That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon training in Tucson AZ, elite age group racing, and more!

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

This week Eric and Paula are recording from Tucson, Arizona. Escaping the Oregon winter, we started with some TTL updates, and a listener submitted This or That: Winter Olympics edition, before moving on to questions. This week we discussed:Triathlon vs home life balancepre-race breakfast mealDoping and cheating in age group racingUsing only one fin to swimAdding an olympic eventIs spitting gross?How much faster are jammers than regular shortsTTL Camp logisticsA 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 Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. We've got a great show for you tonight. I just like how all the late night shows, that's what they say. That's really like the way that kicks off into the whole thing. But welcome to our triathlon-related podcast. I am a professional athlete, Paul is a professional athlete. Nick is an amateur, tri-athlet, professional musician. And the bulk of this show is made up by us answering questions from people who, send them into us. So if that is you, thank you so much. And we hope that if you're listening, especially if you're listening for the first time, you get something out of this. Welcome to the show. We had so many questions this week, Nick. I went through it all for at least an hour today,

reading all of them. Any straight up just compliments, singing your praises? A lot of the time the compliments are intertwined with the question, which I'm sure you know. Yes, they're baked in. It's their way to sneak their question in. And you know what? I'm not going to say it doesn't work. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we'll leave that out. Getting buttered up. So you guys are not in Bend right now.

Where are you? We're in the place where all triathletes seem to go in the winter, and that's Tucson, Arizona. Do you feel like that's a deserved title that Tucson gets of this triathlon mecca, winter trathlon mecca? I think Paula said it well. It's where all the triathletes seem to go. I don't know if I would call it a trathleton mecca, but it definitely

works, it's got consistently good winter, you know, temperatures and sunshine and stuff. That's the draw, is the weather. I mean, the bike path system is amazing. The training is easy because the weather's so good, but if there was another place, I mean, after going to Henderson

for the base camp, it opened my eyes to, oh, there are more places than Tucson that have good weather, that also have good training. But Tucson is really nice and easy, and mainly, honestly, the reason we come back here is because Heather and Wadi are here and we really like training with them for a couple weeks every year.

Yeah, it is also nice. It's kind of like Boulder, how they're, you know, in the wintertime here, there's like a critical mass of triathletes. So like today we went and swam with a group and there were like multi, you know, like five or six triathletes in the water and we all did the same set. And it was like very nice to just have automatic people to swim with very simply instead of Paul and I going to the pool or Paula going by herself. And how much do you think, I know, you guys are in big part there because of Heather and Wadi, but how much do you think other people are going there, knowing that there are other places they could potentially go, but still choosing Tucson because of this critical mass of triathletes that is there?

Yeah, I think it's a lot of that. Also, even if you're coming here, not necessarily thinking you're going to train with other triathletes, just thinking, oh, there's 50 triathletes there must be good. Yeah, yeah. Because otherwise they wouldn't go back. So it's just like a little bit of confidence. And when you're going somewhere brand new, like Henderson, where we went for base camp, I'd never been there, you'd never been there. We were kind of taking Jordan's word for it, that it was good for training.

And I was trusting, but skeptical, because no one goes there. So there is a big element of, you know, just having a bit of a good reputation, I'd say. Yeah, it was like the same thing with going to Ventura. Like nobody goes to Ventura for a training camp, but we ended up loving it. Yeah. You know, so nobody goes until the first. first person goes. Speaking of the training camp, base camp, Eric, you just put out a YouTube video with, it was basically like a glorious highlight reel of how amazing that week was. I cannot imagine

watching that and not wanting to be a part of it next year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn't like set out to do that, but it was, we had such an incredible time. Everybody was awesome. The only thing like you brought up, Nick, is that there's not a lot of like Paula and I talking. There's a lot more of just like the going on of the camp. And that's because we were legitimately so busy, like, running the camp and making sure that people were, like, getting where they needed to go and, like, sharing Strava files and doing all the stuff. And it was just such a whirlwind. And so I do think the video, like, represents what it was pretty well. There was, and there were, like, freaking eight sessions that didn't make it into the video because I didn't want to make this a 35-minute long thing.

But I think that it gives a pretty good representation. And, yeah, we're so psyched. And, we're like definitely barring some big issue. Yeah. It's like to do it again next year. You know, it's funny you brought up that you not all the sessions were in there because as I was watching it, I'm like, I get that this is a lot, but this is still nowhere near as fun as it actually was. Like it looks incredible.

Each, like the bike ride through Valley of Fire. It was like a minute of clips. We were out there and it was four and a half hours of just, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, my god oh my god look how amazing this is the whole time you know it's like you just hand selected these these glorified no it was all so beautiful yeah i did actually have about four hours worth of clips between you me jordan but i managed to get it down to one minute yeah nice nice it's funny at these camps though because as the camp ends everyone has feels like a family or you know such close friends by the end of it so you almost wish you could just replicate the camp again

with the same group. Yeah. Which obviously is impossible, but, you know, there is this funny sense. And we felt this at the ski trip, too, where the first couple days no one knows each other, everyone's bit shy. And then as you get to hang out, every single day, all day, and eat meals together, you become a little family. And now the group chat for the camp is, like, still going off every day.

