That Triathlon Life Podcast - Winter Olympics special! Triathlon, skiing, biathlon, and more.

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

We revisit Paula's London Olympic triathlon experience, as well as go into ethical questions about qualification, doping, and tons of other short form questions sent in about the olympics. For more, check out http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

Hello everyone. Welcome to That Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Paula Findlay. I'm Eric Lagerstrom. I'm Nick Goldston. And we are here to talk about triathlon, sports, dogs, coffee, all of your questions. Today we have a special themed podcast inspired by the Winter Olympics. We are answering all your questions about the Olympic Games or anything related to the Olympic Games. So super excited about that. And Nick, kick it off. Well, this is episode five. And first of all, I'm so happy. we made it this far. Me too. I feel like five, it's like an honorary round number. It's like 10's promising little brother, you know? Yeah. So I'm very happy. It's like we got through a month of podcasts. Well, and we also were only going to do a podcast every other week. So we're also like record time hitting number five. Paula and I bulldozed Eric on that one pretty hard. Usually we record on Mondays, but yesterday was Valentine's Day. So we skipped to Tuesday. So this is a different

day them we're used to. Can I brag about what I did yesterday? Yeah, let's hear. Yesterday, I went to Warner Brothers Studios in Los Angeles to see a screening of a movie that I had a bunch of songs in. It was very surreal. You pull up into the lot,

like only like there's like guards everywhere, but they have your name. You pull in, you park and you walk over to this screening room that's like the fanciest movie theater you've ever seen. And I'm sitting right there in front of the director and there's this movie playing with my music in it. I was like, how did I get here?

Wow. It's crazy. Mike drop, podcast over. Insert, crowd, annoying. That's so cool, Nick. Every time you tell us something cool that you've done, it's always in such a modest way that you're like, wait a second. Did he actually just say that? Yeah.

So, yeah, Nick, you are that good. Nick is that good. It felt cool. Thank you. It was very cool. It kind of like, when that happens, you have to like look around a little bit. I mean, I'm sure it happens to you guys too. Although you've been pros for so long, I don't know.

Doesn't happen. No, no. Every once in a while when we feel like a little bit famous, like someone at a triathlon recognizes us, and then you talk about going to the Grammys or something, and I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to stop talking. Oh, the Grammys. I hope they happened.

They got moved to Las Vegas now. So they're usually in L.A. every year, but California's got some weird COVID stuff. So I'm hopefully going to Vegas when those happen. fingers crossed. You guys are invited. We can go. as a thruple. I'll join you. The Grammys is like the music equivalent of the Olympics,

which I've been obsessed with the last couple of weeks. And I don't know if that's just because I'm a Canadian, so I like really relate to the winter sports, even though I've never really done any of them that seriously. But I think they're super fun to watch. A little bit niche some of the sports, but have you been watching them? Yeah, I have been. In Italy, they're a big deal, because Italy has a lot of mountains and stuff. Italy's doing really well. They have 10 medals right now. They're crushing it.

Every time we watch anything, Italy is like almost sweeping the podium. Yeah, downhill ski. Yeah, downhill. The downhill skiing, yeah. But the Swedish girl ended up pulling the win out. I hope that's not a spoiler for anyone. Yeah, it was by like... For the women's downhill, it was 0.16.

I think she's actually Swiss. Swiss. Did I say Swedish? Yeah. Oh, no, I have a Swiss friend who's going to be very upset when she hears this. But by the way, I have here in front of me the medals per capita list. And it's pretty interesting how clustered together the top 10 are. So number one, I don't know if you can guess, number one medals per capita. I might guess Japan?

Yeah. Japan is 21. Number one is Norway. Oh, wow. They have 28 medals. Yeah, we should have thought that. Norway's been on such a tear. I mean, they always are in the Winter Olympics, but a summer Olympics.

now too and it's just literally anything that requires breathing Norway is going to be probably one of them. So the other funny thing that I noticed is that Norway, Sweden and Finland they're all in the top ten. They all share a border and then you also have Slovenia,

Austria and Switzerland also in the top ten for metals per capita and they also all share borders. There's only two countries that are not in, well actually there's only yes, two countries in the top ten. that are not in Europe

in like the same area of Europe. One is New Zealand, which is crazy. Yeah, that's just such a low population. And the other one is Canada. Yeah. Oh, go Canada. I thought Canada might have a low

because our population's not that big. Yeah, well, you have 18 medals. Wow. Go Canada. So how is your week? How has your week been? Yeah, before we dive into Olympic questions, we'll just give a little recap of our week

just in case anybody cares besides my mom. My mom will definitely care. No, our training's been going really well, actually. We are getting a little fitter every week, super excited for the couple's try. I feel good running, which is nice. Like I'm past the phase of, oh, is my ankle going to hurt? Running is so hard, and I'm now kind of enjoying it. So did my first tempo run last week.

And yeah, overall, just feeling good and tired, which is also good, right? You know you're training hard when you're tired. Yeah. Most important development is the pool is now back to like a normal length. So we know what's happening in the pool. Our bulkhead has been in a very strange place due to swim meets happening in one end of the pool. We got a 50 meter pool. They put a bulkhead in to make it 25 yards on one end.

