The goal, I think is to find a viable routine for you to progress through the years.

That's, I think is the key.

And, and then taking that year off to just step up your game is obviously an option.

So for sure, like coming within an Olympic year, it could be interesting.

But I also don't want to delay too much my residency, so it's balancing things out.

Hello and welcome once again to the Trid Podcast.

I'm your host, Jeff Sankoff, the tridoc, an emergency physician, triathlete, triathlon coach and multiple Ironman finisher.

And this is the September 18, 2025 edition coming to you as always from beautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.

The voice you heard at the beginning of the episode was that of my guest today.

His name is Pavlos Antonides.

He is a national level triathlete in the my home country of Canada.

He lives in Trois Rivieres, Quebec and he's the latest of the medical students that I've had a chance to interview who are somehow making the balance of a very challenging education in medical school and being a very high level triathlete somehow meshed together.

He speaks to us about his successes in multisport and his burgeoning career as a medical student and eventually as a physician, how he envisions his future coming together as being able to marry those two things.

And speaking of successful medical students who have been able to get together a very amazing triathlon career, I would be remiss if I didn't begin at this very moment at highlighting the success of someone who I have really taken a shining to and that is of course my favorite professional triathlete right now, Matthew Marquardt.

Matthew was a guest on this program not too long ago over at the beginning of the summer before he really had his major breakthrough on the professional circuit with his wins in the Ironman events in Cairns in Australia and then in Lake Placid over the summer.

He followed that all up with just a sensational day at the Ironman World Championships this past weekend in Nice, France, where he was the Top American finishing 8th overall.

He had an amazing day all around.

He was about 15 minutes off of the trio of Norwegians who completed the podium.

But just an amazing day all around for Matthew.

I couldn't be happier for him.

I've had some communication with him over social media and he remains as affable and approachable as ever and just an amazing individual.

For him to be able to do what he has been able to do this past year is just remarkable.

And while I don't have an answer yet as to whether or not he plans to continue his professional career or if he's going to have to forego it in favor of his true passion that being medicine and going residency next year.

That remains to be seen.

But if I can get you another scoop like I did last week with our story on colon cancer and running, I promise to do so.

The other story really to be talked about besides obviously the rookie win, the rookie sensation of Caspar Stornis at the Ironman World Championship, is the fact that the race in Nice is really no more.

And I think that's kind of sad, kind of a little bit unfortunate.

I think that this past weekend showed us how sensational racing on that kind of course can be.

The swim really didn't establish the kind of lead pack that I thought we might have with people going out and hammering the swim, although they did 45 minutes in an ocean swim without wetsuits is really remarkable.

But there was a huge group that came out of the water together, but the bike very quickly broke that up and we saw a lead pack getaway.

And by the time the bike was done in just remarkably fast time, given the amount of elevation gain they had to cover, we had a group of five or six come off the bike together, and five of them were running together for quite a while.

And that made for just an amazing race to watch.

And when the three Norwegians were then left to their own devices for the bulk of the marathon, it really wasn't clear who was going to win until around probably eight or nine miles to go.

It just was sensational racing.

And I think that as we return to Kona, obviously Kona has all of the things Kona has.

And I don't need to go into the whole debate of Kona or not Kona, but I think that regardless of how you feel about the, you know, the, the lore of Kona, the tradition of Kona, it doesn't change the fact that the course at Kona is just not what the athletes are competing against.

They're competing against environment.

And it's going to favor those athletes who are able to run in that heat and humidity.

And that's really what it boils down to.

Whereas in a location like Nice, you take away the weather and instead you add the course itself, especially the bike, and it favors different kinds of athletes.

Now, I'm not saying that the race has to stay in Nice.

I would have loved to see a little bit more of a rotation, but I understand the emotional attachment to Kona and I understand why the race is being brought back together.

I also the desire to have the men and women compete in the same venue.

It's not an easy kind of conundrum to get your head around, but just based on what we saw, the spectacle that we saw in the last two events, the women last year with their real epic battle between Laura, Phillip and Kat Matthews, and then this year with those five men running together along the Promenade des Anglais, I'm going to miss that.

I think that we're not going to get the same kind of spectacle in Kona, and I think that's too bad.

But that's what the people wanted and that's what people are going to get.

And so I'll look forward to the women's race next month, which is going to be sensational because we are looking at a start field unlike any that we've had in quite a long time.

And I know that it's going to be an amazing day on the program today.

Along with my interview with Pavlos Antoniades, we of course have a medical mailbag question.

And this week we are going to be answering a question submitted by a listener on the Lumos light mask.

This is a product that was designed and developed to help people adjust their sleep patterns.

It promises to help with those who have trouble falling asleep.

So dealing with insomnia, but especially useful for people who are trying to adjust their sleep patterns related to things like shift work and especially for travel.

So if you are experiencing jet lag because of changing time zones, the Lumo sleep mask promises to make that kind of adjustment easier.

Does it work?

Does it have science to back it up?

Well, Coach Juliet Hockman and I are going to look at what the science says and tell you whether or not this product is worth its salt or if it's something that you can leave on the pillow.

And we're going to have the answer to that.

That's coming up after this break.

It's time again for the medical mailbag that ooh.

And Farley is barking about that because he's excited as well.

But joining us alongside Farley is my friend and colleague, Juliet Hockman.

