The focal point of this episode revolves around the recent events at the Riviera Rumble, where the T100 series and the World Triathlon Championship series converged, creating a spectacle of both triumph and controversy in the realm of triathlon. Matthew Sharp and Jeff Sankoff provide a detailed analysis of the performances, including noteworthy outcomes from both the men’s and women’s races, while also addressing the implications of a concerning study linking ultra-running to an increased risk of developing colon cancer. Furthermore, the discussion delves into the potential for a new full-distance Ironman race in North America, speculating on various locations that could serve as viable hosts for this significant event. The podcast seamlessly intertwines expert insights with personal anecdotes, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of contemporary issues facing the triathlon community. As we conclude, we invite listeners to engage with us on these topics, fostering a dialogue that extends beyond the confines of this episode.

Links to topics discussed:

The TriDoc Podcast

Matt's Instagram

Jeff's Instagram

LifeSport Coaching

Email Jeff: tri_doc@icloud.com

Email Matt: Matt@thetemponews.com

Signup for the Tempo News

Signup for The TriDoc Podcast Supplement form

Welcome to Tempo Talks, a show that brings you analysis of the biggest stories in triathlon training, tips to make you a better athlete and breakdowns of the latest science and performance.

I'm Matthew Sharp, an olympian in triathlon, 70.3 champion and co founder of the Tempo News.

And I'm Jeff Sankoff, the tridoc medical contributor for Triathlete magazine, age group winner and coach at Life Sport Coaching.

Our goal inform and entertain two perspectives.

One sport, all things triathlon.

Now let's get into it.

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to another episode Tempo Talks.

Matthew Sharp here, co host alongside my better co host Jeff Sankoff.

I got to say that every time.

Jeff, how, how are you doing?

It sounds like your legs are feeling pretty fresh after last weekend.

Last weekend was a smackdown of the.

Legs and the ego or just the legs.

A little bit of both.

A little bit of both.

Not afraid to say.

I said I was going to take this Marbella course and I was going to run with it and I was going to train in earnest.

And so that's what I did.

I took my travel bike with me to Salt Lake City, we rented my son a bike and we found a couple of, shall we say, epic climbing days.

We did one somewhat short day we had my daughter had a pole vault meet in Salt Lake, so that's why we were there.

So Saturday, a bit short because we had to get to her meet.

But then Sunday we went out for what turned out to be a five and a half hour ride that comprised 56 miles and 8,000ft of climbing.

And it was redonkulous.

The last pass, Guardsman pass.

For anybody who's ridden it in Utah, it's like a seven to eight miles of 10% plus grades.

It was not a lot of fun coming at the end of the ride too.

Was it tougher doing that one at the end too?

I feel like putting that at the end was extra punishment for yourself.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'd spoken to other people who have ridden it and say, oh yeah, if you do that at the beginning, it's hard.

If you do it at the end, it's crazy.

And we did it at the end and it was pretty crazy.

But beautiful roads out there.

Drivers were very nice, we didn't have any issues.

And yeah, it was just a really nice day out.

And my son continues to just.

He's pretty amazing.

Little bit, he's dropping dad.

This is what you want as a father though, right?

Is for have your kids have a higher FTP than you.

That's it.

Well, at Least watts per kilo because he weighs nothing.

So true.

That's good memories.

Father, son memories.

When dad's getting dropped.

Yeah, it's over for me.

He started out running me, he's out biking me.

It's only a matter of time before he starts out swimming me and then it's really done.

Nope.

And what about you, Matt?

What were you up to over Labor Day?

Labor Day?

Nothing crazy.

What did I do?

I got out for some riding.

No epic rides like you, though.

Some runs.

Nothing special here.

I'm actually.

I feel like putting in a lot of work right now on the newsletter.

You haven't got this email, but you may get an email at some point.

I'm actually working on a bit of market research from the audience and I know maybe a few people listening will have received that already.

But yeah, investing time in that right now.

So that's taking up a bit of time for sure.

All right.

If you are a listener of the podcast, you likely are a subscriber to the email Tempo News.

If you're not, you really should be.

And you will know what Matt is speaking of because you will receive that email.

So what are we covering on today's program?

Matt?

Yes.

We just had a massive weekend in the French Riviera.

The Riviera Rumble.

