Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the show folks! We’ve got a fun strategy session for you today. Remote Racing is the new way to race that we talked about on podcast episode 107 with TriDot founder Jeff Booher and Vic Brumfield from USA Triathlon. Last fall USA Triathlon put on the inaugural Remote Race with a bunch of us from the TriDot team and a whole bunch of our ambassadors, athletes, and podcast listeners jumping into the fun to check it out and we had a blast! So after that successful launch of the Remote Racing platform there are more and more remote races being added to the calendar and I encourage all of you to head to remoteracing.com check out the spring kind of sprint triathlon series coming up and jump into a remote race yourself. So before this preseason Remote Racing Series takes off we wanted to dedicate an episode to share all of the tips and best practices we have to execute a successful Remote Race. So I’ve got a few key TriDot team members here today to help us prepare for our next Remote Race. Our first guest is Predictive Fitness software engineer, Cory Gackenheimer. Cory is a full stack software engineer from Warsaw, Indiana. He’s worked as a software developer for over 15 years and came onboard full time with the TriDot dev team at the start of 2021. As a TriDot Ambassador he finished his first Ironman at Ironman Florida in 2020 and Cory, on this episode in particular I have to congratulate you on just a gnarly fourth place overall finish at the USA Triathlon Remote National Championships; the first ever Remote Race last fall. Now you and I had some internal smack talk that week on who would win. We thought it might be close between my run ability, your swim ability and you beat me Cory. You beat me good by a solid 3 minutes and 28 seconds so I just have to start off today by saying “Way to go friend!”

Cory Gackenheimer: Thanks Andrew! I had an absolute blast when we competed in that Remote Race. It was awesome having that friendly rivalry knowing that you were pushing me remotely. I knew I'd have to dig deep off the bike. I’m excited to get to talk to you today about Remote Racing and some of the features and just strategies for Remote Racing.

Andrew: Also joining us in the remote fun is Coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach who has a Masters of Science in exercise physiology and was a D1 collegiate runner.  He has over 50 Ironman finishes to his credit, and has coached hundreds of athletes to the Ironman finish line. Jeff, how’s it going man?

Jeff Raines: Hey I want to join in on the smack talk. So I can’t wait to smoke you boys in the next Remote Race coming up very soon.

Andrew: That’s the problem Jeff. That’s why there’s no smack talk. It’s because you will smoke us. There’s no talk to do. It’s just a foregone conclusion. The reason Cory got fourth and I got seventh instead of fifth and eighth is because Jeff Raines was not in on that particular race. But anyway! We’ll get to that soon enough. I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll treat the show like any good workout. We’ll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with our cool down. Lots of good stuff, let's get to it!

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: Most of the time we head into a workout with the clothing, the gear, and the nutrition we need to crush the session and walk away victorious, but every so often we find ourselves at the start of a session without a key item and thus are forced to improvise or do without. Cory, Jeff, what was a time you forgot something important that you needed and what did you do to get by in that workout session? Jeff Raines, let’s start with you.

Jeff: Well besides the easy answer of maybe forgetting swim jammers and having to complete that swim workout maybe in normal, basketball shorts or something like that…

Andrew: Been there, done that my friend.

Jeff: Yeah, that’s too easy, right? I’ll share a quick story. One time I was out, I was racing Texas 70.3 in Galveston, Texas, half Ironman. I had a friend drop me off. Well, I left my helmet and my wetsuit in his car. So it turns out he went to find coffee. He wasn’t answering his phone. He was not anywhere near the race site at that point so that’s when panic set in and–

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: He finally answered his phone, but he couldn’t get anywhere near transition and transition was about to close. So I just put on some shoes. I ran over a mile to his car. I finally found him, got my stuff, had to run over a mile back to transition with a wetsuit and a helmet and that year was very hot and muggy. Finally got down to the swim dock. My age group was jumping in the water and at that race you have four minutes to jump off of a big pier. So the wave before you goes and then your wave has four minutes to get in, tread water for four minutes, so a deep water start and all that stuff. So by the time I got my wetsuit on and we all know how hard it is sweaty to get a wetsuit on, I jumped in and I had less than a minute to spare. So it all worked out, but it was a very chaotic, adrenaline pumped morning.

Andrew: Cory Gackenheimer, what is this answer for you?

Cory: Yeah, so this one’s pretty relevant for this episode since it’s more of a technical miss. I was going to hop on a Zwift race and I was already running late and so two things bad happened. One, as soon as I opened up Zwift it was time to update which…

Andrew: Of course.

Cory: …always happens at the worst time.

Andrew: Yep.

Cory: So I was toast. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it, but I could still maybe squeeze it in and then right as it opened, my bluetooth would not connect to my pedals. I didn’t have my ANT+ dongle already plugged in so I had to like reach across my bike and find the dongle, plug it in. Barely got it. I got to the race start line right as they were starting. I was clipping in and if you’ve all done a Zwift race you know that that first minute is everybody is riding at 1000 watts. So I just ended up doing a solo lap or Richmond instead of racing. But yeah. So that was my technical miss on the race day.

Andrew: Cory, can we talk about how I’m thankful for Zwift and I’m thankful for kind of the ANT+ dongle specifically because without that the word dongle would not be in my regular vocabulary and I think the word dongle is just a fantastic word; an underrated word in the indoor pain cave vernacular in my opinion.

Jeff: You know what we need, Andrew? We need an entire podcast episode with–

Andrew: Talking about dongles?

Jeff: –with things that triathletes say that only triathletes would appreciate and understand.

Andrew: Ooo. Yeah.

Cory: ANT+ dongle is definitely one of those.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Not mad about where your head is at there, Jeff. Not mad at all. So my story for this is actually fairly recent. I bought one of those indoor rocker plates for my bike. When you have one of those rocker plates and you get your trainer on it, you get your bike on it. Well, an indoor trainer– I have the Tax Flux– the flywheel is on one side of the trainer. So you put the trainer in the center of the rocker plate and most of the weight of the trainer is on one side so the plate on its own is going to lean more that way than the other way. So what you have to do is you just take a dumbbell, so I have an 8 pound dumbbell that sits on the other side of the rocker plate and it balances out the plate. Well, I had a workout where I just forgot to grab the weight. So I’m leaning to the left slightly the entire time. With every pedal stroke, every right side pedal stroke I would kind of get upright again, but then every left side pedal stroke I would lean way over to the left.