We are recording this on Monday, but when it comes out to your ears on Friday, Juliet and I will be together in person in Richland, Washington, where we will be getting ready for the Tri City 70.3.

I'm pretty excited about that race.

How about you?

I'm pretty excited, too.

I'm pretty excited, too.

And just what I'm even more excited about is that 48 hours later, you and I will actually be enjoying a glass of wine together.

That's right.

Not be doing on Friday, but we will be doing on Sunday afternoon.

Yeah.

And then we get to drive back to your lovely home in Hood river and hang out with your lovely husband Steve and share even more good times and more alcohol.

And yeah, it's going to be good.

Oh, gosh, that doesn't make us sound very good.

We're all about the racing, Jeff.

We're all about to racing.

That's right.

That's right.

We get our little post race break and then it's back to the straight and narrow.

But anyways, we are here for a medical mailbag and we have a question that was submitted by a listener on the private Facebook group.

If you're not a member of that, you really should be because just think of what you're missing.

And if you'd like to be a member, please look for the Tridoc podcast on Facebook.

We will grant you admittance if you answer the three very easy questions.

And you could submit your questions as well.

Just like our listener today, Juliet, who asked her question and what was it about?

Thank you, Evan Gruda, for sending in this question.

Much appreciated.

He wants to know about the efficacy of the Lumos sleep mask.

The Lumos sleep mask is this kind of cool device.

It looks just like a fancy eye mask that you would use.

Much better than the ones you might get on the airplane but cushion.

But if you actually dig a little deeper, you understand that it's this whole technology which emits these rapid bursts of light while you're sleeping that allows you to adjust to different sleep schedules, whether it's jet lag or perhaps you work shift work.

It's been shown to have efficacy for teenagers who have trouble sleeping.

Evan has one.

He's used it.

He likes it.

And he just wrote in to find out if there was any data or any research on this to show that actually it really is effective.

So what did your team find out?

Yeah, he also made a point of saying that he uses it for the couple of days before a race, adjusting his sleep cycle to be able to get up early for the race, which I thought was a really interesting use of this technology.

You and I don't have problems getting up so early because we're up so early anyway.

Evan obviously is much younger and still needs his sleep, but I thought that was a really interesting use of this technology.

And we'll get to the Lumos in a second.

In a second.

In a few minutes.

I want to talk first about just the whole concept of light therapy and why it is postulated to work to adjust sleep cycles and how it does that.

And then we'll talk a little bit more specifically about the Lumos mask itself because it is pretty interesting technology.

Not a whole bunch of science on it that we were able to find.

But what we did find was think it's interesting.

I do want to thank Nina Takeshima, my intern who did the research for this episode.

She found a whole bunch of studies that just talk about looking at how light therapy works.

The natural inborn cycle of the brain is actually a 24.2 hour cycle, which I thought was fascinating.

It is not in synchronization with the day, which is 24 hours and a couple of seconds.

And what keeps us from getting out of synchronization with the Earth is light.

So we have evolved over time to have this circadian clock, which is adjustable by taking this input of light.

We have within our eyes, of course, these specialized cells that detect light and when they are exposed to bright light.

And it has to be quite bright.

The metric or the.

The unit of measure for light is lux.

You can actually.

My favorite unit of measure for light is actually candle.

So you could say the brightness of a light can be measured as 10,000 candle, which I think is awesome.

Yeah.

But most of the time we refer to it as lux.

It has to be quite bright.

And I don't ask me exactly how bright this is, but it's like 2,000 to like 10,000.

Luxury is what is considered to be the appropriate brightness for light to really have an effect on your eyes, which then causes a cascade of events that stimulates an up or down regulation of the chemical melatonin.

And we've talked about melatonin quite a bit.

We sure have.

The whole idea of people taking melatonin is this idea that if you take melatonin, it stimulates this reset of your circadian clock and it's by taking exogenous.

And we mentioned that there are some studies that show that using melatonin in that way can help in trying to shift your clock when moving to different time zones.

And using light therapy is a way of actually stimulating or down regulating melatonin secretion within the brain.

So super interesting.

There's a bunch of studies that have looked at this over time.

We found a study from 2023 moving time zones in a flash with light therapy during sleep.

Very nice for this.

And it basically demonstrated that using one hour flash exposure.

And it basically.

It's about 1200 lux, I think I said before 2000.

2000, I think, is the upper limit of.

I misspoke.

It's 200 to 2000.

So 1200 lux.

Two millisecond flashes of white light every 15 seconds at the beginning of sleep can significantly phase delay the circadian clock.

And that basically shifts your clock forward.

And if you do light in the morning when you wake up, that can shift the clock backwards.

So there's ways of when you expose the light that can really help.

And this has been looked at in other studies, treatment of circadian rhythm sleep disorders with light.

Studies suggest that exposure to blue light, which is short wavelength, is more effective than longer wavelengths to reset circadian rhythm and suppress nighttime release of melatonin.

So again, the bright light suppresses the melatonin.

Being in darkness or using longer wavelengths tends to enhance melatonin release.

And there's a nice little table if you're watching on the YouTube.

I'm gonna try.

I keep saying every time I do this.

If you're watching on YouTube, I'm gonna show the table.

And then when I get to the editing, because I lost my editor, she's back in school, so now I'm editing it all.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

So I'm gonna try to remember to put this table up.

But it's a really nice table.

