That Triathlon Life Podcast - Treadmills for triathlon training, fixing disc break squeaking, relationships and triathlon, and more!

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

This week we are back to the three of us talking triathlon. We spent the episode answering your questions. Questions about pedal tightness, fancy treadmills, passion in triathlon, and more! To submit your own questions, as well as become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com

Hello everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Loggerstown. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our triathlon podcast where we take your questions, try to answer them to the best of our ability, with our professional triathlet opinion and Nick's amateur triathlet opinion. Eric and I are both pro triathletes. Nick is an amateur triathlet, professional musician, master of sound. And I usually don't start the pod. So I think the fact that I took the reins and started the pod means that. that I'm in a good mood for this pod. I'm into it. That was a great intro. Master of Sound. Paul, I feel like you've been in a good mood for the last several weeks. Am I wrong?

Is it off-season magic? I'm always in a good mood most of the year, Nick. Eric didn't even try to contain himself on that one. Can you bleep my... Your laugh? Yeah, it does help to not have like hard sessions and just like an active amount of training that makes you feel happy. but not exhausted.

That definitely helps. Choose your own adventure at 50%. Yeah, yeah. It's been a good, we're actually back on a schedule this week, so we've took four weeks fairly chill, and Eric and Paolo were like giving me shit for not taking the days easy enough,

or like the rest off enough, quote unquote. But then I got my Strava monthly recap, which I is accurate because I put everything on Strava except swimming. Right. And I did significantly less hours of training, although my active days were 28 days. So Eric's thinking like, oh, well, you weren't actually resting. You were still active, like, pretty much every day. But they were easy workouts.

But you feel vindicated. Yeah, I was shocked, actually, how much less hours I did this month than October. I think this is a great example of how you can use data to say anything that you wanted to say. Like, I look at this and I'm like 28 active days out of 30 on. off season. Quote unquote. And Paula's like, oh, look, it says that I only did 27 hours of activity instead of my normal 67. So, yeah, you can use it however you want.

So I was down 31 hours from last month. I was down 700 kilometers from last month. And I was down 7,000 meters of climbing from last month. 7,000 meters of climbing. Yeah. I would call this down season. Not off. Yeah, because when my.

we're doing like three, four hour rides, we'll climb like one or two thousand meters, you know. I think ultimately what we did is that we did things as they sounded fun. We didn't hold back from a bike ride this afternoon because it's a beautiful sunshine and we're in Tafino. Sounds nice when we did that, you know, versus for me from my perspective, since I had a little mountain bike crash in the whole situation, I was less exhausted this off season than I have been in the past and I was kind of up for these activities. Whereas in previous years, I was so flattened that sitting on the couch sounded fantastic. And I think that's kind of the takeaway here is like we listen to our bodies.

We listened to our hearts and we kind of went with what sounded good. And right now we both feel as though like we could take on a new schedule. Speaking of rest, do we want to start with that? With our little experiment? Yeah. Okay, let's start with that. Let's start with that. So weeks, even months ago now, we tease this idea of doing a little sleep week.

that Eric and I would do. Paula, by the way, are you interested in joining us on this? You might as well. Yeah, I mean, I do the same things as Eric, so I might as well. But the problem is I don't have any device on my fingers or toes or wrists that measures my sleep quality. We replaced her aura ring with a more special ring? I don't know. I just felt like when I looked at my aura ring data, it was like, oh, you slept like shit, you slept so little hours.

And then I would just get worried about it. And mentally it affected me. So I just sleep when I sleep. I feel pretty good in the day. And that's enough guidance for me. I don't need to see the metrics. But that is the minority. I know most people have all the gadgets that tell them how their sleep is, and including you too.

So I think the cool thing about sleep, because you can compare your normal data to this week where you're elevating your effort to sleep well. Yes. Maximum effort into sleeping well. So I'll participate in all the things Eric's doing to better his sleep, but I won't be able to know if it's actually improving my sleep. Well, you just go like chime in anecdotally. I feel great. Yes, that's what I think. That's what I think.

I think that's, I mean, one of the things I was reading as I was doing some research on what parameters to set was one of them was to not really trust devices that measure sleep. Not give them too much trust. Okay. Which is interesting because that's what we're going to now use to kind of try to measure it in some way. But I think there's some truth to that. Like I see the way my parents talk about their sleep. It's like, oh, I only got 35 minutes of deep sleep. last night. And in my head, I'm like, is your watch

really able to measure when you're in deep sleep versus REM? Like, I'm sure... Yeah, what if your arm was like on behind your head and like cutting off blood flow and whatever. Right. There's so many different things that could affect that. But maybe in a more broad sense over spans of time, like a week, it is accurate enough to be able to at least

make a trend out of it. So, Nick, please give a brief debrief of how we'll conduct this study amongst you two. and all of the listeners who want to participate. This is like mission brief. This is not a debrief. This is up brief. Yes, this is up brief.

This is up brief. It's just called a brief, I believe. Yeah. Okay, so everyone who's listening, we would love for you to partake in this with us. Starting on, do we want to say starting on Thursday? Tomorrow. When the pod drops.

When the pod drops. That's when most people listen. We get about half of our weekly listens on Thursday. So if you're listening to this on Friday or Saturday or Sunday, you just start then and do a week from then. But on Thursday, these are the parameters. First of all, and this is probably going to be the hardest one for most people, including myself, I want like a locked in go to sleep and wake up time. So I don't wake up with an alarm and I go to sleep at various different times. So that means like maybe we say, you know, you can set your own.

But for me, it might be 10 o'clock in bed, 10.30 lights out, eyes closed. Something like that. And those 30 minutes, Nick, no phone. That's the second thing. The second thing is no screens 30 minutes before bed, which is going to be a challenge for Paul and I were talking about this beforehand. I am on my phone until two seconds before I go to sleep. There is no buffer at all.

It's immediate sleep. Okay, so locked in sleep wake times. No screens 30 minutes before bed. Next one is no caffeine six hours before bed, which I don't think any of us do so far, right? Contrary to popular belief, Paul and I are not addicted to espresso, and we will have no problem not having it six hours before bed. Right, right. Okay, next one might be hard for some people. No alcohol all week.

Let's do a week without alcohol people. You can do it. Next one is no drugs, and that includes marijuana for all the. places where it's legal and where it's not. All the awesome states. All the sex states. I think it's legal in Canada too. Yeah, it is.

We have many listeners. I'm sure some of them partake in marijuana consumption. And I'm sure a lot of people use it as a sleep aid. The things I was reading is that it's not conclusively better for your sleep the way that people like to believe. It might be anecdotally, but the research is, not conclusive yet. Next thing is no melatonin. So there's no performance enhancing sleep drugs as well we're getting at.

Well, we're going to get to that later. Not sure all. There are a couple of performance enhancing sleep drugs that we will be using, okay, but they're not quite drugs, but it's just like supplements. The bed is not allowed to be used for anything other than sleep.

So no naps during the day. Get your mind out of the gutter, Paul. I've instantly thought of naps. No, so I don't know That's allowed to be an exception. Well, we won't go into that. But no naps, no like laying on there, working on your computer, nothing like that. It's made, just for this week, sleep alone. You know, you can get creative with the other things. If you want to be ideal. If you want to be ideal. Yes, if you want to be ideal. If you're taking this seriously. And then finally,

try to avoid naps, but if you do take them, they've got to be under 30 minutes, okay? Which is hard for me, because sometimes I'll take an hour, hour and a half nap, which is insane to some people to hear, but I just need it sometimes. So those are all the parameters here. I think I'll post these on, should we post these on the TTL story? You want me to put it on my story tomorrow so people can kind of like screenshot it if they need to? I mean, if you can put it together, we can put it on the TTL story and...

Okay, that's what we'll do. I already have it here in both places. And then we're talking about the Instagram, that Triathlon Life Instagram account here. And then Eric and I are going to be doing pillar performance makes something called triple magnesium and it's supposed to aid in muscle recovery and sleep quality. So we're going to be taking that every night. It's something I kind of already was doing. Eric, do you consistently do that?

