The recent modification of the draft zone rules for professional triathletes, extending the distance from 12 meters to 20 meters, represents a significant shift in competitive dynamics within the sport. This alteration, effective from March 1st, aims to enhance fairness and aerodynamics during racing, a change that has garnered widespread approval among athletes and observers alike. In this discourse, we delve into the implications of this rule adjustment, particularly its influence on race strategies and outcomes, as well as the reactions from the triathlon community. Additionally, we address the poignant social issues underscored by triathlon coach Jim Vance, who has recently advocated for a collective stand against injustices impacting communities, reflecting the broader societal responsibilities athletes may bear. As we transition to upcoming races, we also examine the anticipation surrounding the Challenge race in Abu Dhabi, exploring its unique setting within a wildlife refuge and the caliber of athletes participating.

Links to topics discussed:

The TriDoc Podcast

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Jeff's Instagram

LifeSport Coaching

Email Jeff: tri_doc@icloud.com

Email Matt: Matt@thetemponews.com

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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 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.

Hello, hello and welcome once again to another episode of Tempo Talks.

I'm the co host of the program, Jeff Sankoff here in Denver, Colorado, the TriDoc and I am joined once again by my partner in crime across the mountains out in Arizona where it is balmy, I understand.

Well balmier than here anyways.

Matthew Sharp, welcome to Tempo Talks.

Hey Jeff, good to be back.

Definitely balmier here than most places in North America.

I know I read somewhere like Ontario, Canada was the coldest place on earth there for a hot second.

Probably still very cold.

Thinking of all the maybe not a.

Hot, maybe not a hot second but yeah, I got you right.

Yeah.

So a lot of trainer time, a lot of indoor time for especially east coast athletes and that's winter anyways, you'd be indoors a lot but man, the storms have been something for sure for people.

I do love the reels that people make where they go outside with the cup of water and then they throw the water up in the air and it is entertaining.

Have you seen the pasta one where it's like they, they lift some pasta with their fork and then they let go of the fork and it's just stuck like levitating almost.

That's awesome.

I have not seen that.

Yeah, so yeah, it's that cold.

Wow.

Too cold for me.

Glad that I don't have to endure those winters anymore.

Those are figment of my past so far.

We'll see what happens in the future anyways.

All right, we've got a hot show to keep you warm.

As we continue through a very frigid snowy winter, we are going to be taking on some interesting subjects I think.

Interesting.

We are going to begin with a discussion of the new rules related to the draft zone that Ironman has come out with.

They are extending the draft zone.

Something we've talked about in the past is something that we thought was going to be coming and indeed now it is.

So 12 meters is now 20 for the pros.

So we're going to talk about what that means and what we think it's going to impact for racing.

We are going to talk about a post that my friend and colleague in coaching, Jim Vance put out just a couple days ago.

We are recording this on Wednesday.

The tragic events that took place in Minnesota occurred on Saturday and Jim made a reel on.

I think it was Sunday, maybe Monday.

And it was pretty, pretty potent, pretty powerful.

We're going to address what he talked about and why and we'll wrap it up with a discussion of an upcoming race.

We finally have a race to talk about.

We're pretty excited about that Abu Dhabi, the 70.3 race coming up there.

Okay.

But let's begin first with this change of the rules.

So it's been all over social media.

People have all kinds of opinions.

Most of what I've seen has been pretty positive.

What are your thoughts, Matt?

First, why don't we just discuss.

We've talked about it before, but why this change?

Yeah.

So Ironman, they just dropped it.

Is it yesterday?

That news dropped on the Tuesday.

Gosh, everything moves so quickly or so slowly now.

I don't know if it was yesterday, the day before, but it was definitely recently.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I feel like I just.

It just popped into my feed and it took me a second.

It hit me, I was like wait, what this just happened.

Ironman announcement for the professionals.

That's the key.

The professionals.

It's going to be moving the draft zone from 12 meters to 20 meters.

It feels like there's universal happiness about this.

I think it's something based on what we've seen in the races the last few years.

The way things are trending.

I think Ironman knew they had to make a change.

This change will commence March 1st of this year.

Boom.

Once the pro series kicks off, once most of the Ironman races kick off the pro races anyways, they're going to have this new 20 meter draft rule and draft zone rather.

And that will be as a part of this Race Ranger effort, guided by that as well.

So they have the Race Ranger anti drafting technology with the lights on the back of the seats.