And basically the long and the short of it is you can use light therapy to help, as you were mentioning, Juliet, people who have trouble sleeping, people who work shift, work.

And then jet lag induced.

So jet lag problems.

So if you're moving, if you're moving east, you want to phase advance.

And so what you do is you use morning bright light therapy when you wake up and dim light prior to bedtime.

So you want to be really careful in the hours before you go to sleep.

You don't want to have bright light.

You want to have dim light.

And you don't need a light mask necessarily to do that.

It's just a matter of getting up in the morning and opening up all the drapes or going outside and exposing yourself to bright light.

But then at night, being very careful to keep the lights low, make sure you're not, like, out in a bright place, things like that.

All right, I'm going east.

So that's it.

There you go.

Going the other way, going the other way, going west.

You want a phase delay shift.

You want a phase delay, not phase advance.

And so you use evening bright light therapy before bedtime and dim lights after wake time.

And that could be Hard right.

If you're getting up to work and you need to look at a computer screen, that can really set things off.

And getting bright light as you're going to sleep can also be difficult.

And that's really where a mask like the lumos, which we'll talk about in a little while, can be very helpful.

So again, moving east, you want bright light in the morning.

Moving west, you want bright light at night.

Okay.

Another study, the effects of light therapy on sleep problems.

Systematic review and meta analysis.

This is from 2016, a little bit older study, but still one of the studies that really was one of the first studies that really showed the strength of the data on using light to help with sleep.

And it was a report, they reported in this study that the research on the effect of bright light therapy really does show small to moderate effects, but it's not necessarily any better than some of the other treatments that have been used on insomnia that were reported in other studies.

So using exogenous melatonin, for example, using other types of cognitive behavioral treatments on insomnia, have also been equally effective.

And they looked at 1,154 participants across 53 studies and were able to find that for circadian sleep disorders, you could definitely use light.

For insomnia and for even sleep problems related to Alzheimer's dementia, light therapy can be quite effective.

So really, a fair amount of evidence that suggests that light therapy can be good.

Okay, so what about the lumos?

What is the lumos?

How does it work and does it work?

So basically, as you said, it's like this Koosh sleep mask.

It really tries to block out all external light to make it very dark inside.

And then it has a slit on the side so that you can insert this USB C powered rechargeable battery, so there's no cables attached to it when you're wearing it.

And it's like this thin little LED sort of light emitting panel and that sits inside the mask.

And it basically can be Bluetooth connected to your phone.

They only support iOS right now.

They don't have an Android companion.

And then you program into your phone what you're trying to do.

Are you shifting your sleep because you're traveling?

Are you shifting your sleep for your race?

You want to be able to wake up earlier, are you shifting it for work, whatever.

And then it will design a program to be able to start doing light stuff as you're falling asleep at night and then as you wake up in the morning.

And the way this light works is it actually goes through your eyelids.

And there are studies that show that this is just as effective, that you still get a bright enough light that still triggers the eye and still causes these changes in the brain activity and melatonin secretion and things like that.

So theoretically, the technology seems to be.

Have reason behind it, not a huge amount of science for it.

They do talk about how they've done research on the mask.

A lot of the research is done by one particular scientist who is an unpaid scientific advisor to the company.

And I think that's really important to mention.

We've talked in the past about is the science done by somebody who's sponsored or somehow financially involved.

And in this case they do say that, look, we have this person who's a sleep scientist, but we do not compensate him for anything that he does.

And I think that's a good thing.

That suggests that the research is probably a little bit more independent.

Yeah, I looked him up.

He's a Stanford Prof. Stanford researcher who's not at all involved with companies.

I thought that was pretty good.

And as far as I know, he doesn't know Huberman.

So he's Berkeley, isn't he?

Or is he Stanford?

I think he's Stanford, yeah.

Okay.

So untainted by the Huberman.

Org.

Oh, you could.

Couldn't let that one go, could you?

Could not.

I've been planning it ever since I learned.

Okay, so the, the we were left, we're left a little bit to re rely on what they say about the mask and then to look at kind of user reviews like Evans.

And what we found was what they say is, they say clinical study participants using the Lumos mask report on average a 70% reduction of night shift for fatigue.

And I could tell you, as somebody who has worked night shifts in the past, thank goodness that's a thing of the past.

For me.

Night shifts are incredibly difficult.

What I did to make night shifts work for me was something called anchor sleep.

And so I would sleep for two hours before my night shift, get up, go work, and then come home and then get another two hours of sleep afterwards.

And that along with a whole bunch of caffeine actually really helped me make night shifts somewhat doable, but they still caused me a huge amount of discomfort.

The fact that a light mask could cause 70% reduction of night shift fatigue, if that was true, I have no way of knowing, but that's pretty amazing.

That would really be pretty cool.

They also talk about study participants demonstrating up to 37% reduction in time to fall asleep.

So just using whatever it is.

They use in terms of their light patterns to help people fall asleep.

That's pretty amazing.

And then to me, the thing that's most of interest, because if I was ever to consider this, it would really be for travel.

46% reduction in jet lag.

Let's take all of this with a grain of salt and let's assume that they're overstating their results by as much as double.

So if it was a quarter reduction in jet lag, I would be okay with that.

I would.

Yeah.

That's a big deal, right?

You just came back.

I know.

I was just thinking about that.

I'm trying to think about this.