I dip in and out of having this as a habit. But when I'm on it and when I'm training hard and I really, really care, then I do it. Yeah. Same. And then Athletic Green's first thing in the morning. I don't think these are a huge deal breakers, but I will be doing those things. And everyone else can kind of experiment with their stuff as well, but I feel like it would be fun. As a family here, we stuck to those first things we talked about. Yeah. I mean, to me,

like the pillar performance in the athletic greens, like those are like routine things. And this whole thing with sleep is like a routine concept and having regularity and everything. And the more you can reinforce that, the better. Makes me think of my grandma who's 100 years old and still very healthy. She, you know, she doesn't do anything that. She's not like a health person at all. But the one thing I will say about her that really worked for her, in my opinion, is she always eats at the same time every day. And she always goes to sleep at the same time every day. And she always wakes up at the same time every day. And she's probably not sitting on Instagram. She's not doing that. No. She solves the crossword every day. Yeah, that's probably good as well. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. That's that's sleep week. So in a week, we're going to do a poll and see how people did if they feel like they did better. So we're also going to D.

brief. We're going to finally really hard. Yeah. By the way, there was a question that where I didn't end up including on the pod, but that I thought was really good. Related to sleep. I have a question about a top female pro triathlete. Did Paula Finley yawn three times during the last podcast and was the biggest and loudest

one with the boys started talking cameras. I was listening while training and yawns are contagious. Thanks for a great show. I mean, I don't even have to go back and look at the data to say yeah. The loudest yawn would be during cameras. Well, I mean, you guys, we will record this part in the evening. Sure, sure.

The yawning is not really out of boredom. And actually, I have my own camera now. Eric bought me a new camera this week. So I earned it through taking good iPhone photos. You notice that my framing and my eye was good for pictures. So I got the same camera that Lindsay Corbyn has. It's like kind of a fun, easy to use, but takes really good pictures.

I'm not going to tell you guys which one it is. Because one, I don't know. proprietary information. Because one I don't know. That's the real reason. Classified. I don't know what camera it is. It doesn't even matter to me.

But it's cool. It's nice. It looks cool. And it takes super cool pictures. So I'm excited to get to learn it better and like learn about all the numbers and not just use it on auto all the time. It's a vibe. Yeah.

So although it may appear I am bored by cameras, I actually am not. board by video cameras. I'm bored by drones. Yeah. Just because I think like the number of drones you need is one, not five. It's definitely N plus one. No, it's just one. Just like bikes.

It's the same as bikes. It's actually to relate it to something you understand, it's skis. drones are like skis. They have different purposes. Okay. They do different things. I guess right before we jump into questions, I will make one last ditch thing of like when this comes out, you will have what we have like 24 hours left to order a TTL kit for 2024.

And if you want to race in a TTL kit or represent TTL nation at the races, make friends instantly, this is your chance. And all the proceeds that we make from that go towards supporting the TTL development team, which is a group of young athletes that we're in the process of selecting right now for 2024. We've got a lot of great applications. And this is our favorite thing that we do all year. It's very close to our hearts, and it's a way that we give back. So if you want to be part of that, you go to thattrathelonLife.com, and you will see very easily how you can be a part of that.

It's on the homepage. Order a tech tea, do anything like that is going for a good cause and something we're psyched to do. So that's that, and we can do questions now. I ordered mine. I'll be racing that next year. FedEx, God's willing. Which one did you get, as if I don't know?

I mean, it's the cream dream. of course. I absolutely love that color way. When I first saw it, it was like electrifying in my whole body. Yeah, you're the reason that that came to be. I sent five or six screenshots of different things that I was mocking up and that was the one.

Yeah, I just love that one. I didn't even realize, but it's very oilers vibes. Eminton Oilers? Well, that's their colors is like orange and blue and cream and it was not our intention when we orange-ish. Made it, but it's retro-oilers vibes. Yeah. Okay, so

also, we're going to get into questions here. I also, I thought it would be fun to ask our listeners a question this week. And it's going to be on Spotify. You can, if you listen on Spotify, you can answer the poll here. And my question is going to be, how many triathlons have you done if you listen to this podcast? And there's going to be ranges. But I'm curious to hear how many people that listen to this podcast have never actually participated in a officially organized triathlon.

because I think it might be more than we expect. Very interesting. Can't wait. Results next week. Yeah, we'll see. Results next week. Anyway, on to questions, and you can submit your own questions

at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And you can also become a podcast supporter there. As you've noticed, we do not do ad reads on this podcast. So all of our support comes from the podcast listeners through their monthly support. Thank you so much to the monthly supporters who are already supporting us. First thing we're going to do with some bike tech with Eric. Bike tech with Eric.

And Eric, we have three. So you're going to have to be efficient with your answers here. All right. Hit me. First one is from Jason. I've been traveling for races and find taking the pedals off to pack the bike a difficult task. Any tips or recommended tools, Jason. Jason, don't tie it on like a silverback gorilla.

Yeah, that's the main tip. I definitely push the limit with how loose that I put on our pedals, but we've never had one spinoff, and the way that they are threaded, by the act of you peddling the bike, should tighten the pedals. So they don't need to be crazy tight, whatever, you know,

if you want to put a Newton meter, a torque wrench on there and everything, like go for it. But that would be tip number one. And then if you have speed play pedals, I think you'll probably need an actual pedal wrench, otherwise all other speed, all other,

pedals, I think you can use a, I think it's like an 8mm. Yeah. Allen wrench. I just keep those in there. And I just remember like, basically you're always going to be wanting to spin the wrench backwards. Back off. That's how I remember that.

Back off. So on the right side, you're spinning it backwards. And on the left side, you're also spinning it backwards, which is, you know, the left side's reverse threaded. The right side is correctly threaded. Yeah. It's funny how we all have our. ways to remember it. To me, it's like

the drive side is threaded normally and then the non-drive side is threaded reverse. But apparently that does not help a lot of people when I tell that they're like even more confused. If back off makes sense to you, then roll with that. But there's really no mystical signs

to this, just having the right tool for the job. Anecdotally, I just want to, I don't know if you guys remember this at Cabo when I did not bring a pedal wrench and I hand-tightened my speed play pedals on my cranks and they're smooth cylinders so they're extremely hard to get any kind of grip on and rode on them and they were perfectly fine yeah i would not advise this of course not of course

not but just to in a mexican pinch right it will work it's it's my point is not to hand tighten your pedals which is obviously dumb but my point is when eric saying he puts very little torque on them and they are fine this supports that theory yeah and they were they and they were not loose when I had to take them off. They had tightened. They tightened themselves a bit. So, Nick, here's the real question. Mentally just be like, that's pretty tight.

Not like, wow, that's tight. Nick, did you take them off with your bare hands as well? No, I could not. Oh, okay. Boom. There we go. Could not take them off. Leave your pedal ranch at home, ladies and gentlemen.

That's interesting, dude. That's interesting, dude. So what are the brands where you can't use the Allen key? It's just speed play. Just speed play. Oh my gosh. That'll be a deal breaker for me. Yeah, my time pedals or Shimano pedals, obviously. No problem. Yeah. Yeah. Next, next question. Next question here. Hello, TTL humans. Oh, this is from the point of view of a dog, by the way. Bike tech question for Eric. My owner is insisting on spending my dog treat money on his bike toys.

