Coach Tom (00:01.354)
Hey Kenny, how you doing?

Kenny Bailey (00:02.747)
I am Fantastic Tom, how are you?

Coach Tom (00:04.914)
I am fantastic as well. We have a wonderful guest today with us, Coach Sarah Portella. Lucky to join us. We're very, very happy to have you on. She's a friend of mine. She's here in Nashville. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff preseason into season. Talk about this endurance exchange that we just went to, which USAT puts on. Lots of good education for us as coaches and good networking as well.

But first off, our little bit of business. Thanks everybody for all your notes, your comments and things. Keep them up. Five stars, thumbs up, all that good stuff. Even the bad comments. If you've got bad comments, send those too. That's fine. We learned from that. We're trying to get better with this. This is January of 2025, 26. Eeeh. Look, we're already in 26. This is our going into our sixth season doing this. I think this is episode somewhere close to upper 80s, almost 90.

have been having a lot of fun with it, getting better sort of as we do this. So, you know, keep up the comments and all that stuff that helps the algorithm and gets out and share this with us. We still have a nice group. A couple of people in Portugal listening to us now, which is great. Thank you. And love our people in Germany. You've got a nice group. You guys are up there on the city chart every time. So we appreciate you very much. Send us a note. Like I keep saying, we'll go.

Kenny Bailey (01:05.945)
Absolutely. Sort of.

Kenny Bailey (01:23.303)
Germany.

Kenny Bailey (01:27.965)
Who'da thunk it? We're popular in Germany. We're like Hasselhoff of podcasts right there.

Coach Tom (01:33.034)
We'll come over. Yeah, I know. It's like, it's up there in the top five on the cities on the downloads, which is pretty cool. So welcome Sarah. Sarah is a, well, she's certified as a USA triathlon, USA cycling and USA track and field coach. So she knows her stuff and she works with Bolton Endurance Sports Training Group, which is led by Olympian and elite coach, Ryan Bolton, who's an amazing athlete.

Kenny Bailey (01:53.159)
Triple Threat.

Coach Tom (02:02.977)
They've got a really really cool team of coaches that Sarah's been with since what the inception of that So it's been it's been a few years with that. So she has quite the Palmares I'm gonna I'm gonna skim over and just take some highlights because she pulls this off She's the USA cycling masters national time channel trial champion for 2025 which which is awesome. She's a USA to all-american multiple times five time

70.3 world champion qualifier She's also the two-time Tennessee State time trial champion cat 3 and road race champion So two times as well. So she's she can back up her coaching. She knows what she's talking about She's a she's a great athlete. She's an uber cyclist So Sarah, welcome to the podcast. We really appreciate you coming on. I hope I didn't embarrass you too much

Kenny Bailey (02:41.467)
Wow.

Kenny Bailey (02:45.981)
And she goes fast too.

Sarah Portella (02:58.04)
Well, thank you guys for the very kind introduction. I do appreciate that. Yes, like Tom said, I am a coach with Pullman Durant Sports Training and I have been coaching now since 2015. Yeah.

Coach Tom (03:20.513)
Sweet. Full-time. Let's just like, she's like, she's a professional coach. She coaches full-time just like I do. we're in this for the real deal. So, yeah.

Sarah Portella (03:26.702)
Yes.

Sarah Portella (03:34.104)
for sure.

Kenny Bailey (03:35.175)
So before you got to coaching, did the journey start? you pretty athletic in high school? Were you a cyclist there? Track and field? Sounds like, I bet track and field.

Sarah Portella (03:46.206)
Yeah, I don't know how athletic I was, but I did participate in high school, junior high in track and field and in volleyball. So always had some sort of sport background even, you know, as a youth. And then when I started college, I just started running to stay in shape. Post college got into

a really solid group of runners in Birmingham, Alabama, where I lived for several years. And within that group of runners, there were several triathletes. And so if you know anything, you'll eventually get sucked into that world. And that's what happened to me. So my background, yeah, totally, totally, totally.

Kenny Bailey (04:26.179)
guys yeah yeah

Coach Tom (04:33.237)
You lost a bet. Yeah, you lost a bet.

Kenny Bailey (04:37.629)
she's a fast runner, but have you tried running after cycling? Is that what the comments were? Yeah. yeah, you can run now. Well, what about after a bike ride? After swimming and biking? Prove it. That kind of thing.

Coach Tom (04:40.521)
Yeah, yeah, that's what it came down to, right? Yeah.

Sarah Portella (04:42.446)
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, totally. So yeah, and that's kind of where my journey began. Dabbled into duathlon first because I had a terrible fear of open water. And then I tried my first triathlon.

typical fashion of an adult onset swimmer. I hated the swim, but I survived and then going fast on the bike after that was just like thrilling. And so that kind of sucked me into the world. And then as I kept progressing, really got interested in coaching because in my roles in my other jobs, my favorite part of those

Coach Tom (05:12.921)
Ha

Sarah Portella (05:36.172)
Those positions were the teaching aspect of them. And so coaching kind of goes hand in hand with that, being able to teach or to just inspire other athletes to train and enjoy the process and race.

Kenny Bailey (05:54.43)
Nice. I think before we get to the whole triathlon thing, have to ask because I was a cat for a guy and how did you go from casually riding a bike to becoming state champion? Like was it just, especially on TT, so you're not messing around. I mean, to your point, you like speed. When did you know like, wow, I'm sort of beating people? Like, wow, I'm kind of good at this. Especially as an adult onset sort of racer, if you will.

Coach Tom (05:55.317)
Yeah.

Sarah Portella (06:21.293)
Yeah, yeah. After like I'd say like the first year or so into triathlon, I met a local coach and I'd started going to his track workouts and he saw some sort of potential in me that I didn't see at that point in time. And he's like, I will coach you, please let me coach you. And so we started working.

Coach Tom (06:43.841)
That's a good coach.

Kenny Bailey (06:48.348)
Hmm.

Sarah Portella (06:51.009)
together and this was strictly for triathlon, not for cycling. And just started like training for longer events. And I still at that point, I don't think I realized that I was good at cycling, but I definitely knew that that was my favorite part of triathlon. Just the...

Kenny Bailey (06:54.338)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (07:16.511)
not even just in racing, but in the training, being able to like go far from home and see different things that you can see on a bike versus being in a car or running around town. and so I guess really fast forward a few years, I was coming off of a disappointing 70.3 race at my first world championships and it just happened.

Kenny Bailey (07:39.879)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (07:45.122)
The finish of that race just happened to coincide with the Zwift Academy starting. And I don't know if you all are familiar with Zwift Academy. So I signed up for that just because I didn't want to end my season. was just like, I'll just do these workouts. This will be fun with absolutely no idea, you know, about any, about cycling at all, just for cycling sake.

