That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon training blocks, fitting B races into your season, and more!

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

This week we are once again all together in Bend, OR to record the podcast in person! We started by catching up on events since the 200th episode, Paula hit us with some Rapid Fire, and then we got into listener submitted questions! A big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Lagerstrom. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Nick Glisten. And this is our triathlon podcast. This is episode 201. So we've been doing it for a long time. We're just doing off season. Trying to train a bit, trying to get healthy, and trying to get psyched up for the TTL team camp in a couple weeks. We hope everyone liked the live video we did for episode 200. And we are toying with the idea of doing that more often.

And it's kind of more fun and easy to do it when we're in person. When I'm in California and you guys are here, it makes it a little more complicated. But I think we could do it. I've seen people do this kind of thing on podcasts online. I mean, the major hang-up is just that we'll all have to have clothes on when we record the podcast. We're usually, at least partially nude. I guess I will say what we did with all those timbits because there were 200. And I wanted us all to eat them all as a challenge, but no one else seemed up to that.

So the day after, oh, here's another funny story. I just think I remember you starting to set Timbitts aside because you were tapped out. Here's a funny story, guys. Here's a funny story for the podcast. So we went on a bike ride. Flynn stayed home, as he always does when we go on bike rides. And he has a bit of a paw injury. So he's wearing a cone when he's unsupervised so he doesn't lick the injury.

And I came back from the bike ride. and usually he's at the window wagging his tail with his big cone head, he was not there. And I was like, this is weird. Maybe he's trapped in a bedroom, like at the door shut. All the bedroom doors are open, starting to freak out, go in the backyard. He's not there. I'm thinking like, he ran away or he had a heart attack and I'm going to find him dead somewhere. And we had left all the donuts up here in the office on the coffee table at dog's height.

And I thought, oh my God, he probably like, ate. eat 170 timbits and I'm going to find him dead. I was just going like worst case scenario, worst case scenario. So I like ran up the stairs. In this point, I'm in full, full freak out mode. Flynn! And then he barks. And I'm like, oh, thank God.

He's letting me know he's trapped in the office. So at this point, I'm like, I'm going to open the door and they're going to be gone. Those timbits are going to be gone. They, not even a single one was touched. Not even out of place. I opened the door. Flynn is sitting there with his big cone head. Hadn't touched the timbits.

perfect dog. Wow. So somehow the door shot behind him when he came in here to assess the timbitt situation. So one of us did not close the door. That's the only way that this could have happened. Well, but when we left, we left the timbits up here. And I have to watch. Nick and I both feel like we closed the door when we came up here last, but clearly it didn't quite latch.

Anyway, he's alive. He didn't eat the timbits. He's a good dog. And then the day after, we're like, what are we going to do with all these? is such a waste. So we brought them to the swimming pool where in all the swim club kids were getting out of the pool, left them at the edge of the pool and they were like gone in 20 seconds. I mean, when you're that age and you're swimming twice a day. Yeah, every kid took a handful and they were gone. For sure. And I feel like it was a good cause. It's a great cause.

Feeling the next generation. Literally. Literally feeling the next generation. It was kind of fun. And the other thing was like we were sitting at the other end of the pool watching these kids get out of the pool and take the timbits and they had no clue where they came from. Yeah. This is kind of like the satisfying thing knowing like, oh, I gave it. 10 bits from above. I was thinking, do you guys like, do you prefer that you can stand in the pool that you're swimming in? Like, which side do you prefer to swim on? The shallow end or the deep end?

I don't really care. I think it is kind of nice to be able to stand up in between things, but also it is theoretically slower. Right, because, right. Like a fast point. Yeah. This is such a. More turbulent and whatnot. I just, you know.

I mean, our shallow end is not that shallow, though. I mean, it's, yeah, it's shallow enough to stand in, but it's not like you're hitting your hand on the bottom of the pool. No, and my splash pool that I have in Santa Monica, you can't. It's way too shallow. You can hit your hand on the bottom if you do it wrong. Yeah. Anyway, do we have anything else to talk about? We have a few things to talk about.

Okay, do it. First of all, if you, I was joking earlier and I was then made fun of promptly, I was going to say if you have an eagle eye, but apparently if even you have one eye, you may have noticed that the album art, album art, the force a habit, the podcast. art is different now. We retook a photo on the day of the 200th episode. And it does look like album art. It looks like we are a band. Well, we've been waffling with what to put as the new art for a long time. Like we thought about just putting the logo. We thought about like ghosting the logo over top of a photo. And then we took this picture kind of like willy-nilly to do for advertising the 200th episode. And we kind of liked it. We're like, oh, this kind of works actually for new podcast art.

So one of us looked horrible. Wait, wait, wait. We should, we should, like, in episode 250 or 300, reveal which one of us was replaced. Yeah, one of us looked so bad. All right. So we just took another head from a different picture and put it on to that picture. See if you can tell.

We're not going to tell you who it is. See if you can tell who it is. Yeah, that's a fun little game. Yeah. We'll have a betting pool going. So it's not AI because we truly did. It was Flynn. Yeah, it's Flynn.

Yeah, no. I had to do the painstaking work of blending them together in Photoshop old school way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. And then the final thing is that, well, I mean, I don't know if this is, it's interesting to me, but Eric's going to be in California. Actually, when this comes out, Eric will be in California.

Yep. Yeah, I got the call from Ralph at Foreign Rider to come down and be a part of the photo shoot for this upcoming season's apparel. I'm 0% holding a camera. I'm actually going to be a male model. Can you believe it? I can't believe it. Derek Zoolander, in the flesh.

Here he is. I think they just needed somebody super like... Attractive. Unattractive. Beautiful. And like, believable. Sculpted. Boy next door, if you will.

