That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon indoor training tips, Bike tech tips, running again, watch data, race focus, and more!

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

In this episode we touch on how to stay focused when training for triathlon indoors, as well as some bike tech tips from Eric, rapid fire questions, and many more triathlon questions. For more, head over to https://thattriathlonlife.com

Hello, everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. Episode six, I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Loggersome. I'm Nick Goldston. We've got a super fun show for you today. We've got a little bit of bike tech, some rapid fires. And most importantly, I just started snowing and bend. So we thought we would do some indoor training, how to stay motivated, what to watch on YouTube. Just in case anyone's first time here, Eric and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a musician and Jack of All Trades does, not Jackaball Trades. That's saying you're not good at everything. No, no, no. Jack of all trades is fine. You just can't follow it up with and master of none.

Which may or may not be true in my case. Nick is a master of all trades. So welcome and yeah, let's do it. I haven't swam in a pool yet this year. How does that make you feel? Jealous. Yep. I have to say, I'm not complaining.

It's pretty great. We haven't swam in a pool in seven hours. Ouch. Is it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday for you guys? No, no, we're on a pretty sweet schedule right now where we go like Monday, our two days off are like Saturday or Sunday and Friday. Let me tell you, it goes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, Friday off swimming, swim Saturday, off Sunday.

So five days week. Okay, is it true that Paula, you guys don't even bring the workout to the pool because you have it in your head? Well, our workouts are fairly simple in terms of not a lot of complicated intervals or pace time. stuff like that. So I look at it right before I get in the pool and I can remember it. And we swim with a few other people. So I actually enjoy the role of delivering the workout to everyone as it unfolds versus having it written down on a whiteboard or something. Oh, I see. So Eric looks at it kind of, but it doesn't really remember it, but I am pretty good

at remembering it. I get a feeling if it's hard or, you know, if the main sets like 10,200's hard, but then I kind of enjoy it unfolding in front of me from Coach Paula. So also, you guys released those felt hoodies. We talked about at the end of the podcast last week, but now they're officially out, and they are still available, right? They didn't all sell out yet. We put them out on our YouTube on Sunday, sort of talked about them a bit, and we ordered a hundred total, and there's less than a quarter left. So they're going fast, but there's still some available. So do you think they'll be available by the time this podcast is out in a couple days? I think so. Yeah. Yeah, there might be, we might be missing like one size or something like that, but for the most part, yeah.

We're really happy because, I mean, like we said, it took a lot for us to get those out. That's a very complicated thing that we did on the front with the felt. But it turned out so great. And we're just, it is a unique color, too. So we're glad that everybody really is liking it. So thanks to everybody who got one. I love the idea of also just doing like a hundred of something, you know, just to be like, hey, these exists in this amount of time. And if you get it, you get it.

If you don't, too bad. Next time we'll make something else cool as well. Yeah. We're in the process of designing our June release, which is going to be. be pretty big and kind of a huge investment up front on our part. And we have to order 150 of every piece because that's the minimums for the specific type of release we're doing because we're actually kind of designing the actual products themselves. So not just blanks. So we're picking colors of fabric and, you know, the kind of decorations we like on them, like the patches and stuff.

So it's a lot for us. But I think they'll be so cool and so unique that hopefully 150 of each isn't too much. Well, speaking of a lot or slash too much, Paula, you've like really hardcore reintroduced like hard running kind of all of a sudden for your training. Are you guys pretty much in the same thing you were last week as far as where you're on your trading or has it changed at all since we last spoke? For the most part, it's the same. And I wouldn't say that bringing in a tempo run is necessarily like this huge reintroduction of intensity at tempo run. you know, you might, if you were going to do mile repeats, you might run 20, 30 seconds a mile faster than you would if you did a tempo run. So it is, it's still kind of reasonable. And as long as

you don't go crazy on the length of it, it's a fairly safe reintroduction. And then the surface I did it on was hilly and gravel. So in terms of impact and pounding, it wasn't too stressful in my body. And I came out the next day, fine. So that was. Yeah, you had no pain in your foot, right? You said. No. Yeah, it was good. That's great. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. And this is our last week of training before we taper for the couples triathlon championship that's in Florida. So we'll just kind of put a little bit of a cap on the work that we've done so far.

But for the most part, we've just been kind of getting ready to train seriously once that couples race is over. If I can impose myself and ask a question that I'm curious about, how much do you guys taper for a race like this versus a different race? Do you guys have different levels of taper, like going into a world championship versus a race like this? And is that even affected by when the race happens in the season? Yeah, and that's a really good question. Actually, our coach is pretty consistent with every race having the exact same taper week leading into it. And it's not a crazy drastic decrease in anything, but enough to freshen it up and feel good. And we've both raced really well off of that exact taper week, so we know it works.

and it just helps us to have some consistency and know what to expect heading into a race. And although this isn't our biggest race of the year by any means, it's still an important event we want to do well at. So next week's taper will probably look pretty much the same as any other race that we do this year. And you guys do one week tapers for the most part? Yeah, starting on Monday for a race that's on Saturday or Sunday. Yeah. I would say the one exception to that rule is if we have races on back-to-back weekends, then we typically would taper a little bit less for the first.

one maybe, but it's a pretty small amount of difference. And for the most part, also our coach gives us the reins on a tape per week. Like, here's the schedule and here's the outline, but if you're just feeling wrecked on Monday or Tuesday and you feel like you need to do less, then that's totally fine to what you feel like your body needs. Well, sorry to extend this even more, but this is something I've always wondered about as far as us amateurs versus you guys is how much do you think the taper actually affects your race day? Like, if you were to train right up until the race, how much slower would you be do you think? Well, I mean, I've had some really good races where I went in with no taper and it was a local race and there's, you let go a little bit of the pressure when you do that because it feels like, oh, it's just, you know, I'm not tapering for it.

It's not that big of a deal so you don't have quite that pressure load. And I think what a lot of people forget is that we train really hard every week and then have hard workouts on the weekend and a lot of the time they do go really well. So you can't underestimate the amount of training and how fit you are and strong you are. You don't need to completely rest for five days. It's okay to push yourself a bit leading into a race. And in fact, I think you should have a little bit of intensity and some familiarity to your normal training, even in the five days leading into your biggest race of the year. Yeah, that's really interesting.

