Foreign daily Feisty Kona podcast here from the Kona Canoe Club.

We can see the coffee boat.

Well, you can't, but we can see it out the side here.

You should come down club every day this week.

8 to 11 will be here and then they're serving lunch after that.

So, yeah, also there's lunch here.

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Oh, my God.

People are coming in.

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You.

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So it is.

It is the last all women's Ironman Iron Man World Championship.

I hesitated there because I was like, for now, the last always Ironman World Championship.

And I know a lot of our audience kind of knows, knows the deep backstory.

We can go, but some people don't.

Sarah, how did we get here?

Why are we having the last.

Yeah, tell me, tell me how.

Kelly, you are the expert on how we got here.

I'm going to pass it on back to you.

But I do have, like, some thoughts.

Oh, yes, but.

But we'll wait for that.

I feel like I will say I think everyone here has thoughts.

Feel like I'm being stopped with thoughts constantly on the street.

Yeah, right.

So we'll do a quick version.

We did not have a world championship in Kona for three years because of the pandemic.

Hawaii took it pretty, like, got hit pretty hard during the pandemic.

Well, it was 20.

20, 2020 and 2021.

There was one in St. George.

We were back in 2022 and because of kind of the deferrals, there was a backlog of a lot of people.

But also I think the cultural conversation on women's sports had changed.

There are a lot of reasons.

And we went to a two day where there were.

Women were primarily on one day and the men were on the other day.

Yeah, sorry, I'm interrupting your history to add to your history.

Yeah.

And also we had been.

Many people had been asking for many years, since about 2015, for the women to have equal slots.

And also there was a lot of talk around, like, the fairness in the women's race, because you end up with a lot of, like, especially on the bike, men interfering both on the, like, in the age group race and the pro race with the women's race, like, the women didn't really have their own stage, nor did we have equal access to the world championship.

And I think there was sort of a perfect storm of reasons that we finally got that in 2022.

But at the same time, there's a perfect store of reasons that it was so big.

There was 2,500 people who race on Thursday, 2,500 people who race on Saturday.

And what people tell you is that, like, a little bit broke the island.

And the story is always that it was two days, that they just were like, no, we can't do two days again.

But I'm always like, that was also 5,000 people, so maybe it could have been smaller.

And when you say broke the island, really what that means is that the locals were like, whoa, one.

One race is enough.

Two days is too many.

Also, like, it's too chaotic.

You know, I heard from people who couldn't even get to work, there were a lot of, like, group chats opening up, bitching about Ironman.

So I think it was kind of one of those things that for those who were already not that pleased to have us here racing every year, it just upped.

It just upped that sentiment here in Kona.

So it was decided, like, they had to go back to one day.

But at the same time, I think there was a sentiment then, and it continues to be particularly that all women's race was, we can't go back, right?

We can't lose the all women's race now.

There's no going backwards.

So 2023, we got here.

You keep wanting to interrupt my history.

Okay, fine, fine.

What did you.

What did you want to say?

Well, I think I just wanted to add.

And we'll.

We'll probably end up saying this again, but, like, how special those days were, right?

So, like, even that, the year that we had the Thursday race, when the men were on the Saturday, like, it was like.

It was goosebumps.

Like, people were crying.

Chelsea won.

It was one of those magical wins.

It wasn't just a win for Iron Man.

It was a win for womankind.

I do remember because you guys went down to the finish, and I went up to watch Chelsea come in on the Queen K. And there was this moment where, like, the helicopters are circling, the sun is, like, low.

Very classic Kona shot, like, on the tv and then you see her come up over the last rise.

And it's a woman.

It's a woman that all the TVs are.

Right.

That is the first.

And I remember just I was like crying and jumping and I was like, I didn't think I cared this much.

Like so it was very iconic and I.

So in the wake of that, going back to putting them together just seems sort of wild, crazy.

Which is how we ended up with in 2023 separate a women's race and a men's race separately.

The women were in Kona, the men were in Nice.

We were going to rotate.

Nice also has a long history that people need to be updated on.

And then they switched last year the women were in Nice, the men were in Kona, and now we're switching again this year.

And it was supposed to go for four years.

We didn't make it four years before they gave up.

Yeah.

On the, on the experiment.

Yeah.

Yes.

Do you want my kosher opinion or my positive or negative opinion?

I mean this is our podcast, so you can say whatever you want.

My negative way to say that is they give it because the Neil Ironman CEO come, came in and a new CEO wants to make his mark.

New CEO is also tasked with like making revenue quickly.

And you can't invest in like a long term project if you need like immediate results.

Right.

And that was always going to be a long term project.

My joke this year when everyone was like, wow, the men's niece was so exciting.

It's so great having this like exciting different course.

It's so great having, having like a different place, having different athletes.