A Greek god and I will. Yeah, that's awesome. That's fun. It'll be super cool. There's a really, really talented photographer that's doing it. And I'm just kind of hoping to annoy him intensely with questions about camera things. He is great. You were just showing me a stuff.

Are you going to be riding motorcycles at all? Someone else is going to be riding the motorcycle. If I am offered to ride a motorcycle, I will. I will. I will accept. But, no, I'm there with a gravel bike. Is it your gravel bike? Yeah, I'm bringing my bike.

Well, Eric, I don't know if we'll get to see each other, but it would be fun if we did, and I'd also love to see Ralph, of course. I mean, if you just want to come out to Joshua Tree, I don't think anybody would object. Oh, just a little shout out to J-Tree? Sweet. J-Tree.

I feel like saying J-Tree is like saying Cali. You're not really allowed to say either one of those. Noted. Yeah, unless you're from J-Tree, then maybe it's allowed. Okay, well, Paula, you, when we first started doing the rapid-fire segment, I believe it was just you rapid-firing Eric and myself. So since we're at episode 201, I think it would be appropriate to return to our roots here and have you dish out some rapid fires.

Okay, I'm ready. Okay, what item do you hope to be obsolete in 20 years? AI. TurboTax. I don't want to do taxes anymore. I just want it to work. That's not an object, you guys. Yeah, we've both failed on objects.

Charging cables. Oh, charging cables is good. Everything will just charge on your desk via... Everything will just charge via the air. How about external hard drives? Oh, yeah. So it's just like figure out how to set 100 terabytes in my computer and make it affordable. Great.

Which animal would be the rudest if they could talk? Cats. Yeah. Probably. I'm not a hater of cats. I think they're can be really cool, but they are definitely the rudest. Yeah, for sure. Which cartoon character would make the worst roommate?

Wiley Coyote. Agree. Or, I don't know, like Dexter from Dexter's lab, he was Dee's roommate, and he had all kinds of shenanigans going on in the basement. All I can think of is Cruella DeVille. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I'm out. She's legit scary. If anyone's watched 101 Delmation, lately.

What is the weirdest thing in your search history? Pass. Pass. Is there anything that we've searched recently that was pretty weird that we were like all curious about? Or MRI results? Right. I mean,

that language from the MRI results are pretty weird. It's like, I know those are words, but I don't know any of them. Yeah, you're right. They sound like, have we divulged that we're getting MRIs?

We're just getting MRIs? Like all of us have had at least one MRI in the last six weeks. Even Flynn Not Flynn Even Flynn What is your most embarrassing fashion choice Oh my toe socks for sure

Yeah for sure That's so easy for you Yeah No problem I don't think Eric has one Oh I know Eric's for sure The Solomon slides Yeah for sure

Those don't exist You guys threw those away Did you Paula thank you No I did Oh my God It's for the good of man I did not throw them away Yes

No. What happened to them then? Maybe you throw them away. I think you were probably sleepwalking one night. You're like, you know what? They were too comfy. I didn't think they were that bad, but Nick thought they were the worst thing to ever exist. I could not handle them.

What is your strangest talent that is completely useless? The backflip probably. Talent. That's not useless. You're going to get your wife someday by doing that. Eric's the spelling. The spelling, but that's kind of useful. We use that.

Frequently, you ask me how to spell things several times a week. Yeah. That's true. Eric, how do you spell Tyrannosaurus Rex? Yeah, because you fill it out on your, you know, medical intake form. You know what I do? This is so embarrassing. I'll just be in public.

I'm like, business, I don't know how to spell that. So I'll do the microphone just for the word business, the dictation, you know. I know how to spell business. But there are words that I can't spell like restaurant. That one's impossible. Oh, God. Nick. Well, what's another good one?

No, that one is, that one is trickery. Restour. Yeah, exactly. I can. But there's necessary. I don't know how to spell necessary. You're lucky that Italian's your first language. You can be forgiven. Well, it's easier to spell in Italian than it is in English. Okay, last one. What is your biggest accomplishment so far this year? And keep in mind, it's only been a week. You can also say, I have accomplished literally nothing. We did our 200 episode. Yeah, I mean, I think that actually might be it. That's pretty big. I'm going to say mine. It's doing the attic at Powder Creek. Oh, nice. Super hard boot pack. That was this year. Just barely. Maybe driving back from Powder Creek in one shot after a helicopter ride and not getting home until 10 p.m. That's a good one.

That was a good day. 10 and a half hours straight. Nice. That's great. All right. That's all I got for you. Good job, Paula. Thank you for whipping those out.

True old fashioned on rapid fire. Beauty. Okay. We do have questions here. I can't believe that we have questions. We've recorded a lot of pods together. Three in a row. I don't think we've ever done three in a row before. We're really maximizing our time.

Yeah, yeah. But yes, we do have questions this week. The first one is very simple. I mean, I've never even seen it formatted like this before. Hi, all, swim goggles on or under swim cap. Thanks and all the best in 2026. Melissa, I was thinking about this today when I was watching you guys. I don't even know what you do.

Hotly contested. You'll see pro athletes going either both ways. Well, in a swim workout at the pool. Always swimming, always goggles over cap. And that's just because it's annoying to get them on and off. What's the reason for that? Yeah. I mean, you're like taking them off at the wall and then you're putting them back on.

But in a race. Sometimes under just because if you get your goggles knocked, then they're not fully falling off. Right. But also the downside of that is if they get knocked and filled with water, they're suction to your face. It's hard to like get the water out. Eric, would you do it differently for different races maybe? I think I'm just always putting them on underneath in a race, yeah. Do you guys double cap?

Which I used to only put them on underneath, but then, I don't know, a few years ago, I started doing them over the top in the pool. Yeah, I think if I was to do undercap, I'd do a double cap. So I do like cap goggles cap. Yeah. So they stay in one place. I know it's crazy. Like after racing, I've probably done hundreds of triathons in my life.

