That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon stocking stuffers, foot stress fractures, max heart rate, running with your dog, and more!

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

This week we have a special, quick Thanksgiving episode. We start out with a call to action to vote in the PTO poll for best pro athlete content, (vote in Instagram stories here @professionaltriathletesorg) and then we move onto your questions. Questions about how max heart rate relates to fitness and age, how easy or hard it is to run with your dog, recovering from a stress fracture, and more! To become a podcast supporter as well as submit your own questions for the podcast, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com

Hey, everyone. Welcome to that triathlon live podcast. I'm Eric Logstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And we're starting off this podcast with a breaking news update. Oh my God. Here we go. I love it. I love it. I love it. We are locked in battle for, I don't even know what it is, the content awards of triathlon as done by the professional triathletes organization. That's right. And we need everyone, all of you and TTL Nash, to help us win this. Yeah. So as of now, there's a poll out with us and Lou.

Lucy Charles for the semifinal. And the other semifinal is Sam Long versus Lionel Sanders. Lionel's winning by a landslide. We're in a tight battle with Lucy. And Holland is an amazing job of Lucy's videos. So it's a fair battle. I didn't think we were going to even be close.

I thought they were going to beat us. But right now we're ahead by like 6%. So if that holds, we'll be going up against Lionel. And we will for sure need TTL Nation to get behind us here. Every last one of you. The upset of the century, it will be. I think it'll be, like, maybe we have a 5% chance of beating Lionel, but this means nothing. It's just for fun, but also Eric works really hard at the video YouTube.

Nick works really hard at the podcast. We're all about having fun. Yeah, yeah. So this is a re-recording of the intro with this breaking news, but Nick's going to edit this in, and we will return to our recording that we did on Monday. Yep, so to vote, you just have to go to the PTO Instagram, stories, that's where they're hosting the polls. Yeah, and it'll take you two seconds, and we all know you're on Instagram anyway, so

do us a favor. What's the name of the account? It's professional triathletes organization, I think, right? Yeah, yeah. I think if you put in PTO and you have looked at triathlon things before, it'll probably figure it out for you. Yeah. It didn't work for my dad when I had him voted earlier.

So if that doesn't work for you, yeah, he's not as tribe-obsessed as most of us. Yeah, and I mean, we're all linking it on our stories because we're like, freaking obsessed. with this. You know what? Linnell probably doesn't even know it's going on. He's like, wait, what? There's a while happening? This is this is really TFL versus Talbot. This is Eric. This is Eric versus Talbot.

Talbot knows. Talbot is going to like pull off some sort of marketing stunt. I am for sure. Yeah. He is so good at that. So I wouldn't be surprised. Okay, now we better cut to the real pod because I don't want people to lose interest. So we just need a Thanksgiving miracle. That's all we need.

Thanksgiving miracle. Back to regular scheduled program. Thanks for voting and enjoy the pod. Two days earlier. Okay, let's do the questions, guys, because we're on a timeline here. Rapid Fire, whole episode. It is a Thanksgiving episode. It's a little bonus.

You know, everyone else takes a day off. TTR, we don't take days off. We're for you every single day of the year. Oh, speaking of which, actually, by the time this podcast comes out, it will have been four days since the gear drop. But on Monday, before the podcast came out, We came out with a bunch of new stuff. Eric, do you want to talk about it for a second?

Going really good. It is going super well. Yeah, we put out two crew necks, a men's and a women's, and we put out two long-sleeve t-shirts, men's and women's. I assume by the time this podcast comes out, the long-sleeves may be gone, but the crew necks, we ordered quite a few. Those are holding strong.

And they're just really beautiful. The long-sleeves, we actually got a guy who is a member of TTL Nash, if you will. He designed them. He's a graphic design teacher's names Christian done. So it's a whole new graphic for us. We're super excited about it. And I mean, I always personally get a little bit nervous the night before every launch we do because I'm like, man, I don't know. Like we've sold a lot of stuff in the past and people have been excited,

but it was the box checked. Are people still excited? And it just feels like everybody still is on board so it wants to wear a TTL out in, you know, the wild and meet other people that way. So I don't know. It just makes me really proud and happy for everything we have going on. So thank you, everybody. I feel like people might not realize that these aren't made to order. You guys order these way ahead of time. You pay for them way ahead of time. And like you have inventory of them.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're really nice. I think we go two steps further than we need to with the quality. But we pick out the color of the fabric and get printing samples and the whole thing and do this like six months in advance, like you said. And yeah, we do risk a fair bit of money on it. but it's fun and nothing's more rewarding than, you know, just like walking down the street in St. George, Utah or wherever and seeing somebody wearing a hat or a t-shirt. And that's just, that's super special. So we love doing it. Yeah, love it.

