That Triathlon Life Podcast - When physical therapy works, when to use swim skins in a triathlon, and more!

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

This week, we dove into a variety of listener-submitted questions (and a few rabbit holes). We discussed:How Eric’s PT for his labral tear is finally workingAt what distance a swimskin becomes worth itUsing music in videos and reels without infringing on copyrightAvoiding chlorine rashHow pro athletes recoverHealthy snacks for a hungry triathleteHow to get tickets for Eric and Nick’s film, Look for Things Where You Can Find ThemA big thank you to our podcast supporters who keep the podcast alive! To submit a question for the podcast and to become a podcast supporter, head over to ThatTriathlonLife.com/podcast

Hey, everyone, welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Logstrom. I'm Paul and I are coming to you live yet again from Tucson, Arizona. Nick's at home in Santa Monica. Paul and I are both professional triathletes. Nick is a professional musician, great friend of ours, mature triathlet. And on this podcast, we fuel it almost entirely off of questions from you, the listeners. So thank you so much for keeping this alive. But we do kick off with a little bit of funness at the beginning. So buckle up. Here we go. Eric, training in Tucson as a triathlet, overrated or underrated? I think it's overrated because it's so highly rated right now.

How could it ever live up to the expectation? Paula, what do you think? You can't beat the weather in terms of a location. The riding is, meh. I mean, it's fine. It's good. Is it good? Because I don't get the sense that it is very good.

Every time you guys talk about it's like, well, there's Mount Lemon and there's the cool bike path that goes around the city, but you can't really do efforts on that anyway. Well, we do not to bring out the shootout, but that ride is amazing. It's totally passable. And like, depending on where you're coming from in the country or the world or whatever, like it could be way better than you're riding at home or it could be significantly worse than you're riding at home. But it does have the great built-in Mount Lemon, which is fantastic for doing intervals. I would argue that it's about as stimulating as the trainer, but it's like a perfect, beautiful grade. They've repaved some of it.

It's way more interesting than the trainer. Okay. So anyway, it's, but it's like such a completely perfect, consistent grade. It's not like a European like variation in grade. It's just like 3% perfectly forever. So yes, fantastic training environment. It is a little bit challenging to stay like close to Mount Lemon, but also be close to a swimming pool. and be close to like good soft running surface. So you do end up having to drive a fair bit. But I think for like this time of year for being in the sun, it's hard to beat.

I would say I prefer Ventura significantly. But this is also going to, it's got a lot going for it. Can't lie. I was actually thinking about this today while I was at the pool, something Paula you had mentioned to me over text or actually, I think we were on FaceTime. And you were saying how there was this coach who was saying for an age

grouper, the amount of times that an age roper swims per week cuts in significantly to the amount of time they could be spending doing other kind of training. It cuts in significantly, not cuts in significantly, just in case that wasn't clear for everyone. Oh. It significantly cuts into. Yeah, I see. That's funny.

That's funny. But I was thinking that there, you know, you're doing a lot of swimming as professionals, and at least you're doing it outdoors. That does make quite a difference. And so is everyone else that's there who's a professional who's training. which seems to be everyone. I mean, it's also, like for the, for us swimming, getting 5, 10, 15 seconds faster is a big difference.

But I think what this coach that I was listening to is podcast, Bjorn Giesman, he was on a pod. And he was saying for his age group athletes, sometimes the total cost time-wise of going to the pool could be two or three hours. And what are you getting out of that? Probably not a lot of gained time. Whereas you could go and,

for a six-hour session at the wind tunnel and get five or ten minutes on the bike, or you could spend that entire amount of time riding Zwift and getting stronger on the bike. So it was an interesting angle where more swimming is not necessarily better for someone who's a little time crunched. Sometimes you've got to consider the whole picture of how long the activity is going to take. Yeah. Maybe swimming is too much of a waste of time. I will take it.

I agree. I agree. you get. Yeah, it was a really interesting angle. Anyway, that's off topic, though. Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about how the swimming in Tucson is another plus, is that you have these outdoor pools that for people who are training around the country, maybe it's better. Yeah, but it's not a plus because it's yards and at home we're swimming meters, which is massively different, in my opinion. I think yards is. So there's no long course? Once a week. There's a long course option. Yeah. But otherwise yards.

But you would think it's not that big of a difference, but it makes a huge difference, I think. Do you think, Eric, like swimming meters and bend is much, much harder than swimming yards here? Are you saying 25 meters to 25 yards? Yeah. And it's much, much, that much of a difference. Yes. I think it adds up a bit.

Yards definitely feels cushy. Like 10 seconds, 100. So much. Anyway, Tucson gets our seal of approval, but I would say that probably the way that it looks on the internet relative to some of the reality of the amount of time that you spend driving and everything, there's a slight disconnect there.

But it's, I'm not... It's like every place. Like every place. Nowhere's perfect. And the sun has been shining consistently and perfectly. And that trumps all. Yeah. Okay.