We that saw the T100 series and World Triathlon Championship series at the same event.

We are going to be talking about.

I think we're going to be getting into a study that you showed me.

Linking.

What is it?

Linking?

Running with ultra.

Running with colon cancer.

Okay.

Ooh, interesting.

And then finally we are going to talk about a potential new race destination for a full distance in North America.

I know Ironman teased that today, so wanted to speculate on that.

Yeah.

I would like to say we have a scoop.

We don't.

We're totally going to be speculating and who knows, by the time you hear this, the truth might already be out there.

We don't know.

But we'll see, we'll speculate and maybe it will come to pass based on what we say.

We'll see.

We can edit the podcast to make it seem like we were right.

Anyways, so the T100 in French Riviera was again beset with highs and lows and controversy and we'll try to get to all of that.

There was one writer who on Instagram looked like he came perilously close to going over the wal.

I can't remember who that was a.

Tour de France style save.

Yeah.

Had his foot out of the Pedal was desperately gripping all the brake he could.

Yeah.

I'm glad.

I'm trying to remember who it was.

It was Leo Bergere.

That's right.

Leo the Frenchman.

Yeah.

Yes.

And he's a guy who, if he's in that situ.

If someone's going to be in that situation, I would want it to be him because he's incredibly good technically on the bike.

Like, this guy's doing wheelies on his TT bike.

So he knows how to handle a bike.

And I think, thankfully, it was him in that situation and not someone with less skills because there might have been an even more viral video.

Had.

Yeah.

Skittering, skidding along like this embankment over.

I don't know.

Looked like a pretty steep drop over.

It's a big drop down the.

Oh, my gosh.

Those walls are like.

They come up to, like, your knee and then if you go over them, you are going a long way.

All right, let's talk about what happened in the two races that took place there.

Yeah, it was a big.

Another big race weekend.

We had.

Yeah.

Start with the T100 races.

So we had the men's race played out in a typical T100 fashion.

We had a big group coming out of the water together.

No real separation.

Sam Long, his race was done, I think, as he got out of the water, but he's been training through, so wouldn't expect too much from him as he prepares for nice.

But the leaders, basically on the bike.

You had a group of about five athletes establish themselves in the lead.

Really.

It was Hayden Wilde.

Classic.

He's had his huge collision and now he's back right at the front of these races.

Yellow Ginz, who is a series leader, tied for the series lead.

You also had Rico Bogan from Germany, the T100 San Francisco winner.

He's always just on the front of these breakaways along with a couple other guys.

And they established a big gap about halfway through the bike.

And then as the race went along, Wild and Bogan broke away again.

Very similar to the Playbook in Singapore when Hayden won.

The Playbook in London when Hayden won.

So this was setting him up for another win.

And he pulled it off.

Do you think.

Do you think Rico Bogan.

He doesn't really have a choice.

Right?

It's a.

He wasn't helping Wilde, but at the same time, he's gotta be thinking to himself, this is deja vu all over again.

I'm not going to be able to run this guy.

I think he's.

I don't think he can do any more.

Otherwise his run is really going to suffer.

Like, I think in London, he really tried to distance himself from Hayden, maybe got like what, 20 seconds, 30 seconds on him in the end and then still got dusted by him and actually blew up even more.

So I think maybe he's resigning himself to the fact that he's not going to be running faster than Hayden.

He's probably not going to be able to outbike the guy.

But if he can work together with him, then ultimately he'll be in a better place starting the run and have a better chance to just even land on the podium, which is still an incredible result.

Yeah.

Once they got to the run, Hayden just stomped his foot on the throat of the race yet again.

Yeah.

And he didn't do anything too flashy on the run.

He was attempting this T100 World Triathlon double, which for the first time could be attempted this weekend because they had both the races on at the same time.

So I think he, he could see Yella at points, who was the guy who ended up chasing him down, who ended up in second.

He could gauge his distance off him.

I think the gap between him and yellow ended up being like 40 seconds for most of the race and then dipped down closer to the end when Hayden kind of cruised into the finish.

Basically started recovering for the next race, cooling down before he even finished the actual T100 race.

And it was interesting though, because all of a sudden I think today it's cropped up the shoes that he won on.

Oh, yeah, I wanted to talk about the shoes, but let's wait on the shoes.

Let's wait.

We'll push that.

