Tom & Kenny Talk Race Hacks and More! - 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

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:30

Hey Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:31

I'm fantastic Kenny how are you?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:33

I am fantastic. This is gonna be a fun episode this episode we're gonna talk about hacks in what's we look at triathlons, we always think of the big stuff like the running the swimming, the biking but all what's all that small stuff? Those little things that can help and tricks Yeah,

Tom Regal: 0:49

help me get through it

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:51

exactly how can we get those things to help make you have a better experience? Yes. Before we get started, what we want to do is do a couple things first off, like and subscribe.

Tom Regal: 1:00

Yes, please. When their thumbs up thumbs

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:03

up all that good stuff. We have our triathletes journey in which we're we're underway with our three athletes. Yes. If you want to continue to follow those guys. Yes, we want to be able to do that. This is sponsored byTriTomR Endurance sports. That guy right there. Hey there if you need a swim coach, you need a bike fit or you need to try coach TriTomR Endurance is where you need to go that's tried to our try Tom our internet's kind of hard to say. But

Tom Regal: 1:28

usually everyone drops the R just says TriTom but you'll find it either way. But TriTomR Endurance.com.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:33

So checking for that. So triathlon season is vastly upon us everyone's in their training mode everyone here and what they need to do

Tom Regal: 1:42

we're racing already cold after you

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:45

know your first race, you kind of fumble your way through everything, you you watch the videos, you you listen to people like us, you try to figure out those things. And then you start figuring out hey, there's there's ways in which you can coordinate yourself there's little things you can do to kind of help that

Tom Regal: 1:59

should be should you be so inclined. Yes. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:04

especially as a racist get long, more things break down, there could be more things that happen now you don't want to have to carry you know, half of a you know, u haul with you on stuff to carry. But there are a few small things you can do. So, before we get into the race itself, and one of the hacks that I like to do prerace if I'm traveling, and also this is good. If there's a weather issue, if you think there's a weather issue, I go get two and a half gallon ziplock bags, and I put them in every every transition area. So my bike helmet shoes, what I'm going to wear out of the water, so I generally wear a pair of tri shorts, and then I put on a cycling jersey, I put that in one, two and a half gallon size bag to keep it dry. Two things to keep it separate. And then I write T one on it because you're kind of freaking out. Remember, you've got a bunch of stuff, you got a wetsuit you're carrying, you got a whole cycling gear, you have running gear, your transition year, you have your morning bag, all of that sort of stuff. You have five different bags. Yes. So what I tried to do before I leave before I, like if I'm traveling, if I put in a suitcase, I put everything in a two and a half gallon size bag. And so my running gear that I'm going to go into, it'd be whatever I'm going to use for my run. Shoes, the hat, sunglasses, all that sort of stuff. If I have a belt, whatever I'm going to do is all pre loaded in that bag. Yes. So when I get to the destination, if I'm flying like example, I flew to from Tennessee to California. Yeah, when I get to the when I get to the hotel, or when I get to my room. Now I can lay stuff out and I'm not freaking out over. Did I forget this? Did I forget that? Yeah, yeah. And if the weather is going to be suspect, now everything's in a dry little. Now, it's not the fastest transition, obviously, when you have everything in a Ziploc bag. Yeah. But it's just easier for me to have that ready to go. So when I get to the morning, okay, I'm gonna get my bike set up, I'll be able to have the bag grab that, you know, because it's dark. And you're trying

Tom Regal: 3:54

I think it's super critical for the pre races. And if you're doing 70.3 or 140 points six distances, then you've got a bag to put that in. At that point. You can either take it out of that, but at least you know you have it exactly. And it's always good before you leave the house. Maybe a day or two or three before you're traveling or before the race to lay everything out. Yep, lay it all out. Find a space on the floor that the dog won't lay on or whatever. But just find that spot where you lay every piece out, then put it in the bags. Key is clear bags, right? I've used other bags and then you don't know if something's in there. If you can't see you can't

