Episode 72: Is Kristian Blummenfelt going to the Olympics in 2028? Ironman 70.3 Western Australia Results.

In this episode of Another Triathlon Podcast, hosts Jenna, Fede, and Josh discuss their current training experiences, including Fede's time in New Zealand for the 70.3, Josh's off-season training, and Jenna's heat training. They also dive into the recent Ironman 70.3 race results, analyzing the implications for the Pro Series rankings. The conversation shifts to social media trends, Joe Skipper's jump into Hyrox, and insights from Kristian Blummenfelt's journey in triathlon. The episode wraps up with a preview of next week's episode featuring expert coach David Tilbury Davis.

Takeaways

• Fede is training in New Zealand for the 70.3.
• Josh is focusing on swimming and biking during the off-season.
• Jenna is doing heat training to prepare for potential hot races.
• The recent Ironman 70.3 Western Australia race had significant implications for the Pro Series rankings.
• The upcoming 70.3 Worlds will be highly competitive with many top athletes.
• Social media is highlighting trends in triathlon, including athletes trying new events.
• WTF of the week reflects a growing trend among triathletes.
• Kristian Blummenfelt's is aiming for the Olympics while maintaining his Ironman focus.
• The triathlon community has a short memory regarding athlete performances. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Trathlon Podcast
01:35 Fede's Training in New Zealand
03:27 Josh's Transition to Swimming
08:08 Jenna's Heat Training for Ironman
12:22 Ironman 70.3 Race Results Overview
20:12 Men's Pro Series Rankings Update
27:31 Social Media Highlights and Ultraman Championship
32:13 The Challenge of Ultraman
35:46 Transitioning to New Events
37:27 Exploring Strength and Endurance
41:25 Insights from the Pros
47:09 The Future of Triathlon

IRONMAN 70.3 Western Australia Results

Sunday December 1, 2024 – Busselton, Western Australia

Pro Women

1. Marta Sanchez (ESP) – 4:06:38 (26:39 / 2:12:14 / 1:23:00)
2. Anna Bergsten (SWE) – 4:07:48 (31:59 / 2:10:24 / 1:20:30)
3. Lotte Wilms (NED) – 4:08:03 (26:17 / 2:12:33 / 1:24:23)
4. Richelle Hill (AUS) – 4:09:10 (26:47 / 2:16:39 / 1:21:31)
5. Grace Thek (AUS) – 4:09:22 (28:43 / 2:15:15 / 1:20:43)

Pro Men

1. Gregory Barnaby (ITA) – 3:37:35 (24:31 / 1:57:10 / 1:12:29)
2. Jamie Riddle (RSA) – 3:39:35 (24:25 / 1:57:08 / 1:14:22)
3. Marc Dubrick (USA) – 3:39:51 (24:23 / 1:57:35 / 1:14:17)
4. Robert Kallin (SWE) – 3:41:31 (25:34 / 1:55:38 / 1:16:20)
5. Jake Birtwhistle (AUS) – 3:42:08 (25:12 / 2:01:17 / 1:12:23)

Transcript

Jenna-Caer (00:01.131)
Here we are with another Trathlon podcast brought to you by Mana Apparel. Now, I know most of you are either gearing up for 70.3 Worlds or deep into the off season right now, but we are not taking a break because we want to chat all the race results from this weekend that definitely affect the Ironman Pro Series. And we're going to save our 70.3 predictions until we have a special guest next week, Coach David Tilbury Davis, to help us break it all down. But this week we'll jump into the pro rankings.

We've got our usual social media and what the app posts of the week, and we will chat about what's going on and especially where in the world Fede is these days. So let's jump into it we'll get started with you, Fede. The view looks a little different than normal. We're about to you.

Fede (00:30.925)
Thank

Fede (00:39.852)
Yeah, hey guys, I'm in New Zealand at the moment training for 70.3 worlds and yeah right now it's 3 in the afternoon and Yeah, just went back from a nice bike ride to our ride with a few efforts to activate the legs and yeah training's been going well. I did a lake swim yesterday

So shoulders feel good. So we'll see. We'll see what happens right now. I'm in Iwanaka. So on the South Island in New Zealand, I'll be going over Taupo next week to get a little bit of training rides on the actual course and to meet with the rest of the Mono team. So yeah, exciting days ahead.

And yeah, just enjoying life and putting a lot of sunblock because the sun is strong.

Jenna-Caer (01:42.861)
Yeah.

Definitely.

Josh (01:47.696)
Climate wise, where you are now and Talpo, pretty similar.

Fede (01:52.234)
Well, right now here in Wannacat it's a bit more cold and less humid because the South Island is a bit more dry, not a lot of vegetation, so lot of mountains. If you're familiar with The Lord of the Rings, the South Island is where they filmed all those epic shots with the mountains and snow and all of that. yeah, it's a lot more windy.

So today was windy on the ride. I got, I felt like I was back in Kona pushing against the wind on the TT bike. And yeah, getting used to the road surface, which is chips hill and it's, it feels bumpy all the time. So for our listeners that are not used to riding in this type of pavement, just be sure that you make sure that your bike is, you know, everything's tightened.

Every single bolt is to the torque that it needs to be because it's so bumpy that you can lose a couple of bolts here and there if you're not on top of your bike.

Jenna-Caer (03:03.523)
Yeah, definitely a good tip, especially with so many people traveling over and a few per self mechanics, kind of building their bikes up after the travel. good reminder just to make sure everything is nice and tight and have your water bottles locked in too, I'm sure.

Fede (03:11.59)
Yeah.

Fede (03:17.759)
yeah, today I lost one. I lost my rear water bottle like 20 minutes into the ride. I felt a splash on my leg and I was like, come on. At first I...

Jenna-Caer (03:30.243)
you

Jenna-Caer (03:40.183)
Definitely time to get some of those elastic bands, hold them in place at least for a little while.

Josh (03:46.958)
Better than the sealant, I would imagine, though, at least.

Jenna-Caer (03:49.535)
Yeah, less of a pain there.

Awesome. Well, how are you feeling kind of after the travel? How's the jet lag? Where's the body at?

Jenna-Caer (04:08.055)
Well Josh, let's jump in with you. How are things going these days and training in life and all that fun stuff?

Josh (04:14.224)
I'm being a non-runner right now. My Achilles are definitely getting better. But I've now become a swimmer. And for me, it's been a huge jump this last couple of weeks. Whereas now I'm doing, I think before I was probably, a good week was 4K to 6K, 7K. Like that would be a normal week. And now every week's over 10K and doing...

3,500, 3,600 yards and long, long endurance swims just to keep up my fitness and also build strength in the area that I need it the most while we're working in the off season here. So I actually can feel it and then can already tell the difference and can feel that when I do get in a groove, I'm able to actually just kind of glide and not use as much energy and, and going longer distances to like warm up and then get into a lot of drill work and then specific.

type, main sets and stuff. So it's been a lot of, a lot of time in the pool, but, it's been fun at the same time working on the bike. So it's a bike and strength. And I've actually enjoyed this, this last couple of weeks, even though I, I missed the running part and hate my Garmin watch telling me that I'm unproductive and everything else that is, which is hilarious because I don't get credit for any of the biking I do either. Cause it goes from training peaks and it's like, if I'm not using my actual watch indoors on a trainer.

