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

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the show everybody! It is episode 125 and every 25 episodes we shut it all down and dedicate the show to real questions from real athletes who live in real places and ride real bikes, most of the time, and– You get the point. We’ll pack in as many of your questions as we can in an hour and we have three of our triathlon coaches here with us for this. First up joining me today is Coach John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach who leads TriDot’s athlete services, ambassador, and coaching programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. John, you ready to hear what the people want to know today?

John Mayfield: I want to know what the people want to know.

Andrew: That’s the spirit. Next up is pro triathlete and coach Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach, who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot from a beginner, to top age grouper, to a professional triathlete. She’s a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014. Elizabeth, thanks for joining us.

Elizabeth James: These episodes are some of my favorites where we really just take the time to answer the athlete questions. So I am happy to be here ready to roll.

Andrew: Also joining us is TriDot coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach who has a Masters of Science in exercise physiology and was a D1 collegiate runner.  He has over 45 Ironman event finishes to his credit, and has coached hundreds of athletes to the Ironman finish line. Jeff, how’s it going friend?

Jeff Raines: Doing great. I love doing these podcasts every 25 episodes. Man, they come up quick. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Andrew: I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with our cool down.

Before we get into answering all of your questions, I want to give a quick podcast mention to the upcoming Remote Racing Preseason Race Series. Last year hundreds of triathletes took part in the inaugural remote race hosted by USA Triathlon and we had a blast competing in a real race against real people all while taking part from our own locations. To help triathletes kick off the season and test their fitness before those in person races begin, Remote Racing is hosting a three race series with one happening in February, one in March, and one in April. Athletes can pick one or race in two or all three. The medals you receive look great by themselves or they even fit together if you do the entire three race series. The team at Remote Racing has picked three super unique locations for these races and the very first one, starting on February 24th, is set on the iconic Las Vegas Strip. You can of course do the bike leg outside on your own close to home or you can use your favorite indoor training platform of choice. If you use Rouvy, you can race with the Las Vegas Boulevard lit up in front of you. It’s just a really cool venue. I mean, how many triathletes can say that they’ve time trialed down that stretch of road basking in the glow of all the casino lights. Our podcast episode coming up next week will give you all of the tips you need to know to rock a remote race. So head to remoteracing.com to check out all of the details for the preseason race series and to get registered for the Vegas Remote Triathlon.

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

Andrew: Since we are letting our listeners ask the questions today, I figured why not pull a warmup question from our athletes as well. TriDot Ambassador, Joe Chew, also known as Chewbaca on Zwift suggested this as our warm up question. What is the worst coaching advice you’ve ever heard? Yeah, so not every multi-sport coach can get it right all the time. In our time as triathletes I know we’ve all heard some stuff that just wasn’t quite right. So for you guys in your history of the sport, what is something that you’ve heard that you would classify as potentially the worst coaching advice you’ve ever heard? Jeff Raines, what is this for you?

Jeff: This is a little bit more of a joke and I always take a sideways twist to these questions, Andrew, and I apologize. But this one’s kind of funny. My college coach in track, he would kind of get frustrated with everyone because like right before the race, right before that big mile or whatever you have it’s minutes before the race and athletes are always asking him, “So what do I do again?” or “How do I approach this race?” It’s all nerves, you know. Everyone knows how to do it and what their splits are and all of that and he’s half irritated, but he was also kind of half being funny just to help calm the nerves. But he would say, “Alright, look. This is what you do. I have this perfect race strategy for you. Go out just absolutely as hard and fast as you can from step one. Hold nothing back and then as the race progresses gradually increase your speed.” and then he would just walk away.

Andrew: Because you can’t. You can’t do that and you know that and then you’d be like “Aww.”

Jeff: So I’ll do that to my athletes here and there. You know, you’ve got that bike FTP. Go out as hard as you can and gradually get stronger.

Andrew: Yeah, so I guess your athletes can know if they hear that advice from Coach Raines they’ve poked the bear and asked too many questions at that point. Elizabeth James, what is this answer for you?

Elizabeth: Gosh, okay. So I was trying to think and there are little pieces of advice that I’ve heard here and there that’s like, “Oo, really? I’m not so sure about that.” But I think the worst one that I heard, and this was a coach that was kind of bringing their athletes together for a track session and middle of the summer and they said don’t worry about bringing water to the workout, you can rehydrate later and I’m thinking…

Andrew: Ooo.

Elizabeth: …we’ve got like an hour session here on the track that this coach is leading with intervals in the heat, but don’t bring water. You can rehydrate later. I’m like, “Aww. No, no! Bad idea. Bad idea.” So I think that might be one of the worst.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean talk about setting yourself up to just not even be able to get the best out of yourself deep into that workout if you’re dehydrated. I mean… Geez. Drink your water people. Drink your water.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Andrew: Put some electrolytes in there.

Elizabeth: Hydration is important.

Andrew: Hydration is very important. Coach John Mayfield, what is the worst triathlon advice that you have ever heard?

John: I agree with Elizabeth. There’s so much bad information out there and I think that’s one of the things that we try to do with the podcast, one of the things, is just try to set the record straight and provide some high quality information because there’s just a lot of bad stuff out there. And yeah, it’s not super uncommon whether to be onsite somewhere or browsing social media and just like– There’s a lot of cringe-worthy stuff out there. It’s like, “Yeah, don’t do that. That’s probably not going to be your best bet to follow that.” I had a recollection of talking with an athlete who was interested in coming over and having me coach them and she was talking about how she’d been with this old school coach for a long time. She was talking about “yeah, yeah I know. I know. Training is all about beating up your body and doing every session super hard so that race day feels easy.” And it was just like, “No. That’s not it at all.” I mean there’s certainly a component of training where you’re increasing grit factor and you’re developing those skills for race day to be able to push and all that, but it’s not at all and when she was describing the types of sessions that this coach was having her do it was just like, these are not productive sessions that are producing adaptations that are going to make you a faster triathlete. These are just things that are just going to beat you up, kind of like going and doing summer track sessions with no hydration just so that if you have some water during the race it will feel easy. It was just kind of that mentality of like, “okay I kind of get a little bit where you’re coming from, but that’s not based in prudent training.” I had a great conversation with that athlete. Inevitably she didn’t come over. She was like, “I know this coach.”  I was like, “Okay. Good luck.” But I remember even sending her a message thereafter and just said, “Hey look. I’m not trying to convince you otherwise, but there’s much more to training than just beating up your body. So take care of yourself. Make sure you’re doing prudent stuff. Understand, I’m not trying to coach you, but take care of yourself and make sure the training that you’re doing is prudent and safe and going to actually make you faster.”