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:31

Oh, I'm OCD that I'll I'll take it out. Put it back in. So I start about a week ahead of time. Yeah, right. And then, okay, well, I got the shoes and I repack Yeah. And that's how my nutrition models right. Yeah, just like you know, I have my list and then I freak out. And then the other thing I tried to put in there, and this is just me. It's I put a small hand towel in each bag. So hooch Do you want a T to bag just in case? Yep. And then I'll put a really really small like an Aqua for whatever else. So you know the big things about whether or not your quads are gonna work or not work or your back's gonna get sore, whatever is one thing, but it's the little. Especially these distance right there. Lonnie lubricate. Exactly. Right? You get that one little toe that's rubbing against the other toe. And that's not that big of a deal. Yeah, you're you're going 90 RPMs every minute. Yeah. times how many minutes times how many hours that thing is that can wear on it and having something to be able to like either lube it up or put a aquifer in the middle of it to not keep that sore from festering anymore is is ridiculously important.

Tom Regal: 5:38

Yeah. Yeah, super important. And along the plastic bag, same what I think is a great a great hack, what I like to do for you can do it for any distance race, really sprint, you don't need to carry as much stuff onto the run with you. Certainly for Olympic, maybe not as much certainly 70.3 distance and longer, is put all your stuff in a bag, and you watch the pros do it like run out of transition with that you want to have a fast transition, all you're doing is you're picking up you're taking your helmet off, you're taking your bike shoes off you putting your socks shoes on. And then you grab this bag that has your nutrition, it has your race number, it has your hat, it has your sunglasses, whatever else you need, and you just run out a transition with that. And while you're running, you put everything on the right so you've got it, you've made a real quick transition, you got out onto the road, you're in that mode you're going that's probably the best thing I've seen. I've seen a bunch of pros do it. I think it's fantastic.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 6:41

You know, these things you're you're you're super excited in the morning, right? It's dark, especially on the longer races, right? It's dark, you get everything ready to go by, but no one you have that bag because you can you're gonna get fatigued, not just physically fatigued. But you know, by the time you get to T two, there's chaos, right? There's chaos, knowing that something's in one location, and you don't have to worry about it. And that okay, everything I need is right here. And I forget so that we'll know because it's in the bag. Yeah, that that to me is also

Tom Regal: 7:06

that's that's a good one. That's key. Yeah, that's definitely that's definitely key. And I like we talked about transitions, I talked to a lot of athletes where they're, they're saying, like, they're trying to get through the race. And they feel like, I'm just gonna take extra time and transition. Because I'll be able to do this, this and this to set me up for whatever. And I realized that that that's probably not the best philosophy, you want to get out of transitions as fast and efficiently as possible. So don't linger more there. Because you could be putting yourself in the cut off zone, right? Where you okay, I took that extra 10 minutes or 15 minutes and transition. And I missed the run cut off. Yeah. Or something along those lines. So it's better to do some of this like this pre planning, having this setup and then getting at it to plan to get out of there as fast as possible. Yeah. And don't waste any time there. That's that's valuable time. Yes. On all the races.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:58

Yeah. And so, you know, make sure you're careful and kind of what you need to do, right. And I I sing it, you know, head, shoulders, knees and toes. I mean, I literally think that yeah, I got my, I got my thing, I got my shoes, like it

Tom Regal: 8:10

still helps the practice transition, like at the house someplace else, where you just go through it, put it put everything out, put everything on the where you work, because that's what you'll end up doing yet. So,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 8:19

