Ironman Coaches React To Kona World Champs Carnage + Marathon Race Review

Kona strikes back! The 2025 Ironman World Champs was pure carnage. The pros called it just a battle for survival. The heat absolutely broke athletes, the coverage actually broke viewers, and we're here to unpack it all. From Solveig Lovseth's shock debut win to Lucien Taylor's battle in the inferno, we're going to discuss it all. Plus, it was Melbourne Marathon weekend this weekend, so we'll be reviewing my own race. And that— it's been an absolutely packed week all around the Ironman World Champs. Lombardi in the cycling with Pogačar riding in his first race back in the World Champs colors the second year in a row. It's standard distance World Champs happening in Wollongong right now, this whole next 4 days. And the Cycling Masters World Champs is happening in Australia as well, which we'll get to all of that. So it's a pretty jam-packed schedule this, this period.

Can't wait to get into this, George. There's lots to discuss.

Well, Kona strikes back again. What an intense day it was. All the pros just spoke about the heat just being absolutely brutal. It's particularly brutal, and it always is, but particularly brutal. And it had been a battle of survival.

I'd love to see some stats over the— I don't know, since 1980, about how the temperature and the humidity changes, because every year I don't just feel that people are always saying that was the worst conditions ever. Yeah. So does it mean that it's naturally going up in temperature and humidity? But there are some years where it's been really good conditions, but I think this was a particularly hard one. But, you know, I think that's one of the key topics that we want to discuss is the respect for this particular event on this particular course.

Yeah, I think the overall trend we're seeing is that pros are getting so good at racing Half Ironman and Ironman that they're racing, you know, it's becoming more like cycling racing in a sense of tactics and drafting and, and it's not just pick your pace and stick with it, which it's very triathlon, triathlon's very much been for a long time. But a lot of the media around it was, is, is coming from the race saying, oh, there's a lot of more talk around respect the event and respect the distance. And I laugh because you've just been trying to hammer that point home for years. You, you've said over and over, we could go back to every Ironman World Champs podcast we've done. Last few years, and you just keep saying Kona's a different beast. You've got to respect it. Uh, you know, you've been really hammering that message home. It's, it's the event hasn't changed, you know. And, and while the standard is getting much better, uh, yeah, you race the race at your own risk.

Yeah. And we've seen, you know, recently examples of that, you know, Gustav and Kristian getting first and second and then coming back. Kristian coming, what was he, 28th or something? Uh, just had the worst race of his life and and just didn't respect the event. And, um, and, and I say that flippantly, but I, I really mean in general terms, you know, if— what does that mean, disrespecting the event? It means you're, you're going outside of your level against the conditions of the day. And, and, you know, you may be as fit as you were one year as you are the next year, but because the conditions might be slightly different, that you, your body doesn't cope as well. And We know that all the work that Lucy Charles-Barclay did and Taylor did with preparation for heat and, you know, Lucy's won this race. So, you know, it's not like it's new to them. They know about this race. So, for them to have such a breakdown towards the end of the event is super disappointing for them. They've put a lot into this but to actually not get it right, and that's okay. You and I said this, we say this a lot, it's okay to make mistakes. But, but I don't like mistakes that have been made when there's no need to do that. I just think that's, that's the error. Um, when you know that this has got potential to derail your whole finishing, you know, to not even finish is, is really gone way past where you should have. And, and I think it's great that people are really shouting out kudos for them, so really putting themselves on the line and giving everything. But, you know, at the end of the day, they're not entertainers, they're athletes trying to earn a living and trying to, trying to, you know, create success in their own period of time that they're going to be— have a limited time to be a professional athlete, and you want to make the most of those events. And, you know, great, it's a great viewing thing for people to see people you know, pushing themselves to the absolute limit where they have to actually lie down on the road. I don't find that very entertaining at all. I find that sad and disappointing that someone— and I've done it, I've had to sit down in many events, and I'm disappointed in myself when that happens because I haven't respected my execution well enough to get me to the finish, you know. Going into an event where you don't finish, I've made a mistake somewhere. And, and this is the thing that I want to get across in this podcast, uh, you know, maybe to some pros, but to the main— main is to the, the age groupers where you just don't need to do that to yourself. It's self-preservation has to take a role in your execution. And I hate seeing people staggering around the road. It's just not— it's not a good sight to look at.

Yeah, to be clear, you're not saying you know, DNFing was the wrong call. And I want to talk about, you know, Reece making the call to take Lucy off course a bit later, because I think that was an incredible decision. But I really liked Taylor's comment after the race, uh, where they were asking her if she had regrets, and, and she initially said she didn't have regrets, which, which we thought was, um, I think it's not, not quite the right wording, you know. I think it's okay to say I do regret that decision, it was potentially the wrong decision at the time. But I liked what she followed up with where she said I made the best decision with the information I had at the time. And I think she was so well prepared that, you know, she was, she was measuring her, her temperature to the absolute point and trying— her race plan was to keep herself under heat control. You know, she was as well prepared as she could be for that, which I think is very, very impressive. You know, she took that to that extreme. Um, but she said at the time, the way I was feeling and the way I knew I could run, um, and what was coming. With all that information, I thought I could handle it. Turns out my body couldn't. She didn't know that. I think that's a really, really clever and just mature way to look at it, to go, look, I made what I thought was the best choice at the time. And she's not going to regret that when she— when she did think it was the best option.

Yeah, we've got to be super careful because we're, we're talking in hindsight, and we've said this a lot in our, in our 300+ episodes now, where it's easy to sit back and, and be super analytical about what happened and what should have happened and what they— but in the moment, that's, that's the hard part, is actually knowing the signs and symptoms, um, and, and being in tune with your body. Uh, and I'm not saying that you're not, I'm just saying this is, you know, when you don't finish the race, you've, you've made some big errors. Uh, and, you know, I'd like to dig into that a little bit about where I feel it kind of— it's not just one moment, it's an accumulation of things, decisions that you've made throughout the day that have led to this point. And, and I think a lot of people have sort of said, oh, Lucy and Taylor were actually starting to race each other on the road when they— we know, you know, Apolloni, Lucy passed Taylor and got a gap, and then Lucy started to slow down and Taylor caught back up and they were side by side, and they're coached by the same person, and So they should be prepared similarly. And, ah, that was almost a thought that I thought, ah, they both really didn't finish the race. And is there something that they've been doing in their programming or coaching or something that's actually— how can two of the most well-credentialed athletes actually not finish this race? So there's a lot to try and identify as to so that the age grouper doesn't make the same mistake as well. And I think That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to dissect the event so that it makes sense, because most people will say, well, how can the professionals actually get this so badly wrong that they don't finish? Yeah, that's kind of where I want to head down for a second or two.

Yeah, well, it's the tale of Kona. You know, it's been happening since its inception. You know, we've seen that footage over and over again, and the athletes at the top have that ability to push themselves so far. I was shocked that, you know, Taylor got to the point where she couldn't feel her legs, and so she kind of fell down. You know, her mind is, is further ahead than her body, which, which you can push yourself like that as an athlete, but she's pushed herself so far beyond. And, um, that's that mental strength of, you only got a couple of k to go, let's get there, and, and, um, the legs just gave out.

