A thorough exploration of the triathlon circuit reveals not only the physical demands placed upon the athletes but also the strategic considerations that underpin their performances. In this episode, the hosts engage in a comprehensive review of the first quarter of the professional triathlon season, emphasizing the results from recent races and the implications of these outcomes for the athletes' trajectories. The dialogue traverses the excitement and unpredictability of the sport, as well as the palpable tension arising from the ever-competitive environment. Attention is drawn to the role of athlete feedback and the impact of external factors, such as rule changes and race conditions, on individual and team performances. By synthesizing these elements, the discussion offers a multifaceted perspective on the current state of triathlon, inviting listeners to consider the broader implications for the sport as it continues to evolve in both popularity and complexity.

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

What would happen if you brought together a professional triathlete and producer of one of the most widely read triathlon newsletters?

Together with the tridoc medical contributor for triathlete magazine, H3 pointer and coach at lifesport coaching, let's say you had the.

Makings of a pretty good podcast.

Welcome to Tempo Talks.

Two perspectives, one sport.

All things triathlon.

All right.

I've made it home to a Internet safety zone.

I'm Jeff Sankoff, the Tridock.

Welcome back to Tempo Talks.

I am joined, of course, by Matt Sharp.

And we.

We.

I apologize.

My vacation, I had the best intentions.

We were going to record last week.

Matt and I actually connected.

I was set up ensconced in my little bungalow on the beach and I was desperately trying to connect and the WI fi was just atrocious.

So we weren't able to make it happen.

That's the point of going to a place like Belize though, isn't it?

To get away from the WI fi, get away from those online distractions to touch water, touch grass, as it were?

I think yes.

I mean, there's no yes, definitely.

But at the same time, it's like in this day and age, everybody works, everybody's doing something and it was a little bit frustrating.

I've been to places like, I've been on liveaboard scuba diving trips like in the middle of the ocean and had better WI fi reception than I had at this place.

It is what it is.

And I do.

I know we've been a little bit inconsistent with our weekly episodes and we are going to try.

Listen, honestly, I can't apologize for going on vacation, but we'll do our best, right?

Absolutely.

We'll do our best to be here for you guys.

It's busy times.

I feel like my work is really ramping up.

It's a lot.

It's a lot going.

A lot of balls in the air.

You're stiff like us now.

I know I am.

I.

Although some nice feedback from the team that I'm working with, got employee of the month.

Hey, the month.

Last week or whatever.

Last month.

We're working hard.

So did that feel like a podium?

It honestly did and it, it feels more impressive than some of the podiums I have had just because this isn't an arena that I have a lot of experience in.

So obviously I did triathlon for such a long time.

To get like an acknowledgement in something outside of sport is pretty cool.

And it really just ties back to the whole thing where, you know, if you're an Athlete, you probably have some good skill sets that transfer over to the working world and I am seeing that in full display for sure.

That's great.

Congratulations, Matt.

We should probably set up a talk Tempo Talks Athlete of the Month or, sorry, Employee of the Month for the podcast and we can.

That's going to be you every month.

No, perpetual.

I'm sure that you would win half the time and it would be great.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

We could trade off.

The key for the executive bathroom goes with the award.

All right, without further ado, we have a couple of topics we are going to touch on.

They're both.

One of them Salty.

One of them is just a.

A bigger topic to tackle.

The main topic to tackle is going to be the first one on the schedule.

And that is just a first quarter overview of the pro season so far.

There's been a lot of races.

There's been, of course, the most recent one being Oceanside, which we didn't get to discuss on last week, what would have been last week's show.

So we're gonna get to that.

We're going to talk about Oceanside as well as the other races and we're going to talk about some of the impacts of some of the rule changes and how we think things are going.

We are then going to revisit the biomarker conversation because I have gotten fired up about a couple of things that have come recently around that.

So we'll revisit that and hopefully Matt will keep me toned down a little bit.

So anyways, no, we got to get you going here.

Let's get into this.

Let's get into this first.

First topic here.

And Jeff, of course, like, I'm jumping in the corporate world and Starting throwing around Q1, all that good stuff.

But I guess if we're looking back, if you're looking back right now, how would you describe the first quarter of the pro triathlon landscape thus far?

Quick.

Unsurprising.

Really unsurprising.

We see Christian Blumenfeld just dominating on the men's side.

