That Triathlon Life Podcast - TTL Devo team athelete Tom Davies joins us to discuss his year as a pro triathlete, Eric and Nick debrief their experience with Sleep Week, and questions!

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

This week we had 2023 TTL Devo team athlete Tom Davies on the podcast to see how his year in training and racing triathlon as a pro was! After Tom, at minute 37, Eric and Nick debrief their experiences with Sleep Week, and finally at minute 58 we get to a few questions sent in by podcast listeners. You can submit your own questions as well as become a podcast supporter at ThatTriathlonLife.comHow was sleep week for you?  Sleep Week Survey2023 TTL Development team athletes:Tom DaviesAli BrauerBen FoltzJack Stanton-StockKaylee SladeMinttu Hukka

Hey everybody. I just wanted to give you a little bit of an outline of what this episode was going to be like because it's different than our usual. Usually we just answer your questions. But this week we had a special treat. We had Tom on, who is a development team athlete from 2023. So we did that for the first 37 minutes. And then at minute 37, Eric and I debriefed our sleep week data and our experiences with that. And then finally at minute 58, we actually started answering some questions. So we really hope you'll listen to the whole podcast. podcast, but if you're only interested in parts of it, there's your little outline. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks. Hey, everyone. Welcome to that triathlon live podcast. I'm Erica Loggerstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And I'm Tom Davis. This is Tom. He's on the TTL development team, the 2023 TTL development team class, I guess. We're in the process right now of booting up TTL development team 2024. But we wanted to basically have a chat with Tom. He had a great year. And just kind of debrief how 2023 went, talk about where the team's at, what our goals were, and what we're working on for the future.

But this is the normal podcast as well. Eric and I are both professional triathletes. Tom actually also is a professional triathlet and Nick is an amateur triathlet. So we come to you every week and answer your questions. And occasionally for special people like Tom, we bring guests on. Tom is actually in the UK right now. So he's coming to us from way across the pond. but we have the whole setup dialed, which is pretty good, actually.

We're only 10 minutes behind the scheduled start time. Which is 10 minutes early for our standards. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'll just back up real quick. And like Paula said, we're professional triathletes. Our little brand is called that triathlon life. And what we started up last year as a way to give back to the sport was something we call the TTL development team.

The goal was to basically sponsor six athletes who are in the middle of making the jump from amateur to professional. So we said either like in your first year, your second year, or just about to turn pro. And the idea behind this is that we know from personal experience, making that jump from like winning even the amateur field at any given half Iron Man out there to actually being a profitable business entity

as a triathlete is incredibly challenging. We have an amazing community that we built with that triathlon life and we wanted to basically do everything that we could with that community and the sponsorships that we, have and everything to give some athletes like Tom a running start into their career. Yeah, so we just we just kind of put out applications for the 2024 team. And in response to that, we had a ton of people asking for updates on the 20203 team, which is fair because I think the whole point of this is to feel like the whole community has supported these athletes

in their journey this year. So Tom has been a super successful, you know, person on the team. And we thought he'd be a great person to bring on. So thanks for being here, Tom. Are you done racing for the year? You still got something to go? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm done. No, thank you for having me first off. It's a bit surreal to be here with you guys because I was a fan even before the development team. So, yeah, this is exciting. Well, thank you. Yeah, we also want to make sure that as our alumni, you're continued to be supported by us. You can Texas anytime. And I think like that's the whole point of this is not just financial support, but mentorship that is ongoing beyond just the gear that you're on the team.

So, yeah, you're one of us now. I feel like this is going to turn into one of those things where, like, have you ever heard that weird stat, which I'm not even sure if it's true, but there's like, Genghis Khan has like two million descendants or whatever because it started. It's like this is going to be the development team. In like 10 years, there's going to be like 150 alumni

that are all asking you for guidance at some point. Yeah, yeah. We're going to have to like shut you guys on. All of the people who took 100 have been through the development. That's right. That's our goal. Yeah. I think at some point, like, I mean, we'll try to, you know, I don't know, set up a group chat or something for alumni and everything. But at some point, like someone like Tom is going to be as successful, more successful than us and can be mentoring the, you know, team further down the line and everything. I think it'll just be like the goodwill. We'll feed more goodwill.

So just real quick to go through, like, I guess team highlights here for the year. Mintu. One challenge, turquess. which is also Finnish national championships. That was a big one. And so yeah, I mean, we put in place, like we were going to pay people bonuses for professional podium, just thinking maybe this will happen, maybe it won't happen. It's a bit of a stretch. But I had to pay out some bonuses, which we were psyched on.

Very psyched on. It was cool, including Tom. Yeah. Jack, he raced and flew the flag at Super League on quite a few occasions. It was surreal for Paul and I to see a TTL kit riding around. Super League courses in Malta and these super far away places. Really awesome. He also got two pro podiums.

Ben had a little bit of a rough season, but turned pro, competed in his first pro race, gave us incredible coverage on Lionel Sanders' YouTube channel. Yep. He was there. Reppping. Tom, fifth place, challenge, Cagnister Mare. I know you had a couple other ones.

I was like real quick trying to pull to them together so we can go into you in more detail. and Kaylee was just like racking up fastest pro run splits like crazy. So those are our pride and joy results there of the year. Yeah. So Tom, what's your first year in triathlon? Like did you race amateur for a few years? I did my first triathlon in 2019. And this was after you rode your bike all the way around the world.

That's correct, yes. So in 2015. That was some solid training. Yeah, some good base miles. Basically, when I left school in 2015, I cycled around the world, kind of said it. I don't know how else to say it, but yeah, 18,000 miles, 100 miles a day for kind of six months. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so that was something I did.

And so it was a bit of an unconventional introduction to sport, or not necessarily introduction, but I was. wasn't doing any competitive sport before that, like I wasn't racing bikes. And then I went off to university and I did a bit of bike racing. And I was okay, but it was a whole new kind of sport compared to the riding of my bikes that I'd already done. I didn't realize how different it was going to be. But yeah, I did a few years of that and ultimately landed on Traathlon and kind of, I don't know, the passion is just only grown from there. What kind of bike do you use to ride around the world. It's not a time trial bike. I'm assuming it's something a little more comfortable. And do you carry your own gear? Is it self-supported? Like, I'm curious, personally, of how, what are

the logistics of doing that? Is there a set route? Or do you set your own route? And is it, it's literally every continent you wrote on? So, gosh, there were quite a few questions there. Yeah, I know. Which is funny, because Paula hates when people do that in their own questions, and then she did it. Well, with this delay, I just got to get them all out. Right, right, right, of course. Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. So the bike was a road bike, but I used a steel frame.

I used a brand in London called Condor. Wow. Yeah, it was comfier. It was beautiful to ride. The reason I didn't go for carbon was because I was carrying all my own gear. I didn't want it to snap. And I'm sure, especially nowadays, they would be fine with that. But I was a bit wary.

that that could be an issue and if my frame cracked in the middle of India it would be game over so yeah I use the steel frame in terms of the route there's no set route and everyone kind of does their own thing the guidelines that Guinness World Record

kind of specify for having cycled around the world are 18,000 miles in one direction so as in like keep going east rather than zigzagging around. And you have to go through to opposite points on the earth. So for me, that was New Zealand and Spain. Wow. And that's kind of the main gist of those guidelines.

So within that, you can be pretty liberal. So I actually didn't even go to Africa or South America. And obviously not Antarctica. But, yeah. Right, you kind of did like this 45 degree angle, like as we look at our map. Yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah, I guess so. The youngest person that ever actually completed this as well, right?

No, no, I was at the time. Oh, someone's done it since. A couple of guys who are younger have since done it, which is great because, you know, I'd love to be an inspiration to people breaking stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Well, that initially is what caught our eye when we were reading your application and then your journey to pro triathlon. Do you want to talk a little bit about your,

when you decided you wanted to be a pro triathlet, you started with amateur racing, but what was the time where you thought, oh, I could be really good at this or I am really good at this, and I really want to make the jump to the pro ranks and do this as a job. Sorry, I'm doing the million question things,

but did you have another job before this? Or did you kind of just go straight from being teenager to pro? it was quite a I don't know maybe organics a wrong word but organic process

in that when I first started triathlon I had no idea about turning pro or anything it was more just it was like the whole Kona thing

that kind of draw me in it was like that seems like a really cool goal to aim for like qualify for age group world championships because in cycling there wasn't really

that kind of pathway. Yeah. And it was kind of, yeah, so that was what I was initially aiming for. And as I kind of progressed and progressed, it was kind of just like aim for the next little thing above. And something I love about triathlon is how accessible it is and how for at least middle distance and long distance, how clear cut the pathway is.