So they'll be adjusting that.

It's like the orange, blue, red colors to adjust for the 20 meter difference.

Not 12 meters like it used to be.

Definitely seeing universal support for this.

Like Ironman and Jeff, I don't know if you're following it.

It looked like they did some testing back in.

Was it the fall, late fall or early winter?

It was pretty recently.

I want to say it was out in Arizona.

I know that.

And maybe even like in the new.

In the new year.

Yeah, it was, I thought it was either late December or early January.

Yeah, yeah.

And essentially I think and Ironman kind of talked about this but what they found, they tested 12 meters, 16 meters and then 20 meters and at certain speeds, especially above I think 45k an hour there was just a measurable difference between 12 and 16 and 20 meters.

Like once you got, I don't know that extra 4 meters between 16 and 20 that was significantly more, more aero savings or watt savings for those two distances versus 20 meters especially at the high speed.

So that, that was informing them with the testing and I think that was a, I think it was a big part in why they did it.

I think there was a lot of pressure from athletes.

Proton News was leading the charge on this of bringing the 20 meters.

Of course T100 already had 20 meters so they pioneered this.

I don't know if Ironman felt a ton of pressure from them to change but there was pressure from athletes and I think they did a good job by testing it and coming up with like actual results that were clearly showing there was a difference between 12 and 20 meters.

So we'll be having that throughout the season this year which should be interesting really.

Who wins in this scenario?

We've got the 20 meters, who's the winners here?

Presuming that the difference is really that big and I, it's hard for me to say.

I haven't seen the numbers from.

I've experienced that 12 and 20 meter difference and it is meaningful.

Like I don't know, maybe it's just mentally too having a bike closer to you if you're really hurting you can just.

Cuz it's closer.

Maybe you're more likely to like hang on but I mean with the times that I've experienced 20 meters in T100 and those open races it's definitely noticeable.

Although to be fair the quality of field in those races is also very high.

So that's plays into it as well.

Yeah, and we're talking a difference of 25ft.

So you know 12 meters is 40ft and then 20 meters is 65ft.

So that's a pretty substantial difference of somebody being a lot further up the road.

Obviously they've also extended the amount of time you have to pass because they have to in order to get through a draft zone that's that much longer.

They haven't said exactly what that new time passing time will be because it's 45 seconds I believe for the 12 meters.

I think that's what it is.

I think that's right.

Yeah.

I'm wondering like how.

Because they could play this a different way, right?

Like they could just, I don't know, do the math and find out exactly what the equivalent is.

Or maybe they would.

Instead of doing 45 seconds, maybe they do only 60 seconds and that would almost put more pressure on people to like push harder to make that pass in a given time.

Do you think that could change racing a little bit if they.

I don't know.

It's hard for me to.

It's hard for me to say because obviously I don't race in these conditions.

So it's.

You're.

You have more insight than I do.

I think of myself as somebody who's pushing as hard as you guys do and somebody's coming up beside me and they're gonna pass me.

And now I have to fall back 65ft, 20 meters, very quickly.

That's basically just stopping pedaling completely.

And then what happens if someone's coming up behind them?

You're basically getting shot out the back.

So that's only if, let's say someone's coming around you and you haven't been able to hold the distance.

Cause they can come around you.

But if you're holding that 12, let's say 12 meter gap, like they're actually.

They have to go around the person ahead of them.

Right.

If you're, I guess, not holding that distance and you're going to get shot, but if you're able to hold the distance to the person who just passed you, then I guess you don't really have to worry about it that much.

I'm the guy who usually gets shot off the back, so.

Yeah.

And I don't know that 20 versus 12 makes any difference.

You get past and yet you still have to drop out.

It just seems to me like 20 meters is a lot further and to fall out 20 meters instead of falling out 12 means you really are going to have to sit up or really stop pedaling to slow down quite.

It just strikes me as it's going to interfere.

But I understand why the pros like this because they feel like it's a more honest race.

And that to me, listen, if the athletes are for it, then I'm not going to be against it.

I think it's great.

And look, I'm interested to see what it looks like because we've seen how these pros come out of the water very close together.

Now they're going to have to spread out by 20 meters.

That's going to make a very long line of guys and women.

And the lines.

Yeah, like the lines of these championship races.

And I think that's where the genesis of them probably wanted to make the change was seeing.

Do you remember Kona?

The men's Kona race, like the last one there was a massive kind of like second group where it was just the 12 meter gap.

