That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon bike vs TT bike, meal prep, carbon shoes for slower runners, and more!

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

This week we let out our post Kona blues, and answer some of your triathlon questions. Questions about why a professional would need a coach when they already have so much knowledge, winter triathlons and how applicable they are to road triathletes, van life and more! For a video about the TTL van, click here: https://youtu.be/vJ_MzGZiWfUFor gear head to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hello everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Eric Longerstrom. I'm Nick Goldston. And we are here to talk about triathlon, talk about life, answer your questions, and yeah, just a little bit of everything this week. We're excited to be here. It is Monday Night and Bend. I'm actually in a great mood. Eric is not, and Nick is in a great mood, as always. So we'll see how this podcast goes. But sometimes the mixed emotions between the three of us really bring out the best podcasts. It does. It does. I'm rapidly improving.

I like, I sent all afternoon working on our van and just inevitably it's, there's always little frustrations. You're like, oh, I'll just knock this out before lunch. And then they're like, dinner comes around and you're still on the same thing. But then once we did actually have dinner, Paul's mom, Sheila is here and she cooked us an amazing salmon feast. And I'm just, I'm riding pretty high right now. Oh, so it's not just Max that cooks really well.

My mom cooks well, too. Yeah. I mean, it was nothing like over the top. We went to Costco today and we just load it up on so much food. And no, it's really funny. I was like, so my mom was going to buy the Costco load because that's what moms do. Right, of course. And we get to the checkout.

And in Canada, Costco only accepts MasterCard. In the U.S., Costco only accepts Visa. And my mom has a master card and I have a visa. So we go to checkout and it's like $380 or something, of course, because that's what it is at Costco. And she goes to pay and the lady's like, oh, we don't take MasterCard. So then I end up... Panic. I end up having...

While you'd been like piling on every trial you normally skip. Let's put a few of these things back actually. I'm like, oh, hemp seats? Okay, two bags. This is a little gear supply. Six pack of soda streams? Yes. Yeah, that's right. A Pendleton blanket? Oh, yeah.

So I'm like, okay, but you don't take MasterCard? I'm just going to go put half this back. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Anyway. Anyway, yeah, Nick, what are we doing today? Well, my first question for you is, who are you? This is not an existential question.

It's more of an introduction. Oh, yeah. So Paula and I, we just totally forgot our introduction. Paula and I are professional triathletes. Nick is our friend and professional musician, amateur trathlet. Oh, and I feel like we were supposed to, we talked about this. You're a pretty good amateur trathlet. You're not total rando.

Right. When I first made the description of the podcast, I said, average amateur triathlet. I would say like if we made this continuum between like least fit person in the world and most fit person in the world, you're like definitely in the bell curve somewhere but if we're just looking at amateur triathletes

in general, you're towards the front. I usually at local races will do well and then I get spanked at Iron Man's and long distance races just because fast people show up. Anyway, we felt like that was kind of worth mentioning just like the structure of this podcast is Paul and I kind of offer our pro thoughts and the way we do stuff.

And Nick has really great insight and can like kind of come up with these great follow-up questions based on not being a professional athlete. I'm slowly siphoning all your wisdom and creating an arsenal of information that I'm going to use to my advantage and exploit you and eventually be faster than you. It's just the long con. Well, speaking of that, I've been like obsessively listening to the post-cona stuff. Not only the interviews of the athletes, but like Chelsea Sedaro, coach, Dan Ploos is pretty sciencey and he's been on a couple podcasts

since she won. And I'm like, wow, maybe I can just take all this knowledge and apply it to me. But some of it's like kind of over the top. I don't know. Like a lot of it boils down to Chelsea being an incredible athlete. It's not like, oh, because she took this many grams of carbohydrate per hour.

So I take, I think it's entertaining to listen to but I don't think that there's this like necessarily magic formula where you can listen to a podcast, apply it to yourself and you're going to be a world champion. But yeah, I agree, Nick. You're really accumulating a lot of our novel. Even my mom, who actually has a question this week, even my mom is like in her heavy Italian accent. She's like, I want you to quiz me on triathlon.

I know everything now that I've been listening to the podcast every week. Well, that's good. That's the point, right? Yeah, that's what we were hoping that like through this interaction and I was just chatting, maybe you pick up a useful thing every once in a while. You being the listeners, not Nick. And speaking of the listeners, last week we kind of like teased and introduced this idea of the podcast subscription. And we just wanted to thank everyone who did sign up.

We know we're not going to change the podcast at all. Some podcasts, like they gain popularity and then they all of a sudden go behind a paywall. We are never, ever, ever going to do that. The podcast is always going to be free. But we appreciate everyone that did subscribe to the podcast. It's a really big help. And if you missed what that is, we basically have a way to support us so that we can keep the podcast ad-free. And we're not doing reads at the beginning of each pod.

And we can help us, like, upgrade our equipment, pay Nick what he deserves. hopefully what he deserves if we can get enough subscribers. And it's like $5 a month and it just kind of, yeah, supports what we're doing. So that's available on our website, that triathlonlife.com. Slash podcast. Oh, slash podcast. Ooh, we got the slash podcast up. We got it.

We got it. Danny's got it all figured out. So actually, that's a good segue. Danny, the wizard. You can now subscribe and also, instead of doing the email address, you can ask your questions through a form right on there. That triathlonlife.com slash podcast. What?

Wow. Does that actually go straight to my email? It goes straight to your email and it's filtered automatically into the podcast folder. Wow. You know what else is filtered into the podcast folder is on the email address is all of the people that are subscribing, like their transaction goes into the podcast folder. And at first I'm like, wow, this is a bit annoying. But it's also really cool because then I can like see their name and see that they've done it. And I'm like, okay, this is awesome. So thank you to everyone honestly who's done it. It really means a lot to know. to know that you back us, even though it's a very brand-new thing. Yeah.

And keep on your inbox because we have got our first, like, thing message. We've got our first perk. Should we have it? When do we want to have it go out Friday? No promises, but it'll come this week. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Yeah.

Get that triathlon life. Make sure that doesn't go to spam. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. We got some special surprises from Flynn coming to your inbox. Oh, God. That sounds bad.

Well, first of all, before we get into questions, I just want to do a little warm up here with some rapid fire. So, okay, very quickly, this is all a little bit Kona-based because I was completely immersed in a Kona cloud this whole weekend, just obsessively watching everything. Me too. Are you all so depressed now? Yes, I have the post-race blues. I totally have the post-race Kona blues. I'm like, I feel like a total garbage athlete after watching that race. I'm like, I just want to win Kona.

Nothing else matters. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's right. Well, I guess everyone probably knows, but Gustav and Christian were kind of friendly with, and actually I'm going to hang out with them on Wednesday, which is a kind of crazy thing

since they just got first and third at Kona. But it was kind of nice to see them go back and forth and then Gustav went. I loved that. I felt like that was a very entertaining race and finish of the story. So first of all, would you rather win 70.3 worlds or get third in Kona?

