I would say there certainly are more challenging days, some days are more challenging than others.

But overall, still very much enjoying it and wouldn't want to have it any other way because especially for me, you have to remember that this is not my long term career.

This is like something I'm doing for fun.

And so if I'm not, if not I'm not enjoying it, what's the purpose?

And like it would life would be so much easier as a med student if I didn't have to train four hours a day and could just either spend that time studying or watching tv.

Obviously I there's a lot of benefits doing the training and fitting it in from all aspects of life from just general health to coping and de stressing and then also being able to travel around the world and all that.

Hello and welcome once again to the Tridog Podcast.

This is the October 17th to 2025 edition and I'm your host, Jeff Zankoff, an emergency physician, a triathlete to triathlon coach, and a multiple Ironman finisher.

Coming to you as always from beautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.

That voice you heard at the beginning of the program was my guest on today's show.

He is a returning guest and he is one of my favorite professionals, if not my very favorite professional on the triathlon circuit today.

That is Matthew Marquardt.

Matthew is of course a full time medical student at Ohio State University, but he's also a very successful professional triathlete.

He joined me back on the program earlier this year, back in the spring when he was really just an aspiring triathlete professional at the time.

He had made his mark on the circuit by competing at the World Championship in Kona, coming in 15th on that day in 2024.

But this year has been really a breakout season for him.

He had his first two professional wins at Cairns and then Lake Placid and went on to be the top finishing American professional at the World Championships in Nice where he placed ninth overall.

And he has had just a terrific season both in triathlon and of course in his real life job being a full time medical student.

And he's taken all of us along on that journey through his very entertaining and frenetic Instagram life as he gives us continuous reels of days in Life of Matthew Marquard.

They are very entertaining, very packed and very busy and they give us a.

Little bit of insight as to who.

Matthew is and how he's able to do all the things he's able to do.

Well, I was thrilled to get him back on the program to talk about all of his successes that he's had this year, to talk about his thoughts about the loss of the race being in different locations, and of course, to hear about what he thought about the big event on the Big Island.

Just this past weekend, we talked on Sunday, the day after that race, and holy smokes, what a race it was.

For people like me who had really enjoyed seeing the race be held in different locations because it can suit different kinds of athletes.

There's no question that what took place on the Big island on Saturday in the women's professional race is really kind of the death knell, I think, of any talk of seeing the race take place anywhere else.

Because as much as the men's race in Nice was sensational, sensational.

It really had all of the things, all of the hallmarks of a sensational and fantastic and exciting championship event where you had five men getting off the bike together and starting on the run together.

You had three of them actually lasting well into the marathon within striking distance of each other.

A rookie coming from behind to beat two previous world champions in the last, basically 10K.

I mean, it really was a sensational event, and we probably all thought that it couldn't really be made that much better.

And then along came Taylor and Lucy to just blow all of our conceptions out of the water.

We expected fireworks, we expected a great.

Event, but I don't think anybody would have scripted what we saw on Saturday on the Big Island.

And when we think about the lore of Ironman, that race on Saturday clearly is going to be etched into that lore, no matter what Taylor Knibb is able to to do in the future of her sensational career.

I mean, let's face it, she's had just the most amazing career to this point, and that's going to continue to be an amazing career in the future.

She undoubtedly is going to get additional wins that are going to make her just one of the most accomplished triathletes that we've ever seen.

She will be forever remembered for the clip that is now going to be played on a loop as part, part of the introduction to the Iron man show that gets played every year of Taylor coming to a standstill after that aid station and then sitting down on the pavement and watching Solvig run by her for the win.

She is now part of that group of women, including Paula Newby, Fraser, Julie Moss, Wendy Ingram and others who have come to grief because of the heat and humidity on the Big island that led to all kinds of issues.

And in Many cases is to the undoing of what might have been a champion.

We're going to talk myself and Juliet and then myself and Matthew about what went on in the race but of course I'm interested in hearing your thoughts as well.

What did you think of the event?

Did you have your mind blown just the way I did and the way so many others did?

Did you think that the race was justly served?

Did you have concerns for the athletes?

I know I did.

Watching it, I felt that we were seeing kind of a replay of what we saw last year when Sam Laidlau came off the bike and was clearly in distress.

On the run as he went along the Queen K, he looked to be in medical distress.

I think he was clearly in heat, maybe heat exhaustion for sure, bordering on heat stroke, unable to cool himself, staggering in some of those aid stations and looked like he needed medical attention.

He was somehow able to get through the course, able to finish.

But we know what a toll that took on him.

It took him many, many months to be able to recover and be able to return to his winning form and be able to get back to Nice this year and do as well as he did.

And we have to find ourselves wondering what's going to happen now with Taylor and Lucy?

Are they going to face the same kinds of long lasting effects that Sam felt?

I don't see any reason why they would be any different.

It takes a huge toll on your body to put yourself under that kind of stress.

Not just the physical exertion but the heat exertion, the internal derangements that take place physiologically when you raise your body temperature and force your body to do something that it clearly is not want to do is very, very serious and can be long lasting.

So I do worry what's going to happen with those two women amongst others who may have felt the effects of that day.

And I asked Matthew during our interview, is there something that Ironman needs to be doing to be considering the safety.

Of these athletes who, let's face it.

They probably aren't thinking about that in the moment, right?

They want to win, they want to continue.

Look at Lucy.

She had to be pulled, physically restrained by Rhys, her husband, to prevent her from continuing.

And I'm sure she at the moment, well you could see that at the moment she didn't agree with it but I think in the after math I'm sure she did.

That was not a good idea for her to continue.

And I would say that Taylor probably continued for 10 kilometers more than was smart.

And so I wonder is there something that needs to be looked at for Ironman for medical officials to be a little bit more closely involved with the athletes to protect them from themselves?

I don't know.

What do you think?

I think love to hear.

So if you have thoughts on the race on just the state of Ironman these days, do you share my sadness at the loss of seeing the race being held in other kinds of areas where the courses will select for different kinds of athletes?

I'd love to hear.

Send me an email tridocloud.com or head on over to the Facebook group.

If you're not a member, please do search for Tridoc Podcast on Facebook.

Answer the three easy questions I'll gain you admit and I would love to have you as part of the conversation.

You can also submit your questions for the Medical Mailbag.

And speaking of the Medical mailbag, we have another listener question to answer.

On today's program, Juliet and I are going to take on a listener question about the timewear, which is a strap that is available now for the not terrible price of about $300 that will allow you to measure ventilatory metrics and physiology, something that was all the rage in the tort de France this past year, especially because of its use by the Visma Lisa bike team.

They really touted its use and said that it helped them get significant fitness benefits.

