That Triathlon Life Podcast - Welcome to That Triathlon Life Podcast!

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

Breaking the ice and getting into the waters of podcasting, Eric Lagerstrom and Paula Findlay use their professional triathlete wisdom to shed some light on endurance training, dog ownership, winter living in Bend OR, and much more in the very first episode of That Triathlon Life Podcast. They are joined by their friend Nick Goldston, who is a songwriter/music producer and an overly excited amateur triathlete. Thanks for being a part of our first episode!

Hey everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. Episode number one, I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Erica Lagerstrom. And we have our good friend Nick Goldston as the mediator of this conversation. I'm like the ref in a boxing match here. I just try to separate you guys when it gets too heated. Basically what we thought was that if Paul and I were just talking, we might miss some things that, you know, were not obvious or whatever. So Nick's here to like ask real-time questions as the every man in Toronto. Yeah, it's like when they say, oh, you know when you just go for like a nice easy run at 730 pace? And I'm the one that has to say like, that ain't easy for everybody.

Yes, you're more a realistic example. What we're doing now is we're trying out podcasting. We obviously have the vlog, which I'm sure a lot of you who are listening now already watch. And Eric and I are both pro triathletes. But we thought it would be cool to start a vlog or start a podcast so we can answer some of your questions that we've been asked on Instagram on YouTube. Nick is actually a very accomplished musician, Grammy nominee, and he's helping us with a lot of the audio logistics. Also a triathlete. Also a triathlet. But podcasting, you want the sound quality to be good. So Nick's kind of handling that side of it and really helping us out with that. So hopefully it sounds super pro. Sprinkle some magic on there. Yeah. Yeah. Really, we've thought about doing a podcast and talked about it as a far out concept for a while. But Nick is the one to thank for this actually happening. He'll be editing it. And he pushed us over the brink to at least have a little call here and talk and see what happened. I feel like I intercepted this idea into Eric's mind like a year ago and it has slowly infected his

brain until a week ago. He's like, bro, we should do a podcast. I'm like, yeah, we should do a podcast. That's a great idea. So the format, we want to keep it pretty casual, kind of at a conversation, because when the three of us talk, we're really freaking hilarious. So hopefully you guys think that too. Yeah, according to us, we're freaking hilarious. I don't know if anyone else thinks are hilarious. Exactly. But also sharing some knowledge at the same time. We've both been doing triathlon for 15 years, Nick, a little less than that, but still a long time. So we have a lot of experience. We can share basically tips on everything. Doesn't even have to be triathlon related. Could be dog related. Could be music related. Could be coffee related. So send your questions our way post episode and we can hammer into some of those. That email address for now is going to be That Triathlon Life brand at gmail.com. Yeah. We may change it eventually, but that's what it's going to be.

And to be clear, Paula will be answering those emails. There's not a, we don't have a secretary. Are you saying you didn't hire someone? Doesn't that happen sometimes? Don't people like message in on Instagram? They're like, they're like expecting to talk to some employee. And it's just like Paula. They'll like email and be like, my package is lost.

I don't know what's going on. Like who sent it? And Paula will be like, hi, it's Paula. And they're like, oh, I mean, it's totally fine. Don't, it's not a big deal. Yeah, I am customer service on TTL. I'm pretty good at it too. I think you crush it.

You do great. Yeah. Learning on the job. So, like, I think it'd be sweet if we just, like, set the stage here for, like, what exactly what's going on. Like, Nick, you're down in Tucson at the moment, which we're not in Tucson this year, but that's, like, becoming the new triathlon hotspot. It's a hub.