And on the screen, if you're looking to the person watching like it, it looks like they're way closer than 12 meters.

Who's to say they were or not?

But I think Ironman is maybe hoping to eliminate a bit of that.

The athletes are so good that even at 20 meters there's still going to be groups.

But I think, yeah, part of it is because the depth of the sport like this, the sport is like a victim of his success because there's so much more depth.

You have athletes that are so much closer together in ability.

So you're going to have these bigger packs and yeah, maybe this helps split things up a little more, Especially if you're last man on that massive group because you're not getting nearly as much of a benefit being back there.

I think maybe that's part of it as well.

What happens with the pro women when you have an age group guy who gets in that?

Because we see that all the time at Kona and I'm sure it happens at other races too when an age group man gets caught up with the pro women.

How does that work?

Because the men don't.

The age groupers don't have to maintain that 20 meters but then the women do.

So how is that going to work?

Yeah, so if you had like a sandwich, let's say like pro woman, age group man, pro woman, you'd have the guy, he's 12 meters back, but then for the woman behind, she has to say 20 meters back.

That's.

Yeah, I don't know.

They never talked about that in the press release.

They never brought that one up.

So maybe one of those things they figure out along the way.

But yeah, I'm sure the first pro series race we're going to see in New Zealand, Iron Man, New Zealand.

I'm sure there's going to be instances where.

And like Iron Man, I feel like they've been doing that a little bit lately.

Like they've been making changes like with the slot allocation and making the change and then obviously issues arise and then fixing it.

So I think they're adaptable.

Yeah, they're in that mindset right now, which is not A bad thing because ultimately change is good.

But then there.

There will be more issues.

But there's always been obviously the men, a troop men intermingling with the pro women.

And they did say previously that they were going to try and have some more issues or sorry, ways to.

To fix it going forward, which they haven't released as well.

But that is a good point.

The mingling, what happens with the draft zone, then?

What does that look like?

Who.

Who is going to be happy about this?

All the.

The good bikers are happy about this.

Right.

Because it gives them a little bit of time.

Sam Long, when he woke up, saw that news, I'm sure he was jumping for joy.

I would have to think so.

Anything that puts distance from him to.

And he's a good runner, Sam, but anything that allows him to really use his bike legs and not carry other people, because that's always his complaint that other people are just carrying, using him to.

I don't know how much truth there is to that.

That's a very common complaint of his.

Kind of wonder staying with him.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think for someone like him, it's more like the groups in front of him out of the water.

Like when he gets out of the water, like you saw in those T100 races, he gets out of the water, the athletes are good or whatever, but there's just such a big group that he doesn't really stand a chance coming back.

Whereas maybe in these other Ironman races now there's just like more, he thinks, more opportunity to be back in the game if he's down.

Yeah, yeah.

Look, I'm really interested to see how it works and how it plays out.

I think the first time we're really going to see it here is obviously going to be Oceanside, where there's always a great field.

So it's going to be interesting to see how it goes.

And you probably have a sense of this from some of the races you've done.

When they hit those big climbs, are they a little more lenient about drafting?

Yes, yes, they are because they.

There's like a bunching effect because the first person's going up, slowing down and the person's coming in and yeah, it's a little chaotic.

And I think the refs are pretty good at using their judgment on the climbs.

I think typically, unless they're really in that red situation with the Race Ranger for a long time, I think they, like.

I have a lot of actually trust in the Iron man referees.

Some people don't.

But I. I definitely do.

So I think they're good about that and being respectful of that for sure.

But it makes me think too.

I feel like the sport is definitely trending towards your ability to bike as a means of having success.

You're not seeing as many Craig Alexander types, the Patrick Lange types, Anna Haug taking the big wins in these big championship races.

Is this kind of the death of, of the uber runner or like the good running athlete, especially at a Kona?

I doubt that this is.

Listen, you've always had to be a strong biker to do well at these races.

But at the end of the day, if you can't run well off the bike, it doesn't matter how strong a biker you are.

And this is not going to negate that.

If you have the kind of run that some of these guys do, they're still going to listen.

I don't think Patrick Lange won because he was drafting.

I don't think he won because of a 12 meter draft zone.

I think he won because he was a strong enough biker to stay close.

And then he gets off and he's just able to run so much better than everybody else.

And you're still going to have those kinds of athletes.

