That Triathlon Life Podcast - Racing triathlon with caffeine, bike bottle placement, saddle sore tips, and more!

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

This week on the podcast, we answer your questions about:Strategy for the relay triathlon event in the upcoming OlympicsHow Eric and Paula use caffeine as a racing toolWhere to mount a bottle on a bike for an IronmanDealing with nutrition logistics without a bento box in a race Lack of accommodation availability at IM 70.3 World ChampionshipsClip-on aero barsBest sunglass tint for trail runningHow to best treat saddle soresTraining for a marathon in super shoes before the raceA big thank you to our podcast supporters! You can become a podcast supporter and submit your own questions for the podcast at ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our triathlon podcast where we talk a little bit about what's going on triathlon. We talk about what is going on in our triathlon journey. And the bulk of the show comes from questions from people who listen. So to everyone who sends in a question every week, thank you very much. We couldn't do it without you. Paul and I are both professional triathletes.

Nick is a professional musician. And therefore, this podcast sounds pretty good. Thank you, Eric. Yeah. And this is kicking off episode, what is this? 119. 119, baby. That's crazy.

I never thought we'd make it this far. Yeah, our friend Jesse was just visiting us and he was like, what are you guys talking about on this week's podcast? And I was like, I don't know. People sending questions and we answer them. And he's like, what kind of questions? And I like, even though we've answered thousands and thousands, I'm like, well, I'm drawing a blank.

I literally can't think of a single thing that we've answered. But there's a mental like black hole that happens when someone asks you to give an example. Like, have you guys ever seen Billy on the street? He's a comedian? No. He goes on the street and asks people questions. And at one point he went up to this girl. He's like, name a woman.

Name any woman. And she's like, uh, uh, name a woman. Uh, she couldn't. It was like 15 seconds of her freaking out. Could not name a single woman. You know, her own mother. Like, whatever, Joan of Arc, you know, anyone couldn't do it. So I get that.

It's like a mental black hole. Because we have all of the questions we have ever used in a single document. And if you scroll through it, it is an unbelievable amount of text. We could put out like a dictionary-sized book with all the questions. Yeah, maybe one day we'll publish that. The TCL pod novel, Encyclopedia. We'd have to have answers for all of them, though.

That would be two books. Speaking of which, though, you can now, Apple and I think Spotify, but for sure Apple has transcripts of the episodes. So if anyone had something that they saw, that they heard in an episode and they weren't sure where it was, and they don't feel like listening to hours and hours and hours of stuff, you can actually search it within the episode transcript, and it'll highlight where it is,

and if you click on it, it'll actually play right where that word is said in the episode. So that can be kind of fun. Where? On Spotify, on Apple music? On Apple Podcasts. Okay. Yeah.

Spotify has a version of it as well. I'm not sure how in-depth it is, but the Apple one works really well. I've used it myself to answer, like, people who have sent me questions on Instagram before. Sweet. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Anyway. New technology. New technology. And ChatGPT4 just came out with some crazy stuff today. The world is changing, guys. I don't know where we're going to be in a year, but it's not going to be here. We're going to be on Mars. We're going to be on an episode a lot more than this.

Okay, so this weekend, Eric, you're racing, your first Xterra of the year. Yep. Yeah, I wasn't able to make it to the Taiwan race, but my favorite race of the year, the one I've been focusing on and thinking about when I go to sleep at night, Xtera. Oak Mountain in Alabama is coming up this weekend. So on Saturday, I'll be racing the normal length, which tends to take like two and a half hours. It's a little longer than Olympic distance, total amount of time.

And then on Sunday, it will actually be the short track race, which is kind of like cyclocross, fast and furious. It's pretty exciting. Do you prefer to have the short track before or after, like the main race? Definitely after. Like beforehand, I don't know. there's not as many points for the World Cup

there's not as much prize money at all and it's just an opportunity to get tired and hurt yourself and whatever I'm much like I want to try and win the main race that will take a lot but that's my goal

and then being able to just go as hard as I can and do whatever I've got left in the short track the next day I definitely prefer that versus the day before personally so you said it's what you've been falling asleep dreaming about

or thinking about is this race I have like I have been actively trying to not do that about, I'm also racing this weekend, I've been actually trying to not do that about that. And I'm wondering if there's two different kind of racers. People who race better when it's been their focus and they think about it all the time in training and then people who do better if it's just, nope, it's just another day and I'm going out there and I'm doing what I know I can do. Where do you feel like you fall? What race are you doing, Nick?

I'm doing Iron Man 70.3 Moro Bay. There's no pro field in it. It's just an age group field. Field. It's coming up this weekend. Yeah, it's on Sunday. Oh, damn. To answer your question, I think I get excited by the idea of a race coming up, but if I get too into the weeds thinking about how does this workout impact that, you know, in the moment and like that, I can get kind of frustrated with that rather than just like kind of knowing that I have something coming up. And then like, as far as race week goes, the less that I can think about the race generally the better. I see. Yeah. Because there's just a point of diminishing return of thinking about it and like what am I going to do when I run out of the water and you know and then

you just I can just get so worked up into a frenzy I'm a lot better with just okay focus on what I need to do right now and that is make sure that I remember to pack the tires that are good for mud yeah CO2 cartridge and not be focused on like my form running out of the water right now on Tuesday right and Paula what about you I I don't want to speak for you but do you feel like you do better when you've really thought about the race a lot and focus on a lot or you just show up and kind of do what you know you can do. No, I think you have to think about it and focus on it if you want to do well. Your life has to be revolving around it a little bit for at least a short term. Well, yeah, I'm just curious because if you're following a training plan that someone else has

thought up or your coach has thought up and you're just going through each day doing the training, how different is it doing the training with a race in mind versus just doing the training on your body? You'll get more out of yourself if you're thinking about the race coming up, I think. Yeah, I would agree. And you'll like sleep better, you'll eat better, you'll recover better, you'll prioritize it more if it's front of mind versus just rolling through it like it's another training day. Well, I totally agree with you. I just want to give you an opposite version of that. For me, if I think about the race too much, I wake up in the middle of the night in a panic sometimes. I get so stressed that I eat less. I know this seems extreme, but not so much anymore, but when I was first doing triathlons, even the thought of doing an Olympic.

gave me that. When I think about the race, my heart rate would spike because I'd be so nervous about it. Is this race week we're talking about? Or are we talking about January and you got a July race? At the time, it was even like two months away from the race that would be like that, which is just crazy. But I'm no longer really like that. And I'm actually very much looking forward to the race this weekend. And I'm not stressing about it the way that I even was last year. But anyway, so Eric's racing this weekend and it's going to be far away in Alabama. Yep. And is it also a North American Championship? Yes, exactly. Wouldn't that be fun if you won a North American Championship?

