From Podium to Performance: Analyzing Race Strategies in Triathlon
In this episode of the Tempo Talks, Jeff Sankoff and Matt Sharpe delve into the outcomes of recent triathlon competitions, including notable performances at Ironman Cairns and the T100 in Vancouver. Sharpe and Sankoff dissect the strategies employed by athletes, particularly focusing on the race tactics of Matthew Marquardt, who faced significant challenges yet showcased remarkable resilience to clinch his first professional victory. The discourse highlights the importance of mental fortitude in the face of adversity, as Marquardt's ability to recover from a cramping incident during the swim to ultimately lead the race serves as a testament to the unpredictable nature of triathlon. The speakers further analyze the implications of these performances on the athletes' preparations for upcoming competitions, emphasizing the intricate relationship between training, mental preparation, and race execution.
Links to topics discussed:
The TriDoc Podcast
Matt's Instagram
Jeff's Instagram
Email Jeff: tri_doc@icloud.com
Email Matt: Matt@thetemponews.com
Signup for the Tempo News
Signup for The TriDoc Podcast Supplement form
Transcript
Welcome to Tempo Talks, a show that brings you analysis of the biggest stories in triathlon training, tips to make you a better athlete, and breakdowns of the latest science and performance.
Speaker A:I'm Matthew Sharp, an olympian in triathlon, 70.3 champion and co founder of the Tempo News.
Speaker B:And I'm Jeff Sankoff, the tridoc medical contributor for Triathlete magazine, age group winner and coach at Life Sport Coaching.
Speaker B:Our goal, inform and entertain two perspectives.
Speaker B:One sport, all things triathlon.
Speaker B:Now, let's get into it.
Speaker B:How goes the recovery, Matt?
Speaker A:Race recovery?
Speaker A:Actually feeling pretty good, I think.
Speaker A:I talked to you after the race in Boulder, and I wasn't like, there's no acute pains.
Speaker A:There's just overall achiness.
Speaker A:And it's just.
Speaker A:That's what it's been since the race.
Speaker A:It's just achiness.
Speaker A:I actually had a massage today, which, yeah, it's all part of the process of recovering and definitely feels.
Speaker A:When the lady was going through my quads, it was torture, but all for a good cause.
Speaker B:It's one of those things.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's one of those things where you're like, do I let her push.
Speaker A:Harder or there's a line?
Speaker B:I went for a massage the day after.
Speaker A:You went for massage.
Speaker B:I went for a massage the day after, mostly just because that was my only time that I had available.
Speaker B:And I walk in and she's, okay, what are we doing today?
Speaker B:And I'm like, man, minimal.
Speaker B:Just a very gentle kind of flush is really all we're going for.
Speaker B:And she did exactly that.
Speaker B:And you know what?
Speaker B:It felt pretty good.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Your body's.
Speaker A:Thank you Now.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker B:I actually feel pretty good.
Speaker B:No doubt.
Speaker B:I pushed through beyond what training I actually had in that race.
Speaker B:And so unlike in the last couple of years where I didn't feel too sore in the week or days even following a race, I definitely felt it this week, but.
Speaker B:But I'm feeling pretty good.
Speaker B:We are recording this on Wednesday.
Speaker B:You, my friend, had a fantastic day.
Speaker B:Congratulations on the podium.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:That's a good feeling.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like fourth for me.
Speaker A:I would always love to be third or whatever, our first or second like, on that podium.
Speaker A:But for me, I know that I got the ceiling of my performance.
Speaker A:That was the most I could have done relative to the competition.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it was a great race for me.
Speaker A:There were some tough moments, like on the bike.
Speaker A:We had a group come by pretty early, and I really had to dig in to.
Speaker A:To hang on for dear life on these guys.
Speaker A:And I actually Was a little concerned I wouldn't really have any run legs coming off.
Speaker A:But yeah, maybe just a combo of the home race.
Speaker A:Knowing the course, I don't know, just feeling a little better.
Speaker A:And yeah, I was able to run in for a solid fourth place, which, yeah, I'm super happy with.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:That was a great day for me.
Speaker B:That's pretty awesome.
Speaker B:And I know for me.
Speaker B:I'm gonna talk about it next week on the Tridoc podcast in the opening because I had a.
Speaker B:I had a lot more time out on the course than I usually do.
Speaker B:I still managed to finish seventh in my age group, which for the amount of training I've had was.
Speaker B:I was pretty pleased.
Speaker B:As I told you on Sunday, Saturday, one of the highlights of my day was seeing Kirsten out there and seeing her on the run.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker B:Gave me a lot.
Speaker B:Yeah, that was really.
Speaker B:It made me very happy.
Speaker A:And who was that on the course?
Speaker B:Yeah, that was on the second lap of the run.
Speaker B:I was crossing the dam for the second time, so probably would have been mile 7.25 kind of thing.
Speaker B:And she just came up alongside and was so enthusiastic and I just really.
Speaker B:It just made my day to see her out there.
Speaker B:So that was great.
Speaker B:And yeah, it was great and didn't have my best race by any means.
Speaker B:But as I was telling you and as I plan to go into at length next week when I do the intro to my show, I just had this kind of revelation that, you know what?
Speaker B:My life has changed a lot this year.
Speaker B:I'm not able to train to the same extent as I have been in the past.
Speaker B:And the fact of the matter is that I'm just so much in a better place, mental health wise.
Speaker B:Things are just so much better for me overall that if the trade off means finishing seventh instead of finishing in the top five, I am okay with that trade because I was out there doing something I loved.
Speaker B:I still had a good time.
Speaker B:I still finished seventh.
Speaker B:Really nothing to sneeze at, especially in a big age group.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And you know what?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's.
Speaker B:It was a real.
Speaker B:It was a real.
Speaker B:I think it was a reckoning.
Speaker B:And at the same time, it was.
Speaker B:It was one of those things where I was just like, you know what?
Speaker B:This is okay.
Speaker B:And I am.
Speaker B:I'm all right with it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think everybody shows up sometimes with issues.
Speaker A:It's more like what you make of it.
Speaker A:And it definitely sounds like you made the most of what you were given on the day.
Speaker A:And that's really all we can ask for at the end of the day.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I came away with.
Speaker B:Still with the fire in my belly.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I feel like I know what I need to do before my next race, and I'm gonna try.
Speaker B:I'm gonna do my best to see if I can't maximize my training and have a better day in Oregon.
Speaker B:We'll see.
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker B:I've had this question burning that I've wanted to ask you for a while, so I'm gonna ask you now.
Speaker B:Your kit, your mana kit, your mana endurance apparel kit.
Speaker B:It's custom, right?
Speaker A:It is custom.
Speaker B:So is it modeled on the Hudson Bay company?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:You would notice that, I think, right away, being a Canadian fellow.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Yeah, I.
