TriDot Podcast .033: 

Common Questions from TriDot Athletes, Lightbulb Moments, Insights, and Inspiration

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training. Giving you better results in less time, with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation, and let’s improve together.

Andrew: Welcome to the show everybody; this is the episode, so many of our TriDot athletes have been waiting for. It’s the official TriDot podcast debut of Cindy Reeves. We’ll be talking about Cindy’s triathlon journey, as well as hearing about the most frequently asked questions the TriDot support team receives from all of us athletes. So just who is the famous Cindy Reeves? Cindy is a multiple Ironman finisher who serves as a training advisor and leads TriDot athlete’s support.

A job she takes so seriously that she has even produced a TriDot wedding. Cindy and her husband Ronnie, have been married since 1994 and have three kids and one grandson. For her, triathlon is a family thing with her husband and multiple members being deeply involved in the sport. She has been a part of the TriDot team from the very beginning, so Cindy, I am so thrilled to have you on with us today. Are you excited for your first podcast experience?

Cindy: I am a little nervous, but I think I’ll do it.

Andrew: I think you’re going to do great; we’re super excited to talk to you. Like literally Cindy on Facebook, I don’t remember when and where and how this came up. But on the I am TriDot Facebook group like I don’t member if I’ve flirted out there as a joke or what if one of our athletes did. But people as they commonly do, we’re bragging about how amazing Cindy Reeves our athlete support system is. And someone was like oh, I just talked to Cindy about this and that, and it was amazing, etc.

So all of our athletes start chiming in about how great Cindy is at her job of supporting her athletes. And I don’t know, remember if it was me or another athlete, but somebody made a joke there should be a podcast episode with Cindy where she talks about just her life story her life story, her history sport, all the different things she’s helped athletes with over the years. And so I know our athletes are super excited to have you on today. So I know you’re a little nervous for your first appearance, but you’re going to do great.

Cindy: I was not real happy when John called me and told me that this was going to happen. I definitely liked to stay behind the scenes. But anything to help our athletes, I’m in.

Andrew: Yes, I love it. Well, also joining us today is Coach John Mayfield, a successful Ironman athlete himself. John leads TriDot’s athlete services ambassador and coaching programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. John, how’s it going today?

John: Going good, likewise. I’m excited to have Cindy because it’s going to be great content. But it’s also getting her out of her comfort zone, which I like pushing her around every once in a while, so this will be fun.

Andrew: I think it’s part of what makes John a great triathlon coach, you like pushing anybody out of their comfort zone in any way, shape, and form.

Cindy: I really think he’s trying to get back at me for all the years I’ve yelled at him through my bullhorn.

John: Yes, the bullhorn.

Andrew: Well, I feel like there’s a story here. What is Cindy’s bullhorn?

John: So Cindy’s bullhorn is exactly that. Cindy attends a lot of races, she is a volunteer captain at the local Ironman 70.3, an Ironman race, Ironman Texas, and she’s been doing that for like decades as well as all the other local races. And she’s got a bullhorn that she takes with her, and she likes to find kind of isolated spots out on the course and yell at people through her bullhorn.

And a lot of times it’s typically what you would expect from Cindy it’s like oh you look great, you’re crushing it, keep going. Others just like, when I come around, it’s like hey, pick it up, you’re slacking. But it’s always a ton of fun, so Cindy on the course is perhaps even better than Cindy behind the desk.

Andrew: I haven’t experienced, on course, Cindy yet, so one of these days.

John: It’s a shame that Ironman Texas didn’t happen as planned, because you would have experienced Cindy in all her glory.

Andrew: Sounds like a real treat.

John: Just wait, yes, it’s coming.

Cindy: Yes, I would have caught you back in the woods where you would never expect me.

Andrew: I can’t wait, now I know it’s coming.

John: And on loop two and three, you’ll know you got a friend.

Andrew: Perfect, well, I’m excited for that. Well, who am I? I am your host Andrew the average triathlete, voice of the people, and the captain of the middle of the pack. Today we’re going to get going with our warm-up question, and then we’ll move on to the main set talking with Cindy and John about all the things they have learned about coaching triathletes from their years answering all of our endless questions.

Then we’ll cool down with something a little new today; we’re going to end the show by giving a shout out to some of our TriDot athletes. So stick around for the end, who are we going to call out? We’re going to compliment some of our athletes for something cool they’ve done recently. Is it going to be you? Is it going to be me? I don’t know. Athlete’s shoutouts are coming at the end of the show. It’s going to be great, let’s get to it.

Narrator: Time to warm up; let’s get moving.

Andrew: At TriDot, we have a lot of occasions throughout the year, where we get the chance to meet, train, and hang with our athletes. One type of those events are TriDot ambassador camps. Now I bring this up today because all three of us were at TriDot’s last ambassador camp hosted in Austin, Texas.

And it was so much fun and such a success for us and our athletes that we’ve already been kicking around location ideas for future TriDot athlete camps. So for today’s warm-up question, while I have Cindy on the show so I can hear her answer as well if you could pick any destination in the world for us to host a TriDot athlete camp, where would you take us and why? Cindy, let’s hear from you first on this.

Cindy: So this was actually one of the questions that I knew the answer for right away, and was comfortable with sharing.

Andrew: Perfect.

Cindy: My spot does not take us out of the States; it’s a little south of Atlanta, Georgia, in a town called Pine Mountain.

Andrew: Pine Mountain, Georgia.

Cindy: Yes, it is called Callaway Gardens. It is a 2,500-acre nature resort, and within the compound, they have the most beautiful roads for riding, amazing running trails, and a pristine lake that is surrounded by the world’s largest man-made beach. But what’s great about the facility is that it has hundreds of cottages.

So what I think would be great about the next athlete camp is that people are able to bring their families. I think so often in the sport, we start to mingle with other athletes, but what really takes it up a level is when we start to include the families and get to know them. So that’s my spot.

Andrew: I think it’s a great pick. So growing up in Florida, and my family would always do fall vacations in that area. We would normally go just north of Atlanta, kind of the lower Smokies. But staying in cabins and kind of mountain lake towns, so beautiful areas. Is there like a lot of hills in the riding there?

Cindy: There are wonderful rollers.

Andrew: Okay, nothing too, mountainy.

Cindy: Nothing too, mountainy. We grew up vacationing at this resort, and then when I started to have a family, we started to take our kids. And about seven years ago I think they started to do a triathlon there. So every summer, they host a triathlon, so I just think it would be the perfect spot.

