A Triathlete's Journey 2024 - Introducing Leo Silva - Athletes in Motion Podcast

Narrator: 0:10

Welcome to the athletes in motion podcast from race to recovery. With your hosts, Tom Regal, and Kenny Bailey.

Tom Regal: 0:29

Hey, Kenny, how you doing?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:30

I am fantastic, Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:32

I'm fantastic as well. We are back again with our third athlete for the triathletes journey series, or of our podcasts that we've been talking about launching all the way out. We have Leo Silva and I didn't do your full Brazilian name. That's wonderful. I'm going to let you drink it. Because you will do it with much more flair than than I will. But we've we've got Leo here. We're super excited. Leo Gish was getting into triathlon last year, right and now and now we're stepping up, or stepping up big time, you're actually jumping all the way up to 70.3. This and so this is this is interesting. So let's, let's start with your background. What? What bet did you lose that you got into triathlon?

Leo Silva: 1:18

Man, you know, it's really funny, because thanks for having me, Kenny. And Tom, first of all, one of our best friends Allison Sussman. She she was a member of BT She just moved to Knoxville. And she started doing triathlons about two years ago. And I'm like, You're crazy. You're nuts. Why you're doing this. And last year, or 2022. She did the Memphis 7.3. And, you know, I would see her trainee. And I was like, why are you doing this house? And this sounds miserable. It's like, No, I know. It's it. And she has always been like super positive about it. And in 2022, that same year, or son Lucas, where the time was five? He did Ben Nolan's fu kids try. He has always been a super active kid. You know, he we love biking together and has always been a good runner. I mean, every kid can run right? I had to work with him a little bit on pacing, right? Because sprint, walk and sprint are well off because they can't do that. Let's just try to keep a steady pace. And he did the nolensville kids try. And I was amazed. I had never watched a race. I was there. And I you know, it was funny because I was there with my wife and our youngest. And at one point, a couple came to my wife and ask Where's your husband? And and she said, Oh, he took off. I took off after my Son or Son. And they're like, oh, first year, right? Yeah. And they're like, you know, we all do this and the first year that is always running and encouraging. And you know, after that, he had a lot of fun. After that, I was like, you know, maybe I can get into this. It doesn't sound too bad. i It sounds super exciting. Like everyone cheering you on. And then this was in August, and then Allison kept like, you know, pressuring me. Let's do one next year. Let's do it next year. And then I signed up for the for the iron nugget in Dixon. And I think that's the beginning of May. Yep. I was freezing. You know, she never told me how expensive it was like she she always told me how expensive how awesome. How awesome it was. And, and you know, I've always enjoyed swimming, I've always enjoying cycling. I never liked running. I always hated running. I was like, you know, I will get through it. It's a sprint. I can do a 5k for swimming. You know, I grew up I'm from Brazil. Originally, I grew up near the ocean. My parents signed me up for a lifeguarding course when I was like eight, like learn, learn the ocean learned the currents. So you can see because I wanted to serve. My brother is a Big Time Surfer. So, you know, they said if you want to surf, you need to learn how to get out of the ocean. And that's the that was the extent of my swimming. I know how to swim in the ocean. Comfortable how to survive, right? That's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:31

actually a lot better than most triathletes.

Tom Regal: 4:33

Most people do it the opposite. Yeah, right. And

Leo Silva: 4:36

I love ocean swim. I love you know, going under the waves and all of that and I love you know, body surfing. So and that's when when I started swimming, that's when you realize how better a swimmer you are. Because you know I joined we joined live time because I was like, you know I need a pool. We joined lifetime it's a good A gym if you have kids, because they have a lot of kids programs. And then I joined the master swim. And on the first day, you know, the coach was like, oh, Leo, you're the new guy, coach, Ella, which is she's amazing. Like, Leo, you're the you're the new guy. What's your background? And I'm like, background, I have no background. I, you know, I grew up swimming to survive. And I think she was a little disappointed, because she was like, oh, you know, so and so is training for Kona, so and so is a color swimmer. And I'm like, okay, great. I'm gonna fit right.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 5:33

