That Triathlon Life Podcast - Triathlon wetsuits vs open water wetsuits, power on TT bike vs gravel bike, and more!

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

This week we covered a ton of questions but started with some Bike Tech With Eric beforehand. This week we talked about:How to fix grinding gears when on the trainerQualifying for World Championships as a fast age grouperHow to find a coach, and a training planPower difference between TT bike and gravel bikeBar tape varieties on different kinds of bikesOpen water wetsuits vs triathlon wetsuitsHow to handle part of a race being cancelledMechanical vs electronic shifting on triathlon bikeHow much and when to eat before swimmingAdvice for a 10 year old triathleteWould Paula ever fully commit to cycling?A big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast, and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hello, everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Eric Lagerisham. I'm Nick Goldston. Welcome to episode 133. We are coming to you from our normal setup. Nick is in Santa Monica, where he lives and works as a professional musician. Eric and I are in Bend, Oregon, where we are both professional triathletes. And on this podcast, every week, we primarily answer questions that you all send in to us, which are amazing questions and basically generate the content for us that we can chat about.

And because of how long we've been doing the sport, we feel a little bit qualified to answer most of them. And if we don't, then we are at least entertaining and doing so, right? We try to be. To our best. That's the goal. Okay, I have a question for both of you

starting right off the bat. I technically don't have a job that necessitates any kind of schedule. Right? It's just kind of like project-based. but I do treat weekends like weekends and holiday weekends like holiday weekends. And even in my training today, I should have done. The best of all the worlds.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what a privileged thing to say. But so today, normally I would have a threshold style swim in the morning and then a threshold style run in the evening. But today is a holiday. It's Labor Day. We're recording a Monday Labor Day. And so friends were like, do you want to go do a long ride?

And so I did a long ride instead kind of like I treated like a vacation. Do you guys have any of that? Is there such a thing as a weekend in terms of how it relates to the kind of sessions that you do? Wow. Hitting us with a deep training question right off of that? Well, we need to give these listeners some kind of value from moment one. Yeah. I mean, we sort of follow like a typical schedule as though we did, you know, like as though we did,

weekends did sort of mean anything to us. We usually kind of have a longer ride on Sunday and like a longer run that is usually some sort of workout on Saturday morning, but it's not like this grossly disproportional to the rest of the week. But I'm not really sure why, but it does make it convenient when we have friends who do have jobs that we also have a long ride on Sunday. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that you guys, oh, no, you do swim on weekends. I was going to say that not swimming on weekends because everyone's at the pool.

Maybe. Swimming on Sundays is fun because there's usually a group that goes. Yeah. But what's hard for me is that I'm actually. racing this weekend coming up. So we had a pretty hard. I'm doing Challenge Beijing. In China.

Formerly known as just the Beijing International Triathlon, it sort of went away during COVID and then Challenge, I believe, bought the race and is resurrecting it, which is awesome. It's a different venue, different course, and they hope to have it as an Olympic, or as a half distance next year, but this year it's living as an Olympic distance. So going to Beijing. to race an Olympic distance non-drafting race. And from there, I'll go straight to Zurich,

where I'll be getting ready for the world time trial championships. So kind of a, I mean, it's not direct. It's around the world to get to Europe, basically. But I get to fly, like, business class the whole way. That's nice. Which is nice. But wait, I didn't finish my thought. I didn't finish my thought.

The reason I said that is because we had a really hard weekend, and usually Monday's a recovery day. But because I'm racing this weekend, And Monday's like my quote unquote taper day, but that involves some really hard sessions that are shorter but still intense. So I went into like the run today and the swim super tired, but having to do these taper sessions. And then throughout the week it'll get lighter. So I don't know. It definitely wasn't a normal labor day for us or normal holiday.

Right. You labored today on Labor Day. Yeah, I guess we labored today. It did in fact labor. So correct me if I'm wrong, but Beijing is the race. you guys have both done the old Beijing race. That's where we met. Right.

Where the romance sort of kicked off. It's so funny, though, because I was like 2017, 2018, I went to the Beijing race and I had no fear. I was just like, yeah, I'm getting on a plane, going to China, whatever, this is my life. And now I'm terrified to go to China. Like, I don't want to go anywhere. And I'm like, cybersecurity and like visa, all this stuff is scaring me so much. And I'm terrified and I want to stay home. You think the older we get, the more we understand things, the more we relieve ourselves

of our ignorances, we would be less scared. But it's across the board. People generally get more anxious about these kind of things the older they get. I was thinking about that while we were riding today. Like, I think the reason I'm more reluctant to travel is because I like my life in Bend right now. Right, right. Before I was like, yeah, I'm on the road all year.

It's just part of my life. Living out of a suitcase. Like my home is my parents' house and I'm, you know, 25. But now I'm like so obsessed with my life here that leaving it for even one day is so sad. So plus all the things that I get more nervous about now, it's just made me a little scared. But I think once I get there, challenge takes care of us so well. We get picked up at the airport, taken to the hotel. It's going to be really fun once I'm there.

It's just leaving is really hard for me. Is this the race that traditionally had those crazy, steps that you ran up and down? Yeah, but it's a different course. Bummer, that was so cool. Yeah, it was a cool course before. It was a rad bike course. The run course was absolutely insane.

And I've only seen like a map, so I don't know how crazy it is, but I'm thinking it's just like a flat. It's completely flat. It's completely flat. Yeah. Is it loopy? It's one big loop on the bike, right? Okay, great.

Maybe two. I don't know. Maybe two, but it's a bigish loop. It's not like T-100. It's actually quite a. competitive field who are going. And this race throws down a lot of appearance fee money. I don't know if this is TMI, but that's the way they get all these really good athletes

going all the way to China is because they're forking out money just to show up. And then the prize purse is so good. It's like 20 grand to win. So it could be a huge payout if you do win the race or come top three or whatever. And there's like Julie Duran who is medal in Paris is going. and the men's field is super strong. So it'll be a good race, but a small field. And can people, do you know if there's any way people can follow along?

I don't want people to follow. I'll just tell you after how I do. I do if that be good. Just come back and listen to the podcast. Historically, they've put out a really good post-race show. This is under a completely different management. It used to be under IMG, which also did escape from Alcatraz. I don't think there was a live broadcast, but they would put out a really cool, like,

post race, you know, coverage. I don't know what challenge is going to do. But it actually is it a pretty convenient time of day for Americans to, like, be awake. Okay. Yeah. For Canadians. Yeah. Anyway, not that it matters.

It's a two hour race super short. It's like four o'clock in the afternoon for us or something. They'll be racing. The layover on my way to Zurich. It's, um, but it's like, yeah, it's kind of interesting to. I know, I don't want to, I don't want to diminish the importance of it, but also I haven't raced in June. I am personally very excited to see you race an Olympic.

I am as a fan of you and the sport, I think it is cool. So I wouldn't downplay it. No, it'll be sweet. But I mean, I've definitely been thinking about this as we've just finished up the wedding and the whole thing and coming off of that. It's almost like this is a little mini-season V2.0. It's like we haven't raced in a while,

kind of started back, you know, after, man, what was it? When I was getting ready to do the High Cascades 100, mountain bike race. That's kind of like two weeks out from that is when we started doing the same training that we were doing in January or February of this year in Ventura. We're doing like short, quick stuff and starting to like do some hill repeats and just like some. So we're like now it's like Oceanside again and like ramping up into this back half of the year here. Yeah, that's fun. That's good. It's like a little rebirth, a mini rebirth. Yeah. I've always thought it would be so

rad if you could just take actually take a midseason break in the summer when outside. is awesome and everything's great and like it kind of sucks that we always take our off season in December. Yeah. And it's kind of crappy weather and you can't quite do all the things. But this year's been really, really cool that we got to take like a six week thing where we could be a little bit flexible with what we did, have some fun and now like back to being serious for championship season. Okay. And then the other thing is time trial world championships that you're doing in Zurich. Yeah. What's the situation with that? I think there was a question about this. But I can just talk about it real quick. You versus you versus the wind versus the clock.