And then what about, you guys have had any key sessions this week that were exciting or notable? Obviously, Paula, you guys, both of you did the shootout again, which is now like the main talk of the triathlon world, it seems like. But did anything happen this week get different from last week? Every session is a key session, dude. No, it's been kind of the same. Although last week on the shootout, I was like, this is amazing. I'm riding so well. My power is so high. Doing this next week. And this week, I was like, I'm never fucking doing this again. This is so awful. It's hard, huh? So it's just based on how you feel, really. The thing about a, you know,

the people say it's great about a group ride, right? Is that it forces you to go hard when you otherwise, you know, you don't have to make that decision for yourself. So it relieves you of that burden. But if you are going into it tired, all of a sudden, you're finding yourself in a situation that you cannot escape from. Yeah. And if you get dropped, you're just going slow.

Yeah. Off the back of the whole group. And that is, that can be terrible. Yeah. It's like doing this, doing that ride off of two weeks of fatigue training here versus off of one. Yeah. Just that much harder.

So I'm actually. We're having so much fun here with Heather and Wadi, and it's been amazing to stay with them and be a little family again. But part of me is also looking forward to going home in a week and absorbing this block of training. And it hit me yesterday, how tired I am. And there's some weird allergies in the air here, so I just have this weird cough and, like, chest thing going on. And I do think it's allergies. A lot of people get it down here. It's harsh.

The desert is harsh. It is. People were not meant to survive those summers for sure. Yeah, even now, though, it's like really intense sun and stuff. But anyway, it's mostly good. Yeah, the sun's not quite as intense as New Zealand, but I'd say it's like 60% of the way there relative to other places. The microwave oven of New Zealand. Yeah. Yeah, my key session of the week that was not the shootout is Heather, myself, and Sophie Lynn, who is the, the significant other of Alexi from Yulin with the adorable wiener dog

that goes in the backpack out there I think it's actually Sophie's dog yeah I know Alexi oh there

a couple but yeah anyway we the three of us me Heather and Sophie we went running up

phone line trail to the AZT here and did a lot back on the AZT and then ran back down phone line three hour

insanely cool trail run I would put that on your bucket list. If you have any sort of trail ability whatsoever and you come to Tucson, that's pretty freaking amazing. 10 out of 10 views. Yeah. And the AZT is like,

is it like the PCT of Arizona? It's like this epic trail that traverses Arizona. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. It runs Arizona north to south and it goes right over the top of Mount Lemmon. That's so cool.

That is so cool. Coincidentally, I mean, not coincidentally, but intentionally this afternoon, Wadi and I also went to a different section of the AZT. and ran along it and saw like a 40 to 50 foot tall Sogaro. Really? Insane.

Like the tallest tree that you've stood next to, Sogaro. Wow. I'll send you a screenshot. It's like we just stood next to it and looked at it for a couple minutes because it was so mind-blowing. Is it, were there other people there? Is it a thing or did you just happen upon it? Just standing right next to the trail.

Wow. Like insanely huge. I can't even believe it. Like very, very remote part. Right. For those who don't know, the saguaroos are these cactus that are native to that area there and are like the quintessential cactus. They're like the cactus with the arms. You know, you can't see you on the podcast right now, but I'm doing the cactus with the arms thing. Like the emoji, the cactus emoji is a saguaro cactus. And they're huge. They're huge. Cool. Awesome. Well, glad you guys are still riding high. Maybe time to take a recovery week sometime soon, but that sounds like it's going to be built in in a bit. And then you're going to get fitter and fitter and fitter. We're going to the wind tunnel next week. Who is that public knowledge?

It's about to be. It's not a secret. Yeah, I'm going there, get Paula's position a little bit dialed in with the slightly more upright, slightly more, I don't know, we've got some decisions to make on the front end, but trying to get a little bit more comfy,

a little more triathlon specific versus any sort of, you know, UCI consideration. Nice. Well, we'll definitely dive into that next week as you guys will, you might even be here next. week in Santa Monica. We might be recording this together.

That is a good point. Yeah. Well, Monday we need to be driving. Because Tuesday morning, we're in the time. Oh, then we could do it. We could do it Sunday. Anyway, that's some behind the scenes stuff. Let's do some shred or bed. Shred or bed. Oh. Okay, this one, I don't know why I'm feeling very food motivated lately. But here's some shredder bed for you. Would you do iced coffee in your downtown?

bottle. 100%. Sounds amazing. Shred so hard. Paula? As long as it stays cold. And I'm doing that tomorrow. You could just do ice cubes in there. That's what I've done before. Or like an insulated bottle. Ooh, yeah. Did those really work? Because I know like insulated bottles work really well, the non-cycling

kind. But do the cycling kind work well? Like the camelback ones? Yeah. But I mean, it's not a like, I'm going to put some ice cubes in there and decide to take a drink in three hours. If you're drinking like a bottle an hour. and you have two bottles on your bike, then I think you'll be good, yeah. Okay, sweet. I mean, at the very least, you're not drinking hot liquid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

I've had a fair share of hot Morton in my day. Yeah, no, not that. That's not the way to go. Okay, how about this one? Peeing in your wetsuit before you're in the water in a race. That's desperation. I do that all the time. Really?

Well, you warm up. We have a disagreement here. I would definitely prefer to do that in the water. Right. Because it's like, and you're telling yourself in your head like, well, this is mixing with the water. But when you're out of the water, it's like, no, this is just straight pee. And I'm not cold yet. I haven't gotten into the water.

