But the thing is, I'm obsessed with my business as well.

It's my passion.

And the thing is, if I'm, if I'm not training, I'm working.

And I sometimes I work until sometimes I'll ride five or six hours on a Friday, but that means I'm working until 11pm on a Friday and working on the weekends.

So I think that really makes a difference where some people are resting and they check off and that the big component where and today I don't really need that for me if I can be competitive enough and keep growing my business.

Foreign.

And welcome to the Tridog Podcast.

This is the May 30, 2025 edition, and I'm your host, Jeff Sankoff, the Tridog, an emergency physician, triathlete, triathlon coach, and multiple Ironman finisher.

Coming to you as always from beautiful, sunny Denver, Colorado.

The voice you heard before mine was that of my guest on today's show, and that is Philip Billicoff.

Philip is originally Santiago in Chile, where he grew up.

He then moved to the bright lights of London before now settling in Oceanside, California, where he is the founder and CEO of Mana Endurance Apparel and of M and A Coaching.

He has a fantastic story.

It was a conversation I really enjoyed and I'm looking forward to bringing it to you just a little bit later in the program.

He really is a terrific individual.

He has just had a great career in this sport and is bringing as much to it as he has been able to get from it.

I think you will enjoy that discussion, and that's going to be coming up a little bit later on.

Before that, the medical mailbag is going to be full of potatoes, specifically the idea that potatoes can be used for endurance fuel.

Juliet Hockman, my regular colleague, will be here to join me and go over the evidence that exists to determine whether or not we can be using potatoes as our endurance fuel.

Is this something that we want to do?

Is this something that we should be considering, or is it just a barrel of spuds?

Well, we're going to look at what's out there on this subject and we will weigh in on the matter.

And that's coming up in a very short amount of time.

Before I get to that, I just want to comment on the turning of the calendar into the first official month of summer.

That, of course, being June here in the Northern hemisphere.

I know that I have been very much looking forward to it.

We've had a bit of a wet, cold spring here in Colorado, which is a little bit unusual.

But is making for a nice greening of the plains and of the hills around Denver, which is nice.

But I know that the dry and warm air is soon to come.

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks when Ironman Boulder 70.3 is going to be the first race of my own season.

But I know that many others have started their season already, be it a couple of months ago back in Oceanside, or more recently as races have started to tick off in a little more frequency.

Now as we get into June, we're going to start seeing more and more races and one of the longtime Tridark Podcast listeners put a question in the Tridark Podcast private Facebook group and if you're not a member, I hope that you will consider becoming one.

But if you are, then you may have seen the question that was posted there and it had to do with the unfortunately all too frequent cancellations of SWMS that we've been seeing.

Just in the last couple of weeks we saw that Ironman Chattanooga 70.3 had to cancel their swim, and then this past weekend, Victoria 70.3 also had to cancel their swim for different reasons.

In Victoria, it was an algae growth problem in Elk Lake, and then in Chattanooga, recent rainfalls resulted in very heavy flow in the river and that was bringing a lot of detritus, a lot of downed trees into the river and making it dangerous to have the swim there.

But this particular listener wanted to know out of a sense of frustration, I think something that we've all felt for those of us who've been in races that more and more are seeing their swims cancelled.

Does Ironman owe us something?

Are we entitled to some kind of refund?

Or should Ironman pony up and say, hey, listen, you know, you signed up for a triathlon, we're not able to deliver on that.

Do we owe you something?

Now, before I opine and give my own answer to this question, I would be really interested to know what you think.

So I hope that you will consider leaving a comment in the Facebook post that I'm going to start on this subject.

But even if you don't, I will share with you my own feeling on this.

And that is that while I 100% understand the frustration, because I have been now several times, it's always disappointing and I think it's really, really disappointing for people who are there for their first ever event, especially if it's an Ironman.

If you go for an Ironman and your swim is canceled, I think that I can really understand how frustrating that is.

But to expect that Ironman somehow owes something back to the athletes I think is probably asking a bit much.

There's the legal question which can you sue them for example?

And we all know we sign away a lot of those rights and you know, given the fact that these swims are not being canceled because of any malfeasance by Ironman itself most of in fact every swim that I know has been cancelled has been cancelled because of weather related issues, water quality type issues, things that really mandate Ironman to have to do the right thing and keep athletes safety first and foremost and therefore they have to cancel the swim.

And let's not forget when they haven't cancelled the swim and the water conditions have maybe kind of called for it, they've gotten in trouble, right?

I mean we've seen deaths in Utah in the past and most recently in Cork, Ireland when clearly the water conditions were such that people should not have been swimming.

Ironman did not cancel the swim and very bad things resulted.

So for a while there I think Ironman had a bit of a hair trigger to cancel.

I think they've kind of gotten to a better balance now where they really take consideration to what the local authorities are saying and they are very, very plugged in and tied into those people who really know and should have a say in this kind of thing.

And I feel like when they've made cancellations it's always been for good reason.

Now if Ironman was making cancellation because of something they did wrong like they didn't get a permit, they didn't get enough watercraft, they didn't get bring the buoys, you know, they just forgot the buoys that would be a different situation, that would be their fault.

And I think in that situation yes I think we would be owed something.

The kind of moral or not really ethical but I mean just the feels about the whole thing is yeah sure I think we'd all like Ironman to do something for us when this happens but I mean realistically I don't think they have any obligation to and I can't see that anything is going to happen now when an entire race gets cancelled as did was the case in Mont Tremblant a couple years ago I was at start line, the race was cancelled my minutes before it was supposed to start.

Ironman was amazing.

Very quickly they offered full refunds or transfers to other races or signing up at the same race the next year for free.

I mean there was a lot of different options.

So Ironman I think does do a pretty good job when a race is canceled.

But when the swim itself is canceled, I don't think they really owe us anything.

And I don't think that there's really much that they should have to do.

But again, as I said, I understand where the question is coming from.

I feel that same sense of frustration and unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be the last.

I think we're going to see a lot of swims canceled because as climate change continues to really take root, we're going to see water temperatures, rising water quality, poor rains, torrential rains like we had around Chattanooga, leading to river issues.

So unfortunately, this is probably going to become more frequent and not less.

And yeah, I think we're all going to have to just learn to deal with it.

