That Triathlon Life Podcast - The heart of triathlon, goal setting, and more!

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

This week we dive into some intense topics,  from the ethics of racing as a pro in an amateur field, to the heart of triathlon, and how to reset expectations when goals slip out of reach. Things kicked off light with Bike Tech With Eric before getting into listener-submitted questions, including:Paula’s plans to race her first IronmanWhere to mount water bottles for a 70.3Pros breaking tape at age group racesMeasuring watts without a power meterRe-setting expectations when goals become out of reachHow to navigate during a SwimrunBreathing during runningTransitioning from 70.3 to 50k trainingThe heart of triathlonA 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 Erica Lagerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. Man, this is just like a regular podcast. We don't have any race recap to do. None of us have accomplished major life milestones in the past weekend. So we're just going to, I think, crush questions so hard as soon as we get through the news and things that are going on. Well, speaking of crushing life milestones, Harry Styles, who most of you may know as the musician, huge billboard chart-topping musician. He was in the news a few months ago for running a fast marathon.

He just ran the Berlin Marathon this weekend in under three hours at 259.13. I know to the two of you, Eric and Paula, you elite professional world-class athletes that feels like a walking pace. But to the rest of us, that is amazing. To be able to run that fast and also be so successful in something else that requires touring and looking a certain way and emotional vulnerability, I'm so impressed. I think this is another check in the box or another data point indicating that the strong connection between endurance outlet and musical people. I feel like you and I have had this

conversation of where the two fuel each other a little bit and create some balance. And I've come into creativity from the sports side. You came into sports after being creative. But we have like a similar balance and I feel like they inspire each other. Yeah, speaking of Rich, if anyone's new here, Eric, who are you? Speaking of which, if Harry

Stiles wants to come on the pod, we would have it. Yeah, Harry, you're allowed to come on the pod. Yeah, did you slide into his DMs or what? I've talked to him many times, but never spoken to him. All right. Well, we'll allow it. If he is interested, he can come on. but this is not a music podcast.

This is not a marathon podcast, but we do appreciate both of those things. This is a triathlon focused podcast, generally speaking. Paul and I are both professional athletes. Nick is a professional musician, hence his bringing up Harry's marathon time. And he's also the audio master behind this beautiful podcast and it's Krispy Sound you're listening to. So that's our little try pod of awesomeness. welcome to the show. Paula, you are

yet again racing this weekend. Where in the world are you racing? What do you mean yet again? You guys have done seven race recaps since I last raced.

First of all, I'm not comparing you to us, all right? I'm saying you've raced a lot this year. Nick, it's 100% of competition all the time. Everything is competition. I'm not trying to compete with you.

And you're not winning, but. No, I'm not winning. No, yet again, I'm never sick of it. I love it. I'm more just, I feel for you because it's a stress

every single time. Yeah, I'm going to Augusta 70.3. Low stress, local North American race, although it's still quite a journey to get there from Oregon. And I wanted to do one more race before 70.3 worlds with minimal travel. There's not a lot of options in October. So I'm going to this race.

I've done it before. I've won it before. I know the course. I know the logistics. How do you get there from Ben? I'm going Ben, Denver, Atlanta. And then there's the SkyTrain at Atlanta Airport that takes you to a Marriott that's like on the SkyTrain. So I check into the SkyTrain Marriott when I get there.

And then the same SkyTrain takes you to the rental car center. So the next day I wake up, go get a rental car, drive to Augusta two hours, race. Immediately when the race is done, drive back to Atlanta airport, sleep in the same SkyTrain hotel, and then come home. It feels very like, part of me likes just, Eric's not coming to this race. I way prefer when he does come, but there's something about going to a race alone and just doing the logistics, doing my job, trying to win, coming home. That's like kind of enjoyable in its own way. Yeah, is it because you've done this thing? You've like checked all the boxes yourself?

Or is there like even a Zen aspect to it where you're just kind of in your own space? No. I don't know. I'm like a logistics mastermind. So figuring out like the best way to travel and where to stay. Yeah, I don't know. I just kind of like it. Isn't it so funny that Eric and I are very close to you and we are the opposite of logistic masters?

Yeah. We couldn't be less logistics masters. hotel for Eric's race. We still haven't done it. Yeah, but we bring other value, right, Eric? Right? I don't know. To be determined.

Yeah. Awesome. And it's not going to be, it's not a pro series race. Is that right? No, there's something fun about going to non-pro series races. There's no media there. It's like very grassroots feel compared to some of these races I'm doing this year, which are really high stress and really highly broadcasted.

and I don't know, why shouldn't I do it? It's like, why not? Absolutely, nothing wrong with that. Like, I went did the swim run thing, you know? Like I did whatever, 50K Smith Rock last year. Same sort of fun atmosphere. It doesn't, like every single time you tow the line doesn't have to be like a world championship field.

And then the last thing in the news here is that since our most recent podcast, the applications for Team TTF. opened up. And we got many, many, many applications for it. It's going to take a long time to go through them. But we're so excited. It's looking to be exactly what we were hoping it would be. The community has gotten behind it big time. And we're just excited for it to be an entire thing. You know, you say many, many, but I know for a fact that there are significantly larger teams out there. And that's not our goal. You know, this is the number of applications that we've gotten is right at our goal and we are thrilled that it's going to be tight-knit, purposeful.

