Triathlete - Issue August 2022 by PerpustakaanIIM.Majalah

40 YEARS OF TRIATHLON

FLIP OVER!

t s e B PART OF THE

S I I R T

U O Y

MARK BRANDT IS OUR READER COVER CONTEST WINNER!

TRI

It’s not just about the race. It’s how we train. How we suit up. How we connect. Harness the power of O+ today so you can do more of what you love: tri together.

A M E MB E RS HIP FOR EV E RYTH I NG O UT D OO RS : C O NT EN T | FI L MS | HOW-TO | GP S APP S

CONTENTS

JULY/ AUGUST 2022 FEATURES

34 42 54

YOUR READER COVER WINNER Meet Mark Brandt, one triathlete giving our sport his all. BY KELLY O'MARA

FROM THEN TO NOW 40 years ago this summer, the first pro triathlon took place in San Diego. How far have we come since then? BY TIM HEMING & JENE SHAW

40 YEARS OF TRIATHLETE MAGAZINE Four decades of multisport covers and former editors' tales. BY TRIATHLETE EDITORS

DEPARTMENTS

FUEL

6 Editor's Note

22 Hot Stuff

8 Membership Preview

When the temperatures rise, your nutrition plan needs to change

12 First Wave

26 Ask Stacy

66 Last Shot

How do I avoid GI distress in the heat?

TRAIN

GEAR

15 Stepping Up in Distance

29 Ready to Race

20 Thirty Minutes to Win It

Our summer tri suit guide

ON THE COVER Our reader cover contest winner, Mark Brandt, poses in his TRI CLE race event t-shirt on the banks of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo: Cody York)

Triathlete Issue #434 (ISSN 08983410), a publication of Outside Interactive Inc., 1600 Pearl Street, Suite 300, Boulder, CO 80302, is published six times per year: Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct, and Nov/Dec. Annual subscription $34.95, Canadian remit $60.95 in US funds (includes GST); other international air mail $94.95 in US funds only. Periodical Postage paid at San Diego, California and additional offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Triathlete, PO Box 463093, Escondido, CA 92046. Printed in the USA.

TR I AT H L ET E // J ULY/AU G US T 2022

PHOTO: CODY YORK

The brain-body connection

SUBSCRIPTIONS: For questions related to your magazine subscription (print only), call 800-336-5653 or email TriathleteMagazine@emailcustomerservice. com. For Outside+ or Triathlete digital + print members with customer service questions, please email support@outsideinc.com or call 800-350-1984.

EDITOR'S NOTE

AT THE START LINE idea what was ahead of me. I thought I knew. Just like at the start line of a race, you think you know. You understand the basics of swim-bikerun, you’re pretty sure you’re prepared, you know there’ll be ups and downs—but you don’t really know what’ll actually happen. Of course, in this race, we all know what happened next. The COVID pandemic upended our tri world. Events were canceled, people got sick, our country wrestled with a lot of long-standing issues. Here at Triathlete we tried to adapt and help you all stay healthy and motivated through it all. Now, our race at Triathlete has taken another turn. (Don’t they always?) After almost 40 years, this will be the last regular print issue of the magazine. That doesn’t mean we’re going anywhere, though! To extend the metaphor, we’re still in this race. Along with any special magazine issues in the future, you can always find us (every day, 24 hours/day) at triathlete. com—where we’ll be investing even more time and resources in what you’ve said you want and need for your multisport journey: strength and workout videos, interactive training plans, live coverage of races on Outside Watch, and community groups and events (like our Team Triathlete club for Outside+ and Triathlete members). We take a look back over the decades of Triathlete issues on pg. 54 (see who you can spot on the front of old magazines!), and we dive into the history of the 40 years since the first pro triathlon on pg. 42. But really there’s no better way to close out the print magazine than with our annual Reader Cover Contest—Triathlete has always been about

Have questions about your magazine issues? Check out the FAQ

T R IAT HL ET E // J ULY/AU GU ST 2022

you, the readers. Mark Brandt was nominated and won a vote to be featured as one of our Triathlete members giving back to the triathlon community. When you get to know Mark (pg. 34), you’ll see he has boundless energy for triathlon. He welcomes people into the sport, started his own local race in his hometown, founded a nonprofit getting kids out biking and running and swimming, and won’t be stopped. And as you get ready for your own races, we’re here for you. Check out our guide to tri suits (pg. 29), how to get your race nutrition right in the heat this summer (pg. 22), and guidelines to follow when you’re ready to go longer (pg. 15). We’ll be here for you in all of your races, whatever twists and turns they take. As the saying goes: Whatever you think is going to go wrong isn’t the thing that will actually go wrong on race day. Plan, prepare, adjust, adapt, problem solve, and keep moving forward. All the way to the finish.

KELLY O'MARA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF @kellydomara

PHOTO: BRAD KAMINSKI

WHEN I WAS HIRED FOR THIS JOB IN JANUARY 2020, I had no

THOSE WHO NEVER COMPROMISE

TA KE A DEEP D I VE IN T O THE S CI ENC E O F SP E E D AT D URA -A CE. COM

MEMBERSHIP PREVIEW

Scan this code to get all of these stories and become a Outside+ or Triathlete member.

exclusive for members at

COMMENTARY: YES, IRON-DISTANCE ‘RECORDS’ WERE BROKEN, BUT WAS SUB7/8 A SUCCESS? Author Tim Heming, who was on the ground at the event in Germany, says that while it's easy to criticize the spectacle of Sub7/Sub8, there's so much more to appreciate in it.

HOW BRADEN CURRIE (NEARLY) RACED THE PERFECT IMWC ST. GEORGE

EXTENDED REVIEW: GARMIN FORERUNNER 955 SMARTWATCH

We get inside insight into the tactics, the race plan, and the lead pack dynamics (and yes, that final-mile duel) that put Kiwi Braden Currie on the podium at the Ironman World Championship in May.

Garmin’s top-of-the-line, trifocused smartwatch gets a few additions and a price drop. We dig into what’s new, what works, and what doesn’t.

IS THE ALKALINE DIET GOOD FOR ATHLETES? Some athletes swear by eating less-acidic foods to lower the pH of the blood, saying it improves health and performance. Matt Kadey breaks down the actual science.

JOIN US! As a membership benefit, we’ve created Team Triathlete, a welcoming community of like-minded multisporters to help you on your tri journey. Join our Slack channel, chat with other triathletes, get advice in expert Q&As, and win some swag.

T R IAT H L ET E // JU LY/AUG U ST 20 22

BRANDON H.

ROSE S.

STEPHEN G.

Blacksburg, VA

Indianapolis, IN

Detroit, MI

Men’s 40-44 age group Virginia Blue Ridge 70.3

Women’s Athena Masters Island Lake Triathlon

Men’s 55-60 age group Virginia Blue Ridge 70.3

PHOTOS: MANA GROUP, BRAD KAMINSKI, GARMIN, GETTY IMAGES, COURTESY FINISHERPIX(2)

TEAM TRIATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

WHEN YOU ARE JUST A LITTLE BIT SLOWER BY MARK HANSEN

SPORT FANS AND SPECTATORS ALIKE NEED NOT READ ANY FURTHER. This is not for you. This is for those athletes that truly live for the pain; those athletes that eat, drink and dream about going faster. And the first step is finding the right nutrition to support your training. Thanks to recent advances, scientists have found a legal solution that can help athletes like you crush your goals by boosting EPO production naturally. EPO stands for Erythropoietin, a hormone that gives blood a greater capacity for carrying oxygen. Doctors first used EPO to counter red blood cell loss that resulted from chemotherapy treatment in cancer patients. When synthetic EPO became available several decades ago, endurance athletes, especially cyclists, started using EPO to gain an advantage during training and races. The reason was simple: with more oxygen being delivered to muscles, performance and endurance improved dramatically. In the mid-1980s, almost all of the governing bodies in sports banned EPO. Unfortunately, endurance athletes in several sports worked to get around these restrictions by using other blood doping techniques to mask EPO use. The use of synthetic EPO has been extremely controversial. Several star endurance athletes have admitted using synthetic EPO and have faced severe consequences. The subject of EPO use has also gained significant media attention in the last 10 years. Fortunately, there’s a new legal way for cyclists to benefit from boosting EPO production. A company called Biomedical Research Laboratories has developed a natural EPO stimulator specifically for athletes seeking to gain an edge. The product is called EPO-BOOST. Taken daily, the ingredients in EPO-BOOST help the body naturally boost circulating EPO levels. With a boost in EPO levels, more oxygen can reach working muscles resulting in dramatic improvements in athletic performance. The science behind EPO-BOOST is equally compelling. Dr. M.T. Whitehead from the Department of Health and Human Performance at Northwestern State University conducted a 28-day double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial to test the effectiveness of the key ingredient EPO-BOOST.

The research showed that the active ingredient in EPO-BOOST increased EPO production by over 90% compared to the group taking the placebo. The supplement group showed significant improvements in athletic performance as measured by VO2max and running economy. EPO-BOOST is not a miracle pill and it won’t make you a world champion overnight. In fact, most users will see that it takes 3-4 weeks to obtain the full performance benefits of EPO-BOOST. Athletes who use EPO-BOOST are sharing their results. Pablo Santa Cruz, a category one cyclist, stated, “I am very skeptical with nutritional supplements due to the prevalent lack of clean manufacturing practices and banned substance contamination. I am very glad to have researched and tested EPO-BOOST to my and my performance support team’s satisfaction. Particularly, I am very encouraged with breaking through key power and speed thresholds after 6 weeks of using these products.” Mr. Cruz is not alone in his praise of the product. Travis Beam, a top cyclist from North Carolina, used EPO-BOOST in his preparation for his season. Travis stated, “starting the season I made several goals to accomplish in my racing career. To achieve those goals, I knew I needed something extra to support my training. After a month of using EPO-BOOST I started seeing crazy gains in my endurance and power during training and my speed picked up to the next level! I am a firm believer in these products and cannot wait to see how these gains will help my performance in events later this year.” So EPO-BOOST provides a total solution for athletes in all sports looking for improved energy, endurance, and recovery. EPOBOOST is legal for competition. All ingredients in EPO-BOOST are in compliance with WADA, UCI, IOC, and NCAA rules. A company spokesman confirmed an exclusive offer for Triathlete readers. If you order this month, you’ll receive $10 off your first order by using promo code “Tri10” at checkout. You can order EPO-BOOST today at www.EPOBOOST.com or by calling 1-800-780-4331.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TRIATHLETE MAGAZINE COVER?

I'm partial to the issue we had Flora Duffy on the cover (Sept 2018)—before she won the Olympics

America Ferrera (July 2017)— it was the ﬁrst cover to debut on late night TV!

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Kelly O'Mara Executive Editor Chris Foster Digital Editor Susan Lacke

August 2019's True Crime Special, because it was the ﬁrst illusrated cover in the magazine's history

Contributing Writers Jennie Hansen, Harald Johnson, T.J. Murphy, Julia Polloreno, Christina Gandolfo, Dr. Stacy Sims, Matt Hurley, Tim Heming, Jené Shaw

Online Writers Brad Culp, Jill Colangelo, Alison Freeman, Dr. Daya Grant, Kristin Jenny, Jennie Hansen, Tim Heming, Matt Kadey, Emma-Kate Lidbury, Sara McLarty, Dr. Jeffrey Sankoff, Dr. Kim Schwabenbauer, Kristen Seymour, Dr. Stacy Sims, Sarah Wassner Flynn

ART Art Director Erin Douglas Photo Director Brad Kaminski Photo Editor Hannah DeWitt Contributing Artists & Photographers Peter Sucheski, Corey Hollister, Scott Flathouse, Cody York

PRODUCTION & CIRCULATION Director of Circulation & Customer Solutions John Albin Director of Production + Manufacturing Barb Van Sickle Salesforce Coordinator Cossette Roberts Prepress Manager Joy Kelley Circulation Manager Angela Martinez

ADVERTISING Senior Sales Director, Bike Alan Crisp, acrisp@outsideinc.com Senior Sales Director, East Coast Chad Johnson, cjohnson@outsideinc.com Senior Sales Director, Midwest Liz Wilson, lwilson@outsideinc.com Senior Sales Director, Rocky Mountain Rob Hudson, rhudson@outsideinc.com Senior Sales Director, West Coast Nikki Ozmai, nozmai@outsideinc.com

PUBLIC RELATIONS pr@outsideinc.com

Chief Executive Officer Robin Thurston Chief Operating & Commerce Officer Danielle Quatrochi Chief Financial Officer Ajay Gopal Chief Product Officer Michael Sippey Chief People Officer Jade Curtis Chief Experience Officer Drew Elder Chief Revenue Officer Scott Parmelee Chief Legal Officer Christina Halliday Chief Marketing Officer Dmitri Siegel Chief Content Officer Amy DuBois Barnett Vice President, Sales & Strategic Partnerships Sharon Houghton Vice President & General Manager of Cycling/Tri Group Karl Burkat Vice President of Marketing PJ Rabice Vice President Executive Creative Director Andrew Lincoln

TR IAT HL ETE // JULY/AUG UST 2022

THE BEST. BETTER. Complete integration. Multi-point adjustability. 9 watts faster than its Kona-dominating predecessor. The new Speedmax. canyon.com

FIRST WAVE

TR I A T HLE TE // J U LY /A UG US T 20 22

ANGRY BIRD FLIES AGAIN Daniela Ryf crosses the line in 8:34:59 to win the 2021 Ironman World Championship in St. George, Utah, held on May 7, 2022—marking her return to form after winning four consecutive Ironman world championships between 2015-2018. PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRAD KAMINSKI

Canon EOS-1D X Mark II 70-200mm f/2.8L ISO 1000 f/4.0, 1/3200sec.

TR I ATH L E TE .CO M

SUPPORTING PARTNER

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PHOTOS: NIGEL RODDIS-GETTY IMAGES FOR IRONMAN

TRAIN

TR I ATH L E TE .CO M

TRAIN

GO BIG, GO LONG

Moving up in distance—from Olympic to half or half to full— can be daunting. How do you know when you’re ready? And what should you watch out for as you increase your volume? BY MATT HURLEY

LET’S BE HONEST: IF YOU’VE DONE A TRIATHLON (AND EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T) you’ve probably heard of Ironman and Kona. It’s our Mt. Everest or our Boston Marathon—and it looms large. As you progress in the sport, it’s understandable for some athletes to be drawn to longer and longer distances. It’s also completely understandable if that’s not your goal and you’d rather go faster, or shorter, or try something new. As a coach, I view it as my job to guide and help athletes achieve their goals, whatever those are. I believe that if you want to make the jump from a sprint to the Olympic-, half-, or iron-distance, then you should. Most of us are in this sport because we’re looking to push ourselves and step outside what’s comfortable. Challenging yourself is important (and worthy), but first make sure you’re excited about the journey—not just the destination—and that you’re able to balance your life with whatever your big goals are. Triathlon should fit into your life, not the other way around.

How do you know if you’re ready to go longer?

T R I ATHL ET E // J ULY/AU G US T 202 2

WHY NOT TO GO LONG An ultrarunner once told me: Training and racing a fast 1500m is just as hard and demanding as a 100-miler. There are different challenges, and whatever your distance, it’s important to try your hand or scratch the itch. In my personal experience I find 70.3 racing much more enjoyable. The training is manageable, I was more suited to it, and I was able to fit it into my life. Ironman racing takes a huge time commitment, simply because of the hours it requires. Many of my athletes target one full-distance Ironman per year, and focus on shorter stuff most of the time because they can enjoy life and maintain balance that way. That’s hard to do if you race iron-distance all of the time—it’s not impossible, but challenging. This sport is so rich at every level, from USAT Sprint Nationals and the new mixed team relay racing to the Ironman World Championship in Kona—so don’t limit yourself. I like to challenge athletes to jump around. Even if you want to go long at times, hone your skills at shorter races. There’s no rush to go longer. And if you do and it’s not for you, then that’s fine. Go shorter and faster and that’s badass too. Maximizing your potential athletically, and in the context of your life, should be the guiding factors—plus having fun.

PHOTOS: ALEX CAPARROS-GETTY IMAGES

Whatever your goal, you need to begin by viewing it as a journey. Athletes who are able to commit to the process, rather than the outcome, perform better and tend to enjoy it more. First, look at three things: Where are you, where do you want to go, and how much time do you have (both in hours per week and in how much time until the race)? Do you have enough lead-up time for the event you want to race, given your base fitness? Do you have enough capacity in your life—i.e., can you fit the training in with work and family and other commitments? Have you had an open conversation with your loved ones about what you have planned (and are they on board)? In terms of training load, the jump from sprint- to Olympic-distance is negligible. The jump to 70.3 is significant, though, and will likely add at least 30% more training time. And an Ironman is a very serious commitment (with a 4- to 6-month runway minimum). To reframe in swim, bike, run terms: As a base, can you swim comfortably for 1 mile, 1.2 miles, or 2.4 miles (depending on the distance you intend to race) at once? If yes, then great, let’s move to the next step. If maybe or no, then building up your skills at your current distance will help you build a base before you move up. Apply this same rule to the bike and run. I also always ask my athletes: Why? Why do you want to do an iron-distance event? Understanding your motivation is important because it helps you understand your why and if you’ll be prepared for the ups and downs. Let’s look at some key points and some sample workouts to consider as you climb the volume ladder.

TRAIN

SPRINT TO OLYMPIC (7-10 hours per week)

TRAINING GUIDELINES For many busy triathletes, the weekdays are relatively similar regardless of the distance; the weekends are really where you can see large jumps in training volume. The question is: If that’s when you can train (1 hour/day on weekdays, plus 2 hours/day on weekends), then does that prepare you for an Olympic distance? To be successful at Olympic-distance racing, you’re looking at 7-10 hours of training per week. I like to see two swims, three runs, and three rides, some of these being brick sessions. As a general guideline: Be comfortable swimming 2,000-2,500 yards within a session, riding well over Olympic distance (~40 miles), and managing a long run of 8 miles (which could include a walk-run strategy).

SAMPLE WORKOUTS SWIM

BIKE

RUN

Don’t fall into the trap of the single gear in the pool. You want to develop range. If done well you should be able to swim faster through this whole set—and, if not, it lets you know what you need to focus on.

Be able to ride about 75% of distance at race pace effort, while practicing fueling.

Pacing work while practicing fueling. You can build this session to be .75 mile at pace and .25 mile at easy endurance for 4-5 miles as your last test set.

WARM-UP:

PHOTOS: CAMERON SPENCER-GETTY IMAGES

300-400 easy, buoy is fine 8 x 25 - odds building to sprint, evens easy MAIN:

8 x 100-200 all on 15-20 seconds rest as: [2 at easy or endurance pace 2 at stronger effort 2 at race pace effort 2 fast]

WARM-UP:

15-20 mins. easy riding with higher cadence, and a few openers 4 x 30 seconds building effort

4 x 100-150 buoy, paddles, fins or whatever aids form, each getting slower

10 min. easy jog 4-5 x 30 seconds strides

MAIN SET:

6 x 8-10 mins. in race position as: Odds race effort, evens slightly below race effort (You can build this through your training so you do the full set at race effort two weeks prior to race day.) COOLDOWN :

COOLDOWN:

WARM-UP:

Easy 15-20 mins.

6X:

Half mile at goal race pace effort Half mile at easy endurance pace COOLDOWN

10 min. walk, jog, and stretch

FUELING GUIDELINES I prefer using carbohydrates as the measurable intake because it’s what we need for racing (over fat and protein). A good target is aiming to get 60g of carbs minimum and 90g maximum per hour on the bike. Fluid intake depends on conditions, but 20 oz minimum and 30 oz maximum, is a good target. This should include 300-700g of sodium, per bottle. But be sure to practice it.

*Bonus: 10-15 min easy run off the bike to feel what it’s like to run off that load

TR IATH L ET E.COM

TRAIN

OLYMPIC TO 70.3 (10-12 hours per week)

TRAINING GUIDELINES

ON RACE DAY:

As you step up to the 70.3 distance the margin for error is smaller— you’re out on the course for a long time. This takes more precision in terms of training volume, pacing, and particularly nutrition. I like to see my athletes have at least eight weeks of race prep, underpinned by a solid off-season or base. In this context, the ideal off-season base is 8-10 hours/week for 3+ months; race prep and build is 10-12 hours/ week for 6-8 weeks. As a guideline, during race prep: This includes key sessions of two 3,000-yard swims weekly, a long ride comfortably of 4 hours, and being able to run 90 minutes (which can include a walk-run strategy).

Remember, it’s better to under-bike and run well and finish knowing next time you have more to give. Bike a little easier than you think you should, it will pay off on the run.

SCHEDULING:

It helps to really outline trips, work, and family commitments—and to get buy-in from those around you. The last eight weeks are hours heavy, so if you can plan ahead, this helps relieve stress for yourself and those around you.

SAMPLE WORKOUTS SWIM

BIKE

RUN

Be able to hold a consistent pace as the intervals extend. I prefer longer intervals to mimic race demands, but if you’re very new to swimming you can break these up.

Maintain power/speed in the back half. Stay comfortable in the saddle, and practice fueling.

Set up some fatigue, then run well in the back half.

WARM-UP:

30-45 mins. with a few openers and accelerations

40 mins. easy running

WARM-UP:

MAIN SET: (with 75-90 mins. of work)

500, with choice of drills and toys 4 x 75 as 15 yards fast, then finish easy MAIN SET:

COOLDOWN:

3 x 100-300 with buoy choice

(You can build these as you progress to 5 x 4 min to start and 3 x 30 min as you go on. You want to finish the last interval with reasonable energy and be able to maintain the effort. The important thing is to practice: Can you maintain this effort for 90 minutes? If the answer is no, then slow down.) COOLDOWN:

Easy 15-30 mins. for a total ride time around 4 hours *Bonus: Run easy 20-30 mins. off the bike.