Yeah. So I won the Canadian National Time Trial Championships if I haven't hammered that. Three years in a row, baby. So I, they didn't actually announce the team for Zurich or the world championship for road UCI cycling until August 23rd. So on August 23rd, I was in the van. We were driving back from the coast, refreshing my inbox all day. like, where's the email? Because I'd maybe sort of like ignorantly assumed that I'd be picked just because I won nationals. But that definitely is not the case with federations.

Who knows what the heck they're going to do? So I booked all these flights and arranged a hotel and like, I'm going to be in Zurich for two weeks practicing on the course, assuming I'd get picked. And I didn't get an email all day. So I'm freaking out like I'm going to cancel my flights and I'm not even going to go to Europe. And actually.

It was such a situation because she sort of decided to do the China thing because it was sort of on the way to Zurich. And then Zurich was before a Biza. And it was just like all of a sudden this thing that's holding all of September together in the middle. And I'm like not just that. Like I actually truly want to do the TT more than any other race, really. And I've been excited for it. I've been training for it. I'm good at it.

It's like a good challenge. I'm not targeted. I'm not the best at it. So it's like no pressure. I don't know. It's just like a fun thing for me to do. I really, really like it. So I was super sad when I wasn't, when I thought I wasn't picked. Because usually they email like 8 a.m. This is the team. Confirm your selection today. So I text like the coach in the evening and the high performance director. And I'm like, can you guys tell, did I miss it? Like, please let me know because I booked all these things and I really want to go.

So then the next morning I get an email. They were a day late sending it out. And I in fact did make it. So, that was a relief and actually like a good kind of relief, you know. It wasn't like, oh, shoot. I didn't actually want to go and now I have to go. It's like, no, I truly want to go. I want to do it. Yeah. That's great.

So anyway, I got picked for that. So last year when you went, you were kind of wowed by the orchestration and behind it and all and all the money and teams and comfortabilities that came with it. Is that kind of, do you know if that's going to be similar again this year? Yeah, I assume like Canada will bring some mechanics and the swangiers and the massage guy and they look after you super well. And the T-100 does as well, to be fair. They have a mechanic and they treat you like a professional athlete. And it's really, really nice experience.

So, but yeah, it's just a different world that I'm not used to being in. And a lot of the pro women cyclists or male cyclists are kind of used to that at every race they go to. So it was really cool for me last year. Unfortunately, I got sick. So I raced, I think I was like 21st or second or something. And I didn't really perform up to what I thought I could because of this sickness. So I'm hoping I can go back and be a little more ready. Yeah, I feel like the biggest thing with the sickness, like you actually had pretty good watts,

but it disallowed us from being able to go out and ride the course the days prior and like actually get comfortable on those corners because it was a very technical course. And I think, like, set up, you're set up very well this time to be there in Zurich, be able to ride the course quite a bit beforehand and like kind of level that, you know, potential, you know, downsets. And this is like purely a self, not a selfish, but a self personal thing that I want to do. I don't, it doesn't matter how I do. It would be super cool if I do well, but I'm not making money doing this. I'm not doing it for my job. I'm doing it because I am sort of good at it. and I really like it, and it's a cool experience for me.

So at this point in my career, those don't come often, those types of things. So that's why I took the slot and I'm getting ready for it the best I can. Do you know about the course? Is it 40K, for example? It's like 30-something with actually quite a lot of climbing and it's point-to-point. But I think going there early will be fun because I'll be able to actually, the better I know a course, the better I ride it. And I think part of the reason I do all at St. George every year and like races I do a lot,

because I know every corner and it's very rideable for me in a fast way. Anyway, enough about me. No, that's great. We love it. That's so fun. Okay, do you want to talk about Ibiza then? I could talk about Ibiza then. I can talk about Ibiza when Ibiza's coming around.

I don't want to leave home for a month. I know. You're going to be gone for a while. Maybe I'll see Eric. Okay. Well, speaking of Eric, let's get to some bike check with Eric. Bike Tech with Eric. Bike Tech with Eric.

Yeah, very well done. Okay, this one's from Kinley. Hey, all, Bike Tech with Eric question. My high gears are all kinds of grindy and messed up when I put my TT bike on the kicker. The low ones run smooth, but the smallest cogs never do no matter what index adjustment I make. Any experience with this and any ideas for help. Thank you, Kinley. Eric, does this ring a bell?

Bend a railer. Next. You think it's that simple, huh? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You know, unless the gears are just like so thrashed on one end of the cassette because you've only ridden them there, that seems very unlikely. Typically, if you can't get, if it feels like halfway through the cassette or two thirds of the way through the cassette, it's shifting great.

And then the other third or whatever, the rest is left. It starts shifting weird. Usually that means the derailer hanger is bent. And it might be like lined up okay until halfway through the cassette. But then make derailers are super finicky about just exactly how much they have to move with each shift. and if that hanger's bent by like two degrees, throws the whole thing off. So I would take it into a bike shop,

tell them that's what's going on, you know, just describe to them the shifting thing and say, I think, you know, it might be a derailer hanger being bent.

And it should take them two minutes to like put on a derailer hanger straight in her tool and be like, oh, yep, and like slightly bend it back into position. I have one in our garage just because it's like a tool. Isn't it giant?

I mean, you know. You have a nice garage. You have a lot of room. Yeah, I got a giant tool. Yeah. Do you think,

Do you think that is it strange? I mean, Kinley doesn't mention this, but I assume that on their bike, it's fine. It's just on the trainer that it's a problem. Could that be the case with the bent derailer? Yeah, I mean, that would be a little bit weird if it's totally fine on the bike, but not on the trainer. But maybe it is just on, maybe this happened, maybe this happens on both, and they've only recognized it on the trainer. Yeah. I'm trying to think about what could make it, you know, be like slightly tighter when it's on the bike.

or slightly tighter when it's on the trainer. And so this is more apparent versus has a little more wiggle room on the bike, something like that. I don't know. But that's my best guess. Okay. Also, obviously, just check and make sure that all the cogs are tight on the cassette on the trainer and they're not like wiggling just a teeny bit.

Yeah. And then the good news, even if they have to replace the trailer hanger, they're super cheap to replace, right? That's the whole point of them. Yeah. Yeah. They should be. Great.

Okay. Thanks. That was a quick one. Eric. Thank you. All right. Let's move on to podcast questions here. This week, this is the first of the month.

podcast of the month. So to our beloved podcast supporters, we'll be having a question that goes only to you. We'll read the question on the podcast, but then the answer will be delivered to you with video as well, because now we are videoing all our episodes and maybe one day we'll turn all of these into video episodes. But for now, podcast supporters get little bits and pieces of the episodes. If you want to become a podcast supporter, you can go to That TriathlonLife.com slash podcast. We really, really appreciate that. That is the only way the podcast makes money. So we thank you.

We try to bring back to you as much value as we can with these little things. If you're trying to ask a question on the podcast, which is also a really nice way that you can help, you can do that at That triathlonlife.com slash podcast as well. And this week, I feel like we had so many great questions that I had to include more than we usually do. So we're going to try to be slightly quicker in our answers so that we can get through them all. Nice.

First question here. Oh, sorry. Sorry, one last thing. This week we also have a podcast winner, which is a random podcast supporter that will get a bottle, TTL branded bottle, and TTL branded socks.

