Episode 74: Ironman 70.3 World Championships Results

In this episode, Jenna-Caer and Josh discuss the recent Ironman 70.3 World Championships, highlighting the performances of both the women's and men's races. They share personal training updates, recovery strategies, and insights into the Ironman Pro Series results. The conversation also delves into the implications of T100 contracts for athletes and the evolving landscape of triathlon racing. Additionally, they touch on social media highlights and the future of elite athletes transitioning between distances.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships
04:42 Training Updates and Recovery Strategies
09:24 The Impact of Alcohol on Training
13:58 Ironman 70.3 Women's Race Overview
18:48 Ironman 70.3 Men's Race Overview
23:34 Post-Race Reflections and Rankings
28:26 Fashion Trends in Triathlon
30:04 Performance Insights from Recent Races
33:06 The Ironman Pro Series Results
36:57 The Impact of T100 Contracts on Athletes
38:28 Contract Changes and Athlete Decisions
46:20 Triathletes Transitioning to Marathon Running
49:01 Olympic Athletes Shifting to Longer Distances
54:50 Coaching Changes in the Norwegian Team

Pro Women

• 1. Taylor Knibb (USA) – 3:57:34 (24:30 / 2:10:09 / 1:19:20)
• 2. Kat Matthews (GBR) – 3:58:49 (25:03 / 2:14:41 / 1:15:34)
• 3. Ashleigh Gentle (AUS) – 4:03:01 (25:04 / 2:18:03 / 1:16:26)
• 4. Imogen Simmonds (SUI) – 4:05:12 (24:32 / 2:14:34 / 1:22:15)
• 5. Julie Derron (SUI) – 4:06:02 (24:39 / 2:18:15 / 1:19:38)
• 6. Paula Findlay (CAN) – 4:07:12 (25:20 / 2:17:37 / 1:20:31)
• 7. Ellie Salthouse (AUS) – 4:07:48 (25:46 / 2:18:55 / 1:19:15)
• 8. Caroline Pohle (GER) – 4:08:06 (24:36 / 2:18:18 / 1:21:25)
• 9. Tamara Jewett (CAN) – 4:08:47 (26:17 / 2:22:30 / 1:16:12)
• 10. Grace Thek (AUS) – 4:09:08 (25:04 / 2:20:58 / 1:19:14)

Pro Men

• 1. Jelle Geens (BEL) – 3:32:09 (22:23 / 1:59:08 / 1:07:34)
• 2. Hayden Wilde (NZL) – 3:33:22 (22:20 / 1:58:51 / 1:09:05)
• 3. Léo Bergère (FRA) – 3:35:08 (22:02 / 1:59:29 / 1:10:28)
• 4. Kyle Smith (NZL) – 3:37:51 (22:22 / 1:59:09 / 1:13:15)
• 5. Justus Nieschlag (GER) – 3:38:06 (22:24 / 1:59:07 / 1:13:25)
• 6. Henri Schoeman (RSA) – 3:39:20 (22:19 / 2:00:07 / 1:13:29)
• 7. Rico Bogen (GER) – 3:39:36 (22:18 / 1:59:02 / 1:14:59)
• 8. Harry Palmer (GBR) – 3:39:42 (23:06 / 2:01:29 / 1:11:25)
• 9. Gregory Barnaby (ITA) – 3:40:14 (22:54 / 2:01:45 / 1:12:05)
• 10. Marc Dubrick (USA) – 3:40:27 (22:02 / 2:03:04 / 1:12:05)

Transcript

Jenna-Caer (00:01.07)
We are back with another Trathlon podcast brought to you by Mana Apparel and it all went down this weekend. We had the Ironman 70.3 World Championships, the last race in a very long, but quite an epic season this year. We have not been short on pro racing, so we will dive into everything that went on this weekend. We'll have our usual social media, what the F, and a little bit of Trathlon tea. And then we'll also break down what the rankings look like from the Ironman Pro Series after this weekend's race.

Before we jump into that, unfortunately we are missing Fede today. He is still over in New Zealand soaking up the sunshine, getting a little bit of downtime after his race, which is very much well earned. So we'll jump in and say hi. Josh, how are you doing? What are you even up to these days?

Josh (00:45.634)
Doing great. was fun watching Fede come back and finally have a good race and put together a swim bike run that we know he could do. So I'm sure he's looking forward to next season, but kudos to Fede and reach out, give him congrats. you are attached to him on social media, reach out to him and anyone that you know that raced this weekend. was crazy looking at the times that the age groupers were throwing up. was like...

This is what a 70.3 worlds is supposed to be like. I mean, it was like the amount of sub fives and where you fell, if you went above five hours, it was like, you weren't even top hundred in your age group. It was crazy looking at some of that stuff. And then was like, everyone started like, well, I was top 10 in the U S top five in the year. And you start to. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But I was, it was a good, it was a great week last week.

Jenna-Caer (01:23.811)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (01:30.81)
You start to get those qualifiers in there, you're like, ehh.

Josh (01:38.754)
For me, training wise, did a lot of the started running, walking again protocol and preparation to do some runs at Peloton in New York this weekend and had an awesome weekend. We had a 75 minute ride to kick it off with 39 people in the studio that I had all organized and most of them being there. Most of them being there for the first time and just really awesome vibes. Like we talked about last week with the whole community being there and everyone just.

Loving it. Awesome music, awesome shout outs from Matt Wilpers. And then hopped right into a class with Bex Gentry, who's the instructor who just finished the Great World Race, the seven marathons and seven continents in seven days. she had a 60 minute run that we did, and I had organized a group of 16 people to do that run with her as well. And everyone in that class had finished a marathon this year or this fall, pretty much.

Also had two members from her great world race join us too. So, the lady, Hillary Kupish, who won the whole thing, male and female had the fastest time over the seven days. she joined us in another, member Tim, from the race as well. So there were three great world race people in the, in the studio and then the rest of us normal marathoners, there as well. So I was able to survive her 60 minute, run and, felt great about that. And then hopped into, another cycling class to end the

Jenna-Caer (02:59.364)
Yeah.

Josh (03:08.44)
first day and then went back and I did a 45 minute row early the next morning and that kind of like loosened everything back up and I was like, this is why I should probably grow a little bit more than I do because it is a great full body activation. did that and then I did another 60 minute run later in the afternoon and the body held up, the Achilles held up, the ankles held up and just got off the tread again.

hour plus run just now with a seven minute run, one minute walk, seven minute run, one minute walk, and kind of repeat that eight times over and over. So feeling good, recovering, just doing everything I can possibly to keep my ankles strengthening and not blowing up on me in the off season, because we're trying to do some big things next year. being smart about it at the same time. And I just got these really cool Thera-Ice ankle boots.

Jenna-Caer (04:00.154)
That's right.

Josh (04:07.35)
compression ice things that I put on as soon as I'm done working out and that's been helping as well. Just kind of pull down some of the inflammation and stretching and everything else I can. So it was a really awesome community weekend and I'm still healthy. So everything worked out well.

Jenna-Caer (04:22.594)
Well, I'm glad you could get healthy enough in time to go do those workouts and you're really looking forward to them and sounds like everything held up So you're back on the road to recovery and you know, this is the time of year Just listen to your body and make sure that you can hit it kind of full force as you head towards Oceanside. It'll be your next race

Josh (04:26.113)
here.