I love that. Okay, so first thing we're going to do now, well, first thing, we've already been talking for 10 minutes, but we're going to reintroduce a segment that was wildly successful. And now we're going to give it a real name and a jingle. We're going to call it Bike Tech with Eric. Well, you can chime in. You can heckle Eric, but the questions are for Eric. So in this thing, we ask Eric if a certain bike repair,

if he thinks it should be done by you or if you should take it into a shop. By you at home. Yeah, by you at home, right. So the first one would be, and anyone who's done this, probably has a strong feelings about it, but it's wrapping your handlebars with tape. Maybe you made the mistake of buying white handlebar tape and it has to be replaced every 30 seconds,

or maybe your bike's just old and needs new tape. Eric, what do you think, at home or bring it to the shop? I think this is a thing that you can do yourself. You just got to be prepared that it's going to take you four times as long and it will maybe not look as good as if you get it done at the shop. and I would also follow that up with watch some YouTube videos and look at each handlebar for about three minutes like visualizing what you're going to do

before you actually start doing because it is important to wrap it the correct direction around the bar so that when you hold it, it's not unwrapping it. Your pressure of your hands is wrapping it tighter theoretically and then what are you going to do at the actual brake levers? Are you going to go underneath and up and then... That's the crux. Yeah, so you just you want to visualize it

and think about it before you get going. and then go to the other side, and you need to do it in the opposite direction, basically mirror it and be patient. Wow, I didn't even know that. Yeah, see. It's an art, but you can do it. See, so I'm glad you said that it's an art

because I think this is one of those very rare bike mechanic things that your bike mechanic skills are almost useless, and it's much more useful to be someone who's just, like, good at arts and crafts. Like a perfectionist. Yes, that's what I think is helpful. It's also very subtle. satisfying. If you do it right or it is horrifying if you do it wrong. Another thing,

really quick jumping in is a lot of people just won't replace their bar tape. But I must say, it makes a huge difference. It makes it look like a new bike sometimes. Oh, really? Oh, but you don't, do you feel a difference? Like, do you feel like, just the appearance. Yeah, the appearance, right. Look good, feel good, baby. Yes, right. Okay. Next one is tightening. Let's say you have a carbon bike and every little little. bolt has a little Newton meter spec next to it. So a little number that tells you what exactly, like, how many newtons to tighten that bolt to. Do you think someone at home should try to maybe buy a torque wrench or just forget about it, bring it into the shop?

I think it'd be great to have a torque wrench. And they have torque wrenches out there that are kind of preset to like 4.5 Newton meters or 5 Newton meters, which is typical for a seat post. And I think the seat post is really kind of the most critical thing where if you over tighten it, it could crack something. If you under tighten it, it could slip. Handelbars, a little less, a little less critical. But like a four and a half newton meter, five newton meter set torque wrench should cover most of your boxes and give you peace of mind. When I bought my TT bike, it came with like a kind of like a practical torque wrench that it wouldn't like click when it got to the right torque, but you would have like a gauge.

It would like, I'll have to, this is not great for radio. Yeah, it's a needle style. Yeah. But I like that. But then I bought a torque wrench set with like a bunch of different heads, like a real torque wrench. It was not expensive. I really think everyone can get it and do it at home. It's a little intimidating because if you do it wrong, you'll destroy your bike.

Doing tightening things without a torque wrench is much more frightening. If you're going to spend $8,000 on a carbon bike, spend $100. bucks. Don't break it. I think mine was like 45 and it's a nice torque wrench. I mean, nice enough. And if you don't tighten things properly, sometimes your seat will slip and stuff,

that'll just ruin your race. Yes. Not worth it. Wait, didn't that happen to Eric? Yes, it did. Didn't use a torque wrench. Yeah. Sorry, Eric.

A lot of went wrong that day. Okay, next. Great. Next. Last one. Replacing disc brake rotors, which is something I'm going to have to do. that is definitely something you can do yourself at home, especially if you have a center lock style versus a six bolt style. That's just the same tool that loosens your cassette. Right.

And you can take that on and off yourself in like 30 seconds. I would also recommend taking them off when you travel and putting them back on because like Eric told me, because I was a little bit resistant to this because I'm like, oh, it's so much work. But if you bend your rotor and travel, you got to get a new one. So it takes 30 seconds to take it off. You can't true a rotor, folks. It's once it's bent. You kind of can, actually. You can grab a wrench and bend it, but it's not worth it to do that.

Yeah, just take it off. Just take it off. Yeah. And also, like, you can probably get, like, I don't know, you're less likely to get crap and residue on them if they're not on the bike. Just be very careful when you touch them. Don't touch your chain and then touch the rotors. Keep them clean.

Great. Well, that was our second, but first official with the new title, Bike Tech with Eric. Bike Tech with Eric. So I hope you enjoyed that. I got to deviate a little bit from our. pod schedule because we had a little visit at our house last night, one of Eric's good friend's daughter Kate Young's. It's her 10th birthday today while we're recording this podcast. And she's the biggest fan. She listens to the pod and she's only 10. Not only 10, but I mean,

I thought that only triathletes who are age groupers listen to. Yeah, we get it. The only loser triathletes listen to this podcast. We get it. But cool 10 year olds listen too. Yeah, Kate, we much more expect your dad to be listening to this. That's great. Well, we're her biggest fans now. Yeah. And she actually has a question for us. Okay, great.

She is wondering, what do you think about when you race? Because it looks super boring. I'm just tricking myself into making it be over as soon as possible. Same. Same. Same. Same. Eric's like having a great time.

No, I mean, if the race is going great and there's other people around you, I'm thinking about what they're doing, you know, what hills coming up. if I'm going to have to make a move, I need to take nutrition. But if it's not and you're by yourself, then I'm more thinking about, like, form and just like some cues with breathing and stuff to try to stay relaxed. I actually really like thinking about workouts that I've done and breaking the race into repeatable blocks of sessions that I've done on the bike. So say I've done four by 20 minutes up skyliner in training, and I have an hour left

on the bike. I'm like, well, that's kind of the same thing. It's amazing. It's such an amazing psychological thing, which is. just like, wait, I have done this before. Like, I know how to break this down. Even though if physically nothing has changed, it is a powerful tool to do that. Yeah.