I've been warned from Paula that since she is gallivanting off across the world, it will be a while before you get these. But Tony Zapata, congratulations. Thank you for being a podcast supporter. You are going to get some cool stuff. So just let us know what your address is that you'd like to get the stuff shipped at and we'll get it out to you in some amount of time.

I feel like Nick, you should take like next time you visit Ben, you take home like 50 bottles and socks. And then since you're more in place, you can be the shipping manager. That would be great. But I do have a bag of bottles and socks from like backlog that I need to take to the post office. So I'll try to do that before I leave tomorrow. Well, Eric, could we do that swap in Vegas? Oh, we could.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that in Vegas. I may be packing some numerous of cool shit to bring to Vegas. We like that. That'll be the first thing we've been able to drive to in a little while. And I want to try to do something cool down there. Yeah.

All three of us will be there, right? Well, I guess if Paul is going to be there. I'm going. If Paul is not there, none of us are going. Oh, I'm racing, baby. This is the T-100. Vegas. And by the way, if you guys want to sign up for the race, you can do that too. There's an age group race in Vegas, Lake Las Vegas. It's a little bit outside of like the strip.

But it'll be super cool. We'll all be there. And I think the PTO would love it, Team 100, if you guys would go sign up and come race. And maybe instead of a 70.3, go and do that race. Yeah. For a change. If you beat me, you're banned from the podcast. That's how that works. If you guys do sign up and there's any way to be like, I signed up because of Paula Eric and Nick. just like bombard them and let them know. Let them know. Let them know. The shit. And it's the only reason I'm doing this race. We've never going to a triathlon before.

This is my first one. Thanks to Eric. No, but I don't want to say that you shouldn't do a 70.3. I freaking love 70.3. So they're so fun. They're my favorite. The T-100 is fun in a different way. But I think it would be cool for amateur athletes who've done a bunch of Iron Man races

to go and try. Of course. I got to think being able to spectate a T-100 is kind of like the pinnacle of being able to spectate a thing. Well, yeah. Like, all the best pros. It's like a world championship every time. Yeah, I love it.

I'm freaking love it. But like, yeah, and at T100, people, they go by like eight times on both the bike and the run. It's really set up for that. Yeah, cool. Okay. Well, first question here is from Nicole. Hey, Penth, which is us.

I want to start by saying thank you for all the company you give me as I listen to the pod on long runs and commutes. As a mom with a full-time job, my scattered training schedule can sometimes feel lonely. and hearing your voices makes me feel connected to a bigger community throughout the season. That's really nice, Nicole. Thank you. That is music to my ears. Love it.

My question is around local age group qualifying races. I live in a large city where we have one to two qualifying races every few years, where if you win your age group, you can race at world championships. There are some very strong athletes, i.e. former varsity swimmers and runners,

they seem to have sponsorships. Who tend to win these races every year and have attended worlds multiple times. Qualifying for worlds is a lifetime bucket list goal for me, but I only ever play second to fifth behind these elite-like people. Sounds like my story. Would it ever be reasonable to ask or expect these great athletes to skip a race or decline their qualifying spot

to allow someone else the chance to attend worlds? Or do I just have to accept that since I'm not the top athlete around, that I may never go to worlds? Looking forward to hearing your trifecta of wisdom, Nicole. Wow, that's tough. Yeah, but basically there's some elite age group athletes who always win and always take the world slots. And she's like third. It doesn't get the spot.

I mean, the thing is, there's two things that this makes me think of. First of all, I think asking someone to decline their spot is for sure, no, you can't do that. But expecting it, like what I have found often is that these people who are qualifying for worlds, they don't just do one race a year to qualify for worlds. They do like three or four or five races a year. And at one of them, usually earlier on in the season, they qualify for worlds, take their spot. And then once you take a slat, you can.

Yeah, and then it rolls down after that. Yeah. So that's what the roll downs for. Yeah. And especially if it's a race that's far away, even less likely for people to take it. I think that's, I think you nailed it. If you really want to go to 70.3 worlds,

it just might take doing several races to find the right race where it rolls down or the course suits you. I don't know if this is necessarily 70.3, though. This might be like world triathlon, world championships for age group too. She never specified. She did just say, yeah, where if you win your age group, you can race at world championship. Yeah, it could be a world triathlon thing.

But I think, unfortunately, in this type of case, you might need to go to a race in a different city. Because if you're coming third to fifth in your age you, if you're a really good athlete, and it's a good chance you'll be one or two in a different race. Get out of that zone. Go race in, I don't even know. Nick, you look at the USAAT rankings. What is a state that is not particularly strong?

Don't race in California or Oregon. I think this person's from Canada. Wasn't it like a dot-ca email address? I don't see the email addresses. Oh, I just saw that. I just saw that. I think it's a Canadian. Anyway, that doesn't matter.

But it's tough because these people that are winning the races as elite age groupers, you can't necessarily advise them to go, like, race professionally or something because... No. I think it's fair that they're probably working for all time. They come from an elite athlete background, but they aren't racing for money. And if they went to the pro field, they'd be, like, bottom in the pack. So I often advise even people on our own development team if they're winning. winning age group races, like, you can keep doing that and that's okay. You don't have to

step up to the pro ranks if you don't want to. You're completely allowed to relish in the victory and go to world championships as an amateur and try to win world championships versus stepping up to pros to give other people the opportunity. I don't know. It's totally fair that they're doing this, although it is kind of a tricky situation in your case because you're also very fast. And I think have full right to qualify, the magician might take a a little bit more creative race scheduling. I feel for her because of like the Everyman Jack guys, for example, and how fast they are. And they have like legit coaches and like they have free kits and like a lot of advantages.

Plus they're super fast. Yeah. And it does feel like I'm not racing a pro, but they're not quite an amateur like me who's like going out with my friend. I don't know. It doesn't feel the same. I do understand that. Eric, you're not sure. I think that's sport.

That's just it. Yeah. You know, it's like these people didn't wake up magically fast one day. They, if they're a really good swimmer, they dedicated their entire life to becoming a good swimmer. And they're like now kind of reaping the rewards of that. And yeah, it might be a bummer. But if that's what they want to do and they have the speed for it,

it's, you know, world championships is, it's world championships. The best people in the world should be there. It's not. it's sort of like with Ironman is a strange gray area that feels a bit like an experience that one can opt into you have to qualify yes but they package it up a little bit more like this ultimate cool experience but at the end of the day

it is like this is where the best people in the world are coming to race and find out who is the best person in the world and I think that's kind of the nature of world championships yep you're right I would love it if I could tell Taylor Nib to not come to the last way. Yeah, I know, I know. You're right. You're right. It's the same in the profile, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, like, this is something that I've just become aware of now, like after paying attention to ultra running, you know, like Western states, huge pinnacle, exciting, awesome experience for people and it's a lottery system.

But then there are other races that are qualification based, right? And it's, it would be cool if there was still a race like wildflower around in triathlon where it had a huge capacity for people was an incredible experience and didn't have anything to do necessarily with like being the fastest at some other race, you know, where everybody could go have that awesome experience and, you know, it didn't have to qualify. Let's do it. Let's make it. Let's make it happen. All right. I'm in, I said. I wasn't trying to, you know, pitch that. But yeah, but let's do it. That's, that would be right. We're doing a bad job at rapid firing these. You're right. Okay. Next question. And this is the question that is going to be for the podcast supporters. But I'll read it aloud.

on the podcast, and if you're a podcast supporter, you'll hear our answer. This is from Ryan. Hey, TTL team and Flynn. I've been working a lot of my cadence for running and cycling, and it got me thinking about swim stroke cadence. I don't hear much discussion about this topic, but I would imagine it changes depending on pool swimming versus open water. In the pool, a longer glide must be more efficient,

while in open water, shorter, more powerful strokes could be the way to go. What are your thoughts on this? Is swim stroke cadence something you focus on? and what tips would you have for age groupers to improve in this area? Also, what is a good cadence to strive for, Ryan? Okay, and we're going to do a little time warp if you're listening to the podcast, and if not, here's our answer. Okay, we're back.

