The discourse presented in this podcast episode traverses a multitude of themes pertinent to the triathlon domain, with a pronounced emphasis on the multifaceted nature of athlete training and performance optimization. The episode initiates with the speakers reflecting on their recent experiences in the sport, establishing a personal connection with the audience. Following this, an intriguing discussion emerges surrounding a noteworthy paper entitled 'Future Proofing Triathlon', which advocates for a critical appraisal of existing training methodologies and the imperative need for a shift towards holistic athlete development. The speakers elucidate the necessity for coaches and athletes alike to engage with contemporary research while concurrently integrating practical applications, thereby fostering a symbiotic relationship between theoretical knowledge and real-world execution. This segment serves to illuminate the challenges faced by athletes, including burnout and injury, underscoring the importance of mental health and overall well-being in the pursuit of athletic excellence.

In addition to the aforementioned themes, the episode delves into the complexities surrounding dietary supplements, initiating a discourse on which singular supplement might yield the most substantial benefits for triathletes. The speakers present a nuanced perspective, deliberating on the plethora of supplements available and their respective efficacy. They advocate for a foundational approach to nutrition, emphasizing that a well-rounded diet consisting predominantly of whole foods often suffices to meet an athlete's nutritional needs. This leads to an exploration of specific supplements, such as tart cherry juice, which has garnered attention for its purported recovery benefits. The dialogue culminates in an acknowledgment of the diverse experiences of athletes and the subjective nature of supplement efficacy, presenting a thoughtful consideration of individual needs within the broader context of triathlon training.

Moreover, the episode progresses to address the recent inaugural race of the Ironman Pro series, drawing attention to the inherent complexities of race broadcasting and the implications of technological failures on audience engagement. The speakers analyze the contrasting approaches taken by various organizations in the realm of race coverage, highlighting the necessity for robust media strategies to enhance viewer experiences. The discussion transitions into an examination of the race outcomes, with particular focus on the impressive performances of elite athletes, thus providing an engaging narrative that resonates with both competitive and recreational triathletes. Through careful examination of these critical topics, the episode encapsulates the essence of contemporary triathlon discourse, advocating for a progressive and informed approach to training and competition.

Links to topics discussed:

The TriDoc Podcast

Specific episodes:

1. Tart cherry juice
2. Magnesium
3. Spirulina
4. Quercetin
5. Iron
6. VitaminD

Chalk Talk: What Really Works

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.

Hello.

Hello.

We are back with another episode of Tempo Talks.

Hey, Jeff.

What, what's going on today?

Good to see you.

Oh, it is a beautiful day here.

It is so nice and warm and I have missed it all.

How about you?

Have you been able to get out?

I know you said your foot is better.

Have you been out there?

Yes.

Yeah, actually I got out for a little jog, walk, run this morning and then not too long ago I actually got off the bike.

I wasn't out there for too long, but definitely soaking up the good raise, the good vitamin D.

It was lovely out there.

That's awesome.

I will say I changed jobs a little while ago and I really much happier mentally.

Amazing.

It's just been a really good headspace.

But the difficulty is it's really fixed hours, something that I have never done in my whole career.

And so I'm still getting used to the idea that I finish at three every day and I have so much to do between three.

And when I go to sleep, I know talking about getting outside to actually do stuff has become.

Yeah, talk to you.

It's just become difficult.

Oh, my goodness.

Anyways, we have a pretty good show lined up for today.

We had a great little submission sent to us in the new Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group.

If you're not a member yet, please do.

We've had a few people join this past week.

It's been fun to see those people coming through and contributing in the comments.

Matt, what was one of the comments that our good friend Brian Dunn made?

Yeah, Brian brought a funny story because we were talking about transitions in the last episode.

We were talking about like transition hacks.

And I think I asked, oh, if anybody has a funny transition story, let's hear it.

We want to hear it.

So Brian, I think bravely submitted his own kind of transition fail.

So he said, he said, I had my cycle shoes Clipped into my pedals, looking to do a heroic T1 flying mount.

When I did, with some degree of precision, I looked down to see I had clipped my right shoe onto the left pedal and vice versa.

I had to stop, get off and switch them back.

This was not a time saver.

It was not a time saver.