So, yeah. Right. Ideally not. Right. Okay. Drinking directly from a stream. If you need to, you need to. Fred.

Yeah. I don't know. I might be calling for a rescue before I do that. I'm like, it's going to ruin the next three days of my life. It depends where you are, though. Yeah. Yeah. Like if I'm in the Sierra up high, I'm like, okay, I'll take a chance.

If I'm in Arizona or in L.A. in the Santa Monica Mountains, I'm not sure about that. Yeah, all streams are not created equal. I think we're operating on high in the mountains, crystal clear stream. All streams are not created equal. Amen. Okay. What about gas station coffee on a ride?

I know. Not coffee on a ride. No way. I think on a ride, if I'm at a gas station, I'm getting Red Bull or like a Yerba Mote. Yeah, got it. Or is a Coca-Cola or something. Yeah, rarely is at a gas station, freezing cold stop. Right.

Okay. This really is all over the place, but what about cold plunges? I mean, I'll shred if it's in like a Scandinavian experience. I see. I see. I see. I see. But in and of itself, yeah, no.

Not enough data to tell me that's where. It's worth it. Same as Eric. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, at a certain point, you're just like, I'm doing this thing that sucks because it's, I'm telling myself, I'm making myself better. Who knows if you actually are? I mean, if there was like real concrete data around it, no problem.

But when people are like, eh, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. I'm like, no. Yeah. It's not worth it. Okay. And now this last shredder bed, we're going to tease it on here. But then the actual answer is going to be only for support. for podcast supporters.

You can become a podcast supporter that triathlonlife.com slash podcast where you can also submit questions for the podcast. You do not have to be a podcast supporter to submit questions and we really appreciate when anyone sends in questions

or even just listening to the podcast. We really appreciate you. But this little shredder bed is low volume training or high volume training. Which one are you shredding? So if you're a podcast supporter, check your email.

You'll get a link to this. If not, we'll see you on the other side. Wow, what a world wind. We just, like, solved world hunger and cured all the diseases of the world in that segment. So if you want to become a... Even if Tucson. Yeah.

If you want to become a podcast supporter, yeah, you can do that, like I said, at that triathlonlife.com slash podcast. And another little perk if you're a podcast supporter is that we will pick podcast supporters to win some cool TTL gear. and I still have these very fun, awesome orca swim caps, which you know what, by the way, I was swimming today,

and I noticed that everyone else's swim caps during their swims starts to, like, cone up over their head and, like, slide back. Mine stays on, perfect. I look cool the whole time. You know, that's the function of your swim cap? Or maybe my giant head, I'm not sure. But I think I love the swim cap. It fits great, it feels great, it looks great.

They're real nice. They're real nice. swim caps go, won't lie. And this week, our winner is Maxine Bailey. Thank you so much for being a podcast supporter, Maxine. You are awesome. Let us know where you want us to send this awesome swim cap. And by we, I mean me.

It will be coming from me with my crappy handwriting. Okay. On to questions. Listener submitted questions. First one is from Max. Hey, PENF. I have seen in some of the vlogs that Eric was working hard on getting his hip right for Black Canyon 50K.

As a physical therapist myself, I would love to hear more on what the approach was to conservatively manage his laboral tear. Love the pod and listen every week, Max. And Eric, I'm going to add to that and say, and can you tell us what you think was different this time about previous times that you did this because I'm sure a lot of people have gotten a lot of PT recommendations

for their labrum stuff and it hasn't worked. And this time something was different and it has worked or seemingly has worked. I got to be honest, this like the laboral tear thing is freaking dark voodoo it's super confusing i try to respond to everybody who reaches out to me on instagram about it but it every time i do it requires like three paragraphs and five follow-ups and and it always kind of boils down to the same thing it's not the same for everybody it's not the same every time i've had so many times um in my

career i've been dealing with this since 2016 uh where i thought cool I figured it out, found the solution. And then three months later, that thing that I was doing that I thought was the thing has no impact whatsoever on it. So what I'm doing right now is very much like activating the muscles that you can think of that would pull your pelvis into the correct position instead of allowing your lower back to hyper-extend and get it. I think it's called lordosis or something.

So it feels much more like my pelvis. This is underneath me instead of like my hips are sticking out, my butt sticking up behind me. And that I think is just like putting a little bit less pressure on the hip joint in the right way. It's making me sore on some funky ways. And it's not even like that intensive stuff. It's almost like waking up all the muscles and saying like, here's where you should be doing. Here's when this should be on. Here's when this should be off.

And then I've also, every time they go into the PT like once a week, is what I've been doing, except for when we're down here, he's doing some pretty intense stuff in terms of, like, not a full-on, like, chiropractic adjustment manipulation, but, like, pushing on my SI joint, because my SI joint and, like, my coxics are very locked up and tight and, like, off-centered in the wrong type of way. So he has a bunch of manipulation on that to try to get it loosened up,

and then we do some things muscularly to, say, like, hips, here's how you should be firing properly. And this is not, I've gone through this process with other PTs and I think this guy just, he had the right combination, he had the right sauce that I needed for my thing. And it's been just like a huge trial and error process, unfortunately. When you say the activations that you're doing it, are you doing them before runs or before rides?