He had the, if you want to call New Zealand, not really a failure, but he had a stutter in Ironman New Zealand.

But he has been the Dominan on the men's side for sure.

And on the women's side, we've seen Taylor Knibb just really.

Taylor Knibb and Kat Matthews, the two women who I think we would have predicted to be coming out being as dominant as we would have expected to do.

So to me, it has been Thus far, unsurprising in terms of results.

I am still waiting to see what the 20 meter draft zone.

Really now I didn't get to see Oceanside.

I think you got a chance to watch it because you were right there.

So I'll be interested to hear what your experience or what your perceptions were about the 20 meter draft zone on a race where I think it was more likely to have an impact with such a huge field.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think if I'm looking back, I echo what you're saying.

Like I would say exceptional is almost the word that I would use to describe just in terms of I guess maybe more the athletes performances.

Like every year, obviously it feels like a level up.

This feels to me so far like two levels up, three levels up.

Like I don't know what's going on.

These guys are flying.

Like the competition level is super high.

Like these just races are just so deep so far this year generally.

And it's been exceptional on the course and just exceptional to see these performances especially.

And we'll get into it.

Just the consistency at such a high level.

Yeah.

And we have a race coming up next weekend that is, I mean like you said before we started taping, it's like basically the world championships in April.

It's really.

You're right.

The depth is remarkable.

The impact of what's going on in the world is obviously something that's still to shake out.

But obviously I think the T100 is going to feel it more.

But we'll see as the year plays out and goes forward.

But so far the T100 has had one.

One race, one good race.

Right.

The one race Gold coast, which went very well in terms of like execution with the age group race.

The pro women's race.

Nib kind of dominated in some ways.

But we had this revelation of Jessica Fullger, I would say the short course athlete coming up, jumping up the long course and kind of, I would say pushing, pushing nib in a way which was exciting.

But comparing the T100 and the iron man pro series, it's funny because typically I feel like the T100 gets that little bit of jump on Iron Man.

Like they had the Miami race the one year and that was quite early.

Singapore, I think it was last year or the year before was super early as well.

But it feels like this year Iron man has just taken up.

Oh yeah, a lot of ways.

Like just soaked it all up and sucked it all up.

And it was funny because I was at Oceanside or whatever.

I didn't see this part of the broadcast, but one of the listeners, Ryan Clarico, pointed out to me that in the kind of interview with Scott Derue before Oceanside, he was basically, without naming the T100 directly, basically calling him out, saying, we are the premier triathlon professional series.

Ooh, interesting.

And it was like, yeah, pretty.

I don't want to say explicit because I don't think he really called him out by name, but it was just like, hey, we're taking shots now.

Like the gloves Derues been in the job now as year two ish or two, two or three.

And now the gloves are coming off and he senses.

I think he senses a bit of weakness or an opportunity really to go for the jugular, so to speak, for the T100.

So he's.

He's starting to take.

I don't think you can blame him because no, he's got.

There's a swagger.

There's a swagger about him.

Not just the swagger, but I also think just the way that Sam Ranuf has.

He kept saying, oh, we're not in competition, we're not in competition.

But he has made it very clear that they are very much in competition.

And he has tried over and over again to kind of point out these not discrepancies, but these disparities between the two organizations and tried to highlight that we're so much better in all of these ways for the athletes.

And I think Scott Derou has a leg to stand on when he can stand up, especially after the beginning of this year and after what we saw in some of last year to be able to say, actually, I think we've got a hell of a product and the pros are coming to us for a good reason.

So, yeah, and you look at the start list, Ironman is winning.

They're winning the talent battle.

There was a back and forth maybe last year for in the battle for talent.

And you just look at these start lists so far and it's really tough to say the T100 is pulling in the talent.

And ultimately that's because the incentives change.

They got rid of these contracts.

They got rid and just made it race prize money.

And athletes vote with their feet.

They vote where they think the incentives are.

And they're clearly saying, ironman is where I want to be.

It's where kind of the money is in a lot of ways, whether in the prize money, pro series prize money, or just the, I guess, needs of the sponsors and whatnot.

There's always that to consider as well.

So Just watching the athletes vote with their feet has been interesting as well.

And that's not to say there isn't talent in the T100.

There's plenty of talent.

Like I saw the Singapore start list and it's pretty stacked.

But it's just these Ironman start lists because they're.

They have the opportunity to have so much more depth as well because they're just more open.

