- What's up, Trainiacs.
Welcome to this week's Triathlon Newsday Tuesdsay,
where in this week's edition of Triathlon Newsday,
we talk about the future of endurance sports
and triathlon being in question in an entire country.
The CEO of Ironman tells all
and if triathlons weren't crazy enough,
some mofos do a 520K race.
Gettin' that?
520.
Let's do it.
(upbeat music)
What's up, triathletes?
Welcome to Triathlon Newsday Tuesday,
where every single Tuesday,
as long as there is
news to talk about all around the triathlon world
and I'm not traveling,
we talk about what's going on in the sport that we love.
As always, make sure you stick around until the end
where we share everyone's favorite part of Triathlon Newsday
and that's a story from the trainiac community.
If you're an ex-football player,
you're going to love the story from today.
And as always,
relevant links to everything we talk about
will be in the description below.
Let's start off by talking about
how Triathlon Ireland has come out saying
that the future of triathlon endurance sporting events
as a whole is in a little bit of trouble in Ireland.
Now, the reason for this is that
insurance premiums for races
and endurance events has almost doubled.
Now, one official sites
that one specific event has gone from 56 thousand Euros,
to 103 thousand Euros,
in the course of one year.
And the reason for this is
because not...
there are massive insurance claims here for there,
but it's more like massive payouts
for small insurance claims.
Now one example is an individual in a 2015 race,
had a laceration on his foot
that required an insurance payout of 25 thousand Euros.
And when this is going on,
insurance premiums creep up
and because it's not a huge country,
there isn't a ton of competition.
So just the fact that their could be large potentially,
unreasonable, claims made at these events,
insurance companies is, pewww, jacked up their premium.
Obviously, let's hope that that's not the case
and that this sport can be financially viable
for all countries around the world.
Next, the Financial Times
did a bit of a piece on Andrew Messick,
the CEO of World Triathlon Corporation.
The company that runs Ironman events.
And this comes after the kind of
unsuccessful IPO by the division of Wanda Holdings,
which is part of the company that owns Wanda Sports Group,
which owns World Triathlon Corporation,
which runs Ironman,
yada, yada, yada.
CEO of Ironman, Andrew Messick,
was interviewed for the Financial Times,
and he talked about how when he came into Ironman,
it was 2011, and all they had was 60 events around the world
and now it is a multi hundred million dollar organization
with not just triathlons and half Ironmans
and running events and mountain biking events,
but brands, clothing, licensing deals,
all kinds of things that he has taken part in
and he also talks about some of the disastrous races
that he went into while learning
what it's like to be an Ironman and, as he puts it,
a little business tidbits like
their penetration is 20 times that
in Scandinavia as it is in Japan.
I don't know what that means,
but that sounds dirty.
I actually know what that means.
Now if Ironmans, triathlons, marathons, ultra marethons,
weren't crazy enough, John Bell from Canada had to go
and win the 520k ultra triathlon,
which is held over three days
and takes 520 kilometers to complete.
Some quick math, 300, about 300 and 25 miles.
Now, I've gotta read to ya, what these three days are.
Day one, a 10k swim and a 150k bike.
Day two, a 276k bike.
And day three culminates in a double marathon.
Now John Bell won in a time of 23 hours, 41 minutes
and 41 seconds.
What's astonishing about this however,
is that the second place finisher, Barry Burg,
wasn't hours behind, days behind,
three minutes behind the winner.
That's a smaller difference in time
than we see in a lot of half Ironman.
That's incredible.
I don't know why, but looking at that
and I'm like,
I think I could do well in that.
Just saying.
Now, let's get into some results.
Around the world there wasn't a huge number
of races being held all around the world.
Video bomb.
But in the US of A,
the big show, the age group national championships in sprint
and Olympic racing was held in Cleveland again.
Justin Lippert, who's been on our podcast before,
ended up defending his title in the Olympic distance race,
while Rachel Menchak,
won on the women's side for the Olympic distance race.
In the sprint distance race,
which was held the very next day,
Travis Wood ended up winning
and Gabby Brocharde won on the women's side
for the sprint distance athletes.