I hopefully that stuff will still be around by Thursday. We can't really predict. Yeah. Some of that should be. Some of that should be. The bigger size is actually you're not selling as much because the Kroenks came out a little big this time. So we're advising people to potentially size down. Depends if you're into the oversized look or not.

Yeah, like the oversized look is kind of cool right now, and they do actually shrink a little bit when you wash them. But because of that, we're like sold out of men's smalls and, you know, it's just a little skewed. But there'll be something left. Okay, awesome. So moving on to questions. And as usual, you can submit your own questions at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. There you can also become a podcast supporter, which helps this podcast go on because we don't do ad reads as of now, as you've probably noticed. We just get straight to the fun.

Here's the first question. From Amy. Hi, Paula, Eric, Nick and Flynn. I recently was diagnosed with a stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal in my left foot. I was in a boot for four weeks, and for the last three weeks, I've just been doing some walking

in my new orthotics. The doctor suggested that I don't run for another three weeks. Only then can I do a walk slash jog. It seems that recovery is going very slow. I would like to still keep my fitness during my recovery. I know that Paula had a stress fracture

a few years back. My question for Paula is, were you still able to swim and bike during your recovery? What foot strengthening exercises do you find beneficial? I remember seeing you used a balance board. Do you find this helpful? Thanks so much, Amy. Yeah, foot stress fractures are scary because obviously you have to walk on your feet, and that delays the healing.

So I also have worn boots before for a long period of time and been out crutches for the first little bit, just to not put any weight on it at all. But throughout all of this, I still swam with a point. pole boy just avoiding pushing off the wall and then pretty quick after I rode my bike and didn't push big gears or stand up out of the saddle but was just getting exercise. So it's definitely an individual situation and I tend to push the limits a little bit when I'm coming back from these things just because it's my nature and I also have to race as my job. But it's a place you really

want to be careful with because there's not a ton of blood flow in your feet necessarily. So it could take a long time to heal if you're not really careful. And did you have any long-term problems from it? Or do you feel like the way you recovered from it was good? I don't even remember like a specific time. I just know that I've had a stress fracture in my metatarsal. That's how injured I've been over my life. I can't even remember the year when or what. But no lingering effects. I think for any kind of stress fracture after you begin the healing process and you're okay to run again, sometimes you get these like ghost pains or phantom pains because you just are so familiar with it and that's all you can think about is that one spot.

I'm nodding because that was my experience. I've had one stress fracture in my second and third metatarsals and I definitely had that like ghost pain thing. Yeah. Like you do have to be careful because maybe it's not healed yet and you don't want to push through it. But if you've listened to your physio and obeyed the timeline, and you're doing a walk run progression on soft surface. Sometimes you just have to kind of push the pain out of the way a little bit

or like what you think might be pain, just because you're so hyper-focused on it that it's, of course, you're going to feel something. Do you find that pain is a good tool to help you know if you can use it or not? Or if, uh-oh, once it hurts, you've already gone too far. Yeah, not always with a stress fracture. I think often even when it stops hurting,

it's still not okay to run yet because the bone is still fragile and healing. I feel like that's a great little piece of wisdom there. Just because it doesn't hurt doesn't mean that it's okay to do activities on. Which makes it even harder to take rest. Yeah, right. I think Lucy Charles said this too with her fracture was like, it felt fine.

I felt like I could go run, but obviously I couldn't because there was a break in my bone. But yeah, it feels better long before you should start resuming activity, I think. Yeah, unless you're like preparing for the world championships, I would just don't err on the side of pushing it. You know, why not? I don't want to, I also don't want to stir the pot, but I'm so not a fan of orthotics. Ah, yeah. They give me blisters personally, but.

They give me moreoverble blisters. And I just think that it's like the number of orthotics I've gotten made over the years back in my Olympic days where that's just the solution to getting injured. Oh, your hip hurts, you need orthotics, your foot hurts, you need orthotics, your foot hurts, you need orthotics. And they just made my issues worse and my feet less strong. I don't know. I think they do work for some people, but it's, I don't think it's the definite fix. Running on trails is good for your foot strength. And did you do the balance board? Amy was asking about that. I love the mobile board. There's a punch out on your four little toes. So your big toe is doing the work, which I guess is like a lot of the motion of running is rolling off your big toe and the

strength in the movement patterns, it helps to strengthen that. Yeah. Eric, I mean, since you broke your, you had the same thing, is there anything that Paula you feel like didn't touch on that you think would be helpful? No, I think she pretty much covered it. And just what I said, I would err on the cautious side personally, unless you just really have some really good reason to push it. When I broke my foot, I took two weeks completely off. I went camping. I just like kind of cleared my mind and then slowly started working back with a physio. And I still think I might have come back. too fast because it took a long time for me to feel like really confident in that left foot.

