Thriving in Triathlon as a Cyclist

Elizabeth James:

Hello and welcome to the TriDot Podcast. I'm Elizabeth James, professional triathlete, coach, and your guest host for just a few episodes. Don't worry, don't worry, your favorite podcast host will be back — the captain of the middle of the pack will return. But Andrew and his wife recently welcomed a little baby girl to their family, so he's a little preoccupied at the moment soaking in all of those newborn snuggles. So I said I would gladly host a few things, keep us rolling for the next few weeks. Now, this episode is part of our series about starting the wonderful sport of triathlon from various sport history backgrounds. So today we're gonna take a look at starting triathlon coming from cycling. And to do that, I am so excited to welcome back Coach Chris Navin. He is the founder of Four Star Endurance, based in Chicago, Illinois. Chris, it's been a little while since we've had you on, but I'm very excited to welcome you back to the show. Thanks for being here. Well, we are definitely glad to have you back, and this was the perfect episode to have you on for. We will jump right in — we treat this show like any good workout, we'll start with our warm-up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down by asking a question from our audience on the cooldown. Lots of good stuff, let's get to it.

Elizabeth: Alrighty, over the course of our triathlon journey, we will likely bike in a variety of places. But for today's warm-up question, I'm very curious to know, Chris, what cycling route have you logged the most miles or kilometers on?

Chris Navin: Yeah, that's a tough one. In Chicago we have a beautiful lakefront trail, and I put some miles in there, and we just did the Chicago Triathlon — I usually do all four events of that weekend, so I bike a lot of miles on the actual Lakeshore Drive Highway from the racing there. But I would actually say — as I started thinking about it more, with some athletes this season we were talking about how many times I've gone up and ridden the Ironman Wisconsin course, 'cause I go up there almost every month to do training rides with my athletes. I've been going to that race now for almost fifteen-plus years, and I've probably been up there four or five — at least a dozen, half a dozen to a dozen times every year. So probably over a hundred times on that course, doing a hundred miles. So I've logged a few miles on that course and know it like the back of my hand. So that would be the one — Ironman Wisconsin for me.

Elizabeth: All right, yeah, I mean goodness, if you're riding the course multiple times each year, that's gonna rack up the miles pretty quickly, so definitely can see that as being the top contender. Gosh, I don't think I've got anything quite like that for me, but there's just a North Texas loop — it goes through Celina, Weston, it's kind of our usual Saturday ride. As much as I love exploring new routes, that's just kind of a go-to. I would say there's probably at least like 15 or 20 Saturdays a year where we're riding up to Celina through Weston, and so that's probably where I'm logging the most miles, just that easy, frequent loop. But we wanna hear from you, our audience — so where have you logged the most miles or the most kilometers on your bike? I know we've also asked for some bonus pictures, so we'd love to see those beautiful routes and let us know where you've been riding. All right, jumping into our main set here.

Elizabeth: Now, Coach Chris, as I alluded to in our introduction, you were hand-selected for this episode because you are an athlete with a very strong cycling background, and you've brought that into the sport of triathlon. So to kick things off here today, tell us a little bit about your experience with cycling and the role that played getting you into multi-sport.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, growing up — I grew up in Switzerland, and that's where I learned to ride a bike. But when I moved back to the US, I just loved having a bike growing up as a kid. A little challenge I used to do on the weekends is I would ride my bike as far as I could without putting my hands on the handlebar — I would do turns, and I would go from one town through a whole other town to the next town without touching my handlebar. So I just logged a lot of miles as a kid getting some fun miles in on the bike, but I never took it too seriously until I had some friends who were doing a triathlon — we all decided to sign up together. And that's what I graduated from — just a casual thing. I had a mountain bike at the time and actually used a mountain bike for my first triathlon, before I finally got a road bike, a racing bike, and then a time trial bike after that. But yeah, I kind of had bikes around me throughout my life growing up, and that's what got me interested in it, and I had a natural strength. And from there, got into coaching — I built a whole cycling, indoor cycling center in Chicago, and was lucky enough to have a lot of great athletes come through there, including an athlete who ended up winning the world championships in triathlon and turning professional. So I got to coach at all levels, from teaching people how to ride their bikes and learn how to clip in, to people winning world championships. I've always just naturally loved cycling, and it's definitely one of my favorite of the disciplines, but I've become pretty balanced in all of them these days. But cycling is definitely my favorite love. Besides triathlon coaching, I also coach one of the biggest bike racing teams in Chicago that produces actually one of the biggest criterium bike races in the country — televised and all that, the Chicago Grit Race. So from bike racing to triathlon, and I just qualified for Team USA again on the draft-legal triathlon side — that's where I feel like I can actually take advantage of my cycling strengths and passion to be able to draft and corner and do things to improve my result in a triathlon, thanks to being comfortable on the bike.