And I was like, oh, it's almost like we needed to give it a little more time.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So why they switched is basically like they didn't have the patience, the time, the investment, the money, the investors to give it a few more years.

Yeah.

And then you also had an entire.

You had generations of triathletes who had been indoctrinated into the system of like that, that people deserve to be here based on some kind of performance, based on the participation levels in their age group and all of that.

So we were all like very used to women being 25% of the race and men being 75% of the race.

And so I think that that kind of held us back too.

Oh sure.

Because there is kind of famously they did a. Ironman did a poll.

Ironman's been doing a lot of polls, but Ironman did a poll last year about what should we do with The Kona question.

And they were like, well, people want to go back to Kona.

And you were like, that's so weird.

You tell people for, like, four decades that this thing's really, really important.

And then for two years, you're like, hey, maybe it's not as important, but it's still important.

And then you ask them what's important, and most of them say that it's weird.

I don't know how that happened.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, and since we're doing Sarah and Kelly uncut, it feels like in the first minutes of this opening podcast for Kona Week.

But, like.

But really there is a bit of, like, elitism that's sort of baked into the lore about Kona and, like, people who deserves to be here, what kind of performances they need to be, be here, and all of that kind of stuff.

So I feel like that had that also kind of reflected back in, like, deciding, okay, well, we now need a smaller race and we need less women because they're not as good.

Basically.

Basically.

I also want to say, and I feel like I have to say this every time when they pulled, the number one option was actually two days in Kona.

The number one thing people picked was a women's day and a Men's day in Kona.

That was what people overwhelmingly wanted, and now that is impossible.

We couldn't negotiate it, etc.

Etc.

Sure.

But that is what people wanted.

Since we can't give them that, we are instead putting the women back in the men's race next year.

But this is our last all women's race this year.

That's how we got here.

Was that a good summary?

Excellent summary, Kelly.

We did good.

And this year, the other thing to know in this last all women's Ironman World Championship is that it is a smaller field than two years ago.

People who remember two years ago when it was the first, like, kind of all women's, there was about 2200, 2100.

And it was kind of like it felt like this Barbie land.

There were so many people this year.

It's.

They.

They only gave out 1500 spots.

It is not because women did not choose to come here.

I have been hearing a lot of people be like, oh, why is it smaller?

Did women just not want to do it?

No.

They only handed out 1500 spots to this race, even though they handed out 2,300 to the men's race in Nice.

That is just factual.

That's just what happened.

Yes.

Yes.

Why do you think that is?

Why.

Why are you Trying to get me in trouble, like, right immediately on my.

Why?

I mean, I feel like by the time the qualification system was coming through this year, you know, because previously there were a lot of, like, women for tri spots, there were different ways to qualify for women that had been kind of to encourage more women to, like, join the sport, to step up to the next level.

You know, there were various, like, levers that Ironman had pulled to kind of go, how do we get more women here?

Right.

And so I think they just, like, kind of didn't pull those levers.

And so they decided, okay, well, we're not doing away with those slots and actually offering less slots.

And we knew at some point along the way here that we were headed back to this one day.

So it's hard to, like, have women qualify.

You know, you get 2,200 women one year and then, like, 700 the next year.

You know, it's.

It's.

It's like a hard pill to swallow already.

I don't think we knew, but I think that was one of the first clues, was last year when they announced, when it was still two separate races and they.

And this.

You literally could look at the slots, and it's like, wait, there's less.

I was one of the first clues that we were headed in this direction.

Right, Right.

Yes.

I just feel like.

I just keep wanting to tell people it's not because women don't want to be here.

Like, just.

Just to be clear, this week, when you're like, wait, why are there not as many people here?

It was a choice.

These are choices.

Choices were made.

The other flip of that coin is, like, choices were made because to your point, kind of a second ago, they felt like, oh, it's just not competitive enough.

Like, it was getting too watered down, which I think it's.

And they will also tell you that participation hadn't gone up in two years, so it didn't work.

It's weird.

Wait, it takes more than two years to encourage more women to join a sport that they haven't thought of yet.

Wow.

Who knew?

Who knew?

Yeah.

So they'll tell you, like, well, we try to equal races, and participation didn't go up, so didn't work, sir.

Oh, well.

Oh, well, let's go back.

So I will say, Sarah and I obviously have, as I said, like, you know, do you want my nice version or my mean version?

We're, like, aggressively agreeing with.

We're aggressively agreeing with each other There.

There are much calmer ways to say this and much more rational we were, we use those up like 10 years ago.

That's why we don't have them anymore.

But we have.

I have talked to a lot of people who are still trying to very calmly rationally work through these arguments.

And we did talk to Tamara Jewett who is like she's new to Ironman distance and she kind of walked right into this whole debate and genuinely wanted to learn and understand like where this is like the history of it.

Like, why don't women have equal spots?