That would be so fun. That's what I'm going for. I'm just going for fun. It would be very cool. I really enjoy this race. I get a good course for me and my best chance to win one of the World Cup stops in X-Dara. Cool. And I'm racing this weekend at Moro Bay, like I said earlier, and I'm thinking about doing a little shakeout run on Saturday morning at about 10,000. NAM near the, you know, the check-in area.

So if that interests you at all, on my Instagram, I'll put a little story about it, maybe on Friday. So if anyone else is during that race. Make a post on the Strava Club. Oh, on the Strava group. Yep. That's what I'll do. Great idea.

Great idea. And people can actually chime in on it. Yeah. It'll be very chill and very slow, maybe something like 5K, just to hang out and chat for a bit. Right on. We are doing our next TTR bike jersey. on Wednesday we'll be opening up to pre-order for that. It'll go from Wednesday to Sunday,

and then we'll submit all the orders to Castelli on the following Monday. It's a collaboration with Kristen Meyer, who her company is Betty Designs, but she has helped us out with taking the Ventura collection look that Christian designed and put it onto a bike jersey. And it is really cool.

I think we did a really good job. She did a great job of like kind of blending a little bit of her style, into our style and working it around that cool TTL graphic that we have from the Ventura collection. Kristen does all of my kit designs. Yep. So she's so good at it.

Back in the day. Yeah, this time we're only doing tops. We're doing kits and we're doing like the tech teas. But it's kind of a design that'll look good with navy shorts, black shorts, kind of any short that you already have. So there wasn't a need to do a full kit. But it is a pre-order. So if you want one, you pay for it now.

And Kestelli makes it to order and we'll deliver it within eight weeks. They'll deliver it to us within eight weeks and then we will ship it to you. Yeah. And so just to be clear, if somebody wants this, they have to get in the pre-order. There's not going to be extras at the end, right? Correct. Correct. Good point.

Good point, Nick. So if you want one, just make sure between Wednesday, you'll hear this on Thursday. So it'll already be open and Sunday evening will close it. And then we'll submit the orders as quickly as we can. Okay. And to see a picture, just go to our Instagram. Yep. We'll have it on the website.

Check out the Instagram. Looks real good. Okay, before we move on to our main questions here, I put together a little rapid fire, which we haven't done in a while. This is a short, but I wonder how rapidly you can pull these out of your mind because they're based on memory things.

Okay? The most meters you've swam in a day. It can be indoor, a combination of indoor and outdoor, can you think of the most you've ever swam at once, in one day? 10,000. Was it like a New Year's thing? Swimathon. You swim for four hours as many laps as you can.

Oh, and you just happened to get to 10,000? I mean, that was the goal for everybody. You want to get to 400. So this is 10,000 yards. Yeah. 10,000 yards, that's not that long. That's not that long. No, I mean, growing up in Canada, we had to do 10,000 long course meters for our swim

thethon. Winter training camp when I was in swim club, we do sometimes triple swims in a day. And we do, I'm assuming it was over 12,000 if we were doing three swims. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. That's brutal. And at the time, did it feel like a lot or were you like, no, this is just swimming? Yeah, but we were like brainwashed little teenagers and we were like staying at the Holiday Inn Express with like our own little kitchenettes and we had to go grocery shopping for the first time in our lives. And we just made noodles with red sauce and broccoli. I just have vivid memories of like the smells of these hotel rooms that had four swimmers per room sharing one hotel room with a kitchen.

Oh my gosh. We still remember the housekeeper coming in and saying it smells like broccoli and shit. Like I vividly remember that. We didn't go on any away camps. We just played Halo via land party in between workouts. Oh my God. No one does land parties anymore. That's crazy.

Too bad. I don't need to anymore. Yeah. And for me, it was my longest swim was just the Iron Man swim for Wisconsin. No longer. Not even in a pool. Have I swam more than that? Okay.

What about most kilometers biked in a day? 100 miles for my 100 mile mountain bike race. That's not like riding 100 miles on a road bike. Like, that is a lot. It's not. How many hours did that take you? Do you remember? Like seven.

Seven. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. I averaged like 250 watts or something. That's funny. Mine is most as like I did a 120-mile TT ride before Iron Man Wisconsin, and it took me less than seven hours. And Eric's a thousand times fitter than I am.

So, and I did it easy. Eric was racing. So to give you context. And Eric's was hilly. Yeah. And Alex was very hilly. Yeah. And then most kilometers run in a day.

Can you think of that? Was that your guys that, you did that one trail run? Would you say that was the most? Yeah, we did one point-to-point trail run with Arden. Was it 32-K? It might have been 32-K, yeah. I think I've run more K in a single day, just barely than that, just doing a double run. But that's definitely our longest single run.

And also, like mountain biking requires more effort than road biking, a trail run, you get less miles for your time than road running, too. So that's even more so. I think the takeaway of this is that our facts are, wildly unimpressive. I think that like probably 50% of the people that listen to this podcast have had bigger days than what we do. Yeah, our coach does not do big superhero days. We like stack up 250 minute or hour long runs like three times a week, you know, and we'll do a bunch of two hour, two and a half hour bike rides instead of take three days off and then ride seven hours.