But as we've talked about with all of these short course athletes coming up and transitioning to long course, the swim is much more important.

Your ability to bike in this very high level for such a long time is more important.

I don't know.

I think we've, I think we've transitioned away from just the super uber biker from being able to win to.

Because we've seen the sport even out across the three disciplines and.

But you still have to be a strong runner.

You can't, you cannot win a triathlon without being a really strong runner off the bike.

I really.

No, but do you think the 20 meter, like draft zone, it, do you think it does tip the scale a little bit more towards cyclists?

Sure.

But once those guys get onto the run, if they can't, how much is this going to change?

How much do you think this does for the, for the cyclists?

So like Sam, Matthew Marquard, like some of these really strong cyclists, are they now going to be getting off the bike that far ahead?

I think of, I'm just thinking of Kona right now as like the general thing.

And I do think in a race like Kona, that could definitely help an athlete like Sam Long.

Especially like I talk about, even mentally, like knowing, okay, those guys are up ahead, but they're not getting as much of a benefit.

If I'M doing my race properly and as we've seen, people who pace maybe a little better don't suffer as much on the run.

So there's, I think maybe for the championship races it can definitely help more.

I think for the kind of smaller races anyways.

I think if you're a good cyclist, typically you would, you'd be generally fine.

But yeah, I don't know.

I do think this change, you definitely see, see the good cyclists, those are the ones who are sharing the news, the good news, saying it's more fair.

And yeah, I think they, they know that they are going to be potentially seeing a benefit.

Benefiting.

Your thoughts really are that this has a much bigger impact where you have a very high concentration of strong athletes and Kona and World Championships.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

Like, it's going to be a great.

That Ironman New Zealand, what's going to be a competitive race, right.

The first one in the pro series.

You're gonna have so many good athletes there, very deep field.

So I'm super excited to see how this plays out.

I feel like because the women's racing, it's a little more split up.

You don't have those as massive packs like they, they did a nice, like they did in Kona for the men.

So I think we will probably maybe see more of, maybe a difference from the men's side.

But again, to be a good cyclist, you got to be good to go.

I'm excited to see how this changes.

And to be honest, like, this would have killed me a little bit too.

Right.

Like I'm a good swimmer.

The cycling was always, always my Achilles heel in this racing.

I'm curious, you don't, maybe you don't see the, the folks who are the team arms sharing as much of this news anecdotally anyways, because it definitely, if you're a good swimmer, you've enjoyed having made more of a group.

Clearly 12 meters is more of a benefit.

So you enjoyed that.

Now that's gone.

So maybe your little front pack benefit is slightly diminished anyway, so we'll see.

We'll see.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see it play out as the year goes by.

I think it's going to.

And I think what's really going to be interesting is to see if they tweak it at all because of some of the things we've talked about because I am really impressed with the way that both the T100 and Ironman will make changes on the fly as they note that things are that need to be adjusted.

And I think that is a testament to both organizations that they are responsive to the athletes in that way.

So you think next year you're going to have the 20 meter?

Not a chance.

Responsive.

That's what they.

But they can't do that.

We've talked about why they can't do that for the age groupers and I.

That's just.

Listen, they can barely enforce 12.

So.

Yeah, I was gonna say they just need to enforce 12 better.

How about, how about we start there?

Just enforce 12 meters exactly.

Yeah.

All right, let's transition to our second topic and it's a little bit heavier.

I'm not gonna apologize, but instead I am gonna preface by saying this podcast, like my other podcast is, I understand, a respite for a lot of people from the outside world.

And we are, for a short while, we are going to let the outside world intrude a little bit.

So it's been a very difficult time in this country over the past year.

Especially though over the past few weeks, I guess as we've seen some pretty tragic events take place in Minnesota that has really brought to highlight what's going on with the federal government's enforcement of its immigration policies.

And triathlon coach Jim Vance, who coaches Ben Kanute amongst other high level athletes, is or has become increasingly vocal on his socials about how this has impacted him and very recently posted a reel where he was essentially making a call to action, asking other coaches, asking professional athletes to make a stand and say that what we are witnessing is not okay.

And I want to be clear that he himself was not necessarily taking a stand on a political issue, but rather just making the comment that his wife is Mexican American, his kids are Mexican American.

He feels that this touches him very personally and he feels felt like despite what it might cost him in follows on social media, despite what it might cost him in business, that this was too personal, too important for him to just continue to not say anything and he felt he had to take a stand and he was asking other coaches and athletes to do the same.

