Episode 86: Ironman Texas Preview with Thorsten Radde of TriRating and Jenna's Ironman Taiwan Race

🎙️ Episode 87: Kona Dreams, Texas Winds & Triathlon Stats with Thorsten Radde
Presented by @maunaapparel

This week, we're diving deep into Ironman Texas with the legendary Thorsten Radde of TriRating.com—the go-to source for stats, data, and predictions in pro triathlon racing.

From power predictions to dark horse picks, Thorsten walks us through the men’s and women’s fields and what we can expect as the stacked field battles for Kona slots and Pro Series points.

But first, it’s a full race and training update from the ATP crew: 

✔️ @joshmvernon nails a PR at the Boston Marathon
✔️ @jennacaer recaps a wild race at Ironman Taiwan—from insane crosswinds and last-minute course changes to a surprise 2nd place finish and an 8-minute marathon PB
✔️ @fredrikson.12 is gearing up for his Olympic-distance race and trying to figure out the swim 😅

Plus, big news! The Team Mauna Training Camp is officially launched for Boulder, Colorado. Open to all athletes, not just Mauna members. Coaches, pros, SAG support, photo ops, and all-around fun? You don’t want to miss it. Check it out here: https://maunaapparel.com/pages/training-camps

✅ Women’s Preview

• Kat Matthews, Chelsea Sodaro, and Taylor Knibb headline a power-packed field.
• Knibb makes her second-ever Ironman start—how will she race it?
• Chelsea only needs to finish, while Kat and Taylor are expected to battle for the win.
• Tamara Jewett and Teresa Adam are big wildcards to watch.

✅ Men’s Preview

• Gustav Iden, Kristian Blummenfelt, and Casper Stornes bring Norwegian firepower.
• Can Rudy Von Berg, Ben Kanute, or Matt Marquardt break up the Euro party?
• Massive Kona/Nice slot implications and Ironman Pro Series points on the line.
• Race dynamics, group tactics, and weather could flip predictions upside down.

🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

👇
Who’s your pick to win Ironman Texas this weekend? Drop your predictions below!

#anothertriathlonpodcast #triathlonnews #ironmantexas #ironmanproseries #konaslot #triathlonlife #triathlonracing #protriathlete #maunaapparel #teammauna #triathletejourney #goforit #trirating #triathlongeek #ironmantalks

Transcript

Jenna-Caer (00:01.656)
Welcome back to another Trathlon Podcast brought to you by Mana Apparel. This week we've got a special guest on. We've got the one and only Torsten Rad from TriRating to help us break down everything going into Ironman Texas. If you have not been to TriRating, this guy has all the stats, all the data, all the breakdown of how the races will go down and some information on the courses and previews. It is definitely a wealth of information if you want to geek out on the pro racing at all. But...

Before that, we're gonna catch up with the crew here. Unfortunately, we don't have Josh with us. He just finished the Boston Marathon yesterday with a shiny new PR, but I am joined by Fede, and we'll see what's going on in his world. How are you, Fede? What's going on?

Fed (00:41.164)
Yeah, I'm super excited because there's been a couple of really good weeks for us on ATP. You you in Taiwan, you're going to tell us all about that. And then Josh in Boston. So it seems like we're all stepping up and I need to step up now. yeah, training. I still haven't figured out the swim because, you know, swim is just the swim. But yeah.

Jenna-Caer (00:58.03)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (01:07.886)
I hear you.

Fed (01:10.224)
I still have a run to do later today, so a few pickups there and doing an Olympic distance at the beginning of June. Still need to figure out camp dates because for our listeners we're going to have a monocamp and I need to see those dates fit into the race that I'm going to do. So fingers crossed that I do. But yeah, that's what's been going around.

With me, what about you, Jenna?

Jenna-Caer (01:41.378)
Yeah, so as you mentioned, we actually just launched the team monocamp a couple hours ago. So this is fresh breaking news. We're going to be doing a team monocamp in Boulder, Colorado, one of the iconic locations in Trath on there. And the cool thing about this camp, it's open to everyone, athletes of all ability levels. So obviously we'd love to have you on the monoteam, but even if you're not a monoteam member, you can come join us on this camp. And you know what, Fet, you can attest to these camps are incredible because we have people, like I

of all ability levels. have a number of coaches there to support athletes of all ranges. We break everyone up into groups according to their ability level. We have some fun training rides and it's definitely train hard and then party hard at the end if a couple of our camps have been any indicator. So it's really fun to get that community.

Fed (02:27.31)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. you can, and also you don't need to be part of Team Anna, Mona, hopefully you are, but it's open for everyone and all athletic level. So from beginner to pro, never, we have a motto that no athlete gets left behind. We're always taking care of each other and it's great atmosphere, great opportunity to meet people, like-minded people. And it's a lot of fun. They're tough.

Some sessions on our camps are tough sessions and long sessions, but the reward afterwards is amazing and you make long lasting friendships. yeah, like I said, you get to interact with like-minded people and it's a really cool opportunity to get involved into that, into the little triathlete world that we live in.

Jenna-Caer (03:17.474)
Definitely and this year we've got something special too. We're have a couple pro athletes joining us like previous podcast guest Matt Sharp is maybe coming along and doing a couple sessions and Then also Rachel Olson too. So we're definitely gonna get some pro insight some coach Supported training we're gonna have sag support to make sure you know, if you get a flat tire anything goes wrong We got someone there to pick you up and some incredible pictures and videos if you need some shots for your Instagram We've got the best photographer

Fed (03:43.76)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (03:47.48)
I that's half my content for the year, but yeah, it's a really cool community. So go check it out at monaapparel.com. You can check out the training camp section and it's something pretty epic.

But speaking of Team Mana again, we had a bunch of us over at Ironman Taiwan and it was such a blast. This race was awesome. I think we ended up having eight people coming over from Team Mana and yeah, four of the coaches and the four athletes came out. And there's something cool about doing a race just halfway around the world where you don't quite know what to expect. We're on this little island off of Taiwan. So I find a moment

Fed (04:10.969)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (04:29.168)
always a little bit more stress packing for these things because to say Oceanside, you know if you forget something there's a bunch of bike shops around you can pick up whatever you need you're good. Little island off of Taiwan you're like ehhhh I don't know if I'll be able to find everything there.

Fed (04:31.408)
Mmm.

Fed (04:42.415)
Haha.

Fed (04:45.818)
Question is, did you forget anything or you packed everything perfectly?

Jenna-Caer (04:50.318)
I packed everything, but there was a last minute scramble trying to find CO2 cartridges. We had to go to several different bike shops and messaging people trying to hunt down CO2, because a number of the athletes are kind of local Taiwanese, and they just take the ferry over. We all flew over, so we didn't have CO2. So it was literally we found through the grapevine this one place had CO2 sent out a team member to go get it ASAP. They're like, they're going fast. like, OK. Run over.

Fed (04:55.072)
yeah, I read the message. Yes.

Fed (05:17.392)
Dealing CO2. Yeah, yeah.

Jenna-Caer (05:21.118)
Totally. Mark it up 500%. Do you want some CO2? Yeah, so it was definitely entertaining there. we all, luckily no one needed it, but we had some CO2 if we needed. Yeah, the race was just overall an adventure. Luckily ended up getting my Kona qualification, so I'm happy for that.

Fed (05:27.394)
man.

Fed (05:34.352)
Yeah.

Fed (05:43.226)
for like the 100th time straight.

Jenna-Caer (05:47.502)
man, definitely good to get it. So the goal of this race was definitely that Kona qualification being early season. didn't ride outside at all before this race until race week. So that was entertaining. And I think my longest run outside was like eight miles. it was indoor training. and yeah, ironically prepped for like a crazy hot day because the temperatures were showing in the thirties or nineties Fahrenheit. race day ended up being

Fed (06:03.448)
Wow. There you go.

Jenna-Caer (06:18.435)
chilly with insane winds like absolutely crazy winds they were steady at 30 miles per hour with like 40 per hour gusts it was the craziest conditions and luckily I'm used to kind of riding in the mountains in springtime so I've ridden in some crazy winds and it was making me a little uncomfortable where so much kudos to everyone who started in those conditions where you hold up your bike and it's like blowing sideways kind of deal

Fed (06:21.602)
Hmm

Fed (06:25.917)
my god.

Fed (06:41.528)
Mm. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (06:47.376)
So everyone got it done there. So I didn't need the heat prep as much, but it was ready for it. And yeah, because the wins, was this the first time I've ever seen this at the race briefing. They showed us the course and a whole sections of the course were marked off. There was a place where we did three laps and they marked all along the course, no TT position here. So you could not be down in aero during all these sections. And then there was a long bridge where you weren't supposed to pass or be in TT.

