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The Endurance Matters Podcast, Hosted by Justin “BigMetz” Metzler, professional triathlete, is the ultimate destination for endurance enthusiasts. Join us as we dive deep into the world of endurance sports, from 5Ks to Ironman triathlons to Ultra Races, and everything in between. Each episode we'll bring you inspiring stories featuring athletes, trailblazers, and members of the endurance community. From the highs to the lows, this podcast will help us explore the limits of human physical and mental performance.
Whether you're a seasoned athlete or just starting your endurance journey, Endurance Matters is your go-to source for motivation, education, and entertainment. Tune in, lace up, and let's go the distance together!
Welcome everyone to a unique endurance matters podcast. We have a, swapping swapping of responsibilities. Big Mets, your, host is, taking a seat, taking a hot seat. So, with all that he has going on, we thought it would be a good time for us to kind of use this opportunity to really talk about the endurance Endurance mindset and have him, you know, talk through about what it means to show resilience in the face of adversity, which is, you know, initially what our podcast was all about. So I'm Marcus.
Marcus Gordon:I'm the executive producer. We have Justin Big Metz, Metzler, eleven year pro now, twelve years, eleven? What are we coming up
Justin Metzler:Yeah, 12.
Marcus Gordon:This is 12.
Justin Metzler:Next year it'll be 13.
Marcus Gordon:13, lucky 13. All right. So lucky 13, positive attitude. So we're get we're gonna keep the show format. So we know the audience kinda loves what Justin has been able to do with with our amazing guests so far.
Marcus Gordon:So we're gonna keep the format. So with that, we're gonna dive right in. Alright. So we have a hard hitting question off the bat. So, Justin, you have to do a really a challenge rough.
Marcus Gordon:Okay? And you have Jeannie and your dad. Okay? Back in his prime. Alright?
Marcus Gordon:So and you can provide some context in a little bit, but so you guys have to do, challenge Roth as a relay, the full distance. So let us know who's gonna do what leg and what your anticipated finish time is.
Justin Metzler:Woah. That's a good question. I think if we're going for our best split, the factor here is gonna be my dad because he was, like, a six hour and forty minute seventy point three athlete in his prime. And so I'm glad that you said prime because I think nowadays, he might struggle a little bit across the board with a full Ironman, but he would get he would get it done even now. I think our best bet would be for my dad to do the swim.
Marcus Gordon:Okay.
Justin Metzler:And I think he could knock out an hour thirty in the swim. Okay. Maybe an hour thirty five. Alright. I think we would have me bike.
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. I think I could ride three fifty. Alright. So we're getting a little time back on the bike. So what are we at?
Justin Metzler:We're at twenty five.
Marcus Gordon:About 05:20.
Justin Metzler:05:20?
Marcus Gordon:Yep.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. So we're at 05:20, and I think Genie could run a in a 250, 245. Just call it 250 to be safe. We're at, yeah, seven oh, no. Excuse me.
Justin Metzler:08:10?
Marcus Gordon:08:10 plus another ten minutes or so of transition. Right? Yeah. Okay. I mean, if
Justin Metzler:we're just tagging off, everyone's ready, so the transition time should be pretty quick. Yeah. So, yeah, like 08:10, 08:15, that wouldn't be far off my solo PR, so that'd be pretty good. Yeah.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. Awesome. Alright. So we'll get into kind of the history with your dad here in a little bit. So one one other kind of follow-up question on that.
Marcus Gordon:If you were to pick two of your training buddies now and you had to go for it. Right? And say maybe, you know, the sub seven, right, which was popular a couple years ago, Christian and and Joe and their teams kinda tried that. Who would you select from your train you know, people that you know. Right, that you could, you know, get a group together and say, We're really gonna go for it.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. That I think Boulder has a lot of people, but it doesn't have I don't have that many current training partners. I think if I was able to go back and select my training partners in their prime Yeah. I would probably have a decent list of pretty solid athletes. I think if we're just talking about the ones who I train with now, would probably be solid combination of, like, Mark Dubrick who would really be able to help on the swim.
Justin Metzler:I think it'd be Rudy Von Berg and Andre on the bike. And Right. Probably those you know, combination of those three on the run. Maybe Matt Sharpe would be able to help us out on the swim and and the bike and the run a little bit. I think in their and also, I mean, Matt, I don't Matt Hansen would be a good one, but I think he's almost too quick on the run.
Marcus Gordon:Right.
Justin Metzler:Right. And so maybe he'd he'd be a good pacer. He'd have to slow down a little bit, but I think he'd be fine there. And then, obviously, t o would be really consistent. The thing is t o still got it.
Justin Metzler:I rode to them not long ago, a couple weeks ago, and he still can climb just, you know, just fine. So I guess depending on the course, maybe we throw T. O. In the mix, but it'd probably be a combination of those five dudes.
Marcus Gordon:Awesome. Alright. Well, we'll get into kind of the boulder scene a little bit later. So let's kinda rewind a little bit and forgive me, I'm just getting off a little cold if I cough here, but, you know, kind of walk us through your journey, right? You know, as an amateur, you know, growing up in Chicago, kind of seeing your dad do the races and take us through kind of what that looks like and bring us to, you know, your your journey as a professional athlete.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. So I go like Marcus mentioned, I I grew up in Chicago. It's not really a super endurance sport town. I I guess where I grew up in this place called Glenview, But Chicago area actually had quite a few good junior triathletes. Ben Kanute was only two or three towns over.
Justin Metzler:Lucas Bersbykas, was one of the first high schoolers to break four minutes in the mile, was a triathlete at the time, and he was sort of a prodigy triathlon wonder kin type dude. So and he was also just a couple towns down the road. So we had quite a few really good triathletes sort of in the area, but I didn't grow up in the high performance scene. I was just sort of doing it with my dad because my dad joined a triathlon team to lose weight in a work weight loss competition. My dad was a college football player, and so he, you know, picked up a couple LBs in the in the office over the years and sort of wanted to get back into into fighting, shape.
Justin Metzler:And so he saw this triathlon team at the local rec center and signed himself up and started doing this triathlon training, and I think he was first or second in the competition. He's a competitive guy like me, and so he was determined to sort of win the competition. I think he lost something like 20 pounds training for the triathlon and sort of got the bug along the way. And so he probably did triathlon for maybe one or two years, and I just observed him doing it. I was into normal sports as a kid.
Justin Metzler:I was really huge basketball player. I played a little bit of golf in high school, played baseball. Was really passionate about baseball, but I've always just been, like, uber competitive and always really dove into the sports. Just identified as an athlete, but didn't necessarily have the minerals to back it up on the basketball court or the the baseball diamond. And so when I got to high school, was sort of struggling a bit because it wasn't like I it was just natural for me to go, you know, make the varsity basketball team.
Justin Metzler:I wasn't that I wasn't I honestly wasn't good enough. And so when my dad started doing the triathlon thing, he said, why don't you just, you know, I know you love sports. Just come to a practice with me. So me and his oldest, you know, middle aged friends, you know, we popped into the pool, and I couldn't even swim at 25. I was probably 12 years old at this point.
