IM 70.3 Oceanside race conditions, the Taco Bell 50km, and more!

Hey everyone, welcome to that Triathlon Life podcast. I'm Eric Longstrom. I'm Nick Goldstone.

That's all we have for you today. But we're going to try to make sure that that's enough.

Yeah, I think we just lost about 75% of the answers out and done.

It's been a big day here. We have we have got a lot to recap. Very exciting stuff with TTL.

It's we're doing this quite late, so Paula is actually in bed resting up because she's racing.

And we're a day late too. We're also a day late, but it's for good reason. And Nick and I are

just going to shoot the shit and recap what's been going on and do some questions. A little bit of a

boys episode here. Yep, sorry everybody. So, okay, what did we do so far today? I mean, what

catch up everyone on what happened? You drove down from Ben with the van. Yep, I drove. Well,

I drove from Ben to Morgan Hill where we picked up Paula's new bike and I can now say that because

she's posted about it. We took some amazing pictures. What's in Morgan Hill? It's not just a

shipping depot. For those who don't know, yeah, that's that specialized world headquarters is in

Morgan Hill, California, which is conveniently located between Ben and Ocean side. So for two

years in a row now, we've stopped there picked up a nice fancy new bike for Paula and brought it

down here. I picked up Paula the airport in San Francisco. So we did a last little bit together,

met up with you for coffee in L.A. And we're now on Ocean side. We also did a little bit of a

swim. We did a little bit different for everyone. Just so everyone knows, Eric is just barely able to

flip turn again, right? You have not been swimming that much. And in general, you have been, how do I

put this? Neglecting your swim fitness. Words cannot explain how much I still cannot give up.

Well, the one thing that I have going for me, the one thing I did not neglect last year was my

swimming with a pull buoy for swim run. And that is all I'm doing right now. So if I had to do the

kicking, I'd be a little bit of sinking going on. But I can do the buoy. When you guys did, you guys

had done those fast, you just a set without me. And then you did 16, 50s. Yeah. Boy, I couldn't

keep up on those. But even after that, you guys did just like 800, like steady or cruise or

just like getting through it. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, I'll be able to keep up a little bit on

this for sure, right? And Paula's swimming with a pull buoy. So she's not even kicking. Incorrect.

I could not. I was like, I let her go and then I'll catch her. It'll be hard. I was swimming

1, 12 for 100 yards. She was still pulling away from me. She's pretty good, man. She's pretty

good on this whole whole life. I know. I just, I don't even think the leopard print flip

for the same dude. No, I did put those on for a few of those on the 50s. But yeah, it's always,

it's really fun. I wish maybe people have this experience, but it's really fun to swim with

people that are way faster than you because it recalibrates what you think is possible.

You could say that for a lot of sports, it just like opens up your eyes. And I've even heard

pro athletes say this, you know, they see another pro athlete do a really impressive workout and

it kind of opens their mind towards possible, just like the four minute mile, you know,

Roger, Roger Bannister phenomenon. We see it in extreme sports where someone's like,

oh, one person does a double back flip on a motorcycle and now all of a sudden it's like,

oh, everybody's possible. That's not what you have to do to even like be out on the podium.

It's not like triple cork. It's like we unlocked the DNA to be able to do it. It was always

possible, but it just takes one person to actually do it. Yeah, and it's fun. I mean,

that's certainly the view from the outside, but then I think everybody inside is like god damn it.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, so Swam, we had coffee at that epic coffee shop. Yeah,

then next up was ocean side. Yep, we get made it down to ocean side. I got the lay of the land.

I set up Hank Whalen, who if you don't know who that is, he's had some photos for us in the past.

He's not a professional photographer, just an awesome guy, part of the TTL community. He met me at

the booth. We set up a bunch of the ocean side stuff. If you don't have him paying attention on

Instagram, we did a collaborative booth with Castelli. They've generously brought in a espresso

machine. We brought coffee beans and some of our merchandise, and also dropped some Castelli

TTL collaborative merchandise. We're also right next to the tailwind booth. So I feel like this

expo is pretty epic, but certainly by 70.3 standards, but even by ocean side standards,

like there's some gigantic booths. Some brands drop some big money on this expo, and I think it's

really cool. There's a lot of energy. I feel like it's similar to what we were just saying,

where now there's an expectation that your booth isn't just some boring tent with some merch.

It's like it's gotta have a vibe. It's like an experience. Right, and now everyone's gotta do it.

I think it's awesome. This is the thing that I'm super here for. Yeah, and just so everyone knows

that people are listening who are here, what's left of TTL stuff at the booth? The special edition

poster and t-shirt that we brought. Those are all gone. We did bring some extras, sold through

them pretty quickly, but we have the TTL Castelli Adventure hoodie. So this is the same thing we've

done in the past. We have a cool new design on that. And then the new technical t-shirt that we've

done with Castelli in the past, it is now a new fabric and it is magical. It feels so good.

And we have that with just like the classic TTL circle on the front. Plus just a bunch of stuff

that we brought from our regular inventory that's a little bit cheaper than you can get it online.

Is there anything that's in very low supply that if someone wants to get it as early as possible

tomorrow? Or today, if you're listening? I don't know actually. I don't know on specific sizes

of things. Okay, got it. Great. So then today we did, as advertised, we did our TTL donut run.

Yep. Which was smashing success. I'll say smashing success. Yes, those donuts I may have had to.

They are so, so good. Parlor donuts in ocean side. Oh my god. It's borderline unfair to call

them donuts because they're so extra. They're like this crueller style. They're not shaped like a

donut. That's the other thing. It's unfair to like a lot of other donuts. They're not playing

by the rules. But that's okay. We had many reviews of this is the best donut I've ever had in my

life. That's what we're going for. Parlor donuts. We don't play by the rules. I'm into this. We'll go

over there and suggest it. Yeah, but it went super well that the weather down here has been amazing.

