That Triathlon Life Podcast - Racing the T100 Final, Pro Camaraderie, and Performance Debates

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

This week we hear from Paula about her experience racing the Qatar T100 Triathlon World Championship Final, along with a reflection on the T100 series as a whole. We then jump into a round of Good Gift / Bad Gift before getting to listener-submitted questions. This week we discussed:Camaraderie among professional athletesWhen and why to use rollersCareer-defining moments in triathlon Supplements for endurance athletesIce baths and saunas for performance and recoveryEarly thoughts on 2026 swimrun plans for Eric, Paula, and NickA 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

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Lockerstrom. I'm Paula Fenley. I'm Nick Goldstein. And if we randomly spiral off into tangential things that make no sense at all, is because we are exhausted. I've spent the last five or six or,

I can don't even remember how many days now, packing up boxes and dealing with orders for the Team TTL shipment. I mean, it looks fantastic. It is fantastic. everybody's going to be super psyched, but wow, my brain is mush. Paula is back from T100 Qatar. Nick is just doing L.A. things, and I'm sure he'll catch us up on that. So you're in for good podcast. Paul's going to talk a little bit about Qatar. And we'll answer some questions like we usually do. Eric, can we go back for a second? Because I feel like you may have undersold the amount of work you have done putting together these orders. Can you give us a race recap of the team TPL orders? Uh, yeah, I don't know how to really paint the picture effectively, you know, without some visuals and some, you know, crying and stuff. But, uh, it was, it was just a lot. We bit off a lot. Um, when we initially decided Jordan and I that we were going to ship these out ourselves. We were assuming about half as many team members as we ended up getting. And I know, but we couldn't pivot that late and we just went for it. And I'm glad we did. It was an experience. But wow. Um, from about like, 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. for the last five days we've been working on it nonstop so I hope everyone appreciates it and if there are any small mistakes I really hope you'll forgive us we are not professional box packers but we did our best well I think you guys went through each box twice basically because you did a final quality control check of everything in there and so there should not be any errors and really out of however many boxes there were there were only three errors in the end

That's what I was curious about. Where we didn't have the right Kistelli suit or we didn't have the right size of T-shirt. Yeah. So really small margin of error in it. And I think it wasn't a packing error. It was an error by the suits. Like we just didn't get the suit.

At a certain percentage, you know, like there's going to be lost. There's going to be stuff that doesn't show up, something that gets made improperly and just counting errors. And the Kistelli stuff is probably the most likely thing to have any sort of an issue just because I cannot express to you how small a little label is

on these bags that say it's like a W for women's an SS for short sleeve and an L for large and then a W for like white and Jordan I think he's going to need like a fresh pair of glasses or some LASIC after how much

he's been squinting at these little bags but I think we got it so it's crazy I showed up on like basically the day I got back from Qatar and they already hadn't had their system dialed after being in there for five days, so there wasn't a lot I could do because it would just kind of get in the way.

But I think if we were to do this again, which I don't necessarily think it's a good idea for us to do it ourselves again. But definitely we've learned a lot. And also I think hiring people to do simple tasks like building boxes and kind of like the simple things that just take time. We added in some freebies.

And so like that could have been one person just adding that in instead of one person who was adding in freebies and box and taping a box up and checking it off the list, you know. Yeah, we needed more of an assembly line. And there was, so Eric, Jordan, and Jordan's wife, Dev, who's amazing. We've done a lot of game planning about changes and stuff and we'll write all those notes down, but no regrets whatsoever. We're super psyched and we can't wait for everybody to get their stuff at me.

It looks so good. We're really excited. We got custom boxes. It's freaking awesome. Would you say it's a never again scenario? though for you to pack it yourself? No, no. I wouldn't say it's never again. I would say we would make a serious plan

for how to make it more efficient. And we've had some good talks about that. But yeah, we've got a lot of thoughts on how to not do it ourselves or how to do it more efficiently. Final thing about this, sometimes when I'm on a really long flight, usually to Europe,

I ask myself, would I rather sit through this flight right now or do an Iron Man right now? And it lets me know how badly I don't want to fly. Iron man. Because the answer is almost always I'd rather do an Iron Man. So, Eric, what is the distance of event that is the inflection point where you would just barely prefer to pack the boxes? Or vice versa.

You'd just barely prefer to do this type of event instead. I don't think it's a distance thing for Eric. It's a type of race. yeah the Jordan dev who is a Jordan's wife and I all agreed that we would prefer to be on Paula's international travel day versus be packing the boxes so however that ranks versus any event out there okay and then while all of this is happening Paula is in Qatar so both of you are at the end of your wits at the same time on the opposite sides of the earth for completely different reasons I don't want to I certainly don't want to complain or say that I was in a bad

about this at all, but it was like, wow, I underestimated this completely, but, you know, when you identify a thing like, this is just what I have to do, I think we had a pretty fun time with it and knowing that how people were going to feel when they got the boxes and everything, that, I mean. Yeah, it was for a greater good. Yeah, it made it worth it. And like I said, we'll do it differently next time, but at no point did I feel like overly negative about it.