But the shoe gate, just when you.

Won the race, where'd Bogan come in?

He was about fifth, I think.

So, yeah, he really drops off.

He dropped off, I guess it's still a solid result.

He's still pretty high up in the series, maybe even in podium contention.

Still third place was Sam Dickinson from Great Britain who was a wild card.

So very nice call up wild card action there.

He was also domestique for Alexei last year at the Olympics.

So a very good, very good front of the race rider, as you showed on the weekend.

Okay, let's, let's talk about the women and then we'll come back to Shoegate because the shoes are definitely the talk of a little bit of conversation for sure.

So this women's race, it was interesting because there weren't, I guess maybe you call them the headliners.

There's a lot of great athletes, but I would say the headliners of the series so far are the ones who have won races.

Taylor Knibb, Lucy Charles Barclay, Kate Wolf and Julie Darin.

They were all absent for different reasons.

A couple of them were getting ready for Kona and then Kate, I think she had sickness, she was ill. And then Julie Darin had a crash.

So for the other athletes, this is an opportunity to get a win.

And Ashley finally did after what has been a season of frustration for her.

Well, it's crazy because literally this time, roughly this time last year, she had won a race, she'd won the podium.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, literally a year later you're like, oh.

People are asking like, oh, is she done?

Is she whatever?

Which is absurd.

Yeah, it's crazy.

She's a very talented athlete.

But this is what people do to get people, other people riled up.

For sure.

I get it in the media.

Basically.

Gentle just had a pretty solid swim, swam near the front.

I think it was interesting because you had Jess Learmuth, who has been a podium athlete now from Great Britain, her and Georgia Taylor Brown, who was a wild card Olympic medalist for Great Britain.

They had a little breakaway, a little two up breakaway through the bike, but in the end they didn't have that much of a gap, I think 90 seconds or something on Gentle, which she's such a class runner.

You gotta have more time than that for sure.

It's gotta be minutes.

So Gentle ran through them.

I think Taylor Brown actually led the race for almost halfway.

So she was leading like she was having a great day.

And then I think she blew up and she went from first to about ninth in the end.

So that was a tough, tough blow up.

Well, she even said, she said she's a rookie at this distance.

She's still trying to figure it out and sort out the distance and pacing.

So she was, I think she was overall happy with how it all went, but she, she recognizes she has a lot to learn.

I think she's going to be a real threat at this sport and she's.

An athlete who has excelled at the shorter distances.

Like she's won a lot of those super league, super tri races.

So she knows how to just blast out of T2.

And obviously in this racing, maybe not the exact strategy you want, but it's not going to take her long, honestly, to see her land on one of these podiums for sure.

Yeah, Ashy Gentle, she's back with a win.

And then the shirt you're wearing, what shirt are you wearing?

I'm Wearing a nice red and white Canada shirt celebrating my heritage.

And of course, Paula Finley, our fellow Canadian, Paula Finley.

She had a really nice day as well.

Happy for her.

I think she went over there early to really.

She knew her weakness was a technical course and whatnot.

And it was a very technical, challenging course for the pros.

So kudos to her for investing in going over there.

And she manifested this podium, which is cool to see.

Do you know if she's staying right through Marbella or is she coming back and.

No, I know her decently and I know she's definitely a kind of person who wants to be.

If she's not at the race, she wants to be at home with the family, with Eric and the dog.

So I think she's back at home now for sure because I think there's a while, Gotta be a while till.

Till Marbea for sure.

Oh, yeah, no, it's another couple of months.

Interesting.

All right, so the shoes, if you're not familiar with this, it's been, what, about a year now that the.

I'm trying to remember which federation.

It's like the Track and field Federation.

I think that.

Yeah.

World Athletics.

Yeah.

That made this ruling that first of all, the stack height of your shoes.

So basically the width of the sole can only be 40 millimeters.

If it's more than that, they're illegal.

And then the other thing they said is you can't wear shoes that aren't widely available.

So if you can't buy a shoe in the store, you're not allowed to use them.

There's some kind of exception, you're allowed to use it if it's.

If you're helping the shoe designer or maker develop the shoe.

I can't remember.

I was reading some of this and there was some nuance to it, but the long and the.

Yeah, the long and the short of it is if a shoe is not widely available for purchase, you're not allowed to wear it.