That was great. That was, wow, so much value in there. I can't possibly imagine living my life without that answer. That was incredible. Best conversation of the year before. Oh, my gosh. I love so much. So if you're not a podcast supporter yet, better sign up.

Thank you, guys. Everybody who heard that, I think they probably just got faster at swimming. They got faster for sure. Okay. Next question here is from Russ. Ooh, from Half Moon Bay. Very nice. Hi, Eric, Nick and Paula.

I am a super new triathlon. I am a super new triathlon. Is what we got here. First Olympic is coming up in Santa Cruz at the end of September. I have been doing some rough training over the last few months, kind of making it up as I go. Based off some light research, after power listening to all your pods,

I've gleaned that a coach or workout program is pretty high on your list of wrecks. I've been loving the swim, bike run workouts, but I think I would really benefit from a little guidance. How would you go about finding a coach or workout program? I think Nick uses these. Again, I know nothing about the sport, so I have no idea where to even start. I use chat GPT for my first plan. Seemed decent, but I assume you don't recommend that best Russ. I have a little funny story about that. A friend of mine, Rio, who's a very fast marathoner, sub-2-30, or actually around 230, he thought it would be fun. to do this, to do a chat GPT plan.

And at first it kind of like, it seemed reasonable, but then like eight weeks in, his track workout was like 4,800s or something like. Like it doesn't understand that there's a limit. And his long runs are like 39 miles, you know? It's like, I mean, that makes sense, dude. If you want to win the marathons, do 4800s. Yeah. So I, yeah, chat GPT doesn't, it needs some guidance, I think, even at its best.

But what would you recommend for someone who's looking for a coach and then maybe I can give some guidance on if you're looking for a program? Man, I don't know. I feel like you're going to have the best answers for this, Nick, because it's like a little bit simpler for a pro athlete to look for coach. Like the best like pro athlete coaches out there are few and far between. They're kind of well known and you kind of look around and go, who's a fast person? Or what I did, I was like, who are fast athletes who are doing the same type of racing that I

want to do who I've noticed have been running well because that's what I need and boom, I ended up talking to Paula. Yeah. I was going to recommend the same thing as look at your local racers who are racing, look at who the fast people are or maybe the people who you admire in some way and just ask them who they're coaches. There are tools online like through various websites where you can look at find coaches. But I think having a kind of personal connection to them through someone locally or even through your tri club, your local tri club, they for sure will be connected with coaches. It's the same way that you guys would do it as pros. I think you should do it as an amateur. And then as far as programs go, you can, I mean, I love using training peaks. Eric and Paula also

use training peaks. Actually, yes, you do use training peaks. Our stuff just like goes into training peaks for it to be tracked. To be to be tracked. You guys don't, your workouts aren't in training training peaks. But Training Peaks has like a store and that's what I looked at. And the highest rated plan was this plan called My Pro Coach, but there are many plans on there that you can get. I like that one because it was based off percentages of your FTP or your threshold rate and you could use power and heart rate. So I liked using that. But all of them are designed by legit coaches. The plans on the Training Peak store, there's a lot of good ones. And I like that. I like that they're all designed by a coach that has thought about this stuff and has looked into research.

Not like a... No, it's... AI. No, no, no. There are some great AI tools out there, but I still... I'm using the ones designed by real people and that if you have a problem, you can email someone and they look at exactly the plan that you have. Oh, really?

Nick, you have like a person on deck if you want to ask them questions? You're not allowed to ask them like training questions, really. It's more like... I could ask them a question like, hey, I have this long run on Saturday, but I see that there's like a hard run on Wednesday. Do you think it's okay to move this forward for a race that I have or something? You could do that. But you can't ask for like, hey, can you look at my run form and give me advice on that?

Okay. Or like analyze my splits or my... Right. No, none of that. None of that. No. It's basic programming. Yeah.

Yeah. But I have used it for like, hey, I have the 70.3 plan. I want to run a marathon six weeks before my technical race date of the 70.3. how would you adjust the training to do that? And they'll be like, oh, wow. Just adjust the long runs up, do the long rides less or whatever, something like that. And how much do you pay that for that? Well, now they have a subscription thing if you want it, but what's really nice is that I bought

like the advanced 36 week 70.3 training plan and I have used it like four or five different times. And it updates. It's like when they're slightly different than the first time I did it. They've like put in more research or they've tweaked some of the bike sessions. So you're using the same thing and again and again. Yeah, but it is slightly different each time. But yes, it's the same thing again and again.

So it's pretty, I paid like $100 maybe $100 for it the first time and never paid another penny for it. Dang. That's updates. That's wild. Yeah. That's great. And for me, it's just fun to have something on the schedule that I didn't decide. It's like, nope, someone else, I'm following this plan.

It doesn't matter what I think today. Totally. No, I'm the same way. Okay. Next question here is from Jeremy. Hi, Eric, Paula Flynn, and Nick. I have a question on bike power. Specifically, what is the estimated difference in power between your gravel bike and say

your TT or road bike? I did a long ride on a gravel bike and average 230 watts, but then on the trainer, I was cooked doing 180. Is that normal? Do you guys have different target ranges based on the bikes? And if so, how do you calculate it? Thanks again for everything you've done for the community, Jeremy. Okay, you guys both have gravel bikes, but neither of you has passed.

power on those gravel bikes, right? False. No, we have power on all our. Oh, you do, you just, you just, you just, you just, you just, you just don't look at it. Just don't really look at it. Sometimes I don't look at it. But I think, like, 30, 50 watt difference is huge. I think that that could be just like a power meter discrepancy.

But there's definitely, like, a psychological benefit to being outside pushing watts on a higher resistant surface, like gravel versus sitting on the kicker. Just mentally easier. Mentally easier. Ultimately, yeah. Ultimately, wots are, yeah. watts unless Paul, like Paula said, your power meters are broken. Which I don't know if they're broken, but I think they could be reading differently in this

situation. Even if it's like 20 watts, 10 watts different. Like 50 watts is huge. Yeah. Anyway. Do you guys program in a difference when you're doing TT intervals outside or indoors? No. No, I just personally, I just let myself be okay with knowing that I'm going to go 10 watts

less outside, inside, then I go outside because I just, it's such a mentally more draining thing. Yeah. Yeah. But Paula, you have like no difference, right? Yeah, usually I can get the same watts, but it's harder on the trainer. Oh, you do find it harder. Like RPE is harder. Yeah.

Yeah. But that's just how it is. And also I think that depending on the day, if I'm super tired, yeah, sometimes going a fairly low wattage on the trainer feels hard. Same thing with outside. Like if you're really fatigued, you can't just take apples to apples, indoor ride to outdoor ride. It really depends also on how you're feeling that day. Yeah.

Yeah. And if you're extra tired, the trainer watts are extra hard. Yeah. I find like sometimes even 150 watts on the trainer for me. It feels hard-ish, you know, or like I don't want to be doing it. I'd rather not be if I'm super tired. So just keep that in mind too. Yep.

your life. That's tough stuff. Next question here's from Brandon. Had a question about bar tape. It seems like there are multiple versions, i.e. cork, gel, sticky, non-sticky, silicone, silicone, backing, adhesive strip, and padded and thin.