Now he is looking at getting a wax chain setup. Are the benefits worth the cost and have you been using them for a while? or is he wasting his money on what he should be spending on my treats? Before I start chewing up his pillows and protests, I wanted to ask you first, sincerely, May the Viesla. So I did some research on this, but curious, Eric, like your top of mind thoughts. Here's the thing. Your human cares about you way more than you think, and they're probably thinking about you while you're asleep,

and they're at their job all day long. So just keep that in mind. And if there's an opportunity that your human has to do a thing that will make them happier in their life, support that May, the Viesla. Wow. That's deep. But wax chains. This is kind of like a thing where it's, it kind of depends on your human and how much they care about every last thing that they do, right? It's not a huge difference,

but it is a thing. And if you add that up with like getting a little bit nicer wheel set and you're getting the arrow helmet and all these other things, then yeah, you get like three watts here and five watts there and seven watts there. And ultimately that could end up being 10 minutes over the course of your humans, Iron Man. So we are now doing, we're not doing the full, like, dip the chain in the crock pot full of wax situation. Paul and I at this point in time, I'm going to experiment without over the off the use. But what we are doing, cleaning the chains with an ultrasonic cleaner, getting them like mirror shine, and then using a high quality wax lube on the chains. This is like a loo where you want to like drop a loop, a drop on every

single link and then let it dry and for at least like 10 or 15 minutes before you were to ride it. So it's kind of, it's like 90% of the way to a wax chain. Right. With not quite as much work. It seems like it's a, when I think about it from a zoomed out point of view, I'm like, if you're getting a wax chain, I would hope that you have optimized everything else. Your fitness is super dialed. Your bike is super dialed. Everything is nice and clean. It's definitely not one of those first things that you would check off a list, it's one of like the last things that I would check off a list personally. Unless you're just a techie person and that stuff is fun to you. Exactly. If that sounds fun and you've got the time to do it, then yeah, heck yeah, go for it.

And that will make up for a couple of watts that you lost because you've got a kid or a dog and you had to take the dog for a walk and you couldn't optimize your training, whatever. Like, it's fun and it's cool to hang out in the garage. I like it. So that's why we do it. And if you do it like consistently, your drive train is really. clean. That's a nice, some people like that advantage of it. It is irrefutably better, but you just got to decide if three to five watts is enough for you to

spend that hour and a half in the garage doing the process. And I feel like the last detail here that is very important is that a wax chain does not last as long as a normal chain. It only lasts a few hundred miles before you have to wax it again. Yeah. Yeah. Now this is this is join the process. Miyagi son, wax on, wax off. Yes. You're spending time

Thank you back in the garage. Very nice. Okay, next question here is from Kirsten. Hi, TTR. I got a bike tech with Eric question. Any tips for finicky disc brakes? I've taken my bike to the shop multiple times and tinkered with it myself, but nothing seems to fully fix my problem.

An alternating combination of low power, squealing and rubbing. I've tried cleaning them, sanding down pads and rotors, lightly oiling the pistons, and finally changing the pads. Should I've got new rotors at the same time? as new pads? Is there a problem with swapping those out now after new pads? Thanks you guys for sharing your time and expertise with us Amishers have a restful offseason. Kirsten. By the way, I might as well have written this question because I'm having the same issue right now. And I've had the same issue many different times. So I'm curious to hear your answer, Eric. Okay, so step one, Paula,

what would we do if your brakes were rubbing and we were out in the woods? Are you phoning a friend, Eric? I am. I think Paula knows the answer to this, like step one. loosen up my brake pad things. Spin the wheel, clamp on the brakes, and then tighten those bolts back down. That should like realign, center your brake pads. Oh, you loosen them first. Spin it.

Yeah, loosen them first. Tighten them. Yeah. Exactly. So that should center things. And if that's not getting to the root of the problem, then, yeah, all those things that you said are potential next steps. I have like a slew of questions.

Like, are you using Stramm? Are you using Shimano? Are you, you know, like, have you bled the brain? breaks recently. That could be it. A whole bunch of things. I think you have to bleed brakes more than you think you do sometimes. Not like several, several times a season, but at least once a season, right?

Mm-hmm. Is this one boy? Are these TT brakes? Are these road bike levers? Because I will say that, like, at least with our SRAM stuff, our SRAM road levers have needed significantly less tweaking than the TT levers. I don't know why. It's just like the amount of fluid that's,

there, the construction, the TT bike levers are slightly more finicky. But I have been able to get it by following the SRM YouTube video about bleeding brakes to a T. When I was like, oh, I know how to bleed brakes. I've let a lot of shemotrakes in the past, and I'm just going to follow that same process. It didn't quite work, but when I followed like the SRAM online thing to a T, our TT bike brakes are not good. and you think the brakes you know bleeding brakes properly can help the pistons retract further no for that you need a pad splitting tool as i think that often has to have been the problem for me yeah so so it's like just this fancy looking wedge sort of aluminum thing and anytime we're

having a problem with our brakes or whatever i just jam you know you take the wheel off and everything and you jam this in there and it spreads the pads apart a little bit and that effectively resets them. And then by grabbing the brake levers, they re- center. They re-center. They re-center to, like, they're kind of magical in the way that this works,

assuming that like your pistons are oiled and moving fluidly and everything. That would be my second step is to use the pad splitting tool. But never pull the levers unless the wheel is on. Yes, that's also a good one. Because then they stick together. Yeah. Eric,

you, um, you take pads out of there first before you jam the thing in there, right? Oh, that thing goes between the actual pads. This is made to split with the pads in there. Yep. Oh, that's very simple. Oh, that's kind of nice. Yep. And it's like, there's quite a bit of resistance and you got to like kind of shimmy it and work it in there and everything. But then they're pretty wide and then you give the lever a couple of squeezes once the disc brake rotor is in there. And they should theoretically be centered. Wow. Assuming, again, that you've done like spin the wheel and set up, entered the whole caliper, and you might have to go back and forth a couple times of like do the

pads splitting tool, grab the brakes, center it, loosen the brakes, you know, the whole thing. You guys, now I am yawning. Wow. Okay. The last thing I'll say, Kirsten, is that if it eases your mind, I did replace my pads and my rotas at the same time, and they were still squealing a lot, and I did the best I could at betting them in, and it still isn't perfect. So I'm sure a better bike mechanic would have done a better job, but if you're anything like me,

I have a quick question. Yeah. It is related to this, even though I'm over this question. Okay, great. If your breaks are making like a noise, does it mean you're actually like, how much is that actually slowing you down? Like, how many watts are you having to overcome? So if you hear you remember rubbing in a race, is it like, oh my God, that's like 20 watts? Or is it so insignificant?

It's just the noise. And if you block it out of your consciousness, it really won't affect your race outcome. It depends on the noise. If it's like a shing, shing, shing, shing, then it's fine? Negligible. Negligible. If it's like, reere, re, re, re, that it might not be negligible.

If it sounds like a French ambulance, then that's not a good side. If you can spin the wheel and you just hear shink, shink, and it's not slowing down the rotation of the wheel at all, then it's probably fine. I wouldn't, yeah, just deal with it. Okay. A way to kind of prove that is like if you make the wheel spin when it's not on the ground and it's like, how much resistance, like push it with your finger. How many watts do you think your finger is able to push slowly?

And it's still going through that brake section, then it's obviously it's not done. That's what I'm saying. This is a free spinning, not on the ground situation. Okay. Good to know. Last and final thing that I'll say was when I'm at a complete loss and nothing else has worked, I will visually align the brakes by hand.

Actually looking at them from like underneath the bike in just such a way that you can see how much space is between the right caliper and the left caliper and line them up visually and then spin the wheel. And that's my last ditch thing. I've had to resort to that many times. It does work. Yeah. Because sometimes that technique you said about loosening up the caliper there and then

tightening the brakes and then tightening the caliper, sometimes it just, like, it moves over to the side every time for me on my bikes. And there's just no way around it. I have to manually move it with my hand and do exactly what you just said. Yeah. There you go. DM me if you still can't figure it out. Because we can talk about this for like three hours.

Oh, Eric. Oh, Eric. No, just this person. Not just anybody. All other people will be disregarded. Yeah. We'll give you a free 15-minute face time. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. There you go, Kristen. Okay, on to the real questions here. This one is from, oh, no. Anne Gregory DuClos. What? From Quebec, Canada. Maybe that's why I can't pronounce it.

The question is, hi, all. received my crew neck last week and I couldn't be more stoked. I love it. I was wearing it at my job today and some of my colleagues who are obviously not triathletes were making the remark that the logo looks a little bit like the death star from Star Wars. After a little giggling, I was trying to explain to them what it was representing, but in fact, I don't really know. Can you explain the logo and the process behind it?