Well, now it's available for all of.

Us age groupers as well.

Is there science to support what the time where people would have you believe that ventilatory parameters are better than heart rate parameters in terms of dialing in your fitness and training?

We're going to take a look at the research and that's coming up right after this break.

Hello there Juliet.

How are you?

And have you caught your breath after that incredible weekend.

Witchy cuddle weekend with the one I just had, the one.

That just welcome back to Kona.

Sorry, I was also traveling this weekend and so I wasn't sure if you were referring to me personally or to our industry as a whole.

Yes, I didn't know who you were.

Yes, I was.

I was down in my business school reunion, but in the midst of trying to be very present in a cocktail party amongst my peers, I was tracking Kona.

Not only, of course what was happening at the front of the women's race, which was incredibly exciting, but also what was happening with our three amazing life sport athletes and at the same time watching because I couldn't watch it on tv, I was watching our women's feed, our lifesport Women's feed to get their reactions as well as watching the tracker.

So I was in a train to have a conversation with Mike.

So it was very amusing, it was very exciting.

It was pretty unbelievable.

I don't think I. Matthew Marquardt is on this episode and he's going to be giving his thoughts about the loss of the race being in a different location.

And the problem is when you get a race like you did just the other day in Kona, that's what people want, right?

That's what they want to see, that kind of epic blow ups.

They want to see the, the athlete of against athlete right down to the wire.

We did have a lot of that in Nice.

Nice.

Well as you're saying you don't have to have Kona to have that.

You can have that in any very challenging location because these front pack athletes are just getting more and more competitive with each other and they're racing head to head.

It doesn't.

Yes, Kona is of course more challenging because of the humidity and the winds and everything else.

But we saw it in Nice.

You can see it in any really challenging course where these athletes are really trying to win the race.

I don't think that has to be Kona, do you?

I don't.

But it's now happened multiple times that we've had these real epic battles and these epic races and for better or for worse they're all associated with Kona.

We have these images of Julie Moss, Paula Noubi Fraser, Wendy Ingraham, now Taylor Knibb just coming to a standstill, sitting down on the pavement, so close to the finish, so close to glory and then boof gone.

And that kind of thing has not happened yet at other courses.

But like you say it wouldn't if you did it long enough it would.

Yeah.

But gosh, just I've been very encouraged hearing Taylor speak.

She obviously has no regrets.

But you and I were chatting a little bit and I did say she does say that knowing what she knows now she would do things differently just in the moment.

She wouldn't have changed anything.

Which that totally makes sense to me.

What didn't make sense to me was I was hearing people were saying she's saying she wouldn't change anything.

And I'm like that doesn't make sense.

You can't come out of that experience and think you would do exactly the same thing again and expect anything different.

But hearing the nuance to it I think makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, you've done a better job tracking.

I haven't had time over the last 24 hours to track all of the post race which I meant to do it last night but I got caught up with something else so hopefully tonight I'll get to it.

I think you and I didn't finish our text conversation earlier about this subject and my point was simply that I think when you have two athletes of that caliber and of course there were many athletes in the field that were incredible.

Right.

But you had those two athletes at the front and they were at the point where they were racing each other and damn the torpedoes, everything else it was a head to head battle.

Mano y mano or womano?

Womano mi womano and you make a decision I think that at that point if you're that level of athlete that you are racing the person right next to you and so you can't necessarily hold onto your race plan at that point anymore until you take risks.

She said it's interesting we haven't heard at least I haven't heard from Lucy yet.

I don't know if she's taking this harder now.

She's been quiet.

Maybe I just missed that she has spoken But Taylor said that she made a conscious decision to just forget about the plan and just go up against Lucy because she was enjoying the moment of racing.

But I will continue to contend that probably wasn't the best idea because I think if Lucy had continued the way she was going Lucy was gonna blow and Taylor then would have been able to win and sometimes I think you do have to keep something in reserve.

Anyways it's woulda, coulda, shoulda.

It made for an incredibly entertaining, very eventful day and I'm just sad they'll be there together next year but I'm sad they'll be racing on the same day because we won't get the drama of really just seeing the men race and their drama and then the women race and have their drama.

I 100% agree.

It's too bad intermingled.

Yeah the women will get lost a little bit and just I want to dwell here for one more moment because not only did you have that incredible drama going off between who is then 1, 2 but also I was just wishing that A Marathon was 27.2 miles because Kat was in the hunt and it was 35 seconds at the end and I just how exciting that a newbie won it.

Of course that's a novice won it.

That's amazing.

But I just like that Matthew so much and it would have been such a great story for her too, when the last mile of an eight plus hour race pass and come into first place and she just ran out of road.

So I was watching that as well.

And I was also thinking, could she possibly catch her in the time she had left?

You were watching the time come down, down.

Clearly she knew she was ahead and could see her at some points.

So she was obviously going very hard.

The one thing that I guess we'll never know is did Solvig have something in reserve?

If you're out ahead and you know you've got a sufficient gap to hang on, but you know that somebody's charging from behind, you're probably not running full gas.

You're running enough to hold your lead and then if the lead suddenly evaporates, Kat's been full gas.

Kat's been going full gas for that whole time.

Maybe Solvig does have another gear.

She's just not been showing, so we won't ever know that.

But yes, I agree with you.

Would have been really.

It would have been unbelievable.

Yeah.

And I'm really curious, what data did those athletes have in the last five miles in terms of where they were relative to each other?

Did Solvague know that her lead was diminishing?

Did Kat know that she was eating up the time?

I think she did.

She mentioned that she did, but boy, another kilometer, another mile would have been interesting.

Always better to be from behind.

Right.

Because you could see the one ahead of you.

Whereas Zolvik, I never saw her turn her head.

And you know why?

She doesn't want to show weakness.

She doesn't want to turn her head and make it seem like she's weak.

So I get that maybe she was getting info, but yeah, I agree with you.

It was very dramatic at the finish.

It would have been even more so if the marathon was just a bit longer.

A little longer.

I know it is what it is and good for Solvang.

And I also, I have a little bit of a sort of.

Maybe this is me showing my age, but I feel like your first time out.

Yeah, you need to get schooled a little bit.

Yeah.

You shouldn't get to wing the first time out.

Yeah.

But she did, so I'll power to her.

It's great.

Yeah.

Two.

Two Norwegian rookies atop the world.

It's pretty amazing.

All right, we are here for the medical mailbag.

And that means that Juliet and I are going to be answering a listener question.

And it is a listener question.

But once again, the question has been percolating and ruminating within the Facebook Group and I have misplaced who asked it.

Now this is on me.

This is on me.

