That Triathlon Life Podcast - Racing triathlons on consecutive days, liquid vs solid nutrition in a race, swimming hip rotation, and more!

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

This week we talk about the next month of racing in the USA and Europe for Eric and Paula. We also answer your questions about the effect of adjusting your training when you're not feeling up for a hard session, cleaning your bike with indoor training, how to handle racing on consecutive days, hand numbness, and more! To submit your own questions, as well as become a podcast supporter, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Eric Loggersham. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And we are coming to you from Bend. This is Nick's last day. We're going to record this podcast. Paul is going to go to a massage. And then I'm going to take Nick to the airport. And then Paul and I are headed off on, I don't know what we're going to call this, the TT Euro trip world tour thing. PTL World Tour. Yeah, we're doing Milwaukee PTO. Then we're going to go to Glasgow for the UCI TT World Tour. championships, and I will go to Germany, and then I will meet up with Paula in Finland for 70.3 worlds. This has to be the most amount of races you've done without going back to whatever your home was at the time, right? Since like the ITU days, maybe.

Oh, right, because that was constant travel. Sort of didn't have a home at that time, but yeah. This is the most time when we've had a dog, so that makes it logistically hard. But we have a great friend looking after him for us, and also my dad is going to come for part of it and watch Flynn. Do we feel like it's kind of a convenient coincidence that just today you notice that Flynn has a bit of a limp because he's been going all out and now he has like a full month to recover? No, I think it's easier for a dog watcher if Flynn is healthy because they can just chuck it

nonstop and he's now he's injured but he still has energy. I mean, he's not even injured. He just has a little like a little limp on his foot. I think he might have hurt his paw. For athletes go so hard that even their dogs get injured. Yeah, honestly, I think actually. when Max, Paul's dad comes to watch Flynn, he'll probably be more tired than he is with us because Max will go for like four dog walks a day. We just take him for one run plus a fetch.

He's going to be so fit when we come back. I know he's passed out. He's resting up. Yeah, it's a crazy trip, but also it's in a relatively short time span. We'll be back before the end of August. So it's easier to wrap my head around than when we went to like Flagstaff and then we went straight to Abiza. that was like a bigger trip in my mind. So I think it's doable.

The only thing I'm really stressed about is after watching the stage eight of the Tour de Fem Zwift race yesterday, which was a TT, like those are a lot of the people that I have to race in a week. I'm like, oh boy, I'm in over my head. This is insane. But it should be a good living experience. I mean, I think the cool thing is that you are taking on something new and you could look out of it as in over your head or just you're a triathlete going into some other people's main sport. we're just going to see where you come out. I personally don't have any expectation. I think it's just like we have no idea because it's not like all of these ladies,

women post all their power files and we don't really know. And it's like our triathletes any good or are we all just like delusional? I think it's just going to be really cool to see. Also, it's not like you're racing in a group where if you get dropped, it's like so obvious and then your race is over, right? It's like you're giving it your best effort just like the rest of them are and you're, you know, you'll see how you land. I don't think you need to put too much pressure on yourself, at least, I don't know, with the Canadian time trials, like you won last year and you're trying to defend your title.

This is kind of a different stage, and it's a new, I don't know, I don't think there's any expectation. No. Well, go hard. She's not convinced, but she does not think yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks, boys. Anyway, we'll be having a lot of fun. I'll be doing updates and pictures and some video while we're out there, but also looking forward to being home. And by the time this comes out, you guys will be in Milwaukee. Yeah, yeah, it'll be Thursday, and Paula is racing on...

Saturday. Saturday. And the men are racing on Friday? The men are racing on Friday, yeah. Which is kind of the first time, I think, with the PTO, that the men have gone first. My knowledge. That's kind of fun. I think it's actually kind of nice to go second because, for example, in Dallas last year,

the men went second, and they could kind of witness the women absolutely melting and adjust their tactics accordingly. So we'll get a sense of what the course is like, just watching them on the day before. So it's PTO U.S. Open in Milwaukee first. Then not many days later, you're in Glasgow doing worlds for the TT, right? Yeah, and then I go straight to Finland, and then Eric goes to Germany for an Xtera. Trust me, it took me like a full, well, I mean, kind of constant work, but really a full day of sitting at the computer to book all this.

And if anyone can guess the total price of it all. It is a lot. Hotels, rental cars, flights for both Eric and I. And because I'm a prima don't book like the cheapest, cheapest plane tickets. I'm like, I don't buy business class for everything. But I mean, ideally we're going to make the money back. And if not, it's like, it's just part of our job. We have to do it.

But the last couple of years of traveling and racing have not been that expensive for us because we've been lucky to be able to drive to St. George and drive to Edmonton and really only fly to like one big race a year. but this year it's a lot of Euro trips and like kind of a more expensive, bigger investment. But yeah, you got to pay to play. Is that what Eric just said?

He did say that, yeah. Which bike bags are you guys using? First of all, are you bringing one bike, Eric? I was going to bring my new tarmac plus my mountain bike to race on just because I want to be able to like preview the TT course with Paula in Glasgow and like ride around a little bit on the road

in Milwaukee and Finland. But I just ordered some 55mm,000, wide slick tires for my mountain bike wheels. So I think I'll try to bring two sets of mountain bike wheels with, you know, one with the race tires and one with like the slick tires and just see how I can do with those. You know, on the Santa Monica Beach Path, you see bikes like this every once in a while. Can you fit to four sets of wheels in one bike bag, though? Four total wheels? Yeah.

Should be able to. I don't know. That's my plan. If it doesn't work out, then I'm just rolling with. Why don't you just do your exterior and then for Finland just switch the tires over and ride with me on the road? Because there's just a lot of stuff that I want to ride on the road with prior to Germany. Glasgow, Milwaukee time. That's a good idea.

I like the idea. And I'm also curious how fast it will be on a mountain bike. This brings up a funny little story that I think is quite interesting. The other day, the three of us did a bike workout. Paula, you had some intervals and you were doing like all out up McKenzie Pass. Eric, you kind of rode with us for a bit on the flat section on the road and then peeled off and did your brutal 400 plus watt intervals on crappy on a mountain bike

sliding, yes stuff on a mountain bike and then on the way back we rode together I did McKenzie pass by myself at an easy pace and then on the way back we wrote together

Paul was off the front doing her TT thing but I tried to like pull Eric back to town and we did like whatever five minutes it was like

I did about I was doing about 300 was thinking I was helping Eric I thinking he's back there doing like 250 260 something like because I also like punch a pretty big hole

in the way Not big enough. Not big enough. And it turns out, first of all, Eric is like super TT position on his mountain bike with his hands on the top of the fork. Yeah. And I asked him later, I was like, so what were you doing there when you were behind me? He was like about almost 350 watts. I'm like, so what would you have, what would you have had to do without me in front of you?