So this is a great question. Amazing. And it brings up a person too that Eric and I are, well, all three of us are fond of. Yeah. So I guess we'd be back in early 2020. The pandemic had just hit. And we had come up with this idea for that triathlon life, but we didn't really have any sort of whatever, just a set of words. And I put out a call out on Instagram. Like, hey, if anybody has any sort of graphic design experience or whatever, we're looking to come up with some sort of a logo or look or whatever to put behind this word, this set of words that means something and just give it a visual representation. a bunch of people reached out, and one of the people that reached out said, like, oh, I've got a background in branding and stuff and yada, and I responded and started chatting with them. It turned out that this person was Ralph Dunning, who is like a guru of branding, has had a very successful couple of apparel companies, but I didn't know that at the time.

And we started talking, and we ultimately went through this exercise of like, what do you think TTR that triathlon life means and what does it stand for in order to, like, kind of the ideas that you have for, like, what the aesthetic of it would be. and we threw out like surf culture and being outdoors and water obviously and these things. So he came back to us with a couple of logos and this was the one that we really that we really gravitated towards. So like kind of the water in it could be interpreted as a person swimming. It looks a little bit like a person who's like doing a freestyle.

And then we got the sun in there and the sky. And it just felt like it really represented our. love for the outdoors and like this kind of retro casual fun aesthetic that we, you know, just associate with the brand. And the colors were good too. Yeah. We've recently done some like remakes of colors, but the OG colors are still always going to be there. By the way, Nick, it's a very simple name. Her name is Anne. Did I copy, paste it correctly? Last name was the question, I think. The last name, yeah. Greg Ward, do close? That's, yeah, you say it like it's so easy. Greg Guar do clothes.

Yes, but I just sound it out syllable by syllable. French immersion. Yeah, well, I think that's it. And Greg Ward do close. Well, there you go. Anyway, I don't know if you're keeping that in the pod, but that's her name. So to arrive at the colors, like I sent in kind of a couple of vision boards to Ralph and his team that had like colors that we really liked and that we wanted to use in kits and stuff.

And that's kind of where the TTR colors and logo came from. They sent us, I think at that time, even we'd thrown that trath on life out there. but people on the YouTube channel I started calling it TTL, so they mocked up a couple of TTL looks for us and everything. And I don't know, we couldn't be happier if we feel like it really represents how we feel about triathlon and what we want to put out there into the world.

And the kind of perfect circle thing too is that the foreign writer film that Eric and I made in Hawaii was for Ralph. Ralph actually had us make the film for his company. So it was kind of a nice, symbiosis there. Yeah, and we did the hoodie with them and everything. Like Ralph and I align so much on the way that we see the world

and the kind of vibes or energy that we want to put out into the world via our little companies. And it's, yeah, it's really perfect. I feel so blessed that he reached out to me on Instagram and I answered it. And, you know, just like you, Nick. Not to get too gushy and emotional or anything, but read your DMs, people.

You never know. Never know where you make a lead. Okay, next question here is from Andrew. Hey, TTL crew. Some only kind of related to triathlon questions. First one is Strava tells me that Nick's bike's names include Ghost and Bullet. What are all of your thoughts on the practice of naming bikes? Do all of you do it?

And if so, what are some of your bike's names and how do you come up with them? First of all, I used to name my bikes what they were, the models they were called. And then I had two bikes stolen. And I got super paranoid. So that's why I did that. I also made, for years, my account was like by request. only because I was paranoid that people were following me and stealing my bikes. Totally. This would have been before the like protect the perimeter of my house by a kilometer or whatever. Function. Yeah.

I've never been super into naming bikes. I did name the last couple of ones just on Strava, but it's not like I'm walking out to the garage and I'm like, oh, want to go for a ride, Black Beauty? but I did like name them just for fun on Strava. Paula, did you name your bikes at all? Yeah, I've never named a bike. I've never named a car. The only thing in my life that I've ever named is Flynn. Wow. I was never into naming cars either, but I did name my, I don't remember that was in 1986 Winnebago

because I felt like the first time that I drove it, I felt like I needed to talk to it. Otherwise, it might stop working. and so we'd actually have like a relationship and we would like make it over hell and I'd like smack the dashboard and be like out of girl you know, otherwise like... Eleanor.

Yeah, Eleanor. In 1986 Winnebago, Landon, if you want to Google that, 26 footer. Tesla makes you name their cars. They don't make you, but they very highly encourage you to name the car. So you see it in the app and on the screen. The old one, the first one was called Wally, I had.

Okay. Then my dad named his car, swapped cars and that one was called sneaker. Sneaker's such a good name because Tesla's are so quiet. Yeah. It's so clever. Yeah, it's a good one. Not surprised that your dad came out with the best name.

Yeah, he's a smart guy. Okay, next one here is, still from Andrew, but this is the second part of the question. After powering me through many bike intervals this season, the TTL kids S work and it landed on my top 10 songs for my 2023 Spotify wrapped. I was bummed, though, that the TTL kid didn't even have an artist video message for me as a top listener this year. TTL pod subscriber bonus message perhaps just as a thought anyway in addition to the TTL kid and Trixie Mattel who else is in your Spotify rap for 2023 first of all I did not think that anyone would

that TTL kid would be anyone's top song but many people screenshoted and sent me that the TTL kid was their top played song of the year including including me yeah I just like got so obsessed with that song at the time and was like listening to it on the trainer on repeat and stuff. So that's why it has the most listens of any song. And I will say that I don't normally just get obsessed and stay obsessed with the song. So like my repertoire of songs is quite large. So I don't know what it took for that to be my top song.

But it was, it made me super happy when it was. Yeah, me too. I felt touched. Yeah. Eric, what was your top song on Shopify? Shopify. Shopify. I open Shopify and Spotify is the same amount.

Yeah. Spide right there. It's called Cool One by 12 point buck. I thought it was a PD song. Petey's my top artist. I'm in top 1% of all PD listeners. Petey's so good actually. Yeah, I could actually do it.

I'll give you my little 20-second rundown of the artists that I really love this year. So the artists that I love this year, I'd say number one was PD, P-E-E-Y, Eric and I really bonded over that too. And then this band Joan J-O-A-N came out with an album this year that was called Super Glue

that I was totally obsessed with. I think my maybe, like earlier on in the year, I was completely obsessed with an album by this guy Jacob Z-A-K-U-B-Z-T-E-B-Z-E-T-E-E-C-E-K-E-E-C-I. He's like a Prague guitarist, like Mike over some people's heads. But that, and then I always listen to this guy Key for a lot. My number one song, though, was a song by M-Field,

the song called Andrew. I don't know why. I was obsessed with the song for a while. Super cool song. Disclaimer. If you go Google all these things or whatever, Shopify, Spotify, these things that Nick is into,

they're going to be, there's some deep cuts. These are some artsy, like musicians appreciate them, you know, not like one-hit wonder type of stuff. I do think there's, especially Joan,

I think, I don't know. It is a little, yeah, it's not, It's not making top 40, but I think anyone could enjoy it. That's what I think. That's the kind of music I try to make, too.

Like music that musicians would like, but that also non-musicians would like. Okay, so Eric, what about you? What do you got? Cool one, 12 point buck. Good luck by Broken Bells. Good song. England Skies by Shake, Shake Go, and Epic Empire. High Beam by, I don't know how to pronounce this, but Shogren, S-J-O-W-G-R-E-N,

one, two, three, four. Number five, mouth of the beast by Christoph Kaine. And I guess hot teaser, I am working currently on two new playlists to share with the world. Oh, very nice. One that's kind of like a little bit more mellow

and one that's a little bit more hypey for this winter. And those will all be on there. Nice. Cool. I'm going to be doing more TTL kid stuff coming out soon too, by the way. Stuff that has been previously put into into YouTube videos for TTL.

That's fun. Okay. Next question here is from Porter. This was originally going to be a rapid fire question, but Nick suggested otherwise, do you think it's harder? Oh, this is such a good question. Do you think it's harder to get to a professional level of fitness or to maintain a professional level of fitness? Get? Get.