I was thinking heroic would have been to wear the wrong shoes on the wrong feet the whole way and that would have been heroic.

Brian, sometimes the hacks just hack you.

Good try.

Anyways, we love it.

We love that story.

Thank you, Brian.

If anybody else has wants to get roasted on air, we will happily take your stories.

I need to figure out some of my own too.

For sure.

Exactly.

So don't forget that that group exists so that you can continue the conversation about things you hear on the podcast, but also to submit any questions you might have.

We are looking to do a Q and A episode, so we'll need some questions in order to do that.

So please do submit your questions there or you could send them to us by email.

We have another fun episode this week.

We're going to be talking about future proofing Triathlo, which is basically the subject of a paper that came out a couple of years ago, more than that now, and was brought to my attention when I was a guest recently on the Fast Talk podcast.

So that we're gonna discuss that at a little bit of length.

We are going to talk about if you could only take one or maybe two supplements, what would it be?

So intriguing topic.

And then we'll discuss the Iron Man Pro series debut that started off in Geelong.

What they get right and maybe what they not get.

So right.

But before we get there we do have to make our customary visit to the penalty tent.

We did get a couple of blue cards last week.

I re listened to the episode and realized I can't believe neither of us knew the name of Jack Kelly's podcast, either the current or the previous.

So I went back and took a look.

The original podcast was how they Train with Jack Kelly and the new podcast is the Triathlon Hour with Jack Kelly.

So there you go.

And then the other one.

Less of a error and more of a clarification.

And we got this correct by calling them up on the phone just before we started.

The investment group that is investing in PTO is pronounced Cordierra.

So it's Cordierra Investments and they invest in niche non correlated assets.

Excellent.

I said Cordillera.

I think we both did.

We were both stumbling over it.

Yeah, sorry, sorry to those Folks, for sure.

Let's begin first with a summary of this kind of interesting paper that came to my attention, as I said, when I was talking to Trevor Connor on Fast Talk Labs podcast, a podcast that'll be coming out at the end of April.

And he brought up this paper called Future Proofing Triathlon Expert Suggestions to Improve Health and Performance in Triathlete.

And I thought it was pretty interesting because it is a paper that I was not at all familiar with.

And.

And it was pretty interesting.

Did you have a chance to look at it, Matt?

I honestly didn't look at it too much.

It was essentially about how to prevent, like, injuries.

Was that what it was, or am I totally off?

No, it was a little bit of that.

What they were doing at the time.

And this was at a.

How many years ago was this paper?

Okay.

So not terribly long.

Sorry.

It was.

And they noted at the time, they said, look, triathlon has a bit of a problem in that because it has these three sports and because it is so demanding on athletes in terms of the amount of time that they put into their sport, that it really does result in a lot of burnout.

It results in a lot of injuries.

And so we need to look critically at our sport and try to come up with ways to help athletes and help coaches help athletes to be able to improve the sport.

And I thought it was worth discussing only because a few of the themes of things that they teased out I thought were interesting.

And we all know what happened.

They were a little busy.

Kind of little busy.

Yeah.

I wonder if this just fell off the radar.

But basically they identified four themes that they thought were important, actually five themes, I apologize, that they thought were important to address.

The first of these were critical appraisal and application of knowledge.

And generally they were saying, look, coaches and athletes need to critically evaluate the research that's coming out around endurance sports, specifically around triathlon, rather than relying on anecdotal evidence or outdated methods, which sounds terrific, but I think as you and I both, and especially me working on the Tridoc podcast, where I look at anecdote and scant evidence, all the time.

This is just not the case.

They also talk about how training decisions should be based not just on lab based scientific research but also real world applications.

Which is really hard because to do really good research you generally need to be able to control environments.

You need to control different measures of what's going on and it's hard to do in the real world.

They talked about integrating approaches to research and expertise.

They wanted to see a stronger collaboration between researchers, coaches and athletes in order to bridge the gap between science and practice.

They thought that it would be an interesting idea to do research on single subjects.

So do a single subject study where for example I have something I want to test and I test it just on you Matt.

I just have you incorporate a certain thing into your training and see how that results like not a group of.

Us, just a single.

And that's problematic because you never know how generalizable it is.

But there are, there is some track record of doing things like that.

