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 final TriDot podcast episode of the year 2021. We have an absolute blast doing the show and it’s an honor to be in your headphones, speaker, car audio system, pain cave, etcetera talking triathlon with our team. Thanks so much for listening. We’re going to keep the content rolling into 2022 and we sincerely hope all of our listeners are primed for a great year of training and racing in the new year. We like to end the year just reflecting on our year in podcasting. We had 51 episodes this year; one per week every single Monday like clockwork. Because you know, we’re just really, really dependable like that. So I’ve asked several of our podcast regulars to come to the table today with two episodes from this year that they want to highlight as a Best of 2021 Episode. They’ll tell us why they picked the episode they picked, we’ll play a clip from that episode and then we’ll move on to the next one. There are five of us joining the show today so with a few special appearances as well by some bonus TriDot staff members so I’ll keep the introductions brief today. With me here on the live recording today are TriDot Director of Coaching John Mayfield, Vice President of Marketing and Ironman champion Matt Bach, pro triathlete and TriDot coach Elizabeth James, and TriDot coach and biomechanics expert Jeff Raines. Hey Jeff.

Jeff Raines: What’s up Drewski! Time flies man. It seems like we just did this episode for last year and here we are again.

Andrew: Here we are again. Hello Matt.

Matt Bach: Let’s have some fun.

Andrew: Hey John!

John Mayfield: Happy New Year guys.

Andrew: Hey Elizabeth.

Elizabeth James: Hey! So happy to be here.

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 Best of 2021 main set, and then wind things down with our cool down.

Quick reminder– TriDot is currently running the 2021 edition of our annual research project that we call the Preseason Project. We are looking for non TriDot athletes who want to jump into the research project this year. Qualifying athletes will get two free months of TriDot training. It’s literally two months of the best training available in exchange for TriDot getting to analyze the training data that comes in from those sessions. I started training with TriDot during the 2018 Preseason Project and immediately took a liking to the structured training schedule and saw huge improvements in my swim, bike, and run. My 70.3 PR before TriDot was a 5:57 and after training with TriDot that PR is now a 5:02. For those of you doing the math that is a 55 minute improvement for me since continuing with TriDot after coming on board for the Preseason Project. If you already train with TriDot now is the best time to invite your tri friends to participate in the Preseason Project and if you are a podcast listener and have never given our training a try head to tridot.com/PSP. Join the preseason research project and enjoy two free months of TriDot training.

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

Andrew: At the time we are recording and releasing this podcast there is a brand new TriDot feature that just hit the app and it has immediately generated some buzz in the TriDot community. It’s the equalizer. Your TriDot scores allow you to measure and compare your swim, bike, and run performance abilities on a 1 to 100 scale, but have you ever wondered what your TriDot’s would be if we equalized them to account for age and gender? The wondering is over with the introduction of the equalized TriDot scores. So, the standard Swim Dot, Run Dot, and Bike Dot scores are absolute measures of your performance ability that lets you see what your strongest and weakest disciplines are and compare versus other athletes. Your equalized scores do that to and are adjusted to account for your age and gender. A 65 year old female who is an incredible athlete might have a 32 TriDot score, but after equalization it’s an impressive 70. You’ll also see that it categorizes your score as novice, developing, intermediate, competitive, highly competitive, and elite. It’s all really cool stuff and I’ve seen a ton of athletes in the I AM TriDot Facebook group talking about their equalized TriDot. So I say all of that to get us to today’s warm up question which should be a really fun one with five of us on the show today. Thinking about your new equalized TriDot scores, what movie title best describes your scores? Jeff Raines, what do you think?

Jeff: Little bit of a double purpose here, but I’m going to go with “Without Limits.” It’s a running movie about Steve Prefontain. You know, I’d like to think that my improvement in my dot scores are limitless and they will always continue to improve and go up, right? Also it’s just kind of fun because it’s a running movie. I love the movie. I’m kind of a runner at heart and my Run Dot is the highest dot score of the swim, bike, and run.

Andrew: Yeah great. So yeah your room for improvement is without limits. It’s a great way to look at it. I mean, technically you could get 100s across the board and then be limited in your room to improve, but I don’t think any of us on this call are anticipating reaching that point in the sport. Umm…Elizabeth, what are you picking here?

Elizabeth: Well I’m also kind of going with a running movie. Mine would be a documentary and it is “Run For Your Life.”

Andrew: Okay.

Elizabeth: My equalized dots show that the run is still my greatest strength as well so once I’m out of the water and off the bike I’m going to be running for my life and running for that finish line.

Andrew: And luckily for you in your pro career, you are very good at running for your life and chasing down competitors. It’s always a thrill tracking you on race day and just watching you move up the rankings once you hit that run course and yeah. So running for your life, I love it. Coach John Mayfield, what’s your movie pick here?

John: I’m going to go with “Catch Me If You Can.”

Andrew: Oooo!

Jeff: Nice.

John: So my equalized dots are not that far off from my actuals so I think especially as this new year begins I would love to have those equalized dots be my actual dots sooner than later, perhaps by year end and set a new goal with attaining those equalized dots as I get older every year obviously, but yeah. So “Catch Me If You Can.”

Andrew: Yeah and as you get faster in all three disciplines and you get faster you set some great PR’s in this calendar year. So as you continue to improve it’s almost looking at the competition and saying, “Catch me if you can.” Right there John?

John: A little bit of that, but mostly just me.

Andrew: Matt Bach, what are you picking here?

Matt: The movie “300” because that’s what mine add up to. Totally kidding.

Andrew: That would be something.

Matt: Yeah, I’m better than Jan Frodeno. I don’t know about that. So, most of you probably know I used to be quite competitive, but now I’m just a middle aged father with a muffin top. So my fitness has fallen off and initially I was thinking maybe a movie title that could be suitable here was “The Departed.” because my fitness has departed. But I decided instead to put a positive twist on it and focus on the optimistic future and so my answer is “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Jeff: Ooo nice.

Andrew: Ooo yep.

John: New nickname.