And both Sam Long and Hayden Wilde were sporting a fancy pair of asics, which are apparently the bee's knees.

They are very, very light.

They are apparently very fast.

I am sure they are very expensive.

And apparently they are only available to Sam Long and Hayden Wilde.

They are available on September 11th to everybody else.

So technically those shoes were illegal.

Yes, and, and, and they knew.

Yes, they did know.

And this is part of the problem, I think it's like I, I think you've seen.

Have you seen the post, Jeff, where he's basically caught on a hot mic saying they're prototypes and saying he'd better take them off.

That's the quote.

I'd better take them off.

The whole thing.

First of all, listen, as far as I'm concerned, the whole thing is silly.

If the shoe.

Listen, they're professional athletes.

Of course they're going to get the shoemakers want these guys and women to try these things.

I don't know.

I just.

I think the whole thing is just ridiculous a little bit.

So it gets a little bit in the weeds.

Well, the deadline or the day that they're available widely, technically is September 11, so in about a week.

And I'm wondering, like, do you think he should be.

They should be disqualified over this?

No.

And I honestly think it's a tempest and a teapot.

I just.

Do we really think a guy like Hayden Wilde is getting that much out of this shoe versus what he would have gotten out of a different shoe?

Because let's face it, when you're Hayden Wilde, I think you could wear.

You could wear my shoes and probably win that.

Yes, we all know.

We definitely know Hayden Wilde could wear whatever shoe is available now.

Flip.

And still.

Yeah.

And still win.

I'm actually on the other side of this.

I really, I think ultimately, especially because it's clear that he knew these were prototype shoes and he said something about them not looking for them.

Like, at the end of the day, you know, at what.

Where do we make this exception?

Where do we call?

Where is the line on this?

I just think that, you know, what if somebody shows up to Kona with shoes two days before?

There's.

I know, but that's the thing.

Now it's a rule.

Basically because of that, now it's a rule.

You're supposed to have the approved shoe.

To me, it's if.

Are you going to let, you know, someone like Hayden get away with it or are you going to let it slide?

Does it set a precedent for other athletes to be able to do other things like this?

I don't know.

To me, if I knew I was racing these guys, especially if I was yell or whoever is in that kind of podium contention, like, I'd probably file a protest for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

No, listen, I know.

I think we all know it's a bit silly because it's literally like a week.

But at the end of the day, these guys were also told, I think, not to wear the shoes.

And then they wore the shoes.

So for me, I'm like, disqualify them.

I'm a guy who unzipped a zipper.

I think We.

A few of us.

Remember when I unzipped my zipper and I got slammed, and then they ended up changing the rule.

But that was the rule.

Obviously, I didn't love it.

I just think that.

I think if we're gonna make these rules, I think we need to adhere to them, even if they are silly and eventually get changed or whatever.

Well, and that's why this format of you and me doing this is, I think, interesting, because as an age grouper, I honestly just don't care.

Exactly.

You're in that field, in the pro field, and I could totally respect where you're coming from with this viewpoint.

And it's not like I. I totally get it.

And so I wouldn't necessarily change my answer because I still don't really care that much about it.

No, but at the same time, I absolutely respect where you're coming from and respect your viewpoint.

And if they did disqualify them, I wouldn't be upset.

You wouldn't care anyways?

No, I wouldn't care either way.

The one thing that I'm confused about, so World Triathlon, like, they're supposed to be checking these shoes, and they do that at the world championship series races.

I just don't know, because T100 World Triathlon, they're supposedly, like, combined now, and they've harmonized the rules or whatever.

Like, does the T100 check these shoes before the races, or is it just World Triathlon?

That's what I'm confused about, because maybe somebody on the ground, like, the officials weren't communicated with or just forgot.

I don't.

Like.

That's the thing that's confusing.

T100, the same organization that didn't do.

Drug testing, the people who were supposed to check the shoes without fundraising for Saudi money.

So, yeah, that's what happened.

Let's.

Let's finish up with the Riviera race.

Just by acknowledging that there was a sprint race, Hayden and Morgan did not finish in the top of that race.

Hayden still had a great.

Still had a great race.

He, what, finished 11th or something.

So that's a.

That's a sprint.

In a sprint, it's like it doesn't take much to not end up on the podium for anybody, really.