Every, you know, I didn't want to, like, immediately be this thing that was out of control and we couldn't, like, make everybody happy. You know, you can't ever make everybody happy, but it's going to feel, like, slightly more intimate than just everyone in their dog on planet Earth, you know, so, I mean, but still, like, put out a goal and I think we're going to hit it. And, yeah, we're super thrilled. And what we've been doing the last week, dialing in the final touches on the race kits, a bunch of the team issue gear, as well as we're starting to talk. We're talking to some sponsors about what they, you know, what contributions they can make and planning a couple of fun activations, the first things, then the first half of the year.

So, that just, it's like, it's going to be a blast. I can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. Cannot wait. I also did submit my application, by the way, so I don't know. I'm putting a good word in for myself on that. All right.

We'll flag it. Let's do some bike tech with Eric here. Bike Tech with Eric. All right, this one's from Olivia. Just got a new S-Works-L-8. That's a tarmac, which is a road bike, and it came with an 1130 cassette. But I really liked doing a lot of punchy climbs.

On my previous bike, I had an 1134, and now I feel like I'm constantly out of the saddle and making huge efforts on every climb. Can I swap the 1130 for an 1134 on this setup, or is the derailer maxed out? Should I just get used to it and do more squads? Thanks, Olivia. I mean, it doesn't hurt to do more squats.

For sure. It can only be good. But you can definitely, you can go up to at least an 1132. The current, the most recent derailers that they've put out, they can go up to an 1136. Is this tram? Is this a tram? Probably not because.

Because the SRAMs are usually 10. Yeah. Mm. You know, I'm not an expert on... Shamano. On Shimano right now, to be honest, just SRAM. But a SRAM, yeah, you can go a 1033 and a 1036. Which I do between races often.

Yeah, I just put a 1036 on Paula's race set up for Augusta. So she got a 54 in front and 1036 in the back, which is a wild range. Do I need the... I was going to say 1033 for that race. I was going to send you with both. Okay. Or we can just put the 33 on immediately. Yeah, grind it out.

Anyway, you can swap. You can swap. You definitely can swap. Let's say that the Shimano system that Olivia's writing, which I would imagine is the Durae, if it's the S-Works, SL8. Yeah. Do you think that she would potentially need a different chain? That's what I'm thinking. is a jump from 30 to 34 do you think requires extra links in a chain or is that still within the kind of

kind of depends how they you know if they made the chain exactly the perfect length or if they left a little bit of slack in it yeah something to consider but you could take it to a bike shop and they could tell you right yeah that's a local bike shop question probably that's what we're trying to avoid with bike tech with Eric I guess yeah this is tough though because we don't you kind of need the bike in front of you to know with the chain. Because the derailer that spring is like if it's all the way over extended, that's not good. Yeah. I'm going to guess it'd probably be okay, but it doesn't hurt to, yeah, take it into a bike shop

and get them to look at it. No matter what, there's a world where you can switch everything to make it a 1034. It's just whether it's going to be free or expensive. Right. Like I think for your own happiness It's worth making this switch eventually Right On my road bike

If I was getting maxed out on gears I would be so annoyed Yeah So it's a worthwhile Investment if it's an investment Or investigation If it's going to be something That's just simple

Have you looked at what the actual available Gear ranges are for a Shimano? That's above and beyond, guys Like they've got an 1134 So there you go. So she can do an 1134. Yeah. So then the final question would just be the chain length, which...

I'm imagining it would be fine, but you just have to be extra careful. You don't fully cross-chain. Yeah, right, because then you're... Right, that's a great point. As long as you're not like a super cross-chain forgetter. Full big ring. Yeah. Cross-chain forgetter.

Yeah, I know some of those. I ride with some of them. Okay, well, there you go, Olivia. And congratulations on your new bike. That thing is a weapon. What a cool bike. You'll be nothing but thrilled with that purchase. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Okay, let's move on to our tried and true listener submitted questions. This week, I think they were especially good. Paula, you marked several of them as good ones. And we're lucky when we get even one of those from you. So you really like these a lot. I agree.

Well, it depends on the mood I'm in. Okay. that's also a variable, sure. But I happen to think these are really a great set of questions. You can submit your questions for the podcast at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. That's where you can also become a podcast supporter. It's right there on the same page.

This week, we picked a random podcast supporter to win a very fancy prize, an orca dry bag. This is a really nice, I'll be sending it to you. And the winner this week, totally random, is Jillian Carlson. Congratulations, Gillian. We also saw Jillian. You've been TTL Stan for a long time. So we love that you're getting this very cool prize. Prize? Do we call it a prize? That feels wrong. Perk? Reward. It's a prize. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's fully a prize. So there you go, Jillian. And anyone else who is thinking about being a podcast supporter, we really

appreciate that. Maybe you too will win a prize. Okay, first question here is from Sean. Hey all, I'll keep this short for Paula. Can we have an update on her full Ironman plans? Is she still planning on doing a full this year? Thanks, Sean. Well, considering I need to fit in 70.3 worlds, T100 Dubai and T100 Qatar, that doesn't really leave any wiggle room for an Iron Man this year. Yeah, I don't think so.

So no. This year's coming to a close. But next year, it's my plan. And we were all discussing going Iron Man, New Zealand, March 8th or something. As a family. Yeah, I mean, we love Topau. We haven't said that on the pod in a year. We haven't.

We haven't. We haven't. Yep, yep. Like, how do you even say it? It's been about a year. People, it's both ways. Topaw, Topau. Yeah.

No, it was super fun there. Really long but easy travel from the U.S. West Coast because the time change isn't that big. It's just a full day ahead. So obviously there's more to it than just like deciding a place you like and going. I have to train for it. But it is, but it is. Yeah, good point.

