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: All right, so we are feeling a little ambitious today, a little frisky.  We are taking on the task of defining 66 tri terms that every triathlete should know.  Even in accumulating this list, there are things I feel like I left out.  I tried thinking through what terms I did not know when I first started in triathlon.  It is a heck of a list, so I’ve got a heck of a panel here to help us. Our first TriDot coach on the episode is professional triathlete Elizabeth James.  Elizabeth is a USAT Level 2 and IRONMAN U certified coach, who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot, from a beginner, to top age-grouper, to a professional triathlete.  She is a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014.  Elizabeth, how’s it going?

Elizabeth James:  You know Andrew, things are busy, but in the best way. We are well into tri season, and it just seems like every weekend is full of excitement. I love this time of year. It’s busy, but it is fantastic.

Andrew:  That’s so, so true.  We were definitely tracking tons of TriDot athletes at various races over the weekend. Also here with us is TriDot Coach Joanna Nami.  Joanna is better known as Coach JoJo, and has coached athletes with TriDot since 2012.She is a cofounder of Hissy Fit Racing, a member of the Betty Design Elite Squad, and keeps adding Ironman finishes – over 20 now? – to her accomplished triathlon résumé.  Coach Jo now serves as the Director of TriDot Pool School.  Coach Jo, welcome back to the show!

Joanna Nami:  Thanks for having me, Andrew! I’m excited to be here with you and Elizabeth and Jeff, and to have lots of laughs and be very informative today.

Andrew:  Hm, lots of laughs, lots of information.  Also with us is Coach Jeff Raines. Jeff  is a USAT Level 2 and IRONMAN U certified coach, and a TriDot Master Coach, who has a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology, and was a D-1 collegiate runner. He has over sixty IRONMAN event finishes to his credit, and has coached hundreds of athletes to the IRONMAN finish line.  Jeff has been training and coaching with TriDot since 2015.  Welcome, Jeff!

Jeff Raines:  This is going to be a fun one, Andrew.  Things triathletes say – man, this could get wild today!

Andrew:  I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack.  As always, we’ll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down on the cooldown with Vanessa interviewing a different coach for a Coach Cooldown Tip.

Triathletes and cyclists love talking about their bikes, and I of course am no exception. I am so impressed by the quality of my Dimond Marquise TT bike.  Every detail has been carefully engineered and crafted by the team at Dimond Bikes. My Marquise, complete with a custom TriDot paint scheme, sits proudly on the set of the TriDot Triathlon YouTube show for our audience to see.  Their bikes are industry-leading, aerodynamic machines, and they look awesome.  But even beyond that, Dimond as a brand knows how to take care of their athletes.  With five different tri bike models, as well as road, gravel, and mountain bikes, your next bike should absolutely be a Dimond.  TriDot and Dimond are a dynamic race-day one-two punch – Dimond provides you with the Ferrari of bikes, and TriDot Training develops your engine.  So we are excited to partner with Dimond on some really cool offers.  If you are a new-to-TriDot athlete, we’re offering six months of the Mark Allen Edition of TriDot with the purchase of a Dimond bike. If you are already a TriDot athlete, we are offering a TriDot Store credit with your new bike.  Head to dimondbikes.com for all of the info, and to dream up your very own Dimond Bike.  Lots of good stuff, let’s get to it!

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

Andrew:  We all have food habits that are relatively normal, like dipping chips into salsa or putting mustard on a hot dog.  But then we all have one super-weird thing that we do that causes the people around us to look at us like we are from another planet.  For our warmup question today, what is your weirdest food habit? And as a bonus – if you want to, you can totally throw a loved one under the bus with you – what is an additional weird food habit of a friend or family member? Jeff Raines?

Jeff:  Easy, ranch dressing!  I put ranch dressing on everything, and I have even been known to carry around a bottle of ranch dressing, just in case I’m out somewhere and they don’t have ranch dressing, or they’re out.  I put it on my tuna, I put it on hot dogs, I put it on everything.  I’m that guy, I also like pineapple on my pizza, like one of those little old ladies who asks for the weirdest thing.  “Hey, anybody got a hammer?”  “I don’t know.”  Then they’ll pull it out of their purse, because they have everything in their purse. Well for me, it’s like my phone, wallet, keys, and ranch dressing.

Joanna:  In your purse?

Jeff:  Aw, man. Scratch that.  Thanks, JoJo!  Oh man, it’s going to be one of those kind of episodes!  I’m ready!  I’m ready for Jo!

Elizabeth:  Oh yeah, what you can’t see is Joanna and me just laughing.  It’s like we could have answered that question for you! “What’s weird about Jeff’s food intake? Ranch dressing!”  Absolutely!  Every staff trip he’s like, “Can I get a side of ranch with that?”  No matter what he orders.

Andrew:  Yeah, I’ve seen that as well.  I do feel like there’s enough people that do ranch on everything, that that in itself isn’t weird, so I’m glad you gave us a few examples.  Like ranch dressing on a hot dog, that is objectively weird, sorry. Thanks for the tangible example, I was going to follow up asking that.  Moving this one on to Coach Joanna Nami.

Joanna:  My kids think it’s disgusting.  I didn’t think this was weird, I thought maybe everybody did this, but I’ve eaten the same breakfast for like twenty years.  I put an egg and egg whites in my oatmeal in the microwave.  It smells funny I guess, and the kids say that I’m disgusting, but it’s really good because we have to beef up our protein intake. Then the podcast where I mentioned the lobster and beef snack from the refrigerator has gotten a lot of comments.

Andrew:  As it should. I have a clarifying question, Jo. So do you put cooked eggs in oatmeal and then microwave the whole thing?  Or do you put raw eggs into your oatmeal and microwave the whole thing?

Joanna:  I put raw eggs in it.

Andrew:  And then the eggs are cooked along with the oatmeal.

Joanna:  Yes, if you cook it for two minutes and 45 seconds, it’s perfect.

Jeff:  I just threw up a little bit.

Andrew:  Hot diggity dog, that’s weird.

Joanna:  Jeff, I threw up when you said ranch dressing in tuna.

Jeff:  I might could put ranch dressing on top of that oatmeal with eggs, and drown it out. Nope, no, I can’t.  I still couldn’t do it.

Andrew:  Elizabeth James, what have you got here?

Elizabeth:  The one thing that came to mind for me – and again, maybe along the lines of like Joanna said, I don’t think it’s that weird, but it’s me doing it – I eat salad right out of the bag.  I did this almost every day while teaching. I’d heat up some chicken in the microwave, dump it into the salad bag, and eat lunch right out of the bag.  To me, that was just smart.  Save dishes –

Andrew:  That seems just practical, yeah.

