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 TriDot podcast! It is our first episode posted in the Year of Our Lord 2023. A lot of folks are making New Year, New You-type resolutions, hoping this year will be THE year that they sharpen up a key area of their life, and for many this can be nutrition related. So today we’ll talk about making nutrition resolutions as a triathlete. Joining us for this from Brisbane, Australia is Taryn Richardson. Taryn is an advanced sports dietician who specializes in helping triathletes unlock their potential with the power of nutrition. She is the founder and director of Dietitian Approved, as well as the host of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. She has worked with endurance athletes for over 13 years, spending six years as the sports dietician for Triathlon Australia. She describes herself as a “retired agegroup triathlete” herself. I personally am still holding on to hope that we get her training with TriDot and get her back to racing. Taryn, welcome back to the TriDot podcast, first episode of 2023!

Taryn Richardson: Happy New Year! It’s so good to be back on the TriDot podcast for the first time in 2023, and today’s topic is perfect. January is such a huge month for me in the nutrition space. Motivation is at an alltime high, maybe it’s because you had a debaucherous Christmas, maybe you just want to kick off the New Year on the right foot. But either way, we’re here to make sure that you don’t go on some weird, crazy-ass juice cleanse to get back on track this year.

Andrew: We’re already talking about debaucherous Christmases and crazy-ass juice cleanses, so this is already a podcast episode for the books, and we’re just getting going. Also joining us for this conversation – you have heard for a few months now on the cooldown of our podcast episode, she is a contributor to TriDot media both on our YouTube channel and our podcast – all the way from Sydney, Australia, Vanessa Ronksley. Vanessa, how are you doing today?

Vanessa Ronksley: I’m doing so awesome, and you have no idea how excited I am to be here, because I can’t imagine anything more exciting than talking about nutrition and triathlon, which are probably the two topics that I’m most passionate about. Everyone just wants me to stop talking about them, so this is the space where I actually get to talk about them, and people are going to listen, and it’s just really exciting.

Andrew: As much as you want to, and everybody is locked in, they have to listen to you. I’m excited, this is our first episode with TWO Average Triathletes interviewing one of our allstar guests. 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 warmup question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with Vanessa on the cooldown. Taryn and I get to take the rest of the show off as Vanessa will be talking with TriDot coach and ambassador Caleb Chapman. Caleb raced IRONMAN California a few months back, and he swears that he is oneand-done. We’ll hear how his race went, and what he has to say about this brand-new race course. Lots of good stuff, let’s get to it!

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

Andrew: Back on Episode .136 of the podcast – an entire year ago back in 2022, a long time ago – with Dr. Krista Austin, pro triathlete Elizabeth James, and myself, we were talking about nutrient-dense foods. Somewhere along the way I gave a passionate rant about my feelings about burgers and fries, basically lamenting the lack of a healthy side option at most burger establishments. Burger and fries, not necessarily a great meal. Burger with a side salad and some broccoli, that’s not so bad all around. But no burger spots where I live offer that as a side option. Since then, I’ve had several athletes agree with my passionate rant, or offered some passionate food-based rants of their own. And it’s got me wondering, what are some other strong food opinions that are harbored deep in the hearts of our guests? So for our warmup question today, what is one food-related hot take that you are passionate about? Vanessa Ronksley?

Vanessa: Well, this is a really tough question because I have so many food-related rules, and I feel really passionate about all of them. But I think that the one my family would have to say I’m most passionate about is when I say, “It doesn’t matter what it tastes like, it’s healthy!” I think where this is most apparent is probably in my smoothie-making, which I must admit, oh my gosh they can be very bad. They might be the worst thing that you’ve possibly tasted in your life. It’s the result of me putting everything in there mostly based on their nutrient value, so I’m talking flax, kale, beets, turmeric, and I don’t put a lot of sweetener in there, so sometimes they are bad. This one rule that I have is I will never throw away a smoothie, and I have had to pinch my nose and gulp it down many times.

Andrew: But you drink it every time. What commitment to the smoothie!

Vanessa: Oh, I do. I will not throw it out. I’m just so passionate about all of the healthy ingredients that are going in there, and I know that they’re really good for me in terms of recovery and everything. So I just drink it, and I feel that my family needs to do the same thing. I’ve probably scarred them, but yeah, I hate throwing away food, especially the really healthy stuff. That’s probably my hot, what is it called, my “hot take”?

Andrew: Hot take, yes.

Taryn: You’re going to have to translate “hot take” for me, Harley, what is a hot take?

Andrew: A “hot take”, Taryn, and I didn’t realize when I sent this script out that this might be an American slang term, but at least in America it’s a slang term for a strong opinion that you have that may not be mainstream. Now, it doesn’t have to be controversial necessarily, it can be controversial, but it is a strong opinion that is not necessarily mainstream. So in this case, for Vanessa, it is not mainstream for most people to make themselves finish their smoothie regardless of the taste, and to base their smoothie ingredients based on nutritional value and not taste. Vanessa, hear me out, I think we should start offering in the TriDot store a 2023 monthly calendar, and every month is a different Vanessa Ronksley smoothie recipe with a picture of the smoothie. Some may taste better than others, but I think that’d be a hit on the TriDot store, what do you think?

Vanessa: You know, it might be, because –

Taryn: She’s not selling it.

Vanessa: Well, I did create one concoction and I posted it on the Facebook page in TriDot, and so many people asked me for the recipe.

Andrew: Yeah, see?

Vanessa: And I begged them to tell me if they thought it was good or not, and they kind of agreed with me that it was okay, I think. So yeah, we could definitely do that.

Andrew: Taryn, now that we have outlined what a hot take is, what is your food-based hot take?

Taryn: That could be so many things. I definitely am not in the same camp as Vanessa, you would not catch me holding my nose to scull back something that is maybe healthy but tastes disgusting. Not gonna happen. But I guess now that I kind of understand what a hot take is, it could mean anything. Maybe the 80/20 rule or that concept of a cheat meal, which is probably pretty controversial but I’m definitely against both of those sets of things. I’m sure you’ll hear a bit more about my philosophy when it comes to nutrition today, but I don’t think this kind of mentality of allor-none, or 80% perfect and 20% really bad, sets us up for long-term health and performance. It’s almost like you’re giving yourself 20% permission to eat terribly, and that’s not really how I see nutrition whatsoever. I think cheat meals are an absolute joke, and if you need to think about nutrition as cheating, then you’re really only cheating yourself. I’m all about balance, and if you want to eat an entire tub of ice cream, go for it. That’s totally fine, but let’s not label that as a cheat meal or that 20% bad. Let’s try and set ourselves up for some long-term, consistent healthy choices rather than 80/20.