I mean, I feel a bit the same. I was like, the hardest part about Qatar, T-100 was the decision whether to go or not. That was what was weighing on me the most the last two weeks because there was no way to know if it was a good choice. And I knew deep down in my soul that I probably should not go, but also at the same time, if I didn't go and sat home, I'd be wondering, like, what if I did go? And also, there's not just that. I'm, like, contracted to do these races and go to the final. So I'm, like, you know, upholding my contractual obligations and being present at these events is not a bad thing. Like there's a lot of important people within the T-100 there. There's friends that I

race against all year who I had a really nice time hanging out with. And it's like it really just felt like I was going to do a job. And then when we're there, we're so well taking care of. Like I've said again and again about the T-100, staying in a super nice hotel and visiting with athletes that I race all year. And all of us feeling very similar in some ways, just very tired and excited for the offseason. So I think that I was building it up to be much scary and scarier and worse than it was to travel all the way there. Because once I got there, I was actually having an okay time despite the uncertainty of the race and then the ultimately the outcome of the race. What's it like there? What's the what's the kind of, you know,

outside of the T-100 itself? It's such a different part of the world compared to what most of the people that listen to the podcast are used to. Yeah, totally. I landed at 2 a.m. because the flights are weird there. It's like the airport operates 24-7 with major flights coming in and out all through the night. And my bag didn't arrive. So that added an extra hour to my airport ordeal of trying to file a claim for that. And so I didn't get home or I didn't start getting in the Airbnb and driving in the hotel until 3 a.m. And the whole city is just lit up. Like all of the trees have lights on them. All of the buildings are completely lit up top to bottom. The boats on the the harbor all lit up. So it's like kind of a cool, beautiful in its own way type of

experience in the nighttime. And I don't know, my overall feeling of Doha was that it was extremely safe. The people were extremely friendly. And I didn't really venture out too much from the hotel itself. So of course, you know, everyone's staying at the hotel and everyone working at the hotel was very friendly. And I don't know, it's interesting to see these completely other parts of the world with totally different culture, totally different religion, totally different ways of being. But we're all humans. And I kept telling myself, like, I'd probably never come here if it weren't for having a triathlon here.

So I just tried to be grateful at the opportunity to fly to such a faraway place like this and, yeah, experience some of the differentness. What you described to me sounds a little bit like what I would imagine Dubai is like, even though I haven't been to either place. No, it's different than Dubai, though. It's like a little bit calmer than Dubai. Like, I didn't feel like there was as many people. I didn't feel like there was as many tourists. I didn't feel like there was this as much of a glamour, like, you know, the wealth and the fancy cars and the expensive shopping. Didn't get as much of that in Doha as I did when I was in Dubai. The buildings are cool, but they're not, you know, over the top like they were in Dubai.

Maybe a little bit less flashy, a little bit less showy. But that was just my impression. And like I said, I didn't really go explore much. But for example, like we were 7K from the race site. And we had to ride back and forth a couple times to preview the course. And we were just riding fully on the freeway, and I felt super safe. Like, it wasn't overly busy. Some of the roads were just completely deserted, even though they were freeways.

So it didn't have this, like, hustle and bustle, busyness feeling at all. So you mentioned that deep down in your heart, maybe you felt like you shouldn't have gone. But when you got there, did that change? Morning of the race, did you feel like? Did you feel hopeful about being able to do a good job on the day? No, I'd ever thought I could do a good job necessarily. It's the most unfit I've ever felt leading into a race. It's the most uncertain I've ever felt leading into a race.

But I did have some confidence that I could finish. And I knew that on a race like this where it's pretty hot, it's really late in the year, everyone's got their own stuff going on. Even just finishing could be a top 10. So I just had to keep that optimism the entire time. And truly, like, the second I got on the flight here, I was like, I shouldn't be going. I shouldn't be going. Because my hip was sore from the workout I did the day before, and I just didn't have a good feeling about it.

But it's really hard when you feel like not going would be quitting. And everything we do in our day to day is revolving around not quitting, something that you don't necessarily want to be doing that day. Training. Even in the middle of an interval, right. Yeah, exactly. You're like, not quit, not quit, don't quit, don't quit, don't quit. don't quit. This is what you're supposed to do. You can do it. So I, of course, adopted that in my decision to go of, yes, this is hard. Yes, this is uncertain. Yes, this is maybe really risky.

Yes, this is probably stupid. But I don't want to quit. So that was my way of thinking of it. Although I think on the flip side, like being nice to myself and like looking after my health for number one and all of that would have been the reason to not go. And it wouldn't have been quitting. But in my mind, leading in that that's my that was my headspace for both of you how much do you feel like having even a false sense of confidence is important or or or a founded sense of confidence but more importantly a sense of confidence is important to your success on race day or conversely do you feel like actually what matters is the work leading up the months the the fitness the workouts, the training, that's what matters.

Well, for me anyway, that's what gives me confidence, is doing those things properly. So, they both matter. Yeah, I would agree. Definitely doing, the easy way to get the confidence is to do the work, but you see

a lot of people go into a race and theoretically not having a great build up, but maybe they don't have confidence, but they have a quiet mind of like, well, I don't know what's going to happen. So I'm just to go find out. And then sometimes it can actually go pretty well and you surprise yourself with how fit you actually are. Yeah, that did happen to me in some ways because I felt like I was

unfit on the bike. I felt like I was unfit on the swim. I couldn't imagine myself racing. I felt like a blob of like, I don't even know. But I actually felt fine on the swim and rode fine. So I surprised myself in those two disciplines. And then I did one lap of the run where my hip wasn't really hurting yet and I felt pretty good and I was running with Holly and like if my hip didn't hurt I would have done pretty good despite feeling unfit. So it wasn't a fitness problem. It was truly just like a pain injury breaking myself problem. Yeah, I think it's a pretty obvious indication like for anybody to remember that even if you feel a little weird because you haven't been running or you have taken a few days off or whatever, like your fitness does not disappear in two weeks.