Elizabeth:  But the other teachers in the teachers’ lounge would just frequently joke about me and my bagged lunches.  Maybe it was just more the quantity of it versus anything else, just sitting there eating a whole bag of salad.  That’s the only thing that came to mind.  I was asking my husband too, I was like, “What do I do that’s so weird?” He was like, “Uh, I don’t know, you eat kind of boring.”  He didn’t really have a good answer for me, so I’m going with the salad thing.

Andrew:  My answer here – I’ve actually outgrown this one, but kind of like you Elizabeth, I was trying to think of something that was truly weird.  When I was a young 20-something, and I was trying to work more vegetables into my diet, I was eating carrots out of the little carrot bag out of the refrigerator.  Now, I eat my carrots straight –  I don’t dip them in ranch or anything like Jeff Raines – but back in my 20’s I was never a big ranch guy, so I would dip my carrots into Chick-Fil-A sauce.  But I grew out of that one.

We’re going to throw this question out to you, our audience.  I know there’s something in the back of your head as we’ve been talking, you’re like, “Yep, I’ve got something lined up that I can share.”  I’m going to throw this question out on the I AM TriDot Facebook group, what is a weird food habit that you or a loved one have?  Let us know in the comments.

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

Andrew: We’ve had sports scientist Andy Blow from Precision Fuel & Hydration on the show quite a few times to help you nail your hydration and fueling strategy for training and racing.  We’ve learned from Andy that you need to replace a portion of your carb, electrolyte, and fluid losses with what you eat and drink if you want to perform at your best.  So Andy and the team at Precision Fuel & Hydration have developed the Fuel Planner to take the guesswork out of your race nutrition plan.  Head over to precisionfuelandhydration.com to take the Fuel Planner, and get your free personalized race nutrition strategy.  You can book a call with Precision Fuel & Hydration’s athlete support team to refine your strategy, and don’t forget that TriDot listeners can get 10% off their very first order of electrolytes and fueling products by using the code TRI23 at the checkout at precisionfuelandhydration.com.

With most sports, there is a certain lingo that pairs exclusively with participating in that physical activity, and triathlon is no exception.  There are terms that can help a triathlete navigate training and racing, and existing within the multisport universe.  Today we are going to identify and explain 66 terms that we here at TriDot feel athletes should know.  Some of these will be no-brainers to a veteran triathlete, others might be a bit deeper, a bit more obscure.  But we’ve got a lot of them, so let’s buckle up and see what you can learn from the conversation today.  Now Jo, EJ, Jeff, I’m going to do my best to really keep us moving today, 66 terms to get through.  But before we hit our list of tri terms, I’m curious to hear – when you first started in triathlon, what was a term that you did not know, that you distinctly remember the moment that you learned it?

Elizabeth:  Yeah, I’ve got this one ready to go.  Crack pipe.  This was at Galveston Camp, 2017, and I seriously thought the athlete that was asking me if I had a crack pipe was asking for drugs.  Talk about an embarrassing and awkward moment, I had no idea what they were talking about.  I didn’t understand the whole “crack pipe for the disc wheel”.  I tell you what, that was awkward.

Andrew:  Yep. Jeff Raines, how about you?

Jeff:  The clip-on shoes.  I know it seems simple enough, but I thought that was a negative thing, like you have a clip-on tie, clip-on earrings, like it’s fake or bad.  I was a new triathlete and they’re like, “Have you got clip-on shoes yet?”  I’m like, “No, that’s so dumb!”

Andrew:  “Why would I want to do that?  I’m the real deal!”

Jeff:  Exactly! Finally I was at my first tri, I was doing the shoes in the stirrup things, and I was like, “Yeah, these are the stirrups.”  They were like, “Well, get your clip-on shoes.”  And I was like, “Oh.”  It finally clicked.  Now I know!

Andrew:  Joanna Nami, what about you?

Joanna:  I think I was doing a practice tri for the YMCA – this was like 20 years ago in Pearland Texas.  I can’t remember if we had a flat, or what went on with a group of us, and the guy’s like, “SAG’s coming.”  I was like, “SAG?  Is that the cops?”  I played it off, I was like, “Yeah, SAG.  They’re coming.”  I had no idea what that meant, and then folks told me what it was.

Andrew:  I’m glad you said that, somehow that’s not on my list of 66, so tell us what SAG is?

Joanna:  SAG is someone that’s appointed, a vehicle that’s appointed to assist if anybody got in trouble, or if you need help during a ride.  You’ll often see them on organized group rides or during races. That’s one of the number one questions I get from athletes during IRONMAN or half-IRONMAN races, “Is there going to be SAG?  Is there going to be somebody that can help me if I had a problem?”

Jeff:  It stands for “support and gear” I believe.

Andrew:  Gotcha. We are learning already!  Mine that I’m going to share – this actually is on my list of 66, so we can go ahead and cross it off right now – I did not know and had never heard of the flying mount.  I heard more experienced athletes talking about, “Oh you’re new to the sport, you should learn how to do a flying mount.”  So I learned what that was, I saw what it was, and I was like, “I’m not going to start off with that.  That seems like that’s a veteran move.”  The flying mount is obviously when you get on the bike in T1, you jump onto the bike while the bike is in motion, and you figure out how to shimmy your feet into your shoes as you're beginning to ride.  It’s all done in one motion, you don’t stop and throw your foot over. Then when you get off the bike in T2, you do the flying dismount where you get off the bike while the bike is still in motion.  You mount and then dismount your bike while going as fast as possible, and it saves time in triathlon.  So I looked up what it was, and I was like, “Yeah, I’m going to learn how to do that, but not yet.”  And here I am almost ten years later, and I’ve never even attempted to learn a flying mount.  I remember very distinctly, “Ooh, that looks advanced!”  I still think that looks very advanced.

Okay, I’m not going to talk any more about this one, let’s get into the list.  I will say a tri term, and then I will call on someone in our coaching panel to tell us what we need to know about that term.  Some of these will go very quickly, some may take a bit of discussion. Most are wide-reaching, but some are TriDot-specific.  Up first, number one, Coach Jo, what is a brick workout?

Joanna:  A brick workout refers to doing one type of exercise immediately following another. For triathletes, brick training usually refers to our off-the-bike run, the run following the bike, but it can also refer to our transitioning from swim to bike.  I did Google this term just to see where it originated from, and it said that a Dr. Matt Brick coined the phrase when he was training for a duathlon, and was referring to transitioning from the bike to run as his brick workout.