Andrew: So you guys know if you ever see TriDot advertising for an athlete’s camp there in Georgia, know that was Cindy’s idea, and you can thank her for that experience when you decide to go. So John, how about you? Where do you want to put the next potential really awesome athlete camp?

John: So actually the one we had in Austin, I think, is fantastic. I love Austin.

Andrew: Pretty, unique city.

John: Yes. So I was really proud of being able to bring in people from all over the country and show them a little bit of Texas and Austin specifically. But again, I always struggle with these warm-up questions, and I think I’ve got almost like the right answer, but it’s just so obvious it’s not creative or anything.

But to go and to host a camp in Kona. The great thing about that is you could actually be on 100% of the course. And it’s actually something we’ve kicked around, don’t like start making reservations or anything, we’re nowhere near having it done.

Andrew: This is all hypothetical, of course.

John: Yes. And honestly, you just wouldn’t take all that much to do it. So I think that would just be a really cool experience, I mean very few of us have the opportunity to go and swim, bike, run in Kona. So I think that’d be a really cool opportunity to have something organized that would make the World Championship course approachable for everyone.

Andrew: Well, there’s a reason why training camps in Kona are so popular and so many companies and people do them. Is because, as a triathlete, I mean to your point that’s the quintessential place to be.

I mean, what other sport gives its athletes the ability to train and to experience the place where the World Championships take place? Where the pros are racing for that world title. I mean you don’t get to play, pick-up football at the Super Bowl location.

John: Yes. I can’t get a tee time at Augusta.

Andrew: Yes. You can’t get a tee time at Augusta; there are so many sports where you don’t have access to, I couldn’t go play a game of around the tennis at Wimbledon center court, I mean you just don’t have access to that. But our sport is so unique where you can go swim from dig me Beach, and you can ride up the Queen K to Hawi, and you can run in the energy lab throughout the year.

So I’m glad you said that I mean to your point it’s probably the most plot twists kind of answer. But it’s a real thing where all of us would love the opportunity to go train there, so it’s a good pick, John. What I’m going to say, I’m going to cheat a little bit in the sense that I don’t have a specific location. But what I’m going to say is this, we have so many European athletes that have come on the TriDot recently, and we’re really excited about that. And just hearing their stories and hearing the races they’re signed up for and seeing where they live and where they’re training.

Man, I love traveling, and I think Europe just sounds so much more fascinating than Texas. That I would love to just do a training camp in Europe, and get to meet some of our European athletes face-to-face, get to train with him, go on some bike rides in some interesting places over there.

So I don’t have a specific place in mind, maybe some of our European athletes can help me out with some good ideas there. But I would really love for us to one day organize something where we fly across the Atlantic and get to meet some of our athletes over there, and put them on a training camp in Europe.

Cindy: I’m in.

Andrew: Cindy’s in, if it’s good enough for Cindy, it’s good enough for me.

John: I guess I’ll do it.

Narrator: On to the main set, going in three, two, one.

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There are a lot of people behind the scenes at TriDot working day in and day out to make the athlete experience as great as possible. And out of everyone on the team, the one person communicating with athletes the most and thus having perhaps the best pulse on what athletes are asking is TriDot support specialist Cindy Reeves. If you’ve ever needed Cindy’s expertise, you already know that she’s the MVP of the TriDot staff.

And I’m excited to have her on today to hear about her experience in the sport of triathlon and to dive into the most frequently asked question she receives from athletes. So Cindy, can you kick us off today, maybe by just giving everyone an overview of what your role is at TriDot?

Cindy: Absolutely, thank you all for having me on. My main goal in the beginning when an athlete comes on board is to help them get acquainted with the site. Take some time, walk them through it, go over the functionalities.

Make sure that they know how to properly set their accounts up. Once they have started the training program, I am that little red button at the bottom right-hand corner.

Andrew: Everybody loves little red button.

Cindy: Everybody loves the little red button. Now please know that most of the time that the little red button does not get me live, but sometimes you will. But then once an athlete gets going, they’re going to have questions with a site that’s very dynamic as ours. There might be a functionality that an athlete’s not sure about, and so I always tell assets don’t hesitate to click that little red button and come to me for help.

Andrew: John, would there be a way for us to add like a little like Cindy emoji to the corner of that red button where it says support? And then add Cindy’s little smiling face with like giving a thumbs up or something?

John: Yes. So maybe our next guest could be Joey, our front-end developer, and IT guy, that would really be more a question for him. But I don’t know, so I’ll just say yes. We’ll get right on that.

Andrew: All right. Be on the lookout for Cindy’s smiling face on the TriDot support button. So before we get to talking about Cindy, the athlete support superhero, and those are my words, of course, describing her, and many of our athletes agree. But first I want to talk about Cindy the triathlete, how did you get started in the sport?

Cindy: So my story is like so many athletes that we meet in this sport, it’s just one of personal redemption. I definitely was not one of those athletes in my younger days. I had gotten to be pretty overweight; I was definitely living a very unhealthy lifestyle.

I was a number of years into my marriage, and it was struggling, and so things in my life were just very challenging. Until I met a lady, she was heading out for a run, and she told me about this thing called a sprint triathlon. And I just decided that I was going to give it a try. I got out and was able to walk a half a mile at a time.

Andrew: Okay, quality start.

Cindy: Pulled out an old mountain bike, got out on the trails, and I had a very dear friend that taught me how to swim.

Andrew: Well, what I love about that is like it takes me back to the episode we did John about, I forget the number off the top of my head, but the episode about getting ready for your first triathlon.

And we talked about that, how you can start in the sport, you don’t need the expensive bike, you don’t even need a road bike, right? You just need the willingness to get out there and try it and just the bare minimum, and that’s what you had.

Cindy: Absolutely. I look back at the pictures from my first triathlon, and I show people all the time. I didn’t need anything special, I threw a bathing suit on, and some shorts and a tank top and I marched my little mountain bike right out there on the course, and everybody passed me, of course, on the bike, but I couldn’t care less.

When you cross the finish line for your first sprint, I think that’s just a memory that we all remember. And so for me, it was a turning point, my husband I kind of joke about this, but Ronnie did not come to my first sprint. When I told him I was going to do it, I remember him kind of looking at me and laughing.

Andrew: You were going to do a what?

Cindy: There was no way he thought I was going to do that.

Andrew: Was he active at all?

Cindy: He was active in his younger days, but had gotten out of it. And so he decided that he would jump into it also. And it just changed the direction of our whole life. For those of you that are married, it really helps to have something in common with your spouse that you can go out and do together, and that’s what the sport gave to us.