And this year I distinctly remember, like, everyone on the start line of one of the T-100s was doing undercap. and I was just chatting with them because like at this point we're all just chatting before the race like friends I'm like oh you guys all do undercap maybe I'll try that

so I just tried it on race day yeah I mean why not it was fine made no difference yeah yeah yeah but I've never had a problem with it being overcap either

it's just kind of personal preference I want to say that it might help your cap stay on but is that really a no who cares does not work for Ben Canute yeah poor Ben Canute I was just thinking of him

every time it's retaining the cap which is just flopping behind you like a sail. Right. Right. Terrible. Terrible. Well, thanks for the question, Melissa.

Next question here is from Everett and Crystal. Howdy TTL fam, proud TTL team member here. Awesome. Thanks, Everett. Long story short, my wife and I are moving from the USA to South Korea this coming summer and are debating which, if any, bikes we should bring. We will be there a minimum of two years. My partner has a road bike and a mountain bike, and I have a TT bike and a mountain bike.

We've never shipped bikes anywhere. Is it worth the money? Should we sell and reinvest in new bikes? For what it's worth, we are moving to Busan. Wow. And there is a decent mountain bike scene with trails. That's awesome. Thanks, Everett.

That was going to be my first question is what is the trail situation like there? But if there are trails, then heck yeah, with the mountain bike. Do we only get one bike apiece? Yeah. Oh. We were just talking about this yesterday. I don't think that's allowed. I think you should have two bikes.

I'm going to present a different theory here. And Eric, tell me if you think this is crazy. You're moving to a place. You buy a nice used bike. Before you leave, you sell said nice used bike and basically ride a bike for almost free for the entire time that you're there. That way, you don't have to ship your bike over,

deal with that whole rigmar roll. You just have to deal with the rigmar roll of selling a bike to someone. That's true. Which I avoid at all costs. I'm a rig of a roll. It's true. That's true. But I've had friends who've done a version of this. Totally. Totally. And I'm like, oh, that's brilliant. Or with a car. Yeah. I think that's pretty common. Because when you buy it used, there's a good chance you sell it for the same thing you bought it for.

Right. I think that's the whole thing that it bothers me with selling cars or cameras or bikes or whatever is trying to get what I think it's worth. It's just a lot of work. And if you just discount it 20%, you sell it immediately and you save yourself a whole bunch of headaches. Yeah. Depends on how much you're willing to lose on this bike that you get of. Abroad. But with the simple answer for this, and maybe it's boring, is just a gravel bike because you can do, like, you know, where I live, you can do almost everything on a gravel bike. I don't know. You're just going to be really confident these trails in Busan are gravel bike butter. You're right.

You're right. Which is not a guarantee. You're right. Not a guarantee. Yeah. Paula, would you bring your tarmac if you just came to America for two years? No, I think I would take your crux. So, yeah.

That's kind of a beautiful middle ground of everything. Because I honestly love riding gravel bikes on the road. Yeah, that's what we did yesterday. The crux is a specialized cycle cross bike, but some people also use it for gravel. It's technically it's a cyclocross bike. I don't think they've changed the geometry, though. Anyway, it's the lighter of the two gravel bikes, but the diverge and the crux. Yeah.

But with the crux, you could just put road wheels on it and it acts much like a road bike because it's quite light. Yeah, geometry is a bit different, but if I was just like trying to actually specialize also has this bike called the Atheos. Athos. Athos. Yeah. Which I don't have one, but that sounds like it might be kind of the best of every world. It's supposed to be there like we designed this to make it the best experience cycling as possible. Right.

Like if you're not trying to race, but you're just trying to. Yeah, I'm curious to try that someday. Yeah. You've never ridden them. Okay, and next question is from Nick. Hi team, happy new year. As an age grouper with a job, a weekly training schedule is very helpful

with essentially the same schedule every week. Swim Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, ride Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and so on. As professionals, do you follow a similar weekly schedule is total volume per week your target or something else? So that's interesting. Can you predict three weeks in advance?

If someone's like, hey, do you want to ride on a Wednesday? you're like, yeah, I'll have a ride on Wednesday, even if it's not currently in the schedule? Generally, yeah. But we, I would say our blocks are usually like six to eight weeks. And even when they switch, there'll be just like some minor things. Like we'll still swim the same days, but like maybe just like there'll be a longer bike ride twice a week instead of once a week or something like that. But it's like 100% of the time that I've been with Paulo for like 12 years now or something. It's like long ride on Saturday, long run on Sunday.

That's just it. Yeah. Never changes. Yeah. I kind of like that. Oh, for sure. I mean, otherwise, we'd never be able to actually go do activities with friends because it'd be like, oh, do you want to go next Thursday?

Like, I literally could be doing intervals. I don't know. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's nice to be able to plan. Yeah, yeah. And I guess does volume or what dictate? Yeah, I guess so. Just the amount of miles and time on the bike we need to be putting in for the given time

a year. But you don't look at or you don't have TSS targets for the week, for example. No. At least not that I know of. Yeah. Not that I see. See, that's the other thing is that, for example, Paolo, your coach, he makes it seem like it's kind of hands off, but he's such an expert and knows everything.

It's probably monitoring things, and he just won't bring them to your attention unless he thinks you need to hear about it. Exactly. Yeah. I saw a really fun quote in a movie recently. or it was a TV show and it was like somebody who was like a manager for somebody else or like

handling someone's secretary type stuff and do you want updates or do you want to know when things are broken? Right. Like tell me everything that's going on versus just let me know if there's a problem. Yeah, yeah. Right. Right. Cool.

