We're back for another episode where our triathlon coaches answer YOUR questions! Coaches Brandy Ramirez, Stephen Horan and Sion McIntosh jump into the hot seat on this round-robin, rapid-fire episode! Learn tips for staying motivated during the winter months, maximizing your TriDot schedule balancing all the disciples (including strength), and how to read your swim workout wile in the pool. Listen in as the coaches teach us about salt intake and endurance nutrition and how to effectively add and train for a swim/run race. They also discuss what to look for in a coach and the benefits of TriDot coaching. This episode has a tip for everyone!
TriDot Podcast Episode 325
Your Questions Answered: Off-Season Motivation, Nutrition Fads, Short Course Racing, Coaching Benefits, and More!
Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. Today is episode 325 of the show. Every 25 episodes, we dedicate our full time to an episode asking audience questions. I love these episodes. First off, they're way easier for me. You guys write the questions, I just ask them. And secondly, we get to cover a solid variety of topics in a short amount of time with a roundtable of coaches. I love this four coach panel we have here today on the screen for our YouTube audience. The coaches I have today are coach Brandy Ramirez. She's the TriDot Pool School Director. I have coach Stephen Horan, the founder and head coach of Iron Mind Endurance, and coach Sion McIntosh from Precision Coaching based in the UK. They are revving and rearing and ready to go to answer your questions. I don't say this often enough, but if you're watching the show and you're enjoying the show, please by all means leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you're watching us on YouTube, like, and subscribe all that jazz. All of those actions just help our show with the algorithms and help us find new listeners. Thank you in advance. We love you guys. I'm Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people and captain of the middle of the pack. As always, we treat the show like a good workout. We'll start with our warm up question, settle into our main set conversation, we'll ask our coaches your questions and then we'll wind things down with a short little cool down. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.
Announcer: This is the TriDot podcast, the triathlon show that brings you world class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warmup.
Andrew Harley: Okay, for our warm up question today, I know all of the coaches on this call and all of our listeners. We've done a lot of races in our time as triathletes. And what I want to know today, across the swim, the bike and the run, individual splits you've gathered across your career. What single split are you the most proud of? Coach Stephen, you've done a lot of racing. I'll throw this to you first.
Stephen Horan: Yeah. So first off, excited to be here. Hopefully everyone's getting ready for the holidays. So it actually took me a little bit to think about like my best individual, like split. I mean, you know, you kind of. We're always excited to be able to get through, but my best individual split that I'm most excited about was in 2014. Yes, a little dated, but it was my fastest bike split. Of all times on IRONMAN Chattanooga. Now, if anyone's done Chattanooga in history, it was 116 miles at the time originally. And then they've kind of changed it now. But that was my fastest bike split and then I had my fastest overall IRONMAN time at that, at that point also.
Andrew Harley: So what, what was your bike split, Stephen? Do you remember?
Stephen Horan: So I was 5:30.
Andrew Harley: Okay. Yeah. 116 miles, people, and 5:30. That's. That's great. Coach Brandy, same question over to you.
Brandy Ramirez: Yeah, so mine has a lot to do with emotion and mine would be Eagle Man from 2020. That's my return back from my cancer battle. That was my first time ever training with TriDot. So it was a lot of things going into it, you know, sitting at the water's edge. It was a whole new way of training compared to my old IRONMAN way of training. So I did have doubts going through my head, like, how is this day going to be? How am I going to turn out? Had the fastest bike split I've ever had while still not even really trying to push, not knowing where my body was, not knowing how it was going to do. And so I walked away with a 313. Just, I was on a road bike, just kind of sit in the pocket, don't do anything crazy. But I felt fantastic. When I came off, my legs were fresh, I did my run. So it was all of it. Just first time training with TriDot, first time racing back. So that was my favorite.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, that, that makes it just triple meaningful. Right. Just to be back at the races, to, to, you know, be coming off that cancer battle, to be with, tried out for the first time and to go enjoy the day. That's great to hear, Brandy. I love that answer here. Coach Sion, what individual split are you the most proud of?
Sion McIntosh: Yeah, I think there's a theme here. This is another bike related split. So I'll go a bit shorter on distance. My proudest one was probably I went 52 and change for a Olympic distance. 52 minutes and change for a Olympic distance, which is about 40k. It was 25 miles, so just over the 40k mark here in the UK. That was a while ago now as well. 2019, I want to say that was. That was probably. I'd kind of always wanted to break the hour and then went way past it. So it was quite a nice one. I may have to revisit some short course racing after this.
Andrew Harley: I. I love it. Well, we'll have to bring you on the podcast to talk about your training for short course. I think sometimes we get so caught up in talking about IRONMAN and talking about half IRONMAN and talking about these, these big long races. Just, I mean there's a little bit more to them, right? And so sometimes I get, I get pokes from our short course athletes on Facebook or the Trident community hub of like, hey, you haven't done an episode on short course in a while and say, okay, I see you, I see you. Let's, let's do it. So yeah, if you dip your toe back into that world, I myself am hoping to do that in 2026, do a couple short course events. We'll have to bring you on Sion to talk about it. But my answer here, just to keep this brief. I think I've shared this story in the podcast before, but Clash Daytona a few years ago, I just, it was, it was just a year that everything seemed to click and I had a great weight race, we had good weather and, and my run split in particular. I'll be the first one to deviate from the bike splits over to the run splits. I ran a 138 half marathon off the bike, which to date is my PR for a half marathon. I, I don't run a half marathon standalone event very often, but it was so nice. It was the first time in a triathlon event where I, I just, I came off the bike and I felt so strong and I was able to really felt like I pushed the pace the entire time, start to finish. Right. Oftentimes you push the pace for the first three fours and you start to fade and you hold on for dear life to the end. I just crushed it. I just felt strong. I felt good. Every time I looked down on my watch, I was 10 seconds faster than the pace I was hoping to go at that point in the race. And yeah, came across the finish line with a half marathon PR in a 70.3. I went back I think two years later and did a relay at Clash Daytona where I was the runner. And so I, I, I had lost some fitness. You know, we, we, we had just had our, our, our first child and I wasn't training as much as normal and I think I ran like a 1:48. So I was like almost 10 full minutes slower at a standalone like a couple years later. So it's, it's funny how your fitness can ebb and flow, but on that one particular day to walk away with a 1:38 half marathon in the context of a half IRONMAN. I was really pleased with that. So that's my answer here. We're going to throw this question out to our audience like we always do. If you're watching us on YouTube, comment below in the comment section. If you're on Spotify, comment below in the comment section. Otherwise, find us on social media and answer this question. What individual split are you the most proud of? Can't wait to see how you brag on yourself. Can't wait to see your stories.