It definitely disappears in the amount of time that I've taken off, though. Like, my run fitness is pretty non-existent. But you get some crossover from the swim and the bike. Even two weeks, which feels like an eternity if you're not running during that, you can hold on to a lot of fitness during that, especially if you're still swimming and biking. I mean, in two weeks, you're probably just getting fresher. You'll probably run faster. Right.

But when you get into the months, yeah, of course, you're going to be a bit less fit on the run. but so can we talk about what actually happened on the run for you and you say you ran it first and you were feeling okay and then when the pain comes on is it gradual or is it acute it's like gradual until it's like unbearable so i did about 6k so it's a six lap course which is an eternity when you're it's not like you're way out there and you got to get back anyway it's like you're passing transition six times so when i did two and i felt it was really sore, I couldn't imagine doing four more, you know? So I went, I ran over to like where a lot of the husbands were standing and pulled off there because I just wasn't there

obviously. But yeah, it was like I was way sadder than I thought I'd be because it just felt like I had gone there in order to try to salvage these points and finish a little higher up in the ranking and make more money. And I felt like I, it just like reinforced how badly I've fucked up this whole year. And so that was the saddest part, was not accomplishing anything, despite traveling for all this, the way and getting there and spending all this money to get there and getting nothing for it. That's like the ultimate feeling of failure. And that compounded with Marbea and compounded with missing Dubai. And, It's just the absolute worst way to finish the year.

Like, it's such a crazy thing because I've had actually more wins this year than ever in my entire life. But I also feel like this is the biggest failure of a year ever in my entire life at the same time. So it's such a contrasting thing. And probably the roller coaster of the day when you had moments during the race, I imagine where you thought, Oh, wait a second. I am going to finish today. I can do this. After all that heartache, I'm going to be able to run to the finish. I don't know if I ever thought that. But I, you know, because when I'm doing the swim in the bike, I'm just in the moment. I'm not thinking about if I'm going to finish or if my hip's going to hurt later. So it wasn't until it was unfolding that it set in. I see. So you started that run still unsure and without confidence. Yeah. I would be unsure up until the final step. based on how things have gone these last two ones.

But, yeah, again, it's like when you're doing an interval and you just try to maintain this positivity. Just have to until you can't anymore. And then you stop and then you crack and then you cry. Because you have all this pent-up stress of just trying to be positive as positive as you can be for literally three months now. And then it ends like that.

It's just, yeah, very disappointing. I'm sorry, Paula. It's okay. I mean, it's totally crazy how many people reached out and commented on my post that I made thinking, should I post this? I don't know. No one's going to see it, but it got so much attention. And like you not finishing Wisconsin, Nick, people love the failures. And I hate the failures.

It's so hard to get on a plane and travel home after being such a failure. It sucks. And I'm still, it still sucks. I'm like, I don't want to take an off season. I don't deserve an off season, but I'm also broken. So I have to. Does it make the difference to you that the failure is not a failure in trying or a failure and wanting to be better, a failure and giving it your all?

But like a mechanical failure? No, it doesn't make it better. Because it's like, if only this one little thing. I know, I know. Eric, did you feel like you experienced this from your side of things? obviously talking to Paula all the time. Is there anything that you noticed or learned that felt new?

We were only awake at the same time for a couple hours a day. Yeah, right. But I tried to let him know that I wasn't having a bad time day to day while I was there. I was like... Yeah, I don't know.

The worst part of it, I think, for both of us and was prior to going, for sure. The month, the time between more The time leading into Marbeia, the time leading into this, was really, really brutal. Should she go? Change the flight.

Should she, how much should we spend on the flight relative to how likely is she going to finish and should just not go at all? And my vote was, I mean, my vote has been, well, always with all of this stuff has been more cautious and I would prefer to her to, you know, live to fight another day and not go through the pain and unhappiness of DNFing and stuff. but I'm, you know, just a small percentage of the decision-making process, but I also have to go through all of the emotional experience. So that's my hardship, I suppose, as the significant other.

Yeah, and now for both of you, do you feel like this whole experience, which feels like has consumed the past kind of three months for both of you, is there something that you feel like you could handle better if something like this happened again? Or do you feel like, unfortunately, this just sucked and we did our best? I don't know. I feel like I had to be a little bit aggressive with the coming back to running and trying running and all that. But it definitely, like, delayed the healing of it.

But if I wanted to go to Marbea or go to this with any kind of confidence, I had to try running maybe a bit early and do a little bit faster running than I would have if I was just on a full rehab program to get back to health. the timeline was accelerated. But, I mean, that happens to everybody when they're trying to get ready for a race and you make bad decisions because there's this deadline and you want to be there.

And when I hurt myself back in September, I thought, there's no way I won't be better by Qatar. Of course I'll be better by that. That's so long from now. Yeah, I don't think that any, I don't really feel like there were any poor decisions except for the decision-making that went into racing that caused the entry.