Jenna-Caer (05:31.448)
That's the worst.

Jenna-Caer (05:40.451)
So,

Josh (05:41.36)
You're not getting that either. So it's like the double whammy right now with no running, no bike credit on the Garmin. The Garmin hates me, but, I know what I'm doing and I know the work that's being done. And I'm really enjoying training peaks, virtual, life and, that world. just makes everything so easy. It literally is your workouts there. I don't have to download it and upload it into Zwift. it's like, I go in and it's like today's workout boom, click, let's go. And it's, it's really neat.

Jenna-Caer (06:05.251)
It's done.

Josh (06:08.592)
Not many bugs in it. had one day where I lost, I was offline. So I had to download the fit file, but it was still there, even though it didn't automatically go back into TrainingPeak. So other than that, just trying to get stronger and get fitter, lose a little bit of the weight I've put on at Thanksgiving time and by not running. So starting to dial all that stuff back in.

Jenna-Caer (06:32.769)
Yeah, no, it's funny, even with whenever I'm riding virtually too, I always have my Garmin going as well, recording it on there and use that for everything. I kind of do it the opposite way. I don't have any of the virtual worlds connected to my training peaks. It all just goes through my Garmin. So that's why you'll see my Instagram stories. It's always zero miles. Cause I'm like, I just care about the watts. I don't care how far I'm going.

Josh (06:51.888)
Right off the watch, yeah. I should start doing, there's a website that I use. If I do a Peloton ride or something doesn't work, I always have a second backup in the running world. So I might as well do it in the biking world too. Or you go to a website and it actually merges the files. And you can select and choose, all right, I'll take the heart rate from this one, but then take all the data from everything else too.

like treadmill runs and things like that. So it actually does work out well. So I should probably do that on the bike and just take that extra step and make my Garmin happier.

Jenna-Caer (07:23.863)
That's pretty cool. Yeah, I know just for like analytical heads where it's like, can't see that unprotected, but just just bugs you not to get those updates or have it count for things.

Fed (07:30.517)
Bye.

Josh (07:35.118)
Yeah. Unproductive. was like, yeah, this is too good. This has to be a story of like, yeah, here's me being unproductive again. Yeah. Right. And then you think like, yeah, 10 K a week for me is a lot. And it's like, that's like a normal day for these guys. It's unbelievable to think about that too, like the, to feel how I felt after 3,600 and swimming 135, 145, somewhere in that range. Like that's a lot of time at the pool and it's.

Jenna-Caer (07:41.303)
I'm just swimming 10k a week and doing some bike riding. I'm totally unproductive.

Josh (08:04.624)
30 minutes away, it's a long day to get there and that type of stuff. But I just know the consistent piece is what I'm going to stick to on this one. And, even if I have to cut a short, a swim short, like I did tonight, I didn't get there as early as I wanted to. I was the last one in the pool and, and they closed the facility, but I got in most of my swim and, and, at least got in portions of each level of the workout.

Jenna-Caer (08:28.227)
that's good. Always better to get in what you can. I've got some athletes I coach where if they can't get in the full distance, half the time they'll just decide to do nothing. It's like, no, no, just do what you can. Something is better than nothing. Get a little bit of that feel for the water and at least get some of the work in and keep some of that technique.

Josh (08:45.488)
Yeah. And that's what I did tonight. I knew, and I had texted my coach like, do you want me to swap and do the bike or do you want me to go and get some of it? And she's like, no, go get some of it. I've got, we've got plenty of swimming on the calendar. So go get some of it in. so I just right off the bat, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to cut everything in half so I can get through the workout and not get through the drills and never get to the main set. so I just literally just cut everything in half and it worked out well that way. Yeah. How about you up in the freezing cold?

Jenna-Caer (09:10.627)
That's awesome. Well, speaking of swimming, it has been so much snow. Last week was all minus 20 temperatures and that was chilly. But I've been doing the opposite in the training indoors with a lot of heat work right now, which is kind of, it's partially because potentially my race could be hot, but.

Josh (09:15.154)
you

Jenna-Caer (09:32.355)
More of the heat work has been around just gaining fitness quicker, essentially with kind of a shorter timeline going into an Ironman than I usually have. I've been doing a lot of just kind of grindy work. So overdressing on the bike, just did an overdressed run, which let me tell you this, I had a run on the weekend where I learned.

your treadmill can get so sweaty that you start slipping off and have to grab trail shoes or else you're not going to make the end of the run. I had this crazy run where sometimes I give my coach kind of a sideways look of why are we doing this, but it's definitely filled up some strength. So the run was two miles at zero percent grade, just nice and comfortable. And then

or the rest of the run, it was keep the grades, alternating them between 10 to 15 % grade with the last two minutes of each mile back at 0%. And do this all while overdressed with no fan. I was like, what?

Josh (10:32.9)
I showed that story to my wife and I think she read the first couple intervals. She's like, yep, nope. Take that away. Nope. That was disgusting.

Jenna-Caer (10:37.891)
my goodness, I was sweating so much, literally that I had to stop in the last 15 minutes to like wipe down my treadmill and change to trail shoes because I was just like slipping and sliding everywhere. So that was an interesting one. And then the rest of work has been kind of actually some of my favorite workouts, just grindy bike workouts where it's like 10 minutes zone two.

five minutes zone three muscle endurance work, 50 to 70 RPM and just going long with that again, overdressed, no fan and that kind of work I just absolutely love. Like it's been so much fun to go from trying to get faster with the short distance and do Athlon to the work that I just love. Grindy and long is definitely my sweet spot. So that makes it fun and just kind of switching it up and seeing how the body responds to it. Cause at the end of the day, Ironman is really all about endurance and

just who slows down the least. And these will definitely be some workouts that'll help me not break down. Because if I can survive these, then pretty sure I'll survive anything out on course at this point.

Josh (11:43.993)
Yeah, it sounds like you're pretty dialed in already early on in this training. And for you, that's huge. Cause you're coming from a non-triathlon season really. And to jump right back into it to a full distance race is quite insane for most people, but that's awesome. That it's your body's absorbing it. sounds like.

Jenna-Caer (11:52.663)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (11:57.837)
You

Jenna-Caer (12:01.271)
That's the fun part. Definitely a lot of that is life stress and stuff to set myself up so that I do have...

a little less work kind of thing, more of a normal workload instead of some crazy amounts over the summer. And this definitely the quieter time because most of what I do is an injury in sports between coaching and some marketing work there. So taking advantage of the slower time of year to actually recover and chill a little bit between sessions instead of the cramming them in last minute late at night. So that helps a ton. Just did my first swim over 3K and it felt like I was swimming through molasses by the end that definitely

The swim paces weren't much slower than what they were before for like the first few swims, but once that fatigue starts to mount, all of a sudden it feels like I'm just swimming through solids by the end of them. Definitely need to build up that endurance again.