For people who don't know, the water temperature here is way, way, way warmer than it usually is

at this time of year. And she says like 60, 60 degrees. That's two degree short of the pro wetsuit cutoff.

So what does that mean that you guys cannot wear wetsuits? Once it's over 68. Really, you're not

even you're not allowed to. Exactly. But yeah, wow. I don't think we're in any risk of that

jumping up another. No, no, no, several decrees. But it's kind of wild. We know that Ironman will

find some cold water. They'll find some cold water. Yeah, they'll find some cold water. But otherwise

it's seeming to be Saturday seeming to be pretty pretty ideal day weather wise for us because it

should be cloudy. So that sun, which it was hot in the sun today. Yeah, you get a little UV for sure.

And like we joked about it and geared cold on this when you're cold on the bike. And then

right about the time you started running the sun pops. Actually, you really wish it was the

opposite and you're roasting. Yeah, take care of the nutrition, the hydration and I don't

paste yourself well. Yeah, yeah. Well, we got a lot of good memories here. We've been here so

many times and we've stayed in so many different places. Right now we have an epic view of the pier

that we can literally see it from right here. High up and what do we do? We want to you know,

we'll keep it a little secret where we're staying. We were we were gifted this hotel room. It's

it. We're incredibly grateful. It's amazing. But um, yeah, we'll keep a secret. We'll keep a

secret. Yes. Yeah, we don't we don't anyone knocking on the door here. But I thought it would

be fun. We don't have this is a little bit of a free form kind of show and it's going to be

since it's just me and Eric, I think that'll work just fine. But we do have a bike tech with

Eric question for you. All right. Okay, this is from Anders and Copenhagen. I have a bike tech

question for Eric. I recently upgraded my old specialized shift 2013 model to a newer 2024

shift model in hopes to gain a little extra speed this upcoming season. That is some longevity.

That's for one bike. Congrats 13 years. Bravo. Yeah. Now with it came a beautiful set of zip

firecrest 808. However, I've had already had to change the bearings in the front wheel and heard

from others that zip wheels in general have weaker hub setup. Do you have any recommendations or

tips from maintenance or how to make them last as long as possible? Much appreciated and all the

best in your upcoming races. I mean, I I personally haven't heard this. I don't really do I don't

really research into it, but none of our wheels, none of our hubs have had any issues on our zip

stuff. So I think you do find if you have a problem, you go Google it. Generally, somebody out there

in the world has had a similar problem with something. Thank God, because this makes car maintenance

very easy for anything that's broken. Somebody else is also broken. That being said, we have not

had that experience. So I don't have like I haven't had to deal with it. I'll tell you what, I had

to service the hubs on my DT Swiss hubs on my Canyon. So there's a data point in the opposite

direction. Yeah, I mean, it does happen, I guess, but I say that like the longest I've had any

wheel set from zip is on my my gravel bike that I sold and I'd had that for like three and a half

years in written and shit conditions. And I didn't have issues. So it's also not that expensive.

Yeah, I don't I'm not sure there's much we can do to like preemptively, you know, safeguard

against this. I'm curious if there was just like a manufacturing issue and like the seals weren't

very good or something like that, you know, there could have been a bad batch. Right. And the nice

thing about buying from zip, correct me if I'm wrong Eric compared to buying some unknown brand

is that the customer service is going to be far, far, far superior generally speaking. Yeah,

they have the they have the, you know, the resources to make it right and make you happy. Yeah,

yeah. Okay, here's a fun one. This is from from John and Spokane. Spokane. Sorry.

It's an inside joke with my friend and I was referencing it. Yeah, yeah.

This is great. And I'm very curious to hear what you think. Hey guys, PB or PR, I grew up saying

personal record, but here PB is in the triathlon world. Oh, we always said PR's. I think

PB is a British thing. That's what I hear people say. Yeah, I hear British people say PB.

We're in swimming. We would say best time. Really? Yeah. At least at my swim club.

Well, it kind of also asked the question like on Strava when you have a KOM.

It's like, okay, well KOM traditionally is it's a climb. It's supposed to be a climb. And then

yeah, the term has been co-opted and now he's you can use it for downhill segment.

So the downhill, king of the flat. But then on running segments, it's not called a KOM.

Of course, record. Of course, record. So why can't we just if we're going to bastardize the

term anyway, why don't we just use it for running too? I think it's just like it's so not in

running culture whatsoever. Like you see runners being like, King of the what? Why? What now?

What? Well, I'm so confused. Right, right, right. So what do you say? PB or PR?

I mean, like here's the crazy, like we don't talk in terms of PRs. So I see you don't even,

it's not even an issue to you. Yeah, but I guess like the last time that I did anything like this

is when I ran a 10k, you know, the Carl's bad 10k, like eight, nine years ago. Yeah, my PR,

the 10k. I would say PR. Right. This is the, you know what else is kind of in that category for me

is when American people start saying P nine, P nine, P two, you know, like, what they say in F1.

Yes. Like you grew up in Oklahoma, right? And you're saying, Hey, I just ran, I just like did my

first 70 point three P three on the day. Like what? You're not, okay, you're not my expert.

You know, you know what I saw today or never recently is someone said that not for the overall.

Like they were like P seven, A G 35 to 39, A G. Yeah. I'm like, oh boy. I'm not sure if you are from

Europe and that's a thing that you do over there. Awesome. But I hadn't heard that at all until

formula watching drives right. Oh, it's a, I didn't realize it was a fundamental one thing. I

just saw is something that I saw pros too. Kind of like to flex a little bit like overall.

We're probably going to get like, you know, you're going to be plugged. Yeah. That's at the

term. That's the term. Yeah, it's kind of nice. It's very bad for this podcast. Okay, sorry. So

next question here, we don't got a name. It might be from, well, you know what? I'm not going to

give away their email address. So we're just going to say, it's read the question here. I have been

dealing with back and hip injuries, but I want to do a local sprint trough on this summer for fun.

