Premiere Episode discussing Ironman World Championships

Troy Theodosiou (00:02)
Chill and yet another episode of I don't know we're have to come up with a really good name

Jill Bartholomew (00:04)
yet another episode of... I don't know, we're have to come up with another

I don't know, so far it's like the Trimon. And I'm like, we need a name.

Troy Theodosiou (00:13)
Yeah well call it what you like. We've

got to think about something that's all encompassing and holistic. But yeah tell me about this photography endeavor.

Jill Bartholomew (00:29)
Oh, so yeah, like before Ashton was born, actually is right around the time he was born. So it's like, this is like 15 years ago. It was like 15 years ago. We were young and I was an engineer. I was working for Unisys making practically nothing. Like they were not doing well as a company and like I got promotions with no pay increases.

Troy Theodosiou (00:33)
Okay.

Okay.

Jill Bartholomew (00:58)
crap like that. Yeah, yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (00:58)
⁓ that sounds so familiar.

I know other companies that do that.

Jill Bartholomew (01:02)
Yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, when you talk to a young engineer and you're like, Hey, I'm gonna give you more responsibilities and bigger titles, but I'm going to pay you the same. It's like, it's like, you're do what now? So, you know, I had just finished my master, my second master's degree. And then I'm like, I got really interested in photography, which I'd always been interested in. But I'm like, Hey, you know, we can make some, some money on the side.

Troy Theodosiou (01:11)
yeah.

Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (01:32)
So I started second shooting weddings with some folks. And then I got picked up by a wedding outfit that does like national wedding photography. And they were paying me like five, $600 a wedding. I do like for a week, I was making more off weddings, making 500 a wedding than I was off my regular job. And then after a year.

Troy Theodosiou (01:51)
Oof.

Good grief. Silly,

Jill Bartholomew (02:01)
Yeah. And then after a year or two, I opened my own wedding photography thing. Was shooting like two to three weddings a week, making like two, $3,000 a piece. was paying the mortgage and the cars. you know, second child comes and, you know, the job I was, you know, I hit the hockey stick at my, you know, my day job and I was getting more and more responsibility and I had to make the choice like,

Troy Theodosiou (02:06)
Nice.

Jill Bartholomew (02:30)
Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? And obviously I chose to stay in engineering and became an engineering leader, which, you know, then the pay starts going up pretty well and the photography kind of fell on the wayside. And so, you know, I have a lot of experience with like studio lighting and stuff. So when we were starting to set up like a podcast studio, I'm like, I'm like, okay, well, how can we make it look like not a webcam?

Troy Theodosiou (03:01)
I'm gonna open that up, give you some more light. Yeah, that's better. Yeah, that's way better. Natural light, know, for Ms. Photographer. The good stuff. I've got a view of the neighbourhoods. It's kind of like my stealth lookout. So that change definitely helps. Yeah, it looked a little grim. Apologies. But...

Jill Bartholomew (03:10)
Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh.

One is, so like if you look in people's eyes, like I always find it fascinating when you're like watching videos. If you look in people's eyes, you can see the lighting setup. It's like your single light setup where like you look in my eyes and you can see like five dots.

Troy Theodosiou (03:25)
yeah.

The ring. Yeah, yeah.

I was gonna

say, yours is intense, but I'm happy. I've got more radiant light coming in, which is, it's a little more natural. Yours looks very studio, but that's fine. If that's your look, like, and it works, it does indeed. This is cool. I'm pretty stoked with this setup.

Jill Bartholomew (03:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, now we just need to get your better, more professional headphones working.

Troy Theodosiou (04:04)
yeah, I'll figure that out later. That's neither here nor there. We'll get that dialed in. But my background in sports nutrition and supplementation. So I acquired exclusive distribution rights to Champion Nutrition from the US, who were the licensees for Tapout. UFC was exploding globally. It was like a big deal. And I got distribution rights to South Africa.

Jill Bartholomew (04:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (04:34)
The big issue was obviously import taxes, duties, as well as exchange rate was a huge, there was huge volatility. So it was important, a premium product, but people couldn't justify the price. The problem, obviously from a quality standpoint in a third world country is that nutrition and it's just sort of not at the same level as something that you can get from.

Jill Bartholomew (04:39)
Texas duties as well as exchange rate was huge. There was huge volatility.

Yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (05:03)
from the US. then I decided to,

I was like, screw this, I can't afford to be paying, people can't justify the spend. So I went to a big contract manufacturer in South Africa and I started manufacturing private label, just created my own brand, created my own formulations and started Athlete Lab from scratch.

Jill Bartholomew (05:10)
just about the same.

Wow, that's so your own formulation. That's pretty impressive.

Troy Theodosiou (05:32)
It's not hard because you take the stuff that's good and then you take in terms of like what's available locally, what can I source in terms of the raws? And yeah, a lot of trial and error, like to get it right. But you'll find that stuff coming out of the US was like overly sweet and you'll find in...

Jill Bartholomew (05:36)
Hmm.

Well,

we do have a reputation for that, I think.

Troy Theodosiou (05:54)
Yeah, and then what

I found is that I could actually like, could dumb it down a lot and it'd still be palatable and pleasant in a market where South African consumers and Europeans are very similar, where things aren't as sweet. So yeah, I had, I called it a functional fitness foods as well. I added that range where I had an energy bar, a protein bar.

Jill Bartholomew (06:08)
Mm-hmm.

well I added that range where I an energy bar, a protein bar.

Troy Theodosiou (06:22)
and then

I started getting into syrups and sauces to complement a lot of people who didn't want the calories but wanted the flavor enhancement. And so I had something pretty unique going.