Andrew: That’s the nickname for Matt’s comeback in the sport of running is “The Dark Knight Rises.” Okay. Yep. All for it. Great film. So my Swim Dot is intermediate, my Bike Dot is competitive and my Run Dot is highly competitive. So at first I was thinking of movies that would imply I need to improve as a swimmer so something like “Finding Nemo” came to mind. But coming off a fall Ironman, I’ve taken this last month or so a little down time. I did the inaugural Remote Race in November. I did the sprint at Clash Daytona in December, but that has literally been it for my physical activity after Ironman. So I have been easing back into the training just this week and I know my thresholds need to be updated just a little bit so my final answer for this is the 2009 very underrated George Cloney flick, “Up In The Air.” because until I knock out some new assessments to get a fresh look at my fitness my true TriDots are just a little bit up in the air. But I’m also hoping just a few solid months back at the TriDot training and I’ll be comparing my dots to “The Emperor's New Groove.”

Hey guys, we’re going to throw this question out to y’all and when I pose this question and I threw it out there I’m actually more excited to see what our audience has to say than anything else because I think there’s going to be some really clever answers here with some films that maybe we didn’t even think of based on what your dot scores are. So head to the I AM TriDot Facebook group. Make sure you are a member of that group whether you’re a TriDot athlete or not. We invite triathletes to come join and just talk swim, bike, and run with us. So find the post today, the Monday this show comes out and find the post asking you, what movie title would you compare your equalized swim, bike, and run dots to?

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

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Andrew: Alright. Let’s get to the good stuff today. I’m very excited to see which episodes from this year our coaches have selected to be the official TriDot Podcast’s Best of 2021. I’ve got my two nominations lined up and let’s find out what episodes our coaches have selected. So Elizabeth, why don’t you kick us off here. What is your first Best of 2021 episode?

Elizabeth: I chose episode 98 which is The Hurt Locker: Why Athletes Feel Pain and this had to have been my absolute favorite episode from 2021. I’ve actually listened to this episode I think three if not four times now because there’s just so much great information there. B.J. Leeper, our Director of Performance Science, just does a great job of explaining that pain is this conscious feeling that’s produced by our brain and it’s so interesting to me that we don’t feel pain unless our brain tells us to. While pain can be a good defense mechanism for our bodies, there’s also ways that we can train our ability to suffer. For me without racing in 2020 that ability to suffer and tolerate like the anguish of hard training sessions and racing is something that just dwindled a little bit for me and I’ve really been working to kind of embrace that suffering again and really build that grit factor back up. So this is just a great listen for anybody that’s dealing with pain. Knowing if you’re hurt or injured and then those that are working on kind of developing that grit and suffering to embrace the anguish of those hard training sessions and the demands of racing.

B.J. Leeper: I believe that pain is the biggest limiter of human performance, period.  And in studying human performance for as long as I have, you just can't get around pain.  There's various sides of pain we'll get into, but there's the, "are you hurt or are you injured" type of discussion.  But the reality is, with pain, it's such a fascinating area because it's such a remarkable thing that our bodies are designed to have, where it's the most amazing, protective system that we have, so it's such a great thing.  Although pain gets such a negative connotation because it's also, unfortunately, one of the things that plagues us.  All of us have experienced pain on a certain level, and unfortunately some of us are plagued by pain.  And oddly enough, or not so surprisingly, the word "pain", the root of it comes from the Greek word "revenge", so it comes from this Greek goddess.  I can't remember the exact name, but the interpretation of it means "revenge", which I think it kind of fitting, because all of us, when we feel pain, it's like our bodies' revenge on us in some way.

Matt: I love that episode as well. I loved having the chance to record that with Dr. B.J. Leeper. It was my first time B.J. so that was special and the topic really resonates with me since I’ve spent so many years now learning when to push and when to back off like many of our veteran athletes and listeners. I’m also fascinated by evolution as well. EJ, you were mentioning pain was born from evolution and it’s to protect us from damaging our own bodies, but when we compete at our highest level we’re making a deliberate decision to ignore so many of those pain and suffering signals along the lines of Jens Voigt’s famous quote, “Shut up legs!”

Andrew: “Shut up legs!” Definitely everybody has shouted that to themselves at some point on a trainer ride I guarantee you. But Elizabeth as you listened to that episode a couple times did you find that coming out of that listening experience were you able to kind of mentally push a little bit harder in those following training sessions?

Elizabeth: Oh yeah. I mean that’s something that it was like, “Okay, we know that we can push harder. I know B.J. said we could train this so I’m going to use this to my advantage. I’m going to keep digging in, work on that grit, and just embrace the suffering here.”

Andrew: Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that journey for you Elizabeth. I do. Coach John Mayfield, let’s go to you and find out what your first Best of 2021 episode nomination is.

John: Episode 87; Defeating Dehydration: Perfecting Your Race-Day Strategy. This is one every once in a while I get asked if I listen to the podcast and I listen to them all whether I was on the episode or whether I wasn’t. For me it’s just good to go back and sometimes as we’re recording I’m sometimes thinking about the next question…

Andrew: Yeah.

John: …so I don’t always hear what the other people are saying and it’s also I do some self critique; always trying to get better. So I listen to them all. So this is one I was actually not on, but did of course listen to. Man, it was one of those that just really struck me that, you know, I’ve been competing, training, racing, coaching athletes, consulting on nutrition and hydration for a number of years; but man, just the information that Andy brought was just so eye opening for me. It was almost kind of an epiphany of like, I’ve thought I had a hydration plan. I knew I had a nutrition plan and hydration kind of took a back seat to that, but man just listening through this episode and living in such a hot, humid climate typically, and often racing in those hotter and humid climates it’s just so critical to nail hydration, electrolytes, all those things that not only Andy was talking about, but Andy has spent a tremendous amount of time to really research. To take that scientific approach of really finding out what our bodies need and how we can improve our performance and through that. Because I think we’ve found that there are a lot of nutritional companies that don’t do that. They create a product and they sell it, but that’s one of the super cool things about Precision Hydration and what Andy Blow and his team are doing. But I remember the next morning I could not wake up soon enough to do those online tests and book my consult which I did. I’ve been using those products ever since and they’ve made a huge impact. But that said, I’ve still got room to improve you know after all these years. So I look forward to continuing and again kind of like Elizabeth. This is one of those episodes I’ve listened to over and over just because you learn something new every time. It’s chalk full of such good information.