Andrew:  Very interesting.  We will have to consult our good friend here at TriDot, legendary triathlete Mark Allen. He has a different origin story for the brick workout, saying that in the early days of the sport, they used to be just killing time, entertaining themselves on their long bike ride, and they would sing, “Just Another Brick in the Wall” right before getting off and going for their run.  So they started calling it a brick workout.  Is Google right, or is Mark Allen right? We’ll have to consult with him and find out.  Either way, a brick workout is a workout where you do one thing and then another. You do two disciplines of the sport within one workout.

Number two, getting a little nerdy here, a little into training design terminology – this is actually number two and three – Elizabeth, what is a mesocycle and a microcycle?

Elizabeth:  Does it grow to two, three, and four if I add another one into the explanation? But I feel like this is going to help us understand it, so I’m actually going to start with another term here, a macrocycle.  A macrocycle refers to your season as a whole.  Then we drill down a little bit further, a mesocycle refers to a particular block within that season, so like your developmental phase or your race preparation phase.  Then the microcycle, we’re getting even smaller, drilling down a little bit more, refers to the smallest unit within that mesocycle, which is usually a week of training.

Andrew:  Okay, very helpful.  Thankfully for the athlete, TriDot handles optimizing your training within all of those different time blocks, but it’s nice to know that’s happening behind the scenes, that that is how triathlon training and endurance sports training is designed.

The next one is not tri-specific, it’s a term across all of endurance sports.  Jeff Raines, what does it mean to bonk?

Jeff:  Bonking, we say it kind of nonchalantly these days, where you’re kind of worn out at the end of a workout.  “Man, I bonked in that workout.”  But I would argue 19 out of 20 times, they did not really bonk.  A real bonk is completely running out of that muscle glycogen, that anaerobic glycogen, and you’re fully depleted of all energy stores. Your mind is saying, “go go go”, but your body just physically can’t.  Your body is literally trying to throw itself down on the ground, so that your heart and brain are at the same level, so that blood can get to the brain better, more oxygen fueling the brain, so that you can start the recovery process.  We all maybe know it as “the crawl”.  Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham, I believe it was 1997, go watch that YouTube video. Type that in, “bonking”, or the “triathlon crawl”, and watch that video.  THAT is bonking, and when that happens to you, you know it.  That is a real bonk.

Andrew:  Back over to Coach Jo, as our Director of TriDot Pool School, what is OWS?

Joanna:  OWS stands for open-water swimming, that just refers to any of our outdoor swimming, outside of a pool.  It’s my favorite, so anytime you feel like it, doing an OWS would be swimming a workout in a lake, ocean, or any open water outside.

Andrew:  Yep, you’ll see OWS a lot in print material, maybe you’ll see it on a Facebook post where another triathlete will be like, “Hey, we’re going to get together for an OWS session!”  That means it is an open-water swimming session.

Next one up, I’ll kick it to Elizabeth first to get her take on this.  Elizabeth, a lot of people talk about the “fourth discipline” of triathlon. What is the fourth discipline of triathlon?

Elizabeth:  This one can be debatable, because the fourth discipline of triathlon is going to be that fourth emphasis behind the three sport disciplines of swim, bike, and run.  This is often referenced as nutrition, specifically race-day nutrition.  But depending on who you talk to, the fourth discipline could be your transitions, especially in short-course racing where every second matters.  It could also be your recovery, that ability to absorb the training load properly to make the desired gains from training.  I think most often, if somebody says the “fourth discipline of triathlon”, they’re referring to nutrition, but you may need to use some context clues to see if they might be referencing transitions or recovery.

Andrew:  Yes, very well covered there.

Joanna:  Jeff Raines would say the fourth discipline is ranch dressing.

Jeff:  It’s that recovery meal, that has to include ranch dressing!  But I’ve even heard a few people refer to incorporating strength training as the fourth discipline, on top of the three disciplines.

Andrew:  To Elizabeth’s point, if you ask a physical therapist, it’s probably recovery.  If you ask a strength coach, it’s probably strength training.  If you ask a nutritionist, it’s probably nutrition.  It’s that next thing that someone would deem the most important thing beyond your swim, bike, and run training.  Great analysis there Elizabeth, on how what answer you get depends on who you talk to, but what they’re referring to is the next crucial thing beyond swim, bike, and run for your triathlon training.  Coach Jo, moving on, when an athlete says, “I need to spend more time training in aero,” what are they talking about?  What does it mean for an athlete to be “in aero”?

Joanna:  Aero refers to our positioning on the bike, where we’re resting on our forearms in the aerobars.  We’re going to talk about aerobars a little bit later.  That’s the difference between road bikes and tri bikes, in that our positioning is different because the front bars that are attached to the front of the bike are different.  Riding in those aerobars is when an athlete would say, “I need to stay in that aero position for more time on the bike.”

Andrew:  Perfect, well done.  Jeff Raines, another bike question here.  Folks will definitely see the abbreviations BTA and BTS when it comes to bike setups. What tri terms are these abbreviations pointing to?

Jeff:  That’s referring to your nutritional intake or your water bottle setup, which is typically between the arms (BTA) or behind the seat (BTS).  Between the arms would be in that aero position, and there’s a straw or something inches away from your mouth.  Your spare bottles are probably BTS, behind the seat.  Behind the seat is a little bit more aero as your body cuts through the wind, and the water bottles are tucked in behind your bottom. So it’s the water bottle setup between the arms, or behind the seat.

Elizabeth:  Do people use those abbreviations?  I’ve never heard that!

Joanna:  I’ve never heard of it.

Andrew:  You’ve never heard of it?  Apparently Jeff Raines and I are the two that nerd out on aero articles, because it is very common to see those abbreviations when you read about the things people do to optimize the aerodynamics of their setup.  Jeff, that’s exactly the answer I was expecting.  Elizabeth, Jo?

Elizabeth:  I mean, it makes total sense, I’ve just never seen those abbreviations before.

Andrew:  I’m glad you two could learn something today!  Jeff Raines, what are “super shoes”?

Jeff:  Super shoes tend to be a little bit more aggressive than your traditional shoe. They’re lighter, there’s a greater stack height, and a less dense durometer of that EVA foam, so it’s going to give a little bit more squish, it’s going to make it lighter.  And the sole of the shoe tends to incorporate some sort of carbon fiber plate that is supposed to help the efficiency of the runner.

Andrew:  Yeah, at this point I think I see a majority of folks, especially at more competitive events like half-IRONMAN and IRONMAN, are wearing a super shoe.  Maybe not necessarily at an entry-level event, at your local sprints and Olympics you still see a variety of shoes. I personally love my super shoes.  Coach Jo, what is a “super bike”?

Joanna:  I think we’re seeing more and more of these “super bikes” at races.  It’s kind of like how one athlete can outdo another bike, like, “How strange can our bikes get?”  It’s the super-ultra aero, I’ve heard them referred to as rocket ships, where they have an unusual frame type or wonky cockpit, or very unusual hydration systems we’re seeing recently, very expensive components to make for very expensive bikes.