But everything since then I feel like has been handled fairly well and as conservatively as it could be while still collecting enough information to know whether she should get on an airplane. Yeah. The race. Well, kind of heavy stuff, but this is a 100% part of triathlon, unfortunately. And people who are listening have had all kinds of weird experiences with injuries that they thought would be a week long

and then ended up being three months long or whatever it is, affecting their racing and they're traveling so i'm sorry it happened to you paula i mean our are what we do is is awesome in so many ways and this is just like one of the hard parts of it and i i feel like we're both still very thankful that we get to do what we do and and love it and you know we talk to a we swim with a guy who's a firefighter and some of the stories that he has are just like insane and we have a friend who is an er doctor and we feel very fortunate to have our jobs and this is like part of the job and part of the you know

for anybody who's just doing it as a journey not even a job it's part of that journey too so I think it's like cliche or whatever to like the lows make the highs that much higher but it's true yeah well I'm hoping that Paula even though I do not share this sentiment that this year is a failure for you

doesn't change the fact that you feel that I hope next year goes better for you as far as you see it but I think if you can get as many wins as you got this year or race as well as you did this year next year, that would be fantastic. Yep. Yep. Moving on. Two.

We're going to change gears and change emotions here because we have a fun segment here that we do each holiday season and it's good gift, bad gift. Good gift, bad gift with TTF. Oh, I like this one. It's been a while.

So I had to look up what we've already said because there's easily been some overlap. So these are all new ones. Each one of these, I want to hear a little bit of your reasoning. This isn't a rapid fire style segment. So the first one, and this is for a triathlet that you know and that you know well enough to know, for example, if they run tubeless tires or not. This is like a stocking stuffer

addition of gifts, okay? So these are like below $50 of gifts, except for maybe one of them is more than $50. First one is sealant. Is sealant a good stocking stuffer? Yeah. I can imagine giving this to you and it being pretty humorous. That's like so, like such a dumb gift that it's actually kind of funny.

Especially like if you've been getting a shit ton of flats lately or something. Like here. Convert yourself to tubeless on me. Right. I was thinking that it could be really, a good gift would be to get a small one, one that you could take with you on a ride, maybe on like a long gravel ride. So more of like a get out of jail free card instead of a put in ceiling at home. That was my idea. But you guys would say bad gift, both of you.

I would say it's a bad gift, except for like the whole, unless there's an inside joke, then that's pretty funny. Right, got it. Okay. Next one here is dinah plugs. I guess very similar kind of thought process here but I think that's a great gift

yeah they're kind of expensive that's like the sexy part of tubeless like a dinah plug you know like the racer light yeah no I mean I can get them like in a cool anodized blue or something yeah yeah Paula what do you think good gift or bad gift dinah plugs

I mean if I get any of these things you've said so far I'm like meh okay great I'd rather get a chocolate bar you're not going to like any of these then the next one is like these are all

I just realize these are I'm a little tire heavy on these but no I'm not even this is so boring valves

if anyone is wondering what to get Nick for Christmas yeah exactly tubeless valves worst gift I put that in there as a bad gift

because I thought sealing and dinop plugs were a good gift um okay so bad gift for valves this one would be over $50 probably

but one of those very trendy right now mobile tire inflators the motorized ones I'd be happy together great gift I want it but I just keep not buying it for myself I agree

those are those are fantastic and then the final one here is a run belt and I'm talking not about just your run-of-the-mill ones no pun intended but there is oh I can't remember now the brand name of it

but there's a fancy one raid research are the best but yeah the only hard thing with that is sizing so you just have to know what size the person is

yeah so we said sealant bad gift din it plugs were split 50 50 valves bad gifts all around mobile inflator

good gift all around and the run belt can be a good gift too but the mobile inflator I think is the cool thing about it compared to the rest of these things is there's a high likelihood

that the triathlete you're buying a gift for does not already have one because it's kind of a newer thing that people are bringing with them. Yeah, that's new and hot. And my favorite thing about them isn't even bringing them on a ride, which is great, it's that if you travel internationally and you can't bring CO2 cartridges and you don't feel like bringing a pump, this mobile inflator could be really great and can just charge through a USBC. So it really makes it easy for that. That's just the pump you bring to your trip. yeah yeah okay so then last couple orders of business here are there still applications open for

ttl development team athletes development team applications are closed we are going through the applications well last night we spent about an hour going through them uh me paula jordan and jordan's already been going through them and we spend a little bit more time today so that's close we'll be picking out the team soon. And then I guess the final thing is that we still have a few spots open for base camp in Lake Las Vegas in February. So we are starting to run a little bit low, but we still have a few spots left. So if that's something that's on your radar, we're going to have an awesome time.

Check it out. That's going to be exciting. And I did also want to give one follow up on something that happened. A couple weeks ago, we talked about that athlete whose chain broke while race in Marbea. Oh my gosh. A couple of days ago, I was about to clean and lube up the chain on my road bike. And I had just ridden that day and done some sprints as well.

And as I'm looking at my chain, I know, Eric, how do you describe this? Half of a link or one side of the link was completely broken. Just gone. I don't know how to that. that happens. I don't know how it's hanging on. How one side breaks but I had just done

pretty much as hard as I could go on that chain earlier that day. I have a feeling that had been there for a while. So did it break on you? It did not break and it was I just noticed. I just noticed. I just noticed by coincidence because I was claiming it.