Kenny Bailey (07:50.895)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah.

Sarah Portella (08:14.207)
So I completed that set of workouts and at that time you could kind of tell a little bit like, okay, well, I was getting all my gold stars in these workouts, if you know anything about Zwift. And so I knew like I was doing what they asked of me, but that was all I knew at the time. Halfway through the program, I got an email from Zwift saying, hey,

Coach Tom (08:27.974)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (08:28.818)
Yeah.

Sarah Portella (08:43.117)
you have been identified as one of the top cyclists so far in this program. Would you, you know, if we select you, would you be interested in moving on? I was like, uh, yeah. Um, so that was kind of the first point when I realized, oh, okay. I can actually ride a bike outside of like just triathlon. So yeah.

Coach Tom (08:57.216)
Yeah

Kenny Bailey (08:58.609)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (09:10.398)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:13.533)
Yeah, it's always fascinating too, because when you're doing triathlon, know, you're, you're five bike lengths apart. You have to make sure to do that when you're road racing, you're now bumping shoulders and in a Peloton and. You know, trying to figure out position in a Peloton, where to take the corner, where to take the line, how to get the right, you know, wheel who, who's the person to do that? Was that a, was that curve difficult or was it.

Sarah Portella (09:35.981)
Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so my experience is still up to this point was just triathlon and then riding my trainer. So, yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (09:37.79)
It's like, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:38.513)
Like, why are you next to me? You were fast because you just want people next to you, that's all. If you're in front, there's nobody next to you.

Coach Tom (09:43.658)
Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (09:54.558)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. You're going isolated, isolated, and all of a sudden here's 100 people that want to say hi to you like really closely.

Coach Tom (09:54.75)
Yeah.

Sarah Portella (10:01.706)
Yeah. So unfortunately I didn't make it past the semifinals. I did move on to that. And I foolishly didn't know how to train between there was a gap at that time between the initial part, the semis and then moving on to the finals. So I kind of botched my training and lost some fitness. And so I did not advance to the finals of that year. But that did inspire me to be like, okay, I need to go find

Coach Tom (10:01.75)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (10:07.463)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (10:22.557)
Mm.

Sarah Portella (10:30.677)
road races and different things to do for the next year. And so that's when I started doing more cycling, getting into some crit racing, which was super scary. and just kind of learning as I went, I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew like I needed to ride hard. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (10:32.167)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (10:41.595)
Yep. Yep.

Coach Tom (10:50.421)
And that's how most people, mean, you get into it where you start to figure it out, but like you're smart enough to go like, you can observe and pick stuff up and then work with some coaches and start to, you know, build a community that you understand the racing better. So, I mean, that's awesome to get that, to get that letter and move into the semis. That's like, yeah, I mean, we've probably tell people more about the Zwift Academy, about like, this was worldwide, right?

Kenny Bailey (10:50.685)
That's Yeah.

Sarah Portella (10:55.169)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (11:10.14)
Yeah, that's cool.

Coach Tom (11:17.835)
that they were doing this and basically they were running races and tests to find, I think people went into the Pro Peloton from Zwift Academy. So this was a feeder system that they had created from like you've got how many thousands of cyclists around the world that are actually like competing in this together. So to get into the semis alone is just like that had to be a nice bump in confidence to go like, okay, I might be okay at this, right?

Sarah Portella (11:18.253)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (11:26.189)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (11:26.525)
Yeah.

Sarah Portella (11:46.934)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (11:47.273)
If I'm hanging here, this is pretty good. So that's pretty wild. That is pretty wild.

Kenny Bailey (11:52.51)
Yeah, the irony is, you I went from Kurt racing and crashing to like, well, now I'm going to do triathlons because they're spaced out and I, nobody can crash into me and you do the exact opposite. It's like I was nice and spacey. Now I'm just going to go like, Hey, what's it to be like to, you know, bump, bump into people and do a really, really fast ride that, know, somebody's going to go home in an ambulance, just hope it's not you. Right. So, so, and then you moved on to. Yeah. Which is fun. That's a ton of fun. I miss that. That's the one thing I miss at Cyclocross because it's just really fast and.

Sarah Portella (12:00.907)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (12:08.8)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (12:11.581)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Kenny also did cyclocross too, because that was fun as well.

Kenny Bailey (12:22.737)
you're forced to stay on a single track. So, not a lot of bumping on that.

Coach Tom (12:27.073)
So how do you balance your season of racing between the cycling, the strictly cycling, really focused cycling and the triathlon, which is really focused. mean, you're qualifying for Worlds every year at this point. And so you're nailing that part of it. And so how do you differentiate and how do you break your season up for that?

Sarah Portella (12:51.444)
Yeah. So at least in Tennessee, things are pretty much spring. seems like heavy in cycling events, or at least it has been for the past few years. So I've opted to do more cycling racing early on, have like a mid summer reset and then focus later season in triathlon. and so that's kind of helped also like break up.

all the training throughout a season and not get too burnt out by the end of the year.

Coach Tom (13:26.483)
Yeah, yeah, So do you, so yeah, obviously back off a little bit of running in the early part. Do you keep the swimming up to a regular bit or do you take it easy on that as well?

Kenny Bailey (13:27.069)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (13:32.396)
Yeah. But no, Yeah, so both swims and runs would be more supplemental during the early season. So at least keeping a feel for the water, trying to get into the pool once a week, twice a week if I'm. Super motivated. And then, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Coach Tom (13:53.666)
if feeling it. Yeah, it's good recovery. It's good recovery. Yeah. Do you find that it's, sorry. No, good.

Kenny Bailey (13:56.679)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (14:02.643)
Kenny Bailey (14:02.909)
Well, what's interesting about, I'm sorry Tom, just interesting, because you're an adult onset swimmer, rather than like you were swimming when you were five and you competed, do you feel like from a coaching standpoint, you feel like you have a better handle on those people that are just starting to try it along? Like, look, I know what it's like to be afraid of, to have that phobia of open water. Can you phrase it better, I think, for people that are just like, well, why can't you swim kind of deal?

Sarah Portella (14:26.518)
Yeah.

Sarah Portella (14:30.86)
I can definitely sympathize with those swimmers for sure. Because I, and for those that are nervous that I coach, I'm like, I can tell them I was in that exact same position several years ago. And just being able to talk them through just the progression of that. that it might seem scary now, but with just like...

Kenny Bailey (14:35.175)
Sure.

Coach Tom (14:35.264)
empathize.

Sarah Portella (15:01.292)
keeping motivated to get back to the pool, do a little bit more than what you could before and just take it in small chunks. At some point you do start to get over that fear. Sometimes you might actually enjoy the water and actually find it to be not intimidating at all, you know, by the end of your journey and be like, what was I afraid of?