Andrew:  By definition, all four of us on this podcast actually have a super bike.  Elizabeth with the Quintana Roo PR6, then Jeff, Jo and myself all having a Dimond Marquise.  So Elizabeth, you need to get on the Dimond train whenever.

Elizabeth:  Yeah, I’m kind of the odd man out there, huh?

Andrew:  All three of us highly recommend it.  Another super-cool bike term, Coach Elizabeth, what is an “uber-biker”, and are you one of them?

Elizabeth:  Well, let’s address that second question first.  I’m flattered you ask, Andrew, but no, I am not an uber biker. I have lots of improvements yet to make before I’ll be knocking on the door of that categorization.  But maybe another good goal to shoot for, so I appreciate you asking.  An “uber biker” is somebody that just absolutely dominates the biking leg of the triathlon.  Their bike is the strongest discipline, it’s their weapon of choice, and they absolutely capitalize on it.  Uber biking requires a blend of very high aerobic power, so a very high VO2max, really good endurance, and then a lot of strength.  The watts, not only generated over from a pure power standpoint are amazing, but then that’s sustained for those hours of racing.  It’s just somewhat mind-blowing how fast these bike splits can be.  An uber biker would be somebody that is just dominant on the bike, they are producing some of those fastest bike splits that we see.

Andrew:  Next one up, you can get a tri tattoo – it’s actually a very popular way to celebrate your first Ironman finish – but getting a tattoo is not what “body marking” is referring to.  Coach Jo, what is body marking?

Joanna:  I feel like this is kind of a sad question, because it was such an important part of becoming a triathlete.  In these short local races, it was always body marking as you arrived.  You’re nervous, a volunteer would be standing before you went into transition to mark your calf and arm with your age and your bib number.  With the pandemic and Covid and social distancing, a lot of that was done away with, they did away with those volunteers being there to mark you.  They replaced a lot of it with temporary tattoos for those numbers.  That is body marking, but it is becoming a lot less popular in tri races.

Andrew:  Elizabeth James, what are “battle braids”?

Elizabeth:  Yes, this is a fun one.  This is a kind of iconic hairstyle that has become very popularized by Lucy Charles-Barclay.  It is tight braids, often two of them down each side of the head, pulling the hair back out of the way, getting ready for the battle ahead on the race course. You’ve got your battle braids in, ready to race.

Andrew:  A couple more acronyms, and a few folks may have some dark flashbacks when I say these letters, so please forgive me in advance.  Coach Jeff, what is a DNF and a DNS?

Jeff:  “Did not finish”, and “did not start”.  I think the DNF is arguably the most painful in so many ways.  Something happens during the race where you have to call it quits and tap out, and you did not make it to the finish line, and your goal was to get that finish on the day.  “Did not start” could be a number of things.  It could be the day before the race or the morning of, you wake up sick. It could be a month out, something happens to where your training is affected and you’re not able to even start the race.

Andrew:  Yeah, let’s get to a happier race day term.  Elizabeth, what is a “flow state”, or a “state of flow”?

Elizabeth:  Yes, a much happier term here.  “Flow” is kind of a state of mind.  It’s achieved when athletes just feel completely engaged in their performance. In this flow state, athletes often kind of lose perception of time, as they’re fully concentrated on the moment. This is also associated with really high levels of performance.  If someone is just dominating on race day, people might say, “Man, they were in such a flow state.”  They were concentrating so hard, it just seemed like everything kind of came together for them.

Andrew:  Jeff Raines, when an athlete talks about their zones, as in, “My training went really well last month, so my zones got harder.”  What on planet earth are they referring to?

Jeff:  This happens a lot with my athletes, and I love congratulating them the day that they do their assessment.  TriDot updates your zones once a month or about every four weeks.  You crush it, you do great, and you get that huge improvement.  Good for you! Bask in the glory!  Enjoy that celebration for the rest of the day, because your zones get harder.  You’ve shifted those zones up, you’ve gained fitness, you’ve improved, you’ve gotten faster. Now all of your zones going forward are a little bit more aggressive.  The paces you have for the run, the watts you have to push ongoing, are a little bit harder.  So celebrate now, but enjoy that pain as those zones get harder ongoing.

Elizabeth:  Elizabeth James, lots of athletes are ambassadors for this or for that. Here at TriDot we have our own TriDot Ambassador group.  In the sport of triathlon, what is an “ambassador”?

Elizabeth:  First off, a huge shout out and thank you to all of our TriDot Ambassadors out there.  We love them, we appreciate all that they do for us and for the triathlon community. Again, a big shout out and thank you to them.  A brand “ambassador” is someone who loves a particular brand, and becomes an advocate of that brand.  In a sense, it’s an enthusiastic fan that is becoming a long-term promotional partner of a particular brand.  As an ambassador, you are an advocate.  You’re encouraging others to try a brand, maybe answer questions about it.  There’s a great relationship between brands and their ambassadors.  The brands will often offer particular perks for being an ambassador, such as discounts on products, opportunities to be the first to try new products, engagement opportunities with other athletes, staff members, maybe some pro athletes that are also a part of the brand.  Just a really great opportunity both for brands and the ambassadors of that brand.

Andrew:  Coach Jo, when we head to the pool, what are “pool toys”?

Joanna:  You’ll hear people talk about their “swim bag” and their “pool toys”.  Some of the usual ones that we’ve all used to do swim drills, or improve our stroke, include hand paddles, snorkel, fins, swim buoy, ankle bands, and kickboard.  Then you’ll start to see some unusual things at pools, such as people using golf balls. A small dumbbell is a Michellie Jones’ favorite, one of our Pool School instructors.  Now we’re seeing all types of waterproof earphones and earbuds, which is interesting.  Of those, probably my most favorite are the fins. At Pool School we emphasize balance and body position in the water, so those are a must.

Andrew:  Moving us along – when I started in triathlon, I think the biggest learning curve for me was just learning all the different bike parts and gadgets that I needed or that I could buy.  Jeff Raines, what is a “groupset”?

Jeff:  Traditionally it’s a collection of parts that make up the drive train of the bike. Without going into every single piece, long story short, it’s what makes your bike stop and go. These groupsets are typically brand-specific, so Shimano may not fit or work or talk well with SRAM and stuff like that.  A groupset is usually brand-specific.

Andrew:  Continuing our bike part detour, what is a cockpit, and while we’re on that one, what are aerobars?  Elizabeth?

