That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon race tapering, saddle sores, run frequency, and more!

Episode Date: March 25, 2023

This week we are all together in Santa Monica, CA! Next week Eric & Paula are racing Ironman 70.3 Oceanside, so we are getting all psyched up together. The TTL Devo team is officially announced and then we get onto your questions. This week we answer questions on how to ride easy on Zwift, racing in the wind with deep wheels, taper scaries, and more! To submit your own questions, as well as help support the podcast, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com Also, for updates on our whereabouts for 70.3 Oceanside, head over to the TTL instagram https://www.instagram.com/that.triathlonlife/?hl=en

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Erica Loggersh. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. This is our podcast where we talk about triathlon. We talk about some life. We talk about our lives. And we answer questions predominantly. We're all a little bit tired tonight. Nick's been working hard all day. Paul and I traveled from Ben to Santa Monica yesterday and did some training today. So all that is to say, we're in one room altogether recording this instead of doing it over FaceTime, which always. is a, that's our favorite ones. Yeah, we're all together and we missed the pot on Thursday, so we're recording it a little bit late, just so we could do it all together and putting this out on a Saturday. So thanks to everyone for waiting a couple days.

We also had another exciting thing happen today. We released our, the TTL development team. What's that? Wait, why is this the first time I'm hearing about this? This isn't the first time we've talked about it, right? No, it's not. It's not. We've talked about it in a lot of places, and I guess real quick shout out to our friend Sam,

who is helping us organize the whole thing. So I've lost a little bit of track of all the different places that we've mentioned it because she's helping us coordinate some Instagram posts and basically get all the ideas that we have in our heads actually take action on them. And that has been amazing. So anyway, what the TTL of the development team is, if you're just, this is the first podcast you've ever heard from us,

is we are supporting seven now. It's up from five. and we'll get into that in the minute, but seven young athletes who are in their first year as professional triathletes or just approaching their first year as professional triathletes. And we're trying to give them some support, a little bit of financial support, but most importantly, mentorship and just kind of like the backing of this awesome community that we've built over the years. And are these all American athletes? Like, are they all the same kind of similar age? Basically, we put out a call for applications and we were trying to get people like in there. late teens, early 20s, some mid-20s.

That was kind of the age range we were looking for, but more importantly, just in their first year of professional racing or their last year of age group racing. So kind of ready to make that jump or that transition or coming from a different sport altogether. So people that just kind of want to learn and get kick started into their pro career. So that was kind of the criteria, I guess.

We were a little loose with criteria. We didn't really have any strict, like, you got to be from this country, you got to be from this age. We kind of accepted everyone. and got, I think, 280 applications in total. That is so many people. A lot of people.

I was mind-blowing. I thought we were going to get, like, 50. Like, how many people who are wanting to, about to turn pro or just turn pro, could there possibly be? Right. But we had, you know, people from, like, man, yeah, all over the world and different age ranges and different sports, you know, different parts of the triathlon as well. We kind of, in our minds, were just sort of imagining, like, American. and 70.3 athletes as we were thinking about this. But we got European ITU athletes and Australians and a little bit of everything.

Yeah. Which is just kind of is bit indicative of the global nature of TTL in general, which is super cool. Yeah. Coming up on later podcast, it's really our hope that we can get everybody to come on for maybe just this quick 10 minute intro at least and say, you know, this is so-and-so and here's where they're from and here's what their goals are. and do a little bit of backstory. And, you know, to the comfort of each athlete, I think, you know, our goal is to kind of, like,

help them identify maybe, like, as pictures your thing, is a podcast your thing, is video your thing, or do you not have a thing? Right, right. Who are you and, like, what's the best foot forward that you can put in this kind of, in this new age of where you need to be a really good athlete and need to build that, but you also kind of need to build a little bit of a brand and show value to sponsors. So we're hoping to help, just help them navigate that in the best way. possible. Yeah, this is so cool. It's the first year of it, but I can't wait to see what this means.

And we've mentioned this before, but I feel like actually seeing them on the race course will be that's going to be next level, at least for me. I can't wait for that. In the kit. Yeah. We also just want to give a huge thanks to Kestelli, who's helping us support the development team by supplying their kits and their training cycling kits and their runtops and stuff like that. So they're going to have like the top of the line fastest stuff and designed by Eric. So very cool kits. Yeah, I think that we narrowed it down to 10, and we had phone calls with 10 people with the intention of having five finalists. And the top 10 were just amazing. Like, talking to them on the phone really made you feel like you knew them and you wanted to help them so badly.

So at that point, it became even harder to narrow it down. It was terrible. I remember you guys call me after the first day of the first five people, they're like, well, we got our five. That's them. And then you call me the second day. They're like, oh, actually, we have to do all 10. We have a major problem. Yeah, because every time we hung up the phone with the people we were talking to where he thought,

okay, they're amazing, they're definitely in. But we only had so much time and we wanted to make it so that we could give each person that we choose some of our time. So we did actually stretch this to seven from five, which was difficult, but also not that difficult. Because it was, you know, choosing seven was easy. There were clearly seven that were amazing. And then the three that we left out this year, we really encouraged them to apply next year because we really like them as people and really wish we could help everybody. So, yeah, it was a tough process. But I think that the people we did end up selecting are quite personable.

They have good results. They have good promise. They come from a whole bunch of different backgrounds and have different strengths, I think, in terms of where they're at in their careers, what they're good at, social media-wise. And we weren't necessarily picking people because they were strong at social media. Some of them have no interest in it at all and have really promising triathlon promise. You know, so it's a good mix, I think. And obviously none of them are going to be in a TTL kit at Oceanside, but any of them racing Oceanside? Yep.

Yeah, at least one, Andy Kruger, who is from Bend, we know he's going to be there. Yeah. Anybody else? That's all. Yeah, so that would be cool, like right away on the team and go out. out there and race. Yeah, yeah. And this is like, I feel like this could be a good race for him.

That would be interesting to see. It could be. I mean, we picked Andy because he is, well, we train with him in the pool occasionally. And he was actually a big inspiration for this. We wanted to do this for a long time. But then Andy was looking for a kit and sent us over a mockup of a kit. He designed himself. I was like, what do you think of this?