Just getting back into light running and swimming. So I'm hoping to push the bike leg for

a competitive effort. What workouts should I focus on to maximize bike performance in a sprint

distance without worrying too much about fatigue for the run? So the, the reason I like this question

is someone like, let's take someone like me who mostly races longer distances, but I want to

perform well at a sprint. How much really should I be changing my workouts compared to a 70.3?

Can I just continue to do some of the things that I'm doing? There's still VO2 max sessions in

there, both running and riding. Can I just do the same thing? Or would you be like, no, you should

be inserting some like much more higher effort stuff and less volume. Yeah, I don't, it depends

like how close to your ultimate volume ceiling you are, but I would like take the opportunity to

do some faster stuff. Like, I'm doing this sprint. This is a fun opportunity to do some like

4020s. That's the sort of thing that I think of like that hour of power style thing, like 4020,

like 20 seconds really hard, 40 seconds just riding. And because it's like, it's kind of fun and

it's engaging. Right. And, you know, I just think of the, you know, the some of the short course

athletes we know, it's not like they don't do a lot of volume. They still do a ton of volume,

but they just divvy it up a little bit different. Yeah, you probably don't need to drop your volume

down significantly unless you're already feeling very tired from your volume and you're going to

increase the intensity. I'm like shooting from the hip on that. But yeah, you know, sweet.

Cool. Next question here is from Amy, Canadian from Toronto. And this is a swim question.

Hello, tripod and Flynn. I can see Flynn. He is either sleeping or deceased.

All passed out. Yeah. As an adult onset swimmer, I recently had a swim video analysis done.

And the corrections to my head position resulted in shaving about five seconds per 100 meters

off my swim pace. That is. Wow. Pacing. Where were you looking?

They're, they're just they're watching reels. I mean, if you felt like you were swimming normal

and now you took five seconds, that's for just a head position. I gotta get the name of your coach.

That's a great. That's huge. Congrats. It's like a year of work.

Problem is I'm now swallowing copious amounts of pool water. It's probably head up first time.

It was Tarzan pool water trying to find that trough pocket. Yeah, they're referring to

there. Yeah, of course. Is this something that elite swimmers such as yourselves just put up with

or am I doing it wrong? I love that I'm swimming faster but end up with sloshing belly full of pool

water post swim. How do you find that trough or pocket without taking on water when taking a breath?

It's my timing off maybe. Cheers from Toronto. And thank you all for what you do in the trough

community. We talk about the pod quite often around here. Paula and Nick, good luck at ocean side.

We're all cheering for you. Smooth and speedy healing vibes for Eric. Okay. So what do you think

about this? Is this something that ever happens to you? Do you still ever swallow water from time

to time? I don't this is like one of those unfortunate things where I guess somebody who's naturally

good. You make a bad teacher. I don't remember going through this process.

Is it sucking in water? I think it just naturally happened from a coach saying, keep your head

down and your body needs to be twisting. You're on a spit. Very inline body position and you

naturally don't get your head way out of the water. I do remember this. I think there was

a good moment of timing though. For sure. For sure. I think it is not something you think about

though. Your brain figures it out in the background. For sure. I remember even a few years ago,

still occasionally, accidentally, swallowing water, maybe once or twice per swim.

Now I still keep when I'm breathing, I still have one goggle in the water, but I basically

never swallow water anymore. I think it just takes time. So you will get used to it, Amy. I do

think this just happened when Eric was like eight. Yeah. But I think we all kind of probably go

through that. I also think the faster you swim, the bigger that trough is. For sure.

And so it becomes a little bit easier. For sure. Yeah. I would say don't be afraid to,

you shouldn't be sucking on water constantly at the point of having a full belly. So maybe just

like dial back the amount that you're trying to keep your face in the water just a little bit

and maybe ease into it. That's all I can think of. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck.

Good luck, Amy. Okay. This next one is a kind of like a fun hypothetical question.

A recent podcast of yours sparked a debate amongst my friends.

Raro. Yes. Which athlete would win the next race? Under the assumption, both are equally fast

and age group athletes. Athlete A trains as a normal triathlete with trying to improve in all

disciplines or athlete B who trains to specifically to improve one discipline and maintain the others.

The episode reference there was an athlete who was a fast runner and the recommendation was to

maintain his run and focus on the bike. This is, this is, this is interesting. And what

reminds me of is the conversation that we've had before you guys brought this up about like how

much time should you really be spending on swimming as an age group athlete driving to the pool,

driving back doing all the things if you're after a fastest possible time in a race. Would that

time be better spent focusing on the bike or focusing on the run and just doing some maintenance

ones once or twice a week? It is so hard to know like how close you are actually to your

ultimate speed potential in any of the sports. Like maybe running, maybe biking it would be the

easiest one for like a really good physiologist to be like the data shows that you really should be

capable because your VO2 is x, y and z of like getting another 80 watts out of yourself versus the

swim is just so technique-based. You like we all could be one day away from having this breakthrough

like our last person. That's five seconds for 100. I'm heading the water properly. Like that can

happen with somebody just having a thing you know like my coach told me forever to like you know have

your shoulder closer to your ear but five years later it finally all of a sudden makes sense and

I can feel it. Yeah. And it clicked. So I don't know. Like this is definitely what most like x

collegiate runners do when they come in to try to do a world triathlon draft legal racing is

they'll run like 20 miles a week and just bike like crazy and swim like crazy and swim like

to work out today. Right. Five days a week and just not not even run. Yeah. Because it's like it

just doesn't even matter if you can't take two minutes off of your swim you have no chance.

You're not gonna. Yeah. So that might not be applicable to an age group athlete but for the sake of

the conversation. I think I might have a work on the weakness. If it's a glaring weakness. Right.

Right. Yeah. Fun question though. Fun hypothetical. Yeah. There's a lot of a lot of caveats to that.