Andrew: Hey guys! We want to hear from you on this. We’re going to throw this warmup question out to you, our listeners. Every single Monday when the new podcast episode comes out we throw the warmup question out to you on the I AM TriDot Facebook Group. If you train with TriDot, if you don’t train with TriDot, either way. If you’re a listener of the show plug into our community, the I AM TriDot Facebook Group. This question will be thrown out and can’t wait to hear from you. In all of your time doing multi-sport, what is just something you heard somebody say that was just, agh, just not quite on the nose. Curious to see what you have to say.

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

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Andrew: Alright, so athlete question #1, let’s get into the good stuff here today y’all. Here for episode 125, this one comes from TriDot Ambassador Jeremy Warren. He said, “If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing before your first full distance race what would it be?” Elizabeth, what do you think?

Elizabeth: Easy answer for me here. It would be give your family a hug on the run course. This is something that John does such a great job in the race recon webinars that he does encouraging athletes to do just that and to savor those moments with your family, your friends, or whoever has come to support you there on race day because those are just going to be priceless memories. I really wish that I would have done that during my first full Ironman. I mean my family was there to support me. My parents, my husband, my in-laws, my brother-in-law. I mean, had kind of a big crew there. I mean, I did give them a half smile and a wave as I was going by on the run course, but I was so focused on the event and not losing any extra time. I certainly wasn’t even close to the podium, close to any impressive times in that first one and it absolutely would have been worth the extra seconds, maybe even a minute or so to just slow down, give them a hug, show my appreciation for everybody being there, let them be a little bit more a part of that event on the day.

Andrew: Coach John Mayfield, what is your answer here? If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing before your first full distance race, what would it be?

John: You know, I had a really good first experience. I had a great coach. I had a great training plan. That was back in the day when Coach Boo was coaching me back before his transition into roles within our organization, but yeah. Things went well.

Andrew: That’s TriDot founder Jeff Booher for those who aren’t familiar with who Coach Boo is.

Jeff: The Dot Father.

John: So things went well and so I was kind of thinking, I’ve talked about it before where mine would go back prior to race day and just say, “Chill out.” I’ve talked about how it was heads down. Everything revolved around that for months and had to be in bed at 8:00 and everything was just so regimented and it just– It wasn’t necessary. I thought it was. Yeah, I had a lot on the line. I had this tremendous undertaking and I thought it was this, but yeah. I’d just go back and something I’ve definitely done in races since is definitely chill out. I’ve gotten faster over the years and stressed less and been less regimented, but there’s certainly that balance there. The other thing I thought of specifically from race day was back off the gels. I had a good race and I went to dinner afterwards with my wife and one of my training partners that had raced with us and his wife and I got this great big delicious burger and I bit into it and found out exactly how raw my mouth was. Like, the roof of my mouth was just one massive raw sore from all of the gels I had consumed over the day. As hungry as I was and as much as I wanted to eat this massive burger, it just was excruciatingly painful so I had to just sit there and just stare at this burger hungry and so– Nutrition has improved since as well and I’ve had like a handful of gels since then and that was more than a decade ago.

Andrew: That’s when you head back to the kitchen John and you take that burger back to them and you say, “Do you guys have a blender? Can you make this burger into a smoothie for me so I can drink this?”

John: So their fries, they called them fries, they were these little like baby new potatoes and that’s the only thing I could eat. So that was my meal after my first Ironman.

Andrew: Alright, Coach Jeff Raines, if you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing before your first full distance race what would it be?

Jeff: Mine’s kind of like John’s. You know you get that sore throat and just that horrible feeling in your mouth after a race, but mine wasn’t from taking too many gels. Mine was taking not enough actually and if I could tell myself what to do in my first full all over again, “Eat more. Drink more. Eat like it’s your job.” We say that, but what happened to me was I was hurting on the run and somebody handed me– this was ten years ago or more, but it was when the Base Salt just came out and someone handed me one of those tubes and you’re just supposed to take a few licks off your finger. Well, I shotted the whole entire thing and so my throat and mouth was so raw. I actually felt decent after that, but I would tell myself, “Don’t take products that you’re not used to.” Right? Nothing new on race day, but definitely. It was 100 degrees and it was just a miserable first Ironman experience, but I was addicted, right? But yeah. I would eat more. I would drink more. I would relax. I would chill out just like EJ and John have said and just enjoy it all. Don’t get too caught up on the clock.

John: Don’t take a year’s worth of salt all at once.

Jeff: Exactly. Pretty much. I mean that’s what happened.

Andrew: That sounds like it could be like a triathlete TikTok Challenge just to shoot back an entire vial of Base Salt and try not to make a face. Film yourself doing it and throw it on TikTok. Don’t do that people! I am not on TikTok. I’m saying this and I’m like, “Someone’s going to try this.” Please don’t do that, but it would be funny if you did. Anyway.  A follow-up question from Jeremy Warren that I just had to ask– This is not triathlon related, but it made me legitimately LOL when I read it. He wants to know “Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?” I mean, this episode is to ask the questions the people want to hear, and the people want to hear our answer to this question. Jeff Raines, what are your thoughts on this?

Jeff: Interesting, I love it though. I’m going to say 100 duck-sized horses because I kind of do that on a daily basis anyways. My three kiddos, they count as 100 duck-sized horses because they just come at me. Come at me all day like “Cummon. Bring it on. Come at me!” So I already do that so I’m going to go with that response I guess.

Andrew: When they’re teenagers I’m going to play this back for them and just let them know that you said that about them when they were toddlers. Elizabeth James, what are your thoughts here?

Elizabeth: Well, my first thought is, I mean, what a question! Good grief. I did not anticipate answering something like this today. But I would go the opposite. I’d say one horse-sized duck and it sounds absolutely terrifying, but at least there’s only one. So instead of like 100 things coming at you, I mean you can at least focus on combating the one giant issue I guess. So, the one horse-sized duck.