I was going to say that today. People are still posting stuff in it. Yeah. So it's like you really do create these lasting friendships, hopefully, that you can meet up at races or see these people, you know, at other places. throughout the year, maybe at another camp, but that's kind of the coolest part of it all is it's not like you fly home and it's over. It's like you fly home and you still have all these connections. So that was fun. Super cool. We're so glad we got to do that. Just off the back of

the camp thing, we also like right after base camp dropped our off-season launch, which had beanies, a men's long, well, a unisex long sleeve shirt, a women's short sleeve shirt that actually features a photo that I took on our ski trip. That went fantastically well, but we do still have a few beanies left in stock and a couple of t-shirts, certain sizes. Nice. And you're wearing the beanie right now and the shirt right now that you're wearing. I'm wearing the beanie on the shirt right now. I've been basically living in this for the last month. So long-term test seal of approval. Final thing, I don't know the exact date, but it should be right around when this podcast comes out. Coffee is coming back. We, uh, years ago, we did a

coffee program and we rotated which roasters we do, which we feature and you could subscribe to it or bring that back except we are doing just thump coffee and bend. We went and we tasted a bunch of different coffees like eight different types. We came up with our own roast and blend that we want to do. That's coming out. So you're going to be able to subscribe to that and also get instant, which the instant is honestly like the magical part of this whole thing, how good the instant is relative to regular coffee. That should be up on the website around the time that this podcast comes out. So check that out. We've heard so many people praise the instant coffee. Yeah, they're like, how can we get this? When's this coming out? Yeah, we dropped a bunch of sample

packs inside of our team TTL boxes and everybody kind of lost their mind. And finally, it is ready for everyone else. Yeah, it's not like the Starbucks stuff or anything. And we basically drank it all week while we're at that Airbnb. That's all we had. This is what I've enlightened me because I don't know. I don't know coffee like you guys. Is this something, obviously it's great for travel, especially if you're out in nature and you want coffee. I mean, that's obvious. But is this something that people might use at their home?

For sure. That's all Paula's mom drinks at home. Okay. And it's good enough to do that. If you're crunched for time and you just need to boil water, dump in a pack of the instant, it's freaking delicious. So yeah, for that, for like race morning, for like taking on a trip with you, anytime you travel,

it's like super life hack. Okay. Sweet. Yeah, it takes three seconds to make. Yeah, legitimately, I think like everyone should try it. It's going to be amazing. I think we're going to bring some to Oceanside with us, both like the regular and the instant, because Costelli's going to have a coffee set up there.

So we're psyched on it. I think anybody who tries it is going to want it. Love it. Well, we have so many questions today, as Paula alluded to earlier, and I did include most of them that you handpicked Paula. So let's start with a little aperitiv here. And it's a segment submitted by Ruth.

And it's a, well, I'll get into it. I'll just read what Ruth said. Greetings, TTL family. Hope you all are well. Love all that you do for the community. I have written a this or that for the Winter Olympics. Which sport would you compete in at the Winter Olympics? Paula could be competing for Team Canada, Eric for Team USA, and Nick for Team Italy.

By the way, not to brag, but Italy is crushing. it. I know that they are, the Olympics are in Italy, but our total medal count, I think, is second only to Norway, and I think our gold medal count is also second only to Norway. That's amazing. We're a tiny little country. We don't have college sports.

It's so proud. I don't understand this, how like every Olympics, the host nation, just magically all of a sudden has the best... It doesn't happen every time. Pretty much. But it's a great question, because are you telling me that the crowd

the home court advantage is, is it the vibes? Or is there a... Okay, that's what happens. The Olympics happen in Italy and Italy eight years in advance or whatever is like, all right, we're putting a bunch of money in to our coaching to our athletes

so that they can be at their best. Yeah, I think so. Plus all the non-tangible things of the home crowd and getting to practice on the courses and that kind of stuff. Yeah, right. And the excitement of knowing it's a home Olympics as your training.

The thing is, I can't imagine if you're an Olympic athlete, aren't you already at maximum excitement that you're in the Olympics? Or is being at home really pushes it that extra? No, I think it's more because you have all your family and friends there. Yeah. And you have that excitement to look forward to for like four years.

You know, I was talking to John Reed, who's been on a development team for a couple of years, and he's getting all psyched up for L.A. And just that extra little bit of importance to it, I think that does something like day in and day in. Yeah, totally. Cool. Okay, well, moving. on here. Here are the

options. Would you rather compete in biathlon, 15K individual, or Nordic combined, which is cross-country skiing and ski jumping? So we'll go in order. Biathlon is pretty sweet. Yeah, I agree. Bathlon seems great. We were watching that

last night. First, it seems so silly. Like, Jerry Seinfeld made a joke about it. It's like, swim a lap and strangle a guy. It makes just as much sense to me. No, we were talking about it. And imagine swimming like an all-out 300, and then just having to like basically hold your breath. Right.

For like seven seconds to shoot. Yeah. To do anything intense. And then they just like go right back to it. It looks brutal. Yeah. Yeah. So cool.

Ski mountaineering, mixed relay or snowboard parallel giant slalom. Parallel giant slalom. Yeah. Have you ever seen it? There's two snowboarders that go down at the same time. Oh yeah. And they do slalom simultaneously.

Oh yeah. I know what it is. And that's what I would want to do for sure. Oh, sorry. I thought you were asking, yeah, same same with me. As much as I love walking up hills for ski touring. But Paula, you would do schemo. Yeah, cool.

Curling, mixed double, or ice hockey. Ice hockey. Yeah, if we're assuming we could be good at the sport, yeah, for sure hockey. Yeah. Like if I had to just learn it now as an adult, probably curling because there's a better chance I'd be able to do it. Yeah, right. There's something about curling that all of a sudden for me now, I don't know in my old age is appealing. There's something about the strategy.

Yeah, we were watching it with Devin's mom, and she knew the game, and so she was explaining us the rules as we were watching it. And that made it actually much more interesting because there's a lot of strategy. And, yeah, it's actually kind of a cool sport. Yeah. Okay, what about luge or skeleton, both singles? I just like the skeleton. You actually run, run, run, and then jump on it. I feel like it's more athletic.