We swim like 28 meters on the other end. And so we've just been swimming hard and hoping that it's good and whatever. And now this week we actually get to find out if we've actually been swimming well or not. Sorry for the ignorant question, but what's a bulkhead? A bulkhead's like a fake, like a movable wall in the middle of a 50 meter pool. Oh, got it. That separates it into 225 meter or 25, whatever, you know, sections. You know, you're not a swimmer when you don't know what a bulkhead is.

Yeah, definitely not. I feel like it's just in my terminology, my baseline terminology. You think I'm not a swimmer because I don't know what that is. Wait till you see me swim, then you'll really see. That's true. You're not bad. But yeah, that's pretty awesome. And I'm in the same place as Paula.

Pretty wrecked Monday, Tuesday here. We've been like really loading up Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday, Tuesday are relatively chill. How's your training going there? I see you're on a rest week. Resting from what? Yeah. Resting from rest.

Either resting from or four or something. I did like one hard bike ride on Saturday and I'm still recovering from it. I haven't been biking and I kind of forgot that you need to bike a bunch to bike a bunch. Yeah. Well put. Yeah. Although I do find biking comes back quickly. It does.

Quicker than running and swimming. Yeah. So I think you'll get it back super quick. Yeah, yeah. I'm not worried about it. I'm just, I'm on this marathon training tear right now, and I'm following this plan.

And it says to do a recovery week this week, I don't know if I necessarily really feel like I want to do it, but I'm following it. One of our questions actually from Karin, who's like a friend of ours and also a huge Trixie fan was like, it wasn't even a question. It was just a statement. Like, Nick needs a real.

coach. Everyone agrees. Everyone agrees. It's not a robot. You know what we could do? We could do for the pod. We could have you coach me for like, it's just like some amount of time. Like, you know, and we can see if I have any improvements during that.

That could be kind of interesting. I would be honored to coach you, Nick. Although it would be hard because I feel like we're such good friends that I'd, it's just, I would want to fuck it up, you know? Right, right. make me just like, all right, now go out, do an hour of tempo running. Go. I'm just like, oh, no.

Yeah, it's like being coached by your boyfriend or girlfriend, which would not work for us. Definitely not. I think maybe we could also just throw it out there. If you want to be next coach, slide into those DMs and you can have a recurring character in our show. As we talk about how you're doing. That is dangerous because I think every pro-traithet on planet Earth is a coach. So that's a dangerous show. I mean, those are, those are a lot of good options there.

I mean, it's better than, I'm not even coaching myself. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. So anything's an improvement. Totally. Anyway, let's move on to some of these questions. Paula, who has been to the Olympics, she posted on that triathlon life Instagram, if anyone had any questions regarding the Olympics. And also I just found out just like before we started this podcast that Eric, sweet little Eric,

had almost also made it to the Olympics. You were an alternate. What's the deal? What's an alternate? Yeah. I was actually in a pretty good position looking like I might make it. I'm kind of on the cost

for getting the third spot going into Rio. But I had a pretty catastrophic hip injury that I couldn't run for like four, let's see how long, like two and a half months before the games,

before the tryouts, the trials, whatever. And so I ended up missing and getting the points that I needed by about 20 seconds, 20, 25 seconds, to Ben Canute, who ended up going. So that's my almost story. I didn't actually go as an alternate because Zika was a thing. If anybody remembers that.

Oh, my God. A little Zika thing. We're just cursed by these pandemics, aren't we? It was okay. It was okay. I didn't mind missing it, but it was really cool to go through the process of trying to qualify for sure. Wow, yeah, that's amazing that both of you have,

I mean, seems like to us mere mortals, it just seems like this impossible dream to chase. Like for most of us qualifying for 70.3 or full distance world championships is like this impossible to reach goal. And the Olympics are so much further than that. So congratulations to both of you. First of all. Thank you, Nicholas. Thank you for much. It's not funny. It's amazing and remarkable. And you guys are incredible. Yeah, thank you. No, I appreciate that. So speaking of which, the first question is from Ollie underscore Tiger. These are Instagram names, not personal emails.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And that's not Elon Musk's other son, Ali underscore Tiger, yes. So we have, how tough was it mentally to overcome the 2012 Olympics, what worked for Paula, obviously.

Yeah, short, short backstory. I went to the 2012 Olympics in London. And I was going in as a medal hopeful because I had raced really well in 2010 and 2011. And then I got to London. I sort of auto-qualified a year out from the games. So got there,

with a lot of pressure and expectation on me, but what a lot of people didn't know because it's not talked about, and social media wasn't as big of a thing back then, was that I was pretty injured the year leading into it, very anemic, like just not in a healthy spot going into the game, so I ended up coming in last place, like literally last person across the line.

Wasn't even going to finish, but was encouraged by our team doctor just to get across the finish line. So that, I guess, is where this question is coming from, is how I overcame that. And it's been really interesting watching the winter for Olympics because I think the majority of the people that compete at Olympic Games come away disappointed. And we see the winners and the podium celebrations and it's like the best moment of

these people's lives. But the behind the scenes of people that don't quite reach their dreams or don't get on the podium or come and last is kind of devastating. And you really dedicate your whole life for, I don't know, eight or more years all towards this one moment. And then to fail just feels like, you know, the whole world is crashing down. So how I overcame that mentally was I moved away from the training base I was training at. I never really felt like I wanted to quit triathlon. I felt like this was a bit of a one-off situation and I could redeem myself at the next Olympics. So that's what my immediate focus was, was Rio and racing again. Like right after the Olympics, I wanted to go race the next WTS race. So I still really believed in myself. It was just a really

unfortunate experience at the games when everyone's watching. So that's how I overcame. I was just kind of changing my situation, getting a new coach, and a fresh start almost after that. It's too bad because my feeling is that getting to the Olympics, that should be the success. Like making it there and racing with them. For you, no, because you're a medal hopeful. And I guess that makes it even harder.

