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issue #187: May 27, 2026
You all, I did another trail race this past weekend. And I went so hard that I blew up — like the kind of blowing up where children are passing you in the last half-mile even though you're at the highest max heartrate you've ever seen — and I haven't done that in a long time. So then I had to stumble around in circles and lay on the ground for a bit and wonder if I was going to pass out. All for a local 6.7-miler. Ah, the glory of sport.
- Kelly
P.S. You can find past Triathlonish issues and subscribe here now.
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Let's just all take a second to appreciate what a joke the Enhanced Games was...
Because it was a flop. False starts, illegal suits, letting athletes have re-do attempts, no world records until one at the very end (and a lot of suggestion that the clock was actually stopped short on that record too....) Fred Kerley, the winner of the men's 100m, said he did it clean, btw, and ran a meh 9.97 seconds. The company's stock dropped 50% after the event.
The only appropriate reaction to something being that big a flop is jokes.
If you're wondering why a Steroid Olympics has a parent company with stock that's publicly traded in the first place, it's because this wasn't actually about athletes anyway. It was primarily a massive marketing play to sell a line peptides and testosterone. And it was about running an expensive clinical trial using these athlete as test subjects in the process.
Wouldn't you buy a protocol that guarantees world records? 😑
Now, why weren't these athletes able to break any of those records? Probably because the thing that matters the most is training. And genetics and timing and luck. Not to suggest that performance-enhancing drugs aren't performance-enhancing, because they are. And that's why they're banned. But if PEDs maybe make the 1-2% difference when you're already at the top, then you should be way more worried about the other 98%. It's like this book from a decade ago, The Doper Next Door, where a regular guy starts doping and it makes him more aggressive and hornier and musclier — but he still doesn't win his amateur bike race. (The book was about other things too, like about the culture that leads to something like the Enhanced Games.)
But banking an entire company on the idea that drugs can replace training and talent and hard work and timing and luck. Having one of the enlisted swimmers take so many drugs that he got too big and started to sink in the pool. Come on, admit that's just funny.
Now onto triathlon...
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Photo: T100
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From the races
T100 Spain: Jess Learmonth called it on our podcast last week that Georgia Taylor-Brown was going to win, and she was right. Georgia and Julie Derron looked in a class apart (though Spivey looked like she was running faaast) and also it looked hot.
IM Lanzarote: Do you think Sam Laidlow is back on form this year? The course record in Lanzarote, over Patrick Lange, is certainly an indicator. Lucy CB certainly seemed back too. Though I don't know that her win over that field was ever in doubt, it's more a question of how healthy and ready she is or isn't 16 weeks after surgery. Read however much you want to into each of those victories.
Challenge Championship: Another Pohle v. Meissner battle. Would be nice if some Americans could get themselves invested in Challenge racing, too.
Supertri: And, the Supertri Pro Series started. In Austin. I think we can all agree it would have been shocking if Gwen Jorgensen and Tim Hellwig hadn't won, but it's really mostly about getting your spot to the $800K final. Anyone with an elite license can apply for one of these series development races and could maybe win a spot into the final, so get on in there.
Results: T100 Spain, IM Lanzarote, Challenge Championship, Supertri Austin
The -ish
Just the odds & ends from around our sports, or things I thought were interesting.
