That Triathlon Life Podcast - Trail running for triathletes, TT vs aero road helmets in the heat, and more!

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

This week we answer more of your questions about triathlon! We start with some "This or That" and then move on to talking about racing in a pros only race or in a race mixed in with amateurs, how to incorporate trail running into your training, how Eric fits the bicycles into the van below the bed, how to legally incorporate CBD into training and racing, how to get the TTL jersey in Zwift, wheather or not an aero road helmet is sometimes better than a TT helmet while racing, what Eric's favorite surf movies are, where on the wall to flip turn in the pool when circle swimming, what the perks and benefits are of being a contacted T100 athlete, and we also have an extra question for supporters about action cameras and how to best use them.Thank you so much to our podcast supporters! To submit a question for the podcast, and to become a podcast supporter yourself, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our trathon podcast. We take a lot of questions. We talk about things that are going on in triathlon. We have a great time. Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, our best friend, amateur triathlet. We're all getting ready for, we're all getting ready for racing and stuff this year. Wow, Eric, that was your worst intro ever. Way to keep it positive right off the beginning, Paula. I really appreciate that. I think it needs to be a little more upbeat. Like, welcome. We are so glad you're here. We missed you guys all week. We are here to

answer your questions that you send in every week. Eric and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is an amateur triathlete, professional musician. And we are here to bring you our expertise and answer all of your questions that you send in every week. And we're really excited to be here. Sounds like you're doing it for the rest of the podcast, Paula. Okay, I'll do it next week. I'll do it next week. You know, this reminds me of like there's this, I don't know what you would call it, like some kind of story of the boy who works at the pizza shop, and he hates building the pizza boxes, but someone has to do it.

So usually they rotate, but he hates it so much that he gets really good at it. He gets really fast at it so that he can be done with it as soon as possible. But then what happens is he's always put on pizza box duty because he got so good at it. Wow. Eric is kind of like, he's like, oh, wait a second. Paula always wants me to do the intro, so I'm going to be a little lower and lower energy until she feels like she has to do it. And now Eric's master plan has come to fruition. What is the lesson from this though? Like, what is the moral of the story from the pizza box story? Is it like, try less hard so you're less good so you don't have to do the shitty things? That is not a good life lesson. Why stand when you can lean? Why lean when you can sit and why sit when you can lay down? Yeah, it's a fun story though. It's a fun story. Yeah, I don't know what the lesson is there. The lesson is be so good at building the box.

is that one day you buy the pizza shop and you own it, and then you can delegate the work to someone else. Okay. Yeah. Entrepreneurial. Yeah. We have got probably our biggest collection of the year. Definitely of the year so far.

Probably biggest collection in a year. It's called the Ventura collection. We've got four new hats. We've got men's shirt, women's shirt, coffee mugs, water bottles. I got super inspired by this cool retro version of our logo that Christian Dunn drew while we were in Ventura and all the colorful things in Ventura and we just went completely all out on this collection and it's going to be super badass.

That's going to happen within the next couple weeks. We're just waiting on those cappuccino mugs and coffee mugs to show up. Well, that's great. I can't wait. I've seen some of the stuff and it's very, very cool and very different. It's awesome. I'm super pumped. Okay, first thing we're going to do here, this is, I think this is fun.

technically we're going to call it this or that. But it's a little different. So this is submitted by a listener. I think this would be kind of fun. Hi, all, I thought of a fun Eric or Paula, this or that. It's not really triathlon related,

but I think it's very fun. Okay, so there's... Not trathlon related is awesome. We are all about those. We love it. We love it. Okay, so basically, I'm going to give you a potential career

and you guys have to figure out who would be better at it, Eric or Paula. And like if there are a visual component, you would like point at the person that you think. Like so if Paula thinks she's better at it, she would point at herself. And if Eric thinks Paula is better at it, he would point at her. But I think here we're just going to have to say, okay, I have an idea. I'm going to say the thing and then I'm going to count down and you have to at the same time say who you think is better at it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Fun.

Are you following Eric? Yeah, sure. I just don't understand why we have to be at the same time, but that's fine. Because it's funny to like see what the other person thinks. So you say three, two, one, and then you say Eric or Paula. Flynn, yeah, exactly. Or Flynn. Flynn, exactly. Okay, so first one, commentating for triathlons, okay? Three, two, one. Paula. Yep, okay, agreed, agreed.

Next one, competing on dancing with the stars. we all know this one but three two one Paula of course everyone who for those who don't know I thought these were going to be careers okay you're right it's not quite a career but Paula used to dance Paula used to be a ballet dancer She was a wee little child

I did it all She could do it all She's a dancing collie math I danced until like 12th grade So I'm not just not I'm not like not good Right it's been a while 12th grade Wow. Don't you mean grade 12, you Canadian?

Yeah, I said 12th grade because I'm sitting in Oregon. Okay, good. Okay, this one's good. And I think this is going to split the room. Okay? Yeah. Being a pro musician. Three, two, one. Eric. Oh, wow. Eric is way artsier than me. Well, Eric is way artsier, but Paula, you have, your mom is a great trombone player. You have very, very established and successful musicians. in your family. Yeah, but I think, Eric, you like play the guitar a bit. He played the trumpet, too, didn't you? Uphonium, French horn.

Euphonium, yeah, brass. He played French horn. French horn, very difficult instrument to play. Okay, if we were talking about a tromboner, I would be better. You're the better tromboner. You're the better tromboner. You definitely. Yeah, for sure.

Okay. Teaching high school, okay? Three, two, one. Paula. Okay. Wow, guys, unanimous so far. I don't know. I don't know.

