- What's up, Trainiacs?
Welcome to this week's Triathlon News Day Tuesday
and this week's edition of Triathlon News Day,
USA Triathlon announces the dates
for National Triathlon Weekend.
Other than that, it's largely just
Iron Man, Iron Man, more Iron Man.
Which, got some comments on about
how it is fairly telling about the state of our sport
in the world.
Let's do it!
(upbeat electronic music)
Welcome Triathletes, to Triathlon News Day Tuesday
where every single Tuesday, as long as I remember,
and there is news to talk about and I'm not traveling,
we talk about the goings on all around the triathlon world.
As always, make sure you stick around to the end
where everyone's favorite part of Triathlon News Day is
a story from the Trainiac community,
a story from you!
And, as always, full links to everything we talk about
will be in the description below.
Let's start off with USA Triathlon,
the national governing body of Triathlon in the
United States, announced the dates of the
Third Annual National Triathlon week, which is going
to take place this year between June 24th and June 30th.
Essentially, this National Triathlon week is really just
a social media campaign where USAT encourages people from
all around the world to post about Triathlon
using the hashtag "triweek".
In this, they have different days for different things
in Triathlon, so they have a swim day, a bike day, a
run day, they have a My Time to Try day,
celebrating the program where they're encouraging
new triathletes to get into the sport.
They have a member appreciation day and it
culminates on the weekend with race weekend where
everyone is encouraged to post about the races.
Now I certainly appreciate that USAT is doing all that
they can to bring new triathletes into the sport,
because as they said, the CEO himself said is they
need to do a better job of being more than just an
insurance company, and this is one of the ways they do that.
Now, moving over to the Iron Man announcements that's
happened last week, Iron Man World Triathlon Corporation
announced that they would make the theme for this year's
series of Iron Mans Ohana.
Now ohana means the bond between you and your extended
family, those people around you who are very, very
close to you.
Now this culminates over the course of the year at,
obviously, the Iron Man World Championship in Kona,
where the Iron Man World Championship has been since
its third annual occurrence in 1981.
Now further announcements from Iron Man last year,
is that the World Triathlon Corporation will be acquiring
the world's largest fun run.
This is the City2Surf event held in Australia and they
have acquired this and three other races from
nine events in entertainment.
The City2Surf sees 80,000 participants run all the way to
Bondi Beach and this acquisition of events as opposed to
publications or broadcasting, things like that is just kind
of a further indication of WTC, World Triathlon Corporation
the company that owns and operates Iron Man, committing to
what they do best and that being holding events over the
last few years.
They've gradually sold off things like their publications
and focused more and more on events.
Now what this says to me, actually largely that today's
Triathlon News Day is so focused on Iron Man is that while
organizations like USAT are holding things like My Time to
Try and holding things like National Triathlon Week, the
driver of our sport, the big 10,000 pound gorilla
in our sport, is Iron Man.
Without Iron Man, our sport would probably not be growing
and to that extent Iron Man itself is not really growing
that much if you take out the growth that is
happening in Asia.
So here's something to consider, that isn't really news
related, it's more commentary based.
I should get this back on for that.
Is that while there are a lot of people out there that
really rag on Iron Man for being a huge multi-national
corporation with hundreds of millions of dollars, it is
the driver of our sport and it's the reason that so many
people get into our sport.
And while there is the obvious bad side of having a
company that is driven by money and financial results,
the good side is that it changes lives probably more than
anything in our sport.
So I think we have to put that in context when we start
thinking about Iron Man being this big bad corporation.
Frankly, I think that the good far outweighs the bad.
But I'm interested in hearing what you think about Iron
Man being this 10,000 pound gorilla in our sport.
So let me know in the comments below.
Now in race results, again all Iron Man all the time,
half Iron Man St. Polten occurred in Austria with
Franz Loeschke winning on the men's side and Sara Svensk
winning on the women's.
In full Iron Man racing, probably the hardest Iron Man
branded race that occurs every year around the world,
Iron Man Lanzarote happened over the weekend with Frederik
Van Lierde, former Kona winner, winning on the men's side
and Nikki Bartlett winning on the women's side, being the
only woman to race under ten hours.
That's how hard this race is.
And finally Iron Man Brazil happened over the course of
the weekend and Andy Potts won on the men's side and former
podcast guest Sarah Piampiano crushed the field, winning by
23 minutes over the next closest woman.
Podcast update!
We just released a podcast on Sunday with Paul Mackinnon,
the balanced runner, the man that has been helping me with
my running technique, bringing it down 20 seconds on average
per kilometer at the same heart rate.
Really good chat with about running, his dog, his mustache,
how Kim thinks that he's totally hunky.
And this week we've got an excellent line up, recording a
chat later today with Chelsea Sodaro, one of the fastest
rising stars in Triathlon and tomorrow with Ken Ward.
We're gonna find out if he actually hates me or if he's
just obsessed with me.
I vote it's for obsessed.
Now let's get into the Trainiacs Story of this week,
it's a great one and it goes, "My name is Miguel Torres.
I am 27 years old and I am from a small town
in Mexico called Metepec.
I used to be really overweight, I had terrible habits that
lead me to an addiction at the age of 23.
With a very depressing life, I entered rehab to overcome
my drinking problem.
I used to drink every, single day, smoke a pack of
cigarettes and I had no purpose.
After a year of sobriety, I entered my first 5k with no
training, no conditioning and no idea
what I was getting into.
I finished that 5k in about 50 minutes.
It was awfully painful but crossing that finish line
made me feel alive.
It made me realize that a healthy lifestyle was way better
than getting drunk.
A few months later I did my first 10k, then a half marathon,
and I started to love the endurance world.
That's where Triathlon came into my life.
I signed up for my first sprint Triathlon, which ended up
being one of the best days of my life.
A few months after that first Triathlon, I watched your
2017 Kona recap, which is the best video
I've ever seen on YouTube."
Thank you very much and thank you videographer Mel
for making that.
"It was so inspiring that my heart burned.
I decided that I wanted to do something that I never thought
that I could.
I was going to become an Iron Man.
Going from addict to Iron Man is now one of my greatest
dreams, for me it's more than a race, it's about
transforming myself to what I've always wanted to be and
leaving behind all that I used to be.
I signed up for a 70.3 and trained for over a year and on
September 30th, 2018 I finished my first
Iron Man branded event.
I crossed that finish line with tears of joy and fulfillment
as everything I wanted and worked for.
In those 70.3 miles, I left all my fears, my doubts,
my insecurities behind.
I left the addicted, overweight, irresponsible version of
myself behind and I was reborn.
I'm currently building up to do my first
full Iron Man in 2020.
Triathlon has changed my life, gave me inspiration,
purpose and motivation.
I love this sport, it is a physical, emotional, mental,
even spiritual challenge which I strongly suggest
everyone should try."
I completely agree, Miguel, with everything that you said.
This is a great sport, this is life changing and like I
said earlier today, Iron Man helps change people's lives,
no matter what their background.
So, I too recommend that everyone give it a try.
Thank you very much for sharing your story, Miguel.
If you want to get your story shared here on Triathlon
News Day, email me at taren@triathlontaren.com and if you
aren't yet subscribed and you like these News Days, well we
come out with them every, single week.
Hit that subscribe button below.
Later, Trainiacs.