Alright, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have discussions with individuals who are
building inclusive and accessible businesses or products advocating for inclusion or excelling
in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities but rather amplify
their voice, ideas, and learn strategies to make our businesses more accessible.
Today we're joined by Zachary Josie, a triathlete from Utah who is out in Massachusetts visiting
our facility after completing Ironman Maine 70.3 over the weekend.
We're excited to have him here to recap his race where he became the first athlete with
dwarfism to complete the 70.3 distance in under five hours.
Zach, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
Maybe we can go back to the beginning.
So how did you get into triathlon?
When I got to college I was starting to put on a little weight.
Just wanted to get active and I had a brother that ran a lot and just kind of started running
with him.
It took like a college course spin class on their spin bikes there and just kind of fell
in love with endurance sports just from those two little things.
How long ago was that?
That was about 15 years ago, probably 15 or 16 years ago.
How long between that first like introduction to the sport and your first race?
Probably about four years.
I just slowly just fell more in love with running after college when I moved back to
Salt Lake and I would say about four years into running I did my first 5K and just started
racing more and more after that.
What kind of encouraged you to switch from exclusively running to triathlon?
I would always think back to how much I liked that spin class.
So after a while, started kind of running alone, wore on me a little bit.
So I started to go back and do some spin classes just locally in my hometown and really enjoyed
that and then my parents moved to a different city and I met a guy who did triathlon in
that city and I was just always amazed by him.
I couldn't even fathom swimming because I never learned how to swim properly.
And then the distances were always just like I just thought to myself, I wonder if I could
do that.
Yeah, I think swimming is definitely the barrier to entry for me.
It's just not something that I'm confident in anyway.
I mean it's scary to get in there in the open water too, especially if you're not used
to it.
Yeah, we belonged to a country club a couple of years ago and they have a lap pool and
I just like getting lapped by these old women.
Because I just couldn't get down to breathing for whatever reason.
I used to swim when I was younger and so I thought I'd be able to pick it right back
up but something about the technique of breathing is actually harder than I anticipated.
You can watch all the YouTube videos you want to and I had to go to a coach for like six
months to a year and he just really drilled in the breathing and the...
Yeah, sitting in the kitchen with my face and like a lot of times I thought how to get
the pattern of it down but one day I'll venture into it.
What was your first half Iron Man like?
My first half IRONMAN was at the time I didn't even realize it.
I didn't realize how big IRONMAN was like globally and I just knew like okay this half
Iron Man is in my home state of St. George and I didn't realize at the time that that's
renowned as one of the hardest half Iron Man's on the scene and so I just like alright since
St. George I lived pretty close.
I went to school down there so I know the area and signed up for it and my friend who
got me into racing he kind of guided me, mentored me along the way and did some training
rights for it and anyway the day was crazy.
It was...
I mean there's like 3,500 feet of climbing on the bike and then the old run, the old
course the run was...
There's like a thousand plus feet of climbing so I mean that's a decent run too so it was
a brutal day as hot as like 95 degrees.
So when Kona was cancelled they had the World Championship of St. George right?
Yeah and that course was just double the first 70.3 I did and that was my first full Iron
Man.
I remember how long it took you to finish.
It was like 14:45:00 or something like that, 14:50:00-ish.
So yeah it was a long day.
And my first half I finished in 6 hours and 12 minutes.
So about an hour and a half improvement recently.
Were there any barriers like physically or anything that you felt like prevented you
from participating equally in triathlon?
Definitely.
The biggest one and the one I'm probably most vocal about is the bike.
I didn't realize to be honest how having Ellis Van Creveld and dwarfism my specific form
is called Els Van Kruveld.
I didn't realize how much differently I was shaped because I'm not, for dwarfism I'm
actually somewhat tall so I just I never thought like I knew a lot of women that were close
to my size that road bikes fine and so I didn't realize that because my legs were so short
compared to my torso that the bike was going to be so difficult and I got a bike that was
like the smallest one on the market and I was set up in a position where it just it hurt,
it hurt to ride like sitting on the sea I would swivel from side to side and like it
would cause a lot of pain and then like my shoulders would hurt by the time I got off
the bike and my knees would hurt and I just I had no I just thought that was like normal.