Vanessa: I one hundred percent agree with you! I love that! Yes!

Andrew: Did you two just become best friends?

Vanessa: Totally.

Andrew: I am not going to share a new one today, I kind of gave an example of one that I’ve shared on the podcast before. So instead, and I did not tell them I’m doing this, I’m going to share a hot take that TriDot coach and podcast regular John Mayfield has deep within his soul.

Vanessa: Legend.

Andrew: Many of our athletes at the races have heard John give this. Taryn, you actually had John on YOUR podcast just a little ways back, is that right?

Taryn: Yeah, end of 2022. He’s awesome, I love him!

Andrew: Yeah, good guy! So John, his food hot take that I’m going to share on his behalf in this spot today: John is adamantly against the concept of turkey as a meat that people eat. His argument is like, “Nobody actually likes turkey.” Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas turkey, it’s a big one that comes out around the holidays that, for a lot of family traditions, you’re supposed to like eating turkey, and do this and that with it. And John’s like, “Why does it have to be turkey? Because nobody actually likes turkey.” I’m like, “John, I like turkey.” He’s like, “No you don’t! Turkey is dry, turkey is flavorless. You might like the ranch dressing or the barbecue sauce you’re dipping your turkey in, but you don’t actually like the turkey.” And he will give you a long list of other meats that you probably like more than turkey if given the choice. So how about the two of you, do the two of you like eating turkey?

Taryn: It’s not really something we eat a lot of here in Australia, particularly because it’s like a Thanksgiving-type thing over there for you. We don’t have Thanksgiving here. I guess John is probably right. It’s hard to cook it and not dry it out, and you probably like the cranberry sauce that make it taste like something, gives it some flavor, and helps to moisten it up as well. So yeah, maybe he’s right! I’d have to actually think about that. I couldn’t tell you the last time I ate turkey, to be honest.

Vanessa: You know, I can’t actually tell you the last time I ate turkey either, because I’ve gone the way of plant-based eating, so I’ve cut most animal products out of my diet. I will eat it if it’s put in front of me and I’m at a guest house or something like that, because that’s really important to me is to eat what you’re given. I’ll occasionally have some salmon here or there just to fill up the protein requirement for training, but yeah, I can’t remember the last time I had some turkey either.

Andrew: Well, I asked the wrong crowd, and that’s on me, I’ll point the finger at myself. Either way, John is fist-pumping that Taryn agreed with him, somewhere where he’s listening to this episode. I’m sure we’ll have some folks on the Facebook group chime in with their opinions on turkey. Hey guys, we’re going to throw this question out to you on the I AM TriDot Facebook group, so make sure you’re a member of that group. Every single Monday when the new show comes out, we throw the warmup question to you. I’m excited to hear, from all of the foods out there, what you like eating, what you don’t like eating, what you think is weird or abnormal or whatever. What is a food hot take that you have that you want to share with the group?

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

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I don’t think any of us stumble accidentally into something like a better sleeping schedule or a healthy diet. Positive life changes typically happen after setting some sort of goal, and here to help us learn how to get nutrition-based goals to stick is Taryn from the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, and I am thrilled to have Vanessa joining me to interview her. Now Taryn, the last time you were on the show you told us all about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, your twelve-month program that teaches athletes from the ground up everything they need to know about tri nutrition. Did any TriDotters by any chance jump into this round of the Nutrition Academy?

Taryn: There are a couple, yeah. Shout out to Kelly Estes, who is actually a TriDot Ambassador. He is through Phase 1 of the program at the moment, and he is already feeling so much better, he’s got so much more energy. He’s the type of retired athlete that gets to train all morning, what we call “pro hours”. Before the program he was really feeling like he just needed a nap in the afternoon, and was doing that most days. But now he’s got energy right throughout the day, so he can do whatever he wants with all of his spare time, because he’s retired.

Andrew: Good for him!

Taryn: I wish I could do pro hours, that’d make life so much easier. Then we’ve got Paul Watson who comes to us all the way from northern Ireland, he uses the TriDot platform, also shout out to Christine and Edward. So I’m actually opening doors up again soon, they open on the 21st of January if anyone wants a piece of action, that’s the first time they’re going to open for 2023. So if you want to get 2023 off to the best start, come and check us out at dieticianapproved.com/academy.

Vanessa: I can tell you, I’m putting that date in my calendar right now.

Andrew: Calendar alert to sign up for the academy. Yup.

Taryn: It’s open for a week, so you’ve got a little bit of time, but then they close again for a number of months. I had a couple people email this time actually, to say, “I missed it, can I get in?” And the answer is no.

Andrew: Got to wait until next time. Yeah, we will put that link in the show notes, so if you’re driving in the car or something right now listening to this and you can’t write that down, keep driving, get where you’re going safely, we’ll make sure that link to sign up is in our show notes for today. Now Vanessa, you have been doing a killer job with the podcast cooldowns, adding so much more value to the cooldown segment than whatever I was doing on my own, so thank you for that. I thought this episode was just a great opportunity to have two Average Triathletes ask an expert about nutrition, and when I invited you to join in on the fun you told me that you’ve always had a deep interest in nutrition. You mentioned that at the top of the show today. Where did that interest start for you?

Vanessa: Well, I think that it started for me back in junior high, so probably age 12. I hard-core idolized my sister, and she was really into nutrition at the time, so we were all about healthy eating together right from the get-go. When I got older I kind of dabbled in some alternative health stuff, and I ended up going to a live blood analyst, which I kind of regret.

Andrew: I don’t know what that is, admittedly.

Vanessa: Well, they basically take a sample of your blood and they look at it right then and there, and based on the orientation of certain blood cells and how many you have of these and that and whatever, they kind of –

Taryn: Tell you to cut out gluten and dairy?

