issue #44: July 19, 2023
Wasn’t that race crazy, can you believe what she did, no way.
Kidding. I mostly wrote this week’s newsletter before I left for vacation, so it’s not as news-focused or timely as usual—and much shorter. We’ll be back next week to talk more about Hamburg and the other big races about to hit next month, but probably my pre-written opening line works anyway.
- Kelly
Races of the week
OK, the big race of the past weekend was WTCS Hamburg, which served as the sprint (ie. supersprint) world champs + the mixed relay world champs. Most interestingly, in my opinion, also for the age-groupers—which meant age-groupers get to finally compete for mixed relay world titles. (Yes, this has sorta happened last year and was in the works at the start of the pandemic, but I think we can agree it’s only really back/at full force now. And I really want to do it.)
I don’t have a ton of analysis this week because see above: vacation. But, a few quick thoughts:
Alternating men’s and women’s rounds throughout the day is smart and keeps spectators engaged.
Not sure how I feel about World Triathlon just copying Super League formats; surviving rounds is a skill, but is it the same skill as being the best at the sprint distance?
That being said: Cassandre Beaugrand and Hayden Wilde are probably the best sprint distance athletes right now. Seems close enough, at least.
Olympic qualification for the U.S. women’s team is not getting any clearer.
Germany for the mixed relay win, huh?
(All results from the weekend are on our Results page.)
Upcoming this weekend:
Ironman Lake Placid: Watch on Ironman.com/live on Sunday, July 23 at 6:20 a.m. ET/3:20 a.m. PT
Oregon 70.3: Watch nowhere
A quick Q&A
It seemed like a good week to try something new: Friend and former Triathlete contributor, Alex Harrison, and his wife, Michelle Howe, recently launched a new fueling and nutrition app, Saturday, that he had been talking to me about during the testing process.
I trust Alex on his fueling and nutrition advice (mostly because it generally doesn’t try to sell you anything you don’t need), and we had thought it’d be interesting to swap short Q&As in each other’s newsletters to share a perspective with different audiences. Obviously, this isn’t something we do a lot here—since we tend to focus on the news and analysis, and less on the how to train and get faster—so we’ll see what you all think about it!
Here are Alex & Michelle’s answers to three quick questions about fueling.
What is the most common thing triathletes and runners get wrong about fueling?
Underestimating how much hydration affects gut tolerance for intaking fuel.
When you exercise, your body sends blood to the periphery to keep you cool, and to keep your muscles oxygenated, but your gut needs blood flow to function. If you skimp on consuming fluid and sodium in the first 45 minutes of an activity because it feels like you don't need it, the amount of blood flow that your gut is receiving goes down dramatically. And with it, it's ability to absorb energy intake. That's why sometimes gels just hit your gut like a ton of bricks, towards the end of the race. Your gut just can't process the high carb density without adequate blood flow. And it doesn't have adequate blood flow when you're dehydrated and exercising.
Fix it by drinking from the start, and get in the habit of sipping regularly.
What do you two use for race fueling? Tell us your secrets.
Hummingbird food plus salt. We like to call it Speed Nectar. Our app users have affectionately started referring to it as Speed Nectar before we did! It's sugar, salt, and water, and maybe 10% of whatever powdery mix some company has sent us to try out. If we're getting fancy because it's hot out or it's a long ride, maybe we'll replace the salt with sodium citrate. But we never get fancier than pure table sugar. Why? Because it's simply the best for gut tolerance and performance.
Hardest part of starting a fueling app?
Doing two things at once, and learning we needed to do a third thing on top of it, because people are messy, and we have emotions, and emotions matter a ton.
First, it has to be stupid-easy.
Second, the fact it's stupid-easy must not reduce scientific rigor of the recommendations.
The unforeseen third is that if you make something stupid-easy to use, the people that use it have an intensely hard time imagining that it's doing something complicated behind the scenes, even when it is. The more you accomplish the "this is easy to use" part, the more that people tend to think "this might not be worth paying for."
Behavioral design science has been utterly fascinating for both of us.
You can see their Saturday app and download it at saturdaymorning.fit.
Book club!
Also, don’t forget to join us for Book Club. (Get reading.) This quarter, the book is: The Race That Changed Running. It’s story of how UTMB grew into the race it is now, with 30,000 people entering the lottery for this year’s event in August and 100,000 descending on the small mountain town for the Super Bowl of trail running.
Someone asked what Book Club entails. And it’s pretty simple! 1. Read the book. 2. Share any thoughts, comments, questions either in the comments section OR we’ll start a Chat thread for people to talk about the book. 3. Paying subscribers for a Book Club Q&A discussion with the author, Doug Mayer, on Friday, July 28 @ 9 a.m. PT/noon ET. (And a condensed version of the Q&A will get sent out in the weeks following.)
A few other things for you to read
And. The last thing for the week. Instead of a bunch of news from around our sports this week—since I pre-wrote a lot of this before I left on vacation—I’m temporarily opening up for everyone a bunch of our old Triathlonish Q&As and stories, so you can catch up and to keep you busy while I’m gone. These pieces usually go out to paying subscribers in a special newsletter on Sunday evenings.
Q&A: Triathlon Taren on algorithms, endurance content, Youtube, and what works
Q&A: The data guy behind most of triathlon’s stats, ratings, and predictions
Other stories:
Who is Responsible for Anti-Doping in Long-Course Triathlon?
From the archives: The original "Hawaiian Iron-Man Triathlon"
One last thing
How to teach your chicken to ride a bike.