Maybe impossible for some people. Yeah. Isn't that? Oh, for sure. What most people are kind of trying to do? Yeah, but I feel like often we see these people who have this meteorization. rise and then they're never able to to get back to that point again.

I wouldn't say that was easy. I wouldn't say that's often. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus because I feel like most of them are our friends, but I feel like I've seen it quite a few times. Okay. Well, yeah, I would still say getting there. All these kids that are applying for the TCL Devo team

trying to get to a professional level of fitness, but fitness is such a weird term because I think there's probably a lot of people that are slower at racing than me, but are quote unquote fitter than me. There's so many elements that come into racing well. Yeah. That there's, you know, crossfitters that are fitter than me.

What is fitter me? And I don't know. Well, I think we're talking in the world of triathlon, right, within the scope of swim bike run. Yeah, I would even say there's some like age group people that are fitter than me. Yeah. Train more hours, maybe. Well, yeah, then that's fitter, right?

I wouldn't say that's fitter. That's not fitter. I would say fitness is the ability to do the task that is required. I think it's like holding the amount of power for that amount of time in a certain aerodynamic position. Fit for the task. Fit for the job. Right, right, right.

Okay. So to raise professionally, you have to be fit for that. Yes. I will say that this weekend, I feel like we were all happy that we were not at Indian Wells this weekend. My friend Keith was first out of the water, overall age group. first out of the water was at the front of the race biking and then McCallie Eden passed him at one point, but it was like on the front of the race for a while, didn't have the run he was hoping.

We still had a pretty good run and ended up being ninth in his age group. I just feel like it's becoming, it's like, it's so hard to be good. And I don't know. I'm just frustrated, I guess. This is nothing to do with anything, but how fast the age group field is. Maybe you're going to go see your doctor about low testosterone. Get a TUE. But I mean, insanely impressive that he was leading the race.

He was fourth last year with the same time and ninth this year in his age group with the same time. I mean, we can make a bunch of things up like, you can't compare year to year and courses are different. Yeah, yeah, it's true. That's true. IndyMLs is pretty standard course, though. It's getting faster. Like, Traathlon's getting faster. The PTO is throwing a bunch of money into it.

Like, people are excited. It seems like a legit career opportunity. So, yeah, it's going to get faster. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that some people are naturally talented, that with the effort they're putting into the fitness, they'll get to the professional level and race well at that level. It's not all hard work, unfortunately. Yeah.

Because like I said, I think people work harder than me and Eric maybe, but don't get the results they want and dream of. There's just a lot that goes into the package of racing. And some people train like heroes and can't deliver on race day. it's really like a full picture I would say the more often the people who have these meteorarch rises are a little bit talented and have a high capacity for absorbing work quickly but then like there's just there's a physiological limit of how much you can do

how much work you can put in over one week over one month over one year and you just like bump up against that eventually yeah and then there's people who like don't have that raw ability like Paul and I can go out and if the work workout says like right 100% of FTP like Paula can just do 150% if required and to keep up with me. I just can't. And I think that's like a little bit of a, you know, there's like people like me who can put in like a big body of work over 10 years and maybe get to the same point that someone with a more talent can get over four years. But like which one's better in the long term?

Hard to say. And I think on a long enough timeline it balances out a little bit. Right. Yeah. Next question here is from Paulette from Toronto. Actually, let's skip that one. Next question here is from Pam. Hi, Paul and Eric. We've reached that time of year where some of us have to deal with risky roads. I believe you now have the coveted Woodway treadmills, which are great, although pricey.

Can you discuss what you experience with the Woodway and also other treadmills you've tried? Thanks, Pam. Yeah, I like this question. Pam's also a really longtime supporter of TTR. So thank you, Pam. Thanks, Pam. The Woodway is the nicest treadmill you'll ever run on, but it's, it is very hard and non-forgiving. So if you see our videos, you see, maybe you see we have a Woodway and we have a life fitness.

And the life fitness feels springier, it's bouncier, it's easier on your joints. It doesn't have that like real world tarmacchi feel and the smoothness that you get from a Woodway. but it is a little bit, I guess, easier to run a certain pace, really. Like the Woodway feels very hard to run a four-minute K when I know what a four-minute K feels like outside versus I jump on the life fitness and a four-minute K feels like just bouncing through it.

It's a little bit like putting super shoes on. Yeah, yeah. If I could relate it to anything. Versus the Woodway is like running on like a nice track. Yeah, it's like a track. If you were to close your eyes, like you might, it feels just like you're running on a nice track in regular shoes. So when do you choose one over the other?

What are the parameters that make you choose one over the other? I'll pretty much always do the Woodway because I just really like the smooth feel. But Eric will jump on the life fitness if we're running together and one of us needs to go on the other treadmill. But he'll pick it sometimes, I guess, for an easy run if you're, well, I shouldn't speak for it. You can say yourself. Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like both they're different.

stimuluses and I like doing both of them. Just like we say, you know, don't do all of your workouts in super shoes. Like do one workout a week in them because it's a good, cool feeling and that is like kind of race specific, but it's different. So whatever's speaking to you. Also, our woodway is Bluetooth to Zwift. So we can. That's kind of a difference maker. We can see on Zwift like our pace, our incline at like registers at all versus our life fitness isn't connected to Zwift, which is kind of nice sometimes just to like run to run, not have it be interneted. But this question is specifically which one would you consider buying? And I would say that my only advice there would be to, if you can, buy a refurbished

anything, a refurbished gym quality treadmill versus going to somewhere like Dick's sporting goods and buying the $1,000 home treadmill. Those will have limitations in speed. They won't last as long. the bounce is insanely crazy but not in like a good way. It's almost like it flexes too much without offering any cushioning.

It's hard to explain. It feels like when you put your foot on the belt of a $600 treadmill that you overpower the motor. And for a fraction of a second, it's like, and then when you tow off, it tries to catch back up. So you kind of have this feeling of like

you're stepping in quicksand or something, but then it's like rocketing your foot back as your toe off. It's like this kind of weird feeling and it works. But if you're planning on doing a bunch of treadmill time, I would 100% go with the refurbished gym quality. Yeah, I think we got our life fitness for like two grand or something, but it's like a $6,000 treadmill new. And they replaced the belt and the motor was new.

And it's a super good treadmill that'll last us forever if we want it to. Yeah. We also, we had to replace like the buttons on it once and we had to get the motherboard sent in. Yeah, it really has not been a perfect experience. The grand total of like $750. So we're still way out of head. Way under.

In the long run. Yeah. Yeah, I would really go to any place that sells refurbished gym equipment and check in on that. During COVID, we were trapped in Canmore for two weeks because the COVID rules in Canada where you couldn't leave your property. So we did buy a $800 Canadian tire treadmill. And we like ran the shit out of that treadmill. and it served us super well.

So if your budget is smaller, they're actually fine. Like, they do the job. You're not running exclusively indoors, I would imagine. So they're totally fine. But if you want something that's going to last your years and years and you're going to look forward to running on it and you want to spend a bit more, then go with the refurbished. Yeah.

But Eric, we both ran. We probably put like 30K a day on that treadmill. Yeah, for two weeks. For two weeks straight at like high speeds. And it was totally fine. I mean, we bought it fully expecting that at any point in time, it would just explode, and it didn't. There you go.

And it saved our life. I trained on that treadmill up to the week before we left for Daytona in 2020, and then I won challenge. Daytona winning treadmill. So really, what you're saying is. Pam, if you want to send us like a screenshot of what you're thinking, we'll give you some feedback. Nice. Just Pam.

Just Pam. It's 10 people like, my name is Pam. Here's a screenshot of what I want. Okay, next question here is from Christina. high TTL team. My question for the group is in regards to the filters used in your social media posts. What aesthetic filters do you use and do you pay for them? I love everything TTL and feeling like I'm a part of the journey. Keep up the amazing work, Christina. It's not about the bike, dude. Hell yeah, Paula. I totally. That's my answer. That's my only answer. It's not the light,

bro. I'm sick like my whole life, I feel like maybe you guys have had this too. Eric, I'm sure you've had this to do it. My whole life it's like, wow, this is great. What mic did you use? Whoa, this looks good. What camera do you use? At the age of three? Yeah, since that was three. I just... What frames did you use? I don't like that.