There's about 60 to 80 or whatever pro men or 40 plus pro women when there's always 20ish, 20 really even less in T100.

And I know we're focusing on the pros, but I think that we would both agree that triathlon is benefited when not just ironman, but the T100, the world triathlon, all of these different organizations succeed and are able to provide age group athletes with more options, more geography, more races on the calendar.

I would love to continue to see all of them thrive.

I obviously want to see the T100 do a better job than they did last year for age groupers.

And also I think we benefit when we see a good professional race to watch.

So I want to see a good product.

And listen, the T100 is still winning the broadcast war.

They do a much better job with their broadcasts and I wish Scott derues would pay some attention to that.

He probably just doesn't care because it's not a money maker for them.

But although I can't help but think it's not advertising, so it just seems like it should be.

Anyways, look, you were on the ground at Oceanside.

Kirsten had her second 70.3 race.

She won her first race at La Quinta last December against a much more challenging field this time.

And she held up amazingly well.

Led or was second out of the water.

She came out of the water with Vittorio Lopez and then did.

What a great day.

I know how proud you were of her.

Can you be objective and look at her day?

And seventh in such an amazing field is really a great day.

But you and her both felt like.

There was room in my career looking at Oceanside and all the races they've had there and my one experience, I would do a lot of bad things to come seventh at Oceanside.

For her.

I think it was a frustrating result, but she wasn't even.

I think a top five was what she really thought was, okay, I can do this and I think that's a good goal.

So she thinks she felt short of her goal.

It's her second 70.3.

I think it was just a great Experience just to be out there.

Every time you're doing these races, you learn things.

I think she was definitely exposed on the bike.

It was a lot tougher just with, I would say even the 20 meter draft zone plus the hilly bike course.

So I think she, she hemorrhaged time, like that's the reality.

She did what I did in a lot of these pro races where on the bike you're trying to limit your losses and then coming back, she came back pretty well on the run to finish up in seventh and I think for her she's disappointed.

I think it's a solid result.

You just take feedback and you go from there.

But just being in Oceanside on the ground, that race, it's special.

It just had a great energy.

I don't know what it is.

There's so many athletes who are competing, so there's so many support people as well.

So it just feels like there's never a part on the course, especially the run course rather where there isn't people cheering and giving you support.

And it was like that this year.

Just a great atmosphere.

It was awesome.

Yeah.

Having done that race a few times, I always enjoyed it and it's.

Yeah, it's a great place to be.

It's.

If we look overall and we talked about how we both were unsurprised with the who's been winning.

I was happy to see Caspar Stornens and Solve Iglosik both do as well as they did in their season debuts.

It just shows that they are again coming back after their Ironman wins last fall and they're on form to continue this season.

Is there anybody that you look at?

You mentioned our friend.

I'm so sorry.

The woman who pushed Taylor and the Gold Coast T100 race.

Oh, Jessica Fulr.

You mentioned Jessica Folger.

Is there anybody else that you look at as being a surprise so far this season?

I was very impressed with the Grace.

Grace Tech I was going to call.

Ah, Grace Tech was my choice.

Unbelievable.

To do as well as she did in Oceanside coming off of that amazing finish in Geelong.

Yeah, I agree.

I've.

I've seen Blumenfeld, obviously back to back wins.

I think I actually called him for the win in Ocean side just because the curse ended.

The curse ended.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

I don't know about the other picks, but I think because I picked three Norwegians, I think.

I think I picked the sweep.

Doesn't matter.

You got the win, my friend.

I think you got the win on both sides.

Yeah.

Anyways, yeah, Grace obviously in Geelong, coming in second there behind Kat Matthews who is a juggernaut of the women's racing.

One of the best, if not the best in the world.

And then to come over a week later and finish fourth against world class field, it was just knowing how hard these races are, it was just very impressive.

And so she's obviously on.

She's done 270.3.

She's going to do Texas.

So I think she's someone to watch in Texas.

Her bike, I think her bike like her swim is maybe not front pack but not too bad.

I would think maybe her bike typically is something that might hold her back a little bit.

So if she can limit the losses on the bike in Texas, then you can definitely expect her to be in podium hunt.

How about that?

Maybe not on the podium, but definitely in the hunt for the podium.

So very impressive early season for her.

Definitely one of those people who have stuck their hand up, say hey, I'm ready for this year.

How about on the men's side?

Any of the men striking you as early season surprise?