John: I’m sorry Elizabeth, you’re just– you’re wrong.

Elizabeth: I don’t know. A hundred of them though?

John: Umm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Like surrounding you? All trampling you?

John: You have like a seven foot duck that you’re going to take on? Like, and the duck weighs– I don’t know what a horse weighs, 1000 pounds or something like that? There’s no way.

Elizabeth: But it’s size. It’s not going to weigh as much as the horse.

Andrew: We could debate this all day and that’s just not even a triathlon question. So, moving on to our next question. This comes from TriDot Ambassador Lauren Leblanc. She wants to know, “How does TriDot and Predictive Fitness use your current and past metrics to estimate your planned FTP for future races?” John Mayfield.

John: So this really gets into some of the core technology and really what the core of what TriDot and Predictive Fitness do. It’s utilizing big data analytics and biometrics. So it’s looking at this very large sample size of data, so in our case it’s millions of training files from tens of thousands of athletes, and from there what– I say “we” but it’s not us as people because we can’t, but what the software is able to do is analyze all of that data and find trends and see for example, an athlete of X profile doing Y training we can expect an outcome of Z based on the fact that that athlete has done– or that group of athletes have done this type of training and the outcomes have been that. So when you are able to get that granular and you’re able to quantify the individual, quantify the training that was done, then it actually becomes relatively simple to predict what the outcome will be. So it’s like a lot of other things. It’s almost an algebraic equation. You’re kind of solving for X, but you know what A is, you know what B is, then you’re able to solve for that variable. So that’s largely what it is, is looking at the individual, looking at the training they’re doing, and then what you’re able to do from there is kind of do the math and say “This athlete doing this training is expected to have these types of results.”

Andrew: One of the hardest jobs for me producing these episodes is just choosing which questions we’re going to ask because we get so many good ones. I try to switch around which athletes that we’re responding to and what the topics are, but I’m throwing in a second question from Lauren Leblanc. Lauren, for those who don’t know, is one of our moderators on our Facebook group. She does a great job– spending her own time just kind of responding to athletes and answering questions and helping us moderate that just massively growing I AM TriDot Facebook Group. So thanks to all of that, Lauren gets a second question and here’s what she said. “Why do runs have strides and bikes have spinups and some one minute threshold work, but on our swim workouts the swim has no speed work or threshold work during the warmup?” So basically she’s asking for run workouts and bike workouts there’s normally some sort of intensity in the warmup, but on swim workouts there is no intensity during the warmup. The intensity doesn’t start until we get into the main set. Why is that the case guys?

John: So there’s a component as well with spinups and strides that are neurological and muscle activation. So those are intense of those. What we’re looking to do there is make that body-brain connection. For example, really in both, in the strides and in the spinups it’s getting the brain to communicate what we’re doing. What we’re doing in the session. So one of the ways we do that is by exaggerating the pace at which we do it. So that’s why we do that cadence at a higher number. That’s why the stride is done the way it is and then what you’ll notice afterwards, is for example on the bike, I know for me if I hop on the bike I’m going to rolling somewhere around 80-85. It’s going to be a bit of a challenge for me to hold 90. I’m going to have to be very conscious. I’m going to have to try real hard and pay attention to hold that 90 RPM cadence, but do a couple minutes warmup, I do those spinups, and then all of a sudden holding 90 RPM is kind of my new default. What happened was nothing changed within me. What happened now was my body and my brain are connected and my brain is better able to communicate that to my legs that this is what we’re wanting to do. There’s also some muscle activation in there as well. So by doing– in order to hold that higher cadence I had to recruit more of my physiology. So now that’s all woken up. Now what we want to do is we want to train all of that physiology, not just the portion that was available when I maybe rolled out of bed and hopped on the bike. So it is waking up the body. It’s making that brain-body connection. Why we do that on the bike and run and not on the swim? That’s largely achieved in those drills. So that same intent that we’re looking to do– recruiting the physiology, making that brain-body connection, that is largely achieved in those drills and it does. It reinforces technique. It isolates technique so that we’re able to then perform that session with activated muscles with a good brain-body connection utilizing good form, good technique. Again, you can’t hold that 115 cadence. You can’t do those strides if you have poor form. So it’s really making you emphasize technique which is largely the same thing those drills are going to do. So a whole lot of intent. A whole lot of purpose. A whole lot of bang for your buck on those warmups.

Andrew: Yep, great stuff there guys and great question Lauren. I did not know the answer to that. I had not heard that about how in the pool our drills achieve that brain and body connection whereas on the bike and run the spinups and strides is what does that for us. So nice learning opportunity there for all of us.

Next question comes from Heather Yun. Heather is a Kurt Madden coached athlete. We met Heather in Ironman Arizona and Ironman Waco last year. Heather wants to know– she’s calling this time turners which is a Harry Potter reference, but she’s asking how to make your time spent training also count towards other goals. Elizabeth, I know this is something that is near and dear to your heart. So what is your response here? How do you take the time you spend training and also help it count towards other endeavors?

