Francisco. So did you get more or less points? San Francisco versus St. George, which one was more points? Well, I got more points in San Francisco, but they give you a 5% bonus

for your best 70.3. So basically, like, my three scores right now are 94 for San Francisco, 93 for St. George, plus a 5%, which goes up to 98. Wow. And then 91 in Oceanside.

So I could just retire. right now. Good, perfect. So let me ask you, which race do you feel personally more proud of St. George or San Francisco in terms of your performance? My performance was definitely better in San Francisco on paper and compared to the quality of the field. But yeah, coming forth is a little bit bittersweet. But I never really went into it thinking like I'm in a podium or my goal is to podium. Of course, I would have loved to, but it felt like a really far off thought to come top three. So coming forth was really good. And the people in front of me, like Julie, silver medal in Paris Olympics, Taylor Nib,

world champion, and Kate, who won the last T-100. So really, really good people in head of me, and then some really good people behind me, too. So I was kind of in the mix. Yeah. It's a tough race. It's a weird race. I don't think you can draw many conclusions from that format because it is so much, it's not very similar at all to the other races.

but that's kind of the cool thing about the T-100 is it takes us to a bunch of different places that are totally different. Singapore was so hot and humid. This was cold in early morning and hilly. So, yeah, it's just, every race is so different. Yeah, I think Nick and I address that and our little pre-race without you podcast.

It is kind of a freak thing. But also, it is super cool that the T-100 has put together a set of races that can feature different people and very different courses and conditions and everything versus, I don't know, they're just all flat and they're all, whatever, fast runs. And the same person probably is going to win every time. It was exciting as a spectator to go into this, like, man, anything could happen.

It really feels like kind of wide open and that's cool racing. Yeah. In fact, it was the first time that Taylor has not won a T-100 that she's competed in. Isn't that right? Yep. That's true. In the men, we were all like huddled on top of the boat watching. It's so funny because, I mean, honestly, the worst thing about this, right?

race is the start time. Yeah. Because the bus picks us up from the hotel at 3.30 a.m. to get to transition to set up our bikes by 4 a.m. And then the bus leaves

the transition at 4.45 to get to the bus, to get to the boat for a 515 departure for a 6 a.m. men start and a 6.45 women start. So the women are on the boat for an hour and 45 minutes before we jump or dive off of it. So it is kind of,

of fun in a way. Like everyone is relatively relaxed and feeling like, wow, we're all in this together and this is insane. So I kind of like the dynamic, but we were all standing on top of the boat huddled around watching the men trying to decide if we were going to wear booties or no booties and dive or jump and where the heck the freaking exit point was. Like you couldn't see it from the boat. So we were trying to figure that out. And ultimately it didn't matter because there was a boat ahead of us with a big yellow buoy on it. And we just followed that. But But in typical Alcatraz fashion, you really have no idea where you're aiming for. You're just swimming and somehow you end up at the beach.

So that's how it felt. Did you have to deal with the currents? There's famously currents there or did they put you in a water in a spot where that wasn't as much of an issue? No, there was current carrying us to shore, that's for sure. But they put us in a spot that's not the normal Alcatraz drop off where you have to cross the current. This was more just carrying us with the current. But I would say compared to last year, it did still string out. out more than, you know, just everyone getting in this washing machine current and getting

carried to shore. It really did have an impact on like the weaker swimmers. There was a gap and I was gaped a bit from the best swimmers. So it was still strung out, maybe not as much as normal, but it was still a real swim, I would say, really choppy, really hard to see, really cold, like tough, tough swim. He also got an extra two minutes of swimming over last year. They managed to bump it up from 14 to 16 minutes. Yeah, so maybe the current wasn't as strong or we were, so like, further out, I don't know. The men and the women actually swam the same time. So I don't know, like the boat must have drifted just a teeny bit or, you know, GPS coordinates or whatever of where they jumped off or, you know, the women are just that good, maybe.

But I think the men swam like 1645 and the women swam 1632. Yeah, got it. I kind of made a mistake because, well, I did end up diving, which it was the right thing to do. because watching the men, the one guy that jumped was like shot off the back, like a bullet. Oh, no. A torpedo. But I ended up wearing booties, which was optional, because I thought I wanted something over my feet for the 800 meter run from the beach to the T1. I didn't want to do that in bare feet.

They do give you the option of putting shoes there to put on, but that just takes time. So I wore booties, which I think were slow. and it was nice to have something on my feet, but again, they feel awkward to run in. They're kind of full of water. And I don't know. Everyone was in the same situation, kind of trying to assess what the best thing was

and no one really knew. Do you feel like the amount of time that it took you, like maybe how much slower you were with the booties running and then taking the booties off, do you think it would have been total net time faster to do put on shoes? Yeah, probably. Or like a wash? Well, no, because then you've got to take off the shoes.