Andy Blow: To a degree sweat rate, which is the amount of fluid that you lose per hour, and sweat sodium concentration are somewhat independent variables.  So you can sweat a lot as Elizabeth is saying she does, but with a low concentration of salt.  Or you can sweat a lot as I do with a high concentration of salt.  The fluid volume loss can become a problem for anyone even if you’ve got low salt losses.  Because at the end of the day there’s only so much dehydration your body can tolerate and only so much loss of fluid you can tolerate from your blood stream before your blood gets thicker, the cardiovascular strain on your body increases, and you just can’t perform at your best.  I’m sure you’ve seen in the heat, if you’ve ever used a heart rate monitor and a power meter or if you’re running on a treadmill and you see this point at which your heart rate and your power or your speed decouple; so you were running along or say you were riding along at 140 beats per minute and that’s 200 watts and then all of a sudden you’re getting thirsty and your heart rate is going up to 160, but you’re still at 200 watts.  Then it’s 165, then it’s 170 and that’s a sign that your blood is getting thicker and that you’re dehydrating because your heart is having to work harder to perfuse all of the tissues.

Andrew: Yeah John, I absolutely love this episode and I’m glad that you brought it up because it certainly is one of our best and most crucial from the year 2021 and they worked with me a little bit heading into Ironman Waco. Kind of talked with me about what my hydration strategy would be, what my nutrition strategy would be. So if you actually go to Precision Hydration’s website I am under the case studies for the case studies they have done on what an athlete meant to do in a race, what they actually took during their race and then how it played out for them. And we’re huge believers in them. So great nomination there John. Coach Jeff Raines, let’s hear what your first Best of 2021 episode nomination is.

Jeff: Episode 82 Pushing Past a Performance Plateau. That’s a lot of P’s there. Say that five times fast. You know I think we’ve all been there. I think we’ve all felt plateaued at one point whether it’s plateaued in our career as a triathlete. Maybe you’ve been doing triathlons for ten years and you just kind of feel like maybe you’re not getting any better or maybe you aren’t super dominating your yearly goals. Maybe it’s an in-season plateau where you’re doing your assessments month to month and maybe your 5K’s staying the same towards the end of the year and maybe not improving. So there’s different types of performances and plateaus that you could think you have. But I loved in this episode how there’s a psychological aspect and then there’s a physiological aspect and then how it all brings it back to TriDot and doing the right training right. We always bring that up, but you know if you’re on TriDot you’re doing the right training, but are we doing it right? So I just love this episode and how it just kind of made me rethink things. Maybe I’m not plateauing in my performance. I just need to do my 20 minute bike test at a slightly different protocol or pace it different. There’s just all sorts of things that are brought up in this episode that really make me and hopefully others sit back and just rethink some of these metrics. I just got a lot out of this episode.

Andrew: Jeff before I roll the clip, can we hear you try saying “pushing past a performance plateau” five times fast?

Jeff: Absolutely! I’ll give it a whirl.

Andrew: Yeah please do.

Jeff: Here we go. Pushing past a performance plateau. Pushing past a performance plateau. Pushing past a performance plateau. Pushing past a performance plateau. Pushing past a performance plateau. Nailed it.

John: Nailed it.

Andrew: Yep. Not bad.

Matt: Boom.

Andrew: Not bad at all. Roll the clip!

John Mayfield: As Elizabeth mentioned, doing the right training right is a HUGE aspect of this.  It’s two fold there.  You have to have the right training and then you have to execute it properly.  We can kind of look at training as a recipe with the end product being race results.  If your recipe sucks, your end product is going to suck.  Kind of going back to what I said initially, a new athlete coming to the sport can pretty much just go out and do any swimming, cycling, and running and they are going to see some improvements.  But really once we get past that low-hanging fruit what you do becomes critically important both in terms of making gains, avoiding injury, maximizing your potential.  So what you do in training becomes critically important and that’s where we point to TriDot and look to TriDot for optimized, individualized training so we know that is critical.  That is the right training is when you have training that is created specifically for each individual athlete and not based on theory or philosophy or guesswork, but truly optimized training.  So that’s doing the right training.  Then you have to do it right and as Elizabeth mentioned things like your TrainX scores that provide that objective feedback as to how well you executed the intent of the session.  A quote that comes to mind is Henry Ford’s quote; “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”  You can’t continue just doing the same thing and expect a different result.  If you are in a performance plateau, 1- are you doing the right training?  Are you doing truly individualized, optimized training.Then if so, are you doing it right?And that’s where we can look to objective feedback items like your TrainX scores.

Andrew: I’m willing to bet Jeff, that if somebody out there feels like if their equalized TriDot scores have remained constant or similar or haven’t really jumped, they might compare their dots to the movie “Frozen” right? And if you’re comparing your dots to the movie “Frozen” maybe that’s an episode, #82, you need to go listen to to help you push past a performance plateau. But I mean John, you had some great stuff to say there. Would you like to say anything else just to expound on what you just said in that clip?

John: Yeah, so you’ll know the movie I’m talking about. It’s the dinosaur movie and it’s like…

Andrew: Jurassic Park, Land Before Time.

John: No. It’s a cartoon and like the sequel is like Unfrozen or The Thaw or something like that where they kind of–

Andrew: Ohh!

John: Is it Ice Age maybe?

Andrew: Ice Age, yep.

John: And then there’s like a sequel that’s like something about the thaw or something like that. So that’s where we want to go. We want to get those folks from frozen to whatever that one was about. I have no idea why that came to mind, but that was it. But yeah. I mean I think especially this time of year it’s common for folks to feel like they’re in a bit of a rut and maybe they are. And we discuss a whole lot of things in that episode as to sometimes, as Jeff eluded to, sometimes they are true plateaus. Other times there are other factors that are playing into it and maybe it’s not a true plateau. So it’s about identifying are you really in a plateau and then if you are what needs to change to get you out of it?

Andrew: Matt Bach, what is the first episode you would like to bring to the table today?

Matt: Episode 104 Triathlon Rocket Fuel: Understanding Ketone Esters. I’ve seen a lot in this sport. I was just fascinated to actually discover something through Dr. Krista Austin that actually works. There’s only a short list of things especially in the nutrition and supplement space that are proven to make a difference and ketone esters are one of them. So I really appreciated that episode with Dr. Kieran Clarke and Dr. Krista Austin sharing the science and some stories of deltaG. One thing that makes that episode even better is that Dr. Clarke is funny.

Andrew: Oh she’s great.

Matt: I laughed out loud several times during that episode.

Andrew: She’s fantastic.