That's serious. Everyone checked their chain out. Yeah. Yeah, for complete links. Yeah, I just don't even know. And now I'm wondering, okay, how does a chain break at all? If I could sprint on half a link? I think you just, like this was weak for some reason as a result of whenever you broke the chain, whenever it was, not when you broke it, but when you shortened the chain? Well, it broke on half a link.

But if the other, so if you had like loosened your chain for a sec and then it came sideways, for example. Oh, this could have happened. Oh, I think I see what you're saying, Paul. This probably did not happen in the shortening of the chain process. This probably happened when the chain came off. Maybe got caught between the frame and chain rings or something like that. And that's how it broke, I would bet. Yeah.

Anyway, it was kind of confidence-inspiring to know that you can put even half a link under quite a lot of stress, and it still won't just explode on you. So, I don't know, buy Sram Chains, sponsors, but... I'm so impressed. I mean, it's not great that it's broken, but also that it held amazing. Yeah, it's great.

Okay, we're going to move on to questions now. You can submit questions to the podcast at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter. Paula, do you want me to start with a Qatar question or not? Sure. No. No? No. I'll say no. Okay. Okay, great. We're going to instead start with this question from Ella. Hello, lovely people. Quick one. You're welcome. What was the race that was your first career defining moment in triathlon? I don't know if you can have multiple career defining moments, but what was your first career defining moment in triathlon? The moment that was like, this is in Ella's words, oh my God, I just did that. I just won my first half Iron Man last weekend and it was the most epic moment. career-defying race so far. Ella. Can you guys remember this?

Mine was my WTS win in London for my first one. 2010? Eric's might have been Alcatraz. Yeah, mine was escape from Alcatraz in 2015. One in a sprint finish against Andy Potts.

And both of you at the time, could you feel it of oh boy, this is real? Or only now in retrospect. Do you notice this? No, it was fucking. It was It was amazing in real life in person, in the moment. Yeah, I knew it was a big deal. But the thing is, both of us, Eric and I had both had experience with winning prior to that.

That was just like the biggest race. We had first won for the first time, right? Yeah. For me anyway, it was a big race. It was one in dramatic fashion. Yeah, that made it cool. A guy who was like the king of that race who had been an idol of mine for years. So it was a big stage.

Yeah, cool. How about you, Nick? Yeah, I don't win races like you guys win races. But when I won my first time winning a race, my parents were there, it was like they happened to be around. That felt special. More so, it wasn't even when I won. It was when I got off the bike and first. And I was running at the front of the race.

And I just remember feeling like, oh, my God, am I leading this race right now? That was fun. That's cool, yeah. Yeah. Good feeling. Good feeling. Okay, next question here is from Carolina or Carolina since, well, we'll get into it. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn, love your podcast, have been listening to it for the past four years, and it's been part of my workout routine.

I have a question for Paula after Qatar. Following on social media, we all saw that Lucy Byram was racing for the first time after her partner's accident. Ashley had a miscarriage, and then you had a very tough day. as well. What has stuck out from most of the women's social media posts is a reference to the support on the field from all the ladies, a feeling like a family and a team sport when it's an individual sport, Georgia Taylor Brown's post, for example, as well as your own. So my question is, what do you think makes triathlon so special in this sense? Is it triathlon? Is it the T-100? Is it the women's field? Are other racers similar? Or has this been one of the

the effects of the T-100 having a core group of athletes that now know each other a lot better. Keep up the great content. I'm a Colombian living in Switzerland and always fully appreciate all the information you give and the sense that we are all different and yet connected at a core level through the love of sport.

Also, happy holidays. Carolina. Yeah, I think it's my favorite thing about the T-100 is that it's brought us all closer together and gotten and able the opportunity to get to know each other well.

Because we are at the same hotel. We are traveling to a lot of these races throughout the entire year. So when you go to a 70.3 or an Iron Man and you're responsible for your own accommodation, and you only really see everyone at the pre-race meeting when everyone's super nervous and you kind of have like, you know, small talk, but you're not really getting to know someone. Whereas at the T-100s, you're getting there on Monday or Tuesday, racing on the weekend, But every single morning you're meeting and sitting with someone for breakfast or having dinner with them or going to the pool with them. So it really has built the sense of supportiveness amongst all the women.

And then, of course, I mean, my injury is very minor compared to the struggles that a few of the women were going through leading into this. And that was so evident on the start line just how much all of the women care for each other as people before athletes. And like, yeah, it was just heartbreaking to see Lucy, you know, there just pushing through this really unimaginable situation of racing for the first time after her partner's death. And all everyone like just being there for her, basically, was super touching. And same thing with me after my race when I was upset. It was like nonstop support from everyone. So I love it. And I just, as much as sometimes I don't love the T-100 racing itself

only because I personally don't think it suits me that well. And it's a lot reminiscent of like short-course racing a bit too much for me. What I do love is the people. And I think next year without the contracts, we have the opportunity potentially to just do one or two of them. And I still want to keep in touch with that type of racing mostly for that reason because I would miss everybody so much. So it's really cool.

And I feel lucky to be like, yeah, part of that. There's not a single athlete on the women's start list that I wouldn't consider, you know, friendly with who I could message outside. I know, of course, some I'm better friends with than others, but everyone's very nice. Do you have a sense if the men's side of the T-100, if I were to ask one of them, would they give me a similar answer to what you just did? Yeah, I think the men are a little bit less emotional. but they definitely feel like they're buddies with each other, I'd say. And I think they're a little bit more like ruthless and cutthroat when it comes to the race itself. And I mean, the women are as well.

