Episode 111 – Ironman World Championship (Men’s) Preview: Nice Is Going to Explode

It’s finally here – the 2025 Ironman World Championship (Men’s) in Nice, France – and this episode is our full breakdown of one of the most stacked men’s fields we’ve seen in years.

From Sam Laidlow’s fearless bike attacks to Patrick Lange’s surgical run splits… from Rudy Von Berg’s home-course advantage to Jonas Schomburg’s “if he dies, he dies” race style… this episode is full-on predictions, analysis, and hot takes.

We cover:
 🚴 Who’s going all-in on the bike – and who might blow up
 🏃 Why Patrick Lange could win his 4th title
🔥 The quiet contenders (Magnus Ditlev, Martin Van Riel, Rudy Von Berg)
⚙️ The taper strategies, late-into-the-week bricks, and gear hacks pros are using to peak for Nice
📉 Will the happy Gustav Iden show up in peak form… or get outrun?
🛠️ What’s up with Cam Wurf’s 230k ride the week before Worlds?
⛓️ How this course changes everything with long climbs, fast descents, and high risk of implosion

Plus:

• We each pick our top 3 podium predictions (with zero consensus)
• And go deep into the new Ironman age group slot allocation system, why it’s flawed, and how a woman who finished 2nd overall didn’t get a Kona slot.

This is the ultimate preview episode for triathlon’s biggest showdown of the year.

🎧 Tune in now and let us know your podium picks!

Hosted by @jennacaer
, @joshmvernon
, and @fredrikson.12

Presented by @maunaapparel

Follow the show: @anothertriathlonpodcast

#ironmanworldchampionship #triathlonpreview #ironmannice #longdistancetriathlon #triathletelife #protriathlete #kona2025 #ironmantriathlon #triathlontalk #anothertriathlonpodcast #maunaapparel

Transcript

Another Triathlon Pod (00:01.926)
Welcome back to another Trap On podcast brought to you by Mana Apparel. This is it. We are fully into the championship season. We've got the Ironman World Championships in Nice this weekend for the men. And wow, is there a killer field. I don't know if we've seen a field this competitive in quite a while and all of the big stars are out there. So we are going to break it down and see, make some predictions, what we think is going to happen and who to watch for in the pro field. But first.

Let's catch up with the crew and see what they've been up to. Let's start off with you, Feday. What's going on?

Fed (00:34.463)
Yeah, so before we started recording I was talking to Josh that I got an email for the New York Marathon that today was my last day to to check in on the

Josh (00:45.07)
After I updated him last week.

Another Triathlon Pod (00:46.406)
A week ago.

Fed (00:48.653)
No, but hey, listen to me. Last week was the big pickup. This week was the boss ride to the start line. So of course I did that last minute and picked whatever. So I was like, I'm going to get there by myself. Don't worry about me. I do not need a boss. So yeah, that's up with me. I did a...

I did a hundred K bike ride last weekend, felt good and a little of a run off the bike. So yeah, doing the volume, like the longer hours on the bike to save the legs for the, for the quality and for the tempos and all of that. And I think that especially as a strafid, when we're getting ready for a, for a marathon, that it's like, like a cheat code.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:21.776)
Awesome.

Fed (01:45.509)
to be able to spend hours and hours on end on the bike and then just do the quality on the run that saves the legs so much. Yes, I'm tired, but injury prevention wise, I think that's a way to go. yeah, that's that.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:49.094)
Mm-hmm.

Another Triathlon Pod (02:01.348)
Yeah, still get that aerobic volume in and it's just so much less stressful on your body. It's crazy.

Josh (02:07.052)
I sent him a message afterwards too. was like, it was great to finally see some Feday on the bike content that we haven't been seeing. was like, there's the guy that we missed. There's the one that we know. So that was good to see on our, on our end. I've actually had a bunch of people ask, that are battling some niggles injuries, getting into late marathon training and whether or not they, could use, replace long runs with, with bike sessions if, cause it was that bad of.

Fed (02:07.419)
totally.

Fed (02:12.453)
Hahaha

Another Triathlon Pod (02:12.665)
Yeah.

Fed (02:16.277)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (02:16.774)
you

Josh (02:36.046)
the pain that they were dealing with currently. And, sure enough, people were out there riding the bike. mean, as we all know that that fitness does translate. It's not the same. You're not getting those that time on the feed. And, and really there's been a lot of stuff that I've been reading in this marathon block, especially about. If you are somebody who's putting in a lot of miles per week, it's not so much about the 22 mile long run. It's not so much about the, it's really about that time that the two hour, the two 30 mark.

Fed (02:41.435)
All

Josh (03:06.038)
And you don't really need to go longer. doesn't have to be 22 hours, 22 miles or whatever it may be. So it's really more about the, the, the time and not so much the distance that a lot of those higher echelon athletes that are training at. So I think it's really just more matter for me. It hit because I didn't finish my long run on Saturday. I got most of it done. rolled my ankle coming, coming in with two miles to go.

Fed (03:09.883)
Good.

Josh (03:33.376)
And I was like, this isn't worth it, to run another two miles and rather get home and get some ice on this and prevent anything from happening. And fair enough. It's fine. so now I, now I got to jump, it was supposed to be 14 miles at pace and yeah, it was a long, it was a big effort. now this week's 16 miles at pace with 20 total.

Another Triathlon Pod (03:44.379)
Good.

Another Triathlon Pod (03:51.331)
Wow.

Fed (03:56.911)
Oof.

Josh (03:58.988)
But really just breaking it down mile by mile. like, Hey, I can handle seven minutes. can handle six 45. I get like that, like just that time in, as opposed to the total distance itself. And, and I've started to find like different tracks to do it on like out and backs and like, Hey, I can get to the end and turn around and go back. like, just, just different ways to break it all up. this block means a lot to me. So it's been, really important to, find different ways to stay motivated and find different ways to.

Fed (04:15.471)
Yeah.

Josh (04:27.822)
Like even today I'd ran my six mile, my, my mile repeats on a different road that I've never run on before really, other than like a long run, like jog. And I found it, it was like a dead mile straight and with one little, one little turn. And so I didn't have to worry about turning or traffic really much and out and back, out and back. One was a little hillier going up. One was a little downhill coming back. So kind of good little out and back repeats, but, yeah, I've just,

I've missed seeing fed doing all his workouts. So it's good to have him back getting ready for New York and it's going be a nice little rendezvous if he ever gets to the start line and gets his.

Fed (05:02.606)
Yeah.

Fed (05:06.061)
Yeah, rendezvous, yeah. man.

Josh (05:10.38)
But I'll be, I'll be following his footsteps on that day. Chicago's, looking good. And, it's today was like one of the first days I've run in weather that could potentially be Chicago weather or what I hope to be Chicago weather. It's been like, it was like 47 degrees here this morning. I was like driving my daughter to school at six 30 and it was 47 degrees. was like, this would be perfect at 7 a.m. on October 12th.

Another Triathlon Pod (05:10.381)
about the...

Fed (05:39.13)
now.

Another Triathlon Pod (05:39.43)
That's awesome. Well, good to hear that it's going well and you're kind of getting that volume and listening to your body when things come up. That's the biggest thing, right? Because so many athletes would push through that ankle deal and just, no, it's fine. I got to get the miles in. Got to hit this magic number and ignore those signs from the body. And that is not the right way to go. Instead, pulled up, ice it, and you're good to keep training.

Fed (05:42.875)
Now.

Josh (06:03.522)
Yeah, the, the, what I did in Boston really helps with that mindset too, because look, my longest run, I did what a couple of weekends of 14 miles and ran my PR at Boston. So having that in my head and knowing that as long as I get to the start line fresh at this point, there's a lot of boxes we can check along the way still. And today was one of them. And the long run this weekend is going to be a really big one.

Fed (06:04.155)
Yeah.

Fed (06:10.747)
Thank

Josh (06:31.534)
But even if I don't hate it perfectly, I still know I'm in way better shape. Those Facebook memories and Strava memories are hilarious right now. Like what I was doing before Chicago last year on these dates. And two years ago, I was getting ready to run my first ever marathon tomorrow. And that ended up being a 435 marathon. So I think I'm doing all right.

Another Triathlon Pod (06:35.972)
Yeah.

Fed (06:43.612)
Ha ha ha.

Another Triathlon Pod (06:54.95)
Definitely. Yeah, that's interesting. You bring up that, that two hour mark is kind of where the pros and fast runners will kind of call it in there. For age groupers, it's around that, three hours, three hours is kind of that tipping point where if you run more than that,

the risk and the level of fatigue often aren't worth it, right? So even if you're going to be doing on the course for four or four and a half hours kind of thing, it's better to use the volume through the week to get that time on your feet to have that cumulative fatigue. So once you hit kind of over three hours, that's when, you know, great, you hit a four hour long run, but then you're trash for the next three, four days and not putting in anything.