Vanessa: Well, it was actually a hundred times worse than that. They basically tell you what your health status is, and from there they recommend some nutrition things that you might want to participate in. So reflecting on that, I realized that it was kind of good and I’m also a little bit grateful for it, but at the time I put myself on this massively restrictive diet. I literally had a list of about 16 foods that I could consume, because I was told I would get all sorts of diseases and conditions if I didn’t change my eating patterns. Up to that point I had considered myself a very healthy person, so this rocked my world. I was in total shock that somebody told me –

Taryn: That’s really scary.

Vanessa: Yeah, and it altered my entire perception of myself, which was the dangerous part. But the best thing that came out of it is that I realized that I actually do have a sensitivity to dairy, and most of the illnesses and issues that I had when I was a kid were 100% related to eating dairy when my body couldn’t tolerate it. After that experience I became really interested in evidence-based nutrition, like based on sound science practices.

Andrew: Yaaaaay.

Vanessa: And I listened to tons of really good podcasts and ended up taking a couple university courses in nutrition recently, and I absolutely loved them. So yeah, I’m really interested in nutrition, mostly how it can impact the development of conditions and disease. I love reading articles on Google Scholar to fill up my nerd cup, because I’m a total nerd. That’s basically how it all started.

Taryn: So Taryn, it seems like a lot of people make nutrition-based goals heading into the new year. You mentioned it’s a big time of year for you to start a new session of the Academy. You also hear about people making goals tied to having that summer beach-ready body, or looking a certain way for a big life event like a wedding. So it’s not always January 1st that clicks for people like, “Oh, I need to do X, Y, and Z when it comes to my nutrition.” Can it be a positive thing to have things like this spark an interest in eating better? Or should we have deeper reasons for helping nutrition goals stick?

Taryn: That’s such a great question. We are in the peak of summer, so our summer bodies are kind of in full swing down here.

Andrew: For both of you in Australia, yes.

Vanessa: I can tell you that I live right near Coogee Beach, and the amount of summer bodies that already exist here is mind-boggling. You walk down the road and everyone is just rock-hard abs and massive biceps and quads. It’s kind of crazy.

Taryn: You’re giving Australia maybe a good, maybe a bad rap. Not everyone looks like that down here.

Vanessa: No, actually! It’s amazing, I love how there’s a massive diversity in body types. People don’t seem to have as much infatuation about their body type here as they do in North America. That’s one of the biggest differences that I’ve noticed actually, that’s really awesome.

Andrew: Very interesting.

Taryn: Yeah, cool. Well, you guys are kind of in that “abs are made in winter” zone at the moment up there. I think anything that gets you to start to think more about what you put in your mouth is great, but we just need to be careful in the way that we do that. I know that this New Year period often brings a lot of goal-setting for people. They really want to improve their life, and it’s like the line in the sand: “2023 is going to be my healthiest year yet!” You’re going to see a lot of marketing at this point. This is the biggest month for marketing for weird diet pills and quick fixes and magic bullets and all those sorts of things, and a lot of that comes from unqualified advice-givers. There’ll be a lot of mixed messages and stuff, so just keep your wits about you this time of year when it comes to that.

Andrew: Okay, good to know. Noted.

Taryn: But I guess my philosophy is that our health should be separated from our body composition. They’re not aligned. You can be really, really underweight, or skinny, or lean, or whatever word you want you want to use, and not healthy. I call it skinny-fat, people that eat McDonald’s but still don’t ever put on weight, and you’re like, “How do you do that?” That person’s not healthy, even though they look like they don’t hold much body fat. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you could be what is classified as overweight or even obese on the scale, and have a really healthy diet. So we need to stop associating those things together. Body composition is not linked with health necessarily. Because we’re talking to a triathlete here, body composition is not also necessarily linked to performance. I know we had a whole episode on this with Dr. Austin –

Andrew: Which was a smash hit, by the way.

Taryn: Greatest of all time, so I’m not going to dive too much into that. Go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t, because apparently it was the greatest of all time.

Andrew: Yeah, we joked on our last podcast that you were on, with myself and Andy Blow, that – I don’t have the numbers in front of me right now, but at the time of that recording it was our eighth most-listened-to episode of all time, and in its first week it had more downloads in week one than any other podcast we have recorded. All of our nutrition episodes always do really well, we always see a slight bump in listenership when we do a nutrition topic. It just really goes to show you how much people are interested in this, and how much people want to get this right, especially when it comes to their training and racing. And especially when it comes to the new year of 2023, right? It's a “New Year, New You”, you’ve got to launch that healthy eating.

Taryn: Yeah, so let’s just set that up on the right foot though, rather than thinking that this is the year to get skinny and align that with feeling healthy, we need to think about our long-term health and also performance, and not associating those two things together. One of the Academy athletes that I’ve worked with for the last three phases, Jason, he’s finished the program now. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying this, but he is in the worst physical shape he’s been in, but he is performing to the best he has ever performed. For him, he was very carb-phobic and constantly trying to cut those out. It’s taken a while, but he’s more comfortable introducing those into his diet, so his body composition has responded, because he was probably in low energy availability and his whole metabolism was not working properly. So he’s had to go through that phase, but now that he’s fueling better, he’s performing better, and as a result, over the next 12 months his body composition will sort itself out. It was a journey to get there, but it's just important to think about our health not linked with body composition. Same as performance, our performance is not necessarily linked to body composition.

Vanessa: I just want to thank you for saying that and sharing that story, because I think that is so valuable to hear that a lot of people are carb-phobic, and they don’t necessarily understand the benefit that it can have, especially to triathletes training. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Taryn: Oh you’re welcome!

Andrew: I love carbs. I love carbs too much.

Vanessa: I really love carbs.

Taryn: It’s just understanding how to harness the power of carbohydrate, understanding where to put them strategically around training, before training, during training, and then periodizing your food across the training week. That’s it, it’s not complicated, it just takes a little bit of education to understand how to do that. I know that a lot of triathletes will blanketly not fuel sessions or constantly scale back carbohydrates across the week, but I’m hugely passionate about getting triathletes to understand that they need to eat differently on different training days, and that carbohydrates are not the devil. You just need to understand where they come from, how much you need and when, then being comfortable and not freaking out if you do put some carbohydrate on your plate.

