Pho3nix Club has concluded its first-ever VIP event at the 2023 BMW Berlin Marathon, with members racing and raising funds for the Pho3nix Foundation.

The Pho3nix Club is a first-of-its-kind membership platform that offers endurance training resources, access to bucket-list sports events, and the ability to fundraise and contribute for sport nonprofit Pho3nix Foundation to supercharge its initiatives that empower kids to do sport and help the next generation of young talent emerge around the world.

Pho3nix Foundation chairman and founder Sebastian Kulczyk raced alongside Pho3nix Club project manager Rebekah Bruhwiller and club members Tim and Maurice. Swept up in the festive and celebratory atmosphere befitting a World Marathon Major in the heart of beautiful and historical Berlin, Maurice clocked a 30-minute new personal best, while Sebastian, Rebekah, and Tim all ran together and finished in 3 hours and 43 minutes.

“Whether it’s running or triathlon or any other endurance sport, it’s all about having fun and enjoying yourself,” said Sebastian. “And that’s also the beauty of all these events: we have fun before, during, and after for sure.”

Aside from achieving their target times and experiencing the joy sport has to offer, their racing benefits a good cause. The Pho3nix Club VIP package to the Berlin Marathon features an earmarked donation to the Pho3nix Foundation, which will go a long way in expanding its presence and work around the world, with events and programs across the Asia Pacific, Africa, and Europe such as kids triathlon series Pho3nix Kids and the Pho3nix Athlete Program providing much-needed funding for Paris 2024 hopefuls.

The VIP package also included guaranteed entry, a 12-week marathon training plan, three nights’ accommodation, and exclusive Pho3nix Club marathon singlet or shirt and trucker hat.

Pho3nix Club will next descend upon landmark gravel triathlon event SGrail in Girona, Spain, a VIP training camp in Phuket, Thailand leading into the Laguna Phuket Triathlon, and the World Marathon Major race in Tokyo in 2024.

LoveFour-time triathlon world champion Chris “Macca” McCormack discusses why accurate distances are important when talking about personal bests, but also why times shouldn’t be the end-all be-all for triathlon.

With course records being broken at Ironman Hawaii but on a far different course to that raced 20 years ago, and full distance world records being set on courses with current-assisted swims or shorter-than-advertised distances, you have to ask: are we comparing apples to apples?

I personally believe IRONMAN needs to ratify their distances more seriously. If you went to the London Marathon and it was only 38 kilometres long, you’d be pissed off rather than consider your result a new personal best – because it’s not a marathon. World Athletics and the IAAF have been so strict around what a marathon is, and major marathons all over the world seek certification that their courses are the whole 42.2 kilometre distance. There is no “that’s close enough” because close enough is not good enough.

I don’t know why there is not much more pushback by the amateurs doing IRONMAN that the races they do have distances that aren’t exact. Maybe it’s because of the obsession with fast times regardless of the actual course and conditions.

Let’s take a look back at one of the legends of our sport: Mark Allen. If you look at his palmares, he won Kona, he won the ITU world championship – but he also won Ironman Nice which is one of the toughest courses in the world. He won the Powerman duathlon in Zofingen. I used to live in Zofingen and it is just ridiculously mountainous; any athlete that can conquer that is one of the best in the world.

Wildflower is another of these races that were built hard, because the whole premise of triathlon used to be to creating a difficult test for people and determining who was hard enough (“Iron” Man, right?) and who crossed the finish line first.

The obsession with time came later, with the fast course in Roth and breaking eight hours for the first time. Age groupers started comparing times, and we saw the rise of flat courses selling out because you could achieve impressive times on these. It’s a direction I wish we could pivot from and get back to recognising the value of difficulty and assessing performances on different courses separately.