Speaker A:The backstory.
Speaker A:Last year, I did a custom race suit design with a different company and kind of went loud with it.
Speaker A:I guess it was modeled off or inspired by coach Prime.
Speaker A:Deion Sanders.
Speaker A:The whole hoopla that's going on in Boulder with him and just the intention that it's getting with the football program and the turnaround.
Speaker A:I was just inspired by that, so I wanted to do that.
Speaker A:And that was very loud.
Speaker A:This was interesting timing with this, but, yeah, I wanted to go into a different direction with this one.
Speaker A:And I just basically sent them photos of that Hudson.
Speaker A:The famous Hudson's play point blanket, and they nailed it.
Speaker A:It's obviously not too complicated.
Speaker A:There's, what, five colors or whatever?
Speaker A:But.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, but it's great.
Speaker B:And if you're Canadian, like, I am, and my dad worked for the Hudson Bay company when I was growing up, and so we had those blankets in my house, and so I.
Speaker B:I recognized it immediately when I saw it, but I just didn't know if that's what it was.
Speaker B:And I think it's great.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's really sad because, yes, of course, the Hudson Bay Company is no more, and.
Speaker B:But it's nice to have that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:My, like, suit, I think it came out like I raced with it in January, and honestly, not long after is when the company filed for bankruptcy or whatever.
Speaker A:After how many 400 years in operation?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:At least it predated the founding of Kenny.
Speaker A:It did, absolutely.
Speaker A:I just wanted to do something a little more subtle, but obviously an homage to my home in Canada.
Speaker A:And at the same time, too, when I brought this out, we started having these tariff actions and whatnot.
Speaker A:And it's been interesting back home.
Speaker A:There's been a lot of rallying around the flag and Canada and people coming together after this.
Speaker A:And so that was interesting timing.
Speaker A:For I guess, the suit as well.
Speaker B:I think it's great.
Speaker B:We have a pretty good, I think, line up for the show today.
Speaker B:We are going to talk more about what happened in Boulder, just briefly and we're going to focus on the professional races that took place in Australia at Ironman Cairns.
Speaker B:We're going to go across the pond and revisit our Canadian race in Vancouver, the T100.
Speaker B:And we will address the race.
Speaker B:What's the.
Speaker B:Am I missing another one?
Speaker A:There's a couple others.
Speaker A:We'll get to it.
Speaker A:They're not okay.
Speaker A:The big ones for sure.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:And then we have a interesting paper that was sent to me by one of my new athletes that I'm working with.
Speaker B:His name is Lang and he sent me a paper.
Speaker B:It's titled what is the best discipline to Predict Overall Triathlon Performance?
Speaker B:An Analysis of Sprint Olympic Ironman 70.3 and Ironman 140.6.
Speaker B:Both Matt and I had a look at that and I think we have our take on it and we'll be interested to hear what others think after we've talked about it.
Speaker B:And then finally we're going to talk about how Sam Long has paired up with a professional swimmer, a professional swim coach.
Speaker A:Yeah, just an emerging swim coach.
Speaker A:Swim fluencer.
Speaker B:An emerging swim fluencer.
Speaker B:And then based on that, our very own Jeff Sankoff, the tridoc is going to see if he can't get some of his own results because of his atrocious swim this past weekend at Boulder and work with the great Matt Sharp and Kirsten Kasper, who are phenomenal swimmers, and see if I can't get some of that same magic that Sam's going to try and get.
Speaker B:But let's begin first with the recap of the professional races that took place in Australia, Vancouver, Boulder and a couple of other locations.
Speaker B:And Matt and I were going back and forth texting about the happenings in Cairn.
Speaker B:So let's start.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's start there.
Speaker A:We just got to go to that.
Speaker A:I was, I don't know what time it was, maybe the day before when, because the race started Saturday afternoon for us Sunday morning in Australia.
Speaker A:And pretty early on there was a post by Iron Man, a reel showing Matthew Marquardt, who you are, a number one fan.
Speaker A:I'm a fan of him as well.
Speaker A:This guy's crazy.
Speaker A:He's a med student, he's a professional triathlete, very high level.
Speaker A:He just does it all.
Speaker A:This guy's crazy.
Speaker A:Anyways, he's that and he's posting on.
Speaker B:Instagram every five seconds.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which I was.
Speaker A:Oh, but he.
Speaker A:So Iron man posted this clip of him in T1.
Speaker A:The guy is standing stiff as a board because he couldn't even walk properly because he had just cramped super hard coming out of the swim.
Speaker A:Out of the swim in an Ironman, which there's a lot more racing to do after that.
Speaker A:What'd you think of that when you saw it?
Speaker B:Never a good sign.
Speaker B:Never a good sign.
Speaker B:The thing about cramping is it's not that it's like, sure, it takes some time to get the cramps worked out, but the damage it does to those muscles, the intense spasm of those cramping.
Speaker B:Like, I know from cramping that I have to chill out after that.
Speaker B:I can't go as hard as I did.
Speaker B:And the muscles are sore and the muscles have sustained some damage.
Speaker B:So the ability of those muscles to actually do what they need to do for the rest of the race is hard.
Speaker B:And here he is at the end of the swim and having problems in his legs.
Speaker B:It was not a good look.
Speaker A:Not a good look.
Speaker A:He's talked about cramping issues in the last, what, half a year?
Speaker A:Basically, he's been dealing with these cramping.
Speaker A:And clearly, also, we didn't even mention that he'd been on a cruise ship for a week before and was training.
Speaker A:Crazy.
Speaker A:On this cruise ship.
Speaker A:Yeah, just.
Speaker B:And that was the text you sent me.
Speaker A:So I sent Jeff the.
Speaker A:On Instagram, the reel of him, and then I just literally said cruise ship training.
Speaker A:Which foreshadowing in some ways for sure.
Speaker A:But, yeah, I think it looked like.
Speaker A:Because I think he lost eight because he had a great swim.
Speaker A:He was with the leaders.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker B:He was second or first out of the swim.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:With the leaders.
Speaker B:And then it was one.
Speaker B:He was in the top.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And lost eight minutes in that T1 cramping debacle.
Speaker A:Like eight minutes.
Speaker A:Even in an Ironman.
Speaker A:That's quite a bit.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And then he lost even more on the bike as he was trying to recover because he couldn't push as much.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:For the first bit, anyways.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But then as the race went on, and this is when we were sleeping, I think.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like at.
Speaker A:Through the night.
Speaker A:So as the race went on, he just continued to keep pressing.
Speaker A:The guy never gave up.
Speaker A:And through the bike, he just made his way back through the field.
Speaker A:And then I think by the end of T2, he was four or so minutes, maybe five minutes down on the leader.
Speaker A:And in the footage that I've seen, you can just tell as he's going through that bike, it.
Speaker A:He just looks more confident.