There yes. Right. Also like the distance you're racing. You know if you're a really poor

biker and you're doing 70.3s it's like that's a lot of time you're losing on the bike.

Yeah. Cool. Okay. Next question is a van question. So let's go. This is from. Uh oh. We don't

have a name. Oh yes we do. Kurt. Over the last six months I converted a sprinter into a travel van.

It was a super fun experience but also a bit overwhelming as there are so many options. I'm curious

what you guys like and dislike about your van. What you might add or change about it and if there's

anything triathlon specific you would suggest. Also what exterior bike rack do you use? PSA would be

awesome to get a van tour. I really enjoyed Eric's one a bigotour from 2018. Isn't that a

van tour? Not of this current van. Oh. I was kind of a crazy one for you. Was it just from Mercedes?

It just wasn't a real or something. We didn't do like a full tip. No, you're right.

Because like when we first got it from Mercedes we weren't sure what extra modifications we were

going to be able to put on it and what we were going to get and etc. And I felt like there were

some things that still needed to be done and then by the time those things had been done

it felt like a little weird to do a van tour but we could. Yeah. So what we have is a storyteller

overland stealth mode. All of the storytellers are the same inside. They have three different

levels but you just get like more beefy exterior packages with racks or like suspensions and

whatever. So we basically took that mid-level and we kind of beefed it up to the level of the beast

mode which is the highest level that they have just in terms of the biggest thing that we love on the

van that we did that's aftermarket is the rip kit which is right improvement package. That just

makes it handled really nicely. Is that just suspension? It's just a suspension thing. It hardly

lifts the van at all but it just drives really nice on and off road. That was probably the biggest

wow thing that we did. Otherwise like the layout works really really well for us. I think they did

a great job of designing something they could work for a lot of different people. If we were just

like starting from complete scratch the storyteller does have this shower pan that's built into it

that we mostly just use for storage inside but we can't take a shower inside. I've seen some builds

that have that just built cleanly into the floor instead of sticking up so you have a lot more

a lot of extra storage. The only other thing which is really hard is the amount of garage space

that you have just if you have a large battery pack and you have water tanks in there there's

only so much space you can have for bikes underneath the bed. But if you could magically just say

I need half the amount of batteries and half the amount of water then that would be pretty sick.

The other thing that we can't do in the storage thing is we can't because of Mercedes

compliance safety things we can't have a box attached to the door which we would absolutely love

to have. So you should do that if you're building your own van. Yeah. If you're building your own van

the exterior box on the back door where you can put like dirty shoes and just things that smell or

like your campfire equipment that's really killer. Our bike rack to answer that question is we have

a hitch mounted one-up in my dream scenario and I have that rear box on the back with the one-up

racks mounted at the top of that box. That's taken that hitch from mount on and off is kind of a pain

in the ass. Got it. Wow. I could do that. I could go on about this for like hours. I realized I

realized it as quick as possible. I realized there's so much depth to the van stuff. Yeah.

People make it a whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. I've built out like three different vans now and it's

I absolutely love it but you're right. It's completely overwhelming. Yeah. I love it. And it's

going to take twice as much money and three times as much time as you think it's going to take.

Awesome. Okay. This next one is from Liz. This is kind of crazy and quite long but I think it

should be an entertaining one. Hey, Pod Squad, I just signed up for the Kodiak Big Bear Ultra,

the 50K Eric. We know all about that. That's right. We were there. That's the one that convinced me

to give surgery. That's why we're here. This fall, which I'm super excited about, but I'm even more

excited about the second ultra. I just signed up for a November dot, dot, dot, the Taco Bell 50K.

Oh no. Is this anything like the Chipotle 50 Chipotle? Well, you know what? You know what? Yes.

So you're familiar with that. Yeah. Yes. Okay. I will be doing the Southern California one. I've

included the rules below would love any advice on how to succeed in and train for the taco eating

portion. Okay. So these are the rules. Be present at all Taco Bell stops along the courses.

Zero tolerance for course cutting. Eat a menu item from at least nine of the 10 Taco Bell

stops. By the fourth stop, all entrants must have consumed at least one Chalupa Supreme or one

Crunch Crunch Rapp Supreme. Dietary restrictions will be allowed within reason. By the eighth stop,

all entrants must have consumed at least one burrito Supreme or one nachos Bell Grande.

Finish under 11 hours drinks do not count as food. Entrance must keep all receipts and

wrappers for confirmation of stupidity at the end of the front. An off course bathroom break will

be allowed at washpark. Survivors will eventually get a commemorative. This is Taco Bell's words,

by the way. Survivors will have Taco Bell created this. Oh, you know, I don't know why. You're right.

It's cannot be. What I mean is that this is the official rules of the race. Survivors will

eventually get a commemorative item after a successful completion of the run. If you intend to

participate RSVP or statement of intent, once your RSVP you are in, this is like the goblet of fire.

No, on course, Pepto Alcacelzer, Pepsid AC, my land, I don't know what that is, will be allowed.

Additional rules may be added, amended or changed to promote the intent of this run, which is to

do something completely stupid. Also, then there's the Diablo challenge. Lather all items with

Diablo sauce and do a Diablo shooter at the end. There's also the Baja Blast challenge,

drink an aggregate of two liters of Baja Blast during the run without vomiting. Okay, so

how different is the training for this than a training for a regular 50K? Do you think?

Do you how much gut training do you have to do? Because there's a significant amount of craziness

you're putting in your body. I don't know. I feel like this might just be something you just got to

like raw dog. There's no way to train for this. What detriment to your body? You're going to go

around for three months. I'll have Taco Bell during your training. You're going to die.

Yeah, then this is so unproven. I'm much more into the like just run two minutes per miles,

slower and normal. Minimize the bouncing. Go with the most collidious stride that you can manage.