That's an interesting point. So I think I agree with Paula where a lot of the listeners of this podcast have probably done more biking and running, but I bet that even their biggest week ever is still not as much as an average week total for you guys in terms of hours. Yeah, that's possible. Yeah. I would argue that's probably true. A lot of times we don't have a choice. You know, we have the weekends where we go out and do bigger runs and bigger rides,

which you guys can kind of average it out over the week. Kind of do a lot every day. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. That was rapid fire. And we're going to move on to questions. and the way that we get questions for this podcast,

and like we said earlier, we could never come up with the questions on our own. So the way we get questions for the podcast is from the listeners. And the listeners are you, and you can submit your own questions by going to that triathlonlife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter,

which helps keep this podcast ad-free because we don't do ads on this podcast. Thank you very, very, very much to our podcast supporters. Every week we pick a podcast supporter to receive a free bottle. And this week, our random number generator came up with Carrie Peterson. Carrie Peterson, thank you so much for being a podcast supporter. We really appreciate it.

And we will be sending you a bottle. Just message me on Instagram to confirm your address and then we'll send it out to you. Purist bottle. Are we still doing socks? Bottle sender? Yeah, we got to do socks because I'm on a house cleanse right now. when we have about 50 pairs of Castelli TTL socks. If you keep being in all your podcast supporters, you never know.

You just might get like a free hub or like a Sram red cassette. Oh, Paula, do you want to let people know about your reopening, your grand reopening? Yeah, so I did the garage sale. I went really hard on the garage sale and it was like my part-time job for a couple weeks. And I sort of paused the garage sale while I was racing. And then since I've been home, I've been slowly adding to it. So I'm going to reopen the garage sale. Wow.

At the time you hear this, there's a link saved in the TTL stories on Instagram. If you just look at the little stories that get saved. But I'll post a new story anyway, so you got the link. And I've actually added a bunch of stuff that it's sold out on the TTL website. We've got Colorblock, Crew Necks, and some T shirts that our manufacturer had extras of, and they sent them to Eric and I to use as we wish. So we're going to sell those at a discounted rate as well. There's only like one of each size of each color, but it's like the mustard crewneck,

the blot crew necks, the ones that sold out pretty quick. So go on there to grab those if you want. We've added some of our Castelli personal kit that has the eight athletic greens logo on it, so we can't wear them anymore. Wow. That's one of one. Yes. But they're unused. They still have the tags on them. And Castelli amazingly created us new kits and sent them to us. So the proceeds from selling the We're just going to give straight back to Kustelli to help pay for the new kits they printed us. But because we didn't wear all of our kits, we would love to pass them along.

And there's only like four or five in the world that exist. But we don't want to wear them because they say AG1 on them. The AG1, that's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. I know that we have kind of shit on AG1 a little bit, but to have one of the kits that has AG1 on it, and knowing that you got, I don't know, that's a cool story. It's iconic. It's iconic. I've put them up on the TTL garage sale. The TTL garage sale is always open, by the way. You can go to the Google Docs anytime. So slowly, people that are like hardcore garage sale people trickle in and have they bought some kits. So I have actually mailed out a couple of our Castelli AG1 kits. But anyway, I just think the garage sale is hilarious and it's so fun for me. So I'm just going to keep adding stuff. We got 100% glasses. We got tons of wetsuits still on there. We got. We got tons of wetsuits still on there. We got. got the TTL stuff now.

It's so fun. So, yeah, go buy some stuff. We're going to have to, like, pull the things that we have on our website for sale off. To put them on the garage sale. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guerrilla marketing. People aren't realizing we have stuff on the TTL site for sale, but they're frothing over the garage sale. Yeah, the garage sale is for the frothers and also helping to fund our landscaping.

Right. Right. We're trying to get rid of our grass and do an eco-friendly. friendly, you know, like shrubbery desert stuff here. Got it. Yeah. Funded strictly from garage sale sales. This is my goal.

You know how like some benches are like donated by Drew and Barry Smith. It'll be like donated by garage sale proceeds. If you want to rock in our new front yard, get on the garage sale. Buy enough things won't get you a rock. Exactly. Okay, okay. Moving on here. Here's our first real question.

Eric Paula, Nick and Flynn, I'm officially on the Olympic bandwagon and learning about short course racing for the first time. I heard you on Chelsea Burns's podcast. Could you explain a bit about how the relay works and the strategy that goes into putting the team together? I love the podcast and admire all you've done to build community. Best Jenny. P.S., I live on the Big Island, which Jenny's referring to Hawaii. And I loved seeing my local coffee shop featured in Eric and Nick's foreign rider film. That's cool.

Remember what we went there, Eric? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. So Yokohama happened this weekend, and it was kind of an important race. And so I think people are now really, people who could be interested in the Olympic triathlon stuff are paying attention. So this is a great time to ask this question. Yeah, just for context, we went on Chelsea Burns. She's a friend of ours, and she has a new podcast called Chasing the Burn.

I think that's what it's called. I think so, yeah. Yeah, so we went on that on Saturday morning the morning after the morning after Yokohama at WTS race and just chat. added with her about the race. And if you want to listen to that podcast, you can go. It's very specific to that one race. But I thought it was a good conversation. Yeah, that was great.

And Eric, you can talk about the relay. Okay. Yeah. So the way the relay works is it's co-ed, which is one of the, is it still the only event in the Olympics that is co-ed? No, I think, isn't there a mixed swimming relay now? Oh, okay. That's like mixed gender. Yeah, because you can pick any order and it's like wild.

Oh, that is a, that is a mixed-swimming. actually insane. You should go watch a YouTube video about that. But the way the triathlon works is, do they start off with a man or a woman or do they change it up? I'm not sure. But anyway, you'll do like man, woman, man, woman, essentially. And the strategy behind it, I think, tends to be like, for your lead off leg, you really want somebody who's a good swim biker because you just want to stay with the group. Worst case scenario is you have a slow swimmer who is off the back immediately. And that can just, like, ruin your whole team.

But then as you get more into the middle of it, let's say you have somebody who's a really fast runner for your third leg and you think that they can just hang on enough with whatever group they're in on the bike, but they can get like a five second lead, 10 second lead off the run on the third leg, then you would ideally hand off to your most strong across the board swim bike runner who could potentially maybe go solo the whole way. you got to think about these things and like if we're the U.S. and we know France is going to start off with their best

bike runner, how is that an impact who we think we want to use first? Basically the relay is two men, two women, but you have to select those athletes out of your athletes that have gone to race the individual event. So you can't bring a separate

team for the relay which creates a lot of strategy and who countries are picking for their individual races because if their entire team, no one on it is likely to win a medal in the individual race, they might put all their focus on the relay and bring athletes that, yes, they have to start and finish the individual race, but they're really there for the relay and they specialize in super sprint distance. Maybe they're an amazing mile runner.