And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I just give me 10 minutes. I think I can design something a little bit better. And then as I was doing it, I was like, how much, I don't, How much to put a TTL logo on your kit? Like, while I'm doing this, he's like, I don't know, like, buy me lunch? Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, have some respect.

You would get $1,000 put our logo on your kit. And then that just like spawned this entire thing, basically, in this brainstorm. And we're just... Yeah, so shout out to Andy for really initiating this whole thing. Yeah, Andy's like, oh, yeah, I'll take it. He didn't even know. No, he knows. We talked to him about it before anyone else.

Yeah, we bounced the whole concept off of him. And one other guy that we train with. who actually wasn't able to be on the team because he's with every man, Jack. But we asked the two of them, kind of like, what would you want out of a team? And do you think this would be cool and et cetera, et cetera? So we felt like we, I mean, we weren't just completely out, you know, out to pasture. Like, we weren't completely out of her minds with the idea. Speaking of Oceanside, that's what I was going to say.

The reason Eric and I are in California partly is to race Oceanside next weekend. It's partly to see Nick. It's probably to get out of the snow. And it's partly to race Oceanside in eight days, seven days from when you guys are hearing this podcast. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, how did you guys do last year? How did you feel about your races last year?

And how are you feeling like this year compares to that? It was my worst race. It's my worst race every year. Great. I don't know why I keep coming back. Like, I was sixth the last year, I think. And then I ended up having a great season after that. But it's like a rust buster.

Everyone feels kind of similar. But some people have just been on fire all winter. And everyone's coming in at kind of a different level of fitness. So it's so hard to predict how it's going to shake out. and I mean, who cares really? I mean, in the back of my mind, I don't want to win Oceanside because I'm like, it's too early to be peaking in any sort of way. Yeah, rarely does the person who win Oceanside go on to, like, have an awesome race

around World Championship time when it really matters. And, you know, it's not like a kiss of death or anything, but I don't know. It's a long season. So we always, like, show up because it's kind of a big thing. It's outside of Kona and maybe 70.3 World Championships, it's this huge event. It's super fun. A lot of the industry people are there. A lot of teams have shown up.

And it's just such a scene and really fun. So you feel like maybe I'm not super in shape, but it's just a fun thing to go to. And then in the middle of the race, you're like, why? Yeah, more often than that, we've been like, why? It's not that we're not in shape. I mean, we've been training pretty hard.

But I think a lot of it is just the first race of the season and ironing out all the things that come along with racing, like prepping all your gear and getting your, your new race kits and trying out your new wetsuit and like all these little things that become second nature when you've raced a lot in the year. But first race of the year, like, trying to figure out new front ends on our bikes. It just feels like, wait a second, we were on a ski trip in the backcountry like last week, weren't we? And now we're racing ocean side. So it just comes around really quick. So it really is a good opportunity to just

test everything out, do a trial run of things. Unfortunately, it's under a lot of eyes, like a lot of people are watching it, so it's hard to make it feel like a test run. But you really have to mentally treat it that way. Otherwise, it can get a little overwhelming. It feels like it's going to be a big, like Eric you were saying, it's a big media thing, too. Like, track on brand stuff, a lot of people. Like I'm sure, well, you guys don't get these messages because it's obvious, but people ask me a lot, are you going to be an ocean side?

Are you going to be an ocean side? Are you going to be an ocean site? Yeah. It's like opening day. Yeah. It's a big, fun thing. And you nail it. Like, for whatever reason, just because all the fields are always, you know,

huge, despite the prize money not being insane. It's just like all the media outlets show up and you want to do a podcast with Bob and we're doing a podcast, you know, like live. Yeah, let's just talk about that real quick. We're going to do a live recording of our podcast in Oceanside, which is also an opportunity to buy our hats that we're bringing. Chelsea Sedaro is going to be a guest on the podcast for this live recording. It's in communal coffee starting at 3.30 p.m. next Thursday. There's a sign-up link on our Instagram bio. And it's really cool. We're going to set up and kind of have a casual chat like we do on the podcast every week,

but it'll be recorded live. So it's the first time we've ever done that. There'll also be an On demo run so you can try out their new Cloud Surfer Shoes, which just released today. This is actually, I mean, On did us a huge favor in setting up all the logistics for a lot of this. We couldn't be doing it without them. Yeah, yeah. It is really fun.

And for those people who don't know, Chelsea Sadaro just most recently is world champion, Iron Man World Champion. And not everyone, not everyone. I feel like there's people here who don't follow the pro field that much. Maybe not. That is true. But yeah, so that's exciting. And just to be clear, since we're recording it on Thursday,

it will also not be out at midnight on, you know, Wednesday night, like the podcast usually is. So for people who aren't, whatever, who rely on it Thursday morning, it's been another week where you have to wait a little bit, but this one will really be worth it. It should be really fun. Yeah, yeah. Should we answer the questions?

Yeah, yeah, sure. Do it. First question here. Hi, everyone. OG podcast listener and big TTL fan. I love your idea about the development team and can't wait to see how it develops. I'm wondering if you could give some insight in how you chose the athletes you chose. I'd be interested to hear who made the decision, which factors you took into consideration,

what made the chosen athletes stand out the most, et cetera. Thank you and all the best in the new season. Clemmon. Cool. Well, we touched on this a little bit already, but we'll, explain a little bit the process. Our friend Sam set up a Google Doc submission form, so everything was like, it organized very neatly in an Excel spreadsheet that we could look at. The first thing I kind of went to was obviously the name to see if I recognize them. And then I would look at their

results or their best races so far. And then I'd look at their age bracket. Because we had a lot of 30 plus people that, not that that's old, we're 30 plus, but it was a little outside of like our target range. And it's not like that was out of the question if they were over 30. It was just kind of like a balancing thing. Well, yeah, if you were, if you're over 30, but you had some, like you won your first 70.3, you know, overall that you went to, then like, okay. You know, we're just, basically, we just were trying to find people who we felt like were on this upward trajectory had a little bit of traction but that we could ultimately help bump across the line into making a living as a professional triathlet and unfortunately that did disqualify some people who we

felt like maybe you need another year before we feel like we can really make a meaningful difference and i mean it was so hard like paula said earlier we had almost 300 applications and trying to pick seven out of that is insane but then i would go and read their submission letters like why they thought they should be picked it. And that was what was super heartfelt. People put a lot of time into those. And that was all before we looked at what they looked like. We didn't see a picture.