Elizabeth: Yeah, great question here. I think there’s like a couple different components here. I mean, maximizing our time there’s also a little bit with goal setting and making sure that we’re working toward as many of our goals that we have and really just making the most of each day and each training opportunity. So I think one of the first things that I thought of was the book Atomic Habits and I know I’ve talked about that on the podcast here before and in this book the author, James Clear, discusses a lot about habit stacking. So your brain has already built this strong network of neurons to support your current behaviors and the more and more that you do something then the stronger and more efficient those connections become and all of us have really strong habits and connections that we likely do every day and we don’t even think about any more like brushing your teeth in the morning or at night. Brewing your morning cup of coffee and so you can take advantage of these strong connections and these habits that are already there and established to build new habits upon. So one of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify one of those current behaviors that is almost automatic and then stack your new behavior on top of it and he calls this habit stacking. So like right now, I am recovering from an ankle injury and balance exercises are a big part of my daily focus. I mean that’s something that I’ve worked with the physical therapist on and he has encouraged me, “Hey you know what? Like three to four times a day you need to be doing some balance exercises.” So while I’m brushing my teeth in the morning and before I go to bed I stand on one foot and I work on my balance. So I already have that habit of brushing my teeth in the morning, brushing my teeth before I go to bed and so I’m doing that while standing on my right foot just to increase the number of times that I’m doing the balance exercises. So trying to put this in perspective for our listeners, maybe it’s listening to an episode of the TriDot podcast when you’re on a zone 2 bike ride. You’re getting in that aerobic conditioning while you’re also taking in some great information and education on whatever our latest episode is on. If you’re doing some heat acclimation training going into a race that’s going to be in a warmer environment, maybe you’re doing some stretching or mobility work while you’re in the sauna. So kind of killing two birds with one stone there. I know for me sometimes it’s trying to come up with a way socialize while also train so maybe it’s meeting a friend for a walk on a Sunday afternoon as part of your active recovery or sharing you’re weekly menu planning with a training partner and then taking turns creating grocery lists so you can each save some time. So there’s just a few ideas there, but I also don’t feel like I can just let this question get too carried away with multitasking. There’s certainly a time and a place for being efficient and maximizing the time that you have and making the most of it, but don’t let this be like a detriment to your session either. I mean, if you have threshold intervals on the run you are likely best focused on the workout itself. Don’t try to be multitasking and talk on the phone and figure out what your budget is going to be for the next month as you’re in the middle of your run interval. Enjoy the challenge. Embrace the opportunity to fully focus on getting stronger and faster with that session. You’ve got to be focused on those key sessions so that you get the most out of them.

Andrew: Our next question comes from Brett Reitz. He wants to know what are the items each coach brings on the bike with them for a 140.6? Example of just your nutrition, your hydration, tubes, CO2, a couple patches, multi tool, and what else? So we do have– This gets talked about in some of our full distance, Ironman distance, podcast episodes that we’ve recorded so I don’t want to spend too much time on it, but it is a good question for folks that have a full distance race this year. Just real quickly if everybody can just kind of mention when you head out onto the bike course for a full, what is on your bike? Coach John.

John: Pretty much those things that were mentioned. I try to keep it simple, light, aero, but sufficient. So I start the ride, typically I have three bottles that combine my nutrition, my hydration, my electrolytes. I will carry backup for that because three bottles isn’t enough to get me through the full so I usually need another round of those. So I’ll carry that. I try to carry that on my kit. Then as far as my bike goes, I have enough for two flats; so two tubes, two CO2’s. I carry a multi tool just in case anything slips or anything like that, but that’s about it.

Andrew: Elizabeth James, what about you?

Elizabeth: Very similar to what John said. I mean, minimal items, minimal weight added to the bike. You don’t want to weigh yourself down after all that hard work with training and probably the money that you spend to make your bike as light as possible. You don’t want to ruin all of that by packing four tubes and a whole bunch of CO2 and extra, extra, extra, extra everything. So yeah. I’ve got my nutrition, hydration on there, enough to change a flat, and then I utilize the special needs bag. So anything else that I think I might run into on the course that I would need, I’ve got extra in the special need bag so it’s not weighing me down and if I need it I’ll stop for it. Hopefully I don’t, but that helps as well, but I’ll not put a lot of extra on there.

Andrew: Yeah I was so impressed Elizabeth, when I raced Ironman Waco with just how quickly– with the volunteers there, the way Ironman had personal needs laid out on the bike course. It was very, very, very fast in and out. It did not take very much time at all for me to come to a stop, get my bag from a volunteer, restock my nutrition, and then roll out because that was a concern of mine going into my first full was like, “Oh man. Do I stop? Is it going to take forever?” It was so quick and so exactly what you guys were saying is what I did. I had my nutrition in two bottles; a bottle on my downtube and a bottle between the aero bars. That’s where all my water and nutrition was. Behind the saddle I had a bottle with my flat kit. For me it was just one flat repair kit on the bike and then at personal needs that personal needs bag had a refill of all of that. It had fresh bottles for both my– between the aero bottle and the downtube bottle and it had an extra flat kit should I need it. So that’s all it was for me. Nice, light, and easy. Coach Jeff Raines, what do you do?

Jeff: Everything is the same. Each bottle is simple. It’s the same and I’m just refilling that aero bottle. So I carry three bottles like Andrew; the aero bottle and two others and when the aero bottle is gone I reach behind my butt, grab that bottle, top it back off, keep going, and then replace it all at personal needs for sure. And I like Elizabeth’s approach of that insurance policy; an extra flat tire kit in personal needs. Yeah, you’re going to lose the cost of that, right? At the end of the race you don’t get those back, but if you flat at mile 20 and then you’re in trouble you don’t have another tube at least that insurance policy is waiting for you at personal needs so your mind can be at ease if something shall happen again the second half of the bike.

Andrew: Next question comes from Jim McDermott. Jim asked, “In most of my longer races I have bonked on the run. How can I get more nutrition into me on the bike?” I know Andy Blow from Precision Fuel and Hydration, that’s something I’ve heard him talk about as well is the bike is the easiest place to get calories into your system. Dr. Krista Austin has said the same thing. She has a lot of her clients that she works with who are triathletes really focus on getting calories in on the bike knowing that it’s a little bit harder to get them in on the run. So Jeff Raines, for somebody who is struggling bonking on the run, how can they get more nutrition into themselves on the bike?