T R IATH L ET E // J ULY/AUG U ST 20 22

4 x 10 mins. at 70.3 effort, with 2 mins. between each (A good proxy is your open marathon pace, but it needs to be controlled and sustainable. If you plan to use a walkrun strategy, practice it here, and be intentional. When you’re walking, walk hard.) COOLDOWN:

10 mins. easy

In long course, fueling becomes critical. Aim for 80-90 grams of carbohydrates per hour on the bike, and 40-50 grams per hour on the run. You should be practicing your strategy at least four times in the lead-up, in very specific pacing sessions. The biggest mistake I see athletes make consistently is not eating enough, and not practicing before race day.

PHOTOS: SEAN M. HAFFEY-GETTY IMAGES

3x: [3 x 100 all slightly above race pace effort, 15-20 seconds rest 50 easy 300-400 strong race pace effort, 30 seconds rest 50 easy]

4 x 4 min at an 8/10 effort, with 4-5 mins. between each 3 x 20 mins. building from slightly below 70.3 effort to the last 10 mins. at 70.3 effort.

MAIN SET:

FUELING GUIDELINES

70.3 TO IRONMAN (12 to 14 hours per week)

TRAINING GUIDELINES For your first Ironman I certainly recommend having a few 70.3s under your belt. You should be able to execute across the disciplines, be comfortable in open water, and have a few century rides to your name. Plan ahead, give yourself at least six months and ideally nine months. Talk to your family, identify the big training weekends in advance (8-10 weeks out) and block those out. It’s also important to review the basics: good sleep, nutrition (during workouts and after), and stress management. But don’t let this undertaking consume you. Yes, it’s a big deal, but remember this is supposed to be fun, and the most important thing is consistency, not perfection. A good rule: No hero training days (these actually set you back), but consistent work, week in and week out. Ten hours per week for six months is a huge base; don’t chase 15 hours one week,

only to get sick and then have a 5-hour training week. As a guideline: For 4-6 months, 8-10 hours/week of consistent training. Then, prepare yourself physically and emotionally for a big push 8-10 weeks out from race day of 12-14 hours/week. You really see the additional volume come from the long ride and long run on the weekends. This is critical. This might look like a 5-hour ride with a 30-minute run off the bike on Saturday, with a 3-4K swim on Sunday followed by your long run. Alternate this with an easier weekend following. It’s also worth riding well over distance (~120 miles), just so you know what that feels like. You can do this in the off-season with friends, or worked into a race block. It’s not necessarily to do 20-mile runs, but aim to collect run volume through the week, and double runs are a great way to do that.

GREAT IS THE ENEMY OF GOOD.

There are no perfect training weeks or workouts that are going to determine your success. Plan and aim to complete 85-90% of your training.

SAMPLE WORKOUTS SWIM

BIKE/BRICK

RUN

Most athletes over-swim and pay for it on the bike and run. The key is to conserve as much energy as possible. This means doing killer sets in the pool can actually set you back. The point of this session is longer aerobic work, which builds efficiency and comfort in the water.

Practice, practice, practice pacing and fueling.

Interval work in the AM and easy pacing in the PM to accumulate volume without beating up the body too much. Fueling between sessions is key.

WARM-UP:

500 with buoy 2 x (2 x 25 fast, 50 easy) PHOTOS: CAMERON SPENCER-GETTY IMAGES

MAIN SET:

WARM-UP:

90 mins. easy riding with some openers MAIN SET:

90 min., 60 min., 2 x 30 min. all at IM effort practicing fueling and riding well in aero

10 min. easy + 5 min. of strides

(This won’t be overly hard, but a chance to really feel how the body responds to consistent load. If it’s your first IM, you can also simply ride steady while fueling well.)

2 x 500 all easy endurance pace, 60 seconds rest 2 x 400 endurance pace (little stronger), 45 seconds rest 8 x 100 strong IM race pace, 10 seconds rest

RUN OFF THE BIKE:

COOLDOWN:

MAIN SET:

400, 300, 200, 100 mixing tools

WARM-UP: MAIN SET:

4 x 8 min. at threshold (between 10K and half-marathon pace), 2 min. easy between COOLDOWN:

To total run time of 1:45-2 hours.

WARM-UP:

5 min. easy 45 mins.: as 3 mins. at IM effort, 2 min. easy - fueling with 50g of carbs COOLDOWN:

10 min. easy

PM WARM-UP:

10 min. easy warm up Into main set: 45 mins. at IM effort (managed with walk-run as needed)

FUELING GUIDELINES The key to maintaining training is to eat more than you think you should, especially protein (aim for your body weight in grams). On race day, Ironman is all about pacing and fueling—and managing any issues that arise. Aim for 80-90 grams of carbs per hour, 24-30oz or more per hour of fluids, with 500-1000g of sodium. Note: This is highly specific and testing is required to understand your sodium loss, which is hugely beneficial to Ironman racing.

COOLDOWN:

5 min. easy cool down

T RI AT HL ET E.COM

TRAIN

BRAIN GAIN

Race week can leave you feeling sluggish and stressed. Keep your muscles activated and firing— and ready for the big day—with these light neuromuscular activation exercises. BY JENNIE HANSEN | ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER SUCHESKI

Similar to how athletes typically include short swims, bikes, and runs during taper week to maintain a sports-specific “feel,” neuromuscular exercises can help sharpen the connection between the brain and muscles. Proper neuromuscular activation and timing ensures that muscles are turned on and off as needed to produce stability and coordinated, powerful movements. Traveling, standing in check-in lines, and extra time off of the feet during

Single-Leg Banded Hip Drive

race week can all lead to sluggish neuromuscular connections—which is where these exercises come in. Neuromuscular activation exercises are designed to recruit muscles in sport-specific patterns and increase proprioception, coordination, and technique. They are meant to be performed at relatively low loads in order to optimize your ability to go on race day, without producing soreness. So, save that max effort squat, but pack a few bands in your tri travel bag and give some activations a try!

Why: The tension of race week can manifest physically with a forward head, and hiked, forward shoulders. This results in tight muscles in the neck and chest, and inhibition in the shoulder blade stabilizers, which compromises shoulder function and power generation. How: Stand with your back against the wall. Bring your arms back, touching the wall with the backs of the elbows and wrists. While maintaining contact with the wall, slide the arms up into a “Y” position. Do not allow the back to arch excessively from the wall, or the shoulders to hike excessively. At the top of the motion, bring the shoulder blades down and together. Hold 3-5 seconds, then slowly lower arms back down the wall. Do 20 repetitions.

Wall Angels

Why: The hip extensors are important for power generation and stability while cycling and running, and increased sitting during race week can impair their neuromuscular efficiency. This exercise helps to counteract that in a running-specific movement pattern. How: Begin standing with a band anchored behind you, positioned high around the front of the hip of the stance leg. Bring the opposite knee forward, then bend the hip and knee of the stance leg slightly, allowing the band to pull the hip backwards as you extend the opposite leg behind you. Return to the starting position, pushing the stance hip forward by contracting the gluteal muscles, and driving the opposite knee forward. Perform 2 sets of 20 repetitions per side.

T RI ATHLE T E // JU LY/AU GU ST 2022

Hip Hiking With Band

Why: The lateral hip muscles play a major role in stabilizing the pelvis during running, which helps to maintain trunk and leg alignment. Delays in activation of these muscles have been linked to injuries, so this exercise is designed to activate them in a manner similar to running. How: Begin standing with one foot on the edge of a step and the other leg off of the edge, keeping tension in a small band around the ankles. Drop the free foot down by tilting the pelvis, and then use the hip muscles of the stance leg to “hike” the leg back to level. The motion during this exercise should come from the hip and pelvis; do not allow the knee to bend. Try to perform this exercise at a rate of about 90 repetitions per minute in order to replicate muscle demands while running. Perform 2 repetitions of 20-30 seconds per side.

Why: Walking lunges activate the primary movers and stabilizers during running and cycling (quads, calves, glutes, and hamstrings), require trunk stabilization, and improve hip extension mobility. Adding in rotation provides a further core challenge and exaggerates the upper body/lower body counterbalance present during run gait.

PNF UpperExtremity D2 Flexion and Extension

How: Stand holding a light weight in front of your chest. Take a large step forward, and drop the trunk and hips towards the ground by bending the front hip and knee. As you lower yourself towards the ground, rotate the trunk towards the front leg. Do not allow the front knee to come forward of the toes, or collapse in, and do not allow the trunk to lean forward or backwards excessively. Push off, driving the back knee forward while rotating the trunk back to center. Push slightly onto the toes of the stance foot to activate the calf muscles, and then repeat, opposite foot forward. Perform 3 sets of 10 repetitions each leg.

Why: PNF stands for “proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation,” and is aimed at improving neuromuscular coordination. It uses certain diagonal patterns that activate muscles used together in functional activities. PNF D2 flexion moves the arm into shoulder flexion, abduction, external rotation, and elbow extension, while the D2 extension pattern reverses this. This activates muscles that work together during the swim stroke, including the key scapular stabilizers, pecs, and rotator cuff muscles, enhancing shoulder rhythm and stability. How: Stand holding a band anchored down and across your body, with your palm facing towards you. Pull the band diagonally up and away while rotating your arm to finish with the palm facing forward. Slowly return and repeat. Perform 2 sets of 15 repetitions, then anchor the band up and away from your body to reverse the movement into D2 extension, pulling down and in across your body. Perform 2 sets of 15 repetitions.

Walking Rotational Lunge

TR IAT H L ET E.CO M

THE FIRE INSIDE When temperatures rise, you need to adjust more than your pace. Getting your nutrition and fueling right can prevent a race-day heat-induced meltdown. BY STACY SIMS

WHEN THE TEMPERATURE CHANGES, YOUR FUELING NEEDS

to change with it—and it doesn’t take much mercury to trigger a new approach. When race-day temperatures rise into the mid-70s or higher, your entire strategy needs to change. Racing in the heat presents a whole host of challenges: core temperature regulation, hydration, potential GI distress, higher perception of effort, and higher heart rate. You simply cannot race the same in hot weather as you can in cooler climes. Let’s break down what exactly happens when you toe the line in the heat, so we can understand how to help your body adapt.

SYSTEMS OF CHECKS AND BALANCES

PHOTOS: HANNAH DEWITT(2)

Heat production during exercise is 15-20 times greater than at rest, and it is sufficient to raise core body temperature by 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) every five minutes if there are no thermoregulatory adjustments. But of course, our bodies do make adjustments. The brain, more specifically the hypothalamus, controls thermoregulation. If the hypothalamus senses internal temperatures growing too hot or too cold, it will automatically send signals to the skin, glands, muscles, and organs. For example, if the body is producing heat from high-level exercise or if the external ambient temperature is elevated enough to cause a rise in the core temperature, signals to the hypothalamus result in signals to the skin to produce sweat. Sweating is one mechanism the body uses to cool itself, as heat is lost through the process of sweat evaporation, but sweat evaporation also has a side effect: dehydration. One of the first physiological responses to exercise, whether in the cold or heat, is to raise the heart rate to increase cardiac output. This is because there are competing interests in your body for blood flow: First, the working muscles need oxygen but also need to have heat and metabolic waste removed; second, there needs to be enough blood to maintain a minimum perfusion pressure to keep our organs functioning; and third, a major shift in skin blood flow occurs—increasing the amount of blood that passes through the superficial vessels to help offload body heat. The trade-off in this scenario is that blood flow to the gut and liver decreases—at 70% of VO2max it decreases by almost 80%. There are also greater decreases as exercise intensity increases. With such a decreased blood flow and lowered oxygen supply, there is a change in nutrient absorption, motility, and the mucosal integrity of the gastrointestinal tract. All of this is simply part of your body’s system of checks and balances when you’re racing at a high effort. That system goes into overdrive when the ambient temperature increases. What does this mean for fueling

and hydrating effectively when racing in the heat—particularly if you want to avoid GI distress and still maintain performance?

HOW YOU CAN HELP (YOURSELF) Most obviously, it is essential to stay on top of your hydration. As you sweat, you lose water from your blood (and as the plasma volume drops, the body pulls water from other spaces to try to keep blood volume up). This means if you are behind on your hydration, you compromise your blood volume, which means compromised blood circulation to the muscles and the skin—thus less water for sweating. Not ideal for racing in the heat. There are also specific things the body needs to create a net water gradient in the small intestines (where 95% of water flux takes place). These key substances are glucose, sucrose, and sodium. On a smaller scale, you also need potassium, magnesium, chloride, and calcium. Without glucose and sucrose, the constant flow of sodium and water into the body becomes rate-limited (i.e., it slows down as the body tries to find glucose to work with the sodium). But the critical thing is that the concentration of carbohydrates in your drink needs to be no more than TR IAT H LE T E.CO M

FUEL

4% (~1.2 grams of carbohydrate per fluid ounce)—especially in the heat. Remember, your gut’s ability to absorb fluid and nutrients is significantly compromised from the heat and the lack of blood flow, so the more concentrated your fluid, the longer it sits in the intestines—increasing the osmotic pressure. The body’s response to all of this is to pull water into the intestines to help reduce the pressure. This internal tug-ofwar is a surefire way to make both dehydration and GI distress worse.

CREATE A STRATEGY Because your appetite and thirst is muted when exercising in hot conditions (and of course, by the excitement of race day), it is best to set a reminder alarm to tell you to sip throughout the many hours you are racing. This becomes even more important as the race gets longer and longer, because you are only able to slow the rate of dehydration with key hydration strategies. Your thirst sensation really takes a hit the longer your race goes—meaning you won’t remember to drink when you need to drink the most!

WHAT TO EAT IN THE HEAT f M inimize fat and concentrated carbohydrates when your gut is compromised. Fat slows gut transit time, and this is compounded in

Heat-Tested, Sims-Approved Sports Nutrition ProBalance Protein Water $2.40, 17 oz Protein water? It’s a thing. This light and refreshing drink packs 15 grams of protein, along with vitamins and electrolytes to help you function at your best. Try the wild cherry lime or tropical coconut flavors for an especially summery sip. nuun Endurance $20, 16 servings Nuun Endurance* was designed to deliver only the minerals and nutrients that your body needs (at highly absorbable ratios) during hot and hard sessions. The easy-to-digest carbohydrates go down smoothly and absorb quickly, helping you to avoid GI distress. Momentous L-Glutamine $39, 60 servings Designed for proper digestion, absorption, and protein synthesis, one small scoop of this easy-to-mix powder every morning primes your body to perform at optimal levels in the heat. *Editor note: Sims worked with Nuun on Nuun Endurance

T R IAT H LE T E // J ULY/AU GU ST 202 2

the heat. As mentioned above, concentrated carbohydrates can cause osmotic diuresis (water into the gut) and GI distress. Your body does need carbohydrates for fuel, and as we have seen in the research, amino acids can help in long-distance races, both as a fuel source and to help with gut integrity. f G lucose-rich foods reduce the incidence of GI issues. The best thing to do is to trial certain foods during high-intensity training sessions, knowing that as you spend more time out there racing, your gut becomes less able to cope with large amounts of nutrients at one time. f Eat small amounts, often. While high carbohydrate fueling is trendy and can be tolerable (without GI distress), the data in this research is primarily from just a handful of elite, 25-year-old male cyclists in cool conditions—which doesn’t translate to most of us racing in the heat. In the heat, it’s best to spread out your calorie intake over the race.

TRAIN YOUR GUT

PHOTOS: BRAD KAMINSKI

If you have enough time before your race, you can do specific gut heat acclimatization by using a sauna post-workout or short, intense sessions in the heat. These brief, high heat stress exposures will not only improve your thermoregulatory capacities (increased blood volume, sooner time to sweat onset, more dilute sweating, better heat tolerance), but will also force the expression of heat shock proteins. These little proteins are synthesized rapidly following exposure to high stress. They work to restore normal function to proteins that have been broken down by heat—a significant boon to the gut, as heat shock protein expression is a significant factor in adaptation of the intestines to heat stress. Once you have adapted, your body will respond to temperatures above 80 degrees F as if you were racing in 60 degrees.

WHAT ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS? Two of the most widely used supplements in the endurance space are caffeine and nitrates—both of which work well in cool or temperate

environments. But in hot conditions, they have been shown to have a negative impact on performance. Caffeine, specifically, is known to increase core temperature without any performance benefits in the heat. Nitrates are a vasodilator, meaning they dilate your blood vessels, but their effectiveness dissipates when the body is under heat stress, as the physiological response to vasodilate is greater than what the nitrates can supply. In other words, your body is already doing its maximum to vasodilate the vessels to offload heat and no supplement can do more. Beta-alanine is still effective in the heat by the action of reducing muscle fatigue, both through its buffering capabilities and its ability to improve calcium release for muscle contraction. Another supplement you may want to load in the three days prior to your race is curcumin. Recent research has demonstrated that 500mg a day for three days before a heat stress test improved gut function and physiological strain responses. You can race well in the heat, but, like almost everything, it takes some planning and preparation to adjust for the increased stress your body will encounter. TR IAT H LE TE .COM

FUEL

ASK STACY

Leading sports nutritionist and exercise physiologist Dr. Stacy Sims answers your most pressing questions.

Racing in the heat presents challenges, and as the intensity and/or duration increases, there is a significant impact on gut permeability—or how easily substances like nutrition and hydration pass through the gut into the bloodstream. Also, it’s important to remember that racing in the heat increases stressors like ischemia and positional changes, which causes many GI issues. Not to mention dehydration (which further increases gut permeability). All well and good to know this, but what do you do when you are in the middle of a big race and your stomach starts to roil and all you can think of is not vomiting (or worse)? First and foremost, slow down. Yes, it is a race, but the goal is to get to the finish line! By slowing down you’ll do more than just reduce your heart rate, you will also reduce the amount of heat your body is producing (from the working muscles), which will help redistribute some of your blood to the gut. This reperfusion will increase oxygen to the intestinal cells and help reduce the permeability of your intestinal cells. Next, try to find cool water—not the stuff that has been sitting in the sun for a while—and even chew some ice if possible. This will help reduce the heat load in the digestive tract; again, helping to reduce the ongoing injury to the intestinal barrier. On the other hand, warm fluids speed up gastric emptying—something you definitely don’t want. Eat something bland (crackers, pretzels), and stay away from gels, other concentrated liquid carbohydrates, salt tablets, and caffeine—all which have been shown to promote GI permeability and disrupt fluid balance of the gut, even though your instincts may tell you to reach for any or all of them. If possible, look for an amino acid-based solution that contains glutamine and L-arginine. These two amino acids have specific actions to prevent increased intestinal permeability and slow down the

T R I ATHL E T E // JU LY/AUG US T 202 2

rate of heat-induced damage to the gut. Over-the-counter medications might seem to be an answer to mid-race woes, but they’re not! NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) increase irritation to the stomach. Even more counterintuitively, Imodium is designed to slow gut motility in resting conditions, but it should not be used in high-stress, high-sweat, and/or long-duration exercise, as its primary function is to slow gut motility by altering water and electrolyte balance. There is also an increased risk of heart-rhythm disruption due to dehydration, coupled with lower blood levels of magnesium and potassium. Like all things, prevention and preparation are your best ammunition against race-ending GI problems. Be heat adapted before your race; this can be from spa or sauna time, after workouts, leading up to your race, or small, short intensity sessions in the middle of the day in the heat—anything to invoke heat stress to allow your body to adapt and adjust. Nutritionally, supplementing with glutamine (0.9g/kg of body weight) two hours before exercise can decrease intestinal permeability and improve the integrity of the protective lining of the gut. Focus on hydration and avoid foods that are high in fiber or fat or contain known irritants (fructose, sugar alcohols, spices) in the 24 hours leading into your race.

PHOTOS: HANNAH DEWITT; LUCY ENGELMAN

How can we combat GI issues in the heat?

“Over-the-counter medications might seem to be an answer to mid-race woes, but they’re not! NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inﬂammatory drugs) increase irritation to the stomach.”

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RACY THREADS Turn the page for our guide to this summer's fastest tri suits.

PHOTO: BRAD KAMINSKI

GEAR TR I AT H LET E.CO M

GEAR

SUIT YOURSELF

Tri suits have evolved from lightly padded bike shorts (or worse yet—swim briefs!) and tank tops to multisport-specific equipment that can actually make you faster. Check out our guide to finding the perfect piece of tri racewear. BY CHRIS FOSTER WE ALL HAVE THAT STORY: “I WORE [INSERT RANDOM PIECE OF clothing here] for my first tri, and I couldn’t ride a bike for a week afterwards.” Or maybe it was "run for a week afterwards"; or maybe it was "take a shower without screaming." We’ve all done a tri with the wrong clothing and felt the repercussions. But today’s tri suits are more than just a pair of shorts with a nice pad and a top with some pockets. Now we have suits designed in the wind tunnel and ones woven with special fabrics that reduce heat, increase evaporation, and help with compression. What’s worth spending money on and what’s not? Are more pockets always a good thing? We'll begin with the most important and move on from there. THE PAD Let’s start where the metaphorical rubber meets the road. The quality of the pad in your tri shorts is a big deal because it protects and cushions your underparts during the bike, but it also needs to vanish (in a way) on the run. Too little pad on the bike and, if your seat isn’t great, you’ll be in trouble; too much pad on the run, and you’ll face some epic chafing. Typically if you’re a newer triathlete and you haven’t spent as many hours on the bike, or if you’ve traditionally struggled with pain on long rides (which could also be solved with a different saddle or position, but that’s another story for another day),

then go for a thicker pad and know it might feel a little bulky on the run. If you’re a longtime veteran and you never have issues on long rides, go with a thinner pad to avoid chafing that could come when running—which can sometimes even alter your stride and create other issues. It’s also important to remember that pad thickness isn’t the only dimension to consider: Pad area is worth noting as well. If you tend to move around on your seat, it’s worth getting something with more area; if you stay put, go with less, as it’ll give less opportunity for chafing later. Many brands also have pad shapes designed more specifically for women in their women’s tri suits—something to consider if you’re a female triathlete who can’t find comfort in traditional male-shaped chamois. Finally, most brands have their own pad material, but you should always look for fewer seams, sewn down as flat as possible, and never (ever) get a pad made of fleece—especially if you’re racing in sandy water. Trust us. ONE-PIECE OR TWO-PIECE In importance, this is a close second to pad construction— and feuds have been fought over the one- or two-piece tri

suit question. A one-piece suit has the top attached to the bottom, and a two-piece keeps the top entirely separate from the shorts. Of course, there are hybrid suits that act like both, but we’ll call them one-piece suits for our purposes. One piece is typically better for aerodynamics, cooler courses (sometimes), and coverage (important if sunburn is a major issue for you). A two piece is more customizable when it comes to fit, can be better in warmer temperatures (sometimes), and is much (much) easier to deal with when you need to use the restroom. (More on that below.) However, many people don’t like the way two-piece suits ride up or down, while some quite simply don’t like the fit of a one piece. At the end of the day, most brands offer both options, but you’ll typically find the most high-end tri suits only available in one piece these days. Why? The best aerodynamics are achieved with a one-piece tri suit, so if speed is your greatest concern, you may find yourself in a one-piece regardless of preference. PITSTOP EASE This is one of those things you don’t think about, until it’s all you can think about. For those who prefer to wear a two-piece tri suit, you can skip this section entirely, because you’re “good to go,” but if you’re interested in a one-piece suit, you need to practice how (and if) you can use the restroom in your suit. A few of today’s newer onepiece suits come in a hybrid-cut design, which allows you to easily use the bathroom without taking the whole thing off, but otherwise, you’ll likely be peeling off that top and wrestling it back on if nature calls.