Elizabeth:  The cockpit components include all contact points between the rider and the bike.  So we’re talking about handlebars, saddle, pedals, and also in this category are the other essential parts, including the headsets and the seatpost.  Yet there are some athletes that say the saddle and the pedals are not going to be part of that cockpit, and they refer only to the front part of the bike, like the handlebars, shifters, aerobars, aero pads. A little bit of debate there.  I always thought of the cockpit as just the front part of the bike, but there are some people that categorize it as all of those contact points.  So aerobars – Jo kind of referred to this when she was talking about being in aero – those would be the set of bicycle handlebars, or handlebar extensions, that are designed to put a rider’s body in that low, aerodynamic position.  Time trial bikes will come with integrated aerobars, meaning they’re already built into the design, but you can also get clip-on aerobars.  When I was first starting in triathlon I had my road bike, and added some clip-on aerobars. Just as the name suggests, you are able to add those bars onto your existing road bike as an extension, to be in that aerodynamic position.

Andrew:  Interesting, you mention the debate about the cockpit.  I had never heard anybody talk about “cockpit” in terms of all the touch points.  I just heard the cockpit was the front end of the bike, as you said.  But I am open to that interpretation that all the touchpoints make up the cockpit, because if you think of a cockpit in terms of a fighter jet, that’s where the pilot is, and the pilot has all of his touchpoints with the plane in the cockpit.  So I’m open to that either way, but thank you for that breakdown of those parts, Elizabeth. Last thing I want to talk about on the bike – Jeff Raines mentioned these earlier in the show, but Joanna, what are “clipless” pedals?

Joanna:  I think it’s kind of a confusing term.  Clipless refers to the toes are not clipped in as to a cage or strap or anything on the FRONT of the shoe.  It’s referring to a cleat system, where we’re locking our foot into place, and getting better efficiency in our pedal strokes.  So clipless refers to no cage or strap that’s clipping the toe to the pedal.

Andrew:  Professional triathlete Elizabeth James, what is an age-group athlete?

Elizabeth:  Age-group athletes are the hardest-working individuals that I know. These are the athletes that are racing in an event that do not currently hold an elite or professional status. They’re out there, busting their butt every day –

Andrew:  For funsies.

Elizabeth:  Exactly, as a hobby.  The vast majority of races are split into five-year age groups, so like 20 to 24, 25 to 29, 30 to 34, and so on.  This is one of the main attractions of triathlon, that even if you aren’t competing for overall honors or a top overall spot, you can compete and compare yourself to people in a similar age group.

Andrew:  Jeff Raines, what is a “Clydesdale” or “Athena” athlete?

Jeff:  Those are racing divisions that an athlete can choose to partake in or not, as far as their scoring.  They’re usually referring to groupings based on weight.  For males around 200 or 220 pounds or greater, you can choose to race in the Clydesdale division.  For females, that’s usually around 165 pounds, you can choose to be grouped in the Athena division, or thrown into your normal five-year age group.  So they’re sub-categories, but I do know you’re not eligible to compete in a weight-class division AND in an age-group division.  You can’t race Masters AND a Clydesdale, so to speak.  It’s just another category to race alongside or with like-minded or physically weighted individuals of your same caliber, and be awarded based off of that.

Andrew:  Coach Jo, what is a Masters athlete?

Joanna:  I didn’t know if I should be offended by being chosen to answer about Masters division. I think this may change in the next couple of years, but right now Masters is technically 40 and above, at a lot of short-course events.  But now we’re seeing 42-year-old women, 41-year-old men being overall winner at a lot of these races, so I have a strong suspicion that that’s going to change over the next couple of years.  Whether it’s raised to 45 or 50, I think we might see a change there.

Andrew:  That would make sense.  And Jo, for the record, for the most part, what term I gave what coach was entirely arbitrary, so I was not trying to single you out as our lone Masters athlete on the podcast to answer that one.  So Jo, we’ll go back to you for a non-age-related question, what is a “stripper”?

Joanna:  Okay Andrew, I know you’re sweet and naïve, but have you ever been to a bachelor party?

Andrew:  Not one with a stripper!

Joanna:  So “stripper” refers to a wetsuit stripper.  Again, this has not been as popular since the pandemic and more social distancing, but you will see wetsuit strippers, who are usually volunteers, located right outside the swim exit, or in T1, that will assist athletes.  We know how hard those wetsuits can be to get off, so you are looking for a good wetsuit stripper to help you get that off as quick as possible, and make your way into transition.

Elizabeth:  I think they’re calling them “peelers” now too, to try to make that more –

Andrew:  You are correct.

Joanna:  Andrew’s supposed to call them strippers.

Elizabeth:  Yeah, the wetsuit peelers will be there for volunteer status.

Andrew:  Thank you for that update, Elizabeth.  You say that, and I recall that, but I did not recall that when writing this.  It was way too fun to ask Jo about strippers. But Jo, this has been so fun running through this list with you, let’s go back to you three times in a row. What’s a sherpa?

Joanna:  Sherpa refers to a friend or someone that you’ve talked to about assisting you and helping you execute your race day perfectly.  They can be responsible for a lot of things, depending on how demanding you are as a human being and as an athlete.  They can help you pack, load your bags, check your bike into transition, do your meal planning.  There is so much that goes into endurance racing, and the sherpa is usually somebody that you’ve planned way in advance to help you in the days leading up to the race, and then on race day to make sure that the day goes seamlessly.

Andrew:  Elizabeth James, this is a four-for-one special.  What is a “wave start”, a “mass start”, a “beach start”, and a “time trial start”?

Elizabeth:  Lots of good stuff here.  Triathlon always starts with a swim, however triathlon swim starts can vary from race to race, and that’s a lot of what we’re talking about.  Over time, as you’re racing, you’ll probably encounter several different starting approaches.  Probably the most common format for a triathlon start is a wave start, which will typically involve splitting the entire field into waves that are predefined by age group and gender.  Different age groups are often given different-colored swim caps, and a specific start time.  You might have one wave that starts at 7:00 a.m., then your next wave might start at 7:06 am, then your next one might be at 7:12.  You have a smaller group within the entire field, by age group and gender, that will begin at a specific, designated time.  A time-trial start is another one of these main start types that we’re starting to see.  Here, racers will usually line up either by a specific race number, or in any order that they get in line.  Different races will do this differently.  Some have a designated order for which racers they want to start, and others it’s just “get in line”.  Then once you get to that starting area there will be a race starter, and they will let a racer go every few seconds.  So it’d be like, racer one goes, three seconds later racer two goes, three seconds later, racer three goes, and it’s this continuous flow of athletes.  A mass start simply means that when the starting gun goes off, or when that cannon fires, you’ve got a couple thousand people – or however big the event is – that are doing the race all begin at once.  When people think of the chaotic swim start, with people everywhere jockeying for position, this is probably what they envision.  For a first-time racer that’s a little unnerving.  It’s very conducive to getting kicked in the face, grabbed, really having that washing-machine effect from the very first second you start.  But as a spectator it’s very exciting to see.  And everybody is starting the race at the exact same time, so it’s also neat because you know that wherever you are on the course, everybody is four hours in at the exact same point.  Or 17 hours in, when the course cuts off, that’s the final call for everybody for the IRONMAN, because everyone started at the same time.  Those are types of starts, but we’re going to actually get into the location of the start as well.  Those organizational structures between your wave start, mass start, time trial start, these can be done from either in-water starts or beach starts. Sorry Andrew, adding terms again.  An in-water start means you get into the water, then the gun or cannon goes off. Or it can be a beach start, where you're starting from outside of that body of water.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a beach, it can be the side of a lake, but you start on the ground outside of the water, run into the water, and then begin swimming.  So where you start and how you start, there’s a lot that can differ for that swim start.