Like, whittling it down to the tools that you use. The tools are important, but I don't know, I get frustrated with this question and I get it in my inbox every day. Yeah, I think that all three of us, maybe this sounds a little braggy, but all three of us take really good photos and yes, maybe we filtered them a little bit.

Maybe we edit them. But that's not why they look cool. Mines are extremely edited. Nicks are pretty edited. Nick might be on the moon. Who's to say? I'm on Venus and Mars with my photos. But they're good even without the filter is what I'm saying.

Yeah, I think it's like you have a little bit of a vision of how you want to, like what was your emotion when you took this picture and you lean into that a little bit when you do the editing. But it can't get around the fact of like it was just bad light and it was overcast and you took it from the wrong angle and your subject isn't, you know, in the right spot. So if I could do so, I think probably the most beneficial thing you could do would be like watch a YouTube video on just like photographic compositional concepts, rule of thirds, backlit versus side lit, things like this and dial in making sure that you're just starting with a picture that is like taken properly.

And then you can like kind of lean into how contrasty it is, you know, positive or negatively, how saturated it is, things like this that we get into when we edit pictures. At a very, I'm not as advanced as you two at editing at all, but I do find that some of the presets that we've purchased on Lightroom, one preset doesn't look good on every photo.

It's so dependent on the original photo. So if it's really bright or if it has like a human with a lot of skin in it, some of the presets make it look really bad. So it's not like a one-size-fits-all package. You really have to still, even if you put a preset, edit that so that it comes out good. Right, Nick? Exactly what I was going to say. Okay.

I would say maybe even more than half the time when people ask, oh, I really like that. What did you take that on? It's with an iPhone. Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. So it was me up until yesterday. Yeah. So you can get really, really good pictures with.

iPhone and the thing that is beautiful about iPhone is that you can take a picture and you can instantly look at it and go, what do I like or not like about this? Like take a look, think of it like you're in school a little bit and break it down and take that same picture, if you can, of a flower from like four or five different angles. Just like, I'm taking the pictures of this flower for the next two minutes, even if I get 50 pictures and like, which one do I like the most and why do I like it? And you have that instant feedback. Yeah. No what I like about my new camera actually, more than anything is like, Now I leave my phone in the car and just take the camera because I treat my camera. I treat my phone like it's a camera.

And then I always have Instagram and Strava and texting 24-7 on me. So now that I have this super cool camera, I can bring it on walks. I can take it to the coffee shop. I can take it to the pool and not have my phone with me, but still capture cool pictures. So if anyone's thinking about buying a camera, that's one of the biggest things I've noticed just in like two days. Wow. That's a good little life hack. That's a good little life hack. I do think Eric and I at some point are still going to do like a video or kind of a special episode where we talk about maybe, I don't know about composition because I think that one's very personal, but we could get kind of specific about how we edit stuff. I think Eric and I have a different approach as to how we edit stuff, but we both get to a place where we're happy with the way the images look. Yeah, I'd be interested to watch that.

Yeah. Well, let's do it. As a new photographer. Even if we don't put it out, we don't put it out. we can talk about it and see how it feels. Yeah. Yeah, love it. Okay, next question here is from Joy. Hi, TTO, parents, triathlon, and relationships. So Paula and Eric are engaged.

It's a three-way engagement. Nick's involved. I'm in a long-term relationship with someone who is incapable of swimming and unwilling to run. So we cycle together a lot, and there's a wonderful Sherpa slash cheerleader there for me on race days. I've seen triathlon improve my relationship since I'm doing something for myself,

and I make myself proud when I show up for myself. This seeps into our relationship. Not all of my friends are into exercise, and at some point in training, I have to skip pickleball and Zumba to minimize my knee and hip pain. I also find myself wanting more rest and less evenings out, eating and drinking. How do you think exercise has to factor into relationships for training triathletes? Wait, is she talking about her romantic relationship or her friendships?

Yeah, it's a bit of both. My friendships during training often feel disconnected. as well. So it's a little bit of both. Yeah. Because I can relate to that. At this time in my life, as I'm going through and making wedding invite lists of friends, my closest friends now are triathletes or athletes or people that I exercise with. And I don't keep in touch as much with my high school friends who don't do sports. So it just is such a, it's not that I don't have time for them.

It's just like you are drawn to people with similar interests. and it's why the three of us get along so well most of the time. And it's just such a big part of our lives that to keep relationships with people where they don't care at all about it is hard. But I think that what you said about it's strengthening your relationship because you feel better and you're more confident and you are making yourself proud. That is a really interesting observation. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be through sport. Someone might get that through art or through photography.

or through their dog or whatever. But that's cool. I'll say for me anecdotally, as far as friendship goes, I just had my birthday last week and I had a party, and I noticed that it was like pretty much 50-50 split of musicians and athletes. But I did notice that the musicians were all friends that I have had for many, many, many years. And the athletes are, it seems like all my new friends are athletes. Yeah.

You see them every day. I see them every day. It's just, it's hard. You know, it's hard to make a friend with someone that right now that I can't bike or run or swim with because it takes up so much of my free time during the week when I'm not working. Yeah, your free time is spent doing those activities so you meet up with your athlete friends. And then in my relationships, my last relationship, I met the girl the night before my first triathlon ever. And at the end, like sadly, triathlon was a big reason for, not a big reason, but it's definitely one of the main reasons

that if the relationship ended up failing. And, you know, she began, and understandably so, to resent the amount of time and energy and passion I had for triathlon. So, and I remember thinking, like, I just can't ever date someone who isn't or wasn't, like a very serious endurance athlete. But not too serious. Not too serious. They have to understand what that's like and the commitment that it takes to,

train for triathlon like 15 hours a week or however long anyone trains. Yeah. So what exactly was this person's question, though? Are all your friends try friends? Any reflections on pre-try days to now? Yeah, I kind of already answered that. But I wouldn't have met Eric if I wasn't doing triathlon. And I wouldn't be doing triathlon still if I hadn't met Eric.

Wow. Also, I wouldn't have met you guys if it wasn't for triathlon. And who knows what my relationship with triathlon would be if I had to met you guys now? Yeah. I mean, it's here to stay for my whole life for sure. And I think that would have been the case either way, but I don't know. Yeah, interesting. Eric's silent.

Well, I think he's thinking. Yeah, I mean, this has just sent me on a serious introspective journey. Because Paula and my entire relationship, it's not like we weren't doing triathlon prior to meeting each other. So, triathlon obviously brought us together. but I just like the one thing that I can without just spiraling off in a chain of like a stream of consciousness is I do remember thinking prior to meeting Paula

like that I think the ideal like partner would be a retired professional athlete of some sort so that they weren't necessarily like we weren't competing with each other for like whose career matters more but they like understand that I have to do what I got to do with the sport. And it's not like I'm just going and riding my bike for fun

and screwing off in the woods or like whatever. But because prior to Paula, I had some relationships with persons like, oh, you like swam yesterday. Why do you have to go swim the day? And like that was a problem to try to understand. I was like, yeah, like on paper, that doesn't make sense.

That's a lot of swimming. But I think like Paul and I like have the best of both worlds and we balance it pretty well. of like we both understand really well what each other is trying to accomplish and like what it means psychologically to be chasing after this thing that doesn't make sense to a lot of people

and the give and take of it and so like at the very base is level we we understand and like have compassion and understanding for like our journeys. Yeah. I think that's what it is is that empathy that it kind of needs to be there for that.

Yeah. Like you don't necessarily have to be like oh, I want to go do that with you but like I totally understand and I understand that it completes you and makes you happy and gives you purpose and I'm here for that. Yeah. Cool. Next question here is from Megan. What's up TTL?

