Coach Tom (00:01.105)
Hey Kenny, how are you?

Kenny Bailey (00:02.806)
I'm Fantastic Tom Herriot.

Coach Tom (00:04.739)
I'm fantastic as well. We're welcoming Sarah Malam back on the show. She was with us last year. She is our licensed mental health therapist who has the owner and founder of Steadfast Living Therapy. We're glad to have you back on Sarah. Always fun to talk with you. So this is going to be fun. We've got a good conversation coming up about triathlon and it's

Sara Milam (00:26.071)
Thanks for having me.

Coach Tom (00:33.031)
perceptions in society. We'll say in society is a bigger thing. So before we get into that, I wanna thank everybody for all your notes and comments and things. Keep up the five stars, thumbs up, all of that. Helps the algorithm, helps us get out to a range of people. We're all global, we're across. We've got listeners in a lot of cool spots in the world, which we thank everybody for checking in and listening to us.

Kenny Bailey (00:37.198)
There you go.

Coach Tom (01:02.429)
all of that and make sure to subscribe. Subscribe audio. You can see our wonderful faces on YouTube on our YouTube channel as well if you're just listening on that. Yeah, so welcome to the show. So this all came about Sarah reached out to me a few weeks ago I guess now and it was about an article that was written in Triathlete magazine that was questioning whether triathlon had an elitism problem.

of their perception of being for only elite people and being up there. And so Sarah pinged me about it because this seemed like, you know, a couple of questions and things that she had off of this. So Sarah, talk through what you were, what you were originally thinking when we popped this up, because I had read the article and you brought it to my attention. I went back into it again, read it a little bit more in depth. It was kind of, it was good stuff. It was actually a very good article.

Sara Milam (01:56.684)
Yeah, so.

You know, thought the article was really interesting because I've noticed when I go to participate in races, I often feel intimidated, particularly the day when I'm going to rack my bike and, you know, get my packet and everybody's there with their, you know, fancy bikes, fancy equipment. And I thought it was just a me problem until I read this article and I was like, maybe other people also feel kind of intimidated when they are.

Kenny Bailey (02:12.373)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (02:13.799)
Sure.

Sara Milam (02:28.309)
in that race environment. And then of course, being a mental health therapist, I think about it from, you know, the mental health and mental performance side of things as well. And so I wanted to reach out and see if you had any of your athletes that you coach ever talk about feeling nervous or feeling intimidated just by that race environment and by the kind of perceived elitism that's there.

Coach Tom (02:53.073)
Yeah. And, and of course my response was heck yeah. We talk about it all the time. and that's the biggest thing. And, it's, I take a quick look over at this. they, it's a couple of things that they bring up about the fact of the perception and, and versus our reality, right? Like it looks like it's a sport for a certain body type. It looks like it's a sport for people who spend a lot of money, which all of these things are not true.

Sara Milam (02:56.749)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (03:23.131)
Right? Once you get beyond it and you go to a race, you start to see the different body types. You start to see people on different types of equipment and things that are there. But there is a group that, that spends a lot of money, and needs to look good. and it's totally intimidating for everybody else, especially when you get to the race, especially newbies who are getting into the sport. I get so many people that come in for bike fits and they're getting into triathlon and we're getting them a bike.

and they're getting set up on a tri bike or they're, you know, a used tri bike or we're getting them on a road bike. And they're asking me a thousand questions about all the gear that they need to buy. You know, the equipment is spending this and dropping all of this kind of money. And all of a sudden they're up six, $7,000, $8,000 on equipment. And you're just like, no, you don't need to do that type of thing. But Kenny, what was your experience with when you were first starting out and it, or even now like

when you're going into transition as a new athlete, right? You've done all this work to get there. You don't know much about the sport besides that you've been training and you're kind of going through it and you're talking with people and you're reading the articles. Now you show up and you walk into transition area on race day. What were your memories of like, my God, like, or what? What did you feel?

Kenny Bailey (04:21.997)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (04:28.557)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (04:37.613)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (04:45.357)
Yeah, it's one of the few sports, if you think of Alita sports, it's one of the few sports that's pretty equipment heavy. I mean golf is probably the other one, right? Where you buy a $600 driver or a $1000 driver because if you don't have that, do you have the ping lights or are you using the Walmart brand? Again, your swing, nothing to do with your swing, nothing to do with your capability. And it's hard because when you go in, because it's such an equipment heavy,

Sport, you know, it requires a wetsuit. It requires a bicycle. It requires running shoes. Now it doesn't require, you know, $235, you know, carbon plated. So your, you know, your push off can be better kind of deal. But those are the, those are the visual things that you see. And what's kind of funny, I think there's actually two sides to it. There's an Alita side to it, but there's the other part where there's sort of your fake in it, right? If you buy all that equipment, you come in and you're lousy at it. That's pretty funny too.

Coach Tom (05:25.234)
Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (05:42.094)
But I think for this conversation, it is intimidating because you'll see somebody that is in fairly good shape and they're walking with a thousand dollar wetsuit and their bike's got a full disc on it and it's set up and it's a $15,000 bike and their transition area has incredibly cool stuff and you're wondering to yourself, do I belong here? Not from an athletic perspective, but from a class perspective. Am I, you know.

Sara Milam (06:09.325)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (06:10.477)
Same thing with golf, right? I'm not gonna walk in with golf with a, you know, again, a $20 shorts and, you know, some low-end golf equipment and you're trying to, you know, and it's the same thing. You join, you go to play golf, it's a $300 buy-in for some of these, some of these places to go play golf. It's an $800 buy-in for Ironman. So the buy-ins, so you scrape enough money to get into this thing. You scrape enough money together to kind of, and you still have this sense of like, you know,

Okay, even your car, right? you drive up with a nice bike, but you have like a lousy car, people are like, that's right. And it's just a weird sort of thing where it's not athletic pursuit. It's because it's so equipment heavy. Those are part and parcel to how people feel, right? Which is, you know, on running, you go to a marathon, I just need a pair of shoes. That's it, you know, and a pair of shorts and you're not going to look at somebody's like, if they have the high end Mizuno shorts, who cares? You have a pair of shorts, a pair of shoes, go run.

Coach Tom (06:55.569)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (07:08.565)
Right? It's about capability less about that. But I don't know. It's been this challenge because then it looks as if that barrier, know, perception is reality. When you create that high barrier, then only people with that barrier then feel as if they can, despite your physical ability. And so that's always been a challenge. You go in and go, well, yeah, I got this bike. okay. You know, I got the low end, you know, felt bike and you know, can I do this? And you have to have a strong sense of self to be okay with that. And well.

Coach Tom (07:25.405)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (07:38.356)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (07:38.409)
Sarah, you probably better to know about that. it feels to me and Sarah, me if I'm wrong, but that's a very narrow band of people that are okay with that strong sense of self. If you're feeling intimidated by your physicality or by being able to show up and then on top of that, that's the part that's difficult.

Coach Tom (07:40.061)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (07:54.886)
Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, what was your experience? So you've obviously felt this going into your races. So what were you experiencing?

Sara Milam (07:55.295)
Yeah, I mean, I think, go ahead, Tom.

Sara Milam (08:08.845)
Yeah, you know, I think Kenny hit the nail on the head, right? It comes down to that core question, do you belong or not? And...

We as humans, we evolved to be hardwired for connection, right? We need to belong in groups and being groups in order to survive historically. And so when we feel like we don't belong, that can feel very threatening to us and feel threatening to our emotional well-being and safety. And we know logically, right? Feeling like you don't belong at a triathlon is not logically a threat to your well-being or your survival, but it feels like that, right? We get that emotional response.

Kenny Bailey (08:41.902)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (08:44.679)
Sure.

Sara Milam (08:48.343)
It was interesting because in the article it even said that research shows that triathletes use gear purchases to compensate for feelings of inferiority and to show that they belong. And so, as far as my experience goes, Tom, remember...

Coach Tom (08:57.617)
Yep. Yep.