Coach Tom (15:28.735)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've always said I try to get people to not hate it. Like you might not love it, but the goal is to get you to not hate it and that you be okay in the water and swimming and doing that. So that's always been.

Sarah Portella (15:33.494)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (15:37.804)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (15:41.309)
Do you find that most of your clients are that way or what if you were look at a profile of your clients what would be sort of are they people trying to get faster are they mainly swimmers that get in triathlon what is what would be kind of your personas if you will

Sarah Portella (15:57.835)
Yeah, I have a good mix. would say the majority is always athletes that don't know how to swim or have a limited background in swimming. So that would be like the main thing because I think a lot of athletes also want to do a triathlon to see what it's about and the appeal of it. so...

They may not have come from that swimming background, but I do have some that have, and then they have a different set of kind of needs versus those that need to learn how to swim as well as finish a race.

Kenny Bailey (16:44.199)
What is your age demographic generally? you, are they in their 30s or 40s? When, when they get to you, what?

Sarah Portella (16:50.06)
Yeah, I would say the majority of my athletes are anywhere from mid 30s to mid 50s. And then I have, you know, some outliers of that. But in general, that's kind of the age range I've been working with.

Coach Tom (17:07.233)
Cool. So we just got back from the endurance exchange. So the USA Triathlon puts on and it's gone through, it has a history of different things. They used to call it art and science. And then there used to be this triathlon business international conference and it kind of merged it a few years ago, probably just before COVID, probably 16, 17, maybe 2018 or so they merged and it became

The endurance exchange is what they ended up calling it and USAT has taken it over and it's coaches and race directors and athletes can go to this as well. I mean, it's a great learning experience and it's like two days, you've got Friday, a couple of sessions on Friday, all day Saturday and a half day Sunday or a little bit more than a half day on Sunday of lots of courses and classes, speakers, some really good stuff. And our keynote speaker, we just got back from this, it was in Orlando.

and our keynote speaker, I'm pull up, was Rowdy Gaines, who's an Olympian from an 84 swimmer, three gold medals in swimming, and he's also like has a great broadcasting career with, I think he's with NBC at this point. And if you've never watched some of the swimming,

Kenny Bailey (18:11.997)
Hmm.

Coach Tom (18:32.455)
Masters, Pros, any of those events, you should watch it because if you're not a fan of swimming, at the end of it, you will be because Rowdy is so passionate about the sport. It's insane how crazy he gets. And if they set a record or they're close to setting a record, he's jumping up and down. They usually put a camera on him because he's just, he's very well-spoken. He's just, he's very, he's a super, super nice person. So was great listening to him and,

I pulled up a quote from him that I thought was really good. So his quote was, the water is not the problem, fear is the problem. And that was like, that was perfect. He gave us good stories about his, he was originally going to the Olympics in 1980 when, then we boycotted and then he went back in 84.

And he actually won the three goals at that point and then went into broadcasting shortly after that. So it was really fascinating on that. there was a lot of good classes and coaches and things. I'm going to Sarah, what was your, was there any highlights that, that you got out of it that you can share with your athletes? I know we saw Dan Lorang was the speaker at one and Dan is the Uber coach. He coaches

because he ends up coaching. I'm blanking on names at this point, but Taylor, yeah, Lucy Charles, Sparkly, Taylor Nibb, he did Jan Frodeno. He's been coaching for a number of years. He's the Red Bull team. He's actually Bora Hansgrohe, growing now on the cycling team. But he had some good stuff. He was fascinating. So that was one of my favorite parts of it. But were there any highlights?

Sarah Portella (19:57.813)
Lucy, Charles Barclay and Taylor Newb, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:01.701)
Yeah, you know those people.

Sarah Portella (20:03.807)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (20:24.523)
that you had from that?

Sarah Portella (20:24.693)
Yeah, yeah, there were two sessions that I felt were pretty informational that I took away with some good insight. And the first was a discussion on protein and why endurance athletes need more than they've thought in the past. And so I guess the major takeaway is that we're probably all not getting as much protein.

Kenny Bailey (20:54.397)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (20:54.595)
as we think we might be just based on how it interacts with carbohydrate in our energy systems when we're exercising also. So there was some really good insights into that and I'm excited to go back actually and rewatch that seminar so I can actually write better notes compared to what I took during the

Coach Tom (21:19.125)
Yeah, right? Yeah.

Sarah Portella (21:24.287)
the first go round. And the second one was I went to a TrainingPeaks modeled power metrics seminar, and they were just talking about they were moving a lot of their like WK04 and five into TrainingPeaks and the beta charts. And so now having access to a more complete power profile will be available.

for any coach that uses TrainingPeaks instead of also getting the WKO platform. And just seeing some differences there where you can pick and choose and see different power profiles than were previously available.

Coach Tom (22:11.631)
that's cool. Cause that WKR, that was a separate app, right? That you did separately on it. That was a power thing. Now they're folding it all into, that makes sense. So if you do use TrainingPeaks, then there's some good modeling that's in there. that any insight, I know there's some coaches that are all like complete data geeks that look at every single number.

Sarah Portella (22:17.195)
Correct.

Coach Tom (22:37.053)
And there's a few of us that like the data, but we use it as a tool along with rate of perceived exertion and that type of stuff. But anytime we get that extra data, there's little pieces that we're, I mean, I don't know if people understand how much we work on your plans and things behind the scenes where we're spending a lot of time every month on your stuff, right? So it's, we're watching. We're not, you know.

Kenny Bailey (22:53.693)
You

Kenny Bailey (22:58.705)
Mm-hmm. Pay attention. Got it.

Coach Tom (23:04.769)
we're looking at some of those numbers and we're looking, I'm looking for trends more than I'm looking for specific data, because those little trends will give us more information. And when we actually see one spike, one direction or the other. So it's always fascinating that we're just kind of looking for trends and see what's going on in that sense. had, there was a couple good ones that I went through, but I don't have all the notes that I had out, because I made one big note.

on my phone. So I had to scram through but I did there was two other quotes that I pulled out that jumped out at me and Maria Simone is another coach that was there. And she was doing a talk on ultra distance races and was giving some tidbits and tips and things on strategies for that and how to set yourself up. But she had said something that another one that that rings with me about your mindset it it is a choice to be miserable.

And this comes full circle, especially if you're doing an ultra like a hundred mile race or something along those, but in daily life, this is important as well because it's your choice to be miserable. Like we're not perfect. We don't wanna be toxic positivity. We don't wanna be super, super happy all the time at Bubbly because that's BS. That's not true, right? But it's your choice. There's a lot of times that we have this victimhood, like we're victims and we're not.

Kenny Bailey (24:16.413)
Hmm.

