That Triathlon Life Podcast - Running advice for triathletes, pro triathlete eating practices, and more!

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

This week we start with a funny story of somebody helping Nick change a flat on the side of the road, then we talk waxed chains in a Bike Tech With Eric segment, and finally move on to your questions. This week we talked about:Chain wax and maintenance When and how to switch coachesThoughts on renting a bike for 70.3 World ChampionshipsOur podcast equipment and softwareBest eating practices for a busy triathleteHow we calculate swim time for weekly volumeIf we could re-do any race, what would it beHow to learn bike maintenance Long term run adviceEric's go-to coffee setupA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast, and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey, everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggestrim. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is our triathlon podcast where we talk about stuff going on our triathlon life. We talk about what's going on the trathon world. And for the most part, we just take a lot of questions for people who ride in and give us stuff to talk about. So Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick's a professional musician, great friend. Aw. Groomsman at our recent wedding. Aw.

But most importantly, a music professional and. He does a lot of the work on the audio of this podcast and keeps it rolling and keeps Paul and I from fighting. Sometimes I join in on the fighting, but yeah, I think mostly I keep the fighting too at bay. I do love a good three-way fight. We haven't had a fight since being married, though. Yeah, it's like a whole new world now that we're married. A whole new, no, we'll get a copyright strike.

Not that we fight that much before our wedding, but. You know how it goes. When you're both training and you're hungry and meals only come three times a day, not 12 times a day, you know, you get hungry, you get angry, you get testy.

The hunger for you guys is the main impetus for the fights. I think I have noticed. It's true. We're always, we're riding a razor's edge between like,

fueled properly and we need a gel. And that's just the life. How often, how long do you go in a day? What's the longest you'll go on a normal day between some kind of snack?

15 minutes? No. I mean, unless I'm working on something and I completely forget to eat. But a lot of the time, like we'll wake up and we eat and then we go swimming. And then we immediately eat burritos. And then we kind of get home and we might have a little chocolate or something. And then we start getting ready for the bike ride. And then on the bike ride, you're drinking a thing that counts as food in my mind.

Bike rides over, immediately eat lunch. Maybe take a nap. That might be your long break, a thing if you take a nap. But like, I'm snacking the whole afternoon. And then we do a fourth, a third activity. And then we've got to eat dinner. And then you go to bed. So correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys don't take in any calories during your swims, though.

Is that right? Generally not, unless I'm feeling particularly tired. And I know immediately after that, we're going tempo running or something substantial. Just like, I don't know, growing up, we didn't do that. That's what I was going to ask you. Is it from growing up and they just didn't have it on the deck? I bet nowadays kids have nutrition on the deck, maybe. But back when, I don't know, at least on my swim team, it was like, you just eat the air.

but not too much of it. Hold your breath and be hard. Be tough. No, you have a water bottle on deck all the time. I didn't. Well, that's irresponsible. You just drink the pool of water. Everybody knows that.

Yeah, exactly. I don't know. It's a different, a little bit different scene like age group swimming than age group triathlon where everybody's super keet in on 90 grams of carbs an hour and all the things. Okay, so last week we were both sick. Do you want a health update, Nick, from us? I would love a health update, yeah.

Okay, so we spent the whole week sick, and it was a bit of bad timing because wedding week, we didn't train that much, and then we immediately got sick and couldn't train that much. So now I feel like I'm back to square one of fitness, which is a bit concerning since I have three races in September. But I'm hoping that some muscle memory, fitness memory will kind of come back after a week of routine. And I'd say I'm pretty much out of the hole now. What do you think, Eric? We're still hacking after we exercise, but for the most part, I feel like he can get through exercise.

Yeah, can get through. Ready to do two hard workouts a day? I would say definitely not. I think I could start training hard this week. Sometime this week. There's that old adage about if it's below the neck, you know, you shouldn't be exercising. It seems like you guys kind of,

took that as a suggestion and we're still able to do the exercises. I really don't want to get into this because, yeah, we completely did not follow our own advice. We were stupid about it and I'd rather just ignore the whole thing. Okay. Great. Next. Next. Okay.

The really exciting thing that happened to me a couple of weeks ago that you guys know the story of already, but I wanted to share it with the podcast listeners because it's an outrageous story. I think you guys know what I'm talking about here, but. Heck, yeah. Just sitting back and grabbing the popcorn. Yeah, great. So the story goes, my friend Caesar, he's a fun, cool guy, just got sponsored, got a bike sponsor, and got his TT bike in. So we wanted to go for a first TT bike ride up on PCH together. And I hadn't rid my TT bike since I think I raced more O'Bay. So we're like, great, let's do it. Let's just ride like two and a half hours or something like that. So we're riding up and about 40 minutes in, he gets a flat in the rear. He kind of, a bike, he's, came with race tires on it, and he had sealant in there, but it wasn't sealing. So we're sitting there, and we feel so dumb because neither one of us brought our, like,

flat repair stuff with us. I still have my, it's complicated, but my race setup now has duct tape over where there used to be a latch that flew away in the wind, so I didn't have any of my stuff in there. His setup was all in the passenger seat of his car, so we're just like two idiots sitting there waiting for a cyclist to come by to help us out. So we wait five minutes, 10 minutes, after 15 minutes, finally, we see someone kind of come over the hill. And which is kind of funny because PCH is a main throughway for cyclists. You ride on PCH and then there's just like amazing climbs off of PCH. Finally we see this guy come up over the hill.

Super nice bike. You can tell it's like an S-Works, tarmac. Pulls up, he comes right over to us. He was very concerned. He was ready to help. He was excited to help. So he comes over to. us, I look at him, I immediately start just like word vomiting, like, oh, thank you so much for stopping.

My friend just got a flat in the rear. And as I'm talking, I slowly notice, this isn't just a random cyclist. This just happened to be world famous chef Gordon Ramsey, who was riding his S-Works tarmac on PCH and stop to help us. And at first, I'm just like, I'm a little bit in shock. and I'm not acknowledging the fact that I have now realized who this person is. You're still like finishing sentences though somehow? Now all of a sudden I'm like slurring my words

and slowing down my speech. I'm like, uh-oh. Because I've also seen him yell at people a lot on TV. That's kind of his stick. But I've heard that he's actually very nice in person and I can confirm from the very first second he was he was so nice that even if it wasn't Gordon Ramsey, I would have told you guys the story about this guy

who was so over the top, nice with us. So right away, he's like, yeah, take my CO2. So he takes out the CO2, Caesar inflates his rear tire. By the way, Caesar, who's super cool, but does not know who Gordon Ramsey is. So the whole time, he, I have no way to communicate with him. That blows my mind.

