speaker-0: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Pro Tri News. have a helicopter going overhead here in New Zealand as we get ready for the first race of the Pro Series for the 2026 season. We're joined by here in person in New Zealand with Steph Clutterbuck. Hello. And Mark Matthews. Hello. I think it's safe to say Steph's back by popular demand, but that's probably not doing it service. Overwhelming popular demand. Yeah. For sure.

speaker-1: Yeah, thanks everyone for voting for me, even though I wasn't listed to be voted for. That was a great ego boost, appreciate it.

speaker-0: Yeah, you've got a lot of unlisted votes. I mean, you're so popular demand, I'm almost resentful of it.

speaker-1: ⁓ thank you. Yeah.

speaker-0: I think Mark's just nervous that he's going to get unseated as podcast favorite. Yeah, one day I'm sure. Right, we are here and Stets very graciously joining us because you are in fact racing. Three days time.

speaker-1: I am, I'm so excited. that's quite soon isn't it? It's very weird to be in race week in March, I think especially coming from Europe. This is just so much earlier than we've started, so it's definitely like a different mindset, different expectations than you're used to when you're prepping for a race in July, but what a venue, what a place. I wasn't there for Centerpoint 3 World, so this is all new for me.

speaker-0: And I think people can see the view in the background if you're on YouTube. Like it's a stunningly beautiful place. We had some other, I had some other exciting news this week. I met Kyle Glass's girlfriend for the first time. Right, she has 10 fingers, 10 toes. She's completely normal and really quite nice. And that to me has been the most shocking revelation of the week for me, I think. Kyle? ⁓ yeah, she's coming to her first triathlon ever. So it's, it's going to be fun. was just more impressed. She landed a real life, actual human female that was intact. mean, and she's a dentist so she can do some dental work and stuff. makes more money than you. I don't know what's going on. I got lucky. got lucky. Hinge. Shout out to Hinge. Not an official sponsor of the podcast, but they did, they did good finding me a person. So Pat Lemieux is joining us remotely. Pat, how are you? You know, I'm jealous. I've been to Taupo. ⁓ I've swam in that lake that you're going to race in Steph. ⁓ I'm, I'm absolutely like a little bit scared for you, honestly, cause it was very deep when I was in there and I was a little bit, ⁓ like nervous about that. And so I think that's probably the big, for me, the athletes racing, I got the most amount of respect for that because that lake is a little spooky. The difference being Steph can swim pot and you can't.

speaker-1: Yesterday though we had a lot of wind and the lake looked like the sea.

speaker-0: Yeah, it looked like the ocean. was crazy. was crazy. Yeah. It's a big, big body of water. So no, I'm thrilled to be joining the show today. ⁓ you know, I'm the one coming in from my normal desk at home, but remotely. So Talbot's actually, ⁓ working today, believe it or not. So we're, not recording. We, we, we're not recording at our normal time because we've got, we're balancing time zones a little bit, given that it's a race weekend. thought it was just very important for, to hear from. all three of you that are on the ground there and what you're going to be able to have to report for us. I think it's, we are doing a live show, which we really hope people come down to. That's tomorrow afternoon here. But the live show is kind of aimed at the live audience, right? Whereas it's also important, we think, to record a proper podcast in the background for the listeners in their drive that don't have, you know, car getting embarrassingly drunk during the show and things like that. So this will be our actual pre-race show. So with that, shall we just dive in? to the race like we normally would do. Should we start with the course? Yeah.

speaker-1: So swim is simple, which is nice. It's an in-water start and we've got a good drag before the first corner Which means that that first boy hopefully won't be too chaotic Turn around and then it's a straight shot for about two kilometers before making the second turning essentially To finish the rectangle and come back in so it's a super super simple swim, but t1 is it's a bit savage, isn't it?

speaker-0: is that the bank up onto the road is really quite a steep little bank. Do they still have the bridge in it? So then there's a bridge in it down into the bridge. It went by surprisingly quickly, but I think that's because it was 70.3 worlds when I last saw it and people are gunning it through. think in Ironman, unless you're like Jonas Stomberg, you're probably not full sprinting to your one. Can I ask what is the, what is this such a simple straight line swim do for groups? Who does it favor? Does it not?

speaker-1: Yes. ⁓ I think it actually makes it more predictable. So I don't know if it necessarily favors anyone other than it will probably be a swim that looks like you expect it to. When you have a corner very early on, could be that you get some people that you expect to be at the front getting themselves in trouble and getting caught out behind slower swimmers. And then they miss the pack if they're trying to make a turning with like 50 other people. Whereas both fields are quite small and it's... It's a good amount of time for people to get themselves into their groups. I mean, I'm hoping for a very stress-free start. I think it just sets up the day really nicely. Basically, hopefully. As a swimmer, yeah.

speaker-0: As a swimmer, think especially, I think the men's will be a bit more fighty. I know the women have someone they want to get rid of as well. Like Kat's obviously the one that the swimmers will want to eject, but the men, they'll have like the KB. So maybe there's a bit of a fight at the start, but the fields are both quite small. So I don't really expect to, I think the swim would be quite uneventful here. But then we roll out of transition and you ride up what is Rifle Range Road. And essentially the bike course is two laps of what was the 70.3 Worlds. It misses out a little fun loop at the top and it goes straight out and back, makes it more simple. That was actually a little bit like fun riding, whereas now it's way more TT riding. The first 15 minutes of the bike course are quite punchy. There's a really good climb to start. It drops down a little bit or traverses across and then there's quite a cheeky climb. That's what I would call the gear decider. That's where you have to decide your gear ratios on because that's the hardest bit of the course. It's two laps and but after that climbing you've basically got out and back in the TT bars. You'll have ⁓ tailwind out, headwind back But it's pretty light on the day. It's draggy. It's actually relatively fast. What's what slow is the road surface? Yeah, that's what takes the speed out more than the actual elevation in this course I think I think if you put this on Pancake, Frankfurt, tarmac, you would see fast bike times here, but it's grippy and then they drop all the way back to transition and climb all the way out They're the two spots on the course in my mind, those first, let's say 15, 20 minutes of each bike lap that damage can be done.