Coach Tom (24:30.569)
Right? It's just life is tough and we need to get through it and let's just kind of all get together. So that was, that was something that, really struck, struck a chord with me. And then it was Dan, Dan Loran's quote was the last one that I had grabbed that he'd said at the end of his presentation. And he was talking about teamwork, building a team around you as an athlete. And this is on the elite level, what they have.

I like to do the same thing work with a nutritionist work with a coach work with you know swim coach specifically if you're working on certain things bring your people around you His quote was stay the author and fan of your own story So which I thought was really deep from you know It was kind of cool. They'd come up. It's like, you know, just stay focused It's you know on your story and doing your thing and and like enjoy it

You know, make these choices. They're not sacrifices, they're choices. So I found that his stuff to be very interesting about how they converse and the team and the communication and how everyone needs to be on the same page. And he was brutally honest about the fact that like, he's not necessarily friends with the athletes he coaches. He's friends with them afterwards. But when he's coaching him, he's not your friend. He's not your best buddy.

Sarah Portella (25:26.462)
Yeah, absolutely.

Coach Tom (25:50.658)
You share a lot of information, but it's all about it's all about the athlete moving forward So anything that they say or do is all about the best entrance of the athletes and he's not afraid to call something out if it's not in the best interest so it's kind of neat that way to have that kind of that you know that kind of openness and and Taylor Nibb was in another one with him speaking and she she was very open about some stuff you can find it on the USAT Instagram she had some very

Very comical comments and things to that effect of what she was, the type of information she was sharing with him, which was hilarious.

Kenny Bailey (26:29.629)
Well, know, sir, that brings me to a question. So when you have different styles, right, you have people that are more data driven. How do you approach, you know, I'm, I'm doing high rocks. I'm currently working with a high rocks guy and he was telling me to do these like obscure, you know, hip flexor motions, everything else. And I just had to stop for a second. Like, what is this leading to? And then he stopped and said, well, this is the why behind why you're doing what you're doing. Right.

And I needed that, right? So as you approach people, how quickly do you find, okay, this is a data-driven person, this is a person that needs their sensitivity stroked, do you approach it differently or is it sort of you try to find people that fit your style or how do you fit their style? What's the trick in that?

Sarah Portella (27:14.59)
Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. you know, when I'm first looking to onboard, you know, a potential athlete, that first conversation is super important. We both need to walk away with that, having a sense of like, that was like a really great conversation. I could see myself coaching that person or from the athlete's you know, I really want to work with that coach.

and so I think you can kind of get a good sense in that initial meeting, whether it's going to work or not. And you also find out a little bit about that athlete there, like, you know, first, like from their goals, what, you know, what's their goal when they sign on for a race for fitness, you know, lifestyle change. And then you start to shape a little bit of a sense of like, okay, this is probably what they need or what they're looking for.

And if it fits also within your parameters, do like you, you do shift, or at least I shift how I interact with almost every athlete based on like, as I get to know them, their personality and what their needs are. And so I wouldn't say that I change my coaching style for it, but I am sensitive of how they receive the information. And so.

that I think is maybe a good way to look at it is you can still coach the way you want to and need to coach, but you can still interact with that person how they need to receive that information.

Coach Tom (28:52.959)
That's the communication part of it, right? That's the thing. Do you have on your, do you have an intake form or something, or is it just part of your interview process with the athlete that you say, how do you want your information received? Like how often, what type of thing do you go into that much detail when you're talking with an athlete, a prospective athlete?

Sarah Portella (28:54.41)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (29:13.61)
No, it's more through the conversation and the notes that I take and then as we go through the process, you can also pick up a little bit of the types of comments they leave on their workouts based on like, okay, you really did a deep dive into this session. Okay, like I need to make sure like when I'm commenting back, we're not, you know.

Kenny Bailey (29:26.813)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (29:36.66)
giving platitudes of like, well done. Because sometimes that's all you need. But like sometimes you start to pick up, okay, this person wants a little bit more detail because you know they've already analyzed their workout. And so they're looking for that reinforcement that you've analyzed that workout to. But no, I don't really do a questionnaire or anything like that. But like through talks, we start to figure out, okay, this is what you need. I will.

Kenny Bailey (29:46.589)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (29:57.105)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (30:05.092)
know, be able to like do this for you this way.

Coach Tom (30:09.013)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (30:09.621)
And so I'm curious to know like when, when you say no to somebody, um, you know, when they're, or maybe a better way to say it, when they're looking for a coach, is it better to match kind of style of communication? Is it better to match like, you know, somebody that's going to push me or I guess, guess it depends on the person, but at what point do you're like, Hey, I may not be the person for you. Is it those guys that are doing like, I'm going to do two sprint triathlons in the, in the early spring, and then I'm going to hit a full.

Iron Man and I expect to get 9.30? Do you go like, all right, you know, or is it more personality based?

Sarah Portella (30:43.209)
I'd say honestly, it's a little more personality based. Typically, I can tell like if I have any hesitation within a talk that kind of like raises my antenna that maybe we're not really a good fit for each other. And so I typically will hesitate with taking that person on. I would say one other big red flag is if someone.

comes to me and says, hey, I've never done a draft one. I signed up for an Iron Man in three months. We have a pretty big conversation being like, you know, first, are you willing to maybe look at something else? Because I don't think I can do this for you. Like that wouldn't be a good fit. But if they're flexible, you know, and like, okay, I didn't realize this and maybe they just didn't know.

Kenny Bailey (31:23.325)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (31:27.483)
Are you totally insane? Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (31:42.117)
and they like switch it to a later season racer or willing to do something else, then you never know. Sometimes those work out really well.

Coach Tom (31:53.164)
Yeah. Have you ever, I was going to say, do you ever have one where you've said, no, I don't think that's the right thing or that's too short of a goal or something along those lines. And then like a year or two later, have them come back to you and say, you know, they've gotten stuff together. They figured a few things out and then you start working with them later on. Or is it one of those things where that those red flags are enough to go like, yep, bye. You're out of my Rolodex.

Kenny Bailey (31:54.269)
Do you like the kind that surprises? Sorry, go ahead.

Sarah Portella (32:15.759)
yeah.

Sarah Portella (32:22.651)
Yeah, honestly, I don't think anyone that I've said no to and I'm terrible at saying no, by the way, like I have this like, you know, I'm so yeah, so like the number of times I've said no is not that great. So I would also say with that, I don't believe like thinking back that any anyone's ever come back around and be like, Hey, will you coach me now?

Kenny Bailey (32:31.421)
do it.

Coach Tom (32:48.383)
Yeah, from that. But would you say most of the athletes that you started coaching are ones that have met you beforehand before they talked to you about coaching? So you kind of have an idea? Or are you getting cold calls from people out of state that are just like they heard good things and get through? Because that's a different relationship that you have to build.