Mental. Little digestible chunks. Yes. Yeah. For example, I did a long run yesterday and my friend told me to just break it up into quarters. And I was like, oh, that's so stupid. And then when I actually started to think about it, I'm like, this is really working. Like, it's like little, you know, whatever, however many mile chunks.

It helps you just like, okay, I'll break it down like that. Very achievable chunks versus a one long amount. Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know if you guys have this too, but does Paolo, your coach ever to tell you, all right, go out and run whatever, an hour, easy? Yeah. So I just don't do well with that. I'd much rather an hour of, okay, 10 minute warm up, then five minute at this rate,

even if at the end your pace is identical. Yeah. The time just drags forever if I have one long interval versus if broken up. I haven't just bummed when runs are over because I just been having the best thing and getting all meditative. Oh, my gosh. Is Eric the greatest? I'm serious. Eric is the greatest.

Back to reality when you get to the car and you got to check your phone and all that stuff. I feel like running has the exact opposite effect on me. When I'm doing something I don't like doing, I'm like, at least I'm not running. And then I feel a little bit better. And on that note, happy birthday, Kate. At least I'm not running. No, I'm just kidding. I've fallen in love with running much more.

At the beginning, I definitely felt like that, though. It was just every single session was a struggle. Yeah. We can't all be like you guys, natural athletes. No, running is hard for us. Yeah, it's a hard sport. Wonderful. Well, I'm glad that we had that question from Kate.

Yeah. Great, great. Okay, well, let's move on to some questions from TTL Nash. We haven't said that in a few episodes. I know Eric loves that. We're never going to not laugh at that. Okay, so first question, as travel restrictions relax for Canadians, do you have a few recommendations where an average triathlet may consider going

for a week of warm weather training on a somewhat average budget? A bit of outdoor swimming, biking and running, plus good food and sunshine. Thanks for the inspiration, Kimberly Davis. That is tough. Getting sunshine for cheap these days is getting harder. Yeah, I would have said Tucson a few years ago, but it is getting more expensive to go to Tucson, depending on where you stay. It is a big place, and you want to be close to the pool and the Mount Lemmon. So you think you could probably find somewhere affordable, but it is going up in price.

However, it is the best place in the winter. Probably the best. So what about, like, near Vegas or something? No, there's nothing there that I can think of. I mean, outside of Vegas, there are people used to go there. but I think Jordan Brighton said that where was 70.3 worlds before? Like, I honestly, just for ease of training, Tucson, because you can reach out to so many people who have been there.

The bike path is easy. The only other place I could think of would be Claremont, Florida. Yeah. Which is good weather, outdoor pool. Not as great of a coffee food scene, but predictable weather. Yeah. Good question. Good question.

Good question. Thanks, Kimberly. Okay, next question. Hey guys, big fan of the vlog and the podcast. Also can't wait for the felt hoodie to arrive. Good. Glad. I'm curious about metrics. Heart rate, power, RPE, which is rate of perceived exertion, pace, cadence, etc. That you use when swimming slash biking slash running. Which ones do you pay most attention to slash think are the most important ones versus which are overrated? Thank you for everything you guys create. Bronco.

I love this question. That is, I like that question too. Everyone's going to have a different answer to it as well, but we'll tell you what we think. Yeah, I almost wish I had my Wahoo right here so I could just like read off the data screens that I have when I do like lap workouts and stuff. But for me, I would say like your average power over the last three seconds is the main thing I look at when I do a bike workout because I don't want it to just be super sporadically jumping up and down. But you want something kind of instantaneous. And then right next to that I'll have the average power. for the lap that I'm on.

And then I'll kind of look back and forth occasionally to look at my cadence, make sure it's not getting too horrendously low or like super high or anything. But those are definitely on the bike, the most important things. We don't really look at heart rate, to be totally honest. That's on the bike. That's on the bike. Yeah, I would say on the run, what Eric and I both look at mostly is just our pace per kilometer.

Kilometers, not miles. That's right. That's how you know you're legit. Yeah. And then just distance and time for me. You do look at distance. I do because back to Kate's question in a way, it does help me get through the distance of run that we have to do. Like usually our runs are time-based, so 45 minutes cruise run.

And then in my head, I do like calculations of the distance I have left. It's kind of dumb. But yeah, I do look at distance. And then neither of you swim with watches, right? No, swimming. Only pace clock. swimmer. You're just going to have a pace clock. No watch. No stroke rate. Meanwhile, I have like my watch, a chest strap, like the goggles, like every single thing. Literally with music. I have music while I'm swimming. Sorry, go ahead. That actually is kind of an interesting point that you bring up with the form goggles and have the data on the screen because they reached out to us to work with us this year. And they sent us a few pairs to try. And I was insanely impressed with how accurate they are and how much data they give you and how much data they give you and how. awesome of a tool they could potentially be, but they just weren't for us. Like we've grown up

just looking at the pace clock, counting the laps ourselves, and just being a lot more in tune with our swimming based on time only. So it was too much data for me. It was overwhelming and it was getting distracting. But I would recommend them to anyone who swims alone and just needs a little bit of feedback in their swimming. They're pretty cool. And then the question I had for you, because I really like this question and there's a few more things I want to know from you guys. How much do you look at your runs

or rides or swims after and analyze data that maybe you weren't looking at on the watch at the time, but that you're interested in looking at after? I would say for the most part, not much. I'll go back and look at it if I knew it was a really good workout

and I just wanted to reaffirm for myself like how high my power was or something like that. But for the most part, I always say during the thing, I could, at the end of the workout, spit out the power that I hit for like six by six minutes. Just boom, boom, boom, boom. I know how it is relative to the last time I did it. And it's kind of there.

And I also just don't think you necessarily want to dwell super hard on any one particular workout versus just kind of having an overall feel for things that running positively. I felt okay. But you're not looking at, for example, like, I understand that during the workout you're looking at three second power, maybe cadence, lap power. And I think a lot of us do that. But then after the fact, do you look at left-right balance? Do you look at like the variability index per interval or like decoupling heart rate or anything like that? No, no, I don't. I'll pay attention to my left-right balance just a little bit when I'm warming up and maybe glance at it during an interval.

