That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon training variety, best smart trainer, self coaching, and more!

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

This week we are all together in Bend, recording in the same room! We start by talking a little about the Women's Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. After some Bike Tech with Eric we move onto your triathlon questions. Questions about visualizing the race, the advantages of different pedal systems, planning out a season with 70.3 world championships in December, recovery tools, and more! To submit your own question, as well as become a podcast supporter, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Doon do do do no do do do do do do do do do do do. Hey everyone. Welcome to That Traathlon Live podcast. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Mary Klogger Shoe. I'm Nick Goldston. You can leave my singing out. But welcome to the pod.

We are all together in Bend right now recording in Eric's office, which is weird because the tech is much less there when it's all in person. We don't have headphones. We don't have FaceTime going. We're just chatting. So maybe it'll feel like a very natural pod because we're just having a combo. Yeah. In real life.

We'll see. We also all have a little bit of hangover from our morning workouts. Nick and I went out to Smith Rock. Nick just ran around and took pictures. I ran really hard around. And Paula stayed here and did pretty much the same thing. I recommend running around and taking pictures. Highly recommended.

I'm a little jealous. I looked a lot more fun than what I did. I just went easy pace the whole time telling myself, like age groupers just go too hard all the time. Like, well, I'm not going to be that age grouper. Don't be that guy. Actually, it kind of reminds you something interesting that we were saying on the way back in the car. How you've heard or maybe you've read or I don't know, or maybe this was just your own perspective,

is that you think that there are a large portion of age groups that are woefully under-based, as in they have not done enough base training and are trying to build like a lot of intensity on not a big enough of a base. Yeah, I don't have any statistics to back this up, just kind of like anecdotally. And observationally, if I was an age group or I think I would probably want to do high-intensity workouts a little more often than you're supposed to based on how much base training, low-intensity volume

you should have to support those higher-end workouts. And I'll say anecdotally for me, when I started doing way more like zone one, zone two stuff is when my race time started dropping a lot. Paula, do you feel like, first of all, can you explain to people that don't understand what is base training? I mean, I guess space, I don't want to explain it in terms of zones because I feel like everyone's coach has a different way of prescribing things, but it should feel pretty easy and sustainable.

And you could talk with someone, for example, when you're doing it? And what's the point of it? What's the idea behind it? Oh, just like building general fitness. I mean, I feel like even year after year you accumulate that and it doesn't ever really go away. So as triathletes who have been racing for 20 years, we've built a lot of business. base over decades, not just one season. And do you specifically periodurize?

Periodize? Periodize. That's the one. Do you specifically periodize certain sections of the year for more base? Did you kind of just always build it in? Yeah, I feel like naturally the off season, quote on quote, is like a good time to do that. But it's one of the benefits of having a coach. I think there were some questions about coaching this week is that Eric and I don't really

think about it too much. We have a good back and forth with our coach, but we kind of trust him to structure the year and periodize. Very nice. Thank you. First try for you. It out for me. Okay. So back to our regular scheduled programming here. Obviously between last week's podcast and this week's podcast, women's Ironman World Championships and Kona happened. And our predictions were not that far off. I feel like we all were pretty close with them.

I mean, the top seven were anyone from that seven could have won and it would have been believable. But we were really happy to see Lucy win. And I think the way that she raced was really admirable from the gun. That rarely happens. Even Taylor Nib when she won 70.3 Worlds didn't lead out of the water, I don't think. So it's so cool that she could just, you know, lead. From 100 meters into the swim. Yeah, yeah, until the end.

And she would just have, and it wasn't even close to it. It had such a huge gap on the swim and then just biked her butt off and ran her butt off. It reminded me of, I mean, a lot of people probably felt this way. Paula, when I was watching you race, St. George. No, we were together watching Eric race World Championships the year he got seventh. And Lucy did the same thing. It was just off the front the entire time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Really cool. Yeah. So Paula, did it make you want to, did it reinforce anything for you? I don't know. I feel like I race a lot of those women that were in the top 10 often. And I'm in the mix.

But a 70.3 is much different than a full, obviously. But it's intriguing because as I was doing intervals the last couple weeks in preparation for Los Cabos. Oh boy. Los Cabos can't. Kill me now. We'll get that into that in a second. Doing like, you know, 290 watts for five minutes at a time or whatever it is. Like just the super uncomfortable zone that's so, so, so hard. But it's fairly short-lived. Versus if I was training for a full and it's a much, I'm not going to say a comfortable zone, but it's way, way lower. Just way, way, way more. Six feet, you walk lower than that forever. Yeah, forever.

So I'm kind of interested in the training. And I'm not someone who, like, totally loves riding my bikes and loves the long ride and that type of thing. So I think that's why I've always told myself I could never do it because I don't like the long training. But I do think physiologically my body would be good at it. So if I could wrap my head around the training and it's not like you just go for seven-hour bike rides. There's some structure to it. And I think there's, yes, more bike volume, but not an enormous. amount more than we're currently doing.

So yeah, I think I could handle it. And I do think also that the heat prep window, it's intense and it's hard, but it's not all year that you're doing the heat prep. It's like six weeks out, eight weeks out. So I don't know. It's interesting to me. But unfortunately, it's not happening there for two more years. Sounds like you have time to train for then.

I was kind of wondering if just basically that you have issues with injuries, right? And I was kind of wondering if basically instead of having to feel like you need to run 340 per K to get ready for 70.3 worlds, if just running four minutes per K in all of your run sessions and doing a little bit more volume, if that might actually be beneficial, even though it's like a little counterintuitive to think, oh, you're doing Iron Man training, you're going to run more injury prone. Yeah, I mean, that was the justification of switching from Olympic distance, sprint distance to 70.3 was, okay, you're running 20 seconds per K slower. Now you're running another 20 seconds per case slower. So sometimes that puts less stress on your body and on your joints.

And not a lot of the women post on Strava. So I don't know what a regular weekly mileage would be for running for someone who's competitive at Ironman. But I don't think it's double what I'm doing. It might be like 20% more. Definitely not double. And I wonder if we were talking about this on the way over. Something like swimming, you might not change at all. Yeah, we would do the same amount of swimming.

For sure. more biking, but something you said about like, yeah, it's not like you go out for seven-hour bike rides, but I think that's something very that you could definitely talk to your coach about. Like some people, maybe it's like, I don't want, on those long rides, don't give me structure. Just let me go out and ride. Some people like me, I'm like, no, if I'm going on for a two-hour run, please put in even if they're fake intervals, just like, so my brain can be like, okay, the next 20 minutes is at this intensive. Yeah, yeah.

And of course, Paula would just do that for you as well. Yeah, it was really cool to watch. And I think, I don't know if it is the truth or not, but I feel like a lot. But I feel like a lot of people's bike positions look a little different when they're racing a full versus a half. More comfy. Maybe they didn't change anything. But to me, it looked like some of them were sitting up a little more than they would in a 70.3, which is smart because they have to go way longer and run way longer off the bike. Like, Danielle looked slightly more upright.

Laura looked slightly more upright. Maybe that's just me. I mean, that would make sense, especially with a race like Kona, where you can ride Arrow 100% of the time. If you break Arrow, you're just slowing down. Right. Do you feel like if you were to get a more comfortable position on the bike for a full, would you think it's more to benefit the bike or more to benefit the run off the bike? Both.

Pretty equal. Yeah, I'd say both. But anyway, everyone's different with bike fits. I don't want to get into that. But yeah, it was really fun to watch. I think the podium is great. I thought Taylor Nib did great. Made some rookie mistakes.

Or maybe she was just like being overly cautious. But then I think that paid off like fourth is a great result. and some of the stuff like losing bottles, etc. You can dial that in. So it's cool. And maybe it would have been annoying if she won by 10 minutes. Oh, yeah. So it was kind of nice to see her in a human state.

Like still doing super amazing, but learning some lessons. And she'll come back and win it probably five times if she wants. Yeah, there's no way for the last six months, just given the schedule that she's done, that she was training specifically for an Ironman. And she's on the start list for Pan Am games right now. She's on the start list for the Pan Am games, which is like next week.

We'll see if that happens. It's a little greedy in my mind. I will say I've never seen her at the end of a race, and I haven't seen her race that much. That's probably as much as anyone else that listens to the podcast. But I've never seen her kind of keel over, totally shelled at the end of a race before. And she really was wrecked at the end of that race. Anyway, speaking of hot races,

three of us are here. We're doing a little Los Cabos camp together, and we're hanging on by a thread. Only injury was. It's so stupid. I feel like I did this before Augusta, too. I'm like, why am I doing this? This is so dumb. Right.

You guys brainwashed me into doing this. I like how you, Eric thinks we brainwashed him into doing it. You think. I definitely got cajoled into joining along for the train. Yeah, and now I'm like breaking and falling apart and getting injured. And I'm like, why am I running through slightly maybe being injured for the stupid race? But it'll be a fun trip. I'm actually like really looking forward to the trip.

and I splurged. I wouldn't even say splurged but I got a more expensive Airbnb than the Hampton Inn on the other side of the highway so we have a non-refundable Airbnb. That's actually what is listed on Google Maps Hampton Inn on the other side of the highway.