Like I would read all of this before I had any clue where they were from even. Read the submission. And then I'd click on their Instagram bio if they left that. That wasn't like super critical, but it just gives you a sense of who they are, their personality, if they have any social. media presence at all. Yeah. If you've posted in the last year, if you've ever posted. So if someone is, if someone is hearing this and is maybe getting excited about this, or maybe they even applied and didn't get in, what kind of things would you recommend they focus on to be

the best possible applicant? Is it just results? Like, what should they focus on? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, is you definitely need to have the ability. Like, you can't make it in the professional field finishing an hour back. You won't even qualify to get in. So you need to have the ability. But in the meantime, as you're doing that, just think of, you can think of social media almost as like a journal and just like kind of catalog what you're going through, what's happening. It doesn't even need to be a fantastic picture. There are plenty people I follow on Instagram that just have beautiful captions and just like kind of try to explore that. And if you really like writing, maybe start a little blog and just catalog the journey

and get the feel for that. Because that's ultimately, I think, what is, it sets apart the best professional athletes in any sport right now is they have a story, they have something that makes them even a 1% unique, and they're happy to share it. Yeah. That's what I see even with like established pros sometimes,

and I'm just thinking about, well, what makes this person exciting or not? And part of it is the results, but part of it is like, are you just blending in with everyone else, or is there something that makes you exciting to watch? some story element Relatability

Yeah something And everybody is relatable For some different reason I might relate to somebody That you don't relate to So it's not like you have to be this carbon copy And be exactly like Jan Fredino Or whatever

To be marketable Just like Maybe have a thing And so that's what we did When we went through The different athletes When we ultimately got them on the phone And we were trying to whittle down

From 10 to 5 we were initially thinking we could do five, but we did seven. We were like, how well do they talk? Are they friendly? Can we envision them talking to our community, people who bought TTR Nation kits to support them? Can we envision them talking to them at a race and, like, you know, being compassionate in the same way that we enjoy talking to people at a race? And all 10 of the final people did check that box. For sure.

I think, unfortunately, a little bit of it came down to location. Like, we want to ultimately maybe be able to meet these athletes. person at a race or two this year. To a camp or something. Yeah, so it was tough to have a few in Australia that would probably not travel over here. And, you know, it's unfortunate. It's not their fault that they're so far away. But I think in the year one of this program, for developing it and building it and having potentially a little bit of one-on-one contact with them, it was a little more appealing, I guess, to pick people who we might cross paths with. Yeah, yeah, cool. We're all very excited. I speak as a leader of TTL Nation.

here. We're all very excited for it. And just to be clear, we're trying to relay what we did and it's not perfect. We did the absolute best that we could and maybe we'll do a little bit better next year, but it's like what, yeah, it was such a process

and we did the best we could with it and we're really excited about the team. Yeah, great. Next question here and it starts out very strong by saying gross question alert, so I'm excited already. Every time swimming, my nose immediately begins to feel like Niagara Niagara Falls. Is this normal? I normally wear a nose clip, which is fine, both training and in races,

but after the swim, as soon as I take it off, the floodgates open. I have no sinus or health issues and feel absolutely fine. Do people have similar experiences? Is it just part of the process, or is there an etiquette around snots in pools or even open water? Thanks, Gary, from Dublin, Ireland. Is it salt water? It's both. Oh, okay. That's kind of, man, I don't know. I feel like, I mean, this is also kind of gross, but if you don't swim for a couple days or three days or four days. It like builds up. Yeah, you kind of get a crusty nose. It's yucky. Interesting.

So maybe swimming kind of does help clear your nasal pass. It's so gross to think about it because we're all swimming through everyone's snot. Yeah, it's a big, one big pool of snout. But I mean, that's what chlorine and chemicals are for, and it's just part of doing swimming. I've only ever noticed that when I'm like two days after being sick and I've still got some congestion or something, sometimes going to, to a pool. Yeah, that sounds terrible. Clears you out. At least it feels like it, but normally, no.

Have you guys ever had this where I'll have swim in the pool or whatever? And then I come back and I like lean over or something. I like bend down to get something and a bunch of fluid comes out of my nose. Have you ever had that? Like water? Like water. Yeah. Not, it's not. Just like straight pool water. Like it somehow was like sitting in my

sinuses and just like bending over and pointing my head down. It like comes right out. That's interesting. That's interesting. I wonder if this person, because they're wearing a nose clip that creates the runny nose after instead of just while you're swimming. I mean, I breathe that in my nose when I flip turn. I breathe that of my nose partly when I'm exhaling as well before I take an inhale. So I think, I don't know, that inherently clears it out a little bit more. Clears it out a little bit, even though that's gross.

So what I wonder is, I wonder if Gary is wearing the nose clip for the snot issue or to prevent water from going up his nose. Yeah, I don't know. because if it's for the snout issue, I would say just, Gary, I'm sorry, just join the rest of us and let your snot free into the pool. Don't fight it. And then if you're using it for no water up your nose, just use the tactic of breathing out your nose to prevent water from going in. Yeah, this is why young children do bobs in like first round of learning. Teach you how to do that.

Teach you how to blow out of your nose. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that's like, I remember like even jumping into water. I remember seeing people like tap their nose. And I'm like, just blow out through your nose. It's fine. Unless you're doing clip diving.

It's so simple. It's weird, though. It is, it is. Yeah. So, Bob's four. Yeah. All right, Gary. Yeah.

Good luck. Good luck. Next question is from Justin. Hey, T.TL. Listener from Ireland here. That's two in a row. Big fan. Just finished my first 70.3 in Lanzerati.

Super windy course and 110 meters, sorry, 1,100 meters of climbing. I had a huge difficulty maintaining arrow, especially during the windy segments. I felt my front wheel constantly twitching, rode a 62 millimeter front wheel. I'm usually a very confident rider in the wind on my road bike. Any recommendations?