Announcer: Let's go.
Andrew Harley: On to our main set where we have 10, 10 questions that the, the, the four of us are going to tackle. When I say the four of us, really the three of you, I'm just lobbing up there and hearing what you have to say. And I'll direct each question at a coach and that coach can crush it, give us their answer. And other coaches please jump in where you have additional value to add. Again, I love these roundtable discussions. If you're watching us on YouTube or Spotify, anytime, we have four of us on the show and you can just see like on the screen in front of us right now, there's, there's four of us in a little roundtable. Like, I don't know, it just feels right. It just feels right. It looks right. And we get so much value out of it having so many coaches answering our questions. So let's, let's get into them. Question number one from our audience. This comes from athlete Josh Vernon. Josh is actually the host of a podcast himself called Not Another Triathlon Show. So shout out to Josh and his podcast. Go give him a listen. One of these days, Josh wants to know how important is it to keep sprint and Olympic races on our calendar while we're training for longer distance events. Love this question. I started with it first for that reason. Coach Stephen, I know you do a lot of long distance racing yourself as a coach. How do you feel about this?
Stephen Horan: Yeah, so I'm going to start right. Right off the bat as it depends. Right. I mean, I think sure, you know.
Andrew Harley: We sure always does.
Stephen Horan: Is that important. But you know, but seriously, I mean, the first thing that I talk to my athletes about is like, where are you personally? Right. What is your priority race? And I think that's really important to understand. My assumption in this question is that the longer distances, the a race that the individual is trying to train for and you have to also understand, again, where are you like in is somebody that already has experience, that knows how to do transitions, that's done triathlons the requirement or really the importance of having those on air are probably less. Right. I mean, there are always good opportunities to be able to go and practice something. And again, having a purpose, if somebody is going to go ahead and have them because you want to go do them with a friend, may create that purpose. But you also need to be very cognizant of the importance of your A race. Because one of the things, if you're going to put that race on your calendar, don't put it as another A race because it's going to taper you and it's going to prepare differently and it's going to take away from the build right. Your development cycle to really gain more speed overall for your priority race. And so I think it's really important to really understand what do you want that purpose. Purpose to be. And then what are you trying to prioritize. Again, if you don't have the experience going and doing a sprint. Yes, I would highly recommend it. Going and doing Olympic. Highly recommend it. Because you start being able to practice different things from transitions to nutrition to, hey, what gear do I actually want to go do? And it just gives you that opportunity. I mean, sometimes I've given athletes that have less experience or haven't raced in a while, I'll go ahead and say, hey, let's go ahead and do a 70.3 as you're ramping or, you know, an Olympic or, you know, even that sprint to be able to gain that additional experience. So again, it always depends really. You got to look at it as an athlete. But, you know, you really want to make sure you're focusing towards your priority race and not taking away from that overall training. And because that's the other aspect is like, yes, you go put that race on there. If you're going to have to recover for two weeks because you've done something you, you know, really, you're taken away from that priority training.
Andrew Harley: Yeah. Love this answer, Stephen. Very well covered. I mean, for me personally, I like having one or two 70 point threes on the calendar per year and those are usually my A races. I, you know, I don't, I don't do the full distance one as often as a lot of people do and as much as I know Josh does. But I like throwing a couple local short course sprint Olympics on the calendar. One just for variety, right. To keep the sport fun, keep the sport fresh. Give me a few races on the calendar that are on there without the pressure of the A race. Right. It's just gonna be a Fun Saturday morning, driving down there, wherever it is, knocking the thing out, seeing, seeing somebody's there. So I like it for the variety and I especially like one a month or two, probably closer to two months before a big A race because like you said it, it gives me a chance to, even as an experienced triathlete, freshen up those race day skills, you know, remind my body what it's like to go through the motions of a race morning. Remind my, my ADD brain, you know, what I need to be thinking through as I'm setting up my transition area to, to go through the mounting and dismounting, to go through the transitions, like, especially if I haven't raced in a while and I have an A race coming up, I do like that opportunity to kind of freshen up, you know, waking up the re. Reawaken this, the triathlon skills, so to speak. So I, I like having a few short course on the calendar every year just again for the variety and for that reason. But yeah, Stephen, love your answer on just, you know, thinking through, having it, having a purpose to those races. And for me they normally are C races just like you said. So it just kind of replaces a training day, so to speak, as opposed to, you know, I don't taper for them or, or, or anything like that. So are we good to move on the question two or. Sion, Brain, anything that, anything to add in Nods yes, nods no. Okay, all good, Stephen, Crush it. Question 2. I'm going to throw this one to Brandy first. This one comes from Kim and she said how do you handle or stay motivated with training at this time of year when you don't have an A race on the calendar? And she did expound a little bit more in her com in her post on her particular situation. But, but it, it basically like she said, boils down to how do you stay motivated to, to keep the training sharp, keep the training consistent when you're in the off season or when you're in the holiday season. Coach Brandy, what do you think?
Brandy Ramirez: Yes, this is a great question, Kim. A lot of people have this about this time of the year. You know, like I want to spend time with my family, I'm traveling. How do I stay involved? A great way to stay motivated is to go through your year of training. TriDot is amazing because of our data, right. And we do assessments every four weeks. And so a great way to motivate yourself is go back and look at where you were a year ago. Go back and look at where you were six months ago. You know, how fast have you become? How strong have you become? What are your gains? And kind of focus on those gains and use those. Through this holiday season, one of the things we lose the quickest is our run. And so a lot of people just kind of want to back off of things. Well, you're going to lose that endurance in that run. So stick with your runs split. Especially, like, if there's one thing that I'm going to have my athletes do, you're going to be running during the off season, if you want to call it that. So definitely it's a good way to go through it. Look at your gains and focus on what you did. And then you have to ask yourself, am I willing to lose those gains by taking two, three weeks off? And what is the consequence of me taking those two or three weeks off? That's usually a big, huge one. For me. My run is the hardest of the three disciplines. And so for me, it's definitely the run. When I'm hitting like 8 minute miles, does that mean I want to take a week off and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to be at nine something? No, I want to stick with it. I want to get faster, I want to get stronger. And so even if it's just focusing on one part of your training, specifically the part that you've gotten the strongest at, or the part that needs the most improvement, strength training is a great cross training during your off season to build power, to make sure that you are getting stronger and faster, protecting your connective tissues, all of that. So those are the two things I would really tell you to go back and review.