Win 70.3 worlds. Yeah. By far. Easy question. Who came third in the women's race? I don't know. Chelsea. I'm just kidding.

It was Anne. Lucy Ann. That was rude. But no, no. I mean, for real, though, we're not going to know next year. We won't be able to remember next year. Yeah, probably not. Like, I couldn't tell you who got second at the last.

Well, Lucy's gotten second like four years in a row. So I know that. Okay. How about on the men's side? Well, it was Christian first and then Lionel second. I remember that. In 2019? Well, 2021.

St. George Iron Man World Championships that happened early this year. Brayden was third. Brayden was third. Lionel passed Braden right at the end, like with less than a mile to go. But anyway, yes, I don't remember the year before that, for sure. This is a good rapid fire so far.

Yes. Sorry, sorry. Okay, next one. What conditions would give you guys the best shot in Kona? Monsoon. Eric Monsoon. Paula? Zero wind, but snow.

Okay, great. So if it's snowing in Kona, Paul is going to win. But no wind, not even a bit of wind. Great, great. How long do you think the new course record will stand for? Because they just broke the bike record and the run course record and the full course record. The men did. Yeah.

Man, I don't know. It's like totally condition dependent. I'm going to say it stands for at least three years because I think it's a bit condition dependent. and I don't think Gustav and Christian are going to race there next year. Yeah, he said probably not because it's three weeks after the WTS Grand Final. Yeah.

So I'm going to go ahead and say it's going to stand for a while. And Gustav said he wasn't even that hot, right? So I think it really was great conditions. Yeah, cool. What sounds less fun, an Iron Man with your current fitness, let's say you have four days notice to do it,

or a 16-hour flight and a middle seed by your yourself. The flight. Sounds worse. The flight sounds better. Oh, really? I think the flight sounds worse. Because I'm just like, I'm trying to enjoy this.

Am I trying to like go fast? No, no, no, no. You're just trying to finish. Oh, yeah, just that. The Iron Man sounds really nice then. I mean, okay, you're saying like in our current fitness, like we're freaking coming off the coach. Like, we are still training for the world championships.

Right, right. But they're different, right? Of course. Of course. I would still rather probably do an Iron Man, I guess. Yeah. That's so crazy. For normal people, they're like, wait, what? I do 16-hour flights in the middle seat like, whatever, four times a year. Yeah. Okay. While in a race, this is the last one. While in a race, would you rather take a big sip of a sugary drink when you're expecting a sugary drink? Water when you're expecting a sugary drink.

Yeah. I think it just does this crazy thing to your brain, right? When you're expecting a flavor and it's like, oh, my God, that's not the flavor I was expecting. I'm the opposite of when you think it's water and it's gatorade. Oh, yeah. Get this away from me. Yeah, it feels like it's actually like sandpaper, like dehydrating you with every sip. Or you like go and pour it on yourself and you think it's water, but it's not and it's sticky. Oh, no, that is terrible. Oh, God.

The worst version of that I've ever had was when I accidentally put a bunch of salt in my coffee and I didn't know until I took the first sip. that if you want the worst tasting thing you've ever had in your life, it's salt and coffee. It is absolutely horrendous. Nick, you don't even drink coffee. That's unfortunate.

When I'm in Italy, I do. Oh, okay. Yeah, every day. All right, so before we move on, you can submit your questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. Isn't it brand? No, because it's thattriathlonlife.com.

The new website. I am so confused. We're so fancy now because we got the subscription going. Oh, yeah. So go to our website. All these resources. And then you can submit the questions from there. Okay, got it, got it, got it. That is an untested forum.

So if your question ever comes through. Better freaking work. It's in the universe somewhere. We will track it down. We'll get mad at our tech guy, Danny, if it doesn't work. That's true. Okay, so first question. This is, I love the way this starts.

So Hal, this is a question from Hal. TTLNesh, I need to avoid the TTL chafe. What do you use for anti-chafeing across all disciplines? It seems like any time I go for a long run or ride, mostly run, I chafe in spots I never had to grease before. This is so artfully written. I use butt butter for the bike and two tombs for the run, but even then sometimes miss an area or don't reapply enough. If I get a bad enough chafe, it affects my workout the next day. I've been training in Texas all summer for 70.3 Wisconsin.

Thankfully, not the full you had to endure it. Yes, thank you, Hal. And 70.3 Waco in two weeks. tackling the full Ironman, Texas next spring. Any recommendations on what to use, how often to apply, or other mitigation techniques. Thank you for all you do for the sport. I'm new to triathlon, and look forward to your pod every week. Happy training, how.

Do you have these problems at all? Do you guys ever chafe? Oh, yeah, yeah. I chafed specifically on the inside of my right leg. Like on TT sessions. So, yeah, we use. Is that to do with your labrum problems? like you favor one side more or something?

Yeah, possibly that I sit on the saddle slightly lopsided, but it's not like a super common thing, but there's just like a certain atmospheric condition where it's like just a little bit cooler so you're sweating, but it doesn't evaporate that quickly. Yeah, right, right, right. It's like a very specific thing.

Yeah, so I imagine training in Texas where it's human and hot you would actually have a way more chafing. Yeah. I would say, I mean, I don't think it really matters what brand you use of like body glide or anti-chafe. We use the Zelios stuff. Zelios makes an anti-chafe thing too. I didn't know that.

It's called... What's it called? I don't know. It's just like the Zelio shammy cream. Yeah, it's really, really good. We love it. But I mean, I don't think it's necessarily a million times better than anything else. But I would say also just good old Vaseline is actually really good. And it doesn't go away. You know, Vaseline is so like

anti-water that it just stays there. Same thing with body glass. If you were to actually use body glide, that can be like caked on to the, because it's made for like not keeping a wetsuit from chafing you in the water. Yeah. So that might be something you could resort to. And that's also something maybe we should say, do not use Vaseline with a wetsuit. It's not, not, you not, it can damage the wetsuit, whereas body glide is designed to, yeah. Yes. Body glide is, oh, geez. Yeah, body glide is designed to be used with a wetsuit as well. I lather on Vaseline with my wetsuit. Well, we don't all have wetsuits.

sponsors. I guess it's like, I also learn things from this podcast. By the way, the Zelio stuff is called beatwix. Betwixt. Like, as in betwixt. I love it. I love it. And also they have little travel packs.

So maybe a solution for this person, if they're in the middle of an Iron Man, it's similar to their sunscreen packs. You could take some on the bike and then just like, you know, rub some wherever you need. At a spot that you feel like is a problem? Yeah. I often don't notice there's a problem until I'm in the shower after the race. Totally. Is this specifically about the race that he's asking?

No, no, no, no, no. No, just training. Okay, one really important thing. I know Eric was going to say something, but I really feel like this next thing I'm going to say is really good. I'm here for it. Properly fitting attire is really critical and often tighter than you think it should be because it's going to loosen up when it gets wet.