Yeah, you go to a bike fitting?
Yeah, so after after my first or second race I went to a bike fitter finally and he, he
I told him what I had and stuff and when I got in there he just kind of start taking
my measurements and by the noises he was making I realized like okay there's something like
something way off that and he knew exactly as soon as he started taking measurements
he goes because your saddle is too high your cranks are way too long your your reach is
too short on the handlebars you need to go out like way further because your torso is
so long yeah and he he had to keep my bike for like a week to see make yeah make the
modifications to the best that he could we got back on that bike and it still was pretty
was pretty off yeah it was it was better but it just it was just not do you feel good on
it now?
Yeah, so now I got I actually had to go through a process where I decided I wanted to do a
full Iron Man but I knew that the current bike I had wasn't gonna it wasn't gonna work
I wasn't gonna be able to I could fight through the pain and for 56 miles but I knew that
after anything after that I was gonna so so in 2020 when racing was off I kind of I just
I started emailing every single bike company like I think that I counted 38 different bike
companies from all around the world just emailing I'm telling them what I needed what would be
ideal what my bike fitter wanted me to get on and I don't know how I came across this
article but there's a there's an article or there's a there's a magazine called bike rumors
and somehow there was an article about a company from the Netherlands called Ku Cycles and
it was like pushed to me somehow or someone either sent it to me or it might have even
been my bike fitter who sent it to me like read this see what you think I started reading
it and they don't call themselves custom bikes but they called them they call it like made
to fit bikes so I just emailed them they were pretty new a startup in Netherlands and I
emailed the CEO just by chance like the first email I saw on there and I said hey this is
my situation this is what I need what do you think and he sent me a really nice email back
just said hey so give me a little while to sit on this we don't we're not doing business
in the US right now but he's like let me run this past my team and we'll get back to you
and I kind of thought that would be the last I'd ever heard from him I just like alright
I'll just wait and a few months later he emailed me again he's like hey I think we're ready
for you he's like this is he's like I've looped in my my partner Richard who was a technical
designer and he's like I think we can find some we can find a way to make up one of our
bikes work to these measurements you need he's like so I need you to go back into your bike
fitter and have him be exactly like this is exactly what you have to have because because
they make them what they do is they take your exact fit and then they manufacture the bike
to piece together so it fits exactly how you need it and they had to make a few modifications
on the saddle so we could get that a little lower but other than that it's it's perfect
they they sent it out it was like it was about a 10 week process where they like took my
measurements and then they would order the parts have them put together and then sent
it back to get painted and bill and then ship it out to me from the Netherlands so
cool that's awesome yeah was there was there any issue with like doing it all remotely
or is the process pretty seamless it was it's actually very seamless I know they prefer you
to go they hire their own bike fitters and so you have to fill out this like if you're
a bike fitter you fill out an application they go over and then they hire you as one
of their bike fitters but because I was the first one in the US to reach out to them they
just kind of had to wing it from my bike fitter and just hope that hope that it worked out
and it really was I mean I worried a lot and everything it came and it was like the saddle
was like an inch shorter than my current bike and then and then like the reach the handlebars
reached out like way further than my current bike and it I mean I have a I have a lot of
pictures on my social media of like what I used to look like on the bike compared to
now and it's it's like nine day what I guess what initially like spurred this this recent
goal of like trying to finish a 70.3 under five hours um I that's a good question I feel
like it's very important to like I guess getting into endurance sports is is like a is like
a cool thing anyway I mean it's not a lot of people like to do it it's it's a hard process
anyway but for me I love it so much but I could never like there's no reason to keep
going if I'm just not pushing myself and that that's my mentality I don't like the idea
of just like finishing all the time like okay finished another one I it became it became
like not pointless but it just kind of lost I didn't want to lose the thrill of racing
and so I just thought like I'm gonna start making bigger goals for myself and that's