Speaker A:He looks like he's found his rhythm.
Speaker A:And then obviously he carried that onto the run.
Speaker A:I think with about through the run he just continued to press.
Speaker A:Obviously no cramping issues through that run.
Speaker A:And he caught the leader, Nick Thompson, I think with about 10k to go.
Speaker A:And he looked stellar going past this guy in the footage.
Speaker B:When he passed, I can't remember who was in.
Speaker B:He passed somebody to go into second or third and he happened to be running past where they were actually filming and they had.
Speaker B:And the guy was standing there and he was like calling out, he's, oh, look, Matthew Marquard's coming and he looks like he's going to make a pass.
Speaker B:And Matthew starts hamming it up.
Speaker B:And yeah, and I saw that clip and I was like, oh, he clearly was just fully confident at that point.
Speaker B:He just knew.
Speaker B:And yeah, he just backed it up and went on and had his first professional victory.
Speaker B:And what a way to do it.
Speaker A:Make me eat my words.
Speaker B:So I got to text, I got to text Matt back that morning as we both woke up to see the reel of Matthew Marquard crossing the line for his first win.
Speaker B:I just went cruise ship training.
Speaker A:I know I had to eat my words big time.
Speaker A:That was hilarious.
Speaker A:I ear that crow eating my eating crow or whatever.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Honestly, one of the most impressive comebacks.
Speaker A:Never give up, whatever you want to call it, performances I've ever seen.
Speaker A:If I'm down eight minutes in a.
Speaker B:Race and no slouches in that field either.
Speaker A:Pro series races, top tier racing, that's a big race.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So very impressive, very viral in the tri community for sure, his performance and with this cramping stuff, he definitely needs to figure that out because he can't go to a big race, a bigger race and like World Championships and have that happen.
Speaker A:But a race like that, it shows.
Speaker A:He's definitely a top guy to consider for the World Championships later this year.
Speaker B:But this has been his thing since this year started is he's been cramping a lot in his legs and if you're cramping that much in your legs coming out of the swim, you're doing something with your kick.
Speaker B:And he's clearly either changed something about his kick or he is over kicking or he's pointing his toes or he's doing something that's exhausting the small muscles in his calf and is causing this to happen.
Speaker B:So all of the other Stuff that he was talking about.
Speaker B:Oh, I'm going for fascial release.
Speaker B:And I was going to ask what.
Speaker A:Is he here that you think for.
Speaker B:This the culprit is he is just doing something different and it's about identifying what it is.
Speaker B:I bet if he swims with a pool buoy he's not going to cramp.
Speaker B:And if he swims with his ankles, dorsiflex.
Speaker B:Dorsiflex means with your toes up.
Speaker B:He's not gonna cramp.
Speaker B:It's purely because he's doing something where he's pointing his toes and he is trying to do something with his kick.
Speaker B:And I bet he does respond to me when I message him.
Speaker B:So I should ask him, I should ask him if he's changed anything about his kick and see what he says.
Speaker A:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:Give us an update if he responds.
Speaker A:Cause that sounds just really intriguing.
Speaker A:I'm just super intrigued to see somebody cramping.
Speaker A:Like you often see people maybe cramping on the bike, but definitely on the run.
Speaker A:Your legs are cooked by the time you get to the run often.
Speaker A:And yeah, he's already happening in swim, but then seems to be fine obviously through the bike and the run.
Speaker A:So there's something off and I don't think it's nutrition.
Speaker A:People would be like, oh, electrolytes.
Speaker A:No, not in the swim.
Speaker B:No, no, not for a pro.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Let's talk about the women's side where Jackie Herring finally got.
Speaker A:Yeah, she had some demons coming in from that Hamburg dnf.
Speaker A:She had a flat tire, couldn't finish the race.
Speaker A:So yeah, a really last kind of.
Speaker A:I guess she didn't probably plan on doing this race, I would think.
Speaker B:I didn't get the sense it was on her schedule until it had to be.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:So you, you see her come in a last minute race, especially in Ironman, like a lot goes into these races and you're scrambling in a way.
Speaker A:She was obviously to have a good result and then get her pro series ambitions back on track.
Speaker A:And yeah, when the chips are down and you got the pressure on you and you can perform, that's always a great signal.
Speaker A:And as far as I can tell from her race, there was really no nothing.
Speaker A:There was no cramps, there was no crazy comeback on the bike.
Speaker A:Just a very solid all around performance which in those 70 point threes we've seen this year from her have been foreshadowing or foretelling of this race.
Speaker A:Do you agree?
Speaker B:I think so, yeah.
Speaker B:I didn't feel like terribly surprised that she Won.
Speaker B:I was more almost relieved because I felt like she deserved it given all the hard work she's put in on the 70.3 circuit.
Speaker B:And then to have that ill fated race in Hamburg.
Speaker B:This was nice for her.
Speaker B:So good for her.
Speaker B:I was glad to see it.
Speaker A:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:Why don't we.
Speaker B:Yep, yep.
Speaker B:Why don't we jump across the ocean and recap what happened in Vancouver where it was a lot of good racing.
Speaker B:I didn't get to see it.
Speaker B:I was busy in Boulder.
Speaker B:But I know that you caught up.
Speaker A:Yeah, I definitely came back from the race and caught the women's race.
Speaker A:A bit of the women's race anyways.
Speaker A:And I was very intrigued about this, this race for a lot of reasons.
Speaker A:Obviously I'm very biased.
Speaker A:Being from the west coast of Canada, just off the coast of Vancouver.
Speaker A:I want to see how this goes.
Speaker A:I talked about it before the race in the newsletter, but I really think this race, it had or has the opportunity to be one of the crown jewels of the T100 just because Vancouver's a beautiful city.
Speaker A:It's a very athletic, friendly city.
Speaker A:It's a city that people want to go to.
Speaker A:And this whole population in that area, obviously Vancouver, millions of people, Seattle, millions of people, Portland, millions of people are underserved for a big level marquee kind of race.
Speaker A:And I was worried or just watching to see, okay, are they going to be able to execute this race?
Speaker A:And if they do execute this race, that could be a great sign for them going forward.
Speaker A:And from what I've heard, I don't know if you've talked to people from that area, but all the folks that.
Speaker B:I've talked to just a little bit.
Speaker A:Have been absolutely raving about it.
Speaker A:I talked to the president of Triathlon BC after and he's just talked about how professional it was.
Speaker A:Just the organization was very good.
Speaker A:Although T100 had a third party doing the actual race.
Speaker A:The Due north team, which are very good in Edmonton, they do a great job of events.
Speaker A:So overall they knocked it out of the park.
Speaker A:Very interesting that way.
Speaker A:And also pretty good racing.
Speaker A:From what I saw just to that.
Speaker B:To that piece that you mentioned about contracting with someone else, sometimes that's the better part of valor.
