Latest / Happy Pace - a triathlon podcast / Episode 1: Why We Love Triathlon (and Why We Started This)
Transcript
- Mardi: so ⁓ my name is ⁓ I have been doing triathlon, I think for coming up on 10 or so years maybe a little bit I started with, some local, ⁓ local triathlons. My first race was ⁓ an Olympic distance race, and welcome to the Happy Pace Where Jacqueline and Marty and we talk about triathlon. A lot. ⁓ Like voice notes, messages, ⁓ memes, race breakdowns, probably more than we should. So this is basically us turning those conversations into you can listen to well. and then all the way up to sort of 70.3 distance. I've been to New Zealand for 70.3 world champs ⁓ and I just really enjoy the sport. I also work full time and just try and fit in training and everything around, around work. What about you, Marty? So I'm I have been doing triathlon. I think it's 10 would probably be about the same 10 or 11 years this 2015. We both follow the pro scene pretty closely. We're in the spot ourselves and we definitely have opinions, but we also just really enjoy it. this podcast is a mix of what's happening in triathlon, what we're noticing and how we're experiencing it ourselves. I think it would make sense to start by introducing ourselves. So Jacqueline, do you want to give us a little rundown? again, sort of sprint up to Ironman. did my first Ironman last year ⁓ I've done a whole bunch of 17.3s, ⁓ triathlon world championships in Switzerland for the Olympic distance. it was also in Topo last year for, no, year before now ⁓ for the world champs. similarly work full time. I also coach, which is how Happy Pace started. And just, yeah, absolutely. ⁓ So for the podcast, we've got a of structure week to week cause my type A personality already worked all of this out, ⁓ but we're going to do it little bit out of sequence this week, just so you can get to know us better ⁓ and, we can find a good flow. So every week we're going to start with what's happening in triathlon, what's happening in the pro world. We're going to share our favorite session of the week in our own training. And then each week we're going to have a topic. one of the objectives we really want get out of this podcast is being able to share some of the topics that are happening for beginners, ⁓ you for people who are just getting into triathlon. There's so much to know about all the equipment, about the racing, about the events, event weekends, and there's just so many things that we could cover and so many things that we probably wish we had a source for ourselves when we started. So we'd love to get into a topic of the week each week. and then we've also got ⁓ little bit of a quick hint. So we might share an unpopular opinion, something we're currently obsessed with. or a race to watch this week or weekend. Perfect. So the topic of this week is how we got into triathlon and why we stayed. Marts, do you want to go first? So I got into triathlon, like I said, in 2015, I saw a first triathlon course at my local swimming pool, Hawthorn pool in Melbourne and the Hawthorn tri club do a six week try, try program. So they do like Structured group training sessions for six weeks and lead up to a sprint or mini distance triathlon So a sprint distance trial is 750 meter swim 20k ride 5k run. I signed up for the mini I think I was the only person who signed up, didn't get the memo and did the mini which was a 400 meter swim 10k ride 2k run and I remember going to the pool before the The program started and I thought, I better get into the swing of it, like get back in the pool. Haven't been swimming since I went to, well, since high school and I couldn't swim more than 50 meters without stopping. And I just thought, Oh my God, how am I going to do 400 meters in open water? in six weeks time. Yeah, literally. Um, and I mean, since then I've done. Whole lot longer, you know, I just remember a such a huge deal at the time and it came to race and think I did breaststroke the whole way. I I stopped ⁓ maybe two or three times, but ⁓ that was my first exposure to the sport. And yeah, I actually thought that I would be a little bit one and done with triathlon. I thought I'd, you know, take it off as like a bit more of a bucket list item. And I thought, oh yeah, like I'll do a triathlon. That's a cool challenge. But I think through that experience, I just loved it. And I really, you know, I really, really enjoyed it. Um, I'd gone to the first training session of the tri club. with a mountain bike from my teenage years, which I remember riding around Richmond Boulevard on very slowly. And I think that afternoon I went and bought a road bike, ⁓ based on color, course. ⁓ little blue blue one. And ⁓ just fell in love with it. Fell in love with the training, the lifestyle, the people. ⁓ but yeah, that first try was, was definitely the start of something. What about you Jacqueline? Do you remember your first race? Yeah. My first race was a two times year