But the thing is, I had like, cloud broom strikes, with elastic laces ready to put on, which would have been like wearing super shoes for 800 meters, how much faster is that than bare feet? Yeah. Is it 10 seconds faster? We need like crock booms so they can go on really fast. Slide in and slide out.

Yeah, exactly. These are the things that just take your mind off of the race and the nervousness of the race because everyone's just thinking about if they're going to wear a f***an thermal cap or not. Like it doesn't really matter, but it's really all anyone's talking about. You know what?

was sick is Holly was in the lead group and she's the first race back from, you know, becoming a mom and doing that. And she doesn't put on shoes and just like full send blasts the run and is just off the front in front of all the ITU girls and everything. And I mean, I was standing there and legitimately getting extremely excited. Holly did the right thing. This is, man, you know, I want Paula to win. But if Holly wins, this would just be epic. and it looks so cool right now. Well, going back in time, I would have done what Holly did.

She didn't mess around with booties or anything. She just went pure, barefoot style, didn't put shoes on and just blasted through transition and got on the bike first. So, in my opinion, that was the right call. Right, right. Anyway, that doesn't really matter, but it's kind of the fun differentness of this race.

That is the fun of the whole thing. What I think they really should do after the swim is giving us all face cloths so that we don't run around for three hours with dirt on our beards. Every picture looks so bad. This year and last year because we just have like dirt caked on our faces from the ocean. Oh, gross. Anyway, that doesn't matter, but it's kind of funny.

But yeah, I got on the bike. Like, I could see everyone leaving transition as I was coming in, so I knew it wasn't a huge gap, but this kind of race, like you get the momentum if you're with the group. So that kind of sucked to be basically solo on the bike leading out and then picking people off as the race went along. And I was climbing like within my race plan goal watts and then trying to descend as fast as I possibly could and pushing my comfort zone a little bit on all the descents. And if you look on Strava, every time on the downhill segments, I like got a couple seconds faster every lap. So I definitely like got more comfy as I went. I think if we just pause for a second, I think this is super interesting and like a big difference between how you used to race or your previous coaching situation and your current one.

Like how specific were your pacing and stuff? Did you have like do this on the flats, do this on the climb, like this specific climb? Yeah, there was a pacing strategy for Watts, which I liked. So it was like, do this on the flats, this on the climb, recover on the descents. And I think the nice thing about this race is like it was extremely hard and I was climbing, you know, almost 300 watts on all the hills. But I'm fit enough right now that having the two minute downhill where you're not pedaling because it's so fast, I felt totally recovered by the end of that and felt like I could go again. So even though we had 12 hill reps essentially with the five minute flat section on each lap, I felt like it was broken up with enough kind of downhill rest that. I could climb the same wads for the entire race without kind of fading.

Yeah. Have you already had a debrief with your coach? And I'm curious because I remember her saying like before the race when we were talking, when I overheard you guys talking about the thing, about the pacing that you dropped off a lot, your like lap times at the end of last year. Do you know if this year those were more consistent as a result of? I didn't take my lap times.

Okay. We'll check in on that later. But I'm just personally super curious. But the thing about this race is there's like 12 U-turns so you can see where everybody is relative to yourself. So in a lot of ways that's good because I was putting time into most people like Ashley, who is a good runner. And a lot of people behind me, I was just like making time on them every lap. I was actually hoping Lucy Byron would catch me so we could ride together. And she was like riding the exact same speed because I'd pass her in the same spot every lap.

And then I was a little bit disheartened. that I knew Nib would be putting time on me, but Julie and Jessica were also putting time on me. But I was kind of holding steady to Kate. So I'm like, damn it if only I could be riding with Kate, we could like, you know, it was hard to bridge up to those really,

really fast people, but I was basically riding the same speed as them. Yeah, it seemed like for the first three or four laps, you know, from what I could gather from the tracker that you were riding about the same speed as Nib. And, oh, what's your face? Like for the first three laps maybe? Yeah, I don't know. I have no idea.

It was 90 seconds for a while. I was completely alone for the whole bike ride, except for when I was passing people. And the front three do have the not necessarily drafting assistance, but just like the motors around them and the cameras. And I don't think I had a single camera on me for the entire ride. So that's completely fair, it's just how these races are. And I benefit from it in St. George when I'm leading. So it's just the dynamic of these things. but there is certainly an effect of riding at the front of the race

with some cameras and the refs and, yeah, the hype that comes along with being at the pointy end versus being like two minutes back. I was kind of a no man's land. So we're doing two swims a day until Vancouver. Yeah, I'm never making the lead pack. Paula, do you think there is a better way to handle, that you can think of to handle the modos at the front

so that they're not as advantageous to the leaders of the race? No, there's no way. They're filming the race, so they have to be there. They're just there. And I think they do the best they can and not impact the drafting, but it's just a fact. I think the only way around is to do what the Lifetime Gravel Series does and just rent a helicopter. Right. And then triathlons are spread out enough that it's not quite the same, but or get 12 drones.