Josh (04:39.426)
That's the plan. got to figure that one out. So that's the next thing. Right now, Oregon's the first one on my calendar, officially. So I got to figure out Oceanside. We'll talk to the team about that and what the plans are with Mauna and our team event and some of the partners that we might have there and whether or not we do our live podcast there too. big, big, week.

Jenna-Caer (05:00.792)
Yeah, I just realized... I was just gonna say, just realized Oceanside is the weekend before Iron Man Taiwan. It's right before. So, we'll see. Might be a stop off in Oceanside on the way to Taiwan if I can make that happen, because yeah, that is such a fun atmosphere and we've got so many Mono members that come out there.

Josh (05:08.077)
gosh.

Josh (05:20.696)
Probably easy to fly out of LAX as a pet.

Jenna-Caer (05:23.948)
Yeah, not too bad there. Check out the flights. I'm starting to realize the travel to this one might be more interesting with some regional jets and very small airports close to the race unless I want to attempt to drive in Taiwan, which... Yeah. We'll get out of here.

Josh (05:26.817)
Yeah.

Josh (05:39.628)
Ooh. Yeah. Trains, all this stuff. So it was also interesting this weekend watching, or the last week watching all the different travel that people, all the pros had and documented who took the longest and who had some tough routes and tough airlines. And it sounds like Paula and Eric have had some rough travels and this one on Air Canada was great. They got upgraded and everything. I like...

Jenna-Caer (05:55.459)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (06:07.309)
Awesome.

Josh (06:07.426)
Seems like they might've won the travel to New Zealand lottery.

Jenna-Caer (06:11.258)
That is excellent, because that is no short trip, no matter really where you're coming from. It's not an easy one.

Josh (06:16.886)
No, not at all, not at all. So how was your week of training and how is it going for Taiwan?

Jenna-Caer (06:24.93)
Yeah, going pretty good in here. Nothing too crazy. Although I did get a good reminder of the effects of alcohol on training. Had a couple of Christmas dinners, one Saturday night and then one last night as well. And the Saturday one definitely went for it more. And I've been doing all this heat training on the bike in the pain cave and I've been getting better and better at it. Not the case after a late night out with a few cocktails. I'm pretty sure I sweat everything out, but it was funny. I had

Josh (06:48.12)
Jenna-Caer (06:54.41)
like way less resistance to the heat after a night of drinking because it's probably already dehydrated from the alcohol and stuff beforehand. I don't drink a ton regularly so it was definitely feeling the effects but by the end of the bike ride I'm pretty sure everything was gone. Yeah, no, but definitely impacts the sleep, impacts their performance but it's one of those things 80-20, 80 % of the time have all the good habits, do all the right things, 20%.

Josh (06:59.512)
Yeah.

Josh (07:13.045)
It's gone now.

Jenna-Caer (07:24.408)
You gotta have some fun and live your life too because we're not professional athletes and can't live like the Norwegians just monk like doing swim bike run and nothing else. So it's definitely fun to get out there and have a little bit of holiday cheer and some really, really good food too.

Josh (07:34.327)
now.

Josh (07:42.654)
And I think that's where that 20 % piece comes into a lot is the nutrition aspect of it too. Cause there's so much to food that just makes you feel good and you don't want to, and we get so dialed in nutrition wise when you are training and getting ready for a race that the off season is one of those times where you don't want to let it go, but it's a definite time to let back a little bit and enjoy some of the things that you haven't been able to enjoy or the volume of some of the things you haven't been able to enjoy. So.

Jenna-Caer (07:46.234)
Thanks, Julie.

Jenna-Caer (08:10.02)
Definitely.

And even myself, like I'll usually gain almost 10 pounds in the off season, just like take it step back, build some muscle mass and just not overthink it. And the first few years I was in triathlon, that was really tough because I had come from, you know, losing 50 pounds and gaining weight back was almost scary back then thinking, am going to go back to where was before? But you need to let your body reset a little bit. You need to let your hormones chill, not be in that deficit. And it definitely helps, especially if you're doing some more strength training, just having

a little bit of letting your body go to its happy place. I think a lot of times we're racing a little bit lower than our body's kind of set point where it's happy at. So giving it a chance just to reset is a very good thing. And if you're doing the training and you get back to the 80 % good eating, it will come off as you go through the season. But yeah, you need to give the body, the head, the hormones, everything a reset in the off season.

Josh (09:04.236)
Yeah. And that's a good, that's exactly where I'm at about eight to 10 pounds above where I playing weight type thing would be, but not concerned about it. It's just, it'll, it'll come back when the volume picks back up and, and specific specificity picks back up. Right. And like even this week, we talked about the Garmin and how pissed off the Garmin was in me. was like, I went from underperforming or no, no status to overachieving for two days.

Jenna-Caer (09:08.538)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (09:30.348)
Josh (09:31.244)
So now back to underperforming. was like, how does that happen? But it's all in the plan and I'm just enjoying it. was a good weekend of food and friends and community. And like you said, that 20 % fills your cup in other ways that we all need.

Jenna-Caer (09:34.33)
yeah.

Jenna-Caer (09:49.626)
Yeah, exactly. Matt, my garment's been stuck at unproductive for like the last three weeks because I'm not doing any intensity right now, just kind of building that base again. So it's like, you need more VO2 work. Go faster, go harder. I don't want to. Yeah. Went hard there. Yeah.

Josh (10:00.372)
Yeah, the anaerobic's gone, yeah.

Josh (10:05.056)
Yeah. My anaerobics like barely registering. it does, it's probably because of a pool workout.

Jenna-Caer (10:13.336)
Now, building that foundation and a deep base is the best way to assure that you can go to some of that high intensity afterwards and actually be able to sustain it. You know what? You need that aerobic foundation. So much of what we do is in that aerobic area. You definitely need the intensity to get some muscular strength, to be able to have a few more matches to burn. But at the end of the day, you're just riding in zone two for a very long time for an Ironman.

Josh (10:38.443)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (10:39.906)
Well, let's jump to some people who are definitely pushing above zone two this weekend. We had the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in New Zealand. This is a crazy race that Half the Field qualified for in 2019, like five years ago. So it finally came to fruition. I was having so much FOMO not being there. That was, I got so, I actually had a few people messaging, because I was on the, the app, start list and stuff. Like what happened to you? Okay. I did not start. like.

Yeah, I'm back in the cold in Canada.

Josh (11:10.998)
Yeah, I didn't add you to my tracker. I had some insider information.

Jenna-Caer (11:15.662)
Good call, yeah. You got the insider track on that one. But it was very cool to see. We had a ton of Mana members out there. And actually, this is kind of cool. Team Mana won the Division 2 club or club championships.

Josh (11:19.32)
You

Jenna-Caer (11:33.196)
We're number one in division two, which is very, exciting. And the team has grown so much that next year we're going to be competing in division one. So just kind of cool to see the team showing up performing. We had so many team members out there racing. was very, very cool to see. My phone was losing it all day.

Josh (11:47.135)
Yeah.

We'll be going after second place next year because first place is kind of locked in with that four letter word.