Cory: Maybe you’ll be really prepared for a velodrome now that you’re leaning to the left the whole time.

Andrew: A quality velodrome joke here for the podcast. Guys, we’re going to throw this question out to you because I know in all of your swim, bike, run, strength training there have definitely been times where you’ve gone into a workout forgetting a crucial piece of gear and I want to hear your stories. Make sure you are a part of the I AM TriDot Facebook Group. Find the post every Monday when our new show drops we throw out a post asking you guys to answer our warmup questions and I’m excited to hear your stories. This is probably an episode where we’ll take eight, nine, ten of the best stories and share them on a future podcast cool down. So head to the I AM TriDot Facebook group, find our post today, and let us know what your story is.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

DELTAG KETONES:  Ketones are nature’s super fuel and deltaG in all four strengths rapidly induces deep ketosis in just 20 minutes. Oxford University Professor Kieran Clarke, founder and CEO of TdeltaS Global led the effort to develop deltaG and she has been teaching us about the performance and health benefits of drinking the revolutionary Oxford Ketone Ester. Many of us on the TriDot team are already using deltaG Performance and Tactical for our training and racing and now we are adding deltaG Coffee Booster to our morning routine. Ketones and caffeine work incredibly well together and I love the energy boost and mental clarity the combo provides. If you want to experience the feeling of a ketone fueled training season or a ketone boosted cup of morning coffee, head to deltagketones.com and try deltaG for yourself. At deltagketones.com they even offer free 15 minute one-on-one consultations where you can learn more about their products including deltaH and the brand new deltaGold Coffee Booster. Again, that’s deltagketones.com to learn more and remember to use the code TRIDOT20 to get 20% off your super fueled deltaG Ketone drinks.

Andrew: We’re talking about Remote Racing here in the mainset today. Cory is one of the software engineers who helped design Remote Racing and Coach Jeff is well versed in coaching his athletes through optimizing your Remote Racing setup. So lots of good insight coming today on how to rock your Remote Race. Now guys, it’s wild. When I hit the pool to do my Remote Racing swim it was an Olympic distance and so I was time trialing 1500 yards in the pool and Cory, you told me ahead of time the middle 500 is the worst part, and oh my gosh! You were so right! The middle 500 just hurt so bad. But here’s the thing, even though I was in the pool by myself, I couldn’t see anyone else that I was competing against, knowing it was a race just changed everything. I kept the hammer down and I didn’t let up and I put forth an effort that I was proud of. Then the same thing happened on the bike and run. I mean, outside riding and running I dug deep knowing that I was racing other people and knowing I had smack talked with Cory all week and he was out there somewhere doing his bike and run too. I dug so deep that I definitely jacked up my back pushing hard on that 10K. I’m still recovering from that a little bit, but that’s another discussion for another time probably with Dr. B.J. Leeper. So, Cory, just what was your experience doing that very first Remote Race last fall?

Cory: Yeah, it was great. As you mentioned, definitely knowing that there were others out there racing, when that window opened that brings the intensity up.

Andrew: Yeah.

Cory: So swim, I had a great swim. Doing an Olympic distance for the bike, run, that takes a bit more time than just a sprint so having to fit that in and I was in between two race rehearsals for Clash Daytona, so kind of had to fit it midweek in between two of those. So I waited until that fit my training schedule and did my bike and run then. That went pretty well, so just hopped on, did my weigh in which we’ll talk about in a little bit. Hopped right on the bike, did that on Rouvy which was the actual Milwaukee course and having raced Milwaukee in August my legs definitely remembered that climb over the overpass. It felt very similar and definitely taxed me in the same way. Off the bike is always interesting. Here where I’m at in Indiana it’s a little colder than in Texas.

Andrew: Yeah, I’d say so.

Cory: So T2 looks a little bit different in November than it does in August. So I had to have my cold weather running gear set out and layers there because, you know, you warm up as you run. But I wanted to make sure I was warm enough to run so I had to make sure that was ready to go. But yeah, I got out on the run and was remotely trying to chase you down knowing that you have a great run and I’d have to push really hard to try to beat you. But it was a great race.

Andrew: Yeah, and I had the second best run split of the Olympic distance participants. So I at least coming in seventh place can come in that. The only guy that had a faster run split was the guy who won and he had an amazing swim, bike, and run. He beat everybody by a lot so congrats to him. Now Jeff, at the time that all of this was happening in mid-November of 2021, you were days away, I mean literally days away from racing Ironman Arizona so you did not participate personally, but many of your athletes did and I know you helped them prepare for the event. What did you hear from them? How did their races and their experience with Remote Racing go?

Jeff: They absolutely loved it. I encouraged my whole crew to race because many of us had actually raced the Ironman VR races during the whole COVID year and I wanted my athletes to do the race, the Remote Nationals, just to see how it kind of stacked up with the other virtual racing events. Now having– I know we’re going to dive into this a little bit, but having equalized results and accurate and fair results based on age and gender and even your location and weather, Remote Racing was a whole other level…

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: …and my athletes absolutely loved it.

Andrew: Cory, I already mentioned podcast 107 Remote Racing, Real Racing, Real Results, where one of the talking points was outlining the differences between virtual racing formats that athletes are already familiar with and Jeff you actually just talked about the Ironman Virtual Racing Series they put on. There’s some differences between those formats and Remote Racing. Since that episode exists, I don’t want to lose too much time today covering this again, but I do feel like it’s important for folks that have not heard that episode to hear this. So what was designed into the platform for Remote Racing that separates it from virtual racing and makes it more real racing?