But it is an epic, epic, epic place. Yeah, cool place. And I don't know, looking at the schedule, like I'm really tempted to do a pro series next year and try do an Iron Man. And this year I had decided to do Placid but did a coaching change. And there was just a lot going on with changes in my training. So decided to push the Ironman plan to 2026, but that's still my current goal is 26, whether that's in March, which is early or starting in somewhere like Texas or, you know, Placid TBD. But it would require going somewhere a little warmer for a camp if I was going to do New Zealand. Would you race, Nick?

I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I'd consider it. I really loved it. there, but it would be really fun to watch you race. Because I think they're on the same day. I think the 70.3 and the Fuller on the same day. Oh, so you would do the 70.3? Oh, shoot. You know what? This is, I feel silly, but I haven't really thought about that.

No, I might, I might do the, I don't know. Yep, sorry. I'm not being very helpful. But I want to be, I want to watch you race. And Kyle was saying the same thing. He'd, like, want to watch you do the race. Oh, Kyle's not coming just to watch me race. First of all, I think Kyle would come just to watch you race.

I think Kyle would. But, uh, But for your first race, I want to see it. I don't want to be racing. We're talking about Kyle from ProTri News. Yeah. Okay. That's my loose update.

Cool. Next one here is from Adam. Tripod and Flynn. I have a fake half Iron Man coming up, which is to say a non-iron man branded local race. That's not fake. I was just going to say the same thing. I do not support this wording. I agree.

So what do we call those? Like, I mean, technically non-Ir-Dironman. There you go. Local half-distance. Nice. Race local. Hashtag race local. What's the best water bottle placement?

I want to carry at least three, maybe four bottles. I'm a heavy sweater. And there will only be one bottle exchange. Am I giving up tons of watts with frame-mounted bottles? I'm in a mid-range 2017 Trek Speed concept does not have the fancy integrated front end. Congrats on the swim run. And Iron Man, Wisconsin. and keep those kudos coming and congrats on the t-100 podium thanks adam so this makes me think about

the stuff that we learned in the wind tunnel about bottle placement but if you're having if you have four what would you do people have four now they do like two behind the seat with like the easy gains thing or whatever the amount is and then two between the arms yeah as the fire pilot too yeah that's what people are doing four because it is tested to be slower to have a bottle on your down tube. I'm not exactly sure how many watts slower. Do you know, Eric? A round bottle? It's a bit. It's like, we'll just say 10. I have a hard time believing that. Like between five and 10. It's enough that every single aerodynamic specialist is going to be like, no, not a conversation we're having.

An arrow-shaped one is zero. That does not aim like more. or better, it's just like neutral. Remko used an arrow-down-toed bottle in his TT that he just won at Worlds. So, negligible. But I would say that if you can't get four bottles mounted on your bike is a lot for a half. I think too many. That's what I thought. If you're doing an Iron Man, we'll have a different conversation.

But I think for a half, two is fine. And then you get bottles from aid, right? Yeah, so that's like an hour and a half in or whatever long you're going to be. I think that's totally reasonable. What if we're just operating off of like a four-hour 70.3 bike? Well, then he's not worried about losing five watts on his down tube and you just put it there. That's interesting. Okay.

Yeah, that's interesting. If you're that, this is not a dig. A dig. But if you're that recreational that it's taking you four hours to do it, go ahead and put one on your down tube bottle. It doesn't matter. You're not going fast enough for it. matter. I was going to just matters less.

Yeah, it's not that you're not compromising much by putting it on the down-toe because you're not going fast enough for that aerodynamics to slow it down. Be affected. Yes. Yeah. He did say he was a heavy sweater. Yeah. But even so, I think four bottles is a lot. You can also get, I mean, this is maybe obvious, but you can get large-sized bottles. I just wanted to buy some because I need some new bottles that are bigger than just the regular

size specialized bottles. And you can get like a liter bottle. Crazy. So that's the solution to get two really big ones. I don't know. There's just like 12 different ways you could do it. But I think we discussed the pros and cons of putting one on the down tube. If you had to put four, it's two in the back and two in your cockpit and none on the down tube. Dude, I just like disgusting. I hate having the two bottles on the cockpit sort of thing. But everyone's doing it. so terrible. Everyone's doing it. And also, but the thing about that is you kind of need a specialized, not a specialized brand

bikes, but a specialized front end in order to accommodate that. You can't just get a mount that adapts for two bottles on the front end. Like, it's not easy to do that. It's not stock. Yeah. So the saddle on the rear is much simpler. You could. You could also get online and find yourself a Shivtri. from back in the day, which has a water blatter, and then put two bottles on the back and one between your arms. And now you have enough fluid to right across the United States. Yep, exactly.

Next question here. This one's a bit of a doozy. This is Emily from Ohio. Hi, Paul, Eric, and Nick. I know in the past you've been asked if you'd compete in triathlon after retirement from the pro field. My question is, would you ever consider competing in a triathlon without a pro field while still currently racing as a pro?

For context, this past weekend I had a teammate racing at Ironman 70.3, New York, a non-pro field race, and I was so excited watching the tracker to see that she had won overall female. I went to look for the video of her crossing the finish line on Instagram. Lo and behold, it was a different female who finished 10 minutes faster, come to find out the woman who crossed the finish and took the tape, was an active female pro triathlete who placed herself in the open division. I feel for my teammate, as it's such a huge accomplishment, winning a 70. and being able to have the moment of taking the tape and celebrating.