Olympic distance. my love for Olympic distance is not there anymore. ⁓ but I, my first race was an Olympic distance race and the swim was actually canceled. So it was a duathlon in the end with a two and a half K run, 40 K bike, and then another five, another 10 K run. But I got into triathlon because I was a very injured runner. I bought a bike as a cross training kind of tool. Cause I was just sick of being injured all the time, only running. ⁓ ⁓ was never going to do a triathlon. Like I never bought this bike with the intention of doing a triathlon. ⁓ then I joined a women's only tri club ⁓ Melbourne. then obviously in this sport, one leads to another. And I signed up for my first Olympic distance race. ⁓ but as I said, the swim was so it probably suited me fine ⁓ having the two runs and the bike, ⁓ but I just remember absolutely loving it. ⁓ And then I kept kind of writing and I remember after that race, I decided I was going to sign up for 70.3. You just went like straight in. I went straight in. But I think the saving grace there was there is a little bit of time in between and during the pandemic that 70.3 it was actually going be Melbourne 70.3 in 2020. But that race was canceled. So That was not to be. and then I ended up my first 70.3 was Geelong at the start of 2022. So there was quite a bit of time between my first race and then that race, but Yeah. Once I did that first 70.3, I think I was pretty hooked, especially after training through COVID, through lockdown. So I don't know, like what surprised you about triathlon from before you started to actually doing one and doing a couple? I think it was the community that really surprised me. Like in running the, the community is there, but it takes a little bit longer to kind of break into it a bit. Whereas in triathlon, it felt a little bit more welcoming to me at the time. And it was what I needed. ⁓ I also think as well with the whole. I don't know, running and triathlon. Like, yes, they're both individual sports, but I feel that because running is always from point A to point B as fast as you can. Like there's not much room for variability in that. Like, yes, okay, there's nutrition and pacing ⁓ But at the of the day, everyone's just trying to get from A to B as fast as they can. Yeah. And it's either like meeting their expectations, exceeding it or not. Whereas I feel triathlon is humbling. ⁓ Very I agree very much so and it's it's a bit hard I think having been injured for for so long from running I. I didn't think that I would never get back to running those times again I'm not far off that now but and for me it was about the times and how fast I was running. And starting triathlon took that pressure off and even now like I go back and race races that I've raced before. ⁓ I've done Geelong a few times now, but I go back and race those races and every day is different. the times are not comparable or the class, the, the course is a little bit different. ⁓ racing in Geelong versus racing in Cairns or a different part of Australia. Like the, course is different. The times don't compare. So I think that's also what I really like about it. Yeah. 100%. And I think true just with the community because. No one is amazing at all three plus transitions, plus gear, plus nutrition and everything. Like everyone's always chasing the perfect race. So everyone always has things that they're happy with or that they're working on or that they were disappointed with or things that they're, they come to the sport being naturally talented at or not. Like, you know, the best swimmer is generally, you know, not the strongest runner or they haven't come from a run background and same with running or cycling, you know, maybe ⁓ new to swimming. so. like from a community level, people are just really humble because they, you know, I mean, they acknowledge their weakness or they acknowledge, can acknowledge what they're needing to work on or things like that. So yeah, I think that's, that surprised me as well. I think the community aspect of it. and I think also just, ⁓ sport through the lifespan, like I've been really fortunate, You know, the tri clubs and groups that I have trained with is such a training with such a diverse range of ages and genders. Yeah. has also been really cool. And I'm so inspired by some of the, I don't want to say older, but sort of the old age groups, like the old age groups are so inspiring because I'm like to have that level of fitness, health, community longevity in a sport. A hundred percent. I'm like, that is inspiring. For sure. I agree. So I think that's been really good. Maddie, want to tell everyone how we met? ⁓ So I did that first trial with Hawthorn Tri and then I joined ⁓ a ⁓ new group that was starting in Melbourne is I don't think we met through Tri Chicks. No we didn't but I getting to it. Okay maybe edit that bit out. I'm getting to So Amy, a triathlon coach started... this group called Tragics, they were doing an eight week beginner course for a ⁓ sprint distance try, which I like, great. haven't done a sprint distance yet. So, ⁓ signed up for that with a friend. and was a very pivotal, ⁓ pivotal decision because I just think about all of the, ⁓ you know, obviously the triathlon journey, but the friendships, that I've had as result of. that group and then, you know, Yeah. Onward to that. And so I remember following a very inspiring and dietitian, Amy on Instagram at the time. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, went and saw her for diet. Tedx Consultations, which was such a huge help for me at that time. And, was doing like an expo ⁓ the Melbourne fitness expo. Yeah. ⁓ of those, anyway. And she had asked a few clients to come and help her out with that. One of her other clients. Me. ⁓ what were you doing at the time? ⁓ was still ⁓ but I think I was like, In like pre-contemplation for pre-contemplation for buying a bike. I might've been training for Gold Coast half marathon at the time, but I thought you were really cool. Cause I started following you on Instagram and I was like, Oh my God, she's done the Disney princess half marathon. what a cool event. It was very cool. Yeah. but I did get my glass slipper medal. you go. then so you saw it was Amy. seeing Amy for the same reason. Um, I just, I didn't know what I should be eating, how I had an idea, um, how much things like that. So yeah. And then I got invited to go and help out at this fitness expo event. And that's where I met Marty. Yeah. And then you joined Tri-Tix a few years later. We didn't have any crossover. We did not cross over at Tri-Tix, no. But we sort of started having probably more mutual friends that were doing Triathlon. And actually probably pivotal moment was when I had an injury in 2020. I, Jacqueline. ⁓ Came to work. Came to your work. Yeah. So I, I'm an exercise physiologist by background, which is, ⁓ She's very different from what do now. I'm an exercise physiologist with my background and our role is we play a really big role in the management of injuries and chronic diseases. The clinic I was working at the time, I was working in a musculoskeletal physio clinic and Marty was injured and And we've just, I don't know, it's just very organic. We've done quite a few races together, but I think like we said at the start, just always talk about it. We've also been in the same age group for the last, well, Forever. We are the same age. We are in fact the same age which doesn't change. And so we found ourselves competing against each other on the start line. Jacqueline is an absolute gun. She's a lot of our age groups in the sprint and things but we are, yeah, we both just love it. that's how we met. Why we're still here. What keeps coming back to triathlon? I think it's still the community. Yeah. It's the community. It's my friends. a lot of my friends do triathlon. It's some way to sort of channel that competitive energy that I, that I do have. And I find it's really rewarding. Yeah. Really, really rewarding. I also feel that triathlons like this third space, you know, people talk about the third space and it might be like the gym or You're like a studio or like a creative hobby or interest or something like that. Like you have your work, you have your home and there's something else for you. And then I have my bike. But yeah, like that place, it's an escape from, from work and you know, home and yeah, it's like this whole world that you can immerse yourself into. ⁓ And I think it's just like that feeling of doing things that you didn't know that were capable of doing. ⁓ That sense of achievement. And then the confidence that came from that. I found like in the sport because you. think, ⁓ maybe I could do this or that. But how that translated into other parts of my life. I think it's also like sport teaches us so much about ourselves. Like when things are hard, like we can, we can, we can do hard things. ⁓ translates really well into our everyday, ⁓ our everyday lives, or even just like having to get yourself to training or ⁓ to do those things. Like that translates really, really well. into our lives. Yeah, a hundred percent. I remember, you know, near when I started, there was one of those quotes about like, ⁓ you know, if you start your day doing something hard, then everything else is easy. And I think back to some of, you know, the harder first sessions of, you know, bike intervals in the dark and, ⁓ things like that. And, conquering over water swimming and conquering fears that, like doing that sort of stuff. At the start of 6am on a weekday. That was probably the thing though that delayed me doing a triathlon. It was open water swimming. I'd done this open water swim years before, down at Sorrento and I rocked up and everyone else had a wetsuit on. I didn't have a wetsuit. But I did this swim and I reckon I came last. then that was the thing that put me off but as soon as I realized that I can do this and