That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon holiday gifts, foot numbness, vacation races, cycling bibs for a TT bike, and more!

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Happy holidays everyone! This week we start off with 10 potential gift ideas for a triathlete, and what makes them good/bad. A lot of the questions this week were centered around the off-season, so we indulged in those. We also talked about picking the fastest line in a river swim, caffeine intake, working on your weakest sport, bike chain cleanliness, and more! To submit your questions and support the podcast, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hi, everyone. Welcome to that triathlon live podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Goldston. And this is our podcast. We answer some questions from everybody who writes in. Hopefully we convey some useful information. And then we'll also just kind of do a little bit of catch up on what's going on in triathlon, what's going on in our triathlon life. And to give you a little backstory, Paul and I are both professional trathletes. And we're partners. We're a unit. And Nick is our good friend, amateur triathlete and professional musician. feels like the third part of our unit. That's right. That's correct. That's right. So last week, we had, well, not last week on Sunday. Yeah, we did a little drop. It was like our winter retro collection. It was super successful. We sold out of women's teas and one of the colors of women's teas and one of the colors of hats, but there is still some stuff left. So just a huge thanks to

everyone who jumped online and got one of those. Hopefully you'll get it before Christmas. I think it looks like everything shipped on Monday if you ordered Sunday. So it should get to you by Friday. Which is miraculous. Yeah, we love our warehouse. They are so amazing. Like, we text them on Sunday with like, you know, fire drills and something, you know, everything that's

going on and they fix it on a Sunday. And also a huge thanks to Danny, who's one of our best friends, but also like manages the back end of our website. So I would say, Danny, Nick, and Samantha, who does all our photos are like our little family of TTL brains

who keep this whole thing running. So a big thanks to everyone who helped with that. Speaking of that kind of stuff, do you guys have any idea how many people actually use the Castelli code that we sent out to the supporters on Monday? Oh, we don't. I would love to know that.

Yeah, we'll get a final count from Castelli on the 31st when that code expires. Anyway, we hope everybody who wanted something from there got something and is going to maybe stay warm for Christmas with a new pair of thermal tites. So I have a question, is there going to be any TTL's Wift group ride coming up soon? Because this is a time that I would be, I would love to take part in one.

Oh, well, Nick, we're having one tomorrow morning, but it'll be too late when this pod comes out. People will probably already. I mean, there's 100 people signed up. Got it. But we'll have another one next week. Yeah. Okay. Our plan is to do, ideally, maybe like a couple, I don't know, some weeks we'll have two,

but at least one a week through the winter time. and we'll kind of try to alternate the time zones, so we get Europeans and Australians and North Americans in on it as much as possible. And do you guys, tomorrow, what time is it at Pacific? 7.30 a.m. Pacific. So some people could still make it. So I'm running at 7.30 a.m. Eastern. So I'll run and then I'll try to ride with you guys.

Okay. Do you have a Zwift account? No, but I'm sure it doesn't take too long to set up, right? Okay, yeah. That would be amazing there. You have a smart trainer in New York? Yeah, my dad has one. Wow. Man, it is too bad this is coming out afterwards because the people have been demanding your presence on Swift and they're going to be so pumped. I'll do it the next week whenever it's whenever the next one is.

I'll definitely do it. Okay, sounds good. Thursday after. Be there, everybody. So, okay, before we get into questions, I wanted to do a brand new segment, which we haven't done in a while, but it's very seasonal. It'll be called Good Gift, Bad Gift. And I'm going to make some kind of music for it here. Good gift, bad gift.

TTL. And the idea is that I have 10 gift ideas for triathletes. And what I want to hear from you guys is how good of an idea it is as a gift. Because something seems like they might be a good idea, but then the reality is it's kind of more complicated and also the opposite. So you guys ready? Yeah, we talked about this just beforehand, right? Like, we don't really, we're not saying these are bad gifts,

is the premise that you laid out for us next, rather than like, oh, there's some ways this could not be perfect or like a slam dunk. For a triathlet. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to, that's what I want to know from you is like, okay, who would want this gift? Or like, do you really have to know this person to get this kind of gift right? So first one is chamois cream. Potentially maybe a little awkward, but everybody needs it.

Yes, that's for a really intimate friend. I would say that's a good stocking stuffer. Ooh. Yeah. Stocking stuffers are kind of like fun things that are under 20 bucks and it's a good stocking stuff for a triathlete. Great. What about a multi-tool? Bad gift. Everyone already has one.

Unless you're going to get them a premium, super, super nice one where they throw out their old one. Yeah. If you have two, you're just accumulating junk in your garage. Yeah, if you found a really cool shiny one for some reason, I always love a new multi-tool. So then this is a great follow-up gift idea that is kind of along the same lines of what you just said. What about a floor pump with a burst tank? So like a compression tank that will help you seat tubeless tires? Terrible present for someone like me.

Good present for someone like Eric. Don't really, really know your audience and hopefully they've requested that. Yeah, so maybe a floor pump in general, it's like what triathlet doesn't already have one. So you'd have to have heard them complaining about theirs or something, right? True, but also there's such a varying level of quality of floor pumps. And to be totally honest, specialized has the best floor pump. I'm just saying that, like, I am a sponsored athlete, but I also, have tried many, many floor pumps and specialized never fails me.

The other ones we have, I need Eric's help with. They are not good. So get a specialized pump for someone. Eric, that really, really, really fancy pump you have? How do you feel about her talking about it like that? It's great. She just doesn't know how to use it. Well, it is complicated to use.

I will say you got to know exactly the right place to place it on the stem and how much to clamp it down. I'll back that up and say it's a fantastic floor pump, but the gas gets a little worn out. So it is very finicky. to get on there. I need to replace it. They've just been out of stock of the gascats. But maybe a $50 gift card to the bike shop where they can either get their tires seated or buy a pump to seat it themselves. So speaking on that same thing, speaking about gift cards, what about a race registration? Can you even register somebody else for a race? Or do you kind of just give them like a little nice written hand note that says,

you know, Iron Man, Wisconsin, 2020. No, I would say that's a bad. gift. Do you want someone to be fully like self-invested in that and not have it be like pressure? But I mean, you could say I will pay for an entry to one of your events this year and then they pick it, they choose the location and

they're self, you know, deciding to do it themselves and then you just pay the $5 million for them. Yeah, you don't want it to come across as like, hey babe, I got you a subscription to Atkins. Yeah. You're welcome. Right, right, right. Of course. Of course, that's great.

Okay, what about nutrition, like gels and electrolytes and stuff? Good stocking stuffers. Just stock that stuffing full of Martin Moves. Or just get like every single... I need a Martin Move sound effect that I'm going to plug in every time you say it. I hope the sarcasm is not lost on everyone. I would, yeah, like get every color of the rainbow gel and put that on a stocking stuffer so they can try everyone. That's cool. That's cool.