Cory: Yeah, and I think we’ve already touched on this to some degree, but the main thing to mention there is every decision we make when it comes to building out Remote Racing is we’re very mindful of fairness. We want it to be fair so that it can be real. So from the beginning of the Remote Race when you do your virtual check in you’re validating your identity, your weight and when we post process all of the data, we can flag questionable racers or race results and then we make it fair by normalizing our environmental conditions. So that takes into account your location, your current temperature. We can also level the playing field in a way that others don’t by taking into account the data that comes in. So we can take accuracy measurements, known published accuracy measurements of power meters and smart trainers. We adjust power based upon that to make it fair and then we give everybody the same virtual bike. So in Zwift, for example, you can have fancier bikes that might go faster because they have less drag or better wheels. Everybody gets the same bike in a Remote Race.

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: So the same drag, same rolling resistance. So that’s another part of the fairness.

Andrew: And talking to the power meter accuracy in particular. That’s like if I have a more expensive power meter and we know that that number is just extremely accurate and somebody else is racing with a less accurate power meter. It’s just going to adjust the results on the back end knowing that the power that was produced by those two athletes and knowing the margin of error for that data. Is that correct?

Cory: That’s right. Yeah. So we’ll adjust based off that margin of error.

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: Yeah, the very best ones they’re going to be +/- 1% is their published difference and that’s our baseline. So everything is based off of that…

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: …and the difference is factored in from that. Other things that we take into account, like I said, environmental conditions. Other things, we want to make it fair, for an outdoor bike you’re not allowed to go a single direction. So you can’t do your 40K with a tailwind the whole way although that would be awesome. It’s not fair. So we’re not doing that. Run, same thing. We don’t want somebody to go downhill an entire direction so we make sure that those should be out and backs or loops so they start in the same place and they don’t have net elevation loss. So all of those different protocols that we have in place really are what go into the realness of remote racing and fairness. So that’s what we do so that people don’t feel cheated when they finish the race.

Andrew: So Jeff, you do a lot of things with your coached athletes to keep the season kind of fun and engaging and keep the accountability high. You know, your crew does group Rouvy rides together during the week. I know a lot of your athletes will attend the Zwift TriDot ride on Saturday. You’ll do a few in-person team races throughout the season. You’ll do mid-week video chats to learn about a different topic of the sport. So as a coach trying to keep your own athletes involved and motivated you’re always looking for good opportunities for your athletes. What excites you about the possibility of having your crew do a Remote Race or two or three or more throughout the tri season?

Jeff: Man, there’s a ton of really cool things about this and yeah, I try to keep the accountability high, the moral high, that team aspect. The great thing about Remote Racing is if we’re busy with life and work, if it’s a busy season– you know a lot of athletes come to me like, I only have this two month window throughout the year where I could get a race in, I could actually travel. Work isn’t quite as stressful. Well, Remote Racing you can race all year round right, because we don’t have to allocate an entire week to travel and funds and all that. They’re also great just to break up your season. You get to race in the convenience of your own home and also if you don’t have an on site race coming up anytime soon.

Andrew: Cory, I want to talk about just what it’s like going through the flow and the process of a Remote Race because there’s a lot of similarities to an in-person race. You know, you register, you put the race on your season planner, you put it onto your training stuff to prep you for the race. You get your gear and your nutrition ready and you go out and you just burn it to the ground like you would on race day in person. The primary difference, other than not being on site with other athletes is instead of checking in and getting body marked and racking your bike and finding an available porta-potty. You know, all the things you’re used to doing on race day instead to prep for the race itself you have to connect your devices, you have to make sure that they’re charged and ready for action. There’s the weigh in process. So it’s similar, but it’s different. It’s a real race, just the last couple of prep steps you take are a little bit different. Cory, talk us through kind of the race process for a remote race. Just from the very beginning when you register to getting that sweet, sweet medal on the back end.

Cory: Yeah sure. So the first thing they need to know is what you need to race. So one of the things, just like in a real triathlon you know you’re going to need a bike although I do know a guy that signed up for an Ironman before he even owned a bike. But generally you know what you need before racing or you know what you have. So for Remote Racing you can have different devices to record with or we have the ability for you to just manually input your times as well and we’ll talk about that in a little bit. So know what you have, then you need to register which it’s just like registering for any other race with one extra step. That extra step is to essentially finalize your registration by going to your RaceX which is that app at myracex.com making sure that that race is added to your calendar. RaceX is the platform we use. It will parse your race data before and after the race. It shares some of the algorithms that power the Remote Racing platform. If you already have a RaceX account you will be able to go and find those Remote Races under the browse races tab. Add it and it will prompt you to just confirm that you’ve paid for the race and then you can add it to your calendar. It’s a pretty smooth process. If you’re brand new to RaceX, when you go through registration RaceX will look for that registration and add that race automatically for you.

Andrew: Yeah and Cory I just want to add, that part of the process for me was identical for registering for an in-person race. So nothing new there. I do want to say for people there is a price tag. The price tag is not nearly as high as it would be for an in-person race and when you’re paying for an in-person race the race itself is paying for the venue. They’re paying to close down streets. They’re paying for police officer support to manage intersections and whatnot to keep you safe and ensure you have a good race. They’re paying for all of the hydration, nutrition that’s going to be on course and for this there isn’t any of that. So there is a price tag. It’s not a very high price tag, but the price tag is there because it is a real race. You are competing against other people that have also paid for the race and you do get all of the finisher swag on the back end. And Cory, I know you from our team, you were the first one to get that medal in the mail and you posted it to our internal Microsoft Teams account. “Look what arrived in the mail!” And ever since you did that I checked the mail every single day waiting on my stupid medal and it took three days longer for me to get mine and I was just so excited to get it. It’s such a delayed gratification right? Because it’s like oh man I did this race months ago and yes! Here’s the medal. So it’s a cool experience.

Jeff: It’s because you were three places behind him so you got your medal three days later.

Andrew: Touché USA Triathlon. Touché. So Cory after we register, we get it plugged into our RaceX account, if we don’t have a RaceX account our RaceX account gets created and our race is there. We’re ready to rock and roll, what happens from there?