I'm the opposite. I like to look at all of my splits and just look at them all day and think, wow, I am amazing. I'm riding so well. I'm going to destroy every race. I honestly do, I mean, except for that last part, I do the same thing. I think it keeps me excited about things. Yeah, me too. I'm like, wow, I really did this workout that I was so scared of.

And I crushed it, right? Exactly. Maybe people are different, but I feel like for me, harping on that allows me to feel confident for the next time that something feels difficult. I agree. The one caveat that I would say to this is that before we start a workout, Paula is infinitely more stressed and worried about how what the power numbers that she's going to hit and how hard it's going to be relative to the last time versus I do sort of feel like

having the goldfish memory span can be of benefit because I'm not that stressed before a workout and I'm just like looking forward to trying to get something good. Right. And then the last thing I wanted to say, and this doesn't, this isn't really relevant for you guys, but for me, having all the weird, let's say, quote unquote, useless data on the watch, I love it. It may not actually make me any faster, but it gets me excited and makes me want to, like, train so I can see it. Like, things like, like, the new watches have, like, stamina and, like, breathing rate. Like, what am I going to do with breathing rate?

But I'm like, I wonder what the breathing rate is. Yeah. pulse oxidation level is during it. It makes me want to do it. And I recognize for pros, it's like, I don't need any of that. That's useless to me. But for us, we're not trying to make a living from it. We're trying to have fun.

And that stuff just makes it for some people, like for me, it makes it more fun. The fact that a watch can even do that is fascinating. Yeah. I'd say it's like, that's another thing to like look at and be entertained at if you're on a four and a half hour, five hour ride, you know? Like I do, I enjoy looking at that sometimes too. And I'm like, this is taking forever. Maybe I'll.

Right. see if I can get perfect 50-50 left-right balance for the next 10 minutes. Right. That's fun. Cool. Okay. Well, thank you, Brock, for that question. That provided a lot of cool stuff.

Okay, next question. This is from Kate as well, but not the same Kate. Not our number one fan, Kate. Although, Kate, let's see. This is a good one, too. Hi, Paula, Eric, and Nick. First off, I'm loving the podcast. I find myself laughing out loud, listening to it.

That's because we're hilarious. How do you like your aura rings slash what is the most helpful data you get from them. That's a data. This is a dady, day-heavy pod. Data-heavy pod. Well, it's post-valentine's day, so we're all about dates. Data. Data. Wow. We're funny. Okay. I like the Oro-Ring a lot for sleep data. I don't use it really for tracking activity. I find it's not quite as accurate as a watch might be if you're going for a run or something. But I think they are improving some of the activity features of it, although the primary use of it is sleep and tracking when you fall asleep,

what your REM sleep is, what your deep sleep is. That is fascinating to me. The same way that you like looking at things on your watch for running and stuff. I think it's so cool to see the sleep stuff and how much you're awake every night and the actual amount of sleep you were getting. I think, and I was turned on to the statistic by our strength slash PT coach Aaron Carson from Boulder is the heart rate variability. That's like one of the biggest super well grounded in science stats that they have on there

and that's basically just how well your heart is able to adapt to like just changing and breathing rate and getting up versus sitting down and everything and healthier heart is going to have a higher heart rate variability and that's like a really good indication of how much you are overtrained or undertrained and fatigue. So that's like a really cool one to look out outside of just how quick did you fall asleep,

how much REM did you get, et cetera. And I think the biggest thing with the aura ring is just that it's a little bit of a nudge if you're thinking about having three glasses of wine instead of one glass of wine or like, should I go out for that fourth meal or not? You know, it's like getting that crappy sleep number the next morning, just a little bit of an extra nudge. That's really, really, that's really interesting because, yes, then it stops becoming an informant and it starts actually affecting your behavior in a cool way. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that could be really powerful. Thank you, Kate, for that question. Next question is, hey guys, loving the podcast. My wife and I got hooked on your vlogs in 2020. We liked the traveling you did in your camper van.

We're interested in doing a trailer build sometime and would love to know what you like about your van. What you wish was different. What you wish you knew when you started building. the van or any online resources for the builds. Thanks. So I guess this is a little bit more for Eric because we love that fan. That van is awesome. I would say that I'll just say something really quick before Eric gets into the technical. But a big reason we got it is to have our bikes inside of it because it's a bit safer to have them in the van versus on a rack on the outside. And we had a couple of bad experiences with bikes getting stolen off racks. So what I love about it the most is that we built the bed high enough that we can fit five bikes underneath and

lock the bikes into the fork mounts. And it just feels way better to leave the van somewhere unknown with the bikes being a bit safer. Yeah. Yeah, I would say like the thing, if I could, if I could just sum it up in one sentence of like what I love about the van is that we didn't put anything in there that we didn't need. It's like we could have gone so much more over the top with it and like put in an electric sink and I mean like a pump with it in the sink and like an electric refrigerator and like a gas burning stove and all this crazy stuff. But we just went like minimum viable product. We have a cooler in there. We have an inverter so we can plug it in charge laptops and cameras, bed. It's really well insulated. And we can put in like a little

space heater if we wanted to, but we didn't, I feel like we kind of set it up so it's an open platform. And I wired it so that we could put an electric fridge in later if we wanted. There's room for the heater if we want to put that. in, but I don't look around at it ever and go, I can't believe if I spent money on that. You know, it totally serves our purpose with big drawers and enough space to carry stuff to races, but we didn't build it out like we're planning for the apocalypse when we really, you know, do like week-long trips at the most. Yeah. It's funny because you say like you're pretty bare bones, but I have this very clear image of how like it's very aesthetically pleasing.

Oh, yeah. It still looks great. And you still have like the cabinets and the little like the clock on top and like the little hangar section. I just love it. It's still homie. There's ways to make it homey and cute without going all out on getting the most expensive fridge and the most expensive sink and a composting toilet and a shower. We didn't want it to be like an RV. We wanted it to be basically good for day trips and then for getting to training camps. So it completely serves those purposes. We don't use it for camping for more than a couple days at a time. So it doesn't really need a toilet or anything like that, you know. And just so people know, what should people expect to pay for like a used van do you think right

now? And what do you think people should expect to pay if they're going to do it themselves to flesh it out to like a full build? That is just, that is the hardest question ever. I haven't looked at used vans lately, but we bought ours for like 18,000 in that van. There's no way they're available for 18,000. No, I mean, so that's a 2008 Dodge. It doesn't have the Mercedes badge on it. It was a little less glamorous. I had to do some work to it immediately.