Sarah Portella (33:06.013)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (33:12.457)
especially all remote, which is fine. It's easy to do. It can be done. We do it all the time. But sometimes when you're trying to learn about an athlete, trying to figure out if like, are they telling you everything? Reading between the lines, trying to figure, this like, wait, you didn't mention that when we were talking earlier, that type of thing.

Sarah Portella (33:34.087)
Yeah. Yeah. I've been really lucky with having a lot of referrals from current athletes. So I do have a good number of athletes in state in Nashville, but I do have a lot of out of state, a couple out of country that I've never met in person before. And so some of those

Coach Tom (33:42.474)
Okay.

Sarah Portella (34:01.896)
relationships do take a little bit longer to cultivate, but not always because sometimes if they're not local, you end up talking to them more because you do want to be really on the same page as you begin to set up a program with those athletes. So I don't find remote coaching or whatever you want to call it to be a hindrance. Sometimes it's actually more beneficial. I say sometimes like for folks,

Coach Tom (34:17.003)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (34:30.877)
because we're still communicating a lot.

Coach Tom (34:34.827)
Yeah, yeah, it's easy to do that. just thought like, if you're getting referrals from people, then the odds are that you're gonna say more yes to stuff than no, right? It's when you get in the one that's not a referral that just found you on Instagram or something where it's just kind of like, that's where you don't know them.

Kenny Bailey (34:36.765)
Do you?

Sarah Portella (34:45.873)
Yes, yes.

Sarah Portella (34:50.78)
Yeah.

Yes. So I will say on that for a couple that have just reached out randomly, I will semi-stock them. I look for them on Instagram. I look to see if they have a Strava page and different things just to kind of see, okay, who is this person? Do they have a background in sport?

Kenny Bailey (35:05.149)
Just get a background, yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (35:06.559)
heck yeah, heck yeah. You know they did that to you.

Sarah Portella (35:21.829)
Et cetera, just so I have some sort of information of like when I go also into like chatting with them, I don't necessarily not want to know anything if at all possible.

Kenny Bailey (35:22.929)
Are they a stalker? Yeah.

Coach Tom (35:33.313)
Yeah, we don't want it. Yeah

Kenny Bailey (35:33.735)
Yeah. Do you, I've always wondered about coaches too. Is there a number in your head when you, when you know this is too many people on your roster? Did you find out the hard way or did you, you, did you know that or do you just creep it? Because I'm, you know, you could like, I'll take on 25 people and you find, well, that was stupid. Or I don't know what the number is. You don't have to disclose the number, but I'm just curious.

Sarah Portella (35:42.543)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (35:51.113)
Bye.

Sarah Portella (35:59.005)
Yeah, I would definitely say last year was eye-opening for me. I would say over the course of my career so far, I've had like a slow build, which is the way I like it because each year I've had more athletes, but it's been at a number that I was like, okay, I'm adding a couple. I can manage this. I have a good kind of time management, you know, calendar in place.

and then last year did challenge me a lot. I don't know if there was a boom. feel like a lot of athletes came to me, but not just to me, to other coaches around. It was like, it was a big year and I onboarded a lot of athletes at once. And so the first couple of months was, was like, okay, did I bite off more than I could chew? But then like, as you start to get in your routine,

Coach Tom (36:38.433)
That was a boom. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (36:56.901)
with those athletes, you're like, this is totally fine. The structure starts to kind of pan out. You get back into a new routine and figure things out as you go. But yes, there are times where you can be overwhelmed for sure. But they typically kind of work themselves out in a good way. Just take lots of notes.

Kenny Bailey (37:20.189)
Well, you also have to train, yeah, I think you have to train people like us also on what appropriate, you know, maybe the 11 p.m. freak out zone because, you know, that kind of stuff, And, yeah.

Coach Tom (37:22.143)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (37:31.401)
I do put my phone on do not disturb at a certain time so that I'm, yeah, and I did learn that the hard way and I think a lot of coaches start to learn things that work for them and how to manage it because in general we are on 24-7, weekends are very busy. And so I...

Kenny Bailey (37:35.165)
Self preservation, yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (37:36.651)
We have business hours.

Sarah Portella (37:55.017)
would be like right before I go to bed checking to see if anyone had texted or left an email that needed responding. And at some point that will wear you down. So you're like starting to set boundaries for yourself so that you have some quiet time. And so you're not coaching from, you know, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. or whatever, for sure.

Kenny Bailey (38:14.897)
Yeah, we have.

Coach Tom (38:15.883)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of the, and I'm trying to remember what coach had said it, and I heard that they said like their limit was when they can't remember the names of the athletes they have, they have too many, right? So you get to that point, like how many names can you remember? How many athletes can you keep track of in your head? Like if you start to forget who you have or certain names, then that's a sign that you probably have taken on too many, right?

Sarah Portella (38:31.898)
Sarah Portella (38:45.062)
Yeah, yeah, definitely for sure.

Coach Tom (38:45.729)
Yeah, and one of the first coaches I had, someone came up to me and they were just kind of like, you know, he doesn't know your name. And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine with that. It's cool. I'm getting a very low level from a higher level coach where he's just given me a monthly plan and I'm just working on it. And I talked to him once a month. I was paying, you know, not that much. So I was getting what I was paying for type of thing, but it was pretty funny because yeah, he didn't know my name back at that point.

Kenny Bailey (38:47.591)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (39:15.413)
And it was hilarious because it was just kind of be like, I'm like, yeah, I only see you once in a while and yeah, you give me a plan and I say, yeah, I did it all. Now give me something for next month and they give me something. So, but it taught me a lot back then and that was years ago. So that was way before we had online coaching. So, yeah, fun stuff.

Kenny Bailey (39:19.005)
You there.

Sarah Portella (39:20.264)
You

Kenny Bailey (39:36.039)
Sarah, got three different, you're a running coach, track and field, try and bike. Do you exclusively work with triathletes or do you have a kind of a cadre of different people you train?

Sarah Portella (39:47.848)
I would say it's a pretty even mix. would say like a third are triathletes, a third are runners, and a third are cyclists. So I do have a good...

Kenny Bailey (39:54.04)
no kidding.

Kenny Bailey (39:58.64)
Do you have a favorite child of the three? Are they all equally loved?

Sarah Portella (40:04.297)
No, I can honestly say I don't have a favorite. love it all. And I think I like it more than I... Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (40:06.919)
What?

Kenny Bailey (40:11.289)
Okay. Sure, I love all my kids too.

Coach Tom (40:15.201)
No you don't, you have a favorite. I know you have a favorite.

Kenny Bailey (40:17.571)
I have three. You know which one. You know which one it is.