Jill Bartholomew (06:24)
and sources.

Yeah, I mean, I'm impressed. The idea of starting a sports supplement to me is like daunting. And I mean, I have some training in sports nutrition, but like the idea of like saying, okay, let's take this good for you thing. Let's take this good for you thing. Let's take this good for you thing. Figure out how to put it together in the right quantities, make a shelf stable and make sure that it doesn't do anything.

Troy Theodosiou (06:45)
Yahoo!

Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (07:03)
any harm and that it's helping you in some way. like, that whole process to me seems like such a foreign concept.

Troy Theodosiou (07:13)
Jill, it's so much easier than you think. If you identified like, hey, I wanted like a collagen protein or I wanted a, you just wanted a little range that you could add to your brand. I would, I all the private sort of the contract manufacturers that operate in smaller quantities. And you can actually, if you go to any of these, Kairos, any physio,

Jill Bartholomew (07:32)
Huh?

Troy Theodosiou (07:41)
Like they've all got their own little range, right? They wanna sell you a vitamin, they wanna sell you some, like, it's a huge cash cow. Cause people are like, well I'm here and they're prescribing it so I'm just gonna get it.

Jill Bartholomew (07:54)
For sure. And like we were talking earlier about like AD1 and you know, I've been using AD1 for a few years. I can't say that it's helping me. I can't say it's not helping me. And you know, people swear by it. Other people are like, I don't know, but everybody else is using it. But it's got one thing going for it. It's super green, like literally. it tastes right. And it tastes like it looks.

Troy Theodosiou (08:13)
Yeah.

You can get greens that actually taste good.

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, so I, my, like, my, like, experience with greens and I've been taking greens for like over a decade, you can get greens that actually taste good, that are flavored. Similar, similar profile, but taste a million times better than, than AG1. Like AG1 tastes like grass cuttings and tree bark. Like it's just, yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (08:47)
It kind of does. And,

you know, I didn't know what to do with it. You know, on the label, they're like, mix it with anything. And and I'm like, I'm like, I have an idea that like putting this into like a bottle of soda is going to cause an explosion. But then we went and they had a booth that one of the races we did and they were giving it out. They had like three three different flavors you could have. And I'm like, ⁓ you have different flavors now. They're like.

Troy Theodosiou (08:54)
No, that's not true.

Jill Bartholomew (09:15)
Yeah, here you want to try this and they pulled out a thing at 81 and they poured orange juice into it. And I'm like, oh, well, I can do that at home.

Troy Theodosiou (09:22)
Yeah, or sweet tea.

Yeah, exactly. No, I saw them doing that in Kona. I literally saw them before the expo opened, obviously had access, walking around the back, and I saw them mixing sweet tea, and I was like, are you disclosing the fact that you're doing this? Because it's very misleading. And I think I caught them off guard, and it obviously wasn't received very well, because she kind of just looked at me and I was like, well, if you're gonna add lemonade or,

Jill Bartholomew (09:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (09:52)
you need to disclose that because people have the false perception that that's what it actually tastes like. And then when they open that sachet that they get in their gear bags, it tastes nothing like it. It's counterproductive in terms of marketing.

Jill Bartholomew (09:57)
Yeah, yeah.

No, no. The

first time I tried it, I was like, oh, my God, I paid what for this? And I was like, it tastes so bad. And then you kind of get used to it. you know, John, you know, he is he's like, he's like, you always just chug it. Like, well, there's no other way because if you it's not something you can take a sip out of it, it is it's it is it's 12 ounces.

Troy Theodosiou (10:21)
There's no other way to get it down.

But it's also quite a lot. It's not something that you hit it in one go.

Yeah, it's too much. I can't hit that in one go and I'm pretty brave at the best of times, but that's a one and done. That's not something I can do on a regular basis.

Jill Bartholomew (10:36)
you

So yeah, they had a thing in knees. They had the table and there they were pretty clear. They're like, here's our AG1, tastes like it looks, take it or leave it. And here's some things you can put into it to make it tasteless bad.

Troy Theodosiou (10:43)
You tough.

Okay, so let me ask you this. Do you drink it with cold water or like...

Jill Bartholomew (11:00)
Yeah.

no, it's got to be ice cold, like ice cold.

Troy Theodosiou (11:05)
Okay, have

you done it with room temperature water?

Jill Bartholomew (11:09)
I have and it tastes like ass.

Troy Theodosiou (11:11)
Okay, just, because I was gonna say, if I wanna put you off it, do that, because I literally chuck

ice blocks. I take cold water out the dispenser, and then I throw a handful of ice blocks. That's the only way it's going down.

Jill Bartholomew (11:20)
Yeah, yeah

I sit there and I turn on the cold water tap and I let it run for like five minutes. I'm like clear those pipes, get the cold stuff.

Troy Theodosiou (11:34)
Yeah,

put it in the freezer. Hey, well look, this is pretty sweet. Like, I don't know how the recording's gonna come out, but I mean, in terms of like a trial run, like this is pretty sweet. I don't know what was causing the issues, but I can hear you, the audio's crystal, the video's really good.

Jill Bartholomew (11:38)
Yeah

This is pretty good.

Yeah, I can't wait to like take it from the recording in the post. And I did, I did some research, like the way you edit on these two tools like this and, um, uh, descript the, it kind of looked like they came at it from different angles. Like this one is supposed to be easier to use, but it doesn't have as much editing capability. The other one has a higher learning curve, but you can do a lot more with.

Troy Theodosiou (12:20)
Okay.