Well, what do you think?

Again, I would love to hear your thoughts, love to see your comments, head over to Facebook, look for the Tridoc podcast, answer the three easy questions.

If you're not already a member, I will gain you admittance and I would love to see your comments there.

And let's have a conversation about it.

But for now, let's talk potatoes as endurance fuel.

Medical mailbag coming right up.

Hey, Juliet, welcome back.

It's.

It's always good to see you.

I know you were up in Victoria with a bunch of life sport athletes.

You had a good weekend up there.

It's true, it's true.

I feel like I've been shot out of a gun a little bit.

Yeah.

I got back late last night.

Victoria, it's one of our big team races.

We had, I think about 15 athletes racing.

A life sport athlete won the overall women, which is great.

Oh, I was wondering about that.

I saw the post and she wasn't wearing a life sport kit, so I didn't know.

No.

Coached by Brent McMahon, which is great.

Oh, that's terrific.

Then we had an age group.

We had a couple of wins and a couple of seconds and some world qualifications.

And most importantly, of course, everybody just had a great day out there.

The weather was beautiful.

The swim was canceled.

So it was a time fast start.

Yes.

But everybody pivoted well and just had great days.

And it's just fun.

It's just a fun, fun weekend for everybody.

That raises the point that I touched on very briefly in the opening before this segment.

This segment, by the way, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is the medical Mailbag.

The segment when I'm joined by my friend and colleague Juliette Hockman.

We've just gotten right into our usual banter, but introduce it before this Segment in my opening, I talked about how one of our listeners, who someone who you met actually at the race, had written a post on the private Facebook group, was asking the question or really seeking out other people's thoughts about.

With so many swim cancellations, does Ironman owe us anything?

Is we'd be refunded something.

And you and I talked briefly about this yesterday and I've given my thoughts.

I could just summarize them briefly.

And that is essentially.

No, I don't think they do.

I certainly understand that.

You know, we sign up for triathlon, everybody wants to swim, bike, run.

When it doesn't happen, we feel somewhat disappointed.

But at the end of the day, unless it's Ironman's fault, which it so far has never actually been, I don't think it's really fair to assume that they owe us anything.

But what are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I feel like it's in those insurance policies.

When you have all those exclusions which are acts of God, what is that?

Force mayor or something?

Yeah, look, Ironman organizes great races.

The logistics that go into creating these races are huge, as we all know.

And if they've got a algae in the water, they can't do anything about that.

If they've got water volume coming down the river too fast, bringing logs and other flotsam with it, they can't do anything about that.

No, I don't think that Ironman, as you said, unless it's their fault, like they don't have enough volunteers or something like that.

No, I don't think Iron man owes us anything.

It's just unfortunate, that's all.

And actually, someone was arguing this morning.

I went to masterswim this morning and someone was saying, why couldn't they just switch it to another lake in the area?

And I thought, oh my goodness, are you kidding?

At the last minute, all those road closures and permits and they spend a year putting all that together and to just pivot to another lake and then changing the entire bike course, a lot.

Of places don't even have that option.

Right?

No, that's.

Victoria does.

Yeah.

When you're in Chattanooga and you're planning in swimming down river, not like they can just pivot to anywhere else.

No, but the ironic thing is that there are four or five lakes in the Victoria area and we all.

There were probably 80 of us who swam on the Friday morning in a lake nearby, probably 15 minutes away from the race lake.

And it was completely fine, it was beautifully clear.

And so it's just, it's Just a bummer that, that one lake.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You mentioned to me the idea that maybe Ironman could compensate people somehow with just a goodwill sort of gesture.

Yeah, maybe.

Although I don't know if I'm totally sold on it.

What we were talking about yesterday is maybe Iron man could give like 50 bucks towards the next race registration just to say thank you.

And it wouldn't hurt the business really if they had $50.

It might even drive registration, I don't know.

Or you were suggesting maybe a coupon for the merch in the store.

Yeah, yeah.

Something like that is a goodwill gesture.

Pretty simple to do logistically.

But again, I don't think that they owe us anything.

I agree, I agree.

But I also, having been affected by this many to 100%, understand the frustrations of.

And especially for a lot of people, for who?

It's their first event, they show up and the swim gets canceled.

They feel like they didn't do the whole thing and I get it.

So anyways, on the other hand, how many athletes out of the 1800 who were registered for Victoria would have were sights that the swim was canceled?

Probably a bunch, right?

Oh, and even for Chattanooga, I had an athlete racing and when he heard it was canceled, he's, oh, good.

I could just not pack my wetsuit.

It just makes it easier.

And he wasn't thrilled about the swim.

Yeah, I think there are.

There is that side of things too.

Okay, let's get to our medical question because I think it's a good one today.

This is a question that doesn't come from a reader.

It comes from me reading something in the Washington Post a few weeks ago and I think you may have heard about this.

Juliet, have you seen or heard anything about people using potatoes as.

Oh, for sure, yeah.

Yeah.

You probably have athletes who have baked little sort of those little oven roasted potatoes for Ironman events and they put them in their bento box and they eat them.

Honestly, personally, 100% I have not.

And if they did, and if they did, I'd be like, really?

That just doesn't.

Or they'll put mashed potatoes into some kind of a squeezy like the thing you might make icing out of, and they'll do mashed potatoes.

I can't imagine it.

But some people, their heart rate's low enough, they're out there for a long time, they don't want to.

It's a potential mess.

Well, that's what I'm thinking.

Maple syrup is hard enough, let alone mashed potatoes.

All over you.

Yeah, I know.

But no, as a total aside, I love untapped, the maple syrup.

Untapped?

Yeah.

There's two.

There's untapped and there's another one too.

There's one in Canada, which I think is untapped, and then there's one which is in the United States.

There's two different companies that do the maple syrup.

I'll have to try both because I could.

I cannot get enough of the maple syrup.

But the first time I opened up one of the pockets, no, it didn't explode.

I thought it was a gel, so.

And I put it in my mouth and I squeezed and I was running and I was running.

And so I'm thinking I'm going to get like this maple gel and maple syrup just went shooting down the back of my throat if you don't.

I stopped cold and I was just.

Like gagging and coughing for.

Exactly.

Word to from the wise.