And the negatives about the whole weekend, and I alluded to that at the top, is that there were some negatives had to do with the age group race that was put on.

So could you tell us what went awry?

I guess we can rewind to maybe six weeks ago where a lot of these athletes Signed up for this race thinking like the advertised bike course I think was the same or pretty similar as what the pros were doing.

This one loop 80k kind of epic ride along the coast and then into the interior on the hills and whatnot.

And then about six weeks ago or so, basically T100 was like, hey, we couldn't get the permits.

We're, we're gonna change the course.

So they changed like six loop course in town.

Rug pulled the age groupers.

I had an athlete who was gonna race who reached out on the newsletter and told me about this.

He said he ask for a refund because that's not what he signed up for.

And then just even on race day, there's another age group athlete who I was speaking with who basically said that the swim start was delayed like quite a bit which pushed things back, which made the time cutoffs which were already quite aggressive, made them even more like untenable.

Like I think half the field probably based on the cutoffs would have been just like cut.

But I think they just ended up letting them finish like it was just.

I don't want to say it was like a shit show, but it was chaotic.

From what I heard at 100 fiasco.

Yes, this is not a well executed age group event.

I think the core since.

And there was some stuff like it was super windy too.

So that didn't help them.

But they don't control that system.

No, but there was just this kind of stuff that you're just like, ah, guys, the only thing I will say coming out of the weekend which was a success and combining the world championship series and T100 race ultimately did, was it overshadowed an Ironman pro race on the same weekend which has been haunting them this whole year.

Usually on the big T100 weekends, there's also been a pro series race and maybe Lionel wins or you have an epic like Laura Phillip Cat Matthews battle that always seems to overshadow the T100 race.

And I think this weekend they won.

So there you go.

Yeah, well, if you're going to overshadow, if you're going to overshadow Ironman, you probably want to have things go a little bit better across the board.

For sure.

For sure.

And you probably don't want to have Sam Renu standing out there just crowing about how awesome he is and how awesome the organization is while all the age groupers are standing there going, what?

Anyways, yes, as an aside to the athlete I spoke to about their race experience, like they've done five plus T100 races already.

They're supposed to be going to Qatar for the final.

They may not now because of how this race went down.

But I was just impressed.

I was like, wow, this is a real T100, like, go getter here.

Sam should be on the horn with this person, just getting their feedback on everything because these are the people you want in your, I don't know, decision making room.

Seriously.

All right, well, let's move off from the T100.

I think we've done that one, I think fairly well.

We'll have more T100 to talk about as we move towards December in the Grand Final.

Maybe one thing I would love to see what athletes think of the whole shoe situation.

Should Hayden Wilde and Sam Long be disqualified from this talk about it?

We'll maybe raise the issue in the Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group because I want to hear what people think.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's a great subject for conversation.

If you're not a member, please do look for Talk Tempo Talks on Facebook.

Answer the questions, we'll gain you admittance.

We'd love to hear your thoughts.

All right.

Our second subject for discussion is something that I'm actually talking about on this very day on the Tridoc podcast, which came out at the same time as this episode of Tempo Talks.

I have one of the architects of the study that was referred to in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago.

Now you've probably heard something about it.

The headline was really a grabber and it basically talked about this idea that our runners at a higher risk of developing colon cancer, which if it's true, would be a very disturbing kind of development.

We're not going to get into the real details of everything here.

I just want to.

It's what the study found and why, how we should interpret it for now.

But if you want to hear more, please do look for the Tridoc podcast.

I talked to Stephanie Van Beber, who is a research scientist in Virginia and who was intimately involved in the development of the study.

And we go through the whole thing in much more detail.

But essentially what the study did was it looked at 100 self identified ultra runners.

And a few of those hundred were just people who had run multiple marathons.

They all signed up to get colonoscopies.

And on those colonoscopies, 15 of the runners were found to have advanced adenomatous polytips, which are, sorry, adenomatous polyps, which are precancerous lesions.

And when compared to age match, historical controls, you would have only expected to find one.

So 15 in the running group versus one, which is really interesting.

Now you cannot.

It is very statistically significant.

It's maybe very statistically significant.

So you have to look at this study.

Now of course the headlines of this were does running cause cancer?

That is not what this study set out to do.

