That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon Ironman 70.3 World Championships pre-race, chain lube vs wax, race morning rituals, training zones, and more!

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

We're all in the same room this week! Recording from IM 70.3 World Championships in St. George, Utah. Both Eric, and Paula are racing this weekend so we spent a little time talking logistics and pre race excitement before moving onto a Bike Tech with Eric, then straight into questions. We talk about training partners, how long to rest between races, recording swim workouts, and more! To help support the podcast, keep it ad free, and for gear, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hello everyone. Welcome to That Traathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Laneship. I'm Nick Goldston. And all three of us are in St. George, Utah right now recording this podcast. Super fun to all be together. Eric and I are both professional triathletes racing in the world championships this weekend. Nick is our friend and musician and amateur triathlet, not racing this weekend, but just here for the good vibes. And to help us out with basically everything we need help with. So I'm the Sherpa. I'm the cheerleader. I'm the calm downer. I'm the hype upper. He's my excuse to go buy donuts, all the things.

That's true. Should we tell this little story? Yeah, this afternoon. A couple of things. Yeah, well, first of all, we were, Eric comes back from his workout, and we were thinking that we're going to go get a little treat, and all of a sudden we get a little surprise at the door.

Doping control. Yeah, for me. Not for me. That's amazing. This is the first time in years that I've been tested out of competition. Yeah, so I was like, so happy, because I didn't have to do it, but Eric had to do it, but also he had to, like, get a massage at the same time,

so his doping control person was waiting for him to have to pee while he's on the massage table. Meanwhile, me and Nick go buy 13 donuts. And I was like, this is way too many donuts. Wrong. And this was three hours ago. And let me tell you, they're gone. There are no donuts. They're 100% gone.

We gave one to Christian Gustav and Caden. And then the massage therapist had one. The doping control person had one. All of us had one. Holly had one. Sean had one. and then the doorbell rings and there's another doping control person here for me

literally 10 minutes after Eric's doping control person left and she had one so good thing we had 13 donuts well we have to go back because I feel like a little backstory on why all these people are here perhaps the world championships yeah but we're splitting a house with Holly Lawrence oh right right Sean and Nick's here

because if you've been to St. George you know that every house has like 47 bedrooms so we're all or totally packed out, and then literally across the street from us and another Airbnb are the Norwegians. The fun thing about St. George is like half the town is just built as Airbnb's. So you kind of end up in, it feels like a little camp almost when you're at these, like, houses. Gustav said it feels like the Olympic Village. It's like you just see the world champion running down the street in front of your house. You're like, oh, no big deal.

So funny. But anyway. Well, this morning you guys swam in the lake, which people were afraid might be very cold, but it seems like both you manage it just fine. Yeah, apparently everybody on the internet who is not here thinks that it's 13 degrees Celsius when in reality it's more like 19. Yeah, the water is really, really nice, which we are kind of expecting, but obviously the concern everyone's having is the air temperature on Friday and Saturday is really low. And that's just the theme of the week. Like, every time we wake up at 7 a.m., it's really, really cold out. So the transition from the wet water to the cold air is obviously more the concern than the actual water itself.

But it is nice that the water's not frigid because that makes it even more enjoyable. Yeah. And do you think you'll just, I mean, what kind of cold weather gear? I mean, is it just going to be gloves or what do you think? That's very TBD at this point. We're kind of going back and forth. But anything between like just a full-on wind protection jacket that's skin tight to

potentially a like base layer underneath your kit. Like the thing about it is you want to stay warm. but you also want to be able to take off whatever the warm layer is in the event that either on the end of the bike or at the beginning and end of the run, you're getting warm. Yeah. I think that there's putting on gloves is probably a good call just because the cold. You don't want your hands to become not functional. That's really kind of scary for braking and shifting gears and stuff. It's a good idea to put toe warmers on your shoes and just have those on there because it doesn't take any time to put those on.

You do it before the race. And then, yeah, kind of the debate is whether to put a base layer or to put a jacket on. or a vest or something. And we've heard different things from everyone. Like, oh, I'm going to put a jacket. No way. I'm not putting a jacket. And, yeah, like Eric said,

the concern is being able to take stuff off if you need to. I also remember thinking that my hands were so cold that I was having a lot of trouble getting nutrition and opening it up because I couldn't feel anything. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so maybe, I mean, I think that if I was an amateur athlete, not that their races are any less important than ours, but I think I would take the time to put a jacket on.

I totally agree. I think that you're going a little bit slower than us. It's just less concerned about making into a group on the bike, right? With the brake rolling starts. That's right. Right. It's like it's a double. It's good in two ways.

One, you don't have to make that group. And on the other side also, pros can just rev higher. So they can generate a little more body heat. Maybe. And amateurs, we just, we're out there for longer so we can't ride that high line for as for as long, which. That makes sense. Doesn't warm us up as much. But for some reassurance for everyone racing.

it does get really nice in the day. And like around noon, it warms up and it's beautiful and perfect running weather. So I think on the flip side, like, yeah, everyone's worried about the start of the bike and the first half of the ride, which is like fair. You have to take it seriously. But also it will make for a pretty nice run, I think. Yeah. The course is so, so, so, so beautiful.

It feels really great when the sun hits your skin or any clothing you have on. I was surprised at how late the sun rises, though. Like, you guys are going to start with barely the sun over the horizon. We will. there's plenty of the field we'll be starting even an hour, hour and a half. I saw that. Well, we have a lot, a lot of questions. Let's do it.

But first I just wanted to say that we, today on the website, we launched two hats that are extremely cool. I hope by the time this podcast comes out, there will still be some left, but today we sold a lot. We will be selling some in person. By the time this comes out, it'll have been yesterday. If there's any left, we're also going to do some. on Sunday morning, but just follow on that triathlon life Instagram account to keep up to date with that. Because if we saw out of all of them, that will not happen. Yeah, there are a couple different scenarios here. If we don't sell everyone that we have, then there will be like a little

refresh with what we have going back onto the internet. So keep your eye out for that potentially. But yeah, like Nick said, if you follow on Instagram, we'll keep you updated so you don't accidentally show up somewhere and we don't have hats. Yeah. They're going really fast. I think if we put them out this morning and there's only 20 of the forest hat club. Oh my God, that's crazy. And we have 100 in the van. So anything we don't sell here, like Eric said, we'll put back online. But if you're in St. George and you want one, you kind of have, like, I don't know, a little advantage because I think they're going to sell it by tonight.