What is the effect of having the races together?

And so I thought she had just kind of like a good take when we asked her about the men and women's race going back together and the importance of having a women's only race.

The last all women's.

I know.

And you've obviously raised 70.3 worlds a bunch, which is like an all women's day how.

And you've raised Iron Mans where it's like combined.

How do you like or dislike the women on their own versus the men and women together?

How does it kind of like differ out on the day?

I think for a world championship it's really nice to have a women's only race and to just feel it like.

I think, I think the pro women have it pretty good in terms of impacts on the race.

There is a little bit from having the men racing.

I think for the amateur women, they really like bear the brunt of some of the frustrating pack dynamics with cycling.

Although I think even now that some of the pro men's fields are so big, there have been issues, especially Ironman's this year where like some of the pro male cyclist getting mixed into the lead women's cycling pack in a, in a bad way.

But yeah, I think like I can understand the sort of the like logistics and problems and like reasons that it's going back to being combined.

But I'm really, really excited to be able to participate in an all women's Kona this year.

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I've talked to Tamara kind of on and off over the last few months as she's been trying to kind of understand all this.

And one of the things she said to me at one point was like, okay, so the sport age group is like, they want to go back to Kona.

It's important to everybody to have the men and women back like kind of in the same location and everyone has to sacrifice a little bit to do that.

But the Adrian women are having to sacrifice the most.

Yeah, yeah.

And I that seemed like an accurate assessment.

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

And I think and what's really important to Prose.

Like what Tam, what Tamara talked about is like the fairness of the race too.

And I think that's where when Iron man first made these announcements of going back to one day last year, there were promises made around having a fair race for the women and also having equal media coverage for the women.

So I feel like that's to be seen because I also know that there are, you know, in previous years, many times in many ways we've tried to create a fair race for the women, we've tried to have equal media coverage and somehow it just hasn't been able to happen.

So I'm very curious about whether Ironman's going to be able to make that piece happen.

And I think we do have to now talk about because I promised our audience we would talk about the qualification for next year.

So next year 2026 Kona men and women's one day back, back the way it used to be.

But they are doing a whole new qualification system.

It is no longer proportional participation which like was always a system unique to triathlon in the world.

And they are doing this like performance, performance based system.

I'm going to do my super short summary because I know like we literally talking to an Ironman person yesterday who is like it's not my world.

I want to try and understand it and I don't understand it.

So I know it's very confusing to people.

So here's my super short summary is every age group winner gets a spot.

That spot can roll down the podium if they turn down but no further.

Can't go past third.

Okay then after those spots are handed out the rest of the spots out of the pool which is usually about 19, 20 are handed out via an age graded algorithm.

So there is if you've done age graded races or age grading in running races and CrossFit, it's an algorithm that tries to compare 55 year old men to 80 year old men to 22 year old.

Right.

Like you try and compare and the Ironman algorithm is based on the past five years performances in Kona creates like a multiplier factor.

Then they rank all men and women together and then they just hand out the rest of the spots going down that list.

So it could be like a 72 year old man and then a 28 year old woman and then a 44 year old woman, etc.

You have thoughts right there.

I have thoughts.

Well were you done explaining?

Did we hear.

That's the whole.

That's the system.

That is the, that is A objective, factual presentation of the system.

Correct.

That's.

I was grabbing the mic because I'm like, okay, she's done a great job of explaining what it is.

Right.

So the, the age, I did a bit of a, I don't want to say deep dive.

I did a medium dive, a shallow, slightly deeper than shallow dive into how age graded systems are functioning in other sports and what they're used for and, and all of that.

Right.

And so there are, in other sports, there's a lot of ways that age graded systems are used, like master swimming or if you do a Parkrun or in CrossFit where like I do CrossFit now, right.

And I love it.

I can go, hey, I'm in the 85th percentile of my age group and it's in a five year age band and you know where you fit.

Right.

Or same thing, like if you do a park run, like how fun is that to go out, run a 5K and then be like, oh, like I'm in the 70th percentile in my age group and anyone who's done a park run, like, that's just really cool and really fun and a good way to.

Like, it's more like, oh, in my neighborhood, oh, this 55 year old woman is actually much, much better than me because even though relative, even though she ran 20 seconds slower than me, it's actually.

Yes.

That is what it's also used for.

Yeah.

Like a way to know like within your age category how you're doing against other folks and like it can be used globally and it's great.

Right.

So, and I love that, I love it.

And anyway, so but, and this was my big, my huge but when I first heard this because I was like, is it being used anywhere to qualify for a world championship?

Right.

And it turns out no.

I looked, I searched.

So if someone knows of a place where an age graded system is being used that way, I could not find it.

So generally it's used for like incentivizing people to know where they stand and how to get better.

Not used for qualifying people for the next level of racing.

Right.