I mean, it seems. Gone slower. Yeah. There's just no way. I would have had to do like 500 watts probably to go, your 300. So those tires you have on there, it's the tires, right? It's nothing else. Like the bike's slightly lesser dynamic.

The bars are really wide. Yeah, you're slightly less aerodynamic. But, yeah, running 15 PSI with knobby tires on the road. Right. That'll be get you. But I just want to say that I've been riding Eric's new tarmac for the past few days, and I absolutely love it. I've never ridden an S-Works road bike before of any kind.

So that was a first. But also it has like the top of the line, SRAM. I love the SRAM double tap. Nick is officially, I've been trying to talk to you into SRAM for a while. I would love SRX. The last time I bought a bike, I didn't know either of you guys. So it's not like I had even an option. I was just like, okay, this spec-th-up version sounds good.

And I think SRAM has also come a long way in the past seven or eight years. A lot of things have come a long way in the last seven or years. Excuse you. How dare you. How dare you? Anyway, so we're kind of caught up on what the travel is going to be, right? Then after Finland, you come back. And then you and I will turn right back around and go back to Italy for Xtera worlds.

Yeah. But we got some time before that. So is there anything else we want to talk about before we move on to our segment? No. Okay. Our segment this week is hot or not. Is it hot or not? Hot or not.

This is from a listener called EURS. Okay, so first one here, solo open water swimming without a buoy. I'm going to say it's not hot. Without a dragging buoy? Yeah. Like something that you can, that's visible, that also in case that you have any problems, you can kind of hang on to. Oh, we do that if we're doing it in like a lake river, a big river.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely should do that. Yeah, I do that too, and I really like it. I also think it's, like, kind of fun to, like, if you're doing a long open water swim, to hang on it. Totally. You're not doing anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, when we swim in the river, you're never more than 10 meters from the banks, and we're swimming with multiple people, so less of an issue. And no motorized boats. Solo in a lake would, yeah. For sure. Definitely. Cool.

Glad we're all on the same page with that. Next one here, valve caps off while riding. That's hot. We don't do valve cap. I don't think anybody uses valve caps. Oh, you have no idea, Eric, how many people's bikes I see that have valve caps. You only ride with cool people. That's what I mean.

I mean, I also ride with the only cool people with my friends are listening. All statements that I say is when nobody does this, that means cool, like the cool case. You mean when you put a fresh tube in and you take that little plastic thing off? Yeah. Yeah, you definitely don't need that on it. Yeah. What, I think people are under the, some people are under the incorrect idea that that keeps air in somehow.

That guys, that does not keep air in. I guess it would prevent like... It's like dirt and stuff and muck to get on there. But I've never had that issue once. Have you ever had an issue with that? No, but I'm wondering if maybe you were doing like a, you know, the trant that divide a super long, dirty mountain bike, like, you know, the continental divide race, whatever that is.

And there was a situation where you're going to be potentially riding through so much mud that it could make it really hard. to put air into your, I don't know. I'm trying to think of things that we have not experienced. It could be a reason to use those caps. Otherwise, it's just so that you don't poke a hole in the tube when it's like rolled up. Being transported. Yeah.

So I also wonder, okay, so for that, if you're getting so much mud on there that you can't like get the press to valve open, then you probably, there's so much mud on the tire, you can't pedal. You're not riding anyway. Yeah, exactly. It's like unbound. I'm just trying to throw. or something out there.

But yes, the point of those caps is because the press devalve is kind of sharp and you don't want to tearing up the tube when it's like either in your saddlebag or in the box shipping to the bike shop. Okay, next one here. Pizza toppings underneath the cheese layer. Kind of like serial killers do this. Is this normal? Have you heard of this?

Sometimes we do both, depending on the kind of cheese. Like Danny, when he makes pizza at our house and he's really good at it, he'll put some mozzarella over top of things sometimes. In an artisan way, Nick. It kind of depends on the, I think it depends on the pizza. Yeah. I've never seen it. I guess I'm not privy to this.

Well, I think what you're probably imagining is like a solid half inch thick layer of vegetables that you then put cheese on top of versus like in a traditional, like, Napolitan or whatever style pizza that has like very sparse. And then he like kind of sprinkles parmesan on it. Yeah. I guess if... Or feta or something like that. My thought is like, I don't...

The toppings are like this like spice, this excitement to it. And I want them right there in like the roof of my mouth so that I can... So they can hit me hard. And I feel like the cheese on top kind of subdues those flavors a little bit. It kind of depends how much melt you're trying to get on the cheese and what toppings. This requires further investigation. Okay.

Next question. Safety cord for bike computer. I'm guessing this is like those little like lanyard things. Not cool. Fall out, Paula. Oh, not cool. I mean, have you ever had your bi-computer ever fall off when you didn't want it to? Really?

It was a Garmin, though. I think the quarter-turn mounts from Garmin can definitely wear out. I've seen, I've heard of and seen people launch them. I distinctly remember when we were in Colonna and I went over a pretty big expansion crack. And the Garmin launched, the screen cracked. And obviously, I wasn't using that leash. I don't know. I mean, it's not, if you're trying to make everything as arrow as possible,

and then you have this dangly leash in the 0.1% chance that it flies off. But arrow and cool are two different things. I would say one thing I've had is I snapped off my whole mount while mountain biking. And so I switched to a stem mountain where you like wrap the gummies around the stem. And so now it's not an issue. But that's a situation I would say like in mountain biking or something where if your garment actually does fly off and it goes down the mountain. And aerodynamics is not a thing. My favorite is, I don't know if you've seen this when, like, the stem, the plate that

that secures your bars to the stem, sometimes you can put a mount that goes between the bars and that plate and then extends forward. So it's like rock solid. My vend is like that. But usually it has to, the manufacture of the stem will like also design an out-in-front mount kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that. But on my mountain bike. I still wouldn't do it on a mountain bike. I've had two break of the ones that you're talking about. So maybe for mountain biking in super nerly gravel riding. Do what you said. A little leash. Wrap it around.

Well, yeah. Wouldn't be the worst. But if you wrap it around the stem with the gummies, that seems pretty safe too. Yeah, it's not getting knocked off that way. Yeah, but interesting. Less catastrophic crash. Okay. And now the amiest cooling headband slash visor slash cap.