It makes the fall even harder. But if you were to tell me, take a like a, a 2% chance to qualify or take the 1% chance to medal. I'll take the 2% chance to qualify. Because I feel like that's most of the way there. It seems so amazing. It's cool, but it's, and I think I appreciate it more 10 years removed from it. Like, I'm still an Olympian, even though I had a terrible race at the Olympics.

That's less important to me than having been an Olympian. But that definitely wasn't my feeling at the time. It was like I had been winning WTS races. I was ranked top three in the world. Of course I'm qualifying for the Olympics. It didn't even seem cool. I didn't even appreciate it. It was just like the natural thing that happened because I was racing so well,

not to sound like arrogant, but it really was about winning, not about just going. Eric, did you want to say something to? I just wanted to say that I think like with the Olympics or not the Olympics or making it to the Olympics, it's really just a matter of like what you decided you were capable of and falling short

of that. So for me, I really never thought I could win the Olympics or you get on the podium or anything that wasn't really even on my radar, but just desperately wanted to become an Olympian and get there. So I'm on the same page as you, Nick, and that was really challenging for me just because I didn't get there. But then there's a bunch of people who thought they could be on the podium, and they're disappointed with what I would have been psyched with. So it's like expectation versus where you make it to. Well, that's a great transition to this question. Someone asked,

what would your ideal, this is for both you guys, what would your ideal triathlon Olympic country slot and athlete selection process be? So you qualify. So you qualify. like a year out and then you were injured all year leading up to it. But do you guys have a, because it seems, I've been a part of some conversations with you guys where you're critiquing certain types of ways that athletes qualify or don't qualify and people who deserve to be in certain positions or maybe don't. What do you think the best way would be? In terms of the criteria and qualifying each country as their own individual qualification and I think a lot of countries mess it up. And I also think that sometimes it appears unfair because each country only

is allocated a certain number of slots. And for example, the U.S. has five of the top best triathletes in the world, but they can only send three. On the women's side. On the women's side. So two women get left out and they're honestly the best athletes in the world, but they don't even get a chance to go just because of their nationality, whereas they'd be, you know, the first on the list in a different country like Canada. So I don't know if there's a solution for that. I think the Olympics are a lot about equality and having representation from every nation. And that's what makes it cool and a very different dynamic than a WTS race where you might have 10 Americans and they're all strong. So it allows a little bit more trickle down, I guess, to other countries.

Yeah, I would say you could go with some sort of a thing like we're going to take the top X number of athletes, you know, two athletes from each of the top 20 countries. And then we're going to come back around and we're just going to take the next best 10. athletes in the world period. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I agree with the equality and making sure as many countries can take part as possible. But if you have a significant amount of the field getting lapped out and they can't even finish the race, you know, like, is that really giving another country, is that giving that athlete a good experience? Is it good for anybody? Well, the athlete has to have a general baseline ranking in the world to even go. So it's,

it's not like you're sending people that have never done a triathlon before. No, no, it's not that extreme. That's not necessarily true though, because I think, for example, host countries get a slot for every sport. There are some, like, kind of interesting things, like new flag, like if you're a country that's never been to the Olympics before, like there are some, they're not just like total freebies, but they're a little bit easier ways in to encourage that diversity.

So, I don't know, it's really tough when you can only have 75, whatever it is, athletes, and there's only one event. It's not like swimming where there's, 30 events and 30, 50 athletes in each event. You know, it's harder with this. You know what? One of the most, like, touching moments of this winter Olympics was for me was a Finnish cross-country skier who won the race.

I can't remember exactly what event. I think it was like the 15K classic race. And he waited for the very last place finisher from Ecuador. I think it was Ecuador to cross the line and like congratulated him, which is like what the Olympics is. about to me is just, you know, it brings everyone together. You're all doing the same race. The person who came last definitely didn't have as much experience and was stoked to be there and one of the doesn't come from a country that maybe has the same training facilities. But for the first person

to recognize that is so cool. And I think should happen more often. I'm like, next time I win race, I'm waiting for the last place person. Well, that's what I do at my race is. I don't wait for the last person, but I'll like come back at the end and see that people who are doing 70.3s and and like right at the cutoff, you know, because these aren't people that are like lifelong elite athletes. This was like a huge deal for them. This was a big struggle and it went against their nature maybe. And it's pretty emotional to see them when, because they're emotional too. Just to get to the finish.

Yeah. Just to get to the finish. So maybe not as much for the Olympics, but I love that. I love that he stayed and congratulated the last guy. That is in the spirit of the Olympics. Yeah, YouTube, it is super cool. You might cry. Speaking of crying, what is the most inspiring Olympic athletes to you?