when the full Iron Man idea came into my mind okay I'll do this full Iron Man and I'll see
how that goes and and uh yeah and then I just I I kind of lucked in to the 70.3 worlds last
year it was in St. George and during in 2021 when things were still slow I got I went to
a race that not very many people showed up to and so I rolled down the slot rolled down
to me and I got to the 70.3 world championships and when I finished I realized like everyone
was so much faster than me like I needed I know that I can run better I know that I can
bike better I need to like make a real goal to like try to do this and it kind of like
encouraged me having a bad race encouraged me to like okay I need to make a better goal
I need to see if I can go faster yeah I think most people in certain sports are pretty numbers
driven yeah I mean that's just it's a way to stay motivated is to have the certain numbers
to try to beat or the PRs to set how close to five were you prior to I was I was 05:18:00
I believe 05:18:00 between 05:18:00 and 05:19:00 and that was in that was actually in New Hampshire in
2021 so what was the limiting factor what did you kind of determine to be like the slow
leg of that that you could kind of improve the most on the bike to the run so my biggest
issue on the bike was that like I was biking slow because my bike was so so wrong for me
but I was also running slow because I was in so much pain getting off the bike and I knew
running being my best sport I knew that I wasn't running to the best of my ability so
St. George came this year or last year in 2022 when I did the world championship and
I just was not even though I was more comfortable running I still I'm like I'm faster than this
I know I am and so that's what I worked on the most the bike to the run so like my coach
just started throwing in two one to two brick workouts a week almost every week so yeah
your transition was pretty quick from like to run to yeah yeah which is not normal for
me to I that is another thing we worked on I am notoriously like a combined 15 minutes
in transition I I don't know what I do in there I just like I get in there to start
messing around or something so so we practice we actually practice like getting in and out
of my wetsuit and then getting onto the bike and then getting off the bike getting the
shoes off throwing the new the running shoes on and getting out before kill time before
I killed that yeah I was like when I was following the tracker I was looking for the first run
split because I was curious how hard you pushed on the bike and whether that would compromise
the run but right out of the gates you were running yeah 90 minute yeah and it truly is
it's the first time I thought I made one more adjustment to my bike this year there's a
I was on cranks bike cranks that were still a little bit too long so I still kind of have
a knee pain unless I got the cleats like exactly positioned right like I would slide off the
side still just a hair and there's a guy from I believe it they're based in Minnesota it's
called he's Appleman bicycles and he recently he used to just fix carbon frames and in the
last year he's added short cranks to his wheelhouse and so now he manufactures cranks for all the
way from like really short which is 135 millimeters all the way up to pretty big which is like
I think it's 175 is this top end whereas like 165 to 175 is what most companies make so the
bike fitting for any triathletes pretty essential yeah and obviously especially for yeah and
and that was so yeah he that was the one thing I got off and I had zero pain for the first
time and I just so I'm gonna go for it felt good did you feel any added pressure from
kind of broadcasting it across social media I know like ahead of our marathon or the spring
like I made the videos made the posts like oh we're gonna run under three hours and then
that was like in the back of my mind the whole race I was like I got all these people that
are expecting me to run under three hours and it turns something that's a very individual
thing I guess the positive was it turned something that's very individual be it running into
kind of something that's more communal like I had people that were expecting me to run
a certain pace I don't know if the added pressure was a positive or a negative but like did
you feel any any added pressure from like the social media declarations early on I did
I I said it and I kind of said it the very first time I said I kind of said it as a joke
just thinking like I probably can't do that I swim too slow yeah I'm too slow in the transitions
I don't know I can do that but I said it and then like my coach kind of reached out to
me he's like hey is this just a goal you're really like looking at he's like we'd have
to he's like if that's the case he's like let's not sign up for St. George this year
that's that course is a little too he's like I don't there's a lot of people that wouldn't
be able to go sub five in St. George he's like let's look at some some other races he's
like but I he's like in training you do the stuff where I think you can do it it's like
we just work on translate again so after he told me that I was like okay maybe this this
