The Rich Roll Podcast - The Elite Ironman Who Survived a Mid-Race Heart Attack: Tim O'Donnell on Mental Fitness, His Brush with Death & Finding Joy In Training

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

Not all heart attacks are fatal. But when your heart’s left anterior descending artery becomes 100% blocked, the result is a massive heart attack known as The Widowmaker. Few survive its fatal clutch. But today’s guest Timothy O’Donnell beat the odds. A professional long-course triathlete with over 50 podium finishes, including more than 25 wins at major events throughout the world, Tim is the 2009 ITU Long Distance World Champion, placed 2nd at the 2019 Ironman World Championships in Kona, and became the first American to finish that race in under 8 hours. Tim’s impressive 20-year athletic journey (and, more importantly, his life) nearly came to a tragic end in 2021 when he suffered a widowmaker heart attack in the middle of a half-ironman race. Somehow, Timothy was able to finish the race, placing 11th and making it to the hospital in time to make a full recovery. Tim’s journey is nothing short of astonishing. Today he opens up about the strange dichotomy between his elite fitness and near-death experience, his decision to return to racing, and the critical importance of lifestyle choices for endurance athletes of all levels. We also talk about his experience at the Naval Academy and tenure as a Naval officer, triathlon professional athlete representation in the media today, his thoughts on the Norwegian Train, the future of triathlon, advice for amateur athletes, and more. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: InsideTracker:  insidetracker.com/RichRoll Squarespace: Squarespace.com/RichRoll  Birch Living: birchliving.com/richroll Athletic Greens: https://www.athleticgreens.com/richroll SriMu: http://srimu.com/rrp Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. Heart attacks, that's the number one killer. This is the thing that most people are going to die from. You aren't invincible no matter how fit you are. For men and women in the U.S., I mean, yeah, it's real. for men and women in the US. I mean, yeah, it's real. My guest today is quite literally lucky to be alive.

It's okay, just watch this. His name is Timothy O'Donnell, and he is a professional long course triathlete with over 50 podium finishes. Timothy is the 2009 ITU long distance world champion. And Tim O'Donnell from the USA. He placed second at the 2019 Ironman World Championships in Kona. I'm so humbled and honored, thank you. He is a humble man, he's a gentleman, and Tim O'Donnell, second place.

Timothy's impressive 20-year athletic journey, and more importantly, his life, nearly came to a tragic end when in 2021, he suffered a widowmaker heart attack in the middle of a half Ironman race. You know, I asked myself, am I going to die? Two children, Isabel and Finn, and Finn was only eight weeks old at that point. Cannot wait to give Rini and the kids hugs. Going to change my perspective on life, that's for sure.

Somehow, Timothy was able to finish that race, placing 11th, which is absolutely insane. Life is precious and it goes by quickly. We discuss his heart attack, of course, his life and career as a pro triathlete. We discuss his experience at the Naval Academy and his tenure as a naval officer, advice for amateur athletes, and tons more. Timothy's story is truly inspiring. I was honored and grateful to have him here to share it with us. Before we dive in, let's acknowledge the awesome organizations that make this show possible. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety.

And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care. Especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance

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recovery.com. Okay, so here it is. This is me and Timothy O'Donnell. Okay, so here it is. This is me and Timothy O'Donnell. Speaking of Greg Bennett, we have him to thank for getting us together. The great, very handsome and successful, accomplished Greg Bennett. Such a great guy.

Been definitely a mentor role for me over the years as well. I've been lucky to have some guys like that around me. It's cool to see him kind of step into the podcast thing and really kind of embrace it. I listened to the episodes that you guys did together and it's cool what he's building there and it's great. And I appreciate him connecting us. I mean, obviously I'm familiar with your story. I've followed your career for many, many years.

And it's just, you know, we were chatting a little bit before the podcast, like what happened to you isn't that uncommon. And yet the facts of what kind of transpired are so extreme that it makes this, it makes for just this insane story. So let's just like out of the gate, like get it out there, right?

Like you had a widow maker heart attack in the middle of a half Ironman race. It's like the most insane thing. Yeah. And I finished the race. I do not recommend finishing the race or your workout if you're having symptoms of a heart attack, that's for sure. Just for context, you're at the tip of the spear of elite Ironman professional triathlete performance. You've had every iteration between like second and ninth, I think at the Ironman World Championships, like second, third, fifth, like, I don't know,

not 10th, not first, right? I don't know. Pretty close, yeah. Too many, how many times, you've raced there 10 times, nine times? 10 times, yeah. Pretty close. Too many, you know, how many times, you've raced there 10 times, nine times? 10 times, yeah. 10 times. Many times like the fastest American,

your best performance in 2019, finishing second. Second to Jan, yep. Correct, and only American to go under eight hours? Yep, still the only, only one. So, and being like 39 at the time, right? Yeah. Older, on the older side of things. And then the following season,

you're in this half Ironman race in Miami, which was like on like a, the bike course was on like a- The NASCAR. Yeah, on the NASCAR thing. And it's streamed, right? There's video footage of all of this. In addition to you,

like having a vlog about the whole thing, which is unbelievable, you're pushing like 300 Watts and you start to experience symptoms. So like, I wanna like walk me through this entire thing. So I'll just rewind a little bit because, you know, finished 2019 race of my life, second in the Ironman World Championship to Jan Frodeno. And I'm excited. The GOAT. Yep,

the GOAT. And I wouldn't argue against that one. He's got a strong argument. So, you know, COVID hits and kind of 2020 shuts down. And I'd actually started getting symptoms earlier in 2020. We got back from Australia. Brittany and I both got really sick. That was the beginning of February, 2020. No one really knew what COVID was yet, especially in the US. Over in Australia, it was a little more prevalent

just because of its proximity to China. And I started getting like chest fluttering and all of a sudden it started to get kind of hard to breathe when I was swimming. So I'd actually gone in 2020 and ran some tests. I'd done a stress test, done echocardiograms and things like that. And the juxtaposition of what they found

versus how they saw me as a professional athlete and my fitness level didn't raise too many alarms. But I hit the start line at Challenge Miami in March of 2021. And I kind of knew something was off. So I had some trouble breathing. And I actually said to Ben Hoffman, his good buddy of mine, fellow triathlete,

before the race, I'm like, I don't really feel right. But Jan was there. Here we are the first time I get a chance the race I'm like I don't really feel right but Jan was there here we are the first time I get a chance to race him again and I love racing the best because I get the best out of myself so pin it have a great swim in the front with a couple guys on the bike start to get this kind of spreading pain through my chest and then shooting pain down my left arm and my jaw started to lock up. Right. All like classic signs.

But I'm looking down, like you said, I'm pushing 300 plus watts, saying there's no way I'm having a heart attack if this is, you know, if I'm still physically able to do this. So I backed it off a little bit and just kind of made it through. And then everything just kept getting worse

and worse and worse until I called my primary care doc in Boulder and he told him what was going on. I actually called my wife, Marinda Carpenter. But first of all, you finished the race. I finished the race, yep. And you're still, what, you were 13th or something like that?

I was 11th, I was just out of the money. And I was so mad at myself. Right, All right. So, you know, something's off, but it's not a heart attack. Like you wouldn't be able, you would have just collapsed. Like we all have this mental construct of, of what that looks like. Like suddenly you just, you know, fall down to the ground. And I go back to my first Ironman world Championship where I DNF'd. And after that race, I told myself, you're never going to DNF another race again. Because once you let yourself do that, the weakness creeps in. And then all of a sudden, quitting is a lot easier. So I kind of had that mindset.

I'm like, nope, this is just race pain. You're going to tough it out. I'm like, nope, like this is just raised pain. You're gonna tough it out. But as time passed after I finished, I knew, hey, this isn't right. This is, I've done full Ironmans and started to feel better quicker than this, not worse. Yeah.

And that's when the kind of the red flags really started to go off. So you call Rennie, your wife. You're like, I don't feel so good. She says what? She says, you need to call Dr. Dave right now. So I called Dave and he's like, dude, you need to take some aspirin

and get yourself to the hospital right now. And what's going through your mind when you hear that? I had a feeling I knew what was going on and a lot of people like, oh, it's just dehydration. And, but I just, I knew what was going on. And a lot of people are like, oh, it's just dehydration. But I just, I knew it was something worse. And went to the first hospital, which was down the street. And I mean, it took 90 minutes to get an IV and to get looked at.

And I was starting to get a little nervous. Like, this isn't the place I probably should be. Yeah, I mean, it's a weird thing. There's this juxtaposition between strengths and weaknesses, like your strength as an athlete saying, I'm not going to DNR, I'm going to push through no matter what, right? Not the best strategy when you're dealing with what you were dealing with. And the fact that you're so robust and so strong that you could literally walk up right into the ER and say, I'm having weird symptoms.

They're not gonna prioritize looking at you, right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, especially with everything going on. I mean, they had the big like COVID-10 outside the hospital. It's like a scene out of outbreak, right? So- That's right. Like that layered on top of the whole thing.

And you like to go back to what you spoke about a minute ago, being in Australia, having fluttering, early... So basically what you're saying is you had COVID early before people were talking about getting COVID, before there was a test for it. And perhaps there's some aspect of long COVID that is an implicating factor in all of this? Yeah, I mean, this is all me just thinking about it, right?

Obviously, I don't have a medical degree. No, you're an engineer though. Yeah. You're a student of your own body though. Yeah, and there's two things. There's two things that happens when you have, I had a soft plaque rupture and the plaque filled up my LED

right at the top of the LED by the left main artery or ventricle. Yeah. Which is not great. That's not where you want it to happen. Yeah, it's a dangerous spot, right? The further higher up you go, the more you're shutting off. But there's two things that happen, right?

There's the plaque buildup, which was happening anyways, but then there's two things that happen, right? There's the plaque buildup, which was happening anyways. But then there's the inflammation in the artery wall that's compromised, right? That wall has to fail. So in my mind, I'm wondering if inflammation or something related to possibly earlier when I was having all those other issues may have been part of the buildup to lead for that artery wall failing.

Right, there's the buildup of the plaque is one thing. That's decades of either some combination of genetic predisposition, lifestyle, et cetera. But then there's the rupturing of the plaque and it's free flowing. Like what causes that rupture? And then the rigidity of the arterial wall, right? Like whether it can like bend or flex

as that like loose flowing plaque is cruising through, you know, through the LAD. Yeah. And what role did or may have COVID played because of the long-term inflammation aspect of that. Yeah, I get it. And one of the, I've worked with several cardiologists trying to, obviously you wanna get the best guys around you,

especially if you wanna get back to competitive triathlon. And Aaron Bagish, who I'd worked with at MassGenerally since moved on, I believe he's running the sports cardiology for the IOC, moved to Switzerland. But he did say in runners that plaque buildup in the LAD at that point is, they haven't linked it, but it's something they see. And I didn't have plaque buildup anywhere else. And he said kind of that flow at that point in the LAD is very high. Normal for an endurance athlete, meaning? Well, yeah, it's just a point where when you're an

endurance athlete and you're pumping so much blood all the time, that it is a spot that seems to get compromised. Is it that like gym fix thing? You know, like the idea that the enlarged runner's heart that causes the advanced endurance athlete to have heart problems later in life at a higher incidence rate than the normal person? You hear a lot about that, right? Yeah, I'd say it's probably like a little different because I mean, my heart size is normal,

but yeah, I mean, enlarged heart, so it's very common in the sport as well. Yeah. Okay, so you're in the ER, you're waiting. They're not ushering you in, right? No. So at some point though, they're having a look at you, like, tell me what happened.