Yeah, the untapped.

The packets, they're not gels.

They're just a hundred percent pure maple syrup.

It is the first of all, it's amazing, but it's.

It can be a mess.

And don't think it.

Take it slow.

You.

When you're on the bike and you're doing it with one hand in your teeth, you have to do it carefully because if you're squeezing it even just a little bit, it's gonna go up your nose and down your.

And all over your hands and then you've got sticky.

But they also.

They have them with.

With like coffee flavored.

They have.

They've all different kinds, not just straight syrup.

It can get pretty sweet too.

And their waffles are to die for.

But anyways, okay, we have totally lost the plot here.

Potatoes.

There was an article in the Washington Post in May of this year, early May, and it was called Powered by Potatoes.

Endurance athletes are chasing speed with spuds.

And I thought, first of all, besides the mellifluous name of the article, I thought, yeah, very clever alliteration right there.

And I thought, wow, that's great.

I'm gonna read this.

And I read it and I thought, this sounds very familiar because I've seen here and there this will come out.

There'll be an article in Triathlete or an article on.

Somebody will start a thread on Slow Twitch or something about how potat are their go to.

And I always poo poo the idea because I'm like, seriously, who wants to carry like.

So we used to go on these canoe trips.

I'm Going to go on another tangent.

Here we go.

Canoe trips in Algonquin park in Ontario.

There was amazing.

A whole bunch of us would go.

And we'd have to portage all of our gear from one lake to the other.

And I could remember doing this portage, five kilometer portage.

And our buddy Dan, he was in charge of.

He was like the.

What's the guy in the.

Yeah, what's the guy in the army who puts together all the mess?

But there's a.

There's a name of a specific.

Someone out there is going to know.

Justin.

He'll know.

He's a military guy.

Okay, bring it back.

Here we go.

Yeah.

So we're carrying all these very heavy packs and one pack in particular is so heavy.

And we're like, Dan, what is in this pack?

He's oh, that's the bag of potatoes.

And we're like, what's this for?

He's oh, dinner on the last night we're going to have potatoes.

And we're like, no, we're having that breakfast tomorrow.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

He was very upset.

But we were all much quartermaster, by the way.

That's the quartermaster.

So, yes, we ate our potatoes and therefore we did not have to carry as many pounds of potatoes anymore.

But who wants to carry all these potatoes on their bike or in their pockets or in an icing thing or whatever.

Still, here's this article in the Washington Post making me think maybe there's something to this idea.

So Nina Takeshima, our valiant intern, she dove into this.

She brought colander in hand, potato peeler, off she went.

And turns out there's quite a bit of literature on this.

And basically, I'm going to tell you what the literature said first before I tell you about what I think and what she thought were actually the most hysterical part about the whole thing.

But all right, the literature on this is actually not quite as good as you might believe.

The article in the Washington Post is basically saying, hey, potatoes are amazing.

They have more potassium than bananas.

They are packed with calories in the form of starches, which are great because they take longer to metabolize, longer to break down.

So you have this continuous source of fuel.

Long lasting, fast acting.

Sorry, Long lasting, fast absorbing carbohydrates.

Ultra runners will frequently use chicken broth and make a mixture of mashed potatoes with chicken broth.

So they have this saltiness and I'm like, cold mashed potatoes with cold chicken broth.

It just does not sound appetizing.

No.

Probably the age stations.

It's hot.

But anyway, no, apparently people are carrying this stuff cold.

But anyway, listen, it doesn't matter.

The article went on to make it sound like this was just like Madonna from heaven.

Ultra runners, especially.

And you can mix it with miso broth and butter and all kinds of great ways to get more calories.

So, sounds great.

A lot of what was written about in this lay article in the Washington Post comes from a scientific article published in 2021 by a gentleman by the name of Amedeo Salvador, the PhD.

Excuse me, it was 2019.

Amadeo Salvador, 2019.

He published it in the journal Physiology.

And it was.

Potato ingestion is as effective as carbohydrate gels to support prolonged cycling performance, which, again, sounds fantastic.

And basically, he had a pretty small study.

12 cyclists had them ride, compared fueling with potatoes to fueling with gels.

And this was one of the first studies.

I can't say it's one of the first studies, but it was one of the better studies that showed that if you eat real food, like whole food, does a good job of reducing gut inflammation.

And we've seen this in the cycling world much more than in triathlon.

So, for example, if you're familiar with Alan Lim from scratch, he's worked with a lot of cycling teams, and he has a lot of his teams fuel with whole food in the form of rice.

So he'll make these sticky rice cakes and impregnate them with berries and nuts and egg and all this stuff, and so that they can get their carbohydrates instead of in potato form in the form of rice.

And I've actually tried a few of his rice cakes and they're pretty good.

They're hard to kind of carry around.

That's the problem.

I have this cookbook and they look great, but they're hard to carry around.

Yeah, they are great.

They're hard to carry around.

What they're great for is if you've got a car, a team car, driving along, then they hand you up the rice cakes, which is what happens in professional cycling, but does not happen in trash.

It doesn't go well in the bento box.

It shakes around.

And then you've got a thousand grains of rice.

Exactly, exactly.

But all of this to say that potatoes, whole foods, do a good job of not only giving you fuel, but helping your gut work as it should, and therefore having less gut inflammation as opposed to just pounding it with all of these simple and some complex carbohydrates and then hoping for the best.

So that's Why I tell athletes it's always a good idea to mix in some real food.

It doesn't have to be in potato or rice form.

I take waffles, for example.

Some people will have bars.

Whatever, it is just food because I think it makes your gut work better.

At any rate, this study from 2019 saying that looks like potatoes worked pretty well.

And in his study, it didn't actually show that the cyclists did better eating potatoes.

It just showed that their gut inflammation was a little bit better.

And so he was suggesting that in some potatoes were better.

Unfortunately, this hasn't been borne out really in other studies.

Other studies, Cantor and Elkin Also in 2019, potato as a source of nutrition for physical performance.

And they found that potatoes did a fine job.

They found that potatoes contain a lot of vitamins, which I think we know potatoes contain a lot of good things, but that people who use potatoes when they are training do basically as well as if they're taking gel.

So there's no true benefit.