Jeff: I should say that it’s not about getting just absolutely as much as you can or significantly more on the bike to prevent a bonk on the run. It’s more about perfecting your individual needs. Where do you fall in those traditional ranges? Are you going to be on the lower end of carbs per hour or the higher end? I said it earlier, you know, keep it simple. I’m not a fan of mixing eight, nine products throughout the day, right? It’s like this goo at 30 minutes and this bar at 45 and then this bottle is this stuff, but this one is going to be another product. It’s okay to use multiple products, but I wouldn’t just confuse the gut, let's say. If we can take eight different products and hone it down to three or four that way our body isn’t just being shocked with different types of carbs. You know, there’s calories per hour, fluid ounces per hour, carbs per hour, salts per hour. So really the answer is don’t just overkill it all. Know your ranges, but then after you know those ranges you’ve got to train the gut. So let’s just say that you want to ingest 90 grams of carbs per hour. Just because you swallow 90 grams of carbs per hour on the bike, in the middle of your Ironman, doesn’t mean that your body is necessarily going to utilize it all perfectly and give it to you on the back end in return, right? You have to train the gut. You have to– I have my athletes if they’re only taking 500 mg of salt, but we think they’re going to need about 1500 or so per hour out there on that hot course on race day, the answer that weekend is not just slam an extra bottle of Gatorade Endurance. It’s not just take two or three or a handful of salt pills to get there. We might only increase 200 mg per week, right? We might do that for four or five weeks. We don’t want to change a whole bunch week to week. Change one little thing, train the gut, if you respond well and have good run off the bikes then you know that worked. Then the next week change one other thing. Because if you just do a bunch of products and have an issue in that workout or even that B or C race, we don’t really know what it was. Was it because I had that bar that I had never trained with? So change one little thing week per week and build on that. We have these little 20 minute run off the bikes or a five hour ride with a 20 minute run off. That 20 minute run off, yeah it’s helping you learn your pacing. You feel like you’ve got Jell-O legs and you feel like you’re going slow, but you’re going fast. So it’s helping you learn how to pace, but more importantly really I would argue that why those are there are to see how you feel. You can watch your heart rate, cardiac drift. If you’re running zone 2, but your heart rate is in zone 4 you’re probably low on nutrition or some sort of need on the bike. So it’s kind of a way to test how well your nutrition was on the bike.

Andrew: Next question is from Tracy McDonald. She said, “For those of us who have never done a half or a full Ironman, what does it cost to do a 70.3 or a 140.6? Entry fees, race fueling, etcetera.” And she said, “Assuming we have the equipment already.” What does it cost to actually register, train for, and be ready to go for a half or full distance Ironman?

Elizabeth: Yeah. Umm, whew.

Andrew: It costs something.

Elizabeth: Yeah it does. I mean, really when I raced Kona in 2018 I actually did go back and add up the expenses for the event and then immediately regretted doing it and adding it all up. It was a lot. Now granted, the World Championships is going to be an expensive event. You’ve got the highest entry fee, you’ve got travel to Hawaii, lodging is more expensive especially around the event, and for me if I was going to make the trip to Hawaii I was going to spend a week there so you’ve got additional cost for more days of a rental car, additional days of lodging. But being very honest and transparent, when I added up all of those things it was over 10 grand for that race experience.

Andrew: Yeah.

Elizabeth: You do have a lot of those things. I mean she talks about– Okay, let’s say you’ve already got the swim, bike, and run equipment. Yes, but then you’re paying for the entry fee, the plane tickets, lodging, car rental, groceries while you’re there, meals out while you’re there, bike transport, the bike maintenance leading into the event, all the sports nutrition, and what I found really added up were some of those smaller things. I mean, those are the bigger expenses, yes, but my grocery bills leading into Kona were ridiculous. I was eating all the time. I mean, you’re just constantly fueling. I think I’ve told this story before, but like I was at the grocery store and I was very consistent in my schedule and so I’d always go at the same time, same day, basically would run into the same cashier and she asked me, she was like, “Oh, how many kids do you have?” I was like, “None.”

Andrew: Zero.

Elizabeth: My cart is like exploding. Yeah.

Andrew: “Me. I am a kid.”

Elizabeth: I was like, “No this is for my husband and I.” She was like “Ohh!” and you could just see that she was like, “Wow you buy a lot of groceries.” But that adds up. Grabbing dinner with friends after a long bike ride instead of going home and cooking dinner. All of the sports nutrition. The gas station stops for water and ice refills during long rides. I was dealing with some tightness so I had a lot more chiropractor appointments, bike repairs, tune ups. I mean you have those big expenses, but then each month there were a number of kind of those smaller things that just kind of sneak up on you. That’s probably, you know, the top of the line how much is this going to cost you, but to put it into perspective, my Kona experience was 10 grand.

Andrew: Yeah and so that– I asked Elizabeth to share that because that is the ceiling, right? That is a destination race. It’s the World Championships. You’re doing a ton of training leading into it. There’s a lot of travel involved. You’re trying to peak for that race very strategically and so the floor on the other side of it is kind of what we all experience when we drive to a local 70.3. So that’s like John Mayfield racing 70.3 Galveston. That’s like me racing 70.3 Waco.

Elizabeth: What I really should have done is I should have added up what my expenses were from Ironman Chattanooga this last year and compared it because that was a very budget friendly race for me. My husband and I drove there. We found a fantastic Airbnb we stayed in; like a guy’s kind of basement rental house and that was like 50 bucks a night and then we cooked all of our own meals. So you can make it budget friendly. Don’t think that you have to have the big price tag for it either. There certainly are some expenses, but there’s a way to make it fit within your budget if it interests you.

Andrew: If you, Elizabeth, were just to mentally ballpark that, what’s the figure you would guestimate that race probably cost you guys?

Elizabeth: Goodness, maybe $1000.

Andrew: Yeah, so $1000 for the travel, the gear, the equipment, getting there, and then obviously the registration for an amateur would be $800 to $900 and so you’re talking for a non-Kona race you can probably do an Ironman for about $2000. $1500 for a 70.3 where the registration isn’t quite as expensive.

Elizabeth: Uh-huh. Yep.

Andrew: But ultimately it just comes down to– I’ve done 70.3’s in other countries and my wife and I were paying for the vacation and paying for the experience. You know, John, Jeff, myself we all raced Escape from Alcatraz last year and that was, even though it was closer to an Olympic distance race it was a modified Olympic distance we were paying for an experience. Or you can find a fairly close 70.3 or a fairly close Ironman and it would be a lot more budget friendly. So it’s just how all in on a traveling experience do you want to go kind of dictates the price tag.

Next question. This is kind of a two-fer. I had two athletes ask us about strength training. So including both questions here they should probably have a pretty similar answer. Pierson Ramirez said, “When a relatively new triathlete wants to add in strength training, what is the best way to do so? Should we add it on top of the existing TriDot bike, run, swim or should we add it in place of some of those sessions? It’s worth noting that the strength sessions I would be doing are not very long or very intense.” Becky from Texas asked it this way. She said, “How do we best incorporate strength training like paired with which workouts since there’s a workout every single day?” John, what do we think here?