Vanessa: Kind of in line with that, a lot of people think that good nutrition goals are related to losing weight or changing their body composition. What are some real-life nutrition goals that you might recommend to change people’s perspectives on what healthy nutrition goals might actually be?

Taryn: It’s really common for me to see people absolutely guns blazing at this time of year, and potentially cut out entire food groups. Cut out carbohydrates because you just overdosed on carbs over the Christmas period. You’ve carb loaded, so the natural progression is to try to limit those to sort yourself out, maybe thinking about going on a weird detox or a juice cleanse and cutting out all that sort of stuff. But if you go too hard too fast, then you’re only going to fall into a heap come February, and you’re going to quit and it’s going to be “all over, Red Rover”, and your resolution has lasted for a maximum of four weeks. We are really at a huge risk of under-fueling at this time of year, because potentially you’ve overdone it, and your only natural progression or thought to fix yourself is to start cutting out carbohydrates. So just be really aware of that – whatever you’re trying to set yourself up with goals, with health, nutrition, training, whatever – just don’t go too hard, too fast. I really want you to think about health as a continuum. It is not a stop-start thing, it’s not a yo-yo, on-and-off, it is really something that you need to continue and progress for your entire life. You have your body for your entire life, so healthy is not time-sensitive, and January is a very key time where people are thinking more so about their health, which is awesome. We need to harness that motivation but think about it as a continuum, because if you set yourself up with these goals that are too hard, unmaintainable, unachievable – say you want to drop ten kilos, or 20 pounds in a month – that’s not really sustainable. It’s not going to make you happy, you’re going to hate life. Why would you do that to yourself? So I want to think about setting yourself up for success now to set you up for the whole rest of the year. Some real-life nutrition goals might be something simple like, “I’m going to make sure I smash my recovery nutrition after all of my sessions for the rest of the year, not just January,” and maybe it’s 80% or 90% of the time. We’re not setting ourself up to fail, but we’re setting ourself up with some strategies to help us actually achieve that and implement that, rather than go guns blazing and then quit by February.

Andrew: Yeah, for me personally, Taryn, my wife and I typically just like healthy foods anyway, so we have a lot of well-rounded meals throughout the week. On the weekends we’ll let ourselves have a nice dessert here or there. For me, when I get off track with nutrition, it’s not that I’m eating a smathering of unhealthy foods, it’s just that I’m snacking too much. I’ve bought too many snacks, there’s too many snacks available in the pantry.

Taryn: Snaccidents!

Andrew: Exactly, way too many snaccidents. You hit that occasional cookie from the cookie jar and an extra dose of pretzels or Cheez-Its that you probably didn’t need at 3:00 p.m. in between meals. That’s what it normally is for me. Maybe it’s a Sprite at dinner on a Tuesday night where I probably didn’t need that sugar. For me, when I’m in a season where I’m not really paying that close attention to it, and I let it slip away a little bit – maybe there’s no immediate fitness goal on the horizon – it’s always just nailing back down to, “Okay, let’s get the snaccidents back to a manageable spot.” Thankfully, for the most part, it’s not having to overhaul anything with my life personally.

Taryn: Yeah, and that’s perfect. You don’t want to have to overhaul, right? That’s not sustainable and maintainable. We just want to do little tiny tweaks that you can actually achieve, feel successful in doing that, and that’s going to help you continue that habit for the long term.

Vanessa: I just have to thank you again Taryn, for having such a wonderful goal. Nailing your recovery nutrition, that is a really tangible goal that has nothing to do with, “How many pounds do I have to lose?” or “What’s my race weight going to be?” That is an amazing goal that is going to produce greater results all around, and I just love that so much. That’s going to be my goal.

Taryn: You’re welcome to steal it! Another one might be simply trying to get enough fruit and vegetables into your diet. Now it’s not particularly sexy, eating more fruit and veg, it’s boring.

Andrew: Oh, I love fruits and vegetables. Love ‘em!

Taryn: But particularly at this time of year, it is a great place to start without doing a massive overhaul and cutting out carbs, just focusing on some of the foundations of healthy eating can be something that will set you up for success as well. For any of these goals, whatever you choose, I want you to make them really specific, and I want them to be more measurable as well. We talk about S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Tangible. REALISTIC is the key. You want to set things that you can actually achieve consistently on a daily basis to help set you up for success, because when you feel successful, you’re more likely to continue. But if you set yourself up to fail, then you’re more likely to self-sabotage and go on some weird binging trajectory and hate your life, and then we’re back at square one.

Andrew: I heard a comedian one time make a joke that he imagines the effort it takes for someone to stop smoking, equating it to how hard it is to start flossing. Many of us know it can be equally difficult to stick to a nutrition-based goal. Taryn, do you have any tips for helping good eating habits stick once we’ve started them?

Taryn: Yeah, changing habits is hard. I resonate with the flossing one, that for me is a challenge. Any tips on that would be awesome.

Andrew: Same.

Vanessa: I have a tip.

Taryn: Go.

Vanessa: My dentist gave me the best tip ever. She was like, “Do you ever forget to brush your teeth?” I was like, “No, I never forget to brush my teeth.” So she said, “Well, just floss your teeth before you brush your teeth, and make that a habit.”

Andrew: Instead of after?

Vanessa: Yeah, you floss first, and then you get all the stuff out, so you brush it all away. I can tell you, I even flossed on my wedding night. So it works.

Andrew: Wild.

Taryn: This episode has gone down a weird rabbit hole, that’s for sure. Yeah, so changing habits is really hard. It just takes time and consistency. Whatever it is that you want to change, you’ve got to start with day one, particularly if you’re trying to change habits that you’ve had your entire life, stuff that you’ve built over your entire life. You’ve been not doing this thing, or doing something you don’t want to be doing, for how many days, weeks, months, years? So my tip here is to just start small. Pick something little that you can achieve, and take those consistent steps in that direction that you want to go, instead of doing big overhauls and making big goals. Or have a big goal but set that in your future sights, maybe set it for like 12 or 24 months, but break that right down into small, little bite-sized nuggets that you can do every single day. Then you want to keep yourself accountable, so whatever that is for you, whether it's putting something on the fridge that you can literally tick a box on every single day. There is a lot of power in habit-changing in physically writing pen on paper and ticking. There is something about the psychology of that that helps us be more consistent if you have to physically do that. You can also use something on an app on your phone, there’s a lot of habit-tracking apps that you can get now for free. If you’re an Excel master, put it in Excel, or put something by your computer. Put it on your vanity mirror – what do you call it over there, your bathroom mirror, is that called a vanity? You know what I mean when I say that?