What do you recommend for a road bike versus a TT bike? I guess this could fall under a bike tech with air question, but we're not doing that. P.S., would you guys think about doing a base layer or tank top style kit for indoor training over the winter? Gravel kit styling was awesome. Thanks all in good luck the rest of the season.

Brandon. Where to start? Should we start going order there with the bar tape first? Yeah, let's do that. So bar tape, what do you guys use on your road bikes, for example? We pretty much use. What do we use? Is it Lizard skins?

Yeah. Oh, I thought you guys use the specialized one. Well, it's not the specialized one. There's supercas or whatever. Yeah. It kind of depends what the bike shop has, but those are two favorites currently. I mean, Zip makes bar tape. I don't have a preference really.

If Zip sends us bar tape when they send us handlebars, we'll use that. So you're not picky about it, really? No. I'm more picky. I was more picky about it when I raced draft legal. And like you're actually cornering fast and your hands might be wet and sweaty. Similarly, I'm very picky about it on mountain bikes because not all mountain bike grips are meant to design to be used without gloves. And your hands are sweaty and wet and.

disgusting 100% of the time in an Xtera and that can be pretty dangerous. But on the road bike, no. We don't do extra thick. We don't do any of that fancy stuff. Pretty normal, like standard thickness. What about on the TT bike on the tops and the base bar? Same thing. Whatever, whatever we got, um, black.

Yeah, black always, right? Um, I used to do just grip tape on the tops of the TT bars, but those like, that'll really tear your hands up in training. And I kind of stopped doing that when I started doing 70.3 and was riding the TT bike is significant significantly more. But that's kind of like the most savage, potentially cool looking option. Yeah, cool. Yeah.

You're hard. If you're doing that, you're out to win. Yeah, exactly. Great. Okay. Next question here is from Ruth. I need to get a new wetsuit based on the TTL recommendations. I'm shopping orca.

Yeah, we love orca. I have never owned a sleeved suit. While researching Orca, I noticed their sleeveless wetsuit is classified as open water. Is there a difference in the triathlon wetsuits and the open water wetsuits? I feel like I will overheat with a sleeved wetsuit. Thoughts, suggestions, and any information to make me faster will be greatly appreciated. Based on previous podcast, I know not to wear my watch. It will make me slower.

No, Ruth, from the least fast person here, you can definitely wear it. I wear a watch open water. Yeah, just to have the data, right? Yeah, for training, for sure. Yeah. Honestly, I don't think that having the neoprene on the arms is going to be the game changer, the difference maker when it comes to overheating or not overheating. Unless you're swimming in right on the line of wetsuit cutoff for age group athletes,

otherwise, I think that's not going to make that much of an impact. That being said, if you are super concerned about that. that I think the suit that you would be most interested in in the orca line is there. I'm just looking out of stuff. Flex, right? Yeah, the apex flex. Yeah. So the apex flex has the most incredibly thin arms and flexible shoulders that we have ever experienced.

It does come with a little bit of a detriment in the buoyancy department relative to the flow or the float. But man, if you want to basically feel like, I think it's better personally than a sleep. than a sleeveless wetsuit because a sleeveless wet suit you have like seams and sewing and stuff going on between your neck and like your shoulder you know pivot point and everything and like bunches up there versus a sleeved wetsuit that's a high end one there's all the fabric there is so so crazy crazy thin like anecdotally we did an open water swim today and uh one of our friends who swam with us he's actually on the development team Andy Kruger he forgot his wetsuit I had an extra one and I gave him that suit to swim in The Apex Flex. And he put it on and was just like, this is the most insane thing I've ever felt. I can't believe how good this feels. Yeah. Paula, I remember Paula saying the same thing in the pool in Ventura.

She was like, this is crazy. It feels like I'm not even wearing a wetsuit. Yeah. So that's what I would recommend if that's at all a concern for you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just looking a little bit on their website here. Like, I think the open water wetsuits are a little bit less race focused and more comfort, high visibility, buoyancy, harsher conditions.

of like ocean swimming, for example, whereas the wetsuits that are designed for racing, like the flex, the float, and the flow, are suits that like Eric and I would wear in a 70.3 when performance is the main focus. They got to come off fast. Yeah, the material might be a little bit different. The thickness might be different.

But looking at the two, the price range might be a little bit lower for the open water wetsuits versus like the more. performance oriented suits. And you guys just talked about sleeves versus no sleeves. I think in the range of the performance wetsuits that we wear, you're not going to overheat in them.

Like they're really well designed. They're actually quite thin because they're so flexible in the upper body. And if anything, you're going to get less water in it. So it's going to be more comfortable. I've never actually swam in a sleeveless wetsuit. So I don't. It's been a long time, but I have. Yeah, I haven't either.

I like sleeved wets way more. By the time I got into triathlon, it was like, the consensus that sleeved is faster in all scenarios. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it's for sure faster. It might just be if someone's like a pure swimmer background like Michael Phelps,

he might prefer the... Right. The feel. The feel of non-sleeves. He's fast enough to... Whatever it feels right to you. But also under the open water line for Orca, they have the thermal wetsuit.

And that's one that's lined with like fleece. And I actually asked Orca, about this racing Alcatraz because the water was so cold there. Should I be wearing the thermal? And they said that it really is not meant for racing. Like it's not easy to get off. It's really designed to keep you warm. So if you're heading out for an open water ocean expedition like what you did in Nemo Bay, maybe, Eric, then it's appropriate.

But if you're trying to race in it, it's actually not going to be the best choice necessarily for speed. Yeah. Anyway, that's my, it's cool that they got both things. Yeah, that's very cool. I actually didn't even know that they had this whole old. open water range. They've got so much stuff. They've got surfing wetsuits, swimmer in wetsuits.

They're freaking like free diving wetsuits are actually, I think, the coolest looking thing they have. That's because free diving is the coolest. And the high viz wet suit for the open water so you can like see when the swimmer when you're in your yacht, you know? Nice. Nice. Okay.

Are we going over that? We feel confident about our answers. Yeah, we really exhausted that. Right. Wonderful. Okay, next one here is from Brian. Hey, TTL gang, after a five-year hiatus from a brief sprint triathlon career, I've been training for my first Olympic distance with sights set on some longer races in the future.

I am 10 days out for my race, and I was just informed that due to water quality issues, the race is now a duathlon. My background isn't swimming, so this stings extra. I can't help but feel extremely discouraged, considering I've been training for several months and put lots of time and money into getting back into the sport. I was so excited for the race, and now it doesn't even feel like a race to me anymore, just a glorified brick session. Trying to squeeze in another race later this month isn't really feasible due to travel and life plans.

I had really planned on my early fall around this race. Would love any tips on how to proceed, both from a mental perspective and from a race scheduling perspective, given that the season is winding down. Thanks for hosting such an interesting show, Brian. I thought this was a very applicable question. It's kind of interesting that it's canceled so far in advance that you know. Yeah. Usually it's like you get there with your freaking wetsuit on and they're like, oh, the swims canceled.

Did they say it was a lake? Did not say. Because, I mean, this could be a case. There's like the lake that I did my very first triathlon in. There's just a point in the year where it warms up enough that they get algae blooms and like, that's it. It's not going away. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I guess that's the case there. But when they do it race morning, it doesn't allow you to have this psychological, you know, let down because they're just there doing it. Yeah. But I've only had a few races with the swim canceled, and it really does take away the feeling that you're doing a travel on because you're not. And it's kind of sad.