So that is one thing.

The other thing is I could not find another instance in which men and women were being compared in the same age graded qualification system or same age graded system at all.

To be fair, there are some races that do these like crazy head starts.

Like one of my favorite races is like this crazy weird head start system where like the oldest men in, it's like by age and gender and the oldest and Slowest people start first and you have to like run.

But those are very unique like one off weird races like, like that is a quirky fun race and they change the algorithm every.

That's not like a world championship.

Right?

Like, and even when I like.

So I use chat GPT a little bit to do this research.

I also used Google and read things like on actual websites everybod and pulled up old like you know, PDFs.

But like one of the things that like, like ChatGPT was like no, it got mad at me.

It was like no, you can't compare men and women in the same age graded algorithm because men and women's sports are two different things and it doesn't make sense.

And so like even, you know, even something that's drawing on the entire of the Internet to answer a question is still saying, well no, like men and women's sports are two different things, they're on two different platforms.

This does not make sense.

So to be super clear, 70.3 worlds because they aren't.

Because they are on two different.

There's a women's day and a men's day which is still by the way why that race is the most popular in, in the ecosystem.

The women's age grading is done sep like that is treated as a pool of spots and the men's pool is treated as a pool of spots and they are separate pools, separate and equal pools which I do feel like is a small victory.

And then they are age graded just based on like age, not on gender.

The Kona spots are treated as one pool that are where men and women compete against each other for that pool of spots.

Now the reason this is a problem is because I was like, I don't even know where to start.

I'm like, the problem is like you kind of said it's just one.

Obviously you could say like it's just not how other sports work.

But the reason it's not how other sports work is because if you took the best thousand women in the world and the best thousand men in the world and and told them go and figure out who's best for a world title, how they compare against each other is doesn't matter.

Whether or not you think the women should be better doesn't matter.

They're the best in the world, right?

Like how many other women there are in the world doesn't matter, right?

Like all this, these are the best thousand women and these are the best thousand men and they are going to compete in their own races.

So that's that's that like, like it doesn't matter how they compare.

So that's one part of this, like very frustrating.

The second part that's slightly frustrating is this was all based on this notion that use it handing out spots because based on participation was hurting under participated groups because like it was penalizing them.

Like both older groups where people were actually very good but there weren't that many of them and women's groups were like people were very good but there weren't that many of them.

And there was many, many people who went down this hole where like if you just looked at performance however you wanted to define it, if you want to define performance as top 5% or top 10% or like within this percent of the winner's time, women were performing as well as men at the top, but there just weren't as many women after that.

So this was supposed to solve for ah, we're going to like get the best people.

It has not gone well.

It hasn't worked out.

So their prediction was okay, that'll result in like 30 to 35% women which will be better than the 27% it used to be.

But we've had 11 or 12 races so far it has resulted in 26% women's spots and only 22% of accepted spots.

Which means women are not taking the spots.

And if you look outside of the so like we said, every age group winner gets a spot.

If you just look at the spots that are handed out based on that algorithm and the performance pool, 94 are going to men.

Oh, and so that's where you're like, how is your performance algorithm saying that the 9th place 50 to 54 year old man is better than the 2nd place woman?

Like that just does.

And so I think we've heard from so many women that it's very demoralizing to sit there at an award ceremony and be like I think I did pretty good.

I was like second in my age group.

I was like seventh woman overall.

And then be like no, sorry, you weren't as good as the 8th place 60 year old man.

And it is also seems to be disproportionately hitting 50 year old men.

Like for some reason like they seem to be getting more spots than anticipated.

And I in all fairness, I don't like Iron man knows it's not going well.

They know this isn't like they are now polling women to ask why they aren't taking their spots and they have a committee to review the algorithm.

But part of me is like Guys.

I have a solution.

We could have told you if only.

If only when we sat in that meeting and I was like, well, when this goes badly and women don't want to do your race and they're not going to tell you, they're just going to not do it, they're just going to walk away and do something else.

And they were like, well, agree to disagree.

I was like, well, yeah, I just want.

Here we are.

Yeah, like no poll is polling the people who aren't here and who walked away or who even are still kind of here in the Iron man mix but aren't committed enough to open their inbox and answer a poll.

But yeah, I mean, I saw the poll and there is no box for.

Just sound shitty.

Because I will tell you, this isn't like a political statement.

It's just like I am registered for an Iron Man.

I have no desire to do a 3000 person Kona with 75% men like that just as an age group woman.

That sounds shitty.

Not going to do it.

And oh, now I have another thought on top of the thought that I originally but I this morning as we're here and we get here and I start thinking about next year and how we're going to have maybe 25% of the field be women, depending on how Iron man, you know, what they do next in terms of the slot system.

But like how the effect on the industry, which I hadn't thought because like right now, like here we are feisty, we support the women, we're covering the women we have, we sell merch.

