The Professional Triathlete

07/12/21 • 49 min

Ironman Triathlons are widely regarded as the most challenging single-day athletic competitions in the world. (Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is a close second.) On their own, each of the three events would represent a significant athletic achievement for anyone who accomplished them: swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, run 26.2 miles. Doing them all in a row in a single day is a Herculean achievement almost beyond comprehension. But for professional triathlete, Pedro Gomes, it's all in a day's work. Literally.
Pedro has been competing professionally on the Ironman Circuit since 2010. During that time, he has notched an impressive 25 Top 10 finishes in Ironman Length Races, including a third place finish last month in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho which qualified him for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, HI next month.
Pedro takes a break from his insane training schedule this week to chat with us about how he turned his passion into his profession. We talk about some of the "high highs" and "low lows" that come with life as an endurance athlete. Pedro shares how it feels to be nearing the end of his professional career. And we get hyped for Pedro's quest for the ever-elusive sub 8-hour Ironman. Let's face it, none of us are ever going to actually do an Ironman. So we might as well listen to someone talk about doing them. #BackToWork

Previous Episode

The NYT Bestselling Author

Of all the job-related superlatives that can precede one’s name, “New York Times Bestselling Author” has to be right up there with the best of them. (Maybe right behind “United States Ambassador to Fiji” and “TGI Fridays Employee of the Month”.) And it’s one our guest this week, J Ryan Stradal, has been hearing ever since his debut novel, Kitchens of the Great Midwest hit the NY Times bestseller list in 2015. That was soon followed by the national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota in 2019, and we catch him just as he has put the finishing touches on the manuscript for his third novel.

We chat with J Ryan about his process as a writer, the numerous driver’s tests he failed as a teenager, and what a “good day” looks like for someone who’s done nothing but write fiction for 12 hours. We also talk a bit about some of the financial realities of being a writer and he delivers one of the best lines anyone has ever said on the podcast: “Trust me, there is nothing the world needs less than your novel.”

It’s a warm and wide-ranging conversation with the writer of warm and whimsical books. Give it a listen! And then of course...get #BackToWork.

J Ryan's Recommended Summer Reading:

Shoulder Season (by Christian Clancy)
Four Dead Horses (by KT Sparks)
The Music of Bees (by Eileen Garvin)

Next Episode

The Podcaster, Author, and Entrepreneur

James Carbary didn't invent podcasting, but he's been hosting and producing them since the dark days when the only people with podcasts were Bill Simmons, Marc Maron, Ira Glass, and a bunch of Breaking Bad fans. (FYI: in podcaster parlance this era is generally known as B.S. - Before Serial)
Since then, James has founded a B2B (business-to-business) marketing company, executive produced 100s of podcasts that have been downloaded millions of times, written two books (one for grownups, one for kids), gotten married, and has somehow found time to continue recording 100s of hours of podcast content each year. He's also accomplished a neat trick that so many entrepreneurs miss: he's turned something he loves (podcasting) into a business and has managed to not start hating it in the process.
We talk this week about how he's managed to pull that off. And also about how he connects his personal values to his professional life, the importance of "the Goober Ratio" at any networking event, and how he keeps his dream job from taking over the rest of his life. It's a podcast, with another podcaster, about his company that makes podcasts. Doesn't get much more meta than that. Give it a listen! And then get #backtowork.