PHOTOS: (LEFT) BRAD KAMINSKI; JOERN POLLEX-GETTY IMAGES

HEAT/WATER DISSIPATION This is pretty important. While most brands typically have their own proprietary fabrics, usually a thinner fabric will not only cool faster, but it’ll also dry quicker. In other words, a thinner fabric will evaporate your sweat faster to keep you cool, but it’ll also soak up less water in the swim—which can counterintuitively serve to keep you from getting too cold on windier or chillier days. Also, a suit’s ability to evaporate water quickly can help prevent chafing. POCKETS Though pockets aren’t necessarily essential to a good tri suit, being realistic about how much you’re going to carry, when you’re going to carry it, and what you’ll be wearing during the swim is important. Beginning with the swim, know that any pockets opening upward (toward your head) will create drag in the water if they don’t have flap covers, are cut at an angle, or aren’t covered by either a wetsuit or a speedsuit/ swimskin. If you’re wearing either a wetsuit or swimskin, then the construction of your pockets is irrelevant. But if you’re swimming in just your tri suit, then make sure your

pockets aren’t slowing you down. On the bike, be realistic about if you’re going to store nutrition in your suit or on your bike itself. If your strategy is the former, then make sure you can reach your pockets while you’re riding—while in the aerobars if you can. Practice this before race day. Finally, think about how much you really want to carry on the run—which is when most triathletes utilize tri suit storage on race day. The size and number of your pockets should reflect exactly what you want to bring and how long your race will be. AERODYNAMICS Even though a triathlete’s body is the largest single cause of drag on your entire cycling setup (it is!), that doesn’t mean that aerodynamics should be prioritized over all else. Comfort is still important—especially if you’re not racing for a podium spot. But if you want to maximize aerodynamics on that giant wind sail known as your body, you should be wearing a tight-fitting suit with elbow-length sleeves. While sleeves will keep you warmer in cold races (and can sometimes heat you up in hot ones), they’re also one of the first things that the oncoming wind will hit as you ride. As such, a suit with aerodynamically optimized sleeves will always be faster than your bare forearms, no matter how sleek you might think you are. T RI AT HL ET E.COM

GEAR

TRIATHLETE'S 2022 TRI SUIT GUIDE Tested by editors Chris Foster, Kelly O'Mara, and Susan Lacke

Tri Suit

Black Bibs Tri Top and Shorts (M)

Zoot LTD Tri Bra and Shorts (F)

Huub Commit Tri Suit (M)

Coeur Line Call Tri Suit (F)

Website

theblackbibs.com

zootsports.com

huubusa.com

coeursports.com

Price

$50 (top), $50 (short)

$55 (bra), $100 (short)

$180

$200

Number of Sizes

7 (two-piece), 6 (one-piece)

6 (women)

6 (men and women)

7 (men and women)

Inseam

10"

Sleeve Length Tested

N/A (sleeveless version tested)

N/A

Number of Pockets

2 (open)

2 (covered)

2 (open)

Fit Notes

Bigger, longer pad

Tight fit on shorts

Very snug per size

Snug, but standard fit

Warranty

6 months

2 years + crash replacement

3 months

2 years + crash replacement

Try On

14-day return unused

30-day return

14-day return unused

60-day return, unused

TL;DR

Incredible value, lots of coverage

Great bra; 4-inch shorts on small side

Excellent bottom, no chafing, thin chamois

Comfortable, unflashy aero kit

Newer triathletes who still want a very quality suit

The sports bra squad, looking for a wellconstructed two piece; size up to 6-inch if worried about chafing

Triathletes who want a well-thought-out suit with details above its price range

Triathletes looking to dip their toe into one-piece aero kits with a fun, simple, well-fitted suit

Overall Rating Overall Value Pad Thickness Heat Dissipation Chafe Prevention Construction Quality Aero Features Pitstop Ease Durability

This is for...

T R IATHL ET E // J ULY/AU G UST 2 02 2

Tri Suit

Orca Athlex Tri Top and Shorts (M)

De Soto Skin Cooler Top, Riviera Short (F)

Spaero SP1 Tri Suit (M)

Assos Triator NS Speedsuit (F)

Website

orca.com

desotosport.com

spaerotri.com

assos.com

Price

$120 (top), $125 (short)

$148 (top), $144 (short)

$450

$525

Number of Sizes

6 (men), 5 (women)

5 (men and women)

5 (men), 6 (women)

6 (men), 5 (women)

Inseam

Sleeve Length Tested

10"

N/A (sleeveless version tested)

Number of Pockets

Top - 2 (covered); Shorts - 2 (covered)

3 (open)

4 (2 angled, 2 open)

2 (covered)

Fit Notes

Slightly loose/true

Runs small and short (not for long torsos)

Very compressive

Snug, with longer shorts

Warranty

12 months

90 days

12 months

2 years + crash replacement

Try On

14-day return, unused

90-day return

30-day return, unused

30-day return

TL;DR

Super aero, very quick drying, not too tight

Jersey breathes well in 105°F temps. Chamois is stiff and supportive; great for riding, not so much for runs.

Crazy thin, super aero, ultra luxe

Super high-end aero suit designed for performance

Triathletes who race in hot temperatures, are focused on speed first, and have the money to spend

The high-performance triathlete looking for every competitive advantage—no matter the price tag

Overall Rating Overall Value Pad Thickness jersey shorts

Heat Dissipation Chafe Prevention Construction Quality Aero Features PHOTOS: COURTESY MANUFACTURERS(8)

Pitstop Ease Durability

This is for...

Triathletes looking for an aero upgrade or a cool kit in a two piece

Training rides when the mercury is rising and no brick run is planned afterwards.

T RI AT HL ET E .COM

T R I AT HL ET E // J ULY/AUG U S T 2 02 2

YOU CAN TRI, TOO ++++

This year’s winner of our Reader Cover Contest exemplifies the tri spirit. He’s grown the tri community at home, founded a local race, created a nonprofit to get kids into triathlon, and encouraged his friends and family to embrace a healthy lifestyle. Mark Brandt is the perfect reader for our final print issue. WORDS: KELLY O’MARA PHOTOS: CODY YORK

T RI ATH L E TE .CO M

ark Brandt loves triathlon and he loves his hometown. He loves training. He loves racing. He loves his teammates on the Cleveland Triathlon Club and his coach, Cindy Lewis-Caballero—ready to do whatever she says to get faster. He loves bringing people into his sport. He loves showing off his town of Cleveland, Ohio. He loves seeing the kids involved in the nonproﬁt he started, Kids That Tri, get out there and race, too. Really, he loves just seeing them happy and working hard. He loves it all—the early mornings, the long days, the headaches, the sun coming up over the lake at the start of his brand new race, Tri CLE Rock Roll Run. “Mark has one of the biggest hearts and he is an amazing athlete,” wrote Mel Prohaska, who nominated him for the cover. “He truly cares about the growth of the sport of triathlon.” “He is this spitfire, full of energy, super kind and generous, always positive,” said Micaela Gonzalez Kail, one of the coaches for the Kids That Tri program. “This man just doesn’t stop.” When Brandt travels around during the day, to work or to meetings or to the gym, he always carries extra cards in his pocket promoting Tri CLE’s Rock Roll Run and the Kids That Tri program. You should come out to the race, he tells people, and if they demur, he says, “Come volunteer instead.” He ﬁgures he’ll hook them one way or the other, and eventually convince them to swim-bike-run. One way or another, he’ll get them out doing stuff in their communities and living a healthy (and happy) life. “I’m out there every day talking to people and I’m either looking for racers or volunteers, but just don’t sit on the sofa. Do something,” he said. “A healthy life is a good life.”

T R IAT HL ET E // J U LY/AUG US T 20 2 2

Bra ndt se tt in g up fo r K i ds Tha t Tri practice.

++++

“MARK HAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST HEARTS AND HE IS AN AMAZING ATHLETE. HE TRULY CARES ABOUT THE GROWTH OF THE SPORT OF TRIATHLON.”

Ki ds Th at Tr i pr ov ide s c oa c hi ng , equ ip men t, an d t raining t o l o ca l ki ds in C leve l an d.

RUNNER TURNED CYCLIST TURNED TRIATHLETE Brandt wasn’t always a triathlete. In fact, he did his ﬁrst triathlon just nine years ago when he was 50 years old. Like so many late converts to multisport, Brandt started as a runner growing up. He even did a marathon as a teenager growing up in Cleveland, but then struggled with stomach issues for decades. It wasn’t until his wife told him to let her try picking his foods for a week, without telling him what she was feeding him, that he found he was gluten and dairy intolerant. Without getting into the intimate details, he said, it allowed him to venture farther outdoors and away from needing a bathroom nearby. “It unfettered me from having to be indoors,” he said. Suddenly, he was biking more and more. A friend asked him to join a 200-mile fundraiser ride for the Cleveland Clinic. “I thought, ‘Jeez, this is hard, I’m really out of shape,’” he joked. He wondered if he could get better, if he could beat guys younger than him or top his old running times. He wondered if he could learn to swim. Soon, he was signed up for a sprint, and then an Olympic, a 70.3, an Ironman. “He’s always excited about it and so, as a result, he’s always consistent,” said his coach, Lewis-Caballero. Since the pandemic started, she has put on virtual training rides in the morning, around 7 a.m.—but often Brandt has already been up for hours, done his assigned workout, and then joins them to cool down and just to say hi. “He’s highly motivated and really scheduled. It’s amazing what he can do.”

T RI ATH L ET E .CO M

And, sure enough, he’s gotten faster and faster—even as he’s gotten closer to 60. He ran a 3:25 marathon earlier this year and clocked a 5:02 Ironman 70.3. His big goal now? To try to qualify for Kona. Mostly, though, triathlon is a way for him to stay healthy, push himself, meet people, and see the world. “We try and pick cool places and go and have a good time and meet people,” Brandt said. He and his wife have been to Quebec and Italy and South Africa—all, nominally, for triathlons, but really for so many other reasons, too. In South Africa, they went on safari and saw elephants out in the wild. It was an amazing experience, he said, “we both had tears streaming down our cheeks.” And it was an experience he found thanks to triathlon. That’s what he wants to bring to other people.

Bra nd t a nd vo lu nt e e r c oa c he s he l p or ga ni z e Ki ds Tha t Tr i.

SAY Y ES T O C L E V EL A ND Twenty-ﬁve years ago, Brandt says, Cleveland, Ohio was “an epicenter of triathlon.” Mark Allen won the Cleveland Triathlon, so did Chris McCormack, Paula Newby-Fraser, and Karen Smyers. Lance Armstrong even did the race as a teenager back in 1990, when it was a must-do event that attracted big pro names. For decades, Cleveland was home to that local race and a vibrant tri scene. More recently, in 2018 and 2019, USAT even hosted the Age Group National Championships in town. But then the local race folded and COVID made it difficult to get a community organized. In 2020 and 2021, there were no triathlons in Cleveland. Brandt was determined to

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start a new race for his hometown— no matter how hard it was. “The anguish of trying to put on a race in the middle of COVID was next to impossible,” Brandt said. He worked with the city and business owners; he got sponsors and volunteers. He brought in a race director who’d put on successful events around Ohio and hired two local women—one of whom nominated him for our reader cover contest. “We’re like the little engine that could,” he said. They ﬁnally got approval for their event, Tri CLE Rock Roll Run. They provided free parking and free race

““WHEN HE WANTS TO SEE SOMETHING HAPPEN, HE’S PRETTY RELENTLESS.” 38

T R IATH LE TE // JULY/AUG U ST 202 2

photos and beer at the end. Billy Morris (of Warrant and Quiet Riot fame) came and sang the national anthem as the sun came up over the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next to the race venue—and people teared up, he said. He even hired a boat to clean up for two days beforehand— and was out there race morning grabbing every small bit of trash he could see in the water. “He was so excited about it, as a triathlete, but also as a way to make something for Cleveland,” said David Gilbert, CEO of Destination Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. “When he wants to see something happen, he’s pretty relentless.” And it paid off last August, when 600 athletes swam into Lake Erie. This year, they’re trying to get over 1,000 people signed up (and they added a duathlon, aquabike, and super sprint) and ultimately he hopes to turn it into a destination premier event that sells out at 5,000 athletes. “We don’t want to be the biggest race in the country, just the best race,” he said.

K I D S ( A N D E V E RYO N E E L S E ) TRI CLEVELAND After growing up in Cleveland, Brandt left for college and stayed away for 20 years—moving around for his job as an accountant. It wasn’t until his dad got sick that he came back to take care of him. After his dad passed away, he stayed and wanted to help other people learn to love the town. “Cleveland gets a bad rap,” Brandt said of the city on the edge of Lake Erie in central Ohio—in between Pittsburgh and Detroit. Through the 1960s, the Cuyahoga River, which feeds into lake Erie through south Cleveland, famously caught ﬁre over a dozen times (most notably when a massive oil spill lit up in 1969). In the ‘70s, a district court ruled the schools were unlawfully segregated by race, and in the ‘80s the town defaulted on its debts. But in recent years, the population has returned, industry has grown along with cultural institutions like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a number of museums, and an environmental cleanup has attracted outdoors athletes and turned around pollution in the region. Plus, the Emerald Necklace, a 56-mile greenway path that follows a valley carved by the Ice Age, is beautiful, Brandt said, and every time you’re out there riding you see 20 or 30 other people you know. The Cleveland Tri Club has 350 members, who swim at the nearby park or in the cleaned-up Lake Erie. They do races in Toledo and Columbus and Pittsburgh— but building up the community in their hometown was important to Brandt, too. “We’re from Cleveland, we race in Cleveland, we train in Cleveland,” he said. Fifteen years ago, he helped start a program called “Say Yes to Cleveland,” which organized groups of community leaders and expats in other cities to promote Cleveland. (It now also provides scholarships to local kids.) He’s won awards, since then, for encouraging businesses in town. Now, he hopes to play a small part in bringing events like the USAT Age Group National Championship and the 2024 Pan-Am Masters Games to the city. “People who are from here tend to be very ﬁercely proud,” Gilbert said. Brandt also wants the local kids to have a chance to grow and excel in their hometown, too.

When he was in college at Cornell, he asked the college work coordinator to set him up with something working with kids. From there, he eventually found his way to working as a prison chaplain at different county jails wherever he moved. Through it all he realized the best way to reach people was when they were kids, when they can be positively inﬂuenced and given more options and pathways. So many people who end up in jail, he realized, never had resources or access to other futures. Then, a few years ago, he looked at his sport and realized that was true in tri, too. He wanted to attract a wider community and give young people a chance at their ﬁrst start line.

M ark Bran dt l ove s C l evel a n d a nd he l ove s t ri a thl on .

T RI ATH L ET E.COM

S om e o f th e k i ds wi ll d o t h e i r f i r s t ra c e t hi s yea r.

He had an inkling of an idea and posted on Facebook. Overnight, he had local coaches, athletes, and bike mechanics volunteering to help. They refurbished gently used bikes to give away. They got USAT grants for wetsuits and tri kits, and they got coaches volunteering to create a youth program—coaches who look like and can identify with the kids they wanted to help. At first, because it was during COVID, Brandt paid to take over the entire YMCA and to sanitize it in between. Then, eventually, the YMCA director said they could figure out an arrangement and work together. When the group realized transportation to practice was an issue for a number of the kids, they gave them lower-end bikes to get around—and attendance skyrocketed. That’s how Kids That Tri was started, to give kids from tougher neighborhoods in Cleveland a program and a way into multisport. The first year, they had 35 kids and four did the race. This year, there’s another batch of kids and 17, he said, are going to do their first race.

T R IAT HL ET E // JU LY/AUG UST 2 02 2

“A few have come back, they’re in college, doing stuff sports-related, and want to help encourage the next group of kids,” said Gonzalez Kail, one of the coaches. “We’re building a community,” Brandt added.

NOT S LOWI N G D OW N To get a tour through Brandt’s life is to experience the full triathlete Type A busyness. He works full-time, he volunteers, he organizes a race and a nonproﬁt. “And on top of all that, he’s training for his own things,” said Coach Gonzalez Kail—and he helped answer her questions when she raced her ﬁrst Ironman 70.3 world championship last year (which he also raced). He doesn’t stop and he doesn’t plan to. He has his own goals for things he wants to achieve in triathlon—from making it to Kona to growing his race into a premier event to seeing dozens of local kids succeeding in multisport. He wants to do it all. “My wife asks me, ‘How much longer are you going to do this?’” he said. “As long as God lets me.”

THE FINALISTS Get to know the other amazing ﬁnalists for our 2022 Reader Cover Contest. All of them are Triathlete members and all of them are giving back to their sport. Here are their nominations.

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Wes C.

Jesus M.

Sloane T.

I was a high-school swimmer who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was 24 years old. I struggled, then, to stay in shape. But as I’ve aged, I’ve used triathlon to keep myself healthy. Now in my 50s, it’s a constant battle to keep myself properly nourished and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I’m always encouraging friends to just “tri” it. I’ve done numerous relays with friends who can’t do the swim, or the bike, or the run, and need someone to help. I also take great pride in thanking all of the police officers and the volunteers during races—I’m under no illusion that I’m going to win, so I have fun and enjoy the day.

I was already a triathlete when I had a horrible accident. I lost my hand and I was paralyzed for months. But, that’s in the past. Now, I’m a Paralympic hopeful in the PTS5 category, racing all over, and looking to go to France 2024. I spend a lot of time explaining our para world to others. I volunteer with universities around my area too that need patient models. And I advocate safe driving to local high schools. As a triathlete I learned how to be patient and strong, something I used then when healing from my accident. Then, it was time for a comeback. It’s not how you fall down, it’s how you get up that matters.

As a girl growing up in a restricted culture, I was discouraged from sports. When I discovered triathlon in college, it reignited my love of pushing myself. Then, six years ago, I was hit by a car. The pain was excruciating, but the emotional agony was worse. How was I going to handle grad school, a move, and the start of a marriage when I couldn’t take a shower? I kept at it because I knew one thing: I loved being an athlete. But I couldn’t have recovered without my community. I helped to coach and support youth triathlons. I also appeared on the TrainerRoad podcast to raise awareness of disordered eating. And currently, I’m proud to be a member of the GRIT USA triathlon team.

Jill G.

Julie M.

Teddy S.

Like Lionel Sanders, triathlon saved me. I am a recovering alcoholic and self-harmer. When I first got sober I didn’t know how I would ever be able to stay that way. Enter triathlon. It gave me a goal, something to keep me occupied and a healthy kind of pain. When I have a bad day, instead of reaching for the bottle, I jump on my bike or go for a run. If I saw me now five years ago I wouldn’t recognize myself!

Written by Julie’s nominator: Julie is the nexus of our local run club. Our small town’s athlete base has grown dramatically because of her encouragement, motivation, and camaraderie. Julie finds common ground with everyone—a desire to explore our beautiful town of Lemont for fitness and self-improvement. Inspired by Finding My Voice, she went on her own journey to become an Ironman last summer in Tulsa, and since then has helped dozens of friends to race in 70.3 and 140.6 events. Julie is selfless when it comes to making those around her feel included and capable. Aside from her constant promotion of our local events, she volunteers at every race her friends are doing when she isn’t racing herself.

Written by Teddy’s nominator: Teddy’s been a staple member of the Team Triathlete community since the launch. He encourages racers at all levels, welcomes in new members every time they join, has weekly (if not daily) questions, and he keeps everyone motivated. I’ve never met him in person, but he feels like a long-time race friend and I know I’m not the only person who feels that way. He’s had his own racing journey and shared it openly and he’s just a solid member of the tri community. He remains positive and uplifting to total strangers daily and treats them like they are life-long friends. He shows respect and care for fellow athletes and that’s the connection people seek out in the tri community. TR I AT H LE TE .CO M

BY: TIM HEMING & JENÉ SHAW

T R I AT H L ET E // JU LY/AUG UST 2 022

PHOTO: MIKE PLANT

<PQ[ []UUMZ UIZS[ \PM \P IVVQ^MZ[IZa WN \PM Å Z[\ professional prize purse in our sport. In the four decades years since, pro triathlon has evolved and elevated the everyday age-group experience. We look back at the eras \PI\ PI^M LMÅ VML \PM [MI[WV[ WN \ZQ

TR IAT H LE T E.CO M

Scott Molina (front left), Scott Tinley (front right), Dales Basescu (center) IVL 5IZS )TTMV I\ \PM Å Z[\ =;<; M^MV\ in Torrey Pines.

investment alongside the bright lights of TV and newspaper exposure, cool branding, sponsorship deals with the likes of Bud Light and Coca-Cola, and taking it direct to the hearts of cities, closing down downtown areas in Chicago and Miami. Curl and Thomas literally wrote the race manual for future events too, including ground-breaking initiatives such as bike racking and wave starts. They were even responsible for pulling back the distances from an initial 2km swim, 35km ride, and 15km run to the now-familiar Olympic- or standarddistance 1.5km swim, 40km bike ride, and 10km run—designed to attract sign-ups. Not only were those distances single-sport participants were already familiar with, chiefly—and unlike the Ironman (there was only one at this point)—mere mortals could consider them achievable. With the draw of prize money and no appearance fees—a battle Thomas fought to the end—the Big Four were rolled out whenever possible. As Molina recalls. “We did attract a lot of attention, underlining these races weren’t fun runs, but high-profile TV events. I probably did three-to-four newspaper interviews and a TV interview prior to every race. In Chicago, I’d be on the 6 p.m. news the night before, and if I won there’d be a full page on the back of the Chicago Tribune with a picture of me crossing the line. We had tremendous coverage early on.” The fledgling USTS was the first, but it wasn’t the only offer of prize money for the pros in 1982. In November, California-based race promoter Hans Albrecht put $17,000 on the line for his “U.S. Pro Championships” in Malibu—a race title to match the

“We did attract a lot of attention, underlining these races weren’t fun runs, but PQOP̆XZWÅ TM TV events.”