Elizabeth: Wow, Chris, I mean, that's — I know that's just even a brief synopsis of your history and your experience in cycling, but again, there's a main reason we chose you to be on this episode — you've just got a fantastic history. And I'm still stunned that you're going from town to town without touching the handlebars.

Chris: Yeah, I don't know if I do that anymore — as a kid I did, it was a fun challenge. Now I'm a little more nervous, like I don't want to crash. But it's still fun just to play around on the bike, and I think that's the one thing we sometimes don't do enough of — just go out for a bike ride to go for a bike ride, and learn how to do new things, go new places. I went out of my comfort zone a little bit and did the Unbound Gravel race, like 200-mile off-road gravel bike race — kind of like the Ironman for cyclists, it's like an all-day cycling adventure. I'm still learning new things — new equipment, new terrain. There's always something new to learn with cycling, and I think that's the biggest takeaway I can give people — just be curious in your cycling adventures.

Elizabeth: Love that, love that. Well, clearly you had the bike down once you moved from cycling into triathlon, but tell me a little bit about the picking up of the swim and the run — did you feel comfortable with that transition, did it feel out of place? Talk to us a little bit about that.

Chris: Yeah, be very out of place — I was comfortable on a bike, and I had gotten into running, so running was an easier thing to transition to, having a little bit of a cycling background and fitness level. But swimming was definitely the hardest for me. I could barely — I knew how to stay afloat in water — actually all my brothers growing up, I had three brothers who were all lifeguards at some point in their lives, and I was not. So I knew how to stay afloat in the water because I got in the water with them, but I didn't know how to swim proper freestyle. So learning how to breathe properly and learning the technique of swimming was the hardest thing for me, and that's usually what we see is the hardest thing for cyclists in general, for a number of reasons — especially having strong legs, you want to use the legs, and with swimming, you have to teach yourself not to use your legs, at least initially. So that was definitely the biggest challenge for me in trying to pick up triathlon initially.

Elizabeth: Okay, yeah. Now I do have another question with this, transitioning from cycling into maybe the run particularly — I know I've coached a couple athletes who've come from a cycling background, and they really struggle with the difference in terms of cadence, especially depending on what their riding style was. Sometimes we feel that an athlete's really fit, but depending on how they've been riding, they might have a slower cadence on the bike, and then trying to transition that over into turning the legs over for running, or what we need to do to be efficient in a longer-course triathlon. Did you have any experience with that, or have you coached athletes who've run into that scenario?

Chris: Yeah, and sometimes it's the other way around. When people come, depending on the cycling background — it varies quite a bit. Some people, if they have any type of — in Chicago we have a velodrome, people do track cycling, or as kids a lot of people do mountain biking, and in mountain biking they might be used to more kind of mashing through things. But usually if people come from bike racing, they're used to higher cadences in general, and that translates really well to running. I think where we see a lot of cyclists struggle with running is when they don't translate a higher cadence from cycling into a higher cadence when running — they tend to run with a lower cadence because they're not used to running. But once they learn good running form tips, they start to learn, hey, one of the biggest tricks to run well, especially running well off the bike, is to actually bike with a high cadence. So you're establishing the same rhythm — usually around 90 steps a minute, give or take, or 90 revolutions per minute on the bike. If you establish that cadence, at least towards the end of your cycling, that translates really well into keeping that biomechanical programming, that neuromuscular connection, that rhythm established, to then be able to run well off the bike. But doing cadence drills is kind of a foundation of cycling and bike training in general, and usually if people have done any type of bike interval training or workouts where they've done cadence drills, that can translate in really well to learning how to run as well. But if they don't focus on it, sometimes they don't — they just think it's a cycling-only thing, cadence. But in swimming too, a lot of times people plateau their swimming because they don't do enough cadence work with swimming, getting their arms used to turning over faster, or getting the kick — doing a six-beat kick, eight-beat kick, instead of just a two-beat kick. I think cadence is really a foundational piece of all the disciplines, but obviously it plays a big hand in the cycling space.