Or is this something that you kind of do daily? Because people say that a lot like, oh, do your crab box before you're, run or is this not quite that? Is this a daily practice of muscle strengthening that is helping? It's kind of the stuff that I have, he's like, you can't overdo it, but ideally do it three times a week. And if you can do it before a session, great. But also don't just not do it because you forgot to do it before the session. Like anytime it's fine. And then the next phase, I've been doing that for about four weeks, the next phase would be a little bit more strength, like adding in some dumbbells, adding in something that was a little a little bit more strength-related versus just like,

these things do, or like do require strength, but they're not like a big lift necessarily. Yeah, interesting. Cool. Thanks, Eric. Great question, Max. Next one is from Fiona. Hello, at what race distance do you think the benefit from wearing a swim skin outweighs the time it takes

to take it off in T1? I'm racing my first wetsuit illegal olympicist. I love wetsuit illegal. That's great. a what's a legal Olympic distance race and would love to get your thoughts on if a swim skin was worth it. So first of all, do we think it's worth it

for Olympic distance? It's worth it for a sprint. How short would you have to go before you would say it's not worth it? It doesn't go any shorter than a sprint, so all triathlons. There's a lot of races for age groupers that are like 400 yards, for example.

Like in San Diego. You would do it for 400 as well? If you have one, yeah. But I think the limiter there is like someone is doing a race that short, they're just getting their feet wet with triathlon. And they don't need to go all out and buy a swimskin. Yeah, that's a fair. That's a fair call there. That's a fair call there.

Probably don't buy a swimskin for a 700 for a sprint. No. Yeah. I mean, if you want to win the sprint and it's like a big deal and you've been training really hard for it, the swimskin is always faster. And they're really not that hard to take off. to take off. It's like three. They take three seconds, but yeah, they're very easy to take off.

They're not as, if you've never tried one, though, this might be a bit confusing because they are hard to get on. But similar to a wetsuit, they're actually very easy to slide off. And the zippers are designed in such a way that you almost tear them open. So if you've got one, it's always a good idea to wear it. It just, the material is faster. It covers up all the pockets on your tri-cuitary. kit so you're more hydrodynamic. They're massively better. So if you, if you ever watch a T-100

race, for example, and see someone not wearing one, it could be because they're just such good swimmers. Maybe the water's hot. Like I think Lucy Charles sometimes doesn't wear one because the water's really hot and she's going to be in the lead pack no matter what. But in general, for everyone, it's better. Yeah, 100% agree. That's a good point. Now I'm remembering all these fast swimmers who just wear their like their race kit instead of a swim skin. That would be why usually is because of the heat.

All race kits are not necessarily created equal either. Like the race kits that they wear in World Triathlon racing draft legal, those have no pockets. So if somebody has one of those, it's really not wildly different than a swim skin. Yeah, the pockets really make they're like parachutes, you know?

Yes. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Well, Fiona, also, if you want to buy a swimskin, just get it. You know, don't let us stop you. We're enabling you. Definitely faster. Sure. 100% faster.

Retail therapy. They're a piece of equipment you don't need to purchase every year. You get one. It'll last you a long time. Oh my gosh. You could last you the rest of your triathlon life. It could if you take good care of it, rinse it out. Don't train in it ever.

Eric, you know, like in a movie when they say the title of the movie and the movie. That's like you just saying the rest of your triathlon life would kind of scratch that itch for me a little bit. Feels good. Okay, next question here. How do you guys go about using songs in videos

without copyright infringement? My video ideas are often sparked from a song and then I edit footage around the song. Ooh, yes, just like Eric. If you're editing on Instagram Real on an external platform such as Final Cut or DaVinci Resolve, do you check that the song you'd like to use is on Instagram's

audio library, even then audio's Instagram library runs a risk of eventually being taken down. I also believe Instagram and YouTube have different rules. Please feel free to elaborate on how you approach using music on YouTube or other platforms as well. So, Eric, do you want to kind of like,

we can kind of tag team this a little bit, but I know you don't want to give away all your secrets, but how do you feel about, on here, about copyright infringement with songs that are, you know, let's say a Kendrick Lamar song or something like that? Okay, there are no The secrets are that I think I have a little bit of the Rick Rubin thing where I kind of like some songs that a lot of people like. I just happen to. I don't say I have great taste, but I think I like some fairly popular, catchy stuff. And then I spend an absolutely outrageous amount of time looking for really good music that I feel nails the exact emotion that I am looking for in a scene.

So yes, I edit to a song, but I go out to find a song that checks the box of like overcoming adversity or resolution at the end of the movie or excitement at the beginning. And then I will look for that emotion. I find it and then I edit to it. I use a couple of different music services. Artless epidemic sound. And there's a third one that I can't think of right off the top of my head. And it's like finding the music takes as much time as the actual editing does. And that is just a huge. It's just a huge freaking thing. And there are plenty of times where I'm like ready to edit.