John: So the strength sessions that TriDot prescribes are a great start. So you have the option to add those in. There’s two per week. So it’s a manageable load that is going to help you get started without adding too much too soon to where you’re sore, not able to complete those sessions the next day. That’s what we want to do is have a gradual increase where you’re still able to perform and don’t need a week off because you’re incredibly sore because you did too much. Those sessions are largely going to be body weight. They may have some simple equipment like bands, light dumbbells, that sort of thing. They’re very easy to do at home so you don’t necessarily have to have a gym membership where you’re going and lifting big Olympic style weights or need a ton of machines or anything like that and the great thing is they reinforce the functional movements that we are doing. They are focusing on increasing stability and injury prevention. So that is going to be the primary intent for those strength training sessions and really that should be a focus as triathletes when we do our strength training session, is having that first. It’s building that base of physiology where we’re the body is able to support the training and make recoveries and prevent injury. Because again, if we don’t have that we don’t have anything. Once that is done then we can start adding in some of those, more the power type workouts where we’re focusing on those big muscle groups especially hip down; the glutes, the quads, those kinds of things that we’re really using a lot and we can increase the power output through strength training. But all those other things need to be taken care of first. So the functional movement, stability, injury prevention, all those. Yeah, start with those.

Andrew: Elizabeth, I know that just to support the training load that you have as a member of the pro field you do quite a bit of strength training yourself. How do you mix it into your own routine?

Elizabeth: I mean a lot of what John said I would just basically echo. I know that Dr. B.J. Leeper he talks about this too about being a sniper and finding those areas of opportunity to really work on your stability and your movement patterns so that you can be a very efficient athlete with the movements that we do for swim, bike, and run. I mean, right now I am taking on strength sessions that are body weight and very much just working on range of motion and some compound movements. There’s not a lot of weighted exercises right now as I’m kind of coming back from an injury. As I continue to work through that and start adding more and more weight I personally like to do my strength training, like the hardest days where I’m lifting more, on my hardest days of training. So I make those hard days really hard, but then that allows me the easier days to stay easy, promote recovery. I’ll also do my strength session as kind of the last one of the day. So if I’ve got a really hard bike workout I’m not going to do a strength session before that. I’m going to get in that quality bike session and then later on in the day then I’ll go and incorporate the strength training as well. The next day is likely an active recovery day, something a little easier so that I can really allow all those adaptations to occur from both the bike and the strength session the day previous.

Andrew: Yep and just for a reference on what an average triathlete does, what I do personally. I do what John said. I’ve got the strength sessions added in by TriDot and so I have assigned to me two days a week. It takes about 30 minutes to get through the workouts. It’s a nice kind of full body, all around strength stuff between arms, core, kind of works a little bit of everything. So I like fitting those in. They’re pretty easy to fit into the schedule and then on top of that as time permits during my week I try to do some core work, some extra abs, extra lower back stuff, you know ten minutes here, ten minutes there. Ab work goes a long way. So if I find myself a little extra time before or after a bike session or a run session just as I’m kind of cooling down I might hit ten minutes of abs and lower back as well. That’s what I personally do.

Y’all, I’m going to ask one more kind of official question here and then we’re going to slide into what I want to call some quick hitters where we’re just going to do quick answers from one coach to blitz through a couple good questions here at the end and then we’ll be done with our main set today. So this one comes from Heather Hodges. She said, “Last year I trained so hard for two half aqua bikes. They were my first two races of that distance and I felt prepared and strong going into them and by all accounts they went well. However, when I crossed the finish line I was left with no excitement or joy that I had finished. Just okay, this is done and kind of that’s it kind of feelings. How do you deal with or what can you take away from this?” Might it be because there’s no actual finish line at an aqua bike? Aqua bike athletes kind of finish and transition when they get done with the bike. She said “I feel like this should be talked about because many times all you hear from triathletes is I felt so good and so accomplished at the end of my race, but I didn’t feel that way.” Elizabeth, what would you say to Heather here?

Elizabeth: Heather, I’ve been there and I honestly think this is much more common than people actually talk about. I mean yeah, we see all– we plaster it on social media. “I felt so good. I accomplished this. Yay! Wahoo! PR’d my race.” A lot of times people won’t talk about the events where they don’t have that great finish line experience, but I think it’s common. I personally have felt this way and it’s been at some very significant events too. I actually felt this way at the end of my first Ironman event. I got to the finish line and I was expecting to just be in tears or super joyful when I crossed the finish line and it was kind of like, “Okay it’s done.” Like, yay I’m happy. I’m glad I did it, but it did not have that same feeling that I anticipated and I also felt this way when I finished Kona.

Andrew: Hmm. Interesting.

Elizabeth: Now Kona was a very humbling day for me. My day did not go as I anticipated, but kind of same thing. Like, I’ve been dreaming of competing in Kona for years and finally got that Kona qualification. I mean, been counting down the months until I get to be at the big island until race day. I mean it’s a huge event. I remember kind of just being done with it and “Shoot, that’s not the experience that I wanted.” I think it is very important to acknowledge this but then to also search for those opportunities to be appreciative of what you have done and it may sound cliche, but I really think that a gratitude journal is a great way to get some perspective on whatever event it was that you did. You know writing down some positives from the event are important, but I’ve also found that when the event itself didn’t meet my expectations as in the case with Kona, there were so many things to be thankful for during the journey to the finish line. But, yeah, as I journaled about Kona there were not a lot of positive things from the day. There were a lot of things that went wrong. There were a lot of thoughts that were not so happy and that I wanted to revisit, but I thought of all the months leading into that and the people that I met, the opportunity to travel, just having my family there in Hawaii with me and for us to all get together again and hopefully looking beyond just that finish line or beyond the couple hours of the event. There’s so much more that goes into it and if we can focus on the journey and look beyond just those couple hours that we’re on the course I think that people will be able to find there’s a lot more to be thankful about and we can focus on that.