I didn't really have any trouble sleeping when I got back.

When I traveled from East Europe west to the West Coast.

I just felt like I just saw it in my training.

My training suffered for a full week.

I didn't feel good for a full week.

But I wasn't not sleeping.

I was sleeping.

Okay.

So I don't know if this would.

Have dropped, but it's still.

Your clock is off, right?

Because the reason you're so tired during the day is because your mind thinks it's nighttime and should be asleep.

So imagine if you could have reduced that to.

By two days.

No, to me, I think that would be worth it.

Yeah.

My husband travels an awful.

My husband travels an awful lot to both Europe and Asia.

And I'm actually thinking maybe this is worth a 250 price tag if it really works.

Yeah, I know.

We were going to talk about the price and it's out there now.

$250.

Given the amount of money we spend on a lot of other things.

Look, it's not inexpensive.

I don't want to.

I don't want to pretend that this is cheap, but if it really did the things it's saying, especially if you used it more frequently because you had issues with shift work or you have trouble with insomnia.

Normally, hey, that's not that expensive.

I definitely.

Anyways, we'll get to the recommendation part coming up.

But so they say that it does these things and they say, again, I think probably we have to take their results with a grain of salt.

But like I said, even if they're overstating it by two or three times, that still leaves a pretty good result.

So we went and we looked at reviews because we really didn't.

Couldn't find any independent research published anywhere on the mask.

So we looked at some of the reviews and the main negative we found was people saying that the material fit of the mask.

So if the mask doesn't fit you perfectly, there could be gaps and therefore it would let external light in.

And then that could be true of any sleep mask, I suppose.

And the other thing that people.

Nobody commented that it wasn't comfortable, which I thought would be a primary complaint because if you've got this firm sort of LED light panel, it's got to obviously be somewhat flexible.

But at the same time I'm like, wouldn't, wouldn't that be a little bit weird?

But nobody commented on it.

Nobody seemed to think it was.

But it might also be a skewed audience because these might be people who have become accustomed to sleep masks in the past.

I don't like sleep masks, period.

I hate having them on my face regardless of who makes them.

But my husband sleeps with one all the time and so he.

This doesn't bother him at all.

So I think it might be a skewed audience already that has probably already used various sleep masks for various reasons, don't you think?

Certainly there's going to be that kind of bias in the customers.

Right.

Because people who are going to gravitate to this are going to be people who have probably used some kind of sleep mask before.

Like you said, people who are traveling and definitely are interested in something like this and are looking for something to work and therefore more likely to have it work.

Right.

So I think there's a few areas of potential self selection bias here.

But again, I look at the end of the day what Nina and I came down on when we, I asked Nina, I said, would you buy this?

And she said probably not.

She felt like the data was there.

I should say that some.

Much of the.

Not much, but there is some studies that suggest that a lot of this is more effective on older people.

So she felt as a.

She's only 20 something.

20 something here.

Yeah, she's.

I probably don't need this, but I don't know, you and me and I.

Don'T know, I'm thinking, I think you should buy.

You're traveling twice to Europe in the next couple of months.

I think you should buy one, write it off and then, yeah, do a study event of one and tell us.

Because the Evan Gruda who sent us this sent us this question, says he likes it.

So I'd love to hear from more listeners or more athletes in particular who have tried it or shift workers to see what they think of it.

Total data.

Yeah, I mean I definitely, after doing all the research on this and everything else, basically we Came down on.

There's no downside.

Except for the cost.

There's really no downside.

And that we would not.

I have to be careful.

This is not a solid recommendation.

This doesn't go into tartary juice.

Right.

It doesn't go into that category.

I would say it also.

It doesn't necessarily go into the category of things like normatex, which are.

There's evidence to show normatexts don't do anything, but they make you feel good, so why not?

And they make you sit down and sit for a little while.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So normatexters, I consider those kinds of things in its own separate group.

I think of this as almost in between that.

There is a body of evidence that suggests this may work.

There's no body of evidence that says this mask definitely works, but there are enough kind of user reviews that seem to suggest a satisfied population that I would certainly not say no.

And it's not something I would definitely come out and say, this is not worth it.

This is not worth it.

But I'm also not prepared to say, oh, everybody should run out and get one.

And I think I'm going to do exactly as you say, which is get one myself, make myself the N of one and add to Evan so that we could be an N of 2 and we could share our experiences.

Right, right.

Do you.

There's a couple.

Of course.

Whenever you see a review on a website, I always think, oh, that's completely fake.

But do you know any of these people who have offered a positive review on the website?

There are a couple of different athletes on here.

You should go back and I'm just wondering if we can reach out to them and say, is this for real or sponsored?

No, that's a good point.

I hadn't paid enough attention.

Yeah.

Josh Kerr is one of the athletes on here.

The others look like more non athletic shift workers, travelers, et cetera.

So maybe we should reach out to Josh Kerr over Instagram and say, okay, you're an athlete.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How'd it go?

Yeah, how did it go?

Was it legit?

We should stay tuned.

We'll have to.

We'll have to follow up with this one because I think it's definitely intriguing and worthwhile and worth a shot.

So why not?

Absolutely.

Good.

We'll look forward to hearing back from you on that because I'm looking for Christmas presents for my husband.

And if you say it works.

Yeah, there you go.

Did you have the opportunity to catch any of the world championship in Nice for the iron?