So yeah, it kept getting worse. Actually, our videographer that helps us like with our YouTube show and things like that took me to the hospital and I couldn't- Talbot? It was Talbot at the time, wasn't it? Or- Kenny Withrow.

Oh, okay. Was working with us and still does. Okay, cool. Talbot got very busy. Yeah, I know. Well, he switched over to Lionel and became a full-time tank. They're doing awesome.

Great job. But you did some stuff with him early on. We did, yeah. He first started working with us, Gwen Jurgensen and Talbot, I mean, sorry, and Lionel. And I think he picked it right that Lionel was the way to go. Like he can only focus on one and he was totally right. Like that was the goal of mine for sure.

But yeah, Kenny, like he, I was in the, I couldn't even walk into the hospital. I was vomiting outside of the hospital and Kenny had to like pick me up and bring me into the hospital. And it wasn't until they realized they did blood work and my levels were through the roof for, you know, the enzymes that are showing signs

of the heart muscle dying. Right, there's an enzyme that gets released that shows definitively that you're having a heart attack. Yep, absolutely. Which they also say, if you tested like anybody that finished an Ironman right afterwards, that enzyme level would be through the roof too,

just from the effort. So there's even a little like ambiguity there if it really is what's happening. But they made the decision to bring me to Jackson South Hospital and get me in with the cardiology team and they brought in the big like paddles big paddles and all of a sudden there's a lot of people around me and that's when I kind of realized that in in my head that am I you know I asked myself am I gonna die? Is this it? And that was probably the hardest moment

while I was kind of going through all this. And I quickly made the decision to put that thought out of my head. My son, they have two children, Isabel and Finn, and Finn was only eight weeks old at that point. So definitely wanted to make sure I was around for him. Yeah. For both of them.

Yeah. I mean, that's a flashpoint moment. I can't imagine a more kind of acute reckoning with your own mortality. And again, it's this weird dichotomy between the kind of superhuman fitness that you have to have to do what you do, weird dichotomy between the kind of superhuman fitness that you have to have to do what you do,

which I suspect gives you a sense of, maybe a little kind of outsized sense of immortality. Like, oh, I can do all this stuff. Like literally you can have a widow make a heart attack and walk around afterwards. But then to be in the ER and have, yeah, like it's that, you know, but then this is working against you at the same time, right? And then to have like a ton of bricks land on you

and say, actually you're human and perhaps even more frail than you might have imagined and to have that crystallized into, you know, such a, you know, an intense moment with young children, at arguably like the peak of your career, coming off a second place at Kona, like it's a very, a disassociative experience, I imagine. Yeah, and it was definitely hard to get my head around,

especially in the moment. And you top all that off with the fact that this is how you make your living. This is how you feed your kids. And not only are you faced with this moment of mortality and realizing that you aren't invincible no matter how fit you are. And I think that's a big thing

for endurance athletes of all levels. We all think we're invincible when the fact is we can be as frail as anybody else. And then on top of that, it's okay. Not only do I know that death is real right now, but I might be out of a job. So it was scary. There was a lot going on.

Yeah. Yeah, I think there is, you hear this adage, you can't out-train a bad diet or bad lifestyle habits or whatever. But I mean, you're kind of like, yeah, but I train 25 hours a week now. Like that might apply to other people. 10 or 15 hours, maybe, but 25.

But like, I've been out on my bike for like six hours, like, you know, at like normative, you know, like- At 10 or 15 hours, maybe, but 25. But like, I've been out on my bike for like six hours, like, you know, at like normative, you know, watts of like, I don't know, for you 300 or whatever it is, you're like, I'm gonna eat like a huge plate of whatever I feel like. Yeah. You know, and I'll be fine because I'm not like those other people.

Yeah. Right? It's not gonna happen to me. So you have this, yeah. And so then there's reckoning and you're like, oh, actually that's true. And not to get into neither of us are doctors, like was this caused by genetics?

Is this, all of that, I'm sure, all of this is swimming around in your mind, but just in the moment that confusion of trying to make sense of this and like how you're gonna move forward and like, am I even gonna survive to the next day? Right, yeah. So they poke around initially, right?

And they're like, they seem unalarmed until they are alarmed. Right, so they brought me to the other hospital and even the cardiologist comes in, the team, they're on call, so it takes a little while. And he, the doctor comes in and is like, we're gonna go in and look. We're gonna, we don't think, we think it's nothing big, but we're gonna go look.

It'll be quick. And then all of a sudden they're in there for a while. And that's when I really knew that something was definitely up. And they finished the procedure. They placed the biggest stent they had, you know, in there. And the doctor... Do they go through your groin to do that? They actually went through my arm.

Your arm. Just it's a preferred, you know, groin is pretty common, but the recovery is a little bit harder since, you know, you got to keep weight off of that area after that procedure. You don't want to rupture anything. So if they can go through the arm and it works, then that's kind of their preferred method, which is great because I'm left-handed too,

so they went through my right arm even better. But yeah, they went through, they poke around, and they kind of cleaned the blockage out, and they put the stent in to reinforce the artery wall where it was compromised. And the first thing the doctor said to me afterwards, and I didn't really know what was going on. He said, well, I guess you're gonna have

to find a new career. And one of the nurses, his head nurse, had actually worked at Boulder Community Hospital. And he- I had the odds of that. Yeah, I know, right? Because you're in Miami. Yeah, we're in Miami.

And he just like, let's go at the dock. He's like, dad, don't say that. He's like, no way, Tim. He's like, you're gonna be fine. He's like, says the doctor, I've seen guys like Tim in Boulder all the time. They're up there riding their bikes in two weeks, three weeks.

Don't worry about it. You're gonna be good. So it was a little reassuring from one of our Boulder friends. Yeah, yeah, wow. It's so intense, like trying to make sense of that, trying to understand, you know, so just so out of left field, like, you know, something you would have never imagined

would have happened to you at such a young age. It's such a high level of fitness. Of course, in the wake of that, you have this rehabilitative period, but at some point you have to reckon with like, am I gonna still be a pro triathlete? Like I've had this near death experience. I'm interested in like what you've taken from that

or learned from that that's informed your life. But often, you know, people that have those experiences, they have a relatively short half-life, like they have a very acute awareness of their mortality for a period of time. And then it kind of tails off and you're back to normal. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the first thing was making sure

we got all the information. And the second thing was making sure it was a decision between myself and Rennie. Yeah. Because, you know, it is more than just me. And I've had a great career in triathlon. And I had quickly come to the realization that if I can't do this, then that's okay. I don't need to do this. It's something I love to do and I want to do. But if it's going to be detrimental to my health and my longevity and being around for my family, then. It's something I love to do and I want to do. But if it's gonna be detrimental to my health and my longevity and being around for my family,

then it's not something I should do. And that's when we started to really align with some of the right people, the right doctors and make sure that we were good to go. So you get a clean bill of health, like it is safe for you to train. So, and this sense of like unfinished business, like I was progressing, like I was getting better.

Maybe I can still, you know, do this. So there's the physical aspect of the strain that you're gonna put on your body, right? And I'm interested in like the stress tests that, you know, they performed on you, because like that would be, it's like, you don't really, like you're not gonna fit into their paradigm

of like how we measure these things for the average person in the wake of a heart attack. So maybe talk a little bit about that. And then I wanna get into like the mental aspect of this, because I have a sense that that has been a much steeper mountain to climb. Definitely. Yeah, on the physical side, like you said, the mental side definitely was much harder challenge. On the physical side, I actually dodged two bullets. So after you get fixed and

the clog is unclogged and everything's reinforced, the longer you have a blockage, the more damage you can actually cause to the heart muscle. So you get scarring on the heart and that can really affect the way the heart works and how much blood it pumps. So, you know, I had my heart attack during the race and I didn't, it was maybe, I don't know, four o'clock or so. And it wasn't until maybe 1 a.m. the next, that like the next

morning that they fixed it. So there was a lot of time under duress there. So they're very worried that there's going to be a lot of damage to the actual heart muscle. But luckily, scarring was minimal and function wasn't impaired. So I dodged a bullet, making it through the actual incident. And then I dodged another bullet with the long-term damage that it actually caused to the heart muscle.

So, I mean, I couldn't be any luckier for considering what happened to me. And I don't think we've said it, but the survival rate for a widow maker is like 12% or something like that, right? It's definitely pretty low. And I have a friend who's a heart surgeon, a retired heart surgeon that I talked to after the fact.

He's like, they should be peeling you off of the speedway right now. He's like, count your blessings that you're here. So on the road back physically, I actually went to cardiac rehab and it was pretty entertaining. Like you said, like, how do you really measure? We had to bring my-

We're going to get Tim on the treadmill. I was probably about 30 years younger than the average person in my class. You have to break all the records though. So most of the, you do it as a group of like, I don't know, eight, 10 people in at a time. And they're all kind of 75, 80s. and they're all just churning along at 20 RPMs on recumbent bikes or walking on treadmills. And my coach, Julie Dibbins, came in with me that first day. And like, okay, you can't follow our protocol.

It's not gonna work. You guys just have to ramp it up. You gotta get your heart rate up and we'll monitor. We'll be there watching. I'm gonna crush this test. So we get on the treadmill and I start bumping the treadmill up. It only goes to like eight miles an hour.

So I'm like, this isn't gonna work. Yeah, this isn't gonna work. So we ended up having to bring my trainer in and my bike and just doing our own bike sessions in there. It actually did give me a lot of confidence because I did have the heart rate up and I knew that they were monitoring everything. And if something went wrong, I was at the hospital.

So it actually was a big part of my mental recovery too. So it gave you confidence that you could push yourself without any kind of like real danger, physical danger to yourself, which is important because that's what your sport's all about. The analogy that comes to mind is like a professional cyclist who has a bad crash, you know, and they have to descend,

you know, just be fearless, you know, in these Alpine descents or whatever. If you have a bad crash, like you're gonna hold back, right? Just get that little bit of hesitation. Yeah, or if you have a, you know, suddenly you have a kid and your whole like kind of worldview shifts,, and, or if you have a, you know, suddenly you have a kid and your whole, like kind of worldview shifts, it's not just about you, you're gonna, you're gonna like that, you know,

however many percentage points, you're gonna be kind of off what you used to be. How does that impact you when you're, when, you know, at the highest level of sport, it is about those tiniest of increments. Yeah, that was a huge challenge. And even getting on the road to get to that point was a huge challenge.