Justin Metzler:And from there, I I just honestly like the I just liked it. I like spending time with my dad. I I thought it was really cool to sort of be in an environment and have an identity that other kids my age didn't have and just stuck with it a lot. And I I like I liked it immediately. I don't know what it was about the sport, but I just I enjoyed that sense of accomplishment.
Justin Metzler:I liked the training. I liked, like, getting outside and and being outside. And as I mentioned, having the identity of of just something when you're searching for something as a 12, 13 year old. All teenagers that age don't know what they're doing and they're lost. To have something that you find and can make your own, that was really cool for me.
Justin Metzler:And then, yeah, I just it got legs quick. And I I my dad was doing long course triathlons, and so my one of my first triathlons I I think I did an Olympic distance first and then maybe a a couple sprints the first year. But at the end of the first season, I did a I did a half Ironman when I was 15 years old called the spirit racing. And I think I went five fifty as a 15 year old, but and I remember that really being the thing that got me hooked, and I became a fan of the sport there. There were pros at the race.
Justin Metzler:So, I observed their times. I think they're going three fifty, and I was like, wow. They're going two hours faster than me, and that sort of implanted a seed of what I wanted to do and I just wanted to get better from there. So stuck with it and kept going.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. It's funny, you know, your dad's a little bit of an OG in the space, right, back before triathlon was super popular. I had to say my dad was doing triathlons starting late eighties when they had the Bud Light series. He was probably drinking Bud Light in transition. You know, I wasn't there to, necessarily see it, but and then he got into long course, with a bunch of guys, grew up in in the Metro New York area.
Marcus Gordon:And then two, he did his first Ironman at Lake Placid two thousand. So it's the second year that they had it. And I just remember being there and like you, I grew up playing basketball, played in college a little bit and kind of growing up in the Jordan era. And then I remember him doing that race. I'm like, how is this possible?
Marcus Gordon:How can you actually do this bike and then go run a marathon? So like you and like many other kind of age groupers out there, we share that experience, right, of having a loved one, maybe a parent, a sibling, what have you. And also, the NBC, right, Hawaii Kona series. I'm sure too, once your dad got into triathlon too, you kind of saw that and was like, wow, that's something. I remember watching those with my dad and crying and be like, how is this possible?
Marcus Gordon:Take us to the next step, right? So you go to college, so you develop kind of a passion for triathlon and what happens next?
Justin Metzler:Yeah, so like I said, I got into it maybe when I was 12 or 13 and never really had the initial ambition to be really quick. I didn't even know that world existed until maybe two years down the line. Because I started off from such a relatively slow point, my progression was was pretty quick. Over the course of two years, I went from I yeah. I think I did a I did another seventy point three two years later, and I think my time was something like four twenty.
Justin Metzler:And so I was able to chop off ninety minutes over the course of two years in a in a seventy seventy point three distance, and then I went from, you know, not even featuring in my age group or in the overall at a local sprinter Olympic triathlon to sort of being in the top 10 overall and winning my age group. And so I remember winning my age group sort of as a 13, 14, 15 year old at a, you know, local sprint triathlon. We had a lot of we had a lot of triathlons in the Chicago area. So and in in Wisconsin as well and in Minnesota, Indiana. So the whole Midwest had a a pretty significant triathlon presence, and at the time, it was really popular big races.
Justin Metzler:And so I did all those races throughout the summers, and the better that I got, the more the more I got into it. And, yeah, like you said, I I always look back at my college experience as an interesting time because it and I am empathetic to kids now. And I I sometimes chat to kids, like, through my coaching who who are in a similar position, whether they're in high school or or early years or in college right now, who are sort of in a tricky position because as a 16 to 17 year old, you're forced to make a decision as to what you're gonna do for the next four years. It's a big commitment whether you're gonna pay for that yourself or your parents are gonna pay for it or whatever it is. It's a massive decision, and I think there's a lot of pressure whether that's from in internal from your peers or your teachers or your parents who are influencing that decision to go one way or another.
Justin Metzler:And so I think I had a combination of all those factors, and I just sort of, on a whim, went on a few college tours and was like, I'm gonna go to the University of Iowa. It was one of the schools I was accepted to. They had a exercise physiology degree, and because I was so immersed in triathlon at the time, I knew that's what I wanted to study because I always wanted to be in this. I really was passionate about this already. Right.
Justin Metzler:And then it was driving it was close enough where I could still drive from drive to and from from home. I wasn't ready to be, like, that far away from my family just yet. So I went to Iowa, but I like to say my college experience was, like, part time student, full time triathlete.
Marcus Gordon:Mhmm.
Justin Metzler:And that was kind of the one one of the things that, you know, some kids when they go to college, they take that freedom and they run with it in a different way. Maybe they start partying more or socializing more or, you know, experiencing other different parts of life. For me, it was like, oh, well, now I can just train as much as I want. Right. And so I pretty much went from, like, training as much as I could in high school, and my parents and my community around me saw how passionate I was about triathlon, especially, like, my senior year of college or high school.
Justin Metzler:And I was I was barely going to high school my final senior year. I mean, I was they would let me train all morning. I had missed the first two periods. They let me train at lunch. They gave me early dismissal to go train.
Justin Metzler:I think I did, like, four classes, and the rest was just training. And then I carried that when I got over into college, but struggled a lot because I was a party school. There were some triathletes, couple of really good triathletes who I ended up becoming friends with, but it's not really a triathlon Mecca. And I think at that point, was kicking myself because then I was really into it and really obsessed with it, and I sort of wish that I had maybe made a different direction, like come out here to Boulder or onto California, gone to somewhere in San Diego, just somewhere with, like, more people who I felt understood what I was doing and trying to achieve. So I just found it a little bit difficult to assimilate where you've got 25,000 kids more or less not doing what you're trying to do.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. And so I struggle with that. So I did two years in Iowa, and then I dropped out of college and moved back home. And I remember sitting in my backyard with my mom actually, and I just, like, kinda I was upset, and I just, like, told her straight up, like, I I gotta drop out of school. Like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I can't keep doing the Iowa thing.
Justin Metzler:And they my both my parents were really cool, and I went back home, went to community college for a year, and they asked me what I wanted to do. And I was like, I just wanna be a pro triathlete. They kinda knew what that meant. And like you said, they watched the Kona broadcast, and I think they knew that was a thing. Right.
Justin Metzler:But they they're also, like, they're corporate folks.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah.
Justin Metzler:And they're they went to college. They got degrees. They got jobs out of college. They had traditional paths. And so for me to say to them, like, I want this traditional untraditional career path.
Justin Metzler:I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know if I'm good enough or whatever. I think they just want to see me happy, and so they were, like, super, super supportive early on, and that helped my career tremendously. So essentially, fast forward, I I went to community college for a year. I realized I wasn't that far off track getting my human physiology degree.
Justin Metzler:I ended up transferring back to Iowa for my senior year of college and ended up graduating in four years and getting my degree. So it was a little bit of a snaky way to do it, but I got my degree. And then from there, I was just off to the races. Actually, my final semester in college, I I turned pro, started racing on the professional circuit, and I was just off you go.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. Off you go. You know, it's just when you think about the college scene today in collegiate sports, right? With the NIL and everything that's going on, it's just incredible, right? And when you think about, especially basketball and football, those kids, I mean, not only do they not have to pay and scholarship, they're getting compensated significantly, right?