I feel strongly about this as I just had my first win at 70.3 Michigan and grabbing that tape was one of the best moments of my life thus far. Do you think it's okay for pros to compete even when there is not a pro field? I would love to hear a pro triathletes perspective. Thank you so much. Emily, I want to give a disclaimer here that I know this. I don't know Emily, but I know the person who Emily is referring to. so there's some

I guess some bias here but I'm trying to be separated either way this question is for the pros which are Eric and Paula what do you guys think about this so I guess first off this is not illegal it's in the racing

sphere it's allowed under Iron Man rules that said it's not very common I think you know we're going to to get into this a bit more, but like this is not a thing that happens often enough for there to be like a bunch of rules or a bunch of discussion that's gone on around it. So, um, it's a little bit of an uncharted territory. I think it's, it's like maybe slightly

more common for this to happen at a much smaller event potentially. And like if it was me, I've done this before back in like 2014 when I was in my second year of pro and I just was like leave me off the results. I just want to be here and I want to get the effort in and take advantage of the closed roads and like this is the very first triathlon I ever did six years ago and it's cool to be back here and people were generally understanding and cool with that but didn't take a metal away from anybody at an ironman event where this is like clearly a pathway to becoming a pro athlete or it's a significantly larger accomplishment than a 200 person local race then we're like into this strange gray zone of I think most pro athletes would have probably just done a brick

workout on their own. What did it impact her ability to get her pro card because she was 10 minutes back from the pro winner? Because doesn't an age group win guarantee you a pro card? So here's the thing. She still got the age group win. And there's some weirdness right now that on the app it shows this pro as the winner, as the age group winner. So that's like I think most of this stuff is on Iron Man is not on this pro who broke the tape. But it's also so uncommon that you can hardly blame Ironman.

Right. That's kind of the baseline that I was trying to lay there of like this is not a recurring thing to where they've like dedicated a bunch of manpower to coming up with the if then scenario for it. I think that said, Paul and I chatted about it

and it feels like it would have been awesome if Iron Man had caught this in the moment. Someone, you know, we're just saying Iron Man, but someone at this event had caught this and reset the tape. for the eventual like actual age group winner.

Right. That is that that's exactly what I think should have been done there. It's hard to be like Ironman as a whole organization you effed up and this is like a problem and an ongoing thing. No, it's like would have been great

if somebody caught this is a little bit unprecedented stuff and it is really a bummer for the person who won the age group field. But to answer your question, Paula, I don't know how it affects the pro thing, but she got her world slot, and it was not offered to the pro, you know.

And at the awards, she was listed as the winner and all this stuff. But there's something about breaking the tape that I think is, it feels special. It's like the experience she lost, which is ultimately important because think about when someone gets caught for doping and the person that came forth never got the experience of going on the podium. It's a similar thing. Yeah, on paper, you're still third now. the moment is passed and you can't really make up for that ever.

So it's too bad, but I honestly don't really blame any one person in this scenario. I think it's just a really unusual circumstance. And yeah, I personally wouldn't want to race as a pro in an age group race just because of this exact situation. It's like a bit awkward. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say I don't think they should allow this anymore. like Ironman and 70.3 racing has come far enough that like why do we need to allow current professional athletes to do this when there's plenty of 70.3 racing. I looked into it a little bit. We looked into it, whatever. The pro who won said she used this as a tune up. It says she had like great memories of the community and the event and everything and wanted to contribute to that. But I just don't think that's necessary. She could have gotten the same stimulus a different way. And I'm not, you know, criticizing her necessarily, but saying, why don't we just say, no more of that. If you want to help this race, go there, hand out medals, tweet about it, post pictures,

contribute to community in that way. You don't have to also lump it into, like, getting a good workout in. I think that's how I would roll. You know, if, like, 70.3 Oregon doesn't have a pro race, like, it would be, we should go out there and hand out medals and high five people rather than try to be in it. Not that we're trying to be controversial. Yeah, I'm not trying to be critical of her, but just like, this is like not a thing that needs to exist.

And like, let's just relieve anybody of like having to make that decision in the future. Yeah, fair. Okay, this next one is from Finn. Is there a way to measure your watts output on the bike without a power meter or smart pedals? Finn. This is a bike tech with Eric. That's not a bike tech with Eric. There's no bike tech involved here.

Is there a way to measure your power? without a power meter. Yeah. Not, no. I mean, like Strava can guess it for you after the fact. That doesn't do you much good if you're trying to pace yourself in the moment.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't. I actually think, though, when I, my power didn't work in France T-100. I think the, you know, the battery inside my cork was dead, unfortunately. but Carmen, my coach, said that on Strava, she could kind of extrapolate and guess what my power would have been based on segments and other athletes who'd done the segments in speed and my weight.

Oh, right. So maybe there's a way for like smart coaches to do it. Yeah, but if you're looking for a real-time thing, no. No, no, I think he's probably thinking after. I mean, a solution for this is to get a smart trainer and ride Swift. And then you get a feel for what 200 watts feels like. And then you can use that perceived effort on the road. Yeah.

There's still a purchase involved, though. Unfortunately, yeah. But power meters are getting more and more affordable. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked about that before. But yeah, no real mathematical equation to be like, this is my weight, this is my speed, this is the incline, spit out power. that's not that accurate. Yeah, unfortunately not.

There's too many variables that affect it greatly. Okay, next question here is from Aaron. Hey, tripod, it's goal-setting season, and I'd love some help. I managed to compete in 70.3 world to New Zealand and complete my first full Ironman in Wisconsin. Is this me?