Sara Milam (09:04.461)
couple years ago that either when I did a bike fitting for you with you or I was at a race and ran into you I can't remember but I asked it was like do I need aero bars for my bike because I just have a road bike and I feel like I'm like the only one out here that just has a road bike and you were like no not really and I like my road bike I'm comfortable on it it works for my you know purposes and but really the only reason why I was asking that question was I was looking around and I'm like well I feel like I'm in the more minority

Kenny Bailey (09:15.406)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (09:34.595)
here it was more about do I fit in and do I belong based on what I see other people have as opposed to do I actually need that to support my goals in triathlon and my purpose for participating and the answer to that question was no I really didn't

Coach Tom (09:53.566)
Yeah. Yeah, it's like showing up to a run club and you show up in work boots and jeans and something but even if it's a meeting at a coffee house or a bar where you're not running but you're going to meet the run group, right? They're going to have their run shoes on because they wear them all the time, right? This is their thing and then they're going to have a shirt from an event or a jacket with the little,

Kenny Bailey (09:54.946)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (10:20.465)
Boston Marathon logo on it or something like that. And you're gonna be standing there in work boots and jeans and you're be like, I don't know if I really like, don't feel that like these are my people type of moment. I totally see that on athletes going in. When I do, I love doing the sprint and Olympic races. And we can talk about the other piece of this that we're gonna touch on a little bit is that triathlon has an Ironman problem.

Sara Milam (10:32.641)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (10:48.445)
because everyone thinks that Ironman is a triathlon and vice versa, right? So when people say, did you do a triathlon? And like, yeah, I did. Well, I just did a sprint. It was like, no, no, no, it's it. You don't have to do an Ironman. Like, so this. Yeah, yeah, it's like, no, it's like, so you so so I see these athletes in the sprint and Olympic races and they walk into transition and their eyes are big, right? Their heart rate, I can tell, is already up because you're walking into

Kenny Bailey (10:48.995)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (11:02.37)
Or they ask you like, did you go to Hawaii? He's like, well, no, you gotta, sorry. I gotta earn my way to that one. Yeah.

Sara Milam (11:06.775)
Hmph. Hmph.

Coach Tom (11:17.661)
300 400 500 thousand bikes, you know on those on those races and You're walking in with your road bike and you got your bag and you don't know what transition like you didn't practice transitions because you weren't With anybody that was showing you how to do those things So you're kind of trying to glom information off of all of this, right? And then the dude or the girl walks by with the disc wheel and the eight thousand dollar bike and

Kenny Bailey (11:45.026)
Yep.

Coach Tom (11:45.97)
you know, the arrow bars and the whole thing, and they've got the real arrow wrapped helmet. And there's like going down is like, and you're like, yeah, that's not me. Like I, you can't even, you can't even fathom how you get from where you are now to that. Right. And you're trying to process all that information while get into this race and think that you're, you know, you're probably scared of the swim and you're going like, and now I've got to jump off a boat or I've got to jump off a dock right into the water and swim.

Sara Milam (11:46.388)
you

Kenny Bailey (12:02.961)
it down.

Coach Tom (12:14.875)
And you're like, how does this all process in my life? Why did I make this bad decision? You know, to go down that road, I see it in their eyes and I usually end up talking to people and trying to walk them through some stuff. you don't need that. You need this. Just do all of that just over years of experience. But I mean, when I started off on it years ago, they had that, but not to the level it is now, right? We had the bikes, some disc wheels and some stuff, but it was still...

Kenny Bailey (12:19.377)
What?

Coach Tom (12:43.279)
I don't know, it a little more old school. The tri-bikes were there, but they weren't as wide, they weren't as aero, they weren't like, it was just a little different, but it was still intimidating, you know, because you'd hear the disc wheels make a certain sound with that carbon sound, and it's just got that, it's amazing, I love it now. But you would hear them on the road, like, yeah, you hear this swoosh swoosh sound coming by you, and then just,

Kenny Bailey (12:47.832)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (13:01.09)
which by the way is a beautiful sound. My god, it's a beautiful sound. As I'm getting past, wow, that sounds lovely. And there it goes. Yeah, for the brief three seconds that I hear it.

Sara Milam (13:03.147)
Hahaha

Coach Tom (13:13.757)
It's like, my God. You're either totally intimidated or you're like, I want to be like that. And the amount of people that plumped down so much money to improve their bike without working on their engine, I see it every day. I see it every day and I'm just like, hey, work on the engine, like posture. If your posture was better, you would be putting out more watts type of thing.

Kenny Bailey (13:21.4)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (13:43.493)
Yeah, and still occasionally, and I'm the guy with that bike now, right? Like it's not that expensive, but I'm the guy walking in with the disc wheel and the whole thing now. And I'm just like, yeah, wow. Am I a schmuck?

Sara Milam (13:52.173)
You

Kenny Bailey (13:53.844)
Hey, Sarah, so that's the question is, I feel like there's a bell curve that goes on, right Sarah? So this is what I'm kind of curious about from your experience. It's like, if you plainly look like you're new, right, most people just leave you alone, right? If you walk in and like you have a road bike and you can clearly tell the newbies, right? And you're like, okay. And then on the other end, you can clearly tell by this person that isn't physically ready to do this, but they bought their way in. They bought the expensive bike.

Sara Milam (13:55.405)
You

Sara Milam (14:04.194)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (14:23.266)
they got all the gear and they, and you know, for lack of better term, they look like posers, right? And so you have that into the spectrum. They're like, okay, so you just spent most of your time trying to figure out how to buy your way into performance. And you got the people on the other end. It's like, Hey, you're just starting out and that's cool. It feels like the closer you get to like what you're supposed to look like, you know what I mean? Does it, does it, or am I wrong on that? Is it, is it sort of like, there's an expectation level if I come in and I look as, you know, if I look a certain way that I should be.

Sara Milam (14:43.181)
Ha ha!

Kenny Bailey (14:52.62)
you know, also fitting in and having a certain performance level is that? It's kind of an imposter syndrome thing.

Sara Milam (14:59.829)
I think, you know, one of the things that...

Maybe people miss or overlook is that as you're saying there are a lot of beginners at many of these races, especially like the local ones but We tend to just automatically gravitate towards paying attention to the people that feel more elite again because it feels kind of threatening to us and so The cool thing is we can choose if we're in that setting to intentionally pay attention to the other people around us that maybe are like Also beginners or less elite. and you can also intentionally choose

to go up and talk with them and try and build like more of that community feel with them as well. If you're feeling like you don't belong, don't fit in, you can go seek out the other people, the race that you see also look like they're more kind of at your level, experience level or also beginners. So I'm not sure if I answered your question or not, but yeah, I think you can choose where you're focusing your attention and there's a lot of power in that because it can be really distracting to focus.

Kenny Bailey (16:01.485)
Sure.

Sara Milam (16:03.599)
on the people that you feel like you don't belong with, but it can be empowering and kind of comforting to focus on the people that you see that you do feel like you belong with.

Coach Tom (16:15.995)
So what are some tips and tricks for people to choose that, to go through there? Are there things that they can do to prepare themselves to then be able to make that choice instead of just shutting down completely?

Sara Milam (16:31.691)
Yeah, I think there are kind of three main things that I would suggest. The first is kind of what we talked about on the last podcast that we did last spring, but before we even get to the race, really thinking about why you're doing it in the first place.

And you can use that to kind of help answer that question for yourself. Do I even need all of that fancy gear, right, to align with my purpose for competing or do I not need it? That's something that's helped me and that I tend to go back to is reminding myself like, I'm not trying to qualify for Kona. I don't think I'll ever probably even do a full Ironman. Like I did 170.3 and I think I'm good to just do like short stuff from now on, know, have my filp. And so I really don't need all that.

Kenny Bailey (17:05.294)
Hmm.

Sara Milam (17:17.455)
Remembering kind of your why your purpose and then in the moment when you're at the race using self-talk and like attentional control kind of cues for yourself if you notice your mind is wandering so One of the cues that I like I got from Brene Brown's book atlas of the heart, but Basically, yeah, it's a good one. She talks has a whole section where she talks about comparison and in the section she talks about how she likes to lap swim and she

Kenny Bailey (17:36.866)
Check that out.