It was, I was on blood thinners. I actually had to be on them for a year afterwards. So, you know, if something happens, like on one of those descents or with the car while you're out there riding, it can get a lot worse, especially if it's a brain injury. Yeah, if you crash, you're in big trouble. Yeah, you're in big trouble.

So I stayed on the trainer for a while and then I finally started getting outside and I'd been sort of removed. And then you're outside and these big semi trucks are passing you on Highway 36 in Boulder and you're like, ah, you know, this is, you realize like, wow, this is really kind of dangerous out here. And then you normalize to it again.

You're like, okay, I'm comfortable out here. And you kind of get back into your routine a little bit. You're also questioning, like the further you are from the real information, the harder it is to, I guess, get ahold of it, right? So like the doctors, the cardiologists, they're very versed and everything. And to them, it's like, no, you're fine.

You're okay. We fixed it. It's a mechanical issue. It's been fixed. You're good to go. But I don't know that as much as them. This is my first experience being in there. So there's a lot of questioning in your mind.

Like, okay, well, is it really fixed? Like, am I really good to go? And then you remove another level, like friends and family who have even less information than me about it. And they are petrified. Yeah. They're like, what are you doing? They're like, you're crazy, you know? Yeah. And you have a graduate degree in engineering, right? There are other things that you could be doing, right? Definitely. We'll get into that. But yeah, relatives, friends, et cetera. But your wife, Rennie,

who we haven't even really talked about, but she's an incredible Ironman champion. She won the world championships three times, right? Three times, plus 70.3 world championship. Like unbelievably accomplished Ironman triathlete. Yeah, she makes me look like a cunt. I'm just like trying to like

not get embarrassed over here. We'll get into what that marriage looks like. You know, so, you know, where's her head at in terms of like being supportive, being concerned, cautious? So, and concerned, cautious.

So, Reni, she's an unbelievable human being and an amazing wife. And it took me a while to really realize the toll it was taking on her. Even at the very beginning, when I was at the hospital, we're like, okay, we need to keep this quiet. I don't know what this is gonna look like. There could be implications with partnerships and things like that. So we just need to figure this out before we tell people.

But she was at home by herself with two little kids. And she needs an outlet. And one of her friends was over and she just started bawling. She needed that outlet. And so that was a little bit of an awakening. Like, okay, yeah, this is a big impact on Rini. But it wasn't until, I don't know, that was a little bit of an awakening, like, okay, yeah, like this is a big impact on Rainey. But it wasn't until, I don't know, even two months later

where I was starting to get back to some training and I was gonna do a treadmill run. And she was gonna lay down with our son, Finn, get him down for a nap and take a nap with him. And I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna run an hour. Well, an hour passes by or whatever. I get sidetracked doing something around the house. I start super late and I get like, yeah, I'm gonna run an hour. Well, an hour passes by or whatever. I get sidetracked doing something around the house. I start super late and I get on the treadmill

and TV's blasting, music's blasting, I'm running. And she just wakes up from the nap like two hours later, just hearing blasting TV. In her mind, she's like, Tim's been done running. Exactly, he's been done running an hour ago. So I'm running along and door busts open and Rooney just has this look on her. Exactly. He had been done running an hour ago. So I'm running along and door busts open and Rini just has this look on her face.

She didn't know if she's gonna see me lying on the ground dead, right? And she sees me and just goes, there's this huge sigh of relief. And that's when it really hit me like, oh my God, this is a massive impact on Rini. The psychological toll on you. I mean, she's going through a lot and she's very stoic. I mean, she's a professional athlete. She's

one of the best in the world. She knows how to handle pain and almost internalize it, even if it's to her detriment. But, you know, that really hit me hard about what this has done to her too. Yeah. So how do you work through that? Like how do you come to some kind of agreement about how you're gonna move forward together? It's tough because she was close enough

to know that it was okay, but like I said, still a little bit further removed that it's kind of scary. And even, I think honestly just having it, okay, this is what I'm gonna do for this short period of time, right?

Yeah. Like letting- I got two more years. Yeah. Because I didn't realize, like even at, we both raced Ironman 70.3 Santaanta cruz in september and she even said out there she was on the course like it wasn't until after that race that she started to let go

she's like even in the race i was worrying where's tim am i gonna see tim making sure i was okay but after that race everything seemed to kind of normalize uh for her but then in kona a month later my mom's texting rinny like how are you watching this like i can't watch you know my mom's petrified that i'm gonna drop dead on iron man live coverage yeah and uh once again like one step further removed from yeah from the doctors and the knowledge that this is okay but yeah and my mom didn't tell me that uh but she she didn't want to freak me out but yeah and even if even if, even if like, yeah, it's that, that gap between like logically understanding, like you're safe, the doctors are telling you you're safe, but it's kind of like

when you're on an airplane, you're like, you know, it's, it's a pretty safe way to travel, but you're like, you think you're going to crash at any minute, you know, like, like that has to like, and knowing that all these people who love you are concerned about you is a psychic toll that you're carrying, right? And understanding that it's more than just you with the kids and all these people that care about you and impact that this is having on them.

Like the commitment that you have to bring to your sport while also like managing that is like an added, like, you know, kind of mental aspect of the training. Right. And it's, you hate to say it's as simple as just time, but there is that component of it. Everybody just needs time to heal and kind of have their cathartic moment with all of this. Mm-hmm.

So two things. First of all, like when you're training, do you feel yourself like holding back or do you like, can you match that like max heart rate or, you know, those like watt thresholds or do you kind of like, maybe I shouldn't just, you know, that I'll hold back that 5%. Honestly, I don't feel like rich that I got to that point where I could really push myself until the Kona build.

It was, it took that long. Part of, there's other factors too. There's, I almost had a complete year off of training and racing. So I'm dealing with a lack of fitness that I had to rebuild. And at this point, I'm now turning 42. Right.

So there's the age component as well. And no matter how fit you are, as you get older, your max heart rate's gonna start to diminish. So we're kind of dealing with all of that. But I did, I had to do Ironman Des Moines in June to qualify. And that was really tough mentally. I mean. Well, so after the heart attack, how much time did you take off? And then how much time between

the heart attack and Des Moines? Cause I want to get into that race. Yeah. So pretty much all of 2021, I, I took maybe four to six weeks off. Actually the cardiologist in Boulder had me on the treadmill doing a stress test like the next week. He's like, you're good to go. One week. Yeah, I feel confident, but you need to stay aerobic and you need to manage your training load

because you have to let your heart recover. Yeah. So training load, like hours was minimal. Intensity was almost non-existent for most of that year. And then January of 2022, So intensity was almost non-existent for most of that year. And then January of 2022, I kind of went back into that normal training routine. So I had a couple months before Des Moines to try to get back into Ironman fitness.

I almost got there, didn't quite get there. Yeah. In Des Moines, you're first out of the water, you ride 412 on the bike, right? And then you rode a 301 marathon, even though you like blew up in the last 10K. Yeah, the last probably, yes, I think it was 19 miles. And you get third.

And you get shattered. Like, so this is like a crazy performance. I mean, for anybody, any pro, but to make that like your first Ironman after what you suffered through, like is unbelievable, right? Like that's pretty amazing. As a, I don't know, I'm always,

as a pro athlete, you're always hard on yourself, right? So you're always, you're never happy with a performance. But yeah, I mean, as I look back, yeah, that was pretty impressive to be able to put that together. But as we talked about the mental side of it, it was the hardest part. I was in third. All they needed to do is get third to qualify for Kona,

which was my goal for the year, just to get back to Kona, just to celebrate the sport and what I did to get back to that point. And I had like a 14 minute lead on fourth place and I'm walking and I'm like, I should just drop out. Like these negative thoughts are coming in my head.

I don't, do I even need to do this? Like I can, my family's right over there. We can just go hang out and chill. And I actually saw Kenny who was filming there and I ran by him. He's like, everybody's struggling right now, T.O. Everybody's struggling right now. Just keep, just hold it together.

And I just broke it down to the most basic. Okay, I'm not gonna worry about the guy that's 14 minutes back. I'm not gonna worry about qualifying for Kona. Let's just run, start jogging from aid station to aid station and let's at least just finish this race. And if this is my last Ironman, okay. You know, but let's get to the finish line

and at least get an Ironman finish under my belt. And once I did that and I started, I didn't come back to life, but I was able to hold it together enough to stand the podium and get that Kona spot. Is that a perspective shift from the pre-Widowmaker Timothy? Like in the year prior to the Widowmaker, would that have been your mindset in a race like that

if you were struggling in the last six miles? You know, I don't know. I definitely had those moments before where you have to button it up a little bit. Right. But that kind of lingering like, hey, is this worth it? Like, I could just be with my kids.

Yeah, actually, I had that Ironman bowler in 19. Oh, you did? Yeah. And then maybe that's a product of also being in the sport for so long, right? Because it's hard. I mean, I started racing Kona in 2011. I hadn't missed a year.

Right. And like, you look at the, a lot of the guys, you know, have an injury or something that gives them a break and it's, oh, everybody always comes back better. You know, it's like, we just need a little bit more time off. So yeah, I think part of it just timing the sport

and it was exacerbated though, 100 by the the heart attack sure because it was it came in it crept in quicker and it hit harder because there was also the doubt like that this is even something you should be doing right but you make your you you get your slot to go to kona and and going into that race uh is your like, having gotten second the last time you raced it, the obvious thing would be like, well, now I need to go back and win it, right? But having had, you know, the heart attack, my sense is, and also from kind of like watching your vlog in the wake of that race was like, I just want to be proud of my race. Like I want to, I'm proud that I qualified and I get to go do this and have this experience. So that feels like a, you know, kind of a new approach or sensibility, like that is very much tied to, you know, the experience of

surviving something potentially fatal. It was, and it was, it was hard to understand that even leading into the race. And it wasn't until I was out there on the run that I really had that moment. And it was a decision. I came off the bike, I was still, I think I was fifth or sixth at that point running down in Leahy. I was very much in that race. But I kind of got out mile eight or nine and I was on the Queen K. And I was at that point where I didn't feel great. I wasn't as fit as I probably needed to be to run well off of the ride I had just put together. And I know I've been there before, right?

That you can, things can go really wrong out here. So I was definitely holding back there because I wanted to, I made the decision that this is, this isn't about trying to go for top 10. I've been, you know, I wasn't gonna run onto the podium at that point. You know, I've been in the top 10 plenty of times.

This was about me coming back and the support of everybody around me to get me to this point. Not only my family, coaches, teammates, but the whole triathlon community. I mean, the support I've had was unbelievable. So I really wanted that moment to be something that I enjoyed and that we could all enjoy together.

And it made running down that finish line, even though it wasn't my best finish, probably my best moment in triathlon. But you had a great race. I had a pretty good race. You performed quite well. And you were, what were you, 13th, I think? I was 13th, yeah.