Do you know what we're talking about here? Yeah, not cool. Like pattern thing that absorbs water. They're actually a really nice company. The guy's super nice. It's given me one. It seems like it works well too. Like several pros use them.

Yeah. He gave me one to me in Dallas last year. No, it's true, Eric. A lot of pros use them. I know a lot of pros use them. I think the feed even has some branded now. So you can like be cooled. And then you're crossing the finish line, you like flip it so the feet is in the front.

But I do think that some people, even like Heather Jackson, for example, has tried using it a lot. And she thinks it works. So whether it does or it doesn't, she thinks it does. And it's a little bit psychological, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I just don't think that it's that, like I can tell it's on my head. I feel like it's like too much going on, but I'm not against them. I think that would be the main problem, right?

It's like feeling like you have this heavy, maybe it might even give you like a slight feeling of claustrophobia or something. It's like heavy and wet on your head. I don't know, but that's kind of like a hat becomes like that at some point. It's a very light thing. But maybe I think that the key here is practicing with it first. If you're doing something like Kona hot, then it might be worth. experimenting. But on something that's like Milwaukee, like it's not going to be blistering hot and you

haven't practiced with it, it's not really worth it. And is the idea that you only need to get it wet once or do you kind of like pour water on it throughout the race and it kind of re-hydrate? Yeah, I think it's a repeated kind of wetting of it. And yeah, they're kind of like concrete but super light, like foamy. It's hard to explain. I'll show you mine. Like pumice or something.

Yeah. Yeah, like pumice, exactly. So they're pretty light. And then you can replace them too. I'm going to be honest, for a hot race. I'm sorry if it's not a hot thing. Yeah, who cares. I feel like I might actually do that.

I would do the most uncool things ever to stay cool. To not repeat Dallas last year, for example. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and our last one here, rocker plate for the Wahoo kicker. I think Wahoo kind of has like gummy legs. So it does have a little bit of back and forth on its own. Yeah. And then I have one of my own here.

What about earplugs for swimming? Have you heard of this concept yet, Eric? Pass. Ear plugs for swimming. No comment. Let's resurface this topic. Let's unpack this a little bit. How many messages have we gotten about the earplugs?

Like honestly, even after we mentioned it last week and we're like, relax everyone. We're not experts in earplugs. We still got dozens of messages. I've gotten like five since last week. And the guy that actually like opened this can of worms with his question, apologized. He's like, I didn't mean to start a whole thing here. But he also did try Eric's advice of swimming without them and he couldn't do it. So.

Yeah. Very individual. And also, that's the last we'll talk about earplugs. I will say a couple weeks ago, actually a couple months ago, I was having some like ear pain while swimming and I didn't even consider the idea of earplugs. And if it happened again, maybe I would consider it. So we'll see. Wow.

Never say never. Wow. I wouldn't have thought of it until this question. So can we please get Nick a headband, one of those headbands? Yeah, let's get like all the free stuff, please. And some ear plugs and a leash for his garment. Mm-hmm. I just need a leash in life.

I'm a little too wild sometimes. Okay, so before we move on to questions, just want to say that you can submit your own questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast, and you probably notice we don't do ads on this podcast, but someone did have a question about when we talk about things if they are sponsored or not. We usually are pretty good about saying

when things are sponsored or not. We'll get to that because I have a good answer for it. Yes, good. We have a good answer for that. But no, this podcast is totally ad-free. and you can help support the podcast by becoming a supporter at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast as well. So questions and support both at the same place. We'll get into the first question here.

I like this one. Hi, Eric Paula and Nick. I'll try to keep this one short. As Oregonians, how do you train through the less than ideal air quality during the increasingly frequent forest fires? Thanks for everything you guys do, especially the podcast. This is very apropos since we just had to deal with this this week. Yeah, every summer. Is it every single summer you have some issue like this where, okay, the fires are in,

the wind is blowing them this way, and now what do we do? At least in central Oregon, yeah. It's less than an issue west of the Cascade Mountains. Because the wind blows east and the fires happen in the Cascades? Kind of seems to be, and then just fires that blow north, like up from California, we get some of that smoke, and that just kind of seems to like go around Mount Shasta and just sit on this side, the east side of the mountains. Yeah, it's part of life.

One of the challenging aspects of living here, I'd say. And I knew nothing about like aQI numbers before I moved here, but now it's something we talk about all the time if we're in smoke season. So the pool closes at 200 AQI. Which is well into unhealthy. Yeah, you don't want to be exercising in that anyway. But for Eric and I, like, if we weren't training as pro athletes and have races coming up, our threshold would probably be much lower. Like some of the people we swim with, they won't train. outside over 125.

Eric and I will swim if the pool is open. So that's already all the way up to 200. And not great, but also, I don't know, we'll try to keep the workout a bit shorter. And that's our only option for swimming because there's only an outdoor pool. But for swimming or for running and biking, we have a pretty well-insulated garage door.

We train in the garage. We have an air purifier. And it definitely is better than outside. So that's like our solution. It fits really bad. It's so funny that you say that your threshold is, would be lower if you were not pro athletes. Considering that you're like, if anything,

you need to protect your body more than a non-pro athlete, but you don't have a choice. You know, you have to do it. Missing swimming for a week isn't really an option when we're racing soon. But if I was just doing exercise to stay healthy, I would just miss a week of swimming. Yeah, that's just the reality, though. No big deal.

Yeah, and then our, if it's like 300, then we're just going to go visit my folks in Portland. or we'll drive over the mountains to the coast or just head to wherever it's green. I mean, even if it's over 200 or over 150 for a long time, we'll just leave. Because it's really funny because the air kind of sits and bend, but it only takes a couple hours to get completely out of it into the green. And whether that's towards Salem or towards Portland, it is escapable. And that's kind of a comforting thing for us to know that we have the van. We can get out of here and we can train well in other places that we know.

And that's always like a pretty quick backup plan if it gets bad because it is our job. We do have to be outside training. So no matter what, we'll just pack up and leave. Yeah. On the upside, we don't have hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes. Bears. Bairs, mountain lions, rattlesnakes. Wow.