speaker-1: I think it will be the second lap where the damage is done because the climb is so early after the swim, everyone's still quite fresh so you've got coins that you can spend but after riding those roads for 90k that's when think fatigue will set in slightly earlier than people expect and if people have got a move they want to make it will probably be on that second lap when others are suffering or are thinking about the final 20k is what I expect.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, and the bike, like we'll try to go through it with the athletes, we're sticking to the course. The bike here, I think, is more decisive than somewhere like Texas. I think that it might still be fairly predictable because the big favorites are strong riders. But if this had multiple strong riders where they could make edges, especially at 20 meters, I think there is more damage to be done here than somewhere like Texas. But I still don't expect too much. And then we roll back in strength. go on, Before we move off the bike, I think it's important to note that This is the first Ironman we've ever seen with a 20 meter draft rule in place.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think combine that with the road surfaces and it's going to be more decisive than we've seen it in a long time because especially on the women's side and obviously I've looked at the women's field, I think it's a better race than the men's ⁓ here for the women's race. Always. But we have what looks like a really strong front pack of swimmers who are also strong cyclists, which creates an interesting dynamic because it means that those that are behind are having to chase quite hard all the way until the run. And there, oh I've got a wasp flying around my ear. That's not good for a podcast. Sorry everyone if I scream. Very emotional, I also hate wasps.

speaker-0: This stuff is quite emotional. I would go as far, think I'm a good enough friend to say it's quite dramatic. If a wasp gets involved, this could really kick off.

speaker-1: Yeah, obviously.

speaker-0: Yeah, so right, I completely agree. think the 20m something. I'm to see what happens. I think actually it's almost more fun to see it with a slightly smaller fields because I think it could really just blow apart. don't have to have some massive separation. I think the women's could be a lot of solo riders. Yeah. I think the men will stay together the front lot slightly more just because the speed is slightly higher and then the draft obviously follows back. They get slightly more at 20. The women here, especially when you're on some of the slow draggy sections, they'll be virtually nothing back at 20. So we'll see. actually who's riding well, who's not. We drop back down into transition, you get like the last few K where you can sort of shake your legs out, I would say. It's pretty downhill. Yeah, and it's the same transition and then you head out onto the run. It's a four lap run course, which if you did that somewhere like Hamburg, where there's three and a half thousand people, is Hamburg not full?

speaker-1: The handbag

speaker-0: Really busy. Whereas here it's I think with less people it won't be too bad, but you do have the 70.3. Yeah, the 70.3 in the Ironman. I think there's around 3000 between the two. Yeah, both are all racing at the same time. So you could see quite a lot of the men will finish before they start to run. But you could see quite a lot of congestion on the run. It is pretty wide. the roads are very wide here. Yeah. And people say it's a slow run, but then we saw some blistering run times at 70.3 worlds on the course because it has one significant climb I would say on the way back.

speaker-1: Yeah, if you look at other people run fast on courses with more elevation than this. So I actually think it's the impact of the bike that makes it a slower run rather than the run course itself. ⁓ It's a really nice run course because there aren't any climbs as such other than, I guess there's a short one coming up out the Yacht Club on the out and back. But there some really nice downhills as well. They aren't steep, so you can get your legs speed up and the run speed up as well.

speaker-0: Sam Laidley said to me maybe early in the year that actually slightly hilly run courses he thinks can be faster in Ironman because you get a bit of a relief on the leg and the change of tempo. It's not like a marathon where you're starting sparky fresh, running, the best runners are running 255k is ridiculous. Where you need every moment of speed. It's much more of a resilience game and that relief he thinks can be slightly faster. So we'll see. But yeah, that's the course. Anything else to add on the course? The weather, the weather. The weather, it's going to be great. Yeah, I mean we could be talking 20 degrees Celsius, really light winds, sunshine. ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah, almost perfect race weather.

speaker-0: Yeah, like we shouldn't see overheating. I think if it does hit 20, which it might do, you know, it gets warm on the run, but it's marathon runners would cave at that. Triathletes with all the... Yeah. So I think it's going to be a really nice...

speaker-1: But like, this is cold. ⁓ There is the UV issue. I say issue, it's not an issue. So in New Zealand there is a hole in the ozone layer that sits just above. And all that does is means you're more likely to burn. So while we won't necessarily see overheating, you could see burning which then just immediately turns to sunstroke.

speaker-0: I think that's a good shout out for the age group listeners if you're racing sun cream even if you think it's cool.

speaker-1: Put it in your t2 bag a hundred percent. Yeah.

speaker-0: I'm now worried that I'm sat in the sun and I'm ginger. I had one question. What's the wind forecast for the bike? I think it's a very light tailwind out, very light headwind back. enough to like it'll be because there's quite a gradual uphill climb on the way back. Whereas on the way out, you tackle that climbing short steep bounce. But on the way back, you sort of gradually ride up it.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we'll burn.

