CLASH Endurance isn't just focused on the race, but an entire experience. On today's episode, CLASH CEO Bill Christy, and former professional triathlete Alicia Kaye, share how CLASH is creating large-scale multisport events that are competitive AND fun. The brand strives to be inclusive, family and spectator friendly, and welcoming to athletes of all abilities. How are they bringing fun back to fitness? How does CLASH get you access to race on NASCAR tracks? What type of events are offered for the whole family? Bill and Alicia answer this and much more! Listen in to learn how CLASH Endurance is reviving the festival feeling for endurance sports. A big thanks to UCAN for being a long time partner of the podcast! At TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. To experience UCAN’s LIVSTEADY products for yourself, head to their website UCAN.co! Use the code “TriDot” to save 20 percent on your entire order. Liked what you heard about the CLASH Endurance Events? Join the TriDot Crew at CLASH Daytona in December! Use code TRIDOTDAYTONA for 10% off any event! Register now at https://clash-usa.com/clash-daytona
TriDot Podcast .157
CLASH Endurance: Reviving the Triathlon Festival
Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.
Andrew Harley: Hey folks! Welcome to the TriDot podcast! Fun episode today, with two very cool guests from CLASH Endurance. We’ll be talking about the work CLASH is doing to make large-scale multi-sport events fun and family-friendly. They are essentially reviving the triathlon festival, and I, for one, am totally on board and here for it. Our first guest today is Bill Christy, the President and CEO of CLASH Endurance. CLASH is creating the future of endurance sports by producing and creating events at iconic motor speedways throughout the United States. These experiences have already made their mark on the sport, been broadcast on live television in over 120 countries around the world. Bill is a distinguished University of Central Florida alumni, and prior to CLASH he was involved with several medical device companies as founder, CEO, and executive director. He is an active triathlete himself living in Daytona Beach, Florida. Bill, welcome to the TriDot podcast!
Bill Christy: Hey, you’re welcome so much. I appreciate being here. It’s always fun.
Andrew: Also joining us from the CLASH Endurance team is Alicia Kaye. Alicia spent 22 years racing in the professional field, where she won the Lifetime Tri Series in 2013 and 2014. She won the Toyota Triple Crown in 2013, and placed fifth at 70.3 World’s in 2015. She raced in the pro field at Kona in both 2016 and 2017. As the Director of Business Development for CLASH, she works to elevate the performance opportunity for the pro field as CLASH events. You can also catch her on camera for the NBC coverage of CLASH races. Alicia, thanks for joining us!
Alicia Kaye: Thank you so much for having me, Andrew! I’m really excited to be here.
Andrew: I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we will roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with our cooldown. We have a TriDot Ambassador on the cooldown today sharing his experience racing CLASH Watkins Glen, so I can’t wait to hear about that. Lots of good stuff, let's get to it!
Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Andrew: The upcoming CLASH Daytona, I will be racing the sprint on Saturday and then doing a relay for the middle distance on Sunday. I’m excited about it. It’s actually my first big event doing a relay, and what a cool venue for it at Daytona Motor Speedway. But it makes me wonder, if you could race a relay with your tri BFFs on any course in the world, what course are you racing, and what leg of the relay are you choosing to do? Alicia, we’ll throw this to you first.
Alicia: I thought about this question quite a bit, because I’ve been fortunate enough to race in some pretty unbelievable places.
Andrew: Yeah, true!
Alicia: Off the top of my head, Pucón will always stand out to me as one of those just pinch-yourself start lines, like, “How did I get here?” Zell am See is another one, and finally getting to race in the Bahamas on a private island, those were all pretty unbelievable experiences. But I would have to say Zell am See just purely for the scenery, it was just an unbelievable venue. And I have to pick my two BFFs in triathlon, Helle Frederiksen from Denmark and Katie Zaferes from the States, who recently won multiple medals in Tokyo. I don’t even know who should swim, bike, and run. Those two are both incredible, so whatever they picked, I would take the leftovers.
Andrew: That’s quite a trio right there, for sure. And on a course like Zell am See, you can’t go wrong with any of the three disciplines as your relay leg. Great pick. I’ve looked at the 70.3 there, a very, very cool course over there for sure. Bill, for you, if you were going to relay with your tri BFFs, where would you want to do it?
Bill: This is not a conversation that we haven’t talked about, so it’s actually kind of entertaining. Hands-down, Roth. I think that’s about the vibe and the people and the energy. The thought of racing in front of 250,000 people jammed into a little bitty German town, then the experience front to back on that is just – I agree with Alicia on the scenery – but the energy associated with that race, I don’t think can be touched. So that would be my pick.
Andrew: Okay! I have Challenge Roth on my short list here. Long-time listeners of the podcast will know how badly I would love to race Challenge Roth. Bill, Alicia, I claimed I was a one‑and-done full-distance Ironman. I wanted to do one and never return to that distance ever again. I did Ironman Waco a little bit ago, and the one that I would come back for is Challenge Roth. The bike course on Challenge Roth in particular would be the one I would want to do if I was relaying with a crew. My pick here has to be the swim in Kona, only because I haven’t been there yet. I’m going there this year for the first time. The date this podcast releases, it’s actually probably just a few days until I’m flying to Kona. I’m obviously not racing, I’m not that fast. But I will, while I’m there, hit Dig Me Beach and probably go for a swim. That’ll probably scratch that itch, just to see that famous swim course in Kona. Alicia, I know you’ve raced there before. So that’s my pick. I would want to relay Kona, and I would want to do the swim leg myself, just to get in that water and see the scenery there, and swim that iconic course. But the bike at Challenge Roth, and honestly the run at CLASH Watkins Glen would be my two other picks, and we’ll talk in a little bit about CLASH Watkins Glen and some of the races you have in your portfolio. But as a long-time NASCAR fan, I know what that Watkins Glen race course is like. It’s a very, very cool NASCAR track, and to just hit the run course there, I believe, Bill, it’s two loops for the middle distance of that track. That track’s got a lot of turns, it’s got a lot of hills. It’s just very, very neat, and I would love to do a relay where I’m doing the run leg of Watkins Glen, and burn it to the ground and see what my fitness can do on that course. That would be my pick.