Yeah. It's so cheap. I've done this before where I'm like being so cheap going to race is like I'm just going to book the cheapest thing and then I get there and it's so bad. And I cannot handle it. And I'm a real big snob with hotels. I more than anyone, freaking love nice hotels. Like five-star hotels, the dream. And I don't often pay for them myself. It's like when we go for trips or when I was sponsored by Nike, it would always be like the fanciest hotel over. So I have a real appreciation. So when I, in my mind, think, oh, we're saving so much money. And then I show up and it sucks. Then we end up switching when we get there. And it's more expensive. Because I'm like, I will do anything to get out of this hotel. And then it ends up being more. So this time, I was like, okay, I'm just going to do it.

You preempted it. I'm going to look forward to it. It's going to be nice. We're all going to have our own bedroom. We don't have to like... Nick doesn't have to sleep on the floor in the bedroom with you guys. It walks on to the beach. And don't get me wrong, this is not like a crazy expensive place.

But it's much nicer than the hotel that I had originally booked. So that being said, it is non-refundable. So we're all going. TBD on who's racing. Yeah, that was my plan from the beginning was to put my name on the start list. Just in case I arrived at Race Week. feeling a fantastic but otherwise i was going to accompany paula on training and come and have a cabo vacation because i love it there i just have never had a even remotely good race well you you

both of you aren't great in the heat but you specifically have had like a heat stroke before yeah and i don't know if it's you know left over remnants scarring of that or it's just i just struggle with the heat so i'm like my pure focus right now if i do race is focusing on the heat training and stuff so i'm kind of i'm doing like hot runs on the treasuring and then on that sort of junk, which is terrible. And some sauna sessions. Interesting. Some post-swam sauna sessions?

Yeah, those are a little less terrible. Or as what is it? Who said it? Yeah, sauna's just like, it's just as good for you as running. Yeah. 30-minute sauna is just like a 45-minute run. Said by a true non-runner. Yeah, I love this sauna banter talk.

Eric, do you want to talk about certain stuff that's coming out also? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've been spending most of my free time this week, just prepping us for the launch of, I think I just started calling it the comeback collection, but it's like a re-release of our most, basically the things that most people have DM'd me about when are those coming back.

So we've got our original retro trucker hat, which we're renaming to the Nick, since it's, if you've ever seen a picture of Nick, there's a 90% chance he's wearing this hat. It's wearing it right now. Yeah, it's blue with a white TTR stencil circle around in the front of it and like thick 3D embroidery. We're doing that.

We're doing the tank top that I wear on, Yeah, almost every hard run that I do. It's a reversible, like, basketball-style tank top. It is zero percent technical. It's just cool and vibey. And is literally cool, like, just because it's so breathable. Yeah, it's just fun, and it kind of makes me feel like a kid and, I don't know, good energy. And then we're doing the OGTTL shirt, the Heather Gray shirt with the teal circle and white

words that triathlon life. Most popular T-shirt we've done. And the very first T-shirt we ever did back in, man, was that 20. 2020, 2019. 2020. Yeah, I guess early 2020. And when is it out? Friday.

So the day after this comes out. And do we foresee the possibility that it could sell out before someone hears this? No, because this comes out Thursday. Yeah, but if people listen on like Saturday or Sunday or Sunday or something. Yeah. That's our thing. This is not a huge order. We're just doing 100 of each item.

So if there's something that you really want, even waiting for that tank top or that t-shirt, I would not delay because I think these will sell out quickly. I was having a lot of fun with it because I was basically having to go back and find pictures that we took of these things back in the day and we're like at Heather and Waddy's house in Tucson and we're in our house

in Troutdale with Flynn as a puppy and it was, I don't know, I'm pretty excited about this launch because it's got a lot of memories for me. Yeah. Okay, moving on here to our segment and this week we're going to do a little bike tech with Eric.

Bike Tech with Eric. Bike Tech with Eric. And the dogs of like. Flynn is joining us here today. Non-contributing as usual, but at least he's cute and quiet. I took a slow-mo bit of him catching the frisbee today. You mean not catching the frisbee?

And it was like, the frisbee was thrown. And while it was still like in the sky, he jumps for it. Like so far off of missing it. Not even close. It's a super funny video. Maybe I'll post it. I have an angle from behind too. So we could edit it together to an epic.

Like to the music of Michael. Jordan, I believe I can fly. Yeah. R. Kelly. I believe I can fly, but not getting the Frisbee. Okay, sorry, back to bike tech with Eric. Here's the first one. Hi, all.

This probably falls under the bike tech with Eric category. Wondering if you've ever dealt with a stripped bolt on your bike. If so, do you have any go-to ways of getting it out? Thanks for any input, Lucas. First of all, is there a difference between a strip bolt and a rounded bolt? I don't think so. I think we're talking about the same thing, where the head of the bolt does not respond. onto a tool attempting to turn it.

Because it's like you've like, you've like slipped too many times or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like if your Allen keys are not machined very well, so they're just a little bit loose in the bolt when you're trying to loosen or tighten it or the bolt itself is a softer metal, just not made very well. This can definitely happen. So typically my way of avoiding this is just when I feel that start to happen, I switch the bolt.

Yeah. I get a different bolt. And most bolts on bikes are fairly standard and you could go to a hard store and find the same threads and head and everything, or you can maybe call the bike company. Do you think you can just bring that bolt into a hardware store and say, hey, I need to replace this? Yes, exactly. That's what you want to do. Instead of taking a picture or something. Yeah, bring the bolt in and some guy who works at the hardware store is going to be just absolutely tickled to help you find that exact bolt. Right. Perfect. So you don't, you tend to not do this

yourself, most of because you preempt it. But if it did happen, would you bring it into a bike shop or would you try to like drill it out yourself? man I haven't had it happen in a while but it really just kind of depends where the bolt is if it's in a place where you could use like a Dremel tool to like cut a Phillips not a Phillips but like a flathead So then just screw driver

A make your own flat head, not exactly I think you should take it to a bike shop I would you're going to save yourself a lot of time and headache and potentially ruining your bike if you just take it to a bike shop and they won't be able to use a bolt puller and deal with it Especially if that bolt is surrounded by carbon fiber. You don't want to slip with that Dremel tool.

Yeah, my best advice is just if you see that coming, try to get a replacement bolt before it's fully gone. I feel like this doesn't happen much anymore because I barely work on my bike anymore. I used to like unpack my own bike and build my own bike. And I feel like in my rushed state or like not using good quality Allen keys, that would happen more because I wouldn't push it all the way in

before like torquing it. So a way also to avoid it is to use good Allen keys and to make sure it's like fully in before you put all the force on it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. That was from Lucas. Next question is from Earth.

Fully. Hey, TTL, C level. We're C-Level T-TL. CEO, CFO. What are you? Oh. What are you? Chief Fun officer, CFO.

Not financial. What are you? What am I for T-TL? Yeah. If I'm the C-O, marketing officer. She's operating. I am just like the C-E.

CEO. She does like, her word is the final word. I have a lot of ideas that they all must be passed through. Eric is the CIO, the chief idea officer. Yeah. That's true. And Flynn is the C.U.O. Yeah, this is the chief time suck. Chief useless officer. Right. Sorry, Flynn. Good thing you don't speak English. Okay. Next question here is still a bike tech with Eric. H-T-L-C level. Offseason is a great time to optimize gear. So I have a bike tech with Eric question. But I think also Paula and Nick can share their opinion. Can you emphasize on the differences of road pedal systems? Look, Shimano, Wahoo Speedplay, time. What do you ride? Pros and cons. Looking forward. I feel like once you have a certain pedal system, you just don't change it ever. Yeah. I'm in the middle of trying out looks because SRAM owns look. And I think

they're a very cool looking pedal system. And they're very light. And, And I'm really enjoying it, but I only have it on my road bike, and I still have the Shimano's on my TT bike, just so I can compare and contrast. But they feel, once you're in them, very similar. The one thing that the look does have is you can change the tension plate. So if you're someone who struggles with unclipping, because you put out a lot of watts or whatever on Shimano,

then that might be an interesting thing to you where this tension plate is a little bit stiffer. And so you have on two different road bikes, you have two different pedal systems. so then you have two different pairs of shoes with two different cleats. Yeah, and that's really not that big of a deal because I have a pair of shoes dedicated to triathlons that I'm going to be getting wet and putting body glide in and dripping gels on and stuff. So it's really not that big of a deal.

And Paula, what about you? What do you use? I've always used Shimano. Shimano pedals, which I don't know if that's definitely not sponsor correct, because Wahoo makes, has the speed play pedals and Schramm has the time pedals. For some reason in sponsor contracts, it's always a little bit of like an asterisk, like what you've used you can use. You can't really see them when you're racing.

You can't see them. I think that's the real. So it's a little bit of like a bike fit personal preference. You've done it since you were 12 years old racing. Like it's not just hard to change, but also like potential injury risk to change that too because you're changing maybe the float or you're changing the angle. And I would say never change cleats yourself, take them to a bike fitter because even a millimeter either way can be. changing your biomechanics. But yeah, I've always used the same.

Oh my gosh. I just realized I said look while I was meaning time. Time. Yeah, the whole time. So everybody who is in the middle of writing their comment about how I'm, that's what I'm actually referring to. Time has that eye click bar in it. Look is totally different.

Yeah. I actually did the first three years of my life on look pedals until I got tired of the squeaking. That's why I switched to Shimano. The look, time, and Shimano all have the same looking system where you toe in and then clip down. Yeah, Delta style. Yes.