Matt: Great personality. I specifically chose the clip you’re about to hear because our service men and women are some of the most bad ass people…

Andrew: Agreed.

Matt: …on the planet and they put their bodies through some of the most extreme situations and those extreme situations exposed the need and Dr. Clarke helped find a solution for that need. So thank you to our military men and women for your service and thank you also for being pioneers in discovering things that further our ability to perform as humans.

Andrew: So in the year 2003 the American Military reached out to you and they were interested in creating a fuel source for soldiers using ketones.  Tell us about that process and how it led to the deltaG drink that we know today.

Professor Kieran Clarke:  Well, this was the start of the Iraq War and what was happening was that the US Army was sending their soldiers out onto the battlefield for about five days and by day three they’d thrown away all the things out of the MRE’s that they didn’t like to eat.  So they didn’t have any food so they were more or less starving.So then they lost their ability; you know physical ability and they also lost cognitive function and the worst part of that was that they started shooting anything that moved and usually it was each other and the Army was not pleased with this.  So they wanted a way to keep their soldiers going, sort of a really high energy source for their soldiers to keep them going in a battlefield.And that’s what we were asked to do.

Elizabeth: Yeah, just echoing what you said, Matt, earlier about a big thank you to our military men and women for their service and it was fascinating to hear how Dr. Clarke kind of worked with the military and was able to use deltaG as not only kind of an energy source, but also something that then having the energy really improved cognitive function as well. Then to see how we can use that same ketone ester and translate it into performance gains in our training and racing is fantastic. I know that this was such a helpful episode for me personally. I used it kind of as my reference guide for how to incorporate deltaG into like my race rehearsals and you can bet that this is something that I’ll be using next year.

Andrew: And Elizabeth, you actually the first time you tried it– myself and Matt and John and several of us that made such a big deal about the taste and you actually thought it wasn’t that bad right?

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think I was preparing myself for something worse because of the stories you guys shared about like, “Oh yuck! Like oh I definitely made some noises getting that down.” So I was all prepared to gag and cough and it was like, “Oh, yeah. This isn't bad at all.” So I felt that that was very easy for me to incorporate and not nearly as a bad of taste as it maybe sounds like it could be on the episode.

John: It’s not bad, it’s just really, really strong.

Andrew: Yeah. It’s potent.

John: So to be fair it’s one of those like it’s not a bad taste, it just like straight up punches you in the face.

Andrew: Yep, no that’s a great way to put it.

John: In the best of ways.

Andrew: So I will go next and give my first nomination here. I absolutely loved episode 81, Chasing the Dream: The Amateur’s Journey to Kona. We had two of our TriDot athletes, Coach Joanna Nami and Greg McAuley. They have both qualified to go to Kona through the Legacy Program. So they’ve both done over 12 Ironman events to get to the Kona start line. They’re still waiting for their chance at Kona. Their name is on the start list. They’re planning on going there in the year 2022 to get to race Kona; health of the world pending. But in that conversation just hearing their hopes, their dreams, what they’ve been through, what they’ve learned through their course of doing so many Ironman races. There’s just a ton of great information and wisdom there from the both of them. But something that Coach Jo said specifically hit me in a moment where I needed to hear it and she talked about training with a grateful heart and racing with a grateful heart and being grateful for the start line once you get there because so many of us experienced race deferrals, race cancellations, races being up in the air there for a little bit there in 2020 and still into 2021. I mean people are well versed in knowing that I’ve had my first Ironman delayed multiple times. For Coach Jo and Greg who are on that episode they’ve had their shot at Kona delayed multiple times because of the pandemic and Jo just said something that gave me such perspective.

Joanna Nami: In training for the 15 Ironman races, I have trained with probably ten different sets of training partners.  The one thing I do tell my athletes or like my Betty Sisters or the Hissyfit Girls is that when the journey is over, it’s over.When the race comes and is gone it’s over and you’re going to look back at the memories and all the things that happened or all the mishaps you have when you’re out riding or all the funny things you can remember over the training and you are going to kind of wish for that time back. I often say that the journey is the gift.  The journey is the reward.  You don’t want to take it for granted.  I say not only do we race with a grateful heart, we train with a grateful heart, and we need to hold on to those training days.  I think Greg and I are experiencing that to an extreme at this point when they talk about postponing races or cancelling races and you know Kona two times now has been put off for us, but my coach John Mayfield has told me he said, “Just think about it.  It would have all been over in October.”  You know, all the 15 years of work would have been over and he said now you just get to enjoy it for a little bit longer.

Andrew:  A little bit longer.  A few more training rides for Kona.

Joanna: It’s a few more training rides, but it is quite a number of days that I can be excited and to be looking forward to probably one of the greatest days of my life.  So that’s a gift.

John: It’s also the gift that keeps on giving fortunately. Since we recorded that episode that at the time, I believe– it’s kind of hard to keep up with. I think at the time the World Championship was planned to occur in February which that has now been rescheduled for the following October. So what I said to Jo continues to be true. Like it would have been over.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: But now that– as much at some point we want it to be over and we want to have those memories as opposed to those things we’re looking forward to. You know I think there’s just a whole lot of life lessons there and again, they’ve both handled this with such poise and they’re both back to training and they’re going to have a fantastic day when their day comes.

Andrew: Moving us along. Next we’re going to do our first bonus pick. So it’s not one of the five of us. I asked TriDot support staff Cindy Reeves, everybody’s favorite TriDot employee, ours included. I asked Cindy to pick her top, tippy top favorite episode of the year and she picked episode 78, Top 12 Reasons to be a Triathlete and here is Cindy telling us why she thinks that is a Best of 2021 episode.

Cindy Reeves: So my favorite would be podcast 78, 12 Reasons to be a Triathlete. I really feel like all the coaches did a great job on sharing sentiments on why we should be a triathlete that develop more than just our physical health. These reasons have nothing to do with our age, gender, or ability. Reason three, Coach Elizabeth brought up the positive influence on our lifestyle and the benefit for our mental health. Then reason #8, Coach John touched upon the community of the sport and the valuable friendships that we form which I think go in line with Coach Elizabeth’s reason #3. You know, these friendships are part of the positive influences in our life. Then Coach Jeff nailed it with reason #9 on the inspiration factor. I think we’ve all been changed in this sport by seeing someone that has overcome an obstacle and what a better way for us to give back than to be able to pass that inspiration on to someone else.