Elizabeth: Awesome. Yeah, such an interesting insight there too, about maybe what cycling background they came from, whether that was mountain biking and kind of the more technical riding, or something like a velodrome where they might have a higher cadence coming in — super interesting, so glad you made that point. I do want to dig in just a little bit more about starting each of those new disciplines for a cyclist. Let's say an athlete comes to you and says, hey Chris, I'm really thinking about getting into triathlon, I've done some riding — where do I start? What would you tell them as maybe a first piece of advice to move from cycling into multi-sport?

Chris: Yeah, I think the biggest roadblock is usually the swimming, because physically, oftentimes cyclists have well-developed legs, so a lot of muscle mass in their legs — and muscle sinks, fat floats — so the body balance in the water tends to not be there. If you have a smaller upper body, you don't have a lot of muscle in the upper body for a lot of cyclists, but you have a lot in the legs, you tend to be very lopsided. So learning body position, I think, is a key thing — just doing floating exercises, like what we call the starfish float, different floating drills, or doing flips in the water, flipping onto your back, flipping onto your front, just getting used to balancing your body in the water — I think that's something most cyclists need to do initially. And then the breathing — that's usually the hardest thing. Breathing when swimming, when you think about it, is really, in some ways, the complete opposite of what you do on land. If you're cycling, you tend to breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. When you're swimming, you actually need to learn how to do a little bit of a puff out through the nose, so you're not swallowing water up your nose all the time, and then inhale through the mouth more. If you're not used to breathing that way, you actually have to do the repetitions of exhaling through the nose, inhaling through the mouth, and do that over and over again to get that neuromuscular connection, to get to the point where you don't have to actively think about it anymore. So usually I tell the cyclist, the first thing I want to see in your first month of training, or even first two months, is get in the pool often — even if it's just for 15 minutes, get in at least two or three times a week ideally. It might be a bit of an investment of time up front, but if you don't do that, it just takes so much longer to pick up the swimming side of things. So that's usually — not always the case with everybody — but usually one of the first big roadblocks is just getting the breathing and the buoyancy on the swimming side established.

Elizabeth: Yeah, gosh, great advice, and the frequency of doing that — I think that's a major point there, that it's gonna be a time investment up front, and it doesn't necessarily need to be an hour, three to four times a week, but just getting in and almost doing that reverse breathing — okay, let's do the opposite of what we do in cycling, take that into the pool, into the water. Great insight there. Now, we've talked a little bit about some of the benefits you saw coming into multi-sport from cycling, especially the comfort on the bike. Can you maybe expand on that a little bit — how a cyclist maybe does have a good advantage coming in, with their bike handling skills and the confidence that they have in their ride?