Like if you're good enough and you meet the standards to get your pro license, you can enter the pro races and do your own thing. And, you know, there are no politics involved in trying to get on a cycling team, or it's not about who you know and stuff like that. It's just if you meet the grade, then you can do it. And that's one thing I really love about this sport. Certainly inside of, like, chasing after half Iron Man and Iron Man and the non-draft space, you have, that is what drew us to it as well after years in the ITU space,

where there are a few more politics. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah, which I've since learned about having met a few people involved in that process. This is starting to make sense now. I was like trying to figure out how riding around the world had anything to do with, you know, like the way that your brain works about that versus being a pro-traithee. But like right around the world, do Kona. Like that tracks.

Those are similarly epic objectives. Yeah. Yeah, so it was a lot of it came from unsatisfaction. Is that word? Disatisfaction with bike racing. There you go. um like um like rocking around a crit and kind of just doing an fdp test and sprinting out of corners really wasn't my thing yeah um yeah i i feel like you're not nearly an angry enough person to be a good

bike racer like no offense i am not either and i recognize that fairly early on you got to have like a mean streak to like really be a successful bike racer i think or be able to turn that on in the peloton and crits and stuff when i first when i first when i first did a triathlon and like the community and everyone there the people you're racing this against were also friendly to you and I was like what is going on like you don't hate me anymore yeah exactly no fist fights after crossing the finish line exactly oh that's cool so is your goal still to go to cona or have you sort of now through the process of racing professionally learned there's so many other options to do challenge races or stay locally in europe and

70.3 racing, there's a lot of options. So, Kona's most people's bucket list goal, but is that still yours? God, I feel like I could lose some fans here, but I'm, yeah, I'm not overly taken by Kona at all, so I qualified for, I went to St. George the year that was the World Champs, and I did that in an age grouper. And for me, for me, the goal was to get to the Iron Man World Championships as an age group. I didn't care where it was. And having been to

George, I'm honestly so glad it was there and not Kona. I know this is sacrileg to say and I can't really know that you because I'm saying it on this podcast. That's how I feel when I watch Kona on TV. People training in Kona. I'm just like, why?

Why would you want to go there on this out and back course with no spectators? Like it looks just horrendous to me. We feel the same way, all right? And we're pretty vocal about that too. There's a lot of... The heat is like, it takes a special beast to fall in love with the Kona thing. But it's cool that you've, like, started knowing about Kona because it is what everyone talks about.

And now you've, like, discovered that there's more to it than that. I do think the hype, once you've been there and, like, witnessed it is very contagious as well, just from people I've talked to. There's a lot of hype. We don't not get it, but, man, it looks just... We're not a great way to spend eight hours. Yeah. It is an interesting thing, though, how many people are introduced into the sport through Kona, though, through the Kona broadcast and the magic that they put into that. And then maybe, you know, you realize, like Tom, that's not exactly what I want to do. But it's still the gateway.

Yeah. And now they have the split races, so it's actually ideal, right? If Nis suits you more, you can aim for that in 2025, right? Nees suits me more, but I don't know. splitting the men and women is tricky, isn't it? Definitely controversial. Less fun, for sure. How do you feel like this year went for you?

Because from my perspective, it seemed pretty great. But what were your goals and how did those play out? Oh, that's great to hear you say that. Thank you. It's been interesting. And there's quite a lot of frustration for me. me, but I think the key thing is I've had an incredible time. And if you told me these results going into the season, I would have taken them in a heartbeat. It's just that having kind of now done it and been there, like, I really believe that I'm

capable of quite a bit more. So, you know, there's just that, that hunger for the extra step. But I've, like, completely ticked off all the goals I set myself, like, going into this year. I think it definitely has been a success in that regard. It's so interesting how common that is to get to the end of a year and just feel underwhelmed with your results, but you take yourself back to where you were last year at this time. And like you said, if you had laid out these results,

you'd be over the moon with them. And it's just the nature of the sport. Like the same thing happens for Eric and I, and, you know, podiuming at a world championships even, you look back and say, well, what if I'd been one step higher? there's never, it's never enough. So it's kind of just the nature of high performance sport, I think. And it's a, it's a healthy thing to want more, but also be able to reflect and appreciate that you actually did check off a lot of the boxes. And it's a sign that you can keep, you know, training and pushing hard and getting to the next level. But I think from, you also did experience some injuries and kind of like the full spectrum of what being a pro triathlet is like. It's not all easy. There are sometimes where you have to pull out of races or, you you know, can't run for a little while. So you also add a little bit of that, didn't you?

I definitely did. I had just a minor injury at the start of the season, which I probably could have, I wish I'd just gone to see a physio straight away. So, you know, maybe that's some advice for the people listening. Get it checked out. Yeah. But that wasn't anything major, but then, yeah, in the summer,

I'd had a pretty big bike crash, so kind of cut my season quite short with that. Yeah. part of it which was a that was about out of your control bike crash I guess bike crash

to an extent I'd like my front tire blew out as I tipped it into a hairpin so like I just I don't know I'm sure there are some things That's not your fault

You cannot go back and be like well if I'd been going one kilometer an hour then it would have been fine Yeah that's not your fault That's not reasonable to Yeah I've been that way

With my mountain bike crash as well Well always I mean We are big fans of new tires on this show. So always be keeping your tires newish. Especially the people that get the tires for free are a really big fan of putting new tires on their bikes. Always been a big fan of tires, Nick.

That's true. They are stupidly expensive if you update them all the time. All right, I'm adding it to the list. TTL Development Team 2024 tire sponsor, working on. Tires. Mark noted.

My main question that I had coming into this was like, what do you feel like was your biggest takeaway or learning thing or something that you would tell, you know, Tom from one year ago right now. Like, first year pro, aha moments. That's exactly what I would have been like in my head. I'm like, can I ask that?

The obvious thing is to say like enjoy it, but also I really did. So it's not necessarily advice to myself. It's to what I see from a lot of other people is really take the time to just like, don't stress too much about this year because like it's your first year and enjoy it. because this is what you've been working for. Like, this is all I've wanted since I was a kid. Okay, I didn't have the goal of triathlon, but to try and be a professional athlete is what I've always wanted.

And, yeah, being able to take the time to enjoy that is definitely necessary, I think. Yeah. Do you feel like there were any, like, I don't know, logistical things that you learned? Like, it was way harder to do travel or, like, how far out you needed to plan, and which races you were going to go to, or maybe you didn't have to plan out that far, or anything like, I guess, logistical, where a couple of years ago you've been like,

oh, man, I just don't even understand how this aspect of the sport works. I think reach out to sponsors a bit earlier because I got my, I mean, you guys coming along was fantastic and an absolute godsend. Very late in the game, though. But I got my pro card in,

I can't remember when I got my pro card. record, like maybe November last year. So by the time I got around to reaching out to people, I mean, maybe it was just an excuse, but every response was like, oh, we've already confirmed our roster for next year. So it's like, yeah. Yeah, the timeline is interesting. It's literally like the summer that you start, have to start reaching out, like August. But even kind of fostering the relationships early on, like a year out. Yeah. could be important. Like, oh, I really like on shoes.

I'm going to race and train in them all year and then sort of demonstrate that I'm super loyal to the brand and then becomes part of the conversation later on. But we find that too. We often reach out too late and it's like budgets are set no matter how good your results are. Yeah. Companies are always interested when you can come to them and say, like, I've just been using your stuff for the last two years or whatever it is. And this is just like a perfect match for me because I love it.