I have no way to communicate with him. Like, dude, this is the most famous chef on the planet that is helping us out right now. So he's being casual with him. He's like, oh, let me Venmo you for the CO2. I'm like, Caesar, you don't need to Venmo Gordon Ramsey for the CO2. So anyway, we chat with him for a bit. After a bit, I kind of allude to the fact that I recognize who he is because he had been,

it was kind of public. He got into a bike crash and was pretty injured. And I found out this was actually his first ride back after this bike crash. So we rode for a bit towards a coffee shop and then Caesar's rear tire did not seal and went flat again. So Gordon pulled over with us again, gave us another CISO. 2.02. And then finally, it was enough to get us to the coffee shop and we got a little coffee together in a photo. But that's the Gordon Ramsey story. Crazy. So funny. As it was happening,

I'm like, is this real life right now? Is Gordon Ramsey helping us? Do you have his number now? I do not have his number. No, he did not share his number. But I follow him on Instagram. So it's like the same thing. He only has like 15 million other followers. Yeah, right. Does he follow you on Instagram? No, I don't think he does. Nick, this was like one of his first rides back after a pretty public bike crash. It was literally his first ride back. And he came packing all of the flat repair stuff to have a good day. He had everything.

Thank God. He had everything. And then he just walked into the coffee shop. He took his shoes off, walked in barefoot to the coffee shop. What? And ordered his coffee. He didn't want to be clipping and clapping around, I guess. That's weird to have bare feet.

It was a little. He had socks on. Okay. Yeah. I can respect that sentiment. I've never heard of someone doing that. But now that he does it, I might do it. Yeah.

A new thing. Anyway, it was a pretty surreal experience. I hope that I don't know. Thank you, Gordon, for stopping. I'm sure you listened to this podcast already. He's actually a triathlete. He's done Kona a couple times. He's done a lot in triathlon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did his chef fame come from like the competitive shows on Food Network and stuff? I don't know, chicken or the egg. He must have been like relatively, you know, some sort of a personality. Because anytime they pull in somebody on one of those cooking shows, they're like, oh, or a three-star chef from this place in Boston. But then his like, I'm sure his personality and his on-screen presence, straight to the top.

He's pretty hilarious. He even made a joke. We were writing back. I said something like, you know, I'm going to, I was like, if it's okay, I want to tell this story on this silly trathlon podcast that I co-host. And he's like, oh, yeah, of course. Next time I'll bring snacks or something like that, you know. So he was ready.

So he was always ready with a joke. But he was so kind. I can't overstate how kind he was with us. That's incredible. Anyway, so let's move on to some bike tech with Eric here. Okay, this one's from Derek. High TTR parents, straight to it. Can you bike tech with Eric elaborate on brand and process he uses to wax a bike chain?

It would appear ice friction is no longer around, thanks Derek. That's true, right? Ice friction's no more. Yeah, that's true. The guy, it was kind of like a single guy running it. And I reached out earlier this year to see if I could get some chains. and he said, kind of let the company disintegrate. But Eric just waxes my chains now.

Well, Eric said something interesting before about sometimes waxing. Eric, tell me what you were talking to me about. I have yet to go fully all the way and get out the crockpot. We've been kind of waiting for that cool silka all-in-one crockpot unit to come back in stock. But what I've been doing in the meantime is I do the hydrasonic cleaner. On the chain, I get it completely like sparkly, sparklier than new clean. And then I do like link by link a drip of the silka wax stuff, which hardens up just like if you put it in a crock pot and everything.

So I'll do like one side of it. And then I'll go back and do I'll do the other side. And then I usually go as far as to like put this newly prepped chain in a little baggy and then just like drip some more wax down in there and just kind of like smear it all. around and then I send the bike to the race, you know, with that, and then we put it on a couple days before the race. And do you, when you get a new chain, are you expecting to always wax that chain, or do you sometimes do chains with regular loop? I don't do any regular loop anymore. Like, we just built up Paula's new tarmac, you know, a few weeks ago.

And I kind of just let the stock chain stuff on there wear out and get to the point of where I felt like it was dirty, and then I cleaned it fully, and then I did. Like, when we're just training, I use squirt loop and do basically the same thing. Get it super, super clean. Squirt is like a wax-based thing as well, and then just do a really good job of applying. And with that, with our dusty conditions here, pretty much I just need to wipe it down really well every few days and then put on some fresh stuff. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Eric. That's awesome. And Paula, you just reap the fruits of Eric's labor here with your perfect chains every ride. It's true.

I did. I did do an oops a couple days ago. And Paula, this is insane. Like somehow Paula got within like a mile of the top of McKenzie Pass

and both of her batteries were dead. Both of the batteries. Like to the, like nothing, not even a red light. So I don't know how I let that one slide.

Now that we got like the four unit battery charger from SRAM, I pretty much just like every night have fun swapping all the batteries and charging them, but her tarmac somehow, probably because it was in the van.

So what we ended up doing, like she was in the wrong ring, so I put like one of my batteries on her front derailer battery, got into the big ring, and then gave her my front derailer battery, put it on her rear derailer. So we both had like just enough rear derailer shifts to get back to the car.

But isn't that so nice that you can do that with tram that you could just take a battery at that? It's incredible. And if we were, if we were mountain biking, in my mountain bike, like swap box thing in the down tube, I actually just have a spare battery in there. Right. Yeah, it's the wild advantage of Shram.

I looked at Strava. Jackie Herring did a ride today. And her D.I.2 died, yeah, I saw that. Yeah, her D.I.2 died and she just had to abort the entire ride. Yeah. So ridiculous that Chimano doesn't have a better way. Like, you have to plug your bike in? Yeah.

What is this? The 2015s? Even my, and it's not always a very convenient place to plug in. Sometimes like, on my T-T. I have to like take the headset apart to get to the like little control box thing. Dude, the best build I ever did on a on a on a di2 bike is I put they have like a bar end charging port for those. Oh yeah. And I put that in the bar end of like the extension.

So you just plug in. I can't even explain to you what a bird's nest of insanity it was between like the extensions and like the towers down to the base bar and into the frame. but you could just plug it in right behind where your elbow would go, and it was so nice. And it just happens to be the same diameter as, like, drop bars. Yeah, for the most part. I mean, there are some T-T bikes that have a really weird extension diameter, but for the most part, they're standard.

That's great. But also just use SRAM. Yeah, I'm just saying, you know, if you just are like absolutely can't get into it. SRAM is a sponsor, by the way, but we all love it. So, SRAM doesn't sponsor me and I love it. Fram also just won the Tour de France FEM. I heard that last stage was a freaking...