The Media Motos and stuff, they get trained on not making an advantage to the athletes, and it's still, you know, it's not avoidable, like Paula said. Yeah, it's not like you're getting a draft the whole time, but you're like, they'll come by you. And yes, them being around is exciting and right crosswind. It's not as bad as I think some podcasts make it out to be, but it's not zero. Yeah, it's definitely not zero. But there also weren't that many motors on the course for us because the horse is so congested and we're racing at the same time as the men. So there weren't like, you know, 50 motors. Yeah.

I mean, that was another thing. heard some people like, oh, there's not enough coverage of the women. But if you've ever been on these roads, like the logistics required to get motorcycles alongside athletes and going both directions, like these are narrow little rows that are super windy. And the fact that we're able to get any live streaming that allows you to know what's going on in the race at all, as I think is pretty impressive. So I just want to throw that out there that it is very challenging on this course specifically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you were confident in the time you were putting it

certain people and then a little disappointed in the time that was not being made up to certain people and then you got onto the run feeling I imagine pretty encouraged though where did where did we come off you were you in fifth when you came off the bike because jess was in front of you it's like martha sanchez and lucy byron basically yeah they were right behind me like fifth six seven but i was pretty sure i'd run faster than them so then i was in fifth and i thought oh this is great i'll probably be fifth right right I think after like one lap on the run, the tracker was saying that you would catch Jess,

but Holly would also catch you from behind. I wasn't really thinking about Holly, but she was running. She ran the first few laps really fast, and I saw her gaining on me. And then I also saw we were, like Jess came off the bike maybe five minutes ahead of me or maybe a bit less than that.

But I was, so I thought there was no way I was touching her, but she was struggling on the run. This is Jess Learmouth. So I did catch her. But same thing. thought, okay, I might catch Jess, but then Holly might catch me, and then I'm still fifth, so that's fine. Yeah, yeah. But I was, like, trying really hard, and it was a big headwind

out with on gravel, so it's not a fast run course. Your foot slips every time. It's, like, busy and congested on the path, which is kind of crazy. Um, and then, coming back, from, like, people just hanging out. Coming back, there's a tailwind. So that was where I was trying to, like, pretend it was an interval the whole way back. So, yeah, I don't know. I was, holding Holly off and I think once she passed Jess, she also eased up a bit. So the last lap was kind of on lock, I think. But yeah, fourth was great. I think the only way it could have been better is if I was, well, you can say this in every race.

So I had a better swim. And then I was riding with Kate. Then I could have run with Kate. And she ended up running a minute faster than me. But I think I may have had more in me if I had company on the bike. But anyway, that's just my thinking of like, could it have been any better? but really it was pretty good for what it was. Do you think that's something that, like the only way to do that would have been to have more swim fitness?

Or do you think there was some tactical stuff in the swim that you could have done to make that happen? Yeah, when I jumped off the boat, I thought like, we're all coming ashore together. So I definitely wasn't very aggressive at the first like 100 meters or so because I thought, here we are, all in the current. Like, then I got a little gap. So I could see that group, but I wasn't with it. So, yeah, I wish for sure did not treat it enough. like a swim race or like the start of a triathlon because I just figured we'd all be really carried together based on watching the men and then based on what happened last year.

So you're saying it's possible? No, in a normal race with no current, I'm not swimming with dress in any world. Do you think you have any advantage from running all the gravel that you do in Bend, which is kind of similar to that gravel there, I would imagine. It's like kind of flat, almost like champagne gravel, right? I don't think I have an advantage, but I would say it wasn't a shock. Like if you never run on that And then your foot's slipping like that

Especially in super shoes It can be frustrating But I'm used to it And you do have to change the way you run a little bit And put more like force into the ground So that you don't slip as much So yeah I don't think there's any kind of advantage

But it's just like a familiarity thing for me anyway Yeah Yeah well great I was on a ride when you won And I just was like I remember out loud I said Yeah Paula My winning street has

come to an end. Okay. Oh, right. Right. The 2025 winning streak. Oh, you're still number one in our hearts. Yes, that's right. But we have two-week turnaround.

Like, it's not even two weeks until T-100 Vancouver now. What does the next two weeks look like? So, yeah, two weeks is a quick turnaround, but I feel like I recovered really well from that race physically. Like, I'm not sore. I feel like I could train again. I feel mostly exhausted from the lack of, of sleep on that race day, I think.

Like somehow that just kind of threw me off. And now I'm kind of waking up every day at four thinking, well, yesterday at this time I was on the boat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the only thing is just kind of a sleepy groginess post-race feel and not like, oh, my gosh, my muscles are destroyed. So in a couple days I'll be able to do like maybe five or six days of good training and then taper again for Vancouver. So do you do a full, like, how do you treat a taper when you have races that are two weeks apart like this? any differently than normal race? I don't know. I've never really done it.