13th? But on another year, you would have been like, I don't know, fifth or fourth or something like that. I mean, it was just an unbelievable year. I mean, yeah, 802 on any other year would be crushing. Yeah, it would be right there, yeah. You know, that was what was so weird about this year. Like, there were so many, you know, veteran pros who were actually having really good races

who were just non-factors. And I watched the whole like live stream and they were like, you know, like Lionel and, you know, like barely mentioned because they were so far, you know, behind the tip of the spear. Even like, you know, Cam Werf, who's coming in here in a couple of days, and I can't wait to talk to him as well.

Bike course record holder, who you would think if you're watching the lot following the race, like, oh, he's way off his game. He's like not even anywhere near the front. He still breaks the bike course record doing great, but there were just all these guys faster than him. Like it was a real- And those guys were running under 240.

Very like definitive, like seismic shift. Like here's a new generation of people. This sport is changing. It's changing really quickly. And this is the new crop, like a changing of the guard. And Kona made that so evident. Yeah. I mean, and I think there's a couple of factors. You know, we had a big break, right? You know, Kona 19 versus Kona made that so evident. Yeah. I mean, it, and I think there's a couple of factors,

you know, we had a big break, right? You know, Kona 19 versus Kona 2022. But because we missed those races in between, you normally get like one or two rookies that come into a race you have high hopes for every year, but because they, they don't have the numbers, they almost just kind of fall into line with how the race is playing out. But here we had this critical mass of young guys new to Kona and they didn't care. And they didn't get stuck into the group think of how the old guys do it. They're like, no, like, let's go boys. And I think that dynamic of having all those new guys there at the same time really led to that. And kind of casual about the whole thing. You know, like, oh yeah, I rode this or I rode,

yeah, like it was no big deal. Like not, like, you know, like the older guys going, holy shit, like they're so much better. They're so much faster. You know, you had the Norwegian fellas here a couple months ago and Olaf, their coach, and they were very matter of fact of like, this is what we're gonna do. And they did it and they executed.

They executed perfectly. And, and, and none of this, like, I know you, you've worked with Mark Allen, right? So you're steeped in the mysticism of the island and the, the kind of vicissitudes of Madame Pele's, you know, you know, decision to support or not support. And, and, you know, decision to support or not support. Yeah. And, you know, kind of being in sync with that, you know, vibration being an important aspect of how you approach that race and race that race. And I asked Gustav, I was like, yeah, what do you think about like, he's like, doesn't get here.

I know, Mark had to be rolling his eyes, right? I know. I was like, I put no cred him in the show. He's like, Mark had to be rolling his eyes, right? I know. He's like, I put no credence in that whatsoever. And like, he's young and the first time he did it, he won. So it's like, it's understandable that he's like,

I don't understand why everyone gets caught up about that. I think there's two things there. I do think the shift in weather, it's not the same race in terms of conditions, I think, that used to be. Well, the conditions were unbelievable this year, right? Yeah, but they've been, you know, the race got shifted a little earlier in the morning, which helps. And then, yeah, I mean, the conditions in 18 were amazing too. I mean, Daniela's race, that was kind of the equivalent of what, you know, the Norwegians and Sam Laidlow did this year.

But yeah, that attitude they have. And I'm a little bit envious actually, Rich. Yeah. I feel like I love to see it, but I feel like my generation, we didn't like after Crowey, between Crowey and now, like we didn't step up like we could have.

You didn't like sort of iterate on what they established. Yeah, I think we all kind of fell in line with that thought of like, this is how it has to be and you have to be patient and all that. And we didn't have anybody that really- Questioned that. Yeah, interesting.

So when you look at like the Norwegian methods and what Olav is doing and all of that, like what do you take away from that? Like, what do you, like you look at that Norwegian methods and what Olav is doing and all of that, what do you take away from that? What do you... You look at that and say, oh, actually, I should use some of this and this and this, or maybe not that. Yeah, I think

they're using a lot of stuff that's been around, but they're using it in different ways, like lactate testing. I've been in the lab many times, done it one-offs, but the way they're incorporating it into the training, I think, is taking it to the next level. I mean, there are some factors like shoes and aerodynamics on the bike

that are just making everybody faster. And particularly on the bike, when your efficiency gets so much better, you're not spending as much energy on the bike and you can run better. I do, I get nervous about like the sugar glycogen spikes and that kind of like really like racing at that high level, how that'll play out in the long run. Meaning, so you're wearing a CGM right now,

I can see it on your arm, super sapiens. So you're able to monitor your glucose levels in real time, all the time. This is a big thing that the Norwegians are really looking at and studying. So when you say the spiking, what are you talking about specifically? Well, yeah, I think right now it's,

I mean, glycogen, you need the glycogen to, it's a numbers game, right? To be able to perform for that long with those numbers, you gotta be burning a lot of fuel. I just don't know how, when you're operating at that high level of like blood glucose levels, how that will play with inflammation

and the long-term implications on that. level of like blood glucose levels, how that will play with inflammation and the long-term implications on that. Yeah, long-term metabolic health and insulin resistance over time, right? Yeah. And some of the advice I've gotten going back to the heart is don't, like every time you spike your blood sugar,

you're triggering inflammation that is the worst thing for your heart. Yeah, and you're 43 now, 42? Yeah, I'll be 43 at the end of the year. 43, yeah. Yeah, when you're like Christian Gustav, he's like, whatever, you know? Like you're in that Superman, infallible,

like immortal stage of your life. Yeah, three Red Bulls and two shots of espresso at 4.30 in the morning, like, woo, let's go. Before the podcast, I was sharing with you, I've got a galley of this new book called Outlive by Dr. Peter Attia. It's coming out this spring. He's coming in here next week.

And the thesis of this book, it's a very grounded kind of look at extending not just lifespan, but healthspan through the prevention or delay of the biggest causes of mortality, which are heart disease, right? Or heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, metabolic. And it's all about like, all of these things are rooted in metabolic dysregulation. So he's a big proponent of using CGMs and trying to be ahead of the curve

in terms of like how our body is metabolizing the food that we eat and the stress that we incur and all these sorts of things. And it's super interesting. And of course, yes, it relates to inflammation. And all of these things are interrelated in a way that we don't appreciate adequately. Like we treat them separately.

Well, type two diabetes and heart disease, these are two separate things. Well, actually, you know, like, you know, there's a lot, yeah, like the Venn diagram overlaps quite a bit on all of this sort of stuff. And so for you being at your age, who's still an elite professional athlete

who has suffered this heart attack and I'm sure has learned a lot about heart health, like what are the things that you've taken away in terms of A, like your own habits around lifestyle, nutrition, diet, et cetera. And kind of the advocacy piece of like what you want, you know, the normal person out there to understand

about what, you know, how we should be, you know, thinking about our heart health and testing, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, everybody should learn their family history and know the warning signs. And those are things that I neglected. And fortunately, the silver lining

for everything that's happened to me is that I do have a platform now that I can talk about this and bring awareness. And I've had so many emails or people coming up to me at races saying, thank you, you brought this education to me or a family member and you've helped us step in and prevent worse things happening

from existing heart issues. So that's been huge. So, okay, so in your case, family history is what? On my father's side, we had, well, my mother's side, we had a heart attack, but I believe most of the genetic stuff is from your father's side. And we had coronary artery disease

and quite a few of his ancestors. And he actually had this whole, like, I don't know if it was 23andMe or one of those things. And I'm flipping through this and like, oh my gosh, like they had people going way back, family members, and like everybody's like coronary artery disease and not just like a heart issue, you know, an artery issue, which is, you know, what I had.

Except one guy who I think fell on a train track and was, you know was hit by a train. I'm like, okay, that one's not heart related. But at what age, like he might've had a heart attack. It'd be late if he, yeah. But that was going way back. That was, I don't know, early 1900s or something. Yeah, so robust history there.

Myself also, like my grandfather, he was captain of the swim team at University of Michigan in the 1920s and stayed fit his whole life and died of a heart attack at 54. So when I turned 54, like, and I'm named after him, like it's, you know, you think about your, you know, it definitely was living like a present,

you know, awareness in my like kind of daily consciousness that, you know, I didn't have before that. So it just makes you aware, you know, of your mortality in a way. But anyway, so warning signs then, like you mentioned, you know, obviously chest pain. Chest pain, shortness of breath, huge, huge warning sign.

If it feels like someone's sitting on your chest, that's a good indication that there's an issue. Obviously, the left arm, the jaw also signs. Does the jaw happen on both sides or just on the left side? Usually the left side, I believe. Yeah, and that's because the LAD left ascending, what does it stand for? Yeah, and that's because the LAD left ascending,

what does it stand for? Left anterior descending. Anterior descending, right, okay. That's because that affects that side of the body. I believe so, yeah. Or Rich, if you're just noticing performance drops, if you're an athlete and you didn't like, all of a sudden like things seem a little bit harder, there might be a slowing of your blood flow

from maybe calcified plaque in an artery. And then there's a series of tests that you can do. I mean, you can do a calcium scan. There's been some advances in the types of scans though, right? Huge. And that actually was a big part of me coming after Des Moines of really getting confidence back. So I had done a calcium scan even before the heart attack.

It showed calcified plaque in the LED, not a ton, but where there's calcified plaque, there's soft plaque. And so that can really give you the issues, give you the trouble rupturing and you end up where I ended up. But after Des Moines, I started actually having some palpitations and fluttering. I got super nervous. Turns out I did have a little bit of an abnormal rhythm. But that was just from, hey, you're really dehydrated.

You did a hot, humid Ironman. You shocked your body. Your electrolytes are out of balance. So it's an electrical issue. No problem, but I obviously wanted to monitor that. I put a Holter monitor on for a couple of days and we monitored everything. Not a big deal, but I also then went and did a, it's called a clearly scan. And that can actually, it's a non-invasive way, the only non-invasive way to show soft plaque. And I did that, paid out of pocket for it.

I don't care, it's peace of mind, I need it. And it did, it really gave me a lot of confidence. We saw everything, everything looked good. You know, everything was, the stent was working, all that stuff. So- How does that work, that test? It's almost, I think it's somehow done off of like a CT scan.

And it shows, so the difference with that is it shows soft plaque versus like- Versus just calcified plaque. Calcified deposits, right. Interesting, and so you're all good on that. Yeah, I was. And that's when I'm like, all right, let's go. Let's let the rain loose.

But that wasn't until like July or August. So I had a pretty short runway going into the world champs. So in terms of like the average person, maybe the semi-fit person, whatever, like whoever's listening to this, like what is the, you know, I guess like the ideal time to get tested is like today, right? Like it doesn't matter how old you are or whatever, how fit you are or how overweight or not overweight you are. I mean, you're like the pinnacle of fitness. So we think of people who are having heart attacks as being sedentary, overweight, people who smoke and have terrible diets, et cetera.