so what else

Tom Regal: 8:21

I'm gonna go to the swim moves when I think we don't use enough body lube in our wetsuits. Right, we put it on the spots that shave for now, we still shave and I can't, I've through the years I've used so much. And I've really come to like the sprays the skin slick, that that SBR has, which is fantastic. They have try slide and skins like it's the same thing, it's just a different size can have somebody do your entire back. Because that there's a lot of a lot of stress on the wetsuit across your back. And if you've got your kit on underneath that, that will rub as well. And it's, it's you just can't put enough lube on and then it just makes a suit come on faster. Yeah, like put it all up and up and down, your arms up and down, your legs in the suit will come off so much faster. But it will also keep you from chafing. And the chafing slows everything down. It just gets compounds worse as you go through and in those transition bags through a can of spray in there. You know you can quick up the leg your shorts, because that's where it's going to stay if you can do stuff because you're going to dump water on yourself. It's going to dilute a little bit of it but it's it's never it's never a bad idea to add a little extra personal lubrication. Yes, it's just I think I think we we don't use enough Yeah, it's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 9:43

so funny story about that I was doing the Half Ironman in Muncie, Indiana. And what they do is they give you wristbands or you know, to give to volunteers who you who you think are doing a great job. So yeah, this to you because you've, you're out here all day. You're crushing us, right? The one guy that had probably an armful was that the turnaround on the run and he had a giant jar of Vaseline in his a nice and he's like, lean. Everyone's like God. Yes. You win. Don't look. Yeah, it's like nobody looked.

Tom Regal: 10:15

Excuse me a second.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:17

Yeah, you don't modesty sometimes goes out the window when you're in the middle these things. Yeah, he had the most response because you're right lubricant is it and so for emergency this is along those lines. Yeah, the hack that I that I did is especially if you're going from East Coast to West Coast, it's really dry. In Arizona, California, those kind of areas. What I do is it's 99 cents for a Chapstick and it takes this much room Yep. And it can be a emergency lubricant if you have to, but believe it or not, again when you're really dry and if you're slightly dehydrated suddenly your lips or you have a small hotspot that you can just like like I said you can use that to just kind of as a quick and dirty that'll work to get it done. So I put a chapstick in my bike and I have a chapstick on my in my little running so I have a little running belt that I just put a bandaid in, chapstick in and then like a wet wipe. Just those are my those are my three go to things so chapstick for me you get a three pack Burt's Bees is my favorite.

Tom Regal: 11:19

It's got to medicate

Kenny Bailey<br>: 11:21

whatever, whatever. But yeah, and so little stuff like that. Again, it's not going to take a lot of space. I have a run belt that I put my my number on anyway, I don't put nutrition in that Ron belt, because I think there's at least on the longer ones, there's enough nutrition out there. I don't need it. But so yeah, I just it's a band aid a wet wipe, you know in a in a small Ziploc bag and a Chapstick and that seems to be the kind of my my holy trinity if you will have a nice kind of what I what I hang on to that your MacGyver belts, my Guyver belts,

Tom Regal: 11:54

it works for all of them. Anything else in the swim? Oh, the other thing I thought of for the swim. Especially because we're early season right now, it gets a little cold out, you got your wetsuit on. As someone just found out last week who was doing a wetsuit for the first time, it's a wet suit, which means water gets, it's not a dry suit, that water warms up, like but get that in there. First, were two caps, I like to wear two caps, I like to get a nice thin one. That's my own personal cat that I put on first, I put my goggles on top of that, then I put the race cap on top of that. Why? Because if you've ever had your goggles kicked or knocked off, or you're jumping in the water, it keeps the goggles in place, they don't go anywhere plus in the colder temperatures, that actually keeps you warmer, because that's where we lose most of our 70 or 80% of our body heat goes out the top of our head. So I'm a huge fan of two caps for training and for racing. And the colder the water. Yeah, the two caps definitely works.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 12:57

So I heard this as a hack and you can help me it's right on the swim, especially a cold water. One is you kind of get your face in there for a little bit, come back out. Allow yourself to breathe a little bit and then kind of go back in. Yeah. Have you heard about that before? Yes, there's different ways to get you just start going some. That's how some people pass out. Right? Yeah,