No, the week before Vancouver will look similar to what the week before San Francisco did. Okay. Like a bit of a harder run session. Yeah, just the same format. I don't know if it's too late to sign up for Vancouver T-100 age group race, but if it's not, you should definitely go do that. Eric and I will both be there. Nick will not be there, I don't think. Correct. I will not.

But there is not just a triathlon, but there's a fun run. There's a whole bunch of events going on that weekend. And so you can go to the T100 website and check it out if you want to see us or participate or just come say hi at any point during the weekend. And then I'm taking a break after Vancouver, like a week of a, week of chill. Like mid-season break? Kind of, yeah. There's nothing coming up close after that and we'll go visit my family in Canada.

Nice, nice. And a continuation of the news, we'll just tell you guys about the mens race. I don't really, I didn't watch any recaps yet. So you guys will have to handle that. Also, Eric did some commentary for this. Oh, yeah. Eric, beginning and end. Eric was on the broadcast.

Yeah, I also had to get up super early to go do some duties. Someone wrote a comment that said that Alex, the other commentator, cut you off and that he did a similar thing to the other commentator last year. Did you feel that? Okay, here's the thing. If you are, you need to, like, if you ever see that guy, just like worship the ground, that he walks on because it is straight up amazing what he does. He can cut me off any time that he needs.

Basically, he's got 11 different people in an earpiece in his ear that are saying, okay, Alex, up next, you need to mention that Taylor and Nibb is like, you know, got a stress fracture and you got this thing. And, you know, like the whole time that I'm talking and like, theoretically conversing with him, he's got somebody in his ear telling him, reminding him where the show needs to go next. Wow. And like maybe giving him a quick stat or something like that.

I had like three people in my ear and myself and the other commentator. And that felt like too much. And that was just like so insane when you're talking and someone is in your ear. You just kind of like start slurring your words. And he's just like so I can, he would say, yeah, Eric, you know, like this is a tough course. Like what's the standout things? And then I start talking him. I can just kind of see his eyes sort of just like, you know, glaze slightly.

And I just know that someone is in his ear just like. blah blah. Yeah, yeah. So, like, for him to not mess up very often at all and be as on it as he is, absolutely incredible. And I, um, just, you know, in my defense of if anybody is critical of my performance, I didn't know I was going to be doing this until about 18 hours before. Somebody from the T100 was like, hey, you're hanging around. Do you mind helping out with the broadcast? And actually, Nick and Paul a little bit peer pressured me into it.

I'm glad that I did it, but it is, it is not easy. just you got to be really on it, really firing. There's obviously live. And I don't know, I would give myself like a six and a half, seven out of ten. Oh, barely passing. I don't, I don't know. It's like, I never know if when I'm on somebody else's podcast, if I'm doing a good job either.

But the hardest part, which I absolutely failed at, but I also had the least amount of notice on was we were supposed to like interview the women as they, after they had finished, the top three, I think, and then they just did Paula as well since she's my, Better half. And like right before we start, Alex is like, oh yeah. Yon normally asks them some sort of technical question about the race or the pacing or their watts or something like that. And so if you could just do that. And I was like, I didn't even know we were going to be interviewing anybody.

And I had about 10 seconds to think about that. I hadn't had any lunch yet. And I was completely brain dead. And he starts asking questions. And I was not prepared. That's really not fair to you. And now I have notice of this. And I cannot believe that they didn't have someone lined up for this.

That's crazy. I don't know. Maybe they did and they got, you know, stuck on a flight or COVID or something or another. It's usually yawn or like Jack or. Yeah. Yeah, that's really crazy. I know what is. I'm happy to do it again, but like a little bit more notice and I don't know.

It was a cool experience. Some ideas. Yeah, exactly. If I'd known that I was going to be expected to ask Taylor Nib about her, you know, pacing strategy, which she's not going to tell me anyway. I might have like had a couple cues ready to go. It's also hard to interview people right after they finish and there's like some emotion and obviously Nib wasn't like happy

coming second. And also I would just prefer to have the roles reverse where I get to ask the touchy-feely questions because that's more how my brain works. Like oh, how does this mean to your family and you know and not did you know, how many millimoles were you doing on the up hills? Yeah, yes, of course. We know that you're a, you're a vibes and emotion-driven athlete. Yeah, but it was cool.

It was fun. Gave me something to do because I went into this not planning to make a video about it, which was made for a very relaxing week. And yeah. So the men's race was Rico Bogan, Yeligines, and Mika Noot. Mika Noot. Yes. And since, but all of us were occupied for that race for different reasons,

I think you should listen to the pro-Chinese. I'm sure they're going to do a good debrief. brief on each race. Yeah. But from my perspective, what I noticed and what I could see of the men's race was, as I was climbing, they were descending faster than speeding bullets. Yeah. In opposite direction.