I just watched it on the trailer. Don't ruin it for me because I haven't been able to watch it yet. That's why I'm not going to say what happens. I guess we have a podcast. You should probably ruin it. We know who won, though. Don't you know who won, Eric? I told you all about it.

Okay, whatever. No, go for it. Spill beans. Spill the beans, really? You know what? I'm not going to get to it. I'll do my best, but I don't want to hold back to podcast content. It was one by like four seconds.

And it included, that was within the bonus time you get for first place. Cassian Ivano won from Canyon Shram. That is insane. Okay, now I do remember you're telling me. Demi was second. Vowlering, she was like in the lead most of the time, right? Most of the race.

No, what's crazy about it? What's crazy about it? And I don't fully know the depth of all this, but Demi Vollering crashed on one of the stages, stage five, I think it was, and lost a minute 15. So she went into stage eight with about a minute 20 for deficit, largely because of this crash. And when she crashed, none of her teammates waiting for. for her. She rode up, had to bridge kind of back solo. What? Why?

Really confusing. She's like by far the, I mean, she won last year. She's the... A frontrunner, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, another SD works, I think, won that stage. But then after stage seven, she didn't go back to the team truck. She just kind of span around the parking lot. Like, it was... I don't know

if this is drama. I have no idea. But I just loosely following it. It seems kind of strange that she was so close to the win, yet she was missing help in some critical places. Wow. And maybe it was a radio malfunction. I'm not sure, but so many crazy things

in the dynamics of these races and for it to come down to four seconds is unreal. That's wild. How many total stages were there? Eight. Yeah. I mean, I've only watched through the TT and the TT was extremely exciting. He only watched the six minute time trial

on stage one. Well, no, I watched the first two. I watched through the first three stages and then I didn't do a trainer ride today so I didn't get to get all caught up. Yeah. Okay. Next. Moving on. We're going to move on to our regular scheduled questions here. These are submitted all by podcast listeners.

Thank you so much. At some point, we could put these questions and answers into some giant database. There's so many good questions. Then people wouldn't keep asking the same ones that we would have nothing to talk about. You're right. You're right. We can't have that. We rarely get duplicates.

It's crazy. You can submit your questions to the podcast at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast, where you can also become a podcast supporter. This podcast does not exist without the podcast supporters. So thank you so much to our podcast supporters. We're going to do some more fun podcast supporter stuff coming up. I think we've said podcast supporters five times in that sentence. Okay, let's make it six.

Podcast supporters, thank you so much. And we're going to give a special thank you today to our podcast winner, John Walker. John Walker, thank you so much for supporting the podcast. You're going to get a TTO bottle and socks. Show those off. Brag to your friends. Thank you for being a supporter. That message us your address.

And also message us to your address, yes. You can do it through the website. If you want. If you want the bottle. Yeah. I realize that's like a little bit weird for some people to just message their address to people. I thought it would be weird at first, but no one has had any hesitancy to do it. Yeah, I know. It's just crazy, hey?

Well, we are like a business entity. You could sue us, I suppose. Yeah, that's not good ideas in their head. I can hold that dear if you're afraid. Okay. First question here is from. Amber. Fairly often, I hear of professional athletes switching coaches, and I'm curious about when an athlete figures out if they need a new coach. How do you distinguish between being able to give

feedback to your existing coach versus needing such a substantial change in training that you switch coaches? Are there other factors such as location or coaching history that impacts who you choose as your coach, Amber? So first of all, for both of you, how many coaches have you had throughout your triathlon career? Two. Oh, she's counting. I'm on my sixth. You're on your sixth.

But I've been doing this since 2006. So not that crazy. Yeah. I'm much more unusual to only have two. So you guys, you can speak to yourself, but also you're very friendly with other people, other professional athletes. And you've heard their stories of switching coaches and why they switch coaches. and whether it turned out to be a good idea or not. So what's your wisdom on this?

I think a lot of the time people switch coaches because they feel like they've, they need a reinvigoration of their excitement or of their training stimulus or something. And they feel like it's getting stale with the same coach. I don't think it's always a bad thing. Like you're breaking up with someone. I think sometimes the coach and the athlete have a mutual agreement that it's be best for the athlete to move along. That's best case scenario. A few of the coaches I've left was like a little bit ugly and they take it very personally and that's never a fun situation for either side.

But the reasons I've switched coaches in the past were a few of them because of location like moving to a different place and wanted someone who was one-on-one like going to be there in person. And a few of them early on were just because of like national team situations with ITU and who was coaching the national. team. But that's usually the reason. I think at this point in my career, I don't want to switch coaches at all until I retire. I really like our coach. I think I'm racing well. And I find that he really does change the stimulus quite a lot. There's no repetition every year we're kind of doing different things. And he's doing lots of research. He's very in tune with the latest things. So I have full trust. And it. It's a lot of work and effort to switch coaches.

I have no interest in doing it. So even if I wanted to, I don't think I would at this stage of my career. Eric? Yeah. Yeah, same. I think the dangerous thing is when someone jumped, has a bad race or a bad string of things, and blames it on their coach and jumps ship. That's kind of like maybe too reactive.

Yeah. No, I agree. I think athletes tend to tend to, make coaching switches like, you know, like when they feel like something's not going well. And they, yeah, Paula nailed it for the most part. Like, I want a new stimulus. I feel like this type of training isn't right for me. And maybe you brought it up with your coach and they said, yes, it is. Just do it. But like, I think a good coach is really going to be open to having a little bit of a dialogue with you, especially at this, you know, if you've been an athlete for a long

period of time and you know your body a little bit, they should be open to, I want to do more tempo runs. I feel like that really is good for my body. And our coach certainly is like that. I think if, you know, I've been with Paulo since 2000, like end of 2012 now. And if he hadn't kind of constantly been bringing in new things and not drastic, but just like tweaking, fine-tuning, I think I might have moved on a while ago, but I've felt like our dialogue is pretty good. I like style I've raced well and it works. So I think, yeah, style, how much communication there is, location if you want somebody that's in person or not, those are probably like the big three. If you're switching coaches, it's fine. Like that is your decision. That is the best thing for you.

And often if a coach that you have is really bugging you or you feel like it's not right, it's only going to get worse because you lose the trust and then from there it's a down. downward spiral. So as soon as you start having those feelings, the only option really is to switch. And the trust is so important that if you lose even a little bit of that, it just gets really bad. So as professionals, how much does it matter that you have a good interpersonal relationship and trust in the coach versus they are giving you the most optimized perfect training for what you're doing? Like how much does that balance matter? Is it 90-10? Is it 50-50? When you say interpersonal, you mean like we're friends or we just communicate well?

