That Triathlon Life Podcast - Training for Extreme Triathlon, maintaining fitness during a forced break, how often you should replace your wetsuit, and more!

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

This week on That Triathlon Life podcast we get together to discuss your triathlon questions. Questions about how to cut your wetsuit to make it easier to take off in T1, how to approach little injuries and niggles, and more! To submit your own questions, as well as become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com

Hey everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric LaVishtra. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is our podcast about triathlon. And our journey in triathlon as professional triathletes, that's Paul and I. And Nick is an amateur triathlet, professional musician,

and he helps us kind of talk through things. And the bulk of the show is we take questions that everybody sends in and try to be helpful. This is episode 90, by the way. Are we going to do something super epic? for 100? I think so. Assuming we make it there? Right.

We're all feeling very, whoa. We're all feeling very mellow today, to put it lightly. I feel like the last few training sessions, I've also, my brain has been like no intensity, just keep it mellow. Nice and easy. Yep. Yeah, definitely feeling the accumulative fatigue from both the season and just this last little block that we're putting together for the 70.3 Los Cabos.

And how soon before the race do you actually? notice like, okay, my coach is giving me less volume. I mean for like the taper? Yeah. Monday, the day before the race, we get less volume. The week before the race. Yeah, the week of the race, right? So like six days before.

Yeah. I think some people might do longer tapers for Iron Man just because you've accumulated more fatigue training for that with a really long bike rides and stuff. But we've always operated off of almost an identical weekly plan. leading into 70.3s since we've been doing them. And when you actually get like day before the race, do you feel, do you tend to feel more on the, oh, I'm still a little fatigue side,

or do you tend to be more on the, I'm so fresh, I'm ready to race, I wish the race were today. Yeah. I never feel super fresh the day before. I don't know. I feel like the race week, yeah, it's taper, but you still have intensity. And then there's the hecticness of race week with travel and everything.

So, I don't know. Ideally, you get to the day. before feeling ready to go, but it's not always the case. But I think you can still race well, even if you don't feel 100% perfect. But that's interesting. I've been kind of curious about that, like what you just said, should you feel totally fresh and ready to go the day before the race? You think in an ideal world, yes?

Yeah. Yeah, it's an ideal world. Nick, you just were here for a week, and we pretty much didn't do anything productive because we just trained all week. It was a lot of training. It was, I think, my biggest week ever. ever. Yeah.

I didn't quite double-checked that, but I looked like certainly in the past year. And I usually like look at my stats at the end of the week on a Sunday night in bed. And I just looked at, for example, my average daily calorie burn. And that was definitely the highest it has ever been. Wow. It was probably the highest you also have ever eaten. Yeah, I didn't lose weight. I came back and weighed myself.

I weighed the same. So I was keeping up with the calories. job well done well I was Paulo was asking our coach was asking how training was going for Cabo and I was like

A minus and he said wow you even found a way to make an A score negative because he thinks that I'm just always negative and then I said my swimming's actually feeling

really good and he's like well the swimming is at a very low level right now barely maintenance level oh god and meanwhile we're swimming we're still swimming

like 17, 18K a week for swims with intensity. Like, it's not a maintenance level. Yeah, no. But I had one of my best swims ever this morning. So I told him that my new level is maintenance level for the rest of my life. Wait, can you, I think we'd all be very curious. You say you had one of your best swims this morning. Can you tell us what made it the best swim, what you did?

Well, I mean, I can't say it was my best swim ever because that was when I was a teenager. Right, right. I had better swims. But in recent memory, it was 12-100s hard, short-course meters. And I went like 110, 111 on all of them. Whoa. Which is good for me. That's good for, yeah.

Well, I was going to say that's good for anyone. But I was trying so hard. Like, I just, for some reason, you know, when you just feel good and you feel connected and you, I flipped it every 50 and I felt still like, okay, I'm fine. But I was still trying hard. So it was like, it doesn't happen often. But I do attribute it to maybe swimming slightly less and feeling slightly more rested in the pool. There's a lot to be said for feeling like you can go hard at that level.

Sometimes like Nick, you and I have had this conversation about your bike ride. A lot of times you're just like, I can't even go hard. Like I kind of want to, but my body will not allow it. Yeah. If you're tired. Yeah, swimming is hard on with that. Anyway, we're all excited for Cabo. Are we?

No, we're not, but we're excited to be, we're excited for the day after Cabo. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I actually am excited for the race. I don't know if that's going to stand the test of time. Usually race week comes and the dread sets in, but for now I'm still excitement mode. I think knowing that I'm not swimming in cold water makes a huge difference. Yeah. Even though that runs going to be brutal and it's going to be too hot.

It's just something about cold water tells my brain is like get away from that. Opposite. Well, let's do questions or whatever we're doing next. Well, actually, I just want to talk about the collection, the throwback collection that we put out. Most of the stuff sold out the same day that it put out. We still have a few of the retro trucker hats and a few of the reverse pennies. Wait, actually, they're called reverse t's. What are they called?

Tank tops. I do like pennies, though, because that's very reminiscent of, like, elementary school dodgeball, where you'd put a penny on that was a certain color. They don't like that. significantly thicker than that though. These are like an actual basketball jersey. Yeah, and the sizes that are left are like the extra smalls and the smalls. So we were brainstorming ways that these could potentially sell because they're not very feminine.

So it's not like women necessarily will want to wear them. But maybe like a kid. The youths. Like a youth could wear the extra small. I don't know. A 10-year-old boy. You got a kid. I feel like with a sports bra under it, though, could be kind of a cool running.

I could definitely wear it. My turn off, and the reason Eric likes it is the heavy weight of it. I don't love running in that. But Eric does like it. So it's kind of personal preference. But you're right. It could be a cool look for a girl, too. Yeah, cool.

But anyway, everyone who ordered something, thank you. Those sold out of all of it. Great success. We do have some crew necks and long sleeves coming up for before Christmas, and we're going to try to order more mugs because we had no idea those would be popular. Yeah. Well, I mean, we thought they would be popular, but we ordered quite a lot of those relative to the shirts and stuff. And people were buying like three and four of those at a time.