Tom Regal: 13:17

the big thing with the swim. And this is unlike probably we're going to talk about this 100,000 times this year is the is the warm up before the swim. So I'm I'm convinced thoroughly that a lot of us get in the water, we start our races without any muscle or central nervous system activation. And when we do a warm up, get a elastic, little rubber stretchy band, right? Get some of that, put it around a tree or something, get into position and actually activate your lats, get your heart rate up, right. If you don't have that. You can do some motions in the in the air, but also do some squats, you're in your wetsuit, do some squats, do some runs, do something, get your heart rate of fire everything up, and then let it come back down again. Because what happens is with that initial activation, your heart rate feels like it's coming through the roof. And then it doesn't want to come down. So we then allow it to walk its way back down. We control that when we get into the race. We've since we've primed the pump, so to speak. It's never as bad as when we do that activation. If we don't do the activation, you're activating it in the race. And you're setting yourself up for failure at that point. So when you hit that really high because you're gonna hit that heart, and it's not going to come down. Yeah, right. And then you're going to be breathing shallow up in the top of your chest. And then you're going to put yourself into it dumps a bunch of cortisol and then put you into fight or flight mode. Yeah, and then you freak out. Right? That's what we kind of get into this this mode. So yes, get some water in there ahead of time. If you can swim before the start of the race. If you can't, at least get in there. Throw water on your face. It's put it in your suit. You can also take a bottle of cold water Huh, and pour that down your suit. Yeah, get that initial shock out of this out of the way before the start of the race and then you'll be a little bit more calmer, you have better odds at surviving that type of well,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 15:12

and also the movement helps you figure out if your wetsuits on correctly, right? Doing that movement. Yeah. And you feel restriction where you didn't feel it before. Here's a lot of times where, you know, I show up to race and I, you're nervous about the race? Sure. So you put the wetsuit on just sort of not thinking like, you're more calm during practice, and then all the sudden it's like, well, wait a minute, but it's not quite up in my armpit, right. So doing that helps you also just get to doing

Tom Regal: 15:32

the squats, doing all that stuff. Basically, you want to get the wetsuit high enough up in the crotch, right? If you don't get the legs up as high as they possibly can, and it pulls down on the shoulders and then that restricts your as you're trying to get your swim in. So that's perfect for that. Yeah, I do a lot of great hacks out there. So that's the swim. Cool for the swim, bike bike. Anything else in transition? Where do the bags your

Kenny Bailey<br>: 15:52

bags for transitions? Like I said, I tried to just keep a towel with me. Try to keep Yeah, that's it. I mean, just make sure you have everything kind of ready to go and then you go from there. I don't put I don't like do suntan lotion or anything. Usually they have people that like

Tom Regal: 16:08

yeah, they usually have plenty of like the sunny ones, they usually have plenty of that. I mean, it helps to have some stuff in a kit with you probably as a regular travel bag, but I don't think that's anything that gains you any time or kind of moves off on that.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 16:23

I think the one hack I the one that works for me as far as the hack is when it comes to I have three bottles generally on the on the big races. I'll usually like on an Ironman Distance I'll have three bottles, I have one up front and then two in the back or to get one at the downtube and one the back three bottles generally three bottles and the first bottle is basically for me a throwaway bottle. It's my $3 bottle that I've had for a long time. I don't care if I'm going to keep it or not that kind of thing. And what I do is I put a bunch of nutrition in that actually use a recovery mix. Okay, so tailwind has a recovery Oh yeah, it's awesome. And the reason why I do that is because I don't obviously can't eat on the swim you ate quite a bit before the swim some people do like a like I'll do a like a something to eat what is those little waffles? Yeah, shoot there Stroup like Stroup 20 minutes before you get the water but generally you're you're gonna be at some sort of calorie deficit. So what I do is I put a tail in recovery, okay, which has protein and carbs. Yeah, when I get on the bike once I settle in, I start drinking that Yeah. And then once I drink that I just throw that bottle away. Yep. And then because they generally have the bigger ones that can handle it. So those are what I stay in my down tube. Okay, I have two more bottles that have like tailwind and some other stuff in it but I just I like

Tom Regal: 17:35

to not throw away the other two bottles to do your Okay,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:39

and then I just have one that I use if I need additional water. So for long distance I'm going to I'm going to stop I mean I'm not going to be 112 Miles nonstop. So I'll stop at a gas station kind of move everything around and then take off for a minute and a half for half that's all I need.

