Your Questions Answered: Off-Season Motivation, Nutrition Fads, Short Course Racing, Coaching Benefits, and More!

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 Ironmind 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, where I'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 warm-up.

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 my best individual split. I mean, 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 time on IRONMAN Chattanooga. Now, if anyone's done Chattanooga—in its 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 point, also.

Andrew Harley: So what was your bike split, Stephen? Do you remember?

Stephen Horan: So I was 5:30.

Andrew Harley: Okay. 116 miles, people, and 5:30. 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 Eagleman 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, 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 3:13. 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: That makes it just triple meaningful, right. Just to be back at the races, to be coming off that cancer battle, to be with TriDot 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: 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 an 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 love it. 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 big long races. I mean, there's a little bit more to them, right? And so sometimes I get pokes from our short-course athletes on Facebook, or the TriDot 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 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. 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, it was just a year that everything seemed to click, and I had a great weight race, we had good weather. 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 1:38 half marathon off the bike, which to date is my PR for a half marathon. 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 came off the bike and I felt so strong, and I really felt like I pushed the pace the entire time, start to finish. Oftentimes you push the pace for the first 3/4ths, 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 was just doing the run. I had lost some fitness. We had just had our first child, and I wasn't training as much as normal, and I think I ran a 1:48. So I was almost 10 full minutes slower at a standalone, a couple years later. So 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 questions that 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 on the screen in front of us right now, there's four of us in a little roundtable. 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 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 off the bat, as it depends. I mean, I think--

Andrew Harley: Sure, sure. Always does.

Stephen Horan: --is that important. But seriously, the first thing that I talk to my athletes about is, 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 distance is the A-race that the individual is trying to train for. And you have to also understand, again, where are you? 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 there are probably less. 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, I mean, create that purpose. But you also need to be very cognizant of the importance of you’re 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 you differently. And it's going to take away from the build, 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 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 an olympic, or 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 really want to make sure you're focusing towards your priority race and not taking away from that overall training. Because that's the other aspect, 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, really, you're taking 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 70.3s on the calendar per year, and those are usually my A-races. 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, 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. It's just going to be a fun Saturday morning, driving down there, wherever it is, knocking the thing out, seeing some buddies 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 gives me a chance to, even as an experienced triathlete, freshen up those race day skills. Remind my body what it's like to go through the motions of a race morning. Remind my ADD brain what I need to be thinking through as I'm setting up my transition area, to go through the mounting and dismounting, to go through the transitions. Especially if I haven't raced in a while, and I have an A-race coming up, I do like that opportunity to ‘freshen up’, ‘re-awaken’ the triathlon skills, so to speak. So I like having a few short-course on the calendar every year, again, for the variety and for that reason. But yeah, Stephen, love your answer on just thinking through, having a purpose to those races. And for me, they normally are C-races, just like you said. So it just ‘replaces a training day’, so to speak, as opposed to -- I don't taper for them or anything like that. Are we good to move on the question two? Or Sion, Brandy, anything to add in? Nods yes, nods no? Okay, all good, Stephen crushed it. Question two, 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 post, on her particular situation. But it basically, like she said, boils down to how do you stay motivated 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. 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. How fast have you become? How strong have you become? What are your gains? And 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 want to back off of things. Well, you're going to lose that endurance in that run. So stick with your runs, especially. 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 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 9-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. Those are the two things I would really tell you to go back and review.

Stephen Horan: Yeah, I agree, Brandy, you're 100% correct. But I mean, there's an opportunity this time of the year -- and I have an example. I'm doing a 5k tomorrow with a Santa suit on. Go have fun.

Andrew Harley: Go get it. Go get it.

Stephen Horan: Right? I mean, especially in this time of the year, it is hard. You got these other things. And by the way, I do agree, running is very easy. If you're traveling, you're not having to be able to worry about it. But go have fun. Go do something a little bit different. Maybe join a different virtual group ride, or even try something slightly different in your riding. Because going down in the pain cave when it's cold and it's dark all the time -- it's just, it is hard. But go have some fun.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, love those answers, guys. I just think Brandy nailed my quarter motivation in the off season. The notion of, like, I work so hard all year for this new fitness and I don't want to lose it. And maybe it's not the most positive motivation, but it's still real motivation. And so it's, what can I do through the off season to hold on to that? Kim mentions not having an A-race on the calendar. You're going to put an A-race on the calendar again, right? The new year is just around the corner, so keep that hypothetical future A-race in mind, and stay at it. Do what you can to mix up the training, give yourself some short-term goals, and 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 you see things come and go. So this is a fantastic question. Sion, what would you say to Jen, here?