Shallower front wheel, more upright, more just practice. Cheers, y'all, Justin. Oh, I can relate. It's scary to ride a T. Paul, this is a question for you. Yeah, it's really scary to ride a TTI bike in the wind. A lot of people's natural instinct when a super windy is to set up,

and I think that actually ultimately makes it more unstable. So if you can handle it, staying arrow is more stable. But I know that's scary. So what I usually do is ride a four-five-four front. It's a little bit narrower than your front wheel. A couple races, I tried the 8-5-8 zips, and they were just similar experience to you. I feel like they were catching the wind a little bit, twitching me around, and I didn't personally feel great about it. Eric loves the 8-5-8s. I know most athletes do, but for someone who's little more nervous like me or you racing lens or Audi with lots of wind, maybe a narrower front might be a better choice. It's definitely slower than the 858, but it's, I feel more

confident on it and then I race faster. There's nothing slower than sitting up. Exactly, exactly. What about, would you ever stay on the base bar but try to stay low? I feel like that takes up so much energy, right? I've done that before. I mean, desperate times. I've done that before. When it's just so scary and so windy that you, yeah. That's how I descend. I mean, Eric, you would like to send pretty fast in arrow, full arrow. Yeah, but I mean, I've still come into the point in my life that I don't, if I feel really at risk, I'll still get under the base bar. Yeah, but stay low. Yeah, but this is like, like 45 miles an hour, like tucked. You probably are spinning out anyway. In Oceanside, isn't there

a portion that you go that fast? Like, after that first climb? Yeah, maybe for, for a second. Okay. Yeah, after that really big climb, if you get up to speed, you can spin out and like super talk a little bit. Yeah, so is the advice to just, I mean, ride the TT bike more? Because I can feel in the beginning of the season, each season, when I haven't been riding the T Tee Bike for a while, there is still like a acclamation period of getting comfortable with the fear of being an arrow while going really fast. Yeah, he said he's really confident on the wind and his road bike, and so am I. Road bikes are so much more stable and less scary and your brakes are right there. And as soon as I switch the TT bike, it's worse.

So I think more practice on the TT bike on a windy day, even though your gut instinct wants you to ride the road bike. And then maybe an arrow or front wheel, but I mean, 60's not crazy. You can also make your elbow pads wider. I'll give you a little bit wider base. Yeah. And also at a slight expensive arrow potential. If you know it's going to be super cross-windy,

or whatever, the forecast looks super windy, or just you find yourself in this position regularly, go two centimeters wider on the elbow pads and see how that feels. And maybe ultimately, over time you bring it back in, if you get comfortable. Yeah. Next question here is from Jen. Hi, all.

Congrats on the launch of the development team. I'm psyched to see where it goes and love all the ways you're giving back to the sport. Question mostly for Paula here, as the nuance of her advice is important to me as a fellow woman, but Eric and Nick, I'm sure you've dealt with us too. Saddle sores, how do you prevent them, and what do you do when you get one that just won't quite heal? Do you use chamois cream every time you get on the bike?

Help! Thank you, Jen. Yeah, this is like an on and off issue for me. Usually it's not a problem, but then every once in a while, they come up. Usually when it's like wet or sweaty or hot and I'm on the trainer, without a lot of extra additional movement out of the saddle. On the trainer, you're much more stationary, obviously. Yes, I do use chamois cream. Every ride?

Not every ride, but when I remember. And I got this ASOS-branded recovery cream. It's like skin repair cream? Skin repair cream, that's it. So I put that on after if I feel like I'm getting a saddle sore and it usually helps. But really the only solution to me getting rid of a saddle sore is like two days off the bike, which sucks. But if it's so painful, that you can't even effectively do your workout or ride properly, it's not really worth it.

So time off the bike. They heal quickly if you look after them, I think. And just so I think we have all levels of people that listen to the podcast. So what are some good rules of thumb to avoid them in general? Like, can you wear bibs more than two rides in a row? How quickly should you get out of your bibs after you're done riding? That kind of stuff. Yeah.

Wash your bibs after every ride. Get out of them immediately after you're done riding. Make sure they fit you properly and they're not too big. Right. They need to be moving around. Sorry, they need to be like glued to your crotch, basically. Yeah. Movement is the enemy with chafing.

Yeah. And it's, remember, it's like this is an issue with bacteria. So as soon as you're done with the ride, take it off and shower. That's the ideal situation there. Yeah. And another thing that's in most shammie creams is some sort of anti-bacterial, whether it's like menthol or I don't know what exactly put in there. I don't know if it's menthol.

It feels like it. Some of them tingle a little bit. But whatever it is, like they put something in that it is a little bit antibacterial. So sometimes you can do that as well. Like even if you didn't use it on the ride and you're starting to feel a saddle sore, like put some on and go to sleep. Think of it as lotion. I just use it like, I'm putting it on the first thing I wake up if I have a saddle sore. But I'm not going on what.

I haven't had a cellular storm. I feel like over a year. But I don't ride as much as you guys do. That's great. And how much do you think of it as like a properly fitting saddle? Oh, that's a factor too. Yeah. Yeah, totally could be.

It's not something I really think about. I think more like saddle discomfort with saddle sores. Yeah, if you're getting pressure in like one particular spot and it's less dispersed over a certain area, then yeah, that one spot could potentially get it. It's not fun. I remember when I first started, I got them all the time, and it was miserable.

Just like trying to sit like one butt cheek fully off the saddle for like an hour and a half ride is like not fun to do. Okay, thanks for that question, Jen. Next question is from Stephanie. Hi, everyone. I know you have mentioned tires before, so forgive me if this is repetitive. I have just bought new zip tubeless wheels, 808s for the rear, and 404s for the front. I will be racing Iron Man 70.3 and full distance this year in Tram Blonde. As you know, it's a mixture of hills and rolling flats. Can you recommend a good tire which will be robust enough to train on and fast enough for the race?