Whereas I use Wahoo Speedplay, but it's funny that you say that once you pick one, you kind of stick to it because when I started, I was on Shimano and wrote that for a while. And it's still my favorite to clip in and out of. I do think it's the easiest to clip in and out of. But when I was injured, a bike fitter who I came to with the injury suggested I switched to speed play because at the time,

at least, allowed for the greatest amount of float. and he thought that was contributing to my injury. So I switched on my road bikes to speedplay. The advantage being that they're dual-sided, like a mountain-bike pedal. But I do find them not as intuitive and a little more care is required to clip into them compared to Shimano.

You can kind of just like jam the front end and clip down. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly the reason that we would sell speed play when I worked in the bike shop is if somebody had a weird knee thing or they had surgery or something.

You can actually customize 15 degrees of float to the right and only five to the left on your right foot and then your left foot can be completely different versus the other pedal systems it's just you get five degrees in both directions or 10 degrees in both directions yeah i actually really like that feature and it's very intuitive there's two screws yeah and you can really set each one so if you don't want your heel to come in too far whatever you can do that but you can let it come out a lot or the inverse do you have issues with them getting gunked up because that was definitely a thing no portland area like you step in you get off the side of your bike to go to the bathroom or change your tire and

anything and you step in any amount of goo and it's like really hard to get the speed play cleaned out. We don't have rain. So we don't have like the dirt is like dry dirt. Yeah. I've had a couple of times it's like I just like kick it against the pedal or something and it's totally clean. I have had that problem with my SPD, Shimano mountain bike pedals. Okay. Yeah.

Of course. I hate the mountain bike pedals. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's so hard for me to clip into. It's part of the problem I feel like. Yeah. They get crap gets in there. Yeah.

And then it's hard to get in. Do people ride Wahoo for mountain bikes ever? There was a speed play frog or something like that, I think was an off-road cleat. But I've actually been running time pedals, mountain biking. Okay. So I have a little bit of experience with that, but not the speedplay off-road. Yeah, cool. Okay, and now we're going to move on to questions.

And just as always, you can submit your questions for the podcast at Thattriathlonlife.com slash podcast. Also there, you can become a podcast supporter, which helps us keep the podcast going. Also, like Eric mentioned earlier, we have a bunch of stuff coming out on Friday. So that also helps keep the podcast going. And you're just listening and, you know, rating it highly and sharing it with your friends. That also goes a long way to. And we appreciate it. The podcast is still growing, if you can believe it. We still are getting, we're trending positive. I feel like we've almost maxed out the potential audience here, but we appreciate it when you share it with your friends.

First question from Carita. Hey, all congrats on Paula and Nick's win. Hope you all get with, Hope you get well soon, Eric. Almost no pod goes on without mentioning your specifically Nix love for donuts. You've said before that you eat intuitively and don't track. I was wondering whether you allow yourselves just as much sweets as you crave, or do you have to restrict at least a little bit? I know your training loads are enormous and you burn tons of calories, but one can eat tons of donuts as well.

Keep up the great work. I really enjoy the pod during my runs, Carita. Yeah, we definitely keep it to a minimum because it makes us, feel kind of bad when we train if we eat too many donuts. Like, for example, on Kona Day, we bought 12 donuts after swimming. 12 for the three of us. Nick insisted on 12. Well, it's because, okay, let's go back for a second.

I promise that if Paula got on the podium at the U.S. Open, I would buy her 12 donuts. So technically I bought her 12 donuts and then ate most of them, but I still bought her 12 donuts. I can't believe how many. We literally polished them off. and then went on a tempo run. And I was like so sick. I felt so terrible.

So that's just a case and point of yes, we can eat a lot of donuts and we burn through them metabolically. But they're not very good for you. And they really make you feel sick. So much sugar. So I would say limit it to one donut. And we often, after swimming stop at the coffee shop and get a coffee and a muffin or a cookie or whatever. Yeah.

So we, I'd say we do like one treat. a day, but not like five treats a day. How much are you, you're saying like you don't eat it because it's going to make you feel sick? So that to me kind of sounds like you don't really want it that much, right? Like, yeah, you kind of want it, but you want to feel better more. Yeah, it's not like, it's not like I'm like resisting the urge. Yeah, right. It's easy to resist the urge.

If you're like, well, this is going to make me feel sick later. So I'm not going to do that. Like, I will say, like, I eat pretty much as many sweets as I want. Obviously, I'm not a professional. You just don't buy them, though. I don't buy them at the grocery store. That's my rule, is I don't buy sweets at the grocery store. Good rule, Nick.

I just do them when I go out to a coffee shop or an ice cream shop or one of the many sweets shops that I frequent. Right. From my perspective, the majority of the sweets that I eat would be like after dinner when the dessert reflex kicks in. And that doesn't really take that much restriction or mental effort for me because I've already eaten dinner. I'm already pretty full on good, wholesome food.

And then a couple of, like, I don't know, whatever. A couple of those, we got Hershey Nuggets. Yeah. And I feel pretty like, okay, the sweets box was checked versus in the middle of the day without eating lunch going and buying 12 donuts, that is highly irregular. Right. I also think, in general, eating a lot of sweets on an empty stomach is a pretty bold move. Yeah.

It's like, it'll spike your insolent. Because I didn't really have breakfast. I was just like, oh, okay, we're eating donuts. right into the sugar. We're watching Kona. We're eating donuts. That's our activity. It was kind of a party day.

Yeah, we were definitely in kids watching cartoons on Saturday morning morning. So there you go, Kareta. We pretty much eat to whatever we think. We're not worried about it making us gain weight, right? We're more worried about how it's going to affect the day of training. Sure. Sure. Next question here is from Richard.

Hey, Paula, Eric, and Nick. Wondering your thoughts about next season with Iron Man 70.3 world champs being in December. And the beautiful toe paw, which we were going to address in a second here, obviously this is well into what you would usually be the off season. For you and other pros who seem to mostly work on a northern hemisphere summer season's structure, will you just have a super long 2024 season? Start your season later and miss some of your usual early season races, or simply have a year off from 70.3 worlds.

Interested to hear your thoughts this far out. Keep up the awesome work, Richard, from the UK. A year off from 70.3 worlds, that had not occurred to us. Yeah. Wait, a year out of what? Just like skip it because it's in an inconvenient time. Oh, interesting, yeah. We were looking it up because the way that it's spelled, it's Taupo.

It looks like Taupo. Yeah, but we wanted to know how the locals say it. So we researched that, and they were all saying Topao. Topa. Topa. Yeah. Topo or Topa? Topa.

Is it the British, the kind of that accent's like Topal. But it's like a dog's pole. But if you say in English. in American English, to toe paw. The dog's pole. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, not tau-po apparently, which is I think what we've been saying.

A lot of Americans say. Yeah. Okay. But so what are your thoughts on this? It really depends on the PTO schedule next year and what that looks like. I don't see a world where I would skip 70.3 worlds because I really like that event. And I think that course down there will suit me pretty well. It gets kind of hilly and it's probably not going to be hot. Kind of similar to Lottie, maybe. but it is a goal every year to win that race.

So I think that will be a priority of mine and just have to be smarter throughout the year of building properly, taking maybe a mid-season break halfway through. But I think that in general I do kind of build into the season. And last year, having Worlds in October actually suited me really well because I do feel better and fitter as the year goes on. So having a late season world is not the worst thing for me. but keeping in mind that I can't go and peak in April for Singapore or PTO and then peak in September for Abiza PTO and all the ones that are in between and do the same thing in December.

So I feel like it's going to take a very strategic sitting down and going with our coach how many races and what timing can you be prepared for and maybe that will mean that you don't necessarily go to the race that excites you the most but the timing works out. Or the travel is less stressful, something like that. Because going to New Zealand is a big travel, so that's something that we have to consider. But potentially seven or eight other races through the year are also stressful travel. So it's going to be kind of an interesting season with that and trying to link up together races and training camps where we're just doing the least amount of transcontinental flying, basically.

It sounds like you're not really trying to delay your start of the season. Not necessarily. I think it's kind of dictated by the schedule that is laid out for us. And with the series, I don't know what it's going to look like yet, but we do know that the first one is in April in Singapore. And also Oceanside is on that Iron Man thing. And every year I go to Oceanside, I'm like, never again. I was raised so badly there. But it is a good kick in the pants to get your year going as long as you don't tie yourself worth to the outcome. I think that's the lesson there. The problem is it's so hard to do for the two of you and for other pros because there's so much attention around that race. Yeah, yeah.

It's not just summer. We've come off of winter. We're not as fit as we will be later. We can drive there. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons to do it, but it is really hard to go there and race the best ever. I mean, can we even remember who won it this year? No one remembers. Well, the thing is it's very, like, it's not that hard to go and peek there, but it's hard to peak there and then in December.

Right. That is hard. Right. So, yeah, picking your battles. And do you want to do that, the Iron Man series or the PTO series? But are they just curious for our sake, or are they, like, wondering for themselves? They're curious for, like, as a pro, I think. Oh, yeah, what the year looks like.

Eight times at a high level. Yeah, next year is going to be the most interesting year ever to see what people decide to do. Because there's going to be a lot of high pay. options. And are people going to focus on the PTO thing? Are they going to focus on Nice and Kona? There's no world where the best Iron Man athletes don't focus on the two world championships at the end of the year. Like there's too much hype around it. It's too prestigious to just say, oh, no, I'm doing the PTO series. Forget Kona. Like, that's never going to happen. Okay, next question here is from Ben in Hamilton.

espresso question for Eric. I currently have the rocket Matzafayato. Is that right? I think so. Okay. Type five, and I've been making top-notch espresso for two years. I've been having an online affair with the Lamarizocco Linnea Mini, and I feel kind of bad. My question is, what were the noticeable differences in the quality of the espresso slash experience when you switched from the Prophetech Pro?

