That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon bike fits, flying with tubeless tires, cleat position, coaching, first bike upgrade, and more!

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

All together in the same room again this week! We started with some Bike Tech with Eric, and then straight into your questions about triathlon swim technique, cleat positioning, electronic shifting, and much more! To submit questions, and support the podcast, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com/podcast

Hey everybody. Welcome to that triathlon live podcast. I'm Eric Lockerstrom. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our podcast where we talk about triathlon. Mostly we take questions from all of our awesome listeners, all 12 of you. And we try to answer them to best of our abilities. We are not scientists or anything. Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is an amateur triathlete, professional musician. But I think we have a good time talking about this stuff. And hopefully we get a little. a little bit of helpful information out there. Actually, my undergraduate degrees in biological sciences. So I would maybe consider myself a scientist. Scientist in training. Yeah, if you guys have any questions about like cells or, you know, organic chemistry. What's the powerhouse of the cell? The mitochondria.

Very nice. Bing, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. All right, I stand corrected. It was really worth going to university for 10 years. Yeah. Well, I went to university for two and a half years, and I also know what a mitochondria is. I went for five years and I can't do simple math. So music school doesn't teach you that.

By the way, Eric, I just checked our year-end review. We have more than 12 listeners, if you can believe it. That's fantastic. It's like above 20. That's a great news. Thousand? It was going to be some tough news to break to the 12 listeners that we're canceling the podcast because this is unsustainable.

Oh, yeah. We are not canceling the podcast. We are going strong. But a quick update on what we've been doing this week. When Nick is here, we are full. send, we literally don't stop for a second, because when we're not doing our exercising and our training, you guys are

filming, editing, like you guys were both at your computers until 11 p.m. last night, waking up at 6, back on the editing. It's insane. And I can't help really at the back end stuff on the filming and editing, so I feel a little bit useless. Far from it. But I guess I am like the person

that you guys are doing a lot of the filming of. So I'm necessary in the whole operation. However, as soon as we get home, my job is done. And I just get to making dinner. Yeah, that's an important job. That's a very important job. As Nick and I are sitting there editing, food is magically appearing. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, it's been like

a very, very productive week. We are very grateful for you, Nick, for being here. Like Eric was saying earlier, a lot of the stuff we do just completely isn't possible unless you're here with us. We have these cool ideas, or Eric has a cool idea, and it's just not really possible to execute it unless we have another super talented, creative

with us, which you are. And from my perspective, watching you guys work together is just so cool because you kind of speak the same language. You read each other's minds. Your style is complimentary, I'd say. Yeah. And like at one minute, Eric's holding a camera filming something and the next Nick's like taking a pass off on the camera because he has a vision. And there's no arguing, not a lot of dialogue. It's kind of just like happens. And for that reason, we're very efficient with things. We can go out, do an hour of filming and you guys can make a beautiful thing out of it. Also, huge shout out to our friend Samantha, who has been doing still,

photos for us while Nick and I are running around crazy with getting videos. It's so crazy. We'll be home from, we went to Smith Rock yesterday for maybe 90 minutes, and we had Samantha with us, and then Nick and Eric doing the video. And by the time we go to bed, they've already kind of quick edited a whole video, and Sam sent us two dozen super quality pictures. No other media house operates this efficiently. We are so efficient.

And we, I'm just making dinner and doing it. No, no. All of us have our strengths. It's so crazy. You don't give yourself enough credit. A lot of times Eric and I will use you as a reference for like, is this song good? How does this look? Oh, yeah. It's a creative stuff. I guess. But we're not making these for people with technical eyes. We want people to enjoy them and be inspired by them. Yeah, I have somewhat of a technical eye. But you're right. I do have some creative input. And it's not super easy to be like, okay, run by again, run by again, run by again. I've found in the past, when I've done shoots for the London Olympics or like anything that requires like a media day, that's when you're kind of at risk of getting injured because you're standing there cold.

You're doing like 25 run bys. And you guys are really good about not making it that many. But it's the stop and go, the running pass. Like that all is draining for all of us. So I think we're also just really tired after this. And it's really important stuff. It's only January. So I'm not really stressed about it.

But it's definitely like a strain that we don't want to. run into like May or something. So it's really good to get it over with here. Yeah. And just to clarify, what we're shooting is some sponsorship announcement stuff, specifically around Paula. Nick and I did film one around me.

A big one. With an extra 45 minutes that we snuck in somehow. Oh my God. That's right. And so anyway, if you follow us on YouTube, if you don't, I would recommend you go check that out.

Then this will make some sense. But we're in the next month going to be having several big sponsorship announcements come out in the form of very cinematic, beautiful videos that we hope they're beautiful. Had a blast making and our sponsors

and the new sponsors are fully behind, which is awesome. Paula, do you think maybe you're also very tired because you had to race me in a 50?

No, Nick, that was actually the easiest part of my week. No, that's, no, I don't think that's right. Well, okay, Nick, to be fair, it was a closer race

than I ever imagined. 50 meter freestyle. With a flip turn, by the way, everybody. I did it. From a push, at the end of a 4K. swim. I went like 32. You went 34. You were right on my heels. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good day.

I know. Prior to this, I was like, Paula, I think you're going to be surprised at how well Nick does over a 50. Yeah. I'm not saying he's going to beat you, but it's not going to be a like full blowout. This is meters, not yards. And Nick, Nick's fast twitch is supremely impressive. I'll cross all three sports. It's just way better than my slow twitch stuff. It just falls off so hard. If we had raised 100, I might go. 104 and you would go 14. Yeah, like it really falls off. And the bike too. A bike I have good power for like 20 seconds and then

but it was fun. It was fun and you've been swimming a lot with us. Yeah, it's been nice. Is this video on the internet anywhere in a permanent form? It's on Estrava. It's on my Strava for the But if any of you're going to go follow Nick on Strava you need to go follow Flynn on Strava. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.

Flynn, the GWP. I am so close to overtaking his followers. Flynn and Nick are in a dead. heat for most. We're like within five followers. For most drama followers. And yes, if you like what Flynn's posting, follow Flynn. If you like what Nick's posting.

Flynn's account is maybe the best account on Strava. You can follow both, but there are no pity follows in that triathlon life. No, no. Neil, it's worth your while to follow both. One last thing before we move on, congratulations on your Strava verified badge. Thank you so much. Lifetime achievement. I could not believe when that email came in.

Finally, a verified Strava. This just happened. We didn't ask for it. No, no. I feel like you should add that to your resume. Like Grammy winner, Strava Verified Athlete. I love that. I love that.

Yeah, that's it. That's going to go on my Instagram bio, Strava verified athlete. Okay, so, first thing we're going to do is a little bike tech with Eric. Bike tech with Eric. Eric, there's two questions here. And for the first time ever, no, not ever. But I didn't come up with these. These are from the listeners.