You communicate well, yeah. I'd say that's pretty balanced because you could have somebody who's just got all the best science and then you have an athlete that here's the thing and then goes and adds 10% here and there and changes things and tweaks things so much that like this data-driven approach all of a sudden is useless because there's not an open thing where the athlete can say, hey, I want to do more or I want to do less or I'm too tired or et cetera. So I'd say that communication is almost the art side of the whole art versus science and coach athlete relationship. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. Interesting. Great. Thanks for the question, Amber. Next question here is from Casey in Ontario. ATTL, just found out that I'm qualified for the 70.3 world champs in Taupo. And I've decided to go. Is it better to rent a bike in New Zealand or bring my own?

The cost is a little cheaper to rent about half the price of the bike. etc. It seems so much easier and less worrisome than bringing my own. Yes, I know the brake levers are reversed in New Zealand, but that's okay. Is there something I'm missing here? Why would I risk bringing my own bike? I'm just racing for the experience for myself. Please advise and thank you. Love all things TTL and all the best of the three of you. Casey. I think that she's factoring in the cost of purchasing a bike bag and then paying for the airline whatever the fee is to transport it. And the stress that comes along with traveling with a bike, potential of it getting lost, disassembling it, reassembling it, all really valid reasons to be concerned. I personally would not even entertain

the idea of renting a bike, but I think that for professionals, bike fits are much more specialized or like individualized to the person. If you're riding a road bike and you're planning on bringing a road bike, I think renting is fine. But as soon as you get into T-T, T bikes, that is a lot different between bikes, whether it's a rental or your own. But you know, with a road bike, you might even be able to rent a nicer road bike than what you have. Oh, for sure. And fit it exactly how you ride your own road bike. And in that case, I'd just say maybe bring your own saddle, pedals.

Yeah. Yeah. And a list of measurements of exactly how far your hoods are from the bottom bracket and how far your saddle is behind the bottom bracket and your tip of your saddle to the hoods. and get all those critical measurements so you can recreate what feels right. Easily on a road bike. 18 hours of travel away. Yeah.

Bringing your own saddles for sure a great hack, though. It takes nothing to take it off as long as you market and then you know that that will be comfortable for you. Mark it and also get the tilt of it if you can with a... Oh, yeah. I bet if you go online and you Google like bike fit measurement chart, something like that, you'll come up with a sheet that's got a bunch of like lines drawn of the important measurements for you to replicate a bike fit between one bike and another,

and that might be helpful if you decide to do the rental thing. It is curious, though, because you would imagine someone who is qualified for worlds and is flying all the way to New Zealand, of course, is going to bring their own bike. But if you are just there for the experience and maybe you worked really hard to qualify, but now you're just trying to do your victory lap, I guess it makes sense to rent a bike. Man, if you qualified for 70.3 worlds on a road bike and you're thinking about potentially renting one, you are just raw power. Raw undiscovered talent here.

Let's get you a TT bike. Yeah, if you're thinking of renting a TT bike, I don't know if I would do that. I don't know if you can even rent a TT bike. I mean, let's say dream scenario and like specialize just has a TT bike waiting for you in New Zealand with all of your measurements and everything, Paula, that would be pretty sick

because, yeah, like one of the chances these days that the bike makes it. It's like 80% chance. Right. That's true. Yeah. It's just like a brand new bike. It's sparkly. A mechanic has built it like three days ago. That's the dream. Oh, my gosh. Is it not? That is the true difference from EvX prevented by Zwift.

Yeah. That's the treatment thing. I don't want my bike. I want a new bike. That's right. Okay. Well, there you go, Casey. And congratulations once again on qualifying. That's awesome. Yeah. Well done. Next question is from Brad.

Hi, guys. Would love to hear you geek out on your podcast equipment. Mike's audio interfaces, recording software, editing, etc. I'm surprised to see you guys using wireless mics and Paulus T100 Miami race recap video. Side note, we have pretty limited time available to edit, and it seems the more money you spend for buying something, like a roadcaster pro, the easier those things become. Is there an easy way to do it on a budget? Yeah, the Miami recap, we were on the road. So when we're traveling, we don't have our fancy mics that we're currently using. I got to say, those things sound real good, though.

they sound really good. Yeah, on a budget, that's great. I think the biggest thing there is recording in a location that is not super echoey, and our sound engineer can back me up on this, but in a less sound echoey, reverby area, and then not having the mic set so that you peek them and the audio scratchy,

you can get it a long way with a budget mic if you just kind of know what you're doing. This goes back to, I'll relate it to music recording and music production. It's very easy, when you're producing a song to obsess over these things that are objectively better or worse, or things you can control, like mic, expensive mics, expensive cables, expensive gear. But what really matters to get a great sounding vocal in a music recording is, like Eric said,

a room that does not have a lot of reflections in it, not have a lot of reverb, and a great performance, which is not really relevant to podcasting. But those are the things that really matter. have done big recordings on a mic that was like $250, which for microphones is cheap. The one I'm speaking into now is like a $1,500 microphone. I use a, it's a Norman-T-L-M-49. Eric and Paula use the SU7s, which are extremely commonly used microphones in music and in podcasting. People sing into these? Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, all the time. All the time. For sure. All the time. All the time. Those are those are dynamic mics so they don't need power to run.

This is a condenser mic, so it needs power to run. But that's the only difference. They're both great mics. And then a lot of the magic kind of happens in how I then process the sound, which is definitely too in-depth and too nerdy for this. But we record two tracks of audio. Paula's track, my track, two different microphones, into garage band, and then I basically take those files, put them in a Google Drive folder,

and Nick Makes Magic. Yep. And so then we combine them later, and so I can have individual control over each mic. And do you edit in garage band or something else? I edit in a software called Logic. That's the software I use. And then within Logic, you can buy plugins that modify the sound in other ways. So there's like a million companies that make third-party software for it.

So I have a lot of that from the music. production stuff. And I use some of that. For example, that room that you're in is not as dead as it could be. So there are some smart plugins that can remove some amount of reverb. So I use that on both of your mics. Anyway, so that's the way we do it. To do it on the budget, I think you just need some very basic mics. That's to get the best recording. And some great content and great company. Yeah. The one thing I'll say about this is that I don't think buying more expensive gear changes the amount of time that it takes to edit it. Once you've kind of set your settings, that should not really affect the other.

