Newsletter ep. 111: a five-time queen, CBD, and pro AGers

This weekend our state burned. The wind blew down trees and power lines and swept flames along faster than they could be fought. Fires just kept popping up. A grass fire by our house quickly turned uncontrollable. The freeway next to us shut down and we threw things in an emergency go bag. Just in case.

It was a weird weekend and it continues here. Most of our friends and some of our family still don’t have power. And if we had needed to evacuate while my husband still had staples in his head it would have been an exceptionally rough two weeks for me personally too.

So I signed up for one more race, one more try before the end of the year, but honestly it’s hard. It’s hard to keep pulling myself out of holes. Let’s just skip ahead to the part where I’ve already made a triumphant comeback.

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Five-time Flora

Photo: Jesse Peters/Xterra

Speaking of comebacks. Flora Duffy became the first person ever to win five Xterra world titles. She’s had a rough year or so here, more than that really, with injuries and more injuries. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like after all that to take the fifth win, to be the first person to do so.

I guess she probably felt like it was all worth it.

It’s also an interesting question: What makes someone the best triathlete? Flora keeps proving she’s versatile across disciplines and styles. There aren’t many people who can win both ITU and Xterra world titles. But Xterra can be a bit soft compared to ITU or Ironman (which I’m allowed to say because I’ve tried it and I sucked at it and I got my ass kicked even at a local sprint). Plus, there will always be those who discount anything that isn’t 70.3 or full. I’d love to see her show them down the road, with some longer wins too, which I’m sure she could do. 

More CBD FAQs

The backlash over the USA Triathlon CBD deal is still unraveling. Now from the higher-ups.

An email from Ironman’s Anti-Doping team went out to pro athletes this week about CBD, which included the note that Ironman does not partner with or allow CBD products at their villages. (But they will partner with Aleve. Sorry. Different point.) The email also went into explicit detail about the fact that CBD is heavily unregulated right now.

“It is currently very difficult to obtain a consistently pure CBD extract or oil from the cannabis plant. Anyone who buys a CBD oil, extract, or other CBD product should assume that it is a mixture of CBD and other prohibited cannabinoids like THC and therefore creates potential risk for an Anti-Doping Rule Violation.”

So, clearly, that’s some passive-aggressive behind-the-scenes stuff happening between our biggest organizations in the sport.

And, just in case you were wondering about the actual efficacy of CBD, check out The New York Times‘ new ‘scam or not’ section. Yes, they investigated CBD.

What’s a “real” amateur?

It amuses me when arguments I’ve made over and over finally trickle out into the rest of the triathlon world. And it seems now there are some debates popping up over where exactly the line is/should be between AG and pro. You want to know the solution? Create an elite AG field for all the in-betweeners AND stop handing out world champ titles to prime-of-life age groups that are basically not amateurs anyway.

Slowtwitch is all atwitter now about some guy who raced as a pro before, then raced as an AGer at Kona and won. (Or something. Honestly, I don’t care about the details.) And now people are trying to draw lines between who’s a “real” amateur and who’s not. Like, oh, even if you have lots of sponsors and train 30 hours/week, you still count as a “real” amateur as long as you have another job and kids. How many kids are required? What if you have a nanny? Do you have to raise them yourself? How much money do you need to make at a non-triathlon job in order to consider yourself a “real” amateur? Or do you just have to keep lying to yourself?

Here’s the thing: These lines already exist, the line between amateur and pro. And if you’ve qualified multiple times to race as a pro under those existing rules and you keep choosing to race as an amateur, then the only difference between you and the people in the middle of the pro field is you didn’t step up. End of discussion. Doesn’t matter how many kids or dogs or jobs you have. 

So, if someone did step up to the pro field and then later went back down to AG, I’m not sure that’s worse than never stepping up at all. You don’t get to be pissy about getting beat by someone who’s the same as you. (Because it really seems like the people who are the most upset about this former pro guy winning an AG title or whatever are the same people who keep going back to Kona over and over. As if it corrupts everything they’ve been lying to themselves about.)