A lot of names here. I get that to Linnea Mini is probably way more arrow. And the steam wand can push more watts. But is it the taste difference truly, is the taste difference truly worth making the switch? Thanks, Ben. So to upgrade from a rocket to a Lamarzocco. And what is the price difference? Because we did a similar thing.

We had a profit tag. It was like a $2,000 machine. We upgraded to the Linnea mini, which is $4.5. $5.500 machine? Oh, $5.500. That's a bicycle. Yeah. So it's like three and a half grand more.

Is it worth that price increase? No. No. But does it look cool and bring Eric daily happiness? Yes. It's a romantic experience. So as I'm looking at your question, taste-wise, no. But at the same time, we did upgrade the grinder as well.

And I think that has as much of an impact on that perception of how frothy and creamy the espresso is. We upgraded the grinder. So that is one thing. I would definitely say that our overall. set up with the Eureka Mignon Selenzo grinder and the Profitec did not make quite as nice of espresso and certainly not as consistently as the Linnea Mini. Is it worth the price increase? No, except the experience is very nice. I like that paddle lever. Our new grinder is very quiet and fast. I can steam milk for a cappuccino in like one-tenth, one-fifth of the time. Oh, wow. And a thing that was

mostly in the back of our heads and how I like strangely justified this to myself was if we ever wanted to add to our TTL race pop-up experience, a little espresso bar, this machine could actually do three or four cappuccinos back to back. No problem where the Providecac totally caps out after like two. This kind of reminds me of what we tell people about like spending a lot of money on an expensive bike. It's like, is the $10,000 bike twice as good as the $5,000 bike? Probably not. Is it going to make you want to ride the bike more? If yes, then go for it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like a Honda Civic versus a Porsche. Like, is that worth the extra money? It totally depends on you. Do you get behind that car and just feel like a kid and have this emotional reaction every time you get in it? Because it's certainly not getting you from point A to point B more efficiently.

No. No. You still got to sit in the same traffic. So if you're having an online love affair with this thing, you may be, already know the answer. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also, you can always sell the other machine pretty easily for like almost what you bought it for because they last forever. Yeah. If you're taking good care of it and you've cleaned it, they hold their value really well. So the way we sort of justified it is like we sold our old machine, we sold our own grinder, and then we

got the new one. And we also kind of used it as like, okay, if we win this race, then we will get this. So it was like a bit of a reward, I would say. And we don't really, I know we have like this gorgeous van and whatever, but we don't spend a ton of money on like material objects that often. So it was something that we both thought a lot about. Yeah. The bulk of our large expenses are cameras, which are, yeah, our large expenses. Our expenses are cameras, which are effectively a business tool. I mean, that's about it. So we actually, do we, we did say the coffee was a business expense. Yeah, well.

The coffee machine. Here we are talking about it on our podcast. Yes, and you have the coffee subscription. Yeah. And it shows up in a ton of your social media stuff. Yeah. Are we going to get canceled for doing that? Cancelled by the IRS?

Yeah. Not a lot of people out there are big fans of the IRS. Yeah. I don't think so. Our love are so many business expense. So, Ben, it's unanimous. We all think you should get it. Go for it.

Yeah. And also, like, are you going to really notice $5,000 dollar? It's just earth money. It's just earth money. It's just earth money. Can't take it with you. It's just earth money. You can take the lineage mini with you. That's something that Paula's dad said the other day.

What was it in reference to? Oh, because he kind of helped you guys out with the engagement party. Yeah, our friend hosted us an engagement party, which was super nice of her, an amazing party. We would never do this type of thing for ourselves, but it ended up being a really, really nice evening. And all of our friends came, and my parents helped pay for it. And then my friends thanked my parents. and my dad said, it's only earth money. Love that.

Love that. He said that when you were like, Dad, you didn't have to do that, please. No, he said this to Chris. Oh, okay. Anyway. It's only earth money. Experiences are worth more than money.

Of course. Yeah, of course. So spend all your money. Love that. We'll leave it right there. Next question. Hi, Paula, Eric, and Nick. Always love your pods.

And breaking news had me laughing every time last week. My question is about visualization. During the Kona live stream, Natasha Badman talked about the visualization she did before Race Day. Do you do any visualization? If so, it's a hard word pronounced, by the way. If so, what does it look like? How close to Race Day do you start? Thanks, Kate the Aussie and Tucson.

I met you guys at Oceanside. Nice. Also, I have a Natasha Badman anecdote. It was her, right? This was before I was very into triathlon, and I was at the pool swimming with someone. And I asked if I could get in the lane with them. and we were swimming and then she said,

I forget how it started, but we started talking about Danielle Reef. I was saying like, oh yeah, she's won a lot of world championships. And the woman said to me, yeah,

she's about to pass me. And then I noticed a Red Bull cap. I think she was wearing a Red Bull cap. Yeah, she's still sponsoring a Red Bull. And then I looked it up. I told Eric later. And he was like, dude, that was Natasha Badman.

I didn't even know. She was just swimming in Santa Monica by herself. She was super, super nice. I remember when I asked to split the lane with her, she was like beaming smile. Anyway. I mean, that's what she was famous for. It was like smiling impossibly the entire bike ride as she's destroying everyone.

Yeah. Looks like she's having a blast. What was he? Visualization. Oh, yeah. Well, Flynn's visualizing his next frisbee toss as we speak. Because he's like twitching in his dreams. I don't visual, I don't like sit down and have like a Zen visualization session.

But I think subconsciously I like, yeah, once I get to the venue, and I see the transition, I see the swim course and the bike course, then I can visualize myself doing it, but I'm not like sports psychologist fashion sitting down and writing out what's going to happen in a very, you know, planned out way or structured way. I was having trouble falling asleep last night because I was thinking of the run, but it's not something I'm doing on purpose. In Los Cabos? Yeah. You're already thinking about that. Yeah.

Okay. I was literally in bed thinking like what that pace is going to feel like, how I should like be sucking myself up. I couldn't help. I was trying to not think about it because it was getting my heart rate up. I do that most of the time while training. It's like halfway to a daydream. I'm not intentionally thinking, okay, who am I going to be racing at Los Cabos? It just like naturally works its way into my brain.

And it's just like a little story that's playing while I'm doing intervals. Same. Exactly. I don't know if that counts as visualization. No, I mean, I'm trying to not do that during training now because I think that's part of the reason I have this crazy sense of dread leading up to the race is because I put so much pressure. on the race instead of just doing the training for the training, and then I show up to the race and I get to use the training. Instead of like I'm training for this one day,

for this four and a half hour race or whatever it is. Yeah, it adds too much pressure. If you struck a goal with getting to races and like choking, for lack of a better word, and like the pressure feels too much. Yeah. But I do think that in order to have like smooth transitions and things like that, visualizing that stuff can be important. You don't have to visualize yourself like running down the finish line and first

and lifting the tape. That's cheesy. But you can visualize yourself running through transition, efficiently putting your helmet on, what are your steps going to be just so that you don't mess up on race day? Because you don't get to practice that stuff often. Like, yeah, every day you're swimming, biking, running,

but you're not doing your transition motions every day. So that's the kind of visualization, I think, could be more useful for people. So, Paula, are you saying that you kind of, when you're doing your hard intervals, whatever, on the bike, let's say, and you're not having the best time, which is understandable. You're not like, I'm doing this so that I can,

be faster on race day. And like I'm thinking specifically of Los Cabos and I want to be fast. I want to be. No. What are you thinking? I think more of like training is a checking a box of that day. Clock in, clock out. Yeah, I'm like, this is the work I'm supposed to do today.

I'm doing it. And I'm not necessarily thinking about the next race. I'm thinking about getting better as a whole. This is, this is exactly what I'm trying to do. Instead of each training session is a stepping stone to the race and to, months. I'm just like, nope, it's getting fitter in general. Yeah, because I think, I was thinking about this today as I was running and not excited about racing this year again, what I'm doing now is helping me for next year. Yeah. And I don't think, I think off season has this like

label where people think you're just sitting on the couch and eating donuts all day and not training. But off season is like still working really hard and working on specific things and getting better as an athlete without an impending race where you have to stress about that. So I think that once you take a couple of break or a couple weeks of a break on your quote unquote off season, then you actually start training decently well again in a lot of hours and with the goal of getting better for next year. Okay, that reminds me of something else though. When you guys, I feel like for age groupers every year when we take our off season and reset, we're not going back to the fitness of the beginning of the previous season, right? We're still, it's like a very, yes, you come down a bit, but then you continue to go up and a few months in, hopefully. you're better than you were last year at that same place.

For professionals, since you're kind of operating at like your physiological limit sometimes, do you feel like each off season you kind of start at the same place as you started the season before? I don't know. I don't know if I'm getting better year after year. I have no idea. But I think that it's not even about like fitness. What is fitness? But resiliency too, just like running consistently, not getting injured, doing a lot of bike miles.

Like if you're, we were talking about this yesterday, if you're new to cycling, It takes like five years to get really good at cycling. Like just getting used to that zone of pushing really hard and accumulating the miles in your legs. It's not something you can just necessarily start and be good at. So I don't know. It's too big of a question to be like, am I better than last year? Yeah. I feel like the gains that we're seeing at this point are so small.