Andrew:  Yep, and they all have their own terms, and you’ve broken them down very well for us. You actually broke them down so well for us, you turned my four-in-one into a five-in-one, so I’m going to give you another five-for-one special here.  Elizabeth James, let’s hit all the terms for what we do in between disciplines.  What is transition, T1, T2, the mount line, and the dismount line?

Elizabeth:  Triathlon is a non-stop race, meaning that you go from swimming, to cycling, to running, and you do this via the transitions.  There are two transitions in a race.  T1 is the transition from the swim as you prepare for the bike, and then T2 is how you’re transitioning from the bike as you begin to start the run.  Then you’ve got your mount line and your dismount line.  The mount line is when you are coming out of T1, you’ve gone from the swim, you’ve picked up your bike, and you cannot get on your bike until you have passed the mount line.  Out of the transition area, there will be a line that is marked on the ground, and usually there are some volunteers there that will say, “This is the point at which you can get on your bike and begin the bike course and the bike leg.”  In a similar way, you have the dismount line.  The dismount line is going to be that line, again marked on the ground, where you must have stepped off your bike before you go into T2 to get your run gear to begin on the run course.  So the mount line and dismount line are really just making sure that we don’t have people riding bikes through transition, and that everybody is taking safety as a high priority at that point.

Andrew:  Coach Jeff, I keep giving you the abbreviations, and I continue that trend. What is an FTP?

Jeff:  FTP stands for “functional threshold power”.  It’s the average maximum power that you can sustain for an hour on the bike. Some will refer to that as “functional threshold pace”, applying that to a set distance for time as far as running as well.  That helps establish your zones, to get the most out of your power during triathlon training and racing.

Andrew:  Back to you, Jeff, for another set of abbreviations.  What is TSS, NTS, and TSP?  I’m going to let you keep this short, since we do have a YouTube video on the TriDot Triathlon YouTube channel where Jeff and I talk about all three of these things for a good solid 15 minutes, it’s very informative. But just for definitions here, Jeff, TSS, NTS, TSP?

Jeff:  Those are all different types of metrics to quantify the training stress of a particular workout, or a portion of a workout.  It takes the workout as a whole, and lets you know the stress that is applied physiologically on the body.  TSS stands for training stress score.  That is a little bit of an old-school model, so we have taken that a little bit deeper in our triathlon training and we call that normalized training stress, and we take into account our TSP, or our training stress profile.

Andrew:  Last abbreviation on my list, Jeff, what is CdA?  For the folks at home who haven’t seen this, it’s a capital C, a lower-case D, and capital A.

Jeff:  That’s an abbreviation obviously, and it stands for the coefficient of drag, or the coefficient of aerodynamic drag, in our triathlon space.

Andrew:  Coach Jo, what is a personal needs bag?

Joanna:  A personal needs bag refers to the two bags you are given and allowed to use during a full IRONMAN.  One of these bags is for the bike section, and the other is for the run.  You’re usually allowed access to these bags one time during the race, one time on the bike, and one time on the run, and it’s usually located near the halfway point, but sometimes a little bit off.  Most of the time, I encourage my athletes to have options to replenish nutrition, first aid, change of clothes, change of socks, anything that you’re going to need.  112 miles on the bike, 26.2 on the run, is a very long way, so there are definitely some supplies that can be put into the personal needs bags for them to use.

Andrew:  Coach Jo, what is drafting, and what does it mean for a race to be draft-legal?

Joanna:  Drafting refers to your positioning on the bike, when you position yourself directly behind another rider.  Or if you’re in a crosswind situation, maybe a little bit diagonally behind the other rider. This allows you the benefit of reduced wind resistance, it allows you to expend less energy and effort while you’re riding.  The rider in front of you essentially blocks the wind, and this is a wonderful thing sometimes.  I looked this up, and it’s estimated that when drafting, you can reduce wind resistance by up to 27%.  But I think Jeff, you, and Elizabeth will agree that, sometimes if you are riding behind somebody, it’s a lot more than 27% that you feel.  It feels a lot easier.  Often groups will take turns pulling, that’s another term where the front rider will pull somebody from the back, or a group of riders that are in a line behind them.  The drafting allows each rider to get a break, not having to exert full effort in windy conditions, and it allows the group to stay together and maintain a faster pace overall.  Draft-legal refers to road bike races, where it is legal to draft.  In most triathlons, especially in endurance racing, half and IRONMAN-distance races, drafting is a penalty, and those officials will get you.  I got myself a drafting penalty –

Andrew:  It’s like the main thing they’re looking for.

Joanna:  I mean, even if you’re trying to avoid it at all costs, it’s very difficult sometimes to maintain six bike lengths from the rider in front of you.  So you have to be extremely careful, or you’ll get an official to pull up right next to you and let you know that you will be in the penalty tent.

Andrew:  Elizabeth James, what does it mean for an athlete to go “full send”?

Elizabeth:  This is a fun term.  This means that you are doing it full throttle, a hundred percent commitment. You’re intense, hard core, all in, and you are just going to dominate the day.

Andrew:  Yeah, max effort.  Jeff, what is an aid station?

Jeff:  It’s a specifically designated area on the course where there is aid provided.  It’s usually drinks, water cups, some sort of fuel, food –

Andrew:  Ranch dressing?

Jeff:  Unfortunately I’ve never seen an aid station with ranch dressing, but it is a chance for you to get aid, help, fuel on course, and not have to rely on your own.

Andrew:  All right Jeff, honest question.  If an aid station had chips and ranch dressing, half-IRONMAN-distance race, are you partaking?

Jeff:  Oh heck yeah!

Andrew:  Oh boy. Elizabeth James, what is a race belt? And don’t say it’s where you store your ranch dressing!