So maybe buy like a size smaller of bike shorts. I've found that like some of the shorts that I've had maybe for a little bit and they've stretched a bit definitely give me like more. chafing or saddle sores than ones that are like kind of too tight at first but then are actually appropriately fit so yeah and high quality stuff too like the cheap bibs i bought i only have one pair those feel terrible and they do not wick away moisture well and i could see those being a problem for chafing and often they have like weird seams in them like the castelli or the high quality brands are like really engineered to you know just not chafe so their seams are almost seamless you know

and the parts that would normally rub, whereas something a little cheaper might just have a seam running right down the inseam where rubbing happens. So buy good shorts, buy good shorts that fit, reapply, anti-chafe often. Don't use Vaseline with your wetsuit. I never do that.

There you go. Eric, sorry, that was a long pause before you were going to say what you're going to say, but what do you got? No, I think that was good. Nailed it. You got all of it. I agree. You cannot understate the importance

of having at least one good pair of bibs. I would not even try using shammy cream in a race. Just like, I don't think it's even worth it. Body glide all the way. How often do you guys put on shammy cream while you're training? Pretty much every day. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, because the thing is, you're like, oh, everything's going great. I didn't put on shammy cream. And then that's the day that you get a saddle store that stays with you for a month. Yeah, right. Interesting. Cool. I mean, occasionally I'll forget, but we keep like a tub in the

bathroom and one in the garage. We got tubs everywhere. So that just like on the way out the door, don't forget. Because seriously, people can be like, pro cyclists can be put out for like a month. Yeah. Can't even sit on their bike. Yeah, that's terrible. Don't want to mess around with it. Okay, well, thank you for that question.

Hal hopefully that helps. Next question is from my mom, actually. We give her preferential treatment. I'll try to make a brief. Dear Paula and Eric, wow. And that she says in parentheses, I do not include Nicholas in the question. He is my son, so I don't need to get through the podcast. Her second word here, it seems already spelled wrong.

She's like, seems like stitching, she's saying. It seems a little strange that the two of you, with all the knowledge and expertise you have, use a coach. What does he or she have that you are missing? Does it help in terms of knowing exactly what to do, having your daily homework, or does your coach have some knowledge that you miss? And which information does your coach have access to? Does he have access to your Strava page? These are great questions. Good job, Mama.

With your coach, do you discuss psychological-slash-motivational? I can't believe my own mother put a slash in the question. Psychological slash motivational aspects that are so important to the sport. Chau, Ricarda, from Oyster Bay, New York. Slash, Italy. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much for the question. I was very, very touched when I read this one.

And I also thank you for listening to the podcast. It seems like our moms are all our biggest fans. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, having a coach really helps me to take the thinking out of what to do day to day and not second-guessing anything. And I think that's really the benefit of having a coach for anyone and then having trust in your coach is that you don't have to worry about how to schedule each day,

how to schedule the week, how to taper for the race. We've each been coached by Paulo for now, like, three years for me, way more for Eric. So we do really have this trust in knowing that what we're doing is working. And things change every year as well, like new programs, new cycles, new templates for the week and stuff like that. And especially Eric, I think, he likes not even having to think a second about what he's doing. He just wakes up, looks at the training plan, and does it and then move on to the next day. I love that. There's something really valuable in that, and it just takes up, it frees up so much mental space.

I think that we could get by without a coach and be fine, because you're right, we've done this for so long that we do have banked up knowledge of what it takes. And it's not really rocket science a lot of the time. We're doing similar things each week and similar things to what other athletes are doing. But ultimately, it's really nice to be able to check in with a coach like every day or any time you need to about your feelings or if you need to change something. Eric, you can speak a little. I mean, you said what I was going to say. What about, does Paulo have access to your Strava? Or does he have a little more access to some kind of information? Do you guys ever talk about things that aren't directly fitness related that are maybe like the psychological aspects of training and racing? Yeah, he has access to everything. We both have training peaks accounts now.

And like primarily, like when I first started working with Paulo, I worked for them for six years completely in person. lived in the same town and he saw every single workout that I did so he could just like look at me and tell that I was tired and know how to modify training we could talk right then and there but now he looks at our training peaks and we'll like send us a text message and ask how a workout went and stuff and we can tell him I hated that or that went really well I think any more of that and then he can adapt the schedule you know accordingly I think he also looks at Estrava occasionally but just you know just to see if Paul is

doing the same road too many times and he needs to tell her to mix it up or if I'm biking too much or whatever. But yeah, it's a really good relationship we have with him and we do feel comfortable telling him about something that might not even be necessarily training related. I talked to him about when I decided not to go to Exeterre Worlds and why and how it was bumming me out, but I think it was the right choice and he kind of made me feel a little better about that decision. So it's good.

I think it's really important to have like a good working relationship. relationship with your coach, not necessarily so friendly that it blurs the lines between, like, is this person mad at me and we're not friends anymore? Or is he just trying to help me be the best me? But also feel like you can talk to them about whatever you need to. Yeah. Another thing I find with Paulo is sometimes I'll make a huge deal about something in my head. Like if workout's not going well, yesterday I had a bit of a fiasco with my bike. And I text him like, oh my gosh, the world is ending. You won't believe this. I've just had the worst day. This is happening. I'm having a mental breakdown. And he sends me like two sentences back, like it's not the end of the world,

just move on to the run workout and forget about this, you know? So he really has this more holistic overall view of what's happening and like little tiny crises that might come up in any one day are not a big deal. And he can just, you know, bring you back to the, to earth almost, you know, and keep you grounded and be a little more level when your emotions are going all over the place. It's so easy for us to, in both directions, have a really good workout and think, oh my God, I'm about to win everything and have a really bad workout and be like my season is over. It's so quick to go in either direction.

And your fitness, your body just doesn't react that way. It's many, many sessions back to back that build your fitness. And if you were coaching yourself, it would be harder to kind of have that macro view and not really be too obsessed with the micro day-to-day fluctuations. Paulo has a bigger vision of, you know, things are really actually going well and you're healthy, and one workout's not going to change anything. Yeah. And for my mom, Strava is more like the social side, but trainee peaks does not have a social element,

but it's kind of built for coaches to see our workout. And they have access to much, much more detailed information than is available on Strava. Yeah. So our Wahoo bike computers and watches, upload our workouts to this sort of like a weekly grid, and then he can click on the workout, see our paces, see our power. and analyze whatever on that. Yeah, cool. Thanks for the question.

Yes, thanks, Mama. All right, next question is from Anzi from Slovenia. Hi there, TTR, a question regarding winter sports. In one of the previous episodes you talked about skiing and doing other sports in the winter, what do you think about winter triathlon, run, mountain bike, and cross-country ski? And would you consider doing it, or maybe even biathlon, considering the personalities? I think Eric would be very excited about mountain biking in the snow. So best regards, Anzi.

