How are you? When did you get in? Are you 100% all of those things? How are

you? That's a lot of questions.

It is a lot of questions.

Yeah, sorry.

Just generally, how are you going, man? No, thank you for having me.

And yeah, I'm starting to really get back into it.

I struggled still a little bit after knees.

Do you think having that group and the discussion beforehand actually gives you an advantage? Or are the people not in it, the good swimmers, just going to sit on your feet anyway?

Yeah, and we don't really have a solution, but what do you think maybe they could do going forward around that, especially that initial part?

Well, yeah, it's very complicated because I think that was also, yeah, that is one of the ideas that comes then, you know, that you can't slot in with any light because otherwise you create, yeah, the complicated situation where... basically all the time someone can slot in because otherwise you're doing something illegal.

Because if you're not in the red, you are in the blue and someone could theoretically slot in.

But then the other problem would be that in, for instance, Nice, where there is like, I don't know, how many people were on the start line? 68 or something.

68 people of like a similar level I mean imagine if you have to overtake that whole line if you cannot slot in into the lights either so Yeah, it is very complicated.

And I feel that with these couple of big races that we've been seeing now, it gets very difficult.

And now this year, it was still Nice for the 70.3 World Champs.

No, to be

Tell us a little bit about what made Placid so special to you the week leading up and then obviously on race day.

yeah i mean it's just a a stunning town i think that's that's first of all but uh it's it's quite funny because uh paul k the the legendary ironman announcer he he was telling it like there's more competitors in the ironman than people living permanently in Placid.

So that kind of like shows how small Lake Placid is, but it is obviously a big holiday destination.

So yeah, as you say, like it's just for this week, The whole Ironman world, mainly US, obviously, kind of strikes down in this little town and it just gives like a really good, nice vibe, you know, like on the race day, like so many people cheering.

Even like, actually, it was quite funny, like two or three days before the race, I went to a supermarket and I think I got stopped like five times by people like, Martin Vareel? I was like, yeah, okay.

But you know, like, because normally if you race, if you race a Frankfurt or whatever, it's like big cities.

So obviously if you're going to go to a supermarket there, like the chance of meeting another Ironman is small, but here it's just like, you know, like just one big community, uh, So that's obviously amazing.

about you as a favorite or the favorite for Kona? And I know you're going to have some humility here, but that had to give you some confidence looking at what you were able to do on a solo effort out there.

i have to admit that

Yeah, well, I'll first explain the race.

Yes, yes.

But yeah, first things first, I think that everyone that wants to do 70.3 next year in Europe, I think that this one should be high up your list.

It's a super cute, nice, super clean city, a little one close to a big airport in Copenhagen.

It's really, really beautiful.

And also like where the race site is, it's super beautiful.

I don't know.

uh everything going totally smooth in your prep

Well I feel like the race can only get smoother than the prep so now everything has not been going very well for me.

I actually twisted my ankle well now almost two months ago and missed almost a month of running because of that so I've had a very panicky run prep.

I think Well right now I've been running for three weeks so it's gonna be a four-week start to marathon program that I've done but everything has been going quite well in that build up on the running I did a 30 kilometer run actually this weekend still so yeah I think hopefully I got the most out of it I think I got the most out of it but yeah obviously it wasn't the ideal approach and I wish I didn't have to stop and then I was getting really, really confident here in the downhills as well.

And then reality hit and I took a little tumble.

I slid out.

So, yeah, the confidence is...

But when something like that happens, it really takes you away from your identity to a certain extent, right? Is it important for you to be transparent and to show other people that are following you that it's not always that easy and you're a real human just like everybody else?

Cause, uh, yeah, it's, it's a good take on what's what's happened, but, um, Well, do you want to just fill us in on, I guess, maybe it was six weeks ago or something like that, that you had a bit of an injury? How about, yeah, you share with us what's been going on.

Yeah, it's a little bit more than six weeks now.

I think it's about eight weeks before.

And yeah, it's kind of like, as you said, I was already struggling maybe a little bit with the mental aspect as well.

Like...

I didn't feel 100% good through May and June time.

And I think that probably had an influence because I started really feeling some pressure building in the start of July to really start getting everything good.

Like, do you want to touch on some of the, the mental struggles that you had at that period?

Yeah, like sliced

chicken.

Yeah, from the bread.

You know, like it was, I went to the supermarket to buy sliced chicken.

It was in one of those open refrigerators.

I feel like it might have been that because I did go to a restaurant as well that night, but the restaurant was really nice.

I had like 4.7 reviews.

I know the start is really important, but come on, you're a little bit sensible.