Dick. Yeah. How much are the mics that we're talking to do, by the way? I think $550 each. Yeah. Oh, wow. They're quite expensive. Yeah.

Brought to us by our beautiful podcast supporters. That is why we have these. Yep. Okay, next question here is from Joe. Hi, guys. My question pertains to nutrition for casual triathletes. I see a lot of posts about what professional triathletes eat and what supplements they use. But I'm curious if you have any advice on what, if anything, a casual two to three triathlon a year athlete could use to maximize training gains.

I grew up playing hockey through college and don't have any background in triathlon, so I feel like my form breaks down a little towards the end of my workouts. Sometimes it's a little challenging to recover which impacts my next workout. Like most amateurs, I don't have a ton of time to train between work and family, so I want to make sure I feel as good as possible, going into every workout, and get the most out of it. I usually run four to five times a week, swim two to three times a week, and mix a bike in where I can on my trainer. Most of my workouts consist of lifting.

Thanks and congrats on the wedding, Joe. So for someone like this, is there like maybe a few key things that you would focus on? I'm going to guess that the biggest thing going on here is like going into a workout a little bit low blood sugar. Like I'm certainly guilty of that if I'm trying to cram workouts in, in between, you know, like we had a phone call and I got to edit a video and a thing all often. You're like, oh, wow, I need to be on the bike in 10 minutes.

And I just realized I haven't eaten because I was busy and got carried away. So I think having a good strategy for like prefueling, having, you know, something to eat an hour, an hour and a half before. And that is going to probably be the biggest thing to set you up. Because I assume most of these workouts that you're fitting in are not like three hours long where a ton of, in workout fueling is going to make as much of a difference as arriving at the workout fueled up. I would say my advice would be the, and I'm not always great at this, the immediate post-workout fuel. Because if you're doing two workouts back to back or even consecutive days, that's the window where your muscles are going to absorb the most recovery. And tailwind, actually, has a really good recovery powder that we, that's what Eric and I use.

it tastes really good, has a lot of calories and sugar and just the things that are going to replenish you for the next workout. So that's an option to try. Yeah, that's good stuff because you just add water to it and it's got sugar and protein and all the things. If you don't have access to that, I think chocolate milk is also great. Yep. I like a post-workout chocolate milk. Chocolate milk's a good backup. You know what I noticed about both of your answers is growing up, I mean, I don't know how old Joe is, but when I was growing up, we were told immediately after you workout you want protein and both of you were you were saying that the right thing which is that you want you want carbs you want sugar you want energy to replenish

so that you can use your muscles again i think that's something that yeah both of course both but the carbs are what's going to help you feel like energized in the in the next workout and i think sometimes if you're an old if you're like my age 34 we kind of we grew up hearing the protein thing and especially if you grew up playing hockey i think the carb thing like something like the tailwind drink is perfect. Yeah. Designed to be perfect. Next question here.

Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. When you count your total weekly training volume, do you count your total time in the pool or only the time you're actually swimming? Ultimately, I know it doesn't change anything, but as someone who likes to track their total training volumes per week, month, and year, in hours and not in distance,

I was wondering if there is a standard practice on this. Thank you. P.S. congrats on the wedding, and I'm excited for the TTL Surfer-style documentary you've been working on. Hell yeah. I feel like this could get savage. Because Nick and Paula and I swim completely,

we have completely different styles and the way that Paula and I track our time swimming and Nick, we're like, we could be different. You guys don't even track your time swimming. First of all, my question was, do you guys even know, like, do you even look at your weekly training volume? No.

Yeah, I do on Strava. And then I say like, okay, I swam five times on average 75 minutes each. So then I add six. and a half hours to that approximately. So I would say that if you're really, really anal about getting it exactly perfect, to me, your total time in the pool is your total time doing that workout, including rest and recovery in between.

Because if you're doing a set of 10-100s all out on two minutes, that's a 40-minute set. That's a 40-minute really hard effort. And the recovery in between is the same thing as if you were spinning on the bike at 20 watts. Totally. But where this can get ugly is if you are at the wall socializing for 10 minutes between sets. Who would do that? Just, you know, a theoretical person. Yeah, like if you're a lapse time from start to finish of the workout is an hour,

but your swimming time is 30 minutes, that's a problem. But if you're a lapse time is 75 minutes and your swimming time is 65 minutes, that's a 75 minute workout. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. For the most part, like for Paul and I, between sets, we have just enough time for Paula to explain the set to me and whoever else is swimming with us

because I can't remember an entire workout because I'm three years old. Yeah, we don't have a lot of social time during our workouts. And Nick, this is not a criticism because I think a lot of your escape from whatever you're doing, working or whatever, is going to the pool with a friend and talking. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you could do a thousand more meters, but it's important for you also to have the social time. Wow, Paula. It's not always bad.

And I don't think you're bad every time. Just sometimes. But if you really want to roast Nick, go look at his swim workouts, and you can actually see the elapse time versus the moving time. And you can give him shit on the comments. Yeah, I appreciate a good roast. We just, I just had chat GPT roast by Instagram. So I'm in the mood for roasting.

But then like sometimes, Nick, your defense is like, oh, I actually didn't stop my watch until I was back in my car or something. Right. That happened today. I think my swim was technically two and a half hours because I forgot to stop it. And you can't crop it on. on Strava the way that you can with a bike ride or a run. Oh, really?

Yeah. At least not that I've found. Yeah. Things never knew. Another thing that's really what I cannot stand about swimming with a watch. A, swimming at the watch, I can't stand. But B, is if you start and stop the interval each time you push off the wall, that is completely insane to me. I know. I love it. Like if you're doing 20-50s and you're literally stopping the watch

and starting the watch at every 50, oh my gosh. That is wasting. energy. Well, it's just like the top three things of like how to look ridiculous while swimming. Going into the wall with one hand to touch the wall and the other hand to touch your watch. That's me. As you're like flound. Oh my God.

That is me. I mean, if you don't care. It's like, it's really hard to do. Feel like, who is this guy who's going to drown one foot from the wall? For sure. He's trying to stop his watch. Got to get the time. But I got all the data.

It's all good. You know, whatever you're into. I was thinking about this. I don't have, I don't think I have more than 100 yards that I've swam since I started swimming for triathlon that has not been recorded. I have all of my swimming data. I know exactly how much I've swam. It is a really interesting question though because if you're out for a ride, your Wahoo auto pauses at a stoplight or at a coffee shop and that's not counted. But if you're coasting and not actually moving, that's counted because you're moving. So I don't know,

swimming is kind of a funny situation and it's a really good question and it could totally go both ways. But my opinion is time well wet is time swimming. Right. Yeah. But also we just go by distance. Yeah, we just tried to do 4K and it usually takes us an hour. Right. Cool. Oh, wow, that's fun. That is fun. Okay. This one's from Chance. Hi, TTL gang. If the triathlon gods came down and granted you one race in the last 10 years to do over, which race would it be and why? Thanks for grinding away to produce all this great content for us. Chance. Is this chance the rapper? Yeah, I think so.