But at the end of the day, you're still doing a race, and it's really hard. And the sense of, you know, accomplishment at the end of it is not that much different. But as a swimmer, I completely understand the disappointment here. I don't have a good answer for it. I just thought it was a good question thinking maybe you guys might have an answer. I got an answer. Okay, go. Here's what I would do.

I would come up with my own triathlon. Oh, God. I mean, you've got to ask yourself, are you doing it to be faster than other people and race? And if so, then go freaking do the duathlon and see how well you do and just dream in your head about how it would have gone if you'd had a three-minute lead out of the water because you're a great swimmer. If not, if you're just trying to do a thing that is epic and gets you excited, then why not come up with your own triathlon course? that's nearby and you know, you can maybe make it a little bit longer or whatever just to make it feel like it was a special day that you prepared for and and had to put out effort, you know?

Oh, that's not exciting to me, but I'm different than you. You are so mean. No, I mean, yeah, I can see that for sure, but I also think that people get more out of themselves when they're in a race scenario. I'm not trying to be mean. Going out and doing a swim bike run by yourself, it feels like training. That's what I, okay. It's just two different, two different feelings of, like,

like why do you do the sport and what gets you going? I think it could even be, there could be a bridge here, which is you might feel the way, you might feel about this like you want to perform and you want to race against other people. But maybe this is enough, this is so woo-woo and whatever, but I would hope that maybe you could see this as an opportunity

to ask yourself like, okay, but I just did all this training. I put in all this work. Wasn't that the point of the race to get me to do all this work, to pull something out of myself that wasn't there before, and you did it. Like, you put in the hard work, which is so much more than most people can say. And now you don't get to expose that and the race day the way that you were hoping.

But it's still brought this amazing thing out of you and into your life. That's maybe a little positive spin on it. No, I think that's good. And I think that we all three have different reasons for doing triathlon. I mean, deep down. Nick does it for the lead up in the training and how much he can get out of himself. before the gun even goes off, the race could be canceled. Right.

And you'd still feel fulfilled. I wish the race would be canceled, actually. And Eric is feeling like you can go and challenge and put yourself and do something more interesting and get just as much satisfaction out of that as going to a 70.3. And you're cooler in the process. And Paula's just like win no matter whatever you're into. No, and I mean, I don't necessarily enjoy every part of racing a triathlon with thousands of other people or with the best people in the world.

But I don't love the sport so much that I would just go do it because I want to. I don't know. I think you would, but you get such a high from racing that you empathize with Brown. It's not even that I get a high.

I think it just me, to me, when you're training, it's a lot of silent suffering and you're doing it, you know, no one cares what you do in training, but you go to a race and you do well or people are watching and you have this feeling of people know that I'm doing this. And that I worked hard for this.

I don't know. Is that being like so so selfish that I do it for? No, it's it's it's in all of us to varying degrees. I think that's in every single one of us as much as we can all want to be like Eric. I mean also and we need to make money. Well, you as pros. Like, yeah. We're not talking to other.

pros right now. We're talking people who fucking love doing this. They're doing it in their spare time. They're frothed up and we can't be like, that is dumb to just want to go do it for the sake of doing it. No, this guy is disappointed because he can't do a swim bike run. What if Brian signs up for a swim only race to, yes, show the fruits of the swim labor? Swimmers don't sign up for swimming races when they're retired as a rule. No, just kidding. I don't know. That's different too. And it's hard. hard to find some races usually. Okay, what I think this person is, we're getting in a fight over this, you guys. I like that we had three different tastes on this, though. I just don't like when I say

something that sounds like good to me and you just say that's dumb. I didn't say it was dumb. You did. No, I didn't. Nick, can we go back and check if I said it was dumb? Oh, that's not exciting to me. I don't remember her saying that's dumb. Thank you, no. But we could check. Oh, God. Because you were like, just go do your own trath on your front door. No, not it. Nick's going to have to do some splicing. I'm done. I'm going to do some splicing around here.

Okay. Next one, Angelina, hopefully you do better than Brian here. Wait, can I just go back to that question for a sec? I think you can leave it in as is. I think it's good to have heated debates in this podcast. I totally agree. Otherwise, we're all just like giving answers that are fluffy and whatever. Yes, yes.

That's true. But I think that if you, it would be fun to do like a pole or something. Like, why do you do this sport? Oh, let's do a pole. Let's do a poll. We'll do a poll. Are you more like along the lines of Eric where you can go and do an adventurous swim

bike run and feel fulfilled completely as if you had done a 70.3 branded Ironman race? Or could the race be canceled and you did a lot of great training and you feel good about it like Nick? Where do you fall in this spectrum? Wait, do we not also want to put your potential solution? Yeah. Oh, and me. All three of us.

to like go flex to show the work that you did. Which is fair, by the way. Yeah. And get an official time and get, you know, numbers and stuff. That's whatever. Those are the three options. So we're going to set up a voting thing. We'll say we'll have it on Spotify.

You can vote on Spotify. But maybe we could also do it on the TTL Instagram. Sure. Yeah. On Thursday. Okay. Another thing, not that I'm like standing up for myself here in my hands. Oh boy.

Here we go. It's really hard to do a safe, like say, This guy wants to do a 70.3, like, riding a time trial bike. It's hard to do that in a safe way on your own. Like, I agree with Eric more if you're doing like an off-road adventure type of thing. But to do a on-road triathlon, OYO is fucking dangerous. Like, you're going to get hit by a car if you're not, if you're not like going on the perfectly quiet set up road. So to me, racing brings the security also of being on a closed course that's monitored.

and to me, that gets more out of me on the bike because I go harder without worrying about these external variables. I mean, there's people who train indoors the entire time for a race who just don't have the option to ride their TT bike outdoors. And yeah. Yeah. And they go to a race so they can. Yeah, that's fair. Feel the wind in their fur. Who are they, Flynn?

Is Flynn racing a TT bike? I want to see that. What kind of helmets are you wearing? Okay. Let's go to Angelina's. Angelina. Oh, gosh, Angelina. You're going to, you have some big shoes to fill, Angelina.

Choose your words carefully. Eric is still pissed. Look at his arms crossed. He's steaming from the ears. His triathlon shirt on. And hat. We just discovered I love it the most. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Okay, Angelina, here we go. Fifth time's the charm. Is there a big difference between mechanical and electronic shifting on a triathlon bike? I'm not very tech savvy, and the thought of having to charge my bike is very unappealing to me. However, the main appeal of electronic shifting is the ability to shift from the arrowbars or the base bar, whereas I'd only be able to shift from the arrowbars with mechanical. Any thoughts or advice on this? Thank you. You are all awesome. Angelina. Was there not a time that

you could, weren't there some crazy systems where you could shift from the arrowbars or the base bar mechanically? Let me just tell you that it is absolutely insane to think that people road time trial bikes without shifters on the base bar and on the aerobars. Like that is insane to me. Yeah, that's wild. And charging a bike with SRAM, as we've discussed at length in previous podcast, is not a big deal.

You just take the little battery out and plug it in a couple times a month. Bike stays in the garage. Battery comes in the house. Yeah. So I think your only solution here is to not get Shimano, get SRAM. It's easy to charge and you have electric shifting on your base bar and on your aerobars. Eric and Paula

are sponsored by SRAM, by the way, as a disclaimer. we would be buying it if we were not. Same. I am not sponsored by Sram and I buy it. It's the perfect answer solution to this concern, though, don't you think? Yeah. He doesn't want to plug your bike in. You plug your watch and you plug your bike computer in.