Jill Bartholomew (12:26)
So I thought this would be a good one to start with. It was like free for two weeks and then it's like $20 a month. I'm like, all right, well, if we're doing this regularly, $20, fine. But I'm like, the way you edit it is it runs the podcast through a scriptor, right? So it will show who's speaking and the words, like it transcribes it. And then you can highlight.

Troy Theodosiou (12:28)
Yeah. There you go.

wow. ⁓ wow.

Jill Bartholomew (12:52)
The word like you want to someone says the the the the the you can highlight like the five does and take them out.

Troy Theodosiou (12:59)
No, but mean, you just need to learn how to speak, like for goodness sake. I think the re, I tell you what it is, when people get nervous and they're not comfortable, like if I, for whatever reason, or you made me feel uncomfortable, that's normally where people struggle with articulation. We don't have that problem, because you and I can do this so naturally, like it's effortless. It's.

Jill Bartholomew (13:15)
year.

Yeah, but

we're also both used to being in front of large crowds and talking in front of a microphone. you know, although this is different, it's like I got, have like a, like regular camera lens in front of me and I'm like, ⁓ man, that's weird.

Troy Theodosiou (13:26)
yeah. Yeah.

No, I think this

is cool. Like I get a kick out of this. Like this to me is pretty legit. Like I could do this. I could do this all day.

Jill Bartholomew (13:46)
Yeah, same. And that's why I thought that podcasting would be like such a great thing to do. What I've struggled with is like, okay, well, like, what is the main driving theme that would be interesting to enough people to get a subscriber base where I could actually make it meaningful and start to use it as an income stream?

Troy Theodosiou (14:10)
Well, in my humble opinion, and I had this pretty constructive, it was healthy, but a guy who I know very well is a senior director at Ramsey Solutions. And he started asking questions about marketing. And I was pretty direct with regards to what marketing it is and how it should be done. And here's the big...

Jill Bartholomew (14:25)
Mm-hmm.

huh.

Troy Theodosiou (14:38)
misconception with regards to marketing is that

marketers are feeding you what they believe you want to consume.

That is incorrect. That's not marketing. Marketing is listening to your consumer with regards to what it is they want to consume, not only what it is, but how they want to consume it. And that's why I said to you on our phone call, you need to ask your audience what it is they want to hear. Where are they struggling? What do they need help with?

Jill Bartholomew (15:04)
Yeah.

What it is they want to Where are they struggling? What do they need?

Troy Theodosiou (15:17)
And how can we speak into that? Because if we're dictating what they wanna hear, they're not consuming it. It's like you saying to me, you mentioned about bike maintenance. Like these guys that are producing content, the reason people are not consuming is it's because it's relatable. You're speaking over, you're making people, you're actually pushing people away. Because you're not saying like,

Jill Bartholomew (15:19)
No.

Troy Theodosiou (15:47)
These are the basics, these are

the necessities. You're coming at it from an angle that actually makes people feel inadequate, like unable. So it's like, oh shit, that's too much for me. I could never do that.

Jill Bartholomew (15:48)
Yep.

Thanks

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And, you know, that was one of the things that I'm like, yeah, let's make a YouTube series about that, because, you know, you talk to these folks out on like even like in transition setting up and people they don't know. And it's like some of it's basic rates, like what gear should your bike be in?

Troy Theodosiou (16:26)
Jill, speaking to the guy who was in transition for a year, do you want me to recite some of the questions I've been asked?

Jill Bartholomew (16:36)
⁓

yes. Yes. What are the questions you've been asked? Because like I bet I can guess some of them, but I bet some of them are going to be like absolute shocking. I will say my absolute favorite one that I see in the Facebook forums immediately before I race is. How do I pee?

Troy Theodosiou (16:38)
Hey, hey.

it gets better it gets better in topar in new zealand in transition an age group

Jill Bartholomew (17:03)
Wait a second,

this isn't now just to be clear, this is at world championship for the 70.3. So these are by definition, minus maybe a few folks, the best of the best globally in each of the age groups, right?

Troy Theodosiou (17:09)
correct.

You qualify to get there.

So, so you would think. The question that absolutely horrified me standing in transition when athletes are coming out of the water. Hey, what should my tire pressure be?

Jill Bartholomew (17:38)
Seriously?

Troy Theodosiou (17:39)
Yes, races started, races start, races in motion. And I look at the person and I'm like, you should have thought of that before the start of the race. What is your, cause the worst thing you can say to an athlete coming out of the water who can't think straight is, well, what is your tire pressure right now? Did you put air in your tires?

Jill Bartholomew (17:44)
Wow.

Troy Theodosiou (18:04)
When last did you service your bike? Hey, my chain is making this noise.

Jill Bartholomew (18:12)
Now is not a great time to g-bug that.

Troy Theodosiou (18:15)
Is there any lubricant

on that chain? at all? It's radical. Like quite honestly, hey, do you have, I mean, and again, like morning of the race, do you have a charging cable? Do you have a charging? Okay, fine. If I had a charging cable, what's powering the charge?

Jill Bartholomew (18:37)
That's all the way through my head. like, here's a cable. Good luck finding a plug.

Troy Theodosiou (18:40)
I wish I

created some very candid posts throughout last year with regard to some of the things that was asked in terms of like, do I have X on my person? Like a spare set of cleats? No, no, I don't.

Jill Bartholomew (18:53)
Well, and like,

you know, and it's easy to laugh at these things, but like in the moment, these are important things because like someone shows up to the race and they're like, ⁓ shit, my bike's not charged. And there's a of reasons that could be right. It could be that they were negligent and didn't charge the bike or it.

could be something else, like they had something hitting the shifter and it just drained the shit out of it. I mean, I did once and only once and exactly once go out for a ride with one battery missing from my bike. But the good thing is like, this is why I like SRAM is, hey, you know what? I got two batteries and I...