We're all very competitive. We all want to win. But maybe there's a little bit more, a little bit more like do or die on the men's side. Whereas like if Lucy Byram had, if I had finished the race and Lucy beat me by one, I'd be like, delighted for her. Maybe that's just the state we were all in. It also was very accentuated by the fact that it's December. We're all a little tired. We're all a little emotional. That definitely added to the sense of we're all in this together type of thing. But yeah, the guys are super funny. I mean, we're friends with the guys too. And it is super sad that next year

we're actually going to be split from the men because I think that brings a lot to these races for us athletes is being together men and women and getting to know the men as well. So I see why they're doing it, but from a camaraderie perspective, it's sad that we won't be at the same races as them next year. I wonder, Eric, if you feel the same as I do with this, although we're both kind of on the inside of it,

so it's a little difficult to really be honest about it. But to me, the camaraderie that is evident, at least from the women, it actually makes me more interested in watching the women race because I feel more invested in the stories of people versus these kind of really high-performance men but that I feel a little detached from them

on a personal level. You know what's crazy is, I swear half the men racing in Qatar, I didn't even recognize them. Like if you lined them all up in a row and said, name everybody, I couldn't. It doesn't help that everybody races in black bottoms and white top. Right.

I mean, there's like all these wild cards coming in and we're fast, and I don't know. I seriously was, I felt so old because I was like, wow, who are you? Who are you? But, of course, on the women's side, I don't know who everyone is. To answer your question, I think we're invested because of Paula. Like, we know Paula. We know the stories that she's gotten from the other women. And I think this is the basis of sports in general.

Like the more that you know about the athletes and their stories, the more invested you are. And even though I've raced professionally as a guy forever, and I know a lot of these guys, like, I'm just more interested in Paula's race and the people that she's racing in their stories. Yeah. Ultimately, this is what the T-100 has also done a good job of is the pre-race videos and stuff. You do feel like you get to know the athletes better. And then, like Eric said, it's easier to cheer for them or cheer against them, even if you don't like someone.

It just like brings out everyone's personality a bit when you have more access like the T-100 does with the videos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay, next one here.

That was from Carolina. This one's from Caroline or alter ego. How do you know how that's you say Carolina? Because of where she's from. She's Colombian. Oh, okay. Yeah. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn.

After riding the trainer most of last year, I realized my bike handling skills are now garbage. And my strong core, in quotes, is mediocre at best. Past week, I decided to do all my workouts on rollers, and after five days, I can now mostly drink water without messing up the cadence and power, or look at my phone as I do endurance-type workouts on my road bike. My question is, do you use rollers, and in what context? Do you use them in the TT position? I set a goal of transitioning to the TT bike once I can put on a shirt and take it off

no hands on the road bike and in the meantime look forward to extending into the tempo and threshold range but will avoid high cadence 180 plus drills whoa that's definitely high cadence

thanks Caroline okay so I think Eric I feel like this question is mostly for you but Paula I can't even remember have you ever actually done a session on rollers yeah

in my life? In my life, yes. I don't prefer it. Well, okay, got it. So I guess then feel free to answer this as well. Yeah, I like it a lot. The only drawback with the rollers is that it doesn't have like a kicker attachment to it. So doing Zwift and you can't control your power and stuff unless you're on the Wahoo kicker roller, which has a lot. front wheel locked in so it's not quite the same but similar um but i like doing it for sometimes i'll do it for steady state rides sometimes i'll do it for tempo rides i've done it for race-paced rides it's more of uh like how bored am i how motivated do i need to get to this workout and have a different stimulus and then sometimes it also feels a little bit better on my my hips and lower back if um if i'm

tight just like less locked in than a stationary trainer do you think you could take your shirt off and put it on, on the rollers? Okay, it's not crazy hard to do. I mean, I don't know how hard it is to do, but I can do it. How would you compare it to doing that on the road? Oh, I don't know. That's interesting thought. I mean, I guess it's a little bit scary than on the road

just because you can't move more than six inches to the right or to the left. Right, right. It's not harder. You just need to continue moving straight. Yeah, yeah, got it. Got it. Yeah. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that you do on the rollers

to further entertain yourself. It's like half a game and half a workout. So I think it's a great thing to do, especially in the offseason to pass the time. So if you were an advisor, who would you be recommending rollers to? Who is the type of person that would benefit the most? Everybody.

Everybody can benefit from rollers for some reason or another. I think Paula could benefit from the rollers just in confidence and just overall proprioception. and stability on the bike and I think some people even more so could benefit for that reason and I think people like me that are just have low attention span

and want something to do all the time and want to learn to take your shirt on and off it's fun it's a whole different stimulus so if you're spending the entire winter three months of indoor training and this is a slightly different stimulus that you can do

it's like doing a pole buoy or something it's I don't know I think it's worth it And they're not that expensive. Right. I'm a little confused as to why the Wahoo one has the front wheel locked down. It seems like all the mechanism is in the rear rollers anyway, right? I think they just made that decision for like travelability and, you know,

a large number of people could use it. It's a very niche product for sure. But I've been kind of asking them for a while, you know, maybe put those in some full-blown rollers at some point. Right, right. Because it's really cool technology. Right. Okay, cool. Next one here is from Bob.