Okay. Next question here is from Mary. Hi, TTR. This is not a triathlon related question but since there seems to be a love for music among you. I thought it would be nice to hear about something. A few months ago, I met a person who listens to a new album every single day. He has done it for over two years now and I decided to give it a shot this year too. I just need a casual 365 albums. So my question is, what are all of your favorite albums of all time? Help a girl out, Mary. First of all, an album, a day is so much.

I mean, we probably listen to that much music. But not new music, you know? Like, yeah, yeah. That's, yes, you definitely listen to that much music. The amount of time to take to do that, you know. Most albums are like 45 minutes, which if you go an exercise or a run, I could see you like fitting it in. But then you're like, okay, then you're not listening to a podcast or not talking to a person next year. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of time. So do you guys have an answer?

Spice Girls. Oh, which one? Spice World. Was that? Yeah, like the main one. I did love that album. Yeah, it was so good. And also, I just really love Backstreet Boys, too.

Which one, Millennium or Back Streets Back. Back Streets Back. All right. Yeah. Yeah, Millennium changed my life for sure. There's so many great songs on an album. Also, I mean, my all-time favorite album is just Petey. Petey, Pee, yeah.

So good. What album is it that has all the best songs? PD USA? Yeah, probably. No, that's his, I'm not sure what it's called, actually. If you like emotional yelling, it's somehow... It sounds good. It sounds great.

Petey is for you. Yeah, love Petey. He's the official musician of TTL. He's my number one on Spotify Rapp every year. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Eric? I mean, PD was in my brain as well.

Other albums. Oh, I guess American Idiot. Oh, Green Day. By Green Day. That was one of the first albums that I actually processed it being an album. Yeah. And like the completeness of it and how impressive it was. that I liked almost every single song on there and could listen to it just straight through

without wanting to skip anything. Yeah. That was their, their, their, like, second peak because they really came to the mainstream in a big way with that album. Yeah. Yeah. And my favorite album, my answer used to be Room for Squares by John Mayer. But I don't know.

It's not what I would recommend to listen to now. There's too much, so much good music now. Too many genres. I say something you could do is check out the top 100 albums from the last year on Metacritic and see just go through some of those too. Did they say an album a day? Yeah. That's crazy.

That is crazy. But I mean, it's possible. It's definitely possible. Because you can listen to music while doing anything. It's almost like it takes a lot of mental energy that'll listen to something brand new. If you're listening to it critically, yeah, versus just having it in the background. Yeah, I think my fear would just be like that I spent a day of listening to music on an album that was really crappy. That's just because I was like need to be.

to find literally any new album. Yeah, like when I hear a good song that I like, I want to listen to it again and again. I don't want to go next day listening something. Right. I'm the same. Yeah. I actually just mostly play music from my liked songs on Spotify. Same.

Is this because you just like this song or is this because it represents what you're going through and the emotions you're feeling at the time? Because sometimes I'll go back through my liked songs on Spotify. And like three months ago, like, what was I thinking? But then like four months ago, oh, that was good time. You're right. You're right. You're right.

This is when John Batiste, he won an album of the year. He talked about this. He's like, there's no such thing as good music and bad music. This was his acceptance speech for album of the year. So there's no such thing as good music and bad music. And this whole idea of creating a top album, whatever, is, it's no. It just found people at a certain time in their life or a certain time in society and just resonated with them. Yeah.

That's true. Yeah, I like that. Next question is from George. Any favorite piece of gear you can't part with, even though it's really. ripped broken falling apart and why asking for a friend? Yeah, yeah. I do have some shoes that I haven't worn in a while. They're just hanging around because they have some sort of a sentimental thing or like, man,

I only ran four times in those even. And then they came up with a new model. Right. But like I should run a bunch more in those. But the new model is great. I don't know. You know what I should say is my freaking camera from 2020. That thing has seen it all.

Literally. Yeah. The actual shutter is broken now. So I can only shoot an electron. Shudder. Is that true? Yeah, one of the card slots does not work anymore. But it still keeps taking photos. Like an aging human.

Yeah, and I haven't been able to replace it. There's nothing convincingly better. So the camera that the TTL Nash actually bought me when Flynn knocked over my previous camera in Canada. Yeah. It's still going strong. So thank you, everybody. That's been the greatest purchase of my life.

Yeah, God, probably, huh? Oh, my gosh. Most impactful. Yeah. Even more than maybe a bicycle. Oh, 100%. Yeah, crazy. Paula, what about you?

A piece of gear that probably should be retired, but you for some reason can't let go of it. My knees. Perfect. You know what? Well said. She's the funniest. Yep, she's the funniest.

Next question here is from Niam. Hey, TTL gang. Love the Pod. Non-sporty question here. What books are you all reading? Also, I'm trying to spend less time on my phone. and love a good book when not training. Thanks for everything.

Niam. Rower who dabbles and try when she can. Dabbling and try is really an interesting thing. How the fuck do you do that? If you swam in college, you could definitely just get your way through a triathlon occasionally. Yeah. I think that is the biggest thing. If you don't swim, no one can just swim 1500.

Dabble their way through 1,500. But anyway, back to the question about books. It's funny because we hung out with Lindsay Corbyn today and she asked us the same question. Yeah. Well, the most recent book I read was A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. What? Which sounds scary for Nick and I. It does. Because sometimes she gets mad at us. And it feels like she might want to murder us. We went to Walmart before flying to the ski lodge and it was the only like New York bestselling book they had on the shelf. I was like, okay, I'll try it. And I could not put it down. I was reading it as I was putting on my ski socks up to the very last second before we left. One night I woke up at 3 a.m. and just started reading it. Can you give us the elevator pitch?

No. No. You just got to do it. You just got to read it. Okay. Is it fiction or nonfiction? Is it a true story? No, it's not a true story. No. Okay. Okay. Eric. I'm reading an avalanche safety book which is extremely dry so I'm not going to very fast. Eric and I don't really read that much. Like when we read a book, it's like, I read a book. I'm the same and it's a miracle. Lindsay, 99% of my life, you ask me what book I'm reading it.

