That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon training habits pros wish they had adopted earlier, upgrading your TT bike, and more!

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

This week we settled right into our usual selves, Eric caught us up on what he's been up to post-op, then we whipped out our brand new white boards and used them for a newer segment called Ranks Revealed, where we ranked our favorite sweet treats 1-10, before talking about some racing, and finally getting to listener submitted questions. This week we discussed: Learning how to truly push your limits without holding back in training and racingHow to structure training when using trails and mountain biking without reliable pace or powerOne training habit we wish we had adopted earlierBest practices for treadmill training and how it translates to outdoor runningTraveling overseas with race nutrition: bring it or source it locally?Racing a self-supported Ironman vs signing up for a branded eventWetsuit use for slower swimmers: pool training, buoyancy, and rulesWhen to upgrade your TT bike vs continuing to invest in your current setupThoughts on HYROX and how it compares to triathlon trainingWhen to schedule a training camp for maximum benefit before a raceA 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————————Wahoo Kickr Smart Treadmill

Hey, everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. We're hanging on Bend. Paul and I, we're back home in Bend. It is beautiful weather. We're continuing to skip winter here in the West Coast, except for I think some places in California. And we're getting ready for Oceanside is the next thing that's coming up. So a couple weeks out from that. We've got a lot of fun stuff that we're going to be doing with TTR and just looking forward to the vibes. We got whiteboards. Yes. I mean, most importantly, the thing of the week, last week we wanted whiteboards. This week we have whiteboards. Thanks to Nick, who is so incredibly organized and thoughtful that he never have been called organized in my life. But this was one exception.

It's that you're turning over a new leaf. Does you get yourself a whiteboard? Yeah, I have two as well, but I will not be needing him today. Okay. You guys are going to be on the daos here. The dais, I'm not sure if that's right. But it's a you guys are going to be on the gauntlet. I don't know how to speak English. So we are using our new whiteboards today. Yes. Fantastic. That's exciting. If you're new here, Paul and I are both professional athletes. Nick is an amateur athlete, professional musician. We all like triathlon.

I'm actually wearing a shirt right now that all it says on it is triathlon and cursive. I love that shirt. It's how much of a frother I am. Do you know what this is, Eric? Do either of you guys recognize this? No, but it is a cool shirt. This is a very important album called The Low End Theory by a Tribe called Quest. It's like you would recognize some of these songs after this album for sure.

I used that. I used a tribe called Quest in my, uh, I saw that. In my, in my recent post where I was like swimming for the first time and it's kind of ironic because it's can I kick it and I definitely can't. You cannot. And it's, yes, I can. But no, you can't. Did you guys watch the Academy Awards last night? Well, I was with you, Ben. So I watched a little bit. Well, Kingfish actually performed. He was on stage. Oh, he did. We did not see that part. Yeah. I didn't actually watch it. I watched the highlights.

But I thought it was really cool that the female won cinematographer for the first time ever. Oh, yeah. Her name is Autumn. Have you watched that film yet, Nick? No, I haven't watched any of the best picture films. I feel like when you come, when we're hanging out in Oceanside, like maybe Wednesday night, we should watch that all together. That would be fun. Yeah, I could be down for that.

Yeah, we were supposed to do that last night with some friends and we just got carried away with other stuff. Well, you know what? If it doesn't happen by then, we'll do it. Well, no, no, I'm down. I will abstain so we can watch it together. That sounds great. That sounds great. You guys have been, you're kind of two opposite ends of things, but Eric, you've

been doing some fun stuff lately. How has it been navigating your want to exercise versus your need to recover? He just did three workouts today. So he's just normal. Oh, I see. Back to normal. I did three abbreviated versions of workouts except for swimming. I did the actual swim set that Paula brought to the swimming pool today when we swam 4K. Well, I swam 5K, but he swam 4K. Eric, you swam 4K without kicking. You pulled 4K. Yeah, I did. And actually just started doing flip pairons today. They're not pretty. They're very floppy, but I did them. Yeah, wow.

So you're allowed to push off the wall and everything? No, no, I just pushed off. I mean, I was like, my Achilles is pretty worked on the right leg. Like, just barely pushing off the wall with my right leg. But it was worth it. It felt so good. Because up until now, with those, like, crazy roly flop turns that you can see me do on Instagram, there's no way I could have swim with a group.

I lose, like, eight seconds a turn. Right, right. And what are your other two workouts of the day there? A little lift. Okay. An hour lift at a bike ride. I'm working, I do have like my little routine of, you know, PT exercises that, you know, like work my ad actors and stuff.

But then I also doing some, you know, like beach body vanity stuff, like some bicep curls and some like tricep, you know, like skull crushers and stuff. Because might as well get swall while I'm... Paula, this is going to work out really well for you, I think. Yeah. Eric's going to be yoked at the end of this. While I'm doing those bicep curls, I definitely give her a little side eye, you know. A little smooch, a little air smooch. I know you're looking.

I don't watch. She doesn't. Not at all. She's like, she's dry heaving in the corner. She's actually like trying to pretend I don't exist. And then, yeah, I did 35 minutes on the kicker bike and I got into the big ring for the first time. Wow.

Do you have a watts ceiling limit that has been prescribed to you? No, I mean, if they were trying to prescribe a wattage limit, they probably call it like 20 just for like the general population. You know how it is. So I'm like, you know, adjusting a little bit for how I, feel but um no i i average like 140 watts which oh that's really i'm like i'm definitely okay to like push down lightly with the left leg but i can't lift up at all i can't do any so like the right leg's doing a significantly more work and the cool thing is though like i got off the bike and went in and took a shower and taking a shower is part of the part of the day where i actually walk without crutches

and i felt so good after riding the bike so i think i'm just going to start every day now with like the 30 minute bike spin because it really feels like all the leg muscles are working and I can walk and stabilize, like, less rickety. So that's a new thing. Do you feel like you're recovering faster than you expected? Like, where are you at now compared to where you would have expected at this point? Yes. Day one, I think he was like, doing too much.

Well, okay, you got to stop saying that to everybody because like over and over again, you're like, do you want to come for dog walk? Do you want to come for dog walk? Do you push me to do way more than I would otherwise. He does do a lot of dog walks with me. I do a shit ton of dog walks. dog walks with me. And that still gets the attitude.

That's honestly the thing that bothers it the most. Okay, well, you're not invited on any more dog walks then. We're going on our own. I like coming on the dog walks. No, I don't think I'm doing, I don't think I'm doing too much. Like the doc, when I had my little follow up with the surgeon's assistant, she said, it'll tell you. You know, like, you might not feel it in the moment, but an hour later, it will definitely

be achy. And the problem is, is like, that's not the end of the world, but it takes a while to get it to calm down. so better to just play it slightly cautious. I have not had that yet where I am just like super achy or anything for a couple hours after doing anything. So I think I'm doing a good job. She told me I was doing a good job. Yes. Love it.