I have struggled with this myself quite a lot because I too have felt very impacted personally.

The death of an ICU nurse on the weekend was very traumatizing for me as a healthcare provider.

And I also brought this subject to my own podcast, the Tridarch Podcast, last week in a very, I thought, generic kind of way, but still acknowledging that this is very important subject that impacts a lot of people.

And I wanted to acknowledge that I feel affected as well.

But I am very curious, Matt.

We have seen professional athletes, we have seen coaches, especially in sports like the NBA, take a stand and be very vocal about political issues.

Should we in triathlon expect the same from our athletes and coaches when there are such important things going on around us?

And if not, why not?

It's certainly interesting.

It's hard because these athletes, not everybody feels the need, or maybe they don't feel comfortable taking a stance.

Personally, I don't think.

I don't know.

I don't expect athletes to have to take a stand.

But again, you're.

What's the threshold for really speaking out about things?

And you've.

I think you've seen a lot of professional athletes touch on what's going on in Minneapolis.

Personally, like, it's absolutely abhorrent.

Like, I feel when people are getting executed in the streets, like, that's.

This is just not the direction we need to be going in.

I don't know.

Like, for me, do I expect Lionel Sanders to come out and say something about this?

I don't.

I don't.

But I do definitely appreciate when people who are really.

Jim.

You brought up Jim.

He's very, I'd say, personally affected by this.

I definitely maybe appreciate or.

I don't know, it just feels like when someone like Jim is talking about that and he has a personal connection, then I'm like, yeah, like, I think if I had more of a personal connection or something, like, I would probably have more of a voice on this.

But I'm happy to have folks like Jim who actually do have this personal connection speak out about it.

I don't know.

What do you think about that?

I guess where I struggle is that recently when this happened with Alex Preddy, I was personally very deeply, profoundly affected.

As I said, because he's a healthcare provider.

I saw him doing what I would have done in the same situation.

And the thought that this could have happened to any of my friends or to me was really disturbing.

And I really have struggled with what to do about it because I don't have a platform like some of these other people do.

I've got maybe a thousand people that follow me across the various media that I'm on.

But these other folks really do have a platform.

And when Monday rolled around and I got back to my regular job, I was asking people, how was your weekend?

And people's answers were akin to, oh, it was really tough.

The weather was bad, we had snow, and we had ice.

And I'm thinking to Myself.

That's what caused you to have a bad weekend.

Am I on a different wavelength?

Like, why am I paying attention to this?

These are colleagues, like at work or something?

Yeah, these are other physicians across the country.

Cause we work remotely.

And I'm like, I get it.

I'm very engaged.

I am very connected and plugged in.

And not everybody's going to be, but this was a big story.

And what Jim is saying is that triathlon, it's important to us.

But you know what?

It's not as important as to what we see going on in our society right now.

And we should all use our voices to acknowledge that what we see is not acceptable.

And again, I want to make clear this is not a political question.

This is not a.

A liberal, conservative, red, blue, none of that stuff.

This is a human decency.

Honestly, fear for our future, our kids future, and where the direction things are going.

And why shouldn't we use whatever platform we have to say, you know what?

This is not okay.

I'm not okay with this.

I would like, if you are a follower of mine, to understand that.

I don't think this is okay.

Because I think when we do that, we give other people permission to say the same thing.

And the more that people say it, the more that we have support for that idea.

And before you know it, it becomes a wellspring.

And I do think there is a role for that kind of thing.

And look, athletes like Lionel, he's Canadian, so it's less of his role.

He does live in the US So I don't.

But he's living here.

You said that generically.

Just a random pro.

Like, so do you think what's.

Who do you think should be speaking about this specifically?

I don't expect Sam Long to.

He's American.

Right.

But does not have the kind of personality or the kind of.

He doesn't have the kind of.

If he said anything, it just.

I don't even know.

But who's.

I mean, there are American women, for example.

Chelsea Sedaro is a great example.

Taylor Knipp.

Taylor Knipp's a great example.

These are women who are American.

They're strong.

They're.

They clearly would have something to say.

Look how vocal Chelsea Sodaro has been on maternity stuff, of course.

And that's something.

She didn't have to speak out.

She did because it was important to her.

And the fact that she spoke about it has been really powerful and has, I think, made people open their eyes and made people understand what female athletes have to go through when they make a choice to have to childbear during their professional career and good friends for her.

