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This week's episode is with USA Triathlon's Grand Master Athlete of the Year, Donna Smyers. Yes, that last name may sound familiar. She first got into triathlon thanks to sister Karen Smyers—who went on to be a well-known pro and win the world championships. But Donna's paved her own way, as a six-time age-group winner at Kona, two-time age-group winner at ITU Worlds, and national Hall of Fame inductee. What is the secret and how has the sport changed? Donna shares some insights with us, how she manages to keep it fun, love the lifestyle, and do some kind of race every year. It's a short fun episode this week. Hope you enjoy the chat and congratulations to all the 2021 Athlete of the Year award winners!
This week's episode is with USA Triathlon's Grand Master Athlete of the Year, Donna Smyers. Yes, that last name may sound familiar. She first got into triathlon thanks to sister Karen Smyers—who went on to be a well-known pro and win the world championships. But Donna's paved her own way, as a six-time age-group winner at Kona, two-time age-group winner at ITU Worlds, and national Hall of Fame inductee. What is the secret and how has the sport changed? Donna shares some insights with us, how she manages to keep it fun, love the lifestyle, and do some kind of race every year. It's a short fun episode this week. Hope you enjoy the chat and congratulations to all the 2021 Athlete of the Year award winners!
I am honored to be joined by 83 y/o Jack Welber, I had the pleasure of meeting Jack during a practice open water swim in Boulder 3 weeks ago. He was preparing to participate at Sprint Triathlon Nationals in Milwaukee. He is co-author of Not Dead Yet: World Triathlon Champions 75+ offer tips for thriving & flourishing in later life, available at Amazon and on Audible Jack graduated from the University of Florida in 1959 with a BA in Economics and a minor in Philosophy. He earned 100% of his college tuition and expenses playing jazz saxophone at college events. After 2 ½ years of military service, Jack began a career in business where he spent 27 years at Johnson & Johnson in middle and upper management. In 2004 at the age of 66, he formed the executive search firm, Wimbledon Group Inc specializing in recruiting oncologists for the pharmaceutical industry. Clients included Pfizer, Bristol Myers, Quintiles and Johnson & Johnson. Jack's love of sports started with high school basketball and track and continued throughout his adult working life. He ran 5K's, 10K's, half marathons and several full marathons. Back injuries caused Jack In 2004 to switch to triathlon. He hired a coach and began competing in local events on the west coast of Florida where he lived. Starting in 2012, Jack began competing on a national level and ITU Worlds where he had 7 starts and 3 podium finishes including a win in Rotterdam. With heart felt recognition to his good fortune for genetic inheritance, Jack would humbly like to compete in the 85-89 age group next year in Milwaukee.
Sue Reynolds tells the story of losing two hundred pounds to eventually race in the ITU Worlds, placing 6th in the world. In this episode we get to hear all about Sue's journey from 335 pounds to fit and in shape. Sue is the author of "The Athlete Inside" which chronicles her journey and is a must read. All of the proceeds are donated to the USA Triathlon fund to help disabled people get started in the sport. You can find the book and connect with Sue here: Buy the Book The Athlete Inside Connect with Sue Instagram: @sue.reynolds Facebook: @Sue Reynolds Website: suereynolds.net ------------------------------------------ To join Mike's Kona fundraising efforts, simply go to Mike's Ironman Foundation Fundraising page. Be sure to check with your employer to see if they are among the many that will match your donation! Please share this podcast and the fundraising link with friends, family, and those in your network who can help us with this important mission. =========================================== Thanks for checking out Age Groupies Podcast, a podcast for amateur endurance athletes. Your hosts Lindsay Hiken and Mike Ergo are triathlon junkies who shoot the breeze about all things endurance sports, interview amateur athletes about their experiences, and discuss whatever else pops into their heads. If you enjoy the show please leave us a rating/review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell a friend! You can email questions and topic ideas to AgeGroupies@gmail.com, and follow the show on social media: Instagram: @AgeGroupies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agegroupies/ Twitter: @AgeGroupie Strava: Lindsay Hiken and Mike Ergo