Yep. So I'm sighted. It's going really well. But it's not like I'm going to be jumping on the mountain bike next week or anything. Right. I'm sticking with the kicker bike. For how long until any kind of outdoor riding? I think we should.

Okay. How long till I need? He's ridden outside on the e-bike. Yeah. I know honestly I think it's fine it's I've asked over and over again like how fragile is this and they say not very fragile like for you to like do something and fall like

it would like legitimately hurt your hip if it was a healthy hip like it's very the stitches are very strong I see got it just don't want to like beat the shit out of it with repetitive motion yeah got it Paul's getting a little bit bored so we can move right along I just think we've talked about this a lot

but I am curious the updates are good the updates are good the abbreviated updates are good We do have a little game. We have a game this week, a little warm-up game. Do we need the whiteboards for this? We need the whiteboards for this now, yes. Okay. So do you want to take a little trip downtown while Eric and I shoot the shit a bit?

Yeah. Okay. What's up, Eric? How are you doing? Yo. I'm good. Nice hat. Thanks.

This is great. This is great pod content here. Let's talk about what people cannot see. my messy room behind me. Yeah, I'm really excited because I've been trying to figure out how to get my microphone to hang at this actual level so I don't have to keep lifting it up. And I think I just finally figured it out.

We never found a tightening screw or anything though, right? No, but I just lifted it straight up in the air out of extreme frustration. So this is a cantilever to bring back that word. Oh my God. Wait, Eric, Eric, do you know that someone reached out to me on Instagram and said, by the way, obviously you don't remember. we used cantilever as a spelling bee word.

Really? Like way back? Way back. Way back. And I just fully don't remember because I mean, when you said cantilever, I was like, that's the first time I've heard that word since high school. But apparently I chose it for a spelling bee. You got to drop that in there.

Anyway, sorry, you were saying. Call that back. But anyway, I just, yeah, pushed it straight up into the air out of frustration. When I brought it back down, it was like reset and stiff. My audio should be fantastic because it's right in my face. I love it. As Paula's getting situated, do you want to tell us your last three

liked songs on Spotify? Sure. That's kind of fun. All right. Light songs. Okay, last three. To the Grain by Junip, Samurai by Flex,

and Cape Fear. What are you guys talking about? Spelled with a K by Elder Island. I don't know any of those. What are you guys talking about? Is there a theme? We're talking about our last three liked songs on Spotify.

The theme is just awesome songs because I like them. Okay, I'm ready with my whiteboard. What are I right? Okay, so this is what you're going to write. So first of all, what you have to do, both of you, you have to make a list from one to ten on the left side because you're going to fill in the list.

Okay. Oh, okay. This is double-sided whiteboard. Wow, so much room for activities. And you'll need it. Actually, you won't need both sides. And I encourage you guys to make your very own, Don't try to think what the other person is thinking.

You just got to make your own list here. And the idea, we've played this game before once. I think it had medium success. But maybe with the whiteboards it'll be more fun. It's called Ranks Revealed. So the way this works is I have a list of 10 desserts. Let's not say desserts. 10 sweet treats.

Okay. Okay. And you need to, I'm going to tell you these things one at a time. You don't get to know all 10. You just get them in order that I tell them to you. And you have to place them in the order that you think they should be. So for example, or does that make sense enough? It totally makes sense.

Okay. So you. Also, I love writing on whiteboards. Explain less. It's fun. Say less. Should have been a teacher. So the first one here, Trader Joe's ice cream sandwich.

and we'll say one is your favorite, 10 is your least favorite. Like the ones that we have, Nick? Yes, the ones. Every single one of these are relevant to the three of us. And the next question is, No, that's not allowed. Can there be assistance?

Anyway, okay, so that's the first one. Okay. And I don't know, do we want to live tell, say what you guys are doing? Or do we reveal it all at the end? I think we just reveal it at the end, right? Okay, great. I love it. Okay, the next one is the O.

OMG brownie from Newport. This is a famous brownie that the three of us, well, mostly the two of you guys go crazy for. It is unbelievably good. Really love that thing. It's as close to fudge with icing as you can get for a brownie. Very calorically dense. Next one is a chocolate chip cookie from Thump.

Thump, you guys might recognize. It's TTL coffee right now is from Thump. Also, it's a really good little coffee shop in Bend. Is it outside of Bend as well or is it only Bend? They have one location in Denver. Okay, got it. Okay, next one, Tony Chocolonely, or as we like to say, Tony Chocoloni. Funny story for the kids out there.

Specifically, the salt flavor? Yes, yes, yes. We all were calling it Tony Chocoloni for years, and we recently found out it's actually Tony Choccalonely. There's kind of an interesting story behind it. I put the Trader Joe sandwich way too high. It's actually a very sad story because all cocoa companies take advantage of cocoa farmers. And so the lonely is referring to that. And they actually do like fair trade and all that stuff.

Yes, that's right. And then the chocolate's great. It's very cool. There's reasons why the chocolate isn't perfectly gritted out. There's a whole thing. Also, you can't erase stuff. I'm not erasing stuff. That's what I'm saying.

I'm regretting where I put the Trader Joe's sandwich. This is the point of the game is the regret. Yes. Because you're really going to regret this now. This is going to be zero fun for people to listen to. I think we need to speed it up. Okay, chocolate cliff bar is the next one. Well, you guys keep tangenting.

Chocolate cliff bar? Yeah. That's going straight to the 10. Okay. Next one here is the blizzard from Dairy Queen. Do you guys remember that? Yeah. We've had some fun there.

Okay, the next one here is a gas station Snickers. Mid-ride gas station Snickers. Then we have a post-race race, race-provening. Browdy. You ever had those? They're like in a little plastic wrap. Eich. Yeah, they're not the best.

But sometimes it hit right. You know, it depends. It depends on how hungry you are. Okay, we're at number nine here, and it's donut from parlor donuts and Oceanside. That's our donut spot. These things are like insane cruellers. Is that where we're finishing the donut? That's where we're donut running too.

Prepare to have your mind blown if you haven't experienced it everyone. Correct. Okay. And then the final one here, a bit of a curveball. Four years expanse. fired Morton gel. Shit. All I have left is a three.

All I have a less of me too. So, rough, rough. Okay, you want to show all the kids what you did here? All right.

So Paula, Paula at number one had Tony Choccolonle. I love that. Then number two, TJ's ice cream sandwich. Oh, Eric, do you want to say,

you want to do that? Number one, parlor donut. Number two, OMG Brownie. Number three, we both had the Morton gels. Gross. number four

Tony's chocolate only I've got Tony's yeah Paul's got OMG brownie number five Thump cookie Paul's got Blizzard DQ number six

Paula's got the chocolate cookie from Thump I've got the TJ Sammich really regretting that then DQ Blizzard that's a good one

Paula's put the parlor donut down at seven I think she just ran out of space then the post race brownie number eight my brace brownies also number eight then the Snickers

both number nine and chocolate cliff bar. Wow, our 8, 9, 10 are all the same. Wow, you guys didn't do bad other than the four years expired with our desserts. The stale Morton is number three. Give us your honest feedback if that was a good pod game. I'm thinking it was a little rough. Fun for us only.