And I think that's a little bit Gwen Jorgensen's hope still. It's like she didn't perform super well in the individual. race in Yokohama, but she's so good on the run that you could potentially see USAT picking her to be the anchor for the relay or a member of the relay in Paris. She could also get dropped on the swim or the bike, and then the run won't matter. It's a gamble. The nature of the relay is that the field is also much smaller. It's like 20 athletes on the start line.

The swim is only 300 meters. So there's a lot less contact. It's a shorter race. you could lose less time, you know, than a 1,500 meter swim. So there's a lot of factors to consider. Transitions become a lot more important. Yeah, just crazy amounts of tactics. And the reality is it's only been in the Olympics since Tokyo.

So it's a really new event to every country. And I think people are still kind of figuring it out, what's the best order, who are the best types of athletes to bring. Who can handle the pressure? Yeah. I don't know, there's so many things, but it's really fun to watch. And ultimately, there's really distinct teams that are the strongest, like France, Great Britain and the U.S. or what come to mind.

And it strings out pretty quick with those guys at the front battling it out. And depending on who they're handing off to, there's so much strategy involved. So we love it. It will impact who the U.S. picks for the team, I think. And we'll just have to wait and see. Yep. We'll be talking maybe a little bit more about Olympic stuff. as it gets a little closer as well.

Next question here is from Peter. Hey, Flynn, Paula, Eric, and Nick. I'm doing my first triathlon in September and was wondering what your take on caffeine before and or in the race. Do you just take a few caffeinated gels or pound a whole Red Bull before you race? Great job, Paula and St. George, Peter, from Denver.

As if pounding a Red Bull has more caffeine than a caffeinated gel? Does it? I don't know. No, they're the same. A Red Bull, like, unless you're drinking a huge, A huge can at Red Bull has 100 milligrams of caffeine. Most gels these days have 100 milligrams of caffeine. Yeah, that's true.

So it just kind of depends on what you've got like pouring and all the other stuff. Yeah, it's got some other stuff in it too. I'll hype you up. Yeah, I mean, it just kind of depends on what sits well with your stomach. Sometimes I find like for a workout in the afternoon doing a caffeinated gel instead of a coffee, like I don't get the acidity of the coffee. But for the most part on race morning, I wake up, have a coffee just because that's what I'm used to. and that kind of gets you over the feeling of being tired.

And then like 15, 20 minutes before the gun goes off, then I'll have one of those 100 milligram caffeinated gels. Then I'll have a couple more of those on the bike for a 70.3, probably one for an Olympic distance or an Xtera. And then any on the run? I'll bring one with me on the run. But like creeping up on 400 milligrams of caffeine at that point, that's like can be touch and go with your, you know, portals.

Potty visit situation. I play that one a little bit by ear and see how I'm feeling. Never in my life had GI distress in a race. Like never felt like I had to pour to potty it or anything. Not even in afternoon races. I guess I'm lucky. That's real lucky. Wow.

Yeah, especially when you guys are going as hard as you're going, I feel like the chances of GI issues just get higher and higher. You also eat very little before a race. Like I try to have my normal breakfast and Paula has like, Her normal breakfast is a piece of toast with some peanut butter. You know what I try to do? There's not a lot to go wrong there. I eat so much the day before.

I feel like sick to my stomach how much I eat the day before. So I think that really helps. You're just preloading a little bit. But I would say, yes, we go hard in races, but I go harder in training, practice. And like at any one point in a 70.3, I'm always training a little bit faster or harder than that. So it's not like it's this totally new sensation for my body. Like my body, my gut can handle it. But to echo Eric, I do the same thing, a gel before, two gels on the bike with caffeine,

and then I'll usually do a non-caffeinated on the run. So are you guys doing 100% caffeinated gels or dispersed within that? Are you also doing non-caffeinated gels? I do non as well. Yeah, I do non. And then I also carry nutrition in my bottles. Right, okay. I rely more on the bottles for like the actual calories

just because like I know I'm going to get it in and I don't have to worry about carrying it a gel or taping it to top two or anything like that. I put gels in my back pocket, so they're there for the swim as well. And then I just reach for them and grab them and whatever it is, I'll just eat. So if it's a caffeine, I take a caffeine.

If it's not, I don't. Science. Yeah, science. Yeah, I love it. Regression to the mean. That's great. It's really a mix. bag back there. I don't know what I'm getting.

By the way, we don't have to put this on the podcast, but today I was like, oh, I'm going to order one of those aerobiles. And I looked at the X-Lab one, and it's like $80. Yeah. What? It's plastic. Welcome to 2020s, man. That's triathlon. Jesus.

Because there's another one. You picked the wrong sport, if you're going to complain about the price of a water bottle. You're right. Well, it's just you're comparing it to a real water bottle that's $15. That they mass produce. Yeah. There's another one that's... I'm not going to say the X-Lab stuff is not very premiumly priced.

I'm not going to say that, but it is still a thing. The profile designer might be cheaper. Didn't I give you a profile design one? No, I didn't want to take it from you. You offered it to me, though. You did tell me I could have it. Those might be slightly cheaper. Probably. No, actually, yeah, well, it's not important.

Anyway. At the end of the day, it's a bottle cage and a bottle, and a lot of bottle cage. are 60 bucks. You're right. That's true. That's true. And it's a special one. Yeah.

And Nick, it's worth the, it's so slow to have a bottle on your down tube. Yeah, I was just not going to do a bottle. I have the front hydration thing and then I would do gels and then do water with the gels with electrolytes in the water.

But I might just do it. As long as you remember your front hydration thing. Hey, wow. Too soon. Okay, moving on. Next question here is from Felix. Hi, Paula, Eric, and Nick. Love you guys and look forward to each week's

podcast. I will be racing Ironman Lake Placid this July, and I'm still trying to find the best bottle placement. Perfect little segue. Right now, I have one in the frame and one behind the saddle. I'm not a big fan of hydration systems with straws. I would potentially like to mount a bottle on my arrow bars instead of having one in the frame. Where would you recommend placing the bottles? Would that change depending on the profile of the course? Thank you so much for everything you do, Felix. Greetings up north. When Jesse asked what kind of questions we answer on the podcast, I should have read this one out to him. He would have loved this one.

