- What's up, Trainiacs!
Welcome to this week's Triathlon News Day Tuesday.
In this week's edition of Triathlon News Day,
the EXTERRA World Championship.
The off-road world championship is making some big changes,
new top dogs get announced
for Triathlon Business International,
and race results, race results, race results.
It was a big week. We got a lot going on.
(upbeat music)
What's up, triathletes!
Welcome to Triathlon News Day,
where every single Tuesday,
as long as there is news to talk about
all around the triathlon world,
we go over what's going on out there.
Make sure you stick around 'til the end,
where everyone's favorite part
of Triathlon News Day is shared,
and that is a story from the trainiac community.
And, as always, full links to everything we talk about
will be in the description below.
Now, Let's start off
with the XTERRA World Championship,
which is held every year on the island of Maui,
making some changes to their bike course.
Historically, it's been a 32 kilometer,
one loop bike course that goes into the island of Maui,
and they're looking at changing it to two
16.4K bike loops
to allow for severe weather.
Now, if you look at any of the pictures
from the past few years,
you see that severe rains that occurred
in the week leading up to the race,
have made the bike course almost unbikeable.
There are some athletes that
hiked kilometers and kilometers
of the bike because of all the mud
that gets caught in the bike,
making it unbikeable.
So, while this is an off-road triathlon,
it's still a swim, bike, run triathlon.
So I think that this change
is going to allow it to, regardless of weather,
always be swim, bike, run,
not swim, bike, run, run, run, bike, swim,
bike, bike, bike, slop around in the mud,
run, hopefully finish.
Triathlon Business International has announced
its 2019-2020 Board of Directors,
and there are four new faces on the board.
Now before I explain who those people are,
Triathlon Business International is kind of a side group
that doesn't really oversee anything in triathlon,
but it's a group of leaders
from all around the triathlon world
that gets together and discusses where and how
things should proceed with the sport of triathlon
to improve everyone's business
and hopefully get more people into the sport.
I went to the Triathlon Business International Conference
last year in 2018.
Very good organization, they do a lot of good things,
and anytime that you can get people
that are historically spread all around the world
together into one room
to talk about how to make our sport better,
it's going to be a good thing.
New additions to the board this year are
Bob Babbitt from Babbittville.
You probably know him from Breakfast with Bob,
held every year during Kona week.
Also, Rachel Sears Casanta, who is a former pro triathlete,
and owner of Hypercat Racing Bike Shop,
Leslie Reinhardt, the Chief Operating Officer from Velotech,
and Jay Weber from BASE Performance.
Wish you all a very good year
and many Robert's Rules of Order and things pass
and all the things that fancy board members do.
Oh! Oh! Oh! They'll probably wear some ties.
Now, results, huge number of races all around the world,
so let's get into it,
and let's move through them fairly quickly.
The European Triathlon Championship,
a shorter distance race,
was won for the fourth time by Alistair Brownlee.
Quite convincingly,
Alistair said that with two kilometers
left to go in the race, he know that he had won
and was able to ease up at that point.
And that is one of the shorter distance races,
which is often not decided
until the final 50 meters or so.
Now the Inaugural Herbalife L.A. Triathlon happened,
in L.A., obviously, and this is a race
that is focused on bringing triathlons
back to L.A., not outside of L.A.,
like, say the Malibu Triathlon,
but literally in the metropolis of L.A., and this was
all part of USAT having a big focus on L.A.
in conjunction with bidding for the Olympics.
Now they made a big deal about this.
There were, I believe, 900 triathletes that competed,
2,000 athletes that competed in any one of the,
I think, five different events between Aquabike
and Duathlon and Short Triathlon and Long Triathlon.
Mike Reilly announced.
Robbie Webster from Tacoma, Washington
won on the men's side,
and Sarah Haskins won the women's race
over Heather Jackson.
Now, before you say, "Whoa, what happened
to Heather Jackson?"
Heather Jackson is not a short course specialist.
She's more long course.
But still, Sarah Haskins had to win
and beat her, so congratulations.
Now the Challenge Championship happened
over the course of the weekend,
and this is held in Samorin every year.
This is one of the premier events
from the Challenge company,
which is one of the only companies
that's legitimately competing with Ironman
out there on the circuit.
It's the company that's holding Challenge Roth,
which is the first full Ironman distance race
that I'll be competing in in five weeks.
Now, it's not an Ironman race,
it's a Challenge Ironman distance race.
In any case, at the championship on the weekend,
we had some great action on the men's side
with Sebastian Kienle coming out with the win
over a little bit of a battle with Rudy Von Berg.
Ben Kanute was also there, as was Pieter Heemeryck,
who is kind of like the total stud out there
that is doing really well on the championship circuit
all around the world.