If you have negative feedback, it has to be accompanied with a good whiteboard game. We don't accept just negativity. I'm not being negative. I had a great time. We need to construct. I'm not talking about other people. Not you, babe. But like who gives a shit where I put my brow. any ranking. I do. I care. Okay. Yeah, all three of us care about each other. Right. Right. Right. Right. That's fair.

Okay. Well, that was a game. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being creative. I tried. I tried. I tried. We're four years in. We got a, we're mixing it up. Mixing it up. And also it kind of highlighted our favorite things in general. Yes. So it was fun. Yeah. Maybe you learned about some new desserts that you need to find. Maybe you need to go about the TJ's ice cream sandwich, you know. It's funny that we have literally at least 10. things that revolve around sweets that we have inside jokes about. Yeah.

You definitely should, instead of the trader Joe's Brownie, you definitely should have done the fat boy though. The fat boy, yeah, I kind of forgot about the fat boy. That's straight to number one. That's a new edition. King of all ice cream sandwich type of things. Okay, let's move on here to questions. You can submit questions at that triathlon life.com slash podcast.

I think today is the last day that you can pre-order the poster. Is that right? No, it ended last night at midnight. last night of my night. So it's too late, but hopefully you guys got in there. The poster is really sick. There's also t-shirts with the same design. And those are really sick. They're Oceanside. We will have basically, let's see, what do we go with? Like 20 total between men's and women's extra at the booth and Oceanside, along with a whole bunch of very cool shit that we have not revealed yet. At what booth? At what booth? Ksteli XTL booth, which is also right next to the tailwind booth.

So we're just having a whole like the little TTL happy party in the expo. Come hang. expect those shirts go extremely quickly, so show up early if you want one. Unless you pre-ordered one and you're picking it up, no rush. Then you're good to go. Right. Like I said, you can submit a question at that trialatholonlife.com slash podcast. You can also become a podcast supporter there. Last week, podcast supporters got the Newly Shreds game, which did very well.

Got a lot of positive feedback on that. I thought the video portion was very fun. We also picked a podcast supporter to win a little prize this week. You're going to get a swim. cap. Katie Coleman, congratulations. We can't pronounce the town you're from. It's very complicated, but it's in Michigan. Is that right, Eric?

I think it's called Ipsiling. Ipsiling. Ypsiling? Yeah, and this is not just any swim caps. This is a T.TL Orca swim cap. These are the most premium swim caps. Yeah, we can get your hands on. We're not just like throwing one of our old race swim caps in a bag. Oh, God, that's, yeah, that's really troubling.

Yeah. Thank you for your support. Okay. First question here. Sorry, to be clear. Katie, reach out to me on Instagram, and I will get you that swim cap. Appreciate. Appreciate you being a supporter, Katie. We appreciate everyone who's a supporter.

Really nice. First question here is from Scott. Great Scott. Hey, Tripod. I sent this into the Team TTR WhatsApp group, and it sparked some good discussion, so I thought I would ask it on here for your thought. I think I might be too comfortable. I race 70.3 and below, trained super consistently, hit my sessions,

but I almost never truly crack. I don't fail workouts. I don't implode in races. I also don't often cross the line feeling like I've absolutely buried myself. It's often commented that I look like I haven't done anything. On some level, I think I'm protecting myself from that place, from risking a blowup, from finding out where the real limit is. How do you learn to genuinely go there? Is it something you train, a decision you make on race day? Should I be crumbled up and a mess at the end of the event in the medical tent? Scott. Interesting. I think everyone has different abilities to go to the well. And some people, that's not really their goal in a race to cross the line and feeling like they need to go to the med tent. I have a mix of experiences. Sometimes I feel totally fine and sometimes I feel a little sick for a little while. But for the most part, I kind of am the same way. I think I push myself harder in training than I do in a race sometimes, which makes it feel like in the race, it's like a longer sustained discomfort, but in terms of how hard I'm going, a lot of the time in training, I'm going harder than I would in a 70.3. You know what I mean? I think it has a little bit to do with what you're bringing to race day as well. Like what is your mental state, your ability to push mentally your body's like physical, level of recoveredness to be able to go deep. Well, a lot of the time in a race you're going and tapered and that's not the same as in training where you're a little fatigue going into most sessions.

Yeah. Did you pace properly or not? You know, like you could kind of blow up halfway into the bike and never really go to the point of collapsing at the line just because you paste it incorrectly. Yeah, I think that's the problem here is if this same person was doing an 800 on the track for time, he'd cross the line and feel like he was going to die. But a 70.3 is so long that your brain forces you to pace yourself. And it won't let you go so hard that you cross the line like you just did a VO2 max effort. So there's like you're going to be fatigued, deeply fatigued for days after you do a 70.3. But you might not feel immediately like you're going to collapse when you cross the line. And that's, I think, why in IT racing or even in some 70.3 is when there's a sprint finish. and the athletes actually were going as fast as they possibly could for 800 meters,

then they collapsed. But that doesn't really happen in the age group field as much. Yeah, and also just like a level of motivation. Like when you see, you know, Taylor Nib collapsed on the way to the finish line or whatever, she's been dreaming about this race and this performance for 20 years. And like everything and like all these psychological things have gone into preparing for this one day and you have so much invested into it. It's hard to imagine being able to get to that point if you're an age group athlete, your livelihood, your entire trajectory of your life has not focused on getting to this point.

I think in that case, though, the heat is a totally different beast. Like in a hot race, you're going to see people collapsing across the line. Sure. Let's just pretend. I was talking about something but not Kona. But yeah. It's a special thing. How often do you guys think someone, ideal, an ideal training, how often do you think someone, how often do you think someone? should be failing a workout. Almost never. Failing a workout. Unless it was scripted as such.

Almost never. I think it's okay to adjust a workout and not call it a fail. Right. Like if you're supposed to go 250 watts and you go 235 watts, you're not failing. You're just adjusting for how you feel on that day. And I think that's fine to happen very often. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember hearing this that's like, if you're not failing your workouts every once in a while, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. And I'm like, I don't fail workouts now. And I do feel like I'm pushing myself hard. Or am I just not really, am I in the same boat that's got in where I'm like, no, I'm not pushing myself hard enough. I think your AI coach is just real smart, Nick. It's not AI, but yeah. Or you're like, whatever, your plan. My pre-plan thing is appropriate for your fitness. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree a little bit with that statement, though, Nick. if you don't get to the point of like you were trying to do eight reps at X watts

and like the last two were just massively a struggle and you almost failed or you came a little bit short then there might be a little more in the tank. No, I do have that. Often I'll start bike workouts and think I'll be in the first interval. I think there's no way I'm going to be able to do five more of these. I just can't do it.