And I spend three hours trying to find a song that is like represents the emotion of Paula going to the pool and not wanting to go to the pool. But midway through being okay with it and having a good workout and overcoming and being excited and going and getting a muffin. Like that's a very specific song or two or three songs that all need to be woven together. Right. But that's how you get around the copyright thing. Those songs on those platforms are all pre-licensed so that you can use them in YouTube videos, Instagram, any social media they want. It's kind of funny because sometimes Eric will put, like we've used our list since before 2020,

like early days, TTL. And sometimes people that use songs now and modern day current YouTube videos are songs we've used like seven years ago. and they're just like the most popular artless songs that you go to most use whatever. It's just kind of funny how they get recycled in different ways. But Eric O's uses them in the perfect way. Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. It's not even necessarily like if the song is good or not.

It's like does it match the emotion of the scene? Yes. And that's the magic sauce that it's like when people are like, Nick, what filter do you use on your pictures? It's like, yeah, I filter them. But like the composition is a good picture. with a freaking over filtered.

Yeah. That's the Nick look. Just kidding, Nick. Just kidding. But it's a good picture. I mean, that's the thing. It's a good edit. That's just my thing, though.

That's just my aesthetic that I choose. That's your art. I'm not, I'm just kidding, Nick. I'm not, but I'm ultimately complimenting you and Eric. Thanks, Ben. I'm saying this. I just think there is a tendency when things just work, when things just work right, people think there is a simple, elegant solution to it.

And the truth is there's a lot of thought and years of developing an aesthetic that goes into it. And then all you see is an emotional response you have to the results of that. Yeah. I want to do that. That's the dream as an artist is when it just seems like it was born that way. Yeah. As it relates to Instagram, a lot of times I'll just use the same song that I used in the YouTube video to make a little cut down for. but sometimes, you know, I'm just like, yeah, I just freaking want to use Kendrake Lamar.

And I know it's on Instagram or whatever. So I'll just like edit to that song and then just, you know, send Paula the reel and say match it up to Kendrake Lamar. Instagram's fun because you can use any song. Like often I'll hear a new song and then I'll like it so much that I'll want to make a reel because I want the song. And Paula, you use the feature on Instagram itself where you can add. add the song from their library. Is that right? Yeah, which is pretty much any song on Earth. Okay, great. We got a little into it there, but it is kind of a nuanced topic.

And also, just to answer this question, I don't think you have to ever worry about Instagram's music being taken down. Like, if you're using their platform for it, you're safe. It's fine. Yeah. Okay, next one here. This is Nate from Bend, Oregon. Is it one of the nates that we know? I don't know. We know several nates from Bend, Oregon. What are some ways that you avoid chlorine rash with the amount of volume you're swimming?

I find it especially difficult during the winter months that I'm constantly trying to make sure my entire body doesn't break out. Thanks. First of all, do you guys have like a sensitivity to chlorine on your skin? Is that a thing that you deal with? No, this question's not great for us because I don't have, neither. us have this problem. We wouldn't have made it through swimming as children if we had that. Yeah.

I in general don't, but I had twice a thing happened where I would start to get really itchy on my skin on my back, but I was never able to tell if it was for sure due to chlorine or not. So I have never had that. But if there are, what I do know is that there are certain body washes and shampoos that are designed to specifically remove chlorine from your skin. So if you haven't tried that stuff, you can try them.

The biggest tip for this is, I'm sure this person's already doing this, but showering after every swim. I cannot not shower after swimming. Like if I don't shower at the pool, I'm coming home and I'm immediately showering. Whereas Eric, I don't think he's ever showered after swimming. Less since COVID. So I just feel so yucky after and I want to get the clothes. chlorine off. Why do you feel yucky?

Wash my hair. The pool is gross. And this, yeah, it gets chloriney. And I just want to like wash with soap. I guess I don't think of it as that yucky at all. I do shower after, but mostly because I like the hot water not because I feel gross. I think your pool is down there. Isn't your pool like probably some high percentage of saline rather than chlorine? Oh, I think there's some salt. Yeah, I, yes, it's because yes, I think you're right. What popped in my head. Do you think that showering, before helps it all.

Like your skin gets pre-wet with like regular water instead of just chlorine. I don't think it helps your own skin, but I think it helps. The pool stay clean. Yeah, of course. You're supposed to. It doesn't create like a hydrophobic layer. You know, I just like if you've already soaked, you know, like how much, how freaking pruned can you become? Yeah, that's thinking way outside the box.

I love thinking outside of the box. I don't think that's going to help you. But Nate, there are some Everyman Jack products that are specifically for this. so you might want to check those out since they also kind of support the triathlon world. This is definitely not either the nates that we know in Bend.

There's another Nate in Bend. This is Nate number three. Yeah. Yep. Okay, next question here from Mallory. Hey, Penn. Question about recovery. Mallory has my same brain here.

I have a hypothesis that a key part of the formula for having a pro athlete career is the ability to recover, regenerate well, plus talent, discipline, etc. Do you have any tips or recommendations about how to build resiliency beyond God-given genetics to absorb training.

I'm especially curious to hear Paula's take. After the doom decade of injuries and seeming to regain great resiliency, the last few years, I've been thinking a lot about this since the Jack Kelly podcast. You did so well on it. For context, I'm a chronically injured female athlete that just can't seem to stay healthy after collegiate sports a decade-plus ago. and would love a triumphant return to consistency like Paula, age group style. Thank you for your insights.