So maybe power walking would be like good training because we're just going to have to finish

under 11 hours. I don't really know what that is. I'm just saying like something to get

yourself into like the no oscillation state of mind because I just like when I paced my sister,

this was her big problem at the end of her 100 mileer. It's like her stomach was okay-ish,

but she just couldn't handle the bouncing anymore. So she was power walking the whole way and then

she could keep stuff down. So I was just like a lot of jostling your chalupas.

Jostling your chalupas is what a phrase that is. Have you ever seen that tweet that was like

if Taco Bell gives you diarrhea, your bloodline is weak and history will forget you?

I love that. I think these people cut from the same cloth.

Yes, definitely. Now my question for you is, do you think you could do this?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got a pretty good stomach. Yeah.

I also ate, I also did eat Taco Bell as a child after some practices. If we were like

had been really good and done on homework, whatever we could go get some burritos.

Yeah. So I think I'm just, you know, I have some like training that I would call it back

from my youth. You were stuff like the old man fitness, but Taco Bell related.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You didn't have garbage when you're growing up,

right? Your body's used to it. Okay.

Follow up question here. How much do you think got resilience and not necessarily about Taco Bell,

but about gels and sports nutrition stuff on in a race? How much of that do you think is

luck for someone genetic?

Because it seems like some people are super sensitive. I just honestly don't know.

I don't know what the percentage is, but obviously there is some percentage of,

there's just some people that can put down 200 grams of carbohydrates,

like Zach on our development team. That guy's putting in like 180 grams of carbs per hour.

Right. He doesn't, he's like 64, but it's not like he has some insanely larger,

you know, stomach that can handle like they can take that much more in.

I think he just fortunately is a large guy that can also handle that.

Some people just, I don't know. I have not researched this enough. I just do what works for me.

Yeah. Great. Well, that sounds fun. Maybe one day we'll punish her, but I think we can do it.

Take years off our lives. I'm more concerned about running around a city

for 50 kilometers. That's not so fun. Destroying the knees and all my joints. That's not so fun.

If I'm going to run that far, I want to do in the woods, the mountains.

Or we would need like the latest and greatest cloud monster or super duper maxers.

Okay. Next question here is from Alfonso. Hello, I'm racing ocean side and I'm struggling with my

wetsuit. I like to consider myself an okay swimmer for my age doing a 2630. That's very okay.

For the 1900 meter swim, but haven't how sleeved wetsuit that makes it feel way harder to swim.

I'm considering using my sleeveless wetsuit just so I have more room for my shoulders.

Any thoughts or suggestions, I think it's going to be around 57 degrees at that time.

Right. Well, you're in luck. You're in luck. It's nine degrees more than that.

It'll be fine with the sleeveless. Yeah. So let's talk about two things. First of all,

you've swam in sleeveless and you've swam in sleeved, of course. Yes.

You went through both trends of the latest greatest, you know, whatever it was, it used to be sleeveless.

Now no one, no pro swims sleeveless. Yeah. How much of a temperature difference do you think

there is? I mean, if you get cold easily, it can be, it can be significant. I don't get cold very

easily. So I was able to do sleeveless. I think also when I was doing sleeveless, there was a time

in there where sleeved wetsuits just were fairly restrictive and sleeveless was less restrictive.

And I think that personally, I think that time is gone. Companies are putting their best

most flexible technology and materials into their high-end sleeved wetsuits.

So anyway, if you have the means, I think, getting a high-end sleeved wetsuit is the way to go.

So this particular race, the water temperature, you're going to be fine.

And then especially if you swim 26 minutes, like you're a good enough swimmer, you can put out

enough effort to generate enough body heat in my opinion, unless you're just like 3% body fat and

have a problem with cold. But the thing is, the bottom line is even if Alfonso is

perceiving that he is less flexible in the sleeved wetsuit, would you say that the chances of him

being faster in the sleeveless is basically zero? No, I wouldn't say that necessarily.

If everything else on these wetsuits is created equal and they're both equally buoyant,

if he feels better in the sleeveless, I think he got to go with that. It's not like

legless. The most amount of buoyancy you're getting out of a wetsuit is in the legs and the butt.

And then the arms is great, but not making that big of a difference. So if you feel better and

you're not going to think about it, I would go with the thing that's like quiet mind. Yeah.

It's so easy for people to just like have a fall on panic attack inside of their wetsuit and feel

claustrophobic and like, just think so restrictive. You don't want that. Literally happens to

pros. Yeah. All the time. Crazy. Okay, next one here is from Robert. First part of this question is

for Nick. Rest for everyone. I've only ever raced locally. Are drafting rules enforced on age

groupers? Should they be? I mean, I think I would like to hear how much you think draft rules

are enforced for pros? How often were you racing? You're like, I wish there was a ref right here

looking at what I'm saying. Yeah. Often. Often. I also feel like I had a very

free, like I feel like some people for like when it was 12 meters, you know, like they're thresholds

at 11 and they felt good about 11. For me, I was like 13 or 14 felt like what I assumed 12 was

and I couldn't believe how close I was. So like in my mind, I think I saw a lot of cheating

that was not called and maybe maybe wasn't as bad as I thought, but it's inevitable, especially

in the pro field where, you know, like your livelihood is dependent on this and you're kind of like,

I can be the stand up guy when there's no referee around here and sit at 13 instead of 11

and get and make no money and go back to flipping burgers. Right. Or I just like maybe just for

a couple of seconds. The problem is when you were giving those space, people would slot in in front

of you because they thought there was, which is always going to be the problem. Even with it being

20 now, it's it's even harder to know exactly what it looks like. The race ranger has solved that

problem. Yeah. Fortunately. And I think I probably, I might have enjoyed it a little bit more

if I had raced with race ranger. Just so it's not even an issue in your head, right? Like the last

few 70.3s that I did, I'm not, I don't have any intentions of doing another one, but the last

couple ones that I did, that was like the thing that I remember being most stressed about at world

championships the night before. Just like, are the referees going to be enforcing this? Like,

am I going to have to like do something that I don't feel good about to stick with the group?

