Newsletter ep. 118: $$$ and a few reminders

Because of all the brain injuries and sick cats and recovery at my house, we aren’t able to do much these days. So we watch a lot of movies.

The other night we watched ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ and it reminded me of something: We’re all so accustomed to people running marathons and finishing Ironmans that we forget sometimes these things can make a difference in people’s lives, they can change people’s lives. This is still true even under our cynicism, despite it, despite all the dressing on top, despite all the politics and nitpicking and expensive equipment we get sidetracked by. These things we do can still matter.

I, honestly, don’t know where I’m at these days and how I feel about anything. But I know I want to do something big again, something that can change everything, or that can change nothing but can change me.

If we were riding right now, it’d be a goddamn miracle, because I’m not doing anything right now. But I will soon. And if we were riding right now, I’d have a lot of things to tell you. A lot of little things this week.

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A case for Paula & Daytona

(Photo: José Luis Hourcade)

If you were going to name the biggest stars of the sport, you’d have Lucy, Daniela, Holly, Jan, maybe Javi, etc. You wouldn’t necessarily have Paula — or, rather, she’s not on a first-name basis yet. 

But I’m here to say: Maybe she should be.

Paula Findlay dominated the entire race at Indian Wells 70.3 last weekend, winning by over seven minutes. Then, this weekend, she beat Lucy Charles in a foot race at Challenge Daytona — even though Slowtwitch thought she couldn’t. (*eye roll*) And she did that coming off weeks of no running and a stress fracture.

Plus, her and Eric make fun and very aspirational videos of their #vanlife. And they’ve been gaining more followers. I’m just saying: put her down on your short list.

Also worth putting on your short list: Challenge Daytona.

I would like full credit for talking up the fun inaugural stadium race last year and they get full credit for sticking with the weirdly perfect pro format of laps around the Daytona track (and adding the ProAm race, etc). I’ve heard good things from spectators and racers. I heard it was a huge battle on both the men’s and women’s sides. I also heard registration was up about 30%. The only downside: their Facebook Live feed sucked. But you can’t get everything right at once.

I definitely was sad to miss this one — though there was no way it was going to happen with everything else that’s happened — and I definitely will be there next year.

Sending our love

If you haven’t heard, Siri Lindley is dealing with myeloid leukemia and has been posting updates of treatment. It’s a rough illness, so let’s all send her good thoughts. It seems like everyone in the sport is rooting for her too; I don’t think there’s any bad blood there. Though I’m not sure if she’s still coaching while focusing on getting better, my understanding is she actually had previously stopped coaching Mirinda Carfrae before for various other reasons. (But they’re still on very very good terms.)

And now what you’re really here for…

Money. You’re all about the money.

Thorsten has been compiling his end-of-year prize money ranking lists and will have a more in-depth post up soon. For now, there’s a version of the top earners list on the Challenge site and a more updated version that went out by email.

tl;dr:

The top women prize earners are:

– Katie Zaferes: $347,500
– Lucy Charles: $170,472
– Anne Haug: $138,000
– Rachel Klamer: $129,150
– Jessica Learmonth: $119,400

Top men:

– Vincent Luis: $289,200
– Jan Frodeno: $158,000
– Mario Mola: $130,300
– Henri Schoeman: $115,467
– Javier Gomez: $114,300

Net takeaway: ITU (and Super League to a degree) pay way way way way better than Ironman. Yet, the long-distance athletes likely make more in sponsorships — though that will not be true in an Olympic year.

Also, if you keep scrolling, it drops off hard. The 50th man made $25,711 and the 50th woman on the list made $23,018.

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• I found out about the money list from Twitter. The other thing I’ve found out from Twitter: Jan Frodeno gets into it with his critics. If you have some time to kill, you should 100% scroll this thread. (Twitter)
   
• In new Ironman race announcements: I’m actually quite excited about the new Washington 70.3 race (even though it doesn’t do me much good) and slightly less sure about the Indonesia 70.3 race. (Instagram/Triathlon Canada)
   
• Triathlete dived into the 2019 Strava data to tell us: triathletes ride the fastest. Maybe because they have the fastest bikes. (Triathlete)
   
• The New York Times also analyzed Strava data to do a deep deep statistical dive into how fast “The Shoes” really are. Answer? They’re fucking fast. (New York Times)
   
• Also, fuck asking for bike lanes. (CityLab)
   
• If you’re looking for gifts, these endurance books all actually sounds interesting. And these two books on testosterone offer conflicting (but not entirely opposite) views on the hormones and gender. (Outside)
   
• One intersex athlete went ahead and had surgery so she could run as a woman. It didn’t go well. (New York Times)
   
• I’ve been reading Sports Illustrated’s end of the year review and learned a lot of interesting stuff about a whole bunch of athletes: Mikaela Shiffrin, Simone Biles, and of course the sports person of the year Megan Rapinoe. (Sports Illustrated)
   
• And if you somehow missed the memo this year: SI also recapped the whole ‘let’s care about athletes who are moms’ thing. (Sports Illustrated)
   
• Here’s the military’s new fitness test. Could you pass? (Outside)
   
• I don’t love everything the IAAF (now rebranded as World Athletics) does, but their deep dive on the man who broke the 4:00 mile barrier and the woman who broke the 5:00 barrier just weeks apart is super interesting. Spoiler: things turned out differently for them. (World Athletics)
   
• Des Linden is going to do the Olympic Marathon Trials and the Boston Marahon (and maybe the Olympics then too). Because why the hell not. I think we could next explain to her the idea of back-to-back IMs. (Wall Street Journal/Women’s Running)
   
• It sounds like Cyclocross Nationals this weekend finally did what everyone should do. They had podium puppies. Also, the podium puppies were shelter dogs and were up for adoption. (Twitter)

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Comments & thoughts

– One last reminder that we’re going to record our holiday AMA episode this week, so submit all your last ‘Ask Me Anything’ questions for Sara and I. Last chance…

– We actually have gotten quite a lot of questions. Also, Courtney found Sara’s advice to stick out the races that are going badly helpful — especially for her kids.

– And in addition to my mom, we’d now like to thank my dad. Jason wanted to shout out to him for sharing the insane high school football story last week.

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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 Dec. 11, 2019.