Medellin, Colombia a potential cycling and running haven, great weather

• Busy city but great tracks and trails just outside
• Like NZ but cheaper, welcomes investment and foreigners

 

ITU Long Distance Worlds

• Congrats to MaccaX member Jenna-Caer Seefried, age group world champion
• Original Ironman Canada course all the greats like Peter Reid raced on
• 3-120-30, an ideal long distance format you can race til the finish
• Lionel Sanders: Macca’s fave triathlete outside of Javier Gomez; has had the #1 season this year among the men; walked away from 70.3 Worlds to focus on Kona
• Josh Amberger now working with the Trisutto group, same coach as Sarah Crowley’s
• Sarah Crowley won ITU LD Worlds, has had the #1 season this year (Frankfurt, Cairns, going to Konai)

 

Kona

• Frodeno has dodged big events; could he see Sanders as a threat?
• Sanders has worked on his weaknesses, improved swim with Gerry Rodriguez
• Tim Don’s 70.3 Worlds performance (3rd) was done off an Ironman build; able to drop the fast boys and strong at finish
• Ben Hoffman, Brent McMahon
• Kona doesn’t seem to have depth, unlike back in Macca’s day four previous champions were racing the field every year (Faris, Stadler, Crowie, Macca) plus Raelert and Chris Lieto; pressure was on defending champion to dictate the pace
• Women’s side, Ryf to dominate completely with Crowley as potential challenger -- could Ryf be better than Chrissie?

 

Ironman 70.3 Worlds

• Split men’s and women’s races; great course
• Ryf crushed the field mentally even before the race, was in a great headspace
• Defending champion Holly Lawrence imploded mentally (looking back instead of looking forward)
• Emma Pallant starting to come through the distance -- learned the craft racing in Asia then ran through the field to finish 2nd
• Coverage could be better, don’t just stay with the leaders; commentary lagged by 10 minutes
• Awesome men’s race
• Tim Reed vulnerable to big swimmers like Ben Kanute (racing Super League Jersey) who led out of the water and changed the dynamic
• Javier Gomez was tactically smart, prepared to race this
• Sebastian Kienle frustrated, could not put pressure on
• Sam Appleton had a good year
• Proves ITU athletes can succeed in long-course

 

Triple Crown

• Gomez and Ryf going after it, with $2mil total on the line at Ironman 70.3 Bahrain

 

Javier Gomez

• Should he move to Ironman? Not doing so he could miss out on peak years of racing
• Still has Olympic dreams; Spain a contender for mixed relay gold in 2020

 

Super League Jersey

• Who’s racing, who’s not racing
• Two days of racing broadcast live on BBC and with massive broadcast distribution thanks to media partner Lagardere -- most distributed triathlon in history!
• First women’s race
• Jersey is NOT New Jersey
• Corporate Mix: a way for sponsorships to come into the sport without locking anyone out
• superleaguetriathlon.com
• What will it take to win? What kind of conditions will athletes face?

Questions;

• Tips for the offseason? (Jenna-Caer Seefried)
• Workouts to replace swimming while injured? (Anthony DiMauro)
• What strength training to do in the offseason? (Lynda Rowan)
• MaccaX members get an offseason strength training plan designed by Belinda Granger
• How to train for long swim transitions if training mostly in pools? (Chris Stevens)
• What was Macca's longest time out of the sport while he was competing and how did he approach rebuilding his volume and fitness? (David Procida)
• How to make the most out of run training and get fast fast without getting injured or looking like a skeleton? (Anne-Louise McLean)