I did.

I Did.

I'm not very good at sitting down and watching races, so I will admit that I did not watch it.

Of course, it was all night.

It was on in the middle of the night.

But I did watch the highlight reels and I did listen to some of the podcast recaps.

How could you not be excited about that run?

It was really exciting, and I actually weighed in a little bit on it, which is not.

Also not something that I usually do when I was leaving a strength class this afternoon, because, of course, the Norwegians swept the podium, which is very exciting.

Good for them.

Great race.

So many men out there had such a great day, including your boy Matthew.

My boy Matthew.

I know.

Shout out to him.

But what I was holding forth on, weighing in on was that everyone talks about the Norwegian method.

And we're about to now get a whole bunch more articles and opinions on the Norwegian method and why they win and the whole thing.

And nobody's talking about my opinion, which comes directly from being a rower, which is that the reason they swept is because they train together every single day.

They push each other every single day.

They support each other every single day.

They are completely like they are a training camp all the time.

It's the boathouse.

Exactly.

And nobody really talks about that much.

And I was a big believer in training with other people.

Triathlon is such an individual sport.

I think that gets lost.

And I think you're right.

I think that is a big part of it.

I think it's not just a method, but it's also the camaraderie.

You could tell they clearly like each other.

Yeah, that's really nice.

Yeah.

It wasn't fake.

At the finish line, when they were greeting each other and they were happy for each other, that's the first thing.

The winner said was.

The first thing he said was, I can't believe it.

And he thanked his.

He thanked the other two.

He thanked Gustav and Christian.

That was the first thing he said, is he's lying there on the carpet.

So.

No, it's.

They obviously know each other and they are all in on race day and they just want to smash each other.

So it's a great dynamic that they can do both at the same time.

I love it.

So, so interesting.

Such an interesting.

I am sad it's moving away.

I mentioned at the top of the program in the monologue today about how I'm sad.

It's moving away from nice because you won't get that kind of excitement because the course is not the feature in Kona.

It's about the environment and in.

Nice.

It was really about the course.

And yeah, I thought it was really.

It was just a great day.

And boy, to have five guys come off the bike and be running together for a while like that and then just watch it whittle away and yeah, it was pretty exciting.

Pretty exciting.

It's interesting.

I think if you were to poll the pros and if the pros are the only ones with a decision making voice in this, the pros would say, yeah, split it.

Kona.

Nice.

It favors different types of athletes.

It's a different type of race.

But the reason it's going back to Kona is because of all the age groupers who have this thing about Kona.

And so it's.

Yeah, no, I know.

I agree.

I think having the split was actually great.

That was really much more interesting.

But to be continued, the women are up next in just a few short weeks.

And that's going to be an amazing race because the field is sensational.

Sensational.

So it's going to be really exciting.

Be exciting.

All right, Juliet, looking forward to seeing you in a couple of short days.

Or of course, as people are listening to this.

We're together, so.

Yeah, exactly.

You are listening to this and you are at the Tri Cities race in Richland, Washington.

Please look for us.

Come and say hi.

Juliet is giving, what, four different talks over the course?

Six different talks.

Yeah, Six different talks over the course of Friday and Saturday at the Ironman Village.

I will be around probably with her for a while.

Heckling.

He'll be heckling.

Let's keep going.

Yes, please do come find us.

Say hello.

We'd love to meet up with listeners all the time.

So it's a great pleasure to hear from people who listen to the program.

Juliet.

Until our next episode, I look forward to answering another question.

We've got a few good ones coming up, so it's gonna be good times.

All right, see you in a couple days.

Thanks, Jeff.

Bye.

My guest on the podcast today is Pavlos Anton.

See, I'm gonna get it wrong.

Pavlos Antoniedes.

Did I get that right?

Yeah, yeah.

Antonietes.

All right.

Awesome.

Antonietes Pavlos, like many Canadian children like myself, grew up immersed in ice hockey playing until he was 11.

He then discovered triathlon in his hometown of Trois Rivieres, which is also known as Three Rivers for my American listeners.

Initially, he used it as training for hockey, hoping to build his endurance and strength.

But over time realized the triathlon provided unique challenges that resonated with him more than even hockey did.

As Pavels progressed, he transitioned from a hobbyist to a much more serious competitor, dedicating himself to triathlon.

And his hard work has paid off as he's gained recognition in both domestic and international competitions.

He represented Canada at the Junior World Championships in 2017, where he finished 15th, in 2018, where he finished 8th, and in 2019, where he finished 16th, competing against the world's top junior triathletes.

A standout moment for him came at the 2017 Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg, where he won the gold in the individual event and earned bronze in both the men's relay and mixed relay.

But in addition to his athletic pursuits, Pavlos is also focused on academics.

He is currently in his fourth year of medical school at the University de Montreal.

He studies at a satellite campus in his hometown of Trois Rivieres and somehow manages to balance the demands of a rigorous program with his training schedule.

So Pavlos now becomes the fourth medical person that has joined me on this program.

We've had Maddy Pesch, who was not in medicine when she was here.

She has since gone on to be in medical school.

We had, of course, more recently Matthew Marquard, and gosh, I'm blanking on the.

We had another medical person, but now we have Pavlos.

So, Pavlos, welcome to the Tridoc podcast.

It's a pleasure to finally manage to get our schedules in synchronization and have you here on the podcasts.

Thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeffrey, for having me.

Yeah, it's been a hectic last few weeks, but we finally got a moment together.

All right, so I want to hear a little bit about how you found triathlon growing up in Trois Riviera.

I know.

I certainly know from growing up in Montreal, ice hockey was the sport that everybody played, and you obviously did so as well.

How did you even come to find triathlon?

Yeah, so indeed, hockey played a.

Was.

It played a big role in my youth into coming into triathlon.

Actually, I was practicing hockey also.

And at first, it was a family activity.

My dad was racing.

Was racing Ironmans, half Ironmans, and I had a brother and a sister that were also into that.

And so, yeah, I took up triathlon as cross training during the summer for.

For hockey, for my hockey season.

And.

And with the years, I found really a passion for triathlon, and I started training.

I started swimming also during the winter, and it was about 12, 13, I decided to.

To pursue triathlon because I really enjoyed it.

And.

And I Haven't looked back since.

So since then I've been there, following the program, the provincial program through the years, the training camps and racing competitively, having fun.

And one thing just led to another and here I am today.

And how old were you when you realized that?

Or how old were you when your dad realized that?

Oh boy, he's really good.

He's got a chance to go far with us.

I'd say maybe around the end of my, just right before starting juniors.

That would be youth.

We had the youth national championship in Magog this one year.

It's wow now, but I think I was about 15 and I won that race.

And I mean I was racing compelling on the provincial circuit before that, but like around that age I started to, we started to have access to bigger races and.

And then I did my first race, junior race in Sarasota when I was 16 and finished on the podium when it was like a really like brand new thing to discover that level of racing and to be competitive at that level, I'd say since then.

And what was your forte of the three, did you, did any of them come naturally to you and did you have to work at one of the other sports?

I, I always enjoyed running a lot.

When I was younger, my.

My parents tell me that I used to ask them to time me to run from point A to point B at these random, I don't know, random events.

Or they were telling me like my.

My brother and sister were playing these soccer games and I would be like on the side of the field running back and forth, asking the timing so little things like that.

Probably running my favorite and, and I'd say is my strength.

I that and with time my cycling really improved.

Cycling and running, my swimming has always been good, but not as good as my run and my bike, I think.

So I've been working a lot on that.

So definitely the running.

And now you're a member of the national development squad.

So what does that mean exactly?

What is that?

Where do you purchase?

Because you're obviously participating on the world triathlon circuit.

So to be a member of the national development team, what does that mean in terms of your race schedule and in terms of your training?

So basically there's different criteria every year that all the athletes try to hit and depending on the criteria you get, you can get a national development team status.

There's also the national team elite team.

The criteria are a lot tougher, but when I was a junior I was able to get on that team also.

And the older you get, the Criteria start to get tougher because you're competing against obviously the elite level when you're a junior, only competing against juniors when you're 23s, once again, two 23s.

And when you're elite into elite.

I was able for the first time in a few years get back on the national team this year and it was the first time since the start of medical school, I'd say that I got back on the team.

So that obviously meant a lot for me.

In terms of.

It also changes a lot in terms of funding.

We get a.

You get a lot more funding yearly for racing, for training camps, or basically living as an athlete.

And also like you get more support from the, from triathlon Canada when it comes down to the high level racing like World Cups or World championships.

And for sure, Canada being such a big country, the teams, all the athletes are scattered around the country.

So when I can, I could have access to national team projects like training camps.

The National Training center is in Victoria, so there's a big squad of athletes out there.

So having that status gives you access to services like that.

And how hard has it been balancing being a medical student?

I know what it was like when I was in medical school.

I barely had time to do anything and certainly when I had time to do something, I wasn't as diligent or as focused as you are on training.

So how have you managed to find your way along being a medical student and manage the rigors of training and racing for triathlon?

Yeah, that's a very good question.

It's, it's been the challenge last few years and it's taken a while to figure out things that work and things that don't work.

Like I said, I find that like this year being on the national development team was like the, the main, the objective that I'm, I'm starting to find something that works and that starting to pay off.

So through my, like right now I'm in my last year of medical school.

So through those like four first years, it was all about figuring that out.

And I think it's about, I've learned through time that it's about also timing and patience.

I'd say you can't like you have to really just in terms of racing, you have to pick your races properly.

You need to really be rigorous about your training schedule, your school schedule, your studying time.

For example, like I made, I've made the mistake in the past of racing too close to exams when I thought that the delay between one another would be okay.

So it's like plenty of little things like that you need to think of and which seem easy when you've experienced, but you need to make the mistake to learn.

So lots of mistake.

Learning through your mistakes basically and also getting to know yourself, getting to know how you respond to certain scenarios, how to respond also to travel because that's also quite difficult knowing when to, when to time travel for racing, like I would, I, I pick a lot of races in South America because of the, because there's no time difference.

So just that really helps you with managing fatigue especially on the way there, but also on the way back when you have to, when you have to go back to study or go back to internships.

And especially this year I've been doing my internships and I can only miss a certain percentage of, of each internships.

So that's something I need to calculate when I decide to go somewhere.

So it's all about a balance of all those things.

And the first two, it gets tougher through med school also because the first two years are you're in class most of the time so you have a lot more autonomy in your schedule.