They are so aggressive. The men race so hard. The women race hard too, but I think there's like maybe you can just sense the speed and the power that the men have for this type of course where it was just like climbing maximum effort and descending with no fear. And it's like kind of incredible to watch her to feel them coming by you. like an earthquake. For people who care about this stuff,

which is maybe not everyone, but it certainly shocked me when I found this out. Rico Bogan, who is definitely a big, tall person, a really tall athlete. He won the race. He averaged 394 normalized watts on the bike, which is unbelievable if anyone has ever tried that.

Any human being out there is anyone. What do we say he was? 192 centimeters? Yeah. So that's very tall. He should be putting out a lot of watts, but that's also bonkers. Yes, it's bonkers.

But he also, he broke away, which it was completely, I think, unexpected based on last year's stuff. I did actually get to watch the race a bit. You know, last year it was a crazy sprint finish between him, Martin Van Real, Kyle Smith. Oh, that's right. That was this race. Rico was the first loser there, and I think it's been burning a hole in his heart ever since because he came fully loaded for this one. And with like two or three laps ago, he opened up a gap and came off the bike with two minutes lead,

which I was convinced everybody was coming in together, at least of like the Belgians and him. And I don't know, Kyle Smith was a little bit of an unknown, but he came in two minutes gap. And Martin looked a little bit dejected or just frustrated or something and kind of like it wasn't his day. Yeli took off like a, yeah, freight train and ran really, really fast. And to me, Mika, Newt was surprising.

I, you know, I could be completely, you know, just uneducated, but I feel like that was a pretty big, exciting result for him in this field. Yeah, absolutely. Martin lost his luggage all week, and I think it arrived like the day before the race, but you can't understate how much of a stress that puts on you in the race week, and he's trying to source, like, literally every piece of gear from his sponsors, getting it shipped to him and borrowing stuff. So I think he was a bit off for this race,

but that definitely plays a role when you're up at 2 a.m., checking if your luggage got on that flight from Paris or, you know, it's so stressful. I know that that feels like. So, bummer for him, but I did think, I'm glad he got it eventually. Yeah. He just didn't have the run. He had the ninth fastest run, which obviously he is an insanely good runner. So there's just, he didn't have the run that he maybe could have had.

He also didn't Iron Man and then Singapore. I mean, there's like, already it kind of shows in some instances where people are at in the season, if they race a ton or if they're coming in a little more. rush. Like Laura is barely raced and she had a insane Ironman. Yeah. That already has an iron man in her body. So it's kind of interesting the way it plays out. That's a tricky thing with the series style stuff these days, you know, and just looking at it, like assuming, let's pretend you didn't have to do series.

Like the impact on your career of having one of these great, crazy standout things like almost going sub eight or having this Rico Bogan day. you know, it's, that's kind of a question you have to ask yourself as an athlete more and more these days is you have so many series and so many things to look at. Like, do I go to all the things and like place my bets and just like spread myself super thin? Or do I really pick a couple key things that could be transcendent? Yeah. It's just scary. I feel like it's scary to do that as an athlete to like put so much pressure on those specific days. Well, you have to be someone like Laura who has so many sponsors that, or maybe not so many sponsors. She doesn't need to go win. a bunch of races. She doesn't need to go win the pro series. She's really particular and meticulous about her race schedule and then she wins when it matters and then she's set for the

next year to do whatever she wants to do, including Wincona again. That's kind of cool to watch that versus like, I'm going to try to do the T-100 to get that money and then, you know, it's can get greedy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, we did get a lot of questions last week. You can send your questions into the podcast at ThattriathlonLife.com. slash podcast. And just like last week this week, we're also going to pick a podcast supporter who's going to get a little special TTL prize, which is a swim cap, a TTL swim cap, which are so premium. I love them. Eric, you already found this.

We did this before the podcast this week. Do you have our winner for us? Oh, yeah. Matthew Fansler. Matthew Fansler. Thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. It means a lot. We love.

We appreciate it. Matthew, let us know your address and we'll send you out that swim cap. and if you want the chance to win some cool stuff, just sign up to be a podcast supporter. We really appreciate it. It's your way to show us your support. And this week we're also going to send out a little supporter segment, which is a little video,

a question that only the podcast supporters are going to get the answer to. So stay tuned for that too. Okay. First question here is from Erica. Hi, TTR team. Love the community of you created for athletes of all levels in multi-sport. Watching TTL San Francisco. TTL San Francisco, that's funny. what I think Erica meant was T-100 San Francisco.