They talk about monitoring training and recovery.

They say that we have a ton of metrics and we have a huge amount of data that we gather.

But somewhere lost in all of this is athlete communication.

We are way over relying on data in a lot of cases and we need to prioritize our athlete values.

We need to hear from athletes who have left triathlon in order to try and learn why they left.

And they talked about something that I thought was particularly interesting, the ethical concerns about who owns athlete data.

And I think this is particularly interesting and I'm interested in your take on this.

I have talked about a certain company that uses AI for coaching and every year offers what they talk about as a free trial of their coaching.

But what they want for that free trial is to harvest athletes data in order to inform their AI model.

And I've always had a problem with that.

I think that AI coaching is not ready for prime time.

But they've undercut the pricing of a lot of other independent coaches.

They have flooded the ironman market with their advertising because of the deal they signed and now they're getting access to a lot of athletes data with no questions asked.

Would you just sign away all your.

Data to the highest bidder?

I'm sure we could find, you could find a way compromise there.

The thing is with this AI like considerations, this is the way things are going and to be fair, like the more data they can get, the better it'll get over time.

I think I agree with you totally right now.

AI coaching, it's not the same as a human but man we are not that far off from being able to chat with your AI coach, which brings up a whole different set of ethical and just human concerns.

Like how much are we going to be talking to these things versus talking to people?

Yeah, yeah.

How much are we going to undervalue real world experience?

It's a heavy topic, maybe not for us to answer, but at the same time it feels like things are heading.

That way for sure, but at a pace that's really hard to fathom.

It's just so fast.

It's moving.

Yeah, definitely.

There were a couple other themes they mentioned.

There was a holistic athlete development where coaches should focus on athletes overall well being, not just their performance.

And I think again there is the value of a coach who can see a full athlete and help an athlete fit their training to their life, things like that.

Training programs should consider factors like mental health, life stress and motivation.

And then the last theme was challenging cultural and sport norms.

The sport should shift away from extreme performance focused training that leads to injury and burnout and stop promoting things just because that's how they've always been done.

I thought it was, of course, I thought it was a little bit self evident, but an interesting paper.

I thought that the things that they identified, a lot of it had merit.

What they didn't get to, because I think that was going to be a follow up was how to implement these things, how to actually turn them from concepts and ideas into actual actions.

And unfortunately it just doesn't seem to have happened.

So do you think our sport needs to be future proofed at this point or.

We've talked a lot recently about how the health of the sport seems to be going quite well.

Is this much ado about nothing really?

This seems, I'm going to tell you, it seems like a lot of talk, a lot of fluff in a lot of ways.

Like future proofing to me is okay, how are we going to build like a resilient sport ecosystem with independent race directors and all the different entities?

How are we building that kind of resiliency?

But I do understand future proofing the athletes is huge and I guess that falls in line with like retaining athletes in triathlon itself.

I talked about extreme training methods, driving people to leave the sport or whatever.

It's.

This is kind of stuff I feel is great conversations and whatnot, but I don't know if it addresses everything that needs to be done.

Yeah, maybe more academic than practical.

I think academics can help us formulate questions to be answered.

But as is often the case and certainly in this paper, it doesn't really give us the means to answer them and to move forward.

But I do think there are a few interesting things in here and things that I haven't necessarily seen come to the fore.

Like, I don't see as much as we often talk about it.

I wish there was more focus on this whole idea of whole athletes.

Less data.

Yep, for sure.

And the idea that we should identify those athletes who have left triathlon to find out why.

I think that would be fascinating.

And interviews.

Yeah, exactly.

Why aren't we getting the kind of retention?

It's not like we don't have that info.

Right.

We have registration numbers.

We know who's not participating anymore.

Just reach out to a sample with the survey, see what they say.

Be interesting.

Yeah.

Identify.

Identifying those pain points like re and whatnot, and how to eliminate them or lessen them, I guess, would be great to onboard new athletes.

For sure.

All right, why don't we move on to the second topic, Matt, which is the supplement question.

I just thought this was kind of interesting.

I just want to pick your brain, really, this is why I did this, because I feel like you have a lot of information on this and the audience will learn a lot, for sure.

But basically, there's so many of these supplements and whatnot out there for triathletes.