And then it just got better from there, in 2008 out on the Ironman Arizona course, we were volunteering at the finish line. And that’s how we met Jeff; then he turned into our coach, “Coach Boo”.

Andrew: Mr. Jeff Booher, the founder, and CEO of TriDot.

Cindy: Absolutely. And so that started our relationship with him and his training program at the time. We started to grow a little community here in Houston. I remember being so excited to go to our local YMCA once I finished my first sprint to find out that the YMCA had a tri team, and I was like wow, people actually get together and train for this.

And it blew my mind, and so I showed up for an orientation of the Y tri team, and sat down next to a lady and started talking to her and formed an initial friendship, and that’s Coach Jo. That’s how we originally met as beginners in the YMCA tri team.

Andrew: Coach Jo who is a TriDot coach, a TriDot athlete going to Kona this year.

Cindy: Absolutely, she sure is.

Andrew: And the founder of Hissy-Fit racing.

Cindy: Yes. And so it was great to form that friendship with her to be able to go through your firsts with someone. We did a lot of traveling; a lot of racing together herself, myself, and our partners Suzette, and that just was wonderful. Meeting John was a part of it all getting started and forming that connection with him.

Andrew: Let’s talk about that John, at what point did you meet Ronnie and Cindy and kind of become friends with the Reeves family?

John: So it was kind of back in that same time period. I had recently gotten into triathlon, and I was kind of in that phase like so many of us go through. I had done the sprint races and was all in saying yes, this is my new jam. And I had actually heard of Cindy like her name was floating around for weeks to months.

Andrew: Without even knowing it, she was a big deal in the Houston triathlon community.

John: Yes, it’s like you need to meet Cindy. And I remember place, time I have like one of those mental pictures of we actually went to the same church, it’s a big church. So it was one of those like where we necessarily just run into each other and know. But I remember the place and time; I was like hey there’s Cindy and let me go introduce you. And I want to say that first conversation, I don’t know, guessing probably was close to an hour, and we just clicked and hit it off.

And just kind of, I don’t know if it’s dumb luck or fate or design, but they were moving like three miles away from where I had just moved. So it became just super feasible for us to connect. I’ve mentioned her husband Ronnie several times on the podcast as one of my early mentors, and the whole ”you can do anything for three minutes” that I’ve told a hundred athletes, that came that came from Ronnie and lots of other great advice. And yes, so it was back in those early days when we had a great group that formed and grew, and man the things we were able to do and the things we did, we’re just really exciting, a ton of fun, and we did a lot.

So yes, it was great just to have a ten plus year relationship with Ronnie and Cindy, and to think back that now here we are both this is our careers. I mean we had no clue, I mean it was we were going to get together and go do a sprint triathlon kind of a thing.

And now here we are all these years later, and this is what we do, and we get to share it with all these people which is, we started off sharing it with a small community and a small group, and now here we are sharing it with athletes all over the world, this is just mind-blowing.

Andrew: So at the point that you are at Ironman Arizona in 2008, and you meet Jeff Booher, who is now all of our boss and CEO and founder of TriDot. At that point, you had just been kind of doing local races, correct? You hadn’t really gone for the full Ironman yet.

Cindy: Oh, yes, no.  We were still going small; in fact, it was that year at Arizona that Ronnie decided to sign up for his first full. And it was sitting there volunteering that allowed us to make that decision that this would be something we wanted to do because you have to discuss it when you’re in the sport with your spouse. It kind of changes the ball game of how you’re going to handle the longer distance races.

Andrew: And so let’s talk about the long-distance races, because your first, or your introduction was you kind of stumbled into a Kona slot, and you had not done a full Ironman. And all of a sudden there you are with an opportunity to go race in Kona, tell me about that process.

Cindy: Yes. I mean, I specifically remember the day that I found out I was mopping my floors and my phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing. It’s back when they announced via email, and I hadn’t checked my email, and my training partner Suzette and Johanna were calling and calling and calling, and I was just in awe. I had absolutely no business entering the lottery.

I hadn’t even completed my first full, and it was kind of surreal. I remember putting the mop down and I actually started to cry. And I don’t know if I was crying from excitement from oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can do this, look where I was just a couple of years ago. And so we set out, we had signed up to do Coeur d’Alene, so that was going to be my race before Kona. And so I did Coeur d’Alene, thanks to Coach Boo.

Andrew: Which is not an easy course, by the way.

Cindy: No, not quite sure what we were thinking. For our first coming from Houston and going to Coeur d’Alene. But it was an experience, like all of the races, you know a lot of athletes talked about their race and how the course was, well for me it’s more the experiences. Like for me, the Coeur d’Alene experience was flying up there with Johanna and Suzette and renting a house together.

And it’s all that, that makes a difference for me, and that’s how it was for Kona. I mean, the race was super hard; I enjoyed the course all day long. And what’s great is you finish that day, and you’re just absolutely exhausted, but then you look at all of the blessings that happen during the day.  For those of you that have been to Kona, they do an iron prayer, Federation of Christian Athletes does an Iron prayer at a lot of Ironman races.

The iron prayer in Kona is at an old church on Ali’ Drive, and it’s the most beautiful church. And so I definitely wanted to go to that, because my faith is really important to me. And so we show up for this service, and there’s this pro triathlete Sierra Snyder, and she’s leading the service, and it was so emotional. We raced the next day; I’m once again enjoying the course all day long. And first, I got to run with Harriet Anderson, and I don’t know if any of you all are familiar with her.

But at the time, she was one of the oldest women to race Kona. She was in her late 70s, and oh, she was just a gem to run with. And then as I was coming in the Queen K, what’s unique about this course when you’re out there late at night is it is completely pitch black. If you don’t have a headlamp on, you can’t see a foot in front of you. That’s how dark it is.

Andrew: Wow, that makes sense when you think about the location.

John: The middle of the ocean.

Andrew: Yes, Island Highway in the middle of the ocean.

Cindy: So I’m running with this guy behind me, and we’re kind of sharing the light and up from the distance comes this woman on a bicycle. And she’s talking to the guy behind me and then she comes up next to me just to encourage me and support me, and it was Sierra Snider. She had raced, finished hours ago, and had come back out onto the Queen K to support us last finishers coming in.

Now the guy behind me was her dad, but she came up to me and started talking, and after the race couple of weeks later, I connected with her. We formed a friendship, her family ended up moving I think from California to Austin, and she’s now one of our TriDot coaches. She doesn’t do as much coaching anymore, but all of that from winning a lotto slot at Kona. So just getting her friendship was worth going over there. I also got to race with a fellow tri for him athlete.