Same. Wow, you do, do Nick. Well, yeah, I would, I'll go first since mine is the least interesting. I would redo Iron Man Wisconsin with all the cold and the DNFing. I wonder how it would have gone if I had proper attire for that. If I had the right gear, I wonder how that would have ended up going. If you were just like full snowman suit. Yes.

Full waterproof snowman. Yeah. You'd get to them. In a bubble. It's true because like wearing light. with no wind or rain protection. It's terrible. Versus wearing like an appropriate

Gortex or whatever it is. Yeah, you'd get through the race 100%. Yeah, I don't know. Because what ended up stopping me was like leg stuff, but I'll never know if they were related also to how cold I got. Totally. I would redo 70.3 World Championships in St. George.

The one where you got seventh? I would love to just experience that again. Oh. Oh, not like do it differently. You just, you're a nostalgic boy and you're romanticizing. You just want to live that day again. That was just like a peak experience for me. That's interesting.

All that Nick being there cheering and me having a great race. And I would just, I would love to just put that one on a rerun. That's so interesting how positively he looked at this question. He's like, how much did I love that triathlon? I wanted to happen again. And I'm like, oh, I really F that up. I want to try and not F it up. That's my answer.

That's funny. I did that day, Eric, when we were in the rain and Paula's yelling at you. That was my peak track on experience of the last 10 years for sure. And I went into that race. I'm having a lot of hip issues right now, but I was having a lot of hip issues then. And I was like, you know what, if I assume this is not going to go well. And if it doesn't go well, then I'm going to go get surgery. And if it does go well, then I'll like kind of keep plugging away.

And it went fantastically. And it was like not expected. necessarily. I felt like it was in good shape, but it was just, it was such an emotional high. Loved it. Yeah, that's nice. If I could go back, I would redo T.T. World Championships in Glasgow. And I would be healthy for it because I would, I don't know, wear a bubble for two weeks before. And I would do, I would practice riding the course more. I'd go a week early. I'd know the corners. and I think my power numbers would have put me in the top 10 potentially. Yeah, I would like to redo that one too.

Yeah, I ultimately think that affected me getting picked for, not getting picked for Paris. Really? 100%. If I had been like top eight there and showed I had that kind of potential, I think I mean, anyway. Yeah. But yeah, I would love to just do that properly. and I'm not going to say take it more seriously because I took it super seriously

and I was really fit for it but the circumstances before just did not fall into place for me to have a great race. In a roundabout way you may have a chance to do that again. In four years, one of a grandma. If I could go way back

more than 10 years, it would be the London Olympics but that's like so far back. That's so tough because to like go back and redo a race. Like where did the race go sideways? was it three months earlier? Was it two days before? Was it in the race?

You know, like, that's like, I would go back and redo 2011, you know? Right, the whole year. Yeah, that's so funny because a lot of my answers are like, when I'm thinking about it, I wouldn't redo the race necessarily. I'd redo my lead-in to be more optimally ready for that race because I think I may have let an opportunity slide away. But Paula, I wonder if you had done really well at that race at the Olympics,

how much would that have changed your life trajectory? Like at world time trial? No, no, no, at the Olympics in London. Like, would you have met Eric? Would you, she'll be racing triathlon? Would, like, it's a really, like, I feel like it was an instrumental part of your story now. No, if I had won in London,

which I was supposed to, I would, I think I'd be in the same place as I am. Because right away after London, after doing bad, I got right back into it. Okay. It felt like I was over it then. It makes me wonder if like an inevitable crash, you know, was inevitable. If it didn't happen going into London and you'd won London, maybe to have been two years after,

like, you would have had whatever, you know, hormonal things and overtraining and whatever. Yeah, but my crash was so drawn out that it didn't matter when it happened. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's like it. We're getting too deep. What happened with that was like instrumental and setting the stage for like, you know, coming back in Daytona and like whatever, part two of the career. But Cinderella story probably like, I don't know what the concept is of that. Like if you like, you know, go back in time and you save somebody's life,

then like they're going to die the next day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like that's just meant to happen, you know. And the timeline can shift a little bit one way or the other. Yes. Yes. I'm happy to get deep on this stuff. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Well, we'll move on here.

This one is from Hannah. Hey fam This is probably a little bit for Eric But actually For all of you as well These flies by the way Eric can you Eric Eric

Can you fix the fly issue I don't know if having any superior swatting ability Okay If we had a towel or literally anything swat like Let's hear it Nick How do I get better at bike things Not cycling But the bike mechanic side of things

I'm female married to a non-cyclist Only started cycling a few years ago I changed my own flat tires, oil my chain, etc. I have learned a lot. It's not something I learned growing up at all. Today I dropped my wheel while taking my bike off the bike trainer and what appears to be a spacer fell off. I'm reduced to tears. I have a race next week and I don't even know what it's called to Google it. Paula and Nick, how do you guys learn what you know? Is it weird to ask the bike shop if I can watch? Videos are helpful but I learn better hands on. Also, I should say I live 60 miles from the closest bike shop, so it's very important.

I'm at least somewhat competent. What corner of the internet should I look in? P.S., congratulations on the wedding. It was wonderful to hear the joy as you described your day. Your love comes across very genuinely on the pod, Hannah. So, Paula, how have you learned what you've learned? Is it just being in the sport forever? Eric killed the fly.

Thank you, Eric. I've learned what I learned through Eric, yeah, mostly. Oh, okay. visually. And Eric used to work on a bike shop, so that's kind of... Yeah. But Eric, did you learn from the bike shop, or did you learn and then got the job at the bike shop because of your expertise?