Andrew: Thanks so much to Cindy for that. That was a great episode.  I had a lot of fun recording that episode and we as a team had a lot of fun writing that episode and just coming up with what we thought were the top 12 reasons to be a triathlete. So really fun to reminisce on that episode a little bit with Cindy. Elizabeth James, now we’re getting to everybody’s second pick. We’ve gone through everybody’s #1 pick so Elizabeth, what is your second nomination for our Best of 2021 Episodes?

Elizabeth: Alright, my second pick would be episode 86 which was Work, Family, and Fitness: Balancing Life with Tri Training and I think that this was such a great practical episode and I know that this is one that I discussed with many of my coached athletes and they were just extremely appreciative of having both John and Jeff Raines on this episode and their perspective with kind of balancing everything and their children. There are only so many hours in the week and many responsibilities that we each hold and sometimes we just can’t get in all of the training and in this episode, John and Raines offer some great ideas with how to balance work and family and training and what to do when you can’t get everything in. I really liked when Raines talked about how he plans for the next week and is just making sure that he’s getting those most important sessions in.

Jeff Raines: Something that I do myself, and I encourage my athletes to do it as well, and it’s usually Sundays...Sunday afternoon, Sunday night.  I click on the calendar view in my TriDot training plan and I call that actually the “week at a glance view.”  I don’t think any of us have ever referred to that.  But what I do is kind of a macro view of the week ahead.  It’s Sunday night.  I pull up the next Monday through Sunday and I look at my session in the calendar view and I say, “Okay, first of all are there any B or C races coming up.”No, normal week so far.  Nothing big.  Then I’ll peel another layer back and I’ll say, “Okay, is this assessment week?”Do I have a swim, bike, or run assessment--a benchmark test that I’m doing.  “Nope.”  Okay so I don’t have one of those.  Okay great.Well then I’ll take it another step further and I’ll say, “Well what are the quality sessions?”  What are the ones where I’m really going to have to grit a little bit; high heart rate, hard effort.  “Okay, Tuesday Saturday maybe.”  Okay, so now I know that it’s a traditional week and Tuesday and Saturday, lets just say, are the workouts that maybe I really need to kind of cowboy up for; I really need to be prepared for.  Okay, well I have that presentation at work on this day or whatever.  Well now I need to flip-flop that hard Tuesday to a Wednesday or whatever.  Knowing my work week ahead, the stress that’s going to be provided with that, I move those key sessions around to where I know I can knock those out in quality, good timing.  And typically I try to find a morning that is free.  If it’s a long, stressful day at work you’re not going to want to get that session in 8:00, 9:00 at night.  It’s been a long day.  You’re stressed. You’re exhausted.  Oh no!I have that bike assessment or whatever.

Andrew:  And you’re just fried and you can’t even...you could do it, but you can’t really do it as well as you need to at that point.

Jeff:  Exactly. Then if you have to miss other sessions, great it happens.  Right?  But I got the quality sessions in, the harder sessions in, and I was smart.  The week ahead I prioritize that.

Andrew: When I signed up for my first Ironman I actually wasn’t quite at a place where I wanted to do my first Ironman. If I could have chosen, I would have wanted to wait a few more years, but my wife and I, we don’t have kids. We don’t have a family yet. We’re a little more flexible with our schedule and so part of me was like, “you know what, let’s try to do an Ironman before we start a family so that I have the time and flexibility to train for it and stuff like that.” Because I just imagine that it would be just so hard to balance family and balance the training and balance the racing. Over the last year or so I’ve met so many TriDotters at races, I’ve met so many Ironman athletes, I’ve met so many fellow coaches alongside of Jeff and John who are parents and have a full-time job and they successfully train and they successfully race and they’re great athletes and they have strong performances and it’s really shown me that you can do it all. So yep, I really enjoyed that episode myself. So let’s move to Coach John Mayfield’s pick #2. John, what have you got for us?

John: So pick #2, episode 90 Navigating Day-to-Day Nutritional Choices. So this was an episode with Dr. Krista Austin and this was another one that I kind of feel like Andy’s episode as a whole; that whole episode was kind of almost that epiphany for me, but there were one or two points that Krista made in this episode that really struck me. I think that as I mentioned before, over a decade in I still love learning and I still take every opportunity I can and I think this was one of those things that again it really struck me when she conveyed the point– She gets to talking about a nutritional approach that is performance oriented. So we’re looking for our nutrition to support our performance and it’s not always about what your body looks like. That’s something that I’ve always– I don’t know if struggled with is the right word, but something that I’ve always dealt with is I’m not that quintessential long course athlete when I look in the mirror. Like I have your typical dad bod. I’m 42 years old, three kids, and I look like it. As much as I would love to have the six pack abs and veins popping and all that I just don’t. But that’s always been something that I’ve felt like is an area of improvement and I can. You know I can do better, but at the same time I think what this episode really made me realize is that despite my body I’ve done– My body has done some amazing things and it really kind of changed my approach and kind of my outlook on it. In this year I went on to race two Ironman races and so I’ve done that several times. I won a race earlier in the summer and it was with the body that I have. You know, instead of looking at my body and just seeing what I can improve and how I can do better, you know, it’s like hey, great job. You know, it’s like to go out and do what I’ve done and I think that‘s something that we all as triathletes should really embrace. That’s nothing unique or special to me. As triathletes our bodies are doing amazing things and we should celebrate that and say “hey thanks body” for carrying us to those finish lines and allowing us to experience all those things that we experience through triathlon. So you know, that was just a real kind of an eye opener for me, was really approaching nutrition and body image from a performance perspective as opposed to that body image.

Dr. Krista Austin: You're always ebbing and flowing towards what you need to do to perform in life. And how you look, your body image, is probably never going to be indicative of that. So something I definitely try to teach my athletes, and I think they've learned it over time, some of them have taught that to ME over the years, that even at the most elite level, they've performed when their bodies don't quite look the way people anticipate them to at the start of the year. They go out, they keep crushing it, and by the end of the year, they're actually the fittest, most ready-to-go athlete, because they were the smartest about it, and they didn't look at the mirror. They didn't look in the mirror to decide things, they just stayed focused on performance and achieving, and it got them to that end goal.