And so it's shocking to hear like somebody, like you just wouldn't think somebody like yourself that this would happen. Yeah, and I think, especially if you have a family history, definitely get looked at. My siblings, I'm the youngest of four and they were all like, yeah, if this happened, you know. Did they all go get in touch? Yeah, they all picked it like, man, we're screwed if this happens. He's the best of all of us. He's the fittest.

And how did those, I mean, are they okay? Yeah, everybody's good. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good. And then in terms of any kind of lifestyle habits that you've changed as a result. This is a part I actually struggle a little bit with, Rich, because my bandwidth with everything, it's been a lot to manage. And I noticed that in Kona, I just didn't have that fight.

It was such a mental, emotional toll to get back to that point that it, that's when I realized how much this had all really taken out of me. And I get mixed things from different specialists, right? I expected everybody to tell me to go vegan. And I need to talk to like, I know John Joseph has a cardiologist

that he wants me to talk to. So I'll probably talk to like, I know John Joseph has a cardiologist that he wants me to talk to. So I'll probably talk to him when I retire. But the really only feedback I got was, hey, don't like avoid red meat, basically. Like if it swims or flies, it's going to be better for you in terms of inflammation. Yeah. And I would imagine keeping an eye on like LDL,

ApoB and like some of these blood markers. That's huge. And you have to go beyond your total cholesterol and your LDL, HDL. You know, I work with InsideTracker and now they have ApoB, which is a really big indicator of, hey, okay. Right, that's like everyone's sort of,

I think everyone was pushing inside tracker for a while to have that marker because that has become like the most important marker. But you can go even further than that. The size of your LDL particles is huge. And that's another issue I have. I have small LDL particles. That makes it easier to kind of get through

a compromised artery and collect. And just different transportation methods, which was the lipoproteins and how they bond to things. And I do know I need more to get more fiber in. And that's another thing I had kind of cut out gluten. I had a lot of stomach issues with the first Kona and leaky gut and all that stuff. Now that I've learned more,

I've kind of realized, hey, maybe it's more of avoiding processed stuff versus good clean wheat or a sourdough. Or just looking at things that are producing inflammation in your body also, right? Exactly. And that's a good thing with blood testing too is monitoring inflammation

and then those particular markers. Right, right. And I did genetic testing as well. And sure enough, there was like four markers that were red flags. Yeah, cardiovascular disease. So how are you like moving forward now? Like you're coming off of a Kona that you're proud of.

Like what is the short and long-term future look like for you as an athlete, father, you know, advocate, et cetera. There was definitely a hard discussion with, with Rennie and like, what's this year going to look like? I wanted to race. I actually woke up the next morning and Cohen, I'm like, okay, I've closed that chapter. Like I came back, I closed it. morning in Kona, I'm like, okay, I've closed that chapter. Like I came back, I closed it. But what about performance? I think I can still perform. So then I'm like, that wasn't about performance. That was more of like- Shocking that that occurred. Yeah. But unfortunately, Kona is only going to be a women's race this year with the new format.

The men's world championship will be in Nice. So I've decided I'm not going to do that. Right now, I'm just going to do a couple of races that I want to do for the love of racing and to try to get back and win a race and hopefully do maybe one more Ironman in the fall. But I mean, we talk about inflammation and markers. Like it takes a toll training that much. I can see it in my blood work.

So- It's not a recipe for longevity. It isn't, no. Yeah. And that's what the cardiologist I'm working with. And we had before we started recording, mentioned statins a little bit, and I'm not currently on a statin.

So you were previously- For the first year I was. And so what was the decision to stop? It really was about training. It impeded your ability? Yeah, because there's a lot of muscle soreness and a lot of issues with trying to train. And my doctor friends have inside jokes. They'll be on a ride and all of a sudden,

someone's not riding that well anymore. It's like, oh, he just got on a statin. inside jokes, they'll be on a ride and all of a sudden someone's not riding that well anymore. It's like, oh, he just got on a statin. Right. But it's a, you know, we just talked about it. It's not a short term. It's a short term thing. It's not a long

term thing. And that's how we've approached it. The best argument I've gotten for being on a statin is that it can actually calcify soft plaque. So it can take some of that dangerous soft plaque and stabilize it, which is a consideration

I have to definitely look more into. But they said that's a long-term thing. You know, you get through racing this year, year and a half, and that's a plan that will develop when you get done. Right. So another year. Yeah.

Maybe. I think so. We another year. Yeah. Maybe. I think so. We'll see. No, I'm not gonna put, I don't wanna push it. I don't wanna push my luck. I don't wanna push my luck. And how does, I mean, obviously, these are family decisions.

Your partner knows the landscape better than anybody. Like how is that like being married to an extraordinary athlete who does the same thing that you do? I imagine there's benefits, but it also maybe makes it challenging. Yeah, there's definitely, there's the good and bad that you're managing. I mean, Timothy, she's more successful than you.

She's way more. Why am I on here? Why do you think she should be sitting here? I'd love to talk to her. It was actually, it was hard because when we started dating, she was, I was almost like a newcomer, right? I've been doing short course, I was on the national team. Olympics was on my mind and she was getting ready.

We started dating in kind of 09 and she was getting ready for that first world championship. So. Was that the one where she just exploded onto the scene? It was, yeah. in kind of 09 and she was getting ready for that first world championship. So- Was that the one where she just exploded onto the scene? It was, yeah. She ended up second. She ran like 256 in the zoot shoes back in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So she's not in the super shoes. She's not in a Rocket X or whatever, making her go fast by any means. So yeah, for me, it was a little difficult to find myself, I guess, because you're here with the world's best and there is obviously stuff to learn, but everybody does it a different way at the same time. So, it almost took me a couple of years to start to realize, hey, this is my path. This is my journey. This is the way I need to do it.

And it probably wasn't until 2015 where I had that first podium in Kona where I was comfortable or confident enough in myself to say, okay, I obviously have all the love and the respect in the world for my wife. She's done it this way and it's worked. It's worked three times, but I'm me and this is my journey

and this is the way I need to do it. Do you have different training philosophies and methods and different coaches and stuff? We do. Well, she started working with Julie Dibbins. I've been working with Julie for a couple of years now, since 2018. She really, Siri Lindley was her,

kind of that coach in her career. They had a little break and then she got back into it and Siri Rini I'm like you said I'm an engineer like I like to dig into stuff

Rini is so simple she's like let's do the work I'm gonna nail it this is my goal this is where I'm going this is what I'm going to do and I'm just gonna make it happen

and Siri was perfect for her and that Siri's not a she isn't, you know, a super technical coach. She'd be like 40, 50s, you know, we're going to, they're going to be bing, bam, boom. You know, they're going to be fast.

Okay, I don't know what that means, but like, let's just work hard. And that was perfect for Rennie. And for you? For me, I needed, probably needed more help, less talent. So I needed to learn

how to get more aerodynamic on the bike. I needed to learn how to get more aerodynamic on the bike. I needed to learn how to run a little bit more efficiently because those were weaknesses of mine. Sure. But those are engineering problems. They are, yeah. And sometimes they take time to solve, right? It's, you know, all right, try this.

And okay, it didn't work, evaluate it. Go back, you know, see what happens and then just keep tweaking and tinkering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how is it being part of the Boulder community? Like where everyone is, I mean, there's a comradery, right? Like there's a sort of a spree to core,

like so many people are into multi-sport and everybody's super fit and out getting after it. But a lot of pros live there. And, you know, it's gotta be, is there like a fatigue with that also? Like where you're going out and like kind of everybody's got the same goal. And I would imagine that, you know,

there's challenges with that. There is, but you don't, goal and I would imagine that there's challenges with that. You only surround yourself with the people you want to be around. There are so many people in Boulder. Actually, Aaron Royal was here, Australian professional. He was in Boulder for a little while last year.

I didn't even know. Everyone's in their basements training. You're all in Boulder for... We haven't even had any sunshine. It's very weird. I feel like I'm back on the East coast. But yeah, you can, I mean, you surround yourself with the people you want to. And right. I mean, I have great training partners, but they're all younger and they, they throttle it. So I have to be, um, right. I have to be a little careful about what I get into in training and don't let my ego get the best of me.

Right, right, right. Yeah, when you go out with other people, you're either going too hard or too easy, right? But you're rarely doing what you're supposed to be doing. Yeah, you know what I've actually found is the hardest is when like a age group athlete or something wants to come and ride with you. And they get nervous.

That's their moment. Well, they get, yeah, or they get nervous. They don't wanna like hold you back. And then you just end up getting, they ended up giving it to you. And you're like, no, like this is, we just need to settle down, you know? I wanna talk a little bit about your background.

I think there's some interesting stuff here. So you, your first sport was swimming. Yeah. And then you went to the Naval Academy, right? So did you grow up, where did you grow up? You grew up in California or Pennsylvania? You went to like a seminary school before, right? I did, my high school, Wyoming Seminary,

not, it wasn't like a proper seminary. It was a private day slash boarding school. Got it. But my dad was in the corporate automotive world and we grew up everywhere. We got into swimming. We lived in Northern California outside of Sacramento and Roseville.

Actually, Summer Sanders, her original swim team as well. She was a little bit before me, but the Sugar Bears, that's where we all started. And then we started moving around, but I was the worst swimmer in my family. I mean, my family still scratches their head

that I've made a career out of being a professional athlete. I mean, I was hopeless when I was a kid. So, but you did it throughout high school and ended up like, you wanted to be in the Navy? Like, what was the imp wanted to be in the Navy? Like what was the impetus to go to the Naval Academy? No, I didn't. I had no, originally had no desire.

My older brother, Thomas, who's a couple of years older than me, he always wanted to go to Annapolis. Always did. And he went there and I seemed to kind of follow Thomas. I guess I emulated him. He was a great student. I'm'm like I'll be a great student he's a distance swimmer

okay I'm gonna be a distance swimmer and he goes to Naval Academy okay I'll go check it out so I went and visited him and I just I fell in love with just the sense of duty and the sense of there being something more than just a college experience

like I really felt like there was a purpose for being there and an honorable purpose, especially. So that kind of drew me in. Uh-huh. And did you swim competitively at the Naval Academy? I did. I swam my first two years there. My swimming career was really based off of training harder than everybody else. Yeah, you and me both. Yeah, I mean, I didn't have the goods, but I prided myself on knowing

that I could work harder than everybody else. Right. I mean, my coach- It'll take you pretty far. It's just not gonna take you all the way. Yeah, and it was, now I look back, like especially when I had to start working on my running, I'm like, man, I wish I had taken the time

to become more efficient swimmer and work on my stroke. Because I could have been better than I was. Yeah. It's a beautiful pool there though. I'm from Maryland. So I swam lots of meets at the Naval Academy pool over the years. Yeah, I remember when I was there,

we came into practice one day and there was an age group meet and our coach was like, yeah, this kid just crushed the pool record and the 200 free record, just destroyed it. We're like, well, what's his name? Oh, Michael Phelps. Right, he's 12 or something.