I'm just going to tell her I'm writing the same. I'm reading the same book for a whole year. I'm reading Pride and Prejudice. I got chapter two of this book, that's the book I'm reading. The book I'm reading right now is a book from Alan Watts called the wisdom of insecurity. It's interesting. It's interesting.

It's like self-help books is what you're into. This one is more like a philosophy book. Gotcha. But the next one is, yeah, dopamine nation, and that is like a self-help book. Yeah. Okay. Nice.

I don't know if it's a self-help book, but it's going to be self-helpful for me. Next question here. From Oliver. Hi, Flynn. Flynn first. He's asleep over there, contributing nothing. He didn't eat the timbits.

It's true, and he should be rewarded handsomely for that. He is perfect for not doing that. Honestly, 99% of dogs would have devoured those. And I wonder if they wouldn't have gotten sick. The real sick. Oh, my God. You'd have to pump their stomach at a vet probably. Wow.

Flynn. That was so many timbits. And they have no thing. They have no brain cells that are like, stop. Yeah, they're like, more is more. I'll die before I stop. Exactly. That'd be my last meal.

Oh, man. All right. Well, back to the question. Hi, Flynn, Nick, Paula, and Eric, when you have an important A race, either full Iron Man or half, how do you fit in B races leading up to it? For example, if you want to do a marathon and a 70.70.3 before an Iron Man. Love the podcast, my top one tripod of them all. Looking forward to seeing where TTL is going the next few years, both as a pod, but also as a business. To the moon, baby. To the moon. Okay, so we've had very very, very, very, very, many specific versions of this question with, I'm doing an Olympic, but I want to do a 5K leading up, or I'm doing an Olympic, but I want to do a 70.3 to help me understand how to do it. So in general, when you're trying to combine different kinds of races like that, how much would you as a professional versus you as an amateur even change anything leading up to your A race? I don't know. I feel like we've said before, you know, a lot of people's,

capacity for like whatever race distance they can do is dictated by how much time they have to train and I feel like that is really applicable. Yeah. Here. So like if you're training for an Iron Man, you're doing the maximum amount of training you can do and that's probably also a great amount of training to do a 70.3 versus like changing to peak for a 70.3. Right.

As long as for some reason your A race is a shorter distance than your B races. Right. Because if you're like, I want to. crush an Olympic, but I'm doing a 70.3 later. Well, you can't just, that's a long distance to bike and run. I'd say that's pretty unusual. That's more possible for a professional than an amateur to just like cramming an iron man ahead of their sprint distance. Right. And for you guys, the only real difference that it makes is the recovery after it, right? Because you're fit for a huge portion of the year. Yeah. And then just if we're trying to fit in a 70.3,

while also training to do Kona or whatever, like there's a good chance that 70.3 has like a high dollar purse or is important in some way and it's probably worth doing a small block of like sharpening a bit more. Versus it just being like, oh, I just decided to do that just for fun because of it fit. So it is situational and dynamic. So it does take thought and planning. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't. We actually give any advice. But you can only discount that doing races is great training stimulus. So if you have a B race or like something that's not your most important thing of the year and just have a slightly less taper into it and you go and you do 100% effort at it, you're going to get more out of yourself than you would in any training session. For sure. We're saying probably don't taper.

No, you can taper a little bit because it's not fun to not feel good at all. Like two days? Yeah, yeah, like two days lighten up a bit or whatever, just not your typical one week or two week taper. Yeah. But I do think that the more I race, the fitter I get in some ways. Each year. Within the year. Within the year.

Yeah. Like Oceanside, you feel horrible. And then by the end of the year, you know, doing a race takes a bit less out of you. So there's race fitness in it. As long as it doesn't not allow you to get in some training blocks, racing is a great way to build in fitness. Next one here is from David. Hey, TTR fam.

I wanted to say thanks for all you do and how much I appreciate being part of of the community. I've been participating in triathlon since 2019, and I'm humbly a mid-to-back-back-of-the-pack age-rooper. Of the three disciplines, cycling is my strongest, and my question is this. I'm doing the Los Olas Olympic in Fort Lauderdale in April. The bike course will be a four-lap out and back on a straight road. So seven U-turns. I feel like I have pretty decent bike handling skills, but I'm curious how you would approach this scenario to avoid losing speed and time. How would you train and practice for this. Would you consider passing on the outside on the turns? In this scenario, if a competitor couldn't hold their line and you pass them on the inside, are you at risk for a passing penalty?

Thanks for all you guys do, and I appreciate any insight. David. Okay, let's actually start backwards here. First of all, do you think you could get penalized if you go into a draft zone of someone and then there's a U-turn and you kind of stay behind them and then you pass them after? I think the refs are supposed to give a bit of grace within technical areas, which a U-turn would be considered that. So if you're in a big pack and it kind of like accordions at the U-turn, they're supposed to be a bit lenient, although it's always in their judgment or their call. So if you can, it's better to leave space. If you're really trying to pass and you're obviously moving quicker than the person you're passing and it comes to a pinch point, I think they'll understand. but ultimately

I think generally it's on you to if you're cornering faster than somebody else either slow down and match their speed or use that moment to pass them don't use that moment to get close and then go back to where you were oh for sure you should be you should be continuing the pass afterwards

but what I'm saying is like if it bunches up and then don't just like let the gap go back out totally at a U-turn though in age group races every single time I come to you U-turn, it is, everyone is bumper to bumper because everyone has slowed, it's like watching Formula One, right? Like when they slow down around the turns, it looks like they're close together, but the time

between them is the same. Right. So I'll say that for age group braces, you're not going to get a penalty because you were too close to someone out of U-turn. It's just not going to happen. It can happen, like as Paul is saying, but realistically, it's not. Totally. As long as you don't draft them for the next 10 seconds after that.