Marcus Gordon:Then you look at some of the other sports, maybe track and field and some of the other kind of lesser known sports that don't necessarily generate revenue for the schools, right, through their TV deals. It's a struggle for those young ladies and gentlemen who are trying to figure it out like you were. And we've had a number of guests on that actually talked about their collegiate experience, right? So interesting that you kind of talk about that. So as you were going through that, did you have any mentors?
Marcus Gordon:You know, people who kind of guided you and said, Justin, you know, here's what professional triathlon looks like, right? Here's a short course track. Here's a long course track. Here's what an Olympic kind of track looks like. Did you have any guidance or discussions along the way with that?
Justin Metzler:So I'll give you one super negative experience and one really positive experience. Okay. So I'll start with the negative experience. So while I was it must I was a sophomore in college. There was this guy, his name's Alex Libbon.
Justin Metzler:He was a pretty like, fairly good professional triathlete, and he was going to University of Iowa as well. And so him and I became really good friends during that time, and we would train together a ton. We would hang out socially a bunch, and we both were very committed to being professional triathletes. So he was sort of like my light at that time because I just at least had one guy, and I had a couple other friends or whatever, but he really was someone who, like, I could talk to during the summers. We gotten his parents Honda Civic, and we road tripped all the way to the East Coast doing triathlons one summer.
Justin Metzler:So we became really good friends, and Alex and I had gotten recruited or invited to this USA Triathlon High Performance Camp in San Antonio. So they had these, like it was sort of the original version of the collegiate recruitment program. So they sort of saw results from what you were doing on the local scene or your regional collegiate level and then also at the collegiate national championships. And I improved quite a lot from my first year to my second year. So I think they saw my result from the collegiate national championships was which was in Tuscaloosa, they saw his result.
Justin Metzler:And they invited the two of us plus one of the females on the team down to this high performance camp in San Antonio. I remember we got down there. We drove down there, the three of us, and day one was FTP test on the bike. And at the time, my swim and my run were really significant weaknesses in comparison to my bike. My bike was, like, relatively strong, and I would make up a lot of time in the nondrafting triathlons on the bike.
Justin Metzler:And so I remember we did this FTP test. I absolutely smashed it. I think I had, like, one of the highest watts per kilo in the room, and that was really cool. I was, like, really pumped. And then the next day, I think they did, like, a it was a two mile run test on the track in the morning and then a 200 max into a sixty seconds rest, 800 max swim test, just standard USA Triathlon swim test.
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. And I remember there was gonna be, like I think it was two days more of the camp. And I remember after the run-in the swim, the USA triathlon high performance director I remember her name. I'm not gonna say it. She came up to me and was like, we're good.
Justin Metzler:Like, you can take off. Yep. And the other kids stayed if you made it to the next round.
Marcus Gordon:Right.
Justin Metzler:And I remember that really lighting a fire under me of, like, I just knocked out the highest watts per kilogram on the bike. Yeah. My run-in the swim it's not like they were bad run and swim times. I think they just weren't anywhere near where you needed to be for, like, a criteria b for a USA triathlon high performance. Right.
Justin Metzler:And so looking back, I kind of understand if you're a talent ID person, you need some level of benchmarks. And if the guy's running the thirteen minute two mile, it's probably like you're a little far off, buddy. Yeah. But that's still I remember that really pissing me off and motivating me. So and it was a blow in the moment, but in hindsight, definitely helped helped me motivate.
Justin Metzler:So that was, like, a negative mentoring circumstance or situation. And then a positive one was my final year of college. After the off year, the gap year at community college, I realized that, like, my local coach was doing an awesome job. He'd gotten me to pros. This guy named Craig Strong from in Evanston, Illinois.
Justin Metzler:And real, really, really good coach, but I felt like I needed someone with professional experience. And so that's when I hired Jesse Kropelnicki from QT two Systems. And I was really flying blind at that point, and I'm really, like at that time in particular, I was very OCD, methodical. Training had to be perfect. I'm still kinda like that, but a little bit less so now.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. And so going into Jesse's system, who he was coaching a lot of really good pros at the time, like, was coaching Lindsey Corbin, Angela Nath, TJ Tolleson. These are, like, big names in twenty thirteens, twenty fourteens. These are people who winning are winning Ironmans, and I'm sitting there saying, I wanna win Ironmans. And so I remember calling Jesse and him getting really excited about coaching me, and I listened to everything he said.
Justin Metzler:Diet, training, mindset, race selection, equipment choice. I listened to everything he said, and he taught me so much about how to train, how to be a pro, the expectation was in terms of me as an athlete from a training side, like, how much detail I needed to put into every single day in executing the training, and how much it mattered for me to trust him and listen to what he put in the plan. And I think that was one of the best things was, like, we just established this trust right away. I I gave him the trust right away, which is really difficult, I think, for some people to do, but I just said, I trust you with this right now, man, and I'm gonna do it exactly the way you say. And I did every single session to the letter, and I think that really amped him up to work really hard and pass along as much information to me as possible.
Justin Metzler:So he developed me as a as a pro early on as a mentor at a really high level. So I would say Jesse was definitely the first early mentor that I had in addition to this guy Craig from Chicago.
Marcus Gordon:So why don't we take those experiences, right? And you have a prominent coaching business now and you're working with athletes from the elite level down to age group level. What have you learned from those experiences and applied now knowing that, you know, especially different athletes have different needs, right? So if there's just an age grouper just trying to get by and do a six hour half IRONMAN or you have an elite age grouper that's, you know, trying to go for a KQ or someone that's that's actually a pro really trying to step up their game. What did you learn from those experiences and how are you applying those now?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. I mean, I've I think one leg that I have up as a coach is that I have sort of been through every level of triathlete. I started off as a guy who wanted to just get across finish lines and break six hours in a 70.3, and then I was like, oh, I really think I wanna try and win my age group. And then it's like, oh, I really wanna try and turn pro. And it's like, oh, I really wanna try and get in the top 10, and now I wanna podium, and now I wanna win races, and now I wanna qualify for Kona, and it's like as a pro.
Justin Metzler:And so having been through every single one of those, I think Jeannie and I talk about this quite a lot. You know, I've got my degree in exercise science, which is cool, and it's something that I kind of fall back on a little bit. Like, of that, you know, bachelor's level education is gonna be insanely triathlon specific, although it gives you the the basics. We say that the more important degree that we have is DBE, degree by experience. And so I feel like that definitely gives me a leg up because in the coaching world, because I've just either seen it with my athletes, having coached now for about ten years, or I've experienced it myself.
Justin Metzler:And the chances of me having experienced it myself and had an athlete experience it are really, really freaking high just because I've coached so many athletes, and I've been doing it for so many years. And so I just nobody has the answer to every question, but I feel like I have an answer to a lot of basic questions. And I think I'll be the first one to put my hand up and say I don't know the answer if I don't. But at least in this super specific niche, I know a lot about this. I don't know a lot about other stuff.