Stephen Horan: Yeah, I would. I, I want to, I mean, and I agree, Brandy, you're 100% correct, right? But I, I mean, there's, there's an opportunity this time of the year. And I mean, I have an example. I'm like, I'm doing a 5k tomorrow with a Santa suit on, right? Go have it.
Andrew Harley: Go have, Go get it.
Stephen Horan: Right? You know, I mean, especially in this time of the year, you know, it is hard. You know, you got these other things. And by the way, I do agree running is like very easy. If you're traveling, you're not having to be able to, you know, having to worry about it. But go have fun. Go do something a little bit different, you know, maybe join a different virtual group ride or, you know, even try something slightly different in your, in your riding. Because going down in the pain cave when it's cold and it's, you know, Dark all the time. It's just, it is hard. So. But you know, go have some fun.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, love those answers guys. I, yeah, I just, I think Brandy nailed my quarter motivation in the off season. Like, just, just the, the notion of like, oh, like I work so hard all year for this new fitness and I don't want to lose it. And, and maybe it's not the most positive motivation, but it's, it's still real motivation. Right. And so it's, what can I do through the off season to hold on to that? You know, you can also, you know, Kim mentions not having an A race on the calendar. You're going to put an A race on the calendar again, right? The, the, the new year is just around the corner and, and, and so just, just you know, keep that hypothetical future a race in mind and yeah, stay at it. Do what you can to, to mix up the training, give yourself some, some short term goals and yeah, keep it fun. Love it. Guys. Question three comes from Jen Magnuson. She says endurance nutrition often feels like it's driven by science with a heavy dose of fad. How do you best discern what is science and what is the next fad in endurance nutrition? We've all been in this for a while and, and you see things come and go. So this is a fantastic question. Sion, what would you say to J.Y. here?
Sion McIntosh: Gosh, I think you're opening up a, a can of worms with this one. Much, much like the, the coaching industry. There's, there's a lot of noise out there, right. And there's a lot of people who perhaps think that they've discovered the new best thing, you know, Zone two training, for example. At the moment it's this amazing new thing. We've done it for a hundred years, but hey, it's magical. It's wonderful at the moment. And it's similar with nutrition. You know, carbohydrates, for example. There's been a real big craze the last few years on pushing carbohydrate intake and you know, everybody are kind of going more is better but there's no research yet to show. Well, what, what are the effects, the long term effects on our body, for example? We know that, yes, okay, in a performance basis it might help us short term for a few years if we can digest more carbohydrates. But in the long term we don't actually know what that does to our bodies yet. So what I would say is I would leave anything nutrition related to the experts and I don't necessarily mean a dietitian. I mean food. Find the guys out there who have really done this for a long time, you know, your lecturers, your, your PhD researchers, find material that is cited and is backed there. There are some great companies out there. You know, we use a company here in the UK, I'll, I'll give them a good shout. They're called Total endurance nutrition Salmon, Dr. Salmon and Jules Strauss. They, they do our ESCI modules for us here at TriDot on nutrition and they're a wealth of knowledge. They're who I go to if I have questions and I'm not too sure on something outsourcing and go to people like that who really know what they're talking about. I would just take everything you see on social media with a pinch of salt and if you really have some questions around it, ask your coach, if you work with a coach and if you don't reach out to somebody who knows the answers, that would, that would be my answer on that one, I think.
Stephen Horan: Yeah, I would, I would add maybe just a little more because I agree there's so many things and, and the reason it's important to go to somebody that really is a professional is that, you know, nutrition is a study of one, right? I mean you can't just think about like this works for this person. So it's going to work for me. And you know what I recommend. And again, you know, if the athlete wants to test something, test something, you know, during this time of the season when they don't have a race on the cow hunter, test it out, try to start looking at it. But really using evidence based practices, right, where they're tracking like what the overall impact ends up being of that nutrition, whether it's, you know, you brought up carbs, you know, hey, yeah, can I go do this? Am I having gut issues when I start going above 90 grams of carbs an hour? You know me, everybody is going to be different. And so yes, it's interesting to be able to go and see these different fads and what works for others. But you're going to have to test yourself, right? And going to a professional really can help do that. But really just realizing that what works for one is not going to work for everyone. So I think that's an important part also.
Brandy Ramirez: I would agree with you, Stephen, definitely nutrition is going to only be good for you if you know what's good for you. You have to be willing as an athlete to also speak up. So if you have a nutritionist or you have a coach and they're telling you, hey, you need to take this much carbs, you need to take this much protein if you're feeling any certain way, if you're tired, if you're bloated, if you have IBS, whatever it is, you have to be brave enough to communicate that with your nutritionist and with your coach. Not just take, okay, they told me to do this or I'm going to keep doing it, but I don't feel good. So, so definitely test for yourself, speak up, advocate for yourself and make sure you're being very clear and communicating what's going on with you.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, love that Brandy. Yeah. Pay attention to the cues your body's giving you on how you feel when you are testing new products, testing new fueling strategies, testing new day to day diet fads. And I think we all know these days the most common sources of information getting out there is often social media and People's blogs and YouTubers and you know, we're all seeing different nutrition fads, you know, being hawked and talked about in products and oh, try this, try that. And it's just like anything on social media, right? You have to look at, okay, who is the person saying this? What do they actually know? Are they somebody who is qualified in their field or is it just a, an influencer chasing, you know, chasing likes chasing attention. And you know, even if you start getting a couple YouTubers, influencers, you know, athletes on social media starting to say, oh, try this, try this, try this. Okay, maybe there's merit to it, but, but very much like, like Sion said, let's go find an actual source that knows they're talking about and see if they're saying it and see what they're saying about it. So definitely look at when something comes across your feed. Who is the person saying this? And let's, let's, if this is an interesting idea, let's verify it in a few, a few more academic ways than just this person I'm seeing on social media. So very well covered, guys. Question number four. This comes from Raymond Ramirez. Raymond wants to spend some money, you guys. He wants to spend some money. Let's, let's see if we can help him do that or not. He says, how do you convince your spouse that buying a new bike will be worth the thousands of dollars? And as I'm recording this, my wife is sitting behind me in the home office. So I'm going to be careful with what I say here. Coach Stephen, over to you first, man.