Yeah, I agree. I think the luge is like you're just like this one big, like, row. and then the poop, pop, pop, pop, pop, with your hands. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I would pick skeleton, even though both kind of terrify me. You know what I think? I think the steering on the luge, though, because you steer kind of with your legs.

Yeah, I'm more into the steering on the luge. Right. I think the skeleton, I don't know how much you really... You just shift your weight, but yeah, they drag their feet a lot. Yeah, which I think is a hard thing to do. You're like controlling your direction by dragging your feet. Yeah, but they both look so crazy. We were watching the monobobob.

Yesterday, which is a single-man bobsled. And that looked less cool than the illusion, the skeleton. Yeah. Because there's like a team bobside has a vibe, but yeah,

totally. They're just kind of like, wrapped around. That looks pretty roomy. That looks like way bigger than a, you need vessel. Yeah.

Yep. Okay, next one is short track speed skating 1K individual or speed skating 1K individual. So it's like the, you know, like that.

Short track or long track. Yeah. Short track is so cool. I love watching. way more dynamic. Yeah, but I would personally prefer to do long track. I think it's a little bit more, maybe a bit less strategic than the short track versus like for it to pass people in a short track looks so impossible.

Yeah, yeah. Or as long track is a little more in your own control. It's like four, and it's very like purely fitness, it seems like in the long track. Yeah. Yeah. You get your own lane, et cetera. Yeah. Okay, next one is alpine skiing downhill or cross country skiing, 50K individual.

Cross country. Downhill. Downhill's epic. Yeah, downhill's epic. And two more, figure skating, singles, or figure skating doubles? Doubles. Doubles for sure. It's so fun to do something for team.

Teammate. Yeah, that's good point. I can do doubles. Only if you'll be my partner, Nick. Oh, my God. Of course, I would love to throw you into the air. Oh, you think you're doing the throwing. Oh, for sure.

You're like 20 pounds lighter. I'm definitely throwing you into the air. And then last one here is snowboard, half pipe, or bobsled two-person event. Oh, I didn't even know there was a two-person bobsled. Yeah, there's mono, there's duo. I kind of like the two-person bob sled. I can get into that. One of those people, they're just, two of them are pushing at the beginning and then only one person is steering. I guess you're shifting your body weight. One steering, one's breaking. Yeah, one's breaking. Oh, really? I think so. Like that's at least that's how it is in the foreman. There's somebody steering and somebody breaking.

Okay. In all of the sliding sports, this is, sorry. Those are all the questions, but I just have a question for you guys. If you know, in all of the sliding sports, are they breaking before turns like you would in a race? Like a bike race? I think it's just a stop at the end. Okay, stop at the end. Did you see this video of the guy who, like, three of the four dudes tripped and fell and didn't manage to jump into the bobsled? And so this was actually super dangerous because he had to like get to the front and steer the thing and then like jump to the back right at the end of the track and slam on the brakes.

himself. No, I did not see that. That didn't happen at the Olympics. It was like a viral reel that was popping up. Okay. But yeah, so you got to do that. Those are you going to slam it to the end? Leads me to believe that there's no breaking until the end. Oh, right. Right, right.

Or this guy didn't need breaks. I see, I see. There's like a pulling an air in Gwyn with no chain. He's like, all right, I guess I got to make it work. It was pretty impressive athleticism, I got to say. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, the most exciting thing about the Olympics for me is that every night we turn it on to Washington, it and we discover an event we didn't even know existed.

So I think that's a really cool thing. Last night we watched team speed skating long track where they're going around in threes and pushing each other's butts. This is so wild. I don't even know that existed. So it's really cool every four years to just be like, that's a sport. That's a sport. People devote their lives to the sport.

We didn't even know it was a sport. I also hadn't seen that sport until this year. I wonder if it's new. All right. And then Ruth says, hope I was brief enough looking forward to being on Team TTL this triathlon season. Thank you so much, Ruth. Thanks, Ruth.

You were brief. We were not. Yeah, of course. As usual. Okay, let's move on to questions. You can submit your questions to the podcast at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And don't be discouraged by us saying that we got a lot of questions this week because some weeks we get fewer questions and then a larger percentage of those makes it into the podcast. So please keep sending them in.

If you have one that you sent maybe a long time ago, maybe just rephrase it a bit, maybe shorten, tighten it up, cut the facts. and resubmit it if we didn't use it. Maybe we'll read it on the pot. And you can become a podcast supporter at the same place at ThatTriathlonLife.com slash podcast. We really appreciate that. It's one of the main ways that the podcast keeps going forward. And this week we're going to also pick a completely random podcast supporter to win a special

prize. It's actually going to be the beanie that Eric is wearing on his head. Not the exact one because he gets to keep that one, but there's a new one in a sealed container that is going to go to Keith Kruger. And just a little behind the scenes before the podcast we picked Keith. I've met Keith. Keith used to work at the REI in Santa Monica. And this is just a crazy coincidence.

But thank you, Keith. Now I don't want to give away where he works now, but he works at a cool triathlon-related company. So Keith, I didn't even know you were a podcast supporter. So really appreciate that. And you're going to get a cool beanie. You're lucky day, Keith. Thanks for your support. Lucky day.

Okay, moving swiftly along here. And we have a lot of questions. They're all great, though. So I don't want to give any of them less attention than I deserve. Do we tell Keith to send his address to you now? I'm going to talk to Keith. Oh, because you know him. Because we're homies.

Yeah, we're homies. But it was truly random. It was completely random. Eric said, I was like, no way. I know, Keith. Okay. First question is from Bob. Good morning, TTR crew.

Pee Lean Into Life came on during my Sunday long run with a coastal sunrise in the background. and I realized you got me. So much joy in that moment. Smiley face. Just a little context. This was Paula's maybe favorite song. That's what she said a couple weeks ago. Okay, advice question.