I would be very excited and do love mountain biking in the snow, but I'm not at all excited about cross-country skiing. Yeah. But I could do the running or snowshoe running, no problem. You guys were the people who told me about cross-country skiing being, to me it's like such a fitness-based sport. But I think, Paula, you're the one who told me, no, there's a huge amount of technique. Technique gets a big impact on how fast you can go. Yes, 100%. I just got a new pair of skate skis last year because I'm like, I'm going to do this for cross-stering. I went one time, spent all this money on like all new boots, new bindings, new poles, like the whole thing.

And I went one time, I was terrible. I went with Lindsay and she just like was so far ahead of me. And I was just like, okay, well, that was that, never went a single other time. Oh, wow. And you've cross-country skied a lot in your life. I think a big element of it is the snow condition. And I went on a really icy day where it's really hard to feel comfortable on these skis that feel like Bambi. So if you're going on like a way... I love that mental image. A snowier day where there's not just like pure ice,

I think I'd be a lot better at it. And I'm willing to give it another try. But my obstacle is that Eric is so against it. He doesn't even own skis. And Eric and I do everything together. So I'm not just going to like drive up the mountain by myself and go cross-country skiing. I guess I could.

But it... That's what I was going to say. To be clear, Eric's not against you doing it. He's against doing it. And you like to do things with Eric. Yeah. I mean, like, I don't want to go backcountry skiing all by myself either. It's so much more fun to be there and talking with somebody and sharing the experience of how you just fell down and blah, blah, blah, you know.

So I think my idea is that we're going to rent Eric a pair of skis this year so he can at least try it and formulate his opinion based on experience and not based on that looks terrible, you know? Right. Yeah. I mean, like, philosophically, I just, I'm like, if I'm going to be doing some exercise, I want to be walking up the hill and get this really fast ride back down. I'm like, that sounds like the best use of my time. Yeah, but Eric, what you don't get is that there are a lot of downhills in cross-country as well that are really fun. Everybody who talks about it says it's just freaking terrifying and you could die. Oh, my God.

Because you can't stop. Okay. You know what I feel like? No one has effectively sold it to me. I'll just say that. There's no cars. There's no pavement. You're wearing gear.

You're not like riding down Bachelor on a time trial bike. If you think that is not scary, you'll be fine cross-country skiing. Last time I was in Ben, I remember. seeing a lot, we went to a lot of those used gear shops and I saw a lot of cross-country year stuff and I thought I was like, next time I'm coming up here, I'm getting a pair and I'm doing this. When I went to buy new stuff

last year, I was like, I'm getting top of the line everything. I am so good at cross-country skiing. This is my sport. So I felt like the best things you could buy and I went one time. There's still a chance you might love it and get a lot of use out of those things. It was just, it really was

truly terrible conditions. I still love the tag. on the poles that I got. Wow. Because after I went one time, I was like, it was because of the poles. That's why I was bad. I'll just get new poles.

I never went again. Oh, man. Okay, anyway. Well, yes, winter triathlon. That sounds fun. We just need maybe a little bit of work on the cross-country skiing for Eric. But the mountain biking and the running sold.

Okay, next question is from Amanda. And Amanda says, if y'all had to do a race with regular road bikes and not try bikes, where would your hand placement be the hoods or the drops or does it depend on if you're ascending or descending? Thanks keep up the great content.

P.S. Nick also hate the slashes. Thank you, Amanda, for your solidarity. Eric, you can take this one away. I think I'd probably be mostly on the hoods with forearms completely parallel to the ground. Well, how long is this race? That's really hard. I'm just picturing 40K.

Let's say an Olympic or something. Yeah, 40K. Yeah, I think I could do that. And then I just occasionally switch down to the drops, occasionally do like the thing where you put your forearms on the base bar. I don't know, whatever you call it, just like where you would ride when you climb. Yeah. Just to like, yeah, mix up position and everything.

But I think getting your forearms parallel to the ground is pretty key. And you can kind of rest pretty well in that hood's position. So why have your, that position where you're, kind of hands are in the hoods and your forms are parallel. Why that over putting your hands in the drops? Because it seems like putting your hands to the drops is the most arrow position. No, it's tested actually more arrow to have your hands on the hoods with your elbows bent. But I find that a lot harder to hold, especially for like a 40K, I would rather just go in the drops.

It kind of depends. Like the reasoning behind this is that if you don't actually get any lower by putting your hands in the drops, it's really just how low you're getting. And it's lower to have your forearms parallel than it is to have your hands all the way down at the drops. Not necessarily. I mean, like the perfect position is really having your hands in the drops and your forearms parallel to the ground. That's the lowest you can possibly be.

Most people don't have their bike set up in a way that they can actually accomplish that. We can confidently say that the slowest way is to be in the hoods with your arm straight. Or even in the tops with your arm straight, which is the way a lot of people climb. That's the hoods, right? Well, there's a hoods. And then you can go even more.

upright if you like wrap your hands around like close to the stem. Oh yeah. Okay. Which is how I, which is how I climb on long climbs. Maybe not you guys, but as an image in their right mind would ever think about riding like that, like while trying to go fast.

Yeah. I love it. You could put your hands straight up in the air like you're going down a freaking water slide, you know? Sometimes I do that. If you were on a road bike and you were doing a technical descent, would you still try to keep your arms and your hands on the hoods with four arms parallel? No, drops.

Drops, right? Just to get the most amount of control and fastest. More control. You can reach your brakes. Really have good control

over the brakes. Got it. Great. So there you go. That's kind of a interesting hypothetical. I don't see either of you doing a road bike

triathlon anytime soon. But maybe Amanda. Never say never. That's right. Next question is from Batia. Hey, Eric, Paula, and Nick. I've been listening to your podcast for the past few weeks

and really been enjoying it. I love the goofiness that you guys body makes me have some hope for the sport. That's great. Love that. I will say there's, I feel like there's some good comedy coming into the sport as of the past few years. I think it used to be much more serious. What do you mean even Gustav? He might be my favorite. He's like one of the funniest people I've ever seen. I think she means even the world champion. Even the world champion is funny. Right, right. You're right. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so the question is,

overall, just curious what your opinion is on the draft legal world of racing. I would was being supported by USAT, but since they didn't see results in my first race, was cut off after seriously one elite race and a year of triathlon training. Even though I know I have a ton of professional talent, I won my first and only 70.3 with about six weeks of real triathlon training. I feel like right now I am at a crossroads and just trying to decide if it's worth it to continue with draft legal and try to make it there, or potentially switch to long course. Or just give it all up. Paula, do you ever wish you could go back and race draft legal? I'm also curious if either of you ever had backup plan when first getting into triathlon,