And maybe if I just waited an extra week and a half, I wouldn't have had that. And I think that can sometimes lead to a different issue where you're like protecting that thing. And that causes your hip to hurt. So just try not to come back in such a way that you feel like you're actively guarding it. That would be my only caution. Right, right. Okay, next question here is from Katie. OG listener and finally a supporter after I heard there are only potentially hundreds of water bottles up for grabs.

That's right, Katie. Now that it's off-season, maybe I can sneak this one in. I have a question completely unrelated to triathlon for Nick. Okay, we'll keep this one nice and short. When you're at a concert and you see that artists bring a special guest artist up on stage, how does that happen? Like, is artist B just in town and they hit up the main artist A and asked if they can come on stage? Does this main artist A reach out for a pre-planned co-lab? How awkward is it if either of them says no?

Context, Noah Khan v. Hot right now is performing in Nashville and Hozier hopped on stage. Is this planned serendipitous? Great question. This just happened to me at a concert I was at. I would say 99% of the time it's because the artists are friends. They already have a communication between the two of them. And I would say it's not like no money is swapping hands. Like, hey, would it be fun for you if you came up on stage and did this song together?

Sometimes artists have already done a song together. So it kind of just works like that. It's just for fun. Just for funsies. It's different than like doing a collaboration on a recording where like money and rights have to be discussed. Right. This is just like for the sake of the show.

Yeah, yeah. It's just kind of for fun. Kind of for fun. Next question here from James. Hi, TTR. All the swim advice I get is to stay flat below the surface to prevent drag. But when I see pros swim in triathlon,

half of their body is above the surface. Why is that? Thanks. Love the TTL. Trio, this is a great question. It's not just triathletes. When you see really fast swimmers, it appears that their back

is out of the water and their butt and their legs are underwater. Why is that? Ideally, your butt would also be on top of the water and the backs of your calves would be like breaking the water just slightly as you're kicking, so you're on plane as much as possible.

But is the question like, should I be swimming six inches underneath the water or on top of the I think what's happening here, what James is seeing, in my opinion, I might be wrong, is that when you're swimming really quickly, you're creating kind of a wake around your body. And so it appears as though their upper body and their back is out of the water. But in reality, if they were to stop swimming and maintain the same position, they would all be kind of the same. Yeah. Also, in just like any boat, if you've ever been in, if you're going one mile an hour in the boat, you're just damning your way through the water, barging through the water. and as soon as you get up to over 10 miles an hour,

you get up on plane. Yeah. Bodies are similar. Well, this just happened to me today, actually, because Paula asked Paula to make me a swim set. And so she gave me this big swim set, and she said it's off-season, so it's time to bulk up. So it was all with paddles.

So it was like a big pulling, and she told me to really focus on pulling as much water as possible. And I did about 2,200 yards, all with paddles and various different intensities. And then I did 100 without the paddles as part of my cool down, and I noticed right away. that at the lower speed, you know, after doing all that swimming with the paddles at the lower speed, my chest was like deeper in the water.

And I had to think, like, oh, yeah, like, suck that belly button up and try to stay on the surface of the water. But it kind of took all that swimming with the paddles for me to muscle memory it in so that when I took him out, it felt wrong. So, wait, were you swimming with a buoy for the pole parts? For some of the, for some of the paddles stuff, I was swimming with a buoy, but it was a mix. It was a mix, yeah. But I just noticed that when I was the faster I was going, just like you said, Eric, you kind of like naturally playing up. And when I took the paddles out, even though I swam 122 per 100, which is not slow for me, I still felt like my chest and my lower torso were much lower in the water than when I had the paddles. The paddles just kind of gave me this leverage to keep my body up higher.

And I think it was a good, like a good learning lesson there. sweet yeah totally so thanks paula becoming a good swimmer it's like ongoing battle yeah it is an ongoing battle even i said next year is our year to swim well 24 it's what's going to happen next year year yeah um okay next question here's from madison what's up t tl crew i've got a nagging question about heart rate as a preface it's it absolutely blows my mind that guys like linal have a heart rate of 130 or so while at threshold that's my endurance heart rate for crying out loud. Is this something that is mainly genetic, trainable, a bit of both? The three of you tend to sit on the lower end of heart rate range. If so, has it always been that way,

or have you watched your max heart rate actually trend down over the years? Thanks for any thoughts you may be able to offer. I know there's probably some science literature out there, but I would love to hear more about your personal experience and opinions, Madison. Well, we can give you personal experience and opinions. So first of all, do both of you know your threshold heart rate and your max heart rate roughly? No. No. We are not in 1995 anymore.