is a real goal and then and then when I did Ironman Texas it's the beginning of the year
I like we liked the idea of doing a full Ironman first kind of to build a bigger base so that
immediately after Texas I could get into 70.3 training and I wouldn't have to worry about
super long like five to six hour rides and just have that base so so in April I did Ironman
Texas for that reason and I jokingly made a goal or a challenge to one of the pros that
was racing Texas and just said like hey I'll make like if I get off the bike before you
finish the race and like like I win but if you if you finish the race from off and and
it it's funny because that truly pushed me like I was on the bike thinking like no I
got to get off this bike and I saw him pass me on his I made my first loop and he passed
me on his coming ready to fit start the run on my on his second loop and I was like I
just saw him I got to get going so it encouraged me to get get out there and then after that
I told my coach I'm like it kind of like motivated me and so then I started really pushing the
sub five thing because that it motivated me I knew that I had it out there like it's something
I have to like I'd have to stick to the training I wouldn't be able to like mess around yeah
I mean having that external purpose kind of gives more purpose of the training and kind
of helps you grind through like harder sessions yeah there's that like long-term vision but
I think that's something that Endurance Sports is like really good for is just understanding
that you have to put in so much work before anything manifests yeah it's like a great
I it's a great parallel between like that and careers in life in general like you just
have to kind of be committed and consistent with the running and results don't always
manifest on the day that you need them to with races but you kind of keep stacking bricks
until till you have that like breakthrough race like you had in Maine yeah and and that's
just it's funny too because I've since since Texas I really struggled swimming I've like
I lost a little bit of motivation to swim and I was having a hard time I have to I have
to go do most of my workouts in the morning before I work early and then I sometimes I've
been like I have 10 to 12 hour days at work so if I come home and do a workout I don't
get to spend time with my wife and so I do most of my stuff early and it is really hard
to get to the swimming pool sometimes at three in the morning and I was just struggling and
every week I tell my coach I'm like I don't know why I'm not hitting the numbers I'm struggling
and then all of a sudden I like I started to feel like kind of like like defeated in
the swim and then all of a sudden like a month out of this race I was hitting the numbers
all of a sudden I was just like every week I was like okay okay I'm building I'm building
and then then I I was talking to my wife on the way out here and I'm like I'm all of a
sudden like swimming good again like it's been like and I just I feel like it was just
consistency like I forced myself to go to these swims I didn't want to do that I was
nervous to do and the one of the things when we were kind of briefly talking about like
the wearable technologies and the recovery scores and stuff like if you're waking up
at three to swim yeah if you were wearing something like a whoop I don't think it would
ever tell you that you were fully recovered as ready to go so it's like are you just going
to keep skipping sessions until you're perfectly recovered like we're not professional in
there in sport yeah athletes we have jobs so it's like just finding time to fit it in
and hopefully it kind of manifests over time but being consistent with it even if the performance
is yeah compromise a little bit seems to be important and I mean and that was remembering
that I'm not a professional is also another thing that goes into like hitting these numbers
where if my if I'll have like an easy ride for the day and I stress out and like I miss
it in the morning I just couldn't wake up and I'll text my wife or call her at lunch at
work I'm sorry I have to do this workout I'm so tired but I have to do it and so you won't
see me tonight and then remembering having my coach say like hey it's fine you can miss
it like if you're tired this isn't easy like we'll push it to another day or just skip it
all together he's like remember you're not doing this professionally or how much lower
do you think you can go or is that is that the goal is to continue to try to get under
the 04:47:00 I'd love to yeah I one of my goals that I've been kind of throwing out now is
that I'd like to go sub five in St. George since that's such a hard course going under
04:47:00 would would be great I've made so many improvements on the bike and run in such a
short time that I feel like they're still coming yeah so I go back to the full distance
yeah that's I mean that and that's I haven't figured out the nutrition and running on the
whole distance yeah I both both full distances that I've done I've gotten off the bike feeling
