The Lonely Triathlete

Would you call it cheating if I installed a tiny electric motor in my bike that produced 5W of free power? Of course you would. But would you call it cheating if I raced with a $12,000 super TT bike that saved me 10W of power? Hmmm. Memberships can be had at www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete TRANSCRIPT So, there's been a story in the triathlon world recently that I find really fascinating. And it's not fascinating because I think it's funny, or because I enjoy watching somebody get caught cheating. Actually, quite the opposite. It's fascinating because it raises a much bigger question about what we're actually trying to accomplish when we race triathlon. The story involves an age-group triathlete who had some remarkably fast bike splits, which eventually resulted in anonymous whistleblower complaints and allegations of motor doping. And I want to be careful here, because this whole thing apparently became a bit of a nightmare, and I don't think it's my place to declare somebody guilty based on what I've read. But the story got me thinking about motor doping. And then it got me thinking about technology. And then it got me thinking about what the heck we're actually doing in this sport. Because here's the thing. We all understand why motor doping is cheating. If I put a little electric motor on my bike and use that motor to propel me down the road, I'm no longer relying entirely on my own physical ability. That's pretty obvious. But here's where I start to get philosophical about it. What exactly is the objective of triathlon? Is it to go the distance as quickly as possible? Or is it to go the distance as quickly as you are capable of going using the power of your own body? Those sound like almost the same thing. But I don't think they are. Because if the objective is simply to cover 40 kilometres on a bicycle as fast as possible, then why would we have any rules about equipment? Let's just remove all the restrictions. Put a motor on the bike. Put a giant fairing around the rider. Give everybody an aerodynamic shell. Give them whatever technology is available. And let's see who can get from point A to point B the fastest. That would be a competition. But it wouldn't really be the sport of triathlon anymore. Because triathlon isn't supposed to be a competition between machines. It's supposed to be a competition between people. And that got me thinking about something that we don't question very often. Why do we allow technology to improve our performance at all? Now, I love technology. I'm a triathlete. I have a power meter. I have an aero bike. I have aero wheels. I have a wetsuit. I have very expensive goggles. I use training software. I have GPS. I have all kinds of technology that didn't exist when I first started doing triathlons. And obviously, I don't think all of that is cheating. But where is the line? And why is that line where it is? Take the bicycle itself. A modern triathlon bike is vastly more technologically advanced than the bicycles we were riding 30 years ago. It's more aerodynamic. It's lighter. It's stiffer. The wheels are more aerodynamic. The helmet is more aerodynamic. The clothing is more aerodynamic. The position we're riding in is more aerodynamic. All of those things make us faster. And we accept that. In fact, we celebrate it. We spend thousands of dollars trying to save a few watts. And I'm one of those people. I love this stuff. But here's the uncomfortable question: At what point does technology stop helping the athlete and start becoming the athlete? Because there is a continuum here. At one end, you've got something like a better pair of running shoes. Nobody would argue that wearing a good pair of running shoes means you're not actually running. At the other end, you've got an electric motor. Nobody would argue that the motor is your athletic ability. But somewhere between those two extremes is a whole lot of grey area. Super shoes. Aero helmets. Deep-section wheels. Electronic shifting. Aero frames. Power meters. Carbon-plated shoes. Wetsuits. Training software. Altitude tents. Cooling systems. Nutrition technology. Recovery technology. And on and on. And I'm not saying any of those things are bad. I'm just asking the question: Why do we allow them? And I think part of the answer is that technology has always been part of sport. Human beings have always tried to make better equipment. We made better running shoes. We made better bicycles. We made better swimsuits. We made better skis. We made better boats. And there's something really interesting about technological innovation. It makes the sport faster. It makes it more exciting. It makes people want to buy things. And, let's be honest, there's an entire industry built around convincing triathletes that the next piece of equipment is going to make them faster. And sometimes it does. But there's another consequence. Money. Because the more expensive technology we introduce into the sport, the more the playing field can become separated by who can afford the best equipment. Now, I know we're not talking about professional sports here. We're talking about age-group triathlon. But