I need to do a better job of not just writing down what the questions are, but writing down who they're from.

So my sincere apologies.

You should fess up.

Just the way we had a fess up last time when I forgot.

So, yes, please do let us know who you are.

But the question we're going to be answering today revolves around some fancy tech.

It is.

What is that tech?

It's regarding this company called Timeware and Timeware.

It basically looks like a heart rate strap.

Look like one of our Garmin or Wahoo heart rate straps.

It goes around right around your rib cage.

And the difference between this and a normal everyday heart rate strap is that this heart rate strap, it tracks breathing mechanics.

And so the big question for your research team really is, does knowing these sort of ventilatory threshold measurements, does it make a difference to the sort of everyday age group?

We see that on this website.

There's a lot of kudos coming in from professional cycling teams who find this data really important.

But for the vast majority of us, is knowing this one or two extra data points in addition to heart rate, which we already have, is this going to be important for us as age groupers?

So what did your team find out?

Yeah, so I first became aware of this back during the cycling season during the Tour de France, when Visma Lisa bike made it abundantly clear that they were using this tech.

They weren't hiding anything.

It wasn't anything really that they had to hide.

It is, as you said, a chest strap.

It originally was developed as a shirt that was worn underneath your recycling kit and it had sensors in it.

But eventually it was shrunk down to this chest strap.

And it looks very much like a Garmin heart rate monitor.

But it has the added capability of being able to measure chest expansion and respiratory rate and some other respiratory mechanics.

And basically, I could tell you, according to their website, its tidal volume or the volume of air per breath.

It's a breathing rate or respiratory rate.

How many breaths per minute, Your minute ventilation, which is simply your respiratory rate, times the tidal volume to give the total amount of ventilatory volume per minute.

And then you have, excuse me, the minute ventilation.

That's right.

It also does some of the other things like heart rate.

It will do.

It has an os, what is that thing called vertical oscillation?

Yeah, it measures vertical oscillation.

So it can measure your ground contact time when running.

It measures cadence.

So it does a Lot of things that a lot of the other sensors do, but it incorporates in these respiratory mechanics.

And the reason that these respiratory mechanics are in there is because the whole point is the idea that ventilatory threshold, there's two of them, there's VT1 and VT2.

That ventilatory threshold is a better training metric than our heart rate zones, at least according to the manufacturer's timeware and according to some exercise scientists and certainly the cycling teams.

They would have you believe that using ventilatory metrics is a really good way of doing things.

So whenever we are faced with a device like this, I think we need to ask a few questions.

The first question is, okay, does the device measure what it says it does?

Does the device measure what it says it does accurately compared to a gold standard?

Does the device show that it is of benefit compared to what we're already using?

So in this case, power meters, heart rate, stuff like that.

And then finally, we need to take into consideration the cost and what we're actually getting out of it.

So to answer the first question, does it measure what it says it does?

We are left a little bit left to what the website says.

But there was one study we did find where they actually validated the Time Warner strap against a gold standard, like this metabolic cart, which is what is used in hospitals to measure respiratory mechanics.

And it looks like, indeed, the Timeware Vital Pro, which is what it's called, provides accurate and reliable respiratory monitoring compared to his gold standard.

So to answer those first two questions, it does measure what it says it does, and it does measure what it says it does quite accurately.

So that's very helpful.

So then we need to understand what this whole ventilatory threshold training is.

And basically, I'm not going to get into the weeds on this.

I'm just going to tell you what VT1 is essentially.

Think about it as an RPE for your breathing.

You're out there, you're in zone one, you're just walking along, maybe light jogging, you're not breathing hard, you're able to chit chat, right?

So VT1, that ventilatory threshold one inflection point, is basically when you start feeling like you are breathing with some effort, but you're still able to talk in sentences.

So I consider that almost like a zone 2.

Sure, I think makes sense, right?

You're running with a little more effort, but your conversational pace, you could definitely feel that you're breathing a little bit more, but it's not uncomfortable.

I call it the call your mother effort.

There you go, I like that.

Yeah, that's good.

And then the VT2, which is the ventilatory threshold 2 is akin to the anaerobic threshold.

That's where breathing becomes very difficult.

You cannot exceed that ventilatory threshold to be able to do anymore.

And I think of that as the cross country finish line.

That's like the 18th minute of your FTP, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's what it is, basically.

And there are different kind of protocols to find your ventilatory thresholds.

And then once you find your ventilatory thresholds, you're supposed to then design zones, training zones off of those ventilatory thresholds.

It's basically exactly what we already do with heart rate.

Yeah.

So why ventilatory threshold versus heart rate?

Basically, it boils down to one thing.

Heart rate is not always reliable because of individual characteristics.

So for instance, if you haven't gone and done an actual test, so most of us listening to this, most of us have done an FTP or most of us have done a running test or whatever, we've calculated our max heart rate, we figured out what our max heart rate is, and from that we've backed out to our different zones.

Right.

Based on the percentages of your max heart rate.

A lot of people don't do that.

A lot of people who come to exercise, they just do 225 or 220 minus their age, and that gives a guesstimate of your maximum heart rate.

And then they develop their zones from there.

The problem is when researchers, and I have a couple of studies here, researchers who basically looked at ventilatory threshold training versus.

Oh, hello, Farley.

Ventilatory training, that's okay.

Ventilatory training versus sort of dumb heart rate training.

And by dumb heart rate training not doing the kind of testing that we usually do when they do ventilatory threshold training in recreationally active individuals, ventilatory threshold actually works really well to help athletes improve their endurance performance very quickly.

So if you use those ventilatory thresholds to dial in the zones and then you dial in training around those zones, you see very impressive improvements in endurance performance over reasonable amounts of time.

And so, deriving from these studies, people have said ventilatory threshold is clearly the way to go.

The problem I have with these studies is not to question whether or not ventilatory threshold is a valid means of designing your training.

Clearly it is.

The question I have is, okay, but what if you did a good test with heart rate to develop your heart rate zones and then compare that to these ventilatory thresholds, would you necessarily get these similar kind of discrepancies or would they line up a lot better?

And in fact, in some of these studies where they've actually looked at like higher level athletes, the difference between the two is less.

There seems to be a little bit closer between the heart rate, there still seems to be a small difference, but it's much less pronounced than what we see with people who aren't doing official testing of the heart rate.

The other people in whom ventilatory threshold seems to have a big advantage is anybody who's taking some kind of medication that affects their heart rate.

So older folks like us, fortunately neither of us are on medications that affect our heart rate.