Elizabeth:  This is usually an elastic belt to which you’re going to attach your race number.  So rather than having to pin a number to your kit, you can just place it on this race belt. Sometimes it comes with snaps or different elastics, and it really just prevents you from having to use the safety pins and put that number on your kit itself.

Andrew:  Jeff Raines, what is a PR?

Jeff:  A PR is a professional rancher, as myself.  Just kidding, it is a personal record.  If you’ve got that PR, you have beaten a previous race finish time, hence you’ve got that personal record, and you are faster now than you were before.

Andrew:  Elizabeth James, what is a taper?

Elizabeth:  A taper is where you reduce your training load to recover and rest up before a big race.

Andrew:  Entering the back portion of the list, where I intentionally grouped a lot of our TriDot tri terms together, we’ll end our main set with a couple of these.  Coach Jo, what is a “unicorn”, a “ponicorn”, a “pegacorn”, and a “narwhal”?

Joanna:  Yes Andrew, TriDot awards our athletes some beautiful, exceptional rewards when they score well on workouts.  A TrainX score of 100 on a bike or run session will get you a unicorn.  On a Zone 2, easier bike or run, you’ll earn a ponicorn for a perfect effort following instructions.  A pegacorn comes from three perfect sessions in a week where you have followed your zones and scored a 100.

Andrew:  It’s like a turkey in bowling.

Joanna:  Yes. And then finally, a narwhal is a perfect score on a swim.

Andrew:  A little trivia, I’ve never gotten any of those.

Elizabeth:  They were implemented after.

Andrew:  Literally, I have not done steady triathlon training since those were launched. Coach Jeff, what does it mean to “Perron” a workout?

Jeff:  Greg Perron is an uber cyclist, an uber biker that EJ referred to.  His greatest and strongest discipline is the bike.  Greg Perron is someone who super, over, uber-rides a traditional TriDot bike workout, and accumulates way, way too much training stress. He crushes it and uber-cycles the bike.  So if you “Perroned” that workout, then you pushed way harder than TriDot prescribed.  It’s a shout-out to Greg, who we all know and love, and it’s a term that TriDot Nation has coined organically, through our social media page.

Andrew:  Greg is one of our longtime Ambassadors, and he posted so often about these epic bike rides he was doing, that were way over the prescribed amount of bike training he should be doing, that it became the term we all used for overcooking your workout, whether it’s swim, bike, or run.  Elizabeth, what is a TrainX score?

Elizabeth:  TrainX, or training execution scores, let you know how well you are executing your training.  TrainX scores are provided for individual sessions, and each training week as a whole.The goal here is not necessarily for hundreds, or perfection, on every single workout.  That would be fantastic, but probably not realistic.  It’s a way for you to get some objective feedback about how you are doing on each session, and just trying to do it to the best of your ability, to really adhere to one of our phrases that we’ve talked about often, “doing the right training right”.

Andrew:  Jeff Raines, what is eNorm?

Jeff:  eNorm is a term coined, and specifically trademarked, for us here in TriDot nation.It stands for environmental normalization.  Your pace and power zones change throughout each day, as the weather changes in your area.It’s the beauty of what we do, so that you don’t train too hard or too easy, and it takes the environment – the heat, humidity, and elevation above sea level – into account when prescribing your paces for that day and race.

Andrew:  Jo, what is Physiogenomix?

Joanna:  TriDot uses AI, artificial intelligence and big data, to use your DNA data to optimize your training.  Physiogenomix analysis includes detailed results of more than two dozen genes directly linked to these categories.  The categories it’s looking at are recovery, aerobic potential, and injury disposition.

Andrew:  Elizabeth James, what is a B2R factor?

Elizabeth:  I love this.  I’m so glad that you included this one on here.

Andrew:  You are welcome.

Elizabeth:  B2R is the bike-to-run factor.  This is a triathlon training data point used to determine what type of focus will best contribute to your overall triathlon performance.  The data point reflects the relative strength of the athlete’s bike ability to their run ability.  So your overall B2R factor ranges from a minus-10, which would be the strongest bike focus, to a plus-10, which would be the strongest run focus.There’s three parts that are taken into consideration here.  Performance difference, how well you do on the bike versus how well you do on the run.Your sport age in each discipline, how long you’ve been biking or how long you’ve been running.  Then the functional threshold heart rate in each of those disciplines, that also gives insight into how intense the athlete’s bike and run threshold abilities are relative to each other.  All of that to say, it really helps determine if an athlete needs to focus more on the bike, or on the run, in their training, to get their best overall triathlon performance in their next event.

Andrew:  Very well said, thank you Elizabeth.  Coach Jeff, what is the race prep phase, and the development phase, and how are those two terms different from what people will see outside of TriDot marketplace, the term “base phase”?

Jeff:  Yeah, race prep – I call that the stamina phase – and then the developmental phase are phases of your training throughout the season, specific to the TriDot platform and our data-driven training.  Traditionally, the base phase is a lot of volume Zone 2.  But how we prescribe the training season – a macrocycle as EJ referred to earlier – that season planning is largely inverted now, based on the data and how that data drives our training.  The developmental phase is arguably the first part, the first half, or even more.  Hypothetically it’s different for everybody, but I’d argue that the developmental phase is the biggest portion of your season.  You’re developing the functional threshold first, so that later on in the season you can add safe stamina around that, and build that safe volume, because you have the strength to handle some of that stamina that is added later on. You build duration and volume as you get closer to those long-course races.

Andrew:  All right, sweet #66, and honestly along the way I think we added a few, but I wanted to end with this one.  Coach Jo, what does it mean to “bump the dot”?

Joanna:  We’re over here bumping dots!!  Just kidding. TriDot athletes each have a swim dot, a run dot, and a bike dot.  That is a scoring from one to a hundred, which ranks their assessment performances against athletes of their same gender and age.  But bumping the dot is a term we use – and we encourage our athletes, we cheer them on – when they’re doing an assessment and they’ve improved their pace in the run or swim, or their power output or pace on the bike.  When they’ve made that improvement, they will see a jump in their bike dot, swim dot, or run dot, and we tell them they’ve “bumped the dot”.  We do see that hashtag out there on social media, #bumpthedot, and it’s a fun way we can encourage them and show them that they’re doing fantastic.