Yeah, he was. Right. And then, and so talk to me about like your kind of career in the Navy. Like you, so you study like naval engineering, right? Like you're gonna be a shipbuilder or something and then you go to graduate school at Berkeley, but do you become a naval officer

or what is your relationship with the Navy? Because I know also like a big thing with you, like you've got the red, white and blue kit and like there's a certain, you know, kind of relationship that you've maintained to, you know, that experience. So I just, I'm curious to learn more about that. Yeah. So when I went to the Naval Academy, there's a five-year commitment. Everybody graduates and everybody that graduates is commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy. And so I go to the academy, had never done a triathlon,

didn't even know what triathlon was at that point. I knew I'd seen the Timex watches that say Ironman. That's all I knew. I didn't know what it meant. And my brother Thomas was an ocean engineer and it was time to go pick majors. And I went and like, well, I don't wanna to do everything Thomas does but I'll do naval architecture which is like a subset of ocean engineering shipbuilding so you know I picked that and I had the most interesting Navy career I think

of anybody you have a five-year commitment I qualified for a program called the immediate graduate education program which allowed you to go to a grad school. If you were accepted, you had to be in the top, like, I don't know, 5% of the class. And you had to get a scholarship from that school where there was only two schools that have ocean engineering programs in the country. And it was Michigan or Cal Berkeley. And I'm like, whew, I'm in triathlon at this point. I am like, I quit swimming. I was full on triathlon. And the Academy had a triathlon team.

We had a club team. So it wasn't a varsity sport. But for a while, I balanced swimming and triathlon. I remember my sophomore year, swimming Saturday morning practice. The officer rep for our tri team was waiting outside the pool, brought me to the airport.

I flew to Tennessee, unpacked my bike, did the triathlon race that Sunday, flew back home Sunday night, was back in the water Monday morning at 5.30 or whatever. Swim coach never knew. Swim coach would have flipped, kicked me off the team if he knew, but I was trying to balance both. And then I did wildflower at the end of my sophomore year, which at that point was Collegiate Nationals. And I got 11th, I dropped my chain on that big hill coming out of transition, but I was a top guy in the Naval Academy team.

And I thought, hey, maybe there's something here. Maybe I can be good at this. And that's where I said, okay, I'm gonna stop swimming, even though I had some of my best races at the end of that year, stopped swimming and said, okay, let's go all in on triathlon. Interesting.

Yeah. Prior to that, you had mentioned to me that you had pursued like dive school for a minute. Yeah. Like tell me what happened. Okay. So I've never told this story, Rich.

So this is pretty embarrassing. But yeah, I went to Berkeley, you know, got my master's in ocean engineering there. And I service selected, when I was still at the academy, special operations, which is explosive ordnance disposal. And part of that is doing the EOD dive training. So I go to my command and I'd already found the best situation ever where I'd had the support from Navy sports and my commanding officer to pursue the Olympic dream. So I had convinced the Navy to be like, all right, this guy's got something special.

I'd won the Armed Forces National Championship in triathlon. Like, okay, we're gonna support this guy. But I still had to go to dive school first and do that. So I come from the Olympic Training Center, finish up the season and I'm like- So you're, hold on, just sorry to interrupt you. There's a lot going on, there's a lot going on here. I told you. All right, the Navy deployed you to the Olympic Training Center. They did, yep. Like you were officially like in, you know, an armed service officer, but you were there to just train triathlon and be at the Olympic Training Center.

That was, yeah, It was more of a- You're like being paid or like- Yeah, you're normal. I was still an ensign or I was maybe a Lieutenant JG at that point because the first couple of promotions are automatic. But the Army and Air Force have world-class athlete programs.

Yeah, of course. And Fort Carson outside of Colorado Springs is where the Army is based. Navy didn't have that. So I had to kind of try to make one happen. And Air Force Academy, of course, being in Colorado Springs. Right there. Yeah. So actually, you know what happened, Rich, is I put together this like packet, promotions packet, and I sent it to the head of Navy sports. It was, I mean,

professionally done. And the Navy personnel office is in all places. It's in Millington, Tennessee. But it lands on his desk. And just like, as he's looking at it, the top ranked EOD guy on the West coast, who is going to be my like head honcho boss, walks by his door and he says, sir, take a look at this. And Captain Hines looked at it. He's like, this is awesome. Like these are the type of people we want in the Navy. Like, let's promote this. So bam, all of a sudden I'm- There you go. You know, I'm heading to Colorado Springs.

Sort of as a, and you know, from a promotional perspective, like you're like a poster boy. Exactly. For recruiting, et cetera. So we do PR and things like that. I would go to dive tanks in Denver. But let's talk about the dive school. So I go there, I'm a little overconfident.

I'm like, I'm super fit. I'm finishing the race season, but I didn't really prepare properly, which I should have known, right? And I get there and all the instructors are just waiting for me. They want to fail you so badly. Not only my junior officer,

these are all senior enlisted. So these guys are like, they're in it. They know everything. And they're like, ah, look at this little runt. But I'm also like, I'm almost like the boss's pet too, right? Like his project. So I had a target on my back, which I didn't know at the time I was oblivious.

I'm just like, do, do, do, do, do. So I get up for the physical test at the start of the high school. And I go and I do my pull-ups. And I have a 6'6 wingspan and I'm barely six feet tall. So I'm like kind of misproportioned. Not great for doing pull-ups.

And I do my pull-ups. I get off the bar. I do like one or two extra over the minimum, which I think was eight or nine. And I feel like you failed. I'm like, what? I'm like, yeah, like yeah no yeah like three of those didn't count your chin didn't go all the way over the bar like you didn't tell me that like

i didn't know that you're off the bar like and they're just kind of messing with me so they're like okay well you got to like do a retest and if like if you fail the retest you're out so then i kind of like panic i get in in panic mode. I got two days or whatever. It's a weekend. All the other guys are going off and partying over the weekend. And I'm just like trying to do pull-ups all weekend. Well, it's like the worst thing to do, right?

You show up exhausted. I show up to the retest, I can barely lift my arms. And I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't get there. And I had to go to the board and basically they're like, all right, yeah, we have to boot you out. But at the same time, they're all scratching their heads

because they're like, oh, this went terribly wrong. Like we weren't expecting this guy who top of his class at the academy and professional athlete, like this is a weird situation, right? So I get booted out. Political firestorm. Yeah, yeah.

I get booted out and I'm like, ah. Did you do the breath hold stuff and all the other aspects of the test though? This was like before all that. Oh, okay. So this was like a precursor to get to that. Yeah, it was like right at the beginning, yeah. So it's like you're revolving door,

like you're in and you're out. You get through the gate. Yeah, like, all right. So I'm like, I'm shocked. They're shocked. I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen. Like, am I just gonna go to the fleet and like have to like be a I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen. Am I just going to go to the fleet and have to be a surface warfare officer?

I don't know. Luckily, they made an exception. Like, all right, we're going to, like, this is- Don't tell anyone. Yeah, yeah. We're going to put you back in the next class. So I went back to my command in Coronado for, I don't know, it was eight weeks or whatever.

And they're like, just, your only job is just go to the bullet bar outside the building and just make sure you do this. So I ended up going back and I had some redemption. I did, I don't know, I did way more than I needed to do. And I ended up, I was the class leader and ended up being the honor graduate. So the top graduate in the class.

But I still, oh man, along the way that those eight weeks, however long class was, oh man, I had everybody after me. I remember we were, you know, they, you have to pass all these tests, like breath hold and things like that. And they have one where they just beat the crud out of you when you're on the bottom with your tank on, they pull your tank off, they tie all your tubes,

you rip all your stuff off and you got to sort it all out. And the master chief of the dive school, he's like, my buddy was up top and they're like, all right, who's up next? Like, O'Donnell. He's like, I got him. I got him. So he comes, he does a number on me and writes on a little chalkboard. Like I finally get my mask back on. He writes on chalkboard or the dry erase board. Good luck. Like good luck with this one. And I did it and I got through it. And he's like, okay, all right. This, you know, maybe this guy's okay.

Right, you had to do it with a target on your back. Yeah, and I actually got amazing letters from the two instructors in my class who were like, really, thank you. Like, you did an amazing job. We really appreciate you sticking that through. And so it all, you know, all's well that ends well, but it was, it was hairy. Yeah. And, and any thought of, of kind of, you know, joining the special forces or being SEAL or anything like that? I was the only, I was the only guy on the tri team my senior

year, which is probably five or six of us that didn't go SEALs. I was the only, on the tri team my senior year, which is probably five or six of us that didn't go SEALs. I was the only, all my buddies are- They all went SEAL. Yeah, they're all team six guys now or they're getting out and stuff. But it's an interesting kind of time that we're in. And maybe this has a lot to do with like social media and the internet.

But the kind of ascension of the special ops officer as kind of a celebrity, you know what I mean? Like whether it's books that are being written or just people that impart wisdom on podcasts, like there's a lot of energy around, you know, SEAL Team Six guys, et cetera. And it's cool. It's cool to to learn from these guys

and try to extract from their experience something that's actionable. But as somebody who has a background in this, how do you, what is your perspective on all of that? How do you look at all of that? Whether it's Goggins or Jocko Willink and these guys that are out you know, that are out there and, you know, people love these guys.

And Goggins also like being, you know, he, you know, part of his career was, you know, not dissimilar in that he was sort of, you know, kind of on tour doing a lot of talks, you know, on behalf of the Navy. And there's that famous, you know, commercial that he shot where he's running, you know, like I think they even aired that during Iron Man, you know, on behalf of the Navy. And there's that famous, you know, commercial that he shot where he's running, you know, like I think they even aired that during Ironman, you know. Yeah, at one point, I think before I started doing Kona,

I think they had some of the SEALs, like they sponsored the race and they had SEALs like drop in. He was one of those guys. Oh, yeah, and then they did the race, right? Yeah, they parachuted into the swim. Yeah, exactly. I think he was one of those guys that did it, did that that year.

It's hard because you get split, like, split support. You know, people think it's awesome, but then, you know,

and the service and other people are like, oh, you're not doing your job that you were supposed to do. Right. So that's really tough. You're like,

you're the shiny thing that they're dangling in front of other people while we're actually out here like doing the gig. Right, exactly. But I mean, there's value. I think one of the biggest mistakes the Navy made

was David Robinson back in the day. Oh, yeah. They should have had him in his whites going into every game. Yeah. Like imagine that, he's got his whites on, like officer and gentleman, you know, going into the arenas.

Like there was, there's value to that. And I mean, there's, duty can be served in so many different ways. And I actually really struggled with that when I got out of the Navy. My time was up at the end of 08. I just missed the Olympic team by a couple of spots at trials.

And I felt guilty that I didn't do what I was supposed to do in the Navy. I'd signed up to be a EOD officer and I'd gone and done this crazy path and they had supported me so well. And it really, it was eating at me, like, what should I do? And luckily my department head, Kevin Childry, who had been actually in his early enlisted days, actually did triathlon like professionally for a little while. And he sat me down and he's like, like professionally for a little while.