I, I can't think of a male athlete right now.

I think the biggest surprise for me was kind of Sam Long that he still has not addressed his swim.

He came out as far back as he did and really that did in his day.

You cannot in this day and age have that kind of swim.

He obviously came back.

I think he finished what, sixth or something.

But yeah, you've got to be able to stay in touch.

Yeah, Sam.

And maybe this is going back to that 20 meter, the new 20 meter draft zone.

Like he had a not great swim but like he got back into the race and found the front of the race about halfway through or so.

And you saw him, I would say get back into the race sooner than he typically would.

I think you saw in New Zealand Trevor Foley, Matt Hanson, those guys get back into the race sooner than they typically would.

So I really think this 20 meter zone has been the win for the cyclists that they were advocating for.

They pushed for it, they really did push for it.

So they got what they wanted.

Because I really think it's definitely.

But what about the effort?

What about the effort required to get to the front?

If you're coming from as far back as Sam was, I mean it would.

Be great if he could swim quicker but it's more like the people in front aren't benefiting as much like those front whatever the typical front pack guys, the Appletons of the world aren't benefiting as much from the 12 meter rule or 12 meter draft zones putting in a huge effort to catch up.

But he knows that the people in front are also working a lot harder.

So instead of him just flogging himself on the bike to try and catch it, by the end he caught up pretty quickly.

So then he could make another move to bridge up to Schaumburg on that bike.

And I just think having the 20 meter draft zone has made an impact in these races.

Trevor Foley have won in New Zealand without it.

I think he probably.

Especially if Blumenfeld didn't have his mechanical issue.

Blumenfeld didn't have the issue, then maybe Blumenfeld would have won.

But Foley was on for a great day.

But I just think these guys know that the effort they're putting on the bike is a, is just, it's just better for them.

It just will yield a better or a quicker return to the front or whatever, what have you.

And the guy who actually had a great swim in Oceanside, Cam Wurf, like he was just off the tail end of the front swim pack.

So he didn't even have to like work his way up with Sam.

He was already like miles ahead of him out of the water, which was fun to see.

I think he suffered a little bit out there on the run, but that was fun to watch as well.

And I'm sure he enjoyed that 20 meter draft zone as well.

All right, so what are you looking forward to for the next quarter of the season?

To bring us through halfway?

Yeah, and I'm trying to think of the races that are coming up because really in the pro series especially, I'll just talk about the pro series for the second.

I think I'm looking forward to obviously Texas and that's coming up next weekend or whatever because those are just big points races.

Right.

They're huge with, for the pro series.

So you know people who do well at these early season Ironmans.

I think it's just a huge advantage for them as the season goes along.

They're not under pressure to try and make up a result at a different race.

If they nail this one, then yeah, they just have the opportunity to like relax a little bit more.

Going into the summer is one of those like European, like a Hamburg or Frankfurt I believe.

I can't remember if it's May or June, but it's in that.

Yeah, I think, I think it's June.

Then obviously those ones as well because they'll be incredibly competitive and also just big points races.

So I think for the Ironman races or the Pro series, just all the full distance races that are coming up are just going to be massive for those points and how the series is shaking out and just even it will impact how these athletes prepare for Kona as well.

I am looking forward to.

And I can't remember if he's on the start list for Texas, but I'm looking forward to my boy Matthew getting back on a start line.

Is he racing Texas or is he racing plastic?

I don't remember because he.

Yeah, he's a placid man for sure.

I'm actually like looking at the star list and I don't think he's on the start list for.

Because he did that cape epic and I haven't really.

I know he's been quite busy with his.

You think he's been a little quiet on social.

Been a little quiet because he's been busy with school and research and.

Is that what it is?

Yeah.

But I, I'm waiting for him to show.

He had said that he had a reasonable year of racing planned.

So I am looking forward to.

I mean the classic when people get quiet on social media is if they're injured.

So yeah, I'm on injury watch with him.

All right, we'll have to.

All right, to be continued on that.

All right.

Given his output.

Yeah, he's usually pumping that content.

True, true.

All right.

Anything else you want to talk about on the beginning of the year and going forward before we move on to our second subject?

Yeah, I think one of the, one of the big things that came out for me and just.

I think people are talking about in general, like when I was watching Oceanside, I see all these huge names come through.

It's just such competitive fields and then you see who finishes in the top 10.