Sion McIntosh: I think you're opening up a can of worms with this one. Much like the coaching industry, 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. Zone 2 training, for example, at the moment, it's this amazing new thing. We've done it for 100 years, but hey, it's magical, it's wonderful at the moment. And it's similar with nutrition. Carbohydrates, for example. There's been a real big craze the last few years on pushing carbohydrate intake, and everybody are going ‘more is better,’ but there's no research yet to show, well, 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, find the guys out there who have really done this for a long time -- your lecturers, your PhD researchers. Find material that is cited and is backed. There are some great companies out there. We use a company here in the UK, I'll give them a good shout, they're called Total Endurance Nutrition. Dr. Salmon and Jules Strauss, 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 be my answer on that one, I think.

Stephen Horan: I would add, maybe, just a little more, because I agree, there's so many things. And the reason it's important to go to somebody that really is a professional is that nutrition is a study of one, right? I mean you can't just think about, “This works for this person, so it's going to work for me.” And what I recommend -- and again, if the athlete wants to test something, test something during this time of the season when they don't have a race on the calendar, test it out, try to start looking at it. But really using evidence-based practices, right, where they're tracking what the overall impact ends up being of that nutrition. Whether it's -- you brought up carbs. “Hey, can I go do this?” Am I having gut issues when I start going above 90 grams of carbs an hour? 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. 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 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: Love that, Brandy. 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 we're all seeing different nutrition fads being hawked and talked about in products, and 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 an influencer chasing likes, chasing attention. And even if you start getting a couple YouTubers, influencers, athletes on social media starting to say, “Try this, try this, try this.” Okay, maybe there's merit to it, but very much 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 if this is an interesting idea, let's verify it in 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 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, it's always fun, right? It brings me first to an example of my daughter when she wanted to get a puppy. And what she ended up doing is she actually put a whole business plan together around a puppy, right? And you almost, again, just jokingly, you have to explain the ‘why’, right? I mean, making sure that your spouse, your significant other, really understands the ‘why’. I mean, it is an expensive-- it's kind of like, “Hey, I got to go get a new car.” Well, I mean, 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: What’d you get, Stephen. What’d you get?

Stephen Horan: I got a new QR, the V-PRi. So just real, real good opportunity. Real happy with it. But I created a win-win model with my wife. My wife hates buying gifts for me. So 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. She would like, this would be perfect for her, so she doesn't have to buy me anything. So realizing there's a win-win, I said, “Hey, with this, I think I can maybe go qualify.” And we went to Nice. And so that was a great opportunity for her. But really, just thinking through, 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 just making her part of the process was also very beneficial. But again, 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 that. But 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 -- client and also a very close friend -- and he went and bought himself a brand-new V-PRi, and he had the older QR, the PR62. And so he gave me his PR62, very kindly, but then got his new V-PRi. And he told his wife that I had bought a bike for myself, but 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 listens, but I ended up with a new Quintana, and he's got a newer one.

Stephen Horan: I can't recommend that, though. I can't recommend lying to your wife. So that’s—

Sion McIntosh: No.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, the classic joke is like, if I were to pass away, don't tell my spouse 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 not an item in this sport that is worth blowing the family budget. There isn't. It's got to work for your family. Please, please, please communicate with your family on this. Be honest with what things cost. It's good for everybody involved. It's going to be good for your marriage and your family. But 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 -- 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, to keep that item up to date, and to keep that item working properly. There's certain items in the sport, your race kit, for example, 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 my first tri bike, I raced that tri bike for 10 years before upgrading to a newer model. And so, yes, they're expensive. 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 going to pay this. It's the best bike I can get right now within our budget, and I'm going to ride it for as long as I can. I'm going to have it last as long as I can.” A wetsuit's kind of the same way. These are items we don't have to replace as often. Cycling shoes -- splurge on nice cycling shoes. You don't have to buy those every six months like you do running shoes. I think that's part of the pitch, and part of the consideration is, okay, 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 around at what can I sell? What do I have sitting around that's still in good condition, that will get 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, “You can buy what you want and cry once, or you can buy the next thing down and cry twice, because either way you're spending a lot of money.” And if you concede 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, 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 just have the itch to upgrade two years later because you really didn't get the thing that you wanted. So anyway, starting to get long on this, but just my two cents there.