But if we were on a beta blocker, if we were on any kind of cardiotropic or any kind of active cardiac medication that could affect our heart rate, certainly anything that would affect our maximum heart rate, or if we had any underlying cardiac disease from hypertension or whatever that impacts the reliability of heart rate zones.

And in that case, ventilatory threshold remains independent and unaffected by those things and actually becomes more accurate.

Does that all make sense?

Yeah, it totally makes sense.

So I'm actually, when you were commenting about a lot of people setting their heart rate zones based on this sort of heart rate, your age minus heart rate or whatever, the 220, whatever, that I was actually surprised to hear that people are still using that because it's actually not very difficult to do a field test either on the bike or on the run and set your heart rate zones accurately, assuming you're using just a run of the mill heart rate monitor.

And so if you are setting your heart rate zones somewhat accurately using a field test and either the bike or the run, it's actually what I'm hearing you say it is pretty much equivalent to this device.

It's when people are going with kind of the 1970s method, if you will, of incorporating your aids and beginning to.

A problem, it's much better than the 1970s method.

But even with.

I do want to be clear that even with doing a formal test for heart rate and everything else, the ventilatory thresholds do seem to give a slight improvement of accuracy.

Okay, how much is that accuracy important though?

That's the part I can't answer and that's the part that I personally find myself questioning.

That's where that's the devil in the details right there.

Because if that level of accuracy is within 5%, I don't think I'm gonna run out and spend $300 on this device.

If that level of accuracy is 10 to 15%, that's a different story.

That might indicate that knowing your training zones with that degree of accuracy might actually be a big deal.

Certainly for people who are on the high end of performance, I can understand then why this would be a very useful thing.

I could also understand if money wasn't an issue.

This is another metric, right?

Sure.

This is just one more metric that you could use to dial in your training.

So let's say you're being given a high intensity interval workout.

You could be using your heart rate to guide that.

But what if your ventilatory threshold suggests that, you know what, actually I'm not working that hard even though my heart rate's a little high.

Maybe my heart rate's a little high because I had a cup of coffee before or I'm a little dehydrated so I need to work a little harder to see if I can't get that ventilatory threshold up.

So it's basically, it's like having a fail safe metric.

So I could see a lot of ways in which this ventilatory threshold and in which this data can be useful and helpful.

I just don't know that on a day to day basis it's going to add that much.

Right.

And if it's necessarily worth the $300 entry fee now, 300 bucks for tech, that's not that much.

I will caution at Timeware sells $150 a year subscription.

I was going to say there's a membership subscription.

So it's actually 450.

I don't think it's necessary because all that does is when you buy the device you get all, everything you need to be able to dial in your zones to know what your zones are and to start training with your zones for the $150 extra you get like AI coaching in a way.

Basically it just gives you workouts in your zones, which I don't, I don't see why you need that.

If you already have a coach, you don't need to spend the extra 150.

So I view this as a one off, $300, one time purchase, which again it's not cheap but it's certainly not that expensive.

And I feel like while it's not a huge amount of evidence, there's evidence here to suggest that there's something there and there's definitely a signal here.

And I think that if you're the kind of person who really wants, listen, there are people out there pricking their ears to get blood for lactate tests.

And they're doing this every six weeks.

I would do this.

I would much rather do ventilatory thresholds instead of that.

What would be so interesting?

And I'm sure the people at the very point the end, we were reading about how this is being incorporated by the Visma team, I think right on the website.

And that'll be really interesting to see if we can overlay their heart rate zones on top of their ventilatory threshold zones to see how over different types of workouts they overlaid and intersected and interacted and to see how consistent they were.

Right, I agree.

From athlete to athlete, that would be super interesting data.

But as we were talking about before we started, for the vast majority of age group athletes, there's so much data we already have to help these athletes improve.

And as we've often joked, it's like, like we could incorporate this data and look at this data every day and really pay a lot of attention to it.

Or we could just ask you to pick up two minutes in transition.

I'm not sure that's totally fair, though.

I know what you're saying, I know what you're saying, but sometimes we drown.

In data with age group athletes.

Yeah, no question.

But I think, I know that you use zones to help your athletes train.

And I think that this is a little different because what this is saying is that, look, this is a different way of dialing in your zones and the data would suggest that this is a more accurate way of doing it and that if you're really trying to achieve that, if you can be more accurate on your zones and more accurate in your training, then you will have a better response to those loads.

So I think there's merit to that argument and I think there is merit to making that mind shift.

And I think that this is a very valid kind of approach.

I don't know that it's necessary though, because I think, like I said, if we're talking about a 5% difference, and that's where I was in some of these papers, where the heart rate was done well, it seemed to be about a 5% difference.

That's not nothing, but it's small enough that, yes, for most average age groupers where, yeah, they can get two minutes in transition, finding that 5% difference in accuracy in training zones is probably not that important.

But we both work with age groupers who are doing those things to try and improve transition and are investing in, say, a time trial bike because they really do want to make those gains.

This might be something where it's also potentially interesting.

So I.

This doesn't strike me as in the same vein as a lot of the things we've talked about where you're trying to find almost a shortcut.

To me, this is a little bit different.

This is looking for a way to modify your training to be more accurate and to get a bigger response from your training load.

And I'm actually all for that.

I'm just not entirely sure that based on the limited evidence we have.

That.

You, me, Joe, age grouper, is going to get the same response as the Visma Lisa bike guys.

Right.

Like you say, operating at the 99th percentile of human capacity.

For sure.

For sure.

But no doubt the device does what it advertises to do.

It does it accurately.

And there is science to support what they are saying.

So that just in and of itself is refreshing.

Yeah.

That differentiates it from a lot of other things we talk about here.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And again, the price point's not ridiculous.

So I don't feel like this is something that is at all.

Should be discounted in any way.

Hey, we're getting to that point where people might be thinking about Christmas gifts.

If this was something you wanted to ask for, I would love to hear what your experience was, because I would consider this.

I just.

I'm not gonna run out and get it right now because again, I just.

I'm not one of.

As much as I love data, I'm not one of those people to likely sit and look at that much data.

Yeah, interesting.

And have you put the sleep mask on your Christmas list yet?

Because I'm sitting here.

Well, I got the sleep mask.

Oh, okay.

So I got it.

Yeah, I know.

I just haven't used it yet.

I'm going to use it when I go to sp.

So I have.

I've got it.

Oh, I didn't realize I hadn't fed back to you on this.

So, remember I was talking about how I was interested to know how the mask would fit with these LED lights?

I'll have to bring it on next time I record with you.

But basically, it's got this, like, little triangular sort of plastic piece that kind of sits above, like, almost on your forehead to your bridge of your nose.

And it really just has two LED lights that are situated right over your eyes.

And so that's why it doesn't have a panel in any way.