Are you, like, you swimming with Lionel? Are you doing, like, Mount Lemon reps with long? I'm trying to give him a few tips. for Lionel. And then I'm trying to get Sam's mileage up because I feel like he doesn't run quite enough. That's true. You know, those 26 mile training runs are just not going to cut it. He needs to up that. Those are rookie numbers. No, I'm not. But Talbot, you know, we're all friends with Talbot. Talbot's supposed to be here at some point. And I'm trying to at least hang out with him for a bit while he's here. But yeah, Lionel is, I think he's in Oro Valley. The first week I was here, I was up in a place called Oracle. And now I'm in like, Tucson proper and Oro Valley is right between those two. It's right near Mount Lemon. You can kind of see the backside of it. It seems really beautiful. But when I drove by it, I was kind of surprised

that Lionel was there. It's kind of like no man's land a bit. I think that's why he likes it. It's just out there. There's like nothing to get distracted with. He's just like on a turning compound and like their roads are pretty open on that side. I'd say the only downside to being in Oro Valley is it's quite a drive or long ride on the bike path to get to the base of Mount lemon. It for sure is. I feel like I kind of assume that anywhere you were in Tucson, it's like, yeah, Mount Lemma's right there. It's going to be like 15 minutes away. It's like, it can be like 45 minutes away to the base of that road. Yeah, it's pretty far to get out there. But it makes it easy to do a three or four hour ride in Tucson because you're commuting out to the mountain.

But I think Oro Valley's good because it's close to the pool, which is Simon, or I don't know why we're talking about Lionel so much right now. We're five minutes and we're already talking about Lionel. How did this happen? But that's where the pool is and he swims with Aquabelle. So, Eric and I usually set up camp in Tucson for at least a few months in the winter, but we recently bought a house in bend. And although it's winter here and it's snowing, we are recently very serious skiers. So we're not going to Tucson because you can't ski in Tucson. Very, very serious skiers. Yeah, I wish I could agree, except on the mountain bike ride I went on the other day.

It was tons of snow at the top, which I was not hoping for. Yeah, there is snow in Tucson. Have you gone after my QOM yet at Mount Lom? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just, I'm trying to, my goal is to do exactly twice the time that you did. I'll probably still have to die, turn myself inside out to do it. No, that was a joke. But there is snow at the top.

It got really cold last year when we were doing it. Yeah, you have to pack a jacket for the way down, for sure. Well, that's when I did, so I did the backside of Mount Lemon, which was, it used to be the only road up there. It's a dirt road. I did it on a full suspension mountain bike, which probably wasn't the best tool for the job. But I did it there and got to the top, and it was so much snow and so much mud. And then I looked later and no one had done it yet in the past like three weeks on Stravas. So I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm an idiot.

This is not the time of you ever to do that ride. Yeah, I think Heather and Wadi do that in the middle of summer, but not the winter. Apparently there's a race. There's like a gravel race that goes up to the back, up to the top. Oh, that'd be epic. Sign me up. Yeah. It took me about six hours.

So not the, I don't know, it was pretty gnarly. It was to see 400 feet of climbing. It was more than I was hoping for it. Yeah, that's a lot. Oh, man. Well, right on. So we're here in Bend. There's not actually snow on the ground or anything,

but just to wrap up our what's going on right now situation. We just came from Lindsay's house, Lindsay Corbyn, and we just filmed our first hazel and blue special for the vlog. So this Sunday, which is probably the Sunday past, when this podcast comes out. We're going to have a very awesome cooking show with Lindsay Corbyn. People don't know what Hazel and Blue is, though. Hazel and Blue is Lindsay's cooking platform, I guess.

She makes recipes. She takes beautiful photos and posts them on her Instagram, Hazel and Blue. So it's a little bit of cross-promotion. Like we're putting her on DTL, hoping her followers see us. We see them. Well, she's near and dear to our hearts, right? Oh, she's a really good friend of ours. Yeah, we see them like three times a day.

and the dogs are best friends. So it just was a natural fit. Yeah, well probably, once we get done here, we'll jump on Strava or Zwift, and we'll go for a little bike ride, and we'll probably meet up for a dog date. And then we'll have the dinner that we cooked, which is magnificent.

Yeah. We're like, we're banding together to train in the wintertime and make it through and with positive vibes right now. Well, the other nice thing is that you guys are into skiing, but she can do the skiing too, right? And she's actually a really good skier. is a ski champion. Go watch our January 1st video from when we skied together.