Mallory. So do you guys notice this in yourself that you guys and other pro-traithets compared to normal people have an ability to really shift into recovery mode and like sleep deeper, longer, harder than most people, be able to relax easier than most people? Is that something you've ever noticed in yourself? Definitely not, Eric, because the second we get to. back from anything that's hard or not hard. He's working on TCL stuff.

Or not hard. Editing pictures, making a video, making new clothing, nonstop, literally nonstop. So he doesn't necessarily recover in the traditional checking out sense ever. But yeah, it for sure is an important part of training well. And I don't know if it's, really hard for me to say why

after 10 years of me struggling a lot with injury, and that wasn't a knock at Eric, by the way. I think it's very admirable and it's why we've been able to build what we've built. But could he be like a 5% better athlete if he did a little bit less of that stuff?

Probably. But at what cost, you know? Yeah, well, Eric, do you agree? Do you think that, do you think you would be a, like, do you think you'd be able to absorb physiological adaptations better if when you came home you just chilled. Can you feel that in your body?

It's a very hard question because I feel generally energized by all that stuff and I feel like it gives a lot of purpose to what I'm doing when I'm exercising. And I've definitely gone through periods where I cut everything out and didn't take pictures and didn't do a video and didn't edit anything. And I did see some short-turn games, but then I also had to take some like a murder emergency trips home because I just felt like I was winding myself into a ball of stress of training was the only thing that mattered. So somewhere in between, there is a wonderful balance, but it doesn't, it never feels like worked me. It makes me excited, and I think that's important.

But am I shifting into parasympathetic, you know, I don't know, but I'm certainly not sitting and dwelling on the workout. I'm not looking at other athletes on Strappa. I'm not like, in a nervous energy state. It's a creative energy brain state that energizes me. The thing about Mallory's question here is that she's phrasing it as one question, but really I think these are two different things. One thing is to how do you absorb the training, right? And like you said, Eric, how do you shift into that parasympathetic kind of nervous system

state? And the other question to me, which is not the same, is how do you not be chronically injured? Yeah. There's overlap there, but they don't feel. like the same thing. Totally. I agree with you. I do think on some level professional athletes have the ability to recover more quickly. There's just, I don't think there's any way around that. And like obviously, I think you can get on the internet and you can read all the different ways that what you can begin recovering and recover the best as possible. And like maybe we have a little bit more time to do

that or maybe we're so incredibly focused on the goal because of some screw that's loose in our brain that we will always have that protein shaking, et cetera. But I think there's got to be some sort of physiological thing there for sure. What jumped out to me with the getting not injured is like really, truly being okay with like a slow return. And like completely abandoning what you want or like what you think is like the normal amount of return and really truly listening to your body. and if anything hurts or, you know, is like putting off an alarm bell, don't go out and do it. And because in your brain, you're probably like, I'm already barely doing anything. And I, you know, like, this is already really conservative.

So, like, but if it's not conservative enough, it's not conservative enough and you're still going to get injured. And personally, I feel like that's a little bit of what I observed in Paula during COVID, which is kind of around the time where I feel like she got over the injury thing. is like there wasn't a race on the schedule. So she wasn't as like, I've got a thing coming up that I need to get ready for. And there were times when she just said, my foot hurts a little bit.

I'm not going to run today. I don't have a race coming up in two weeks. And stack a few of those together and you're not injured. Instead of, oh, I'm already being conservative. Like it's embarrassing how much I'm not running or whatever and let go of all that and just like really truly listen to your body and go at the pace. And of course, the danger for Paula and for Mallory

is that both of them remember a time where they were really fit and really fast. Right? They both came from excellence beforehand. Mallory was a college athlete. And Paula was a top-of-the-world athlete. And so you don't want to slow it down. You don't want to let go of those things,

even though it's what you probably have to do. Yeah, yeah. I certainly don't want to act like I'm an expert. I've been blessed to be a low injury person. And when I do get injured, I cope by like, completely ruining myself from the sport for a little bit and going camping. And I guess I'm, like I said, I feel blessed to be not very injury prone. So I'm not as much of an expert as Paula is in, you know,

different ways and amounts and all the stuff that she's, what she's had to work through. Yeah, I don't think there's, secret key in terms of like one PT or one thing that's helped me get over the hump of just the chronic injury cycle that I was in. But I can't remember a time when I was with Eric where I was really injured. Like I think those injury days were like pre-eric. And when I was so obsessed with triathlon, like I had nothing else. If I was injured, I would just do extra biking and I would go and do extra gym work and I would, I never switched off.

And I think since meeting Eric and just having like a little bit more balance in life and and Flynn and Flynn and doing other things. I mean, yeah, Flynn's like a creature that depends on me. And I think that's really healthy to be able to take your focus away from the pro athlete. Like everything revolves around triathlon mindset that I lived for a decade or more. Everything was about me. Everything was about the next race. Nothing else mattered.

