- What's up, Trainiacs?
Welcome to this week's Triathlon Newsday Tuesday,
the very final one of the year,
and in this week's Triathlon Newsday,
people are getting married,
leaders in points races are just not showing up to races,
and I announce that we're shutting down.
Kind of, temporarily, sort of.
Not a lot.
(upbeat music)
What's up, triathletes?
Welcome to Newsday Tuesday, where every single Tuesday,
being super professional, we talk about goings-on
around the triathlon world,
and I gotta let you know,
this is not a very exciting one.
The most exciting part of it is that Gracie found a ball.
Breaking news!
As always, full links to everything we talk about
will be in the description below,
and make sure you stick around to the end
where we talk about this week's great Trainiac story,
which is a weight-loss story that isn't really
the weight-loss story that you would expect.
All right, let's get into it.
To start off, let's get to the winners
of the Challenge series of races
where Sebastian Kienle and Pablo Dapena Gonzalez
were tied for the overall series lead
coming into the last race of Challenge Daytona.
Now they were so far in the lead
that they knew they were already going to win
the overall series, so they were tied first, second.
Both of them agreed to not show up to Challenge Daytona,
so they split the first and second place prize
amounting to 25 grand,
worth of cheddar, worth of clams,
in their jeans without even racing
the final race of the year.
Yvonne van Vlerken, such fun names that race triathlons
in the Challenge series these days,
she won on the women's side.
I think this is the second year in a row
that she's done that, so congratulations to everyone
for getting some Christmas money.
Spend it wisely.
Now you know that it is a little bit light
on news in the triathlon world when a wedding makes it.
Now this isn't any average wedding,
this is the, like...
It's almost like the royal wedding.
Well, they are British, too.
It's like the royal wedding of triathlon.
Lucy Charles and Reece Barclay,
Team Charles-Barclay, ended up tying the knot
over the weekend, and it was documented just beautifully
by our photographer friend, James Mitchell.
Now everyone knows Lucy, but not everyone knows Reece.
Reece himself is a phenomenal triathlete,
placing fifth at IRONMAN Italy earlier this year.
He's also Lucy's coach, and between the two of them,
Team Charles-Barclay and I are going to be creating
a "How to Swim with Lucy and Reece Masterclass"
I'll be producing with them in January
when I head out to Lanzarote to meet them there,
and all of the early access passes to get that class
for half-off are all sold out, but you can get
the all-access pass which gets you access to that course
and all triathlon courses that we'll be coming out with
in early 2019.
You can get that for half-off, 90 bucks,
at triathlontaren.com/earlymasterclass.
Well, we are already out of news to talk about,
no races out on the circuit, so in podcast land,
we just published a podcast with Sly Walters,
who is a strength and conditioning coach,
but he takes a really big role
in the mental aspect of training.
I gotta tell you, this is one of the most
pump-up kind of podcasts out there,
and if you are at all struggling with motivation,
go check out the interview we did with Sly
on the Triathlon Taren podcast.
It is the most highly rated and ranked
triathlon podcast in the world on Apple Podcast,
and it's thanks to guests like Sly.
Also, if you are already subscribed,
or if you're thinking about subscribing,
more training is your jam with the release of
Team Trainiac coming out,
in January I'm going to be doing a series of podcasts
that are more like mano y mano, you and me,
maybe NTK asking me questions along the way,
where I talk about in really big detail
what case studies and research around
why we created the Team Trainiac workouts
the way that we did, for maximum effectiveness,
and minimal time, so they're also really well-suited
and challenging for both beginner triathletes
who can easily complete them, but also
intermediate and advanced triathletes,
who will still be challenged by them.
It was a really big balancing act that we did.
I think we got something pretty good,
so that's going to be in January.
Make sure you go check it out.
Related to that,
Team Trainiac, the website,
it works.
It's live.
Now, not live in the sense that all of you
can go and sign up for, but it is live in the sense
that there is a URL that is out there in the world.
I'm not going to tell you what it is right now,
but I have a profile on it, and I'm going through
and completing my workouts and making sure
that everything works, and so far.
So here's the thing.
January first, it's going to come out.
Over the course of the first two weeks in January,
we are going to be onboarding all of the Kickstarter
backers and Virtual Trainiac Camp backers
that ended up taking part in all of these things.
They're going to be going through the beta.