Stephen Horan: I mean that's, it's always fun, right? It brings me both first to an example of my daughter when she wanted to get a puppy. And what she ended up doing is like, she actually put a whole business plan together around a puppy, right? And, you know, it's you. Almost again, just jokingly, you have to kind of explain the why, right? I mean, making sure that your spouse, your significant other really understands the why, right? I mean, it is. It is an expensive. It's kind of like, hey, you know, I got to go get a new car. Well, I mean, is it. You know, you're running 200,000 miles, you're doing all this maintenance on the car, but really explaining the benefits and the value behind it. I mean, one of the things I ended up doing with my latest new bike, which I got this year, was.
Andrew Harley: Kind of what you get, Stephen. What'd you get?
Stephen Horan: I got a new QR, the V-PRi. So just real, real good opportunity. So real happy with it. But I created a win-win model, right, with my wife. My wife hates buying gifts for me. So, like, this is the time of the year she would like if I could come up with a gift and say, here, it's for Christmas, is for your birthday. It's for all of these, right? She would, like, this would be perfect for her, like, so she doesn't have to buy me anything. So, you know, realizing there's a win-win, you know, I said, hey, you know, with this, I think I can maybe go qualify. And we went to Nice. And so that was a great opportunity for her. But, you know, really just kind of thinking through, like, you know, I mean, you got to be open and you got to be honest and not just drop it out there. The other one is I found making my wife part of the process was also important. Now my wife does do triathlon, so that was a little helpful. But, you know, just making her part of the process was also very beneficial. But, you know, again, it's. It's tough. I mean, especially depending on where you are financially, what the family looks like and what you're having to give up. I mean, it's always. It's always that. But, you know, you are probably going to have to make those sacrifices, but you got to be able to explain the why you're really wanting to go do this.
Sion McIntosh: I had a client, a client and also a very close friend. And he. He went and bought himself a brand new V-PRi, and he had the older QR, the PR60. And so he gave me his PR62 very kindly, but then got his new VPRI. And he told his wife that I had bought a bike for myself, but it didn't, it didn't quite fit me and it didn't work. So I had to give it to him. And so that's why he's given me his bike. But he'd actually bought himself a brand new V-PRi. I won't name names in case he listens or his family listened.
Andrew Harley: But I ended up with a shouted.
Sion McIntosh: Him and he's got a newer one.
Stephen Horan: I can't recommend that, though. I mean, I can't recommend lying to you. So that's.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, the classic joke, right, is like, you know, if I were to pass away, you know, don't. Don't tell my spouse, like, what I actually. Like, yeah, what I actually paid for my bike. But in truth, I do want to point this out because this is an expensive sport and people do have a variety of budgets, and there is, there is not an item in this sport that is worth blowing the family budget. There isn't. Right. It's got to work for your family. It's got like, like, please, please, please communicate with your family on this. Like, don't, you know, be, be honest with what things cost. That's, that's just, it's good for everybody involved. It's going to be good for your marriage and your family. But, you know, be, be practical with it. With that said, there are items in the sport, and I think a bike is one of them. I think a wetsuit is one of them. You know, we have to buy a new pair of run shoes every couple months to a half year, depending on how many miles you're running. Right. To keep that item up to date and to keep that item working properly. You know, there's certain, there's certain items in the sport, your race kit, for example, that there are things that wear down and wear out relatively quickly, and then there are things that you can have for a relatively long time. And so, you know, my first tri bike, I raced that TRI bike for 10 years before upgrading to a newer model. Right? And so, yes, they're expensive. And so had I at, at the time, that item was a bit of a splurge. It was in the budget, but it was on the high end of what we were willing to pay for me to have this bike. But it was like, okay, well, I'm gonna pay this. It's the bike that. It's the best bike I can get right now within our budget, and I'm gonna ride it for as long as I can. I'm Gonna, I'm gonna have it last as long as I can. I wetsuit's kind of the same way, right? These are items we don't have to replace as often. Cycling shoes, right? Like, like splurge on nice cycling shoes. You don't have to buy those every six months like you do running shoes. And so that I think that's part of the pitch and part of the consideration is, okay, like, I'm going to commit to this bike for five to 10 years. I'm going to commit to this bike for a while. I'm not going to chase the newest model a couple years from now. I also sometimes in these scenarios, when I want to make a big purchase, I look at, I look around at what can I sell? Like, what, what do I have sitting around that's still in good condition that will get a good, a good return on eBay or Facebook marketplace? And I start selling some things to buy that new item that I want. And that way I'm offsetting some of the cost of the family budget or I am able to spend a little bit more because of money I brought in from another way. So those are some things that I try to do and try to consider. My dad has a quote that he says, I'm sure he got it from somewhere else where he says, like, you can buy what you want and cry once, or you can buy like the next thing down and cry twice, because either way you're spending a lot of money. And if you buy, if you concede, right on maybe the lesser model in this case, that might save you $2,000 six months down the road, you're crying that second time because you really don't have the item that you wanted, right? Or the item that you needed. So don't blow the family budget, but do know when it comes to something like a bike, I think it's worth hitting the higher end of your budget and being happy for a long time as opposed to trying to just save a few pennies in the immediate term to, you know, just have the itch to upgrade two years later because you really didn't get the, the thing that you wanted. So anyway, starting to get long on this. But that just my two cents there.
Brandy Ramirez: I think, I think for new people coming into the sport, obviously, because the sport can be extremely costly, right? And so there are a lot of really great ways to save money when you're coming into this sport. Like, you don't have to go out and buy a $12,000 brand new QR, right? There are different ways that you could spend money. But I always tell like my athletes who are new, go onto the Facebook marketplace to the tri area in like where you are locally. One, you want to go to a bike shop, you want to know what size you are for which bike because not all bikes run the same. So you're not going to be the same size frame on every single bike. So you need to know your act size for the different bikes and then go into that Facebook marketplace and you can find some really great deals. They're all tricked out, they've got all the great components. Like some guy bought it for his wife and she's not racing anymore. She raced it three times. So it's a really great way to get a great purchase while not breaking your budget and keeping you in the sport, especially if you're new to it.
Andrew Harley: Yep, love that addition, Brandy. And that's any close friends of mine getting into the sport, that's exactly where I steer them. Because of what you said, there's. The Facebook marketplace is full of road cyclists who dabbled in triathlon, bought a TT bike and after a year or two are selling it and they're in great shape, they've been well, well maintained and you can save a little bit by, by doing that. But audience question number five. This is from Joe Foster. He said, what's a good idea to show your tried out workouts at the pool? I've been using paper clipped to a small board, but what are other people doing? Coach Brandy.