T R I AT HL ETE // JULY/AU G U ST 20 2 2

PHOTO: MIKE PLANT

he late, great triathlon journalist Mike Plant opined that it might have been the most influential triathlon in the sport’s history. The venue was Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego, California, the date was June 12, 1982, and it was the first race in the new U.S. Triathlon Series, the brainchild of innovators James Curl and Carl Thomas, that would run for the next 11 years. It was also the first meeting of what would become the Big Four – Dave Scott who won by two minutes, a 22-year-old Scott Molina, who’d just barely scraped enough gas money together to get there, the entrepreneurial Scott Tinley, and, in his first triathlon, a fresh-faced lifeguard named Mark Allen. There was equal prize money of $800 for the men’s and women’s field. Julie Moss and Kathleen McCartney lined up for a repeat of their February 1982 race in Hawaii—the one that featured Moss’s famous “crawl” to the finish line—and were joined by the third-place finisher from that day, Sally Edwards, who went on to write several books on the sport, including the seminal Triathlon: A Triple Fitness Sport. In hindsight, it was a who’s who of triathlon for the years to come. And yes, legendary triathlon historian Bob Babbitt was there, too. But it wasn’t just about who was at the pointy end. The USTS would go on to deliver over 120 events in 30 different US cities during its lifespan, and while it paid out more than $1,000,000 in prize money, it also attracted over 100,000 athletes until its end in 1993. From the get-go, Thomas—a former advertising exec with Speedo— envisaged the pro field as a marketing

PHOTOS: IRONMAN; MIKE PLANT

40 Years On

While modern triathlon was born in 1974 on the sands of Mission Bay, San Diego, and Ironman was created in 1978 in Hawai’i, it was 1982 when the true spark was lit. Julie Moss’s famous KZI_T \W \PM Å VQ[P line at Ironman Hawaii in February was beamed to living rooms across the planet via ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and the sport was primed for a boom. Up until that year, the term “professional triathlete” didn’t exist, as no race had WЄ MZML XZQbM UWVMa But starting in 1982, professional triathlon—and the sport as a whole— would never be the same.

10-fold increase in dollars for anything seen before. It was held just three weeks after Ironman Hawaii (the second of that year, as 1982 would see two events), where prize money wouldn’t be on the line for another four years. It was also an example of where the pros didn’t have to be taking the tape to wield influence on the rest of the sport. Plant’s recollection in his Trishistory.com story on the Malibu event includes Allen having to be rescued from a “frigid Pacific Ocean swim.” As an advert for tri-specific wetsuits, it was the best you could want. The other sweeping benefit to the sport that organizers couldn’t have known early on was how omnipresent the Big Four would be for the decades that followed. Kona offers perhaps the best example: From Tinley in February ‘82 through to Allen in October ‘93, one of the big four claimed every Hawaii title offered. “It didn’t hurt that the Big Four were the Big Four,” Barry Siff, former president of USAT remembered. “You saw the same guys. You weren’t seeing names from Europe that you don’t recognize.” Yet for Molina it was 12-15 years of a “zombie haze” of training and racing. “In general, we thought more was better,” he said. “I caught around 60 flights a year for more than a decade. There was a lot of travelling, and a lot of racing, and it went by in a blur.” Moss’s crawl in 1982—or more precisely its capture by the ABC TV cameras for its Wide World Of Sports broadcast—had also given Ironman a welcome second spike of interest after Barry McDermott’s 10-page Sports Illustrated article covered the initial Hawaii Ironman in 1979. Entrants for 1983 hit four digits. It wasn’t just the racing though. As seen with Allen’s hypothermic swim in Malibu, anyone wanting to try triathlon needed guidance, and brands finding their feet in this new world needed a peg of integrity for products. As magazines such as Triathlon and TriAthlete merged in 1987 to become Triathlete , these tanned, honed professionals were the obvious crash test dummies. “It was a burgeoning sport, and manufacturers needed a way to market their new products, whether it be watches, bicycles, wetsuits, sunglasses,” Molina explained. “This was before the days of Oakley, Quintana Roo, and everything we know of the industry now. It was years before aerobars were invented! The magazines were the conduit, and that’s how they got the word out.” Not every product always hit the mark. “There were ridiculous ones and ones that went on to change the industry,” Molina added. “I was sponsored by a wetsuit company but those first swimming wetsuits—before Yamamoto rubber—were made from the same material as surfing wetsuits. They rubbed you to death, and I still Scott Molina at the USTS Long Beach event in 1982 have scars.” Aerodynamics, previously the domain of track cycling, caught the imagination even more. “Our sport took it on hook, line, and sinker. We had disc wheels, cow-horn bars, 650c wheels on the front to get you lower, down-sloping tubes on steel bikes. The cycling industry started to take note and the age-groupers grabbed on to the fact that they needed a different bike for triathlon.” As well as the equipment, a hot topic was how to actually train. “There were no coaches,” Molina added. “So, people looked to us for weekly and monthly training programs. We wrote articles, Tinley had a magazine column, and we’d answer questions in interviews about the type of training we thought was necessary. “It was similar to the running boom in the ‘70s, when everyone looked to Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers to see what those guys were doing. Reflecting back, people took on totally unrealistic training regimes. They had a full life and, all of a sudden, would put this 25-hour/week training program in too. Although we were too busy doing our own thing to take too much notice!” T RI ATH LE T E .CO M

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1986-2000

E V A W G N I T S THE CRE

I 46

TR I AT HL ET E // J ULY/AUG US T 20 22

PHOTO: MIKE PLANT

t was time for Ironman to up the ante. In 1986, having been settled on the Big Island for the past five years, the event offered its first prize purse of $100,000. As well as Dave Scott winning his fourth title, it also attracted Paula Newby-Fraser for the first of her record eight wins and title of undisputed Queen of Kona. Barry Siff had been living in Omaha, Nebraska, when he found triathlon through a master’s swim program in the same year. When he made the trip to Hawaii to support friends who were competing, Scott wasn’t really on his radar, but it wasn’t long before he had Scott’s first triathlon training book, signed with the inscription: “To Barry, perhaps one day I’ll see you at the start line.” Siff would make his own racing pilgrimage to Kona four times. “Dave wrote the triathlon bible before Joe Friel wrote The Triathlon Bible,” said Siff, of the now-famous training tome. But it wasn’t just books. “The media around triathlon was pretty significant,” Siff said. “It was this amazing, cool sport, and the TV show of Ironman was a big, big, deal. Today, I’m not sure if it’s as big. But it wasn’t just Ironman. There was a 30-minute show on ESPN called Running & Racing where the great runner,

Marty Liquori, was the announcer. It would have five minutes on stretching and getting in shape, then feature a race each week—invariably something on triathlon. When I was president of USAT we tried to replicate it, but couldn’t sell it.” If professional racing was bringing amateurs to the sport, it was given a further leg-up in 1989 with the historic Iron War—forever triathlon’s most famous race. Dave Scott versus Mark Allen, The Man versus The Grip, duking it out in record times. It was a gift to the sport, and has been capturing the imagination of wannabe triathletes for the past 43 years. Yet it was also the year that Valerie Silk sold the Ironman brand to the World Triathlon Corporation, setting it on a new path that didn’t necessarily align with the hopes of all pros. It was developing towards—as Scott Molina puts it—“a more age-group centric organisation.” It wasn’t just about swim, bike, and run. If duathlon today feels like a long lost relative to triathlon, in 1989 it was more like a chippy younger brother—a large part of which can be laid at the feet of Zofingen, a Swiss city that helped spawn Powerman duathlon. A long-course run-bike-run event—originally called a biathlon—it started in June 1989 and remains a beast of an endurance test. The initial distance of

2.5km run/120km bike/30.5km run would eventually settle on an attritional 10K run/150K bike/30K run. Zofingen will host this year’s long distance world duathlon championship, but no longer has the cachet of its early days when it acted as duathlon’s answer to Hawaii. Its list of winners included many of the names made famous on the Big Island: Allen, Molina, Newby-Fraser, and perhaps most famously—for the locals at least—Natascha Badmann, Zofingen champion in ‘96, ‘97, and 2000. The Swiss Miss also made history by becoming the first European woman to win the Ironman World Championship—a title she would go on to capture six times throughout her career. To illustrate its status, in 1993, the prize money in Zofingen reached $200,000—more than Ironman Hawaii. But while duathlon’s popularity has ebbed and flowed, the sport suffered greatly from triathlon’s approval for Olympic status in 1994. If you couldn’t swim well enough, there was a good chance you’d be left behind. Even the origin story of the Olympic movement that would go on to further change the sport of triathlon goes back to 1989, with the founding of the International Triathlon Union and its first World Championship, held in Avignon in France. It was won by Allen and New Zealand’s Erin Baker. As the decade progressed, the sport was spreading worldwide. “Europe in particular had races everywhere,” Molina recalled, having registered over 100 professional wins across the globe. “Ironman was just starting to branch out internationally. “I was lucky. Having success early meant I got a lot of invitations to travel to races in Australia, Sweden, and France. Although wonderful, those were not easy trips. To travel internationally, do an Ironman and head back, and expect to be on your game again the next week. It was an interesting time, I never thought there would be 100,000s of people wanting to take on an Ironman. “But once the initial glamour and newness of the sport wore off, it seemed like mainstream coverage also dwindled,” Molina added. “It seems to have morphed into mostly age-group sport worldwide—Ironman is certainly. The pros got off to a good start in the ‘80s, but as a group we lost our way a little bit in the ‘90s. I don’t blame the Olympics for that—it brought so much attention to the sport—but somehow, our pros as a group didn’t organize themselves well enough.”

Mark Allen at the Horney Toad Tri in 1982

¹<PM XZW[ OW\ WЄ \W I OWWL [\IZ\ in the ‘80s, but as a group we lost our way a little bit in the ‘90s. I don’t blame the Olympics for that—it brought so much attention to the sport—but somehow, our pros as a group didn’t organise themselves well enough.”

1982: Carl Thomas, the then-vice

1994: At its 103rd session in Paris,

president of marketing at Speedo Swimwear, creates a multi-city U.S. Triathlon Series featuring a new format now known as the Olympic distance: 1.5K swim, 40K bike and 10K run.

the IOC approves triathlon to appear in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. )N\MZ LQ[K][[QWV[ IJW]\ \PM LQЅ K]T\a of policing a non-drafting race and WX\QUQbQVO \ZQI\PTWV NWZ I \MTM^Q[QWV I]LQMVKM WZOIVQbMZ[ LMKQLM WV I draft-legal format.

PHOTOS: MIKE PLANT; GETTY IMAGES PHOTO:

1989–1991: After years of false

How tri made it to the Olympics

starts, triathlon forms an international governing body (International Triathlon Union), with the hope of gaining acceptance by the International Olympic +WUUQ\\MM *]\ Å Z[\ I <ZQI\PTWV ?WZTL Championship had to take place—and it did, in Avignon, France (1989). In 1991, \PM 17+ WЅ KQITTa ZMKWOVQbML \PM 1<= I[ the governing body of the sport.

2000: 1V 5Ia \PM Å Z[\ = ; 7TaUXQK Triathlon Team Trials take place in Dallas, Texas. That September, triathlon makes its debut at the Sydney Olympics. Canada’s Simon ?PQ\Å MTL IVL ;_Q\bMZTIVL¼[ *ZQOQ\\M 5K5IPWV JMKWUM \ZQI\PTWV¼[ Å Z[\ gold medalists. T RI ATH L ET E .CO M

Rasmus Henning at the 2007 Hy-Vee Triathlon

TR IAT HLE TE // J ULY/AU G U ST 20 22

PHOTO: COURTESYWORLDTRIATHLON (2)

At the 2008 Hy-Vee ITU World Cup, racers competed for a $700,000 prize purse.

his century started with a massive milestone for the sport: triathlon’s appearance in the Olympics. The sport then rode its Olympic coattails throughout the early 2000s—prize purses grew, race series expanded, and thousands of new triathletes found their way into the once-obscure sport. Although the spotlight was on short-course racing at the beginning of the decade, there was quite a bit bubbling up on the Ironman front, too. In the few years surrounding 2000, the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) introduced some of its now-classic North American Ironman courses—Lake Placid, Arizona, Coeur d’Alene, and Wisconsin—and continued its global expansion (South Africa, Asia, Korea, and Malaysia were all introduced in 2000). “You kind of knew something was catching fire when you’d go to places like Madison and Tempe, where races would fill right away,” said Ironman corporate operating officer Shane Facteau. “In a similar fashion with Nice and Austria, you saw that footprint continue to expand, which created more athletes, which created more buzz, which created more word of mouth, which was sort of the beast feeding itself. When all these events came in during that iconic era of 2000 to 2006 is really what cemented Ironman and led it to where it is today.” The WTC had offered some half-distance options in the past, but it officially announced the Ironman 70.3 series in 2005, creating a more approachable entry point into the long-course world. In 2006, the first Ironman 70.3 World Championship was won by Samantha McGlone and Craig Alexander in pancake-flat Clearwater, Florida, where the race

40 Years On took place before moving to Henderson, Nevada in 2010 and later rotating around the world. Meanwhile, big things were happening on the pro non-drafting short-course circuit. In 2002, the Life Time Triathlon Series began with the Minneapolis event offering $50,000 to the winner. By 2003, the prize purse increased to $500,000, offering $50,000 for both the male and female winner, as well as a $200,000 winner-take-all prize for the gender-equalizer category. In 2007, Life Time expanded the series to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas and added a bonus incentive for any athlete who could win all five. That year, Greg Bennett did—and took home more than $500,000 thanks to the bonuses and series payouts. “It was a year where it all came together and that was what was really special,” Bennett said. “What I realized in my career is that whoever adapts the fastest is who will win. When nondrafting started to be where the money was going to be, I adapted probably faster than others through a lot of conscious planning. I think triathlon keeps improving—there are rollercoasters and ups and downs, but there’s always different kinds of opportunities.” The year 2007 was also noteworthy because of another short-course race: the Hy-Vee ITU World Cup in Des Moines, Iowa. Hy-Vee, a regional grocery store chain in Iowa, got on board to offer a $700,000 prize purse—the largest in the sport’s history at the time. American Laura Bennett and Austrian Rasmus Henning each scooped up $200,000 (and a new Hummer H3) for winning the inaugural race. (For reference, at the time, Ironman World Championship winners each earned $120,000.) The race also later served as the final U.S. Olympic qualifier for the Beijing Olympics (2008) and the World Triathlon Corporation’s 5150 Series U.S. Championship (2011). In the popular imagination, 2007 marked a new Ironman legend when a seemingly unknown competitor took Kona by storm in her first year of going pro. Great Britain’s Chrissie Wellington raced her way to the first (of four) Ironman World Championship titles, breaking the women’s marathon record in the process with a 2:59:58. “Chrissie’s victory in 2007 marked a true changing of the guard,” said triathlon legend Mark Allen. “Even her acceptance speech was unique and different from what we had been hearing for many years—it had an honest openness that was a refreshing blend of brashness and innocence. It mirrored her racing, which was also brash yet innocent in the sense that she just went for it and blew away what had been the gold standard of times and how to win.” The age-group scene also grew as USA Triathlon surpassed 100,000 members, and triathlon entered into the mainstream with Hunter Kemper becoming the first elite

By the numbers: Age group 21,341 USAT annual members in 2000

174,787

USAT annual members in 2013

53%

Increase in triathlon participation in the U.S. from 2009 to 2010

500,000+

Combined annual and one-day USAT members in 2012

2700+

Record number of athletes who raced the 2013 Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee (the new record is more than 6,000 athletes in 2021)

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8,500

Participants across nine full distance Ironman and two Ironman 70.3 events in 2001

200,000+

Athletes registered to race at 110 Ironman and Ironman 70.3 triathlon races in 2021, after a highly disrupted 2020 pandemic year

160+

Combined half- and full-Ironman events the company is scheduled to host in 2022

triathlete to appear on a Wheaties box. Kemper went on to be the top American male at the Beijing Olympic Games, placing seventh. Germany’s Jan Frodeno and his now-wife, Australian Emma Snowsill, both won gold. On the heels of the Beijing Games, the ITU launched the seven-race Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series in 2009, with a year-end world championship to determine an overall winner. (It was later renamed the ITU World Triathlon Series in 2012 and then renamed World Triathlon Championship Series in 2021.) The prize purses got bigger—$150,000 at each of the events and $250,000 at the Grand Final— the TV coverage expanded and massive crowds gathered to watch the fast-paced races held in iconic cities such as Madrid, Washington D.C., and Hamburg. In the midst of this boom, a new longcourse race series brought hope to both pros as an additional source of income and to age-groupers looking for an alternative long-course experience. The Rev3 Triathlon Series kicked off with a half-iron distance— Rev3 Quassy, held at an amusement park in Middlebury, Connecticut. The initial Quassy event ($100,000 prize purse) grew its prize purse by $50,000 in 2010 and expanded into a three-race series with Rev3 Knoxville and Rev3 Cedar Point; athletes could earn a $125,000 bonus for winning all three events. By 2012, Rev3 had 10 events on its calendar and pros such as Richie Cunningham, Cameron Dye, Mirinda Carfrae, and Nicole Kelleher made frequent appearances. “For a good three or four years, the Rev3 Quassy race was the highlight of my mid-year racing,” said three-time Ironman world champion Mirinda Carfrae. “It always attracted a very strong field with its big prize purse. That, plus a tough course, made for supercompetitive racing.” Heading into the London 2012 Summer Olympics, the sport kept growing and USAT membership rose to more than 500,000 combined one-day and annual memberships—a record at the time. Alistair Brownlee won gold in London, sharing the podium with Javier Gomez (silver), and his brother, Jonathan Brownlee (bronze). In a thrilling photo finish, Nicola Spirig (gold) edged out Lisa Norden (silver) in a final sprint, with Erin Densham (bronze) two seconds behind. Also in 2012, the WTC pulled off the first—and only—iteration of Ironman New York City, a U.S. Championship event that served up a lot of drama between a sewage spill scare, a tragic death during the swim, and an unprecedented entry fee: $900. The difficulty of hosting an event in such a large city led to its cessation. T RI AT H LE TE .CO M

By the Numbers: Pro Tri 2.0 3000 Number of athletes at Challenge Daytona in December 2021

1.4M

U.S. viewers who tuned in to Challenge Daytona, which hosted the PTO Championship

175 6]UJMZ WN LQЄ MZMV\ broadcast markets reached by the 2021 Arena Games

200M

/_MV 2WZOMV[MV _QV[ \PM Å Z[\ )UMZQKIV Olympic gold medal in triathlon at the 2016 Rio Games

2013-2022

E R O F E B S S E DARKN OND) DAWN THE (SEC

T 50

T R I AT HL ET E // J ULY/AU G UST 2 02 2

300m swim, 5km bike, 2km run Distances in all four of the formats in Super League Triathlon

21,834,233

Views, as of press time, on Super League Triathlon’s YouTube page

7:27:53

Jan Frodeno’s recordbreaking time at the 2021 Zwift Tri Battle against Lionel Sanders

500,000+

Views, as of press time, of the Zwift Tri Battle

Number of languages broadcast by Eurosport for The Collins Cup in 2021

6:44

The record time Kristian Blummenfelt hit at the Sub7/Sub8 challenge

PHOTO: JORGENSEN-SEBASTIANKAHNERT-GETTY IMAGES

riathlon hit a peak around 2013 in terms of growth, particularly with prize money and age-group participation; 2014 brought a shift. The Life Time Tri Series cut most of its pro prize purse to focus on enhancing the age-group experience. Hy-Vee discontinued its high-dollar race after the 2014 edition, citing concerns about long-term viability. Rev3 ended its pro prizes and instead tried out an amateur program. Even Ironman made the decision to cut the prize money and Kona slots at nine of its events in order to pay larger sums at select races. On a more optimistic note, in 2014 the NCAA approved triathlon as an Emerging Sport for Women. USAT contributed $2.6 million to assist collegiate programs and offered its first high school national championship in 2016. (They’re currently on track to become an official NCAA championship-level program by 2024.) Ironman also launched the Women For Tri initiative with Life Time Fitness, offering grant funding to triathlon clubs to support female participation initiatives. After a few years in Nevada, Ironman started rotating venues for the 70.3 World Championship, traveling to Canada (2014), Austria (2015), Australia (2016) and back to the U.S. (2017)—and continuing to make its way around the globe. As a sign of the international growth of Ironman during this era, the field at the 2016 Ironman World Championship boasted the largest and most diverse group of athletes in history at that point, with two-thirds of the 2,300 participants coming from outside the U.S. On the ITU circuit, USAT Collegiate Recruitment Program athlete Gwen Jorgensen began her domination around 2014 with a record-breaking season as the only woman in WTS history to win eight career series events. After a perfect streak in 2015, Jorgensen went on to win gold at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games—becoming the first and only American man or woman to do so. The ongoing prize purse depletion throughout the 2010s eventually led to change and forced innovative thinking. Pro athletes still needed money and a platform, and the sport still needed more eyeballs (and participants).