So then is this not an issue worth talking about?

Yeah, that's a.

Interesting question.

I guess maybe it's not as and not, I don't know, personal enough for someone like her.

I don't know.

I'm just wondering, like, at what point.

Yeah.

Should people have to speak out about things?

Not have to.

Absolutely.

No, I don't think.

I'm not saying anybody should feel like this is a mandate.

You should only speak out if you want to.

But there's not been a.

Look, I sent you that article from the Washington Post where there was this kind of note.

The reporter was saying, look, wow.

All of these places that normally have no politics message boards on kittens and message boards for golf, and all of a sudden people are speaking out on this subject because it's affecting them and they want people to know.

And I think it's important.

And again, I don't think anybody has to do this.

I'm just a little bit surprised that there hasn't been a little bit more like the.

Jim seems to be the major voice.

And I don't know.

Listen, I don't expect companies like Iron man necessarily, although I wouldn't mind if Iron man made a generic statement like, we are saddened to see what's going on.

We believe trial.

Do you think someone like Scott Derues, the CEO of Iron man, because you saw a Tim Cook type character, Apple CEO, come out and say things need to be de.

Escalated.

Do you think someone like Scott deroux should come out and say something?

Acknowledge.

Acknowledge what's going on.

Should is a hard word, right?

Should.

Maybe what I would like to see is someone like Scott Derue come out and say Ironman is saddened to see what's going on.

We believe that triathlon is an inclusive community.

We don't care where you're from, we don't care what your background is, et cetera, et cetera.

We welcome everybody to our start lines.

That's all he has to say, Right.

And if he said that, I think that would be enough.

It's generic.

It's not really particularly inflammatory.

I can't imagine that would.

All I want is for people to be kind and the kind of stuff that you see online right now, there's no discourse anymore.

There's a lot of the Internet.

Yeah, it's awful.

It's an awful place.

But I do think the more people who come out and say, this is not okay with me, and that's all you really have to say.

This is not okay with me.

I'd like to see us do better.

I think the better it is and that.

And it's nice to know that you are in a community where people feel that way and feel comfortable saying it.

So I don't know.

Do you think then, based on your assessment of the triathlon community, do you think the triathlon community as a whole, obviously you have folks like Jim, Cody Beals.

I know, yeah.

Was speaking about it as well.

He's very vocal.

He's pretty on with that kind of stuff.

That's certainly in his personality.

Do you think the triathlon community as a whole hasn't done enough to say, to acknowledge things?

Again, I want to be careful in saying whether or not they've done enough.

I guess what I'm expressing is disappointment is too strong a word also.

But I guess what I'm expressing is maybe surprise that there's not been more from triathletes who often do have something to say about things.

Look at Laura Siddal.

She has been very vocal about her struggles with her own personal mental health issues that she's dealt with.

Kudos to her for being vulnerable and putting that out there and sharing that with people.

And why is she doing that?

She's doing that to empower other people to feel like they can also acknowledge those kinds of things.

So then why are we so afraid of this?

Why are we so afraid of.

I don't think there's a question.

I could be wrong, but I don't think there's a question of right and wrong here.

I think that most people would agree that what we saw on Saturday was pretty clear cut and maybe the Internet.

Will want you to believe it's a 50, 50 thing, but I think this is one of those things.

It's like a 80, 20, 90, 10 kind of situation.

And that's probably why you're seeing things begin to be de escalated.

I know things are happening in the background.

Sounds like the situation will be de escalated.

Don't know what that means, but at least it appears there's rhetoric around that.

I think things are changing there.

I don't know.

Do you?

You don't think or maybe you expected more from the traffic?

I hoped for more.

I hope I'll end the conversation because I don't want to belabor it.

I'll end the conversation with this thought.

I spoke with someone who's a friend of mine who's a triathlon influencer who has a very big following and I asked him if he would consider doing something like that because I was interested.

And he said, gosh, I'm really aligned with you on this.

You know that.

But I have too many people who follow me who are not necessarily aligned with that.

And I worry that if I said something that would torpedo my everything.

And I respect that.

I get it.

But at the same time, I'm like, I don't know.

I don't want those people following me.

I just.

But I understand.

Everybody's different.

Everybody's coming from this to this, from a different place.

And again, it's hard for me to think that taking a generic stand on this, again, not trying to be as apolitical as possible, and just saying, I hate to see what we're seeing.