And I saved these aside for the next bike tech with Eric segment, which is right now. So just so everyone knows. Eric isn't a technically a bike mechanic, but I mean, I don't know. Technically he is a bike mechanic. He builds up bikes and works on bikes all by himself and does every single bit of the maintenance. I am not certified, but I've worked in a bike shop before, not as a mechanic, but I've built up every one of my own bikes for the last 10 years. Yes, and he works on Paula's bikes and Paula and his own bikes, and they both go out and race really well. So we trust him. So first one here is from David from Surrey. Hey team, I recently took a bike fit course to become level one certified with the

bike fit Canada, hoping to get some experience and start a small business to see what might become of it. So far, I'm just doing road gravel mountain. I haven't learned TT fitting yet. I noticed in today's race, Paul looked so much better on the bike regarding her pedal stroke and arrow position than the other women they were showing. I think this was Indian Wells. As people who get new bikes a lot, how often are you having a pro fit done? Is it every time you get a new bike or are you setting them up to previous specs? Eric, do you do these essentials or do you see a pro? How differently might your TT Fit be from your road fit? How often do you make changes to your fits?

Thanks for taking the time to entertain La Nation and well done in Indian Wells Paula, David from Surrey, BC. Nick, did you dig into the archives for this question? I saved it from a while ago. Gotcha. Man, okay, that was a lot of questions all at once. We'll start from the beginning since we're at the beginning of the season. What we will have coming up here is I'm getting some new bikes

from my new sponsor. Paula's getting some new bikes from her existing sponsor. And at some point in time, we're going to want to go to the wind tunnel for Paula to do some stuff like that. And at the same time, I'm hoping to get some bike fitting done.

So, like, anytime we get a completely brand new bike, we'll ideally try to do a bike fit on it. But like Paula, for example, she's going from the shiv to the shiv. Nothing's changed. So we'll match all of the things on that. And then maybe just have a pro fitter look at it and say, like,

I'd say for me this year, the most important thing is getting more arrow. Because I had a really good year riding. I don't want to start from scratch and completely reconstruct it. But I think there are some gains I can make with my head position and my bar position. For Eric, he's completely switching bike brands. So I think it'll be more critical for him to match up some of the measurements from his old bike. And not all bikes are the same. So he might have to make more adjustments than me.

And in that case, it's probably good to have a professional eye on it. Yeah, and I also think you can get away with maybe matching one bike to bike number two, but then let's say you get to bike number three now, there's going to be a little bit of user error in there, maybe something's changed, maybe your hips are tighter than they used to be or something, and you might want to adjust just a little bit based on, you know, our bodies are changing. We're not exactly the same as we were six months ago. And for people buying a bike who are hoping to get fit on it right away, do you think TT bikes specifically are modular enough that if you get the right size,

it can be fit to you? Or do you think there are some body proportions that are so out of the design from each bike that you might want to think about these things before you purchase a bike? Typically, if you go to a bike shop and you're like, I want to buy a TG bike. I don't know which one. They might put you on like the retool bike or like a fit bike that has, you can literally set up any position possible and then the computer will spit out some numbers

and it might say, oh, you fit more easily on a guru than a specialized or a track versus, you know, and so on and so forth. But I do think bikes are, you can make a lot of bikes work. Like when we get our new bikes, our new TT bikes, they come with like a million different stack heights for the bars, for example, and we usually end up using like the lowest one or none at all.

But if you wanted to, if we ever sell the bikes in the future or whatever it is, we keep the high stack because that'll accommodate someone that's taller. So they are modular to a certain extent, and some bike brands are more modular than others. I'd say it's also being professional athletes and us being pretty flexible. We don't run into many problems with,

oh, this bike won't go high enough for me, which could be the issue. More often the problem. Like if you're between a small and a medium in a trek or a specializer, et cetera, et cetera, like that is a bigger issue. And for us, I think we can, we maybe have a little bit more.

room to play than if you're a 50-year-old doctor with a slipped disc that needs to be taken into account. And that's where a professional bike fit is very important. Got it. So yeah, it sounds like just when you get new bikes is like when you really go to a fitter. And then maybe Paula like tweaking her aeroposition, little little things like that. I'd say I wouldn't like to ideally let it go more than a full 12 months without having a professional fitter. Just look at it. And they might not change anything, but just check in. Another, I don't want to drag on too much about this, but another interesting thing is, if I race more time trial events this year, I think the position between like, for example,

that race that's 40 minutes versus a half iron man versus an iron man, that position is drastically different because for an iron man, you're holding this position for five hours or more. For a half, it could be two and a half hours, and for a time trial it's 40 minutes. So you have to kind of take a new account what the distance of the race is that you're doing for how long you'll be able to hold this position. It could be super uncomfortable, but super arrow and tolerable for a 30K time trial, but not

the best fit for an Iron Man, for example. And you can't digest anything because you're too bent over. You guys, when we do this pod midday, I just non-stop talking. Yeah. Like, I'm not brain dead. Okay, question number two. Question number two. Question number two.

Question number two is from K, hi-T-L crew. Love your work. Thanks for insights, videos, and great music sounds. to Flynn. So normally airlines like your tires deflated for travel. Does the same apply for tubeless? If it does, what is the go-to for inflating your tires once you're at destination? Do you need the compressor pump or is it or is that just for the initial setup of the tires? When traveling, I prefer to be self-sufficient so I can get my bike together and test it out in the road in case of issues rather than needing to get to a bike shop to use a compressor pump. Very tempted to make the switch

for my race wheels. Thanks in advance. Looking forward to following your 2023 journeys. Okay. Wow, are we still on Bike Tech with Eric? This is only this. Yeah. That was a lot of answering for Bike Tech with Eric.

Yeah. So I mean, this might be terrible, but I don't deflate my tubeless tires. You're too afraid of what could happen? Yeah, and like, I know that my front wheel would be totally fine, but our rear discs were not at the outset designed to be tubeless wheels.

They work, but they, they're not as easy to seed. so I, to seat. So I try to, they'll just like naturally deflate a little bit. So I'd say I probably put them on the airplane around 40 PSI. Absolutely no risk of them exploding. Right. Like if you had your tires at 100 PSI.

Maybe. Maybe. But I let, you can put them at 40 and they'll come off the airplane at 20 and you're still not at risk of them coming off the rim. So that's what I would do. And they'll feel pretty soft to the touch. And yeah. And so then you would need to have.

compressor or like a burst tank or something like that. I would say if you can bring a pump that is travel capable, but that still has like a pretty good stroke to it so that you can output a bit of air that might give you some latitude in the event that they did go totally flat, you might be able to pump pretty quickly and reseat them yourself. Yeah. Yeah, cool. Well, that's it. That's our bike tag with Eric. Now on to the questions, which we have many of. So let's get right into it. If we have to, Nick, we could split it into two pods. Oh, yeah. We could do that We could do an hour right now and an hour later. Yeah, okay, cool.

But let's just play it by ear. We'll play by here. Play it by ear. First question. Actually, it's a follow-up from something that we said last week about the strength work and the shoes. We had someone who was a real power lifter and they said that Paula was right on that you should not really be using running shoes for doing power lifts.

Specifically what they said was I would never wear running shoes squatting. It would be like seeing a triathlete running converse is silly. For the squat, there are specific squat shoes with a very hard sole and elevated heel to put your legs in the best anthropomorphic, is that right? Anthropometric. I thought it's promorphic. Anthropometric position for the lift. So there you go. The first real question is, can you chat some about your aura rings? My wife got me one for my birthday and I'm curious about how often you take it off and if you have any best practices for it. Do you swim in it? Any other tips, tricks, info you can share would be great. So we've talked about this before. You guys, well, Paula, you don't, right? But Eric, you do swim in it.