And what about... I thought about this, about... like a carbon fiber bottle cage. I'm trying to think of like, I feel like a good gift is something that no one would ever really get for themselves, but that they would really enjoy having. And I feel like people don't want to show up the money

for something like that. The kind of person that's going to appreciate a carbon cage is going to have already bought one for themselves. But if you know they don't have one, then it's definitely cool. It's like marginal, marginal gains in terms of weight.

Oh yeah, that's real marginal. Your only potential issue here is if they, you know, you're probably going to want to get two so they match. That's right. That's true. Okay. Number nine, some TTL gear. Perfect gift for everyone in your life. What a great gift. I mean, can we all just unanimously agree on that? Paula, don't roll your eyes. No, I'm not rolling my eyes. The thing about TTL gear that we've heard from like significant others of triathletes who don't do triathletes, is that it is a cool thing to wear when you're not necessarily a triathlet. You're not wearing like an M.DOT t-shirts that screams Iron Man or something. It's like kind of a more subtle. logo in terms of triathlon, especially if you get some of the stuff that doesn't even say

triathlon on it. And it's quality stuff. It's cool. It's nice. And it shows your support in a different way for your spouse or your kids or whoever, who are out there watching you. So it's a good, good gift for everybody. Yeah. And then finally, I feel like this is probably a common one, is running shoes. Non-traathletes think, oh, yeah, running shoes. Of course. They run a lot. They need running shoes? I just got running shoes for Eric's sister, my brother, my dad, and my mom for Christmas. You had to check with them ahead of time. Definitely. I'm a brand that will not be named yet. Oh, yes. Ooh, foreshadowing. Yeah. So if you're going to get running shoes, you probably, for a serious triathlete, you just probably want to be sure that those are the running shoes they want in the

size they want, right? Yeah. Totally. Probably in the color they want. Because it's, It's such a personal thing. This could be where a gift card kind of comes in. Yeah. Like a gift card for the local running shop or whatever it is. Thank you for that, guys. That was fun. Our first ever good, good, bad gift.

There are no bad gifts, especially if they're coming from the heart. It's the thought that counts anyway. But that's just our perspective on those. This is a Christmas-specific segment for people that are listening to this in like February. Yes. This is our Christmas episode. Yeah. Christmas is in three days.

So that's- Some jingle bells in there somewhere, dude. Oh, you got it. You got it. Okay, so before we move on to our questions, we wanted to just tell everyone that you can submit your questions and help support the podcast. Did I say support and help support the podcast at Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. We love your questions. We know it's the offseason and we're still getting all your questions and we're still looking forward to it every week.

It's kind of fun now. The questions definitely ebb and flow with the season. Like now we're getting a lot of questions that are related to off season and how do I do off season? and how do I make myself eat less cookies at Christmas? That was me. I sent that one. The questions are applicable to the season, but they haven't slowed down, which is really fun.

And the kids are so smart. They send in the best questions. I know. This week as I was writing them down, like a couple times I said out loud, I said, wow, that's a good question. First question, hi Pfein, Paula, Flynn, Eric Nick. Congrats on an excellent year of racing and podcasting,

among other things. Hope y'all are enjoying the downtime. Also super happy to see Nick getting back out there. Looking forward to more witty Strava activity titles. Thank you, Jason. I appreciate that. I do put some effort into those Strava titles. So I signed up for Vuelta, Puerto Rico in February.

It's basically a three-day 600K race around the island. Although, to be honest, I'm going there for the vibes in adventure rather than actual racing. The race director is recommending we get puncture resistant all-season tires with no further description of what that means. Do you all have any insight into this or have any fun. favorites in this category. I've been riding the GP 5,000s for years, so I'm a bit lost. Thanks. Also, hi, Flynn, from Jason.

Eric, you can take this one. This is a little bit of a bike with Eric. Yeah, great question for you. That's a great question for me. We're all struggling with words this evening. So, basically, your Grand Prix 4,000s, those are Continentals. Those are like a really good

all-around tire that kind of trend a little bit more towards a race tire. Plenty of people do road race on those. But they have, like, I don't know, we'll say like a five out of ten flat protection. If you go to something like the gator skin in the continental line, that will get you like nine out of ten,

10 out of ten flat protection, but it's not going to feel quite as nice. So kind of the tradeoff is you get more and more flat resistant is it doesn't feel as good, it doesn't roll as fast, but you have the peace of mind that you're not going to flat. I think like something in the middle there is, I think they do have the four seasons.

It's like the Grand Prix four season or something like that. I don't know why we're talking about Continental's, though. Just because this person seems to be a Continental fan because I don't know the entire Schwabby line. Okay. I didn't have time to Google it. So we had a meeting yesterday with Shalby guy who lives in Bend. And I was so interested to hear this, that Continental,

the majority of their business is car tires. Maybe like 5%. They focus on bike tires. Schwalby is 100% bike tires. So they're like on the cutting edge of trying to make the fastest, the best, the most puncture resistant tires. And I just think that that's cool in itself. I think it's, yeah, it's not cool when you go to Continental's website and it's just car tires there. Exactly.

So you have to find the bicycle tires. I would seriously recommend getting a Schwalby instead of a Continental. So I figured it out. And we have been racing on Schwabies all year. Just, you know, disclaimer there. We are tried and chew loving them prior to having this conversation with our friend who works for Shalby. But they have the Dorano in Schwabby.

And now I remember this from when I was working in the bike shop. And then they have like a Dorano double guard or something like that. And that is probably going to be the thing that is the most flatbrot resistant. But I'm thinking for your, you're probably just going to want like the regular Dorano. Yeah. If you can find that. And something I haven't really heard you talk about yet. And maybe you're just assuming that this person is already doing this,

but would be, would running tubeless make sense? And do these all come in a tubeless version? Yeah, Schwabie is the leader in tubeless technology. Like, where Hutchinson had the very first tubeless tire, but Schwabby, like, freaking 12 years ago when I worked in a bike shop, they had tubeless. So they have done it a long time. All their tires come in tubeless. And I would say that's probably the best for this person as well, like their puncture.

So do tubeless end a puncture, kind of a more puncture-resistant version of a tubeless tire? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Next question is from Parker. I just got a GoPro Hero 11, which for everyone, that's the most recent one. And I was wondering what camera settings you guys use for different kinds of shots. FPS, hyper zoom settings, which I don't think is, I think he might have misspoke there.

Resolution and aspect ratio. Thank you, Parker. This is Parker. You know Parker. We've met him. Oh my gosh. Hey, Parker. How's going, dude?