I noticed the open run course seems so much busier with general public than at other races. How do you handle it mentally while racing? Are you worried you'll be taken out by someone just out for a casual walk with their dog? Good luck with the rest of your respective seasons and thank you for all you do, Erica. So, Paul, you mentioned this on the run that it was busy, but is this something you thought about on the bike at all, too? No, the roads were fully closed on the bike. You still have to keep your eyes open because a lot of the road. lot of people are out for a Saturday bike ride and you just don't want to deal with cross traffic,

but they're really transparent that on the run, it actually goes through a national park that's right next to the water here. So it's really hard for the T-1-U-Undr to get permitting to put this race on at all. And there's really strict rules around the start time and the finish time. And the littering, we have to put all of our gel wrappers in the aid station right into the garbage can. So they can't just close that entire path. It's too popular, it's too busy, and it's in the middle of San Francisco. So they did cone off an area for the race on the right, and then the public on the left, and you still have to keep your head open up because people can not realize what's going on and drift into the racing lanes.

But I don't know, it's kind of fun on the run to just keep your head up, and I didn't have any close calls. But last year, they didn't make this lane for the pedestrians, and that was really hectic because they were really just fully intermingled into the race zones. So it was a lot better this year than last year. And for the most part, the spectator or the pedestrian lane was like packed with people doing their Saturday morning exercise. Most of them probably have no idea that the race is what it is. They're like, what is the hurry? I don't care, but they were still respecting that zone. So yeah, there was no problems, but it is definitely unique to this race. Did you have any close calls or anything like that? Just with a bird. Did you see that on the

broadcast? No. Someone told me that they could see it on the broadcast. Like, coming into the finish, making the left into the finish, I like,

a bird just flew out in front of me and I kicked it. What? Like a pigeon. Like coincidentally? Or you, like, booted this pigeon. Oh, of course I didn't mean to do it.

I was just like, oh, fuck. Probably somewhere. But, um. I'm sure that's going to be a T-100 highlight. reel any minute. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, that was my only, not even a close call. It actually happened. You hit the bird. Bulley hit it. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. But I mean, I hope he's okay. Definitely was not intentional. He just flew out in front of me. That bird hates triathlon now.

For sure. Okay, great question. Thanks, Erica. Next one here is from Rick. And we're going to try to get through these kind of quickly here. Great job at the T-100 San Francisco Paula. I raced escape the next day, and I was bummed that they moved the swim so that it was with the current rather than across the current. Oh, so it looks like theirs got moved as well. They also did that. I didn't know that, but yeah.

This seems to be a trend. Most of the new 70.3s in North America are also current assisted swims and they eliminated surf from the ocean side swim. I get that this might lower the barrier for entry for triathlons, but it seems like they are eliminating the advantage that swimmers have. What do you guys think? Are there any more races where swimmers have an advantage?

Rick. I mean, have swimmers, ever had an advantage. It's already a sport. You mean where the swimmers have less of a disadvantage? Yeah, I think that's what, I think that's what I don't think this is like the new thing for Alcatraz.

They do occasionally have to do this just if the currents are super strong or if there's a little bit too much fog. Like, this is a really gnarly race. And there are plenty of times where people get swept past the beach and have to get out a mile, you know, down, quote, river in the bay and walk a way back up. So, like, it is pretty serious. and I think safety first is important there.

Much better than canceling the swim in Alcatraz, which they have done before. They've canceled that one time and it's 45-year history. Yeah. And were you there, Paul? I was there. Yeah, I was there too. Super bummer, dude. It is happening more and more, though, with like the extreme caution on the swims.

And if there's any kind of adverse anything, it seems that they don't hesitate to shorten it or cancel it. But yeah, I think that's just kind of the way. it is and you just all it takes is like was it iron man which was the one like in uh it was like a celtic one it was like one of those countries oh with the crazy the crazy storm yeah where people died ahead anyway and then now it just like every single race director you ever talked to is just scared out of their mind while the swim is going on and their day is over and they're like happy basically once every single person is out of the water it's it's so incredibly stressful and yeah i don't know.

There are races that are historically not down there. Pretty much guaranteed to have a swim, you know? Right. Like, St. George. Yeah,

there's no reason that they would ever cancel that swim. There's never weather. There's never fog. So if you want to select like a race schedule that kind of guarantees that your swim's going to be as is, it is kind of possible to predict it a little bit

versus an ocean swim has a lot more variability in terms of, what can happen there and how the weather might impact the decisions they make. Oceanside's usually pretty safe because it's not in the surf now that it's in the harbor. But even something like Indian Wells can sometimes be so cold that it threatens to be shortened or canceled, even though it has not since its inception. Yeah, so that would be one I wouldn't do if you don't want.