And he sat me down and he's like, Tim, you don't write your own orders. You've done what we've asked you to do. By the way, you're way behind your year group. You're never gonna get promoted past like 04, Lieutenant Commander. So you've kind of shot yourself in the foot with your Navy career. And you have potential

to do something great in triathlon. So don't let the thought of, you know, being here to serve in another way holds you back. Like you've done what we've asked you to do, now go follow your dream. And that was a really big moment for me. Yeah. And is that, that informs, you know, like back to that thing of like, okay,

clearly like you put a lot of thought into the kit that you wear and all of that. So like allegiance to that sensibility is part of the reason why, like you kind of comport yourself the way that you do. Absolutely, I mean, I look at triathlon as a gift that the men and women of our armed services really gave me, you know,

without the support of the Navy when I was in the Navy or even learning about triathlon when I was at the Naval Academy, my life would be completely different. I mean, I wouldn't have my wife or kids right now, right? I mean, if I wasn't in the sport, it all stems from that. So I am eternally grateful to our armed services

and everybody that are part of it. It's cool. You know, when the day of retirement comes, like, what is that? Do you have any sense of what that looks like for you? I mean, are you gonna like, you know, dig into that engineering background or are you gonna?

I'm gonna give you a little piece of advice, Rich. If you see a boat that says designed by Tim O'Donnell, yeah, don't, do not step on a boat that says it's designed by me, all right? I don't. All right. No, I'm well past that. I look at my engineering background.

I'm confident that if you decided to explore that, that it would be a safe boat. It would work, yeah. No, I'm, it'd be too, I'm too far removed from that. I think the engineering piece of my education is great for problem solving, which has really played well into what I,

Ironman racing. I mean, it's all giant puzzle, right? There's so many different things you're trying to put together on the fly when you're out there racing. I don't know. I mean, I want to do, I want to put the energy into triathlon,

into something else and try to have that success. I don't really fully know what that is yet. Yeah. Rennie and I are going to start like an age group coaching business focused on, we won't be, we're not gonna be high performance coaches. We're not gonna look to coach the next Rennie, you know, Ironman World Championship.

We've seen, we've looked for balance as much as we can in being professional athletes and we've seen how hard triathlon can be on families particularly age group families when you're working jobs you have kids and then you're trying to train for an iron man so yeah we're looking to okay next step is let's integrate triathlon into people's lifestyles. So it's a healthy part. There's that saying, if you're still married, you're not training hard enough.

We don't want that. The Ironman widow. Yeah, I know. So that's gonna be kind of a big, I think, part of the next step because we do wanna stay connected to the sport. On top of that, I'd love to get into public speaking.

I think that would be really fun. I think that'd be really fun. I think you'd be really good at that. Thanks. Yeah. And I've been messing around with some real estate investment stuff that I think will probably be part of it too. Cool. What is the, you know, on that coaching tip, what is the advice that you would give the, you know, amateur, the enthusiastic amateur? Like, you've been to a million races, a million Ironmans. You've seen these people out there.

Like what are the common mistakes that you see people making that are easily avoidable? Like if you have a minute, just be like, please stop doing this thing that I always see people doing. Overtraining, Rich. Everybody overtrains. Like, I mean, I understand if you are trying

to be a professional and get there, like you got to put the work in. Understand if you are trying to be a professional and get there, like you got to put the work in. But if you're overtrained for all the other stuff you have in your lifestyle, you're going to hit the race course unprepared in the sense of just not being able to access the work you've done.

And get a coach or get on a program and find some people around you that you can train with and share the enthusiasm, enjoyment with. And talk about it with your family. Don't make those plans by yourself. Make them as a family. It's definitely a joint agreement.

It is. Everybody's got to invest in it, right? Everybody has to be bought in or it's not gonna go well, right? And if you're gonna try to train 20, 25 hours a week and you have kids and a job and all of that, I mean, it's tough, man. Where did you max out on training hours back in the day?

I mean, the most, I mean, maybe like short periods of like 22 to 25, but a lot of 20 hour weeks and then probably the vast majority 15 hour weeks. And that was freaking hard. Like that's not sustainable. No. You know?

So yeah, if you're a pro, if you're Gustav and Christian and you don't have girlfriends and like you're just like you're in your 20s and this is what you do, great. You know, most people that is like, you're in your 20s, and this is what you do, great. Most people, that's not gonna work. So stop taking your tip from that,

and try to figure out how to root what you're trying to accomplish balanced against the other things that are valuable in your life. And I think you can put more energy at that level for an age-room competitor wanting to really enjoy the sport. put more energy at that level for an age room competitor wanting to really enjoy the sport, put more energy into some of the other details, you know, get a proper bike fit or, you know, learn about nutrition, things like that. Like make yourself as efficient as possible so your success can come from something else other than just training 20 or 25

hours a week. Yeah. Yeah. and the training being for the most part, joyous and nourishing as opposed to draining and denigrating to the other aspects of your life. I was talking to a H-group athlete a couple of weeks ago and she had like full on train for this Ironman. Was over-trained, did horrible. Got on a separate program that was like 10 hours a week, 12 hours a week and ended up the next year.

Doing better. Doing so much better. And she enjoyed it. You know who's great on that is Gordo Byrne. I'm sure you know Gordo. Everybody in Boulder knows him. Oh yeah, Gordo and Monica are great people. Guys so wise.

Yeah, amazing. The last thing I wanna to talk to you about before I let you go is kind of the current state of the union of triathlon, professional triathlon, and this issue of athlete representation in sport, which I think you're very immersed in in terms of triathlon,

but also I think is relatable outside of just triathlon itself. Like the role or the power dynamic between the athlete and the organizations that kind of control the trajectory of a professional athlete's career. Yeah, I've been involved in some form since 2014 of the athletes trying to put themselves in a better position. And it's never been about like trying to go against Iron Man or, you know, oppose them. Rennie and I have made our careers

really off Ironman, right? Like without Ironman. It'd be very politic, right? Yeah. A good Navy man. I'll say what you can't say, which is that like the WTC, all right, no, I'm not kidding.

I mean, it's a massive conglomerate. It makes a lot of money hosting a lot of races. It's very profitable in what it does. And it's a beautiful thing in that it allows, you know, a massive number of amateurs to compete alongside professionals in the sport, which is a really cool thing. You know, I think it's amazing.

But I think that the sport, you know, like really, you know, like really, you know, caters to that amateur experience in a beautiful way, but does not do enough to take care of the professionals who are dedicating their life to elite performance, especially in a sport where you can only compete at your peak a couple of times a year. Like how many Ironmans can you do and these purses don't cut it. And the parity between men and women, like there's so many problems here

that need to be solved. Yeah, and I think it all starts with the fact that they're an event company, right? They aren't like, we're almost a sideshow. It's not that different than like putting on concerts. You know, the fact that it's sports almost is a footnote. But I mean, they'll sell out, and this is probably their argument,

they'll sell out an Ironman that there's without a pro race, right? So it's almost always like, do they need pros? And that's because we haven't been packaged as a product that we can sell. You know, we haven't been packaged as entertainment. And I think, I mean, it's like, why was everybody so mad at Lance

with all this stuff? It's because he was seen as inspiration, not entertainment, right? People didn't look to him as an entertainment feature, like the NFL guys that are pounding each other and all doing stuff behind the scenes or whatever. And I think we've been stuck in that inspiration role. And that's why it is awesome

that we're interacting with the age group community at Ironman's, but it doesn't necessarily help us grow the sport professionally or even on the amateur level. And that's where I think we got something really interesting with the PTO right now. It's because we're putting together a package of races focused on professionals that we can put out there. I mean, there's 22, 23 million views on television last year of PTO events.

So this is something we haven't done before, being able to focus on the pros to help kind of grow that. And it's been hard. We had to bring together a partnership, right? There's investors and then there's the athletes and we got to rally athletes. It's a hard situation for the athletes because we're all, it's a self sport, kind of a, almost a selfish sport.

And we've never had anybody around long enough to really believe in, right? Like there's always these monies coming in, like a Try Dubai or like American Interbank where like there's some cash thrown at the athletes and everybody grabs as much as they can and they think it's just gonna disappear. So they never really invest in it.

But now we're a partnership. We own half of the PTO as athletes. So it's sweat equity for us. We need to get behind it and we need to make sure this thing succeeds. We need to get the same athletes consistently racing each other on these big stages with big prize money. And we need to get to the point where you're not losing money just to show up to a race. And that's where the sport is at right now. I mean, uh, yeah, it's super expensive to travel

to all these exotic locations and to like bring your bike and, you know, stay in hotels and all of that. And then the prize money doesn't even cover the travel expenses. So like this, it makes no sense. And so it's incumbent upon the athlete to go out and get their own sponsorships outside of prize money, which, you know, like a lot of these companies within multi-sport, like, yeah, they'll give you a bike or they'll give you product, but like not a lot of these companies within multisport, like, yeah, they'll give you a bike or they'll give you product, but not a lot of money is being thrown around unless you're at the very highest level. And that's reserved for like, I don't know,

five or six people and everybody else, good luck. And now we have even more talent that's worth the money, but the pie's not any bigger, right? I mean, when you talk about endemic, you know, bike companies, shoe companies. So if you win Kona and you're a man, what do you get? And if you're a woman, what do you get? The prize money is equal. It is?

Yeah. What is it, like 250 or something like that? No, I think the win is like 125. 125? 125,000. Yeah, yeah. I know. For the Ironman World Championship.

But if you get- What is it if you win, you know, like, I don't know, the, you know, PGA? I mean, there's- Augusta. There's like a 600th ranked, like, tennis players or 600 grand. Or the Australian Open or whatever, you know, like, yeah, it doesn't make any sense. But we need to be able to bring the money in, particularly from getting exposure on television to bring in some of these other partners beyond the sport, banks, car companies. What is the advertising revenue that NBC garners from their Ironman broadcast?

I mean, it's gotta be, because that's always like an Emmy winning production. Right, but I believe they pay for the television time. So yeah, they're paying the WTC for the rights to broadcast. I believe Ironman pays them to get this. They buy the airtime and then whatever sponsor, whatever commercials they air, they bring back into that to, they keep it, right?

I see. That's not a great model for- No. Like if you wanna generate revenue off of selling the sport as entertainment, you gotta be bringing in a lot more. Well, and also now that it's being live streamed, you know,

how valuable is the broadcast when it's however many months later, when they finally air it? Yeah. That's, you know, I mean, it's often, they're hard races.

It used to be a big thing. Like, I don't, is it still a big thing? I think they still, it's, it's more of kind of that documentary style though versus like a true race event, right?

Right, you're not watching it to see who wins, you're watching it for the pageantry of, yeah. So the PTO, that stands for Professional Triathlete Organization. Correct, yeah. So it's sort of a quasi kind of collective bargaining organization, but also an event, you know, production company.