I wish we could come together and be kinder to each other.

That's pretty generic, and it's still a statement.

I can't believe that would really cost a ton of followers.

And if it did, then maybe those are the kinds of people you don't want following you.

I don't know.

Anyways, I don't want to belabor it any further.

I think it was.

I'm glad to get your perspective on this, and we'll see how this goes.

Like you said, I am very hopeful that things are de escalating and that we can hope for better things to come.

With that, let's move on to a happier subject.

And that is a 70.3 race coming up this weekend.

You said it is this weekend.

Actually might even be like a Friday, because it's in.

Yeah.

So usually these races are like Friday over there.

Typically the ones I've done.

Anyways, this is an early season race.

The challenge race.

Oh, it's a challenge.

I said 70.3.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, you're good.

You're good.

So middle distance, it's the 70.3 distance, but put on by Challenge.

And it's funny because Challenge has like a random, like three races in a row, pro races, to kick off a year.

I think they know that maybe this is a lean time of the year for the pro racing, so maybe they'll get more attention instead of putting them in July or whatever.

So they have this one this weekend in Abu Dhabi.

It's called Challenge Serbani Yas.

And a very interesting race because last year was the first year.

And I just remember seeing random photos from this race.

One of them was Henry Skubman, a South African athlete, Olympic medalist, and it was him on the bike.

And in the background was just like, A giraffe, like he was on the road and to the side of the road was this giraffe and it just caught my eye and I was like, what is happening here?

So essentially this race, it's actually one of, I don't know, it's becoming kind of one of the cooler maybe destination races out there, but it's held on a wildlife refuge.

So yes, there are giraffes, there are hyenas, I think out there, maybe not.

I think they're maybe in cages, but.

I hope they're right.

They're not feral out there on the course.

But there's like onyx.

So there's just a lot of these cool animals and they're racing amongst these animals.

So that's pretty cool.

There's also the accommodation situation because there's a wildlife refuge, there's no hotels to accommodate these athletes and basically they rent out a cruise ship and so they bring the athletes in on a cruise ship, stay on the cruise ship.

That's where it's got to be in this race, right?

What's that?

Matthew Marquardt's got to be in this.

I know it's.

That's a guy who this is.

Maybe he's flying in the day before or something.

He's got the cruise ship.

Yeah, definitely on brand for him for sure.

But no, no Marcourt.

But there's a few athletes kicking around this one.

There's a decent prize purse too.

It's about 60k, 60,000 US so.

Oh, wow.

Pretty good for basically January, early February race.

Jonas Schomberg from Germany, he's going to be the headliner on this one.

He had a kind of breakout long course last year.

Some good T100 Ironman races.

I think he's the top guy.

Pierre Lecour, another Olympian, actually a very interesting athlete.

Maybe a tough way, but he was involved.

He was on the relay in Paris and the French team, like they were going to win gold, but he got caught up in Hayden Wild crashing on the bike and so basically he was able to finish his leg.

France finished fourth, but if he hadn't had that crash and been involved in that crash, he like, they would have won the gold medal.

And so I think he's actually had a pretty tough time coming out of that and he's been doing some racing last year, but it sounded like he.

It really affected him.

So interesting to see how he goes in this race.

A story, interesting storyline to follow.

He'll be there.

There's a bunch of European middle distance athletes coming across Tabu Dhabi.

It's good money, so why not the women?

It.

One of the interesting storylines is Jolene Vermeilin from Belgium.

She's an Olympian.

She actually beat Cassan Beaugrand, Olympic gold medalist in a super tri race last year.

So she's a great athlete, got some speed.

It's her middle distance debut, so be watching to see how she goes.

I think she'll have a good one.

You have Ellie Salthouse, who had a great race in Qatar to finish off the T100 year last year.

So maybe a duel between them somehow.

Some good athletes.

There's no, no easy races even in, in January.

So there you go.

What's it like for athletes who live in the Northern Hemisphere to be racing in like Abu Dhabi at this time?

I know when I was an age grouper and I went to do a race early, I found it very difficult.

I found it challenging to get the training in.

I found it challenging to go to warm weather after being in a cold weather environment.

Now, a lot of these athletes may be moving themselves so that they are actually able to live somewhere where they can train outdoors and be exposed to warmer weather.

But what is it like for a lot of these athletes who are racing such an early season race?

Yeah, for the Northern Hemisphere, mostly European athletes who are going to be there.