Andrew: Yeah, they weren't chasing a particular look. They were chasing performance and their ability to be at their best on race day, as opposed to meeting the quintessential endurance athlete look that you see on Instagram.

Dr. Austin: That’s right.

Jeff: I think this is great info. I mean, it was such a great episode. It’s all about perspective. You know, we’ve heard “do we train to eat or do we eat to train?” Having the performance mindset I really think is just huge for so many people. It’s not always the vein popping, eight pack ab individual who’s in that top half of the age group. I mean it’s all about your perspective.

Andrew: Coach Jeff Raines, let’s go to you for your second nomination.

Jeff: I’m going to go with episode 113; Don’t Let a DNF Defeat You. You know, I actually had a very unique experience this year; one that I haven’t had in a very, very long time. I had a DNF this year and ironically driving home from Ironman Arizona, this is the Monday morning after the race right? I DNF’d mile 14 of the run. Y’all were there. You know we were up to 1, 2 a.m. and I woke up at 5 a.m. We were all in the same staff house. I couldn’t go back to sleep and so I had a long drive home so I started driving. I started my long drive home early and this episode popped up on my email as I’m driving home. The sun’s not even up yet. I’m driving home just morally, mentally defeated and it’s like this episode was created for me. So there are times we listen to these podcasts as a staffer, right? We create these, but every Monday, like John said earlier, every Monday I listen to these episodes as an athlete and this episode hit hard with me driving home. Moral down, DNF’ing Ironman Arizona from a pulled back the week of the race. So I think this year is a unique year with back to racing where people saw some unique circumstances and we’ve got to stay motivated. We’ve got to enjoy the day-to-day. You know, I love what I do and who I do it with. You guys, the listeners, and I will be back. So I really got a lot from this episode.

Andrew: Yeah, so once we get through that day of our DNF, we didn’t get the finisher medal, we didn’t accomplish our goal, but we courageously faced the course. We courageously faced our DNF and we navigated the emotions of the day and got through it...What emotions should we expect to feel and how should we handle the aftermath of our DNF?

John: It’s a lot like the stages of grief and I think to a certain extent it is because you are grieving something that didn’t come to fruition and especially something like a long course triathlon. That’s often something that we set as a goal and something that we work for. We’re very emotionally invested in for long periods of time, and yeah. It’s really tough when that goal isn't realized. So you go through a lot of those same things. I mean, initially you're definitely going to have the disappointment. That disappointment is going to be again kind of contingent upon how vested you were in that one event. For some if this was your Ironman that was your A race and you didn’t get to race for the past two years because races were canceled, that can be pretty devastating. That’s a big deal… There can be regret especially for those that made a decision. It’s one thing if the decision is made for you, but if you make that decision to pull out you may be questioning that decision especially in the days and weeks to follow. You know, “Could I have done something different? Should I have pressed on?” But that can be so hard in the moment. So you know, it’s one of those things it’s done. There’s no sense in beating yourself up over it, but then at some point I think there’s always acceptance.

John: So Jeff I think you had one of the most unique race years of anyone I’ve ever known and I think you really embody the intent and the purpose of this episode in that there were– your race season did not go as planned really from beginning to end yet you handled it with poise and you always bounced back as we all know that you’re going to, but unfortunate reality in this sport that we do that’s outdoors, it’s in the weather, we need our body in great condition to do it and unfortunately sometimes things just don’t go the way we hope it to. But again, I love that you stated you’ll be back. We all know emphatically that you will and we look forward to being there.

Andrew: Matt Bach, what is your second nomination for a Best of 2021 TriDot podcast episode?

Matt: Episode 72; How to Fuel Your Body for an Ironman. As our listeners know prior to coming to TriDot I worked for UCAN and prior to that I was a triathlete like so many of you trying to figure out how not to toss my cookies during an Ironman. So I’ve got a lot of personal experience in the nutrition space. Years of experience gleaning info off of researchers, sports nutritionists, registered dietitians, and years of experience working with athletes on their nutrition plans. I love this episode because there’s a lot of good commentary and rules of thumb and guidelines on how to fuel properly. Pre-race breakfast tips and product recommendations. So an Ironman may be twice as long as a half Ironman, but it’s ten times harder to fuel it right. So that’s why I particularly appreciated this episode. Fun fact– it also happens to be one of our podcast’s most downloaded episodes.

Andrew: Yep. Sure is.

Matt: And the clip I chose to highlight is where Elizabeth and Jeff talk about liquid calories. I quickly figured out that a predominantly liquid race day fueling plan was best for me. I actually converted completely to a full liquid diet during my race at this point and so I wanted to share Jeff and Elizabeth’s commentary on a liquid fueling plan.

Elizabeth: I tend to lean a whole lot more toward the liquid calories and I have some products that I do recommend as a coach when athletes are preparing for upcoming triathlons.  But ultimately it’s so personalized.  For example, I don’t use any goos or gels, at least those that are pre made and already on the market.  I actually do make my own from UCAN products.  But I have coached athletes to incredibly successful races as they do use those products and that works well for them.

Andrew:  So why do you personally lean more towards a liquid calorie plan for yourself?

Elizabeth: For me, that’s what has been the most successful in terms of eliminating any GI distress.  The liquid calories seem to sit very well with me whereas something more solid does tend to give me some issues.  I am a big, big believer in UCAN.  I have been using their products for years.  That’s what I feel best on.  That’s how I would say, you know, feel strongest.

Jeff:  Yeah, I think what’s key is like Elizabeth said, trying out a number of different things.But when I first started long course training, I feel like solid food was kind of the norm.  I feel like the predominant liquid nutrition that is kind of more prevalent now is something relatively new.  I mean, you hear of...I mean my first Ironman I had a turkey sandwich out on the bike course.  I mean, it’s just crazy.

Andrew:  No you didn’t!

Jeff:  Solid food breaks down slower.  When you have those bigger, heavier, kind of “meals” blood rushes to your gut to digest that and we want that blood in the arterials, the working muscle to deliver oxygen so we’re kind of stealing away from performance so to speak when we have those heavier foods and there’s a way to….

Andrew:  So the liquid calories helps your body digest that without taking as much blood from your muscles that are working hard.

Jeff:  Yeah and then there’s a blood sugar aspect.  So when you eat a big meal your blood sugar spikes and so you can leave that euphoric fat burn.  In long course we’re racing longer distances at slightly less of an effort and so we don’t want to leave that euphoric kind of fat burn.