Unpresented. But we'll be getting more of those before the holiday rush, rest assured. Cool. Okay, so we're going to move on now to our segment, and we're going to do a listener-submitted rapid fire. Okay, so this one is from Mac. I have loved watching your videos and listening to your podcast from the very beginning, as it kept me company on long bus rides as a collegiate athlete and taught me about. triathlon as I have watched my boyfriend's brother earn his pro card. Congratulations, that's awesome.

I thought it would be fun and useful to curate this list for a rapid fire segment. The goal is for all of you to say the first thing that comes to your head as it is probably your favorite and or most used. Awesome. I would say we say it. Then Eric, you give your rapid fire, Paul, you give your rapid fire and I'll give mine. So we'll try to rapid fire the rapid fires. Okay. Okay. And this first one might be a little confusing. Trainers, your favorite trainers. Wahoo. Yeah, see, this is a confused. I think this is a British person. I think they mean like your favorite, like training running shoes. It's not very rapid guys.

Okay, my favorite training running shoes. On Cloud Stratus. And Cloud Monster for me, Ons. Eric, what about your favorite shoes? I thought this was like a psychology test where we're just saying the first thing it comes of mind. Okay, you're right, you're right. It's a Rorschach test. And Eric, we've determined you're a serial killer. Okay, next one, race shoes. on Cloud Boom Echo 3. I've had my fastest runs in the Adidas,

whatever they're on top of the line shoe, is I can't even keep track. It was like the... But it's their carbon-plated ratio. Exactly. Their version of like the Nike Next Percent or the Cloud Boom Echo 3. I think some of the super shoes

just like fit certain people strides better than others. Next one, running shorts. Eric. I have these Rourke shorts that I really like. I like kind of adventure run style shorts with some pockets. Paula?

I feel like this. to just be me sponsor plugging over and over. Well, conveniently, you got sponsored by the company that makes the stuff that you like a lot. That's true. I really like the on spandex tight things. Yeah. I was going to say my favorites are a pair of Nike shorts that I bought, but I don't know what they're called or anything like that. Yeah. Actually, they're very on-esque. They're like that laser cut material. I don't know what you would call it. But a lot of the shirts are that same thing for a lot.

Blue Lemon does a lot of that too. Yeah. Okay, cycling bibs. The Castelli Premium Black. Yeah, same with me. I like the, I just got those Panormal bibs that I'm loving. They're the nicest bibs I've owned. But I've never owned a Castelli bib.

In English, that's past normal. Past normal. And cycling jersey. Like the super tight arrow one. Yeah, we get our custom kit, like, you know, the Paula Finley look and the Eric look in the Arrow race 6.0 jersey. But sometimes I don't, like, sometimes I like something a little bit looser. So sometimes I do their next level down, which is what we always do for TTL, which is the competition, if I don't want something like totally skin tight.

My problem with the stuff that's a little bit looser usually is that if I put my phone in the back jersey pocket, it'll like sag. Yeah, I've seen your jersey's doing that. Oh, God, it's so frustrating. Like the jersey can be like built a little looser, but like still have good pocket support. Yeah, I think it's honestly, it's mostly the Rafa stuff that I have that that does not do well with the phone in the back pocket. I feel like that stuff is like the jersey material is so hyper thin. And Kistelli does make a climbers kit that has a little bit of that going on because, yeah, the material is just so, so thin. But they designed it for people that are like climbing Vantu or whatever.

Yeah. And last one here, nutrition. Like race nutrition. Dude, we just got this gel packet from Precision today that has 1,200 calories in it. Yes, I've seen that thing. That's my new favorite thing. I haven't used it yet, but the idea of it is my favorite. It's like the gel, but it's more drinkable.

It's called the flow, and it has 300 grams of carbs. And how big is it? What item would you compare it to? I know this is not great for a podcast. As a hand. Like a large postcard. Okay, got it. A bag.

So you could, and does it have like the twist top? Yeah. Yeah, you could carry it. I mean, it's heavy, but anything that has that many calories and carbs is going to be heavy. We were thinking, like, the move would be to, if you had the Shiv try, for example, you know, fill the bladder full of water, and then you put this thing full of, it, you just put, like, it into a standard water bottle between your arms. And that's, like, all your gel for the whole freaking day. Yeah. And you just have to be, I think, I think precision actually makes a bottle that has, like, lines in it, right?

Yeah, they sent, we got one of those, but it's just like a regular size bottle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I love that idea. Instead of, first of all, a bunch of single-use plastic stuff when you're using like whatever eight gels. Instead, you have one thing that contains all of that nutrition. It seems like a wind as far as the planet, at least someone. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, we like the precision. I also really like, I kind of alternate between precision gels and Morton gels and picky bars and picky bars. Yeah, the picky bars I always have when I'm there with you guys. And I love the picky bars. but for racing, I always use precision. I really like precision. On to questions, real questions, but thank you for that Mac.

Thank you for that rapid fire. You two can submit your questions to the podcast and become a podcast supporter, which helps keep the podcast going at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And some weeks we like to, I don't say most weeks, actually, we like to pick a random podcast supporter, which is you only have to, it's only $5 a month,

but if you're a podcast supporter, you're in the picking for something, for free, whether it's socks, a bottle, a t-shirt, a hat, a kiss from Eric. This week we put it. Can I pet that dog? This week, we put a random number generated to work, and we

found, we believe your name is Britta Samuels, but it might also be Samuels Britta. We're not 100% we're 90% sure it's Britta Samu's. The address is Samuels, but your name in the computer is Brita Samuels, so apologies. So, if we got it wrong.

Brita, if you can message me with your real address, we will get you a bottle. We just tell us if you want a bottle or socks. Yep. Okay, this first question here is from Simon.

Hi, Alan, in no particular order. I had a question about how you deal with attention at bigger races. I was in Lottie for 70.3 worlds and noticed a lot of people giving pros attention in the street at the pool, et cetera. Does it bother you at all when people come up to you right before the race

or interfere with training in the race buildup? I was watching my wife swim in the ski jump pool my arm was in bandage from a bike crash. And Eric and Paula were in the pool. It looked as though several age reapers were getting in the way and maybe even showing off, I think one of them was doing fly. Is this worse at the bigger races or does it happen at all races you go to?

So love what you do for the sport, Simon. So what do you think, guys? Yeah, we met Simon. Do you remember America? Of course I do. Yeah. I love the idea of someone going out hero mode and doing fly right next to kind of like show up.