I don't really need the front one most of the time, so I only need a battery in the back.

Troy Theodosiou (19:52)
Yeah, but it pays

to carry a spear Jill, like for goodness sake, like come on, like

Jill Bartholomew (19:58)
Well,

I usually do, but this is one of those things where it's like impromptu and we're like, hey, we're like, hey, let's let's go ride up and down the promenade. It's like, oh, OK. And you grab your bike and you're like, oh, shit, I forgot to put batteries in it.

Troy Theodosiou (20:03)
No, I get it.

So here's a candid share. We had an athlete racing with us in Topar and very highly regarded surgeon in the US. And he says, AT2, my batteries are not holding a charge. And I'm like, how long have you run these batteries? He's like six years. I'm like, probably a good time to change, to switch them out. And also considering the fact that it's a world championship,

Jill Bartholomew (20:23)
Thank

I'm not Probably a good try.

Also, considering the fact that it's a world championship,

Troy Theodosiou (20:44)
You've come a long way. You've spent a lot of money. You've

Jill Bartholomew (20:44)
like you've come along, you've spent a lot of

Troy Theodosiou (20:46)
flown across the world. You might want to run some new batteries. I'm like, yeah, six years old, not holding a charge.

Jill Bartholomew (20:56)
Not a surprise, not a surprise. I mean, it's like, it's like, how often do you change the battery in your car? And it's more frequently than every six.

Troy Theodosiou (20:58)
Yeah, you would think. You would think.

Well...

But Jill, again, just on that topic, it's kind of preventative and being proactive with regards to, it's like a vehicle, right? Like you spend a lot of money and even if you don't, servicing your equipment is important. It's like you telling me you're running hundreds of miles and you never change out your shoes.

Jill Bartholomew (21:14)
Yeah.

You know, this is this is why the long line at every race for the for the bike mechanic always kind of cracks me up a little bit. Is this like?

You made it all the way here and you need your bike to have a full service?

Troy Theodosiou (21:48)
Why wait till race day, right? Why wait to, it just induces stress. Like it induces.

Jill Bartholomew (21:50)
Right. It's like I can now I totally well, I totally I

totally get and I've done it before. Right. So you travel for a race and you're like, you just want someone who's not you to do a once over. Make sure that you didn't miss anything because you have disassembled your bike to fit it into whatever case you traveled with. And like when I went to Nice, there's a triathlon shop that's a couple of blocks from the hotel.

First day we were there, I walked down there, I'm like, hey, can you just like check over this, that, and the other thing, just make sure everything is to torque, you know, blah, blah. Especially on that course with the back half of the race, you know, I'm like, I did hear about a woman whose front tire came, front wheel came off of the bike on the downhill. And she,

she took the kind of injuries you'd expect her to, actually less than you probably would expect her to. And it's like, you know, I'm like, I just, you know, it's making this noise. It wasn't doing that in Philly before we left. I don't know why it's doing that. Can you look at it? That kind of stuff. I always put a new chain on before a full distance Ironman race because I had a chain break in a race.

And it was a relatively new chain. It only had like 150 miles on it, but it popped. like, you you spent, that was at Chattanooga. It's like, we drove there. So that was like 30 hours of driving round trip, plus five days in a hotel, the race registration, and taking time off of work, and da da da da da. It's like these races, it's not just the...

Troy Theodosiou (23:43)
Domino effect.

Jill Bartholomew (23:47)
very absurdly priced race entry. It's getting there and staying there and

Troy Theodosiou (23:49)
correct.

It's also the amount of training,

right? Like the sacrifice. Like there's a huge amount that goes into prepping for a race for most. That's not everybody who...

Jill Bartholomew (23:57)
Yeah.

Well, but that's true. That's true. Like I

kind of take it for granted because I feel like I'm always in a training cycle and I raise a lot. But you know, if this is like, you know, a lot of people race like once a year or less and you know, they, spend, you know, six to 18 months training for that one race. That's an expensive race.

Troy Theodosiou (24:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, for sure.

It is, and there's a lot riding on that, just in terms of like, you wanting it to be a success, like holistically, and I think that is what is a huge contributor to the attrition, right? People, the one and done. And I'm not talking about people who lost a bet. I'm talking about people who have a negative experience. And I think that can be, not completely,

Jill Bartholomew (24:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (24:50)
nullified, but I think we could reduce that experiential situation or scenario where people have a negative experience, but it could have been avoided with some basic preparation, i.e. some preventative maintenance, being better prepared, you know.

Jill Bartholomew (25:06)
Yeah.

You're totally right. I was talking about, I was talking to the other day about this. I'm like, Ironman last year stood up and celebrated the fact that 50 % of finishers were first time finishers. And the problem with that is it means that the sport's not growing. New people are coming in at the same rate that people are going out.

Troy Theodosiou (25:41)
tricks.

Jill Bartholomew (25:43)
And what we collectively need to do, and it's not just cause of Ironman, which is a company, but for the sport is we need to grow that because if that continues, then there won't be a sport.

Troy Theodosiou (25:59)
It's preparation and it's resourcing, right? Like that's my firm belief. And that's why from a marketing standpoint, it's incredibly important. You've got all these amazing men and women who have had incredible careers. And I believe the responsibility is on the organization to leverage those professional men and women.

Jill Bartholomew (26:01)
⁓ huh.

But it does cost.

Mm.

Troy Theodosiou (26:28)
i.e. the two, arguably the two greatest female triathletes in history

Pauline Ube-Frasier and Heather Feuer. ⁓ yes you're right Jill, both of those women work for the same organization.