Bill: That’s a great pick, it is my favorite race track in the country. The topography there is amazing. The turns are there. Yeah, I couldn’t think of one better, that’s a good call.
Andrew: Yeah, glad I have your endorsement there. Hey, we’re going to throw this question out to you, our audience, as we always do. Make sure that you are part of the I AM TriDot Facebook group. Every single Monday we post the warmup question when the new episode drops, just to find out what you, our audience, has to say. So make sure you’re a part of the I AM TriDot Facebook group, find the post asking you, if you were doing a relay with your tri BFFs, what course would you do that relay on, and which leg of the relay would you take yourself?
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
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Andrew: Before he was the CEO of CLASH Endurance, Bill Christy was an age‑grouper looking for multi-sport events that would allow the entire Christy family to participate in a race-cation of sorts. After coming up empty in that endeavor, the idea and the ethos for CLASH Endurance was born. Featuring a stacked pro field, multiple races throughout the weekend, and ways to involve the entire family, CLASH Endurance events should absolutely be making their way onto your race calendar. Before we get to all the fun NASCAR track triathlon fun, Bill, I want to hear about Bill Christy the triathlete. Take us back in time to your very first triathlon. Where was it, and what made you decide to do it?
Bill: You know, it was a toss-up between this and talking about my funnest experience, because I would argue that this experience had pretty strong components of both. It was 2014. I had started cycling in 2012. I was a weightlifter, had gained a bunch of weight lifting weights. I was 205 pounds. I was a big guy at 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and I couldn’t run to my mailbox and back without having a coronary, or at least getting oxygen. So it was time to do something different. A very dear friend of mine got me cycling. Alicia, you know Aldo is just a spectacular guy. From there, my step-son at the time was a professional race car driver, and he was moving to Charlotte because his team, as he went up a level in racing, required that he was there full-time. So he was moving to Charlotte, but he was concerned, and rightly so. We have such a strong family bond with all our kids. He said, “You know, we get to hang out all the time, that’s going to go away. We’ve got to do something to stay together.” “Okay, what are you thinking?” He said, “We should do a triathlon.”
Andrew: The perfect hobby!
Bill: Yeah, I remember looking at Lesa, my bride, and saying, “Okay.” He said, “Bill, you’re a cyclist, you know how to cycle. I’ll run. Mom, you’re a great swimmer. We’ll do this and call it triathlon.” So off we went. In 2014 we went to Claremont and did a race, and I’m telling you, we showed up probably ten minutes before the gun went off, had no idea what we were doing.
Andrew: Plenty of time!
Bill: Plenty of time! Got registered, racked the bike, dropped our stuff in transition, had to go back to the car for cash, because we didn’t know about the $12.00 cash rule for passes. Gun went off, Lesa had a fantastic swim, beautiful in the water. She ran, ran, ran, jumped, started swimming, and this guy was running next to her, because the water was a little shallow and he was like, 6 feet 5. So she felt a little disadvantaged. She swam around the first buoy, got around the second buoy, came out, got into transition. I gave her a big hug and a kiss in transition, told her how proud I was of her as I was changing chips, only to hear my step-son screaming at us from outside transition, “There’s no kissing in transition! There’s no kissing in triathlon!” I left out on my bike, I went out and wrecked on the course, I was late getting in. Ben said, “What happened, Mom?” Mom said, “Well, you know, Billy probably went into a turn a little hot and crashed,” which I did. I came out, Ben got the chip, Ben went out, and that was the start. We kept doing relays for quite a bit, then Ben challenged us one night over dinner and a bottle of wine to a middle distance. And he said, “We can’t do that in a relay, we’re going to do it each.” So we started racing sprints and Olympics prepping for a middle distance, and we were hooked. Ben just did his first full, and it’s kind of fun. He raced a 10:32 –
Andrew: Oh wow, that’s impressive.
Bill: – and he spent 28 minutes in transition. And Laura Siddall says, “Ben, what were you doing for 28 minutes?” He never rode more than 60 miles, never ran more than 11 miles, but he always got his swims in. But he’s been an athlete all his life, so that’s the excuse I give. That was it, that’s what made us do it. It was a family function of trying to stay together and stay connected with our kids when they were moving out of town.
Andrew: I nominate, “There’s no kissing in triathlon!” to be the next, “There’s no crying in baseball!” That’s got to become a mainstream phrase thanks to this episode.
Alicia: T‑shirts, that’s a T‑shirt.
Andrew: I think it’s awesome, Bill. I had no idea that you got your start as a triathlete in relay when I picked that warmup question for today. So we can call it fate, I guess, for us to talk about relays in the warmup today, that’s how you got your start. What a great way to ease into the sport and get that experience. And congrats to your son on his first Ironman! Which race did he do?
Bill: He raced Cozumel.
Andrew: Bill, your first full-distance tri was Ironman New Zealand in 2017. Actually, you and I both started as amateur triathletes in the same year, 2014. That’s when I started doing this as well. My first 70.3 was the half-Ironman in New Zealand in 2018. So I just missed, barely, sharing the course with you in New Zealand by one year. Very close to a very cool coincidence halfway around the world for the two of us. Alicia, I have actually shared a race course with you however, the inaugural 70.3 Waco in 2018. A lot of our audience is in Texas, that was the year the swim was canceled. There was a ton of rain, and the river was a lake and not a river. So Alicia, between me and you both racing that day, it was close.
Alicia: It was very close.
Andrew: You only beat me by one hour and five minutes. I almost had you. Twenty-two years in the pro field for you, you certainly had a great time for a long time. Looking back, what was your favorite moment from your pro career? Maybe the one you think about the most?