This one pertains a lot to what he did. Don't put it on the down tube. Down tube, extremely slow. No round bottles on the down tube. Yeah, you can put one of those aerobottles on the down tube. That doesn't impact the aerodynamics, but round bottles are pretty slow. Although you still see pros doing that,

which is totally crazy to me. You also see pros just pulling out whatever gels in their back pocket and slamming it. That's true. Caffeine, non-cafine. There's like a fine line of thinking too much and, you know, getting all up in your head about stuff. Between, this is just the one advice I'd have for this is don't be afraid of zip ties to put bottle cages on your aero bars. There's always ways to kind of fasten a bottle cage, a regular ass bottle cage, to your arrow bars and put a regular ass bottle in it with no straw.

And it's usually super clean, the lightest option. and very easy to use. Yeah. And then if you run a regular bottle behind your seat, you can just take the one from the front, throw it out at the aid station, grab that one from behind, swap it in. Replace it, yeah.

You can't do that if you have a proprietary arrow bottle in either position. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty common for you see pros with regular bottles in the front and a regular bottle behind the saddle. And that may, well, you can discard it when it's empty, you can pick up on-course bottles

or you can replace the front with your rear bottle. I think that's the smoothest system. And I think this person said something about like, what can I do to avoid spending thousands of dollars on a front-end custom system? And that's the answer is just to use zip ties. Get some thick zip ties. Eric uses zip ties and he has a really nice,

really nice, clean watch-op front-end, but he prefers zip-tying it over the little device they have to attach bottles. Yeah. And in the wind tunnel, we kind of went through this question a couple of times trying to figure out what worked. And you already said about the down tube not being fast with round bottles and that the aerob bottles and the down tube are kind of neutral. Do you remember what they were saying about the behind the saddle bottles, like one saddle, one bottle versus two bottles, anything like that? That's very specific to each person, but generally it's not like much of an impact one way or the other.

What if you have one of those double ones that were the both? the bottles are sticking straight up. I feel like that's got to be slower. I mean, I don't think any pro triathlete has ever tried to test one of those double bottle things in the wind tunnel. Danieli uses one. In the wind tunnel. I mean, like our entire basis of our knowledge is what we've talked to,

the aerodynamic specialist that specialized in the wind tunnel. So we don't know if somebody's tested the double bottle thing. We haven't. It doesn't look great. Like, let's be honest. I thought I remember him saying that two is definitely. slower and one is not. That is my feeling because one

is it's still like kind of in line with your body. Two is just a pretty big air dam and those tend to stick very vertically you know. If you really want to know, I think you have to do your own testing but we would recommend doing it just one in the middle. Yeah, the last thing I'll say about it all is that

getting hydration and drinking is more important than aerodynamic. So if you're really concerned with having bottles on the front or back, the only place you can access bottles is your down tube. I would say that's more important than the five or ten watts you might lose by having bottles strapped to places that aren't optimized. Yeah.

When you're not trying to win the race. That's some good sound advice. You mean where you can't grab them, right? Is what you mean? Yeah, like, I think it's really challenging to grab a bottle out of the back. If you can't actually drink, then that bottle situation is not acceptable. Yeah. Yep.

Cool. Okay, next question here is from Molly. Bike snacking. I'm an average age grouper with some sprint and Olympic distance races under my belt. Considering my first 70.3 this fall. I have borrowed arrow bars on my road bike, not a lot of chances to practice bike handling skills as I live in Anchorage, Alaska, snowing as I write this, and I'm wondering how you eat on the bike.

What am I missing? I struggle to open any packaging while riding. My last Olympic, I pre-opened a cliff bar and shoved it in my shorts pocket in T1, which sort of worked. I've heard Goose, you can tape to top tubes, is purchasing a bento box the way to go, thanks, Molly. She just doesn't know where to store stuff? Yes, it sounds like it, but I also,

I had another thought, which I struggled with opening stuff on the bike sometimes, especially there's certain brands that have stuff that's really hard to open. What I did was I would experiment with this in training, of course, beforehand, but I would cut a little piece. The way that sounds like chip bags have that when you buy them. There's a piece cut out so that it opens easily. That's what I did for some of my stuff so that I can do it with one hand on the bike.

For what? What are you eating? It was actually scratch. It was like, no, those are easy to open because they know their target market. No, I think there was like Scratch Lab something, like their little. Like an edible, like a chewable. Yeah. Okay.

Gels are like the best thing for this for sure, you can just like rip them open with your teeth. Yeah. And then don't dispose the little top by just spitting it out. Actually, you tuck that little piece in somewhere. Yeah, a lot of them have a little leash. The tab on it. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Not all of them though. But yeah, that's the easiest thing to eat for sure is a gel. I've seen people like take chews, like choose or chomps or whatever they are and take them out of the package and like literally stick them to their top tube. That grosses me out just a little bit. But it is, I see people do it. Like they get them a little wet so that they'll like adhere to the top tube. Yeah.

Yeah. That's gross. I don't know what the protocol is, but I've seen like a gumdrop forest on someone's top tube before. I used to do that in ITU. Not because I thought it was a great idea, but I, one of the senior, I was a junior and one of the senior athletes on the Canadian team did that. And I just liked to do everything they did. I just copied them. I did.

Everything they did was faster and cooler and better than me. So they would take cliff blocks out and wet them at the bottom and line them on the top tube. So I did that too. And it works fine. You just take it off and eat it. Yeah, just like in New York, when you see like gum on the subway, you can just take it off the subway and put it in your mouth. Free. I mean, so much stuff is so gross in triathlon, like that's the least gross.

You're right. You're right. It's peeing on our bikes. It's your own slobber. It's your own sweat. you're driven. It's fine. Yeah, you're right. You're right. All that said, bento boxes are great. We sold thousands of them when I worked at the tri shop. And you can freaking fill those full of M&Ms if you want and just grab a handful.