It's very safe here. Smoke is pretty much the only, that's like our natural disaster. There's even a question that we'll get into later about mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. So we'll talk about that when we get there. Okay, next question here is from Ben and May. Hey, TTL squad, a training question. Let's say I have a workout that's four times 15 minutes, but on that day, I'm feeling

meh. Is there anything wrong with doing five times 12 minutes to still get the total time, but not do as long of an interval? Sometimes those 15 minute intervals feel like an eternity slash mind. Also great to see the new Strava TTL Club. Thanks for your time, Ben and May. Yeah, I like this question because, yeah, there's like nothing wrong. that at all. No, I typically get a lot more extreme than that. Right. It's like, okay, how about

one interval instead? I'm either doing one by an hour on the mountain bike trails or I'm doing like 10 by five minutes and I'm like building into it. Like the first one is just just get moving. 10 by five minutes with four minutes recovery is not the same as the same amount of quality time broken into like 225 minutes with four minutes recovery. So like when if I, if I, if, if, If I'm having one of those like really meh, I wouldn't say meh, it's more like I might quit triathlon today. Right, right, right. That's when I'll do, take like that 15 minute interval and I'll do like, I'm going to do five

minutes and then I'll give myself 30 seconds and five minutes and 30 seconds. So I'll like break up that 15 minutes or whatever with some little breaks or like do the first five minutes, build the second five minutes, something like that, just to like break it up mentally. I think that naturally our coach breaks stuff up differently every week anyway. Like on Fridays we've been doing, or I've been doing 70.3 pace specific stuff. So one week I did three by 16 minutes with four minutes rest. The next week I did three by eight minutes and then one by 24 minutes.

It's like your body doesn't know the difference. You're just putting in time and doing work at that intensity for X amount of time. And I think that as humans with brains, we get bored and think too much about things. So there's nothing wrong with taking a prescribed amount of work and chopping it up in different ways, especially if you're feeling tired. Well, this is what I kind of wanted to question. Like, sometimes you're feeling like mentally tired where you're like, oh, I don't want to do this right now. That's very different than my body is telling me that I should not be doing this. I agree, Nick.

That's very different. There are two different things, even though they might. I come from similar places, but there are different things. And if you're feeling mentally like you're not going to do it, then like shaving a few minutes off of those intervals, even if you don't replace the, like this person is saying to do the total same amount of intensity. I'm saying even if you decrease the total amount of minutes of intensity, still so much better than not going out.

Like it's a huge difference. Whereas the opposite, which is like if your body is telling you, you need to slow down and you're just maybe shaving a minute off of these interval is like, I don't know if that's enough of a decrease. I totally agree. This is more of like mentally playing with it versus if I start a workout, fully intending to do it as prescribed, but I feel terrible and I can't get up to the Watts or anywhere close.

Then I'll shut it down and like talk to my coach and maybe push it to a different day. But that's very different than being like, I don't feel like doing this because it's boring or because it's hard or because of this. Those are different. But good question. Yeah. Next one here is from Dubai, which is crazy. My best friend growing up was from Dubai.

So maybe there's some cross love here. Hi, Paul, Eric, Nick, and not Flynn. Eric said the next time he hears Flynn being asked a question on the podcast, he's going to throw the mic out the window. My question is around race nutrition. Poor Flynn. Well, he just lies there most of the time. He has not answered a single question since we've started this podcast,

and we're almost up to episode 80. Absolutely love the pod. Each new episode release is the highlight of my week. Thank you. My question is around race nutrition. I will be racing my first 70.3 in early October in Goa, India. And I'm currently trying to figure out how I will fuel during the race. What do you guys think about all liquid race nutrition versus gels and gels and gels? My bike handling is quite sketchy, and I get quite nervous taking one hand off the arrow bars to dig through the bento box and grab gels. So my plan is to just shove all my race nutrition in my aerobottle up front, but I also don't seem to be. many people only relying on liquid fuel. What would you guys recommend? Would you have any favorite liquid fuel products you've tried that you like? Any help would be super appreciated.

Thank you for all you guys do for the sport and lots of love from Dubai. Nice. Yeah, I think you can get a lot of calories in a liquid form. But the problem with that is that I like crave water then because it's so thick and catchy. Oh yeah. So what I do for 70.3s is almost entirely. liquid nutrition. Then I just take a gel once an hour because it has 100 milligrams of caffeine in it. And it's like a very measured immediate dose of caffeine. But what I did for that mountain

bike race, which was seven hours and 15 minutes, is I went 100% liquid nutrition on that plus just like, I was able to get in two picky bars. Okay. Because you're mountain biking, same exact thing. You can't be unwrapping a bar or a gel or anything. So I loaded up the water bottles, super heavy with precision. This isn't exactly the way I would recommend to do it, but it's what I had on hand. I put their big-ass gels into the bottle with some of their electrolyte mix,

and I got to like 75 grams of carbs per bottle. And then any chance I had where I saw an opportunity to grab water, I just refilled one of the empty bottles with just water or just chugged as much water as I could. And I do that in a 70.3 as well. I'll bring the two bottles with nutrition on the bike, but then anytime I see like a hand-up water bottle, I'll get one of those because of what Paula said

and just try to chug just water as much as I can to just get an extra liquid without the calories. Well, also, for a lot of people, having just straight gels will give them serious stomach discomfort and they won't be able to digest the gels. So you do need the water. Not for like, it depends on the type of gel. But so that was fine.

You had no stomach discomfort, right? No, totally fine. So if someone is, for example, this person is trying to do all liquid nutrition. If they don't have any GI distress, is there anything wrong with that? No. I don't know. It's digest quickly. I would argue. This is kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. Is that a saying? I don't even understand the saying, but I don't totally get either, but I know what it refers to. And yes, it's about to happen. So let's hear it. I think that being able to ride your bike with one hand is like a critical essential skill.

So you don't have to be in your aerobar. to get a gel out, you can sit up to take a gel. And that's what I always do. Oh, oh, you're saying stay arrow with one arm. I think that's what she's worried about is like being arrow while digging through her bento. Just sit up, get a gel out of your bento box, eat it. This will take 20 seconds. Put the garbage back in your bento box, get back in arrow. Yeah. I think that if that alleviates the worry of trying to cram as many calories into your front torpedo or whatever you're using, that's a skill worth practicing. Totally.

Like, guys, even I can ride a bike with one hand. I mean, if it's your first 70.3, definitely don't worry about staying arrow while you're eating. Like, worry about feeling good the whole time, having fun the whole time. Yeah. The time you're losing coming out of arrow is not equivalent to the time you're losing by not fueling. So I totally understand the fear, though. It is like a scary, the TT bikes a bit scary. But in practice, just practice that.