can, relationship with the sport changes. Your confidence in yourself grows. I think we will do a whole topic of the week on open water swimming and starting open water swimming. like we talking about earlier, there's always something different to work on. There's always something different to find. Um, so I hope I keep loving it forever. I think you will. We did say actually at T 100, we saw this lady, who was in a purple tri suit, just like happy pace. And I think she was in, was it the 70 to 74 category and. our girls group chat was just like this, that is goals. Like that is us. We were all just like, yep, that's, that's us. Like we want to be that. think as much as we love being competitive and, and doing really well and pushing ourselves, like I think the long-term goal is that. Yeah. Like if I'm still 70, if I'm 75 and I'm still doing this. Yeah. I've won. So we're going to go into our session of the week. We will do this at the start of the episodes. a little bit about our own training ⁓ ⁓ what the hell it has been of the week. So Jacqueline, do you want to start? What's been your session of the week? ⁓ ⁓ think my ⁓ of the week this week was ⁓ night run. we, we run. ⁓ I run ⁓ Tuesday night, Thursday night, kind of split at the moment. ⁓ Thursday nights are generally our longer endurance, our strength-based sessions. ⁓ But the session specifically was warmup into, I think it was a three minute building effort and then a two minute building effort followed by five by 90 seconds on 90 seconds off with the 90 seconds being just above. threshold pace, so pretty, pretty sharp. And for those of you that live in Melbourne, it's gotten really dark in the evenings really quickly all of a sudden. but there's, there's three of us that typically run together my friends, Emily and Molly, ⁓ and we, we generally the same session. So it's always a good one that really pushes us ⁓ to our sessions really on a Thursday night. You've been at work all week. You then don't you guys swim in the morning? swim on a Thursday morning. Yeah. And then we have running Thursday night. we swim, go to work, get changed, go run. so there's, there's always a little bit of a mental challenge to get out the door. Like you're a bit tired tomorrow's Friday. There's other things to do, but I always find it's the session that I do enjoy quite a bit. Um, so yeah, just, I enjoyed the actual session itself, but the. The thing for me was just seeing the girls after work ⁓ pushing each to get that session done. ⁓ And just the banter and the chats that we have with the rest of the group during the warmup and the cool down, but even with each other during the session as well. It was one of those sessions where we kind of locked in a little bit on the 90 second efforts. Like there was no talking on the recoveries this week. ⁓ It's like, yeah, we kind of locked in. Yeah, we kind of locked in on that last little set today. And then extended cool down, which we ⁓ ran up the back of the turn and ⁓ as our cool down on test, that was so nice. Love that. What was yours? Love that. ⁓ Mine was, I would say Sunday, Sunday long run last week. So I live in Brisbane, small detail. did all of the stories today have been Melbourne based. However, in July last year, I moved up to Brisbane, which has been a very long held dream of mine to live in Brisbane, Australia. It's warm and sunny. aligned lifestyle to swim back and run everyone's up and about early. 5am is very normal. I think there's some data that says Brisbane is the earliest rising city in the world by average wake up time and it's great. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, my favorite run of the week was my favorite session of the week. I think it was my Sunday long run and took the ferry over to the other side of the river. Oh, Brisbane thing. It's probably like 7 or 8am and like already 24, 25 degrees. Pure sunshine. And yeah, just an 18 K long run. And I just, was beautiful morning. I just said so many times, I'm like, ⁓ this is so nice. so lucky. ⁓ I also had a bit of a running injury about a month or six weeks ago. So I think just the feeling of being able to run, be pain free, be warm in the sun, running in shorts in April. was like, this is great. Was there coffee after there was coffee and a and Yeah, it was a very good coffee and muffin. Um, and just really nice to sort of have that. Yeah. Have that as like a, a morning. Just a whole grade. That was my session of the week. might have to move to Brisbane. I think you can come visit. Oh, I'm so sorry. We're going to record the podcast. Got to go. So we'll go into our next segment, which is what's been happening. the focus of this will be recent races, pro races, or even other races that are coming up or that have just been, and what's, what stood out for us, whether it's pros who's been racing pros kit who's got bikes. But it'll be that'll be the crux of the session. So the session of the segment. ⁓ So, so far We're