We had another one of our team members who was a lotto winner, and so that was really fun. And then I’ll tell you for those finishers at Kona when you’re one of the last ones; your crowd support is just as much as the winners. And then when you’re there at midnight, you get to experience the closing ceremonies, which is a drum and fire, and it sits in your core. I mean, I’ll never forget sitting there watching that. And so to me the timing of my finish couldn’t have been better.

Andrew: Wow, you’re saying that you’re somebody who the experience of the race is really a bigger deal than the race itself.

Cindy: Absolutely, 100%. I can’t tell you the number of friends I have gotten while I’ve been racing. And my husband will tell you there’s been a number of times where he’s yelled at me stop talking while you’re racing. But that’s just my joy when I race; it’s to meet people. I mean, one of my best Ironman races was with my sister-in-law, and we raced the whole thing together.

Andrew: That’s super cool. So I think for most people when they go and race the Kona, I mean that’s the bucket list race for a lot of people. And for the most part, it seems like everybody I’ve talked to it seems to live up for the hype. It sounds like it very much lived up to the hype for you just the whole experience of going and racing on the Big Island.

Cindy: Oh, absolutely, and I got to have my family with me, too; it kind of turned it into a little vacation. It was wonderful.

Andrew: And so this is something I want people to know John because I talk on the podcast a lot about kind of your qualifications and Coach Jeff and Coach Elizabeth and all the people who are on regularly. We talk about the number of races they finished, and how fast this person is or that and that and people don’t realize I mean Cindy is a multiple Ironman finisher.

John: Yes. Kona wasn’t the end; what another four Ironman finishes.

Andrew: Coeur d’Alene, Kona?

Cindy: Yes, six fulls.

Andrew: Okay. So when you’re asking Cindy for her advice and her questions along the way through customer support, I mean you’re talking to a six-time Ironman finisher. And somebody who has led triathlon clubs, somebody who has led triathlon groups and rides and practices. And has unofficially coached some others and brought some athletes along.

John: And I’ll say too kind of like you claim to be the captain of the middle pack, even though I would say your performances is a little better than that.

Andrew: Well, thanks, John.

John: Cindy too is I think being a little humble, she’s no slouch in her day. So she could lay it down when she wanted to, but I think as she mentioned with Ronnie, it’s oftentimes she didn’t. And that’s just Cindy, is she’ll take the longer finish time, so it’s not because she necessarily had to go slower, she wanted to go slower, and that’s just who Cindy is, and that’s one of the reasons we love her.

Andrew: So, Cindy, at what point did triathlon start to become your career, specifically supporting athletes with TriDot?

Cindy: Oh, wow. So I quit banking in 2008 to stay at home, and during that time was just a perfect time to get into the sport, because having our little training group and our tri for him group gave me something more to do. And helping Jeff to grow Tri for Him, I mean, I absolutely loved it.

And so when he came to me and offered me an opportunity to come work for them at a paid job, I jumped on it. I mean, I thought this is going to be the perfect job ever. Now the dynamics were a little different back then; we had just come out with the TriDot name, maybe a year before up until then really it was just coach Coo’s plan. And our orientations were pretty simple; I handled all-athlete calls one-on-one.

Andrew: So any new athlete coming in, you would just talk to them one-on-one?

Cindy: We talked to them one-on-one, and I woke up every day happy. What a better opportunity to start a job doing something you love, in a sport that you absolutely adore. And so it’s changed over the years, I mean now that we’ve grown our orientation calls are handled very differently.

Andrew: There is no one-on-one anymore.

Cindy: We have gone to group calls and no thanks to John, who got to me through my first couple of group calls, that’s something I was never…

John: Pushing her out of her comfort zone.

Cindy: Never comfortable with, but now I absolutely love our group calls. And my favorite part about the group call is at the end when those athletes get to ask questions. And one athlete might not have thought of a question, but when they hear it from another athlete, they’re getting the benefit of the answer. And so I’m going to tell people all the time, I have the best job in the world. I mean, the dynamics of my training and racing have changed over the past couple of years due to a health issue. But through all of that, being able to work in the sport it still makes me happy.

Andrew: So one of the key things you do for athletes is the TriDot orientation that you’re talking about. And I just want to, just full confession from my end, when I first came to TriDot I got the email invitation to attend an orientation, and I skipped it. I remember thinking like oh, I don’t need to do that, I’m pretty tech-savvy, I’ll figure it out. And then guess what, I’ve logged on to TriDot, I set up my account, and in my first couple weeks, first couple months of training I had so many questions along the way.

And even once I came on staff, we’ll be on the podcast, and we’ll talk about something and Elizabeth will point out a TriDot feature or John will talk about why TriDot did something a certain way and it’ll click for me, and I’ll make a comment.

And they’ll be like well, if you had attended the TriDot orientation, you would have known that already and I was like oh yes, sure enough. So I know it’s something that I certainly skipped, so talk to all the athletes out there about how that introduction session really sets athletes up for success when they come to TriDot.

Cindy: So I think, first of all, athletes are not used to having an orientation. A lot of athletes are used to going online or seeing a plan in a magazine and writing it down, printing up a 12-week training plan that they can look and read.

Andrew: And it tells you to run three miles on Friday morning and go swim, pretty basic.

Cindy: Exactly. And so that’s what’s unique about us, is it’s not a static plan, it’s very dynamic. And so for an athlete to get on board that orientation call, it really helps them to understand how the backend of the program works. And why it’s important to make sure that their data is accurate. I think for me, I’m very budget-minded in this sport, which I think you have to be or else you could go broke. So if an athlete is spending the money coming onboard TriDot and they’re going to spend the time training, why not take 30 minutes out in the beginning, join me for an orientation.

Andrew: And figure out how to do everything.

Cindy: Get a better understanding of how it works. The more you understand how the program works, the better the experience will be.

Andrew: Yes, absolutely. And this is a total aside, this isn’t scripted. But just while we’re talking about it for athletes out there who maybe they’re on TriDot, they did what I did, and they just kind of skipped it or have been figuring it out. Or maybe they’re not on TriDot, and they’re about to join, what is the best way for them to find and get plugged in to one of those orientation calls?

Cindy: Yes. So with the new athlete, you’re going to get an email that gives you the opportunity to sign up. But if you’re an athlete out there that’s on board, and you’ve never had an orientation, just click that red support button and come to me and I’ll send you the link to get set up.

Andrew: The red support button that currently does not have Cindy’s face on it, but might one day.

