That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon spelling bee, running PRs, rapid fire bike repair, ERG mode, and much more!

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

In this week's show Eric shows his alien-like spelling skills in our first ever spelling bee segment. We learn about everybody's running PRs, who's the best cook, and a rapid fire bike repair segment where Eric tells us which repair should be done at home, and what is best left for the shop. Listen in to hear all the rest of the fun stuff we get into! Head over to https://thattriathlonlife.com for more.

Hello everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Paula Finlay. I'm Eric Loggersome. I'm Nick Goldston. Eric and Paula are pro triathletes and we thought we'd start a podcast. So this is episode three. Can you believe we've made it this far? No, actually. This is just, we have our regular routine now every Monday night. We just talk to Nick. Just like we did before we had the podcast. Yeah, except now we have like a blanket draped over our laptop and T computer and we're on FaceTime and there's a microphone and it's all sound quality. Matters, Eric. It's so high-tech. I love it.

The most feedback I've got from anyone is the comments about the sound quality. So that's stink to me. They're like, you guys stink, but the sound quality is primo. It really, really is. So, so when you compare it to other podcasts. So first thing I wanted to say was that you guys ran at Smith Rock last week, which is an incredible park just north of where you guys live and bend. And it's also the first time we did a real run together.

Yeah, it brought back a lot of memories. It's crazy because this place called Smith Rock is only 30 minutes away from Bend, and we rarely go just because that seems like a long way when you're just doing a run, but it is so worth a drive every time we're there. We're like, why don't we come here more often? It looks like Utah or something. Yeah, yeah, it's actually kind of, I wouldn't know if it's world-renowned, but it's definitely nationally renowned climbing locations.

Oh, it is world-renowned climbing, for sure. Yeah. For sure, world-renowned. As you're going all around it and everything, there are all these little paths that go off to the side, would people go up to actually do climbs and routes and stuff. And it's, man, it's just, yeah, it's like something out of Utah, like Paul said. The craziest thing is we ran there yesterday, or two days ago maybe.

And then today we're up at Bachelor skiing in, like, a foot of snow. And when we're at Smith Rock, it's like summertime. It's just like the climate differences here are so crazy, where you can get in 30 minutes from our house. It's like polar opposites. Well, how high can you drive there compared to? Well, first of all, what elevation has been at, and then how high can you drive? I think now I have to Google stuff I think Ben sits around like 3,200 feet

and then Bachelor I think the resort The parking lot is somewhere right around 6 maybe And then if you go all the way to the peak It's around 9,000 Oh yeah, that's a huge difference If you go to the summit Which you can actually do on skis on a good day

That's a legit mountain Paul can you confirm Ben or Bachelor I mean I come from Canada So it's not that legit Whatever you looked up You were furiously typing away on your phone I'm looking up the elevation of Ben.

That's what he's asking if you can confirm. Google confirms 3,623 feet. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay, wonderful. Well, I had one little, like, triathlon news thing that I wanted to get, I think, mostly Eric's opinion on, but Paul, feel free to chime in. The USAT has now newly developed rules for gravel triathlon, where they're banning time trial bikes, fixed gear bikes,

and aerobars of any kind. It's just like further killing the fun of gravel. Am I wrong? It's funny. I've reread that article just before we got on the call here so I could make sure that I remembered it correctly from the first time that I read it while on the trainer or whatever. And that's like the key moment right there.

The key takeaway from the article is it's like rules. It's like, don't worry. Gravel does not have rules yet, but we have rules. We got you. And then there was another line in there where the C, of USA Triathlon says something about like capitalizing on this trend. And this was on Velo News and it was just, it was a little unfortunate to me because if I was a roadie, just a road cyclist reading this, it just sounds like, oh, like USA Triathlon is just trying

to get in on the money that's going around in gravel and by, you know. Yeah, that was a very off-putting sentence. I couldn't believe it. That was too bad because like, I mean, sort of to like give the whole premise of the whole thing, really, that they've decided that there's going to be eight races, I think it is or something like that and then they've already decided one of them is going to be a national championship but okay here's a pro tip don't do intervals before the pod he's like coughing up his lungs over here i don't yeah i'm struggling i'm struggling we had a big

day um so one of them is the national championship and but you don't have to qualify for the national championship you just have to decide that you want to go and to me it's it's like why did you have to decide there's a national championship before you even have the first one. I think the best way for this to all kick off would just be to have, you know, just support some race directors that want to do this, but not try to make it into this big thing. And gravel races right now are not a series. They're just a series of, there, there are races out there that are just cool in and of themselves, like wildflower triathlon is, I mean, that's kind of like dirty cans are. It was.

