As we bring 2023 to an end, it’s time to reflect on outstanding athletic performances in endurance sports.
The 1st contributor is a pillar of our community and a frequent Fitspeek guest. He is also largely responsible for helping one of this year’s storymakers get her start in professional cycling. Hear Bruce Wenting’s articulate and insightful contributions by pressing play below.
If you are getting into endurance sports, specifically triathlon, one of the decisions you’ll be making is what kind of bike should you be riding. Here’s some helpful information to guide your purchase – yep, just click on those bikes above.
When you ask a guy about his favourite place to cycle and he responds, “Downtown Vancouver in rush hour” you know you are talking to someone unique. Maple Ridge’s Chuck Glover is certainly that, and it’s not just because he plays the bagpipes too!
Chuck is a retired RCMP and Metro Vancouver Transit Police officer and has seen his fair share of interesting things in the 4 decades he has served.
Although he has a fascinating background as an officer and an endurance athlete (sub 4-hour marathon guy!) Chuck is firmly planted in the present as the owner of All Points Cycling in Maple Ridge. His company is focused on bike handling and safety skills. He has trained hundreds of riders how to survive in the “urban jungle” while on 2 wheels.
This week get to know more about one of the pioneers of safe cycling instruction in North America. Get the scoop on Chuck by pressing play.
The latest offering by A2 is the Rogue. It’s your all-road machine built to thrive in the harshest conditions. Read more about it by clicking on the picture.
This past October we saw the 1st ever all-female Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. On the program this week we have 3 of the folks who were competing in this historical event, Jen Burns from Abbotsford, Susie Ernsting from North Vancouver, and Sharon Mackinnon from Hamilton.
In addition to finding out on how they qualified for Kona and how their respective races went, we also get their takes on what it was like to participate in a race without any men. The answers may be surprising! Hear it now by pressing play below.
Coming soon to Canada, the all-road bike by A2. It’s called the Rogue + it’s ready for all your autumn adventures. Click on the black beauty to get details.
Angela Froese from Chilliwack is a talented juggler. Not only does she juggle training for swimming, biking, and running, just like a lot of tri-moms out there, she juggles that with the demands of a career, and family life.
And as we all know, doing that juggling act involves compromises. Angela however, manages to make it all work through superhuman organizational skills and gritty determination. 5:15 AM alarms are just business as usual for this mother, physiotherapist, and podium-topping triathlete.
Off the race course, Angela is an amiable person to be around, with a great sense of humour but on the race course, this Chilliwack athlete is all business. Laser focused and steel-willed racing is Angela’s modus operandi and it has served her well. In the podcast this week, we chat about Angela’s roots in triathlon and some of her big performances in the sport. We also get Angela’s take on the women’s only race in Kona and of course…the animal question. Spend 30 minutes with the social and multi-faceted Angela by pressing play below.
This week’s feature bike is the RP, which is the A2 aero road bike. Click on the bike below to learn more about it.
In hindsight, could the local triathlon scene for 2023 be called the Year of the Rookie?
From Victoria, Fitspeek guest and Triathlon Magazine Canada colleague Mel McQuaid has just done her first-ever Ironman World Championships (just like Fitspeek host, Kevin Heinze did).
In Victoria, Mitchell Kirby rocked + shocked his competition at the Ironman 70.3.
Just last month a triathlon newbie WON the Cultus Lake Half-Iron.
If you have never heard of Luker Tasker before, you can be forgiven. That’s because this guy, originally from England, had never done a triathlon before.
That’s changed and now Canada has a rising new star at the Half-Ironman distance. A 4:10 debut with a lot of mistakes hints at Tasker’s athletic potential. Before you hate on Luke because of, well, a 4:10, you gotta know that he paid his dues as a lad in the UK swimming 5-6 times a week and competing at a high level in modern pentathlon.
Hear Luke’s story from ski-bum to Vancouver firefighter + champion triathlete by pressing play below.
Tested in the tunnel, aero + affordable, and on-course at the world championships, the SP by A2 bikes is your ticket to a faster bike split. Check out their range of build options by clicking on the bike above.
This week on the show the tables are turned as Fitspeek alumni Leigh-Ann Parker, Kevin Watt, + Dr. E, interview host Kevin Heinze, about his experiences at the Ironman World Championships, in Nice, France.