Your bike lights, I mean, it's not a big deal. Literally just after every single ride, here's what you got to do. You get yourself one of the quad battery charging stations that Sram makes and you put the battery on there and it blinks orange or it's red and then it eventually blinks green and then it's solid green and it is so satisfying that I seriously charge all of our batteries all the time. Because it's fun. And if I'm just like walking through the kitchen, sometimes I'll just go out and grab some

random batteries off of a random bike and swap them with ones that are on the thing just because like, man, this feels good to be so on top of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When Eric's out of town and I'm home alone, I charge every tram battery in the garage just because I'm so bored. That's beautiful.

I like create an assembly line and I'm like rotating them through the charger. So it's actually like a fun activity. Nice. Yeah. But having mechanical shifting, I think, is cumbersome a little bit. It's not always going to be smooth. Ever since I've had electric shifting, I haven't really had any issues with chains rubbing or jumping. It's so precise every time.

It works so well. And it's not just for the blips on the base bar. It's just, I think, a better overall system. Eric, do you remember? Am I crazy? Was there not some kind of intricate system that? that allowed you to shift from two different places with mechanical at some point? Maybe, but I don't remember it.

I was certainly too poor to be looking into such things when I was riding mechanical shift. Like a McIverd type of thing? No, no, McGiver, like, legit, but, like, expensive. And obviously it has to, it's complicated because you would need to run, like, two sets of cables. I don't even understand how that would physically work. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. But when you ride with people that have mechanical, it's not very common anymore.

To see them, like, reach up. Yeah, they're like, really. reaching there up to the arrow bars. And I guess when you're racing, you're predominantly an arrow anyway. So it's not as much of an issue. But even then, the precision of like getting it to the exact click. My very first shift was mechanical, like back when I, in 2011. So I have had experience with it.

I suppose the idea is if you're on the base bars, you're not as worried about aerodynamic. So reaching up and doing the thing is not as big of a deal. You're probably climbing or something like that. Yeah, but if you're climbing hard, you don't want to be reaching up. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Good job, Angelina. You did all right. Next question here is from Ollie. Greetings from London. You've mentioned a few times that you eat in the morning before you swim. My questions are, what do you eat? How much do you eat? And how much time do you leave between eating and swimming? I have to be at the pool at 6.30 a.m. if I want to get work on time and still fit in a solid hour in the water. Ollie? Yeah, good question. We don't have to submit 630, so we have a bit more time to digest. My breakfast is usually a bagel with peanut butter, and that's also my breakfast for

races, so it's just very same every time, every morning. Eric has cereal, usually? I have cereal. I always have a blend of two to three cereals in the same cereal, and I put raisins on top with almond milk, same meal every single day, and I have the same meal before races as well. Sometimes we'll usually wake up around 6.30 and end up swimming at 8 or 830. So we have two hours. That's a lot of time.

An hour and a half is the minimum for me. To digest it. When I was swimming 5.30, 6 a.m. though, back in like university and club swimming days, I would basically want to wake up as late as I possibly could to still get to the pool on time. So I'd wake up and put a piece of toast in the toaster while I was getting coffee ready. and then just a single piece of toast with peanut butter and then the coffee and I'd eat it and drink it on the way to the pool and be able to get in within 15 minutes and I'd be fine.

Wow. So it's completely individual to the person, but I think that's like a 200 calorie thing. It should be okay. That might get you through to the end of the swim. If you're really the type of person that can't digest something, I mean, even taking a energy like a... liquid drink on deck.

Yeah, you can try like a, I don't know, like a protein shake or even just like a electrolyte with sugar. Well, I think even the tailwind like, you know. The high carb mix, maybe. Not even the high carb, but just the regular fuel stuff. It's like 200 calories for a pack of it. And you could sip on that on the way to the pool and throughout the workout and you're still getting in sugar.

That's smart. Yeah. It's not like a satisfying your hunger type of situation, but it's topping your energy level. Yeah. Yeah. Avoiding disaster. Eat a lot after swimming. Yeah.

Cool. Okay. Thanks, Ollie. Okay, this next one is from Haley and hi TTL crew. I am 10 years old. And I just watched my dad do his first full Ironman in Lake Placid, New York. Wow. That's awesome, Haley.

And after I was inspired to be a triathlete, I was wondering what advice you would give for a 10-year-old girl interested in triathlon. and Paula, I want you to know you are a true inspiration and keep up the good work, Haley. Wow, this is incredibly well-spoken, 10-year-old. Yeah. I really want to send her some stuff. Yeah, I was going to say, we need to put together a thing. I'll send you like someone, one of my old, not my old kits, one of my kids that's new, but I don't need it.

Yeah, get back to us with your address, if your parents allow you to. Yeah, please, we don't want to go to jail. That's so nice. So I started competitive swimming when I was 10 years old. And I started triathlon when I was 16. So I had basically six years of just competitive swimming with a bit of running mixed in. And the running was based purely on my fitness from swimming. I wasn't necessarily training that much for running.

But if you want to be a professional triathlete someday, I think it's really good to have a good foundation of swimming. because especially in the short course world triathlon Olympic realm, if you're not a good swimmer, you're never even in the race. So I think, I don't know, starting with a good swim experience, and you're not too old for that at this point. You're only 10 is a good way to go. And swimming is a lot of commitment from not just you, but your parents as well, like driving you to the pool a lot of times a week.

And you don't need to dive that heavy into it, but now is a good time to learn it versus when you're in your 20s or 30s when you're trying to be an adult onset swimmer, which has its challenges. Learning when you're 10 is so much easier. Totally. I agree. That's a great answer. Great answer.

And I mean, the more like. Remember to have fun. Yeah. I was going to say that seriously. Have fun with it. Like I went in swim team. I only did Monday, Wednesday through Friday afternoon practices. Once in a blue moon, I would go to Saturday practice.

And on the weekends, I was like going for a bike ride. So you're only swimming five days a week. It's only swimming five days a week. Five times a week. Yep, five times a week. Growing up, I was swimming nine times a week. And Eric's a better swimer than me. So it's not, you're right, Eric.

You don't have to go like full on year-round swim club mode. Yeah, and then in the summertime when the weather was good, I got into triathlon. I did a local bike race on Tuesday nights. And then I, you know, could have, like, my parents could afford or would allow me to do like four local trathons a year that we could drive to. and then the weather would get terrible

and I would do some cross-country and go back to swimming and that just allowed the fun of it to grow over the course of high school and then get serious as it feels right. I think that's good advice, like kind of seasonally adapt to different activities based on what's easier to do at that time of year

and it does keep it fresh and fun. And for me, like swimming was a lot of work, but also it's where all my friends were and my best friends. And still to this day, my best friends were from swimming. swim club. So going to swimming was hard, of course, but I think it taught me a lot of discipline. It made me a better swimmer. And I looked forward to going because I was basically going to hang out

with my friends. Yeah, same. Yeah. So make it a make sure it's like a thing you want to do and not something that you feel like you have to do. Yeah. And triathlon's great because you can do what your dad did and do an Iron Man when you're an adult or you can go the route of like wanting to go to the Olympics and that's in your 20s or late teens. even. There's so many different paths you can take depending on your goals and what you want to get out of it. Yeah. Lovely. Okay. Last thing here. We kind of answered this. Nick's really keeping this rolling, eh? I am keeping this rolling. I am keeping this rolling. Thank you very much. But I love that question. That was a great question. Great question, Haley. Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to discount Haley's a great

question. Okay. So this is, by the way, we're apparently high TTL Masters. That's us. I hope that's not a comment about our age and more comment about our skill level. But this is, it was a question about Zurich and the TTF, the UCR World Championships. So you answered, we talked about a lot of this, but I think the end of this is still a great question. Do you have any plans to fully commit to cycling to maximize your chance of being selected for the L.A. team in 2028? I'm pretty confident that the entire TTL nation would love to see you compete there. Thanks for everything you do for the community.