So come find the van tomorrow or Sunday. Okay. So first thing we'll do before we do questions is a little bike tech with Eric. So first question is, why do some tires have Max PSI written on the side? and some tires have a range of PSI written on the side. Yeah, so max PSI is definitely just to keep you from blowing the tire fully off of the rim at a high pressure and also, I mean, that can damage your rim. But that's kind of the biggest concern is that the bead on the rim on the tire can't cling on at 180 PSI.

Right, and you shouldn't necessarily, just because it says max PSI, you should not necessarily pump it up to the max. No, that is, yeah, it is not faster at 120 PSI than it is at 100. They're just saying, don't even get close. I wonder if it's even faster on like a track, like an indoor track, like where it's like that nice and smooth. Yeah, yeah. I mean, track pumps will go up to like 180 PSI. And I don't know what the most current data is on that,

but those are like waxed boards, like a bowling lane. There's nothing to worry out there. So low of PSI. For the ranges. Yeah, when there's a lot of, a low PSI number, that's probably more likely going to be applying to mountain bike tires, to gravel

tires, to anything that's going to be running tubeless. At a certain range on the low end, you can the tire can actually roll off the rim because it's just, it doesn't have enough support from the air pressure inside of it. So, that's what the low PSI is for. At some point

on this podcast, I want to talk about the inserts because you kind of opened my mind about them today. I had an idea of what I thought they were and then you showed me what they actually were. And it seems like a really cool technology. Yeah. Yeah. What Nick's

talking about, inserts for tubeless tires. Typically, you're just going to use these on mountain biking and sometimes on gravel not allow you to run even lower PSI

sometimes in the recommended range. Get better grip, get better ride quality and everything without the concern for pinch flatting your tubeless, which I remember somebody commenting this on our YouTube

channel one time. It's like, you can't pinch flat a tubeless. That's the whole point of it. And 100% you can. So what happens when you pinch flat a tubeless? You actually slice through the tire.

The tire itself slices against the rim. Yeah, you're just bottoming out the rim, and there's no tube in there to pop. It's just like you cut the hole through the tire. And then that is done. That tire is done. That is game over. Yeah. Cool.

Okay, next question. Bike lube versus wax for a bike chain. And would you do it differently for a mountain bike versus road bike? I still haven't experimented with waxing a chain, but it is kind of considered to be the gold standard for, like, one time. use lowest friction possible and I would do some research on which exact wax you want to use. I know that they're not all created equal. But I think like ice friction probably and then I think silka actually just came out with some really nice wax, which we actually have some of.

I just need to get like a crock pot, a little baby crock pot to try it out on. And I think we did a little bit of research on this ahead of time and you're looking at like three to five max. Three to five maximum watts for doing a like the high. highest quality wax chain versus your run-of-the-mill. Right. Loeb. And what we just do,

lobe, because it's simpler. And on race week, like, it would take you, you know, whatever, an hour and a half, two hours, to, like, clean your chain to the point of where it was ready for wax. And that's just not something that I feel like brings enough benefit to spend two hours for Paul and my chain, you know, two days before. Some people just buy a pre-wax chain and throw it on that for race. But I think even for that, like, you need to make sure the rest of your drive train is super clean as well.

Yeah. Totally possible. and I've done that before in the past when I was sponsored by a company that did that. But yeah, if money's no object or that amount of money is not that big of a deal, then 100% it's worth it, go for it. Yeah.

And then finally, can you mix and match sealants in a tubeless setup? If you have some orange ceiling and some specialized stealing, can you kind of low? It's like, all I got is this specialized stuff. I wouldn't do it. I mean, if you're like totally in a pinch

and you're like... No pun intended. And if you're in the desert and all you have is an off-brand thing and you need to go for a mountain bike right now to get back to town, I think it's probably fine, but it's not something that I would put in there and then just hope it works out for the next several months. Just like using a CO2 to reinflate a tubeless tire, you're going to want to redo your sealant after that because the CO2 can interact with the sealant in a negative way. But it's good enough to get you home. Yeah. What we saw was that the additives that they use in sealants, even if they're the same base type of sealant, cannot necessarily play well together. Yeah. You don't know. It could be fine. It could also not be fine. Your tire's not going to explode.

But it just, it might coagulate before it even has a chance to like fix it flat. Hope you guys enjoyed that. We're going to move on to questions. Before we do that, though, you can submit your questions, which is what keeps this podcast going. And also support the podcast and keep it ad free with your monthly subscription at That Triathlon Life dot com slash podcast. And again, a huge thank you to everyone who signed it for the podcast this week. We just keep getting like a little bit every day and it's really adding up and we greatly appreciate it. And when we get home, we're going to buy a whole new podcast set up.

I sent the wish list. It is, it's definitely like, if you guys come back and see like, hey, these mics are ridiculous. I have a, I have plan B and plan C. How much are they? The mics are like $400 each. Oh. Yeah.

But they are like the perfect mic. Yeah, you need two. Oh my gosh. Well, good thing we started the subscription. Yeah, exactly. We're going to be dipping into the account right away. Just so you know, you guys aren't helping us by donuts. You're helping us by microphones. Yeah. I did pay for the donuts, actually. So, yeah, that's coming out of next budget. Okay, questions are, Hey, TTL Squad, currently listening to the latest podcast as we drive home from Ironman, North Carolina, 70.3. Can you guys talk us through your morning ritual on race morning? Are there certain things you guys have found worked really well for you?

By the way, the new TTL crew was perfect to wear when setting up T1 since it was. cool out. Love that. Thanks and f-sashes. Best of luck at St. George World Championship, Ben. You did actually have to still say slashes. I did. But I'm bleeping out that. I should bleep out both words. This is actually something that we, like Nick and I have had real conversations about designing things and imagining them,

seeing them in transition in the morning and like that ultimate functionality. So that's super cool to hear. The crew. The crew. Well, just in general, like, when this was starting, we're like, it's like when it's early and no one's talking to each other yet, you're just like setting, up and you see someone else wearing a TTL thing. You're like, oh, there's a, can I brother or sister, you know? Can I envision that happening with this particular piece?

Yeah. So race morning, we start a fire. We gather around. We sing kumbaya. We sing kumbaya. We pray. We eat bagels with peanut butter on them or oatmeal and bananas. We assemble our things and we march to the race.