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Jess Learmonth was on the Feisty Tri podcast last week, and had all of her usual insightful insight. One of the things I learned was that the PTO/T100 doesn't currently have an up-to-date maternity policy (at least according to Jess). (Apple Podcasts)
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Olympic qualification officially started last week — the Monday after WTCS Yokohama — and everyone's trying now to explain the minutiae of how World Tri points and quota spots are earned. But an important distinction: This is simply for Olympic qualification points, which earn each country xxx number of Olympic spots; how those countries choose to use those spots (ie. which athletes they send) is up to the country's own qualification process — which, at least for the U.S., hasn't been released yet. (Instagram/USA Triathlon)
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USAT did announce new USA TRI branding. (Instagram)
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Hamburg will host the first T50 World Championship next year (Sept. 8-12, 2027) — ie. what currently is known as the World Triathlon Championships Finals. It's obviously a big deal that a location has been finalized and the Triathlon World Tour is moving forward — you can read what the World Tri President said about it in our previous interview — but this line in the article made me laugh: "...it will be there that the first world champions of the new Olympic-distance era are crowned." OK! (Inside the Games/Triathlonish)
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Cassandre Beaugrand broke the overall French national record for 5,000m on the track (14:40). And at this point, between her & Alex Yee & Beth Potter, it's hard to argue that the top WTCS athletes aren't also top runners in their own right. And maybe one could make the case (which Jess was making on the podcast episode) that World Tri is a runner's race these days. (Instagram/Spotify)
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The IM Hamburg start list is out (though I doubt it will actually include Lucy CB, since she probably had her name on there as a back-up to Lanzarote), and the question is on the table: Will we have a women's sub-8 Ironman? Maybe! (Tri247)
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Two different people sent me this piece about how far spots roll down for 70.3 champs v. Kona and for men v. women. Their argument is that Ironman now uniquely has a problem because with the new qualification it's gotten too easy to get a spot to 70.3 Worlds, especially for women. The only problem with the analysis is it's entirely premised on the argument that 70.3 qualification changed in November, which it did not. 70.3 Worlds qualification did *not* change in November; only Kona qualification changed. Gender pools were already separate before that. (I've told the author this and he adjusted the piece some, but I think it sorta negates the whole argument that this is a new problem Ironman faces.) I'd also point out that I saw the same anecdotal "does anyone want a 70.3 Worlds spot" happening at awards ceremonies a decade ago. Sure, there's a constant marketing for Ironman in how hard but not too hard to make qualification in order to keep the machine running smoothly. But that's not new. And the bigger difference between 70.3 qualification & Kona qualification has nothing to do with men v. women and it has everything to do with there simply being over 2x MORE TOTAL SPOTS for 70.3 Worlds. (A Trail Runner's Blog/Triathlonish)
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Kona Week for Gravel (also called Unbound) is this week and if you want a Here For The Women's Race shirt stop by the Feisty Cycling pop-up at Merchant Cycles. (Velo/Instagram)
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Who is the greatest runner of all time? According to this complex analysis published in Sports Medicine, the answer is: Usain Bolt and Faith Kipyegon. (Sports Medicine)
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Speaking of making numbers up to quantify performances, Mile & Stone went deep on the new UTMB Index scoring. And I just really enjoy some of the quotes from trail runners being like: 'The primary system of ranking athletes shouldn't come from a private organization because it creates conflicts of interest.' Maybe as they go through the same problems triathlon went through they'll actually solve them for us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Mile & Stone)
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There was this whole activation out in the desert between Adidas & Satisfy, which has been a hot topic in the running world as runners mostly mock it. But then the crux of the debate has been: Was this collab for Runner runners (like capital R Runners) or was it for Lifestyle runners? And maybe the conflict is best summed up with this explanation from a fashion newsletter: “Satisfy gets bullied by poorly dressed marathoners who spend too much time online.” Not everything's for everybody. (Adidas/Instagram/Puck)
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To follow-up on something we said a few weeks ago, after the drowning death at IM Texas: Lifeguarding in triathlon is really hard. (Triathlete)
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Olympic triathletes be on the older end of when they start sports specialization. And even though everyone knows and it's well-documented that specializing too young is counter-productive, I'm pretty sure the tri age has more to do with access than with any well-thought-out decision-making. (Instagram)
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Hiking with robot legs, if you're not disabled in way that it would allow you to do things you couldn't, just sounds...dumb? Unless (Wall Street Journal)
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A deep dive on cramping. (Precision)
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And another on a luxury survivalist community torn apart by HOA complaints. Because people always be people. (Wall Street Journal)
One last thing
Mt. Everest looking crowded.
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