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How Ironman Triathlons Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, Seattle, We're coming to see you and Frasier. Yep,
0:05
Speaker 1: we're gonna come see you guys in Fraser on January six.
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Speaker 1: That's a Thursday night, which is the official beginning of
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Speaker 1: the weekend in Seattle, as we all know. And we're
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Speaker 1: going to be there at our beloved More Theater, our
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Speaker 1: home in Seattle for Stuff you Should Know. That's right, everybody, January,
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Speaker 1: which is November eight, and you can get all the
0:25
Speaker 1: information about tickets at s y s K live dot
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Speaker 1: com or just go to the Moor's website as well.
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Speaker 1: We'll see you guys in January. Welcome to Stuff You
0:35
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:44
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:49
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and there is Grandmaster Dave over there, Dave
0:56
Speaker 1: C the coust Wow. Yeah, he's getting all sorts of
1:01
Speaker 1: great great nicknames. You got anymore? Um no, no, if
1:06
Speaker 1: that's it for now, sorry, Dave. I think what was
1:11
Speaker 1: that two or three? It was like two and a
1:13
Speaker 1: half at best. You know what I did this morning
1:16
Speaker 1: for a little while yes, I do. You trained hard. No,
1:20
Speaker 1: I went through and read uh some of our negative
1:23
Speaker 1: recent negative reviews on iTunes. Oh, I hadn't done that
1:26
Speaker 1: in a while. Yeah, that's because it's mentally unhealthy. I
1:31
Speaker 1: don't mind. I literally it's kind of good comedy for
1:33
Speaker 1: me because I'm I'm fairly secure in year eleven that
1:38
Speaker 1: we're doing okay. But it is always funny. Like most
1:41
Speaker 1: of them were I had to do with politics, but
1:46
Speaker 1: some of them were just like, these guys are so
1:51
Speaker 1: boring and stupid. I can't believe how boring and stupid
1:54
Speaker 1: they are. I mean, they kind of hit it on
1:56
Speaker 1: the head with Allen. Yeah, it was good. And then
1:59
Speaker 1: the ones that killed me are the ones that you like.
2:01
Speaker 1: They're clearly reading Wikipedia and there and read it is
2:05
Speaker 1: their number one source. And I'm like, I've literally never
2:07
Speaker 1: been to read it in my life. Yeah, and I
2:10
Speaker 1: like redd it, but I don't get our ideas from it.
2:12
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's always so fun Sure. Well, I'm glad
2:15
Speaker 1: that you did that for both of us, and you
2:17
Speaker 1: distilled it into like a friendly, affable version. Yeah, these
2:22
Speaker 1: guys are so dumb and boring. That was a refrain
2:26
Speaker 1: dumb and boring. It was like interesting, we're sort of
2:30
Speaker 1: known for being funny and smart. But I guess that's
2:33
Speaker 1: in the eye of the list or the ear of
2:34
Speaker 1: the listener. It totally is. I mean like, we've got
2:37
Speaker 1: some really hardcore fans, we have some casual fans. We
2:39
Speaker 1: have people that like us. We have people that are
2:41
Speaker 1: just like I like what they're doing. Don't necessarily like
2:44
Speaker 1: those guys. It doesn't matter as long as there's people
2:46
Speaker 1: out there liking what we do. Of course, there's going
2:49
Speaker 1: to be people out there who dislike what we do,
2:52
Speaker 1: and because it's the Internet, they're going to vehemently dislike it.
2:55
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean anything. It's fine. They don't have
2:57
Speaker 1: to listen. Almost like any other piece of art, culture
3:00
Speaker 1: or media you would put out in the world. That's right.
3:02
Speaker 1: We're basically like an upside down urinal in a museum.
3:07
Speaker 1: Have you have you literally seen that? Yeah, that was
3:09
Speaker 1: like the first piece of data art. I believe that
3:14
Speaker 1: there was data mean, um, what does that mean exactly?
3:18
Speaker 1: I think it was purposefully mean purpose purpose yeah, purposefully
3:22
Speaker 1: that's right. That word for a second just suddenly didn't
3:25
Speaker 1: sound right because you're dumb, right, am boring? Um. I
3:29
Speaker 1: think it's a purposefully on um meaningless word. Oh interesting, Yeah,
3:36
Speaker 1: I guess that kind of thing. Other people might find
3:39
Speaker 1: that dumb and boring interesting. Yeah, it's a a urinal
3:43
Speaker 1: that was upside down and then signed by the artists.
3:45
Speaker 1: I can't remember who. It was signed in urine. No,
3:50
Speaker 1: I think it was signed in uh, maybe pain or
3:52
Speaker 1: something like that. I can't remember. Well, now we're doing
3:55
Speaker 1: one of the third thing that people complain about, just
3:58
Speaker 1: not getting to the point quickly enough. I think you
4:00
Speaker 1: could call it moseying. Although it's funny as well, and
4:04
Speaker 1: those reviews people are like they spend they literally spend
4:07
Speaker 1: twenty minutes talking nonsense, Like, man, it's what the deal
4:12
Speaker 1: is is five minutes seems like twenty because we're dumb
4:14
Speaker 1: and boring. Sure, right right, but but is anybody who
4:16
Speaker 1: really appreciate stuff you should know knows that it's a
4:20
Speaker 1: it's a contest of endurance to see who will get
4:23
Speaker 1: to the topic first, exactly or just just just to
4:25
Speaker 1: make it through an episode. It's very much chuck if
4:28
Speaker 1: you ask me, like an iron Man triathlon, you lose.
4:33
Speaker 1: Anybody who completes an episode, though, is an s Y
4:36
Speaker 1: s K fan. That's kind of how it works. And
4:39
Speaker 1: it's just like the way that it is with an
4:41
Speaker 1: iron Man triathlon too. If you complete it, you're an
4:44
Speaker 1: iron Man. If you complete it within the required amount
4:47
Speaker 1: of time, you're right, you're right, Yes, there are rules,
4:51
Speaker 1: there are limitations, Like I guess the same thing goes
4:53
Speaker 1: with us. If you complete the episode within seventeen hours
4:57
Speaker 1: of beginning it, then you you Well, we did an
5:01
Speaker 1: episode on marathon's um almost one year ago a little
5:06
Speaker 1: more October nine, two thousand eighteen, and um, we did
5:12
Speaker 1: a lot of joking about marathons and how we're not
5:14
Speaker 1: into running those. So we should define here in minute
5:19
Speaker 1: one what an iron Man race is, because an iron
5:23
Speaker 1: Man race is a two point four miles swim. That's
5:28
Speaker 1: three point nine kilometers. That's a lot. And then that's
5:32
Speaker 1: a lot of swimming. Then they say, all right, get
5:34
Speaker 1: out of the water, everybody, Now go ride your bike
5:38
Speaker 1: a hundred and twelve miles right like two days later though, right, no,
5:42
Speaker 1: right afterwards? What a hundred and eighty point three kilometers?
5:46
Speaker 1: And then when you're done with that, they say, all right,
5:49
Speaker 1: who wants to run a marathon? And then people like
5:54
Speaker 1: us or most people. I think in the world. Probably
5:57
Speaker 1: the people in the world think what is wrong with
5:59
Speaker 1: you people? Yeah, and not a half marathon, quarter marathon,
6:02
Speaker 1: tenth of a marathon, a full twenty six point two
6:05
Speaker 1: mile marathon more than forty two kilometers on it. And
6:10
Speaker 1: all of this by the way, um, if you're at
6:12
Speaker 1: the World Championships is taking place in the lava fields
6:15
Speaker 1: of ConA, Hawaii, where it's very hot. Yeah. Good coffee too,
6:21
Speaker 1: it is, Okay. I guess I'm not a huge on
6:23
Speaker 1: ConA coffee. Okay. Did you hear there was once a
6:27
Speaker 1: coffee heist in Hawaii where somebody somehow stole something like
6:32
Speaker 1: two million dollars worth of either a million or two
6:35
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of ConA coffee beans. That sounds like stuff,
6:39
Speaker 1: it does. Maybe we should do that something great cut
6:41
Speaker 1: ConA coffee heist. Yep, there's your title of six. Is
6:46
Speaker 1: that what it was? I don't know, but it sounded
6:47
Speaker 1: pretty good. Okay. That's the other big complaint on iTunes
6:50
Speaker 1: is that we just make up facts. That's true, right,
6:54
Speaker 1: So I think you kind of laid it out there.