I actually have a little rant about that person. They're not doing it to show off. I think like everyone's got a little bit of nerves and energy and eyes are on me on race week. And that's fair enough. I mean, you've been training solo most likely for months and months and months for this huge race. And finally you get to the big show and it's you're feeling good. You're there. Do some butterfly.

You see Lionel Sanders. You see Jan on the pool deck. Like it's all good. I don't think they're showing off because their flies probably not good enough for us. to be impressed anyway. Ooh, burn. That's a burn. I love that.

I love that. No, but to answer the actual question, like, it doesn't bother us when people talk to us. We really like it. The only time I get, when I'm so nervous before the start, that I have a hard time having, like, a full-on conversation with someone, but saying hi or good luck or whatever, like, I love that. So it doesn't bug me.

It's one of the reasons I actually like racing Iron Man races over the PTO, where we're a little bit more isolated and racing at a separate time than the age group athletes is you don't run into them pre-race. And kind of everyone's starting at the same time at 70.3 races is one of my favorite parts. Yeah. I think it's really nice to, as you're getting ready to walk over the start line, if somebody says, go Paula, go Eric. Yeah.

That's great. But just if I could say to avoid something, like that's maybe not the time to launch into a long story about how your training's gone leading up to the race. ever done that to met to us. I'm just saying like reading a little bit like the sense of urgency of the person, the pro that you're looking to engage with and are they like moments from diving into the pool or are they like done swimming and drying off and that's like an opportunity to have a little bit more extended conversation. Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like

I've heard from you before that there's been times where you've been in a rush to do something where you're like barely making connections between two things and someone has not been able to read that situation well and this kind of stopped you for a long time. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We'll see when we're with you, Nick. Or like, Nick, focus. I can't. I can't. That's just like kind of, you know, that's just like what we have to deal with with race weeks now that there are more media things and potentially just like trying to get across town and it's mostly media stuff. The additional media things has made it so that we have more things to do on race week and are more often in a rush versus

three years ago, pre-PTO, pre-Iroman making videos, race week was so chill. So that's the only thing. Sometimes we're like, if you're running, if we're running with, you know, not as a sport activity, but like to our next appointment, you're going to have to run with us while having the conversation. That's good.

That's good. Cool. So, yeah, so people can feel free to especially say good luck. Yeah, of course. That's always good. Yeah, totally. love it. Great. Next question here is actually for me. This cue is for Nick. I love listening to remix and cover versions of popular music when I'm working out. How is it legal for random cover

artists to be singing Miley Cyrus and Kesha? Why did Taylor Swift have to remake Oliver music? Are these cover artists getting paid for this music I'm listening to? I want to listen in a way where they're getting compensated, Sid. So just for reference here, I know we say I'm a professional musician, but I write a lot of music, but there's also times where I am covering music. So this is very relevant and something that musicians have to deal with all the time. I ask you this all the time. Right. So I'm curious what you guys think. What do you think the legality is of this stuff? Like I'm kind of curious what the non-musician, what they would assume happens. I would assume that if you want to cover a Kesha song, you have to pay Kesha some amount of money

and then probably some amount of money every time that that cover is played. Or like, and by Kesha, probably like her recording label or something. And then what about like the Taylor Swift thing where she has like Taylor's, for people who don't know her don't follow Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift has been putting out re-recorded versions of all her albums where she redos them as pretty much as closely as possible

to the original. Why? Why? Yes, that's the question why. So basically what happens is when you record a song, you're dealing with two different pieces of intellectual property. You're dealing with the kind of abstract thing that is melody lyrics and chords, right? But like Eric can sing melody lyrics and chords, or I can sing the same melody lyrics and chords,

and they'll sound very different. So that's one part of the intellectual property. The other part is the actual sound recording. So, for example, you've probably seen commercials where you hear a song that you know the song, but it's like, oh, the singer's different, and something sounds a little bit off. It's because that company couldn't afford to license Led Zeppelin doing the song. So they hired a band to try to do a sound-like as close as possible, so they didn't have to pay the record label for that original recording.

For that actual music as Led Zeppelin recorded it. Right. So Taylor Swift, the reason she had to re-record everything is because her record label owned all those things. So now she's re-recording all of them with her own money, paying own studio musicians, own producers, and she will get all of that money. Power play. Yes. And as far as covers go, there's something called a mechanical license that you have to get

if you're actually printing CDs or vinyl or tape or anything like that or downloads like on iTunes. But if you're submitting to Spotify or Apple Music for streaming, you don't need to get a mechanical license. And Apple Music and Spotify will automatically, if you put the right information and when you're submitting, will automatically divert a portion of the stream money to the song. writers. So you don't have to worry. If you're listening on Apple Music or Spotify or any streaming service, you don't have to worry, Sid, about getting the original songwriters most of their credit because it's kind of built into the system if the system is working properly. Even things like YouTube, technically speaking, anytime you see a cover on YouTube, it's very likely that

that's not done legally. But the record labels can't, they kind of turn to blind eye, or they they've decided, okay, if Paula does a cover of a Kesha song, eventually it helps Kesha, because people want to hear the Kesha song. So we're just going to not worry about it. She can't monetize it, but we're not going to block it, even though they're totally within their right to have it taken down. You don't think that they're just, it is getting monetized, and the record label is getting all of the funds from it?

No, they are. Sorry, that's what I mean. It is getting monetized, and it's going to the publishers of that song. Right. Yeah. YouTube has, like, agreements with these record labels and with these publishers. It's like, hey, we know this thing happens. we could go in and take every single one of these videos down,

or we could kind of like meet in the middle here. And they just give the original publisher all of the income from the ads that are played on the video. I don't know about all, but yes, there is an exchange there. Yeah. Interesting. Now you know. Unfortunately, there's like a million different caveats for this. Like you said remixes, that is totally different because that's using the sounds from the original thing.

You need to contact the record label and anyone who worked on the thing. and same when you hear samples. They're still getting compensated though. It's not like it got stolen. No, true. But it's just like I can do a cold play cover right now and put it on Spotify. And I'll have to ask Chris Martin for permission. Whereas if you do a remix, you kind of have to ask the original person for permission.

It really is so unnecessarily complicated, the music industry. But that's the answer. Next question here is from Ryan. Eric Paul and Nick, I was lucky or unlucky enough to win a slot in the Norseman Triathlon in 2024. Ooh, spooky. Looking for a recommendation on a type of bike and or tires to train on in the late winter months or early spring when the roads still have salt and cinders on them. I don't know what cinders are. Cinders are, well, that's what we have here.