Alicia: Yeah, I feel like I had two peaks in my career. One was at that age where I was young and it was really exciting. My trajectory was really steep. I won a Junior National title, I want to say it was 2001. To give the listeners an idea of how seriously I was taking the sport at a young age, I left high school for months at a time to do training camps, whether it was out in Victoria, British Columbia, or going to Australia. Doing all my studies, getting emails from my teachers and having my friends get homework for me. I was traveling to the States to do races like Memphis in May when I was 14 and 15 years old, and missed a lot of the experiences that I think a lot of young people expect from high school, like prom. I missed my prom to go to Junior National Championship, which I definitely don’t regret because the Junior National Championship was super special. I went off the front, and that’s where I really gained a lot of confidence from that win in 2001. That was just a really meaningful National Championship for me. Then the other was probably when I had my breakthrough performance in 2013. Those two results are well over a decade apart. I think that’s important to note, because I did go through a pretty serious burnout phase in my early 20’s, where I was ready to retire and leave the sport for a variety of different reasons. =I hope we’ll get to talk about in youth racing podcast, so I can help educate young people that are into the sport, and also coaches and parents that are helping youth navigate this. But I was ready to retire, and I actually had the best years of my career in my early 30’s. I had left my Federation in Canada. They told me I wasn’t the right somatotype to be competing, which is a nice way of saying you’re too big, and it was a really difficult time. Those are difficult words to hear, I think, as a young female athlete. But I went on to have the best years of my career racing for the United States, and did that in 2013 at the age of 30 and 31 years old. I think I turned 31 that year, and won the St. Anthony’s triathlon against a super-deep field. They had just had the WTS race in San Diego the week before, so the best short-course athletes were there racing. That was in the peak of the Lifetime series, so there were legit non‑draft athletes racing. And I won. It was just a complete shock, and then I went on to win every single race I did that year except for Hy-Vee. That was my breakout year, so winning that race in St. Anthony’s made me realize that I had arrived. I was one of the best in the world, and I planned on staying there for as long as I could. That was a really special moment for me.
Andrew: So the three F’s of CLASH: fun, family, festival. Bill, it was your vision to create a series of multi-sport festivals that was fun for the athlete and fun for the family, and bonus points for them being in great vacation destinations. Bill, your background, ironically I guess, is not in large sporting event production. What made you decide to pursue this vision, go this direction, and how did it become the CLASH events that we see on the race calendar today?
Bill: Well, first off I’d add one more F to the fun family festival, and that’s “fierce”, as in fierce competition.
Andrew: Wow, can’t leave that out!
Bill: Can’t leave that out. You know, you look at people like you and I who started in the sport at the same time. Where we went to race, and why we went to race there. It got to the point where I was racing, and my kid couldn’t make it, and my wife wasn’t going to go that distance. So I was racking my bike and going to my hotel and putting my feet up, and I was racing the next day and I didn’t know anybody. There were a lot of things that came together at the same time, and I said, “There’s got to be a better way to do it.” And kudos to Charlie Lydecker – who one day we’ll be seeing because I talk about him a bunch – a dear friend of mine, looked at me and said, “Hey, we should swim Lake Lloyd inside the Speedway.” I said, “Has it ever been done?” He said, “No, it’d be historic.” Charlie’s a phenomenal open-water swimmer. He won the Alcatraz race when he was 49 years old, took out all the pros, took out all the college kids at 49.
Andrew: Wow.
Bill: That turned into me bumping into Zibi Szlufcik in Claremont, as he was looking for a new venue, and I and Charlie said, “You guys should do it here. You should base a triathlon out of the Speedway,” and we were lucky enough to do that. 2018 we started, it was our first race. We had 1,480 competitors, which makes you a bit numb to starting up a race where you don’t have 1,200 competitors. You say to yourself, “What’d we do wrong?” We did Miami after that, Miami was 1,600 competitors. As you know, Daytona’s grown to over 3,000. The event component is really a joy for me. Now I can’t speak the same way of Alicia and Andre and Phillip, Blair and the rest of the team.
Andrew: The team that puts on the events, tirelessly.
Bill: They’re the ones who are really doing all the hard work. But yeah, it was a play of passion, because I couldn’t find races all over the world. I was in one in Latin America that I couldn’t find a good hotel, couldn’t find a decent restaurant, had to change into my dry clothing in a port-a-potty, and had paid for a VIP pass.
Andrew: Been there.
Bill: Right. I said, “There’s got to be better than this. We’ve got to be able to do better than this,” and I was lucky enough to have a lot of people around me who said, “We think you’re right.” I bring this up all the time, but these are the little things that matter to us. I had a great swim on a middle-distance race in Latin America, I came out of the water and I ran into transition, and I remember something underneath, a stone under my foot. And I got about 20k into the bike ride, and look down and my foot was warm, my shoe was totally bloody. I had cut my foot on a rock in transition, which was a converted series of tennis courts. So one of the first things, one of the things you’ll hear routinely with us, is there’s red carpeting everywhere.
Andrew: There is, and it’s a whole lot of it.
Bill: We spend a lot of money on carpet. Those are the reasons why. I think the things that we do well are the things that I felt as though were done well. I tell people all the time, the best way to figure out how to be a good manager is to have a bad manager, and I think the best way to have a good race experience is to figure out what race experiences you’ve had in the past. So the answer to your question of why and how is pure passion, and having enough people around me that really understood television broadcasting, large event production, moving people from Place A to Place B, then the ability to bring on the team that we’ve been so fortunate to bring on.
Andrew: Yeah, so Alicia, you’re one of those key team members that have been able to come onto the team, and it’s very cool to see you stay in the sport after your own racing career concluded. How did you get plugged in with the team at CLASH Endurance?
Alicia: So I met Bill Christy, I want to say it might have been when you were cycling, just getting into triathlon phase. We met at the Champions Ride, which was hosted by Scott Legasse, leading into the Daytona 500, and got to ride with some super-famous NASCAR drivers. To just give you a context of how low my NASCAR I.Q. is –
Bill: Was.
Alicia: Was, exactly. I was chatting with Jimmy Johnson –
Andrew: Yeah, heard of him.