A major part of the interview is finding out how he qualified for France because being a hydrosloth and giving up 10 minutes to his age group competition in the water, meant that time had to be made up…somewhere! Find out what sacrifices were made in the heat of the battle when he found out that he was in 3rd place in his age group.
Here’s the bike I used to get to Nice and tackle the course in France. It’s the SP by A Squared. Click on it to browse and configure your dream machine. Thanks to Mark Mattecheck at A2 for “Borris.”
Penticton has long been known as one of Canada’s multisport capitals and it’s not just because of the geography. The city has a tireless army of volunteers that get behind everything that a race organizer could want whether that’s an ultra swim, gravel race, fondo, or triathlon.
In addition to the volunteers, Penticton is home to numerous multisport personalities. In this week’s show, we have a chat with locals Steve King, Jen Annett, and Jeff Symonds. They all played a major role in the latest Peach Classic Triathlon. We talk about that, as well as what’s been going on in their non-tri-lives. Hear about it now by pressing play below.
Aero + affordable, based in Oregon,A2 has your next aero road bike available now. Click on the red RP above to find out just how easy building your dream machine is.
This week on the show we have another person originally from Kingston, Ontario. And unlike Mitchell Kirby, this guy has kinda already done everything there is to do in triathlon.
There was this moment (and the paycheque), there was that Olympic gold medal back in 2000, and there was that quarter-century-long career in swim bike run.
But Whitfield isn’t a WAS guy, he’s more of an IS guy, and as you’ll find out in the show, more of a WHAT’S NEXT guy. And while the latter is still being written, the IS consists of salt water and fresh air.
It seems to me sunrises give Simon more pleasure than sunsets but when you ARE a triathlon legend there’s gotta be some baggage you take along with you for the rest of your life’s journey. We deal with that stuff in the interview. We also talk about how ex-Olympians FEED themselves (or more importantly to Simon, sleep well)
Finally, in the show Simon goes Tri-Yoda and offers up insightful advice for today’s pro-triathletes and age-groupers. The advice involves what to do with your cell phone and what to bring to the pool, the next time you go. Hear the show now, by pressing that play button below.
It’s aero, it’s adjustable, it’s available. It’s the SP, the black missile disguised as a tri-bike by A-Squared. To ride it is to love it. Take it from one who knows! Click on the bike to check for available builds and prices.
For most people, success in triathlon, especially at longer distances, is the result of toiling + training for years, essentially, “paying your dues.”
That doesn’t seem to be the case for Kingston’s Mitchell Kirby. He’s been in the sport as an adult for less than a year and already he has had some eye-opening results, including a top 5 finish overall at the Victoria 70.3 race back in the spring. Then, after he borrowed some race wheels from a family friend, he did even better at the Muskoka 70.3. He won the race, even though he had made some big-time rookie mistakes in the swim.
So, how is a tri-newby with a lot to learn able to crush his competition? As it turns out Kirby is an experienced runner, competing for Queen’s University in cross-country for years. I think that his “engine” is just about as big as his current learning curve in triathlon.
In the podcast, we find out more about his athletic back, his takeaways from his recent races, and his future plans in endurance sports. Join us now for 40 minutes with a bright new star on the Canadian triathlon landscape.
Now available in new colours, the SP is the tri-bike by A Squared. It’s aero, it’s affordable, it’s available now. Crush your competition, not your bank account. Click on the bike for more details.
In this week’s show, we ditch the goggles and aerobars and focus on running shoes, or more accurately, a guy who wears running shoes – in a very big way.
Mission’s Mark Klassen used to run cross country while in school but life changed and he stopped running. Then, about 8 years ago, he and a friend decided to take up running again. Without any “serious training,” as he puts it, he reeled off a sub-35-minute Sun Run.
Now that he knows how to train his times have been dropping, as have the jaws of his competitors. He’s gone from being a local fast guy to one of the fastest in the province at most distances of running races – that is except for the marathon!
In this week’s show, we go deep with Mark and find out why he is so fast, get his not-so-secret training secrets, and find out what is on the running horizon for this humble + inspirational athlete.
What you are looking at is the aero road bike the RP. It’s made by A Squared Bikes out of Lake Oswego, Oregon. Think of it as your Swiss Army Knife with wheels.
As is, it is ready for road races, fondos, crits, and coffee rides with your buddies. Slap a pair of aerobars on it and it becomes a speedy triathlon bike. It’s plenty adjustable for you to get your position dialed in just right to keep you comfortable and your competition behind you. Click on the bike for more details.