It's like, it's just shit on the road that you can slip on very easily. Got it. Like little gravel bits or little dirt bits. Got it. Currently, I own a TT bike and have an older road bike, but not all that comfortable on the roads when the roads are not clean. Thanks for all you do and the laughs, Ryan. So first of all, I feel like TT bike, probably not the right bike to ride. So what would you do, Eric?

What would you recommend? Because Oregon gets kind of messy too. Yeah, yeah, definitely does. If you want to stick with a road bike and you've got a high clearance bike, I would just put the fattest tires you can put on there. And there's this tire from Victoria that I always used to like to run when I was living in Portland and actually legitimately riding outside in the muck and the grime through the winter.

It's called the Vittoria Rondinur. And it's like a touring tire. It weighs a million pounds. But you're never going to flat it. They come like super fat. Like a 700 by 28, 32, 35, as big as you want to get it. And I would put that either or something like that, either on your road bike or if you've got a gravel bike, do that.

Can those be tubeless? I'm just thinking to run the lowest possible, PSI to give you the most amount of traction on unsafe roads? I'm not totally sure off the top of my head, but yeah, if you can do tubeless, I would. I think that I'm getting from this is it doesn't matter how fast they roll, right? What matters is that you can do the training, put out the power on the bike. Yeah, I almost thought of these things more like a drag suit in the program, whereas it's the winter.

Actually, if I go slower, I will be getting less cold and I'm just getting stronger. like just zero percent be concerned about how fast you're going because speed equals cold. And it's the same thing. Like we'll pretty much just ride our gravel bikes on the road here in the wintertime and just kind of like wear out our gravel tires. It's okay. But you're going 15K an hour instead of 25K an hour. And that just helps your case with not getting cold.

And then keep your TT bike on the trainer. Yeah, keep that TT bike on the trainer. That thing doesn't need to go outside. Well, maybe that's kind of bringing me to my next. point, do you feel like it would be good practice to how often should they be cleaning down their bike? I mean, in the winter, if you live somewhere where there's cinders and dirt on the road, you should probably be spraying that down after every ride.

Yeah. God, that's a lot of work. Just to keep the grit out of the drive train as much. It is a lot of work to live somewhere where the weather is rough in the wintertime. But then you're just like, you're hosing down your whole body in that case. Yeah, just do your shoes and your butt and everything at the same time. I love it. Just bring the bike into the bathtub.

Yeah, pretty much. Paula, do you notice that when the winter months are coming, do you and Eric kind of decide collectively to come indoors at the same time? Or does Eric stick it out for another week or two while you retreat to the garage? Yeah. Yeah, my threshold for trainer riding as much, or my tolerance for it is higher than Eric. So he'll usually go out when it's colder than I'm interested in going out in. And I'll ride Zwift.

But when it's winter, we do really like seasons because we switch to skiing more. So we'll take a base ride or an easy ride or a long ride and go backcountry skiing. So we can kind of adapt to the season and it helps us really forced break from the bike a little bit when the weather is that bad. But thankfully in Bend, it's not really wet. It's more just like snow and ice that eventually melts and the roads get dry. so we do have the option to ride year round, but we're going out on gravel bikes, like Eric said,

and just dressing properly is the key. Yeah, it's funny, actually. Like, I resist the switch to indoor training a little bit longer than Paula, but like once there's ice on the ground, it's almost easier to just, even for me to just like, we're in indoor training mode,

and we're going skiing, and then we're on the trainer. And you just kind of like get into the routine of you just put your bibs on and your shoes on and you're done getting ready to ride and you go get it. on the trainer in do Zwift. And it's like so simple and efficient that you just almost like shut off that part of your brain. It's like, oh, could I go outside? What time of day? Could I go outside? Is it,

you know, no. And you're just like, I'm doing indoor season. It's kind of nice when the option is taken away from you. So you can't even be like, oh, would it be nice? I wish I maybe went outside. It's like when you're at a restaurant, you're stuck between two things. And then it turns out they're out of one of the things. It's like, okay. That's easy. Thank goodness. Yes, thank God. It's really the reason that we've put so much. time and effort into making the garage a very trainable space for us in the winter. Do treadmills, the Zwift setup, the kickers, everything's there. We dedicate like half our garage to training space because of winter.

So it's easier to use it when it's there. Are either of you attracted at all to the idea of riding fat tire bikes in the snow? Not really. We did it together once in Canmore. We got in a fight. I'm pretty sure we got in a fight. The problem with fat biking, and it is fun if the trails are perfect for it. And if the snow is soft or if the snow is slushy, it's not fun.

You're sliding all over the place. But there's a certain trail condition where like packed snow that's meant for fat biking, I could see it being really fun because you are rolling slower. You go through the forest. You're not as cold. You dress as if you're going cross-country skiing. It could be fun. But also that's like more bikes to store all summer.

when you're not using them. And I don't know. I'm not super interested in that. I'd way rather ride swift than like pack up the fat bike and drive up the mountain. Yeah. Like if there's enough snow in town that we're like fat biking in town, we're going skiing because it's going to be good. You know what I just realized?

You could, I was, in my head I was like, I think it would be really fun as getting a fat tire e-bike to like go up the mountain or whatever. But the halls that you guys have, they are fat tire e-bikes. That's really interesting, man. They're just like small tires, but I would love to like go up the mountain with them, see how well they could do. That's scary. The thing is about the ski hill in the winter is the bike lane is like a snowplow lane. Oh, I see.

And there's 7,000 people going up. There's no room for a bike. Fun thought, though. Yeah, and so like the e-bike tires are also not like true fat bike tires. They're very hard and have like a fast rolling center tread. Uh, okay. Versus like a fat bike you run it three PSI. Right.

And there's, it's shred, it's knobbies all around. This is interesting, though. We're going to, we'll circle back on this at a later date. Okay, great. I love it. Also, congratulations, Ryan, for your Norseman. That's going to be so epic. That's a crazy race.