My wife of 20 years, the absolute love of my life, is conflicted by the duality of knowing endurance sports brings me such a joy and the burden that is placed on her, our young family of five, our big jobs, and just flat out busy lives. Advice to her, advice to me. Love what you guys are doing.

doing, babe, man, Bob. Man, you know, we can do our best on this, but to be honest, I have nothing but respect for anyone who is in this situation or a similar position, similar situation. We make a living doing this, and we have a relationship, and we also make a living, running

that trath on life, but we don't have kids, we just have a fairly high-maintenance dog, and I've always been so impressed by anyone who manages to balance family. training and goals and work. Yeah, but it's worse. Obviously, it's much harder if you have the sense of guilt when you're doing it because you are leaving behind a wife who understands but also doesn't.

And then a family of five, that's crazy. But I think that the tradeoff is like if you weren't doing it, you wouldn't bring as much joy and happiness to your day-to-day family life. And of course, there's only so many hours in a day. So you're going to work and then your training. and then maybe you aren't seeing your kids as much, but those hours that you do spend at home, you're in a better mood, you're in a better headspace.

And if you just cut it out completely, I think you'd be a less happy family member and not bring your best to the household. Wow, I agree. It's important to do those things, but I think also just considering maybe moderation in terms of the events you sign up for, like don't train for an Iron Man,

train for an Olympic distance, and get more out of doing sessions that are only an hour long and doing super high intensity and getting the same kind of thrill and feeling out of it, but not having it take up your entire weekend where you have to go out and do a six-hour bike ride and a two-hour run off the bike and like really crazy stuff that Iron Man training requires.

Yeah, which is hard. And keep in mind that there are plenty of people winning age group races these days that are basically retired. They sold a company and are single and just be realistic with yourself, I guess, of you're doing the best that you can, and it makes you feel good. And like Paula said, I completely agree.

When I go for a mountain bike ride, I'm not spending time with Paula, but I just get such a rush afterwards that I do feel like I'm the best version of myself for quite a while afterwards. But the hard part is, if when you come home from your activity, if your wife's kind of grumpy at you

in a passive-aggressive way. I don't know anything about that. Because that happens to us. He'll be gone for like ever on a mountain bike ride. And yeah, we have like X and X, X and X and X and methous and things to do at home. And yeah, he's in like the best mood ever when he gets back. But I'm like, what the fuck?

Yeah, it ends pretty quickly. So, I don't know, just keeping that in check. The other thing that I would suggest to both of you, Bob, is to remember that there's a lot of things you could be doing as a hobby. But this one statistically extends the length and quality of your life. And in your old age, you will be able to spend more quality. time with your family because you will have been doing this thing that is very, very healthy for you. In moderation.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, hopefully Bob's not one of those absolute crazy 25 hour a week age groupers. But, I mean, if you are good, good for you, Bob. But it should make you healthier and be able to spend more quality time with your wife and kids and live a long healthy life. And also just being a dad that's kind of fit and active, you can do more fun things, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't. think triathlon. We were talking about this the other day when people talking about eating 100 grams of carbs an hour on a bike ride. But we don't have to put this in. That is not healthy. But triathlon competing and training in triathlon compared to almost anything else you can do as a

hobby is extremely healthy. Yeah, you're right. You could be into poker, you could be into pool, you could be into even golf as outdoors and good, but it's not the same as straining your aerobic system and like everything that we do. Right. Yeah. Good luck, Bob. Good luck. Next one here is from Sejal. Hey team, favorite pre-race breakfast meal. I feel like I've been there for a lot of your guys pre-race breakfast meal.

I put this in because I'm like, when you're eating your pre-race breakfast, there's absolutely no like favorite, yummy, enjoyable. Favorite is not a word that comes to mind. It's just like, what can you get into your body? Yeah. And is it just like, is it just a bagel with peanut butter? is that the that's generally my go-to

but I'll also usually add Nutella to it because that does make it a little bit more yummy and easier to get in because if I'm so nervous and it's so early nothing is appealing.

No, I don't want to eat. Yeah, I just do the normal cereal that I always do or maybe I'll switch over to oatmeal. Sometimes I do the toast but that's just because I eat cereal or oatmeal for breakfast every single day so I think my body's used to the fiber

even though that sounds super risky. Do you guys try to try to eat more or do you not? Do you pretty much do what you do at home if you can? I do what I do at home normally, which is almost always like nearly 1,000 calories for breakfast. Oh, that's a lot. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that feels good. And do you do any gel or anything before you start to swim? Or is that the last time you eat before the race is your breakfast? Caffeine gel, like 15 minutes before the swim. Yeah, cool. Okay, great. We'll keep that one short because we got a lot of good ones coming up. Next question here.

Dear Tripod, I found triathlon in my 40s after years of competing and running and began to lead to increasing injuries. Triathlon allowed me to continue to challenge myself as I age while doing something I already love to do, which is train every day. As I gained more experience with Iron Man events, I started to become frustrated at seeing things in races like intentional drafting. And I became aware that even though Iron Man prohibits performance enhancing drugs, hormone reprimand, placements such as testosterone are widely available and can be used to gain an advantage by age groupers. I can't seem to bring myself to want to continue to compete in this environment, and I'm wondering your thoughts about solutions. What do you think about the feasibility of two different registration types? One that pays an additional fee to be ranked for podiums and

world championship qualifications, subject to random in-competition drug testing and riding with Race Ranger, deducting time spent in the draft zone, wow, and other type of registration that is participation based without those rankings and without enforcement of those rules. Or maybe I should just get over it and find a new outlet. Thanks for your thoughts. So that's an interesting thought because this is a complaint, right? There's a legit complaint about this and like why are age troopers never tested when some of them are doping for sure as an example of one of these things. Is this something that if you were working at Iron Man that you think would be wise?