This study really just looked at self identified ultra runners who may have had a reason for wanting to get a colonoscopy, who may have noticed bleeding, who may have had problems.

So they may have pre selected to have a higher likelihood of having these problems.

Or alternatively, maybe there really is a signal here.

But the whole purpose of this study, the genesis of the study came from a doctor who takes care of patients with colorectal cancer and he happened to have three young men with colorectal cancer who all were ultrarunners and he thought to him that's unusual.

I wonder if there's something here.

And so that's what stimulated the idea to do this study in the first place.

And it's a hypothesis generating study.

So now based on this finding, they're going to go out and do further studies where they are a little bit more selective about who they choose.

They're going to try and drill down to how much running is it age and gender specific and they're going to try and get some better answers.

But there was no question the findings of this study were more than just interesting, they were probably a little bit concerning.

And if there is something going on in ultra runners and those who run a lot, it needs to be determined what that is.

And if anything, it's just a reminder that we need to be diligent about screening and about paying attention to our bodies.

And one of the things that Stephanie talks about in my podcast is, look, it's widely accepted amongst the ultra running population that when you do an ultra, it's not unusual to see some blood in your stool.

You're going to poop some blood.

And now we need to.

It's like a rite of passage for ultra running.

Passage.

Yeah, but we need to recognize that's not okay because that signifies something going wrong in your gut.

And if you see that, you probably need to get that checked out.

So.

Interesting.

I have a couple.

Yeah, a couple questions.

Did they find that certain genders had it more so than others?

So like you talked about males coming in, he said, he said, the doctor said young males coming in.

Was is it more predisposed in younger ultramarathon males?

Can't say from this study and I haven't read the full study myself because it's only preliminary results that came out.

But I can tell you that there has been an.

Not an epidemic, but there has been a weird in the last 10 or 15 years.

Colorectal cancer used to be a disease of people my age in their 50s and older.

And we have started to see a lot of people in their 20s and 30s being diagnosed with very advanced colorectal cancer.

And the reason it's being detected late is because it's not expected and people my age are getting colonoscopies.

And so it's being detected early and it's curable when it's detected early.

So it's a little bit unusual that we're seeing younger people.

We assume that it's diet and environment related.

We don't know exactly what's going on.

But this notion that runners are potentially at risk is of interest and would potentially inform screening for that population in the future.

If the findings of this study bear out.

Do you think, do you have a hypothesis on why running would do this, would bring about early colorectal cancer?

The leading sort of theories on this have to do with the idea that when you do long duration endurance events like that, you're diverting blood flow from the gut.

And what ends up happening is that the gut becomes injured because it's deprived of oxygen.

And that injury leads to inflammation.

It also leads to a translocation of bacteria from inside the gut into the wall of the gut and sometimes into the bloodstream.

And those bacteria can wreak all kinds of havoc.

So the main consideration is that it's just this diversion of blood flow and a continuous injury process that's happening to the gut because of long distance.

Sorry, not long distance, but long duration exercise at a high percentage of your aerobic capacity.

The other thought is, could there be something with the diet, Is there something about a ultramarathon diet and is that doing something as well?

So those are the two leading contenders.

And did they talk about in terms of the threshold for ultra running?

Was there like a time duration, again.

Too small of a study.

That's something that needs to be investigated in a larger scale.

Very interesting and a little concerning.

For sure.

Potentially.

Potentially.

I think, I think as headlines got.

Me, that's for sure.

Yeah.

As Stephanie said very eloquently on my show, she said, let's turn it around and make it a positive, which is to just be more aware and have a lower threshold to get ourselves checked out.

Which I think is a really good take home message for the whole thing.

Very good.

We'll be listening to that, no doubt.

All right.

All right.

Let's turn our attention then to the speculation.

We have heard word that there is a new full distance Iron man for North America.

That's going to be.

It's been teased.

We're not sure exactly when the news is going to be dropped.

We assume it'll be in the next few days.

But we are going to speculate as to where that might be.

So right now, the North American calendar includes.

And I'm sure I'm going to miss one, but if we go through, we have.

I'm going to think about it from east to west and let's see if I can get them all.

We've got Lake Placid.

We've got Ottawa.

We've got Chattanooga.

We've got Florida, Maryland, Texas, California and Arizona.

Ah, nice.

Yep, yep.

I think you nailed it.