The mask itself is very comfortable with the little light box.

The light box weighs, like, nothing, and the little light box in it is very unnoticeable.

So yeah, I'm going to try it to because it actually has a program that lets you begin shifting your sleep pattern prior to your trip.

So we leave on a Sunday night and I'm going to start shifting my sleep pattern on Thursday.

So I will report back.

I can't wait.

All right.

Yeah, I'm interested also.

All right, Juliet, that's what we got for today.

I think that the timeware is a very interesting piece of tech that might definitely be something that some people are interested in.

And if you're one of them, do let us know.

We want to hear.

Sounds good.

That's all we've got for you today.

Another episode of the Medical Mailbag.

Put to bed.

If you have a question for us, please do reach out and let us know.

We would love to hear from you.

We would love and I will take down your name, I promise.

Well guys, he's 0 for 2 over the last couple weeks.

I know.

I'm so I will do better, I promise.

You know how to reach us though.

You could drop a line into the Facebook group.

If you're not a member, just have a look for it on Facebook.

It's try doc podcast and answer the easy questions will gain you admittance.

We'd love to have you as part of the conversation and asking your questions there.

You can also drop me an email@tridocloud.com send me your questions and we will consider for a future episode of the Medical Mailbag.

We are episode 182.

Juliet.

We are closing in on that 200th where we're going to do another review.

So it'll be.

Oh good.

Oh, those are the best.

Yeah, yeah, it'll come around.

Okay, good.

All right, that's what I got for you.

We'll see you again next week.

Thank you.

See you then.

I am very excited to have as.

A return guest to the program Matthew Marquardt.

Matthew was here the last time I spoke to him was in March and at that time, gosh, he was a budding professional triathlete.

He was a full time medical student at Ohio State University.

But who knew what a very short few weeks would end up doing for his career because in the intervening time since I spoke to him the first time to he is a two time Ironman winner at Cairns and then again at Lake Placid.

He set the record at Ironman, Lake Placid and then went on to have just an unbelievable day in Nice where he was eighth at the world championship the first overall American and it's just been a storybook season and I am thrilled that he was able to find some time to come back and talk to me because I have a lot of questions and so it gives me a chance to go full fanboy once again here to his face.

Matthew, thank you so much for joining me on the Tridoc podcast.

It's a real pleasure to have you back.

Of course.

Yeah.

Happy to talk to a fellow healthcare triathlete anytime.

First and foremost, congratulations.

It really has been an amazing season.

I know that as a professional, you never go into it thinking any less than I can do everything I set out to.

But with that said, were you surprised at all at what happened this year or was it just this is what you plan for and it all came to work out exactly as you hoped?

Yeah, no, it's been quite the season, for sure.

It started off a little Rocky.

I was 15th at Ironman Texas and 15th at 70.3St.

George, which is certainly pretty atypical for me.

I've been known as an athlete that's always been near the front of the race, if not on the podium.

And so to really be out of the race was something that I really was not used to.

But.

And that was, I think, mainly frustrating because I had actually had some of the best training I'd ever had in kind of the preceding months.

And the most frustrating aspect about it was this knowing that you've put in the training and knowing that your body is capable of more, but then not being able to do it on race day.

And in my case in particular, that was because of.

Of this continuing problem that I've had with the cramping, getting out of the water.

So at start of the season it was a bit frustrating and then to be able to pull off from behind, the.

From.

To pull off a win from behind at both cans in Lake Placid was really incredible and I think was just really awesome to see all the work that I've done, be able to be shown off a little bit and be expressed in a race situation and also I think is just super exciting for where things can go in the future when hopefully we get the cramping problem figured out and I don't have to have a 5 to 10 minute deficit right off at the start of the race.

So we talked a lot about your cramping on Tempo Talks, my sister podcast with Matt Sharp, and I opined at the time that I thought maybe you were doing something with your kick because it's really unusual to have cramping coming out of the swim, especially for someone who's such a strong swimmer.

Have you figured anything out on that or do you have a sense of where that's coming from?

Yeah, this is an area where not that I'm like necessarily, I try and be pretty transparent on social media what's going on versus not.

And this is something that I would say overall I have not been super transparent on, mainly because I don't really feel like we have an answer yet.

And I think as the medical student healthcare worker in me, I don't really necessarily want to share anything until I actually feel like I know what's going on.

And so I'll walk you through a little bit about what our thinking is.

But that just all goes to say it's an ongoing process and I don't really feel like we'll know until I get through a race without cramping, which hasn't happened yet.

The biggest thing is that like I've been in the sport for about four years now and like basically never had the problem until December.

And really nothing significantly has changed between during that time.

And nothing's necessarily changed nutritionally.

Nothing's necessarily.

It's more of a quote unquote, if we were to say in medical terminology and insidious, almost an insidious onset where can't really pinpoint exactly the trigger.

And so we've tried a bunch of stuff, explored a bunch of things from being like nerve compression in the lower back to like nerve compression in the quads.

Like it happens in both wetsuit and non wetsuit swims, warm cold water with like a salt load and as well without a salt load.

And so a lot of the traditional or most apparent reasons don't seem to be triggers because it's happened both with and without those kind of quote unquote risk factors.

So we don't really exactly know.

We've done a lot of work with kind of trying to strengthen my core as well as release my lower back because that was thought as to contributing to it.

And certainly I did better at world in the regard that I was able to run through transition without cramping, but then I cramped right when I got on the bike.

So it's still happening.

It's still happening.

And don't really have a great answer at this time that like feel good enough like really sharing because I just don't think that like, like guessing things without necessarily having evidence and it's one way or the other.

Is that productive to listeners?

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's very fair.

And certainly it's great that it hasn't held you back in those races.

But one almost wonders, could you have even accomplished more?

Hopefully, to be determined.

What was it like in Nice for you?

What was that day?

We had fun tracking you along the way because your whole week leading up to it was just not the typical week.

And we were just enjoying seeing you doing the kinds of things that only you would do.

Going to visit a cancer center, that kind of activity.

And then just imagining what it must have been like you to be at that race amongst those athletes.

What was it like?

Yeah, no, it was awesome.

I really love France, and obviously the south of France is the best when it comes to experiencing France, because the days were perfect every day and super pretty and nice to be near the ocean and all that.

So I really had a ton of fun throughout the whole time and really was just focused on being grateful for the privilege that I had of being in the position that I was in.

I think it's been really cool to see the impact that I have on age group athletes in particular.

And that becomes, I think, the most apparent in a world championship setting because you have people from all over the world.

Like, it's one thing for people to come up to me and talk to me like Adelaide Placid, where that's almost like a hometown race.