But how often do you take it off? Do you wear it all night? Do you just take it off to charge it? Or are there things you take it off for? Well, I put this question in, even though we've addressed it in the past. And just like full disclosure, we're actually not officially working with Oro Ring this year. Last year we were. So we were, you know, sponsored athletes. But this year we don't, but we both still have them on our finger right now because we love them. I only take mine off to swim and to charge it.

Otherwise I'm wearing it. Because you like the kind of non-sport specific data that it gives you, even when you're not running and biking. like sleeping or whatever. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think just, I don't even notice that it's on, so it doesn't bother me at all. It looks nice.

And it does give you some data throughout the day as well. So I like having that. I think the sleep data is what I most look at and the most important thing to me. But having it on in the day is not a bother. Eric, do you pretty much mirror those thoughts? Yeah, I keep it on during swimming, except I have a new set of paddles

that kind of tend to make it pop off. So if I'm using those, I'll take it off ahead of time. but I like having it sort of record everything that we do, and the swim is the one thing that doesn't get pulled into the ORA app from Strava. So if I can keep it on during the swim, then the ring knows how tired I am from exercising. It gets it from the swim data on the ring and then Strava data, and then it can compare that to the sleep data

and just having this overall picture of how fatigued you are is what I like. On top of, like, we initially got it for the sleep data. That's where it's so, so good. and now I just kind of like the general overall fitness picture as well. Speaking of it, do you still have that one hiding behind the cabinet in your van? If you can get it, it's all yours. Okay, that's going to be my goal for the afternoon,

it's my project. The thing about overrings is you can't just like give your old one to someone else because everyone's got a different knuckle size. Oh, and actually we found out that we have very different finger sizes. I thought we were going to be able to put it on your like some right middle finger or something. Well, I'm most interested in it for the sleep stuff, so it wouldn't come off at my sleep. But anyway, not important.

But what was the question? Yes, we love them. Yeah, well, it's just how often you take them off. Yeah. The only other time we take them off is we're doing like kettlebell exercises. Yeah. Lifting. It's, you don't want to nick it up.

Yeah, but you guys, any tips and tricks? Not really. You don't even notice it's there. Yeah. I kind of play with it a lot. It's a good fidget device. Yeah, there you go. Next question is from Everett.

Hello, Amazing TTL team. I have a few swimming questions for you. The swim is easily my weakest discipline. I hear you, Everett. and I am happy to say spending extra time in the pool with a specific program the past few months

has helped tremendously. I have two questions about pacing and stroke count. First, because I am a slow swimmer maybe 155 per 100 yards for Olympic try, I find it nearly impossible to swim slow, easily,

and with good form. How do y'all do it? So that's the, he has another question, but I agree with this. Like for me, when I'm swimming slow, I just notice like, oh man, swimming faster, just everything, I just feel more in line with my body.

My hips are higher, everything works. Do you guys have this too? Do you ever swim slow enough that you feel anything like that? I think we're blessed or fortunate enough or whatever to have done a lot of swimming in our lifetime. So we grew up swimming. So there is, it is possible for us to swim and feel relaxed. But same exact thing that you're talking about. If we're able to put out tempo pace effort, you really, you get more on top of the water, your body's and more in line, but you're doing a, you're doing a plank and you're pulling pretty hard and everything. So I say the only way, that I think I can think of to get around this

is if you wear some of those like floaty shorts in the pool or if you put a buoy in. Yeah. When I put a buoy in and swim easy, my heart rate is like 30. Yeah. Like I can make swimming with a buoy so easy. And I think that it also can become a crotch for some people

because you take away all of the leg muscles. So your heart rate goes way down. You do a pull set and like it's so much easier than a swim set. Even if you aren't a great puller, it's just easier. No, you can't argue that. We think of swimming as like your arms. But then when you take the legs away, it's like, oh my God, this is so much easier. And conversely, when you take the arms away and you're just kicking, it's really hard.

Yeah, exactly. Your legs are useless in the water. The legs aren't really propelling you much, but they're taking a lot of oxygen. Yeah. Yeah. So I would just like make sure you really think of pulling as a drill, not as just, oh, I was swimming. Like pulling for 3,000 yards is not the same as swimming for 3,000 yards. Yeah.

Think of it as a drill that you're using to really practice good body position and feel that and try to carry that into when you swim afterwards. That's when people are posting their swims on Strava and you're like, oh my gosh, there's something so fast per 100. It's like, yeah, they're probably wearing pull-boy and paddles for a hour. It's true. But there's nothing wrong with that. There's like a definite purpose of using pull-boy and paddles.

It's like strength work. What I like about my watch is when I do pull-booy or paddles, I put it on drill mode. But on my watch, it will actually, the pace it gives me at the end is just my pure swimming pace, which I only do in like freestyle. Me and Eric are like very anti-swim social media. They know. The kids know. Yes.

If we do a swim, you're not going to see it on any social media. We do not swim with watches. And it gives me a sense of like, I don't know, sometimes when I'm doing a ride or a bike or a run and I know what's going on Stravett, like holds me accountable and whatever the hell and people are going to see it. But swimming is just like this little secret thing that we do. If I do less meters, no one's going to know. If we swim 6K, no one's going to know. It's kind of fun. The accountability thing works for me with swimming.

I'm like, I got to do this. I got to do it. Yeah, I see that. I could, I understand that. Luckily, Paula and I are on the same wavelength and we're never skipping swims. We'll just, we'll give ourselves little treats in the form of skipping the cool down. Yeah. That's a real treat.

It says 15, 200s. We're going to do 12. That seems. Right, right, right. I feel good about 12. And then the second is how important is stroke rate. I'm considering buying a tempo trainer to increase my SPM because I feel it's on the low side, maybe 60 to 65.

I notice this with Paul. Apollo's stroke rate is so high. She looks like she's always kind of sprinting to my eyes. Because I'm not grabbing any fucking water. So yes, stroke rate. A little pixie sticks in the water. Stroke rate, very important, but you want to make sure that you're not sacrificing,

holding water for that stroke rate. So there's like a happy medium. You don't want to be going three strokes per length and just being completely tied up. Think of if you were just in the big ring, stuck in the big ring on the bike. But you also don't want to be spinning so fast that you're not catching any water.

But I would say that like an open water stroke and a pool stroke is going to be different. I think open water people tend to naturally have a higher stroke rate because you're either swimming through chop or you have a wetsuit on. So it definitely changes when you go open water than it does in the pool when you're swimming easy with a pull boy. Would you say to help mitigate this maybe ever it should do some like DPS work or something so that they still have that grabby water feel or can you think of a drill or something? a lot, actually.

What is DPS? Distance per stroke. So you don't want to get totally crazy with it, but you're trying to do as few strokes as possible, the length of the pool. And the focus is on efficiency, grabbing as much water, not just trying to stretch out or something.

I could just see someone who's trying to increase their cadence, like kind of losing sight of that a little bit, you know? What we did actually when we were swimming with Aqua Bear, a thing that I kind of liked, like a couple years ago in Tucson, is we would alternate. We would do like these, it's like 950s or something and you do three times three 50s.

The first 50 is DPS distance per stroke. The second 50 is high turnover. Really focused just on being on top of the water. Oh, interesting. And sacrificing a little bit of water catching for high turnover. Third one, try to be in the middle. It's interesting to put those back to back. That's a cool idea.