Like racer, race status. So a lot of people are asking, like, why are you staying in bend when the weather's not optimal? And my philosophy on winter training is that it's really nice to have seasons because it forces you to build slowly into the season. And at least for me, like my key races are not till the summertime. So if I was living in Australia or even in Tucson right now, training for five or six hours a day, I feel like my chances of getting injured or burnt out or whatever by the summer is pretty high. I totally understand going all in right now for people that are racing St. George in May. But for people like Eric and I, who's, you know, our most important races aren't until later, I think the winter really allows you to slowly build into your fitness and in fun ways too by doing a bit of skiing and cross-country skiing.

Yeah, it's also like really important to weigh like the difference and like stress level between being at home. And yeah, you're riding on the trainer indoors versus like having to find a place to stay in Tucson and pay that rent and bring your trainer down there and figure out the pool situation. Figure out what routes are best from the door and everything. Like that can be like a couple of weeks before you really feel like you're in a routine and it's low stress again. Yeah, speaking of routines. We were talking about that the other day and we have such a good routine here. We know the pool is always available. We swim at eight with a good group every day.

We have our trainers set up so we can walk out to the garage and they're ready to go. And yeah, the setup time to get that all dialed in a different city is just a huge obstacle. And part of the reason we move to Ben is because we love it here and we want to be here. So we're sticking it out for the winter, at least for now. What is the pool situation there? Like how many people per lane? Do you have to book it in advance? You can just show up and jump in?

No, right now it's just open to anyone. And not a lot of people swim in the winter here. They put the bubble on the pool. So it's usually an outdoor pool, but it's indoor in the winter. And always get a lane to ourselves. So it's pretty luxurious. That's right. I normally, for people who don't know, I live in Santa Monica, and it is very rare.

I have to book it four days in advance. And it has to be like at odd times of the day. And you definitely are not getting the land to yourself. You've got to call the State Department. You've got to ask the governor for permission. I need a letter from Biden saying that I'm good to swim. So I'm surprised it's still like that, though, since... It's not as bad as it was before.

It was so bad at the beginning that there would be days where I just... It's like, if I'm swimming Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I wouldn't be able to swim Monday or Wednesday. Wow. Like, I would be there. You would have to wake up at 7 a.m. to book the time. Even if you were at 7-0-000-0-0, it would book up and you wouldn't have a lane. And then then you would still have to share it.

That's crazy. Holly Lawrence actually messaged me a few weeks ago, if we were going for camp anywhere because the pool is difficult in Santa Monica. And I was like, really? I can't believe the pool is still difficult. You're welcome to come to Ben, but it's snowing. She swims at the pool I swim at sometimes. I think usually she swims somewhere else, but I've seen, it's just a great location in Santa Monica College. And it's really, it's outdoors, the pool's really nice, so people want to swim there all the time.

Yeah. Even if you're not a triathlete. Yeah, even if you're not a triathlete, yeah, exactly. Do we have some questions we could ask each other to fill the, fill the time? Nick, come up with questions. Okay, you ready? This is when Eric sent me yesterday.

He's like, this is when I get a lot. Is that a GoPro? What settings are they? Is that a GoPro? Yeah, yeah. What kind of espresso machine do you have? That's a good one, actually. Yeah, yeah.

Like, we definitely get, I definitely get a fair amount of questions on like the camera settings and like what GoPro is that. You have the 10. Is that, you know? And to be honest, like, I've gotten kind of into this new. GoPro has a 360 camera. I won it doing this downhill sort of downhill mountain bike race thing

and I wouldn't have bought it otherwise, but since I had it for free, I've been trying it out. Oh, I didn't realize you won it? Yeah. Wait, was that the one that you had your full face on and you had that big drop that you took the picture of? Yeah, full face and spandex. That's awesome.

They're like, this guy's, what a kook, and then you end up doing well. Well, I won the uphill part. There was like a two-minute climb. I won that. I didn't win the downhill. Classic triathlete. I got third overall.