I, I totally agree that she is so well trained mentally. That's a really— that's a great trait to have, that, you know, even though your body is actually shutting down, you're so strong mentally that somehow you manage to keep moving forward. Um, and Lucy was doing the same thing, you know. She was walking through the aid stations and looked disastrous, and then she'd go back to a beautiful running style for another 2 minutes, and I was thinking, oh no, she's okay again. And then she'd stop and walk again, and then she'd start to, you know, really struggle to hold her balance. And Taylor was the same. But it's quite incredible, the mental strength that these athletes have, and I'm giving kudos for that. But I, I really think that, um, the examples I want to talk about of how, how you can do it at Kona compared to other events And I think Kona needs to be separated from other events. I think as a pro, you can race each other at a lot of other events where the, where the climate, not necessarily the terrain, the climate has such an impact. And, and you know, because you live in Bali, it's just similar, um, uh, on the world map, it's similar longitude or latitude. Um, you know, you, you've tried to train in those humidity and temperatures. And it's, it's quite debilitating that you can't actually, you know, get through a long run without having to stop 10 times. Whereas if you did that same long run, uh, in, you know, Perth or in Melbourne, you don't have to stop at all, pretty much, you know. And you can run literally 10 or 15 seconds quicker for lower heart rate. Um, so all of these factors, they, they have to be taken account of for this particular race in Kona in Hawaii. Yeah. And when you go to, you know, the European Champion Ironman Championships, Ironman, or you go to the Australian, or you go to the US, they're in different conditions and you can race differently. But when you go to Kona, it's been proven so many times, the person who stays in their ranges wins. There's very few people who win that race who actually go out of their ranges by a long way. The people who go out of their ranges end up having a really bad race and finish poorly, or they do the worst thing, which is not finish at all.

I did actually look up the, um, conditions to compare, and, um, '25, the year 2025, this year, um, was about average for the heat and humidity in terms of temperature. Um, the peak recorded, um, and look, don't quote me on this, I did my best, you know, research and trying to use ChatGPT, which isn't always accurate, and trying to refine to make sure it is accurate, but it thought that 2015 was the absolute highest peak and humidity around, um, 80%, um, compared to this year was the humidity was more around, um, lower 70s, um, percent. Um, every single year it's, it's somewhere between 70-80% humidity and, and within a range of, of 5 to 8 degrees of temperature. Um, but yeah, the highest recorded above 2025 in this list are 2015, 2018, 2019. So that's interesting data as well.

Yeah, certainly is. And look, different aspects of the course, like the Energy Lab, has a different temperature. And when you're on the main, the highway, you certainly have periods where there's no wind when you're in the dips. And when you're on the highest points, you're getting a little bit of the breeze because there is a definite sea breeze, especially for those who've experienced the trip from Hawi back to Kona. It's a brutally tough headwind. And that's the cooling effect you get on the bike, which is when you get off the bike, you all of a sudden get that realization of the— you are in an oven. When you're on the bike, you get that— you're getting that breeze cooling you, cooling your skin. You've got this cooling effect because you're going so fast. You're going 30, 40 k's an hour, the majority of riders, whereas as a runner, you know, you could be running between 10 and 20 k's an hour. Which you're getting far less, cooling from the actual natural surrounds. So you tend to overheat quicker when you get less cooling. The cooling effect on the, the skin surface is, is phenomenal, and it's super important. That's why athletes are always trying to keep their core temperature down by dousing their body in cold water or ice. And, and so I think, you know, I would, as I said at the start, you know, the conditions are always gonna be tough, and you have to respect that. And And so I think you need to think about your bike, your swim bike, and run differently at Kona than any other event. That's my main point.

Yeah.

Yep.

That's brilliant. And that is definitely the limitation with, with getting some, some average data because it's just an average of the day and, and the location. But, on average, if it's slightly higher, you know, the Energy Lab will be hotter in general and, and down. But there is limitation there. I think what you're talking about with the, staying in the ranges, and we'll get to the athletes that, that did that, is, is so, so critical. We saw it last year in the men's race at Kona. The exact same carnage happened. There was so much talk pre-race about racing each other, and Sam Laidlow went out to set the fastest, you know, bike course possible, and then the rest of the pack wanted to give him as little possible time on the run, and so they, they rode with him, and half the field overrode, overheated, and capitulated, and the winner Patrick Lange stuck to his own race. It was the same as Cat Matthews this year, so we'll talk about that. I just want to, um, touch on the, um, the Lucy and Taylor, uh, blow-up and DNF. You know, there's— I've seen a lot of talk around, you know, what happened, or, or trying to, um understand it. I think they've been pretty clear in their interviews, and I mean, it was pretty clear visually, like, they overheated. You know, often as athletes, we try and look for all these complicated reasons, but it's simple as that. Their body overheated in the conditions. Now, they would want to be working out with their coaches and their team where that happened. You know, did it happen on the bike? Was the bike fractionally too hard? Did it happen in sections of the bike where they held too high power for a 30 or 40-minute block and that put them into the red zone? Was the bike actually okay and it happened early in the run? So that would be the next level of dissection. But it is, it's quite clear that, yeah, the body, was overdone at some point, and I'd just like to know, you know, where that broke down for them.

Yeah. And look, if you, if you look at the bike split times, you know, over the years, if you're gonna continually improve and set new records on the bike, then clearly you're setting a new standard. And, and at Kona, if you, if you are going way above your level, it, it, it is a triathlon, remember. If you're riding too hard, it's going to have an impact on your run. We know that whether you're at a normal temperature event or whether you're at Kona. But you still need to respect that, you know, I can't actually do the ride that I want to because it will affect me at Kona because of the temperature. And if your temperature is rising slowly on the bike, and I think Taylor had measurements of that all the way around the whole course. She was measuring her core temperature. But don't underestimate, you know, how riding a little bit harder here and there is gonna raise your heart rate if you're averaging 165 and you normally average 158 as your heart rate for 180k, that has an impact down the track. You know, it— you can't just drop it by, by, by slowing, slowing down. You've actually got it to a level already where it's not going to drop very quickly because the temperature won't allow it.

So this is the point I really want to hone in on because I want to talk about the bike times, but the actual breakdown, because a lot of people will just look at the end result of the time and say draw conclusions from it. So the first conclusion might be they're riding really fast, they're riding as fast as they ever have, you know, 4:31, 4:32, 4:33 for the bike. But you can't just look at the end time and decipher whether they overrode or not, because how they got that time is really, really important. So in 2023, Lucy still ran a, rode a 4:30, 4:32. And so she's ridden a 4:33 here with a 1-minute penalty. I think that's right. And Taylor in 2023 rode 4:34 and she's ridden 4:31 here. So, so they're within their range, you know, they haven't completely overridden. The rest of the field are still in the, in the 4:40s and, and below essentially. Um, so yes, they're riding a lot quicker. Um, but you know, Lucy basically up until the marathon, um, was identical timing to her 2023 win. She's from the exact same time, she rode the exact same time, um, yet still overheated. So it's a really important point to remember. That how you got that is really important. So if we had access to the data, that would be really cool to see. Was her best 20 minutes way above, you know, what she did in 2023 and that overcooked her? Was her best 60 minutes way above because for trying to, to catch someone or, or stay away, etc.? Um, and we, we just don't have access to that data. We do have access, um, to, um, Solveig's, um, power data, and her best 10 minutes was only 20 watts above her average power for the whole day. So that's a really, really good piece of data that she was barely going up far above her average for the day and was only for 10 minutes. You know, so that's, that's a really good sign that she rode evenly and consistently and backs up kind of how she performed the whole day. I think that's really, really cool data.