Next question here is from Mark. Hi, everyone, big fan of the pot and have learned a lot over the past few months of listening. I have a strange question for you that is a bit out of the norm. Most of the time, questions are regarding how to maximize gains. My question is more related to how you would minimize fitness loss over a three-month stretch. My wife and I recently had our fourth, and I know I'll have less time to work out. I was wondering if it would be better to make them short and sharp or if doing like a 30 to 45-minute zone 2 run slash bike would be a good use of time.

Thank you for all the great advice and good vibes. Eric, I hope you heal up soon, Mark. Eric, by the way, Eric, you're healed, right? I'm most of the way, but my left shoulder that I crashed on is still being very, very weird and stiff in the water. So I wouldn't say I'm 100% but I'm training. I'm trying just fine. So what do you guys think?

What's the best way to minimize fitness loss? When he said he had his fourth, I assume he meant kid. Thursday. Yeah. Anniversary. Like dog? Donut. It's a human being.

People that have kids, they're just like, it's a given, you know? I just had my third. I just had my fourth. Your third what? Aneurism? What's going on? Yeah. Like we don't have kids.

We don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Okay. But that does sound like a lot of work if he's talking about kids. I would say that, I mean, I don't know scientifically what the right answer would be. But I would think that doing some kind of like hit training, like high intensity interval training, what you're doing like 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off times eight, two times around or something would be the most bang for your buck when your time constrained

versus doing a super easy 30 minute run. Obviously, you would have to do a little bit of both, but I think there's proof that doing some of this high-intensity stuff has a similar effect to doing like longer V-O-2 threshold stuff. So it'd be an interesting experiment for those three months

to incorporate a bit of high-intensity into your training and also incorporating some gym sessions, like short 30-minute, I don't know, high-intensity lifting, stuff like that could also maintain some fitness and help you not lose muscle mass as you're kind of easing off the training load a little bit. Yeah, you could almost look at it a little bit like you're actually injured where you've got an opportunity to do something like Paul said, like a little bit different and potentially work on a weakness so that when you come back, you've got like potentially a stronger base.

That's where my mind goes to is like, who doesn't have some injury that is always halfway there? You're always concerned about it. Maybe it's something that you had a year ago. It's such a good opportunity to focus on that strength stuff that you know you're supposed to be doing that you're probably not doing. I know I'm guilty of that. Yeah. But I was reading about the how to maintain fitness. And Paula, what you said was pretty much spot on.

doing some kind of intensity and some kind of and like 30 to 45 minutes I think is a good amount of time or like even an hour's good amount of time to do once or twice a week it can go such a long way to stave off that fitness loss versus taking three months actually 100% off that will really you'll really lose so much fitness because if you do nothing if you do nothing yeah your body is like to build up all this fitness it requires a lot of resources from our body

so when you're not using it your body's like okay great get rid of that we don't need it, right? That's just burning calories for no reason. Yeah. So you have to kind of remind the body like, nope, this is important. We need this. See? Yeah. This sucks. It's almost like a physiological like fire switch, you know, like remind your body that you're still an athlete, you're still working hard. You're getting your heart right up. You're sweating. And honestly, after workouts like that, you'll probably feel good too, like all the endorphins and you'll be a better dad for your fourth kid. Or fourth parakeet. Whatever your fourth thing is. But I would also say this might be unpopular opinion, but if your time constraint, ditch swimming for three months.

Because it's such a time suck to go to the pool. Say no more, Paula. Say no more. Nick's about playing his fourth. I'll have four kids just abandoned swimming. Don't worry. Like really, though, if you're in a time crunch, the trainer is your best friend. Running is your best friend and simple home gym setups.

Those are my three tips. Yeah, stuff that you don't have to drive. That's not a production each time. Yeah, you're not getting dressed to bike ride and spending 10 minutes getting to a good road. You're just on and off. Love that. Yep. Great.

Well, Mark, good luck with the fourth, whatever it is. May the fourth be with you? Exactly. Next question is from Jody. Hi, guys. Love the Pod. When I was listening to a recent episode of Nick doing his race recap of Mal, who he mentioned he probably should have warmed up before his race.

I've noticed that I need to warm up before races ever since I hit my mid-30s. But warming up for a triathlon is logistically difficult. If you get too warm, you can't get your wetsuit on. Oh boy, that's true. If you leave too much time to put on your wetsuit, you're no longer warm. If you warm up in your running shoes, then you don't have shoes in transition anymore. So my question is, how do you manage the logistics of a warm-up in triathlon? Can't wait to hear your thoughts.

Thanks, Jody. You can do a bag drop before the swim start So I would always keep running shoes on Until you have to actually drop that bag off And have two pairs of running shoes Have a race pair and a training pair That should just be what most people do anyway And you can actually jog a little bit in your wetsuit

Like put the legs on Run around in that if you're worried about getting it on while sweaty I don't know Yeah I do a bit of a run warm up before 70.3s, but not enough to get a real sweat on. It's often cold. It's not sunny yet. Yeah, like 10 or 15 minutes of like pretty low intensity, more like muscle activation versus like I need to get into the energy systems

and then do the like energy system type of thing more in the water with the wetsuit. Well, I don't think that they're getting a swim warm up most of the time. And then what I was going to say, if that's the case, then I do some sprints up and down the beach in my, a wet suit. Ironman races are kind of the one standout here because at most local races, it seems like you can warm up in the water and if not, you can run along the beach or whatever. But at Iron Man races, sometimes you're in that shoot to get in the water for like 40 minutes. Yeah.

You know, it's so backed up and you can't even get down and do push-ups. Yeah. I think in that case, like get some personal space and do arm swings, do jumping jacks, do push-ups if you can or like planks, anything that'll activate you a little bit. You don't have to be like sweating necessarily, but anything that'll kind of get your heart right up, activate your muscles, and then if you can't warm up, don't panic. It's a long day. Yeah, like back when we used to do swim team, when we did swim meets and stuff, you would, like best case scenario, you'd get out of the warm up pool and have like 15 minutes of sitting on the deck swinging your arms around, waiting until you actually dove into the water for a

maximum effort. Right. You know, three minute, two minute event. So, And we were fine, but you go through a little bit of swim warm up, and then you have 15-minute break. So it's not like you need to be actively drenched and sweat when you dive into the water to have the same, you know, just to like feel okay swimming at the beginning. I think even if you're in transition next to your bike, you could do some jumping jack, something like that. Some like, high knees. Yeah, high knees. Lunges. Yeah, I used to like try to warm up so perfectly.