Sam Appleton or whatever.

I think he was like 10th and he's a great athlete and he put in an incredible effort, I think of the top 10.

I think like all of them were under the course record, the previous course record, something like that.

Just insane performances and you're ninth, you're not getting paid.

So one of the big things coming out of that weekend for me anyways was just the prize money gap or like just how ridiculously low the prize money was like for the depth of these fields, like these people coming in ninth who are great athletes, they're not.

They're walking away with nothing from that race.

And if you ask Ironman that they're going to say, oh, it's distributed in the pro series and yeah, that's true.

Someone winning a grand for coming eighth in that Oceanside race.

To me, that's a joke.

It's an absolute joke.

Given how the quality of feel.

Yeah, yeah.

It just.

It's just crazy.

So in that regard, you look at the T100 and it's all, wow, they're.

They're.

I guess, like prize money for a given result is much better, and they still have pretty good series money.

So it's just.

It's just tough to see the progression.

I guess it's just like the overall progression of our sport in terms of the pro racing, just how good it's gotten, just how deep it is, and how even though there's been injections in the prize money like it.

I don't know, it doesn't feel like enough or justified or whatnot versus just the quality out there.

Yeah, you raise an excellent point.

It's pretty 1,000 bucks or eighth at Oceanside.

That's.

To me, it's embarrassing.

It's like a joke.

Yeah, we see that in a lot of sports where they make the top prize very top heavy, and first place, second place will walk away with big paychecks, and then all of a sudden, it just drops perilously off a cliff after.

Beyond that.

So that's.

Triathlon's not alone in that kind of pay disparity.

And it's.

There is just this.

There has been this professional gap.

Right.

It's like you have these incredible athletes, incredible depth, and the prize money and the broadcast quality, especially on the Ironman side, is just so much further behind the quality of what is putting on the field.

What's on the field of play.

Yeah, there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't disagree.

We will see how that plays out going forward.

I don't know that we're going to see any major changes to that this year, but if the athletes make enough noise, maybe it'll change going forward.

We'll see.

We'll see.

Isn't there supposed to be a professional triathlon union organization somewhere around there?

All right, Remember, that was it.

That was the original cause of the.

Team, the whole raison d'.

Etre.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

We're going to move from.

We're going to move from triathletes being paid to triathletes paying money.

Because we're going to revisit our discussion of biomarkers because recently a friend of mine who is a coach, this is going to require a little bit of a story.

So I'll give you some context as to why this is coming back.

When we talked about biomarkers we were really focusing on the services that are out there, like rhythm that allows you to draw some blood on your own, send the blood in and get a whole host of biomarkers, which, as we discussed previously, are not particularly useful.

But all the same, they are more than happy to separate you from your hard earned cash dollars to provide you with results.

They can then bilk you of more money to tell you that, oh, look, we have these different products that you clearly need to address the abnormalities in your biomarker results.

A friend of mine who is a triathlon coach has an athlete who is seeing a practitioner who is a functional medicine provider, a nurse practitioner who basically hangs up a shingle as a functional medicine provider.

Now, I want to be clear.

Functional medicine is not, not a recognized medical specialty.

It is something that has come about.

I'm not even sure what the history is or how it came about, but basically this is practiced by some physicians.

But a lot of advanced practice providers like nurse practitioners and PAs who set up their offices and basically for a fee will send off a blood panel for you and get innumerable markers back and then tell you about all of the things you need to do to restore yourself to some kind of balance.

So I received an ad in my local little magazine here in Denver and there is a gentleman who is a nurse practitioner, local to me, who is advertising get 100 plus lab biomarkers checked for $750 so that you can better focus on your health goals.

And then he has this little table where he lists all of these markers and says, are these things that we will check for you versus are these things that a conventional primary care physician will check for?

So, like inflammation markers, hey, we'll do it, but your regular doctor won't.

Hormone levels, we'll do it.

Your regular doctor won't.

And I'm looking at this as somebody who went to medical school, did a residency, did all of these things, and recognizing the futility of sending all these tests and thinking to myself, of course we wouldn't do this for you because it's not indicated and is a silly thing to do.

But if you're unethical and you want to generate business for yourself by testing all of these things so that you can find abnormals and then tell people that you're going to have to come back on a weekly or monthly basis so that we can keep seeing you and fix things that don't need to be fixed, then sure, you could test all these things.