Elizabeth: Yeah that was such a fun episode to record and just really talk through a nutrition strategy. I know that that’s something that is so important as athletes are preparing for an event and this is another one that we just got a lot of great feedback on and people really appreciated kind of some of those tips to start creating their race day plan and begin practicing it so that they were ready for race day.

Andrew: My final episode I’m going to give a shoutout here to is episode 84; 31 Race Day Time Saving Tips. So we had never tried an episode like this before. We actually did a couple of them this year where we just tried to jam pack as many tangible tips as we could. We had a swim, bike, and run episode that were all like this where we just jam packed run training tips, bike training tips, swim training tips. But this one in particular where we just packed in 31 tangible race-day time-saving tips into one show. It was a blast to record and no matter who you are, no matter how experienced you are in the sport, whether you like to race short course, long course, there is going to be some nugget in here that you probably have not heard before. It’s just a really fun one to go back and listen to. So here is one particular tip. This was probably the tip from the show that was the biggest revelation to me personally. Take a listen.

Andrew: #15, going to John Mayfield.

John:  Speaking of free speed--take advantage of the legal draft.  So this is one that may raise some eyebrows.  There’s no drafting in triathlon.

Andrew:  I can draft on race day, John?

John:  Yes, you can!Now you do have to preserve those set distances between riders.  However, when you are completing your pass you do have that allotted time to be in that space and you are allowed to stay in the slipstream.  So this is effectively legal drafting.  Obviously we don’t want to exceed that time limit.  It can vary by your race distance, your race organization.

Andrew:  30 seconds, 45 seconds.  It’s usually something like that.

John:  Right.So obviously you don’t want to exceed that.  We’re not advocating for that.  But the rules do allow you to be in that slipstream for that period of time and especially the more people you’re working through, that’s more time in the slipstream.  That is a huge advantage.  And if you’re somewhat at the back of the pack and you spend that whole bike segment, conceivably if you’re passing one person after another you could spend the majority of your bike segment in someone’s slipstream and that is completely legal.  So that can be a huge timesaver is taking advantage of that legal draft.  You don’t have to get over immediately.  You stay in that slipstream.  We want to be safe and we want to be considerate of the other cyclists.  But yeah, you can ride right up on them and pass while taking advantage of the slipstream that they’re putting off…And just a little tip in there; always let them know you’re coming.  Always let them know “On your left.”

Matt: That really was a great episode. I would have loved to have listened to that one in the first few years of doing triathlon because there are so many logistical things you have to manage in the sport of triathlon and that episode had beautiful logistical nuggets.

Andrew: Logistical nuggets. That’s a fun term.

Matt: And anyone could find a tip or two or ten from that episode that could be helpful. So a few that stood out to me; Elizabeth’s tip on marking where your bike is in T1 so you can find it quickly and then Jeff’s tip about getting out of your bike shoes. Like you leave them on the bike before the dismount line. Jeff had another good one about good one about tangents. I learned that back when I was in high school from my high school running coach and that’s for sure in particular on the run, also on the bike too though.

Andrew: Okay. Going to our last and final one. This is a bonus pick. I asked TriDot staffer B.J. Leeper. We’ve already heard his voice a couple times in some of our picks. But I asked B.J. what his personal favorite podcast episode was of the year and here’s what he had to say.

B.J. Leeper: So one of my favorite episodes from this past year has to definitely be one that’s near and dear to my heart in the world of strength training. It’s the world I’ve lived in for the past 20 years as a physical therapist and working with a lot of athletes with strength and conditioning, but it’s episode 77; Do Triathletes Really Need Strength Training? Strength training is arguably the fourth or the fifth pillar of triathlon. It’s so important. I think as triathletes we are always managing one of the scarcest resources in the world which is our time, but with strength training I think we need to stop asking the question of “can I afford the time to do this?” and really just start saying “I can’t afford to not do this.” And the main reason is because as triathletes we’re always fighting injuries and we always talk about being strong before long so this is an important part of that just with the adding strength training to your routine. It’s my soap box of trying to make your body more resilient even just five to ten minutes of the right, properly placed strength training drills are much better than just 30 minutes of in essence trying to throw paint on a wall and hope it makes a picture. So being consistent with that. Being individualized. Knowing your deficits. Attacking the lowest hanging fruit. I just feel like if we would incorporate this in the world of triathlon much more with our training we would just be A- less injury prone, B- more resilient and C- just start to see a significant improvement in our performance.

Andrew: Thanks to each of you for taking the time to pull two podcast moments from 2021 that you feel were strongly worth remembering as we close out the year. As I said at the top of the show this is the 51st episode of the year and we’ve taken the time to highlight 12 of them today, but there are so many more that are just floating out there in podcast land. To close out our main set today, what is one more episode just very quickly that you would encourage folks to go back and listen to as they prep for the next season? Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: The other one that I would suggest that athletes go back and listen to was #103 which was Metrics That Matter and Those That Don’t. I mean, gosh. There’s so much triathlon data that’s out there and some of it is very meaningful and there’s some of it that is just noise. So knowing what to pay attention to is real key.

Andrew: That is a great point. John Mayfield, what are you picking here?

John: This is somewhat of a soap box, but #87, Revisiting Doing the Right Training Right. So we did this as one of our first episodes. We did it as a revisiting episode in this past year, but it’s that important to go back and listen to that episode again.

Andrew: Jeff Raines, what are you picking?

Jeff: This is super far back. I would actually say it’s a precursor to what we talked to earlier about the hurt locker from Dr. B.J. Leeper. This is episode 40 Increasing Your Grit Factor so that we can tolerate that pain factor a little bit longer. I have listened to that one probably six or seven times.

Andrew: The last one I’m going to say was episode 106; Learning From the Pros: Things to Emulate and Things We Should Not. I had a blast hearing from Matt Bach and pro triathlete Elizabeth James. The pros are a little different from us, your average mid packer and back of the packer, slightly semi-amateur front packer. They’re a little different from us and we discuss why on that episode. Really, really interesting stuff to go back and listen to there. Matt Bach, what are you picking here?

Matt: Episode 99; 21 Time Tested Running Tips. I thought there was just again a lot of nuggets in there. Maybe not logistical nuggets. Some of them I think were, but more nuggets. More nuggets of wisdom.