Half Ironman [] happened in Philippines over the weekend
with Tim Reed and Caroline Stefan,
respectively winning for the men and the women.
The interesting thing about this however,
is that when some of the athletes started trying
to leave the Philippines to get home,
protests ended up basically turning the airport
and all of the surrounding infrastructure of taxi cabs
and train stations into complete gridlock
that people couldn't even walk through,
let alone get out of the area and get to a hotel.
So there was some pro triathletes
that were stranded in the Philippines for a little while.
I guess that's kind of the nature of having somebody like
Andrew Messick growing the piss out of the sport
all around the world, in areas that aren't quite so stable.
And the only other race out there this weekend was
70.3 gdynia, which was won with blistering times by
Yan Ferdino and Amelia Watkinson in 3:39 and 4:06,
half Ironman times.
Just crazy.
Now, on the Triathlon Taren podcost,
a lot of you have been asking about the
half Ironman world championship bike course in Niece, France
which is kind of a boarder line,
should it be a road bike course,
should it be a tri bike course.
Well, we got Rudy Von Berg on the podcast,
pro triathlete,
who's been nailing his races these past couple of years.
Well he grew up 45 minutes from the race course
in Niece, France and he talks all about swim, bike, run
what the strategy should be for each.
Also, in partnership,
well basically in partnership with myself,
but to celebrate the release of our very first book,
Triathlon Swimming Foundations,
which you can get at
TRIATHLONTAREN.COM/TRIATHLONSWIMMINGBOOK,
this weekend we are going to be releasing kind of,
a high level overview of what's in that book.
The three key aspects to beginner triathlon swimming,
which are breath like a dolphin, float like a log
and race like an arrow.
More info in the podcast this weekend.
Now, let's get into the trainiac story of the week.
It's a shorty and a goody,
which goes, my name is Michael Fitzpatrick.
I used to play college football
and I played football for 18 years of my life.
Unfortunately, my senior year of college ended early
with an abrupt injury.
I broke my tibia, fibula and tibial plateau,
requiring surgery and a lot of hardware in my leg.
I have eight screws and a 10 inch plate in there right now.
A year and a half later I was in a bit of depression.
At 305 pounds,
I couldn't find the right motivation to cut weight,
even though no one needs to be lineman sized,
outside of football.
I'd hit a plateau in my weight loss
and I got discouraged.
That's until I took a leap of faith
and I signed up for a sprint triathlon.
I knew the basics of how to swim,
how to bike and how to run,
but certainly not enough to get me through an entire race.
So, I took to YouTube to learn everything
and anything that I could.
And that's what lead me to your channel,
thank you Michael.
Every night I would go to bed after watching two
or three of your instructional videos
and in the morning before work,
I would try to put into practice
the skills I learned in the videos.
This past Sunday I completed that sprint triathlon in
one hour 55 minutes and 56 seconds,
four minutes under my goal time of two hours.
I'm also down from 305 to 270 pounds.
I'm down 35 pounds
and I feel more in shape than I ever have.
Long story short,
just wanted to say thank you for your channel,
thank you for being an informative
and encouraging resource for beginners.
Well, you're so welcome.
My next, goal is to complete Half Ironman Atlantic City
in September of 2020.
Because of the help I just got from your YouTube channel,
I plan to use Teamtraniac.com to help me get there.
Have a great night.
I hope you have a great night Michael
and I really hope that you do well on Teamtraniac.com.
We're hearing, as we meet trainiacs all around the world,
we hear like, this is a little,
like good news, kind of humble bragging,
but they are knocking out Pbs and feeling fresher,
feeling well rested
and never feeling like they're just, ughhh.
Sure the workouts are hard,
but they're appropriately hard,
keeping them fresh, healthy, well rested
and ready to get to that race confident
and across their finish lines feeling strong.
So hopefully you feel that Michael.
If any of you want to share your story
here on Triathlon Newsday,
it can be whatever you feel you want to share.
A lot of people get motivated
by all kinds of different stories.
Email with us with some race photos
at taren@triathlontaren.com
and if you aren't already subscribed,
hit that subscribe button below.
Later trainiacs.
(upbeat music)
Now he goes to sleep.
I'm awake dad, I'm awake.