I feel like most of the time, Paula, but then every once in a while, I would be better just like being able to keep calmer, like 1% longer maybe. I wonder how Paula would be. Would she be like really like slapping rulers on wrists or would you let the kids do more what they want? Paula, what would you teach, by the way? I think I would imagine myself in a high school teacher being like the cool and fun one

that the kids don't want to be shitheads. Oh, yeah, right. Because I remember classes like that where the teacher felt like, oh, you're one of us. And then you just behave because the teacher is cool and you're having a good time

and I would make it try to feel like that versus like I'm an authority figure and you guys have to listen to me. It would be like, we're all in this together. And that would be my approach towards coaching as well. I always think the same thing.

I think it would be the same. Well, you're just copying my idea. Yeah. That's genius. Paula, what do you think you would teach? I could teach any subject. I would like to be a teacher. I think I would like to be a teacher.

Sounds like a gateway drug to coaching to me. Next one. Becoming a professional chef. Three, two, one. Eric. Oh, yeah. Very nice. He makes bread, so.

He's the bread. That bread is unreal. What do we call it, Nick? The sex bread. Yeah, it's so good. Oh, it's so good. So good. Okay, next one here.

Being a high diver. Easy. Three, two, one. Eric. Yeah, for sure. Okay. And then last one here. Performing stand-up comedy.

Three, two, one. Alla. Paula. I can't even explain how much I would give to watch Paula do five minutes of stand-up in front of a crowd. I'm not that funny, but I can be funny, like, sort of. But I'm not funny in terms of just stand and talk by yourself. I think I need feeder.

It's a totally different skill to be able to come up with the material and fully control it by yourself without having to bounce it off of anyone, for sure. Yes, that would be extremely difficult for either of us. I think I would be better at the creative half and potentially the funny thing, but Paula, it would be a thousand times better at, like, the acting, the delivery, the work in the crowd. That's what I think. Wow. I think there's this thing inside of a lot of people, and I think it's mostly, I think it's mostly men because I think it's a little bit like an ego thing. I think a lot of men think that they secretly could be great stand-up

comedians. I don't think that. Well, yeah, and the truth is we can't. It's so hard. It's such a hard skill to master. A lot of men also think they would be great at podcasting. Yeah. Well, so extremely... Modestly speaking. You're right. That's true. Well, Joe, that was really fun. Thank you for that. That was a brand new kind of this or that. I think we should keep that one around. That's pretty fun. That was fun. Okay. Let's move on to questions. Before we do, though, we are going to pick a podcast supporter winner. Podcast supporter, you can donate $5 a month to the podcast since we don't have ads. We don't do ad reads on the podcast.

We are so thankful for all our podcast supporters. Which, by the way, ads are extremely valuable in terms of making money on podcasting. Like, some people make their living that way. Oh, most podcasts make their living that way. And at the flip of a switch, if we wanted to start doing ad reads and have you guys be bored to death with 10 minutes of Athletic Greens ads, we can do it. Don't worry. We have a lot of new cameras.

Don't worry. We'd probably be making four times more. But we don't want to do that. We like the vibe of how it is. Yeah. And that just makes the podcast supporters that much more appreciated because this does take time. This does take equipment.

This does take editing. Years of schooling. Professional knowledge. So if you do listen every week and you like it, totally not required. but we appreciate it so much for everyone who does help us out every month. It's less than the cost of a cup of coffee. And I know that gets thrown around a lot,

but that really is true per month. Certainly in Santa Monica. Oh my gosh. Santa Monica had $6 plus a dollar tip. Yeah, no chance. If the coffee's breaking $6, I don't tip. Am I a monster for that? I don't know.

I feel strangely about tipping 20% on something that took them five seconds and then tipping 20% at a server at a restaurant that took an hour and a half. Yeah, I'm way, way, way more like happy to tip at restaurants. But I don't always love it at coffee shops unless I'm at somewhere where I go back all the time and I know the people and it's like... I'm almost like tipping for the last time that I had a positive experience. Yes. Because it's like you can't tip on the iPad after you've gotten your coffee and it was great

and they obviously cared. Right. That is kind of a funny little quirk of the system there. So you're tipping before you've received the service. Whereas at a restaurant, you're tipping after you've received the service. But for this, you guys can feel free to subscribe after you've received the service. That's great. Way to bring it around.

Way to bring it around. Anyway, the place you can become a podcast supporter, if you so choose. And once again, it's just kind of like a, what would you call it? A demonstration of your appreciation of the podcast. That's really what it is. You can do that. You're tipping us. It's a little tip jar.

You can do that at Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. And that's also the same place that you could submit your questions. All the questions on the podcast are submitted by the listeners. That's the way that this whole thing functions is from the listeners for the listeners. So thank you guys so much. There's a few ways we like to give back to the supporters. One of them is that every once in a while we do little fun things that get sent out in an email to all the supporters. And this week, we're actually going to do that.

we're going to do a little question about cameras, about action cameras. We are going to read the question on the podcast, but then we're only going to have the answer for the podcast supporters. Another way we like to thank the podcast supporters is that most weeks we randomly pick a podcast supporter and then we send them a little prize, a little present. And right now it's an Eric Loggerstrom or Paula Finley branded bottle, a cycling bottle. Actually, Nick, I just packaged up a lot of bottles to send out.

I'm going to go to the post office tomorrow, but we have so many Castelli TTL socks that I also slid socks into each package. What? So people are getting... So thank you, like, thank you for waiting, and now you're going to get a double deal here, a double jeopardy, double dilla. Bottle plus interest.

Bottle plus socks. Wow. That's awesome. Okay, well, this week, we put our random number generated to work. And Christine Gratz, first of all, thank you for being a podcast supporter, and also now you're going to get bottle and socks. So thank you so much, Christine.

Keep being a supporter. Keep being awesome. Keep racing. Keep training. You guys, I have a fun idea. I have a fun idea. And we can take this out of the podcast if you think it's a bad idea. Okay.