Our pal, Pro Triathlon,
"How to Swim with Lucy Charles" course instructor,
Lucy Charles won on the women's side,
and her run is coming along damn good. Nasty good.
Now, let's get into the Ironman Racing,
'cause there was a lot of it
that happened over the weekend.
Half Ironman Kraichgau happened
over the course of the weekend
with Jan Frodeno making his return
to Ironman branded racing,
winning very convincingly at Kraichgau,
while Hele Frederiksen won on the women's side.
In other races, where world champions
just went and decimated the field,
Daniela Ryf won Half Ironman Switzerland
by a lot of minutes,
and Andi Boecherer won on the men's side
in Switzerland.
And the last two races on the Ironman Circuit,
Half Ironman Subic Bay, held in the Philippines,
where triathlon is growing very, very quickly.
Shout-out to all the Filipino fans out there
and people from the Philippines,
everyone from the Philippines.
We have, actually, a very big Philippine contingent
of followers, so shout-out.
Thank you for watching.
Tim Reed won on the men's side,
with Caroline Steffen winning on the women's side.
Close to home, finally the last race.
Half Ironman Victoria happened
over the course of the weekend
with another instructor
from ProTriathlonTraining.com,
Mirinda Carfrae, coming out with the women's title.
And one of NTK No Triathlon Kim's
favorite podcast guests, Sam Long,
won for the second time over the past month,
really establishing himself as an up-and-comer,
and actually a threat to step up to that Ironman distance
and be one of the elite athletes out there on the circuit.
Congratulations to all athletes.
Now, speaking of the podcast, we just released an interview
that we did with Alex Hutchinson, author of Endure,
one of my favorite endurance sports books.
It's not really about training,
it's not really about racing,
it's not really about anything in particular,
but it covers the entire history of sports science,
and the evolution of learning about the human body
and what humans are capable of, and it's a lot.
This week we are finding out once and for all
if Cam Warf hates me, or is obsessed with me.
I think obsessed, totally think obsessed.
He's on the podcast,
so go check out the Triathlon Tarin podcast.
It is the most highly ranked triathlon podcast in the world.
Now, let's get into this week's Trainiac story, which goes:
"My name is Jake, and I'm from Erie, Pennsylvania.
I'm heading into my third season of triathlon
and want to share my story.
After high school, I got fat."
You cut to the chase, Jake.
"Like, I'm 5'5" and weighed 185 pounds.
When my wife Kimmy, also another NTK,
started going to the gym while we were dating,
she dragged me along.
I lost a little weight, but after we got married
it began to slip back on,
and I was eating nothing but ice cream and Taco Bell.
I thought to myself, 'What's a goal that I could work for
that will help me stay in shape?'
I saw an ad for a local triathlon and decided to go for it.
Unfortunately, I didn't train enough and I finished
in a disappointing 1:40.
After I peeled myself off the ground
and ate some food, I was hooked.
I wanted to see how fast I could get at the sprint distance.
Later that summer, I did a duathlon
and PRed my run off the bike.
Last summer, my wife and I had our daughter Ella,
so I only did one race, a sprint distance.
The swim did not go well.
The bike, I had a PR on that course but I bonked on the run.
I stood on the side of the road with cramped legs,
I couldn't breathe.
But I remembered all the training that I did,
so I finished, pushing through the cramps,
unfortunately only finishing in 1:30.
Since then, I've tried out Team Trainiac, and I love it."
Yes, Jake. High five.
"Next month, I'm shooting now for a 1:10 to 1:18 sprint
on the course where I did my first ever race two years ago,
the one where I finished 1:40.
I'll also be doing a half marathon
and another sprint tri in August.
I'm so busy with finishing college this month,
a one-year-old, being part of a church start-up this year,
as well as working 40 plus hours a week and training,
but I've got a little pain cave of my own and I've stayed
around 145 pounds the last two years.
Proud to say that I'm a trainiac."
Thanks for sending that in, Jake.
I wanted to share this,
because this is a real story out there of somebody
out there that's going through all of the things
that we go through, cramps on the bike,
not necessarily just PR-ing, time after time after time
or losing hundreds of pounds
or curing diseases all around the world.
This is somebody who's struggling to fit everything in.
A new family, new goals, and a new trainiac training team.
Go check us out at TeamTrainiac.com and you can hang out
with Jake and potentially PR,
doing like 1:10 to 1:18.
Damn. I know we're good, but Jake!
Thank you, Jake, for sharing that story.
Please send in your stories about how triathlon
has affected your life to Taren@TriathlonTaren.com
include some race photos,
maybe some before and after photos.
It all helps motivate everyone all around the world.
So thank you for sending that in,
and thank you for watching.
If you aren't yet subscribed,
hit that subscribe button below
for every single Tuesday News Day.
Later, Trainiacs.
Later that summer, I did a duathlon and I peed.
Peed.