Yeah, it's also just such a cold swim. But Iron Man, Wisconsin and 70.3 Wisconsin are in a lake that is for sure never going to be too cold and not going to be canceled. I wouldn't say for sure. I guess I wouldn't say for sure you're right. Water quality can be an issue too sometimes. You told me bacteria. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. Well, that's great. Next question here is from Zoe. Hey, I'm a very, very much below average age trooper. Zoe, geez. Doing my sports science university degree and your podcast is honestly one of the things it gives me so much inspiration. Paula is such an amazing role model for me as a girl in sport and the way you form a connection with us through the sport, putting yourself out there

is a dream come true. Wow. So a glowing review of Paula. Glowing reviews coming in for me. Glowing reviews. On to my question. On the bike, I'm struggling to hit my cadence target, but hitting power okay. Basically, I can push quite large watts, but always a relatively low cadence. I'm struggling to know how to improve this as if I try to go into a lower gear to spin my legs faster. I just can't go quick enough to maintain the same power output. Any tips? Hopefully this makes sense. And once again, Paula, you're such an inspiration. Love everything you guys do. Zoe. Wow. All right, Paula, why don't you take this one away? You get a little love affair with Zoe here. So she's asking, like, if you increase your cadence, your watts drop or

something? That's what's happening to her. And obviously, it's not great to just be low cadence in a race, for example. Yeah, I think it's like the only answer to this is you have to work on it. Yeah. And I'm working on it this year too. Because my coaches that I'm working with for cycling now want my cadence to be closer to 90 for intervals and for racing and not as close to 80. But it's really not natural to me. So I do sessions where like I'm supposed to aim between maybe like 250 to 270 watts.

But what I'm really focusing on is doing 90 cadence or more. So I don't care as much. where I fall in the watts, but I'm more focused on the higher cadence. So it does help, and then your body gets used to that, and then eventually you're not thinking about it and just kind of slowly increasing your cadence.

So that's what I've been working on. And another thing that makes it easier is not climbing. Like if you can do some of your intervals on flat or downhills, it's much easier to increase your cadence, although it is also much harder to keep high power, but another skill that just requires working on in training because races are not all uphill either. Have you guys talked about your run cadence?

Because I think your run cadence is also on the slower side, even though your speed is great. I don't think it is. I mean, it's not like world-class marathoner level, but in the triathlon space, people tend to have a little bit lower cadence, I think. Do you think that it's just a product of fatigue like you've swam and you've biked already, so you don't have that fast turnover? For sure. And like the relative speeds of 70. 3 races versus like go watch WTCS, whatever,

you're going to see some real high cadence. I was just also wondering if 70.3 and Iron Man distance athletes just are a little more muscular and I was wondering if that would also slow down a cadence at all compared to those very scintners are pretty muscular and pretty high cadence. You're right. You're right. And they keep that cadence really high. On the bike as well.

Yeah. Well, Zoe, I'm sorry. The bad news is you just have to do it. You just have to just stuff to do it more. But it will help your run to have a higher cadence on the bike. You're tapping more into your aerobic system and less into your muscular big gear. But this is like one philosophy, but on the flip side, I'm pretty sure like Daniela Reef and Brett Sutton do so much big gear work. And Daniela's cadence was always extremely low for Iron Man's and 70.3s.

Obviously putting out tons of watts and she would, she was the best in the world. So there's two trains of thought here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, next question here. This is going to be the question for podcast supporters. So check your email podcast supporters for this, and it'll have a little video component as well. So everyone's shirts on, right, Eric? Yes, Eric has a shirt on. Okay.

Ready to go. It's a miracle. We're going to read the question live on the podcast, but then we're only going to answer it off. So, hi-tri-pod. I'd love to hear about how your feet look post-racing, L-O-L, okay, to make that less weird. For the two Iron Man 70.3s where I have worn my carbon shoes, balance fuel cell super comp elites, which are a race shoe, I have finished the races with blisters on the backs of both heels and toenails as well as purple toenails. Oh, God. Some people I talk to say that it's normal for running racing and just a part of doing the sport, while others say you should be able to finish with your feet looking normal. I would love your thoughts. I think for me,

it may be a fit issue with these specific shoes, and I sadly may need to try some different brand. I would love to get your take. P.S. it was awesome to get to see Paula Race Live, the T-100 San Francisco race. Hannah from San Francisco. All right. Thanks, Hannah. And if you're a podcast supporter, here's the answer. Okay, wow, we just time traveled and that we answered the question and more. We gave some cool pro-only advice that you can only get as a podcast supporter. Yeah, it wasn't interesting or helpful at all. Don't worry, everybody. You don't need to sign up. We only have time for one more question, but I kind of like this one. I thought it was sweet. And Paul, I appreciate that you included this. This is from Christy.

Congratulations to Paula on an amazing T-100 San Francisco race. Question, it seems like you all have amazing parents. Can you give us insight as to a bit about their background? Curious if you each have thoughts on the impact, if any, of how your parents raised you all to be such high achievers in sport and careers. Anything come to mind that sticks with you or if they impacted you to drive forward and be at the top of your game? Christy. This is creepy, guys. 10 minutes ago, T-100 posted me running into the bird.

No. Yeah. There we go. Eric, you just said it. Well, it's a good thing you were on Instagram. Oh my gosh. To discover that during the podcast. I think we keep that in there.

I don't think I actually kicked it actually. You don't remember if you kicked a bird or not? I mean, I felt like it touched me. Right. But looking at this video, I don't think I kicked it. I definitely swore. But, anyway, that's funny. Speaking of parents and swearing.