I understand time is always going to creep into the discussion, because it is naturally something to measure improvement against yourself or your peers. That’s why when we built our Sub7 Sub8 course we had every portion of it ratified. Think they swam slow because Kristian went 38 minutes in Cozumel? No, they swam the right distance for the first time ever. The bike course was 180 kilometres – not 179.4, not 183. The marathon was set to the exact distance of 42.190 kilometres. It was our responsibility to get these distances down correctly because I know the athletes wanted reality, not something to pump up their egos. It’s important that if you’re going to go after something like this and make the claim that they went that fast over the full distance, it needs to be legit.

It’s whether or not the athletes want that ratification that will determine if the sport moves in that direction.

At the same time, multisport has room for various distances that can cater to different kinds of athletes. Ironman and half-ironman will always be key because there’s so much history there, but challenge yourself sometimes. I think there should be races like those with a 4K swim and a 50K bike so the swimmers get a bit of an advantage (if you don’t like to swim, that’s fine you don’t have to do that sort of race). There were great concepts like the 222 Series which was a 1K swim, draft-legal 100K bike, and a 10K run.

I do think there’s a desire to do these sorts of things and the more races there are out there, the better.

LoveTriathlon is long past the days when athletes would tuck their running singlets into swim trunks or cycling shorts at the start of the race to save time in transition. (Although we do see some athletes race in “budgie smugglers”… if that’s your style, you do you!)

These days, materials and design for triathlon clothing have progressed towards practical sweat-wicking one- or two-piece coordinates made of technical fabric. They give you a full range of movement but also look fashionable and distinctive. Thin but good quality chamois in shorts helps keep your delicate bits from chafing on the bike and run without absorbing too much water and sweat.

Not only do good trisuits decrease drag in the water and on the bike and can be worn from start to finish, but they also make you easy to spot for friends, family, and teammates to cheer on.

One- or Two-piece?

A one-piece trisuit is aerodynamic, hydrodynamic, and gives you full coverage so you’re always sure you’re not giving everyone a show. However, they can be a pain to take off and put back on if you need to make a toilet stop in the middle of a race (just try rolling a skintight race suit up over wet shoulders…).

This isn’t really something you’ll face during sprints and standard/Olympic distances, but becomes more of an issue in longer races when nutritional issues might come about and your stomach starts to rumble.

Sleeved or Sleeveless?

World Triathlon has amended its rules to allow age-group athletes to race in trisuits with fabric extending to above the elbows in any distances. (However, if you’re racing as youth, junior, U23, or elite over sprint and standard distance, you will need to go sleeveless.) This has been a boon to athletes who prefer not to have burnt shoulders at the end of an ironman. The slight aero benefit from a sleeved suit has also given more people reason to switch.

But sleeveless is still a great option for short, hot races – and they’re just a bit cheaper, too. They’re a good starter option for your first few races until you decide to commit the sport a bit more.

In the end, it comes down to what you’re comfortable wearing, and what’s practical for the distances you’re doing.

Love

He is the only man to have won the Olympics, the World Triathlon Championship Series, and the Ironman World Championship inside of 12 months. And then he became the first man to go under 7 hours over the full distance of triathlon. Kristian Blummenfelt is on a roll, backed by natural talent, bleeding-edge training (figuratively as well as literally), and a raging desire to win.

But he didn’t just come out of nowhere; in an interview with Bahrain Victorious 13 team during the height of pandemic closures in 2020, we saw the seeds of greatness just about to put forth its buds and bloom.

Kristian’s style has always been to give 100% in everything he does. He said, “When I’m on the start line, I’m standing there because I want to give everything I have to see if I can win the race. I think it’s a combination of the love of winning and also the hate of losing. It’s almost like I hate losing more than I love winning. The pain that goes through my body when I’m racing is so much smaller, less painful than the actual pain that I have to carry if I lose a race because that stays with me for days, for weeks. But the pain in the race, that’s just for a few minutes or a few hours.”

He started swimming from the age of eight, while also playing football. But a plateau in his development from the age of 11 to 13 coincided with improved running, spurring his swim coach to encourage him to use his engine elsewhere. “He gave me a list of different events, and a local triathlon was one of them. And this was back in 2008, when I was 14. So I turned up at that event and ended up winning it.”