Clara Hughes, question mark. This is from the Intrepid Stumbler. The most inspiring Olympians? Like a person. Versus a sport? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a person. I've always been inspired by Clara because I feel like I have a bit of a connection to her. Like she's Canadian, she's a redhead, she rides bikes.

She also was an Olympic speed skating medalist. So, cool. Just love her story. Love her autobiography. Simon Whitfield. I trained with him. I learned a lot from him. He was a two-time Olympic medalist, heading into London where I was also racing. So always like have super respected and appreciated Simon's guidance. Eric, do you have anyone? I didn't personally know Simon, but he was super, super inspiring to me as well. I must have watched. I watched his sprint finish for his gold medal like over and over and over again. as I was riding my indoor bike in Portland in the cold and wet rain as a young teenager.

It's funny because now Simon, I'm friends with Simon and he'll message me sometimes and say, oh, he watched the vlog and Eric cannot believe that Simon Whitfield is watching. Wait, wait, wait, what did Jesus say? What did he say? That's funny. So good. That's fun. That's fun.

Cool. Okay, well, now we have some more fun questions. I love these hypotheticals. Like, for us, it's always fun to watch the Olympics and be like, oh, my God, how bad would I be at this sport? Right? Like, some of them are so specific. There are things that you've never done before. So, first of all, would you compete in a winter triathlon, which is ski, fat bike and snow run?

Yes. Yes. We were, you recently sent me a video of this, like, new sport that it's like combo cross country skiing and running. What was it called? Ski-cross or something? No, not ski-cross. No. Schemo.

What? That's not, you've never heard of schemo? No. It's new for the Olympics. Oh, jeez. I would wager to say most... Wait, it's not in the Olympics.

It will be. I would wager to say most people have not heard of schema. Yeah. If you don't live somewhere that has like a mountain really close by. Okay, if you haven't heard of schema,

you should Google it. It's so crazy. Paula, why didn't you give it a rundown? It's basically what Eric and I do, but faster. So we need to put skins on our skis, hike up the mountain and ski down. these people are racing that.

So the equipment's much different, very light skis, very thin skins, and then they're basically in like Unitarred racing suits with lightest gear possible. And they're like running up the hill with their skis and then taking the skins off and bombing down. Yeah, they've ripped the skins off, right? Like at the top, it's crazy. It is, it looks like one of the hardest sports on Earth. And they're at altitude too while racing so hard. So I can't imagine.

But it's a growing sport and because it's now in the Olympics, I think, Some of the, you know, it's growing in the U.S. and Canada and places where they need to send a national team now to the Olympics. So blowing up. Sorry. Eric's like, I want to talk and I'm just talking. Not saying. Every time I listen to the pod back, I'm like, I need to talk less.

This is embarrassing. Also on FaceTime, I just see all of Paula and 3% of Eric's face right now. Okay, Eric. Take it away, Eric. Take it away. To be fair, I cannot interrupt a person. It's just like a thing that I cannot do. And I can't stop talking, so we're a bad combo.

Good combo. Watch Schemo. It's a hot mess. Well, I have a great question for Eric. What was the food like at the Olympic Village? He didn't go. I didn't go to the Olympic Village. I know, I know.

I went to the... I'm rubbing it in. I went to the Pan American Games, which is like a little bit of a dress rehearsal, smaller version of the Olympics. And I think the food was... That's because it was in Canada. Food is pretty okay. 100% normal food.

That's good. Are you thinking like what? Like how was the Beijing food? No, no, no. I was totally kidding. Obviously that question would be more for Paula. But someone did ask what the food was like there. It's actually really good.

From what I remember, they do have a station for every type of cuisine. So every athlete from every country can eat what they're familiar with. Well, okay. So let's have Eric answer this one first. Someone said, excluding triathlon. What Olympic sport? summer or winter would you compete in. And I think it's not what you would

like to compete in. I think it's maybe what you would do best in, because we have other questions that are more. The other thing. Okay. I guess the thing that I might have a prayer at would be mountain biking. We've talked about this. Yeah, I don't think I have much of a prayer,

but if I were to go all in on mountain biking for like eight years, maybe you know, I could like go to the trial. Which version? Because now there's like the short track version too, right? I would have said short track a few years ago, but I think 70.3 training is pretty much beat all of the speed out of my life.

Probably the cross-country. Cool. Cool. What about you, Paula? I didn't even think about this question. I thought it was for you. Well, now it's for you, too. We've already answered this question in a previous pod.

Really? And I said cycling. Yeah. Oh, we did. We did. We did. We did. We did.

We did. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I didn't think about you on a track with like TT bars and everything. I don't know if I have like strong enough legs for track cycling. Maybe like one of the longer ones though. Like what's the longest? Yeah, I have no idea how long. I think you should someday try to go for the hour record.

Get the Canadian one, you and Lionel. Yeah. Me and Lionel. Yeah. Two triathletes. That would really light of fire in every Canadian cyclist. Well, I remember, I remember someone said this. Maybe it was Phil Gaiman.