Finding that balancing point where you can get those big solid sessions in and get that time on your feet, but still be able to train the rest of the week is definitely key.

Josh (07:42.862)
Exactly. Especially if they're only, you're only able to get like 15, 15 miles in during the week too. Right. And then all of a sudden you've got 20 and three hours or whatever it may take you. So yeah, it's, it's important not to tax yourself for the next week. Cause every, every week stacking every year stacking and, and, and it's super important to a show up healthy on race day.

Fed (07:49.627)
You

Another Triathlon Pod (07:58.278)
Oily.

Fed (08:00.613)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (08:06.031)
Goal number one, that's what we're seeing especially a lot in the pro field here. A couple people who are either just squeaking in healthy enough and a few that will be out because of injuries and crashes and stuff, but we'll definitely dive a lot more into that later.

Josh (08:19.928)
How is your training going for the HUT World Championship coming up on October 11th?

Another Triathlon Pod (08:27.845)
I need to do some more heat training, speaking of hot. I need to get some time in the sauna there. But yeah, it was good. I went out and had a long ride on the weekend here. I haven't had as much outdoor ride time as I would like this year, because we just had the worst summer. Usually we're known for blue skies, 300 days of sunshine. I got hit with rain and hail and flat tires on every single ride I went out for this year. So was starting to get a little gun shy if I didn't have someone that I could call to come pick me up.

Fed (08:31.194)
Ha

Fed (08:52.484)
Hey.

Josh (08:54.734)
and

Another Triathlon Pod (08:56.901)
But finally got up for a ride, got a flat before the ride started, so changed the flat and then went on my long ride there. There we go, right? So much easier. But needed to get out there, spend the time in TT position and stuff.

Fed (09:01.307)
See, that's why I never leave the trainer. It's all about efficiency.

Another Triathlon Pod (09:15.491)
This weekend was kind of one those good reminders. It's been pretty full gas the last little while with some work stuff and I had a kind of lung-ish run on Saturday and I was just, it was a bit of speed in there and I've been doing mostly kind of aerobic stuff. My hips were tightening up, I wasn't able to hit the last few paces and just like my legs were actually sore and achy which...

Fed (09:30.907)
you

Another Triathlon Pod (09:38.02)
I don't feel like super often, it's usually the fitness at a level where you're fine, right? But I hadn't done that speed work, so I was just suffering after that run. was like hobbling around and like, it's not great, but. When did the long run the next day? And it was kind of a wide range of like four to six hours, just anywhere in there.

Fed (09:43.085)
Yeah.

Fed (09:49.979)
Hahaha.

Another Triathlon Pod (09:58.886)
And the first two hours, I was suffering. Like I was in TT position, my hips were sore and tight and I'm just like, I'm not, I don't know if I'm going to make it four hours, nevermind. Six in there. But the cool thing was things loosened up as I went through the ride. The first two hours felt terrible.

Fed (10:09.124)
Yes.

Another Triathlon Pod (10:17.594)
But then from like hour three to five, I felt amazing. Everything started clicking, losing up, moving better. And hour five was, or hour six was fine. So it was one of those good reminders where you don't necessarily have to feel amazing at the start of a workout or a race or anything else. Sometimes your body just needs that time to loosen up, kind of get clicking again, and it can turn out to be something pretty great. like I negative split my power on the ride and felt way better in the last hour than the first hour.

So sometimes it's good to have those reminders.

Josh (10:51.726)
Especially for a race, right? Because not very many races that we do, do you get a full warmup like you would get for a training run or a training ride, right? I mean, you can do whatever you need to do, spend the time you need to do to get ready for that. You get to a race, like half the time you can't even get in the water. And you're certainly not getting warmed up and doing your band work and shoulder stretches. And you hear the pros even talk about it. think like Paula talked about it. She's like, just, I can't.

Another Triathlon Pod (10:59.854)
for sure, yeah.

Fed (11:10.064)
Yeah.

Fed (11:16.666)
Mm.

Josh (11:21.174)
swim anymore because I just don't feel like I can start the way I normally did. it certainly impacts you. So I've found in some of the, especially the marathon, like, cause you're literally, it's like, go, like it's you're running the same damn pace for 26 miles and it's got to start in mile one or pretty close to it. You're gonna feel not perfect usually for those first few miles and.

Fed (11:37.872)
Yeah.

Fed (11:46.491)
yeah.

Josh (11:47.594)
Even on my normal training runs, takes a mile or two to start to get into a groove and flow. So yeah, that's a really good reminder for everyone out there to like, don't let your mind play games with you early on and get through it. And if something pops up at like mile five, it still might go away. Like, I mean, I've dealt with like the numbness of the feet because your feet are swirled up a little bit and then that'll go away. And there's so many things that will pop up now if something pops up a mile 20.

Another Triathlon Pod (11:57.158)
Thank you.

that's excited.

Another Triathlon Pod (12:07.494)
Thank you.

Josh (12:16.482)
That's just your brain telling you you're going a little too far right now, that's where you just got to be a little psycho.

Another Triathlon Pod (12:22.898)
Pardon the F up. No, totally. So yeah, no, that was really encouraging. But today I got to do something fun. I had an acting job where I shoot commercials here and there just for fun. And about 50 % of the time I'm hired because I can ride a bicycle or run really far. So it was so much fun. We traveled up to this beautiful place.

Fed (12:23.725)
Alright.

Fed (12:41.431)
yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (12:46.436)
And the fun part with these active commercials, they always want you to go uphill, because that's the shot that looks so much better than everything else. So it was literally like 50 meters up a hill, back down, up a hill, back down. And they had shot the day before with an actor who has a bicycle. And they kept asking me, like, do you need a break? Are you OK? And the producer at first was like,

Fed (12:51.515)
of course, of course.

Another Triathlon Pod (13:09.706)
we need you to like just try to get some speed going up this thing like we really want to make it look like you're working hard kind of thing so I do the first run last habit and he's like can you slow it down a little bit yeah that's good so that was kind of fun apparently we shot everything a lot faster because they could just go up the hill and reset go up the hill reset they're like are you good? I'm like yeah so but

Fed (13:18.299)
500 watts

Yeah

Fed (13:27.611)
So good.

Fed (13:35.929)
What do you mean?

Josh (13:35.936)
As long as I can keep track of this, hold on, let me hit the lab button.

Another Triathlon Pod (13:38.98)
Totally. It's so funny if you see my Strava, the first bit was like 50 meters that I did over the first four miles was 50 meters up, back down, up, back down. Then I got to go around the lake a couple times. So switched it up a little bit. It's a tough job when I have to go play on my bicycle all day. A little bit of dodging the cameraman coming up. No, so that was a blast. Nice to kind of mix it up and.

Fed (13:39.535)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh (13:47.214)
and forth.

Fed (13:49.498)
Yeah.

Josh (13:58.04)
Yeah. Somebody's gotta do it.

Fed (13:58.811)
Yeah.

Fed (14:03.285)
So I'm just gonna do it.

Another Triathlon Pod (14:06.886)
Well, a bit of a recovery day-ish. But let's jump into it. There weren't any big races this weekend. We had a couple pro races but nothing on the pro series or T100 or anything else because everyone is getting ready for the Ironman World Championships in Nice. Before I dive into that though, because I have a feeling we're going to go for a while on it, I want to bring up our What the F in social media post of week.

Fed (14:09.979)
Yeah.

Fed (14:21.306)
Mm-hmm.

Fed (14:27.631)
Yep.

Another Triathlon Pod (14:34.734)
And Josh, you can use the one I was talking about earlier, because I just remembered another What the F for this week.

Josh (14:39.534)
Well, I have the social media post, like, because I was going to talk about what happened at Wisconsin and the female roll down and how the whole age group, the age, yeah. So that got a lot of traction on our social media story the other day, like crazier traction than views and reactions and comments, more so than we've ever seen on our social media page. So yeah, if you haven't seen or heard,

Fed (14:42.395)
Okay.

Fed (14:48.11)
Hmm.

Another Triathlon Pod (14:50.931)
good call. Yeah. Okay.

Josh (15:09.428)
At this point, they were now about a month or two into the new slot allocation age group rankings for both 70.3s and, and Ironmans in 2026 and beyond. Which goes back to the last five years of data in Kona and Nice World Championships at that distance. So in Wisconsin, they had 40 slots and in the Ironman world, it's one.

ranking system for men and women. And if you win your age group, you get an automatic slot. You can take it or not. And if you don't take it, it goes to second. If second doesn't take it goes to third. If third doesn't take it, goes into the pool of 40 slots. And every age group in Wisconsin, every age group winner or second place took their slot. So they were all taken. And then I think one went to third on the woman's side, but

Another Triathlon Pod (15:53.236)
Yeah.