Yeah. Unbound is. And I just, I think that's kind of more the essence of gravel and the road scene would be less worked up if it was going more that way. Yeah, it seemed I feel like the same thing happened in pure cycling with when gravel and they were trying to impose these rules and people kind of were revolting against that and for triathlon not to see that that same

thing was going to happen, you know, people are going to be disappointed when something that's cool and different and maybe like a little counterculture like gravel, you don't want to stifle it with rules. No. No, no, keep it fun and I think that's what triathlon needs is it does need this kind of a thing where there are

new courses out there and some adventure element to it and a little bit of unknown. But I don't know. The press release was just maybe not nailed. But I think the overall idea, like, of course, gravel triathlon would be sweet. So fun. Why not? Yeah. I think road cyclists, like, making fun of triathletes getting into gravel is a little bit

condescending because a lot of road cyclists are also new to gravel. And then they see triathletes riding gravel bikes and they think it's hilarious. But Eric and I genuinely ride our gravel bikes. like three times a week right now. So I would call myself a professional gravel rider. I was riding quote unquote gravel long before gravel bikes existed. Like in 2006 or something,

I won a road race on a bike, you know, on a bicycle, not a triathlon that had like 18 miles of gravel in it. And it was just a road race where it had a gravel road in it, you know? So we did that, we did the overland triathlon in 2000. 2015. It's just, okay, so everybody got into gravel during COVID, and now that you're like, oh, no one else can get into gravel. Come on, we all just want to have fun. Chill out.

Yeah, the cyclist triathlete weird thing, it's like, I feel like it's more, it's supposed to be more of a joke at this point. Like, no one should be actually condescending. Yeah, I agree. And maybe it is. I mean, we're all just trying to stay safe and not ride on the actual roads. Okay, well, I had a funny little game to play. I'm not sure if I'm crazy, but I thought we would do a little like a triathlon spelling bee to get us warmed up here. Am I crazy? Well, you told us, you gave us a little teaser that you might do this. And I must say Eric is the best speller of all time.

That is a secret hidden talent of his. I must say this is ridiculous, but I'll go along with it. Just give Eric the hardest words and he'll just like spit it out as if he didn't even have to use his brain. It's just like there. Okay, great. Okay, so easy first one that may stump some people. I'm going to add a little dinging sound, by the way, after when you get them right.

Triathlon. How do you spell triathlon? T-R-I-T-H-L-O-N. So it's not triathlon. I mean, I enjoy spelling it triathal lawn for fun. I feel like a lot of people enjoy it without realizing that that's wrong. Maybe that's a T-shirt. There's no A between triath and lawn.

It's just triathlon. Okay, next word. Sounds like a children's insult, but it's actually a workout type. F-A-R-T-L-E-K. Oh, wow, you're not kidding. You really can't just spit it out. Are you like a spelling savant? I don't know.

That's just how my brain works. All right. Next, an aerobic. A-N-A-E-R-O-B-I-C. Jesus. That is correct. Okay, cassette. C-A-S-S-E-T-E.

That's correct. I would have gotten already two of these wrong. How about Criterium? C-R-T-E-R-U-M. Wow. Okay, this is where they get hard. This is where they get hard. Periodization.

P-R-I-O-D-I-T-I-N. What is wrong with you? Okay, yes, that's correct. Okay, and this is the one that I would say 90% of triathletes cannot spell correctly. I would be within that. The word is derailer. Do you want to take a guess? No.

So it's not just me. Paula, I'll tell you how I would spell derailer. D-E-R-A-I-L-U. U-R-E? Close. That's really close. Close. The letters were all there.

Okay, the way that I have to do like out loud spelling is write it on my hand. I can't do it just by thinking about it like Eric can. The way I have to do it is type it into Google and say, did you mean? And then yes, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah. Because I can't spell it off. Auto-correct. All right, Eric, derailer. Try it. I think it's D-E-R-A-L-L-E-U-R. That's correct. Oh my God, how did you do that? Considering that Eric once misspelled his own last name on a jersey, I am surprised he got that many right.

So that's our first installment of the spelling. Maybe our last, but I'm really impressed with Eric. I don't know why I didn't see you as an ace speller. I did real good in elementary school. I didn't know this until recently. I learned to spell good. Okay, well, let's move on to some questions. The first one is from Allison Wider.

I hope that's how you pronounce your name, Allison. She said, good evening, guys, for someone who is on a weight loss journey and eager to get into triathlons, where and how do I start? I don't want to wait until I'm at competition wait to start training. Right now, I walk for a 45 to 60 minutes a day and ride in the summer on a road bike when it's warmer. Thanks for considering my question. That's a hard question. I think a really critical part of training is to not think of it as like a necessarily way to lose weight and think of it more like I have this race goal and I want to perform well. And naturally, when you do that, you will get leaner as you exercise more and eat cleaner.

And just your goal should instead of being, oh, I want to lose this many pounds, I want to race this well at this race. And I think that's an overall healthier approach to getting ready to race. And there's absolutely no limiter to when you can start training. You can absolutely start right now. You don't have to be at any sort of specific weight in order just to get out the door and go for a bike rider as you're doing already. but maybe a little bit more of a structured training plan would allow you to not give yourself an out when you don't feel like training

and lead you up to your goal race, whatever that is. Yeah, I 100% agree. And I would also add that in all of the sprint triathlons and half iron mans and even when I've seen, I've watched Iron Man races, there are quite a few people who I would say are quote unquote, they're a little bit overweight. They're not, they don't look like a pro triathlete

and they're finishing the race and maybe they're walking, whatever, but they're totally out there and doing it, and you really don't have to be, you know, 2% body fat to do a triathlon at all. I think a lot of people who haven't done one yet would be surprised at the different types of people that actually do races. You know, maybe they won't be the ones winning, but you really see all kinds of different bodies that are crossing finish line. So I totally agree.

Maybe one tip I would add is pick a race that's like five months out, a sprint distance race. sign up for it and then get a plan that gets you on the road to that. This is Nick's training's plan schedule. He picks a race and he works backwards. I was speaking of which, we had the grand reveal? No, not yet. We're doing it right now.