okay and then a 10 to 13 miles in the marathon I just kind of crash yeah and end up both
of them I in my first one halfway point exactly I crashed and just walked the rest of the way
and then in Texas it was at the 10 mile mark I just kind of didn't have anything left obviously
completely different world but the nutrition was one of the harder pieces for the marathon
yeah that I struggled with as well and I felt like that was essential to our more recent
strong performance is just managing GI distress yeah later half of the race but also kind of
stacking up enough carbs in the early half of the race that you don't run out of yeah and
that way I mean even for the 70.3 I I struggled this is I would say this is the first time
I got it like a hundred percent right yeah right yeah right a everything I was supposed to
I like I got all the carbs in that we plan to get in and so yeah I was this is like a
perfect day which is I think is probably pretty rare yeah so if how do you like so I guess how
do I want to phrase this so there's there's a kind of like a narrative I guess in the disability
space that like people with disabilities who accomplish things are like inspirational or
motivational do you have any thoughts on like the inspiration narrative or kind of people
like once you post on Facebook did you get some stuff like that or do you have any thoughts on
like people calling you inspirational um yeah so this this is something that me and my wife have
talked about a lot because like listening to your other stuff hearing everybody's opinions
um like I like what you always say about how like people with disabilities should still be
pushed yeah like just like finishing something or doing everyday stuff is like like it's like
it's almost for me insulting that like to say like praises me for a six and a half hour half
Iron Man or I'm like no I know I can do better like like the first one's great but like I don't
want to be praised unless I unless I improve it was a thought as you were saying things like that
that like you want to push yourself and that you weren't content with finishing in a specific time
and then when you talk about like 3am swim workouts and stuff like that that alone is the part that's
like motivational it's not the presence of and exactly and that's that's what I would want
people to see is that like and that like I did this hard work it wasn't just
it wasn't just like a guy with Thor Viz and finished a race it was like I put in this hard work
I did it at weird times because of my actual job and then so so if that if they came to me and said
like you're inspirational because I have this body that's that's like built better for it but I
don't have the motivation he's like so you've like you've inspired me to do like get out there and
maybe push my limits yeah like that no sorry oh that would be I would feel good about that
from a representation standpoint were there other people with dwarfism that you kind of saw in the
space or so yeah when when I first started toying with the idea of a IRONMAN I think I'd
already done three halves and after the first two I just wasn't really interested in the full I liked
the half but I was like I'd get pretty like destroyed after them and I just like my body hurt
I don't think I can do a full I'm not too interested I'm a terrible swimmer I don't know if I could
swim that long the the wetsuit hurts to have on that long which is another thing I had to
have made for me but um so there's a guy I believe he's from around here John Young yeah and he
I started reading articles he has a different form of dwarfism than I do he has the more I believe he
has a chondroplasia which is the the most common um so he he's a little shorter than I am but our
symptoms are similar in the sense that like long torsos bigger heads and shorter limbs and and so
I just kind of like like figured out what he did and I actually ended up when I went to figure out
a better situation for my wetsuit I emailed this company and the guy's like oh hey I know John Young
I did my first iron man was his first iron man and we so he kind of knew John Young and then he
he knew the situation slightly better than anyone else did and I think he had more sympathy he just
knew that like yeah I can understand why a wetsuit would be hard for you because like I saw the
struggles that John had and stuff and so so in a way it wasn't like I don't want to say that like
to offend John in any way by saying like you're so inspirational that you finished this race but it
was it was motivation in the sense that like well maybe I can do this because yeah because other
people like me are doing it and I would imagine you're probably doing the same for others um
are there like do you speak to other athletes with dwarfism or is that not even really like
I have I know that there's there's a bigger community in the running community yeah um a lot
of them are a little older than me and John's really the only one I've made somewhat kind I mean
he's he's a pretty popular guy so I don't know if he should be like if he ever sees my like I'll