Brandy Ramirez: Yeah, so the paper at the end of the lane is a great idea, but having it clipped to a small board, not such a great idea. I'm sure Joe has had his page splashed so many times and it falls apart. What I do is I will go into my TriDot platform and I'm going to copy and paste my warmup, my main set and my cooldown and I'm going to print that. I'm going to fold it and put it in a Ziploc baggie at the end of my lane. So I do have it. It is being protected by the Ziploc baggie. It's not deteriorating. Those of us that are getting older and yes, you can see I'm wearing glasses, so I'm not going to tell you my age, but my eyes are not what they used to be. So originally I could print that and put it like in a snack size Ziploc baggie. I think I'm probably up to the quarter size baggie now. So I make the print nice and large so that I Can see it when I come into my lane. And it's just a great way to do your workout. You use those baggies all the time, so you're saving money. And it's good way to cool down, too. When I come into. Or not to cool down, it's a good way to take a break. When I come in to the lane, I'm going to take a drink of my Gatorade. I'm going to read my next workout. Turn around, push off the wall.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, that, that's exactly. I, I do the index bag is. Or the index card in a bag as well. I hand write them because I'm. I'm a millennial. We don't have a printer in the home, so I just have to handwrite it. Right. And I, I know there's some people that put their smartphone in. In the, in the baggie or just smartphone poolside and have it up. I, I don't do that personally. I like to keep the phone in a bag. I know they're waterproof these days, but still, I just don't like the idea of it being next to the pool. But the, the ultimate here is if you can splurge on some form goggles or ask for form goggles, those smart training goggles. Try it out. We are integrated with a form so you can push your workout straight to the goggles if you have those. But yeah, I'm, I'm like Brandy. I'm a classic index card in the, in the bag kind of guy. Sion, Stephen, is that what you guys do? Or do you do something different for you personally?
Sion McIntosh: Yeah, I mean, not a lot of people know this, but you can actually get waterproof notebooks. A lot of our swimmers, that's what we used to use. Just a little. It's a little tiny, like little a four, not a four, a five book. And you can write all your sessions in there. So if you have your, you know, your, your ladders or your broken three hundreds or anything like that, you've got them all in there ready to go. And as long as you know, oh, yeah, I've got my three hundreds today. You can just open it up to that page. Or, or I'm old school and I just like a little whiteboard. But take a whiteboard and a marker, and before I go on to poolside, I just write it down on my little whiteboard and I've got it next to me.
Andrew Harley: Very nice, Coach Stephen, what do you do?
Stephen Horan: Yeah, I mean, I'm similar to you. I write it and I Put it in a mid size plastic bag similar to Brandy saying, hey, I can't see very well. But I do want to remind, I mean, I don't like it personally, but your swim workout also will export to Garmin right into your Garmin watch.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, that's true.
Stephen Horan: A lot of people do like that. I just don't like it. I don't know why. But you know, I, I write it every single workout so it helps me remember it versus just printing it and I put it in a plastic bag.
Andrew Harley: Yep. Very, very, very good. There's no wrong way to do this, right? It's just people do a variety of things. It's just which method do you prefer? So thank you coaches for shouting out a couple different methods that people commonly do. Our next question comes from Don Sharp. And shout out to Don. He is, is very good about leaving comments on our YouTube videos. And he commented this question on one of our YouTube videos and he said this. I, I have not seen an athlete ask this question. So very, very good question. My question is, when you see someone with white rings on their clothes, does that mean that they had too much salt coming out of their body and perhaps not enough salt or not enough salt to hold in the fluid? So when we talk about sweat rates and we talk about losing sodium and needing to replace sodium with electrolytes, we've done some fantastic episodes about that. We know that some people are saltier sweaters than others. And if you are a salty sweater, which I am, you will often at the end of a workout have, have salt rings, you know, white residue of salt from your sweat on your clothing. And so Don is just kind of posing, is that natural or does that mean we've done something wrong? Sion, what do you think about this?
Sion McIntosh: Yeah, great question, Don. I'm getting all the nutrition ones today. I think it's probably a little bit of overthinking going on here, to be honest. It totally depends on so many factors.
Andrew Harley: Don't let Sion tell you that, Don. I like it, Don. I like where your head's at. Be curious.
Sion McIntosh: Be curious. I love a bit of Ted Lasso. Yeah, I think it depends on the osmolity of the water you're swimming in. For instance, at the start, if you're on a really salty swim, then you're going to naturally have more salt on your suit anyway. If it's a hot and humid event, yes, it can be an indication that you have a high sodium loss in your sweat when you are sweating, but it could also be if you have A sweat rate, then you're going to see salt too. Because you have such a high sweat rate and you're losing such a volume over a race, it's going to be on there. So I don't think there is a definitive answer for this, what it means, yes, there is salt present, but it could have come from the swim or it could have come from you. It really depends on the event. If you're doing a freshwater swim and you know there's no salt and you happen to notice after a race like that there's loads of salt on, then, yes, you probably need a higher sodium concentration in your bottles when you're racing. And, you know, when you're riding and running, I know that's not a. Again, it's one of those typical coach answers. It depends. I'd love for you guys to chip in if you have any other thoughts around this one.
Brandy Ramirez: A big one for me again, is how you feel like I am a heavy, heavy sweater. So, like, I have salt behind my ears, on my neck. Like, it's. It's crazy, but it's also just, how do I feel when I'm done with my race? Do I feel like I'm dehydrated? Do I feel like my body is lacking anything? Do I have a good energy level? So really listening to yourself. For me, even though I am a heavy salt sweater, I do not really take in a whole bunch of sodium. I don't. My body doesn't actually like it. So you have to pay attention to your body and what your body tells you.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, I. And, and to get down to, if you're noticing, like, you. You can't. You can't control how much salt your body is losing like that. That's just the. The way your body is just. And I don't know if it's genetics or just. But, but everybody just has a. Is predisposed to release a certain amount of sodium in their. In their fluid. And so if you're noticing sweat marks on your clothes, dawn, that's not a you did something wrong or you need to correct something, you need to fix something. It just means you're a salty sweater and you need to hydrate accordingly. And so you can. At a tri camp or at a proper location, you can get a sweat test with our friends at Precision Fuel and Hydration. And that's a good way to find out. You can try the Nyx biosensors or the Gatorade sweat patches. Those will get you in the ballpark of are you a heavy medium or light salty sweater. But if you're seeing the salt on your clothes, nothing you can change, nothing for you to adjust other than knowing, oh, I am losing salt and I need to be replacing more salt. But it's not a you did something that caused that or could have prevented it. Moving on to question seven. This comes from Nicole France. What days should I be doing? My long rides, my long runs and strength work and how can I reset tried out to the default workout days if I've changed the schedule in the past?