Number of viewers who watched the 2021 Arena Games

PHOTO: ELLEN DE MONCHY-COURTESYSUPERLEAGUE

40 Years On Super League Triathlon (SLT) debuted in 2017 with events in Australia’s Hamilton Island and Jersey, U.K. The premise of the fast-paced race series was to resemble the Formula 1 triathlon races held in Australia in the 1990s and early 2000s: high stakes, intense battles, with T.V.-ready racing in a variety of new and ever-evolving formats. And it took about four years to get off the ground, but in 2018, the Professional Triathlon Organisation formed. The organization, which represents the interest of nondrafting pros, has contributed funds to support races and athletes, with a focus on creating a series of events around a flagship race in the style of the Ryder’s Cup, called The Collins Cup. The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed everything for everyone, though, including triathletes. Race organizers and online platforms rallied to create race-like virtual environments, but none could truly replace the excitement of in-person events. There were a couple of bright tri spots in an otherwise low point, globally, including the PTO 2020 Championship at Challenge Daytona in December of a very hard year. Paula Findlay and Gustav Iden took home wins and $100,000, all while putting on a compelling live show over the new 100K distance (a 2K swim, 80K bike, and 18K run) and heralding the return of major pro triathlon racing. And Super League Triathlon debuted its Arena Games in 2020, effectively mixing real and virtual racing. Last year showed signs of growth coming out of many rough pandemic months. According to USAT, 100,000 new athletes joined, and participation is trending toward pre-pandemic levels. USAT representatives say they’ve also seen increased interest in the new Young Adult Membership for athletes 18–23. Athletes had to wait a year,

but the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics finally happened in July of 2021. Four-time Olympian Flora Duffy won her first gold in crazy tropical storm conditions, while Kristian Blummenfelt fought his way to the men’s top spot (he went on to win the Ironman World Championship in St. George in 2022). The mixed relay—a new event for Tokyo—was as exciting and competitive as everyone hoped it would be.

the Tri Battle Royale. And SLT hosted a four-race championship throughout September in London, Munich, the U.K., and Malibu, California. In June, Kristian Blummenfelt and Kat Matthews competed in an exhibition event called the Sub7/Sub8 Project— they covered the irondistance in 6:44 and 7:31, respectively, with the help of pacers, drafting, and other advantages not afforded to athletes in an open race.

year took place in St. George, Utah, the event should make a triumphant return to the Big Island this October. The sport has come a long way since that race in Torrey Pines—where pros made just enough money to throw a small beach party. The Big Four never could have dreamed that exhibition races with just two competitors or a draft-legal race against the clock would ever capture the world’s attention or that

Similar to the Breaking2 marathon project, Sub 7/8 showed off what could be done without rules. Also, Challenge North America has rebranded to Clash Endurance and plans to host a variety of events at speedways in Daytona, Miami, Watkins Glen, and Atlanta— with broadcast TV. SLT and the Collins Cup will continue to evolve and innovate in even bigger ways in 2022. And although the first Ironman World Championship of the

triathlon itself would become an Olympic sport with two different events. They’d also probably never guess that the Hawaii Ironman would continue on, nonstop, until it would be interrupted for 30 months by a global pandemic—one that would see the sport hibernate, then reawaken in the years that followed. The one constant in professional triathlon and its effect on the age-group experience? That things never stay the same.

Super League Arena Games Rotterdam

Also in 2021: The inaugural Collins Cup finally got off the ground, and teams of 12 raced the 100K around Slovakia’s state-of-the-art x-bionic sphere as nearly 7 million viewers watched from home. Team Europe ultimately took the victory, but the 36 competing athletes all split a $1.5 million prize purse. Jan Frodeno and Lionel Sanders went head-to-head racing an iron-distance exhibition on the roads of southern Germany, dubbed

TR I ATH L E TE .CO M

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Unlock Outside+ members-only benefits at partner events nationwide

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These six words appeared on the cover of the first issue of what was then called Triathlon magazine. In the last 40 years, Triathlete has covered every inch of the tri race course, plus more. With the regular print edition ending, we look back over the decades and talk to some of the past editors about their time at the helm.

T R I AT H L E T E // J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 2

PHOTO: WAGNER ARAUJO/WORLD TRIATHLON

T R I AT H L E T E . C O M

How It All Started Harald Johnson,

Founder & editor , 1983-1988

ack in 1979, I didn’t know we’d be creating the first na-

tional and international magazine about the new sport of triathlon. We we r e a l r e a d y publishing a swimming magazine for fitness

The original Triathlon magazine gang in the early ‘80s.

and open-water swimmers (SWIM SWIM), but when Dave Scott made an offhand comment to me about something called the Ironman race he was training for, it got me and my two co-publishers (Penny Little and Mike Gilmore) thinking. And then paying more attention to the rise in popularity of multisport events: run-swim-runs, biathlons (now duathlon), and, increasingly, triathlons, we asked ourselves: How about a magazine just for this emerging phenomenon? So we tested the idea with special one-off publications over the next two years and finally flew to Hawaii for the October 1982 Ironman to finalize things. Penny and I participated, Mike schmoozed advertisers and money people, and by the end of

The sport’s first magazine issue: Spring 1983 (appearing in February).

February 1983, the first issue of Triathlon hit the streets. The sport of triathlon now had its own magazine. Soon after Triathlon came out, we heard there was another publication getting started. It was produced by William R. Katovsky in Northern California (San Francisco Bay area), and I finally saw it at an event that summer (1983). A free, monthly tabloid, it aimed to be “the Rolling Stone of triathlon,” Bill would tell me later. There was a friendly rivalry between the two magazines— Bill brought in an outside investor and Tri-Athlete soon went to an all-glossy format like us—but I got along fine with him. We would frequently end up bumping into each other on the dance floor at the same after-race parties. Bill was a character, for sure. But then, weren’t we all? However, by 1986, we realized the market wouldn’t support two competing magazines operating in the same arena. So the two publishing groups started meeting and ultimately worked out a deal to merge. There would now be one, single magazine. I became editorial director of the new publication, which left no role for Bill (although he would come back years later). The merged Triathlete (no hyphen) magazine debuted in July 1986. The magazine thrived, but because things—and lives—change, I left Triathlete in mid-1988 for fresh adventures. But some of my best memories from that time are of the people I worked with. We were a team. With a shared purpose of chronicling the birth of a new sport, of an active lifestyle that continues to this day. And now, almost 40 years later, I’m proud to have been part of that. Harald Johnson is a co-founder of Triathlete and currently the author of historical fiction, time travel, and suspense-thriller novels.

T R I AT H L E T E // J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 2

Bill Katovsky’s first issue of TRI-ATHLETE, which appeared in May 1983, a short time after Triathlon's first issue.

The 1980s

The new, merged Triathlete magazine appears.

T R I AT H L E T E . C O M

1991—1994

A Hell of a Lot of Fun Christina Gandolfo

Managing editor & editor-in-chief, 1998-2003

t’s July 1998 and I’m walking into t h e Tr i a t h l e t e

offices in Cardiff, California, for the first time as a proper employee, about to begin a five-year tenure, initially, as managing editor. After being welcomed at the front desk I hear a raised voice. “Well, f*ck ‘em. They’re idiots! It’s great — it’s the best thing we’ve done. Period.” Publisher John Duke is in his office, back to the door, headset signaling he’s at mission control. He’s shouting through a shared wall to editor-in-chief T.J. Murphy. They’re discussing emails from readers (20 years before social media would drive the conversation). The latest issue of Triathlete has just hit subscriber mailboxes. The cover features Ironman Canada winner Lori Bowden in a confident stance. Her expression seems to say, “Yes, I’m Canadian, and I’m gracious and polite. But I will catch you on the marathon, and I will run you down.” She’s wearing a wetCENSORED suit. It’s made of body

T R I AT H L E T E // J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 2

1994—1999

paint. The outline of a nipple is undeniable. Some people are upset. They find it in poor taste. Misogynistic, even. Not what they expected their mail carrier to deliver that day. I haven’t yet formed an opinion about the cover in question. But one thing is clear: My new boss is a force. He defends his people and his decisions, and the office culture I’m entering is like nothing I’ve experienced in almost 10 years as a working journalist. This job, I tell myself, is going to be a wild ride. When I think back on my time at Triathlete magazine from 1998 to 2003 (two years as managing editor; three as editor-in-chief) the word that comes to mind is camaraderie. Maybe there was no way to know it then, but there was a solidarity among the talented and eccentric staff that was singular. It was a fun bunch. A hell of a lot of fun. As we well know, triathlon was birthed by big personalities. By a curiosity and a thirst for friendly competition rooted in bravado. A desire to test limits and revel in what is possible when you push. Really push. At Triathlete in the late ’90s and early 2000s we were holding tight to an early spirit that was beginning to shift. Ironman races were multiplying. Many competitive age-groupers now had six-figure incomes instead of side-jobs to support their endurance habit. And while we aimed for growth in our sport, we were adamant that the engine of progress be fueled by the playful swagger that launched triathlon. Whether or not our editorial efforts resulted in accolades, the intention was always the same: To push ourselves, to test the sport’s boundaries, and to never stop having fun while doing it. A hell of a lot of fun. It’s a time I will never forget. Thank you, Triathlete. Christina Gandolfo is primarily a photographer these days and a founding member of TheLuupe, which connects brands with female photographers and creators .

T RTIRAT I AT HH LL EE TTEE.C . COOM M

When Tinley Talked T.J. Murphy

Assistant editor & editor-in-chief, 1996-1999, 2003-2008

got my start at Triathlete as an assistant editor in the spring of 1996. At the time, the office was in downtown San Francisco, and the internet was just

heating up. One job of mine was to perform a first edit on “Tinley Talks,” Scott Tinley’s long-running column. Tinley didn’t email his articles. Rather, they burbled into the office every four weeks through a fax machine stationed near my desk. It was handwritten, a dashed-off scrawl of storytelling intermixed with philosophy. It was like I was typing up the Dead Sea Scrolls, with certain words and phrases edging into the indecipherable. Tinley eventually took to email, but it was the prefax era of the column I found amusing. The founder of Triathlete, the late Bill Katovsky, told me the first iteration of the column was not faxed. It was not even written. Scott recorded his thoughts onto a cassette tape and mailed it in. In 1998, I had become the editor of Triathlete, when Scott pitched a feature for the magazine’s 15th anniversary. I had first raced a triathlon in 1982, and through the ‘80s and into the ‘90s had been a big fan of Tinley and all the other early stars of the sport: names like Dave Scott, Mark Allen, Scott Molina, Paula Newby-Fraser, and Erin Baker. So working with Tinley on the "Soul of Triathlon" story, and picking photos by going through thousands of pictures in the magazine archive, as well as shoeboxes of photos Tinley had brought in, is one of my favorite memories of working on the mag. Both Tinley’s words and the photos we picked captured the shared joy and anguish of a sport that uniquely brought together what had become a global community of triathletes. T.J. Murphy went on to serve as editor-in-chief for LAVA Magazine and today is a freelance writer and author of multiple books.

T R I AT H L E T E // J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 2

1999—2002

2004—2011

T R I AT H L E T E . C O M

2011-2012

T R I AT H L E T E // J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 2

2013—2014

Cheers to the finish line Julia Polloreno

Editor-in-chief, 2010-2016

or six-and-a-half years, I had the good fortune

PHOTO: BRAD K AMINSKI

of guiding Triathlete as editor-in-chief. Coming from a publishing background and having discovered a personal obsession/passion for triathlon, it was truly a dream job. Not a single day passed that I didn’t appreciate the fact that I got to geek out on triathlon for a living. Looking back, I can appreciate this singular time in the magazine publishing world (2010-2016). The media landscape looks a lot different today, and as a diehard “print person” I feel incredibly lucky for the opportunity to make my own mark on this brand’s legacy. My time at Triathlete gifted me some of the most impactful experiences, both professionally and personally, and meaningful friendships. What I’ll continue to miss most is the ritual of shipping week, those frenetic few days when we sent the month’s issue to press. Our small but mighty team would scour every page, taking painstaking care to make sure it was our best work, worthy of the permanence of the printed page. Towards the end of my tenure, we started a new tradition: After the last page was uploaded to the printer, we’d pop a bottle of wine and cheers another finish line. And with the final issue of this magazine going to press, I raise a glass to the past, present and future of Triathlete. Julia Polloreno is the vice president of content production for the IRONMAN Group.

T R I AT H L E T E . C O M

2014—2017

T R I AT H L E T E // J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 2

2017—2022

T R I AT H L E T E . C O M

LAST SHOT

IT'S GOOD TO BE KING Kristian Blummenfelt relaxes the day after winning his first Ironman World Championship title in St. George on May 7. Blummenfelt, who crossed the line in 7:49:16, is the first to win an Olympic gold medal and an Ironman world championship within one year. PHOTO: DANIEL VAZQUEZ

TR IAT HL ET E // J U LY/AU GUST 20 22

COME TRAIN WITH US! POWERED BY NATURE

trainingmonttremblant.com

THE

FUTURE OF THE

SPORT What’s Next for NCAA Triathlon? P. 24

Predicting the Next 40 Years P.28

USATRI

S TA F F

L I S T I N G

Emma O’Brien

Tommy Zaferes

Ross Lippe

Youth Program Coordinator

Talent ID Coordinator

Business Development Senior Coordinator

What excites you about your role: The opportunity to introduce more youth to the sport of triathlon by helping support youth events and programs across the country! Favorite memory from Zone3 Youth & Junior Nationals: Trying to get all of the athletes excited and dancing at the start line of the Mixed Relay with Tim Yount when really, they just wanted to stay in the zone! And of course the cinnamon bread!

Favorite World Triathlon event to photograph: Bermuda. Beautiful and diverse, plus easy to get around course. Advice for a future professional triathlete: Don’t ever race your training, only race your races. Doesn’t matter how fast you are in training if you can’t make it to the start line.

Who are you teaming up with in a three-person relay? I did my first relay with Chief of Staff Victoria Brumfield and my roommate and we ended up on the podium. Let’s bring this team back and win gold!

Will we see you race this year? If my schedule allows, I might try to fit one in this year, but not racing as a professional for the first time in 12 years!

MAGAZINE STAFF

Legal Analyst Brenda Foster Brenda.foster@usatriathlon.org

Editor-In-Chief: Stephen Meyers Editors: Thomas Lenneberg, Jayme McGuire, Chelsea Montes Design: Kelsey Couts Chief Executive Officer Rocky Harris

USA TRIATHLON STAFF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & STRATEGY Chief Bus. Dev. Officer & Chief Of Staff Victoria Brumfield Victoria.brumfield@usatriathlon.org Director of Business Operations Carley St. Lucia Carley.stlucia@usatriathlon.org Director of Business Development Scott Miller Scott.miller@usatriathlon.org Corporate Partnerships Senior Manager Madison Anderson Madison.anderson@usatriathlon.org DEIA Senior Manager Megan Ritch Megan.ritch@usatriathlon.org Corporate Partnerships Senior Coordinator Tanner Martin Tanner.martin@usatriathlon.org Business Development Senior Coordinator Ross Lippe Ross.lippe@usatriathlon.org Youth Program Coordinator Emma O’Brien Emma.obrien@usatriathlon.org Data and Research Coordinator Paul Minninger Paul.minninger@usatriathlon.org FINANCE & IT Chief Financial Officer Katie Willemarck Katie.willemarck@usatriathlon.org Technology Strategy & Planning Senior Manager Samantha Mehner Samantha.mehner@usatriathlon.org Senior Finance Manager Jim Morrow Jim.morrow@usatriathlon.org Staff Accountant Marie Gadino Marie.gadino@usatriathlon.org AP/AR Coordinator Jayme Martin Jayme.martin@usatriathlon.org Front Desk Coordinator Shella Heiens Shella.heiens@usatriathlon.org LEGAL & HUMAN RESOURCES Senior Counsel Nellie Viner Nellie.viner@usatriathlon.org Risk and Compliance Manager Aubrey Brick Aubrey.brick@usatriathlon.org HR and Governance Manager Sandra Cook Sandra.cook@usatriathlon.org Risk and Compliance Senior Coordinator Emily Hewitt Emily.hewitt@usatriathlon.org

What excites you about the future of the sport? Becoming more and more mainstream and accessible.

SUMMER 2022

FOUNDATION President of the USAT Foundation and Chief Advancement Officer Gabe Cagwin Gabe.cagwin@usatriathlong.org Executive Director Thomas Lenneberg Thomas.lenneberg@usatriathlon.org Senior Major Gift Officer Jordan Bailey Jordan.bailey@usatriathlon.org Foundation Program Coordinator Lindsay Welker Lindsay.welker@usatriathlon.org Content Coordinator Ashley Miller Ashley.miller@usatriathlon.org HIGH PERFORMANCE High Performance General Manager John Farra John.farra@usatriathlon.org Olympic Program Senior Manager Courtney Gardner Courtney.gardner@usatriathlon.org Paralympic Program Manager Lindsey Jerdonek Lindsey.jerdonek@usatriathlon.org Performance Manager Ryan Bolton Ryan.bolton@usatriathlon.org Project Podium Head Coach Parker Spencer Parker.spencer@usatriathlon.org High Performance Development Manager Joe Maloy Joe.maloy@usatriathlon.org Talent ID Coordinator Tommy Zaferes Tommy.zaferes@usatriathlon.org Programs Coordinator Tim Bosn Tim.bosn@usatriathlon.org MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Senior Marketing Manager Eric Engel Eric.engel@usatriathlon.org Communications and Content Senior Manager Stephen Meyers Stephen.meyers@usatriathlon.org Social Media Coordinator Mackenzie Brown Mackenzie.brown@usatriathlon.org Content Coordinator Chelsea Montes Chelsea.montes@usatriathlon.org CONSTITUENT RELATIONSHIPS & ENGAGEMENT Chief Sport Development Officer Tim Yount Tim.yount@usatriathlon.org Director of Constituent Relationships Liz Kollar Liz.kollar@usatriathlon.org Club Manager Chad Cunningham Chad.cunningham@usatriathlon.org Constituent Relationships, Coaching Manager Hope Smith Hope.smith@usatriathlon.org

What does triathlon look like in 40 years? It’s a Saturday afternoon, adult beverage in hand, and I’m watching ESPN highlights of the Mixed Relay at USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships. The sport will be shorter, faster, and televised everywhere! Who are you teaming up with in a three-person relay?I’ll kick things off with the swim and tag my teammate and good friend Paul Rudd for the bike leg. If you’ve seen him in “This is 40,” you know he’s a menace on the road. My longtime idol Taylor Swift will bring us home on the run. Post-race food choice? My anytime, any situation food choice is always Chipotle.

Constituent Relationships, Race Directors and Sanctioning Manager Todd Brewer Todd.brewer@usatriathlon.org Constituent Relationship and Service Assistant Manager Nicklaus Koppin Nick.koppin@usatriathlon.org Constituent Relationship Coordinator Kammara Pennick Kammara.pennick@usatriathlon.org Constituent Relationship Coordinator Gracie Mensay Gracie.mensay@usatriathlon.org Constituent Relationship Coordinator Laci Cooper Laci.cooper@usatriathlon.org EVENTS Director Of Events Brian D’Amico Brian.damico@usatriathlon.org Commissioner of Officials Mark Turner Mark.turner@usatriathlon.org Events Manager Brad Hildebrandt Brad.hildebrandt@usatriathlon.org Events Manager Cody Crowther Cody.crowther@usatriathlon.org Events Manager Matt Reger Matt.reger@usatriathlon.org Education Director of Education Earl Walton Earl.walton@usatriathlon.org Education Contractor Jon Metz Jon.metz@usatriathlon.org 2022 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair, Athlete Director Joel Rosinbum Vice Chair, Independent Director Henry J. Brandon Treasurer, Athlete Director Ben Collins Secretary, General Director Chuck Graziano Athlete Director William Huffman Athlete Director Erin Storie General Director Dr. Tekemia Dorsey General Director Gabriela Gallegos General Director Keri Serota Independent Director Monica Paul Independent Director Felix Stellmaszek Independent Director Scott Sternberg Ex-Officio Jacqueline McCook Ex-Officio Allysa Seely USA Triathlon National Office 5825 Delmonico Drive, Suite 200 Colorado Springs, Colorado 80919 719-597-9090

USATRI

TA B L E

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Left Athletes around the country raced for multisport national titles this April 27-May 1 in Irving, Texas, at the inaugural USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival Presented by Toyota. Learn more about USA Triathlon’s Together, We Thrive initiative by visiting usatriathlon.org. On the cover For the fifth year in a row, the Arizona State University women's collegiate triathlon team won the NCAA Division I championship at the Women’s Triathlon Collegiate National Championships. But the University of San Francisco placed two women in the top three — including the overall winner — a welcome sign that the Sun Devils will have competition as women's collegiate triathlon continues to grow.

Features 18 5 Questions with an RD Epic Races events director Eva Solomon tells us how she got into event organizing and how her Michigan events implement zerowaste practices.

Sections 24 Future of the Sport: NCAA Triathlon

12 From the Editor

Women’s collegiate triathlon is on its way to becoming a bona ﬁde NCAA sport. What does this mean for the future of the sport?

14 From the CEO 16 What’s Online 32 At the Races

20 Future of the Sport: More than Tri

28 Future of the Sport: The Next 40 Years

Aquathlon. Aquabike. Duathlon. Gravel. There have never been more ways to “tri.” Learn about the growing multisport disciplines. Is this the year you race a duathlon?

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of USA Triathlon, we ask several of the sport’s experts for their predictions for the next 40 years.

38 Product Reviews

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M a r i a O b s u n a ( C o v e r ) / A r c h i Tr u j i l l o ( A b o v e )

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St. George Stunner More than 2,800 athletes, ages 18-79 raced in St. George, Utah, at the rescheduled 2021 IRONMAN World Championship in May. Athletes took on the 2.4-mile swim in Sand Hollow State Park Reservoir, followed by the 112-mile bike course that led them through stunning desert landscapes featuring an unforgettable climb through Snow Canyon State Park, and finished with a 26.2mile run on two loops through St. George.

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Tag, You’re It The Age Group Mixed Relay National Championships made its thrilling, fun debut at the 2022 USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival Presented by Toyota this April in Irving, Texas. Teams of four — two women, two men — competed, as each athlete completed a super-sprint triathlon before tagging their teammate.