Like, we had to pull the floor out and it was disgusting. There was a bunch of stuff that it wasn't perfect. And then I had my dad help me with a good percentage of the buildout, and I kind of went cheaply on everything that I could. One thing we didn't skimp on, though, was the electrical system. Eric has a good friend that does electrical systems in boats, and he very generously did our electric for us. And Eric helped him do it.

So Eric understands how it works. But that's something you don't really want to DIY because it could go real wrong if you do it wrong. Electricity is so freaking complicated. It's like so abstract sometimes the way you have to think about stuff. Yeah. So it's worth spending money on that for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

What agree. But you could spend anywhere from, I don't know, 25 grand for an empty shell like we got, if it's older, up to $200,000 for a built-up. Oh my, 200. Yeah. So Eric sometimes sends me post from this Instagram account called Sprinters of Bend. Is that what it's called? Yep.

Yeah. And it's just like these ridiculously blinged out vans like all over Ben. And Eric will say sometimes that he's just driving around these neighborhoods. And these vans are, they've never moved. They've been in the same spot for six months. It's just like you bought a, instead of buying a Rolex, you bought a van. And like, that's who you are. That's your identity, the van, even if you don't use it.

Yeah, you might want to take it to the grocery store one day. Yeah. Well, I mean, at the end of the day, people have been buying $200,000, $300,000, $40,000 RVs for a long time. And now the trend is just to go smaller. And people still seem to be okay, spending that much money on 20 feet. You might want to off-road with it, so it's got to be lifted and four-wheel drive. Of course. You never know.

We actually truly wish ours was four-wheel drive. If we could change one thing about it for whoever asked this question, before we'll drive for winter driving. Oh, nice. But you will pay a $30,000 premium for that. Yeah, and every time something goes wrong, it's way more expensive to fix, too. Yeah.

Okay, great. Well, that's a great question. The next question is from Cody. Eric, Paula, Nick, loving the show. Super grateful that you guys are providing us with even more content and hoping to see you in Oceanside in April. Fun. I'll be there, too, by the way.

We will all be there. We will all be there. I won't be racing. So if you see me, just in general, people, if you see me, if you don't come up to me, I will be personally offended. I don't know how I'll know you didn't come up to me, but if I find out, I'll be very upset. So yes, please come up to me and just like poke me in the side of the head. Okay, I've got a question on how you guys approach race-paced training. A lot of pros and influencers, in quotes, are sharing content on how they approach their training,

and it sends a lot of mixed messages. Some seem to avoid race pace or zone 3 or gray zone junk miles training, with exception of a few sharpening sessions, while others seem to have started really embracing high and aerobic work that falls around Iron Man 70.3 pace, etc. What's your guys take? Do you find value in race-paced training and how do you incorporate it into your training schedule? Is there value in, say, a 90-minute trainer session with 60 minutes of 70.3

If you're not going to go and run off the bike, thank you, Cody. I think this is a very well-timed question because it does seem like some of the fastest people in the world now are doing a lot of this training. At race pace. And it does seem to be, yeah, it does seem to be in contrast with what we've been told a lot, which is like, yeah, train above and below race base, but don't spend too much time at race space, right? Yeah. The nice thing about having a coach that you trust is that we don't think about it.

We just do what we're told. So that's not very helpful for answering your question. But we do, now that we race 70.3, a lot of time at 70.3 race pace. with our tempo runs and with our intervals on the bike. And that's generally for a specific block of training. And before that starts, like right now, we're doing a lot of intervals above race pace. So, I don't know, Olympic distance watts on the bike.

But having Paulo send us our workouts every week takes all the guesswork of wondering, what's the best thing to do? And we know he does the research and has a philosophy that we just buy into, right? So you don't kind of think, oh, my God, what is he thinking? like this is crazy. You're just like, nope, I'm doing it. That's part of having a coach. I think like you definitely want to bring up concerns if you feel like something's not working for you. But the reason we have Paulo help us is that we trust him. And we've both raced really well off of his training. So that brings us confidence

and the fact that he knows what he's doing and he coaches some of the best athletes in the world. Yeah. Do what we told. Yeah. I mean, I'm as far in that direction as one could possibly be like I don't really want to think too much about the overall picture. picture. If I hear something interesting, I'll bring it up with him as a conversation and hear his take because I know he's read about it. But for the most part, I just, I want to get the workout and just do the workout and not think about it and do the next workout the best as I can. But like Paula said, totally, we've done a lot of 70.3 pace training. And I would say all of our swim workouts all the time for the most part are like at race pace. The bike is the one place where

maybe we go a little bit over our long rides. We've been doing some stuff that's kind of like, the Zone 2 stuff for a big chunk of the long rides. But yeah, before we're getting ready for 70.3 worlds and stuff, yeah, we'll do, I don't know, three times 15 minutes at 70.3 effort. I'd say we'd do like six by 15 minutes. You just blocked it out of your memory. Yeah, maybe I've just blocked the long ones out of my memory. I've done those days.

Those are so hard. Yeah, they're very hard. You don't always run off the bike on them either. You still get a lot of benefit from it, even if you're not running a half marathon on after. I think that was one of the part of the question. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I think it's important to say to you that like, at least for me, I'm doing that at what I truly believe my 70.3 paces. I'm not doing it at like dream 70.3 pace where you're always a little bit stressed. That's a big difference. Like, oh, I really would really love to be able to hold 320 watts for an entire 70.3 versus I know I can do 310. And the first couple, they're not going to feel that hard. But, you know, that it's realistic.

And something just dawned on me while you guys are answering that. Do you think that both of you respond similarly physiologically to the stress of different types of training? Like, do you think you gain the same adaptation that Paula does when you do tempo versus VOTU MaxSF versus Zone 2 stuff? Yeah, it's hard to say. I would say that I really enjoy the short, fast, hard stuff more. so therefore I push myself more than Eric and I might get more out of it, whereas Eric is a lot better at doing a long ride like Zone 2 or a kind of uncomfortable face. So he gets more under that.