And then I look over and like, Alistair Brownlee's just sitting there listening to music right before we dive into the. water at WTS race. I'm like, what am I doing? Yeah. Running around like an idiot. Right. Save all your energy. Save your energy, Jody. Just listen to music. I've worked for Alistair Brownlee. He's won two gold medals. Next question here. Hello from Texas. Love the podcast and all the vibes you bring to the sport. I have a question about minor injuries. Obviously, if something is debilitating, you rest as needed. How do you all approach niggles? For example, periodically, my foot arch

gets painful or as I'm sitting here typing on my kicker, my knee is tight and bugging me. Typically, I train through stuff, but it feels like there's always something going on. I am good about PT, stretching, strength, et cetera. With 15 to 17 hours of training per week, should I just expect to have little pains all the time? Is this normal? Yes. That's certainly normal for us.

Same. Yeah, there's always a thing. And you get to learn it and you know it and you know if it goes away when you run or warm up and it goes away. Sometimes swimming makes it go away, like loosening up in a swim and then going for a run. I don't know. It's not unusual for us to have things that are bugging us. Something that you said once, Paula, on the podcast that I

liked, is that if something hurts during an exercise, you know, make note of it. Then if it hurts the next time you do exercise again at the same intensity or more, that's something to be careful of and maybe stop or start thinking about should I be getting help for this, should I be, what can I do? You know, I like that. And I kind of use that advice now. But yeah, I can't think of a single session where I'm like, oh, yeah, nothing at any point

felt like slightly off. There's always something. It's always my right biceps femurus tendon or my soleus in my left leg or shoulder or something swimming or whatever. Yeah, if something's bad, sometimes I'll take like a. dosage of anti-inflammatories. Not that we're doctors and not that we should be prescribing drugs, but sometimes that will just be enough to kick it in the pants and it won't come back if I do like kind of an intensive dose for a couple days, but not long-term. This is just

this is assuming your major race or your block is like close to ending and this is like an extremely important time window. If there's a race coming up. Don't be cramming anti-inflammatories is like January second. Yeah, that's true. Time of the year dependent. And only if it's, obviously, if it's a stress fracture or something, that's not going to help. And in fact, that'll delay the healing a lot of the time if you're taking Advil and anti-inflammatories. So I don't know, maybe our advice is not the best, but that's often what I do. And then ice it, massage it, one day off running is better than five weeks off running later. I think it's nice to know that even professionals with your amazing, and your amazing, optimise it. bodies, you still have these things where things hurt. And I would say maybe even more so because you're doing more volume. You know, 15 to 17 hours a week is actually quite a lot.

And it still pales in comparison to what you guys do. Yeah, well, I mean, at the end of the day, we're all trying to push the limit just a little bit to get just a little bit better. So we're no different. Maybe for amateur athletes that have jobs where you're sitting a lot, it could actually be worse than for us because. Interesting. Yeah, maybe we're training a little bit more hours and not a ton more than 17 hours.

a lot, but you could just be more time crunched in terms of looking after your body and rolling and getting ready to run versus like getting out of your desk and running out the door for your run workout without properly prepping your body because you have a job. I think also a big part of that is that people who have regular jobs cannot, sometimes they do not have control over how much they sleep. They just have a certain amount of hours in the day so they have to sleep less that which of course is less time to recover those nickels. As professional athletes, you know how important sleep is, and both of you do sleep quite a lot.

And you give your sleep a lot of importance. Yeah, that's true. Next question here is from Lauren. Hi, Paula, Eric and Nick. Last week on the podcast, Eric Opined, is that like the verb of opinioned? You ever heard that? Never heard of it. O-P-I-N-E-D?

Ding. Very nice, Paula. I was going to take that out of the podcast, but I might keep that in there. That's a good word If that's what that is, the act of giving one's an opinion. O'Pine, to hold and state one's opinion.

Yeah, it is a word. Wow. Is this Einstein writing it? Don't tell us that you didn't learn anything on the TTR podcast this week because we taught you the word opined. I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, but here we go.

Eric O'Pine, that age groupers may start interval training too early and would benefit from more base training. I'm new to triathlon training since June with a sprint and an Olympic completed so far. And training for the L.A. Marathon in March, then Santa Cruz 70.3 in September, 2024. Should I just focus on base and volume training rather than intervals?

Does it vary by sport? Where intervals may be good for a swim or bike, but not for running until I reach a certain fitness level. I don't have a background in any of the three sports. So I'm starting from scratch here. Thanks for elaborating, if you can, loving the community you all have built and appreciate what you all have done to make triathlon feel like a fun and welcoming sport. Thanks, Lauren.

First of all, congratulations for all of this, and I hope you have a lot of fun at L.A. Marathon. I've done it twice, both with large emotional highs and lows. Eric, this one's for you. There's some sort of a ratio that is like if you're doing 20 hours a week of training, you're going to want to do at least 14 hours a week of base training. I don't know exactly what that ratio is, but I feel like that's the takeaway of like it's not like you need to wait forever

to even start an interval workout. is just getting that ratio right with how many hours you have to work with. I'll tell you how this relates to me. When I first started training, when I saw stuff on my schedule that was from like a pre-made training plan, which was presumably appropriately laid out as far as easy stuff, hard stuff. I would skip the long, easy stuff and just do the interval sessions because I thought, okay, I'm playing a lot of volleyball, and I also just, that sounds boring. and I don't need to do the long, easy stuff.

I want to do the hard stuff. That's what's going to make me faster. I was under the wrong impression that doing those hard, fast intervals was what was going to move the needle the most. Right. And I think really physiologically what I needed was probably to do exactly the balance

of what the plan had. Right. Age Rupers hearing like, hey, that long, easy stuff, I know it doesn't feel that hard and it takes a lot of time, but it's very beneficial if you're trying to build your fitness well.

I needed to hear that back in the day and I didn't really figure it out. Yeah, that helps with your efficiency and just your metabolic ability to create energy and all that good stuff. I think it's just getting those ratios appropriate and like you said, don't just skip that longer stuff

because it takes a lot of time. Figure out a way to enjoy that. That is my favorite thing. Oh, I got a four-hour bike ride. I'm going to go on all new roads. Find a way to enjoy that stuff and just get the ratio right of the amount. amount of base work to high intensity fun work.