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CLYDESDALE & ATHENA ATHLETE SPOTLIGHTS

MARK MCKENZIE

NATALI VILLARRUEL

JESSICA MULLIN

LANCE FARGO

61 | Choctaw, Okla.

35 | Chicago,Ill.

41 | Norwich, Conn.

56 | Ocean View, Del.

“After running every day in the Army, I didn’t do any activity at all when I got out at 30 years old. I was 50 years old when I started running again. Now I’m 61 and here I am doing triathlon. I love it. It’s been incredible for me. I wish I had known about triathlon when I was younger. It’s changed my life.”

“I always make it a point to seek out events that include an Athena category. It means I don't have to be ashamed of my body or weight and there's a place for me in a sport which is widely dominated by people who don't look like me. Athena is the Goddess of War — wouldn't you be proud to represent someone as fierce as her? I get to show up at races and prove that we are the embodiment of that spirit to never give up and continue to uplift one another.”

“I needed to find strength in my size and focus on what I had, while I had them. As you get older, it doesn’t get easier. So, think small and start looking at the things that your body can do, the things that you are proud of and the things you can recognize as strengths within yourself. From there, the light can grow from within. The negative self-talk or inner bully that can rear its ugly head will have less of a presence in your life and it gets easier in that way. But it all starts within. It is not about what other people believe or think, but what you believe.”

“I am thrilled Clydesdales and Athenas have been reintegrated into Age Group National Championships this year. When we are represented at races, we demonstrate that you don’t have to look like Lucy Charles-Barclay or Jan Frodeno to race and race well. Many people who may not have a ‘typical’ triathlete build have been inspired to take up this sport that we love because they see people of all shapes and sizes competing, which makes entry into our sport much less intimidating. None of us have control over our body type, but we have complete control over what we decide to do with our bodies.”

Share your Power Within Statement The moment inside you, the personal finish line in front of you, and the greatness already a part of you. What is your Power Within? Share your Power Within statement, which is your public declaration of triathlon’s unique contribution to your life — and your personal multisport journey, including what drove you to become a multisport athlete. Visit ourpowerwithin.org.

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The future of the sport By Stephen Meyers

If the future of the sport includes more mixed relay racing then we’re in for a lot of team fun.

It’s another new day for USA Triathlon Magazine. While this is the final print issue of Triathlete, USA Triathlon Magazine will still continue to be delivered to USA Triathlon annual members. The magazine has long been a favorite benefit of annual members — particularly the annual rankings issue— and USA Triathlon is committed to continuing to deliver this benefit and provide resources for and storytelling about the multisport community. Though our magazine partnership with Triathlete may be ending, I encourage you to continue reading Triathlete’s online content — from in-depth features about the sport’s biggest characters, to race analysis and expert training resources from USA Triathlon Certified Coaches. As it has for the past 40 years, Triathlete will continue to not only cover the sport of swim, bike, run, but also support its growth. And speaking of 40 years — USA Triathlon celebrates its 40th anniversary this year as the U.S. National Governing Body of the sport. Our theme for this issue asks “What is the future of the sport of triathlon?” What will the next 40 years look like? On Page 28, read predictions for the future of the sport from some of triathlon’s longtime experts and participants. An exciting development for the future of the sport is NCAA triathlon. Now on the doorstep to becoming an NCAA Championship Sport, women’s collegiate triathlon will open more opportunities for young women. How will this impact the development of the sport, including the U.S. high performance pipeline? Read more on Page 24. On Page 20, learn all about aquathlon, aquabike, duathlon and off-road — just three of the many multisport disciplines available to athletes. There have never been more ways to “tri.” Is this the year you race a duathlon? Stephen Meyers is USA Triathlon Magazine’s editor-in-chief. Email him at Stephen.Meyers@usatriathlon.org.

Upcoming Events July 16-17: Toyota Legacy Triathlon & Toyota USA Paratriathlon National Championships | Long Beach, Calif. July 30-31: Zone3 Youth & Junior Nationals | West Chester, Ohio Aug. 6-7: Toyota USA Triathlon National Championships| Milwaukee, Wis. Aug. 14: Ultra-Distance National Championships| Grand Rapids, Mich. Sept. 24-25: Long Course National Championships | Stony Point, N.Y. Find a local USA Triathlon-sanctioned race near you at member. usatriathlon.org/events. To view the 2022 USA Triathlon National Championships calendar, visit usatriathlon.org/nationalchampionships. To find your 2022 State Championship, visit usatriathlon.org/state-champs.

Mailbag Something to say about USA Triathlon Magazine? Email letters to the editor to communications@ usatriation.org with “mailbag” in the subject line. Be sure to include your name. Letters may be edited for length and grammar.

Correction Due to lack of print space in the March/April issue of USA Triathlon Magazine, the 2021 USA Triathlon Event All-Americans were not listed among the 2021 All-Americans in the Rankings section. USA Triathlon Magazine regrets the omission and congratulates all 2021 USA Triathlon Event All-Americans for their achievement.

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The next 40 years for USA Triathlon By Rocky Harris We’re in the thick of race season, which is always an exciting time for anyone involved in our sport and community, but this year it feels particularly special. We have returned to some sense of normalcy after two years of dealing with COVID-19. We are planning our racing calendars well in advance again. We are back to worrying about our traditional race prep, rather than event cancellations, travel complications and positive tests. And this year, we’re honoring our past and looking toward the future, as USA Triathlon celebrates its 40th anniversary as the U.S. National Governing Body of the sport. It was in 1982 when the dramatic footage of Julie Moss crawling on her hands and knees to a second-place finish at Ironman triggered an explosion of interest in the sport of swim, bike run. That explosion of interest led to the creation of the U.S. Triathlon Association and the American Triathlon Association, which merged under one unified National Governing Body called the U.S. Triathlon Association, with 1,500 members. In August 1983, the name of the organization was changed to Triathlon Federation USA — known by many as the colloquial name, Tri Fed — until the present-day name of USA Triathlon was adopted in 1996. Thanks to the hard work of so many people, our sport has come a long way since the early days at San Diego’s Mission Bay and Tri Fed. As the National Governing Body, USA Triathlon educates and supports coaches, race directors, clubs and officials; develops event sanctioning standards that maintain safety, quality and consistency for more than 4,000 multisport races nationwide; operates the U.S. National Team and Olympic and Paralympic programs;

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and gives back to the multisport community through the USA Triathlon Foundation. Our priorities, as an organization, are firmly rooted in our mission: “To provide resources that empower members of the triathlon/multisport community to reach their full potential,” and our vision: “To grow, inspire and support the triathlon/multisport community.” These priorities guide us today — and beyond 2022. We are committed to serving you, our members, by providing benefits like inclusion in the USA Triathlon Rankings, access to National Championships, discounts from corporate partners, and subscriptions to the Multisport Zone e-newsletter and USA Triathlon Magazine. As Triathlete editor in chief Kelly O’Mara announced in her column in Triathlete, this is the final print issue of the esteemed, longtime publication. In 2021, we teamed up with Triathlete to bring you a new, joint magazine, as part of a larger partnership to drive triathlon participation and better serve our annual members. And while this is the final joint publication with Triathlete, USA Triathlon Magazine will continue to be delivered to USA Triathlon members. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, continue to access great online resources from Triathlete and at usatriathlon.org. In this issue, we look ahead — what does the future of the sport look like? To me, the inaugural USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival Presented by Toyota offered a glimpse, as it was the most fun I’ve had at a race. This is just the beginning for an event that we envision as the future of our sport and community — an event that combines so many disciplines and formats, with the right mix of be-

ing both competitive and fun, and is welcoming to any and all athletes. A huge shout out to the Multisport Committee for their passion for making this event a success! What else has me excited about the future of the sport right now? • We reached our goal of securing 40 Women’s Collegiate Triathlon programs, so our sport will soon become a fully sanctioned NCAA Championship sport — exciting and timely as the U.S. celebrates the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Women’s sports are thriving. • Local race directors are hosting State Championships in all 50 states for the first time • We’ve invested more than $100,000 in free youth event and clinic sanctioning, free registration for youth and junior clubs, and free youth memberships to help get kids back exercising and introduced to swim, bike, run • We’ve committed to granting out $100,000 to the community through our annual USA Triathlon Foundation Pillar Grant program • We’ve debuted the brand-new Gravel Triathlon Series, and we’re planning on putting together additional race series in 2023 and beyond • The world’s first-ever paratriathlon mixed-team relay happened in Sarasota-Bradenton this spring as a test event with hopes of it being included in the Los Angeles Paralympic Games in 2028 Thank you, members, for all you do to grow and propel the sport moving forward. Let’s make the next 40 years for USA Triathlon just as great as the first 40.

áǝƺɎǝƺȸ çȒɖ áƏȇɎ ÁȒ áǣȇ ȸ !ǝƏǼǼƺȇǕƺ çȒɖȸɀƺǼǔً çȒɖ RƏɮƺ ÁȒ 0ȇɎƺȸِ

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Stay Connected Follow USA Triathlon on all your favorite social networks to stay connected with the best community in sports.

Weekend Notebook

Race Rewind

Every week on usatriathlon.org and in Tuesday’s weekly Multisport Zone enewsletter, check out Weekend Notebook, which highlights the racing action over the weekend, from World Triathlon and IRONMAN races to local tris, like Dallas Athletes Racing events. With dozens of multisport and running events every year, Dallas Athletes Racing features events for the entire family!

Get the inside scoop from elite athletes throughout the World Triathlon Championship Series and World Triathlon Para Series, as U.S. team members share insights from their races and travels in the Race Rewind Q&A Series. Visit usatriathlon.org and @usatriathlon social media during the season to read about your favorite U.S. athletes and cheer them on throughout 2022!

Wearing the Stars and Stripes

Find Your Next Race

Elite paratriathlete Mohamed Lahna has had a long, winding road to representing Team USA. Unofficially “adopted” by the U.S. while racing for his native Morocco, Lahna — a Moroccan-American citizen — has long dreamt of officially competing for the U.S. in international competition. He’s finally realized his dream — with his eyes set on his third Paralympic Games in Paris 2024. Read his story at usatriathlon.org.

What’s your next race? You can find your new challenge by checking out the USA Triathlon Events Calendar! Completely revamped, the online events calendar gives you the ability to seamlessly search for, filter, and choose from thousands of USA Triathlon Sanctioned races nationwide! Check out member.usatriathlon.org/events to find your next race!

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YouTube @usatriathlon LinkedIn @USATriathlon TikTok @usatriathlon Strava @USATriathlon

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5 Questions With Race Director Eva Solomon Interview by Mackenzie Brown Eva Solomon professionally manages multisport and endurance events in Michigan as the founder and CEO of race production company Epic Races. Solomon started Epic Races with her ﬁrst event in 2009, the Tri Goddess Triathlon, the ﬁrst all-women’s triathlon in Michigan. This year, Epic Races will organize 10 races, from triathlons to 10ks, 5ks and half marathons. In this interview, learn how Solomon got her start in event production, how her events have implemented zero waste practices and what she loves about the profession.

I had no idea how much I was going to love being a race director. Two times, I got into it by chance. Back in the early 90s, I directed a 5-mile race for a nonprofit I was working for. I was the youth director and a runner and so they’re like, ‘Hey, Eva you can direct a race.’ And then when I moved to Ann Arbor, I went back to teaching, which was my profession and I loved being a teacher. I was asked to put on a race, and after putting on my first triathlon, I just loved it. I loved the day-to-day activities of my life – it was like planning a party every day and then the race came and there was the party. And then I had another party to plan. I ended up leaving teaching and became a full-time race director. It’s not for everybody. For people who have those skills of being able to do 12 different things at one time and helping people achieve their goals and then seeing them achieve their goals, it’s the best job in the world.

What does the phrase “Tri Local” mean to you?

How has multisport changed since you started in 1995?

When I ﬁrst started triathlon in 1995, I found local races in Triathlete magazine. At the local races is where I made my triathlon friends. We did the race together and continued training together. That was my social life. There’s nothing like staying local and being part of your triathlon community.

It has changed so much. At that point, I had done some duathlons – at the time they were called “biathlons.” They were quite often different, standalone races. Slowly that changed where different races were offered at the same event. Now we’re seeing that it doesn’t just have to be swim, bike, run. A few years ago, I put on the first gravel triathlon in the country, which is another option people can start doing. People are going to be more creative with endurance sports evolving. The standard swim, bike, run triathlon on a paved road will continue to be the standard, but it’s so great to have many options.

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Epic Races has committed to implementing "zero-waste" practices at your races. How can other race directors implement zero-waste practices? The planning starts before the race. Little things that we never used to think about, like serving popsicles — you know how many sticks and wrappers you have from that? Now, we still serve popsicles because people love them after a Fourth of July race, but we plan for that. What are we going to do with the sticks? What are we going to do with the wrappers? Ahead of the event, we meet with our zero waste director and we go through the menu and talk about what gets composted, what gets recycled, and what are we going to do with every item. We compost as much as we can – for example, we’ve switched to compostable cups at aid stations. At the end of most of our races we have one pound of About Epic landﬁll trash, just a small trash Races bag. We’re really proud of that. Epic Races is a The key is taking the steps bemultisport race fore the race. management

What do you love about being a race director?

How is Epic Races encouraging a culture of equality in the sport? Last year, when we opened registration, we wanted to add more categories. I asked the registration company if they could add more gender options. This year, we were pleased to ﬁnd that in our registration system we were able to oﬀer the options of male, female, nonbinary and “prefer not to answer.” That is an option for all of our races and for our awards as well. We are thrilled to be able to do that for our athletes who were frustrated because they were forced to register as someone they are not. We’re really happy to make that change this year.

company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The mission of Epic Races is to professionally manage safe, fun, and rewarding multisport and endurance events that appeal to beginner through elite athletes, raise money and awareness for important causes and make each participant feel like a champion. Visit epicraces.com and @epicracesevents on Facebook and Instagram.

More than swim, bike, run Fast. Fun. Spectator-friendly. This is the future of multisport. By Stephen Meyers While triathlon will always at its core be swim, bike, run, the sport is evolving. The mixed relay, which made its Olympic debut at the Olympic Games Tokyo last year, offered a glimpse of what’s to come for this sport. Shorter distances. Draft-legal. Team dynamics. Spectator-friendly. Age groupers got the chance to experience the fun of the mixed relay at this spring’s USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival Presented by Toyota where the energy was palpable. “The energy at the finish line was intense. Between the spectators and all of the other team members, there was a lot more of a collected investment of encouragement than you would normally see in a race,” said Lance Fargo, a longtime triathlete and 13-time Clydesdale national champion. “It was just way cool. In all my years of triathlon, this was the most fun I’ve ever had." Multisport National Championships showed there’s an appetite for alternative racing formats. Aquathlon. Aquabike. Duathlon. Thousands of athletes from around the country came to Irving, Texas, for the multi-day celebration of racing, many racing a new format for the first time. Whether you’re a new triathlete or a veteran looking for a new challenge, there’s a race format for you. The future of multisport offers more opportunities for unique racing, with different combinations of swim, bike, run. Which format will you choose?

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A r c h i Tr u j i l l o

THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT

Not feeling the swim? Duathlon RUN

BIKE

RUN

No water in this race. The non-swimmers dream. The discipline offers a great introduction to the multisport lifestyle. Plus, racing a duathlon early in the season — when it’s too cold for open water swimming — is an ideal way to knock off some rust. Distances Sprint (5k run, 20k bike, 2.5k run) Standard (10k run, 40k bike, 5k run) Middle (10k run, 60k bike, 10k run) Long (10k run, 150k bike, 30k run)

But don’t want to run Aquabike SWIM

BIKE

An ideal non-impact format for athletes who want to save their bodies from the pounding of the run (non-runners rejoice!). The discipline hasn’t been around long — aquabike rankings were added to USA Triathlon’s annual rankings in 2010 — and has grown in popularity with longtime triathletes looking for a new, more gentle, challenge. Encourage your local race director to add aquabike to their events. Distances: Standard (1500m swim, 40k bike) Long (1900m swim, 90k bike)

Oh, you love to swim? Aquathlon OR RUN

SWIM

RUN

SWIM

RUN

“Aquathlon really caters to people who don’t like the bike portion of triathlon, which is definitely me,” said Kristen Doster (Green Bay, Wis.) who won the overall title at this spring’s Aquathlon National Championships. “It’s a fun race and you don’t need as much gear.” Her last point is spot on — USA Triathlon’s Youth Splash & Dash Series introduces kids to multisport in a fun, low barrier to entry fashion as kids don’t need a bike to race. Distances: Standard (2.5k run, 1000m swim, 2.5k run) or (1000m swim, 5k run) Long (2000m swim, 10k run)

How about (legal!) drafting Draft-legal triathlon and duathlon OR SWIM

BIKE

RUN

BIKE

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“It was super cool racing draft-legal. I could see myself doing more of these,” said Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.) after winning the Draft-Legal Sprint Triathlon National Championships. No “On your left!” in this format of racing — drafting is allowed — and a strategic part of the racing where athletes ride in packs. The format is contested on the World Triathlon and Olympic stage and is gaining in popularity among the age group ranks. Distances: Sprint triathlon (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run) Sprint duathlon (5k run, 20k bike, 2.5k run)

Fast and furious — and with teammates Super sprint and mixed relay SWIM

Give me dirt Off-road and gravel SWIM

BIKE

Distances: Can vary, but typically 1k swim, 20-30k mountain or gravel bike, 6-10k trail run

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“It’s full-gas. You get to see what you’re made of,” said Brave Mays (Aubrey, Texas) after winning the inaugural Super Sprint Triathlon Time Trial National Championships. Full gas is right. Think of the super-sprint as the “5k” of triathlon. Super approachable. In the mixed relay, teams of four (two women, two men), combine to race, with each member completing a super-sprint triathlon. The exciting, spectator-friendly format made its Olympic debut in Tokyo. Distances: 250m swim, 5k bike, 1.2k run

RUN

Off-road first emerged in the mid 1990s in Maui, Hawaii, and offers those with an adventurous side a new multisport thrill. Mountain bikers can rip single track and trail runners can bomb mountainside trails in an off-road triathlon — or duathlon, a growing off-road discipline. Gravel is the hottest trend in cycling, so it only makes sense for multisport to incorporate gravel riding. Check out the inaugural USA Triathlon Gravel Triathlon Series.

BIKE

Find Your Next Multisport Adventure When searching for your next multisport challenge, use USA Triathlon’s Events Calendar to find a local USA Triathlon Sanctioned race near you! With more than 4,000 races around the country — from triathlons to duathlons and aquabikes and Youth Splash & Dashes — find the race that’s right for you and support your local race directors. Visit member.usatriathlon.org/events

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NCAA TRIATHLON: WHAT’S NEXT By Aimee Berg

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Maria Obsuna

THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT

In January 2014, on the ﬂoor of a San Diego convention hall, the NCAA Legislative Council voted overwhelmingly to add varsity college triathlon as an emerging sport for women. The vote was nearly unanimous: 95 percent, 96 percent and 93 percent in favor, by the Division I, II, and III councils, respectively. But triathlon can’t be “emerging” forever. The NCAA gave it 10 years to achieve national championship status by proving that it’s sustainable and has at least 40 schools competing in at least ﬁve intercollegiate varsity events per season. So USA Triathlon got to work: designing rules, policies and event structure. From there, Chief of Sport Development Tim Yount started hustling and recruiting universities to agree to build teams and compete under NCAA rules. In three years, Yount quadrupled

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the number of committed schools, and by early 2020, he confidently reported to CEO Rocky Harris, “Rocky, we’re gonna hit 40 this year!” Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and seven sure bets plus 25 other prospects began to back off. “I’ve never been so dejected,” Yount said. “To build a legitimate program from scratch, it takes one to two years for a school to weave through its administrative bureaucracy.” But Yount stayed on the offensive, urging schools to do the same. Communication was key. Every month, he contacted schools on the ‘hot list,’ meaning colleges with top-flight swimming or running programs, and universities in key geographical markets and surrounding states. “If you have great cross country, or if you have great swimming, I’m going to be targeting you,” Yount said. He also sent 2,600 administrators quarterly updates and newsletters. In addition, USA Triathlon and the USA Triathlon Foundation offered generous grants to ease the sting of operational costs. Finally, in February 2022, the 40th school signed on: California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, in Division II. But 40 is the NCAA minimum, and the clock is ticking. To reach championship status, all 40 schools’ athletes must be regularly competing and finishing races. Data must confirm this. USA Triathlon then has to make an additional proposal and help it survive multiple NCAA committee votes, new committees, and discussions about growth potential, level of interest and financial sustainability. Even if the proposal smoothly filters through all the NCAA strata, the soonest a new NCAA triathlon-specific committee could start planning would be spring of 2023, according to Shay Wallach, Assistant Director at NCAA’s Office of Inclusion. It’s therefore unlikely that a championship would take place before fall of 2024, Wallach said, and if any committee has concerns, questions or reservations, it could delay or “hypothetically” derail the process.

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Draft-legal racing, where riders can race in packs, brings an exciting, more strategic dynamic to triathlon racing.