Chris: Yeah, sometimes we take things for granted. We just had the Chicago Triathlon here and we had a lot of first-timers, and I sometimes forget, having a pretty deep cycling background, what it's like to get on a new bike for the first time, or do a triathlon for your first time. We take things for granted, like just drinking and hydrating — reaching for your water bottle, being able to take fuel and hydration in on the bike — because a lot of first-timers, literally that's their first time having to do that, actually bike while hydrating and eating, and they don't feel comfortable enough to do that. At the Chicago Triathlon we have people who literally will do the whole bike leg not drinking or eating anything, because they're just too nervous being around other people and doing turns, so they have to hydrate and eat in transition instead of on the bike. So little things like that are a huge advantage — if you're super comfortable on the bike, used to eating, drinking, it's just second nature, you can do those little things that others maybe cannot do. And then just the bike handling skills — I would say for any cyclist, it's always good to do some bike handling skills clinics, a lot of local bike shops will have those, where you get used to turning and cornering and what's called counter-steering — learning how to do turns more aggressively and safely, with confidence, so you don't get super nervous as soon as you hit a U-turn. So I think cyclists have that natural ability to do more things on the bike more easily — in addition to some technical stuff, like fixing a flat tire. If you've been biking for a while, you know how to fix a flat tire, so going out on a 20-plus-mile bike ride is no big deal — if you get a flat tire, you know how to fix it. But for someone who's new, they might not have that. So I think a lot of those little things carry a lot of weight in terms of making getting into triathlon a lot easier in general. And if you're a more advanced cyclist, you probably have the background of doing bike interval workouts, whether it's spin classes, Peloton, or on a smart trainer — just understanding concepts of cadence, interval, heart rate, and power. The heart rate and power stuff can translate into learning how to do intervals and other types of workouts on the running and swimming side of things as well. So I think there's a lot of things cyclists can naturally carry over to help in the other disciplines.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think there's quite a bit of carryover there. I wanna flip this now and say, okay, there's a lot of benefits for a cyclist — we've touched on how the swim is challenging, the run can take a little bit to pick up — what other challenges do you see as cyclists come into the sport?

Chris: I think the other big one is actually on the running side. When cyclists get into triathlon on a bike, it's very easy to ramp up your volume or intensity with not a lot of concern and not a lot of injury risk potential. But on running, if you try to ramp up your running volume too quickly, or volume and intensity too quickly, just because it's a higher-impact sport, you can end up getting injured a lot easier. We see that often with cyclists, because sometimes their bone density is actually a little bit less too — they're not used to the pounding of running. So if you try to ramp up the running too quickly, you might not be ready for that. I think that's both a mental and physical thing — one, you have to put the time in to physically adapt to running and the pounding, by doing it very gradually, but mentally also know that you shouldn't ramp up your volume more than like 10, 20% from week to week, or add two, three, four miles onto a long run — just go very slow, add one mile from long run to long run, don't add more than about 10, maybe at most 20% of volume from week to week. I think that's where cyclists can sometimes have a bit of a challenge — especially if they have good fitness, they just want to be like, hey, I want to run as fast as those runner guys, and they try to keep up with people, try to go out and pace group runs where they just try to stay with other people, and they end up pushing too hard, too long, too quickly. So I think learning to be gradual and following a training plan — do the zone two volume, build your strength first — we always say build your strength first, then work on your speed work, and then finally add that volume as well. So strong before long, fast before far — those kinds of common themes are critical for a cyclist to learn about running in general.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that's key, because they've got the engine, they've got the fitness, but the patience to understand, okay, we're loading the whole body here and this is a full-weight-bearing sport, running certainly is a difference between the bike and the run. Do you see any issues with — I mean we touched on maybe the muscle in the legs and how that can impede the swim, but do you see any challenges with strength training for the cyclists coming in and trying to balance that out as they're getting into the swim volume as well?