He said that pure cyclists can't. compete with the top Uber biker triathletes in like a three hour time trial. Because they're just not trained to do that. Right? Where someone like Yon or someone like or Lionel or can't work or whatever, just like put them

on a TT bike for a four out for an Iron Man distance bike. And they may be the best in the world with that. Yeah, for sure. Because time trial is on cycling or training for very short events. Yeah. 20, 30 minutes, something like that. Yeah. Relatively. Okay. So we have a question here from Lindsay

Corbyn, you may have heard of her. If you and Eric were in the couple's skate division, what sound would you be skating to? And by sound, I assume she means song. Yeah, what song? I have the tiger? I'd probably get pretty into like a queen song. Oh my God, that's good.

Wee! Nick, do a little clip of queen right now. Drop it. We don't want to get copyright infringement on the pod. I could do a funny cover that would be covered under the oh, I figure what it's called now. But if you're making fun

of songs, you can record the whole song like Weird Al or whatever. A lot of people probably don't know this. If you're making fun of a song, it's satire. That's what it is. It's covered under satire. You can record the whole song and no copyright. It's like freedom of press. That's what it's covered under. So if you're making fun of it,

you can record the whole thing. But if you're just doing a straight cover, no, you have to pay the artist. Okay, well, I can't wait to hear your satire version of queen. will probably slip and fall on the ice because we can't skate that well there it is Lindsay had one more question she said if your dog was an Olympian what event would they be in okay the funniest part of this is that we talked about this with Lindsay last week and Jimmy her beautiful golden retriever Lindsay said it would be in the ice dancing conversation

because if you saw Jimmy like prancing around with her perfect haircut you'd be like Yeah, that's hilarious. And Flynn would be in border cross. Yep. Where you rage down the hill as fast as possible. That's true. Jumps. Danking turns.

Taking out anyone in his way. Throwing bows. If anyone wants to chime in on what their dog would be in the Olympics, just send me an Instagram message. I'd love to hear it. Oh, I wish we had comments on the pod. We could have people comment on it. Yeah, this is why we need a forum or anything.

But yeah, send it to Paula, along with a picture. Yeah. necessary. It's her answer. I'm going to melt down with people sending stuff in. I can't wait. I can't wait.

Dog kicks. So outside of your events, were you able to enjoy the Olympic experience, Paula? Like, was it still fun or was it just, were you too nervous the whole time? No, because I raced pretty early in the two weeks and stayed till the very end, till the closing ceremonies.

And I enjoyed it. I went to watch a lot of track. I went to watch the swimming. Yeah, I was able to watch. able to, like, go and experience it, which was really cool. My family was there. Procter and Gamble was one of my sponsors, and they had a whole, like, thank you mom campaign. So they were sort of sponsoring my mom in a way and really looking after her super nicely. So being able to spend time with her and all my family after my race was really important, I think, and also really, yeah,

made me enjoy it. And it was also very cool that it was in London because the subway system is so amazing there that you could get for. from the athlete village to basically any venue just on the subway train. So really easy to get around. It was pre-COVID, obviously. Yeah, I was going to say we've come up multiple times in the conversation as we've watched the last Olympics and we've watching this Olympics of like kind of how sad it is for the athletes who are involved to not be able to go do a lot of those things.

Like there's no crowds in those stadiums that you would go watch another event at and you're not really supposed to go anywhere. And a lot of times they just leave the country right after event. Yeah, different experience than it would be pre-COVID or hopefully next Olympics when COVID is behind us hopefully. But I've become super obsessed with downhill skiing and Michaela Schifrin and like I watched every event. And Lindsay Vaughn was commentating yesterday and I was wondering what some of her runs looked like now that I'm an expert. Right, right.

And so I watched her runs at the Vancouver Olympics and it was insane. The crowds the entire way down the course. So the one in Beijing, it looks super. much super like just pop up. It's like, nobody there. Like it's just kind of a manmade thing. Whereas in Vancouver, it was like roaring crowds the whole way down her run and you could hear it on the video like on the live coverage.

So cool. Such a different experience and like kind of sad that the last two Olympics have been spectator free basically, but also still great that they've been able to happen at all. Okay, so I got one here that is, it might be a little bit of a hot topic. I want you guys getting any hot water for this, but what Olympic sport should no longer be an Olympic sport? Dressage. Like the dancing horse one? Yes.

Is that what that is? Yes, the dancing horse one. And I don't say this just because I think it's dumb. I just, it's not even dumb. It's not even dumb. It's not even good enough to be considered dumb. Is that what you're saying? No, I think it's insanely impressive.

It's just very cost prohibitive for like anyone on earth to do it. Right. If you have the ability to have a horse, like, have the horse be trained, get this horse to a different country, dance on horse. That is insane. That is like, there's nobody, nobody can do that. Very few people in the world. That's like, what's the sport pentathom? That's less obscure. Oh, but. Because I think they ride just a random horse. Yeah, but then it's like a horse and there's like, like pistol shooting. and then there's like a run and a swim and archery or something?

It's hysterically archaic. It seems like British elite sport. They're like, here are all these things that only we can afford. They're never going to get rid of that sport because it's been around since the very start. I do know a modern, somebody who was trying to go for the modern pentathlon, and they just lived at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, and there was a horse somewhere nearby that they could ride,

and they had some guns for them. They were just an ex-swimmer. Right, right. Literally learned the other four sports. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess it is possible, but you kind of need a lot of support. They do like a 200 meter swim. It's like such a short part of it.