I mean, I think the most critical thing for anyone going into the U-turn, especially in the age-grip braces, is just being safe. So not passing. Don't cause a stupid crash or clip someone just because you were trying to get around them in the most technical part of the course. Like wait until there's some space. And if you lose five seconds there, it's worth it in order to stay on your bike. Yeah.

So no passing in the U-turn inside or outside. That would be our general advice. Yeah, I mean, it's always so different. Like some U-turns have huge wide-sweeping space. and you're only two of you, then it's okay. I mean, you read the situation, but yeah, generally no. This probably becomes extra complicated with laps because you have people who are doing their first triathlon and people who are doing a...

Yeah, I can't imagine an age group brace with a bunch of laps and a bunch of U-turns. It sounds really, really hard. But I think the advice for U-turns, though, if you are totally by yourself, which sounds like might be rare, is to actually go really... This is what I was told by probably Paulo at the time when I was doing Canadian TT championships. It was like ride really fast into the roundabout. Your brakes are going to break. So maximize that speed.

Break late. And then turn. Instead of like, you know, 100 meters out starting to decelerate, that's kind of wasted time. And you could be going really fast up until 10 meters before. Absolutely. I fully agree. Same with turning. and descending.

People do this all the time and it slows down. They really ease into the speed they want to take around the corner. If you can wait until the last second to find that. Yeah, because the brakes can really instantly get you to that ideal speed. Yeah. And especially important in a time trail. I mean, you're right. I don't necessarily even do it in descending, even though I understand the concept here.

But it's scary to do it because you feel like, holy shit, I'm coming in with way too much speed. I'm going to slide out. Yeah. But your brakes get you to the right speed. Assuming your brakes are tuned and you trust them. Important caveat. But we have Eric at the helm. Of course they're going to be.

Yeah, I mean, I would trust it less if I was like doing a TT in the rain on rim brakes. Yeah. But with a disc brake bike in dry pavement, I think that's kind of my best advice. Yeah. Eric, you're a great bike handler. Do you have any U-turn advice? Yeah. That was it.

Well put. Really? That would be your advice. Maybe it was you that told me this advice. I could do it. No, this is the thing why I'm not a very good teacher. Like, I do that completely intuitively, and I wouldn't have thought of it until you just said it. It was like, well, yes, obviously you almost get out.

Like, yeah. So now that, I mean, that's really good at like obvious basic advice other than. I have another, I have so much advice. Wait, wait, Paul, hit us. I think the people that are bad at it usually have the most advice because they're the ones who've learned. Totally. So you also want to look where you're going around. found the apex.

That's true. Do not look at your front tire. No, she's right. She's right. Not everyone knows that. This is not obvious shit, Eric. You're right. It's just funny because what I interpret it is like, look where you're going versus

like looking behind you. No, you look where you want your body to go. You want your bike to go. You don't like people I can see them just staring at their front tire or staring at the pylon that they're trying to pivot around or staring at the dude that's like trying to pass them on the inside. Yes. You don't, when people often stare at the thing, they're afraid they're going to hit,

and then they naturally go to it. Go to it. Because that's what your brain does. It goes where you look. Yeah, this happens, I mean, not just in U-turns, but cornering anything. Yeah. But if you can kind of like look around the apex, your body's going to like lean that way. And also, don't try to steer your bike.

Just lean. So smart. I'm so proud of it. Love. I love it. Pable. Yeah. Great advice, Paul.

Yeah. Should we start like a bike handling with Paul? Filled with Paula. That would be something. I mean, so far, I'm giving better advice than both of you. It's true. Thank you. It's true. Yeah.

You turns are hard. I get it. Practice in your parks a lot, people. They're also so much easier on a road bike when you're in the drops. Yeah, of course. Versus on the fricking bars of a TT bike. All that has to do with weight distribution. All the way.

There are ways to work around that. Okay. Next question is from Steve, and we talked about this two episodes ago. We talked about keeping kids, your own kids, hypothetically motivated to continue to sport. This is similar to that. A tripod, my 10-year-old daughter has a growing interest in triathlons, and I'm looking for tips on how to foster that. We're doing a mini sprint in April, and she's super stoked to be doing the little training rides and runs already. She's not an iPad kid, kid, but I let her peruse Paula and other female triathlots, instance.

triathletes, Instagram posts, and she already has her role models. Thanks sincerely for that. She's a pretty gifted age group swimmer and loves that sport. Eric and Paula have mentioned their youth swimming backgrounds before. How young did you guys transition to multi-sport? Anything you guys have seen, done right, or wrong, anything you wish you would have known sooner? As I ease her into it, I want to make sure it's as fun and informative as possible.

Thanks for the wonderful content, Steve. So how young were you guys when it was? was like, oh, this is what I do. I was like 30. You're like, I guess I'm not doing any other stuff. Exactly. I was going to say closer to 13. I guess I'm stuck.

But I guess when did you find it to be an integral part of your identity that you were an athlete? Oh, early on, early on. An athlete versus a triathlete? Just an athlete. Oh, my God. Or do all kids inherently think they're athletes? and then you eventually stopped believing that.

Oh, wow. No, I don't think that's the case. I definitely thought I was good at sports and activities and skateboarding and, like, coordinated more than a lot of kids, but I didn't think like, oh, I'm obviously like pro-athlet potential. Yeah, that's so interesting that you didn't feel that. No, not at all. Yeah.

I mean, I wanted to be a dancer. I told you this before, right? Yeah. I was a dancer until I was in high school. But I started swimming when I was 11, and then I started my, I did my first triathlon when I was 16. So a little bit later, but I, after I did my first triathlon and started doing the junior national series, qualified for worlds, placed really highly in that. Like, I had success really quick. So at that point, I guess, I considered myself more as an athlete than, no, I guess swimming, though, for like 11 to 16 swimming.