Cory: Yeah, so the next and probably most important step is to connect your devices that you’re going to use to record for the race. So if you’re going to use Garmin, Polar, Rouvy, TrainerRoad, Map My Ride, Wahoo… we’re also adding other connections actively so whatever you’re going to be using to race with, get that connected. Then I definitely say do that before race day. It would be great to see that you do a couple training sessions with those connections so you can see it in the training history tab in RaceX too just to confirm that you see what you expect so that you know what it’s going to look like as you race. So devices connected after you’ve registered, then it’s just like when you show up to a race. You need to show your ID card or your USA Triathlon card or whatever when you pick up your packet. We do need to verify your identity. So verify your identity so that we know that you are who you say you are. In RaceX then you’ll be able to check your race plan which is where you have your pacing strategy and that’s based off of the thresholds that you have set in your account. So either during sign up or you’ve got it in RaceX already it’s going to have those set for you and optimized for your current abilities. You can always adjust those to specific levels you want. So if you want to go super hard on race day on the bike and just see what you can do on the run, you can adjust that as well for your pacing strategy. Then you can swim any time during the race window as long as it is before your bike and run. The first swim when it comes in to us during that race window, if it fits the criteria of the race; so if it’s an Olympic if it’s the right distance, that's the swim we’re going to use for your race. Then any time after the swim you can choose to do your bike, run. On the bike, run race day you need to verify your weight. You do that right from your race plan page in RaceX. It’s a very simple process like Andrew said and there’s plenty of documentation on how to do that and you should be getting emails as well once you’ve registered for how to follow that process. So get your weight verified and then it’s right on to the bike. So once you’ve completed the bike you have your ten minute window to get onto your run. Once that’s completed just make sure that those activities are synced in your training history and the results will be processing behind the scenes and you’ll start anxiously awaiting the final results and once those are published you can brag to your friends if you beat them by a little over three minutes.

Andrew: 3 minutes and 28 seconds to be exact.

Jeff: Aww but who’s counting right? What I think is really cool and kind of as a coach who encouraged my athletes to participate in virtual races, you know when they first came out it was COVID, all these things. I kind of mentioned earlier, like not everyone could do that. You had to have the nicest gear. You had to have this specific platform. You had to pay for that subscription. Things like that. You know, a lot of my athletes had to borrow smart trainers from people in their local area and stuff like that. But I love what you’re referring to there on a lot of this Cory is that now with Remote Racing, anybody can participate with any type of gear. You don’t even have to have power. You don’t have to have a smart trainer even and I know you’re going to talk more about that. But anyone can participate now and now that everything is on a level playing field, I can race Elizabeth James.

Andrew: And you can lose to Elizabeth James now.

Jeff: Yeah! I mean if I edge her out in person the equalization will most likely– and I’m sure she would move up the rankings and surpass me easily.

Cory: Yeah, so just to reiterate, there’s a lot that it sounds like that I talked about for signing up, but I just kind of made up an acronym for it. RACER. Where R is register.

Andrew: Ooo.

Cory: A is add the race, verify your ID.

Andrew: Ooo.

Cory: C connect devices.

Andrew: Ooo!

Cory: E edit, examine your race plan.

Andrew: Oooo!

Cory: Ooo. Then R race.

Andrew: So Remote Race competitors will be broken up into three performance tiers and this is 100% the answer to having each race be totally fair from a technology standpoint, but totally accessible to any athlete regardless of what sensors and equipment they have. Cory, breakdown the three performance tiers for us and what are these tiers for and who is placed in each one?

Cory: Okay, so there’s three performance tiers and these are going to be broken down for all three disciplines based off of your projected performance and that’s going to be based off of your equalized FTP. So the higher equalized FTP, the higher the group you’re going to be in and those cutoffs are going to vary per discipline as well and we’ll be able to identify that based off of the FTP and you’ll see that when you get into your race plan. One other thing that we didn’t talk about is swim verification. There is an extra level of scrutiny there for group one. We’re going to just ask that those top level athletes perform some sort of video verification of the first part of their swim.

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: That way we can just verify that at that pace that they’re submitting to us they’re not swimming with a wetsuit or fins or a jetpack or whatever they’re using in the water to make them go super fast. So just– yeah, exactly like what you said. It’s more of a piece of mind for other group one, group two athletes that they’re being fairly compared to the rest of the field and somebody’s not cheating and bumping up to a different level without any sort of verification.

Andrew: I think this is the takeaway I want to leave people with before we move on from this question. If you’re registering for a remote race and you have a legitimate chance at being on the podium, of winning the race, the performance tiers are in place to make sure that those folks have the highest level of gear to make sure that the data is accurate and they have to do those steps like the weigh in, like the swim video to make sure that the way they’re executing is real and fair because they actually have a chance of winning and we want to make sure that those folks are really racing each other on a real, fair, level playing field. I mean, everybody else, I am not a threat. When my data gets punched into Remote Racing I am not a threat to win the race. I’m just not so I can happily go in and participate and not have to figure out how to video my swim and not have to figure out how to video my weigh in and I can race against Cory and we can not do all those steps because we’re not going to win the race and I can place seventh, he can place fourth and that’s all well and good and we can have a good time, but for people who have a shot at winning, they just have to go through those extra steps to make sure that the top level performers are competing on a level playing field just like they would be at a real in-person race. Is that kind of a good way to put it?

Cory: Yeah, and I mean even for you and I, we may be invited in RaceX to be in that tier. It may put us in that tier and it’s not difficult to do those extra things.

Andrew: Yeah, very true.

Cory: So being able to just add that quick check, quick validation. Like you said the weigh in was super easy, less than a minute I think you did. So that sort of thing is not hard and makes it fair.

Andrew: Yeah. So anybody can compete. Anybody can jump in and have fun. Just the performance tiers are in place to make sure that the winners are really the winners and everybody else, you’re going to get ranked accordingly. Alright, let’s get to the fun stuff here. Let’s talk about actually doing your remote race. You’ve signed up, you’ve done the prep, you’re ready to rock and roll. Let’s go through just kind of swim, bike, run, transitions and just share all the practical execution advice that you have for our athletes. So guys, what do folks need to know to go out and execute their remote race swim?