Josh (12:54.23)
It takes some time for sure. I think that as long as you stay consistent and you will cause you know, in order to get through a full Ironman swim, it's a, it's a different story and probably a non wetsuit one, on top of that. So just that consistency can get you to the bike without any salt water. you should be all right.

Jenna-Caer (13:14.379)
Yeah, that's definitely not my favorite, but let's dive into a couple of people who once again are going a little bit faster than we are in the training and racing. We had an Ironman 70.3 race this weekend that typically we probably wouldn't be talking much about, but because it's part of the Ironman Pro Series, it actually had some implications for some big paychecks at the end of the day. So Fede, why don't you tell us what went down on the race?

Josh (13:16.623)
You

Fed (13:34.773)
I think it's good thing that the pro series is still in

Starting with the girls we had a battle for first place between Martha Sanchez from Spain and Anna Bergsten from Sweden and just one minute and 10 seconds separating the two of them. Martha just, you know, swam very good, rode a 212 so she was she was definitely moving but and ran out 123 but Anna she lost quite a lot of time on the stream.

She swam nearly in 32 minutes. So that's where all the time lost because she ran faster than Marta and rode faster than Marta. So, I mean, it just goes to show how important the stream is, especially on the pros and especially over 70.3. It's starting to show that 70.3s and the T100 races are a bit more similar dynamic to

the Olympic distance where you need to be right up front to be able to, you know, to win or to podium, unless you're like an Uber biker or like an amazing runner, like Jason West, or you can ride a bike like Lyle Sanders and your day is done if you're not right in front of the group. coming in third, had Lotte Wilms from the Netherlands, which is always consistent, always solid.

You know, it seems like she's always top five when she has a bad race. So very, very impressive racing from her. Elsevisser, another one who another Kenworth sort of character. She's in every start line and she's always top 10 as well finishing sixth place. Hannah Berry, who I chose for the for the win. I came in seventh, but probably was just like a taper race for 70.3 World. So

Jenna-Caer (15:43.957)
basically.

Fed (15:58.719)
Yeah, very impressive racing from the girls. Also, just to note, Theresa Adam from New Zealand coming in 10th place. She's been an on and off character. She won a couple of Ironman New Zealand's back in the day, and then she struggled with injuries, and then she sort of disappeared and then made a little bit of a comeback. just, yeah, it's always a mystery with...

with Teresa because she's not very, very open when it comes to sharing her racing and everything on social media. So it's a bit hard to get a grasp on her. but yeah, very, very impressive racing from the girls.

Jenna-Caer (16:43.671)
Yeah, absolutely. And we definitely had a few implications for the Ironman Pro Series overall. A number of those had got some extra points, like Maya Stage Nielsen, she moved up to third here and she got 11th, replacing one of her previous races. So she's getting close to the top of the rankings. We also had Lottie Wilms with her third, she moved up too. So we're definitely seeing some movement throughout this series.

few of the women still have one more race that they can add to their points selection, which will be 70.3 worlds. So I think it was smart for a lot of these women just to use this almost as a backup, like worst case scenario, if you're not able to start 70.3 worlds or something goes wrong in there, at least you snag a couple points here to move up instead of.

I guess banking on 70.3 worlds and that's going to be a much more competitive race, right? What do you guys think?

Fed (17:37.875)
Yeah, totally.

Josh (17:39.824)
Yeah, I mean, for, for those, the, the two that you just mentioned to Lottie and Hannah Barry, along with cat, they still have that third set, or they have that last 70.3 that they can throw down. So that's major points and open points. You're not replacing points. So, that there, that, that could be, my guess is your, your top three in the pro series. if

Fed (18:03.733)
Hmm.

Josh (18:05.176)
Lottie and Hannah both show up and have recovered well from Western Australia, which most likely they will have. Then it'll be Kat, Lottie, and Hannah, one, two, three in the pro series standings would be my guess.

Jenna-Caer (18:20.291)
Yeah. And you know, it's crazy now with kind of the time difference, like Kat just has to have a decent day kind of out there. think it's something she has like 30 minutes she can lose overall, a 70.3 and kind of top the rankings because she still has that open spot. And with the bonus points for being a 70.3 World Championships, it's hard to see going past her. So we definitely have the podium is still open to play for, but, and the top 10, but yeah, it's definitely hard not to see Kat getting it as long as she has to.

Fed (18:30.441)
Wow.

Josh (18:48.272)
What are the max points for the winner on the 70.3 Worlds? Is it 4?

Jenna-Caer (18:53.923)
I want to three thousand but I'm not sure. I think it's three thousand but I could be wrong there.

Fed (19:06.357)
should be closer to 4, yeah.

Jenna-Caer (19:06.977)
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Josh (19:12.72)
Cause that means Jackie's locked in if it comes down to Lottie and Hannah. Hannah can't catch Jackie.

Blotty can. So Jackie would end up in third if that's the case, if it is 3,000.

Jenna-Caer (19:27.479)
Yeah, definitely is going to shake things up for sure.

Josh (19:30.564)
But still, there's still a ton of money for Hanna Berry to make from seventh up to fourth, if that's like worst case scenario.

Jenna-Caer (19:34.691)
Right? Yeah, yeah, so it's 3000 for the 70.3 world champs versus the 2500 for all the other 70.3s in there. So definitely some calculations to be done. And like I said, we'll dive into a lot of this kind of the expectations going to next next week when we have David Tilbury Davis on but.

Fed (19:34.869)
Yeah, 100%.

Fed (19:46.037)
Mm.

Jenna-Caer (19:58.485)
Man, there's going to be some math going on. What I hope is during the race that the commentators actually have some like spreadsheets and calculations going on and tell us kind of how it's going through the race. What do you guys think? What are the odds that Ironman will have some updates and live standings on the points rankings?

Fed (20:16.403)
Hmm, well.

Josh (20:17.424)
I mean, they should have PTN or tri-rating or somebody else on the sidelines to help them out. The people that are doing all the work for them anyways.

Jenna-Caer (20:22.283)
get Torscan out there and just like, here's what's going on.

Yeah, so it was good like they finally got that going at the grand final and that was fun to see like virtual rankings kind of as it stands right now. Here's how everything breaks down. So that'd be cool to see and just give them something else to talk about, which is never a bad thing.

Fed (20:28.659)
Yeah, I agree.

Fed (20:43.389)
Yeah, yeah. Well, we can only hope right. But I think they are going to stick to what they do. And that is a very poor broadcast. But I mean, it's a great opportunity for them. Like if they actually pull it off, it's a great opportunity for both marketing standpoint and to give the audience what they want and what they deserve. Because yeah, it'll be exciting actually to know the races within the race and who's behind who.

Jenna-Caer (20:54.935)
This one was being fully dry washed. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (21:12.202)
Yeah.