I think that's all of them, right?

All points.

There are a bunch that have been.

And gone.

We lost Coeur d', Alene, which was a real popular one, but that's gone.

We had one briefly in Oklahoma.

That's gone.

We had Alaska, of course, for two years.

That's gone.

We had.

They had New York that one year.

We had Mont Tremblant.

We had Whistler.

We had Penticton.

They're all gone.

Yeah.

We had.

Louisville's gone.

Right?

Chattanooga.

You said Chattanooga, didn't you?

I said Chattanooga, yeah.

So I think we got them all.

So when we think about where the next race might be, the west is clearly underserved, it seems to me.

The Northwest, specifically with the absence of Coeur d', Alene.

The Northwest is really underserved.

I know that they would love to have a downriver swim, I'm sure.

Just like they have in California, just like they have in Chattanooga.

What are your thoughts, Matt?

What do you think when you're talking about Pacific Northwest?

And this is the thing, too, they just said a new full distance race.

Does that mean it's totally new?

Never happened before at a totally new venue.

Or is this.

We're talking Pacific Northwest.

You've got what?

Tri Cities, Washington and then Oregon as well.

Are they talking about making one of those ones a full distance?

Because those are both downriver.

They are.

Tri Cities is a great event.

And it's.

You've done both of those.

I've done Tri Cities and Oregon, and they're both fantastic events.

I'm trying to envision the possibility of having an Ironman on the same day.

Cause that's what they do sometimes now.

Right.

They have a 70.3 and an Ironman on the same day.

I can't imagine either of those locations being able to do that.

So then the question becomes would they have an Ironman separate or would they replace the 70.3?

Oregon's already open for registration at.3, so the likelihood of them adding an Ironman I think is not really realistic.

Tri Cities is coming up so if they were going to add an Ironman there, I just.

The transition is.

It's a big race, Tri Cities, I can't imagine they'd be able to double it up.

They could double the course but the idea of doubling up the transition seems difficult.

I feel like Ironman they'd find a way.

It's more.

Do you think that population, those that region could support a full distance race?

The community has been incredibly welcoming.

At least they were last year.

In year one we'll see what it's like.

Year two, I'm going there in a couple of weeks.

I'll report back.

But I think if they were going to put another race I think it would be an entirely new location.

I wonder, there are other places in Washington, in Oregon potentially would they consider a race closer to a city like Seattle or Portland or Vancouver?

Vancouver being Vancouver.

Vancouver, Washington.

Right?

Yeah, Vancouver, Washington.

Or alternatively, is it possible they'd go back to Canada and have another race in Canada?

It seems Whistler, Penticton are right out because they both have failed.

Not failed, but I think they've both had their chances and it didn't.

Didn't take.

I don't know where else.

One thing to consider is the Quebec City race that has been going on for a couple years.

That's been a 70.3 middle distance.

The challenge race is actually going to have a full distance race next year.

Oh, interesting.

So does that mean that whole region, the Northeast is ripe for even more full distance races?

Are they taking a flyer like I feel like population wise you could probably throw another one like Ottawa, Lake Placid.

They're both in the summer.

I guess maybe timing wise it'd be harder to have another one in the summer.

But just in terms of population, you've got Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Washington.

It just seems like it could sustain another full distance.

But if you move around I just, I don't know about Canada.

They just.

It seems like they've been taking away races more than they've been having new ones.

That's at least my kind of my take.

My observation.

Do you think one of the areas that I would eye definitely for a new full distance would be somewhere in the south, like the sun belt.

I think we've seen this, you know, I guess growth in population and people moving there post Covid.

Like maybe that's the region where you're gonna see more like event growth.

They had a very popular race In Memphis and 70.3, it was very popular.

I don't know what the death knell was for that race.

I don't know if it was.

The city didn't want to pony up anymore.

I don't know because my understanding was it remained quite popular in terms of people signing up, but it just disappeared off the calendar.

So I don't know if Memphis is potentially possible.

The 70.3 in Louisville this year was according to my report, the reports I heard, a big drop off.

Interesting.

Yeah.

They went from more than 2,000 athletes in the first year to about a thousand this year.

And at a terrible time of year.

It's in the middle of August.

It's really unpleasant.

They made the run apparently very difficult, which didn't help.

And I'm told that may be revisited to try and make that a little easier.