Brandy Ramirez: 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. 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 my athletes who are new, go onto the Facebook Marketplace, to the tri area, in 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 actual 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. 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. Any close friends of mine getting into the sport, that's exactly where I steer them because of what you said. 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 maintained, and you can save a little bit by doing that. Audience question number five. This is from Joe Foster. He said, “What's a good idea to show your TriDot 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 cool down, 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 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 reuse 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 into 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's exactly, I do the index card in a bag, as well. I handwrite them, because I'm a millennial and we don't have a printer in the home, so I just have to handwrite it. And I know there's some people that put their smartphone in the baggie, or just smartphone poolside and have it up. 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 ultimate, here, is if you can splurge on some FORM goggles, or ask for FORM goggles, those smart training goggles. TriDot, we are integrated with FORM, so you can push your workout straight to the goggles if you have those. But yeah, I'm like Brandy. I'm a classic index card 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. It's a little, tiny, A5 book. And you can write all your sessions in there. So if you have your Ladders, or your Broken 300s, 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 300s today.” You can just open it up to that page. Or I'm old school, and I just like a little whiteboard. I 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: 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 don't like it personally, but your swim workout also will export to Garmin, into your Garmin watch.

Andrew Harley: That's true.

Stephen Horan: A lot of people do like that. I just don't like it. I don't know why. But 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 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 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 have not seen an athlete ask this question, so 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? 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 salt rings, 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: 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. 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 high 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 you probably need a higher sodium concentration in your bottles when you're racing and 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 I have salt behind my ears, on my neck. 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: And to get Don to, if you're noticing, you can't control how much salt your body is losing. That's just the way your body is. I don't know if it's genetics, but everybody is predisposed to release a certain amount of sodium in their fluid. And so if you're noticing sweat marks on your clothes, Don, 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 TriDot camp or at a proper location, you can get a sweat test with our friends at Precision Fuel & 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 7. 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 TriDot to the default workout days if I've changed the schedule in the past?” Coach Stephen?

Stephen Horan: Okay, so Nicole, very, very good question. And Andrew, if we can, let's post -- I'll put the screenshot in the notes.

Andrew Harley: Sure. Yep.

Stephen Horan: But TriDot 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 is 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, we're probably going to have to move stuff around. I mean, I'll give just me as a perfect example. I cannot do my long run on Wednesday. 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, trying to alternate with swim, bike, run, monitoring the overall training stress so you're able to go get the best workout completed based on that schedule. 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 default, where Monday typically is a swim. Tuesday is typically your -- what I would say is your threshold bike is on your Tuesday. And then a Zone 2 run is typically going to be after that. And if you're in standard settings, and you don't have high settings, it typically is going to be 20 to 30 minutes for that Zone 2 run. And again, you need to do it in Zone 2 because you're really driving the recovery and not building that excess stress Because on Wednesday, you're going to have your -- either your long run, or what I ended up doing, the threshold run on Wednesdays. And then on Thursdays is another -- a lot of people say it's the ‘easy’ bike. Sometimes it is. But it's typically either a Zone 2 bike, or it's the ‘easier’ of the two bike workouts, what we would call priority 3 bike, that would be there. And you're going to either have 30/90s, 30/30s, or Zone 2s 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, 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 things that are about to change is 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, TriDot 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 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 optimal 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 just, I mean, you can see where the swim workouts are, you can see where the bike and run workouts are, and you can see how TriDot'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 Jeff Booher, our CEO and founder, I've heard him say this so many times -- the reminder is this default isn't just haphazardly put together. The default setting in TriDot for your schedule is the most optimum schedule for any triathlete. 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 our jobs are pretty flexible, and we can largely do the training how TriDot 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 skosh. Very microscopically. 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 induce a lot of training stress. And so why wouldn't you put those as far apart as possible, so that 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've got work and you got life during the week. Well answered, Coach Stephen. I just wanted to point that out, about this is the most optimal training schedule. 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 TriDot for a race so that training will adjust to fit that?” There's a lot of different formats in multi-sport. It's one of the beauties of our sport. The standard is swim, bike, run, but there are duathlon -- 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 race that is not the typical format, how do we enter that into RaceX, so that our training knows what we're doing? Coach Brandy?