speaker-0: which into a headwind is gonna really chafe even if it's quite light. So you'll see much slower speeds on the way back. It's probably ideal, especially at 20, to break groups because it's not enough headwind that you're gonna get shelter behind the rider in front of 20, but it's enough to slow the pace down so it really just becomes a power game. Yeah. And I've just seen obviously the weather in New Zealand on an island like it is can be really volatile. So all of sudden there could be a day when there's consistent 30 to 40 kilometer an hour winds. and then it really changes the race again. the last couple of days... That's like yesterday was like super windy, today it's like nothing. I think the perk here is you're bang in the middle of the island and it's not a tiny island. So it's slightly more predictable than like, you know, whether off the coast of one of the small islands. it's... Yeah, no, think whether we're picking at straws if they think that's going to be interesting. But you know, there's a few days to change. If you know me, you know I'm hugely passionate about riding my bike. And if I've got to my bike all day, there's one thing I've got in my pockets, precision fuel and hydration. Whether it's the 30 gram carb gel with a hundred milligrams of caffeine or the 60 gram chew bar that I'm bringing with me, these things are the absolute best. Precision fuel and hydration is the global partner of Ironman for hydration this year. So you can see them at all locations in aid stations. Look, whether they're, whether they're fueling world champions, or just age groupers like me, Precision Fuel and Hydration has your back. Please go check them out for yourself. I absolutely recommend you get the 30 gram carb gel. ⁓ I've had zero stomach issues with these, whether I'm doing a super intense ride or a long base ride, these things hit the spot just great. 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These saddles have been a complete game changer for me. ⁓ I used one for the very first time back in March last year and I was absolutely blown away at how comfortable my bike riding has now become. I'm not saying that you're going to have the same benefit that I have, but take it from me. I'm now an investor in Woeve saddles. These things are incredible. They've got three models that I think you should check out. They've got a V8 and M8 that are primarily used for triathlon and the Mags, which is primarily used for road and gravel. I'm an absolute huge fan of this Boulder based company. Give it a try for yourself. Check them out and let us know what you think. So we talk about who's racing here. Yes. It's a, it's a pretty good start list for like a we're starting the year early March kind of start list. It's like decent, but we have to be honest. It's not as good as we thought it was going to be back in November when it was announced. that's because athletes have dropped off. But can you explain why that happened? Cause I think when this calendar was announced right before Kona, everyone was like, I'm going to New Zealand, a hundred percent. I'm going to New Zealand. were all like, okay, New Zealand's going to be stacked. So what, what happens from that first week in October to where we get to today? Right. And now all of a sudden what's, what's been circled for me is that's been kicked. That can's been kicked six weeks down the road to Texas, but this would have been such a great opportunity to put points on the board. And now all of a sudden it's, I mean, with all due respect, like it's become a much softer race. Yeah. I'll give mine and then Steph will give the actual answer. I think over the winter there was this fairly contagious bout of cowardice and weakness that spread around. Because a lot of big hitters were going to come here and then it turns out, you know, winter's not smooth. It never is and then it's who still wants to stick to the plan and get the points on the board early and is happy to race at 95 % Now there's two thoughts to that If you are super super good You can afford to race at 95 % still put really good points on the board if you need a perfect race to score great points It's quite daunting racing this early. I think it's a long way to go. It's a long way to go There's been some injuries, you know, both the Norwegians have struggled with a little bit of Achilles and calf issues. think Solvee was thinking about doing it, but she did sort of say in the background she quite liked how she did it last year. I think she's going to do Texas Hamburg. Lucy Charles was rumored to come and do this, but I don't think she's doing the procedures now and she's had surgery. And then, you know, like the Americans don't like to travel. Big up Trevor Foley. He's pulled his finger out by himself here. they're like a few of them have dropped off. then Laidlow, you know, He's not going tackle a big he's not going to tackle the series so why travel all this way why and he's running a marathon who else we got my Yellow jeans was a big drop-off we thought we'd this because it was early he changed his mind to do Texas yeah I mean this made sense for him geographically, but I think it was just too early yeah So that's I think that's what's happened any other

speaker-1: Yeah, I think that everyone saw or experienced 70.3 Worlds, right? And it was a real opportunity to open up New Zealand to the pro racing outside of Oceania, which a lot of us, because it's such a long way to come, so you just choose not to. So when it was announced, this was part of the pro series. I mean, I decided I was going to come before it was announced as pro series. So you can imagine my eye roll when they announced it. was like, ⁓ God, I'm going to be busy now. But I think it was like, everyone's like, yeah, you know what, if I'm fit, I want to go and race in New Zealand because it's a fantastic race and a fantastic place. But it was announced before Kona. So between everyone starting to say, yeah, I want to go and do New Zealand, we've had Ironman Women's World Championships and 70.3 Worlds and Winter in the Northern Hemisphere. And those three things are a recipe for injury, illness, various types, heat stroke, all those sorts of things. Then we've had some major injuries from major athletes, which is maybe a result of the last couple of years of the increase in standard of racing and therefore the increase in standard of training that's required. I think it was really unrealistic to expect the start list that we thought we were going to have when it was announced in October, because I actually think on the women's side especially, this start list is strong. We have four of the top 10 from Kona Racing.

speaker-0: It's a great field for Ironman New Zealand. What it's not is what we thought we might get with this opportunity to bang points on the board early, like Pat says. And I think the likes of Cat KB, Hannah Berry, maybe Trevor Foley, these people are going to do the series, Lossy Wilms stuff. You can walk away with really good points early and later in the year might really benefit from that. Because what it does is it means you're racing six weeks early. I everyone else after Texas is racing six weeks again after that minimum, right? So they're banking it closer and closer to Kona. And it also gives you a bit of, you know, if you roll out a transition here and get a double flat, snap your chain or something, you've wasted the travel. You can decide if you actually want to try and pick up another Ironman score or not. Like, is that right for your program? Some might do it, some might not. But I do think, especially like, let's take, I know I'm using Kat as an example, but let's take her in 70.3 Worlds last year, DNF, but still won the series. because she had some resilience in her program and had a second score in there. This gives you the opportunity to put resilience in, whereas racing later doesn't is my take on it. I mean, I think I just look at it I think everybody that made the trip down there dang near is all going to be rewarded in a real positive way, one way or the other, right? Like if you, if you invested the time and energy to fly to this race, which is not an easy place to get to, ⁓ you've got a big opportunity come this weekend in my opinion. And for me, it's nothing but sunshine. And it's way to structure your calendar to where it's like you could take the kind of the schedule into chunks. For the people that are like, hey, we're postponing our season until say the Oceanside Texas route. Now you've built into your calendar an extra month essentially of like off season and then get yourself ready. But then you kind of like, I don't want to say bankrupt yourself, but like there's gonna be two pro series races done by the time you start your season. And so now it's like you have less opportunities to get points, to build in some kind of redundancies into the calendar and things like that.

speaker-1: And what we've also seen is there have been some very good end of year pro series rankings from athletes that did start their seasons early. And I think, yes, maybe it's because the racing is not quite as fast this early because we're not in world championship shape. Whereas when you get to the pro series races, say Hamburg, for example, I don't think anyone expected that race to be as good as it was or as fast as it was. And the roll down effect was those that were finishing in seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth. were losing so many more points than they would have expected to with the times they were putting down.

speaker-0: I agree. As we go into the, before we go into the ⁓ actual athletes racing, one of our long standing sponsors, who will be sponsoring our live show, WinRepublic. And we have a brand new WinRepublic athlete with us. How are you finding being part of the WinFact?

speaker-1: Yay! ⁓ I love it. The kit is absolutely beautiful and Beth and Luke are just so wonderful. it's been such a fabulous of start to the year representing a new brand that really cares and is excited for what the athletes are going out and achieving.

speaker-0: Any particular products you're liking of theirs at the moment?

speaker-1: ⁓ I love the running kit, so the combinations. There's so many different types of sports bras to wear that you can switch up based on the weather or based on support that you want and then obviously the colours. I'm a big believer and I think growing up as a young girl it was kind of you either do sport or you get to look pretty and look good and look after yourself and I love the fact that brands are saying actually you know what no you can do both you can look great and you can train well and you can love sport.