John: Maybe someday. One of the sayings we cite fairly often is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, and he said if you give me six hours to cut down a tree, I’m going to spend four hours sharpening my axe. And basically, I think what happens a lot of times is triathletes will come in with dull axes, and everything can just work so much better if you take that time to sharpen the axe so to speak. So another phrase we use often is doing the right training right. So you can have the right training, but if you don’t do it right, you’re not going to get the same result. So it’s very important to do the right training, but it’s also critical to do the right training right.

So take as much time as needed, skip as many sessions as you need to, to learn how to do the right training right. If you have to miss two one-hour sessions, then skip your two hours. If it takes longer if you’re a slow learner, you need all week. Skipping an entire week of workouts, in the long run, is going to be advantageous if you invest that time in learning how to do the training.

And Cindy knows it as good as anyone and is able to communicate and onboard to where just a little bit of time with Cindy is so empowering and so educating to where for the remainder of your triathlon career, you’re going to know and have the tools and the resources to do the right training right. So just spend that time early on, skip a session, and guarantee you that time will be better spent.

Andrew: Don’t be a dull axe athlete; that’s what I always say. Come in with a sharpened axe, and be ready to hack down some PRs. All right, John and Cindy, you both are on the front line supporting athletes in their training and racing. Cindy for you, it’s via TriDot support, John’s through social media ambassador and coaching channels. So what I want to learn today, I want to take just a few minutes and kind of talk through some of the most frequently asked questions by TriDot athletes.

And let’s kind of take some time right here and right now to let you both answer kind of some common questions or our athletes have. So Cindy, you and I kind of talked about this beforehand, because I don’t know what the most frequently asked questions are. And so you’ve kind of come prepared with the four, you’ve identified the four biggest categories you find yourself addressing with athletes, and we’re going to talk about them. So Cindy, kick us off on frequently asked question number one, what is it.

Cindy: So frequently asked question number one will lead me to actually the number one mistake that an athlete makes on TriDot. The question that people inquire about are their training zones, why are their training zones set at a certain way? Why don’t they have a training zone? How do I know if it’s right? And it always leads me to their assessment page.

Assessments for TriDot athletes serve such a purpose in ensuring that we properly align their training zones. So 99% of the time, if an athlete has a question or an issue about their zones, I go to their assessment page, and I can tell they’ve never completed the initial round of assessments.

John: So that also leads to the point of how important it is to provide ongoing assessments. Because as the athletes change, the athlete’s progress, so do their zones, and so do their intensity. So part of doing the right training right is training at the right intensity.

As the athletes adapt, as they train, as they de-train whatever the case may be, it’s always important to ensure that those assessment results are current and they’re accurate. So to use an old phrase garbage in garbage out, it’s only going to be as good as what is what is given to it. So current accurate information is critical.

Cindy: And if you join the orientation session, we talk about assessments.

Andrew: And talk about how to input them, how to execute them, how it actually operates on the UX.

Cindy: Absolutely, that is actually my number one item on an athlete’s to-do list when they’re getting started with us.

Andrew: So I’ll just take a second to piggyback off of talking about assessments to just encourage people. If they have questions about that, I see people on the I am TriDot Facebook group asked about how assessments are supposed to be input, or why they have to do them every single month.

Cindy’s orientation obviously is a great resource for that, but maybe you went through the orientation and have now that you’re in TriDot and you’re doing it, maybe you have more questions we have podcast episode 11, it’s called embracing assessments and realizing their hidden benefits.

And it is just nothing but 45, 50, 55 minutes of us talking about the assessment process at TriDot why we believe in it, why we use it and how it’s beneficial to the athlete, so go check that out. So Cindy, what is frequently asked question number two?

Cindy: All right, number two is why is my schedule gone? So this is where patience really comes into play because we are a very dynamic program; the system has a lot of opportunities to regenerate. When the system is regenerating a schedule, sometimes your schedule will be blank.

Normally, that regeneration occurs pretty quick, but sometimes it can take a little longer so if you’ve added or deleted a race, if you’ve changed something in your preferences page. When you immediately go back to your training schedule, it will be blank. So don’t panic and give it a little bit, and refresh your page before messaging support.

John: So that’s really true anytime any new data is provided. So that includes as granular as daily training sessions. Every time new data is provided, your training is subject to change, and that’s really one of the key components of TriDot is that it is completely dynamic.

We’re not relying on someone having to go and make some arbitrary decisions or change training on a weekly basis or a monthly basis. The great thing about the software is it’s alive and awake 24/7, so anytime that new data is provided, the training is subject to change based on that new data.

Andrew: So I know, I personally have never had my training disappear. I mean, even when like adding a race or deleting a race, so I definitely want folks to know that this is not a common problem right guys. I mean, most athletes will log on to TriDot; they’re going to click to view their calendar and always be able to see all the fun training coming up for them.

For the occasions where this does happen, though, I mean Cindy, you no doubt hear about it. So that you can sweep in and save the day and fix it. But I have had weeks where I noticed the dynamic changes to the training that you both are talking about. There have been weeks where my Thursday bike rides, for example, early in the week, I’ll look ahead and see maybe one hour in zone 2 on the bike for a Thursday.

And then based on how my training goes on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, I might look again Thursday morning and see 30-30 s or 30-90s instead of that zone two sessions, and that’s just one quick example. So the evidence that TriDot is constantly receiving my data, and giving me the best training session for the next day, it’s always there in front of me when I see those dynamic changes happening.

John: So one of the questions we get too about like downloading files, the bike files is they’re available for the next three sessions. And the reason for that is the fourth session, fifth section out is largely kind of in the air. So we don’t necessarily know what that session is going to be.

So we don’t want to publish the training file until it’s actually set. So you’ll always have the next three bike sessions are available for download, but beyond that, it kind of depends on what happens in those next three bike sessions as to what happens in that fourth, fifth, and sixth bike session.

Andrew: Yes. So when somebody Cindy notices their training, they open it up, and there’s just nothing there for that day. Or sometimes, I think I’ve seen athletes ask you, hey, my program has nothing but swim, all my swim has just disappeared. Usually, when we talk about the program regenerating, is that because people have changed their races? Is that because people, like John, said kind of day-to-day training has caused something to change? What is usually happening?

Cindy: Yes, it’s absolutely the biggest. Regeneration will occur when races are added or deleted, especially if they’re races that are coming up within twelve or sixteen weeks. If an athlete goes in to adjust their preferences, that could make a difference.

When the data comes in each night, based upon how that athlete handled the workload, little changes could occur. Now those changes you won’t see a blank schedule, that blank schedule will be more for updates on the season planner or any setting.