Brandy Ramirez: Yep. So you like said, we have RaceX, 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 RaceX, and you're going to hit the plus sign at the top, that says add, and then you're going to select AquaRun. 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. So you click AquaRun -- 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 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 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 would be happy to help you, if you have just an extra special race that you can't figure out how to 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 Adadepoh. 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 aero on the bike, or should we be sitting in the 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 had this question throughout the season. When I go into aero on my trainer, on my bike, I lose a little bit of power. 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 aero 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. I think--

Andrew Harley: That was a yawn, Sion? That was a yawn?

Sion McIntosh: That was a yawn, yeah. That was a yawn.

Andrew Harley: Man, that was a squeaky yawn.

Sion McIntosh: He's a Dachshund. 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 30/30s, or those 5-minute blocks with 3 minutes off, or the step intervals that we occasionally get on a Saturday, where you do five minutes Zone 3, five minutes Zone 4, five 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'll gain a lot of power from just the surging nature of doing those kind of demands within cycling. So, dependent on your situation, hopefully there's an answer in there for you, somewhere, based on your scenario.

Andrew Harley: Very well said. I enjoy that. Brandy, Stephen, do you have any additional input, that you give to your athletes, on riding in aero 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 simulating race day, and that's what you do. 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 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 aero when they're in their Zone 2, Zone 3. 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.

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're not sustaining a time trial position for an elongated period of time in aero. 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: I align with what Brandy is saying, fully. I mean, one of the things is, if I don't continue practicing staying in aero, at least in some of that winter training, I find that I don't have the flexibility. I mean, I wish I had the flexibility of Brandy to be able to do that. But really trying to do that and practicing. I mean, aero for me, I have to practice. 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 2 and Zone 3 to ride in the aero. But if you are focusing on power, I find the same thing. I mean, I have 30/30s this week, personally. And hitting your Zone 5s and 6s, it's hard. I can't do that in aero. 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 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 Cool Down. 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, the coaches you hear on the podcast, 99% of the time, my guests on the show are coaches who are coaching their athletes with TriDot. So if you're really vibing with somebody, you're clicking with somebody you like, what somebody's saying, they could be your coach if you reached out to them, probably, in most cases. But lots of value that a coach can add in addition to TriDot. 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 what you were touching on, Andrew. You want to make sure that you and your coach really mesh together. It's a relationship. You have to be able to communicate with your coach. You have to have your coach communicate with you, and just be able to speak about anything and everything. We deal with a lot in this sport. There are so many things we are going to talk about and so you have to have that familiarity -- I can't say that word today.

Andrew Harley: You got it.

Brandy Ramirez: 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. 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. 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. You need a coach. 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, Brandy, how many 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 triathlon 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, no one person's an expert, and I truly believe that. And I think from an athlete perspective, it’s 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 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, 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, Brandy and I have the pleasure, we work 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 -- we're happy to have that conversation with everybody.

Andrew Harley: Yep, absolutely. Coach Stephen, over to you. Bring us home

Stephen Horan: Yeah, very similar, right. I mean, when you're in the arena, you can't see the arena. And it makes it very hard. So, I think being able to step up, like what Sion is saying, and 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. It's not just the physical sport. And having somebody to be able to go and bring something to. And again, yes, the app is really good. But it doesn't see that, hey, my child is sick, 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 also it's like, when you can't do something, when you're getting a zero 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, 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 think slightly different than what you end up hearing. So, again, having the ability to coach the whole self of a whole person, and then again, seeing above the forest and not just the trees that you see, to be able to move forward.

[Transition Sound Effect]

Andrew Harley: On to our Cool Down question. I saved one audience question for the Cool Down today. We'll keep this one quick. 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 TriDot 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 racecourse in 2026. I haven't raced in a few years, as we've started our family and been busy with that, and enjoying that. But I am itching to get back at it in 2026. 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. If it fits our family schedule, as our summer plans shore up 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 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. 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: Alright.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to the TriDot Podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on your listening platform of choice. For more opportunities to learn from our coaches, check out our YouTube channel and follow @TriDotTraining on social. Ready to train with us? Head to tridot.com and get started for free. Until next time. Happy training.

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