It's another thing for that to happen at a world championship race where people are literally from all over the world.

And so that was a ton of fun to be able to meet people and really hear the impact that I've had on them kind of outside, well, inside, but also outside of the sport.

Was.

Was really meaningful to me because that's.

Yes, I want to perform well.

Yes, I want to do well as an athlete, but my bigger purpose is to, like, have a broader impact on people's lives rather than just winning titles and stuff like that.

So that was super cool.

And then race morning, I was feeling good.

I knew that I was in good shape and could do something well.

And there was always.

You always have to have multiple plans.

And so I had the plan of, okay, everything goes well, but also, what's the plan if.

If things don't go as I wanted?

And unfortunately, it was like, short of a DNF or a major injury, pretty much almost everything bad could have happened that could have happened in that I got out of this.

I got out of the swim and cramped on the bike and lost six or seven minutes right there as I was recovering.

So I dropped from.

I don't know, 10th out of the water to like 36, I think at one point.

And thankfully though it did loosen up after about 10 minutes and found myself with a good group going up like the main climb and that they were pushing really hard, but I also knew it was within my limits, within my capacity, and so just hung on and was like, okay, the race starts at the top of the climb.

That is, I think, the most important lesson that I had learned from two years prior.

And so at the top of the climb, got to work and started picking people off slowly but surely.

And everything was going great until about, I don't know, mile 105, 106 went on.

It was quite literally the second to last turn of the course.

I went down on.

Like I crashed.

Both my wheels came out from under me and I slid across the pavement on a turn that I probably never should have crashed on.

I think think there was probably either some oil on the road or dust or something that made the surface more slippery than you would expect from looking at it.

And so that obviously sucks because I went down, hit my hip really hard, got some road rash on both my hands, my right side and everything and but thankfully, like nothing was apparently broken.

Nothing was broken and my bike had scuffs on it, but like nothing was, it was still rideable.

So rode the west rest of the way into transition and then it was like, okay, I don't know what's going to happen on this marathon because, like my hips really hurting and sure enough, the first like half lap, like every step, especially on my right side, was like really excruciating.

But thanks to a little bit of exercise induced analgesia as well as some NSAIDs, things got better and was able to finish the marathon and then get 8th.

So very proud of the 8th place finish.

Been very happy of all that I accomplished despite all the things that happened.

But also at the same time, there's very much a knowing that it could have been a very different day.

But that's sport like, in order to be on the podium at a world championship, you do need a little luck to go your way.

And in terms of having a good day or being in the right group or in some cases someone not necessarily having their best day, which you never wish upon anyone, but is the case.

At times you're coming out feeling almost as if you left something on the table.

Yeah, no, I mean there was, I think there was objectively like 8 to 10 minutes in immediate time savings, not, not talking about, oh, I could have run faster if I Had and crashed.

Like I have eight to 10 minutes of direct time loss because of the crash and because of the cramps.

And that puts you into the top three solidly.

Certainly was in the top five.

And then with.

Beyond that, I think it's a little up for debate depending on how the race actually goes and how the strategy, but it certainly could have been a very different day for me.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

That's gotta be motivating for the future, I would imagine.

Remind me, I know you won the overall age group in Kona, but you.

Did you race there as a pro as well?

Yeah, so I raced there last year as a pro and I finished.

I was like fifth off the bike, but then I ended up 15th overall because I overcooked myself a little bit and started the marathon.

Okay, so we'll come back to that.

But clearly you have had success on the Big island and obviously a place you'd like to go back to and maybe have the better day or the better day, geez, maybe the slightly improved over the amazing day you had in France.

Yeah, that's.

That's really interesting.

I. I don't think a lot of us knew at the time that you crashed because of the way Ironman doesn't do a fantastic job of televising the events.

They focus on the leads, few people and that's it.

We had no idea that you had crashed and I didn't even notice any like tornado clothing or anything, so.

And they never showed you.

So until the end, only found out after the fact that you had crashed and just made your accomplishment that much more impressive.

Your training regimen continues to be something that fascinates everyone.

Since you were on this podcast, I've noticed a definite uptick in the number of reels about how Matthew spends his day, which we continue to marvel at and enjoy.

How's that going?

Everything from.

From training on cruise ships to being able to manage everything you do by waking up in the wee hours of the morning and then stretching it all the way through.

How is it going?

Are you finding it any more difficult or is it just this is what you love and you're not at all tasked?

Yeah, no, it's.

It's.

Overall, things are going well, I would say.

There certainly are more challenging days.

Some days are more challenging than others, but overall, still very much enjoying it and wouldn't want to have it any other way because especially for me, you have to remember that this is not my long term career.

This is like something I'm doing for fun and so if I'm not, if not I'm not enjoying it, what's the purpose?

And like it would life would be so much easier as a med student if I didn't have to train four hours a day and could just either spend that time studying or watching tv.

Obviously I there's a lot of benefits that's doing the training and fitting it in from all aspects of life from just general health to coping and de stressing and then also being able to travel around the world and all that.

So yeah, it's the day in my life.

Realism has been I think an interesting evolution of my social media and that when I first, I don't know, I think in January or so I decided that I was really going to try and have a slightly more active presence on social media because I felt like at that point people had started to learn who I was enough that I guess it warranted posting a little bit more, sharing a little bit more and also wouldn't necessarily come across as super narcissistic.

And the day in my life reels at first I was like I don't want to do that.

But then tons of people have been like they love seeing them because it's showed them new ways of doing things that they didn't necessarily think were previously possible.

And so I've actually really started to enjoy and this is my life I make.

I'm very strict about if I don't do something on a day it doesn't go in a real like the reels.

Some people I think are a little more loose about what and when they do things.

But I am very strict of this is when I did it, this is for how long I did it and if I didn't do it on this day it doesn't count for that day.

And but like the whole purpose is just to show okay, this is how I problem solve and this is how I fit things in.

When I When you have someone that has a super busy schedule and also has some pretty big priorities and a lot of it's just become like this is just what I do.

Like yesterday I got up at 3:15 because there was an important family event in Cincinnati which is an hour and 45 minute drive away and I had to be down there by 11:30 and I had six hours of workout signing to do before I left.

And so it just becomes okay, like I have these two important things this day and 3:15 isn't too bad.

And so I'm going to get up at 3:15 and do my workouts and that's just what you have to do.

And I think a lot of that, I don't know, a lot of that I attribute to like my swimming background and that there's so much in swimming that like you don't want to do, but you just do it because you know that it's good for you and that you're supposed to do it.

And, and that there's quote unquote, not another option.