That's great. That's really great. No, it was super fun. But anyway, you can use that in such a way that it just uses one of the two lenses that the 360 camera has, and it keeps it really, really stable and the horizon level and stuff on one side. So when I ski, when we're skiing, it's like all I can do to just, you know, stay upright and point the camera in generally the right direction. And that is actually, like, that's kind of a little bit of a hack that not a lot of people

know right now. so it's like it's called hero mode right yes hero mode on the GoPro max right so yeah if you just need like ultimate dummy proof that's that's the way to go but so when you do that do you not have access to the footage from the other camera like it fully is only recording on one side fully just recording one side but then it's you don't have to worry about it like a traditional 360 camera you'd have to do this extra editing step to so that's what's going to ask you when you can you just drop if you just drop that footage into a final cut for example does it what does it look like Is it even usable?

So Final Cut is like iMovie. It's a video editing software that I used to edit the vlog. And yeah, when I pull that stuff off of the camera, it looks really good straight away. I might change the color on it a little bit. But for the most part, that's the way where I put my focus on video stuff these days is anything that will make the process faster. It doesn't necessarily need to look way better. It just needs to be doable so that we can keep training and not let the video stuff get in the way of training too much. And still put out an episode a week, right?

That's still a kind of a crazy thing to be able to do while still having being a pro triathlete trying to train, having the brand, creating new products. You know, Paula's doing the customer service stuff, but it's like, it's constant. And you have a dog too. And now we have a podcast. Now we podcast. Let's add to it. And just so everyone knows, this is take two of the podcast in 12 hours because these boys weren't happy with the first take. So just so you all know, this is like a huge.

It was just me and Eric singing 80s jams, and Paula thought maybe that's not the right thing to do. Now, the first one was a little bit too formal and Q&A style, which I think we naturally get into when there's a microphone in front of us and someone's asking us questions. But we really, our goal for this is to keep it a little bit more conversational because, like I said, we're very funny. And if you're just answering questions, it's not as interesting. Yeah, I think after the first one, I messaged Nick and I was like, that podcast sounded too much like a podcast. we need to relax. I'm like, excuse me? Yeah.

I think what will make a big difference is when we have people, and Eric, you and I are talking about this, when we have people asking questions that aren't from us. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this first one we're just getting it going, but ideally, like, we'll get a couple questions this week from people that listen to this,

and we'll be able to answer them. And, yeah, hopefully help somebody learn something through this one process. Well, let me ask you a selfish question here, since I'm in Tucson for another week, and I need to ride a mountain by. ride this afternoon, where would you recommend for someone of medium fitness to go have fun for like an hour and a half? I know you guys have never brought your mountain bikes here, but maybe you have some... The bike path. That's all there is. That bike path. It's both in like a true Paula

Finley. So Tucson, yes, to be fair, Tucson is very much about the bike path. It's like a hundred mile bike path that circumvents the city basically. Oh, I didn't realize that. And like the nice thing about it, you can pretty much go have an air pod in, I say an air pod, and like just cruise around and listen to a podcast and not really have to worry about cars or anything for this podcast is what you should be listening to uh for hours right you can just like you can do that we yeah but we don't really know much about about the mountain bike situation but i think kind of like uh oh what's that tortellita preserve like that sort of direction honeybee canyon we've run there and i think you can like mountain bike at honeybee can yeah go to honeyby canyon it's a bit of a driver you guys were

saying too you can it's not a mountain bike but that paved road goes all the way up that is a very cool road ride. Yeah, some days of the week you can ride your bike up, but cars aren't allowed. And it's very scenic. Yeah, not one day and Friday, I think. I saw that yesterday. And right now, there's so much water that there's like a bunch of places where water actually runs over the road. Yeah. So very cool. Yeah. Very cool. Very adventurous. So where's Flynn right now? Why is he not on the podcast contributing? He's exhausted from squeaking his toy nonstop during the Hazel and Blue cooking show. Classic. Perfect timing. So I apologize to everybody who watched that. And broke the speakers on their TV.