So time consuming, you're training like 15 hours a week. And it's all your friends were swimmers, too. Yeah, that's all you have time for. You are an athlete. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was fully an athlete as soon as I started swimming. But that's the ages. And I do think that even maybe I started a little bit late in those things,

even though now I feel like I've been doing it forever. Some people start swimming when they're five, six or sooner. I started when I was six. Wow. Just like with swim lessons and then I think I was in, like did a race when I was seven. Yeah. Wow, they let seven-year-olds race, huh? Oh, yeah.

I swear there's like a five and under category. Five and under. It's crazy. If we have kids, I think I want them to be good swimmers. And obviously, if they love swimming, they can go to do swim club. But it's a rough go for parents. It's so much driving. It's so much early wake-ups.

Also, in a swimming pool for like four days straight for a championship meet. Timing. I always found this really crazy. And I think it's still the case. There's timing pads at swim meets that are getting all the times for everybody. Yet every lane has three parents doing timing as, as backups. Yeah.

Just in case the system like goes out. She's like, you can do it too, but I think it has a championship meet it has to be three. Yeah, and they're all looking at the wall and pushing their thing as soon as you touch it. So if the timing pad fails,

you have timers. Do they do that at like Olympics and stuff? Probably. There are, I know there's fail safes of like the camera system at least. Maybe the camera. Yeah, maybe the camera at the Olympics.

You're right, because you don't see parents hanging over in Olympic games. Michael Phelps dad. That is not like... Kenny Ledecki's her grandma's there. Yeah, also looking through Time magazine. Oh my God.

That's so funny. Can you imagine the boredom though? I mean, we were just there being dumb kids, eating fruit loops and then like going and doing our heat and our... And our parents did this pre-smart phone. Oh, they're raw documents. Oh, yeah. Literally watching eight-year-olds do a hundred breasters. Right.

And paint dry on this. And timing it is if it matters at all. I mean, it matters. When you got to some of the bigger meets, it for sure matters. But like, when you're at, you don't care. That's true. What am I? How did I get here?

Yeah, that's so far. My mom actually trained up and ran the timing system. Yeah, my friend's mom did that. Yeah, that's a really elite position. Wow. Yeah, you have to have been to a lot of meets to start being bored enough to run the timing system. I can fix this whole thing. And then, like, some parents,

were stroke and turn ruffs, which I would think would be a little bit more entertaining at least than doing the timing. Right. But you had to do like courses and stuff. Then you might have to disqualify it with children. God.

I got decued so much going up. What, foul language? No, it's like one hand turned in breaststroke or... Oh. Your hands have to touch... Your hands have to touch the wall the exact same time on butterfly and breaststroke. Otherwise you get disqualified.

Yeah. I got to cute a lot for that. And a lot of... kids do. Wow. Because you're just trying to, you're taught to go in real quick and out quick, of course, like as fast as you possibly can. So sometimes one hand misses it. How old were you when you were?

Every kid does this. No, what I'm saying is why are people de-kewing eight-year-old kids? Oh, because there's like... They're rules. They're rules. I mean, also when you're 11, I mean, 11 to 12 age group swimming, there's nationals, there's provincials, there's junior national team. I mean, Summer McIntosh, who's the best swimmer in the world right now, is in her teens still.

So 11, 12-year-old age group swimming matters. Yeah. God. They're so fast. They're twice as fast as you, I guarantee. I bet you're right. So you have to. Proudly.

And then if you're not doing that when they're starting when they're five and six, how are they going to learn? Yeah. It's, you're right. It's just disqualifying an eight-year-old for not having a perfect touch. I was like, it's been hard. Here's an upside. It's generally when you're that age, you're raised. racing like seven events.

Right. Swim. So like one out of seven disqualify, it's not, ain't a bad. You're still allowed to cry. Everybody can. Yeah, but you got to swim the 50 breaststroke in 12 minutes from now. So go get dried off. Right.

Go get dried off. No time to pout. No time to pout. That's funny. Man. Yeah. Okay. So if you had a swimmer.

Do you still think you want to go back in time and do age group swimming so you can be good a swimmer? Yeah. No. No. No, I don't. I don't. Assumeas we're the best times of my life. Yeah. I'm glad. But I, like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't take it. It sounds like it would have robbed me of so much joy. No, they're so fun. You're just like eating treats that your parents packed in your swim bag. Or your other parents, your other friend's parents, you know, trading. I've got some Skittles. Can I get some of your seaweed wrap? And the last question is going to be a question that I have for you guys. When you find that you are racing, Well, in a race. Do you try to focus your mind on something specific, or do you let your mind go wherever it goes?

When you're having a good race. Yeah. And maybe I should say even more importantly, what do you find is the best thing to do, especially when the effort gets very difficult? Mentally. Is it to allow yourself to feel the pain and if you're feeling sad for yourself, feel sad for yourself? Or do you try to say, no, stay positive, say it's okay, like it's going to be fine, you're going to make it through? when I'm having a good race, like really good race, or it's like a super good workout, I have this like out of body feeling almost, I would say, where it's like I'm aware that there's pain, there's discomfort, but it's like it's going so well.

And my body feels like it's operating the way it was meant to be that it almost just feels like you're aware that pain is there, but like you don't feel it. That's not amazing. And just like in that moment, I try to just like kind of like relish in that feeling of like disconnectedness. But, like, not think. Just like, this feels so good. This is the ultimate crack on earth. Just be here as long as you possibly can. Love that.

Yeah. That's great. Wow, I don't feel like that at all. Yeah, what do you feel like? When I'm racing and having a good race? Yeah. I don't ever think I'm having a good race. Hmm.