So last week, I revealed to Eric and Paul that I was going to do my first full distance Iron Man. And I opened up the, I opened up to TTLN. Yeah, I sure did. to let people email me or message me and tell me what their recommendation was for a first race. And I got a lot of messages, a lot. That's amazing. So I have the votes all tallied right here, and I also have made my decision. But we got three votes for Canada, three votes for Wisconsin, one for Chattanooga, two for Arizona, one for St. George, which, why would that be your first full distance race?

That should never be a full distance race. Two for Patagon Man. Patagon Man. That would be very cool. Which would also be extremely hard. One for Keltman. Kelp Man. That's another extreme triathlon.

Yep. Four for Lake Placid. Two for Monta-Tram Blanc. One for Cordill, one for Cozumel, and one for Alaska. So I think what's cool about, what's interesting about this is like these are all great, great races. Maybe not the best first one, but in terms of race experience, They're all hard, but they're all so cool. The locations and courses are awesome.

Yeah. So what's your decision? I think because of the timing, and I really want my parents to be able to come and hang out, and they're in Italy for six months of the year. So I think I'm going to do Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. I like it. I think Lindsay is one of her favorite races, I think. Yeah, she's won it a lot.

She's the queen of Wisconsin. There you go. So I think I'm going to do Wisconsin. It's in September. And I'm just excited to, it looks like the course is very beautiful, very spectator friendly. It'll be memorable and fun and a place I've never been. And plus Trixie's from Wisconsin. We can't not make it through an episode without.

You brought up Trixie, not me. I did this time. Fair game. Right. But yeah, so that's the idea. I think I want to do Iron Man Wisconsin. So training starts on Monday. Awesome.

What day will you be doing autograph signing? Oh, that'll be Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, of course. The lines will be too long. We'll be there too, as your support staff. Great, yes. No, you definitely are not coming to Wisconsin to not race. I will not allow that. We'll see.

We'll see. Okay, great. So, Mikhail asked, what are your running PRs on different distances outside of triathlon? So, and the grass of the question goes into detail, but they just mean, like, not off the bike. Yeah. I don't really have any because I have never run a straight up half marathon without a triathlon before it. I have done a 10K in the 10K is 3330, but I was a good ITU runner back in the day. I was a fast track runner in university.

So my track times are actually decent. I don't remember them, but I was competitive. That I think catapulted me into actually being pretty good at ITU because it always comes down to the end in a sprint finish, and I was a good 800 meter runner on the track. So literally every race in ITU that I won, and I go back and watch them sometimes, it did come back to, come down to the last 800, and I would just pull away because I had that speed from the track. So for any young kids, and I don't think young kids listen to podcasts.

But I do think it's a good way to start the sport is to be on a swim team and run track. Yeah, because the biking is really the easiest thing to do later. Yeah, and you don't have to do quite as much of it when you're racing IT. you as you do when you're racing Ironman. Right. Eric, do you know yours? Yeah, yeah, I've got a couple, I guess. I ran two years of track in college, and the fastest I went on the track was 32-17.

So I was wildly mediocre. That seems really, really fast to me, but okay. Barely enough to qualify for nationals in NAA, which is something like D3 sort of level of quality. But a few years later, focusing on triathlon full-time, living in San Diego, I ran 30, 49 on the road. Wow. And that's my 10KPR. I think it's interesting that when you start training for triathlon, a lot of people will actually start running faster times, even though they're run volumes a lot less, just because they're getting fitter from cycling and swimming. Because their overall volume is so much higher probably. Exactly. Yeah. So you take less pounding on your

legs maybe, but yeah, it's surprising how fast you can still run with a triathlon training background. Right. Okay, Nick, drop us with your PBs. My PB that I only, the one I care about is the 5K, and that was now two years ago, but it was 1856 on the road. You can do that faster. Yeah, I could do faster now, I think. And then I just did a mile, like a month ago, and it was 530, so I don't got no speed, unfortunately. That's why you're doing Wisconsin.

Yes, that's right. Low and slow, baby. I think this question also said at the bottom of it, what is Flynn's 5K? Oh, that's correct. If I remember correctly. What do you think Flynn could do in a 5K? I think he would go out in like a three-minute K. Right.

Maybe faster, but really die at the end. So I'm thinking he might go like a 16-minute 5K. What do you think, Eric? With pacing help attached to a leash, I think he could go on sub-16 for sure. Yeah, you'd have to be attached to a fast person though. I mean, possibly even faster. He usually really slows down around 10 minutes into a run, but up until that point, I mean, we've clocked him at like 28 miles an hour.

28. I mean, on paper, he should be able to do a 9-minute 5K, but we cannot confirm his endurance. We were watching the episode, Toby, my girlfriend and I were watching the episode, and she asked me how far he could run. I remember Paula, like a year ago saying that he could run about 10K. It's still about right. We try to keep him under 10K, especially if it's hot.