So we get, I can check new supporters. And I'm going to say for the next 10 new supporters, I'll send them a 20% on discount. That's a great idea. Yeah. Okay, let's keep it in then. Okay. I love that. Are you, do you, do you have the agency to do that? Yeah, I have a discount code that has 40 uses. Wow. Okay. So you heard it. Become a podcast supporter as soon as you hear this.

And you may get a on discount code where you can get new cloud monsters, but make sure you try them on first. Okay. First question. First question. I always got to bring it back around. First question is, First question is from Alicia. It's a short one. It's for you, Paul. I know you like the short ones. Hey, guys, do you prefer racing with a pro-only field like in the T-100 or mixed in with the age groupers like with Iron Man?

Cheers, Alicia. I imagine you two might have different answers for this question. Yeah, I have an answer, and it's, I thought about this the morning of Oceanside, as we were walking in with a thousand other people racing, and I thought, this is so much cooler than going to a T-100 race and getting ready with 19 other pro-women and it feels kind of dead. It's much more like ITU racing back in the day

where I feel like it's more nerve-wracking and you're all kind of sitting in this ready room and there's no other age group is around so you feel like you're the only ones on planet Earth that are doing this. And I get a much more sense of like community and excitement and we're all in this together when I met an Iron Man.

race where you're setting up in the same transition zone as everyone and we're all doing the same thing. I just think that's like much cooler and much more fun. 100% agree. We were, we actually talked about this at dinner last night. I opposed this exact question to Paula. Yeah, but in a different way. In a different, in a very cool, interesting different way, but we were talking to having this exact conversation. Eric, are you surprised that she said that? Because I knew you would say that, but I kind of thought Paula would want to eliminate as many variables and distractions as possible. No. No.

I mean, Eric actually said to me, this is not great for the podcast maybe, because I don't want to sound like I don't like triathlon. Because I have this thought all the time of like, should I be done this? Should I move on and retire and all that? And Eric said, if the PTO disappeared tomorrow and there were no more T100 races, would you want to keep doing it? And I said, actually, yes, I'd be more inclined to because I like the Ironman vibe a lot more. It feels less pressure. It's back to why I started doing 70.3s after I was done with ITU. And now it feels like we've come full circle back to T100 where the stakes are huge.

The pressure is there. You're racing all those, like, top people all year round. And some people thrive on that, but I get stressed out by that. there's so many other variables that going on that defuses some of that pressure and it's like the second you step off the airplane and like get picked up and taken to the hotel for T-100, it's like everything increases the feeling of everyone's watching and the feeling of the pressure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's totally different. But that's a great question. And so just so everyone knows, who's like nervous to come up and say hi, like we actually really like that. Especially during the race. cheering for each other is really... Yeah, and in transition before anything is totally fine with me. Yeah, cool. Next question

is from Bobby. How do you recommend incorporating trail running into your race-specific training, if at all? Sometimes I'll opt for longer zone one and zone two runs, less of a focus on structured pace, on trail, on weak ends when I have more time, but curious of your approach.

Also, appreciate any wrecks for your favorite trails in Santa Monica. Santa Monica? Bobby! Bobby! I got a million wrecks. Okay, anyway, sorry. Let's answer this first, and then I'll rattle off a few recommendations, Bobby. Girl run every day.

Yeah. Every day, all the workouts. I think this is definitely going to be dependent on where you live and what kind of trails you have access to because the type of trail that we have in Bend, I could go do a tempo run on it. It's not ever so steep or like too twistier technical that you couldn't do it.

Yes, running on a gravel road or asphalt is more optimal versus where you live, Nick, you're not doing a workout on any trail anywhere near you. Nope. Not possible. But perfect for easy days, chilling, doesn't matter how fast you run. But I think out of the sample size of pro triathletes, we're on like the very far edge of running trails often.

Even Shevlin is like a little bit technical, twisty, there's rocks, there's stumps. and we run there every single day and the only runs where I don't run on trail or our tempo runs or our structured intervals and even then we're going to like a gravel path though it's not asphalt. Yeah, I guess of the people that we have had come visit Bend, Ellie Salt House ran on trail zero

and we were just chatting with Kate Karan from the development team who was on the podcast last week and we ran on a gravel road and she said that's kind of the extent of the technicality that she wants to do, you know, because she's working on her form and just race specific. I mean, it's not technical at all, though, right? Like zero technical. I mean, that's kind of the point. 99% of our peers probably don't want to do any turning on dirt or any uneven surface for the risk of hurting themselves or just it's not specific. But I think the opposite is true of like it's actually a really

good thing to do for this person who's doing it on the weekend because it does force you to slow down a little bit, but your heart rate can still be high from the technical nature of the climbing and the descending. I think it's really good for nonlinear movement. Like you're not always just going in a straight line where your body gets so used to doing this repetitive motion. It forces you to have some different ankle motion when you're landing or when you're turning and you're not always in a very perfect landing. So for me, I think that's helped a lot with just stabilization and just being a better well-rounded athlete overall. So it's a really great thing to mix in if you have access to trails close to you.

Okay, so let's say you are mixing it in. How gradual should you be? Can you go, I mean, for example, if you're running and bend on those trails, I would imagine you don't really have to phase it in because the movement is pretty similar. But if you're running on these trails where I'm at, I do think there's probably a little bit of phasing it in because it's so not the regular running motion. How would you, as a professional, how would you try to phase it in? I would do it on like an easy mid-length run day.

You know, like our longest runs are 90 minutes, our shortest runs are 45 minutes when it's just an evening chill. And I would go do it on that evening chill. And if you feel like you have to walk a little bit because it's so steep, totally fine. I think that's wrong, though. I think that the kind of trail running that Nick is doing where you're practically walking uphill, I don't think that's necessarily a great replacement for run training. I'm thinking more of the trails here

where you actually are physically running the whole time and you're not like when it's so steep that you can't run up and it's too hard to go down to run properly and you're kind of just like breaking every step I feel like that's maybe too different from for aathlon running to be considered like a good replacement for often.