After witnessing the new roll-down process in Wisconsin, I'm not sure I will be able to qualify for a world championship again, and I'm feeling a little discouraged. How would you approach a situation where a goal that used to feel attainable suddenly feels further away? Buckle down and rise to the challenge,

find a new goal or something else. I'm curious if Nick is feeling similarly, but I'm sure all of you can relate to this somehow, and I'd love to hear how you all might approach a similar fork in the road. Thanks, Aaron. Wow, that's heavy. And he's right on.

I had the same feeling when I was at Wisconsin and I watched not a single one of those slots roll down, I thought, oh boy, this is going to be hard to qualify for full distance worlds, if it ever is even possible. Totally. I think every pro athlete goes through this at some point in time as well, just from a perspective of new, younger, faster athletes coming in and in the realization that your top results in terms of placement,

might be behind you and reconciling that. Like, is it still exciting for me to show up to a race and be fighting for fourth, but getting to experience it and still be in it when I used to be fighting for wins? So very applicable to us as well. Paul, does this ring true to you in any way that you can put your finger on?

Like resetting your goals? Yeah, when your goal's like, uh-oh, that's not going to work today. like even maybe in the middle of a race if you've had this where you're like, all right, I'm not getting the win today that I hoped for. Is there a positive way to reset like that or is it always a painful experience?

Well, you could just do a swim run. Oh, as in like, do a swim run and win? No, just like find a completely different thing. I mean, that is what is special about triathlon is that you get so fit across three sports that it translates so well to other endurance sports if you want to do that. And so you get to restart a journey if you want to.

Yeah, I think like you've said, Nick, a lot of the reasons that people do triathlon, it's different for everybody, but the training and the process is like the enjoyable part. And I guess if your only definition of success is qualifying for world championships, and that's suddenly out of reach because of this new system,

I could see that being really disheartening and your motivation is gone. But I think you're, have to come back to like, why do you like it? Is it really to go to worlds? Or can you get a lot of joy out of a North American 70.3 or going to like a new 70.3 that you've never done before and just trying to get the most out of yourself while enjoying the process of getting as fast as you can be. And you might surprise yourself, you know? Yeah. Also, you say out of reach. I don't think it's really out of reach. It's probably more challenging now. But Aaron,

in control. You can, I mean, Eric Lagerstrom, you said this to me when I was talking to you privately about why do we do this? Why do we like this so much? It's so difficult to take so much time. And you said a lot of things, but one of the things you said is like you're the project. You're your own project and you get to figure out what you want to do

and you go down roads and some of them are dead ends and some of them open you up to new stuff. And this seems like it's more challenging to qualify for world, Aaron, but maybe you now qualifying if you ever do is going to feel so much sweeter. Yeah, I kind of, I think it depends on the type of person you are. For me, I completely love the process of getting better. I love swimming. I love biking. I love running. I, like, I, you know, would prefer to go biking versus swimming, but I still love the feeling of like, oh, my stroke felt good today and fantasizing about how that may impact, you know, a race that I have coming up. And

the same thing with the run and just the feeling of from like backing it up and day to day or week to week how can I improve myself and then if the idea of going to a 70.3 and testing yourself there and coming short of something that's exciting is ruins that day to day thing then I just I don't see any reason yeah to like pick a different goal. If it's a different race if it's a different type of racing or whatever, this is if you truly love that process. And that's, that's where I've ended up is like, I want to be a lifelong athlete. And yeah, if I have to swallow my pride a little bit and know that in the current life that I'm living, going and like showing up to all 70.3s and feeling like I could win them is no longer a thing. Then like, how do I get excited about

an alternate goal that doesn't like crush the fun that I experience from stuff. working to be a little bit better each day. Okay, well, Eric, I have a perfect new question, which is a follow-up from a different person called Brett. Question for the swim runner. I looked at the Orca's Island map. Yes, you may have sold me on giving this a try. Awesome.

And it looks incredibly complex with a lot of crossing over itself, loops, finding that tiny island in a middle of a lake. Is there any kind of direction on the course? How do they ensure you actually complete the full course? or that directionally challenged person like myself doesn't just run off into the woods. So Eric, you did mention it was hard to navigate that. But it's a good question of how, is there a way

that they check that you actually went to certain places? I mean, it's just so counter to the small culture, to the culture of smaller events. It's just like, no, everybody's there to try to complete it. And you would feel like a piece of shit. if you cut it like you're just cheating yourself right right of the feeling of completing this thing no it's like it's not about who wins or who has the fastest time um that that being said going like

trying to cut the course would just be so detrimental because all of the the signage which is very good is directional so there's like junctions that you come to where there's a sign you know that's facing you and then there's a sign that facing away from you because you come to that junction later and the signs are pointing different things. So like as long as you are paying attention, looking where you're going and looking at signs that are in front of you, you're going to be fine. You just, you just like stay on the track. You stay on the roller coaster. It's incredibly well marked. That's all I can say is like I had a similar thing of like, oh my gosh, I have to have this on my watch. And if I don't have turn by turn, there's no way I'm going to finish this.

But I used the watch almost just to like confirm that I was on the right track. But So you did have the route on your watch, though? I did, yeah. And it was just, I would say that really wasn't necessary. It allowed me to see how much longer I had on climbs and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. But just looking at the flags and the signage on the course was far more useful than the GPS file on my watch. Got it. Cool.

Yeah. God, I want to do it. I do want to do it. I mean, I like that it's like, if, you're paying good attention, you'll be fine. But you have to pay attention, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. But that's great. I feel like that's what's missing from triathlon sometimes.

Is this like, figure it out? Yeah, you got a little bit of something extra to worry about except for, you know, if you're hitting your power number or whatever. Right, right. If that sounds good, give it a shot. Great. Okay, well, this next one here is one of the ones that Paula loved. So it's from Lindsay.