Fed (21:13.491)
That just adds another element for the audience actually to be glued to the transmission. But I think they're just gonna stick to the motorbike and talking about how many gels they take and talking about aerodynamics that they do not understand. Yeah, stuff like that, the classic.

Jenna-Caer (21:28.835)
you

Josh (21:34.554)
Do you think they'll actually know the athletes though? Western Australia was one of the worst broadcasts I've watched all year. mean, it was like, like, man, we have another pro series race that we have to cover. And it just got thrown in there on them. And I was like, what are you talking about? We've been talking about this forever. Like all year long, we're like, there's one more race that these people are lining up and is Patrick doing it. And they didn't even know who was who. And it was like,

Jenna-Caer (21:37.169)
my goodness.

Fed (21:37.427)
Ha ha!

Jenna-Caer (21:42.416)
It was so... I couldn't... I couldn't...

Fed (21:43.561)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (21:55.255)
Like, yeah.

Josh (22:04.294)
my God. Like it's not that hard to know what kits people have and what they look like. Cause they're not that similar. Once you look at them. it was that, that was a hard broadcast to watch.

Fed (22:09.941)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (22:10.813)
No, it's not that I can make it through. Like I'm a super fan and I can make it through it. Just that's frustrating. See, because there's so much potential and they have so much that they could talk about. And anyways, let's jump into the men's side of things. There was definitely a big move in the pro series rankings this weekend after the men's series.

Fed (22:28.66)
Yeah.

Fed (22:32.497)
Yeah, it was a very unpredictable podium, so to speak. mean, just one guy that we knew he was second tender for the win ended up in the podium, no disrespect to the rest of the athletes, but we didn't pick them. And in the first place from Italy, Gregory Barnaby running a 112, second place from South Africa, Jamie Riddle. And in third place,

Josh's favorite triathlete, Mark Dobrik, coming in the shark, coming in third place with a sub two hour bike and then a blazing fast 1.14 run, you know, put him on third place. Jake Birdweasel, who I thought was gonna run away from everyone. He didn't and he finished in fifth place. Ben Hamilton from New Zealand coming in sixth place. Christian Hugenhout eighth place.

Jenna-Caer (23:02.755)
Thank

Jenna-Caer (23:15.628)
Yeah

Fed (23:27.365)
Not the other day in Matthias Pedsern coming in 11th. Yeah, it was a bit of a shakeout. Just a lot of points were, you know, distributed to different athletes. So that's good. And I don't know the point situation right now between them. But I think some of them do have 70.3 world steel to consider for their last race as well.

Josh (23:57.038)
Yeah, it was a, it was a huge shakeup in terms of the pro series, but even that race, I actually, mean, the, only thing that kept me glued to the broadcast was the men's bike, especially it was really, really dynamic. And, and there were, there was a long train of maybe six or seven of them for most of the bike ride and. They had, they had to go in, it was mostly flat and it was a pretty fast bike. think the top six or seven guys all went sub two.

Fed (24:09.215)
Yeah.

Fed (24:18.079)
Mm.

Josh (24:25.936)
and they were all pretty tight knit for a while where there was a point where I think it was Dubrick or somebody from the back. Robert Callan, think had to pass all seven and we, mean, and if, and if they're 12, 15 meters apart and doing what they're supposed to be doing, that's a lot of matches to burn. and you could see Robert burn some matches when it got to the run, but I mean, he pushed the front of the bike and.

And then people tried to lock in on him. So then when some of the guys like Dubrick and others started to pass later on, they were able to slot in after two guys instead of going through the whole road because they started to break up a little bit. So the bike was really cool. I thought my boy Mark had a heck of a ride and you can see he's definitely getting more dialed in on the bike and being more strategic on the bike. And I think as he gets...

Fed (25:12.575)
He did.

Josh (25:19.214)
some fitness back in his run legs where that injury was this year. You'll start to see what we saw last year from him. it was a good race. And then Gregory Barvey just kind of took off on the run and early on took the lead and never looked back. And I thought the kid Riddle was going to hold on for a little bit. And then it was like, can he even hold on for the podium? Can he even hold on for the podium? Cause he started to bonk real hard.

Fed (25:40.989)
Yeah, same, yeah.

Josh (25:48.612)
That's what you get when you put a 10K runner in a half marathon and they think they can full send it. So kudos to him for holding on to second and Dubrik was right there. He kept looking over his shoulder on the carpet and Mark was coming. But yeah, it was a good race on the men's side for sure. Much tighter than the women's side.

Jenna-Caer (25:53.635)
you

Fed (25:55.559)
Yeah, it's funny, huh?

Jenna-Caer (26:10.947)
Yeah. And that definitely shakes up the rankings with now Gregory Barnaby is on top of the pro tri series rankings, bumping down Patrick Lange, who was hoping I'm sure that, well, he wouldn't win and that he'd be able to hold onto that top spot, but he took the gamble for the difference in prize money, which is that drops him down from $200,000 to $130,000 if he hangs on to a second place in the pro rankings. And with the way the points are going with that,

Fed (26:11.445)
Totally.

Jenna-Caer (26:39.243)
Matthew Marquardt still having another spot. He could even bump down to third, which would be 85,000. So definitely had some implications for the pro series rankings. So the main contenders are still Gregory Barnaby for the win, but then Matthew Marquardt still has another 70.3 race that he can get some points from. And with the bonus points from 70.3 Worlds, he has a shot of kind of bumping into that first place, but some rough calculations from Slow Twitch. So.

Don't yell at me if these are wrong, but both of them would be starting on Taupo with a bit of a winner takes all if they're less than eight minutes and 43 seconds behind the winner. So that's the thing where, you know, with that kind of feel that's in Taupo.

Fed (27:11.167)
Hehehe.

Fed (27:21.309)
Mmm.

Jenna-Caer (27:28.887)
That could be a big challenge. Like we got the Hidden Wilds, Leo Bergier, like there are some big names coming to Taupo that could absolutely run away with it in comparison to these guys. Like these guys are solid, but there are some very fast people in the front end. So it'll be interesting to see how it shakes up after that because it could definitely make a big difference when it comes to the point rankings. Like how tough must it be kind of?

being Gregory Barnaby or Matthew Marquardt where you're just like, yeah, we have a shot at this win, but need to have an absolutely epic day at 70.3 Worlds against some of these guys.

Josh (28:05.968)
Well, if I'm Barnaby, I'm kind of okay. I like it I can have a bad day and still finish first in the pro series. So like I, I think he's kind of in the driver's seat. It's, Matthew Marquardt that has the opportunity to have a huge jump in his paycheck. And like you said, that's not just as easy as it sounds either on it on a typical like 70.3, you could throw Marquardt in there and he's going to have a good day and get some points.

This is a different beast. is literally the best 70.3 guys in the world, all coming to New Zealand and trying to kick butt for one race, not an entire series. And the Gregory Barnaby's and the Matthew Warkwarts are Ironman distance racers. and yeah.