There we go. I called that. Yeah, wow, well done, Eric. Like their ears were ringing. The T100 media guys' ears were ringing. Yeah. That's a couple other viral things to put out first. That's crazy.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I think we both have fantastic parents. And both of our parents are still married and together. That's right. I don't think that can be... All three of our... I mean, all three of us. Well, yeah.

I mean, the question was, I think about you and I, but, yeah, all three of our parents are all still together. No, I think this question was also for Nick. You all have... amazing parents. Oh, then my bad. Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure.

It could just be about you too, though. No, it's true, though. Like, Nick's mom's a artist, mountaineer. Yeah, my parents have very interesting stories, both of them. But I think that's just because every human being has a very interesting story. If you read into it enough. I mean, your parents are extraordinarily interesting. Yeah, yeah, I know.

I know. I had this feeling when I was just in Teller, when they presented their awards, and I, when they were on stage speaking. And, you know, I speak an hour week in this podcast, and then I teach my graduate class, and I speak for an hour there, and they're still better speakers than I am. And I thought, I need to up my game.

I need to get on their level. Yeah. My parents are great. My dad's a brain surgeon. Still working. And my mom was on the national team for rowing. And the great trombonist. Yeah, my mom is a trombonist.

Still is. Still is. She plays in the, what does she? call it like the Edmonton brass Yes Clinton or something

yeah something like that yeah that's right we call them the tromboners yeah yeah yeah but Paula's parents are both incredible

I've met them as well they're wonderful they're both very smart I mean it's not a surprise I think all of our parents like the other two better than their own kid like my parents

like you guys better than they like me I'm pretty sure Nick's parents like me My parents, yes, they do. Yes, they do. I'm just kidding.

That's totally not true. But my parents definitely like Eric better than they like me. First thing. How's Eric? How's Eric? How's Eric? Because my mom knows that like whoever was going to marry me was taking on a project. Right, right.

She's almost like, is he still there? I like the funny stories of like Eric, one of you told me that Sheila, your mom, Paula, would just look at Eric sometimes to be like, hey, you picked her. You signed up for this. And I'm like, Sheila, help. Like, nope. Nope. Nope.

Nope. You had fair warning. My parents are amazing. My parents are like 0%. Neither one of them was a national team athlete, anything. My mom played a little bit of softball. My dad swam for like a couple years in like a local swimming pool. But is a computer programmer, was a computer programmer worked his way up through the corporate world and is doing really well inside of things now.

But just like a self-built person with a two-year degree now working above plenty of people that have master's degrees and doctorates. So I think like I got that from my parents of like a very strong sense of work hard at like whatever it is that. do. We will support you and you can do, or, you know, we support you, like, emotionally and everything to do whatever you want to do, but whatever it is that you do, make sure that you do the best that you possibly can at it. And that's just kind of like super burned into my brain. So I oftentimes struggle with, like, this doesn't have to be the best thing ever on earth that you have done. Like, this can be pretty darn good and, you know, for the greater good. But it really drove me to, I think, get a lot out of my, the physicality genetics that I was given.

Well, let's not forget that your sister is also an extremely high-achieving athlete and also in her work, she's very high-achieving. Yeah, she, you know, it's, she's very interesting, you know, and very, I guess, similar to me, she has like a crazy work ethic. And she applied as much work ethic as I did into being a pro-tra athlete into getting a doctorate. And she is, like basically works on airplanes and designs airplane cockpits and does like really high level research and then found that she is really gifted in the like ultra endurance space. She, you know, was a pro triathlete for a little bit for a hot minute until COVID sort of made triathlon very crazy and now does ultra marathons. But I think the interesting thing about ultra marathons is that's,

to me, that's like when you're doing 100 miles, that's like 50% your, genetic ability and 50% your brain, if that's genetic or not, and your just capacity to suffer and continue to do something that's extremely challenging. And my sister has that and just, you know, she's got to be like top 0.5 percentile in the world of just buckle down and do hard shit, even when it's not pretty. Willingness to suffer for the cause. Yeah. So I got a little bit of that, I think, or at least I hope. Yeah, for sure you did. Of course. You wouldn't be here if you didn't.

that our favorite restaurant actually know what's really nice about this is for our wedding gift Wahoo gave us a gift card for this restaurant which we're going to use tonight we still haven't used it. Oh, that's nice. So this dinner is brought to you by Wahoo. This podcast and this dinner

is brought to you by Wahoo. Thank you everybody. New Wahoo computers are out now. You can find them on TTL.com and all that good stuff. We love our sponsors. Yeah. Anyway.

Get us freaking gift cards the nicest restaurant in town. Thank you so much for listening everybody and listening to Eric and Nick do their solo pod. Okay, so we'll chat with you guys next week and keep sending in your questions. We love them and we need them. We need them.

We need them. We need you. I'll talk to you later. Bye.