speaker-0: I agree as a man as well. I think looking pretty is a... It's a nice t-shirt you got on, Mark. It's lovely t-shirt. The socks, the new socks as The socks are awesome. They're really nice. Anyway, right. If you do want to learn more, you can visit the show notes and click on that link for Win Republic and get 15 % off. Nice. Right. We're going to go women first, then men, and then we'll flip reverse it for the live show. Okay. The start list. I'll go top to bottom, but then I think we don't start at the top and we'll talk about some individual athletes. The big hitters here, Kat Matthews, Hannah Berry, Lottie Wilms, both big pro series racing athletes, all three of them. Tamara Dewitt, I think the best marathon ever run in the triathlon in Lake Placid. Fenella Langridge, back in the scene after some fairly major surgery. Danielle Lewis, bike run specialist. Mya Staj-Nielsen, haven't seen a great race out of her in a while, but has absolute pedigree in form to interject. Nina de Ronde, Rebecca Clark off the second place recently.

speaker-1: Agreed.

speaker-0: And then going further down, I missed Jan Jackie? Jocelyn? Jocelyn McCauley. Who's won this race? Many times. Two, three times? Yeah. And then Chloe Lane. we have, ⁓ and then there, and you've got Regan. Regan Hollyoake. She's defending champion.

speaker-1: defending champion and always always races well at this time of year. I mean she raced well all year last year so I would expect a fantastic race from her.

speaker-0: She always races well in the southern hemisphere. think she's won three of last four Ironman she's done. So should we start with Regan Holyoke?

speaker-1: He also wears number one, which is very cool.

speaker-0: Regan Hollyoake wears bib number one into this races defending champion. I like that they do that. They don't do it off the pro series. I think it should stick with the race you're at, mainly because I didn't have to peel the number two helmet sticker off. I've still got the number two helmet sticker on from Kona because then it was 70 points for worlds in this. Regan Hollyoake is a really all well rounded athlete, I would say. She's a good swimmer, good biker, good runner. Like you said, Kyle, she's performed particularly well in the Southern hemisphere. I wonder why that is and if that's important in this race. Is it that she races really well down here? Is it that the fields can be slightly softer? Is it also that they're coming off their summer? Whereas all the Europeans flying down here, and this is a theme we'll get to with like Mike Phillips and people like that, they're flying off the back of a lot of turbo training in the garage. So I think it's what factor gives her such good racing pedigree down here that it really is will kind of determine how good Regan is. If it's that it's just slightly softer fields, then she could be in trouble in this race. But I don't think it is. I think it's off the back of summer. I think it's that she likes racing near to home. There's none of the travel burden. And I think she's one of those athletes that will stick in the race. How good a swimmer is Regan?

speaker-1: Regan's great. So I would expect her to be front pack. ⁓ We were all front packing Kona until Hannah Berry had a very unfortunate incident with her swim skin and it got undone while she was swimming. her and Regan then dropped off the back and I did not. It's not me. I could never do that. But it was it was one of those that they should they absolutely should have been up there. But then Regan cycling is fantastic. ⁓ And she was with the front group. I say the front group, that group of athletes that had Laura and Kat in it almost all the way back to transition. ⁓ And she was 10th in Kona. You know, that's nothing to turn your nose at.

speaker-0: So Regan, what's a good result for her hair?

speaker-1: I think she's gonna...

speaker-0: podium podium yeah is there a way she can win

speaker-1: I think she would need a gap coming off the bike. ⁓ And I don't know. I don't know yet. It's quite early to know, isn't

speaker-0: I'm not sure if that's gonna happen. I mean, I think she's a lock for my podium personally Let's go on to someone else. That's maybe not quite a lot. Let's say lotty Wilms out of the Netherlands, but really she's Australia. She's just yeah, she lives She's lived there for a long long time. They've got a farm up the coast from noosa like they are Australian through and through so the travel for her has been easy. She's got the advantage of she's been here all summer She's an excellent swimmer

speaker-1: Fantastic swimmer, yep.

speaker-0: Great rider. Great rider. Yeah. They're really good, really resilient rider and can run well. Yeah. But that's her weaker leg, is that fair to say? Yep.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think it's probably the least predictable of the three. Yes.

speaker-0: Okay, I think she's one of these that's definitely all in for the pro series. She's going to put together another pro series. She's earned good money out of it the last two years by, like Steph said, scoring good early points and then riding it through.

speaker-1: The question mark with Lotta is she won, I'm in Western Australia at beginning of December. And then don't know what recoveries looked like after that. So has she taken an off season? Has she just trained through? if she's just trained through, she could be in absolutely incredible shape because she already was. She won Western Australia by 15 minutes. Whereas if you take an off season, that kind of like the rest of us, you're like, wow, this is quite early. I'm probably at. 85-90 % we'll see where we're at.

speaker-0: Okay, I could see her fighting for the podium, fourth, fifth, she'll be in that bracket.

speaker-1: I think wider podium for sure. also think this is going to be some very close racing from third until about tenth.

speaker-0: completely agree. So let's go with someone else that I think will probably fit nicely into that bracket, but will do it in a different way, is Tamara Dewitt. So I think she'll end up in that bracket, but it will come later. it's how much, so Tamara's a good swimmer, not a great swimmer. She swam with, you know, couple of years ago, the likes of Paula and that in Oceanside, but then at the same time, she can lose 10 minutes in a swim sometimes. So it's what swim shape she's in. And then her weak leg is the bike. I think she'll find herself on her own.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: or with athletes that aren't pushing big pace. And part of that does then give her the good run because she's essentially pushing less watts so she has more calorie availability at the end so she can run through brilliantly. But she does that with unbelievable run pedigree to the point where, you know, she could easily, she could outrun Kat here, probably will. And then when you're doing that, you're then running 15 minutes faster than all the other girls fighting for the podium.

speaker-1: Yes. Yeah, and she is flying. saw her running around the lake and I was like, okay, wow, that is incredible. And I actually think she does outrun Kat because she needs to. Whereas Kat should be in the position where she can much easier, it's much easier for her to control her run effort to get the place that she needs to get. Whereas Tamara will be fighting for every place all the way to the line, which means that she'll, I think she'll run faster.