At least the Corbyans also have a dog. It's funny because Chimmy has a bin of toys. Jimmy's the Corbyn's dog. Chimmy is the Corbin's dog. And every time Flynn goes over to their house, which is pretty often, it's like Christmas morning because he's like, wow, these are all new toys, brings every single toy downstairs, like all 20 of them. So it's kind of a zoo.

But they have such a good time. So how often do you guys work out with Lindsay? I mean, I realize that most of your relationship is you're just hanging out. But Paul, how many times a week do you, or month, do you work out with Lindsay? We swim with Lindsay at five days a week. And then a lot of the time is spent just like commiserating about the workouts we have upcoming and then doing them separately. So we're like, oh, I have a two hours swift dread.

How much can we all relate to that? Yeah. So I think when it gets warmer out, we can actually ride outside. We end up training together a lot more. But Zwift season is a solo mission. and then just knowing that she's on Zwift as well makes it easier. Yeah, we swim together pretty much all the time. Our MO is that like our swim coach, Paulo, our triathlon coach, Paulo, gives pretty specific swim workouts and cares about them.

And most triathlon coaches are like, as long as you go to the pool. So it's just like, I think everybody like Heather for a while and I know Lindsay is like probably written on our schedule like swim with Eric and Paula. And then we'll like go try to swim with like the master's group occasionally. so we don't have to bring the swim workout and get a little bit of a surprise. But it's an awesome little crew that we have. What do you think the chances of your coach Paulo listening to this podcast out of zero to a million? Zero. Probably pretty close to zero.

He doesn't watch our YouTube show at all unless somebody tells him he was in it or something like that. He just tolerates our media presence and knows that it is. I don't even think he would watch it if he was in it. I think he's like so not about it. in such a funny way. Yeah, he'll, like, roll his eyes big time at, like, if he even hears that we tried a podcast. But I think he also realizes that social media is, like, part of the job these days. That's how we make a lot of our living.

So, as much as he cringes about it, it's tolerated. Yeah. I mean, for us, anyway, and, like, people who, like, just the year of COVID was a really, really hard time for any professional triathlet. And for us having the show to be accountable, to do something every week, and like it helped actually build our value for sponsors in terms of exposure and everything. Like, if we didn't have that at all, like, I know there's a lot of people that had a really, really hard time financially and just motivationally getting through that whole period. So it's, it is good to have something that's a little bit tangential that isn't just training that can, yeah, build your brand and just give you something to do. Well, we were talking about this recently. We were talking about how for most people, triathlons, a nice escape from their jobs and their life because it's so objective.

And things are very measured. And when you do the same race a year later and you go faster, it's just proof that you're putting in hard work and it's working out. I feel like a lot of age groupers, we like that. But for you guys, it's the exact opposite. You have this objectivity present in your life perpetually. and the show is a way to do something that's not objective, that's more abstract and artistic. How much do you feel like that is part of why you enjoy it

and not just another way to keep yourself financially afloat, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we didn't start it initially at all with financial means in mind. I mean, if we were to put our YouTube income out into the public space, I think some people would cry on our behalf. for the amount of hours that we put in relative to how many pennies you get per view. It's pretty dismal. But like you're 100% right.

Like triathlon, we've been doing it long enough that we obviously love it. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. But it is our job to a certain extent. And those first few years you're in triathlon, you get really quick gains and it's really exciting. But then you like the rate at which you improve and stuff later in your career is much, much slower, much less exciting. And then, yeah, having the show to work on, having our, brand being able to design a t-shirt and just talk to people on the internet and hopefully it races is a great yeah little escape from that the frustration that you could be feeling of

not getting a little bit faster this week or just being tired and doing your job man that reminds me of when we went to st george um and it was i think the first time that you guys had done a race since the show had to become really really popular okay i just want to back up one second and say we went to st george nick is like our our groupie slash road help slash cheerleader. Like, we bring, serenades us with his guitar. Every race that we've brought Nick to and he stayed in the house with us has gone super well.

That's not true. Now it is. I got seventh at world championships and then the next one you came to Oceanside, Paula won that one. So you just, you set a good vibe. Continue with your story. That's true. Well, I try.