You're not necessarily going to notice it like two weeks into coming back to the season. Yes, you'll be feeling fresh and maybe you'll have some good workouts as a result from that. but noticing whether or not you're faster it comes at a race or just the you know like anecdotal evidence of three months of training where like oh wow this pace on the run or these watts have kind of become my new normal and I can remember last year and in that jump could be like five watts

going from 320 to 325 you know like we're past the phases in our life where we're making oh last year I pushed 270 and this year like I just had this magical thing and now I'm doing 300 is my new FTP you know like that's kind of behind us. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that's very different. It's like you're trying to successfully build a season each year,

whereas age groupers are trying to constantly improve. Like, I feel like some age groupers do expect to see a 30-watt jump from year to year, which would be impossible for you guys. Yeah, there's also like a little bit more low-hanging fruit for age groupers maybe with not just fitness but aerodynamics and equipment and things like that. We're already super maximized on a lot of that stuff. So any incremental gains we're making aerodynamically, they're all important, but we're not going to see huge jumps.

Like someone might if they've never done arrow testing. Right. Yeah. I feel like my mental energy goes into like preparing perfectly for a specific event, like modulating my energy levels and getting the best workouts possible and being fully physically ready and mentally ready to have a good race versus like, I think I'm just going to put in this crazy winner of bike training and become a different person. Yeah.

That's funny. Those two seem very different to me. That's interesting. Next question here is from Nick. How important is variety in workouts? I'm talking purely about performance gains, so I don't mind if the workouts are boring. I like simple workouts like a 10 times 1K running or 10 times 200 twice swimming. But I'm wondering if I'm missing out on progress with those types of workouts. Would it be better to have some variety in each session from session to session? Or is it just mentally easier when you have some variety? Thanks. If you answer also just bought a hat. Thanks, Nick. Nice. Thanks for mine a hat. I picked this question because Eric and I very specifically with

our coach do not have a ton of variety in our training. And I think that our coach's philosophy is a bit like variety is for the weak-minded. Like do the same thing every week, do 10, 400s in the pool. It's not exciting, but it'll make you fit and mentally tough. So I kind of agree that varieties for the weak-minded, and it totally works on me. Like, my coach knows, like, trick me into things by making them feel different than the one I did the week before. But do you feel like, why, okay, so let's say it is for the weak-minded, why not give into that to try to lighten the load on your mind so you can work harder?

I think it kind of depends, like, how much do you have to modify from what your coach perceived to be the ideal session? and does that 10% that you lose with it being suboptimal get canceled out by your 15% excitement level? Got it. That's the difference, I think. Got it. So you're saying like, let's say the 10 times 1K, he thinks it's like the best possible workout you can do. And you're like, yeah, but I don't want to do that every week.

It's like, okay, well, now you're not getting the best possible impulse. Yeah. If you break that into 100s, yes, that's more manageable. But how much of a performance, you know, gain, benefit are you losing as a risk? result and do those cancel out? I do you quit the sport? I do think somewhere in the middle is best. Like, I'll never take a workout that Paulo does and change it necessarily.

Sometimes in the pool I will. If it's like 10, 400s, I might do like 5, 400s and 10, 200s or something. I don't know. Just stupid stuff like that where in my mind it's the same thing and you're still getting the fitness. It's also swimming, which I feel like kind of like time in the water is the best thing. Yeah, I don't know. But I just think that you should refrain from adjusting what your coach gave you.

That's a dangerous hole to fall into. If you're always taking what you're supposed to do and adapting it so it has more variety and it's more exciting, that's not a great thing to do. I think that there's a lot of satisfaction that comes from doing what's on the paper and checking it off, assuming you're not injured or hurting yourself or overtired, versus like slightly tweaking it or doing one less interval or whatever it is. there's not as much of a feeling of accomplishment in that case. Yeah, so I guess if you were to bring this to your coach and say, hey, I've really been struggling with the workouts the last six months, could we change it? Even if the conversation you come away with them saying, no, I really think this is why. That might give you a little bit of extra belief in it and a purpose behind what you're doing and make those workouts seem less of a grind.

That's what I was going to ask. is like, is it, I think if you were to ask or have that conversation at least with your coach, at least you've kind of expressed those feelings. And when you're doing those workouts, you know, like, no, I'm doing this because it's the best thing. And they feel so strongly about it that even when I brought up my concern,

they reiterated this is really important. Yeah, that would help me, even though I am one of the weak-minded people that likes some kind of, like the more variety, the better. The more you can break up those workouts, the better. Next question is from Ben. I'm currently in college in D.C. and going into the winter months.

I'm planning on setting up a trainer in my room. I know a real chick magnet. Nice. To keep up by biking without the miserable weather. Sorry, we're not all built different like Eric. We all have our limit. That's right. Even Eric has a lot.

I've saved $1,200 US dollars, and I'm wondering, what is the quietest trainer I can get for this price point? I currently have an old direct drive cycle ops, but it sounds like a freight train whenever I hop on. Not ideal when I wake up my roommates in their rooms at 548. am. And then also at the end here, I do have a good answer for this. Also, does Nick have any sound

dampening recommendations, whether it be stuff to hang on my wall or a really thick bike mat for me to help absorb any sound? Thanks, Ben. Nice. Did you do any research on different trainer brands and quietness level? No, I did not. A wahoo kicker is $1,300. Okay. So it's a little outside of this $1,200. Yeah, but not enormously, but I would say getting that kicker is better than getting the Wahoo Fitness Kicker Core where it's not the direct drive. Oh, yeah, direct drive. That's the major thing here. Wait, maybe the kicker core is a direct drive.

Yeah, there's even one below it that's an on wheel, I think. And is on wheel louder or quieter? Way louder. The snap is not direct drive. Snap. Yeah, I think the more expensive, it's not like an exponential increase where the more you spend, the quieter and the better it is. But I think the kicker trainer is like a solid, good option for the price,

going to be quiet. We use it all the time. It's super quiet. Yeah. It's never failed us. We haven't had to replace it or get a new one in years. I will say even though it's not it's not, I wouldn't call it quiet. But it's not a disruptive sound. It's kind of a nice sound.

Yeah. And it's a steady sound that's like what's really bad is like It's like white noise. Yeah, it's like white noise. The trainers that were really loud were the LeMond direct drives, like the very initial direct drive trainers that they made. And they had like a fan in them, those were so loud. Jet engine.

It sounded like a jet engine. And you didn't plug them in. They were just like created resistance maybe through the internal fan. I don't know. The air that you're, the noise that you're hearing is the paddles hitting the air to create resistance. That's right. Why it's so loud.

It was really crazy. But back in 2012, that was the top of the line trainer. And Simon Whitfield, this thing weighs like a hundred pounds. Like it's so heavy. And he would bring it on the airplane to like training camps in France and to, the Olympics in London because it was the direct drive feeling was like nothing else. And it was worth bringing it, even though it was loud, even though it was weighed a billion pounds. But now they have this, you know, kickers are still heavy, but assuming you're leaving it in one spot, it's a lot quieter.

And the direct drive is the way to go. Yeah. So the answer to the question about the sound dampening. There's a, I want to clear this up because I think this is something a lot of people get wrong also for like music and things. there's a very big difference between dampening and soundproofing. There are two different things. One helps the sounds within the room be less reverberant. So if you're in an echoey room, you can dampen that,

and the echoes will be less in the room. This is very desirable if you're recording anything, or if you're trying to listen to music and have it be preserved in its best state. But is there any difference to someone outside of the room? There's no difference to someone outside of the room. So you putting up a bunch of carpets or egg cartons or putting a rug down or whatever, that's fine. The difference is tiny.

Yes, some of those sound waves are absorbed, but the point there is to make the sound waves not bounce off the walls back to the listener, not to stop them from escaping the room. Soundproofing is, and sound happening is relatively cheap. It's not that hard to do. Sound proofing requires basically for you to isolate your entire room because sound is very good at going around things,

and the lower frequencies can really go around big walls, frequencies have a tougher time with that but it is very very expensive to soundproof a room to decrease the load on your neighbor so the best thing that you can do is try to find something that does not transmit the vibrations from the trainer to the ground that's the best thing you can do totally i'm sure there are mats that are good for this in college i had an electronic drum set what we did is we had two pieces of like a plywood and we put tennis balls between the two pieces of would to try to stop the vibrations from reaching the ground. And it was moderately successful.

That's fun. Yeah. But I wouldn't do that with a bike trainer probably. No, I mean, even just like two yoga mats, probably. I mean, doesn't the, like, Wahoo or Zwift has the mats, right? Yeah. I don't know how well designed those are for that, but. I mean, they're really great.

I just assume that they're kind of expensive. But yeah, that's what we have under ours. Yeah. But yeah, there you go. So soundproofing, not the same as dampening and much, much more difficult to do. Next question here is from Lauren. Hey, TTL fam. Thorily enjoyed the new breaking news segment in the last week's podcast.

That's going to have to be a recurring thing. I love that. I love that. Dig up some news. I was cracking up when I made it. When I was putting it in, I thought it was so funny. We rarely have breaking news, though. Yes, that's true.

That's not really our vibe here. No, it's not our vibe. Feels like we're getting early access to juicy triathlon news. I have to say, I'd be stoked to see Paula race full distance Iron Man. I love the community you've all created. And I'm always looking forward to whatever you release next. Oh, I think this was kind of related. but can you disclose any of your TTL pod recording secrets?