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

Andrew: Hey let's end the year with some good vibes. A few weeks ago our warmup question was “what was the nicest thing someone has done for you while you were racing a triathlon?” And there were tons of great stories and I can’t think of any better way to wrap up our final show of the year than by recounting some of these amazing and positive stories. There are five of us so just two or three posts each gets us around a baker’s dozen of positive tri vibes to close out the show. So Elizabeth, let’s start with you. What are two or three audience responses that you want to highlight for us?

Elizabeth: There were so many good ones here. Two that I chose though, the first one is from Michelle Brietzman and she said, “For my one and only full distance race I came around the last buoy and someone grabbed my foot and for some reason I got a calf cramp. I was able to make it to a kayak, stick my foot into the volunteer’s face, and told her to push as hard as she could. She did and then off I swam. Fortunately I was able to find her in the Facebook group and thank her for not cringing at my foot.”

Andrew: Amazing.

Elizabeth: So yeah. Huge help there. Got the cramp out. She was able to keep going in the swim. Then the second one, this was an interesting one too. Jim Wachter, he says, “Ironman Santa Rosa 2017. The gear bags in transition the night before the race- in the morning nine bags were shredded by some coyotes. I had no nutrition, water bottles, or socks. The guy next to me handed me an extra water bottle, I rode with no socks, and I ate the tiny Cliff Bars for the entire ride. In the end I ended up PR’ing the race. Never forgot that guy.”

Andrew: What’s wild to me about that one is that it was a full Ironman. I mean, he on the fly, day of had to adjust his nutritional strategy for a full Ironman and was able to finish and PR. So great job there, Jim. Matt Bach, what are your two picks?

Matt: There are a couple of good ones here. Tracy Belcher, “Ironman 70.3 Ohio was so hot on the run that I’m not sure how I made it. I was up against time and knew I had to pee. A kind lady sprayed me with a water hose while I peed down myself as I didn’t want to go to the porta potty. I finished in 8 hours and 32 minutes.” That just– with all the volunteer and the boldness to just say “Nail me! Just hit me!” I thought it was great. Robert Nacario, “Ironman 70.3 Santa Rosa 2019. As I walked through the aid station midway I met a fellow athlete who asked how I was doing. I told him I felt great and was outracing cancer. He asked me about it and it turned out he worked for the pharmaceutical company who manufactured the chemo I was on. What are the chances? We jogged/walked the rest of the way and he gave me enough information on what he called the ‘smart drug’ I was taking to give me the confidence to keep training beyond what was supposed to be a last hurrah. Yes I filed my TUE form prior to racing by the way and yes, I’ve been cancer free for almost a year now.”

Andrew: Yep, incredible.

Matt: So I just loved hearing that story. My brother, I don’t know if I’ve shared this story, but my brother passed away from cancer in 2008. He was 20 years old and he was just a little younger than me. We obviously grew up together and were so close so that was tough for me. So this one kind of hit home. So just congrats, Robert. So glad to hear that you’re cancer free.

Andrew: Yep. Did not know that Matt, so thanks for sharing that information. I liked Robert’s quite a bit as well so I was glad someone claimed that one to share. I purposely, myself, I grabbed a few short ones so that I could share a few really, really quickly. There were just so many great posts here. Dan Wilson said, “Ironman Texas 2019 I got a hug from the amazing Cindy Reeves when I needed it the most. Rough day after bonking at mile 80 of the bike, but I still finished.” Melissa Staum-Pressler said, “A volunteer swam with me in the middle of a two loop Olympic course. I was going to quit. It was a complete swamp water and I was over it. She stayed with me until I was out of the swampy part for the second time and I was able to finish the swim.” Greg Perron said, “In my first Ironman I spent the last ten miles running with someone and in the final miles we stopped to greet his family and they rubbed BioFreeze on his legs and they offered to do the same for me too. It was very kind of them.” Jeff Raines, what are you picking here?

Jeff: Oh, I’m going to start with Cassie Brown. I thought this was hilarious. “The cute high school volunteer took such good care of me at the first aid station of the run so I asked him if he wanted to get married.” My other one Lauren LeBlanc. “Just this weekend at Florida 70.3” she says “the heat got real on the run. I passed by the aid station around mile five, maybe five or six, and was asking for ice. No ice. Wasn’t going to stop to figure it out. Kept running. I hear someone say after I passed ‘we have ice!’ and I wave because I was not turning around. Then about 200 yards from the aid station this young girl comes flying up next to me with a full cup of ice. Talk about going out of your way and saving me.”

Andrew: Oh that’s amazing and yeah Lauren had a great race there in Haines City, Florida. So John Mayfield, close us out today. What are your picks?

John: So going with Kelly Bonner. “My very first Ironman was Ironman Louisville in 2018. Weather was cold with constant rain the entire day.” I was there. I can attest to that. It was a miserable day. “Lots of people DNF’d due to hypothermia. 30 miles into the bike I was shaking uncontrollably and was unable to control my bike so I pulled off into an aid station to try to figure something out. A volunteer ran up to me and told me my lips were blue and I told her I couldn’t stop shaking. She told me she was an RN and immediately jumped into action and started rubbing my arms to get some heat into my body. She took off her own long sleeve shirt and ear cover and put them on me. Another volunteer gave me her leg covers. I immediately felt better. I stood there just thanking them over and over, jumped on my bike and finished my race. I’m 100% sure if it hadn’t been for them I would not have been able to continue. I get emotional every time I think about it.” So, yep. Great story there of the Ironman spirit. Then Erin Hughes. “At a local tri I was struggling bad on the run due to the heat and about a mile from the finish another competitor, a total stranger, saw how bad I was doing. Grabbed my arm and said ‘I’m struggling too. Let’s work through it and finish together.’ Very thankful for that fellow athlete support and one of many reasons I love the sport.”

Andrew: Well that’s it for today folks. I want to thank TriDot’s very own Jeff Raines, John Mayfield, Matt Bach, and Elizabeth James for reliving the best of the best in TriDot podcast moments from 2021. Shoutout to Garmin for partnering with us on today’s episode. Head to garmin.com to see all of the tri tech they have to offer. Enjoying the podcast? Have any triathlon questions or topics you want to hear us talk about in 2022? Head to tridot.com/podcast and click on submit feedback to let us know what you’re thinking. We’ll do it all again soon. Until then, Happy Training!

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

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