Jenna-Caer (28:44.821)
Yeah, and they're racing against guys they don't usually race against because it's a lot of the short course athletes that are coming up that will really kind of we think can contend for this. they don't even they haven't had the chance to size up their competition or race against them yet either.

Josh (28:59.632)
Yeah, I agree. And, and, and Mana's own, Nick Thompson still has a race, Nick Thompson, Braden Curry. There's a couple of guys in the, the 12, 13 range in the rankings that still have a, a 70.3 to throw on their, top five as well. So they're looking to jump in the top 10 and we all know how much money you're going to start making when you get into that top 10 as well.

Jenna-Caer (29:03.424)
Yes!

Jenna-Caer (29:21.227)
Yeah, absolutely makes a big difference. I think like, like I said, we'll talk more about 70.3 Worlds next week, but I think we're going to see some epic implosions at 70.3 Worlds with a bunch of people going full send risk it to actually take that win or get to move up within the series. Cause now there's a lot more motivation. It's not just one race. It's a lot more money on the line at the end of the day.

Fed (29:45.573)
yeah.

Josh (29:46.554)
Yeah, just a bit.

Jenna-Caer (29:47.939)
Well, we'll have some fun diving into all of that and geeking out on it next week. But let's jump into some of our usual segments here. We'll get started with social media post of the week. Josh, we were kind of fighting for this one, whether it should be the social media or what the F of the week, because it was just epic all around. What do you got for us?

Josh (30:08.428)
So, and I've actually thought of a couple other things I want to talk about and we'll save it for triathlon tea later. But we decided the social media post of the week would be to direct everyone towards the Ultraman World Championship page, is UMWC Hawaii on Instagram. And if you didn't see it, they just held that on Kona. Bob Abbott was kind of reporting on it throughout the three day race, which starts with a

10K swim and on the first day, yeah, start with the swim and then you do part of the bike that first day too. And then you do an entire 180, 170 miles on the day two and then run a double marathon to finish it all out. So it's a total of 321.4 miles over three days and male and female all competing against each other. And for the first time ever, the top two.

Jenna-Caer (30:40.845)
Right there, I'm out.

Jenna-Caer (30:47.736)
Thanks.

Josh (31:07.798)
And even though we're both females on the wind. So, really awesome to, see some of the performances and Annette, or Jen Annette and Michelle Vesterby on the female side, two names that a lot of people are pretty familiar with. Really neck and neck for a lot of the race and back and forth within like five, 10 minutes of each other, going into the run and then Jen Annette ran.

I think it was like a five 35, 5 45 or something like something crazy. No, at six 46, I think it was the total like, like two, three 20 marathons after all of that, on Kona. so, people have done the descent from, and from hobby down the queen K they actually had to run it. So add that to your, your Kona days.

Jenna-Caer (31:40.503)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (31:49.283)
I'm.

Jenna-Caer (32:00.259)
Man, just absolutely epic. First time a woman has won the overall in there and to have two women beat it is just absolutely epic. It was so cool to see and two moms racing it too. And it just goes to show the longer the races go, we're seeing this more and more, the longer the races go, the better kind of women perform overall, which is something that is pretty cool physiologically.

Fed (32:00.821)
Try to say.

Fed (32:18.964)
Yeah.

Fed (32:22.549)
And adding on that, it seems like women tend to pay themselves better, also, it's a fact that after an athlete gives birth, they are super resilient and all of a sudden they tend to go faster as well.

Josh (32:22.734)
Yeah, and I mean, go ahead, but.

Jenna-Caer (32:42.979)
Mm Yeah, it's pretty cool during I found after pregnancy and stuff, just the what happens while you're pregnant is your lung capacity increases and your blood volume increases. And if you there's some, I guess, thoughts that if you maintain the training afterwards or stay on top of the training, you maintain some of those gains. You can't hold on to all of it because your body's not supporting two people anymore. But it seems like everything feels just

Fed (32:52.328)
Wow.

Fed (33:07.305)
Yeah

Jenna-Caer (33:09.813)
a little bit easier. You get a little bit more oxygen and kind of use some of that. If you completely shut it down during pregnancy and afterwards and stuff, you don't get the same benefits, but there's some cool stuff that happens to your body that can be beneficial there. But the biggest thing with women in these ultra endurance events is we're naturally more predisposed to burning kind of fat for fuel. Again, it also depends kind of where you are in your cycle, how predominant that is and how much fat you're burning versus carbs. But there's definitely the predisposition there.

Fed (33:11.774)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (33:40.001)
And on top of it, just having a smaller frame and smaller body means that there's less pounding, less muscle weight in there. So you don't break down quite as much either. So the longer these races go, the...

better, we're just kind of set up for it. I think for so long, hadn't been involved in these ultra endurance events, and it's just starting to catch up and kind of reach some of that potential. I think we're going to see a lot more of it kind of at that ultra marathon and further distances, things like Ultraman, which is pretty darn cool to see.

Fed (34:10.901)
We should we should do an ultra Josh

Josh (34:11.566)
Yeah, so here's the, here's the, so I truly do believe that I actually have a little bit more capability in me when it comes to that slow methodical endurance world than I do some of the high-paced 70.3 stuff. So we'll see, Fed. I think.

Jenna-Caer (34:14.847)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (34:29.232)
Iron Man?

Fed (34:29.749)
When you turn 50, we can...

Josh (34:36.056)
Yeah. yeah. When I get, when I get in the next age group, right. When, then everyone gets faster again. it doesn't matter age groups anymore. I mean, two ladies 39 and 41, after 10 K swims, Michelle's actually was just under three hours. Everyone else was well into the three hours. Jenna net was about 17 minutes back at three 16 49. And then they had pretty similar bikes off of that five eight.

Fed (34:39.561)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Jenna-Caer (34:39.747)
Thank

Josh (35:04.88)
53508 59 for eight and half eight eight just 815 First day day one eight hours and 15 minutes at another at another seven hours and 50 something minutes to to the bike on day two followed by 13 hours of running on day three for both of them breaking 24 hours and coming in and

Jenna-Caer (35:11.939)
You're the

Fed (35:14.053)
Day one. My God.

Fed (35:20.117)
Fed (35:25.191)
Ugh.

Josh (35:30.576)
23 plus which over three days on Kona

Fed (35:31.017)
Man. Man. I'm in.

Jenna-Caer (35:36.747)
Is it bad that this makes me want it even more?

Fed (35:41.525)
I think the longest swim I've ever done in my life, it's like five Ks. Like, and I was done. Like I was, I just wanted a nap and a hot beverage after that. imagine having to ride in a lot of food. Imagine having to swim double that and then hopping on the bike for another three hour bike ride in the Kona heat with the wind. my God. Just it.

Jenna-Caer (35:46.753)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (35:54.603)
and love food.

Josh (36:09.56)
And there were a few of them that were four and a half hours, 447. And these are the people that finished the entire race too. So I mean, right off the bat, you're four and a half hours in coming out of the water.