Also, what width would you recommend for front and rear? Thanks so much. Hope to see you in Tron Blonde, Stephanie. And maybe if you also want to throw in like a PSI, because I feel like some people still think They need to be putting 100 PSI into their tires. Yeah, did I miss whether or not these are tubeless? No, did not mention it. So I would run tubeless for sure. And being an 808 in the 404 instead of the 858 and the 454, I'm guessing that these are not quite as wide as the new 858 and 454.

So you're probably going to want to run a 25 versus if you had the wider rims of the 858, you could get away with the 28. What's the idea there? Why are you saying that? The width basically zipped at a whole bunch of testing and found out that the tiny little bit of arrow penalty that there is for having a slightly wider tire is outweighed and it canceled out completely by the better rolling resistance

of the wider tire on the wider rim. We've seen this in mountain biking for a long time and it's just made its way over the road now. So if you can, I would run those tubeless and I'm guessing that on the 808 and the 404 you're going to want to run a 25. I think the 8-5, the 28 might just be a little bit too bulbous

and isn't going to get the same benefit and probably run like, I don't know, like 75. You didn't say the tire yet. Oh, yeah. My recommendation is the Swalby Pro 1. That's what we're running on our training tire right now, but it's also a really solid race tire.

it's only a few watts slower than the Pro 1 TT which is they're just like all out pure race tire and yeah that feels really good and I think you could race and train on it

no problem yeah yeah that's cool I like the you gave me a set of the Pro 1 TTs and they look very they look like I should be on the Tour de France at TT stage the gum walls are always are always gonna look good

if you can't get a hold of those I also could definitely recommend the Grand Prix 5,000 tubeless. The Continental. Yeah, Continental Grand Prix 5,000 tubeless. Those are just like battle-proven over years and years. Yeah, I had those too. Yeah. Awesome.

Great question and great answer, Eric. Next question here is from Daniel. Hey, Flynn, Nick, Paul, Eric, and everyone in the TT, Nage, spelled hyphen S-H, get it. My question is, if it's possible to go easy on Zwift, I cannot seem to do it. every time I set on for an easy session, I find myself racing someone or trying for a new sprint PR, and next thing I know my legs are trashed. I have a love-of-hate relationship with Zwift. This is how I feel about writing in general, though. Well, this is because you live in California.

Like, Zwift was modeled after riding on the PCH, but it's just like a nonstop d-stafflinging contest. That's great. You see another triathlet, you're like, oh, who's this person? Yeah, this slicing each other up. Like, oh, that guy passed me. I think I can pass them back before that stop sign. It's funny, like, even people going in opposite directions, you always, like, everyone's head just turns.

He's like, who's that, who's that, who's that, who's that? They look fast. They look fast. So they faster than I am. So what's the answer here? I don't. How do you go easy on Zwift? Can you control yourself?

Is there a way, okay, so as a non-ZWIF professional, the way that you two are, is there a way to turn off everybody else? Like, can you make it so that you don't see other users? You don't have the temptation? You can just not look at that screen. If you have it on an iPad, turn the iPad around. But then why are you on Zwift? because you want to track your workout

and you want to have the... I think the solution is like putting it on Erg mode or putting it on like a pre-programmed workout that's easy. Right, so even when you start spinning, it's forcing you to do a certain number of watts. So that's what I often do. I also just like detach my ego from Zwift

realizing that a lot of people have fudged their weight and all these different things. So if someone's passing you, who cares? I think it's a good thing, mostly, that Zwift encourage this is this kind of competitive. thing and makes it a really hard workout.

And it's like a harder workout than you'd ever get if you weren't on Swift a lot of the times for hard workouts. But for easy stuff, you just have to like let it go. Who cares? The erg mode is, I feel like that's actually the answer, right? Yeah, you're not going to, it's not going to increase resistance as you go up a hill or down a hill. Yeah, it's less interactive.

It's less fun. But you get, you still get a look at the pretty scenery. Oh, I see. Right. That's, that's the problem is that when you get to a hill, there's no change. So you're just looking at a, you're just looking at a, you. A video at that point. I mean, that's, like, the whole point of Zwift for me is that, like, there's just

enough stimulus that I can, like, forget about that I'm sitting in my garage. Right, right, right, right. And that's how it's revolutionized indoor riding for me. So, but... The other thing is, if you can get on Zwift when you're supposed to do an easy ride, and you can get PRs in sprinting, you're probably not training enough on your hard days. Like, for me, if I'm doing an easy ride on Zwift, it's supposed to be easy on an easy day. I am so tired that I have no interest.

I think this can just, this can catch up with you. Right? Maybe the first week on your easy ride, you do it. Your second week, maybe, and by your third week you're like, I'm trashed, and now my next four days are trashed. Can I just skip the easy ride actually? Yeah, exactly. That's what ends up.

That's what I'm afraid of happening. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, keep it at like two watts per kilo and just let everyone go by. Or just two watts. That's what I try to do. Two watts. Yeah, or that. Yeah.

That's sitting on the couch, Nick. Two watts to lift up your soda can. My soda can? My spin drift. What are you drinking, by the way? La Croy. Old faithful. Pompelmos.

We don't buy it anymore because we have a soda stream at home. So I haven't bought Fizzy Water in like a year. Do you guys ever flavor your Fizzy Water? No, I just do it straight up. I have to say I got pretty into the flavoring for like two weeks and I was like addicted to it. Actually what I've been doing is I buy a jug of lemonade. That's what I just do a little tiny bit of lemonade. Oh, I love that.

A jug of lemonade. Our fridge is full of lemonade. Like that true. Hey, we got enough lemonade just so you know. Well, every time I go to the grocery store, I'm like, oh, I probably. Probably out of lemonade. I should buy more lemonade. Because I put like half a cup of lemonade and then like three cups of fizzy water. Yeah, yeah, of course.

And it tastes so good. And now the question, this is what happened to me. I was doing that for so long. I was like, I wonder what it tastes like to just drink this lemonade the way that it's supposed to be served like out of the thing. And you take one sip of this. So sweet. It feels like syrup.

Yeah, how do people drink this? Yeah. But I'm sure it's just if I kept drinking it a matter of time, I would be used to that. You normalize it. Yeah. That's why. It's like just like keep leaning out the lemon. about until you're like barely drinking it.