Not Flynn though. Fuck that guy. Doesn't do a thing for the pod. Sure is cute though. You know what? I guess I feel like I have to speak up on this because I was initially like, oh God, does everybody got to include Flynn. He's just over there sleeping on the ground and asking to go for a walk of the most inconvenient times.

But he brings us a lot of happiness and a lot of happiness and a lot of lot of joy, especially Paula, and like the triathlon spouse thing, like, it balances out the whole thing and it makes us happy. So he brings a lot, even though he's not here, you know, answering your questions about faster transitions. Although, we have revived Flynn Strava. And in his absence of Strava for several months, Nick has skyrocketed ahead of Flynn in the follower count. So if you're new here and you don't know about Flynn, he's our dog, and he has a Strava account, and it's super funny. We just strap a Wahoo rival to him

while he runs and walks with us, and Eric manages the titles in my opinion, very funny. So give Flynn a follow. It's Flynn, the GWP. Also, like, go check out a Nix account, and if Nix account strikes you're fancy and you like his edited pictures and everything. Oh, Nix account is beautiful.

We're by no means trying to get pity follows for Flynn in this contest. I just feel like most people are on this pod are already following Nick but Nick's Strava is excellent. I will say that I don't think anyone puts more effort into their Strava than I do anyone on earth.

It's like a daily Strava exercise blog with pictures. But I will say Flynn's Strava is my favorite Strava account. The question, by the way, I was recently listening to the pod where Nick called the reversible tank a penny and Paula referenced playing dodgeball in PE, which is physical education.

As an elementary physical education teacher, I'm curious to hear what your experience was like in PE. Thousands of kids do not receive a quality, comprehensive health and physical education program and are leaving high school with no clue how to live an active and healthy lifestyle. I could rant forever about what a quality health and physical education program looks like, so please hit me with any follow-up questions. Wish you all the best in the offseason. Thanks for all you do.

P.S., can you tell you? Tell me to get a new bike. Thanks, Megan. Megan, you know what? It's a great time for right now. A new bike. You should get a new bike. Absolutely best time of the year. Bike prices are at an all-time low. Fantastic time to buy the bike. If you can get it from a local bike shop, that's even better. As a physical education teacher, I feel like this borderline, if you ride it around the track during like one, you know, like PE session, that's a tax ride-off too. That's right. You're basically financially obligated to do this. Okay, so what do you guys think? How is your PE education growing up?

How would you classify it? I think this might be like top three questions of the year. Wow, really? Love that. This is great. For me, like the first thing that stands out when you say PE is running the mile, Monday, Wednesday, Friday in PE in middle school. We had like a mile bark chip loop and that was just like how we started PE class on Monday,

Wednesday, and Friday was we go run the mile. and I was like the kid that tried to run the mile fast and got made fun of for like trying and then it got to the point by the time I was an eighth grade that I was trying to do like two miles and like lap some of the kids that were doing one mile so I was like maximum loser but that's like what sticks out to me and PE

and then we would go like shoot some hoops or like do the physical education test or something like that do you feel like you got a good education on how to keep yourself healthy how to exercise in a healthy way does any of that come into it? No no it was just like let's go burn some energy is like mentally what I remember.

Are you thinking about like elementary school or which is like grade 6, 7, 89? 6.7, 8. Okay. It's different in Canada. Yeah. And then like 9, 10, 11, 12 through high school, I was like taking rec sports as an elective and like aquatics as an elective.

So I was just filling out like all the PE credits to just give myself fun stuff to do in between history class. Wait, all your credit. Didn't you have to take some credits in like real, in. chemistry, etc? Some. I mean, but like, yeah, you could take rec sports and aquatic sports and just like go play water polo for one period a week, you know. Yeah.

We can not do that. Yeah, I cannot do that either. But I don't feel like it was philosophical at all. I feel like it was just kind of, all right, here's the swimming pool and here's like the different games we're going to play and whatever. I think in high school, phys ed was an option. I don't even know if we were required to do phys ed, but I can't really remember exactly. But I really dreaded phys ed class in elementary school, in junior high school, in high school, because I was so bad at all the sports. And I feel like the culture where, like, when you're picking teams and you have two team leaders and you're like, I pick Jimmy and I pick cell and you're doing back and forth picking teams, I was last every time because I was so bad.

And I was so shy. Isn't that so funny? Well, these are all courting. It was stuff like dodgeball, basketball, volleyball. Right. You know, gym sports that you're playing indoors. I live in Edmonton.

It's freezing cold. We're in a gymnasium. So lacrosse, like all the sports. And I think what it was good for is exposing us to all those sports and the rules and team dynamics, teamwork. But I personally dreaded it because I hated the feeling of being so bad at something and have everyone like knowing that I was bad at it.

I don't know. I wasn't like the most popular kids. So I wasn't getting picked based on popularity. And I definitely wasn't getting picked based on skills. And I can remember some of my best friends in elementary were like the star basketball player. And everybody knew it and she would get picked first. So I think that if you can eliminate some of that, if you're a visit teacher, it's just better overall for like kids self-confidence. But yeah, I hated gym.

But I was good at running. So every time we did like cross-country or ran warm up, I was good at that. But that's well. I think I'm a little surprised that you weren't good at those coordination-based sports because you danced a lot, which helps with that kind of stuff. Yeah, but dancing too was kind of, it's like not seen as a sport really. Yeah, I finished school every day and I went to dancing and it's extremely physically difficult, but it's not. I wasn't a sporty kid, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, that's really, that's interesting. Like, dancing is still like you're practicing a routine. You're practicing a move that leads into another move versus basketball is like, hectic. You're making it up as you go, and it's just like fully reactionary. It's dynamic, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I do think it's, like, so important for, obviously, for kids to do phys ed class and to make it.

I mean, I honestly had way more fun at recess where we could go outside and just play with our friends and run around and play kick the can and whatever we did. Play kick the can. What is this like? Kick the can is super fun. And you end up running like way more than you do in basketball. Yeah. We did that in the cul-de-sac as well.

Post-apocalyptic games. This is pre-apocalyptic. This is pre-cell phones, pre-game boys. This actually makes me wonder like what is the regulations on like middle school kids having devices at school? Because I could see recess now just being like sit on your phone outside time. Oh, yeah. Whereas we didn't have phones. We were like playing games.

Can I freaking dig a hole in the dirt or something. Yeah. I'll say that I went to New York Public School for high school. And as far as I can tell, I cannot say one bad thing about my physical education class. I feel like I learned a lot. I learned a lot about how to exercise in a healthy way, about stretching, about strengthening. We learned about the body. We played a bunch of different sports and learned the rules of the different sports.

I also personally had a fantastic time doing it. It was very fun. That fear that Paula has about being picked last, I think even if I were to have been picked last, it doesn't have as much of an impact because I'm just so excited by the idea of like doing this group activity. I was picked. Yeah, I got picked. I will say that like my phys ed teachers from high school, I still keep in touch with them. They're still like my adult friends. Yeah, because they were the best teachers.

I don't know. I feel like they were they're active all day too, right? Like they're on their feet, they're in the gym, they're in the running shoes and they're, they were always in a good mood. They're not doing that for the money. Shout out to Mr. Davis at Oyster Bay High School. I don't think you teach Fizzett anymore and you're definitely not listening to this podcast, but I appreciated the work you did for us.

I wouldn't even be surprised. Mrs. Chazotti might actually listen to the pod. So if she is. Wow. Eric, do you want a shout out of Fizzed teacher? I really wish I could go back to my high school. I could anytime. I mean, I remember seeing my physical education teacher.

from sixth grade, like three years ago. Like I saw him get out of his truck. He had the same truck. I knew exactly, like, and I would go give him a hug. Did you guys call it P.E.? Or did you call it Jim? He called it Jim. I think, I think P.E., but we colloquially called it Jim.

Yeah. I remember when I was, when he started middle school for us as junior high, which is 7, 8, 9, it started to become mandatory to, like, change your outfit for Jim. You had to put shorts on. And I hated that because I was so shy and I did not want. to like shower or be any kind of naked in front of other people. Wait, you guys, did you guys shower? Did you guys shower?