We have an incredibly informative interview today on the topic of the USAT ranking system, current criteria for qualifying for USAT Nationals and ITU AG Worlds. We are going to be joined by USAT's COO Tim Yount and Rankings Coordinator Nick Koppin. Today's show is supported by iKOR Labs. iKOR is a clean, natural source of recovery enhancing CBD hemp extract that protects your body from the stresses of training, improves recovery from intense efforts and helps you maintain a positive mental state. The most bio-available CBD product on the market, iKOR is a highly protective anti-oxidant and effective anti-inflammatory. WADA and USADA legal. Used by world class professional athletes. Save 20% by using the code "endurance" at checkout. Go to www.ikorlabs.com for more details. Thanks to last week's guests Todd Carver and Cliff Simms of Specialized's RETUL division. They shared some great insights into how they are using Retul data from thousands of bike fits to shape product development at Specialized. If you missed that interview, go back to episode #155 and check it out. Our interview is sponsored by Riplaces. Riplaces are the no tie laces with custom tension for the perfect fit. Pro triathlete proven and endorsed, most durable elastic bungee lace system available and they come in the MHE logo package. The regular price for the custom set is $19.98. For a limited time, through the end of the year Riplaces is going to offer a 25% discount. Just use the code MHE25 to get that 25% discount. These are a great Christmas stocking idea for your endurance athlete. Go to https://www.riplaces.com/collections/mile-high-endurance for more information. I have a couple few friends in my neighborhood who I have been training and racing with for more than a decade. Two in particular, Todd Stockford and Tom Beal. I never have to remind myself to look up the All American rankings, because the moment that the All American list is announced, I get a group text with my neighbor's standings and scores. When my friends and I carpool to races, we talk about the scores and which races someone qualified for Nationals. We'll talk about where Nationals or Worlds is going to be this year or the next. It gives our racing context and purpose. But there have been things that have been a bit of a mystery to me. Things like how did USAT come up with the decimal score they assigned me during a race? I've generally understood that the people that show up to a race can influence the score that I get, but how? I have an athlete, Amy Miller, who has qualified for Nationals and is very much in capable of achieving All American and Team USA, and I wanted to get the facts for her. So I thought let's get the experts on the show and help all our listeners. Welcome back. Our post interview discussion is sponsored by Halo Neuroscience. The Halo Sport from Halo Neuroscience will help you learn the technique and form to get faster. 20 minutes of neural priming with the Halo Headset gives you an hour of neural plasticity to work and lock in the muscle movement that leads to strength, power and endurance. If you are looking for a premium gift for your endurance athlete for the holidays, this is that item. Use code MHE150 to save $150. Topics: USAT Ranking System Converting a race time into decimal format: From Nick - we change participants’ times into minutes using a mathematical formula Example 1: a time of 00:49:30.0 would change to 49.5) Example 2: a time of 02:11:08.0 would change to 131.133 – 2x60(hours into minutes) + 11 minutes + 8/60(seconds into minutes) Any time over one hour will take the number of hours and turn that into minutes. Two hours equates to 120 and three hours will equate to 180. This is why the above example has a decimal time of 131.133. 2 hours into minutes - 120 + the 11 additional minutes. and then changing seconds into minutes as well. How are Race Scores Calculated? Our ranking system uses pacesetters to determine a par time for each race. Every race has a unique par time, depending on who has competed. It is important to understand the basic concept behind the ranking scores: scores are calculated as a comparison between an athlete’s race time and the projected time of the best age group athlete in the country (par time). For example, if the par time of a sprint race is 60 minutes, someone who completed the race in 72 minutes would be 20% slower than the best age group athlete, calculated as 1.2 times the par time. However, we do not know who the best age group athlete in the country is – so we estimate his/her performance by creating a Par Time. It would have been possible to give out ranking scores based on these numbers, where the lowest score is best; a score of 1.0 being the best score and all other scores going up from there. This way, it would be easy to see how each athlete’s times compare to the times of others. However, in most sports the higher scores reflect a better performance. It was decided to take the inverse of this number (1/1.2 for this example giving .833333) to achieve this goal. Fractions of “1” are not sufficient, so this number is multiplied by 100 (giving