Jill Bartholomew (26:39)
Mm-hmm.

Troy Theodosiou (26:51)
So you've got this wealth of knowledge, experience, not from the average Joe or Jane, from two of the greatest triathletes of all time.

What contribution have they made to Jill Bartholomew in any shape or form outside of knowing who they are, because you're a triathlete, knowing of their success, how have they?

Jill Bartholomew (27:09)
have they made to kill pathologists in any case outside of knowing who they are that you read by a piece knowing of their success

because they...

Troy Theodosiou (27:24)
helped for the better, how have Iron Man leveraged them to help you?

Jill Bartholomew (27:25)
Mm-hmm

Well, I can't say they have.

Troy Theodosiou (27:37)
My point is...

Jill Bartholomew (27:38)
Point is

Troy Theodosiou (27:41)
things could look very differently. And I'm gonna say this again, transparently is, I've looked at the raw data, the numbers, right? I know what the percentage is at every Ironman race. I can tell you how many are women and how many are men. I can also tell you the differentiation between the world championship for men in Nice and the number of women who participated in the very same country the very next year.

Jill Bartholomew (27:42)
things could look very different.

the numbers.

Troy Theodosiou (28:11)
The differentiation was horrific.

Jill Bartholomew (28:12)
It was.

everyone focused on the finisher data.

Troy Theodosiou (28:16)
Noticeably so.

Jill Bartholomew (28:23)
and the DNF data, they didn't focus on the number of starters. And like the finisher data, more women DNF'd than men, but like it's not statistically significant. The differences are pretty small. But the number of starters was like 30 % smaller.

Troy Theodosiou (28:29)
Why?

the number of s-

Could that have been avoided?

Jill Bartholomew (28:49)
I mean, the answer is yes, but the answer is yes. It's a beautiful race. It's a beautiful country. ⁓ is it world championship? I don't know. It's really hard course. ⁓ it's a different vibe than Kona, but I think they had like problems getting people there. And were there even enough spots to fill that same size? Like even if there was enough women who qualified, were there enough spots to get a race that's equal size?

Troy Theodosiou (28:50)
Speak freely. 1000 % yes.

You think?

So my answer to that is, Jill, if we talk about the importance of equality in sports, okay, especially in the US, if we think about men and female with regards to the same opportunities, right? Why should it be any different in triathlon? Despite the fact that it's a hard course, my answer would be knowing that it's a challenging course.

Jill Bartholomew (29:42)
Right, yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (29:50)
knowing that it may be overwhelming for athletes, especially novice or amateur athletes and even age group, seasoned age group athletes like yourself, who wholeheartedly admit that it was a challenging course, but you knew what you were getting yourself into.

Jill Bartholomew (30:02)
Mm-hmm.

It's a hard course, but it's world championship. It should be hard.

Troy Theodosiou (30:12)
My expertise as a marketing professional states that with the correct resources, with the correct community, with the correct coaching, all of a sudden you start breaking down these barriers to entry that seem so de-habilitating and so demoralizing that people start going, hang on, I do want to go to Nice.

Jill Bartholomew (30:23)
community with the correct coaching.

Troy Theodosiou (30:39)
I do want to earn that world championship status. I do want to get that medal. But if all your marketing is elevation gains that are horrific, that are scary as sin to any normal individual, how is that helpful?

Jill Bartholomew (30:41)
Mm-hmm.

If all your marketing is innovation gains that are horrific, are scary as sin to any normal individual, how is that helpful?

Well, it's not. And even now, like I was telling you the other day, you know, so I'm a tried out pool school coach. I was in Chicago with them for their one of their Chicago pool schools and I was sitting at dinner.

with these athletes and there was probably four with us, maybe five. And they were sitting with me specifically because they knew I had competed at Nice and they're all men and they're competing this year at Nice. And so for that hour and a half, two hours, whatever it was, they're like pelting me with questions, interrogating me about the course because

All the word on the street is so scary. It's like, it's not a scary course. It's a hard course. Is it harder than Kona? I don't know. People have raised both said yes, but not like dramatically so, but it's different. It's an open water swim. So it's Kona. I didn't have a hard time with the swim. My swim there was actually faster than it was at Lake Placid, which shocked me. Not very much. It was like two minutes, but still.

Troy Theodosiou (32:11)
Yeah, but

that's interesting because I mean, we're talking about your conditions in Lake Placid were, it could not be more perfect. Like so weather conditions were prime. You were swimming on a glass lake. For you to go faster at a world championship, like I can only.

Jill Bartholomew (32:19)
No, it couldn't.

Mm-hmm.

Troy Theodosiou (32:32)
I mean, it's so difficult to pinpoint. Like it could be a culmination of adrenaline. Just the fact that it was a world championship event.

Jill Bartholomew (32:41)
I

I mean, there's a lot of reasons it could be right. Like I had another two months to train. I spent a lot of time in the pool and in open water between Placid and Nice. But I spent a lot of time doing both before Placid too. And no, I was not. Now Placid, I had some issues going from the bike to the run, which turned out like

Troy Theodosiou (32:49)
Yeah.

I was going to say it. You weren't under trained.

Jill Bartholomew (33:10)
to be nutritional, but like I wasn't under trained, right? That was like, I wasn't dialed in that day with nutrition for the conditions. But back to that, yeah, like you talk to two, know, people who have done these seem to have, the women seem to have two entirely different perspectives on this one. They loved it, which is the camp I fell in, or they hated it.

Troy Theodosiou (33:12)
Yes.