Justin Metzler:Like, I don't know anything about cars. I don't know anything about, like, how the world works or politics or anything. I know a lot about triathlon. And so if you're looking for someone who knows a lot about one thing, I'm your guy. And this is the thing you wanna focus on, I'm your guy.
Marcus Gordon:Go long and deep. Alright. We'll we'll save the political discussion for another day. That's not we don't do that on this podcast. Right?
Justin Metzler:No. No. No. I I wouldn't even know what to say either.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's kind of so let's start to walk through your professional career. Right?
Marcus Gordon:And I think, you know, let's you know, you've been around, you've seen you've you've had the ebbs and flows. Right? So maybe walk through a couple critical moments, you know, when you first started out and then you hit some roadblocks and then you were able to kind of have that resilience and go through. And then we'll kinda, you know, bring that together and talk about what's happening today. But let's, you know, maybe pull a couple of nuggets, you know, that's really relevant to the audience to say, you know, over a ten year period here, like, two or three monumental things that I went through and help develop me.
Marcus Gordon:May maybe they're great experiences, you know, an awesome placement, maybe it was, you know, a long day out at, you know, St. George. A lot of us have long days at St. George, myself included. So maybe kind of walk through that a little bit.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. I mean, like we said in the beginning of the podcast, it's been a long time. It's been twelve years racing professionally with a couple pretty significant elite amateur years before that I took really seriously. So it's been probably fifteen years of of pushing it to a relatively high level. So I think for me and everyone's different.
Justin Metzler:I think if you ask a a different athlete, they maybe will extract, like, here here are my big results. Like, in 2015, I won x. In 2018, I won y. Like, I don't really reflect back on my career in terms of the wins and losses and the podiums versus the failures. I think those all sort of, like, are just part of the process.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. And I think for me, it's really been about and if you asked me this question five years ago, I might have I might have said, like, oh, winning this race was, the pinnacle or getting on this podium was a pinnacle. But I think now being a little bit older and and having a little bit more reflection of my career, it's more about the the people and the and the training and the progress that I made over the years. So I sort of break it up in terms of the chunks of coaches that I had. So we already spoke a little bit about my first coaching, Craig, and I've been really fortunate that I haven't had a lot of coaches.
Justin Metzler:And so, like, I started off with Craig, that was sort of just like, okay. Take go from high level passionate kid who, you know, is going five hours in a 70.3 to like, woah. This guy's going three fifty as an amateur and winning amateur races overall and turning pro. That was like that was first first step. And then Jesse sort of took me from a point where I was a good pro, but I didn't really have I didn't have an understanding of, I guess, like, the outside world.
Justin Metzler:I was just very in that world. Like I said, I just really committed to him. I knew that process, and I sort of trusted that process so much that I got four or five years down the road, and I was like, why isn't this translating to, like, the bigger races? I sort of was able to have success on a certain scale, and then it was like, okay. I need to transcend again, and I wasn't able to get that until I shifted over to getting coached by Julie Dibbons.
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. And the Julie world definitely opened up a lot of doors for me. I think personally, athletically, and professionally, I think I just did so much over the course of those five years. And so I think that's probably where I grew the most as a person. I started with her when I was 25, and I went a different direction when I was 30.
Justin Metzler:So I think for anybody in any career path between 25 and 30 is a pretty significant time when you're just sort of getting your feet underneath you, like you're either coming into a new career or shifting into your more permanent career, and you're just sort of, like, you're not getting your feet wet anymore. You're sort of just putting your boots in the sand and kinda getting it done. And so I definitely saw the most success that I had in my career with Julie, and that stretch definitely was just a linear progression from the first two phases. And I that's where I just that's my biggest gift of my career was from when I started in 2007 until 2022, so that is fifteen years. I there are micro setbacks along the way, but I never had a big regression.
Justin Metzler:I never had anything that put me out of training. I was able to train 350 days of the year every single year for fifteen years. Mhmm. And so that was sort of my what allowed me to actually get decent, like, pretty good at triathlon. It just didn't have any misses.
Justin Metzler:And I think some people struggle psychologically because they get burned out with that amount of time, and they don't give the there's themselves, like, the opportunity to realize the potential just because they they quit too early, and they don't have that stubbornness or persistence that I had. I mean, it's like, okay. This is just he keeps he just doesn't leave. He's just still here. He's still going.
Justin Metzler:He's still taking licks. Yep. Yep. You have plenty of races that, you know, go to absolute shit, and you have plenty of times when you just have a bad workout and you don't, you know, those are all just part of the process. They're just small little details.
Justin Metzler:But for me, it was really just yeah. From 2007 till 2022, like, almost no setbacks whatsoever that you can that you can imagine. And, yeah, from 2019 to 2022, I really felt like I started to reap the rewards of that consistency. So that was probably the most successful, quote, unquote, time of my career where I had the most volume of wins and podiums and qualifications for bigger races and most money, most sponsorship, most attention. That's when people started to, you know, care who what I was doing and who I was and and whatever.
Justin Metzler:So that was probably the most important couple year stretch. And then, yeah, things started to go a little bit of a different direction in that I had my first major setback in 2022 when my Achilles tendon in my left foot started to kind of get a little bit off. And so I struggled quite a lot with my Achilles twenty twenty two and 2023, ended up leaving Julie, and all of those things combined just were, like, compounded to be, put me in a pretty negative situation where my body wasn't right, My training environment wasn't the same, and it wasn't as good as it used to be. Like, the environment that I had with Julie, like I said, from 2019 to 2022 was in insanely good. Like, I was training with Tim O'Donnell, one of the best athletes in the world, one of my best friends.
Justin Metzler:Every single day, we were able to hang out and train together. My mental health was in an incredible situation. I had Julian Deck supporting me every single day. I had more money than I've ever had from my sponsor at the time, Waterfall Bank. So those were, like, the glory years.
Justin Metzler:It's just insane. It was amazing. Yeah. Like, amazing time.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. Let let's dive in a little bit of that because, you know, we've we've had guests on you know, you you've been a prominent member, so to speak, of the Boulder scene. Right? And kind of really help and, you know, before you got out to Boulder, certainly, you know, with with Mark and others, there was a prevalent endurance sports community. But I think the last fifteen years, you know, with Crowley and TO and Rinne and Tim Don and others, you know, being out there.
Marcus Gordon:Tell me about how those interactions, right, whether it was at the pool, you know, at a coffee shop kind of helped shape your mindset and what you learned from some of those, you know, folks along the way.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Boulder is interesting that way. I think when I I I didn't really have massive expectations when I got here. I just knew it was the place to be. But I think what I learned pretty quickly is that people aren't gonna let you into their sphere unless you have a reason to be in their sphere.
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. And so it's not like I when I first walked up to Boulder, it's like, oh, I'm just gonna go for a ride with Tim Don, or, oh, I'm just gonna pop into a ride with Miranda Carfrey. Like, that just doesn't happen. I think those people have their guard guard up for good reason because if they just have every, you know, jabroni rocking up to their front door and asking to go ride, it's a little bit like I could see how that would be annoying. And I think we're in a position now where we've been here ten years, and there's a lot of folks who wanna come out of us.