We don't really go even over like 4K with him. But in the cold and the snow, he can last a little longer. And if I keep him on a leash, he can last longer because he's a little more controlled with his pace. But he's a little more grown up now. He just turned two a few days ago. Yeah, I saw that. So his joints are kind of all done growing and that makes it easier to up his volume a little bit. Because as he was growing, and he truly did grow for basically two years straight because he's such a big.

dog. He would get like joint pain and stuff if we ran too much with him and be limping the next day. And that was a sign that we needed to ease off. And it's crazy because he has so much energy. You feel like you could just run with him all day. But you really still do have to be careful, even with energetic dogs because they have potential, you know, growth. Well, I was going to, that kind of makes me wonder about something else. Do you have any, like, tips for someone who is very active, who's already racing triathlon, who maybe wants a dog? And maybe they, maybe. What kind of dog to get?

Yeah, or anything really. The laziest dog you can find. Right. A bastard hound. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, we went back and forth on this when we were looking at dogs because we, you know, you can kind of go one of two different directions.

You go with the super active dog that wants to go, that you can take running, but you have to take running. Or you go with the, you know, the bulldog or the pug or something like that that is totally fine, just sit on the couch. Can't breathe. Right. And just chill when you get back. Because inevitably, if you don't take it on your workout with you, you get back from your four-hour bike ride, and it's been home for four hours, and you have to go walk the dog.

And if it's an energetic dog, that's a minimum 30-minute thing. Yeah, but the flip side is that we truly love running with Flynn. Like, it brings me so much joy to run with him. So I can't take him on workouts, but right now I'm not really doing workouts. I'm just running base miles. So it is such a fun thing for me to take him with me. and I prefer personally to have the hunting dog dog type of an activity level.

Not like a chihuahua that you can just let out in the backyard and they can just go crazy. No, I don't want to run with them. So the perfect answer to this question really is if you want to know how much Flynn runs, go follow him on Strava. That's correct. Wait, what's Flynn's Strava handle?

It's Flynn the G-W-P. Right, and Flynn is F-L-Y-N-N, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you can't find that, ultimately you could go look at Paula or my runs and eventually you'll find when where Flynn was with us. Yeah, because he's added, you know, he's out on our activities with us. The titles are so funny and it's all Eric's doing. It's not me.

I love, I love it. What do you mean? It's not Flynn actually typing this out? The last one was, why leashes, ducks aren't going to chase themselves. Hashtag footwork. Hashtag vid coming sued. Charge down misery ridge like we own it. I love it.

I love it. He's got a little bit of an attitude. Of course. And one time we took him in the car to have coffee and then Eric ran home with him. We were having coffee. Then we were running. Then we were home. Insane.

Where's the car? Anyway, we think it's funny. You guys might not think it's funny. It's worth it for us. Okay, next question. Eric's a sleeper comedian, by the way. Y'all may not know this because he's so serious on the show, but he's pretty funny. Yeah, especially with Flynn.

Okay, so next question. Hey, yo. Longtime. fan friend question mark, are we friends question mark of the TTL squad? Like I have the OG Forest Green T-shirt and coffee mug. Wow. Receipts. Okay, I really like these questions. One is, who will win the couples championship? Oh, that's a good question. Have we even brought up on the pod yet that we're racing the couple's championship? Oh, yeah, yeah. So go ahead, because this is, I think this is so cool. I think we could go into a whole episode about this, but yeah, we'll intro it right now.

Just a real quick debrief on what it is. One of our big supporters, Ben, from Waterfell Bank, is putting on this couple's triathlon. And it basically is for couples that are both pro triathletes that race individually normally. But this is a relay format. So you're on a team with your significant other. And it goes sprint distance, but each athlete does two sprint distance races. So it'll be me, Eric, me, Eric, or I don't know what the order is. But pretty good lineup of athletes.

It's like Josh Hamburger and Ashley Gentle, Vincent Louis and Taylor Spivey, Matt Sharp and Kristen Casper. If you go down the list, it's like, wow, I didn't even realize there were this many couples, but there are and they're all really fast. They are coming out of the woodwork. And can amateurs couples race or is it only pro? No, this is only a pro race maybe in the future. The way I'm looking at it is this is the reward for all the pro-traithlet couples who put up with each other and manage. to stay together through bike rides and runs together. This is the moment where it pays off.

Because there's a big prize purse. Like winning is 100 grand. That's like Kona, right? That's like PTO championship. Wow. So if we win, we're retiring. Great, perfect. Perfect.

No, that's really cool. We legitimately have a shot because I feel like we're all, Eric and I are both pretty well-rounded across all three. And there's some really fast ITU couples coming, but they don't ride time trial bikes. And so to jump on a TT bike, it's only 20K on the bike times two, so 40 total. But it is a different kind of riding. So maybe I'm slower on the swim than the ITFast Girls,

but I feel like my bike can equalize that a little bit. And so I think it'll be a super interesting race just to see the dynamics between athletes of different backgrounds, basically, all coming together. Right. The second round is going to be really interesting. because back in the day when they did the island house triathlon and you did two times through just like this, first round through ITU, everybody amazing second round through. It like shit got real all of a sudden. And then the 70.3 people started coming on and it was so it's super fascinating.