Fed (36:20.563)
Yeah, yeah.

Jenna-Caer (36:21.087)
Yeah, especially that swim's destroyed me after 4k a couple times down, my intent there.

Josh (36:26.084)
That doesn't even win a full 70.3 anymore.

Fed (36:28.903)
Yeah, true. Yeah. man. That's crazy. Imagine, imagine being, you just run the marathon and thinking to yourself, okay, now I just, I'm halfway there. I just need another marathon to get. Classic.

Jenna-Caer (36:31.299)
crazy.

Jenna-Caer (36:42.615)
Just one more marathon to go. I am definitely doing this man for one of these days. That tanky swim is the only thing that scares me, but outside of that, definitely gonna happen.

Josh (36:42.904)
with.

Fed (36:54.869)
Hey, we, and I could be ATP support crew. that way we could, we could live a little bit curiously through you and yeah. And you know, help you. exactly. Excuse you, Hawaii and help you not die.

Jenna-Caer (37:00.279)
Perfect! There we go.

Jenna-Caer (37:07.572)
Excuse me.

Josh (37:10.842)
There are other Ultramans too. So I think we got to find one of these Ultramans that is wetsuit eligible. Because they're not all, this is the World Championships on Hawaii. there are other locations that might be viable.

Jenna-Caer (37:18.433)
Yes. Yes.

Fed (37:20.649)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (37:24.769)
wonder if they still have the one in Canada. They did one in Penticton for years. Yeah, that one's hilly. Oof, that'd be a hard bike ride. There's no real flatter on there.

Fed (37:24.821)
Yeah.

Josh (37:28.144)
I think there might be.

Fed (37:28.574)
Whoa.

Fed (37:35.445)
How much riding do you need to get done on day one after the swim? Is it like 100 miles? 90 miles. Okay, 90 miles. And then day two.

Josh (37:36.3)
Not at all.

Jenna-Caer (37:41.859)
90 miles. 90. Yeah.

Josh (37:44.336)
79, 90, yeah. Yeah, yeah, 90 miles. And then 171.4 day two.

Fed (37:52.51)
my God.

Jenna-Caer (37:54.275)
It's really feeling good by then.

Fed (37:55.477)
I'm

Josh (37:56.08)
And then a double marathon on day three.

Fed (37:58.588)
Yeah, yeah, shake out.

Josh (38:01.904)
Shake. All the lactate's gone.

Fed (38:02.773)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (38:06.627)
no, definitely incredible to see that was such a cool performance and very cool to see some women crushing their like you said, Josh, some familiar names in the Iron Man world that we've seen through the years. So cool to see that they're taking on some new adventures and challenges.

Fed (38:07.797)
classic.

Josh (38:23.31)
Yeah, absolutely. And they, and they got to see different parts of Kona that they've never seen either. It's not the, it's not just the regular Ironman course. They, they, they get to see the entire Island for sure.

Jenna-Caer (38:26.901)
Yeah.

Fed (38:27.582)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (38:32.259)
A whole lot more of it.

Fed (38:34.471)
And that road, mean, Jenna, you've been to Hawaii, Josh, you will be going to Hawaii very soon, but that road that goes to Hilo, it's very, there's so much wind and there's a lot of climbs and it's not an easy road. Probably the Queen Kay is the friendliest road to ride in Hawaii, because some of that other part of the island gets very exposed and it's very...

Jenna-Caer (38:58.967)
Yeah, I fart.

Fed (39:02.837)
into the elements. yeah, kudos to everybody who raised Ultraman and finished it.

Jenna-Caer (39:10.103)
Man, very cool. Well, we'll jump into the what the f of the week here. So this weekend, we saw another familiar name, Joe Skipper. He switched up from triathlon, you taking some downtime in the off season and chilling out doing high rocks. So this definitely seems to be a trend that I think maybe he started among triathletes. I'm seeing it more and more here. So it's one of those events where you go between kind of strength exercises and sprints and go back and forth and back and forth.

And what they do is they have set weights for each division of the event that you go into. And it's a balance between that strength and endurance. And definitely sounds like a lot of fun. That's something I'd love to, again, try. I just want to do all the races and fun stuff. But last year, Joe Skipper jumped into the pro, pro, I guess, division of it where the weights are heavier and it's longer. And he definitely sounded like he regretted that a little bit at the end of it, but he got it done and got through.

but this year he went into the second division and had a massive improvement and sounds like he had a lot of fun with it. So it looks just like a cool event there in like this big stadium kind of setting and go in different heats and balance between the different exercises, like pushing, pulling, and doing farmer carriers and stuff. And it sounded like one of the things he struggled most with in the race was just having the grip strength to hold on to some of the weights.

Which is funny because you can get so strong like in your legs and core and everything else, but we're never holding on to anything or lifting that heavy stuff for any extended period of time. So definitely provided some challenges there. So well done to him going faster than last year with lighter weights. So you'd hope you go faster. It sounds like he had some fun. Would you guys get one of these events to try?

Fed (40:57.929)
Yeah, well, why not? I don't see why not. mean, it'll be interesting for sure. to get that competitive, you know, spark a go. Yeah, definitely keen to try different things, but yeah, it's fun to see Joe doing different things during the off-season and avoiding the water at all costs, just like us.

Jenna-Caer (41:20.467)
Yeah.

Josh (41:23.024)
I think jumping, jumping in the two of us should do it as a team. Like the, the, the duo team aspect of it too, looks really, intriguing where one of you can have certain, definite abilities to, handle maybe the, the pole, the sled pole or, and, and maybe one's better at the, one K sprints. Now you do have to get to each apparatus and do all of that stuff together, but if somebody's better at wall, ball tosses and things like that, you can work it out.

Jenna-Caer (41:28.972)
There you go.

Jenna-Caer (41:50.531)
Hmm.

Josh (41:51.79)
between the two of you and have a good race. So I think all three of us could handle the race. Definitely not in the pro weights for sure. Even though I'm in my strength training build right now, I do not want to be doing that. But it's certainly intriguing. We've had a few team members who have jumped into some recently as well, and it looks fun.

Fed (42:04.723)
Alright.

Jenna-Caer (42:09.187)
Yeah, it seems like they absolutely loved it. Just that switch up. Sometimes, you know, we get so stuck into the swim bike run of it all. It's nice just to change up that stimulus, do something, get out of your comfort zone and feel like a newbie again. Like that is something that I think we take for granted when you've been in the sport for a long time. You just kind of go through the motions. That's fun just to be completely out of your element and give something new a go.

Fed (42:16.853)
Mmm.

Fed (42:26.111)
Yeah.

Fed (42:32.093)
Absolutely.

Josh (42:32.29)
and still have the one case sprint every time that you know you can kind of master.

Jenna-Caer (42:34.563)
Thank

Fed (42:36.712)
Yeah, there you go.

Jenna-Caer (42:37.087)
one case sprint, that's the tough part. That'd hard just balancing out how hard you go on that run to still be able to breathe and not just be completely filled with lactate and just every muscle burning.