Justin Metzler:And I think you just have to people have to understand that we can't say yes to everybody. I mean, there's gonna be folks who earn our trust, and we know that their ability is gonna be good enough where cool. Yeah. Come on. It's not gonna be a stress.
Justin Metzler:But I think I could, you know, at that time, I definitely didn't have any reputation or name or somebody who with any relevance would wanna ride with me. But there were a handful of folks who did who were really keen. Like, Ty Butterfield, for example, has been a long time boulder guy, and Ty is just, like, immediately I remember just being in the locker room with this guy after swims, and he would just talk to you for, like, half an hour. He talks to everybody for half an hour, but Right. I remember him being really welcoming, and and I think he realized I was a good guy, I didn't mean any harm, and so he introduced me to folks.
Justin Metzler:And then I just really immersed myself into the culture. And I think in Boulder, this would probably be my advice for anyone who's young here, is it the backbone of it is the swimming. Yeah. So that's where you meet people. That's where people get to understand your work ethic.
Justin Metzler:That's where people get to witness your attitude. And so knowingly or unknowingly, I I sort of saw the group swims, the master swimming here in Boulder as the vessel that would allow me to show who I am. And so I would go to those swims, I would just go all out, all out, all out. And I would lead the lane, and I would be on time, and I would stay late. And I think maybe people recognize that.
Justin Metzler:And some people were like, oh, Justin just overtrains, blah blah blah. But I think some of the other folks were like, alright. This guy's here. He's putting that work in that work, and I respect these guys respected that. So yeah.
Justin Metzler:And then I started I was able to get into Julie's group. And that the Boulder bubble is interesting. Like, at the time, Julie's group was private. But if you weren't coached by Julie, you could get a special invitation. But the special invitation needed to be, like you needed to, like, know a guy who knew a guy.
Marcus Gordon:Right. Right.
Justin Metzler:Right. And so I kind of, like, had an I think at that point, I sort of had, like, a result or two enough Mhmm. Where Julie recognized that I wasn't like a Joe Schmo. I think Jeanie was also in the picture at that point, so she helped my cred because she was winning races at the time. So it was kinda like, oh, Justin and Jeanie, like, yeah, they they got enough.
Justin Metzler:Like, let them in. And so we started swimming with Julie, and and that's when I started to really get the relationships with some of, like, the the top level pros. Because if you were anybody real, you were swimming with her group, and that allowed me to get a lot of relationships started just via that.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. And and, you know, you and Jeanie have, you know, paid that forward. Right? So you've been welcoming to other athletes as they've come into the area and kind of, you know, fostered that environment of camaraderie. And it's never perfect.
Marcus Gordon:You know? It's it's never perfect in in any training environment, especially in a high stress environment where, you know, you're out for your own livelihood, but you're also out for the betterment of the sport. And I think, you know, that's part of why you've earned a reputation just like the pros pro because you've been able to balance that in a meaningful way. Excuse me. So let let's kinda bring it full circle here.
Marcus Gordon:And I I think, you know, one of the reasons why, you know, we decided to do this today is because, you know, you you've you know, you had a setback last year with the Achilles. Made a massive run, right, kind of gearing up for Arizona, big race, you know, punted on 73 worlds, put your focus in, you know, we're we're, you know, potentially in in the best shape of your life. And then you have like a random accident, right? Which can happen to anyone. It's just one of those things you're out of your normal route.
Marcus Gordon:Fortunately, it's not worse than it is. But let's get into some of the mindset stuff and let's kind of maybe get a little you know, raw and real here. You know, what has that done? And especially, you know, the last year or two, you and Genie have kind of battled through some stuff and and now, you know, you're you're up here and then you you take a dip and now you have to find that motivation again, right, and kinda dig in and and and rally. So let let's talk about a little bit.
Marcus Gordon:Kinda where where's your head at?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. So it's been ten days since the accident. And like you like you mentioned it, you know, I feel like I I said this earlier in the podcast. I had fifteen years of a pretty clean run and then very fortunate for that, but then Achilles really set me back psychologically. And that that mentally put me back more, I think, partially because I didn't have those minor setbacks along the way.
Justin Metzler:I had never dealt with a minor injury, let alone a major injury, never had a surgery, let alone a major surgery. So that one really pushed me to my limits psychologically in terms of questioning my motivation to continue training, continue my motivation to be passionate about about being a professional triathlete, my worth in the sport. I think that came from the internal side of can my body continue to do this because you have those question marks, but then it also comes from the external pressure of you have sponsors withdrawing their commitments and and not backing you anymore because you're not able to deliver the same results due to the injury. And so I definitely went through it quite a lot in 2023 and 2024, primarily 2024. That was definitely the most down I've been psychologically.
Justin Metzler:And then it wasn't until I had the surgery late twenty twenty four, and I was able to recalibrate early portions of '25 in the rehab that I realized how passionate I was still about the training and how passionate I was still about building myself up in that process of being, you know, a a high level athlete and extracting everything that I have just in that really specific domain. And I because I've done this so long, my identity and lifestyle and so much of who I am is is just really tied into training twenty to thirty hours a week. Like, that's just such a innate part of my daily process, and it really makes me a better person. And now having that taken away from me last October, November this time, and now having it this October, November, almost exactly one year removed from the Achilles surgery, like, just I know how much better I am as a business person, as a husband, as a friend, as a coach, like, all these things I'm better when I'm training because it's just it supports my life. It doesn't detract from my life.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. And so I know that I know that a lot. And so now having this unexpected the Achilles was was harder because I had to confront all these big questions, but it was easier because we knew it was happening, and you could psychologically prepare for it, and I was in pretty poor shape. It's not like I had a race on the horizon or whatever. I'd written off the season.
Justin Metzler:I threw it all away, and I said, I'm just resetting here. And so I just I knew that going into the surgery. This was a lot different because of how hard I worked to get back to exceptional shape. And so it really took me three hundred and sixty five days to get back in shape. And I had to take it took everything.
Justin Metzler:It took patience. It took fortitude. It took pain. Like, it's painful to come back from a surgery. Like, my Achilles didn't was in pain still from Jan like, when I had the surgery in late October to July.
Justin Metzler:I didn't really get on the right side of the Achilles until July. So training through that discomfort and that pain and the rehab and the PT work and the strength and all of that definitely was challenging. And then I think also psychologically, this summer was really challenging just because I'd taken so much time off that my form wasn't very good. Like, it just wasn't in very good shape. And so I got it back out to the races, I'm thinking to myself, like, oh, it's not gonna be that hard to pick up sort of where I left off in 2022 now that my Achilles is, like, not torn.
Justin Metzler:I had five podiums in 2022. So I'm like, oh, certainly, I can, like, deliver a relatively high level of that. And then I got out there, and I'm like, woah. That year off did some damage, and it's gonna take me a little bit to get the wheels in motion here. And so I really felt like I was 10% off the mark throughout the summer.