That set him on the Olympic pathway as one of the first ever to be part of a Norwegian national triathlon team. “A few weeks later, I was contacted by one of the guys in the federation who wanted to start up a youth national team, because back then we had no national team. So he wanted to start off with a young team and build them up from youth to junior, to U23, and then senior and hopefully we would be able to be good enough to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games. So actually this journey started in 2009, 11 years ago. That’s when we started working towards the 2020 Olympic Games. So the fact that I qualified for 2016 was one Olympics earlier than what we set out to do.”

The man just does not stop, as anyone who’s been privy to his training logs can see. He freely admitted, “I think the reason I ended up in the sport of triathlon is because I love to be outside, I love to be out in nature, training. So if I do more than a week with limited training, a week with 8, 9, 10 hours of training I feel so guilty, so bad. It’s awful; I just enjoy getting through the training. And also what we call off-season, I can go out for training without having any pressure. I can go for a long ride, stop, have a coffee, enjoy the sun, and then ride back again. So it’s more a social thing than just training.”

He has certainly exploited a natural lung capacity 150 percent that of a normal person because of a chest that grows outward. “When I was younger I had an X-ray, but it doesn’t distract me when concentrating in racing at all. I think it’s more the opposite, actually; it gives me more space to have a bigger and stronger heart and lungs… This is equal to having a third one in size. I think when it comes to racing it’s kind of my strength because I have the ability to breathe in a lot of air. I’ve done 300 liters of air per minute when racing, and that’s how I’m able to get around on the course and have that high VO2 Max.”

Supercharged with oxygen though he may be compared to his fellow competitors, there is one superpower he still wishes he had. “Oh, that’s flying. I’ve been dreaming so many times that I’ve been able to fly, you know, the same way I’m moving through water, if you could do that in the air, that would be sick. Swimming in the air, also known as flying, would be insane.”

He has already made a few dreams become reality through his zest for life and competition. “Ultimate goals in triathlon in general, obviously winning the Olympics and also winning Kona. I want to win a big few. But also every time I’m standing on the start line, I want to win the race. And I love to win races where I have strong competitors who actually may be the favorites and I’m in a position where I can be the underdog and just come from behind and surprise people.”

These days, PTO #1 Kristian Blummenfelt is no longer the underdog. But the same hunger to prove himself and to win drives him forward towards Kona and the Paris Olympics.

(Featured photo by Sub7Sub8 / Dani Vasquez.)

LoveBefore the triathlon world completely moves on from the historic spectacle that was the Pho3nix Sub7 and Sub8 Project, Powered by Zwift, let’s talk about it one last time. (At least, until they start talking about doing something on an even larger scale…)

The Race Itself

Mark Allen called it on his podcast, but Dave Scott as well as Lothar Leder (the first man to go under 8 hours) were still not convinced.

To many, the last-minute pull-out of Alistair Brownlee and his replacement with Joe Skipper didn’t sound like good news especially on the heels of Lucy Charles-Barclay dropping out earlier and Kat Matthews replacing her. Quite a few people were saying that this event was cursed, although its organisers were nonplussed and moved forward.

Well, race day repudiated the naysayers: all four athletes did not only slip under their respective marks, but absolutely smashed the 7- and 8-hour mythical barrier. Kristian Blummenfelt was the first man across the line in 6:44:25, and Kat Matthews was the first woman in 7:31:54.

Nicola Spirig overcame a broken collarbone and ribs and punctured lung back in February to become the second woman to go Sub7 in 7:34:19.

Astonishingly, Joe Skipper the pinch-hitter finished in 6:47:36. It was within half a minute of his stated target time, which pre-race sounded quite ambitious compared with Blummenfelt’s target of just under 7 hours. He also logged the world’s fastest bike split across 180 kilometres: 3:16:42. He did so with the bike team assembled for Brownlee, having only the week before the race to dial in their pacelining and strategy.