6:56
Speaker 1: Three big reasons why you and I will never do
6:59
Speaker 1: Iron Man triathlons, swimming, the biking, in the running, that's right,
7:04
Speaker 1: that's right. But all of them combined too. That's why
7:06
Speaker 1: if you put all of them together, you understand why
7:09
Speaker 1: the iron Man has this kind of aura of just
7:14
Speaker 1: just all among athletes. Because the people who participate in
7:17
Speaker 1: these are the fittest of the fit, that they have
7:21
Speaker 1: the greatest endurance of any other athlete around, especially ones
7:26
Speaker 1: who make it to the championships in Hawaii. UM, and
7:30
Speaker 1: it has like kind of a mystique. And here's the thing.
7:33
Speaker 1: The term iron Man is gender neutral. So wherever you
7:37
Speaker 1: fall on the gender spectrum and you complete the race,
7:41
Speaker 1: that's an important part of this. Well, yeah, you will
7:44
Speaker 1: be called an iron Man. And I guess if you
7:48
Speaker 1: are collective you have a bunch of people who have
7:50
Speaker 1: completed an iron Man race, that would be called iron men.
7:53
Speaker 1: But if you're talking about different iron Man races collectively,
7:56
Speaker 1: because they have them all over the world. Now I
7:58
Speaker 1: believe they have two sixty races a year and forty
8:01
Speaker 1: four different countries that are official iron Man races, um,
8:05
Speaker 1: you would call those iron Man's. That's right. I love
8:08
Speaker 1: the little glossary in this particle. Up next, we'll talk
8:12
Speaker 1: about whether you call your desktop mouse a mice or me.
8:18
Speaker 1: So the iron Man race is, uh, we're gonna get
8:21
Speaker 1: into some of the history here. It's a it's a triathlon,
8:24
Speaker 1: and there there were triathlons before the iron Man competition. Yeah,
8:29
Speaker 1: I think starting a few years before the first iron Man,
8:32
Speaker 1: so it actually kind of caught hold pretty quick. But technically, um,
8:36
Speaker 1: a triathlon can be any three sports. But when you
8:41
Speaker 1: say triathlon and then that you follow that up with yeah,
8:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play some basketball, toss the football around, and
8:47
Speaker 1: then maybe take a few swings with the tennis racket,
8:50
Speaker 1: you'd be like, that's three three disparate sports. People are
8:53
Speaker 1: gonna say you're you're weird because when you hear triathlon, uh,
8:56
Speaker 1: in this new not new, but I guess fairly nuisance
8:59
Speaker 1: is seventies. You're really talking about swimming, cycling, and running, right,
9:03
Speaker 1: not necessarily in that order whatever, But as long as
9:05
Speaker 1: those three are together, you're that's a triathlon. And the
9:09
Speaker 1: first triathlon, from what we understand, came out of San Diego,
9:12
Speaker 1: actually from the San Diego Track Club who put the
9:15
Speaker 1: first one together in nineteen four, and it just so
9:19
Speaker 1: happened that in that In that first triathlon in nineteen
9:22
Speaker 1: seventy four, there was a guy named John Collins who
9:24
Speaker 1: was an officer in the Navy, who said, hey, this
9:27
Speaker 1: is kind of fun and ended up being stationed from
9:30
Speaker 1: San Diego to Hawaii in yeah, really put in a
9:34
Speaker 1: terrible life. He was just chasing UFOs in San Diego.
9:38
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, he's sipping my ties on the
9:40
Speaker 1: beach in Honoluh. But we do think him for a service. Sure,
9:43
Speaker 1: so um, John Collins ends up in Hawaii's like, hey,
9:46
Speaker 1: hey you you uh Rubes, you Hicks. I've got a
9:49
Speaker 1: great idea. It's gonna blow your blow your heads off.
9:52
Speaker 1: You're ready a triathlon And everyone said what's that? Yeah,
9:56
Speaker 1: because Hawaii already had it, had it going, except not
10:01
Speaker 1: all combined. It had endurance sports, so there was obviously
10:05
Speaker 1: always marathon, so Honolulu Marathon. There was something called the
10:08
Speaker 1: Waikiki Rough Water Swim. Have you ever been to Waikiki?
10:12
Speaker 1: I've never been to Hawaii. Man, man, you gotta go.
10:14
Speaker 1: It's really a wonderful place. It's Uh. Emily and I
10:17
Speaker 1: were talking about going away for a birthday weekend and
10:20
Speaker 1: just you can't do Hawaiian a weekend from Atlanta. No,
10:23
Speaker 1: it's a long, it's a little too long. Yeah, Savannah
10:26
Speaker 1: is much more realistic. Sure, it's the Hawaii of the southeast.
10:29
Speaker 1: That's right, it's that everyone tell you. Uh. And then
10:33
Speaker 1: they had something called the around Oahu bike Ride, And
10:37
Speaker 1: so as at endurance athletes like to do, and all
10:40
Speaker 1: athletes I like to get together and tease each other
10:43
Speaker 1: about who's the best athlete. Uh. The NASCAR guys are
10:48
Speaker 1: always there saying we're athletes too, sure, right, And they
10:52
Speaker 1: always get tickled by the football guys like stop, stop,
10:56
Speaker 1: you're not really athletes who drive a car. So I
10:59
Speaker 1: think my brother and I actually had one of our
11:01
Speaker 1: rare arguments about the NASCAR guys being athletes. It's better
11:04
Speaker 1: than that stupid thing about a hot dog being a
11:06
Speaker 1: sandwich or not. Well. And when I say argument, as
11:09
Speaker 1: much as my brother and I get into arguments, which
11:11
Speaker 1: is me saying, hey, I'm not in a NASCAR but
11:14
Speaker 1: these guys are athletes, my brothers saying not will buy it.
11:17
Speaker 1: And then we say let's go play ping pong. Yeah,
11:19
Speaker 1: you guys are like, well this is getting out of hand. Piece, brother,
11:23
Speaker 1: let's reconcile with some ping pong. So Collins, all this
11:27
Speaker 1: arguing was going on about who was the most fit,
11:30
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, you know what, let's let's throw
11:33
Speaker 1: all these together, like you said, we'll call it the
11:35
Speaker 1: iron Man. And in there were twelve finishers. I'm not
11:40
Speaker 1: sure how many people entered that race, but twelve people
11:44
Speaker 1: finished it and were named iron Men, right, and they
11:47
Speaker 1: all got little handmade iron Um statuettes or whatever. Yeah,
11:53
Speaker 1: it was. It was kind of a thing. And that
11:54
Speaker 1: first Iron Man it was really crazy, like one guy
11:57
Speaker 1: ran out of water and so everybody had to have
11:59
Speaker 1: their own support staff with with them, like supplying the
12:02
Speaker 1: water and stuff like that. Before they had people along
12:05
Speaker 1: the route. Yes, and one guy named Dunbar. I can't
12:08
Speaker 1: remember his first and but he was in the first competition.
12:10
Speaker 1: Was probably he ran out or his support staff ran
12:14
Speaker 1: out of water, so he towards the end of the marathon,
12:16
Speaker 1: he he had nothing to drink. But Budweiser, shut up,
12:20
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding John Collins, who was the guy who
12:24
Speaker 1: brought it to Hawaii. He stopped for a bull of
12:26
Speaker 1: chili at one point to refuel. Yeah, it was nuts,
12:30
Speaker 1: but it was just basically like some some crazy athletic
12:34
Speaker 1: military guys just having fun a bowl of chili which
12:38
Speaker 1: is in draft behind me ad area, right exactly. I
12:41
Speaker 1: mean you just eat it and it just passed right
12:44
Speaker 1: through your mouth and out of your rectum right onto
12:46
Speaker 1: the street. You know. So. Um. But this first one
12:51
Speaker 1: was it was fun, it was crazy. But there's this
12:53
Speaker 1: um ongoing dispute to this day. I read, I think
12:57
Speaker 1: in an article in the New York Times that is
13:00
Speaker 1: that said that, UM, in the rule book, if you
13:02
Speaker 1: ran in that first or you just paid into that
13:05
Speaker 1: first iron Man competition, part of the entry fee was
13:08
Speaker 1: agreeing to sign on to be the organizing committee for
13:12
Speaker 1: the iron Man and UM, they put that in there
13:16
Speaker 1: to basically say, like, if you sue, you're actually suing
13:19
Speaker 1: yourself too. So you probably don't want to sue if
13:22
Speaker 1: you get injured or fall over, drop that or something. UM.
13:25
Speaker 1: But some people, including Dunbar, have interpreted that to mean
13:29
Speaker 1: that they were part owners of iron Man, which has
13:32
Speaker 1: now become like a billion dollar global franchise, and the
13:36
Speaker 1: people in charge of like, now you you don't have
13:38
Speaker 1: anything to do with that. You know, you can get sued,
13:41
Speaker 1: but you can't reap the benefits, right, exactly, but it was.