Sarah Portella (40:17.864)
Absolutely.

Sarah Portella (40:22.408)
No, I like it because it brings some diversity to my coaching and training. know, a cyclist is so much different than training a track, late or training a runner. And there's just so many different workouts you get to do with a cyclist only. So like I get super excited. I get to do this with this person and then completely switch gears like for my runners and be like, I can try this with you because.

Kenny Bailey (40:27.121)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (40:40.391)
That's cool.

Sarah Portella (40:50.756)
I don't think I could do this with the tracklet or same thing like with my tracklets. They can't do.

Kenny Bailey (40:56.253)
So you're a triathlete, you're a three times three then, so you do triathlons and then three coaches, so you're like the triathlon of, oh you following me on this one? She's like a three sport coach. You're like the triathlete of coaches. And you avoid swim coaching. I noticed you didn't mention swim coach. know your strength.

Sarah Portella (41:05.288)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (41:06.529)
yeah. This is your three sport coach. Yeah, you have

Sarah Portella (41:15.56)
Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, I definitely would outsource that I know my strengths. But also, with that to getting pool time, getting someone to let you come in and coach on deck is super tough. So and that's one thing. Yeah, like with athletes that want that specifically that is can be like a

Coach Tom (41:16.723)
Yeah, she hasn't said that at all, has she?

Coach Tom (41:22.389)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (41:29.981)
Yeah, it's tough.

Coach Tom (41:33.642)
Almost impossible.

Kenny Bailey (41:34.981)
Yeah, these days, rarely.

Sarah Portella (41:43.492)
A point of where I have to say, I'm sorry, I can't coach you because I can't do this for you.

Coach Tom (41:48.885)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (41:49.246)
Yeah, it's getting harder and harder, I think, to just find places that allow outside coaches to come in to train, right? Other than like rec centers and yeah. Open water, mean, once the lake's warm enough, you can start doing that, so yeah. He's fantastic, by the way, he's fantastic, right? I was an adult offset swimmer and my shoulder was killing me because I was using my shoulder way too much and Tom got me to relax in the water.

Sarah Portella (41:53.576)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (41:54.848)
I've been thrown out of all the good pools. So

Coach Tom (42:03.755)
Yeah, yeah. I need help, come on out, we've got lots.

Sarah Portella (42:04.776)
That's Tom's territory. Yes, absolutely.

Kenny Bailey (42:18.949)
I mean crank it out 4,000 yards like it was, know. So, but yeah, I'm just like you.

Coach Tom (42:22.337)
He's doing great. All open water, yeah, was all good. So you also have athletes that cross over. Like who was it that just, like he won the half marathon this past weekend? What was, Brian. And he's coming back, he's coming on Friday, this Friday to refit on a new bike I think. Oh you should come down, yeah, you should come down. Yeah, he's great.

Sarah Portella (42:34.187)
Brian, which you fit him on his bike. He's coming back. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (42:39.665)
Nice.

Sarah Portella (42:43.814)
I might try to sneak down there.

Kenny Bailey (42:43.889)
There you go.

Coach Tom (42:50.368)
I did a fit on his first one and he's done really well. He's a strong, very strong athlete. So yeah, it's nice. I kind of like athletes where you can do different things where you can focus on just running for a bit or just cycling for a bit or just swimming for a bit, right? And then focus on just doing a single event. I think that's great, especially at this time of the year where you need to focus on your weaknesses.

hopefully in your off season you were like working on some of the weaknesses, I hate to call them weaknesses, but some of the not your strengths, right? Yeah, weaknesses and I call weaknesses, yeah, I don't wanna be too negative about it. Yeah, you limiters, that's better. See, it's just like we suck, we joke about sucking at all three sports, well, you what's the one you suck at more than the other two or something, but anyway that you can focus on that.

Kenny Bailey (43:25.117)
They are. I think they're called weaknesses. That's okay to say that word. Limiters, there you go. that's a nice word. What a nice word.

Sarah Portella (43:30.632)
can call me your limiters. Your limiters.

Kenny Bailey (43:38.267)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (43:43.933)
There you go.

Coach Tom (43:48.082)
What is it that you're giving your athletes at this point? So athletes you have that have races in the summer, everything, we're coming out of the winter base training or we're into the base training. What do you see and what are you having your athletes do at this point in the season as we're January? This is middle of January at this point.

Sarah Portella (44:06.022)
Yeah.

Sarah Portella (44:10.44)
Yeah, a lot of them are itching to do faster things right now. I've got, do, yeah. Yes, I do try to break it up if I know that they are strictly on the trainer.

Coach Tom (44:17.473)
Zone 2 sucks.

Kenny Bailey (44:17.725)
Base build sucks.

So too sucks.

Sarah Portella (44:33.131)
so I give them a mix of things, but a lot of it is focused on just building endurance, whether that's someone two or three. I throw that in there, to give a little variety. And, that's mainly, yeah, exactly. That's me. Yeah, exactly. and that's mainly on the bike, for, for running. It's a lot of aerobic endurance work, but they might get some strides to open up the legs.

Kenny Bailey (44:46.109)
throw him a bone. You can run fast now. Okay.

Sarah Portella (45:02.149)
You know, from, you know, 30 seconds up to 200 meters kind of stuff, or give them some fart like sessions so that they have some speed in the legs, but we're not doing anything that's gonna, you know, make them tired for the next day. Like they should still be pretty fresh by the end of that session. yes. Yeah. So a lot of my athletes right now are.

Kenny Bailey (45:23.697)
Are you doing strength training too at this point as well in the base build?

Sarah Portella (45:31.743)
in call, you know, like their max strength phase. So we're also working on building some power for next season before we transition into higher intensity work. And then we take the load off in the gym.

Coach Tom (45:51.522)
Three days a week, two days a week, what do you, or does it depend? Okay. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (45:51.697)
I guess.

Sarah Portella (45:53.063)
And that's athlete dependent, the time that they have available to train and how much they love or hate the gym. But they're all doing something in the gym.

Coach Tom (46:02.975)
Most triathletes hate the gym. Yeah. Yeah. With swimming, they put strength training right with swimming of things that they don't like going in. So for the cold temperatures, we have that. Is there like treadmill work instead of being outside or do you just encourage being outside regardless of how cold it is?

Sarah Portella (46:08.346)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Portella (46:20.985)
Yeah, I don't really care, I guess, when we're the other. I'm always a fan of going outside for running, but it has been in like the single digits a couple of times. So I totally understand if they're like, I don't have the right apparel for this. But most of my athletes don't mind running outside. And there are a couple that will do specific sessions on the treadmill.

And we've kind of done that specifically, just where we are in training, but the majority do a lot of things outside.