Chris: Yeah, sometimes there's more flexibility, I think, with swimming — cyclists and runners too tend to have stiffer ankles, we're in dorsiflexion instead of plantar flexion with our ankles so much that when you try to kick with swimming, you're just kicking the wrong way basically — kicking water down or kicking it forward instead of backwards. So flexibility, doing either mobility exercises — anything that works on flexibility, especially the shoulders. If you're used to being hunched over on the bike all the time, with swimming you really need to be able to reach and extend and get your body more stretched out in a single plane, getting your spine straight instead of hunched. I think putting a lot of time into that can give a lot of benefits, and oftentimes we find even just doing five, ten minutes of stretching and flexibility and mobility exercises before you get in the water, every session, you'll end up swimming literally 10 seconds per hundred faster, just because now you've got that better range of motion and your hands reaching an extra couple inches. So I think that's another area for cyclists in general to pay a lot of attention to when they're getting into swimming — look at the ankle flexibility, do any type of ankle flexibility or mobility exercises — doesn't have to be lifting heavy weights, just any type of range of motion or movement activities leveraging that is big — and then shoulder mobility as well. Whether that means going and getting massages to help with that a little bit, or learning how to use a foam roller, learning how to use bands, swim cords, those sort of things — I think that's always a worthwhile investment of time when cyclists are getting into swimming in particular.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that's a good point about mobility there. I'm thinking through the position of a cyclist and more so thinking of coming from a mountain bike or a road bike — what does that look like in terms of a cyclist coming from a different kind of road racing or mountain bike racing and then trying to get on a time trial bike? There's a different position there — they've got the engine, they've got great bike skill, but talk to us a little bit about the learning curve of getting onto a time trial bike and then racing that.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, holding a time trial position for a long period of time is definitely a challenge — you have to build up to that, whether it's doing strength exercises like planks and things like that. But ultimately, with a good bike fit, which is always kind of what we recommend when people are getting a time-trial-specific bike, is put the time and money into making sure that fit is done well and puts you in a position that's comfortable without straining different parts of your body. A good time trial position, usually on the bike, is more forward and higher, so your hips are opened up a little bit more — it is a different fit from the road bike, and you do have to put time in to get used to that. Even at the elite level — if people know some of the big names in triathlon, like Kristian Blummenfelt, he kept trying to go back between draft-legal racing and then long course in the same season, and he admitted it himself — one time he was actually up the road here in Milwaukee doing the PTO race, and he got off the bike and right away he just cramped up and couldn't run — he literally was walking, everyone's like, my goodness, what's happening, and he was near the front of the race when that was happening. He's had that happen to him in multiple races, and people interviewed him afterwards and asked what happened, and he admitted, I just didn't put enough time into the time trial bike to have my body used to holding that position, and being able to hold that position at the racing intensity that I wanted to do. So even within a single season, not just a first time or getting used to time trial position, but in general, any cyclist that's going to be racing in a time trial position, you want to make sure you're putting the time in to get used to that and get your muscles and body used to that time trial position. And, like you said, do some of the strength training exercises that can help with that — doing planks and things like that can really help to truly optimize that at the end of the day.

Elizabeth: Chris, I know I'm bouncing around — I've got all these other questions I want to ask you, so I feel like I'm maybe doing this a little bit out of order, but I just love picking your brain about these different topics, and every time you say something I'm like, yeah but what about this and this. So I feel like I'm still jumping around a little bit, but I want to come back and talk about a cyclist going into the run. We've talked about how they have to be a little bit more patient because they've got the engine to do that. Now, do you find that even though there's the benefit of doing structured intervals, cyclists sometimes find the run is mentally challenging because it's still different — like your engine for the bike isn't necessarily gonna translate for the same heart rate measurements it does on the run? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Chris: Yeah, I think there's a couple of things there. One, depending on the cycling background — sometimes, if someone's a bike racer, criteriums, road races, that sort of thing, they're used to drafting off of people, and most triathlons, at least in the US — we have some draft-legal triathlons, but most of them are non-drafting — you have to just get used to doing your own power and a much more steady-state effort. A lot of cyclists aren't used to that steady-state, time-trial-type effort. So I think there's a lot you have to get used to, both mentally and physically, with just being able to hit that repetitive, slow-twitch type of muscle movement and rhythm for your body, and a big part of that is pacing. When cyclists are used to — some cyclists have heart rate monitors, they love data, they might have power, they might have heart rate on the bike, or they might not, but if they do, the heart rate zones you have on the bike can be very different from the run. Some people's heart rate zones might match perfectly, it just kind of depends on your unique physiology and how much training time you've put in on each of the disciplines. But sometimes you need different training zones for running versus cycling, and figuring that out sometimes can be an initial hurdle for a cyclist that wants to be able to run efficiently off the bike. Learning how to do a nice negative-split-type pacing on the run sometimes takes a while. If you look at the extreme end of the spectrum — in marathon running in general, if you look at the whole population of people that do long-distance triathlons, and in particular the ones that do marathons, less than 10% of runners actually manage to negative-split a marathon. That's just general population, so in triathlon it might even be a lot less, because you're starting the run with fatigue —

Elizabeth: Yeah, we're not even talking off the bike, yeah.