I'll be over here. Yeah,

Leo Silva: 5:36

I had, I had my own lane for a while. Which, which was fine. But so, you know, I started training. I remember Allison, you know, she said, Hey, there's going to be this one at MTSU, two weeks before the iron nugget, and it's a pool swim instead of a leg swim. And I'm like, That sounds awesome. Let's do that. First. I, you know, I bought a bike from one of my co workers. I work at an awesome place. Everyone is like, we have a fantastic work environment. So Michael, I told my co workers like, hey, my husband has a road bike. Do you want to borrow it? Because that at that point I was doing with my mountain bike. And I was like, Okay, that's great. And I, I asked her, like, how tall is he? And she's like, okay, he's about your size, you know? And I'm like, Okay, can I come and get the bike? And she's like, Yeah, absolutely. So I get there, and I meet her husband. And he's like, six, two, and I'm fine. And I'm like, Crystal, not he's not my height. And I think that the bike was a 58. Right now I write a 54. And I'm like, I'm like, I was gonna say, you're just like, ah,

Tom Regal: 6:51

seats slammed all the way down.

Leo Silva: 6:56

Yeah, his shoes are bigger, obviously. But that's, that's what I had. I remember that day. It was like, late April. And you know, the weather here is crazy. So, you know, we all thought that it was the weather is going to be great. And on the day of the triathlon, it was like 40 degrees. And, you know, you get out of the pool, you're soaking wet, you go get your bike, and it's 40 degrees. And, you know, I had bought my, I had brought my ski gloves worth to me, because it was like, I've learned something, and I forgot to put them on. I was so like, nervous, you know, in the first transition. And I remember when I got back from the bike, I could not take my shoes off, because my hands were so cold. And so I'm like, Hey, you're trying to warm them up. And, you know, it was really cool. I graduated from MTSU. So the whole run is on campus. And it was really awesome. And, you know, I think that triathlon was on Saturday, by Wednesday, I had bought a tri bike, like I went on Facebook marketplace. I do research. I, you know, and I talked to a few people, and they're like, you know, you should probably get a road bike. And I was like, No, I want to do triathlons. I am a triathlete now. And, you know, I ended up getting a tri bike. I drove, I drove all the way to Knoxville get it? And, you know, funny thing was my, it wasn't a day that my wife was out of town for work. And I had, you know, both of her kids, I was responsible for dropping them off and picking them up from school. So I had like a very short window to go get the bike in Knoxville. So I Allison, you know, she had both of her kids were in the same schools as our kids. And I said, Look, you got me into this. If it if I don't get back in time, you're picking up our kids. And just like totally fair, I got shot, but you know, I was able to run there. The guy kind of drove a little bit, my way, and I got a really good deal on it. You know, and, and that's also true that I did, I did the iron nugget. I did the music CD, I did oh to Hickory and then I did an Olympic in Knoxville of the Katanga on the river. And so I I've been loving it. I think that, you know, the training is a lot of fun because you're you're doing different things, right? You're not just running you're not not just swimming or not just biking, you're doing all three and it's really cool. You know, when you start at the very bottom and you're horrible at it. It's really cool to see your improvement right? And you know, I I'm in you know, I'm a numbers type of guy. So I kept a spreadsheet with all of my times all of my you know, bike speed and my swim speed and you know, my pace for the ride and I can see He kind of like the improvement. So I'm excited to see how that changes from last year to this year. Nice.

Tom Regal: 10:06

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:06

What's really kind of neat though, is I mean, you approach your first triathlon with a bike. That's way too big for Derby whether you can't get your hands open yet the bug bit you, right? Yeah, after despite, despite all of that, despite all of that, you're like, I'm still gonna do this. Right. So, so for 2024, what do you have on the calendar?

Leo Silva: 10:24

So I had I had Chattanooga on the calendar. That was my, that was gonna be my goal. I started training for that. In January, and, and then I had the ski accident that we talked about, and I'm sure we're gonna talk about it. So I, I've moved Chattanooga to I guess reregistered to Augusta in September, I think September 29. And then right now, I'm signed up for Music City in Old Hickory. And I'll probably do a few more. I'm just trying to work my schedule because our kids are doing triathlons as well. And so career races, their races will take priority over mine. Because they don't have as many so if there is a kid's race, we're going to do that we did you know the nolensville kids thrive. Last year, we did a kid's triathlon in Knoxville. And we might try to go I think there's one in Bowling Green. And there's one in Louisville that we're going to try to there's no ice where

Tom Regal: 11:28

we go back. So that's good. And then heat has one up in Hendersonville.