Kenny Bailey (47:01.821)
That's nice. Can I get back to the protein thing real quick? the only reason why I'm asking is because I'm a casual observer of like VeloNews, And post tour, the grand tours are done and then they went back and they were trying to figure out why these guys were going so much faster. And again, if I'm wrong on this, correct me, because I think I am, but there was a big kind of thing around doubling the carbs.

you know, during the races, like rather than kind of a heavier protein. get it. think most people don't have enough protein and believe it not, you can lose weight by increasing your protein, right? That kind of thing. But, but was there something about that? I mean, for the casual observer like me that says, well, that's interesting. You know, they doubled it. Is there something to that? Or is there, is there science that's starting to reveal that? mean, you know, Pagache did okay on the tour, you know, if that's what he's doing, right?

Sarah Portella (47:56.86)
This is probably outside my pay grade, but I will say it's not the protein intake during exercise. It's kind of what you're doing with your protein intake around the exercise. And in addition to like, if you're under fueling while you're training, that also affects those things. So yeah, the carbohydrate craze.

Kenny Bailey (48:00.06)
Okay.

Coach Tom (48:00.289)
I was going to say, it's, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (48:09.201)
Got it. Yeah.

when to take it and you know what the bound is.

Kenny Bailey (48:19.549)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Portella (48:25.699)
is also still fully in motion. I think it's proven and I'm totally on board. Like eat your carbs when, yeah. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Coach Tom (48:31.649)
That's been scientifically proven. that's, yeah. You're not fueling your workouts with protein. That does not work. It doesn't happen. It's that kind of moving to that recovery port part of it, which we've always talked about, like you need to have your protein right after, especially if you're lifting weights, right? You wanna get your protein, but you also need carbs. And we're finding interesting things about the fact that like if you have

Kenny Bailey (48:32.487)
Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (48:41.457)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (48:49.383)
Got it.

Coach Tom (49:01.131)
protein at the wrong time or you're having fats too early, it's the timing of the protein as much as how much you have. So you're fueling and we can have, we've got Correll coming on, we can talk about, cause she'll be really detailed on the protein intake we can have. But they've bumped it up for athletes. Now they're starting to bump up the amount of protein you should be taking in on a daily basis for the average person that's not training or doing any of that stuff, which I find fascinating because some of it.

seems to be quite high for the average person. It's not that active.

Kenny Bailey (49:32.348)
Yeah. Well, I maybe it goes back to a broader question because you guys are probably getting crazy stuff like me. Like, you know, I read on the internet, you know, like, you know, if I do a fast before I run, you know, that kind of thing or, you know, new fad here, right? If I wear a weight vest while I run that that should help me out too. I mean, I mean, how do you how do you generally approach sort of, you know, a little bit of crazy town on that stuff? Is it sort of like, hey, let's get back to the to the fundamentals or how do you

Coach Tom (49:52.691)
or a time to man.

Kenny Bailey (50:02.439)
How do you try to swage those people that are like, I need to swim with floaty pants or those big puffy shorts to give extra drag kind of thing? how do you, I know both, this is for both of you, as coaches you probably get all sorts of crazy shit. So I'm just kind of curious how you deal with the crazy, like me.

Sarah Portella (50:21.126)
Tom, do you want to take this one?

Coach Tom (50:21.761)
You

There's so many, like the science has been there for decades on what to do and how to build progressive overload and kind of through, it's still there. It's boring, it's not sexy, it's consistency over everything else. And like anytime there's a influencer on whatever social media thing.

Kenny Bailey (50:30.129)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (50:34.077)
Uh-huh.

Kenny Bailey (50:41.97)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (50:51.471)
Exactly, right.

Coach Tom (50:53.025)
It's all BS and it's there's so many red flags that pop up. One of my favorites is that they have targeted Exercises that you do forget the gym forget lifting weights do these three moves to target the belly fat to burn belly fat It's just like the body doesn't work that way You can't lift this one piece of weight whatever Twisted sideways and do this and you're gonna automatically lose body fat It doesn't work that way

So it's, you know, try not to guffaw too much when someone brings it up about it, but let me just try to point out the science on it and just say, look, yeah, it's like reality is it's boring. It's absolutely boring. And when you're putting training plans together, I know you can buy ones off the internet or you can get free ones to a bunch of places and you look at it, it's the same thing. You're gonna have X amount of swarms, X amount of bikes, X amount of runs, depending on the amount of time that you have.

Kenny Bailey (51:30.845)
Yeah, bring it back to sort of like consistency. think that's a, you yeah.

Coach Tom (51:53.73)
And then you need to hit certain workouts at certain times of the year and that type of thing. So your coach can help you dial that in specifically to you. But ultimately it's the same thing over and over and over again. How are you going to get good at it? Right. That's, that's what it comes down to. So it's just kind of shrug. And I've had somebody tell me that they, they go on a, that's a four or five day fast and

Kenny Bailey (52:11.197)
That's how you get good at it.

Coach Tom (52:23.283)
and they do this and it was supposed to give them better performance in this thing and they're doing a bunch of other stuff and they had this, were quoting some science behind it and I just looked down and I was like, hey, if that works for you, knock your socks off. Cause there's no way I was gonna change his mind. I'm like, here's somebody who's sitting here with, know, not excess body fat, but not as lean as you would expect somebody to be that's like not eating food for five or six days. And it's just, you're just kind of like, there's a few people that I've talked to like that.

Kenny Bailey (52:35.613)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (52:52.875)
that do a lot of fasted type stuff. And I'm just like, I'm like, well, how come you're retaining so much body fat? How much you're like, it's not, something's not lining up here. And they're like, well, my system needs to purge itself out. And I cleanse myself. And I'm like, well, that's what your kidneys do. That's what your body does. You have organs that specifically cleanse. There's basic science that's been around for decades that refutes all of these influencers.

Like said, it's not sexy, it's not cool. So, just go for the latest, latest, greatest fad. Yeah, I'm like, sorry. Nothing beats doing the work. Yeah, there's a great cartoon. I think it was in the New Yorker. they had two windows with people sitting in it. And it was like, and a line of people at just one of the windows. And it was like the results. And the other one was the work to get to the results.

Kenny Bailey (53:26.833)
Welcome to

Coach Tom (53:50.1)
and everybody was at the results line. Nobody was at the work line to do the result, you know, to get the results. that's always, it's always fun that way, but that's my take on it. Like Sarah, I'm sure you're in the same boat, cause we share a lot of the same.

Kenny Bailey (53:50.653)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (53:59.326)
There you go.

Sarah Portella (54:01.893)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think I have too much to add to that. yeah, I guess like when I onboard someone, I do give them like a general nutrition guidelines for like sport. and then like, if they leave comments throughout training about not feeling well or like not being able to finish things, then we start like,

opening some dialogue about, well, what did you do during training? And then we try to like work through some of those maybe inconsistencies or, you know, they thought they should have been doing this, but actually we need to be doing something completely different.