13:44
Speaker 1: It was a pretty interesting article. I can't remember what
13:45
Speaker 1: it's called, but it's it's worth looking up. I thought
13:49
Speaker 1: so too. So uh soon after this, it started to
13:52
Speaker 1: become a media event in that um we've talked before
13:56
Speaker 1: about the greatest show sports show in the his three
14:00
Speaker 1: of sports shows, which was ABC's Wide World of Sports Fantastic.
14:05
Speaker 1: I never really watched it. I was always like, this
14:07
Speaker 1: means cartoons are over for this Saturday. Man. I loved it.
14:11
Speaker 1: I mean that's where, you know, as a kid in
14:13
Speaker 1: the eighties you got introduced to ski jumping and curling
14:16
Speaker 1: and iron manning and but that was sort of the
14:19
Speaker 1: deal if you never watched that show, is it was
14:21
Speaker 1: the Wide World of Sports, so that it wasn't just
14:24
Speaker 1: it was you know, lumberjack competitions and all these sort
14:27
Speaker 1: of to the to the side sports that you had
14:30
Speaker 1: never heard of before. It was pretty cool fringe sports. Yeah.
14:33
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated started covering it, which was a big deal.
14:36
Speaker 1: That was that really gave it a shot in the
14:38
Speaker 1: arm because that was the second the second one, and
14:42
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated did like a ten page spread on it
14:45
Speaker 1: basically and really gathered attention for it. And there's still
14:49
Speaker 1: one of the top sports rags. But back then they
14:52
Speaker 1: weren't the only one, but they were sort of the
14:54
Speaker 1: name in sports writing for sure, so it was a
14:56
Speaker 1: big deal. I had a subscription for many, many, many years.
15:00
Speaker 1: And then came the Swimsuit Issue, and You're like, no,
15:02
Speaker 1: he has nothing to do with sports. I looked forward
15:05
Speaker 1: to that so often as a young church boy. Sure,
15:08
Speaker 1: ladies in their bathing suits. What was better than that?
15:11
Speaker 1: As far as I knew, it's sports. So I remember
15:15
Speaker 1: my first issue to still it was Muhammad Ali was
15:17
Speaker 1: on the cover, believe it or not, of the swimsuit issue.
15:22
Speaker 1: Was it the one where he's standing over is it
15:24
Speaker 1: Joe Frasier? No, no, no, no, this was after that.
15:26
Speaker 1: This was in his sort of sad last comeback attempt.
15:32
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with that. Yeah, when he was older,
15:35
Speaker 1: he you know, he kind of boxed beyond his prime.
15:38
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that, because I'm not seventy years old.
15:41
Speaker 1: He realized, sure, So I just did the math. I
15:45
Speaker 1: was like, I have Chuck likes this one passed by,
15:47
Speaker 1: but I mean Joe Frasier, No, that was before my time.
15:51
Speaker 1: But yeah, just for some reason that always sticks out.
15:54
Speaker 1: Is the cover said, uh, look who's back Muhammad Ali
15:58
Speaker 1: and then parentheses with mustache. I want to say, I
16:02
Speaker 1: want to stay here, everybody. Chuck does not have this
16:05
Speaker 1: cover in front of him right now. From memory, totally
16:07
Speaker 1: from memory, it's impressive. I saved all those for many years,
16:10
Speaker 1: and then I think my mom finally got rid of him.
16:12
Speaker 1: I had just an attic full of sports illustrated you
16:16
Speaker 1: know what you mean. But I saved the bathing suit issues.
16:18
Speaker 1: Sure those you had like a air event cover that
16:25
Speaker 1: you could just pull off the wall at a false floor. Um. Alright,
16:32
Speaker 1: So back to the event. It's being covered by the
16:35
Speaker 1: media and with within just a few years after that,
16:38
Speaker 1: people started entering the race. More and more people saw
16:41
Speaker 1: it on TV. They're like, hey, I'm an extreme athlete,
16:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get into this. And it grew to the
16:46
Speaker 1: point where they moved it finally in N two, it's uh,
16:51
Speaker 1: it's now home forever home in Kona, Hawaii. If you're
16:55
Speaker 1: talking the World Championship, right, and can we talk for
16:57
Speaker 1: a second about Julie Moss here, because she pretty much
17:02
Speaker 1: single handedly launched iron Man into the status, the legendary
17:08
Speaker 1: status that it has today. Very soon after it was originated.
17:12
Speaker 1: She was a kidnesiology student at UM. I think cal Pouli,
17:19
Speaker 1: san Luis Obispo, Did I say that? Right? I don't know.
17:23
Speaker 1: You just sound so sure of yourself. Well you lived
17:26
Speaker 1: in California, so I didn't know if I just San
17:29
Speaker 1: Luis Obispo I said that, that's what I said. Yeah, okay,
17:32
Speaker 1: Well anyway, she was a kindnesiology student. No, it's not
17:39
Speaker 1: okay UM, and her dissertation was participating in the iron
17:43
Speaker 1: Man um competition in Hawaii, and so she went and
17:48
Speaker 1: she ran, and she could not believe it. But all
17:51
Speaker 1: of a sudden she's in front. She's an elite, she's
17:54
Speaker 1: barely trained for this thing. She'd done some running before,
17:57
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, she's winning the fourth
17:59
Speaker 1: ever iron Man competition. And um, as she got like
18:04
Speaker 1: within something like forty yards of some ridiculously short distance
18:08
Speaker 1: from the finish line, after she'd swam, biked, and run
18:12
Speaker 1: almost an entire marathon, her body gave out and she
18:17
Speaker 1: she you did on the Wide World Sports. It was
18:20
Speaker 1: being covered on the Wide World Sports. Twenty million people
18:22
Speaker 1: were watching, and Julie Moss collapsed and then crawled across
18:28
Speaker 1: the finish line to finish second. She was lapped, and
18:33
Speaker 1: I think the winner, her name was Kathleen McCartney. Kathleen
18:37
Speaker 1: McCartney was was what had to be told that she
18:40
Speaker 1: just won. She didn't realize what had just happened. She's like,
18:42
Speaker 1: you mean that person I just stepped on a run
18:46
Speaker 1: My shoe, my waffle print shoe mark is on their
18:48
Speaker 1: backs though. Um, but Julie Moss like just became just
18:52
Speaker 1: an amazingly like celebrated sports figure overnight from showing this
18:57
Speaker 1: kind of grit and determination and it became like kind
19:00
Speaker 1: of a hallmark of the iron Man competition that people
19:03
Speaker 1: would collapse and then crawl over the fish finish line
19:07
Speaker 1: because it required that much of the human body, but
19:10
Speaker 1: also because they were that determined to reach that goal.
19:13
Speaker 1: And um, that was it for the iron Man. It
19:15
Speaker 1: just became hugely popular overnight, and you were talking about
19:18
Speaker 1: how how much participation grew. I saw that. Um. In
19:23
Speaker 1: two the year Julie Moss entered, there were sixty people
19:27
Speaker 1: who entered four hundred triathlons, not necessarily iron Man competitions.
19:31
Speaker 1: In three years, one point one million people competed in triathlons,
19:39
Speaker 1: so she definitely boosted the popularity a tadbit. Well, why
19:43
Speaker 1: don't we take a break and we'll come back and
19:45
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the science of why UM
19:48
Speaker 1: people other than Julie Moss pass out right when they
19:52
Speaker 1: get to the finish line. So it sounds good, yes,
20:14
Speaker 1: all right, So you sent me a little article, UM
20:16
Speaker 1: why endurance athletes UM struggle there at the very end
20:21
Speaker 1: aside from the obvious, So what they're doing is super hard,
20:25
Speaker 1: But it turns out that it's uh there, it's overheating largely,
20:29
Speaker 1: isn't it. So there's a great debate like either they
20:33
Speaker 1: run out of fuel like they're there, they basically just
20:36
Speaker 1: use up all of their stores of energy and they
20:39
Speaker 1: just their body can't go on any longer, or um,
20:43
Speaker 1: they have overheated. Is that this is what this article
20:46
Speaker 1: is basically saying in Outside magazine. The other big one
20:50
Speaker 1: is that the lactic acid or in particular, the hydrogen
20:54
Speaker 1: ions have built up in the muscle and are causing
20:58
Speaker 1: cramping and everything going, Hey, why are but this guy
21:00
Speaker 1: Brent Ruby, who's a physiologist at University of Montana, he's
21:05
Speaker 1: basically saying, no, all of it comes down to overheating.