Jenna-Caer (11:54.87)
Yeah. But we crushed ours, so we'll get after Division 1 next year. Yeah, and if you are interested in joining the team, check it out. We still have the social membership is available to come join us and get all of our numerous WhatsApp chats in there. That was definitely going off in a few different conversations. But back to the pro racing, we had it all kick off on Saturday, New Zealand time, which was Friday over here in North America.

Josh (12:02.616)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (12:24.802)
and we started off with the women's race. Josh, you have a bit of a rundown what we saw on the women's side.

Josh (12:32.268)
Yeah, I would say on the women's side, and again, this was all wetsuit for both the men and women. So I think we felt like there was going to be some bigger packs and you would probably have your, your front swimmers maybe pushing it a little bit due to the weather and the temperatures being down in the water. And, and getting out of the water as the day progressed, the temperatures would heat up, but they were going to be able to push the pace on the swim. So.

And it started right off the bat with the, with the women's race. The leaders were the ones that we kind of figured and would come down to could the cat Matthews and could the Ashley Gentles stay close enough to those lead swimmers to make the bike and the run interesting. for a while it was the swim. I think they were only separated by maybe 30 or 40 seconds from pack to lead to chase back. And the front pack included Sarah Perez Sala leading as we all expected.

Jenna-Caer (13:26.618)
Yeah.

Josh (13:27.032)
yeah, and no surprise there. Carolyn pole, which who was still in that lead pack, even though she had to stop and backstroke, for a little bit. And it looks like she might've had like a panic attack of some sort or something went, weren't wrong where she had to flip over, but, was still able to pull it together and stay with the lead pack. Taylor nip had a little struggle coming in, but she was right there. in like fourth or fifth position coming out of the water along with Imogen and Julie Duran. so.

Taylor's kind of looking over a pack and man that T1 transition out of the water, up the ramp, across a bridge, then up another, yeah, I mean like a good quarter mile run straight uphill. So I would imagine if you look at anyone's files on Strava or whatever, their max heart rate was hit either they're going into T1 or as soon as they get on the bike going up the hills to the beginning of the bike course. So somewhere in that range is probably where that.

Jenna-Caer (14:03.898)
meters or something to get.

Josh (14:23.808)
max heart rate spiked, if not maybe one of the highest heart rates these guys have ever had based on that run. But then we got onto the bike and Taylor, unlike in the T 100 where she had to push to catch up this race, she was gone from the beginning. yeah. And then a good little chase pack started to form behind her and you had the likes of

Jenna-Caer (14:44.044)
early on.

Josh (14:53.676)
Kat and Ashley and Imogen was trying to stay with Taylor for a little while. But then it was Imogen, Julie, Paula, all in that type of a chase pack and trying to keep the damage. And you could see on the hills on the way out that the gap didn't grow too, too much. And they were kind of keeping Taylor somewhat close. And it was almost like there was a strategy behind it. As soon as they almost

crested that last climb a little before that last climb, Taylor up the wattage and really pushed the pace coming home. And what was maybe a two or three minute gap really grew to five plus minutes on most of them. even when Imogen was kind of holding on to her, as soon as she dropped a little bit and lost that draft zone, it just like, just.

Jenna-Caer (15:49.018)
The elastic just snapped. Yeah.

Josh (15:51.756)
She's right. I mean, right back to the chase pack is where you need to go. so Taylor had a plan. She stuck to it and it clearly worked would be my guess. and she had one of her biggest gaps yet in a field like that to, to, come in with that run, run gap. she was in really good shape. We all know there's still 13 miles to go, but, everyone felt pretty confident about that. And, and then it came down to where was the podium going to come from. And.

Could Ash and Kat and Imogen and Julie have a run battle and could Imogen hold off? You could see her starting to struggle pretty early. And we know she's not as known for her run as the other ladies are. So it was interesting to see if she could hold on. And she wasn't able to get onto the podium again. But man, Kat had one heck of a run and really pushed for it. Because look, she had $200,000 wrapped up. It was done. shit.

Jenna-Caer (16:50.234)
Yeah, she's been saying for 35 minutes.

Josh (16:50.744)
All she had to do was walk or jog that, that to get the 200,000, but she walked away with an extra $45,000 by throwing down a one 15 34 half marathon, and out running the likes of Ashley gentle and Julie Duran and pretty much all but one other lady. think, she outran, so she had the second fastest run split on the day after the season. just had unbelievable.

Jenna-Caer (17:09.262)
Yeah.

Josh (17:18.184)
finish for Kat and you could just see the joy in her face. and it ended up being pretty much what we expected it to be. Taylor Nib ran away with it and, and looked like she pushed herself to the limit too. And, and no slamming of the tape yet, but she definitely seemed content and happy with the, the, the work that she did for this race. And then, followed by Kat Ashley gentle moved her, ran her way up to third passing image in.

Imogen did hold onto fourth, holding off Julie Duran who was coming, not as good of a run as we would expect out of some of the recent performances from Julie Duran. I think just trying to keep up with Taylor and push the bill kind of caught a little bit. we had some great performances. Paula Finley, again, fifth, sixth is kind of where she's been, but I think this sixth place finish in the world's had a lot more clout and she really did work hard to stay in that bike pack and hold off on the run.

And, and Ellie Saltes with her best performance in a 70.3 world. She's been around for a while and she ran herself up to seventh. And Carolyn Pohl, eighth place, Tamra Jewett, ninth, which is a great finish to her really rough season. For her to finish a race, she's had a lot of DNFs, unfortunately. So she was able to hold on mentally and stay in it and, and let her legs do the job on the run and.

Jenna-Caer (18:28.762)
It's like dinner season.

Josh (18:43.352)
and ran away into a top 10 in 70.3 worlds and, and grace that cause just kind of been there all year, rounded up the top 10.

Jenna-Caer (18:49.41)
Yeah, it was, you know, such a good race to watch in there too. Like Taylor Nibb, she was steadily putting time into people as she went along, which is no big surprise. But that 60 to 80k mark, she put an extra two minutes in over 20k, which is like when you're talking this level of women racing to do that in 20k is absolutely astonishing. She rode like a 210 and next fastest was I think cat at 214.40. So like that is some serious.

Josh (18:59.938)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (19:15.822)
power out there because these women are no slouches. And I think Kat going in said she could run around that 115 time and sure enough, 115.34, second fastest overall like that is just incredible to see the level of these women are performing at and the way I think Taylor Nib has really forced a lot of women to raise their game again. And next year it is going to be all about

Josh (19:27.894)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (19:39.098)
the bike because they can't like in some of their best performances, they can't be losing two or 10 minutes to Taylor Nibb. So I think that's definitely going to drive a lot of these women's off season. And we've already seen it with Ash Gentle signing up with the cycling focus coach saying, okay, I know I need to make some changes there. But it yeah, it was just unexpected in some ways and totally expected with Taylor Nibb just going off the front. I have so much respect for Taylor

Josh (20:04.694)
Yeah. And I would say like, it's a one, it was a one loop course. And I did make the mistake last week of saying we thought it was two loops. The original course, the usual course, it used to be two loops and they made it one loop for the world champs, which was a really good thing for a lot of the pros. But one of the things it does do is you don't get those splits that you would get if it was a two loop or three loop or four loop T100 type course. Taylor's.

Jenna-Caer (20:31.162)
She's got home so much.