My friend, the coach, she has this athlete who is treated by a functional medicine provider who themselves is a triathlete.

And this functional medicine provider told this athlete who is a woman that her hormone markers were her hormone levels were out of whack and said I need to prescribe you testosterone.

I want to be clear.

This is a functional medicine provider who themselves is an age group triathlete telling another female age group triathlete that they need to be on a banned substance, knowing full well that if they were on it and if they got tested that would not go well.

This is lunacy, folks.

Lunacy.

I don't understand where we have come.

To.

This point and I am struggling to understand why.

We have gotten it in our heads that more is better in this kind of thing and we've stopped trusting the people who actually understand these tests and understand anyways.

You could hear my frustration, Matt.

What do you think can hear it?

I probably agree with you, but I want to take the other side of this.

Just because at the end of the day, let's say these people are doing these biomarker tests and they ultimately become healthier as a result.

Is that a bad thing?

No.

If you were becoming healthier, but you're not, there's no evidence that these biomarkers that chasing these biomarkers.

So here's the problem.

If you do 100 plus biomarkers, the error rate on a test is usually in the 1 to 2% range.

If you do 100 tests, then the likelihood of having an error, an abnormal result that is not really abnormal, goes way up.

You're going to have multiple tests that are going to be abnormal, even though it's probably a lab error.

And so you end up chasing that.

And so one test leads to another test which leads to another test which leads to doing things that aren't indicated.

And so are you actually making the person healthier?

And that's why we in medicine have decided a long time ago we need to stop over testing testing and only test when it's indicated.

If doing all of these biomarkers was actually leading to improved health, I'd be on board in a second.

But there's tons of evidence to show that it doesn't help.

And it actually leads to more anxiety.

It leads to people not necessarily improving their overall health.

That's the issue.

Yeah, no, I definitely see how, I guess keeping track and trying to go off all these markers would just cause even more stress.

And I know, and listen, I know, I understand.

I know what you're doing.

You're trying to take the contrarian Viewpoint to promote a discussion.

And so I'll take the contrarian viewpoint that I think a lot of people who do this will say.

They'll say one of two things.

They'll say, number one, why aren't you letting me know?

I want to know as the patient, I want to know these things.

Why shouldn't I have access?

Why shouldn't I be allowed to know?

And my answer to that is I don't have a problem with you knowing.

The issue is I want you to know the things that are going to make a difference.

And doing tests willy nilly and getting all of these biomarkers is not necessarily providing you with knowledge that's helpful.

I want to provide you with knowledge that's helpful and this is not doing that.

So that's number one.

The other thing that people will say is, how do I know that even though I'm not symptomatic, how do I know that I don't have something hidden?

Why do I wait for symptoms to show up?

Cancer's the great example, right?

Why do I have to wait for symptoms?

Why don't I go get that whole body MRI and find out that I've got the tumor now and they can fix it before it becomes a problem and becomes symptomatic.

And my answer to that is, you're right.

Early detection, super important.

And the earlier we can find something, the better.

The problem is we have seen over and over again when we do these things, we are more likely to find trivial problems than we are to find actual issues that then lead to further testing.

And a perfect example of this is we'll do the MRI and we'll find this little nodule that we can't tell is it a problem or is it benign?

And so you end up going to get a biopsy, which means inserting a needle to get some tissue, which means you have to have anesthesia which has got potential complications.

And then the needle going in, that's got complications and then you get the tissue back and all of this and then you find.

And then nevermind the anxiety of oh my gosh, I've got this mass, it could be cancer.

And then it comes back and it's benign and you had all of this for nothing.

And so again, look, everybody wants to live a healthy life.

So I always say, do the things that you can do to be healthy.

Pay attention to the signs and symptoms that you might be having and definitely chase those down.

But spending for this kind of stuff and going to these quacks, especially to people who are telling you to take banned substances.

Who should know better?

I don't know.

I struggle with all this.

Do you think so these whole body MRIs, do you think, let's just say, wave a magic wand.

The cost of an mri, whole body MRI goes to effectively zero.

Do you think that that is a bad thing because it would lead to an excess of testing for other things and whatnot?

Or do you think.

I think on the whole that could be a good thing.

It's a bad thing for two reasons.

It's a bad thing, number one, because it leads to unnecessary testing.

As I said, you're more likely to find things that are not important than important.

And so you end up doing one test leads to another test, which leads to another test, all to find out that, oh, we didn't have to chase this down.