Hey, Team TTL, new to the podcast and loving it. I recently went from eating a Flintstones chewable each day with my kids to swallowing, for those who don't know, that's like an all-in-one multivitamin, to swallowing 10 big vitamins a day, now that I'm on the first endurance regimen. I'm left wondering what you all take and what you think are the most important supplements for triathletes. by the way male age 47 Bob I take iron Iron is Most is the biggest thing

And an omega And lately Melatonin to sleep So omega that's like Or a dream shot Omega 3s Like a fish oil Yeah okay got it yeah

Yeah got it And what was the idea behind that Paula Uh health The Omega 3 fish oils That's like, I mean, just like a very widely accepted, like actually could enhance your performance. Really? Yeah. Oh, it's not just like a general health thing.

I mean, it's like impactfully healthier for you, which, you know. It's good for your heart, your brains, your eyes, reducing inflammation, improving circulation, spreading cognitive function, mood, vision. Yeah. I try to get it like through, they're like chia seeds and the flak seeds that we have. I just load those on my cereal every morning. Does it make a sixes? I don't know. I don't know.

I do a little bit of fish oils as well. You do? Okay. Damn, I don't take any pills of any kind. I don't know if I'm, I don't know if that's silly of me. I figure it would get lost in the fray of all the salt and straw ice cream. I would just cancel it out.

Yeah. I think doing it, I think like it doesn't hurt anybody to do like the iron supplement thing if you're training a lot. But in the grand scheme of things, that's like a pretty mellow pill additive thing. Yeah. I just do collagen protein in the morning and creatine in the morning. And then after workouts, sometimes I'll do weight protein if we're even counting that. That seems like kind of a standard thing.

I feel like collagen and creatine are more intense than taking a fish oil. I agree. I totally agree there. For sure. Yeah, yeah, feels like they are. We tried the creatine thing and like neither of us... felt significantly different or at least right, yeah.

Right. In the moment. And have you guys, have you guys ever done any of those like Lions Main or Aschwaganda or anything like that? No. No. Yeah.

Pretty basic. I messed with that when I was having emotional, like problems because people said that it was very helpful and I felt nothing after six weeks of every day taking it. I thought it's like placebo, placebo. Placebo, yeah. I guess, yeah. Anyway, thanks for the question, Bob.

Next one here is from Max. From Belgium. Listener since day one, first time sender. I have a question for the pod. I've recently discovered ice baths and sauna for recovery. I've been noticeably feeling the effect, as little niggles and pains tend to heal much quicker these days. What is your guy's opinion on this matter?

Have you tried it? What did you perceive the benefits? Thanks, Max. I did go down a little bit of a rabbit hole on research this question, but I don't want to introduce a bias before you guys answer. I think there's no way it doesn't help. It's improving your circulation, which is flushing out stuff from your body. There's no way it's not good. Contrast therapy? I think there's nothing wrong with it. I wish that we had a setup at home where we could do it more easily.

but any time we go to either like a place that's dedicated to hot cold or if we go to the pool sauna and then go cold shower after we always feel amazing after. Yeah, my suspicion with it is that it's like, are you going to like take an ice bath after a hard workout and then the next day you're going to be like 20% better? No, but if you do like contrast therapy three times a week, are you going to be like generally healthier on a five year timeline? I would think so just based on what Paula said. Yeah, like you feel pretty good.

It's a lot of circulation. It's like a self-care thing. You're probably lowering cortisol by like spending that time not on your phone and relaxing. What about your own personal experiences with these things? Yeah, I said we always feel great after. Yeah, we feel great after, but I can't like attribute any data to like, you know, enhance performance or FTP increase or anything like that. Yeah.

So much what you said, but the science is that it's barely helpful if at that. and mostly what it is good at is helping your perception of how you feel. Especially the ice bath thing is sometimes counterproductive to hypertrophy healing, even though it does help with inflammation and putting you into a parasympathetic state. The sauna, however, is more obviously helpful because of what we know about the blood plasma creation. Yeah. after it. If it makes you feel better, go for it.

Yeah. And that's not, it's funny because we say that like, it's like, oh, it's all on your head. Well, your head controls your body. Exactly. That's how I'm saying it. It matters a lot. Okay, and then last one here, we're going to end on a, I don't want to, I don't want to color it and say funny, but I have a feeling it's going to be funny. It's going to be fun, eh?

Fun, eh? Hey, tripod, curious if there's any update on the plan for Nick and Paula to do a swim run together. Also, if Eric has any future swim run plans, I'd be curious to hear them. Love the pod. Hope this is short enough. Celeste from D.C., Celeste, perfect question. And you know what? I'm just as

curious as you are, Celeste. So, let's start with Eric. Eric, do you have any swim run plans? I was actually chatting with Lars, who's the runner of the organizer of Swim Run USA stuff. And he was telling me that since this year is the 20th anniversary of

Otelo, the number of like wild card slots are actually going to be very low, and I don't quite have enough points have only done one race to qualify fully normally. So whether or not I go to Oslo is a little bit up in the air, I really, really want to. And if I don't do that, I'll do another one or two next year. What's Oto Low, like the World Championships?