Sit up with one hand. You don't have to grab a gel every time. just ride 20 seconds with one hand, ride 20 seconds with the other hand. I even think like you could do a little drill where like you're riding with one hand and with your opposite hand, you take your hand off the bars, touch your left hand. No. Oh, I see. Touch your right hip. Just like move your body around so you figure out how to like reposition your body weight with just one hand and ride comfortably. Instead of having something in your hand

while you're practicing your one hand thing. But I do think in this case, if like if this person doesn't feel like going through that just now, liquid nutrition, the only issue people might have is you might start to feel sick, you might start to not want this stuff. That's the concern I would have about just doing the liquid, just like sugar, sugar, sugar, and like Paula said, like, you start craving water. Yep. Okay, next question here is from Laura. Hi, TTR, love your show, listen to it weekly, and all your back catalog is fueling my

triathlon obsession. My question is, do you clean your bikes after a Zwift garage sweat session? If so, do you use any products to ensure the sweat and salt does not damage shifting, et cetera. I try to wipe it down after rides, but find it hard to clean, difficult to reach components. I'm stuck in my garage from most of New Zealand winter, and I noticed my bike is getting a bit rusty and clunky when shifting. It is my only bike, well, road-related. I do have two mountain bikes. So I want to take care of it and ensure it stay corrosion-free. Many thanks, and I'm so looking forward to watching Paul's big August of

racing, Laura. First of all, I'd never ride inside and I still have rusty stuff all over my bike because of my sweat. So it can happen outdoors too. And do you live next to the ocean? Yes, that's true. Yeah. But how often do you clean the bikes in the winter? Do you?

We don't really clean the bikes in the winter. I honestly have never noticed my sweat dripping onto the drive train. We do a really good job of lubing the chain constantly, and then we both use a towel over like the handlebar area and everything. These are great tips for someone. Use a towel over the handle wire. Do you drape a towel over it so when you're sweating, you're dripping onto it?

Yeah. So like you're trying to get the towel wet. and then like I'll switch out a towel in the middle of a longer ride if I have to because you just don't want sweat dripping down into your headset bearing and just all the bolts of the arrow bar mounting system and everything. That's when you end up and take it out to bike shop and they have to like drill your bolts out. And how often do you lube the chain in the winter?

As soon as I hear it even a little bit. Really? So maybe every other ride or something or... Wow. That's definitely more than most people, guaranteed. It's like why not? No, for sure. Oh, it's great.

And then just give it a real quick, gentle wipe so you don't have a, it's not dripping everywhere, but might as well. Yeah. I mean, why not? Also, I would say good advice would be to have a really good fan. Yeah. Because I think having a good fan just makes you sweat less, obviously. Or notice it less. It evaporates.

It evaporates. Yeah. Sweat sweat less onto your bike, I'm saying. It's better. Yeah, you're cooler and you're dripping less sweat onto your bike. Yeah. Win, win. Yeah.

So just make sure you have, like, honestly, yes, Wahoo sponsors us, but their fans are so amazing and worth buying. It's called the Wahoo Headwind and the angle that it has is really perfect to kind of hit you in the right spot. And also you can pair it with your head unit. I was going to ask you, so can it like go faster when you go faster? Well, you can pair it to your heart rate, but you can also just pair it to your head unit. So one of the screens says like 25% 50, 75. And you can adjust it as you're riding.

Oh, I thought it was like when you're going down a hill. in Zwift, the wind, like the fan goes up. I think you can't you? I don't know about that. Increase the blowing. That is so funny. I don't think that's true. That is so funny.

Like you're climbing up Elp to Zwift and it's like no wind. I don't think so. That sounds terrible. Don't do that, people. That's unnecessary. Okay. Next question here is from Brendan. Hi from Philly.

TTL team. Love the pod. Newby here with a swim question. Can you tell me the ideal hip rotation angle? I'm getting conflicting. info from the interwebs with some saying to rotate very little, other saying 30 to 45 degrees, and even one saying

up to 90 degrees. How much hip rotation do you feel is ideal for you? Thanks. P.S. Eric, if you run Extera, New Jersey next year, I hope to meet you there. Oh, that's cool. Sweet. Hip angle rotation while swimming? Yes. Do we think that there are many different things on the internet for this because there's many different right

answers potentially? I think that one should not spend too much time thinking about this. No, this is not true. When Jess Learmonth was in Bend, and she's the best ITU swimmer there is. She's currently pregnant, so she's not racing at the moment, but she came to Ben to train last year. Maybe it was two years ago now already. But she's phenomenal swimmer, like just cruising 110's no problem.

Easy. Meeters. 110 meters cruising? Yeah. No one's cruising. Yeah, she is. I'm not kidding. She's like so good.

Not easy, but like what? A lot easier than it is for me. Like if she was trying hard to be going like 101, 101, 102. Like she's a real swimmer. And she said to me. When I asked her for like, how do I go faster? What's your advice? And the only thing she said to me is like hip rotation.

Rotate your hips when you breathe. Rotate your hips when you're swimming. No one does that. Everyone swims super flat. So even if you're thinking about it, you're not going to be rotating 180 degrees. 90 degrees to each side. But you will do it more than nothing if you think about it. And she thinks that's important.

So as a swimmer, her advice is another thing. Because the Swimming World Championships just finished, there's like a ton of YouTube videos on NBC, and they actually have really cool videos where you can see the underwater view of some of the races. So you can watch these like world class Best in the World Swimmers from underwater with a really cool, clear camera. And you can see what they do. They all have really good hip rotation as well. How many degrees would you say? It doesn't matter how many degrees.

I'm just saying hip rotation is important. Yeah, it is important. Of course, important. But I do feel like most people are at like 10 to 15 degrees, and I think 45 degrees. So like halfway between 90 and zero is at least something you can shoot for because most people I think are underdoing it. 90 is crazy and it will feel funny and weird. Especially at the speeds that most people are going here, which is not as fast as chess. This is what I wanted to ask you.

So you saying to watch the best of the best swimmer's hip rotation reminds me of like, okay, but if I watch Yaka Bingabringen Run, I'm not going to have a stride like his because he's running three minutes per mile faster than I am. So I shouldn't necessarily be mimicking him. But do you think that swimming, and I feel like it might be, is an exception to this. Like they're just pulling more water there better,

but ideally we should be mimicking their technique. I mean, trying to, but it is hard without their anatomical. Right. Strength. Physical, yeah. But yeah, I think that they're the perfect example. example of what the fastest swim strokes look like. And they're not all identical. I think everyone's a little bit different. But in general, there's some like, when you watch a 400 or 800 freestyle, their stroke rate is much lower than you'd expect. They're kind of just gliding through the

water, two beat kick. Yeah. So there's some cues you can for sure take away by watching that. It's funny because my coach has me, most of my drills are working on hip rotation. I wonder if that's coincidence. Maybe he's seen it with a lot of amateurs. Two questions about hip rotation sent in this week. I've never even thought about it. But I think it could be an effect of people watching these swimmers on YouTube and just being like thinking about it. So, yeah, a big surge. It's like earplugs, you know? Right.