So short. Yeah. Okay, this is spiraling. But the interesting part about it is the 200 meter swim is the only part where you can earn an infinite, unlimited amount of points. So the faster you go, the better. Yeah, there's no cap. So that's why a really, really fast swimmer is an interesting recruit. Like Michael Phelps.

Right. He'd be a good recruit. He's like, a pistol? Okay. guess. I don't think they shoot, do they? I thought they did. Let's see, we got horses shooting, shooting a pellet gun, we'll say, we'll just call a pellet gun, running a 3K, I think, swimming a 200 meters, and then I'm missing a fifth discipline. They do fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting and cross-country. So basically, I'm rich and I'm going to do

this sport that only I can afford to do. That's what it sounds like to me. The fencing and the horse riding, and that's like all very elite stuff. I don't think they necessarily own the horse that they're jumping with. Oh, oh, maybe that's true. We'll say it was created out of elitism, but modern day you can get some access to a horse that will jump over things. Okay, so back to triathlon. With a recent addition of the team event,

do you think we'll see more tri races added? Like maybe like a 70.3 distance, like a non-drafting, no. Definitely not. Negative. It was a massive thing to get the team relay in as a, it was. Okay, so we have a question from J.S. Reed Hart. I'm not even going to read these names anymore.

I don't know where the spaces are, where the names start and the characters begin. But podium picks for Paris. It's even alliteration. That's a good question. So Eric, Eric, do you have some men that you think could make the podium?

I would love to see Morgan Pearson. I think he... We're Morgan and Pearson fans. I think he has it in him. It just is going to take a good day and a little bit, you know, a few more years of development, but he was still pretty raw going into the last Olympics. He did great. So that, I would say that's a little bit of a dark horse, but would love that.

I don't know. I would have said Vince or like maybe Yellow Gaines, but they're both kind of dabbling around in 70.3, so I don't really know what they're going to do. What about Christian again or Alex Yee? Oh, yeah. Maybe one of the Norwegians. Or Gustav even. I don't know.

Gustav has said that he, that is his sole focus and winning the 70.3 worlds was cute, but, you know, so. Yeah, real cute. Probably Norway will get someone on the podium. They're just doing everything right right now, it seems. Yeah. And Paula, what do you think for the women? Potentials? If Jessica Leermont is still racing for Paris, I think she's going to win.

She's not only one of my favorite athletes on the ITU circuit person in my trunk. I can't tell. Paul is wasted on the pod today. She's still hung over from Valentine's Day. No, I would pick Jess Learmonth, Georgia Taylor Brown, and who's like a dark horse up-and-comer? Do you just have the world rankings pulled up here?

No, I don't. That's not, I don't. I want to look at them if you do. Taylor Nib. I don't want to say Taylor Nib because I think she's going to win Kona. Yeah. Instead.

Maybe like Maya Kingman or something. Kingman, yeah. I was watching the WTS step when she was doing really well on those, and I was like, whoa, impressive. She's good on the bike. Taylor Brown. She got a flat, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I was really impressed by her too. I like your podium picks. Thanks. We'll see if they're right. Tune in and two years later. We have my question here. Why are you going to Florida, but not to Disney World?

Did we say we weren't going to Disney World? You don't have enough time to go to Disney World. You're racing on Sunday and then you're leaving on Monday morning. Breaking news. Nick might be coming with us to the couple's trathom. I'm cutting all this out. but yes I would

we're more we're more like go camping be by a lake by ourselves and tranquility type of people than stand in line

for Magic Mountain type of people at the end of the day I'm both I have been to Disney World it was fun I did a proch childhood never went to Disney World

or land yeah just the Olympics do they have a that's not wasn't fun my God Paula you also you also got to go skiing

in around Banff a lot as a child. I would say that I would trade that for some Disneyland trips. It was too cold. My life sucks. So next question is this is for both of you because I feel like even though you kind of discount this,

I do think this is a valid question. Do you have metal goals for future Olympic games? Either one of you. Don't laugh. Negative. I mean, did you hear me pick myself for the medal? the medals for Paris. Well, you're humble, so I know you wouldn't pick yourself.

No, if I'm going for it, I'm picking myself. Right. Neither of you have any plans to try to qualify for the Olympics. I'll just get myself out of the way and say no, and then we can kind of... No, it crosses my mind more frequently than you'd think to try to qualify for the Canadian team, because I feel like the Canadian women's team is a bit of unknown every four years because of a lot of injuries and burnout and mismanagement on triathlon Canada's side of their athletes. Well, now you're definitely not going. Calling out travel on Canada.

That's true. No, I think it would be like going again for the experience because I don't think my swim is fast enough to compete now as it was back in 2012. It's just gotten faster across the board. Well, let's take a step back. Would either of you ever want to do an ITU race again? Yeah, I think that'd be fun. Yeah. It's the most fun racing.

It really is. Like 70.3 is kind of cool and there's definitely a racing element to it. Iron Man less so. But ITU is just, it's straight up racing as hard as you can go. There's some tactics to it. It's so fun.

I've always said like I love the ITU racing so much. The ITU lifestyle is just so brutal with travel and federations and funding and the whole thing of it. Cool. So my brother, his favorite Winter Olympic sport is the biathlon

which at first when he said that I'm like are you kidding me? Like cross-country ski and shoot like Jerry Seinfeld does a bit about it he's like makes just as much sense as like swim a lap and strangle a guy like I don't understand how the two are connected but he's pointed out to me

that it's because the cross-country skiing is like maximum aerobic effort as hard as you can and then you have to stop and do something that takes the exact opposite which is like ultimate precision and focus. So I thought that was a pretty cool thing.