Fed (16:02.991)
Hmm.

Josh (16:07.214)
Not a single one went into the pool. So I think that left that. So that left maybe 24 slots. I think it was like whatever 16 age groups or something like that total. Um, and after that was all said and done, it slid down to number 32 on the slot allocation. So now remember I was ranked 71st at Oregon and, and got a

Fed (16:10.628)
Wow.

Josh (16:34.894)
Got a spot and it went to like one 22. Cause that was just all men in the 70.3 world on the female side. went to like 60 something in Wisconsin. It only dropped down to the 32 ranked age adjusted time. And that ended up being about a nine, 19, nine 20, something in that range is what you would have needed in your age adjusted world. The one of the last two slots, the kid was in the zero adjustment group. He did a nine 18.

Fed (16:51.867)
Josh (17:04.622)
34 or something like that. was his actual time. And he got one of the last three slots. and that's where I got a lot of my data from, from a guy, Brett Musco. he had just done challenge raw. So he was kind of like not really expecting much from Wisconsin, but he got his, got his cone of slot. With that said, I started looking at the data and pulled up all of the top 100. Let's start there. And notice there were only 16 females in that top 100.

Fed (17:06.254)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (17:27.481)
You

Josh (17:32.067)
The number one ranked person was a male 60 to 64, his 10 and a half hour Ironman adjusted down to like eight something. so he was the number one ranked overall. Again, you start looking at it's, it's a lot of the males 50 plus that are up at the top of the charts. and it was a lot of, a of, a lot of the fast guys, like there were so many super fast male age groupers at this race.

Another Triathlon Pod (17:49.093)
Yeah.

Josh (17:58.671)
Not so much on the female side because a lot of them have already qualified for Kona and they're not going to do an Ironman. What are we five weeks out? Right. So there probably wasn't as many females there and the males who were doing an Ironman are in Nice or they're qualifying for next year. So it was a pretty stacked field for the men. That all said there were only 16 females in the top 100. There was about 22 % of female finishers. So we're down in that top 100.

Another Triathlon Pod (18:06.488)
weeks yeah.

Josh (18:29.642)
One of the females was finished second in her age group and third overall and did not get a slot to Kona.

Another Triathlon Pod (18:42.138)
That is brutal. That is

Fed (18:42.34)
Wow.

Josh (18:44.192)
So yeah, and that really starts to like make you wonder like, okay, do we need to go to top three overall, top five overall? we kind of asked Scott Darue about this when we had him on in July. And, but it was more around the 70.3 slot allocations, like the age groups, right? Like, did you talk about doing that? There's no allocation for overall whatsoever.

Fed (19:08.475)
Yeah.

Josh (19:14.434)
So maybe is that, is that an adjustment you guys like, that's where I think it needs to go. Like the top three, top five overall need to get a slot. And what is that number? I don't know. I don't think there is a perfect answer. And, and obviously this is all going to play out differently as we go through the year, but this is one of those cases where it's like, she had a time that was legit fast in the female world. And who knows if she's going to be able to do another Ironman in time for Kono or like if things happen. So.

Another Triathlon Pod (19:26.671)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (19:43.183)
Yeah

Josh (19:43.619)
I don't know, what are you guys thoughts on all that? We had a lot of comments, we had a lot of feedback and on both sides of the fence. But my take is maybe the adjustments as simple as top overall, whatever that number may be, get a slot. And then we go to the age group and then we go to the slot downs.

Another Triathlon Pod (20:02.116)
Yeah, I mean, I top five overall because I've been second, fourth, fourth overall. But yeah, this formula still needs some tweaking, right? And even like, yeah, we have Kona coming up, but we also have knees coming up. So we're not having the top of either the men or the women's racers kind of out there. this, looking at the age groups and stuff, I think you just still, the data is not

Josh (20:06.828)
hahahaha

Fed (20:08.911)
Yeah

Fed (20:17.413)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (20:31.312)
quite right when you're looking, if when you're using Kona as an example, right? So there are gonna be some differences on a course that's more challenging. Where I see this really becoming a problem is on flat courses where we all know there are draft packs out there, right? And more so on the men's side, just because there are more men coming out of the water at the same time because they're a bigger portion of the field, right?

So if you have these trough packs with a bunch of guys all riding together, they're gonna finish in more of a similar range. So that could be like 20, 30 guys all together, right? And that's, those are all the slots in there where most of the time the women are more spread out just because there are less of us and we're further through the field, right? So I think it just, there needs to be some tweaking here. Cause if you think about this conversation about

Josh (21:02.584)
Pull in that 20%, yeah.

Fed (21:05.411)
easily.

Another Triathlon Pod (21:23.142)
Women taking their pro cards versus men taking their pro cards, right? If you're if you can't qualify for Kona and you're coming top two like could be second You could be third overall second overall and not get that Kona spot if you're not qualifying for Kona as an age-grouper There's no way that you're taking your pro card because you think well I can't even call five or Kona where you have these You know 30 other guys who qualified for Kona like hey, I'm good enough to qualify for Kona Maybe I'll think about taking that pro card

Does that make sense? Kind of that headspace, like that you're that good and that close to the top. You're never going to consider taking a pro card, even though you are in that top, what, 1%, 2 % kind of thing.

Josh (21:53.752)
Yeah.

Fed (21:54.392)
Yeah, totally.

Fed (21:59.749)
Mm.

Josh (22:03.712)
And because there was one girl in your age group who just happened to be the fastest one that day. And you weren't an hour behind her.

Another Triathlon Pod (22:07.302)
Exactly, yeah. No, it's like minutes. So I don't know, I like the concept of this performance pool. I think that's pretty cool, but I think they need to do a lot more tweaking on this algorithm because you can't look at something like Kono where the top like...

people in the younger age groups are going to be tightly packed and then you go into the 50s and 60s, they're going to be a lot more spread out and that is skewing these results significantly because the top 20 % of the 60 year olds might be a two hour spread, where the top 20 % of the 30 year olds could be a 20, 30 minute spread. So it's just skewing towards those older age groups at the moment. And how they fix that, I don't know.

Josh (22:46.328)
Yep.

Fed (22:46.362)
Yeah.

Fed (22:50.779)
Yeah, I agree. mean, this new system, I'm all for it. And we discussed it. And I think we all agree. But when it comes to numbers and statistics, unfortunately, the outliers get left out, which is what just happened. You did an amazing race, but then again, the math, it's not math thing to help you.

Yeah, I think there needs to be some sort of adjustment to these sort of performances where top athletes get a slot because it's not on this specific case. I don't think it's fair to the athlete. But yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Another Triathlon Pod (23:32.324)
Yeah, I think something like a top three overall makes sense to have like those three qualifier spots, right? Like top overall, male or female, you obviously have a caliper that's good enough to go to Kona, right?

Fed (23:44.203)
Yes. Yeah.

Josh (23:46.433)
talking the Ironman distance too, right? It doesn't have to change in the 70.3 world. don't think, I don't think we've. Right. Like because that is two separate days, we've got full racks of, both male and for females. But when you're fighting over how many racks and bikes that can get into Kona and in transition, it does matter. And then I think that that is, this is a huge week for the pro world. And I want, I don't, feel like this is going to get kind of like.

Another Triathlon Pod (23:50.743)
Yeah, separate.

Fed (23:51.236)
Right.

Josh (24:15.608)
shoveled under the rug here a little bit, but I want to keep it out there for people because I think it is a conversation that needs to continue to happen. And we're going to see it play out. But I think this conversation and pointing back to Wisconsin this past weekend is something that we can look at. Hey, look, it's also a reminder to go out and finish strong. I bel, and I believe she actually did. She actually passed somebody on the carpet to get to that third place too. But the girl she passed probably won her age group was an older lady and.

Fed (24:34.938)
Yeah.

Josh (24:45.698)
So, but I know there was a guy who missed his Kona slot by one second. So, I mean, think about, right. And he's missed 70.3 worlds by one second before. Like, so this, this whole one second thing is a big thing in his world. but this is the new way of racing too. And I saw somebody else post like somebody kind of like shoving their way down the carpet to get in front of them on a finish line. Like this is what's.

Fed (24:58.671)
Man.

Josh (25:13.312)
I actually, that was at Santa Cruz. Somebody kind of like shoved their way around, Chris from, CJ media. and I was like, look, dude, that that's going to be the case. Like they don't know who you are and what age group you're in. And we all got to beat the person in front of us. Right. So every second matters now in this new world. And literally one dude missed by Kona by one second. so, and that was it. That was it Wisconsin as well. So there was a lot of different things in play.

Another Triathlon Pod (25:27.462)
And he started.

Fed (25:29.445)
Yep.

Josh (25:42.988)
But top three overall and you're not in Kona, that's

Another Triathlon Pod (25:45.894)
Yeah, no, that's weird. But unfortunately, it's, we say all this, but it's nothing new either. It's something that's happened many times before in the women's field, because oftentimes they'd only have one slot for each group until you got into kind of late 30s and early 40s. So if you're younger than 35 and racing and came in the top overall in the previous system, there's a good chance you didn't get a Kona spot either.

Fed (26:09.999)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (26:10.816)
It's tough. I think that's kind of the big thing. If you want more women to be pros and kind of take that field, then they need to have more opportunities because if you can't even qualify for Kona as an age group, you're not thinking I'm going to become a pro athlete by any means.

Fed (26:25.495)
Absolutely not. Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (26:27.84)
And it is. Well, we will definitely keep looking at this and I think it'll be good to get a full view of an entire year what that field in Kona looks like after we have a year of this new system to see what those percentages even out as. I will say if you are looking to get a Kona spot as a female athlete, look towards those hillier, harder courses because that'll spread out the fields more so. So that may make it a little, little bit more of a chance.

Fed (26:50.266)
Yeah.

Josh (26:55.882)
something like Cozumel where there's a hundred slots, races like that too. So I think you, like you said, Jenna, it's going to play out. I think we have to wait until the crowd that's in Kona this year gets back and starts doing their next seasons Kona qualification races. And that's going to really be telling, right? Like, cause none of them, none of the ones that are actually competing for top three overall top five overall.

Another Triathlon Pod (27:07.63)
Yeah.

Fed (27:08.943)
Yeah.

Fed (27:14.725)
Mmm.

Josh (27:24.128)
Or their age groups are really racing right now. They're, they're, they're, they're ready for, for Hawaii. I know my coach left for Arizona for heat prep today. and she's potentially a top five, top 10 overall, definitely in her age group for sure. So let's let them race in October and then let's see what starts to happen in January, February, March, whatever they start to start racing again.

Another Triathlon Pod (27:51.622)
Well, let's go on to What the F then, I'll bring up my original one because this guy, this guy, I was kind of laughing at the T100 drama and stuff because it's like okay he's bringing

Fed (27:59.707)
Ha!

Josh (28:00.271)
Sorry, sorry.

Fed (28:04.985)
My god.

Another Triathlon Pod (28:13.626)
This guy Tommy Fury is bringing attention to the sport. Yeah, he didn't make the cutoffs and did a post about how he finished a T100 and 10 days of training and stuff and really he didn't. But.

He comes back to us with another insurance sports drama. If you guys haven't checked it out, we'll put up on our Instagram stories. But this guy did a half marathon this weekend and you see him running towards the finish line and we've all seen his run form down the finish line in the T100 video. He literally elbows guys out of the way, like full on pushes them out of his way. Like, yeah.

Fed (28:47.823)
Yeah.

Josh (28:48.334)
150 pounds heavier than the dude that he knocks over.

Another Triathlon Pod (28:51.398)
Like what 50 feet from the finish line and he's just I'm like dude, that's not what this board is about, right? He says he ran a 134 or something sure

Fed (28:51.93)
Heh.

Fed (28:55.643)
Man.

Fed (29:01.401)
Yeah.

Fed (29:06.201)
Yeah, what, 10Ks?

Josh (29:11.426)
many corners did he cut on this one?

Fed (29:13.113)
Yeah, yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (29:13.222)
Man, I mean, it's good when people bring attention to the sport, like I said, kind of laughing at that T100 thing, but if you're going to be a dick out there, elbowing people down the finish line, like you could have knocked some of these guys over. He's that much bigger than them kind of thing. That's not cool. That's not what our sport is about.

Josh (29:32.396)
And if you got that much left in the tank for a sprint finish, two weeks in a row, two out of three, you didn't run the damn race correctly.

Fed (29:36.845)
Yes.

Another Triathlon Pod (29:39.098)
for your body checking.

Fed (29:41.051)
Every yeah, thank you, Josh. Thank you. Every time I see people sprinting towards the finish line. I'm like you left so much in the tank. Yeah Yeah, no, you're not Christian Blumenfeld. Yeah, no

Josh (29:49.676)
running 420 per mile pace. Like, where did that come from?

Another Triathlon Pod (29:58.954)
Cribs kickin'. Oh man. All you can do is kind of shake your head and laugh at it. This guy's been, um, it seems like he's quite the character, but this is a case of don't be that guy. There's no reason to be body checking people down the finish line. I don't care how bad you want that Kona spot. Don't. Just don't do it.

Josh (30:07.566)
Yeah.

Fed (30:10.959)
Don't.

Fed (30:14.779)
.

Yeah, don't.

Josh (30:19.434)
in a park run.

Fed (30:21.348)
Ha!

Another Triathlon Pod (30:22.001)
He came in like 2000th place or something. Dude. Dude.

Fed (30:25.99)
Well.

Josh (30:29.998)
And here I am applying for the Boston Marathon for the first time with a BQ and knowing I'm not getting in this guy's frickin elbowing people in a park run like come on

Fed (30:30.123)
You know far from.

Another Triathlon Pod (30:39.044)
Yeah, insane. Let's jump into some talk about real traveling center.

Fed (30:40.341)
Yeah, what are we doing?

Fed (30:48.285)
Haha

Which, mean, to, just before we jump into this, to Piri's point, there are some elbows and punching, but that's usually during the swim on a WTCS start. Other than that, there's nobody pushing and punching anyone else besides the start of the swim because they're fighting to get to the buoy first. And this guy wasn't fighting to get to any place first, so.

Another Triathlon Pod (31:03.088)
true.

Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (31:11.621)
Cool.

Josh (31:18.409)
Local half marathon.

Another Triathlon Pod (31:18.576)
You know, he had to get to 2000th place overall. Come on, he was fighting.

Fed (31:23.355)
yeah, makes sense now, of course, yeah. Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (31:30.086)
my god.

Josh (31:31.278)
think you got that 134 confused with a 234, but whatever.

Fed (31:37.154)
It could be.

Another Triathlon Pod (31:39.334)
Well, hopefully, if anything, hopefully he's bringing attention to insurance sports outside of it through some questionable methods, we'll say. Let's jump into it. We've got the Ironman World Championships happening in Nice for the men's race, and I can't believe it's already here. This field, I am so excited about this race, more so than I've been in a couple of years because we've got

Fed (31:45.699)
Fed (31:50.053)
Yeah.

Fed (31:54.843)
Everyone.

Another Triathlon Pod (32:06.294)
everyone in this field. We've got previous winners like Christian Blumenfeld, three-time winner Patrick Langeau. my goodness, everyone in this. Gustav Eden will be there and it seems like he's back on form. But the thing that kind of excites me about this race is we have some people who are very strong in different disciplines that are going to shake it up completely. This is one of the most, I think, swim-heavy groups we've had. That's my two athletes moving across.

Fed (32:29.449)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (32:32.58)
And then we've got some insane bike power coming out the back and then some crazy runners where I wouldn't be surprised if we see a couple 230 or under well, depending on how hard they push themselves on it.

Fed (32:41.124)
Yeah.

Josh (32:42.368)
You might need a 225 if you're Patrick Lang over this year.

Another Triathlon Pod (32:45.818)
man you never know well so yeah I don't I don't even know where to start with this like this is absolutely insane we've got how about we break down some of the the favorites going in let's do it Christian

Fed (32:45.946)
Yeah.

Josh (32:57.934)
Man, let's start with the swim. And then we can go into the favorites from there. This is going to start, right? Because you started to mention it. It's going to start with Jonas Schomburg, Jamie Riddle, and Sam Laidlaw, probably off the front and gone. And how does that play out? And does Jamie Riddle just ride his legs dirty?

Fed (32:58.98)
Let's.

Another Triathlon Pod (33:03.696)
way.

Fed (33:03.704)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (33:10.798)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Josh (33:22.862)
until Jonas and Sam say, thanks very much, bud. We got this from here. and, and as long as Jonas's cockpit stays together and he's ready to ride, like I'm, I'm concerned, like no one's talking about Jonas Schomburg in this race.

Fed (33:27.515)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (33:27.972)
Yeah, see you later.

Another Triathlon Pod (33:39.984)
Yeah. And you know, I love Jonas Schomburg because he just has that style where he goes out, he goes hard, he's either going to hang on or implode spectacularly. Like he's just fearless in this. And we have that same kind of thing with Sam Laidlaw too. They just go for it. And it's so much fun to watch.

Fed (33:50.852)
Yeah.

Fed (33:55.643)
Yep.

Josh (33:59.595)
Yeah, and this time Sam's gonna know if Jonas is ahead of him or not. Like, didn't know in raw.

Fed (34:04.411)
Mm.

Yeah, no. Every time I see Jonas race, for some reason, my head goes to Rocky, where the guy goes, if he dies, he dies. And I think that's the way he races. Hey, if I blow up, I'll blow up. Doesn't matter.

Another Triathlon Pod (34:18.086)
Totally.

Josh (34:18.19)
Ivan Drago.

Another Triathlon Pod (34:26.662)
That's exactly it.

I absolutely love it. Yeah, like you mentioned, we're gonna have a Jamie Riddle up there too. We're gonna have actually a Finn, I don't know how to say his name, Finn Gropriese. Yeah, he's been super solid this year and he's gonna be up at that front. then even so we also have Martin Benreal. So if you guys hadn't heard, he had an ankle injury last a while. He didn't know if he was actually going to race and he's kind of coming back to it now. It sounds like wrapping up fairly quickly now that he's been given the clear to run but.

Josh (34:39.901)
And now you're...

Another Triathlon Pod (34:59.874)
Is he going to go hard in the swim and then hard on the bike just to? Yeah, well, exactly. It sounds like he was putting a lot more time on the bike there too. And he's, he's a light guy going up those climbs and stuff. Man, so that swim is just going to set off fireworks. I think that's where the question starts to be. How far back is Christian Blumenfeld? How far back is Patrick Lang? I'm like, this is going to be some serious front pack swim power.

Josh (35:03.246)
because he was able to swim the whole time.

Fed (35:05.561)
Yeah.

Fed (35:13.465)
Yeah.

Fed (35:23.115)
Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah.

Josh (35:26.88)
far back is Sam Long.

Another Triathlon Pod (35:29.702)
I hate to say it, I love Sam Long and his story and all that stuff, but his name is not going to come up once on the coverage unless you're it. Totally, yeah, that's about it. After seeing that T100 performance in there, he just doesn't have the bike ability for this kind of course, right? You know he'll fight to the very end. He spent two months in Europe getting ready for this, spending the time training in there.

Josh (35:40.266)
It will just for the Americans and that's it.

Fed (35:52.494)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (35:59.322)
I just, if he's that far back in a T100 bike, like over 10 minutes, that's, I can't see it happening on an Ironman distance. Bye guys, thank you.

Josh (36:07.608)
The thing, the one difference with this course is, as opposed to the T100, the pack dimensions do not play in as much in Nice as they do in a T100 race, really even. Even in the shorter distance, I still think there's so many, at 20 meters, there's still a bigger difference than climbing. And even before the big climb in Nice, you still got a long way to go uphill before you even get to that climb too. So there's a lot of work.

Fed (36:17.147)
you

Fed (36:28.214)
Yeah.

Josh (36:36.682)
Uphill wise, it's just not a steep as the actual climb to the plateau, but there's a lot of work to get there. So, I mean, I don't think Sam's going to factor in the top 10. I think it would be shocking if he gets into the top 10 because he runs like, his marathon is going to be phenomenal would be the guest. Like he's not going to give up. We're going to see him on the promenade at some point. So that's where he's going to show up on TV.

Another Triathlon Pod (36:49.07)
No, definitely not.

Fed (36:50.04)
Nope.

Another Triathlon Pod (36:57.702)
I always love it. Yeah.

Josh (37:05.514)
I do think he has a shot on the bike in this race because he has been preparing for it. If he can get to the top with a chance to descend and see somebody in front of him to watch descend to like, think about who he could be with. Like a cam morph could legitimately be with him. A Patrick Lange, probably not Patrick will be up a little bit, but cam morph could be with him. Joe Skipper could be with him.

Another Triathlon Pod (37:29.924)
Yeah, Cam is a good swim. See, I think Cam's gonna come out of the water way well ahead of. Yeah.

Josh (37:36.142)
I hope so. I hope so. Because I think Cam could win this damn thing. Did you see the dude just did like a 280k ride the other day. It's like a week out.

Fed (37:36.538)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (37:39.846)
That is a bull prediction.

Fed (37:42.427)
and

Another Triathlon Pod (37:49.19)
That's why it's a bowl of prediction. He did an insane run over the weekend, a week out from the Ironman Championship. Man, I just... Why? Why?

Fed (37:49.593)
Yeah.

Josh (37:56.463)
Coming off the 31K the day before on the run.

Fed (37:59.225)
Yeah, easy.

Josh (38:03.074)
Well, we're about to find out if peaking is six days out instead of two weeks out now.

Fed (38:04.859)
Yeah, yeah, because there are no big bike races left. mean, the Vuelta is on its last week, so he shouldn't be getting ready for any major cycling race unless it's a world championships, so don't mistake. But other than that, I just don't see why you would go ahead and put yourself through that sort of workout right before Worlds.

Another Triathlon Pod (38:27.814)
You

Josh (38:31.086)
he knows his swim isn't going to get him close enough and he's going to have to freaking bike the heck out of it. mean, look, Gustaf and Gustaf did a huge brick like seven days out. So he's not the only one doing this. And it seems like there are a lot of people that are taking this taper starting now, like starting on Monday, starting in. I know there were some big workouts this past last eight days, 10 days coming in.

Another Triathlon Pod (38:36.698)
Thank you.

Fed (38:36.943)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (38:41.446)
Yes.

Fed (38:50.435)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (38:57.37)
Yeah, and it's a little different with the pros because they have so much, they're putting so much volume going in that taper means something significantly different than an age group athlete because their baseline is so high.

Fed (38:57.533)
Maybe.

Fed (39:05.527)
Yeah, totally. Or he's doing a reverse taper where he goes out and runs 35k the night before the race and then he's ready to go.

Josh (39:05.582)
They have to work.

Another Triathlon Pod (39:13.636)
Yeah, true. No, absolutely fair.

Another Triathlon Pod (39:23.172)
little extreme on the reverse tape, but there is.

Josh (39:24.362)
All right, 35k last night, but.

Another Triathlon Pod (39:29.946)
And interesting with that brick with Ghost Off Eden and stuff, looks like Christian Blumenfeld pulled the plug early on that. So usually we'd see Christian do kind of that big massive brick the week before. We've seen it in the past, but it looks like he cut his short. So is that an indicator of he's trying something different or is he feeling tired? Like, man.

Fed (39:41.625)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Josh (39:49.933)
I'm not buying the whole Jack scandal that he's like, he's blown up and not ready to go. Like, think maybe he's lost weight. I think he's ready to go. He knows exactly where he needs to be. His metrics are fine. Did he have a little back niggle? Probably. Is he ready to go? Yeah. So he's just adjusting his taper and letting Gustav do his thing. I don't need to do it. I'm ready. And I'm being careful because I want to show up healthy. It's not, he's hurt and

Fed (39:55.031)
Yeah. Yeah.

Fed (40:07.075)
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh (40:20.11)
I think he's ready to go. think he's scary looking right now. I also believe Gustav is scary looking and it does sound like Casper's a little off the back, but Christian and Gustav, if they come out of the water together, look out.

Fed (40:20.601)
I agree.

Yes.

Another Triathlon Pod (40:24.496)
That is crazy.

Another Triathlon Pod (40:35.118)
Yeah, well, let's talk about some of these bike players in here because we do have a lot of bike strength and obviously this course with the elevation and descents even like it's interesting with this course because it's not just about the climbing we've seen in the past. Athletes can lose so much time on the descents too, but we have some seriously strong bike riders. We're going to see like that Sam Laidlow. He's going to be around that 430 mark. Jonas Schomburg will be a couple minutes off, but we got Magnus Dietleff who's been pretty quiet since his first Ironman this year. Not his first Ironman, but

Fed (40:36.314)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (41:05.232)
his first Ironman of the year in South Africa. Yeah, Red Cut, was who really would have been interesting to see what he could do without the mental distress and all of that, right? Like you mentioned, we got Cam Wurf in there and Cam, his swim has gotten so much better. He'll still be minutes behind, but he could catch up to a lot of that front pack. And then we also have a Christian Hoganhog who

Fed (41:07.566)
you

Josh (41:08.75)
I had the right card in Frankfurt.

Josh (41:16.994)
The nod red card. Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (41:33.21)
didn't think he was going to be at this race, as his partner was expecting, but they've had the baby, so he's either going to have the dad strength or he's going to be completely obliterated from the lack of sleep and having a newborn stage. Could go one of two ways there.

Fed (41:44.26)
Hahaha

Josh (41:48.183)
And we haven't heard from him since Lake Placid, right? Like he had that crazy like five week stretch where he went nuts and raced every other week and then back to back weeks. And I think he's been pretty much in a build since Lake Placid. So.

Fed (41:48.198)
one in two ways.

Another Triathlon Pod (41:57.253)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (42:03.118)
Yeah, his banking on did not know if he'd make this race or not. But now he's here. So I think we're gonna like it's hard to go past Sam Laidlow for that fastest bike split again. That kid just knows how to ride these hills. It's absolutely insane.

Josh (42:06.819)
Mm-hmm.

Josh (42:18.443)
Leon Chevalier.

Fed (42:18.683)
I'm gonna, yeah, I was gonna put up my hand for Martin Van Riel because if he's not run ready, he's gonna tear everyone's legs on the bike because he's like this interesting character where he has the physique of a climber but the strength of a true time trialist. So he can lay down the power and that power weight is there.

So I think he's going to take advantage of that. And he is like a super technical descender. And yeah, I think this bike course suits Martin very well. And if he's not super fit to run, he's going to make sure everybody's hurting on the bike. That's for sure.

Another Triathlon Pod (43:02.362)
And we've seen that before, like people who have injuries going in where they can't run as much and they spend that extra time on their bike and their run or their bike and their swim and gain a lot of strength there. So if he hasn't been putting the fatigue in the legs on the run training, he's had to take that downtime. can better believe he's destroying that bike every chance he gets.

Josh (43:02.691)
bit.

Fed (43:10.49)
Yeah.

Fed (43:16.069)
Yeah.

Josh (43:21.1)
And he was such a good runner anyways, like any run form now is still, still top tier. And I just thought of another scenario that gets Sam Long in the picture here. Matthew, no, no, listen, this one actually could happen. And it's another American. Matthew Marquat, spasming in T1, holds him up to bring Sam Long.

Fed (43:21.232)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (43:24.774)
Yeah.

Fed (43:27.866)
Yes.

Another Triathlon Pod (43:32.571)
Okay. You're all hilarious.

Fed (43:32.665)
Yeah.

Every time. Every time, Josh.

Okay.

Josh (43:48.539)
And the two of them go through the field together. that could happen if, my court has not not spasmed since 70.3 worlds last year. Yeah. Cause Matthew's still like second pack, usually chase pack. Yeah. no, know it's, but what, what that, what I really wanted to say is.

Fed (43:52.123)
That could happen. What's the over on this specimen?

Another Triathlon Pod (44:02.832)
See, but he'd have to spasm for like seven minutes.

Fed (44:06.683)
Yeah.

Fed (44:12.09)
Yeah.

Josh (44:18.178)
We haven't talked about Matthew Marquardt. We haven't talked like another biker to not to consider here too is Nick Thompson. He was right there with Cam Warf. Right. So Nick's had some solid outings. He was right there with Matthew Marquardt in Australia in Cairns. and we know that he's probably not as comfortable with his run, especially in this field. He could tear his legs up on the bike. He was doing it with Jamie Riddle.

Another Triathlon Pod (44:24.612)
Yeah, so solid in Texas.

Fed (44:24.837)
Mmm.

Another Triathlon Pod (44:42.694)
total. For sure. Yeah. No, for sure. this he's really backed off. So previous years, he was just racing a ton of Ironmans constantly like monthly. So this year, he's really back down on the racing to focus in a little bit more. So seeing a fresher athlete coming in that could definitely be Yeah, interesting to watch. And that's women bike.

Fed (44:43.195)
Hmm.

Josh (45:06.678)
just don't know how the hell this is going to play out.

Fed (45:06.789)
Totally.

Another Triathlon Pod (45:09.446)
We're gonna have these packs like such defined packs. We know those French swimmers. We know it's gonna be like the Sam Leto, the Jonas Schomburg, Ben Reel possibly. Yeah, that's exactly it. Where are we gonna see these strong side packs come through? Well, not even packed like this could.

Fed (45:20.207)
Yeah. Daddy is the question.

Josh (45:20.93)
Can they be caught is the question.

Another Triathlon Pod (45:30.456)
implode and the fun part about this course too is everyone's gonna want to try to stay close. We've seen it so many times before. The last year at the Ironman Royal Championships we saw everyone wanting to hang into that group with the 12 meters and just spectacular implosions on the run after that because people...

I love that mentality where they're like, okay, I'm going to go for broke and either this works or I'm crawling on the side of the road. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that this year too. Cause yeah, this course is just crazy.

Fed (45:54.778)
Yeah.

Josh (46:01.055)
They will have some of the, mean, the, difference with this course too, like you said, like there's a big separation that can happen on that descent. The other play, the other piece that the descent plays is you come into T2 with a lot fresher legs than you could potentially come in with even in Kona because now you've had that descent to flush all that lactate out that you built up. So I think there's a lot of people that are playing that game. Like how much lactate can I flush?

Fed (46:19.918)
Yeah.

Josh (46:29.666)
How much lactate can I build? Right, right. Where is that line going up that I can get rid of coming down and still run the way I need to? that'll be a very fine line, which that scares me with like a Matthew Marquardt too. Like I really, really feel like he's had such a good year, but he's raised a ton and we all know that he's just exhausted by nature in what he does with his job.

Fed (46:29.709)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (46:30.448)
Where's that line?

Fed (46:52.687)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (46:53.803)
One, two, yeah.

Josh (46:55.714)
But it's so hard not to consider him because he's had such a good year. He's won two Ironmans. And I mean, he beat Trevor Foley on the run at Lake Placid. like that's, Trevor's a runner. after, in both times after some serious time in T1 cramping. So if he cuts that down to a minute in T1, like that's, that's a huge factor. But again, no one's catching.

Another Triathlon Pod (47:00.656)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (47:07.908)
After cramping.

Fed (47:09.89)
after crafting.

Another Triathlon Pod (47:14.448)
same.

Josh (47:22.84)
Laid low in Schomburg if they have the day they want to have. I think that's what it comes down to. Like I think they can both get off far enough. Maybe Magnus. mean, but.

Another Triathlon Pod (47:33.766)
Tachik Lange, I don't think we're giving enough. But he was so, if you think back in 2023, he was in second place at this race, right? Sam Laidlaw was the only one who beat him on this course in this race. And he ran a 2.32. The next fastest time on the run, let's see, was a 2.36. So four minutes behind was someone, Matt Hansen, who came 21st.

Josh (47:35.498)
He can't bike though, he can't bike with them, that's the thing.

Fed (47:37.658)
Yeah.

Josh (47:44.142)
Yep.

Another Triathlon Pod (47:59.366)
So, and that year we saw Sam Laidlaw run 241.46, almost nine minutes slower, right? So now Patrick Langan knows that course and he knows kind of what he has to do there and that he doesn't necessarily need a 230, like sub 230 marathon to take this thing. He just needs a little bit more time on the bike. I think this guy is just so often so overlooked for someone who's won the Ironman World Championships three times overall. I think now he's been so close.

Fed (47:59.515)
Yeah.

Josh (48:22.414)
Yeah.

Fed (48:25.049)
Yeah.

Josh (48:32.75)
But injured, but injured. So there is the injury factor with Patrick this year. And I haven't heard a lot of people talk about it either. Like he, he didn't have the race in Texas that he wanted to have. He's been injured since hasn't raced since. And that could be a blessing. It might not, but he hasn't raced for a reason. And that's because he was injured and you've got others that have raced and

Fed (48:33.083)
Hmm.

Josh (49:00.628)
are way fitter than they were two years ago on this course. and, and Magnus, we know has Magnus didn't do Roth this year for one specific reason. And that is to catch Laidlow on the bike and, and, be able to be able to run with him. I just don't think Patrick can catch Jonas Magnus and Sam this year.

Another Triathlon Pod (49:04.581)
Yeah.

Fed (49:15.355)
Mm.

Another Triathlon Pod (49:25.414)
curious to see if that injury, if he could still get that bike time in there, is it the same thing as what we're kind of looking at with Martin Benreal, can I deal? Or maybe he's been able to put more time to get in there. Okay, so let's talk about Magnus Dyitlov. Obviously we know he's a super uber biker and he's been quiet this year. Like we really haven't seen a lot from him. Like he said, he's targeting this race and we know how good he is on a bike.

Josh (49:31.436)
Hey Martin, God.

Fed (49:31.995)
Hmm.

Josh (49:35.436)
He can catch Martin because of the run factor maybe.

Fed (49:46.298)
Yeah.

Fed (49:53.787)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (49:55.16)
Outside of that run with the whole disqualification and everything going on, I don't think we can take that as a real data point because thinking you're disqualified, that's got to be near impossible to push to your max. Thinking it might all be for nothing later on. But are we going to see him catch up to San Laidlo on this course? What do we think?

Fed (50:02.715)
Yeah.

Fed (50:17.434)
I think so.

Josh (50:17.932)
So the last time we saw him bike was St. George too, right? Like, and he had the flat and that, and even then Lionel was catching him. So, but Magnus still had a good Frankfurt and had a good bike. think, what do you have a 359 in Frankfurt? Like was a, like he didn't have good bike legs and threw down a 359.

Fed (50:38.139)
So yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (50:38.689)
Yeah.

Fed (50:41.627)
Yeah, something like that, yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (50:43.92)
Fair, Yeah, and we saw last time we were here, it looks like he biked about four minutes slower than Sam Laidlow, but I think, again, he's definitely changed that to another level over the last level. We saw him a lot closer come Kona the following year, so.

Fed (50:52.795)
Mm.

Josh (51:00.43)
Yeah, I listened to his Bob Babbitt. didn't realize how late in the game that he became a cyclist. Like cycling was like the least of his capabilities when he joined triathlon. And I didn't realize that cause he's such a newber biker. Right. And so that was an interesting fact that I got out of that. pretty much listened to all of the Bob's at this point. Um, yeah. So you got plenty of time still. Um, they're, they're great for a trainer and red and treadmill. Right. Um,

Another Triathlon Pod (51:02.914)
yeah.

Fed (51:15.675)
Mm-hmm.

Another Triathlon Pod (51:21.712)
really good on those.

Fed (51:29.187)
Yeah, yeah.

Josh (51:30.742)
They, but that was an interesting one because now that means two years later with all the time he's put in for this race and not racing and just training. He was there earlier in the year and now he's been back and he was coming in. think he flew yesterday is there, but he was, he's been there already this year. How much of that knowledge is going to play into the fact of how he rides this course? And again, does he have this swim? has yes, he can, he can catch them on the bike. I don't.

Fed (51:49.584)
me.

Fed (52:00.859)
Totally.

Another Triathlon Pod (52:01.766)
Yeah, like his swim has so much better in there too. And you know, with Magnus, it's always tough because so much of his bike domination was a lot of it attention to detail, finding those 1 % gaze in the blocks and the aerodynamics and stuff. And I think a lot of the men are starting to catch up and spend that time doing the same thing. And this course...

Josh (52:15.904)
aerodynamics.

Another Triathlon Pod (52:24.652)
negates a lot of that to be fair when you're looking at going just up and down so really curious to see what he'll pull out on this bike course against a yeah Sam Laidlaw who just seems to dance up these hills like he knows these hills

Fed (52:37.775)
Mm. Yeah.

Josh (52:39.566)
Although it was interesting because you brought up earlier, um, before we started recording was the windscape or whatever that, that, the, the data that we were seeing, right? Um, the biggest drag even on the Hills is still air. So your, your CDA still matters going up and, and yeah, he's a bigger dude, but so is Sam Ladell. I mean, they're, they're both, both big dudes. Schaumburg's not tiny either.

Another Triathlon Pod (52:45.624)
Mm-hmm.

Another Triathlon Pod (52:52.912)
Mm-hmm.

Josh (53:05.346)
But Feday's boy, Martin Van Riel is tiny and can fly up this hill. I think that's Patrick Lang has always been one of his bread and butters is that he's tiny. He's got his power to weight ratio. It's not the greatest cyclist, but his power to weight ratio is up there and his run legs are still there when he needs them.

Another Triathlon Pod (53:15.718)
huh.

Another Triathlon Pod (53:22.842)
And that's exactly it. The run legs are there when he needs them. He can do those backgrads and still put down killer splits. So I think that if he can stay, if Patrick Lang can stay within like six, seven minutes of the front of the race, he's still a threat. Like he really is when it comes to a race like this. So go stop eating. So he, just looking like online and stuff, he's been on an upward trajectory this year. He just seems happy and loving it.

Fed (53:26.075)
Totally.

Another Triathlon Pod (53:51.842)
And that is almost the most dangerous Gustav.

Fed (53:51.866)
Yeah.

Fed (53:55.407)
Yeah, which I was going to mention like a silent Magnus is probably the most dangerous Magnus we were going to see as just as a happy Gustav. it just, yeah, the two, the two parts of the spectrum were. Yeah. So yeah, Gustav is happy. He seems like he's in a good mental space and, I think, it'll

Another Triathlon Pod (54:01.839)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (54:06.008)
Yeah, totally. And he's pulling out the lucky hat.

Josh (54:11.318)
In his countdown, he missed one day.

Another Triathlon Pod (54:13.894)
Thank

Fed (54:22.075)
only be good for the sport if he comes full circle in Nice when he won his first world championship back in 2019 there 70.3 worlds and then wins over here and marks a comeback not that he was ever gone but to that elite top level of competition I think it'll be good for Gustav and I think a lot of people would be happy myself included if he pulls it up and

Another Triathlon Pod (54:30.587)
Yeah.

Josh (54:32.494)
out.

Fed (54:50.767)
Yeah, like, like Joshua was mentioning before, he looks scary feet. And every time I see pictures of athletes, getting ready for world championships, there's a quote by Seve Kille. I know you guys know it, but there's a fine line between being fit and being F'd. So who knows? We're going to see what happens, but, they're threading the needle right there with, when it comes to, being ready or a bust.

Another Triathlon Pod (55:21.158)
It really seems like we've seen that a lot more this year. I don't know if maybe I wasn't paying attention before, but just everyone looks super lean for these climbs and hearing about the stripped down bikes with less paint on them, just to make sure it's as light as possible in there for a course like this. It's really, it's going to be telling who's fitter-up come race day, because there's definitely, yeah, so some people have pushed it a little bit.

Fed (55:30.011)
Yeah.

Josh (55:46.479)
All right, let's throw some couple more names wild card wise out there. names and I don't even, can't, Rudy Von Berg's not a wild card, but we haven't talked about yet again. We say it every time we talk about him after he gets on a podium. I'm not, I'm not allowing it to happen again because Rudy Von Berg's been on the podium the last two world championships, including in Nice. So he's right there. Top four, top five, top three. He's there.

Another Triathlon Pod (56:01.126)
Ugh.

Fed (56:01.316)
Yeah.

Josh (56:15.5)
He loves this territory grew up riding these Hills. knows it really well. That's one. The other name that we haven't talked about again, because of the injury and recent history factors, Daniel Bekogar, who's always there in an Ironman world championship as well. So Daniel Bakogar, Leon Chevalier and Rudy Von Berg, those three names right there could be a factor come the Shaman on.

Fed (56:20.837)
Totally.

Fed (56:27.259)
Mmm. Yes.

Another Triathlon Pod (56:27.525)
Yeah.

Fed (56:41.435)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Another Triathlon Pod (56:42.274)
It really could be. it is. is crazy how we never never give him a call there. And here looking at kind of Torsten's ratings and stuff, you know, he's going to be in that pack likely with like a Christian and Sam Laidlow and stuff off the swim. So he's going to be in that kind of second just holding on to the first pack as they head out. And, you know, he's always got a solid bike and then a solid ride. And that's just why we never seem to chat about him till the end is he's just steady, right? He has no stand-in, but he just keeps

Josh (57:06.232)
Yeah, he's good across all.

Fed (57:08.473)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (57:11.78)
going and ticking people off as he goes.

Josh (57:17.1)
And it's such a great playbook for being a factor in these races because of everything we just talked about, because the other guys are going to go for broke and go and blow up and you're going to reel people in. Does that mean he's ever going to win one with that strategy? That's the, that's the difference.

Another Triathlon Pod (57:36.42)
That's a question. Yeah, and then we got someone like an Antonio Benito Lopez. He's been super salt and stuff too. And he's up there with a shot and just with the kids.

Fed (57:44.303)
Hey, where did that Spanish pronunciation came from, Jenna? That was perfect. My God. Yeah, I was like, wait a minute, who's that person?

Josh (57:48.622)
Ha

Another Triathlon Pod (57:48.87)
Hahaha!

Josh (57:51.054)
It's all that acting she did today.

Another Triathlon Pod (57:53.37)
There we go.

Another Triathlon Pod (57:57.254)
I know, kind of random. Me and Milani from the team are trying to keep each other in line for a Duolingo, like learning Spanish to go ride bikes more in man, yeah, we're on day three. So obviously I'm a Spanish pro at this point.

Fed (58:06.517)
There we go. There we go.

Josh (58:10.03)
She's got another streak going.

Fed (58:16.859)
everything.

Yeah, like the Fury guy. On ten days fluent Spanish.

Another Triathlon Pod (58:25.412)
There we go, exactly. I will totally claim it as I translate everything through chat GPT. But okay.

Josh (58:25.454)
you

Fed (58:31.803)
Okay, sorry, off track.