That's one of the ways that we make money that allows us to be here.

Right.

And we've got 1500 women racing.

Like what happens when we have, yeah, like 700, 800 women racing and like it's not as appealing as a business to come.

So what about like the cars and the Betty's and the smashes of the world who are all kind of serving women in triathlon.

It's like not worth their, I don't know, effort and money to come here and continue to do that.

So there is this like knock on effect when you have such a small women's field.

The other thing that I have that I've been thinking, I thought this, like it came to me when I was running but you know, like one of the things that I've been saying over and over, which is kind of a really difficult argument to make but like just, it's just not like how we treat women's sports and like the Platform we put it on.

And like, those decisions have to come from, like, they come from laws like Title 9.

We're going to give equal money to like, women and girls in educational that get government funding from in educational programs.

Like, we're going to like, the Olympic Committee.

At some point, the IOC decided that they were going to build up the women's side of the sport, and they were aiming to have all sports.

They were aiming to have 50% women at the Olympics by a certain date.

They started that in the 90s and they achieved it last year in Paris.

Right.

So it's.

And.

And we forget that triathlon.

One of the reasons that triathlon got big was because we got into the Olympic games very quickly from being like, not even being a sport to being in the Olympic Games.

And one of the reasons we got into the Olympic games is because we committed to ha.

To allowing equal slots or equal, like, I'm just using now the Ironman terms of like, equal spots.

But that's not how they.

We built up like, the elite side of the athletics and the Olympic distance for women.

Right.

So that we had globally enough women to show that, like, we had a global sport that had an elite aspect that was as well developed in the women's side as the men's side.

And that's what the IOC wanted to get to allow new sports in to the Olympics.

And that's how we got in.

Right.

And one of the things there is that people will always say, I. I have heard all of the arguments about why we have to do what Ironman's doing next year.

I know them all.

And one of them they'll always say is like, well, Kona's unique.

There's.

There's only so much space on the pier, guys.

And if we take it from the Met, like give it to the women, we're taking it from it.

Finite resources are not unique to Kona.

There are limited spots at the Olympics.

There are limited spots at Boston Marathon.

When we enacted Title 9, people were like, well, there's only so much time people can practice in the gym.

So we can't let the women, like the girls have basketball practice time.

Because then the boy.

Right.

Like this has happened every single time in everything.

And yet the Boston marathon has like 46 women.

Like, it is not unique to Kona.

Actually.

Get the over yourself.

That is my very.

Yes.

Nuanced analysis.

At least we're still laughing about it.

Okay.

I. I think we should move on to the actual race.

Okay.

Just for our audience, we.

This was like Sarah and Kelly unleashed on this topic.

Now we're going to move on.

We're going to cover the pros.

We're going to do all the regular Kona celebration things.

But we.

We just wanted to, like, take a moment to get kind of like to get all of those arguments out and to let everyone know, like, because we do hear from a lot of women, like Kelly said earlier, who, when they're not qualifying or when they're wondering why they had this great race and didn't qualify, we're the ones that hear about it.

Right.

So to all of you, I'm sorry this is happening and we're.

We're doing what we can by talking about it.

Yeah.

And if you want to quit Ironman, that's fine.

It's not our job to solve.

Like, I do.

I will say a lot of people are like, well, we have to stick in it if you want to stick in it.

If you don't, you don't.

Like, it's not our job to sell their product to their customers.

Like, but it is going to be exciting race this year.

Yes.

Yes.

Even the interviews you've done so far, I'm like, I'm getting.

I'm getting in there.

I'm like, I've got favorites already.

Oh, okay.

Well, so this week we are going to talk to lots and lots of people.

We have guests coming.

We're going to have a big preview show with Daniela Ryf on Thursday.

I want to start with the topic that seems weirdly to be on everyone's mind, which I know is super weird.

Again, when we talk to Tamara and she's a very rational, logical, like, think, think, su person.

And she wanted to talk about sharks.

So let's talk about whether or not there are sharks in Kona.

Is that right?

I did on my fourth swim here and it was amazing.

Yeah, Two at first appeared sort of like just right in front of me underwater.

And then there was like a small pod of them sort of swimming around for a while really close to like the first buoy out off the pier.

So it was a mix of seeing them above and underwater.

Only one, like jumping up and spinning, but that was of kind cool to see.

And you and I.

Only one?

Yeah, only one.

I say you and I kind of went down a hole about sharks in the ocean.

Have you gone down that hole here or are you just.

I don't want to know.

At first I felt like I don't want to know, but I just.

I also actually like, really like sharks as animals.

And it Gets really addictive to look into shark stuff.

So here I feel like.

And also, I think because around Santa Cruz, I did such a deep dive on this in California, I'm getting more and more towards, like, the information I consume doesn't really impact whether I'm going to have a bad shark encounter or not.

