(upbeat music)
- Morning.
Afternoon, Trainiacs.
It's a
3:45.
Day before ladies' race day.
It has been a busy, busy day.
Ben Kanute.
Meetup!
Actually, it might not be a busy day.
I don't know what we're doing.
Check back in a sec.
(upbeat music)
Yeah, so Trainiacs, this is home.
This little compound here.
So, yeah, I was a little flustered there earlier.
I couldn't remember what happened today
because every one of these days, total whirlwind.
We started off with a Trainiac Meetup with Ventum.
Two things come from that.
Number one, thanks to all of Ventum.
They don't pay me to say good things
about the Ventum bike whatsoever.
I've just really grown to like and respect that company
because they're just always solid to me
and I like their bike.
Go back to a video that I did in Kona
about why there's none of this chatter in crosswinds
and when cars pass ya and why I like their bike
and I like the people better.
So every time we come to one of these
I need a place to do a meetup
I'm like, hey, you know I'll bring the bike.
People will get to see the bike,
and then we'll get to hang out with the Ventum people
will get to hang out with some new friends.
And I know what I was trying to say the other day
when I was all mumbly.
I feel pressure to live up to your expectations
of whatever they might be when you meet me
because I don't want to demotivate you
in whatever,
I mean you all follow me because
I assume that part of it is motivation,
so I don't want it to wane
by meeting me.
So I feel pressure to do that.
And I hope that I live up to all your expectation.
And then fun thing about today.
We did a podcast with Ben Kanute.
Ben is the runner-up from last year
at the Half Ironman Worlds in Chattanooga.
And we did that.
It was a big surprise.
Even to him.
He was looking for like a top 10.
Something that he said
in that podcast
that we did today
was he feels like to keep progressing
as he was going through the ITU,
Olympic Track Development System,
on his way to Rio,
he needed, like, he said breakout race
or breakthrough race.
He was like well, that's not really it,
but you need a race
where you kind of go a little bit over and above
what you think you're capable of.
And that gives you the confidence to go on.
So, that to me tells me how mental
stuff like this is.
That when you go into races like this
you've gotta be mentally calm.
Not jacked up.
Not burning through your adrenaline right away.
And you need to be mentally, I think,
prepared to suffer.
Something that I have been doing this week is,
to help myself get to sleep,
I've been actually visualizing
turning my legs over quickly on the run
when they're in pain.
And I think that mind-body connection
we'll see if we can have a Ben Kanute-like performance.
Not second, but, just a bit of a breakout.
Here's a little bits from the day.
I've got my stuff laid out.
I'm gonna show you that in a sec.
(upbeat music)
Ben Kanute, the defending runner-up from last year.
How you doin'?
Thanks for bein' on the show.
- Doing well.
Thanks for having me on.
- Are you pumped up here?
We're doing 60 seconds of Would You Rather?
- Let's do it.
- You've got a look of fear on your face right now.
- A little bit.
(laughing)
Wish you had it.
- Alright, ready on the clock, Mel?
- [Mel] Ready.
- Okay.
Number one, would you rather have
Lucy Charles' swim or Daniela Ryf's bike skills?
- Daniela Ryf's bike skills.
- Would you rather cramp on the run or barf in the swim?
- Barf in the swim.
- Would you rather have free bikes or free flights
to races for life? - Flights.
Flights for life.
- Would you rather wake up to an alarm clock
with Mike Reilly telling you
you're an Ironman every morning
or get a letter from Andrew Messick
accepting you to Kona every afternoon?
- The alarm clock.
- [Taren] During the run, would you rather get blisters
on your feet so bad you had to walk
or nipple chafing so hard
you were bleeding in the finisher photo?
- (laughing) Nipple chafing.
- (laughing) Would you rather be able to eat
anything you want and never gain a pound
or train as much as you like and never get injured?
- Eat anything I like.
- Would you rather have to wear a Speedo
for the entirety of every race for life
or wear a giant temporary M Dot tattoo on each cheek
during all races for life?
- (laughing) Speedo.
- Would you rather have a pebble
in your shoe during the run
or a second degree sunburn for two weeks after a race?
- Sunburn.
- Would you rather be delayed flying
so badly you missed Kona
or get the middle seat in economy for life?
- How many times do I miss Kona?
- [Taren] Just once.
- Middle seat for life?
I wanna say miss Kona.
(laughing)
- Miss Kona. I agree.
That's gotta be 60 seconds?
- [Mel] Yeah, I stopped watching.
- Stopped watching.
(laughing) They were good.
Can you tell me?
I think this a really cool place to start.
Basically, where you started in endurance racing
is the story about watching your dad
race one of his races when you were seven years old.
Can you tell me that story?
- Yeah, so triathlon has been a part of my life
pretty much as long as I can remember.
So, I always start off with one of my earliest memories
is watching my dad race the, at the time,
the Mrs. T's Triathlon,
which is the Chicago tri now,
so that's like kind of back in the day.
I think it was mid-90's.
And yeah I watched him ride his bike by
on lower Wacker Drive.
Grew up a bit in transition areas.
So I remember going to the Lake Geneva Triathlon.
(upbeat music)
It'd be much more heartbreaking
if it was within the last mile
or something, but I mean I,
Javi really had to,
it looked like he had to dig.
And he took a big chunk of time out of me there,
so it was more like, okay, he got me here.
That's fine.
Let's reset.
I was feeling better at that point.
So, I tried to just limit the damage
and use him a little bit to hold those guys,
who were charging from behind,
off for more time.