Fed (42:52.209)
Not going completely hypoxic. So down here, there's probably, there's probably the best, the best mix of, like a hybrid triathlon. It's, probably us three would do very well in it because, you know, Jenna is a strength coach as well. Josh lifts, we all lift weights during the off season. And, so this triathlon is a kayak, mountain bike and trail run. I think.

Jenna-Caer (42:54.722)
Thanks.

Josh (42:55.632)
you

Jenna-Caer (43:20.287)
Amazing.

Fed (43:21.243)
I think us three would do very well in this event because it's still in the water, but not it's not completely dependent on our catch. yeah, so kayak mountain bike run. I think we are up for a one, two, three podium.

Jenna-Caer (43:27.329)
Yeah, super strength based.

Jenna-Caer (43:37.709)
Perfect. You know, I've never ridden a mountain bike actually.

Fed (43:40.777)
haha

the confessions of a triathlete.

Jenna-Caer (43:47.587)
You know, I didn't ride my first road bike until 2020. So like I started on a triathlon bike and the only thing I had before then was like the Walmart bike when I was a kid. Yeah, started on a triathlon bike and wanted to do a triathlon.

Fed (43:53.098)
Really?

Fed (44:00.029)
Awesome. So you learn everything about being aero and everything before you knew about, you know, going on the hoods and stuff like that.

Jenna-Caer (44:10.883)
I had no idea that it could be just comfortable, like sitting upright and stuff. I honestly have a question why people wore like bicycle gloves. Cause I'm like, why, why would you need these things? Like my hands just get sweaty in them just down in TT. And then I rode a road bike for a long period up and down some mountains and stuff. I'm like, yeah. Now I get it. Yeah. Yeah.

Fed (44:14.867)
You

Fed (44:19.924)
Yeah.

Fed (44:24.254)
Yeah.

Fed (44:29.234)
Yeah, that's why.

Josh (44:34.32)
And then you see her on the road racing like the legends of the sport. yeah, she progressed.

Fed (44:34.525)
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, with Contador and Lance and all of those guys. Classic. Classic Jenna.

Jenna-Caer (44:38.339)
Man, I've gotten my butt kicked so many times by those 200 grand cyclists. I tried to beat them with the beer drinking and the beer mile stuff and still got my butt kicked. Fun times. Right? man. How he turns around and does those beer miles the day after an Ironman? Like that would be...

Josh (44:44.094)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Fed (44:54.677)
haha

Josh (44:57.072)
Speaking of skipper.

Fed (44:58.965)
There you go.

Jenna-Caer (45:06.121)
painful, like seriously painful. I'm still hobbling around at that point, but I guess maybe the beer helps take away some of the pain so that you're not feeling it as much.

Fed (45:07.475)
Yeah. Yeah.

Fed (45:15.603)
Yeah, totally.

Jenna-Caer (45:19.315)
Well, moving on here, Josh, it sounds like you had some ideas for our trathlon tee this week. What's going on?

Josh (45:25.508)
Well, I had some time because I actually got my workout in at a decent hour yesterday. So I was sitting, watching some, catching up on some YouTube while my wife was doing her workout last night and caught a couple episodes, that I thought people should, if you haven't seen, one is the ritual interview with Christian Blumenfeld. it's long, but worth it. And KBB will be going after the Olympics in

I mean, it's, it's nuts. He's like, I, I, I felt like my training wasn't on and we didn't hit the mark right on what we should have been doing plan wise. So I feel like I can still prove to the world that we can come from Ironman back to the Olympic distance. So that's his mindset. And if he had won in Paris, he would be going for the tour was the other takeaway from this interview.

Jenna-Caer (45:58.955)
This guy.

Josh (46:21.922)
Listen to the whole thing. It's amazing. Rich is always great. He has some phenomenal guests on, but he and Christian are both on athletes. So that relationship is pretty good between the two of them. were, the interview was done while Christian was in New York city. They were both in New York for the marathon and doing some work with, with on at that pop-up shop that they had. So really cool interview on the ritual podcast. And then I happened to catch the.

first ever Norwegian episode of Cribs and got to see what Gustav's house looked like. And I watched a whole bunch of other stuff, but these were the two I thought were, we talked about this. Like the two of them are just hilarious. And this was them individually. And Gustav, I mean, Gustav slammed it. mean, it was like he grew up watching MTV Cribs for sure. Trying to show off his...

Fed (46:53.555)
haha

Jenna-Caer (46:54.467)
You went down the Norwich rabbit hole.

Jenna-Caer (47:00.419)
Thank

Fed (47:05.205)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (47:05.229)
Yeah.

Fed (47:14.855)
Yeah

Josh (47:16.822)
old 100 year plus house in Bergen. It was really cool if you haven't seen it. So yeah, definitely check that out.

Fed (47:18.921)
Yeah, nice.

Jenna-Caer (47:24.291)
That's awesome. But man, Blumenfeld going for the Olympics. So he's 30 now, so he'd be like 34 going into it, right? Like we've seen it tried a few times on the men's side. had Maka tried to go from long to short. Alistair tried to go from long to short. Now Blumenfeld, no one's ever done it successfully, but I just...

Man, Christian could absolutely dominate the Ironman, like rank up those Ironman World Championships wins on Kona and stuff, but I don't think with how fast and how specialized both of them are, I don't think you can be at the top of either if you're trying to be at the top of both. It just seems like a bridge too far. Like they're two different sports.

Josh (48:05.048)
Yeah. And, and he knew, he said he knew he was about 50 seconds off on the run from where he needed to be with Alex and, and, and Hayden. So he knew a couple of weeks prior, what he was, he was up against, but he thought that with a little bit of a last minute push that they would be able to get there. And I think with everything. Yeah.

Fed (48:15.189)
Yeah.

Hayden.

Jenna-Caer (48:31.233)
He was throwing all the track workouts at it at that point. I remember seeing this with just alt speed, speed, speed.

Josh (48:36.312)
Well, and then remember coming out of Paris, yeah, the panic training. And then I think they messed up with the altitude stuff he said. So they probably changed that up this year. as he gets strictly into the pro series, then the other piece was it to remember that he went in one Frankfurt handily. and, and so clearly the train we're like, how the heck did he do that? If he's coming off an Olympic block and he's like, I think the volume was just.

Fed (48:36.693)
Panic Trading.

Josh (49:03.674)
too much and I, never were able to back it down into the high intensity stuff. My body was still ready for the long distance and that's why I was able to do well in, in Frankfurt. So he felt like the training plan that they had in place just wasn't locked in the way it should be for the Olympic cycle. And they just missed time things and, camps were dated wrong and things like that. So that's what he's got in his head. And I don't think anyone's going to take it out. he's literally giving up a shot at.

Jenna-Caer (49:11.371)
Yeah.

Josh (49:32.886)
Tour de France to go back for LA.