Oh, there you go. There's your way to get yourself off of pop. Yeah, yeah, I've got yourself off a pop. But I'm like, how do I save money on this lemonade? I could just like, I can make this lemonade last three weeks. You're cutting the lemonade. Yeah, exactly. I just like the fizziness adds to the lemonade. It's like a, it's like soda.

Yeah, that's great. And it encourages me to drink so much. Like, I don't even want to touch regular water. Right. And then I come here and I buy lacroes. So I'm ruined. I had a soda stream in and now it's broken, so I have to upgrade too. I should get that fancy one.

We got an Arkell. It's really cool. It's like beautiful. Oh, I remember. You guys were very excited. You FaceTime me from the store. Yeah, and it has this cool system where you send in two of your empty cartridges and they'll send you two back. So you kind of have like, we own three.

So there's one in the thing and then you send two empty ones. They'll send you two fresh. Oh, that's nice. Just the box has two empty ones and you send it back in. So you always have. I don't know if SodaStream has the same thing, but that was like our struggle with. the soda stream was... Going to Target to replace...

A partner with Best Buy. A very long way away, and it was hard to get over there. We'd always forget, so we just would get out of the habit. But now we have a habit. Yeah. And it's awesome. Yeah, that's great. Love it.

Tangent. Yeah, we love tangents. Where are we? What happens is right. Next question here is from Andy. Hey, TTL fan, love the pod, Vids, and you all. My question is around supplements for endurance athletes. I probably take more supplements than most,

coming from a bodybuilding background. but wondering if you take supplements? If so, what do you take? If not, is there a specific reason that you don't take others pre-workout creatine, beta-a-aline, et cetera? Seems like professional athletes looking for marginal gains and performance would be taking more supplements, but maybe I'm actually hurting my performance by taking supplements. Thanks and say hi to Flynn for me. Andy, where is he?

Is he right here? No, he's escaped. He's passed out somewhere, some other room. Is this planted? No. No. This nutrition, micronutrition supplement company that I've been kind of like getting into over the past year based out of Australia just came to the U.S.

Like they just announced yesterday that they're launching in the U.S. And they were kind of asking me if I could help them with the announcement. I was like, I don't know. I don't know how I would do that naturally. Here it. We're doing it. That's amazing. Yeah.

Anyway, it's called Pillar Performance. And they're super cool, really nice guys. And I think they just have it from my perspective, an extremely high quality product. And I've had a good chat with them on the phone and believe in it. So anyway, the stuff that I take, they have this triple magnesium product, which is what kind of got me turned on to their company, and that is basically designed for sleep. Like magnesium has like a major part in like how well you sleep and recover and stuff. So like I'll take that before bed. And then they also have like a B vitamin and a fish oil.

And then this thing that's like a joint. They call it joint armor. And it's like, I don't know exactly what all it has in it and everything. but my joints hurt all the time. How much of this comes from like blood work versus just like I'm an athlete and I need to do this stuff? This is like most of these things are like the B vitamins I have had a little bit of lower B vitamins in my past in my life. So I've just kind of like have tried to always stay on top of that. But for the most part, these are things that like having done gone through nutrition class,

having done exercise physiology in college, we're like these are things that typically run low in professional athletes and just like in athletes and things that you. you should stay on top of and B vitamins are tied to like just general well-being feeling and like alertness and stuff. But we don't take creatine, beta aline, stuff that maybe is more bodybuilding. No. Common. Not that it's bad. Just like micronutrients.

Yeah, we just haven't like studied it enough to know if it really makes a difference or tried it ourselves to see if it makes a difference. I personally take iron supplements and omega and. a multivitamin, so kind of bare bones, but I'll take a vitamin D in the winter, actually. So, that's so funny, I just got my blood work back and my vitamin D was very low, even though I'm outdoors all the time. Yeah. You don't convert that much just from, like, sunlight.

No, that's a common misconception. Everyone's like, vitamin D getting in the sun, but most people, even, like, a lot of time in the sun, it's not enough. Yeah. And that could lead to, like, stress fractures and. And bad, it's bad. I was looking it up because it was me. I was like, oh, boy, this is, like, serious.

Yeah. It needs to be taken care of. But neither of you do, because the only thing I do, and now I'm taking this vitamin D, and my friend Sarah, told me to take this blood builder thing for my low ferretin. It's like an iron and a cup and probably like a vitamin C mixed in there or something. But also, other than those things, I do, like after a hard workout, I'll do weight protein and collagen. You guys don't really do anything like that. I like collagen.

If you call that supplements, then yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess they didn't say that. So maybe that's a little too broad. Yeah. I guess like the protein shake in my mind fits into like this. into like food. Yeah.

It's like obviously not real food. Right. It's, we're just trying to get in X amount of carbohydrates and protein right after workouts. Maybe this would be a good opportunity because I'm sure people are curious about this. What does your protein shakes? What do your protein shakes look like if you're willing to share that? We use Momentous protein.

Is it just water and protein or do you do a banana? No, no. I'll usually do lemonade. I'll just get mine out of the way. I frequently would just add water or almond milk and just like shake it up real fast. but Paula gets much more elaborate. Right. And I'm so thankful when she does.

Well, I usually put like two handfuls of spinach, a bunch of frozen berries, lemonade or orange juice. Oh. Full jamba juice. Like a frozen banana, some ice, some collagen, usually some flax seeds. Just like go all out. I'm like the perfect mix.

Sometimes I'm feeling lazy. I do what Eric does. And sometimes I'll do frozen banana, a bunch of spinach, frozen mixed berries, the protein, collagen, and chia seeds. Oh, interesting, yeah. GSC is kind of thicken it up. GSEs get those emigas from there too. There you go.

I posted a picture on Strava once, drinking like a sewage brown smoothie. And people were commenting like, oh my God, it looks so good. Give me your smoothie recipe. Well, because it probably looks like chocolate and peanut butter. Looks good? This looks like absolutely disgusting.

Well, you also do the vanilla powder, right? Sometimes chocolate, but if it's chocolate, you got to go along that theme and just do like banana peanut peanut butter all my moon. I am always on that. That's my wavelength. I always crave, like, fruit after a workout. Like, I'm so thirsty that I want something like Hawaiian and fruity.