age-group triathlon can be incredibly competitive. And especially when you're racing for a podium, or trying to qualify for a world championship, the difference between first and fifth place can be very small. So if one athlete has a $12,000 superbike with $3,000 wheels and another athlete has a five-year-old road bike with clip-on aerobars, are they really competing on an equal playing field? Well... No. They're not. But we've decided that's okay. We've decided that the athlete with more money is allowed to buy some performance advantage. And that's where this gets uncomfortable. Because we draw the line at a motor. But why? Because the motor provides too much assistance? Because it's hidden? Because it replaces human effort? Probably all three. But if that's the principle, then maybe the question we should be asking isn't: “Is this piece of technology legal?” Maybe the question should be: “How much of the performance is actually coming from the athlete?” Now, obviously, that's impossible to quantify. And I'm not suggesting we try to ban every technological improvement. That would be ridiculous. I like technology. I don't want to go back to racing in a cotton T-shirt and riding a 25-pound steel bicycle. But I think it's worth recognizing what we're doing. We're gradually moving the sport toward a place where athletic performance and technological performance are intertwined. And that isn't necessarily bad. But it does change the nature of the competition. And then you get to motor doping. And suddenly, we're looking at something that's different. Because the motor isn't making you more aerodynamic. It isn't reducing rolling resistance. It isn't helping you train. It's actually producing power. You can be sitting there pedalling away, and some of the work is being done by a machine. And that's where I think we all intuitively say: No. That's not you. That's the motor. And maybe that's the simplest definition of cheating in sport. You're getting performance from something that isn't you. But then again... Isn't that happening in tiny amounts all the time? My aero helmet isn't me. My wheels aren't me. My wetsuit isn't me. My bike isn't me. My running shoes aren't me. So maybe the distinction is not whether technology contributes to performance. Of course it does. Maybe the distinction is whether the technology is passive or active. Does it allow my body to use its own energy more efficiently? Or does it actually add energy? That's probably where the line needs to be. And I think that's a pretty reasonable line. But there's another issue with all of this. And that's trust. Because age-group triathlon is supposed to be recreational. We're amateurs. We're not making a living from this. We're not getting paid millions of dollars to win races. And yet we take this stuff incredibly seriously. We train for months. We spend enormous amounts of money. We travel around the world. We qualify for world championships. We stand on podiums. And when we're racing, we want to know that the person beside us is playing by the same rules. That's part of what makes competition meaningful. If I beat somebody, I want to know that I beat them. Not their bank account. Not their equipment manufacturer. Not their hidden motor. And not their ability to find some loophole in the rules. And that's why I think the motor-doping story is worth talking about. Not because I want to pile on one athlete. Not because I think age-group triathlon is filled with cheaters. And certainly not because I think we should start policing every person who rides a little bit too fast. It's because it forces us to ask a much bigger question. What are we actually competing at? Are we competing to see who can cover the course fastest by any means available? Or are we competing to see what human beings are capable of doing? Because I think most of us, if we're honest, chose triathlon for the second reason. That's what makes it satisfying. You swim the distance because your body can swim that far. You ride the distance because your body can produce the power. You run the distance because your body can keep going. And when you cross the finish line, there's something incredibly satisfying about knowing: That was me. Not the bike. Not the shoes. Not the technology. Not the training software. Me. And maybe that's why motor doping bothers us so much. Because it doesn't just violate a rule. It violates the underlying agreement we're all making when we line up at the start. We're agreeing that we're going to find out what we're capable of. And I think that's what makes sport different from simply transportation. If the goal were merely to get from here to there as quickly as possible, I'd take a motorcycle. I'd get there a hell of a lot faster. But that's not why we're doing this. We're doing this to find out what we're capable of. And perhaps that's the line we should keep coming back to as technology continues to evolve. Not: “Can we make this legal?” Not even: “Can this make us faster?” But: “Does this still allow the athlete to be the thing producing the performance?” Because once the answer becomes no... I'm not sure we're really talking about triathlon anymore.