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. But I I did I did have those conversations with my coach, and I'd communicated that to the part the partners that we started with at the beginning of the year that, like, it's gonna take me all year to get back. Like, you just gotta stick with me. And so it wasn't until Santa Cruz this year where I felt like, okay. That was closer.
Justin Metzler:My performance in Santa Cruz, I was ninth, but the output was kinda like, alright. We can work with that. That's not far off. And then I got into the training block for Arizona. I think I had something like thirteen weeks from Santa Cruz to Arizona.
Justin Metzler:And I remember every week going by being like, this is feeling. And if you, I think a lot people listening might know where you just it doesn't have to be a number on paper. It doesn't have to be a wattage or a heart rate or whatever. Like, all those things can be conformational, but it's just how you feel. You get out there and you're just like, I'm firing right now.
Justin Metzler:And I hadn't felt that in, like, three years. And so I probably had a month of the training and before the crash where I was like, this is good. This is good shit. I'm dialed. I was hyped with what the training Matt was putting in my plan.
Justin Metzler:It was just everything was tracking. And that's when we had conversations about, like, what is next for the rest of the season. There were question marks in September. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know.
Justin Metzler:And then it was very much like, no. I'm doing Arizona full on. I'm going to qualify for Kona. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, since then, it's been a tough one to process.
Justin Metzler:I think I held on to hope initially. Mhmm. The first couple days that Arizona was still gonna be possible. When you have a crash, like, I just got road rash. I'll be alright.
Justin Metzler:But then when the arm got infected, I needed this emergency surgery. Yeah. That pretty quickly got thrown out the window. And so I think I'm just coming to terms with that now. I think I've been so ill the last ten days as well, like, due to the infection, and I've been on antibiotics that I ended up messing with my system.
Justin Metzler:I had to go back to the hospital. So I've been in the hospital four out the last ten days. So that's not like, it hasn't been ideal from that perspective. I've been sick for the other ones. I maybe had, like, two or three good days in there, but I think I'm coming to terms with it now.
Justin Metzler:I think I I know if this setback happened two years ago, I'd be like, I'm done. I'm retiring. I know I'm not retiring now. I'm gonna have to take the time to recover, but I know that the work I put in the last three hundred sixty five days isn't gonna completely disappear. It is going to disappear a bit.
Justin Metzler:The time that I'm gonna have to take off to recover is gonna be significant where I'm gonna have to build back, but I think it's gonna be easier than it was coming back from the Achilles. So I'm just trying to recalibrate, focus on my other stuff, and make a plan for twenty six.
Marcus Gordon:So when you talk about some of those setbacks, right, there's the mental part of it there and there's the physiological part of it. Right? And I think as age groupers often, you know, the mental part, just because there's a lot going on, you have families, jobs, all this other stuff, you don't have the dedication or the commitment to it like a thirty, twenty to thirty hour training week. But what I've noticed, you know, with a lot of amateurs is that, let's say you have a minor injury or you get sick or you have a family vacation or a family event, and then you, you know, like you said, it's about feel. Right?
Marcus Gordon:So maybe one or two weeks off or you haven't had the training and people like just rush back into it. You know, they're like, oh my god, I missed like two weeks and it takes, you know, and and you know this, having a professional, I mean, it it takes a while, obviously, to gain fitness. It also takes a while to lose that fitness, especially the aerobic fitness. Right? So when you think about being able to take the the mindset and deliver that information, you know, to to the general, you know, the audience here, but also the athletes that you work with.
Marcus Gordon:What's kind of your guidance? Because I know for me and guys and gals that I train with, you know, you feel like, oh, you had like a little bit of time off, I'm sick or had a like a minor injury. Like I gotta get back into it. Gotta push it, push it, push it. But then you realize, I mean, had nasal surgery a couple years ago.
Marcus Gordon:I took a month off from swimming And actually, I came back swimming stronger because I was probably tired, you know, like so talk to talk to us about kinda what that looks like in the transitions through all these minor setbacks, you know.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. I mean, it it's gonna be different for everyone. And I think, like, I'll just talk about my experience, and I know that my Achilles surgery was really eye opening because I left getting coached by Julie in May 2023. Mhmm. And Julie is an exceptional coach, like, insanely good coach.
Justin Metzler:And I felt as that time, the group dynamic was changing, and Tim was no longer training with the group. I didn't really have any training partners. I wanted to train change my training environment. So I was like, I'm gonna coach myself. This is when self coaching becomes really popular.
Justin Metzler:And so I started coaching myself, and I pretty much coached myself all the way from then until I had my Achilles surgery in late twenty twenty four. And I didn't realize until I took more or less five walks five weeks off and five weeks of detraining how overtrained I was during that time. And I think now it puts some now having a good coach in Matt Hanson who's also looking after my fatigue, Yeah. How much I overlooked and how easy it is to overtrain. Mhmm.
Justin Metzler:And not really understand those signals and those signs. And it's not until you have a forced rest, a reactive rest that you pick up your head and you're like, ah, I actually probably stuffed it the last eighteen months and wasn't able to extract the most out of myself. And so I think if you're stagnating in performance, that's definitely something to look at is like, when was the last time you actually took an extended break? Right. And so, yeah, my the Achilles surgery was a big eye opener because came back similar to you from your nasal surgery being like, wow.
Justin Metzler:Obviously, my run was pretty bad. But my bike was better than it left off. My swim was better than it left off. Now that being said, the timing is everything. Like, did it was the first session that I did post Achilles surgery the best session I've done?
Justin Metzler:No. But, yeah, you give yourself a month of getting the wheels back underneath you Right. On stuff that you don't have major injuries with, you can have the potential to, you know, be a lot better if you were a little bit overtrained. So yeah. I mean, I'm I'm optimistic that I maybe there's a a good balance to be had here for me, like, coming off the heels of this because I went in super fit but not overtrained.
Justin Metzler:Right. All of my blood work and and all that is is in a really good spot going in. I think going into the Achilles surgery, things were not as as good looking. And so my my energy's been good. My my work life obviously, training for an Ironman takes takes a lot, but my ability to work has still been at a relatively high level Yeah.
Justin Metzler:Going into the Ironman. So I felt like that was positive. So my hope is that I can get over this and train. It'll probably take me until my goal is to be back feeling good, quote, unquote, by the New Year. I think that's realistic in terms of a timeline for feeling good.
Justin Metzler:I think it's gonna take me the majority of November to just get back on a training plan. It's gonna take me all of December to feel pretty bad.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. Yeah.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. And then but I think by January, I think I'll my my hope and my expect I don't know if my expectation, but I think my hope is that I can be back training at a pretty significantly high level through January and February and be able to put the work that I've put in the last three hundred sixty five days to use in early twenty twenty six, something in March or April.
Marcus Gordon:So with that, you know, there's a lot of you know, obviously, since since you've been in the sport, technology's changed and grown tremendously. Right? So everything we have now from core body temps to lactate reading to everything in between blood, I mean, you can literally just become obsessive over it, right? Versus the balance of listening to your body. So when you think about it, when you think about it for just your average age grouper, right, who's trying to think about, okay, how do I manage the information that's available to me, whether it's HRV or sleep values, whatever the case may be on a daily basis, with my balance that with my training and how I feel, what's your kind of guidance on that?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. It's a good one. It's a good question, I think. And this is where my experience as coach probably impacts my opinion more than anything. Yeah.