It could be really cool. The aerobic fitness comes in a little bit more. Especially considering this is March 6th. That's so early in the year. And I'm nervous a little bit to get too fit for it because there's a lot of important races in the summertime. So everyone's kind of balancing this edge of like, yeah, we really really. want to win this, but we also want to be careful and not get fit too fast. So that's at least the balance we're teetering with. It's so much. It's a really big prize. It's a big prize to win,

but it drops off quick. So second third is not that much. So you're like, do we put all our eggs in this basket? Maybe we do. We'll just have to see. And then she has two more questions, Katie, and I really like both of them. The second one is who's the best cook in the group and who cooks the most. Paula, it's so obviously Paula. Paula is a fantastic cook. I would not call myself a fantastic cook, but I do take the role of cooking when it's Eric and I in the house. And Nick, if I remember correctly, you don't really like cooking. That's correct. Yeah. That is so accurate. You're like, how do I boil water? I'm just like, the less time it takes, the happier I am, regardless of how bad it takes. Same with us. Yeah, same with us. Speed is important for us, but we do have like five or six

meals that we rotate through. And Eric's usually honestly editing, so I'll make dinner. Yeah. I can cook, but it's very, very basic. Paula is the only one that if given a little bit extra time might get creative. Yeah, I'll take a recipe and make it. I take the pasta and make it. Maybe with red sauce or maybe with olive oil. You would die without Toby and I. Yes, 100%. She cooks great stuff. She's cooking currently, actually. Yeah, Toby, I think, is the best cook of all of if she's included. She's good. She tries new stuff.

That's what I'm just not willing to do. Yes. And then last little thing from Katie is do you guys use Erg mode on the trainer? Yes, 100% all the time. Eric. 100% no. Yeah. Never.

Yeah. Well, actually, I guess like what exactly do we mean by that? Because like we use Zwift and so that like gives you feedback. But I definitely do not like doing intervals where you set it at the wattage and then hang on for dear life. No, I like, yeah. I like a little bit more. more real feel where I can go above and below, just teeny bits, you know. That's the difference between Eric and I.

Like, if we have intervals, especially really short, Tabata style intervals, where it's 30 seconds hard, 15 seconds off, I like pre-programming that into Zwift, so the kicker will tell me what it to do, go up to the watts I need to do, and then go back down when the interval's over, instead of just, like, lapping your watch and thinking about when it's over. For, like, longer intervals, I'll usually take Erg mode off because I actually find that I can go, my watts are higher than if I had pre-programmed. Like if I do a 10-minute in a roll, I think I'm going to go 250, but I take Ergmogoff, I'll do 260, you know.

It gives yourself the opportunity to surprise yourself. That is exactly why I like it. And Eric, don't you use a rollers sometimes? Yeah, yeah, I actually do. Sometimes if I'm feeling particularly not wanting to be constrained in any way or needing extra stimulation. I'll do the rollers, and you can run,

you can just run Zwift off of your power meter reading and kind of still have the experience, but ride the rollers and work on your balance. And I've got some sort of ADHD or ADHD or I don't know what it is, but the more inputs and stimulation and things, the better.

Yeah. Nick, you don't ride the trainer ever. Is that correct? That's correct. Because you live in California. Yeah, but I mean, I know tons of people who ride the trainer. I just can't bring myself to do it. It's like torture.

Yeah. When you were staying with us, you did a power test on the trainer. Yeah. That was like so painful. It was not. Also, it was on Eric's bike, not on my bike. But yeah, it was like, I was expecting to get like 300 FTP and it was like 277 or something like that.

And I was just like, I can't do this. Yeah, I also find if you don't ride the trainer a lot, your watts are significantly different versus outside, whereas Eric and I are more used to ride. it so I think we can get closer to our outside watts. On certain things, yeah. For people who don't know what erg mode is on a trainer, you can set it so that if you have intervals or anything, you can set it so that regardless of your cadence,

it's going to try to keep you at an exact wattage number, an exact power number, which can be really helpful for complex intervals. You don't have to think. You just keep pedaling, and it gets harder and easier. Yeah, but I also like about it is, I won't drag on too much with this, but if you increase your cadence,

the tension naturally decreases, you're staying at a certain wattage. So if you have like a one minute interval at 300 watts coming up and you pick up your cadence to 95, the tension won't be like this, you know, pounding halt feeling. It'll kind of naturally build yourself into it. So it's cool. I like it. Good questions. This is my favorite question of the week, for sure, because I remember when this, the same question occurred to me and I was kind of like, it felt like a peek behind the curtain. It was when I started hang out with you guys more and you guys introduced me to some of your friends. And it's just like, oh, all pro-tra athletes are friends with each other? Question marks? So this is a question from

Zach Temple. He said, you talked a bit about Lionel and mentioned Holly Lawrence sending you a text, things like that. Are all the pros friends? Is there a big group I message? Are you guys pals with the full Iron Man crew just as much as a 70.3 years? Most pros seem super friendly, but some give me vibes that competition is business. And there's no room for friendship in that. Do I have that right? PTO content before Collins Cup has definitely seemed to try to kick up some rivalry and competitive spirit to make things more enjoyable for fair weather fans. But I feel like it may have jaded the view of how the pros interact with each other some. I guess I could just kick it off with the PTO is definitely hamming it up. Hamming it up a little bit.

A lot of bit. Yeah, there are some rivalries and stuff. But for the most part, I think triathletes are from the most. part pretty introverted or keep themselves and you build that up in your head more so than getting on Instagram or Twitter and like, I'm going to go crush so and so because they, you know, looked at me funny. Yeah. The PTO is awesome and I think they really make this sport exciting, the social media team anyway,

but they often do take things a little bit out of context and use it to spin a rivalry or something. And in the interview questions they give, they often say like, who's your biggest rival? And then you might say something like, oh, sometimes it's this person. And they just like highlight it. So you're like, oh, I didn't mean that. Just kidding. So you really have to be careful how you answer those questions. But I would say I'm friends with several pro triathletes and like friendly with a lot of people.