Males and females exhibit similar muscle glycogen recovery with varied recovery food sources.

In 2020.

This looks more at people who've done an extensive hard workout and then what do they fuel with after the fact?

And it turns out if you have some potatoes after that can really help with rebuilding your glycogen.

But we know this.

If you have chocolate milk, we've talked about that.

It's another example of getting a variety of different sources of your protein and carbohydrates.

A protein isolate stimulates muscle protein synthesis at rest and with resistance exercise in young women.

Nina felt it important to include this study because it's one of the few that we've seen on exercise in Women alone from 2020, and showed that if you take potato protein isolated actually works really well to help when you're doing resistance exercise to actually maintain muscle protein, which we thought was pretty cool.

So the long and the short of all of this was that potatoes do work pretty well as a fuel source.

The big negative, the major drawback is that potatoes cause way more gastrointestinal distress.

And you can come on anybody who's been to a family gathering and like ch down on the mashed potatoes, you know what it's like having them sit there.

That's kind of.

Yeah, but come on.

It usually is because you have mashed potatoes and meat and gravy and all the things.

I don't know if it's the mashed potatoes alone.

I'm not saying it's suggesting it's the mashed potatoes.

Alone.

But the mashed potatoes are definitely part of it.

Mashed potatoes, Potatoes.

Listen, I love baked potatoes.

I love potatoes in pretty much any form.

And I should point out because we were chuckling about this, this is not french fries.

Like, as much as we would like to think, like the fast food versions of potatoes, of which there are many potato chips, who knows how many fried.

Crinkle cut, tater tot.

None of those.

None of those.

This is all steamed potatoes, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes after.

Not oven roasted potatoes, because those would be the easiest to eat.

Oven roasted.

Could be, but again, you know, you can't carry them hot.

You can't carry them hot.

They're gonna be carried cold.

Yeah, it'd still be easier to eat than mashed potatoes out there.

Yeah.

Well, look, the long and short of it is yet, yes, potatoes do work well as an endurance fuel, but they don't work any better than traditional gels or sport fuels.

And they have significant GI distress for a lot of people, not everybody.

You will see people up and down swearing that potatoes did wonders for them.

And that's great.

I do want to point out, however, what I think is probably the best part that came out of this for us was that I have spoken before.

I've spoken before about how you have to be really careful when reading medical literature about a few things, like how big was the study relevant to what was actually being studied?

Did it use placebos or was it comparing against something else?

Did it.

Was it sponsored by the manufacturer of whatever.

And many times we've said, oh, this supplement.

All of the studies were funded by the supplement manufacturer.

Here we are researching this stuff on potatoes, thinking that can't possibly be the case, only to find out, no, big potato, it's a conspiracy.

Big Potato has their thumb on the scales of every single one of these studies.

So the article in the Washington Post quotes a campaign called the Potatoes Fuel Performance Campaign launched by Potatoes usa, a national marketing and research group, which is a potato industry funded study or group.

Sorry.

And then every single study we found was somehow tied to some other.

I couldn't believe how many potato industry lobbyists lobby groups there were and how well funded they are.

It's incredible.

So there was.

What was that one?

That was Potatoes usa.

And then we found another one.

And then we found another one.

I kept saying, how, what is it?

It's gotta be based in Idaho somewhere.

It's.

What's the other group called?

The other group also had a funny name.

It was like Spuds Turkel.

You know, whatever.

I mean, spuds probably stands for something, say potatoes under droughts.

It was just up and down.

Every single study that had anything good to say about potatoes was funded by the people who grow, harvest, sell, market, whatever.

The potatoes themselves, which doesn't, as I've said before, doesn't make the research completely invalid, but definitely makes you wonder if they've got an ulterior motive and therefore really trust it.

So I was a little discouraged to find out that Big Potato.

Big Potato was, was tilting the scales here of money and potatoes in their favor.

So anyways, I could go on.

Boy, as if the conspiracy theorists haven't got enough to think about, now we have to worry about Big Potato.

Yeah, yeah.

And who knows what they're doing out there.

I really wanted to bring on.

I couldn't find it.

My kids used to have a Mr.

Potato.

Yeah, I was going to have them.

I was going to have him lurking over here with his evil look anyways.

But I think the take home here is, look, if you're one of those people who finds that you use potatoes and they work for you by all means, there is certainly evidence to suggest that they're good for you.

They contain a lot of vitamins, which is not at all important for our racing, but hey, overall nutrition, why not?

And yeah, you're going to get a sustained, easily absorbed carbohydrate, which is going to help during a race.

Sure.

As long I would suggest you mix it with a broth type thing because then you're going to get salt as well or mix it with salt.

How are you going to eat that on the bike?

I have no idea.

That's the thing and that's what I keep coming back to because gels pack a lot of carbohydrates into a small package.

Right.

So those packs of gels is basically 25 grams of carbohydrates in little package.

A potato, it's a large item.

The potato itself is 75% water.

So you're not actually getting.

When you're carrying around a potato, you're mostly carrying water.

Do you know what the carb value is of a potato?

Yeah.

So it's.

Hang on, gotta make it bigger on my screen here.

See it, because I, you know how it is with these agents.

If I were to between now and our next podcast experiment and bake a potato and take it with me on a ride.

But of course, I'm counting carbs and calories on every ride, as one does, to make sure that there's enough Fuel.

How much?

What's the carb value of that baked potato?

Okay, approximately each potato.

Oh, come on, we can google this faster than you can look it up.

Well, yeah, because you know what?

They're not, they're not giving it to me here, but Nina found a paper that said how much it was.

How many carbs In a potato?

26 grams of carbohydrate.

So a medium potato is 26 grams of carbohydrate.

So 100 calories.

Yeah.

So one gel pack versus a medium potato.

That's the problem.

And that really is the rate limiting step here.

Like when you consider that you should be taking in.

Not everybody can do it, but if you could be taking in 60 to 80 grams of carbohydrate an hour on the bike, are you really going to be taking in that many potatoes?

I could see.

I don't know about you, but I know that I.

If we were to quantify how many hours we spend racing versus how many hours we spend training and for sure, for racing we want the easily digestible non gi bothering product.

And of course we have to practice that as well.

For sure.

But if we're talking about like a mid winter ride and you're months away from racing so you don't really have to dial in your race nutrition yet.