I mean if you're just trying to be optimal with your training, yeah. It feels a little bit like a halfway point between strength training and running is what it feels like. Like a third thing. That's how I usually feel after it. Yeah, that's the way I was treating it when we were in Ventura. There was some very, very steep stuff there. And I did it one day just for something different.

And the next day, the next morning's run, I actually felt really, really good. It just like, I had opened up my hips and, like, got my glutes firing. Yeah, but it was also very, very slow. You're an outlier, though, because you can run downhill really well on technical stuff. when I'm running downhill on super technical steep stuff, I'm walking. I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I'm playing devil's advocate to the devil's advocate.

I would agree with you. I agree. Like the running around Nick, we should not be recommending that to triathletes to include in their training. It should be a fun activity. It should be a fun aerobic activity if you want to just like be happy and be out in nature. Yeah, totally. Often what will happen for the runs around here is that you run up a very steep thing or like, yeah, practically walk. I try to always keep the running motion going, but I'm with friends who are walking

and we're going the same speed, you know? So it's like, I'm just doing it to do it. But then you get to a point where there's maybe like 20 minutes at the top of like a little more gradual running where you can actually run. So there is a little bit of that. And then anyway, Bobby, to kind of give your answer, the easy thing in Santa Monica is to go up to a trail called Westridge.

You can do the fire road or the single track there. There's also Sullivan Canyon. That's great. There's also Kentor. That's great. They're all just these kind of neighborhoods. roads that dead end and then there's a dirt road that keeps going up into the mountains from them and they're really beautiful. But once you've exhausted those, and this is, I think, good advice

for anyone who's trying to get into trail running, just go on Strava, look at the global heat maps for hiking and create a route from hiking trails. You know, you can, if you're okay with potentially not being able to run certain sections because of how technical it is or how steep it is, I think it's a really fun way to explore new places, find new places around you. That's how I've done it most of the time. Cool. Next question here. Hey, TTL fam.

We're in the process of having our camper van built out. How far do you have to break down your bikes in order to store them under the bed? Do you keep back wheels on, seat on? Do you wrap them or have to use any pool noodles or anything to protect them in travel? Any pointers about building out the van garage to accommodate safe travel and easy reassembly of bikes? that's the question. So, Eric, this van is slightly different than the last, right? Yeah, the difference between our last van and this van is that our bikes do not clear the bed.

The seatposts do not go underneath the bed without having to take the seatposts off, which is a huge bummer, but it's the trade-off for having to slide out tray that they're on, which makes them incredible to load and you don't have to, like, crawl into, you know, underneath the bed into the garage area to get the bikes. So basically in the new van, the slide-out tray adds about two or three inches of height. Off the floor. And then the bed in the new van is also slightly lower, I'd say. Because we have cabinets above the bed.

We have cabinets and there's more headspace when you're sleeping. So that has just created this effect that the bikes are a little too tall. So Eric actually takes the seat post out every time we load the bikes. You've gotten really fast at it. Yeah, I've gotten really fast at it. The great solution to this is don't ride road bikes anymore. Just ride mountain bikes and have a drop or post. Yeah.

You don't ever have to do anything. But you basically just take the front wheel off and then we have fork mounts in there. What are the brand of those? Oh my gosh. I can never remember the brand of the fork mounts. They're really good though. You can lock them too. Yeah, I'll look them up.

And then once you put the fork mount in, the rear wheel stays on and it just slides in. And we can fit four bikes. Would you, Paula, would you sacrifice some of the headroom in the bed, hypothetically, if it were possible, to be able to fit the bikes in there without removing the seatpost? Personally, yes, but the storyteller came built as is, so we couldn't really modify the height of the bed. We don't do a lot of, like, sitting up in bed and reading necessarily, so we just get in and go to sleep. But at first, I was really stressed about having to take the seat out every time. Not that I've ever done it myself, but just to be able to. about when you put it back in and you're going to get it slightly off.

But we just have it really well marked and Eric has a torque wrench and it's been totally fine every time from my perspective. Yeah. The bike, the fork mounts that I have are from Freedom Coast. Right. They are not cheap, but they are awesome and they have an L track mount, which are, which makes so you can move them back and forth if you have L track in your slider or on the ground, on the floor of your van.

And this kind of makes me wonder, is there, you guys have carbon bikes. and those are carbon seatposts. Is there any kind of maintenance that needs to be done when removing and reinserting a carbon seat post over and over again? I just make sure they're not dirty because then you get creaking. You don't put carbon paste on or anything? You could, but I don't know.

I'm like, meh, on carbon paste personally. Yeah, one of my new bikes has, I couldn't even get the seat post out. I had to like wrench the crap out of it to get it out of there because there was some dirt in there that was creating problems. Yeah. It does take extra care,

but having that slider where you just pull the whole slide out, load the bikes up, put helmets, shoes, everything in the garage, and then slide it back in is really, really nice. Whereas before we were, like,

crawling in the van to, like, get the thing in the fork mount. Yeah, and we go, we do, like, one bike forward, one bike back, one bike facing back, so you can really get them close.

No one on earth takes better care of bicycles and Eric Locker. In terms of wrapping the frame and pool noodles, that's totally not required. Because once you get them in the fork mounts, they're just stationary. Yeah. They're not moving anywhere. So it's totally safe. And we actually jam our wheels in between there and wheelbags because we always take race wheels and mountain bike.

We have so many wheels that we're traveling with. I usually ski strap a wheel to each frame so it stays in place and doesn't bounce around. All right. Okay. Next question here is from Stacey. Hi, TTR friends. Thanks so much for all you do. I'm a fan and supporter of the pod and love being a part of the TTL community.