Andrew: If you change a race, add a race, took away a race. Which I know again at the time we’re recording this, a lot of athletes are going through that. Because in this 2020 season, we just don’t necessarily know when our next race is going to be, so that’s good to hear that that’s a question you hear a lot about.

John: And a reason that it disappears is because when one thing changes, everything changes. So each individual’s training is balanced. So it’s not about just changing a couple of sessions, because those sessions are going to impact what happens in those other sessions. So that’s the great thing is it’s able really to almost start from scratch with all the data it has, everything it knows, it’s able to create again that most current training plan.

Then again, we’re not moving or changing one or two sessions; it’s this now impacts everything. Because any small change is kind of like the butterfly effect, we change tomorrow’s session that changes every session from here on out. And that’s the great thing of utilizing software in this capacity, is the ability to do that.

Andrew: So let’s have that move us on to FAQ number three.

Cindy: All right, number three, a lot of athletes are concerned whether or not the TriDot plan is the right one for them. They might be concerned they’re too new to the sport; they might be concerned that they’re too slow to follow the training. Or there are some athletes that are elite and feel like this is not the program that’s going to get them up to the next level.

Andrew: Yes.

Cindy: I always have to reassure athletes that the benefits of having a plan that’s built on this analytical engine is that it’s built to adjust for anyone.

John: So there are so many inputs that go into creating, as Cindy mentioned, each individual’s training plan. And it’s based on data that has been collected from thousands of athletes for excess of a decade. It’s based on millions literally of training files, so it is capable of producing a training plan for that first person that’s looking to finish their first sprint race, or maybe bump up their distance.

And at the same time, there are our many elite level, professional level athletes that they utilize TriDot. There are several athletes racing in Kona every year from the training with TriDot. So it really does truly run the spectrum of every athlete that is represented is represented within TriDot from the very beginner to world-class athlete, from the 20-year-old to 70 years old. In every age group, everybody’s composition, everybody is represented.

And really the only way we can do that is through that big data. Me as a coach, I couldn’t specialize in everyone. I couldn’t have the expertise to write training plans and work with a 25-year-old female, and at the same time, be an expert in 70-year-old males. But leveraging the big data, and leveraging the technology, I can work with those athletes and allow the training plan to be created through that big data process.

Andrew: Yes. I think for me just as your average athlete, I don’t want to say I was hesitant to ever having a coach. But I always kind of thought, in my first years in the sport, that I just, I don’t want to say I wasn’t qualified to have a coach, but I just didn’t feel like I was at a place in the sport competitively where I deserved a coach.

I knew a coach can make me faster, but I was just like, oh, I’m just your average Sprint, Olympic athlete. Like I don’t need a coach, I’m not really good enough to merit having a coach. I guess it’s probably best way to put it. And that was a mindset I carried for a number of years, just as an average age group athlete in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

And I think when I came to TriDot, it wasn’t necessarily because I was thinking that I was finally fast enough to merit getting a coach, it was just that I was fine just looking to make that step up to the Half Ironman, Ironman distance. I knew I needed more guidance, and I found TriDot.

And once I found it, I mean really Cindy you can kind of chime in on this, I feel like again it’s for everybody, entry-level all the way to pro. But if someone is entering into the sport, they’re going to grow in the sport so much faster on TriDot than going it by themselves, right?

Cindy: Oh, there is nothing more exciting than seeing a new athlete that’s maybe doing their 5K test, and it took them 50 minutes to do it. And then a couple of months down the road, after a number of different assessment tests to see their improvement.

Andrew: Yes. So I encourage everybody out there. I mean, if you’ve been listening for a while, maybe you haven’t given it a shot, give it a shot. Because no matter who you are, it’s optimized training for you. And for the final frequently asked questions, Cindy, that you find yourself getting from athletes all the time, what is it?

Cindy: Why are my zone 2 workouts so easy, especially for the runs. Why do I feel like I am walking?

Andrew: That darn zone two, make it stop.

Cindy: And I have to tell athletes that if you’re handling your other zones properly, you should enjoy those zone twos, they are your recovery. They just don’t feel that pace is going to produce improvement.

John: Something that we see it’s very common among triathletes as a rule. Is the hard days aren’t hard enough, and the easy days aren’t easy enough. So it’s often something that new athletes or sometimes even experienced athletes aren’t necessarily used to.

It’s not necessarily a natural inclination in training; we want to go faster, so we want to train faster. But there’s absolutely so much well-documented data and evidence and science that shows that there are different adaptations that happen when you go slow. By going slow, the end result will be going faster. And we’ve discussed it in another podcast, but…

Andrew: Multiple. Literally, I just pulled up the episode list right now to see which one I should reference, and there are multiple episodes where we’ve talked. And this is why John, I mean TriDot training isn’t done by accident, and the podcast episodes we decided to release early on weren’t by accident. And honestly, all of Cindy’s FAQ’s here, I mean there’s a podcast for all of them.

Because when we started this podcast, we wanted to hit the most frequently asked questions first. And so all the things that she’s hearing from athletes and customer support, we have a podcast that addresses almost all of them. And on this one, in particular, there are multiple podcasts. The one that I’m seeing that comes to mind first is episode 12 about run training, proper pacing, and your run training.

We had the power stamina paradox episode that talks about when we trained for stamina when we train for power, and there are multiple things that talk about why TriDot training is designed the way it is. And that’s what we’re saying with this zone 2, is we’ve talked before about how beneficial it is and what did what physiological adaptations your body makes in zone 2, that it doesn’t make end zone 4 or zone 3. And so there’s a reason why that time is there. And what I’ve learned is an athlete myself, and particularly I find myself to your point Cindy unlike their zone two runs, I’ve learned to really just enjoy those.

Like hey, that’s your day to stop and smell the roses. Try a new route on your zone two days; go do a little bit more scenic of a run on your zone two days. Just enjoy it, kick back, it shouldn’t be hard. But on my swims, John is when I really find myself having to force myself to go slow enough on my zone two-stuff when it tells me to swim smooth.

And I always remind myself in the back of my head; there are some zone four intervals coming. And if you don’t go slow enough on the zone two stuff, you’re going to pay for it when it comes time to swim at zone four. And it’s really like that in your week, if you rush that zone two-run early in the week when you have some of your key sessions the next day, you don’t have the legs that you need to really kill that sessions.

Cindy: You also take someone like me who running was not the discipline that I cared for. And so I don’t have the best running form, and I am a little slower of a runner. So it’s that zone two work that gives me the opportunity to refocus on my form.