Another Triathlon Pod (58:35.814)
Yeah, again, so he'll be in kind of that second pack around that 47 minutes and stuff and then he has a solid bike. He's not going to be far off someone like a Christian Blumenfeld, Patrick Lange, kind of timeframe on the bike. And then who knows what he can do on that run holding on like he's definitely something that we've been seeing be pretty consistent here the last little while.

Fed (58:56.895)
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh (59:00.48)
And he's also been building for this as well too. So, I also think like, does a, does a young gun become a factor here or does experience when too, because you mentioned it early on. Finn is like, that was ridiculous with that time he threw down and it's like, now it was somewhat recent. So he's got a lot of tax on those legs with that. Yeah. But it's a hard time to overlook. And I mean,

Another Triathlon Pod (59:14.811)
Mm-hmm.

Another Triathlon Pod (59:22.33)
That's a quick turnaround.

Josh (59:29.578)
and he's going to be up there on the swim. And all of a sudden your mind's like, wait, I feel good today. I recognize these guys in front of me.

Fed (59:30.305)
Yeah. Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (59:32.098)
Yes.

Do you to go there?

Another Triathlon Pod (59:39.93)
No, absolutely. And that's just it. You know what we say the young guns, but that's basically Sam Laito. He's the young gun who just goes for it anyways. Man. So, okay. Well, why don't we go through some picks here. Let's say like top three, who do we think is going to take it on the day there? It's... Man, that's a tough one to choose. Let's start with you, Josh.

Fed (59:46.202)
Yeah.

Josh (59:47.662)
still in his early 20s.

Josh (01:00:05.666)
I was gonna say, can we get a top 10?

Another Triathlon Pod (01:00:08.262)
Just ten names and in any possible order.

Fed (01:00:11.958)
Just ten names.

Josh (01:00:14.478)
I think if you go like 80 % with your top 10, you've done well. Like if you get eight out of the top 10, like that's a good weekend. thank God I don't gamble triathlon Ironman.

Fed (01:00:16.898)
My god.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:00:19.534)
Yeah, mad, like 100%.

Fed (01:00:19.684)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:00:27.974)
No, it's too, this is too extreme. And there have been past years where we've had, you know, you have a pretty good inkling. We're always going to get some shakeups in the overall top five or podium and stuff. but usually they have some idea this year. I'm just like, I don't know. The dynamics of this race could be absolutely insane. Like we, yeah, I don't even know. Man. Okay, Josh, who do you got in your podium?

Fed (01:00:50.395)
Totally.

Fed (01:00:54.395)
Meh.

Josh (01:00:56.788)
You're me go first.

Fed (01:00:58.753)
Ahahaha!

Josh (01:01:02.36)
We're going to shake it up and let you guys, let you guys have, I like, like Fede, I think I would love to see Gustav win. and I think he can, but I think they are going to blow up, because they're going to push too hard. Jonas Schomburg knows he's going to blow up and has done everything possible to not. And I think Jonas Schomburg for the top step, the shocker of the world.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:01:03.876)
Okay.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:01:12.838)
Yeah.

Fed (01:01:29.667)
Okay.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:01:31.258)
That would be, what's he done, like two Ironmans?

Fed (01:01:33.475)
Okay.

Josh (01:01:34.478)
I and, the craziest bike legs of known to man. And he was going to have a, he was going have another like bright bike record if his bike didn't fall apart.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:01:40.617)
my god.

Josh (01:01:49.495)
Jonas Schomburg, I'm not going with an American. right. Jonas Schomburg, Gustav Eben, who's not going to blow up. And then Rudy Von Bergen third again.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:01:50.764)
it.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:02:04.238)
I like it. Yeah, making the big calls here. Okay, how about you, Feday? Who you got?

Fed (01:02:04.283)
Fed (01:02:10.651)
I'm gonna go a bit more conservative on my picks. think, honestly, think Gustav can win the whole thing and it'll be amazing, like I said, for the sport and for him. I think he's hungry. He found that fiery in his belly again and yeah, I think Gustav is gonna take the top step there.

Josh (01:02:14.306)
You

Fed (01:02:38.293)
Second place, I'm going to go Magnus. And yeah, I think Magnus is going to be able to hold up all the fat runners because yeah, I think the bike is going to play a bigger factor than we think. And that's why I'm also picking Martin Bunreal on third, because I think that bike pack, Magnus, Martin, Leilo, Eden,

Josh (01:02:46.712)
back in again.

Fed (01:03:06.731)
are all going to be riding together and the smartest riders are going to be the ones that come out with fresh legs. Yeah, and also let's not forget about that long descent to T2. Aerodynamics still play a factor there and I think the Magnuses, the Gustavs, the Martins are going to take advantage of that descent towards T2. So yeah, Gustav, Magnus, Martin.

What about you Jenna?

Another Triathlon Pod (01:03:37.926)
Okay, man.

Josh (01:03:39.618)
I mean, you got like seven names we haven't even mentioned that could win the whole thing.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:03:41.7)
Right? Okay, I'm gonna make a big shout and say Patrick Lange is going to win and get his fourth Ironman World Championship title there. I just think, I think these guys are gonna blow themselves up on the bike. I think we're gonna see a repeat of Kenakona last year where everyone just goes so hard on this bike that they have nothing left on the run. He's...

Fed (01:03:42.319)
Yeah.

Fed (01:03:52.686)
Okay.

Fed (01:03:58.256)
Hmm

Another Triathlon Pod (01:04:07.194)
He can run off of a hard bike, but he'll kind of go his own pace a little bit more, think. I'll go Patrick Lange and then I want to say, man, I keep going back and forth. We're going to have a bit of a shocker with a Martin Van Riel is he's putting that time on the bike and the swim and he's always good on the swim. But I think the run will come back to him just to use that class of a runner. And then Christian Blumenfeld. I just, you can't count this guy out.

Fed (01:04:28.507)
Hmm.

Fed (01:04:34.157)
Okay.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:04:35.895)
Like, he's gonna be up there die trying.

Fed (01:04:42.405)
I like it.

Josh (01:04:42.655)
the names that we don't even have on our podium.

Fed (01:04:46.715)
We could still do like three rounds of this and...

Another Triathlon Pod (01:04:47.014)
Like the range of names... How many races have we called this year where we're like, okay, you can't pick this person because we all know they're going to win. Like, we barely crossed over on any names with the three of us making our predictions.

Josh (01:04:50.03)
Still not getting it.

Josh (01:05:02.188)
I like it. like it. Kieran Lenders, by the way, we didn't even mention because he just can't run really usually. but again, you want to talk about somebody who could play into the bike dynamics. Hey, I mean, you want to talk about love to see somebody on a podium.

Fed (01:05:02.671)
Right.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:05:06.79)
to.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:05:14.988)
Mm-hmm. And so here's to see how Kam Wirf goes on this. Like, I really...

Man, that'd be so good. And he hasn't been racing on the Pro Tour this year. He's been focused on triathlon and stuff. that would be pretty cool to see. He just has to stay upright and not crash.

Josh (01:05:31.094)
That's the other viewing you guys gotta do too if you haven't done it yet is the Feed Talbot series and I would imagine episode three should have dropped today. yeah, Kamwerf was episode two.

Fed (01:05:38.823)
Yeah.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:05:43.322)
Thank you.

I'll have to go check those out. So much content lately and I've been getting outside more ironically.

Fed (01:05:46.415)
Hmm.

Josh (01:05:51.948)
That's why we're sticking to one week only instead of every day.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:05:55.748)
Yeah, that is intense. But that's the funny part. There's so much going on between the triathlon gossip, the controversy, the Tommy theories of the world, the Ironman World Championships. We could go on for days with all of it. It's absolutely insane.

Fed (01:05:55.82)
Fed (01:06:05.754)
Meh.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:06:12.159)
But yeah, definitely go give us a follow if you haven't already on Instagram, add another Trathlon podcast and then check us out on YouTube as well. And if you haven't already, go check out Mauna Apparel. We've got the team applications are open until September 14th, race day for the Ironman World Championships and come join a pretty incredible team with the best community, lots of sponsored discounts and some fun camps coming up next year, including one in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is going to be an absolute blast.

But on that, anything more on your guys' side for what's going on? think that's a lot of triathlon this weekend.

Josh (01:06:47.758)
Good thing I got my long run on Saturday. I'm not doing anything on Sunday until after this race is over.

Fed (01:06:48.421)
That is.

Fed (01:06:52.399)
Right.

Another Triathlon Pod (01:06:53.958)
There we go. Awesome. Well, thank you as always guys for joining me and we will be back to chat next week and break it all down.

Josh (01:07:03.725)
I need to talk about. See you guys.

Fed (01:07:04.685)
Absolutely.