Speaker B:Rather than going into an area that you or to a venue that you don't necessarily have the capacity or the bandwidth to manage, hire someone else who does and let them take care of a lot of the logistics and suddenly have a much bigger, better run event.
Speaker B:And it sounds like that's exactly what happened here.
Speaker B:So good on them for hiring the right people and getting it done.
Speaker A:Yeah, and a lot of folks, even ones who like I did a newsletter poll about the race or not about even the race, just about T100 in general.
Speaker A:People were popping in, just saying, oh man, I can't wait to do this next year.
Speaker A:Or I'm definitely signing up for this next year.
Speaker A:So definitely a lot of momentum coming out of this race for T100.
Speaker A:So they good win for them.
Speaker A:Also some good side race course.
Speaker B:Yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker A:So the men's race, quite competitive.
Speaker A:Similar faces to that San Francisco T100.
Speaker A:And it played out a little differently though, because there was no crazy currents.
Speaker A:So we actually had kind of groups separated in the swim.
Speaker A:Not too, too separated, but a little bit.
Speaker A:So out of the water you had a group, a small group before, including Martin Van Real, who was just off the podium in San Fran, but obviously a T100 stalwart.
Speaker A:World champion.
Speaker A:Current world champion T100.
Speaker A:The next group you had was only about 30 seconds back and that was a group that contained Rigo Bogan and Yellow Geen's.
Speaker A:So major players all somewhat together coming out.
Speaker A:And really halfway through the bike, a elite group of four had separated themselves at the front.
Speaker A:And I should also say it was definitely a tough swim.
Speaker A:Tough, tougher day for Sam Long in that race.
Speaker B:No foreshadowing for our last segment of the show.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think he was four and a half minutes down out of the water, which in a race like that, with the quality of field and the athletes, it's just, you're not gonna, it's not gonna happen.
Speaker A:So definitely not his race.
Speaker A:He lost it in the swim.
Speaker A:That's what happened.
Speaker A:But anyways, back to the bike, you had a kind of elite group of four.
Speaker A:You had Rico Bogan in there who did this crazy breakaway in San Francisco to.
Speaker A:That's what got him the win, really, with a good run as well.
Speaker A:But that kind of race defining move.
Speaker A:But he just could not get away this time.
Speaker A:And maybe the athletes were wise to his moves or something.
Speaker A:Didn't want to even give him a chance.
Speaker A:But he still had a.
Speaker A:Like he was so first into T2, but he had Van Real, I think about seven seconds back or something.
Speaker A:So Van Real's always going to run quicker than this guy.
Speaker A:So that was okay.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:Maybe he'll hold on for podium.
Speaker A:And then into T2.
Speaker A:Yellow Geen's was about 40 seconds back.
Speaker A:So really for people watching who.
Speaker B:Big runners.
Speaker A:Big runners.
Speaker A:Both yeah, couple of Belgians.
Speaker A:Always good bet on a Belgian in one of these right now.
Speaker B:Kyle Smith wasn't too far back.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:He was also in the conversation for sure.
Speaker A:But really I think Van Reel Bogan ran together and then Yella came up on them.
Speaker A:He broke things up.
Speaker A:Then it became yella versus martin and then I think about, you know, 8k to go or something.
Speaker A:Yella dropped the hammer and that was it.
Speaker A:He was gone.
Speaker A:He finished first, Martin Van Real finished second and then Mika Newt, the guy who finished third in San Francisco, had another very strong day even after getting a penalty too.
Speaker A:He had a one minute penalty or something and still ended up in third.
Speaker A:So great race for him.
Speaker A:As an aside, the kind of like finish line photo.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:Have you seen any of these finish line photos from the race?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's just striking.
Speaker A:You've got like the beach, obviously, there's a lot of.
Speaker A:There's actually great crowd there, I would say.
Speaker A:And then you have the skyline of Vancouver with the mountains.
Speaker A:It was exceptional.
Speaker B:As an aside, like you said, the opportunity for those kinds of visuals was there and it's good that they took advantage of it.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And then moving on to the women's race was, I would say maybe you mean Taylor's race.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:Although it wasn't just her.
Speaker A:Like she's usually solo off the front, but this time out of the water, she was in the front.
Speaker A:She had five other girls come with her out of the swim, one of them being Lucy Charles Barkley, who I thought maybe would work together with Taylor on the front, but she actually couldn't hold on to Taylor.
Speaker A:But Jessica Learmouth, a British Olympic medalist from Tokyo, she has been doing a few of these middle distance T100 races, but this one, she really stepped up her game.
Speaker A:She basically worked with nib the entire bike to establish a really great gap because Julie Darren, who won in San Francisco, she actually had a bit of a rough swim about three and a half minutes down or so.
Speaker A:So not as much as Sam, but I think she also lost it in the swim on that one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And was Ashley gentle at this race?
Speaker A:Yeah, she was.
Speaker A:She actually, I think she was maybe two minutes or so down a lot out of the water and actually definitely held her own on the bike.
Speaker A:Nothing too crazy.
Speaker A:But on onto the run you had nib kind of with a four to five minute lead on.
Speaker A:On Darren.
Speaker A:So really this wasn't coming back.
Speaker A:This wasn't San Francisco where she had 90 seconds.
Speaker A:Like it was Once Nib came off the bike there and you saw her running, she was running, it was essentially over.
Speaker A:But you also had Learmouth with her, and the question was, is she gonna be able to hold off Darren?
Speaker A:And she.
Speaker A:Oof.
Speaker A:She almost did.
Speaker A:Very close, but I think Darren caught her in the final kilometer or something.
Speaker A:Nib, Darren second, and then Learmouth third.
Speaker A:So just.
Speaker A:Yeah, really solid racing.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Nib was able to take the win back, which I think, yeah, she was pretty pissed things up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Sets things up for later in the summer.
Speaker B:Now Taylor is going to Placid, is that correct?
Speaker A:I'm not 100% sure, but if you are onto that, then I'm sure.
Speaker B:Oh, I'm not.
Speaker B:I'm just know that she is gunning for Kona and she.
Speaker B:I don't think she has a spot, so I think she has to get.
Speaker A:She got it in Texas.
Speaker B:Oh, she got it in Texas.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:But she might be doing Lake Placid.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:We'll.
Speaker A:We'll figure that out, I'm sure by the next one, but.
Speaker B:Got it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And clearly it makes you think, okay, San Francisco, that swim was a little janky.
Speaker A:Maybe in San Francisco.
Speaker A:Taylor actually probably could have won again if there was a normal swim.
Speaker A:But we'll be able to see as the T100 season progresses as well.
Speaker B:Now, we don't have another big T100 race for a little while, do we?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Taking a break now almost two months before the next one, which is in London, I think, at the beginning of August.