Yeah. It's like a neuromuscular kind of thing. But I liked doing that. I thought that was cool. Yeah, cool. Okay, next question. Hi, all. Thanks for all the great content.

I'd like your opinion on cleat position. When I got my bike fit, one of the changes the fitter made was to shift the cleats a bit on my shoes. I've since purchased new bike shoes and I'm too lazy to go back to the fitter just to have them place my cleats again. How important is it to get cleat position exactly right? Is it good enough just to have them place symmetrically between both shoes? Am I giving up a few watts or putting myself in a worse position on the bike if I get it wrong? Also, if I switch pedals, which have a significantly different cue factor, for example, power pedals, but I want to compensate for this in my cleat position.

Thanks for your insight. That's great. Yeah, this is one of my favorite questions from the week. Yeah. Because cleat position is so important, and I wouldn't do it by eyeballing it on your own. Nope. Take it to a shop, get a bike fit,

or just a cleat fit, if it costs 50 bucks or whatever it is. But, Eric, don't you have a tool where you can measure them one versus the other? Does that work? I don't really like it. It does work in theory. Basically what you would do with this tool that we have is like you make a mark on the shoe

where the person's metatarsal bone is and then you put it into this jig where there's like a grid that the cleat drops through so then you have like where the shoe is oriented on that and then you line up the dot where your metatarsal is and you line up like the heel or something on that with your new shoes and that will ultimately like get the cleat on your new shoes in the same position.

Sounds complicated. It is. It's like, it's quite the thing. And every time I do it, I'm like, I'm 67% sure that I'm getting this right, even though I've checked it 14 times. And the same thing works with a fit when you go to a bike shop. So I'm just kind of like describing this in case you're just hell bent on not going back to the bike shop. They feel for where your metatarsal bone is on your big toe. And then they kind of feel for where it is on your small toe on the outside.

And then they make a mark there where that is like, actually no. They make a mark on your shoe where you're, if you look straight down, down at your shoe, like the pedal spindle connects through there. Because that's where your metastarsal should sit pretty much exactly on? It can be, but also, yeah. And they're just, they're comparing those. I see. Those things, trying to get the new shoe into the same position.

Oh, relative to that. Relative to the pedal spindle. It's definitely more complicated if you're either switching shoes or switching pedals, obviously. If you're switching pedal brands, it's like a totally different thing. And then between shoe brands is also a bit different just with, you know, measuring up based on your eyes. But if you have even a slight difference in the tilt of your shoe or the angle of your cleat or something, it can lead to like really bad injuries just because you're making so many thousands of pedal strokes. And he might not feel it at first, but the accumulation of doing like a bunch of rides over months and months could lead to niggles in your knee or your ankle, your hips, whatever. So it's something I'm always super careful with.

I definitely don't do it on my own. I get Eric to do it because he has some experience. but my A preference would be to get a bike fitter to do it. That's another thing back to our earlier bike fit question. Like when I go in for a bike fit this year, I'm like top of my priority list is check up on the cleat position. And I'm going to bring in my mountain bike and my mountain bike shoes and my tri-shoes and my road shoes

and just make sure everything is the same across the board. Because that's when it gets really challenging is when it's like, all right, I need my foot to be in the same position on my mountain bike. And there's mountain bike cleats and tri-cleats. And that's just somebody has gone to school. cool to do that. Can you compensate for Q Factor with the cleat? Like the, like, is this Q factor or is this Q factor?

I thought Q Factor was this. Closer or further away from the. Yeah. You can move four and a podcast content. Eric and I showing hand motions to each other. Well, I fear we will be cutting that out. But yeah, so you can move forward and backwards and left to right a little bit. You can move a lot more forward and backwards than you can.

Of course. Then you can left and right. Right. And of course, you can also rotate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the fourth axis or whatever would be actual how high your arches relative to the outside

your foot, that angle. Right. A lot of things. There you go. So unanimously, go to a bike fitter. Next question is from Adam. Hi, T.T.L. Nash. My name is Adam.

I'm a Kiwi, which is a New Zealander. He said that. Whatever. I know what a Kiwi is. I'm not trying to tell run. He put it in parentheses. So you know what the Kiwis are. Kiwi.

It's a most delicious little green fruit. Are you a fruit? Living in Melbourne with a few 70.3 finishes under my belt, looking at maybe doing my first full distance at the end of this year. Keep it together, Paula. I picked up the TTIL podcast about halfway through last year, and now I'm a religious listener for all your amazing triathlon and training tips and tricks.

Best part of the podcast for me is hearing the war stories, training battles and dealing with motivation and injury. It helps remind me that we all deal with these things, no matter what level we are at and really keeps me on track. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. My question is, I have a roadie and a TT bike, both of which don't have electronic shifting. I think I take pretty good care of them and ensure that the gears are indexed properly and shifting smoothly. I was wondering at what stage do you think it's worthwhile upgrading to electronic shifting, if at all, and what the key benefits would be for doing so,

specifically the extra money spent worth it. I keep seeing horror stories of batteries running out mid-ride like Lucy Charles Barkley at the PTO U.S. Open and being stuck with too big or small gear for the ride. Seems like a bit of a headache, and I keep wondering if it's just worth sticking to the old-fashioned system. Interested to hear your thoughts, and thanks for everything you do,

cheers Adam. Love this question. The other one that I really liked. You can answer it to work. As far as the horror stories go, I think this is like prime time news. Yeah, definitely. Every time something goes wrong

for whatever reason, you're going to hear about it. You're not hearing about the millions and millions of rides that went totally fine and smoothly and people, you know, like the thing with mechanical shifting, I have friends who have mechanical shifting and they break cables.

Like that's always been a thing. The cables get rusty, you don't realize that they snap. Yeah. Or the shifting's not smooth or something. Yeah, whatever it is. And I think we have six bikes between the two of us that all have electronic shifting on them. The only time the batteries go dead is if it's our fault.

It's not like, oh, wow, this battery just all of a sudden went dead. No, it's been going dead for three weeks and you kept forgetting to charge it. If you just have a system where you are like, Every Friday, I charge all my batteries, for example. Yeah, not going to have a problem. Also, the SRAM batteries are very easy to charge and interchangeable between the front and the rear. So if your rear one dies, you can swap the front one to the back and still have control of the rear shifting. And I think they blink red, like giving you a bit of notice.

So you know they're going low before they actually just fully die. And I've only heard horror stories of DIY2 because you don't, you have to plug your bike into the wall. And it's very, like, depending on how it's set up with your bike, which is proprietary per bike, It could be like on my Canyon, I have to take the headset apart. Yeah, that's crazy. That's ridiculous. Yeah, like literally three, two different size torques wrenches to take a plastic cap off to get into the junction. Thanks, Canyon.

Wow. Yeah, so that's like, it can be annoying. And we don't get a warning. Yeah. And I would say that the stuff that you hear about electric shifting failing is, it's just getting so good now that you don't hear it as often. Like Eric said, unless it's like really your fault and you forget to charge it. but the number of times we've had issues is like zero, I'd say. And SRAM is so, so reliable, so good.