Oh, you might not go. Apparently, apparently it's like in any normal year, my performance at Orcas would be like a shoe-in for a wild card, no problem but this year it's like fully oversold and I could get into it if I race with Lars because he's already qualified but it would be kind of like a bit tourist mode um which I might do so I just have to decide kind of quickly okay and then second part of this is how deep into a race would Paula drown me and and willingly spend a life in prison so that she didn't have to finish a swim run with me. That's what I'm wondering

about. I think it would be super fun, Nick. I'm not against it. I think there would be some serious frustration when I am. No, because I would think of it like we're going for a trail run together or like a Remember when we did that run with Flynn in Mammoth? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That type of thing. Like we're just out there doing things. Duck pass. I mean, I would... Like definitely not a race. Definitely not exercise. It's kind of like a walk. Yeah, well, it would be a walk for her. I would be seeing stars the whole time. No, because, Nick, you're better at trail running than me. So I think, I mean, we're definitely not compatible, but I think that emotionally we're

compatible. This is actually an interesting spinoff to this of like a technical trail. Who would be faster? Paula or Nick. That's the thing. I was going to correct her. Paula, I'm not faster than you at trail running. I am very specifically, maybe in some scenarios, faster descending. Oh, in all scenarios. That's the thing is like, the thing about trail running is that I am not a great trail runner technically, but when you're climbing, the technical aspect is almost insignificant. Yeah, exactly. Because you're just picking where you put your step and you're moving slow enough to where it doesn't matter. So if there was just an uphill only trail race and I was in really good shape, I could

probably do decently well at it, but a trail race that involved descending or rocks or uneven surfaces would be more challenging for me, which is where you. you excel. Well, I wonder then how much of a difference, if we were running up and down the same, let's say it was a 10 minute climb and then running down it, would I catch you by the bottom or is there not enough room for that? You know what I mean? Essentially, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you have to stay tethered the whole time, but I think our best strategy would be to do something like that. For sure. Where I kind of drop you on the climb and you catch me on the descent. I mean, it would be the same thing if we were doing a tag team cycling race. Right.

I would drop you on the climb and you'd catch me on the defense. So we're just totally opposite. I think in trail, you're not that slow going downhill though, so I think it might be tough. Well, whatever. I mean, we're not trying to push it too hard, so we would just stop and smell the roses. Unfortunately, it's like the same day slash weekend as Kona, but the Bachelor Ascent here at Mount Bachelor and Bend would be perfect scenario. It's in October? It's September 12th.

Well, that's Nice. That's not Kona. Oh, that's nice. Right. Yeah, right, right. But we talked about it with, obviously, with the boys. Because it's extremely technical. What boys? In the upper. Kyle. Kyle wanted to do it. I was trying to talk Kyle into it because he's like, you know,

flirting with the idea of doing a trail race. And I was like, dude, come to Ben, do that one. But we could find something like that. Because the classic, in doing air quotes right now, event, in like trail running world championships is an up-down. So these types of events do exist and we can find one. Very interesting. But that'll be, I can't decide.

Is that going to be before or after you guys a swim run? I don't know. We should do both. We should really test the strength of our friendship, Paula. This is the type of content, the video content that the people want. Right. Is the amateur versus the pro? Yeah.

This is straight out of top gear. Exactly. The Stig, Paul is the Stig, and I am an overweight middle-aged man. Well, I'll send you my tentative race schedule for next to your, Nick, and you can try to figure out if a swim run could fit in there. Okay, that sounds fun. Amazing. That sounds fun. I'll work on my swimming. Geez. By the way, are you doing an Iron Man next year, Nick? I was just thinking about that on my ride today. I don't know yet. I don't know yet.

we'll have to see how how Oceanside goes and then potentially yes What about Placid? I was thinking about Placid. That's kind of what I was considering and that's in September as well I think. No, it's not. It's in July. Oh, it's in July.

Oh, sorry, I know why. Yeah, I just mix two things up in my head. Yeah, that does sound kind of interesting. We could maybe all be there together. Next year it could be so freaking fun, guys. Like, you guys are doing a swimmer. run. Nick's got to do a 50K. Nick might do an Iron Man. I'm going to do a bunch of swim runs and some other things and Iron Man and it's going to be... Wow. You know what? I didn't really think of it until you all laid it out, but that is a lot of pretty cool stuff. A bunch of really

fun stuff. Wow. And you're saying this as you're like barely alive right now. So for you to be stoked about all this stuff, it means you're really stoked about it. I can get stoked through this fatigue for stuff like that. Alternative adventures. Yes. Wow. Okay. Well, we're not sure yet what the next couple week's schedule is as far as when the podcast is coming

out because the holidays are kind of thrown a wrench into things. Next Thursday's Christmas. Correct. So we may or may not have an episode come out on Thursday. So Nick, are we all going to be together for the 200th episode? I am very much counting on that being the case, yes.

Okay. And is that on January first, which is a Thursday? Well, it doesn't have to be. It can be whenever we want it to be. Okay. Right, right, right, right. Okay. Because you want it, you're ideally going to, anyway, we can talk about it later. Yeah, but ideally, I mean, I'm, ideally I would

fly from New York to bend. Gotcha. Perfect. It's happening. Yeah. All right. Okay, everyone. Thank you. And thank you, Eric and Paula for, for rallying and doing this pod after crazy travel and crazy work.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if, if we do take a week off in the next couple weeks, you know why. And believe it or not, we actually need to take a break sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for hanging. Bye, everyone.