It's all doing the thing or are they going to call just like so stressful? Yeah.

And do you think for age group racing, should it be enforced? I just I don't I don't know if it's

possible. I haven't been in an age group race, but like just having seen it, you know, from across

the road or whatever, there's so many people. And I feel like this is also just an issue in like an

85 person profile. Like everybody on Saturday is going to be getting out of the water. There's

going to be 45 guys all within right 12 seconds of each other getting out of the water. And they

need to space out 20 meters apart magically in the first five kilometers, first one kilometer

of the bike course. It's just like that's hectic. And you magnify that times 100. This is this is

what this is the problem with the field is it's it's basically impossible to do. Yeah. Like what would

we love it if it was possible? Yes, obviously, but I don't know what the solution is here besides

like, Oh, we can only have a hundred age groupers race. So that's legal. I think what what I have

seen in my anecdotal experience is that when when there's just like a group of 40 guys riding

together, they don't really give out penalties because what are they supposed to do?

None of those guys may be trying to draft, but they're just kind of I'm kind of stuck. I'll be

at the front of it. And I'll try to push higher watts. And then I look back and there's people

right there. We're all just riding together. And then you slam on the brakes for a minute.

Right. And then everyone behind you has to do the same thing. It's a problem. But I have seen

age groupers and I know personally of age groupers who have gotten penalties for drafting.

It's like, you know, it'll be like at most five people in a race. And there's not five offenders.

Do you do feel like the the rolling start has made this better or worse? Oh shoot.

It's like in my mind, it could be better because it's just such a random mix of different

speeds of people. Yeah. That's interesting. That's interesting. I'm not sure I couldn't give you

a really reliable answer on that. Yeah. It is it hurts my heart when I see it because and it

hurts my heart when I'm like stuck in one of these groups. Right. Like I don't want to be part

of that. Yeah, you've got to assume nobody wants to be there. But what am I like I try to get on

the front and I try to get away and I just don't. And then when I'm back in a group, I'm like,

all right, and there's people passing me and then the same thing happens to them. I don't really

know what a solution is when you have we've talked about this before, but we have so many age

groupers. It's just kind of the nature of the problem. Yeah. I mean, if I just had to guess,

there's like, if there's a group of 20 people, there's like three people who are like you and then

there's a bunch of people are like, hmm, what am I supposed to do slow down? Yeah. But they're not

ever going to go to the front. I do sometimes you see people just riding directly behind other people,

but it's generally very slow people who maybe don't even really know about the rules. And which

crosses into what we've talked about before where there's plenty of people who they just want to

finish the thing. And I don't like you give those people. I'll give them shit. Yeah. Yeah. I totally

agree. Anyway, nice, nice little hypothetical question there. Next one here, Eric, this one's for

you. Is it necessary to bleed your brakes at regular intervals, even if you aren't having any

problems? Oh my god. I'll tell you what my answer to this question is absolutely not.

If it is, if it ain't broke, yeah. I think I also subscribe to the if it ain't broke,

don't fix it. But generally like on the brakes, they start to get a little soft or they click or

you know, whatever. Something goes wrong enough. And then if I'm doing one, I'm doing them both.

Yeah. And then I'll just do all the bikes. Yeah. It's like I've got the bleed kit out. I'm kind

of in the rhythm of it. And like, oh yeah, that's right. The crux also was feeling a little squishy

all right. Just do them all. Yeah. So. And do you ever replace the tubing? No. No. Yeah.

Not unless I have to cut it and it's too short or whatever, but for the most part. Yeah. No,

I've never just gone and replaced the tubing. Right. We also, to be fair, we don't like for like

a maximum of two and a half three years. Right. Right. But even I have not replaced the tubing

on bike setting on for like seven or eight years in real or a lot. Yeah. No. You used to like

want to replace brake housing more when it was cables cable actually because the brake housing would

actually compact. Yeah. And at a certain point, it would just kind of, I don't know, it would just

or it would corrode and things. And so like new brake housing could actually feel really nice

versus now it's hydraulic hose. Right. Right. Okay. Next question here is from Adrian

and Canada. Really? Yeah. Hi, it's Adrian from Nanaimo. I've noticed more frequent mechanical

bike failures in pro triathlon racing lately. Front ends, drivetrain, even basic components.

Why is that? Is the complexity of modern tri bikes or just the reality of constant travel and rebuilds?

I don't know if you guys are like Christians freaking. I should say I think this is a K-dex problem.

Right. There's a common denominator. I actually don't know if his bars are K-dex, but I don't know

what happened with Christians thing. But one, like the first thing that occurred to me with Christian

is his bike fits over the years. Have had these ridiculous stacks basers between his base bar

and where his elbows are because he wants to like ride off the front of his bike by like three

feet like his elbows are in front of his through axle on the front of the elbows. This is a little

skinny part that's connecting your your bike to your handlebars that looks has always looked a little

bit. Do you think it's like the lever is just like it's snapped? Yeah. And then you're just like

yanking on it and you're you got a you're a big chested fella in New Zealand on those chip seal

roads. There's only so much like you know what carbon parts can do. Yeah. But I that that was my

first thought with that is like there's a lot of proprietary especially cockpits going on right

now where there are these like kind of startups smaller brands that are doing full custom or like

whatever handlebars setups and like no one's tested. There's like not an FDA of this that's

testing all of these are crash testing these to make sure that they're compliant with anything.