Do you do any, like, foam rolling, any stretching, any activation? Yeah, Eric does a little bit of that, a little more foam rolling than me. but I do a bit of activation. I think for this race, the key is going to be really to stay warm up to the minute that you start the race, if you can. Like, be hot almost.

So stay in your car with a heater blasting or bring hot water bottles, whatever you have to do. But obviously, that's, like, a very specific to this race ritual. In general, we like to leave enough time to get down to the race. Make sure you leave enough time

to go to the bathroom, pump your tires up, fill your bottles up. Put your nutrition on your bike. Just like the checklist. that probably literally everyone does, but we don't have anything super special that we do, aside from just leaving enough time.

Just like timing of breakfast, two and a half hours before, so you have time for it to, like, I don't know, get out of your stomach. Yeah, but my ritual is really just to make sure everything's ready the night before, which I think is probably the same as most people. And you can basically, I like to pretend that I'm going to have no brain on the morning of the race. So everything is so obviously laid out, like my tattoos and my watch and my AirPods, Like everything is just there. So there's literally no thinking on race morning aside from just process.

Yeah. Paula's actually so organized. It stresses me out and makes me feel like I'm just not taking things seriously. Well, everyone has their thresholds. Paul's like, because you're not. Yeah, exactly. I was expecting. It's not hard to do.

Do either of you take like gel like 10 minutes before the start or something like that the way that some people do? Yeah. Yeah. With caffeine. 20 minutes out of caffeine, gel. Okay, great. next question is from Beth. That was from Ben. Next question is from Beth. High Team Fnep, pronounced as spelled, which I imagine is Flynn, Nick, Eric, and Paula. Y'all have created such a

delightful weekly treat to look forward to. With shoes only lasting so many miles, you must blast through them often. Out of curiosity, how long do a pair of shoes last for you two? And then the follow-up, what do you do with worn-out pairs? I feel guilty donating shoes that are beat to hell, but I feel equally guilty about just throwing them away. So my solution is to just have a bag of worn out pairs sitting in the garage, literally the least helpful solution. So wondering what others do with toasted shoes. Have a wonderful week, and we can't wait to cheer for y'all at St. George, Beth.

I usually replace my shoes when they start to look kind of worn, and you can kind of tell by the tread. Or I just have an idea, like, oh, I've had these for two months. I need to recycle them and get new ones. Neither are Erica. I have shoe sponsors, so I would say we're not on the edge of people who do and just have, like, infinity amounts of shoes rolling into their house. So, yeah, we're a bit more cautious with making sure we're not getting new shoes all the time. But I think it's a really important thing, especially for injury prevention, is to replace them more often than you think you need to.

And what you could do actually is, like, write the date on the bottom of them or on the side so that you know when you got them, because I think a lot of people just forget how old they actually are. Yeah, and if you do use Strava, like, to the absolute, if you use all the features on Strava and you actually say which shoes you did, running, it will keep track of... I do that. It's kind of funny because I don't do that. And I get an email basically every two weeks, being like, your Adidas have 20,000 miles on that. It's time

for a new pair of shoes. Well, what would you, how many miles would you put on a pair of shoes before getting a new pair? I have no idea, and I don't actually know how long I keep shoes, because I have about four pairs of shoes and rotation at any given time, like a pair that I really like for trail, a pair that I like for tempo runs, a pair that I wear when my feet feel really beat up for

like second runs. But I'd say like probably every four months, Like one of those, I would like just get rid of one of those pairs of shoes, especially when like it feels very quote unquote dead feeling relative to the other pairs. Like you can just tell that it's not very supportive or whatever when you put it on after one of the newer pairs. So not scientific, but. When I was, when I've looked into this before, a lot of shoe manufacturers will say like four to 500 miles. The problem I have with that is like different body weights, different running styles. It really changes a lot.

Also like super shoes is not nearly that. much. It's way, way less. So people who are, a lot of people think, oh, 500 miles is this line. That's like, no. That's like way higher than I would have ever. And just, and like Paul I said, like you get a feel for things like, okay, the foam is not as, as lively as it used to be. It's time for a new pair of shoes. Like, it's your body that you're talking about. You can replace the shoes, the knees and the ankles. That stuff is harder to fix. I think I asked our coach one time, like, how many races should I do in this pair, in a race, pair of race shoes before switching. And he's like, well, if you put on a new pair of

race shoes and you feel a difference, then you know it's time to replace them. Right. Oh, that's interesting. Like, okay. Just like there's no science behind it. If you feel better in a pair, then it's time to switch them. So, that's that. Also, what do you do with them when they're, what do you guys do with old shoes? You just throw them in the garbage? Yeah, the garbage. For the most part. Yeah. I feel like one time we did find a

shoe, the problem with our shoes is we run and bend and it's so dusty that they're really, really dirty by the time we're done with them. So we're not. So we're not really feeling like we could pass these along to people. So it is pretty wasteful, but I don't know if there's a better solution. So anyone email me and let me know. I just get emotionally attached to anything. So a pair of shoes, I'm like, I've been through a lot with these.

I'll save them for a day. It's muddy outside. I'm like in Santa Monica. It's muddy outside. It never happens. Great. Next question is from Miguel. Ola, Eric, Paula, Nick Flynn, and Eric's mustache.

Which is, by the way, alive and well. Thriving even, I would say. Nick even has a mustache. Yes, I do. I do. It's living its best life and inspiring. wearing other moustaches. That's right. It's contagious. I have one too now. Miguel here from far away and it's exotic land of, in the exotic land of Argentina.

Love the pod. I listen to it when I drive to work. Two questions. One, what would you do if you get an offer from a sponsor that you don't like, trust, or use their products? So like a potential sponsor? Yeah. I think maybe Miguel is assuming that any sponsor that reaches out to you, you just like say yes. Right. No, we are. Definitely not. We're on the polar opposite end of that. If we like financial, I guess there probably is a threshold where we say yes to something, but we are very much on the side of like if we don't truly believe in the product, use it, love it, and want to endorse it, we won't accept it for any amount of money. Yeah, well, that said, if it's like 100 grand, we might.