Speaker B:So we could probably see some of these folks now start to race in 70.3 races, especially pro series races, which would be also nice because.
Speaker A:Yeah, great athletes to see them.
Speaker A:You'll see some folks who jump back down to world triathlon racing.
Speaker A:So somebody like a Taylor Spivey, maybe even a Julie Darren will start racing.
Speaker A:I think there's a race World Series race in Hamburg coming up fairly soon, so you might see them there as well.
Speaker A:They'll be dispersing to other events.
Speaker B:All right, let's just talk about the 2:70.3 races.
Speaker B:We had the men in Boulder.
Speaker B:We had the women in Happy Valley.
Speaker B:We'll speak briefly about those.
Speaker B:We've already mentioned your result in Boulder, but why don't we talk about the.
Speaker B:The winners at Boulder?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the winner in Boulder, Sam Appleton, he.
Speaker A:He's lived in Boulder for 10 years, and he's never won this race.
Speaker A:And so I was like, ooh, this could be his opportunity.
Speaker A:And, man, the guy took it.
Speaker A:He was very impressive in the swim, he was at the front with me, pushing the pace onto the bike.
Speaker A:He just started smashing it.
Speaker A:I tried to go with him and I completely blew at the top of that.
Speaker A:At the top of the hill or whatever at the.
Speaker A:In that race.
Speaker A:And he just continued on, soldiered on solo, like solo all day, and took the win.
Speaker A:Very impressive racing from Sam Appleton.
Speaker B:Yeah, he was by himself the whole time.
Speaker B:He went by me on the bike on his second lap.
Speaker B:Tw I was towards the end of my first lap and it was very impressive.
Speaker B:Like, I couldn't believe what a gap he had.
Speaker A:Yeah, he was flying.
Speaker A:So a great day for him.
Speaker A:And then actually shocker it at 70.3.
Speaker A:Happy Valley.
Speaker A:This is in Pennsylvania, women's only race.
Speaker A:And you had Chelsea Sadaro on the start line.
Speaker A:Who you would expect to take the win?
Speaker A:Not always top 70.3 athlete, but she's a world champion great athlete, but she was taken down by a kind of fresh face.
Speaker A:Her name is Lydia Russell and she ran like an incredible run.
Speaker A:116.2 off the bike.
Speaker A:That's what I read.
Speaker B:Yeah, I wrote to you.
Speaker B:Yeah, I wrote to you.
Speaker B:And I was like, who is this?
Speaker B:I never heard of her.
Speaker B:But we had Vittoria Lopez there again and she again swam the way out of the water and then also led the bike.
Speaker B:But this time she continued and finished a run.
Speaker B:She finished top five.
Speaker A:She was fourth, same as me.
Speaker B:Fourth, yeah.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But then this Lydia Russell, I was watching and Chelsea was out front with 10k to go.
Speaker B:And I thought, oh, okay, Chelsea's got this.
Speaker B:But then I'm looking at the tracker and I'm seeing this woman come from second place and she's outrunning Chelsea by a lot.
Speaker B:And I thought, oh, she's gonna catch her.
Speaker B:And she did.
Speaker B:And so who is she?
Speaker A:So she is an athlete who did a little bit of short course racing.
Speaker A:I think now this year she's focused on 70 point threes and looking at how she raced and kind of how her race broke down.
Speaker A:Obviously decent enough swim, a decent enough bike and then just a stellar run.
Speaker A:Like to me, seeing that, that shows a lot of potential for this distance and obviously just long course in general, because if you're still within it in the swim and you can stay, hold your own on the bike and then just throw down.
Speaker A:A run like that to me shows you're going to be near the podium, on the podium.
Speaker A:Most races you do.
Speaker A:Really very impressive to see.
Speaker A:Will be interesting to watch her as she progresses through the year.
Speaker B:Have you Spoken to Chelsea since she's gotten back?
Speaker A:I have not.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker A:I haven't seen her at the pool or anything.
Speaker A:She might have been pretty tired from that Eagle man race.
Speaker A:A lot of those Eagle Men people who race last weekend pulled up with less than average performances.
Speaker A:Sam.
Speaker B:Yeah, like Lucy also didn't.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Trevor Foley in our race, he just be.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'd just be.
Speaker B:I'd wonder if she's frustrated.
Speaker B:She has not won yet.
Speaker B:She continues to be snake bit by whatever is going.
Speaker B:Either she's been ill or someone else has just showed up who's been better on the day.
Speaker B:So just wonder.
Speaker B:You mentioned that idea that here's this woman who worked well, she managed to swim, she managed a bike, and then she just pulled out this amazing run.
Speaker B:And that brings us to our second topic today, which is this paper that was sent to me by an athlete that I've started working with by the name of Lang, who lives in Minnesota.
Speaker B:And he sent me this paper and asked for my thoughts on it.
Speaker B:And I thought it was super interesting.
Speaker B:And I said, you know what, I'm going to bring it to the Tempo Talks podcast and see what Matt thinks.
Speaker B:And Matt was aware of the paper.
Speaker B:It is titled what is the best discipline to predict overall Triathlon performance?
Speaker B:An Analysis of Sprint Olympic Ironman 70.3 and Ironman 1 40.6.
Speaker B:It was published a few years ago now.
Speaker B: It was published back in: Speaker B:And I'm not going to dwell too much on the paper itself because I want to really just chat about it with Matt.
Speaker B:But basically they looked at professional athletes only.
Speaker B:So this is only professional triathletes.
Speaker B:They had a very large number of them over a five year period, 17,000 results.
Speaker B:And basically what they found was each discipline represents a different relative portion and importance to predict overall performance depending on the triathlon distance, which makes sense.
Speaker B:What they found was swimming was the most important predictor in sprint and Olympic distance triathlon.
Speaker B:Cycling was the most important for 70.3 and running was the most important for 140.6.
Speaker B:And what they basically meant by that saying this was the best swimmers will win in sprint and Olympic.
Speaker B:That is where it's most important to have a fast swim.
Speaker B:And it doesn't so much matter how you do on the bike and run.
Speaker B:Clearly it's going to matter, but it seems to matter most as a swimmer for sprint and Olympic cycling has the biggest impact.
Speaker B:So the best cyclists will tend to do best in 70.3 and the best runners will do best in 140.6.
Speaker B:I felt like there were problems with this paper and we'll discuss that in a second.
Speaker B:But Matt, what was your take on this?
Speaker B:Just at face value.
Speaker A:Yeah, just hearing this now, like it to me, it's crazy to hear that the swim was the deciding factor for sprint and Olympic.
Speaker A:Like, it's still not really a huge component compared to others of the race.
Speaker A:Like I would.
Speaker A:I'm not doing the research obviously, but if you ask me what component mattered the most, I would say biking for pretty much all of them, maybe run for the full like it talked about, but just because cycling's such such a huge component of these races.