Do you train on vacation? Should you train on vacation? I have some thoughts. Share your thoughts at www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete TRANSCRIPT So, it's vacation time. And that got me thinking about something that I've actually changed my mind about over the years: training while you're on vacation. For most of my triathlon life, I didn't. And my reasoning was pretty simple. I'm on vacation. I'm not training. I'm taking a break from the structure, the schedule, the alarm clocks, the workouts, the recovery protocols, all of it. And I actually think there's a lot of value in that. Because when we talk about recovery, we tend to think about physical recovery. You take some time off, your muscles recover, your body gets a break. But there's also mental recovery. And I think that's just as important. If you're training six days a week, and every workout has a purpose, and you're constantly thinking about what you're supposed to be doing tomorrow, and whether you hit today's numbers, and whether you got enough sleep, and whether you ate enough protein... Sometimes it's really nice to just stop. You're on vacation. You don't have to do anything. And that's the way I used to approach it. But lately I've been finding that a little harder to justify. And the reason is five watts. Five watts. I've spent the last six weeks working to increase my FTP by about five watts. And now I'm about to go away for ten days. And if I do absolutely nothing for those ten days, my training software predicts that I'm going to lose roughly five watts of FTP. About one and a half percent. And I'm thinking... Wait a minute. It took me six weeks to gain those five watts. And I'm going to give them back in ten days? That doesn't seem fair. Now, intellectually, I know that fitness doesn't work quite that simply. And I also did a little bit of reading about what happens when you take a short break from training. And it turns out that if you've put in some good, hard training before the vacation, you can actually maintain a surprising amount of fitness over a relatively short period of time. In fact, with some appropriately hard workouts leading into the vacation, I may be able to preserve most, or maybe even all, of that FTP. Which is good news. But then I started thinking... What if I did a little bit of exercise while I was away? Not training. Exercise. And that distinction has become really important to me. Because I don't want to take my training plan on vacation. I don't want to wake up in Mexico and think, "Okay, what's my workout today?" I don't want to be looking at power numbers or heart-rate zones or trying to hit intervals. I don't want to turn my vacation into a training camp. But I also don't think there's anything wrong with getting up in the morning and moving my body for 30 or 40 minutes. And that's essentially what I've decided to do. I'm not taking my bike. I'm not going to use an indoor gym. For one thing, I don't really want to spend my vacation inside a gym. And it's cold and flu season, and I'm just not particularly interested in putting myself into an indoor environment where a whole bunch of people are breathing heavily around me. But I can run. And I can swim. So my thought is, maybe one morning I'll get up early, before it gets too hot, and I'll go for a 30- or 45-minute run. And the next day, I'll go swimming for 30 or 40 minutes. Then maybe run. Then swim. Run. Swim. And that's it. There's no particular workout. There's no prescribed intensity. There's no TrainingPeaks workout waiting for me. There's no TrainerRoad workout. There's no "I have to get this done." I'm just going to exercise. And I really like that idea. Because the swimming in particular doesn't even really feel like I'm giving something up. I'm going to be in Mexico. I'm going to be in the ocean. I'm probably going to spend hours in the water. So why not spend 30 minutes of those hours actually swimming? I'm not taking 30 minutes away from my vacation to go to the pool and do 2,000 metres because my training plan says I have to. I'm already in the water. I'm just moving through it. And running is a little different because I probably wouldn't otherwise get up and go for a run on vacation. But even there, I think there's something enjoyable about getting outside early in the morning, before the heat, and seeing where you are on foot. And here's where I think I've found the middle ground. I'm not really trying to improve my fitness while I'm on vacation. I don't expect these workouts to make me fitter. They're not going to meaningfully increase my FTP. They're not going to suddenly make me a faster runner. They're not going to transform my swimming. But combined with the hard training I've done before the vacation, I think they can help me maintain some of what I've built. And that's a nice side benefit. But I don't think that should be the primary reason for doing them. The primary reason is simply that exercise is good for us. And I think that's something we sometimes forget when we're talking about training. We tend to divide our lives into these categories. I'm training. I'm not training. I'm on vacation. I'm at work. I'm at home. I'm travelling. But our bodies don't really care about those categories. If you can find 30 or 40 minutes to move your body, that's probably a good thing whether you're at home, you're travelling for work, or