Tom Regal: 17:55

Yeah, I throw it all the way that's a great I come home with three bottles I know well that's how I find the ones that are crappy. Yeah, the ones that I that I use and I go okay probably shouldn't be using this type of thing. The bottles that I use well

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:08

I personally I usually go with the double insulated I just like a colder okay yeah. I know in because it worked for you it's warm I hate it I don't drink it I find if I go double insulated

Tom Regal: 18:20

drink faster. I tried to get it before it goes the only time I had one with that had a it turned out that it had soy in the mix. And I didn't realize that and yet on an Ironman distance race in the heat. I was getting GI distress issues in the second half of the bike and I was trying to figure out why warm soil Yeah, out off I got off of that stuff really fast. Tell what's been my favorite.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 18:46

Well, I think that's the other hack too is is I think we need to do the first races you try to carry absolutely everything right and then as you get sort of the other things we used to do are like double centuries we used to write Turner miles in one day, and we would load up like we were you know cookie on everything. And then you find out like every 35 Miles there's a there's an aid station they're gonna have bananas and stuff like that. So the more you get experience with this, the less you kind of carry carry the stuff that you need to carry. But those aid stations especially for an Ironman event are pretty well stacked. I mean, they've got a lot of stuff if you can get used to drinking the I think they're moving to a different drink portal

Tom Regal: 19:22

hydration. Yes. The new Yes, a new one to try, which is just a pure electrolyte not a counter car. It doesn't have it's nothing interesting, which I'm not totally against. It's just trying to get the samples. Yeah, so

Kenny Bailey<br>: 19:34

one hack could be if you if you're used to the Gatorade, if you're used to the fuel that they're gonna add on there. It's easier to kind of grab and go rather than having to carry everything with you. It's more weight, but I tend to want to have a particular I like tailwind that's that's kind of Yeah, it's my favorite. So for the bike hack for me, it's, it's, you know, do do that, you know, I like to do a protein sort of recovery, some calories so I can kind of get back in and then start kind Going through the regular, you know, food at, you know, every hour or whatever I

Tom Regal: 20:04

do. Yeah. So yeah, trying to figure out and that's a whole podcast we can do separately on how many calories versus how many grams of protein or carbs, you're supposed to be eating on a regular on an hourly basis on. That's been, that's been debated back and forth 1000 times. So yeah, accent that, but eat it as much as you can. And

Kenny Bailey<br>: 20:22

the other game so the other challenge I was having quite a bit is I would get palate fatigue. Because Okay, so I'm a big fan of uncrustables is jelly Peanut Butter wholewheat. And then you drink tailwind, which is either you know, fruit punch of lemon or so you just get all of these sorts of sweet stuff. And after a while, my I've just get sick of tasting that right? You bananas. Everything's got this sort of sugary kind of feel to it. It's all sugar light stuff. That's yeah, so what I did is my huge hack is on the bike. Again, I tried to keep a couple of things on the bike, and on the run is one stick of gum, like Doublemint gum. Nice. And what that does, for me is a couple things, actually, it helps soothe your stomach because I don't know why. But chewing gum for some reason helps me digestive Yeah, and it's peppermint. And so what I'm doing is I'm getting rid of all of that sugar and I'm getting a different kind of a minty, like almost like a you know, you're eating mouthwash, right, it's a, it's a peppermint and allows me to kind of get rid of that palate fatigue, drink some water, clean up that palate, so then I can kind of start you know, hit reset again and be able to do that. So a gum on the bike, a gum and a little Chapstick and a bandaid

Tom Regal: 21:36

big on payrolls are all taped together. And then

Kenny Bailey<br>: 21:39

and then I'll do a piece of gum on the run just in case and it just it helps me sort of clear that out so I can I can be allowed to take those calories in. Yeah, because my biggest problem with calorie deficit isn't that I forget to do it. It's just I'm getting sick of our yeah, I've just my stomach's feeling gross. You know, I'm just sick of doing this where if I can just kind of refresh myself, it feels better. Yeah.