Stephen Horan: Coach Stephen okay, so Nicole, very, very good question. And Andrew, if we can, let's suppose I'm, I'll, I'll put the screenshot, the notes.
Andrew Harley: Sure. Yep.
Stephen Horan: But try not today does not allow you to just reset the default. So you're going to have to go back and manually move them and we'll put that in the screenshot. The default long run actually on Wednesday, the default long bike is on Saturday and then your strength default workouts are on Tuesday, Thursday. So those are the defaults. And again we'll put the screenshot for all the other ones so you can go and look at it now. The reality is is like we're probably going to have to move stuff around, right? I mean I'll give just me as a perfect example. I cannot do my long run on. I just cannot go, especially as I'm ramping. I can't go do two hours of running on a Wednesday morning before I go to work. So I've moved my long run to go on Sunday, which is one of the other run days, which is probably pretty common for a lot of folks. But it's not ideal because you're building training stress that potentially impacts your ability to be able to get that long run in. So that's really what TriDot is doing and trying to alternate with swim bike run, monitoring the overall training stress so you're able to go get the best workout completed, you know, based on that schedule. Right. Because when you overload a training stress, you end up, let's say you do a hard bike and then you do another long bike, you're not going to be able to have the efficiency of that next long bike. And so the recommendation is always to do a swim bike run type of concept. And you'll see that in the defaults where they typically is a swim Tuesday is typically your, what I would say is kind of your threshold bike. Right. Is on your Tuesday and then a zone to run is typically going to be after that. And if you're in standard settings and you don't have like high settings. It typically is going to be 20 to 30 minutes for that zone two run. And again you need to do it in zone two because you don't. You're really driving the recovery and not building that excess stress. Because on Wednesday you're going to have your what I would again the either your long run or like what I ended up doing the threshold run on Wednesdays and then on Thursdays is another what in. You know, a lot of people say it's the easy bike. Sometimes it is, but it's typically like either a zone two bike or it's the easier of the two bike workouts, what we would call priority three bike that would be there. And you're going to either have like 30 90s, 30, 30s or zone twos to be able to go do that. And then Friday is your swim, which is typically your threshold swim because you're going to do your endurance swim. And I say endurance, you know, the longer set swim on Mondays and then your faster set swims that'll be on Fridays. Saturday long run with a typical brick off the bike. And then Sundays is either. And again for me I do my long run, but it's either going to be typically your fast run. What the default is set up now. Some, some things that are about to change is like today if you are working and you do and I have an athlete that works third shift and I needed to manually shift all of his workouts to do long bike on Sunday, long run on Monday, try not doesn't allow you to do that. But there are some changes that are coming out. We're going to be able to be able to go and alternate that. I would still recommend right to do it in a swim bike run format. Don't go and massively change everything. But the AI will start adapting based on what you're able to go do because that is the flexibility that it's there. But the optimum is to be able to do it in that swim bike run format. Monitoring your overall training, your normalized training stress as you're building through them. So you can get the most efficiency and the most gains from the individual workouts.
Andrew Harley: Yep, absolutely love it. And Stephen, great idea to show this image. Cause it, it just, I mean you, you can see where the swim workouts are, you can see where the bike and run workouts are and you can see how Trout's default settings are trying to spread your training stress across the three sports around the week very, very evenly in a way that's going to protect your body and what, what Jeff Buer, our CEO and founder, I, I've heard him say this so many times. He, he. The reminder is like this default isn't just half hazardly put together like this default. The, the, the default setting and tried out for, for your schedule is the most optimum schedule for any triathlete right now. It has to fit your life. So to Coach Stephens point. Yes, please adjust the settings you need to adjust. Please move workouts you need to move. The training has to fit your life. But if you don't have to touch any of this, leave it because it is the most optimal setting. Brandy and I both work for the company, right. So you know, our jobs are pretty flexible and we can largely do the training how try not describe, you know, prescribes it because we're triathletes who work for a triathlon company. But you might have to move things. Anytime you move something in these settings just a little bit, it does kind of pinch how optimal your training can be by a coach, right? Very microscopically. But so if you can leave it this way, leave it this way. And for the long sessions in particular, so many triathlon coaches, so many training programs, just because it's always been done this way, they'll stack the long sessions on Saturday and Sunday. Long bike is on Saturday, long run is on Sunday. And it's like why those are two very critical sessions. They, they, they induce a lot of training stress. And so why wouldn't you put those as far apart as possible so that your, your long run on Sunday isn't as impacted by your long ride on Saturday? So like you see in the picture, this is the default. If you can switch to this. Absolutely switch to this. But like coach Stephen said, there's a lot of people that need those long sessions to be on the weekend because you know, you've got work and you got life during the week. So um. Well answered, Coach Stephen. I just wanted to point that out about this is the optimal, the most optimal training schedule and so preserve it if you can make the adjustments you need to make, if you need to make them. Question number eight comes from Ronnie Calder. Ronnie wants to know if you want to try to tackle a swim run. How would you enter that into try dot for a race so that training will adjust to fit that. There's a lot of different formats in multi sport, right. It's one of the beauties of our sport, the standard of swim, bike run. But there are duathlon, right? Run, bike run events there's swim run events where you're swimming and running and swimming and running and swimming and running. There's stage events where you're doing swim, bike and run across a couple different days. So when we get a, a race that is not the typical format, how do we enter that into race X so that our training knows what we're doing? Coach Brandy.
Brandy Ramirez: Yep. So like you said, we have race X which is one of the most amazing features that TriDot has. I love that platform so much. It's really simple. You go into your race X and you're going to hit the plus sign at the top that says add and then you're going to select Aqua Run. It will literally just walk you through step by step what you're going to do. If you're going to do a swim into a run and so you click Aqua Run, it's going to ask you for the name, the location, the date. You just fill in that information. You hit continue. Then they're going to ask for the distance. We want the distance of your swim, we want the distance of your run. So you manually input that and you hit select and, and then you're going to have to decide if you want that to be you’re A race, B or C. And so that's up to you and your coach. You select which type of race you want it to be and you hit continue and bam. It is populated. It will give you your training. You give it a little bit of few seconds, it's going to refresh, go back to your training platform and there's your new training for this race.