I don't think they're in prime racing form, anything like that.

They maybe have jumped into the sauna a few times, maybe done some more indoor riding if they're indoors anyways.

Maybe they're making it a little hotter than normal, but I don't think.

Yeah, they're obviously not super race fit and they also, I don't think would have gone all in on the heat prep.

So I think everyone's going to be suffering together out there on race day, but I don't know if it'll actually be ridiculously hot.

I think I read somewhere that the highs will be like mid to upper 20s Celsius, like maybe approaching 90 Fahrenheit, which is warm obviously, but not melting temperatures for sure.

So I think it'll be manageable, especially if you're coming off a good season.

You're pretty fit anyways.

You probably didn't lose too much base fitness through the winter, through the, like one month.

You get off now.

Yeah.

So I expect the good athletes will still rise to the occasion.

But a lot of these pro athletes are taking an off season.

We know that the season, especially if you're a Southern hemisphere athlete, you don't have as much of a Concrete off season because there's just racing all year round.

If you base yourself in the Southern hemisphere, a lot of these athletes know the value of an off season and it seems to me like most of them do take it.

But for the Southern hemisphere athletes it's gotta be stressful on them.

The travel's tough, the calendar's tougher.

What's your sense or I don't even know if you're familiar with having spoken with any of them.

What's your sense of how they manage it all?

Yeah, I definitely have experience with them.

I trained in Australia for a number of like their summers.

With obviously Aussies outside of the hemisphere folks, it's definitely trickier because there's almost like a pressure to perform domestically as well.

So they're actually usually quite fit in that December, January time period.

So I actually feel like those coming from the Southern hemisphere like for this race really like they'll be have the upper hand I suppose.

But then as seasons typically go on and things shift to the Northern hemisphere, unless they really are mindful of yeah, taking a mid season break or just not go into the well too much early on like by July, June, a lot of those Southern hemisphere athletes that I remember training with like they were cooked.

And so it definitely a unique pressure being from down there.

I get to live in Australia at least I get that.

But it's definitely a trickier situation and requires a lot of patience or maturity or just yeah a willingness to not go too deep too early.

Even though you can get rewarded a little bit.

Especially those early season races in the Northern hemisphere.

Yeah, that's interesting.

We won't obviously be able to watch this one but it will be interesting to see who's looking like they've got that kind of early season form.

This is really early season and you said there's a string of early season challenge races.

What do you have after this?

There's this race in Abu Dhabi.

There is the.

I think the challenge is Rahman, which it may not have happened in the last couple years.

Like that's happening, I believe maybe a week or so later and then Challenge Wanaka which is a classic challenge race.

That's a smaller race though, right?

Smaller but definitely usually has a pretty mighty Southern hemisphere star list.

And as an aside, if you can ever get to that area of the world, it is one of the most spectacular places I've been so beautiful.

Oh my God.

I just, I need to get back there.

The Southern Island, Otago region.

Yeah, just spectacular.

Beautiful.

No argument here.

It's just an Amazing.

When were you there?

So my wife and I traveled around the world for seven months before we moved to the States and we spent five weeks in New Zealand and we spent about two and a half of those in the southern island.

But I was just, of course, back there.

But I was only in the northern island when I was in Topaz for the World Championships.

But I didn't get to go to the southern island that time, unfortunately.

We got to get back there.

Yeah, definitely.

It's such a long way to go, but yeah.

All right.

I think we have come to the conclusion then, of a spirited discussion.

We covered somber topics.

We covered happy topics.

So I think we're all over.

We all, we got it all over.

That's a good thing.

It's a good thing.

Keep the audience guessing.

That's what we, what we want to do.

That's right.

We hope you enjoyed the conversation and we of course, always welcome your feedback.

We hope that you will head over to the Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group where you can leave your comments there, leave your questions if you have any, and we are always happy to engage with the listeners.

We had some great conversations over the last couple of weeks.

We've really enjoyed your comments, so please do keep them coming if you enjoy the program.

We also hope that you will leave us a rating and a review wherever you download the content and of course, share with a friend.

Matt, thanks so much again and I look forward to chatting with you again next week about all things triathlon.

Absolutely.

And thanks everyone for contributing to the group.

I love seeing the notifications come through.

It brings a joy.

Brings joy to my day.

Thanks G.

Tempo Talks is a production of the Triathlon Performance Hub and is produced and edited by Jeff Sankoff.

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