Can we do a thing? they're not cold calling somebody and trying to talk them into the shoes and then sending them their first pair and all that stuff. The Devo team in 23 was kind of like born I guess in February. It was super late and the whole thing that started it

was our friend Andy. Did we mention Andy on the results? No, you didn't. Poor Andy. He won't listen to this story. But no, Andy Kruger is our local friend who swims with us every day and has a lot of potential.

And he asked us to help him design his kit. So he started going through this and we're like, oh, this is a sick kit. We should like do this for six or seven people and have them be a team. So the whole idea was conceptualized very late in the year. This year we're much more organized, but we're still excited about it. And we like that we were able to help people maybe like Tom, who weren't expecting this type of thing to come along early in the year. Yeah, well, it was hilarious.

Andy sent us over like this wild palm tree design that he was trying to get made by some random kit company. And I was like, dude, dude, you can't wear that. Let me design you a kit real quick. And then as I was like halfway through it and I'd had like an old fashion, I'm like, can we put a TTL? Like, how much does it cost us to have a TTO logo on your kit? And he's like, I don't know, buy me lunch?

Like, dude, no. Like respect to yourself. Like, we'll give you $1,500 or something. He's like, that would be amazing. And that like set the gears going and Paul in my brain. I was like, this is awesome. This feels so good. And like it doesn't take that much when you're in your

first year to make a little bit of a difference. Yeah. So you definitely made a difference for me. It's funny for us because we're not obviously giving you like a salary that you can live off of. But the community and the TTL people that you see at events and stuff, have you noticed that that's been made a difference? Like you see other people in the kit or they come up to you and even online.

Like there's there's a sense of oh, I'm part of a thing now. Oh, 100%. That's kind of our goal with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. And, like, online especially, because, especially as you said, everything started a little bit late. So the kits, especially in Europe, I don't think, made it, made it out on course all that early. I think it was only really my last race where I saw some others. But it was still like, yeah, 100% you still feel that. And for me being a first year pro and like kind of questioning what I'm doing, like whether it's worth it, it adds. a big level of validation to that when yeah you get other people suddenly like cheering for you it's yeah it was amazing yeah that's awesome

cool man even even where I mean even for us like running down the street in Mexico and somebody knows your name it's special and it gives you a little boost it's it means so much more than like you said out of a turnaround and you haven't seen anybody in 15 minutes and doesn't feel like anybody cares Nick well I I had the same thing

that Eric was wondering about, about what you would tell yourself at the beginning. This is something I love to ask people who have done something like either really difficult or face some great adversity. Could you tell yourself something at the beginning of this that would positively impact the experience for you? And maybe for you, Thomas, just as simple as try to enjoy it and don't put too much pressure on yourself. And that's a perfectly great. That's usually what to tell people for their first race as an age grouper is this is not going to be. be your life, right? This result is not your life. Try to, like, print that in your brain of this is a fun thing to do. This is going to feel good instead of trying to redline the whole thing.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, like, a lot of the aspects of when it comes to kind of advice is, it's tricky because, yeah, I think I've already thought about a lot of the process when it comes to racing that it's like there wasn't anything glaringly obvious that I neglected. I think the main difference for me between from stepping up from age group to pro was the swim,

especially being a weak swimmer. It's kind of, I guess the one bit of racing advice I would have given myself was like treat the swim like a bike race and just hang on for dear life. If you see a gap opening, close it immediately. Like don't let it stretch out of things.

oh maybe I can kind of stay with it like as soon as those feet go like you get on them and basically go 100%. Yeah that doesn't change even in a when you are at the pointy end of the race. Like if you lose someone's feet that could be the race. Just with the speeds that the bike is getting at these days if you're not with that pack it's so strung out that it's hard to catch up. Yeah. That's really good advice for anyone who's listening I guess also in the age group field right, Nick? Although it's a little different with the age group field being. For us, it's so weird.

You get too many variances in people's levels, unless you're at the front end of the age group field, which unfortunately I've never been at. Oh, you're in the top 50. To the extent I was talking about like Iron Man Switzerland, I've never swam harder for an hour. I kind of went out the first 100 meters thinking, this is surely going to die down in like 800 meters

and it just kept going and I was dying. That's terrible. And it was so worth it for me because, you know, it meant I was then with a bike pack for 180K. But, like, had that been an age route waste where you come out of the water and you have no idea what standard the guys you're going to be riding with are, like, you're probably completely different levels.

It's not worth killing yourself in the swim. Yeah, that's a good point. That's huge. And then you could ride with people and paste yourself throughout the whole four-hour bike ride or whatever it is, right? So, Tom, is your focus next year? mostly foals again. That's like your favorite distance.

It is what I really want to be good at. I'm still figuring out whether it is what I'm good at. And I'm undecided at the moment on next year. I qualified for the championship, which I'd really like to go and do just because to qualify for an elite championship, I think it's pretty cool. It's something I've always wanted in the back of my mind. so I don't really want to pass up the opportunity.

On the flip side, it's like a pan-flat course, and it doesn't really play to my strength. So I'm still going back and forth on what my plans for next year are going to be. Is that still in Samarin? Yeah. That is as pancake flat as it gets. Yeah. That being said, I've also never really done a fast, middle-distance course,

so it would be quite nice to try and set a quick time, I guess. Yeah, there's something fun about that race, just going as hard as you can. actually going 50K an hour, whatever you guys do. It's a different kind of racing, but it's definitely fun. This actually just occurred to me. So off of the announcement of the Ironman Pro series and also obviously keeping in mind that the PTO series exists, like, when you heard that announcement, how did that make you feel? Where you're like, oh, sick, this is going to be more money for me.

Or you're like, wow, I don't even, how, it sounds impossible to even get into that money. or like, were you encouraged or discouraged or, you know, what was your reaction to that announcement? My initial reaction wasn't actually anything personal. It was just, this is really good for the sport. Like, I'm so glad that this is happening and Iron Man stepping up. And the weird thing was, like, I saw the news break on Instagram because I feel like that's where I see all my news now,

news in inverted commas. RIP Twitter. But there were so many negative comments on there. Like, people say, things like, oh yeah, they're just trying to keep up with the PTO and I'm like, well, yeah, that's how the world works. Like, at least it's a good thing they're doing. Like, you don't need to come on here and then slate them for other mistakes they've made.

So, yeah, I just, I thought it was great. How it affects me personally, I think it's probably a bit too early for me to target. Like, I'd say I'd like to back myself to get into the top 50 of the overall if I really went for it. But I think the courses are going to be so dominated by people who can swim well. And I'm as much as I'm improving. I'm still not as good as I want to be and as good as I need to be. So I think I'm probably not going to target it because, yeah, it's tricky and it would also put limitations on travel because obviously there are only selected races. So I think it's just not quite worth it for me next year. Yeah, I had a pretty interesting conversation with

Devin Volk, who we swim with. He was the top age group of Kona two years ago. He finished very close to me in the St. George Wellchamps I did when we were age groupers. Nice. Yeah, he swims with us. He's like killing himself to improve his swim right now. For the same reason. He knows that that's the key. Yeah. But we had an interesting conversation about it and I think

that I hadn't necessarily thought of at first when they announced it is that if you're in that position of trying to break into professional racing and everything, this all of a sudden makes, Oceanside, for example, or St. George, which are a couple of the races that we have to pick from in our region here, even more competitive than they initially were. But the prize money at the race itself stays the same. But now you're having to beat Patrick Lange and Joe Skipper and Lionel's obviously there. And if Yon was racing, he'd be there. And it just, you know, he was, Devin was like, man, I just, like, there's only so many races that you can do. And now, like, Europeans are going to come over and try to get points up for this thing. And he was having a little bit of a, sort of. struggle with. Yeah, where do I fit into the whole overall calendar now if I'm trying to make, you know, any money at all getting seventh, fifth, fourth, you know, working way up. Yeah, no, that's definitely the flip side of it.

And I think, but hopefully what that means is that the other races, which, you know, okay, the pro series races, the prize money hasn't changed, which is annoying for them. But also the other races that aren't pro series, the prize money hasn't changed and maybe they'll be less competitive. So I think there's a flip side and that's what I'm trying. I think that's perfect for you to target those races, right? Maybe even for Eric to target those races. Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, the pro series is tricky because I think you're going to have to do three Ironmans.