Hi, all. This might be a me problem. I'm 35 and an adult onset runner growing, up competitively swimming and I cannot get my breathing right while running. This is so funny to me when I read this, I was laughing. I'm always huffing and puffing and cannot get into a proper groove. Breathing while swimming is easy because you choose when you breathe. Too many options while running. Any tips? Unrelated, the women's chic tea silhouette is perfect. Please drop more colors and designs in that. Thanks for all the content and community. Good luck with the remainder of your seasons, Lindsay.

I've never heard someone say that breathing while swimming is easy and breathing while running is hard. But I kind of get where Lindsay is coming from. Yeah, it's like rhythmical when you're swimming because you have to breathe when you take a stroke. Yep. So whether you decide to do every three or every two, your breathing rate is dictated by your stroke rate ultimately. But when you're running, you could be going like Flynn. Right. You could breathe breathing through in through your nose out through your mouth like that.

There's literally infinity options for how you breathe. And I think I don't actually think about it. But when I'm running with other people, I really do notice how other people breathe when they run. And I think it's interesting to listen to other people's breathing rates. You can really tell how hard they're working, whether this isn't a race or if you're just training with someone. I don't know. I can distinctly remember going through this process, actually. as from our swimmer starting to run.

I mean, when I was like, you know, 14 or something, it just like, it occurring to me, am I breathing at the right time? Like, it feels strange to be not always breathing in like when my left leg is coming up. Right. Or you're like, you're like, you just naturally as a swimmer want to like line it up with something. Yeah. That's what she's asking. Yeah.

And it, I think it just, it just like takes a little bit of time to like let go of that and decouple it because I think it could be like kind of counterproductive where you're like tensing some breathing muscles at a point where you shouldn't be. I feel like I do like two breaths in, one breath out. I kind of go like, yeah, not that accentuated, but yeah, I think that's kind of how I do it. This is so interesting because it's something that this has popped into my head as a question.

I'm like, I wonder how other people do this because I've noticed that my breathing is very much tied to the rhythm of my pace. And I don't think it's me being a musician thing. I think naturally, like, there's some, you can, like, leverage the, like, the pounding and what it does to your diaphragm to, like, help make breathing a little easier. That's interesting, yeah. So when your foot strikes, your diaphragm's, like, contracting. Exactly, or something like that.

And then you're in the air and you're breathing in. Right. Something like that. And I noticed because when my breathing rate increases, it doesn't increase linearly. It will increase to find the next point of where my stride is helping it. Like a stair stepper. Like a stair step. Yeah, exactly. But you guys are saying that you don't notice that it is tied to your pace ever. They're decoupled for you. I would say so at this point.

I literally don't think about it. But I do think that breathing is such a powerful tool. for not even just running, but like relaxation as well. So it's not a negative thing to pay some attention to it. And I think if you were to work with someone who was like Lawrence Van Lingen, for example, he's like kind of a running form, PT, Cairo, really smart guy, I bet he would say breathing while you're running is really important in terms of the rhythm. And you could probably learn some stuff from him. I don't, I'm not knowledgeable enough in this area to give advice, but I think you could use it to your advantage if you learned how to perfect it.

Something that sticks out in my head that a PT told me years ago was, you're like trying to learn a new PT exercise and you'll realize that you like hold your breath as you're trying to do it. Like no. Okay, like first step of mastery here is like you can do the thing but you're like fully mentally locked up. And the final step is like, if you can do this exercise while breathing throughout, you know, and you're not using like your breathing muscles to like stabilize things. Like this is, that's what you need to be at is where it's like that ingrained to the you're just breathing normally around the activity. Eric definitely holds his breath when he does kettlebells and stuff.

Yeah. It's not easy. I don't have mastery over that yet. Yeah, yeah. It's hard. But running, I do feel like I can take deep breaths that are decoupled from. my stride, which I think maybe is just slightly more important in trail running because your stride rate can vary so much. Yeah, yeah. And actually, I was thinking when I'm running uphill

on the trails, it is fully decoupled. I'm just pretty much breathing as hard as I can. You know? Flynn mode. Engaged. Flynn mode, yeah, exactly. Wow, what a great question. That is so cool. I don't know if that was helpful a little, but good luck on your breathing journey. Yeah, yeah. So fun. And you know what's great? You're a great swimmer. You're going to turn into a great runner, too. What a fun thing to be able to start over again. Yeah. Don't just don't overthink it too much. Let it happen. We're gearing up for a great final question, by the way. Hey everyone, about two months back into training after almost one and a half years off due to injury and life. Everything is coming back fine except my running. I've put on about 30 pounds during my time off, and I know it's going to take time to come off. Question is, I've been using a run-walk method because the extra weight is affecting legs and feet. But I've thought about how beneficial it could be during a 70.3 or a full Ironman.

Any thoughts on how this could help or hurt in training or racing? Thanks, love you all. Rick, the Hawaiian guy. Nice. Yeah, this question stood out to me because I personally think that walk running is a really good way to build up your running. from any state, whether it's from an injury or from taking time off or from feeling like you're heavier than you used to be. There's no shame in like running for a minute, walking for three and slowly building that up. I don't fully understand the question though about doing that in racing.