I mean, that's like every workout. That's every workout. It does feel like every workout. I'm like, no, today's not today. That's why you can't quit after the first one. The first trip is always the hardest. It's going to get better. God, that's crazy, especially on the bike, I feel like.

Really, that first one is brutal. Okay, we have a bunch of questions. So let's move it along here. This is Stephen in Vegas. I've moved a lot of my 70.3 training to trail running and mountain biking, given rocky steep terrain and technical mountain biking, how would you change your workout structure or approach training on a mountain bike or trail running? I can't use pace running because sometimes a 12-minute pace up the hill is max effort.

and I can't pedal my FTP on the bike because of technical turns and rocks. Thanks to the great community you've created and I'll see you in Oceanside. Stephen. That's a good question for you too. Is it just old-fashioned? Like, hey, use your effort, RPE,

you know where you're at kind of vibe. Heart rate? Yeah, and maybe you could do a little bit of heart rate. This is really tough because I just don't think that mountain biking is a very good stimulus for 70.3. in most places. 70.3 is just not surgery like that. And also just like

you can go out and do a mountain bike ride where you average 100 watts but you went over 700 watts 47 times and you're going to be wrecked from the torque and the spikes but not have like this aerobic stimulus which is what you're going for for 70.3. So even when I was training for Xtera

I would do like a bunch of intervals on my mountain bike on the road for like three minute uphill things to have consistency of the interval and then I would do my like just long, steady rides to kilojoules on the trail

which would just make the kilojou ride take a really long time but you're still getting the amount of work in and I would try to do a good job of minimizing those massive spikes just to keep my legs from getting cooked. Yeah, I was talking to Sophia who's winning all the gravel stuff right now

and she has an e-mountain bike because she says that when she goes on a recovery ride on a mountain bike, it's too hard no matter what, because you're always pushing a lot of power to get up over rocks or I've never done it. So I can't say from experience, but it makes sense to me that even if the overall average power of the ride is really low, the toll it takes on your body is actually high because you had all these high efforts. So an e-mountain bike is a good solution for easy mountain biking, but that's not the question. So, Eric, I have a question that I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

I could see someone thinking, well, what I'll do is I'll just replay. the average lap watts for that field, which I would normally go by in a workout, with an average normalized power for that lap. And just like, yeah, I'll do these surges of 500 and then back down to 100 and surges of 500, but I'll average what I'm supposed to average. Do you think that's good enough? Is that close enough to mimicking the stimulus of holding that power steady? Normalized power is not. It's fake. If this is just what you want to do, then go for it. But I guess I'm just saying if you want to do like optimal 70.3 training, it's not going to be on a mountain bike with technical train. If you can find sustained up hills, then maybe.

And then you're going up above and below, above and below as you're doing a sustained uphill with some surges. Are they asking how to train for a 70.3 off road though? Are they saying, I want to do off road now. No, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can still do it. I mean, it's not like, it's better than nothing. And also I think it's especially in running.

it's totally fine in some ways because running up hill is really hard and it makes you really aerobically fit. And a lot of watches have average graded pace. So if you're running up a hill, it'll kind of calculate what that same effort would be on a flat road. That's a better. That's a better measure. Yeah. That's a better measure for sure. I think the running totally fine.

Because just like your heart rate is going to be more consistent. You're just doing a more, there's no coasting like on a mountain bike or this like stream part where you're just like effort is zero as your. going down a technical thing versus running like your effort's always going to be up a little bit. I think that's great. Last thing about it though is I think you should still keep on your mountain biking because it makes you a better cyclist. Yeah. And you're going to be more skilled and more resilient in the wind. Like Dallas this weekend, that was insane winds.

I think I would have DNF if I was there. It's looked insane. But if you're good at mountain biking and handling your bike, you're going to be able to put up with adversity like that when it is totally out of your control. We're not a race review podcast here, but this was the inaugural race for that race. And they unfortunately had to cancel the swim for the age groupers. And the pros, I think, swam 350. Do you know how much this time? And it was a time trial start.

Yeah. And it was a time trial start. The whole day, I think. He was never not in the lead. On the men's side, the women had a little more switching back. Actually, we should mention that we had some familiar faces on the women's side. first of all, our friend Jackie Herring clinched the win in the final

moments of the race, but we also had some other folks. Eric, do you want to enlighten us? Yeah, I mean, not until I just finished claiming that it's because she came to base camp in Vegas. It really sets the foundation for a successful season and now you know, it's data. But don't forget. Yeah, but yeah,

then... Our Devo team member. Fourth place, Sam Skold, training in Alaska on a fat bike, running in snow shoes. There you go. Freaking legend. And she missed the podium by like 15 seconds. This is the problem with the time trial start. Even Jackie, when she crossed the finish line, I was watching it.

And I was like, wow, she doesn't look very happy. But it's because she didn't even know yet if she had watched. Yeah, she's like, well, I grabbed the tape, but I don't know. Yeah, because the girl that was behind her, if she had finished 15 seconds quicker, 10 seconds slower, you don't know until everyone crosses the line. So it's so hard when the margins are that small to race at all. You know, you're just going as hard as you can. Like, it's a time trial. So crazy experience.

crazy for the spectators. I think I was texting with Brad Williams and he was like, this was a nightmare to give splits for because everyone wants to know where they are and it's so hard to figure it out. You're doing good. Keep pushing. Remember that Eric, the guy.

Third or fourth or first or second, it matters. Here we go. A bunch of professional athletes getting to understand what it feels like to race as an amateur. You're like, we have no idea. We have no idea.

Yeah. Just push it all the way to the end. Yeah, yeah. It's a bummer to see pros have to deal with that though. That's not fun for me. Do we know what happened to RCHMDZ freaking escaping? Ari?

Ari? Ari, what happened to Ari? Ari Klau? I think Ari had debilitating. He ran like a 31 flat 10K or something like to start. Yeah, he was running really fast. I think he had debilitating blisters. Oh, shit.

Which sounds like not that you're like blisters, deal with it. But I think blisters can be worse than being injured. You literally can't run. Every step is searing pain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think somewhere I heard that it was like a blister on a blister. He'd been dealing with it for a long time.

God. He was on track to win that race. In our group chat, I was like, Ari's going to win. Yeah, he's rolling. And then he, unfortunately, then I looked at the pro-Chinese thing and he's running down the trail without shoes on. I'm like, what is going on? Yeah, that's rough.

So take care of your feet. If anyone has a little blister and you think it's no big deal, it can be a big deal. It could be a big deal because Ari honestly might be out. for Oceanside now if it's that bad. Bummer. Same with Saddlesaurs. PSA. Take care of those things immediately. Yeah, for sure.