We are not. No, I don't think that that's... I'm joking, I'm joking. Some people just use heart rate more than others, and we don't use it as a training tool. I think Lionel's low heart rate is actually quite a genetic or a trained thing, whatever it is, but it's not normal. That's oddly low. Yeah. It totally is genetic, though.

Like, the max heart rate thing is super genetic. Like, you can train a lot of things, but... I know people who get up to like above 200 regularly in training. I have never hit above 185 ever. Yeah, it doesn't mean you're working less hard. No, no, no. And it doesn't mean they're working harder. It's really, it is purely a genetic thing.

Yeah, that's why you would do a power test or whatever and like track your heart rate to establish your heart rate zones because everybody is different. Lionel's 130 could be your 190. Yeah. On a perceived exertion scale and, you know, how long can hold it, etc. Well, since you guys don't know, I'll just say my max was like 183 the last time I tested it. And my threshold heart rate has, according to my watch, has always stayed around 166 for me. I do remember mine being like 161 to like 167 somewhere in that range.

And I feel like you and I had pretty similar maxes to the last time we talked about it, Eric. Yeah, probably. I can remember hitting 200 like as a kid as a 13 year old, but certainly not in my whatever adult life. My life. I just looked up to our test that we did. It says my lactate threshold heart rate zone is 150 to 154. Oh, wow. See?

There you go. I don't know. I can just like, I can just remember the last time I used a heart rate monitor like with any sort of consistency like five years ago. I remember if I saw like 169, like the clock was ticking on how long I could hold that, you know, in regards to like a 70.3. But at like 165, that was like kind of on the line. Eric's lactate threshold 153 to 157.

Looking up all of our test data. Anything else you guys want to know about our tests? Our information. IQ. Yeah, IQ. We have our VO2 Max on here. Let's not say that. We've got our weight.

We've got our age. We've got our birthdays. We've got our percentage of body fat. Sexual partners. Yeah. Wow, my percentage of body fat is quite a lot higher than Eric's. That should be. That is normal.

Okay, well The last thing I want to say about this And I don't know if you guys have anything to say about this But the common knowledge is that 220 minus your age should be your max heart rate And that is just completely not true It is so very it varies so much from person to person That that I don't know if they used to go of that

It's like a ballpark figure But I feel like that's what you did back in the day When you like run a lap around the track And then everybody would like put their fingers To their crowded artery And be like Oh gee whiz

Exactly. We're beaten a lot. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. I just posted a video of Eric howling off Flynn after he goes in the ocean

or it's just in general as disgustingly filthy. And Zach, our friend Zach, commented that their collective thoughts are probably, all right, let's get this over with. You don't want to do this. I don't want to do this.

Let's just finish this off. But actually, in reality, they both really like it. Like, Flynn just stands there and loves getting rubbed. So he's like, oh, give me more. And Eric is like feeling connected to Flynn because Flynn is very receptive of this loving act of rubbing.

Affection, yeah. Normally Flynn is like just a complete stoic, like not really affection. It doesn't care. Like don't touch me. But like when I've got the towel to dry him off before he goes in the van, he just can't get enough. Yeah. So they both love it so much.

It's cute. That's funny. That's funny. Okay. next question here is from Joe. Hey, Paul, Eric, and Nick. Thank you all for the amazing podcast. It has fueled my newfound love for the sport since I completed my first triathlon, Ironman 70.3, Santa Cruz, 2023. My question is about swimming. I'm finding it frustrating how slow the improvements are coming in the pool. I swim about four times per week, and I'm trying to work on speed. I'm decently fit, but even if I go 100% all-out for 100 yards,

I can't do any better than 140. I did my first 70.3 at 205 per 100-yard pace, but the next race I'm doing is a sprint, and I want to swim much, much faster. How much can I expect to improve over time? How long will it take to be able to do a 110 or 120 per 100 yards, even for just one rep? Thanks so much for your time and all you do. Man, this feels like, I feel like I see myself in this question. But what do you guys think? How long does it take? It takes so much time and it takes so much work, and it might never be possible to swim a 110. I think there's a lot of people that doesn't matter. They'll never swim a 110. Yeah, it doesn't matter how much you try. I mean, adult onset swimming is very, very hard. And swimming is so backwards because in the water physically, the harder you try it going hard, it doesn't necessarily translate to going faster. But in order to get faster and more efficient, it takes a lot of like very focused work and a lot of hours in the pool and a swim coach and maybe a group to swim with. There's so many factors that go into like the puzzle to put it together and it's different for everyone. But the bottom line is,

