The Friday before any long course race on a Sunday can get pretty frantic as athletes try to make sure they have everything they need, as well as get in some light sessions. At the Pho3nix Sub7 and Sub8 Project, Powered by Zwift, today was yet another day of swim, bike and run, with race day finally confirmed as happening on June 5th.
Kristian Blummenfelt filming with our content team
Kat Matthews and team keeping things loose
Zwift’s Tim Don did a course preview on @gozwifttriathlon’s Instagram Stories to give people a visual idea of what will happen on Sunday.
He said, “It is a point-to-point swim… There’s no current, but it is going to be against them. But the water is beautiful.” He then proceeded to swim the full course, remarking afterwards, “In a straight line, it is such a long way – 3.8 kilometres. The water quality is fantastic, the current nonexistent. It was a really calm day. It is a fast course.”
Joe Skipper in discussion with his cycling pacemakers
Don also drove through the cambered race oval that makes the majority of the bike course before walking over to the run course on the inner track to describe it to camera. “It is a long straight and then you turn and you come all the way back on the far side. It’s a 3.6 km loop. It really is going to be a brutal course. If you’ve biked too hard, you are going to suffer. If you haven’t fueled well, you are going to suffer.”
Speaking of nutrition, Chris McCormack discussed the importance of what is known as the fourth discipline of long-course triathlon on a video post for @pho3nixlife.
Macca said, “What’s going to be different in this as opposed to any other long-course event in the world is that the athletes racing with their pacers are going to be able to use their team to supply nutrition to them at any point they want… they’re not going to have to carry it. There’s going to be a support car with their coaches in it, and they’ll be able to be fed much like in the Tour de France where you can be fed outside of aid stations… You see a lot of the athletes, Kristian Blummenfelt in particular, using their devices nowadays to give them instant feedback in real time on when they need to take in nutrition. That is an absolute game changer, so look for that on screen.
“It’s not going to be super hot at 25 degrees [Celsius] but the sheer pace these athletes are racing over this distance to Defy The Impossible, the heart rates they’re pushing, the power they’re pushing at is going to burn a lot more calories than we do in a normal event so nutrition is going to play a critical role. It’ll be interesting to see when they eat, how they eat, and who’s taking that role within the team to feed that team leader and that athlete. That’s going to be the deciding factor in whether they break seven or break eight hours on race day.”
Nicola Spirig with her pacemaker team and coach, Brett Sutton
The last event on the day’s agenda was the Commentator Group Ride on Zwift. Macca and three-time Tour de France green jersey winner Robbie McEwen were joined by pacemakers Imogen Simmonds of Team Nicola and Ruth Astle of Team Kat. They used Garmin’s Tacx NEO 2T smart trainers mounted on motion plates to simulate a more natural ride experience, complete with cobblestone feedback with the link-up to Zwift.
“I think Nicola’s not afraid of hurting herself and I think that she’s got nothing to lose,” said Simmonds when asked about their chances of success. “This is her last shebang and hopefully she gets to go out on a high.”
Ruth Astle remarked that it was definitely the team and friendship aspect that would carry Kat Matthews through. “I think we have the kind of relationship where even though we’re rivals, we kind of have that team morale anyway wanting each other to do really well at any race.”
In stark contrast to McEwen riding at under 2 watts per kilogram, Macca took the ride quite seriously – but not seriously enough to input his correct weight. Putting on his CEO ‘hat’, he said, “It’s amazing [to be here finally]. Sponsors coming on board, Zwift, the teams being ready, Pho3nix is super pumped… You know it was hard. We went through COVID, so to be here today is amazing.” He then put on his commentary ‘hat’, saying, “ I can’t wait to call it. I’m a geek for triathlon. For me this is a geekfest for seven and eight hours.”
McEwen took on the Zwift challenge in an attempt to beat Joe Skipper’s watt record from yesterday, but topped out at 1058 watts. (We think the weight difference between the two athletes has something to do with it…)