Is it something as an athlete that if you could put yourself in the mind of an age? grouper that you think would be something you would want? I mean, if it was feasible, which is a big if, I would 100% be into it. If there's just an elite wave, you know, which plenty of races have had those, and to be inside of that elite or, you know, age group elite wave or whatever, you've paid that little bit extra money. You're subjecting yourself to these enhanced regulations to make sure that racing is as pure as it can be, like, awesome.

And then I think there is a huge percentage of people that don't care at all. They're just trying to get through the race. They're just trying to, like, become an Iron Man. And that doesn't matter. They can do the rolling start. So is it feasible? I don't know. That's a big question mark.

But I would be into it if I was a competitive age group athlete. Yeah. I think having, even just having, like, that as a label, like the pro, whatever you want to call it elite triath elite as you said eric years ago triath elite um it could be just enough to convince people like oh yeah i'm i'm like i'm serious so i'm doing the thing that could qualify me for worlds we could even see something where it's still more than half the field is doing that sure yeah it doesn't have to be like so those people get drug tested potentially they could they could they are paying more for their registration so that they know

that they're racing against people that are subject to random drug tests well so the problem here is that half the pros aren't getting drug tested. Right. So now we're going to start randomly drug testing age groupers. Right. There's not enough resources to regulate amateur racing. I mean, it's just so expensive. And it's unfortunate that it's like that.

Yeah. And I hate this question, or I like this question, but it's sad that this person's going to literally leave the sport because this is such a big issue. But I think that until you can test, the pro field, I don't barely ever get tested. And I should get tested more than I do.

So it's kind of like I think there needs to be more testing at the tippy end of the pro field or even throughout the pro field before this begins. I don't know, but don't they actually test amateurs? They say they do. They say that you can, but I've literally never known of anyone actually. I think they like randomly do it like at Kona.

Right. They'll test like five age group athletes at random from inside of the top 10, you know, that kind of a thing. And has anyone ever been caught? Like, I feel like one time. I can remember one instance. The really tough thing also about this is that usually the doping occurs outside of the competition. So you're coming into the race without any trace of it. So not with testosterone.

You're really going to do out of competition drug testing for amateur athletes? It's impossible. No, if like low testosterone replacement, like that's not. a thing that's going to be out of your system super quickly. Yeah. So I think it would work for that, which is, I assume, like, the main offense or, like, the most because it's legal and easy to get. You can get prescribed it pretty easily.

Versus, like, age groupers doing EPO. I can't imagine that's a ton of people. No, we just rewatched Icarus last night, and he was doing EPO as part of the thing. It was like this whole protocol. He had a doc. And it's like, it's crazy. And it didn't help them that much. That's the other thing.

Yeah. Yeah, interesting, though. It's kind of an interesting thought experiment, but when Paulus points out, oh, not even all the pros are getting tested, it's like, okay, so now we're going to start testing age group. You know, that feels hard, hard to think that that could actually work. But on the flip side, like, it can contradict me myself, the top end of the age group field maybe should be tested before the bottom end of the pro field. I don't know. Oh, I see. Right. Those people aren't winning money in the bottom of that. Right. That's fair. That's a fair. That's a fair point. That's really tough. Yeah. Okay. Well, moving on. We really have an answer.

Well, our answer is that it's complicated. In an ideal world, no one would be doping, but we're not in an ideal world. So the answer is as messy as the question. Yeah. Okay. Next question is from Jess. Hi, team. Long time. First time. Love it. As I was doing my set in the pool, this week, a veteran swim coach was conducting a private lesson in the lane next to me. She must have observed me pulling on my fins as I was getting ready to do some drills.

She pulled me aside and encouraged me to only use one fin at a time, ever. Something about tricking my brain to adjust the free leg to do as much work as the fin leg, she swore that if I did this consistently over time, I'll get faster. Have you ever heard of this advice and do you also do it? I humored her and only used one fin while she was watching me. it did seem to help me be aware of the free leg. I must confess that I did put on both fins after she left. All the best.

Jess, Eric, this reminds me of your drill. It might not be your drill, but I think of it as your drill with the single paddle and how effective that was in exactly the way that Jess is talking about here. Yeah, I was going to say, I feel like we recommend this, but for your hands, like every couple weeks when we're talking about our swim warmups. Yeah, we do like a 50 or 100 with right paddle only, and then a 50 or 100 with left paddle only almost every single day for warm up. Yeah, I did it today.

Yeah, and actually, like going back like seven years ago or so, my coach Paulo had us doing right paddle left fin. Oh, wow. And then switching. I think that was a little bit more. Yeah, that was a little bit more for like arm leg connection feeling because you do feel very connected with the paddle and the fin. But I do think this is an interesting point of like, if you have a flipper on one foot,

your brain thinks it's on both foot. So you might kick a little harder with the other foot. But I don't know, swimming is all about tricking yourself, right? Yeah. I haven't tried doing it without the, just, I've only done it with like the paddle, you know, opposing paddle thing. Asymmetrical, yeah. And that is essentially the basis of what a two-beat kick is. Is like that will really teach you how to do two-beat kick properly.

Right. But I haven't done it with just the. Vince. Yeah, that's definitely worth trying out. Maybe we'll give a shot. We'll report back. Okay, next one here is from Adam. If each of you could add one event to either the summer or winter Olympics, what would

it be and why? And I'm going to start with a question for you guys. What do you think, just in general, of adding non-draft 70.3 distance to the summer Olympics? Would that be positive for the sport? Do you think that would be fun to watch? Do you think it would be a shit show? think it would poison what we know and love about long course non-draft triathlon?