And Patrick Lange was, is another example of that as well. And, uh, Kasper at Nice was another example of that. You know, people staying in their ranges on the bike so that they can actually run quite well. And we don't have the data, so But I can imagine, like, when Lucy got that 1-minute penalty, she would have had to try to bridge back again and try to get back in the race. So they're things, you know, we— how you execute, you know, we— that's one of the things that we would analyze in our coaching program about athletes, you know. You know, we've said many times an athlete could average 200 watts if that was their goal, and they've ticked that box. But when we dig into it, they rode 50% of it at 250 and 50% of it at 150. They still got 200 watts. So there's different ways to, you know, to, to measure how the effort, actually, played out. And I really believe that if we dug into the data, we would see, you know, sections where they're riding too hard. And remember, a lot of the times in, in most of these races, they're in a group situation. So they're getting a lot more recovery. Whereas these girls were quite alone. They were riding, you know, pretty much majority of the ride by themselves. And Solveig, by the time she got to halfway, there was no one behind her. So, you know, she pretty much rode the whole course by herself. And, you know, she's actually stayed in her ranges and run the similar way, but it's just the people in front of her have, you know, faded. So it's, it's all didn't finish. So, you know, there's so many ways you can dissect the data that we don't have access to, but we're just trying to give an idea to the everyday athlete out there about how impactful that is on your own performance. And if, you know, if you don't respect that you're riding a little bit harder and your heart rate will rise, your core body temperature will rise, and then when you get into a running situation where it's— you're getting less cooling than you normally have, you have to adjust your times. And so you have to adjust your running times down. And I think Solveig was still 6 minutes slower than her PB marathon time from her last Ironman. Would that be right, Gerard? I think she ran 2:48.

Yeah, 10 minutes slower she was. She ran 2:46. Yeah.

Yeah, 2:46, and she's run 2:56.

Yeah.

So, so that's a, that's a great example of someone who's not trying to run any faster because they're, you know, they've got a really good Well, I'm presuming she's got a really good understanding of what her limitations were on the day. She actually executed the best out of everybody. That's why she won. Because she really, I think, you know, we know that in other Ironman, she can run 2:46, yet she didn't run at that pace. And so, you know, they're examples of what we're talking about. So as an age grouper, if you go to the run in this race and expect to run exactly the same pace that you have in other races, you're going to get caught out. And, you know, that might work for a really small percentage of people. And there'll be people out there listening say, well, I did do that. Well, I would say kudos to you. You're in the few percent that can do that because, uh, there's, there's ample evidence that we've got that you and I have looked at that people just don't run the same in the marathon that they do. Ironically, we had two Trivela athletes last year in the male race who ran, who competed within 3 minutes of their qualifying time in the race, uh, overall.

Super impressive. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and that's, that's really great preparation, but, but great execution. They executed to a tee. Yeah. Yep.

And look, uh, so far Lucy's come out and said that everything seemed to be on track, you know, all nutrition, um, all, all, um, effort felt the same, and, uh, and there was no evidence of feeling overcooked. Um, and so sometimes that could also happen. We do have to acknowledge that, that For some reason on that day, the body didn't respond well. Um, something slightly off in the tape or whatever, you know, for some reason, just same power, same output, body didn't respond as well on that. And that is the nature of Ironman. We talk about that all the time. It's a, it's a freaking 9-hour race, you know, stuff is going to happen. Like, it's, it's hard to get it absolutely perfect. And, or maybe it was that, you know, that the 10-minute peak power was through the Energy Lab when it was the hottest, and that was, that was a mistake. So yeah, we We're just trying to point out these, these reasons it could have been, and just a broader way to think about these things.

Another example could be, look, when Lucy caught Taylor, it happened to be on Palani Hill, and I think that, that was unlucky. And some people might have said, oh, that was good because she was able to get past her really quickly, but she could have actually accelerated up that hill too much, and that could have been just, just the tipping point from the accumulation of other things where she's had the time penalty, tried to catch up etc., etc. All these little one percenters, and they all add up to a point where it could have been the last straw. You know, she's made this big effort at Palani to pass Taylor, and that could have sent her over the edge, and there's no coming back from that. And then when Taylor caught back up, they're both competitors. We talked about that earlier. They could be pushing each other a little bit too much there, and that could cause them both to be blowing up, um, where one's not going to give, you know. Obviously one, one was running slower than the other. That's why they got past. And then for the other person, Lucy, who's now in front of Taylor, slows down enough that Taylor actually catches back up. And Lucy's competitive nature is she's not going to let her go this time. She's going to try and stay with her. So all of those scenarios could have the impact that they both blew themselves up by competing against each other. Hmm.

One thing that's a little bit frustrating, it's not worth talking about too long, is the Ironman coverage still just frustrates the hell out of me. They just, they haven't got it right. It's the same. There's a lot of complaints about this, but it's just really hard to figure out what's going on all the time in the race and who is where. And then suddenly someone will appear out of nowhere and you've had no coverage of them. You don't know where they've been. You know, they do need to take a leaf out of pro cycling's book. You know, the Tour de France, it's so obvious all the time what the gaps are, what speed the breakaway is riding, what speed the peloton is riding, the chase groups. It's all very, very clear. So not only do they need time gaps, but they also need current pace or current speeds. You know, not always helpful because they're on different sections. But we just need a little bit more data, a little bit more coverage, so potentially more cameras to just really be tracking everyone quite specifically. Because you end up after the race, I'm trawling through race interviews to try and figure out what's this person's story, what's that person's story, because you can't really figure it out just by watching or looking at the times.

We've been spoiled by the T100. The T100 gives us the pace of every single athlete that they're running at. It is absolutely brilliant. That gives them the speed of what they're riding at. We don't see power a lot, but we see the speed the bike's running at and the pace the athlete's running at. And so, look, the example I gave of, uh, Taylor and, um, Lucy racing each other on that marathon, I just had flashbacks of, uh, Gustav and Kristian doing the same thing to themselves while Kasper dropped off. And then those two blew each other up and Kasper waltzes past them to win the race.

Yeah.

Um, you know, that the same scenario happened And that wasn't even at Kona, that was at Nice where it wasn't— it was still very hot but not the same conditions. So an example of professional athletes racing each other, and I'm not saying don't race, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying you have to be very careful about risking going above your pace in a marathon in an Ironman.