Parker. Parker is an awesome, awesome guy. He's bought a lot of our stuff, huge fan and is on his trial. on journey. We love it. So do you know where he's at in his filmography journey? Like, what kind of language should we be using to speak to him? He just bought a GoPro. I think he just bought a GoPro. So is he at the beginning? Okay. Square one. Okay. Got it. Got it. So I guess I'll just, I'll rattle off my couple of things. And then Nick can, you can add in. If you want to kind of avoid the quote unquote GoPro look, shoot in narrow or linear, I guess is what

they're calling it now. Is it linear? Well, there's two different things. Narrow is even more cut in, cropped in. I think I shoot in linear. Yeah, you shoot in linear. Yeah, so linear basically just kind of gives you a regular camera look versus that super fish-eye sort of a thing, and that can come across as more cinematic.

And then the one exception to that would be is if you're like, have it chest-mounted, then you're going to want to go with the super view setting, which allows you to get the maximum side-to-side and vertical stuff in the shot, so the widest setting you have. And then you can see your handlebars and potentially some of the sky.

and the side of the trail. So those would be like step one, use those two settings, focal lengths is what we would call them for other cameras. Yeah, and then I kind of, when I was reading this, I kind of thought about the things that I would tell someone,

so I just wrote them down here. But first of all is if you record in the 5K resolution and then you're planning on maybe bringing it to your phone and posting it right away, the phone, unless they change this, cannot actually play back the 5K footage,

so you can't see it at all. You can't preview it on your phone. So if you're planning on doing that, shooting in 4K is a better idea. You asked about the aspect ratio. A lot of these questions, a lot of this will depend on how much you want to edit in the computer.

If you shoot in the 16x9, which is like the regular widescreen, that is fine. But that just chops off the top and the bottom of the 4x3. You're literally just like, it literally throws that information away. So if you're going to edit later,

you have a little more flexibility with the 4x3. Same with the ProTune. If you do the flat color profile versus the GoPro color profile. The flat is, it will require you to do some color later. The GoPro is already kind of like punched in and saturated and contrasty. And then Eric and I both kind of like to record half a stop underexposed

so that the colors look a little richer. I like that. These are all things you're going to have to work on for the most part inside of ProTune. To have that under exposure. You guys might as well be speaking Italian to me right now. So let's move to the next question. Just in case people start falling asleep. I think it's very interesting.

That's why I tried to give two very quick and basic things. Like Parker just text me for more deep, deep information. The one thing I do like is not doing auto white balance. I feel like setting the white balance at 5,500 Kelvin, it stops at hunting around for white balance. Holy. Yeah. Well, I have more here, by the way, but I'm just like, I'm not going to read it.

Here's the thing. That's why it's so hard. People ask me this all the time. You're like, okay, where do you even start? Because, like, I think the two things that I listed off, those are like the most basic and most people, you're going to have to do a little bit of research to find out what is white balance. What is under-exposing?

What is, you know, four by-through. So, right, right, right. Anyway. But, I mean, it is a cool question because so many people get Gopros. Because they're just like, oh, it's easy. Eric must have said it with a GoPro. I think what we should do. That's what it is.

Yeah. Like a lot of this stuff that Nick said, if you're going to just do it on your phone, just like forget all of it. You know, like, this is stuff that if you're editing on your computer afterwards, then you actually have, you know, you're going to want some of that finer tuning stuff on it. But what we should really do is we should do like a three-part when you come to bend, like GoPro 101, GoPro 101, GoPro 201, GoPro 301. And if you just want to know, like, what setting should I use when I put it on my handlebar for my bike ride,

that'll be in 101. Yeah, yeah. If you want to know white balance, that'll be in 301. Yeah, I like that idea. I like that idea. Cool. Okay, we'll move on swiftly to the next question here. The next question is, I'm wondering if you all have dealt with foot numbness while biking.

I've asked a bike fitter, and their solution brought the numbness on more quickly. I brought my cleats as far back as possible and lowered my saddle, but nothing has seemed to work. I feel it on road, try, and mountain biking, and it really bothers me. Is this a shoe issue? A bike issue? A me issue? I do not live close to a bike fitter, and I'm in grad school, so the cost of a fitter. so the cost of fitting is a little steep.

Are there any additional DIY solutions I can try? Thanks for all you do keep up the great work. Nick from Minnesota. Man, are we going to assume that these are different shoes? They've got mountain bike shoes, triathlon shoes, and road shoes? That's exactly. I was wondering the same thing. Yeah, because my first instinct was that they should just get new shoes that are maybe not as tight

or maybe put an insul in. Specialized has really good, like a green insult, blue insul that's a little less. And sometimes having some support under your arch might alleviate that a little bit. But the biggest thing that comes to my mind is just the tightness of the shoe and just maybe making it half a size bigger and not tightening the bow is as much. Something. Like a lot of bike fitting, you know, you said your fitter did something that was supposed to be the solution and it made it worse. A lot of bike fitting is kind of trial and error. And so, I mean, whatever they did, maybe go to the opposite end of that or something like that, right? And just remember where it

was to begin with, so you can put it back, but there's a little bit of playing around with bike fitting. I've had this exact issue for me and it was exactly what you guys are saying. It was tightness of the shoe. Once it starts to happen like two or three hours into a ride usually for me, if I loosen the boa, it feels better right away. Wow. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. The boas are funny because you feel like you want to tighten them and like crank them down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Super tight. And also I think like the boa string thing can loosen over a ride or over time. So sometimes before a hard interval, I'll like crank it. down a tiny bit, but I tend on the side of Lusor, and I've never had foot numbness, so that could

be a thing. If we were doing downhill mountain biking, maybe it makes more sense, but for triathlon, you don't have to, does it maybe not need to be as tight as other types of cycling? I mean, it depends a little bit on your pedal stroke, how much you are like literally pulling up on the shoe over the top of the pedal stroke. And if you, for a reason, if you do that a lot, then you might want a little bit, you know, tighter shoe there. This might be a way off, but maybe like a more cycling specific sock that has a bit of compression might help. Maybe that's dumb. Like there's so many questions. Like is this both feet? Is it one foot? Because like this could even come down to a saddle thing. Like you're sitting on your saddle just slightly weird.

When I first had numbness, I was sure it was a saddle thing. And I don't know why I assumed that. And I found out later. It's like, oh, it's just my shoes are too tight. But I could, it didn't feel like it. My feet just like hurt and started going numb. Yeah. What I would say is it's probably not worth going back to a bike fitter again and again and again. tinker with things yourself, even though I wouldn't normally give that advice, but I think that's probably the best option here, since it's not convenient, it's not cost effective. Try something if it doesn't work, change it back. Like Eric said, just note where you started and then make changes from there. Yeah, take some good measurements. So you know,

your saddle height, how far the nose of your saddle is from like your stem or your handlebars, just have a point in space, X and Y so you can get back there if you need to. Even your saddle tilt, like if it's too far up or down, simple things like that. I know it's really personal, but what shoes do you guys ride and race with? Swirks Torch. Spirks Torch. This works. Okay, so Specialized, the fanciest specialized shoe.