like if it didn't work out. Thanks so much, Batia. I'm curious what getting support from USA Triathlon and then no support means. Because I had zero support from USA Triathlon my first two years of racing triathlon. I was 100% living off of a Southwest Airlines sign-up bonus, 50,000 miles thing to get to races and 10 grand that I saved up working to bike shop and splitting one bedroom three ways with two other guys. So like I don't think you should expect that USA triathlon is going to pay your way to like continental cups and stuff. But if you get to

the point of where you really belong at World Cups, that's when at least in my experience, they started taking care of travel. Yeah. But if they went their first and only 70.3, That does seem like... That has got nothing to do with ITU. They don't care. It does not matter. They don't care. Interesting. I think what you have to realize is like if you want to go to the Olympics, then you just have to like put up with the grind of ITU and give it a shot and, you know, be persistent

with it for at least a year or two and see yourself through and realize that it's going to cost you money and it's going to be not the most glamorous lifestyle. It's a lot of travel. It's a lot of, like I said, the grind. Switching over and doing long course is a little bit the safer route. And potentially, if you're winning races on your first try, you can crack into the pro ranks and start making money that way. Like, not a ton at first, but there's more potential for earnings quicker at the 70.3 route. But if your dream is the Olympic Games or racing on the WTS circuit, which is totally a fair goal, like a lot of people have no interest in long course because they just want to race on the blue carpet with a world triathlon,

then you really just have to stick it out with that. Whether USAT is noticing or not, they will notice if you start racing well in Continental Cup races. Yeah, a lot of our friends that we started out in IT with just ran up huge credit card bills trying to make it. Yeah. It's not fun, but like if you do crack through and start having good results, But it's really cool to race that circuit. And I ultimately think those are like the, I don't know. It's a different league. I think there's got to be the most fun and entertaining form of triathlon racing.

Yeah. In terms of the strategy and just the fast pace of it and everything, it's so, so cool. And I usually say that I like really, really miss the ITU racing. Me too. But I do not at all miss the lifestyle. Yeah, I think another, yeah, the lifestyle is hard. Of like traveling and just waiting for the Federation to like, hey, we got a chance for you to go into this race. Are you ready?

It's next week. And you're like, shit, okay. I think what you have to realize is like maybe you feel jaded by USAT, but you really cannot. And this is what I learned mostly from Triathlon Canada and riding the highs and lows and all the support I received from them down to nothing and then back again is you can't attach your self-worth to what USAT thinks about you. If you have goals and dreams and triathlon, you have to completely separate that from how good USAAT thinks you are at first anyway. Because they can be totally, totally brutal to work with, like, a federation. We both felt that. So it really is like a matter of what you really are passionate about if it's short course or long course and make your decision based on that,

not based on whether USAT is noticing at first. Something else I've noticed just from listening over here in conversation. that you guys have had with other pros is that it seems like, and tell me if I'm wrong, is that the relationships between pros in ITU and the draft legal and the relationship between pros in long course is, they're completely opposite. People seem to be friendly and supportive and want to lift each other up in long course. And in the draft legal short course stuff, it seems like everyone's just like, if I'm not, if you're winning, it means I'm losing. Yeah, it's way more cutthroat.

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of the time... That's like, I don't know. I wouldn't say that's completely a blanket thing, but it can get very heated amongst people from the same country because you're vying for the same Olympic position, and it is a zero-sum game. Yeah.

I do agree with that. I think a lot of the time also the, just the people that are in long courts have been in the sport for so long that they don't have the time for like... The energy. Petiness. Yeah, right. It's like we're all doing this together.

You win today. I'll win tomorrow. We're still friends. Yeah. Typically people in long course or else in the 30s versus in their late teens and early 20s.

And typically, at least in the U.S. and in Canada, like there's significantly more sponsorship dollars in the 70.3 in Iron Man's scene. So it's less like if I don't go win this race,

my career could be over. Right. You know? Whereas that's the feeling you get in short course sometimes. And some people don't want to be friends with their competitors. And some people want to be like, no, I'm going to beat

this person. And I'm envisioning them when I'm training and I want to beat them. And that's fair. But I think regardless, there needs to be a respect for your competitors. And you see that saw that in Kona this weekend. It's like I don't think they're all best friends, but they all have a respect for each other. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, even when

Gustav was passing Sam, there was that nice moment where they like pat each other in the back and the little handshake, it was like, yeah, I love that this is the sport that I associate myself with, that people are, like, respectful out there. And I'm not saying it's not like that in short course. The athletes are very respectful. It's just a different feeling from my experience.

Wow, that was not helpful, but... Well, I don't know. It was interesting to talk about it. I don't even know what the original question was. Is it just, is it worth it to stay and try a short course? If you really want to go to the Olympics, that's how you got to do it. Yeah, I would say it's worth it. If you're so fresh to the sport, yeah, just stick with it a bit longer.

Ultimately, racing short course is only going to make you better at long course. later. Yeah. Dude, forget about USAAT. Just fund yourself. Easy. Get a Southwest card. Seriously, 50,000 miles signing bonus.

There you go. Okay, well, there you go about here. Next question is from Dustin. Dustin says, okay, let's talk pillow shoes, aka super shoes, which is a term we've coined here on the podcast. You're welcome. How fast do I need to be running

for them to be actually helpful? My current pace for a half Iron Man is about 745 to 8 minutes miles. I prefer shoes with a lot of cushion like the Hoka Clifton's. I feel like my pace is a bit slow for a carbon-plated shoe, but was wondering your thoughts, Dustin. I think it's worth a disagree on the needing to be running a certain pace. Yeah.

Don't you think, Eric? They're always faster. I have no idea. I don't know scientifically, but I think it's faster. I looked it up, and I looked at two studies. So first of all, anecdotally, I run a very similar marathon pace, 7.45 to 8 a mile until I die. But I've absolutely, anecdotally, am faster with super shoes. No doubt about it. All my data shows that I'm faster. Then I looked at two studies. One is called

extrapolating metabolic savings in running. And it says at higher running speeds, the improvement in running economy is higher than the improvement in speed. At slower speeds, the improvement in speed is a bit greater than the running economy improvement. So both have improvements. They just come in slightly different places. One is you're expending less energy and the other one at the same energy you're going faster. And then the second study was showing specifically are you faster with the shoes at slower paces and you're not as much faster. You don't get as much of that pop when you're going slower, even much slower. But this is directly from the study. It appears that the shoe still provides benefits to running economy at a three and a half marathon pace. However,

these benefits may be smaller in magnitude with 1.4% compared to previous research, which was about 3% at faster speeds of like a two and a half to three hour marathon pace. So yes, they're still faster. And I think the cushion can do a lot for if you feel like you get worn down throughout the course of a race, your body gets worn down, like your joints and stuff. Yeah. This makes a lot of sense to me because I think at the high end, like, you're like professional

athletes are going to be limited by their leg turnover speed. Yeah. And so, yeah, like you're just, you're getting a little bit more bounce out of that. that's not necessarily going to be able to speed you up that much, but lower energy expenditure. Yeah. Versus like it's literally a freaking spring if you're running 7.30 per mile. Yeah. And it feels like a spring. Yeah. I don't really train in carbon shoes.

But yesterday I was having a rough day. So I was like, I'm going to treat myself to a carbon shoe run. And today, I feel way less sore in my legs. So I think there's not only a benefit of the speed return, but also throughout half marathon or a marathon, your leg fatigue is lower. Yeah. And I think that's why we're seeing records being broken in Kona. Oh, yeah. It's a huge factor is like the shoes and the speed

and just like having the last 10K not be a death march because your legs are not quite as feet up. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, yeah, there's the question. And once again, we are not sports scientists. But I did think this time I'd finally look at some. some studies.

I looked up at other people's smart studies. These are all sports, you know, very smart people. We're just telling you from, I mean, it's cool that Nick, you run similar speed to him and you feel faster in them. Oh, for sure. It's like magic. It feels amazing. Okay, next question is from Lisa.

Hi, guys, love the pot. And thank you for keeping me company on my runs. Swimming question. I know your favorite. I'm a busy mom of three little kids, eight and under. So needless to say, pretty much 80% of my workouts are done between. 4 and 7 a.m. No thanks.

Especially swimming. Right now, I swim two times per week, 2 to 3K. My steady pool pace is around 135 to 139 per 100, per 100 yards, and I would love to get into the high 120s consistently. This is great because this is basically my paces too. So my question, do you think it would be more beneficial

to swim three to four days a week with less yards, or, and about 1,500 to 2K each time, or keep the schedule I'm doing now. Thanks and hope to meet you all in St. George in a few weeks as I will be heading out to race as well. Lisa from Delph. So what are the options? Two days a week or three days a week?

Two days or four days. Okay. Two days a week at three to four K or four days a week at one and a half to two K. Let's make it simple. If you had to swim the same amount of total yards at the end of the week, would you break them up into four days or two days? Oh, that's hard. Wow, I thought you would.

would see such, I thought of such an obvious answer of the more days, the better. I think the four days, is just to like try to keep feel for the water and, like, build some technical, get some technical games. Yeah, the thing about swimming that's funny. And it's what my, one of my coaches said when I was super young and that stuck with me for some reason is that the reason that, you know, for runners or basketball players or soccer players don't have to go to 10 practices a week. Because when you're a young swimmer, you're going to the pool like nine or ten times a week. And I was kind of confused by that as a kid. Like my friends who play soccer only have three soccer practices a week. And the reason is that swimming is such a different motion and position that you're never doing in any other aspect of life.

Like in soccer, you're walking around all day. That's ultimately training for soccer because you're doing the same motion. You're walking. You're using the same muscles. Swimming, you're not using the same muscles unless you're actually physically swimming. So the frequency, like Eric said, is actually really important to keep the muscle memory and the feel for the water. So that's why Eric and Nick are saying maybe four times. But I just also think the mental hurdle and the time suck of getting to the pool to only swim 2K is like maybe a waste of time. Interesting. So when you have three kids and you only have limited hours, maybe just going to the pool and doing 4K or 3K, maybe bump it up to three and a half twice a week might be a better use of your overall time.

Do you think, well, do you guys think maybe a hybrid? Is there an advantage in doing a lot of days, but then one day that goes really long to both train your body and your mind to do that? Three days, two days of 2K, one day of 4K. Yeah. Yeah. Pick one day where you have like, or maybe even sacrifice another workout, you know? Like go to the pool and just swim for like an hour and 15 minutes.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea, Eric. One, like you would do a long run every week, you know, do a long swim. Exactly. I just, I guess my question for you guys is like, is the same advantage? that you get from a long run, is that proportional same to a long swim? Yeah.

Interesting. I would say so. Muscular endurance in the water. It's like a huge thing. And also like obviously what you're doing in that 2K makes a huge difference. If you're just going and like swimming at an easy speed that's slower than your aerobic speed and like kind of doing sculling and whatever, you're not going to get faster. Like go and do an intentional workout. And I do believe you can get that done efficiently in 2K if you do a short warm up and then some hard swimming for like 1,300.

meters in a short cooldown, that can be really effective, right, Eric? Yeah. Like 10-100's best average, two-enter cool down and get out. That's a good way to make use of 2K. Cool. There you go. There you go, Lisa. Thank you for asking a question that I also was very curious about the answer to.

Next question is from Tom, from Norwich in the UK. Hi, Paula, Nick, Eric, and Flynn. Thank you for the podcast. It has kept my wife and I entertained on many a long drive. slash training set. My question is linked to bikes. I know Paula has both the Shiv T-T-T and the Shiv-T-T-T-Bike,

which would you recommend for a long-slash-half-distance triathlon. I'm not looking to spend thousands, but T-T bikes seem to be so much cheaper. I presume adding the word triathlon has a similar effect to adding the word wedding to how much stuff costs.

Loving the motivation, Tom. I don't think the Shiv-T-T is any cheaper than the shiv-tri. Eric, can you talk to that? Does it even come in a non-SWorks version? Yeah, I don't know. Okay, here's what I think about the shivs. The shiv try is 100% better for any triathlon.

It has the storage, it has the water hydration on the back. It's more arrow. The reason it's not UCI legal is because it has used technology that is not even legal in UCI because it's so arrow. So that's always going to be the bike to choose. Personally, I've been training on the shiv-T-T-T a lot, and I really love. the feel of it, the ride quality. My position on it is a little bit better because I've worked on it more. And ultimately for me, I have a relatively low confidence level on time trial bikes, especially in wins, and I feel a lot more comfortable on the shift TT. That's why I've been riding it more.

But hands down, I think a faster and better bike is a triathlon bike that has some integrated storage and hydration options, whether that's specialized or otherwise. It's just, just a lot easier to get nutrition in, which is like a huge part of triathlon. Got it. So, yeah, that's my answer. By the way, Paula's bike does come in an on S-Works version. It's just still $9,000 for the non-S-works shift triathlon bike. All bikes are expensive.

But what I would say to this person is we have a lot of bikes to sell, so reach out to this place. That's right. For real. And I feel like we've said this before that a triathlon bike is always faster. Yeah. People just don't want to believe it. Maybe not lighter, but faster. And lightness in most triathlons.

doesn't matter. Next question is from Ashley. Hey, TTL gang, love the pot and love the vlog. My question is regarding groceries slash meal planning. I am an average age grouper with a full-time job. After working eight hours and training one to two hours, the last thing I want to think about is what to make for dinner. Do you meal plan for the week and get groceries accordingly or just buy your usual stuff and wing it with whatever you have at home for dinner? I have an instant pot and love Paula's taco rice recipe she shared on the Instagram story last winter. Maybe I just need more quick dinner ideas

that might help. Thanks for everything you do for the tri-community, Ashley. These slashes are getting so out of control. I don't think they even know. I think this is why I started getting frustrated because I can't even say the word. It's like, oh, I love going for bike rides slash manicures.