And this is— it's such a fine line for the, you know, for the two athletes going for the world title. You know, you'd argue that if anyone's going to race, it's them, but even then, it's just they're treading such that fine line the whole time. And I love what you spoke about before about different conditions. You know, around the world we're seeing more and more Ironman athletes be able to actually race each other with tactics and they can, they can just get away with it. But you're treading such a fine line. They're going for a world title, just that little bit over, and look at the result. It was just devastating for their bodies. But I want to focus on the winner, Solveig Lovseth. You'd be forgiven if you don't know much about her because realistically she's 26 years old. She's only done 9 long course races in her career so far, and more than half of them were this year. You know, she won her first 70.3 was in 2023. She had 2 half Ironmans in 2024. She debuted in the Ironman this year. She's done 3 this year, 3 Ironmans this year. And so her first was this year. She did one more in preparation, second European champs, which is a pretty incredible start to her career. And then debut world champion. She's not a— she hasn't come from nowhere. She's been part of the Norwegian group. She's been an ITU athlete, successful ITU athlete, part of the gold medal mixed relay team. Part of that Norwegian crew that have— and Croft— that have come through. And wow, that's a domination. First, second, third in the men and first in the women's. But boy, what a debut and what an execution.

Yeah, and look, I love this statistic that every Norwegian's debut has been a victory at the World Championships.

It's insane.

Kasper's first race, he won. Gustav's first race at a world title, he won. Christian won the first race, and now, um, she's won. And I, like, I, I feel a little bit, um, like she didn't get to savor the moment much because she only really won from 4K to the finish. And so at that point, she was, uh, for the majority of the race, she was third. And, and probably the interviews I watched with her very happy to be on the podium. And then, you know, disappointing as it was for Lucy to kind of have to be pulled off the course, she's now second. And then she comes up to Taylor, who's sitting on the ground, and now I'm first. And like, that had to sink in very quickly, and she had to actually monitor her effort because there was news that Kat Matthews was flying. And, and she had to make decisions about what to do about her pace. And she was getting a lot of information, which is really helpful so that she could measure her effort, which I think she did really well. She only won by 35 seconds, which is the 3rd closest result in the history of Ironman at Kona. And, and it doesn't matter whether you win by 5 seconds or 1 second or 35 seconds or 10 minutes, you know, as long as you're keep crossing the line first. That's all that matters. And, and I think, I think it was a real credit for her, uh, mental strength to hold it all together. Um, it could be easy for you to just try to pick up your pace, and, and who knows, if you had— if she had done that, was she going to be the one sitting on the ground next? You know? So I think she did a great job in— actually, her whole race was just fantastic. And she should be one really proud lady who's got the biggest result of her career.

Yeah, look, Lucy and Taylor DNFing was a little bit of a blessing in disguise for Solveig and Kat Matthews because they hear that on course and it's just a direct reminder to them that, oh wow, that could happen to me at any point. I need to control myself here. And it probably forced them to just pull back slightly and stay in their range. You never know, they might have done the same thing and it could have been even more people DNFing, but that news, you know, while unfortunate for Lucy and Taylor, I think definitely would've played a part in their mindset in getting over the line. And incredible day. She ended up with the fastest bike split because Taylor was faster, but you can't count the bike split if you DNF. So yeah, that's definitely the fastest bike split. And the point before you said, you know, her riding solo, she spoke about pulling a turn around halfway. And this is the part I love, and I've heard pro athletes talk about Um, the fact that when you pull turns, it start— becomes slightly over-under riding because you go to the front and you're expected to keep the pace up, um, and pull your turn, and that requires more watts from you. And I'm interested to know your thoughts on this. Um, but it seems like she went to the front and just pulled her own power in her own range of what she could hold, and it just happened to be that the others couldn't hold it. You know, it was too strong for them, so she turned around waiting for someone to come through and there was no one there. Um, but that's how to stay on the front, I would say, in a triathlon, is, is don't go over your range just because you're on the front. There's No one's asking you to do that. That's your choice. Don't blow yourself up for the sake of the pack. They were staying in your range and just do that.

It's not a team's time trial. And then, you know, if you, if you end up on the front, you should not be doing anything different. That's, you know, my job is now not to pull this, this group of people along unless you're chasing someone, unless you want to be part of that chase group where you are actually trying to make inroads. If that's the decision you've made that you want to make in roads, then sure, ride to the top of your range. But that's got consequences, and we know that. But if you're— if you're at the front of the race already, I would be questioning why the hell are you at the front? But you could be saying, well, there's some really good runners back there, and I'm not as good a runner as those, so I need to strategically keep the pace up. So there are some tactics that you need to think about. But generally your whole mindset should be to do the least amount of work in that situation, a la Patrick Lange last year. And I think, uh, if we, you know, Solveig's pace might have been too good for the people that were, that were with her, and they may have made good decisions, Jordan. And I think that's important to understand as well, that they made those good decisions to drop off because that was a pace that they couldn't sustain. And I think Kat Matthews You know, when she got the news that she was now second and chasing down first, she just threw everything at it. I just loved the way she was running. It was absolutely brilliant to watch, and I'd love to see her last 2 or 3K. Oh my goodness, she was flying. Watching it on telly, it was super inspiring, and I was thinking, Solveig, you better not just be high-fiving people because she is coming. And I was thinking, oh God, you're on the podium here on the finish line. Ramp and you're walking across the finish line, I'm thinking, she's literally 30 seconds away from you. That's like a nightmare I'm having in a dream when I, you know, I'm trying to get myself across the finish line but I don't quite make it in a dream. Um, so yeah, it was, uh, it was pretty interesting. I just loved that finish. It was— yeah, that was great.

We have to give Kat her kudos. Just a controlled, composed race where she stayed in her lane and she spoke about taking inspiration from Patrick Léonard and just running your own race and, and, and the nature of the race. And you can't count yourself out. And she admitted that she, she kind of thought coming out of T1 that, oh, she's a bit too far back from the pack and maybe it's not her day. But you just can't let yourself think that because the day is so long and anything can happen. Um, I do want to start with a bit of a quote that she said, which is really what you're talking about the whole start of this episode. She said, I feel quite passionate about the seriousness that with which we should take the heat. I'm not sure we take it seriously enough, and it was kind of what you were talking about at the start where it's really quite dangerous and, and you don't want to get into that position where you, where you overcook yourself. And we don't want it to be, you know, for the sake of entertainment, athletes going that far. Um, it's, it's going to happen. It's just the nature of the race. It's absolutely brutal. But, you know, her controlled execution, just, it's like the classic tortoise and the hare. She just stayed as the tortoise and kept going along at her pace, and she ended up 35 seconds away from the world title.

I think it's a great story. I'm such a Kat Matthews fan. I think she does everything really well, and she really emulates our philosophy, which is probably why I like her so much. But I like her personality. She's so happy about being able to compete at that level and has great gratitude, which is what we really push and emphasize in our podcast. Um, but she's a great competitor and she just wants to stay in her ranges, and, and she finds it hard to believe that she can be so far behind when she feels like she's quite a good, talented athlete. It's— she's literally 15 minutes behind, and, and she's saying, oh, I'm not part of it, I'm just not part of the race anymore. And she— that's the— that was the disappointing thing she was thinking. And she said it's been in a few races it's happened. She's not part of the race, and all of a sudden she wins or she's second. And she's— that the one thing she was saying is, I've learned that, that I just stay within my ranges. The reason I'm not part of the race is because they're, they're not that much better than me, but they're riding outside their ranges, and it will have a consequence eventually. It may not mean that I can win, but I will still be competitive if I just trust the process. Yeah.