And like I said, easy to charge the batteries, which I think is the major upside from Shimano. And just like the smoothness of shifting and all that. Yeah, one anecdote before we wrap this up, when I did that Mount Bachelor duathlon thing that I did where I wrote up the mountain and did the run and the whole deal, I kind of like had this feeling that I was running low on battery, but wasn't like really sure,

but it was going to be a really long mountain bike ride with a lot of shifting. I just brought an extra battery with me. And sure enough, three quarters away through that like seven hour day, battery went dead and I just jumped off. Five seconds later, new batteries in there. Took up no, it's like weighs 10 grams in my backpack. Yeah, you can take an extra one in your transition bag. You can take an extra one like in your saddle bag if you're really worried about it.

They're just these tiny little maybe like one inch by half an inch size batteries. But this guy's more interested in like, is it worth the cost? Should you upgrade? What I usually tell people is for a road bike, I think you can get away with mechanical. That's good. But for a TT bike, having two different places to shift is so nice to have the electronic shifting. Totally worth whatever it costs to upgrade. And I think Shimano and Shram both have the different levels now.

So you can get a little bit of a less expensive electric shifting setup, but still just as good. I can't imagine having a TT bike without electronic shifting. Yeah, same. Parting thought, you get the best deal on your new shifting stuff if you buy it with bike complete. So you might be ahead to sell the bike, baby. Let's go. Yeah, might be ahead to sell the mechanical shifting bike, just buy a new bike and the parts

would be cheaper on there. There you go. Oh my gosh. I was going to say, like, we got some Argon's to sell, but I got to say like last week when I said that about the wetsuits, I was like buried in emails about wetsuits. And like half the people thought I was giving them away for free. Half the people were like, I'll pay the shipping to Switzerland. I'm like, wow, I was just hoping to like give them out the door in bed.

Next person to meet us. That's a swimming pool. Halt emails. They are gone. I honestly haven't replied to a single person because I'm too overwhelmed. So I think I'm just going to like,

I don't even know. But I was hoping to not exactly give them away because they are gently used and they are like a $1,000 wetsuit. So my thought was to like sell them for very cheap. But anyway, that's a different topic. But if I didn't reply to you, I'm sorry, it was just because I was overwhelmed.

And we were doing a lot this week, to be fair. Okay. Next question. from Laura in North Carolina. First off, thank you for making this podcast weekly. I learned so much and enjoyed listening to everything you have to share. I find myself laughing out loud sometimes, especially in the most recent podcast.

Good, we're glad. So Laura's going into her third year as a triathlet and she says, she's just an average age grouper, but I am loving it. Anyway, my question is more about my daughter. She's about to turn five and seems to be really enjoying swimming and riding her bike. I've heard on the pod that you guys were swimming at six years old. Did you always enjoy going? you on swim teams? Can you talk some more about

the earlier years of each sport and how it progressed? Let me ask a better question. Did you ever enjoy going? I didn't start when I was six, just to be clear. I started when I was 12. Like competitive swimming. I think I did swimming lessons when I was six and that was whatever, once a month. It was called for me at six, it was called pre-comp.

Pre-comp? That's pretty serious. Yeah. Wow, pre-comp at six. Intent to compete. Yeah, got it. I think I definitely did like eight and under swim meets, though. So I think by seven I was doing doing little pretend races. I think there's like a little bit of risk of burnout if you're starting that young.

But for the most part, the reason I loved swimming so much, although I started a bit later, I was 11, was the friends I created there. That was totally my social network, my, you know, escape after school, you go and you're hanging out with your friends. And yes, you're at the pool, but it's fun. I truly enjoyed that part of it. And I could never imagine quitting swimming just because I loved my friends so much. So if you have a good swim club and a good coach and a positive environment, I think it's

like a really positive way to be raised. You know, you're going straight from school to the pool, and it's a positive environment for the most part. I have zero regrets growing up a swimmer, even though I maybe sacrificed a little bit socially on like, you know, doing other things, but it's led me to fantastic opportunities now. And my best friends to this day are all friends that I swam with. Now, here's my question, those friends. Because my experience with people who used to swim is now these people hate all endurance sport. Do they still swim? A lot of them do. And the problem with swimming is you don't get a ton of exposure to other sports because swimming just takes up so much time.

So a lot of my friends that swam when they were younger growing up, even through university, don't even really know how to run or bike or go to the gym or do alternative activities. So swimming is really all they know. And they're incredible athletes in the pool, but it ends there. So you're so burnt out from swimming, you don't want to go to the pool, but you also don't really run. So you just don't exercise. So I think it's, what Eric and I've done, obviously, is branch off into triathlon where you're biking and running and doing other things. But I think when you're six years old for the sake of this question, if swimming is like the most fun thing and all she wants to do is swim, that's totally okay.

But I would like leave the options open to joining soccer or joining hockey or doing another sport just to like be exposed to options. Yeah. There is definitely, it was definitely not a linear all fun all the time thing though. Oh, for sure. Swimming is very much like a delayed gratification thing. It's really great for teaching you a goal setting and stuff. But I can remember numerous times in like the 8 to 12 range where I was like, I'm quitting swimming. I hate swimming.

I don't want to go anymore. My parents would say, okay, well, that's fine. We paid for the entire month. So you can quit as soon as June hits. And within two weeks, I didn't even remember that anymore. And I was kind of back into it and enjoying it. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I was swimming as like such a high performance environment and mentality, even from such

young age because the amount of time you need to spend swimming to be good at swimming is insane. And it's the reason we see why people that didn't grow up swimming or struggle as triathletes to learn how to swim in their 20s and 30s because we've all been doing this for like, you know, 15 hours a week when we were 10. Yeah. You peak in swimming when you're like between 18 and 25. Yeah. So you've got to go pretty hard at 9.

But I think, I do think that that like high performance mentality that you have is a super young kid in swimming, it can be good and bad. Like it's definitely, you know, brought me to where I am today. But it is a lot of high pressure stuff. And if you're, you have to have like understanding parents and a supportive family that's not like pushing you hard to do this. It's like fully your own motivation or whatever desire to do it. And the family's just supporting you. So as long as she's interested in it, I think it's safe.

Yeah. Cool. I just talked so much on that. Wow. I'm just thinking about how I have, I'm like a little bit torn because on one side, I see how often swimmers burn out in the then never want to do sport again. And the other side, I see how great it is to be, to have swim as a kid, like how much of an advantage it gives you when you're swimming.

It's like, it's not even thinking about it. If you end up wanting to be a triathlete, this kid is six, you know. I think there's no downside. And I think I'm just like super passionate about it, so I could just talk forever about this. But it's something that we both experienced very, it was our whole life. So it, like, is very easy to talk about. And I 100% agree with everything you said. You just, you said it perfectly.

And I dragged on a lot. I don't need to apologize for that. Next. Wait, did you say Apologize? I apologize. Apologize with Paula. Yeah. That could be a new segment.

Sometimes when I'm talking, I'm like, yeah, I'm making all good points. And then I go listen to the podcast the following week. And I'm like, oh, my God, you need to shut up. No. Next question. You are making all good points. You're just like, oh, and I thought of another point. And I thought of another point.

I'm so smart. And I'm like, here's what I'm going to talk about. Three, two, one, and no more things. That's right. Okay, well, let's move on here. My husband was inspired by my latest Ironman and 70.3 races in 2022 and wants to race to 70.3 again this year

after five years without any races. Since he started training a few weeks ago, his swim gear, dirty bike shorts, and water bottles are everywhere. I can see why we picked this question. Paula put it in and bolded it. And as you know, all the tech apparel has to be hung dry.