But Louisville has had an Ironman before and they just had problems with it.

The swim was continuously a problem.

River conditions were frequently an issue, even though the bike and run were great.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know if that we have to.

If I was part of the Ironman scheduling crew, I'd be really concerned about possibility of cancellations related to weather and fires.

And so if I'm going to be plopping a race down, I would be thinking about that and I would be looking at more of a later season race that is a little bit less likely to be subject to very high temperatures.

So I do something.

September, October.

Because right now we have Arizona in November.

We have California in late October.

But we have a.

And then I guess we have.

Chattanooga is in early September.

But I wonder if there isn't room for something else in there because.

Oh, and then we have.

Florida's in November as well.

Sorry.

Is it almost December?

It's like the end of November, isn't it?

Yeah, it's early December.

End of November.

I think it's actually early December.

I think it's one of the last races.

Yeah.

A September Ironman seems like it could be.

Fill a void.

Fill a void for sure.

Once you get into September, especially in the Atlantic, there's always the hurricane threat.

Well, that's it.

So then Then you start thinking about locations that.

That works.

And I find myself looking back again towards either the Midwest or the west because I think the east is tricky, because then, like you said, hurricane season and gosh, hurricane season has not been pleasant these last few years.

No, it's been a little bit quiet so far.

Hopefully, knock on wood, it stays that way.

But I keep thinking about, look, California is really underserved.

One race.

Got one race for.

For a state that's the population of Canada.

Yeah.

And the question is, though, is there anywhere to put a race?

You could almost see an earlier season Ironman there.

Like an April, maybe May type of situation, but I'm not super familiar with the races.

Like, they used to have a race in Napa.

Didn't they have a 70.3?

They had Vineman 70.3.

And they had a Vineman full.

Oh, really?

Okay.

They had both.

That race went away because the river is problematic for a swim.

The river's so shallow, and it's really problematic.

It's.

The water level's troublesome, and then the roads are not great.

And, yeah, I don't see that race coming.

But it's too bad because it's one of my favorite races when it was there.

But I'm not sure that's coming back.

We haven't figured it out.

We really haven't.

We're a lot.

We need to go.

We need to do a pick, though.

We need to go on the record so we can get made fun of after.

Okay, so I'm gonna go with.

I'm gonna go with Pacific Northwest, and I'm just gonna leave it at that and just be like, I think that region is missing a race, and I think that it would do well given how well Oregon does, given how well Tri Cities does.

I think that region could support an Ironman, and I wouldn't be surprised if one showed up there.

And I don't think it'll be a city race, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was proximate to Seattle or.

Portland or like a suburb of one of those places.

But then they call it Iron Man.

Yeah, like, they do it with this Dallas one.

It's like Ironman 743 Dallas, Little Elm, 40 minutes north of the city, but it's technically Dallas, so maybe they're gonna pull one of those.

I'm trying to think we're like a year out from when it would take place.

Like, they can't have it in the spring.

Next year be way too late to be bringing it has to be a year in advance.

So I'm gonna go.

I just.

I'm feeling a Carolina Ironman.

I don't know which one, north or south?

We're gonna go north beach to Battleship.

Used to have a full.

Where is that?

Wilmington.

Is that Wilmington?

It's Wilmington.

Yeah.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna say a North Carolina Iron Man.

We're going to stamp this one down, and then I'm going to be totally wrong.

I can't wait.

All right, we'll see.

What do you think, folks?

If you're listening, do you have any ideas of or do you have a wish list of where you'd like to see a full Ironman?

Let us know.

As always, you can drop your thoughts and ideas for your ideal race destination in North America into the Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group.

We'd love to hear what your thoughts are.

We hope you enjoyed the program today.

It's been fun talking to Matt about all things triathlon.

We love to hear your feedback and we love to see your reviews and comments.

So please do leave a review.

Tell a friend about the podcast wherever you leave or, sorry, wherever you download the content.

We would love to have your feedback because it really helps let other people know about the show.

Matt, it's been a lot of fun chatting with you.

I look forward to reconvening next week and maybe we'll have some news about the new location.

We will.

We'll both be in the penalty box.

I'm sure after this one, we'll see.

All right, we will talk again next week.

That's it for this episode.

Take everybody.

Perfect.

Thanks, Jeff.