If you could recommend only one supplement, maybe we'll get more.

If you could only recommend one supplement, what would you take?

What would you recommend to athletes out there?

You don't have to do one.

I know.

We'll talk about a few.

Pause.

No, it's not that I.

It's not that.

I have a whole bunch that I want to recommend.

The reality is I think there are way too many out there, and I think that people are putting too much of an emphasis on supplements.

Look, I do a whole podcast.

Like, what do you take?

What's your stack look like?

I take spirulina.

Yep.

And I take tart cherry juice, and I take quercetin.

Okay.

So quercetin is something I only take during the winter months.

So I'm done with taking that now because it helps prevent viral illness when you're training hard.

Spirulina and tartary juice is a recovery thing and also helps with sleep.

And then spirulina has some potential health and performance benefits, but you don't even need to be taking all of those.

It's honestly, if you're eating well and by healthy, you're eating a whole food, less ultra processed, and getting a variety of foods in your diet, then you're probably getting all the things you need.

And when we've looked at supplements, we have found that there are very few that really offer anything major.

And most of the ones that do tend to be these things like caffeine or spirulina that have been shown to offer these more substantial potential benefits, but difficult because they're not studied in the real world.

What do you take?

This is interesting.

Maybe I phrased this wrong, but I don't take any of those.

So if you're like, matt, you got to take one of these.

Which one should I take?

I don't think you need to take anything.

You're not gonna get a whole lot out of any of these things.

Look, tart cherry juice is the one that the pro cyclists are taking.

Yes.

I mean, there is research.

There is research that shows that it helps with recovery, especially after intense efforts.

We just watched Matthew van der Poel win the Milan San Remo.

Phenomenal race, if you're at all a cycling fan.

It was a fantastic finish.

And he finishes the race.

He barely catches his breath, and he's immediately handed a bottle of tart cherry juice that he guzzles down.

How do you know?

Did it say tart cherry juice on the label?

One of these clear plastic bottles?

No, it's one of these clear plastic bottles with the very obvious reddish hue of the tart cherry juice.

That's good.

We see it all the time now at the end of these big cycling races.

And that would be.

If I was going to say we take one thing, Matt, it would be that because it's natural, it's good for you, it's got benefits to sleep, benefits to recovery.

Why not go for it?

It's not gonna hurt.

If sleep is, like the ultimate recovery method, you would say so if anything to enhance that is gonna be a huge roi.

Interesting.

You can roast, like, my supplement or whatever.

Vitamin stack here.

So I like to take iron.

I take iron.

I take vitamin D, typically more in the winter, less so now, obviously.

And then magnesium.

So those are mine.

What do you think about that?

So iron is much more likely to be needed in women of childbearing age because of menstruation.

They have iron losses.

The likelihood of encountering iron deficiency anemia in female athletes is really high.

And it doesn't have to be iron deficiency anemia that's symptomatic, or iron deficiency, even with associated anemia.

But many women tend can be predisposed to iron deficiency.

That doesn't mean that all women need to be taking iron.

Iron does have side effects, so you have to.

It's probably worthwhile getting checked and having an iron check periodically just to know.

But most men don't need to be taking iron.

Although there are some studies that suggest that male athletes have a higher predisposition towards iron deficiency.

Not with anemia, though, just plain old iron deficiency.

And there's probably no harm in taking iron, but it's probably not helping.

I feel like.

Certainly not helping.

Yeah, I feel like it's been ingrained in me as a younger athlete.

I saw a lot of younger athletes, especially female, like you said, suffer from this, like low energy availability and iron deficiency.

So I feel like that's almost like a security blanket for me in some ways.

I actually haven't tested my iron too recently, but might be worth going to check out and maybe not have to take.

Yeah, it's almost exclusively in women and it's usually because those women have disordered eating and so they're not taking in sufficient amounts of iron.

But again, like I said, there is research to suggest that even in male athletes they do tend to be.

They trend on the lower levels of iron.

It's not that they absolutely need supplementation, but it's not going to hurt.

Do you think for the female list listeners, like they should, it's worth their time to go check that, get their iron checked and whatnot?

Not if they're asymptomatic.

If they're asymptomatic and they don't have heavy periods.