Best prevention is to not have it happen in the first place. All right, just real quick. What was the rest of the men's podium? Lionel. Canute. Canute. Ben, Ben, yeah, came back.

Back on the podium. Andrea Salisverb. Salvisburg. Salvosburg. We, that guy's been around forever. We raced in Tizzy is when I remember first becoming aware of him in like 2014. And on the women's side,

it was Jackie Herring, Anna Bwetner, and Anne-Marie Strello. Nice. Well, congratulations to those. Anna-Marie. Strello. It's cool to win the race the first year they have it, right? There's a little bit of history in your pocket there. For sure. And also ex-Devo member, Min-2. Mintu. Yeah. She was fifth. She was on the Devo team year long. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Love that. Okay, well, moving swiftly along here. This next one, love this. This is from Amy.

What is one training habit you wish you adopted earlier in your career? Mm-mm. Doing strength consistently. Just like, you know, not crazy amount of lifting, but just enough lifting, I think it would have really helped out with, like, my hip stuff and just some general, you know, bike strength

because the boys bike fast these days. There's a Reddit thread right now in the trail running subreddit that there is like, what's one thing you wish you had done earlier? And most people said that. Yeah. Strength?

That said strength. I just think you start feeling old, like it's kind of a slippery slope. And if you just were to start that a little bit before you started feeling old, I bet it would, you know, help long term a lot. Yeah.

I did so much more strength when I was younger than I do now. Well, actually, currently I'm really good at doing it, but I was very diligent when I was younger. Strathom was my whole life, had nothing else. Then I came along and fucking everything.

I would say eating more. Eating more, yeah. Like not messing up my metabolism so much. Yeah, right, of course. And I don't think I had an eating disorder on whatever that means, but I definitely was like, skinny is better.

And that's what you think, you know? I wonder if you'd be here today without that difficulty that you... If I was big fatty? No, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, like, the issues with your eating were a big part of the reason that you had so much difficulty

for that middle gap of your career. And I just wonder if that in some way was a necessary thing for you to go through to then be the kind of athlete at the level that you are at now? No, but when I was at my, I was a way better athlete when I was 18, when I wasn't eating properly. But it's not sustainable. That's the problem. So yeah, you're right. Maybe you do need to go through the realization that this is not a sustainable situation. But I think in general, in endurance sport, everyone's eating more well training, after training. The products are better.

I think this is a real good byproduct of this whole high carb thing. I'm just thinking out loud right now of encouraging like, hey, more fuel equals more fast. And like if that it becomes the culture versus like, hey, go out on a ride with a rice cracker for five hours, this can only be good to like draw that connection of like more fuel, more better. I actually think it's harder for athletes that grew up racing 15, 10 years ago, like Eric and I, to adapt to this high. carb thing than it is for newer athletes who are getting into the sport within the last five years or who are getting really good within the last five years. That's what you do. You just eat 80 grams an hour. You eat 9 grams an hour. It's the same thing as like flipping into your pedals. You know, it's just a thing you do. Whereas we've had to kind of adapt our entire metabolism and body and thought and way that we

race and train from what it used to be where you're taking like one gel every two hours or something. Right. So it's a really different thing to change it versus just to be immersed into this culture where eating more is better. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. God, those like old habits, especially if they've worked for you, they're hard to change. It's not even a habit, though. It's like our bodies are used to it.

Like, I can run. I could definitely do a long ride with barely any food. Yeah. Because I did that for my entire life. Right. But is that the best? No. Right.

I don't know. It's kind of crazy how it's changed. Okay, next question here. Natalie and Banff, a Canadian. Hi, Team TCL. Writing to you from Banff, Alberta with a question about treadmills. I'm a 50-year-old middle-of-the-pack endurance athlete, Iron Man, Marathon, Swimming, Ultra-Running, etc. This spring, I'm attempting my first backyard Ultra to see how far I can go. Eric, let's wait till the end. We'll give a little refresh on what a backyard Ultra is. Unfortunately, many of the trails and roads this winter have been icy and not.

not always safely runnable, so I've been relying heavily on our treadmill. Do you have any dues or don'ts? Is there a max distance you do if the brain allowed the monotony? Any precautions or warnings about transferability to outdoor running? Thank you for the pod. It's the only one I wait for and listen to from start to finish. Natalie and Bamp. So you guys definitely do a bunch of treadmill running.

I feel like you might have some secrets here. Is there a limit or can you treat the volume the same way you treat outdoor volume? What's a backyard ultra? Right, good point. It's the most insane thing that there is. Generally, it's like maximum one mile of a loop that you do until you can't anymore. Correct. So the upside is that you don't have to carry all your stuff.

You can just have like a cooler full of stuff, you know, food and everything you run by all the time. The downside is, oh my gosh, your brain. Yep. And you basically just go and whoever can last the longest. This is what my sister did. the winter. Like, you know, this spring. Gotcha. Yeah, I would say for treadmills, when I, I, Eric and I are kind of part-time place is BAM for Canmore because my parents have a place there. So during COVID, we were training in Canmore during the winter, getting ready for Daytona in December. And I exclusively ran on the treadmill. One, because we were in quarantine and two, because it was icy and cold. So you can get really fit, really fast and still run well on the ground with treadmill running. I obviously can't speak to running for, 12 hours outside and how fit you can get on the treadmill. But there's not really a downside. And the only thing that I could see is a downside is that it's completely the same foot pattern every single

time you land versus outside. You're dealing with cambers and corners and you're becoming a little bit more resilient to the elements that coming, you know, that come into running when you're outside. Yeah. So that could lead to injuries if you're just like the same foot strike for millions of foot strikes. Unfortunately, you're in Canada, so you can't get this, but the Wahoo treadmill does have a variability mode that allows it to rock like one or two degrees forward and backwards and side to side, like totally randomly. And I do think that that is enough to like mitigate that just slightly.

Well, yeah, I think you can also, like overuse or something. You can play with the incline to kind of change that up a bit. And the only way treadmills are tolerable for me is if I, even if I'm doing an easy run, make up a session like three minutes at two. percent, three minutes at one percent, three minutes at three percent. Like, just change it somehow so that your brain is looking forward to something in the near future because it's super boring. To answer your question, I don't think that there's like this upper limit that you need to worry about. I think you got to do whatever you got to do to run on the treadmill. My other thought,

I mean, to like to get to the beginning of your race, like lean into the uphill running for sure for strength and like lower impact. Yeah, that's a good point. And I'm just like, it's very, very good fitness running uphill on a treadmill. It's all the rage right now. How uphill would you say? As much uphill as you want. You could run at freaking 17% and like barely be running and you're still going to get like very good aerobic fitness. And then the other thing I'd say like probably five to eight though is more normal so that you're not actually walking.