Yes. Hated

it. Yeah, because, yeah. The ocean.

Jill Bartholomew (33:43)
And

well, I was in the start group, right? The 45, 49 start group is the, we're at the tail. We're the last one to go. And the conditions were not as good for us as it was for earlier. Cause the tide starts to go out. And you know, if you're at the front, if you know, I was at the front of that wave, I ended up passing folks from the waves in front of us and you know,

Troy Theodosiou (33:52)
Yes.

sure.

Yes.

Jill Bartholomew (34:12)
Someone said to me, they're like, well, if you were in the back of it, it was an entirely different experience. Like, I'm sure it was.

Troy Theodosiou (34:19)
I started in the back.

Jill Bartholomew (34:20)
Right. That was my, that was my point. It was, you know, the tide was shifting. We were going out and they're like, I couldn't sight. Now, knees, the thing I didn't appreciate on the swim is like in the U S we're used to the Roka buoys from being, being like every hundred yards apart or so. And, you know, like I count them. I'm like, okay, I know this is 4,400 yards. I've passed so many buoys. They are there 500.

Troy Theodosiou (34:36)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Jill Bartholomew (34:50)
meters apart. So it was re which I've been told is the only European race I've done. I've been told that that's normal outside the US. But that was really hard. It was really hard to cite. It was

Troy Theodosiou (34:52)
Really?

No.

No, I don't, I

disagree, that's not normal.

Jill Bartholomew (35:10)
Okay. Well, thank you for that. ⁓ but it was really hard to say in all directions because the only buoys that were a different color were the turn buoys. So going out and going in and going back out and coming back in were all yellow. And then the turn buoys were, were all red. So it was really hard to say. So I, if you look at my, if you look at my Strava, you'll see like some zigs.

Troy Theodosiou (35:32)
Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (35:40)
And that wasn't because I wasn't sighting. It was because I was sighting on occasion off the wrong buoy. And then coming up the next time I'm sighting, which I was trying to do it at the top of the swell, then I'm like correcting because I found the correct buoy. So like on that one coming in, you really have to sight off of the shoreline, not the buoys. Going out though is a whole different story. And so I think like that one.

Troy Theodosiou (35:48)
shoot.

Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting.

Jill Bartholomew (36:10)
If you're not good at sighting, which I like plastic, you don't need to be good at sighting. If you are not sighting and you're not sighting frequently, I talked to one woman who literally swam an extra mile at knees because she sighted so poorly. And I'm like, well, yeah. And she DNF'd out on the swim. She finished the swim, but.

Troy Theodosiou (36:16)
Not at all.

Wow. Yeah.

negotiated.

Jill Bartholomew (36:36)
⁓ she finished the swim before the swim cut off, but didn't get out of transition before the transition cut off. So the bike course had closed by the time she made it to the bike course. And it's like, right.

Troy Theodosiou (36:45)
Yeah, it's super sad.

It's mind-blowing to me and look, I get it. Obviously, logistically speaking, for you to show up at an event where you know you are partaking in an ocean as opposed to a lake, a closed body of water, Joel, I think it's a huge miss for you not to...

to be comfortable or familiar in that environment or setting. And the reason I say that is because it is so different in so many ways. I can list several different reasons from swells to currents to waves to tides. It's just experientially like it can literally ruin your race. And if you think, to your point, if you think that you can go and get by with

Jill Bartholomew (37:22)
It is.

Hmm.

very interesting.

Bye.

Troy Theodosiou (37:45)
Drafting?

Jill Bartholomew (37:47)
that's not a thing in the ocean.

Troy Theodosiou (37:48)
It's

you're horribly mistaken. Horribly mistaken. And I can tell you from my experience being an open water swimmer that one of the biggest...

Jill Bartholomew (37:53)
Yeah.

Troy Theodosiou (38:05)
misses for athletes that go into the ocean and swim for the first time. They actually, if the swell is bad, they get seasick. It's a thing. And that you're not going to find in the lake.

Jill Bartholomew (38:07)
⁓ yeah.

No, you're I mean, you might, but you're going to have to go to like the Great Lakes, you know, like go swim in Lake Ontario and it might be similar, but less salty.

Troy Theodosiou (38:26)
Yeah. So you get it.

Jill Bartholomew (38:29)
I do. But that was one of the reasons why, like, you know, folks who are showing up on Thursday, I was like, are you nuts? No, we showed up on Monday because I'm like, I want to go swim several times in that body of water. I've never been in the Mediterranean. It's saltier than anything I'd ever been in before, which like there were horror stories about people getting chafing at Nice in

the 70.3 that they do from it being so salty. So I wanted to like get out there and experience it, ride parts of the courses, acclimate to the time zone. It's sea level. I kind of live at sea level, but most of the races I do are in the mountains, strangely enough. And, you know, the temperature, that course, we didn't know how to dress for it because it was like 75 degrees.

⁓ you know, coming out of the swim by the top of the mountain, it was snowing.

Troy Theodosiou (39:34)
I was going to say, about the wind? Because I heard there was huge wind on the bike course.

Jill Bartholomew (39:40)
⁓ it depends on your perspective. You're riding through, like you get to the top of the mountain and it's kind of like this, you get to the top of mountain and then, you know, there's a little bit of meandering, but it's largely a straight out and then a long straight back. And then you hit the downhill. Most of that out is adjacent to a field or through, through a field, right? So it'd be like.

Troy Theodosiou (39:48)
Yes, yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (40:09)
riding in the Midwest through the cornfields or cow pastures, whatever. There's nothing to stop the wind. So yeah, it's windy. The place where you really felt it, so I rode with a disc, which I was a little bit nervous of, not because of the wind, but because hauling that up the mountain, which probably did slow me down, but I probably benefited from it the rest of the bike. The...