And the likelihood, the likelihood of a shark encounter at all is really low.

And then a bad shark encounter even lower.

So I'm kind of here.

I feel like I've been more, like, pushing my limits for ocean comfort in, like, just, like, mastering the fear aspect a little bit.

And, yeah, I think less of a deep dive here than I did in California.

But also there's a California shark research, like Instagram, that it's like shark season there.

And they keep just posting pools of.

Blood on the water.

So that is interesting to look at.

And then, like, hop in the ocean.

Pools of blood in the water.

I do feel like.

I do feel like I need to give some context.

Tara just moved to the Bay Area, so we had been talking about whether or not there are sharks.

I don't feel like it's ever been a topic here before.

And yet she's not the only one.

Everyone's, like, asking about sharks.

Yes.

Why?

It's so funny because you mentioned sharks before we even got here.

You know, like, I've never heard.

And the only times I've heard sharks talked about in Kona is, like, when people have asked and said, oh, no, there's.

There's dolphins.

Like, where there's dolphins, there's not sharks or whatever.

I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what I've heard before.

And so now suddenly, this year, everyone's just talking about sharks.

Like, what?

Does anybody know?

Why?

Why?

Well, and I told you.

Yeah.

Before we got here that another friend of mine had done this whole story about what.

And there's a shark protocol.

There's an official protocol for the race and, like, what they would do.

And then.

And then Tamara was talking.

And then yesterday we were at the practice swim and it got shortened due to water safety personnel, which I'm, like, positive about, because we, like, talked to the race director and she was telling us, like, it's always hard to get volunteers.

Thought about shortening it last year, and they're probably like, they don't know.

But, like, it's always hard.

But then afterwards, people are like, was it because of a shark?

I saw a boat out there.

I think it could have been a shark.

And you're like, what?

Like, where is this coming from?

I know.

I don't know.

So if someone has some secret information about there being more sharks nearby this year, please let us know, because I. I've not been informed on that level.

No.

But the swim yesterday, so it was much shorter.

It was like 1.6 miles.

Don't know what that is.

In K. I think everyone actually liked it being, like, much shorter.

Lucy still won by, like a minute.

Yeah.

And she didn't even.

She, like, walked casually out.

She walked casually in.

I'm not gonna say that.

She is definitely gonna go gun to tape again, but I don't feel like she's not going to.

Yeah, that was exactly.

That's exactly well said.

It was like, okay, let's.

This is.

This is something.

It's a.

Is it.

What do you call it?

Foreshadowing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it was really cool to be down there.

And we talked to a few people.

Jackie.

We talked to Jackie next.

Yeah.

You didn't know who we were going to throw to.

We did talk to a few people, and we're going to hear first from Jackie.

Jackie Herring, who I want to.

I mean, we talk about in the clip, but she is one of the two oldest athletes, pro athletes competing.

So let's hear from Jackie after the swim.

Feeling you just got done swimming.

You look refreshed.

After.

After.

I look great.

I'm feeling like I just had a swim.

It was fine.

It was good.

All good.

Yeah.

What number Kona is this for you?

This is my fourth kona.

I've done two as an age grouper and two as a pro way back when, so.

But I haven't been here in 11 years, so I feel like a newbie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How different is it from 11 years ago?

No, different.

It feels same.

Like, not much has changed.

I got back, the airport is still tiny.

It looks like Lava Java might have moved down to a different place.

That's pretty much it.

Yeah.

I feel like that's good, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine.

All right.

And how many, like, you.

Do you bring your whole crew with you?

Yeah, yeah.

They're coming on Tuesday.

The mark and the kids and, like, actually a whole entire entourage are coming.

So.

Yeah, the fam likes to jump on any vacations that they can have, so should be good.

Okay.

And sky and I were talking yesterday about there's like four or five moms in the pro field.

Do you guys compare notes?

Are you guys.

Are the kids all going to hang out?

Do you, like, figure out how to get it all done with each other.

I talk to Sky a lot.

Yeah, there's not really like a setup child care situation going on for us.

My kids are older yet.

I mean that is something I might work on in my retirement days, but my kids are a bit older so they probably just hang at the beach and play all day.

The little baby is gonna be probably taking a nap.

So different phases.

Kids need a lot of different things.

So mine, mine are fine now.

They're good to go.

But the babies, I'm not, I'm not sure what they do.

But you and Sky, I know you guys have been comparing notes.

You've been giving her tips on, on how to come back, make it all work kind of.

I mean I think the way I give tips is just sharing as much as I can about what my life looks like.

And every mom, everybody's going to figure it out different, differently and do what works for them.

And yeah, I think the biggest tips I share with sky are just like about being flexible and things like that because she was such a dialed, I mean that's why she got so good is she's a very focused, very dialed and yeah, as a parent you have to be a little looser.

