That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon training, TTL spelling bee, over hydrating on the bike, TTL group run, and more!

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

This week we start things off with the fan favorite "TTL Spelling Bee", then move straight into questions. We talk about training in metric vs imperial, long distance off road triathlons, lower back pain while riding, a good first bike, and much more! For everything else, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggersham. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldstone. Do I say whatever is the next? Yes, that's your job. I don't know if we've ever, ever nailed that, like 100% nailed the intro. And this won't be that time either, I guess. We're back home in Bend. We just got back from our awesome camping trip and mammoths with Nick, seeing all the cool spots. We are, we've gotten a few workouts in now that we're back home. It snowed a little bit. It was sunny. It's just, It's been a roller coaster.

But Eric, Eric, you forgot to say, this is that triathlon life podcast. That's the very first thing I said. He did say that. Welcome to that triathlon life. Oh, he did say that. But he didn't say, who are you guys? Who am I? Why are we here? Why are we alive?

Yes. Eric and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician. This is our side, side, side gig doing this podcast. We have about 10 things that come before it, but we have not missed a podcast yet. in 13 weeks. That's right. Somehow. I would say this is rapidly climbing up the list of side gigs

towards the main gig zone. Yeah, I mean, the number of people that came out to us at Ocean Side and said love the pod was like more than said love the vlog. Well, it's because the pods, the pod's fresh meat. I feel like people there are excited about it because it's new. And Nick's a part of it. You guys still have way more people that watch the YouTube show. That's true. We did also say that, you know, like if people

like this, we'll keep doing it. So we haven't ever said that about the YouTube channel. Right. Yeah. If we want more praise, maybe we should do that. Oh, we're thinking about quitting YouTube unless somebody tells us we're amazing. Oh, that's good. So like Eric said, we just got back from our California trip and we're kind of trying to get back into the group of training.

But I also came back to an inbox full of amazing questions. So we're going to hit up as many of those as we can. And I must say a lot of them came with very heartfelt notes along with the questions. And we love those. like it makes Eric almost cry. He writes back to a lot of them. And I copy and paste them all to Nick, not expecting he's going to read them on the pod, but just so he can read them. Yeah, there was some nice stuff in there. And I go through and I kind of like tactically take some of that stuff out because it's a little, it's very nice, but I don't know if everyone needs to hear it.

No, exactly. That's what I'm saying is I don't think we need to read it on the podcast, but we appreciate the nice words. Very much. Why don't we jump right into it? Since we have a bunch of questions, we'll try to answer them as best in as quickly as we can. No fun games today. Just full question. Wait a second. Is that,

do you hear that sound? Oh, I think that's Pop Quiz Triathlon Spelling Bee. Okay, here we go. Wow. Oh my gosh. Okay, Eric, are you ready?

I didn't even realize this was going to happen. Here we go. First word, triathlon has three disciplines. Disciplines. How do you spell disciplines? D-I-S-E-I-P-L-I-N-E. That's correct.

Once again, the legend Eric Lagerstrom strikes again. Next word, sometimes when you're in college, you can still compete, and that would make you a collegiate athlete. Collegiate. Eric, go ahead.

C-O-L-L-E-G-I-A-T-E. Ding, ding, ding, that is correct. Once again, our boy, our man, our son, Eric Loggerstrom. When you're swimming, and you're citing, sometimes you have to try to peek over the ways to see the buoys.

I can do this one. I can do this one. B-U-O-Y-S. Oh, special star appearance from Paula. Nailed it. Got it. Oh, that's right. Got it.

Got it. That one actually trips me up all the time. There you go. That's a confusing one. So Eric and Paul are professionals, but I am an amateur. Amateur. How do you spell amateur?

Amateur. Am-A-T. U-E-R? First ever incorrect answer from Eric. It is E-U-R. That's what I put it in there, because it makes no sense. I think it comes from Le Francais. Anorobic contribution.

Anerobic. A-N-A-E-R-B-I-C. That is correct. And finally, the process of breaking down sugar into lactate, I think that's roughly what it is, is called glycolysis. How do you spell glycolysis? G-L-Y-C-O-L-I-S.

That's glyco-ly-L-E-C-O-E-C-O-L-Y-S-I-S-I-S. That is correct. I would have not gotten four of those letters correct. Very well done, Eric. Nick, those are hard. You're ramping it up. Those work really good words. That's still five out of six, so I'm nowhere near breaking you.

My goal one day is to get you to get less than 50% of these, or at least make you think about it a little longer. You're going to make me have to start reading more. That's right. Anyway, that was our second ever installation of our triathlon spelling me. This one was a pop quiz, I promise. I did not tell Eric what was happening beforehand. And I certainly didn't tell them how to misspell amateur. So anyway, now that that's down, we're kind of warmed up here.

We're going to move on to the questions. The first one is from Eileen's iPhone. I think that's not her last name. But her name is Eileen. She says, does Paula train in metric units and Eric Nick in Imperial? or are you guys bilingual in terms of kilometers slash miles for distances and paces? How are races marked and have there been issues with that? Thanks.

Eileen's iPhone. I train 100% in kilometers and meters preferably in the pool because we swim meters. Eric's also kilometers. Yep, same. But Nick, you're miles. Basically, if you're fast enough, you train in kilometers. So I'm still not at that threshold. So I'm still training fully imperial.

I don't know about that. It's really more of a matter of if you've raced ITU or not, because every ITU race is going to have kilometer markers and the coaches are going to talk in terms of kilometers and paces and kilometers. Yeah, miles is very American. But in a 70.3 in Canada, they'll have kilometer markers, and then in the U.S. there'll be mile markers. So you kind of just everyone has their GPS anyway.

Do you feel like you are bilingual in that sense? So, like, if I tell you a seven-minute mile, do you know roughly what that feels like? Or is that kind of all like a... No. No. No. No. For some reason, like, Fahrenheit to Celsius,

miles to kilometers, my brain just doesn't work that way. What about you, Eric? Yeah. He understands better. Since I started with Imperial and then switched to metric, it's, I don't fully understand Celsius. Like, I understand zero and minus 30 is extremely cold and 35 is very hot. But, like, if you were like, what is 12? I'm like, uh, cold-ish.