The other part we love that really represents kind of Traveller principles is her coach, you know, put out a really interesting some really interesting data on their programming, and she does no fast running. Now, what was so interesting about this— we speak about this all the time on the podcast— you don't need to run fast to run well. She's running really, really well. She's running unbelievably— a 2:48 run course record marathon in Kona in that heat. Unbelievable. I was watching, I was watching the, um, the run unfold post-marathon, feeling, you know, because it was right— it was the middle of the night for us, and then by the time the run leg started I just finished the marathon and, and I was just feeling— I could barely walk and I was feeling pretty sick and I was watching Lucy Dinaev like, oh, I feel you here. I just run it, you know, fresh. You guys are trying to run the marathon off the bike. It's just, you can't believe she's— Kat's run a 2:48 off the bike there.

She looked like she was in a different race. Yeah, the way she was running down Palani. Oh my goodness, I thought she was going to fall over, she was running so fast. She must have massive doms on her quads after that. She was flying down there. I think she caught up about 2 and a half minutes in 1.5k.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Sorbet wasn't running slow. It was super impressive. And she would probably look back quietly, privately saying, oh, maybe I could have started a little bit earlier there. But, you know, I don't think she's got it. Oh, when she had the interview, she had no regrets. She was super happy.

What we, what did we just say? You start earlier and you end up blowing up. So yeah, it could, she could have timed it perfectly. But the interesting point about the no fast running, we talk about this all the time. You don't need to run fast in triathlon to race fast. You know, you can get a lot of your intensity from the bike and, and very little from running and just get the volume. But her coach, I mean, I think we're quite conservative on the running side. I think we're conservative the most and we highlight that a lot. Her coach has gone a step further than us and he he gets her doing absolutely zero hard running and, and not even that long running either. You know, he says that her long runs don't really go over 2 hours, which I guess her marathon's 2 hours 50, so it's, there's a little bit less of a gap compared to if you have to run a 4-hour marathon. You do need your long runs up there, but, uh, he just said we get all of her intensity and volume off the bike and it's way less risky. And that's his approach, which I just found fascinating.

Yeah, and, uh, I don't think a lot of people are hearing when you say that, Gerard. We say it so often we get our intensity from the bike, and we really train hard on the bike. That's not to say every session's hard. I'm talking about triathlons here. Because, you know, you've really only got 3 key sessions as a triathlete. You know, your long— your long ride, or whether it's race-ready long ride, or whether it's, you know, hills or undulations endurance. But the other 2 sessions are particularly hard, and you're entering into VO2 and/or threshold. So you're in that zone 4, 5, 6 region. So your cardiovascular system is really under pressure. And people forget that, that your heart and lungs are, are really highly trained, whether you're swimming, riding, or running. The heart and lungs are what allows you to keep your breathing under control, get the blood pumping around to deliver the oxygen to the working muscles. And if you're doing that as a rider, you know, as long as your skeletal system and your muscular system, tendons, ligaments, as a runner are strong enough, you will be able to run as fast as you want because your cardiovascular system isn't the limiter. Normally that is the limiter. You can't keep the breathing up, supply the oxygen fast enough to running fast. But if you're getting that from swimming and from riding, all you need to do is have a strong, robust skeletal muscular system to allow you to run the way you want. And I can't say that enough. I've said it so many times over the years, and it just keeps being proven right. And, you know, your preparation, as we talked about, for the marathon— you did a 5K PB in a marathon prep. That's unheard of.

Yeah, such an important point. And I think even for me, this is still surprising, the gap of, you know, barely running many long runs and running, you know, up to 2 hours max you still have to have the musculoskeletal strength and adaption to run for 2 hours 50, which is what she did. You know, that's, that's still a big gap. So that's still so surprising. We know that the pros nowadays have a really strong strength and conditioning program, and that would make a big difference as well. But she just must be very well trained to be able to do that and step up, um, without needing those long runs. I don't think— I think that's a little bit of anomaly. I don't think many age groupers could have that extreme gap, but it is very interesting nonetheless. But the last point I wanted to touch on her because I just thought she was brilliant in her post-race interviews. Uh, you know, she's been second many times, and that could— you can almost be looking at that as like, oh, I keep coming second, I'm not, I'm not quite winning. And she had a great reframe, you know. She, she was second at St. George, second in Nice, second here, and she said, I'm actually, I'm, I'm thriving being this competitive every single time, you know. Her reframe was she doesn't accept second place as a failure but as proof of consistency. And she's right there. I just thought that's brilliant because you could go the other way and just think, oh, can't win. It could be a bit of a monkey on the back, which, remember, it started to be that for Lucy year on year. She, she had a lot of the same thing, and it was starting to become a bit of a monkey on the back. And, and, oh, what's the curse of Lucy? She just can't win. Um, and that's just the poor, the poor way to look at it. You know, you're right there, you're not very far away from winning, proven by a 35-second gap.

Yeah, that's the, that's the way you should be thinking of it, not the half glass empty. Half glass full is far out. Every time I'm second or third or fourth or fifth, I am so close to knocking on the door of my elusive victory. And I can talk about Wout van Aert. He's had 200 seconds. Peter Sagan had 250 seconds plus his 100 wins. You know, you know, add them all together and you're on the podium 300 or 400 times. It just— every time you're racing, you're an opportunity to win. And not everybody can win every time. So I think it's a great attitude and, and it's the way to think about it, you know. I'm performing well, I'm happy with my, my preparation, I'm happy with my execution. There's just someone better than me today, but I, I can work harder now to try and do that. And she will have some breakthrough, uh, periods, you watch, because of all this. It's almost like an apprenticeship she's doing, getting close. And then once, what, you know, once you start winning, winning, winning becomes a habit, and, and you get confidence from that. So I, I'm, yeah, I love her attitude about that, and I think that's the way to look at it.

The last thing I want to talk about for the races is just the, um, the emotion around, um, Reece pulling Lucy off course. So if you weren't aware, the big power couple— Reece is her coach and her husband, um, and they're incredibly close and they have such a relationship that a lot of people look up to on social media because they, they provide a lot of vlogs, etc., for everyone to see. And, and I think that he put out a great post which is really worth reading, where he just said, you know, this is— we, we design our lives around this race. This is everything that we possibly dream of. And so, you know, you would think that the decision might be hard to pull her off course, but he said it was the easiest decision in the world as a husband. And I think you made this point last week in, in the 300 Lessons episode, you know, stop putting the race above yourselves, especially for age groupers. You know, there's always another race. And if— I think if, you know, Reece and Lucy can do it in this situation with the world title on the line, which is, which is all they want and all pro athletes, you know, this is everything they revolve around. I think if they can do it, then the age groupers can do it as well. And I don't think any race is above— is above someone's health and safety.