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. The reality of the Tamra story before you go, Pat, is I think she will run 15 to 20 minutes into whoever finishes second. Has she lost that much on the bike? Yeah. And that's what I was going to get to. think this is going to, you're going to have to, the way the tracker works is when you're really, you I'm presuming that Kat's going to be somewhere getting off the bike in front. And the way the tracker works is it's auto updating for the front of the race. Right? So Kat might hit. Kat might hit a couple of mile splits, right? And could almost be two or three screens in front of where, before when Tamara comes off the bike with all due respect. But I think what you're going to have to do is be filing back and going, what pace is she on? Because I think this is a world where she comes off the bike. I'm going to say 25 minutes down from the front woman. Could even be a tad more. Yeah. But she's going to earn back a bunch of it. And I say she's going to, I don't know that she'll podium, but I think she will be fourth or fifth on the day. Right. And it's going to be, a lot of people are going to be caught by surprise because they're going to, they're going to have not been looking for her, but do keep an eye on her because she will, she will put down a great marathon time. No, no doubt about it. And I think we need to do one more deep dive athlete and then we'll skim through some of the others. think Hannah Berry deserves, I think she goes into this as the

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: I think it is safe to say Kat goes in as the lock, the absolute favourite, but it's not a lock because you you watched her DNF in 70.3 Worlds, you have mechanicals, you have issues, you don't know how good she is this time of year. With Hannah Berry, you know she's going to be good, really good. She's a great swimmer, she's a great biker, and she's a really good runner. And I could see Hannah Berry being, for me, she's, Kat's the best athlete on paper here. For me, Hannah Berry is the next best athlete on paper.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: For me, she's like the lock for second place in my opinion. think she does Regan. She's won here before. She's won here before. So what she has is just a great balance across all three. She's not a flashy athlete. She said it herself. I think I was listening to one of the really good Aussie podcasts. remember his name. I'll get it. But I think she'll just stay near the front all day. She'll run three hours dead-ish, give or take. And I think we're just... For me, she's a certain podium.

speaker-1: Yeah, and what I love about Hannah is she's an athlete that's worked to put herself in the race. So she's made sure that she can be at the front of the race and basically holds on as much as she can. And that really pays off in Ironman. Just got her a fourth in code.

speaker-0: ⁓ unbelievable. she was great there. Fitter Radio is the podcast. Really good ⁓ podcast out of Australia. heard Regan. New Zealand. Sorry. New Zealand. Yeah, I heard Regan Holly O'Connors. She was great. Give that a listen. Do we still have Pat? Is Pat still with us? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Kyle had to go and get a power bank because he had one job and he didn't charge his laptop. Right, that's the deep dives. People, we should just give a quick once over on. Fenella language.

speaker-1: so excited to see Fenella race. She was supposed to race Western Australia, it did start it, but had a bike crash in the week leading up. obviously that adds an emotional kind of layer to a race that was definitely not needed given the year she had last year. I think she will be great. I'm really hoping we see the Fenella we saw a couple of seasons ago where she just absolutely sends it off the front. It's just fun.

speaker-0: Yeah, I mean that's the way she races right yeah and then the last one we'll cover in the women's field we've obviously listed most on the start list online. Daniel Lewis deserves a mention she's won a whole lot of races in her career but she classically fights a massive swim deficit. She's an excellent rider and is used to riding solo whereas a lot of these girls are going to find themselves solo that aren't used to it because of the 20 meters I think whereas she's completely comfortable with it.

speaker-1: And she has power, so it's a course that suits her.

speaker-0: Yeah, if we see if we see 2024 Danielle Lewis, she's in it for the podium. Yeah, if we see 2025 Danielle Lewis, it's gonna be a little bit harder day for her. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And then she's she again is a big pro series athlete. You know, she's she's chasing the pro series points. She'll do it all through the season. So she'll fight to the line because every point kind of matters. Her consistency isn't perfect. She's had a few GNF some problems, but that was mostly last year. If you think back past that she's a She's a really good athlete that comes through strong. So I think to summarise in the women's field and we'll do all the predictions at the end, we're expecting to have Kat at the front-ish and we're going to have a bike group behind her possibly with the likes of Hannah Berry, Lottie, they're probably with her I think. ⁓ Fenella, maybe a couple of others. And then the real chasers you're going to have to watch for on the run is whether Daniel Lewis has got to the front or not and Tamara Jewett. And they're both going to run up. And then there's a lot of other athletes. You've got Stefan here, he'll be in that bike group at the front. She'll swim well, she'll ride in that front group, she'll be with the likes of Hannibal, Barry, Lottie, Wilms, and then you're going to have some others. There's Chloe, there's Chloe Lanes, Rebecca Clark will feature.

speaker-1: We do have Rhianne Hughes making her Ironman debut and for those that don't know she's a British pro very very very good at running over the 70.3 distance never done an Ironman before so she could be another one I mean we don't know right it's untested but she has run pedigree to make moves on the run course

speaker-0: Am I tripping or is that Sam Dickinson? That's correct. Yes. Yeah, correct. So she's out of league. She's really good friends with like Jess Fulliger who destroyed Noosa recently, stuff like that. I will say I watched her do a really big run session in Noosa. She can run.

speaker-1: She can definitely, she is fast.

speaker-0: I could really see her doing well. So we'll see what happens on the debut. This episode of Pro Try News is brought to you by Rhythm Health, the monthly at-home blood test designed for people who actually want to understand their body and not guess about it. Here's the truth. Most athletes get their blood done once, maybe twice a year, and that leaves huge gaps in understanding what's really going on internally. Rhythm helps fixes that and sends you a simple at-home test every single month. No lab visits, no big needles, just a quick sample at home and then you mail it back. Within days, you'll get a full digital report with insights on the things that matter most to triathletes. Hormones, recovery markers, inflammation, iron levels, metabolic health, all those things that quickly can derail your training if you're not tracking it. Because it's monthly, you can actually see the trends over time. so that that way you can adjust your training and nutrition and recovery before the small issues become big ones. So take control of your health and performance and the data that actually matters. Head to the link in the show notes to learn more. All right, Kyle Glass here with ProTry News. A product that I want to talk about real quick is something we've been a long time fan of with pillar performance, whether it's the ultraimmune C to keep yourself from getting sick or the triple magnesium to help yourself go to sleep and recover better. Something that I've specifically have enjoyed over the last couple months in training in the lead up for Ironman New Zealand has been the collagen repair. Over the years, I've had off and on flare ups from my IT bands from either overuse or just doing a session a little bit too hard. And this tendon repair and ligament product has kind of revolutionized the way I've been able to train and stay healthy in this build. So if you want to try a product like this, visit pillarperformance.com. and try out that college and repair. Kyle, men's race. I mean, it's no secret that Christian Blumenfeld is doing this race and he is the heavy, heavy favorite. He's one of those athletes that he doesn't need a big long off season. I think that he had this date circled like the day after 70.3 Worlds that he was like, oh, I'm going to start my season here. Yeah. So Christian Blumenfeld obviously coming over and doing the race. The only thing that we haven't seen, obviously last year he raced every race with his two Norwegian training partners and starts the season this year without them. So ⁓ question mark would be maybe without his training partners, like how does he do? Because he hasn't done really an Ironman in a long time without them. So. there are people say this, I've heard this on a lot of other shows, like, you know, almost saying it'll be lonely, but I just look at it and think he's got rid of the other two best Ironman athletes in the world. Yeah. You know, like, ⁓ it's going to be hard without Gustaf and Casper. If they weren't friends, do you think Christian would rather they were racing or weren't? I get rid of Kasper and Gustav every day of the week. It just makes his life easier. It just makes him more of a standout favourite in my eyes. So unless he's got a little bit lonely and can't get to sleep at night, I think it's easy.

speaker-1: I think the only thing that will be missing for him is a point of reference. Because they train together all the time, they know each other as athletes inside out, they know the power, they know how they would be expecting to race compared to each other on the day. And I don't think you get used to it, but I would think that if you cut it, like if you're with them on the bike, if I'm Christian and then I'm with Kashr and Gustav on the bike, I'd be like, ⁓ I thought I would be able to drop them. I must be having a bit of a bad leg stay or I'm riding better than I thought because I'm still with them. Whereas that reference point kind of disappears. So you're a bit more to your own devices, but equally they kind of race like that before anyway.

speaker-0: Yeah, good point. I'm erring on the side of it, it's just less competition. the point of reference is a really valid point. Right, next up, well, I'll list a few and then we'll talk through some. So you've got Trevor Foley, Frederick Funk, Mike Phillips, Jack Moody, Henrik Goche is there, Rasmus Spenningsen, Matt Hansen will be running, windmilling his arms along, Ben Hamilton. Mike Phillips has won this race three times, just FYI. So he knows how to race here and he knows how to win here. Yeah. So who do you want to take next?

speaker-1: Kyle Smith.

speaker-0: Big Kyle Smith is his home town.

speaker-1: Yeah, and his first full distance in four years? Yeah. So I think he obviously will know the course at the back of his hand. He's had no travel. He's been preparing for a race in the place that he's racing. It doesn't really get much better than that.

speaker-0: Ja, sind's keiner. we always say it's a home race when it's like in their country. But his mom works in the council office in town. she's like the volunteer coordinator for here. She's like on the course. Yeah, and he literally lives in a house that he's been building just down the road. So this could not be more of a home race if he tried. He's won the 70.3 here. He knows obviously the road's like the back of his hand. He could probably close his eyes and do the entire course. Yeah, so he has great swim pedigree, great bike pedigree. He can have insane runs. mean, think San Francisco sprint finish. For me, it's his excitability and aggression that is his risk on Ironman. Like he has, he can put together an unbelievable race and he could and probably should podium here. But it's how hard he goes, how hard he swims, how hard he sprints T1, how hard he drills the start of the bike. And does he have the patience to let it come to him? He did kind of have a bumpy off season as well, getting injured and crashing, breaking his collarbone. Yeah. So it's not been a perfect build. Most likely affects his swim more than anything, but he has room to spare in the swim in a way. Like he's a front back swimmer here. Yeah, 100%. Even with a broken collarbone a few weeks later.

speaker-1: But I think him knowing the bike course could actually help him balance that out because he'll know what power he should be putting out and the speed because you just do when there are roads that you ride all of the time. Not that he actually rides them because people here don't ride on the course because it's so busy. But you would know the speeds you expect for the power and therefore what you can hold. for those of us that are slightly less used to the type of roads that this is, we might be more inclined to push a little bit harder to get the speeds that we want to see. but that just means that we're over biking.

speaker-0: Now, Funk has a... Sorry, go on, Pat. No, go through the list of names. I have a storyline for what I think we're going to see in the men's race, but we've got a few more names, so I apologise for interrupting. Freddy Funk, he's one of these athletes that has a giant German following. Absolutely giant. He's massive on Strava, massive on German socials, sells his own merch in Germany and stuff like that. And I saw some comments like, yes, Freddy versus KB. I love the kid, but I'm going to throw it out there. battle is not deserved in performance across Ironman yet. So he's got a lot of expectation on him. He can swim, he can bike, he can run on the short distance races, but it's where we haven't seen it proven really well yet at an Ironman.

speaker-1: Because I mean it's new for him still, right? Like we can't underestimate the step up.

speaker-0: Roth was his first one. No, he did another. And then he did Switzerland. Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ I think he is good on the bike, so he's another one that the course, being what it is, shouldn't take much more out of him. I think we'll see other athletes that are spending more energy than they thought, whereas I think he'll kind of take it in his stride. But yeah, think, again, he's still just a little bit untested, and whether that manifests itself in maybe not having the confidence to, because I think if you were, Because I came into this doing full distances first, whereas if I was a very good 70.3 athlete transitioning up, I'd almost want to bank consistently good Ironmans to build confidence, which means you're constantly performing just under your potential so that you don't impact or reduce your confidence any other way. Whereas I've come in and I'm just like, well, I'm just going to race like hell and deal with the repercussions later. So I think we'll see him have a really good race, but I still think we'll see him continue to get better as the season goes on.