you're sitting on a beach somewhere. And maybe the trick is not to think of it as training. Think of it as exercise. Because there are some real downsides to training on vacation. The first is time. If you're travelling with your spouse or your family, that 45-minute run isn't necessarily just 45 minutes. There's getting ready. There's showering. There's changing. And suddenly you've taken an hour or more away from the people you're actually on vacation with. And that's not necessarily a good trade. There's also the danger of becoming obsessed with it. You tell yourself, "I'm just going to exercise a little bit while I'm away." And pretty soon you're thinking about your workouts every day. You're setting alarms. You're getting frustrated if you miss a workout. You're changing your plans because you need to get your run in. And now you've recreated the exact structure you were trying to get away from. There's another downside, too. Spontaneity. One of the great things about vacation is that you don't necessarily know what the day is going to look like. Maybe you stay out late. Maybe you have a couple of drinks. Maybe you sleep until nine. Maybe somebody suggests doing something you've never thought of doing. And suddenly that 7 a.m. workout doesn't fit. And that's okay. You're on vacation. You don't want your exercise to become another obligation. And finally, there's recovery. Sometimes your body actually needs the break. Maybe you've just come off a hard training block. Maybe you're carrying a little fatigue. Maybe you've been travelling all day. Maybe you didn't sleep well. Maybe you're jet-lagged. Maybe you're just tired. In those circumstances, going for a hard run because you feel like you "should" isn't necessarily healthy. And I think that's where the distinction between exercise and training becomes really useful. If I'm exercising on vacation and one morning I don't feel like running, I don't run. That's the test. If I wake up and think, "You know what? I would rather sleep for another hour and then go have breakfast with my wife," then that's what I should do. Because I'm on vacation. And if missing that run creates anxiety or guilt... Well, then maybe I've crossed the line from exercise back into training. So I think that's the balance I'm going to try to find. I'm not going to take my training plan with me. I'm not going to try to replicate what I would be doing at home. I'm not going to worry about maintaining every watt of FTP. I'm not going to worry about losing a little bit of fitness. I'm just going to move. Run a little. Swim a little. Enjoy the water. Enjoy being outside. And then come home and get back to training. And maybe that's the bigger lesson here. I used to think the choice was binary. Either you're training, or you're on vacation. And I've come to realize that maybe there's something in between. You can take a genuine break from training without taking a complete break from movement. You can exercise without following a training plan. You can move your body without measuring everything. And you can protect your vacation without completely abandoning the things that make you feel good. So, if you're heading away on vacation this season, maybe ask yourself a simple question: Do I actually want to train while I'm away? And if the answer is no, don't. Take the break. Enjoy the vacation. Sleep in. Eat the good food. Have the drink. Don't set the alarm. Give yourself that mental break. But if the answer is yes... Maybe don't make it training. Go for a swim. Go for a run. Take a hike. Rent a bike. Go for a walk. Do something you enjoy. And then go back to enjoying your vacation. Because maybe the goal isn't to come home from vacation having gained fitness. Maybe the goal isn't even to come home having perfectly maintained your fitness. Maybe the goal is simply to come home feeling refreshed... and still feeling like yourself.

Lately I've observed a tremendous number of people entering a 70.3 as their first triathlon. Back in the day, people hardly ever started at that distance. It usually went something like sprint --> standard --> half --> ironman. So, what changed? I've got some ideas. Check the podcast out at www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete TRANSCRIPT There’s something I’ve been noticing lately. I spend a fair amount of time looking at the triathlon subreddit, r/triathlon, and over the past few years I’ve noticed something that I find kind of fascinating. There are so many people doing a 70.3. And not just doing a 70.3. Doing a 70.3 as their first triathlon. And every time I see one of these posts, I find myself thinking… Why? I mean, seriously. A 70.3 is a long-distance endurance event. For a reasonably good age-group triathlete, maybe you’re looking at five hours. For a lot of people, six hours. Six and a half hours. Seven hours. Maybe more. And I started thinking about that in relation to running. Because six or seven hours is a really long time to be doing anything athletic. For most recreational athletes, that's considerably longer than they would take to run a marathon. And yet somebody who has never done a triathlon will sometimes say: “I've signed up for a 70.3.” And everybody says, “Congratulations!” And then they start talking about wetsuits and nutrition and training plans. And I think… How did this become normal? Because I don't remember it being this way. I got