Here's my question. I'm a 50-year-old woman for whom premenopause has led to a significant sleep disruption. I have tried lots of things with very limited success until recently when someone recommended CBD gummies. These are legal in my home state and they have been transformative. I cannot tell you how grateful I am again to be able to sleep through the night, most nights anyway. I'm also an age grouper and a rule follower, so I checked the list of banned substances for iron Man Racing. If I'm reading the rules correctly, cannabis products that contain THC are banned, but cannabis, CBD, is not. There is a warning note on gummies that they might lead to a positive

result on a THC test. I know this may seem ridiculous. I understand that Iron Man does test age groupers here and there, but it doesn't seem particularly widespread. I'd be mortified if I came up positive, especially because I believe in clean sport is very much my intention to obey the rules. and then she gives a little bit of context that she's often finishes top five in her age group so it's not impossible that she would be tested for something like this because I think

if Ironman tests age groupers which is quite rare they will I think they're most likely to do it to people who are doing well in their age group best of luck as the rest of the season unfolds I will be cheering for all three of you Stacy

okay so is THC illegal as an Ironman racing athlete. THC is a substance that is banned in competition only. So what does that mean? It means that you can just be tested. I think it's 24 hours. There's a timeline.

It's like 12 or 24 hours before the race would count as testing positive in competition. And then like 24 or like 12 hours afterwards. So typically that tends to mean, just when you cross the finish line, you get drug tested. That's typically what in-competition means. So for out-of-competition testing, that's something that a professional athlete might get, and you have whereabouts, you put where you are, and they show up at your door randomly, and they can test you urine blood out of competition.

At your house, at Carl Jr. Yeah, wherever you might be. So if someone at T.HC and their system out of competition, it would not be banned substance, but in competition would be. So that's where I would say if you're concerned about cross-contamination or the CBD supplement having THC in it, just stop taking it within seven days of the race or probably even two days of the race. It'll probably clear your system. We are not doctors. If you test positive, it is not our fault. But. Yeah, this is like a little bit of a touchy subject to answer. You can go Google and see like how long does THC sit in your system and it's, you know, and see what it says and just like,

make the call on your own how long you want to stop taking the CBD and the trade off of how well you sleep versus testing positive. Yeah, I mean, if there's a trace of THC in a CBD supplement, it's going to be so minimal. Yeah. And even the chance of that testing the day after is so low. But I totally understand the concern of wanting to be extra cautious and I'm the same way. So that would be my advice is just to stop taking it within a week. And I would say CBD supplements are everywhere.

They sponsor athletes. They're such a common thing now that I think the purity and the testing system of them is probably fairly stringent. I also got to think that the amount of – I have no idea what the limit is, but I would got to think that the amount of THC in your system in competition has got to be an amount that, you know, like why is it banned in competition? It's not performance enhancing. That's what's so funny about it. You think it's like the opposite. Yeah, I think there's like maybe two sports that it could be performance enhancing and like archery. And the rest of it's, I'm assuming more of like we don't want people high while like racing bikes together.

Endangering other people. I don't know for sure. That's just like my hunch is that it's like kind of a high amount. I could see. So if you take THC the night before a race, though, to alleviate stress and I don't know. Some people will sleep way better when they're. Right. That would be performance enhancing in a sort of tangential way.

Right. A little bit. I think the main point for Stacey here is that I don't think Stacey necessarily knew that it's not banned out of competition. And I think that might be a real relief for her to know. It's like, no, you're doing, it's perfectly fine. Even if you were ingesting THC, it's perfectly fine. Yeah, you could be smoking weed in front of the drug tester. Exactly. And it would be okay, theoretically.

Smoke weed with the drug tester. That is, wow. It would take me a wild pee. It's such a strange topic because it is legal in Oregon And it's legal out of competition In Colorado and Washington and a lot of places on the West Coast But it's such a taboo thing, you know Because it's been illegal and probably still is in a lot of places

Anyway We're not going to get into it now But there's a very interesting history About why and how marijuana became illegal in the United States And it's very ugly And it's not a good page in our history Yeah. Wow. And that's irrelevant if you think it should be legal now or not.

The way it became and the reason it became illegal is ugly, very ugly. Do you tell us later, Nick, it's storytime? Yeah, I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later. Yeah. Okay. Next question here is from Kenneth. Hi, Eric, Paula, Nick and horse. Oh, beautiful. Love it already. Kenny here from Blanco, Texas. After hearing a lot, it's funny, we've said Blanco a lot on this podcast, but never because it was Blanco, Texas. after hearing last week's podcast, I now understand why my questions do not get answered because I'm long-winded and suck at asking them. But my question is, and this is very short,

so you'll love it, how can we get a TTL jersey in Zwift so we can properly represent Kenneth? All right, so where have we lost Kenneth in translation here? I'm just guessing that it's been a little while. It's been a few months since we did a TTL group ride on Zwift. But if you go join the TTL Zwift Club, that is where you will for sure know when we have a Zwift group ride. And every time we do a Zwift group ride, everyone on the group ride gets the unlocked to use the TTL Zwift jersey.

We've had a Zwift jersey for over a year now. Yeah, but the only way to unlock it is to do the Zwift rides and finish the Zwift rides. Yep. But I don't know if we want to talk about this on the podcast or not. Oh, right. Swift is a, they've supported us amazingly over the last five years. We got our woodway from them. We were like financially compensated.

The woodway was from Zwift. Yeah. Yeah. That was like our sign on. I don't remember that. Amazing. Yes. But this year we got a super sad email from our main contact at Zwift who we really like

that he no longer worked at the company. They had all this turnover. They didn't renew our contract. So we're kind of in this weird limbo phase now where we have, we're in the top 10 of the biggest Swift clubs on Swift on the platform, the TTL. Thanks to you guys. And if you want to make that even bigger, we'd love it. If you went and just joined our Zwift club, it takes no effort. But for some reason, Zwift, maybe they are still, they're still working out their company changes.