21:08
Speaker 1: And at this point, like your body enters a shutdown
21:11
Speaker 1: mode where your brain is like, okay, lights out, I'm
21:14
Speaker 1: not gonna let you lift your foot any longer, Like
21:17
Speaker 1: you physically can't do that with your muscle because I'm
21:20
Speaker 1: not allowing it. Yeah, because the brain, uh, he says,
21:23
Speaker 1: is is sending you these messages a lot before this happens,
21:28
Speaker 1: like stop, stop doing what you're doing. You better stop,
21:32
Speaker 1: You better stop. If you don't stop, I'm gonna stop
21:34
Speaker 1: for you. Uh. And this is not necessarily dehydration either,
21:38
Speaker 1: like he said, you can be plenty hydrated and drinking
21:41
Speaker 1: tons of water. Um, but you know that the heat
21:44
Speaker 1: at some of these Iron Man's is pretty punishing, and
21:46
Speaker 1: especially he said, after you've done the swimming event, which
21:50
Speaker 1: can keep the temperature down obviously because the water and
21:53
Speaker 1: then the cycling where you've got a lot more breeze generally,
21:56
Speaker 1: especially coming out of swimming, so your perspiration is is
21:59
Speaker 1: doing a better job of cooling you off. Yeah, but
22:01
Speaker 1: when you get to that marathon, that that final leg
22:04
Speaker 1: it can be pretty brutal, and eventually your body, after
22:07
Speaker 1: sending all those messages, just says you're not listening to me,
22:10
Speaker 1: so we're we're going down right, and like your your
22:13
Speaker 1: your movements become uncoordinated, your like your actual brain might
22:19
Speaker 1: start malfunctioning as well, where it's just you're not thinking
22:22
Speaker 1: clearly any longer. You become distracted. Like if you've ever
22:25
Speaker 1: watched it's actually it's it's really weird to watch these things.
22:29
Speaker 1: But there's plenty of like finish line footage from Ironman
22:33
Speaker 1: competitions of of these some of the some of the
22:36
Speaker 1: fittest athletes on the planet. Collapsing before the finish line,
22:40
Speaker 1: like collapsing after the finish line is one thing. Collapsing
22:43
Speaker 1: before they get to the finish line because their bodies,
22:45
Speaker 1: their brains have said, um, this is it. I'm done
22:48
Speaker 1: you you haven't listened, So I'm just taking charge here
22:50
Speaker 1: and you can't. I'm not letting you move any longer
22:53
Speaker 1: because you need to cool down. Yeah, I wonder too
22:55
Speaker 1: if anyone has explored the mental um like where like
23:01
Speaker 1: when you see the finish line, if something happens in
23:03
Speaker 1: your brain, like physically seeing it with your eyeballs kind
23:07
Speaker 1: of like if you have to if you have to
23:09
Speaker 1: poop really bad, or that brain bladder connection we talked about, well, yeah, exactly,
23:14
Speaker 1: bladder or poop. You know, you're you're holding it, you're
23:17
Speaker 1: holding it, and then when your hand touches the door
23:19
Speaker 1: knob to your house for your apartment, that is when
23:22
Speaker 1: some release happens in your brain or something. I wonder
23:26
Speaker 1: if that happens when you see that finish line. You know, Chuck,
23:29
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to poop your pants when you touch
23:31
Speaker 1: a door knob. It's unusual. Well, there have been triathletes too,
23:36
Speaker 1: and endurance athletes that have pooped their their pants near
23:39
Speaker 1: the finish line. It's very sad. Yeah, I think we
23:41
Speaker 1: talked about the marathons that there's a lot of pants pooping, yeah,
23:45
Speaker 1: going on. But yeah, I'm sure that seeing that finish
23:48
Speaker 1: line has some sort of effect because there's also there's
23:51
Speaker 1: a documented effect called the post iron Man blues where
23:57
Speaker 1: people people will enter like a state of the pression
24:00
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks following completing an iron Man
24:03
Speaker 1: and they actually can't quite explain it. They think that
24:06
Speaker 1: it's probably related to having set such a lofty goal
24:11
Speaker 1: that once you achieve it, like life kind of loses
24:14
Speaker 1: its luster for a little while. Other people think that
24:17
Speaker 1: your brain is sending you depression so that you have
24:20
Speaker 1: no will to get out there and try that again
24:23
Speaker 1: anytime soon. Both of them make a lot of sense,
24:26
Speaker 1: and maybe it's a combination of the two. Interesting. So
24:29
Speaker 1: iron Man, uh, iron Man's started growing and growing the
24:35
Speaker 1: World Championship in Kona, and they have championships we should
24:39
Speaker 1: point out in on most continents um they have their
24:42
Speaker 1: own championship, like the African Championship, South American, European, Right,
24:46
Speaker 1: but the World Championship is the Hawaii one. Yeah, that's
24:49
Speaker 1: still the one in Kona, and the entries there are
24:52
Speaker 1: limited and generally unless you win the lottery, which is
24:56
Speaker 1: only about five people, you have earned your way in
24:59
Speaker 1: by qualified rying in another sanction iron Man event, right,
25:03
Speaker 1: And I actually saw that they did away with the lottery. Yeah,
25:06
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen was last year they did it. And
25:08
Speaker 1: it was a really great thing because you could pay
25:10
Speaker 1: fifty bucks to enter a lottery and to win a
25:14
Speaker 1: slot five hundred. There were five hundred slots, like you said,
25:17
Speaker 1: and if you because you might not qualify because to
25:21
Speaker 1: qualify for Hawaii you literally have to be one of
25:24
Speaker 1: the most fittest, most well trained athletes on the planet
25:28
Speaker 1: we're talking out of, you know, tens of thousands of
25:32
Speaker 1: of people who are like possibly able to reach the state.
25:36
Speaker 1: You're fifteen hundred of those people. This lottery gave people
25:40
Speaker 1: who wanted to give it a try but weren't professional
25:43
Speaker 1: endurance athletes a chance to get in there. So it
25:45
Speaker 1: was a great program. But at the same time, the
25:48
Speaker 1: federal government said, actually, what you're doing is running an
25:51
Speaker 1: illegal gambling operation. We want you to shut it down.
25:54
Speaker 1: So the iron Man had had to stop doing the lottery.
25:57
Speaker 1: Now they have something called the Legacy program, which says
26:00
Speaker 1: that if you've competed or completed I believe in twelve
26:04
Speaker 1: Ironman competitions that aren't the Championship, you UM can apply
26:09
Speaker 1: to get a legacy slot, where they're basically saying like,
26:12
Speaker 1: this is what we're trying to encourage, so come on
26:15
Speaker 1: and try your hand at the World championships. So they
26:17
Speaker 1: renamed the lottery the Legacy But I think the difference
26:20
Speaker 1: is that you don't pay for that opportunity. Now I
26:23
Speaker 1: got you, I think. Uh. They eventually added UM triathlons
26:29
Speaker 1: to the Olympics. Uh, and we'll get to different distances. See,
26:34
Speaker 1: certainly don'tant knock Olympic triathletes, but no, but I could
26:38
Speaker 1: complete one. It's nothing like the Iron Man. Let's just
26:40
Speaker 1: say that it's it's much shorter. It's smaller, for sure,
26:43
Speaker 1: But if you're talking iron Man, it starts out with
26:46
Speaker 1: a swimming leg. And as we said earlier, that's the
26:50
Speaker 1: two point four miles swim. And how how do you
26:53
Speaker 1: pronounce that? Well, Hawaiian, you say all of the all
26:57
Speaker 1: of the vowels. I think, so okay, kailua kona bay. Yeah,
27:02
Speaker 1: I think you just nailed it. Man, we'll see okay.
27:06
Speaker 1: And uh, it depends on the water temperature whether or
27:10
Speaker 1: not you're allowed to wear a wet suit. But um,
27:13
Speaker 1: the wet suit gives you a little bit of a
27:14
Speaker 1: buoyancy advantage, so I think the uh, well, I'm not
27:18
Speaker 1: going to get in the head of try athletes, but
27:20
Speaker 1: it was me. I would hope for a little bit
27:22
Speaker 1: colder water so I could wear my wet suit. Plus
27:24
Speaker 1: it would keep you cooler too, Right, But if the
27:27
Speaker 1: water is warmer than you don't need the wet suit,
27:31
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Right, you can just swim naked,
27:33
Speaker 1: I think, is what you're saying. That's exactly what I'm saying.
27:36
Speaker 1: So the I was reading about, you know, UM injuries
27:41
Speaker 1: and death was just talk about a little more. But
27:43
Speaker 1: the swim leg sounds like it would be not the easiest,
27:46
Speaker 1: but maybe the most comfortable because you're in the water,
27:48
Speaker 1: and yeah, you can sweat while you're swimming and all
27:50
Speaker 1: of that, but at least you're staying cool. But supposedly
27:54
Speaker 1: something like that, somebody did a study of UM deaths
27:57
Speaker 1: between I think two thousand team in triathlons, not just
28:01
Speaker 1: Iron Man, and they found that of a hundred and
28:04
Speaker 1: thirty five deaths sudden deaths and heart attacks and stuff,
28:07
Speaker 1: ninety of those took place in the swim leg. And
28:11
Speaker 1: they think, possibly possibly that people are so amped up
28:16
Speaker 1: about participating in this Iron Man that once they start
28:19
Speaker 1: exercising in the water, they just have a heart attack.