I think it'd be pretty hard to watch. It's just so long. Yeah. What about the 50K walk run, you know? Here's the problem with putting the T100 type format or the 70.3 format into the Olympics is that already these races get so strung out that there's not a lot of necessarily interesting dynamics happening. And in the Olympics, you have to have like each nation.

getting a spot. So you only get two spots for the U.S., two spots for Great Britain. So it dilutes the field even more. And this is a problem we see in short course drafting triathlon is that it's less competitive than an actual world championship because there's only so many spots for each nation. So you put a long course race in that already is getting so strung out

and so, you know, the gaps are enormous at the end of these races. And I think the Olympics would complicate that make it even more. So it's just such a long race to broadcast. But of course, it would be good for triathlon as a sport to have more medals. Yeah. But I wouldn't pick that as a sport to out on sleep and as a triathlet myself. I completely agree with that Paul is saying.

It would be, I don't think you would have much of a problem of enforcing non-drafting because of that spreading out. But you could also have the winner being 35 minutes behind 12th place. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think many people don't realize what Paula was just alluding to is that let's say, just for the sake of argument, that the top 10 marathoners in the world are all Kenyan, well, all 10 of them can't compete in the Olympics. So you get in some ways a potentially less competitive field than just a regular major marathon.

And that's what happens in every event. Every event, every sport. Yeah, you probably have like the top five speed skaters are from Sweden and only two can go. Right. Yeah, it's a really interesting event in that way that a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of the best athletes in the world don't even get selected to go because their nation is so deep and competitive, which is really sad. It means people we know personally.

Right. But it is also what makes the Olympics so great is that we get to see Bangladesh competing in the sport. Oh, yeah. It's amazing. Like it's a global, you know, brings everyone together. It's the best part about the Olympics, but also the hardest part for the nations that are strongest at each sport. Okay, so back to this question, though, what sport would you add? Oh, there's already so many in there.

Yeah. You know, for winter, I would say schema, which is being added this year, which is cool. Yeah. I think it's so, it's such an aerobic event like running. The Winter Olympics is kind of lacking. Yeah. I'm really excited to have that in. Yeah, I guess for summer I would say mountain running.

Like a very technical version of trail running. Yeah, I think. Maybe like VK, like only up. Yeah. Or like the classic, which is like a VK up and back down. Yeah. That would be fun to watch, no? That would be fun to watch.

Yeah. And it's like 45 minutes, so it's like digestible versus a 50K or 100K. Yeah. The only thing I could think of for, other thing I can think of for site is for what summer is cyclocross. Oh, cycle cross is like, it feels like it's perfect. It's what triathlon is. short course for aathlon as to what we know

is cyclocross is to cycling. Insane events at the Winter Olympics and you're like, yeah, cyclocross is at least as big as this sport. Yeah. I just wonder if there's like a limit on the amount of cycling things

because like, you know, Matthew Vanderpull could do like the road race. He could rent them all. The mountain bike, the cycling cross, you know. Okay, well, so what? Michael Fox could do seven events. I'm just like the calendar of like, you know, fitting all those in.

Right. And they're all like one hour to five hour events. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Like it'll be sweet. Yeah. Okay, next question here is from Jason. Hey, TTL, gross question. Oh, exciting.

Spitting. I often spit on my runs. After almost spitting on another racer, I've realized how gross that habit is. I don't spit during my day-to-day activities just when I'm running. I've since cut back, but find myself wanting to clear my mouth

of hot saliva and not swallowing it. Is this weird? Just me? On a side note, I own a winery, the finger legs and would love to be your wine sponsor. Thanks for keeping me sane during my long runs. Wow, that's tempting. Okay. That's why we included this question. It's a good question, but I'm also like, bribery will work. We're going to have to test that wine first. Yeah, we don't do any

sponsorships without trying the product first. Right. No, but too seriously, we love wine. Do you guys, do you guys ever spit during your activities? I don't think I've noticed you either if you do that. Constantly. Really? Really. More than I'd like. Not as much during biking, but definitely during running. I have the same like unsuppressable urge to like clear my throat. And then there's just definitely a temperature where like your nose dribbles constantly. Well, that I know. But that's a snot rocket.

Are we saying those are the same thing? No, it comes out. He spits it. Oh, it like goes into your, it goes. Yeah, if you don't like blow a snot rocket eventually, it just like, you know, trickles down and here you are. Yeah. And your wife's yelling at you.

Okay. So what's your advice here? The crazy thing about endurance sport is that it's so uncomfortable and hard that you just don't even fucking care if it's gross. Yeah. And as long as you're not around anyone else and you're on trails or you're, of course you're not going to spit when there's someone walking past you. Well, I got spit on in a race once.

That is so disgusting. I would never do it in a race. And if I ended up winning the race. So it was extra painful. Yeah, that's crazy. No, no, be very aware when you do this. Like now, since I know it drives Paula crazy, like I'll like run behind her and do it as quietly as I possibly can.

I have to run behind her 100% of the time anyway, so it's not that hard. Right. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. If you're, you know, you know what's gross is like, when you're an endurance athlete and you're just so used to snout rocketing and spinning that you're walking into whole foods. Yeah. It's not okay.

It's not okay. You cannot snot rocket in the produce section. We're not allowed. Make sure you separate your endurance, intense activities from your everyday life. Don't start smart-marketing. Because I think it's gross when people just spit walking on the street. This is a hot take. This is a hot take.

But I just told my friends about it this weekend. It's a little embarrassing. But it's actually, to me, a green flag kind of romantically, if a girl's not rocket's on a ride. Because then I'm like, okay, she's not like pretending to be. this pretty perfect little princess. She's riding hard and she needs to get snout out and she does a snout rocket. I think it's kind of like, okay, this person's kind of cool.