Sara Milam (17:47.328)
she would always compare herself to the triathlete swimming next to her. so having that reminder, just cooing yourself in your head, like stay in your own lane, picturing a swim lane quickly if that imagery is helpful, if you notice your mind is wandering to what everybody around you is doing.

So having some sort of cue like that, just a word or a phrase that you can tell yourself to shift your concentration back from externally, what is everybody doing around you to internally, what's your purpose? What's your race plan? What are you actually doing right now to prepare like the morning of or the day before? And then using your self-talk to help kind of boost your confidence as well. That could be something like, you know, I've trained well for this, I'm prepared or, you know, the equipment

Kenny Bailey (18:29.506)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (18:35.215)
and that I have works for me and that's what matters. Those kinds of things.

Coach Tom (18:42.085)
Yeah, yeah. So trying to set yourself up to you're competing against yourself really is what you want to do is give the best performance of yourself that day and having that self talk is is is crucial. think it's crucial to have

Kenny Bailey (18:57.582)
Yeah, I think the pleasant surprise too is, you know, if you go online and you look, you know, you see all these, you know, chiseled people doing triathlons, right? And they're always, you know, great posture, they're running forms perfect, all that sort of stuff. And before you get there, you think everyone looks like Jan Frodeno, right? Just as like six foot two, 150 pounds, 160 pounds, you know, just, and you get there and you look around, you're like, my God, these are people like me.

Sara Milam (19:25.981)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (19:26.686)
and you stand in the swim line and you're waiting to get in and you find out they're just as nervous as I am. And they don't know if they did their training good enough. you find out like 80 % of the population there. And to your point, Sarah, if you ask somebody, they may look like, because they're so focused on getting their race ready, you start talking them. This community is beautiful. they'll help you out. I knew I was watching, I had a friend of mine that did Ironman in Chattanooga and one of the guys,

waited four or five minutes with the other guy because he blew a tire and like, look, I'll wait for you. We'll try to figure out how to fix this. And then the sack came along and he took off, but he ate four or five minutes because that's what it is. So I think when you go in, your perception is a bunch of, know, percent body fat and I'm just here. And you find out it's a community of really cool people. But because that...

Sara Milam (20:00.941)
Mm.

Sara Milam (20:15.981)
Hahaha!

Kenny Bailey (20:21.932)
Because of perception, I think going back to that article, the perception of the barrier to entry is so high. It's several hundred dollars to buy into this thing. And then this notion that you need super expensive stuff in order to compete, like to your point, I don't wanna do an Ironman. I did a 70.3, it was fun, I just wanna have a good time. And so I think there's that reality that sometimes is good when you get there, you find out, wow, these are all nervous human beings that are just same boat that you are that are

Coach Tom (20:40.401)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:51.246)
struggling with the same injuries they had earlier and trying to figure out if they're going to be okay too. And I think that conversation, when you get there, you find out, okay, people are actually human. not machines looking at watts and heart rate and chest straps to figure out how well they're doing and all that. It's actually a fun community. The problem is, is we have a perception. Yeah, but there's a perception problem that you have to do that, right? Because the people that are talking are the people that are the people that are 140 pounds.

Coach Tom (21:10.639)
And they're just as nervous about the sprint as the swim. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (21:10.871)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (21:14.337)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (21:20.308)
are writing the stuff and we put people on stage that are, you know, here's our hero dude that you're never gonna attain to, right? I wanna show, I think Tom, one of our biggest episodes was around, you know, following one of our triathletes that got pulled from mile 99. And she decided to go in the next year and do it. And that was one of the most watched things we had because I can identify with this human that's struggling, right? Not this, you know.

Coach Tom (21:26.653)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (21:27.202)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (21:36.251)
Yeah. Elizabeth, yeah.

Sara Milam (21:36.928)
Mmm.

Coach Tom (21:44.636)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (21:44.813)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (21:46.926)
oh my gosh, I can only do a 643, run right now. It's like, I can't identify with you.

Sara Milam (21:50.647)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (21:51.08)
So from a marketing standpoint, we're trying to get people into the sport and to stay in the sport. Like that's from, I'm in the business of it, right? So I'm a coach, this is how I make my living and bike fitting. And so I want people to come in the sport because the sport's amazing. I think when you do it, it's fantastic. You're accomplishing amazing things. You're doing all of this and it's not, it's really not as difficult as it sounds in your head when you're like watching it from afar.

But from a marketing aspect, we seeing somebody on a road bike or a mountain bike, you know, upright with straight bars, doing a sprint triathlon is not selling it to the, to the general public, right? They want to see the for Danos. They want to see them in a stretched out positions on $12,000 bikes. And like, this is triathlon. This is what we're selling this sexy image. This is, this is coming at you. And in like, reality, that's really not the case. That's that perception of

Kenny Bailey (22:37.614)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (22:51.473)
this is what you need to do the sport. Well, yes, on the elite level, you need to kind of look like this. You need to have that kind of money. You need to have that thing. But that's the 1 % of the 1 % of the 1 % of the 1%, right? The rest of us are just trying to get by and we're spending more money than we'll ever make, let alone ever make in the sport. And we're just trying to have some fun and we're...

Kenny Bailey (23:07.31)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (23:20.039)
We're getting a whole lot of people because of that marketing. They're coming in that want to do, they want to do the big hard race that that one off Ironman to so that they could say they did it. They're going to spend all the money and then they're going to turn around and sell everything and walk away from the sport. So they're not sticking around because their why is different. and they're not enjoying the journey. They're not getting out of it. What you can get out of the sport. Like you can do sprint, you can do any distance.

And the journey to what you become when you get to race day is amazing. And I think most people are missing that. I think they're just so focused on the event. They have this huge drop off of depression after an event because they've put everything on this one day. And even if it doesn't go right, it's even worse. But they miss out. They're like, I did it. I got my medal. And then.

Kenny Bailey (24:13.038)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (24:14.801)
back to normal, right? And they're not focusing on it as a journey. So I don't know how we sell it as a journey that makes it sexy and everybody wants to be a part of it. I think that's my, that's my biggest complaint.

Sara Milam (24:14.922)
Mm-hmm. Now what?

Sara Milam (24:25.271)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's such a great point, the marketing perspective, because often when you do go to a race website and register, the people that are pictured are often the kind of super fit, look very fast. Those are the pictures that are often on there. And if they diversify their marketing a little bit to show more of a variety of different people.

Kenny Bailey (24:41.56)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (24:54.317)
when you think about even like ages, for example, like showing more like older adults would be interesting or younger. Cause they said that that average age range tends to be like, is that 35 to like 45, 50 something in there. White males often. So just like kind of diversify, Kenny, just like diversifying like who's pictured so that more people can see themselves in the market.

Kenny Bailey (25:11.31)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (25:18.838)
Well, yeah.

Yeah.

Sara Milam (25:24.271)
getting.

Coach Tom (25:25.233)
Yeah. And I know USAT is doing that. USAT when they're promoting triathlon is you don't see the standard middle-aged white guy out there, right? They're showing you all different body types. They're showing you all different skin colors and all of that. mean, the sport definitely skews to the white middle-aged male because when they get into their thirties, they start to get out of shape and they realize that

Sara Milam (25:40.844)
Nice.

Coach Tom (25:55.198)
You know, they start to have a little bit of extra time and a little bit of extra money and they need to challenge themselves. So they start doing this because their fitness went away from when they were in college. And now it's all of a sudden the body's catching up to them. So they start to challenge themselves and start to do these things and then go through, especially the 40 to 44 age group was always the biggest age group. I think now it's actually skewed a little bit younger. But when I came up through it, the 40, when I hit 40 to 40, 44 age group was just

That's where everybody was. was like, you know, almost 50 % of every race was just us dudes that were desperately trying to cling, hold on to our youth. And we had a little bit of money and a little bit of spare time. So it's hard. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (26:35.938)
Yeah. Well, yeah, I think that's important. It's a socioeconomic thing, right? It's if I can control my time and I can control my money, right? And as you get older, that's what you get freedom, can control your time and your money, right? The inter-fee is annoying, not over the top, right? Well, God, that's annoying, that feels expensive.