And, and so that's very much where things are like it's gotten to a point where like getting up at four to five is just normal and like waking up between five or six is like sleeping in, which is like a very bizarre thing.

But that's just where I'm at now and I don't really think about it too much.

It's really interesting because I've always been very efficient and very on task.

I think it's probably a physician type thing.

Right?

That's where you're getting it.

It's where I got it.

And I've been pretty good about putting my life Tetris together in a very similar kind of fashion.

But when I watch your reels I realize how lazy I really am because I was in Chicago this week doing a work related conference and so I brought my bike packed up, I brought my little portable feedback sports trainer, I had it all set up in my hotel room and every morning I was up at crack of dawn to get on the bike and do my session.

And then I was at the meetings and work all day long.

And then as soon as I got out of there at 4:30 I was, I'd head down, get changed quickly, go out for my run.

And so over the course of the day I was getting in good two and a half hours of training every day and I was quite content.

And then I thought to myself, Matthew's getting in six hours a day.

So I'm a real slacker here.

But the Matthew Marquardt training plan, no matter where you are, I have to say and I also will point out that I worked on a cruise ship for several years.

Oh really?

Yeah.

A as the cruise ship doctor and I would do my training on the ships as well, but never ever do the degree or dedication that you did.

We all aspire to the Matthew Marquardt way of doing things.

It's very laudable.

And yes, please do keep those reels coming.

We very much enjoy them and we thank your lovely partner for being a part of it and showing us what goes into the whole thing.

It's Really, I think that's one of the most important, important things that I do very much prioritize, like the relationship part of things.

But I also couldn't do this without their support.

At the same time, like, part of the reason why I think I first started getting used to working up or working out early is so that I could get up early, finish my workout and then spend my day with Sarah or with friends or whatever.

And so that got me used to it.

But then obviously when you're training for six hours in a day, it's hard to do that where you're actually truly finishing it all before they wake up or whatnot.

That.

But at the end of the day, like I try to make the training as little of a burden on kind of my other life as possible and that just makes it all the easier for loved ones to support you.

Yeah.

And I have said from day one, and I always say it, I keep saying it, that triathlon is a team sport as much as it's an individual pursuit.

If you don't have the support of your surrounding team, you just can't get it done, at least not effectively.

So kudos to you and to Sarah.

I have a few questions left in the time we have remaining.

One of them is what's next for you?

Because I had spoken a couple different times that I was worried that we weren't going to see you on the professional circuit next year because you were in your last year of medical school.

That meant match time would be coming up.

And as a first year resident, there is no way you could potentially continue as a professional.

And that was very disappointing to me and I'm sure many of your fans.

But when we spoke privately, you suggested that might not be the case or maybe some possibilities.

So what is, what is in the future for Matthew Marquardt at least for 2026 as you know it right now?

Yes, actually the Ironman Pro Series schedule for next year is actually phenomenal for my medical school calendar.

So I have about six months of third year left and then I start fourth year.

And for those that aren't familiar at least, like fourth year basically starts in May and the first four months of fourth year are super, super busy because you're taking your step two, which is a nine hour exam and like one of the crucial metrics that you have for getting into residency.

And then you also do your away rotations which are basically a month long interview process where you're probably working 80 to 100 hours a week for the whole month.

Month and probably not really having much time off.

And you're doing that at other institutions where you'd potentially like to do residency.

So next summer will be super busy.

But thankfully because of the way that the Ironman Pro Series is laid out, I can actually get basically most of my racing done in the spring or the fall and leverage the time after applications are in as well as before fourth year starts.

I'm still trying to finalize things with school in terms of moving stuff around to enable me to do the races.

But I think that next year should still be like a pretty full racing year.

And certainly, hopefully we'll be at Kona no matter what.

Next year should be still like another good year.

And then after that we still have to figure that out.

That's great news.

I know for me and all of your fans, that's really wonderful that we could look forward to seeing you out there.

Have you got races penciled in or that's like you said, still to be determined you figured out with school?

Yeah.

Still have to figure it out exactly which ones in which way we'll slice and dice it.

But I was very happy when the Pro Series calendar came out because of when the races were.

I felt like lined up really well to enable me to do.

To do as many as possible and hopefully get five races in.

But we will see.

And I don't think I'm speaking out of turn.

You're not qualified for Marbella.

Is that correct?

Correct.

That is correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm sad I'm going to be in Marbella.

I would have loved to have seen you there.

I know.

Me too.

It's too bad because I'll finish the season with only four Pro Series races and we'll see if I am able to stay in the top 10 or not.

But there's a possibility I'll slide to 11th or so.

@ the end of the day, like the focus of this year ended up becoming more Ironman focused and there was an opportunity to use LMC before the World Championship, but.

But decided you know what?

Yeah, I could do Zellamc and get some points, but would you rather have a top five finish in at the World Championships or a top five finish in the Pro Series?

And it was clear to me that like I'd rather have a top five finish at the World Championship than be top five in the Pro Series.

So made the decision to skip Zell emc.

And it is what it is.

Yeah.

And just remind me and for those of my listeners who might not know, Pro Series pays through what number?

Through 50.

So it pays through 50, but the big bucks are in the top 10.

It's basically like 10th gets 10 grand, 9th gets 20, et cetera.

And then first gets 200,000.

And then after 11, like, 11th through 15th, I think it's 8 grand.

And then it's like a sliding scale where, like, 40th to 50th gets two grand.

Yeah.

So you're in the money.

All right.

With the time we have remaining, I want to get your thoughts on yesterday's race in Kona.

We're talking on Sunday.

The race is still fresh in everybody's minds.

It was just the most epic race I can remember seeing in a long time.

As epic as the men's race was in.

Nice watching five guys come off together on the run, which was sensational.

Yesterday was epic in a very different way, but still just amazing.

What were your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I think, like, my overall thoughts was that, I don't know, it was, like, emotionally very challenging for me.

I feel just so bad for both Lucy and Taylor because they fought so hard, and then to not be able to finish the race, especially Taylor, like, the fact that she was only 15 minutes away from finishing but was just so shattered that she couldn't do it, I think just really shows how far they had pushed themselves.

And I've.

I haven't been in that same situation, but at Ironman Texas last year, I. I really struggled with overheating and almost didn't finish that race because of overheating as well, and had a moment very much like Lucy's where I fell into my partner's arms and had to take a moment.

And thankfully, I was still able to go forward because Texas conditions aren't quite as terrible as Kona's.

But my heart really goes out to both Taylor and Lucy because that's not the way anyone wants to end their race.

But at the same time, like, just.

Just really incredible to watch them duke it out for the six to seven hours that we had.

And then for.

Obviously for Solvig to take the win is really cool to.