Speaker A:So that was a big surprise for me.
Speaker B:I think the reason that the swim comes out for sprint and Olympic is easily explained by the fact that we are only talking about professionals and that in both of those sprint and Olympic, it was professional.
Speaker A:It wasn't.
Speaker B:It's draftly, it wasn't age group races, not age groups.
Speaker B:So in both of those races, these are draft legal sprint and Olympic.
Speaker B:So if you're not out of the water in that first lead group, you're done.
Speaker B:Once that first lead bike group gets away, you're out of the race.
Speaker B:So I think it's not a matter of the best swimmers necessarily always win.
Speaker B:It's that the best swimmers set themselves up to be in the bike group, to work together, to then be able to catapult themselves off on the run.
Speaker B:And let's face it, the best swimmers are invariably some of the best runners.
Speaker B:So I found it a little bit odd to say that the swim was the thing that determined the victory.
Speaker B:It's really the swim determines your ability to work together with a group of athletes.
Speaker A:So for like age group athletes doing sprint and Olympic distance races, do you think the swim still matters as much or do you think something else matters?
Speaker B:I think what I have said for a very long time about triathlon is it's unusual that you win on the swim, but you definitely a hundred percent lose on the swim as we're going to talk about in the next segment.
Speaker B:But I have learned that the hard way many times.
Speaker B:If you don't set yourself up, no matter what the distance is, if you come out too far back on the swim, you're cooked.
Speaker B:Now you can come out first on the swim every single time.
Speaker B:But we've seen many athletes over the years who are the best swimmers and they never win because the swim just doesn't do it for you.
Speaker B:Now if you're in these draft legal races I think that's the situation.
Speaker B:You can hide a weak bike by tucking into the lead pack, right?
Speaker B:And then if you happen to be a sensational runner, then you can hide your weak bike, get off with that lead group.
Speaker B:And then because it's pretty unusual that we see in these draft legal races that two or three people will somehow break away and stay away.
Speaker B:It just doesn't happen that often.
Speaker B:Instead, you get this pack of 10 people that will stay away for the bike, on the whole.
Speaker B:For the whole bike, and then they get off together and then it comes down to the run, which to me makes the draft legal racing less fun to watch.
Speaker B:But I get it, that's the way it is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you mentioned, like other issues with the paper.
Speaker A:Have you already gone into those?
Speaker A:Did I miss those?
Speaker B:I think the other issues for me are when you look at a paper like this, what you're saying is, okay, let's look at, we look at all the winners and then we look at how they did on the different legs.
Speaker B:Invariably you're going to find that, oh, look, the people who rode their bike best happened to win.
Speaker B:I don't know that you can really do this.
Speaker B:What you need to do is you need to say, okay, let's take a bunch of guys who are really good bikers, a bunch of guys who are really good swimmers, and a bunch of guys who are really good runners and then send them off to the same race and see who wins.
Speaker B:To me, that's a better way to do it, which is not hard to do because we know, like, you've got athletes out there that you can objectively say what their strengths are.
Speaker B:Instead, what you're doing is you're saying, oh, like we're looking at all the winners and we're saying, oh, yeah, these winners happen to be better bikers and these winners happen to be better swimmers.
Speaker B:And I just don't know that it's that cut and dry and that it's that easy to just say one thing happened because of the other.
Speaker A:So I'm curious then, why is there a variance?
Speaker A:Why do you think there's a variance between the middle distance and the full distance?
Speaker A:Like, why is the bike more important for the middle distance and then why is the run more important for the full distance, do you think?
Speaker B:My sense is that a half marathon, you're still relying on speed and you can bike really hard for that 90k and then come off the bike and still be able to run speed, whereas when you double the distance of the bike, it becomes a Very different situation.
Speaker B:I mean that 112 miles, that's a long one.
Speaker A:I've never done it.
Speaker A:It's what scares.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:Yeah, and then to be able to run, running a marathon.
Speaker B:Look at people's marathon times versus like we saw, who was it?
Speaker B:There's been Ironman athletes who have run marathons and they tend to run an open marathon significantly faster than they do when they've run it in a race.
Speaker B:And there's a good reason for that.
Speaker B:It's because the bike just takes so much out of you.
Speaker B:And I think that the.
Speaker B:I have coached for years and said that, look, it's not about who bikes best, it's about who's able to run best off the bike.
Speaker B:Because bike for show, run for dou.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker B:There's a reason people say that.
Speaker B:And my personal feeling is that the longer the distance gets, the more important the run becomes.
Speaker B:Even though the bike remains a much long a much bigger percentage of the race time wise and distance.
Speaker A:Do you think partially there's a spitball in here but like on the bike there's the 12 meter draft rule.
Speaker A:Let's say you're adhering to it and that's still a benefit, right?
Speaker A:Being able to be 12 meters back, it's better than being 20 meters.
Speaker A:Whereas in running maybe less of an impact in that sense.
Speaker A:Maybe splitting errors here.
Speaker A:But yeah, could there just be like a more of an energy saving capability or opportunity on the bike versus the run because of the opportunity to draft in air quotes?
Speaker B:Yeah, you can draft on the run but if you're out front, you obviously can't.
Speaker B:But yeah, the benefits, drafting on the run are not nearly as much as drafting on the bike as we know.
Speaker B:And you're right.
Speaker B:And the 12 meters still getting a little bit of a.
Speaker B:Still getting something.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't know how much of that plays into this.
Speaker B:I will say that the course is going to play a lot into it.
Speaker B:Like when you have a race in Nice versus a race in Kona, very different kinds of athletes are going to benefit.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The athlete who is a stronger cyclist is going to do better in Nice than is the athlete who is better adapted to heat.
Speaker B:So I think there are other factors here.
Speaker B:I don't think it's just as easy to say, oh, the best runners are going to do best at Ironman.
Speaker B:I think there are other things to factor in here.
Speaker B:I do understand what they're getting at though and I do understand that.
Speaker B:I agree with the notion that the Longer the race gets, the more important it becomes to be a good runner.
Speaker B:But I also have seen how important it is to be a really good runner at the Olympic distance.
Speaker B:If you can't run a 10k, I mean, you would not.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker B:I mean, if you can't run a 10k, what, 30 sub 31, 30.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:Yeah, these guys are going 29 mid now.
Speaker A:It's nuts.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker B:So now Lang had.
Speaker B:Lang sent me a bunch of other questions and I.
Speaker B:We don't have time to get into all of them, but he had a bunch of other questions that he wanted to add to this, which I think some of them are really.
Speaker B:Actually, they're all really interesting, Lang.
Speaker B:But we're not going to be able to have time to go into all of them.
Speaker B:But he did.
Speaker B:I did want to ask a couple of them of you, Matt, because I thought they were interesting.