Alicia: – who is an avid cyclist, and he was like, “So, what do you know about NASCAR?” And I said, “Have you seen the movie ‘Cars’?” And he’s like, “The Pixar one?” And I was like, “Yeah, that one. That is my reference for NASCAR.”
Andrew: And you’re telling this to seven-time world champion Jimmy Johnson.
Alicia: I know, and when I reflect back on it I cringe. But he’s saying this to me as we’re about to go into the tunnel and ride into that venue, and to see all those RVs and all those people there for those athletes. It just blew my mind, that was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had. I got to do that ride a number of times, and meet a lot of really great athletes, both in the endurance sports space, but also in the motor sports space. It was really amazing. So much crossover there. So I got to know Bill then, and obviously raced at the time, which was Challenge Daytona. I was a part of the weather delay.
Bill: You were a part of the inaugural. You were part of the weather delay. You took second place that year.
Alicia: Yeah, I took second place that year, and we created the Daytona distance, which we’ve brought back for our professional event this year.
Bill: YOU created the Daytona event.
Alicia: Yeah, it was athlete voted.
Andrew: Take credit! Take credit where it’s due!
Alicia: Yeah, it’s all my idea, everything is my idea. So we obviously loved that experience. I wanted to come back the following year in 2019, but I was going through a lot of personal stuff at the time, and unfortunately lost my mom to cancer in July 2019, and did not race again after that. I really wanted Daytona to be my final race I wanted to have one more race experience where I knew it was my last, and I could take in the entire experience knowing it was my last. I unfortunately didn’t get to have that because I was just battling so many injuries, and just couldn’t get healthy enough. So we kind of did a very loose livestream broadcast that year, and then the following year was 2020 where it was a full-on NASCAR Productions broadcast, and I still feel very grateful to this day that Bill picked up the phone, called me, and said, “We’d love you to do field commentary.” That’s kind of how it started. I did field commentary for both Daytona and Miami, and finally got brought on as a full-time employee earlier this year.
Bill: You were referred.
Alicia: Yeah, so it’s been really fun to reconnect with the sport. I did need a break, I’ll be really honest. I did need a break, and it was perfectly timed with that, but it’s been wonderful to reconnect with the sport, and also to be working for a company that’s genuinely trying to make it better, and not trying to just see athletes as dollar signs. We’re trying to change the sport, we’re trying to make it something that, when you’re in the airport – how many times you’ve been flying, and someone’s like, “Oh, what’s in that box?” And you’re like, “Oh, I do triathlon,” and they’re like, “Is that like pentathlon?” They don’t know what it is. So we’re really trying to make triathlon a mass-market sport, and Bill is the inspiration behind that. So it feels really, really good to be giving back and trying to contribute, and really elevate the sport for all, not just the professionals, but for all. So a bit of a long answer, but that’s the answer.
Andrew: Yeah, happy to hear it all. I think it really shows people the heart of the company. It shows you are triathletes, designing an experience for other triathletes. We don’t have to name names, but everybody knows which races are just trying to get registration money, and which races take care of us athletes. There’s a tangible difference when you show up on race weekend. At the time we’re recording this, I just raced PTO Dallas over the weekend. PTO is starting to put on races, and kind of the same thing, they’re trying to make it a good experience for the athlete. I will say this. I actually grew up a huge NASCAR fan. I follow the sport now kind of loosely at best, but when I was a kid we were season ticket holders to the night race at Daytona. Not the Daytona 500. At the time it was the Pepsi 400, when we were season ticket holders. I was a ginormous Jeff Gordon fan. He was my guy. I had my picture taken with him as a kid, it’s got an autograph, the whole works.
Bill: That’s when he had a mullet.
Andrew: Yeah, back when he had the mullet! I have a little Jeff Gordon Funko POP on my desk to this day where he has the mustache and the mullet. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world when I saw that triathlon was coming to Daytona International Speedway. Now there’s also races in Miami, there’s the race in Watkins Glen, Atlanta. All at big‑time motor speedways. So the tie to motor sports has become kind of the calling card of CLASH multi-sport festivals. Bill, I’ve always wondered this, why and how did CLASH get hooked up with all these famous speedways in NASCAR?
Bill: Alicia and I were talking about this earlier. This is probably one of the most uncomfortable questions.
Andrew: Is it?
Bill: Hands-down. And if you knew me well enough you’d know that I’m not a small personality, but there are certain things that make me awful humble awful quick, and this is one of those. I am lucky enough to be married to Lesa France Kennedy. As you know, the France family owns NASCAR. So the exposure that we get, the support that we get – not economic – but the support that we get from everybody in the NASCAR building is amazing. Many of them are triathletes, many of them are runners, it’s a really unique group of people. They have showers in the offices for athletes for changing, after running or whatever. The depth and breadth of experience that we get as a company, where we get all of those things that are great to have around you without having to take on all of the other things that happen in big corporations. We get the best of the stuff we want, and the stuff we don’t need we don’t have to use. And we get all that expertise. It’s at our fingertips, and we get to make phone calls and talk about TV ratings pretty quickly, and track operations experience right away, and if we have issues on this or that or the other. My affinity towards racing started because I watched my step-son racing at age 17. He raced through K&N series, actually through super-late model K&N series trucks, and Xfinity. Now, for those who don’t know what those are, I would correlate them to single-A baseball, AAA baseball, right? So he in essence played single-A, AA, AAA and never made it to the show, never raced a cup race.
Andrew: Only 30‑something guys at a time get to.
Bill: That’s exactly right. Guys and gals. So that was probably the question I hate the most, and hopefully I wasn’t horribly awkward.
Andrew: No, you weren’t. You approached it very well. For us athletes coming to these races, I can give you some context. It’s very cool to see the support NASCAR shows for these races, shows for us as triathletes to know that so many people involved in that sport are triathletes or cyclists. I follow Jimmy Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Junior and some of those guys on Strava, and it’s always cool to see them get out on their bikes and ride. Bill, I live about 20 minutes away from Texas Motor Speedway, and it’s always very impressive to see the ways that the speedways – there’s only one or two NASCAR races per year depending on the track, and Indy car comes through some of them, some other forms of racing – but just to see the creative ways that speedways get more people on the premises. They’re great facilities. It’s a win-win-win for everybody: win for the tracks, a win for NASCAR, win for triathletes. So we’re starting to take over NASCAR tracks with triathletes, and we’re doing weekend-long multi-sport festivals. When we say it’s a festival, what does that mean? What vibe and what activities can athletes expect to experience when they attend a CLASH event at these tracks?