Tom Regal: 21:58

And if you're looking at the different gels and and things to to fuel yourself with and you're getting GI distress and you're having some issues, look at the ratio of fructose, to glucose to multi or to dextrose to multi dextrose. Those are the three main ingredients and it tends to be the fructose is the one that tends to give everyone the more GI distress. And you can find the ones that have less of the fructose in it more of the multi dextrose and dextrose. The refined I think you can make your own at this point. But um, there's a couple of ones couple out there. They're really good. We keep mentioning tailwind because tailwinds really good. There's a new company called blanks, blanks. b l a n k s. It's it's a blank line with a pasta sauce on it that has got some really good stuff. And you can actually choose the amount of fructose versus dextrose multidistrict. You can you can actually create your own one and their prices are like half of what everybody else sets. So it's pretty cool. I've been testing that out. It's been it's been pretty tasty

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:59

yet Scratch has a little scratch does. I think Scratch has a line that is far less flavor. Yeah, a lot. So they got like a matcha green tea and a lemon. Yeah, that I do which is lightly flavored rather than that heavy. Like, like, yeah, the end of the spectrum is the their fruit punch. Gatorade is just, yeah, this is where this stuff is super light, which helps me again on the palate

Tom Regal: 23:21

fatigue. Yeah, I do the same thing because I like to double up more scoops. I don't just do the one or two or three or four scoops instead of just one to get the extra calories in a bottle. And then if they're super flavorful. Oh, man, it's too much. You can't get enough water in there. Yeah, kind of mix it up. So what other hacks do you have? What else on the bike trying to think about it. I said on the bike, I can't come up with any other hacks. I'm still not big on putting the rubber bands on your shoes and having to jump in and do that thing. Because I mean, it's cool, but

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:54

I've never had an issue or sponsor tells you you have to don't I

Tom Regal: 23:58

mean, it's cool. It's like you can you can get out of the shoes and pedal on top of the shoes on the way in, but know that you're gonna beat the hell out of the shoes on the way in and we're not you know, we're not paid professional so we don't get that much money

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:12

for the so there's a school of thought where you pre lock your shoes into your pedals use a band aid to keep them flat. And so that during transmission, Yep, sorry, rubber band. Yeah. And so when you hop on you break the rubber band, when you start pedaling, as you kind of get out of transition, then you lock your feet in. Yeah, and you can while you're pedaling, and and highly recommend unless you're know what the hell you're doing. You need to have really good bike handling to do that because you're gonna hop on start pedaling right away by the way those rubber bands do snap and they snap hard against your line. You will find the one that doesn't let go right away and then snaps against your lady that'll that'll send a shockwave through your your calf and it's not just hey you're you're getting faster but if that happens in your your you're doing that you're not prepared for it. You're not doing well. What you're doing is you're putting other people in danger to you're going to start moving your bike back and forth. You're gonna get bored or trying to mount their bikes. Yeah, you become a pain in the butt. Nobody likes you don't do

Tom Regal: 25:04

less talking to that there's a good point on that one. Because when you're there is an outline, right? We all know the outline, you can't get on the bike before that mount line, it does not mean that two inches over that line is where you have to get on the bike. So if there are people clogging up that spot because they stop riding the other side of the line, go past them. Yeah, go past and go for 510 feet down over to the side, whatever, just go run. If you see six people that have all stopped and they're all trying to get on their bike at the same time, run past them get on your bike, you'll be out in front of them anytime you're just like, get some clear space. Know what's around you. That's probably the biggest hack for getting out of transition on that. Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 25:42

I mean, my first race I was so excitable I was trying to put my Garmin on as soon as you know, I got past the line and the whole nine yards. And I almost I mean, almost went into a ditch. You know? Yeah. Look, you're a little bit. I mean, you got a few miles this comment down, kind of get a few pedals. Yeah, hit the button at the time. I know you everyone wants to be exact. I do too. But, you know, a couple 100 yards. It's gotta get

Tom Regal: 26:06

out there. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 26:07

Put my Garmin on and I'm like, Oh, look at ditch, you know,

Tom Regal: 26:10

slowly smooth exactly moves as fast you go. That's what you need to know. Just nice and steady. There you go nice and steady through that. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 26:16

I think I'm actually going back to the pre race. And this is kind of a delicate topic. Blister band aids on my nipples

Tom Regal: 26:23

every time. Oh, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 26:24

I know, folks. Let's just be adult about this right now.

Tom Regal: 26:27

Yes. Be adults. But are we talking about chafing? And nobody? Yeah, definitely. Like, so. That's a that's a that's a thing. Yeah. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 26:33

if you're wearing to try top, if you have a wetsuit that things moving around, then you get on a bike and it's wet. And that thing's moving around. And then you go to run that thing's moving around. And usually these fabrics are are, you know, a brace hot? Yeah, they're not soft cotton. Yeah, like without fail, or sometimes cotton is the worst. Yeah, no, right. Sorry. Yeah. So I will put blister bandaid specifically because they stick and they're not going anywhere. And I'll put those over the nipples because I'd rather look silly. Then bleed.

Tom Regal: 26:59

Yeah. So and that's just that this takes away a while to go away and just to heal. And then

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:04

if we're gonna have them on and I'm walking around with my shirt. pasties

Tom Regal: 27:10

leading through my kit. Exactly.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:12

So Right. So it's, again, I think modesty is kind of, you know, secondary on some of these races. I mean, you just got to do stuff that's gonna help you out if you have to, you know, get the Vaseline down there to keep you moving. That's what it is. On your boobs. That's

Tom Regal: 27:28

what I do. Hand Sanitizer. Where we're thinking about Yeah, it's like,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:34

yeah, you do a lot of crazy, certainly like bananas. I don't want this one about that one. For

Tom Regal: 27:38

the longer races. Maybe at a transition, you take that one little extra thing, just to put a little because you're gonna grab food and put it right, there's a good way to get GI distress. There you go. I know we do that in the ultra races, the longer stuff like yeah, you can have hand sanitizer. Yeah, I throw it in all my draft bags to make sure that I hand sanitizer as much as possible. Because if you're out there for 30 hours, I mean, like, you're gonna cause a lot a lot of issues. So yeah, can't can't use enough hand sanitizers. Well, that's hilarious. Not not good for body lubricate, but works good. Yeah, get rid of. Yeah, I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 28:09

didn't really think about that. That's funny. It's sort of your skin's version of Yeah, you know, clearly cleanser, right? Cleaning up cleaning the other hacks that generic advice for

Tom Regal: 28:17

getting out on the run, what are we going to do on the run? We talked about the bag, having having everything that's one of my favorite things, right, right now is having everything in a bag and running. And you can walk, you can do a fast walk. Yep. As you get out, most of us go too fast right out of the gate anyway, so maybe this slows us down a little bit. So we're at a speed walk. And we're taking things out one at a time. We're putting the hat on, we've got a number on, we've got everything and we need to do that. I think that's probably the best thing on there. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 28:44

Anything else on that? You know, some of the times I don't know if it's a hack, but if I'm, if I remember, if you have the watch to be able to do it what I what I can do is also set an alarm, it'll vibrate if i my heart rate goes up, of

Tom Regal: 28:58

course. Great. Yeah. If you're trying to if you're trying to hit a certain zone. Yeah, I mean, on the longer races, that's