Andrew: That’s great, yes, that’s a great point. So Cindy, now that we’ve kind of covered the four big things you find yourself addressing. This is just a selfish question; I’m super curious about this. We could say there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but I just don’t think that’s actually true. I say this as someone who’s asked some silly questions over the years, but the thing is you all are here for those.

Whether it’s a great question or a strange one, we want athletes to enter their training sessions with confidence. So just for funsies and to appease my curiosities, I’m not trying to poke fun at anyone, of course. So if what Cindy says here is a question you asked, don’t be insulted, please. What is maybe one of the funniest or strangest questions you’ve been asked by an athlete?

Cindy: So this question actually turned into a lot of women coming to ask me. But I had an athlete once asked me if I could help her learn to pee on the bike.

Andrew: To pee on the bike.

Cindy: To pee on the bike.

Andrew: Okay.

Cindy: For those of you that race a little longer distance, when you finish the race, you look at your watch, and you tend to notice those minutes that you had to pull over to use the lovely porta-potties. So learning to pee on the bike is not an easy experience.

Andrew: I’ve never tried it.

Cindy: It is something that you definitely have…

Andrew: I’ll have John teach me.

Cindy: You definitely have to practice it.

Andrew: So, how did that request first start? Did somebody click the support button?

Cindy: No, this was actually a local athlete, and it started when we were looking at her race results. And I was wondering what all of these times were that she was stopped, and she had just missed her PR by just a few minutes. When we determined that if she didn’t stop at the Porta Potty so much, that she would have made her PR.

Andrew: Yes, minutes each time.

Cindy: Absolutely, especially if you have to wait in line. And so we just set out to work to get her to pee on the bike. We had a large gallon of water; we have a little course that we do our local assessment on and I said all right, we’re going to head out there, and you’re not going to stop until you learn to adjust and pee on the bike.

Andrew: Don’t come off the bike until you’ve urinated.

Cindy: For women, it sounds so awful to talk about this, and I’m probably embarrassing myself.

Andrew: I mean, these are real issues in our sport.

Cindy: It makes a huge difference because there’s nothing worse than coming out of a port-a-potty, and if you don’t readjust those tri-shorts the right way, you can get on your bike and your bike is miserable. So to keep from having to do that, there you go. And so over the years, I’ve definitely talked to a number of women in helping them learn how to do that.

Andrew: Yes, see a valid question, but a strange one.

John: So if you can pee on the bike, you can PR.

Andrew: So when we inevitably do a podcast episode on peeing on the bike, well, we’ll call it peeing the PR.

John: P the PR.

Andrew: Yes, learn how to pee to hit that PR. And when we inevitably have a YouTube video kind of talking about it, we’ll make sure Cindy is on there since she’s answered this question so many times.

So back on episode 18 of the podcast, we were talking about triathlon coaching and Cindy, one thing that Coach Elizabeth James mentioned is that you are the ultimate matchmaker when an athlete comes to TriDot looking to partner with a coach. How do you decide what coach might be the best fit for an athlete wanting coaching?

Cindy: So these are some of my favorite times to communicate with an athlete. And a lot of times, when an athlete wants to start working with the coach, I actually prefer to talk with them versus going back and forth via email. When you talk to someone, you get a better idea, a sense of what their personality is like.

I ask them a ton of questions; I want to know first of all, why did you in actually contact us to work with a coach? What spurred that? What are your goals in the sport? I like to talk to them about their background, their background in the sport. I like to hear about their life. What else do they juggle with triathlons? Do they have kids? Tell me about your job.

I also like to ask them what their challenges have been, what do they feel like their limitations have been up to now racing? If I talk to an athlete that oh my gosh I hate the water, I don’t know how to swim. I mean, sometimes I know which coach to put them with.

And another thing I do like to ask is, how do you like to communicate? That has definitely changed over the past couple of years with athletes. And some athletes are huge on text messaging, other athletes they want to email, but they might only want to email communication in the evening.

And then we have some athletes that are just diehard phone; they want to be able to talk to that coach one time a week. So you almost want to connect them with the coach that is comfortable with their type of communication.

Andrew: So, on the flip side, do you have conversations with a lot of our coaches.

Cindy: Oh, I’ve had a conversation with our coaches as soon as they come on board. There’s a list of questions that I have for them also. And then I always finish off the conversation with an athlete that’s looking at going with the coach and letting them know that if they’re going to spend the money on the coach, they need to be willing, to be honest.

They have to share the struggles; they have to be willing to say talk about nutrition, you can’t join in with the coach, and then have a struggle with oh, I love to eat three pizzas every night. Or something like that’s going to affect your training the next day. So if you’re going to spend the money on the coach, you have to be willing, to be honest.

Andrew: With your coach.

Cindy: Absolutely.

John: So, as you mentioned, Cindy does a fantastic job of knowing our coaches. Something she’ll do periodically is even pull the coaches as to what their expertise areas are. So often an athlete will come, and they’re looking for a coach with a particular area of expertise, whether it be nutrition or strength training, injury prevention, race execution whatever the case may be.

So she does a fantastic job of knowing exactly who those coaches are and then from there matching personalities and communication styles and all that. So yes, she just does a fantastic job of really getting to know everyone, whether it be the coach, the athlete, and then making a great connection between those two.

Andrew: Now, Cindy, I know your faith in Jesus is a big component in your life, and you mentioned earlier on the podcast how important that is to you. And a lot of our staff as well are Christ-followers, but collectively in the TriDot family, we have a wide variety of beliefs and backgrounds amongst our athletes.

And it’s something that we have really come to enjoy. TriDot is for everyone. We say that we believe that. But I know for you there have been some times when you’ve had the opportunity to talk about faith with an athlete, and there have been some times when you have gotten to pray with an athlete about something they’re going through. What do moments like that mean for you as somebody who is so guided by your faith?

Cindy: You know any time I talk about it, I always think that I might tear up. I’m always in awe that God can take someone like me, broken in the center, and open a door to something that can be life-changing. And so if an athlete knows of my past or my struggles, or the fact that I’m a believer, and if they’re willing to open up to me and let me pray for them or gosh, just be a lending ear, it just reassures me that God’s just put me in the right place.

And I think so often people struggle with that, and so I love knowing the feeling that I’m in the right place to help. Every day when I get up, and I opened the computer; I pray over the day. I’m so blessed to start off my day with a group call with our core team, who all share the same core values. And I just hope that we can help someone and make a difference in their life.