It's so interesting because, like, your body just associates. the feeling. So the trick I have for everyone, I think I've said this before, it's a really good trick. It's because zero, we know zero and 32, that's an easy one. But those aren't really temperatures that you live in that much. The most common one is 16 Celsius is 61 Fahrenheit. So you just flip those two numbers around. And then either direction you go, every one degree Celsius down or up is two degrees Fahrenheit. And you'll get pretty freaking close. Yeah, that's my little tip. But yeah, I also am not really bilingual in that. I just know that four-minute Ks is a 20-minute 5K, which is a 625 per mile.

So I can kind of extrapolate from there. That is what's great about if you're running 10K and 5K. It is so simple. Yeah, it's so simple. You want to run a 30-minute 10K? Three minutes per K. Easy. The end.

Yeah, that's, I've never, yeah, unless I'm in a car, I'm not doing a 30-minute 10-K. Okay, great. Next question is from Nick R. Hello, Eric, Paula, and Nick. I'm curious to hear Eric's thoughts on the announcement by Xterra that they will hold long distance off-road triathlons this year. Do you think Xterra will ever reach the coverage, viewership, and relevance? I hate to use that term because I find Xterra very relevant.

Or is it kind of its own thing? I think it would be great to see live coverage of major Xterraces, maybe in the same vein as the UCI partnership with Red Bull to broadcast their mountain bike races. Keep up the great work in the podcast, in sport and in the music studio. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I'm very excited to see it. I have felt like when they say Xterra long course, it's really kind of a gravel triathlon from what I can gather out of it.

They say it's like low technical ability needed and smoother gravel roads, not like single track. It sounds like it would be a gravel bike type of a thing. And I feel like that should be pretty relevant, given the relevance of gravel these days. And it's just going to matter whether or not Xtera can really capture the same sort of a vibe that is going on at a gravel race that makes people love it so much that's kind of cowboy and kind of fun and not, I think that they will.

Just based on how fun the Xtera, normal X-Darres that I've been to, have been. And there was like a second half of that question. Oh, coverage, yeah. I bet, like, I could see them starting to do like some recaps of just like general race nests, like think like the Iron Man Kona broadcast

or something where they're just like, really trying to give you the vibe of the whole event and get people excited about going and doing it and accomplishing something, whether or not they'll have like really focus hard on the pros at first, probably not. That's just like my guess. It'd be like, oh, here's some pro athletes and they're doing it and here's who won. But also look at how beautiful this is. Book your vacation now.

Yeah, that makes sense. I hope that there's just kind of like a lagging effect of how excited people are about gravel right now and that it'll catch up to off-road triathlon as well. Yeah, I mean, Xtera is kind of tough just because you do need a... A mountain bike. A higher level of ability and a mountain bike than you would need to do a gravel race. Almost anybody out there could go and complete a gravel race in terms of technical ability, but an Xtera does have single track and stuff.

Is anyone doing Xtera with a gravel bike? You're technically not allowed, too. You need to have a flat bar. Okay, got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Our next question is from Becky Larson, in Mesa, Arizona.

I remember her, by the way. She said, first of all, it was so great to meet you all in Oceanside, currently wearing my yellow TTR shirt. I felt a bit starstruck meeting you guys. So I'm sorry if I seemed like a bit of an idiot. You did not at all.

She said, I'm the six foot two blonde that wanted a picture with Paula and Heather. Yes, and not me. And she has like four kids or something. Yeah, yeah. I remember her. She was definitely like very starstruck with you guys. Anyways, you guys rock.

Love the brand. Love your Instagram. love the pod. I listen to the pod every weekend of my long run and I find myself laughing and smiling the whole way through it. It kind of seems like you are all right there with me, which is exactly what we're hoping for. Perfect. So she has two questions. One, do you find it hard to balance training time versus time spent with your significant other? My husband and I both do triathlons and there seem to be a large number of tri couples out there. How do you guys manage your time in that way?

Wow, that's inappropriate. Yeah, we're lying in bedlight right now last night. I feel so tired right now. Hence my lack of being very funny this week. You're great, Paul. We're like, triathlon is ruining our relationship because I feel like you're my training partner. I literally said that.

This is true. Can't confirm. You guys have a unique relationship because it is feasible for you to do all of your sessions together. And we do. It's not perfect, but it is possible. For a lot of people, it's not possible.

So that's both a good and a bad thing, right? Like, it's not possible. I would say it's mostly a good thing. Right. Like the ideal, I think, would be 50%, probably. And the other 50% are impossible, so nobody has to feel bad about not going. That's the thing with Paula and I,

if we both have a bike ride, but I kind of want to ride by myself and think or go on a mountain bike ride, then it's just a matter of me telling Paula I want to go by myself. Right. I don't want to go with her. And, you know, it's versus if you had a great

excuse, like in a podcast to record or you have a baby to pick up from soccer practice. It's not just the training part. It's the being grumpy and tired after training and you're in the same house or you have to juggle like how you're going to do Eric's phone call and my massage and my physio appointment. There's such a cohesive, like we're dependent on one another for so many things. And so it's not just the swim bike runtime. It's everything else as well. What are we having for dinner? We're both tired. We both did the same workout who's making dinner. who's cleaning up from dinner and when is there going to edit? All of this comes into our lives.

So it's very real. And I think we need to do a better job of shutting off from triathlon every once in a while to, I don't know, go have a nice dinner or something. I agree with that. And as someone who's in a relationship with someone who's not a triathlete, or at least not currently a triathlete, I feel like the biggest advice I can give, and every relationship is different,

but is that be very excited about triathlon when you're doing it. and then when you come home and you're not doing it, I think try to shield them from that because they're already like, this person goes out and trains 15 hours a week and now they come home and they want to talk about triathlon more. Like, I'm sick of it. I don't want to hear about it anymore.

So I'm ready to there all the time. That's actually, that's perfect advice for most of the podcast listeners because they're talking about a significant other that might not do the sport. Eric and I are pretty good about not talking about triathlon when we're home because we are both sick of it. Right.

the thing is I think if you're listening to this podcast you're probably guilty of this right if you're listening to this podcast you're probably a pretty into triathlon right you're not just casual about it you're a hardcore

so it's hard you do want to think about it all day all the time yeah yeah yeah well that's what you got us here for and go listen to that trathal online podcast and feel like you're talking to somebody get on slow twitch

and do that, you know. Listen, what we need is for you to where are things, watch the YouTube show, listen to the podcast and slowly become one of us. But never talk about it with your second family. That's right. They don't care at all.