These were no mean feats; they will change the game in the way we think about the limits of human endurance across a full triathlon, in much the same way Breaking 2 and INEOS 1:59 redefined what’s possible and enabled Eliud Kipchoge to break the two-hour mark over the marathon.

The Coverage

Obviously with our community having an inside track into the workings of Chris McCormack’s mind, we knew to expect excellent coverage and commentary on the race day endeavours. But what we got blew previous long-course coverage out of the water.

The nine-hour event was streamed live on Youtube, with a peak of 28,880 concurrent viewers watching these champion athletes finish under goal time and over 5,000 comments from a highly-engaged audience in the live chat. With 202,300 logged views after 24 hours, the livestream is projected to exceed a quarter of a million views over the next week. It was also mirrored on Facebook, where it reached 174,438 views and 15,995 link clicks, with related social media post engagement logging a whopping 600% increase from baseline.

The commentary was informed, relevant, insightful, and done by people who actually know the sport and its athletes (unlike the debacle from the triathlon commentary provided at the Tokyo Olympics).

There were a few areas for improvement in the coverage. Graphics in particular set context for the endeavor, but the onscreen timers could be at times inconsistent with what was happening in the race.

Much of the stats recorded and collected by Garmin were relegated to the stats dashboard provided on the website. Many viewers did not know to open a second screen for this information and would frequently ask for updates on the live chat. Thankfully, periodically on screen we would get current speeds and whether or not each athlete was on track or behind their target times.

Infrequently, the camera would focus on a pacemaker instead of the athlete they were pacing. But we didn’t get much info on the commentary or the graphics about these powerhouses who helped ferry the athletes toward breaking the 7- and 8-hour marks. Maybe the highlights coverage that will soon be available across multiple territories will have that.

With a multi-lap course, some graphics like that of Formula 1 where you can see how many laps to go would have been appreciated, because all of a sudden the athletes were on their last bike lap.

All that being said, the livestream was still light years ahead of anything we had previously seen. It has definitely set the benchmark quite high for long course, just as Super League Triathlon did for short course; time will tell if the PTO, Ironman, and World Triathlon will step theirs up.

The Reaction

While people are now saying they expected the Sub7 and Sub8 barriers to be breached because of the team time trial element on the bike leg, last year right after the Sub7 and Sub8 event was announced they were singing a completely different tune. Conventional wisdom held that Sub8 was achievable, but not Sub7.

According to Triathlete Magazine in January 2021:

No matter where or when it’s held, it would be nearly impossible for Brownlee or Blummenfelt to get close to  the seven-hour mark. That would require a 45-minute swim, 3:45 bike, and  2:30 run—and that doesn’t include at least one minute total for  transitions. Blummenfelt has never run a marathon (yet), and Brownlee’s  best run off an iron-distance bike is 2:43. Brownlee would have to shave  more than 45 minutes off of his Ironman PR of 7:45. A group of pacers  might be able to give him 30 minutes on the bike, but no amount of  pacers can give him 15 minutes on the marathon.

For the women there’s a glimmer of hope, especially with Charles-Barclay, whose PR at the iron-distance is only 36 minutes shy of the eight-hour mark. If a clever bike-pacing strategy  can give her 30-minutes on the bike, then she can at least make it  interesting late in the run. Breaking eight hours means a 45-minute  swim, 4:15 ride, and a sub-three-hour marathon. Given unlimited pacers  on the bike and run, that doesn’t seem completely out of her reach. She  might even be able to tow a few swim pacers to a 45-minute swim.

Then we saw the men’s record fall not just once, but twice: at Jan Frodeno’s Tri Battle, and with Kristian Blummenfelt’s performance at Ironman Cozumel. Could it actually be done?

By November 2021, sentiment had shifted.

Incredibly, on the same day of Sub7 and Sub8, Laura Philipp at the Ironman European Championship nearly broke Chrissie Wellington’s ironman world record by eight seconds.