Fed (06:51.545)
There we go.

Mm.

Fed (07:05.903)
Mm-hmm.

Fed (07:09.468)
really?

Hmm.

Jenna-Caer (07:17.436)
position and I was like, it was like 25 % of the course they were like just no and you're like, okay really like come on that seems a little extreme I know you have to like go to the lowest comment for athletes but no writing it was like okay no this is fair I am happy about my baseball results. Yeah it was crazy wins.

Fed (07:23.642)
Yeah.

Fed (07:27.557)
Yeah.

Fed (07:33.488)
You're right.

Jenna-Caer (07:38.606)
But race day, ended up having the swim canceled because of the insane winds there. Just it was causing some serious currents and the water support crew were struggling at times to kind of stay in place, which is never great. So we got the, we're all standing on the start line there and they're announcing everything in Chinese. And then a little bit later we get the English kind of translation. So we heard about the swim being shortened and

Fed (07:53.698)
Right.

Fed (08:03.514)
Uh-huh.

Jenna-Caer (08:07.246)
Most of us monathletes, we weren't too upset about that at that point. Darn. Yeah. You know, we weren't too upset there. There was a few smiles. So we swam in a couple days before and it was just like up and down. you were feeling nauseous with it there.

Fed (08:10.352)
come on, no. wow. Try not to smile.

Fed (08:21.016)
Yeah.

Thanks.

Right.

Jenna-Caer (08:30.136)
But the craziest part was they ended up changing the bike course and announcing it like five minutes before the start of the swim. So it went from cutting out a section and instead of three loops, we were doing four loops of this one section.

Fed (08:34.362)
Mmm.

wow.

Fed (08:43.969)
Jenna-Caer (08:45.55)
but they only announced it in Chinese and they didn't announce it in English. So we started hearing like rumblings from the athletes around us and they're like, oh, they said it's like four loops. Like, well, we didn't hear four loops. Like, are we sure is this like, they're messing with us accurate information. So they didn't like, they announced other things in English. They just never said four loops. So we had one of our monocoaches brought. He like ran out of line for the swim, ran over to one of the race organizers and like, dude, is this four loops or three loops?

Fed (08:57.326)
Right. Yeah.

Fed (09:06.287)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (09:15.534)
Yeah. No, it's for loops. Like, okay, can you, can you say that in English? We know in there. Yeah. So three minutes to the start of the gun going, had confirmation that the like course changed and we were doing a four loops instead of three. Yeah. So

Fed (09:15.8)
Yeah

Fed (09:21.367)
Yes, please. Yeah.

Fed (09:27.652)
Wow.

Fed (09:31.566)
Awesome. You know, wouldn't be Iron Man without like a last, last minute. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (09:36.59)
little bit of entry, totally. But I will say I was really impressed with how they managed to get on a course and change everything. Although it's funny, they announced with the change in the course, the bike would be two kilometers short. It ended up being over two miles long at the end of the day, so it was calculated with the distance. you're like coming out on 178K, you're like, okay, we're going to be done soon. then you realize like,

Fed (09:48.344)
Mm-hmm.

Hahaha

Fed (09:57.87)
Of course, yeah.

Fed (10:04.026)
Hmm. Yeah. Right.

Jenna-Caer (10:04.16)
We're nowhere near where transition is, right? And it wasn't just my computer, everyone's got it in there. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. With the bike course, I ended up going down on the bike a little bit, just a little crash, which was too bad. with the wins, I needed to, as drinking way more nutrition than I thought I would, I ended up over 100 grams per hour of Morton.

Fed (10:12.13)
Yeah, okay.

Fed (10:21.36)
Mmm.

Jenna-Caer (10:33.682)
And I still had a little ways to go. So I'm like, okay, it's windy, it's crazy. Instead of trying to mix this up on the bike, I'm going to pull over, mix it up, get back on the course. It's just sketchy with these crosswinds. So pull over to the side and unclip one foot to stop. All of sudden a gust of wind knocks me over the other way. So it's like the one foot is still clipped in and the follow up is great.

Fed (10:53.124)
No... No...

Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (11:00.098)
That hasn't happened to since my first year riding. let go.

Fed (11:03.221)
Right, my god. Full-on era, kids, everything. awesome. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (11:06.606)
Oh, was great. Luckily, I was going like half a mile per hour because it was mostly stopped at that point, but it was just like landed on my knee. So it was all like swollen and bloody afterwards. And it was like, oh, what is this going to be? That happened about three quarters of the in the bike course. I'm like, oh, what is this going to feel like for the rest of ride? So, baby did a bit going back. I definitely feel the knee was not happy going back to the rest of the bike. So it was kind of...

Fed (11:16.496)
Oof.

Fed (11:20.4)
Thanks

Fed (11:23.952)
Right.

Fed (11:33.657)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (11:36.726)
wondering how the run would go, kind of backed it off on the bike to be more conservative to see how the knee would feel. And yeah, got out from the bike, had played it safe on the bike, way safer than I think I should have, just not having ridden outside and then going down on my knees like, don't know what to do here.

Fed (11:43.534)
Yeah.

Fed (11:55.554)
Right.

Jenna-Caer (11:57.934)
So kind of regret going easier on the bike than I would have normally, but it was fun coming out on the run course. Uh, I heard over the announcements that I was in third overall, and then I was second in the age group and it was kind of fun. made it. They were very entertained that I was Canadian. So they like shouted out like five words that is Canadian. So then as I was running on the course, I got, kept getting Canadian. Yeah, go Canada.

Fed (12:01.487)
Mm-hmm.

Fed (12:07.268)
Hmm.

Fed (12:13.706)
wow.

Canadian go Canada Wow yeah

Jenna-Caer (12:26.088)
And so yeah, get out on the run course. And this run course, when we looked at the athlete briefing, when they like showed us the course, the athlete briefing, everyone just like lost it. Cause it looks absolutely insane. have four loops of a course where there's two loops inside of each of the four loops. So it's like, yeah, you go like out around, down, up, down, out, back, up, down, up, down, and then go out for the loop. then the craziest looking course ever. we're like, there's no way we're going to be

Fed (12:33.328)
Mm-hmm.

Fed (12:43.216)
Wait, what? Wow.

Fed (12:53.134)
Wow.

Jenna-Caer (12:55.952)
able to follow this. when you're in that race fog, like it was, it looked absolutely insane.

Fed (12:56.654)
Yeah, especially on low glycogen. Like, what?

Yeah, my god. Even simple math is tricky. It's like, okay, how many miles do I have to No.

Jenna-Caer (13:11.134)
you should have heard the rumbling and the complaints and the athlete briefing. People like, there's no way like this insane, like we're gonna get lost and stuff. But again, have to give them kudos. It was all like blocked off into lanes. So you really couldn't get lost as long as he kind of like followed along in there.

Fed (13:22.2)
Okay.

Fed (13:27.044)
Right.

Jenna-Caer (13:28.233)
So, and that made it kind of fun because you saw the other athletes on course just constantly kind of thing. So it was almost like, I don't know, like 16 little loops in there. So you're just constantly crossing paths, which was a lot of fun. But yeah, head out in the run. Again, played it conservatively because I just haven't run long outside at all. And it was like, treadmill pace, right? Or is it off by half a kilometer?

Fed (13:39.363)
Wow.

Nice.

Fed (13:49.488)
Hmm.

Fed (13:52.964)
Yeah. He like my... Yeah, yeah, yeah. man.

Jenna-Caer (13:57.518)
don't really know. So I ended up running the run mostly by field just to kind of see how things went. yeah, it was one of those runs where I kept waiting for it to get hard and it never really did. So definitely had a bit more left in the tank there, but ended up walking away with an eight minute marathon PR. So I was stoked about that. That was good to see.

Fed (14:12.218)
Wow.

Fed (14:19.162)
There we go.

Jenna-Caer (14:24.206)
Yeah, and it being a day, I got second in my age group to the overall winner who she absolutely crushed it. Seriously impressive out there. And then it was just fun to see the Monna team members just passing back and forth the entire time where it started out with like cheers and highs. And by the end of the run, it's more just like little waves to a little head nod as you fatigue through there. We had some incredible performances across the team.

Fed (14:45.327)
Yeah.

Fed (14:51.618)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Philly brought you Melanie.

Jenna-Caer (14:52.494)
seven athletes get on the podium, which was very cool. Yeah, they all said, yeah. So it was just, was really a cool day just to have that camaraderie on course. And then after the first few of us finished, we went out and cheered everyone on too. And it, yeah, it was such a blast. Good to check that Kona spot and get that done.