technique, not fitness, obviously. Otherwise, the fittest person in the world could go swim a 110 as well. But it's a lot of learning the movement patterns. And it's, for some reason, so much easier for kids to pick up on it and learn how to swim properly. So people that start swimming when they're 10 years old or younger, just have such a head start. It's insane. It's not like that in any other sport, I don't think. But I don't know. Certainly not biking or running. No. You know, I can't remember the exact lines and quotes and how it is exactly, but there's this great concept in the Once a Runner book where they're talking about improvement

and it's like this spiral effect or something. And like sometimes you're just like building up energy like spiraling before it like starts to spiral up. And like you're like putting in all this time and energy and it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. And then all of a sudden it just kind of like something clicks just right. And then you make up for these like three months of going nowhere with like three months of rapid development.

And I think swimming has been like that for me, where I'll go through a year or two years, even as a kid, like banging my head against the wall, couldn't figure it out. And then whatever, like a new swim coach, swim coach comes in and he just tells you this one thing. Like, oh, you got to like think about this with your hand while you're exiting the water on your backstroke.

And all of a sudden it was like, boom. Oh, it just makes sense. And I was fit enough to execute the technique properly. Things fall in place. I can't tell you how much I relate to that. I totally relate to that, specifically with swimming. And let me add by saying, Joe, I remember when 140 was really hard for me, and I thought there's no way I'll be able to swim faster than this.

And now I can do 100 at like 110 if I'm going all out. And I swim three times a week, I feel like you could do this. But if you're saying you're decently fit, I wonder if there's not some really low-hanging fruit with your technique. if 140 is you're all out, I would wonder if, like, if you had someone who knows what they're doing, like, if Eric watched you swim, would he be like, oh, dude, you're, like, pulling your hand out

halfway through your pull face? Yeah, I would say if there's... Or something like that, you know? If there's any chance you can get to a master swim group and talk to the swim coach or just ask a friend of a friend, like, if anybody knows who is good at teaching people to swim, there's a couple of guys from Portland

and somebody, you know, like, in the Tucson area that we know of who is, like, actually pretty good at teaching adults and doing like group things, man, it could be simple and they could give you a couple shoulder stretches and like that plus just your strength you already have plus a little bit of technique cues, boom. I will say also if you don't have access to that, it could be helpful to have someone just film me with an iPhone over top of the water. That's so simple to do.

And then sometimes what you think you're doing is not at all what you see that you're doing when you watch yourself. Even I kind of pick up on that and get cues just by watching the videos Eric does. And sometimes there's some really obvious. changes that you yourself can see just because you've watched swimmers over your life. Right. You feel like you're not crossing over at all, but you look like you're actually swimming in an X formation, but you can't feel that in real time. I'm super thankful for the tips that you guys have given me over the years. They've been very

helpful to me. So I think, Joe, if you could get someone to look at you, that would be great. Just DM me for swim tips. Send vids. $100 per tip. Yeah, if you guys want to send me a swim video, I'll do a details analysis for the cost of you need to subscribe to the pod. Wow, that is the cheapest swim lesson you will ever get. That is a very, that is a great deal. The $10 a month, though. The $10 a month.

Yeah, yeah, of course, obviously, duh. Okay, okay. Next question here. Hey, TTL crew and Flynn the cutie. Flynn the cutie. Please make intro music for fun with Flynn or something. He needs his own section. Flynn gets plenty of attention and affection, okay?

So this idea got shot down immediately by these guys. I didn't say anything. In the group chat. I shot it down right away. My thinking was that we could potentially do like a, every so often, like an update on like Flynn's exercising. Like he did this sick trail in Port Albany the other day called boondoggle, whatever, just like a little update on Flynn's Strava situation.

Yeah, maybe. Then just to get more followers. I don't know. I don't know if it's fun. Fun with Flynn, but... Fitness with Flynn. We could give an official Flynn update of some sort. I feel like it needs to be...

I feel like I want to make it like a thrash metal kind of thing. And I feel like fitness with Flynn is a little too whitewash. Like basic. I feel like we need... Okay, fine, I'll make it. Twist your arm. Okay, here it is. I have a 70-pound golden doodle that loves running.

He's just over one year old. One year old? He's just over one year old? Sorry, I don't know how to speak English anymore. He's just over one year old, and I recently neutered, and now I can run with him. Yesterday I ran for exactly 30 seconds. He saw a squirrel and dashed right in front of me. I flew over him, fell on the asphalt, and hit my head on the pavement.