Right, right. Not something that's, like, chocolatey and desserty. I want to feel like I ate a brick. That's what I, I want it to weigh me down. So is this, I'm just going to venture to say that this correlates with our Froyo choices as well. Yes. Froyo, you're fruity, right? Fruity Fruyo.

Yeah. And I'm like, give me the dark chocolate with, like, with chocolate toppings, too. You should go for Froyo. Yeah, we should. That's a great idea. 100%. I just do like the maximum amount of candy on top of like the whatever. They've got like the cake batter flavor.

Oh my God. This is how my brain works. I am like so excited right now. Just talking about Froyo. What does Holly call it? Yagerland. Yagerd land. Because we went with her after St. George.

Holly Lawrence, British professional tripplate. Yeah, because she has a little bit of British accent. And she's got a sweet tooth for her. We were making fun of her to her like, let's go get yogurt. Yes. I love yogurt. And we're going to see her soon. We're going to see her next week.

And Sean as well. That was an amazing tangent. Yeah, that's great. Love it. I think that's what this podcast is all about. I hope so. Okay, next question here. Rick from London, Ontario.

High TTL team. You guys rock and are making a difference to us mere mortal athletes. For instance, I've started using flip turns in my swim workouts. Yeah, Rick. Yeah, by the way, me too. Today, pretty much, I would say 90% flip turns

in my swim today. I am slowly going all the way. Dude, I'm proud of you. Thank you. I appreciate it. And it's feeling good. I still very much have... Sorry, I'll get back to your question in a second here, Rick.

But I still very much have, like, I feel the lack of oxygen. I feel it at the, like, immediately after the flip turn for a bit, and I'm, like, dying for that first breath. And you're at sea level, so... Yeah, imagine being up at bend. I think that's good for you, like, trying to relax and... I just the hypoxia is... I feel it.

I definitely feel it just for that moment. I think I'm not doing a good job at timing my last breath before the flip. So that's what I'm working on now. Anyway, doing mostly flip turns, baby shampoo in my goggles, which works, by the way, and have added a few drill-only sessions above my plans recommended two sessions a week, and the feel, in quotes, for the water is showing up. Since running is my worst event, what do you think about increasing the frequency of run workouts by adding on an easy brick run to the planned bike sessions to gently increase time on feet?

Just spreading out the frequency for running have a similar effect to what it does in swimming. Last year, I competed in my first 70.3 in DNFed at a full after swimming through an algae bloom. Ooh, gross. That put an end to the race at 120 kilometers into the bike. At 67, I'm still training for a bucket list full Iron Man this summer with a goal of making the cutoff. It might be close. Thanks for all the great content. It helps.

Rick. I'm with you. I'm also trying to get my first Iron Man finished, Rick. I have a cool thing. I used to live in London, Ontario. Oh. Very fun. Feelings?

Thoughts? I was in grade five, so I don't remember much. So the boys were really mean. The boys were really mean. No, I was like still, I wasn't swimming or running or biking. I was dancing. Oh, my God. Where are the dance?

Where are the Paula dance pictures? I feel like we have them. My dad got a job in London as like the chief neurosurgeonate, the university, Western, is it Western University? You don't know. But we moved there. No, we don't. And my mom didn't love it.

So she missed Edmonton, actually. so we were there for a year and then we moved back to emminton can you imagine moving like three kids a dog a bunch of stuff across the country twice I liked London but I don't know if I would have started triathlon if we stayed in London imagine yeah my life would have been so different like I don't think I would have gone into swim club

because that was like an effect of me moving back to Edmonton and friends was so anyway crazy crazy to think of yeah wow isn't it there's just like little moments like that the whole path of your life can change. Totally different. Maybe you would have been the number three dancer in the world. No, I definitely would have been a doctor making significantly better money. And having significantly less fun.

No fun at all. Anyway, here's the question. I love this because we've talked about this before about like spreading out the frequency of your swims to kind of like maintain that feel for the water. Yeah. I think it's the same with running. Yeah, okay. And it also helps with not getting injured.

Yep. Like, Paulo, our coach, prefers to do more sessions with maybe less volume in them than just, like, one big, giant long run. Yeah. When I was getting my volume up back in, like, ITU days and stuff, easy Mondays were run, swim, run. We would never run over an hour, but on, like, Mondays, we would run two hours total, two different sessions. And the idea being you're never quite as exhausted on your feet. Was that your long run day? I mean, that was the most run.

Because you said easy day. It was jokingly called Easy Monday because there was no quality in the day. It was just easy. Yeah. Yeah. I think that running after a bike ride is a good way to do that. You could even do three kilometers off the bike, and that is a little bit of frequency, a little bit of time on your feet, muscle memory, and practice running off of a ride.

So that's a good way to incorporate it. And also, you're not then feeling like you have three workouts in a day. Right. You kind of group that together. Yeah. You're like, I'm swimming or I'm biking. and I'm running for 15 minutes, that's one workout. You're not doing laundry twice.

It's one mental effort. And depending on which type of athlete you are, that could be advantageous or disadvantageous, I think, for the injury. Like, there's a chance that you're more warmed up. So things are less brittle feeling. Oh, I for sure feel that. I would just try to avoid it if you're, like, feeling extra tired. I find like... Just in case your form falls apart and, like, things just go back.

Coming off an easy bike ride and running off an easy bike ride, I run... I feel like I can run so fast from... Yeah, I feel way better. And easy bike ride for sure. Yeah. I even feel better running off of hard bike rides. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

We pretty much never run first in the morning now. Right. Like, no matter what, it's just a recipe first. I feel like we will go out and break instantly. Yeah. Right. Another interesting thing is I just started following a bunch of the on OAC athletes in Boulder on Strava. And they do a lot of short runs.

Really? Like, they're running over 100 kilometers a week. And, of course, they do long runs and big quality sessions. But some of their afternoon. runs are like 5K. And they're all coached by the same people. I mean, I don't know. It doesn't matter, but they're professional runners.