Like, if you want to be on the podium at the end of the year for it, like, you got to do a lot of iron mans. And that's not my jam. But I don't know. I agree with you 100%. Like, okay, so what they're responding to the PTO? That was the whole point. That's what we're all trying to accomplish here is that the rising tide carries all ships. and the competition is good and everything.

So zero percent upset at Ironman. It's given a bunch of questions like, okay, how does this new thing fit into each person's race strategy? It'll be an interesting year to watch. Yeah, it was also just good that Iron Man released some of their pro races a bit earlier than they did last year because I'd not really appreciate it to that before,

but like trying to plan my season last year and the calendar wasn't even out in February. I was like, what's going on? Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, and flights just get more expensive. as you get closer races. That's definitely a bit of an adjustment with racing professional, I think, is like, yes, you can sign up for as many races you want with the pro sign up thing,

but you can't just plan out your season one and a half years in advance like a lot of people do. With age group racing. Well, for next year, just so the nation knows, we're going through applications now, and we kind of have it narrow down to about 10 people to have initial phone calls with, and then we'll narrow it down from there to six. And last year when we did this, it was so hard to narrow it down. Like every person has put so much work into their application, into their paragraphs and paragraphs explaining why they should be picked.

So we've enjoyed reading through them. And for our alumni team, like Tom and Mintu and Andy and Kaylee and everyone who was on it last year, we still want to offer you guys support. We're not wealthy enough. to continue financial support year after year after year. But if you guys want to keep racing in the TTL kit, we'll be able to provide you with your own kit where you can have your own look,

but still have the TTL logo and be part of the community. And obviously, you have us on speed dial if you need us anytime. And we'll be sharing, we'll be continuing to share your results in all of the things. So we want very much for people who supported the team this year and are just falling along with the development of it to, you know, see you winning Kona in five years and feel like they were part of it. Yeah, we totally recognize too. It takes more than a year to reach your potential in this sport. And our goal with the Devo team is to kind of kickstart it, but obviously not to complete that process.

It's a long journey. And we're excited to like watch you continue to improve and get better. And yeah, it's a fun thing for us to follow to from afar. So we haven't actually met you in person yet, but hopefully this year we can cross paths at some point. No, it's really sad. Yeah, that would be great. Can I just take a moment just to say thank you to everyone who supported it and bought kits and stuff? Because it was, yeah, it's absolutely crazy.

And obviously, Eric and Paula putting it together is fantastic. But to have the support of the community is like something I never imagined. It's better at the start of this year. It's kind of blown my mind. So yeah, thank you to everyone listening from me as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice.

Thank you. 100%. We absolutely, like Paul said, we do not have, you know, the means to which to like fund this completely on our own. It is thanks to TTR. Everyone who listen to the podcast watches the YouTube, bought a kit and everything. And we feel like we're just sort of the caretakers of it. Well, I think that's all we got. Tom, thank you so much for coming on.

I apologize that it took so long to make it happen, but we got the technology figured out. I think it's going to sound great. And man, we really appreciate you representing DTL this year. Yeah, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. Hopefully people are already following you,

but what's your Instagram handle so people can make sure they're following? It's Tom Davy's RTW. So the RTW stands for around the world. I'm still kind of living. Oh, cool. Oh, really nice. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And it's David. it's D-A-V-I-S is how you spell your last name? I-E-S. I-E-S. Okay, good thing I said that. Sorry. Yeah, there is another Tom Davis

who's also a British pro, so it's a little bit more than thing. Yeah, don't follow that guy. That gets confusing. That gets confusing. We went to uni together as well, so it's like... Oh, wow.

I think there were a couple times where like our friend Sam, who manages a lot of the logistics of the team, saw the other Tom racing, and it was like posting about his results, thinking it was you because she's a little out of touch with like actually what's going on more just involved directly with you guys so it was a little challenging sometimes to keep track yeah it's tricky i mean he's he's a bit more well established than me so like i always find it quite funny but

um i think it can be annoying for him and i think even on one start line he got interviewed and he got asked about cycling around the world and he was like no funny Oh, that's amazing. All right. I just went and looked at your Instagram, Tom. You have 4,835 followers at the time of this podcast recording. Everybody who's listening, go follow Tom. Let's see how high we can get that.

Let's get him to 10K. We are also going. 10K, wow. I mean, that would be amazing. I'm going to say, I don't know if that's possible, but if anybody can do it, we can do it. Nick, we get so many listens a week. If even a third of those people. I don't even have 10K.

I'm on this podcast every single. That's true. You're not even a pro, so it's fine. But also, we're going to add the links to the Instagrams of all the other development team athletes from this year down there. So go follow all of them, give them a little love and follow them on their journeys. And then January 1st, we're announcing the new team. So stay tuned for that. Speaking of staying tuned, stay tuned for the rest of this podcast as well.

Thank you so much, Tom. Maybe Tom will have you on one day to actually help us answer questions, too. That could be fun. That'll be fun. Yeah. We're going to do that for sure. Now that we got the setup dialed. All right.

Thanks, Tom. Thank you, guys. Okay, fast forward a couple of days, and we are now no longer in our individual places. We're all together in, where are we? Do we know what the name of this town is? Morgan Hill. Close enough to Morgan Hill.

Where are we actually in Morgan Hill? Might be at Morgan Hill address. I don't know, though. Well, the reason we're here is because Specialized Headquarters is here, and the keener listeners already know that Specialize also has a wind tunnel here. which they have called the wind tunnel. And Eric and Paula are testing their positions and testing some gear to make sure

that they're as efficient as possible through the air. Am I, was that all correct? Totally correct. That is correct. Today, Paula was in the wind tunnel the entire time. Actually, we woke up, we went for a swim. Pool here is wonderful. Then we went to the wind tunnel.

Paula did like seven hours straight in there. I kept track of all the data sort of anecdotally. And then Nick showed up and we went for a run. that was the day. Yeah, I mean, it took way longer than what that makes it sound like. But yeah, it was a really productive day. It was, I would say, should we do a debrief on the wind tunnel next week? Next week we'll do wind tunnel.

Okay, because I got a lot to say about it. We have a lot to say about a few things this week. So first of all, last week we, I don't know how this happened or why it happened or whatever algorithm, but there were many, many comments on the Spotify podcast last week. Yeah. And that's something that we have long felt was missing from podcast as a platform that was really nice about YouTube. Like, YouTube, Eric puts out a video.

And like that same day, you get a bunch of replies. And you kind of get a gauge for what people liked, what people were responding to. And you get this like two-way flow of information. And in podcasts, a lot of times, we know that there's people out there listening because we have the numbers, but we don't really like, I don't know, it's just not the same feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to see for you, Nick, because you love comments.

Love it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The podcast is very interesting because we can see some data, but it's like kind of spread across a bunch of different platforms and stuff versus YouTube is just like, boom, hits you in the face for better or for worse instantly. And me, at least sometimes when I get, I don't know, when I'm like, I don't know if that was good, I feel like it was good. In my mind, the comments are like, can be validating or give some good feedback on, I don't know. Just, yeah, like you said, the temperature and it feels good to actually feel like there's a real. people watching these instead of just like numbers showing up on a screen. On the flip side, I kind of like having no comments because then there's nothing to read. It's like, okay, it's out in the world and that's what it is. And if you don't like it or we said something you didn't like or you don't like how whiny I am that week, then I don't have to know about it. There are no bad comments. Right.

Yeah. Well, the way that Spotify works right now is that I have to approve the comments. They don't get automatically published. Really? I do read them all. Interesting. And there's only been like one or two that I have not published. Like overtly nasty things or something that just seemed irrelevant.

Where was what? I'm sorry if this is scratching a bad, like a wound. But like, how did we get stay in your lane Tony Hayden? That was an Apple review. Oh, review. Yes. Yes. A review.

But what I like about the Spotify comments thing, which I wish Apple would come out with something like this too, is that it's not really a review. It's just like a little interaction thing. It's like, oh, that was funny in this episode. So we really encourage people, if you are using Spotify as your platform to listen to the podcast, to leave a comment at the end if you want. I don't know if it actually helps the algorithm at all, but it certainly makes us happy. Thank you. I don't know they exist and I don't read them.