So now this workout gear drying as far as the eye can see. My question for you is, how do you manage the tri-gear everywhere from two training athletes without losing your mind. Well, this is Paula's question. Eric has a laundry hamper. Magically, it appears back hung up in his closet. I help.

I help. Sometimes like, Eric. No, sometimes I'll come walking in the bedroom. If I see clothes on the bed, I'll fold a few things. I'll fold a few things. Yeah, that's true. The amount of time I spend standing in our closet hanging up clean clothing. Oh my gosh.

Years of my life. No, but how we handle it is I just stay on top of it. And to be fair, we don't have kids. So I feel like if you had kids added to that laundry equation, it would just be like triple is worse. But we basically, if Eric has super sweaty clothes, he hangs them up in our bathtub in the bathroom. So at least they're dried.

And then puts them in the laundry hamper. And every three days I'll do a load. And we, I usually put like our nice bibs and shorts and stuff hanging up. And the rest just goes in the dryer because I just cannot. And like this person said, as far as the eye can see, like you only have so much hanging space, right? So a lot of stuff gets put in the dryer on like gentle temperature cycle and the stuff has lasted totally fine. Yeah, and then it's just the laundry hamper and I hang it up when I'm super motivated.

I usually actually listen to our podcast as I'm hanging up laundry because it like passes the time. Do you find that you, is it better to wash stuff more often? Yeah, I would say. Then always kind of have something there drying or do you like to do it in like larger batches? No, I like having smaller chunks because then a lot of the time Eric's looking for something that he wants to wear and it's dirty

so every three days or so for just cycling through stuff and then stuff's not sitting sweaty in the laundry paper forever. And then it's a less overwhelming amount to deal with after it's dried. But I don't really have any secrets for this. It's just like the reality of training. It kind of sucks. On the positive side

we'd go through very few casual clothes because we wear them for about 20 minutes at a time. Because that's all the time you have. I'm not washing our jeans very often. Speaking of you guys don't have kids, should we teach the, everyone hear what a dink is? It's so rude. Is it rude?

Is it rude? Well, the word dink is rude until you hear what actually means. I don't know if it's rude. Okay, go for it, Nick. I think it's funny. I wonder how many people knew about it, but yeah, Eric taught me about it last week. Dink is dual income, no kids.

So, for example, in Ben, there are a lot of dinks. Just people who are plain nonsense. A lot of playtime. They're not taking the kids to soccer practice. They're going to their own soccer practice. And I don't not want to have kids, but at our current moment, we're doing. It's overwhelming. Well, don't we have like tens of thousands of kids?

Like, come on. These kind of kids are zero work. I don't do their laundry. Yeah, that's true. Oh my God. Imagine that. Okay, there you go. So no real tips.

I guess just stay on top of it, right? Oh, they're asking for tips. I guess you could just like, you know, run on the treadmill with one pair of shorts and no other clothing. You're only getting a pair of shorts dirty. Just train in the garage naked. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, you can quote us on that.

Okay, next question is from Katie. My favorite Thruple plus Flynn. First of all, love the podcast. My favorite distraction from working. I'm about to invest in my first brand new bike after riding in 1997 specialized Craigslist find. so it was used in 1997. It's probably super retro and attractive. I'm buying a Trek Damani Al4, which I'm guessing is the aluminum.

Oh, God. And I'm super excited. I was wondering if I could get your takes on what you would upgrade first. I noticed on a test ride, the tires are a bit thicker than my old bike, but I don't know what will make a difference. I've been doing sprint triathlons, and I'm planning to focus on Olympic this season and hopefully a 70.3 following year for context. Thanks so much, Katie.

So tires for sure. Eric, I know you love that. Pro 1's on there and just convert your life over to greatness. That's a lot faster too. It doesn't just feel better. It doesn't just corner better. It's also faster.

It's crazy how much of a difference you can make in the feeling. Yeah, if you're buying a bike that's like a little bit lower budget bike, it might come with some like more everyday commuting tires. And if you put race tires on, that's a huge amount of watt savings, right, Eric? But you think this person should put race tires on? Racing? Yeah, for racing. Oh, for racing, yeah.

But I would say you can probably just get some. some in-between tires, like the Schwalby Pro one, where it's, like, got some flat protection, but also feels nice. And you could definitely race with them if you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. But that's, like, the main upgrade I'd make to a new bike is making sure the tires suit the activity that you're doing. Yeah.

Yeah. You get some fancy bar tape, different colored bar tape to customize it. You can get a lighter saddle. You could just get a saddle that feels fantastic to you. Oh, that's actually a good thing. A lot of the time the stock saddle might not necessarily be what works for you. it's a good idea to experiment. Even if you're buying a trek,

getting a specialized saddle or something that has a good reputation for being comfortable with a lot of people. Maybe if you live in a hilly area, like a compact gear set? You could potentially change, or if you got a compact and you live in Florida,

that's a possible thing. I don't think many people would be limited by that unless you find that through how you're riding. I find that with my bikes I have to switch to a compact to ride in the Santa Monica mountains

because it's so steep. Totally. A lot of times I'm in like my small skier out of the saddle. Yeah. Still like. Are they buying this bike new from the bike shop? I think so. Okay. Because if that's the case, you should be able to talk to the bike shop and like just buy it.

They can switch the cranks around, stuff like that, you know? Just get it so it's set up for you out of the door. At least bring it up with them to see if they're open to that. Yeah, it might save you a little bit of money doing it. Cool. Like there. Next question, Jonas from Cologne, Germany. Hey, T, TL fam.

I have a question about swimming. Do you pay the full price five times per week to enter the, pool or do professionals have a special deal with their local pool. Same question for you, Nick. Do you pay a billion dollars to go swimming each week? Well, this week I paid zero dollars because I got sponsored by Eric and Paula to go to the pool. I can swim for free at my sports university, but visiting my parents over Christmas, I got poor in that week alone. Thanks for answering and keep up the good work. Jonas from Cologne. Oh, I hate paying to swim. Yeah, swimming on the road is always going to be expensive because you're out, you're not in the community,

so you're not getting that discount, and a lot of pools out there, like have a gym attached to them and a sauna and a basketball court, and they're like, oh, well, you can use all the facilities for $25, like, I just want to swim. Yeah, for 30 minutes. Yeah.

We buy a annual pass to the pool and bend, and it costs $1,100 a year for the two of us. Oh, but it's infinite for that. You don't buy a certain amount of swipes. No, it's unlimited for a whole year. And it's the only way that really makes sense for us. We go to the pool five or six times a week and then also sometimes use the gym there. So we are for sure getting our value out of that annual thing.

And then it feels free every time. Like if you're going in every time and swiping your credit card, it feels so expensive. So I'd say a strategy is if you can get a punch card, even if you're visiting somewhere. Sometimes that'll reduce the cost. But really, it's just like you said, when you're at home and you have a free access to the university pool. Think about that. And then when you have to go away for a week and spend more than you want to, it's just part, it's the given take. It's the given take. It's the given take. Exactly, exactly. So it's, it's not free to swim. There's a lot of upkeep with the pool and the chemicals and lifeguards and all that. So it's a painful expense, but a necessary one.