If you're a woman who has heavy periods and you're having fatigue or if you have trouble with your training and if you have a.

If you run a higher heart rate, all of those things might suggest that you have anemia and therefore getting your iron tested is a good idea.

There are no recommendations for either annual iron testing or screening for iron in, in women, it's just not a recommendation because the levels can be all over the place and it doesn't always mean anything.

Again, there's no real downside to taking iron, but it does have side effects.

It causes constipation, it can cause gastrointestinal issues, which is not always fun.

So it's a decision that people come.

Off on for sure.

The other ones you asked about, vitamin D.

Vitamin D.

So vitamin D is controversial one.

It tends to be, as you mentioned, taken more in the winter by people who live in northern hemispheres.

The problem with vitamin D is while there are studies that say people who live in northern hemispheres tend to trend towards Vitamin D deficiency.

The major problem is that depending on where you live, the thresholds for normals for vitamin D can be very different.

So you might be tested and have the exact same level in one place and be told you're normal.

And in another place they'll say, oh, no, you're actually low.

You need to take vitamin D.

So it's hard to know if you're actually low or normal.

That's number one.

Number two is, does it really matter?

There's not a huge.

Unless you're really low.

Being on that lower end of vitamin D has not really proven to have any major side effects.

Now, there's a ton of research out there that's, oh, we're giving vitamin D for everything.

Oh, we've tried vitamin D for sepsis, we've tried vitamin D for heart problems, we've tried vitamin D for brain.

Vitamin D is given for everything because it's a co factor in so many body systems.

But at the end of the day, it hasn't really panned out in any way and that includes an endurance performance.

So I don't think it's necessary.

And the last one you mentioned was magnesium.

And I will just tell you flat out it's a waste of time.

Oh, no, I'm a huge fan of the.

So I take the pillar product shout out to the feed.

Honestly, the one thing I do really notice, I'd say anecdotally, the sleep is better, although I don't measure that.

I don't have the O ring or whatever to measure that.

But the dreams are wild.

Like, I don't know what it is about the magnesium.

Crazy dreams.

Yeah, it's not the magnesium.

It's not.

There might be something else in there.

Okay, there we go.

I don't know.

But yeah, no magnesium.

All the research on.

Listen, magnesium is another one of these things because it's a micronutrient and you don't need huge amounts of it.

It's purported to do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons and all of the research has not borne any of it out.

So.

Interesting.

One thing magnesium is good for is regularity.

Okay?

That's why milk of magnesia, because if you take enough magnesium, you will definitely be regular.

Okay.

Tart cherry juice and throw out all my things that I'm currently taking.

There we go.

Productive.

This is a productive situation here.

I tell everybody, just because the research says what it says, that doesn't mean it doesn't work for you.

If you like something, if you feel that something is doing something for you.

As long as it's not causing harm, as long as it's not breaking the bank, I got no problems with it.

You do.

You do what you.

But if you're asking me what the science says, that's what the science.

And if you want to know more about what the science says, I do a whole podcast called the Tridoc Podcast.

Where do you have one of these kinds of things with talking about tart.

Cherry juice and spirulina?

Okay.

Yeah.

So tart cherry juice and I recently did a chalk talk for our friends at Lifesport where I talked about all of the things that I have found that actually work in the first 165 episodes of the Tradoc podcast.

So if you're interested in that, I'll put a link in the show notes and we will link to the different episodes of the different things that we've discussed here today as well.

So you can go check those out.

Perfect.

Thanks, Jeff.

That's.

This is what we come for.

We come for the knowledge.

We come for your expertise.

You've done the.

You've put the time in for sure.

But now we're going to leverage your expertise because I want to hear your thoughts on the opening of the Ironman Pro series, which is very much your wheelhouse.

Yeah, absolutely.

Went off without a hitch.

They gave a bunch of money to a bunch of athletes, which is awesome.

It seemed set up to a great day in Geelong.

Australia was the first one.

Ironman.

I love that name.

Geelong.

Geelong is the best.

I'm going to be sad not to be able to say it anymore.

They almost had a leg up over the T100 in terms of getting in the eyeballs and the attention of the triathlon world.

They had set up for an easy win, I would say.