Sara Milam (26:36.459)
Hahaha

You

Sara Milam (26:46.465)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (27:01.654)
Right? And you can afford a trainer or you can afford those things. And you also can afford your calendar. Like, hey guys, I'm going take a couple of hours. So when you're more in those positions of those roles, you have more flexibility of your time. But the problem is to your guys' point, it's only geared, I mean, that is geared towards 70.3s and Ironmans. Yeah, I'm going to take 20 hours during the peak of my week to train. Which means that if I'm trying to do a job that I have to work 12 hours a day, that's going to be difficult. Right? Whereas,

Sara Milam (27:08.919)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (27:31.63)
because of that that driver that that that misconception that if you don't do Ironman you really haven't done a triathlon right sprints are fun sprints don't take they take the same as a five or 10k you know runner right those you don't need an expensive bike you can grab it you know you can grab your friend's road bike it's 17 miles it's not going to be you know it's a 5k run it's a fast swim i remember i just

I was embarrassed with myself. showed up to a sprint triathlon and there's this kid there and all he's wearing is a pair of Speedos and it's 67 degrees. And I'm looking at him like, kid, you didn't want to wear a wetsuit? Because I thought, you know, he was lean, he looked like a swimmer, he was like a high school swimmer. And I'm like, this guy's showing off. I mean, my gosh, he's going to go into 67 Lake and he's too fast. He's going to have to, you know, and he's like, no, I can't afford a wetsuit. And I'm like, oh, geez. And I was

Sara Milam (28:24.365)
Mm.

Kenny Bailey (28:24.526)
judging him on like, oh, well, he thinks he's really fast and look at this guy. He's in and out of the water. He doesn't need to be worried about being cold. And I hear I am, you know, am I, I won't say it. I'm in a wetsuit. That's not cheap. And, you know, and you find out like he just couldn't afford it. And it's like, well, bless him. He's there anyway. Right. And I think if we move and, you know, Tom and I have been doing this for four years. We've been trying to move people to say sprints and Olympic distance are triathlons. They're fun. It's not the, the, the entry fees aren't that expensive.

Coach Tom (28:34.385)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (28:40.119)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (28:50.413)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (28:54.006)
The equipment you need doesn't need to be so tuned in because you're gonna spend 12 to 14 hours making this race. And that's the hard part. We gotta move to me, move it away from that socioeconomic thing where socioeconomics isn't an issue and celebrate those stuff like those sprints and make it fun because if you show up to these things and you feel intimidated, I mean, I keep going back to golf, Sarah. This is what I keep going back to. The analogy is, it's the same thing.

Coach Tom (29:01.521)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (29:19.742)
It's a good analogy. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (29:23.502)
Even if you can afford to get in and you borrowed somebody's clubs, there's still sort of this etiquette of how you do it and what you tip the guy to do and what kind of, there's these unwritten rules. It's the same thing in triathlon. There's some level of unwritten rules. People will look at your sock length and go, all right, noob. Or you gotta wear the bucket hat and the, you know.

Coach Tom (29:24.423)
It's golf.

Sara Milam (29:29.612)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (29:34.705)
yeah, it's, yeah.

Sara Milam (29:37.067)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (29:42.689)
Mm-hmm. Go.

Coach Tom (29:43.75)
You wear socks? What? You're wearing socks? Noob.

Sara Milam (29:47.629)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (29:49.614)
You gotta be super cool when you go in to set up your equipment and that kind of thing. And there's some unwritten rules because it's so complex on how you do your setup and what you use. Do you come in with a Home Depot bucket? Oh my gosh, look at this guy. Or stuff like that. I mean somebody brought a stool once, I thought it was fantastic. And it could be because they were physically needed a stool because sitting down was typical.

But that all those unwritten rules, know, when the bigger the races are, the funnier it gets. And I keep looking at that golf analogy because we have a golf problem, right? It feels like there's a status thing. How do we get it back to just a sprint, fun, family, cool, chill kind of thing? I think it's a big question.

Sara Milam (30:22.071)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (30:31.537)
Yeah, that's that Ironman, you know, problem. It's triathlon started as a sprint. It started shorter in San Diego a few years before the Ironman even came about. So triathlon was happening. And if people probably don't notice, but the professional Olympic distance is a worldwide series that they race around and they do Olympic distance. That's

that's the distance that they do. And there is super sprint and there is some shorter, there's a whole, there's multiple leagues out there. There's a whole world of triathlon, but because like worldwide, a wide world of sports made that, know, sold us on the difficulty of an Ironman. And then Ironman became a brand over the years, turned into a corporation and then they branded everything. So now you're just doing an Ironman and everyone.

that's on the outside looking in just doesn't know the difference between Ironman and a triathlon. They think that's just one and the same. They don't understand all the nuances of the different lengths and distances. So we get back to that, well, it's an Ironman or it's nothing. And now I have to do it because I need to have the tattoo. And you just go like, well, the tattoo's, you know, it's like, it's okay, but you know, can, it's good to get the tattoo. It's fine.

Kenny Bailey (31:45.656)
Yeah. Easy.

Kenny Bailey (31:51.576)
those people.

Sara Milam (31:53.857)
You

Kenny Bailey (31:56.558)
Okay good, just saying. This is awkward, very awkward. I'm kidding. I like tattoos. just, you know, there you go.

Coach Tom (31:58.182)
I'm not saying I'm not saying about I'm not I'm not dissing you. I'm not dissing you. I don't have the tattoo. I like tattoos. I don't have an Ironman tattoo. I don't have any tattoos currently, but I don't have an Ironman tattoo just because I mean, I think I came at it from a different a different perspective. I didn't come at it to do an Ironman to check it out. And one of the things that I try to encourage people getting into the sport is don't buy a triathlon specific bike.

Sara Milam (32:03.208)
You

Kenny Bailey (32:09.591)
Yep.

Coach Tom (32:28.645)
right away. You should go and race for three or four years and you can go all the way up to 70.3 distance without buying a triathlon bike. In fact, you can do an Ironman without a triathlon bike depending on the race. But you should like, it's such a different animal to go from a road bike to a tri bike. They are so different. And when you're starting new, you don't have the bike handling skills. You don't, you haven't spent enough time on the bike.

And triathletes have a bad reputation for bike handling because they spend so much time on a trainer or they don't spend enough time outdoors on a tri bike or any slight movement that you make. Yeah, well, they don't spend time on that. Fundamentals is not always our thing. So I mean.

Sara Milam (33:06.413)
You

Kenny Bailey (33:06.69)
They suck. Yeah.

Because they suck. Well, you take such a thing where it's individual, right? You've been training alone for months and months and months and you put in a group of 500, 600 people and suddenly you've to figure out, you've got to worry about the people next to you. It's not about you anymore. It's about hacking and handling. So Sarah, why did, yeah, I was just going to say, you brought this up. mean, is this the

Sara Milam (33:13.325)
You

Coach Tom (33:21.435)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (33:27.357)
were swerving all over the place. Yeah.

Sara Milam (33:28.801)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if...

Coach Tom (33:32.999)
So Sarah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (33:38.466)
Are we addressing the question that you wanted to address or is it, mean, I don't, I think it takes to your point, it takes the marketing efforts, not just marketing, but it takes the articles to be able to celebrate and put those people that are okay. It's almost like.

Sara Milam (33:41.665)
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely.

Sara Milam (33:56.717)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (33:58.732)
We got to figure out that normal people can be celebrated too and put those in a plug out to Joe Fleener by the way on Magic Sports, right? I think he's one of the best. Matter of fact, nationally, he got recognized nationally for several of his races because he's bringing back. The most brilliant thing he did and I will praise him to the day is that he made sure to put, is it a wristband or a cap?