Troy Theodosiou (40:37)
Did you notice, just on that topic, did you notice, would you say the vast majority rode without?

Jill Bartholomew (40:43)
It was interesting. Yeah, not a lot road with discs. The pros, like the pros were interesting because like throwing numbers out that probably are not right, but close, like 15 % road, road bikes, probably half to two thirds of them road with discs. The age groupers,

Troy Theodosiou (40:59)
No, but I mean, hypothetically.

Jill Bartholomew (41:12)
was even more interesting. Very, very, very few discs. Like I was not alone in that, but there were not many of us. A lot more road bikes than I was expecting to see. So a lot of people like road, you know, brought road bikes and talked to him afterwards. Like some people do what bike they got, but most people that I talked to were like, well, it's a big hill. Did you not see it? Of course I brought my road bike. And I'm like, right.

Troy Theodosiou (41:20)
Sure. Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (41:42)
but you got 20 miles up, 20 miles down, the rest of it is flat. I mean, it's rolling. I chose my equipment based on the 70 miles of flat, not the 20 miles of uphill or the 20 miles of downhill. And other people are like, well, but the hill scared me. I'm like, okay, I got that. So is...

Troy Theodosiou (41:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Just a different

attitude. The way you approached it was like... That was the engineer in you. You looked at it holistically. Well played. I think I would agree with that attitude and outlook.

Jill Bartholomew (42:15)
Yeah.

Well, but it comes back

to like the question, like, do you have a cable for my battery is like, you know, you're racing this big race and it's important. And, you know, we spent a lot of time preparing for it and expense, especially when it's in different country. And you have to be thoughtful. Like, what it, what do you bring in with you? Like, what's the course like? What's the weather like? What are you like in those conditions?

Troy Theodosiou (42:43)
That's what I

was gonna say is, know, when we talk about road bike, it's so easy to have that conversation with regards to choice of equipment. But my question, first and foremost is, have you done that amount of distance on a road bike sitting up? Because if you haven't, and you think that it's gonna be easier, it ain't.

Jill Bartholomew (43:08)
It's not, it might actually be harder. So for me, my road bike, I have a Madone, it's two years old, I got it like right before the generation change. And it's totally slammed. There's no spacers in the headset, it's down as far as you can go. It's as aggressive or more aggressive a setup as my tri bike.

Troy Theodosiou (43:10)
correct.

Interesting.

Jill Bartholomew (43:38)
If, and that's after bike fitting and like it, you know, it comes with like that much spacers and the bike fitters, like get rid of them all. And I'm like, I'm not comfortable with that. So we took them out spacer by spacer by space. And we finally, like two months ago, took the last one out. It's more comfortable now than it's ever been. ⁓ but that's me.

Troy Theodosiou (43:43)
Yeah.

And that's

being super aggressive.

Jill Bartholomew (43:58)
Right, but that's me, I'm very flexible. it's like it being that aggressive of a setup, allows you to actually like correctly activate the muscles in your back and your core to like, like to ride the way you should ride. But on a course like these, all that uphill on a tri bike, you're in the base bars. So it's like, is the base bars more comfortable or less comfortable for that distance?

Troy Theodosiou (44:20)
1000 %

Jill Bartholomew (44:27)
And that grade then riding in your drops, which you're not going to be riding in the drops. You can be riding on the hoods. So for me, it's probably six and one half. Um, but you know, cause you're not, maybe the pros are I'm not an arrow going up an average of 8 % grade.

Troy Theodosiou (44:50)
No, don't think, very few, I mean there are very few cyclists that can do that.

Jill Bartholomew (44:54)
Right, right,

right. Maybe Pojikar, I don't know. But I'm not him. Like his zone two is like my zone five.

Troy Theodosiou (44:59)
Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah, I was gonna say, like, genetic anomalies.

Yeah, that's some freaky numbers.

Jill Bartholomew (45:12)
But yeah, now the only thing I would do like on the bike setup differently is I did run an 85 wheel upfront and I'm tubeless and the disc and back, I probably would change the 85 to like a 60 or maybe even smaller just to get less of a cross section on the front.

Troy Theodosiou (45:25)
Mm-hmm.

It's a lot, yeah.

You weren't

playing games. You were going all out.

Jill Bartholomew (45:43)
Hey, you know, it's like, go big or go home, man.

Troy Theodosiou (45:46)
I get it. I do. do. You know? Like, and again, it's so insightful. Hey, listen, what's the plan here? Do you want to play and then we're going to jump in? Because I'm ready to go.

Jill Bartholomew (45:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Let's let, let me play with posts and figure it out. I'll send you something. You can look at it and let's, ⁓ maybe in a couple, maybe in a couple of days. Yeah. What, what's today? Today is today's Wednesday. Fry Jesus.

Troy Theodosiou (46:03)
Okay.

Let's make a date, because I was going to say, hey, this is too good. Wednesday.

Good grief,

it sounds like an explosion just went off in my head.

Jill Bartholomew (46:20)
Wait, you know what it was? I smacked it as I didn't smack it that that hard, but it like got picked up by them. Well, it got picked up by the mic and one of the things I.

Troy Theodosiou (46:24)
Wow, it's super sensitive.

My chair is

like rickety and I can hear it creaking.

Jill Bartholomew (46:33)
⁓

yeah, same mine too. I don't know if you can hear it. So what I noticed with this is like, this is the raw like microphone and everything they pick up. When I did a trial recording, it added noise suppression in post. So it got better. Like some of that came out, but yeah, it's like it, you know, I have the, mic is on a boom and it's like,

Troy Theodosiou (46:35)
I can hear it.