Yes, I do. And I usually will tell you guys when there's one that's, I think, especially funny. If you want to say bad things about me, I won't see it. Yeah. Well, I won't publish those anyway. But last week, we also directed people towards the Spotify podcast. for a poll. And that reminded me that there was a poll we did a few weeks ago that we also didn't talk about. So we'll talk about both. We'll leave the second one for the best. The first one

was, I don't know if you guys remember this, what sport order would be your personal preference for triathlon? So we had 224 votes and swim bike run was by far the favorite with over 50% of the votes. Really? Yes. People just fully lacking creativity. I mean, I agree. You better not put that run first. And you better not put the swim last. or I'm drowning in that water. Yeah. So I feel like it really limits your options. But there was somewhat of a consensus.

People, the favorite was run bike swim of the non-traditional ones. Okay. And the least popular of all of them was run-swim bike. I think putting bike last is also a little scary, like people sprinting across the line. That feels like it's a recipe for disaster. Yeah, I guess honestly. Especially in the amateur is. It's hard to have the bike last or first.

Because then you're mass starting a bike race Yes Yes Unless it's gravel Then it's fine I guess you could do the same thing That now a lot of races do A lot of Iron Man races at least do

Where you do the Three people start at once Or five people start at once With five seconds Separating them Yeah but how many people actually enjoy that Versus Like starting with your wave

With all the people that are your age And you kind of know what's going on It benefits people who are A little bit fearful Of the chaos of the mass start swim Yeah And it allows people that are less confident as swimmers to be a little less scared of the start. But I much prefer the mass start swims.

They're just fun. There's an energy. I feel like, yeah, you're nervous and you're scared about it. But it's also, it's like part of the thing. It's part of the thing, you know? You guys, maybe. First day of school. Maybe I'm tired, but I zero percent remember you putting that pole out.

I think you're tired. You're tired. What? Do you remember Eric? I remember us talking about this. Oh, my gosh. Was it years ago? No.

No, it was not years ago. It was a few weeks ago. Last week. Okay, so moving on to the next poll, which this was our most successful poll ever. Like I said, not that I don't think it matters. I think it's just interesting. But we said how many triathlons have you as a listener participated in? And I had the sense that there were a lot of people who had still not done one who are listening to this podcast because they're trying to learn a lot to do their first one.

Or have no intention of doing one. Or have no intention of doing one. That would be an interesting follow-up poll. Oh, do you have a lot? ever have an intention of doing one. That is a good point. Or you just like us that much. Well, everyone out there, think about what the results might be. And you might be surprised that 21.1% of the people that responded to the poll have not

done one yet. Twenty-two percent have done one to three. 23.7 percent have done four to nine. And the majority, 33.2 percent of the podcast, listeners that responded to this have done 10 plus triathlons. I thought that was a pretty interesting data point. That's really interesting. Yeah, I thought it would have skewed way more to the 10 plus. Five plus. Yeah.

Yeah. Speaking of polls, we are now Eric and I are going to debrief our sleep week. All right. Oh, my gosh. Just so you know why I'm not is because I didn't do it. Yeah. Paula didn't do it. Basically, theme of the podcast, the second half of this podcast so far is complete noncompliance

from Paula. That's right. She's in her own little world. I'm super exhausted, so it's a good thing I'm not. Seven hours in the wind tunnel. Yeah, that was a lot, Paula. But I'm interested to hear about you guys, so let's hear it. Well, first of all, let me just say, I hate Sleep Week.

I hated Sleep Week. Sleep Week was, did not jive with what I like to do in my day. I really did not like the no screens 30 minutes before bed. It was much harder than I thought it would be. And I also really did not like the locked-in sleep and wake times. but I adhered to them. I did not fail a single day. I did every day all the criteria as close as I possibly could.

My perception of it personally was that the thing that, if anything helped me, it was the going to sleep at the exact same time. Not necessarily waking up at the same time, but going to sleep at the same time every day, I think there's, for me personally, my perception is that that had the biggest benefit. What time did you choose? Well, I wanted to be earlier, but the first night I had an event and I had no choice. So it was in bed at 11.

And then I was reading until 1130. And I don't read much, but I decided to finally start reading Fellowship of the Rings. So I was reading fellowship every day. Yep. So you didn't actually fall asleep until like four. Right. I'm just like, what is going to happen to these four hobbits? Yep.

Oh, my God. Oh, dude, that's a. But like if you're. Page Turner. I feel like that's a flaw of sleep week as if like on night one you're at a concert. So 1130 is your bedtime. It's like, that's not a good bedtime, dude. Why not?

Because it's so fucking late. Well, okay, who cares? I'm going to sleep in late. The regularity is the thing here. And I got the exact same amount of sleep every night, pretty much. I guess the thing here is you don't have to wake up for work. That's the thing. If you are waking up for work, then, yeah, that's too late.

And you've got to bump the sleep time. Yes. This is the hard thing for me, though. Even if I go to bed late, I still wake up at 6 a.m. It's like just a circadian rhythm. Yeah. It's not like, oh, you've had eight hours, let's wake up. It's like, it's 6 a.m.

That's the thing. You just has you got to regulate the time you go to sleep. You guys rarely go to sleep what I would call late. Yes. You rarely go to sleep 30 minutes past your time that you usually fall asleep. That's true. That's true. Whereas for me, I have like two and a half, three hour swings of how, when I'll go to sleep.

Yeah, that's nuts. You're right. Because I'll be like, oh, I'm tired time. I'm going to sleep at 10.30. And then I'm like out at a concert till one the next night. Yeah. It's like, it just happens. So this week is really.

really hard and I had to cut social things short and set an alarm every day, which I don't normally do. So my perception was that it made no difference. But the numbers, unfortunately for me, told a very different story, both on my watch and my o'er ring, I had, well, on my o'erring, it was the best sleep I've had in like 18 weeks. Damn. And on my watch, it was the second. best I had in nine weeks, but just by a little bit. And if you take the average of all the weeks on my ordering and average of all the weeks

on my garment, it was considerably higher on both. Wow. So it really did, at least the technology was unanimous that it did have a positive effect on me. Yeah. Yeah. And before I get into mind, I guess the kicker that we, like the instant question that I had after we talked about this earlier today was, do you feel indifferent?

I do not feel any different. No. And I would have guessed that it made no difference. So I'm very surprised to see. And you had an interesting follow-up to that, though. I feel like if you were to stick with this for three weeks, that's when you would start to feel or even see some sort of interesting data in training or somewhere else.

I think it would start to have that effect. Because I always remember Paula or coach saying, like, if you miss four hours of sleep one night, that's like four nights of going to bed one hour earlier to make up for that. It's like a long process. So, I don't know. Stick with sleep week. Turn it into sleep month and maybe you're qualifying for Kona. I'm definitely not doing that.

What I'm going to try to do is be much more vigilant about going to sleep at the same time every night. But I just noticed that 30 minutes before bed, I get a lot done on my phone 30 minutes before bed and I'm not willing to sacrifice it. I remember I was going to sleep frustrated because I couldn't get the things. I had one of those. I was like, I had like three more things that I needed to Google online. We would wake up it, like, we would wake up in the morning and we'd have a text from Nick at like 11.02.

I hate Sleep Week. Yeah. Exactly. And we're waking up at six texting and back. Like, yeah, you're learning a lot about yourself, hey? Yeah. I mean, like, one of the things was no alcohol. Sleep week almost drove me to alcoholism.

That's how it felt. I was like, somebody saved me. Yeah. It's, I think that the biggest, the biggest amount of feedback we got were people with kids. impossible. Yeah, that's what I got out of them. Which is fair. You don't have to do sleep week.

Well, they just have no choice. There's no sleep week. You don't get to sleep week. It's awake life for the first four years. It's awake life. Good. You know what? Most fulfilling thing you'll do all your lives, right?

Yes. And hopefully that time period doesn't last that long. It's for you. Okay. So for me, perceptually, it didn't make a difference. But I guess it was making a difference. And I bet Eric, you're right. If I would stick with it, it would get better.