Justin Metzler:Because what I've realized coaching a lot of people is that not everybody has the same, like, awareness as everybody else. Some people aren't aware of the signals that their body are giving them. Like, they they can't identify where pain is coming from. They can't identify if they're if they felt really good. The difference between feeling amazing and feeling like a little bit off.
Justin Metzler:So for them, like, that scale is it's messy, and there's some people where they're super acute, and and they they understand it a 100%. They're like, when I feel amazing, it feels like this. When I feel crap, it feels like this. And I think that does come a little bit with experience. So what I find is the younger folks, they don't have a great understanding of their body yet because they just haven't felt it enough.
Justin Metzler:They're just like the college kids that Jeannie and I coach, they're just kinda like it hurts there. And it's just in, like, knee, but it could be quad. It could be calf. It's like my leg. You know what I mean?
Justin Metzler:Like, somewhere in my leg hurts. Whereas the older folks and the people with more triathlon experience are like, left anterior tib is swollen. You know what I mean? And they know exactly what it is and whatever. So I think for me, with my coach, I'm able to use a lot of the subjective feedback for us to make decisions because I I know and I'm and I am also mature enough in my career where I'm not emotionally tied to withdrawing training.
Justin Metzler:And so that's another thing to consider is, like, is this person still, like, emotionally invested in their training, and are they using it as an outlet for maybe a psychological reason? Because early in my career, I probably withheld information from my coaches because I didn't want them to withdraw my training prescription. So it was really important for me to, like, hit my two hour run on the weekend at all costs, even if my calf was sore, even if I was sick or whatever. So I wouldn't communicate that I was maybe feeling sick, and I would go do the long run. It costed me the whole next week because of that.
Marcus Gordon:But I
Justin Metzler:think now so back then, it would would have been really valuable for me to have a tool like a HRV or a resting heart rate monitor or, you know, something like that to communicate to my coach without words. Yeah. Like, hey. Here's what's wrong. But now I think for me, like, Matt Hanson and I don't use a lot of of, like, the wearable tech or whatever just because it's not necessary.
Justin Metzler:And if anything, my subjective feedback is ahead of whatever that wearable tech is gonna provide whatever data that's gonna provide us. So we don't really I don't personally use all that a lot. I think also my personal perspective is that it's just not quite there yet. And this is what I communicate to a lot of my athletes who are on the fence is, like, we need wearable tech and tech as a whole to be conformational data rather than data that we use to make decisions. If your HRV is tanked and your resting heart rate is high and you feel amazing, we're not gonna change anything because that could be happening for a whole bunch of reasons.
Justin Metzler:But if you feel like crap, you slept like crap, your HRV is tanked, your resting heart rate is elevated, you had a stressful week at work, you haven't eaten well, you've had too much caffeine, you're dehydrated, we need to make a change in the training. So anyways, that's how I I do it, with Matt and I, it's it's simple because we're just both old dogs. So I just text him and I say, Matt, my run tomorrow is too hard. Can you change it? And he's just like, on it.
Justin Metzler:And that's literally all how it goes.
Marcus Gordon:Shout out to Doctor. Matt Hansen, right? Who's got blends the technology with the subjective feel. So with that, and then we'll dive into some rapid fire here in a second. So what do you think the most overhyped metric is, right?
Marcus Gordon:There's a lot out there now, especially, you know, when age groupers look at the pros, you know, consuming a 120, a 150, a 180, you know, grams of carbs per hour, you know, but that's that's after weeks or months of training on a consistent basis. Training the gut, doing things, you know, eating in a particular way, not having the other stressors. What do you excuse me. What do you think the most overhyped metric is right now?
Justin Metzler:My athletes really love the HRV. Yeah. They really love to use that as information. So that's probably I don't know if it's overhyped because it's good information. It's not bad.
Justin Metzler:It's not a bad thing. I'm not against HRV tracking. I track it myself. Like, I it's a it's a good metric, but I think it's just gotten a lot of attention and maybe gets people more stressed than it's worth. And I think oftentimes, I will just take off my Oura Ring Mhmm.
Justin Metzler:When I know it's gonna be bad. Like, I've had this week that I've had where I've been really sick. I've been in the hospital. I've had surgery. I wore it one night, and my h r my HRV is typically, like, one forty, one fifty, which is kinda high if you're it's, like, on the high side for HRVs.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Yeah. So I have a pretty high HRV just to give you context for what it is. And I think my HRV was like 20, and my resting heart rate overnight is typically like 36, and it was like 55.
Marcus Gordon:Right.
Justin Metzler:So and my readiness was like 31.
Marcus Gordon:Right.
Justin Metzler:Right.
Marcus Gordon:So I'm like knows. Right? You're not not ready to do anything right now. Right.
Justin Metzler:But I know that. And so I'm like, okay. Well, what is this? The only thing this is gonna do is I'm gonna wake up in the morning. I'm gonna upload my data and that's gonna stress me out.
Justin Metzler:So I just took off the ring and I haven't been wearing it all week because I don't need I don't wanna know that. So I think that's probably the most overhyped thing that I see. I don't think it's worth not paying attention to, but
Marcus Gordon:yeah. Alright. All right. So good stuff. Why don't we get into some rapid fire questions let's start off with this one.
Marcus Gordon:If you could change one rule in nondraft racing, what would it be?
Justin Metzler:Change one rule in nondraft racing. I think it would be the unintentional litter penalties littering penalties. And I understand the intention behind the rule because these cities give us the honor of hosting these amazing races there. And I think we really do wanna protect their natural environments. And I think you look at something like Kona, which is our biggest stage, you know, it's not a great look for us if we've got precision gel wrappers in the reef.
Justin Metzler:And so I kind of understand it, but I think for the professional athletes especially, like, are going so fast through the aid station that for us to discard our litter, it honestly becomes too it's too challenging. So we either need to extend the duration of the litter zone or give the pros a little bit more leeway. So that's my that's definitely a gripe that I have. I I have a I have a a little project with Jimmy Riccatello coming up in the off season, the head Ironman officials, so maybe I'll bring it up to him.
Marcus Gordon:Okay. Right. Sounds great. Yeah. Well, we'll look forward to hearing about that.
Marcus Gordon:So your wife, Jeanie, another amazing professional trophy. What's one thing about her that people should know, but they don't?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. I think they should know that she is a very good triathlon coach. And she's underrated, and I think she's gonna be one to watch For elites Mhmm. Elite females, I think they're gonna wanna maybe reach out to Jeanie because maybe Jeanie and I, because together, I think we have a strong package of, like, really good understanding of human physiology, but Jeanie has unmatched empathy. And like I said, probably the highest degree by experience that you can have as a professional female.
Justin Metzler:Mhmm. So I think that that's an area that we're really excited about going forward is working with more professional females. So that's probably a little tidbit about Jeanie. I could I could give you more, but that's a good one.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. Yeah. No. I I and empathy is huge. Right?