Yeah, bento boxes are extremely uncool, but extremely functional. Oh, so functional. And I'd like to personally take this moment and thank Jordan Blanco for sending me a bento box off her bike when I really needed one. I still think about every time I use it Jordan. They're cool. They're cool if they're integrated into your bike. Yeah, mine looks arrow. Yeah, that's cool. I'm imagining like the cloth ones with like one strap on the front and one on the bottom. Yeah.

That's not as cool. But it does the job. It's cool in gravel now. It does the job. It's also cool to race fast and if that's going to make you race fast, then do it. Yeah. Bunking is not cool. No, bonking is not cool.

That's a, that's a t-shirt. We're using that. Bonking is not cool. Yeah. Friends don't let friends bonk and ride. Yeah, we'll drop that with the triathlon hats. That's good. That's good.

It could be like bonking is not cool and then hashtag something about eating. So people know that it's like related to eating enough. Oh, right, right. Yeah, like Jesse and Lauren did that like sure, like I love carbs. All about that sort of positioning. Yeah. Carbs all day. Hashtag carbs all day.

Okay. Next question here is from Meredith. Hi, TTL fam. I just qualified for 70.3 worlds. Congratulations, Meredith, at St. George, and I was super excited until I went to look at lodging. It is pretty much 100% sold out anywhere near the venue. Had me thinking about how early you must make plans in order to have comfortable accommodations for races. Do you start booking as soon as the race is announced since it's almost a given you will be going?

Do hotels save rooms for pros? I know they are still giving out pro slots. Do you know what the late qualifier pros do? Any other anecdotes on long-distance travel plans would be fun to know. no two. Happy training. I hope to visit Ben soon. Hashtag Van Life, Meredith. Yeah, this is a huge problem. And it's a little bit annoying that the races that Iron Man are picking for 70.3 worlds are beautiful. Lottie, Taupo, but they're tiny little towns with not enough lodging. And then Nirvana, or whoever Iron Man hires as their travel partner, books all the hotels, 100% of the rooms.

So in order to book a room, you got to like go through their system. and pay probably way too much money, and maybe that's the way to get it now. But personally, it's one of the reasons I'm considering not going to New Zealand because I don't have a place to stay. They do not take care of the pros with this. No, there's not a bunch of rooms available for a pros. Although last year, last year.

Okay, but. As a returning medalist, I found out two weeks out that they did have a hotel room for me. But at that point, I'd kind of already arranged like a homestay type of situation, which was stressful to do, from a different country. And ultimately, I was fine because I did have this hotel, which was very generous of Ironman, but it was a lot of stress leading into it.

And I don't know what the solution is for age groupers that are just qualifying now. Stay in Christchurch and drive forever the race morning. Like, that's not an option. I don't think there's a solution. This is just a problem that does not have a solution. Yeah. I'm wondering if you email Iron Man and they're going to say, yeah, you got to go through Nirvana or something. And maybe they have rooms still.

Yeah. I think that's how you got your. your hotel room is like Nirvana just had unsold rooms or something. Maybe. In Lawty. Yeah, I don't know. So ideally just be a medalist from the previous year and then cross your fingers until two weeks out from the race.

That's your solution. Yeah, that's not great. Actually, I sort of was foreshadow, or, no, that's the wrong word to use. I was foreseeing this being a problem. And a lot of hotels open up their bookings a year out. So on December 15th of 2023, I went online to try to book. a hotel room for the following year, like a cancelable thing. And even then, the rooms were gone.

So I'm assuming Iron Man at that point had kind of blocked most of the hotels, like just bought out the hotels, you know? It feels a little bit like an exploitation. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I do love Iron Man a lot. I love their races. I love St. George was such a good experience.

So many positive things, but this is one thing that's really tough. for not just us, but every age grouper that's going. Yeah. I don't love that because in my heart of hearts, in my dreams of dreams, I would qualify and go do this race. But this is kind of a turnoff. You think you're going to qualify for 2024 worlds? I don't think I am.

I hope I do. Okay. If I were betting on it, I wouldn't bet on it. But that would be a fun dream. It's an aspirational thing. But then you're going to need like a tent. Yeah. Which I'm not against, but a tent in a foreign country, I don't know.

I think, like, going on forums, like slow twitch and stuff, sometimes you can put a call out and say, like, does anyone have an extra room in their Airbnb that someone paid an exorbitant amount for? And oftentimes you will kind of network and find options. And that's what I did last year. And several people reached out with options. So I think that it's not like there's no option, but it's just a lot of work. You know, like the Olympic Village, we should do a temporary encampment of a TTF. village in New Zealand and do like really affordable rooms, but it's like yurts, you know? It's just something where people can actually stay somewhere.

Yeah, we should do an extension of the garage sale where if anyone has an extra room. Oh, that's good. We'll just put it on the TTL garage sale. You put the dates you have it, the price of the room. Wow. Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea. Wow. Well, okay, sorry we don't have a really good answer for you, Meredith, but hopefully this starts

some kind of agitation that, I don't know, moves or closer to a solution in the future. Next question is from Arola. Dear TTTL, I have a question about bikes. Is there a best type of road bike for aerobars? Or adding arrowbars to road bikes, is that a mediocre solution? I need to upgrade my road bike as it doesn't fit me well. I don't want to buy a TT bike yet, as I have only done 270.3s

and not sure about the commitment to the sport in the long run. If it's important for context, I am a female athlete in my 30s. Thank you for making the best and most entertaining trials. Athlon pod ever. It's such a joy to listen to you on Friday's Arola. Eric, do you have any experience with this with the bike shop stuff with people coming in and wanting to get arrow bars and seeing what worked and what didn't? Every other person that walked into the bike shop. Well, perfect. So you're the right person to ask.

I don't know what the current bike is today, but back when I was working in the bike shop, it was the Cervillo soloist. So they had the S1 and the S2, and fortunately the C post from the S1, which was the soloist, was flippable. You could like flip the neck at the tip of it around so you could ride. You could run either like a 76 degree seat tube angle or like a up to an 80 degree seat tube angle if you flipped it forward. So I'm not sure what bikes on the market currently have this. There are some that I've seen that have like a two position, you know, style seatposts where you can do front or back.