Basically as an intentional tactic to use in racing from the beginning, not just when you're feeling tired and want to walk, but to plan out, five minutes on, two minutes off or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that could be an approach. I think. think that if you're going to enter a race, whether it be a 70.3 or an Ironman, you should have some confidence that you can finish the full distance without necessarily needing to walk, just for your own happiness. Because if you just take the time it takes to walk somewhere versus run, it's astronomical. Walking is so slow. So I think it's an okay tactic in a race if you know, maybe halfway through or something, but to start from T2 walking, even if you're feeling good,

I don't know. I disagree. I disagree. I know where you're coming from with this, but I disagree. I think for some people, it is a requisite thing that they need to do to have a successful race. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

It's hard for me to answer this as someone who's trying to race as fast as I possibly can every time versus the goal of completion, which is a complete. legitimate goal, of course. But I like the walk run. Yeah, me too. Totally. I honestly think that more pros should walk run when they're tired. Instead of just dragging it out and, yeah, give themselves a little recovery. Yeah, sometimes I do it if I'm on a run and I feel absolutely awful.

I'll walk for like three minutes. I was running with Matt McKillroy and Flagstaff, and he said the week before he was running with Norwegians, and they walk the hills. Can't spike the lactate. Wow. Norwegians and they're doing just fine. If you're at like 7,000 feet and your heart rate goes too hard,

like you're living by the heart rate, not by the pace, and if you're on a steep hill. That is a good way to gauge it. If you're doing a return to run and you're just like, my heart rate's not going over 140 and any time it does, you walk,

that's kind of smart. It's kind of smart. Yeah. Well, best of luck, Rick. and congratulations on getting back to running. I feel like the object in motion stays in motion kind of adage. That's when you're off for a year and a half. It's hard to get back into it.

It does sound like Rick's doing this in a responsible way and not trying to diet his way through unhappiness to lose weight as quickly as possible. Yeah. Yeah. You can approach this in a very healthy way across the three sports and eating well, but fueling well as well at the same time. And that's going to make it stick.

Yeah. Yeah. Sweet. Good job, Rick. More power to you. Next question here is from Jody. Hi, guys. As much as I love triathlon, the season is very short here in Ontario and just ended this weekend with the Niagara Barrow Man, where I saw so many awesome TTL kits.

So I love that Eric has been doing so many other multi-sport events. and after listening to his description of the swim run, I'll definitely be signing up for one next summer. But my question is for Eric about shifting gears from triathlon, specifically 70.3 training, to training for a first 50K trail race. I've done many 20 to 25K trail races during the 70.3 training, but how would you change your training for a 50K?

And which training do you prefer triathlon or ultras? Thanks for your thoughts, Jody. Yeah, I'm assuming that, like, a half marathon for this person is like, I don't know, I'm going to relate this for me more to like 50K versus what I presume 100K training is like, like a three and a half hour effort versus, you know, whatever, a six hour effort. And I think you just are like trending more and more in the just go out and run a lot versus doing like speed work that's going to allow you to like run that little bit faster on the flats and on on the hills. So I think to me,

honestly, training for 100K sounds extremely enjoyable because there's less high intensity training, more time exploring new trails and just being out, you know, on that like aerobic effort versus, man, right now for 50K training, I'm doing hard running. That is a very, very painful to try to get the speed, you know, required to be competitive there. But this is, right, but for you a 50K, you're running it really hard. For most of us, we can't do that. So it's equivalent of the 100K, like you said, right? Right. I'm kind of relating my 50K to this person's like half marathon trail. I'm just assuming, you know. So that, I mean, I think that that'd be the big change is that you're just doing a little bit more volume.

a little bit less intensity, maybe doing some double up on the weekend sort of things, like a three-hour run on Saturday and on Sunday, and a little bit less of the high-intensity stuff. And do you have a, I mean, maybe this is too loaded of a question, but can you think of what you prefer in training, training for 70.3 or training for 50K?

Oh, which, hmm. How is that a hard question? answer. Well, because... You hated training on a TT bike. No, I did not. My perception was that... I definitely heard him complain about the TT bike quite a bit. But I know if he hated it. I think he's forgetting. I was frustrated by the TT bike because I had every... My hip. It just was like any given day I could have a complete shit ride for like no reason other than my leg went numb. Otherwise I, like when I get on the TT bike now and all things are good, like I enjoy it. I really... like going fast. But yeah, I just, I feel like I'm not training, like, I'm not like the best

person to ask because my training even right now, like I go to the pool with Paula like twice a week or once a week or whatever it is. It's not enough, but I try. And then I still ride my mountain bike and I still gravel ride and I go with Paula on road bikes when I can. And I'm doing the 50, like my coach Paulo is like integrated in swimming and biking a bit. So it's not like I just had to like give up everything that I enjoy. And if 50K training meant no swimming and no biking ever, I would feel incredibly unbalanced and unhappy because of how much I do enjoy doing those two activities.

But that's kind of what I think most of us would want to do. We would want to do exactly what you're doing, which is still maybe swim once a week, twice a week, still ride our bike some, and then just have a heavy focus on the running. Exactly. Yeah, that's the idea. Highly enjoyable.

Yeah, that's the best of the best. Okay, next one here. Also a good one. Getting straight to it, what feels like the heart of triathlon to you? Local races have so much like affordability and generally more accessible, but Iron Man hype is real,

not just for athletes and friends and family, but people with no ties to triathlon know what it is and know it's a big deal. I'd love to hear what you think, especially Nick after back-to-back weekends of Iron Man and Zuma Beach Triathlon from other Nick, although it does sound like I wrote this question.

Does he say congratulations on your ironman? He did not say it, but he did bring it up, and I appreciate that. He meant it. Yeah. Somewhere deep down. What is the heart of triathlon? I read this question earlier when I was prepping the pod and thought about it a lot and still don't have a great answer. Is this her last question?