I would love to learn more about the setup you all use. I can't remember if you talked about this in another episode or not. Either way, sound quality, including jingles, is excellent. Just like the last question, the number one best thing you can do for sound quality is recording in a dampened room with not a lot of reverb in it and recording your voice close to the microphone, about like six inches away from the microphone.

That's the best way to get the best sound quality. Then everything else I do to make it sound good is way too techy and not it would take us I mean people teach entire courses on this stuff so there's a lot of effects that go on. Get yourself a neck yeah you got to find yourself a neck

so basically just like video the better your audio is when it hits the microphone you don't have to do post production. That's exactly right it should sound good going in there's no like magic really that happens later if we were to upload these without any processing after it would still sound mostly good

next question here is from Matt high TTL team for Paula and Eric, was wondering how much athletes with your experience really need a coach and what the benefits for you guys are. I'm guessing after so many years of training and racing, you know best what works for your body and what doesn't in terms of day-to-day training, recovering, peaking, tapering. Not to throw your coach under the bus, but do you really need him or is it nowadays just a nice to have thing so you don't have to worry about doing your own programming and analyzing your training data? Best Matt. This also reminds me of like when pro athletes

who are coached, will then coach other athletes. It's like, okay, so you can do it. Why not coach yourself? And then there are certain pros who do coach themselves who are quite successful. So I think this is a pretty interesting question. Do you know any off the top of your head that don't? Danielle coaches herself, right?

I think she's back with Brett. Linal coaches himself. I don't know who's Lyle's coaches. Yeah, I think the advantages. Sam Long now coaches himself. It's usually an interim thing. Yeah. And then they realize like, oh, this is.

This is awful. And why is it awful? Do you think they don't have the coaching knowledge? No. No. I think it takes a lot of brain energy to think about it and to plan it and to do it. And then while you're doing it, not to change it while you're doing it because it's hard. Yeah, no one's checking in except for you.

Yeah. Yeah. If you have the sitting down and knowing the plan and having the periodization and all of that takes some knowledge. And yes, we do have that knowledge potentially. but knowing exactly what to do every day and how the structure that weeks and how much time between hard run sessions, like all of that,

I think I'd rather leave in the hands of someone who's the professional at that. Yeah, like, I spend a huge chunk of my day like reading about video editing techniques or like trying to design a T-shirt and then like doing the training, obviously, and trying to recover from the training. Meanwhile, our coach, Paulo,

is reading scientific journals. and doing everything that he can to become the best coach he can possibly be. So it's like, yes, we could mow our own lawn, and we could probably redo the siding on our house, and we could wash our own car. There's a million different things that you could take on, but you want to decide, especially as a professional athlete, with X amount of energy to put into things,

where is my time best spent, and my mental energy best spent. Yeah, that's smart. Because it seems like you could do it. I also think that for someone who doesn't want to, necessarily invest a ton of money into a coach. Some of the online stuff with training peaks or the AI coaching things could also be a good replacement just so you have an idea. But then again, there's not like a human necessarily checking in on it, but it'll give you a structure.

And then if you're accountable enough to do it and not leave stuff out just because it's not fun, that's an option. The AI stuff does intrigue me especially because what I like about having a coach right now is like, hey, I'm going for a two-day crazy trail running trip Saturday, Sunday. It's like, okay, well, then this week before that, we're going to change things up a bit. And the week after it, we're going to change things up a bit to allow that for that to happen. When I just bought a plan before, I would probably just train normally right up to that, do those two days, and try to pick back up training, which obviously is not ideal. But the AI will kind of see that you've done these certain things and adjust for it. Crazy.

So that could be cool. I think a big thing, do you feel more confident in what you're doing now that you have a coach versus a computer or if you're just making it up yourself? Because that's huge for me. I feel super confident in what my coach is giving me without having to like spend hours and hours trying to figure out what I think might be best. Do I feel more confident? I think it's kind of nice to have someone that I know is going to be appreciating the work I put in. I do like that. Like, oh, he knew these intervals were going to be hard and I did them.

You don't feel any like your training is more optimized? Versus if you're making it up yourself. Maybe what I do like is that the plan I was going off of that I purchased, it was assuming I was an equal-level swim-bike runner. And now, like, we know that my swim is not great and that I want to be able to run faster off the bike. So my coach is prioritizing that for me. So I do like it in that sense.

Yeah. Next question here is from Matt. Hi, Eric, Paula, and Nick. Congratulations, Paula, on your latest win. Stoke to see Canadians on top of that podium. I'm from Loretta M.B. This is part of the, like, people don't care what the race is. If you win, you win.

People remember it. And they, like, Augusta, who cares? Right, right. Not who cares. A lot of people. A lot of people, that's the addicting thing. We care. We care.

Why did I go to Los Cabos and do the same thing? People would congratulate me for months. That's right. Literate for months because then it's the off season. Yeah, that's right. You know, it's funny, just a real quick side note. remember that's what Gustav was saying when he had like a not great performance at 70.3 worlds. He's just like, people only remember you for your last race. And he was kind of beating himself up over that.

And in my head, I'm like, you're Gustav Eden. Yeah. You're fine. People remember you for a little more than that. Yeah. But I remember like him having that very real concern. I was like, man, being a pro, even a super successful pro sounds so mentally difficult. I remember being in that headspace. And I think over time you realize that that that's not true. Yes, people do remember your last result and having a good one is a positive, but not having a good one is not like, oh, so-and-so just is done and washed up the end. Yeah, like, I kind of think of Kat Matthews, who just didn't have the conno she was hoping to have. It's not like we're like, oh, she's now over. Yeah, we don't consider her. If she says up to her, she's going to be a non-factor, of course not. Yeah. And sometimes I feel like it can humanize

someone that seems to have these, like, unbeatable performances all the time. especially in a time where because of social media, athletes are much more human than they used to be in our eyes. They're not just machines. They're like human beings and we're interested in... If they show that part. If they show that part. Otherwise, I do think they kind of turn back into machines.

Yeah. I really think this is a good case of your perception of what people think about you and the timeline of things, whether it's injury or the races or whatever, is so much more intense in your mind than it actually is to all the people who you're concerned about

thinking, what they're thinking. Yeah. Anyway, back to the question here. My question is in regards to body position while sleeping, as I often find myself waking up in a scrunched position with my knees towards my chest, is there such a thing as a preferred position like being stretched out to help muscle recovery as I'm finding chronic quad fatigue lately? Keep up the great work, and I look forward to seeing what future holds for Eric's Exeterra races. Matt.

I did look into this a little bit. But I'm wondering if you guys off the top of your head have, something that you have noticed with yourself anecdotally. Yeah, I don't have like a scientific answer for this, but I thought it was an interesting question because you spend nine hours in that position. And I think a lot of people do have like a position that they gravitate towards.

Oh, for sure. To fall asleep and then stay there. So it definitely could impact injuries and stuff. Like people that have Achilles problems, there's this thing that like stretches out your foot so it stays flex while you sleep. Things like that. Didn't know that.

That's cool. I personally like to put a pillow between my legs because it keeps my hips more aligned. And I like to hug a pillow because then I'm not like drooping my shoulders so much. So I don't know. I'm kind of picky about it. So you have found that to be helpful to you. Yeah, having the pillow set up or like a body pillow to kind of hug to keep you in a better position. But some people like to sleep on their back, some people on their stomachs.

I don't know if there's a right way. but if you're having issues, I think it's smart to think about it, like this person is. Do you have anything anecdotally that you found with yourself? Yeah, I'm kind of similar. I tend to sleep on my side, and I do like the pillow between the legs thing as well. It seems to make my hips hurt a little bit less. But then, yeah, plenty of times I'll wake up on my back. So I don't know.

There's only so much you can do. But I do remember reg reading in textbooks as a kid that, like, sleeping on your side with your legs slightly bent so that your lower back has like a natural arch in it versus just coffin mode on your back is a little bit better on your back. Okay, so the stuff I read kind of confirms this that you just said is that like sleeping on your back if you're struggling with lower back pain

can delay kind of the healing of that pain because you kind of collapse that natural arch in your back. But the biggest thing was, it's no, it's very intuitive, but it's no secret that good sleep is fundamental to, your fitness, like to recovering and getting fitter, absorbing the training that you're putting in. So then that's kind of where the number one focus should be for athletes is getting good sleep. And for many people, they have problems with breathing obstruction during their sleep, sleep apnea. And sleeping on your back usually makes that worse. And sleeping on your side usually alleviates that.

So if you have problems with sleep apnea, it interrupts your sleep, interups your sleep cycles, sleeping on your side or dealing with some kind of specific sleep apnea, like one of the CPAP machines or whatever, that is going to help you sleep better, which makes you recover better. Are athletes really having sleep apnea? I don't know. I just know that a huge part of Americans are, but I don't know if that's just because a huge part of Americans are like overweight. And that usually is overweight. I'm always associated overweight with sleep apnea. You know, both my parents and my sister have sleep apnea.

And my parents are super fit. So maybe it's sometimes it's genetic. Sometimes it's. Yeah. It usually has to do with like the anatomy of the back of your throat and like a flap that's there that kind of will like get in the way. Interesting. And if you gained a lot of weight that closes up and makes it more likely for that to obstruct your breathing. I wonder if like this person's waking up crunched.