I learned a little bit. Like, my dad was loved teaching me little things just on, like, old bikes. Like, here's how you take bearings out and repack the grease. And so I picked up some things like that. And then just learning general handyman type of skills from my dad as we were working on our house and stuff. if you have like a general grasp of how things go together and like kinematics and physics and stuff like you can typically look at something bikes are relatively simple and and figure out this if you

undo this screw then this will pop out and stuff like that um so that foundation and then yes working in the bike shop for sure my the guy who was the best man at my wedding uh he was the lead mechanic at the bike shop where i worked and he had absolutely no problem anytime i asked a question like, hey, what are you doing there? What's that? What's that cool little tool you just made? Like, Danny is like a natural born teacher. Loves to explain things to people. And that's kind of what you would hope for. If you go to a bike shop and say, hey, like I live 60 miles from here, I'm trying to be a little more self-sufficient. Is it okay if I watch or can you explain to me a little when you pick up the bike what you did? You're hoping that you get that mechanic who is like,

oh, you're interested in what I do for a living. That's cool. Let me give you a five-minute little tutorial on how to adjust your gears without having to bring it back in, you know, just like a little quick fix. So I know that, for example, REI has some bike maintenance classes you can take. Did your bike shop do anything like that? Like, did you guys have any classes for customers? I feel like we did like a ladies, you know, learn to fix a flat, just like some general, like super basic. I feel like I remember them leading a little thing like that. But I think RIA is probably a great bet just because like the typical that's like a first bike shop for a lot of people versus if you go into a shop that's like selling $15,000 this and that's you know i hate to say it

but a lot of times those guys are so used to talking to people who are on their fifth $10,000 bike that it almost is like it puts them off they're not used to explaining how to change a flat where you know that is actually a super useful thing that a lot of people need to know And Hannah said here that she doesn't learn well from videos, but I've used these videos. I think Eric, you said you've watched a few of them too. Park Tool has a very extensive series of maintenance videos that are so easy to follow.

They do such a good job. Yeah, I do use videos a fair bit now just because SRAM is like updating things and learning exactly the right process to bleed breaks each time. And I just kind of have a couple of things saved and my YouTube, like, favorites for here's how to, like, go through the different commands of a rear derailer to, like, get the lights to blink right, to pair all the things to it in the correct order, just like little hacks like that. But, I mean, it's unfortunate that you don't like videos that much, but that is, there's an unlimited amount of information via that. But I think, I think that, like, the general bike maintenance thing is, is a great idea because that's somebody who has taught that course enough and they know all the, all, like, the general. like they've curated it really well versus you just trying to have to think up what is the right thing to Google.

Right, which is exactly her problem. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Last question here is from Jason, who wanted to let us know, 54 years old and qualified for worlds as well. He said he needs to find more run speed. So, hey Nick, Paula, and Eric, thanks for all the great information and inspiration you provide to older age rubers like me who will take all the insight we can get. Huge congrats as well, Paul and Eric, on the marriage.

I'll try to keep this as short and tight as possible. As a long-time listener, I may be wrong, but it seems like you get fewer questions about and devote comparatively less airtime to the topic of the run relative to the swim and the bike. I'd like to ask each of you, Nick included, to share one piece of longer-term training advice and one separate piece of race day advice specifically

to help triathletes like me run stronger and faster. And to complicate matters just a bit. let's take for granted that we know we need to get better on the bike to run faster, that that piece of advice has already been well received. Thanks again for all you do and keep up the great work. That's funny because that would have been my advice that has helped me the most is getting your bike finished to a place that you're fresher off the bike. So, but I guess we cannot use that as ours.

So, Paula, why don't you go first? Run advice for training and run advice for race day. I guess my number one advice for running in general and something that's helped me get better at running is just being consistent with it. And that could mean not doing any hard runs for three months and just getting a good foundation and a good base and getting your ligaments really resilient to the motion of running and the impact of it. But that's my only key to running well is that when I have consistent blocks of training and in running, running, I end up having good races. I actually did a hike, or I kind of ran up it, hauling peak where we got married underneath in Canmore. It's like 800 meters of elevation gain in three and a half kilometers, so really steep. And I ran up as much as I could, but it was a lot

of power hiking to try to get as fast as a time as I could. And then the way down was super eccentric. I ran a little bit, but it was like shuffling too. And I thought, I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow. I'm going to be so sore. And to my shock, I had zero soreness. So that like just kind of told me that I have built up a little bit of resiliency and strength in my tendons and muscles or whatever just by running consistently. I don't do that type of running, but I run very normal volume every single week. I don't have a week where I'm not running kind of 70 to 80K. So that was just kind of proof. to me that

I don't know that's my answer anything on race day or running just wear super shoes that's the only advice wear super shoes okay yeah

I mean really that's gonna change your whole race yeah okay Eric what do you got Eric should say like treadmill running

with a mirror I would say running like on a variety of different stimuli yes like doing trails that have turns and running on

asphalt you know to harden your legs up for racing, running on the treadmill sometimes so you can have a mirror in front of you and check your form and do a little drill type that's, I think having a wide variety of stimulus, that'll help you in the long run

not end up having to do as much of these like curl your big toes to like get strength back in your proprioceptors and all that stuff. Being like a robust athlete so that you go, you don't go to like try to do 180 degree turn around a cone and an iron man and you pull something

because that's the first time you've had to like turn sharply. And then for racing, I think, I feel like the biggest thing with running well in racing is like fueling well in the back half of the bike and not over biking, probably like the first half of the bike so that you get to the run and you are like ready to rock. You're not having to make up for nutritional deficit in the first five kilometers. And anytime that I've ever had a really fast half marathon in a 70.3, it was because I didn't go crazy on the bike. I could. kept my ego in check and I've just fueled, like dialed, nutrition was dialed, and then the run takes care of itself. Yeah, that was my race day kind of advice too. The big thing that changed for me

was fueling well on the bike is what made me run well. It's just, it's, it's kind of was that simple. Yeah, you have to have like a little bit of a sense of, you know, the delayed satisfaction, you know, like kids with the marshmallows to like do it now, even like, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, good reference. I don't. It's not exciting to like, you know, nail your nutrition on the bike, but it is exciting when you're running well at mile 10. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that would be my race day one as an amateur. And as an amateur for training, the biggest difference that happened to me in the run

was when I was actually doing long runs easy pace every week. And that was when I started trail running, because before that, I would kind of find excuses to not do as much running. And once I incorporated the trail running, it made it fun. And I would even go over the prescribed amount sometimes, but just keeping it easy. So your problem was that you didn't want to run that long, not that you were running too fast on your long runs. I think it was a little bit of both. Because I couldn't, I wasn't running as slow as I should have been running, then I didn't want to do the run at all. Yeah, because it just has bad memories. Bad memories, yeah. It's like dragging it out for two hours.

on concrete here. I was, yeah. I was talking about this with Lindsay the other day because she's been going up the mountain and doing two to three hour long runs on trail.

Yeah. And she says it goes by like nothing. It's fun. But if you were to take the same run and do it on pavement. In the neighborhoods. In the neighborhoods, it's a different stimulus.