Yeah, definitely one won't forget it was such just a cool experience doing it somewhere new where everything's a little bit more unknown.

Fed (15:22.362)
Yeah, absolutely. It adds a completely different element. And I wanted to ask you two questions. First, I saw the pictures and you had this amazing butterfly kit, which I loved. I thought it was awesome. And second, to our listeners, how do you deal with adversity on race day? Because...

Jenna-Caer (15:31.704)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (15:37.006)
Thank you.

Fed (15:48.208)
I know for a fact that us athletes have in mind, I'm going to this race. These are the typical conditions and this is the elevation. This is the bias. This is the debt. And then you have incredible wind and gusts of wind and all of that. How, because I know a lot of athletes are like, Oh, I'm not going to be PR in this race. And then I'm just going to throw my race to waste. How do you deal with that? Because a lot of times athletes think.

the conditions are happening just to them, not to the entire race. How do you adjust with that? And you mentioned taking more fluid and taking more cards because the race was going to be a bit longer on the bike because of the wind. Yeah, just talk to us, talk us through that and how do you deal with that?

Jenna-Caer (16:35.886)
Sure, yeah, so first off on the kit, thank you. I ended up doing a custom monoparel kit in there and it was really fun. I created a design that I loved and sent it to them and they printed out, which was very, cool. But if anyone does wanna do a kit, it's open to anyone to design a custom kit and you don't even have to have the design. Even if you have like concepts and ideas of things you like, they've got a wicked designer that can make something pretty cool in there. So definitely recommend checking that out.

Fed (16:56.944)
Hmm.

Jenna-Caer (17:06.041)
race day. Yeah. So I always have tendency to choose harder courses or tougher conditions because I don't really care about the time, personally so much as kind of the placing and what I could get out of myself on race day. And I think that definitely helps because when you come up on conditions that are super hilly or super windy, it's going to slow you down. It doesn't matter if you're the fittest you've ever been in your life. if you compare a flat course to a hilly or windy course, it's going to slow you down. So.

Fed (17:31.162)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (17:35.818)
I think just recognizing that, like you mentioned, it affects everyone on the course come race day. But kind of my mantra that I've thought about a lot that comes from Sebastian Kienle is, if it's hurting me, it's killing them. So just remembering that, yeah, you're suffering, but don't let it get to your head because everyone else is too. What makes the difference is how you respond to that suffering, to that slower pace. Like on race days like this, I don't even have speed.

on my Garmin at all because it doesn't matter. My body doesn't care if I'm going two miles an hour uphill into a headwind or if I'm going, you know, 40 downhill in a tailwind. It cares about the energy that I'm expending, whether that's the power output, the heart rate. That's what my body is gonna respond to and what's gonna affect me race day. I don't care if you want to go 40 miles an hour in there. If you're in zone four doing it, it's just not gonna happen, right?

Fed (18:07.279)
Mm.

Fed (18:25.871)
Yes.

Jenna-Caer (18:34.708)
So just remembering to kind of play to that energy. And I always recommend just don't have speed on there because it's not a metric that really matters or that you can control when the conditions get tough. yeah, that and finding something to keep you entertained when it does get difficult. I like to count pedal strokes or have like the chorus of a song stuck in my head because once you start having that negative internal dialogue, saying this is hard, this sucks, I'm not hitting my targets, whatever,

Fed (18:57.071)
Mmm.

Jenna-Caer (19:04.592)
you start to tense up with that negative thought process. So anything that gets you out of that and just kind of focus on the rhythm of how you're moving and quiets that voice, I find really makes a difference. And you learn how to relax into the discomfort or like Macky used to say, embrace the suck, accept that this is hard, relax into it and kind of keep moving forward instead of fighting against it and fighting against yourself.

Fed (19:29.744)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. think the worst advice would be like, don't think about the pain. Because the more you avoid something, the more it's going to come and bite you later on the race. So the sooner you accept it's going to be hard and it's going to be challenging. When you embrace that, it's like a switch goes in your head and you're like, okay, yes, this is going to hurt, but I'm just going to have to go through it no matter what. yeah.

Thank you for that. just out of curiosity, what was the last song that you were like, why am I singing this? I don't even like this song that you were singing or mumbling on a race.

Jenna-Caer (20:14.606)
You know a song I had stuck in my head? was one that, I don't know, I got stuck in my head in another race like a decade ago. It was my songs Know What You Did In The Dark, I think it was by Fallout Boy. I can't even remember the rest of it. But when I was training for my first Iron Man, that song was like on my go-to playlist. It just released like a new album with it and stuff. So I was listening to that song a lot. And it just, I started thinking about my first Iron Man and then that popped up in my head.

Fed (20:27.536)
Okay

Fed (20:34.8)
okay.

Fed (20:40.495)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (20:44.66)
and then that was like playing on repeat and I just could not remember the rest of the verses or any other songs so it was just over and over over again. That was the fun one. Yeah definitely highly recommend joining the Mono crew coming out to some of these races. We just had 55 team members at Ironman Ocean size 70.3 which is absolutely insane like that one is really kind of having the FOMO not being out there.

Fed (20:45.209)
Yes.

Fed (20:51.312)
Yeah. Wow. Awesome.

Fed (21:14.648)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jenna-Caer (21:17.11)
Well, I think we're going to jump into our interview with Torsten Rad here. He breaks down everything with Iron Man Texas, like we mentioned, and go check out his website, TryRiding.com. And as always, go give us a follow at another Triathlon podcast. I will be on course at Iron Man Texas and giving some library updates as we go. And then go check out the Mono training camp because it is going to be an absolute blast. Some of the best people out there, a lot of train hard, race hard, have some fun with the community.

Until next time, Fed, we'll be back next week to break down everything that happened this weekend. Have a good one.

Fed (21:51.597)
Absolutely.

You too.

Jenna-Caer (00:01.564)
As mentioned, we have Thorsten Radde from Tri-Rating On today to help us break down everything going into Ironman Texas. This race is completely stacked and it's going to be entertaining to see how it actually shakes out on the weekend. But we're going to dive into some of the stats and what we can expect. But first, let's welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today, Thorsten. How are you doing?

Thorsten (00:23.266)
Well, thanks for having me. I'm doing great. I had a full day at work and now I can get back to the things I love to do, which is triathlon. So that's always a good thing.

Jenna-Caer (00:33.556)
Love it. We're so happy to have you here to geek out with us on Triathlon. then unfortunately, Josh is recovering from the Boston Marathon, so he won't be joining us today. But we've got Feday online here too. How are you doing, Fed?

Fed (00:40.853)
Yeah.

Fed (00:46.987)
Yeah, hey guys. Hi Thorsten, hi Sahavi here. yeah, happy and yeah, Josh needed that rest. He did an amazing race. And of course we have another champion here in Jena. Just did Ironman Taiwan. She did awesome there. So, surrounded by champions at the moment.

Jenna-Caer (01:03.956)
Well, I'm sure you'll be having that championship performance soon, getting after it these days.

Fed (01:10.805)
Yes, that's a plan.

Jenna-Caer (01:13.412)
Let's dive into Ironman Texas. This race I know we've all been looking for. This will be one of the first few Ironmans in the Ironman Pro Series. We've had one result so far, but I think this is going to be a crazy competitive field compared to what we've seen in the past. It looks like a lot of the pros kind of made the trip over from Oceanside 70.3 to come down here and race at Ironman Texas where every second will count towards that Pro Series. But before we jump to the start list, why don't we talk

about a few of the people who unfortunately have dropped out last minute here. We just had an announcement that both Patrick Lange and Lionel Sanders won't be racing on the men's side. What do you guys think of that? It's kind of a bummer to see them jumping out at the last minute. That would have been a good battle.

Thorsten (02:03.022)
Yeah, it would have been really cool to see both of them race in Texas, especially after Oceanside did not go too well for Patrick. And just the other way around for Lionel, I guess, it would have been really cool to see him in top shape at a competitive Ironman field. But unfortunately, well, guess health goes first with both of them. And neither of them wanted to risk picking something up that would impact their season.

Jenna-Caer (02:15.23)
Yeah.

Fed (02:26.795)
Mm.

Thorsten (02:32.787)
and they've got bigger goals hopefully in the rest of the year ahead.

Jenna-Caer (02:38.226)
Yeah, definitely. It was interesting to see Patrick was pretty open about it in the weeks before the race too, just kind of letting people know before and hey, there's a chance I might not make it to this race here, which usually we don't kind of see that openness leading in. Usually it's a last minute kind of pull out.

Thorsten (02:52.686)
Yeah, and to me that kind of indicated that it was not just a little bit of a niggle that he hoped to get over in the days before the race, but it was something serious that he wasn't really sure he could turn around in time. And Lionel just straight away said, well, he never was on the start list in the first place, so he must have pulled up pretty soon after Oceanside.

Fed (03:16.961)
Yeah. I think he had something going on for Oceanside. And after that race, that's when he knew that he wasn't completely 100%. So maybe that's why he pulled the pin right there. So yeah, it's a shame to miss them both, Ironman, Texas, but I'm sure there's going to be a lot of excitement and a lot of different race dynamics because those two

Jenna-Caer (03:18.472)
Yeah, no fair enough.

Fed (03:46.929)
add like a depth element into their races and I think right now the race is going to shape a little bit differently now that those two are not on the start list.

Thorsten (03:57.996)
Yeah, but just going back to Patrick, the thing I'm worried about is what does this mean for the rest of the season? Because he was kind of, well, last year he kind of accidentally went for the Ironman Pro Series and then accumulated a bunch of points and all of a sudden he was at the front of the standings. This year it was a bit more of a goal that he put out with not too many points at Oceanside and zero points at Texas. What is

Fed (04:04.683)
Mm.

Fed (04:12.331)
Yeah.

Thorsten (04:26.988)
What's that going to mean? mean, he was clear that he wanted to race Frankfurt in the summer and then Nice in the fall. Is he going to turn around for another Ironman because you basically need three good Ironman scores to do well in the pro series? Or is he going to just reassess his goals and put 100 % focus on Nice? So that's the interesting question for me for Patrick with Lionel.

I don't know how much of a focus he had on the Pro Series or doing well in Nice. I don't think there's too much to change from him not being able to race Texas.

Jenna-Caer (05:05.49)
Yeah, Patrick is someone that we don't typically see raise a lot of Iron Mans in the season. He kind of targets in on the world championships and it's worked for him for sure.

Thorsten (05:13.614)
Yeah, mean last season he had a lot of races on his calendar. He did Texas, he did the road but didn't finish there. He did Frankfurt like a week after or two weeks after or not. was the year where Frankfurt was really late. So it was like five weeks between that. But that one and then Kona. So that would have been four full distance races, which was kind of a bit too much for him, which he also said it was a bit too much. So three.

But then three might be okay for him, but they need to be well spaced. And I don't think he's going to do too much over the summer. But it will be an interesting one to watch. mean, first he's got to get back 100 % to running well and running without any issues. Because I mean, Patrick hobbling around the course like Lionel, that's something I don't want to see.

Fed (06:04.171)
Ha

Jenna-Caer (06:04.248)
No, not at all. Yeah, and he doesn't have a 70.3 world slot either, so he's going to have to get a qualification for that too if he wants to compete in the series on top of those three RNNs.

Thorsten (06:17.262)
Yeah, but to me he was never doing super well in 70.3s. I mean, he's a caliber of athlete that should be able to qualify for 70.3 worlds without too much of a problem. But I never saw him as a top contender for 70.3 worlds, regardless of where the race would have been. Probably still doing better points-wise than in a smaller one.

Jenna-Caer (06:37.492)
you

Thorsten (06:45.154)
but not really a top contender, but certainly something that, yeah, he just has to go back to the drawing board and rethink what his season will look like after not being able to race in Texas.

Jenna-Caer (06:56.252)
Yeah, absolutely. We've got a couple of change-ups too in the women's race here. I saw you had slashed out there. Penny Slater is off the list now. And we also have the addition of Taylor Nib. There was a fair bit of speculation after she didn't show up to the T100 in Singapore for personal reasons. If Texas might be on her schedule afterwards. What are we thinking with the addition of Taylor Nib? This will be her second ever Ironman, which is just mind-boggling.

Fed (06:56.438)
Yeah.

Thorsten (07:04.942)
Mm-hmm.

Thorsten (07:26.05)
Yeah, mean, that's one of the fun trivia questions you can ask. Who was the last professional athlete who did Kona as their first Ironman? I think it went back to like Miranda Carfrae of those days. Yeah, yeah. Back when you could get a slot from winning 70.3 Worlds and not having to validate that one. So it's back in the times of Rinne and I think Kroi would have been able to, but he decided to trial Ironman before that.

Jenna-Caer (07:35.41)
That was fun.

Fed (07:37.277)
Rainy, yeah.

Fed (07:52.161)
Mmm.

Thorsten (07:55.586)
Yeah, with Taylor, she's going to be a super interesting addition to the Texas field. One, because the way she races in general with her really strong swim and then awesome bike on the half distance, which she didn't really show in Kona when she raced. mean, she was kind of a no man's land for all day behind Lucy Charles.

Fed (08:20.289)
Hmm.

Thorsten (08:23.374)
How is that going to change? Is that going to change for Texas? Or is she just going to be content of rolling with a bigger group and then just punching her Kona ticket? Or does she go for it and raise heart there? What do you guys think about that?

Fed (08:40.481)
I think Taylor's Kona first experience was, to me, seemed like it was like a gathering information type of race, see if I like the distance. And also on the athlete perspective, I think she didn't want to have quote unquote, like a super horrible experience so that she doesn't go back to Kona. You know what I mean? Like some athletes are like, I'm disgusted about this race. I'm never coming back.

And I'm sure she wanted to put herself in a position where, okay, I know what this is about. Let me come back and try to win this. And I think that's what happened with her at her first go at Kona. And I think we're going to see a completely different Taylor Nip now in Texas. think she's going to take the race, the bull by the horns and try to win the race as she does on the T100, know, coming out of the water and the first group pulling out of everyone on the bike. then I.

I think we're going to see a very good marathon out of Taylor in this Ironman Texas. Maybe I'm hopeful, maybe I'm being biased, but I don't know. What do you guys think?

Jenna-Caer (09:50.676)
Well, how about we dive in to break down the rest of the female field here as well. So I believe we have five Kona qualification spots for the men and five for the women. And we have a number of people who are already qualified, surprisingly a little lower down the list of athletes in the rankings here. But let's take a look at kind of the top 10 here according to Thorsten's rankings so far.

who's racing over the weekend. So we got Kat Matthews, Chelsea Sodaro, Taylor Nib, Theresa Adams, Lisa Petrer, Danielle Lewis, Reagan Holyoke, Alice Alberts, Sarah Svensk, and Svenja Toews, along with a number of other names as we go down the list here, including a couple of people who don't have rankings like Tamara Jewett, who's going to be, I think, the first Ironman here as well. So got a couple of newbies to the distance. So this race, we're going to have an interesting one because we have a couple of matches

Fed (10:14.849)
So thank

Jenna-Caer (10:44.79)
we haven't seen before like a Taylor Nib versus Kat Matthews and then a previous Kona champion in Chelsea Sidaro who had a bit of an off year the last little while. So what do you guys think? What are we gonna see go down in this race? Who's got it?

Thorsten (11:00.984)
Yeah, mean, for me, the win has to go to the three big names, Kat, Chelsea or Taylor. I think it would be a real surprise if anyone else from that field is able to match all three of them. I mean, there's always someone who doesn't have a good day and then someone has an awesome day. But to beat all three of them, that seems to be a bit of a stretch. mean, nothing against Tamara, but I think that's a huge ask for her in her first Ironman to have the confidence of going

with the proven strong bikers that we have at the front there and then uncork a marathon that we can expect of her. So it's the top three. And for me, it's pretty much a toss up between them because I'm not 100 % sure how if Taylor is going to put all her cards on the table in Texas or whether she kind of goes on a kind of second fact finding mission in the woodlands.

What I would think might make most sense or where she can learn the most for Kona from Texas might be racing the first half of each leg really hard, maybe a touch harder than what she expects for Kona to be worthwhile, and then kind of cruise the second half and build up to what is needed there. I don't know if that would mean that

Fed (12:15.21)
Hmm.

Jenna-Caer (12:26.184)
Yeah, it's actually the best kind of thing.

Thorsten (12:28.96)
She rides away from everyone in the first half of the Texas and then is just five minutes ahead of everyone and then puts it away in the first half of the marathon and no one really wants to attack her anymore. But I think she can learn probably a lot from that kind of strategy rather than trying to go in a head-to-head match with Cat Matthews, for example, who might be able or might swim a little bit slower than her, but then might want to attack her on the bike.

That'll be an interesting one for me, how Taylor approaches Texas and what she comes away with.

Jenna-Caer (13:06.568)
Definitely. What do you think, Fede? What are we going to see out there?

Fed (13:10.241)
Yeah, I'm with Thorsten. think the big three names are going to be battling for the win. And I think it's going to come down to really who feels better on the day. It's still early in the season. And I think those three athletes are going to come up with a corner slot. So I believe it's like Thorsten said, it's going to be like, okay, who's in the lead? Do I have a corner slot? I'm not going to push it. I'm just going to cruise to the finish line. think it's

there's going to be less of an eagle race in Texas on the women's side. And yeah, it's definitely going to be playing their cards to who's feeling better on the day and, you know, battling for position. And probably it's going to get way more exciting and interesting on the, on the four or five, six plays battling for that last corner slot. I think that's where the race is going to be at.

Thorsten (13:43.256)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (14:03.88)
Yeah, definitely. And it's interesting because we have

They're coming from the race from different perspectives. We've got Kath Matt Thews. She's won this race a couple of times here. She knows this course, but last year she wasn't really pushed. I don't think a ton. She was able to take walk breaks. It's kind of, you know, she had a bit of an injury going in, so she's making sure nothing happened there. And then we've got Taylor Nibb, who we know is just absolutely dominant on the bike, but it seems like in Kona, she kind of played the bike safe. Like you said, Fett, she didn't want to, you know, have that experience in Kona where she actually blows up and has that heat stress that we've seen a few athletes.

Thorsten (14:17.592)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (14:36.768)
deal with. And then we got Chelsea Sodaro. She's, you know, Kona, world champion. She's got a new bike sponsor this year too. She just signed on with Ventum. So she'll be racing on that. And I Kat and Chelsea both changed up their coaches so they could focus more on bike. And I think a lot of that has been from Taylor Nib just having these absolutely dominant bike splits. So be curious to see with both of them if they've been able to up their biking game and if they're going to be near Taylor Nib at the full

Thorsten (14:52.398)
Mm-hmm.

Jenna-Caer (15:06.678)
But again, we haven't really seen Taylor go full gas. I don't think it an Ironman bike race because she doesn't quite know, right? You don't know what you can do until you push it a little too far.

Thorsten (15:16.11)
Yeah, Kat's always been really strong on the bike, but she's never kind of decided a race on the bike when she had to. I guess this will be, Taylor will kind of force her to probably ride a bit harder than she's been used to in the past. And that'll be an interesting one to watch. And I wouldn't write off Chelsea. mean, she's a Kona champion. She's proven that even if things are not 100%, she can still

Fed (15:20.545)
Hmm.

Jenna-Caer (15:31.357)
Yeah.

Thorsten (15:45.902)
performed really well in Eirman, mean, third in Nice last year, sixth in Kona, even after a horrible bike in 2023. So that was something where she showed how resilient she is. And she's probably the better swimmer compared to Kat Matthews. So maybe there's some kind of group dynamics where they start to feed a little bit of each other. We never really saw that in Nice happening.

Jenna-Caer (16:00.34)
Thank

Thorsten (16:16.074)
So, yeah, I think it's going to be fascinating between these three, unless Taylor puts it away in the first two hours of the race. And then the question will be, how big is the margin? is she, even if she blows up, can someone still catch her?

Jenna-Caer (16:25.62)
Thank you.

Fed (16:27.573)
Yeah.

Fed (16:32.033)
Mm.

Jenna-Caer (16:32.596)
Yeah, that's the hard part because the question is will Cat try to chase her down because Taylor Nib will have the faster swim. She'll be out on the bike pretty solidly we can assume. So will Cat Matthews put in that push to try to chase her down and catch up on the bike or just kind of trust in her run at end of the day there? How about a little farther down the list? Who do we have working while we're

Thorsten (16:51.246)
Sorry, jumping in there, just to make sure Chelsea does have an automatic qualifier slot. So all she needs to do is to, what's the official wording of race competitively and become an official finisher, which they kind of clarified after the Sam Laidlaw incident last summer where he was disqualified after the race, still finished the race, but was disqualified. So that won't be good enough anymore. But that's all that Chelsea needs to punch her Kona ticket.

Fed (16:59.819)
FIM.

Fed (17:05.631)
Hahaha

Thorsten (17:21.184)
and she won't count for those five slots there.

Fed (17:26.593)
Hmm, absolutely.

Thorsten (17:28.11)
So that's those three. then, yeah, looking a little bit further down, Penny Slater, unfortunately, not in the race because she still injured with some run injuries. mean, she got better and is back running, but not in form to race Texas. Trace Adam is an interesting one to me because she used to be one of the strongest athletes and kind of disappeared for

Fed (17:54.217)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Thorsten (17:57.39)
4 years probably overraced and was tired for a while. I'm not sure what she can do coming back to the Armin distance. I haven't seen anything from her in the last couple of years.

Fed (18:08.127)
Yeah, it's a tricky one with Teresa because when she was racing back short course, she dealt with a lot of injuries and that when she stepped onto the Ironman distance, she was an incredibly strong biker and then she won Ironman New Zealand. And then she, like you said, Thorsten, she fell off the face of the earth for a couple of years there. Not that she needed to tell us what she was up to, but now social media is so big that we all

wondered what happened to Teresa, but if she's the Teresa that we know, she's definitely going to be an interesting factor. she's going to be right there with Taylor out of the swim and probably with Chelsea. And she probably is the type of athlete who wants to push the bike to where most athletes feel a bit more uncomfortable. then, yeah, it's, let's see what happens on the run, but yeah.

Teresa is a tricky one and hopefully she's healthy and in race form to give us a show.

Jenna-Caer (19:13.754)
Yes.

Thorsten (19:14.264)
Yeah, if she's at 100 % of where she was like four or five years ago, we'd count her among those top three. So that would be top four. But with her recent races, yeah, unknown.

Fed (19:21.319)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Fed (19:28.309)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (19:29.392)
And one thing, if you guys haven't checked out the tri-rating site, go check it out here, is one part I enjoy is the winning odds in here. So, Torson and Borgman, the odds are to have the overall win. And for the women's side, we've got Kat Matthews with a 59 % chance, one-to-one odds. Chelsea Sodaro at 29 out of two-to-one. And then unfortunately Penny Slater is out now, and we've got Danielle Lewis at 2 % at 62-to-one odds. So, Penny and Gersen, that would be the bet to put on just to see if we can get a win.

Thorsten (19:37.175)
You

Thorsten (19:58.318)
Yeah, and I probably need to comment why Taylor isn't in there. Because all we have for Taylor is that one race in Kona, which was a good one, but it wasn't a stellar race. So it's kind of tricky to draw too many conclusions from just that one result and what that will mean. And that's why I was kind of chickening out of giving Taylor winning odds there. If I had to give her, it would

Fed (20:02.965)
Hehehehe

Thorsten (20:27.95)
Probably 35 % for Cat, then probably Taylor and 25 for Chelsea. All three of would be pretty close together and there wouldn't be too many percentages left for anyone else.

Jenna-Caer (20:44.74)
Yeah, fair enough. Now let's make the call. We all know who we think is going to be on that podium there, but who do you guys think will take the actual win on the day? Let's start with you, Thorsten. Who do you think is going to get it?

Fed (20:45.12)
Mm.

Thorsten (20:56.17)
I find it hard to see past Taylor on this one. She's just been so amazing in her most recent races over the half distance. And I think with the proven coaching pedigree that she's working off with Don Loran, he will have her in the right frame of mind to win in Texas.

Fed (21:12.161)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (21:17.668)
Dan definitely knows how to build up Ironman champions here. We can say that for sure.

Fed (21:18.177)
Hmm.

Thorsten (21:23.042)
Yeah, and I'm just delving into a lot of the older interviews with Chelsea and sorry, with Taylor. And it was amazing to see some of the comments that Taylor put out about Don, even after just working for like half a year with Don, of how different his approach has been to what she's been used to, how he looks towards the individual athlete and what that athlete needs.

And it was just heartwarming to see how surprised she was that all of a sudden she was the one who was able to ask for help to make the calls and Don would support her in whatever she came up to. And that's just one of those core philosophies that Don always puts up is that the athlete is the one making the decision. I am just there to help him or her achieve a way towards that.

the goals that he or she sets. I think that's a really humble approach to coaching that doesn't vibe too well with some of the big names of coaching and maybe the stuff that's needed to make a real big impression on social media. But Don doesn't need that anymore. He's way beyond that level where he needs to toot his own horn.

Jenna-Caer (22:40.206)
Yeah, he's not the one throwing eggs at the wall and seeing who doesn't crack. How about you, Fede? Who do you think has it this weekend? We'll take that one.