into triathlon in the 1990s. And back then, at least as I remember it, the progression was pretty straightforward. There was sprint distance. There was what we called standard distance, which became Olympic distance. And then there was the Ironman. And somewhere in between there was the Half Ironman. And I did one of those myself when I was working my way toward doing a full Ironman. But it wasn't really a thing in the way 70.3 is a thing today. And this is where I had to go back and check my memory, because I wasn't completely sure. And it turns out my memory is basically right. There absolutely were half-Ironman-distance races in the 1990s. There were some very well-known ones. Wildflower had a Half Ironman. Vineman had one. There were others. And I even remembered something called the Tin Man. And this is where I thought, “Wait a minute. Did they actually try to call the half distance the Tin Man?” Well… Sort of. There were races called Tin Man, and some of them were at roughly the half-Ironman distance. But Tin Man wasn't actually the universal name for the distance. It was just a name used by particular races. So, yes, I remembered something real. But no, there wasn't this giant global thing called the Tin Man series. And that's the important distinction. Because the half-Ironman distance existed. What didn't really exist was the product that we now know as the 70.3. And that changed in 2005. That's when Ironman launched the Ironman 70.3 brand. And I think that was a pretty important moment in the history of triathlon. Because they didn't invent the distance. They branded it. They standardized it. They created a global series around it. And then, in 2006, there was a 70.3 World Championship. And suddenly the half-Ironman wasn't just… “Well, this is a good race to do on the way to a full Ironman.” It became a destination. You could be a 70.3 athlete. You could qualify for a 70.3 World Championship. There were 70.3 races all over the world. And Ironman got very, very good at marketing them. And I think that's where this gets really interesting. Because I wonder if the success of 70.3 has actually changed what people think triathlon is. If you came into the sport in the 1990s, like I did, you might have thought about triathlon as something like: Sprint. Then Olympic. Maybe a Half Ironman. Maybe eventually an Ironman. There was a progression. Today, I think a lot of people enter the sport with the Ironman brand already in their heads. They see Ironman. They see 70.3. They see the World Championship. They see people racing in these spectacular locations. They see the professional athletes. They see the finish-line videos. They see the “You Are an Ironman” stuff. And if you're a new athlete, you can very quickly come to the conclusion that this is what triathlon is. You don't necessarily think: “I'll start with a sprint.” You think: “I'm going to do a 70.3.” And I think social media has probably accelerated that enormously. Because what's more impressive on Instagram? “I completed my first sprint triathlon.” Or: “I COMPLETED MY FIRST 70.3!” You know exactly which one gets the reaction. And I don't mean that critically. I understand it. There's something incredibly appealing about setting a huge goal. And I'm certainly not going to criticize somebody for doing it. But I do think it's interesting that we've arrived at a point where doing a six- or seven-hour endurance event can be somebody's introduction to triathlon. And there's another thing I've been thinking about. Television. Because I wonder how much the growth of 70.3 has been helped by the fact that it's actually a really good television product. A full Ironman is fascinating if you're a triathlete. But as a television event, it's difficult. It's a very long day. The professional athletes are out there for hours and hours. And then you've got thousands of age-group athletes spread over an even longer period. A 70.3 gives you a much more compact race. You've got the swim. You've got the bike. You've got the run. You've got the lead changes. You've got athletes racing very, very hard. And you've got an entire race that unfolds in a much more manageable television window. And I think that's probably important. Because the more we see something, the more normal it becomes. And if what we're constantly seeing is professional athletes doing 70.3s… And amateur athletes doing 70.3s… And people qualifying for 70.3 Worlds… Then 70.3 starts to look like the normal thing to aspire to. And maybe this is where I'm going with all of this. I think Ironman did something extremely clever. They took an existing distance and turned it into a brand. And once you turn something into a brand, you can sell an identity around it. You're not just doing a 1.9-kilometre swim, a 90-kilometre bike and a half marathon. You're doing a 70.3. That number means something. And it means something because we've been told that it means something. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not anti-70.3. I've done one. I've trained for one. I've spent plenty of time thinking about doing another one. But I do wonder whether we've lost something along the way. Because I actually think the Olympic distance is a fantastic race. It's long enough that you have to train. It's short enough that you can race it. You can go hard. You can recover. You can have a life outside of triathlon. And you can get really, really good at it. And that's actually where I've found myself heading. For a long time, I assumed the natural progression was toward longer distance. That's what you did. You went from sprint to Olympic. Then you did a 70.3. Then maybe you did an Ironman. Longer was somehow better. More impressive. More difficult. But I'm starting to question that. Maybe the next step isn't always longer. Maybe it's better. Maybe instead of asking: “How far can I go?” we should sometimes ask: “How fast can I go?” Or: “How good can I get at this distance?” And that's particularly relevant to me now. I'm 58. I've already done the longer stuff. I've done a 70.3. I've done Ironman-distance racing. And now I'm heading toward the 2027 World Triathlon Age Group Championships in Hamburg at the standard distance. And what I'm finding really interesting about that is that I'm actually excited about getting better at a distance that isn't the longest thing I could possibly do. I want to get faster. I want to improve my swim. I want to improve my bike. I want to run well off the bike. And I want to see how good I can get at an Olympic-distance triathlon. Not how long I can survive. How well I can race. And maybe that's the part of this whole 70.3 phenomenon that interests me most. We've become very good at convincing people that the ultimate achievement in triathlon is going longer. But maybe there's another way of looking at it. Maybe completing a seven-hour race isn't necessarily more impressive than doing a two-and-a-half-hour race really, really well. Maybe the challenge isn't always endurance. Maybe it's performance. Maybe it's precision. Maybe it's figuring out how to squeeze another minute out of a swim, another couple of kilometres per hour out of the bike, another few minutes out of the run. And maybe… Just maybe… The next step in triathlon doesn't always have to be longer. Sometimes it can just be better.

Lately I've observed a tremendous number of people entering a 70.3 as their first triathlon. Back in the day, people hardly ever started at that distance. It usually went something like sprint --> standard --> half --> ironman. So, what changed? I've got some ideas. TRANSCRIPT There’s something I’ve been noticing lately. I spend a fair amount of time looking at the triathlon subreddit, r/triathlon, and over the past few years I’ve noticed something that I find kind of fascinating. There are so many people doing a 70.3. And not just doing a 70.3. Doing a 70.3 as their first triathlon. And every time I see one of these posts, I find myself thinking… Why? I mean, seriously. A 70.3 is a long-distance endurance event. For a reasonably good age-group triathlete, maybe you’re looking at five hours. For a lot of people, six hours. Six and a half hours. Seven hours. Maybe more. And I started thinking about that in relation to running. Because six or seven hours is a really long time to be doing anything athletic. For most recreational athletes, that's considerably longer than they would take to run a marathon. And yet somebody who has never done a triathlon will sometimes say: “I've signed up for a 70.3.” And everybody says, “Congratulations!” And then they start talking about wetsuits and nutrition and training plans. And I think… How did this become normal? Because I don't remember it being this way. I got into triathlon in the 1990s. And back then, at least as I remember it, the progression was pretty straightforward. There was sprint distance. There was what we called standard distance, which became Olympic distance. And then there was the Ironman. And somewhere in between there was the Half Ironman. And I did one of those myself when I was working my way toward doing a full Ironman. But it wasn't really a thing in the way 70.3 is a thing today. And this is where I had to go back and check my memory, because I wasn't completely sure. And it turns out my memory is basically right. There absolutely were half-Ironman-distance races in the 1990s. There were some very well-known ones. Wildflower had a Half Ironman. Vineman had one. There were others. And I even remembered something called the Tin Man. And this is where I thought, “Wait a minute. Did they actually try to call the half distance the Tin Man?” Well… Sort of. There were races called Tin Man, and some of them were at roughly the half-Ironman distance. But Tin Man wasn't actually the universal name for the distance. It was just a name used by particular races. So, yes, I remembered something real. But no, there wasn't this giant global thing called the Tin Man series. And that's the important distinction. Because the half-Ironman distance existed. What didn't really exist was the product that we now know as the 70.3. And that changed in 2005. That's when Ironman launched the Ironman 70.3 brand. And I think that was a pretty important moment in the history of triathlon. Because they didn't invent the distance. They branded it. They standardized it. They created a global series around it. And then, in 2006, there was a 70.3 World Championship. And suddenly the half-Ironman wasn't just… “Well, this is a good race to do on the way to a full Ironman.” It became a destination. You could be a 70.3 athlete. You could qualify for a 70.3 World Championship. There were 70.3 races all over the world. And Ironman got very, very good at marketing them. And I think that's where this gets really interesting. Because