ask him questions and I'll like I'll talk to him he'll like give me thumbs up on stuff sometimes but
but he's a pretty popular guy so and then I've had another some other people reach out to me asking
me like hey how did you do your bike or like hey do you have any suggestions like I'm trying to just
just make this road bike do you know any things I can do so so I've been trying to compile all my
all my information to help these other people that want to cycle or that want to like get into running
and yeah I've made some a few friends I would say from from triathlon especially people that
are looking for for bikes and there's no real unique aspects of training right like
if I was training someone else for a half-iron man versus you for a half-iron man
there any like specific considerations that you think your coach makes I I don't think so I think
that the swim coach that I originally went to just to learn how to swim understood that like my limbs
were short and so like relying on just my stroke was going to be a huge problem like he really had
to nail the fundamentals into me whereas like it's pretty famous in triathlon that they're
terrible fundamentally swimming because they just like muscle their way through the swim and so
so he really he his big thing was always we're going to train you like a real swimmer because
you're not going to he's like your arms just simply aren't long enough that like they don't go past
your head far enough like you can't cheat that your stroke you have to learn the fundamentals so
that was one thing but other than that now that I can sit comfortably on my bike I my
coach hasn't really had to to back off too much on on stuff I I might wear down slightly faster than
the average average person just I mean my knees bow in yeah and then I'm just my limbs are so short
that it's also interesting to think of how many more steps you have to take over the course of
about 13 mile a run yeah I would like I know I think my stride length is between like three and a
half to four feet a little longer when I run the wheelchair and I would wonder what yours is and
I know you like twice as many steps almost I know it probably is close and and it's it's funny too
because I used to compare myself to a lot of the pro women that were shorter than you know how do
they run so far or as tall as me or just slightly tall and then like looking at him you can tell
like oh yeah her legs are longer than mine that's why yeah yeah that's I would imagine that's
one of the I guess that's a physical barrier that can't be changed yeah you can you can obviously
improve your fitness I guess like what what do you think has been most important to improving your
running I think so kind of on my own I I started just implementing just like very basic strength
and I mean I think strength is probably important not even if you're a endurance athlete just for
any person strength is important for like longevity and stuff like that so I just do like a very basic
strength program like through the week and that's that's kind of helped
that's probably some of why my knees feel better off the bike that mixed with the like the better fit
I just feel better all around from from adding a little bit of strength in there and and it's
nothing crazy it's basically like some kettlebell routines so and how much what was what were the
shoes that you wore and kind of what was the process of finding a shoe that felt good so yeah
I used to I used to wear ultra shoes strictly because they're white toe box my feet this is also
I don't know if it's if it's specific to to my type of dwarfism but I actually have heard other
people at dwarfism have the same issues where our feet are like short and wide and my hands are kind
of the same way too they're small and wide so I mean when I would when I would wear smaller shoes
my feet were way too wide kind of squished in there and then when so I'd size up and then
sizing up too much obviously causes problems so I was always looking for just stuff with white toe
box and then I started getting to a point where I wanted to try these the the carbon shoes the fast
marathon ones and they became more available and so so I asked around and a lot of people told me
to try the asics the metaspeed sky because they're supposedly a little wider so I was using those but
it was still same problems like at about mile 13 I had I'd start getting blisters on my my feet and
anything longer than a half marathon I used too many too many blisters and so I would always go
back to ultra and then some new hoax shoes came out recently that the people were saying that the
upper stretches out a little more so and that's that seemed to work for me I didn't I didn't have
any problems that was a carbon blitz you that was a car yeah the rocket x2 the their newest version
of their and so that and it ran I felt like it was the same as is the asics that I liked but
it accommodated my foot slightly better so the goal for this past weekend was to go under five
in man iron man man 70.3 um you want kind of take us through the the three legs of the race
yeah true I'll back up a little too I I planned to do at least give myself three tries I didn't know