So we definitely have our strengths and I think something that you're good at and is your strength, you put more effort into so maybe you get more at the other end of it. We are very different athletes, but our training generally is pretty similar. Mine's a bit lower volume. So whatever, I told myself at the beginning of the other end of it. podcast. I'm not going to say so and I'm not going to ramble. And here I am. You're not rambling. You're not rambling. Okay, Eric, you can answer that question. Well, Eric, I see this in Eric. He goes out for these long gravel rides and I just,

I could see him just getting into this Zen state in his mind, right? Yeah. And I think that's just harder to do with the short, spiky fast stuff. Yeah. And I think you, Paula, you're more just this like machine where you can just like no this is what you do and you and you like do these hard uh intervals and that those longer slower stuff it's not maybe it's not as much of like an immediate challenge so you don't get to use that part of your personality in it whereas eric it's like perfectly built for him challenging in a very different way yeah yeah yeah yeah i really do get into longer stuff i don't know how else to say it but um and i think there is a component of of like that belief concept of like,

I believe this is good. I like this. I'm good at it and reinforcing that. And I have had some really good races off of doing some long rides that are pretty hard, but not race pace, you know. That's another trap I get into a lot is I'll have a good race like Daytona 2020. And I'll think every single workout I did leading into that race is now I have to do that

every time. But that's dangerous. You can't look too much at the past. You can look at it to a certain extent, but everyone's doing a different training program leading up to a race, but they're all kind of the same. So there's really not one magic formula to having the perfect race. I think being consistent and healthy and enjoying training are the three biggest things and what Watts are doing on a certain day are a little bit less relevant.

I think it's easy for us to look at like very specific workouts, like these key workouts and assign a lot of value and importance to them. Whereas I was just talking about this on my long run yesterday with my friend. I was talking about you, Paul. I was talking about Daytona, actually, and how you had just, like, I don't think it was a coincidence that it happened in a year where you had no other racing before, right? I do think that a lot of us, we think in like these like three-week chunks,

but the body also reacts to things that you did like six months ago. Yeah. And training a lot in a certain period of time. and then taking time off and then racing after that. Like, when you zoom out a bit, it might make a little more sense why you race so well. It wasn't that one time where you did all six times 15 minutes at race pace. That made you race well, right? Right.

That was a small, small, small piece of the puzzle. Yes, it was the 12 months leading into it with uninterrupted running and all of that. Yeah, good point, good point. Great. Okay, well, Paula, do you want to do a little rapid fire? Just right and smack down in the middle of the pod or are we at the end of the party? I don't know. I was thinking before we get into the last question,

question, we could have a little interruption with rapid fire, or do you want to wait till the end? Okay. Rapid fire! Let's do it. I got to edit that into the theme song now. Paul was singing it. You can cut that out. That was just for our own excitement. No, no, no.

No, we're going to a cappella that, actually. Okay. So I am the rapid fire question asker, and you guys are the answerers, and just a quick reminder that these are rapid. So quick answers. There's a little bit of, there was a little bit of stink eye there when you said that because Eric I tend to ramble. So Eric, why don't you, you answer each one first. I'll answer second.

Okay. Which of the seven dwarves are you most like? Bashful, sleepy, dopey, happy, sneezy, grumpy, and Doc. Doc is, I don't really know what that is, but. He's the disgraced gymnastics coach who's been taking advantage of them. I don't know. I guess I might say happy. just because I like we were talking about with the long rides and stuff,

I feel like I can get carried away and just be like in a good mood. Look, look how pretty it is. Like no matter what else is going on. I'm the same. I'm the same. Definitely would be happy. I know it's not a very fun answer, but happy. That's a good question, Paul.

Lately Eric's been sneezy, though. I'm like, there's allergies in the air right now. It's because it's been spring and bend in February. I can't keep track of what the heck is going on with your guys weather there. I swear it's like two feet of snow. And the next day, you're like, we're swimming in the river. I know the sports bra post and then like fully winter gear. Yeah.

Okay, now I got to go back to my rapid fires because I'm on Googling the seven dwarves. Okay, what is the fastest speed you've ever driven a car and to send it on a bike? Nick, this is, I'm really interested in this because we were wondering how fast your Tesla goes. 110 miles an hour in my 1992 Jeddah. Oh, boy. Damn. Which felt like 300 miles an hour. Yeah.

Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Melanie, don't listen to this. That's Eric's mom. That's what I was going to say is my parents listen to this podcast, so they're not going to like this. But I've gone, I think, 135 in my Audi that I had before the Tesla.

In the Tesla, I think I've gone like 110 or something. Oh, so slower. And then on the Dukadi, I've gone like, I'm actually not going to say that. They don't need to hear that. They don't need to hear that. You can tell us after. We'll give them nightmares. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, what about on a bike? Descending on a bike, I think I've hit like 55 or something. Yeah, 55 is for me, I think 50, 55 or 54. One of the fastest times I ever gone was with you, Eric, in Santa Cruz. Oh, really? There's like a downhill there. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think the fastest I've gone is actually a super tuck in St. George.

I hit 55. I think my top speed is like going down Palomar in San Diego. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, you had like a top 10 time on Strabo for that. I was like five seconds behind Taylor Finney on a 22-minute descent. That's scary. Okay, number three, would you either climb a mountain or jump from an airplane? Oh.

Probably you jump from an airplane, which I have done and is awesome and significantly less work than climbing a mountain. I think the ultimate would be to climb up with a shoot and then base jump off the side of the mountain. That would be the best. little hang glide. But if I, sorry, that's a cheat answer. I've climbed many mountains. I've never jumped out of a plane, so I would totally do that. Oh, you would jump out of a plane?

Yeah, that sounds awesome. I don't think I would do that. I'm not even scared of heights. I'm just very risk-averse. You are risk-averse, yeah. That's true. Okay, last question is what, and that's not a trick question. What is your favorite clothing brand?