Yeah, but what about Montboro cigarettes? I don't think it doesn't amount of money, right? If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. And also if it's not only if we don't like something like a gel, but if it's not the fastest or the best, you know. If I try a wetsuit and it's not comfortable and I don't feel fast in it, I won't say yes to that. That's literally happened, right? I mean, you guys use Blue 70 because you like them and they're great. And we feel good about sharing it, you know?

Mostly, we just want to be really honest and relatable and have people trust us. Not to mention, like, you want to use the fast stuff because you want to win races too, right? That's true. There's just like there's nothing that if you decide to ride a bike, for example, that's that you know is inferior. to another bike that you could potentially just get for less? Like, how many more races might you win? And you got, so it's, I don't know. You guys are.

We're not in the position of where we need money so badly that we have to use things that we don't believe in or don't want to you. Well, and also there's the easy argument that in the long run, you would make more money. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Like, the relationships with sponsors that we do have have been built, like, over years, and we turn down other things kind of waiting for the one that felt exactly right. And I don't know, for any other would be pros that are out there, like being patient like that, it might suck, but or like, you know, it might not be as exciting. But if you pick up, like, one good sponsor that you truly love and they love you and it's a good relationship every year, like, that's a good rate.

And you guys, I mean, you're not really saying this, but you guys get a lot of products from a lot of different companies all the time. And the sponsors that you've chosen are the stuff that you've really stuck out that are really great. Yeah, we try stuff. We usually accept people that want to send us something to try out unless it's just like, no, obviously, there's no way that this is going to be a fit. Right. He said, my wife asked me the other day, what's that rapid fire thing? You keep singing all the time. Good job, Nick, with a catchy song.

Okay, so next question is from Amanda. Hey, friends, I'm curious about your process for launching TTL apparel, which is timely because we just launched the hats today. Did you work with a product designer and design your own? or did you work with a plain apparel company and brand it? How did you find them? Did you have options you were considering or was it one that you've used all along? Do they handle the manufacturing and shipping or do you ship it out of your house? I've always been intrigued about starting my own little brand

and would just love to learn anything you'd be willing to share about the process. Man, we could do an entire podcast at least all about this. But the simple answer is almost everything you threw out there has happened at one point. in time, minus us shipping things out of our house. We immediately realized that that was not going to be possible since we, like, spend time in Tucson and we go to races, and we couldn't just say nothing's going to ship out for the next three weeks while we're at World Championships in Nice. So we do work with a warehouse, and that allows us to, like, get things out.

And then, for the most part, I design everything, like very simply in Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, emphasis on Simply. And I send it to Nick and Paula. And they just say, yeah, no, yeah, no, more blue or whatever. We do get inspiration from other brands and from other color palettes. So it's not like we're just making things up. It's like, we do really like have certain styles and colors and things that we like that we try to. A lot of thought goes into it every time.

I mean, for sure. And it's not like, oh, let's just throw the logo on this thing. There's always intention behind it. Yeah. At first we started with just blanks and we'd get samples and make sure it was good quality and that we like the fit and it washed well. And we slowly sort of graduated towards now picking out fabric. and having a company that makes the stuff specifically for us so we can change the fit of it or we can change different things.

It's not a downside, but the thing about that is you have to order way more of it. And it takes a little bit longer. We've built enough trust and have a big enough audience now that we actually can sell more so we can be more specific about what we actually get. Like these hats, for example. We're built from the bones. Yeah, we went through like three different bills before we got the one that the flexibility was right on and a couple different ways to print on.

the front and that's a different company than we use for our like our shirts and the shorts that we've done currently and and then we use it like another company for like a coffee mugs and so it's it's a lot of different vendors that we work with at this point and it's it's been you've learned a lot yeah i mean it's exactly what we're just talking with the sponsorship where it's yes you could find just one company that would just kind of like handle everything for you and be really simple but we don't we want to have enough control over it where we're like we know we like this exact coffee mug and we like this exact hat this exact way and and that's just a thing that you build over time and well something else i noticed that's kind of related to this especially if

umanda is interested in this is almost everything you guys make these hats are a great example of it these hats are going to maybe sell out today online if not in the next couple of days you say it's insane but this has happened many times we ordered double of these we ordered twice as much of these as we have of anything else that was my question is this by design or do you wish that these stuck around for like two weeks. Yeah, it would be nice. These hats, we want them to stick around. But it's just like they are cool.

So people want them and they're like a low enough price point that it's a no brain or if you like the brand. Yeah. So maybe next time I need to get double what we just got. It's just, it seemed like a lot of the time when you guys ordered it. Yeah. A year ago. Yeah.

It's like it's, yeah. Anyway, it's, we don't try to make everything sell out. Like, ideally we would like to have some things that stay in stock for two months so that people go to the website and there's. something to look at. And then we do really enjoy doing special edition things that are a little bit riskier, and that's why we do shorter volumes of those. We're like, I don't know if everybody's going to like a basketball tank top or not,

so we'll be 50. Well, thank you for that question, Amanda. The next question is from Matt. Matt says, first off, you guys are amazing. Thanks so much for putting together such a fun and positive vibe into the triathlon world. My question is about training partners and groups. Obviously, you guys have each other as training partners built into your lives, which is amazing. My wife and I are both endurance athletes, but we have two little ones, and as such are not really able to train together very often.

As you can imagine, if I have a long bike ride, we can't exactly leave the five-year-old in charge of the seven-year-old. Love that mental image, though. So my question is, how important is a training partner or group? See, Nick, I avoided your least favorite punctuation. You're welcome. Very nice. Also, which discipline is more important to work with a group? Should that be decided based on weakness versus strengths or simply on convenience?

Finally, how to find the time and people to train with. Should I be with faster people on the bike where I want to improve and with runners who are at my pace? Or should I try to team only with folks who are a step above me across the board to help me push myself? Thanks all for your great work, Matt. I would say for most rapid gains, typically, training with a group is huge. You can do overdo it a little bit, so I'd say the best scenario is you have a few. workouts a week you do by yourself and you have a few workouts a week that you do with a group. Ideally, maybe the harder sessions where you can get a little bit out of being pushed.

I actually do like doing some of my easier sessions with a group or with friends because it's social and you have the time to actually just kind of unwind and enjoy nature together or whatever. But I think you'll find the blind of what you like. In terms of what sport, for me anyway, swimming is definitely at the spot where having other people there, even if they're just, they showed up to the pool and they're going to suffer in the pool at the same time as you. So important.