And then taking that into just thinking about other things, having Eric, eating better, being a little bit more like carefree in a way. In a lot of, I mean, it's still my personality to be obsessive and a perfectionist, but way less than it used to be. And I think that that has helped me overcome a lot of the cycles of injury that I was falling into again and again. So I don't know, but I mean, a lot of people have other things going on in their lives. So it's just ever since I was like in junior high school and on the junior national team,

I was like never had alcohol, never went to parties. Triathlon was my whole life. And I was like the best athlete in my high school, et cetera. But it was at the cost of like being kind of a loser. I don't know. I feel like as I've gotten older, I've just gotten a little bit more relaxed with things and that has actually helped my body be healthier. Yeah, 100% I agree. That's kind of what I was getting at with like when I went through the period of time where I was like, I'm not doing video. I'm not doing anything. Like, yes, yes, I think like Paula was on that trajectory. I was on a trajectory. I've seen people on that trajectory and like that will work for three years until you burn out or something breaks and et cetera. and then I think you ultimately have to come back

and like, okay, where's the balance that somewhere between zero and that level of intensity that works for me on a longer time period that enables sustainable growth and happiness. So basically all I'm hearing here

is you need to get a dog. Maybe a dog is... You just need a puppy. Just the right amount. Just get a puppy. If you don't have enough things going on in your life, get a puppy and then you'll never be injured.

Or whatever the metaphorical puppy might be in your life. You'll never have time to do social things. You'll have to wake up every morning at 6 a.m. to go walk this dog. And when you're tired, you still need to go walk the dog. So fulfilling. Yeah, but it's a little bit of time that you're not spent thinking about yourself. Fair enough. Okay, Mallory, well, that was a very in-depth answer. Hopefully that helps. And good luck to you. Next one here is from Margaret. And Margaret wrote us a short story here.

So I'm going to condense a little bit. She's asking on behalf of her husband, who is into triathlon, and she wants to get him some good snacks and make sure. that he is fueled up because he comes home famished, her words. So I'll read the last paragraph here, which is, do you have any pantry favorites or must-haves that you find yourself eating before and after training sessions, or what do you find yourself reaching for after workouts? I'm thinking along the lines of protein bars or something easy, but we do shop primarily clean and whole foods based, so not a lot of processed or pre-packaged food enters this house unless it's fruit snacks to keep the kids silent for 20 seconds. Any suggestions and recommendations would be so

amazing thank you, wishing you all the best. And again, so grateful for you guys, Margaret. I know you took away the first two paragraphs, but I actually really enjoyed reading them. Okay. Do you want me to read them? I think I do. I think everyone would enjoy it. It's like, it puts the whole thing in context. You're like, I deeply feel this. Okay, here we go. Hello, Eric, Paula, Nick and Flynn. My husband, Nicholas, has been getting into the sport of triathlon since 2020 and has really developed a love and passion for it in his A huge part of that has been because of you guys and what you do for the community of triathlon. So I just wanted to start off by saying thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I know triathlon will be a part of our family forever now. Amazing. I know. We get a lot of those. I just feel a little funny reading them on the podcast sometimes. We can read one every once a while. That made me happy. Thanks, Margaret.

My question has to do with nutrition and how to help nourish his body. He works as an ICU nurse and has gone for really long shifts from many days in a row. I am a stay-at-home mama for our two small children, and we are expecting a baby in April. Congratulations. I take on the role of cooking and grocery shopping, which means I am the one that is planning how to feed him to give him enough energy to do life. I think I'm falling in love with this woman. He comes home from swims or- read this paragraph.

I was like, wow, I want to be friends with her. I feel this because I'm that person for Eric. It's so relatable. He comes home from swims or. any training session absolutely famished, and I have no idea how to stock a pantry for that. He doesn't plan his sessions around meals, meaning sustaining food isn't always on the table waiting for him when he gets back. Not super important, but he is a big, tall guy coming from a D-line football background. Oh boy. So he is used to a higher calorie diet and just eating more.

And then we went into the paragraph that I already read. So what can we recommend that is, and I love the idea of not overly processed or prepackaged food. What do you guys like that isn't... Well, you guys actually don't do really a lot of pre-packaged food. What do you guys do and what would you suggest? Okay, so can we all agree that the first two paragraphs were very loving and endearing? I loved it. Of course they are, but I know that you're...

I know we try to paraphrase here. Yeah, because the attention span of the trio here often waivers. Yeah, it's proof that I actually do read everything. I mean, that was well written. It was beautifully said. Yeah. Yes. Okay, so my initial thought here was, and I don't necessarily like meal plan or do this intentionally,

but if Eric and I at dinner make rice, I'll make like six cups of rice. Or if we're making chicken, I'll make enough chicken for 10 people. And having that kind of a leftover stash in the fridge for the next day, post-session lunch or a snack even in the middle of the day, I'll just get like a bunch of the rice out and cook it with eggs really fast. And that's like basically the time from finishing a workout or hunger or walking in the door to eating has to be like five minutes or less. Otherwise it's too much work. So I think that a little bit of pre-planning with get an instapot and just make like so much rice

and that is so versatile. You can put rice on a salad. You can have rice with eggs. You can, it's just a filling carbohydrate that is easy to warm up in the microwave any time. So that's my only real tip is that I had with thinking about wholesome foods that are not prepackaged is just overmaking things when you're making them anyway for a dinner, having tons of leftovers. And then we never regret having too much food after dinner that we can eat the next day.

