6 helmets

You sure? Chattanooga & St George too close after Texas and Boulder & Mt Tremblant too close to each other… only thing is see happening is that he adds Challenge Miami and the California t100 races if timing is right

Ha, not sure about anything about this upcoming season. But my comment was more to what if he is taking a shit in Oceanside, or Texas, or wherever and he just pulls the plug on that race. You are assuming he will bury himself in spite of what is going on in the race, I think a smart racer would take a look at where they are in the early parts(could be bike or run) how they are feeling, and make a game day decision on whether to continue or not.

But punting early it would enable them to go to one of these other closer(schedule wise) races. That is one scenario. The other I pointed out was just banking an extra race somewhere, but as you pointed out that is going to be a challenge.

But imagine Lionel of last year, just about to ride your way onto a great chance of a podium in the WC 70.3, and the refs take away your race. Last year that was just that particular race that was affected, but something like that this year could send you well down the rankings if you are fighting for a podium, and perhaps 100's of thousands of dollars.. Perhaps a real B race somewhere to just fill in just in case..

Pretty inexcusable to go a month between videos for an influencer-triathlete desperately hanging onto relevancy.

I think you're spot on Nills: that would a North American based sensible calendar: avoiding over racing and spreading the three IMs as far apart as possible.
IMLP will be a weaker field than any IM Series IM except Cairns so he can score good points.
By scheduling MT that's an extra potential score (need two IMs plus IMWC; one 70.3 plus 70.3WC) so meets @monty's 'spare'.
Three fulls is quite enough: it's a long season. So in the form of a 70.3 score (ack half IM) the spare is there in case of a 'fail' on one of the IMs. He has the potential challenge of actually securing a KQ. Won't get it at Texas but 4xMPRO at Lake Placid.
https://files.constantcontact.com/...a14-689124e00d3a.pdf
The start list for Texas, men and women is going to be extraordinarily strong/high SOF and will attract many IM-capable T100 athletes (who choose to miss Singapore).
The only sensible alternative to Texas plus a race in July (and not for a North American homeboy) is Cairns (mid June) then Frankfurt (mid August).
As for the T100 races @Nills, I see no rationale for Sanders accepting a wild card for those, even if offered. Finishing #11 wins him 2.5 grand (see Milwaukee with a weakened field). He's not on a T100 basic sum contract and no chance of an end of series bonus.
https://stats.protriathletes.org/athlete/lionel-sanders

I'm not so sure that's the right strategy. 2,500 pts to win then 1pt/second = 0 points at 41:40 behind. 5,000 to win and IM and 0 for 1:23:20 behind. If you think you'll be that far behind then absolutely pull the plug. But if you're going to finish even 20/40 minutes down it's *probably* worth it to finish.

The difference in fatigue from an IM minus the last 10miles isn't too much less than a full IM, and if you stand to bank 2,000 points it's probably worth the extra effort. Even more so for a 70.3, I don't see any reason to pull out unless you're already behind the points of 2 races you've already done. I suppose you could know early on in the bike that it's not your day and pull out then, but that also risks weird things happening up front and more points becoming available.

The last thing you want is to go into IMWC at the end of the year with one of your 3 races as a big fat zero. That 2,000 pts that seemed like a terrible result in the early season is now huge in comparison to 0 points. Might not be enough to get you into the top 10 but you won't have that info at the early race.

Realistically we'll see the top 10 filled out by guys who won an IM and didn't have any major blow ups along with guys who did 10+ races. It's a cool system and I'm pretty interested to see what they do strategically.

Brilliant! You da man

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

Lmao you forgot to make that pink.

Same,same but different.....Wish there was more lifestyle stuff in there.

This is an old video, right???

Well he mentioned 2024 in it, so how old could it be??

Seems like he is finally getting it, the fact that he was just too hard of a trainer and didnt think about the consequences afterwards. I would like to know more about his swimming, like the set he was doing, some times, stuff like that. Looked like it was 75's maybe??

Really looking forward to watching him in his first race, the new and improved Lionel, once again....

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Less than 6hrs old.

Talbot had a kid right?

That may have slowed up Lionel’s content since Talbot is usually doing the video for it.

Awesome video. Loved it.

I'll second monty and I would've loved to see more details on that swim workout.

Another great video as usual!! Pros should be scared of his bleached hair. Never seen him like that before. Good to see his family is out having fun while he's running. Different attitude, not much social media lately, I can tell this guy has been training really hard. I'm rooting for him big time and hopefully he truly shows us what 'NO LIMITS' is about.

And I really love how supportive Erin is of him, leading the run on the bike, doing the lactate tests. That’s really awesome 🥹.

Hopefully we get some good racing out of all of this.

More generally, he appeared on the Tower26 podcast to make a humble return to their stable of athletes (whether coached remotely or on-site). After some sessions with Gerry Rodriguez it’s suddenly all very quiet about Tower26 and we keep seeing Lionel back with Jason and the Aquabears. What’s up with that?

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

After some sessions with Gerry Rodriguez it’s suddenly all very quiet about Tower26 and we keep seeing Lionel back with Jason and the Aquabears. What’s up with that? //

From what I understand is that Gerry is indeed working with Lionel, they meet up every so often in person to do some workouts and checks, and probably correspond frequently. And having an on deck coach to just make sure you get in the work and another for overall tactics on how to attack your swim program, is completely fine, and probably necessary for Lionel at this point.


So unless things have changed, I believe he is still with Tower 26.And it really doesnt make sense for him to keep touting that relationship, he really doesnt do that with any of the people like that around him...

That’s one of the things I have never understood in the past, how little swimming they were doing, like 20-25k a week that’s nothing. When I was eleven, I did more volume than that as a swimmer. I remember when we went for swim camp and we arrived in the evening after 8h drive, first thing we did was a “5k shake-out swim” 😂 25k was something we did in 2-3 days…

Anyways, on Zwift it says he rode 14h on the bike in past 7 days, if he’s swimming another ~9h, he’s doing some serieus volume these days. Remember he mentioned he was only doing 16.5h total across all three disciplines couple of years ago

No Limits?

He U-turned on the "no more ironman" thing to avoid taking on the worlds' best in the T100.

I wish him well, but it's the opposite of no limits.

So much for always wanting to be measured against the best.

Having said that 2024 will be his best chance to win something big as the top athletes will be elsewhere.

The top LC athletes will 100% be in the big boy races that are his ultimate goal.

So fuck that narrative that he can win big races cus comp will be elsewhere.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

In a general observation, looks like this is why the Australian athletes are so freaking strong in the water. This swim set looks like a group of athletes that just signed up for a tri-group & their 1st triathlon.

I'd like to see & hear more technical feedback *live* given to the athletes. So far my inner armchair quarterback is not impressed.


I am cheering for Lionel, just hope he has that 2013-2014 Sebastian Kienle bike/run combo come Kona.

Lionel lives in Tucson. Gerry lives in Santa Monica? Probably a distance issue for a man with a family. Most of the time it's pretty simple.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

This swim set looks like a group of athletes that just signed up for a tri-group & their 1st triathlon. //

But you do know this was probably just a 75 sprint set(which is exactly what Lionel needs) at some point in a probably 4k to 5k+ workout? Are you under the impression that is all they did? For years now myself and a few others have said Lionel really needs to up his take out speed, his diesel hang on speed is fine. So what this set showed me was that he is actually focusing on his glaring weakness, and the one thing holding him back from big podium places these days. Looked like he maybe went 46 on the last one, and 47's on the others too, so good up tempo work where he needs it most...

Fair enough. Will continue to monitor the situation :)