speaker-0: think top five is good for him here. He was third at Challenge Wanaka a couple of weeks ago and I think that I personally thought that he was going to win that race but coming across from Europe and then trying to get settled and things like that and he posted on his Instagram later like he's not one of those athletes that always has like a great first race of the season so ⁓ we'll see if that Rustbuster did its job and knocked off all the rest for him. Yeah we're going to cancer through some other names I realize we have to save predictions for the live show that's what we do. Yes. Foley. Kyle, you've got two minutes. ⁓ Trevor's one of those athletes that he doesn't race unless he's ready. And so for him to come and do a big travel from Florida in the US all the way to here, it's obvious that him and his coach, Jefferson, have put together a pretty good off season and Trevor's in pretty good shape. We had dinner last night and he's feeling very confident going into this one. ⁓ I think he's also very Humble in a sense of like his question to me was how far back do you think is respectable to KB? So he even he is like It would take a pretty perfect day for me to be able to win here and a pretty bad day for KB So I think second to fifth is definitely in the cards for Trevor Let's do that question. What is respectable back from KB? What if I like if you're Trevor if you're a Mike Phillips if you're a Jack Moody and that maybe they think they could win But what's respectable part. you were, if you were nine minutes down, if Trevor's nine minutes behind KB, but gets second place, hallelujah. He should be popping champagne and buying dinner for everybody. That would be unreal. Right. had 10 minutes in my head. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the number that Trevor needs to circle in his mind right now is somewhere between like roughly probably 84 to 85 minutes. Cause that's what his first half marathon's gotta be. if he wants to see a podium here. I think the theme for this week is gonna be, we're gonna see, especially on the men's side, I think total carnage come to run. I think you're gonna get dudes that get excited, that hear big time splits on the bike, and they're gonna pot commit to this thing, and then the last half marathon, they are gonna pay for it dearly. And they're gonna say, shit man, I have, I had 11 minutes on that group on the bike. Where did it all go? And I just, think that's going to be when we do the post show, that's what the theme is going to be is who overspent. It'll be a couple. mean, it's been a couple of seasons since he raced in one Lake Placid, but that is a strong man's course similar to kind of here on the bike. So it would, it could be a very good day for him and we'll kind of, see what happens. The last American to win here was Tim de Boon, who was also the last American to win Kona. So Maybe some foreshadowing you never know. I mean, that is the loop. I always ⁓ get a little ahead of us. I should have just. I mean, I've got to move swiftly on from that. Let's give Mike Phillips a bit of a run around because this boy deserves it. Down here, he races unbelievably well. Like you said, he's won three, is he? Yeah. He is a bike monster. He runs really well. He's more of a 240 guy than like a 335 guy like KB or the KBs runs sub 335 and every two 30 to 30. I talking about my marathon time. Sorry. That's what I'm like. My absolute dream marathon times. fact. Um, okay. Mike Phillips swims relatively front pack. Yeah. This is his third race of the year so far. Right. That's a huge advantage. So you did, uh, Toronto half and then he did the challenge one. Okay. So this is his third race of 2026 already. So

speaker-1: Two, two, three. official. And I think this is definitely one where it's someone that's in full swing of their race season, which is the difference to athletes coming in and it being an early season race for them. He's like, no, I'm here and I'm ready. I mean, surely he's coming in to win your defending champion.

speaker-0: Yeah, I three times it's not easy to win places multiple times. So regardless of field size and field depth and stuff like that, it's it's he's one of those athletes that he he can kind of just put the races together and he has a he has a chance to put himself I would say into legend status in New Zealand because he's going to come close. He's going to try and get as close to KB as possible. I think Mike's got a real shot at getting second or third. And that's one where if he was within five minutes, I mean, he he would be He'd be in legend status, I think. right. Still far away from Cam Brown, though, who's won this race like 12 times. Yeah, mean, Cam was in a league of his own down for a long time. What a great guy as well. Right, there's a reason Steph's on. She just pointed at a name on the list for me that I'd completely forgotten and it would have been embarrassing. Was it Pierre LeCour? It was Pierre LeCour.

speaker-1: We can't forget him. I mean, he's just excellent, right? French Olympian.

speaker-0: Next up, who is Piala? He's a French Olympian, he's won the World Series, No WTCS. WTCS I mean. Yeah he's won a WTCS race. He won a finish against Leo Bregère. I thought Leo won one and he won the other or was that Dorian Connex? Dorian Connex I believe. Right okay but he's there. He is one of that French trio and then you throw in Vincent Loup.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's the French quad that we're all fighting for three spots at the Olympics and kind of he got one of them and it's just outstanding and is therefore exciting.

speaker-0: Yes, Pierre is going to be the Tamra Jewett on the men's He's going to be, we're going to have to be going some pages back. He's going to lose some time on the bike, but he is going to be the type of dude that's going to be going through shrapnel on the run.

speaker-1: And I guess similar to what we said about Tamra that could really play into his favor, right? he can into how he needs to ride, he can then have so much capacity left to just run the runnies.

speaker-0: He's also a better swimmer though than tomorrow. So he'll have, he'll be like more towards the front then. No, but I think she would. He's going to hear, he's going to hear, I think a time that's damn near 20 minutes when he gets off the bike. He's going to hear a 17 and 18 minute time and he's still going to go top five. He's going to get a Kona slot. I think he'll get a Kona slot. I'm disagreeing on one thing. I hear he's been riding with Yellow Gains. He's not going for a Kona slot. He did a podcast with them, the All-In Triathlon. You can go back and listen to it. But he said that he's just going to get a data point doing the Sireman. OK. And I also have seen he looks real good on a TC bike, Pat. I think he's got some stuff sorted. I think he's going to... I'm not saying he's going to ride at the front, but I don't think it'll be 20 minutes. I just think it's always one thing how you look when you throw something up on the gram. But when you got to do 180 K in the straight sticks on roads that are not easy, it's, it's going to shake a few things loose that weren't tight beforehand. If you catch my drift. I think, I think that he's going to struggle a little bit on the backend. That's not a knock on them. That's just saying, Hey, this is the first time out. You're going to learn a few things. So Piela call, we think podium having run his way through.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think he'll be really exciting to watch on the live stream. I hope they get a wheel next term.

speaker-0: Yeah, I did. I think he's I'm going to I'm going to the L a core for a podium for me. And honestly, I've probably got Trevor Foley on there and KB. But we're going to for the predictions. So you're us saving us. But some people say that does disservice to Jack Moody. But I think he's one of these guys that's performed extremely well against slightly weaker fields. He's a very good runner. Very good runner. But I've seen him have some cracks when there's big fields pushing big power and big pace on the bike and he doesn't then deliver that run he can. Now this is a home race for him, not home like Carl Smith but home like country. So I hope he has a really good race and he's definitely a threat. If he puts together what he's actually capable of, Jack Moody's another guy for that top five, top three spot. And we'll see what comes about him. We'll probably cover him a little bit more in the live show in front of home audience I reckon. Yeah, and there's four slots for Kona. ⁓ I'm so glad we don't have to say there's four niece and four Kona slots. There's four Kona slots for the men in the women's race. the women's field, I believe there's two women that have punched their tickets already.

speaker-1: So Lotto's got a slot and Danny Lewis has a slot.