Oh, no. I'm okay. Thank you, Skull, but I went home, defeated, and wasn't too happy either. How do you train your dog to run on leash with you? Oh, boy. I'm in the suburb, so I need a leash, but he doesn't adjust his pace to mine until he's tired. Chase the squirrels and sometimes stops to smell things. Advice on running with dogs, please.

treats what? Keep it up and enjoy the offseason or not. I don't know if these are the right people to ask and not because Flynn's not exactly the best running dog. Well, he can be, but there have been accidents, there have been squirrel chases mid run. Yeah, there's that time he like

almost pulled you off the trail in Canmore. Yeah, a couple times. But in general, I would say, almost. Flynn is a really good running dog. In fact, today while we were running in Naimo, I said to Eric, one of his best traits is this is running. When we, if we're off leash and we say Flynn come and heal, he immediately heals. Like he's a really obedient dog and while he's on the leash, he's aware of his surroundings.

And this was not without a lot of effort to try to teach him how to do it properly because as a younger dog, he would go out way too hard and pull me on the leash and it took like hugging him back, telling him to heal constantly and then eventually he'd tire out and actually just run right beside me. But there's definitely a learning curve and I think. think when I'm running with Flynn on a leash, my attention levels are completely elevated. And I kind of enjoy that because it takes my mind off the fact that I'm running or if it hurts or if it's hard. And I'm focused on what he's doing. So while he's looking for squirrels, I'm also looking for squirrels and anticipating the bolt and saying, no, Flynn, no, no, no, no. He'll, like, if I see a burden, I know he's going to go for it. I'm, like, telling him the command before he even registers that he wants to chase it.

So all that is to say, Flynn is not magically a good run dog. Like Paula is in common. constant communication with him. He'll, no, left, good boy. It's not like he just freaking laces up and they run silently perfectly down the road. Yeah, I'm talking to him the whole time, giving him commands. So maybe that's the trick. It's just to start with like short runs or even like walks on a leash, trying to get him to like learn how to do it properly.

And I'll also say that having a bungee waist leash is actually quite helpful because it has a little bit of give. So if he starts to chase or if he pulls on a little bit of. on the thing. It's not me instantly getting, you know, flung forward. Right, right up until you're standing talking to some nice lady in Canmore and Flynn sees a squirrel feet's away and bolts at maximum speed to the end of the bungee leash. Actually, that's the only issue is like he forgets he's on a leash if we're just standing there and then you'll do that. It's attached to your waist and he's got some room to wind up. Yeah. But it's really cute on a trail because he'll run up and if he's, if he doesn't know where to go, he'll look back and wait for a, like, he's a good dog.

I would say relative to all dogs, like, I've ever witnessed. He's like a seven out of ten out of ten off the leash, but he's like 10 out of ten off the leash, way better off leash running. Also, I would recommend getting your dog like a harness so it's not pulling on his neck. Eric calls it Flynn's sports bra. Well, I just did today. There's a lot of backstory on that, though. It was getting smelly, and I've heard a lot of, like, you know, sporty women talk about

their sports bras smelling. I don't know. It felt funny in the moment. Paula got it, but I don't know if anyone else will. The moral of the story is wash your sports bra with that magical stuff that Paula and Nick both got for washing clothes. The dirty labs. Yep, there go. Yeah, I still use that. It's good. Next question. Yeah, me too. We're not sponsored on the pod. We just tell you what we really use. That's right. Obviously, not that we are necessarily trying to promote consumerism to the max like this, but there's a, there's a, there, There are a lot of stuff my stocking questions here. So we're going to do one of these.

Aside from throwing my TTL gear at my triathlete wife, I'd love to hear a curated list of goodies you'd get a significant other who is tri-obsessed. Maybe an Oprah-esque book list, but a TTL gear must have for the season, David. So maybe we could even do something a little more official than just kind of rattling things off on the podcast. Maybe we could actually make a little list. But what do you guys think? what are some good gifts? Let's say, like, you know, relatively affordable.

Stocking stuffers, not a bike, not a helmet. Not a trainer. This is for the triathlet or the multi-sporty person in your life? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I would just say the first thing that came to mind is what I like about

and what we've tried to lean into with TTL specific things, is that you could give that to your triathlon supporter person. TTR gear. Yeah. Like, that's a really cool thing to be wearing to, like, support your person who's doing their triathlon. without having to wear a giant M dot on yourself. So that was the only thing that came up to mine.

But as far as potential stocking stuffers, what about like an open water swimming bag? I feel like those are not super expensive. It says, I care about your safety. Open water swimming bag? Oh, so you tie it to your waist. The toe behind buoy situation. You put your phone in, but it's a...