Jeff: You know, another really cool aspect about Remote Racing is that you have a window. It might be four days, it might be ten days, but you have a window to get your swim, bike, and run completed and so if you’ve got the sniffles one day maybe you want to wait four or five days to start your remote race, just stuff like that. So there’s not a definitive 7:00 am swim start on this day at this sunrise no matter what the weather is outside. So that’s kind of a bonus of even on-site racing. Even inside of that, our swim, we don’t have to get right out of the pool and run to the bike. We just have to get that swim done and it can be days later before we start the bike and run. Now, we know that that run has to start within ten minutes off the bike, but the swim doesn’t. So what we need to know about the swim is that you just need to focus on that day executing that swim and pacing it well. But definitely make sure your watch is set for the correct size pool being yards or meters.

Andrew: Yeah. Good point.

Jeff: Maybe it’s short course or long course. Just like our swim assessments in TriDot, this all matters. Short course, 25 yards, yards are shorter than meters, but you also get more pushes off the wall than long course pools and all that goes into effect when equalizing the results. So we want to make sure that we know the size pool, we know how many laps we need to complete and then obviously if you’re in contention for winning you need to know how you’re going to have that first portion– it might be your first three or four minutes or something like that that you’re going to have to record or film a portion of your swim for the verification and fairness aspect. So you might have a buddy come with you. You want to make sure that the pool is not going to close in 30 minutes; with setting all this up you run out of time. So just logistics. Really make sure that you have that lane to yourself. Maybe make sure that you’re not going to have a random stranger hop into the lane with you in the middle of your race and you have to start over. Stuff like that. And if you really want to nerd out like I do with my athletes, I tell them to pick a deeper pool to race in if possible. If you have access to multiple pools in your area, pick a deeper pool and also pick a pool that may have more of like an endless pool gutter system because those types of pools are faster.

Andrew: Aww.

Cory: Nice.

Jeff: You’re faster in deeper pools. The water is not going to bounce off the wall and create that drag; it’s going to go into the gutter. So just little, little technical aspects of the sport and of Remote Racing that we don’t think about. We can nerd out really deep if you really want to shave an extra ten seconds or so.

Cory: Really deep.

Jeff: There’s always those technical aspects of the sport, right?

Cory: For sure. Yeah and I do love me some flip turns. One other thing I’d like to add there is let your lifeguard know. Had I swam on the Friday instead of the Monday that I did my remote race, halfway through my training session that day the lifeguard pulled everybody out of the pool because they had to go to the restroom.

Andrew: Oooh. Oh that’s nice.

Cory: So just give them a heads up that you’re going to be doing 1500 non-stop. Please let me finish because it’s for a race and maybe even hit them up to see if they could record your first couple minutes. Just make sure it’s okay with them too because I know some facilities don’t allow video recording.

Andrew: Yeah.

Cory: So if that’s the case, try to work it in in the time when there’s nobody there and they’re allowing it or something like that. Then yeah, just another thing as far as strategy. For me the Remote Race I wanted to go out really hard that first 100 or so just like at the beginning of a real in-person race to get out of the way and settle into a groove after that.

Jeff: So actually I have a question for you, Cory. Heads up– an unscripted question here. Actually back when we did the Ironman VR races to be in contention for a world championship slot we had to complete an exact distance. So if we were in a yard versus a meters pool, meters are longer than yards. So we swam considerably further than 1500, let’s just say, yards. So I might have done an extra 25 than other people so my watch could record those 25 yard segments. So my question here is this. If someone reports 1500 meters and if someone else reports 1500 yards we convert the yards into the meters, is that correct?

Cory: Absolutely correct. That is the beauty of the technology is it’s basically a unitless swim. You can swim 1500 yards or meters and if it’s short course or long course we will detect that from your device as it is reported to us and we’re able to account for the extra flip turns of short course...

Andrew: Interesting.

Cory: …and the difference in the distance and we project that onto that on-site Olympic distance swim and that is how we can make it fair.

Andrew: So the bike and run are done in conjunction with each other. It’s almost like your Remote Race is done in two separate workout sessions; the swim and then the bike and the run. So you get up to a ten minute transition in between the bike and run, but unlike the swim, they have to be done the same day, it’s based in the same location. Cory, Jeff, what are the best practices for having a great remote race bike split?

Cory: I guess the first thing to mention is to make sure you’ve done your weight verification if that’s necessary for your performance tier and then if you’re up for a bike warmup I normally skip those, probably shouldn’t, but I do.

Andrew: Me too Cory. Me too.

Cory: Do a quick bike warmup and do that before you start recording for your race. It will just be easier for us to parse the data if you don’t have that in the same file…

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: …and then just start recording your race. So I guess if you’re using Rouvy you’re probably not going to ride the course twice. So just warm up on your own and then pop onto the course. If you’re doing it outdoors, do your quick warmup and then start recording when you’re doing your actual race effort.

Jeff: And correct me if I’m wrong, for that weigh in process, you have to film yourself. And those instructions are all provided for you, but within three hours of the start of your bike race. Is that correct? Is it three hours?

Cory: Yeah, it’s four hours. It was three hours, but we’ve widened that out to four hours for that bike verification weight. It just gives you a little time to get that verified if you have to travel somewhere for where your bike is actually going to be separate from your weigh in location.

Jeff: And just like an on-site race, setting up your transition ahead of time and having a plan is key. Obviously watch the weather. Have a plan to race indoors and how will you collect that data? What’s great is if it’s hot or cold, if the route is hilly or flat or if maybe you ride indoors on a Zwift or a Rouvy or maybe you want to do this race out in your neighborhood using GPS or power outdoors. The good thing is it’s all going to be normalized to a baseline and then that data is going to be localized to the designated race for that specific week or that race so your data, right Cory? It’s normalized down first to make it an evil– even. Evil playing field. But then it’s localized to the specific race course that we have planned ahead of time. Then once your results are thrown out onto that course so you can see how you would do at your indoor at home, let’s say effort, how you would do if you were outside on that actual course. Then even inside of all that it’s then equalized based on age and gender. Is that kind of the step-by-step layer process, maybe?