You are crashed. You're just trusting these couple of bro does it like ex engineers who thought

bikes were fun that they like did their homework yeah properly right and that they're engineering

tolerant that they you know they've tested it. What do you think there is a increased frequency

or is it just kind of I don't know. Confirmation bias. It could be it could be that there's much more

media coverage of professional racing now. So whereas before you just would have never heard about

it there's a freaking camera on everybody and everybody has a YouTube channel and wants to talk

about things. So hard to say for sure. It also seems like when something goes wrong it's like

oh big big drama you know let's put it all over everything let's make it a real let's

you know that's true. Okay next question here is from Alice from Great Britain and she says

hi ENP I'm doing my first 70.3 in May and we'll be riding a basic and old carbon road bike with

tri bars how how apt I usually have a big bag with a pump spare inner tubes etc. Multiple attached

to the frame between the seat tube and the top tube and a bottle cage on the down tube I'm told

this setup is not very arrow however I'm struggling to think of how else to do it I'd like to keep

the bag so that I can deal with repairs and ideally have a second bottle any tips does it even matter

as I won't be going very fast anyway of course is relatively flat so I'm not too worried about weight.

Well the problem is if it's fat then flat then your arrow does matter but if you're not really

worried about speed. This is one of those questions we answered many of these questions where it's

like I don't know how much do you care? Correct. Yes it's definitely not aerodynamic at all the

down tube bottle is the big no no and this thing sitting on top of your top tube at your seat

post junction it's not the worst ever but if you could tuck that up underneath your saddle

where a saddle bag goes that would be great I think get yourself down to single tube

if you could go to bliss then you can just bring like a CO2. Multiple tubes seems that's like

what are you training for the apocalypse? Like I mean maybe you maybe you have to double flat it

before. My thing is though true but if you're double flat it I don't know okay

can't you just like what we lost this one today guys you know I don't know maybe

you're you wait for someone else to stop and help you you know like yeah bringing two

and a tube seems crazy so that that's what I think that's our recommendation ideally switched to

two lists but if you don't just get one down to one inner tube put that up underneath your

saddle that's pretty arrow under there and then yeah if you if you want to keep it down to

bottle just get one of those aerodynamic ones yeah those are like a zero penalty aerodynamically

that's right okay next one here another Canadian Tazia Tazia what do you think T.A.

today's Focaccia okay this is high TTL squad I'm a non triathlete

I love you already and my husband just started a few years ago after being inspired by the

Olympics from your experience what are the most helpful ways a partner can support you throughout

training and on race day both practically and emotionally even though I do not participate

in triathlete TTL has totally made me fall in love with the sport so thank you Tazia from

Prince George BC I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because it's different for different

people right like what how I would support you is completely different than how I would support

Paula right and how I want to be supported by like my parents or whatever to race is so it's

different for each person I think you need to know your person a little bit like do they want you

to just show up with dinner and just take care of everything without even asking versus somebody who's

like can I go get you dinner right now do you want this do you need this do you need this do you

need this like I don't like I'll tell you I'll tell you when I need something otherwise you're

just kind of stressing me out because I hadn't even gotten to that point in my brain yet

right of thinking about that so you I think you could ask that person if you don't already know

but if they're your partner you probably know I think you're really on something because I was

just thinking something that I really would like is if my partner or even my friends ask me about like

hey tell me about your intervals like what power did you hold on your intervals or like how did

you feel did you like you're feeling strong that for me I like that I want to talk about it but

someone else might be like I do not I do not want you I literally do not want you to ask me

about that so it really can go in both directions it's about like practicing empathy and

yeah what they need yeah exactly I know that's super critical but most I think most people

are going to be a little bit stressed so trying to lower the stress

without like making too much light of the situation yeah it's like I think most people are a

little bit tense and if you can keep it fun yeah nice for most people nice what's good for you Eric

um yeah I think like my dad does a really good job I think like he does

ask me if I need anything he's just is there to chat when I want to chat and he'll

talk to me about a cool car that went by or whenever like it's like we're at a triathlon but he's

not like I need to make this triathlon the best triathlon for you ever mud so it just kind of feels

normal and it can defuse some of that I get myself worked up very easily inside of my own head

without like just kind of random bits to break the cycle yeah

by the way sorry if you can hear a lot of noise here we are like in the heart of ocean

side which is awesome it's going off it's going off there's it's like a crazy food festival festival's

car show we're going by the whole time we're able to park even okay next one here is from Sophia

Australia ATTL crew jumping off the recent question about body image Eric mentioning the

impact of a coach and Paula's chat about her personal struggles in the past I'm a girls high

school swim coach and I want to create a positive environment around body image and fueling for

my athletes what do you think we can do as coaches to help the next generation build healthier

relationship with their bodies and food I'm looking back what are some conversations you wish

your coaches had with you or things you wish were handled differently differently thanks so much

love the podcast all the best for their exit Eric I feel like you're such a perfect person

answer this question oh I mean I don't know am I like you didn't go perfectly for me well I mean

talk about like who makes the best teachers I know it was struggles I know it went what went wrong

and I think it was comments without education so a coach saying hmm you think you should be eating

that without like any sort of like without like true guidance it from a knowledgeable perspective

like the coach that I had at the time did not really understand eating disorders did not

I think you understood nutrition fairly well but it had not had any sort of encounters with

a get right getting out of control do you think they knew did it's a possible they didn't know

the kind of damage that they could inflict for sure and it did not come from a negative place it all

came from a trying to teach like hey you're you're eating little Caesars three times a week like

you're not in high school yeah so I don't know like I guess if I could go back it would have

been nice to be connected with a truly knowledgeable nutritionist in that situation rather than just

like a comment where I was now on my own to like decipher what that meant and what I should do about

it and I don't think like a coach is necessarily the person who can do all the education and like

an actual nutritionist if if that was possible I think that might have helped a little bit but

I don't know it's really hard like what what I think was good about my swimming years like through

high school and everything was the focus was very completely on performance and working hard

just like what do we need to do to get better it was not a question of like weight or body image

or any of that was never even discussed it was like the people who were working hard in the pool

were the ones who were turned into heroes and and that's what you were after you were like trying to

be a hard worker yeah was aspiring I was what I was inspired to and had nothing to do with

how you looked yeah seems to be there's more focus on that these days yeah imagine it still is

you know it still becomes a problem yeah I guess you could you could come at it from a proactive

like like the fueling angle potentially and like I'm just speaking for personal experience