It's a cult. I think what we really need to do that I've been playing with, but I shouldn't take on another thing is like a forum would be pretty cool. Like a TTR forum where you could go talk to other people, not us. It's not like you just have to listen to TTRP podcast. the end. It's something Eric and I

have been trying to figure that out. How to best create some kind of space for the podcast listeners and maybe just like TTL fans in general to be able to talk. Talk amongst yourselves. Yeah, we haven't quite figured it out. But we're excited about

figuring that out at some point. We will. We'll figure it out. There was a second part to this question. She said, maybe TMI, but I'm curious. Do you ever need to pee while racing 70.3 or longer event? If so, do you just go on your bike or while running? I recently did a full Ironman,

and it seems like I had to pee so many times, although it may have taken me a little longer than it would for you. So, first of all, can you pee while running? Do people do that? Is that possible? I don't, I haven't. I have peed while riding one time. I know, I know a lot of people pee while riding,

but I don't know if you can, can you physically pee while running? I don't know if that's even possible. I don't know. That would require some, like, really specific muscle. relaxing. Right. Right. I feel like you might fall over. You just like start squatting and like fall, come along to the ground. This is Paula's favorite question. She can't wait to talk about it more. I mean, the fact that you have to pee a lot in a race means you're hydrating enough, probably. So that's good.

Maybe too much though. No? Possibly too much, yeah. I don't know how it has to do with salt balance and all of that. Maybe adjusting your electrolytes would make you retain more of the water and not like expel as much. So maybe just taking more electrical. But that's not a scientific answer. That's just my hypothesis. That's smart though. That's interesting. We're not the best for this since we haven't done Iron Man's. I feel like 100% you're peeing on the bike in an Iron Man at least once.

Yeah. I've never peed in a race. I've never really had to. Yeah, I've never had to either. It's not like I'm holding it in. I think it's like, and then on the, in addition to that, when we are drug tested after the race and we have to pee in a cup, takes me forever. Yeah.

Because I'm so dehydrated. So, yeah, I've never really had that issue. Yeah, so we don't really know much about that. But I am doing my first Iron Man in September, so I'll keep you updated once I do pee myself. Yeah. I mean, Eric, you stop on all the runs we do to pee in a bunch. Eric is a peeing machine. If you just were like so full and had to pee so bad, you could definitely go while you were running.

Wow. I don't know. Yeah, you could. I think you could. Eric, this might be TMI, but I swear we're running. Eric's like, I have to pee, and by the end of the word pee, I hear pee hitting the ground. It's like, it's so instant. I have to like zen out for a second. I'm like, okay, I'm in my safe place. Here we go.

No one's looking at me. And finally I can pee. Eric just like has a thought. He's like, all right, I'm just going to, whoa. No, I've been, like, by the time that I announced it, I've been thinking about it for a little bit. And also we're like pretty remote where we run here. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's not like he's running through Manhattan, peeing in Times Square.

It's right in the bush. This question is from Ryan and Bree. I found that my lower back tends to start hurting around mile seven or eight when I ride. and I'm unable to run the same day and sometimes not even the next day without pain. Do you think this will ease over time or could it be strength related? I'm unsure if I should do mobility work

or just go back and get my fit adjusted. What do you think? Lower back. Lower back pain? I mean like the quick things that you could do would be like do some ART on a foam roller, hit your quads and like your hip flexors. Sometimes low back pain comes from very tight hip flexors

because they mount, they go like kind of through your hips and up to your lower back. That'd be like one thing you can just try at home, see if that helps. Do you guys have problems with that ever? Yeah, but typically, like, I'll get it when I do my first big mountain bike ride of the season and you're pretty bent over and it's really high torque. Oh, is that what it is? Because it only happens to me on my mountain bike. Like, even on my TT bike, fully horizontal, no problem, road bike, no problem.

Mountain bike, which I'm the most vertical, that's when I get lower back pain. Is it because I'm lower kating? like torquing harder, do you think? I think so. Yeah, 1,000 watts at 2 RPM. Yeah. So maybe some advice you'd have for her is to try to shift down and use a higher cadence, right?

And then do some of that strengthening stuff too. Yeah, if you find you're riding like 50 RPM, definitely get that up. But like anywhere around 80 is pretty reasonable. I think it's pretty common for a bike fit issue to cause lower back pain. Like a fairly simple fix, a saddle, adjustment, you know, your reach adjustment, something like that.

Quite commonly your saddle height, though, just changing that very slightly can relieve lower back pain. So in her- In her lead up to the question, which I skipped over, she said that she had a bike fit at Trek and then started swimming a few days a week at the gym and now running three to four days a week. Well, there's your problem. Yeah, there's a problem.

Go get a bike fit at... A real bike company. Trek ain't nothing. But yeah, I mentioned the ART on the foam roller, the pin and stretch thing just was like something you do tonight to try it out, but I think it's probably good to go checking with your bike fitter. And a lot of bike fitters do put people too high. I mean, just because you had a bike fit, it doesn't mean, oh, I'm 100% good to go.

A lot of it is based on road feel, how you feel when you get out riding. And then a bike fit is kind of like a snapshot in time, but it's not real life. You're not riding for an hour. or more at the fit. So take it with a grain of salt and then make adjustments as you go, I think. I would say quite a few bike fitters out there

encourage people to come back after a few weeks and get like a checkup or a tune-up or something like that. So I would say a bike fit is like a constantly evolving process, not a one and done. My guy here is the same way, definitely. Yeah. Cool.

Okay, next question is from Brad Ellis and Olympia. And there's, he says a lot of really nice stuff. But I'm going to skip to the question, just because we're looking for it on time. Long time blog viewer, but I missed the start of the pod and had to play catch up now that I'm up to speed. I'd like to ask a question I haven't heard yet.

My question is for Eric. Forgive the gushing, but I'm a big fan of your videography and film work. I love watching your artistry grow along with the vlog. It's both those brief shots when you have just the right angular motion or communicate the mood or feeling you're trying to share and the larger packages like controlled burn last year.