Obviously that triathlon life. Excuse me. You don't have to say that. besides TTL stuff, because you do wear it a lot, Nick, so do we. I do, I do wear it a lot. I mean, honestly, this thing happens in the music industry, not industry, but this thing happens when you're a musician, where when your friends make music and you listen to it,

it's like you can't help but like it more. You think you don't have a bias, you think you're neutral, but knowing the person behind it makes it so much more special and emotionally impactful. And that's what music is trying to do, the first place is be emotionally impactful. And so the stuff you guys make, I just feel like it's fantastic and it's great. But I can't separate the fact that I really like you guys a lot.

And so when I wear it, I feel like I'm not only saying something about my identity, but I'm also like sharing this thing with you guys. Yeah. So it's hard for me to separate that. You're so terrible at Rapid Fire. I know. Sorry. Terrible.

It's like, okay, hold on. Just like, let me tell a 10 minute backstory. So nice. The boring answer is Lulu. I really like Lulu. Me too. Sponsor us. Yeah.

I literally have a cart of like 20 things for Loulement all times and one day I'll just order it all. I'll say recently I've been very into Viori. Me too. Viori over Lulu every day. Yeah. Sort of, but I, Lulu's just got more stuff. They're different. They're different.

They're different. They're different. Well, Viori is like Lulu. Lemon went to California and got super awesome. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, Lou Lemon's a little more vanilla, and Viori has a little more of an aesthetic behind it, I think.

Yeah, I agree. So my favorite, I just might want to answer this, Rappifier. My favorite clothing brand is Foreign Writer by Ralph Dunning, who created our logo. He is like my idol and gold standard in terms of how to do clothing and what is standing for something that you believe in and the quality. Like, every time I put on one of his t-shirts or hoodies or anything, it just is like, that is what it's supposed to feel like, wow, I need to throw away all my other other t-shirts. So good.

Such nice stuff. And made it Canada. Yeah. That's a great answer, Eric. Yeah, we really suck at these rapid fires, but I really like them. Good job, Paula. You're doing great. You don't have to be rapid.

I mean, they're just fun questions that are so random. They're faster than how do you feel about doping in the Olympics? Yeah. Speaking of which, just a little revisit of last week's episode we talked about that girl, a Russian girl. Man, I don't know. I feel like I've changed my mind.

I feel so bad for her now. I don't even understand what happened in the women's figure skating. I watched the replay of it, and everyone was just crying. And I didn't understand why. And they were all Russian. Like, this is confusing.

All amazing. Like, do they all think that they were in the right? I mean, just it's, I don't know. Let's not get too deep. Same original answer, though. It goes beyond the athletes. Yeah, it's like, don't blame that poor girl. That's my feeling.

Yeah. I mean, she's not completely, probably not completely blameless, but I just, I mean, did we make mistakes when we were 14? Yeah, right. She's not the mastermind. Okay, great. We're only 55 minutes in, so let's, let's reach our main topic now. Okay, so the main question we had, and I think the way we're talking,

trying to structure this is have a bunch of questions and then something that we kind of dive deeply into, but I'm not sure if that's what we're doing here. We're just kind of diving deeply into everything. But here's this. Since this winter, we thought this would be a good question to ask. The question is, do you ever watch any TV slash Netflix slash YouTube slash videos while on the bike trainer? If so, do you only watch it on easy rides versus hard workouts? I live in a place with snow and ice, and in turn, I'm on the trainer this winter. Although I use Swift, I find it hard to stay engaged in longer, easy rides, and oftentimes we'll turn on Netflix while riding.

I'm curious as to how you stay mentally engaged on longer trainer rides, especially at easier efforts. We'd love to hear your perspective and experience. Thank you for all that you do, and we'll be cheering Eric and you on in the couples try. TTR for the win. Also, this girl, this is actually from Julia, and she sent an email to us today with a picture of her dog who is a Gryphon and looks like Flynn. Oh, sorry.

I, yes, I took out the best of her. beginning because it was just very complimentary towards us, but I thought we didn't necessarily need to say it on the pot. Yeah, I don't think she meant for it to be in the pod, but I just thought it was fun that she sent a picture of her dog. And also, everyone who sent in pictures of their dogs in the Olympic sport they would do, freaking loved it. Fantastic. If we could just do that every week, send pictures of the dog. Paula sent me some of them that were really great. Like the one of the, like, the Bowser lap dog. Oh, yeah. I love that one. Just like raging through the snow where they're ready to start fights.

That's great. That's great. But anyway, back to the question. So, like, for example, like, Eric, do you feel like there's certain sessions that you can handle watching something and certain that you can't or certain times that it helps you or hurts you? Like, how do you handle? Because you guys train on those trainers a lot. Me more than Eric. For me personally, I cannot watch an actual movie. I cannot watch anything with a plot or a storyline whatsoever. While I'm on the trainer, I just kind of end up looking down after a while. and realizing that I'm not pedaling anymore, I got too engaged in the movie. So what I'll watch is snowboard films, like mountain bike films, surf films, things that don't really have a plot necessarily to them, but they have really good music.

That is as far as I can go. But for the most part, I'll have Zwift going, and then I'll just be kind of cycling through a playlist, building a playlist, and just listen to music. And do you feel like you can't watch a movie with a plot? Is it because the movie is distracting you from the work? and then you kind of forget what you're doing. Yeah.

Okay, that's interesting. Because for me, I can't do that because it's too much extra emotion. It's too much extra processing that's going on. I'd say that's, you're saying the same thing, yeah. I see. I see. Okay. Not really because sometimes the workout is distracting from watching the movie properly

and I miss parts of the movie. Right. Whereas Eric gets so into the movie, he forgets that he's riding his bike. Right. I can't forget that I'm riding my bike. Right. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking about a four-hour ride here.

I'm not thinking about five by 10 minutes or something challenging like that. To me, that you're focused 100% on the workout in that situation. So five by 10 minutes, you're not even considering putting something on. You're just laser focused on the effort, right? No. That is just music. Got it. That is just a lot, music loud as possible and then Swift for having something to look at that's relevant to what you're doing.

The thing I will do sometimes is I'll like make an Instagram post or just like check some Instagram directs messages or or edit a couple pictures. is that I just took, you know, an hour ago. I'll do some little mundane tasks like that while I'm in super, you know, zone two, like low end stuff. But I don't know, for whatever reason, the movie thing is hard. What about you, Paula? I'm the same way. Yeah?