I kind of wanted to use this first one as like maybe like to set some benchmarks and like okay
did this bad did this good try to put try to fix the bad and mix it with the good and so coming
into into main I realized like okay this is a river swim my swimming's my weakness maybe I can
figure something out for this one and then as the race got closer and I was getting more familiar
with the course I realized like oh the bike course is actually kind of hard I didn't realize
and so I just I thought like okay like I said using this as benchmarks but still try to go for it
so anyway race more great leading up to the race I was I was pretty quiet to my wife all week I just
like I I fell like okay I don't know if this is going to be the one I don't know how much how excited
I could be if like I get so close on this one and then just kind of or if I have a terrible race
and it's like way off like that protective mechanism yeah we do like leading up to our marathon too I
was like yeah I was like yeah my hamstring hurts this maybe I'll just do it later yeah yeah and so
I'm like yeah and I was just like this bike is way harder than I thought it would be and then
I talked like my wife is really good at calming me down just letting me go over stuff and then
I talked to my coach and he goes he goes if you still push the power we've been working on on the
bike you should be fine he's like it's he goes it's a little harder than what you've done he's
like but then the run is much easier than what you've been running on so kind of evens out so
we just stick to our our plan and I think that we'll we'll see some good results and so just I got
lined up on race morning to swim I got my bike set up and all my transition gear set up and then
walk down to the swim and ate my nutrition just like I was supposed to like one gel 15 minutes
out before I got in the water and then I got in the water and I just I felt great I I mean like
I said it was a river swim so it was quicker than I would have planned but I've never felt so strong
swimming either like in a normal I still think I would have PR'd the swim by a lot just at the
effort I was doing I was confident to do the effort I was swimming fast and I felt really good I got
out of the swim and I mean a lot of times you feel dizzy getting out and I felt good it was like a
half mile run to transition up a hill and I took that really fast and felt good when I got out and
I cut my famous nine minute t1 time down to six minutes so that was a huge improvement that's
I've been working on that and then you told me about 30 minutes on the swim and you finished it
and I think I finished it in 19 minutes right around between 19 and 20 minutes and then I
transitioned in six and I thought that what would happen is I'd finished between 28 to 30 minutes
and I'd I'd try to be out of transition by 35 minutes so I put I gave myself almost 10 minutes
of what I planned just by getting through that swim and then transitioned good and I got on the
bike the game plan was to get through transition as fast as I could and then kind of regain my
composure first like five to ten minutes on the bike and I got on the bike and in like two minutes
I was comfortable my breathing had slowed down I was ready to ready to start pushing it so I worked
I worked up to the power that we had planned and just held on to that for as long as I couldn't
get a power meter on the bike that you were working on yeah so our goal was to was to hit
was to have my average power be around 200 watts and then my normalized power to be around 210
and it ended up being like I was like 198 average and then 216 normalized so and don't ask me what
normalized me my coach understands it better than I do and I just okay that's what that's
what I have no idea what it means it's averaging of like like when you do like huge spurts yeah
compared to what your actual average is and it's something like that so anyway yeah my my my average
power was almost right on and in turn I got off the bike my goal was two hours and 40 minutes and
I think I got off in two hours and 43 minutes so I was because of the faster swim I still had plenty
of time to change and then use the bathroom in the transition which is something I I usually try to
skip because I try to get out going but I felt like okay I have time I gave myself time on that
swim so and then the plan to run like the plan was to run between 650 to 7 minute miles and
hold on as long as I could and then we had planned for a like a huge uphill from mile 9 to 10 and a
half and so the the plan was to run the try to feel the same effort on that uphill and then
then although my time would slow down my effort would be the same and then after I got around the
corner to start going back down to the finish line the plan was to stop looking at my watch and
just go as hard as I could to the finish line and that's exactly what I did so I think going up that
hill I slowed from like the 650 to 7 minute pace to about 720-730 and then coming back down the hill
I got back down closer to the 7 minute 7:10 pace and and finished pretty strong with a 134 run.