But unfortunately coming out of the race, the big story was a massive broadcast fail, which is only.

That's the only way you can describe it.

Broadcast fail.

Did you hear anything about this, Jeff?

I just thought people were posting on the talktempo talks Facebook group, which was that they were quite disappointed.

They felt that this was a big swing and a miss.

And I think that your comments were pretty spot on about how there's just no excuse for this.

I will say, look, I'm not in this field and it's not something I know all that much about.

You mentioned that I guess the T100 was covering an indoor event and it went off pretty well.

It did.

The thing is, at this race, which is sad, like obviously a few.

Many folks were watching, looking to tune in and maybe I think one of the Facebook members was talking about how they were on the trainer wanted some motivation for their bike ride.

So there's just all that kind of stuff and big letdown.

But there were good races to just go back to the actual races.

It was a big win for the guy who won 70.3 Worlds last year, Yelle Ghiens from Belgium.

He went in.

It was an interesting men's race.

They had 10 of them come off the bike together.

He was there along with I think three or four other kind of short course converts, people coming up from the Olympic, the World Triathlon short course, world draft legal.

And so there's a little bit of who's going to win here.

We couldn't watch it, obviously, but a bit of intrigue there in terms of what was going to happen.

Ultimately he was able to pull away, I think at about 7k over the kind of chasing three that were behind him.

And there was a couple guys, Taylor Ree from New Zealand and Kenji Nina from Japan, who were battling it out for second.

Looked to be the podium spots.

And then all of a sudden Jake Birtwistle from Australia came charging back in the back half and ended up in second and then Taylor Reid ended up in third.

So it was a good race.

I think it would have been great viewing if we had been able to view it.

And yeah, it was just unfortunate too, especially the women were also racing at the same time.

It was a little different dynamics in the women's race.

There was a smaller lead group with athletes, athletes with different skill sets.

So Natalie Vancouverden, an Olympian in Paris, was doing maybe second or third long course race.

You had a New Zealand athlete, Hannah Barry, who's won Ironman.

So really different skills and distances coming together.

And initially I think Barry took off at a T2 and she was charging to the fore and maybe using her long course strength to just gap the rest of the field.

But Vancouver didn't.

I think she turned on the afterburners and caught up Barry, I think about halfway and put in a little surge and that was enough to hold about a 32nd lead to the end.

So just good racing.

Those are pretty intriguing races, right?

Definitely.

I just want to finish my thought from earlier, which was that the T100 people were doing something indoors at the same time and you had commented that they Did a really good job with making it look good.

My only sort of comment to that is just that outdoors versus indoors is a huge difference.

When you have a very small environment to cover with three or four cameras or whatever, for sure it's a small footprint you don't have.

If something goes wrong, you know exactly where it is.

It's easy to fix.

When you're outdoors trying to cover a 70.3 course, something goes down, you probably don't have access to immediate backups.

You probably.

It takes some time to isolate where the problem is and I can envision that this kind of thing could happen, but it doesn't mean it should.

If this was a more dialed in.

Orientation, really, to me it contrasts the intent or execution of T100 and Ironman.

Obviously T100 has their own issues but they generally, especially after last year they had some broadcast issues early on.

They really stepped up their quality, their execution and so it's just a huge contrast for me to see Ironman who has, I would say a lot of the resources, like incredible resources and they have done many live broadcasts over the years without issue to come out of the gates with this just stumble, this unforced error, own goal, whatever you want to call it, it just doesn't reflect well on their commitment to having a strong media product really.

Whereas the T100, they're hungry, they want to produce these good events and they're trying.

They'll get a redo in a couple weeks, which is nice.

Yeah, this weekend I did want to ask.

This weekend?

Oh, it's this weekend?

Yes.

Okay.

I was thinking of Oceanside.

Yeah.

Okay.

I did want to ask what you thought about the time that the men's winner put it was like 3:34.

What do you think?

Geelong is a fast race because it's very flat.

But what do you think is the ceiling on what these guys could do?

It's really.

You can't possibly bike this.

We gotta do three.

Maybe there'll be a sub three thing one day where they're all trying to get like a sub 3.

That's what I'm getting at.

So what could conceivably be the three times swim, bike run that you think are the ceiling?

I really don't know the time like I didn't see what actual times they went.