So in right now? So hot. So hot right now. So hot right now. Okay. Well, there you go, Brendan. I would say just maybe more is better for now. More is better.

If you're a newbie swimmer especially. I remember I swam super flat at first too. I think you just don't want to end up in the business. position where your stroke like gets too low because you're rotating so far that it's hard to like get back in time. Get the momentum back to the other side and you spend like feel like you're spending your whole time like doing this hot dog on the stick rotation in the pool, but don't feel like you need to be a plank in the water. Yeah, don't rotate it so much that you start end up. You're actually doing backstroke. Yeah. That's too much. You're doing a 360.

Yes, one less than that. Okay. Next question here is from Nick without a K. Hello, parents. Love that already. Looking forward to Milwaukee. hoping to see you there. Congrats on the engagement. Having a great partner in this thing called life is invaluable. My wife and I will be celebrating 20 years this fall. And although it's not always been perfect, I'm a better person for having her in my life. Grats, that's no small feat. Definitely. My question has to do with Milwaukee this weekend. I'm considering doing both the Olympic and the sprint race. Many do this, sorry, just to clarify, because in addition to the PTO race, there's also USAT nationals. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So I'm thinking of doing both the

sprint and the Olympic race. Many do this at this event, and since most of the athletes here have enough fitness to do shorter races over two days, but perhaps there is insight and advice you could share about recovery between races, logistics, gear, refueling, et cetera. Thanks for all you do has helped so many of us in our triathlon journey, Nick, without a K. Did he say how long was in between? It was like one day. I think in the past, they're consecutive days. Back to back, yeah.

So what do you do after the race? It races over two days. Yeah, but they're saying people do that. Okay, well, let's just say it's the next day. I think it's a completely doable thing. And I've actually done it before when I was a junior. I raced back to back. I raced junior national championships one day and won.

And then I raised the senior national championships the next day and one. Wow. But what I did. Nice, Eric. Is that what happened to you too? It's not the story. Okay. But right after the junior race, and this was like many years ago.

you know how after a race you're like want to talk and chat and hang out and soak up the vibes? I do know that. Cut that out. There's no chatting. Try to get back to your hotel room as quick as you can. Take a smoothie, have a protein shake at the end. I got to go answer the door because Flynn's dog sitter is here.

Oh my God. Go ahead. But yes, like carbs right away, right? Like as soon as possible, try to refuel what you just expended. Yeah, just like put in your transition bag some protein recovery powder that has like the three to one carb protein ratio or something

and just have that immediately after and then the other thing I would say being that it's Milwaukee try to get your core temperature down as quickly as possible like get into air conditioning like jump in the lake just stay out of the sun anything to just like calm your body down

and get into parasympathetic mode out of this like hot hard activity thing yeah I'm trying to think of anything else that be like a common mistake that someone might make then I mean just like continuing your fueling, you get that protein shake or whatever, like immediately after,

and then making sure that you have like a good meal within the next two hours. Right. Just like you can't overdo it, the hydration, all these things. Because you really deplete yourself in a race. Whether you're like the excitement of it really makes you push that extra gear and you pull into reserves in your body that you need to replenish as quickly as possible. What about should they do any training between two races? Would you do anything at all?

I would say like the perfect thing is if you're a couple of miles, your hotels like a couple miles from the race, if you can like ride your bike back to your hotel, something to just get, keep like keep the blood moving, but in a very low key way. Or if you want to just go for a walk, like walk a few miles to dent,

not a few miles. Just like just do some movement. I wouldn't go home and just lay down and like lay in bed until you get up for your next event. Like you laugh, but I feel like a lot of people. people might assume that that is the best thing to do. No, yes.

So, like, what I'll do when I do the Xtera in Germany, there's going to be a short track on Thursday and then the full distance race on Saturday. And after the race on Thursday, like, I'll probably do a 10-minute cool-down, run, something like that, like spin my legs out, go for a bike ride. And then on Friday in between, probably do two workouts, at least. Just nothing in heavy. Just, like, keep your body, keep everything moving, blood flowing, and you don't want to wanted to get stiff and that kind of thing.

Cool. Next question here is from Brent from Winona. Hi, Paula, Eric and Nick. Last episode, you referenced that you take athletic grains. Are you sponsored by them? I think it would be helpful for listeners if you differentiated products you were sponsored by versus things you aren't. BodyGlide is another product you talk about that I'm also not sure about, but you mention a lot. I think it helps us know what to support and also what products you believe in.

Thanks for all you do for the tri-community. Wouldn't have done my first race this year. without your videos and podcasts. Thanks, Brent from Winona. So first of all, we did say that we weren't sponsored by Athletic Greens last week. Well, I did a little disclaimer, but I also thought it was funny that they brought up BodyGlid, because to me, BodyGlid is like Kleenex.

Right. It's like everyone uses it. Yeah, of course. Every single person uses it. We're not getting paid any dollars by BodyGlide, but it does just happen to be the best gliding stuff for wets and stuff. My thought when I read this question was that we don't do ad reads, but we obviously are sponsored athletes, Eric and I.

And our philosophy with our sponsors is we'll never be sponsored by a company that we don't truly and fully believe in. We have said that before. So if we're like seem to be plugging or talking about a product that we use, yes, maybe they're our sponsor, but also we would suggest you also use them genuinely. Things like Athletic Greens, sometimes companies would like to sponsor us or we're like talking about a partnership potential. So we'll have products sent to us to try. And that's the case with Athletic Greens. Eric's been using it every day. I've been taking it once every couple days.

And we really like it. So I think we'll always share honest reviews on the pod. And we'll never do an ad read or talk about a product that we don't like just because we're getting money from them. Anywhere. And any of our channels. That's just like so completely core to us. And I know that plenty of pro athletes out there, like whatever.

It's just money. And I'm a billboard. And that's what it is. But for us, it's like we have built this relationship with everybody listening and everybody who's watching the show. And it is so incredibly important to us and just like a moral thing that we're not going to talk about stuff that we don't believe in and wouldn't use ourselves. So whether or not we're sponsored by a thing, we're just, we like talking about stuff that we think will benefit you and stuff that we like. Yeah. I'm going to talk about so many cameras.