I wonder if the success of 70.3 has actually changed what people think triathlon is. If you came into the sport in the 1990s, like I did, you might have thought about triathlon as something like: Sprint. Then Olympic. Maybe a Half Ironman. Maybe eventually an Ironman. There was a progression. Today, I think a lot of people enter the sport with the Ironman brand already in their heads. They see Ironman. They see 70.3. They see the World Championship. They see people racing in these spectacular locations. They see the professional athletes. They see the finish-line videos. They see the “You Are an Ironman” stuff. And if you're a new athlete, you can very quickly come to the conclusion that this is what triathlon is. You don't necessarily think: “I'll start with a sprint.” You think: “I'm going to do a 70.3.” And I think social media has probably accelerated that enormously. Because what's more impressive on Instagram? “I completed my first sprint triathlon.” Or: “I COMPLETED MY FIRST 70.3!” You know exactly which one gets the reaction. And I don't mean that critically. I understand it. There's something incredibly appealing about setting a huge goal. And I'm certainly not going to criticize somebody for doing it. But I do think it's interesting that we've arrived at a point where doing a six- or seven-hour endurance event can be somebody's introduction to triathlon. And there's another thing I've been thinking about. Television. Because I wonder how much the growth of 70.3 has been helped by the fact that it's actually a really good television product. A full Ironman is fascinating if you're a triathlete. But as a television event, it's difficult. It's a very long day. The professional athletes are out there for hours and hours. And then you've got thousands of age-group athletes spread over an even longer period. A 70.3 gives you a much more compact race. You've got the swim. You've got the bike. You've got the run. You've got the lead changes. You've got athletes racing very, very hard. And you've got an entire race that unfolds in a much more manageable television window. And I think that's probably important. Because the more we see something, the more normal it becomes. And if what we're constantly seeing is professional athletes doing 70.3s… And amateur athletes doing 70.3s… And people qualifying for 70.3 Worlds… Then 70.3 starts to look like the normal thing to aspire to. And maybe this is where I'm going with all of this. I think Ironman did something extremely clever. They took an existing distance and turned it into a brand. And once you turn something into a brand, you can sell an identity around it. You're not just doing a 1.9-kilometre swim, a 90-kilometre bike and a half marathon. You're doing a 70.3. That number means something. And it means something because we've been told that it means something. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not anti-70.3. I've done one. I've trained for one. I've spent plenty of time thinking about doing another one. But I do wonder whether we've lost something along the way. Because I actually think the Olympic distance is a fantastic race. It's long enough that you have to train. It's short enough that you can race it. You can go hard. You can recover. You can have a life outside of triathlon. And you can get really, really good at it. And that's actually where I've found myself heading. For a long time, I assumed the natural progression was toward longer distance. That's what you did. You went from sprint to Olympic. Then you did a 70.3. Then maybe you did an Ironman. Longer was somehow better. More impressive. More difficult. But I'm starting to question that. Maybe the next step isn't always longer. Maybe it's better. Maybe instead of asking: “How far can I go?” we should sometimes ask: “How fast can I go?” Or: “How good can I get at this distance?” And that's particularly relevant to me now. I'm 58. I've already done the longer stuff. I've done a 70.3. I've done Ironman-distance racing. And now I'm heading toward the 2027 World Triathlon Age Group Championships in Hamburg at the standard distance. And what I'm finding really interesting about that is that I'm actually excited about getting better at a distance that isn't the longest thing I could possibly do. I want to get faster. I want to improve my swim. I want to improve my bike. I want to run well off the bike. And I want to see how good I can get at an Olympic-distance triathlon. Not how long I can survive. How well I can race. And maybe that's the part of this whole 70.3 phenomenon that interests me most. We've become very good at convincing people that the ultimate achievement in triathlon is going longer. But maybe there's another way of looking at it. Maybe completing a seven-hour race isn't necessarily more impressive than doing a two-and-a-half-hour race really, really well. Maybe the challenge isn't always endurance. Maybe it's performance. Maybe it's precision. Maybe it's figuring out how to squeeze another minute out of a swim, another couple of kilometres per hour out of the bike, another few minutes out of the run. And maybe… Just maybe… The next step in triathlon doesn't always have to be longer. Sometimes it can just be better.

Too much fiber, noisy weekends, high cholesterol and more on this week's episode! Come chat with us at www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete