That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon running shoe rotation, training at altitude, crank length, insoles, and more!

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

This week we are all together yet again, in Flagstaff, AZ. Back to a bit more normal podcast structure, we answer your questions about triathlon! This week we touched on gravel bikes as your do-it-all bike, tubeless tires, stress fractures, and much more. To help support the podcast, as well as submit your own questions, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Lockerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. And I'm Nick Goldston. And, uh, well, we're here in Flagstaff, Arizona right now. Nick has, it's blowing my mind that you're here with us again. You just drove out today. You can't shake him. Yeah. Um, stage five clinger. Yeah. Um, Nick's, even Flynn's confused. Yeah. He's like, wait, wasn't he just here in a different state? Dude, I'm tired of this guy. Um, but Anyway, Nick's hanging out, but he's also shooting a little bit of content for another athlete who's part of our group that we're training with here. And to back up a little bit, this is our podcast. Paul and I are both professional triathletes.

Nick is a professional musician and, like, our best friend. And we just like hanging out and talking about trathal on here. I'm also a triathlete. He's also a track. I might be just one step below you guys. One or eight steps below you guys. I guess I keep forgetting that a little bit because we are talking about so many things besides. training lately.

Yeah, that's right. It feels like we haven't done a regular podcast in a while. What is a regular podcast? Just like the regular format answering questions. This isn't it either, though, because a regular podcast is you two and Ben and me in Santa Monica. Yeah. Yeah, this isn't regular. But what I'm saying is like, Oceanside is really like broken up the regular rhythm that we have.

Because we did a pre-race and we did a post race and we wind and complained about our post race. Right, right. So now we're back with our positive attitudes. That's right. Yeah, ready to have a normal or podcast. So let's talk about why you guys are here. You're here in Flagstaff. We're here in Flagstaff.

Was the point to escape? Weather was the point? Altitude, why are you here? A little bit of both. Flagstaff is slightly better weather than bend this time of year. Emphasis on slightly. They're very similar, actually, both kind of high desert environments. But we've actually had a little bit of sun here the last few days.

But the primary function was to be here for altitude. And then our coach, Paulo Sousa, is here with his ITU squad, doing an elevation camp and we just really want to jump at the opportunity for them being in Europe to get in on some swims, see Paulo, you know, have that engagement. Yeah, for me the benefit is, yeah, the altitude, but more the group and having the coach here. We don't really get to spend that much time in person with Paulo and having him just have eyes on us and work on things that we might not work on if we were alone is valuable. I've had a bit of a rough adjustment period to this place. It's my first time here.

I didn't really know it. I didn't know what to expect. And, you know, anytime you come to a new place, you're trying to figure out where to run, where to ride, where to, how to get to the pool, where to park at the pool, who's a good massage therapist, who can help with Flynn. And it feels like this enormous hurdle that's barely worth it for the amount of time we're here. Yeah. I don't think it helps that we do have Flynn and that we didn't do this. We didn't plan this like six months in advance. So like the number of Airbnbs that were available that were,

dog friendly and that we knew where they were relative to good trails and et cetera, et cetera. I don't think we ended up in the perfect spot, but we're making it work for sure. And Paula, is this your, Eric, I know you've literally trained here before for a camp years ago. 10 years ago, yeah. But Paula, is this the highest you've ever been at a training camp for? Yeah, like been based at a camp, yeah. We've trained in Canmore, which is pretty high.

And BAMP, you can get even higher. And then I've trained in Les Angla, which is close to Fontremont-O, but we were actually living at like 1,600 meters. Elton, or Flagstaff is at 2,100 meters. So it's very high. You truly feel it even just like walking the dog if there's a hill. You can kind of like... Yeah, going upstairs.

Get out of breath. Yeah. And the hardest part is the swimming, I think. Just that's already kind of like a hypoxic sport to begin with. So you just feel like you're panicky. But after being here for a week, I'm starting to sort of get used to it already. So it's not terrible. And you said that Paula's here with a squad.

are you guys the only non-I-U, non-draft legal people here? Yep. Mm-hmm. Are you the only non-draft people that he coaches in general? Yeah, I think so. I believe so. Yeah, he coaches a big ITU squad, Taylor Spivey, like a lot of Americans, and then some international athletes as well.

And there's not everyone here. There's only six of us total, which is a really nice group. We can join them for their runs and their swim, some of their rides, but there's not like this sense of competition or territory. Right, because you're never racing against each other. Yeah, yeah. So they're really nice people and it's like if it weren't for the group, I think I would have maybe left back to bend already because I've been having a hard time.

But the people really make it nice. And what do you notice? Like what's the sessions that you've done with them? I'm curious where you notice the difference. Like of course you're one of the best 70.3 athletes in the world, 100K athletes in the world. But these are, this is like a different sport. Where do you see that when you're, training with them. We're terrible at swimming compared to them.

We are so slow. Because you guys are such great swimmers, but compared to what they need to be, I guess. Yeah, like, for example, we did a set in the pool the other day that had, we did like 5-100s. Keep in mind, we just got here. Yeah. They've been here longer. Yeah. We did 5-100s that were pretty fast on two minutes, these long-course meters, and then we went into a bunch of 50s and like three-on, one-off. And on the hundreds, I was swimming like pretty well, doing 110, 11- at elevation and just getting smoked. Yeah, that's crazy. Seth Ryder and Taylor Spivey were both doing like 106s,

which is my absolute best day at sea level. Right. And then on the 50s, like I was doing 34-35s and they were just doing like 32s. Taylor Spivey was doing 32s. I mean, allegedly she was getting a little draft off of me because I was leading the lane. She's like, leave me, Eric. You're like, why don't you lead? I said multiple times, I'm like, just so you know,

you're going way faster than I am. I'm happy to go first if that makes you happy. Right. Yeah, that's crazy because I think of both of you specifically is like, when I swim with you, of course, as a total non-professional, I'm like, how is it even possible to go that fast? So for you to look at someone and say the same thing, it's just like, where does it end?

And they look at pure swimmers, and I'm sure it's not even close for them. Oh, yeah. No, there's a guy here from Belgium right now. There's a whole crew of swimmers from Belgium, actually. And he had to do a 400 time trial. as we were doing our little cute fast 50s and he went out in his 400 time trial

in like a 56 and then like a 100 and then like a one double O for this next 100 and then I had to like go back to doing my set I couldn't just watch the rest of the time but just like flying along course but just looking effortless right does it look fast or is like

something's wrong with the clock a little bit of like if you look under water you can it just is like watching a dolphin or something you can just see like this kind of crazy propulsion but on top of the the water. It looks, it looks kind of relaxed and like, he's taking less strokes per minute than we are. Just giant grabs of water. Yeah. Wow. Really impressive. Yeah, that's, that's really cool. I'm very impressed with what you were describing this to me the other day. I just love that image of

someone going that fast. And then what do you think the, like, have you heard this? Like, I'm sure you've heard this. I'm just kind of speaking as a potential podcaster, but the train low, recover high. Are you guys trying to, maybe do you want to like explain what that means? And are You're trying to live high or sleep high. Yeah. No, we're just training high, living high. Okay, great. Being high on life.

Right. Yep. There is actually a lot of, there's like a solid body of research right now that I was actually talking to Seth about and I've talked with a guy who actually has like a, he's an ambassador for a hypoxico, whatever, altitude tent company. But doing high intensity sprints at altitude actually has like some really significant. benefits to it. So there's, they did it with the study, I think, with like football players, but then like actually putting on a hypoxic mask and doing sprint efforts. So kind of the

opposite of the classic like train low, you know, live high, whatever it is. So that's kind of a bit of the program that we're on right now is a little bit of sprint type stuff. But then just kind of a lot of just go out and be on the bike. What feels worse? The sprinty stuff or the long sustained stuff at all the time? Definitely the sprinting stuff. The long sustained stuff, it's, You don't notice it as much. I'd say it's like right about around 70.3 pace where you're kind of like, oh, that's extremely difficult. Or any time it's even like 1% uphill, you notice it. But if I just go out and I can still ride like 230 watts.

Like we did a really long ride and I rode really well, averaged like 220 watts for four hours. And that didn't, I wasn't constantly thinking that I was out of breath. Right. But if you want to go, if I want to go like 270, all of a sudden, everything starts to burn. Like way soon Way sooner than you think it should. Eric, you're on a roll. We're going to keep you on a roll here

with some bike tech with Eric. Scroll through Instagram. Okay, so my first question for you is tire pressure here. Is there a difference in the way that works or? At altitude. Yeah. Interesting question.

Did you make it up? Yeah, I made it up. I don't know that. I don't think so because I still think. We're not like in an airplane. I still think like the air pressure that your tires are. registering relative to the pressure outside of the tire, right?

That's what pressure is, right? The differential between inside and outside of a surface. So, no, I've kept the tire pressure the same. I guess my question, too, would be like if you're driving up to altitude, I wonder if that would make a difference in the same way that when you put your bike in a plane. But, like, obviously, a plane is so much higher. That would have been interesting to check our tire pressure in the van. I'm just thinking of people who, like, maybe drive up the morning of a race or something

and then just... I mean, 100% of the time, all of the time, I think you should in transition, like check your tire pressure or pump up your tires. Yeah. Do that final check. And then the second question I had, I came up with it,

and then I saw that one of the questions that was a potential question for this week, someone had the same exact question. So I'm going to kind of ask you this. It was going to be how good of an idea is to use a gravel bike as your kind of everything bike. That's a good question. Maybe you have two sets of wheels.

But then someone asked this question. This is a question from Ben. Hi, I hope you're all recovering well from motion side i have a bike question that for some reason i cannot find the answer to online i recently bought a gravel bike from giant and it's super fun to ride but i'm wondering if it's possible to change out the tires and wheels for riding on the road i don't know if this is a dumb question or not and i'd really like to know it from a bike connoisseur like yourself also i keep having an issue with the back tire which is tubeless and keeps deflating extremely quickly even when i bring it to a bike shop

excited to watch more amazing ttl vids bed so first question let's let's address my question first How good of an idea is it for someone who maybe doesn't want to spend money on a road bike and a TT bike and something that can go off road to get a modern-day gravel bike with gravel bike geometry and potentially have two different sets of wheels with a different cassette? That's what we're doing here in Flagstaff. Neither Paula or I brought our road bikes. We brought gravel bikes and our TT bikes. And I brought my mountain bike.

And so we've just basically been swapping the wheels from our TT bike onto our gravel bike. if we want to go do four hours and not be... Which are road wheels. Yeah, they're road wheels. Exactly the same. I mean, you just have to make sure that, you know, your gravel bike and your road wheels also have through axles and just the rotors are the same size and stuff like that.

That's actually not... That's actually a really good point to... For people who aren't super bike savvy, it's perfectly possible that your road wheels and your gravel wheels are not swapable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like Eric even has to change the rotors when he's switching between our gravel wheels in our road wheels. But I, for the sake of conversation, I basically, I brought it crux, which is a specialized cyclocross gravel bike. They also have a diverge, which is a little bit beefier for more like rocky, chunky gravel, but the crux is a little bit more nimble. And I kind of specifically got it for your flagstaff because you can totally use it as a gravel bike. That's what it's made for. But when I put the road wheels on, it feels a lot like my tarmac. Well, that's what I want to ask both of you. How much of a difference do you feel?

between a gravel bike with road wheels and a dedicated road bike. A lot with the diverge I'm imagining. Eric has that set up right now. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to say because the diverge is new to me, and I haven't ridden the tarmac yet. I haven't ridden them back to back, certainly. I mean...

It's heavier. It's a little heavier. It's a little more sluggish. It's not as snappy. It sounds like you'd have to be a pretty discerning biker though. I think most people are not going to notice a huge difference unless you literally a road bike and your gravel bike with road wheels back to back. Yeah, I agree. I haven't been on my tarmac for a little while and I didn't feel a big difference. But you do have to make sure they're

kind of set up similar if you do have both bikes. Yeah, right. No, that's for sure. I'm just thinking like, that's probably a really great solution for most people. I mean, if you're like me and you're like, no, I want a dedicated road bike. I want a dedicated gravel bike. I want a dedicated TT bike because I like the nerdy stuff. That's fine. But if you're like, do I really need all these things? I would not get yourself a gravel bike if you're pretty confident you're going to ride 90% of the time on the road. Okay. I just think I think you're going to definitely enjoy a road bike more. It's faster. It's more arrow and lightweight. But if you're like 50-50 even, then the gravel bike's a great option.

What I noticed when I got the gravel frame, it is like so insanely light. Like there's no real weight difference between the crux and the tarmac. Maybe there is between the components you'd put on it. But from a weight perspective, It's negative. Maybe there is if you're racing professionally. Yeah. You know, at a risk, which you're not racing. Like 150 grams. Right. You know. Yeah, that's crazy. So the question is,

is it possible to change out tires and wheels for riding on the road? Yes. Just make sure that everything's compatible like you were saying. And the bike shop will definitely have the answer to that question. And then the other issue about the back tire deflating extremely quickly, even when brought to a bike shop, what do you think? Could that be like a rim tape issue? That could be your two-bless tape issue that could, I mean, if you've brought to the bike shop. They should figure it out. I mean, I do think there are some wheels out there that maybe were not machined to perfect tolerances or the carbon was not, you know, squeezed just perfectly.

And they've got some sort of imperfection that allows a little bit of... But shouldn't sealant kind of fix it? It should. But this is why the... If you hadn't said that you're taking it to a bike shop, I would say... That's why I'm saying this. The thing that's funny here is... You think the bike shop would catch that there's no sealant in it or the sealant's old or spin the tire around in the right way that the sealant gets into all.

the spots on the rim, all these things. The thing that's funny to me is Ben is saying it's just a rear wheel because what I started thinking is Ben might be new to tubeless and doesn't know that tubeless tires just need to be reinflated more often than inner tubes. But when it's just one wheel, that's what's kind of funny. Maybe this is a little mean, but maybe try a different bike shop. Yeah, I would, I mean, that's, that's, I agree. Try a different bike shop or the wheel could just be, it's possible the wheel is defective.

Yeah, yeah. There you go, Ben. Thanks for the question. And then last bike tech were there. question here. Wow. Really? That's three.

I usually do three. Okay, they're just in depth. Yeah, they're in depth. That's okay. People love that I take with her. Yeah, they do. I think this is a good one too. Yeah, okay.

Okay. Hey, all, day one are here. I'm upgrading my specialized crux cycle cross bike. Wow. So you give the double. That's what I have. I specialize. Yeah.

I also use it as my gravel and road bike using three wheel sets, 38, 32, and 28, and 28 tires. So I don't have to change tires. Just swap wheel sets. I've gotten to my crank set and like it enough to keep it, but realize it currently has 172. point five cranks. My tri-bike came with 165 cranks, this is millimeters by the way, with a stages power meter built in. It's bad for me to have such a big difference in crank lengths. I wasn't

fit for either of them and I like both of them good enough. Do you think I should get matching lengths? And if so, what are your thoughts on needing a power meter on the cross bike considering I only use it for a few easy days on group rides? And cross races where I can't reasonably keep an eye on power numbers during the ride. Yeah, that makes sense. But it may be nice for post-race analysis. Thanks for all the great content, Charlie. So first of all, are you guys all perfectly matched up on all your bikes with crank lengths? My mountain bike is still one 70s, but I've switched over to 165s on the TT bike. And the road bike? I haven't built up to road bike yet, but I'm pretty sure I won 65s for those. And Paula's 165 on everything? I know she is on the

TT bike. She might be... Oh, actually, didn't you just switch that? Do you just switch to the TTIP crank lengths? I don't know what I am. I did. Anyway, the answer, I'm also different crank lengths on bikes. I just don't think it's... I think that the crank length is more critical or important on a TT bike, but I don't think it's a big deal to have a 2.5 millimeter difference between your TT bike and your road bike, which you're going to be sitting more upright on. Yeah, what about the TT position makes it so that crank length is important? It's just that you're much more bent over,

so having that extra clearance across the top of the pedal stroke makes a big difference there versus on a mountain bike. It's like you're not really that close to like hip and pinning. so it's less of an issue. Right. And I think mountain bikes sometimes people worry about like pedal strikes. And so they like to keep that crank length a little shorter. Yeah, yeah.

I think I'll probably end up going to like a 167-5 the next time I get a crank for my mountain bike. But when I switched my TT bike to 165, I didn't immediately order a 165 power meter for my mountain bike. And I mean, I wouldn't really stress about the power meter. I didn't get a gravel bike power meter until just last year. and that was purely because I was actually going to do some workouts on that bike. Just take that time to look at the trees and the plants and not in power mayor.

If you're that kind of person, that that's the enjoyment you get out of biking, I agree. But I think there's some people that, like, I think of people who just train indoors all the time, even when it's beautiful outside. And maybe the way to get them outside is so that they have their numbers that they can stare down at as beautiful nature is passing them by. I don't think that's what this guy is asking, but totally. If you want it, go for it, but I don't think it's necessary. Yeah, cool.

Okay, before we move on to questions, thank you so much to our podcast supporters. You can also help support the podcast with your monthly subscription and submit questions to the podcast at ThatTriathlonlife.com slash podcast. Our first question here is from Grace. Hi, I'm a national distance runner from England who also swims a lot and is looking to start triathlon. How do you rotate your trainers? And by trainers, I think she's talking about shoes. Yep, the British way to say it. What trainers do you use for different sessions?

I use spikes for shorter track sessions, and I'm currently on the Nike Pegasus 38s for everything else. Thanks, really love the podcast, Grace. I don't think I've ever thought about a triathlete using spikes at the track until this moment. Would you guys ever put spikes on at the track? No. I don't think I would. Not anymore.

No. When I was racing track, I did, just because I think the point of training is specificity sometimes. And if you're racing in a certain shoe, you'll train in that shoe like we do with our carbon shoes. But yeah, if you're not racing in spikes, I think the injury risk is maybe too high just for what it's worth for the speed gained. It doesn't really matter. I could see like if you grew up running track and you're used to them and it brings you that feeling and you run a little bit differently more up on your toes, it could be fun. But definitely not something that we do. And then how often are you like, are you intentionally rotating shoes to kind of like change up the impact on your body?

Or are you just like, oh, for this session, I'm going to do this. Like, how do you kind of approach that? Well, for a long time, I was wearing just one pair of shoes because they worked for me and I didn't get injured. And I'd wear them for a lot of tempo runs, easy runs, everything. But On really has like a nice selection of shoes that I like several models of. So I'll mix them up depending on whether it's a pavement run, a trailer run, an easy run, a fast run. And then I think we talked last year's podcast about how we don't wear carbon shoes a lot because they're too expensive. Right. Well, now we don't have to.

Right. An endless supply. So I'll wear carbon shoes a little more often. And I think it's important to wear them sometimes because my feet were really sore at Oceanside. And I hadn't been training in them. So I think there's like a little bit of breaking in period where you have to get used from going to like a cloud monster that's really cushy and a lot for more forgiving than a carbon shoe. Did you did your feet also hurt like the next day in the next two days? No, it wasn't like an injury feeling.

It was more just like a muscle. tight pounding crampy yeah i'm not used to that yeah what about you eric i've always mixed up shoes yeah irks eric mixes up brands even i yeah i've got i've several different brands like on has been generally giving me some shoes as well so i've been running in them lately but i ran in adidas for years have some solomon trail shoes that i really like um but yeah i just i go with the cushier options when i'm feeling a little more beat up maybe the second run of the day and then i love running in true trail shoes I was going to ask you, Paul, you don't run in real trail shoes? No, I really like the Cloud Ultra trail shoes.

Okay. I stupidly didn't bring them to this, to Flagstaff. I could order some, but I, the trails here are, like, definitely runable in regular shoes. I brought my trail shoes because I didn't know, but that's nice. Well, the trails that I want to run on. I'm sure you could find the hourly stuff that you need trail shoes for. But, yeah, trail shoes just, like we've talked about on the podcast, just generally have a little more support and aren't as cushy. And can take a beating.

like the outsides are a bit. Sometimes like, yeah, you take a rock impact a little better. Some of them have like plates in them. Yep. Like a rock plate, I think it's called. For Arizona, for an early Arizona trails. Stuff you don't really need for the Northwest. Right, you guys have that nice packed dirt.

Yeah, that clay. That's nice. Cool. So yeah, I guess you guys kind of, you do keep that in mind. Oh, totally. You keep that shoe rotation in mind. Even if you're not rotating shoe types, I think rotating, even having identical types of shoes and switching if you're running every day

between one and the other. Yeah. It's good because the shoes do squish down when you use them. You don't notice it when you do it every day. Yeah. But if you can kind of give them a day to kind of like reinflate. I think the biggest, I think the most important thing is just not running in a pair of shoes until they're so beat. Yeah.

The next time you get the exact pair of shoes, you put them on, and you're like, oh, wow. This is just something that you guys told me. Start phasing them in halfway through their lifespan. Yeah. We've said this on the podcast before, but I remember when I first heard it from you, it kind of like, it was like a light bulb moment. where I think Paula, it might have been Paolo that said this, but Paula, you said it, you're saying, if the shoes that you're running in, if you were to try on a new pair and they feel like, oh, different, that means you should be not running in those shoes.

Paulo said that to me. Yeah, and then you said it. When is it time to get any race shoes? This is when I was purchasing race shoes. And he said, well, if you put a new pair on, you'll know if it's time. Oh, that's so good. It's such a mic drop moment, I feel like. No, he's just all into like the cryptic, like.

Right, right. No straight answer. figured out. Right, right, right, right. Love that. You know, you know the answer. Yeah, don't ask me. I'm just helping you know that you know.

Yeah. That's right. Okay, next question here is from Kyle from Salt Lake City. Hi, T-T-L. Ooh, this is kind of a funny format. When running with Flynn on leash. Flynn is the dog, by the way. He's right over here.

He's laying down. With his duck. With his duck. When running with Flynn on leash, have you taught him any commands that help him track next to you in general and also when you plan to change paths on a turnaround?

I typically run with our dogs on easy long run days and have tried teaching them a few commands, but nothing has stuck yet, Kyle. Yeah, this is a great question. I love this question. That's why I put it in. Eric, why don't you take it away? He listens to Eric so well when they're running.

That's because mom is maybe spoils plan a little bit, and dad's a little more than rulemaker. Well, he actually listens to me pretty well when we're running too, and it's really just the command, He'll come and run at your heels if you say heel. Will he, though? Because I've been on these runs with you guys and you say heal like 80 times.

Yeah, we have to say it a lot. He's got kind of a short attention span. But if it's, if, if Eric says it in a way where it's like, this is important, he will listen. Yeah. And he'll stay there. I really try to not give him any commands unless it's important. And I like really hold him to it. You know, I don't just be like, hey Flynn, where are you?

You know, I was just like, if I need him to come, I yell at him, come now, like with urgency. and so I kind of feel like that's otherwise we just go running A lot of my commands are sometimes like a little bit suggestive and then if he doesn't obey them I'm just like I'm okay with it which is not good

It loses meaning every time we say that way Yeah so Eric's trying to train me to Only give Flynn a command If I'm going to be following through with it Eric is also secretly training me Yeah but like So heel is important And he'll obey that really well

like on leash or off leash, but I also try to like as quickly as I possibly can say okay, which is like the release. And so it's like- Which brings him so much joy. Yeah. You can just feel the joy. Freedom. That is better than any treat for him.

Like he doesn't really respond to treats, but he responds to like go to whatever you want or like the ball or if we have a ball or whatever. And then the other thing is just like if we come up to a junction, he's actually really good at waiting. And when we get to a trail junction standing there because he doesn't know. exactly which way we're going to go. And if for some reason he thinks he does and he starts going the wrong direction and I see it, then I'll just make some sort of like, hop, hop, hop, you know, just like some sort of a cue and that usually gets him. He knows he's at a junction. He'll look and see where I am and see which way I go. He actually has a PhD. He's smart. He's pretty smart.

Even now, like when we were just here, like when I call him and I say he just comes right away. He comes right in. Yeah. He just has a lot of energy. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's just, It's like, I think I've talked to my dad about this a lot. He grew up with hunting dogs. They're very excitable. They've got a lot of energy. And they actually kind of want you to tell them what to do. They do best when there's like, heal.

Now, okay. Now this. Now, otherwise it's just their brain is going a million miles a second and they've got to sniff everything. And they don't really know exactly what they're supposed to do. So sometimes they can actually be a little bit more at peace when they have a little bit of clarification on what we're doing right now. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. That's very interesting. Yeah. I feel like living with a dog and being a professional athlete, you have to develop those things. Or the dog is just never going to come with you on those things. It's one or the other. Otherwise, it's just a nightmare every time you go out.

It helps that he's pretty well trained and has good recall. For sure. Next question is from Jason. Hi, Pence, which I think is catching on. Uh-oh. I know this penf is Paula, Paul, Eric, Nick, and Flynn. Oh. Someone else. We didn't come up with that. A listener came up with that. Of course, we did not come up with that. Once I say it, now they're going to start pouring in. I feel like, okay. Anyway, here we go. Just got my cream hat from the Oceanside Collection, and it fits perfectly. I'm wearing it right now, actually. Weird head shape, so that's always a concern. I also have a weird head shape in it. They run a little bit large, so you must have a large noggin. I also have a large noggin, so I was very happy about that. I was recently, literally this morning,

uh-oh, diagnosed with a tibial stress fracture, and working with the medical team to figure out why. second one in four years. Oh. No major run training changes in approximately four months, mileage or intensity. Shoes are all within mileage guidelines. Previous gate analysis was unremarkable. Blood levels, iron, vitamin D, calcium, all within normal limits. I know y'all don't give medical advice per se, but just wanted to see if y'all had

noticed any other factors in your individual experience that could contribute to stress fractures. Eric and Paul have had a few, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Super annoyed because I was absolutely flying early season races. so just trying to avoid this again. Thanks for putting out so much content. Otherwise, I'd be bored as shit the next eight weeks. Best Jason.

Yep, I know the feeling, Jason. I recently, I'm a little injured too, and I felt like I was doing really well at the beginning of this year. So, Eric and Paula, fix me and Jason, please. So it's, like, specifically asking about stress fractures? Yes. I've only had one stress fracture. I think with stress fractures, they can kind of come, like, all of a sudden.

And that's my been my experience. It's like, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, and then, oh, there's a pain and it's a stress fracture. But often they start a stress reaction, so it's not quite bad enough yet where it's going to be like two months off. If you listen to your body and stop immediately, it could maybe be two or three weeks.

But like he acknowledged, we're not doctors, I don't know. The biggest things for me have been shoe choice, pavement versus trail surface, and eating more, getting a regular period, which is not applicable to him, but just eating enough, is a thing for everyone. Recovery is a big thing.

And I think also body stress comes from life stress, comes from training stress, comes from everything. Totally. And stress fractures, I think, can show up in athletes when they're not just like having a high training load, but also just like a high life stress load and something it's going on. Your body's not recovering. You're not absorbing nutrients, whatever it is. And that could lead to not as well.

When you have like high stress hormones in your body, it affects a lot of different. recovery systems or it affects a lot of different parts of your body. I don't totally understand them. I don't think any of the three of us do. But I feel like that's an easy thing to forget about because we like to control the things like I'm going out and I'm doing my intervals three minutes at 300 watts, this, this, that. And but like there's, there's more under the curtains, behind the curtains. I also think that like a lot of the times when I've had a stress fracture, it's been because of another injury that's creating some kind of imbalance in my gate. So if my knee is sore and I'm kind of running more on the outside of my foot or something, then I'll get a metatarsal

stress fracture. So it's like maybe bones that aren't necessarily used to or meant to absorb the impact of running, but they're getting more stress because something else is imbalanced. So that comes down to like physio strength training massage taking care of your body. Does a stress reaction show up on an x-ray? It can. An x-ray? It's kind of rare that a stress fracture or anything will show up on an x-ray. Stress reaction. Unless it's in the healing phase where it's actually has like.

Oh, even a fracture itself. Unless it's like a bad one. But I think the gold standard for diagnosing a stress fracture is an MRI. I see. But a lot of the time with health insurance, you've got to go x-ray first. Yes. Then do the MRI. The x-rays for sure not going to show anything.

So for normal people, the stress reaction, like you said, it's kind of like, you feel pain? It's like a bone bruise. Stop. Stop. Yeah. The tricky thing is with the stress reaction, though, and it's why everyone progresses past that to a fracture is it's like, it's like. Like, is this a bone issue or not?

Yeah. If it's a soft tissue thing and you can kind of work through it and tendonitis, it gets better as you go. But with stress fractures, they usually don't get better as you go. So that's kind of the differentiator between a tendon, a ligament versus a bone injury. Eric, what was your experience with your stress fracture? It was your foot, right? Yeah, it was my foot. But he thought it was a nerve thing.

I thought it was like... It's the thing is everyone's brain goes to like something else. Yeah, because I had no history of stress fractures at all. I'd never had one before. So, but I had had like a neuropathy in a foot. And that was like the closest thing I could relate it to. So, and that had gone away. So I was kind of just assuming it would go away.

I didn't know what a structure fracture felt like. And I think mine was definitely a stress reaction. And it was just pretty uncomfortable. But I could still get through some treadmill running. And then I went and raced escape from Alcatraz, where you have to run 800 meters on asphalt out of the water. Oh, barefoot. I knew it was a stress fracture then.

Yeah, right. It felt not. Very quickly went to fractured phase, and yeah, I was off of it for a while. Yeah, that's the other thing with stretch fractures is sometimes you're like, oh, treadmill running feels pretty good. Okay, I think I can do that. So you kind of just like block it out of your mind and it's okay, you think. Or, oh, these shoes feel better than these shoes, so I'm just going to wear these shoes and it'll be fine. And really, you're just trying to tell yourself it's fine until it's so bad that you can't even walk on it.

Yeah. That's been my experience and probably a lot of other athletes. So it's hard to stop before it's, like, catastrophic. but that's the smartest thing to do. The one thing that stuck out in what you said was that nothing had changed, but you were absolutely flying. And that's the, I can like, every time I've ever gotten injured, that has been the case for me.

I was like, wow, I'm just having workout after workout. My runs are so fast. I can't believe it. Boom, injured. So that is a change. So it's not like necessarily maybe traceable inside of your training, but for some reason your fitness is kind of outpacing your joints or your, you know, your system.

ability to, you know, structural ability. And so like if I could go back in time to those situations and maybe gone like, you know what, this is going really well. I don't have a race immediately. Maybe I'm going to take a down week on the run volume, just to be careful. Yeah, I think that's also why a lot of people get injured kind of close to a race. It's because they're at this like peak fitness point. Everything's going great.

Their body physiologically is reacting well. Some aspects. That's a really good point. But it's breaking down. Fitness gets ahead of structures. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Great. We didn't really give him any good advice, though. I liked Eric's advice, and I think you put it in there. Like, they said that there's no real change to the diet, but I feel like so often we see that stress fractures are linked to not getting the right nutrition. Maybe, yeah. I don't know. Is there any one main takeaway you would put in? I don't know.

If there was some way to look at just how many weeks of running you done without a break, or there's like how many miles you've done in like cumulative training stress loads, something like that. Or I'm thinking like maybe if you could have taken, like we just have natural breaks in our schedule due to races where we taper into the race and then we kind of take a week very mellow afterwards through the whole race season. So it's, I feel like it's a little injury prevention versus if you're just like getting ready for

your Ironman in six months. You could potentially put in five months of solid running without realizing it and never really kind of give your bones or your ligaments a chance. to like truly heal a little bit. Yeah, that's great advice. That's great advice. The next question is from Adam. Hey, Eric, Paula, Nick. Oceanside 70.3 as a first-time spectator, usually racing, was an amazing experience and did not disappoint.

I was like a kid in the candy shop, seeing all the pros, even more so the TTL gang. It was so fun cheering you guys on. Sick kit, by the way, Eric. Greed. After the race, I walked by Paula and said what a nice job she did, and she gave me a genuine smile back anyways. It may not seem like much, but I was over the moon. by that type of response, even when she was down, says a lot about her good character.

I am so sweet. I am so sweet. There's a lot of subtext to her. This is really hard. People come up to you after you have a bad or hard day and they say, great job. You did great. Right. Because, yeah, fifth place in that race, like, most people can only dream of doing that.

And I recognize that. And I don't want to be disrespectful to anyone who admires that. But it's like I was in a mentally, emotionally, fragile states. When people say good job, like you can't just be like, fuck you, I didn't do a good job. Yeah. It reminds me of something that I feel like I've talked to you guys about before. The same thing happens in music. Like, it's very common that you work on songs, of course, your whole life.

And then someone maybe really likes a song you wrote or produced or whatever five years ago. Yeah. And you feel like, man, I've grown so much since then. So your natural reaction is like, oh, that song sucks. You know, like, I'm sorry. But that is the worst thing you can say because that person has a connection. connection with that song. And you telling him it sucks is like, oh, wait a second.

So I'm wrong. Like, I shouldn't like this song. Now I feel embarrassed. That person feels embarrassed that they like this song. It's like, it's the worst thing. The best thing you can do is actually say, you know, at least in music, thank you so much. I had such a good time writing that song.

I'm glad you connected with it. And I feel like in the racing, even if you feel like you didn't perform your best, it's hard to do. You still have to be gracious. But you have to be gracious. For sure. And I did try to do that. So thanks for saying that.

There you go. My question is, I know that this race was early in the season and not much stock went into it, as your season is pretty long. But how do you cope with low performances after training so hard? It's not like we were just talking about this. Oh, you stayed depressed for two weeks. You cry every night. You want to go home. You want to quit.

Yeah. And relative to whole year, how often should you space races out to get the best performances out of yourself? Mind you, I know the pros can handle more racing than your average competitive age grouper. Thanks again. I hope somebody to actually talk with you guys, Adam. Oh. Wow, yeah, this is super relevant. We've been talking about this as a trio a lot.

I mean, it's the reason that we're putting the podcast out late. I'm in the worst mental state I've been in in a long time. And you're also tired. And I'm tired and I'm mad at myself and we're in a new place. Yeah, there's so many factors. But having a bad race at Oceanside kind of like kicked that off. And I haven't been in a good mood since. So how do you deal with it?

I'm not good at dealing with it. I don't know how you deal with it. it. If anyone knows, tell me. I think for me the key is to rather than beat yourself up about who you were on that day or what you did leading into that day is like evaluate for a second. Maybe what can I do better? What went wrong or what do I think I could improve on in the last month and just get to work on working on that? Yeah, that's way easier said than done. I'm not saying it's easy. Of course when you come out the other end, you're like, okay, I'm just going to be a little bit more diligent and take a little bit more like other commitments out of my life so that I can

be trained better and recover better, rest better. But then I like wake up every morning right now and I don't want to do any sessions. So I feel like I'm not only had a bad race, but now going backwards because I was in kind of a rhythm before Oceanside. I felt like I was building. I was getting fitter. I was confident. I thought I could have a good race. And then I just took this huge blow at Oceanside that like broke that momentum and makes me not excited to train now. So even though Obiza is coming up and I'm like freaking out about how competitive that is and how much I have to be in good shape there. I have this broken momentum.

So it's like super tough. But I agree with you. That is the best way ultimately to get over it. It's just to like literally get over it. Yeah, I was not in any way saying that's what you should do rather than I was answering the question of what is a good thing to do. All right, right, right. Listeners. My advice is like totally irrelevant for you guys.

What is that? It's the same, I feel like it's the same reason that at least for me, I still, I'm one of the few people that I graduate. from music school with that still loves making music, it's that I have other passions. I have things that I really like that are outside of it. And my entire self-worth isn't tied up in one thing. It's totally relevant to us. Well, it's hard because when you're one of the top athletes in a sport in the world, you kind of do have to put a lot of eggs into that basket.

For sure you do. But I think that one of the most dangerous rabbit holes you can go down is tying yourself worth to that. Yeah. And I've gotten into that a lot. I'm trying not to this time. Like, I'm still a person outside of triathlon, but I think that advice stands for any person. And I do think for both of you, it's compared to most other pro-traathletes, you actually have

like really easy things to grab onto that aren't your performance because you have TTL and how multifaceted even TTL is by itself and how many things there are to find joy and passion and drive in through that. Yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to discredit how you're feeling Paul. because I totally understand. But like, just think of how many people listen to this podcast and watch the YouTube videos.

Yeah. That's magical and much more rare, even than how great your performances have been. Yeah. No, that's true. I don't know. For me, for in triathlon, I try to make, I try to put myself worth into what I can control,

which is when I do the training, how I do the training, how much hard work I put into it, and then how it expresses itself in a race, you have some control over that, but like you did what you could. And it wasn't the result you wanted. But it doesn't mean that it's not the best that you had and that's something you shouldn't be proud of, even though it's hard.

Especially when you've had so many times in your life where that feeling of winning or doing really well at a race, it fills you up so much for so long. And you kind of chase that, I imagine. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I don't know. part of what we do is like we also put ourselves out there a lot.

So then I feel like we're getting a little bit scrutinized or people just pay attention more to what goes on. And you can slide under the radar a lot more if you're not doing things like a podcast and a video and all the stuff that we do. Not that it's bad stuff, but it does make me feel a little bit more like people notice, people are judging. People are wondering what I'm doing wrong. And you fall into that. It's true. It's true. And we've been talking about this too.

like even if we stopped the YouTube show, the podcast, everything, there will always be eyes on Paul Finley and Eric Loggerstrom if they are racing a professional race. Yeah. There's no escaping it anymore. Just like, you know, the people we know that race as well. Yeah. And then the follow-up question was, how often should an A-trooper be racing? That is so individual, I think.

So individual. I agree. It's really hard to say. We'll race sometimes back-to-back weekends, sometimes twice a month, sometimes not for two months. and we're doing it as our job. But I think a lot of the factors that come into age group racing is just signing up for the events that make sense, that you can get into, that you can afford, that you can afford the time of training for. And that could be once every other month or it could be once a year. I don't know.

Also, age groupers, we can kind of like treat a race as a sea race and just like train right through it and have fun. Like as a pro, why would you even do that? That's what I was going to say. You could race every three weeks all year long if you weren't trying to get the absolute most out of your body every weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but training is, I mean, that's expensive, logistically challenging. For some people, it's like they can afford it and it's fun.

Let's say money is no object, which for the sake of conversation. Yeah, that's true. And it doesn't have to be an Iron Man, man. It could be a sprint or Olympic, you know. Yeah, you could race a lot. And it could also just be like a local crit race or a local running race. I think you can get a lot of fitness from racing in a fun way. And for example, during COVID when we were doing the Zwift races, I think I got huge fitness boost through that

just because you get a little bit more competitive and you just don't look at your numbers, but you're getting this crazy good workout. So you could treat races a bit like that if you want to race frequently. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for that question, Adam. Next question is from Simon.

Hi, team. Love what you're all doing. So keep up the great work. I'll keep this brief. Okay. So we'll be. Perfect. With work and life in general getting in the way of training during the week,

I'm only able to do about an hour each day for training. with more time to train on the weekends. So what do you think is better? Doing two activities in that hour, say half hour run, then swim, or focusing on a single activity such as a run or swim. I also like to have at least one rest day during the week so that I can train at weekends. Find that at 42, I need that recovery. Simon.

I mean, as you're looking at me, I would try to, one hour I'd make the most out of one thing. I agree. Totally. I feel like trying to. Spending into two things. Oh my gosh. You're going to, that time between their activities is going to kill you. It's like going to be 15 minutes of waste of time.

time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how much, how about, what kind of bike ride are you going to get in in like 25 minutes? I mean, if you're just like jumping into spin class and it's like three minute warm up and then puke your brains out. Right. I just can't imagine doing two activities in one hour, five days a week is going to be worth it. I think the one way it could work is 45 minute ride, 15 minute run or something. Or even like a 10 minute run.

Yeah, just like get used to running off the bike. And also an hour run is pretty significant. Yeah. So you don't want to do that every day. But an hour ride, I feel like, especially if you're on the trainer, it can be pretty focused and dedicated. That's true. An hour on the trainer is legit. Yeah. And then in the pool, it's plenty. So, yeah, for sure, sticking to one activity and then just doing one of days.

I mean, an hour, if you're doing an hour, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, Friday. Let's assume you're taking one day off. So four hours. And then you're doing four hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday. That's actually pretty good amount of training. Wait, he's doing four hours on a weekend? Well, you can say that, but I'm just saying if he has more time on the weekends, Like,

Yeah, four is a lot. I mean, at that point, you also have to just be. For is a lot for you guys, but I think a lot of A Troopers, that's what we do. Like, big weekends. Like, one to two hours during the week and then you have no choice. Four hours of training is not, I mean, it's just like an hour swim and an hour and a half bike and an two hour run. Totally. But for an amateur athlete that has a family and wants to do weekend things, it's a lot.

That's your weekend thing. Yeah, that's your time. I think, I mean, we do like, whatever, four or five hour rides every weekend and then a big day the next day too. And no one seems to be. You guys just do that every day. I guess what I would say to this person is like you'd get your endurance then on the weekend and then you just use the weekdays for like speed, focus, quality stuff. Yep. Okay.

Exactly. Okay. Next question here is we don't usually play favorites, but the woman who gave birth to me, I feel like I have to prioritize her. So she has a question here. I'm going to read it as she wrote it and then translate it into actual English. Hi, Paula and Eric. I do not need the podcast to ask Nicholas a question. triathlon has gotten more and more competitive.

All the athlete have access to the technology, and that helps. Did you ever think that sharing all your knowledge you give your audience the tools that they then use against you in the competition? That with the podcast, you contribute to the raising of the level of the performance, question mark, a sort of catch-22, in quotes. That's from my mom. So just everyone knows English is my mom's second language. She's a talent. And she's very good at it, Nick. So you don't need to translate that.

for us. I understood. I think that you have a very good point here. And I was talking to this about someone today who actually works for Strava was like, we share everything on Strava, our power numbers, our workouts, like we put so much out there. Are people looking at it and using it against us? Maybe not necessarily, but they're definitely seeing what we do. And then I have like a successful race or I do well at world championships and okay, what are her power numbers. That's why a lot of pro athletes don't share that stuff because it's information and it could be used to better them so that they could be you. Like they know what my strengths are. They know what my powers. They know what my run speed is. So yeah, maybe it's oversharing, but part of it also is building us as

brands and it's part of the reason we have sponsors and can make this our career is because we share a lot. And the thought of like hiding and not sharing anything and being completely silent on social media and not sharing any part of the journey and then just showing up and winning a race, it does not sound fun to me. Yeah. A lot of athletes do that, but I think that for Eric and I, that would not be as enjoyable or fulfilling. Just winning the race is not that important to like live in a hole and not talk to anybody because you're afraid that they might steal something from you.

Steal your power numbers. You know, it's funny, when you said that, I didn't even think of someone potentially taking your training or whatever, copying your training. I think of it as I'm in the break with Paula. Yeah. Can I actually sustain this? Yes or no. Is it even worth it to try to go with her?

If I know like you're about to hold 280 watts, I'm like, okay, there's zero chance I'm going with her today. So I'm just going to let her go. So I don't get 50th place instead of maybe a top 10. In fact, it could work to my advantage maybe sometimes, like in Edmonton where I'm just putting time on people. And they're just like let her go. Yeah. Because there's no chance for saying. Because she's going to run like a snail.

I think what your mom might be referring to more is like the information we share on the podcast with the answers. And to me that is a lot of it is very, not elementary knowledge, but just things that other professionals would know already. So yeah, just a lot of people that are listening. It's very valuable, useful information to someone who might be a little bit newer to the sport. It's valuable to me. Like I learn stuff every week from you guys. I imagine that other pro, like in my mind, I don't know what the truth is. in my mind, I imagine other pro-traithes being like,

God, this is like... No, I think some, I mean, Jody Stimson listens to our podcast. We know, yes, Jody does. I think for entertainment value. I don't think we're dropping like super world-class data here. Of course. That's the thing. We're not sharing secret training methods that, you know...

No, it's our stand-up material that they're working on. Yeah. Taylor Nibs like listening to our pod taking notes. Yeah. Meanwhile, not sharing anything. Yes, no, nothing. Oh, my God. But it's a super...

good question that I do sometimes think about. Do we share too much? Probably, but there's some benefits to it as well. I kind of like it when you do share everything. And we still win a race. It's like, yeah, well, looks like, I'm going to help you get that much. I was like, okay, so for all these doubters, I think that we shouldn't post on Stravo, we shouldn't have a podcast, we shouldn't have videos. And then I have a good season.

Eric has a great season. It's like, okay, so we can do it all. And then you have a race at ocean side, you're like, okay, let's backpedal. We can't do it all. I've seen this with you professionals. One race is enough for you to question your entire life. Yeah, exactly. Well, at least for me, not Eric.

Eric's a little more level-headed than me. Eric is, every time. I didn't have time. I had to go film in Hawaii immediately. That's true. And you didn't have a bad race. Yeah, I mean, I just, I don't think I had an amazing race, but I had about what I expected and what I thought I deserved

for how much time we'd put in training thus far in the season. So I just come back to that. I'm like, you know what? I told myself, I was like, I could have a great race here. I could get fourth or fourteenth. And I could have a terrible race here. And the same statement. Fourth or fourth or fourteenth, I don't know.

Because it's just, you just don't know. And I feel good that I, like, stuck to that emotional train. I just realized we have not addressed Hawaii at all, right? No. Should we just address it when the thing is done? Yeah. Paul's like, yeah, please, let's not get into that right now. Well, Paula hasn't seen the sneak peek yet.

I think she might change her mind when she sees how good it is. It is. It is. It is. I think we should do a Hawaii special. The 15-second version is that Eric and I had the amazing opportunity to get Flo-Tocona, Big Island, Hawaii to film a very epic piece with a brand. Yep. And it was awesome. We were there just as

filmmakers. Just as filmmakers. Yeah, that's cool. I was a little bit of model, too. You were very much a model. Yeah. You were very much a model. You and the island were the models. And we'll go into that more soon, but it was really fun. Next question here is from Hannah. TTTTL gang. Time sensitive question. I'm running Boston

marathon number three, which is Monday, by the way. I have a bunch of friends that are there now, two shout-outs. It's too. So will she hear this before? Yeah, this is coming out in a couple hours. Yeah, well, don't totally change your strategy based on this. Yeah, please don't totally change your strategy. As a surprise, my boyfriend bought me the new Hoka Rocket X-2s.

They arrived today and are gorgeous. However, the insul is glued in and I traditionally run with super-feet high-arch insules to mitigate planter fasciitis problems. My question for you, pillow shoe people, is, pillow shoes are race shoes, carbon race shoes. Does adding aftermarket insoles detract from the power of the carbon shoe? Should I risk planter discomfort on race day to get the full benefit of the shoe or detach the market insert and add my own to save my arches? Presumably this question applies to all super shoes.

For our reference, I'm targeting a three-hour marathon and we'll have a few chances, and we'll have a few chances this week to experiment with the shoes. Love the vid this week. have been listening to the pond on all my long runs during this build and wish you all the best your upcoming season. Cheerie, Alana be from Top Sham, Maine. Wow. So we're doing a new pair of shoes to race in race week here.

First of all, do we like that idea? Not ideal. Ideally, it would have probably done half of a tempo run or a little bit of a track work, some sort of speed session. And then prior to this, just to make sure your planner doesn't really hurt regardless of the inserts, you know, because it is a different thing. Yeah. Feels totally different.

I would say, like, I don't know if this is good advice, but personally, I would leave the orthotics out of the super shoes. Just for one race. Yeah. Like, I think a lot of the point of, like, a supportive insul is to handle the 50K, 100K of running or doing a week and just, like, give you some support. But when it's race day, and you really want the true speed return that the shoes are offering, go without the insul.

And a three-hour marathon is not slow. So if your mechanics are so compromised that you need that for racing, I don't know. I also really just wonder if it impacts the effectiveness. I don't know if it does. I'm thinking of race, the carbon shoe works. It's not adding more like stiffness is that's not the issue. I do think the stiffness is very intentional where the, that's the only thing that I can see. And that would hold true for any shoe that you're running in.

But it could impact necessarily where the point of lever action is in the shoe. I think it for sure would impact the shoe. Like these shoes are so carefully designed to be a specific amount of softness, a specific amount of stiffness, a specific everything. So if you just put like a super feet in. How stiff are the super feet? That's what I don't know. I don't know if they're like. They're kind of beefy.

I mean, they have an arch support. They definitely have an arch support. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. I'm sure there's plenty of like podiatrists who'd say like yeah for sure you need your orthotics every millisecond that you're walking but I've had I've had that prescribed to me and taken this the orthotics out because they were giving me blisters or they're uncomfortable and ultimately just like strengthening your feet I mean this is going beyond ratios but I think you should be able to tolerate I like the idea that you said it's like those are meant for your weekly mileage buildup yeah yeah to take him out just for the race it's I was going to say to I'm just to like, what is it going to make a difference to you? Like five seconds per mile, if that.

That's huge, though. But I don't know if it would. But I'm just saying, like, it also is going to, she can't take the insul out because it's glued in. So it's going to create this, like, crazy full shoe. Like, I've done that before. You've got to take the insol. I think she's going to rip them out. Yeah.

And hope that doesn't break the shoe. She said that was an option to rip them out. Got it, got it. I don't know. I would hate to, like, say it, don't wear them. and then you freaking, like, tear your planner. I'm like, you're not trying to Olympic qualify here. Yeah.

I would say do the thing that's going to keep you safer and that, like, we're here to have fun. Like, don't you want to be able to run in a couple weeks and do the thing again? We'll go back to our original statement. Ideally, you would have tested this out earlier. Eric and Nick think you should tear out the insult and put in your super feet.

I think you should just go cold turkey on the orthotics and run the race just like keep choking. does. And report back. Yeah. We want to know. Actually, no. Here's to get it.

On the left shoe. Okay. That was brilliant. That was brilliant. That was brilliant. Definitely. Yeah. So on the left shoe, rip it out, put the insult in.

On the right shoe. And then halfway through, take one shoe off and see what it's like bare feet. You get a control. Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, Hannah, let us know what you end up doing in how it goes. Great. Thank you for that question.

Actually, let us know. We always say that and I'm like, yeah, they're not going to let us know. But I actually want to know. It's genuinely interested. We want to know. And please do not wear one insert in one shoe. Okay. Next question is from Emma.