And we're in a little bit of contact, but it's now April. And we don't have a contract. So it's been tough for us because we still use the platform ourselves and we have this huge community of people in our club. And we want to keep our Zwift rides going and we want to keep having this jersey unlock and it's really cool for us. But at the same time, like the group rides take time and effort and that's valuable. And Zwift doesn't seem to care anymore about us doing it. So I don't know. Our motivation to do that now is like a little bit less.

But it's really more of an issue of like, do we want to continue giving something away for free to them, you know, when it's like our bargaining chip, you know, as a in a sponsorship negotiation, you know, and it's like you don't, I hate sponsorship negotiations, but it's like kind of a necessary thing. And like, why is somebody going to start paying you for something that you do for free anyway? So that's a thing to take into a consideration. And that's true. Unfortunately, the Zwift rides are just kind of caught in the crossfire at the moment. But I still fully intend to keep doing them. I mean, the bigger reason. or not is because we haven't been at home with our Zwift set up and we've been a Ventura where mostly all of our riding was outside. So we just haven't been in an easy place to do these community rides. But I intend to keep doing them. They're actually not that much work because we have to ride anyway. So it's fine. It's just kind of like an awkward situation with Zwift right now where we really love the company, obviously love the product, but we would love it if they loved us back, you know?

Yeah, well, that is life, isn't it? That is life. But this is not like an athletic greens situation where we're like, everybody go quit Swift. We love Swift. That worked with athletic greens, though. People, we really turned people on athletic greens. Yeah, that was the goal, mission accomplished.

But this is not the same thing. We go join our Zwift club. Go sign up for Zwift. Swift changes lives. But we're just in a bit of like a, you know, reworking situation. our relationship was Zwift is changed, but we don't want that to be necessarily outwardly apparent.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Some real insider information there. That was. Yeah, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's secret information. No, no, I love being open about everything. If you go onto our Zwift Club, people are still like in the chat talking. Yeah. And I'm like, wow, people actually

communicate via our Zwift Club, and we're not on here for months. So I just, I think I need to be more attentive to it. even though it's now just kind of a community building thing that we're not making any money from. Yeah, which is fine. 80% of the stuff that we do is community building and making no money. But it is, we have a lot of fun. Yeah.

Okay, next question here. This is going to be our question that is for the podcast supporters as a supporter segment. I'm going to read it on the podcast, and then if you're a supporter, you're going to get an email with it. If you're not, maybe it'll incentivize it. you to become a supporter. This one is from Aaron, and it's a question that we get a lot. It's kind of a technical thing with cameras. But hi, Eric, Paula, Nick, and Flynn. My question is about action cameras. I don't know anything about cameras except how to use my iPhone camera, but I've been looking for an action cam that I can chest mount or mount to my bike, ski pull,

etc. to make cool reels with. I've been using my phone and it works great, but I'm unable to chest mount it for activities requiring two hands. I remember Eric posting a story about his camera setup for the recent brick workout video, and I was hoping you could go a little more in depth about that setup. I don't need anything professional, just something to get better angles for my reels. Thanks. All the love from Canadian Capital, Ottawa. That's from Aaron. So if you're a podcast supporter, you're going to get the rest of this question. If you're not, we're going to move right on. Okay, we're back, back to the regular pod. Next question here is from Kyle. Hey, question. How hot is too hot for an arrow helmet.

Saw Sam Long rocking a road arrow helmet but not a full TT helmet in Singapore. If you guys were to race that race, would you have made the same move? Is your Arrow Road helmet

the evade? Kyle, do you guys have an evade? I don't think you do, right? Yeah, we do, Nick. I got all the helmets. Oh, you do? Oh, okay. Do you ever use the evade? We still use them very often.

We tested the A ofade in the wind tunnel, actually, for this exact purpose. And it wasn't that much worse than the TT helmets. Obviously, it was worse, but when you're considering heat and that the TT5, the specialized actual TT helmet has no ventilation, is actually quite a hot helmet. I would have probably opted for a road arrow helmet as well in Singapore. Yeah. You too, Eric? I mean,

I would opt for no helmet in riding naked if they allow me. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, I think the whatever watts that you're giving up is the risk of overheating and dropping four times that many watts is so high there. And I think Sam played it really smart in this race and controlled his body temperature. And I think he did an Instagram post about this and didn't go out too hard in the swim, really controlled himself in the first part of the bike, wore the road helmet versus the TT helmet. And then he could finish the race strong. Whereas if you go out hard, you're wearing a TT helmet, you're overheating at the start of the bike. You're overheating at the start of the race, you're just going to go downhill so quickly and there's no coming back from it.

So your race is essentially over if you get to that point. Yeah. So, yeah, like even in Kona, I think a lot of people use a road helmet, Taylor Nib did last year. Just a matter of personal preference a little bit, but the road helmets do test quite well. Yeah. Cool. Next question is from Garrett. Hey, team.

I'm on the same flip turn journey as Nick. and want to know more about circle swim etiquette. As you approach the wall, do you come in straight, flip, then push off diagonally as you move over to the other side of the lane, or do you move over to the other side of the lane as you swim into the wall, flip, and push off straight? So what do you guys do you come in straight? Do you come in an angle?

And what would you recommend for someone else to do? You got to play by ear. It totally depends. If there's somebody immediately behind you, then I would start to veer over and, you know, ahead of the turn unless there's somebody immediately in front of you. Right. Then you're trying to like do a little bit.

You're trying to veer over maybe into the middle, but you've got to be pushing off to the side like pretty aggressively. You know, your cut in is pretty aggressive at the end and your push off to the side is pretty aggressive as well. If I'm swimming completely solo, I might be practically swimming down the wrong side of the lane from the flags all the way in, you know, like trying to turn as little and as gradually as possible.