What about you? Did you perceptually feel like, first of all, did you actually think you slept better? And then maybe it's related, maybe not. Did you feel better during the day because of that? I don't know if I slept like better, but I definitely slept more. And I feel... More hours. Yeah, I slept more hours.

I was very regular with the going to bed time. I adhered to the screen thing. I would say like 90% pretty well. I have a funny story after. Stick around, guys. Without like having to modify my bed time. It was like that occurred to me. I was looking at the thing like, oh, it's 824, 825, 826.

I've got four more minutes of phone time rather than just being like, it occurred to me that I could just look at my phone until I was bored and then start a timer for 30 minutes and go to bed whenever. But I didn't do that. But looking through my data, I guess what. what I did struggle with was to cut out alcohol completely. This is just the time of the year where I enjoy, like, having a couple cocktails when we go out to dinner and, like, friends. And, like, that was my struggle where your struggle was, like, getting to bed on time and the screens or whatever. So I got it down to, like, a drink, one drink every other night. And I was trying to, I did a pretty good job of making it a couple hours before bed.

So, I don't know. That was my effort. But my sleep was. But wait, Eric, you said you slept more. Why are you not sleeping more normally? Is it because you physically cannot, or is there something about the criteria of sleep week that allowed you to sleep more? I think it was like 20 minutes, 30 minutes here and there of being, of like looking at my phone and thinking about that, how much longer to have to text. It just made my bedtime process a bit more intentional.

And so I was like going and getting in bed at 845. Got it. Because I was like, okay, well, I can't look at my phone anymore. I can't watch. I can't look at YouTube on the TV. Well, I'm bored. I'm going to sleep. There's literally nothing else to do.

For both of us, it seems like that going to sleep at a certain time is a huge impact. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's the biggest thing, for sure. One thing we didn't include in the sleep week criteria was anything about eating. Yeah, we should have. So one night, Eric was like, oh, I can't watch TV. I am doing sleep week as he was sitting on the couch eating a giant plate of pie and ice cream.

Yeah, baby. And I'm like, okay, well, you can't freaking say that that's not. He's just going comatose after the pie. I called Nick instantly. It was like, what are the rules for eating? We forgot to outline this. We did forget. Because I think that actually has an impact on me too.

I think that has like an impact on like the crazy dreams that I have. If you have a lot of sweets? I almost almost all of the time I have a snack right before going to bed. So this was a slightly more extravagant snack. Well, it's not even my fault. I was going to have a totally reasonable little chunk of. brownie and then Paula reminded me that her mom made pie like four nights ago. I'm like, yeah, I guess I got to eat the pie. It's not like this as a chore, but that's a good point. So I had the pie.

I was talking to Sarah, who's a dietitian, and she was explaining that for athletes that she would prioritize eating and not going to bed hungry for an athlete is extremely important, more important than leaving a gap. If you were hungry, you should be eating. That's a huge thing for me. If I go to bed even a teeny bit hungry. If I am like laying about to go to sleep and think, hmm, am I hungry? Like, I will be up at midnight and three going to get snacks and that is not helpful at all. And I just won't sleep as well. That's obvious. You know, if you're going to wake up from hungry anyway, then that's obvious. But I think if you're serious about your fitness, like being hungry is like, I noticed you guys are like this the day before race day too. Like you should not

be hungry, right? Like you want to be feeding yourself. Anything about hungry. Yeah, anything about hungry. So, okay, tell me about your numbers, Eric. So I'm looking at this pretty simply on the ORA app. You can just like click on your sleep score and switch to, let's see, month mode. And that's just, that's just my kind of big metric that I'm going to look at. So for me, December so far has been 77. And I don't know, sleep week's been what, half of December? Yeah. And it's at 77. Last month, November, 74. I'm just going backwards in time now. 71, 72, 65, 71, 61, 66, 69, 70.

Yeah, so clearly worse. I would say about a five to six point boost over my monthly average. Otherwise. Yeah, that is, both of us are our technology, which by the way, our technology did not know it was sleep week. No. It just is keep, it's reading the way it's reading. The sleep week is the technology is 100%.

accounting for the fact you're going to bed at the same time every day. It's like an automatic couple points. Probably. Probably. The technology was not biased. No, but what Paul is saying is interesting is there's like going to sleep at the same time every night does not guarantee you're actually getting better sleep. But maybe like ORA ring does boost your points if you go to sleep the same time every night because they want to encourage that or whatever.

Well, I mean, here's the thing. Just to finish that off. So inside of ORA ring, we're just using ORA ring. We're just using an aura ring because that's what I have. I've got total sleep efficiency, which is like how quickly you fell asleep and woke up, restfulness, the amount of REM I got, the amount of deep sleep I got,

the latency, which is how long from the time I was perceived to be. Yours is bad as, oh, yours is bad in the other direction. Mine is really bad like it's always within two to three minutes. And they say that's too fast because you're overtired. Yeah, no, this was last night and we're sleeping in someone else's guest room. But I have optimal time. timing, like the maximum score for timing. So that's still just like one of six different metrics they're coming into a count here.

Yeah, last night was optimal timing. Latency, ideal, 17 minutes, but less deep sleep. Yeah, my timing score is off the charts this week. What I will say is that when I compare my aura ring like sleep cycles to my garment sleep cycles, they're all over the place. They do not sync up. Oh, really? Interesting.

Which I've always kind of wondered about that. But the overall scores are roughly following each other. So I thought it was really interesting. And now we're going to move on to the next part here, which is we know a lot of listeners did this. So we're going to give you an opportunity to also log your data with us. And it's kind of a very unscientific roundabout way of doing it. But in the description, the show description, I'm going to put a link to a Google Forms

link where you can take a survey saying how well. Well, you did in Sleep Week, and it'll be a bunch of questions, but the two most important ones are, on a scale from zero to five, how much did you perceive that you slept better following the criteria? And then on a scale from zero to five, how much did your technology tell you that you slept better on a scale from zero to five? Yeah. Very curious.

And then next week, we'll go and we'll see how everyone did. But I wonder if people are going to have very similar effects to us. Yeah. I would assume so. I just don't think that's like a quick enough turnaround time, you know, just like training. Oh, I did some swim intervals this week. Next week, you're not faster. Yeah, I wish. I wish. Okay, well, that's that. Sleep week, I would call it. Debriefed. Debrief, very nice there. Good callback for the keen listeners. They'll remember. Yeah, sleep week is done. I never want to do it again, though. That was, that was. This is good. We got to come back to this in some point. hard. I don't know how. I think I'm going to continue this with just the going to sleep at a certain time. That's what I'm going to try to do. That's interesting. That's what I'm going to try to do. We should, we got to come up with the next challenge though. Yeah, we do need the next challenge. All right, stay tuned. Can it be something I can do too? Paul, you could have done sleeping.

Yeah, you just didn't want to. You weren't willing to undergo the pain. The suffering, the self-deprivation. No, I guys, I don't have a wearable. You don't have a wearable. What's your, where is your wearable? I don't know. Once you got the engagement ring, she stopped wearing the aura ring. Okay, now we're going to move on to. questions. And you can submit your own questions at That TriathlonLife.com slash podcast. This week we're only going to do

three, and then there's a little story too. But we're only going to do three. But you can submit your own questions there. There's also some beanies that just went up for sale. I guess it'll be yesterday for people that are listening. Oh, yeah. Yeah, these are 100% Marino

made in the USA. They're super nice. We've got the from a company in Portland, so they're like made in Portland. Really cool for us because it's an Oregon brand. and we got some samples. Absolutely love them. And they changed, they did the tags better than anyone's ever done the tags for us, I think.

It's so satisfying. A little TTL tags. Yeah. Like they're just so clean. And you never know when you're doing something with a brand for the first time. And they turned out great. So it's a bit of a soft launch because we've done a lot lately. But if you guys want an extra stocking stuff for a little gift.

Or if your head's cold, it's getting cold out there. Beanie above the ear. No. We're going to lose people on that. That's too much a tangent. Okay, so first question here. This is from Blake. Hi, mom and dads.