28:22
Speaker 1: And these are people who are in the fittest possible
28:24
Speaker 1: state they can be in and they're still dying of
28:27
Speaker 1: heart attacks at age forty or something like that. Well,
28:31
Speaker 1: they staggered the beginning, obviously, like most races and foot races, UM,
28:36
Speaker 1: they stagger them in the water because you can't just
28:38
Speaker 1: throw all those people in the ocean at once, Um,
28:41
Speaker 1: your pros are going to start out first again like
28:44
Speaker 1: most road races, uh, foot races. But if you're non professional,
28:48
Speaker 1: I guess everyone in there is professional now then, is
28:51
Speaker 1: what you're basically saying, right almost everybody? Yeah? Okay? Uh?
28:55
Speaker 1: And then you finish the swimming leg hopefully unless you
28:58
Speaker 1: dive a heart attack, right, And then you go to
29:01
Speaker 1: what's called T one, the first transition area, and that's
29:04
Speaker 1: where where you you change your clothes and you put
29:07
Speaker 1: on your clothes for the next thing, which in this
29:09
Speaker 1: case is biking. Uh. They try to make it where
29:12
Speaker 1: it's a loop, so there's only one transition area, so
29:15
Speaker 1: you you finish the bike race where you started, and
29:18
Speaker 1: that's where you will also start the run. But I
29:20
Speaker 1: love this one line in the article here how stuff works.
29:25
Speaker 1: Racers must find their bike in rows of bracks with
29:27
Speaker 1: hundreds of other bikes. That sounds like part of the
29:30
Speaker 1: game almost the way it's written right, right, And they
29:33
Speaker 1: call the transition period the transition point where if you
29:36
Speaker 1: can't find your bike the TS point. No, they don't know.
29:42
Speaker 1: Don't you remember where you put your bike? Or did
29:44
Speaker 1: they mix them up? Is that part of the fun?
29:46
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I put it here, man, I
29:48
Speaker 1: put it here. I don't know. Surely somebody's accidentally taking
29:51
Speaker 1: somebody's bike, So I mean, but how would you identify
29:54
Speaker 1: who took your bike so you could take their bike
29:56
Speaker 1: like you'd just be I don't know how you would
29:58
Speaker 1: do that, because it would be a a jam if
30:00
Speaker 1: somebody took your bike, because you're apparently the bike leg
30:04
Speaker 1: is where you're doing the most other stuff like eating, refueling,
30:08
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, So you probably have a significant
30:11
Speaker 1: amount of like calories that you're planning on consuming on
30:15
Speaker 1: your bike that you've been training to eat during this
30:19
Speaker 1: race all this time. So if somebody takes your bike,
30:21
Speaker 1: they're taking more than just your bike, they're taking your fuel.
30:24
Speaker 1: It would be a big deal. I'm sure. So I
30:26
Speaker 1: don't know how they how they keep up with that
30:28
Speaker 1: kind of thing and prevent that from happening. And that's
30:30
Speaker 1: where you have your Netflix cued up on your phone
30:32
Speaker 1: that's mounted on the front of your bike, that's right,
30:34
Speaker 1: so you can watch a couple of movies. Yeah, that's
30:36
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of miles, a hundred plus miles. Yeah,
30:39
Speaker 1: and I saw it something like the average completion time
30:42
Speaker 1: for this bike leg is something like six hours, although
30:45
Speaker 1: they give you ten. Yeah, that's that's the bulk of
30:48
Speaker 1: the iron Man, it's the biking part. Yeah, because it's
30:51
Speaker 1: a hundred something miles. Yeah, I'm fine with a hundred
30:56
Speaker 1: something because I'll never come even remotely close to it. Uh.
31:00
Speaker 1: And depending on what Iron Man course you're on or
31:03
Speaker 1: what triathleon you're you're participating in, the train is gonna
31:07
Speaker 1: be um a little worse or better depending on where
31:11
Speaker 1: you are. Apparently in Kna it's pretty rough because of
31:14
Speaker 1: the winds and they can just flat knock you off
31:17
Speaker 1: of a bike. Well. Plus you're also going through active
31:19
Speaker 1: lava fields, so the winds are blowing like a furnace
31:22
Speaker 1: of hot air onto you while you're biking. Geez. Yeah,
31:25
Speaker 1: it's brutal, this terrible thing to do. Like you have
31:29
Speaker 1: to be insane to try this kind of thing, especially
31:31
Speaker 1: the championships. Yeah. So, like we mentioned, you do have
31:34
Speaker 1: seventeen hours to finish, and after that, even if you finish,
31:39
Speaker 1: which is a great accomplishment, you're not dubbed an iron Man,
31:42
Speaker 1: which is kind of sad. So there's so there's something
31:45
Speaker 1: called the Midnight Finish where people who have completed the
31:49
Speaker 1: run and like you know, started to feel sore and
31:52
Speaker 1: have eaten and started drinking beer and everything afterward. Um
31:56
Speaker 1: probably just Michaelo Ultra though I'm sure um they will
32:00
Speaker 1: go around midnight to see the very last people coming
32:04
Speaker 1: through in that's great, and it's supposed to be super
32:06
Speaker 1: inspirational because these are people who, as far as the
32:09
Speaker 1: iron Man site describes that, they're like, just getting to
32:13
Speaker 1: the Iron Man to compete has probably been a tremendous
32:16
Speaker 1: amount of um, has really been struggle. And so these
32:20
Speaker 1: people are finishing one way or another. So I guess
32:23
Speaker 1: people who have already finished are there to kind of
32:25
Speaker 1: cheer them on. That's awesome. Uh, and we'll talk more
32:27
Speaker 1: about this later. But there are people with prosthetic limbs
32:30
Speaker 1: and uh, wheelchair athletes that complete this stuff. In this one,
32:35
Speaker 1: well we'll talk about the father and son team, which
32:37
Speaker 1: is just incredible, but we're gonna save that, right, So
32:42
Speaker 1: people stick around through the dumb and boring, right. So,
32:46
Speaker 1: and that's right. Uh, you are not allowed to draft,
32:50
Speaker 1: like in some bike races drafting just like NASCAR, you
32:55
Speaker 1: can get behind a another biker and cut down on
32:57
Speaker 1: win resistance. But In most of the iron in man
33:00
Speaker 1: competitions that is not allowed, and there was one case
33:03
Speaker 1: in eighty six where a race winner, Patricia uh punt
33:07
Speaker 1: House was disqualified for drafting. Is that how you say
33:11
Speaker 1: your name Puntos? I want to say like punchius, like
33:15
Speaker 1: punchos pilot, but that's not right pu in t o
33:18
Speaker 1: u s. Yeah, I think you got it. I'm just
33:20
Speaker 1: gonna go with the standard punt House. I'm gonna go
33:23
Speaker 1: with the Hawaiian pronunciation and say Puntos, maybe punch choose.
33:29
Speaker 1: That's good, punch choose, punch joose. I like that the
33:33
Speaker 1: most so far, and then you can win money. Um.
33:37
Speaker 1: I looked up the World Championships and I think there's
33:39
Speaker 1: like a a six d and fifty thousand dollar total
33:43
Speaker 1: purse and it looks like is it a hundred and
33:45
Speaker 1: fifty grand for each male and female winner? Uh? Yeah,
33:50
Speaker 1: somewhere around there's something like a hundred and fifteen or
33:52
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty or something like that. But I mean, like,
33:55
Speaker 1: if you are you know, a high um how I
34:00
Speaker 1: end elite triathlete? Yeah, ranking, yeah, yes, whatever you want
34:07
Speaker 1: to call. If you're like the best of the best,
34:08
Speaker 1: you can make a decent living doing this, and this
34:10
Speaker 1: is like what you want to do anyway, so you
34:12
Speaker 1: can certainly make enough to you know, make it from
34:15
Speaker 1: triathlon to triathlon. You're like you. If you're not literally
34:21
Speaker 1: the best of the best, you're not ever going to
34:23
Speaker 1: get rich off of it. But if you are up there,
34:26
Speaker 1: and especially if you're visible and people like you, in
34:28
Speaker 1: addition to the um purses that you'll win for winning
34:31
Speaker 1: these triathlons, um you will also get sponsorships as well,
34:36
Speaker 1: so you can make a pretty decent living being uh
34:39
Speaker 1: an elite triathlete. But I saw, for example, there's this
34:42
Speaker 1: guy right now, um Jan ferdan No. He is from Germany,
34:48
Speaker 1: and he is as good as as they've ever come
34:51
Speaker 1: as far as male competitors go. And in two thousand
34:54
Speaker 1: and fifteen from purses from winning events over five events,
34:59
Speaker 1: he made two hundred thousand dollars, which is a pretty
35:02
Speaker 1: decent living for competing in five iron Men or iron
35:06
Speaker 1: Man's um. The guy who made the most that year
35:09
Speaker 1: from winnings was a guy named Javier Gomez. He won
35:13
Speaker 1: two seven thousand, which is really even better, but he
35:16
Speaker 1: had to compete in fourteen Ironman's to to make that
35:20
Speaker 1: so I think the real cheese is in the sponsorship. Yeah,
35:23
Speaker 1: and I think fourteen. Like, I don't think they recommend
35:26
Speaker 1: you do that many. No more than one a month
35:29
Speaker 1: is not recommended. But we need to talk about this
35:32
Speaker 1: guy named James Lawrence. Then if we're talking about doing that,
35:35
Speaker 1: you're ready. How many has he done? In two thousand fifteen,
35:38
Speaker 1: my friend James Lawrence, also known as the Iron Cowboy,
35:42
Speaker 1: competed in fifty iron Man's in fifty states in fifty days.
35:49
Speaker 1: Over the course of fifty consecutive days, he competed in
35:51
Speaker 1: fifty iron Man's and iron Man a day for fifty days.
35:54
Speaker 1: They should just call him the Ultimate iron Man and
35:57
Speaker 1: just shut everything else down. They did. They're gonna shut
36:00
Speaker 1: it down because again, it's pretty lucrative, but they did.
36:04
Speaker 1: They just basically said, there's no no one could ever
36:06
Speaker 1: top that. That's insane. Like the fact that he's still
36:08
Speaker 1: alive is really impressive. That is amazing. Yeah, he was
36:11
Speaker 1: eating like six seven thousand calories so I'm sorry, seven
36:14
Speaker 1: to eight thousand calories a day every morning he said
36:17
Speaker 1: his toenails are falling off. Um, Like he was like, yeah,
36:22
Speaker 1: it was impressive to say the least that he did that. Yeah,
36:25
Speaker 1: what's going on in his brain? I don't know. He
36:29
Speaker 1: really doesn't like himself. Uh, should we take another break?
36:32
Speaker 1: All right, let's take another break and then we will
36:35
Speaker 1: do the very unlikely thing where and Josh and I
36:37
Speaker 1: will talk about how to train for a triathlon right
36:40
Speaker 1: after this. Okay, Chuck, we should probably qualify. This was
37:04
Speaker 1: saying like, we're gonna tell you how to train from
37:07
Speaker 1: stuff we've read about training, not from any life experience. No. Uh,
37:12
Speaker 1: if you're going to train, and we did the same
37:14
Speaker 1: thing in the Marathons podcasts, we're not experts. But here's
37:19
Speaker 1: what they say. Experts do say if you're going to
37:22
Speaker 1: train for a triathlon, especially an iron man, you're gonna
37:25
Speaker 1: need to take your time. If you've never done it.
37:27
Speaker 1: It could be an entire year of training if you're
37:29
Speaker 1: new to this kind of stuff, And they say generally,
37:33
Speaker 1: obviously you need to really build your endurance up, not
37:37
Speaker 1: worry about your speed yet. Yes, well that's a that's yes, Yeah,
37:41
Speaker 1: that's just point one. Is your training for endurance. You're
37:45
Speaker 1: training to increase what's called your v O to max,
37:48
Speaker 1: which is the amount of oxygen you can take in
37:50
Speaker 1: and and your body used to burn fuel. Right, You're
37:53
Speaker 1: also gonna need to rest, even though you really really
37:55
Speaker 1: want to do this and you're super fired up to train.
37:59
Speaker 1: If you don't, you gotta rest and give your body
38:01
Speaker 1: a chance to recover. Right, that's a big one. I
38:05
Speaker 1: think that that's just like your body is going to
38:07
Speaker 1: tell you to do that regardless. They say, trained to
38:10
Speaker 1: your weakness. So this is surprising to me, but it
38:13
Speaker 1: makes sense when you think about it. Yeah, Like if
38:15
Speaker 1: you're if you run marathons or long distance bike races
38:19
Speaker 1: and you're used to that and you're good at that,
38:20
Speaker 1: and you think, hey, I want to add these other
38:22
Speaker 1: two things, then maybe work on those other two things
38:25
Speaker 1: a little bit more, at least in the earlier part
38:28
Speaker 1: of your training. Right, But as you get a little
38:30
Speaker 1: closer to time, you want to go back to your
38:32
Speaker 1: strength and remember to boost that up again. You can't
38:35
Speaker 1: forget about running that twenty six miles, right, Oh, I
38:39
Speaker 1: haven't done a marathon and over a year I've just
38:41
Speaker 1: been biking and swimming, and now it's time to run
38:43
Speaker 1: a marathon after biking and swimming. That's not a situation
38:46
Speaker 1: you want to be in. That's right. Uh, and then
38:48
Speaker 1: I mean these last ones are kind of kind of
38:51
Speaker 1: dumb and boring. Well no, no more dumb and boring
38:55
Speaker 1: than us. I guess this makes sense. Use the equipment
39:00
Speaker 1: it that you're going to use at the event. So like, right,
39:02
Speaker 1: don't switch bikes before or or for god's sakes, don't
39:06
Speaker 1: switch out your speed Oh right, you want to wear
39:09
Speaker 1: your lucky speedo that you haven't washed all year. Um,
39:13
Speaker 1: so that makes sense. Also, this is a grab store article,
39:16
Speaker 1: we should say, and Ed makes a pretty good point,
39:17
Speaker 1: like you need to train just to be able to
39:21
Speaker 1: start training for the Iron Man, Like this is this
39:24
Speaker 1: is not it's not something you just start where you
39:26
Speaker 1: go from like couch to iron Man. There's that doesn't exist.
39:29
Speaker 1: There's no such thing. You want to like start to
39:31
Speaker 1: get in shape first and then you can start training
39:34
Speaker 1: for the Iron Man. And it makes a pretty good point.
39:36
Speaker 1: And I think it's worth saying here, Um, talk to
39:39
Speaker 1: a doctor first, especially if you're not in the best
39:41
Speaker 1: shape or you know you have an existing medical condition,
39:44
Speaker 1: because a lot of people don't realize this, like yes,
39:47
Speaker 1: it's crazy what the body goes through and that you know,
39:50
Speaker 1: these are amazing feats of endurance, but it's possible. There
39:55
Speaker 1: is some biology or biological science that says, at actually,
40:00
Speaker 1: if you're engaging in endurance sports over time, you're actually
40:05
Speaker 1: more likely to do things like die of a heart
40:07
Speaker 1: attack or get pancreatic cancer than somebody who doesn't participate
40:13
Speaker 1: in endurance sports. And science is a little bit confounded
40:16
Speaker 1: by this. Yeah, there was one study out of the
40:18
Speaker 1: University of Toronto that said endurance athletes are three to
40:22
Speaker 1: five times likelier to experience atrial fibrilation. UM. There was
40:28
Speaker 1: one out of Norway, which is probably what you were
40:30
Speaker 1: talking about. It says you're two times uh at the
40:34
Speaker 1: risk of developing pancreatic cancer. That's I mean twice as likely. Yeah,
40:40
Speaker 1: I mean they're saying they think what happens is that
40:42
Speaker 1: And they did blood test to people, um like the
40:45
Speaker 1: beginnings and during the middle and at the end, and
40:48
Speaker 1: they said they think your body goes into sort of
40:50
Speaker 1: a temporary state of immunosuppression and that if you just
40:55
Speaker 1: if you keep doing this over and over, it could
40:57
Speaker 1: have an overall cumulative effect. Yeah, because your inflammation is
41:02
Speaker 1: so set off, because your body is like what is
41:04
Speaker 1: going on, um, Their inflammation markers from one test I
41:08
Speaker 1: saw are up like two fifty percent over just normal
41:11
Speaker 1: resting rate. And they think that your immune system stands
41:15
Speaker 1: back because if it over if it tried to deal
41:18
Speaker 1: with all of the different inflammation going on, it would
41:21
Speaker 1: over exert itself and you'd be toasted in a different way.
41:24
Speaker 1: So they think that all of this damage from inflammation
41:28
Speaker 1: and then a lowered immune response to the inflammation creates
41:31
Speaker 1: these prolonged problems that only endurance athletes can can experience.
41:37
Speaker 1: Have you heard of doubling? No, So there are endurance
41:41
Speaker 1: athletes that practice doubling, and there's specifically people who do
41:47
Speaker 1: do it's called the Double Boston, which is they get
41:50
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night and they run
41:53
Speaker 1: the Boston Marathon in reverse and then stop at the
41:57
Speaker 1: finish at stop at finish at the start line, and
42:01
Speaker 1: then run the regular marathon. I actually have and I think, um,
42:05
Speaker 1: I ran across that as well. And I think we
42:07
Speaker 1: should do like an episode on ultrathons there ultra marathons,
42:12
Speaker 1: because there are some crazy stuff that goes into that too.
42:15
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like you know, let's run the hundred and
42:17
Speaker 1: twenty miles through the desert, right, which is that's a
42:22
Speaker 1: terrible idea, but people do it, and I think it's
42:24
Speaker 1: worth talking about. Yeah, people used to do that in
42:27
Speaker 1: biblical days to deliver messages of war, but like not
42:32
Speaker 1: for fun, Yeah, not for fun. And they would always
42:34
Speaker 1: drop dead upon delivering the message. It seems they go
42:37
Speaker 1: it's and then fall over dead, and somebody else would
42:40
Speaker 1: say Monty Python's flying circus message for you, sir. Uh. So,
42:45
Speaker 1: there are no statistics from the U s A t
42:49
Speaker 1: um but Ed picked out a sixteen year old statistic
42:54
Speaker 1: from the Lake Placid iron Man and said that this
42:57
Speaker 1: was a low number of injuries where they sent fourteen
43:01
Speaker 1: people to the hospital from everything from just standard injuries
43:05
Speaker 1: to your body to obviously heat exhaustion and dehydration and
43:08
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And like even when you're when you
43:11
Speaker 1: complete this without injuries and without collapsing before the finish
43:14
Speaker 1: line or whatever, what you're putting your body through is
43:17
Speaker 1: just astounding. Um, you burned something like about six thousand
43:21
Speaker 1: calories throughout the day of competing in this Ironman competition,
43:25
Speaker 1: and um, you'll replenish a lot of it from like
43:28
Speaker 1: sports drinks and energy drinks and stuff, but you lose
43:31
Speaker 1: about twenty pounds of water weight about nine kilograms of
43:35
Speaker 1: water weight during the course of running and or competing
43:38
Speaker 1: in an iron Man. It is literally amazing that that
43:43
Speaker 1: happens to the human body, and that people do that
43:45
Speaker 1: on purpose, and that there are people out there who
43:48
Speaker 1: have trained at this so long and have built up
43:50
Speaker 1: their endurance so much that they can overcome their bodies
43:55
Speaker 1: normal biological responses to slowing down, to sending cramps to
44:00
Speaker 1: the muscles, to basically keep your motor functioning from from
44:03
Speaker 1: going forward as much as you wanted to. They can
44:06
Speaker 1: overcome this stuff, but sometimes to their own detriment, which
44:09
Speaker 1: results in collapsing and things like that. Well, we mentioned
44:12
Speaker 1: earlier the uh, the paltry little Olympic Triathlon, and and
44:18
Speaker 1: we're kidding, but when you look at the distances, it
44:21
Speaker 1: is not close to an iron Man. It is a
44:25
Speaker 1: point nine three mile swim one and a half kilometers, yeah,
44:29
Speaker 1: which is I guess why they settled on that, because
44:30
Speaker 1: I was like, what a weird right, why not just
44:33
Speaker 1: go a mile? But there? What's this weird imperial exactly? Uh?
44:37
Speaker 1: And then that's followed by a twenty four point eight
44:39
Speaker 1: six mile fort kometer bike ride and then only a
44:44
Speaker 1: six point to one or a ten kilometer run, right,
44:47
Speaker 1: which is again I could do that. I mean that's
44:49
Speaker 1: twenty miles shorter on the run side and eighty you know,
44:53
Speaker 1: close to eighty miles shorter or yeah, a little more
44:56
Speaker 1: actually on the on the bike side, and then about
45:00
Speaker 1: little less than half on the swim side, right, which
45:02
Speaker 1: again is why people have say like the iron Man
45:05
Speaker 1: itself is just the endurance sport of endurance sports, and
45:10
Speaker 1: the iron Man in Hawaii in particular is like the
45:12
Speaker 1: pinnacle of it. So if you complete the iron Man,
45:15
Speaker 1: especially if you win the iron Man Championship in Hawaii,
45:18
Speaker 1: you're you're as bad as they come. Yeah. I like
45:21
Speaker 1: the sprint one though, the sprint triathlon, Uh, it's a
45:25
Speaker 1: depending on which one it is either like anywhere from
45:28
Speaker 1: point three to one miles in the water, eight on
45:31
Speaker 1: a bike, and then one and a half to five
45:34
Speaker 1: miles running, but you are all out full until the
45:38
Speaker 1: whole time. Right, This is nice, amazing. This is like
45:41
Speaker 1: something that um an elementary school could do on field
45:44
Speaker 1: day or something, you know, remember those. Definitely I love
45:46
Speaker 1: field day, but it definitely reeks of something like an
45:49
Speaker 1: eleven year old makes up right, right, But there's no
45:53
Speaker 1: tree climbing involved, and if somebody touches you, you you have
45:55
Speaker 1: to freeze until somebody else comes along and touches you again.
45:59
Speaker 1: Oh I'd love to day. But looking back, I have
46:02
Speaker 1: no idea what that was for. Was it just a
46:05
Speaker 1: teacher free day or something or what was the point? No,
46:08
Speaker 1: it was I think your own little Olympics to celebrate
46:11
Speaker 1: sport and introduce kids to different, uh two different sports.
46:15
Speaker 1: I got you, okay, it was school. I was like,
46:19
Speaker 1: what's your angle here? What's what's really going on? You
46:23
Speaker 1: were you had to sit in that day? Yeah? I did.
46:26
Speaker 1: I protested you sat in your potato sect by yourself.
46:31
Speaker 1: Um that my mom made me wear so Um. We
46:36
Speaker 1: talked about Julie Moss, like, over the years have been
46:38
Speaker 1: some people who have kind of risen to the to
46:41
Speaker 1: the cream of the crop from the Ironman triathlon, and
46:44
Speaker 1: Julie Moss was definitely the first, but there have been
46:46
Speaker 1: others too. Um. There was a pair of people, a
46:52
Speaker 1: man and a woman who were kind of known as
46:54
Speaker 1: like the best of the best for a while. The
46:57
Speaker 1: guy um was named uh Luke von leird I believe
47:02
Speaker 1: I think I said that right He held the course
47:04
Speaker 1: record for a while at knat eight minutes for eight hours,
47:08
Speaker 1: four minutes and eight seconds, which he said in But
47:11
Speaker 1: that guy that I've spoke about earlier Yon for Dano,
47:15
Speaker 1: he's just like he's as good as they come as
47:18
Speaker 1: far as male try athletes go. He currently holds the
47:22
Speaker 1: course record that I believe he just sat like a
47:24
Speaker 1: week ago in October two thousand nineteen, seven hours fifty
47:28
Speaker 1: one minutes in thirteen seconds sub eight hours. Yep. There's
47:32
Speaker 1: another woman competing right now who is um just the
47:36
Speaker 1: best of the best. I don't know if she's the
47:38
Speaker 1: all time best. I think that still is held by
47:40
Speaker 1: Paula Newby Frasier. But um, her name is Daniella lift
47:45
Speaker 1: l y F. She's a German too. She holds the
47:48
Speaker 1: ConA course record now at eight hours, twenty six minutes
47:51
Speaker 1: and eighteen seconds. She said that in two thousand and eighteen.
47:53
Speaker 1: I can't even lay around and watch movies for eight hours,
47:56
Speaker 1: all right? You know? Yeah, I think that's part of
47:59
Speaker 1: this too, is having the mental um stamina to to
48:03
Speaker 1: stave off you know, the voice in your head that's
48:05
Speaker 1: like stop stop, got a hot dog? Stop? Stop? Uh,
48:12
Speaker 1: there's a gentleman name Mark with a C. Harman's and
48:16
Speaker 1: he is a wheelchair athlete who has completed several Iron Man's. Uh.
48:21
Speaker 1: There's a nun in her seventies, sister Madonna Booder, who
48:26
Speaker 1: every year that she competes, they have to create a
48:28
Speaker 1: new age group, which is amazing. Did you look her up? Uh? No,
48:33
Speaker 1: I didn't. Oh, man, she's a total b a nice.