So she's getting it.

She'll be great.

Yeah.

I also saw, and I hope you feel good about this.

I saw your the oldest or one of the oldest athletes in the pro field.

I feel like you should feel awesome about that.

I just recently feel awesome about that.

I don't know, I was like really feeling weird feelings about it for a while.

I think like right when I turned 40 I was like, what am I doing with my life?

But this year racing, there was one time in particular.

Where was that?

Down at Louisville.

Sarah McLarty was on the announcer like as I'm running from the swim to my bike and she's like just the way she announced me was the first time that I felt like really proud about my age.

And like holy crap, I am still doing this.

Like I had a real like go me feeling.

And so I'm trying to embrace that and be like, yeah, I'm doing pretty good for a 40 year old mom.

So just hanging in there.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And this weekend there are a whole bunch of new people in the pro field too.

I know you said you feel new, but you're not new.

Do you have any tips for them?

Do you have any suggestions for all the rookies out here?

There's something special about being a rookie and they don't need any advice?

Because when you're a rookie, you just, you just race in oblivion and it's so fun.

I don't know if you remember, I can hardly even remember that feeling, like just truly just going for it and you got no clue what's going to happen to you.

So I want to try to harness that feeling, actually and just not worry so much about, about all the things that can happen out there.

Yeah.

All right.

I've also been asking every, all the pros if we see you on race day, what do you want us to yell at you?

I really like to hear that everybody else looks at terrible.

Just that like they all.

Everyone in front of you looks horrible.

And that spurs me on.

I don't care what anyone's doing behind me.

I just need to know there's hope.

So, yeah, everyone else looks terrible.

No, I do feel like I need to say not only is like Jackie's like, oh, she's getting it done as a 40, she set the US fastest ever iron man time last year.

Oh, she did.

So I just, you know, just, just getting it done.

Just getting a few things done.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Amazing.

I did feel like I need to point that out.

There are, there are four or five women, four women over 40 in the pro field.

There are like more women rocking it longer these days than ever.

I feel like there's also like some 24 year olds in the pro field.

It's a big mix.

Yeah.

Also.

Well, I said this to you on our morning around this morning, Kelly, but as a 49 year old I, I can say that like I didn't start to feel any effects of like aging until around mid-40s, sort of 46.

It'll of course be different for any, for everyone but I feel like the early 40s is still like a good time to be rocking it.

Yeah, I think.

Yeah.

Like let's go.

Yeah.

There are of course also some very, very young athletes competing who we also talked to yesterday.

We talked to Solvay.

She tried to get me to pronounce it correctly in Norwegian and I feel like I failed.

Did you, Sylvie?

I don't know.

It was like that.

Yeah.

Try.

Yeah.

Sylvie loses.

Who is one of the debuts here that everyone's kind of keeping an eye on.

There are.

But yeah, she's not the only, she's not the youngest.

There's like 2 or 3 24, 25, 26 year olds, but she is.

This only be her third Iron man ever and she's only ever run 246 in Iron Man's.

Which we talk about.

You'll hear in a second.

So you know, she's just.

That's just the pace she runs.

Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Yeah.

You'Re a rookie to Kona.

How do you feel about it now?

You feeling good?

Yeah, I'm feeling better and better here actually.

So got took a couple days just to get used to the heat and the riding here and everything.

But I really enjoy the swim now so.

Starting to just feel more and more ready for race day.

I was gonna say.

I feel like, I mean obviously it's kind of Norwegian cold weather athlete.

How do you feel about the heat?

Yeah, I tolerate it.

I was thinking like if the world championship is going to be here every year, I'm probably going to get really sick of the heat but for now it's okay since it's the first time and it just gotten better and better during the first days.

I did some heat prep before I went here but still it's like I've never raced an Ironman in heat before.

So since I'm coming from short distance I've done.

I have raced in heat before but that has been like sprint distances.

So I'm really excited to see how I do in full Ironman here.

I mean this will only be your third Ironman too.

And then I feel like obviously Hamburg was super impressive but you also had your extension brake and everything and then and then plats.

So it feels almost like you haven't had a full all in everything go right yet.

Have you learned things in the other two that you're going to implement now?

Yeah, for sure.

I feel like I learned a lot in both of those races but what I always also sort of learned is that I don't really expect everything to go perfect in an Ironman and it's such a long day.

But it's also nice to know that I was really happy with both those races even though things were weren't going perfectly all the time.

So it's also nice to have that with you that if something happens just don't stress it too much and just you have time to get back into the race.

I didn't realize until like after that Hamburg was like the fastest debut ever.

Did like, did that, did that feel good?

Were people like, were you like oh man, I can't believe I was the fastest debut ever or is it just sort of another day I can do better.