Sara Milam (34:02.635)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (34:05.659)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (34:08.845)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (34:12.407)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (34:23.765)
It's a wristband. wear a rubber band that's for the newbies and they have a tent. Joe and Faye created this concierge, race concierge for first timers. And you can ask all the questions. They have a setup of like how your transitionary should look, how you do all of that stuff. You get the wristband. At the end of the race, you come back and they have a little gift for you. They have something else. And then they also, yeah, you can choose.

Kenny Bailey (34:27.405)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (34:34.529)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (34:40.035)
Yep.

Sara Milam (34:41.569)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (34:49.422)
Perfect. It's like I'm a student driver, right? Just give me a break. I'm new. Yeah.

Sara Milam (34:50.465)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (34:53.275)
You can choose a different color cap, like a white cap, if you feel uncomfortable in the swim. And then that allows the safety people to recognize that these people are a little less comfortable in the water and they might need some help. So they're not focused on, you know, on the top swimmers, right? So they ease that barrier for people on that sense.

Sara Milam (34:55.757)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (35:07.96)
Brilliant.

Sara Milam (35:20.449)
Yeah, in there.

Kenny Bailey (35:20.866)
Well, you created a social thing too, right? Because you see somebody with that wristband, you can go, you're new too, right? So, yeah.

Sara Milam (35:26.399)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Absolutely and the magic sports races how they have a designated last place finisher as well I volunteered to be that for the women's triathlon a couple years ago and it so fun because you get to just like chat with the you know, the racers that you're kind of alongside and It's really cool to see the race from a different perspective when you're not trying to go for a certain time or anything that you're just there purely to enjoy and like support the other racers and I think that's a cool program too because then

Coach Tom (35:33.361)
Yes. Yes.

Coach Tom (35:39.034)
Awesome.

Sara Milam (35:58.482)
If you are a beginner, you know that you're not gonna be last. There's always gonna be somebody behind you. Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (36:01.65)
Yes.

That's a big fear, right? People don't want to be last. I don't want to be last. I'm not going to do it because I don't want to be last. Well, you won't be last. You know, they've got that covered.

Kenny Bailey (36:04.76)
Yeah, and I think, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (36:10.37)
Yeah. Well, it's so I think Joe needs to go nationally and start figuring out how to get other race coordinators to do this stuff. Yeah. You know.

Sara Milam (36:10.401)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (36:15.403)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (36:17.499)
Well, so we were just at the endurance exchange and they did, it's for race directors and coaches and athletes. So that's where we get our education from that USAT puts on. And they did a session on talking about that. I think they've been promoting it out there. got Triathlete Magazine voted three of the four Southeastern races were magic sports races, three out of the four, which I'll give them a little,

Sara Milam (36:19.65)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (36:46.397)
Grief for that going, couldn't get four out of four. Okay, whatever. Sure Joe, just three. Okay. Yeah. But they do a fantastic job. mean, Faye's been in this business for years. Joe's been in this business for years and they're just, have, they've really taken it to another level on that type of thing. yeah.

Kenny Bailey (36:49.55)
Who else is doing it? on. So, come on, Joe.

Sara Milam (36:58.466)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (37:07.041)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (37:07.256)
Well, it makes it familial, right? And it gets it back to that familial sort of tribal thing. I mean, it was so funny because I remember I was road racing and it was just, I'm not only going to beat you, but I want you to regret that you ever got on a bike to begin with. Like, that's how hard I got to beat you. Like, that was the atmosphere in road racing. You crush people. You embarrass people. Like, you want to make sure that you know that you are the king.

Sara Milam (37:22.605)
Jeez, that was the atmosphere. Wow.

Sara Milam (37:31.277)
gosh.

Coach Tom (37:31.549)
You take their souls.

Kenny Bailey (37:34.766)
And then I showed up to a cycle cross race, which is more kind of, there's dogs running around, people, their family, and I saw a guy that was a road guy, and I saw his friend with him, I'm like, man, are you gonna kill him today? He's like, no, dude, we're just having a good time, man, if he wins, great. And I'm like, okay. And it's just, you know, and I think triathlon has a little bit of that problem too, where there's a certain sect of it, it's like, I need to beat you, and I need to beat you soundly.

Sara Milam (37:43.245)
you

Sara Milam (37:49.301)
Ha ha ha!

Coach Tom (37:49.373)
You're easy.

Sara Milam (38:00.791)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (38:02.762)
Whereas it's that familial thing that Joe's bringing back that it is, you know, hey, we're all new in this thing. We're all trying to experiment in this whole thing. Some of us are, this is the first time let's, you know, designate even the people that are more experienced to let them know that those are new people and that give them a little bit of a break, right? Yeah, I'm a student driver, right? That's your student driver thing. You know, I'm new at this thing. So, you know, I steer wide if I was me, you know, just like, hey, you know, give them a little more girth.

Sara Milam (38:22.317)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (38:29.085)
I wish I could see it quicker, Put a little, can we put a bumper sticker on the back?

Sara Milam (38:30.221)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (38:31.554)
But, that's okay, right? It's like, yeah, no kidding, hold it up like that. So when I pass you, yeah, exactly. When I pass you, you don't do this. But it's fun and it's fun to be able to celebrate those people that, and Tom and I have been trying to do this forever on this podcast. It's celebrating that person that just gets across the line, right? It's not fast, it's the fact that you went out of your comfort zone, you wanted to do something, you challenged yourself and you did it.

Sara Milam (38:37.734)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (38:51.755)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (39:01.144)
Congratulations, man, you conquered a fear. What's get you back? I how do get that community back? don't know. Is it too late? That's the question. Or does it have to break down on the national level and it still has to grassroots its way back up again?

Coach Tom (39:09.627)
I don't think it's gone away, to be honest with you.

Yeah, I think it's doing well. We just saw the numbers like triathlon is going up like it has 10 year swings. The numbers were it peaked in 2010. And then it it dropped off. So the highest it's been was in 2010 and it's dropped off a little bit. It was on its way back up going to 2020. And of course, then it just kind of stagnated because of the pandemic. So we had a little drop off, but we're starting to see it come back up again. And that's

based off of USAT membership numbers and one day memberships and things that are coming on there. I don't have the numbers with me, it's going on an upswing. I'm seeing more new triathletes coming in for bike fits. I'm seeing people come in and yeah, they're actually, well, they're all younger than me at this point. everybody's younger. It's like, I've never felt more old in my life.

Kenny Bailey (39:51.448)
You know what's weird is good.

Kenny Bailey (39:59.392)
Uh-huh. Hopefully younger ones, right? And so.

Sara Milam (40:00.782)
Good.

Kenny Bailey (40:05.71)
That's everybody. Everybody's hungry.

Sara Milam (40:13.729)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (40:13.745)
but they're coming in, but what I wanna be able to do and Sarah, what's a good viewpoint for getting them to stick around for the journey as opposed to just checking the box, checking the box of doing a triathlon, whether it's a sprint or an Ironman or anything in between, what is it that would be seen or felt that would draw you to wanna stay?

Sara Milam (40:42.655)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think you know beyond What we talked about earlier figuring out why you're doing it kind of what your individual goals are. I think also

Coach Tom (40:43.462)
and keep doing it.

Sara Milam (40:54.807)
Practicing just tolerating the discomfort of being new at something which I think adults are generally not super great at We tend to as adults right we get into our career We specialize in something we get better at the thing We're already good at and we're not quite as good at being a beginner and being able to tolerate the discomfort the potential embarrassment the mistakes that can come with that and so I think that's part of it too, so you don't like try the sport feel uncomfortable or

Coach Tom (41:02.119)
not good at it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (41:24.751)
or feel embarrassed and then just exit because it feels easier to avoid it so you don't have to deal with those feelings than to keep plugging away at it. So I think also going into it with a perspective that like this is just the process of trying something new, doing something that you're not super comfortable with is good for you as an adult in particular. And no matter how it turns out, if you feel like you hit your goals or not, you still got out of your

for its own and did something different and that's still valuable for you.