Cory: Yeah. That’s a really good high level summary of it for sure and I think the point there is you can just go all out with where you’re at and it will apply it to the Remote Race with that localization and equalization after the fact.

Andrew: So Cory, for the bike, I mean somebody completing their bike there’s a couple different options and we’ve alluded to a few. You can go outside and you can ride a course wherever you want to ride outdoors. I’ve already talked about where I choose to ride here in Dallas Ft. Worth because it’s a great place to time trial. People might have close to their house their favorite place to go time trial in mind. But people can also do it indoors on their trainer. They can fire up Zwift. They can fire up Rouvy and see the actual course in front of them. They can fire up TrainerRoad. I mean any of those platforms are totally fair game just as long as you’re recording the power numbers. Are those essentially the couple options we have for executing our bike?

Cory: Yeah especially with a power meter. Yeah you can ride anywhere. Indoors, outdoors, you can just be staring at the wall on your trainer and recording. So one thing you can do there is look at your race plan in RaceX and if you just execute for the number of minutes that we have prescribed based off of your FTP then we’re going to be able to process your results in the same way as if you rode a virtual course.

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: So those are the options and then also if you just have GPS and don’t have power, you’re not going to be in the top group of the performance verification groups, but you’re able to ride with just GPS. Even if you don’t have just GPS and you’ve mapped out a 20K course, go from your garage out and back, time it and you can do a manual submission and be in group three.

Andrew: Okay, very cool. I know there’s going to be somebody out there so I want to make sure I ask it, based off of what you just said. If I don’t have a power meter and I have a dumb trainer and I have my dumb trainer connected to Rouvy with maybe a cadence sensor or some other type of sensor that is telling Rouvy how I’m doing, how does that work? Can you do the race indoors without a power meter in that kind of scenario?

Cory: So oftentimes if you don’t have a power meter and you’ve got a dumb trainer, platforms like Rouvy or Zwift can use a speed and cadence sensor to give you virtual power.

Andrew: Yeah.

Cory: In that case we will notice the virtual power and assign it a high percentage of error for the power that comes in and that would be acceptable. Generally though a dumb trainer we prefer to have power coming from that file. If not, the speed and distance is not very reliable. So outdoors would be preferred if you don’t have.

Andrew: Okay. Got it. Super helpful. So just like an in-person race, we hop off the bike, we throw on our running shoes, and we take off. What do we need to know about the remote race run?

Jeff: It’s indeed a little bit unique. You have a ten minute transition allowance. I encourage my athletes to take the majority of that ten minute stretch to stretch or rest as much as possible. It’s a unique opportunity. So maybe if taking 9-½ minutes instead of 1 to 2 minutes is going to allow you to run a little bit better that first mile, then let’s take advantage of that. Because we all know that pacing off the bike is just weird in general.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeff: You know, we have Jell-O legs, heavy legs, it feels like we’re running through sand that first mile off the bike. But what happens, and you guys back me up on this, typically you feel like you’re running slow. You feel like you’re running a 15 minute mile that first mile off the bike even in a sprint tri, but that first mile is typically always faster than actually what we think we have done or what we probably should have done. So even though we feel slow, we’re actually running faster than we think we are. So taking a few extra minutes in that transition could negate a lot of that and you actually could pace better that first mile. So just definitely have a plan and maybe even practice it. We know that Remote Races may be coming up in a month or so and so in just our daily training maybe we’re just going to kind of play around with it. Let’s get off that indoor bike ride, let’s kind of time it. Maybe change clothes, put your running shoes on, stand outside, go out to your mailbox. Okay now my watch has acquired satellites. I’m going to do some leg swings, okay that was six minutes. Well, great. So you can kind of play around with some of this in your daily training to be more prepared for that actual Remote Race.

Andrew: Yep that’s a great point Jeff. I do want to distinguish for folks, ten minutes was chosen as the transition time because it is long enough to allow folks to get into a good, safe, measurable environment for that run coming off the bike. So like you described, Jeff, if you just live somewhere where it’s better to hop in the car and go a short distance, so be it. Like Cory mentioned, for his inaugural Remote Race if you’re in an environment where you’re doing the bike ride indoors in a controlled environment, you’ve got to go outside for your run and it’s 20 degrees, okay, ten minutes gives you enough time to get off the bike, to layer up properly for your run. But on the flip side, ten minutes isn’t so far– It’s not so long that you have time to adequately recover. I mean you can take the full ten minutes and start your run and yes you’re more recovered than you would be if you started that run within one minute or two minutes or three minutes, but it’s not such a dramatic difference that you definitely don’t have fresh legs. I took all ten of my minutes at Texas Motor Speedway just by refueling, throwing the bike in the car, locking the car, just gear turnaround and I felt like I was running off the bike. I did not feel like I was running off of fresh legs. So it’s long enough to give you time to do what you need to do to have a successful and safe run, but it’s not so long that you truly get to rest. But to your point Jeff, use that time because you’re not being timed. That time is not your transition time. So Cory, how is our transition time measured? Because for our T1 and our T2 we’re given a time, but it’s not necessarily the time that it took us to transition from bike to run. So how are those two times calculated?

Cory: That’s a great question. So the transition times are directly proportional to how well you perform on the run. Because in traditional triathlons you’re running through transition. Now to make it as fair as possible, we had to come up with some sort of algorithm to make that transition fair and to do that we based it off of the performance that you do on that run and then those transitions are split between the actual on-site event– For example, for the Remote Nationals it was based off of the window of actual Remote National transition times.

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: So the highest performers in the run got the fastest of those versus the lower performers got the slower ones and they were just more or less proportionally calculated.

Andrew: So Cory, what are your thoughts for just how to have a good remote race run?

Cory: Yeah, well coming off the bike indoors even with a fan going full blast, you get pretty sweaty after a 40K ride so I made a point to towel all the way off. You don’t normally get the chance to do that in an on-site race, but hopping into the cold weather I toweled all the way off and then set out in order of how I wanted to put the layers on. Then as soon as I got my gloves and my buff on my ears I was outside the garage getting my watch ready to get the GPS and ready to go. So yeah, just have a plan ahead of time and like Jeff said, know the weather, know the course, and enjoy your ten minutes.