Andrew: Yeah sure! Yeah, that works, absolutely!

Taryn: But the key is to set yourself for success, and if you fail, reset the very next day, or that day if you can. So many of us go, “Ah, I’ll just start again on Monday,” but that’s multiple days of missed opportunity. See if you can get yourself back on track that day or the next rather than waiting a whole week or waiting until Monday to get back into it. Because then you’ve lost momentum, and if you can be a bit more consistent with that, then you’re more likely to gain that momentum and entrench a new habit.

Andrew: It’s kind of like when we miss a workout in our week. Say life happens and you miss your Wednesday run session, you don’t say, “Oh, I’ll start again on Monday.” No, you pick back up with your next session on Thursday and you keep the training going, kind of the same thing. I’ve done that, Taryn, a hundred percent. As I said, for me it’s usually just cutting out snaccidents, so it’s like, “Okay, when we’re through the spring I’ll make sure I cut out snaccidents.” Or, “Oh, when we get through the summer.” Or, “Oh, when I hit the training phase for this big race on the calendar, that’s when I’ll make sure I cut out major snaccidents,” when I can just cut them out tomorrow. Taryn, I can start tomorrow!

Taryn: You can! Take one for the team, Harley!

Vanessa: Something that I find fascinating is how nutrition can impact the quality of a session, and also how quickly someone can recover from a session. So when we have a set nutrition goal for ourselves and we’re trying to eat a certain way to match our goal, how can we make sure we are still fueling properly pre and post-workout?

Taryn: Yeah, that’s a big one. You can eat to support training and recovery and still reach your body composition goals or drop body fat if that’s what you’re trying to achieve. You just need to understand how to eat strategically for the training that you’re doing. If people want more information on how to do that, that’s something that I’m going to cover in an online triathlon nutrition training camp this month. I’m a big advocate for periodization. I mentioned it earlier, you shouldn’t be eating the same thing each day as a triathlete, we need to understand how to fuel properly for the training that we’ve got. If you do that, then you’re more likely to perform in your sessions. And if you’re recovering well, you’re back up and can go hard again for your next training session. If we can go hard and push ourselves in our training, that’s where we’re going to see the magic happen. That’s the sweet spot where nutrition and training intersect. I call that the Supercharge Zone where we can really dial things in together. Because if you’re not, if you’re under-fueling and dragging your ass through sessions, then there’s no magic happening.

Andrew: We all know what that feels like too. We all know that feeling.

Vanessa: It happened to me today! It sure did!

Taryn: You don’t get the training adaptations that your training program is designed for if that is happening, so it’s kind of a wasted session in a way. If you can get your nutrition right to support training and be okay with eating carbohydrate, not afraid, then you can really try to, what I call “unlock your potential”. Push hard in the back end of the session, that’s where we’re going to really drive performance gains, and all of that comes to rest and recover and getting your nutrition right. But it’s a hard one, and there’s a lot of things that mentally you’ll do to self-sabotage that, but when you understand the foundations of periodization, it’s really easy. You’ve just got to not think too hard and just do it.

Andrew: Once we have identified a quality nutrition goal – it’s in our sights, it’s tangible, we’ve written it on our vanity or our refrigerator or an Excel spreadsheet or something like Taryn taught us to do – from that point, there are a number of things that can knock us off our rhythm and destroy a new habit before it even forms. Between training for three sports, balancing life and family, often there are just not many hours left in the day to prep a good meal or even keep the house stocked with the items we need to make a good meal. Taryn, what suggestions do you have for staying on top of the new goal through the busyness of life?

Taryn: Life is always going to be crazy, it’s never going to not be crazy. So the first thing you need to do is set something that’s realistic in the first place, something that you know you can achieve even when life throws you lemons, because it’s going to happen. We juggle so many things all the time, and for me, I see people drop that nutrition ball first. You’ve got to keep work in the air, a lot of athletes still keep the training ball juggling up in the air, and they drop the nutrition ball. What I love to encourage people to think about is to try and keep that nutrition ball in the air, and drop something else. Like, just quit your job, it’s so much easier.

Andrew: And more fun!

Taryn: Yeah, pro hours! But look after “Future You”. There’s a few set of strategies you can do to set yourself up for success, such as looking after Future You. I like to call it that, because you can sit on the couch at night on your evening off of training, scrolling through Netflix or Instagram and wasting that time, OR you can be doing things to set yourself up for the future. It might mean something like, on a day off stock your freezer with some healthy ready-made meals that you’ve batch-cooked yourself, to set you up for times when life goes crazy and you don’t have time to cook, or you haven’t been to the shops and so you don’t have anything that you can throw together to eat as well. Doing a batch cook, stocking your freezer – for me, my weeks are absolutely chaotic, so I spend Monday just getting my shit together and getting myself organized, by making sure at least one or two dinners are either made already, or they’re prepped ready to go to throw together really quickly, because it’s chaos in my house in the evenings. Maybe you want to set yourself up with some quick-grab snacks in your pantry, your cupboard, in your work desk drawer so that if you have meetings that go on too long, or you’re stuck on Zoom and you can’t leave your desk to go and get lunch, you’ve got some healthy options you can grab to get you through, rather than going to find the charity chocolate bar.

Andrew: Because if that’s there, I will grab it. That’s kind of a policy in our household, when my wife and I do get to a season where we want to cut out snacking. We know that for both of us is our Achilles heel. The thing is, if we don’t buy the junk food at the store and put it in the pantry, we can’t eat it when we’re feeling snacky at 3:00 p.m. If there were only those healthy, wholesome options there, I don’t reach for that box of Cheez-Its. I can’t have Cheez-Its at 2:00 p.m. when I shouldn’t have Cheez-Its at 2:00 p.m. So definitely something we practice is just not even buying it sometimes, and having that as an option.

Taryn: You need to go listen to my episode on my podcast, Harley, around 3:30itis. It was back in 2022, Episode 66 maybe, in how to prevent that 3:30itis, like snaccidents, that slump where we start getting nibbly. That’s got some good tips for you in that one.