Kenny Bailey (54:43.015)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (54:47.549)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (54:52.097)
Yeah. Do you get many people that, yeah, do you get people that pull up, athletes that pull up stuff and say like, I saw this online. What does this, you what does this mean? Does this, does this have any, you know, will this work? Can I try this? Can I do that? Do you get that a lot?

Kenny Bailey (54:53.489)
Yeah, and sometimes this is born out of ignorance, right?

Sarah Portella (55:07.238)
Yes, not very often anymore. would say early on, yes, and also maybe I didn't know as much at that time also, but not as much anymore.

Coach Tom (55:20.815)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (55:26.401)
Yeah, I always encourage my athletes if they've got questions about stuff, if they come up with something or they see a product or whatever, I'm open to talk about it. And I get people and some friends that are just kind of like, hey, I saw this, does this really work? And I'm like, no, this one doesn't, this isn't it. And occasionally it's something like, well, that's kind of interesting. Like, I don't know, I don't know anything about this. then, know, it gives me insight to look it up and, you know, do a little research on it and go like, you know.

theoretically this might work, but I wouldn't spend the money on it or maybe this is cool, let's get this, right? The core temperature thing was one of those, You know, measuring your body temperature while you're actually training and working out. Okay, that's something interesting. That's some data that we can use. So yeah, there's always something fascinating that way as we go through, but cool. So what else Sarah, what else is going on? What do you got races for this year? What do you, know, state champion again?

Kenny Bailey (56:13.159)
There you go.

Sarah Portella (56:22.213)
I don't know. I would be in one of those athlete categories where coaches probably like, come on, make up your mind what you're going to do for the year.

Coach Tom (56:24.245)
What?

Kenny Bailey (56:26.109)
I'm

Coach Tom (56:37.407)
You haven't signed up for all your races. You don't have your travel plans. And I see you have the big ass calendar up there in the back. So like.

Sarah Portella (56:40.581)
Yeah, I have all my tentative ideas for the year. I haven't pulled the trigger on anything quite yet, but mainly the calendar for Tennessee at least hasn't been released for racing. So a lot of cycling events are kind of up in the air, at least locally. So yeah, I don't know.

Kenny Bailey (56:41.895)
your a raise your b raise

Coach Tom (56:47.509)
Tentative, I love it.

Coach Tom (57:01.557)
Okay.

Sarah Portella (57:08.613)
Two things that are for sure penciled in are USA Triathlon age group national champs because they are doing a draft legal event this year. So we're going to dabble into some draft legal. And then I've caught like a crew of 12, I think going to Wilmington 70.3 in October.

Coach Tom (57:20.193)
you

Kenny Bailey (57:22.365)
It'll be fun. Wow.

Coach Tom (57:24.351)
Interesting.

Sarah Portella (57:34.501)
Some will be doing the 70.3 and some will be part of a relay team trying to incorporate my just runners and my just cyclists as well. So they're gonna they're gonna learn some track-alani things. Yes.

Coach Tom (57:35.873)
outstanding.

Coach Tom (57:40.609)
Nice.

Kenny Bailey (57:43.627)
Hehehehehe

Coach Tom (57:44.769)
That's

That's the gateway drug, the relay. It's perfect. It's perfect. that's cool. Sweet. Well, that's nice. Well, I have to let us know what you actually sign up for. I'm in the same boat because I've got things penciled on my big ass calendar. It's over on that side. And I haven't registered for stuff yet because I'm actually going to get a coach for myself this year.

Kenny Bailey (57:48.989)
There you go. There you go. That's fun.

Sarah Portella (57:59.873)
Absolutely.

Sarah Portella (58:13.743)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (58:15.153)
For big plans that I have and I want to run it by the coach before I start registering for stuff. So Yeah, so talking talk I'm doing my interviewing process right now for coaches for me for a couple big prop for big project Yes, Sarah has a coach Coaches get coaches because we still need that outside voice to look in and help us. I mean, it's like

Sarah Portella (58:20.016)
Good idea, good idea.

Kenny Bailey (58:20.509)
There you go.

Kenny Bailey (58:28.145)
Well, you just answered the question, does a coach get a coach? And the answer is yes. So, there you go.

Coach Tom (58:43.553)
we can put the plans together and do it, but it's really nice to have someone who's got your interest at heart, but looking at it from, they're not gonna go like, it was okay, or I backed off a little bit or something, and someone to kind of, not just hold you accountable, yeah, a little bit on that, but to help guide you in, here's a better workout for you. I have a big project, I'm aiming for big stuff in 2027, so I need a two-year ramp up.

Kenny Bailey (58:58.917)
Accountability is big deal.

Coach Tom (59:13.121)
So I've started the process to get through that and I need a little help guiding that so I can spend time on my athletes and not waste the time on me. So it's nice to have somebody working on me. So I'm working on my athletes and I'm not wasting my time by just working on my stuff. that's how I'm approaching it. So big things to come. We'll make announcements later on and talk about it as I get as I get settled in.

Sarah Portella (59:22.06)
Exactly. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (59:22.631)
Mm-hmm. There you go.

Sarah Portella (59:38.605)
Nah, nah.

Kenny Bailey (59:40.027)
Oof.

Coach Tom (59:42.943)
and all of that, I'm gonna try to hurt myself before I'm 60. So all good stuff, all good stuff. So Sarah, thank you for joining us. This was fun. I know it's up late. We're a little late tonight. So we appreciate you taking the time and coming on. And we had a great weekend in Orlando at the Endurance Exchange. Got to talk to a lot of great folks. So everyone, thank you again for listening all around the world.

Sarah Portella (59:45.165)
you

Kenny Bailey (59:46.173)
There you go.

Sarah Portella (59:51.577)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Portella (59:59.033)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Coach Tom (01:00:11.393)
keep giving us the thumbs up and all that stuff. We'll put Sarah's contact information, Instagram and all that good stuff in the notes. So that's down there. If you need a coach, Sarah's great. She's really good. She's got lots of room for tons of athletes. think she'll take on everybody, right? She won't say no, is what I heard. So, all covered. Any sport, pick it up, especially swimming.

Kenny Bailey (01:00:27.197)
That's what we heard. She doesn't say no. All comers welcome.

Sarah Portella (01:00:27.653)
Well... boy.

Coach Tom (01:00:39.201)
All good, but no, seriously, thank you. Thank you, Sarah. And thanks everybody for supporting us and listening to the podcast. So we appreciate you all, Kenny. It's been great. And everyone, we'll catch you on the next one.

Kenny Bailey (01:00:50.801)
Always play your stuff.