This is our last question. kind of I haven't like collected my thoughts well enough to make maybe make this as eloquent as I want it to be but in my mind

like the spiritual center of the thing that is like generates the most warm fuzzies I think could be these the local races but like we need to have those big events

like Iron Man branded things to like really give us that nervous excitement inside to get the most out of ourselves and make the training feel that special. But I bet a lot of people, you know, myself included, would still say some of my favorite memories are these local races that I kind of like jumped into last minute or, you know, we're seemingly inconsequential. But without those big goals on the horizon, you know, I wouldn't have pushed myself to the point of being able to enjoy those local races. and enjoy the process as much as I have.

Like, what's the heart? I don't know, but both are necessary. Do you feel like maybe it has shifted within your time in the sport for you? Yeah, no. Yeah, I mean, I guess I have more of an appreciation for the races that don't necessarily advance my career and that people aren't going to look at

and be like, oh, wow, you know, international news. Like, I'm still, like, very much excited. Like, early on, that, like, the big ones were it. It was like, if I don't go to X race and win it or get on the podium, no one's going to care. My career could be over. I'm not going to get sponsors, et cetera. Like, very focused on that.

No time for anything that didn't advance that goal. And now, a little bit later, like, come to be a little bit nostalgic about those early days when maybe you thought it mattered. but it didn't matter, like quite as much. And I don't know, just enjoy being there for the thing versus, is this going to like, you know, increase my clout or profile or dollars? Paula, you've had like three different eras of your career in triathlon. If I were to like categorize them.

And so I imagine for you maybe it's also changed, what you feel like the heart of triathlon maybe? Some people race for like themselves and some people race so that other people will know they raced. You know? Like this person saying, everyone knows what Iron Man is.

So when I go tell all my coworkers about it, it's a bigger deal. But some people don't care as much about that. So I think it's such an individual question. But I think the heart of triathlon is like TTL. It doesn't really matter what race you do. And if you win or if you're fast and

Iron Man events need to exist because they're the most competitive age group races. There's a recognized world championships. They have a lot of hype and professionalism around them, even if there's no pro field. So. So maybe the heart of triathlon is the collective pursuit of self-improvement. Because it doesn't matter what race you're training for,

you're still trying to get as fast as you can be. This is too deep for this time of night. It's exactly the right amount of deep for this time of night. When I asked myself this question, I realized that when I first started, it was this very singularly inward thing of, I didn't grow up an athlete, I'm doing this thing that's hard

that I never thought I'd be able to do to achieve something. And now, that voice is still there, but I agree with Paula. To me, now, what feels like the heart of triathlon is TTR. And obviously I have a different perspective, but being at these races

and having conversations with other people who share this life philosophy, like this collective directional improvement, that feels more sacred than the individual achievement. It's a way that we all are connecting with each other. We all understand what it's like to be three hours into a 70.3 and still be working hard. And it puts us in touch with our own humanity. And so when you talk to someone else who's experienced that,

you already feel like you have so much in common with them. It's like it's a way to relate to each other. Yeah, that's true. Amen. Is that a pitch for joining? team TTO? Maybe. I mean, it's far interesting.

All three of us have different answers for this question. But each one of us has said, like, Eric, you just did the swim run and you had the best time ever and there was no competition there really for you. If that's not the proof that it hasn't changed for you, I mean, you were, of course you were driven by success and you wanted to be the best at a certain point. And I think now it's like you've, you've, you've. kind of made peace with that

and you're like you're looking for this community aspect of the experience. When you were raving about the swim run to me it wasn't about how everyone was such amazing athletes, you were raving about how cool everyone was and how friendly and how much of a community there was and how everyone was talking about the different paddle sizes

and there was like a kinship there. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I still want to go fast. But there's a lot of, there's lot of things out there, a lot of things to be felt, a lot of experiences. Guys, this is like the most perfect.

We have got the coolest freaking collection of shirts and hats that speak to this coming out. I can't believe how perfect it is that this question came up. It's going to be... It's a coincidence. It's a coincidence, though. I can't wait. You know, just stay tuned for that. I also want to open this up.

If you guys want to, in the app, we'll make a thread about the heart of triathlon. and if you want to put in your perspective on this, we would love to hear it. I think this is such an interesting question. There's no right answer. I'd love to read everyone else's ideas on this. All right. We'll tee it up.

Thanks everyone, as usual, for listening. It's so special that we get to do this, the three of us, and that so many people listen and feel like a part of it. And when we meet you people, we feel like you're a part of it too. So it's very fun. Sorry, that's my schmaltzy thing, but anything else you guys want to say before we stop? Well, Nick's crying over here. Do you want to finish it off with anything else? I have a question. When is our 200th episode? Yeah. 14 to go. 14 to go. So that's

three months is that? Three months. Yeah, it's just probably about three months. Okay. So Nick, that's like New Year's. It's probably right around New Year's. So will you come to Ben for that, Nick? Yeah. Let's do it. We won't be here for New Year's. Well, it'll be around there. I'll have to, I'll look at a cow.

All right. Yeah, even if we have to like skip an episode or two so that we can hit 200 on a time where we're all together. December 29th. Wow, right between Christmas and New Year's. That's crazy. You're probably going to be in New York. I mean, for this, I would fly to wherever you guys are, if it's possible. From New York.

Yeah. Giddy up. Yeah, giddy up, Rudolph. Hitty up, Rudolph. Are we still out-trowing? That was your best trope of the day. Thank you, Paul. I appreciate that. We're still out-trowing, yeah. So the music's playing right now and we're going to say goodbye. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Goodbye. Bye.