Andrew Harley: Very good. As simple as that. And along the way if, if you, if you're doing anything and have any questions about what you're inputting where for a custom race, reach out to our customer support team. They are, they would be happy to help you if you have just an extra special race that you can't figure out how to get the get the intervals right or get the stages right. Please reach out to our team and they'll help you with that for sure. We have real triathletes, real triathletes behind the scenes that work behind the scenes answering your questions as users. Question number nine comes from Babatunde at the depot. I love Babatunde. I've met him at a couple races. He's a March 4th birthday just like me. So shout out to Babatunde. March 4th birthdays unite. He wants to know winter training do you guys recommend as coaches to do? And it's kind of off season training do you recommend us to, in the off season be training in arrow on the bike or should we be sitting in the, you know, upright more and focused on being able to generate more power? He's obviously asking this question in relation to winter training or off season training. I kind of had this question throughout the season, right? Like, you know, when I go and arrow on my trainer on my bike, you know, I lose a little bit of power. You know, do we want to be always giving it the full beans and sitting upright to train for power or do we need to train in that arrow position? Coach Sion, you got a lot of cycling knowledge behind you. I want to point that out. So please answer this one.
Sion McIntosh: Okay. Yeah, I think it's a really. Apologies if you can hear my dog yawning there. It's a really interesting question, although the dog apparently doesn't think so.
Andrew Harley: I think that was a yawn, Sion. That was a yawn.
Sion McIntosh: That was a yawn, man.
Andrew Harley: That was a yawn. That was a squeaky yawn.
Sion McIntosh: He's a Dachshund. Yeah, I think it's a really good question. It's an interesting one because I find dependent on the athlete, the answer is always a little bit different. And that's based on a number of things. One, is cycling your strength and is it something that you tend to do quite a lot of volume of during the season? If so, you probably don't need to touch the time trial bike or triathlon bike as much during the winter. But on the flip side, if you're somebody who is limited year round in the amount of hours they can put into the bike or they're finding that they're a little bit flat on that top end, or if you're targeting courses that are rolling or hilly where you need to be able to produce that higher end power where it gets a little bit less comfortable in the bars just because your ribs are expanding so much and you're trying to hold position when there's a lot of tension, you're probably going to need to spend a bit of time in the winter on the TT bike still. And some of my favorite sessions to do really in position and honing in those aero drills are like your 30 30s or those five minute blocks with three minutes off, or the step intervals that we occasionally get on a Saturday where you do 5 minutes zone 3, 5 minutes zone 4, 5 minutes zone 5, for example, there's some really good key sessions and if you can get those in and really handle hitting those sessions well in the bars, you'll really get a lot of bang for your buck out of it. Equally, I'm a really big advocate for doing some mountain biking to work on your technical skills in the winter or doing some cyclocross racing. You know, you'll, you'll gain a lot of power from just the surging nature of doing those kind of demands, if you like, within cycling. So, yeah, dependent on your situation, hopefully there's an answer in there for you somewhere based on your scenario.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, very well said. I, I, I enjoy that. Brandy. Stephen, do you have any additional input that you give to your athletes on riding an arrow versus riding upright to generate more power?
Brandy Ramirez: Generally, I like to tell my athletes that when they're generating any kind of power, they're going to want to come up out of arrow position anyway. I mean, you're sim and that's what you do. You know, if you're climbing a hill that certain grade, you're not going to stay in aero position. When you're out on the race course, you're going to use more of your powerhouse and kind of sit up so you can push harder into those pedals and pull up harder. So I, I recommend both of them. I want to keep my athletes as well oiled as humanly possible. So I'm going to have them go into arrow when they're in their zone two, zone three. Just stick right there. Keep the body familiar with what it's familiar with. When you're hitting those heavier sessions, come up out of aero and use more power in your legs. I keep it through the entire wintertime, so.
Andrew Harley: Such a good point that even on race day, if you're dipping up into zone, not dipping up, if you're rising up into zone 4, 5, 6, you are likely doing something that would cause you to be upright or out of the saddle. You know, you're not sustaining a time trial position for an elongated period of time in arrow, maybe into a headwind for a few minutes or something like that. I could think of some times I've been in a headwind and was really putting down some power trying to get through it. But yeah, great. Coach Stephen, anything from you there?
Stephen Horan: Yeah, I was, I mean, I aligned with what Brandy is saying fully. Right. I mean, one of the things is if I don't continue practicing staying an arrow, you know, at least in some of that winter training, I find that I don't have the flexibility. I mean, I wish I had, you know, the flexibility of Brandy and to be able to do that. But, you know, really trying to, trying to do that and practicing, I mean arrow for me, I have to practice, right. I mean, if I don't do it, it makes it harder and then I don't do it in racing. So trying to force myself in zone two and zone three to ride in the arrow. But, you know, if you are focusing on power, I find the same thing. I mean, I have 30 30s this week personally. Right. And you know, hitting your zone fives and sixes, you know, it's hard. You can't. I can't do that in arrow. So again, I think it's the balance between them and maybe not going fully away to one side or the other.
Andrew Harley: Very, very good. Last audience question in our main set here, and I'm going to have all three of you speak to this one. Before we head to our cooldown, Nick Hilchen asked, what should we be looking for in a coach if we use TriDot? What are the benefits of a coach versus going strictly with TriDot and listening to the podcast, et cetera? First of all, Nick, thank you for listening to the podcast and feeling like we're coaching you. That's the point. That's the goal. There definitely is still value to having a coach. And I like to remind our listeners, I mean, the coaches you hear on the podcast 99% of the time, my guests on the show are coaches who are coaching their athletes with tried out. So if you're really vibing with somebody, you're clicking with somebody you like. What's what somebody's saying they could be your coach if you reached out to them, probably in most cases. But yeah, lots of value that a coach can add in addition to try that. And I'm curious to hear in your own words what the three of you would say here. So, coach Brandy, start us off. What would you say to Nick?
Brandy Ramirez: Yeah, so definitely like what you were touching on. Andrew, you want to make sure that you and your coach really like mesh together. It's a relationship. Right. You have to be able to communicate with your coach. You have to have your. Your coach communicate with you and just be able to speak about anything and everything. We deal with a lot in this sport. There is. There are so many things we are going to talk about and so you have to have that familiar. The familiarity. I can't say that word today.