Alicia: When I think about what I grew up in at this sport, it was a weekend-long experience. I would go with my siblings, I would go with my parents. We would camp, we would cook out. There was an event for everyone. People stayed the entire weekend and made a weekend out of it. That is really what we’re trying to recreate. It was about being together with your friends and your family in this triathlon community, and I think back to those experiences when I look at what we’re trying to create. That is why we’re seeing the RV concept, and coming and staying with us Thursday through Monday. Make it an entire weekend, and experience not only the professional event on Friday, but there’s everything from the 5k fun run, if you want to walk that and indulge in the adult beverages at the aid stations. There’s the kids race, if there’s kiddos involved. To the most aspirational event of the weekend, which is probably the middle distance. But we’re really trying to make triathlon more accessible. We’re trying to normalize showing up with a Huffy. That’s okay, you do not need to have a $20,000 time trial bike and an aero helmet and Lycra. And that’s how I raced. I didn’t have a fancy bike. I didn’t have elastic shoelaces. You can show up to a triathlon and become a triathlete –
Andrew: With whatever you got!
Alicia: Exactly, with whatever you got. And it’s really trying to make it more accessible to the masses, and to give people a really great experience. Because if you see people that look like you, walk and talk like you, kind of have the same gear as you, you feel comfortable. That’s what I experienced in triathlon. There was something for everyone. Everyone fit in in triathlon, so we’re really trying to recreate that. That experience not only comes from the RVs, but Bill’s vision with the food trucks, and to create opportunities to have some of that cookout experience without having to do it yourself. We’ve got live music, and have a band –
Bill: The beer garden!
Alicia: Yeah, the beer garden, the wine garden. We’re really trying to make triathlon fun again. We’ve talked about how people finish the race, get in their car, and leave. Sometimes you might stick around for awards. We’re really trying to encourage the people: cross the line, grab a beer, get your post-race massage and shower in our epic recovery lounge, and then circle up and go cheer people as they’re finishing their race. How inspiring is it to not only have your finisher medal around your neck, but then to go and lift someone up that’s still enduring their challenge of becoming a triathlete, or trying to get a personal best, or whatever their goal is for that day. We’re trying to bring community back to triathlon. It’s not just about your own race, but it’s about the entire experience and those around you as well. We jokingly say the athlete that we want to come race CLASH events is the athlete that waves hi to you on the bike. That’ll take the time to stop if they see you flatted on the side of the road, “Hey, do you have everything you need?” Really making sure that we become a community, that’s the type of energy that we want at our events.
Bill: Well said. I couldn’t have said it better. Watching, walking around the campgrounds is probably one of my favorite things to do. I’ll be fair, the TWO favorite parts of the festival weekend is the kids’ race for me – we’ve got two levels of the kid race – and then walking through the RV campground. I did it last year, I think it was Daytona, with Bob Babbitt. Bob started interviewing people and talking about it. We stayed with them last year, and this year we got our own RV. We’ve got our friends that have an RV, and they had their own little cordoned-off area, which is kind of fun. But Alicia’s right. There was a time when people would stop and look at you and say, “Do you have what you need? Are you okay?” If they wrecked on their bike, people wouldn’t worry about their time was, they’d stop. We’re lucky, we’re obviously doing this in a very protected environment. As you know, we have our own emergency rooms on site at each of our tracks, which makes a big difference. But the thought that, when I started, when you started, serious athletes would walk back down, and walk 3,000 meters, a thousand meters, a hundred feet, and cheer you on. That doesn’t happen anymore. We want that back. We want that back, because that’s what made me love this sport, and I think it needs to come back, to Alicia’s point.
Andrew: We kind of accidentally stumbled into that experience last year without even trying to. We had a few dozen TriDot athletes on site racing. Some did the sprint, some did the middle distance the following day. We had some folks go mid-4:00’s, high 4:00’s, low 5:00’s, and we had some folks go 7‑ish hours, and throughout the day we just very organically ended up with all those folks who had already finished, the folks that had done the sprint the day before, we had a big group. God bless the security guards that were supposed to keep people out of the finish line area. Somehow half of our crew ended up behind that security line, putting medals around the necks of other TriDot athletes. We probably shouldn’t have been back there in that way, but somehow we got there.
Bill: When that is asked of us, we do that. So wives, for their husband’s first middle distance, we get them. Families that want to cross the line together, relay teams that want to cross the line together, that’s who we are. You obviously did a pretty good job to get past the security line, but we really like the fact that you did that, so we’re happy you had that opportunity.
Andrew: And my personality, I’m a rule follower, so I was not one of the ones. I want to go on record, I was not one of the ones who pushed that limit. But TriDot coach Joanna Nami who many of our podcast listeners are familiar with, was the one who will push limits to take care of her athletes. So she ended up just chit-chatting with Kristian Blummenfelt at the finish line while putting medals around athletes’ necks, having pushed through the security line. Another TriDot coach I’ll give a shout-out to is TriDot coach Dan Caskie, a long-time TriDot ambassador who just got his coaching accreditation. He lives in North Carolina, and every year he drives down with his RV and camps with the family. Last year he ended up in the campground, and they’d just settled in. His kids were participating in the youth event, and his kids are playing in the playground in the RV park inside the stadium, and there’s a couple other kids playing with his kids. And he looks around the corner and discovers that his kids are playing with Tim and Rinny O’Donnell’s kids, because they were in the RV next to them. Just so cool to have everybody there just hanging out, having that festival experience. So take us a little bit behind the scenes of the event production, because obviously a field of this size, a venue of this size, it takes a lot to put on an event of this scale. What all goes into that?