Yeah, there were showers in there. We did not shower. And that's something I think about and I laugh about when I think. So wait, we all like ran around, got soaking wet and sweat. They're like, all right, put pants back on and go to chemistry class. It's like, one of a second. This is crazy. I don't think there were any showers till high school.

We never showered. Middle school, high school, after gym, not a single time did that ever happen. Wow. I don't really remember, but I think I did a little bit. I don't know, whatever. But there were showers in the room. And just the fact that you had to change clothes, I mean, I'm all for that idea, but also it's a weird time in life. It is, it is for sure.

I guess I never thought about it. It's all traumatic. Yeah. Like, are you wearing a bra? Is it a sports bra? Oh, I see. I think girls in that time can be a little more. Yeah, whatever experience you and I, Nick had, it was 10.

10% of whatever experience Paula and the other ladies have. Well, this is our last question here is I feel like, oh boy, we are, we were going long here. The last question here is kind of related to this, but as amazingly fast professional triathletes already, do you find that when you compare yourself to years past, you're getting better and faster? Are you at the apex of your athletic abilities, or do you think that if you continue to train day after day, year after year, you will continue to shave seconds or even minutes off of your cases. A follow-up question is at this point in your life, are you striving to be better for yourself or to pay your bills? That's both great, both great questions. So Paula and Eric,

do you, is there any part in your head that's like next year could be the like the year that I'm, I hope it's the year that I'm the fastest I've ever been. A little bit. Yeah, I feel like if that's completely gone, that's when you retire. Got it. Yeah. I do think there are like there are aspects of my, sporting life that'll never be faster than they were when I was younger. Like your swim or whatever? Yeah, like my swim and even my running. I think that was at its peak when I was in high school.

But I think that it doesn't mean that my half marathon can't be better because back then I was running 1,500s and 3Ks. So I think my focus has shift. I'm running a TT bike now. I'm trying to run longer distances. I'm trying to be a well-rounded adult versus just an Olympic robot who, only thinks about triathlon. So there's like a lot of other aspects that come into it. And I'd say my motivation is less to, but over the other options, like to make money or to.

Striving to better for yourself or to pay your bills. Because you want to be. Oh, just for my own satisfaction. Yeah, no. That's not. Well, that's not true that like I, I, you, I know that you do care a lot about getting faster and performing well at races. And it's not just for the paycheck. I know that's, I know that's true. Yeah, I was going to say neither of those are really the full truth. I'm not motivated by money necessarily, but it's easy to say that when I'm making a living doing it. Well, we don't have to put this on the pod. And maybe we'll only put it on if you feel comfortable with this.

But if you won $20 million today, would you just retire immediately from triathlon? Or would you continue to race kind of the same? Yeah, I would still race. And Eric, you would too, right? You guys are not doing this for the paycheck. As much as I know that you kind of organize races to try to maximize what it is. Yeah, but also if we were making no money at doing this, I would go be a doctor. Totally, right.

I mean, out of necessity. But if we were making a tiny amount of money and not to survive, I would continue doing this. Like for me, when I fantasize about races, it's not about like crossing the first. finish line and holding a giant check and then paying my mortgage. It's about like sprinting down the line with somebody and like feeling good and feeling like I got the most out of myself. And that's like the most fulfilling thing. And then bonus. You made, you made some money. Totally. And it's the same thing with the sponsors. Like I get excited about like working with a cool brand that we've always been excited about. And then we relate to products and everything.

And then like bonus. Yes, we're getting paid to do the thing that we kind of already want to do anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Don't tell our sponsors. And we're in the luxury position of being like, oh, I don't fully align with that brand, even though they're offering money. No, thank you. Exactly. It's funny how much the listeners are not privy to that.

Like, I hear it from you guys. And maybe there's even things you don't tell me how many times their sponsors are interested in sponsoring you guys and you turn it down. Not because the money's not good enough. I can think of an example very recently where the money was definitely good enough. But it's just like, no, this isn't us. know. And that's happened many times. So when you guys have like whatever, sponsorship with someone, it's because you're like, yeah, this is us. This aligns with us. Yeah. I think philosophically, we've both been like that through our careers. And that's like

kind of a long game and a thing that you're building a brand. You're aligning with people that you believe in and everything rather than taking the next quickest paycheck. But it pays off long term and it certainly has for us. And now we're very, like you said, very blessed to be in the position where we're working with the companies that we want to. We're getting paid the amount of money that we feel our time is worth and everything. And it's it's all symbiotic and it feels great and it's awesome. I will say when I'm watching some of these YouTube videos of pro triathletes that are Zwifting in their bedroom beside their bed, I'm like, I couldn't.

Yeah. Like the fact that we've been able to build a setup in a separate room and, you know, maybe we shouldn't put this in the podcast. But I could never do that. I do not like the sport enough to do that. I will counter that by saying I did that. Maybe when I was 20. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, things are a little bit different now and what we're willing to put up with.

But that's how it starts. That's how it starts. For a lot of people. Yes, that's definitely how it starts. But I think when this person's asking, like, are you still doing it to this day, 20 years later, for self-fulfillment or for money? It's like leaning a little more on the money side now that we're 34. yes for sure you got to you got to think about your your life as a whole knowing that we can't our bodies won't

be able to be professional triathletes forever right so much respect to people that do that but yeah i think that there's a part of that that's this undefeatable optimistic spirit that is within every person that when they're training next to their bed they're not thinking these are the glory days they're thinking I'm building something so that I don't have to always do this. Yes, yes, for sure. I mean, when I was doing that kind of stuff, I was like, this is sick. And when they make a documentary, they're going to use a clip of me right next to my bed. This is fucking slobbering on my pillow and it's going to be badass.

That's like, that's the mindset you've got to be in. And we're like, this is set in the stage and this hardcoreness is cool because someday it'll be worth it. And you know, like live now, you know, like nobody will so someday you can live like others can't. that whole thing. I think it was, I don't know if we want to say names, but Ari Klau, like, flips his mattress up so he can set up his kicker. I'm like, dude, apply for TTL Devo. Oh, no. I love that.

I was just texting him today about his race because he had a rough Indian Wells race. Yeah, I saw that. And I'm like, man, that guy just grinds it out and I love it. Yeah. I really, we love his YouTube because he's super honest and he really shows the grind, quote, unquote. like the mattress thing. Yeah. He's also pretty funny, I think.

Yeah, he's funny. Yeah, he's a music artist as well. Yeah, yeah, he's a great musician. Yeah, cool. If anyone still wants to apply for TTL Devo team, we are accepting applications until Friday, which is tomorrow. Had some great ones so far.

It's really fun to read through them. I love spending my time doing that. Yeah, psyched for next year. That's going to be awesome. Yeah, and thanks to everyone who's bought a kit so far, there's been a lot of people. But really, the more people that buy kits, the more money we can give to the Devo team.

This is not a selfish pursuit, but we do selfishly like to see a lot of kits in the wild. Of course. The win, win, win. That was a long podcast. Yeah. I was into it, though. That was long pot.

Now I've got to edit it tonight. Good question. That was a good one. Well, thank you so much, everyone for listening. That was actually two weeks' worth of questions because we had H. Day on last week, which we loved that podcast. That was super fun. Yeah.

I'd go back and listen to that one. Hopefully you guys liked it too. If you did, we'll do more with other guests, maybe. Hopefully have Heather back sometime. Sleep week this week. Oh, yeah. Have fun. And we can't wait to see how everyone does with it.

But sleep week starts tomorrow because Nick's going to be adding this pot until 3 a.m. Probably. Yeah. This is why it's taking us so long to do sleep week because it's like, oh, Nick's got to go to Italy and I've got to drive the van for 27 hours to get to a place. Yeah, exactly. This is not a convenient time for me to like focus on my sleep, Which is, I guess that's the moral of the story.

You need to prioritize to sleep all the time. And here we go, we're doing it this week. All right, well, that's it. Bye, guys. Later, everybody.