What are you going to do? Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard to change that. I think another thing that's important is sleep mattress quality, obviously. Pillow quality. I've noticed pillow. Those are things you can actually change easily.

and could impact your sleep enormously. It's a third of your life. You're spending your life. Yeah. We had like back in the day, I forget what the mattress company was, bear mattress or something. A sponsor? I mean, they sent us a free mattress.

Maybe it was lull. L-U-L-L. And we still use it four years later. It's great mattress. So some of the box mattresses are actually really good and comfortable. You don't necessarily have to go spend five grand on a mattress.

But it is important for it to be. be comfortable. I do think sometimes I feel like people, they're like, what can I do to like, like, what kind of blanket can I buy or what kind of thing can I do to sleep better when a lot of times a solution is to allocate more time in your day to sleep in general. Like, it's better to sleep nine hours well than to like get the perfect mattress and pillow and sleep six hours. Yeah, hack five hours. Right, right. Yeah. Someone was telling me that this is not a sponsored plug because I know they like do the sponsor thing and podcasters talk about him but eight sleep is like a cooling mattress and all the time your sleep quality is determined by how hot you get like you'll

wake up if you're too hot your sleep quality is better if you stay cool and I think this mattress actively cools you I've never tried it but I have heard maybe jordan blanco or someone told me that um they love it speaking of jordan blanco and I was curious if you guys felt like I bet she sent me the pillar triple magnesium stuff. It's supposed to help with sleep. And I have noticed that I don't know if it's placebo, but it feels like I sleep better. And I have a feeling it is placebo. Do you feel like you guys are like, I did this thing that's supposed to help me sleep better

and I actually step better? No, I think it's, I think it actually helps. Okay. Yeah, I think the pillar stuff actually helps. I've never been on like, I've never tried it religiously every night and like checked my aura ring and like done the whole thing. But tons of people say it helps. Yeah.

And this is not like some ganja root that they just like dreamed up out of nowhere. It's like pretty documented that magnesium is helpful in sleeping better. And they just have like this super dose of it in a super high quality. Right. And when I got it, I was reading about it. It is also supposed to help with athletic recovery. Yeah. So magnesium in general.

Yeah, I think it's a great product. Also not a sponsor close. But I mean, ate sleep and pillar. That's nice. And then wake up. and drink and athletic greens, which I have been doing lately. Very nice. Final question about this that I have for you guys is, and Paul I was talking to you about

this, but I've now shared a room with you guys many, many nights in different states, cities, and countries. How many times a night would you say you wake up enough to notice that you've woken up? So not necessarily what you're ordering or whatever says. One time. Like roughly after you fall asleep, close to the morning. Like one a half. Okay.

enough that you open your eyes and check what time it is? Yep. Okay. Enough that I open my eyes and check what's in the fridge. Yes. So, Eric, I know you often get up and get like cereal in the middle of the night. Yeah, the only reason that I ever don't sleep through the night, well, I guess there's probably two reasons. I get too hot or I'm hungry.

And a lot of times these two things coincide. I wake up and realize that I'm warm. And in the process of like getting up and opening the door to our bedroom and turning on the fan, I realize that I'm all so hungry. So I just do both things. But if I go to bed, like open that door ahead of time and make sure that I did a really good job of eating dinner and then having like a bedtime snack or something like that, usually we'll sleep all the way through the night. Wow. But it requires discipline in the final hours of pre-bed. I've never had a midnight snack.

I've never had the urge. Just different metabolisms. Seven donuts, man. Yeah, that's right. I front load the day. Fire. Paul has just shown us a teaser that our great friend in social media, we'll call her director. Samantha Whaled.

She's good. Posted. It looks great. Tank tops. The tank looks great. Okay, two more questions, but they don't have to be. These are kind of easy. Hi, gang, your podcast is a reason I fell in love with triathlon.

I'm obsessed. I listen to you guys every Thursday morning when I walk to my 630 a.m. swim session. Ooh, boy. Commitment. That is early. I have a question for Paula. I love your trisuit, and I think you have the prettiest trisuit and helmet combination out of all the pro

triathletes I've seen. Most trisuits are loud and obnoxious with unflaught. lettering colors. Oh boy. What is the design process? Do you design it on your own or with others? And are there any practical considerations, i.e. light colors to keep cool. Looking forward to hearing back, Allison from Toronto, Canada. Thank you. That's a nice compliment. Yeah. It's funny because we've been talking about this a lot recently. Yeah, we're designing the TTL kits right now. But for my own personal kit, I've always really looked up to Lindsay Corbyn and literally everything she does in life.

but one of those things being her kit and her kit designs. And I thought she always looked very clean and put together and good colors. So when we became friends, about four years ago, I asked her who designs her kits. And she put me in touch with Kristen Meyer from Betty Design, a good friend of Lindsay's and now a good friend of mine who does her kit designs every year. So I am fortunate enough to have her work on my design every year. I don't think she does a ton of freelance stuff like this for people. but we have a lot of fun with it, and I'll basically assemble like a, I don't know, inspiration board anytime I see a photo that I think could look good as a kid or a wine bottle

or a, I'm thinking about it all year. Like I get inspiration from things like coffee bags or whatever, good colors look good together. And then I'll send her all that, and she'll send me eight options, and they're all amazing, and I have to pick one. But it's all because of her that they look cool. And she knows my style at this point and very similar to Lindsay's style. So I think it was kind of a natural progression as Lindsay retired doesn't need kits anymore. Now she's working on mine.

So it's really nice. I feel super lucky. And she is the head of Betty designs, which is a little bit different style to what I would normally wear. But Kristen gets both and can make me these beautiful kids. just like a good musician. Like they might have their artist project where they have a certain sound. Yeah. But then they need to work on a different project where it's not under their name.

They're still able to understand that aesthetic and commit to that and live with a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because every brand has its vibe. Even TTL is like clean cut, not crazy. And you look at Zood. It's very much Southern California, really bright colors. Betty designs a little bit like rocker, badass, cool colors, female power.

And I'm like a more. between like looking cool and standing out and having it be different and something that people write in podcast questions about. And also my desire to just be like totally neutral and plain and clean cut like Rafa. So trying to strike this balance between the two. And do you ever think about practical applications of like lighter colors or darker colors or anything like that? Yeah. I think last year my kit was really light and the bottoms were also really light. And a couple of times when I had my period during the race. I was like really worried that it would leak through.

Not that that would be a huge problem, but just, you know. It's just not something you want to worry about while you're at your aerobic limit. And also for sure, heat is a factor. So this year my kit was kind of dark, but I don't know. I don't think I'd ever pick like a black kit or a navy kit. If I was going to go race Kona and I did a special edition kit for a super hot race like that, I would make

something lighter for sure. But I didn't really do any scorching races this year. So it wasn't as much of a concern. But Castelli kits are great in all weather and temperatures and the fabric's comfortable. So, yeah, got the good technology with Castelli and then the

artsiness of Kristen. Yeah. That was a long answer, but I don't give her enough shout-outs. It was all good stuff. And a little bonus question here. All three of you have such great media presence. You answer questions eloquently and confidently. Have you received any type of media training as part of your careers as pro-child?

are a pro musician, Allison. I was thinking about this question today because I was thinking how, I think usually this has a lot to do with how much you like talking to strangers. But Paula, I would say, I would say you don't particularly like talking to strangers and you are...

I like talking to people. Yeah, but it's like people coming up to you and not coming up to you. I don't know, like, I feel like I'm on one end of the extreme where I'll talk to the person at the grocery store. You talked to the barista for 10 minutes because she had also been, to Smith Rock once in her life.

Right. But you, I feel like of the three of us, you might be the most, you're perfect in, like, race interviews. Is it just because you've done it so much? Yeah, I think Eric's really well spoken to. I mean, all three of us, but we record this podcast every week. I mean, we're so normalized with talking to microphones and talking to cameras and talking after races and doing it since I was 15.

So, but even that, I think people that do it a lot in a race scenario aren't necessarily good at it. And a lot of their answers are really cookie cutter and in a media training type of way. So I think media training teaches you to do things in a very textbook manner. And people that do that, it's very obvious when they're doing that. And I think for for Eric and I and Nick and people that are really well-spoken, you know, I mean, not that were really well-spoken, but can give honest answers and do it eloquently for the most part. It really is like a practice thing and being comfortable with it. I was going to, I feel like being comfortable with yourself.

I know what I'm about. I'm confident who I am. I'm not trying to like put on a show and pretend to be something. I'm not. It's just like, this is me, it's who I am. And I can have a very open conversation about whatever questions you're asking because I don't have anything that I'm afraid to say or whatever. Vulnerability and self-consciousness, I think, can get in the way of getting your

ideas out. And it's hard. I think like speech is just like taking these abstract ideas in your mind and compressing them into language. And it's, it is a process. I get that it's easier for some people and not as easy for others. But I think, Eric, you're right on. It's about being comfortable with yourself and being okay with like letting the sentence lead you wherever it's going to lead you or if not. But when you're in front of a microphone in front of like a thousand, it's not like in the podcast where I can edit it. I feel like it is different when you're in front of a crowd. Yeah. There's one time where I really get nervous and it's in the pre-race press conference. I fucking hate those.