Yeah. Just do whatever you want. But I'm saying like there's pretty much no too steep. Like just I wouldn't do that all the time. But you could do a workout of like an hour and a half at 17% and it would just make you strong. And then the other thing, like with these ultras, I've talked to Heather about this, Heather Jackson, and she's doing like Kokadona 240, and she's done, you know, Western States over and over again. I think a big part of it is like,

how mentally ready are you to go to the well versus how did you put in 12-hour days on the treadmill? Right. No one's putting on 12-hour days on the treadmill. It's like some of the guys who win like Coca-Dona and stuff, they're just like crazy freaking, like super mentally tough people, and they do a bunch of running, but not like their life isn't dedicated to running.

They're not running 200 miles a week, but they just are like tough motherfuckers. Yeah, it's inspiring and also scary. Last tip is Zwift Run actually helps a lot. If you can watch your avatar running around a thing, it truly helps so much. Don't know why, but yes. We'll put a link to the,

Eric and Paula are sponsored by Wahoo. So we will put a link to the Wahoo treadmill in the description of the podcast. If you so choose, it helps Eric and Paula out. And it's a really, really, really nice treadmill. Yeah. Like I said, bummer, though. They're still not shipping them to Canada.

Yeah, that is a bummer. You could drive down here and drive it back. That's true. Maybe not. That's really hard. I mean, is it? Might be worth a risk. Yeah, it might be worth it.

You'd have to probably pay like taxes on it or something. Speaking of Canada, we have another question from Canada. This is from Marco in Vancouver, BC. Quick question about nutrition and racing overseas. Do you bring your own preferred nutrition in your baggage, or do you make an effort to buy at the destination and have nutrition ordered and shipped to a hotel, for example? I have a race in Europe later this year,

but we'll be traveling with an 18-month-old who will most likely be taking up three-quarters of our luggage space. Thanks in advance, wishing you a speedy recovery, Eric. Best of luck, Paula and Nick, for the rest of your season. Marco. that was an interesting idea. It kind of depends how set you are on what you use. If you're like, I train with Morton and I use Morton in races and I'm not trying anything else.

Actually, Morton, you could easily get in your own. You can buy almost anywhere. Yeah, there's a thing. There's a high chance you're getting out of the Expo. Yeah, I prefer to get it overseas if I can, especially for at a camp or something, and you just can't bring enough nutrition. Yeah. If we're going for a month, then you're going to have to be a little flexible.

My advice would be if you're going for one race, bring enough gels. for that race. And then order the extra stuff for pre-race post-race. Oh, that's interesting. So at least you don't have that like anxiety around do I even have what I need for a race day? Yeah, that's what I would do.

But also like any expo is going to have gels, any aid station on the run is going to have gels. So you're going to be okay. In the name of saving weight for luggage that overweight fees are huge. Maybe I'd say just gamble it and get it when you get there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next one here is from Imogen. Hi guys. Swimming question here. I can swim forever and I can 100% make the distance of a half iron man. swim forever

forever I never swam a 1500 straight today I did I did it was good It's my fastest You can swim forever You know I was thinking I didn't mention it earlier But when you guys were saying

We were talking about the question About going to the well About working really hard What I notice now is that Yes I think we all develop We all like age groupers You guys have had this for so long That you may not even remember this

But us age groupers We definitely develop An ability to withstand the discomfort, a mental strength. We developed that. But I was noticing today, I was like, I was swimming hard. It felt hard from 400 on. And my body just didn't fail me. And there is something about, like, once you're fit enough, you can just stay at that really hard place for longer, both physically and mentally. So I think part of finishing a race and being really exhausted is it's kind of like a sick reward of being fit.

It allows you to finish really tired. Yeah, it's going to feel not good. But you can do it. Yeah. And so I want everyone to extrapolate and think of someone like Eric or Paula. Like Paula is on the line for so much of a 70.3. She is like on the border of really like real discomfort for almost the entire race. it's it's it's crazy to think that that is like that.

But aren't you? Yeah, but I think only recently have I been able to actually sustain that. Usually if I'm on the border, if I'm on the edge, failure is imminent. I see. So you're having to like moderate your effort. Yeah, otherwise I'll start cramping or I'll or I'll like, you know, something will go. Catastrophic failure. Yeah, something will happen.

That's what I notice is that I haven't had a great race that I felt like, oh, I was working really hard. Gotcha. But I think I'm ready. I think Oceanside is going to happen. Anyway, back to this question here. However, I'm so slow. I'm working on it, but I'm slow. I can just make it under the cutoff time in a pool.

So in the ocean, I wouldn't make it. That sounds probably right, Imogen. My hometown half Iron Man is, I don't know how to pronounce this, but I see it written all the time. Bustleton, do we know? I think that's right. Okay, Bustleton, Western Australia. Yeah, exactly.

Which is an ocean swim. I need to purchase a wetsuit to practice, but will I destroy it if I wear it in the pool? Is it weird to wear a wetsuit to the pool to practice? And can I just buy the thickest trisuit available and effectively make myself a human flotation device? I know they have rules about thickness, but as I'm going to be in the back of the pack, floundering,

is anyone really measuring imaging? Okay, there are so many aspects to this question here. So let's go little by little here. Break it down. Break it down. So if someone's just barely making the cutoff in the pool, Do you think there is any wetsuit in the world that could make them make the cutoff in the open water?

Yes. Okay, so that's a good start. It's so much faster to swim with an open with a wetsuit. Yeah, I think if you keep the effort the same, but on the wetsuit, you'll make it. Okay. And do you think the best practice is to buy the thickest wetsuit available? No.

Not just the thickest, but there are wetsuits that have more flotation in the butt area specifically and favor weaker swimmers, yes. But the problem with thicker all over is it's less flexible. Yes. And you will feel worse. Yes, I don't love the idea because I'm thinking of, no offense to Extera wetsuits.

They're great entry-level wetsuits, but those are very thick, but they are very tight, constricting. They do not feel like they're letting you have full range of motion. Now, what you want to do, pretty much every wetsuit company out there has this. In Orca's line, it's called the float wetsuit. And I think in, I can't remember what it was called in Blue 70. But they have a suit that is like, if you read the stuff, it specifically is designed to float to you a little bit more, but you still have good shoulder mobility.

But isn't like the float is best for the weaker swimmer, but is it not also what you guys use in a race? No, it's not what we use because we have a little bit better body position and it can feel like we're floating too much. Oh, so what do you use? We use, it's called the... Apex Flow. Flow.

Flow. They have a flex. Right. which is like almost like not wearing a wetsuit if you're such a perfect swimmer and like maybe the water's really warm. And then, yeah, then there's a flow that's kind of like the in between. But to ask the answer the last question that she had about using it in the pool to practice, I don't think it's going to wreck your sweatset, your wetsuit, but I also don't think you need to swim with it every day in the pool. No.

I think doing like four or five swims in the pool before the race just to get used to the feeling of the whatever constrictiveness level the wetsuit is is good. not going to eat away at the neoprene or anything. Over time, of course, it will. And if you wore it every day, it would break down. But you're completely fine to wear it in a pool. And it's an even bigger bonus if the pool you go to is like a salt water pool or maybe has a bit less chemicals. Yeah.