I try. And it's obviously extremely fun for me to see what it's like. Having done races myself to see, I mean, people listening, you guys would not imagine how different their race week is than ours. I mean, it's, it's constant. They go from thing to thing to thing, still have to get workouts in and then have to be like cool, calm and collected enough on race day to do well. It's wild. Yeah, we're amazing. I agree. Pile it on. Layer it on thick. But what were you going to say about St. George? Oh, I was I was going to say the first time since the show had done well. Yeah. And in the work that I do, I'm sometimes around people who have a very big

fan base, but it's a very different kind of fan base than triathletes. Like, every one of these people that came up to you guys, no one was like full on fan girling, but they all knew who you were. They're like relating to us. They felt like you guys were friends already, you know, and you've never seen them or maybe even read their name ever. Yeah. But people come up to you and they say, oh, hey, Erica. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, these people know each other. Right. But it's not. It's just like there's a sense of community in triathlon that I think that's another really, really fun part about the show is that you go to, as you two, you go to these races and not only do you two have this like sense of community, but other people with like that triathlon life gear, they

see each other and they're like, okay, we're part of the same tribe too. You get it just like how I get it. And creating something like that is really cool. And the fact that it comes from sport is it's kind of a funny birth of that. But it's such a cool marriage of the two things. Yeah, that's kind of ultimately what we did it for in the first place. And maybe not to the extent that it's grown. That wasn't our intention. But you're right. It's totally the sense of community and less to be celebrities at races. We want people to feel like they can approach us. And I think the style of our videos, how we're pretty honest about things and casual in a lot of ways does make people feel like they know us and can come up and have a conversation at a race, which we kind of have to control a little bit. Like pre-race day, our time and manage our energy. But we have to have to. absolutely love it. And honestly, it makes up for if you have a bad race, seeing everyone and seeing all the TTL gear, it's like, okay, we have a purpose that's kind of bigger than just winning. So it's not like, it's not like if you saw Trixie on the street, you know, you'd be like losing your mind. Because she's so famous. That's, that's not us. Yeah, that's,

that's, that's what I was thinking of is when I'm, I'm with, one of my best friends is, is a recording artist and a drag queen. And I produce a lot of our music. And when we go around in public, that when people see her and recognize her, it's not like when people see her recognize you. It's an overwhelming, like they feel like they just saw, I don't know. Trixie Mattel. Like a unicorn. It's amazing. They scream and yell and they're hysterical. And they come over and they like try to take a picture, but they're like fumbling with their phone because they're so like shaken up by it. Yeah, yeah. Different fans.

It's very strange. But the funny thing is that Trixie is just as calm as you guys are when people, it's just like, it's fine. It's no big deal. Yeah. Just deals with it. I love Trixie. Wow. Can we get her on the pod? Oh my God, of course. You know, it's funny. She has her own podcast with another drag queen Katia. And I made the music for the podcast on that. So I feel like I could leverage that somehow be like, listen, I did this for you. Now you come on my podcast. Yes. I'll be curious if this moment, if there's like one person who's having an, oh my gosh, that we're talking about this moment.

We know that those people are out there. The Venn diagram of Trixie Mattel fans and TTR fans are two circles that are like miles apart from each other. But sometimes there's someone who knows both and they're like, what is happening? The drag queen fans and the triathlon fans are not the same. Usually no overlap there. No overlap. Very funny. It's like me and three other people. Yes, and me.

Paula and Eric being two of the three other people. But you know what? Trixie's a, Trixie always, Trixie has TTR gear that she wears on runs and like post them on her Instagram where she has like over two million followers of. And so sometimes people will comment and be like, oh my God, how do you know what TTL is? My worlds are colliding. Yeah, yeah. That's good. No, I think she would do it. She's really, I got her into running and she loves, loves running that. More than her family. What was her thing? She posted on Strava. She's like, I love running more than my friends and family. She ran more miles than I did last year. She ran over 1,000 miles. Yeah, I'm so impressed by her running. And she has like, I don't know, 100 Strava followers and 2 million Instagram followers. So I just follow her on Strava. Give her the likes on Strava. Kudos. A little more exclusive, you know. Way more exclusive. And I actually love how we didn't have.

an outline for this podcast, but we've been talking about Trixie for five minutes. Yeah. We talked about Lionel. You know, we talk about Lino for five minutes. We're talking about Trixie for five minutes. This is the podcast where we don't talk about us at all. Yeah. Yeah.