I don't know. I don't want to answer this. I don't know. I can answer it. I don't know. It's a great answer. I don't know. It's a great answer. I would agree. I think that would be super fun to watch. I'm not the one who would have to be doing it. But it would, it gets me excited in the same way that I get a little excited when I watch UTMB and think about like taking on a whole new thing and trail running. To like have that fresh start and take on a new challenge and be on the bike for a different reason and go to different races. You know, like that. Yeah, it sounds super cool. fun and cool to me. I think where I struggle a little bit is like I'm I'm still having success with triathlon and it's where we make our living and it's honestly like more profitable now as the T-100 exists and as there's more racing opportunities and I'm still racing at a top level. To completely abandon that and jump to cycling is really hard for me to imagine that. Like I'd have to almost get like a different job or something to support that unless I was maybe on a pro cycling team, but that requires you to be away from home so much. So I don't know.

It's a tough thing. And I think that it's a great thing that I'm Canadian and I'm one of the top Canadians at this event. So my ability or like it's realistic for me to have this goal. And that is a cool thing. I think like if I really focus on this, it's not completely at a left field that I could go to the Olympics in 2028. But four years is a really long time.

And it's funny as I've like thought about it and sitting here talking about it's so easy to say. Like, yeah, I'm the best in the country of this. I want to go to the Olympics. But the amount of really, really intense hard time-trailing workouts it takes to be as good as I have been the last three years is extremely hard. And going out and riding as hard as you can on a time trial bike for four more years like that, I don't know if I can imagine myself doing that at least right now. It's different than 70.3 training where you're kind of riding this like subthreshold kind of effort. To train for a 30K, 40 minute race is a different energy system.

And it's a kind of pain that I have never experienced training for 70.3s. It's like white, hot pain. Yeah. So I don't know if the longevity is there to be able to do it until 2028. But who knows, I think also if I focus more on cycling, I wouldn't be running as much. I could get stronger on the bike because of that and put more time and effort into one sport instead of three. It would be mentally so much simpler.

Yeah. And like scheduling so much simpler. Not having to swim. Yeah. There's a lot of... The crux of it is really the amount of travel, I think, to actually be on a pro team or just to demonstrate even that you have the ability to race in a bigger group

and get to those races and stuff. That's a lot of travel and time away. Back to like the thing we were talking about. earlier of we really enjoy having triathons as our job but also feeling like a little bit of normal humans with a place that we call home and are at frequently yeah and i'm not super young anymore like in four years i'll be 38 at the olympics so i don't know it's still definitely possible but it's not like i'm a rush starting out the sport you know i went to the olympics when i was 21 for track on so you'll be close to double

that. It'd be kind of epic. Yeah. I kind of want to just do it for the story. For the story? What is life? It's not a collection of stories. I mean, come on. We will figure out how it can, we will not go broke. We'll figure it out. We'll just make money with, I don't know, doing the podcast. Yeah. We'll make way more podcasts. Sell more shirts. We'll do ads on the pod.

Yeah, there we go. We'll triple in. Come immediately. If Paula goes, assists, she'll go to the Olympic, try to go to the Olympics for cycling. Will you all be okay if we start. doing ads. The other thing about the Olympics real quick is that it's out of my hands, ultimately. And yeah, you can go and be the best in the country even, but your selection is completely dependent on if the Federation is going to select you. And the best way to qualify, obviously, is to hit a selection standard where it's like, if you're top three at this race,

you go. And that's possible with intrathlon. That's how I made it in London. I just made the criteria. there was no discretionary pick or anything. But to kind of live your life for four years and then have your fate be a bit out of your hands in the end of it is a scary thought. And I think that's at the end of each Olympic cycle, you see a lot of athletes either retiring or transitioning to 70.3 in triathlon because that experience is so exhausting. It's like sometimes even just making it takes everything in your being. And then to go to the Olympics, performing well there is almost impossible at that point.

because you just put all your focus into making it and maybe doing like appeals to get on the team if it wasn't selected properly. Right. It's, I've gone through that circus for several Olympic cycles now and just ended up so heartbroken at the end of it. So I think I would need to approach this four years. Like if it happens, it's great and I'm going to put all my, you know, effort into it.

But also it's okay if it doesn't and I have other things. I don't know. Maybe you can't be like that because it takes so much out of you. but it's the reality of Olympic sport. For sure. It comes around so infrequently. I mean, if you are. Sam.

Wow, Ericson and Feynman. I really do love the TT stuff. I could make some sick videos about all of this, like how the switch is happening and what the workouts are and what the races are and like all the things. Like, no problem. I think that what I would love is to have a better idea and understanding of what other women at the top of TTIing are holding for Wads.

over the distance. I know what my watts are, but I have absolutely no clue what other people do for the 35K TT. You know? Or like... Is it wildly different than me? Coefficient of drag.

Like how slippery? Are they just way more efficient? Yeah, much more slippery are they? Yeah. Or are they like 20 pounds heavier than me and just can put down way more watts? Right. Just like some general goalish ideas.

How much do I have to improve? Because it's fun to be the best in the country and go and compete for Canada worlds and stuff. It's so cool. But I would want to be like a top 10 type of person or a top five type of person on the world level at this. Maybe. That is so cool. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it.

Oh, God, Nick. I'm sorry. I get excited. Oh, sue me. And also I'd have to get better at bike skills. But we worked on that last week and it's coming along. Coming along. We just went on a gravel ride that pretty much turned into a mountain bike.

ride not by my choosing. So I think the bike skills are coming along just fine. Oh yeah. Love it. Also, it's a matter of motivation. There's no motivation to like really truly be better at bike skills for trathlon. You can win Kona by like unclipping at the round the one roundabout on the course. Like why, why? But if you want to go be the best at time trialist in the world and race pro cycling, then yeah. Now all of a sudden you have a reason to do that. And I think that's huge. Yeah. I will argue that Kona has some technical challenges with the win and the cross wins and I'd be That's true. Yeah. It has

challenged in its own ways obviously, but yeah, like turning, maybe not. Yeah. Cornering, not as big a deal. No, you said it made a big difference for your World Championship TT course last year, though. I remember. And so for sure, for the like Eric saying, for the cycling

specific stuff, it would be an advantage. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know what this person's question was, but that was a tangent. Great question, whatever it was. Yeah, we We went on several tangents this entire episode. I loved this episode. I thought it was fantastic.

We did keep it moving along kind of quickly. We got a lot of value out of it. And friendship. A lot of value. A lot of quality time. Just a little fight. I liked the fight. Ooh, it was a little spicy.

Because I'm leaving for China in a couple days, we had to record on Labor Day. So thank you, Nick, for taking your day of freedom and fun to do this. Of course. This is still free and fun for me. Yeah, but it's different. You're not like eating ice cream on the couch. No. No, no.

But I'm about to do that. My friends are in my living room right now. Brief intermission. The night is young. The night is young. The night is young. But nice. So we'll hopefully be able to do this next week if we can figure out how to make the time zones work.

And Paul is going to be in China. So we're going to do what we can. No, no. I'm going to be actually, by next Monday I'll be in Zurich. Oh my gosh. Oh, my gosh. My China trip is very brief. Okay.

Okay, great. So from Zurich. From the neutrality of Zurich. And Eric's meeting me in Zurich. Eric's meeting me there. Okay, great. So maybe we can record Tuesday or Wednesday. Sure.

We can make any of that work. We don't need to tell the kids on our recording schedule. But they could know that it's a freaking pain in the ass. Yeah, that we do a lot for them. Yeah. Okay, wonderful. Okay, I'll talk to you guys next week, hopefully. From Zurich.