Andrew: One of my training buddies here in the Dallas Fort Worth area, TriDot athlete Paul Wolfe, he told me before I did Ironman Waco. He said, “It’s going to be a lot like your wedding day.” People tell you about your wedding day. Like you have these months and months and months leading up to your wedding day and months and months and months leading up to that Ironman or that big A race you’ve been dreaming about. There’s so much buildup and anticipation that you get to the day and like everyone tells you when you go into your wedding day it’s going to go by so quickly. It’s going to be over before you know it and at the end of the day, one week later it’s just going to be a blur. I had people tell me about my wedding day like, “Hey, just try to leave the day with a couple concrete memories that you can hold onto for the rest of your life because most of the day is going to be a blur.” And it’s true. I have some great concrete memories from that day and most of the day was a blur. The same thing is true about Ironman Waco. My buddy Paul was exactly right. As long of a race as it is and for Heather, she’s talking about doing a half aqua bike. That’s also a long race. You know, you end the day– So I try to be present on the race course. I try to walk away with good, bad, or mundane just a couple concrete memories of things that happened out there that I can hold onto for the rest of my life and just kind of recognize most of the day is going to be a blur and that finish line experience, that might be one of the memories that you walk away with or it might be one of the things that just gets lost in the blur. I think it’s going to be different for every race. Yeah, I think it’s a good thing for triathletes to talk about that not everything is a picture-perfect Instagram moment like we think it’s going to be. But there’s still a lot of moments from race day you can be grateful for and Elizabeth, great thought there with a gratitude journal.

Okay, y’all. I’ve got four or five, I’m calling these quick hitting questions. I want like the 20-30 second response from each of you. I’m going to say the question, I’m going to assign it to a coach and I just want in 20-30 seconds what can you say about these questions. So these are our quick hitters here at the end of our athlete question episode.

First one comes from Curt Yanish. Curt said, “How do I improve my bike handling skills?” Jeff Raines.

Jeff: Practice, practice, practice. You can start off by sitting up, tap the head, tap the shoulder, tap the knee, switch arms. Then try to do that in aero. You can set up a stool if you want to practice grabbing bottles at an aid station. Set those up, ride by. It’s going to be your right side of the road, so your right hand. Ride in safe groups. Get in pace groups. Clip ins, practice indoors on a trainer first, maybe outdoors on a track or turf or on the grass. Balancing is easier while you’re pedaling. So if you’re going to tap the knee or grab a bottle, keep pedaling. When you coast and don’t pedal it actually throws off your balance a little more. Most people tend to have those wrecks or issues shifting weight from the aero bars to the handlebars so don’t lean too much to one side.

Andrew: Next question, Hillary Mauch. “How to become a triathlon coach. How to make the decision of becoming a coach. What is the typical time frame and how should one start off?” John Mayfield.

John: So we actually have a coaching podcast coming up. We hit on this more extensively, but I say two critical factors you absolutely have to have is you have to be passionate about working with people. You have to enjoy building relationships and being a part of people’s triathlon journey and then you have to have knowledge on triathlon principles. You have to understand the sport, understand the training so that you can provide good feedback. So usually that takes about two to three years to develop that experience, the education, all that. I’m a big fan of mentorships. So working with a coach and working with a coach with that thought that this is a mentorship. I’m learning for you as I’m doing my own training, as I’m being coached. I’m also learning what it’s like to be a coach.

Andrew: Next one comes from Shane Smith. He says, “Everyone always says days off are important, but none are ever scheduled in my plan on TriDot. Work life often gets in the way and I miss a day here and there anyway. Is there a reason TriDot doesn’t schedule days off? Is it just up to us to decide what days to take off?” John, let’s go back to you for this one.

John: Yeah, so every day is a day off as far as one goes. Typically you’re not going to have swim, bike, and run sessions scheduled in a particular day so you’re off from something. Now that said, when training is properly balanced you don’t need a rest day. That’s what we see a lot is which day is my rest day. But if you need one out of seven days to recover from those past six days then you’ve done too much in those six days. Your training isn’t balanced. You’re doing too much that’s forcing you to take that day off. You’re losing that day that could be productive training. Then yes, absolutely, of course there are going to be those days where you simply cannot get in the session. If it’s prudent, if it’s possible then move the session to another day and make it up, but sometimes the best thing is just to move on and I say it almost every podcast, this is where consistency trumps perfection. So when you’re training consistently it’s no big deal to miss a session here or there when you have to.

Andrew: Tracy Belcher, “If you can only do half of the daily workout is it good to do the half or is it justified to just accept it and miss that particular workout?” Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: I’d say do what you can. I find that it’s important not just from the physical benefits, but also to kind of keep in a habit of training. You know, that said, do it within reason. If it’s going to take you 20 minutes to drive to the gym and you’re only going to get in a 20 minute swim it might make sense to do the dry land swim bands instead, but I’d say overall do what you can. Allow for a warmup. Prioritize the main set or as in the swim example I mentioned maybe just focus on drills for the day. You know, can’t get the full run in, warm up, do some drills. Can’t get in a full hour on the bike, maybe tackle those threshold intervals and the main set.

Andrew: Kathryn Freytag, “I do a lot of walking, walking with the dog, walking the golf course, walking the beach, how does zone 1 or walking or cross training count towards your training?” Jeff Raines.

Jeff: If you’re going to use something like cross training or walking the dog and you want to use it toward your training because you’ve got to do that anyways, time it. You know, use that walking the dog as a little bit of a warmup before the warmup. It’s a primer. Or, you know, you already got your workout in for the day you still have to walk the dog in the afternoon and you got your heart rate up a little bit, you stretched out a little bit, maybe you’re going to come home from that and do a good foam rolling session or do some planks or core work like Coach Joanna said on the swim episode. So there’s little ways that you can use that zone 1 primer to get home or kind of tag onto something else. But maybe you use those walks to test new shoes or listen to a TriDot podcast, right? So there are ways to have your cake and eat it too or kill two birds with one stone.

Andrew: Next question, Curt Yanish, “Hydration between 10 pm and 4 am of race morning,” So I think Curt’s getting at kind of right before you go to bed and right when you first wake up, “how should we be hydrating for our races?” Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Well, ideally I’d say none. You’ll be asleep.

Andrew: Umm, true.