To have another rookie win in their first kind of Ironman world championship for Kat to almost run her down as well.

So it was a day that had, I think, constant, like, excitement in different ways and certainly was one that had an ending that I don't think anyone could have predicted.

Yeah.

Taylor will now join Julie Moss, Wendy Ingram, all of these.

Paula, Newby, Fraser, all of these women who have had these epic kind of clips that we've seen on the big island of health related kind of catastrophe failure or just barely getting to the finish line.

We are now forever going to see Taylor coming to a stop and sitting down on the pavement three miles from the finish.

It's just, just that's, that is her.

No matter what she does in the future, that will be the forever image.

And I wonder if you feel like I do.

The last two years in Kona we've seen some pretty scary scenes.

Sam last year, clearly at the point of heat exhaustion, staggering on the road.

Yesterday we saw both Lucy and Taylor in real distress.

And yet nowhere is there an official, nowhere is there a medical person to maybe step in and do what they don't seem willing to do, which is stop.

Thankfully Charles, sorry, Reece Barkley was there to pull Lucy off of the course.

Do you think that Ironman needs to do a better job of not policing but helping the athletes be better to themselves?

Because I'm not sure it helps the sport or the athletes to get into that kind of.

Look what Sam went through after Kona in trying to recover from that near disaster.

And I worry what we're, what Lucy and Taylor are now going to face in the coming months trying to overcome that.

Yeah, it's a great question.

And I think the hardest thing is deciding when the cutoff is.

We aren't necessarily, we don't necessarily have an internal body thermometer inside of ourselves.

And even then, even if you were to able to say, okay, this person's core temperature is this, people act differently.

Someone could tap out at 1 03, someone could tap out at 105.

Obviously you don't want to get to 105.

And by that, for people that are listening, I mean an internal core temperature of 105 degrees, you start to have organ failure.

But some people start to see effects at a slightly lower temperature.

So I think the main challenge becomes what do you make that cutoff and what if, what if like the last thing you want is for Ironman to step in when someone actually could get to the finish line type of a thing.

Like I know that Christian Blumenfeld in 2022 I think was certainly on the verge of heat exhaustion type things.

He was able to get to the finish line and then get medical help there.

So certainly there's an impact of safety that needs to be considered.

But I just don't know what the cutoff is.

I think that's the hardest thing is like the last thing you want to do is what if Taylor had been able to get to the finish line but you have an official step in and say, no, you're done.

That's what I think is the really hard thing that I don't have an answer for.

But I think the biggest thing is just making, I guess providing the tools and the abilities for athletes to hopefully try and prevent them get from getting into that state in the first place.

And that's the follow up question I have for you.

We talk about it as coaches.

We tell our athletes all the time if you push too hard on the bike, you're going to pay for it on the run.

And I wonder if we didn't just see that yesterday in both of those women who felt like they needed to get away from the superstar runners like the Cat Matthews and the Laura Phillips.

And so maybe they pushed it too hard on the bike.

What did you think?

Yeah, no, I certainly think that's very possible and I certainly think they probably pushed each other too hard at the beginning of the run as well.

And I wasn't necessarily watching the live stream super closely, but my understanding is that it was a milder day at the start of the day and then it got hot, which is very similar to what happened last year with the men where we, you're almost tricked thinking, oh, it's cloudy today, it's not that bad.

And so you do push a little harder.

Then when it actually becomes sunny and you're on the run, you've overdone it and it's too late.

It's very hard to reverse an elevated core body temperature.

So I certainly think that like, like the combination of maybe like slightly milder conditions to start as well as just pushing each other hard on the bike and as well as the run certainly contributed.

I think that that's part of what happened to Sam last year too is that he pushed the bike really hard and then paid for it on the run.

Yeah, bike, that's a sport.

So yeah, like it's a swim bike and a run.

And so you have to figure out how to thread that needle between all three of them where you get the, you get to the finish line as quickly as possible.

Final question for you.

You've done both races, Kona and Nice.

You've done well at both.

Clearly these races favor different kinds of athletes.

Although again, you've done well at both.

How do you feel now that the race is coming back to Kona only and that we will lose?

We, I will say I think are losing something in losing the race in Nice because I think the men's race, sensational this year.

The Women's race last year was sensational.

I feel like there's no question what we saw yesterday in Kona is why people want to see the race in Kona.

Because it's not a race against the course, it's a race against the elements.

And that's fine.

I don't disagree with that.

But there is something to be said about selecting out different kinds of athletes.

What are your feelings as a professional?

Are you happy to see the race only in Kona?

Do you think we're losing something?

And never mind the women and men, we'll stay out of that.

I think as a professional, if I was looking at the sport purely from the aspects of a professional, I think that we're losing something and that especially with only a 12 meter draft rule.

So the beauty of Nice is that the bike is so hard and it breaks up the course and it really helps it make sure that it's the best athlete that wins.

The best all around athlete wins.

Whereas Kona is generally speaking much better for the person that kind of saves up as much energy on the bike.

Obviously that is not what Solvig did.

She was solo all day.

Lucy and Taylor were solo all day.

But there was also a giant pack of six or seven people that included Laura and Kat.

And Kona is basically, you're right, Kona is about the elements.

Kona having everyone at Kona is best for the future of the sport.

When you consider age groupers as well, there's the history there.

That's what age groupers want.

That's.

That's what a lot of pros dream of as well.

But I think when you're thinking about, if you were to think about the sport in the purest sense of who's the best swim, bike and runner, I think Nice is the best course for that.

And so I do feel like we're losing out a little bit on moving away from Nice.

But also I don't necessarily have any problem going back to Kona because that's just where the history of the sport is.

That it's the super bowl, it's the Olympics all combined into one and it's the place where a non triathlete someone learns that I'm a professional triathlete, their first question is, have you done Kona?

It's the identity of the sport and Nice will just never be able to replace that.

I think it's like, obviously there's pros and cons to it and I definitely will miss not going back to France, but I'm also very happy be to be focused on Kona moving forward.

It's very bittersweet.

I would say was a I think really balanced and well thought out answer.

So thank you for that.

Matthew, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come back and talk with me again.

It's been a real pleasure.

I just so enjoy having you back on the program and I will not hide the fact that I'm an unabashed fan and I just so hope that you have nothing but ongoing success in the future.

I really look forward to following your progress and who knows, maybe we can get you back in the future again.

It's always fun to chat with you for sure.

For sure.

Great to chat with you and have a great rest of your Sunday.

You too.

Bye now.

Night Cast Everything.

In Stereo.

What'S up everybody?

My name is Joe Wilson and I'm a proud supporter of the Tridark Podcast.

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