Andrew: Yep, I will find it, thank you for that recommendation!

Taryn: You’re welcome! Another tip, if you set your goal to maybe try and nail your recovery nutrition – that’s what your goal is for this period of time, but you know you’ve got training sessions in the evening – you need to set up Future You and make sure that when you get home from training you’ve got food ready to go, to try and take your recovery boxes within the right time frame for you. Maybe you’ve got leftovers that you cooked extra on the night before, because you’re thinking about Future You. Or maybe you’re going to pull those ready meals that you’ve made out of your freezer, because you set yourself up to look after Future You. I guess the summary of all those suggestions is really just thinking about getting yourself organized so that you’re setting yourself up for success, not failure. Then picking yourself up really quickly rather than waiting until Monday, because we need to think of health as a continuum. We have a very instant-gratification lifestyle at the moment, but you definitely need to be patient, because Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Vanessa: I love how you keep on referring back to this recovery and periodization, because I did a lot of strength training in my previous endeavors before triathlon. I know very well how to pre, during – that’s basically nothing –, and post-workout recover for strength training, and it’s very different for an endurance sport. So I’m really interested in this course that you have, because I really love to learn the differences and how to fuel yourself properly for before, during, and after. That’s amazing.

Taryn: Yeah, come and listen to the podcast too, that’s a really good resource for some information. I’ll just bring you across!

Vanessa: Yeah, right! Now, because triathlon is an endurance sport, and something that many athletes can do throughout many stages of their lifetime, people often go through periods of their lives as triathletes. So in terms of women going through peri and even menopause, a lot of changes are happening there that can be quite uncomfortable in terms of hormonal changes, weight gain, and all of that good stuff. Do you have any nutrition goals for women going through menopause to help mitigate some of these changes?

Taryn: Yeah, this is a huge topic, and probably needs its own episode to really dive into the nuances of nutrition for perimenopause and menopause. In fact, that would be two whole separate episodes for the future, Harley.

Andrew: Well, we can absolutely book those, especially now that I have Vanessa in my back pocket as another host of the show who can ask intelligent questions about all of that. But yeah, for today Taryn, I would be really interested to hear this, particularly from the perspective of women in that season of their life who are trying to set some sort of nutrition goal.

Taryn: Yeah, we need to start thinking a little bit differently, because through that perimenopause period, I like to call it the “roller coaster shit show” because your hormones are doing crazy things in that period of time. Then menopause is specifically defined as 12 months since your last menstrual cycle. There’s a few things we can do with our nutrition to help us through that phase. It is definitely a huge exploding area of research at the moment, and the last couple of years female athletes have really taken the forefront, because previously all of the research has been in male participants. A lot of our sports nutrition guidelines are in men, so just keep aware of that and mindful of that, but females are taking the lead with the research at the moment. A couple of key things to think about, primarily we need to make sure we’re getting enough protein through this period of time, and making sure that timing is right as well. As we get older we struggle to maintain our lean muscle mass, as well as when we’re younger. For females, getting enough protein can be challenging, particularly if you don’t know where it comes from in your diet and how much you need. This is very general, but that time of life, 40’s heading into 50, is very busy. You might be working, you might be training, you might have family, so you take a backseat with your nutrition sometimes because you’re too busy focused on keeping all those other balls in the air and looking after everyone else that you need to look after, and keep treating yourself second. But protein is a key one, making sure we’re getting enough, and particularly that timing around training. Now this is not my area of expertise so I’m not going to talk to it much, but resistance training is really important as we have that agerelated muscle decline as well. Particularly, if you have a bit more time, maybe we’re looking at doing more full-distance triathlon. Maybe we’re retiring from work and we can open up that time to ourselves, or our kids have moved out of home finally and we can put in a bit more training hours. So we tend to go longer and slower, but we really need to flip that script and think about resistance exercise to maintain that muscle mass, and also the high-intensity-type training as well to clear some blood sugar levels and things like that. Again not my area of expertise, but food for thought for our perimenopausal and menopausal women, to look at strategically putting some strength into their programming and not forgetting that. Healthy fats is another key thing we need to focus on in our diets, and everyone needs this as well, particularly the unsaturated sources, so our mono- and polyunsaturated fats. I get people to focus more so on the mono, things like avocado, olive oil, nuts and seeds. Because we get a lot of polyunsaturated fats from our packaged products like crackers and biscuits and things, they use those oils in food production because they’re cheaper. But we struggle to get the monounsaturated fats in our diets, so we’re making sure that our diets are injected with those, and using them strategically as well so that we can harness those anti-inflammatory fix after exercise too. Omega-3's is another group that’s really important – those types of fatty acids that come from our deep-sea fish like salmon, tuna, herring, and mackerel, and our plant-based sources like flax seeds, chia, and walnuts – making sure they’re included in our diet, because they can help with some of the brain fog through this period of time, and help with our cognition. Which I don’t know if anybody listening has experienced that, but the brain just doesn’t work well some days, and we can use our omega-3's to help with some of that. I talked about it earlier, but carbohydrate periodization, particularly through these years as a female – this is general, but we may not need as much carbohydrate compared to when we’re younger, but it doesn’t mean you cut it out altogether. You need to really understand how to periodize it to training, and not be afraid of it. Because I see women at this timepoint in their life start to get what’s called the “meno-pot”, it’s not a particularly nice word or way to think about it, but that middle section pot belly, and they immediately cut carbohydrate to fix that, but we need to do more resistance training and periodize that carbohydrate if that is a challenge that you're worried about. I’m really passionate about teaching periodization inside the Academy, it’s something we do in the first four weeks because it is key to performance in triathlon but also long-term health, and key to dropping body fat strategically without under-fueling sessions as well. One of the ladies in the program, Renée, she was this person cutting carbohydrate out but still putting on weight and not sure why, so it just kept going into a deeper and deeper calorie deficit, and less and less carbohydrate. It took her a little bit to get her mind around it, having some more carbohydrate strategically around training has actually helped her to drop 5 kilos in the first two phases of the program without even trying. Eating more calories, eating more carbohydrate, but she just understands where to put them in her training week now. So that is a very, very brief snapshot of peri- and menopause nutrition. It could be a complete, massive topic on its own, but just starting to think about our nutrition at this time. For a lot of women it’s a bit of a trigger to start doing things a little bit differently. There’s a lot of noisy information out there at the moment in this space. I’m not mentioning any names, but I would encourage you to find some evidence-based practitioners to help you with your nutrition through perimenopause and menopause, because it just takes a couple of sessions to understand what you need and when, and then you’ll be smooth sailing for a while.