You for sure want to rinse it, though. As soon as you're done, yeah, rinse it off in the shower really well to get all that chlorine off of it so it doesn't just sit. Yeah, chlorine will like destroy stuff. Scrub it with dish soap. Just kidding. Yeah, exactly. Don't do that.

I think that was all the questions that they had there. I would still think it's worth it to work on your swim in the pool, though. Don't just rest on this fitness you have now. It's worth it to try to not just barely make it under the cutoff. Yeah, exactly. Actually, what's kind of a fun idea, though, is to get like those floaty shorts because that kind of mimics the body position of a wetsuit. And you can wear those every day. Who cares?

It's just going to make you faster and boost your confidence. Love that. If you could get your hands on a pair of those, that's a good idea. See how much faster you go. Yeah, yeah. And if you do the floaty shorts, at least do a little bit of the swim, like take the floaty shorts off

and see if you can keep that same feel and get your legs up in the water. That's a good drill. Love it. Love it. Next one here's from Bob the Boat Builder. Maybe that needs a jingle. Hello, TTR.

I'm a public school teacher who builds wood row boats with kids in Boston. God, that's freaking awesome. That is awesome. I want to see some picks. Yeah, I'm curious if these are like racing shells. He said they're for kids, so maybe not.

Oh, but my mom at it. My mom's a competitive rower and grew up on the national team rowing and everything. And I mean, rowboats are very expensive and very beautiful. I bet they're beautiful no matter what. But yeah, is this like a dingy or yeah? All right, Bob, we need these. And we will disseminate the photos of them if you so allow us to. We need more information.

We need more info, yes. Love what I do, but not the most lucrative career. Yeah. Yeah, I imagine. When do I stop putting money into my 2019 Orbea TT bike and start saving for a new bike? Things like a new bike fit and better cockpit for my shoulder impingement, tubeless wheels and tires, a disc wheel are all being considered.

Riding skinny tires with tubes and clinchers is starting to feel really outdated. I'm a competitive age trooper with my sights set on qualifying for a world championship and running sub three at the Boston Marathon. Eric wishing you the best every day as you heal and get stronger. Love what you all do for our community. Bob the boat build. you know what I think you need Bob Nick are you Bob? No, mine's even older than this

But do you have tubeless wheels? I do, yeah Yeah, I think that makes a big difference Except for the disc that I got from you, it's not So you know what Bob needs and what Nick you might also need It's the TTL garage sale Ooh Get yourself some used tubeless

You could get like what we might have coming up very soon Instead of like 858s And you put a disc cover on there And you are, you got your can't and you're eating it too? Well, the problem with an old bike that is at rim brake. That's the problem.

It's hard to find. And a lot of them won't have more than like 28 C tires. They won't allow for that. Or 25, sorry, yeah. Okay, so we got to start a go fund me for Bob the Boat Builder for children. Yeah. Get a new bike.

Yeah. No, that's not the quote. I would say that it's for sure worth the upgrade. If you're a competitive age keeper trying to go to World Championships and you run a sub three. I agree. I agree. I mean, for most people that right in

to this podcast, we'd say, you're fine with the bike you have. But for someone who's really at the top end of their age group, a new bike is going to make so much difference. Dozens of minutes, I predict, with the tubeless technology running lower tire pressure, being more arrow, new bikes are just faster. And that's why, even in the professional field, all the times are getting faster year after year. People are more aerodynamic. People have better bikes. People have better tires. So sadly, I think your option is to

look on the used market and try to find a good new used by use. Yes, yes. The disc brakes and frames that hold like, you know, wide enough tubeless rims have been around for five, six years

now. You can find something great. I predict like his frame is actually probably fine, but the problem here is the brakes and then finding wheels. The wheels are going to make Yes. Yeah. The wheels are going to make a bigger difference than a new frame.

Yeah. But it's just so hard to get new wheels with your rim brakes. Also, Eric tease this, but if you get something like an 858 or even not as nice of a wheel and you put on a wheel cover on the rear, that would make you go a lot faster as well. It's almost, like almost indistinguishably less fast, you know, slower than actual disc. I mean, that's a good chance he already has a disc on his 2019. It's insane. It's by a clincher rim brake disc.

It's so crazy that a 2019 bike is like archaic now. Yeah. It's crazy. It's probably still completely fine. Running tubeless. Another thing is you could sell it. Well, yeah. And what I always tell people when they're buying a bike, I say, if you buy a nice used bike,

ride it for six months. If you don't like it, sell it for basically what you bought it for, you know, or a little bit less. You take a hit. But in the meantime, you've gotten to ride a great bike. It's a no break. Yeah. It's a lot of work to. sells. Some people are more inclined to

to sell stuff than others. You're right. You're right. You're right. Yeah, for sure that's an option. Okay, well, good luck, Bob. And please send us a picture of these boats. We'd love to, we'd love to see those. And these bikes, once you get your new one. Yes, of course. Okay, we have two more questions here. This first one's from Tessa, from Sudbury, Ontario. How many Canadians? Yeah, oh my gosh. The, the labrid-doodle, Newfoundlander debate last week, really. People were having a heyday with that. I started listening to TTL after my boyfriend told me his question was featured on an episode.

That's why I picked this one because I thought it would be fun to have a hymns and hers TTL pod questions. He told me this on our first date and has brought it up at least 15 times since. Of course, it's worth bragging about. So obviously I had to check the pot out, got hooked right away, and even swapped my old Jimbrough lifting split for endurance training. My question is about all the hype around high-ro. Rocks lately. What do you all think about it and the community? Would any of you ever try one or does it feel like the opposite direction from triathlon training? Thanks so grateful for this podcast and everything I've learned from y'all. Tessa. I got nothing against it. Yeah. It's definitely different, very, very different

than triathlon training, but your triathlon or just like aerobic fitness will will go a long way. They do a lot of running in that. They do a lot of running. And it's like a 50 minute, one hour event. One hour, yeah. Well, one hour if you're very fit, it's one hour. Okay. Very fit. Yeah, when I was watching it on TV one time, I was thinking, I don't even think I could pull that sled. This is what happened to a friend of mine who was a pro-tra athlete. She had a really hard time pulling the sled. Paula, you would be able to do it, but it is very heavy.

Yeah, it looks so hard. It's just so different than the type of training we do. But full respect for them. And I think that it does probably make you a bit of a more well-rounded. athlete than just swimming and biking and running to have a little bit of strength and plus the running cardio aspect the rowing you have to be really well-rounded yeah i it does not really attract me personally though i have to no like there's me neither it's indoors the competitions happen i think all indoors you train a lot indoors i you know when we're talking about earlier like what what what do you wish you incorporated earlier i wish i incorporated more trail running

and more dirt earlier. But you got access to that. If you're living in Newark City or Chicago or whatever, then this would be a freaking awesome thing to do if you lived in a city and we're kind of gridlocked. Any city. Yeah. We are so spoiled where all three of us live,

you can get on trails within five minutes. But if you're living in the middle of Boston or Edmonton even in the winter, this is a fantastic way to have goals, have a competition. And it's standardized, right? So you can try to get your time better. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of cool. It's not just like made up every event.