Like you're creating these races, right? That are designed for like audience engagement that are kind of, you know, playing around a little bit with the traditional format of what a triathlon race is. And to develop stories too, right? Like the NBA really grew when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird came in and they had this story,

this NCAA championship rivalry coming into the NBA, Magic, very colorful character, Larry Bird kind of the curmudgeon, like just hard worker guy. And the dynamics was awesome, right? And that being able to tell stories really lifted the sport. It's not just about the competition.

It's about the stories and the rivalries and things like that. And you gotta be able to create an emotional connection with the individuals. Absolutely, you wanna root for somebody, right? Yeah, whether it's, you know, Dave Scott and Mark Allen racing toe to toe, like, who it's, you know, Dave Scott and Mark Allen racing toe to toe, like who are we, you know, why are we watching this?

Why do we care about who these people are? And if it only comes like Kona once a year on the television and you see Jan or Rennie, whoever it is like once a year, you need to have that storyline and you need to that consistency. You need to be seeing these athletes face each other, you know, every other week or every couple of weeks. And you need to see that play out with a definitive winner at the end. I think that'll be

super important too. And it can't be a charity either. Like this whole PTO endeavor isn't a charity, it's a partnership, right? I mean, if you just hand out money to athletes, I mean, the prize money that the PTO has handed out in the last couple of years is insane. I mean, if you just hand out money to athletes, I mean, the prize money that the PTO has handed out in the last couple of years is insane. I mean, $2 million end of year bonus rankings pool and a million dollar prize purses at the US Open and the Canadian Open. It's a big deal for the sport. That's huge.

Yeah, that's huge progress. We have to be a business. We have to be able to cover that. You know, the investors are awesome, but they're here to make money off of business too, right? They're not here to just give us handouts. Yeah. There is a history of like kind of money coming in and like the Bahrain, there's the whole Bahrain thing. Is that still a thing? I think it is. Is it? And then what's the... But when those guys lose interest,

the money goes somewhere. It's like, oh, actually, I want to follow cycling now. So I'm going to put this into a cycling team. Like the Crown Prince was super into triathlon. And so it was just like a pet project for him. Absolutely. But, you know, I don't know. A lot of money seemed to come into the sport.

And then what's the other series where there's like a Russian oligarch involved? Like the- Super League. Yeah, Super League, right? Yeah, and Macca. Yeah, Super League, right? Yeah, and Macca. Yeah, Macca's involved with that, okay.

Yeah, like I think they bought the Malibu Triathlon. So I was down there the other, you know, like it's- They did, yeah. I think what's successful about that is, you know, oligarch aside, is playing with the format, like the way that they kind of, you know, mix it up and try to make it more interesting for, you know, somebody who's trying to just witness and pay attention, like the way that they kind of mix it up and try to make it more interesting for somebody who's trying to just witness

and pay attention, like the fan. Absolutely. And I think you get someone that hasn't seen Olympic world triathlon racing and the first thing they'll say is, from just being a casual viewer, it's like, oh, that mixed relay, that's really cool. So there is some tinkering to do

with formats and engagement to really make it powerful. But I think it comes down to the athletes really need to understand that if you want to make this work, then you have to help create this business, which is the races, right? Yeah. And from that, we can generate revenue

that then can support athlete growth and developing pipelines for up and coming athletes, right? And sub series and things like that, where you can really start to put a foundation under the sport to successfully grow in the longterm. Right, so when you look at golf, tennis, some of these other sports where like the athletes do quite well,

what's still missing in triathlon? Like where's the, you know, so you're here in town because you had a PTO meeting, right? Like a board meeting, right? So what do you guys talk about? Like, what are you working on establishing to bridge the gap between kind of where triathlon is versus these other sports

where the athletes are, you know, kind of being accorded pay and respect in a manner that seems more on parity with what they deserve? That's a great question, Rich. And we actually, Chris Kermode has been brought on as the current chairman running the show, and he's from the tennis world.

He's running the ATP for a long time. So he sees the value in this, and he's got a reputation that he wants to uphold too. He's not gonna hop onto a long time. So he sees the value in this and he wouldn't, he's got a reputation that he wants to uphold too, right? He's not going to hop onto a sinking ship, right? He's here to make this thing work. I wish I could tell you more about what we discussed. Yeah, it's all private. That non-disclosure. Yeah, but rest assured, yeah, there is a great plan for the future. That's cool. I mean, I feel like the next, we were talking about this changing of the guard at Kona, like the younger athlete,

like these are internet native people who grew up with social media and they intuitively understand that as professionals, like their image and their kind of like their, you know, I hate that word brand or whatever, like it's, they have to shoulder the responsibility of, you know, creating interest in what it is that they're doing. And that's just part of their DNA. Whereas

older people like your generation, certainly, you know, my, you know, I'm way older, you know, that was something that people had to learn or kind of resisted or didn't think that they had to do. But that's just part of the mentality. It's like, oh, you're a professional? Okay, here's what you need to do. Like, you'll get sponsors because you have a certain number of people on Instagram who care about the storytelling that you're doing. And you know how to tell a story to get people interested so that when you are racing, you have a fan base. And that, you know, like sort of scaled up creates a lot more interest in the sport, which ultimately will bring more eyeballs and money and all of that into it.

Yeah, and it starts from the top. We have to really engage those top athletes, right? The young guys, the Norwegians. You see Gustav and Christian and Sam. Those guys know what they're doing online. And we can't grow unless we get the top to really get on board. And then once we get it all established,

everything trickles down, right? And then we can start supporting development, things like that. But Rini and I joke, we've been around a long time, right? We joke that we signed up to be professional athletes, but now we're just social media influencers. I mean, the shift has been insane, right?

And we struggle with it so much. The Tim and Rini show, the YouTubers. We were kind of one of the first in our sport to get on that. And we're like, I don't know if this is what we want to do. Yeah. But then the floodgates opened with all the other athletes. But hey, yeah, I mean, Lionel's channel probably gets more views than like an Ironman broadcast, right?

Yeah, it's really smart. And ultimately, you develop, however many people are interested in whatever it is you're sharing, those people start to care about you. That's important. I feel like that is part of the job, you know? It definitely is.

And I think Rudy and I, we're good about being able to kind of shift a little bit. Yeah. I mean, the old days, you just, if you, you know, you put a logo on a kit and you try to get on a magazine cover. That's done. And then you're good, you're done.

You do one booth appearance at a race and you're done. Those days are long gone. Yeah, they're so far gone. And probably for the better. Like what is the value proposition of that? You know what I mean? I don't know. Like it doesn't really make sense.

And I think there's still a lot of companies that are stuck in that paradigm and they don't understand like, that really doesn't matter. You know, what matters is who really cares about what you're doing? Like whether you get fifth or first or 10th is much less important than how emotionally attached

people out in the world are to what it is that you have to share with them. Yeah, and it's almost this kind of like butting of heads between story and performance, right? Yeah. They don't always align. You have to perform. You still have to perform.

Like it can't- Yeah, some people don't. You still have to perform. Like it can't. Yeah, some people don't. Do you have to win? I don't know. Yeah. Or I mean, like if you do, if you have the credibility of, if you have a record of performance,

you have the credibility, that's obviously a great spot. Right. Yeah. So what's the future of the Tim and Rennie show on YouTube? We got to get Kenny back. We're like, Kenny, we need you. Does he live in Boulder? He does live in Boulder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We got to get Kenny back. We're like, Kenny, we need you. Does he live in Boulder?

He does live in Boulder, yeah. Okay. We made the mistake though. You know, we want everybody to grow around us too. So like, you know, connect with a lot of partners and stuff. And then our partners start using them so much. Like, hey, we still need some Kenny time too.

Yeah, we're like, yeah. Yeah, come on, where's our Kenny? Yeah, you got to get back on that. Yeah, no, we're going to, we'd like to. And I think we have a lot to share with this kind of transition period too, right? It's not all about racing anymore for us. You know, we're parents,

we're figuring out what's the rest of our life going to look like. And I think that's a compelling story to our audience. Yeah, good man. Are you going to come out and be on an episode of the show? I would love to. Yeah, all right.

I'd be honored to. Next time you're in Boulder. Yeah, for sure. I'd be honored to. Next time you're in Boulder. Yeah, for sure. That's a promise. And if Rennie, that seat is wide open for Rennie anytime she wants to come. Oh yeah, we'll get her out of a- I used to see, like when Siri had her group out here

that she was training, I think Rennie was part of that. Like was living out here, right? Yeah, so I would see them like over in Malibu Creek State Park. They would do a run loop in there. And they would go ride as a Peloton and she would like drive behind them. Or I used to see them out. And you know, Siri, she bought a pool.

She did? Yeah, they had a pool. They had like one of those like above ground, like 25 meter- Oh, I think I remember seeing something about that. And it wasn't heated though. Renu said it was so cold. Like it was just,

I don't know where it was, but. But now she like has a horse ranch. Yeah, she has a horse rescue. I mean, her and Beck are doing an amazing job with that. I mean, they're doing real good up there. It's cool. Yeah. Well, it's great to talk to you, man.

Yeah, thanks, Rich. I really appreciate being here. This is awesome. Any kind of like last words for the unsuspecting person out there who might be harboring a little bit of arterial plaque or the aspiring Ironman athlete who's spending too much time training

and not enough time at home? Like, I don't know. What do you wanna leave us with? Yeah, I just think life is precious and it goes by quickly. So just make sure you're doing everything you can to enjoy the moment and the people around you and everything you can to make sure you're around

for as long as you can be as well. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think your story is really powerful and it's just, you know, it's so extreme that, you know, once you hear it or, you know, watch the videos or whatever, you can't, it doesn't leave your consciousness. And it really like, as somebody who, you know,

look, I care a lot about my health, but it's inspired me to go and, you know, I haven't been, I haven't gotten a calcium test in a couple of years. Like, I really should go and check that. And I think everybody should. And I think, you know, I haven't been, I haven't gotten a calcium test in a couple of years. Like I really should go and check that. And I think everybody should. And I think, you know, you're in a position to really, you know, spread a message that's not only powerful.

I mean, let's face it, like heart attacks, that's the number one killer. Like this is the thing that like, you know, by and large, most people are gonna die from, right? It is the number one killer for men and women in the US. I mean, it's, yeah, it's real. And yeah, there's no better investment than ourselves and our bodies, right? Like. It is as serious as a heart attack. There we go. Cool. Well, come back and talk to me again sometime. This was super fun. I'll let you know next time I'm in Boulder. I wanna come in.

I know the house from the videos. So now I gotta go see it for myself. I don't know if that's good or not. But much luck to you. And if there's anything I can do for you, I'm at your service. Thanks, Rich. Yeah, cheers.

Peace. Peace. that's it for today thank you for listening I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation to learn more about today's guest including links and resources related to everything discussed today visit the episode page at richroll.com,

where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, "'Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way," as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube,

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graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis, as well as Dan Drake. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.