I don't know about you, but I'm taking muffins, cookies, cold pizza, sandwiches.

I'm out there riding for three or four hours.

I'm not taking gels in the middle of the winter when I'm miles away from the race.

So my point is that you could take potatoes if you're just as something different from all those darn gels and chews.

Also bars and all the things.

There's also the point I made about interspersing real food with your gels if you want to have one potato as opposed to making your whole.

Oh no.

For strategy about potatoes, maybe have one potato in some form and one potato, two potatoes.

So have one potato.

It's endless.

You could have one potato in part as part of your or rice.

Right.

Rice is another source of complex carbohydrates and another even harder to carry.

Sticky rice.

Not so bad.

But yes, between now and our next podcast, I will take a potato on a ride.

I've never done it and I'll report back on how easy it was to eat, how well it went down as sort of his own 2, 3 effort.

And it's a TikTok video just waiting to be made because oh my gosh.

Then I'D have to film with one hand and eat with the other hand.

Well, no, I mean, it would have to be filmed by somebody else because you could run through like all of the ways it went wrong.

Oh, the potato's too hot and then the potato is like too dry.

Or there's just so many, you know, the mashed potato everywhere.

I mean, there's just so many things that could go wrong.

And I just think about some of these people who record these TikTok videos.

And Joe Wilson, he'd be great.

He should totally do this.

I should set him up to make one of his reels eating potato in.

In all the different ways and see how it could work and not work.

So, okay.

Anyways, I think we have sufficed our potato itch for now.

I'm sure we buried the potato.

Yeah, I'd be really interested to know.

I have no more eyes for this potato conversation.

There you go.

There you go.

We've peeled it right down to its gore.

Totally half baked conversation.

Are you one of the people out there who is using potatoes as part of your nutrition strategy?

I think we would really like to hear about it.

I know that everybody else on the private Facebook group on, Geez, I can't even say it right because there's too many words, but the Tridoc podcast private Facebook group on that platform would love to hear about it.

So why don't you go on there and let us know.

And if you're not a member of that group, you really should be.

So just to answer the three easy questions, we will grant you admittance.

We would love to see you on there.

We would love to hear your questions for a future medical mailbag, and we would love to hear about your race experiences.

Where are you at, Victoria?

Do you have something coming up?

Just get on there, start the conversation.

We'd love to have you on board.

If you have a question for us that you would prefer to send in, just send me an email tridocloud.com and maybe you'll hear it answered here on a future segment.

Juliet, always a pleasure.

Yeah, pleasure.

And one thing to go out with.

So it was such a delight at Victoria this last weekend.

I was there.

Jeff was not there.

That wasn't the delightful part.

The delightful part was that I had a couple of people come up and say, oh, yeah, you're.

I know you.

I listen to the podcast and sort of heads up, Jeff and I.

But more importantly, Jeff will be at Oregon as well as Washington this year, as well as Boulder, which is coming up even sooner.

So if you listen to the podcast and you like what we do, please go find Jeff.

He's very easy to find.

He's an incredibly handsome, very bald man.

So go find him, tell him you like the podcast, tell him what you like, what you don't like, what we could do better, all the things because we do like hearing from all of you.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

I 100% echo that.

Thanks for making that comment.

All right guys, it was a great conversation.

We look forward to the next segment.

In a couple weeks time.

Take care, Juliette.

Bye Jeff.

Woo.

My guest on the podcast today is Philip Billikov.

He is a Chilean born endurance athlete, a coach and an entrepreneur who's based in San Diego, California.

He's originally though from Santiago in Chile, where he grew up in a family passionate about road cycling and that laid the foundation for his lifelong involvement in sports.

After initially pursuing a career in banking of all things, he transitioned into the world of endurance sports and becoming a competitive triathlete and coach.

Philip has competed in numerous multi sport events including the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, the Ironman 70.3 World Championships and the Marathon Desables.

Notably, he has raced Ironman events on every continent.

As a coach, Philip co founded Mana.

I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Mana.

Yeah.

Today M and A coaching because it.

Doesn'T emerge mna coaching and beyond coaching.

He co founded Mana Apparel, a brand that reflects his commitment to the endurance sports community.

His multifaceted career showcases dedication to excellence in both athletic performance and mentorship.

We're going to talk about all of that and more.

Philip, thank you for much for.

Thank you so much for joining me today on the Tridarc podcast.

It's a pleasure to have here.

Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So tell me a little bit about your early career.

How'd you go from the world of finance and banking into multi sport and multi sport clothing Apparel?

Yeah.

So.

Well, it's a long story.

How to really summarize.

We have time.

We have time.

Like you said, my family comes from more than a road cycling background.

They're super into cyclo touring.

So basically when I turned seven, my dad took me to Scandinavia and we did cyclo touring.

Like the bike with the panniers and not like today, like the Arab?

No, basically like a huge ton of bags in the bag and almost like a truck.

Like a huge.

And with our tent and everything.

So we cycled all across Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany.

When I was Seven in a tandem bike.

And it was his passion.

It is his passion.

And after that, he made it a tradition.

So each time one of his.

His next, which was my sister, turned seven, he took her and then my brother.

And now he has seven kids.

So you can imagine how many places in the world he's traveled with all of them.

And then my cousin started doing this.

So it's just like a family kind of thing where we'd go for vacations and our summer vacations to different parts of the world.

Africa, New Zealand, South America, Europe, and just tour around with panniers and sleep wherever we found a place.

And it was quite an adventure.

There's a big cycling culture within my family.

And then a lot of, you know, my family members started doing road cycling.

There's great mountain biking and road cycling in Santiago, just because it's the longest country in the world.

And the Andes pretty much go from north to south.

So you have a huge mountain range where you can find great road biking, mountain biking, whatnot.

I was doing quite a bit of cycling, mostly to prepare for these trips and whatnot.

And for.

I started when I started working.

My time was limited, right.

I couldn't just go and ride 3, 4, 5 a day like I did when I was in school.

So I started running.

And I would run before going to work.

I would wake up very early, run and just go to work and see if I could ride in the afternoon.

And I started really enjoying it, and I started really feeling I was pretty decent at it.

So I signed up for a half marathon.

And I think I went 127 in my first half marathon without having any idea of what I was doing.

Like, just.

I was just running all the time, hard, long, just going for it.

Sure.

Just throw out the 127 half marathon without even trying.

And then I signed up for a marathon and I went 301.

So almost something.

Okay, I like this.

I enjoy it.

It's pretty natural for me.

And then I was like, why don't I do a triathlon?

It always intrigued me.

The typical.

I don't want to get all romantic with the whole Kona story, but it's the truth.

Like the whole Iron man video in Kona.

That's something.

I was always like, one day, like, I might want to do this, but it was something, like, too far away.

It's like, how do I.

The typical story, right?

How are you going to ride 112 miles and then run a marathon?

Right?

So I was like, okay, I need to start swimming.

And literally no swim background.

I knew how to swim in a pool in the ocean, but never really did any swimming classes.

And I started swimming everything on my own.

And yeah, up to today it's still the one of the discipline that I'm still trying to figure out 10 years after, like I'm still like so many of us.

Exactly.

But yeah, that's how I got started.

And I signed up for a half marathon in Uruguay in Punta Leste, that was my first one.

And then immediately I got hooked and then signed up for the most important event in Chile, which is a 70.3 in Pukon, which is a event with a lot of history, a lot of top level pros from Mark Allen to Chris McCormack and even the recent days, Sam Long or Lionel go there because it's such an iconic and beautiful race.

And then I just got obsessed with it, right.

So started really doing a lot of halves in the Latin American region.

And at the time I was working in fintech, right, banking like you mentioned.

And I got an offer to move to London to set up the whole company there in the uk.

So I moved there.

I was already doing triathlon.

I had done probably in a year and a half, like 7 or 8, 70.3 so I got pretty hooked on it and I got there and I qualified for my first 70.3 world championship, right?

So I thought I was the king of the world.

I qualified to the World Championship, blah blah, blah.

And I was coaching myself.

I didn't have an idea what I was doing, but I enjoyed it.

I had my Excel sheet back in the day, like no training peaks, doing my own thing.

And that's when I decided let's do a full right, let's try it out.

So I did Ironman South Africa, that was my first full about.

This was2017 I think of us.

So maybe eight years ago and I did pretty well.

I almost went sub 10 with a flat.

So again I was pretty stoked and again this just confirmed that I was doing things the right way.

But in reality I wasn't.

I had no idea what I was doing.

So I kept on training with the way that I was doing things was just volume, intensity, volume intensity all the time.

No set intervals, no recovery sessions, no nothing aside from that.

And naturally I got injured.

So I went to the World Championship in Chattanooga that year, 2017 and then I had signed up for Malaysia and I went into the race injured and that was my first and hopefully knock on wood last dnf.

And I learned my lesson pretty well, after that race, and I said, this sucks.

Like, I don't want to deal with this anymore.

So I got a coach, and that coach happened to be Reese Barkley, Lucy's partner and former coach at the time.

So that was really a game changer for me, like, going from not knowing what I was doing to training sometimes even with them in person, with at the time the second best triathlete in the world now probably the best we could say in.

In long distance, of course.

So that was really a big change for me.

And the more and more I got into triathlon, the more and more I was super decided that I didn't want to continue doing what I was doing.

It never really filled me, like working in finance.

It was just like I ended up being there for just reasons in life.

Yeah, I.

One day I was super.

I wasn't happy at all with what I was doing.

And one day I met with Eric Ming from Zwift in London, and I was trying to get a job.

Like, basically I was trying to get him to hire me.

And I told him, like, yeah, I'm not happy doing this.

Like, I want to transition to, like, endurance sports.

And he said, look, if I have one piece of advice, do it now.

Like, you're.

I think I was 29 at that time.

And he was like, I used to work in.

I can't remember, it's Morgan Stanley or big multinational bank.

And he was like, I did it and it was super late.

And my piece of advice is, you're going to do it now.

You're young.

You're.

You have time.

So I took that advice and I literally just quit working in the finance industry.

I have an American nationality as well.

Chilean and American.

So I decided to move to the US no job, no plans, no nothing.

Literally scouting for places with nice weather because I was sick of the London weather.

And I said, okay, Los Angeles south, because it's nice sunny, and that's what I want.

So I picked Oceanside, probably because of the 70.3.

No, it really is because it was one of the most affordable beach towns at the time.

And I knew There was a 70.3 there, so there had to be decent training.

And I moved here and started the coaching business.

So that's how I got started.

And you know, of course, I had been already coaching a few people just for fun, because I liked it.

I really started getting involved in this while I was training with Reece.

It was something that I always.

I was really intrigued because it was a game changer for me.

Just Going from not knowing to what I was doing to actually understanding the science behind training and doing things properly.

So it's interesting a few of the things that you commented on.

Clearly for somebody who didn't know what you were doing, you were going very fast all the same.

And I'm saying didn't know what you were doing with air quotes because let's face it, not many people who don't know what they're doing can go sub 10 in an Ironman.

And despite not knowing what you were doing, you obviously had a lot of just great talent and a lot of genetics that were allowing you to go as fast as you were.

But you ran into that wall that a lot of people will if they're not training smart.

So not that surprising since you've gotten smarter about it.

What kind of times and what kind of results have you had?

Well, to be honest, I never gone sub nine in an Ironman.

I think it's something I definitely can do.

It's just my goal on a year to year basis is I like to have small goals.

Like right now I want to go sub 80 minutes in a 70.3 run.

So I have small goals to keep it engaging.

But for me in reality if I qualify to 70.3 worlds and Kona or Ironman Worlds these days because it changes from St.

George to Nice and back to Kona, that's already a win for me.

That's what I'm looking for.

I want to try and be as competitive as I can but.

And try to podium on most races and be up there.

But in reality I work a lot and yeah, that's my passion.

It's hard, right?

It's hard to have a normal life and put in the requisite amount of training to be able to do all of that.

I train a lot.

Don't mistake me on that one.

But the thing is I'm obsessed with my business as well.

It's my passion.

And the thing is if I'm.

If I'm not training I'm working and I sometimes I work until.

Sometimes I'll ride five or six hours on a Friday.

But that means I'm working until 11pm on a Friday and working on the weekends.

So I think that really makes a difference where some people are resting and they check off and that the big component where.

And today I don't really need that.

For me, if I can be competitive enough and keep growing my business, that's where I'm going to.

That's where if you're finding enjoyment out of the results you're getting and finding enjoyment from the other part of your life, then it's a win win.

So how much of your business is the coaching and how much of it is the apparel?

We started with a coaching business actually a month before the pandemic.

So rough start.

But naturally, even though we were super scared when we started, we put pretty much all our eggs into this basket is a lot of people.

And especially because we are a global coaching business.

Many places that had a real lockdown, real lockdown couldn't leave their apartments for six months unless they needed to walk their dog to go for a pee.

Many runners or many athletes turn into cycling or triathlon just because indoor cycling was the only option they had.

So that was really like a big opportunity for us where we started growing and we really dived deep into making sure we were targeting all these, you know, people that couldn't really go out and train and meet other people and whatnot.

Yeah, our coaching business like today, flows pretty much on its own.

We have a group of 14 coaches in different parts of the world, athletes from literally every corner of the world, from Australia to Middle east to Latin America to Europe and obviously super concentrated here in the US but it's athletes from all over the world.

And then the apparel business we launched in 2022.

And that basically to your question before, why or how did this come across?

It was a necessity.

So I really found, I said after working with, I'm not going to name but of course quite a few apparel brands in the industry.

It was a pain in the ass.

That was a real, that's the only way to phrase it, like it was a nightmare quality.

They'd send you the worst quality, like not what they sell in their retail store.

So basically club quality.

Horrible.

Like it would start breaking apart in a month, two months when you start washing it.

Designs were terrible.

The design limitations were it was super limited.

So you didn't have a whole ton of options, timings, people.

Companies would say, yeah, 45 days and it would be three months in pricing.

Pricing was just insane.

And the more and more I've gotten into this business and of course understand it inside out, I just can't believe, you know how some companies go and charge close to a thousand bucks or 700, 800 bucks for a tri suit.

Right.

When in reality the materials are exactly the same.

I understand because we are such a data driven company and performance driven company that there's a component basically of if you're testing, constantly testing, which you should, because if you don't do that today.

If you're not improving, if you're not going with technology, you die.

That's just the reality.

Right.

And if you don't invest in that, you're not gonna grow or go with the flow of how things are going.

Now, obviously that has a price to be integrated, but I just think it's irrational to charge that amount for trisuit.

Right.

When the fabrics are essentially the same.

So that's one of our.

We have four key pillars, which are great designs, great quality, fast turnaround times, and fair pricing.

So that one's really important for us.

Right.

If you check all of our pricing, we are probably below most brands and the quality, it's been tested in velodromes, wind tunnels, field testing with sensors, and we're testing faster than most brands anyways.

So that's how the business came about.

I just couldn't believe how there wasn't a lot of seriousness and professionalism in the people running these brands.

And I think this.

I come across this so much in the triathlon industry all the time.

And when you look ahead, do you see any kind of major changes to apparel in triathlon?

We've.

We.

I can't think of anything major changing in the last few years.

We had short, we had sleeveless, and then we had sleeves.

All of a sudden we've had some tinkering around the edges with ribbing and some of the materials to try and make them more aero.

But is there anything specific that we could look forward to or that you could think of that could make triathlon apparel more, I don't know, interesting or fancy?

So all the top brands today are testing and developing stuff that is fast, Right.

Or at least they claim that.

Right?

Yeah.

That's where.

That's what.

That's a trend right now.

You can develop a suit, like, we've met with multiple experts in the field, and you can meet in a wind tunnel, and you can put one of those track suits that are almost like Lycra, and it's basically like super, super tight.

And you look like a sausage.

Right.

And of course, you put that on and it fits so tight and so well that it's going to test fast.

That's.

I don't have a doubt about that.

And the biggest change to the biggest differentiating factor today, like, if you look at all the top brands in reality, what's going to make the difference is the fit.

Right.

If it fits well, that specific person.

Right.

And we'll dive a little bit deeper into that when it Comes to individual people rather than what's available from us to the masses.

But that's when it comes to aerodynamics, right?

So everybody's aiming to make a fast product.

Now if you make a fast product that doesn't breathe well, your race is done.

What's it?

I'll put it to you this way.

If you save 10 watts on the bike, or let's say you save three minutes or five minutes in a full distance, Ironman versus using one suit or the other, maybe five is too much, let's say three.

But then you have a suit that the breathability starts from the bike, right.

Because you might not feel it as much because you're going fast and you have winds and it's not as the real feel isn't as hot as when you're in the run.

But it's basically for the pros, four hours plus two and 30 these days.

So it's six hours and a half that you're grinding out with a suit that isn't breathable, which means your core temperature is elevating and then game over.

You know that once, yeah, you know once it's at a certain point that it's game over.

So the trade offs.

Right.

Or if you have a suit that fits super tight and then you can't swim because your shoulders are so restricted.

Exactly.

So that's an area that we are really diving deep into making sure that we are offering, we offer different options so all of our pros, they don't make one specific suit.

Right.

So first of all, it's a tailored fit approach which even the guy that just jumped from age grouper to the pro field can do this.

Right.

Or even you, if you want to get a custom suit and pay the price to get an individual custom suit, you'll get a tailor made suit with the fabrics you pick which will have recommendations from our experts.

So the team that basically manufactures this and then three, you can pick the features.

So let's say you don't want any back pockets and you want the inside pockets here for ice or for jellos because it's more aerodynamic and they hold well here for full distance racing, if you have all your nutrition on the bike, you don't need those back pockets which are small, but they are going to, it's going to aerodynamics, right.

So all that you can do and I think that really makes a difference to not only for top age groupers and pros, but really anybody that is looking for something comfortable that fits them well.

And even the guy that is doing a 7 and 15 hour 70.3.

If they can save 15 minutes, yeah, they're going to be happy with that.

Even the guys that are back of the pack athletes, everybody wants to go a little faster.

That's be comfortable free time.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's where we are going.

We're doing a lot of testing.

We're going to Silverstone in August.

We have some new stuff that we're going to be launching.

Some surprises and we do a lot of.

Huh, Surprises are good.

Exactly.

And we have a lot of independent testing.

We help our athletes also, like if they're going to the wind tunnel with their bike sponsor and we can pitch in a little money for testing a few things here and there.

And we also work together with Ghibli, which is the sensor that goes on your bike.

I don't know if you've heard about it.

No, it's a sensor.

Ghibli to me is an animation studio.

Well.

It'S a sensor that you put in your bike and essentially you can get real time data and different setups, tri suits, like whatever you want.

So a lot of some of the product development, we also go back to them and work together to make sure that we have some advice from somebody.

Externally that's super cool.

That all is.

It's so interesting to speak to someone who's so involved in their own business and knows all about what athletes want because they themselves are an athlete and is really in tune with what's going on the front lines and then the testing and everything else.

Yeah.

I wanted to go back to just something really we said right at the beginning of our conversation.

Being from Chile, and Chile being such a mountainous country.

I'm an avid fan of cycling and I may be betraying my ignorance here, but there's a lot of professional cyclists that come from south and Central America.

But I'm not familiar with any big names from Chile.

Is Chile just not a big cycling in terms of as a professional sport kind of country?

Certainly football, of course.

And I'm sure, I know that.

I'm sure there's many sports that are much very popular down there.

But is cycling just not one of them?

It is pretty popular, but you're right, most cyclists, I don't know.

Colombia, for example, has a huge cycling culture and great cyclists are coming from Colombia and even from ECU or recently.

It might have to do a little bit also.

I don't know.

I'm not quite sure how to answer that question right now.

I know there's Martin Vidaure, who's Chilean, who's sponsored by Specialized Pro team.

He's killing it in mountain bike.

Like killing it, but not necessarily road biking.

So, yeah, to be honest, I left Chile probably 10 years ago, so I'm not quite sure.

I wouldn't know how to answer that question specifically.

It is a pretty.

Especially mountain biking is a pretty popular sport.

I think there's not a lot of money into developing these athletes.

Like you said, soccer is the most popular.

Everybody plays soccer.

So, yeah, there is quite a bit of cycling, but I think it's more.

There's not enough money to develop these kind of sports.

And the triathlon in Pookon has been quite successful.

It's been going on now for quite some time.

And as you mentioned it, it has remained a fixture on the circuit.

So clearly there.

And of course there's been some pretty big names, like you have Bustos that play second in Kona against Mark Allen and then recently Barbara Riveros gone going to the Olympics, I think three or four times.

Super solid athlete.

But yeah, like there's not, I guess in Latin America, it's tricky.

Like, the opportunities is not the same.

Even in the US I feel like triathlon, unless you're like in the top five and really have a solid branding or brand for yourself as an athlete like Sam or Lionel, it's tricky.

It's tricky to have a career.

And especially in Latin America, like, the reality of those guys is completely different to some of the guys here and it is a disadvantage.

Yeah.

So we're both in the coaching business.

You with M and A coaching, me with LifeSport.

We were talking before we came on about the threat of AI, the company whose name sounds suspiciously like my own, the Tridoc.

Curious about whether or not you think AI has a role in coaching triathlon and whether or not you think that specific company represents the threat that I think it does to independent coaches in the world of triathlon right now.

So.

Okay, let's start with your second question regarding the threat.

I don't think I have enough information to really make a claim or comment on that specifically.

Now, when it comes to AI, I do think that if not the most important component to coaching is the real person.

Right.

Actually, the reason I'm coaching myself now, I've been working with.

I've had three amazing coaches that I've learned so much from and I apply so much of what I've learned from them in my coaching.

But I think in my case, like, I'm so obsessed with being on top of things and really making sure I'm available for my athletes.

And I think that's a component that you get with a person behind this, like with AI is just you can't really get that and have a conversation, et cetera, whenever your athletes need it.

It's something that you can't really get with AI.

I think I use AI for a ton of other things with my business, with both the coaching.

Sorry, with the apparel and the coaching, but not specifically to coach my athletes.

If I think that's something that's irreplaceable and.

Yeah, that's my opinion on it.

Yeah.

All right.

I think we're pretty much aligned on that, so that's cool.

What does the future hold?

You mentioned some surprises.

I won't ask you to divulge any of those, but what does the future hold for fellow Personally, what do you have coming up for you this year?

So I'm 70.3 main in a few months.

I just raced Taiwan about a month ago.

Iron Man Taiwan and then 70.3 main in a few months.

And then I have both world championships.

So Nice and Marbella and Spain.

70.3 World Championship.

Nice.

Well, that'll be a nice European fall.

A couple of nice locations.

Will you just Niece is October.

Is that right?

Nieces in October, September.

And I thought about it.

I usually do.

I did that two years ago when Finland and Nice were two weeks apart.

I spent two months in Europe.

But I have a lot of traveling.

Like we have a super aggressive Expo schedule this year.

We have a ton of.

I just can't afford to leave to Europe for two months and and not check off.

But I need to be present here in in a ton of things.

We'll be the business.

I will hopefully have a chance to earn opportunity to meet you.

Will you be here in Boulder for.

The camp that you guys 100?

Yeah, that's another thing.

We'll be in the camp there.

All right.

You never know.

Maybe we'll get a chance to run into each other there.

If not, maybe in Marbella.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to meet in person.

Philip Bilkoff is the owner of MNA Coaching and of Mana Endurance, is founder of both of those and he's a very successful age group triathlete.

I can't thank you enough for joining me and chatting about your experience, your history in the sport and about both of your companies.

It's really exciting and I wish you the best of continued success for both your personal exploits and for the companies as well.

Thank you so much for having me and we'll be in touch.

Definitely Swing bye by the camp.

My name is Stephanie Van Bever and I am a proud Patreon Supporter of the Tridock Podcast the Tridock Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Sankoff, along with his amazing interns Cosette Rhodes and Nina Takeshima.

You can find the show notes for everything discussed on the show today, as well as archives of previous episodes@www.tridockpodcast.com.

if you have questions about any of the issues discussed on this episode, or do you have a question for consideration to be answered on a future episode, send Jeff an email@trycloud.com if you're interested in coaching services, you really should, please visit try.coaching.com or lifesportcoaching.com where you can find a lot of information about Jeff and the services that he provides.

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Until then, train hard, train healthy.