Yeah. The thing is that the slash separates need to be pretty related. Related, right. Am slash or I have an Instapot slash a shiv. Yeah.

That's right. That wasn't a good example. It's a perfectly bad example. Because they weren't appropriate for each other. This is a great question that only I can answer because I do the grocery shopping

and the cooking for the most part. Right Eric? Eric does the, he's the cappuccino latte artist. Yeah, Eric does so much in this household. This is just my domain.

I cook, I do some breakfast burritos. I cook eggs. Yeah, when we get home from swimming, Eric's really good. Second breakfast. So I am not like the world's best meal planner slash. Oh boy. Oh, boy.

Here we go with the slashes. Like I don't, you know, make things in Tupperwares and have it built up with labels Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. But we definitely have like a standard grocery list. And like I've said before on the pot, a lot of the time we do grocery delivery. So I just add everything to my cart and that just comes to the house. And we do have a rotation of probably four or five. quick dinners, including that Mexican rice dinner that you're talking about. And they all take anywhere between 15 and half an hour to make.

And those are just our rotation and they're pretty simple. And a lot of the time it involves a pasta base with like mixins inside, which you've experienced Nick, right? Oh, yeah. So, so good. So you do like pasta with like chicken sausage and put a bunch of veggies in with the pasta and cheese and mix it all up. And it's just like this one pot pasta dish.

It's a little bit casserole-ish. casserole, yeah. We do a vegan mac and cheese a couple times a week. Another staple is just making a giant pot of rice and then steaming broccoli, baking tofu and making peanut sauce. That's really easy. Or just like other variations of rice bowls. Rice bowls are a really good go-to. But ultimately, we just buy a lot of veggies and then use rice or pasta every night and then have some kind of protein. I was going to ask you, how often do you have pasta and how often do you have rice? How many times a week do you have pasta? How many times a week do you have rice? Half and half. So like every day you're having either pasta or rice. Yeah. I love that. Slightly more rice, maybe. Yeah, maybe slightly more rice, yeah.

Yeah. And then also when you make rice, you just make a lot of rice. And then you can use it the next day for something. Mix it in with eggs or something. But yeah. Pizas too. Oh, yeah, we have an uni as well, unsponsored. That thing is amazing.

Every time you guys post a picture on your story of the, of the uni, I'm just like, how long does it take to drive up there? Do you think I could make it in time? Yeah, it looks so good. My opinion on the pizza is that it actually. actually is a really, really quick dinner because the uni heats up in 15 minutes and we always have like pizza toppings on hand. And you can make pizzas pretty healthy if you're making them yourself. You just use like a light cheese base and you can put lots of veggies on it and load them up.

And then the base is like carbohydrate. So I don't think of it as an unhealthy dinner. And we can have like a really nice pizza on the table with a salad in 20 minutes with the uni oven. Yeah, it just warms up while you take a shower. So yeah, we actually do pizza quite often. Yeah. That's our answer. So you don't really, you kind of meal plan because you eat a lot of the same thing so you know what those ingredients are. But you're not thinking like Tuesday night, this, Wednesday night at this, Thursday night this.

Yeah. What I'm not great at is like looking up new recipes and cookbooks and being like, okay, this week I'm going to buy all this stuff so we can make these like fancy fish tacos. Don't do that. We just really have staples and that's our way of meal planning. It's similar to what you were saying before about like removing the like thinking out of things. Totally. No, these are things we make. We know we like them. We know they work with their bodies. Boom. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of people enjoy the looking at recipes and making new things.

Like Lindsay's really good at that. And if that brings you joy, then go for it. But we like to keep things fairly simple. Eric, were you going to say something? No, I concur. I told you, I'm talking too much. Well, Eric's going to be doing the talking for this question. I had like one glass of wine at dinner and I'm like, give me the pod. Chattie Gabby. I'm ready for that pod. Bring on the Slashes.

There you go. By the way, just so everybody knows, Eric is still rocking the mustache. So if you've been following along the podcast, because they don't have the vlog right now. So there's no way for them to know. Don't say that. That's sad. What do you mean? They don't have the vlog right now.

Like, we always have the vlog. We just aren't doing a vlog on Sundays right now. Yeah, that's totally fine. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. No, the saga of the mustache is going completely undocumented except for on a Instagram. So if you follow Paula's Instagram stories, that's probably your best way to keep up with the mustache. It's really sick

by the way. It's so good. Thanks, dude. We should make a segment like keeping up with the mustache. That's right. Try it, bro. It's officially a character. That's right. Okay, our last question is for maybe, and it's a good one. Hi, Team. Can you tell us the story

behind your epic van? It is brilliant and exactly what I want to buy or build to travel around Australia with my partner. Shepherd and bike. What's the story behind getting the van you have now? Did you buy the van and empty it out and get it outfitted or did you buy it as is? What's your top advice for someone looking to buy and build a van like yours? Things to look out for, things you are glad you did and slash or wish you did. And things to keep in mind for a van that accommodates humans,

bikes and dogs, the best combo. Sending endless high fives, fist bumps and smiles from Toowoomba in sunny Queensland, Australia. Hug, huge hugs, Amy. Wow, very applicable. Yeah. First of all, let me just say that the first time I ever met you guys, first time I laid my real eyes on your real bodies, you came right out of the bed. I know that buddy.

I've seen that buddy before. So good. So, yeah, so that van is epic. And it really, it's like synonymous with the two of you at this point. Well, yeah, wow. I don't even know where to start. Like if you've spent any amount of time looking at van things, you know that we could probably do six podcasts on this.

But I guess for a little bit of backstory, this is like my fourth van had several vans that I've built out. One van I built out twice. One van I didn't build out because I didn't feel like it was worth it. A motorhome. And the story of this van, I guess, started because the previous van that I slash, I guess, we had was, well, this is actually. an appropriate usage of it. It was my van and Paula and I had been dating for only four months or so when I had it. It was very small. It was a Mitsubishi Delica, which honestly could probably drive

into the back of our current van, which was really fun and it was just like probably one of the coolest, if not the coolest vehicle that I'll ever own was four-wheel drive, Japanese import, right-hand drive. But it just wasn't super reliable. The air conditioning didn't work. We were living in Diego and Paula and I both had new bikes show up while we were training down there. So we now had like a total of four bikes. And there was just no way to fit four bikes in the back of this van and drive home and be able to sleep in the back of the van. So that's when we started really considering looking at a sprinter. And while we were in San Diego, we shopped around and I found a sprinter and paid like $700 for it, which I just thought was. Eric, bleep that out. We don't

want people to know how much we paid for it because we're trying to sell it. Right. That's a good point. I paid what I thought at the time was... You played, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Okay, carry on. I paid what I thought at the time was an outrageous amount of money, double what I'd spent on any other vehicle to that point. Paul is really proud of herself. Okay, go, go on.