You know who does get to be pissy? The first-timers and the regular athletes just trying out triathlon, the actual real amateurs, the people who are never going to have a shot at a podium or at Kona because of the professional AGers sandbagging it. Because the one thing that’s clear, in between all the Slowtwitch huffing and puffing, is people are getting genuinely discouraged by and sick of the professional AGers. Glad to see I’m not the only one.

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• Yes, I heard about Kearci Smith getting DQ’d for finishing Waco 70.3 with her dog. On the plus side, she’s probably getting more attention now than she ever would have. (Instagram)
   
• If you want to know what happened at the races this weekend, Brad’s recaps are back. See if you can figure out which line made me laugh out loud. (Triathlete)
   
• It’s the time of year when you’re Instagram scrolling everyone’s vacations and plans and speculating wildly about next year. Will Holly do a full in 2020? (Instagram)
   
• The Tour of California is cancelled for next year. They don’t say why exactly, but I definitely have been wondering if this would happen after the equal play equal pay bill passed. (Also, don’t read the comments on that article; they are painfully dumb.) I do think the benefits will win out on this one eventually, but right now it’s a game of chicken. (BusinessWire/Bicycling)
   
• One thing California did ultimately win out on, ultimately: The NCAA has agreed to let athletes be compensated for use of their images and names. We’ll see how this goes now. (CNN)
   
• The shoes, oh, the shoes. People have so so many many thoughts on the 4%s and the Next%s. Ultimately, I think running shoes will end up where TT bikes are—all basically equivalent aerodynamically after a certain point; you have to have one but it doesn’t really matter which one. But in the meantime there are so many concerns about the fact that the Nike shoes are so distinctly faster than others. I hadn’t thought much about the coaching and overtraining implications, but I have thought a lot about this: Yes, I went out and claimed my road racing PRs, but I haven’t really seen a benefit from “the shoes” in triathlon at all. I think it has to do with the changed gait (ie. the triathlon shuffle). (Overcast/Twitter)
   
• Apparently, the Kipchoge Challenge is to see how long you could run at his sub-2:00 marathon pace. Nick Symmond’s attempt is particularly entertaining. (Youtube)
   
• If you stimulate your brain in specific ways can it make you a faster cyclist? (Outside)
   
• It appears there will be a Nike Project 2.0—though no one seems to have a ton of details yet. Fast Women cited an article saying the group will just be a group of athletes sponsored by Nike without a name or logo for the next year. So basically a triathlon training group. (Instagram/Runner’s World/Fast Women)
   
• Nine-year-old Pearl Johnson became the youngest person to climb El Capitan. (Outside)
   
• And American cycling is actually doing awesome. If you just look outside the pro men’s road tour. (Outside)
   
• One of my teammates became the first woman to do two Ironmans in one weekend. Though, as she points out on Instagram, it should really be “the first American woman to do all six segments of two Ironman-branded, Iron-distance races in one weekend.” The logistics, still, are nuts. (Runner’s World/Instagram)
   
• Only men have ever qualified for the famous Red Bull Rampage, so women started their own Formation. (I’m gonna have to assume named after Beyonce.) (Outside)
   
• Goodbye Shalane. It’s hard to remember or imagine that her career could have turned out so differently, now that she changed so much of women’s running. I know we’ve talked about it before, but is there an equivalent in triathlon. There are some top women who train together and support each other: Sarah & Chelsea, Linsey & Heather. Is there a Shalane equivalent yet? (Sports Illustrated)

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Comments & thoughts

– A lot of you reached out to let me know you were thinking of me and my family after last week. Thanks, I appreciate it. And kick ass at the New York Marathon for me, since I can’t.

– Poor Julie tried to figure out Twitter drama and I apologize for bringing that into her life.

– There were also a lot of thoughts about the drama. Jessica pointed out, “women are always stereotyped as being dramatic and bitchy towards each other. Yet there hasn’t been one bit of drama between the pro women.” Hmmmm. And Nicole thinks we should have more drama among the pro women to get more publicity. She’s volunteered to go first. 😂

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‘If We Were Riding’ is a weekly triathlon-ish newsletter written by Kelly O’Mara and produced by Live Feisty Media. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every Wednesday morning. You can also read past issues. This episode is from Oct. 30, 2019.