our example athlete a score of 83.3333). There are six steps used to determine race scores: Find all possible pacesetters: Determine which participants received an overall score in the previous year. These participants are considered “pacesetters” in this event. (Note: pacesetters are not athletes who competed in the race the previous year as well as this year. Pacesetters are any athlete who received an overall score based on any three on-road triathlons (2 or more races of any other sport) from the previous year. An overall score tells us what type of performances the athlete generally puts in. Convert minutes into decimal format: We change participants’ times into minutes so they can work in the mathematical formula (example: a time of 00:49:30.0 would change to 49.5) (example: a time of 02:11:08.0 would change to 131.133 – 2x60(hours into minutes) + 11 minutes + 8/60(seconds into minutes) Find each pacesetter’s calculated time: This is done by multiplying each participant’s time in minutes by their pacesetter score (final score from previous year) then dividing that by 100 (this removes a certain percentage of their time). This tells us how quickly an athlete that is ranked at a 100 could have completed the course. Remove top and bottom 20% of calculated times: Drop the top 20% & bottom 20% of calculated times. This removes any extraordinarily great performances (a pacesetter significantly outperforms their previous year pacesetter ranking) and extraordinarily poor performances (causes could be a flat tire or dehydration for example). Determine Par Time: Average the remaining 60% of calculated times to come up with the “par time.” We are interested in the “par time” as this is what all of the participants’ times will be compared to when calculating their individual rankings. Competitors are actually racing against the “par time” as far as scoring is concerned. Determine each participant’s race score: Divide each participant’s (decimal) finish time by the par time, invert and multiply by 100. (For example: assume a participant had a finish time of 49.5 and Par Time was set at 45 minutes Original Score: 49.5/45 = 1.1 Inverted Score: 1/1.1 = .909090 Race Score: .909090*100 = 90.9090 Races with 2, 3, and 4 pacesetters, do not have any pacesetters removed from the par time calculation. It is not until you reach 5 pacesetters that we will begin to remove the top and bottom 20%. We do not want to remove pacesetters when there are too few and we can't get a grasp on their performances by removing them. 8.For women, they then get a gender graded adjustment of 10%. Triathlon Trivia - qualifying for ITU Worlds and Team USA What percentile to you need to rank in a:s Local - 15% State - 25% Region - 35% True or False: You don't have to compete at AG Nationals to qualify for Worlds and Team USA The first ___ of the top ___ All American in each AG can earn a spot to Worlds and Team USA True or False: A collegiate athlete can qualify for AG Nationals at NCAA or Club Nationals News https://303cycling.com/colorado-classic-to-feature-only-women-pro-cyclists-in-2019/ http://303triathlon.com/blind-colorado-athlete-sets-ironman-record/ YouTube Video of the Week is sponsored by Rudy Project. Rudy Project has the helmets, glasses and gear to help you ride safe and look great. Use code MHE30 to get 30% off your full price items. 2018 Age Group National Championships Highlight Video Upcoming Interviews: Debbie Potts of the Whole Athlete Podcast on Life is not a Race it's a Journey and adrenal fatigue Professional triathlete Meredith is the keynote speaker at Outspoken Women in Triathlon Summit Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 Scott Fliegelman of Solos Wearables Bob Seebohar on metabolic efficiency and Birota Foods Our show is also supported by 303 Endurance Network, which includes 303Triathlon and 303 Cycling, which covers the endurance culture, news and events on triathlon and cycling. Be sure to subscribe to the 303Radio podcast and follow 303Triathlon's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Please support our affiliate brands that support the show and help you get faster! All of these discounts can be found at milehighendurance on the Discounts page. Be sure to follow us on social media to get the show announcement each weekend, plus additional links to show content. We forward information related to our guests and provide teasers for upcoming interviews. We are posting regular videos to the YouTube. Be sure to subscribe to the channel. Facebook @milehighendurance Twitter @milehighpodcast Instagram @tripodcasterrich YouTube Channel @Mile High Endurance We hope you enjoyed today's show. Please rate us on iTunes or your podcast player. Be sure you are subscribed in iTunes so you get the show automatically downloaded on Saturday evening and recommend Mile High Endurance to a friend. Stay tuned, train informed, and enjoy the endurance journey!
Angie Anderson is the head coach of Team TriLife. She resides in Phoenix, Arizona coaching athletes locally and abroad. Every program is personalized based on the athletes’ history, goals, time available, work schedule and life commitments. Success is not a “one size fits all” process and a successful training program must reflect this. She councils athletes on the critical elements of race planning, mental strategies for success, nutritional strategies and everything else you need as a triathlete to have “your” best race day! This holistic approach has led to immense success for her athletes in the past 10 years. Many athletes have placed in their age group, qualified for Boston, ITU Worlds, and 70.3 Worlds and Kona. So many lifetime firsts and lifetime bests across all distances! She is thankful for the effort her athletes commit to daily. Her training philosophy is based on building a strong foundation through Ongoing communication and education (she left teaching in 2006 but she’ll always be a teacher at heart). Discovering what makes her athletes thrive, then using appropriately paced workout intensity, frequency and duration to challenge and excite each athlete on my roster. Adjustments based on athlete feedback. Life is fluid. Athletes respond to training at different paces. This must be accounted for within a training program. Athletes with unusual life calendars due to shift work, travel and family commitments have seen immense success on her team. Your “life” is put in your calendar first. Your “training” is build around it. www.TeamTriLife.com
This week we come to you from Penticton, Canada. Laura Siddall hosts and we talk all things ITU Multisport World Champs. We also talk to Mike Phillips recent winner of Ironman 70.3 Bintan. Bevan interviews ‘Dark Horse’ Kyle Smith after his U23 World Champs victory. We talk to Mel Hauschildt, Heather Wurtele and Lionel Sanders at the Pros Pre-Race Conference and include footage from the conference itself. Bevan gets down to the finish line and manages to capture some interviews with Josh Amburger, Joe Gambles, Andy Potts, Drew Scott, Francisco Serrano, Jeff Symonds, Sarah Crowley, Heather Wurtele and Cam Watt. LINKS: More about Laura Siddall at http://laurasiddall.com/ Follow ‘Sid’ on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/laura.siddall.5333 on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lmsiddall and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lmsid/ Follow Kyle Smith on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kylesmithtriathlete/ Follow Mike Phillips on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Mikephillipsnz CONTACT US: Learn more about us at http://www.fitter.co.nz Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/fitter.co.nz for the latest news and information Mikki Williden can be found at https://www.facebook.com/mikkiwillidennutrition
Today we have Bill Chaffey on the Fat Black to talk about how that accident has shaped his life, and the what it really takes to turn tragedy into triumph. Last year he took out first place in his Cat @ the ITU Worlds in Chicago - which Pete go to watch live - and for the past 7 years or so has been dominating the Olympic distance with multiple WC wins, and came 2nd in Kona in 2013….. Bill is an exceptional athlete no doubt, but he has an inspiring story to share…. In 2005, just 5 days before his first IM, Bill was in a serious accident, resulting in spinal damage, a broken pelvis, broken elbows and serious internal injuries. Today we get to see what makes Bill tick and how he goes about preparing to get the nod to race in Rio. In today’s episode we discuss: When you really know what you want. The value of structure and constant communication. Embracing challenges. What motivates Bill. The ONLY person you should never let down. The little things VS the big picture. Bill’s biggest mistake. Preparing for realistic goals. Show Links Bill's Facebook page Twitter www.thefatblackpodcast.com