speaker-0: Yeah. And then on the men's side, it's just Rasmus and KB has to validate. So Rasmus has one and KB has to validate off the legacy validation program, which is no longer a thing. Of course, the only people don't have to qualify this year are Casper and Solvee. But there are a few left running their validation clock down almost. Any hot takes? ⁓ Pat, you had a theme you were to talk about. was talking about, was it, was it, um, Freddy Funk or something? Where were you going come in there? No, no, no. I hit that. We hit that already. I think it's just going to be the explosions on the bike that I think this is going to be the opening weekend of the 20 meter. And given this course, um, even if it's not windy, I think we're going to see some epic explosions. And I think this is going to be a theme that we're going to see, especially on the men's side. I mean, come Texas as well. I don't think that the This is a hot take. I don't think the 20 meters on either field, because the field size is quite small, I don't think it'll be as big of a factor as say here in a couple weeks at Dallas, or next week at Dallas, or in a couple weeks at Oceanside where you have 120 people, 80 men, 40 women. Yeah, but of that 120 people, like 40 of those are actual pros. Right. The rest are Americans that collected California. But I think it's the bigger fields that the 20 meters will play a bigger factor than like a race like this.

speaker-1: Yeah, I also think that it will be the road surface that has more of an impact than the drafting. Yeah. Because the rolling resistance is high. It is, for those that are listening from the US, I cannot. It's easier to ride in America than it is here. ⁓ my god.

speaker-0: No, it's crazy.

speaker-1: Yeah,

speaker-2: You ride in the, you don't ride in the woodlands.

speaker-1: slower than 35k an hour, like it's not possible. Whereas here it's like the climbs are, it's not super hilly, they are relatively punchy, like you have to produce power.

speaker-0: It's a chamois cream day like it's a lot of Vaseline down there. Yeah. Yeah lot of rattling. Yeah. Yeah. Any hot takes? you got any hot takes? I don't have any other ones. No, not for this race. I think we're you know excited to see the broadcast. That's going to be a big one to be able to go out on YouTube. That's an exciting one that we've all been wishing. With new commentary team. So I'd say, I don't want to say the pressure's on, but I'd say Ironman's done some big shakeups, And so this would be a great opportunity for them to show what they did on the off season on their side. So I think that's a huge one, super exciting.

speaker-1: And we've got an on the ground... Hayley Chur is here, isn't she? I think she's doing on the ground commentary. ⁓ cool. From Corside, which would be really,

speaker-0: And then they've got the team back home. They've got Rinny and what's his name? Will McCloy. ⁓ really? Will's doing it. I think, I believe. Maybe I've burst some news there, but sod it. I'm pretty sure Will McCloy is on the commentary team. It is Will McCloy commentating, isn't it? Cut. Is it Will McCloy commentating? You're going to drag her into it. So, him and Rennie are the main two voices, which I think is a great combo because it's what we've asked for. McCloy is a professional commentator that can host the show and bring experts in to give insight. That's what is needed. I think another hot take is just also for me, it's that the it's very interesting to me that the two pro series champions chose and stuck to their schedule and did this race. And I think that's probably A storyline that we'll continue to maybe go back to and reflect on as the series progresses over the year, right? Yeah. Well, also they basically have the same schedule.

speaker-1: Yeah, so I think this is a racing to Ironman so early opens up the rest of the season for a challenge Roth, right? And that that's huge that to be able to tick off as long as obviously as long as they both go to plan to then have full full freedom for the rest of the year and on my side as someone that You know, I'm I'm looking at where I can get Kona slots It equally opens up the rest of the season for me to go and find one if I need to yeah, but also not

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: impact the ability to score pro series points. when you're looking at structuring a season, we're all racing for so many months now. Why not just start early?

speaker-0: Just need to get a grip and bag one here. Did we ask Steph for expectations and goals for this race? ⁓ yeah, Steph.

speaker-1: Oh, so I would like to, I want to have an Iron Man PB time.

speaker-0: on a fairly slow course so that says a lot of form.

speaker-1: ⁓ Which is, I've gone, I've done like an 858 twice, so I want to get a good chunk under that because I have raced well enough to do that before. So, Chattanooga would have been way quicker, but we had no swim. ⁓ And I want to run well. I say this every Blimmin' race. I want to run well. I'm in the shape to run well. So, that's kind of, that's where I'm at. It just sets up the year nicely when you can have a result that you're like, actually, you what, I've just put together a race really well.

speaker-0: for pause and a breath in, Titu. Just calm it. A moment and then get working.

speaker-1: Yeah, just take a moment. Do some deep breathing. Yeah, I think if I can run a 315 or faster.

speaker-0: You'd a great result here with the way you swim in your bike. That would be a great result.

speaker-1: Yeah. Would be fantastic. that is, that's me laying it all out there. That's what I want.

speaker-0: So Kyle, tell the people where they can come to the live show. So ⁓ very famous, very good after party. However, before the race, we're going to do a live show at Finn's ⁓ pretty close to the race venue. You can go to our Instagram, check out the location, the time. It'll be four o'clock on Thursday. We will still we will still video, ⁓ maybe not video, but it will be audio recorded. So then if people are listening to this show and they want to hear kind of more on like the race and things like that. We kind of go into a bit more detail. It tends to be more hot takes, more rowdy, more controversial hot takes. Because you forget that this, what I always forget is that the live show is recorded. I think I'm just gobbling off to like 20 people in a room and I forget it's going outside 35,000 people. So that's what you can expect from a live show. Yeah. So if you're interested in that, the live show will be on Thursday in New Zealand. It'll go out. It'll be recorded.

speaker-1: beer.

speaker-0: pushed out before the show and then you can listen to it on your long ride this weekend while you're watching the races. So thank you everyone for listening to our preview show for Ironman New Zealand. Best of luck this weekend to Steph. Best of luck this weekend to Mark and I as we are going to be spectating as both of us have pulled up with an injury. So... Steph, you've got to give us some shit because we deserve it.

speaker-1: Thank you very much. Honestly, sorry. I'm so pathetic.

speaker-0: It is, so I'm not injured by the way, I'm absolutely fine. I can't wrap my head around racing when Kat's racing. I can't, I think I would hate every second of it. That's why I'm not doing it. So I'm not even going to claim injury. I'm on fit enough to get round. I'm claiming injury because it's been tough. Well yeah, you're an absolute state. Okay, we failed. I'm sorry. Give us some crap online. We totally deserve it.