They just have different things put together. And not that it should matter, but the athletes look really good. Like that kind of training builds of really aesthetically. Like they're all very muscular, you know? I'm like, wow. Where the Hydrox girls at? I mean, offensive charing to. Girls all look really good.

Okay. Nick, Nick is single, by the way, if you're a high rocks girl. But also the only thing that turns me off from it is this is a high rocks stand for hybrid rock star? Oh god. Yes, it does. I don't think anybody wants to admit it. I just wish it was called something else. I wish I didn't know that. It's like it's a really harrowing fact. It was like three guys in a garage. And then like fast forward 10 years like shit. I don't know. We can't change it now. I think it's German or Austrian originally. And I think they just, you know, they have this American thing. Like yeah, hybrid

rockstar sounds cool. Except when you're American, you're like, oh, that is not cool. It does not sound cool. We probably just like deflated the sport for. It's like when we're like, oh, paw normal. Sounds past normal. Yeah. Yeah. That's literally my only knock on it is the acronym. Yeah, that's a tough.

I think they're trying to like really, it's like KFC doesn't stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore. Do you know that? It's just KFC. They said it doesn't stand for anything. I think Hirox probably should follow us. It's like, no, no, no, it doesn't stand for anything. Like, it's just high rocks.

I think that's a good idea. It's just high rocks. I think AG1 is also like this number. It used to be Athletic Green. Athletic greens and now they're just AG1. I think now it's just AG1. Correct. Yeah.

Although to be fair, maybe probably most people don't know that it's hybrid rock star. I don't. I think most people don't. So in your brain just keep thinking of it as high rocks. Just pretend nothing happened here. Assholes like us that keep bringing it up. I'm going to call it Tony Chocoloni forever. Same.

Of course. Of course. We have one more question or do we want to just end it right there? We could do one more. Let's do one more. We're on a rule. Okay. Last question here is from Ashley.

Hey team. my question is about training camps. I've been toying with the idea of taking a week off of work and going somewhere fun, maybe with some friends and just dedicating a week to training. I'm a one-time 70.3 a year with some sprints and trail running events sprinkled in kind of athlete.

In order to get full benefit out of a week of training without having to work around my work schedule, when would be the optimal time leading up to my race to plan such a trip? I understand that many training camps are for kicking off the season and finding better weather to train in, but I'm really just looking to play athlete for a week

without my 9 to 5 getting in the way. If I plan it too early, I might not have the fitness to do bigger sessions or multiple sessions a day, and if I plan it too close to the race date, I could add stress to my race day, best Ashley. So let's start with this question. If as a pro athlete,

when would you want to schedule like your biggest volume week before 70.3? Oh gosh, I don't know. It's probably, I mean, like, if this travel's not too stressful, I think I would probably want to have it end like 10 days to, you know, to like basically start your taper with your travel day home. Oh, I was going to say like four weeks out because I think there's something psychologically to going to a camp like that, having a week where you're basically training like a professional athlete because you have no other commitments and then taking a bit of that mindset into your home environment. You're totally right. And you kind of carry it for a few more weeks, and then you taper and then you race. So you get this really big motivation boost with still a month to go till you race.

And then ideally, you're not going to train as much when you're at home, but you can implement some of those habits and feelings and excitement that you had from the camp. Yeah, I love that. And that also saves you from risking, like, getting sick on the travel and impacting your race. It was too close to the race. When did we do, before Cabo, we did like a little, like, training camp together in Bent. Do you remember that? I feel like that was ideal.

I think that might have been four weeks. A little fake training camp? Yeah. Like you just came here to train. Correct. Yeah. I was like, I don't remember this at all.

I remember, I remember just training. Like, I did so much volume that week and I was cooked at the end. But I felt great. It was very fun. Yeah, that's a good point,

Nick, because if you're going to a camp and you're just going to like throw caution to the wind and do, you know, 20 hours of cycling. You do need a bit of recovery time afterwards. So flying straight to your event is too risky.

I would say like if you're going on a big camp, do as much cycling as you want. Don't go crazy with the running because you're just going to get too sore and injured. That's good advice. Like as much as you want and run every day, but keep it, still keep it fun. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it.

All right. Well, that's all we got. That was our pod. That was a more traditional one. And I feel like we timed it perfectly. That was 10 questions, by the way. There was a lot of questions. Anything else, guys? Any final thoughts, feelings?

Paula loves the whiteboard. I've been scribbling on it the whole time. Can we see? Anything fun? Did you erase? I just erased it all, but it has to get scribbles. Did you get any photos? This is a definite pod supporter potential thing. Paula's whiteboard at the end of the... Paula's whiteboard? That's fun. Is she just little drawings?

And we could make a jingle? Here are the things that I scribble today. The TTL logo. Okay. I drew the computer. screen that I was looking at, including our faces on it. I drew the Apple logo. I drew so many things. This is funny because Paula, I think would you say that you would call yourself a not creative person? No. Because I would never draw, like I would not do that. You naturally are doing that. Yeah, well, when I was at school, I mean, I went to university, but before we all had computers at school.

I was taking notes by hand and I would doodle all the time. As I was completely focused on what was going on, I think it helps me focus better. Yeah. Like I was totally in tune with what you guys were saying and what was happening. I would even say more than usual you were in tune.

So maybe the whiteboard is actually like a performance-enhancing drug for the podcast. Yes, because the whiteboard does not have anything like a phone that gives you stuff back. It's just you. You are generating it. Yeah, I love it. All right. Whiteboard every week next to Paula for sure. Yeah, I'm going to need some new pens in it.

Can you get me some new colors? Actually, we have Leslie could send us all the whiteboard pens we want. He was very kindly offered, yes. A whiteboard person? Send us a message? Yes. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

So we have a whiteboard sponsor. Well, but I had, I, I, yeah, don't. If you're a whiteboard, we're already sponsored, so don't even worry reaching out. Don't bother. Don't bother reaching out. I ordered the whiteboards right after the pod last week. Then this, Leslie, listened to the pot. It said, don't order anything.

I'll send you the whiteboards, but it was too late. But now, maybe we could get some colored pens. That would be great. You know, you can never have too many. I'm going to be taking this to the pool. You can never have too many. Of course. Why not?

Send some markers. Why shouldn't I have it? All right. Oh, very cute. That kind of looks like me. We'll see y'all next week. And if you're lucky, some picks of Paulus Wayport. Yep.

Bye, Ron. Okay. Bye. Later.