Jenna-Caer (49:36.195)
Well, and just like the Tour de France is one thing. I don't know that I ever believed he'd be anything other than a domestique in the Tour de France there. That's hard to see, like just not even the fitness and stuff, but those pack dynamics, the being in those groups and stuff like that takes years to really get.

Fed (49:44.681)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Fed (49:55.228)
I agree.

Jenna-Caer (49:56.515)
confident in riding in those and just the way they descend too like it's it's all next level right again you you need to really specialize at something and you're looking at five six years till you really get a handle on that and by that time he's 35 36 and that's old in the Tour de France really especially coming in 20 at 23 24

Fed (50:10.805)
Yeah.

Josh (50:13.636)
Well, and that's the thing here.

He's not going to be able to do it after LA. mean, like that, that this was his window, right? And so, I mean, was it better in your eyes that he actually lost in Paris and now has to continue to be a triathlete. And that's probably where he belongs anyways, which we all feel. So it's like, maybe the best thing that happened to him was losing in Paris.

Jenna-Caer (50:19.511)
Never thought.

Fed (50:20.477)
Yeah, no.

Jenna-Caer (50:38.123)
Man, but I I love him and he's so good and so fun to watch and stuff. He should just like, he could leave a legacy at the Ironman distance. Like he really, really could. And it feels like he's giving that up to chase this maybe shot at the Olympics kind of deal. It'd be cool to see him really go all in and dominate things like the T100 and the Ironman Pro Series and stuff. Yeah.

Fed (50:39.103)
Yeah.

Fed (50:51.029)
Yeah.

Josh (51:00.026)
So he's gonna do that for two years. like he'll be on an Ironman Kona build for two years. Like that's literally like whatever he'll go through Nice, but Kona is all he's thinking about for the next two years.

Fed (51:10.485)
Hmph.

Jenna-Caer (51:13.187)
Then he gets one Kona win maybe and then back to Olympic. You know, Olympic belt and you're in third place. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you you can never count KB out because this guy has definitely seemed superhuman at points and they put everything into it.

Fed (51:13.341)
Yeah, totally.

Josh (51:18.764)
And then right into the Olympic build. The right way this time.

Fed (51:21.141)
They're right.

Yeah, crazy.

Jenna-Caer (51:36.319)
all of the research, the data, the science, testing themselves as well. So it'll be a fun journey to watch to see where he gets in that endeavor too. And you know what? It's never boring with him.

Josh (51:40.336)
Yeah.

Josh (51:47.736)
No, and you can see a lot of that interview too. talk like a lot of it is they want to prove to people that the Norwegian method is actually still the way to do it or, or it's still viable. And, and it hurt them to have the performance he had in Kona especially.

Fed (52:03.477)
Totally.

Jenna-Caer (52:03.479)
No one else that hurt was, was it Brad Culp? Is he the one who he wrote the Norwegian Method book right before a year where the Norwegians didn't have a great year in there? So that's gotta, that's gotta be a tough hit. You're like, okay, this is the next thing that everyone's talking about. They're winning everything. And then as soon as the book is published, they don't really win anything.

Fed (52:09.173)
Yeah.

Josh (52:23.716)
Yeah. No. And, and I mean, I don't want to take away too much of that, but he said they probably shouldn't have done a second altitude camp and things like that. So there's a lot of things that they could tweak. I mean, look, he won Frankfurt and before Frankfurt, nobody had him on their minds for Kona really this year. Right. And then he went to Frankfurt. It's like, all right, now he's the favorite. So I don't think we're going to take them off our list of, we don't trust him. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (52:40.899)
20%.

Fed (52:41.961)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (52:44.413)
Right.

Jenna-Caer (52:49.015)
Not of anything, yeah. No, you never know.

Fed (52:51.493)
One thing, one thing I've learned about us triathlete people is we have such a short memory. Unlike any other sports, we're like goldfish. We tend to, I mean, because I know where it comes from, where it comes from. Cause you build fitness and then the fitness that you have right now, it's more a factor for what your next race. But then again,

Jenna-Caer (53:00.205)
We're like goldfish.

Fed (53:21.141)
if you haven't been able to perform to the best of your ability during the season, or if you're coming from short course to long course, it takes a process and a while to adapt. So, this thing with Christian, I think we all jumped into the vanguaga of, yeah, has Christian Blumenfeld. He's going to dominate Kona. And we've totally forgot about people who have been doing, you know, Patrick Lange, who kept his mouth very quiet, grinding it out.

And he looked confident in Kona. He knew nobody was going to beat him on the run. He knew he had been working on the TT bike and the position and everything. Even if he has a very rocky TT riding style, it works for him because he's like a tiny, tiny little man. He just cuts through the wind. But yeah, I think out of, you know, from most sports, people tend to respect legacy a bit more than us triathletes.

We like you said, you know, we're like goldfish and we the dead the guy that won the last weekend We think that's a favorite for the world championship and oftentimes it's not usually like that

Jenna-Caer (54:30.531)
And I think we've seen with triathlon because it is so all in and anything can happen in there, good or bad. So we see a lot of burnout, a lot of injuries, a lot of people are out of the world and then gone the next second in there, or they finally put it all together and get nutrition right after years of mediocre results kind of thing.

Fed (54:40.041)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (54:50.595)
It definitely is a sport that moves very, very quickly. And then you have someone jump in who dials in their own position all of a sudden, their head kind of thing. So think the sport just moves so quickly and it's so changing. We've got so many different series and world championships now. It's just, we're being bombarded all this stuff all the time and it's onto the next shiny star who's gonna be straight up. And you never, it's made it a lot more interesting though, because there's no, other than Taylor Nibb.

Fed (54:58.517)
Totally.

Jenna-Caer (55:18.317)
There's no dominant racers across every distance. Taylor Nibb is an incredible standout this year, but everywhere else we've seen it just mixed up across all of this series and within each series, which has been fun to see.

Fed (55:31.829)
Mm.

Josh (55:34.384)
It'll be interesting now that you mentioned that to the up and comers and obviously with Martin now potentially having to do another Ironman to get his knee slot. So there's two Ironmans that he's going to have on his calendar in the pro series next year. We know he likes to hop into a 70.3 here and there as well. So it's like all of a sudden Martin Vareal could be in the pro series in the T100 next year. There you go. You heard it here first. That's my prediction.

Jenna-Caer (55:57.783)
Do a Kent Matthews. There we go. Yeah, really curious to see what he does next year, because it gets harder to fit in an Ironman if there's going to be more races with the T100 and more contract obligations there. But man, when you're feeling good and everything's clicking, it's hard not to go for both of them.

Fed (56:07.754)
Yeah.

Fed (56:21.525)
Totally.

Jenna-Caer (56:23.521)
I think that'll wrap us up for this week guys. Thank you as always for joining me and definitely don't miss next week's episode where we will have one of the foremost experts and coaches in triathlon, David Tilbury Davis jumping on here to help us run down what's going to go down at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. But until then, have a great night guys.

Fed (56:43.445)
Thank you too. Peace.

Josh (56:43.76)
Have a good one.