Vanessa: People like to measure progress in ways that they can see, like a number on the scale, or a number of inches lost, or maybe even how their clothes fit. But I think sometimes with nutrition and implementing healthier habits, changes might occur with the physiological systems, but they might not manifest as weight change or inches lost or measures like that. What are some really good things that might be happening on the inside, and what are some cues that someone could look for as a result of these physiological changes?

Taryn: That’s a great question, and I think a big one is probably how you feel. Jason, who I talked about earlier, is probably a really good example of that. He’s feeling so much more energy, and he’s performing better, but that’s not linked to changes in body composition in the way he kind of would like. A good one, if you’re making changes to your nutrition – I don’t necessarily encourage you to track your body composition, but I want to check that your energy is stable throughout the day. Particularly through that 3:30itis window, that afternoon slump where you’re going to be chasing down the Cheez-Its, or looking for the cookie jar, or just really need a nap in that window of the day. A lot of our days are set up with what we’re doing before that, and that can result in how we feel in that afternoon window. We often might start craving sweets here, if we haven’t got our nutrition right, and you need another caffeine hit to pick you up to get through that window. But I want you to feel like you’ve got energy right throughout the day, that’s a good indication that you’ve got your nutrition relatively right from the beginning of the day onwards. If you’re somebody that comes to Friday and you’re absolutely exhausted, and you have no idea how you’re going to get through your big weekend of training, then your nutrition is not right as well. We need to fix that so that you feel that energy through the whole week as well, and you’re pumped to go do your long weekend sessions. Because ultimately, if you can do that, if you’ve got energy through the day, through the week, then you’re going to be training better and performing to the best of your ability. If you can do that and feel that, not dragging your ass through weekend sessions because you’ve smashed yourself through the week, and having got your energy nice and stable. That’s a really key one to look at, energy levels stable right through the week, that isn’t linked with body composition change.

Vanessa: Personally I’ve noted some changes in how I feel in the afternoon, based on what I eat in the morning, and I find that it’s fully related to protein intake. So if I eat a really solid breakfast with protein in the morning, then I find that I’m not as tired in the afternoon, and I don’t get that 3:30itis Cheez-It requirement. I’ve definitely noticed that.

Taryn: The snacktastrophe window. Yeah, cool, so potentially you didn’t have enough protein to check your recovery boxes, and changing that has helped set your whole rest of your day up. That’s excellent!

Andrew: Well done, Vanessa, well done!

Taryn: Another good one, if you’re thinking about energy – this is a bit of a weird one to talk about on a podcast, but you want to make sure that your bowels are working properly, and that you’re going to the toilet regularly –

Andrew: Yes, YES!

Taryn: Yeah, euphoric! Harley’s FOR this conversation!

Vanessa: We did have an entire episode that was based on potty talk. So it’s all good, you can go there!

Taryn: So you want to make sure that you are going to the toilet regularly, and we’re not one way or the other. We’re not to the end of constipation where it’s only every couple of days, and we also don’t want to go down the end of what people associate with runner’s gut, where it’s frequent and all the time, and there’s something going on there that we need to rectify. But a good place to start, this can be one of your goals, is to make sure you get enough fiber in a day. The requirements are 30 grams in a day, which you can easily hit if you’re getting your two servings of fruit and five servings of veggies on the daily. But focusing on that one tiny little habit that you can be consistent with and maintain is going to set up all of your bowel function nice and beautifully. We know that 70% of our immune system resides in our gut, so when we train for three sports and we’re highly functional, we want to make sure we’re not getting sick, because that takes you out of training and then you lose that training build. So a big part of setting our immune system up to be nice and robust is having enough fiber in our diet, and keeping our gut microbes happy. Because then you can consistently train, and athletes that consistently train do better than those that have big dips and troughs from illness and injury. The other thing we want to think about with our gut is that it’s linked to our brain. So, not very sexy, but if you’re focusing on some of those foundations of eating enough fruit and vegetables, getting enough fiber in our diet, we’re going to be happier because our gut is linked to our brain via the gut-brain axis. So keeping your immune system happy, your gut working properly, and your bowels opening regularly is not that sexy, but it’s another key indicator that you’ve got things working without having to think about body composition.

Andrew: Now that we’ve appropriately talked about bowels on this podcast – I was going to keep going until we finally got there, so now that that’s come up – Taryn, let’s close down our main set with this. From all the athletes that you’ve worked with in the triathlon space as a registered dietician, what is maybe just one really good story of an athlete that you’ve worked with who set a specific resolution of some kind and saw a positive result through sticking with it. I know there are probably plenty, but what’s an athlete that just really comes to mind here at the end of the main set?

Taryn: There’s so many, it’s hard to give one example, but when you asked me this question, one person that really sticks in my mind would be Rosco, who is in his 60’s and he set his sights to do an IRONMAN. I got to work with him for almost nine months heading into that event, from January onwards. To watch him cross the finish line with a massive smile on his face just brings me so much joy, because that is my happy place, getting triathletes to reach their goals, whatever that may be. That is not a body composition goal, it’s not necessarily a health goal, but a pretty massive goal for somebody in their 60’s to do an IRONMAN, and have a great race, and have a great time. He didn’t get injured, he actually made it to the start line in one piece, because we put all the nutritional things in place for him to go and have a really successful day in the office.

Vanessa: I just got shivers, full-on shivers, when you were talking about that. I love that story, thank you.