It's hard to— it's hard to put that into context unless you've been in that situation. And, um, and look, the care factor for your health and well-being is far above any race. There's going to be another 40 Kona Ironmans in the next 40 years. Um, are you going to be a part of that? Maybe yes, maybe not. But, you know, you wanna still be a fit and healthy human being. And don't underestimate how going that deep to the well has an impact on your body and your future as an athlete. You wouldn't wanna do that to yourself very often. That, that is going way beyond where your natural body should, should be put under that amount of stress and load. And I've done it myself. And I, you know, I've I've had a situation where I've been delirious and fell off my bike. It's not a healthy thing to do, and you want to, you know, you want to rein in your mental toughness a bit and sort of say, this is a little bit going too far here. And I think I applaud them for making good decisions. Taylor's was out of her hands, but I think Lucy's was as well, but she would have ended up like Taylor. There's no doubt. So yeah, it— we just want to really reach out to all the age groupers to say, look, it's, it's meant to be a fun and enjoyable experience. And when we're differentiating here between professionals and the everyday racer, um, and there's no need to do that to yourself. Sure, it's important, it means everything to you. You've put a lot of money and a lot of time, a lot of emotion, um, impacted on family, um, so you want to do well. But not at the detriment of your own personal health and safety.

It was when I first saw the, you know, Lucy stumbling around trying to get ice on herself and she wasn't well. I felt sick to my stomach watching it. It's not good to watch. And then my first emotion when the news came through Reese has pulled her off was relief. And it's just like, as a spectator, you're going, oh, that's the right call. Because you're just going, oh, this is not looking good and you don't want to see it go further. So Yeah, that was really relieving to see.

I just remember, I think we have talked about this a bit, uh, seeing some of the marathon races over the years at the Olympics where athletes coming into the stadium staggering, and you just, you just want to go, someone help them! And then, but if someone does help them, that disqualifies them. So, so there's that dilemma as well, you know, but you just don't want to see it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly right. At the same time that was all unfolding, you and I were having a bit of a fun time, um, running and riding around Melbourne for the the Melbourne Marathon. And so I was running the race and you were on your bike cutting through, uh, different parts of the course and, and riding around. And, and it was great to have your support. It was fun to do a home race, um, with a lot of family and friends on support. But, um, get to have you ride along sections, it was a, it's a nice open course where, where that's possible for some sections. Other sections a little bit hard, you were riding in between tram tracks and that kind of thing, trying to, trying to get back up. But, uh, yeah, we're going to go through a bit of a race review for the goal race of the year and, and, and the lead-up. We've been taking everyone on the journey of the lead-up and everything kind of came together on race morning. And then the last thing to do was to execute the day. And it was as expected with a marathon, an endurance event, a roller coaster day with, with some big surprises that to come of it. And, and yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, I must say I was always interested to see how you would go in on an event that you'd never done before. And the first time at anything has always got that feeling of I'm not quite sure about the outcome here because I've never done this before. And I said that to you afterwards. I said, look, you know, now you've done one, you've got that experience, you know, under your, under your, uh, your belt. And from this point on, you know, there's so many examples I can show you of people have done their first marathon and then all of a sudden they're so much faster the next marathon, then they're faster again. And it doesn't really mean that they've trained any better. It just means that they've, they've experienced the event. You get better at things you do repeatedly. And so, um, you know, the muscular endurance factor that you get from doing a lot of these events over years can't be underestimated. And I think that was probably the limiter for you, was that you hadn't really pushed yourself at that level. You'd done all the right training, but you hadn't experienced that muscular endurance fatigue. That we talk about, and that nearly brought you undone, but you managed to rally and, and really do a good job.

Yeah, and I want to take it back to the actual decision to do a marathon because it's, it's been such a funny journey for me. I've resisted it for so long, and I think, um, I think because you were, you were an Ironman athlete, I just, I knew what it was from such a young age, and I just never had any interest in it. And the same thing with the marathon, and I, I, everyone's always asking my whole life, how many marathons have you done, you know? And they're so shocked whenever I say none. And I, I've always just congruently said none because I just haven't had an interest in it because I know the training that it takes for it, you know, once you step up to that. Um, and I know the, the commitment it takes to, you know, to do that running volume. And if I was going to do it, I want to do it well. Um, in terms of I want to, I want to run it as fast as I can. Um, for me, the goal wasn't completion. Um, that was never, um, a goal. It was, it was, it was a time-based goal. And so, uh, you know, I knew that it would, it would come, the motivation would come at some point. And then with the running boom as well, I think a lot of people who aren't running friends would start doing more running marathons, and they'd go, how many have you done? What can you do for a marathon? And I go, that's not— hasn't interested me. But then yeah, something finally clicked last year. I said, no, I'm ready, I'm ready for the training, I'm ready for the race. And, and so, but I knew we had to start early because to make that jump from, from, you know, being able to do, um, quick half marathons well, you've got to train your body and give yourself enough time to get to that next level of marathon. And we knew it was gonna be a battle to, to get the body ready to, for the full 42K. And, and, uh, yeah, we'll go through now how, how it all played out. But, um, we set the pace of, you know, the goal, the goal range was 3:40 to 3:45 pace. Um, 3:45 was at the bottom end and, and what we thought was possible. We thought on a good day could go fractionally quicker. Um, but started out at that and, and as expected, um, with the full taper, fresh legs, pace felt really comfortable. Um, And first 10K was, I think we averaged 3:43 for the first 10K. Um, and it was, and potentially fractionally quicker than I wanted. Um, but made a decision because around that 10K mark, it's a big turn into, um, a 5K headwind. Uh, and we said that if there's a pack nearby, um, it's worth going top end of the pace or fractionally faster to be in the pack rather than starting off conservative, which is what, you know, our race plan is a lot on this podcast, you know, really aim for that negative split. And so that ended up happening exactly as we, as we said, where I actually had to run a little bit quicker than probably I wanted at the very start to be in a, and it was a really nice pack running, running well. And, and it was, it was kind of 12 to 14 people, which makes a big difference with running into a headwind, and then got into a headwind section, which was worth it.

Oh yeah, it was, it was great to actually see it all unfold. And I, I want to make sure that we were giving you the conservative approach for all of our predictions so that you could run actually faster than that. And because it was your first marathon, we respected the event. We respected the fact that you hadn't done it before. And so we went in with a really conservative approach. And so that enabled you to make that decision. We said before the race, we know there's going to be a headwind on these sections. And they're quite long sections, if you have an opportunity, move to the back of a pack so that you're being protected. It's quite impactful being in a bunch where you're getting protected. And so being conservative with the running pace, it will allow you to have that range to run in. So you weren't going outside of your range. You were just going to the faster end of your range. And that's a really important point for the listener to understand that we have that flexibility in that range. And and, you know, it wasn't that impacting on you. It was an easy bridge. It wasn't like you were trying to do that for 20 minutes. The pack was literally 50 meters away from you. So, so it was, it was, it was really good to watch you actually make that move and make the right call.