Yeah, if I'm on a lane alone alone, I'm swimming in the middle of the lane. for the most part. Even though in your pool, they never really let you, they never really want you to do that, right? You're supposed to always be circle swimming in your pool. Yeah.

No, what they don't like is splitting lanes. But if you're alone, you can swim up and down the middle. Oh, that's what I meant. Eric and I have the luxury of, usually it's just the two of us in a lane and I'm 10 back from him. So we kind of know intuitively what the gap is

and as soon as I pass Eric, just after the flags or before the flags, then I start to veer over to the middle, I flip at the T and then kind of push off at an angle to the other side. So it's kind of like a V motion but very subtle. And to be honest, I have never even thought about it. I just do what feels right. You know what I've thought about?

What if you didn't veer over at all? Would you swim slightly faster if you hugged the lane line and weren't hitting like my oncoming waves as much? Probably, yeah. Like if I flipped on my side and then pushed off at an angle. Yeah. Yeah, that might be actually a little faster because I do feel Eric's wake when I'm coming into the wall quickly.

Wow, that is interesting. I throw some serious wake, dude. Well, if I go five back from Eric, I'm just like fully in his draft and I go, you know, three seconds per hundred quicker, but 10 back, you lose that draft effect a little bit. And I'm hitting his wake every time that we are passing by each other. So yeah, maybe there's some strategy that we could implement here. This is a tangent, but there's a super interesting video on the internet talking about the four by 100 freestyle relay

in the last four Olympics and the team that wins has always been the team that dives in second and is able to ride the wake of the lead anchor leg swimmer just the right amount and then pass them right at the finish. Super fascinating.

Those lane lines aren't enough to stop when you're swimming that fast they still have an effect. Even at the Super League indoor world championships that they played, I think it was on Sunday this week I watched it and it was interesting watching Beth Potter and Cassandra Beaumbrond go head to head.

They were almost tied the entire way. It was so crazy how evenly matched they were. But Cassandra had a slight edge in the pool. So she would go to the complete other side of the lane so that Beth couldn't sit in her draft. That's the secret. There was some strategy involved here. And if I'm swimming a hard set in a lane beside Eric, I'll always push off right on the lane rope and sit in his draft a little bit. So even though there's a lane rope there, you are still getting a little bit of this wave riding effect being beside them.

So that is something to consider. But I think for this person, it's most likely there's swimming in a bit of a busier pool where you don't know what other people are doing. They're not necessarily doing the same set as you and you don't want to run head-on collision into them. So I think just being extra aware of your surroundings and where other people are and then do that kind of assessing the moment. But also you're always safe if you're flipping right in the same. the middle on the T. That's where no one should ever be standing and stopped or in your way. That's kind of like the safe zone and then you can push off slightly at an angle to swim on the correct side. Do you think if, is it fair to say that if you had to push one way or the other,

go more towards the opposite side so you don't risk flip turning and pushing back into the person swimming into the wall? Yeah, for sure. But also if you're a person that's at the lane standing there for rest, never be in the middle. Always stay on the side. Yeah. Cool. Okay, next question here. Hi, Paula, Eric and Nick. Justin Jones, Ventura Local writing in. All right. Glad our town treated you well. You're welcome back anytime. Question for Eric. Are you selling your house by any chance? We'll buy your house. Question for Eric, how did you get into surf movies and what specific movies and or directors do you draw the most inspiration from? Thanks, Justin Jones. Do you have certain films that you look for?

Man, I'm trying to think of how I got into surf films. I assume I got into surf films just as I watched snowboarding stuff and that probably, you know, kind of showed up in the same sort of areas and everything. And I probably got more and more into it when I lived in the San Diego area for several years, just being at the coast and stuff. As far as things that I really like, I've been really into the Need Essentials films with Torrin Martin over the last couple years.

They're kind of on the long side, but I think just super incredibly well done, and I can identify with them a lot because it's just Torin and his friend shooting very simply, which is a lot like how Nick and I shoot. And then, like, anything that's kind of got a Red Bull stamp on it is always going to be

pretty awesome. So like I watched, I'll go on Red Bull TV and look for stuff. Really love John John Florence. Yeah, I was hoping you'd bring him up. Yeah, that was super inspirational for me. I also like his YouTube channel. It's like very underrated. It gets way less views than I think it should.

But he is like kind of a true artist and just doesn't. If he started making vlogs and stuff, I think get a lot more views. But he just puts up stuff that he really likes and it's beautifully shot. I remember the first surf film I think I really watched was riding giants. I think it's Laird Hamilton as either executive producer or something

or it was on it. And it kind of goes through the history of surfing and then what's like on the Northrop Hawaii, it's still great. But Eric, have you seen The Endless Summer, the Bruce Brown documentary on surfing? I mean, like, yeah, a long time ago. That's my favorite.

I watched that like five times a year. The music is great. The vibes are great. It's like funny, but it really has this tradition. surf feel to it that I love. I just remembered how I got into surf films. Matt McElroy. Oh, really?

The professional triathlete. Yeah, because he grew up in Huntington Beach, surfed. I was all into surfing and surf films, and we lived together in San Diego when he was, like, in his first two years of doing triathlon. Like, the stuff that got me all into it was

Joe G. What youth? Dionne Gius is, like, I think Deionageus is like me and triathlon. He started making films as a surfer and like kind of fully developed. Nobody was like making movies about themselves and putting them on the internet and having that be like kind of a career sort of a thing. And he started doing that and surfing and was really a pioneer in that,

in that area. So I would check that guy out, check his stuff out. another film that hugely inspired me. It's very short. Electric Blue Heaven. That's what Joe G. That's exactly what I inspired me to start making cool things in triathlon. Or trying to be cool.

