issue #209: Nov. 11, 2026
In theory it’s sorta kinda the off-season, right? And, yet, we now get world records set in the off-season because there is no such thing as the off-season anymore.
Covered all the odds & ends (bits & bobs) on this week’s podcast episode. And a few more below.
- Kelly
The world record debate
For the record, I agree with Sam Long’s take that Magnus Ditlev’s 7:19:17 at Ironman Florida this past weekend is the most legit world record we have ever seen. (As in: No drafting — he was on his own most of the day, no downriver swim, no shortened course. Pure speed.)
But also, for the record, there are no official world records in triathlon. And if you didn’t know that by now, well, you should, because the records keep getting broken and this keeps coming up every time.
Why doesn’t triathlon have official certified world records?
Because we don’t have certified courses. In running, course distances are exactly measured and certified. There are also rules in running, for example, about how much net downhill and how much point-to-point those courses can have, etc. This is why the Boston Marathon is never world-record-eligible. By comparison, triathlon courses are roughly approximately the right distance, we think.
We also don’t follow a bunch of other types of rules that other governing bodies follow to validate and verify records — like certifiers on-hand, and immediate post-race anti-doping tests. (Yes, we have anti-doping, and yes, sometimes those tests happen after a record-breaking race, but that’s chance, it’s not every time.)
There are also these pedantic debates about Ironman records v. iron-distance records. But those debates are stupid.
And, then, you have the exhibition type performances — Jan Frodeno’s two-man showdown during the pandemic, the Sub7/Sub8 event with no rules. It’s generally agreed these don’t count the same as records set in an actual race. But since the rules are made up and only Thorsten’s keeping score ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is why Ironman shifted to calling them “world’s best” or “world’s fastest” times. And Ironman had to make that terminology shift because it kept coming up because records just keep getting broken.
Maybe the more interesting question then is why are nine of the top ten times, of all time, from the last two years?
“What’s happening, Tim?”
”Well, people are biking and running faster.”
From the races
IM Florida: Mostly the Magnus show, but a solid podium (and a 2:28 marathon from Matt Hanson). And lol to the PTO giving Magnus 86.34 points for that performance. Alanis Siffert’s win was also overshadowed — since she “only” did the 4th fastest women’s Ironman of all time — but I think we’re all anxious now to see her in Kona next year.
NCAA: The women’s varsity draft-legal “NCAA” national champs were turned into a duathlon because of water quality issues and Arizona’s Kelly Wetteland won for the second time and I honestly thought she was just on the World Tri circuit now and didn’t realize she was still in college!
World Cups: Two World Cups this weekend — a sprint finish in Hong Kong, and then a sprint finish in Chile with Taylor Knibb (surprise!) taking second. She said she got anxious after four days of off-season.
Challenge Xiamen: People got really upset again about moto-pacing from the front camera motorcycle. Tim explained the issue, in detail, on the pod — that it just makes a mockery of fairness — and I explained my issue with these complaints — that you can’t say you want better coverage and that you don’t want TV cameras, pick. (Also the Norwegians lost.)
Results: Ironman Florida, Women’s Collegiate National Championship, World Cup - Iquique, World Cup - Hong Kong, Youth Games, Challenge Xiamen
Mark your calendars
T100 Dubai: Men and women now that the men’s race was moved from Saudi Arabia in a totally unexpected and could-not-have-been-predicted move that I’m sure athletes loved. Updated start lists here. Julie Derron (fresh off Kona) v. Georgia TB (fresh off celebrating Vince’s win Kona) v. Kate Waugh. Hayden Wilde v. everybody (assuming Hayden starts).
WATCH: TriathlonLive.tv, Youtube, HBO Max, Eurosport @ 10 p.m. Friday PT/1 a.m. ET Saturday.
WTCS Abu Dhabi: This one is actually first this weekend — women on Friday at 2 a.m. PT/5 a.m. ET and then men at 4 a.m. PT/7 a.m. ET. So all Hayden Wilde has to do is race, jump on a 45-minute flight, and then race again 18 hours after the first one. Easy.
Matt Hauser and Lisa Tertsch headline. Start lists here. WATCH on TriathlonLive.tv
IM Cozumel: One more on the calendar at the end of the month because the Ironman season never ends it just lives to fight another day. Just like Lionel.
The -ish
Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.
The news of “mysterious” hospitalizations at the Santa Barbara Half-Marathon is a perfect intersection of my interests and so I was getting fed content about it all weekend. tl;dr: 30 runners were sent to the hospital with what doctors called “suspicious” or unexplained symptoms, three of them remained hospitalized by Monday. Runners online (in different forums) are reporting things like they felt fine and had trained and done half-marathons before, and then all of sudden they blacked out or started hallucinating or got abruptly dizzy and woke up in the ambulance. There was/is speculation and some reports that water at one aid station may have been spiked/drugged (either accidentally or not); there are also the standard trolls saying that no no the problem is these people just weren’t prepared — and if I ever die in a race, there will 1000% be dudes online explaining that I just wasn’t fit enough and didn’t know what I was doing. Please, in my memory, destroy those dudes. In this case, there are three problems with the argument that this is simply the normal amount of unprepared runners getting heatstroke: 1. 30 is not the number who went to the med tent or had medical help at the race; 30 is how many were sent from the med tent to the hospital. That’s actually a really high number of hospitalizations for a mid-sized event. 2. Certainly it’s possible for an individual to get heatstroke or heat exhaustion in almost any warm conditions, but doctors know what that looks like. They wouldn’t say it was unexplained or suspicious or call in police investigators. 3. It was 76 degrees when this happened. Again, certainly, it is possible for an individual to overdo it and fry themselves. But that many people, at that scale? In moderately warm conditions? After just an hour or two? That’s unlikely. (Canadian Running/BBC/Reddit)
We mentioned this on the podcast, but more about the runner who died during the New York Marathon. Her dad is reporting it was a case of acute rhabdo, where your kidneys can’t process the rate of muscle breakdown and you basically have organ failure. Acutely happening like that is pretty rate, you more often see rhabdo in Crossfit or from extreme over-training, but it’s worth knowing what to watch out for. (Apple Podcast/New York Times/Runner’s World)
I also didn’t realize that New York required the female pros to do a gene test at the last-minute until Fast Women reported it. Annoying. (Threads)
New guidelines, somewhat, on “extreme” exercise during pregnancy. (Outside)
Peptides are explicitly WADA-banned for 2027. (Yahoo)
Alongside the nationals race in Arizona, they held a memorial race for the athlete who was killed by a driver blacked out on fentanyl. He got ten years for the homicide — and, as we all know, I’m generally not in favor of longer prison sentences, but there is also a point at which the message we’re sending society is that we don’t care about this as a crime. (AZ Central/HannahHenry)
A driver also rode into a group of cyclists in North Carolina this weekend. (CBS)
LA28 track & field standards are out. (Instagram)
The Traka is becoming a global gravel series. (Velo)
As someone who has been practicing (and remains very bad at) their burpee broad jumps, the idea of a marathon worth of burpee broad jumps makes me want to cry. (Instagram)
And we’ve had insane high tide flooding here lately — as in, not from rain, just from climate change + a bunch of science stuff about water temperature changes and jet streams — and, apparently, it’s just going to keep getting worse, and we don’t seem to have a plan other than if you get flood-stuck in your house, then buy kayak and wait for the tide to go down. (Instagram/SFGate)
One last thing
Would you do this or no?