Everyone's super nice. Like I honestly can't think of a single pro triathlete who I've had like a negative interaction with to the point where I wouldn't want to talk to them. And some I'm just closer with others than others because I've trained with them. Like I've trained with Ellie Salt House a lot. Lindsay Corbin obviously had that. Jackson. So there's a lot of, you know, close relationships that you develop just from training with someone side by side for sessions on sessions. Yeah, I would say that there's like a few different tiers of like there's people who you've been to races with a bunch and you're like me

and Ben Canute, for example, like we did ITU together and we're frequently kind of in the same point in the pack and so we can kind of swap stories after the race. And so there's a bit of a friendship there. And then there's kind of the level of, oh, I just have like a strong respect for so so and so, even though I necessarily haven't worked with them in a group or talk to them that much. And then there's maybe, you know, on the far end of that, people who are like, I just get a weird vibe or I don't, like, I don't, don't feel a need to talk to. No, we won't, we won't. Just kidding.

Just, and that's just like almost based on race dynamics as much as anything. But then it is, it is also super interesting because, because you, you'll meet somebody at a race. I'm going to just use Gwen as an example. Like when I met Gwen for the first few times at WTS. Gwen who? Gwen G. Gwen G. Olympic gold medalist in triathlon.

Yeah, Olympic gold medalist, Gwen Jorgensen. I met her at a couple of WTS races, and I just felt like she couldn't give me the time of day, and I just felt like she was so above it, but she was getting ready to try to defend a world title. And then fast forward a couple years later, and she comes to bend and is looking to see if she wants to move here, and I think she's so friendly, and her kid is great,

and she just seems like a totally normal person. So we don't always 100% know, just based on meeting someone at a race, whether or not they're stressed or how they're feeling. And everyone's stressed. Everyone's getting ready to compete, and everyone wants to beat everyone. So there is a little bit of weird vibes that happen at races.

But I think also what's interesting is seeing our peers on social media because you get sometimes a different idea of them or what they're like when you see their Instagram and their captions and their videos and everything. And they're not like that in real life, possibly. So, yeah, I think it's really hard to judge someone based on race, like Eric said, race situations or even just on social media. But having real conversations with people like Jackie Herring is amazing. She's so nice all the time every time we talk to her.

And just people like Holly, you know, we have a good relationship with her. We'll always chat and catch up with her at races and would love to like organize to train with her someday maybe. I'd say like 99.9% of the time no matter what happened on race day for the most part the next day when you're Well, that's what I was going to say from my point of view when I came to worlds where Eric raced and did really well. So there was like the day after there was, or maybe it was the same day, I don't remember, but there was that like event, that gala kind of thing where the top 10 men and top 10 women, I think, pros were like, remember we were up in those box seats and we were looking down. And as an amateur, it was just all these pros that, who I recognized, and all of them were just talking like their old friends. So maybe before the race, stuff was a little tense, but then after that, it seems like everyone's best friends. And even, like, I met Holly there, and I just was on a run on Sunday and ran by her and recognized her.

And she was super nice. Every pro that I've met through you guys has been super nice. I mean, I'd say, I don't know, I think people like to watch reality TV and kind of assume that there's all these rivalries. And the PTO knows this and they try to capitalize on it. But it seems like everyone in pro triathlon is just super nice. I agree. Yeah. Good question.

Okay. So next question here. I have a question for you that I constantly wonder about, actually, is FTP is something that I think amateurs think about a lot. And I've come to realize that maybe pros do not think about FTP as much. And for those who don't know, FTP stands for functional threshold power. And it's roughly the amount of power that you can hold on a bicycle for an hour, the maximum average power that you could hold.

And ideally, if you do it for a whole hour, then at the end, you're just totally spent. and amateurs based a lot of their training and a lot of their fitness off of what their FTP is. How much does that play into your training? How much do you think about it? Basically not at all. At least me. I don't think about it at all.

From the most part, what's in my brain is more kind of my sensation or idea of what I can hold for a 70.3, which is not hugely different than an FTP at this point. But yeah, in terms of like, do we go about our days thinking about how we can raise our FTP? Not really, no. Yeah, I think our coach bases a lot of our workout. He doesn't really prescribe exact numbers, but it is much more based around our 70.3 watts than our FTP, which would be like our Olympic distance watts.

We don't really do power tests, but every athlete's going to be so different. I bet the Norwegians pay attention to our FTP. They're like, my FTP is 303.91. You know, it's just like to the hundredth of a decimal point. Yeah, right. So I don't pay attention too much to it. However, I do have an idea of what it would be. Right, right.

That's something to realize and know it might be like 30 watts higher than my 70.3 watts and target that on some intervals. But yeah, it's definitely not a sole focus of our training. And it is also very coach dependent. Like our coach isn't big about it, but I'm sure a lot of coaches are. So not a bad metric. Similarly, what about as far as like calorie intake, do you guys both just go off of feel.

Like you're like, I'm hungry so I'm going to eat. Do you ever worry about like, oh, this kind of workout is coming up. I'm going to be neat. I need more carbs for this kind of thing. Like how granular do you get with this kind of stuff? Yeah.

This is kind of funny. This morning at 7 a.m. We were supposed to leave for the pool at 7.30 and the doping control people showed up at the door. And for me, not for Eric. And I had just gone to the bathroom, like, didn't have to pee.

So I took me like 90 minutes to actually get a sample. And by that point, or extremely late for swimming. I forgot to eat breakfast, got to the pool and was like completely bonked. Like couldn't even do a 50 because I didn't eat breakfast. I'm like, how did this, how did I let this happen? So you do bonk, huh?

So I do bonk. That's my worst balk story. Call back to last episode. And I got out of the pool after like 3K. I'm like, this is not worth it. But in terms of timing, like I have such a routine. Like normally I'd wake up and have toast, but that was very interrupted by the type of morning I had today.

And that fuels me through swimming. And I think we both are pretty. routine in terms of like what we eat and the timing before a run versus a bike, but not so much in terms of like micronutrient balance and stuff like that. I don't know about you, Eric, but I mean, I did a lot of work with a nutritionist years ago and I think got a pretty good idea out of, you know, a few months of kind of focusing on calories and micronutrient balance to where I can do it pretty intuitively now. And yeah, pretty much a creature of habit in terms of having cereal and a certain leftover for lunch and we always have a very balanced dinner and

everything. But when it comes into like the actual race and training nutrition, I do get a little bit more into that. Like I always make sure I have 150 calories in each bottle and I bring a picky bar and, you know, depending on, you know, 150 calories per hour per bottle and then always have a protein shake when we get back from the workout. And I've just found the better that I do with the in-workout fueling and in-race fueling, it's almost linear, like, with how good my performance is. Wow. One-to-one.

Yeah, like incredible an hour four if I hit 300 calories an hour on a long bike ride versus just garbage after two hours if I don't. Right. But I also remember that when you guys did your inside tracker, which is the service that Eric and Paul have partnered with where you can send in blood samples and they kind of give you some feedback on where you're at

things that you can do to improve it with diet. And I know that, Eric, I remember you had, maybe it was something about eating more like tree nuts or something like that, and you, like, incorporated that more into your diet. It became a squirrel. Yeah. I mean, I was kind of like, I'm already eating, you know, three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a day.

I don't know what more I can do. It was more of a varied amount, you know, different types of nuts. But that was, yeah, more of a, we saw that there was a, you know, a low, blood number with a thing that could be corrected by a diet. And it wasn't necessarily like a hit this certain number of grams of tree nuts per day. Just like try to do better. And having more variety. Yeah, we don't measure. We don't measure stuff. Right. We just eat pretty much intuitively. Right. Like I want a cupcake? I'll eat a cupcake. I mean, I always want a cupcake. So I'm just

constantly eating cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, ice cream. Oh, I was speaking of which Maybe not too intuitively. No, yeah. No, if I'm being honest, if I'm really listening to my body, it rarely is telling me to have the cupcake. I just know it's going to feel good. Some party is telling you to have the cupcake, though. But it's amazing how, like, if you really ask yourself,

like, do I really want this cookie right now? Sometimes it's yes, but sometimes it's like, I want it because I know it's going to feel good, but it's not really what I really want right now. It's going to feel good. What I really want is some white rice with... Tuna, like, no. That's not right.

Paula, did you have any rapid questions? Rapid fire. Well, I did last week and then... Rapid fire. Do we have a... We need like a rapid fire theme song. Rapid fire. Let me add some backstory here.

So I just had a horrifically bad time trying to bleed my rear break on a Shimano-Otegra. It was one of the most frustrating moments of my life. I know, I know. Paula was like getting all mad at me for texting on the treadmill. Like Nick is in a situation.

I got to help a brother out. Eric's in between intervals texting. And I'm like, just focus on your workout for literally 10 minutes. It wasn't a word. It was some strides. Anyway, go ahead. So the question I have for you is this is for people who aren't necessarily bike mechanics. I'm going to go through a list of things that you think people should either learn to do or bring it to the shop.

Okay. Oh, all right. Okay. First one is inner tube replacement. Do it yourself, definitely. Do it yourself. Easy. You're going to be out on a road sometimes stranded, so.

For sure. You can't just call an Uber every time. No. What about setting up your tubeless tires? That's like 50-50. Right. If you're into bike stuff and you don't mind getting dirty? Right.

Because I have had some very, I've done it and I've had some, sometimes it goes really easy. Sometimes it is the worst experience of your life. Yeah. I'd say like put 45 minutes into it. If it's not happening, take it at the bike shop, pay the $15 and be riding in an hour. What about bleeding brakes? I would say 99% of people should not do that.

Yeah, I will agree with that. And definitely don't buy the cheap break bleed kit off of Amazon because you don't want to buy the official Shimano one. I regret that very much. No, go official. And I will say Shimano's a little easier to do yourself. The SRAM procedure is a little bit, you have to be a little bit more

attentive to detail. And Stram uses that DOT fluid, right? Which is highly corrosive. Yeah. A little bit more of a thing. If you work on cars and stuff, you'll be fine, but if you're just like, I wonder if I should learn a thing on my bike today. This is not the time. Don't start with the brakes.