Oh, and also, I'm thinking of just like how other ways this could implement. At no point, if I have an interval session, and if it's like five times five minutes, I'm not like, I'm going to do six times five minutes. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm never doing an extra interval. But if it's a two-hour ride, I'll push it to a three-hour ride because I'm like, okay, it's not that hard and I can do more and more volume is good. But I think at the beginning, I would have done the opposite.

I'd be like, give me more intervals, and I'm going to, cut the long thing short. Yeah, totally depends on your personality. I think Paul is a little bit more like that. If we've got a two-hour trainer ride, she's always pulling up Grant Thomas's hour of power or something and dumbing it down slightly. Like you talked about last week,

just like having fun little things in there. So like that could be a thing too. If you struggle to get the base training in, make up some random stuff to do in the middle of it, whether it's like going and getting a maple bar one town over or like, I'm going to do 10 by one minute at a little bit harder, break it up, enjoy it that way.

Just, you know, don't go ham. Can we plug bakery? Is that what it was? That had the giant maple bar you were telling me about? Dude, you have no idea how big this was. We don't plug bakeries on this pod because we don't want them to get busier.

Oh, sorry, sorry. So I'll bleep out bakery. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, we keep those things to ourselves. Secrets, yeah. But yeah, this maple bar was the size of an iPad Medmini.

Next question here is from David. Hey, Squad, I've got a question about wetsuit lifespans. These next two questions are actually about wetsuits. Oh, wow. I just bought my first wetsuit. It was an exciting slash panicking purchase before my first full Ironman next month. It was a little more than I wanted to pay, but it went on sale and I was excited because it was Kona Week.

We know how it is. We all get wrapped up in Kona. Yeah. And now I own a wetsuit. Congratulations, David. on a brand new wetsuit. I justified it to myself saying, this is an investment that I'll be able to use for a long time,

so I'll get my money out of it. Then when it arrived, the instructions had a nice little note that said, it's not uncommon for athletes to replace their wetsuits every season, and we'd recommend using this suit for no more than two calendar years. I was dumbfounded. People buy a new wetsuit every year? That seems crazy, but I also don't know anything. How long can I expect a mid-level wetsuit to last?

If it's a relevant, it's a Roca Maverick Pro 2, and I enjoy busting my ass in 70.3s, but I'm way more focused on my personal times and experience than trying to place or win. Love the pod and all that you've done to help foster a community of triathletes who are all in on cheering for each other. It's a great reminder that even though most of my training

is done alone, I'm part of a way bigger thing. David. I love that. That's awesome. That's a well-written question. Yeah. David, you're a writer? Are you a writer, David?

We love it. Take note. It was funny. I would say that you can use your wetsuit for more than two years, for sure. Yep. And a lot of this comes down to how often you wear it. If you're the kind of person that lives near a river or lives near a lake and you're wearing it three times a week to practice in and then racing in it, yeah, it'll wear out quicker. But if you're mostly swimming in a pool, wearing it for a pre-race swim, and then racing in it twice or three times or four times a year,

year, it'll last, I would say, five years. I don't think the technology has changed in wetsuits. Maybe it'll be a factor of you get a hole in it eventually from fingernails or it degrades a little bit over time with the sun hitting it and all that. But obviously, wetsuit companies are going to tell you to buy more frequently, but you shouldn't need to if you take good care of it. A way to maybe preserve it is to dry it indoors. So it's not like baking in the sun. You can wear like gloves to put it on if you want to avoid piercing it with fingernails. We don't do that, but it could be an extra precaution.

And then try not to swim in pools with it, which like chlorine could probably be not great for it. If you do swim in a pool or like rinse it out in the shower immediately afterwards, inside and out. And yeah, dry it with the outside out and the inside out just to like get it all out. out of there. But that wet suit that you bought is a really, really good wet suit and it should last a long time. That's the wetsuit I have. That's the wetsuit I have. How many years have you had it, Nick? Well, I bought the first, probably about six years, something like that.

Yeah, that's a lot. To me, it just feels a little bit like stiffer now. Yeah. Feels a lot less pliable, but it's actually, I've been very careful about the fingernails thing. Like when you're pulling it on, David, make sure you're not like grabbing it with your fingernails. You're grabbing it with the pads of your fingers like, Paul is saying, because that's what kind of makes those piercing things. And then I wash it in the shower

with me after every single time I use it, even if it's not chlorine. So like saltwater or like I wash it in the shower with me. That's a good idea. For sure, don't dry it in the sun. I dry it indoors. I think it could lose some of its like super, super fast coating in that feeling. So a new wetsuit will be faster. But if you're not trying to win your age group or something, it's totally, totally fine. And I think the difference between that coating and not that coating is going to be like maximum one second per hundred. It's not a crazy amount. Not relevant.

And I mean, if this is your first wetsuit purchase, your times are going to be. You're going to feel amazing. So fast now. So, yeah, congratulations. And even if you do, when I got a hole in, I forget if it was this one or my last one, I bought kind of that like wetsuit repair. Yeah, the putty. Yeah, the putty.

And it totally worked. It's not the most beautiful looking thing, but it totally worked. And by the way, David, if you do get holes in your wetsuit, it's not the end of the world. People swim with holes in their wetsuit. You get a little water ingress there. It slows you down a little bit, but you can still use the wetsuit. Yeah, but they do have that repair putty that you can. Yeah, I use that.

It was great. Yeah. Cool. Well, congratulations on your new purchase, David, by the way. And our last question here is from Matt. Another wetsuit question. Hi, T, T, my question is regarding stripping out of a wetsuit in T1. I race almost exclusively 70.3, and there's rarely voluntary voluntary.

volunteer wetsuit strippers to help when coming out of the water. I love my new Fjord 3.0, which is a Dibor suit, and it fits perfectly, except I'm having a hard time stomping out of my wetsuit in T1, and it's costing me the precious time that is otherwise saved from the faster swim in the better suit. I've raced two 70.3s in it and had the same issue each time. It's so stiff around the ankles I have to sit down in T1 and dig my fingers around and into the bottom to get over my heels and feet. When I'm coming out of the water, heart pounding, breathing heavy, and a bit disoriented, this even intensifies the situation and adds to the frustration. I've heard suggestions of cutting a small slit down the sides of the ankles, but that seems pretty risky to do on a $1,500 new wetsuit.