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

Vanessa Ronksley: It’s Coach Cooldown Tip time, and I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm!  Our TriDot coach joining us today is Brock Walaska, and let me tell you, he is a total legend.  Brock is a Commander in the United States Navy, serving on active duty as a supply officer.  He is also the type of guy who, for his 40th birthday, dreamt of riding around the island of Sicily, which has a sum of over 630 miles, or 1,000 kilometers, and just under 30,000 feet or 9,000 meters of elevation.  And it only took him four days!  That is incredible!  It is apparent that Brock likes cycling in any form, because he has ridden 313 miles on a triathlon bike in 24 hours, and he’s also completed a 400-mile ride on Zwift in 24 hours!  But Brock does normal things too, like he recently was classified as a Boston Marathon finisher.  He sat on the age-group podium at CLASH Daytona, and represented USA in the ITU Long Distance World Championship in 2018.  On the coaching side of things, he is an IRONMAN U Certified Coach, TriDot and RunDot coach, Pool School instructor, a certified personal trainer, and a sports nutrition coach.  He coaches athletes from beginner through to competitive age-groupers across all distances.Brock currently lives in Florida with his wife of 21 years, two teenage boys, and two goldendoodles.Welcome to the show, Brock!

Brock Walaska:  Thank you Vanessa, excited to be here!

Vanessa:  Okay, I think you need to explain something to me.  I’ve heard that you have Everested on Mt. Etna on the bike, and half-Everested two times while running.  What does this “Everesting'' actually mean?

Brock:  Sure.The concept of Everesting is fiendishly simple, yet brutally hard.  You basically pick a hill, any hill, anywhere in the world, and you ride your bike, or you run continuous repeats of that hill, in a single activity, until you accumulate the equivalent height of Mt. Everest, which is 29,032 feet, or 8,848 meters.  For example, if you have a hill that has exactly 1,000 feet of elevation gain, you go up and down that hill 29 times to reach the accumulated total of that 29,000 feet of elevation.  There’s actually a website and really a community dedicated to Everesting, with rules, guidelines, Strava segment calculator, to determine how many repeats you have to do on any given hill to successfully Everest.  If you complete the activity, you submit the Strava data, and of course if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen.  Once it’s verified, you are added to the Everesting Hall of Fame.To date there’s just under about 25,000 people from 112 different countries who have completed some form of this challenge.

Vanessa:  Oh my gosh.That’s amazing!  Wow!  So you’ve done this once on your bike, and then you’ve half-Everested while running as well?

Brock:  A couple different times, as far as my experience.  My first was actually on Zwift, so if you live in a flat area, you can do a virtual Everest.  Basically the same rules, you just pick a hill on Zwift.  I chose the Innsbruck KOM for mine, and then you ride repeats.  And if you successfully complete it, you gain an entry into the Everesting Hall of Fame, and you also earn an achievement badge within Zwift.  You can also do it in the real world.  I was fortunate to be stationed in Sicily a few years ago, and I did all three of mine on Mt. Etna, which is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.  For the bike, I completed 15 laps totaling 177 miles to get to an elevation total of 29,578 feet.  For the runs, I did two half-Everesting, so basically half the distance, or a little over 15,000 feet.  You can do that in a variety of ways.  My first time I chose a very steep segment, in which I climbed a little over 15,000 feet and only 22 miles.  The second one was about half as steep, it took about 50 miles to reach 15,700 feet.

Vanessa:  So you know this thing on Zwift where you climb up the equivalent elevation of Everest, and then you get a Tron bike.  I have to tell you, it took me almost a year to get that, and here you are doing it in 24 hours.  That’s insane!  I love it so much.  Man, that’s great.  Okay, so let’s go to the Coach Cooldown Tip.  What do you have for us today?

Brock:  My Coach Cooldown Tip is about pre-exercise fueling for training and racing.  If you’re going to eat anything before your morning workout or race, aim to finish your meal three hours before exercise.This helps to ensure you’re able to fully digest your meal, avoid any GI distress, and it puts you at the starting line primed and ready, with your glycogen stores full, and your blood and oxygen devoted to physical efforts rather than digestion.  Many athletes prefer to have a good-size breakfast three hours before the start, and then something small like a pack of chews or a gel, 10 to 15 minutes before the swim.  The real purpose of a pre-workout meal is to top off your liver glycogen stores your body uses during sleep.  Liver glycogen is responsible for maintaining blood sugars and fueling the body’s work of repairing and rebuilding from the previous day’s efforts while you sleep.By morning, your liver glycogen is low, so consuming things like low fiber, easy-to-digest complex carbohydrates, small amounts of protein, and very little fat, will top those stores off.Properly timing your food intake before each workout will ensure you get the most out of your training efforts, and perform at your best.  You know you did it right when you feel light on your feet, and you’re ready for the effort ahead.

Vanessa:  Okay, so I have two questions for you about this.  One, what if you’re so nervous that you can’t actually eat your pre-race meal?

Brock:  That’s okay.I would not sacrifice sleep to get up three hours early just to eat, or if you’re so nervous and just can’t take food in, that’s okay too.  You have enough stored body fat and muscle glycogen, that’s more than adequate to start your race and to get you through the swim.  You can always take a gel 10 to 15 minutes prior, if that’s okay and won’t upset your stomach, and that will fuel you through the swim, and then you would just fuel as you typically would throughout the race, to get through whatever distance is at hand.

Vanessa:  Okay, thank you for that.  The second question is, what is your go-to pre-race meal three hours prior?

Brock:  I will have a thin bagel.  Rather than the thicker bagels, some grocers will have a thin bagel, which is probably about the third of the size of a regular one, so not a whole lot of bread, a little bit, with some peanut butter, and a banana.  Then I will have a little bit of the race-day fuel that I will use on the course.  I use Perpetuem, which is made by Hammer Nutrition, and I’ll just have a glass of that.I will say I also have coffee, that’s the first thing I do when I get up.  It just helps me wake up, have the body do all its normal morning functions prior to race day.  I’ll have that meal, and once that meal’s up and I have three hours, just lightly sip on water, but I don’t take in anything with calories, no calorie-type drinks, just water up until that last gel before the swim start.

Vanessa:  Okay, that’s awesome, thank you for that.  Your breakfast sounds like what I would normally eat, not even before a race.

Brock:  I will add, with anything else, don’t do this for the first time on race day.  You need to train your body, use training and race-day rehearsals to figure out what works best for you, and then repeat that over and over.  Then when it comes to race day, it’s just a natural thing that you do, as you would for any training event.

Vanessa:  I think, even for race prep, when you're doing your race rehearsals that are built in to your TriDot plan, I would probably use the same timeline as well. You know when your race start is, so I would plan my training for that time if possible, then wake up three hours prior just to get that whole process.  Waking up early, waiting the three hours, then getting your training done. Where possible, that would probably be a really good idea.

Brock:  Absolutely, just go through the whole morning rehearsal, the food, getting your kit on, getting ready, checking the tire pressure on your bike, getting nutrition on the bike, mixing all that type of stuff you need for race day.  It makes things a lot easier when your big event comes.

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