During it. Yeah. That's really interesting. Why? Is that because you are comparing it to what? power numbers or pace or is it because you're looking around you? Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Both, all the above. I don't think I'm ever been in a race and thinking, wow, I'm having a really good race.

Really? That's tragic. That is tragic. Yeah, now you're understanding why I struggle. Yeah. Do you feel like it's because there are too many things that could potentially, you know, be counted as an indicator of a bad race? Yeah, like, for example, in phrase use,

when I came second at that T-100. I had a horrible swim. Things weren't going well on the bike. I had no idea where I was. My power meter wasn't working. I'm like at no point in that race that I think, wow, I'm having a great race. But then at the outcome of it, I added up.

It was a great race. So there's like always something that's going to be a little bit going wrong. Or it's going to be harder than you think it should feel. Or you're looking at external things like where other people are positioned relative to you and that you should be ahead of them or whatever it is. Or you think about even what's to come. Like maybe, oh, I'm having a pretty good ride right now, but this person's a good runner and they're not that far from me.

So I guess, yeah, I am a little bit negative. And you don't try to change that. I'm not saying that's necessarily a smart thing to do, but I'm just curious. When you're feeling negative, you don't think I should be positive right now. No. You just let yourself feel whatever you're going to feel. Yeah, and I keep going hard.

And then I think the truth of the matter is for triathlon, a lot of the time other people shit is going sideways as well. Oh, yeah. And you can actually have a great race, even if you think you're not having a great race. The reason I'm so curious about this is because both of you achieved the highest level in triathlon, which is racing professionally winning races. And I think a lot of us age groupers,

sometimes when we're in the discomfort of an effort, I think we don't know what even the right thing to do with our mind is, whether it is to allow yourself to feel crappy and be like, yeah, this sucks. Maybe that's what you guys have in common. Or it's like, no, try to stay positive. You're going to make it through this. Everyone's so different. Some people feed off of the kind of like anger and more pain type of thing where other people need to be more positive to get through it. Well, for example, Eric, I could see you trying to find the positive.

in it when you're in the middle of a something difficult to effort or a race. I don't think I have that much of a dialogue with myself about it. I'm like experience it a lot more naturally. And I do think I'm very good at like when a thing could be considered to be going poorly in the race being just like not holding on to it. Yeah. That's just a thing that's happening. And like good. It's, it's.

Well, let's say you are in life too. Yeah. It's like, okay, this is not the end of the world. this is, you know, yes, maybe it could be, but currently it's not. So like, I'm observing it. It's there. And the longer the race is, the more chance that could, that's going to be insignificant, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. We've accumulated enough experience as professionals over how long we've been doing it to have seen a race that looked like it was a shit show and going sideways turn out completely great. Be like, this is not that catastrophic. Anything can happen.

Although I do. And day to day, like workouts, I always. often think, oh, I'm having a great workout. Oh, yeah. My wads are really good, or I'm getting this QOM. So I do feel it in training when it's like nothing is on the line and you're not comparing yourself to anyone else except maybe what you've previously done. Yeah. But then in the race, I think that I focus maybe too much on where other people are relative

to me or my wots are relative to a workout. And that can kind of bring some sadness. And there's just so many more factors going on in a race. So many more things that could be good or bad. Yeah. This is like a sports psychology session. We need to end. Okay, great.

We are, well, lucky you. This is it. It was a good question, though. It was a good question. I'm just curious. How about you? Yeah, I'm recently changing. I never even thought I had an option over this.

But then I was like, wait, I can try to feel better. Maybe it won't work. Maybe it just expends more energy. Or do I just let myself feel it? I feel like, what's his name, the marathoner? Kipchogi, he said that. He said, feel it. Like when it hurts, feel it, pay attention to it.

Yeah. And he did pretty well. Yeah, also because sometimes you actually do need to adjust your effort. If it's that painful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like doing a 70.3 should never feel like you can only do five more minutes of it. Right. Unless it's the last five minutes.

You clearly do not race the men's pro field. Yeah, I mean, I have been at points like that. I don't know. It's not, you're not, you should not. be on the rivet for four hours. Right. One cannot be. Yeah.

So Kipchoga is very smart because he's trying to run a two-hour race and he's like, if I'm feeling really on the limit at an hour and I just ignore it, it's not going to go well later. Yeah, yeah. So you do have to listen to those signals. Yeah. Whether they're, you know, you're training justified, like I should be able to do this because I train this way. Sometimes it doesn't matter.

It's just how you feel on that day. Yeah. Yeah. And I forgot in phrase use when your power meter, didn't work. You never had access to the power, so you'll never know? Like, it was just your computer that was dead? No, it was actually the cork battery was dead.

So there was no data. Yeah, but I did get like a Wahoo file. Right, right. That I could upload. I just be curious, like, how it, when you really have to, nothing to listen to but yourself. Yeah, the good thing that day was just so windy that I wasn't really, even if I did have power, I would have a hard time just even looking at it really.

It would have been nice for the climb. But I think a lot of athletes race with their power hidden because you, then you don't have this like artificial ceiling or this artificial floor that you're like setting yourself to. And you can kind of ride more by feel, which all usually actually is faster. So it's kind of a good thing sometimes. Yeah. Or if you're having a bad training session, you think because your wads turn your power meter off. Just do the intervals.

easy to hide. Amen. Yeah, I love it. Okay, well, that's it. That's all folks. End of the pod. We'll be back next week. More, better, funner, longer, louder. I'm psyched. I think it's going to be a good year. Oh, and there is all you need to know about our personalities, everyone.

I'm just saying we're not exactly off to a scream and start. But there's a long time to go. We're slightly better. That's true. Every week we're getting better. Yeah. All right. We'll talk to you guys next week.

Bye.