three and a half months into the year ⁓ and... We've had three big Ironman Pro Series races. So we're going to do a bit of a deep dive next episode on the different types of pro races. So we've got, you know, the Ironman, you've probably heard Ironman Pro Series, T100, ⁓ World Triathlon and Super Tri are the main sort level events. We'll a bit of a deep dive, but the big ones have been from the Ironman Pro Series and T100. Yep. So we've had Ironman New Zealand in early March, ⁓ by Geelong 70.3 towards the end of March. And then most recently we've had Oceanside 70.3. Big. Big start to the triathlon year. Big start to the year. Especially for us in the Southern hemisphere with having ⁓ races in... ⁓ New Zealand and in Australia, but particularly Victoria. Yeah. Pretty cool for the locals down here. Yeah, absolutely. So I think coming into Ironman New Zealand at the start of March, it was really pissed over the last few months as like, this is going to be massive. Like there's going to be such a huge pro field. All of the big hitters are on the start list. I think it got to a few weeks before the race and it did drop off a bit. Albeit they still had some really big names on the start list. Yeah. In particular, Kat Matthews on the women's side who won the Ironman Pro Series last year and Christian Bumenthal. It's a bit of a goat. He has won, you know, Olympic gold medal, 70.3 Worlds, Ironman World Championships. and he's just a machine. So in New Zealand, it was, we had Kat Matthews win overall. Yep. Uh, followed by Hannah Berry, New Zealand local. Yes. And Lottie Wilms. Yeah. And so Kat, yeah, just pretty well dominated. And she won by quite a bit in that race. ⁓ but we absolutely love Hanna Berry, who is a bit of a local favorite in New Zealand and Australia as well. Also really strong across the high man distance. and then Lottie Wilms, who is a particularly strong swim biker. Yeah. ⁓ and she did really well. I think all the girls finished within all podiums finished within about nine minutes of each other. On the men's side, I think that was a bit of a surprise. It was a surprise. we had Trevor Foley win in seven hours, 46 minutes and 44 seconds. Uh, Pierre Lacour from France in seven hours, 48 minutes, and then Matt Hanson from the U S in seven hours, 50. Yeah. And we should say this is like these times. Ironman distance is a 3.8 kilometer swim, 180 K bike, 42 K run. Yeah. that context of my Ironman was like just under 12 hours. So for these guys to do this, this is just like, you know, normal person versus the pro level of the sport. It's course in New Zealand. It is really, really tough course in New Zealand. So the, the bike course this year had changed. Yeah. So the bike course was more, and we can go into this when we talk about horses in the next few weeks. But the bike course this year was more reminiscent of the 70.3. Which we did. World's course, which Marty and I both did. that the road surface in New Zealand is Chipsil. So it's a little bit bumpier. It takes a little bit more out of your legs. So to be then coming off the bike and then running a marathon on also a really tough course, a relatively tough marathon course. times are super impressive. Super impressive. Yeah. Taupo we love as a race venue though. I have to say, I had been saying when I qualified, I'd been saying Taupo. ⁓ Taupo we say. It's actually Taupo. The biggest Australians, Taupo. Taupo in New Zealand, it's in the middle of New Zealand, three hours south of Auckland. Absolutely beautiful venue. The community totally gets around any triathlon event there. Freshwater swim. That tough bike course and the run. Yeah, huge race. I think everyone thought. It would be Kat and KB coming into the race. For sure. Yeah. Christian, if you look up on social media, had some issues with his bike bars. ⁓ his, that's right. His TT bars came off or one of his TT bars, one of his aero bars came off his bike, drew the race. And so not only was that awkward, he also didn't have his data then for how much power he was pushing. ⁓ did he have some nutrition issues as well? I think he had nutrition issues as well. Anyway, so he, I think ended up rolling through into that sixth. Fifth or sixth in the race. And Trevor Foley, you know, an American athlete, he came in, I don't think he planned to do this race originally. came in, yeah, came in pretty hot and just had a fantastic race. I started cheering for him pretty early on because he has a purple kid. has a purple kid. what you're curious about us is a lot of how, who, what we like and who we start cheering for during a race. largely depend on what someone's wearing or what their bike looks like. ⁓ We absolutely care about the athletes, but at the same time, it's just the vibe we're picking up. Piela Core in second. So this was his first Ironman. Massive. Which is crazy. And also just shouldn't be able to get all of that right. He's come up through Olympic distance in that ITU level. I think he's on 70.3 maybe, but yeah. Pretty impressive to be coming second in your first ever Ironman. And third place was Matt Hanson from the US. Yeah, he actually smoked the run. I'd have to look up the splits, but 234.49. So that is a marathon in 234.49 after, after 180km bike ride, 3.8 kilometre swim. I remember just, he just ran through the field. So huge result for him. And he's definitely one to watch, I think coming as well into this Next race in Texas next for Ironman. Yeah. She's on the start list for it's very exciting. Um, I was, I was just going to say before we go on, um, Kyle Smith. Oh, from New Zealand. Yeah. Started off strong was leading until about 17 Ks on the run. And then started to have some, some cramping issues. But again, put on an amazing show for the first chunk of the race, but it just goes to show. their, the toll, the, these courses racing in these conditions, these races have on the body. Totally. I've just felt so bad too, cause he's obviously local to Topol. It's his home race and I'm just watching him get swallowed up. It was just really heartbreaking. So he'll be back, but yeah, huge results there. Two weeks after New Zealand 70, New Zealand Ironman, had Geelong 70.3. Uh, from, we weren't there. were on the Gold Coast, but, um, from what we've heard, perfect conditions for a race. we can talk about what we battled on the Gold Coast, but, the perfect race conditions. we had KB win, take out the men's race in three hours, 30, 25, uh, yellow green. Green's. Yellagines took out from Belgium took out 3 um second in 331 24 and Hayden Wild 331 52. Right behind so coming into this race like this was like it is such a hot start list for the men's race like having KB who is you know as I mentioned like a real real gout of the sport at the moment I would say. 100%. Yellagines who is the reigning 17.3 world champ him and Christian Bumenthal had a sprint finish at the 70.3 world champs last year for the last, I think it was like six or eight K in the run. They were neck and neck. It's such a great, such a great race that one. And Hayden Wild, who has been super dominant at the T100 distance, which is just shy of a 70.3. He came third in 70.3 worlds in Topol, which Yelly Gaines won. They are just like, the three of them are just like, so competitive. Yeah. Totally. And to have them battling it out in Geelong on Australian soil is such a cool thing. It's just such a shame that T100 Gold Coast was the same day. To know Triathlon is to know how much of a big deal this was for us down here. Absolutely. Absolutely. On the women's side, we had Kat. Do you have her time there? Yeah. 4.06.15, which is a course record. Followed by Happy Pace favorite Grace Tech. Yes. In second, this is Grace's, I think ninth. long race ninth ninth time on the podium. Love it. Massive. ⁓ followed by, ⁓ one of my faves, Tamara Jewett. Yeah. ⁓ I think I've got a bit of a soft spot for her cause she's a very good runner. Yep. She's Canadian. Canadian. Yeah. She's had a good little, she came over and did New Zealand. She did challenge Wanaka. Yes. Which is a smaller race in New Zealand. Earlier she's had a little bit of a Aussie New Zealand tour. Yeah. What was her time? She was 4.15.27. was her run time? Sorry, I should go back. was 30 seconds behind Kat, which was 36 seconds, which is amazing. It was another nine minutes back to Tamara. Tamara or Tamar? Tamara. Tamara. All right. We've got to lead into our accents here. We've got to lean in. Great So yes, massive race followed by Oceanside 70.3. That was big. So Oceanside is in, should say Oceanside is California in the US. we, the talk of the town is the ocean side was the side of the pro series, side of the triathlon season. However, I feel like that is just people who live in the Northern Hemisphere. Yeah. However, for us in the Southern Hemisphere, we are definitely leaning into the New Zealand Geelong combo. So the women's race was taken out by Taylor Nibb, who had also raced Uh, Gold Coast T 100 the week prior. Um, and then jetted on back to be able to race, uh, Oceanside, uh, Solvay Glosseth in second. So reigning Ironman world champion from Kona last year and Audrey Mel from France. This was, I want to say it might've been a second 70.3 distance race. Not a name I'm particularly familiar with, but probably one that we should put on our radar. Yeah, absolutely. And also there was some really great 70.3 athletes in that field. Special shout out again to Grace. Also backing up after Geelong the week before in fourth place. She held off Jackie Herring. We also love, met her at... Just love all the gals. Met her in Cairns because she won Cairns Ironman last year. You know, I probably came 400th or something to her, but I'm not a pro and she was absolutely lovely. They did have some really good footage of you know, some of the fourth, fifth, sixth, further back places and Grace and Jackie had a real run battle and only 20 seconds separated them in the end. Fourth and fifth. Huge shout out. and then I think on the men's side, was a massive, yeah, massive race. Huge, huge, huge, huge. So we had KB again take out Oceanside, three hours 40, followed by Jonas Schomburg from Germany and another Norwegian. The Stoners. Yeah, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to go to fourth and fifth as well. We had Sam Long coming in in fourth place and Jason West. Yeah, huge. And just a really stacked male field like all three Norwegians, which, you know, I'm sure we'll explain them a little bit in a bit more detail in future episodes. Huge race. What I do want to say though, Sam Long. ⁓ my God, Sam. So Sam. is known in triathlon as not having the strongest swim out of the field. But he's such a strong bike and runner. blew through the field on the came out of swim like two minutes back, blew through the field on the bike, absolutely went for it. I found out from his YouTube after he actually didn't have data. Like his power meter didn't connect. So he didn't know how hard he was riding. He was riding really hard. He came through the field. He had like a course record time. which I think a few other athletes did also hit as well. Came out super strong on the run. Did some work with Jonas Schoenberg, but it was the end. It was really heartbreaking. He was in third place still. So still holding on for a podium about 800 or so meters to go. Casper Strones came up behind him, past him, and Sam just did not have. No legs. No legs. Nothing left to give. It was only 11, 11 seconds. Yeah. Between. Casper and Sam. you saw him come over the finish line. And he was just so frustrated. Like he just, yeah, he just like let out a really frustrated sort of sigh, I guess. And one of the commentators, think it was Crowey, was like, oh, know, Sam looks really happy with that. And it's like, very clearly not. Like very clearly not. He looked really upset and I really felt for him because he puts his heart on the line. Early in the season to put that much on the line. Yeah. yeah, he's definitely want to watch. He's actually doing Texas this week as well, but yeah, that was my little heartbreak moment for the, for the day. ⁓ but amazing race and like to have KB come off Geelong and New Zealand and all of that travel and just go so well and, and win that race is just really amazing. You just hope he can hold that form for the rest of this. Yeah. Absolutely. ⁓ So Texas is next week. Texas, yep. I'm in Texas. We're not gonna do picks. No. But I think we could give a bit of a rundown about who's on the start line, just like high level overview. So Texas Christian Brementhal, yep. Kasper Vestornes, Schomburg. Yeah, Gustav Eden, so all three of the Norwegians. ⁓ Jelle Geins is doing, who we mentioned from Geelong before, is doing his first ⁓ full Ironman, which is gonna be really cool to watch. Huge. Jonas Schomburg, who came second in 70.3 Christian side. Sam Long, who we just mentioned. Martin Van Riel? Oh, he did Kona last year came fourth at Kona, which was super fourth or fifth at Kona. Super impressive. Um, he's someone who's come up through, you know, the Olympic distance, ITU and 70.3 and T 100 ranks and is actually really strong at Ironman's as well. Amazing. On the women's side. Um, or the other one I was just going to add was we've got Cameron Maine. He's a little bit further back. He actually won Ironman WA last year. Amazing. he, but it was hot there. It's going to be hot in Texas. So it'll be interesting to see if he does really well. Predicted 34 degrees Celsius and a windy day. Do you hear that? And then Nick Thompson from Australia. So Nick I have seen on Instagram has been doing cycling, like mainlining cycling, basically the whole summer he's been doing. He did the national championships, which were over in Perth and he's done some sort of pro type team. Cycling, so it'd really interesting to see how he races off the back of that. And I think there's like 79 male starters in the pro, so I think that's as far as we'll take that list. And who have we got on the women's side? Women's side we've got Kat, Taylor and Solveig. So some big names which we've already mentioned. Amazing. Pro Series leader, reigning Ironman World Champion two time. She's amazing. love her. Yeah. Hannah Berry, who we mentioned from New Zealand, Grace tech, Grace has done a full distance at challenge Roth last year. ⁓ so she'll get Texas Jackie Herring, who also mentioned, ⁓ then ⁓ bit of long little shout out to Katie Redmond, who is another Aussie pro on that list ⁓ as well. Yeah. So be a really cool race to watch. ⁓ Yeah. The other pro race that we've already had this year is Gold Coast T100. Women's only race. T100 have split the men and the women for this year. We will go into more details on that one in our next episode. But Gold Coast T100 was where Marty and I both were. did the age group race. We had Taylor Nip. win, take out the win comfortably. Yeah. We followed by Jess Fullerger first team 100 race. And I'm just going to put a little side note here. She was on a borrowed bike. She was on Lucy Byram's bike. She borrowed a friend's bike. I love that. That's for your first try. That's what you do for your first try. Exactly. And if you know Lucy Byram's bike would be very, very fast. Yeah. As well. Um, and then in third place, we had Imogen Simmons making a return to pro racing. Um, after a bit of a tough year after a tough year. Yeah. No, that was so cool. And so we got to watch the pro race on the Saturday afternoon before we did our age group race on the Sunday. It was such a good event. I think we'll go into more detail next episode on that. probably takeaways. It wasn't a super deep women's Um, not like what we've seen from T 100 in the past, but there's been some changes to the way they. Run things and how they acquire athletes for their races, but we can dig into that. Yeah. I think like the T 100 season now goes till December. So if you're going to do races now, it's a really long time to be good for sure. also just want to note that that, that for that race, the swim was an ocean swim. Yeah. That was chaos to what absolute chaos to watch. Like, sorry, we should say most triathlons or a lot of triathlons do have ocean swims. This was like surf. This was a surf swim. Yeah. So that the swim was in the surf beach on the gold coast. Yeah. let's just take this bit out because it's just awful. Doesn't have value and we've got a lot to cover. So yeah, we can drive, dive into the T 100, um, down the track. Um, coming up next for the pro series will be Singapore. Oh, Singapore, T 100, which is a men's race. Yeah, we can look at the field of that in a couple of weeks time, but it's just a really exciting time in triathlon. You know, we've got a lot of races happening already this early in the season. It's really going to heat up, especially coming, you know, middle to championship season. And we're really excited to, you know, have this podcast so we can talk about it. We talk about it. Amazing. Anyway. So I think our race to watch this week is Texas. Yeah. ⁓ it will be on overnight. for us, but the good thing about the Ironman Pro Series races is you can watch that on YouTube. Yeah. Over your Sunday morning coffee. Yep. Absolutely. All right. Last segment. our quick hit. Yeah. Okay. My quick hit. I'm going to share an unpopular opinion. Go for it. Unpopular opinion is that following pro triathlon, pro triathlon, following pro triathlon is actually fun. I'm going say this because I feel like a lot of people think that following Iron Man in particular just means sitting there watching, you know, eight hours of Iron Man stream. Which is excellent if you're folding washing on a Sunday and you know, going about your life admin. But I think to be fair, like that's not always a sell. I think there's so much more to it now, especially now versus three or four years ago, you know, in the last couple of years, like eight's more accessible with, you know, streaming on YouTube. things like that, but there's also so many more formats like the T100 format. Obviously there's World Triathlon, but you know, Super Tri, 70.3 and the Ironmans being part of a pro series makes it more exciting. ⁓ The fields are deeper. So it's not just about who comes first, second and third. Like I think Texas is a great example of that where, you know, it could be really exciting for who comes in top 10 or 15th. Deeper into the race. We're going to be looking at who's finishing there. And I also think, kind of like some of the storylines that are coming out of it. social media has been amazing for that in the last couple of years, you know, some of the rivalries, little snide remarks, funny comments. ⁓ think if go back to the start of the pod, like this is where triathlon has changed and evolved since we, we first started. We didn't have access to the pros like we do now with social media. so I, I agree. Yeah. I think being able to follow on social media, those in-between, those little highlights clips, ⁓ you being able to do podium picks now there's the pro try news podcast, which is just started this really great podium picks, competition, ⁓ just makes it so much more exciting than just watching an eight hour stream. So. ⁓ We can talk about this all day and that's why we are here. I'm not going through, but I'm just going to say unpopular opinion. Protrathlon is actually really fun to follow. Protrathlon is cool to watch. Yeah. Very cool to follow. Yeah. We're going to leave it there, but I think if you have any feedback, any, the best thing you could do for us is to share this like and subscribe, like and subscribe, I think if you can, you know, share it with a friend, tell someone about it, who's either just getting into the sport or thinking about getting into the sport. Or maybe someone who follows the pro races and wants a different voice to listen to. We would love for you to do that. Yeah. Bye.