And I start, like, getting, like... Your voice quivered. My voice quivers, I get so nervous. Yeah. Just because, I don't know if it's because of people that I'm competing against are sitting right there and listening to me, and the questions are all so dumb and stock, you know? Versus if I'm talking on a podcast or talking to the vlog

or talking even post-race, it's a much more relaxed dynamic where you don't have, like, this answer you're supposed to give, or I don't know. Which is funny because... Do you want to give something away of your race plan? Yeah, the pre-race stuff is so dumb. I get all nervous. Like, when we go to 70.3s anyway,

and you finally go to like the pre-race thing and all of a sudden, oh my God, it's real. Yon's right there, Sam Wong and Lion. It's like, shit. I was living in my la-law land where I'm just having a great time at Oceanside, California, and now it's real. Yeah.

And then give an interview about what your strategy is. The part that's funny is that many, many more people will listen to an episode of this podcast than they will, a pre-race briefing. Yeah, it's not the quantity of people. It's the situation. No, it's the situation. Yeah, yeah.

Even if we were doing like a live pod recording, I think I wouldn't be nervous, but it's more just the... Anyway, that's the only time. Racing. But now, so neither of you had ever received, like, media training. Yeah, we've received media training and we're like rolling our eyes the whole time. Oh, you have. Yeah. Like any big company like Red Bull for Eric or something will put you through that.

And not that it's all useless. If you've never done anything, it's really. good. And like I said, people that are not comfortable with it can take those pointers and get by. Oh, so when Red Bull Media trains you, they're not trying to make you a better public speaker. They're trying to help direct your questions about their specific product. No, no. Just answer questions appropriately. It's good for them to have well-spoken athletes that don't accidentally say something dumb or just like stutter and lose their train of thought on NBC at the Olympic. With the Red Bull hat on. Yeah, exactly. It's just they're investing

in their investment in you to have these complete seemingly perfect characters. Also, another time I did really intensive media training was at the London Olympics. Before the actual Olympics, there was an athlete weekend where you would go and hammer out a lot of media stuff pre-games so that you didn't have to stress about it at the Olympics. And there was tons of media training situations there where they would teach you what to say and not to answer this correctly. especially surrounding the Olympics where you can't really talk about sponsors. There's like this blackout window. So really specific stuff to that. You can't even talk.

Because I know you can't put them on your kids, but you can't even talk about it. They can't talk about you. Whoa. Yeah, just how to steer it properly. And then also like the nature of the Olympics obviously is so many eyes and eyeballs and billions of people watching. So just saying the right things and making sure you're not overreacting if you don't race well, stuff like that. Yeah.

Just stay very kosher. and likable. Exactly. On a stage like the Olympics or where you might end up as a Red Bull athlete, you could potentially be in the situation where there is a reporter

who in the middle of their conversation about your triple backflip is going to be like, and how do you feel about the conflict in the Middle East? And then you got to be able to just without even thinking about it. You know, that's really not part

of what we're doing here today of Red Bull Rampage, which is my favorite thing in the world. Right, right. You know. No, it's funny that you bring this up because what was big news yesterday was that Alicia Keys made some like

whatever Instagram post. Like, I would really love to go paragliding. Turns out the stuff that's been happening in Gaza right now had paragliders that were used in a military way. So people blew up on her online. She probably had no idea. She's seen people paragliding outside her house.

But like that's something that you, like that stuff happens. That wouldn't come up in media training. Right. You just have to, okay, it's like how do you then respond after that? She said she's like really upset and she's so sorry, but it's like, that stuff just happens. The last thing I'll say is for, again, getting well, being well spoken and talking well,

listening to other athletes that are good at speaking really helps me. Listening to Yon speak, listening to Danielle's speak and the answers she gives. And I fully get into the Kona stuff. Like everyone's watching, I'll watch any freaking Kona video. That's true. So you really get a sense of like who's good, who's well spoken, who does good answers. Cat Matthews is really good. So just taking like tidbits of advice or information.

from other people and trying to incorporate that into your own style of media. I don't know. That helps too. Yeah, that's true. Then final question here is from Megan. Thank you for putting on such a great podcast. I love listening. My question is about recovery tools.

I'm coming back from a ski injury to my knee that happened in January. I'm frustrated that I'm not back to running and hard biking yet. My knee is doing quite well, but the leg is a little weak. And I now have aches and pains in the other. leg. I go to a trainer once a week and she digs into the tissue, I think, specifically talking about like a PT, um, in tissue and helps get everything aligned. I roll and stretch at home, but it doesn't seem to be enough. I've heard you talk about weekly massage. You also use recovery tools like compression boots or percussion massage guns. Thanks for your answer and be careful skiing and snowboarding

Megan. I think this is funny because just last night, Eric. We have a massage gun. I was a massage gun in the shit out of myself. We've had a massage gun for like four years. And Eric just doesn't And Eric used it for the first time in his life yesterday. He's like, oh, damn, this thing is actually pretty good. I mean, I have used one, but it's never, I've never had like a thing where I thought, I bet a massage gun will fix this and like tried it. I don't know. It's funny.

I've seen these like online. I'm like, oh, so good. Oh, but it's $400. Okay, I'm not going to do it. So you don't have one, Nick. I have one I bought off of like Instagram, whatever for 60 bucks. Amazon affiliate link incoming. And it was, no, I can't recommend this one.

It feels like someone just be like, like, lightly tapping me. I want something that's going to break a bone. It's like the budget bike hook. Like your bike might break. First of all, my budget bike hook is great. And also, I saw that a lot of people clicked on that link and some people bought it. You're going to love it.

It's fantastic. Just make sure when you're drilling in the main part, it's into a stud in your wall. That's all I'll say about it. But I think massage guns are great, not just for like injury prevention, but also like warming up your muscles pre-training. If you have to train earlier, second session of the day, whatever it is. Yeah. that's kind of the only tool we use besides our foam roller we use that a ton and we have like five sets of normatech boots around our house but we don't get in them that much. I don't even know how we've accumulated that many.

Because they come out with updated versions. We have like a travel version. We have the original version which is a huge cooler size and then they've just gotten progressively smaller. Yeah, they get smaller. Yeah. I do love the normatex post travel. Like we'll take it in the van. We don't always travel with it, but we did get those normatech.

calf sleeves that are just the little things and they kind of can like flush your puffy ankles out. We really like those. I don't know. Those are the only tools we have. It does sound like that for Megan, like this sounds like a strength training thing. Not a like magic fix with tools. Yeah.

It's very possible. Yeah, strength training and also just I don't think anything can really replace getting regular massage or physio treatment. That's like what we're really committed to versus the, um, Sit down and do self-therapy. Yeah, I've got like a little bit of a mini foam roller routine that I'll go through, you know, maybe three times a week if I'm really on it. I have to say both of you are pretty great about foam rolling. Like I see you both do it quite a lot.

Yeah, we just have them sitting around the house. Like, yeah, I'm going to do it and then they don't. It is good to have like in the most comfortable part of your house where there's a carpet in front of the TV. Just put one there. Got one in every room. And then you'll use it. Like, don't keep it in the garage. Right, because you're never going to do that.

Yeah. It's one of those things. Like, you see it. You'll use it. Same with the NormaTech. Like, don't pack them up every time and, like, store them. Well, I feel like people might be interested to know how much your foam roll when you do for how many minutes. Between one minute and one hour.

I am. Okay. I love to know, because, like, should I be foam rolling for 25 minutes? No, you can overdo foam rolling and get too sore. Especially if you don't do it often. Which I don't. If you go get on it for 25 minutes, you're not going to be able to walk tomorrow. Right.

Yeah. When I foam roll, it's really more. of like a pin and stretch, if you've heard of that, ART style thing. So I like lay with my quad on it and then slowly like do a hamstring curl essentially to like move the muscle through the range of motion while the foam roller is touching it. You don't have to do it super hard. And I really agree with Paula. Like don't linger on any one spot super long.

You're just trying to get the whole system a little bit looser. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Well, that's all the questions we got. That was, this might, I don't, it's hard to say because when we started this, We chatted a bit before we actually started recording, but this might be our longest pod ever. It's going to be up there.

And it's going to be easy for me to edit because we're all in the same room. You're welcome, everybody. Bonus content. All right, I got to go run on the treadmill for 30 minutes or until my brain explodes heat. Yeah, that's not a fun session. Maybe I'll come do that too. It's so fun, baby. It's definitely a thing I want to do with you.

Die on the treadmill. Okay. I don't know why I don't have a heat protocol for Los Cabos. Only Eric does. Because I told Paulo that it was a priority. for me. I do not want to be swerving at mile four again. Our coach does listen to us when we give feedback. He's not like this dictatorship style of this is what you need to do. He's very open to our feedback. And I was like, I kind of want a half-ass train for Los Cabos.

And he didn't really, he definitely rolled his eyes. He didn't really listen to that though. He's still giving me hard stuff. I don't know. I think the bike workouts have like not been as brutal as they could be. Like the bike workout that we did the other day, that to me was Nick's version of chop this up interestingly for me. For the weak-minded. It was for the weak-minded. It was still hard, but it was like I had to think about it. It was for the October minded.

It was for the, I want to do it's the neat donuts minded. It's for the, I did Oceanside and now it is October and I'm over it. Yes, exactly. It's been a long year. But we're looking for Gillescopas. If you're there or going to be there, we're not doing any like pop-ups, but we would love to say hi and maybe. Yeah, if you swing into L. Wine Shop. There's a 50-50 chance we'll be there.

Yeah. Okay, see you guys next week. Thanks, everybody. Bye.