Elizabeth: I mean 10 pm to 4 am, I’d say your best bet is not worrying about hydration. It’s worrying about getting the rest that you need. Now that said, maybe have a bottle of water near the bed. If you wake up in the middle of the night, have a sip or two, hydrate. But you don’t need to overdo it. You don’t need to set an alarm to wake up and drink some water. Hydrate well the whole week going into the race. Hydrate really well the day before and I think here’s another great opportunity to just kind of plug our friends at Precision Fuel and Hydration. I mean you can book a free consultation call with them. So if you’ve got additional questions about your race week hydration or your hydration plan for the event itself, go ahead and give them a call. Chat with them. Get that dialed in.

Andrew: Yeah our love for them is real and true and genuine. This was fun. We’re going to do this again next time just kind of quick hitters and I’m going to bring like a little– you know the boardgame Taboo, it’s got the little buzzer and at the 30 second mark I’m going to buzz you guys and however much content you get out in 30 seconds great and whenever you’re buzzed you’re done because this was good.

Elizabeth: I kind of like this. Yeah that’d be fun.

Andrew: The last one is for me. TriDot coach Tony Hampton asked the question, “We want to know when Andrew Harley will do his second Ironman.” Tony listen, the first one was fun. It was a blast. I enjoyed it. I will not say I will never do another one. The potential is out there. I’m definitely open to the idea. I’m not tempted yet to do my second Ironman. I know some people they get done, they get a week or two removed and all of a sudden they get the itch again. I am not itching for Ironman #2. I will probably give it some years before I consider it. When I do it it will be because I have some friends doing the same race and it’s got to be like a cool destination. I did my first one locally in Waco. If I do a second Ironman I’ve already decided it will be a destination race, somewhere that I travel to and enjoy the day racing alongside some friends, but nothing on the calendar thus far. Thanks Tony for asking.

Elizabeth: You know, I think this is progress though. Because we went from “I’m never doing one no!” to now “I’m considering it.” So I’m just going to put this out there Andrew. How about we all as a staff, all the coaches, let’s go do Challenge Roth together. Would you jump in on that?

Andrew: I would have to have the discussion, yes. I would be open to talking about that.

Elizabeth: Okay, so–

Andrew: But not this year and maybe not next year. I need a break to go short. Truthfully, my next goal, I want to get where I go sub 5 on a 70.3 first and I want to really focus on that this season, next season and once I’ve gotten that under my belt then I’m open to a staff trip to Roth, Germany.

Elizabeth: Alright, we’ll put you down for 2024.

Andrew: Sounds good.

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

Andrew: Fantastic main set today running through a ton of great athlete questions. I’m going to try to be brief on the cool down today. We spent a lot of time on the main set, but I just wanted to share a really fun story that I came across where the sport of triathlon was in the news in a really random way. The world’s tallest mountain was climbed for the first time. Now you hear that and you think of Mount Everest. The world’s tallest mountain is not Mount Everest. That is the highest mountain. The world’s tallest mountain is actually Mauna Kea, a volcano in Hawaii. So this was a three day event where two guys used a submarine, a kayak, bicycles, and just plain old hiking and climbing to climb the mountain. So basically what they did was over the course of three days they started in a submarine on the ocean floor and rose in that submarine to the surface of the ocean. They then got in a kayak and kayaked 27 miles to the shore. Then they biked 37 miles from the shoreline to the base of the peak where they hiked and climbed the rest of the way to the top. I bring this up as a triathlon news story because one of the guys afterwards said, “It wasn’t easy. This was like a very difficult triathlon. Yes it was over three days, but it was physically exhausting.” So as our cooldown today I wanted to share that news story. It was really, really cool. If anybody wants to read it just google anything about people setting a Guinness Book of World Records for climbing the highest mountain and it’s going to come up. As our cooldown I just wanted to hear from you guys. What are your first thoughts on this story, specifically this endeavor being referred to as a very difficult triathlon? John Mayfield, what are your thoughts.

John: I certainly don’t disagree, but I would say it’s more of a quad event if you count– I’m sure there was…

Andrew: If you count the submarine.

John: …a certain amount of– You know, I can’t hop in a submarine on the floor of the ocean and ride it to the top. So you know, there’s something involved there and then clearly the kayaking, cycling, and hiking is very physically demanding. So yeah, it’s probably not a triathlon, more of a quad event.

Andrew: Alright. Elizabeth James what do you think as you hear about this story?

Elizabeth: I mean definitely physically demanding and you’ve got the stuff in the water and then the bike and the hike so it would make me think of a lot of like those extreme triathlons. So you know, I know John and I were both at Alaskaman as we had athletes doing that and they had to bike and then basically hike up a mountain. I mean, they weren’t doing a whole lot of running on that mountainside either. So it kind of makes me think of one of those extreme tri’s.

Andrew: Yep. Sure, sure, sure. Yep. When I first saw this at first I was obviously interested in the article just by the headline so I clicked on it and read it and at first I was like, “Oh, that doesn’t count. They started on the ocean floor in a submarine. They just took a submarine ride to the surface of the water.” But then I started reading about the 27 mile kayak leg of the journey and then they actually rode bikes not just 37 miles, but 37 miles uphill for literally all of that was uphill riding up the side of the mountain before hiking the rest of the way. Then I was like, “Okay. Maybe it’s almost a compliment to compare triathlon to what they did.” Maybe it’s a compliment that as they were doing this the guy was like, “You know what? This is kind of like a triathlon.” Coach Jeff Raines, what are your thoughts on this news story?

Jeff: I was just thinking what’s more claustrophobic, a submarine or getting into your wetsuit? Would you rather swim 2.4 miles or– No really I think it’s hard core. I think it’s awesome. I’m thinking, would I rather do that or Everest? At least in Hawaii the sights are probably better and you can do it in a tank top maybe, but I think that’s very unique and different. I’m intrigued.

Andrew: That’s it for today folks. I want to thank TriDot’s very own Jeff Raines, John Mayfield, and Elizabeth James for answering some audience swim, bike, and run questions with us today. Shoutout to Precision Fuel and Hydration for partnering with us on today’s episode. Head to precisionfuelandhydration.com and learn about your own caloric and hydration needs and use the code TRIDOT10 for 10% off your order. Enjoying the podcast? Have any triathlon questions or topics you want to hear us talk about maybe on episode 150 when we do this again? 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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