Alicia: Oh gosh.
Bill: It’s daunting.
Andrew: You’re probably working on it right now, right?
Alicia: Yeah, we’re in the thick of it. Honestly, as an athlete, I do hope that at some point we can really take a deep dive into this, and share with our participants and our followers on social media what truly goes into producing an event like we do. It starts as simply as getting the venue, booking the venue. Is it available? A lot of people don’t realize – you probably do, Andrew – these venues aren’t just sitting vacant and empty when there’s not cars flying around them for events. They’re hard to book up. There’s all kinds of events that happen inside a NASCAR speedway. So securing the venue is number one, then securing road closures. Safety is priority number one for us. Creating the courses, all of that. What events can we offer, what are the things in the area that we can highlight? Like Watkins Glen, there was a real effort to highlight the natural beauty of that area, and to make sure athletes could experience it. Then you break it down to athlete food, expo, registration experience, athlete experience inside. Where are the bathrooms? How close are the showers?
Bill: Welcomer’s training.
Alicia: Yeah, it just is insane, the amount of effort that goes into athlete experience, and that starts with the simplest, which is creating a safe and fun, fair course. But then everything else that goes into that, to parking, toilets, food, registration, merchandise.
Andrew: Toilets.
Alicia: Toilets are key.
Bill: We’re lucky, we’ve got built-in showers and toilets all over the facility, so that’s kind of nice.
Alicia: Yeah, it’s the little things. We don’t want to overlook those, and I think the one thing I will say, that I have felt is the real differentiator with CLASH, is we want to hear feedback. We’re human, we are lean-and-mean staff, and we kill ourselves to put on the best event possible. We care so much. But if something’s not right, we want to make it right. That is really important to us. We really listen to athlete feedback, and we sit down in post-mortem events for days, really analyzing how are the ways that we can improve. That type of attention to detail is how we’re going to continue to get better. But we really rely on athlete feedback to create the best user experience possible.
Andrew: Of course, while I have the CEO of CLASH Endurance on my podcast, I’ve got to talk about the toilets at CLASH Endurance events. Why would you not, right? While you have the big cheese on. So the first year I did CLASH Daytona, I didn’t realize that there were extra port-a-potties down by the swim start. There were a handful in the transition area, but I think we were all supposed to move towards the swim start and use those pre‑race. So I ended up in the line in transition, and barely made it out of the port-a-potty and down to the swim start before the swim actually started. So I want you guys to know, I was in the port-a-potty doing my thing, taking care of that pre‑race bowel movement, when the pre‑race fireworks went off, which was cool, a nice little touch, a very patriotic moment. The National Anthem plays, the lake is there, the athletes are there, fireworks go off, and I’m in the port-a-potty doing my thing. That was a nice intro to my race day the first year I did the event. So the CLASH events are drawing stacked pro fields. We’ve seen that every single year. It's very clear that pros are motivated to jump into the CLASH races. Alicia, you’re a big part of that happening. What makes these races so special for the pros, and what feedback are you hearing from them as you shepherd them through that weekend?
Bill: That actually takes you back to the last question, which was the production comment. Putting a race on in itself is daunting. But doing it the way we do it, where we close roads, we don’t have two‑way traffic, the cyclists are totally protected. In Miami, you’re out on a causeway between Key Largo and Miami that’s just amazing and beautiful, but you don’t have to worry about anything besides you. Daytona, it’s a power course. You put your head down, you hammer the pedals. Again, it’s protected and locked down, and security’s important to us. But then you look at the production side, where we’re actually producing a live television event. Producing a live television event, versus even an NCAA Division 1 football game, are different. While those are live, the person with the red hat comes out, touches their head, and the game stops. NASCAR races don’t stop. So I think my favorite comment was Bob Babbitt asked one of the production team folks, “Hey, are you guys going to be able to keep up with these guys on the bikes?” And the guy had a big Cinevox camera on the back of the truck, and he said, “How fast do these guys go?” He said, “About 30.” “How fast do the women go?” He said, “About 28, 25, 20.” He takes a bite of his sandwich and says, “I think we’re good. We reach 200 miles an hour, I think we’re good.” But talk about a runner’s show, and making that runner’s show work inside of the day‑in-day-out operational component of what the team has to put forward is a huge endeavor. I think we were very fortunate that NASCAR Production’s folks, that do all the TV for NASCAR, have enough experience where they taught our talent. We brought Rick Allen in, who’s an NBC commentator, but everybody else frankly had to be taught how to be a commentator at that level.
Alicia: Yeah, including myself.
Bill: But the NASCAR Production team, they were so amazing. I’ll let you speak to that.
Alicia: Yeah, I think the thing that makes CLASH Endurance unique, particularly, are our professional events. And this has a lot to do with the fact that Bill is constantly reminding us in office – because we all come from the triathlon space and have extensive experience in the triathlon space – is to let go of the rules and the way things have been done. So you’re going to continue to see us innovate, particularly with our professional event, to just sort of get rid of or let go of concepts that are traditionally done in professional racing. Like a standardized distance, for example. You’re going to see us get away from that more and more often, and have fun with the distances. Our Daytona distance is kind of right in between an Olympic and a middle distance. This Daytona this year is going to be a real clash between short-course and long-course athletes. It’s going to be super exciting. It’s little things like treating the athletes like professionals. When they get there, every single athlete’s getting a professional headshot done, so that we are creating the graphics from a production standpoint. When that athlete is announced on screen, it’s not just their name, a beautiful headshot comes up with their sponsors’ logos on their race kit.
Bill: Yeah, and every time they pass, it pops up.
Alicia: The graphics that are involved in our production are really next-level. It’s this combination between taking what triathlon is, putting our spin on it, and then elevating it with the best broadcast team in the world as far as I’m concerned. The pros see that and experience that. To give you an idea, we’ve already been meeting for well over a month for the production of the professional event in Daytona, the television component. We are already working on that, and I daresay that no other professional television –
Andrew: – thinks that far ahead.