(instrumental music)
It's just trying to be your best person
and you know, when you look, like,
I try and go out
and I try to be the best triathlete on race day
and try and race the fastest that I can,
and a lot of times people fall into
the trap of just looking at one thing
that kind of defines them
or they put a lot of stock in their racing.
And, for me, there's a lot more than triathlon, as well.
Like I take it very seriously,
and I take my training and racing very seriously,
but I like to give back, too.
- [Taren] Yeah, you're helping with kids' programs.
And stuff like that, right?
- Yeah, and I think it's important
to not only give back to the sport
cuz it's been so good to me,
and the people in it,
but give back to the community
and on a day-to-day basis be a good person.
Be a good man.
Make the right choices.
Stand up for the little guy.
Do all of that stuff.
- That Ben Kanute guy, really cool.
Big fan of the podcast.
Go check out the Triathlon Taren podcast.
It just so happens to be
the most highly-ranked triathlon podcast
in the world on iTunes.
And it's because of good interviews like we had with Ben.
Lemme show you the setup.
Alright, so starting from over here,
we don't yet have the Roka wetsuit.
It's here in Port Elizabeth,
but not quite delivered to me yet.
Apparently, I might get it before an hour from now.
So let's see.
Now this is the before-the-race kind of stuff.
I'm gonna Body Glide under the wetsuit.
I am going to defog the goggles twice
the night before the race.
I'm gonna put baby powder in my shoes
on the bike and the run.
About 15 to 20 minutes before the race starts
I'm gonna take a gel.
The morning of the race,
I've gotta put that timing chip on my left ankle.
And I'm gonna probably need that headlamp
in all of transition.
Of course, we have the Scody custom kit
with the zipper that goes all the way up.
So if I need to take a pee before the race,
I can easily do that.
I'm gonna put arm warmers on underneath the wetsuit
so that when I get out of the wetsuit,
the arm warmers are already on.
Then, the setup for the swim is,
I am going to put the Wahoo chest strap on.
I'm gonna have the Tower 26 cap on my head.
And then the goggles, these are the Roka.
I believe they're the X1 goggles.
I'm gonna put that on over top of the Tower 26 cap.
And then my race cap on over top of that.
Moving on to the bike setup here.
I'll get into the whole bike in a bit.
But for nutrition,
I have two packages of watermelon Clif Blocks
that have the extra sodium in them.
And three of these 90 calorie Verb energy bars
that are salted peanut butter with caffeine.
I like me my peanut butter.
I like me my caffeine.
I am going to put these toe caps
on over top of the Shimano shoes
that will already be clipped into the bike
so I won't have to do that.
The only thing that I'll have to do in T1 is if it's cold,
I'm gonna put on these gloves
so that I'm nice and dexterous
and I can unwrap all of this stuff
that's going to be stuffed into
the back of my jersey before the swim.
So all I'll have to do is get out of the water,
take my wet suit off,
run up to my bike,
put on my gloves,
put on my helmet
which is the Lazer Wasp Air Tri.
As far as the bike setup goes,
you know the setup.
Alto disc wheel.
I am going disc because the wind seems to be down.
Ventum One bike with the custom decal on it.
We've got the 51 Speedshop elbow cups,
51 Speedshop extensions,
the Wahoo Bolt here.
We have the Cobb Ironman 55 saddle
with all the, check these out,
all the little Ironman emblems in there.
And in the integrated 1.6 liter Ventum frame water bottle,
I'm going to have more SOS electrolyte powder in there.
The coconut flavor.
Huge fan.
This is new.
I didn't know this existed.
Love it.
And the Shimano Dura Ace Di2 electronic shifting.
Now, right at the moment,
I'm havin' a little bit of problems
with the P1 PowerTap power pedals.
It's registering super low power,
like 60 when it should be 200.
So at the moment, I've got the batteries out,
and we're tying to do a hard reset.
And I've said many times one of the reasons why
I like dealing with PowerTap and all the Saris people
is because of their customer service.
Well, I emailed them just right now
at the end of the day on Friday,
business day is over,
and they've already put me in touch with their
South African dealer who is overnight sending
a new pair of these to me.
And I've head of stories like that with PowerTap,
several times, not just from them.
But, like, they're just good with people,
so it isn't just me.
Then we get on to the run.
Overall on the run, we're doing the Nike Zoom Flys.
We're gonna try to capture some running power data
with the Stryd Power Pod on the left foot.
Got the elastic laces.
Tip from Danielle Dingman
is I'm gonna Vaseline the bejesus out of these shoes
and hopefully avoid a whole lot of those calluses
and blisters that I experienced in Coeur d'Alene.
Coming out of T2, we're gonna hit some pickle juice,
which apparently resets a lot of your neuromuscular system
because it's so strong and has so much sodium
that this helps avoid cramping.
In the first half hour or so,
maybe 40, 45 minutes,
I'm gonna try to down some of these Blocks,
more Clif Blocks.
And throughout, starting about a half hour in,
this here is all SOS rehydrate powder.
And I'm gonna just kind of sip on that
and take it just as dry powder
as I'm in the race to get my sodium.
And then I'll take Coke,
in the last hour or so, as my calories.
Got the race bib.
Follow 1825.
And I'm gonna have a backwards Roka visor
just to keep the sweat out of my eyes.
And some Pit Viper shades.
So there you go Trainaics.
If you aren't already subscribed,
hit that subscribe button below
because starting tomorrow
we're got two days of coverage
of the women's race and the men's race
in the Half Ironman World Championships 2018
in South Africa, Port Elizabeth
where yours truly
is covering as media and racing.
It's going to be quite the logistical feat.
Wish me luck.
And if you are already subscribed,
especially if you came and met me today, thank you.