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

Vanessa Ronksley: Welcome to 2023 y’all! How many of you out there have decided to conquer a new distance this year, or a new race format, something that seems totally crazy and out of your wheelhouse? Well, kudos to you if you have, because doing things that are out of your comfort zone is when all the good stuff happens, and I will cheer you on! I’m telling you right now, if you need a cheerleader for the epic thing that you’re doing this year, send me a message and I will be sure to get you pumped up for the new adventure. Now for today, you’ll want to stick around until the end of this cooldown everyone because there’s going to be a special announcement that I’m excited to tell you about. But first, we must hear from an athlete who has completed over 30 triathlons, BEFORE deciding to do his first full-distance tri at IRONMAN California a few months ago. He also claimed to be oneand-done after it happened, so we’ll check in to see if there’s another full in his future. I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm, here with Caleb Chapman. It’s so nice to be here talking with you today Caleb!

Caleb Chapman: It’s a pleasure and honor to be here, Vanessa!

Vanessa: Great! So how did you get into the crazy sport of triathlon in the first place?

Caleb: Well, I’ve had a family friend who’s been doing this for quite some time, probably about 15 years. I graduated college back in 2012, and pretty much ever since then he’d been trying to get me to do one of these crazy triathlons with him. I did cross country in high school, and that was just because the basketball coach made me. I did a couple years of swim team, and then I cycled to class in college. So, not really a pro at any of them, but I decided to finally put them all together in about 2019, I did an Olympic, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Vanessa: That’s not very long! I thought you’d been doing triathlons for a really long time.

Caleb: No, I did quite a few of them during Covid, virtual ones.

Vanessa: So out of those 31 races – off the top of your head, don’t think about this too hard – what is the most memorable moment that pops into your head from one of those races?

Caleb: Oh boy. Off the top of my head, apart from the onemile barefoot run out to transition in IRONMAN California, would have to be a little race that happened during Covid in Onalaska, Texas. They put it in the middle of June, so it was hot and humid, the race course was poorly marked, and on the run, they didn’t even have water at the aid stations yet by the time I got there. That wasn’t even the best part, the cherry on top was that the dismount line into T2 was at the top of a hill and around a corner. So apparently I had got a flat a mile before getting to T2 and I didn’t know it, so when I went to do my pretty flying dismount, I went around this corner and the bike slid right out from underneath me, right in front of all of the spectators. I go sliding on my bottom, and just totally humiliated, everyone’s asking if I’m okay. I’m a little embarrassed, but I got back up and finished the race. That was quite the memorable event.

Vanessa: Good for you. Now, you didn’t rip your tri suit did you? I hope not!

Caleb: I’m pretty sure I did. Thankfully it wasn’t a TriDot one, I got one shortly after.

Vanessa: Oh man! So, when we were in St. George for the IRONMAN World Championships for the TriDot Ambassador Camp, what surprised me the most about the finish line around midnight was the different types of people who were actually crossing that finish line. There were young people, old people, newbies, experienced triathletes, athletes from different sports, and people running, people walking, people hobbling. It seems that people decide to do a full with varying levels of experience. So what made you want to attempt a full in the first place, and then why did you wait after having done so many triathlons?

Caleb: Well actually, I had no plans on ever doing a full. I thought those people were crazy.

Vanessa: You and me both!

Caleb: So when I did my first half, I got an Mdot tattoo. But don’t worry, I only filled it in halfway. Fast-forward to having a baby girl, I decided if I was ever going to do the full, I’d better do it before my kid gets into school and I run out of free time.

Vanessa: Now have you had that dot filled? Because I vaguely remember seeing a picture of your calf on socials after running into a dog, but I actually didn’t notice if the dot was full or not.

Caleb: I did get it filled in. I originally got the half-filled after IRONMAN 70.5 Waco, but I got a blood drop in the tattoo because I accidentally forgot socks, and I ran the half marathon with no socks in my tennis shoes. My nice new Nike Vaporflys were completely bloody, that was my memorable event. So filling it in wasn’t really conducive because I didn’t want to lose that blood drop, but I went to my tattoo artist and he was like, “Okay, we can fill it in with a different shade.” I had it filled it in with red because I bleed on the run, but the shading is now filled in with red, and it is a complete Mdot now.

Vanessa: Okay! So I’m going to have to go look at that picture a little more carefully I think.

Caleb: Lots of blood on my IRONMAN journey.

Vanessa: Yeah, I think that’s the course for most athletes, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. So tell me about the absolute best part about doing a full.

Caleb: I would say it’s the same about any triathlon, it’s the community and the challenge.

Vanessa: Yeah, and do you have any clue as to why I asked that question?

Caleb: Um, no.

Vanessa: It’s because I need to collect all of the best parts about doing a full from every single person I know who has done one, and I need to make this list because – I haven’t told many people this yet, not even my mom – but I have signed up to do my first full!

Caleb: Woohoo!

Vanessa: I wish y’all could see that I’m practically fetal on the floor right now, and every day I think to myself, “What have I got myself into?” So Caleb, what have I got myself into?

Caleb: Well, first of all, congratulations! I would say I pretty much lived in a state of denial until I was in my wetsuit race day morning, so I get the feeling. Prepare to get cozy with your bike and nutrition, and then just work out as many aches and pains with your coach as you can along the way, because they’re just going to get worse on race day if you don’t.

Vanessa: Okay, okay. I’m literally shaking right now.

Caleb: No, just log into TriDot every day, do what it tells you, and you will be just fine.

Vanessa: Okay, I can do that. I will follow the plan and do the right training right. Hopefully.

Caleb: There you go.

Vanessa: You actually made that sound like it’s actually going to be pretty attainable to get across that finish line. So are you going to join us and the massive number of TriDot athletes going to IRONMAN California this year? It’s going to be so much fun!

Caleb: Ooh not likely, because my wife is due in May with our second child.

Vanessa: Oh, okay! I was going to say, “Oh come on! You could totally join us!” but that’s coming up pretty soon here. A new baby on the way, congratulations, that’s very exciting! Number two, yeah, cool! So do you think we could convince Andrew to do another one?

Caleb: It sounds like he’s not going to do one until after something like Challenge Roth, but I think that’s a good idea. It’s a good lead-in to it.

Vanessa: He does have the new fancy bike, and it needs to be in a substantial race.

Caleb: You know what, I think there’s a lot of people with those new fancy Dimond bikes, and I think anyone who has one should have to do IRONMAN California with it.

Vanessa: Yes, I think this definitely something we should look into. It’ll be an all-call on the I AM TriDot Facebook page, “If you have a Dimond bike, you must do IRONMAN California in 2023.”

Caleb: That’s it!

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.

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