And they're legit. I know it's crazy, but it's a green flag to me when I see a girl do that. I agree. Next thing you know, they're just farting nonstop inside of your small car. Okay, next question here. Hey, a long time listener, first time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that jazz, of course.

quasi-quick one today. This looks pretty quick, Chad. Good job. I've been swimming in baggy running shorts and I'm getting a pair of jammers in the mail for my birthday. It's kind of a TTL taboo, but we'll allow it. What sort of speed increase can I look forward to per hundred meters with some proper hydrodynamic bottoms versus a baggy jellyfish windsock. Love the baggy jellyfish windsock, by the way. Also, I have a hunch that it is Nick who took the bad photo in the new podcast photo.

the shadow on his face does not look natural. Very interesting. We will take that in consideration, Chad, but we are not telling you the answer until, I think, did we say episode 250 or 300? I forget. We could probably do 250. Let's do 250.

Let's do 250. Interesting, Chad. You might be right. You might be wrong. Man, it would be embarrassing if you were wrong after claiming this so confidently on the podcast. Okay. So what do you think from

baggy, from the most extremes. From baggy jellyfish to, baggy jellyfish would sock to we're assuming like painted on jammers.

Yes. Like brand new perfectly fit. Yes. That's like eight seconds per hundred. Yeah. Minimal.

At least. Maybe 10. That is, if you're very fast, maybe eight seconds, if you're like normal, I think it could be more 10, 12.

Yeah. So slow. Running shirts are slow. You're going to feel like a new athlete. It's going to be amazing. Yeah. This is actually maybe

a hack to liking swimming. Yeah. You hate it so much at first. So when you guys were swimmers and you had body hair that you would remove for a race, did you really like, my friend is, Nick who's a swimmer, he told me that even like the women would have like armpit hair and like long leg hair so that when they got to the race, they would shave it off and just have so much body awareness and feel so fast. Did you guys do that too or was there a little, is there an in-between? Yeah, I did.

But I'm not like a hairy person. Wasn't like grown it out as hard as possible or anything. You know, like that. But yeah, you do feel the difference. You do for sure. Yeah. For the people,

even who don't know, even you don't have to be very fast to feel, to feel that difference, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. It's a little tingly. It feels, yeah, feels special.

It's a whole sensation. Yeah. But I got to think is kind of similar like a dog when they do like a zoomie after being wet. He's like, ooh. Right. I'm fast. Right.

Right. Fun. Okay. and then final question here. This is from Alice. Hi, gang. How did the logistics of the TTL training camp work in terms of accommodating different abilities and fitting in your own training programs?

And did you work with an events partner so that all of the organizing and coordinating didn't sit with the three of you? Looks like a huge success from social media and intrigued about how you pulled it off. Cheers, Alice. I just want to, just for the sake of stolen valor, Paula and I did, I mean, I did the least. Paula, I don't know how much you did in organizing it, but really it was Eric and to a greater degree, Jordan, who did all of this and were the reason it was so successful. And Jordan's wife, Devin. And Devin, yes.

And we had Larry who was there as SAG support slash, you know, driving around everywhere. Larry was amazing. He was amazing. And Carson was there taking photos as well. So it was a really small team, but I think that we are all super valuable in our own ways. But for the logistical organizing, Jordan obviously was the biggest part, and he'd been there before. So he knew exactly where we were going to go on these bike rides and how camps work. Like, what's the optimal amount of activities in a day and meals together?

And I think it worked really well to have everyone staying at the same hotel because it created this sense of a base for everybody where we would all meet to start bike rides. And you wouldn't have that if you all stayed sprawled out all at your own Airbnbs and hotels. That was a great thing. But Jordan had thought about all this before the camp. Like what happens when three guys who were way faster than these three people, and they're going to take an hour longer to do the long ride? Yeah, this was our main concern. In terms of logistics and everything,

we're just the varying ability degrees. And making it fun for everybody who was at all those abilities. Yeah. And so what we offered was like on the long ride day, there was an 80K start. point and 120k start point. So you could drive and park at either of those spots. And then at the end, we are all kind of reaching the aid station at the turnaround at the

same time. So logistically, it worked out really well to be able to pick kind of your people that were your speed and link up with them. And Eric and me and Nick were all kind of like riding throughout the groups and chatting with everybody. Yeah. We tried to structure some of the runs to be like, we did a kilometer repeat session. like you could do between five and eight repeats,

but it was on a closed one kilometer course. For the long run day, we basically did an out and back sort of a thing, so you could turn around at whatever point in time you wanted to be your halfway turnaround point. And people did a really good job of just kind of like linking up with someone who was similarly paced. People became friends really, really quickly.

And I think we, I really love the balance that we striked of like planning versus choose your own adventure to where everybody, I think, felt like they were able to get what they needed out of it, while also feeling like they were on a predetermined course and had support and encouragement and weren't just like doing something on their own. Yeah. There was like a sag following each distance of rides.

So if anyone got a flat, if anyone needed nutrition, it was really helpful for everybody along the whole way. In fact, a week later, after the camp happened, I went on a ride on my own. And I was like, oh my gosh, I need to like bring everything that I need myself. This is crazy. I kind of got used to it. I think we might have also just gotten, I don't want to say lucky because I think it is a product of the type of community that has been built here. But I think there was a camaraderie at the edges of abilities on both ends that went inwards.