Josh (20:33.228)
Taylor's out there on her own and they had a game plan. clearly that game plan was if you can break the elastic and get to that last climb, that's where you got to go. And then those flats going into that last time, it was gone. And these guys are working in a group of five or six. So they should be able to hold time or make up time, right? That's what aerodynamics is all about. That's why you run in a train and they were,

Jenna-Caer (20:44.708)
later.

Josh (21:00.586)
And they were doing it legally. I thought the drafting was not so bad in this. There were a couple of instances where people had to pull up and you could see them. But I think for the most part, there weren't too many penalties that played a factor. There were definitely a few that hurt some of the pros. But for the most part, it didn't change the front of the game.

Jenna-Caer (21:05.24)
Yeah

Jenna-Caer (21:09.858)
like a virus.

Jenna-Caer (21:22.104)
Yeah. And how good like Kat Matthews, when you have like a season like this, she's done everything. She's been successful ever chasing out Taylor to just over a minute deficit. Like that is insane from over five minutes, I think coming off the bike. Like that is seriously impressive. Not to just, you could just take the 200,000 call a day, be good kind of thing, but still having that competitive mindset of no, still, even though it's been a long season, I'm going to go for everything is so cool to see. And I want to say,

Josh (21:35.714)
Yeah.

Josh (21:51.0)
Yeah, because she knew too that Taylor could bust. mean, that temperature started to warm up, right? And the humidity was there. So you never do know what's going to happen over a half marathon distance. And she knew she could run into her. And then Taylor started to have the GI issues, which we didn't even talk about either. This time she went straight into a porta potty. No talking to the camera guys. No bad language that we needed to bleep out.

Jenna-Caer (21:52.028)
Thank

Yes, you never know.

Jenna-Caer (22:10.466)
Yeah, that's themselves.

Jenna-Caer (22:15.575)
Thank

Josh (22:18.966)
No, she, she had to make a border potty stop. another factor where she's got to obviously figure something out on the run there. but, and you talk to Kat's interview after the race immediately is what do we have to do? It's the bike we've got in. said it earlier. I mean, it's, they've got to figure out a way to gap that four or five minutes on the bike. Once she's gone, she can time trial with anyone and she's a world time trialist now.

Jenna-Caer (22:42.572)
yeah.

Josh (22:45.388)
minus a few crashes in the Olympics, you'd be talking about an Olympic medalist too.

Jenna-Caer (22:49.754)
Yeah.

And did you see the celebration on the podium afterwards? They were handed big mugs of beer in there and it was funny, Taylor and I have just ran off. She's like, no, no, don't want any a part of it. And of course the Aussie Ashley Gentle kind of instigated the beer flinging around in there, but I think it was cool to see they're just happy to be done with it and have the result they did. And we even talked about Ash Gentle, was her first 70.3 World Championships, which seems insane to think about, but not too shabby pulling up third on your first one there.

Josh (23:13.976)
Yeah.

Josh (23:20.844)
Now she's definitely looking more more comfortable on the TT bike for sure. And I think that's going to be a big part of what, you said, what she's going to be working on with her new coach.

Jenna-Caer (23:24.814)
Definitely.

Jenna-Caer (23:30.786)
So we have, we'll go through some of the top rankings now that we have the updated PTO world rankings in there. And I don't think it quite went the way people thought. There was a lot of talk of a number of names going in, but at the top here we have Kent Matthews absolutely destroyed it. So impressive with the T100 rankings as well. We got Jackie Herring in second, Lottie Wilms third, Hannah Berry fourth, and Maya Stage-Nilson in fifth. There's definitely, we had a few others go down.

the line you can check it out but they had some very good paydays not to mention like I said 200,000 to Kat Matthews for winning the overall series. I mean that'll pay for a good vacation and off season after this.

Josh (24:14.228)
Or a house in New Zealand, it sounds like her and Mark really liked this spot. And that's the other thing. Let's talk about that too. It seems like people want to go back to New Zealand after this weekend, weekend there. Like Topa just like was epic. And anyone I talked to that I knew that was over there racing on the age group level just loved the whole experience and loved the whole town, loved the whole area and like nobody wanted to leave. And it seems like Topa really stood up and held its own.

Jenna-Caer (24:17.88)
There we go.

Josh (24:42.994)
And in terms of hosting a race like that and just the whole area and its beauty and there were days of rain and wind and it was like, you still didn't hear anyone complaining. it was still phenomenal. So kudos to Topa and New Zealand for stepping up and waiting to host this 70.3 because they pulled it off.

Jenna-Caer (25:00.506)
Yeah, the arrow shots in there really made me want to go over there and visit. Yeah. Well, that's it for the women's race here. Let's jump into the next day. We had the men's race on the Sunday, but our Saturday time. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how that went?

Josh (25:08.022)
I still want to know what that fire was, but I didn't look that up.

Josh (25:25.016)
Well, we definitely had a big pack of swimmers on the men's race. And again, wetsuit legal, so nobody's going to truly get away, but we knew Greg Harper was going to go for his 70.3 course record or 7.3 World Champ record. And he just missed it by 15, 20 seconds, I think. I mean, to be that close after that kind of an effort and then know that you're going to like...

Jenna-Caer (25:45.299)
That's us being that close.

Josh (25:51.596)
practically jog into T1 and let everyone go flying by you. But he still finished 32nd on the day, but he had a 21.48 and that wasn't good enough for the record. But the chase pack was somewhere in the 22 to 22.30 range with Leo Bejerre, Dubrik, Yelly was there, Hayden was there. So there wasn't a huge gap with some of the guys. what kind of swim was Hayden going to have? What kind of swim was Leo going to have? And those guys were all right there.

It was on and there was a good train of eight or nine of them for most of the bike ride. And they started taking a little bit of turns towards the front as there became some gaps in that, but the train really never really broke. And Hayden did push away a little bit coming into T2, but for the most part you had eight, nine guys in this race coming off the bike.

It became who's going to win this half marathon. And just like Paris, had Hayden Wild take off and he had a 20 second gap. had a 40 second gap. He had about a minute, minute five gap at one point on Yella who had kind of separated himself from the rest of the group into second. And we all know what he can do with his run legs after we saw the T100 Vegas.

Jenna-Caer (27:18.295)
Thank

Josh (27:20.28)
performance that he put down with, with Martin not be able to hold on. So Yela just kind of stuck to his plan and, and then all of a sudden you got to. I don't know the nine, 10, 11 mile mark and it started to go the opposite direction. wasn't whole, he wasn't holding onto the lead and then it started dropping and then quickly with about six, four, five K four K left. got really close. then at three K ish, Yela caught him.

Jenna-Caer (27:50.713)
Yeah.

Josh (27:50.88)
And he went by him with no problem. you could kind of see Hayden's look looked almost like that same look he gave to Alex Yee in Boston at the Super Track finish. I was like, really? Again? And kudos to Hayden for holding on to second place because it's not like he, he still had three K to go. And he was already losing everything that he had put into this race. And Yeller was just kind of running pretty steady pace and pushing.

Jenna-Caer (27:53.412)
There is no response.

Josh (28:21.1)
But I think Hayden came out and ran like stupid fast first K2. was like sub three.

Jenna-Caer (28:29.914)
Well, he put it out there. wanted 65 minutes to get it done, which would be pretty epic.

Josh (28:36.472)
65 minutes is what he said he was in train for and in shape for and for this course, which he knows well he's raced on this course. the interesting thing to me too, like on the bike course, we talk about how they would be pushing watts that they weren't used to seeing the speed aligned with. And that really didn't play in. mean, these guys threw down two hour bikes. Hayden was 158.51 with the top bike time.

Jenna-Caer (28:54.937)
Yeah.

Josh (29:04.504)
And you could see a lot of them were riding on that white line and just using that extra paint to kind of help seal the chip. they were just using the white line on the side of the road as much as possible. so smart, game plan there, but, no one ran a 65, but yellow did run a one seven 34. So 67 34 crazy fast still, especially in those conditions. Cause it got warm. as the day went along, but

Jenna-Caer (29:08.75)
Yeah. Move it out a little bit.

Josh (29:32.604)
in three and a half hours, you're still only looking at 10 30 in the morning. mean, it's crazy how fast these guys are moving now in the 70.3 world and Hayden had the whole crowd behind him. Kyle Smith had the whole crowd behind him. think Kyle was probably a little not ready. And we talked about this too, the people coming out of Dubai, how well would they do? on the men's side, you saw it play a factor because our top three on the men's side.

We're all Parisian Olympians with Yella in first, Hayden in second, Leo Brejere again, an awesome podium performance. First time he's lost to 70.3, but he still gets in on the podium in the world championships. If you didn't see, check out what Leo Brejere wore on the run. If you like bucket hats, you might want to go pick it up because they're about to Felt a sellout.

Jenna-Caer (30:15.234)
Not too shabby.

Jenna-Caer (30:21.26)
Ugh.

Jenna-Caer (30:24.762)
we cannot have this be a thing. Like I was talking to you earlier, there was a while where there are a couple good performances with a trucker hat, the big foam trucker hat, pre pandemic and stuff. And then all of a sudden it was all about all these big foam trucker hats. Everyone was wearing them everywhere. And I was just like, this is not a good look.

Josh (30:31.03)
Hahaha

Jenna-Caer (30:48.898)
man, the bucket hat's even worse. I mean, it's such an Aussie New Zealand thing, but no, no to the bucket hats. And even in Kona, there was a bunch of the precision hydration crew. We're all rocking bucket hats. And I'm like, no, I'm not on board with this. We cannot have this be the next trend. We look geeky enough with all of the Lycra and all of the shaved legs and everything. We can't add bucket hats.

Josh (30:51.486)
Shh!

Josh (30:59.98)
The president

Josh (31:15.48)
It'll be interesting if it has become a trend. What is the reasoning behind it? Is it easier to hold the ice in there? I have no idea, but he definitely stood out. That's for sure. You knew the Frenchman was coming in his bucket hat. We also knew Kyle Smith was coming in his white suit, not the black suit, which he debated. Do I go with the white or the black? And he's like, I know the white's going to get a lot of comments and light up the chat boards. But I mean, what a season he had.

Jenna-Caer (31:18.229)
Jenna-Caer (31:27.834)
Well it's funny just to see it. I always do.

Jenna-Caer (31:37.998)
way to discuss.

Josh (31:43.858)
And to finish fourth in your hometown, just off the podium, but he's still, mean, he ran a one 13 15. It's not like he had a bad run. but he did run out of fitness against some of these. mean, these short distance Olympic athletes who are making the jump to 70.3. We, talk about this a lot of times it doesn't work out, but I think we've got a number of them this time around that are going to be around in this mid distance level for awhile. And they're going to compete.

Jenna-Caer (31:55.45)
You

Jenna-Caer (32:11.608)
Yeah, well, curious. I'm curious to see if we didn't have that Dubai race because really you're looking at some of the the next to the best in there too. We're all kind of racing that Dubai race and the T100 series altogether like you got to think at this point they're starting to feel some fatigue where the Olympic athletes they had their big race back in the summer and a bit of downtime there are some other things as well. So it's not like Hayden Wilde wasn't going in fresh with the super tri series and stuff too but

Josh (32:24.482)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (32:39.724)
You gotta think that T-100 series took it out of a few of them over the year. Yeah.

Josh (32:43.946)
And the travel and everything associated with it too, right? So some of the locations they went to. But let's rounding out the top 10. Justus Nieschlag, who we all thought could play into this as well, held on for fifth. Rico Bogan, even though, or sorry, Henry Schumann in sixth and then Rico Bogan defending champ in seventh place. And not a bad showing for somebody who...

Jenna-Caer (33:08.782)
What this field like, yeah.

Josh (33:10.152)
Everybody was coming after and he had to kind of defend himself all year long and held his own. Harry Palmer, probably his best performance to date in eighth place. And then Greg Barnaby. So there ended up being no question who was going to win the Ironman Pro series. Cause early on Marquat got out of the water and got on his bike and both of his legs seized up. So.

He was off stretching, getting off the bike and trying to find any way he could to get going. And he did, and he got through the bike and he got through the run, but he wasn't going to be within eight minutes and 30 seconds of the winner. And, and really Greg Barnaby had it locked up pretty early on and knew that, and still finished himself in the top 10 with a one 1205 run. and Mark Dubrick 10th in the, in the world in the 70.3. So we like to talk about them a lot.

and he held his own and had a heck of a performance with a 110. He ran a 1,1205, he and Greg Barnaby. There were some cool sprint finishes. Matt Hanson had a sprint finish to get into the top 15, which is the last spot that gets paid. And that held on to, think he finished fourth or fifth in the overall pro series as well. So even though you weren't in the top 10, Matt Hanson with a four person sprint finish, pretty cool to see to get into that final paycheck.

Right? That's the, those are the things that they lose sight of on the, on the broadcast. And, that stuff matters. I obviously down to 15, they're getting paid that day. And, and for Matt Hansen too, he's always going to be running from behind somewhere and trying to catch people. ran a 110 17 and finished 15th. So where did he come from? mean, way back out of the water, way back out of the, out of the bike. So,

Jenna-Caer (34:43.502)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (34:56.026)
Power.

Josh (35:00.792)
Yeah, it would be cool to see that. But the problem is the broadcast is now by the time these guys are finishing, the broadcast is into the interviews and the award ceremonies. And it's, it's tough. I think at one point they cut back to the finish line and there was Marquardt finally finishing, in like 30 something. yeah, a lot of, a lot of tough day for Jason West again, too. A lot of people thought he was going to have a good day. and, Greg Harper, the swim leader finished in 32nd.

Jenna-Caer (35:10.234)
Yeah, definitely.

Josh (35:30.826)
So we had a good huge pack feel, but Jenna, why don't you run down what ended up happening with the Pro Series and let everyone know how that played out.

Jenna-Caer (35:31.855)
when I was

Jenna-Caer (35:40.716)
Yeah, so like I said, had a, think if anyone bet on Gregory Barnaby winning the Ironman Pro Series at the beginning of the year, I would be absolutely shocked. But we end up having Gregory Barnaby just showing that consistency and showing up pays off if you look at it. So he ended up winning the Pro Series and getting that $200,000 check. But look at these results in here. Like he came,

ninth place at the 70.3 Worlds. He won the Asia Pacific Championships, sixth at the Ironman World Championships, third at the Ironman European Championships in Frankfurt, eighth in Ironman Cairns. So it just goes to show like if you have a steady solid season, you've got a shot at this series, which was kind of cool to see. Yeah, absolutely.

Josh (36:26.142)
And coming off an injury early, like we talked about with the broken ribs. So his season didn't even start on time either. So if you're a pro in that situation, and I know there's some battling injuries now, don't let it play into your decisions next year to try and come back too early either.

Jenna-Caer (36:40.89)
Yeah, no, and then we had Yeah We had Patrick Lange in second Christian Hogan hug and third Matthew Mark court held on for fourth That would definitely be some motivation to fight through the pain of the cramping in there and then met Hanson in fifth Definitely go check out the full series at the Iron Man Pro series, but it was you know what it

definitely was not expected all around on that top 10. I think like we were throwing out names like Joe Skipper in the beginning or seeing some like Lionel Sanders if he wants to do a few more races like no one would have called this ever and that makes it a little bit more fun too.

Josh (37:22.968)
Yeah. No, and it gives a lot of people hope, right? Going forward too, I think. And, and you don't have to be somebody who's winning all these Ironmans to do it. And it adds a whole nother future. Now, obviously you show up and win a race like this or like in Kat's, my like, even if Kat didn't have a great season, she still walked away with $45,000 in New Zealand. So, wait, by the way, she walked away with $245,000 on the day. And then plus.

the T100 series in season and that too. she had quite the year. I think it was somewhere around 453,000 or something like that at the end of the year for her. In just checks for finish lines. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (38:04.729)
Okay.

There'll be a whole lot of sponsor bonuses on that too, which isn't too shabby. you know what I think we kind of see with this though is, is it two different things trying to have a win at the Ironman World Championships and competing in any of these series? Because what we're saying, we did not see the winners of the Ironman World Championships. You know, we got Patrick Lang ahead in second, which was good, but

I wonderful see that like we haven't had a dominating force in the Ironman series now that everyone's so separated out with the T 100 as well. Like it just there's so much more racing that no one's as focused it seems like. So I'm curious to see next year if a few of these athletes like Kat Matthews, I don't know if she's going to take a T 100 contract because she wants that Kona win. And there's only so many shots at Kona, especially right now with it only happening every two years. Are we going to see some of these athletes?

who are at the top level, tap out and say, I'm gonna focus on Kona, that's gonna be my goal. And then we see more of these like A minus, B plus kind of pro athletes coming in and taking the overall series and going for the money.

Josh (39:18.782)
series. Yeah, I think this year is going to be very telling and we've talked about it before, but even more so now with some more information coming out, whereas the T100 contracts are not as valuable as they were the first season.

Jenna-Caer (39:32.526)
Yeah, we'll definitely catch that with the what the F kind of breaking down what's happening with the T100 contrasts. It's you're right. It's absolutely going to start to shake things up for sure.

Josh (39:42.604)
But, but like you said, with the whole Kona aspect of it all too is T 100 is, is adding races. They're expecting more races to be done within their contracts. So that eliminates a lot of people from the training that they would want to do for Kona. I mean, some people are training nine to 12 months for Kona and let alone just a few month block. and, and that's something that if you want to win one where what's missing from Kat's resume at this point.

Kona, an Ironman world championship. Really, that's about it. And now, obviously, she'd like to win a 70.3 as well, but she just won the pro series. So that's done. And second place at 70.3. And I think as long as Taylor nibs around, that 70.3 title might be difficult for anyone. And the Ironman is still something that Taylor hasn't been able to show she can figure out, whereas I think Kat.

Jenna-Caer (40:12.718)
gonna. Yeah.

Josh (40:40.424)
is still got an opportunity in this this window for the ladies too because then you're be talking about Taylor Nip and the full distance Ironman. think this might be the last shot for ladies to still take her down there.

Jenna-Caer (40:51.33)
Yeah, well, why don't we roll right into the what the F because I think that I'll continue this conversation in there. So my what the F this week is the top 10 in the T 100 series. They had until the end of this weekend to tell PTO if they're going to be accepting their contract or not. Now, how much of that was kind of

I don't you think as an athlete on one of the biggest race weekends of the year, you don't want to be thinking about if you're going to, one, take a contract, two, with the changes in how they're going to be allocating the funds, having to think about that and do the math to figure out is it worth it, is it not worth it for me to do all of this. It just seems like a lot to put on them right before 70.3 World Championships, of course.

T100 isn't too worried about that, because they'd rather they didn't race them. Race the 70.3 world champs. But they had until the end of the weekend to decide. And we don't have full numbers and figures yet. But the rumblings around some people who are in the know about the contracts is that they're going to be putting a little bit less money upfront for the contracts. And lot more will be based on performance at the actual T100 races, which

From a race perspective, I think is absolutely the right call. Like we saw a number of athletes this year kind of just showing up to the T100 races with their goals being outside of the series. So waiting it more heavily towards actually performing on the day, I think gives people a lot more incentive, which is quite the shift from the conversation going in where they're like, these athletes are all competitive. They're going to give it a hundred thousand percent every time because they want to win.

wasn't quite what we saw at the top end we did, but not all the way down.

Josh (42:37.014)
Not all the way down for sure. Especially as they started to realize there were gaps in the contract language throughout the season and, and, and ways out of the injury clauses and other things started to turn up. And then you saw some athletes actually really go after the T 100, right. And, and show up and hope that they can make a start line and then have to back off and still be there. we saw that happen a couple of times too. but it will be certainly interesting over the next.

Jenna-Caer (42:41.891)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (42:52.015)
go for it. Yeah.

Josh (43:06.392)
few weeks as we start to hear who does take those initial 10 contracts first. then once the final rankings get updated, we'll start to have an idea of who the next slots will go to. Because we don't know that the PTO has not updated their final standings yet based on Topa. So we'll see how that plays out for 10 through 14 and.

10th through 15th, and where do they go? Cause we talked about this too, right? Cause there's going to be people in the top 10 that don't take contracts. I think we know that for sure. Especially on the female side in a Kona year and even on the men's side, who knows if everyone's going to take those top 10. I don't think everyone will. So it's going to be an interesting couple of weeks. I for sure don't think Kat is going to be taking a T100 contract.

Jenna-Caer (43:38.22)
Absolutely.

Jenna-Caer (43:56.218)
Yeah, it'd be hard to see. So what we know so far is T100, the contracts, the money will go more towards performances and less money upfront, which at the same time, they're also going to be asking the athletes to do more races. So last we're hearing kind of six races instead of the four beforehand, maybe eight to 10 locations will be finalized by the end of the year there. So you're giving them less money to do more races.

taking away during a Coney era for the female side. So I think they came out really hot, which made it some great racing this year and had a lot of big names sign on. You got to think the athletes coming back now are like, so you're going to pay me less to do more and you want me to come back, which

From a fan perspective, it's great that they're gonna be racing and have that incentive to get more money by their performances, but from the athlete side, you gotta think that's gotta be a bit of a tougher sell from the T100.

Josh (44:54.368)
Yeah, it's, again, I think there's, there's so many good athletes now too, where I think that they're like, well, we'll, we'll fill it in. But if you're the T 100, I don't want to lose Kat Matthews. I don't want to lose Taylor Nibb. don't, you don't want to lose these top athletes and there's a good chance that they might.

Jenna-Caer (45:16.882)
What if they hold on to like a Taylor Nib, but then lose the second, third, fourth, and then we have a bigger gap, like 10, 15 minutes between Taylor Nib and everyone else in there. So I think that's where it really gets bad is if they miss those like not Taylor Nib, but second, third, fourth, fifth, then the racing gets a lot less exciting if they only have from like fifth down, because they're going to be, yeah, 15 minutes back.

Josh (45:26.636)
while in India.

Josh (45:37.143)
Yeah.

Josh (45:43.064)
One of the things that would be nice too, because you see it in every other sport, is the publicity of these contracts too. And I think it, I know people like to keep things private and all of that, but it's not the way professional sports work anymore. And I think the more transparency there is, the better it is for the sport. And in a perfect world, Ironman and T100 get along and...

high five each other and we start to work. Like you could even see how awkward it was during the pro interviews in Topa. was like, they didn't know, can I talk about that other league? was like, how many people said, I don't know if I can mention this one.

Jenna-Caer (46:09.555)
He was not safe.

Jenna-Caer (46:17.018)
And they kept talking about how much racing these athletes did during the year, but would not mention a single race. You can't say like, they've been racing a lot or they just race or they've been so much going on and then can't name a single race they've been doing, right? Like, and they mentioned Vegas a few times, just because you had to, and that adds more, more to talk about, more to commentate on, more to pull us in.

Josh (46:32.588)
We know what you're talking about.

Josh (46:38.568)
out with yellow.

Jenna-Caer (46:45.358)
but they just refuse to make any reference, which doesn't serve anyone. yeah, play of how good these athletes are.

Josh (46:51.158)
Yeah. And you could see that came from the top down too, which it's thanks that that directive is there. And even in like some of the interviews, was like quickly changed subjects when somebody started talking about it. But transparency would be great. And I think it would help all of these athletes make some decisions. I don't know.

Jenna-Caer (47:04.538)
Thank you.

Jenna-Caer (47:14.394)
And I think that was in their original thing was they were going to like when they first started talking about this, they said they were going to publish the contracts and put it out there where people are making and the athletes in the series all kind of know what each other are making and what the contracts look like. But I don't think they're really

Josh (47:29.57)
They're traveling together every other week.

Jenna-Caer (47:31.7)
Yeah, and there's it's very kind of stock standard. There wasn't a lot of negotiation room like some other contracts. But yeah, I don't think they ever really put it out there to the public, which was something that they said they were going to do kind of along the same way the same lines as professional, bigger professional sports.

Josh (47:43.714)
now.

Josh (47:48.938)
No. And it'll be interesting to see how Ironman reacts this year too, because I think, again, we have this notion that the pro series is continuing and it is for next year, but how long is this going to continue? How long are these trends and when do we go back to Kona? And a lot of factors are still to be determined on this. it's all good conversations, because these are conversations that...

Jenna-Caer (48:07.866)
So, that's it.

Josh (48:16.802)
weren't happening a couple of years ago, cause we didn't have this competition. but we want to find a way and we want to find the way we work well with other podcasts. And like, we all are trying to make the sport better. And, and to us, it's not a competition. The more information that's out there, the better. And the more people reporting on it, the more eyes are on it the more people want to do the sport. then eventually somebody who is a great cross country runner in high school gets into triathlon and they're not going.

who are Oregon to run track. They're trying to become a triathlete because it is a sport that entices people to come and do. And we'll talk about some triathletes going the opposite direction, diving into some other options and opportunities. But yeah, I think the more eyes and the more visibility and the more transparency we have in this entire sport, this is the time to do it because it is growing and there are people getting involved in this sport that...

Jenna-Caer (48:58.97)
Yeah.

Josh (49:16.68)
want to see that it continue to grow and for everyone to be able to make a difference.

Jenna-Caer (49:22.188)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, why don't we roll into the next conversation with your social media post of the week because this surprised me, but I am excited about it. What do you got for us, Josh?

Josh (49:34.06)
So if you didn't see it, cause it kind of just got thrown in there over the weekend with everything going on in 70.3 worlds. there's been a lot of triathletes that obviously came from run backgrounds and we've known that and there's been some, some crazy run splits and, 10 Ks and half marathons. but you don't see many triathletes go and try and run crazy fast marathons. Now we did see cam warf like the week after Kona go and run New York city marathon.

and 230 something, which is crazy. And he's a cyclist who can now run crazy fast, but our Olympic champion, Alex, he announced over the weekend. If you haven't seen it on the Guardian, he is not only running the London marathon in 2025, he is registered to run in the elite field and he's aiming for a 207 marathon.

Jenna-Caer (50:04.506)
It's a little more fun.

Jenna-Caer (50:30.774)
Unreal. That is just epic.

Josh (50:33.816)
So a 207 marathon, 207 to 210 is I think what he said exactly, but a 207 to 210 puts him in the running for a top 10, top 20 performance against the Kenyans of the world and the elite marathoners who have been doing this their entire life. what does that mean for his season too? Because I know what a run block means to get ready for a marathon.

Jenna-Caer (50:39.841)
yeah, yeah.

Jenna-Caer (50:49.53)
Thank you.

Josh (51:00.792)
Well, if he's going for a 207-210, that's going to take some work between now and then.

Jenna-Caer (51:05.902)
There's of volume too, because that's quite the jump in distance, obviously, from 10k to a marathon in there. Now he has some solid foundation for all the triathlon training, but man, I can't wait to see what he does out there, because we've seen he's one of the best runners in the world. And it just goes to speak to the level of running in triathlon, that someone, a triathlete at the short course can say something like this, and we're not like shocked or...

Josh (51:09.986)
from an Olympic.

Jenna-Caer (51:32.126)
doubtful. We're just like, you know, that seems legit. This guy can run like crazy. And he's running insane 10k times off the bike with the swim. So it'll be very, very cool to see what he can do in the marathon. And I'm excited to watch that one.

Josh (51:47.768)
Yeah, I think there's only been two British athletes ever who have run under 207. So his bar is up there.

Jenna-Caer (51:51.61)
Real. I guess we'll set your, yeah, your sights high. Just as long as he doesn't leave us to go do the Olympic marathon instead of triathlon or try to do both.

Josh (52:02.488)
God, yeah, he's still got to, he's got to definitely defend his title. We'll see. But yeah, he's got about a six month walk to get ready for London.

Jenna-Caer (52:11.642)
And when is London again? Sorry.

Josh (52:13.848)
April, it's the week after the Boston Marathon. So April 28th or something like that would be my guess this year, 27th, 28th.

Jenna-Caer (52:20.538)
crazy. Well, let's roll from that to a little bit of trathlon tee along the same lines. It seems like our Olympic athletes are kind of moving away from the short course distance. Hayden Wild has decided to taper back on his short course racing and go with after the longer distance for the next couple years. So it looks like he'll be racing the WTC race in Abu Dhabi to start off the year, but then won't be back until October.

and the rest of the area is going to be spending it in the middle distance. Now, we've said it before, once these athletes start to go long, we don't see them typically go back, where right now we've got two of the top male Olympic athletes.

going long between the marathon and then middle distance racing kind of be curious to see are we going to see the trend that we've seen with every other athlete who has attempted it try to go back to the short course and just be missing that one or 2 % that they need on that high end speed or the difference with Hayden and Alex I think is they're so young that

they have a better chance of kind of bouncing back and going in. The other instances we've seen of it, it's been kind of as they get a little bit older, they start to try the middle distance, but both of them are still so crazy young. I don't know. What do you think?