I'm not a psychologist I'm not an nutritionist I have spoken to ample amounts of them but

just from my personal experience that like here's the here's the plan that we want to put in play

like if anybody is curious about what they should you know what what might help them perform

better on the nutrition front let us know we have those resources available for you

and but don't just just don't take this into your own hands I guess yeah right like if you

want to learn more about it let us know yeah good that's good yeah we'll do two more questions this

one is we'll keep this one short because it's video related but it is for us specifically this is

from Lenin I TTL I'm a 43 year old new triathlete a member of team TTL thank you Lenin who is

currently training for my first 70.3 race this summer this question is for Eric and Nick

being able to do this is something I have never imagined myself doing just two years ago so I

want to make sure I document my first ever half distance race I have hired a videographer for the

day of the race who will take photos and videos and would like to make a short form documentary two

to four minutes long about my experience for YouTube I'd like to know what you would recommend

as basics and essentials to edit and create this short documentary after I receive the video

files where should I edit the video beyond using iMovies which just iMovie what software or app would

do you recommend for this and where do you select music and obtain copyright permission to use

the music thank you for always creating outstanding quality videos and would love to learn from you

from Lenin from St. Louis okay so so he's going to get the footage and then has to compile it

himself into something well I would probably have them shoot in like regular color pose

correct not in log yes you don't even want to deal with that so I'm sure Lenin you might not

know what that is but you can ask them to shoot in rec 709 is what the technical term is for it

or just like full ready color yeah you don't want to get some like just do that yeah you want the

colors to look like real life you don't have to edit the colors yes exactly don't want to filter

anything right to use that word from Instagram um and then I think the the biggest thing is you

need to lay out a story here they gave yourself a little bit of a framework like you're the hero

and the opening thing we need to state what the he obstacle to the hero needs to overcome is and you

need to like lay a little bit of a foundation of who you are why this matters and then you're off

on your journey of climbing the mountain and do you get to the top or not and like you know conflict

resolution beginning middle end people underestimate people think the the solution to a good video

is good footage putting together a compelling story in the edit is is so important you could

shoot it on an iPhone yeah and if you can put together a compelling story in the edit it'll

come to life for sure um yeah that's what I do and I think iMovie is completely sufficient

totally fine if you just like really really want to spend some money you can get final cut pro

which is just a beefed up version of iMovie and we'll probably feel exactly the same to you there's

also a free version of resolve that works pretty well uh yeah which is similar it's like

nick edits on divinci resolve yeah i edit on final cut final cut pro because it's how much is it

300 bucks yeah it's 300 bucks used to be like thousands of dollars for that yeah no it's very

approachable now but it like i said you're probably there's probably nothing inside a final cut pro

that you can't also have an iMovie right as far as like you've never edited a video before

and i guess the last thing is the music and there are a couple of different sites i use

music bed and art list are kind of like the two front runners in terms of having a great library of

non copyright copyright of cleared music right okay and final question here is from Sebastian

hey guys i've got a question for you last may i move to another country and with this move i haven't

been able to get back into the rhythm of training it's almost been a year now but i can't seem to

get back into the cadence i used to have consistent 17 plus hours of training a week maybe some

motivation thing i'm not sure but i can't get back to the routine that's a lot that's a ton that's

a ton that's that's for an age of your breath that's like at the upper end of things but i can't

get back to the routine any good recommendations from me thank you Sebastian so i don't know it's

kind of tough because is this your job yeah i mean anytime we change location just even to go

to a training camp it's somewhere that we haven't been before it takes two weeks to feel like we're

not just scrambling the entire time and to to imagine doing that while having a job potentially a

new job i'll do a case like that's tough and it might just take some time to like really

under find the pool situation like really understand the lane the swimming availability times etc

find that training group that you love that keeps you accountable etc the thing is though as a pro

i understand this perspective of like well we need to train so i need to do this thing

but as a non-professional you can't find the motivation to train i guess i don't really see the problem

i mean the problem would just be if you had signed up for world championships super far in

advance or something but you're outside of that now so i i'm kind of with you on like

you need to force this versus like you you should love it i think it'll happen

yeah you will find that training partner the training group or the whatever if it's meant to be

and i wouldn't like force yourself to do like you're doing this because you like it ultimately

you know and they're eat right yeah yeah i only train as much as i want to

i like i'd like to doing what i do and i imagine must say you love it more than then i think

i've ever seen you loving it correct which air go there are ebbs and flows yes so our ebbs and

flows i don't i don't think you should beat yourself up if you're in just like one of those times

where you don't feel like doing 17 hours a week nine is super still a lot of training that's a lot

of time to be doing anyone activity you know what normal people i play nine hours of xbox a week

Paula would divorce me yeah that's true and people play a lot of like you know world of warcraft

yeah well i mean just insert golf if you golf for nine hours a week like that'd be a lot

that's right imagine 17 hours a week of golf yeah is this your job all right so not to like

you know give you no motivation there but i think it'll come yeah but i wouldn't force it

yeah yeah well you can look for things where you can find them though

get into some groups need some people with like minded you know interests

love that and do we do we think listening to the podcast counts as your weekly training volume

it's trathlon related you know you're we are making you faster in some way yeah maybe

able to add that to your tally yeah yeah this is this is research this is time spent

this work same with watching um trathlon films multiple films i think that also might help

yeah definitely go watch our film yeah look for things where you can find them

that's a big motivation yeah all right well that and that's probably enough of us two

neuron horns without Paula here to knock us down a little bit it gives a little reality check

yeah but i think it's about time for us to get to bed as well yeah not a big day tomorrow

that's right well thanks for listening everyone sorry it was a day late but we wanted to make

sure we did it in person and uh good luck to everyone who's racing yeah it's gonna be awesome

i'm gonna be out there cheering on blast later bye