It's interesting because I think when you're coming from short course it's nobody talks about times there Ever.

Like, I have no idea what's the fastest Olympic distance is because people just don't talk about it.

So at first I was just like, who cares about the time?

Like, I was third and I was happy with third, but at the time was just like, whatever.

But I mean, like, now that I'm getting more and more into the ironman mindset, sort of, I'm thinking like, yeah, it was a bit cool, actually.

Why did you want to move from short course to long course?

You've talked a little bit about this before, but tell us, what do you like about the long course versus the world tri circuit?

Oh, yeah.

It was a quite hard decision for me to do that because I've always done short course and being a part of the national team and really enjoyed that.

But I think just after Paris that I was like, want to try something new?

I guess at first I was really just set on, okay, go straight into sort of LA preparations.

And I was just like, in the mindset that I just need to try again because I was so disappointed with how I did in Paris.

But then I realized, like, or I can try something new and then we'll see how that goes.

Do you like it so far?

Yeah, yeah, I really like it.

I just feel like I had a lot of fun this year and I felt really that it's been just a low pressure year and I reflect a bit over it.

Like, it's interesting in a way because I'm here and I don't feel any pressure around the race.

I felt way more pressure in a lot of the short course races.

Even though when I, like, try to look.

Look at it from the outside, it's actually.

It is actually more pressure here.

Like, it's maybe the first time some people are like, talking about that I can actually do well in races.

Which wasn't really the case in a lot of the short course races I did, but for me, I still felt more pressure there.

So it's very nice to just.

Yeah, yeah, it's nice to just feel like I'm here to just race and have fun.

Well, you're entering the national team and then I was sitting here thinking, like, the whole.

Right, the Norwegian method.

Everyone's up.

What, in your opinion, why are the Norwegians like, as a country, so good?

I think we.

We have few athletes and then we all just know each other well and we have trained a lot together over many years.

Like, spent so much time in camps.

The last for me, 10 years, but for some of the others, even before that.

So I Think it's just we built a very, really good culture in the team where everyone is there to just train really hard but also just have fun with it.

And I think we have all sort of just the same mindset about it and just really enjoying it, but also like setting high goals and.

Yeah, it's just a really, really cool team to be a part of, I think.

Did you have some inspiration coming out of Nice then?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

When I saw.

Yeah, definitely.

It was so cool to see all three of them have success there, you know, especially Casper, who were probably the one least people expected to do that well.

But, like, for those who know him, we know he sort of has it in him, but it's just still incredibly hard to get it out on the day when it mattered the most.

And he did that.

So, yeah, it was just great to see all three of them.

I love, like, the.

The Norwegian method is just like, oh, well, we all work together.

Yeah, yeah.

And we like each other and we train hard.

I mean, there's something to that.

There is.

I mean, success begets success, so when you see your training partners win, you're more likely to win.

And we haven't really had a huge, like everyone says the Norwegians and Norwegians, we haven't had a huge, like Norwegian woman killing it yet.

So I do feel like, you know, she's been doing super well and everyone is eyeing her to do well.

I'm having talked to her now, I'm super excited for her.

Like, I loved her enthusiasm.

That rookie going into the unknown sense of like, she has the right attitude.

She was telling me.

So she's staying out in like the condos.

You know how it's so confusing trying to find your place in like a condo, especially out of Waikoloa.

And she or Wheels got sent to another condo and she was like walking around with her flashlight at night on her phone trying to find her wheels and was like worried the police were gonna get called and you're like, welcome to Kona.

So I do feel, yeah, I feel like we've been talking more and more, more and more of the pros.

There is like a good attitude, maybe it'll change on racing.

But everybody I've had all like, like.

What's the word?

Relaxed, Aggressively relaxed.

But like fun, low key conversations.

Everybody, so far, maybe they're going to get all stressed out now, but up till now everybody's been pretty chill.

Yeah, it's part of the all women's race.

It's chill.

It's chill over here.

Okay, so we want to say one final thank you to our sponsors, to Wahoo to head as the women's specific running shoes and to Lever for allowing us to be here and definitely come down to our tent.

If you are here, check out the merch.

We'll be here all week from 8 to 11 at Kona Canoe Club.

And thank you to them as well for hosting us and allowing us to use our space.

And if you are in Kona, don't forget we are doing two, well three big events this week.

Wednesday morning we will be doing a shakeout run with Mirinda Carfrae.

You can RSVP for all of these things on our Kona Landing page.

We're back.

So Wednesday morning we're doing a shakeout run.

Thursday morning after the underpants run come to our live podcast with Daniela Reeve and we will have brunch breakfast snacks at the Kona Canoe Club and then post race we are doing a whole big panel with Hoka that at Papa Kona and RSVT RSVP details will be up to soon so you can find us everywhere this week and here on the podcast every day, all the time.