What about truing a wheel? Definitely not, never, ever. No way. Unless you have like the actual wheel truing like tool and course. I mean, like knowledge? No, I would never, ever. You're just, you're going to make it worse. Yep, for sure.

So fast. Yeah. Okay, what about derailer alignment, one of our spelling B words? Like, do you mean your derailer's out of tune? Yeah, like, it needs to be re-indexed. Hmm. I think if you're patient and you watch a YouTube video, like, it's a fairly straightforward process, but again, you could also just make it a little bit worse and end up in a bike shop.

Yeah, I think it's worth it, though, because what are you really going to do that wrong with that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. If it's doing something real weird, take it in. But if it's just clicking a bit, that's like pretty quick to figure out. And then something like lubing a chain, like I feel like I know people who bring their bike to a bike shop to loop a chain. I mean, you know, if you got that much money and you just want to. That's right.

I mean, the time it takes to drive the bike to the bike shop and drive it back is longer than it should take you to loob the chain yourself. Back when I worked in a tri shop, we did have a couple of pretty well off customers that would bring their bike in just to get clean. They would ride it in the rain, and they'd just bring it in and say, I just want to pick it up clean and with the chain. And if you see anything, you know, just fix it if there's anything wrong. Wow. That's next level. Yeah, so they were paying, yeah, they were paying like 50 bucks for a super clean bike

and maybe a new chain or whatever. But yeah, lubing your chain, no problem. You can do that. I just found out that Super Bowl tickets here are like over $5,000. So, and to me, I can't imagine spending that much money on a football game. So $50 to clean the bike somehow makes more sense than that to me. So we each of our things, I guess. To get into the nitty gritty to clean a bike is not that fun.

It's not fun. Yeah. You can take it to someone to like take apart the... Well, yeah, but I don't think that's what they're... I don't think that's what they're talking about. They're just like wiping down the frame. Oh yeah. I actually enjoy that.

I do it every time I ride. Every time you ride? No way. You do not. One of us does it every time she rides. Got it. Well, it's really... We take so much.

any videos. Oh yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. You don't want them to be covered in dust and dirt. So I give it a little wipe down. I'm like once a month. Well, you live in a very different place. We get, the bikes get dirty here pretty quick. Right, right, right, right. I will say just this is not rapid, obviously, but like, it is not, it is a great idea to bring your bike into a bike shop every three months just for like a general tune up and look over just in case your brake cable's about to snap or something like that. I agree. I agree. Just taking it in, even if you walk out of their, having paid 15 bucks for them to look at it. Great, peace of mind. Yeah, we were doing hill repeats the other day,

and one of my brakes just wasn't working because I hadn't rid that bike in three months. It was just my road bike, which was sitting in the garage. I've been riding my gravel bike and my TT bike, and it was a little scary. That's exactly what happened to me. I hadn't been riding my road bike. I ran my mountain bike and my rear brake didn't work. That's why I had to bleed it. I don't understand just breaks. Like if they just sit there forever, for months and months, do they just stop working? Well, there's like pressure in a hydraulic system with fluid. it in there. And after a while, air can get in there or dirt can get in there. And then there's no, the pressure doesn't do anything anymore. Right. So then you've got to re-bleet it and tear your eyeballs

out. Yes, exactly. It depends how well it was done the first time as well. Right, right. Okay, real quick, bottom bracket replacement, don't do it yourself. Bottom brackets are the bane of my existence. There's so many different standards and so many different tools to do it. Yeah, you really want a bottom bracket it pressed for that and it's a process to take it off and put it on properly and torque and just don't don't mess with it great okay good well thank you Eric sick rapid fire question thank you that was a fun segment I needed that I liked that that was great well there's more we kept plenty more so many so many bike maintenance things I do have a rapid fire question from a listener actually and we can all answer this one uh Sean Brock if you could have one last meal in your life

what would it be? Wow, the hard-hitting questions. I can't believe someone's interested in knowing this. I feel like I've been training for this question my whole life. I would have pizza in our own oven. Pizza was the first thing that came to my head, but then I thought, no, no, no, I would need, it would have to be a 10,000 calorie sweet frozen treat. Some kind of ice cream with a brownie on top shoved into a chocolate chip cookie drizzled with hot fudge.

Good one. I would have that for dessert. Eric. I honestly, I think I might have, I'm just thinking of a specific dish from a specific restaurant, but I had this amazing noki dish once that had duck. Rapid fire. Yep. Duck, yoki and like this crazy sauce.

It was like creamy sauce, but then had like a plum sauce next to it. And it was just, I ate it like the slowest I've ever eaten anything ever. Things I didn't know about Eric Lagerstrom. Fantastic Speller loves duck noki and a plum sauce. As is last meal ever. I didn't even know that. I've never made him that before. It's hard to do.

It's really hard to do right. Okay, so I think that is an awesome place to end it. Something that we never say on YouTube is like and subscribe. But if you did like this, we're glad you liked it. And we'll see you next week. We'll listen with you, talk to you. Very nice. Hang out next week.

Very nice. Well, thank you guys. And you can send your questions into that triathlon life brand at gmail. This is so fun for us. We really appreciate everyone who watches. Oh my God, I actually didn't even mean to say that. Wow. We really appreciate everyone who listens. And we are glad you enjoy it. Thank you, Nick, for doing all the hard work with the editing. My pleasure. See you next week, guys. Thank you. Bye. Talk to you next week. Bye, guys.