And I think the change of terrain, the undulation, the hills, the beauty make it much more manageable. And that's like half the reason we move to bend is because there's trails right out of door. So changing up that, I think you're right, Nick, really can help with tricking your mind almost into making miles go by.

That's what it is. And maybe there's a world where I would be personally better off if I did do all those runs, you know, flat without stopping on asphalt. But the long-term effects mentally of that would just, I think, just compound so badly. Because like your other option is concrete, which is just going to be hard on you. And I think there is an aspect of needing to do that in your intervals, but then for longer runs or easier runs, going to the trails is actually great for your mind and for your joints and your body and everything. Exactly.

But like keep it in moderation. Now all Eric does is trail run. And if I want to go to the river path, he's like not exciting. I'm running to the top of that hill instead. See you later. Well, I mean, if it's a workout, I'm happy to go to the optimal place for the workout, you know? Yeah, I know. but also life is short

and I want to run every trail on Earth. Yep. I love that. Well, those are all our questions for this week. I thought that was great. I thought the questions of this week were phenomenal. We're not doing the espresso machine question? Yeah, one more question for the coffee. For the coffee fan.

All right, we're going to cap this off with the espresso machine question. All right, it's from Darren. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. I wanted to ask Eric what sort of coffee machine he uses and what is his go-to coffee before a ride? I'm looking to get a full Monty, Bean to Cup machine and wanted some suggestions. I'm in Manchester, by the way.

Long-time listener and triathletes since 1997. And congratulations on the wedding, Darren. Thanks, Darren. Not my wedding, but it feels like it. We have ridiculously over-the-top espresso machine. It's a La Morzocco, Linnea Mini. It is not a bean to brew one unit. We have a separate grinder.

and that is the Eureka Mignon Adam 85. I think it's the 85 or the 75 whichever the one has the bigger burst. And it's fantastic. It is like kind of a dream setup for Paul and I.

It's like if I'd always dreamed of having a Porsche or for my entire life, this is like a very, very cool machine. You can get way more expensive machines, but it's romantic, it's fun. It does everything that we needed to. You can get way more expensive machines than the Lamarzocco?

Oh yeah. We could get a slayer. We could, yeah, we could go crazy. Yeah, but it's so unnecessary. Yeah, it's still. We could get significantly cheaper machines. The first machine that we got, which I think is like fantastic bang for the buck,

is the Profitech Pro 500. And then we had the Eureka Mignon, Solenzio. Like, I think that combination was fantastic. We could have had that for the rest of our lives, but we had a really good year of racing and we wanted to give ourselves a very cool present. And we sold that old machine. So it was...

If I was just making coffee for myself and I didn't have an Eric, I would get the Breville thing. Oh yeah, the Breville one's good, right? Yeah, that's what we have in Canada. Where it like grinds, get the thing out, steam the thing all in one machine. And it's like a little bit artsy.

You can do a little bit of, you know, you're making a coffee, but also it's more idiot-proof. It's less finicky. Finney, less finicky than the machine downstairs. I can't really use our lumerzocco. I rely on Eric heavily to make me my coffees. Okay, so what is the coffee order before I ride, Eric, for Paula and for yourself?

For myself, I've been doing mostly Americanos. Even oat milk these days, like, it's just very touch and go with the digestion, the digestive system, especially before I run. Oh, yeah, because Americano is just espresso and water, right? Yeah. I'll sometimes do a macchiato, which is just a teeny dollop of foamed milk. Yeah, I always have like an oat milk cappuccino of various sizes, depending on what I've got. Various art. Flynn's face in the foam at times.

Yeah. Eric made a beautiful one today. I just posted on my story. Anyone who wants to send us beans from their favorite roaster, we will give our home address out to those guys. Yeah. Another little, like, podcast, selfie. callout I want to do. Because this actually worked in Glasgow last year. Okay. Okay, I'm not even going to say why, but if you live in Zurich and have room to let Eric sleep in your house,

send me a DM. Okay, got it. I can make you coffees. Got it. If you have an espresso machine. Right. And I don't know how to use it. He's a little coffee boy, Eric, all the way from Oregon. Yeah. Well, that was awesome. I had a blast this episode. That was fun. Eric's mood went from Flynn rolling in a dead fish and smelling like ass. Oh my God. To good. Yeah, I came into this podcast a little heated because I was like, Paula's out doing her trainer ride and I need to cook dinner but also Flynn's whining and like, you know what,

I'm just going to be the best ever. I'm going to take Flynn for a quick little run, fetch thing and then I'm going to get home and I'm going to make dinner and it's going to be like so quick and fast and I'm making the podcast on time. And we're chucking and playing in the grass is like a beautiful grass field. It's called Discovery Park, a bunch of fancy houses. around and he just like drops the ball and just starts rolling like a maniac you know you see a dog and you're like oh my god he found a pile of shit and normally Flynn doesn't do this but this must have been

something freaking good because I'm screaming at him from across the field flat no stop leave it and just non-responsive he does not care what the consequence is he is rolling to completion and I so I'm just like stomping across the parking the grass like with the chucket in my hand like I'm going to freaking strangled this dog. And I get over there and there's, I shit you not, like an 18 inch long goldfish. What? Just laying in the grass. Like

huge golden coit sort of like thing. I bet you it came out of the pond. This is the end of days? Is it raining fish? Somebody put it there. It had to be put there. I don't know why if somebody was like, I'm going to put this fish here.

And then everybody who has a dog, their dogs are going to roll in it. And then, you know, they'll have to clean their dog and I hate dogs and I hate dog people. That's my pessimistic viewpoint is I'm like driving back with this dog that smells like fish in the car. And I have like 25 minutes to cook dinner, clean the dog, shampoo, and like the whole thing. Meanwhile, there's someone who was promising their wife a nice fish dinner

who got home and the fish was not in their bag anymore somehow. Dude, nobody's eating that fish. That was a purely visual fish. Oh, I see. I see. Complete. Just not like it was, a hawk had gotten to it. It was pristine dead fish.

Like, what the heck? Man, that fish instinct for dogs to roll in is strong. Oh, yeah. I want to smell like that thing. So badly. Like, why do they want to smell like that? And it's going to get deep into my hair follicles. Gross.

So we got to go sniff him and see if it's gone. Eric washed him with soap. Yeah. Wow. Sorry. He was bad. He knew he was bad. It was hectic.

He knew it was bad. He did not care. He knew but did not care. That was unfortunate. Okay. And with that, we'll wrap this up. Because we've got to go buy a shot collar.

Nice. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. Bye.