I'm fairly new to the triathlon world. I come from a motocross background. My question is about coaching. Is it normal or acceptable to switch coaches or at least entertain the idea of moving to a new coach when I feel I've plateaued or like my weak points aren't getting any better? Blake, great question.

Blake, I'm just so satisfied that You came from Motorcross to listening to our podcast. That makes me feel so good. Cool factor? Yeah. Up. Yeah. We should, let's see.

Let's be friends. Yeah, let's be friends. Rips some trails. I think it's totally okay to switch coaches. I have a lot in my life, but I think it could be dangerous to switch too often. Because it really takes some time to get to know an athlete and get to know a coach. Years even. You just have to see it through.

I think it's the same thing like Sleep Week. You can work with a coach for two months and you're going to be so excited to have a new program and all this stuff. And you're like, wow, I'm getting so much faster. There's like a honeymoon phase. Yeah. But I think it's going to take a whole year to see if this new philosophy is really working for you. You see it kind of on a long term scale. So I think it's just something you kind of got to commit with.

And this is like kind of comes down to comes back to just being intentional with like the coach interview phase. So you don't set yourself up for failure. Yeah. I think also if you've had a coach for a long time, sometimes the switch will re-excite you in a positive way. Like, it's not always a bad thing to have that period where you're really excited to train again and it's different. But to chase that feeling if you're just having a lull is not necessarily the best. But it's totally normal. Yeah.

Maybe too normal. And maybe for amateurs more often, do you think, or Nick? The thing that, the reason I agree with that is because there's so much more on the line for a professional. So I feel like that connection between coach and athlete is a little more sacred. And I feel like, and I don't want to misspeak. Yeah. Break up with them. Definitely.

It means more when you're breaking up with them. Whereas to a certain extent, and I might be wrong. And I've never paid for a coach. So I'm speaking a little bit out of ignorance here. But it feels like the coach athlete relationship on an amateur level is a little more like you're hiring a coach. And I'm sure that a lot of amateurs have an actual intense connection with their coach. But I feel like probably every professional has a very intense connection with their coach.

Yeah. Yeah. And at the professional level, you're working with somebody who has also dedicated their life to being the best at their craft. And that's just going to, that's a common connection point. And also just it feels that much more serious. And it's like, it's not a knock against anyone who coaches amateur athletes, but less often that person is. is just like so passionate about the sport and about making an athlete stronger

to the point of where like you need to have that deeper connection. And I see that with our coach, Paula. Like he cares so much about the athletes, the point of where he'll sometimes coach an athlete for very little money just because he like desperately wants to be involved in their process and help them be better. And that's just, that's like a high level of buy-in.

I should say, now that I think about it, I can think of a lot of examples where amateurs are like the first person they think when they have a good result is their coach. So they probably do have a really. really intense connection with their coach. But it just seems like if you're a professional athlete, like you said, Eric, like Paulo, his whole life is triathlon, where maybe a lot of amateur coaches have a regular job,

and they also coach. Yeah. Okay. Next question here is from Everett. Greetings TTRFam. I really enjoyed the camping and Cabo video. It was especially interesting since it spans such a long time frame and many locations. It got me wondering if Eric takes photos and videos for the sake of taking videos and photos,

or if some are just intended for. for the vlog, while others just for a personal collection. Has making a vlog changed how you approach your hobby of videography and photography? Thanks as always, Everett. Kind of an intense question, but... That is a deep question. I guess just right off the bat, I'll say that photography for me is still much more enjoyment-based and almost never when I'm taking the camera to go take pictures.

Do I feel like this is the thing I got to do and I'm kind of just having to do it? and it's like so much less brain function required than planning how this shot's going to fit into the overall story of this month or this week. So I don't know, it just feels lower consequence and I have a lot more fun with it. Video though has become, I don't know, it's just, it's hard to, like, shoot video for fun

because it's such a long timeline. Like, oh, I'm just going to, like, do some fun video of Flynn playing in this field. But then if I ever want to see that video, it's like this edit process and I've got to pick it out music and it's like, I need a lot of, lot of clips for that so I can't just stop whenever I feel like the box was checked while

shooting. It's, I don't know, it's just, it's more investment. We've talked about this before about how different art forms have a different amount of time that it takes from when the genesis of the idea to the enjoyment of that idea. Yeah. So like photography, it's real fast. Yeah. You get to like take the picture and even before you edit it, it can kind of look good on the back of the cameras and you're like, that's a great shot. Satisfying. Video, it takes longer, right? You do the shot. And, you do the shot. And, you get to the picture. And, it's, it's, it's And you do a few shots and you have a few different angles, but then you need to be color corrected and stabilized and music and audio needs to be redone.

And then you take something like, for me, music is even a step further. It's like, okay, it starts so abstract. Yeah. You are not capturing something that already exists. You're making something out of nothing. Like drawing might be like that a little bit. So it takes so long before you're actually able to, oh, this is, this feels like a thing. I created a thing.

And I'm enjoying the art, the aesthetic of the thing. Yeah. But I will say, like, just so everyone knows, like, Eric every day sends me, like, some kind of little film he's watching or something. Like, he does love it. He wouldn't do that if he didn't love it. He still loves it. It's just, it, like you said, it's an amount of work. It always is an amount of work. Yeah. Yeah, and I have a very hard time controlling myself. If I do shoot a thing, and then I'm like, I don't know if I'll use this for something. almost always that stuff turns out pretty good and I want to do something with it and then it gets rolled into whatever you might call work with the YouTube show. But if I didn't love it, I wouldn't keep doing it.

It's just it is so not lucrative enough. It's not like the amount of money that comes in from YouTube ads every month is just, it's hilarious. Yeah. It's hilarious. But versus how much time I put into it. Anyway, I will say the one thing for me inside a video that is still, purely enjoyment, hobby doesn't feel like work at all, and I can just go do for 30 minutes,

is flying the drone. Paula's triggered. Yeah, it's the ones that you fly with the goggles. That just is like, to me, fun, it's non-consequential. And I think it's also partly because it's so challenging. There's like a 1% chance what I'm, quote, unquote, filming. It's going to look good. I'm just like, I'm flying around and having fun.

And then if it works out, awesome. Yeah, cool. Okay, is the last question here. Actually, before the last question, I wanted to read a little story from one of our listeners. Hello, TTL team. I'm 35 years old, work full time, and I'm a father of four young children. It's been a life dream of mine to complete an Iron Man, and that dream came true two weeks ago at Iron Man, Arizona. I was just happy to finish. I feel like you all have been a part of this journey, especially with the podcast tips and general vibe you all bring.

The most impactful TTL moment for me was in the podcast before Nick's Iron Man Wisconsin attempt. He said that as hard as it is in the hardest moments, there's going to be a moment in my life, 30, 40, 50 years from that day, that I would give anything to be back in that middle of the race, suffering and being young and fit and just being in that excited moment. That spoke to me. On race day, I imagined that I was 100 years old and that I was given the opportunity to go back in time and relive that day. In my mind and heart, I was an old man in a young man's body and it helped me enjoy the race in ways you wouldn't believe. Of course, it was still hard. I was actually sick on race day and I was just praying that I could get through the race but the time traveler mindset really helped me out and I got to the finish line. I thought this might be a helpful strategy to other listeners out there and I wanted to share that with the TTL world. I do that all the time not just in racing. Really? I try to think of myself in like 50 years and I'm like if I could think, you know, be back in this moment of me trail running on this ridge at sunset with my friends being young and fit like I would love and I try to

contextualize it within that. So it's funny to hear someone else have that same kind of thought process. That's cool. Like anytime you're nervous for a race or dreading a run or extreme suffering in the middle of an activity, like this person could be a really

powerful. A little tool. A little tool to help you kind of be like, hey, I'm lucky that I get to do this. And one day I will wish I was back here. For literally, it's not just advice for amateurs. It applies across any level of athletes. or activity, right?

Yeah. The thing is I feel like you guys don't have as much trouble getting the most out of yourselves. Oh, sometimes. Yeah? Yeah. I wonder, do you have moments where you're like, what am I doing? Yes. Oh, wow.

Because I definitely have those. I'm like, why am I doing this to myself today? Four hours in T-T-T-Rase. Just in general, even in training. Yeah, yeah. For sure we have these days, yeah. Of course. Wow.