Coach Tom (41:57.917)
Yeah, so how do you set goals that are like I think it's the goal setting part that people are getting into it need to focus on the goal isn't You want to finish the race? I always say that's a goal you want to finish the race, but even if you don't finish the race The fact that we we overlook the fact that you went through a lot to get to the start of the race to get through it Maybe it wasn't your day Maybe you had a mechanical or maybe just didn't feel good or maybe the training wasn't where it needed to be whatever So you didn't you didn't succeed there was a failure, but that's

Sara Milam (42:18.422)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (42:28.122)
All of these pieces are what makes us stronger. That's how we grow as human beings, right? We get challenged and if we fail it, and I use the term fail, but I hate that. Like if we don't succeed at that particular goal, doesn't mean that's our identity. That's the thing like most people, what was the thing? I'm gonna blank on his name.

the shooter from Golden State Warriors. Huh? Who? Yeah, Steph. Steph is like one of the greatest shooters of all time, right? He set the record for three point shots and just shooting has changed the game completely. And yet if you look at the stats, he still misses more shots than he actually makes. Like when you start thinking about things like that where it's just like,

Kenny Bailey (43:03.534)
Steph Curry.

Sara Milam (43:21.045)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (43:26.096)
He doesn't succeed every single time. It doesn't work perfect every single time. But you get better by actually failing more. There's people who started businesses who have failed on the first five businesses that didn't succeed and go through, and then they nailed it, right? Because you learn something. You get a little bit stronger. You just challenge yourself in ways that people are so uncomfortable with. We don't like change. We try to stay with the status quo.

Sara Milam (43:29.133)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (43:42.062)
Hmm.

Sara Milam (43:49.185)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (43:53.137)
I think triathlon is great sport for challenging that because there's always a little bit of growth. There's always some growth on every level. I think. I don't know.

Sara Milam (44:01.623)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I think like often we're naturally driven to set outcome focused goals. Like for example, finish the race, get a certain place. And so sprinkling in more process focused goals can be helpful. Those are the specific action steps you're going to take. So that could be, you know, I'm going to get eight hours of sleep a night, for example, or I'm going to

You know do this specific workout the things that you actually have complete control over that you can execute because that we have more ways of feeling successful It's not all hinging on an outcome goal that you don't have complete control over you could get a flat You know the swim could be canceled because of the weather You know you could if you have a goal of you know getting a certain place and a bunch of really fast people show up You could solve a really good race, but still not

Kenny Bailey (44:51.756)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (45:02.243)
Place the way that you wanted to and so having some of those process focus goals that are completely within your control Can help you still get that feeling of success and then also having some values aligned Goals as well. Like for example, you know, maybe you set a goal like I just want to be brave You can be brave and have a terrible race, you know But still align with that goal because you still put yourself out there. You tried something new, you know, you did something that was scary And so having some process focus goals

Kenny Bailey (45:19.982)
Yeah

Coach Tom (45:21.949)
Yeah!

Sara Milam (45:32.224)
and or some of those more kind of broad values alignment type of goals can be helpful.

Coach Tom (45:37.692)
Yeah, yeah, okay.

Kenny Bailey (45:38.542)
And it's kind of, and it's a difficult world we live in because everyone asks you about outcome based goals. Everybody. Like my wife and I just, we decided to do a high rocks, never done one before. And a high rocks is a combination of you run a lot and you lift a lot, right? Never done it. And the general feeling is if you do well, it's under 90 minutes if you can get this done, right? And everyone was asking, so what's your goal time?

Like, is your goal time 90 minutes? And you have to remind people because everyone asking you an outcome based question. No, man, we're just there to, I'm here not to get a divorce. That's what I'm here for. Like my wife, this is the first time my wife and I are ever gonna compete with each other, where we rely on each other. Cause we've done my art-a-thons together, but we haven't done them together. I run, she runs and whatever the outcome. This is the first time where she had to do something that I was dependent on. And I'm like, that's my goal. My goal is to have a household that isn't divided.

Sara Milam (46:10.893)
you

Mm-hmm.

Hahaha!

Sara Milam (46:25.025)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (46:32.172)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (46:35.821)
You

Kenny Bailey (46:36.002)
That's it, but you have to remind people so often about, no, it's not about a number. Like it's not about a number. It's just, we've never done this before. We've never done it together before. We just want to see if we're going to have a good time. And for some reason, that's not a satisfactory answer for some people. You're like, okay. Like, no, just, you know, like, so what's your time? Even, you know, I was getting coached he's like, so we're going to try to get you 90 minutes. I'm like, nope.

Sara Milam (46:45.889)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (46:52.434)
Yeah, yeah, it's not. Yeah.

Sara Milam (46:52.469)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (47:02.936)
What we're trying to do is just do this thing that I've never done before and have a good time doing it. And whatever the number is gonna be, the number is gonna be. Of course I want to be faster and we already signed up for the next one to be faster. But, you know, trying to remind your peers or people, just casual people, because they don't know how to interact when, especially if you're a non-athlete and you're trying to, well, so what time you want to get? Because that's an obvious, sort of like what job do you do, right? Americans tend to be very job focused, right? Well, what's your career? Like, I don't know, I'm just chilling, right? What does it matter?

Sara Milam (47:25.357)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (47:27.491)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (47:32.558)
I'm generally happy in my life. There's another thing, Sarah, that I wanted to bring up too. It's not about the individual. find that, because we've had people on this podcast that were first-time triathletes and they would go to the women's only, and I thought it was great, again, to the magic, is that they did a women's only triathlon to remove that of jocular, macho kind of thing, just let them be kind of in a safer environment. But if people meet other people there, then they see them at the triathlon. When you join a tri club, when you're

Sara Milam (47:45.357)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (47:57.761)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (48:01.774)
when you're running with somebody of like mind with you or like speed, that tends to be a thing that I think if we have tri communities that are a little less focused on getting you on a time and getting you on a podium and more about just the community of triathlon. I remember in California we started, Fleet Feet started and we had people that when they got to the half marathon,

Sara Milam (48:02.445)
Hmm.

Sara Milam (48:20.481)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (48:28.77)
They already knew what place they were going to be in. I'm in third place. I'm going be in third because I already know these two people showed up. And I'll be off by a minute or two minutes. I mean, they knew by a minute how fast they were going to be that day. And then you had another people that would like walk half of it. And they had the best time because they were just, they were having fun with each other and they were getting it done. And the metal look exactly the same, by the way, the metal looks exactly the same, you know. And they had such a great time in that level of community. And they would show up to these things and they would show up in the rain or show up because of that level of community.

Sara Milam (48:36.339)
Sara Milam (48:42.615)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (48:46.711)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (48:49.822)
That's it.

Kenny Bailey (48:58.594)
That's the thing also I think we need to figure out how to do a better job of is have that where it's not a competitive sort of community. It's more of an inclusive where let's just go do this and have fun and do this together and be able to get across the line and raise our hand together. That to me is, think, if we can continue to emphasize that, I think it wouldn't be a bad thing.

Sara Milam (49:15.393)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (49:20.045)
Yeah, absolutely. I feel very fortunate that I have met people along the way who have been, I feel like super approachable, but like a bit of a step ahead experience wise, if that makes sense. when I was living in Nashville, can't remember how I even got connected with her, but somehow got connected to someone who I ended up doing a decent amount of like bike training with. And she had already done a 70.3 and I had never even thought about really doing one.

before until I met her and I was like, she is a road bike too like very average equipment We're about the same speed when we ride together that makes it feel possible for me to do one as well and she's ultimately what inspired me to do another one and she She and I both did the Chattanooga 70.3 in the same year. So then we got to like meet up the day before Meet up the morning of our bikes were racks like very close together And without her I probably wouldn't have even

Kenny Bailey (49:55.502)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (50:09.35)
Nice.

Kenny Bailey (50:13.443)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (50:19.865)
like thought to try it or I would have been even more intimidated. And so I think being able to, again, like find people that look like they have kind of a similar level experience or kind of equipment as you do, but maybe a little bit more kind of a step ahead that can kind of pull you along can be helpful.