Thorsten (22:45.281)
Not at all.

Fed (22:50.625)
I was just thinking that I was gonna say a dark horse but it's crazy to think that this athlete is considered a dark horse in this race but no I'm gonna go ahead and pick let's see let's Kat Matthews I'm gonna go with Kat for the win she's gonna run away from everyone just to pick a different athlete than Thorsten and to make it interesting

Thorsten (22:55.714)
You

Jenna-Caer (22:55.898)
Come on, let's get it.

Jenna-Caer (23:13.008)
Fair enough. Yeah, you know what?

Thorsten (23:17.548)
So you had to go with a Canadian then?

Fed (23:20.117)
Ha!

Jenna-Caer (23:21.08)
Tamara, do it. Let's pull her up there. You know what? I called Oceanside, got everyone right with all the Canadians on the podium here. Oh man, I'd love to say Tamara, but just that bike strength isn't there in 70.3. I can't see it being there for an Ironman where that bike counts for even more overall. Even if she runs a wicked marathon when you're up against Kent Matthews, Chelsea Sterrow, and Taylor Nib, there's not a lot of run weakness across the board there.

Thorsten (23:23.342)
you

Fed (23:24.116)
Yeah

Fed (23:29.685)
Yeah.

Fed (23:49.761)
Mm.

Thorsten (23:50.05)
Yeah, and I guess first Ironman for her. So if she can get into Kona qualifying territory, that will be a good result and one that she can be proud of in her first Ironman, would say.

Jenna-Caer (23:57.232)
Thank

Jenna-Caer (24:02.8)
Yeah, it seems to go one of two ways with first ironments. They're a little tentative and kind of make sure they have a good day, or they don't know the pain that's ahead, so they just go for it and have a great result.

Fed (24:03.55)
Absolutely.

Fed (24:10.283)
Thank you.

Thorsten (24:11.47)
Well, it hurts anyways in the last 10k, so just go for it.

Fed (24:15.231)
Yes. Yes.

Jenna-Caer (24:15.872)
May as well. Well, since you two picked the other ones, I'm going to go with Chelsea Sidaro. She's got a new coach, she's fired up. Let's see what she can do in Texas.

Fed (24:24.341)
There you go.

Thorsten (24:28.418)
Yeah, I mean, we kind of missed a lot of other women that would be real interesting to talk about. mean, Danielle Lewis would be one of those certainly way, way, way behind after the swim. Hopefully not quite as much as I have her down, but then one of the best bikers and runners. And there's a bunch of other stories that we could tell about the other women in the race. So, yeah, we did focus on the top three, but that's not to put any of the others down. And certainly the race for the Kona slots will be really interesting.

Jenna-Caer (24:57.198)
Very well said, yes. Yeah, it's tough when you have kind of such a top heavy race when you know the odds are pretty good. It's gonna be the three of them up front there, but we've always seen with Ironman, you never know who can have a good day come through. Unfortunately, last year on the men's side, we had a surprise win come through, but that was for other reasons than fitness and race performance. So it's always fun to watch. We gotta see it happen down there.

Fed (24:57.6)
Yes.

Fed (25:19.51)
hehe

Jenna-Caer (25:23.84)
Let's look into the men's side. So again, I'll go through the top 10 according to Thorsten.

Thorsten (25:29.23)
Hahaha.

Jenna-Caer (25:29.796)
here so we can make sure we're talking about the top contenders here. We've got Gustav Eden, Christian Blumenfeldt, Rudy Von Berg, Matthew Marquardt, Robert Wilkowski, Kieran Linders, Christian Hoganhawg, William Hirsch, and Casper Stefanik. We also have a few other, just not too far, this one is definitely very, very stacked with Antonio Pinedo Lopez, Leon Chevalier, Callan, Henson. We've got Cam Wurf is on this and every other list. Daniel Backer.

Fed (25:45.185)
Hmm.

Fed (25:57.396)
As always.

Jenna-Caer (25:58.384)
It really you can go all the way down this list and see some names that have a good shot. We've got also mana athlete Jason pole coming in. There are

Thorsten (26:07.598)
I'll add two more because I haven't mentioned them in the preview that I've written for Triathlete either. It's Caspar Stornis who wants to make it a three Norwegians on the podium kind of race. I guess then we also have to kind of talk a bit about Charifoli and what he might be able to do in Texas with his first race of the season. So there's how much time do we have kind of.

Fed (26:35.861)
Yeah.

Thorsten (26:35.924)
field. It's almost like Kona-worthy kind of field. There's a couple of names missing there, but that's what you also often have in Kona is that some of the top names just drop out for whatever reasons and are not racing there or needs whatever it's going to be this year. This is really an awesome race to watch with interesting dynamics.

Fed (26:41.142)
Mm.

Jenna-Caer (26:59.824)
It's going to be a stack. you said, it's such a strong field, but you know what surprises me with the Norwegians is just they have the three of them training together, racing together. They're so good on their day. would be a better option to mix it up. I think that would almost be harder if you're always racing head to head when you know you're some of the best in the world. And if you each went to three different races, you each got a shot at winning them. But now it's just one of you can win out of this race.

Fed (27:10.881)
cutting their hair together.

Thorsten (27:12.844)
you

Thorsten (27:27.438)
Yeah, I don't know. Kasper did one Ironman in Frankfurt like two or three years ago, which he wasn't able to finish. So that kind of will hold him back a little bit and make him raise maybe a little bit more cautiously. But other than that, Gustav and Christian just need to validate their AQ slots so they can give the win to Kasper and then take second and third would be enough for them to make it to Nice.

Fed (27:32.993)
Mm-hmm.

Fed (27:52.661)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (27:53.762)
Now could you see either of them doing that though?

Thorsten (27:57.07)
No, no, and I mean that that's the fun part about the whole group dynamic and the same thing we've seen with with Christian and Gustav in Kona when when they ran together They they they have they would happily give the win To the other one, but they're not going to just lay down in the sand and give it to them

Fed (27:58.153)
No.

Jenna-Caer (28:19.984)
You

Fed (28:22.849)
correct.

Thorsten (28:23.502)
It'll be a fight to the finish line if it's just between the two or three of them. It won't be joining Hans and Kumbaya on the finish line.

Jenna-Caer (28:33.848)
No, and I'm guessing is that that Kona run where we saw Gustav Iden take the win? That's probably what weighted his run a little bit better than Kristen Blumenfeldt when it comes to your rankings.

Fed (28:34.453)
Yeah.

Thorsten (28:45.708)
Yeah, mean, Gustav is another of those tricky ones. I mean, I have him like winning eight minutes ahead, which is probably not what's going to happen because the predictions that I make are based on the average of the results of the people that we've seen. And the last couple of races that we saw from Christian weren't that stellar. mean, his win in Frankfurt was basically a very conservative bike and then a strong run. But then his race in Kona was

Fed (29:10.017)
Hmm.

Thorsten (29:14.592)
Suboptimal, let's put it that way. Especially because he invested so much on the bike that he didn't have anything left for the run. And that's what drags his run prediction down a little bit. If those two went head to head, I'm not sure who'd be ahead. Before Oceanside, I would have said that Christian is still the one who's in better shape and who's been able to train better. But then, yeah.

Jenna-Caer (29:15.952)
That's one way to put it.

Thorsten (29:42.232)
Gustav's race in Oceanside was just very impressive, even if he only finished third. He was in the mix the whole day. And maybe he wasn't quite the Gustav from from Nice 2019 or when he won the second time in St. George. But he's clearly on the way back. And I think maybe he's just one of those third in Texas he'll happily take, I would think. But then wait for Nice.

I think that's going to be a different story, but maybe not quite the head-to-head that we want to see in Texas yet.

Fed (30:17.119)
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And when it comes to the Norwegians, Gustav to me seems not that Christian is not a smart athlete, but to me, Gustav is the more, you know, in tune with his body, not pushing himself when he doesn't need to. And to me, Christian is the more gutsy, the more testosterone driven athlete. And Gustav, it's usually playing it safe a little bit more. So he knows

his runs going to come around. And I remember a post race interview at Oceanside. He said he was very happy with his bike and that his bike was super strong. So to me, that's saying that he is going to have a really good bike in Texas and maybe he even pulls away from Christian on the bike. And then hopefully Christian catches up on the run. But then again, these couple of weeks after in between Oceanside and Texas may

give Gustav the time he needed to find his round legs to sort of like maybe not have his corner round legs, but strong enough legs to go ahead and win Texas. And Casper, mean, out of the three, you tell me, Thorsten, you're the European here, but to me, Casper is the most Norwegian of the bunch, so to speak. The quieter one, the more polite, the more reserved one.

But if he is feeling it on the day, probably is not going to look behind and tell his Norwegian counterparts to come join him in the party. If he's feeling good, he's just going to go ahead and ride away from everyone because he did it in Bermuda and maybe he's going to be able to do it in Texas.

Thorsten (31:54.958)
Yeah.

Thorsten (31:59.363)
Yes.

Thorsten (32:02.658)
Yeah, to me, Christian and Gustav are still the ones who race maybe with a little more head when needed. I'm not sure where Casper falls in onto that one. And I think the race dynamics will be interesting here in Texas because we've got a couple of athletes who are strong in the swim and on the bike, like Robert Cullen, who was second on the bike in Kona.

Fed (32:23.905)
Mm.

Thorsten (32:25.358)
Hogan Haug who probably needs it. You've got Marquardt who's probably going to do the same thing he did the last couple of years again where he's just trying to put time into the rest of the field on the bike. So you may have a couple of people on kind of a suicide mission on the bike and I'm not sure who among those the favorites that we discussed so far will have it in them to try and go with them and to take the risk of

Fed (32:30.433)
God.

Yeah.

Thorsten (32:54.382)
Maybe what's needed to win the race and you would probably try to take that risk if it was Nice or Kona, but maybe not for Texas when you still need a finish or you still need that qualifying slot. Maybe just let those crazy ones go off the front and do whatever they do and then settle into a second group that's usually in Texas battling out the one who's finally going to take the win and at least some of the Kona slots coming in there.

Fed (33:02.23)
Yeah.

Thorsten (33:24.224)
And then if you have like two or three people off the front, one of them completely explodes and one of them limps across the finish line in fourth place to take a slot or something like that. that's kind of the race scenario I have in mind. And then who will decide to go with the front and who will decide to take a little bit more of a cautious approach. And in that scenario, Casper might be the one who tries to go with the suicide mission.

Fed (33:50.997)
Yeah.

Thorsten (33:51.394)
And Gustav and Christian may be the smarter racers or I don't know what Christian is going to do. I that's the strategy he used in Kona and it totally backfired on him. Could be an interesting one here, how much he races with heart or head.

Jenna-Caer (34:08.176)
Yeah, I think we're going to see a solid group off the like onto the bike here in this race either. There'll be a few off the front and then a few catching up from behind because we do have some serious bike power in this field. Like you mentioned a few names in there, but we'll have the Cam and Morris, St. Matthew Mark Bart, Gustav and Kristen. They like to be at the front anyways. If they're racing racing, they'll probably be pushing it. And curious to see if they have their Kona bike position or if they've modified that a little bit.

Fed (34:20.47)
Yes.

Thorsten (34:36.686)
I think I heard an interview with Gustav who said he now has his knees position, which is a little less stretched out than what he was in Kona. So it's probably not quite as aerodynamic, but gives him better descending skills. Let's put it that way.

Fed (34:44.897)
Mm.

Jenna-Caer (34:48.046)
There we go.

Jenna-Caer (34:55.234)
Yeah, this course definitely plays to some of the stronger bike riders because it's mostly flat. You can have wind, you can have heat. It's not a lot of climbing in there, I don't believe. So we could see some people challenging there. It's it's kind of easier it seems like to stay together unless they do have some insane crosswinds kind of blowing it around all over the place. We also got Rudy Munberg who he always seems to kind of fall through the cracks in these predictions, but he had an incredible Kona last year. Definitely showed his prowess at the Ironman distance.

Fed (35:15.712)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (35:25.138)
And then the I don't know if you guys knew the doctor Matthew Merckardt highlights the hair too.

Thorsten (35:30.158)
Yeah.

Fed (35:32.0)
Yeah.

Thorsten (35:35.256)
Yeah, with Mark Furt, we're still waiting for which tactic is he going to choose? Because I think last year he was like 10 minutes quicker than two years ago. Or he was five minutes faster on the bike and then ran 10 minutes slower, which is, guess, what you often see in Ironman. So which kind of effort does he choose for this year's bike ride? Will he try to go with the suicide mission or will he be one of the smarter ones?

and then runs quicker. How much camera time does he need for his sponsors?

Jenna-Caer (36:11.055)
And then we got some little classics in the field there.

Fed (36:11.323)
Yeah, yeah, especially, yeah.

Thorsten (36:16.79)
So but you mentioned Rudy and Rudy for me is kind of an interesting one because, well, he doesn't have a real weakness per se. But that also means he does not have a standout leg where he kind of grabs the race by the grabs the win of the race. So he needs to be maybe the best runner of the really fast bikers if he decides to go with them or put some time.

into those that can run faster. So it's kind of an interesting question of what's his winning strategy going to be like? Because if he races like he always does, yes, he does have a decent chance of winning the race, but he's not going to be very decisive in it. If he wants to take a decisive, what's the strategy for him? He needs to step up a little bit more. So I'm unsure how much he will go for the win.

in Texas then or whether he will just build towards his own Ironman knees.

Jenna-Caer (37:20.25)
Let's go for that qualification. Yeah, we've got a couple classics it feels like in the field here. We've got Ben Canute. We haven't seen a ton from him in the last few years. Like he's always kind of there or thereabouts. But he's definitely way down the list here. Someone who we used to be talking about more towards the win.

Fed (37:21.173)
Yeah.

Thorsten (37:38.232)
Yeah, Ben's another one who didn't have a good Kona last year. And he was with the group still on the bike and then didn't manage to put a good run together. That kind of drags him down. But he was awesome in road two years ago, three years ago when he set the US record for the Ironman distance. He could certainly be one who steps it up again. And after making a lot of changes in his setup, he moved to Boulder, changed coaches.

I don't know if he changed bike sponsors too or if he still was with Trek there. it will be an interesting one to see. mean, Oceanside went okay for him. I guess if you do, if you finish fifth in Oceanside of what probably was an Ironman prep, that's a decent result for him. it was focused on doing well in Ironman, that could be an interesting one to watch.

Fed (38:31.541)
Yeah, especially because Ben is a type of athlete who sort of like races into form. He sometimes uses races to get into the shape he needs to be. I remember, you know, 20, was it 2017 in Chattanooga where every nobody knew who he was. And then he was riding away from everyone. I think he has the ability of pulling a group and he's going to be a front pack swimmer. So.

Thorsten (38:49.4)
Mm-hmm.

Fed (39:00.061)
If we see, if we see that bank note is going to be definitely interesting and course wise, I believe that there's going to be a large chase group, so to speak. And the race dynamic might be influenced by that. And the likes of a Rudy von Berg might benefit from that because the course is not too tough for Uber bikers to ride away from everyone. And maybe if you can sit in the pack, within the legal distance.

you may benefit yourself and save your running legs for that. And I think the last couple of cone slots are going to be decided between who saved their legs best on that big chase pack.

Thorsten (39:45.902)
Yeah, to me, the last hour of the bike will be the sizing or a good indicator of what we can see on the run. We probably have that front pack way off trying to go for the sub four hour bike split and then ruin the run legs probably going for it. And then as you said, Fed, we probably have a pretty large chase pack that I see kind of breaking up in the last, I don't know, 45 minutes hour of the bike ride, depending on if maybe there's a wind blowing in the faces at that point.

Jenna-Caer (39:51.504)
Okay.

Fed (40:01.067)
Haha.

Thorsten (40:15.758)
where things get hard. So that could be one where maybe Rudy is able to kind of make the difference and bike a little bit away from those in the chase group that might have the faster run legs than him. Yeah, that could be the fun one. Again, the question, will the Norwegians do? Where will they kind of sort themselves in there? And we've never seen Christian really challenge for the win.

and not being able to pull through on the run. That was really always his strength, except for Kona last year.

Jenna-Caer (40:51.984)
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious, do you guys think that there'll be, will this race be affected by those athletes who are prioritizing going for that Nice qualification versus those who already have it? So someone like a Leon Chevalier, his only goal to be here is to get some points for the series and he's already got that Nice qualification. So he can go kind of full gas. Do you think we'll see people kind of playing it safe to get one of those top five spots or is everyone just going after it for the win?

Thorsten (41:21.624)
Well, if you look at Chevalier, what he's looking for is maybe not a corner slot, but he's looking to lose as, what's the correct grammar, as few points as possible. And that kind of is the same strategy that you probably need to be looking for if you're going for a knee slot. Maybe not do anything crazy to be able to win the race, but to just be like two or three minutes behind. And that'll give you a lot of points for the Pro Series.