Andrew: Yeah. Something I’ll add is for people like me who aren’t super type A on having all their devices charged all the time. I mean it’s not uncommon for me to drive down the road for my outdoor bike ride and to get there and put my heart rate monitor on and fire up my heart rate monitor and realize that it has a low battery. I was very intentional knowing that all of that data coming in was important for the Remote Race and having my bike computer, my watch, my heart rate monitor, my Stryd running power meter, I had all those devices fully charged and ready to go. So there will always be a multi-day window athletes are given to complete their race, Jeff you mentioned this earlier. For the USA Triathlon event that we all completed, I did my race pretty early in the window. That race had a ten day window. I know for some races coming up there will be like a four day, almost like a long weekend style window. So it will be different race by race and within that ten day window I did mine the weekend on the front side of the window. So I completed my race that weekend. I swam on a Friday. I did the bike and run on Saturday and I’ve got to say, it was addicting refreshing the results page once a day or so just to see where I was in the standings as other people completed their race. It was really kind of fun to do to check in the morning, “Okay, did anybody complete their race yesterday and knock me back or what not.” So, Cory, tell me about the results and what happens on the backside of a race?

Cory: Yeah, so from the moment we receive the files for your race we’re going to check to make sure it’s a valid race file like I mentioned before. We check if the distance is correct within the tolerance. So yeah, if you swim an extra 50 yards, we’re still going to count it, but we’re going to know it’s a race file and we look to see if it’s a reasonable time for that effort. So if you ran a 5K in ten minutes, we’re going to say, sorry. That’s not real. You drove that or something. Or you should go to the Olympics and set a new world record. Then we also make sure that the run started after the bike which they both have to start after the swim. Then once that happens and we identify that it is a race file, the post processing starts. We’ve already talked to it some. Jeff mentioned it at a good high level. So we’re going to normalize for your environment and make adjustments based off of accuracy of your power meters and then what group you might be racing in is also verified and validated. We’re also then now projecting that race data onto the race course like you said. For example, the Las Vegas course, so you’re going to go from Texas Motor Speedway to Las Vegas and then localizing those results we then equalize based off of age and gender. So we’ve got the localized results and the equalized results. So those are both things that you can see. There’s other things going on; we’re going to group by teams if there’s teams for that particular race and those sort of things. All that stuff happens after the race.

Andrew: So Cory when we were done with our Remote Race it was really cool. We were literally at the track at Texas Motor Speedway. We all had our phones up and you get an email from Remote Racing letting you know that your data file is there. It said “Congrats on completing the bike.” “Congrats on completing the run.” “Congrats on completing the swim.” So as you were completing each leg, that was triggering and that really was the only way I could for sure know okay I just completed it. Remote Race has seen that file. I know some people if they didn’t catch that email they were like, “Did I do it right? Did Remote Racing get my split?” What can we do to know that we executed it correctly and that Remote Racing has the files and we’re all good to go?

Cory: Yeah, so those emails are huge for sure. Sometimes they get caught in spam or you don’t see them. We did get several questions like that, but we also have a training history page in RaceX. So alongside of where you went to go view your race plan you’ll be able to see all of the files that we’ve received. So you can see, “Oh hey. That was my bike for that day and that was the right distance.” We’re actually enhancing that so that we hope to be able to just show you that that one has– we’ll put some sort of indicator that it’s been used for the race results as well. So that’s definitely something that we did notice that some folks were having concerns with knowing if their files were accepted and would definitely make it more clear and the emails are a very important thing there and we hope to almost over communicate…

Andrew: Yeah.

Cory: …and make sure that you know that your race results are being processed.

Andrew: So Cory, as a software engineer that helped develop Remote Racing and as a triathlete using it yourself, you are uniquely positioned to arguably be the most knowledgeable person when it comes to troubleshooting your remote race experience. I know you helped answer a lot of folk’s questions already just to help make sure everyone, tech savvy or not, had a good experience. What were some of the most frequently asked questions that athletes have had so far and what are the answers to them just as we go into this preseason Remote Racing Series coming up, we can already have that FAQ Q&A right here on the podcast.

Cory: Yeah we’ve actually already covered some of them like one of the most commonly asked questions, why is my time different than what my watch showed? And that’s pretty easy to answer, but it’s also hardest to accept when you’re so used to seeing times and power and things right in front of you. But like I said, the biggest one is usually on the bike and it’s mostly because of our very generic Remote Racing bike. It’s not the top end bike that we’ve modeled it after. It’s modeled after a pretty mid-pack bike with just regular box rim wheels and your standard sort of aero road helmet…

Andrew: Okay.

Cory: …not like the tightest position you can get. So that’s going to change your time somewhat there and also if you have a semi-hilly course that we’re running on. When we localize to that it’s going to change your time or if it was a humid day, it’s going to change your time. Like if we’re localizing to August in Milwaukee it could be a lot more humid than 40 degrees and not humid outside in a morning in Dallas or something like that.

Andrew: Yeah.

Cory: So that’s one of the main questions. So why is my time different?

Andrew: Yeah and Cory for me the main difference– because you’re right. I know all this is happening. I know exactly, I know the technology. I know how it works, and even still knowing why it’s happening, I got done and I was so happy with– I ran a 43 minute 10K. Like 43 minutes on the dot and it was like right as my watch clicked over to 43 minutes I hit 6.2 and I was done and I was– especially having trained for Ironman and not doing a ton of speed work, I was very happy with that time. Then I just pulled up the results to see the exact kind of tweaked time, the calculated time. So for the Milwaukee course for that 10K course it gave me a 43:54. So that’s 54 seconds slower, but after being present in the moment and knowing I ran that 10K in 43 minutes, I saw that 43:54– it’s only 54 seconds slower and I was like, “Dang it!” Like psychologically it does do something to you, but you have to know your time changing is all just part of the result being calculated to a totally fair, level playing field race done on the same race course.