Love the toe behind booey thing. It's a visibility thing. Yeah, those are great. I think a lot of people sell them, like Zoot, Blue 70, they all got a blow-up thing. Yeah. a good one. The first thing that came to my mind, because I really like fancy shampoo and conditioners, is that. Fancy shampoes and conditioners, because they're kind of expensive. I don't

love buying them for myself, but the amount of chlorine and training in the sun and salt in your hair that you get when you're training, it's really nice to come and have like a hotel-esque shower after training. So, I don't know, that's the thing. Treat you yourself. What about, you know, I've seen before, I think either Muckoff makes it or something, or if there's a couple brands that make it, they're kind of like those three products kind of like saran wrapped together to like clean your bike

kit. Like the bike wash, the chain wash. A spray, a degreaser. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's nice to have. That could be kind of nice. Yeah, that could be fun. I'm thinking something that I got a while back, and this kind of, if you know somebody who's like a little more adventurous, is I've got this it's like a soft flask thing,

but when you squeeze water out of it, it filters the water. So you can like fill it up in a stream while you're running through the woods and it filters the water to like you know drinkable quality that's like a really i think it's a really neat thing that is i'll say the thing that i use for that is msr makes something called the trail shot which does something very similar like you pump it up and it's really good at filtering but i think what you're talking about eric it packs even smaller oh yeah then it's much smaller yeah hold it just in one hand and a fist and the only downside is like you have to just drink straight out of it it's not like you pour you could pour it into a water bottle

but yeah, super packable and small. And I think it's called, I don't even, Katadin, K-A-T-Y-D-N, something like that, is the one that I have. Cool. The one that I use, the trail shot, you can, like, pump it. Like, I've been, when I went to my Yosemite trips, we stopped by a stream and I fill up everybody's bottles with it.

It works well. And I imagine you could do it with yours or just might take a little longer. So maybe it's just preference, like what your intended use for it is. But that's a great one, Eric. I like that. Yeah, the only other thing that came to my

mind was good headphones, AirPods, whatever you want to use on the trainer. Like people are going to be spending a lot of time in the winter indoors. So just having a good set of headphones to wear. A Zwift membership would be cool if they don't already have Zwift. Ooh. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. And another thing I thought of was no one's ever mad about having too many pairs of sunglasses,

but I think it would be cool to get like an online gift card to a certain sunglasses company where they could go and pick their own pair, pick their own colors. We can't suggest any sunglasses companies, though, because still nobody wants to sponsor. Yeah. Well, that's not exactly true. That's not exactly true. If it's going to happen. Technically, you are not sponsored by them yet.

If it's going to happen, it's not happening quick. That's okay. But I would say that's a cool idea, too. I would always love to get a new pair of casual sunglasses or whatever. People are wearing sunglasses all the time. Yeah. Maybe like, you know what's cool too? It's like race like fancy techie socks.

I was going to say that. Some like actually high quality socks. Sox sounds like such a lame present but it's it's really good. It sounds so boring but they're totally not for sport. Yeah, don't just like walk into any random place and like just get some good looking socks. Like do a little bit of research and like find some that some people are like, these feel great, you know? Or they don't have, they prevent blisters, they look cool. Oh, and has great socks.

Lou Alamma has good socks. I don't know. Okay, another one with, we could just keep going on and on. But for as... Oh, yeah. Well, I already have another one in my head. A fitness centered person who's like living in winter but wants to still train. You could get them like cross-country ski kind of set up or snowshoe set up,

like something that's winter outdoorsy so they can still train in the winter. Maybe that's winter running gear. winter running shoes Gortex shoes I don't know that kind of thing I always love getting and giving

that's it I thought I got This is secretly just a way to find out that what Eric should get Paula for Christmas No Eric I don't want any of this shit for Christmas

Do not get me anything Triathlon related No we don't really do Triathlon related gifts for Christmas We need to like You guys have plenty of triathlon stuff

We just like if we need that stuff We just buy it immediately and it's kind of a business expense I think the best stuff that you get for Christmas is stuff that you wouldn't typically buy for yourself. That's a great gift. Agreed. That's the best gift.

The problem with triathlon is they're so, like the gifts are supposed to be functional. So it's a little bit hard to like get someone something that they don't already have. Exactly. But you know, what about like elastic laces? Those are really cheap, definitely fit in a stocking. And, you know, they're kind of like a one use a lot of the times.

Like once you put them on a pair of shoes, they're hard to get off and put on a different pair. They're so cheap that that's, I feel like that's not a good thing. It's an embarrassment. It's like, it's like insulting. I'm going to see your elastic laces and say like a custom, like a aftermarket watch strap for your Wahu or your garment or something. Actually, Ellie, aftermarket watch watch strap is cool.