That's great. I was going to ask you one thing. For you guys, is Lindsay still focusing on full distance? Lindsay Corbyn, Iron Man Champion? Is she still focusing on like full distance stuff? And if so, like, do you, is it weird when you guys do stuff together or are 70.3 and full distance close enough where it doesn't really matter if the specificity isn't

bang on. I would say it's not that hard. Like some days she'll have six hour rides and no situation like it's just not going to work. But some days she'll have like a middle distance ride four hours. You know, that's got like no structure to it and we'll maybe have a

three and a half hour ride and we just step it up a half hour to make sure that we can go together. You know, that kind of a thing or we'll jump in for the first part of her long ride. But like as far as like the quality sessions, there's almost no quality sessions that overlap. She's got like three by 40 minutes and we've like two by 15. But swimming is swimming. So we can all swim together and it doesn't matter. I like swimming and swimming. You sound a lot like most of the coaches Eric was talking about. Just like,

yeah, yeah, yeah. Just go to the pool. Yeah, it's so funny. It's like, okay, for the on the bike, you're going to go two and a half minutes at this many watts and 30 seconds at this many watts. I don't care what you do in the pool. Just go swim. I'm very lucky. The plan that I follow, which is not like I don't have a coach. It's just like one of the ones you can buy on training peaks. All the swim stuff is super structured, which for me, I totally need that.

Because if you tell me just go out and swim 3K, I 500 and I'm just like, it's been two hours. Yeah, you got to have the structure. Oh, dude, for sure. I mean, we bring the swim workout and everything. So like, there's still structure, but absolutely no one out there.

Like, if you can, if you can just go and swim 4K straight, like, wow, good for you. Oh, so you're saying even these pros that don't have their coaches prescribed workouts, they are designing some for themselves. I think they're just saying go swim with the master's group. If you're swimming with a group, like it's going to have some structure. And as long as you're in there for like four plus kilometers, it's going to be okay. Right.

You just need some like general fitness. Okay. To wrap up this pod, number one, I have three sort of quick fire questions for each of you. And you just have to answer them. Paula coming in ready. Unexpected. Player two has entered the match. Wow.

And quick fire, like they don't have to be one word, but I don't want you to think about it. And I don't want you to drag on because we want to wrap it up quick. Great. Great. Love it. This is curveball. Eric, first one's for you. Describe to a six-year-old what your job is.

Run fast. I play all day for a living. Yeah, pretty. Because that's what six-year-olds do, right? They swim and they bike and they bike and they run. Yeah, you're like very in the moment. If you see your bike, if you see your bike sitting there, you go ride your bike. If you just want to run across the street, get a ball, you do that. You just playing all day. Yeah. Playing all day, making movies. Yeah. Okay, Nick. What are three words that describe you the best? Optimistic, motivated. This is two words, but easily excited. Excitable. Golden a tree word. Nick is a golden. I'm a golden retriever, except Eric thinks golden retrievers are dumb, so. That's true.

They're not dumb. They're not dumb. They're just, they're so in the moment that they can't. Like, there's no long-term thinking that can fit in there. Just right now, right now, right now. Pleasure machine. Yeah. I don't know.

I kind of relate to that a little bit, maybe to a fault where I'm always trying to have fun. Dude, it's a great way to be. It's a great way to be. Yeah, you open yourself up to maybe a little disappointment or getting like screwed sometimes. But it's like. Right. Just be in the moment. Wait, Paula, what about you?

You and three words. This is dragging on. This is dragging on. These are quick fire questions. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry, so sorry. Eric, you're next. What is your most unhealthy habit?