The thing was, they weren't 50 meters ahead. They were kind of 150 meters ahead early on, and, and I was kind of looking ahead going, they're just too far away to bridge right now. But over the next couple of K, they just kind of settled, and I kind of got within 100, then 50, then I thought, all right, it's, it's good enough to make the move to, to get there before the headwind. We went through halfway in, um, bang on pace as well. I think it was a 1:18, um, 1:18:30. Yep, halfway mark, um, which is pretty much bang on pace. And, and I was feeling really good. And, uh, my biggest problem at that point was I was— my bladder was full and I was busting to go to the toilet, which was quite a surprising feeling given I didn't feel like I'd overdrank. I'd had my normal pre-race fluid and, and in-race fluid so far. Uh, my best guess for that was, um, I think the intensity felt a little bit lower than I was anticipating. And I think when the intensity is higher, for me personally, I find that the adrenaline kind of gets going and gets rid of most feelings to go to the toilet. Um, but, and in my training runs, it hadn't been an issue because I think, and we'll talk about this a little bit, but a lot of my training runs have been in really hard conditions And so the— I found the pace a lot harder, and when you're fatigued, to hold. And so going to the toilet hadn't been a problem, whereas in the race, heart rate was super low, uh, obviously being fresh. Um, so that was a bit of a factor.

Um, yeah, I, I absolutely agree. And I think, you know, when you're doing it so easily, um, you're not needing to consume the same amount of calories as if you were under pressure. And people would go, well, What do you mean under pressure? When you're training in Bali, it is such a different temperature and you're burning fuel quicker because your body is absolutely overheating compared to where you were, uh, in Melbourne when the temperature was— what was it, 14, 15 degrees?

And mainly the fluid loss as well. The big thing is the fluid loss.

Yeah, so you were probably consuming a little bit too much, which was probably giving you the feeling of, uh, of the bladder. But we're not to know that. Um, And you're right, if you actually overconsume, then you're concentrating on something else instead of relaxing and running properly. And I think, you know, the fact that you couldn't consume after that because you were so worried about your bladder and wanting to go to the toilet, I think that had a detrimental effect because you weren't consuming enough after that. It was like you're having quite exactly what you wanted to have, and then because you didn't want to have anymore, I was forever asking if you wanted a drink and you weren't taking many at all. And, uh, and I think that that might have, you know, contributed to the feeling when, uh, you got near the end where you might have been underfueled a little bit with some cramping and, um, some experiences of that nature. I'm not sure if you, you thought that through yet, but yeah, yeah, I wouldn't say underfueled, I would say underconsumed fluid.

I, I consumed all the food I, I needed. That was— there was no issues consuming the food. I mean, hydration, yeah, the hydration. I definitely think that would— I, I'm a high sweater and a high um, salty sweater. And so in— I wasn't taking the same as Bali, of course, but in Bali I'm, I'm consuming monstrous amounts of fluid and electrolytes. Um, and then, yeah, my bladder was full and I just stopped taking the electrolytes. And even in the cool conditions, I think that was probably a bit of a mistake.

Um, but I, I think we're— I think we're being very, uh, picky here because you've actually run exactly pretty much within the range you wanted to run. Um, it's just the feeling you had at the end was that you had probably more to give and you weren't allowed to show that because of that uncomfortableness you had with that hanging around your head and then obviously getting some cramps towards the end. But certainly, you got the result you wanted. You know, the pace that we predicted, you were able to run pretty much from start to finish, although with the cramps, you had to stop and actually stretch out your hamstring, which cost you a little bit on one of the kilometers. And then, obviously, trying to navigate that cramp from coming back again really limits your ability to stride out. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, if you've had a catastrophe where you've blown out, then we would be really dissecting this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you've actually finished within a minute and a half of what we were predicting. Which I think is, I think you've been a bit harsh on yourself here. It's a, it's an unbelievable first debut marathon to be able to run the time you wanted.

Yeah, yeah, of course it was. Yeah, and thankfully the actual bladder problem, you know, went away at 28K. I think once the fatigue starts hitting in, or hitting you, I think the part of the adrenaline part of the race hits, the bladder went away as well. It was just an interesting feeling to have that be the focus for that first part. But 20, surprisingly 21 halfway mark to 30K, felt just as comfortable. And, and that was a really nice feeling. I was really expecting that to start hurting and to be going, okay, now the marathon's really on. But got to 30K feeling just as fresh, to be honest. And I'm about to kind of, um, fullness went away, um, and went, whoa, I feel way better at 30K than I, than I, that I thought I would. Um, and that was really fun. And that, that 30, 30 to 36K was probably some of the most enjoyable running because I was going, far out, we're getting to the end here. Feeling really good, um, and in the back of your head, you know that don't count your chickens early, you know, anything can happen. Um, but that was such a, um, such a fun part of the race to go, wow, I'm on track here, you know, as long as no disaster happens, like, I'm going to hit the, the time goal. Maybe the way we're running right now, the pace we're doing is actually going to be a fair bit faster than we had planned, which is unbelievable. Um, and some guys I was with started breaking away, um, and you saw that and you kind of said to me on the side, he said, oh, will you go with them? And I said, nah, they're just running too quick. I felt like I could have, you know, legs weren't feeling fatigued, but my own— in my head I just thought, that's, that's risking it, you know. You've still got 8K to run here, you know, you still got 6K to run here. Don't, don't get ahead of yourself. And I think that was— I didn't, I didn't know I was going to cramp at that point, but I'm glad. It could have been even worse, I think, if I tried to increase that pace too much and we just spoke about it with the, with the Ironman champs, you know, Kat Matthews, had she, she felt great at the end, but had she, um, increased the pace too early, it might have capitulated. I might have capitulated any even earlier. But yeah, suddenly kind of outta nowhere at 36K, just, just fully seized up. And it was, it was just a funny feeling cuz I just felt so comfortable and, and wasn't feeling fatigued. And that's just the marathon, right? It's, um, it can get you one way or the other. And, and I said to myself, cuz I am a cramper, I said to myself, if I do cramp, I'm pushing through no matter what. And then you say that every time, and then the hamstring just pulled me to a stop, you know. I couldn't even swing my leg around. And a lot of thoughts going through your head at once, you know. You, you feel like you think a thousand things at once, um, and, you know, is this a disaster? Am I going to even going to finish? You know, what's going to happen here? But I have been in that position before, um, and specifically what came to mind straight away was Uh, I'd been in triathlon where this had happened and I cramped really badly the same way in a hamstring. And, um, at that point I just walked for 20 seconds and just relaxed my body and then slowly built up and then got back to my race pace and finished the race off. And it was really nice to go there mentally and go, well, that's what I can do here. I just have to relax, just reset. Yes, I'm going to lose 30 seconds on this K. It's not ideal, but if I can relax and just get back up to speed and just try and not push to the end anymore, but just try and get through this last 5K as comfortable as I can. That was kind of the mindset.