That's huge because you can't just, oh, screw this, I'm getting out after a thousand, you know? Like, well, then they'll see me and that'll affect their motivation because I want to get out to. Yeah, swimming is by far the most important top of group. Do you feel like, do you, both of you, do you feel like you'd rather have someone to keep you accountable for a difficult effort or someone to keep you accountable to not go too hard on an easy day? A hard effort thing.

the hard effort. To push you harder when you need to go harder. Yeah, I think we're at the point of our careers where we have like a pretty good internal gauge for how hard we can go on the days that are not, whatever, hard sessions. And you self-select that a bit. But it's a lot easier for me knowing that if, like on a bike rep, for example, if I just blow up or chill or whatever, I'm not going hard enough, that Paula's going to catch me. That's our training group of two. And also when you're doing easy rides with people, they sometimes will go too hard because they're like, oh, I have to keep up to them. I want to make it like a workout. So it's sometimes better just to do easy stuff on your own.

And just do your own speed that's actually easy. Because even if I run with Eric on quote unquote easy runs, it's way too fast for me. I was more thinking, like maybe this isn't so relevant to people who train together all the time. but most age groupers are friends with people of all different fitness levels. So if I don't get to run with someone who is lesser fitness, let's say not as good of a runner, which is uncommon in my case. But I get to run with someone who I only wouldn't get to run with. And I know they can't possibly push me too hard because that's just not the fitness that they're at.

So that can help sometimes because I definitely struggle with that when I'm like an easy run. I'm like, this is easy, but I feel good. Like, of course I'm going to, let me just push it a little bit. Let me just push it a little bit. And then by the end of the run, I'm like running way too fast. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and a big thing of that is just having somebody to talk to, because if you're talking to somebody,

it's impossible to just, like, ramp up the pace like that. So, I don't know. That's honestly my favorite is probably, like, meeting up with guys, like, our friend Nate, who has, like, two fresh babies and is an ER doctor. Like, I text him, and we go run it, like, very slow, and I'm very happy to do it and just chat with him and hear about ER things and not triathlon things.

Right, of course. Well, there you go, Matt. Next question is from Bethany. Hi Paula, Eric Nick and Flynn. My question for all three of you is if you could have perfect luck with some aspect of triathlon training and racing, what would it be? What was that Harry Potter thing? There was like a serum that he used one day that gave him great luck for 24 hours.

Oh man, I must not have made it there. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're not as nerdy as I am, I guess. Some options are below, but happy to hear any other ideas. But let's rapid fire these. Would you pick A, there's always an empty lane at the pool when you arrive, B, you never see any cars while you're biking on any roads. I wonder who that's directed towards.

C, you always feel happy and motivated to train and race, or D, no GI issues before, during, or after training or races. I think we should just boil this down to like this or that, like, first two, right? Empty lane or no cars? No cars. Empty lane. Empty lane. I'm going, I'm going empty lane. Yeah.

We always get empty lanes. I don't. Well, I mean, just imagine that you didn't. Yeah. Right. Right. No cars. You either get a lot of cars or you get a lot of people.

I would love no cars just on PCH. That's the only place I really think about it. But otherwise, like, the places where I ride, there are very few cars, and I have all these canyons. Yeah, but imagine if there wasn't. Wow. That would be, yeah, it would be horrifying. That would be terrible. No cars would be a dream.

But right now, every time I get to the pool, I'm circle swimming with, like, three other people. Very different levels of fitness. If there was intense traffic, I would take the traffic at the pool. And then the next two are, you always feel happy mode. motivated to train and race or no GI issues before during or after training or races. See, always feel happy and motivating. The GI issues aren't really never an issue for me. Yeah, but motivation.

I would say GI issues, if that's like stopping you, that's like, it's just game over every time. It's like, yeah. Whereas the motivation, you can be like, oh, I'll just watch a TTL video and that'll be motivated. I mean, if you're just like wildly optimistic and motivated, you can just work through your GI problems. Well, it's fine. It could be worse. Yeah.

My friend just DNFed Iron California like threw Miles into the run because he was just like so sick. These are hard. These are terrible. Yeah. These are well-formulated. Would you rather die or would you rather die? These are your choice. I'm just saying these are solid. Well, thank you for those questions, Bethany,

that provided us some comedy here. Next question, hey Paula Flynn, Nick, Eric, in no particular order. I've noticed that Eric and Paula use some unique language to categorize effort slash pace for workouts. Oh my God, look at all these slashes. some that I've seen slash heard, easy, fat max, steady, solid, tempo, etc. This has always intrigued me. I listen to Coach Paul, I listen to Coach Paolo on that Triathlon Life show.

That Triathlon Show. I can't not say it. It's so in my mouth. That Triathlon show, which is another podcast, this week, hoping that he would break these categories down, but he didn't really touch on that. Could you describe the ways you and your coach categorize efforts and how you sure you are within that effort level, maybe tie them to RPE. P.S. I think Coach Paolo would be a great guest on the pod for training nerds out there.

I think that these ultimately are RPEs. They're just not numbers. They're feelings. And then you've now assigned WADA just to them, right? But based on your feeling. And he ultimately, like, back in the day, sent out like a little bit of a spreadsheet that said, like, solid equals, you know, like, hour pace or whatever. Yeah, exactly. This is like, this is close to your FTP, what you could hold for an hour. steady is like you can maybe like get a couple words out but it's like closer to your 70.3 70.3 or half iron man running speed you know got it that's but that's that's ultimately how we think of it 70. So it goes like easy steady solid hard easy cruise steady solid hard okay and then max but are these

palo inventions or are they taken from some something else I mean I think they're pretty interchangeable with like zone one two three four five yeah for the most part but um yeah and what about Fat Max. That seems like a newer thing. And does that come from the lab? That is really similar to, what is it similar to? Like, LT1 or something? I don't know. But we did, we did tests in the lab at the beginning of the year, like lactate tests. So that's, for me, a watt range that's very specific that I stand for that. How narrow is it within how many watts? Mine's 20 watts. So yeah, quite narrow. So it's, Fat Max is very, very similar to what the Norwegians are doing with lactate. It's like pretty much the same zone. It's just like a little

broader and we're not pricking our ear all the time. It's more, it's a little more forgiving. I mean, it's way more scientific than I even understand. We just do what he says. Is it just training your body, your metabolism to be as efficient as possible? Is that the idea behind it? Essentially. Yeah, there's a couple of different ways

that it's doing that, but yeah. Okay. You're like getting more, what is it, mitochondrial density and an addition to strength. Sounds complicated. But yeah, this is why we have a coach. We're not Lionel. We don't like sitting here thinking about it, like, nonstop. I just like showing up to the workouts and trusting that the scientist who, you know,

there is something that's really nice about that. Yeah, it's simple. You've got so much time to think about other things. This podcast is going to have, like, constant crinkling and crunching. I have the headphones on. That crinkling is nice and loud, too. Oh, no. Paula got hungry in the middle of the podcast because it is dinner time.

Thanks to our wild day. Yeah, we were supposed to start recording this two hours ago. Yeah. And we were ready to. It wasn't our fault. We had doping and trolls. That's right. Also, he adds PPS.

Can we please get a second release on the surfer hat? Eric has proven their fast AF and look sick on the podium. Those were actually just meant to be a little bit of a stopgap while waiting for the sport camper that we just put out. But they turned out to be super rad. I love that hot. Yeah, they come in some other cool colors as well. So we'll probably do a reissue of those come spring. Next question is from Tyler.

My plan for next year is to train all winter and build to a few sprints early. in the season and then trained through most of summer for a couple of Olympic distance races in the fall, three to four weeks between each race. Is there any advice you would give a newbie going into their first training and racing season or any changes you would suggest to my plan? Thanks again and can't wait to hear what Iron Man Nick is going to crush next year, Tyler from Illinois. I really like this because it's actually periodized versus like, I'm just going to get really fit and then race all years with like no plan. Then you've got yourself a little bit of break built in there and allow yourself after your first block of races or whatever to take a week or two

or whatever it feels good to like unwind a little bit before like coming back and doing a second build. I guess anecdotally also as an age trooper who is not at the very tippy top of the race, something that I usually recommend to people and that I would recommend to myself if I could go back is especially if you have a bunch of races planned, I think I would take that first sprint and that first Olympic extra easy relatively like don't try to finish so that you can't go on anymore just so you have this like baseline of hey that was fun like I wasn't just working as hard as I possibly could the whole time

and maybe you're the kind of person that that's how you have fun you work as hard as possible but I think for a lot of people having starting with a distance where you have this now concrete memory of that was actually enjoyable I actually had fun doing that while I was on the bike I got to look around and enjoy what I was doing while I was swimming I got to enjoy while I was running I got to enjoy it and then later you can get work on And also it's like nice, you're going to PR the next time you race, right? You're going to get faster and build instead of trying to go out as hard as you can that first time and potentially hating the experience. So you're saying you sandbag your seasons, Nick.

Yeah, a little bit. I got to pad the ego a little bit. No, I dig that. And if you're more type A, racy type person, just like keeping in mind that you're going to be racing all year, I think will naturally, like, your brain will kind of do that for you anyway. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We try to think about that, even though racing is our profession and, like, K.

It's a long season. Don't think that, like, do you have to prove something at the first race of the season? And then you're just, like, mentally wrecked later. Yeah. The next question is from Shane. What's up my TTL peeps? Please use my question, as I didn't use one mark that starts with the letter S. I'm going to start calling it the punctuation that shall not be named.

Nor did I do a weird mash of the TTL name. Here's my question. You're struggling and dropping cadence during intervals of a very hard bike interval on the trainer. Do you try and keep cadence up, grind through it, or kind of depends. Obviously, a little drop in cadence doesn't seem like a biggie, but in my case, sometimes I've slowed down from like 85 RPM to 70-ish. Does this really matter to you guys? Love all the work you do, and the chill adventure-like lifestyle you bring to the sport. Totally love how you make triathlon a part of life rather than just being about triathlon.

This is funny. It just made me think of a T-shirt that I saw like 10 years ago, and it just had a T-T bike and said, shifting down is the same as giving up. That's great. That's great. But in real life, I do kind of have, like, a cadence window for me. Anyway, that works pretty well. And for the most part, I can't just, like, double down and go way megatorky.

So, like, I'll shift down and try to get it back, get the cadence back up and then maybe get back to that original gear. Is that cadence a feel thing, or do you have it on your computer that you're, like, kind of looking at? I mean, both, like, at this point in time that I know that it's around, like, 82. If it gets below that, then I'm probably not able to bring it back. And do you try to coordinate that at all with your running cadence? No. No. No. Running cadence, I just try to keep higher without forcing stride.

Cool. What about you, Paul? Yeah, I would say it depends, like, if you're on the trainer and you're using erg mode, and your watts are dropping, so therefore it's increasing the tension, and therefore you're forced to do a lower pamp. That's not necessarily the greatest situation. I think erg mode is a good tool to remind yourself to keep the higher cadence, because then you're maintaining the same power at the higher cadence. I don't think it's necessarily good to drive your cadence really low

to something unrealistic that you're not going to race at unless that's the goal of the session, and it's a big gear workout that you're prescribed in order to build leg strength, like doing squats, kind of. So I would just focus on keeping it above 80, even if that means your watts getting lower, because ultimately that's what you're going to race at. And for people who maybe don't have a trainer

or thinking about getting a trainer, Erg mode can be a kind of an interesting thing. Do you want to explain what Erg mode is, Eric? Yeah, sure. Erg mode just means that you set the trainer at 200 watts. It forces you to do that. And no matter what cadence you're at. Exactly.

It's just going to be at 200 watts and you hang on for dear life. Yeah. Which is why I was saying your cadence could drop if you're like, oh, I can't hold this anymore. Slowly your leg start slowing down. The tension increases. Yeah. And then you just fail. Right.

It can happen. It's very fun. Yeah. It sounds great. Well, there you go, Shane. It's not the end of the world, but it does seem like trying to keep the cadence up might be benefit.

Next question is from L. L says a few questions but not a slash, which is funny because I still have to say the word every time. Is it okay to use my old road bike on the trainer? Should I be swapping out this bike for the bike I race on and used to ride outdoors? I do most of my training outside, and the trainer is just an extra tool.

So how much does it matter having the right bike versus having two bikes with the same fit. I think the fit is the most important thing. If the two bikes fit, one can be from 1972 and the other one can be modern. It doesn't matter, especially if you use Urg Mode, then it really doesn't matter. Yeah.

No, but I would say that the chances of you're getting two bikes that fit identically, especially a TT bike, super low. But is that important? Should they be identical, do you think? I think, well, it's... Just the saddle height mostly. The saddle's important. The bars are important, maybe less important on a road bike.

And there's two trains of thought because we do train on different bikes. We have gravel bikes, road bikes, T, T, T, bikes, and they use slightly different muscles, but ultimately you're still riding and getting stronger. But I would say try to match them up as close as possible. Because if that's going to, if like setting your race bike up on the trainer is a barrier to even doing a ride, then that's not good. If it's easier for you to just leave an old bike on the trainer and be able to get on it conveniently within five minutes, then yeah, do that.

I think we can assume that this person's old bike, they were, fit on and their new bike, they're fit on by a fitter. So it's, it's not like they're getting on a bike that is like their brother's bike or something. Yeah. Right. Like, we ride our road bikes a lot, and but as we get closer to a race, we tend more towards a TT bikes and not definitely do all the hard workouts on the TT bikes. So same thing. Just if I wouldn't ride that exclusively and then jump on your race bike five days out for my race. And I just kind of, this dawn on me kind of related to the last question, or actually stuff from like rapid fire, how often do you have to loob a chain, that you're just using indoors.

So you're not picking up all the dust. As soon as you can hear it. Okay, got it. Yeah, sometimes Eric will lose mine as I'm riding. And it's just like, it goes from like buzzing to totally silent. So loop it more than you think you need to. Especially if you live somewhere dry. Yeah.

It really dries out. And it needs. With the dust you guys have too, right? Yeah, even in the garage, it gets dusty sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And then the second question was,

I'm considering doing my first full distance Iron Man in fall of 2023. I have a two and a half week cycling trip in France in June. I may not be able to stick to my full training schedule during this time. Is it still doable or is this a terrible idea? I want to finish and feel in control of the race, but don't have a time goal for a first. I will be in good shape before the trip, likely completing two 70.3s before June. Yeah, I would say as long as you can do some swimming, biking, and running while you're there, it's totally fine.

It's still like far enough before the race that you can focus in more as a bit. as it approaches, and ultimately, triathlons should not take over your life and stop you from going to France. So I would say it's just make it work. Yeah, get a megabike fit. Who cares if you can't swim? Bring stretch cords. Like, if COVID taught us anything, it's that you can take two and a half weeks out of the water, it's no big deal. I was watching, like, some of our old vlogs that were, like, within a couple weeks of the lockdowns, like, when the pools were closing.

We haven't swam in a week. Yeah. We haven't swam in three weeks. Oh, my gosh. This is crazy. And we were, like, putting on tethers to swim in a tiny little backdoor pool. Six months later. Yeah, if we only knew.

If we only knew. Well, it was, like, off the edge of the map for us. Like, we haven't taken a week off of swimming since we were, like, six years old. Right, right. She's been continuous. Of course. That is so funny how quickly you, like, then have to adjust to that. It's like, oh, yeah, we're not going to swim for the next couple months now, you know, or whatever it is.

And then finally, she says, I'd also like to follow up on something we said last week. Being a mom and doing tries, you guys really nailed it. It's not hard to prioritize. racing if you have extra cash to burn and a support system, which is last, last week we said, like having a partner that will help take care of the kid. And also, she said, the choice to have just one kid makes this lifestyle more attainable with ease. I'm never going to be professional, but I can push towards being an elite age grouper for sure.

Thanks, love everything you guys do, Al. So there you go. Awesome. Next question is from Alberto. Hey, guys, new to the sport. I wanted to ask you guys, what is the ideal period between races that you should aim for? Is it okay to do a 70.3 or an Ironman a month apart? Thank you guys and good luck.

Well, it matters very much on the distance of the race. I would say it's pretty ambitious to do another race a month after an Ironman, but another race a month after a 70.3, if you do a good job with your recovery, is probably doable for most people. It probably depends so much on your fitness. Yeah. Like, you guys obviously can do that really well, but someone that's new is still recovering a month later. Right.

Yeah. Just, I mean, because with the Iron Man, you'll probably have a week where you can't walk properly. And then you'll have a week where you can kind of do some things. And then you'll get like week three, you can kind of start back into a bit of training. Right. And then all of a sudden, the races in the next week. Versus the 70.3. Maybe that timeline is in half.

Yeah. What if, Paul, do you have anything to say? I feel like doing an Iron Man, even when pros do Iron Man's a month apart, everyone's like, whoa, that's ambitious, you know? You only do that if you have to qualify for Cona or something crazy like that. And this is assuming you don't get injured. Yeah. Like Nick here. Right.

I still, I'm injured now from September 12th, September 11th. Yeah. So you might just be risking your entry fee for that second race. Exactly. Exactly. So I buy the race insurance people learn from my mistakes. They have race insurance? Yeah.

It's like, and the Iron Man one is so expensive. But a lot of races will have like through active.com or whatever. You can purchase race insurance. And then if you have an injury or something, you get your money back. But you don't get the insurance money back. If you like racing, Grace Solution, Just do an Olympic distance race once a month. No problem.

You'd be totally happy. Yep. That's a great way to stay healthy. Next question is from Jacob. Hey, all, love the pod and everything you do. I saw on Reddit recently a question that I have wondered about myself. If I only have time in my week for six weekly workouts, does it make any sense to only swim once per week and run or bike three times?

I'm training for my first 70.3 next year. My main goal is just to finish, but of course, want the best time I can get as well. I'm good enough swimmer that I can comfortably finish the leg, but I don't see swimming twice a week improving my time much. I had hardly any experience running and biking until a year ago. I took the slash out of that, by the way. Due to the unbalanced weight of biking and running time-wise in a 70.3, does it make sense to focus on these aspects when there's only so much time I can train?

Thank you so much for all you do. P.S. My dog Juniper would love some T.T.L. dog swag, like a collar or bandana. That's from Jacob. That might be coming. That might be something we'll do one day. um this is a age old question and uh i think most people for the most part eventually end up kind of admitting defeat for like a better word on the swim and kind of finding the spot where they're like this is the where my ROI on time threshold is yeah and maybe for you it's once a

week maybe it's twice a week but you're you're not wrong in stating that if you like get drastically better at biking that could be a half an hour versus if you get you know, whatever, drastically better at swimming, that could be three minutes. Yeah, but I do think that there's something about like when you go to the pool twice a week,

you're not just improving your swimming, you're also getting fitter. Like, it's still a workout. And there's something about like, if you're fit in the water, it'll help you ride better. So you're not just going there to improve your swim time.

You're going there to feel better when you get out of the water. And that's why we swim six days a week. It's not necessarily so we can get faster at swimming. I'm never going to be faster than I was when I was 14. but it's so that I can get on the bike and feel fresher. Yeah, yeah, totally agree. So if you can swing it, I think going twice a week is like a better option.

And also... Injury. Yeah, it's a low-impact way to be exercising. And ultimately, frequency in the pool is going to make you faster. And something I was thinking of is going Monday and Tuesday to swim, the same as going Monday and Thursday to swim. No, I would say that the evening. equal spread out is better.

Because if you go all the way from Tuesday to Monday, a lot of swimming is like feel and you're going to lose that in six days. That's something that I've learned a lot from you guys is like you really want to keep that frequency as often as possible so that you have that feel for the water and that you're building on it.

I might go Monday Wednesday. Because like it'll, there's still a little bit of freshness in your brain on Wednesday from Monday's stuff. But Wednesday to Monday is not enough to like lose it. Right. Like if you go only swim twice a week, I might go like,

yeah, just one day apart and then a kind of a long break. Interesting. Like Monday to remember how to swim, Wednesday to have a workout, and then forget how to swim until Monday again. Yeah, versus just like

every time you get in the water, it's been several days. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. That's just my personal anecdote feeling. And then final question here is, I can see it's in Italian, part of it's in Italian,

so I'm going to say his name in Italian. It's from Davide. He says, Ciao, Paola, Enrico, Nicolas, and Flynn. That's not what he said, but I'm Italianizing our names. Complimente for the podcast of your vlog.

He says compliments for the podcast in the vlog. Nice. I'm an age grouper racing mainly in 70.3 like you, but not with your results. Hey,

welcome to the club, Davide. In some podcast, you were mentioning that you don't use any technology in your swimming sessions. So then how do you

register your swim workouts? How do you share the information with your coach? Is it based only on your feelings and not on real data? Many things. In boca lupo per St. George.

In boca lupo means and you go into the mouth of the wolf. It's kind of like, you know how you say break a leg instead of good buck? That's kind of the concept there in Italian. There you go. Ciao, Davy there. This is a good question. Yeah, we don't really care about our coach seeing our swim workouts.

And he doesn't care either, so. From the most part, like, engagement with our coach about our swim is, I'm swimming like shit. Okay. Okay. So no change from the usual. Because, like, typically inevitably, like next week, you'll be swimming better again. And it's... Yeah, the ebbs and flow of swimming are just so dramatic.

And I feel like one day you can be having a great workout. The next day, you feel like you can't swim anymore. I think if you want to record on your own training peaks for your own knowledge, like how many meters you're doing a week or whatever, then it's fine to wear a watch that records that. But Eric and I just do the workout that's on paper, know that we've done it, and our coach believes that we've done it or knows that we've done it,

so it all works out. But he doesn't need to, like, overanalyze our swimming on the internet, you know? It's more of a thing where he'll give us feedback if he's actually with us on deck. Yeah. But he doesn't care about our times were per hundred. I have Like if something's going If I feel like it's going really well

Or I feel like I really need something Like oh I really feel like I can't Don't have good start speed I'll tell him that and I'll say I want to do some more 50s or something And my times are just getting slower And I'm getting more tired and he's responsive to that But I'm not like oh I did You know 101 for the first hundred

And 102 for the you know and recount the whole thing But as swimmers growing up Just to back up to teeny bit That the way that we track what we do in the pool is we count the laps, obviously, and then just look at the clock on the wall. So that's our feedback, just like running on the track. Great.

Times. Great. Well, those are all the questions we had. Those weren't all the questions. No, those were not even close. I feel so bad. Those were all the questions that we could prepare. And that was a lot, and that was a lot.

But I just, I feel so bad because all the questions are good. They really are all good. And I just, sometimes the ones I pick are already filtered through Paula, and they're still hard to get. So if you, if you sent in questions multiple times and we still have an answer, then please keep sending them in. Eventually, we will get to your question. We want to get to your question.

So the last thing I wanted to talk about, unless you guys have something else, was that people can actually watch you guys race on Friday for the women, Saturday for the men. On OutsideTV.com, you can watch it for free. There's also an app that you can watch it for free on. Paula, you start at what time on Friday? We both start at 7.30.

7.30, but it's not, it's mountain time, right? That's where we are. So 7.30 a.m. mountain time in the U.S., that's when you be able to watch the race. And they should do a pretty good job. You should be able to follow along. It'll be very fun. For sure. I love that it's, for us, having the women on one day and the men on the other day is fun because we get to actually watch both races. Totally. Triathlon's one of those sports that watching the women to me is equally as exciting as watching the men.

Sometimes I'm actually more excited to watch the women's race. Well, it totally depends on how invested you are in the characters, and Iron Man is doing a really good job with the Fighting Chance videos and the PTO's obviously crushing it. and just getting our stories in front of more people so that you feel like you know us and then you ultimately feel like you're rooting for a friend. Yep, 100%. That's the way it is for us with women's cross-country mountain biking.

Like we don't watch the men's, but we watch the women's because we know a few of them and it feels like you're really rooting for somebody because you know them. Yeah. It's shameless, it's not a shameless, but it's just a little plug. This is not sponsored anything,

but outside plus, I just got a subscription for that because I'm a member of Trail Forks pro. And they've got like, You can go back and watch like Iron Man Waco, Iron Man Z, 70.3, like, all this stuff. It's on there and you can just like go replay all these whenever you want. It's really cool if you're. That's cool.

Yeah, I don't know. If you're like looking for more triathlon content, they have all of these like replays on there from there. So outside TV slide into our DMs. We all went through that in a collaboration here. But that's it. We're very excited. Maybe we'll see some of you here. We've already seen some people today.

We try to go for an incognito swim unsuccessfully this morning. You can't avoid it. In a place with all these triathletes, it's just like, it's the mecca right here. Yeah. It's awesome. We'll see you on Sunday if we have hats left, and we will talk to you next week for a race recap. Can't wait. Thanks for listening.

Bye-bye. Ciao. Bye, guys.