So of like winter sports that are available to you, which one do you find the coolest? I guess, Paula, maybe for you said it's like the downhill skiing, but is that true? Coolest? Maybe. But I do think biathlon is one of the most unique because I don't think it's a crazy sport.

I think it's very respectable. And like you were saying, to bring your heart right down, enough to shoot. I don't think the whole point of it is like your aim necessarily. It's like your athletic ability to lower your heart rate enough to be able to aim. So that is very admirable and not something that any other sport has to do go from this really high aerobic state to complete rest almost in order to focus like that. So I think that is a very, very cool sport. On that topic, how would you do with adding some rifle and shooting during T1?

and T2 for time bonuses. Eric, like, do you think you have that skill of, like, transitioning from full crazy swim down to like, all right, now I need to shoot this target really accurately. Yeah, I do it every single day with the camera. That's right. He's literally shooting, people. Sprint up the road, stand on the side of the road, get the shot, sprint to catch back up afterwards.

That is so true. You've been training, you didn't even realize you've been training for the triathlon byathlon. People ask, like, how do you, what kind of camera stabilizer you use? and nothing. Like these babies, these right here, my phalanches. What about you, Paula?

Do you think, like, would you even try? Or would be like, no, not worth the bonus because I can't do this at all. I would say that in general, I have a lower heart rate

than the average when I'm exercising. So maybe I'd be able to do it, but I have no real interest in learning how to shoot a gun. It doesn't look like a skill I'd like to incorporate. Eric, what about you?

What's your favorite one to watch? Well, favorite one to watch versus one night. I don't know. Favorite one to watch is probably like either slope style or half pipe snowboarding. I think that's super cool. And like the way that a run comes together and they're trying to do this trick. And sometimes if they land it, it's just like people lose their freaking mind.

Even the other competitors are like, we're all best friends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like very. Yeah. I do love that. It's very easy to relate to that.

And the suspensefulness of it is cool. But then also like watching Super G is just so, so cool. They're just going so fast. Yeah. I love descending on a bike, and I can just get into that so much. And like imagine the feeling of the G-E forces and the corners and the speed, and it's pretty exhilarating to watch. I remember reading once that, like, how,

they have to design those skin suits to have, like, extra material in their quads because their legs expand so much by the time they get to the bottom of the hill. Really? Wow. Just like, those guys, like, if you see them, those, guys are not like, they don't look like... They're solid. They don't look like marathoners. They are thick. They're like, they are denser than a dying sun. They are like just packed in

like so strong. I guess like there's no reason for them to be light, right? That's what I was thinking yesterday. Like a lot of the heavier skiers would have an advantage, I would think. Yeah, being light is worse. Right. Maybe for the slalom or something, you want to be like a little more nimble. But for the super G, you're just like barreling down at, How fast do they go? It's like insane speeds. Like 108 kilometers, 110, 15 kilometers an hour.

Oh, it's 80 miles an hour. I think it's faster than that. Let's just not even throw it over. Actually, yeah, I guess that was what we were watching, not the G super G. I go like 55 miles an hour on skis. Those guys are going, I think, at least 85 miles an hour. Nick, what's your favorite sport to watch at the Winter Olympics? Half pipe or the slope style kind of like rails at the top.

kickers at the bottom. But when I was a kid, I was like really into snowboarding and I wanted to do the snowboard cross. And I was like not really training for it, but like I would, when I saw little like obstacles and stuff, I would pretend like I was in the Olympics going for it. I really like that. That sports seems fun to me. I like the head-to-head nature of that versus racing the clock and the downhill skiing. Yeah. It's just a little more true to the Olympic, like who crosses the line first wins. I think we can safely say snowboard cross would be the most fun event. Okay, so a little more

of a serious question here. Do you think performance enhancing drugs are a big problem at the Olympic level for the Winter Olympics? It seems like Summer Olympics, there's more sports that are based on pure fitness, and the Winter Olympics there's sports that are a little more skill

focused, but I mean, we saw how much Russia doped every single one of their athletes, even the curling athletes, had been had doped. So what do you guys think about Winter Olympic performance-enhancing drugs? 100%. 100% a problem. All of the skiing, all the cross-country skiing events, any event that requires any degree of strength. I mean, even like downhill, like you were saying, the stronger that you are, the more you can stay tucked and the more speed you can carry through a turn.