And I swim where I swim, if you're a resident, you pay much less. And then if you are a student or a teacher, you pay even less than that. Yeah. And Nick is currently on the papers as being a resident student and teacher. So they actually pay him to swim. Yeah, he pays like 50 cents to swim or something. Yeah, I think it's like less than $2 for a swim for me. But if I get a pack, so I can buy like 20 packs at a time. I wish I could pay for the year, though. I do think there are some cases that I've seen where like a pro athlete is kind of

sponsored by a sports center and they're swimming for free or maybe if you're set up with your federation. Like when I was with triathlon Canada, I didn't pay for my pool entry. Maybe if it's a private pool, not a public pool. But Eric and I as pros, we fully pay what all other community members pay. And we feel good about it. We like that pool. It's a nice pool.

Next question, David from Mesa, Arizona. Hey guys, I was listening to you on my trail run today. Totally biffed it after tripping over something. Arizona trails are not kind to clumsy runners. Ouch. When a crash or a tumble happens, what goes through your mind first? Does your mind go to sponsors in racing? Are you just like, man, that was gnarly?

Were you taught to walk it off or rub dirt in it? interested to hear professionals take on taking spills during training. Thanks for the great running soundtrack and your podcast. So Eric, I'm thinking of like when you, specifically when you're coming down, Bachelor, and like you were trail running down and you fell on your face and were bleeding out of the side of your head. Like was your first thought of like my career or is it my health or like how do I get to the bottom? Am I going to be okay? Do I have a concussion?

Yeah. My first thought was just like total disbelief to be honest. And that might sound like overconfidence or something. something, but it's just I almost fall pretty frequently and catch myself a lot and a mountain biking I fall and stuff. But usually when I crash, it's like, I can't believe that happened. Right. That's never happens. And then as I was running down Bachelor, I actually like touched my face because like I kind of face planted in some dirt slash lava rock and yeah, I was bleeding. And then I kind of got ready to run again. And I realized I was kind of fuzzy vision and stuff.

And then it was, whoa, do I have a con? Yeah. Maybe I should stand here for a second. That's crazy. I hope I'm okay. And then I continued on. You were fine. Yeah, I don't think at any point it really got concerned for my season. I have crashed on the mountain bike before and gone down on my hip.

Not about it. And like within 10 minutes kind of like, this will really suck if this lingers on more than a day. Yeah, it's like I think there's some processing that needs to happen first before you realize like how good, how bad it is or how damaging it's been. You know, thinking like, what about my sponsors? They're not going to, that's definitely not. Okay, I'm going to ask you. I guess neither of us have had like a crash or an incident at that level in quite some time. And all of our sponsors are like so supportive that if you had that type of an injury where you couldn't race for a bit, like they would still support.

Yeah, as long as there's a sick picture video out of it, you know, it's fine. It's all part of the. It's like when I got you coming down to the Trones Santa Monica and it was just so like washed out and steep, you like went down to like one mile an hour. It's like, well, at least we got it on video. Yeah, it's worth it. Not a total loss. Okay, next question. Hi, y'all.

Thanks for the great content. Day one listener here. I've noticed a trend since listening to your podcast. Each and every episode that I listen to, I find some part that has been inspiring and has motivated me with some triathlon and health-related goals. Wow. Thank you, Beth. Awesome.

What do you each listen to watch or read to stay inspired with your own goals? Happy New Year. Looking forward to all your 23 content, Beth from New York. Well, I'll go first, actually, on this one. both of you all the time when I'm training I'm like damn they work so hard I could get through this right

like you just think of us all the time all the time when I'm training I'm just like Thanks babe I think about it all the time because I just think of like

this isn't my job I can stop at any time I'm like man Eric and Paula works so hard I can get through this and sometimes I think about like just like I know I'm going to be able to talk to you about the workout later so when it's really hard

to have someone that knows what that feeling is when you're in the middle of a 20-minute interval that you just are like, oh, my God, get me out anywhere but here right now. That's a little bit of a comforting thought. Like someone said earlier, the war stories. Yeah. There was a stretch of a few weeks towards approaching world championships where I was texting you.

Like in the middle of interval workouts, I'd go out and be like, dude, it's so hot. I don't know if I can do this. I'm just going to try. Here's the workout that I'm supposed to do. And you'd be like, wow, that's a lot of watts. I'm like, yeah. I'm going to try. And then I'd like finish one interval and text you like 315 and you'd be like nice.

And like that was like somehow giving me like well I don't want to text him like 270. Right. Like you're my de facto coach. I like that it got so bad that you're like texting me after each interval. You know like that after the workout. You're like no, I need help throughout this workout. Yeah. Paula was it was like doing the separate, the same workout but on the trainer.

I didn't want to text her like in the middle of my thing being like, babe, I'm really struggling. Also, Eric will never admit struggle to me. Like, he never comes to me for, like, consolation or anything. You know, I'm the one that complains to him. Is this a therapy session? And Eric is the tough guy who never... I have a soft soul that I'm ready to accept.

I wish Eric would come to me more for, like, I am really having a hard time. Can you help me? If you really must know, I feel like sometimes when I bring that to you, you do what I typically do and you go into, like, well, here's why. I'm like, I know why. It just sucks. And I need you to be like, yeah, babe, your life's super hard, but you're pushing through a good job. Okay, I'll say that next time.

And give me a hug. I don't really watch or listen to things for motivation. Can you think of anything, Eric? Yeah. I can think of a couple things, actually. Like, what I visualize, I think about stuff. So I'm like thinking about Oceanside as I'm swimming. I was like, oh, it would be really sweet to be swimming at Oceanside and not just destroyed entire.

because I didn't train hard enough. And I'm picturing, like, running out of the water, feeling fresh. And that's my motivation to, like, do the eighth 200 hard. Right. And, like, okay, this will pay off someday. So I'm thinking about. That's what I'm thinking about. Wow. That's probably what you should be thinking about.

I think that raises all the time when I'm training, of course. You're just, you guys race so much. This is what I was going to say. The other thing that helps motivate me that I feel like you guys probably don't have at all is, like, there's always this voice inside of my head that's like, you're not really an endurance athlete. you're a musician or for anyone out there, whatever else like you specialize in growing up,

and something about going out there every day and doing this thing that you feel like is so far outside of who you naturally are, that's inspiring. It's like, yeah, I'm proving that voice in my head wrong every day. You've made a chip on your shoulder on your own, essentially. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I was in that phase for a long time, actually, as I was transitioning from being a swimmer to trying to learn to run, like, in high school and college. People be like, well, you're pretty husky for a runner. or whatever. I'm like, God, I'm going to go run. I can't wait to prove them wrong. I will die to, like, prove you that I can run well, you know?

Yeah. And then I guess the last thing I would say is from the film side of things, I love watching, like, surf films and ski films get inspired to make better content for triathlon. Yeah, I'm just thinking about. You're a purebred athlete. I don't know what I think about. Like, I don't like training hard that much, in fact, at all. And I don't love racing.

But I just think about, like, well, it's my job. Like I have, I'm good at it. I guess I'm good at it. I guess I have to win races and I do. So I have to get through this. But I'm not like, I'm going to work so hard this year and improve so I can be the world champion. Like that's not my mindset. Like someone, maybe it should be.