The fastest people were really stoked about the people who were less experienced or less fast. And the less experienced people were, I think, some of the most stoked people to be there. And they were getting the most bang for their buck. They were out there doing these long runs and long rides and long swims and loving it. So I think we might have had just this kind of Goldilocks a group, but I don't think it's a coincidence. I think that's what will be recreated next year as well, and the year after that and the year after that. I think so. I'm so proud and so happy of the group and what Jordan and Dev were able to build.

And yeah, for my part, I feel like I double-checked things. and gave input. And Paula as well looked over the schedule and said, I think that should be moved a little bit. No, but anytime I chimed in with like, did you think about this? He's like, yes. He already had an answer.

Jordan had thought about everything. Yes, exactly. So I was really hands off except for just like being there in person. Yeah. I thought it was interesting. People did have the choice to not stay in the hotel, right? Because there were like Stephen, for example,

who was from Vegas or lived in Vegas, he came. But everyone who was from out of town chose to stay in the hotel. Yeah. Basically, we wanted to make it so that if you knew someone nearby and had accommodation, that you could get a slightly cheaper entry into camp. And we gave people the opportunity to split a room with someone else who was coming to camp. If they wanted to, we really didn't want the cost of this to make it impossible for as many people as possible.

But the cost of the camp included the accommodation. Yes, we did get a great deal on the hotel by booking a lot of nights and everything. So I think most people saw the value in that. And yeah, we encouraged people to stay at the hotel just because of this community vibe. The whole, like, camp experience, it was really cool. Yeah, it was lovely. And people were friends and then people would go off and have dinner with people they met at the camp. It had nothing to do with us.

Yeah. There was community within that, which is just great. Yeah, that was the... We only did a couple of, like, team dinners and team lunches and breakfast, so... There was a lot of opportunity to do people for them to do their own things. We went to the strip one night. Yeah.

The party animals. Yeah, it was not a predetermined team activity necessarily, but everybody wanted to, so we all went. Yeah, we wanted to feel like Ocean's 11. Yeah, like perfect blend of plan versus, if everybody wants to do this, we'll do it. You know, you guys are, you got a little bit of the wheel here. Yeah.

That was great. Great. Love it. Okay, well, those are our questions, but what's the next week looking like for you guys as far as training, the kind of things? you're doing, how much longer are you there? No, it's kind of funny going to Tucson.

This happened last year, too. You get here and it's just so easy to train. The weather's so good that you end up just stacking up more volume and hours doing all three sports than we do in Bend. And we really have this mindset of like we're at training camp. There's a lot of less distractions. There's less host things and life things to deal with. So I don't know.

I really enjoy our time here every year, even though it's a little bit shorter this year than most years. but it's always worth the trip and yeah, I'm slowly feeling better every day. Is there any part of you, I guess both of you, but Paula, you're the one that it makes more sense to ask. Is there any part of you that is attracted to the kind of life that it seems like the national short course athletes have,

which is a lot of things are taking care of for them and they really just focus on training, eating, and recovering? Or do you like this? I mean, I did that for a lot of years. Yeah. So that's why I feel like you really know both sides of this, where you don't have to worry about cleaning the house. You don't have to worry about taking Flynn out.

It would just be you and Eric. It's focusing on training. I like the balance of having Flynn to deal with. And even when I was racing at the Olympic level, I was still going to school part-time and I had other things to do. I mean, it's really hard to do this sport in an all-consuming way where you have literally nothing else. It's very, you can't do it for very long

before you get so burnt out from it or overtrain and get injured. So I think no matter where we go, we're always going to have like TTR in the podcast and Flynn and other life stuff, but when you're not at your own house, it's this funny sense of like, I'm a little bit more dialed in with all the details.

And it was funny because Jackie came to our camp, which was amazing. And she said to me at the end of it, like, isn't this just what you're like? is every day because you don't have kids. Like, well, I guess kind of. Because she was on this camp leaving two young kids at home who require so much of her attention and time.

So she comes to this camp and really feels like a pro athlete for a week and goes back home and she's a mom. But Eric and I don't have a kid. So it's kind of like it made me realize that we are super fortunate to kind of be able to do this without distraction. Even when we're at home, we could. I mean, we do. That our mainly priority is training,

but even more so when we're not at home. Yeah. Yeah, I think like in place of kids, we have like Paula said, the podcast and just the business of DTL and making a vlog and everything. It's not maybe as much as a kid,

but I definitely think about it sometimes. And ultimately, it's like, yeah, when we come to a training camp like this, that's our opportunity. And if we want to get ready for a big race. I think we do a fairly good job of cutting out some of the extra stuff and doubling down on

just training and recovery. And that feels really good when we get the opportunity to. Yeah. Makes me think of Bob and his balance with his wife and his kids. Yeah. From my first question? Yeah. I was kind of thinking about that, you know, and I

didn't really say it in the Bob question, but if you could, you know, just do two races a year or whatever and say like, hey, I've got six weeks here where I'm really trying to do a good job to get ready for X. And then after that, we can go to Disneyland and do a vacation and I can go to more soccer practices or whatever. Maybe like periodizing a little bit like that could be happy for everyone.

I think that's what like Chelsea's talked about doing. She's like, Kona Prep. I am a athlete. Yeah. And then the day after Kona, I'm back to mom. Yeah. I don't know. It's kind of a good idea.

Yeah. I like that. All right. Yeah. Well, thanks everyone. one. Appreciate it. We made it. Full podcast. We're back a little bit back to normal after recording into handheld mics for a couple weeks. In person. It's back to our semi-normal setup. Yeah. And next week, you guys are still being Tucson, but then back in Ben. Yeah, I think next week we'll be recording from

Bond. Last, we might actually have to skip it next week because of a significant life event. Okay. But we'll be in touch about that. It's all good. Everyone, do not be concerned. But yes. You will get to find out what it is. Okay, thanks everyone. See you next. Bye.