They don't pay anything for me. But like the auto focus is. Yeah, they take your money actually. Yeah, they take a lot of my money. But it's just they work awesome. So I'm not going to like hide the fact that I use them. I think where the disconnect can come, though, is like, we'll talk about a product that they sponsor Eric and I, and we love them. But there is a competing brand that's also very good.

So it's not like it's the only option, but we're just sharing our honest feedback on stuff that we use. I think maybe we'll, maybe let's try to be good about saying explicitly. I just, I feel like the listeners, they know, Paula, you're sponsored by On, they know you guys are sponsored by Specialized. you know you're sponsored by SRM. It seems like these things are maybe, maybe they're just obvious to us because we deal with the companies every day. Yeah.

I mean, I don't mind saying, yes, we're obviously sponsored by Specialized, but they make the best bikes and that's just a dream come true. Right. Which is the truth. That's how we feel, really. But I don't really.

Just to be clear, like, for example, with Specialized, Eric bought a full price, specialized bike while Paula was sponsored by Specialized. I still have it. That's the mountain bike that I ride. I also ride a specialized mountain bike and road bike, and I'm definitely not sponsored by them.

Do we think other bikes suck? No. We just like these ones. Yeah. You guys, I have to go to my massage. Yeah. But I'm super glad that I got to be here for 50 minutes and 50 seconds. It'll be less than that.

But yeah. Well, do you guys want to wrap up the last few questions? We want to get wild once you leave. Oh, yeah, that's what she meant. That's what she meant. Deep dive. Should we keep going? If you want to.

Or should we stop it here? No, I think that it's perfectly fine if you guys keep going. In fact, I think we've done that on a, on a, We have. Like the Wisconsin and Santa Cruz race recap, for example. All right. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks, guys. Well, thanks for listening to me. And the boys will, you'll be in good hands with the boys. It's about to get wild. And we'll chat. We'll hopefully chat with you next week after Milwaukee, pre-Glasco, if we can fit in the time. Between time zones.

But I'll do my best to put up a YouTube video of some sort. There'll be pictures. There'll be PTO videos to watch. You will not be lacking in. trathlon content. Okay, the police is gone. Should we just like put on the big Labowski and try to quote the whole thing from beginning to end? Earmuffs, children. Okay, okay. We're not even going to address that Paula's gone. We're just going to go

on to the next question here. This is from Jules and Toka. My question is this. Are there no bugs in Bend? I'm in Quebec, Canada, home of truly awesome trails, but also the place that might compete with Edmonton as the mosquito capital of the world. Follow all your adventures and trails for Eric's mountain bike rides. Everything looks so beautiful. But do you not get bit to death? Do you have to use bug spray? Should all of Canada just move to Ben to get over this mosquito struggle this summer?

What do you think, Eric? No, all of Canada do not move to Bend. We just don't, it's not like constant, but there are times that it happens and there are places. Like, there's a mountain bike ride that I like to do that goes up around the backside of Bachelor, and there's just like 20K of that where if you stop even for one millisecond you are getting destroyed and you cannot stop.

And unfortunately there's like one stream crossing where I like to fill up water. They also like to fit up water there. So it's like watching an F1 pit stop when I do that because I like throw the bike, jump down, like try to fill up a water bottle, like put it in the filter and meanwhile just smacking myself all over.

Wait, do you have a filter that you use for mountain bike rides? What do you use? Not sponsored by the way. Cadidin. It's like K.A. T-Y-D-Y-N, something like that. It's just like, it's not really a filter. Like, it is a filter, but it filters it

as it's coming into your... Yeah, so it's like a soft sleeve that then has like a water bottle-style nozzle on it and inside of the bottle nozzle is a... Someone was talking about this... I'm not like the biggest fan of it because it's so hard to squeeze the water through into a water bottle.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't necessarily just want to like try to go maximum suction to get it out. But the nice thing about it is it rolls up, into a tiny ball in your hand. I think they fit on the Solomon ones too. Oh, okay. For trail runners.

They designed it that way. Yeah, no, I dig it and it's sweet, but it's not like a, I'm not sure it would be super effective while racing, for example, because it's just not easy to get out. I use the, MSR makes this like hand pump thing that you put in the stream works really well. I use it for trail running, but it's also not super fast. Yeah. But it's kind of fun to use.

And there's a lot of pressure involved, so. Yes. That's right. Yeah. Anyway. Then there's another spot like Waldo Lake. Any of the lakes up on Bachelor can get pretty gnarly in the evening time. But down here in town, I'd say we get like, I don't know, a week here and again.

I think it's just because it's so dry. There's no stagnant water nearby. It's like where would they be if they're not like reproducing in somebody's pond? Right. Yeah. And in LA we don't have mosquitoes either. And I think it's probably the same reason. So maybe there are places like in the more wealthy neighborhood that has some.

some water features or it's more of an issue, but our neighborhood isn't too bad. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Next question here is from Bettina from lovely Jersey Shore area. Hello, my most favorite and esteemed TTL peeps and pup. We're not supposed to address the pup anymore. First, I have to say how much I look forward to my Thursday run each week because I enjoy listening to your podcast during that time makes those miles go so fast. On last week's pod, there was a question about women's specific versus men's specific bike sites. and the only real difference being the width of the handlebar area. I don't think we said that was the only difference, but we said that was one.

I was one of the difference. Eric mentioned something about numb hands that caught my ear. I did not hear him elaborate on it, so it prompted my question because my left hand only sometimes gets numb on my longer rides. Does riding with handlebars that are too wide potentially cause this or vice versa? Interestingly enough, I have both a women-specific trek road bike and a men-servello road bike. Both are 52 frame size, but I only get the numbness when riding my Cervello. Assuming a bike fit would fix this problem. Thank you for answering my question, and good luck to Paul in your upcoming PTO race this weekend.

And of course, thank you, Eric and Nick, for just being all around cool triathlon dudes. You're welcome, Bettina. We are pretty cool triathlon dudes. Thank you very much. So I have a theory about this, but I'm curious what you think is going on here. I mean, with questions like this, I always would refer you to your local expertly trained bike fitter and it could be it could be the bars are too far out

it could be there that are too far wide too far in it could be that your saddle is wearing out so it's causing you to rock forward a little bit more and put a little bit more pressure on your hands there's a million different factors that I think a bike fitter could address that's that that's my theory which is that I very much doubt it's a handlebar with issue if you're having numbness on one and not on the other

I think it's you think first of all a 52 and a Cervillo and a Cric may not be very as similar as you might hope. No, they might not be exactly the same. Yeah, and 52 is like, I forget what the measurement comes from, but it's kind of like a... It's supposed to be the effective top tube length. Effective means like where,

if you drop a vertical line from the top of the seat post or like, I don't even know where... Where the top tube would essentially be if your top tube was flat. The distance from the center of your head tube to the center of your seat tube along that line is the idea. But then like if your seat tube angle is a little bit different, then it's...