Chris: Yeah, and so it's even more complicated. But experienced triathletes have learned over time, either through coaching or using good training plans, how to really dial in that pacing for the runs. I think learning to really focus on heart rate, or if you don't have heart rate, just listening to your breathing rate when you're running, is a good tool for cyclists in general. With cycling you have bike gears, right, so you can shift, you can ride any cadence, and sometimes you don't give a lot of thought to this. But with running, your running cadence is gonna be pretty steady and consistent — you can't shift gears that much, you can change your effort, but you don't have gear ratios to use. So you have to learn to listen to your breathing rate, and you can get used to learning what a zone two effort feels like versus zone three, zone four, zone five, just by paying attention to your breathing rate while you're running. So oftentimes I tell people, focus on asymmetric breathing — think about how many steps you take when you breathe out and how many steps you take when you breathe in — that can be a way to start to learn how to control and gauge your relative effort. So if you don't know what your heart rate zones should be for running, you can just begin to focus on your breathing rate and learn from that, and that will enable you to pace well. The other thing is cyclists, oftentimes who have good fitness, will just hammer the bike because that's their strength, and then they have a tendency of blowing up on the run. So usually I encourage our cyclists to really learn not just the pacing on the bike, but the pacing on the run as well, and having heart rate to focus on, or focusing on your breathing rate, can help a lot. I think following structured run workouts can help a lot with that too. A good example was this past weekend at the Chicago Triathlon — I was doing the triple challenge, so I was up in the first wave, I got to see all of our athletes who were up front. I had several athletes who were in, I think, around the top twenty of the race, and as I'm running out on the run course, I see them running back in the other direction. I saw three of my athletes in a row, and one of them doesn't use TriDot and the other two do. The ones that use TriDot, they're used to executing their workouts well, they've got their pacing dialed in, they managed to chase down the other athlete that was ahead of them on the run. So I don't know if that's anecdotally a good reason to do TriDot, of course, but I think you can learn a lot just from being really effective at the run and learning how to pace the run. For a cyclist that has good fitness, that can sometimes take a while, because so many people have a tendency of biking just a little bit too hard, and learning where those thresholds are for the bike and the run can be really instrumental. So if you're a cyclist coming into triathlon, yes, you want to bike hard and get that good bike split, because that's the discipline you probably love the most. But definitely make sure you put the time in to not just have good run fitness, but know how to pace the run, because it's a lot easier to overcook it, and you can't just coast like you can on the bike when you're on the run — if you have to walk, your finish times definitely get a lot slower, a lot quicker.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that's a good point. I remember as I was getting started in the sport, I was a new cyclist, so I came more from the running background, and I was very worried about how long the bike was gonna take me when I did my first Ironman, which was Ironman Wisconsin — been up to that course too, Chris. And I remember John telling me, he's like, these guys that go and smash the bike, they're giving each other a high five for a PR bike split as they walk the marathon — like, it's gonna be okay, you're gonna end up passing a whole lot of people just by pacing this well and having a good run. So I think that kind of goes back to your point of having that cycling background can be a great strength, and you really do need a strong bike to perform well or place well if those are your performance goals, but not at the point of neglecting what's gonna happen after the bike.

Chris: Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned Ironman Wisconsin, because my first Ironman Wisconsin is the example I use about pacing properly all the time, because when I did it, I had another local athlete who was part of the same tri club I was in, and I used to see him at every race — he was always a better swimmer, our bike was pretty close, and I was a better runner than him, so I would almost always beat him by at least a couple of minutes. At Ironman Wisconsin, I passed him on the bike, and then when we got to the run, he passed me at like mile four of the run. I'm like, how is he doing better than me, I'm supposed to be the better runner. But he went off up ahead, and I did not see him again until mile 20 of the marathon — with only about 10K remaining, he had blown himself up, he did that run too fast, and he ended up walking the last six miles. For me, I was able to keep my effort going, and I actually started running and picking up the pace a little bit in the last 10K. Even though I only passed him with six miles to go, he was basically walking a 20-minute mile, I was running a 10-minute mile — so over just six miles, I ended up finishing an hour ahead of him, even though I didn't pass him until mile twenty of the marathon. That's the textbook example of why pacing is so important. Because especially for Ironman, if you blow up and end up walking, you can very easily add an hour-plus to your finish time. So even if you're a strong cyclist, yes, get that good bike split, but when you hit that run, make sure you know how to pace it.

Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I love how RaceX right now talks about the bike impact on run time — it's like, yeah, you might be able to do fifteen minutes faster on the bike, but what impact does that have on your run, are you gonna end up an hour slower 'cause you blew the doors off the bike. So it's a big puzzle — I think that's part of what I love so much about the sport, is just how it all fits together, and it's a challenge, but it's a good one. Well Chris, that takes care of a whole lot of things in terms of the training approach and also what a cyclist should be thinking about on race day. I'm curious — I had Will on, as he was talking about coming to the sport as a swimmer, so I asked him this question, I want to ask this to you too, and there's no right or wrong answer here, just curious to see what you'd say. In your opinion, between the swimmer, the cyclist, and the runner, which athlete do you think has the biggest advantage coming into triathlon? And then who do you think has the biggest disadvantage from their sport background?

Chris: Yeah, that's a tough one. I would say swimmers probably have the biggest advantage, just because that's the more technical, technique-focused discipline. If you do well on the swim and come out of the swim wasting less energy, that can have a positive impact on both the bike and the run — just because it's the first discipline, but also because it's the most technical. I think swimmers naturally have that kind of competitive advantage to get into triathlon and do well. I know when USA Triathlon is always recruiting for the next Olympic elite-level pool of athletes, they look at the athletes who are the best swimmers and the best runners, because they figure if they have the fitness, they can teach the bike component a little more easily. So I think swimmers generally have the biggest advantage. And then I think cyclists also — they probably have the second biggest advantage, just because it's the bigger chunk of the day usually, percentage-wise you spend more time on the bike, so if you have that good bike fitness, and you've got the technical skills of knowing how to bike, learning how to deal with bike issues, bike equipment, all that — again, it's a little more of a technical sport versus running. So probably swimmers first, and then cyclists second, I would say.

Elizabeth: Okay, so you'd say then maybe runners have the disadvantage there, 'cause we didn't mention them in the advantages.

Chris: Yeah, I think if you take someone who's just a runner, has never done swimming or cycling — those are two more technical sports to learn, and that can take a little more time to pick up. So it definitely is — I would say on average, everyone's different, but in general, yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah, yep. But they've got a learning curve there if they've not been on the water and never on a bike. Now, if you could bring the ideal triathlete, taking some of those best traits of the swimmer, the cyclist, the runner — what do you think are some of the traits from each of those backgrounds that you would want to see for an elite triathlete?

Chris: It's like picking the best skills from each of them. That's a tough one. Yeah, I mean, having a big bike engine can definitely help quite a bit — sometimes if you have someone who is a strong cyclist and has the technical skills down, at the elite level, especially if they're doing draft-legal triathlon, I think having good bike handling skills is a huge advantage. A swimmer — definitely, we've seen triathletes develop the swim even if they haven't had it — but I think having the bike handling down for the elite level is definitely something that sometimes takes years to develop, if you don't have it. So I always like to see if it's someone who has good bike handling skills and is comfortable on the bike — sky's the limit for them, because they can deal with more technical courses, whether it's climbing, descending, more technical turns. I think that's a skill I always would want to see. And then swimming — just having someone who's got the frequency of swimming down, so they're comfortable in the water. Because if you get in the water with a bunch of other competitive athletes and they're all pushing the pace and bumping into you, if you don't have that comfort — being comfortable with being uncomfortable — skill set, I think that helps a lot as well, because it can be very easy to get dropped in a swim pack, and then even if you're a strong cyclist, you might never be able to get that back. So I like to see good bike handling skills and good confidence and comfort in the water — those would be two major things I like to see.

Elizabeth: Awesome. Yeah, it's so interesting to think about the background of athletes and how they enter the sport, and what the advantages and disadvantages are — everyone's got such a unique journey. It's been really neat, in just these couple episodes, to pick apart some of those things so far.

Now, for the athletes listening today who maybe relate big time to this episode, and they're like, yes, I'm a cyclist, I've been thinking about making the move into triathlon — do you have any examples of men or women, not necessarily in the pro field, but maybe in the pro field because they're names we might recognize, who were cyclists before they entered triathlon? Anyone we can root for from the cyclist background?

Chris: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot — whether it's celebrities sometimes, we get a lot of big-name celebrities who get into the sport and inspire other people to get into it, so there's a lot of good examples there. I think in the pro cycling world, for people who are cyclists that might follow professional cycling and have names they look up to, like Tadej Pogačar and people at that level. I know in the triathlon world, Cameron Wurf is a popular name — if you're not familiar, look him up, he's got some fun stories. I can't remember if he broke the Kona bike course record, but he's usually up there with some of the fastest bikers, or at least he used to be — he's getting a little bit older now, but he's beating people half his age, so he's pretty inspiring from that standpoint. I know he's done some crazy things where he's on a pro cycling team that will have him come and do pro cycling races in the middle of his Ironman training season — so he'll be doing an Ironman one weekend, and then the next week he's in a pro peloton race like Paris-Roubaix. I think he was leading, pulling his team across the big cobblestone section of Paris-Roubaix, to help his team leaders get through the field unscathed — so he was doing all the grunt work, basically. And then when he finished, one of the toughest one-day bike races in the world, he gets out and runs a half marathon brick workout afterwards. So while all the other pros are going to the showers, getting cleaned up, getting their massages, he goes out and runs a half marathon just for fun.

Elizabeth: Yeah, like here, just let me finish my training day for this Ironman that's coming up.

Chris: Yeah, and that's typical of triathletes — get known for that, like we'll go to a bike race event, do a bike race, and then throw our bike in the car and go for a brick run because we didn't get enough working out today. So I think it's always fun to get inspired by stuff like that, because you think, just doing this one thing is hard, but it's all relative to your perspective, and when you get into triathlon you get comfortable with doing uncomfortable things, and things that seemed challenging start to become less so. So that's just a fun, confidence-building aspect of triathlon in general.

Elizabeth: And here we are at the cooldown. So our question from the audience — this comes from Leonard, and Leonard is from Irvine, California. He says: "I am looking at adding power pedals to my bike setup, and I'm debating buying a set with one power pedal versus a set where both pedals have power. What data am I missing out on if I save some money and buy the one that has power in just one pedal?" All right, Coach Chris, let's help Leonard out — what would you say?

Chris: Yeah, it always is relative to your situation and how much money you like to spend in the sport, but I'd say 90% of the reason for getting the power pedals is just to record the wattage, the power numbers — you use that for interval workouts, pacing, all that. So getting a single-sided power meter is fine for most people, and most of them you can always upgrade later on. So if you're on the fence about do I want two-sided power pedals or one-sided, I would just have most people start with one-sided. The main thing you're potentially missing out on is what's called pedal dynamics information — how smooth your pedal stroke is on the left versus the right side. So if you're really getting to that top 1% where you're trying to optimize your pedal stroke, that's where the dual-sided can still be something you might want to consider. Or imbalances — if you're coming off of an injury on one side of the body, and your pedal stroke is a little imbalanced, having power measurement on both pedals allows you to see that and potentially even adjust your bike fit — like sometimes we put little shims in and move one pedal further out. So in a bike fit you might use it, but that might be more of a one-time thing, and on the pedal stroke, same thing — you might use it to do pedal stroke analytics, but that might just be a couple times, for a bike workout, whereas the raw power numbers is what you're gonna be using every day. So I would normally say, spend the money on the single-sided pedal at first, and then you can always decide later on if you want to upgrade to more.

Elizabeth: Awesome, thank you Chris, very helpful. And we know that if you're saving a little money on that one-sided power meter, there's plenty of other things that portion of the budget can go to. So I think that's great advice. Well Chris, I just have to say thank you again for being on this episode. I was so excited when we were drafting this up and knew you would be the perfect person to ask — your background on the cycling front is just tremendous. So thank you for being on, for sharing all of that with us, and hope that it maybe captured the attention of a cyclist out there who's been thinking about getting into the sport, and gave them some confidence and reassurance that we would love to welcome them to the triathlon family. So Chris, thanks again for being here.

Chris: Yeah, thanks for having me. And if anyone's ever in Chicago, feel free to look me up if you want to join a group ride or one of our bike skills clinics — we do practice criteriums and all sorts of different bike things in Chicago. So good luck to everyone on their adventures.