Nice.

Nice.

Jill Bartholomew (47:02)
I hit the desk and the hole, it picked it up through the boom and the cardoid. How's Friday morning? Like, like a...

Troy Theodosiou (47:07)
Peace.

Yeah, if you comfortable

like play with it. Just just let me know my Friday's pretty flexible at the stage. Just let me know like

Jill Bartholomew (47:17)
Well, I'll be

honest, like Friday at 11, I'm getting my hair dyed. It's going to be pink again. Did I tell you about a wedding dress?

Troy Theodosiou (47:23)
Okay. Okay.

No, you said you were going to look for one. You don't waste any time.

Jill Bartholomew (47:30)
⁓ no, I bought one.

Well, dude, we're getting married in August. You should come. It's August 16th in Magic Kingdom in the hub in front of the castle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we were having a hard time because we were talking to all these wedding places and they're like, we can't get you a dress in that time frame. They all want like 12 to 18 months. And I'm like,

Troy Theodosiou (47:41)
yeah, you told me. I know.

What?

Because they're getting it from China? What's the deal?

Jill Bartholomew (48:00)
Well, apparently, like, unless you're buying it from like David's Bridal, they're all made to order. They're not. And then like they're made to order. And then you come in and it comes in like two months before the wedding. And then they do the, you know, around or two of adjustments. But all I know is it's like, I don't know. It was a lot of money.

Troy Theodosiou (48:05)
Yeah.

Adjustments, yeah.

I'm very surprised you're not getting married in your tri-suit. Just hashtag just saying.

Jill Bartholomew (48:30)
You know, if someone asked me to wear the most expensive outfit I got, it's probably a tri suit. You know, when I got into triathlon, first thing that I said is I'm like, I like this sucks. It is such an expensive sport as like.

Troy Theodosiou (48:36)
Exactly, exactly.

It is. It is.

It doesn't have to be though, Jill. Let's be honest. Like, it doesn't have to be, because I think...

Jill Bartholomew (48:52)
Well, that's the thing is like, you can do this sport on a budget, but it's still expensive even on a budget, but you can, you can do it on a budget, but to be competitive, like if you want to be in the top 10, 15%, like if you want a wha it's, you're not doing it on a budget or if you, if you are your Superman.

Troy Theodosiou (48:57)
You can. I agree.

Yeah, yeah.

No, yeah, you're right. So you've got an appointment at 11.

Jill Bartholomew (49:23)
Yeah, so I could do it in the morning or we. Yeah, let me let me think about that right now afterwards. OK. OK.

Troy Theodosiou (49:25)
You want to do it before or after?

Well give it some thought, just let me know. Okay.

My Friday's open right now. I don't have any commitments as we speak. So you

give it some thought and then let's knock it out.

Jill Bartholomew (49:43)
Yeah, let's get it done. Or we could do tomorrow.

Troy Theodosiou (49:47)
Play around a little bit give you give yourself some grace Friday my Friday is open and if you want to do it after your hair or whatever Just let me know like I'm my Friday is very relaxed

Jill Bartholomew (49:49)
Yeah. I'm.

Oh,

I'm having so much fun with this. Although today, like I swam 3,500 this morning, crushed it. It was like 123 per 100 across the 3,500. I was like, the numbers are coming down. Can I do that in a race? Probably not, but you know, in a pool, I'm happy with that. But I got like an hour 50.

Troy Theodosiou (50:00)
Me too.

Nice. Nice.

Nice. Yeah, that's good.

You're in a good spot.

Jill Bartholomew (50:25)
Got an hour 15 on the bike today, an hour run. I got that lever thing, the thing that like suspends you a little bit.

Troy Theodosiou (50:27)
Nuts.

Yeah. The more you talk, the worse you make me feel.

Cause I have literally done nothing like today. So my day, you've just kicked my ass, whether you consciously knew it or not. I've got to, I've got to, it's already 11 34 over here. So I need to, I need to get moving. I need to get off my ass, get some, get some stuff done. You play, I'll keep my Friday open. You give me a time. You let me know what time you want to do this. And let's, let's kick ass and chew bubble gum and have some fun.

Jill Bartholomew (50:38)
day.

Yeah.

you

never heard that. All right, well, it's gonna be rainbows and unicorn farts.

Troy Theodosiou (51:08)
I literally

just saw gum on my desk and I was like, let's kick ass and chew bubble gum. That's the marketer in me, I guess.

Jill Bartholomew (51:12)
So,

you know, I do a lot of these races at Disney World and it's very sparkly, right? the right, right, right. And you've seen my pictures and the running joke is at Princess Weekend is you really need to be one of the faster runners so that you can avoid the cloud of glitter that, you know, follows the pack of runners.

Troy Theodosiou (51:21)
I've seen.

dear.

Jill Bartholomew (51:41)
And there's this company called Unicorn Snot. And it's like that it comes in these little tubs and it's this gel that's like different like colors of glitter. And like you put it on that when that gel dries, you might as well have used like contact cement or something. Yeah, it comes off with makeup remover, but like that stuff is not coming off. So like if I don't

Troy Theodosiou (52:01)
Gorilla glue, yeah.

RUDE-ALL

Jill Bartholomew (52:10)
You know, if I don't like wash my face before going in the park, you know, it's like I get I get all the comments like. Feeling good today, feeling sparkly today. All right, man.

Troy Theodosiou (52:20)
mm-hmm yeah I bet good grief do you have to hit do you have to hit stop recording now do that before we

lose this whole thing just make sure