Ellie Salthouse posted about these elastic laces that you can like customize each band. And each of them are different, like the islets or different lengths. So you go from bottom to top and it's a super clean look. I don't know what the brand is, if you go to Ellie's Instagram, you can, she did a reel about it or something. And I'm going to say one more thing, and then we'll end the pod because we got to go.

Oh, yeah, right. Something that we love spending, like, our Iron Man gift cards on, because Iron Man gives us, like, these stupid gift cards he can only spend. Don't seem stupid. We really appreciate it. The thing is...

They're awesome, Paul. I think the reason Paul is saying that is because they give them to us, like, when you pick up your race packet, and the premise is that you use it to pay for travel at the point you've already paid for travel, of course. So then you're just like... And they also don't work on the travel things. Let's be also clear about that.

But what Eric can I use it for is going out to fancy restaurants. I love that feeling of going to a fancy restaurant and feeling like it's free. Like having a gift card. Well, you're also rolling the dice a bit. Yeah. It's like normally we would never, you know, get an appetizer or an only like... Okay, Eric. I mean, not...

But yeah. I mean, just like on a normal day. Just ramen, hi, Eric. I'm just saying, well, no, most of the time I'm like, are you freaking kidding me, $19 for breadsticks because we live in bed? Right, right, right, of course. I don't want breadsticks that badly. But when we have those things, it's like, heck yeah, whatever.

We're just, we're going to get the $19. Yeah. But because the gift cards don't work half the time, what I'll usually do, Nick, is buy an online gift card for the restaurant with the gift card. Oh, smart, smart, smart. I love it. I love it. Resourceful, frugal.

I can't believe you're, savvy shopper. I can't believe you're like, grown. at me saying I wouldn't get, you know, an appetizer. And you're talking about buying gift cards with gift cards. The worst thing is if you show to the restaurant, you show up to the restaurant and spend like $300

and then the gift card doesn't work. Don't, don't, don't. You're like, oh, yeah, it's just a stupid here, take my credit card. And then you're crying all the way home. So a gift card for a good restaurant is a great gift for a triathlet because we just love eating.

We love wine, we love eating. We like, we appreciate nice things. We're always hungry. So I think that that could be a really nice thing for them to go with you or just to take someone else, whatever. Okay, so I know you said that was the last thing, but it is Thanksgiving and I just want each of you to come up and I will too. I about one thing that you are thankful for. Okay? And it cannot be gift cards.

Because I'm not thankful for those things. I know you hate those. Just kidding. I am just so. I am, this whole trip, I've just been like, every couple hours at least so thankful for our van and just how comfortable it is. Like, I've had such shitty vans. Every time we're driving up like a steep incline at 60 miles an hour, incredibly, not 30 miles an hour with like the blinkers on, I'm just, I'm so amazed and so impressed and so happy. And it gives us the freedom to just pack up and leave.

We planned this trip to Vancouver Island in one day. And we just left and it was so easy. best. Yep, we've slept like babies. We've had the most fun. Flynn is comfy. It's, yeah. It's organized. Okay, Paul, your turn. Honestly, as much as I grown about triathlon throughout the year, I am truly thankful to do this for my job because it allows us to have these experiences like this where we can just take off for a week. We're doing work from the road and we're a little stressed at times, but the fact that we can just go to Tefino in two days from where we live in Ben, and come back to Victoria and visit our friends that we don't see often and see my sister is something we wouldn't be able to do if we had to be at a desk 9 to 5. So, insanely grateful for being a triathlet still at the age of 34 when I thought that by this point in my life, I for sure would not be racing still.

So that's cool. That's great. Is that okay answer? That was amazing. I just, I have like such a full heart right now and I'm not even trying to be cheesy about it. but like, I agree. Man, we're so fortunate. It's incredible.

You go, Nick. When I moved into this apartment, I was not doing triathlon. I was riding bikes much more casually, and I feel very thankful that now that I've gotten so into triathlon, I feel like I'm so thankful that the mountains are right here, that the ocean is right there. I have amazing trails to run on, amazing roads to ride on, and I didn't even move here for this. But now that I have, I can't imagine living anywhere else more appropriate. for what I enjoy about the sport. Locked out, man.

Universe wanted it to be. Yes, that's right. Okay, that's it. That's our Thanksgiving episode. I hope everyone is going to eat a lot and have great relationships with family members that they haven't seen and no one's going to have arguments.

Everyone's just going to get along and hug and laugh and sing. Call your mom, hug your mom. And we will chat with you guys next week for a bit of a longer episode. Thanks for putting up with the shorter timeline, but hopefully you can just use this time to go. Trot some turkeys.

Trot some turkeys. Got some turkeys. That's right. Later, everybody. Bye. Bye.