Cory: That’s unfortunately one of the things that we get a lot of questions of, but it is just– It’s the same for everybody. We’re changing and localizing to that environment. Another question is did my file load? Yeah, we just talked about that too, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Cory: And we’re building upon that. Like I said, building or adding to the user interface. You’re going to look at your training history in RaceX so you can see that you’ve got a file that’s loaded for that swim, for that bike, for that run and so along with that question is also why didn’t my race data show up? So that can sometimes happen if somebody’s race data doesn’t particularly match the rules exactly as they’ve been laid out. So if you run a 5K, but you finish your 3.11 miles 2 miles away from where you started then that is not within the tolerance of the rules. You might have run a 5K, but it doesn’t match the criteria so we don’t detect it. So that’s another thing. So make sure that you’re reading the rules, following those, and it’s going to make it a lot easier to see if your files have loaded and have been accepted. There’s all sorts of smaller questions that are mostly one off and not that are really big FAQ’s. They’re more specific to a specific user or runner or biker, but yeah. Lots of good feedback and questions that folks provide us and the more that we get, it makes us think critically of how we can improve the user experience and make the race even more seamless and feel great for everybody.

Andrew: So Jeff, you obviously have a good amount of experience doing on-course racing and I know through Ironman’s Virtual Racing Series which you mentioned, you also have a large amount of virtual race experience as well. So now that there is Remote Racing to kind of bridge that gap and have there be races that are not in person, but are real and are fair, what wisdom do you have for our athletes listening today just for entering that swim, that bike, that run in the right headspace because it is different and oftentimes you’re by yourself or you’re with a group, but you’re still racing. What’s your advice for entering the right headspace to put forth our best race day effort?

Jeff: I think the incentive to push hard and try hard when you’re at home by yourself is a whole other level because we mentioned earlier, you’re not just racing your own gender or your own five year age group anymore. You’re racing everyone.

Andrew: That’s a great point.

Jeff: So I would definitely give it all ya got! Just know that every second matters.

Andrew: Cory, as the Olympic distance defending fourth place finisher, anything to add there to what Jeff just said?

Cory: Yeah, I mean that covers a lot of it. I’d just like to say show up like it was in person. Maybe if you’re doing it with a friend, a little friendly banter beforehand so you can race for bragging rights is pretty fun too.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Andrew: After a full hour plus of listening to Cory Gackenheimer and Coach Jeff Raines talk about Remote Racing, invite us into Remote Racing, give us everything we need to know to dominate our next Remote Race, I wanted to close the show today by just bringing on B.J. Leeper. Now B.J. is on staff as our director of sports performance and one of the things that B.J. oversees is the Remote Racing Series coming up. He and his team have been working very, very hard to make sure that all of us athletes have a wonderful opportunity to have just a really cool preseason Remote Racing Series. So we referenced it a little earlier in the podcast, three really cool, really unique races coming up; one in March, one in April, and one in May. I just wanted B.J. to come on and give us the update. What are these races about? What are they going to be like? So B.J., just kind of give us the 4-1-1 here. What’s the info? What do we need to know and why should we take this preseason Remote Racing Series and jump in and get our race season started here this spring of 2022?

B.J. Leeper: Yeah Andrew, we’re really excited about his preseason Remote Racing Series. I think that like many of us we kind of get the blahs this time of year with winter training. We’re kind of in that rut of just being relegated to the trainer and we just need something to look forward to just with this upcoming triathlon series. I think this will do exactly that. It will kind of get the competitive juices flowing. We’ve got, like you mentioned, three really exciting races in the Vegas Remote Triathlon, and Malibu, and the Moab Remote Triathlon. Like you said, the Vegas will be coming up here this week. We’ve got the last day to register will be Wednesday at midnight, Pacific time. So yeah, the race window runs Thursday through Sunday so you can complete your race within that window and then the results will come out after that shortly, but yeah. We’ve got very unique courses. We’ve partnered with Rouvy to film these courses. So if you’re using the Rouvy platform you’ve got a unique opportunity to ride certain stretches of the country where naturally you wouldn’t be able to ride or race a normal triathlon. So we’ve got the Vegas Strip lit up at night coming up this week. Then we’ve got the ability to ride at Malibu along the Pacific Coast Highway. Some really unique scenic places there that you’ll be able to see on Rouvy and then like you mentioned in Moab, Arches National Park. So if you haven’t experienced Remote Racing– you know I participated in our USA Triathlon Remote National Championships a while back and it’s just a different level when you know there’s others out there doing the same type of racing effort and you know that the results actually going to be comparable. It doesn't’ compare to on-site racing completely. You know, there’s nothing that will replace that, but the next best thing that we feel like we’ve got here with Remote Racing is exactly what we’re putting on. It’s something if you haven’t tried it, you’ve just got to get out there and experience it. It’s just very unique and we, again, have worked really hard to make the results comparable and fair so it actually means something so it just gets those competitive juices flowing for you right before your actual race season starts.

Andrew: Now B.J. if somebody is listening to this episode and it’s the year 2026 and this preseason Remote Racing Series has come and gone, they can go to remoteracing.com, right? Is that the best place for them to do that and to kind of get intel on the upcoming race options?

B.J.: Yeah absolutely. remoteracing.com. We’ve got a full slate coming up for this year, but foreseeably in the future I think we’ll continue to see more races added to the calendar. We’ve got some exciting partnerships coming up with Challenge that we’re going to be putting on some Challenge Remote Races that will coincide with their actual on-site races. We’ve got a lot of different options. So again, for this preseason Remote Racing Series, our first two are sprint distances. The last one there’s an option for sprint and Olympic distance, but yeah. We think this is something that’s going to stick around for years to come so we’re really excited about it.

Andrew: Well that’s it for today folks. I want to thank Cory Gackenheimer and Jeff Raines for talking about Remote Racing with us today. Huge thanks to deltaG for partnering with us on this episode. To learn more about the performance boosting benefits of deltaG Ketones, head to deltagketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your order. Enjoying the podcast? Have any triathlon questions or topics you want to hear us talk about? Head to tridot.com/podcast and click on leave us a voicemail to get your voice on the show asking your question. We’ll have a new show coming your way very soon. Until then, Happy Training!

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

‍