If we make pasta, we make pasta for like a family of 10. Right, Eric? Yeah. That was what I thought of, like the pasta dish that we love the most. It has feta and like all sorts of veggies and all sorts of stuff. It's just like a calorie bomb and we'll have it for like three days, the next three days. And it's, I love it cold, warm, whatever. Amazing.

Yeah, if you make that pasta thing, it kind of the next day turns into like pasta salad. That's so good, too. You can just have it right out of the fridge. Did that in a vlog a while ago, what we eat in a day, one of the, what we eat in the day. Basically, it's just pasta with feta. Cut up peppers, spinach, corn, olives. It's like a Mediterranean theme. Like some meatballs.

And then olive oil and salt. There's no recipe really. It's just kind of like whatever you think might taste good in it. And oh my God, I'll eat so much of that. Paula, you know what? I bought the other day that, well, you guys both love it. But you guys are the ones who showed it to me for your bowls that you make. Is that kind of like Japanese seaweed topping from Trader Joe's?

Oh, very cocky. Oh my gosh. I just bought it. So I'm excited to use it. It's so good. Ferryconki just adds like even if it's not much of a flavor, it adds a little bit of I'm so fancy. I'm eating at a cookie restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a salt. It's a fancy salt, right? Yeah. The only other tip I might have and this obviously is so so normal. But Costco is really helpful for Eric and I who eat much more than the average human. I think for a regular couple with no. kids. Like you, this person has three kids. So maybe Costco is probably part of their routine anyway, but it's too much food for a lot of couples. But for Eric and I, we go through that amount of food easily. And for example, here in Tucson, we have not been going to Costco because we're sharing a fridge and we don't want to bring in like boxes and boxes of food to Heather Fonty's house. And I've found us just kind of like running out of food and not knowing what to snack on. So I feel

this person's problem of like it's just not like when we're at home and I do this enormous grocery shop of like $500 at Costco and then we have three loaves of bread and 12 apples and you know it's it sounds so excessive

but we really do go through all that food. Yeah. And if you're just going to Trader Joe's once every three days and getting a little shop it's not enough to feed us in the amounts that we're used to. This is processed but all I can think about right now is peanut butter filled. This is what I was hoping you guys would say because I think you guys eat a ton of

fast bread dishes like bread and peanut butter, bread and jelly, bread and butter. Eric, I know you love hummus a lot and eat a lot of hummus. Those are all of great calorie-dense snacks. Yeah, and I think that also, of course, it's better to eat clean and unpackaged all the time, but sometimes for the sake of just getting calories, it doesn't have to be like a health food. Food is better. Peanut butter filled pretzels. Any food is better than not.

Most people might buy that as like a junk food or a treat, but like it is a really good. You do a lot worse. Calorie. Definitely. Like it's not soda, you know? I feel like soda is to me like the ultimate why are we having soda right now unless you're in the middle of a ride. And peanut butter pretzels are far above that. They got a bit of protein.

That's just like the emergency. Like we keep some in the van. We keep something at the house. We just, it's like just in case like that is never, that never. doesn't sound good. Yeah. Nice. Finch.

Well, Margaret, we're all on your team. Feed that man. He's a, from a D-Line football background. Last question here is from Philip. This is regarding our film, Eric. I'm racing Oceanside 70.3. I would love to attend the screening of a look for things where you can find them. Will there be a sign-up or a ticket launch prior to the screening?

100%. Yes. The film landing page is looking badass. if I do say so myself, I've been working on it a lot. Will it be up by the time that it may be up by the time that that this episode comes out,

but I'm not sure. We will definitely announce it. No one has to worry about missing it, is what I was going to. Right. If you do not have Instagram, you may be at risk of missing it. But I'll make sure

that an email goes out and Instagram. So if you're not following along Instagram, I would do that because that's, We update that a little bit more regularly than the podcast, admittedly. Eric, is there a possibility that it could sell out? Because I just want to set realistic expectations here. I'd say there is a almost 100% likelihood that it will sell out. Yeah.

Really? It's a 200-person theater. Kestelli wants to pull aside some tickets. Nick and I are each pulling aside some tickets for friends and family, obviously. And Oceanside's a big event, so I would expect that it sells out. based on the number of people that we've had just come to our like pop-up van things at events. Right. How much are the tickets?

We're going to sell them for 20 bucks. Well, actually, I don't, I'm not going to say how much we're to sell them for. We're not totally sure, but 100% of the proceeds are going to go to World Bicycle Relief. So however much we set the price for, it's going to a great cause. Do they know that? They do. And they're extremely excited about it. Yeah.

Nice. It's really, it's really freaking cool. It is really cool. that is really cool. And the film is cool too. I can't wait for everyone to see it. Okay, it's late. We had a late start to the podcast because we had some technical issues, but we did it. We got it. Thank you guys for listening. Hopefully the next one will be together. That will be fun. Hopefully. I'm just going to throw in here at the end of Hot Tees for the TTL Trail collection.

It's a whole new line, or the TTL Trail line is coming out and it's badass. Again, stay tuned. You're not going to want to miss that either. It's going to be extremely limited. Nice. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. I'm like, it's going to sell out over here. I'm like, it's going to sell out.

And that's fine because it's exclusive. Exclusive. If you really want it, you really want it. You'll get it. Cool. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you next week. Later.

Thanks, guys. Bye.