Kenny Bailey (50:30.766)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (50:38.863)
I think that nails it because people are drawn to, when they see somebody doing something, they're drawn to people that look like them. And I think we've talked about that with minorities and other groups that like, if they see someone doing it that looks like them, then they believe that they can do it. If they're looking at somebody that doesn't look like them, then it doesn't connect. It's just, there's something mentally that just, I totally understand that.

Sara Milam (50:49.249)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (50:52.769)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (50:59.661)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, definitely.

Coach Tom (51:07.077)
I totally understand that. And that's, think that all comes down to marketing, right? And the word of getting it out there, I wonder, I know the tri clubs do a good job of getting out there on some social media and stuff, but if you don't know what you're looking for, it's almost like the tri clubs themselves need to do more marketing. They need to do more marketing.

Sara Milam (51:07.66)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (51:12.813)
Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (51:31.822)
I would agree.

Sara Milam (51:33.154)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (51:35.858)
to let people know that they're actually there. And then when you meet them, I think I mentioned it to you, Sarah, in our early conversations, like that elitism thing of what you see, but as soon as you enter in, it actually opens up. Like you get into it, then you start to see the different body types. You start to see the different equipment. You start to see people that just in shorts, running shorts and that, but it's getting them in that door.

Sara Milam (51:37.975)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (51:53.665)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (51:58.027)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (52:05.533)
and not scaring them away right at that point. And I wonder if it's more marketing. I'm thinking on the fly as we're here is just like what the tri clubs could do on a marketing standpoint to get more members in that way.

Sara Milam (52:17.793)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (52:19.598)
Alright.

Sara Milam (52:20.235)
Yeah, and I think too, as far as when you get a new member, also being able to keep them too, whether it's a tri club or a race, I think kind of touching on what we talked about earlier, just, you know, and this is something that we have control over ourselves is like how we're talking about triathlon in our experiences. And for example, I think they mentioned this in the article as well, but, know, trying to avoid saying, I'm just doing a sprint, which I'm super guilty of and I'm trying to correct myself. But

Kenny Bailey (52:46.168)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (52:47.847)
We've all done it, yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (52:50.159)
Yeah, because you're you're minimizing that right and then if there's somebody who wants to do a sprint and a sprint is a big Challenge for them. What is what is that communicating to them right that it's not not as valuable of a goal as doing a full Ironman so trying to take the Kind of the value judgments out of the different distances that you're doing or the different races that you're doing in just in the way that you're talking about them with Your friends with other people in the sport or even people who are outside of the sport

Coach Tom (52:53.244)
Yes.

Coach Tom (53:18.749)
Yeah, yeah. we had Edo Dordion on the podcast who's trying to make the US national team, right, for the 2028 Olympics and asked him about like doing longer distance stuff. And he was like, heck no, I'm not doing that. Like I have no, he has no ambition to go anywhere past the Olympic distance on all of that. He's like never like.

Kenny Bailey (53:19.5)
Yeah, and the-

Sara Milam (53:26.849)
Mm.

Sara Milam (53:33.325)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (53:35.246)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (53:38.037)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (53:43.054)
I think, well the other thing for the Tri-Clubs is not just about marketing. think it's, know, one of the things we tried to do when L'Oreal were part of the Run Group, my wife and I were part of the Run Group in California, is we made sure if we had a new person to show up, you know, they're gonna come in and they're gonna be sort of, know, it's their first time. And to be able to say, oh, hey, so is this your first run today? Yeah, this is my first run. Okay, great. Well, you know, what kind of runner are you? Oh, I'm a, you know, I'm kind of.

Sara Milam (53:45.387)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (54:10.242)
I'm sort of a 1030, know, I'm just getting back into it. hey, Sally's the one that runs our 1030 pace group, right? Have you met Sally? And you attach them to that person who's really critical at the beginning that you attach them to somebody that kind of takes that nervousness down. Now you've met somebody. Now you're not, because I remember, and I won't say the name, but I remember my wife and I just moved here and we showed up to a run club and we walked in, was just, and we were,

Sara Milam (54:19.528)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (54:31.49)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (54:39.798)
seasoned runners and we walk in and it was a group of 80 people and nobody said anything to us at all. And we are outgoing people. We're like, hi, how are you? And it was like, we didn't know who was gonna be the pacer for that time. And then they did the big thing like, all right, everybody, we're gonna go to this run and here's what's going on and you know, that kind of thing. And there's some inside jokes going and you felt really like an outsider. Whereas if you, you know, these tri clubs, you can get them in and say, hey,

Coach Tom (54:46.993)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (54:50.156)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (54:54.177)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (55:02.711)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (55:07.246)
This person here is just also doing a, they're gonna be doing an Olympic distance as well. This is their pace and like to your point, Sarah, you found somebody that was a similar pace to you on a bike and you're able to do that or a similar pace on the swim and just make that connective tissue. That's a huge deal, especially that imprint when they first get there to feel like, okay, I'm not in the corner and I'm not trying to figure out how to, not only figure out how to this new sport, but how do I figure out how to.

Sara Milam (55:13.549)
you

Coach Tom (55:24.987)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (55:26.347)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (55:34.465)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (55:35.34)
fit into a new social circle, right? They're talking about things I don't know about, right? These are new words that I'm using, right? What's a brick? I have no idea what a brick is, you know? For those, it's a bike run. Yeah.

Sara Milam (55:37.634)
Yeah. That's such a great point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I felt that before.

Coach Tom (55:39.761)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (55:48.558)
Yeah, like I've joined I've tried various groups and like I've had somewhere I joined in like I tried this road biking group when I was in Billings, Montana that like a local bike shop ran and I was like nervous to go the first time but it was like mostly men I think there was like one other woman but by the end of it I felt like so Included and looked out for and people were like teaching me things and the other woman was like here have some of my water because I ran out and people were just like so so welcoming and

Kenny Bailey (55:53.069)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (55:57.42)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (56:10.85)
Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

Coach Tom (56:11.536)
Nice, nice.

Kenny Bailey (56:15.916)
Yes.

Sara Milam (56:18.511)
And then I've had other experiences where I go several times and I just never feel like I'm really like invited into the group, you know? And you feel like it's kind of clicky and people aren't really trying to welcome you. And those are the groups you don't really want to go back to. So...

Kenny Bailey (56:25.676)
It's a hammer fast and yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (56:28.539)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (56:30.828)
Yeah, exactly.

Coach Tom (56:32.4)
Been there, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (56:36.076)
Yeah, so triathlon needs to figure out, to me, it's not just a marketing thing, but it's also sort of like, how do you make it back to that familial thing? Where you feel like you're part of something that's kind of cool because you're going to show up. And if you do a crappy race, people are going to hey, that's okay. You know, we'll get them on the next one. And it's like, yeah, you're right. That was just wasn't my day. I've been to run clubs where they were really successful in doing that. Like you go to a race and you implode and they're like, hey man, wasn't your day. But next time, we'll, you know, let's get back to the training. We'll do it next time. And you're like, yeah.

Sara Milam (56:42.891)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Coach Tom (56:50.438)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (56:51.297)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (57:01.943)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (57:03.494)
Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (57:04.706)
It isn't a question of one and done. It's, you know, how do I keep, this is my social circle. Yeah.

Coach Tom (57:08.092)
I think we've lost, yeah, I think we've lost a little bit of that from the pandemic. Cause I see a lot less of that. think Kenny and you and I have conversations about bike rides and group rides. don't have group rides out here. Or is not as many. I think the Harpist Bike Club is trying to do some stuff along those lines, but people don't know how to ride in a group. They don't know how to ride together.

Sara Milam (57:10.571)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (57:13.198)
Mm-hmm. Yes, agreed.

Coach Tom (57:35.805)
The clubs, the tri clubs get together, they take a picture and everybody just takes off and does their thing. Which when they're on tri bikes, it's okay because they shouldn't be riding that close together because half of them get in their arrow bars when they're right behind somebody and it's like, please don't do that. But it's, don't have a group that goes out where, okay, here's the rules.

Kenny Bailey (57:40.366)
It's true.