48:36
Speaker 1: So she's still competing because this is an old article. Well,
48:39
Speaker 1: I don't know she is now, but I just looked up,
48:42
Speaker 1: looked up photos of her in competition. Yeah. So she
48:45
Speaker 1: was competing at age seventy five. Right. Yeah. But there's
48:48
Speaker 1: a man named Jim Ward who competed into his eighties
48:52
Speaker 1: and I think he was not finishing the races by
48:55
Speaker 1: that point, but he did complete the race at age
48:58
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Man, that's crazy. Yeah. Um. And you mentioned
49:02
Speaker 1: um of father's son Team Team Hoyt Yeah, Man, Team Hoyt.
49:06
Speaker 1: So the dad, Dick hoyt Um is charged with assisting
49:12
Speaker 1: his son Rick Hoitt, who has cerebral palsy, through the
49:15
Speaker 1: Iron Man and has done this more than once. Yeah.
49:19
Speaker 1: So Rick was born with brain damage because of a
49:23
Speaker 1: problem at birth and he can't walk or talk, but
49:27
Speaker 1: he has a communication device where he was able at
49:29
Speaker 1: one point to communicate that he loves sports and of
49:34
Speaker 1: schoolmate of his was paralyzed in an accident and Rick said, Dad,
49:38
Speaker 1: can we run a five k benefit race for my friend?
49:41
Speaker 1: They did that with Dick pushing Rick in a wheelchair
49:45
Speaker 1: and then said let's just keep the party going and
49:48
Speaker 1: moved up to marathons and eventually triathlons. That's pretty impressive.
49:54
Speaker 1: You remember Um In our cerebral Palsy episode we talked
49:56
Speaker 1: about Kyle PA's Um. He's he's from Atlanta. He's one
50:01
Speaker 1: of our listeners and fan. He and his brother Brent
50:04
Speaker 1: have competed in Iron Man competitions too. I think they
50:07
Speaker 1: competed at the championship as well. Amazing ye yeah, check
50:12
Speaker 1: out pictures of Team White because Um the Sun rides
50:16
Speaker 1: in a raft while Dad tows him in the water. Uh,
50:20
Speaker 1: and then rides a bike with the seat up front
50:23
Speaker 1: for Rick and it's just amazing, and then pushes him
50:26
Speaker 1: in a wheelchair for the for the running leg. Pretty
50:29
Speaker 1: great stuff. I can't imagine doing it myself. But also
50:34
Speaker 1: doing it, you know, with your son who has cerebral palsy.
50:37
Speaker 1: It's got a I mean, that's just amazing. Although I'll
50:39
Speaker 1: bet you have like a just this like built in
50:42
Speaker 1: source of inspiration every time you start to get tired,
50:45
Speaker 1: like I better keep going, you know which, actually not
50:49
Speaker 1: I mentioned it's kind of cheating, so um, I got
50:55
Speaker 1: a couple of other things, all right, Um, Chris Lee
51:00
Speaker 1: very famously. I think they made like a Gatorade commercial
51:02
Speaker 1: out of it. Uh. In the ConA Championship, Um collapsed
51:07
Speaker 1: right before the finish line, had to have emergency surgery
51:11
Speaker 1: to remove half of his colon because it had become
51:14
Speaker 1: so oxygen starved during the race that it died. Okay,
51:19
Speaker 1: that's a big deal to have happened to you while
51:21
Speaker 1: you're in the Iron Man race. And then there was
51:25
Speaker 1: also some other famous um collapsing and crawling. Um. That's
51:31
Speaker 1: just amazing that people not only collapse, especially when you
51:34
Speaker 1: understand what's going on in their body, but then the
51:37
Speaker 1: fact that they picked themselves up and keep going or crawl. Um.
51:41
Speaker 1: Shan I think shann or seawan welch u s i
51:45
Speaker 1: a n I can't remember the Gaelic pronunciation. And Wendy
51:49
Speaker 1: Ingram were both women. Competing in the Iron Man. I
51:52
Speaker 1: can't remember what year, but they came in fifth place
51:55
Speaker 1: and fourth place respectively. Um, and they crawled. They were crawling,
51:59
Speaker 1: like competing against one another, crawling over the to the
52:02
Speaker 1: finish line. It's really something to see. As a matter
52:05
Speaker 1: of fact, this is I'll go watch those things now.
52:08
Speaker 1: You know what I like is when the uh you
52:10
Speaker 1: see those things where the person is there's one person
52:12
Speaker 1: crawling and the person can win, but they go back
52:15
Speaker 1: and they pick that person up and they crossed the
52:17
Speaker 1: finish line together. Nothing better. No, there really isn't. Um
52:22
Speaker 1: one other thing chuck. And there's a ongoing dispute among
52:26
Speaker 1: marathon eors and iron Man competitors over which is harder,
52:31
Speaker 1: And a lot of people say, no, marathon is way
52:33
Speaker 1: harder because you're competing flat out the whole time. Iron
52:37
Speaker 1: Man is more about endurance and iron Man is like
52:40
Speaker 1: they're like, you clearly have never been in an iron Man.
52:43
Speaker 1: So I looked, and I think I've settled this once
52:45
Speaker 1: and for all. Okay, the average finisher in a marathon,
52:49
Speaker 1: just a marathon in the United States, I think a
52:52
Speaker 1: year or two ago, was four hours and thirty five
52:55
Speaker 1: minutes Okay, so that's that's pretty good. It's a great time.
52:59
Speaker 1: I would love to have that in an iron Man.
53:02
Speaker 1: The average time to finish the marathon section with four
53:06
Speaker 1: hours and fifty four minutes less than twenty minutes longer.
53:09
Speaker 1: And this is on top of already having done the
53:11
Speaker 1: swim leg and the bike ride leg. So I think
53:14
Speaker 1: that definitively proves that the Iron Man is tougher because
53:17
Speaker 1: most people are still running flat out in the marathon
53:20
Speaker 1: portion on top of having already done the swimming in
53:23
Speaker 1: the biking. Yeah. I mean, it's not even a debate.
53:25
Speaker 1: I didn't even need those numbers. Well some people did.
53:28
Speaker 1: Now they've been swayed and they'll never open their mouths
53:30
Speaker 1: about it again. Uh. If you want to know more
53:33
Speaker 1: about the Iron Man, go out and start training. You
53:35
Speaker 1: could also do worse than going and reading this article
53:38
Speaker 1: on how stuff works by our dear friend Ed Grabmanowski. Agreed.
53:42
Speaker 1: Since I say Grabmanowski, it's time for a listener mail.
53:48
Speaker 1: This is from our our new friend Betty. Betty says this.
53:51
Speaker 1: From the time I was introduced to your show, I've
53:53
Speaker 1: been listening and trying to catch up on as many
53:55
Speaker 1: of your previous shows as possible. I also make learning
53:59
Speaker 1: uh with personal connections, but hesitate to test you about
54:03
Speaker 1: all of my thoughts. Recently, though, I completed a couple
54:06
Speaker 1: that convinced me it was time to write in specifically
54:09
Speaker 1: the Navajo code talkers. I wondered if you knew that
54:12
Speaker 1: another group contributed in a somewhat similar way. Louisiana Cajuns,
54:15
Speaker 1: who like the Navajo were not allowed to speak French
54:18
Speaker 1: on school grounds, served in World War Two as interpreters,
54:22
Speaker 1: uh some maybe even as spies. A friend of mine
54:24
Speaker 1: shared with me that his dad went ashore at Normandy
54:27
Speaker 1: acting as an interpreter, and this is the first time
54:30
Speaker 1: I had heard of that. Also, when you mentioned the
54:32
Speaker 1: Navajo influence at Guadalcanal, I wondered if you had ever
54:35
Speaker 1: done a segment on the Battle of Sabo Sound, the
54:38
Speaker 1: first ever nighttime naval battle. In that battle, my fathership
54:43
Speaker 1: and many others went down because of a sly attack
54:45
Speaker 1: from the Japanese in a series of communication errors. It
54:48
Speaker 1: was quite a debacle. Keep up the great work, guys.
54:51
Speaker 1: My phone travels with me all day, and I'll be
54:54
Speaker 1: listening almost all of my waking hours trying to catch
54:56
Speaker 1: up and that is from Petty. Thanks a lot, Petty,
54:59
Speaker 1: good luck with catching up. Thanks for that awesome email.
55:02
Speaker 1: One of the better stories I've heard that I didn't
55:04
Speaker 1: know about already. Yeah, we'll look into the Cajun thing
55:07
Speaker 1: for maybe a short stuff. If you want to suggest
55:10
Speaker 1: a short stuff for a topic, idea, or anything like that,
55:13
Speaker 1: you can go to stuff you Should Know dot com
55:15
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55:17
Speaker 1: with us that way, or you can send us an
55:20
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55:24
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