Kenny Bailey<br>: 29:02

great on the faster ones who cares? Yeah, the faster races you

Tom Regal: 29:05

want to redline the whole Yeah. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 29:06

put on the longer one if you're trying to if you're trying to, I have a hard time, especially when you spend that much time on a bike, the full iron and then you get to the run, like what is your pace? Yeah, because you've been going 20 miles an hour? Yeah, suddenly you feel like you're running like a slug. Yeah. So the idea of being able to just watch that heart rate and say, okay, am I am I not spiking it so quickly to be able to do that and then try to keep it try to keep that vibration down and kind of sell yourself until you get settled in.

Tom Regal: 29:33

I think the biggest challenge is trying to get on the accelerator nice and smooth instead of just slamming it to the floor and that's for all three sports. That's where swim bike and run. Like because your heart rate just wow, once you light it up like that. It's hard.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 29:45

Yeah, it's a really difficult thing to do. I think to your point, I think the biggest so the biggest hack is just race your race, right? It's easy to watch other people go fast and you know, their transitions are great or they're moving around alone, but you don't know what it's gonna be like for them on mile 40 on the bike. Yeah, you great you say Three seconds there, but

Tom Regal: 30:00

now your race plan. Oh, yeah, have a race strategy plan? Hmm, let's map that out ahead of time. Right? Yeah. Like put it out? No, no, the zones, you're gonna hit No, you're on and then follow that. I mean, half the time. Look, yeah. What the biggest piece of advice is, you're not going to race any faster than you've ever been training. So you're not gonna magically, you know, go sub 12 hours on an Iron Man, if your training is dictating your 14 or 15 hour finish, right, there's that it's just not going to happen. What's going to happen is you're gonna blow up and not finish. And that's the same with any sprint, Olympic any of that stuff. So know what you what you're capable of going in, set those numbers and then hit that I think that's the most successful race is if you want to hit what you want. If you feel like you still left a little in the tank, and you're still out there. I think that's a win. I think that's huge. I'd rather have that than come across the line and just be passed out or not make it to the finish.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 30:56

I'll make it blew up. Yeah. Yeah, that band is so pass. Yeah. So if you guys have any hacks that you think yeah, would we miss? Yeah, there's probably

Tom Regal: 31:05

some other stuff. I mean, kind of shared with us. We need to know this where we can get it out to the community. And yeah, absolutely.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 31:10

Like I said, my trifecta is like, you know, wipes Band Aid and a Chapstick and gum, right. That's those are the kinds of things I put my bag and leave it there. I do that for training. I do that for racing, just, I guess comfortable. Again, be comfortable with what you're eating and what you're drinking during your during your training programs. During the race. It's not

Tom Regal: 31:27

Oh, I just thought I knew I just thought it went for afterwards. We're traveling back. You've got a bag full of really smelly nasty clothes, right? So you take that those plastic bags in there, you bring a whole bunch of the dryer sheets. Oh, good point. And you throw those in there and seal it up. And amazingly, when you pull that out, it doesn't smell that I don't know what it happens. I'm kind of nervous on the chemical process. For sure, I mean, that's that's been something that I I always do. I always carry a bag with like a stack of the dryer sheets to get fresh ones that are all in there. And then I just put those in all the bags with the clothes, seal them up, and then you get to them later.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 32:05

Yeah, especially if you're traveling like long distance I know on a plane or something. Yeah. Or you are in your car. Yeah. Yeah, anyplace have a truck. I just put you back with the back let it air out the Buick behind me. That's not my problem. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so that's our Yeah, so

Tom Regal: 32:22

what else X? Yeah, give us some give us some tips, some tips and tricks that we can share with everybody and stuff that we can learn from? It sounds good. Let's do that. So thanks, everybody. Keep keep the comments coming in. Thumbs up stars, all that stuff again, don't forget to subscribe. And, yeah, we'll catch you on the next one.