And that is going to be your best bet for like kind of striking the best of both worlds. If you have a triathlon coming up, you can ride in the more forward position, put the arrow bars on, again, kind of get into a faux TT style position. And then if you don't have a triathlon coming up for a while or you decide not to do triathlon ever again, put it back in the road type position, the second, you know, the backwards,

more slack, less steep seat tube angle, and it's going to ride a lot better. It's going to handle that like a road bike. You can kind of do double duty with a bike that does that. And are there different types of arrow bars that are designed for road bikes? And if so, are there any that are more advisable for someone versus the other kinds?

No. I mean, you just have to make sure that you have a road bike that has a round handlebar. So the part where you would put your hands if you were climbing up a hill, that needs to be round because that's where you're going to clamp on your clip-on, clamp-on, clamp-on arrowbars. There are some that are maybe a little bit lighter and more expensive, and there are different shapes and stuff, but they're pretty much all clamp-on arrow bars are designed to be put on road bikes. And there are some bike manufacturers that I know of that tell you explicitly that you cannot mount arrow bars onto their bars for whatever reason. Because they're carbon and they're not designed to withstand clamping anywhere except for where

the stem goes. Yes. Got it. Yeah. Which is whatever. And also I remember on my Venge, Vias actually, which does not have round bars, specialized specifically designed, I think like ITU style bars that you could put on there. So I imagine maybe some manufacturers that do, like, if they have an integrated bar thing,

there's maybe specific ones made for that, but the universal ones you're talking about will not fit on those. Right. If you got an arrow top part of your handlebars. Yeah, cool. That's going to be a struggle. Okay, Arola, good luck.

Have fun. Next question here is from Nick. Hi, TTL team. A trail-related sunglasses question. Paul, I thought of you right away with this. I know sunglasses sponsors may be a sore spot, but when running on trails, what, if any, sunglasses, lens do you prefer?

a photochromatic dark tint, yellow, clear. I know the weather may play a role in choice, but wondering if there is a lens tint, you've found better while spotting, roots, rocks, and other potential ankle wreckers. Thanks for all you do, Nick. Do you know Eric? Do you pick goggles or glasses specifically for trails?

No. Yeah, I don't really either. I don't. But I have really been getting into the photochromic-Smith ones that we have. Yeah. I'd say like sunglasses sponsors is not really a sore spot. We don't have a sunglass sponsor, but Smith sent us glasses. that's all I wear now. We have plenty of glasses that we like.

Totally love the Smith ones better than anything else. I like the look of them. I like the lenses. I wear the photogrammatic ones and I can see the roots and the rocks pretty well. Yeah. Yeah, no, I haven't really experimented with like polarized, non-polarized different colors or whatever. It's more just like picking it for how sunny it is. Yeah, that's an odd I do too.

Do you guys notice yourself taking them off if you're like in the woods to be able to see better? No. No. I'd leave them on 100% in time. I don't even think about it. I think there's so much dust and rocks here that it's just safer to leave them on. But I do notice that if you're riding in the middle of the day on a sunny day, I'm much more tentative on the trails because it's hard to distinguish a shadow from a tree, from a root, from a hole, from a rock. So it makes me nervous going faster down any kind of gravel or trail.

Even on the road, I have that sometimes. I'm like, is that a branch or is that the shadow? Of a branch above me. Even on the road, it can be a little bit scary. But I think there's no sunglasses that's going to make that all that. I mean, if you have a sunglass company that has a solution for this, shoot us the message because we would use the shit out of those. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm thinking almost like a yellow tint might be better. But then when you're in the bright sunshine, maybe that's not enough sun protection. Yeah. You need like a photochromic yellow adaptive snow lens. Yeah. Jublo. Is it Jublo?

Jublo eyewear? Jolbeau. They sent us some glasses as well, and they have a really cool transition lens that really reliably goes from light to dark based on how sunny it is. That's kind of a cool option. So maybe in the darker trails, they would turn lighter. I mean, that's what we're talking about when we're saying photochromic, right? Oh. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. And actually, I had a question about that. Do they go from indoors they're fully clear

to outdoors, even if it's sunny, fully dark, or is there even like a range out? So like full sun versus partial sun, they're less dark or more dark. There's a range. Jolbo has two different ranges. They have like a zero to three and then they have like a two to seven or something like that. So yes, I don't know about the Smiths. I haven't really, I didn't pay as close to attention when I was unboxing those, but the ones that I have go from like pretty dark to fully clear. And I've been really digging those when I'm doing stuff more early in the morning and they just kind of like warm up with you.

Oh, that's nice. So outdoors, they're not just the max darkness. They really do change according to how bright sun is. That's awesome. It's not on or off. It's not on or off. That's cool. That's really cool.

Okay. Next question here. Not a very sexy question, but a very important question. What is your go-to for treating saddle sores? Why do they happen? Can you still ride with them? How long do they take to go away from Brianna? Straight to the point, Brianna.

I love it. So, Paula, you don't even deal with saddle soars, right? Oh, sometimes if I'm riding the trainer a lot or I've got, like, it's really sweaty. or my bike shirts are kind of older, I didn't realize. Right. But it can be so painful that I have to take a day or two off. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Not worth riding through it. It's just going to make it worse. Oh, yeah. Horrible. Jammy cream. I mean, my only advice is to not ride through pain because it's going to just prolong the healing. Yeah, I think just like preventative care,

anytime you're doing a longer ride or if it's a little humid or you're on the trainer, just use some shammie cream and just avoid getting them in the first place. And change out of your bike shorts as soon as you're done riding. Whether you want to or not. Whether you've got a whole bunch of things to do on your laptop or not. Eric's talking to himself here. Eric, do you deal with saddle stores? I don't know if I really remember this. I feel like I get saddle sores.

Let's say if there's a scale of one to five, I think I get them on like generally a two where I'm like, Yeah, if that gets worse, this is going to be a problem. But it hasn't turned into like this full blown. Like I can't even sit down. Yeah. Remember that the shammie cream that you can put on, you can, it's anti-boh, most of the time it's antibacterial. And that's what the saddle sores are.