It was actually really, uh, really good to watch. And, um, not from a point of view of you stopping, but from a point of view of getting going again. Because, you know, over my years I've cramped a fair bit too. It's probably a genetic thing maybe, but, uh, but yeah, it's really hard to come back from cramp and for you to really manage that last 5-6K after you've had a complete standstill was a real credit to you, both mentally and, and, um, you'd done the work, so you were able to get running again. So you were well physically prepared, and, you know, you just had to concentrate on your running technique a bit more to make sure you landed each foot perfectly rather than randomly. And with the way the Melbourne course is set up, it's It's really almost frustrating because there's 10K runners, there's half marathon runners, and there's marathon runners all converging on each other. So you've got a lot of areas where there's, you know, other runners who are running a different pace, getting in your way almost. And you were running up the main St. Kilda Road with, you know, having to yell out, you know, move to your left, move to your left, because you were— the marathon runners were passing half marathon runners who were You know, marathon runners are running a 1:18 half marathon split in their marathon, and these guys you're passing are 1:40 half marathon runners. So it's a really bad way they've, they've done this race. And it's kind of frustrating when you're at 34K to have to change your stride because someone's cutting you off or running slower than you. It shouldn't happen. But that's the nature of this race. So, so it was really great to see you actually finish it off and And, yeah, you know, get, get the result you wanted.

Yeah. It was, it was, it was a funny feeling to be a shortened stride for the last 3K, but still crossing the line. And I was doing the mental maths. I think you were as well, but I, once I'd kind of recovered from the cramp a little bit, there was two things I figured out that on any slight downhill when my stride would lengthen, I started to cramp. So I was trying to shorten my stride. But also I got I got to 4-minute 4:05 pace and I would not cramp. And if I tried to go quicker, I would cramp. So I just said, okay, I gotta finish off these last few k's at that 4:05 pace. And I was doing the math in my head going 3k to go, 4:05 pace. I was going, if I keep this up, I think I'll just make it by 30 or 40 seconds. And sure enough, that's what it was. It was, it was 2:39:30. So 30 seconds under the 2:40 goal. And, Yeah, as everyone has experienced with any endurance event, anytime you race, you just get these wave of emotions of euphoria and, and pride and, and proud of yourself for the work you did. And, um, and thankful for you for the coach to, to work through it. And thank you, you were out on course as well, which was, which was, uh, super handy. Um, and yeah, very, very fun overall day with, as I said at the start, surprises in there. It didn't didn't go the way I thought it would, but the end result still went the same. And that was— yeah, it was, it was a very rewarding experience.

No, it was, uh, it was great to watch. And, uh, I had an armchair ride on the bike, and that's one of the good things on this course, you can actually ride the majority of it. So it was really good to witness. And you have highs and lows, and, and the fact that you were feeling so comfortable for a lot of the— you were hardly breathing. And, you know, a lot of your pack were all talking. Um, and that seems weird at 3:42 pace that everybody's in that group is comfortable. Um, and that's how it should be. Um, uh, it's all relative to what you're used to. And so it was really impressive to see you're not even nose breathing really. And, and it wasn't your cardiovascular system that was a limiter, it was more the muscular endurance. And that'll come with experience of doing it again. And, you know, we did talk straight away about, you know, will you do this again? Will you try and back up and try and beat that time and see where you can go? So it was an interesting discussion, and I'm sure the listeners would want to hear what you're thinking about next.

Yeah, I crossed the line in the first 10 seconds. I said, well, I'm doing that again because I want to finish it off. But then you go through— I went through a pretty bad hour or two, you know, it really catches up with you. Um, yeah, it just really hit you like a truck. But then, yeah, very quickly I was like, I was, I was very grateful for the time, so happy it had all paid off. You know, the pre-race nerves are always, what if something goes drastically wrong? And, and in that split second when I cramped and stopped, I did think that, oh my gosh, if this gets worse, I, I did think I'll struggle to finish, you know, like, because it can be so, so bad. So just grateful that it was just that, those couple of instances where it really grabbed me and forced me to stop and then was able to come back from it. Um, but yes, definitely keen to go again now. Have, have definitely caught that, um, marathon bug. And you mentioned before, you know, we don't really know why we cramp, and it's important to say that there is no scientific evidence why, why people cramp. There's really strong theories, and, and often it's a mix of things that you and I both are of the strong belief, uh, that it would be mostly down to, um, the lack of just, um, muscular readiness for that, for that distance and that speed. You know, it's um, just more time, volume, and training, and, and, um, more longer races under the belt will— should hopefully improve that. Um, 'cause yeah, the fitness was there and, and the pace felt comfortable, but the body just probably wasn't ready, quite ready for that full 42K at that pace. And, uh, 36K, it just shut down. And that's, um, it feels good knowing that because it, it's— you don't blame yourself for it. You don't— you're not let down by it. You just go, that's just the nature of, of this race. It's, it's really hard. It's a long way, and, and your body takes a lot for your body to adapt and get ready for that.

Yeah, and look, we know from all of the nutritional experts we've had on our podcast that they say it can be a number of any many things. It can be a, a percentage of this, uh, hydration, a percentage of nutrition, a percentage of muscular endurance, um, fitness. It can be doing sections too hard that you're not used to, not training well enough at the pace you're gonna run. It can be so many different reasons, and a little bit of those can contribute to happening bang once at 36K. So yeah, it's important to know that, you know, you keep learning about what works and what doesn't, and you refine what you're doing in your preparation. And so, you know, it's interesting that if you're a veteran 10 marathon runner, it's highly unlikely you would experience that because your body is so adapted to this type of endurance. So first up, this is where the catastrophes happen, you know, first time for everybody. Is the unknown and the body's never been there before. But I'm sure if you'd done some 50K endurance runs or some 70K endurance runs, you know, some ultra, ultra stuff, the marathon becomes such an easy thing for your body to cope with because of the nature of your experience and what you've been having adapted to over, over years. And this takes years to get to this adaptation. And you haven't done a lot of endurance stuff, as you said at the start, because it didn't you know, you see what I've gone through and it didn't really interest you, um, and it wasn't a priority. But now it's something that you're, you're really excited to do, and I can't wait to see, um, how the next race, uh, comes up and how you prepare and how you execute.

Well, yeah, that's it for the Marathon Diaries for now. We'll let you know when the next one's going to be and take you on the journey a little bit. Thanks for, for tuning in. And to finish off this episode, we want to talk about our giveaway winner. On the last episode, we announced we're giving away a pair of ASICS Mega Blast, ASICS Mega Blast, the epic new daily trainer. Thank you for everyone that shared the episode and supported the episode and supported 300 episodes so far. And the winner of the giveaway to get those shoes from our partners, the running company Albert Park, is Caitlin De Vidas. So Caitlin De Vidas, thank you for sharing it, and we will send you a DM with the information to get your free pair of ASICS Mega Blast. Thank you as always for listening. If you enjoyed these coaching tips, if you enjoy these episodes, you can apply to get coached by us at triathlocoaching.com.au. We coach athletes all around the world. Uh, we coach completely online, individualized to you. We have a money-back guarantee that if you don't improve in the first 8 weeks, the coaching is on us. Uh, and we're very excited to bring some results from, uh, from the last few weeks. And we're about to do a case study because our very own, uh, Joe Spano just won the Masters ITT World title, which is a pretty incredible, um, feat, which we're going to breakdown in a future episode. But thank you very much for listening. Go to travelcoaching.com.au if you want to get some coaching. Otherwise, we'll see you in the next episode.