Speaker B:So one of the things he said is how much do you think better equipment matters?
Speaker B:So if you take two athletes who are pretty similar, but one of them just happens to have the means to afford a better bike, how much is that gonna matter?
Speaker B:And does it matter the bigger the distance of the race?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it does matter, especially through the bigger distance of the race.
Speaker A:If you've got equipment that is saving you, whatever, let's say you're totally dialed and you're getting saved like 80 watts or something versus the guy without the fancy equipment.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's meaningful.
Speaker A:That's gonna make a difference, especially over a full distance race.
Speaker A:Maybe less so in a sprint just because of the short nature of it.
Speaker A:But it's also, how do I put it?
Speaker A:Like a psychological difference.
Speaker A:So if you're someone who.
Speaker A:If you're somebody who has everything dialed equipment wise, and then, you know, you're someone who doesn't have it and you see the next person, oh, they've got the arrow skin suit, they got the crazy helmet, they got the crazy bike set up.
Speaker A:Like, psychologically, that can also impact you as well.
Speaker A:When you're out there and you're pushing hard and maybe this guy goes by you and he's all dialed.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'd say it's meaningful.
Speaker A:But I do think maybe at the more amateur level, training still trumps that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:Maybe when you get to the real pointy end, it starts to matter.
Speaker A:But I think if you're a beginner athlete, you just train as well as you can.
Speaker A:Maybe do little things like the helmet's supposed to be quite important for aerodynamic benefits.
Speaker A:So maybe upgrade that helmet wheels is supposed to be quite important as well, and then you can progress along that line as well.
Speaker B:Mathematically, it's interesting.
Speaker B:The slower athlete actually gets more benefit from being aero than does the faster athlete.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:Because the slower athlete is out there for longer and therefore whatever benefit, whatever percentage benefit you get impacts that slower athlete for a longer time.
Speaker B:And therefore they actually see a larger benefit over time.
Speaker B:That being said, we know that the faster you go, the larger the percentage benefit becomes with some of these things, not all of them.
Speaker B:So it's complicated physics.
Speaker B:I'm sure that our friend Brian will contribute something into the talk tempo talks.
Speaker A:Drop it in there, Brian.
Speaker B:Very.
Speaker B:He is very adept at a lot of the arrow discussions.
Speaker B:Another question that Lang brought up, which that I thought was quite interesting, and I think you would have a good opinion on, is the years competing in triathlon by distance.
Speaker B:So someone who's been doing Olympics for a really long time and has become really good at it, like yourself, does that translate to then becoming a better athlete at longer distances?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker A:I really, I think, fundamentally believe that developing your speed or your threshold and raising your threshold is super important for endurance performance.
Speaker A:Obviously, volume is too, but I think if you're an athlete who has been working hard and training at that threshold at shorter distances, I think you can translate that pretty well to longer distances, physiologically and psychologically.
Speaker A:Because you know how to.
Speaker A:You know how to hurt.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's fair.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Well, with the time we have remaining, we're going to transition to our third topic.
Speaker B:And it is one that I am involved in because I had the worst swim of that I've had in, like, almost 10 years or so.
Speaker B:I'm not.
Speaker B:I am embarrassed to share that I swam 41 minutes at Boulder and not too long ago I did this race and swam it in 33.
Speaker B:You know how we always say it takes a really long time to shave off a minute or two from your swim time?
Speaker B:Well, somehow I managed to add a lot of time to my swim time in a very short amount of time, which is super frustrating that it goes one direction quickly and the other direction not so quickly.
Speaker B:I find myself in a predicament, not unlike our friend Sam Long.
Speaker B:Sam, who of course is an amazing biker, an amazing swimmer, still manages.
Speaker B:Sorry, an amazing runner still manages to win a lot of his races despite coming out at a significant disadvantage after the swim.
Speaker B:But despite all of his hard work to try and get better on the swim remains at a big disadvantage and is costing Himself a lot of races.
Speaker B:As I said before, you don't often win on a swim.
Speaker B:You do definitely lose.
Speaker B:Sam has decided to employ one.
Speaker B:Is it Greg Harper?
Speaker A:Greg Harper, yes.
Speaker A:He's A fellow Blue 70 Greg Harper on my team.
Speaker B:All right, so who's Greg Harper?
Speaker B:How is Greg going to help Sam?
Speaker B:How are you and Kirsten going to help the tridoc?
Speaker B:We will help the tridoc recover some of his time and become more of a, shall we say, not terrible swimmer.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So Greg, background, he's actually a lifelong triathlete.
Speaker A:His dad, Dean Harper, was a former pro triathlete in the 80s, so he's steeped in triathlon.
Speaker A:But he actually took the swimming route and competed for Cal at the NCAA level and they won a bunch of championships when he was there.
Speaker A:I don't know if he ever had a podium in NCAA champs.
Speaker A:But a very good swimmer on a very good program.
Speaker A:So he, after finishing school, I think he's jumped back into the triathlon scene, the pro scene.
Speaker A:And he's in the last, I want to say six months, eight months.
Speaker A:Really doubled down on his swimming prowess, which he has credibility because he's such a fast swimmer.
Speaker A:So he's been making some noise on swimming and some principles and stuff online.
Speaker A:And I love it because I love the opinion stuff.
Speaker A:It just great entertainment.
Speaker A:But this is parlayed him into a opportunity to help Sam Long improve his swimming.
Speaker A:So I actually saw a quick video that Sam posted.
Speaker A:It sounds like he's doing a little swim block this week with Greg.
Speaker A:They're getting to the pool twice a day, doing the drills, doing these workouts.
Speaker A:It's very intriguing from a media side.
Speaker A:I love this intrigue.
Speaker A:I want to see what happens coming out of this.
Speaker A:And really for like we talked about and you, you mentioned he's had very impressive races, podiums, but he knows when he gets to the world championship level, he's going to have just another level of athletes in the race.
Speaker A:This the kind of ITU guys that who don't necessarily always show up at races in North America.
Speaker A:And he knows he needs to work on this before nice this year and he's brought Greg in and it's gonna be interesting to see what he works on.
Speaker A:I think I saw Greg posted something about that Sam, one of the things he's working on, Sam's heads a bit low, which is creating more drag, which isn't great.
Speaker A:One of the things that I actually messaged Greg and I think he appreciated was just like, hey, someone like Sam, he's never trained with really people.
Speaker A:Like, I never.
Speaker A:I don't see him training with people.
Speaker A:He doesn't have training partners.
Speaker A:He doesn't look like he trains open water down there in the desert in Tucson.
Speaker A:So he really probably, obviously has been racing professional for a while, but he probably has pretty minimal, I would say, open water, like, drafting skills.
Speaker A:So I was just like, hey, you should get him learning how to sit on the feet as well as he can, on the hip as well as he can.