At present, everything is moving forward. Women’s varsity triathlon is a fall sport. Long-term, it should keep talented young athletes in a triathlon-speciﬁc pipeline. “We lose quite a few accomplished junior triathletes when they go to college; we lose a critical window of time for development,” said two-time Olympian Sarah (Groﬀ ) True, who was a varsity swimmer at Middlebury. “Competing at the NCAA level would have certainly made me a serious triathlete sooner [but] the NCAA single-sport pull is compelling, especially when scholarships are factored into the equation.” The NCAA now allows triathlon to have 6.5 athletic scholarships at Division I schools and 5.0 at the Division II level. One full free ride is equivalent to one scholarship, but partial scholarships are where the fractions come into play. Another upside: varsity triathlon races are draft legal, just like the Olympic Games and World Triathlon races. “Draft legal totally changes the dynamic of racing,” said John Farra, USA Triathlon’s High Performance General Manager. “It’s entirely tactical.” Not only does it force women to strategize where to accelerate during

the race, but it requires “the guts to go around a downhill turn with 20 other humans in such close proximity, that if you clip wheels the whole pack’s going down. It takes so much time to gain that confidence in draft legal.” For a prospective Olympian to finish college with that experience, he said, “It’s massive.” Varsity races are half the Olympic distance, however. They entail a 750-meter swim, 20k bike ride, and 5k run. Renowned Canadian coach Cliff English, who left 18 professional triathletes behind to take the head coaching job at Arizona State University in 2015, said the sprint distance is “quite age-appropriate,” especially given student-athletes’ full course load. "At 18 or 19, they’re still developing speed,” English said. “And they’re so academically strong. Triathletes are pretty disciplined, very Type A. We’ve had the highest GPA of all 26 varsity programs at ASU.” Since NCAA rules prohibit more than 20 hours of coaching per week, ASU’s 13 triathletes typically swim five times a week, take three or four coached runs, have three or four coached bikes, and two coached strength-and-conditioning sessions. Two-a-day workouts are common. ASU now boasts five USA Triathlon

( To p ) T h o m a s F e r n a n d e z ( To p ) , M a r i a O b s u n a ( B o t t o m )

THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT collegiate national championship titles. For schools that have highly competitive athletic programs like ASU (the first Power 5 school to sponsor women’s triathlon), NCAA championship status would also mean a chance to contribute points to the prestigious Directors’ Cup awarded annually to the school with the best collective performance across more than a dozen sports. “For winning our national championship,” English said, “we would get 100 points and that would place ASU in the top-10 in the country. That’s a big deal. For Power 5, it’s a REALLY big deal. I appreciate ASU taking this chance on our sport, so that’s something that I can’t wait to get to: where we can contribute those points.” Even where triathlon is in its infancy, varsity opportunities are making an impact. Take Hampton University in Virginia, the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to announce its varsity triathlon team in 2018. At freshman orientation, Head Coach Jodi Jensen took the stage and said, “Here’s your opportunity to start your legacy. Start your legacy with me, with H.U. triathlon. We’re the first HBCU with a triathlon team. Here’s

your opportunity to make history.” Hearing this, Jessica Johnson, was like, ‘Why not?’ Might as well try something new,” she said. The high school swimmer from Maryland was prepared to forego sports. Hampton has no swim team. But after one season, she said, “I learned a LOT. It’s really taught me mental toughness — which I had for swimming — but triathlon is in a different realm. It’s super-tiring and sometimes you just have to push through and be like, ‘I got this, keep going.’ Being on Hampton’s first team “feels super special,” Johnson said. “There is definitely a lot of untapped potential. I really want to get the word out, especially to young African-American students who may be in my position [thinking] ‘I’m not continuing my sport at the collegiate level, I’m not sure what to do next.’ Who knows? You could be super successful.” In five years, in addition to NCAA Championship status, Yount wants 70 varsity women’s programs; a stronger balance between Division I, II and III schools; a full recruitment system; double the international reach into 30-plus countries; at least three more HBCUs; and more conference events. In 10 years, Yount is aiming to see 85 programs with a balance across

Power 5 and other Division I programs, full regional representation of all Division II and III programs, national broadcast appeal at the national championships, diversity percentages and rosters in double digits and more. “We’re gonna keep blowing it up. We’re gonna keep moving,” Yount said. “I think everyone feels like we’re building something here,” added ASU coach English. Barb Lindquist is excited, too, especially about the influx of prospects for the Olympic development pipeline. Lindquist helped start the Collegiate Recruitment Program (CRP) in 2008 to find exceptional college runners and swimmers like Gwen Jorgensen and Katie Zaferes as they were leaving college and develop them into Olympic triathletes. “If there are 40 schools and five athletes at each school, that’s 200 women [in the pipeline] already,” she said. “The more quality athletes we can get, the more competition. That’s going to raise the bar for everybody. If you have international athletes there, that’s just going to raise the bar for Americans, too.”

2008

2009

2013

April 2013

January 2014

Winter 2014

USA Triathlon staff members Jeff Dyrek and Scott Schnitzspahn begin discussion around the NCAA sponsoring triathlon and creates a small working group to start driving interest among NCAA institutions

USA Triathlon works with the NCAA to gather the necessary information

Obtains 10 letters of support from collegiate athletic directors

NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics approves adding women’s triathlon as an Emerging Sport for Women

Receives NCAA Division I Legislative Council approval to be the next Emerging Sport for Women, as well as approval from Division II and Division III schools, with 95 percent of votes in favor

USA Triathlon Board approves $2.4 million in grant support

2014-2017

2017

2018

2019

2020-2021

2021

February 2022

USA Triathlon, led by former USA Triathlon staff member Jess Luscinski, develops infrastructure for the women’s varsity collegiate triathlon program, including establishing policies and events

USA Triathlon Chief Sport Development Officer Tim Yount and USA Triathlon staff member Jessica Welk lead a renewed effort to recruit new programs and the sport grows from nine programs to 20 in one year

Receives additional grant funding from the USA Triathlon Board of Directors

Reaches 30 programs

Adds seven new programs during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dave and Marilyn Alexander make unprecedented gift to the USA Triathlon Foundation to support funding for NCAA programs

Adds two programs to reach 40

NCAA Women’s Collegiate Triathlon Timeline

U S A T R I AT H LO N M A G A Z I N E

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A r c h i Tr u j i l l o

THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT

USA Triathlon Turns 40 What we may see from triathlon in the next 40 years By Sarah Wassner Flynn

In 1983, Ronald Reagan was president, the cost of gas was about $1.16 per gallon, and an epic battle between Americans Dave Scott and Scott Tinley produced the closest one-two ﬁnish in the history of the IRONMAN World Championship with just 33 seconds separating the two. It was also the year that a group of the sport’s pioneers formed the National Governing Body of the sport (later renamed Triathlon Federation USA, or Tri Fed, before becoming USA Triathlon), aimed at providing guidance and aid in developing the sport, as well as creating bylaws and guidelines for sanctioning events. In the years since, millions of people have participated in triathlons worldwide,

there are now three medal events in the Olympic Games (the men’s and women’s races, and the mixed relay), the sport made its Paralympics debut in 2016, women’s collegiate triathlon is on its way to becoming an NCAA sport and the multisport industry endured a global pandemic that forced the sport to basically freeze in its tracks for months on end. So much has happened over the past 40 years. Where do we go from here? Since we don’t have magic goggles to glimpse into the future to know for sure, we asked a panel of prominent people in the triathlon world to do the next best thing and predict what we may expect from triathlon in the next four decades. Here’s what they had to say.

The Panel

Bob Babbitt (BB)

Gabriela Gallegos (GG)

Kelly O’Mara (KO)

Jacqueline McCook (JM)

Barry Siff (BS)

Founder of the Challenged Athletes Foundation and host of the Breakfast with Bob podcast

President & Race Director, Race El Paso, first Latina on the USA Triathlon Board of Directors

Editor-in-Chief, Triathlete Magazine and pro triathlete

First female President of the USA Triathlon Board of Directors

President of USA Triathlon (2014-19), ITU Executive Board Member, sports marketing and events consultant

U S A T R I AT H LO N M A G A Z I N E

wide will mean that everyone everywhere will know someone who has done triathlon and follow it enough to recognize the names of our champions. JACQUELINE MCCOOK: I see triathlon becoming more and more ubiquitous, accessible to everyone — young and old — with people participating for fun. That means shorter distances, lots of multisport combinations, and a greater focus on youth and team participation. BARRY SIFF: With the IRONMAN World Championships being moved to St. George this year, I could see a rotation in the location of the event. As it stands, the number of Americans who compete in the race is so disproportionate. Having the race in Oceania, South America, North America and Asia may allow more nations to be represented in the world championship. Kona could be every four years — like an Olympic year — to make it extra special. BOB BABBITT: We’re going to have more challenged athletes mixing it up with the pros. Chris Hammer, who was born without his left hand, recently became the first challenged athlete to become a professional triathlete. He is just the first of many challenged athletes realizing they can compete with the very best.

What else could be on the horizon for triathlon? GG: Mixed relay is a huge opportunity for both elites and age-groupers. It’s exciting to watch and fun to participate as part of a team. I see that and other sprint multisport formats growing in popularity and opening doors for participation across all ages and competitive levels. BS: Innovation will be everything. eSports and even virtual racing may become more of the norm. I admit, I am not a huge eSports guy, but I respect the heck

Wouldn’t it be great to have multisport be a standard oﬀering in elementary and high schools Incorporating more youth events and shorter, team-oriented events like the mixed relay will be instrumental for the growth of the sport.

across the country?

What are your predictions for the sport of triathlon for the next 40 years? GABRIELA GALLEGOS: In 40 years, nobody will have to explain that “triathlon” is “swim-bike-run.” Popular understanding and development of the sport world-

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out of it, and I do think people are into it. I can see the development of both of these versions of triathlon impacting the growth of the sport. BB: I think the Olympic Games format is going to change from Olympic to sprint. Sprint races make for better TV, and it will draw more interest. And I agree that the Mixed Relay event will become a big part of the sport.

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THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT What role does USA Triathlon play in shaping the future of the sport?

What’s next in tri tech? GG: I don’t know what’s next, but I know what I want: custom-fit, adjustable-tint goggles that don’t leave suction marks! I also think that the technology for virtual formats will continue to be refined and improved to facilitate real-time engagement. JM: We need to start simple and let kids and adults know that you don’t need all the gear to love the sport and have fun. It may be that starting low tech is our opportunity for growth and mainstream status.

GG: USA Triathlon very literally sets the standards. From coaches and race directors to officials and sponsors, USA Triathlon’s decisions impact the experience of triathletes at every level and shape the “personality” of the sport nationally. Are we fun? Are we inclusive? Are we ambitious? How USA Triathlon serves and connects the sport will drive triathlon's growth and engagement in the future. KO: Whatever the Norwegians are doing. JM: USA Triathlon is a significant enabler They're trying out some crazy innovations and a steward for the sport, supporting Imagine a single TV — some of which the tri world knows triathletes and the organizations that about and some that they haven't even make up the triathlon/multisport ecosyschannel dedicated to heard of yet. And I expect we'll see all tem: race directors, coaches, officials, of their methods of fine-tuning data and suppliers, etc. USAT’s role is to facilitate triathlon. There’s a applying it individually trickle out over the growth, innovation and participation, and pickleball channel now, next few years. provide the best tools, technology and BS: I agree. What you see the Norwesupport systems to allow the ecosystem so why not one for our gians are doing as far as testing and conto thrive. We need to be an advocate for stantly monitoring things like their glucose our sport, on behalf of its many constitsport, too? levels, sweat rate, and other data points, uents, to ensure sustainable growth and I think it will all get more relatable for a joy for all. KELLY O’MARA: I think the sport needs to move away from wider scope of athletes. Much like how the heart rate monitor non-drafting long-course being the dominant form of triathlon is everything, this will be readily available. It could be a bud in and embrace the many different multisport styles. I think this your ear telling you when to eat, and when to back off because is already happening to a degree, and the best thing USA Tri- your body temperature is too high. athlon can do is to support the small grassroots local race directors, as well as the new well-funded models, so that there is more diversity of options. BB: I would love to see USA Triathlon support a vibrant national series of Olympic-distance, non-drafting races. We’ve lost a What’s your wildest prediction for the next lot of the classic races and it hurts pro athletes who may be 40 years of triathlon? better suited for this style of racing, or may not be ready to step up to the half- or full-IRONMAN. And they’re great draws KO: Some days I think triathlon is going to morph into a million different niche fringe endurance adventures, and some days for age-group athletes, too. I think it's so close to breaking into mainstream popular TV

What needs to happen for the sport to evolve? GG: Very simply, we need to talk, and we need to listen. We need to encourage creativity and collaboration. As a race director, I learn when I listen to my participants. I make changes when I talk to a coach or share ideas with other race directors. Connecting with others who bring fresh perspectives and different experiences will help the sport evolve and support an environment that welcomes newbies while challenging veteran triathletes. JM: I believe that our greatest opportunity is to captivate youth! Wouldn’t it be great to have multisport be a standard offering in elementary and high schools across the country? The big opportunity is to have the kids lead the multisport charge and have those young athletes reflect the palette and sociology-economic diversity of the communities that we serve nationwide.

coverage. It just needs a little extra help. BS: Imagine a single TV channel dedicated to triathlon. There’s a pickleball channel now, so why not one for our sport, too? I’d also like to see Winter Triathlon in the Olympics. That’s something I’ve been advocating for a while now. BB: We’ll see pro paratriathletes on par with pro triathletes. They bring so much heart to the sport and there is a real affinity for these athletes around the world. If there is a Professional Triathletes Organization, why not a Professional Paratriathletes Organization? JM: We’re going to continue to develop new formats, distances, multisport combinations, and seasonal adaptations providing athletes with tons of variety and fun. But beyond that, I think triathlon is going to be mainstream for participants and fans alike. Our top athletes and paratriathletes will be sports rock stars and among the fittest, strongest, fastest on the planet. And they will reap the benefits financially, socially and emotionally. Kids will aspire to be multisport athletes. And if triathlon can help reduce the incidence of obesity and diabetes nationwide, that would be a huge win!

U S A T R I AT H LO N M A G A Z I N E

USATRI

T H E

R A C E S

Mega Fun at Multisport National Championships Festival Presented by Toyota Over the course of four days, nearly 2,500 registrants competed at the inaugural USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival Presented by Toyota in Irving, Texas. Featuring nine distinct multisport races and six National Championship events, the new national championships event showcased the sport’s oﬀering of multiple race formats. Irving will host the 2023 USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival April 19-23, 2023.

Super-Sprint Time Trial National Championships

Draft Legal Sprint Triathlon National Championships

Jenna Haufler, Miguel Mattox, Alex Leandri and Anthony Didion teamed up to win the inaugural Age Group Mixed Relay National Championships in Irving, Texas.

Aquathlon National Championships

250m swim, 5k bike, 1.2k run

750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run

1,000m swim, 5k run

Overall Female: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 17:49 Overall Male: Brave Mays (Aubrey, Texas), 15:39 Masters Female: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 17:49 Masters Male: Todd Ricketts (Newark, Ohio), 17:01 Grand Masters Female: Lauren Jensen McGinnis (Muskego, Wis.), 19:42 Grand Masters Male: Bobby Gonzales (El Paso, Texas), 18:46 Athena 39 and under: Ashley Ingram (McKinney, Texas), 24:40 Clydesdale 39 and under: Kevin Gaston (Atlanta, Ga.), 23:25 Athena 40-54: Katharine Posner (Ashburn, Va.), 25:13 Athena 55+: Suzanne Mahler Brown (Cane Ridge, Tenn.) 29:23 Clydesdale 40-59: Lance Fargo (Ocean View, Del.), 19:59 Clydesdale 60+: Mike Savage (Geneva, Ill.), 24:24 Female PC: Skyler Fisher (Dallas, Texas), 1:07:31 Male PC: Jayden Chapman (Tyler, Texas), 1:34:04 F15-19: Shantelle Tupaz (Pleasanton, Calif.), 18:06 M15-19: Brave Mays (Aubrey, Texas), 15:39 F20-24: No competitors M20-24: Matthew McGoey (Selinsgrove, Pa.), 17:16 F25-29: Alexandra Schwein (Broomfield, Colo.), 19:12 M25-29: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 15:42 F30-34: Paige Orcutt (Littleton, Colo.), 19:29 M30-34: Todd Buckingham (Wyoming, Mich.), 16:17 F35-39: Kristin Kurokawa (McKinney, Texas), 19:24 M35-39: Phillip Young (Memphis, Tenn.), 17:45 F40-44: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 17:49 M40-44: Todd Ricketts (Newark, Ohio), 17:01 F45-49: Kimberly Wikel (Milan, Ohio), 19:58 M45-49: Cameron Hamilton (McLean, Va.), 17:35 F50-54: Katherine Meltzer (Jersey City, N.J.), 20:22 M50-54: Timothy Newberg (Atlanta, Ga.), 18:12 F55-59: Lauren Jensen McGinnis (Muskego, Wis.) 19:42 M55-59: Andrew Kelsey (Hopkinton, Mass.), 17:19 F60-64: Alicia Caldwell (Denver, Colo.), 21:09 M60-64: Bobby Gonzales (El Paso, Texas), 18:46 F65-69: Susan Griffin-Kaklikian (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 22:15 M65-69: Ron Gierut (Davenport, Iowa), 19:11 F70-74: Cande Olsen (Morristown, N.J.), 26:55 M70-74: Rick Kozlowski (San Diego, Calif.), 20:45 F75-79: Ruth Hamilton (Mclean, Va.), 27:43 M75-79: Larry Nelson (Hixon, Tenn.), 28:30 F80-84: June Black (Austin, Texas), 35:50 M80-84: Arby Kitzman (Morro Bay, Calif.), 28:42 M85-89: Kenneth Fleischhacker (Littleton, Colo.), 31:21

Overall Female: Alexandra Schwein (Broomfield, Colo.), 1:05:52 Overall Male: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 56:32 Masters Female: Ginger Reiner (Lincoln, Mass.), 1:06:15 Masters Male: Ken Axford (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 1:00:31 Grand Masters Female: Kelly Dippold (Irvine, Calif.), 1:09:34 Grand Masters Male: Tim Bradley (Merrick, N.Y.), 1:05:14 Athena 40-54: Kimee Armour (Auburn, Ill.), 2:04:23 Athena 55+: Suzanne Mahler Brown (Cane Ridge, Tenn.), 1:52:16 Clydesdale 40-59: Chris Worden (Indianapolis, Ind.), 1:13:38 Clydesdale 60+: Greg Voudrie (Maryville, Ill.), 1:37:44 F15-19: Jenna Topott (Allen, Texas), 1:06:05 M15-19: Brave Mays (Aubrey, Texas), 58:27 F20-24: Carolyn Riggs (Paoli, Pa.), 1:09:47 M20-24: Matthew McGoey (Selingsgrove, Pa.), 59:33 F25-29: Alexandra Schwein (Broomfield, Colo.), 1:05:52 M25-29: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 56:32 F30-34: Cameron Hawkins (Durham, N.C.), 1:10:35 M30-34: Todd Buckingham (Wyoming, Mich.), 58:17 F35-39: Elisabeth Hesse (Atlanta, Ga.), 1:11:17 M35-39: Danny Mellow (Jonesboro, Ariz.), 1:05:55 F40-44: Maarten Bout (Bloomington, Ind.), 1:01:51 M40-44: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 1:06:42 F45-49: Ginger Reiner (Lincoln, Ma.), 1:06:15 M45-49: Ken Axford (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 1:00:31 F50-54: Adrienne Leblanc (Scottsdale, Ariz.), 1:09:43 M50-54: Peter Valentyik (Boulder, Colo.), 1:01:02 F55-59: Michele Tuttle (Columbia, Md.), 1:13:20 M55-59: Grzegorz Zgliczynski (Highlands Ranch, Colo.), 1:00:55 F60-64: Kelly Dippold (Irvine, Calif.), 1:09:34 M60-64: Tim Bradley (Merrick, N.Y.), 1:05:14 F65-69: James Huguenard (Louisville, Ky.), 1:09:16 M65-69: Cindy Lucking (Greer, S.C.), 1:28:22 F70-74: Cande Olsen (Morristown, N.J.), 1:31:21 M70-74: Jim Sumara (Jacksonville, Fla.), 1:18:43 F75-79: Ruth Hamilton (McLean, Va.), 1:44:38 M75-79: Bradley Price (Dallas, Texas), 1:21:06 F80-84: June Black (Austin, Texas), 2:02:07 M80-84: Arby Kitzman (Morro Bay, Calif.) 1:43:38

Overall Female: Kristen Doster (Green Bay, Wis.), 35:42 Overall Male: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 31:05 Masters Female: Sarah Newcomb-Baker (Kingston, Tenn.), 37:48 Masters Male: Andrew Kelsey (Hopkinton, Mass.), 33:11 Grandmasters Female: Lauren Jensen McGinniss (Muskego, Wis.), 39:48 Grandmasters Male: George Serbia (Irvine, Calif.), 38:47 Athena 55+: Billie Pate (Upland, Calif.), 1:28:48 Clydesdale 60+: Mark McKenzie (Choctaw, Okla.) 1:18:01 Athena 40-54: Leslie Battle (Warwick, R.I.), 52:18 Clydesdale 40-59: Lance Fargo (Ocean View, Del.), 44:21 Athena 39 and under: Ashley Miller (Urbandale, Iowa) 58:33 Clydesdale 39 and under: Kevin Gaston (Atlanta, Ga.), 51:45 F PC Open: Christine Wodke (Milwaukee, Wis.), 1:10:03 F15-19: Kennedy Rainwater (Brookfield, Wis.), 36:50 M15-19: Samuel Wen (Houston, Texas), 34:41 F20-24: Carolyn Hoover (Bethesda, N.Y.), 50:40 M20-24: Johnathan Dolan (Atascadero, Calif.), 31:37 F25-29: Alexandra Schwein (Broomfield, Colo.), 36:01 M25-29: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 31:05 F30-34: Kristen Doster (Green Bay, Wis.), 35:42 M30-34: Austin Tisch (Green Bay, Wis.), 38:52 F35-39: Megan Newton (Mesa, Ariz.), 41:12 M35-39: Carl Newton (Mesa, Ariz.), 36:54 F40-44: Sarah Newcomb-Baker (Kingston, Mass.), 37:48 M40-44: Adrian Cameron (Austin, Texas), 33:37 M45-49: Kirk Framke (Denver, Colo.), 33:31 F45-49: Jennifer Dehart (Green Bay, Wis.), 38:10 M50-54: Stephen Bosic (Waltham, Mass.), 34:22 F50-54: Georgiana Hedien (Beverly Hills, Calif.), 41:38 M55-59: Andrew Kelsey (Hopkinton, Mass.), 33:11 F55-59: Lauren Jensen McGinnis (Muskego, Wis.), 39:48 M60-64: George Serbia (Irvine, Calif.), 38:47 F60-64: Amy Rappaport (Califon, N.J.), 42:48 M65-69: Philip Friedman (Erie, Colo.), 39:22 F65-69: Susan Griffin-Kaklikian (Colorado Springs, Colo.), 44:14 M70-74: Steve Polley (Simi Valley, Calif.), 47:04 F70-74: Cande Olsen (Morristown, N.J.), 58:09 M75-79: Robert Plant (Woodside, Calif.), 48:54 F75-79: Susan Thompson (Fort Worth, Texas), 59:42 M80-84: Arby Kitzman (Morro Bay, Calif.), 1:00:33 F80-84: June Black (Austin, Texas), 1:14:08