Kudos to Nick for helping with that. Or the recent Shiv build. My assumption is when your pro try days are over, hopefully a long time from now, you'll continue to work in film, video, or visual communication in some way. Is that correct? If so, do you have ideas about what form that might take or subjects you might explore? I can certainly see you doing great short or long films for brands, locations, events, activities, perhaps films about the aspect of triathlon that helps draw people into the sport and gets current participation even more excited. What do you think, Eric?

Good question. I'm pretty much nailed it, Brad. That is my career trajectory. So, like, I started transition four several years before I started that triathlon life. And kind of the way that transition four sits now is I consider that to be my production company. But it's really just, you know, an idea at this point. But once we're done racing professionally and maybe once that triathlon life is kind of, we've done everything that we want to do with that. Or it could be going on simultaneously. I would definitely like to produce things for other people, not just for us,

or just produce films that I feel like need to be out in the world and kind of do that through transition four. I guess like dream scenario would be, yeah, maybe brands approach me and want to do something, but I have a lot of creative control and can make films that are sponsored by companies that tell cool stories. Ultimately, like what I like about filmmaking and all of this is just conveying an emotion and getting people excited to do whatever it is

or, you know, knowing that you made them feel something. He even said the start of triathlon season could become unofficially launched every year when the new Eric Loggers from film is released like Warren Miller was with skiing. Whatever you decided to do, I know it'll be great and I hope you'll keep sharing with all of us. That would be fun, yeah.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that phase, for sure. Cool. Okay, great. Well, thank you. The next question is from Zoe. Zoe says, Hi, Paula, Eric, and Nick. What would be your advice slash tips

for someone who has run and swam their whole life and is looking at getting into triathlons. Thanks for the great podcast and weekly videos. They really do bring me lots of joy, Zoe. So this is someone that has never really biked before. First of all, I feel like that's the best place to be, right? Yeah, you're golden. I was just going to say, best case scenario, because anyone can ride a bike. And I think a lot of the fitness you get from swimming and running transfers over to riding and a lot of the training philosophies and principles and intervals and intervals. You're all familiar with that. So just get a bike and do a triathlon. That's my advice.

Yeah, the hardest thing is to Sign up. And then the second hardest thing behind that is if you were a swimmer and you'd never run, it's getting through five years of being injured all the time. So you're golden, you're set. Just get a bike and start putting some miles in. It's coming from a bike background

and having to learn how to both swim and run, I feel, I don't know if it's regret, but I feel like, oh, if I just swam when I was younger, I would have this done and running is such a struggle. So definitely the best place to be and the bike fitness will come, no problem. Yes. I will say, though, that if you're planning to do a longer distance race,

the bike is usually the majority of the training hours. So you do have to maybe not jump straight into that and build up slowly because although it's the least likely to be injured on the bike, you still can run into injuries with knee problems or back problems, stuff like that. So I would just say kind of similar to our last question that we had, get a bike fit and make sure you're comfortable on it and also work on your bike handling skills a lot. And that's not going out and doing a workout necessarily,

but just riding around a parking lot, getting comfortable cornering, getting comfortable, just like learning the bike. Because it's, you know, having something underneath you like that's very different than just going out and running on your feet.

So just make it part of you kind of. And it takes years, honestly. I think getting the bike fit is, that's such a good point because you've got a huge engine and you can do some damage, like all of a sudden being in a bike fit that doesn't quite fit your body, right? Yeah, yeah.

Super good advice. Cool. Well, there you go, Zoe. We hope to see you winning triathlons very soon. Yeah. High expectations. We just assume she's like... She's going to crush it.

We know she's elite. She's super elite. Okay, great. Well, next question is from Marielle. Marielle says this is, this question is mostly for Nick. And I want to say hello to Paula and Eric. Oh, wow. Hello.

Hi. Paula, I'm a fellow East Coast Canadian. Toronto and Montreal representing. Wow, sorry. How do you say it? Montreal. Montreal.

Montreal. How do you say? Just kidding, I don't know. Just be Desolet. How do you say, I'm sorry? I think that's it. Just be Desolet. There's seven years of French.

It's all coming down. She's a fellow East Coast Canadian, Toronto and Montreal representing and live in Cali, California. That's what she means when she says Cali. Oh, what? Why does I'm sorry.

I haven't. I haven't been great seeing you race in Oceanside for the past two years. Eric, your videos are awesome. Finally, the question for Nick, what is your link to Italy? I have a connection to the country and I heard you move to USA from Italy

when you were five. I love hearing people's cultural experiences and it was lovely hearing you say chow at the end of the show. Can I just tell you say something really quick? Yeah, go ahead. So, Nick, your first language is Italian, which you would never know by listening to you

now. You learned English when you were five. Nick's connection to Italy. He is from there. He is Italian. Here's the rub. My dad is American. He's from Oklahoma. He is a farm boy from Oklahoma. He walked to school barefoot with his shoes in his hands. My mom is from a royal family in Italy. So they're very opposites in many ways. So yes, we lived in Italy at first. But I would say, I remember I remember my friends when I moved to the U.S. telling me I had an accent when I spoke English. So I definitely needed time to adjust. But when we were growing up in Italy, my mom always got us British babysitters so that I could try to develop my English. But I'd say by the time I was like seven or eight, you couldn't hear. I had an accent speaking in English. Yeah. And now and these days I definitely have both languages. And I speak to my mom only in Italian. I don't speak English with her.

It's super cool. When you bust that language out? We're like, what? Well, just to prove to the Italian listeners that I'm not lying, I'm here on FaceTime with my friends Eric and Paula. We're still registering the podcast that's every jovial day of the morning. And I'm very grateful to their two for this opportunity. Oh my gosh. That is so beautiful. Thank you, Mariel, for your...

Thank you, Nick. I don't know what that message said, but thank you. You're welcome, yes, of course. Maria, I'll thank you for the question. Yes, the Italy is my background. and it still shows up in a lot of my behavior and the things I like for sure. It's a very nice language, I think. It sounds nice.

It sounds great. I like it in that sense, but it would have been a little bit better if I spoke like Spanish or Chinese or something. Or French, even. Or French, yeah. Well, that's why I took freaking seven years of French and I can't even say Moria. I think French would come quickly to you because it's a little bit Italian-based, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it does help. It does help.

Next question is from Everett Paula, Eric and Nick and Flynn Thank you all so much for such an amazing podcast It goes fabulously well with the vlog And you are all crushing it

I have a technical question From one redhead to a few others How do you handle Sunblock on race day I'm doing my first 70.3 this summer The one in Salem Ooh Well we might all be there

Let's go We might all be there And I anticipate I'll be on the course Until 1130 or so And I assume I'll be in direct sun for a fair amount of time on the run. Do you have any tips or tricks around protecting your skin?

I plan on putting on sunblock prior to the race and wearing a hat, but don't want to take transition time to reapply. Any suggestions you have around products and SPF tactics would be great. Congrats on the Grammy one. Congrats on your performance at Oceanside. Everett. Yeah. So I think it's really hard to remember to put sunscreen on in the morning because it's 5 a.m.

and you're freezing cold in the dark in transition. but I always make sure Eric and I remember. And our favorite sunblock brand is Zelios. They're based in Bend. I find that their stuff stays on for a long time and is fairly sweat-resistant. And it just feels kind of like lotion. It's not really super sticky or anything. It's not cakey.

But something's better than nothing. And I actually noticed in Oceanside they did have a sunscreen pump as you exited transition for all the athletes to put on before they went into the ocean. because as they've probably figured, not a lot of people are thinking about it in transition, especially kind of with that temperature. It wasn't cold, but the sun's still pretty intense. So, yeah, lather it on before you put your wetsuit on.

Hats are good. Hats are good. Hats for sure, for someone that's worried about that. I don't know what your plan is, but we wear full sleeve trisie. So that takes care of your shoulders, and then it's really just your arms, which should sunburn less quickly than any other part of your body

because they're out in the sun anyway. and Oregon Oregon just not have a reputation for super high UPF, piss, whatever, bad sunburns. Yeah. So that's one good thing. So pretty much if you got the full sleeve, try kit, not full sleeve, but like down to your elbows,

you kind of just need to do your face, the back of your neck, and your ears, and maybe hit like your back of your legs if you want or whatever. But it's kind of hard to avoid. Be prepared, you might get a little bit of a sunburn no matter what. I would say maybe if you're doing an Iron Man, I would like take a little pack of sunscreen and put it on during the run. They have one.

What's the sunscreen you guys? Zelios actually has one. Zelios has a little pack. They were giving them out of Oceanside and I have one. Oh, right. Zelios was in the van. Literally just keep it in your like wherever you're keeping your nutrition on the run and you can do it while you're running.

Yeah, I would recommend that even for a half maybe for some people. Oh, if you're out to 1130 and you're a redhead, I definitely would do it. Yeah. Do you guys, what's the name of that? Ultra guy who wears the bucket hats. You know what I'm talking about? He's winning everything. Walmsley?

Walmsley, yes. You can just be like him and wear a big bucket hat. Or like a sun hat. And you'll get a lot of attention. Everyone will be cheering you on and you'll be protected from the sun. It's like flopping around. Yeah, it's flopping around. Win-win.

So yeah, I would say the Xilios little packet is probably the win for that. But it's such a no-brainer if you're a sunscreen manufacturer to sponsor triathlons. I feel like, and just have like an on-course one station where people can like take a little pump or something. Yeah. Well, now that you mentioned it, Zelios was the sunscreen as you exited transition in Oceanside. There you go. But is it at every race? I don't know if I've ever seen it.

Maybe now it is. I think they have a new owner now. Packets. Just bring your own. Just in case. Just in case. Cool. Well, thank you, Everett, for that.

Hopefully that was helpful. Next question is from Rolf Romer. R.R. Dear Paula, Eric and Nick, big fan of the pod. I've yet to miss an episode, and I'm a huge fan of both the podcast and the vlog. Keep up the great work. This week, I wanted to ask a question about Flynn. I'm a huge dog person here, who the heck isn't?

So my question is about how you arrived at Flynn's breed when searching to add a dog to the family. I know he's a German wire hair pointer. I have a German short hair pointer myself, which is not technically related, but they have such a similar personality. In my case, I did a lot of research and had to pick from so many awesome breeds. What was it like for you guys? Also, were there any other breeds you were seriously looking at? The hopes of increasing the odds of getting my question answered in the next episode,

I'm shamelessly bribing Paula with some dog picks, which you will find attached. Are those the ones you sent to me, Paula? I can't remember if I sent you those ones. There were a few that were super cute. Yeah. Paula does get some random dog pics from TTL Nesh. I love it, though. This question, the reason Eric and I are giggling is that last night,

Flynn, first of all, is like so on our nerves right now. we cannot stand to him after that trip to California. He's way better at home, but he's still just like a little much right now. Terrible twos. But I said to Eric, if you could go back in time before we got Flynn and as I was like looking for dogs, if you knew what Flynn was like now, would you have not gotten him then? Kind of like a rhetorical. I feel like I certainly know the answer to that.

Yeah, Eric said no. He's like, I wouldn't get rid of him now because like he's our son. But if I could go back in time, definitely would have gotten like a, a, of whatever he likes. I was kind of pushing from the outset for like a more of a sedentary dog where we would come home from workouts

and it would be happy to just chill with you guys. And it would be happy to just sit on the couch versus like if we don't take Flynn for a run we get back from our run and he wants to go for his own run. And you got to like put your shoes back on and go back outside when you're exhausted.

Anyway, like we do like him. He is so... We do like him. I do like him for the most part. Oh, God. Thank God he can't understand English. It's been hard. He ate an entire loaf of banana bread today.

No, we're not supposed to say that. We're not supposed to say that. We'll cut that out. No, I'll say it because it's funny. It's a second loaf of banana bread. So I think maybe some people in T.T.L. Nation can confirm or deny, but I feel like he's specifically attracted to banana bread, the smell of it. Because the reason I didn't want to say this because I feel terrible for the people

it generously made us this banana bread. But our friend Kathy Hall in California gave us two loads after the race. Yeah, full of chocolate chips, like so many chocolate chips. And just to precursor this story a bit, Flynn has never eaten like something off the counter, like jumped up and taken human food from anywhere. But we come back from swimming and he's unwrapped the banana bread and eaten the entire loaf and a half of this banana bread. With a chocolate?

This was in California. With the chocolate, yeah. And so today, Lindsay Corbin bakes us a beautiful hazel and blue banana bread. Leave it on the counter, pushed back against the wall with our sharpest knife

like sitting beside it, get back from whatever we get back from. And it's gone as well. He counter-surfed, took the banana bread, ate the entire loaf. And at first when I got home, I was like, did Eric finish this?