Leo Silva: 11:32

Yeah, yeah, so we're doing that one too.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 11:34

That's cool. And your kids are just like, I think they're just they love it, right? It's just sort of a it's fun. We can I get through a kid's eyes, right? Because they no one told him it's supposed to be hard and difficult. And you're supposed to want to know about it, they just go do it. Right. So

Leo Silva: 11:46

when you get a medal, right, you get them. That's what that's what they care about. And I think that it's such a cool environment, right? If I had never really done any type of racing, I had never done a 5k before I started doing this, and you see everyone cheering you on, it's just really awesome. It's a really good feeling. You finish the race, everyone is happy, like no, you know, I grew up playing sports, you know, but there was always a winner and a loser in the end of the day. And, you know, sometimes when you play team sports, you can be playing your best. But if your team is not, you're gonna lose. And that can be frustrating. And I feel like you know, what triathlon, or these individual sports, it's like, it's up to you, like if you, if you don't do good on the run, you know what to work on. Obviously, there are things that can happen in the middle of the race. But at the end of the day, everyone wins, everyone is happy, everyone is excited. It's like a big party. So I really enjoyed that. And the kids really liked that too.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:49

And the environments really kind of nice, and it's family friendly. And everybody, you know, everybody routes for everybody, you're not, you've got a whole environment where you're, you know, the kids can, can see people that are happy and doing hard things and that kind of thing. It's great. I remember I had an opportunity, as you were talking to I remember my son's 23 now, but when he was six, he did a do Athlon in Sacramento, where it was a kind of a run and that bike in Iran, we had we got him a road bike, it was a little specialized road bike, and but the parents were able to ride with him. So I had a parent that because he was only six at the time. So they it was in a and so I got to ride with him while he's doing it. And just watching to your point and just watching him. You know, seeing the other kids are looking around and knowing you know, he's trying to try to run to compete. And as soon as he gets done, he's thinking about the next year, okay, how am I going to do this? And what do I need to do? And it's just, you know, it's, it's fun to watch, it's fun to see, yeah, kind of, through their eyes, sometimes you forget, kind of, I think with with the way we pressure ourselves as adults in the way we set expectations, and you know, those kinds of things. And then if you just watch it through their eyes, it reminds them, you know, you can just go have fun and do cool stuff. So

Leo Silva: 14:04

yeah, and I think one of the things that I really like is the fact that we can we can pray together, right? Like, yeah, or six times we'll go, we'll go to the track near the high school, in your house at the high school near your house, and, and it will just run laps. And you know, sometimes he's like, Hey, can you tie me and I'll type him and he's like, Alright, I want to do it again. I want to do it faster. So he's a very competitive child. And I think, you know, I'm competitive too. And they see. I think one of the coolest things is how they see you working hard. And you know, and that they want to do it too. Right. So

Tom Regal: 14:42

incorporate them in is the best part of it, right? That's what makes triathlon it's it's I feel for folks who, like get the bug for the sport, and they're doing the sport but their family isn't interested or doesn't want to be involved or whatever, you know. Right? You know, there's so much it's it's especially especially see female athletes where they don't get the support from their families now husbands, especially the female athletes, and and I can see where it wears on him. I mean, this is an empowering thing for people, and to be able to include the family and especially young kids and get them excited about it and train with it. That's the more things we can do active with family. I mean, that's it. And then there's Kenny, and that's it. Yeah,

Leo Silva: 15:26

they don't want right. Yeah, well, and this is, my kids

Kenny Bailey<br>: 15:30

actually ran faster than me. That's what that's what killed me is. It's showing your cross country they're laying down. Yeah, they're laying down, like, you know, sub five away from me face and I'm like, because, like,

Leo Silva: 15:44

well, this is, uh, this is kind of a deal that I had with my wife, you know, she has been incredible, super supportive. She's the type of person that if I tell her like, Hey, I'm gonna take on, you know, whatever jujitsu or I'm going to take on, you name it, she will be supportive. And she'll say, hey, go do it, go for it. Go hard. So one of the views that I had with her is like, you know, obviously, I want to train, it takes a lot of time, but family comes first. And, you know, on weekends, I need to incorporate, or schedule into my training, if I need to do a long run or a long bike ride, I have to wake up at five in the morning, right. And a lot of times, if I'm doing a run, or if I'm doing a bike ride, the kids are coming, we have a trailer, I will put them on the bike or put both kids on the bike. And there you go. It's like 120 pounds extra that I am carrying, you know, in the end of the day, it's great. And the same thing with Iran. You know, our youngest is four. He likes running, he likes to do everything that his big brother's doing, but he can't run as fast as him and and he will sprint to keep up with his big brother. And then he'll be like, I'm tired. And then he goes on the stroller and then I'll, I'll push him. And so that's kind of how kind of how we do it. You know, we will we'll find a way to make sure that the kids are involved we all have you know, bikes or four year old is now riding his bike too. I did, I created this this attachment, this bike rack for or trailer for a bike trailer. So I you know, put together some like PVC pipes, and I had an old bike rack that I cut. And I adapted to fit on the back of the of the wagon, the bike wagon. So now we can put two bikes there. So if we go on a bike ride and the kids get exhausted, then I have to carry the two of them and their two bikes. Again, it helps my 200 pounds.

Tom Regal: 17:46

training that's funny and go through. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:50

So with so many smaller races upfront, how is your Do you have a coach for First off? I know are you okay? And so you like that or don't like that?

Leo Silva: 17:59

So I for now, Kenny, you know, I am the type of guy that I love knowledge, right? I love knowing and learning. So what I'm doing I'm currently doing the USA Triathlon level one coaching certification. I've been reading uh, I've read a bunch of books. So I'm following that training for my training. And again, I just started following a plan in the beginning of the year, you know, and I was doing that for Chattanooga, and I will start doing that. Now in May. Preparing to preparing for Augusta.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:42

Yeah. Okay, so for right now for the for the smaller races, what you're doing is just maintaining good shape, or effort and then ramp in later in the year. Is that is that the plan or what?

Tom Regal: 18:52

So tell us about the hiccup in the training because you were gonna you were gonna do the 70.3 Chattanooga, which was man? Yeah, we're Yeah, we're on we'll have the arrow right here. This This episode will come out. It'll be April the first week in April. So what happened? Tell us take us through that. Yeah. That so

Leo Silva: 19:13

we were we went on a ski trip to France. This is something that we planned. We're big planners. We plan vacations as soon as the kids calendar comes out. So we planned this ski trip to France. My family from Brazil. We're going to There they met us there and we're going to be there for a week and on the first day out snowboarding. I got hit from behind and had a level four kidney injury. Now kidney injuries go from I guess level zero or level one to level five. I thought it was from one to 10 That's what I was hoping when they said

Tom Regal: 19:58

it's never bad worse. Okay. Yeah, yeah, this is definitely on five. This is Yeah, you were up in there. That's yeah. territory.

Leo Silva: 20:07

Got got a pretty nasty injury. I ended up staying in France for two weeks at the hospital. Didn't this is January? This is February, the first week of February. Yeah. So the injury happened on the 15th. And then I was in, in France until the 23rd. So that, you know, right now, I'm not training, I can't I can't train right now, I'm still recovering from the injury. It was, you know, I had blood, you know, when I, when I would go to the bathroom, it like that first 10 days, it was just blood coming out. So you know, I'm very lucky. And I think that the fact that I was training, and I started training in, in January, and I was training, you know, six days a week. The fact that I was doing that really helped. I remember when I got to the hospital, they were looking at my vitals, and they're like, What do you do? And I told them, I, you know, I, I work for our wealth management firm, and they're like, What do you do? What do you do for exercise? I said, Well, I'm a triathlete, right?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 21:26

She's sorry, she asked.

Leo Silva: 21:28

And he was in French. I was like, Yes, we triathlete. And they are like, you know, okay, that explains a lot, because your numbers are really good. So that, you know, put a stop on my training plan. I am, you know, I had a, I had my six CT scan, this week, things have been improving a lot. I was hoping right now I currently have a stench, connecting my bladder to my kidney, to relieve some pressure from the kidney that has helped a lot on the healing. And I was hoping that that was going to be removed yesterday. But the you know, after the scan, the doctor called and said, Hey, we're going to keep you for another month, things have been Oh, geez, you know, progressing really well. And you know, I, I'm not in pain. And this is the crazy thing I was, I was in pain for the first two days. And that was it. So you know, I've been feeling great. But after my call on with the doctor on Tuesday, he said, we're going to keep the stent until the 22nd of April. But you can increase your activities a little bit so that they went for a swim. I, I pushed a little bit too hard on the swim. I don't know if I was just too excited. And I'm fine. But I was I was just like, I was just going at it. I was like, This feels so great. And I swim like 500 meters. But you know, this, this weekend, I'm probably going to go for a super light run. So I can do like zone one, zone two training right now. But nothing that will get my heart rate too high. They want to make sure that the things continue to heal. So I told the doctor, I said, you know, I think that the first question that I asked him, when I came to see him was like, When can I start training again? And he was like, whoa, hold on, I did tell him, I said I know that Chattanooga is not an option. Can I do a race in the end of September? He said, Okay, how long do you need to train and I said, I need 20 to 22 weeks. And and I knew that they that I would need to start and it was May 6, and he said, Okay, you are going to be fine. You can sign up for the race, you're going to be fine. I'm hoping that you're good to go, you know, mid and April and, and I'm pretty optimistic that that that's what's going to happen and and if it doesn't, we'll just wait a little bit longer. You know, at this point, I'm just very fortunate that you know, I didn't lose a kidney. I think a portion of it is is is kind of like not working as it should. So like if I were to sell one of my kidneys that would have to sell at a discount. I can't price for my

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:16

kid. Yeah. Well, Leo, you're not looking at the silver lining. You spent Valentine's Day in France. I mean,

Leo Silva: 24:22

by myself because my Okay, well, you know, I'm just again, we're

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:26

not gonna ruin the whole you know, you spend Valentine's Day

Tom Regal: 24:30

but you weren't waiting for two weeks.

Leo Silva: 24:34

I'll tell you this. Tom, you know, I took pictures every day. Because they would have like this little piece of paper with what the food was. And it sounded awesome. It sounded like when you go to like a super nice restaurant, because you had everything in french french. Sounds wonderful. And you know, I remember for the first few days I couldn't eat I wouldn't feel like eating and then After that, I was like, You know what, I need to get my energy back, I lost, I lost 12 pounds at the hospital when I was there in two weeks. So I'm still trying to gain it back. And I and I will be fine. But you ask me if I'm not working with a coach, one thing that I am working, one person I'm working with is a someone on nutrition and nutrition coach. I think that, you know, that was something that I would be terrified. I don't know anything about nutrition. So I really wanted to get someone to work with me and give and come up with a plan. So Carell Ranch is my is my nutritionist. She's awesome. We basically have been going over, like, you know, what I eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, like all of that. And I can I can tell you that has helped when I was training, like, you know, she said, you need to add this and this industrial breakfast. And I'm like, all of a sudden, I'm like, I feel I would feel great. So the little things go to don't know, right? Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 26:03

Well, the thing is, I mean, zone one, Zone Two is not a bad thing right now, either. No matter. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of very good, you know, training programs that just try to keep you in zone tune for a certain amount of time, right? Because if you can just keep that heart rate low, you can max and you know, start working on efficiency. And that's never a bad thing. So it's not that you're at zero. I mean, it's great that you gotta just, you got to just control yourself. Right, which is yeah, you know, get rid of little, you know, I don't trust him to have the Olympics

Leo Silva: 26:35

coming up. Right, like, so that's think about that. And you're like, Man, I gotta get my time's up. You know, my time is down. So yeah, I My goal is for the next month to really get my base going. So when I start training, I'm not starting from zero. So I'm just super excited. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 26:53

good. Yeah. It's gonna be great. It's great and good. I was gonna say, you guys were tripping over each other here. We're there. We're looking forward to following along with you. So we're going to be checking in on a regular basis. We don't have any set plan for it. But we're going to be checking in as we do all our athletes for this for this program. And we've got all the updates and we're excited to follow along on this. Yeah, absolutely. This is going to be good. Yeah.

Leo Silva: 27:20

I can't wait. Yeah.

Tom Regal: 27:23

So here we go. Thanks, everybody, for checking in follow along, make sure to subscribe. Once again. I was gonna say that at the beginning and I keep forgetting one of these days. I'm going to put a little note for myself say don't forget to subscribe. So you don't want to miss an episode. We've got three athletes we're following for the triathletes journey. We're really excited about this whole season, this season is just going to be great anyway, because it's triathlon season and we love triathlon. So any endurance sports at that point, but we're gonna have a good time with that. So please keep up with comments. Thumbs up, five stars, all that good stuff gets the ratings and spreads the good word to more and more people. So thank you so much for everyone for checking in. We oh, we're we're excited. We're gonna have fun with us stay healthy. Do what the doctor tells you. You're gonna get there good. Kenny is always fantastic. Enjoy this so and everybody. We will catch you on the next episode.