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A r c h i Tr u j i l l o

Standard-Distance Duathlon National Championships

Draft-Legal Sprint Duathlon National Championships

Aquabike National Championships

10k run, 40k bike, 5k run

5k run, 20k bike, 3.3k run

1500m swim, 40k bike

Female Overall: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 2:06:45 Male Overall: Alex Arman (Boulder, Colo.), 1:51:13 Female Masters: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 2:06:45 Male Masters: Benjamin Drezek (Denton, Texas), 1:55:32 Female Grand Masters: Steph Popelar (Elizabeth, Colo.), 2:12:20 Male Grand Masters: Christian Evans (Glen Ellyn, Ill.), 2:06:06 Athena 55+: Billie Pate (Upland, Calif.), 4:55:31 Clydesdale 60+: Mike Savage (Geneva, Ill.), 2:40:40 Athena 40-54: Leslie Battle (Warwick, R.I.), 2:55:44 Clydesdale 40-59: Chris Worden (Indianapolis, Ind.), 2:27:49 Athena 39 & Under: Ashley Miller (Urbandale, Iowa), 3:27:41 F15-19: No competitors M15-19: Logan Talabock (Fort Worth, Texas), 2:15:14 F20-24: Carolyn Hoover (Bethesda, N.Y.), 2:36:06 M20-24: Johnathan Dolan (Atascadero, Calif.), 1:53:14 F25-29: Lotti Brinks (Austin, Texas), 2:13:22 M25-29: Preston Newsome (Brooklyn, Colo.), 2:01:01 F30-34: Imelda Muller (Panama City Beach, Fla.), 2:18:20 M30-34: Alex Arman (Boulder, Colo.), 1:51:13 F35-39: Stacy Osmond (Naperville, Ill.), 2:19:00 M35-39: Andrew Vos (Broomfield, Colo.), 1:51:38 F40-44: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 2:06:45 M40-44: Stephen Eles (Boulder, Colo.), 1:57:46 F45-49: Alison Raitt (Playa Del Rey, Calif.), 2:20:04 M45-49: Benjamin Drezek (Denton, Texas), 1:55:32 F50-54: Pauline Allen (Fayetteville, Ark.), 2:14:08 M50-54: Thomas Woods (Lincoln, Neb.), 1:57:23 F55-59: Steph Popelar (Elizabeth, Colo.), 2:12:20 M55-59: David Engstrom (Beaverton, Ore.), 1:59:50 F60-64: Amy Rappaport (Califon, N.J.), 2:29:52 M60-64: Christian Evans (Glen Ellyn, Ill.), 2:06:06 F65-69: Colleen Rebant (Ovilla, Texas), 2:37:24 M65-69: Tom Resh (Redlands, Calif.), 2:17:43 F70-74: Sharon Gerl (Eugene, Ore.), 2:59:23 M70-74: Jean-Pierre Bacle (Alexandria, Va.), 2:29:41 F75-79: No competitors M75-79: David Fraser (Trinidad, Calif.) 2:26:08 F80-84: Sharon Roggenbuck (Hillsborough, N.C.), 4:01:44 M80-84: Lockett Wood (Lyons, Colo.), 3:33:28

Female Overall: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 1:10:02 Male Overall: Todd Buckingham (Wyoming, Mich.), 57:49 Female Masters: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 1:10:02 Male Masters: Stephen Eles (Boulder, Colo.), 1:02:15 Female Grandmasters: Lauren Jensen McGinnis (Muskego, Wis.), 1:17:42 Male Grandmasters: Tim Bradley (Merrick, N.Y.), 1:05:04 Athena 55+: Billie Pate (Upland, Calif.), 2:37:18 Clydesdale 60+: Michael Demello (Vacaville, Calif.), 1:41:15 Athena 40-54: Stephanie Dupree (Fort Worth, Texas), 1:34:03 Clydesdale 40-54: Ariel Rodriguez (Pacoima, Calif.), 1:12:51 PC Open: Christine Wodke (Milwaukee, Wis.), 1:49:53 F15-19: Annika Peacock (Jackson, Wyo.), 1:15:50 M15-19: Brave Mays (Aubrey, Texas), 58:06 F20-24: Peyton Hall (Aledo, Texas), 1:13:15 M20-24: Matthew McGoey (Selinsgrove, Pa.), 1:01:48 F25-29: Brooke Beecher (Lakewood, Ohio), 1:29:50 M25-29: William Cottrell (Midlothian, Va.), 1:07:59 F30-34: Jennifer Peverelle (South Euclid, Ohio), 1:18:12 M30-34: Todd Buckingham (Wyoming, Mich.), 57:49 F35-39: Karoline Muehlfellner (Dunedin, Fla.), 1:12:49 M35-39: Andrew Vos (Broomfield, Colo.), 57:59 F40-44: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 1:10:02 M40-44: Stephen Eles (Boulder, Colo.), 1:02:15 F45-49: Kimberly Wikel (Milan, Ohio), 1:10:38 M45-49: Benjamin Drezek (Denton, Texas), 1:02:31 F50-54: Celia Dubey (Tarpon Springs, Fla.), 1:12:56 F50-54: Thomas Woods (Lincoln, Neb.), 1:05:01 F55-59: Lauren Jensen McGinnis (Muskego, Wis.), 1:17:42 M55-59: David Engstrom (Beaverton, Ore.), 1:03:10 F60-64: Sherry Rennard (Seal Beach, Calif.), 1:20:36 M60-64: Tim Bradley (Merrick, N.Y.), 1:05:04 F65-69: Patty Peoples-Resh (Redlands, Calif.), 1:21:43 M65-69: David Morrow (Tarpon Springs, Fla.), 1:15:45 F70-74: Sharon Gerl (Eugene, Ore.), 1:33:40 M70-74: Mike Morris (Terre Haute, Ind.), 1:26:41 F75-79: Ruth Hamilton (McLean, Va.), 1:53:12 M75-79: Wolf Hillesheim (El Sobrante, Calif.), 1:40:49 F80-84: June Black (Austin, Texas), 2:09:02 M80-84: Lockett Wood (Lyons, Colo.), 1:46:05 M85-89: Kenneth Fleischhacker (Littleton, Colo.), 1:22:25

Female Overall: Jenna Haufler (Mill Valley, Calif.), 1:24:29 Male Overall: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 1:14:15 Female Masters: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 1:29:20 Male Masters: Kurt Holt (Santa Rosa, Calif.), 1:18:45 Female Grand Masters: Kelly Dippold (Irvine, Calif.), 1:28:32 Male Grand Masters: Chip Grizzard (Lawrenceville, Ga.), 1:28:11 Athena 55+: Suzanne Mahler Brown (Cane Ridge, Tenn.), 1:58:03 Athena 40-54: Ande Wegner (Bourbonnais, Ill.), 1:39:41 Clydesdale 40-59: Lance Fargo (Ocean View, Del.), 1:32:00 Athena 39 and under: Rozanne Larsen (Washington, D.C.), 1:47:55 Clydesdale 39 and under: Kevin Gaston (Atlanta, Ga.), 1:49:11 F15-19: No participants M15-19: Rowan Raffner (Scarsdale, N.Y.), 1:32:38 F20-24: Reilly Schindler (Norfolk, Va.), 1:30:53 M20-24: Johnathan Dolan (Atascadero, Calif.), 1:18:52 F25-29: Jenna Haufler (Mill Valley, Calif.), 1:24:29 M25-29: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 1:14:15 F30-34: Meghan Henry (Yelm, Wash.), 1:27:00 M30-34: Saxby Stradinger (Oklahoma City, Okla.), 1:34:49 F35-39: Amber Smolik (Oklahoma City, Okla.), 1:25:06 M35-39: Phillip Young (Memphis, Tenn.), 1:25:04 F40-44: Kirsten Sass (McKenzie, Tenn.), 1:29:20 M40-44: Maarten Bout (Bloomington, Ind.), 1:22:18 F45-49: Ginger Reiner (Lincoln, Mass.), 1:32:36 M45-49: Kurt Holt (Santa Rosa, Calif.), 1:18:45 F50-54: Gayle Galletta (Shrewsbury, Mass.), 1:34:50 M50-54: Marcel Rinzler (Wildomar, Calif.), 1:23:24 F55-59: Lauren Jensen McGinnis (Muskego, Wis.), 1:32:38 M55-59: Michael Shaffer (Ventura, Calif.), 1:20:11 F60-64: Kelly Dippold (Irvine, Calif.), 1:28:32 M60-64: Chip Grizzard (Lawrenceville, Ga.), 1:28:11 F65-69: Susan Griffin-Kaklikian (Colorado Springs, Colo,), 1:41:32 M65-69: Robert Smartt (Boulder, Colo.), 1:30:07 F70-74: Sue Dejesus (Henrico, Va.), 1:51:22 M70-74: Rick Kozlowski (San Diego, Calif.), 1:31:50 F75-79: Sarah Artese (Gates Mills, Ohio), 1:56:33 M75-79: David Niles (Olympia, Wash.), 1:49:07 F80-84: Luise Easton (Westlake, Ohio), 2:49:58 M80-84: David Robinettte (Littleton, Colo.), 2:00:32

Irving, Texas, will again host the USA Triathlon Multisport National Championships Festival in 2023. U S A T R I AT H LO N M A G A Z I N E

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Age Group Mixed Relay National Championships 4x 250m swim, 5k bike, 1.2k run Overall Team Winner: Working Triathlete (Anthony Didion, Jenna Haufler, Miguel Mattox, Alex Leandri), 1:08:16 Overall Club: Working Triathlete (Anthony Didion, Jenna Haufler, Miguel Mattox, Alex Leandri), 1:08:16 Clydesdale & Athena: Can’t Stop the Reign (Kevin Gaston, Grace Coller, Lance Fargo, Leslie Battle), 1:33:30 100 & Under: Fort Worth TC (Hezekiah Martin, Ava Talabock, Hudson Hamilton, Peyton Hisel), 1:11:28 101-130: Working Triathlete (Anthony Didion, Jenna Haufler, Miguel Mattox, Alex Leandri), 1:08:16 131-160: Peak Multisport (Cameron Hamilton, Katie Gorczyca, Ken Axford, Alexandra Schwein), 1:09:04 161-190: Local Yokels (Ian Ray, Kara Brown, Shawn Bonsell, Chelsea Tiner), 1:13:43 191-220: Go Four It (Kirk Framke, Steph Popelar, Peter Valentyik, Alicia Caldwell), 1:12:49 221-250: Relay Fun (Dougin Walker, Jill Kralovanec, Tim Bradley, Celia Dubey), 1:16:33 251-280: Team Fab Four (Jim Aust, Tracy Disabato-Aust, Betty Janelle, Ernie Janelle), 1:25:55 281-310: That 70ish Team USA (Jim McGinnis, Billie Pate, Kelvin Coppock, Rosalind Jarrett Sepulveda), 1:29:11 311 and over: Octogenarian (Arby Kitzman, Marylynne Caruso, Ralph Ward, June Black) 2:03:13

Open Water Swim Competition 750m Overall Female: Averi Duncan (Lubbock, Texas), 11:28 Overall Male: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 9:49 Female 60 and over: Judy Bablok (Cleveland, Ohio), 12:26 Male 60 and over: Mike Margot (San Marcos, Texas), 11:59 Female 40-59: Susan Smith (Williamsport, Pa.), 11:43 Male 40-59: Dougin Walker (Tampa, Fla.), 10:11 Female: 15-39: Averi Duncan (Lubbock, Texas), 11:28 Male: 15-39: Miguel Mattox (Mill Valley, Calif.), 9:49 Female PC Open: Skyler Fisher (Dallas, Texas), 14:30 Male PC Open: Michael Smith (McKinney, Texas), 20:13

Olympic-Distance Triathlon (non-championship) 1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run Female Overall: Christine Warren (Tucson, Ariz.), 2:14:17 Male Overall: Jason Savill (Frisco, Texas), 2:10:04 Female 60+: Ingrid Gunilla Gard (Kerrville, Texas), 3:00:48 Male 60+: Peter Shafron (Mission Viejo, Calif.), 2:23:41 Female 40-59: Marcia Lima (Savannah, Texas), 2:28:22 Male 40-59: Jason Savill (Frisco, Texas), 2:10:04 Female 15-39: Christine Warren (Tucson, Ariz.), 2:14:17 Male 15-39: Lane Monroe (Lubbock, Texas), 2:10:11 Male PC: Trent Fielder (Burleson, Texas), 4:27:51

SUMMER 2022

Collegiate Club National Championships More than 1,000 of the nation’s top collegiate club triathletes competed for national titles over two days of racing at the 2022 USA Triathlon Collegiate Club National Championships April 1-2 in Lake Lanier, Georgia. Hosted by Empower Multisport, the event drew more than 60 collegiate clubs from across the country as Queens University of Charlotte won the overall club standings.

Collegiate Club National Championships April 1-2 | Lake Lanier, Ga. Draft-Legal Collegiate Championships 750m swim, 21k bike, 5k run Top Men’s Finishers 1. Ben Bettin (University of Colorado, Boulder): 57:58 2. Milan Tomlin (Queens University of Charlotte): 58:08 3. Jake Baugher (Queens University of Charlotte): 59:11 Top Women’s Finishers 1. Franca Henseleit (Queens University of Charlotte): 1:05:08 2. Kathyrn Kennedy (University of California-Berekely): 1:06:24 3. Gabrielle Trueblood (University of Colorado, Boulder): 1:07:06 Mixed Relay Collegiate Championships 250m swim, 5k bike, 1.2k run Top Team Finishers 1. Queens University of Charlotte: 1:08:46 2. United States Naval Academy: 1:10:36 3. University of Colorado, Boulder: 1:12:09

Olympic-Distance Collegiate Championships 600m swim, 41k bike, 10k run Top Men’s Finishers 1. Ben Bettin (University of Colorado, Boulder): 1:45:04 2. Jorge Alarcon (Queens University of Charlotte): 1:46:28 3. Alexander Mundt (Queens University of Charlotte): 1:48:59 Top Women’s Finishers 1. Kathryn Kennedy (University of California, Berkeley): 2:03:07 2. Sophie Tasker (United States Naval Academy): 2:05:43 3. Gabrielle Trueblood (University of Colorado, Boulder): 2:07:23 Overall Club Standings 1. Queens University of Charlotte: 100 points 2. University of Colorado, Boulder: 134 points 3. University of California, Berkeley: 147 points Women’s Club Standings 1. University of California, Berkeley: 39 points 2. University of Colorado, Boulder: 47points 3. Queens University of Charlotte: 75 points Men’s Club Standings 1. Queens University of Charlotte: 24 points 2. University of Colorado, Boulder: 76 points 3. University of California, Berkeley: 92 points

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USATRIKids

Zone3 Youth & Junior Nationals When July 30-31 Where West Chester, Ohio Who Youth athletes of all

experience levels! Info usatriathlon.org

Schedule July 30

Youth Age Groups 13-18 300m swim, 10k bike, 2.5k run Junior Elite 750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run Youth Elite 375m swim, 10k bike, 2.5k run

July 31 PC Open (Ages 7-18) 200m swim, 10k bike, 2k run Youth Age Groups 11-12 200m swim, 10k bike, 2k run Youth Age Groups 7-10 100m swim 5k bike, 1k run Mixed Relay 250m swim, 5k bike, 1.2k run Intellectual Impairment 200m swim, 10k bike, 2k run.

See you Soon The 2022 Zone3 Youth & Junior Nationals will be here soon! Taking place July 30-31 at Voice of America Park in West Chester, Ohio, Zone3 Youth & Junior Nationals is a celebration of multisport racing for youth athletes of all experience levels. Come participate in this fun and iconic event!

SUMMER 2022

A r c h i Tr u j i l l o

AT H L E T E S P O T L I G H T

How to deal with disappointment By TrueSport

Ellie Harlow

Rhys Ferrito

Age 11, Virginia

Age 11, Nevada

Why I love triathlon: The training, the races, and the ability to get faster each week. It is all so much fun! Most memorable triathlon moment: The first time I won nationals in Ohio when I was 7 years old. What three animals would make the best triathlon relay team? A sailfish, a kangaroo and a cheetah! My triathlon hero: My dad, because without him, I would have never been introduced to triathlon. My favorite race: The East Coast Triathlon Festival in Richmond, Virginia.

Why I love triathlon: It gives me something to look forward to every day I train for it Go-to post-race food: Bananas and apples Favorite Olympic or Paralympic athlete: Michael Phelps Advice for a new triathlete: It's a long race, so pace yourself Most memorable triathlon moment: Youth & Junior Nationals in August last year. I loved having my family there, and seeing my Dad so happy for me.

Share your answers! Send your answers to these questions to communications@ usatriathlon.org

Maybe you’ve heard your coach tell you to ‘walk it off’ or ’shake it off’ when something went wrong during a game or race, or you lost a critical competition. While that advice is usually coming from a well-intentioned place, unfortunately, it makes many athletes feel like it’s not right to feel sad, mad, or disappointed. But if you never feel disappointed, you’re missing out on an important emotional experience. That might sound strange at first, but disappointment can be a springboard to making progress and improving in sport (and in life). TrueSport Expert Kevin Chapman, PhD, clinical psychologist, shares ways to cope with and move beyond disappointment. FEEL YOUR FEELINGS “Dealing with anxiety, frustration, sadness, anger, disappointment, and so on is part of being an athlete,” Chapman says. “So first of all, normalize that at some point, you will have those feelings, but they aren’t bad.” MAKE DISAPPOINTMENT WORK FOR YOU “Ask the million-dollar question when you’re feeling disappointed,” says Chapman. “What did I learn today?” Being able to answer this question can change disappointment from a negative emotion into the fire to come back stronger in the next round. FOCUS ON THE PROCESS “Watch what happens to your outcome if you have a process-led mentality,” he adds. “Focusing on ‘What can I change?’ will lead to a better outcome.” Because process goals are oriented around things you can control, you won’t be disappointed as long as you’re putting in the effort. TALK TO YOUR COACH If you’re struggling to find three takeaways or things to work, but you’re still disappointed in your performance, give it some more time. Your coach will likely have picked up on some of the issues you’ve been having, and together, you can develop a process-focused plan to improve. WRITE IT OUT “Come up with five positive affirmations that you can tell yourself before, during, and after practices or competitions,” says Chapman. When coming up with affirmations or mantras, it’s important to focus on things that are related to your skills, where even if you have a bad performance, they can still be true. For example, statements like “I am fast” rather than “I will win” are more helpful.

Athletes of all skill levels and experience are invited to race at Zone3 Youth & Junior Nationals July 30-31 in West Chester, Ohio.

You can take this to the next level by writing them somewhere you’ll see often, and even putting a word or two like ‘fast’ or ’smooth’ on your equipment. You can also use a dry erase marker and write these affirmations on your mirror at home or draw them on a piece of posterboard and hang it above your bed so you can’t miss it. U S A T R I AT H LO N M A G A Z I N E

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Gear Up For Summer 2022 The products featured below are from partners of USA Triathlon Spring Energy Awesome Sauce $3.75 myspringenergy.com Company Says Spring Energy Awesome Sauce gel has been created for all the carb lovers who want to fuel in a healthy way, with wholesome products free of added sugars! Spring boasts a variety of natural flavors from strawberry and mango to peanut butter and coffee, as well as vegan options. Spring’s products include a combination of complex healthy carbs with low glycemic index, fats and proteins. Tester Says I Love Spring Energy Gels! I love the fact that these gels are real food, easily digestible and totally delicious. They are even vegan. I use Spring Energy Gels be-

ICON Meals $7-$13 iconmeals.com/usat Company Says ICON Meals is a leading meal delivery service with a mission to make healthy eating affordable, easy to access, delicious and nutritious. ICON’s menu of ready-to-eat meals, sides, snacks and clean seasonings features robust, nutrient-dense meals that are rotated weekly, including options for custom-made meals. Specially trained chefs create meals and snacks that allow people the freedom to enjoy food, without sacrificing health, food safety, quality, or individuality.

fore and/or during my morning swim, bikes and runs for sustained energy. They get me through my workouts without bonking. And bonus — they taste amazing! I also brought them along on a recent trip to Disney World for the family and they helped with the hangry. The Gist What makes Spring energy gels stand out is not only the great taste but how convenient they are. I love their size and how easily they fit, or even “mold” in your hand. It makes it so easy to take in on the go. In addition, they have a hole on the top so it can fit though a race bib or belt and easily be ripped off and ingested. Awesome design.

Tester Suzy Heffernan, 51, Cutchogue, New York

full of flavor and the broccoli was so juicy it made me think of home. The bacon, mushroom, omelet bowl, HANDS-DOWN, smelled the best and made me want to dig in. Seasonings were added to ribs, pork, and chicken and tasted wonderful. The Gist The food tasted like grandma prepared it in the other room. There were BOLD flavors, colorful plates, and meals were appealing to the eye. The popcorn snacks were to DIE for! The convenience and taste would bring me back for more. Tester Kimee Armour, 52, Auburn, Ill.

Tester Says The breakfast burrito was absolutely amazing. The cheesy ravioli was

Addaday BioZoom Edge $159.99 addaday.com Company Says The BioZoom Edge features Bluetooth technology that enables it to connect to the optional Addaday app, which guides you through tailored therapies to treat pain, mitigate injuries, prime the body for exercise and recovery, as well as aide in relaxation. Tester Says I was able to use the BioZoom Edge on myself and my husband (who is not an athlete) and it zeroed in on pain points and provided relief on those areas. It helped to loosen tight areas, before and after workouts. I was able to push harder during the workouts from the relief that was provided prior to and after workouts.

SUMMER 2022

The Gist I used this for daily recovery while training and enjoyed the variety of attachments that can be used interchangeably on the one device. The BioZoom Edge is a bit heavy to travel with, but good for regular daily use. Tester Kim Michael-Lee, 58, Bloomingdale, Ill.

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