For example, a typical day would be having class in the morning, let's say from 8 to 11 and, and then the afternoon we would have off we can study or sometimes we'd have another class that would be recorded.

So like I can use that time to train and then in the evening I would study.

But when you're doing internships like last two years of my medical school, that's more of a working schedule like from 8 to 4.

So balancing training around that is a lot more difficult.

It requires training in the morning, in the evening, we have to manage your energy through that.

It's really different.

So the last few years have been quite challenging also.

So adapting this training schedule to that is important too.

A simple example would be I try to keep my tough workouts in the morning or I tend to be fresher than in the evening.

Whereas when I used to be in class and I would have an afternoon off, I would be able to to do a tough workout in the morning and do another tough workout in the afternoon or in the evening.

That's something I can't do anymore because of my internship.

So it's plenty of little tweaks like that that you need to learn and incorporate in your schedule to have also that, that long term consistency because basically that long term consistency is what makes you improve and obviously not burn out.

Also because it's, it's very easy to want to do more and to burnout.

That's a little portrait of how it's been.

Yeah.

I mentioned Matthew Marquardt at the top.

Matthew is a professional Ironman triathlete.

His schedule is insane.

He was on here a few months ago and talked to me about how he manages to keep all the balls in the air.

He has the good fortune of having a lot of support from his school.

He has been able to arrange his schedule in such a way that he had a lot of research time over the course of the triathlon season.

Has the university where you're studying been flexible at all in supporting your sporting endeavors or is it really up to you to just make sure everything works?

I'd say to a certain extent, yes.

And they've done a lot.

So for example, they'll let me leave for racing when I need to miss a certain time as long as it's within the requirements of the program.

Example for my internships, the same to be valid.

So I can only miss for a certain amount of days if I don't want to reschedule that internship in the future.

So that's also possible.

So there's a certain flexibility for that.

But training wise it's.

I'd say it's more up to me because at the end of the day I need to attain the objectives of the program and so there's a day to day process that I need to go through.

And, and that's I'd say is the toughest part because that's what gets you to racing.

Once you get to racing, the work is mostly done.

The rest is when you get close to racing is about being rested and being in the mental state for resting.

But most of the work is done before that.

That's a big job on my side.

And for sure all the universities are different.

Some of them have different policies regarding balancing other outside of school projects.

There needs to be like a clear communication and I've had that in the past with the program directors and so that obviously helps you.

Yeah.

And do you have time for anything else besides school and triathlon?

Are you able to manage?

Because that was another thing.

Talking to Matthew is clearly he had no time.

It was basically school study.

He has a girlfriend that he lives with but outside of that he was not partaking much in the social activities of medical school.

What about yourself?

Yeah, for sure.

It's.

It's an intense period of time.

I can, I'm.

I won't lie by saying like I don't have much of a.

The social life is around me is around training.

Yes, I have my friends at med school, but I won't go to all the activities.

I'll go when I'm maybe during my off season.

There's certain times in the year I'll appreciate but a lot of my friends are my training buddies too.

So like incorporate that through there.

So it's a balance in that way.

But I'm also involved in research like Matthew, so that take ups.

It takes up a lot of time too.

It's tough.

You're describing what a lot of us go through.

To a certain extent it's just magnified significantly because medical school, obviously it's a full time job plus and then a lot of us have full time jobs and train at the same time.

But being at the level you are, you're training plus so you're having to marry and mesh all of that similar to what a lot of us have to do.

We have families, we have social lives that we try to get in there as well.

But you're really, for the number of hours that you, the number of waking hours that you have in a week, you are filling them 100% with just school, studying and training.

And it is incredibly amazing for me to see that somebody like at your age to be that disciplined, to be able to apply yourself in that way with that focus, to be able to do as well as you do academically and as well as you do athletically and I have nothing but admiration and kudos for you.

I really think it's.

It bodes well for whatever you choose to do in the future because if you're able to do this well at those two things now, it means that you'll be able to have success in whatever you choose to do later.

Do you have a sense of what kind of field of medicine you'd like to go into after medical school?

You're coming to that point now where I guess you have to start thinking about interviews and match day and all of that.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

I'll be applying in November for the CARMS match, which is in next spring.

Everything's coming pretty quickly so I need to start preparing all that.

So I, I have an interest in whatever surgery and I discovered that I have an interest in ophthalmology.

I took a few rotations in that domain.

I've been doing research in that field.

I took a few internships.

I'll be applying in ophthalmology and.

But it's tough to get into.

So I'm trying to debate here, what's my plan B?

I have the option of taking a year off and reapplying the year after and do some more research or family medicine is also an option for me, so I'd see myself doing that too.

I just haven't decided what the exact plan B is, but definitely applying in ophthalmology as a first choice.

Yeah.

And I asked Matthew this question, and I'll ask you as well.

You mentioned a year off as a plan B.

Had you ever thought at some point, given your success in the sport, if you go into residency, the likelihood of continuing to train and participate at the level you're, especially in a surgical subspecialty, I mean, it's, let's face it, it's pretty low.

Do you think you would take a year off so that you could continue pursuing triathlon at least for, for another year and see where you could go with it?

Because we are coming up on an Olympic year after all?

Yeah, that's a good question.

And I.

It's an interesting question because I've tried it in the past.

I've taken a year off.

At the beginning of my med school, I was the.

My between my second and third year, I took a year off and unfortunately I got injured like two months after I started that year.

