- Why don't you start by introducing yourself
because it's your house
and might as well start on a high note
because I'm going to finish you off on a very low note.
- Sarah True, Jenga champion of the world.
- Oh come on, oh get serious.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- Because this is how I roll.
I'm going to go down low.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
- Total power move.
- Power move, 100%.
- Establish dominance early on.
- Yo, yeah.
- So.
- Explain why you're down here in Scottsdale.
- Are you trying to throw me off my game?
- No, this.
We are journalists here.
We are very serious journalists.
- You're trying to distract me from the fact
that you just had a lot of difficulty getting that out.
Gotta remove it, gotta remove it, gotta remove it.
- Question from Laura Sidel.
- How many gold medals did GR win at London 2012?
What a random.
- Guess.
- I don't know, 19, 18.
- Neither one is right, but.
- Oh.
Man.
- Ooh, 29.
- Oh, so you were asking why I'm down here.
I'm down here because I live in a very, very snowy place.
As much as I enjoy riding on the trainer
and not seeing light all winter,
figured it'd be a good move to go someplace
where I can bike outside and run outside
and all that good stuff.
I'll be down here a full month.
- With your hubby, Den?
- Yeah, who's currently taking a nap.
Oh, don't worry about it.
He can sleep through pretty much everything.
- This might be short.
Whoa.
Geez.
- Yep.
Are you, are you feeling.
- Yeah.
- Let's see your hands, are they shaking it yet?
You feel intimidated?
- What's the first race going to be?
- Oceanside.
I actually did Oceanside years ago
when I was deciding whether or not
I was going to try to go
non-draft,
and ended up second, but I was leading,
with like 500 meters to go.
- No.
- And Marinda Carthwright would get up behind me,
right off the sand, last little sand bit,
and that was the end.
Like just the wheels had dropped off at that point.
I hit the sand, it was over,
so hopefully she's showing up.
Come on Marinny, bring it.
That got a little shaky, ooh,
but returning to a race I've done before,
now I know about the sand.
- What's a training week look like for you down here?
Are you loading up on volume to kind of set yourself
on a build?
- This is interesting.
So I just assumed I'd be doing like killer days
because I'm, I'm targeting Frankfurt as my first.
- Ooh, as your first full distance?
- Yeah, so I still have quite a bit of time,
but my coach's approach is,
it's a 12 week, like IRONMAN specific block,
so we're still way outside of that 12 weeks.
Up until that point, it's more speed development,
so then, kind of opposite
of what you would maybe think that.
- Yeah.
- That you would do volume and then do speed,
but he wants to, you know, tap on speed,
do a lot of VO2 Max stuff,
and then once I get within that 12 week window,
do some real IRONMAN specific stuff.
He knows a thing or two about triathlons, so.
- Yeah?
- I'll trust him.
- What would be the, a big day down here, then?
- I mean I've had a couple of bigger days,
biggest in terms of volume,
I had a like four and a half hour bike
and in the morning I had a 18K run, so.
- Ooh, that's a.
- Pretty.
- That's a solid day.
- Pretty solid, pretty solid.
- Yeah.
Have you always wanted to train alone?
- No, I love squad training.
My coach is in Germany.
He has a handful of athletes, not too many,
you know, by necessity I train alone.
I have a good swim buddy now,
but I do most of my training alone.
That's the good thing about, you know, doing
non-draft racing is that it's less dependent
on other people.
There's good and bad.
The good is that it's fun to have training partners,
you know.
They hold you a bit accountable,
you can learn from them, all those wonderful things,
but the flip side is that sometimes
you don't pay as much attention to your own body.
It's an easy ride.
- Oh yeah.
- I make sure it's an easy ride
because I'm not trying to keep up with people
and they're feeling good.
I'm committed, I'm committed, oh, oh.
- Oh.
- Yeah.
- Come on.
No problem.
- Like a boss.
Oh my goodness.
- Coming from ITU
and moving into Long Horse.
- Yeah?
- Is running so your bread and butter?
Like do you look forward to it in a race?
- No, it's such a different run.
I mean I can't even imagine what it's going to be like
to do a marathon.
Maybe if my bike fitness had been a bit better this summer,
I would have felt better running,
but it's just like, you have like
a different kind of heaviness in your legs.
- How does the rim training change that?
Because the volume.
- It's more strenuous.
- The volume is not terribly different, right?
- No.
It's going to feel like grinding
instead of ever realLy kind of running fast,
but you have to, you have to do some of the fast stuff
just because of, in terms of efficiency.
Speed is always good.
- Yeah?
- It's the best possible like running drill you can do
is to do sprints, is to do.
- Like 400s, 800s?
- Even shorter.
Like short and hard is the best possible drill.
You recruit muscles the best way.
It's a really good way of working on technique.
Even with IRONMAN training, I'll continue to do 200s.
Are you allowed to do that?
- Of course.
- Where is the official rule book, huh?
- Mel?
Rule?
- She's a biased party here.
- Judges rule yeah.
- Not really.
- No.
Not really.
What do you miss about ITU?
- The comradery.
- Really?
- Yeah, I miss the people.
I don't know these women as well,
and you know, ITU is a circuit
so you see the same people,
you know week in, week out,
develop friendships, and you know,
I have friends who do long course,
but it's different.
- You're over here and they're.
- Yeah, exactly.
Oh geez, I'm crimey.
This is going to get hairy.
- Did you ever get tired of that?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Because I know in, say with curling,
when I was doing that,
it was the same 16 teams on the circuit.
We would go around, you kind of knew
where you stacked up with everyone.
- Yeah, it's kind of the same thing no matter what.
- Yeah?
- I mean I think there's possibly more margin
for getting things wrong.
I mean the number of times you've seen
the race favorite have a mechanical
or have, you know, something wrong,
that has less to do with ability
and more to do with just.
- Luck.
- Well not luck.
I mean if you get your nutrition wrong, is that luck?
No.
I wouldn't say luck.
It's just there are, in some ways there are more variables
and there's some ways there are fewer.
You see more happen in the individual level
where people may not perform to their potential,
whereas with the IT stuff, like the rice dynamics
just play out a certain way,
that might change things,
but it's rarely like oh shoot, you know,
they forgot a gel, you know.
- You just tough that out, right?
- Well it's so short, it doesn't make
as much of a difference.
- Geez.
- I mean obviously people get flats
and they crash and things like that,
you know the race is pretty much over at that point,
but not always.
Just like this game.
- Well you gave a very valiant effort.
- You won.
- Track workout now.
- I have sweaty palms now.
- Me too.
- They're really sweaty.
- Me too, me too.
There you go.
(laughter)
How many atoms, pencil eraser?
You went there, okay.
Pretty proud of yourself too.
- I am so proud of myself.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- We're going to catch the light
so Den doesn't wake up.
(gasp)
Doesn't even look.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- I'm not liking this.
I'm not liking this.
This is a nail biter right here.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Nope.
- You know they'll all, tried 'em.
- Yep.
- Tried 'em.