We all like to be healthy. What's your most unhealthy habit? Obsessiveness. I agree. Like once I start on a thing, even if it's late or I miss a meal, like I just can't stop until it's done. It's like very ADD or ADHD-ish. Nick, next question for you. This is a hard one because you're so talented,

but what is a talent you wish you had that you don't have? Oh, man. Are you just totally happy with your level of... No, I mean, I am very content with myself, but I have many, many shortcomings. But if I had to pick something, I think, like mental organization, for me to be organized, I have to write stuff down and follow it. And without that, I can just lose an entire day.

Yeah. that's that doesn't I mean that's not unusual though I feel like I feel you need to write things down but it's not a bad thing check them off actually I and I'm just a horrible memory like I don't even know where I am I why is there a microphone in front of me because you're a golden retriever you forgot that's right again golden retriever Eric Eric what is your favorite meal of the day that's Flynn barking in the background the next meal of the day is his favorite meal of the day it's always 20 minutes away Probably breakfast. Totally. Why don't you enlighten the TTL Nash here what your breakfast is? Because you have a concoction of cereals that you... Yeah. Right now.

Right now, the baseline, the bottom of the cereal bowl is Quaker Oatmeal squares. The next level is Rice Krispies. The next level is a concoction of granola that Paula just puts into the granola bin and I take out of the granola bin. Magically. Then we got some flaxsees. and we've got some raisins. So that's five-layer cereal. It is a serial...

Patented Eric Lagrosdrum. Serial parfe. Wow. Cereal parfe. Oh, and almond milk or oat milk, whatever's in the fridge. Right. You know what?

I'm so excited that Flynn's barking because it means that my package is here, which is my new cross-country skis. So perfect timing, mailman. So are we going biking? No, I have one more question for Nick, which is a hilarious question because I already know the answer. How often do you talk to strangers?

Oh my God. Every time you see you. I may have the record in the United States. I'm not sure. We're like walking through Walmart in Tucson or like not too. We're walking through Walmart in St. George. And Nick is like, we can't get out of there because Nick's just talking to every person. Like, oh, do you like the, I love those red apples.

Those are the greatest apples aren't. I'm like, dude, geez. It's one of your best qualities. I wish I was more like that, being able to just talk to anyone and be. engaging. Like, if we ever bring Nick to dinner with friends, I never have to worry about them. Yeah, I don't have to tell my girlfriend because it's one of her least favorite traits about me, because we can't go anywhere. Without you talking to people. It's definitely, it's definitely one of my favorite things in life personally is just talking to strangers. Yes. Having watched you in

action, you are so good about being interested in whatever it is. Like, if it's a motorcycle carburetor, if it's like rooftop farming, you are so good at making that, Like you seem genuinely interested. Well, that's the secret. That's what's easy is that when someone else is excited about something, I get excited about it. So I don't have to fake it. Pretty much any topic I think, if someone's really excited about it, I want to hear about it. Yeah, that's cool.

Very cool. That is a great way to end this, I think. Yeah. Like just be interested in what other people have to say. Be a good listener. Listen to this podcast. Submit your questions, preferably fun questions. Yeah.

Once again, that email is that triath. long life brand at gmail.com. All right. Yeah, submit the question so we don't have to just rapid fire Google questions. Thank you guys. Well, this episode one, I think our idea is to do like maybe once every two weeks. Yeah, ideally. Yeah.

We'll see how this goes and see what it feels like. See what the, see how the, see how T.T.L. Nash responds to it. Is there a way to see on podcasts how many listens you get, similar to Instagram? Yeah. Yep. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah.

So we'll be tracking that. Yeah. Basically, we just, we need some sort of a positive response on this. before we try to stumble through it again, embarrassingly. Yeah, so just, you know, we'll know. Just Venmo me, and that's how we'll know that it's doing. However much money is a Nick's Venmo account. That's how we'll know.

All right. Thanks so much, guys, for watching. Thank you guys. Thank you, guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Peace. Ciao.

Later.