Jenna-Caer (41:32.684)
Yeah, make every second count.

Fed (41:34.581)
Yeah.

Thorsten (41:50.966)
And that'll also be the time or the positions where the Kona slats, or the knee slots in this case, get decided. So I'm not sure how much they will change things per se. The thing that I would say is they make up the groups larger. And that'll be tricky one because with Race Ranger, it's a relatively easy job for the referees to decide if.

Fed (42:08.257)
you

Thorsten (42:18.51)
Someone has been blatantly drafting, let's put it that way. And lot of people have said that riding the 12 meter gap that Ironman mandates is really tricky with Race Ranger because you have to be mentally switched on all the time because you just run the risk. If you roll into the draft distance and the light goes red, then you have to pass.

Fed (42:21.141)
Yeah. Yeah.

Thorsten (42:46.432)
And if there's a long group, you may have to pass the whole group. that'll be mentally challenging for those who are not used to that kind of scenario. yeah, with so many Kona slots and with so many people racing there, you'll have huge groups. It'll be like Kona. And I guess that's what we heard from a lot of people about Kona in the past is that they're not used to riding these huge groups. And we're seeing that more and more in the regional championships.

Jenna-Caer (42:56.772)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jenna-Caer (43:15.864)
I think it's a little hard on the head and ego to let the big group in front of you go and you know they're going to be getting time on you in the run moving forward and I think we saw a lot of people blow their shot in Kona due to that last year.

Fed (43:22.666)
Ha!

Thorsten (43:27.586)
Yeah, but with Kona, mean, there's a lot of people who say there are no slots on the line, so you have to be either top 10 or go home. And nobody cares if you're 16th or 26th. That doesn't really make a difference in Kona. And if you've made it to Kona, you may just as well go for the really big results then, knowing that 99 % of the time it won't work out. But sometimes it does.

Fed (43:37.707)
Yeah.

Fed (43:54.291)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jenna-Caer (43:54.416)
absolutely great point in there. Well, let's go to our predictions here. Who do we think is going to take it in the men's side? We'll start again with you, Thorsten. Who's got this race?

Thorsten (44:03.63)
My sentimental pick would be Gustav because I really like that guy. I would be really happy if he's going to have another big result and as I want a German to win a Nice then he can't have Nice for me. So Gustav would be one but I think Christian is going to take this one.

Jenna-Caer (44:18.298)
This is

Fed (44:19.211)
Hehe.

Jenna-Caer (44:22.978)
Fair enough. How about you Fede? Who do you got?

Fed (44:23.393)
Mmm.

Well, yeah, with Thorsten, I really like Gustav and I think he deserves a big result. And if there are any triathlon gods, think with everything that Gustav has been going through, I would really like him to win. But with that said, I'm going to pick another Norwegian and go with Kasper. I think Kasper is going to go ahead and win it.

Thorsten (44:45.944)
Hahaha.

Jenna-Caer (44:46.288)
Okay.

Jenna-Caer (44:49.744)
Well, I'm glad you guys went with the sentiment, said, but because I wanted to go with Gustav Eden something and I think he's on the comeback here. Get a little bit of a confidence boost from 70.3 and Oceanside. He's been training with Kristen, so he's got to be up there, but I think he's on the comeback and a race like this where you have to play a little bit of the tactics and kind of not just go Polish off the front. I think we'll have a good day out there.

Thorsten (45:16.206)
I'm going to put up another prediction pick for you guys. With the Germans, always the, either winning Kona will be the first German in Frankfurt. Who's going to be the top US athlete in Texas?

Fed (45:26.251)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (45:30.98)
Ooh, you know, I think it's got to be Rudy Bonberg. He's just more consistent here, I think. I think he's got a good shot at that, but it would be great to see like a Ben Knute come through. How about you, Fed?

Fed (45:44.137)
Yeah, I'm probably with you. think Rudy is going to be first American. But Ben, like I said, if he has one of the races we know he's capable of, I think he could be minutes ahead of Rudy if he has that sort of race. But we'll see.

Thorsten (46:03.946)
I've got Matthew Markward ahead for 95 % of the race and then the last 5 % I guess Rudy will take over.

Fed (46:06.603)
Hmm.

Fed (46:10.209)
Ha!

Jenna-Caer (46:13.178)
There we go. We'll see if Mark Wart like balances out that bike run loss.

Thorsten (46:17.952)
Yeah, maybe. mean, he was part of that three men sprint finish two years ago with who else was in there? Rudy was in there, who won, and it was Wilko Vecchi or was it another Paul Stepniak? I think it was Wilko Vecchi who was in there and Matthew Markbard.

Fed (46:24.256)
Yeah.

Fed (46:28.129)
Rudy.

Jenna-Caer (46:28.656)
No.

Fed (46:34.657)
Mmm.

Jenna-Caer (46:35.576)
I want to see a finish like that so bad at this race. How epic would that be? And it looks like the weather is kind of changing and clearing up here for a while. looks like it looks like it was going to be stormy, but it's looking this morning and it might be hot and sunny. So we definitely will see how that plays out as well. Cause you know, you're either going to be hit with the storms and the brutal humidity or heat and humidity. So it's fun. Awesome.

Thorsten (46:39.688)
Yes.

Thorsten (47:00.778)
I mean the run in Texas, it's always a humid one because it's right next to the waterways there. That'll be an interesting one compared to Kona. It almost seems like it's Kona conditions but it's way colder in the morning in Texas so not sure how much you can compare that.

Jenna-Caer (47:16.058)
Yeah.

A lot more variance. Well, I'm looking forward to checking out Hippie Hollow. I'll be down there cheering everyone on for race day. I haven't actually spectated this race before. I of see it go down, so I'll be down there too. There we go. Get some on-the-course reporting as we go.

Fed (47:27.521)
Yeah.

Thorsten (47:29.486)
All right, at least one of us is going to be there.

Fed (47:31.797)
There we go.

Ha

Jenna-Caer (47:36.462)
Well, Thorsten, thank you so much for joining us here. It was really fun to be able to break it down and get some more of your insights because you have the data locked down and it's fun to see how those predictions will come through this weekend. Thanks for joining us.

Thorsten (47:49.122)
Well, always fun and I love to talk about the races either before the races, during the races, after the races, run the numbers as much as I can. So always happy if I get the chance to talk a little bit more than just put up a post with a bunch of numbers. Thanks for the chance to do that.

Fed (47:49.216)
Yeah.

Jenna-Caer (48:08.932)
Yeah, absolutely.

Fed (48:09.439)
Yeah, we really need to have you, we really need to have you back on more episodes because well, especially I wanted to thank you because way back when this is way back when the internet started. No, I'm kidding. But when there wasn't, when there weren't that many triathlon outlooks on the internet, TriRating was probably the website where we got all our course reviews.

Jenna-Caer (48:13.114)
definitely.

Fed (48:35.303)
all of the athlete information we needed, the Kona qualification spot. So just a big thank you from the triathlon community because you helped a lot of athletes with the course ratings and all of that. So you don't know how many people you've helped with that. So I just thank you from the triathlon community on their behalf.

Jenna-Caer (48:40.816)
you

Thorsten (48:54.904)
Well, thank you. And that's part of why I started it because I enjoy it as much and I want to make more of the knowledge about the races and the courses and the results and the athletes available and helping push out the stories maybe from a numbers perspective, but still from heartfelt support for the pros in there and kind of enjoying the races through the lens of the pros racing there. That's always been what I do.

Thank you for your words and it's great that the work that I've done and that I've put in there is noticed and that's the feedback I get from a lot of people that yeah, it might take them a little while to get to that short posts and the numbers that I put up there, but there's a lot of work behind it and a lot of meaning in there.

Fed (49:42.517)
Yeah, 100%.

Jenna-Caer (49:43.568)
Absolutely, well we sure appreciate it. Well everyone tune in this weekend Ironman Texas is going to be an epic race to watch and you can go check out where you can see it on the Ironman site. I believe they'll have it on outside and if you're in a few regions you get to watch it on YouTube instead of the outside app so we will be watching and stay tuned on... either way we get all the ads.

Fed (50:01.185)
Hehehe.

Thorsten (50:03.608)
We still get the ads though.

Fed (50:05.567)
Yeah, horrible.

Jenna-Caer (50:08.976)
Stay tuned, go check out at another Triathlon podcast. I'll be on course. So I'll be doing some live updates on race day there too. But thanks again, Thorsten, for joining us and yeah, we'll definitely have to have you back.

Thorsten (50:22.07)
Anytime. Thank you.

Fed (50:24.161)
Thank you guys.