Yeah, I'll catch up on some, like, Lionel's YouTube occasionally, if he's put something out. Right. But for the most part, looking on Zwift, I'll, quite often, if I have an easier, sort of easy ride, I'll pick a pre-made workout on Zwift. and do that workout just with a lower FTP. That's what I was saying. Yeah. Before about not having just one long block, just like break it up, do something.

Yeah, even like yesterday I did a three-hour ride on the trainer and it was just easy, but I did five minutes at 200 watts, 10 minutes at 175 watts times 15 or whatever it was. So it sounds awful, but in my mind it just breaks it up a bit and gives you something to think about. Do you have this? So for example, I'm trying to put myself in your... shoes. If I were training as often as you guys did and was on the trainer as often as you guys were, I think I would just have the sense of dread that would be coming up if I had a three-hour trainer ride. Do you guys ever have that? And if you do, is there any like, do you set any

rewards for yourself? Like, and then after this, I'm going to have a donut. Or is there any ways that you help yourself get through it? Nick, every single workout, we have a donut after, pretty much. We're like, workout treat. Workout treat. That's how we get through our days. No, I think it's nice that our coach is pretty aware of the mental drain that the trainer has on athletes. And he's aware that we're living in a wintry place. So he doesn't prescribe anything over three hours on Zwift. And even over two hours, he doesn't really like us doing that because he knows everyone has this mental threshold for being on the trainer every single workout for weeks and weeks. So for that reason, he encourages athletes to go south somewhere warmer

to ride outside, but if that's not feasible, then just lowering the overall volume on the bike. And I do think you do get a lot out of riding on the trainer versus outside in terms of just consistent peddling, no coasting, no descending. Not obviously good for bike skills, but just the overall load that you're getting, I find my legs get a lot more tired from a two-hour trainer ride than a two-hour outdoor ride sometimes if you're just cruising around. Things that are fun if you are doing Zwift is trying to level up a little bit quicker. trying to get sweat points quicker. If you go and read some articles on how to do these things more quickly,

there are ways in which you can do a new route every single time you ride on Zwift and you'll get a bonus every time you finish. And if you're just trying to get to level 30 quicker, I feel like that can, if you really lean into the video game nature of it. Right. I do like that. Is 30 the max? No, 50's the max.

I was just making, you know, making it a digestible real number. Also, sometimes we'll just. jump into a, you know, a quote-unquote race or a ride and just do like the sea field or something where you'll get a little bit of a stimulus just trying to hang on to the group, but it's not necessarily an all-out effort. Just like if you were doing a hard group ride. Totally, yeah. And then you're not looking at the clock. You're looking at the race dynamics on Zwift, which are quite interesting and real. So that really, you're right, Eric, that's something I didn't think of. Two years ago when we were getting ready for Daytona, we went through a phase

where every trainer ride we did, we would just do back-to-back-back races in the C groups. And just, you'd like start and try to hang on to the group and maybe get dropped or whatever. And I'll kind of keep doing new courses. And that really made rides go pretty fast. Yeah. But it can make you work too hard, too. You have to be an easier ride. That's, you know, it reminds me of this track session I did recently.

TrackSmith came to L.A., the clothing company, Tracksmith came to L.A., and they had a track workout. And I remember I was supposed to take it easy that day, but they had like these mile repeats that they were doing. And they were all like, each one felt like a little race. And I didn't even realize it, but I had run 10 miles at the end of the day. But if you had asked me if I just intuitively felt like I'd run like four. So I do think like doing those little races like that, it could be a great way to trick your brain into spending the time pedaling. Yeah. And if you look on Zwift, there's so many races every day. So many races, so many little workouts, group rides that

you can join. And you just click you're going to do it. And then there's a little countdown on the screen and your little avatar jumps right into the world where the race is happening. That's really cool. I guess I could try it. I do have this walking kicker here. Just kicking around. It's collecting dust. Yeah.

Yeah, Nick, plug that thing back in. I know. I think what I'll do is I'll do every six weeks, I'll do a ramp test on it. And that'll be my measure. And I think I'm going to follow it. Like last time I did it with you guys, it was much lower than that. I thought. I'm always able to do the bike workouts the way that I have my FTP set. But maybe I should be doing them not as hard. Maybe. At least if you do it consistently on the kicker, you'll know,

you'll have something to compare it to that's the same. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. It's hard. It's hard to do a power test on the trainer and then convert and go out and then use that for a road just to kind of depending on your personality. Like Paula is so good at riding the trainer at the same watts that she does outside versus for me, it takes a huge mental effort to hit the same watts inside. So being aware of that. I'm the same way. I get a lot of energy from being outside, and I lose a lot of energy from being stationary. Another way you could kill time on the trainer is by getting in on a TTO group ride on Zwift,

which is a thing that we are really hopeful to do at some point in time. What? Yeah, I think we should do that. I'm hearing about this. That's a great idea. Here's another tip from Nick, live in California. You'll never have to ride your bike inside. That's right.

That's my tip. I can't do it and I don't need to do it, so I don't do it. I'm outside every day. It's the best. And the other thing that's nice for you riding outside is that you're working inside, you know? So getting outside at the end of the day to ride is your escape and your enjoyment. I look forward to it all day. Exactly.

Exactly. It's mental health. Unlike most people, I don't train when I first wake up. I don't train until after I've done most of my work. I like to train right before sunset, no matter what time of year it is. So I get to look forward to the workout that I'm going to do all day. or dread it. Or dread it.

Or cry about it. Yeah. Oh, my God. Sometimes I do want to cry about it. And then I just nap and have a cookie and it's a little bit better. Yeah. Well, on cookies, on that note, we got to always end with sweets. I think we're going to wrap it up.

Thanks for sending in the questions. And if you have questions for us to look at next week at the week after that, send them to that triathlon life brand at gmail.com. and we cannot wait to answer them. Yeah, thanks so much, guys. Appreciate you guys listening and all the feedback we've been getting is so awesome. Happy birthday, Kate.

That's right. Happy birthday, Kate. That made our day when you told us in person that you love our podcast. We were honored and touched. Do you know what a podcast is? Oh my gosh,

she's probably hacking into the Pentagon. We're already kidding me this 10-year-old. That's true. She's trading Bitcoin. Well, thank you guys. We'll see you next week. See you next week. Let me.