But really it's the dynamics of the race and this is only going to become more prevalent in the pro racing.

So you have this big group of swimmers swimming together.

If people are pulling off and not pulling the whole swim, well, you're just going to have faster people coming through and swift swat, like switching through.

So that'll make the swim a lot faster.

It'll also make athletes more recovered getting on the bike if they're sharing the load in the swim.

These guys, they're getting on the bikes, they're getting on these bikes that are all in the wind tunnel.

They're all optimized to the nth degree.

And really, let's be Honest, the Ironman 12 meter draft zone, it's.

There's a benefit to being behind someone 12 meters.

We all know, right.

Being in, in the races, like when you're 12 meters behind someone and there's a wind, especially if there's like a headwind or something, you're getting a benefit, no doubt about that.

So especially like now these guys are coming onto the bike also in massive groups.

So again, different athletes are going to the front.

It's not just one athlete parked out front with everyone kind of sitting behind.

A lot of people are switching through, they're sharing the load and really getting into T2 kind of again, maybe a little more fresh or a little, I guess just.

They're just carried by each other with this massive group effect on the bike.

And also they're probably feeling a little better too these days.

But really, especially when they get to the run too, they're a little fresher or maybe just have got there a little bit quicker.

They're just spending less time out of the course.

And then now you have athletes like Yellow Geens, who is one of the best runners in short course.

And running in short course is incredibly important.

So you get him coming off the bike in a good place, he's going to rip.

He's going to just shred up.

So 333.

Yep.

333 and change.

This is the total.

Yeah, 333.

24.

Was the 10th.

Sorry, the 9th fastest.

Yeah, he was in a group.

He's in group though.

Yeah.

He biked just a hair under two hours, 159, 56 for fourth and then he ran just an insane 108.

So this is.

These are crazy times.

Right.

But again I ask like, how much faster can they get?

Have we seen a sub, 20 swimsuits.

Yeah, I feel like that's with the swims though.

Especially the swims.

I feel like the measurement of these courses, eh.

At times.

Yeah.

Like that's why I'd love to do the proper sub.

Sub three.

They did that sub eight or whatever.

Sub seven, Sub eight.

Yeah.

Thing I think.

Yeah.

Sub three then it would at least be measured correctly.

I just, with the swims especially, I don't.

I'm never like, yeah, this is totally accurate.

I just, I don't know that you could find guys running much faster than this.

108 is just insane.

It's.

Yeah.

That course it sounds had the cond to do some crazy fast racing but as we go through the season we're just going to see more and more of this.

I think.

Who was it?

Hayden Wild.

I think he said before 70.3 worlds in December he wanted to run.

Man, I'm going to get penalty tended for this.

But I thought it was like a 101 half marathon off the bike.

Wow.

And he didn't do that.

He came second too in the end.

But I guess he thought it was in the realm of possibility which is just psycho.

Totally psycho.

Yeah.

That was not the hardest course but I would have had a.

I would have been very impressed if you could have run 101 on that course.

It was a lot of turns and there was some elevation.

Not a huge amount but wow, that would have been amazing.

It's just interesting to think.

Just can't, you know, it's just interesting to watch and see how much faster they can actually get because I'm used to seeing 350s and.

And 3:45 ish.

But 3:33 is.

When I saw that flash up on my screen I was like, oh my goodness.

Wow.

Definitely a fast course.

Yeah, definitely something to watch as we go through, through this year.

Just these crazy times people are going to be posting.

But yeah, I do think the dynamics with the bigger groups just lends itself to more people pushing the pace and having that effect of having other people around which will just spur you on, make you even faster.

For sure.

The gauntlet's been thrown, Matt.

You have your work cut out for you and you get back to the start line.

We need to.

Yeah, we need to really pump the tart cherry juice.

I think going into the next few.

Races that brings us to the end of our list of things to talk about.

We want to thank you all for being here and listening.

We hope that you will share this with a friend who has not heard of us and leave a rating and a review if you haven't already done so.

We really appreciate those.

Matt.

This has been a great conversation once again.

Thanks so much for being here.

We look forward to another conversation next week.

Yeah, thanks, Jeff.

I learned a lot, so this is great.

Thank you again.

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

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