Marcus Gordon:Especially in in today's all the things, you know, we've been discussing about understanding where people are and meeting them where they are, you know, in their journey. I think having an empathetic lens is critical to that. So you've traveled all over the world. You've been fortunate, you know, that this career has taken you all over. If you could eat at any restaurant in the world, unlimited budget, Right?
Marcus Gordon:Don't worry about the expense. Where would it be and what would you eat?
Justin Metzler:I don't really know a lot of restaurants, but I wanna go eat at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant because I'm a huge Gordon Ramsay fan.
Marcus Gordon:Okay.
Justin Metzler:Because Jeannie and I are very into, like, food shows. We love MasterChef. We love Next Level Chef, Top Chef Right. Chopped, the Bobby Flay. So I'd love to go to Vegas, and if I were able to meet Gordon Ramsay and eat at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and eat his food, that would be a really cool thing.
Justin Metzler:He does this oh, man. It's like a wrapped, like, it's like a steak with a like, wrapped in a pastry. Like puff pastry. I forget what it's called. Beef Wellington.
Justin Metzler:So he has a a beef Wellington, and so I wanna eat a beef Wellington at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. That would probably be my choice.
Marcus Gordon:Alright. Shout out to Gordon Ramsay who's also a prominent triathlete, loves the community, big part of it. So maybe this will be a conduit to to making that happen. That'd be sick. So a training a training song that you'll actually admit to.
Justin Metzler:Oh, man.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. What's the Come on. Let's be honest here. Let's be honest.
Justin Metzler:Probably Franchise by Young Thug and Travis Scott. That's the that's the honest truth. Okay. Yeah. I love that song.
Justin Metzler:If I have, like, an interval, that's probably the go to. And and the remix is even better. If you if you know, you know. Alright. That's that's the go to.
Justin Metzler:I don't think the audience is gonna resonate with that, but it's that's what I like.
Marcus Gordon:Well, Andre Lopez, if you know, you know. Alright.
Justin Metzler:Oh, he'll know. He'll know.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. He'll know. Alright. If you could be another pro athlete for a day, former or current, who would it be?
Justin Metzler:Triathlete or just pro athlete? Any any pro athlete. That's an interesting one because you wouldn't wanna be too big. I feel like you professional sports, you get to a level where it's just annoyed you're just annoyed. Like, you have a lot of money, but your life just kinda sucks.
Justin Metzler:So you probably wanna be someone who's just, like, rich enough so you have enough money to do whatever you want, famous and successful enough where you feel like accomplished in your career, but not so much in either that it was it was too much. Oh, man. I'd wanna be honestly, Scottie Scheffler might be too big. Yeah. But I kinda wanna be like a Scottie Scheffler type.
Justin Metzler:Maybe like a Justin Thomas golfer. Right. Your body's not totally wrecked. Like, my body is not is not gonna be in a good shape when I'm done. I don't think.
Marcus Gordon:Yep. Yep.
Justin Metzler:Those golfers, I think, are gonna be able to retire and be, like, super wealthy. No one's gonna have them at the grocery store. They're still super accomplished and able to they're also able to
Marcus Gordon:have all those, right, have all those memberships and yeah.
Justin Metzler:And I'm jealous they'll be able to execute their craft at a high level, like, late into their life. Those guys can still play on, like, Masters Tour and PGA seniors or whatever for a long time. I'd probably pick, like, a yeah. Like, Justin Thomas type. I think that'd be sick.
Marcus Gordon:Shout out. Maybe maybe a Masters Tri Tour. Right? I mean, you can get, like, you know, a T. O, Crowley.
Marcus Gordon:All
Justin Metzler:of us hobbling.
Marcus Gordon:Yeah. You know? Excuse me. Just something. Mix it up.
Marcus Gordon:Right? You know, the ratings are down so to speak, so how do we create inject some more energy and create some excitement. But, yeah, it's it's tough or relays or whatever you have with it. Alright. Let's wrap up one more question.
Marcus Gordon:So you've been around some amazing people, mentors, athletes, you know, world champions, Olympians. What's the best advice you've stolen from them?
Justin Metzler:Best advice he'd stolen from them. Yeah. I think
Marcus Gordon:Not adapted. Right? Not stolen. Yeah. Adapted to your own.
Marcus Gordon:Right? Right?
Justin Metzler:Yeah. I I think I think with one thing that I really observed a lot from spending a lot of time with Tio and Rinny was those guys didn't forget to smile Mhmm. Along the way. I think you see a lot of these younger pros now, and it's just like, win or die. And it's like, you don't I'm not seeing the passion.
Justin Metzler:I mean, I'm I'm seeing the passion, but I don't know if it's coming from the most genuine and authentic place. I think when you speak to me or you hear my content or you hear talk to me on the phone in a coaching call or whatever, I think, like, I just want to come across that I'm really excited about triathlon and that this is fun for me at the end of the day. And I think I went into before I met Tim, I I was probably pretty locked in and serious, and I felt like I need to make more money and I need more sponsors. And if I don't win, my life's over. And I think Tim was really good at show Tim and Rainey were really good at showing me, like, we're gonna be badass athletes.
Justin Metzler:We're gonna work our asses off. But at the end of the day, we're gonna play some cards. We're gonna have a laugh. We're gonna stop at the gas station and make a joke. And so that really I don't know.
Justin Metzler:Like, that lightness, I think, brings a lot out. Some pros really need to adopt a little bit more lightness in their approach to the training and the racing. So I think that's probably something that he never really, like, specifically told me, but I, took a tremendous, value in observing.
Marcus Gordon:Crack open a, expensive bottle of wine at the end of the training session or night.
Justin Metzler:Right. I I unfortunately picked up that habit.
Marcus Gordon:That they've surrounded themselves with, you know, Aaron Carson and other I mean, similar mentality. Right? Like, be really good at your craft, but understand kind of your place, in life as well. And I think you've definitely exuded that. Right?
Marcus Gordon:You're you're you're the pros pro, and I think people look up to you for being genuine, giving it 100%, not quitting. This latest setback's not going to bring you down, right? Just a curve in the journey. But man, we appreciate the time today sharing your knowledge and we know that next time we come on the podcast, you'll be back in this seat. And we look forward to continuing to share interesting journeys of the endurance mindset with all of our audience.
Marcus Gordon:So thank you, Justin, for taking the time today. Appreciate it.
Justin Metzler:Yeah. Thank you for making this happen now. I know it's been something that's on our been on our radars for the the last couple months, and I was hoping it'd be maybe under better circumstances to initiate. But Yep. I think now, yeah, hopefully, this gives some of the audience understanding of of what I've been up to, and I appreciate everyone listening to these Endurance Matters podcast episodes, and we wanna keep, bringing you great conversations and guests.
Justin Metzler:So, yeah, stay tuned for the future and just appreciate all you guys.
Marcus Gordon:Awesome. Alright. Next time, it'll be under positive circumstances. So peace out, Thanks, Mark. We'll see you next time.
Justin Metzler:Thanks. Alright. Peace out guys. Later.