We're all the same with regards to that. But then when I think that I'm lucky enough to do this in 20 years, whatever, look back. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is hard. We all know it's really hard. The training is hard. That's what makes it good, but it doesn't take away how hard it is.

And when you're doing it, there's so many things in your brain that are just like self-preservation things of like, stop. Stop paddling. Stop running. Stop swimming. Go home. Sit on the couch. And we somehow get through it. And every time you have to start that mental battle over again.

Yes, you get momentum throughout the season, but you still, every session that you start is like, okay, here we go. I'm going to have to battle these demons once again every time. I don't have that problem. Yeah, I don't know why Eric is so... He's zen. He's so zen. I get that way with races. In some races, I'm like, what am I doing?

But in training, I don't know. I just love it. Often when I'm running with Eric, I'm like, he is just pain free. Like, nothing hurts. He's fluid. He's not trying as hard as me. I hurt everywhere. I want to cry.

It's not fair And he's like I think you deserve a chocolate Oh my gosh Oh wow I feel like this is a backstory We had a full dairy milk in the van And I brought it in

And as I was walking in I may have eaten a couple rows A couple of rows of chocolate squares And then I got in And Nick took one single square And I was like Nick you deserve a full row So I got a full row of chocolate And then Eric picks up this chocolate bar

And it's like when you pick up the milk And it's too light It's like oh no Yeah, he goes to grab the wrapper and it's like all empty except one row. Yep. So he's like, you guys suck. This row is mine. Yeah.

And now? You just gave me a piece of it. He's such a sweetie. Look at him. I know you love it more than me. Wow. The chocolate? As much as I like it.

Just like you like trathlon more than me. Yeah. And training. Wow. There you go, folks. Eric's a lover of life in general. I do love life. Okay.

And we'll move on to our final question here. after that giant derailment. Okay, high pent, which we love. I'm a frugal athlete, a rare breed I'm realizing in the world of A-Roop triathlon, and usually buy things secondhand. However, I'm looking at buying a trainer to use for winter training in Zwift. They give a lot more context, but I'm just going to skip to the question here. Are used trainers okay to buy secondhand?

What should I look for when searching for a used trainer, assuming it's Wahoo or another nice brand? if it's unlikely a huge drop-off and quality will exist in the used one. Love listening to All You Do Every Week. Thanks for running the pod. No, Nick, this is a funny sign-off. Yeah. Sincerely, not quite broke, but knows it's a slippery slope.

Yes, that's right. I thought that was funny. That's great. That was where the name is supposed to go. How did you leave that out? I mean, from our experience, I feel very, very confident saying if you were to get a Wahoo kicker, the direct drive type. That thing, we, they just last forever.

There's nothing. Well, the cassette, right? You just replaced the cassette. Yeah, you can replace the cassette, just like you replace the cassette on your bike. And they just go and go and go. We've never needed to get a new one. It's part of the reason, it's part of the reason they had to come out with a new kicker idea. Because it's like, people aren't buying them after they bought them the first time.

Like, let's make a kicker move, which is amazing. But if you buy a kicker, like, that's your kicker for your. entire career. Yeah, that's great. And you know what? When you pick one up, you can feel that they're built tough because those things are heavy. They're so heavy. Oh my gosh, I have a terrible story.

Maybe I shouldn't tell it. But I always insist on bringing a kicker. Oh, no. Oh, oh. I just wanted to tell it. I always insist on bringing a kicker in the van with us because. Damage the van. Yeah.

If we can't, like, ride on the road or I need to do a thing, I want to have a trainer. So Eric makes a real sharp turn. the kicker flies off of where it was sitting and like dented the wall of the kitchen that thing. Oh my gosh. I screamed so loud. I was so mad. And we were like in the middle of nowhere. We had to pull off and get gas.

I had to like go for a walk by myself. Blow off steam. I was so mad. Ugh. So those things are heavy. They are very heavy. And they need to be locked down if you have them in a moving vehicle. Definitely.

And that's why I was so mad. But you really need them. Like I've been with you. multiple occasions where we're in some beautiful nature, but something doesn't allow for you to ride outside, whether it's dirt roads or a slight breeze. I mean, there was one day we were in Malibu, and Eric and I are riding up these gorgeous canyons, and Paula is planted up outside of the van with her kicker just going away at her intervals. And Gail Forest winds carrying sand, like, who was not...

It was windy. That was a windy day. Yeah, but the kicker was actually... We parked right beside the beach, and it was just full of sand after. Maybe that's one way you could break your kicker, actually. Yeah, don't ride it at the beach. But in terms of on the, like, do they even come up on the secondhand market? Oh, for sure. I guess if people are like, oh, I never ride inside.

Or it's like, I'm done with cycling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, if you see one, grab it. Even if it's $300 less. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think buying secondhand stuff in general is great, and a kicker is a really good option to buy secondhand.

Yeah, I would just, maybe the one thing I would steer away from, if, I mean, now that we've done real, expressed how much we love kickers, the drive, the type where your wheel is dragging on, like a wheel on, a tire on trainer, those can get like a big old divot in them from just lots and lots of miles. I think we agree. Direct drive trainers are going to go for sure. And if you do go with a wheel on, a fluid trainer, not one that's magnetic, the magnetic units wear out really fast. I'm just saying if you can't do the direct drive train your route Yeah I feel like if someone's getting rid of a non-direct drive though it's like 50 bucks Yeah they're like someone just take this what about the rollers I mean rollers don't have the issue with like a divot from the tires because you're moving around so much

But they I would still like you're gonna want to maybe ride it a little bit or just know how many miles were put on it Because they are still typically magnetic resistance units and then also never buy those and Paula. Not-compliance, Paula. Yeah. Then just like the belts. Because they usually have a belt that's connecting the different drive drums. So making sure that those are not.

Yeah. So that's not as much of a sure bet like the director. There are some things. That's bulletproof. I think you can typically replace those soft parts. But yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Definitely get rollers. Yeah. They're cool. Yeah. Paula's just risk averse. And there's a certain amount of risk and rollers. And the watts are not. not as exact.

And, you know, there's just a lot of variables. A lot of ins, a lot of vows. A lot of what have you. Okay, well, that's our podcast. Oh, that's it? Yeah, that's Paula. I think this is going to be a very, very long podcast. And I think I'm not to go in the beginning and do a little disclaimer or something

just to say, like, hey, we're doing this interview with Tom at the beginning. Then we're going to do Sleep Week, Debrief, and then we're doing questions. Yeah, so if you want questions, go to this. If you want sleep, you go to this. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. hope you guys enjoyed the interview with Tom. It was really great to get a Devo team alumni on there.

And we are going to announce the new team on January 1st. That's our plan. That's great. Can't wait. Yeah. So we did get a lot of questions, but because this problem was so long, Nick only took three. Yeah. Just go read Lord of the Rings. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm just not a reader. So now that sleep weeks over, are you ever going to finish? I'm trying. I'm trying to read it. I want to. I want to read it. You've never read it. No, I've never read it. Oh, wow. I'm really not a reader. Are you, like, do you read at a decent speed? I'd say a, I guess I don't know. I've only ever been in my brain, but I think at a normal speed.

Okay. You're not like on chapter two. Well, the thing is, I read a lot during the day, like, on Reddit or whatever. I know this doesn't count. You read it? But a book is different. And I noticed myself, like, I'm not into that kind of thing as much, but I want to read the books. Everyone has read those books.

It's a right of passage, man. A few years ago, I read all the Harry Potter books, which I had never read. and they were nice, but I felt like they were a little more for kids. Yes. And Lord of the Rings feels a little more mature. Maybe still for kids, but a little more mature. I've never read Lord of the Rings. Yeah, so I'm giving it a shot.

I read it twice. Yeah. Nick, if you finish before January 1st. It's impossible. Impossible. January 1st of 2025. Because that's the goal. It's not impossible.

You got like two weeks. Yeah, I'm reading like four or five pages a night. Okay. Okay, so you are a slow reader. Okay. I'm a little reader, okay? Make fun of me for it. I'm sensitive about it.

Okay. Thanks, everybody. Good night. Bye.