Whether or not the times set at Sub7 and Sub8 stand as records is besides the point. It was a chance to show that the pursuit of something even if it’s considered impossible is a worthy goal, and that you’ll only find out if you have the courage to try.

Also it showed that you can make long-course triathlon into gripping and engaging viewing not just for the avid triathlete, but also tapping into other audiences across the three sports involved in triathlon.

A rising tide lifts all boats; putting on a spectacle like this has elevated the sport’s profile for all involved.

(Photos credit: Mana Group)

Love

As secretive as they’ve been about their pacemaker teams to enable them to go under seven hours for the full distance of triathlon and Defy The Impossible, Alistair Brownlee and Kristian Blummenfelt were even more so about their equipment choices and strategy.

Though Brownlee has been ruled out of the attempt in the final hour, his plans are still worth a look even as fellow Brit Joe Skipper steps in to give Blummenfelt competition on race day.

We draw the curtain back for a glimpse at the inner workings for Sub7.

Blummenfelt Strategy Shrouded in Mystery

The Norwegian powerhouse may use the same equipment that powered him to the win at the Ironman World Championship in St. George. Not only that, but his entire bike pacemaker team will be riding the same frame.

The prototype tri bike CADEX created for him, partnered with a CADEX carbon four-spoke front wheel and disc rear wheel and Drag2Zero aerobars, caused a buzz. Designed with a floating seat stay, wide triple-crown fork system, and no top tube, its emphasis is on maximising aerodynamics. Blummenfelt has chosen a more traditional 52/39 SRAM Red chainring with a Quarq powermeter, while a wireless 12-speed with SRAM Red eTap AXS and a CeramicSpeed oversized pulley wheel make shifting a breeze. An ISM PS 1.0 saddle and Garmin Rally RS200 pedals complete the ensemble.

He used the new deboer Floh 2.0 wetsuit in St. George to fend off the cold, but has recently been spotted wearing a suit marked “Fjord S7” with differently coloured markings to the Fjord 2.0. The Fjord is for warmer waters as the Sub7 lake swim is shaping up to be. These wetsuits boast HBF-Limestone WhaleSkin™ neoprene and Airfloat™ stability panels that allow better buoyancy and rotation stability, while the 1.5mm patented UltraFlex™ shoulder and arm construction maintain mobility, all the better to unleash his swim strength with. GlideSkin™ Surface coating lowers water friction, while the DolphinSkin neck closure prevents leaks that cause drag. One wonders though what secrets his custom suit conceals…

His partnership with Norwegian training gear company Trimtex has seen him don a translucent white trisuit to win the Tokyo Olympics and a sleeved iteration for his Ironman races, allowing him to dump as much heat as possible as effort levels rise. His shoe of choice is the Asics Metaspeed Sky+, a lightweight carbon-plate racer that adds some extra spring in his steps and length in his stride.

Blummenfelt’s choice of an open-water champion as his sole swim pacemaker and a Kenyan marathoner to pace him on the run shows confidence in being able to keep pace with them. High performance coach Matt Bottrill who is overseeing his cycling pacemakers also reveals some general strategy for the bike leg. He says, “My guess is that we are going to come out of the water with a deficit… It’s going to be very easy to set off like a train. And I think this is where we can come into our own element. You’ve got to understand triathlon quite a bit, because if you go off too hard, then you are going to pay for that later on in the race.”

Race day will tell if the marginal gains from these choices can spell the difference not just to go Sub7, but to do it before the other athlete does.

Brownlee Was Keeping His Options Open

The dual Olympic champion had been working with his wetsuit sponsor HUUB to see how they can better design a wetsuit for him. Nigel Mitchell, Brownlee’s technical project manager for Sub7, says, “This actually involved getting a pair of scissors, cutting a few wetsuits, sending them out to Alistair and then he will put on different layers of wetsuits in different areas to get an initial feel… That data then gets fed back in and we’ll start to build wetsuits with different thicknesses, which we will then look to go and test where we’ll look at the drag factors there. Then we’ll actually do some physiological testing in Switzerland as well with those suits.”

The same care had gone into Brownlee’s trisuit where aerodynamics as well as thermal management was a concern. Mitchell reveals, “I was meeting with Steve Falkner at Nottingham Trent University. He has been developing how the suits go together with special fabrics that help to regulate the body’s temperature. We’ve done a lot of work around heat acclimatisation and understanding the sodium concentration in the sweat as well as how that changes when one becomes more heat acclimatised.”

For the bike leg, Brownlee had two options: to ride his BMC Timemachine 01 Disc Premium Carbon with Vmax Aero Design and P2P Positioning System, or a prototype bike that BMC has developed with Red Bull Advanced Technologies.

The BMC-Red Bull prototype bicycle utilised Red Bull’s extensive simulation and modelling capacity for design decisions, with quick manufacturing turnaround done at BMC’s own R&D lab.

Stefan Christ, Head of R&D at BMC Switzerland, says, “Simulating not only the vehicle performance but the entire performance environment offers huge opportunities in the collaboration and finally makes BMC athletes even faster. Building the prototypes in our very own Impec Lab here in Grenchen, Switzerland helped us to be fast in development but also realising exactly our vision of the bike.”

Whichever bike he was supposed to roll onto the BMC Bike Course on race day, Brownlee would have been using the same components: a SRAM Red eTap AXS 1x group partnered with a 165 58T Kurbel crank and a 10-29 cassette, custom-made Wattshop aero extensions, a Quarq power meter paired with a Wahoo head unit, Zipp 585 front wheel and Sub 9 Disk rear wheel with prototype Schwalbe TT tubeless tyres, a Fizik Transiro Mistica saddle, and Speedplay aero pedals.

As for shoes, Brownlee’s longtime sponsor Adidas has a wide range of options including the Adizero Adios Pro 2, their most advanced carbon-plate shoe. It features Lightstrike Pro foam, Energy Rods at the front, and a rear carbon plate that provides a smooth and bouncy ride.

We still hope to see all these in use at a race course once Brownlee recovers from his injury and is back at peak fitness.

Skipper will be paced on the swim by short-course triathletes Max Stapley and Gordon Benson. He will then take advantage of the well-oiled machine Brownlee’s cycling pacemakers will be over the bike course; he is currently rehearsing with the team for smooth and unimpeded performance on race day. On the marathon, German national marathon champion Frank Schauer along with Stapley and Benson will keep him company in this heroic effort to finish in under 7 hours.

Love

To Defy The Impossible, every second counts. Aside from the talent and fitness of champion athletes Nicola Spirig and Kat Matthews, use of technology and strategy are seen as key in the attempt to finish a full distance triathlon in under eight hours at the Pho3nix Sub8 Project, Powered by Zwift.

Spirig On the Cutting Edge for Swim and Run

With two decades of sport under her belt, Spirig knows how best to get herself to a starting line fit and ready to race. She also has a wide network of partners and experts to consult in creating the equipment needed to go fast and how to best utilize her pacemakers throughout the race.

Spirig has worked with her wetsuit sponsor deboer on a specially designed full-sleeved wetsuit; to reduce drag, its surface imitates fish scale skin and the design prevents water from entering through the neck. The suit is also customized specifically to how she swims, providing greater buoyancy in the hip area but less in the upper body and legs. Deboer estimates that a person who swims at a pace of 1:45/100m without a wetsuit could potentially slash 10 minutes off their time wearing the wetsuit over the 3.8 kilometers of the full distance swim leg.

On the bike, Spirig consulted cycling experts as well as her longtime bike sponsor Specialized. While time trial bikes are commonly used in long-distance triathlon, because Sub8 allows pacemakers and drafting, Spirig has elected to use her regular Specialized road bike on the 180-kilometre bike leg, as she has always done.

She says, “The drafting seemed extremely important to us and so I will choose a road bike with which I can get the closest to the wheel in front of me while riding safely. Being in the draft means that the aerodynamics of my bike becomes less important, while factors like the ability to get the ideal draft, comfort, and using a position that lets me run the best off the bike get much more important.”

For the marathon, On Running has manufactured a shoe prototype for Spirig which has undergone multiple testing and feedback loops. Spirig reveals, “Tadesse Abraham just ran a new Swiss marathon record in my prototype a few weeks ago, so it’s good to see it’s working.”

Spirig is targeting a 50-minute swim with the help of one swim pacemaker, then a 4:19 bike split tucked in behind her cycling pacemakers so she can run a 2:45 marathon with her run pacemaker to finish in 7 hours and 54 minutes.

Matthews Using Proven, Top-of-the-Line Equipment

Given the short turnaround time for Matthews’ involvement in Sub8, there was no time to get things customized. However, through her sponsors she has access to the sport’s best for swim, bike, and run, used to great effect during the Ironman World Championship to produce a silver medal on debut.

Matthews will be swimming in the Orca Apex Flo wetsuit. It is the most advanced in the range featuring a combination of Orca’s signature ​​Yamamoto 44+ and 0.88 Free technology to provide maximum flexibility and mobility in the shoulder area, as well as buoyancy in the lower body through Exo-Lift and Aerodome technology.

She will ride the BMC Timemachine 01 Disc Premium Carbon with Vmax Aero Design and P2P Positioning System, using DT Swiss ARC 1100 DICUT wheels – DB 80 on the front and DISC on the rear – with prototype Hutchinson Racing Lab tyres. USE poles installed on a custom 18-degree wedge plate serve as aerobar extensions, helping Matthews hide from the wind and improve aerodynamics. To monitor power output, she will use a Wahoo Elemnt Roam bike computer coupled with a 4iiii power meter. A Shimano Di2 groupset running a 56×1 front derailleur and an 11-25 rear cassette, Selle Italia road saddle, and Wahoo Aero pedals complete the ensemble.

On the run, Matthews will use the Asics Metaspeed Sky+ shoe. Its FF Blast Turbo foam and propulsive carbon plate are touted to allow runners to extend their stride length, conserving energy and allowing them to maintain pace in the later stages of a race.

Similarly to Spirig, Matthews aims for a 50-minute swim split sitting on the feet of her two swim pacemakers. On the bike, she will tail a main domestique while three teams of two riders rotate on the front every three laps for a target time of 4 hours flat. On relatively fresh legs, a 2:40 marathon split with her run pacemaker will help her cross the finish line in 7 hours and 30 minutes, well under the 8-hour threshold.

That is, if all goes according to plan. These bold and ambitious athletes still have to turn up and put in the effort. And even then, the finish will be earned, never given.

Love

When Lucy Charles-Barclay announced her hip fracture and subsequent withdrawal from the Pho3nix Sub7 and Sub8 Project, Powered by Zwift, not a few people started wondering what would happen if another athlete pulls out, especially since her head-to-head competitor Nicola Spirig had been in a cycling accident and was healing from a broken collarbone and punctured lung.

Unfortunately we have come to that situation now: Alistair Brownlee is out of attempting Sub7.

Just as Lucy found an understudy in Kat Matthews, Alistair will be seconded by fellow Brit Joe Skipper. Given the short timetable for a turnaround, it speaks to Joe’s caliber and confidence that he’s so quickly stepped up to the plate. Luckily he’s deep in a training block after skipping the Ironman World Championship in St. George due to coming down with COVID-19 the month prior.

Both Lucy and Alistair were knocked out by hip pathologies. Lucy’s injury was a stress fracture and edema. The press release from Pho3nix calls Alistair’s injury a “stress response in his hip”; a stress response is an early form of a bone stress injury and may lead to a stress fracture if no interventions are taken.

Training to race at the pointy end means that you are always dancing with the spectre of injury and illness. Despite the best coaching and experts available, each human body is a unique mystery: the workload one body can handle with aplomb, another may buckle and break under.

We wish Alistair a speedy recovery and rehab, and luck to Joe as he takes on Kristian Blummenfelt. History will be made regardless.