They're going to get first crack at signing up
for the first bunches of spots,
and then we will open it up,
limited spots right at the start,
to everyone that's signed up at
triathlontaren.com/teamwaitlist.
We just want to make sure that the servers
can handle it, that I can handle the workload,
see if we need to hire an additional coach,
because while there is automated training
that is automated but customized to you,
and the social media component where Trainiacs
can help each other out, there is a component
of one-on-one coaching where if you need
and want a little bit of extra help,
occasionally you can sign up
and get that when you need it.
So we got to make sure that that all works.
All right.
On to the Trainiac story which is pretty awesome,
and it's not what you would expect.
It starts off by saying, "Hi, Taren, my name is Steven.
Thought I'd share my story of weight loss
and how I got started in triathlon, but this isn't
the kind of weight loss story you usually hear.
At six-foot-two, I've always been tall and thin,
and for a lot of years, I was 165 pounds,
or 74 kilograms.
That was my number.
In 2008, without trying, I started losing weight.
Over the following years, I continued to inexplicably
lose weight, and it didn't seem to matter what I ate.
I just couldn't keep the weight on.
I was deeply exhausted all day, frozen all the time,
and I couldn't sleep.
Despite many doctor's appointments, a clear foods diet,
with proper nutrient intake, yoga, hormone therapy,
acupuncture, you name it, years and years
of trying things, and still over the course of a few years,
I dropped from 165 pounds to my all-time lowest weight
of 127 at six-foot-two tall.
It was a real scare for me when I learned
my doctor was checking me for pancreatic cancer.
Fortunately, the test turned up nothing,
but I still kept losing weight.
A few months later, in February 2013,
my older brother announced he would do a sprint triathlon
in late May.
I was really happy for him, and I told him
that I would go to the triathlon, fly out west,
and cheer him on.
But a day later, I decided to surprise him
by entering the same triathlon, an I started training
in secret.
My first swim session was six lengths.
My first bike ride was two kilometers.
I started running by counting driveways.
Every time I went to the pool, I added two lengths.
After a few weeks I graduated from counting driveways
to counting blocks, and eventually, counting kilometers.
I was so exhausted from the workouts
that I started to sleep better, and then magically,
my weight started to return.
I hadn't told anyone about my training
or my plan to race, but I finished that first sprint,
another later in the summer, then moved up
to the Olympic distance in 2015,
and just finished my first 70.3 this past September.
My times aren't great, but I've come a long way
from not being able to climb a flight of stairs
without pausing halfway up.
I love being part of such a supportive sporting community.
I encourage everyone I see out on the race course,
and they usually offer me encouragement in return.
Hovering around 155 pounds now.
I've never fully recovered all the weight
that I lost, but I've settled into a healthy lifestyle,
sticking to a pretty careful diet,
and I have lots of energy for workouts.
All the best to you, NTK and Mel, Steve."
That is awesome, Steve.
Like you say, this isn't the normal weight loss story
that we hear, but...
As I mentioned before, triathlon, it cures so many issues,
whether it's weight loss or weight management,
or depression or motivation.
It's an all-around great sport, especially when you
come at it from the standpoint that you have here
of just completing what you can in a healthy way,
whether it is running to the next house
or the next block or just the next kilometer.
Do whatever you can, it's not all about
always crushing personal bests at IRONMAN.
Sometimes it's just about challenging you
wherever you're at in life.
So, thank you very much, Steven.
That was awesome.
Last thing, Trainiacs, after today,
we're taking a little bit of time off.
Don't worry, though, we've preset a whole bunch of videos
that kind of wrap up the year, looking back on 2018,
looking forward to 2019, favorite products
throughout the year, favorite podcasts,
favorite videos, favorite people that we met,
all kinds of cool stuff like that.
But I've got to go spend some time with NTK
after all the travel, after all the Trainiac
Virtual Camps, after all of the videos
that we have been hunkering down on
and all of the vacations that I have commandeered
and turned into triathlon work vacations,
I think we've got to spend some family time.
So we're still around, videos are just going to be
very clearly maybe not like live day to day,
but they're still pretty good.
All right, Trainiacs, if you aren't already subscribed,
hit the Subscribe button below.
Have a great Christmas, holiday,
whatever you celebrate season,
and see you in 2019 when I'm on the way to Lanzarote
to do some work with Lucy Charles and Reece Barclay.
Lucy Charles-Barclay.
Reece Barclay-Charles.
I like it.
Later, Trainiacs.