I have a couple of questions about mounting the bike with your shoes already clipped onto the pedals. Do you use rubber bands to keep the shoes in place? If so, what points do you attach the rubber bands to on the bike? I have quite a new bike, 22, Survello, and it doesn't have a lever on the end of the back axle. You need an Allen key to take it out and put it in. You use triathlon bike shoes with the top loop.

at the back of the shoe or just normal bike shoes. And what is the best way to learn how to slip your feet in and out? Thank you, Emma. So this is kind of like a very classic T1 question. A classic T1. This is a very classic six-part question. Yes. So what Eric and I do is we wear our road shoes to race.

And this is only for like races that are 100 K distance or longer. For a sprint or Olympic, we'd wear a trash shoe that has like a Velcro strap, I think. Just because transitions are so important for those. the night before the race we usually get super glue and craft a loop on the back of our shoes with like a shoe lace or something um so that's the loop where you attach the elastic yeah it's it actually has been working great we use the the torch shoes from specialized and they do open really wide so you can like crank down the boa we can slip our feet in on the bike so it's not technically a trathlon shoe but we can get into them pretty quickly we put the

rubber band through that hole on the back and then I just end up like actually tying the rubber band around itself around the seat stay which is the tube that goes from where your seat is down to the back axle. Oh, all the way up there. That's good advice. Yeah. So I tie it around there and then the front one, I'll either, if you have a front derailer, you can kind of loop it around part of the front derailer.

You can loop it around part of your bottle cage. Yeah. And I make sure that I put the left shoe forward because I like to run with the bike on my right side and that way you don't kick the shoe while you're running. And then as far as practicing, you can practice getting in and out of the shoes like on the trainer or even just like on the street if you want to without rubber bands, I think, because you can just kind of like let the shoe flip around until it gets to the point where you can get your toe in and then you just practice sliding in and out and you save yourself the time

of doing the rubber bands every single time. I actually like ride on top of the shoe for a bit until I have time to slip them in or until I'm like got some momentum. So by that point, the elastics are broken anyway. And sliding in and cranking the boas is like something that's a little tricky. But for us, it's worth racing in the shoe that we train in, which is the road shoe, even though it's a bit harder to do up. So after you've ridden on top of the shoes for a bit, do you have to reach down and hold onto the shoe to slip your foot in? Or do you just like let it kind of flip flip flop and you slide your toe in?

That's the problem that I have. Once the rubber band is broken, you have to be careful because it can be a little hard to get it. I usually let it do like one swing forward, one swing back and get the toe in. I don't even think about it. It's just like it's like breathing, you know? We've done it so many times. It takes a lot of different skills to be able to do. Well, that's kind of what I was saying with like riding up and down the street or on the trainer.

If you just like take your foot off the pedal, the heel just drops, it swings and it swings back. And on the swing back, you can catch it with your toe. That's what I do. Oh, I love that. Wow, I never even thought about this, but that's what I do. Yeah, it's good when you've been doing it since you were negative six years old. Yeah. I just slide in on the.

first go. That would be ideal. I don't do the pedal on top. Oh, you don't? Yeah. And you think the torch is open wide enough for that? I mean, it's so far so good. I mean, ocean side, they're not as quick and seamless as a single strap tri-shoe, but I think

if you put a little bit of body glide just around the rim of it and your feet are a little bit wet, you can. What percentage of pros do you think in 70.3 in Iron Man Racing are using triathlon specific shoes versus a road shoe? I'd say more and more pros now are using road shoes just because the bow is. open so wide now. Yeah. And I think people realize just like the comfort of having this a great, great shoe design specifically for this is worth the however many seconds you lose from a faster shoe transfer. For sure. And our last question here is from Ryan. Hello, Paula,

Eric and Nick. First, thanks for all you do for the sport and for your honesty about the tough races. It helps to know the training challenges mental and physical aren't limited to us age groupers. Along those lines, I'm curious about rest days for you all. While we get a good picture of what your training and personal life look like, I'd like to know what your rest days look like and how often you take them, what you do or don't do. And on those days, diet, et cetera, anything that comes up. Thanks for all you do. Okay, so on rest days, we wash the van, we do the laundry, we take Flynn for a walk, we get groceries, we take Flynn for another walk, and then we'll clean the house, we might vacuum, we'll meal prep. So there's no rest days. We just recently

had a rest day like this where I think around 3 p.m. I was like Paula, we need to not do any more things. We have to stop because it's really easy to like just get in that, oh my gosh, I'm finally accomplishing things on my list of life. That's the problem. It's like on the hard days, you don't have time to go to the grocery store. So then on your easy days, you feel like you have to go to the grocery store. And that is, there's only so much time of the day. You just have to like, we just have to like be cognizant that we don't get on a mission to check off literally everything that's been on our box for the last two months. Yeah. But like, okay, I can save two of these things for the next rest day.

And unfortunately, we don't have full-on rest days. That's the problem. We have recovery days, which still means that we're going to the pool and we're swimming for an hour and a half. And evening, we're going to go for a 50-minute jog. So, yeah, we're still actually training that day. There's not that many things that we can, like, slide in there without it feeling like we were on our toes the whole day.

But Eric does spend... Uh-oh. Uh-oh, the yons are coming. Eric does spend a lot of time. Not that this is mentally restful at all, but editing and sitting in his computer and doing work. That's kind of physical rest and we try to like sit so our legs are up when we're doing that. We're not sitting in a chair.

We're recovering that way. But yeah, we rarely just like sit on the couch and nap, unfortunately. Maybe we should though. I just took a nap yesterday and it was glorious. It actually took a nap today for the first time. And it's rare. Yeah, only because I never feel, maybe I'm almost too wired all the time to be able to relax in the middle of the day. But today I really, really felt tired.

And maybe that's the altitude, but I had a little sleep. My training and my life got better. And I got more excited to train when I started taking one day a week completely off. Like, try not to even go for a walk. Just like, I think physically there's a lot of benefit to that. But also when I'm working really hard in the middle of an interval, knowing that in like two days I have a day where I can do absolutely nothing, I think it helps me push through that interval.

Yeah, that's a factor. I mean, we feel that even knowing we have like an easier day the next. day, even if it's not off. It's just like a mental reset day where you're kind of on your own to do things as easy as you want. Yeah. Yeah, this is kind of relative. That feels like a day off. Yeah.

Or days that we don't have to swim feel like a day off because that's just kind of like. Freeds up three hours. Yeah. I think for people who are not at your, are we trying to, are we going to do anything together? Wait, don't we have a guest on the podcast next week? We do. We do. We do have a guest in the podcast next week. Yeah.

So we don't really do guests, but this guest is super famous. I'm going to be starstruck the whole time. Let's not say it in case it doesn't happen. Okay. That's true. It's been a long time. I think she used the term, can we tentatively lock in? Yes.

And I'm like, wow, that is my new favorite phrase. We'll say this. She's not a triathlete. No, she's a and she's very cool. And we have very excited to have her on. And we have met her and hung out. We have met her and hung out. Yeah, if anyone can guess,

who it is. Okay. We will send you a TTL trail hat. Okay, great. Unless you live in a really far-way country. But I don't want people to send me in guesses. That's going to be real annoying. You could do one of the Instagram, like, questionnaire stories.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we'll do that tomorrow. We'll do that tomorrow. That's good. Okay, cool. That's fine. Thanks for listening guys, and we'll share out with me next week.

See you later. Bye. Bye. Thank you.