Alicia: Uh uh, no way. So we’re very thoughtful.
Bill: Especially as we’re adding new elements.
Alicia: Yeah, we’re very thoughtful with the pro race, and Bill gives me the freedom to bring him the craziest ideas, and he entertains them no matter how frightening they are. So you’re going to see some really cool, innovative things that we’re still kind of keeping close to our chest –
Andrew: Okay, that’s fair!
Alicia: – as for now in Daytona, that are going to not only make the coverage really interesting, it’s also going to give the professionals an even better race experience. There’s a lot of things that we’re doing to just continue to innovate and make the sport better and make it an exciting televised product.
Bill: I think that’s what the answer to his question was, “Why are the pros interested? Why do they come here?” I think you say it best, and I’ve heard you say it a gazillion times, “How much TV would you like to be on?”
Alicia: Yeah, they’re definitely excited about our viewership, and their sponsors are excited about that viewership. The sport’s really changed from a sponsorship perspective. It’s less about results, and more about – well, the results are still important – but the coverage that you get as an athlete, digitally is becoming increasingly important. So we want to make it easier for athletes to get their names out there, get their sponsors’ names out there, because as long as there’s sponsors and money coming into the sport, we all win. That’s all very important, so we’re contributing part of that. We want to help pros do that because the more that those companies are interested in the sport, the more money that is coming into this industry.
Andrew: I feel like, just as a fan of the sport, as an average athlete who’s following the pros, events like this where they are in front of the camera more than their normal weekend race, we get to know them better, you get a better sense of their personality. You see the press conferences where they’re having fun, cutting up, smack-talking a little bit, a little pre‑race banter, and it’s been fun as a fan to start getting to know who they are a little bit better. Some of them have their own YouTube shows where they do some of that and ingratiate themselves to the fans, but it does a good job of not just making them a face on the course, but you actually kind of get to know them. Racing PTO Dallas this weekend, we were watching the male pros and female pros racing, and having Sam Long and Lionel and Collin Chartier go by, and watching them duke it out for the win. It’s not just this athlete that you follow on social media that you admire, you feel like you know them a little bit, it makes you root for them that much harder. Alicia, I’m curious for you, because Bill mentioned that you came on staff with the team at CLASH as a commentator at first, then became a full-time member of the staff. What’s it been like for you learning how to be on camera, and how to be a commentator, and being a part of the production? Has that been a fun experience?
Alicia: It was super nerve-wracking at first. Our lead producer Keith, at NASCAR Productions, is a very patient teacher.
Bill: Sixteen Emmys between the crowd over there.
Alicia: Yeah, they’re incredible. It’s like drinking through a firehose, I’m learning so much. Even Rick Allen, I call him our team captain because he’ll give me feedback all the time. I’ll be doing a live piece, then the producer will come in my ear and he’s like, “Rick has a little bit of feedback for you.” So literally, in air, I’m getting coached. It’s incredible, and I think that’s really the other piece that we really bring to the puzzle, we have such a professional production team, soup to nuts. It’s pretty amazing. So I do the absolute best that I can, but I’m always trying to get better. I do it in my car, actually, I pretend to call things during the race.
Bill: I didn’t know that. I’m going to have to call Keith and tell him that.
Alicia: Yeah, I practice in my car. People who drive by me probably think I’m insane.
Andrew: Whatever it takes!
Alicia: Whatever it takes, to always be improving. Yeah, it’s been absolutely amazing, but it’s always nerve‑wracking. There’s no bigger rush than it going live and being thrown to you, and your mic’s on.
Andrew: So participating in the race yourselves, which I know you both have done, you both know how just completely dope it is to ride and run on these tracks. As you watch other age‑groupers hit the track and experience that for themselves, what emotions do you feel, knowing that you played a key role in making that experience happen?
Bill: I’ll give you an example. A very dear friend of mine, he’s part of the Orange Beach Triathlon Club. They’re a pretty tight-knit group. In fact, they didn’t talk to me for the first five years I was in town.
Alicia: Typical salty triathletes.
Bill: So Daytona’s known to be the fastest course in the world, we all know that.
Andrew: My 70.3 PR is there, so thank you.
Bill: Right! And you came in at 5:00. Hugh had never gone past an Olympic distance. He came in at 5:42, and I remember he collapsed at the finish line. He had done the sprint pro the day before with Meredith Kessler, and Meredith picked him off the ground, took him to a chair, started pouring ice on his head. That’s special for me. That’s a special moment. You, Alicia?
Alicia: My heart, I think, will always be with the professionals, because that was my life for so long.
Andrew: That’s fair, we’ll allow it.
Alicia: Yeah, I think the thing that really resonates for me as a female professional, as the platform that Bill has allowed me to create for women in this sport, the fact that our women have a clear and clean course, without interference from age‑group men or the professional men’s field. That is just a really big deal. It seems like a small thing, but it’s a huge deal for women. Because we have the races separate, we’re providing these women with equal coverage. We’re not doing the dance between the men’s race and the women’s race. The women get their day in the sun, and they get 50% of the sun, and men get the other 50%.
Andrew: As it should be!
Alicia: Yeah, and it shouldn’t have to be this groundbreaking thing, but there’s just things that have been done in this sport for years, like the men go off first and the women go off a few minutes after, every single time. So we’re just doing it different. Is it harder? Is it more expensive? Is it harder on our ops team? Absolutely. You have to be invested in giving women an equal opportunity to a fair race to do this. It would be so much easier if we sent our pro men off and then our pro women right after, and then we just kind of did our best to cover both. That’s half the TV expense. That’s half the time for your ops team setting up the course. Your volunteers being on staff for six hours instead of three hours. It’s harder, but it is worthwhile, and it is a priority for us. We’re going to continue to put emphasis on that, because I remember as a female athlete the first time I saw a woman that looked like me, and I thought, “I can be her.” We want to create those opportunities for young women and girls at home to see female triathletes doing their thing, making a living, and we want to be a part of that movement that is long, long overdue. So for me, that is something that really resonates with me, and feels really special to be a part of. I really credit Bill for giving me the freedom and the resources to do this.