Speaker A:Because I think for someone like Sam Long, I don't think he's a terrible swimmer, but I don't think he has any start speed.
Speaker A:And so when these fast guys take off, like, he's gone, he doesn't even have a chance where I think if he can hang onto the hips, hang onto the feet as long as he can, he's just further along in the swim, being in a closer position to the front.
Speaker A:And maybe as guys come by him, he can get on their hips, get on their feet.
Speaker A:So I think that's actually an understated opportunity for someone like him to work on.
Speaker A:And we'll see.
Speaker A:I'm curious to see how it all pans out.
Speaker B:All right, so fast swimming is a balance between propulsion and drag.
Speaker B:You want to be able to increase your propulsion and decrease your drag.
Speaker B:In your experience, someone like Sam, Someone like me.
Speaker B:I know you haven't seen me swim.
Speaker B:I haven't sent you video.
Speaker A:Yeah, we gotta see it.
Speaker B:I will.
Speaker B:And yeah.
Speaker B:So what is.
Speaker B:What do most athletes struggle with?
Speaker B:Is it too much drag or not enough propulsion?
Speaker A:It's both.
Speaker A:And the thing with swimming is because the medium of water is, you know, so much thicker than air getting through it.
Speaker A:There has to be something.
Speaker A:You can't just smash the pedals and go faster.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You can't just mash the water and go faster because you're creating drag.
Speaker A:So really, my kind of principles with improving your swim, I think, like, the two main ones would be your buoyancy, which obviously relates to drag.
Speaker A:How high are you sitting in the water?
Speaker A:The higher you're sitting in the water, the less of your body that is moving through the water is less opportunity to create drag.
Speaker A:So it would be interesting to see, you know, Sam, like, how is his breathing?
Speaker A:Is he exhaling enough when his head's underwater in order to create that vacuum so the air comes in really easily?
Speaker A:Like, how is his.
Speaker A:The timing of his breath?
Speaker A:If he's rotating a bit too much and then missing the timing of his breath, he's obviously going to Keep his head out of the water.
Speaker A:Maybe he's reaching with his head to get the air and that's throwing off his stroke and creating more drag as well.
Speaker A:And then obviously propulsion.
Speaker A:Think for someone like Sam and just athletes in general, they're maybe missing a bit on the front of their catch.
Speaker A:And so the way, if you can start your catch in a good position, obviously that high elbow, the famous high elbow catch, the more you can set that up, I think that's super important for just pulling you through the water.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker A:Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker B:This is why I get sad, right?
Speaker B:Cause I, I hear all of the things you just mentioned and I know as an adult onset swimmer, there's a million different things that you have to do and all of them require brain power.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And when you're swimming, you have zero idea of what you're actually doing in the water because your body proprioception is horrible.
Speaker B:And I know that in my head I look like Michael Phelps.
Speaker B:And when I send you video, it's gonna be like a dog's breakfast.
Speaker A:I don't think so.
Speaker B:And it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be like, oh, my gosh.
Speaker B:And you're gonna come back and you're gonna be like, okay, this.
Speaker B:And I'm gonna.
Speaker B:Every time I go to swim, it's.
Speaker B:I know, I know.
Speaker B:Cause I tell my own athletes, okay, we're gonna work on one thing at a time and we're just gonna do.
Speaker B:But when I think about how long, like I said before, it took me no time at all to somehow lose eight minutes.
Speaker B:I have no idea how long it's going to take to find that eight minutes.
Speaker B:Again, like that is shocking.
Speaker A:Swimming in these triathlons.
Speaker A:It's not a pool, it's not a controlled thing.
Speaker A:Like there's.
Speaker A:They could have messed up the buoy measurement.
Speaker A:Like maybe the sun was in your eye and you were swimming a little off kilter.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:Obviously there's a decent gap compared to.
Speaker A:What was the 33 minutes last year is that we swim last year?
Speaker B:No, last year I think I swam 35.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So again, a little closer in time.
Speaker A:It just.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:For the open water, I never like to compare year over year because I just don't think the measurements are accurate.
Speaker A:There's also factors like maybe you had someone in front of you who was a great draft and you were able to sit on them.
Speaker A:Whereas maybe this year, maybe you weren't on the feet as much as you could be.
Speaker A:Or whatever.
Speaker A:To me, there's just a lot of variables, but I definitely want to see that.
Speaker A:That swim stroke.
Speaker A:And I just really believe that for me, once people can really nail that, that breathing and being more relaxed in the water, I think that's just unlocks.
Speaker A:Just a more relaxed speed that you can carry through the entire swim.
Speaker A:Cause we need oxygen.
Speaker B:We're.
Speaker B:We're gonna bring the tempo talks crowd along for this journey because I will post my videos and Matt's feedback and Kirsten's feedback and the things that I do to try.
Speaker B:Because I'm sure there are many who are listening to this who go through the same frustrations.
Speaker B:Cause I know my own athletes all go through it.
Speaker B:And so we're going to share my journey from now.
Speaker B:Now, my next race is Oregon, so that will not be a fair comparison because we can't swim now.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But my last swim this year is going to be Marbella in Spain in the ocean.
Speaker B:So that will be the comparator.
Speaker B:So we are going to.
Speaker B:That'll give me November.
Speaker B:So we have from now until November to fix Jeff's swim, and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker A:You should do like a time trial.
Speaker A:You should do some kind of time trial, and then that's the real benchmark.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Cause that's a controlled environment.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We want to hear from you.
Speaker B:We want to hear what your experience has been swimming.
Speaker B:We want to hear the things that have worked for you, the things that frustrate you.
Speaker B:Let us know.
Speaker B:Just go over to the Talk Tempo Talks, private Facebook group on that platform.
Speaker B:If you're not a member, just answer the three easy questions.
Speaker B:Questions.
Speaker B:We've given you all the answers during this podcast, so if you listened, you will know them.
Speaker B:We'll get you in and you can join the conversation there and ask any questions you might have for future episodes.
Speaker B:We'd love to hear them.
Speaker B:Leave us a rating and a review wherever you download the show.
Speaker B:It really helps us cut through all the other triathlon podcasts out there.
Speaker B:And don't forget to tell a friend.
Speaker B:Matt, it was great chatting with you.
Speaker B:We went a little bit long today, but I get the sense that the listeners won't mind.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Thanks for your time, Jeff.
Speaker A:And then thanks to.
Speaker A:Was it Lane who sent the questions?
Speaker A:Lang.
Speaker A:Thank you, Lang.
Speaker A:And whoever wants to send questions, send them through because we'll answer them.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:All right, until next week, Matt, I will look forward to chatting with you.
Speaker B:And I will.
Speaker B:I will nervously send you my video in the next video.
Speaker A:Send it through.
Speaker A:No judgment.
Speaker B:All right, take care, everybody.
Speaker B:We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker A:See you.