Sara Milam (57:45.997)
you

Kenny Bailey (57:46.433)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (57:57.457)
You know, here's the hand signals we're using. Here's how you're riding. You're riding right next to each other or right behind somebody. You're not half wheeling somebody, which is extremely dangerous. Most people probably don't even know what half wheeling is. So it's like, how do you, how do you ride in a group where you're to ride a little bit slower than you probably want to at certain times or a little bit faster than you want to at certain times, but the whole group stays together and you have no drop and drop rides, right? That takes a little bit more organization. It takes a little bit more buy-in from

Kenny Bailey (58:01.134)
Exactly.

Coach Tom (58:27.228)
the people that want the club to grow, right? They have to put a lot of time into that. The people, I know they have that in the Harpeth Black Club now. They've been doing a lot more education, writer education type stuff. They have some dedicated people that put a lot of time and effort into the club that way. Some of them are more retired, so they have a little bit more time. When we get in the triathlon clubs, it's not that way. It's everyone's got a busy life. They're in their forties.

And kind of of moving along. So how do we get how do we get the clubs to share some of that to have that group rise and go along with that? Because some people are just not I think we've lost how to educate and bring new people in to the end of the into the culture of it. I think that's that's a that was all podcasts we're going to do one one of these days. Maybe you make it a two parter, because I'll probably go on for an hour just.

Sara Milam (58:57.239)
You

Kenny Bailey (58:57.325)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (59:12.396)
Yes, I think so too.

Sara Milam (59:13.069)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (59:20.6)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (59:24.269)
You're passionate about it.

Coach Tom (59:25.462)
venting, very passionate about. I love riding in a group. If you've ever really ridden in a group where you're shoulder to shoulder with somebody and you get six, eight, 10 people and you're all riding as one and it takes practice, it takes time to learn, it's okay to bump shoulders with people. You don't have to panic, you have to know where your bike is. You have to be able to ride straight and be able to turn your head, which most people can't. When they turn their head they go that direction.

Kenny Bailey (59:27.34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (59:32.322)
fun.

Sara Milam (59:33.623)
Mm.

Coach Tom (59:53.072)
They wobble all over the place. They have to be able to ride and trust the person next to you and do certain things and be able to kind of have a conversation, but also be aware of your situation, your environment, your situational awareness is what I always get on my soapbox about. So it would be nice to have something like that. I don't know if I have the time to develop it or do it within the Triklubs, but there has to be some conversation about how we can start to educate people.

Sara Milam (01:00:06.878)
Mm-hmm.

You

Coach Tom (01:00:21.797)
that then we can teach the new people coming in, which will make you feel like you're gonna wanna stay. You're definitely gonna wanna stay. If you do a couple of group rides where people trust one another, you're gonna show up every single time because you're gonna feel safe. You're gonna feel more secure. You're gonna feel like you're actually getting something out of the workout and you're gonna have fun. You're gonna be able to share stories and go get coffee and do a bunch of other things. I'd love to get back to that a little bit more.

Sara Milam (01:00:22.06)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (01:00:27.82)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (01:00:50.785)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think it could be cool too for, I don't know if the clubs necessarily have the resources or capacity to necessarily do this, but if they do have some events, whether they're workouts or clinics that are really targeted obviously to brand new people, so that way you feel like if you go, you're not gonna be intimidated or you know everybody else is also new, so I should belong.

Kenny Bailey (01:01:10.573)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (01:01:20.889)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:01:22.807)
skill level should be you know roughly equal to other people that can be that can help you feel safe too I think when it's just there's some kind of intro events or workouts that are just very obviously targeted at brand new people

Coach Tom (01:01:39.248)
Yep, yep, I agree, I agree. What else did we miss? Did we get it all? Did we cover that? Did we beat that topic to death? Sarah, I'm so happy that you reached out to me and it was fun seeing you down at the Chattanooga full when I was down there with a couple of my athletes. It's always nice to be at these races and see a friendly face.

Kenny Bailey (01:01:47.052)
think so. The rant, it was a long rant.

Sara Milam (01:01:52.781)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:02:04.268)
Yeah, that was fun.

Coach Tom (01:02:09.147)
That's not in the event, right? You just kind of pop it in it's just like hey cool because this to me this is an extended family, right? That it that's all tied. That's all tied through the sport The reason I've been in the sport made it a lifestyle for me is that like when I go to different races On some different levels I'll be in another state or I'll be someplace else and be over there and to bump into somebody that I actually know That's connected to the sport somehow even just remotely a friend of a friend that we know and

Sara Milam (01:02:11.085)
Yeah!

Kenny Bailey (01:02:12.386)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:02:17.804)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:02:23.937)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (01:02:32.375)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (01:02:38.533)
kind of connected that way, always makes me happy and makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing because I've met so many cool people. So it was great to meet you, see you and meet your husband down there. And then I had my athlete's family, one of my athlete's family surround me like with panic questions about, they were doing the math and he wasn't gonna make the cutoffs and doing all this other stuff. was like, he's fine. He's gonna be totally fine. They were all like, we figured it out, we did.

Sara Milam (01:02:41.505)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:02:50.221)
Yeah, yeah that was fun.

Sara Milam (01:02:56.365)
gosh.

Coach Tom (01:03:05.691)
You've never even seen the sport before. You absolutely are fine. And he did great. He crushed it. He did fantastic. But I got whisked away and I was like, I had to take care of everybody. We had a good time down there. was a good weekend, good conditions. but thank you for coming on the show. Yes. Oh, anyone should. I think people should pop down and just watch the races. If it's a local race for you.

Sara Milam (01:03:10.125)
Good.

Sara Milam (01:03:22.817)
Good, good, yeah, yeah. It's fun sometimes to just go down and spectate, so yeah.

Kenny Bailey (01:03:33.824)
It's inspiring.

Coach Tom (01:03:34.62)
Instead of complaining about the traffic and you know not being able to get around town just go watch these people the energy that comes from the transition area is just it's totally palpable by anybody that walks in there. It's like if you don't feel energized walking down there like I don't know something's wrong with you, right? I don't know. I'm getting I'm getting crazy, but we appreciate you coming back on Sarah. Always great to talk with you. Steadfast

Sara Milam (01:03:35.839)
Mm-hmm.

Sara Milam (01:03:41.675)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:03:53.943)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:04:02.231)
Thanks for having me.

Coach Tom (01:04:04.345)
Step Fast Living Therapy. We'll put the, are you on Instagram? Are you on the socials? Or are you just, no, good for you. Good for you. Good for you. We'll put your website and stuff down there. Okay. So where people find you if they need some help and they wanna talk to you, we'll have that down there. And I'm sure we'll have you on again because there's some other good articles that have come out to talk about the, we'll like to talk about the mental side of.

Sara Milam (01:04:06.861)
you

Sara Milam (01:04:11.529)
I'm not, I'm not really on social media. No, I've got a practice website, but that's about it.

Kenny Bailey (01:04:18.975)
Sus sus sus

Sara Milam (01:04:22.946)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:04:30.189)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (01:04:33.403)
of the sport. I think it's very, very important. So thank you again. Thanks everybody for listening. Keep the comments coming. Like I said, we really appreciate everybody's feedback. getting been doing this for a while now. So we're into into year six. Just finished year five, moving into year six. Really enjoying this. think I hope we're getting better at it. So little by little we'll get there.

Sara Milam (01:04:34.411)
Yeah.

Sara Milam (01:04:38.603)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're welcome.

Kenny Bailey (01:04:52.568)
Crazy.

Kenny Bailey (01:05:00.847)
yeah. We're an acquired taste, so. There you go.

Coach Tom (01:05:03.823)
Keep it up, keep it up, we're good. Kenny, as always, yes. On most days, yeah. So we're trying to get, and we've got lots of new episodes coming up. So stay tuned, subscribe. Kenny, thank you again. Sarah, thank you. And everybody, we'll catch you on the next one.

Sara Milam (01:05:06.985)
You

Kenny Bailey (01:05:18.478)
See you next time.