And I think they also, it's not like just because you're professional running, you're going out and running 10 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Little bursts of running are effective. Yeah. That's interesting. And I think also as far as like if motivation and burnout is an issue, like going out and be like, here comes a two and a half hour run.

Yeah, exactly. Like, okay, how much do I really want to do this? Yeah. Breaking it up could be helpful. Totally. Good luck. Yeah. And the next question here. Hey guys, question about taper or easier training weeks.

This is what I'm going through right now. Have you felt like for a few days during your easy weeks, you feel a little bit more sore like a delayed onset muscle soreness? I'm currently in an easy week leading up to a local duathlon, and I feel like I'm a bit more sore even though my training volume and intensity has gone down. I'm guessing that this sensation might be my body actually healing and adapting, but that's totally anecdotal. Love to hear your thoughts. Thanks, Steve.

So this is me, like my training volume because I've been working more, has been going down, and now I have a bunch of these, like, new aches, which I don't know where they're coming from. And I've heard this before, like, maybe it's just sitting. Is that what it is? Like, our body's in motion, stay in motion?

The first thing that came to mind. Like, for sure when, I don't know, yeah, I feel this like on race week. Like, that's why we don't do a crazy taper where you go down to, like, 25% of the volume. Like if we take a rest day, typically the day after the rest day, I just feel so stiff and crappy and terrible. I'm like, what did I even take a rest day for? For me, I would say, like, I get stiff and then sometimes I just get more tired even.

You just, your body's like used to a certain thing. That's not to say that rest days aren't important, but I think it is common to get into like a bit of a lull if you're, yeah, so used to kind of revving at this certain level and then you take time off. And same thing for Taper Week. Like I think especially before a race, you're more stressed in general, like your body's more tense, you're thinking about this race coming up, and you're much more in tune with your soreness because it matters more. Yeah, you're sitting around thinking about it. Yeah.

That's true. You're like, oh, man, I have a race. How does every little thing in my body feel versus on a normal week where there's nothing at the end of the week that's on the line? Yeah. You might not even notice. Whatever. I'm just going to the pool.

Right, right. Yeah. It doesn't matter how I feel. Yeah, it's, you hear this all the time with athletes. I wonder if it's, if it really is as simple as you're just so much more worried about this race. And you're kind of on high alert the whole week because you're just, you're thinking about the race. You can't get the, you can't get the energy out with the training because you're trying to taper and get fresh. Yeah, the rule of thumb that our coach usually uses on taper week.

And I think this is getting a little bit away from the actual question, but is if you feel really tired, basically do less of volume, like on the lower end of the volume, but more on the intensity. I remember you telling me that. Just to stay kind of sharp. And if you feel like you're freaking ready to go and tapers over, less intensity, a little bit more volume. Right. That's the balance. Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

Because if you're feeling kind of crappy, typically if you do a couple quick sprints, that'll, like, wake you up, for lack of a better word. Yeah, it's true. But if you're feeling really good and you go out and you do 10 sprints, like, you could legitimately do some damage if you're actually feeling really good. Well, I mean, how often do we go out on a training session where we're just like, I'm so exhausted. terrible. This is going to go awful. And then you have a great training session. I mean, it happens all the time to me. Yeah. I'm like so tired and somehow like... That's because you exercise at 6pm

Nick. That's true. Yeah. Like, oh God. It is dinner time. It is dinner time. Good question though. Those are all our questions. What about, so what are we doing? What are we doing before we go to Oceanside? Tomorrow we're going to do big swim. Well, for me it's a big swim. 4K. And then big ride

it's some real work on the ride. And you guys are running off the bike. I mean, like a race simulation. I was like our race simulation a week out from the race, which is how we always do it. And then taper starts on Sunday. But we still got like a decent training day on Sunday. Like I said, it's early in the air. We can't just fully shutter down for ocean side.

So I think we're maintaining a little bit of fitness. And we trained really hard up until the day we left for here. So that's why we kind of feel a bit sluggish and tired right now. But hopefully tomorrow will like wake us up a little and get us into the mood. And yeah, kick off race week. I think Froyo might help with that too. Never hurts. No.

It never hurts. No. Some yogurt? I love yogurt. A good yogurt. Yog me, bro. Yeah. I think that's it.

You can submit your questions and support the pod at TTR at thattathlonlife.com slash podcast. We don't own TTR.com, do we? No. Is it some like computer company or something? I was a little bit taken. Yeah. I tried. The three letter words are all taken.

Actually, you know, like when we got that triathlon life.com, Ttel was not a thing. Oh, right. That was created. You didn't even think about that. No, I mean, like, yeah, we knew it could, like, it was possible. Potentially. But, like, it had not become endearingly called TTL yet. I remember I was just telling Paula.

Because it was, and I'm not going to get into this, but we were waiting at St. George, the first time after COVID. So it was, like, the first time you guys had raised since when the YouTube actually really took off. And I was, it was my first race with you guys. And I remember we were walking around, and it was, like, funny because, like, people were just, like, recognizing you guys in a way that was, new to you. Oh, yeah. And some people were saying TTL. And I remember Paulus remarking out loud being like, people are saying TTL. Like, it's catching out already. Yeah. No, that was, that was so a while. And it's not like, that still isn't crazy to us now. Then it was just like, we are in the wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And somebody acted like they knew who we are.

I cannot. Yeah. I don't know. Like, that just doesn't happen in triathlon. Right. I don't know. No, it's true. God, that was fun. Yeah, good times. Those were good times. That was like the very beginning. Formative. Yeah. That was so fun. Well, yeah, that's all we got. Like Eric said, you can submit your questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And we'll see you next Thursday on our first ever live pod.

Hopefully we'll actually see something. Yeah. That would be sweet. Wait, do we also want to mention the shakeout run? Did we mention the shakeout run? I'd say just go to our Instagram link in the bio. It's got the whole schedule. Great. So you can pick and choose whatever you want. want to come to and then if you can't make it, this pod will be released.

The DAF. Things that you can do. Hang out. Listen to us to a podcast. Try on shoes. Buy hats. Have coffee. Cog me.

You don't have to hug me. Pet Flynn. Yeah. All right. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, guys. See ya.