Is this a common issue with newer stiff suits that just need to be broken in? Is there any tips or tricks to loosen up the bottom ankles of the suit? My old suit that I replaced that's now falling apart was almost about 30 seconds faster in T1. I appreciate any of feedback from that. Interesting. Very real issue. Yeah, we have a similar, it's a fast suit, but it's hard to get off. That's just how it is.

It's a bit thicker, especially around the waistband. Like, I have a really hard time getting it over my waist. But in terms of ankle ease of removal, I would say cutting a slit is a bad idea, but you can't actually cut it shorter. So take like three inches off the bottom. And that is totally fine for it. and they'll slip out a lot easier. I do that with all of my wetsuits.

Yep. So, you know what I'm saying? Cut off the end of the macaroni. You're not making a slit as if you have like slits going up. It's like perpendicular to the ground that you're cutting. And a lot of the times what you should end up with a circle, a donut. Yeah, a little donut from the bottom. The super tightest part comes off.

And a lot of the times wet seats will have reinforcements on the seams, anticipating that people will cut the legs a little bit. It won't affect the speed of it in the water or its warmth properties, but it will probably get you back that 30 seconds where you're sitting on the ground to get it off. Worth it. Yeah. Another tip, which you probably are already doing, is like that wetsuit glide spray. Load that up on your ankles.

The body glide. I don't know. You mean? Body glide or... There's like tri-slide. Try slide. I don't know what it is. It's like a Jackie Herring always has it before the start and I was at.

to borrow it, but it's, it is an aerosol type thing. And it's essentially like baby oil, but maybe better for your wetsuit. And that really helps it slide off. So I'll put that on my wrists and on my ankles and everywhere that I have trouble sliding. It's like Pam cooking spray for your body. It's like Pam. We've said this before, but for maybe new listeners, a lot of people have the instinct to put Vaseline on them, but Vaseline is not good for your wetsuit. So something like Bodyglide or maybe this try slide sounds like it's designed specifically to be used with a wetsuit. So focus on those specific products and they're not expensive at all. So they're anyone going to afford them.

I'm pretty sure that exists. I feel like I've seen that. Try slide. And if it's not. Look it up. Try slide copyright right now. You heard it here on the TTL podcast. We're coming out with it.

TTR branded try slide. Yeah. I understand the fear of cutting a suit that you just spent so much money on. Of course. But it is more normal than not. to cut the legs. Yeah. I promise you.

Do you think what percentage of pros cut the legs? 100. Close to. Wow. Yeah. It works for you guys. I definitely try to get off the suit like three times at least before cutting it. Just because if you can keep it on there, then you are slightly more buoyant and then revert to.

Yeah, but it's like you said, this loss in transition of sitting down and getting it over your ankles. It is not worth that frustration. And it's very different to do it when you're in a race and you're already tired and flustered. Yeah. This is another tip, the day before the race, when you're practicing in it. Or take it to the pool before your race and practice every time you get out of that wetsuit, it's a race. Make it a race. So never take your wetsuit off casually.

There's no point. Do it intentionally practicing removal of it. So that'll tell you if you've cut enough off or. Just like practice makes perfect. So don't ever do a leisurely wet suit exit. Yeah. We also do it after our 50 hard 200 mid-race pace set. So that like we get out of the water and you've got that fluster.

You're breathing hard and you get the realistic. So out of breath. Feels weird standing up, kind of dizzy and trying to strip the thing off quickly. It's really good real life practice. I've seen you guys do this multiple times. So I can confirm they actually do it. Yeah. And sometimes it's a.

fail and everyone's watching you and it's embarrassing, but sometimes you'll get better than in the race. You'll get better and better at it. You know what I just thought? It also, if you cut off a little bit of the ankle, it probably helps dealing with the ankle, the race sensor. The sensor you put around your ankle in a race too. The timing chip. The timing chip. It's less likely to get caught up in that.

Totally just depends on how high that ankle chip is. It's like, that's the eternal question. Do you put the ankle chip below the wetsuit entirely? Just get it just barely underneath the wetsuit. is like wear it real high? I put it below the wetsuit. Totally out in the open. Yeah.

Yeah. But I do think that that is slow. Actually, before the Collins Cup. I try to put it just underneath. One of the other athletes that I highly respect was putting electrical tape around the timing chip to make it more streamline. I can feel. I can totally feel it. I can too.

I can't do. I can't do. But swim especially, it feels like you just got a freaking floppy garbage bag hanging around your ankle. Yeah. Wow. Perable feeling. Or like wearing a watch in the pool. It feels like that.

Andy, we were in the pool swimming in Ben and Andy, who's a TTL development team athlete and also a friend of ours, he was swimming and he saw me with the watch. And he goes, Nick, don't you feel like he's very earnest? He was like, don't you feel like the watch kind of slows you down in the water? I'm like, oh, Andy, that doesn't even crack the top 10 things. slow me down in the water. The watch is not even close. Have you seen me swim? Nick, I am holding strong to the opinion that if you just use the pace

clock and didn't touch and start it and stop it, every time you didn't interval, you swim faster. Maybe. But I think it affects my enjoyment too much. I like playing around with the watch. It makes the swimming more bearable. If it

gets you in the water. Yeah, that's a factor. That's a factor for sure. Well, those are all our questions for this week. We're all little tired. We're all a little chill mode. Chalax mode. The funniest thing that Nick sent me ever, Nick and me send each other memes all day while we're working hard. Yeah, working hard. Brain, eat that entire pizza. Stomach, please don't. Me, eats pizza. Stomach, I hurt so much. Me, I feel sick. Brain, eat that dessert. Me, okay, stomach. Oh my God. Exactly. Exactly.

I cannot believe this is happening. Do not do this to me, please. I beg you. Oh my God, it's coming. So accurate. I laughed really hard at that. So accurate. Okay.

What are we doing this week? This week we're training. I'm trying to hang on. I took an hour nap today after sleeping nine hours last night. And I did an easy swim in an easy bike. So I think it'll be a bit more of that. Okay, cool. So we got our last hard week of Cabo camp and then we're tapering for Cabo and then we're doing Cabo.

Yeah. And our coach is going to be here this week. Ooh, Palo. Yeah, Palo. Palo. Yeah, Paul. Come into bed. That's all we got, folks.

We'll talk to you next week. Ciao.