But it's such a time. Because I hear you talk about that. You're open about wanting to be world champion. But it's not like what you're thinking about what training. No, I'm not like, oh, I'm going to make all these changes and be more diligent with this and this and this. if anything, I take confidence in what we did this year and it actually worked really well. So why am I, I'm not going to go change a bunch of things. And when I'm suffering in a workout, actually, I'm more lenient than I used to be with myself in backing off a bit or switching things around because I know that works best for me.

If I know I'm going to fail at a thing after the first interval, I have no problem changing it. And I think that's led to like longevity and having a good. good year of being healthy. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. It's funny how each one of us has very different things that keeps us going.

By the sounds of our answers, Nick, you like Triathlon the most. I mean, I just don't have to put myself into that deep, dark place nearly as often as you do. If you don't want to. Yeah. True. Even though I feel like I do it plenty, but it's just not the same. Yeah. Such an interesting question. Things change in your mind when all of a sudden, like, the hobby is the thing that

Oh, yeah. Happens in music all the time. I know very, very, very few professional musicians now that aren't partially or totally jaded on music. Wow. And I feel really lucky. I still love making music too. Okay, next question, because we've been going on for a while here. This could be a quick one, but I have a question for you about racing suits. ITU uses rear zip and long course uses front zip.

Why the difference? Is it based on the governing body or is it mandated by the sponsors? Since Paul and Eric have raced both distances, I'm curious if there's a performance difference. Qualified for a World Championship event and Team USA offers both options. So I'm trying to figure out which might work best for me. Thanks, Wesley. This is a really cool question.

I mean, we were kind of talking about this one before we came up here in our pre-game session, and I think it's really interesting. So basically with ITU, there's a couple functional reasons that make that the thing. Yes, they do mandate it. But in the event that you're doing a non-wetsuit swim, you're not allowed to wear a speed suit. So having a front zipper would let a lot of water in. It would be very slow.

Definitely not the way to go. So if you're swimming in your trathonsuit, it's got to be a back zip. I think that's like the main reason. Because for us, we have a front zipper, but when we're swimming non-wetsuit, we're wearing a skin suit over top. So it does create the streamline effect at the front. And then if it's really hot on the run, you can like halfway unzip it. And it's got to be more aerodynamic on the bike.

Yeah, easier to go to the bathroom. What? You're still far away from the bike. Oh, Nick wants me to go closer to the mic. How's that? You'll see the sound difference is really, really big for these mics being that far away. I apologize for that sentence of low quality sound. That's my answer, though.

Yep. I think for us not doing ITU and for pretty much every age group athlete out there, a front zip is by far preferable for a lot of reasons. Just comfort, bathroom, putting ice in it, cooling off, everything. Yeah. And then our last question, This is kind of an ethical question here, but I really liked this. I wanted to end on it.

Hi, guys, currently facing an uncomfortable situation with my coach, and I was wondering if you had any experience with something similar. We have an uncomfortable situation with our coach all the time. There you do? You're definitely going to relate to this question. I guess over the last 10 years. My coach got approached by this girl, which is consistently close to me at races. We're two of the top three to five girls at the end of race on the podium.

Sometimes she beats me. Sometimes I beat her. It's all good in sports. But now she's going to be coached by the same coach that I, I am coached by. Can't help but feel a little betrayed by him. How does this work in the pro field with several top pro-traathletes being coached by the same person? Do you ever worry that another athlete might get better than you because they now benefit from the same expertise you trust your training with? Thanks in advance for your answer and much love to you.

I would say that when I first started out in triathlon, I definitely, as a pro-traithlet, I had that sensation of like our coach is genius. We're doing secret stuff. We're going to be so good and everything. And as I've gotten a little bit older, I've kind of realized that it still comes down to the athlete. There's a large percentage of the athlete that's involved and I've gotten more confident in my abilities to execute a workout and that every athlete's different. What works for me might not work for Nick. So it's less of a thing and it's more about you finding the coach that works for you. So I wouldn't be that concerned about it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that any coach is trying to look out for like one athlete over the other if they're a good coach. And I think

that in ITU groups, it really works well because everyone's just bringing everyone else to another level. So being able to train with someone who's the best in their country every single day is a really cool dynamic. And I think brings out the most in people. And you see that with Vincent Louis, with Katie Zaffaris, with people that are at the top of their level, they're training with their competitors every day. And it creates this like environment of excellence, I guess. So I don't think I'd be that concerned.

No. I mean, you still as an athlete have to do the best job and you have to be confident in yourself that even if you and one of the athlete got the exact same training, that you can do it better. The one interesting thing, like an interesting anecdote from the ITU space, Joel Filial, classically has not ever

had two athletes from the same country. on his squad. So he'll have 20 athletes, but I'll have a French guy and a Canadian person and a Swiss woman and a Finnish woman, but he won't have two Swiss ladies.

Because in the ITU space, that can be like this very fierce competition amongst the athletes themselves where you're like, I'm trying to go to the Olympics and there's only one spot for my country and I'm competing against the person who's trying to get that Olympic spot every single day.

It's more personal than, oh, the guy from Finland just beat me whatever. you know, in this workout, it doesn't have quite the same long-term ramifications or whatever, psychologically. Yeah. Agree. Yeah. Cool.

Well, those are all our questions. And this is our last podcast together for at least a while. And just a reminder to everybody, you can submit your questions. And also, if you want, you can support the podcast with your monthly support at thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. So what are we doing now, by the way? I just want to say real quick. This will be our last podcast. with Nick, Paula, and I all in the same room.

Looking into each other's eyes in real life. Since Nick's hanging out with us and Ben. He's going home tomorrow. We've got some cool vlogs coming up. Oh, yeah. And what are we doing now? We're going to do another... Are we going to try to run?

We're going to do another exercise. It's raining. It's really giving her. And then we're actually going to Lindsay Corbin and Chris Corbin's house for dinner. Part of Lindsay's new career is helping Chris with the marketing side of a lot of the food brands that they work with and then taking pictures.

So she makes all these meals on Wednesday to photograph and needs help eating them. So we raised our hands and said if we must. If there's one thing I'm good at. We will come eat all of your gourmet food. So we're looking forward to that. And yeah, again, huge thanks to you, Nick, for being here for 10 days. Thank you for housing me and taking me amazing places and taking me to meet the Corbyns. I mean, we've just been having a fun nonstop.

Yeah, if it looks on Instagram, like we have nonstop fun. It's true. is. We really do have not all the stuff goes on Instagram. We have even more fun than it looks like. We work hard and we play hard and we enjoy all of it. Yes, we do. And that is the truth. We need to post

more Eric and Nick stressed on their laptop pictures to balance it out. I can't get these two shots to color match. What is this? That's the thing is like when you're doing these kind of things that we do, like a catastrophe is not really a catastrophe where it's all solvable stuff that you guys can work with. My mom always says this quote. I love it. She says in an Italian, of course, but she says, I hope these are the worst problems we ever have.

Yeah. Yeah. Not being able to color match. Exactly. Exactly. Even though they seemed dramatic at the time. It's like, these aren't real problems. Well, thanks so much for listening, everybody. Thanks for sending in questions. And we will chat with you next week. See you next week. Ciao.