They're just like little bacterial infections in your skin and under your skin. So what I do if I'm having one that I'm really concerned about is I'll put the shami cream on during the day or like before I fall asleep, just to have it on there to make sure the area stays like nice and clean so that my body can do a good job at working on the little infection. And I have found that that helps me heal quicker. I don't know if either of you have ever tried that. The best thing that you can get is also has this like shammie repair,

like undercarriage repair cream. And I've heard people swear up and down that that has made a huge difference for them. I think it's called skin repair gel. Yeah, I have that. Yeah. So it's made kind of for this. Yeah, you use it in the same way you're using it, Nick. yeah, you put it on when you're not riding.

After you're finished or in the night, on a sore, on something that might turn into one, and then usually that helps it go away. And just to cover all the bases, I'm sure 90% of the people know this, but for 10% of the people, maybe this is new information, don't ever wear bibs twice without washing them in between.

And like Eric and Paul said, take them off right away as you're done. Also don't wear underwear underneath your bib. Don't wear underwear, yeah. Right. That's a good fine. That's a good point. You're meant to free ball.

Yeah. Experience the experience nature. Yeah. And then our last question here is from Ben. Hi, TTR crew. First of all, love the new Ventura edition TTR drop, super clean and very stylish. Hypothetical question. Let's say you were training for a marathon.

Would you run in carbon super shoes for your long runs like 20 plus miles because it simulates the distance closer to the actual race? And they do save your legs a bit from the stress. Cheers, Ben. That's interesting. Yeah, super shoes are amazing for saving your legs. I've noticed that even post-race now, I don't really get sore anymore because your legs are just so protected in the race. Even St. George, very hilly course, hard downhills, no soreness, it's wild. So I could see them being a really good tool for training as well.

But I think most shoe companies make a shoe that feels like their most expensive carbon shoe. and maybe has like a nylon plate or a less expensive version with lower quality foam or something like that that you can train in without blowing through race shoes. Because what I don't think you should do is be doing 20 mile long runs in your race shoes and then racing in the same shoes because they do have a lifespan. They do wear out. They do lose their springiness after a certain number of miles and it's not that many miles. So kind of keep a pair fresh for the race.

and then yeah if you want to use an old pair or one of the lower models for training I think that's totally fine and maybe smart for injury prevention that's kind of interesting idea though is to like buy two pairs I mean if you have the money buy two pairs of super shoes one that you save for race today and one that maybe you do one or two of those longer prep runs in to get your body used to and also save your legs that's I'm sure any of the pro triathletes that you see doing like their tempo runs or anything off the bike or whatever in super shoes. I'm sure that's what they're doing. Yeah, or an older pair. Sometimes I'll use like my last year's super shoes for this year's runs off the bike or something,

because you still get the feeling and they've got some life left in them, but not as much as a brand new pair. I like your idea, Paula, of like Sokney, for example, they have the endorphin pros, which are the carbon-plated ones, but they make the endorphin speeds, which have a nylon plate, which are very similar to those and are more designed as a training shoe. That seems like, the perfect solution to the issue here. Yeah, that's what they're made for. In the online, the actual cloud monster hyper, it's a new shoe, has the feeling of a super shoe.

It's so wild. It's like extremely springy yet cushiony would be ideal for something like a very long run leading into a marathon or an Iron Man or something like that. I don't think for some reason, On hasn't like pushed them as much on all their advertising, but I wear them for every hard run I do. and I totally love them to the point where I feel like I don't need to wear a super shoe in training. It's a great compromise between a slower training shoe and a fast race shoe. Yeah, I'm eager to try those as well.

Those seem fun. Yeah, they're fun. Okay, well, those are all our questions that we have for today that I picked. There were more, of course. But TTL Ventura Collection, there's still stuff up for sale at That TraathlonLife.com. If you want to check it out, I've been wearing the shorts all weekend. And some on-sale stuff. And some on-sale stuff.

And on-sale stuff. We got some good deals on there right now from previous drops. But don't forget about the Ventura-logued Castelli kits that are now online. Go do those for the pre-order. And also don't forget about the garage sale. So many things to keep in mind. So many things to keep in mind. So many retail therapy things to keep in that.

What's awesome is just that we have a great website that currently has things that you can buy on it. And we have gotten a lot of people over the years being like, you never have anything in stock. Well, you're in luck. Stuff's in stock. We're staying on top of the launches. It's awesome. We're stoked.

We hope you're stoked. Yep. She was a volunteer at St. George this weekend and she was complaining that we never have stuff in stock. And now she can be happy. Get on her, if you're hearing this. Yep.

Where was she complaining? Well, she was at the finish line. You had just won. And she came up to me and she was being very friendly. And she was like, I never, there's never stuff for sale. I'm like, Shelley, tomorrow we're dropping the Ventura collection. So make sure you're on the website tomorrow. Check your emails.

Like, we've been crushing the newsletters as well. We're doing so much stuff. Don't get defensive. I'm not to be defensive. I'm just saying, like, my homestay said the same thing to me. I'm like, Gail, when was the last time that you went on Instagram or our website? Oh, I don't know, two years. You know, like, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. That's right. We've got some awesome communications. Eric, is there any way people can watch your race this weekend? I think the short track might be live broadcast. Oh, so Sunday. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I would check on that. And if there is, if you're just following me on Instagram and probably TTR will post something as well, if there is any sort of live broadcast on Saturday, we'll share it on there. Otherwise, we'll be refreshing the live timing. Yeah. That's what I'll be doing. Eric, your dad's going with you, right?

Yeah, my dad's going to be there. A bunch of people that I know actually are going to be there. But most importantly, my dad. So if there's absolutely nothing at all, I'll tell my dad to, you know, like post an update or something on my Instagram. Wow, the tables have turned. The boys are racing. I'm not. Yeah, you're garage sailing.

I'm garage sailing. The boys are racing. That's fun. All right. Well, thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening. Had a blast today. Check out that Chelsea Burns podcast, if you haven't. We had a lot of fun with that. And, yeah. We do two podcasts a week now, you guys. We're sports commentators.

Oh, my gosh. We do like a sports commentary one, and then we do a lifestyle one here. Bye. Bye.