Right. We're going to be pulling inspiration from surf films for our film too as well. We've already kind of incorporated that in our edits so far. In a way that I think everyone alike, I don't think it's like too much of a tangent. Yeah, and I think what I really identify with this surf films is like the epitome of surfing is to like take a cool trip to a cool place with your friends and have an experience and see some new stuff and ride new waves and the chase and the pursuit of discovering something new. That's what I ultimately love and want to bring into what we make.

Love it. Love it. Last question here is from Yishang. Dear Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn, I am from Singapore where we just had the latest T-100 race. It was an amazing event and a dream come true for someone who was watching. the Kona broadcast and just wants to be part of the hype. Hence, it was really exciting that the race has come to my home country. I have two questions for you guys. Firstly, in the YouTube videos, I noticed that all the athletes were staying at the same hotel,

are able to let us in on what kind of perks and benefits the athletes have who are part of the series. For example, is accommodation provided? What do you have to pay for out of your own pocket? Does the PTO sponsor part of the airfare or is up to the athlete? And we don't have to get into those specifics, but kind of just generally speaking. The second question is, would you consider coming over to Singapore a race? Thank you for everything that you do. I listen to you guys on my weekly long runs.

Cheers. Yishang. So, first of all, that race made it, didn't as beautiful as it was, and it did seem beautiful. The heat kind of was a bit of a turnoff. But would you guys go race there? As an athlete, yeah, it's extremely challenging and just requires a very specific preparation. which is really challenging to do when you're in the northern hemisphere and you've just come out of winter. So that's why I chose to go not to go this year is it's just not only does it require heat prep,

but it requires a very specific level of race fitness and sharpness and all these things that just aren't as developed early in the season. Alongside that, it's an extremely long trip. One of the longest flights in the world, isn't it, to go from like, the U.S. to Singapore. So I just decided that it was too much this early in the season for me. And since we can skip a couple, I decided to skip this one. And don't have any regrets, although I would love to visit Singapore because it does look like a crazy cool venue. And actually my mom was there working for the PTO, helping with the age group race. And she said it was like an incredible

transition and everything was really well organized. So nothing but good things. In terms of the hotel, the PTO does cover accommodation for the athletes, so everyone's at the same hotel, which I actually think creates a really nice camaraderie pre-race because we're required to be there five or six days away from the actual race day. So everyone's kind of there together, and it eases the tension a little bit in a weird way. You might think it would have the opposite effect, but from my perspective in Miami, it really brought everyone together. We're all letting breakfast together. It makes the media requirements very simple because you're just going to a different room in the same hotel. So logistically, it's a lot better for the PTO. And I just thought a lot of

the content that came out of Singapore was quite funny. Like Daniel Bacagard was going around in his robe because they were staying at this like fancy Singapore hotel asking people questions with this mic. It was just like goofy. And that aspect of it did give me a little bit of fomo where I'm like, Wow, they're having such a fun time and I'm missing out on this. I didn't necessarily have FOMO during the race broadcast. But in terms of the lead-up, it's a fun thing. And last year, everyone just did their own accommodation and everyone was spread out. So you barely saw anyone until race day.

And it creates a different kind of tension when the first time you see everyone is at the pre-race meeting, the day before the race and you get nervous. And it's kind of fun when you're just all doing it together for the five days. leading in. And I got that sense as a fan watching Singapore all week and watching the content they were putting out. It looked like a fun time. I mean, once we land, it's like you're picked up at the airport, you're taken to the hotel. The logistics are taken care of. It's very, very smooth from an athlete perspective. And it takes all the stress away that you have when you're traveling to an Ironman race of getting a rental car and an Airbnb. And that can add up so quickly. You can be

spending thousands of dollars to every event just on that. So it really helps that the PTO assists with that. And then travel costs are just vastly different depending on where you are in the world and where you're coming from. And if you want to travel business or economy, so that's kind of personal decision and part of the investment you make because you do get a big base contract and you're being paid to be there. Right. Cool. Love it. I want to go to Singapore. I'll race in the heat. I'll walk that run. I'll do it.

Those are all our questions. That's all we got this week. Guys, you're still in Bend. You're still training in Bend. In L.A., it rained last weekend for like the 15th weekend. You know that I read an article that L.A. has gotten more rain than Seattle this year so far? I could believe that.

Yeah, because when it rains at like monsoons, it's not just raining. Yeah. Like Seattle and Portland are just drizzling. Mist. Constant mist. But if you put out a bucket, And we're just trying to trap water, the LA bucket would be overflowing because it rains so hard. This winter is just crazy.

It's been crazy. But it's so beautiful and green right now. I mean, if you want to come out for some sunshine, you're more than welcome, dude. Thank you. Has it been nice? Has it been good training weather? It's been spectacular. Perfect.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, we were a little nervous to come back to Bend after being in California where we had a really fun time. But when you come back here, you just realize that it is really, really great here. and the trails are right out the door. We're barely driving. The pool's awesome. It's always empty. I mean, there are a lot of bonuses of Bend.

So we're happy to be back here. Yeah. I love it. The pool's awesome. But everything else, y'all. I mean, I had my own lane to every day this week. Okay. Pools in California are awesome.

Because they're outdoors. They're outdoors. They're fun. Yeah. It's a whole thing. They're outdoors. They're at sea level. Yeah, that is awesome.

We've got a great. indoor pool, and we're just waiting for the bubble to come off. As soon as the bubble comes off, and there's like sunshine and air circulation, it will be awesome. Yeah, that Ventura pool was, even for California pool standards, extremely cool. Yeah, it just had a vibe. It was cool and classic and fun. Yeah. Well, that's it. Guys, thank you. Also, remember, if you were thinking of being a supporter, you better get on that so fast, and then Paul's going to send you a little on coupon.

Don't about the 20%. The top 10 people. The top 10 people. Oh, it's 10. I said it was 20. Sorry. 10% off, but first 10. Yeah.

That's going to go. We might do it again because I. That's a fun little game. I like that. That's a fun little game. Okay. Bye guys. Bye.

Later.