But then I look over at Flynn and he's like, tailnum between the legs. Oh my God. I've never seen him so guilty. He knew. He's so bad. He went like, hidden the corner.

So anyway, we didn't seek a German wire pointer. We never will again. Next one is like a bastard hound. Hears dragging on the floor going 0.5 miles an hour at top speed. I was honestly looking for a short hair pointer because they're a little smaller. They're very athletic and can run with you. But then we came across Flynn and I do think he's super cute. He is the most handsome boy.

Of all the pointers. How's his foot? Seems to be fine. Okay. He's recovering nicely with the banana bread. Yeah. He's really comforting himself. Mm-hmm.

Oh, my God. Okay. Okay, great. Well, yeah, I guess you guys weren't specifically looking for a German wire hair pointer. Oh, yeah, we were like started looking at short hair pointers, and then we became aware of wire hairs and read about them and decided we could go either way. It was actually between Flynn and the short hair. Then we ended up going with Flynn. I see. Got it.

Okay, well, next question is from Greg. Actually, I have a question for you, Eric. Why is it that every time I try to do a bike repair, it doesn't go as planned? I tried to replace my rotors today. And first of all, the... I cannot imagine why the rotors are not used to be really. I know. That's what I thought. I literally gave myself 15 minutes to do it before my ride.

Well, that's a problem. Yeah. So I successfully got the... front rotor off and the new rotor on, no problem. But then the pistons were too far in, so I couldn't get the brake pads, new brake pads in there. Pushed the pistons out. It still wasn't enough. So finally pushed them out again and got the rotor in there,

but now the tolerance is so tight, I can't get it to not rub. So there's no other way. Yeah, I have like a plastic tool, but it's not the legit one. Anyway, and then in the back, I couldn't get it off because the cassette removal tool I have, which also removes the, the rotor, it's too shallow, so it can't reach the teeth. So now I have to bring it, or buy the legit tool or bring it into a shop.

I'm just like, this is supposed to be such a simple repair. Why does everything require me to, like 10 times longer than I think? This is why we pay for mechanics because it's simple, but you need a $70 tool. Yeah, that's right. And they'll charge you $20 to do it. Okay, sorry, rant over. Next question is from Greg. Hi, Paula, Eric.

Nick, I'm listening to your Oceanside podcast right now and had this question. Do you adjust the setup on your bike relative to the race course? I know this sounds more like a race car question, but I know you may adjust rims, but how about rear cassette and front chain ring, et cetera? So he's not talking about the fit. He's not talking about the position, right? He's talking about gearing. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Like if we were to go do Daytona, for example, we're going to run the tightest cassette we have, which is, what is that? Like a 10, 25, I think, is what they make in Sram versus for Oceanside, we ran 10, 30, is it a true, 32 or 33? So since we don't have front chain rings, that's it. If we were to go do, like, Nice, for example,

there's a chance we would put on a two-by for that because it's so much climbing. Although I did ride a one-by in Nice. Yeah, or you can just be a beast. But to be, to answer, So the question, you do have to pay a bit of attention to that. Especially I find on a course like St. George, where the downhills are so fast and you run out of gears. I feel like that's happened to me more than running out of gears for climbing.

Yeah, Paula runs a 50-tooth front. I run a 52-tooth front, so I can go a lot faster downhills, but I have to push lower RPM going up the same hill. So that's the kind of sacrifice you run into with one by. If that's not enough for you And you want more Formula One style stuff, do Xtera That is a nightmare of gear that you have to work on What's your shock pressure? What's your rear tire pressure?

What's your rear tire pressure? Front tire pressure? Which front tire are you going to run? Which rear tire are you going to run? You're going to run inserts. Yeah, that was a night Well, not a nightmare, but that was so much work for it. It's fun.

But it's like you got to get to the race Like three days ahead of time And try out all these different setups And try to figure out what the, yeah, it's a thing. Yeah. It's amazing how much tire pressure makes a difference in mountain biking. Like people think it's like getting intense in triathlon. In road cycling, it's like, oh, you can go down to 80 or 85 depending on the width of your tire.

It's like, in mountain biking they're like, yeah, can you run like 6.5 PSI on this like trail? It's like, oh my gosh. There's a difference between 13.5 and 14. It definitely is. Okay. Next question is from Chris and Ryan, spelled R-H-Y-A-N. Paula Eric and Nick. Ryan.

Yeah. Ryan. No, I think that's how you spell it for girls. Oh, is that right? Really? I didn't know that. Yeah. I like that.

It's cute. Or it can be. It can be. It can be something new every day. I love that name for a girl. Yeah, I like that too. Can we name our girl that when we have a baby? Sure.

What if it's twins? Can you name them Chris and Ryan? Are you going to commit to it right now in the podcast? All right, Chris and Ryan, you're about to have people named after you. So this better be a good question. You all are absolutely crushing it lately. my wife and I are both triathletes and avid consumers of the vlog and podcast. Keep up the amazing work. Slightly controversial question, and I know that the three of us have talked about this a bit,

so I'm curious to see what you guys will say on here. How do each of you as elite professionals feel about front-of-pack age groupers getting their pro cards to only be off the back of the pro race by 20 plus minutes? Eric, how do you feel about these massive men's pro fields, i.e. Oceanside, where only half of the field has a real shot to be on the podium. And Paula, does it bother you to have pro men getting dropped off the back of the men's field and getting mixed up slash interfering with the women's pro race? Thank you, Chris and Ryan. Okay, well, I'll just go first because I think my answer is going to be pretty short,

and this impacts Paula a lot more than it does me. It hardly impacts me at all. I think it really impacts someone more like Lionel, where there could be quite a few of those pro men who are a stronger stormer than him or the same speed, and he gets really beat up in the way. water. I've had pretty good luck of not getting beat up and getting to the first buoy cleanly. So all those 70 guys behind me are they can do whatever they want to do. Not that big of a problem. But Paula, on the other hand, is behind all that excitement. Yeah. I am not a fan

and it happens all the time that I'll, and I'm not even the best swimmer on the women's field and I'll catch a handful of men on the swim. And then on the bike, those men, don't like women ahead of them. So they, you know, it's the same draft rules apply when we're passing men. We only have 25 seconds to go out and around them. And if they're trying to put in a surge because they don't want a female passing them, it totally affects our race because I'm putting like a 350 watt surgeon for a minute to get around a pro male.

Who's 30 minutes behind the leader? And then they might try to pass me back and I have to drop back then and ease out my power. So it happens a lot. and I also think it can affect, you know, they can potentially unintentionally bring up some of the slower pro women to the front of the race if they're far back out of the water. Slower swimming. Yeah, the slower swimmer pro women.

We've definitely seen that happen in races where you get to a turnaround and there's a woman sitting on the back of a pack of four really fast or age group men or slow pro men, whatever. Yeah. You know, it's a... I don't know. It's not fair to them. because they're not doing anything wrong, right?

Like they qualified for their pro crowd, the racing in the pro field. So it's really not their fault, but I would just say for pro men, I mean, I'm sure none of them are listening to this, but just be cognizant that there is a pro women's race going on and you're in the mix with the potential winners. So be a little bit respectful of that.

And a lot of the time, they are. Like, they're awesome. And I'll just say, like, I'm passing. Can you please, like, ease up for a second and they do. So it's generally not an issue. you. But I think the way to potentially avoid some of that is to make the gap bigger between the start of the men and the women. Three minutes in Oceanside was really not enough for that big of a field. What do you think it should be? Five minimum. Five or six. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Even then

we might be catching people in the swim. But for the most part, pro men, even the slower ones, are faster cyclists than the fastest pro women. So it's really just the overlap in the swim that kind of makes things messy as the bike is starting out. And in terms of age group men catching us, that's generally not a problem. And it's actually kind of cool when they do, especially on the run. It's like you can try to hang with them for a minute or two. So yeah, that's my thoughts. Cool.

Yeah, good question, though. It is a thing. And I don't think a lot of people realize it unless we're in there. I hear it. Eric, it mostly doesn't affect your race. But it seems like for someone like Lionel, who's such an incredibly strong cyclist and almost an equally weak swimmer, although he's getting much faster now, he just has to catch so many. It does affect his race a lot and then it affects you, Paul, a lot.

Yeah, it would be interesting to hear Lionel's thoughts on that because I think there is some kind of thrill of blowing past people that you were behind in the water. So maybe that's encouraging for him as he's trying to bridge up versus just being completely solo. But I don't know. Yeah, Nick, that happens to you, right? You're a little behind in the swim and you're just like cruising past people. I love it. It makes me, I remember when I was racing in Malibu and I was leading my age group, the group I started with on the bike. And I went by this guy.

I was probably going like 25 miles an hour and he was probably going like 16 or something. And when I went by him, he just went like, woo! You know, just like, he was so psyched for me. And I just, I'll never forget that moment. It gave me so much energy. I love that feeling. That's awesome. That's cool.

Okay, so Sarah Kimmel asked a question. Hey, Paula and Eric. I'm a huge fan of the brand and everything it stands for. Your YouTube channel got me through some very mentally challenging times through 2020. My Black Lab, ori, or a. What is E with a line over it? How do you pronounce that? I don't know.

Where is it in the... She gave us, you know, like, sometimes like when the definition of a word has the way it's pronounced. Oh. It's ore and then E with a line over it. O-R-E. I think that's probably O-R-A. O-R-A, yes, I think so, too. I'm just guessing. My Black Lab Ore is a huge fan of Flynn and Chimmy, too.

A couple questions. Paula noticed you were wearing the Gero helmet at Oceanside. Do you recommend that over the S-Works one? Rout, right. My contract is specialized doesn't require me to wear their helmets, but I do really love their road helmets, and I would prefer to wear their T-T helmet. it just isn't as easy to see out of for me as the Giro.

The Gero fits me a little bit better. Tested actually really similar in the wind tunnel, but I find that if I'm riding with the specialized helmet in its fastest position, there's little room for error in head movement versus the Gero is a little more forgiving, and it fits my bike fit a little better. And I just never have issues with seeing up the road with the Gero. So I think the Gero generally fits a lot of people really well.

basically any arrow helmet it really kind of comes down to your specific position whether or not you're very flat back or you're sitting up a little bit more or on the other end if you're have a hump in your back like a lot of different arrow helmets like the specialized could fit me perfectly and be a better helmet but for paula it's not quite right and i think paula nailed it was saying that like the gero is pretty forgiving with fitting a wide range of back angles and abilities to like you know crane your neck the thing that that's difficult is that there are some general rules about TT helmets. Like if you move around a lot, you don't want it to have a long tail. But then there are some rules that are not general. Like some helmets are just faster for some people and they're not as fast for other people. So the best thing you can do, obviously, is try to make some kind of test if you can do it on a flat piece of course somewhere or get in the wind tunnel like Paula did. Yeah. Yeah, a big part of it for me anyway is comfort and invisibility.

And I found that when a lot of the helmets that I tried were in the correct aerodynamic position, it was hard for me to see up the road. Obviously you got to see. That's the biggest thing for me. And then you're just moving around your head trying to see and then you're not arrow anymore. So, yeah. I wore the Oakley for a little while, like when I won Daytona, I wore that helmet. And I don't think it necessarily fit me well. I just think it's really cool.

Yeah. I think you can visually tell from a side video or something if you have the opportunity to test out a couple of a couple of things. tell if something's a big no. But you can't tell like fine differences, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, the second question that Sarah had was Eric, have you thought of doing Unbound 200 someday? Would love to

see you in Kansas? Not seriously, no. Like, the idea has gone through my head. I wonder what it would be like. But for the most part, like, I haven't really gotten into ultra-super endurance stuff yet. You know, like Iron Man's not that intriguing to me, just based on the distance, you know?

I feel like you do really much more into like I think I would do really well I just it's not something that I could fit into a triathlon season I don't think I think the recovery window after that would be so massive that there wouldn't be a lot of triathlon training and you I'd want to train specifically for it so yeah maybe after triathlon I you know it's funny I didn't even consider the possibility of you doing this during triathlon I'm fully like post pro triathlon career

doing some of this stuff. Because it seems like the running is the thing that stops people in age. You can still bike really well as you get older. Yeah, theoretically. I've got hip problems that are making my biking challenging. But I think the top of my list of super epic long things to do would be like Cape Epic or Swiss Epic would be the first.

And that Dirty Kanja just sounds brutal and flat. And it's just brutal versus mountain biking is inherently got some more enjoyment to it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And the third question was, have you ever thought, this is a great one, have you ever thought of doing a TTL group ride at races?

Pros do these a lot at gravel events, and I think it would be fun at triathlons too. I think it's a great idea. Yeah, we definitely have thought about it. It really goes against my plan to do less the week before the race. But I think that being strategic about what we do, like maybe merging it with the pop-up and doing a ride for an hour, that might be cool. or like a post-race spin, something like that.

Yeah, like the things that usually start to jump up that stop me from, like, getting serious about it are, okay, do we need insurance? Like, where are we allowed to start or stop from? And then, okay, where are you going to go? Is that good for a group? Like, how many people are we going to have? We'd have 100 people or we'd have five people. Like, is this route conducive for that? I think jogs are easier.

Like a 5-2. Fun run or something. You can talk. Yeah, that's good. And you can kind of like bump around and talk to. to different people. So maybe we'll do that next time. All right.

Yeah. Pre-race, tentative. 70.3 Oregon pre-race jog. Nice. Tentatitude. Like pick a cool coffee shop, run from there. And then maybe we could also do the post-race party, too, if the world allows. If the stars are what I'm all about.

I want to figure out how we have the best after party ever. Yeah, that'll be good. Especially in your home state. It could be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Salem. Going to be a rager.

Rager. is the capital, right? Is it the capital of Oregon? Yeah, and like most state capitals, it's not the epicenter of culture or life. And every state I've lived has been that way too. Okay, last question, and we couldn't possibly do an entire podcast without bringing up our best friend, Trixie Mattel. So Mika says... Right at the buzzer. Yeah, sorry. Hi, guys, just want to say I love the pod and I'm a major tricksy fan as well. I just ran my first marathon at 19 this past weekend and plan on putting my focus on triathlon more this summer. I've been an open water swimmer for a number of years, but have

never really done much biking. I wanted to know if you had any bike recommendations for me. I'm thinking of getting a road bike, but I have access to some gravel and dirt paths where I live. What's a good price range for a somewhat beginner triathlete? P.S. Flynn's Strava posts are the best. So I'll just say let's not talk about the same thing we talked about with our friend who is a great elite runner and swimmer. Let's talk more about maybe a good starter bike, maybe a good kind of bike and the price range for that. Yeah, a lot of bikes these days, like road-specific bikes are made to accommodate pretty wide tires. So unless you've got some pretty chunky gravel, I think you could get a pretty normal road bike and put up to like a 32C. tire on there and be okay on gravel.

Do you think that should it be like an endurance maybe frame? Because I feel like those have even wider tolerances for tire. Yeah, yeah, that's a good thought. I think, yeah, Argonne has a bike they call it like the Krypton and it's supposed to be more vertically compliant, softer ride and accommodate like a 34C tire and zero percent aerodynamic. So that is one thing to think about with a, if you think your main thing is going to be a triathlon, you might.

I don't know. What is like the 3T? 3T's got that like kind of arrow-looking gravel bike. I feel like that so much of the aerodynamics of a bicycle comes from your position on it and I think for a beginner

I do think a gravel bike is just the straight up best thing to get because you can 100% ride on the road you can have a lot of fun on gravel and then you can put clip-ons there and do your triathlon too. And then when you get really, really fast you can upgrade to a

straight-up road bike or a TT bike. Yeah, it really depends how competitive of a person you are from the get-go. Yeah, I was going to recommend getting a road bike and then putting water tires on it. Because if they have an open water swim background and a running background, chances are they're going to be pretty good at it. They're not going to want to be on super thick tires back of the pack, which makes an enormous difference, what tires you ride, right? Yeah. You could definitely put road tires on your gravel bike as well. So please submit your resume to us and then we'll give you a better answer.

What exact percentage of road to gravel are you going to be riding? No more like how fast are you at swimming and running? Well then we'll tell you what kind of bike to get. That's right. Well, great. So yeah, we think and what price range should be looking at? I would suggest used. And if you can get a used bike, get a used bike.

And maybe like. I have not looked at the used bike market lately. I just assume it's out of control. I have, and I'm looking at old road bikes. Maybe like two to three grand. I don't think you'd want to go older than like 11 speed because it'll just be hard to find any sort of part you need for it or anything. I would recommend going on to Proz Closet.

They have a lot of bikes on there that are secondhand but really well tuned and stuff, so they're in good shape. And they won't sell them if they're like cracked or whatever, so it's a good little check. That's smart. Two to three grand to me seems like too much. I feel like $1,200, because $2 to $3,000 is like you're getting a carbon bike for $2 to $3

grand used. Yeah. I don't think a person who's new to cycling necessarily needs a carbon bike. That's true. Again, submit your resume. We will dissect it live on the pod and cut you down in front of your beers.

Anyway, that's all we had for today. I feel like we got a lot of We got a lot of new listeners from last week's pod. A lot of people were curious about the race report. Yeah, we were pretty behind on questions as a result of talking about the race before and after. So it was like massive rapid fire question day. Well, also, last week was our most listened to pod by far.

So thank you guys for continuing to listen. A little peek behind the scenes. Yeah, that's right. A little peek behind the scenes every week is our most listened to pod ever because we are growing exponentially. It feels good. I think this was more most listened to. That's right. And it's all because people are just sharing it with each other

because we're not doing anything other than just we'll post it on our Instagram story or something. So we really appreciate that. That's the best way that we can have the pod grow is for you guys to share it with your friends. Yeah, we're doing a terrible job of marketing it so far. I mean, I don't know. It seems to be working.

Yeah, I think it's funny. Just fun. Hardcore organic growth. That's right. It's growing exponentially and we continue to make zero dollars. Yeah, that's right. I love it. It's like we're somehow making less each episode and it's still zero.

I don't know how that works. Oh my gosh. Anyway, you can send your questions in to that triathlon life brand at gmail.com. And please, if you have a question about your fitness, you're going to have to send in exact numbers for your swim and your bike and your run. Yeah. If you want advice on training, just give us your data. Do please send them to the email. Every once in a while I go and I find them in the Instagram direct messages, but they're

very easy to get to get lost in there. Even I get questions sometimes to my Instagram. But it's all good. It's all good. We love all of it. We appreciate all your support. Yes, we do. Thanks, guys.

And we'll talk to you next week. See you later. Ciao.