Anyway, we drove it back to... I don't know where we drove back to. Did we live anywhere at the time? You sort of lived in Boulder slash lived in Canada. We had a house in Troutail. No, we did not. Did we? Yeah, we did.

Wow, okay, so we had a house in Troutale. We got it back there. I got the help of my dad, who's very good at building things. We built it out ourselves. It was a bit of a fiasco because the floor in it actually had some sort of toxic waste oil spill. So I pulled up the old floor to put in some new floor, found this spill. So we spent the first week of having the van completely, like, power washing, grinding that out, sealing the floor with anti-rust stuff. It was a total disaster.

But yeah, we built out the whole van. And that is, I don't know, that's like generally the story of that van. If I had any advice for like the build process, if that's something that you want to do, get a van and like put in the minimal amount of things into it and kind of go sleep and camp and do whatever you want to do in it a little bit and get a feel for like what are the things we actually really use when we go do like a weekend of triathloning. or mountain biking, whatever you do, and then kind of plan out your build around that versus going like, oh, I'm for sure going to go for like six-week trips.

And I need a 24-gallon fridge and a, you know, 45 solar panels. Don't buy all the top of the line cross-country skiing stuff and then only ski once. Thank you, Nick. Yes. Let me just bring that back up real quick to turn the knife a little bit. But this is all to say that we've built the van fairly minimally and just what we needed, you know, room for bikes. We only have a cooler. We have electrical, but we don't have solar yet, all these things. So now that we've had the van for four years, three years.

Yeah, four years, I think. We are now realizing things that we would love to upgrade. And now that we have more money in our lives, we have the luxury of potentially upgrading our van. So this is an official call out for anyone who wants to buy our current sprinter to get in touch with us if you're actually serious about it. It's only half a million dollars. So don't worry. Yeah. It's not a hundred grand. I can guarantee you that. Definitely not. No, like Paula said, it feels very nice inside. It feels very cozy and stuff, but it's wired so that you could put in a fridge.

There's totally room and wiring available for adding some lights, adding a heater. It's just as I was kind of starting to look at those things, I decided that it would be nice for us to get a four-wheel drive option as I was starting to look into those upgrades. because of the amount of time that we spend skiing, driving back and forth to Canada at Christmas time, it made a little bit more sense at this point for us to put additional money into a four-wheel drive fan. Yeah, so we love our van as is, but we just want the four-wheel drive. And it comes with the fork mounts in there to store your bikes,

and that triathlon life stickers right on there, so you don't have to get those either. Well, we'll see. I might want to take the fork mounts, but it kind of depends on what you want. if I put it up on the internet just for like sale locally and stuff I mean I've mentioned to just people that have like walked by as I've been kind of working on some paint spots on it this week in the driveway that we're selling it and every single person has been like well before you do tell me yeah right everyone wants a van right now it's crazy one that's like in the lower price range I would say for a van it's modest so but I love it so much like I wouldn't change a thing about it's about it, but I do really, because we're driving it in the winter so much, I like the idea of the extra security of the four-wheel drive. And for me, it's all about safety.

We know. Oh, we know. We have heard about it. But ultimately, we'll build it probably identically, but just put things like the heater in and would you do solar? Yeah. So we do actually have solar. The current van will come with solar to whoever buys it. I just haven't installed it because we haven't done that much. many trips in it where we needed solar. You're away from things for that long. Like the battery was enough for us for me to charge multiple batteries of camera gears and drones and phones and everything.

And we've had enough because we would then typically like drive to the pool in the morning or drive to the lake or drive to where we were going to start the bike ride. So we were running the alternator and charging the battery plenty doing that. But I do have two solar panels that go with it and like the whole thing. It's just ready for you to go. This isn't meant to be a super ad about the van. I think this is a great question. And the answer was that you really got to live in it a bit to see what you want.

But it was just coincidental that we're also van shopping and sprucing this van up so we can sell it. And we love it so much. And we want it to go to a good home of triathletes. So serious inquiries only, though. Nick, did we not answer any part of that question? No, I think we did. for people who want to really froth over your van is there a certain YouTube episode

that you would point them to to like that really... Yeah, we can probably link it in the show notes, right? Yeah, easily link it in the show notes. Yeah, we've got a tour of it plus like a couple videos beforehand or probably of me building it out and my friend who used to be professional trathlet

now does electrical systems on boats he did the electrical system in it so I've got several cool videos. The video that we do the tour, I remember filming this because we were like we stayed up to like 1 a.m. that day finishing the fabric on the walls because we were like trying to leave for a training camp or something.

And then the day after we're like, oh my gosh, we got to like film the van tour so we can leave on this trip. And the video was called our van tour sprint conversion for triathlon. It's under TTL. And it's two years ago.

So I guess we've only had this van for two years. Come to think about maybe we shouldn't sell it. That's not that long. No, we had it for almost a year before I got this much of the build done just because of how much time it takes. I did a very basic, just got the bed in there, and then we had a lot of stuff in storage bins for a while. It took probably eight months for it to be fully built out.

This is the first comment. They are very open and clear, no pretentiousness about the money, like many paid channels where the builds and sports stuff is way out of reality because of cost. You two deserve an Oscar. That was awesome. Wow. An Oscar? Oh, my God.

It's not that good. That comment is by Jorge, a guy who I used to sell bikes, too. from the bike shop way back in the day. There's some insider trading here going on in the comments section. I'm just thinking of all the cool stuff we've done together in that fan. So many cool places. Okay, I'm getting emotional. I don't want to sell it.

Never mind, not for sale. No, it's going back up to that half a million price point that I mentioned. How much is it worth to you? No, you know, I mean, we've, I've thought way and way, way more about it than Paula has and stuff. And I have gone back and forth as well. and we've put a bunch of money into it lately with new shocks and new windshield and new tires and like a whole bunch of stuff

fully expecting to have it for a long time and even if we don't ultimately find a new four-wheel drive van anytime soon we love it and it'll it'll be awesome. Cool. Well, that's it. That's what we had. So once again, people, you can submit your questions

at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. Oh my God, I can't believe I have to say the slash every time I say that URL. I've created a monster. You brought this on yourself. Yes, I've brought this on myself. You can send your questions there. You can also subscribe to the podcast there.

That's it. A year from today, are we going to be doing this from Kona? Paul, you're going to win Kona on a snowy day? Yeah, I'm only going to Kona next time that there's a snow storm. So global warming, hit us hard. Come on. Give us some good snow in Hawaii. No, I got the Kona bug way more than I ever have any other.

year. So maybe I'll do it. But for now, we're just having fun doing the PTO races so we can buy four by four bands. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, that's all we got for you today. Thank you so much for listening. And we will talk to you guys next week. Thanks, guys. Later.