Yeah. Cool. Specialized shoe, go ahead. We've said this before on the podcast, but bike shoes are crazy expensive but worth the investment. So if you're riding in a $50 pair of shoes, make the investment for an expensive pair, and then you won't need another pair for two years or more if you're taking good. care of them. That could also alleviate the numbness if they're good quality. Yeah. Cool. Okay, next question is from Tyler. Congratulations to everyone on a great season.

As a newer triathlete, I'm planning my 2023 season around races that can become vacations. Love that idea. Racing in the first couple of days and then spending some family time enjoying a cool city or destination, an example being Clashed Daytona. What would your top three races be for tagging on some R and R with the trip. Tyler from Illinois. So we've talked about before what our favorite races are and what the most beautiful races are,

but this is kind of a different take on that question. Yeah, where would you take the fan? Is this just triathlon? Yeah, triathlon, that's also a good vacation spot. I think Oceanside is pretty cool. Oceanside's got like a pier and you can do a little bit of surfing. The kids can do it the beach thing.

Like it's not crazy expensive to stay there. They've got fantastic food. It's a whole vibe. easy to watch as a spectator. Yeah, I think any of those California races that are on the coast are kind of novel, because if you don't live at the ocean, it's always going to be fun for kids and for the family and feel a little bit beachy and different from when you live in, like, Alabama, whatever, you know? Oceanside, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa was really fun when that was a race.

California is great. It's never crazy hot, and it's usually never too cold. So it's kind of like a good temperature all the time. Yeah. St. George is very cool because you can go to Zion afterwards. That's a great one. That's kind of a little bit of a rough, like during race and pre-race experience because they have two transition zones. But as far as like afterwards, too.

There's a lot of cool stuff to do afterwards. Yeah. For a family trip. Cool. Next question here is from Troy. Hi, TTL team started triathlon last year and discovered you all. watching 70.3 Chattanooga this year. Love the pod and loved seeing you at Indian Wells,

though too shy to say hi, oh no. You should never be too shy. Question is, anytime I touch my bike chain, taking on and off the trainer, I have to vigorously wash the bike grease off my hands. Am I using too much lube? Do you recommend a good hand soap? So first of all, Eric,

is it possible to get a rear wheel on and off without touching the chain? Depends on the dropouts. If you have dropouts where what should we go back? What does a dropout? A dropout is basically the thing that your skewer or your quick release goes through.

And like most road bikes, the wheel just drops straight down out of that. And those you should be able to get in and out with like holding the derailer just right and like looping the chain on before you put it in. If you have one of these older bikes, it's like an older TT bike where the wheel slides in from behind, no, you're just getting dirty.

Got it. And now that leads to his question, if you are getting grease on your fingers, like visible grease, does that mean that something's off with how you're lubing your chain or cleaning your chain? No, I just, I mean, it kind of depends on the type of chain lube you're using

how dirty it is where you ride. Nick's going to have hardly any black junk on his chain, but when we ride and bend, the roads are pretty dirty from stuff they've thrown down because of snow earlier in the year and dust and all this stuff. So we get, our hands get a little bit dirtier. But it's not you.

And if you want to get around that, you can just put on a glove for that. Sometimes I'll use a rag. I'll actually put a rag kind of over my finger and use the rag to do that. Or just, I mean, you could use a pencil and probably get the job done. Get creative with it.

If having grease on your fingers a big deal. And you do such a good job with keeping those chains clean. It's amazing. I could do better. Even if we have like a clean race bike that's ready to race and we touch the chain, we're still going to get grease on our finger. So it doesn't mean your chain is dirty necessarily. It's just like an effect of grease on a train.

Yep. Yeah, cool. Do you recommend a soap if grease does get on your hand? Because sometimes normal soap doesn't take it off. Their soap works really well. The gritty orange stuff. That gritty orange stuff is amazing. What is that?

I don't know what actually what it's called. It's like an automotive thing. I think it's called orange something. Yeah, it's got pumice in it, which is like all abrasive. You could have seriously like black hands. And you put that on dry and it'll, It'll get it off. Okay, wow.

And if you don't have that handy, then just like sunlight dish soap. Yeah, like an actual soap, not an antibacterial. That's not going to do anything. Yeah. I got it here. It's called fast orange. Pumice bar hand soap. Yep.

Yeah. Popular with like auto shops and stuff. Yeah. Okay. Next question from Susie. I listened to Paul's interview after Indian Wells with Kyle. She mentioned she would need to get faster on the bike to continue to win against some really fast runners.

Why not try to get faster on the run? Do you feel you've tapped out potential there? The reason I ask is I'm a better bike and runner and stink at swimming. Does it sometimes make more sense to focus on making your strength even stronger while just maintaining your weaker sport? I'm a former full distance racer that has transitioned 100% to 70.3, which I find more fun and I can be much more competitive. I'm grateful for all of your advice and use it often. Paula once said she bombs up hills and uses the downhill as more of a recovery and has changed my perspective and approach and has helped me avoid walking up the biggest hills here in Verona, Wisconsin.

Cheers to you all, Susie. I've never heard this before. This idea of like, hey, you know what? You're just never going to be a great swimmer or a great runner or a great biker. Focus on the other two things. I've heard so much of the opposite. Like, yeah, use the off season to get better at the thing you're weak at. So what do you think of this idea?

Yeah, the danger for me with like focusing on my run, quote unquote, is the injury side. So if you're just going to be like, okay, yeah, I'm going to bump my own mileage up by 25%. then I get into the zone where I might get injured. And I think what I've shown this year to myself is that the level that I'm running at right now is sustainable and pretty good. You know, I can still win races. I can podium at world championships.

The reason I said I need to improve on the bike is because my biking and training is not fully translating to like good race watts. And it's a bit annoying. So I hold these watts in training that I think I should be able to do for a 70.3 and I don't. So I think that there's some

still improvement that I can make there to use the bike even more to my advantage. Because you can really like, you can put more time on people on the bike than you can on the run, usually. So that was kind of a unique situation where Tamara ran so much faster than me and faster than any women has ever run. But on the bike, I think I could still shave off like minutes and minutes of time just with improving my racing skills versus like what I do in training. How much do you think that this frustration? you have with not being able to put down the power that you believe you can. How much of it

do you think is something that Eric's talked about before, which is your brain knowing that you're going to have to run a fast half marathon or 18K off the bike and it's just holding back a little bit, even if you don't feel like you're holding back versus some other variable like bike skills or something that you haven't even maybe

necessarily figured out yet? It could be a little bit of the knowing you have a half marathon after, but it's also just really, really hard to train. at race watts for two hours plus in training. So we do these like 20 minute blocks and 30 minute blocks. Yeah, I can hold X watts for that. But then to go out in a race and actually do it for two and a half hours,

maybe it means I'm training too hard. I don't know. But it feels like I can sustain it. But then when like you come to race day and it is actually a two-hour race, you might have gone out too hard, different things like that. So for this person, I would probably say it doesn't, make a ton of sense to like drop the other two and put this a huge focus on swimming. I think focusing on your strengths does have potentially like a bigger effect than going and doing a huge

swimming training block and taking 30 seconds off your time. I don't know. Also, I might be biased, but if there's anything that you can be not great at and still be a decent triathlete at swimming, maybe that's just what I want to believe. That's the most common. It's the most common thing for sure. Eric, do you have something? You look deep in thought. No. He's just over there thinking, yeah, you go way too

fucking hard in training. That's why you can't ride that hard in a race. Definitely not. I can read his brain. I can read his body language. That's right. I know that body. I've seen that body before.

I've seen that body before. Okay, great. Next question is from Chip. Hey, all, happy holidays. Love everything you do for the sport. and have enjoyed every vlog and podcast for a long time now. My question is the following. One of the things I enjoy about watching triathlon

is that I feel like a pro triathlete puts on a pure performance almost 100% of the time. There just isn't enough money in the sport not to do that. Do you think that's a correct assumption and how do you feel about taking races off or not giving a true max effort? Thank you and cannot emphasize enough what a positive vibe you bring each week, Chip.

Eric, this reminds you of something that you have been telling me for like a whole year, which is like if I can't do everything at a race if I'm not excited about a race I don't want to do it so like yeah I feel like this year did you put 100% into every race you raced yeah

yeah man and I think you know Indian Wells is a great is obviously the most recent example like you couldn't we could race more than we do it's totally possible to just like get to more start lines but I do think that there are like a

Ryanite amount of really good performances that you have each year and, you know, potentially just in your life even maybe, where you can go like very deep and do a really good job. And if you just look at a course like, like Lionel did not do niece, 70.3 worlds. Because I just, I can't ride down the hill. I can't ride around corners. I can't do it. Like it makes no sense for me to go there. It's not going to be representation of my, where I think I am like strength wise. So I think picking your races is is totally fine. and if you have the ability to know, ideally a couple weeks out or something from a race,

hey, you know, like I can just tell my body and my brain's not in the right place. Like, don't go do it. I think people definitely start, like, they kind of have a feeling, and they just go hoping that something magically works out, and this person is totally right. There's not enough money in the sport to just, like, to go do that.

Because if you get sixth place, you make $1,000 in your flights, it doesn't even cover your flights. Yeah, or more than that. Do you feel like what you just said, do you think that generally does apply to the rest of the pro field as well? You think they would share that opinion with you? I think it kind of depends. Obviously, Paul and I are extremely blessed to be established in the sport, and our sponsors understand if we say, hey, I just can't do this.

And we've made enough money to where every race is not make or break and whether or not we're going to be able to eat next month. But I've also been on the flip side where I felt like I had to go to every possible race that came up on the calendar. and if USAT called, I had to go. No matter if I was sick or not, you got to take that chance and go for it. So there's a spectrum. It does feel like that's what I was just thinking about. If you're a short course athlete,

it's a different game, right? It's a different ball game. You might not really have a choice. You kind of have to do those races. Whereas long course, like you said, you can pick and choose a little more. Yeah. And I do think, like ITU anyway,

like you're younger when you do that, so there are chances you have more races per year that you're going to have a good, that you can get up for and like it takes less to recover from and just the dynamics of that style of racing you never know. You could just like have a great start on the swim and get in the right

bike pack and have that magical day versus 70.3. It's like you versus you versus everyone else versus you know their best. Right. It's more cut and draw. ITU is like rolling that ice sometimes unless you're just truly like a standout swimmer. If you have a good start, if you have a good spot on the

pontoon, all these things contribute to like coming first or coming 50 So it's much more of a gamble. That swim is so punished if you don't do well on it. It's crazy. So different. Yeah, cool. Thank you for that.

Next question is from Val and Mark. Hi TT on Nash family. It has been such a joy to watch, listen, and follow this year's adventures and exploit. It's truly inspiring my girlfriend, Val, and I, to pursue loftier goals in the sport of triathlon and life. Wow. What an intro.

I would love to hear what is a typical off-season run-through of the training week. How much do you increase the load versus the intensity as you approach a race? Many thanks and hope the Lamar Zocco is in the works with Christmas around the corner. I would say that this question is probably better answered with like a typical actual training week in the off season and not what we're currently doing because right now it's very random. It's what we feel like every day. But when we get back to actual like structured training, it's not much off the schedule that we would do when we're in season. it's just less amount of time.

So we'll go to the pool and we might do like three and a half K instead of 5K. But we'll still go four or five times a week. The bike, same thing. If we're on the trainer, sometimes the rides are just like an hour instead of doing like two and a half hours that we do when we're outside and we're more closer to race season. And they're different structured. Like a lot of them will be more like one minute power or three minutes hard. And, you know, short warm up, short cool down, but like a focused main set.

And yeah, and then the running is all like pretty much base miles with some hill repeats and strides at the end of a run or something like that. Yeah, and the hill repeats being like 30 second hill repeats. Like just real quick activation, power kind of stuff. Yeah, so maybe like four or five runs a week, four or five rides and four or five swims. So it's still a lot of training. But each session is just shortened. And then as the weeks go on, those will be lengthened and change in their makeup, basically. but it's, every athlete is very different.

But at the point of the off season, it's kind of like prep your body to be able to handle the load of training when the time comes to like get ready for races. So if you're not building appropriately, that can lead to injury if you like suddenly ramp up super hard. The idea is the slow build, but still a lot of hours of training. Yeah. And we, so we're getting close to the end of our, what I would call full on off season here.

And we'll start probably onto an actual schedule from our coach. on like January 1st. And I'm just going to call that preseason. Off season, we're like like is break. We're not doing anything unless today like Paula got up before we had a phone call and did like a 35 minute or 40 minute spin on the bike. Then we went skiing and then I did like a 25 minute run before this podcast. So we exercise all day.

Right. And now we're doing the podcast. Traveler never sleeps. Yeah. I mean and the goal of both of our activities were to kind of like just maintain familiarity with that movement pattern. And for me, that after skiing, then we had a bunch of crazy emails come in. I just, I wanted to like unwind a little bit with my run. But it's not so much of a, there's, there's no regulation to it. It's just what we feel like doing. I went for my first swim yesterday in

like 16 days. And I felt totally fine to the point where I'm like, I better take another 16 days. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of want to get back in the pool and feel like garbage. Because I was like, felt like garbage. I thought I could do, I think what we're doing with all this skiing has kept us really aerobically fit. And half of swimming is like the breath control and all that feels really hard. If you get back in the water when you're not fit. But like we've stayed pretty fit. And so for me, swimming felt totally fine yesterday. But so I'll take another week or so to my next try. Or another week or five. Basically we didn't take an off season. Don't listen to our advice at all. I took 16 days off of swimming. That is an off season. But we're pretty fit. Oh my God.

Here come to the eye rolls. We've been skiing every day. It's like uphill. It's hard. I totally agree. No, I totally agree. Okay. Does your strength training stuff change at all throughout the season?

Like, do you do heavier earlier and then lighter later or not really? Yeah, Eric is full on beefcake doing heavy lifting almost every day. I thought so, Eric. You look like you put on 50 or 60 pounds of pure muscle. Yeah. Well, it's off season. I'm fat now. Eric's sitting here with his shirt off, by the way, for everyone that doesn't know.

I haven't historically done a lot of lifting, but this year it's kind of something that I want to do. I've felt like my high-end power on the bike has kind of slowly, slowly petered off since my early 20s, and I'm going to do a little bit of experimenting with some heavy lifting early season. Cool.

We'll see. Stay tuned. TBD. Next question is from Jacob. Hello, TTR family. I have a question that might be a little too inside baseball for the pod, but I'm really curious about the future of pro triathlon. It seems from the outside that the PTO is considerably better compared to Iron Man,

paying athletes so much more. However, it seems like Iron Man is still the bigger deal. Is this due to there being more Iron Man events, sponsors preferring Iron Man, just PTO being new? Do you see this changing in the future? Sorry for all the questions in this one question. Love you all, and thank you, Jacob. Great question, Jacob. I think the reason Ironman is still super prevalent is that it's the Iron Man World Championships and the Iron Man 70.3 World Championships.

And those are still arguably the most important events of the year for most athletes. Coming, you know, winning a world championship is a bigger deal than winning a PTO race. Maybe equivalent financially, but just in terms of like your opportunities that are opened up with sponsors and everything for winning a world championship are much bigger. But I think as the PTO gains more reputation and people like see it on TV, it has a good broadcast, and the prize money is completely outstanding and life-changing for people that do well of these races, it'll for sure get more traction. And the PTO is introducing more races every year. This year there'll be five, I think, maybe four.

So hopefully at least the top pros will start selecting PTO races over any Ironman race. You can go to Oceanside and win 5,000 for winning, or you can go to the PTO U.S. Open and win 100,000 for winning. It's a no-brainer. So, yeah, it's for sure going to change the sport. It already is starting to change the sport all the things they are doing. And the biggest part of that is financially. Do you think there is any world where we will see a 100K World Championship?

What? Like 70.3 World Championships. Full distance World Championships. Oh, I don't know. World Championships. is a funny term. I don't know if PTO could just like adopt that term and call their event a world championship. I don't know.

But I think that Kona or whatever Ironman World Championships and 70.3 World Championships will never lose their prestige and their importance. But for me, for example, like I don't care if I do a single Iron Man branded race this year before Worlds because I've already qualified in Indian Wells. So all I care about is performing well at the big big money races, which are the PTO events. thing is all it takes is a few other athletes kind of thinking the same thing and then all of a sudden everyone's just qualifying for the race, not doing the rest.

And I feel like Iron Man could become eventually less and less relevant to the point where the PTO is like the thing that people want to watch, especially when there's all these great athletes at all the races and there's so much money and the broadcast is so good. Yeah, that's the goal.

And I think what it also opens up the door for is like developing pros to go to Iron Man 70.3 events that have a smaller prize purse, but get on the podium there. they are making four or five thousand dollars instead of like competing against Lionel at Oceanside and coming tent. You're not going to win.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it definitely gives more opportunities to the lower ranks to hopefully come up if people like Lionel and Yon and Holly Lawrence and those people are going to PTO instead of to the Iron round events. Yeah. Cool.

Next question is from Mike. You've all mentioned the strong preference for bibs over bike or try shorts. You also prefer bike bibs when training on your tri-bike. Any concern or consideration to where the padding and the bike bibs usually is compared to the pressure of the rolled forward pelvis in a TT position? Or bibs that have several millimeters of padding compared to the shammies and a tri-suit, slightly impacting effective saddle height. Thanks, Mike. I've never considered that. Neither.

One thing that I have considered is the relative height of that when you go from that to your to your race kit. And I do know of at least two professional triathletes who lower their saddle. Wow. Like two millimeters. Yeah, while training or, you know, raise it when you race because of that. If you've got to really, whatever bibs you're wearing are super added, that could be a thing. Yeah.

But I think, like I say, it's not an issue that we have, the Castelli bibs that we wear do, like, have very good front coverage. it's certainly not just on your sit bones. So I think they've taken that into a consideration. And if you ever watch like a pro tour cycling race, those guys are probably more arrow and bent over on their road bikes than you are on your trathon bikes. And they're wearing the regular cycling bib shorts. Yeah.

And even me as someone who uses the, has used a bunch of different brands. They all cover that part of your body. Yeah. I was going to just say sometimes different brands will have different shammies, which they all do. Some of them are better than others, but they all generally cover a pretty big area.

Yeah. I guess, like, thinking back on the bibs that I have had, I've had some that had a huge shammie that were very comfortable. They were awesome back in the day for cycling. Did not really like them on the TT bike. I kind of felt like I slid around. Other than that, every pair of, yeah,

other than that, every pair that I've had has been like kind of reasonably, a reasonable thickness and has worked great for both. Yeah, cool. Next question is just for Paula. What's your definition of healthy? Commentators and Aaron Carson on another podcast recently also mentioned healthy Paula. That's from Kate.

Are they talking about having a cold? No, they're talking about not being injured. For many months. Yeah, just like being able to run normally and train normally without worry of breaking or making an injury worse or having to interrupt a huge block of training for one thing or another. And that's been like a huge pattern in my career is injury. So I guess when I say healthy, I just mean able to train normally. It is a confusing term, though, because when you're not in sport, healthy is not usually

referring to like a mechanical problem with your body. Yeah, it's true. It's true. But then you come to travel and that's like all people refer to as healthy. Yeah. Otherwise, you're like, no, I'm sick. You know, I'm sick. That's different.

Well, that's another side of it is we have stayed healthy from a sickness perspective as well all year. So we haven't really, we haven't had COVID. We haven't got the flu or anything. That's not irrelevant, right? That is important too, because some people can get, you know, COVID and I can take people out for a long time. Yeah, like Jackie Herring got COVID midseason and it derailed her for a little while. Holly got sick twice too. Avoid that.

Yeah, it totally can throw off your training and like, therefore throw off your next race. So healthy can have lots of meanings. but for us it's been kind of globally, we've been healthy in every aspect. Yeah, cool. Okay, next question is from Will. Hi, TTR family. Having just completed the fourth year of my Kona quest,

not there yet and sadly just got harder to make it to the island, I would like to thank you all for being one of my favorite content producers who have been there and inspired me from the start. Being that is off-season, and that my TTL cappuccino mug is one of the most treasured possessions, such a great feeling cup, use it every day. I have two coffee questions. One, what makes a perfect coffee shop for each of you all as high level of festionados?

When we travel my wife, we're always trying. Nice hat, Paula. When Paula's just put her beanie over her, over the ear headphones. She looks like a cartoon character. Take a screenshot quick. Yeah, there we go. This is going to the podcast supporters. There we go.

Yeah, that's great. That's the one for the supporters. So back to the question here. When we travel, my wife and I are always trying to find that perfect coffee place, and it's not always easy. We often try your suggestions when we go to races, FYI. So first of all, let's start there. What are the things to look for to get a, what makes a perfect coffee shop? Our criteria for a coffee shop is we order a cappuccino.

And if they ask you, do you want that with more foam or less foam or this size or this size? And you're like, oh boy, backpedal, back pedal, don't order a cappuccino. but if they come out with like I'm super picky about my cappuccino's like having them taste good and not burned and the milk not too hot and in a good coffee shop this will never be a problem

but in somewhere where it's just kind of I don't know Starbucksy it's a crapshoot for the people who really know coffee out there we like our cappuccinos like a flat white rather than like a 90s foamy cappuccino

burning mouth yeah obviously the ambiance is a big thing. And if they have a La Marzocco or like a Slayer or something, you know, they're probably going to be a good coffee shop. That's kind of the front test from the door. If you have that expensive a machine, it's probably going to make good coffee.

Obviously, a lot of trends on that brista as well. Right. Right, right. If they have subway tiles, if they have cool lights, if they have good pastries that aren't wrapped in plastic wrap. See, that was on the mind that I wrote down. Pastries. The pastries, I think, are key.

Typically, if they have like a roaster sitting in the coffee shop, that's a good sign. If it says coffee shop and roastery, they care a bit more. Usually on Google. Gotta be friendly. On Google Maps, if you look up like coffee shops

and you're clicking on them, they'll show photos that like customers have taken. And a lot of the time, if you see like a latte art or a cappuccino art and a cool looking countertop or whatever. avocado toast. An alacado toast. What is the worst?

I love it. I mean, it's dumb, but it's like if you're trying to, trying to pick from like 17 coffee shops and you see one that has like a really good latte heart like at least they have steamed the milk properly to like be able to pull off that art or at least somebody at some point in time working there did so that's how we usually pick our places and also just reviews and suggestions from people yeah yeah we love getting tips from people who are locals what's super annoying is if you spend 650 on a latte and it's

not good you know it's like burned and whatever that's what we're all trying to avoid here you know what drives me crazy is spending $6.50 on a latte and then they give it to you in a paper cup. I'm like, if they, some, that's one of the things for me. If there's a coffee place that has no option of anything but a paper cup, for some reason, that's just, that just rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah, that's the turnoff. Yeah, for me. I get that to everyone. I need to sit down and enjoy the time with my coffee in a porcelain mug. Well, Eric and I are the same. We go there for the experience. It's not all just to like get caffeinated ASAP. We can take a warrant and gel for that.

right oh Jesus right make your mark move okay now anecdotally we did

we did go into Portland on last week and we went into a coffee shop and we asked specifically if they had to stay cups

and the guy was like oh I'm so sorry we do not have to stay cups because it's the weekend and we don't have

enough time to wash all the dishes to keep up demand if you come back Monday we will have to stay cups right

I'm like that was fantastic thank you so much I love you John here's a tip totally you know totally

but that's a nice That's a nice exception to that. It's a sum of all parts with the perfect coffee shop. Yes, as many things in life. It's not so simple. We should put the coffee. I don't know if that's like for our, for our listeners or not, the coffee shop song.

There's a couple weird moments. Oh, yeah, there are some weird moments. Well, for the adult crowd that listens to the podcast, there is a couple of my friends are in this band called The Cooties, and they have the song called Coffee Shop. You can look it up on YouTube. Eric and I love, that song. It's great. And it talks about a lot of this stuff that we were just talking about.

Yeah. Okay. And our second question here is, do you ever worry about or feel bad about too much caffeine intake? I use caffeine strategically for key workouts and training days and race performance, but it makes me too anxious and I feel a bit off to have caffeine every day. So I have decaf a lot, which is actually still very enjoyable, even if somewhat justifiably considered sort of lame. What do you think about this? This is a great question because I mostly do decalphalph. Keff because it because he gives me serious anxiety. Yeah, I think that's like person to person, but it just made me think of a really funny anecdote from one,

probably like year two that I was working with our coach, Paula Sousa, who I've been with for 10 years now. And I was kind of asking him, oh, coach, like, do you think I should like do less coffee like the month before a race? Then the coffee really makes a big difference on race day. And he's just like, no, no, no, no. Like on race day, you just do more. You're coffee.

We just do more coffee, obviously. No, why would you ever do that? You just have five coffees on race day. You told me that. Just more than before is fine. Don't kill yourself. Just trying to get to the race. You don't realize how dependent you were on caffeine

until you try to do like a morning workout without coffee first. And it's a complete fail. It's really, really makes a difference. So if you already kind of operate on level 11, like Nick does and some of our other friends. You don't need a coffee to get there and you can race well and you can perform. If you're a hyperactive child, you mean?

Is that what you're saying? So, you know, yeah, decaf is totally fine. I think it tastes pretty much the same. And I'll often get a decaf coffee like in the afternoon if we go for coffee. So that is totally fine. And then use it more as a tool for race day. Lindsay Corbyn always did that. She would always drink decaf and then race day have coffee.

And it was this huge, huge boost. However, she did tell us that she is now on the coffee every day plan. is loving it. So I think she should have been on the more coffee on race day plan. I love the more. That's a kind of answer my brain would come up with and just to be like, yeah, just do more, obviously.

That's great. There's a balance of like life happiness and then like traffic on performance, you know? Exactly. And some, we're pretty, we're hitting it pretty well, I think. We're racing fine, but we're also happy. So have coffee every day. Yeah, love that.

And then last question here. I'm planning on racing a downriver 70.3, which is the one in Oregon. It seems like swim time can be impacted. Swim time can be impacted quite a bit based on which side of the river you swim on due to the river's current differences. Can you give some tips on how to read a river, so to speak? Should I try to swim in the shallowest part of the river? Should I try to draft other swimmers even if it seems like we're in a slow part of the river?

Any other tips? Love the content. Keep up the good work. Thanks, Ben. This reminds me of when we were watching the Dallas race. When I was watching the Dallas race, and you could see certain people going off in Was it Dallas? No, it was Samarind

where people were in the river. Yeah, it was Collins Cup. And people were swimming right next to the side of the shore of the shore. Was it called the shore? The bank? The bank of the river. Yeah, usually in rivers the middle is where it's moving the fastest, but this kind of goes out the window

if there's a big curve in the river. Like where we swim and bend, we've learned to read it properly because we've swam it so many times and ultimately that's really the only way to learn how the river acts. is to actually get in it and try it. I don't know if that's an option. Unless it's like so swiftly moving

that you can see rapids in it, which we're talking about big rivers here. But like Paul said, it will kind of wagon wheel. Sometimes like the outside of the turn will sort of like catch the water and then it'll sort of like shoot it off to the other side and it'll sort of serpentine along.

And I think you kind of have to just get in and experience that, which I'm not sure you can... You don't think there's a general rule? Well, if it's a straight part, with no curves, the middle will probably be the fastest. And if you're going countercurrent, so in Collins Cup, we were going upstream, then downstream. So when we were going upstream, I tried to hug the shore because that's where the current was the weakest. And then coming downstream, I tried to stay right in the middle because that's where it was the strongest. So

it's obvious. But if you're in a group and you've looked to the left and see someone just flying past you, the current's probably stronger to the left. So I'd say, get out of your group and get over to the left. And a current is always going to be faster than any benefit you get from drafting someone. You say it's obvious, but I think a lot of people who are just like, that's some great information to know. Because I, that's how I feel. It's because I might show up to race and be like, all right, here we go. I hope it works out. But now I know it and kind of look out for it. You could look out of the ocean and spot an undertow. But Paula and I both grew up in cities with rivers. So that's just kind of like. Yeah. That's what you're used to swimming.

Yeah. That was more common knowledge for us. The thing about 70.3 Oregon is regardless of where you swim down in the river, it's going to be fast. It's a really fast moving, you know, it's famous for this, that race that you're going to have like a swim PB by 10 minutes. So whether you're on the far left or the far right of the middle, I would say the race directors usually stick to the buoy line because they've already selected the fastest route. Usually that's true. Or they've tried to select a slower route to keep it from being completely outrageous. But from what I remember from people talking about this race is that it's like they put

out a line of buoys and you stay to the right of them. And it actually was the fastest. Yeah. So anyway, that's not as open-ended as you might think. By the way, they don't like this race because they're great swimmers. and that it benefits them for the slower swimmers to be more penalized, but for people like me, this race sounds great. I might do it next year.

For the majority of people who don't like swimming or who the swimming is their weakest, this is a great race. So people love it. You could put like a bag of potato chips in and it would get your best time. Yay, Toronto. I love it. That's what I need because I swim just like a bag of potato chips, but eaten potato chips, so really slow.

guys, it's going to be Christmas. I hope everyone's having a good time. You guys are there. Paula, your family's there. Your brother's there. You guys went skiing today. The whole family affair. We spent the weekend in Portland with Eric's family,

and then my family is here this weekend. So it's busy. We're still dealing with like finalizing sponsor stuff, so Eric is stressed out of his mind all the time. But it's good. It's going to be all over soon, Eric, right? I don't know. I sure hope so.

January 1st. We all sort of out. I thought of January 1st is the end. And then stuff just trickles on and on. Like things were going so well. And then we got like a soul crushing email from a brand that we have worked very closely with for the past year. And it was just like mind blowing. Like if we guys told you, we told you this story on the pod, you guys would be like flabbergasted.

Yes. You would be more of the flabbergasted. Yeah. Because that's what I was at like. And also who sends an email at 9 p.m. I guess it's like my fault for checking. the email at 9 p.m. But we read this email and then neither of us could sleep.

I was crafting a response. So anyway, maybe we'll tell that story to our kids at a later date. Yes, that's right. Oh, the kids. Yeah, it's intense. So I don't know if we said this. What's left of the new gear? Because a lot of the stuff sold out.

Beanie's, the cool mint trail hat. We still have plenty of those. We've got the women's dusty rose shirt and then the men's shirt that we launched. And I don't know if we got into that much detail about it. We do have a men's long sleeve that would be coming kind of like later January, tragically delayed with the printing process. Nothing we can do about it, but it'll be worth the wait. And also we restocked the men's topo shorts.

It's kind of a weird season to restock shorts, but we figured people are doing indoor gym stuff, doing running, and then obviously not everyone lives in the northern hemisphere. or people are in Australia or wherever they could wear them year round. So they're amazing. They sold it really quick on the first round. So those are back up if you want shorts in December. Yeah.

Mostly I just needed two more pairs for myself and we had to order 200 to make that happen. Right. You're welcome. Right. That's great. Well, that's it. Thank you, everybody, for sending in your questions. You can send in your questions and help support the podcast at that triathlonlife.com

slash podcast. And by the way, if you bought one of the, like, the, Premio, how do you guys pronounce it? Premiumo? Yeah, Premium Black, Babe Shorts? The premium, yeah. Those, if you use the Castelli 25% off code, that saved you more money than it cost to be a supporter for the entire year. So that's a pretty sweet deal. That is value, baby. Yeah, that's value. And we're going to, once all this sponsor craziness is locked in, we're going to keep doing stuff like that for all of you. Yeah, it's very fun. Yeah, it's really fun. And we're even, you know,

we're even going to send out a little photo today to the supporters of Paula and her great hat. Oh, I better, I actually was just thinking about this. We should say that that email was not from Specialized. What? I'm just going to leave it at that. Oh,

oh, oh, yeah, that's a great. Shocking email. Everyone's going to think it's specialized. Oh, you're right. That is a great point. I didn't even consider that.

All those people are already like on the forums. They just paused the podcast and they're going on. Oh, my God. You're so right. You're so right. Back up. No, it was not from specialized. It was not from specialized.

No, we aren't good with specialized, but we'll get into that later. Nick, thank you so much for tuning in from New York on family vacation. It's like 8 p.m. in New York and we're putting out this pod in the morning. So Nick is going to hang up the phone

and start editing. He is a hero. That's true. I am. I am a hero. I'll accept that. You're going to get a Christmas cookie before you start editing?

No, I have several different flavors waiting for me right outside this door. So don't worry. Don't worry. Cute up. I can't edit without cookies. I need my fuel. All right, Nick, and also, can you make a little cute jingle for the outro this week?

Like a cute little Christmas jingle? You know what? I have one. I have a perfect idea for it. Like, dun-da-na-na-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Just add that to your things to do tonight. I'll make a cute little Carol of the Bell's jingle just like you were humming. I love it.

I love it. All right. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for listening. Have a great holiday, a great Christmas. And we will talk to you next Thursday. All everybody. Thank you.