That's going to be different from one bike to another. If your stem length is different from, like, there's a million things that could be different. That's where stack and reach come into play. And those are finite measurements that the stack is the distance from the center of the bottom bracket to the center of the top tube, at the measured at the head tube, and the reach is that distance front to back from the center of the head tube to the center of the bottom bracket. And then you might, those bikes might ship one might ship with 165 cranks,

and the other one might ship with 172.5 cranks. There's so many things. So it could it be the bar width? Yes, it could be the barred with. Could be the bar shape. Yeah, it could be the hoods that you're using. It could be your bar tape. It's like there's so many different things.

So like Eric said, bike fitter. Yeah. Address the problem with them. I think that's the best way to go. As much as we would love to solve your problem right here right now. It would require some kind of telepathy, I think, to be able to do that. So sorry about that.

But the good news is if you're not numb on one bike, that's hopeful. Yeah, that's great. I would bring that. bike. Bring both bikes to the bike fitter and say this one feels good, this one needs to feel like that one. I also would like to say since I've been riding Eric's tarmac, which has been, which has been fantastic, love the bike. It's a 54, just like my Venge is a 54.

So same size. But for example, I have wide sit bones. So I have the wide power saddle. I think the one you have on there is the regular one. And so I noticed right away, I'm going to ride a lot longer than an hour, I start to get numbness in my feet. Yep. So like, it's something as simple.

Is it your shoes? No. It's the saddle. You think, of course it's the shoes. No, it's the saddle. Yeah. Nervous system is funny like that. Okay.

And last question here, although this is fun, Eric. We just want to, we just take out some more questions, make some questions up. Let's do some more. Nick, why are you so awesome? Teresa from Canada. Eric, why do you rock so much? Gertrude from Minowaka. Okay, so this is from Emmett.

It's a real question. Hi, I love the podcast. My question is, what makes the 30 to 39 age groups so competitive? which is actually two separate age groups, 30 to 34 and 35 to 39. I'm a 27-year-old male and I tend to podium in my age group. However, with my current times, I would not podium once when I turn 30. Do people in the age group just naturally get faster? Well, I get faster. I'm worried that in two years my glory days will be over. How does one prepare to enter the 30 to 39 age group, Emmett? So Eric, you have not experienced this because you've been pro when this happened. But I experienced this big time because the first, year I raced, I was also in the 25 to 29 age group. And I was cleaning up back in those days. I experienced this a little bit, but I was in the 15 to 16 year old age group, aging up into the 18 to 19 year olds or whatever. That's impossible. That's way too fast. Yeah. But I think the thing that's more important here rather than your age and you might think, oh, I'm going to be a year older. I'll be a year slower. You don't really peak in endurance sports until you're potentially 30.

940 and it's really more of a total time training. So if you continue to train well from now until when you crack into that age group, you're just going to be faster. You've got more time in your body. Your aerobic system is actually only getting better as you get older up until, like I said, around 40 or something. Don't quote me on that because I'm not a doctor, but Craig Alexander won Kona at like 38.

Yeah, I think the point is that even if there is a drop-off after, let's say, 30, it's slight and you can do a lot to mitigate that with just proper training. And I think a lot of the drop-off is really more in like a five-minute effort. Like, yes, I cannot put out the same amount of power for like 10 by four minutes. Or for four hours? Yeah, but now I can put out almost the same amount of power for two hours straight. And that's just going to naturally happen. So like stay the course, keep training well, you'll be ready when you get there.

Do you think that part of this reason that people are faster in there, 30s is that they've got their life a little more together. And they're like, okay, I can actually fit in training this morning. I'm not going out getting drunk every Friday and Saturday night. Like I have, I actually care about triathlon. I'm going to work hard on it and not just make it another thing that I'm doing while also trying to find a life partner and secure a job and get my first home, all this stuff. 100%. There's a high likelihood that out of the 10 guys who are like in the top 10, one of them is, does not have a wife, is divorced or has never been married and just sold his tech company and has been fun employed, you know, happily for two

years. And another guy who just is a dentist and only needs to work 12 hours a week to pay the bills and is spending the rest of the time training. Like the intensity and the dedication of some of the people in the 30 to 39 range is like wildly impressive. They're training like pro athletes. The bummer, I think, is like if you live in a city, let's say you live in San Diego and you're like, you're racing against these same guys and they're always beating you. The problem is, Like maybe the bottom half of the, of the field, like slowly fades away and stops doing triathlon. But those top three to five guys, they're, unfortunately, they're going to follow you for the next 30 years and continue to be you unless, you know, they decrease their training or you go up. Like, yeah.

That kind of hurts. I noticed that recently. I'm like, oh, this guy's beating me three times in a row now. I'm like, oh, he's just going to beat me every time unless I change something. I would go around to those guys and start asking them if they've like, hey, dude, have you tried mountain biking? Yeah. Dude, you know what's really fun? Golf.

You'd be super good at gravel racing. You should try that, George. You'd be a great chess player. You should consider chess. You're so smart. Yeah, exactly. Kill them with kindness. That's your only option.

I love that. Okay, well, that's all we got. Eric, you need to bleed brakes, rebuild parts of bikes, pack bikes. There's a lot to be done before you leave. Lots to be done. I'm on mechanic duty for the next two days. Yeah. I can't believe I'm not going to see you guys for a month.

I hope we are able to do the podcast. Just know everyone listening. and we're going to try our best, but between how busy they are and the time change, it might be a challenge. Yeah. Yeah, I think the trick will just be that we're typically going to be traveling on like Mondays. Yeah. Well, I don't mind doing it on something other than a Monday.

So whatever it works, you know, a podcast is a priority. So for me, a podcast is a priority. I realize that winning world championship for you guys are a bigger priority. Follow us around the globe with the microphones. That's right. We're going to do the podcast while walking through Heathrow. Wow. Now, that would be a first.

Or maybe not. I don't know. Somebody's probably done that. Someone's probably done that. Next week, we'll talk about how the PTO race went. Hopefully. Unless it went bad and then we'll just ignore it completely. And then we'll just pretend like it never happened.

Yeah, on the next. On to the TT World Championships. Oh, that's going to be so fun. Yeah. Bye, everyone. Later.