Andrew Harley: Yeah, got it.
Brandy Ramirez: You have to. Thank you. You have to be able to have that communication and just be willing and open to talk to your coach about anything. So you have to mesh. That's number one. Don't be in a relationship with a coach where the Coach is just telling you what to do and you just don't feel like you have a voice, right? So that's number one. It has to be a really good relationship. Definitely you want to coach. So I'm a mother of four, right? I can really take care of all of my kids when they're sick. 99.9% of the time, nothing I haven't seen. But if I'm sick, I'm going to go to a doctor. I'm not going to try to stay at home and take care of myself because chances are I'm not going to listen to what I should be doing. Same thing with needing a coach. Like you need a coach. Like I do not self coach. I have a coach, Kurt Madden, he's amazing and he helps me through everything because he keeps me in line. He tells me to stop being a sissy and to man up when I need to. He also tells me when I need to back off, right? If he's just like, you're going too hard, too heavy, something's got to give. And so that's one of the best things about having that coach is that they're going to keep you on track, they're going to keep you in line. And that's where that line of communication comes into. Sometimes we get a little hard with our athletes where we're just like, you need to stop.
Andrew Harley: It is amazing to me, Brandi, how many coaches, coaches that are powered by TriDot also have a coach that is powered by TriDot because they know the value of it and want that neutral third party weighing in on their own draft love journey. So thanks for pointing that out. Sion, over to you, same question.
Sion McIntosh: Yeah, completely agree. I mean, exactly as you say that even coaches have coaches. I have a whole support team behind me who helped me from nutrition to strength and conditioning to my mindset around racing and the planning of it as well. I mean, you know, no one person's an expert and I truly believe that and I think from a, from an athlete perspective is near impossible as an individual to know exactly what you should be doing because you're always going to be torn between what you think you should be doing, what you could be doing and what everyone else is doing. So having somebody else on the outside who can just really guide you and see things from an, a non emotional point of view almost and can see exactly what you need as a person, they still need that EQ there to know exactly when, like as Brandy says, when to push you, when to hold you back. You know that accountability has to be there and that awareness. But having somebody who is separate and can just step back a bit and see the wider picture will always be a benefit. I mean, I, Brandy and I have the pleasure, like, we. We work for. For TriDot, and part of our role is that we actually get to connect people with coaches. So if you are listening and you think you want to coach, but you don't know who's right, because there are so many options out there, feel free to reach out to us and we can give you some different options. And based on your location, your needs, your goals, you know, we're happy to have that conversation with everybody.
Andrew Harley: Yep, absolutely. Coach Stephen, over to you.
Stephen Horan: Yeah, very similar, Right. I mean, when you're in the arena, you can't see the arena.
Brandy Ramirez: Right.
Stephen Horan: And it makes it very hard. Right. So, I mean, I think being able to step up, like what Sion is saying, and kind of go above and see the broader picture. The other thing is the coach, and as Brandy was alluding to, is really coaching the whole person. Right. It's not just the physical sport and having somebody, you know, to be able to go and bring something to. And again, yes, the app is really good. Right. But it doesn't see that, hey, my child is sick, you know, and I had to go take off and understanding that extra stress, that's still not able to get integrated into the system. And a coach is there to help you go through it. And again, the other thing is, yes, love the app too, but it also. It's like when you can't do something, it. You know, when you're getting a zero right on your TrainX score, it sort of sucks, right? You're looking at it. But having somebody you can talk through, to be able to say, hey, that is okay. Hey, I can go make these detailed changes. Hey, you know, hey, I need to be able to go do this and take this whole week off. You're not able to go do that in the app and kind of think slightly different than what, you know, just what maybe what you end up hearing. So, again, kind of coaching your whole, you know, or having the ability to coach the whole self of a whole person and then again, kind of seeing above the forest. Right. And kind of not just the trees that you see, to be able to kind of move forward.
Andrew Harley: On to our cooldown question. I saved one audience question for the cooldown today. We'll keep this one quick. It's a. It's a pretty fun one. This comes from coach Michael Fenton. And Michael Fenton, I've Met him. We're good buddies at a number of races. A wonderful try to coach out there. He wants to know, when do I get to race with Andrew Harley again? When do I get to race with Andrew? It's funny, I don't think I've actually raced with Michael. I've been at a lot of races that Michael was doing and cheered for Michael while he raced. I don't think we've actually raced together. But he's asking when do I get to race with Andrew Harley again? Michael, you and I are both in Texas so that improves your odds for sure. I am hoping to get back to the race course in 2026. I haven't raced in a few years as we've kind of started our family and been, been, been busy with that and enjoying that. But I am itching to get back at it in 2026. I, I will say publicly the two races I'm thinking about, I will probably do the Caveman Tri in Flower Mound, Texas. It's in the spring, it's six minutes from my house. It's a local sprint so there's no reason for me to not do that. So if you're Texas based or nearby and want to race with me, that's your best bet for 2026. I'm thinking about I might do IRONMAN 70.3 in Ruidoso, New Mexico in July. I'm really thinking about that race. We traveled to Ruidoso back in 2020 just to get out of the house for the summer and really enjoyed that town and the scenery there. And if it fits our family schedule as our summer plan, short for 2026, we might make the little road trip out there for that one. But that's a maybe. Don't hold me to that. It's a maybe where we sit right now. But yeah, we'll see what else might shore up for me. But I will be racing again in 2026. Coach Sion, what's one race you're doing in 2026?
Sion McIntosh: IRONMAN Wales is probably the big one for 2026.
Andrew Harley: If you want to race with Sion, go to Wales. What about you, Brandy?
Brandy Ramirez: I am signed up for Little Elm. So I'm going to be in your neck of the woods. Although no promises on my performance. My pool, because I live in a very small town, we only have one pool and it's been closed for three and a half months with no like clear time on when it will open. So I did challenge my athletes to race against me and try to beat me. And right now they're all going to be able to do that.
Andrew Harley: Good job, Coach. Good job. That is 20. The start line for that race is 26 minutes from my house, so I will be there cheering you on and all of your athletes. Coach Stephen, what's one race you're doing?
Stephen Horan: Yeah, so I got Little Elm, and then I'm doing IRONMAN Jacksonville. So I'll be down there with you.
Andrew Harley: All right.
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