Andrew: So we here at TriDot are collaborating with CLASH this year to give TriDot athletes just a grand old time in Daytona and Miami coming up. And Daytona, just weeks away at this point, we’ll have a lot of athletes there. We’ll have our own RV camping section for the athletes who want to camp and hang out. This is kind of a test run for both TriDot and CLASH. We’ve never done anything like this before, but we’re really excited about it. I’ve never camped in an RV, feet away from the swim start, at a race.
Alicia: This is going to ruin you for all of the triathlons.
Bill: You will be searching for an RV.
Andrew: Yeah, so we’re excited about this. I’ve already got our RV Share set up and everything. Alicia, what are you hoping that TriDotters get out of the festival experience in Daytona?
Alicia: I hope they fall in love with the sport again. Truly, truly fall in love with it. This sport was my life, I did it for well over half my life, and through some really formative years. I just want people who are getting into it to never stop, and I want the people that have been around awhile to remember why they got into it. Really bring it back to the roots. It’s a December race. Thanksgiving’s just a week or so before. You don’t have to be in shape to come to Daytona.
Andrew: I’m not in shape and I’m coming to Daytona.
Alicia: Good! Don’t be! We want you to show up and have fun! It is okay to show up to Daytona and just not be in great shape, be with your teammates, and just really make some new friends. I know that sounds idyllic, but it is absolutely possible, and I think immersing yourself in our venue is going to allow people to have that experience. That was why I stayed in the sport for as long as I did. Triathlon was like my religion, I don’t know how else to explain it. It was really everything, but it brought me so much good, and I want to help people have that same experience. So yeah, I hope that they fall in love with the sport all over again.
Bill: We’ve got a couple tricks up our sleeve for you guys, for your crowd when they get here. It’ll be fun.
Andrew: I can’t wait!
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Matt Ireson: Hey Andrew and TriDot family, this is Matt Ireson from Ontario, Canada here to give you my race recap and overall experience of this past July’s CLASH Watkins Glen. Back in 2021 when registration opened, I immediately signed up for Watkins Glen due to it being only a four-hour drive from my home, and that I’ve never been to the Finger Lakes region before, but heard it was a beautiful spot. I was quickly joined by my girlfriend and fellow TriDot Ambassador Ashley McDonald, and we reserved a boathouse on the canal downstream from Seneca Lake where the swim would be held. We were making this a much-needed race-cation, leaving all the kids and pets at home, arriving mid‑week to unwind and prepare, and staying for a few days after the race. Arriving into the Finger Lakes driving south along Seneca Lake, we were getting excited with all the wineries along the road. This excitement quickly turned into fear, as we descended the escarpment into Watkins Glen, realizing that the bike start would be climbing the same hill. We spent a few days swimming in Seneca Lake and checking out the bike course and all the local restaurants. Watkins Glen is definitely a great place for a race-cation. At race check‑in, everyone was talking about all the construction on the bike course and all of the hills, and that started to get us worried. On race morning at the debrief, we learned that CLASH CEO Bill Christy rode the bike course the day before, and worked with all the local authorities to address the areas of concern, highlighted them to us, and had some mats laid down on some of the sections that weren’t yet completed and still had gravel. In T1 on race day we were surprised again to see Bill Christy mingling with a few of the athletes getting prepared for the swim. He even spent some time helping Ashley get into her wetsuit, giving us some insights as to what we expected on the bike course. The swim was much different to the warmup days earlier, because the wind changed and was coming from the north now, creating a lot of whitecaps that were hitting us across the face. It was definitely a survival swim, but the wave start based on estimated finish time helped, as we were grouped with athletes of similar ability and there was a little bit of flow. The bike course was gorgeous for its scenery on the country roads and lakes, and also made you forget about the winds and the 900‑plus meters of elevation with only 600 meters of descending. If you know me from Facebook you will know that I love cycling, and I had an absolute blast on this bike course. Onto Watkins Glen Speedway for the 18 kilometer, three‑lap run. Another reason I chose this race was that, with the run being my weakness, I thought three laps on a NASCAR track would be manageable. Not this one. Each lap contains two 50‑meter climbs, this track was no joke. However, three aid stations on the course left us in good shape to finish this beautiful race. I managed to run the entire thing, just walking the aid stations. If we still needed hydration after, there was an international wine festival happening on the infield of the track. After the race, Bill Christy and several of the pros were hanging around, mingling with all the age‑groupers about the race, and most of the talk was about the bike course. Despite my slower run, I was able to hang on for third out of eight in the 45 to 49 age group, receiving a nice local bottle of Lakewood Vineyards Riesling to go with the CLASH backpack and towel and T‑shirt swag bag that we received the day before at registration. The next few days we spent recovering and enjoying the sunrise and sunsets on the canal, and we ventured into the Watkins Glen State Park and got to have a nice tour through all of its waterfalls. Also, as I’m sure you’re all aware, wearing a TriDot kit on race day you get to meet many other TriDotters. Lars Heise, for example, introduced himself to us when we were checking in to T2. He took first in the 45 to 49 age group, which is evidence of TriDot’s effectiveness. We highly recommend CLASH races because they do really have that family feel that they advertise in all of their interviews, and we received it right from the CEO, to all of the staff and the volunteers, and especially Watkins Glen for its combination of beauty and difficulty.
Andrew: Well, that’s it’s for today folks! I want to thank Bill Christy and Alicia Kaye for telling us all about the efforts of CLASH Endurance to revive the triathlon festival. If you want to join us at CLASH Daytona or CLASH Miami coming up, register using TRIDOTDAYTONA or TRIDOTMIAMI for 10% off your race registration. You can double the fun by booking a camping spot and joining the TriDot RV party at the race track. Shout out to UCAN for partnering with us on today’s episode. To experience UCAN’s LIVSTEADY products for yourself, head to their website, ucan.co, use the code TRIDOT to save 20% off your entire order. Thanks so much for joining! We’ll have a new show coming your way soon. Until then, happy training!
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