You will on occasion find something.

No question.

There are all kinds of stories of people who have gone and look, look, on social media, people are more than happy to share with you their stories, which you don't is the hundreds of stories to where nothing was found or where something was found and it turned out to be nothing.

The second reason it's bad is because MRIs are a finite resource.

And if you take up MRIs doing all of these scans on healthy people, then what happens to the people who really need them?

Then what?

Good point.

But in my scenario where it's infinite.

MRIs, yeah, why not?

But, yeah, no, I get that in reality, I just think of like human nature.

And if people, even if it's like, costs whatever a couple hundred bucks, I think people on the whole are going to pay that money and deal with the anxiety or, and deal with the tests or whatever to confirm that they don't have, let's say, cancer?

Like, I just think of like human nature.

If, honestly, if I was given the opportunity to do one of those for a couple hundred people bucks, yep, I'm done.

I'm doing it well.

But the problem is you're being led to believe by these unethical people that doing this test will tell you that you don't have cancer.

But the chance of what if you're one of the ones who find something like that's.

I just think of like the way people think.

And the way I think is like, if I can eliminate the possibility of having some kind of cancer because I used MRI and paid a couple hundred.

Does it change your mind at all to know that all of the physicians out there are not doing this because we know that this is useless?

Like, that we Know that this is silly.

So we're not spending our money to do it.

That's the thing, right?

Yeah.

We gotta ask the audience, what would the audience do?

Yeah, go to.

See, this is part of the problem too.

Right.

I saw Jessica Couric, I think her name is.

She is this wonderful social media influencer who tries to debunk misinformation about health stuff.

And she and Dr. Ids, a couple of people I follow, they made this really great thing recently.

They printed this pronouncement where they said it's super easy to spread misinformation because you could say whatever you want and people will believe it.

To refute misinformation is really difficult.

You have to find the evidence, you have to give the references, you have to do all of this.

And at the end of the day, usually the people spreading the misinformation, they do a much better job of managing their content.

And they have a hook.

They have their.

They use fear, they use emotion.

And the people who are spreading the real information are using logic, they're using facts, and those are just boring.

People would rather be scared.

Not as persuasive.

Cancer is scary.

Cancer is scary.

So that's why you're scared.

You're scared of cancer, you're scared of heart disease.

And this person is promising, I could tell you that you're okay.

Which they can, because you could go get all these biomarkers and six weeks later you could still have a tumor.

And I'm not going to be able to assuage that fear with all the facts.

It doesn't matter.

And what is it?

A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can put its shoes on or something?

Yeah, that's.

Oh, I like that.

I haven't heard that, but that's a good one.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

That's where we live in.

All right, but people should go.

People should go.

I want to know.

People should go to talk Tempo talks.

I will put.

When this episode comes out tomorrow, we're recording this on Thursday.

So when it comes out today, as you're listening to it, I will put something in a Facebook group and you should go over there and leave your comment.

Is this something that you would do or have you done it?

Did it benefit you or do you feel like, gosh, I really could have used that $750 to enter another race?

I would really like to know, truly.

Okay, I'm going to put this to bed.

I don't want to rail against this any longer.

I think I've had my say, but I do think that this unethical provider who trying to give testosterone to women triathletes is not okay.

If you join the Facebook group, you get the name of the person.

No, no, you won't.

I will not do that.

I will not do that.

All right, that's all we've got for you this week.

We will be back next week with a preview of Ironman Texas, which is going to be the mini world championships, the preview of the world championships.

We're very excited about that race.

So we will be back to do a full preview of that race next week.

If you comments, if you have questions, if you have something you want to hear us discuss on a future episode, please head over to the group.

Let us know.

You could send us emails as well.

There's all the usual ways to contact us.

All of that can be found in the show notes.

We hope that you will leave us a rating and a review, that you will share this with a friend and let them know what a great time you had listening to us until the next time.

Matt, you're off to Florida this week.

I know you're going to be racing again.

Is that right?

Racing on Sunday.

It's going to be very painful.

I have not been training.

I get a true amateur experience, so to speak.

All right, we look forward to hearing all about that next week and we're going to hear how Kirsten does as well.

And until then, everybody keep.

Keep your nose to the grindstone or whatever it is the metaphor is supposed to be and we will talk to you next week on timepo Talks.

Awesome.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thanks, everyone for listening.