I didn't fully maximize it.

And the thing with the year off is you can, I don't think you can change everything around within a year.

So yes, you can tweak things.

You could, but I don't think it could it be the game changer.

It's debatable.

The goal, I think, is to find a viable routine for you to progress through the years.

That's, I think, is the key.

And, and then taking that year off to just step up your game is obviously an option.

So for sure, like coming within an Olympic year, it could be interesting.

But I also don't want to delay too much my residency, so it's balancing things out.

I think I'll also see how the residency, like, starts, how it turns out, how the routine is, and see if is it possible to continue training as hard.

Do I really need a year off now?

So it's.

I'm definitely considering it when the time comes, but for now, my priority was like to finish my med school and then get to residency.

Nnc.

So obviously if I choose the path where I take a year off and I apply the year after, then that's very interesting for like training and I can do research.

And so some types of research are more compatible with training.

Definitely an option.

And there's always of course the other areas of triathlon you don't have to focus on the national level teams.

Doing Olympic distance you could shift to 70.3 which is an entirely different level of training and probably doesn't demand a lot more in terms of hours over what you're doing.

But it's just a different type of training but then also gets you the ability to just train as a age grouper and who knows, potentially you have the ability to be in the upper echelons there and even go pro.

Yeah, I'm definitely considering long course.

A lot of the pros these days are.

A lot of the short course guys end up doing long distance towards the end of their careers.

Yeah, definitely something I'm considering.

I want to obviously maximize my time in short course racing for now and see where it takes me.

But yeah, there's so many, there's the T100, the Ironman series, so many new things coming out now today and it's, it's really fun to see for the development of the sport and I'm eager also to see what I can do on that format in the future too.

But for now I'm going to stick to short horse racing.

So before we started recording you mentioned to me that you have a race coming up this weekend.

That is what I remember as being the Montreal Esprit but you told me is no longer called that, it's under a different guise.

So what is the race that you're doing this weekend and what does the rest of the season hold for you?

Yeah, so this weekend is our national championship.

This Saturday it's going to be, it's going to be a good race.

I'm using the race as training as I have a lot of other events coming up around it.

So in the near future my next race will be in November so I have a little break of racing.

It'll be a good training block and I'll be aiming two World Cups in Chile, better back to back weekends, the 1st and 8th November and possibly aiming for last race end of November, a continental cup in Ecuador.

Like I said, racing in South America for me is, is the best because there's no time difference and very little time difference and so it's, it's easier to control fatigue that way and balancing that with the cars applications in November will be quite the challenge.

It's going to be important to like, like really think about how I'm feeling and.

Yeah, exactly.

Stay rested and, and not hesitate change my plans if ever I find it's too much so you always need to like reconsider the plan.

It can change.

It's a day to day process.

So always keeping that in mind.

The goal for me obviously this year in terms of racing was to race on the Continental cup level more and then build towards the World cup scene.

So I'm starting to gain that experience on the World cup scene.

So we tend to race the world the Continental Cups earlier in the season and then towards the end of the season shift to the World Cup.

And so my goal right now is to increase my world ranking.

And so it's by balancing the two circuits that I can try and do that.

That's outstanding.

And with living in Trois Riviera, I imagine the winters can be harsh.

So what's your sort of training like through the winter?

I imagine you're spending a lot of time on the trainer indoors.

And are you running indoors as well or do you try to run outdoors as much as you can?

What does that look like?

Like, yeah, for sure.

Training during the winter is challenging, so obviously a lot of indoor riding.

I never ride outdoors during the, the winter.

I don't have a fat bike or any of those things.

The riding on the trainer does have its advantages though.

You tend to work like your pedal stroke and so that's pretty good for the base training, the winter base training.

In terms of running, I'll run a lot on the treadmill, but I'll try to do some easy runs outdoors too when it's not too slippery.

So it's a kind of to balance, trying to balance that out.

Muscle training is obviously important because it's in the earlier part of the season time set it up, setting up foundation.

And it's also a period where I'm often coming back from off season.

So it's, it's a period where you need to be progressive coming back, not rush things.

It's important to, to really go progressive, to not injure yourself and obviously start the season the right way.

All right, Pavlos Antonietes, it's been a pleasure to chat with you.

I am really looking forward to see what you're able to accomplish both in the world of triathlon and of course in the world of medicine.

Two spheres that are near and dear to my own heart.

Because of course, I've been where you are, at least in medicine, triathlon, not so much not at the level you are.

But I really have enjoyed getting to know you a little bit and following your career for a brief period of time since I have come to learn of your existence on the Canadian circuit from my good friend Matt Sharp, who introduced me to to where you were successfully competing.

So it's been a pleasure to chat with you and have you on the podcast.

I wish you all the success going forward and I look forward to hearing about your results, both as I said in Match Day and of course on the triathlon circuit.

Pavlo's Antoniedes, a very mellifluous name that I'm stumbling over, is on the national development squad for Canada in triathlon.

He's a medical student at the University de Montreal and he lives and trains in Trois de Viere, Quebec.

He's going to be racing this coming weekend.

We are recording this in the first week of September.

This will come out after that has happened, but we wish him well on that race and on others.

Pavels, thanks so much for joining me today on the Tridac Podcast.

It's been a real pleasure.

Thank you Jeffrey.

Thank you for having me.

The top of my lungs.

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