Andrew: So Athletes see that red support button on the screen that literally is a direct button to you essentially.

Cindy: It absolutely is. And everybody sees on my tagline, I have my TriDot, but I still also have tri for him on there. Because while our tri for him groups are a little smaller than they are, back when our tri for him groups were spread out around the United States.

I help those local groups get started with their local ministry, and so I kind of still do that. So it’s not a secret that I’m a believer, people see that on my tagline. They see the Bible verse, and I think they know, and they must feel comfortable enough to open up when there is a need.

Andrew: That’s absolutely incredible. And so as we kind of close out the main set today, I wanted you to get to talk about that because it’s important to all of us. But as we close out the main set today, Cindy, what would you maybe say just to encourage all of our athletes as they continue in their triathlon journey?

Cindy: My encouragement and it’s always been part of our prayers when we do pre-race prayer at races, is go be an encouragement to other people. You’re really lucky to be in the sport, so go share it with someone else, go grab someone. Invite them to do a sprint relay with you, the joy that you get from helping someone into the sports; it far outweighs the medals that you see on the wall.

Watching someone finish their first, my favorite thing to do is to encourage someone to do a relay with me, and I always let them do the 5K. Because they’re crossing the finish line and the joy of encouraging someone, it’s such a blessing. And then encourage those race directors. Go out and volunteer at the races; if you’re injured, if you can’t race, be an encouragement to those race directors by helping them. Volunteer; definitely give back to the sport that you love.

Narrator: Great set everyone; let’s cool down.

Andrew: Today, we are going to close with some athletes shoutouts. We love interacting with athletes in the TriDot family, and we love sharing in your tri journeys and successes. Now each of us is going to take a quick second and just give a quick shout out to an athlete that is just killing it right now in some way. And John, I’ll have you go first, who do you want to give a shout-out to today.

John: This is hard. So I kind of equate this to picking my favorite kid, which I only have three kids, which I have like there’s hundred.

Andrew: It’s more than me, John.

John: There are hundreds of TriDot athletes that are just crushing it. So like it’s probably easier to pick one of three kids, as opposed to like one of hundreds of triathletes that are crushing it. But I think I had two that just immediately came to mind.

Andrew: I’ll let you say two, that’s fine

John: I was going to do it anyway, thanks. Man, so athlete I’ve been working with for a number of years who continues just to really train consistently, train right, and really reaping the benefits is really set up for a fantastic season is Christine Overton. Who, like many, her first race of the year was rescheduled, so she’s going to be that much better, that much more prepared.

Andrew: She seems very enthusiastic about, I mean rolling with the punches and saying hey, back to development work, back to getting faster. Don’t dwell on the disappointment of losing that race day; get back to the grind.

John: Yes, she’s been a champ and really excited for her. She’s earned it; she deserves it, so looking forward to her getting back on the racecourse. And then also another one just supermom is Sara St. Vincent, same thing she was like you signed up for Ironman Texas and kind of at the last minute had the rug pulled out.

But also just consistently training, doing a great job with that, and juggling everything else that she has going on. I’m so impressed with so many the athletes that handle their training load, and then careers and family and everything else. So many good ones, but there’s just a couple.

Andrew: All right. Cindy, who is an athlete you want to give a shout out to today?

Cindy: Yes. Well, I’m going to go ahead and pick a single and a couple. So my single is Shelley Goolsbee, she’s a local athlete here in the Houston area. And I really commend her over the past couple of years since she’s been on board with TriDot. She’s not scared to ask questions, but when she gets the answer, she goes with it. She does what she has to do; she does the right training.

She doesn’t throw in extra workouts, she handles her sessions and her assessments, and she is consistently improving. And I’ve kind of poked at her a little bit with Texas being rescheduled, that when it finally happens, I bet we see her on the podium. She has just handled her training that well. So maybe giving her this little shout-out will give her a little motivation to do that. And then we have a couple, Kay and Brian Grant, and I want to give a shout out to them.

Andrew: Oh, they’re wonderful.

Cindy: Because I’m not a huge social media person, but when I get on there and when I look at the comments from them, they are just eternal optimists.

Andrew: Just kind people.

Cindy: Kind, encouraging people, and I really appreciate having a couple like them in our family.

Andrew: Yes, absolutely. So I’m going to give my shout out to a newer TriDot athlete, but he’s one that from the beginning when we launched the podcast, he reached out to me and was just very complementary with the work we were doing and the information and the quality. And he’s somebody who does a little media himself, and so coming from a standpoint of knowing that industry and knowing about editing a little bit, and it’s Shannon Rogers.

So he has an Instagram account and a YouTube account called @Renaissancewoodworker where he will kind of work on and highlight a woodworking project that he’s done and teach you how to do it. And so on top of triathlon being a now a newer hobby of his, he is that as well. And so with his work on that, he and I were able to kind of dialogue a little bit just about audio recording and doing a show. And so I just want to give a shout out to him, because especially right now as we’re kind of all in this race cancellation, postponement phase, he’s just rolled with it, he’s doing the right training right.

But more importantly, his Renaissance woodworking Instagram account has been super entertaining for me. I am not good at that kind of stuff at all, I am terrible at home remodeling, woodworking hands-on kind of things and he’s very gifted at that. So it’s been very interesting to me to see his Instagram account as he’s spending more time doing that. He actually just put up on his Instagram account, where he made a tablet holder for his paint cave.

So it’s an all-wood, beautiful kind of dark wood, kind of angled shelf that comes out from his wall that’s in front of his treadmill. So he can have his iPad perched on it, as he’s doing his Zwift and treadmill workouts. And so to see him kind of take his woodworking hobby, and mesh it to his triathlon hobby was pretty cool. But he was just a very good, as many athletes have been encouraging to us as we’ve launched this podcast; he was one that was encouraging to me from the get-go.

Just a great member of the TriDot family who has a really cool and unique skill on the side, so I encourage you all to go check out renaissance woodworker on Instagram and YouTube and give Shannon a follow. He’s really talented and really entertaining to watch on there.

Andrew: Well, that’s it for today, folks. I want to thank TriDot’s own Cindy Reeves and John Mayfield for talking through some of the most frequently asked questions they receive from athletes. Shout out to TriTats for partnering with us on today’s episode. Head to
tritats.com and place your order, because that is the perfect way to make sure you are ready to make your mark when your next race comes around.

Enjoying the podcast, have any questions you want to hear our coaches answer? Head to TriDot.com/podcast and click on submit feedback to let us know what you’re thinking. We’ll do it again soon, until then happy training.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training, head to TriDot.com, and start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.