Josh (53:36.48)
Yeah. So to me, think Alex, the marathon thing is one way, but he's not getting into 70.3s. He's not jumping in on the T100 yet. We haven't seen any of that from Alex Yee. From Hayden, it's just, this has kind of been coming and he's been dabbling in it for years now. And then to have the performance he had at the world championships in his home country.

Okay, this is where I belong and this is fun. And now all my friends are coming with me anyways and look at this podium. I mean, it's a whole bunch of us short course guys. So for Hayden, I think it's natural and I think it will be tough to go back because he is going to dive fully into it. I think Alex will do this marathon block and everything else he's going to be working on is still going to be short course. But I don't know if we've heard anything about him trying to defend his title either and saying that he's definitely going for LA.

If there's the one or the two of them, think Alexi would definitely be able to get back to the short. think it's going to be hard for Hayden if he goes in on the longer distance and sticks to the 70.3 and then makes a shot at even Kona in the following year. This is the other thing that when you talk about the T100 contracts, the amount of people this weekend at

Babbitville, Breakfast with Bob and all these other interviews that people were doing. The amount of athletes who have never done a full Ironman that said they're going to be doing a full Ironman in 2025 was mind boggling. Paula Finley might do a full distance Ironman. Ellie Saltelis might do a full distance, like, and on and on and on. And these people have never done one before and they've been in the game for a long time. And now it's like, wait a second.

Jenna-Caer (55:15.556)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (55:21.975)
That is crazy.

Josh (55:33.078)
Kona means a lot to our sponsors and in the pro series and, if I'm going to contend for, wow, that was a $200,000 check. She just walked away with or a hundred plus. If I finished in the top three, because I did two or three ironmans. Well, I can't just let that go. This is an opportunity that I'm saying, why not? And we all know if you can compete at the 70.3 distance at that elite level, you can step up and.

Jenna-Caer (55:33.364)
That was a good day.

Josh (56:01.194)
and make an attempt at competing at the next level as well.

Jenna-Caer (56:03.726)
Yeah. No, absolutely.

It's really, it's going to be interesting. And if you're a short course Olympic distance athlete, man, the first half of the season is the way, is the time to go after it. See a bunch of athletes trying different things and you know, it's the farthest out from the next Olympics. So everyone's kind of having some fun. So I think we're going to see some very different results at the top come next year in WTCS, which makes it kind of fun too, to see who are the next up and comers, who are we going to actually see be firing when it comes to 2028 and time to be back.

Josh (56:21.976)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (56:36.036)
for those Olympic medals.

Josh (56:37.908)
And early season too, it's so you just had a very long season, probably the longest season in history ending on December 14th, 13th. And, and, and now they've got a bounce back for races in March and April, some of them. So if I'm one of these athletes who was not part of the end of this season barrage and I've been injured.

Jenna-Caer (56:48.506)
See.

Josh (57:01.174)
Man, I am looking forward to Oceanside. I'm looking forward to Texas and really taking advantage of maybe some of the fatigue and lack of a full training block that these athletes who just competed a full year are at. So that'll be interesting to see too is what different contenders start to play out early in the season because they've had a true build into next year. Whereas a lot of these guys are going to have shortened recoveries. And we talk about this in other pro sports.

Jenna-Caer (57:20.622)
Mm-hmm.

Josh (57:30.616)
Years and years and years of going to championships starts to add up because you have less and less of an off season. So we're going to start to see that as we have pro series seasons and T 100 and, seasons start to impact the following year. And I just listened to, to Fenella's latest YouTube and, and her decision not to go to 70.3 worlds was due in large fact to, it would have put her back again.

She would have been able to complete it just like she did niece, but she probably would have come out of it with another reinjury and it would have set her back chasing the next season. And instead of resetting the bar completely and going into a full rehab and full build and focusing on next year as a whole, as opposed to a shortened season over and over over again. So I think you're going to start seeing a lot of athletes take that approach as well.

Jenna-Caer (58:22.498)
Yeah, absolutely. And then the last little bit of Trath on T here, we've all been kind of following along with the rumors with the Norwegians and their coach. We saw an interview with GTN with Olaf and it sounds like they are, he's not coaching them directly, but he's still an advisor on board. So they're all still friends in there, but he's definitely going to be busy with his new role.

Josh (58:48.14)
He'll be checking in on training peaks is what it sounds like. Just not checking in on their ears.

Jenna-Caer (58:50.294)
I think that's about it. Yeah, complete departure. Yeah, a little bit of a difference. know, he's got family and everything too, and he's got this new job in the cycling world. So it sounds like he'll be kind of advising and peeking in here and there, and they're going to be a little bit more self-coached from the things they've learned over the years. And it sounds like they have some strong opinions on what worked and what didn't work going into the Olympics. So we're curious to see what happens as they go through it. Hopefully they're not like...

Most A-type triathletes who once they're kind of off the leash and coaching themselves go too hard all the time, too much kind of thing, but they definitely have the knowledge base to hopefully not do that and get burnt out.

Josh (59:31.796)
Yeah, they've got the knowledge base. They've got the database of information that has been built up in the mountains and in Bergen. So I think they'll be okay. And they'll have the advisement of Olaf as much as they want it. it will certainly be interesting. Hopefully they're already getting ready for Kona in a couple of years.

Jenna-Caer (59:52.74)
Yes.

Josh (59:55.436)
We'll see. it'd be, there's nothing better than having more elite athletes competing at the top level. And nobody wants to see one or two people running away with a race and the more elite level athletes that we have, however they train, however they get there, just, just get there and compete. But, the back and forth again, we'll see, cause I don't think Christian's given up on 2028.

Jenna-Caer (01:00:03.534)
going get it.

Jenna-Caer (01:00:22.692)
just mind boggling to think about. Okay. So, well, there's definitely lots of fun ahead and we are going to look forward to the next season and finding out hopefully soon who will be in the T100 series next year because I think that's going to make an impact on what next year's racing looks like. But

Josh (01:00:23.256)
But that's going to be coming off another Kona block, so does 18 months leave him enough time?

Jenna-Caer (01:00:44.708)
For tonight, I think we'll call it there and we will be back next week. And if you want to send in some questions for the coaches, since we're going to have less racing here, we want to dive into those a little bit more. So shoot them over to us on Instagram at another Travel on Podcast, or you can send them to any of the hosts here, myself, Josh, or Fede, and we will definitely get on top of those. But until then.

Josh (01:01:05.976)
Speaking of coaches too, I did want to give a shout out to my coach who won the 70.3 Worlds for the 50 to 54 age group. And she, beating a couple of former pros and she knew she had her day cut out for her, but she had a Taylor nib ESC performance on the bike, like totally ran away with it and held on in the half marathon. So kudos to Benny and a heck of a year she had. So pretty awesome to see. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (01:01:17.636)
That's awesome.

Jenna-Caer (01:01:23.194)
You

Jenna-Caer (01:01:29.42)
That's fantastic. Excellent. Congratulations. Very cool. Well, have a great night and we'll definitely be chatting soon.

Josh (01:01:37.858)
See you guys.