So all things considered pretty perfectly executed by what you were hoping for? Yeah and it was just
like all day long I like on the bike I kept saying like I'm gonna push a little harder right now and
I just kept hearing my coach's voice saying like don't get excited on the hills don't get excited if
you're faster than where you want to be like just stick to the plan no work. What race are you gonna
do next? So as of now the only one I have on the calendar is 70.3 Indian Wells in like next to Palm
Springs in California. I'm considering another 70.3 maybe in Waco, Texas or Muncie, Indiana those are
kind of around the times I'd want to do another one in September and October but I'm also considering
just like a standalone marathon. Try to figure out see if I could figure out what my problem is
with the nutrition on the marathon. Is travel like a like for me the idea of traveling to
all over for these races would be stressful and I feel like that would be something that would
prevent me from. It's very stressful. The key that I found is to do direct flights because your
luggage gets there so if it's like an extra or like I have to fly somewhere a little closer than
drive like I did for this trip I flew to Boston and then drove. The bike getting the bike packed up
and then making sure like that it works that's the stressful part but then the second I open the case
and see that like okay the frame's not broken the wheels are good like all I have to do is put this
bag together and I'm fine then the stress goes away. Indian Wells is considered a pretty flat
course right? Yeah yeah it can be the water can get really cold but that doesn't scare me like it
used to and then the bike ride is pretty pan flat. So would you like to continue to push that number
down? I'd love to. I think for Indian Wells my my real goal is to have a massive PR on the bike
just just yeah I feel just kind of try to see what it feels like to just go and push myself
as hard as I can on the bike and see what kind of run legs I have after and just lay down the power
and see how it goes. That's awesome. Well Zach I think that was that was good insight into your
experience racing and your experience getting into triathlon as a whole. One question that we've
wrapped up most of these with is kind of the idea of what do you think needs to be done to make
well a lot of our listeners are in the fitness space hopefully but what do you think needs to
be done to make both fitness and maybe sport more inclusive and accessible? One thing that
that I that I've actually found recently that's been good is that a lot of apparel companies
have been able to find ways to like either have their stuff tailored or like for instance my
wetsuit was tailored to fit me by by DeBoer wetsuits and it didn't I mean I they did a lot of work
but it was like they were willing to do it and they didn't like question me at all they knew
that it had to be done and then the people that make my kit same thing they just they seem a little
more willing to be and I to tailor stuff or like make stuff more appropriate for me and I've reached
out to other apparel companies as well and just kind of asked like hey if I were to go this direction
like what can you do as far as like like the tailoring like maybe hemming the legs up a little
bit so they don't go past my knees or and everyone seems to everyone in the apparel part seems to be
like on board with I think we can do that let's try he's let us know what you want like we'll
we'll see what we can do so so that one's that one's actually kind of been figured out in the last
couple years as far as equipment I would love to see the bike industry understand that like
like I mean I told you earlier there are two sizes of common cranks which 165 or 175 which is crazy
because even people that are a foot taller than me could benefit from using something a little
smaller or something a little bigger so just having two sizes it's not just accessible for me it's
accessible for a huge variety of people that I mean seems like there's money to be made
a Lee at the very least yeah that's what we usually say like when you're accounting for people
with different abilities or with a disability it benefits everyone universally but you don't
kind of know that until yeah and then there's there's still things that because it's not
available like there's still things I could get on my bike but because it's not more readily
available it either cause for like a new like design for a bike or or just like demand for
stuff that they just simply don't make anymore they don't make the smaller wheels as I have to
use the standard wheels on my bike for it to fit the frame because the more smaller wheels they don't
they basically make like one type of tire that's hard to find anyways and it's it's not like
performance wise it's not that great and and so like make trying to make like the bikes or at least
coming up with a way to like customize a bike to fit a different body would be the help light I mean
I think you'd get a lot of people absolutely so it's like businesses that weren't created specifically
for people with disabilities prioritizing yeah to adapt things yeah people who are different yeah
yeah I think that's a that's an important theme where it's not just like organizations that are
specifically catered for people with disabilities but it has to be all the ones that maybe weren't
designed initially exactly and that's how my my bike it's from coup cycles in Netherlands like I said
and they um I had the the opportunity to host the CEO when Ironman came to the world championships
in in St. George and I asked him a whole bunch of questions and it kind of they didn't do it on
purpose make them like a bike that would fit me but but after talking to them like they really had
like we need to fit a wide range of people that compared to most brands that have like six to eight
sizes of bikes they have 64 different options of sizes which would fit like way more people in the
world and and that I might even have that number wrong it might even be higher that just like
64 different options of is incredible yeah so well you raced Sunday it's now Wednesday and you
took time to come out to our facility that is not very close to Boston exactly not close to Augusta,
Maine but I appreciate the time today it was awesome to finally get to meet you in person and
I've been talking for the last year and a half a couple of years so it's been cool to have you out
here and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us yeah it was one of the priorities
of the trip so thank you thank you for listening to the AdaptX podcast. Our effort to amplify the
ideas of our guests and create more inclusive and accessible industries is futile unless these
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