Even just like focus, right? I mean, I don't know anything about performance and enhancing drugs, but there's got to be some that would maybe improve your focus for curling or whatever sports aren't as aerobic. Paula, for you, do you feel like you were tested more? They were asking, on average, how often is an Olympic athlete drug tested? But did you find that the drug testing was more intrusive and severe during the Olympics time for you? Or now during a 70.3 pro athlete? Yeah, for sure during the Olympics, especially as someone who is like doing well at IT races,

I would be tested every race, maybe twice, and then probably twice a month at my house. whereas now it's a little bit more sporadic. I was tested a few weeks ago at the house. So that was a little more unusual, though, to come to my home versus at races. The drug testing bodies, whatever, governing bodies, like definitely focus in on athletes that are deemed to be, I don't want to say suspicious,

but if you're doing well, you're going to get drug tested more, especially if you're doing really well kind of suddenly, which is very encouraging, that if someone's skyrocketing, they're going to be getting a lot of attention. Okay, so we have a question here. Actually, there were a couple of questions about this, and I don't know how much you guys want to talk about this, but apparently there was this Russian figure skater, and Russia obviously has a tumultuous record with doping in the Olympics, and this is no exception, but apparently she tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs within the past year,

and now she's still able to compete in figure skating because she's, under age. Did I say that right? You've got it mostly right. Yeah, she tested positive for something back in, I think, December before the Russian championships leading into the games. And then she was only notified

of the test a few days ago. Like, in the middle of the Olympics and yeah, you're shaking your head. And that's the thing is there's a whole bunch of parts of this story that are just very confusing. Why did it take that long? And why is she still being allowed to compete? But I think essentially the whole thing is being under review at the moment. In the meantime, they're letting her compete while they,

they being the IOC and like what's the relevance of her being a minor? I don't understand why that, it's just still competing against people. It's not like, right. She's, she's ultimately still, she's taking gold medals away from people who are of all ages. So I think the biggest, the bigger issue here is like really not her necessarily, but the fact that Russia, they're not called Russia. It's called the Russian Olympic Committee at the moment or whatever is still being allowed to compete. I mean, what's the point of calling them

the Russian Olympic Committee? Is it not the same exact thing? In what ways is it even different? I sort of feel like maybe it's a little bit of a Western attitude to think that Russia, the country, is really going to care what their athletes are called when they are still winning medals and stuff. But

it's, yeah, it's a really touchy subject on both the summer and the winner side because these are still athletes from this country that has had a state sponsored doping regimen and we're just assuming

that the state has just stepped back and is not caring anymore and these athletes are all just competing for themselves, by themselves with no help and taking medals away from the rest of the world and not to say that the rest of the world

is totally... No, no, of course not, but my unsolicited advice for the week is to watch Icarus on Netflix if you haven't seen it, which is it's a really interesting documentary.

It starts as a documentary on this guy trying to do performance-enhancing drugs to become a faster cyclist, and then it kind of like snowballs into this insane story. I don't want to give it away too much, but check it out if you haven't. But yeah, I mean, and I understand maybe like not punishing this girl very severely, but letting her compete is, that's different. Yeah. Part of me has like a little bit of sympathy for her. maybe there's some like abusive power.

I know a 14 year old athlete, you just do anything your coach tells you to do. Yes, totally. It can be very, very abusive. Which is why I say. We don't know the whole story. Yeah, like the country is her handlers, whoever, like that's, that is the issue.

It goes way higher than the athlete. For sure. And it stinks that she then has to pay the price by not competing in the sport that she may have qualified for anyway if she weren't on the drugs. Yeah, that's the other thing, is she's incredible.

And is she incredible because she took performance dancing drugs? Not necessarily. Yeah, we don't know. Is she 1% more incredible? Is she 50% more incredible? It's just, and it's sad that she won't know, we won't know. It's just this big thing, you know. I think some people don't realize that those drugs, they don't just help you be, like,

they're not just going to help the power lifter lift more weights. They also help an athlete, like, you recover faster. Yeah, for sure. You get injured less. Like, you can just train more. So even skill-based sports, like skating, you can still get injuries and you can still get tired and those drugs help you just keep training and training and training.

So it does still provide an unfair advantage. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And like the way that she won her, the gold medal and the free skate or the short program, whichever one it was, was she did this triple, the quad toe. Anyway, she spun four times in the air, which is the first time it's ever been done.

And she did it twice in the same routine, which is just an incredible, feat of obviously skilled, but also strength to be able to jump that high and spin that fast twice in the same routine is, yeah, that's a lot of strength. Yeah, it's like, there's no easy answer to it. No, it's, I mean, it's too bad that athletes are caught in the crosshairs and everything, whether or not we don't know if they. Crosshairs, is that the term?

Yeah. Of a gun, yeah. I thought it was crossfire. Maybe if you did the pentathlon, you would know what a freaking crosshair is, Paula. Actually, they might not use it with a pistols, I don't even know. fact that I don't know anything about guns, I'm not ashamed of that. That's a good Canadian, yeah. Same.

True Canadian. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. I really hope that we got to as many questions that we could and you all got something out of this and want to see us back next week for a little bit more. Don't forget to send your questions into that triathlon life brand at gmail.com and we will keep getting through those. Another little cheat-chial plug is our sea foam hoodies. with the felt logo are dropping this week.

So by the time this podcast comes out, they'll be available. And we would really appreciate it. The best way to support us, we're not taking any money for the pod or anything, but buying merchandise helps us a lot. And we think the hoodies are amazing. These are our baby.

We've been working on these hoodies for like four months. They're so far behind. Paula's wearing them right now. Because of the felt application on it, it's not just like a screen print. They're like embroidered on these felt logos. So it took a lot to get them right. And we wouldn't put them up for sale until they were right.

So four months in the works. And yeah, go check them out. Thanks, everybody. You're awesome. Thank you, Nick. Thanks, guys. See you next week.