Full press release below:

Dual Olympic champion and Sub7 aspirant Alistair Brownlee has been ruled out of the Pho3nix Sub7Sub8 Project, powered by Zwift due to a stress response in his hip that requires immediate treatment.  Brownlee will be replaced by fellow Brit and PTO world number six Joe Skipper who takes his shot at making history against reigning Olympic and World Champion Kristian Blummenfelt on Sunday at the DEKRA Lausitzring in Senftenberg, Germany.

It is a cruel blow for Brownlee, who along with MANA Group CEO and Pho3nix Foundation board member Chris McCormack was part of the initial team that developed the concept of delivering the first sub-7 hour full distance triathlon in late 2019.

“We are extremely disappointed with the announcement, but when you are pushing your body to the limit like Alistair has been, it’s a fine line,”  said McCormack. “Alistair is a true professional and will be there to support Joe, who has been preparing for Ironman Nice at the end of June,  so in good shape to take on the challenge.”

“It’s not going to get easier with Joe,” said Blummenfelt. “He has a better full distance resume and a higher world ranking than Alistair. I’m looking forward to the  challenge.”

“Honestly, I’m devastated,” said Brownlee. “I was frustrated to miss St. George, and now this. I’m gutted. I was so invested in the process and loved working with my team. This was the goal that stimulated me again in the sport, on par with the  Olympics. I’ll do what I can to support Joe.”

Brownlee, who also missed the recent Ironman World Championships in Utah, will support Skipper by pacing him in the swim, and will also join the commentary team for the live broadcast on Sub7Sub8.com. Brownlee replaces Richard Varga on Skipper’s team, with Jonny Brownlee also dropping out to be replaced by German national marathon champion Frank Schauer. Skipper retains the support of the bike pacemaking team led by Alex Dowsett, who is fresh off riding in the Giro d’Italia.

LoveQuestion: I’m a very strong swimmer, but mentally don’t go all out as I know I still have bike and run to come. How do you know your limits?

The fact that you’re a good swimmer means you know where you actually are fitness-wise. How do you know if you’re pushing hard enough to get the maximum out of your strength? Through training. It’s about understanding your numbers and knowing, ‘Okay I can swim ten 100s coming in off the 1:15, I shouldn’t try to go 1:13 because I will blow up.”

You learn that from your training, and then you need to have the strength of character or the confidence in yourself to implement that in a race when everyone else is starting off hot – the complete opposite. Have the confidence in implementing your own race strategy.

Question: In training I’m bang on the numbers and can push myself to the limit, but when it comes to a race the wheels fall off! Any help in how to replicate what I can do in training in a race?

That’s the magic question. If you’re getting the numbers right in training with the right parameters, then there’s no reason why you can’t execute on race day. So I’ll ask you this question: what are you thinking on race morning? What’s going through your head? Is it a nerves thing? Is it anticipation? Anxiety? Is it second-guessing yourself when things are getting tough? Usually when an athlete is not executing on race day what they’re showing in training, it’s a mental thing.

The other possible cause is a disconnect between your target training numbers and your desired outcome on race day. Always go back to the drawing board and be honest with yourself. Look at the numbers you’re aiming to hit in training and compare them to what your goal is. It’s like me saying I want to break eight hours for an ironman – but I’m only training at 240 watts. Sure, I’m hitting those particular numbers in training, but to attain my goal I actually need to put out 420 watts on race day. So are those things aligned?

Getting it right for all of us – pros and amateurs alike – is not a guarantee and that’s what makes racing so special and this sport so cool. There’s always something you can improve; it’s just a matter of being confident enough to ask the questions like you’re asking now.

Chris “Macca” McCormack is a four-time triathlon world champion with the biggest winning percentage in the history of the sport. He is a co-founder and partner in Super League Triathlon, CEO of the Bahrain Victorious 13 team, board member of the Pho3nix Foundation, and CEO of MANA Sports & Entertainment Group.