Professional Triathlete Cody Beals is known for being radically transparent with information about his career. From sharing session metrics to training-related health issues he's experienced to his finances as a pro triathlete, Cody doesn't withhold! On today's episode, Beals talks about his Tri journey and provides insight into the business and financials of being a professional triathlete. What does it take to turn a profit and make a career in triathlon racing? Find out in this radically transparent episode! At TriDot, we trust 2Toms to keep us moving! 2Toms provides revolutionary products to prevent issues from chafing, blisters, odors and sweat. To make the switch to 2Toms, head to Medi-Dyne.com and use the code “TRIDOT” to save 20 percent on your entire order. Huge thanks to deltaG for also partnering with us on this episode. To learn more about the performance boosting benefits of deltaG Ketones head to deltaGketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your order. On their site you can: 1. Learn more about fueling with deltaG ketone products. 2. Make a standalone purchase, or subscribe for ongoing deltaG ketone deliveries. 3. Book a FREE 15 minute video consultation with Brian, an expert on exogenous ketones, and deltaG in particular, to discuss your individual goals and best choice of deltaG drink to exceed those goals. Get to know the world's best triathlon training! Join a live demo of TriDot with podcast host Andrew Harley. Visit https://tridot.com/demo-tridot/ for more details. And don't forget to sign up to get updates and early access to the TriDot Mark Allen Edition to be released Fall 2022: https://tridot.com/mark-allen-signup/
TriDot Podcast .152
Radically Transparent: IRONMAN Champion Cody Beals
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 show! We’re certainly in for a treat today, as we have one pro triathlete and one almost-sorta-kinda pro triathlete on the show today to talk about the business side of being a pro. The pro joining us for this is four-time Ironman champion Cody Beals. Cody is a professional triathlete from Guelph, Ontario. At the time we are recording this podcast, he is a seven-time 70.3 winner, with full-distance wins at Lake Placid, Chattanooga, and Mont Tremblant. Cody has a degree in physics from Queens University, and worked as a consultant in the field of environmental science before turning pro full-time in 2014. Cody, welcome to the show!
Cody Beals: Thanks so much for having me! I always love how you Americans pronounce Mont Tremblant, it makes my day.
Andrew: I bet it does! The almost-pro joining us today is TriDot’s Vice President of Marketing, Matt Bach. Matt is an accomplished athlete with an Ironman Maryland victory, and a 72nd overall finish in Kona on his résumé. He worked on Wall Street as a trader and portfolio manager for nine years, earned his MBA from Temple University, and worked in marketing at UCAN for two and a half years before coming on board to lead TriDot’s marketing efforts. Matt, welcome back to the show!
Matt Bach: Thank you! Excited to be back on, and definitely excited to be on with Cody. We’ve been in touch and have been communicating for years and years now, I almost feel like we’re buddies.
Andrew: I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with Cody, chit-chatting with us on our cooldown.
But before we get to all of that, a quick, shameless TriDot plug: For any of our listeners who are not TriDot athletes: all good! We’re glad you’re here. You are a part of the TriDot family already, no matter what you use to train. But perchance, should you be interested in TriDot training, I will now be hosting occasional live TriDot demos, where I’ll be showing folks around the platform and giving you a peek at what the training looks like. When I was signing up for the Pre‑Season Project back in late 2018, that was my primary curiosity: What is this thing called TriDot, and what does it even look like? My first live demo will be on Wednesday, August 24, 8:00 p.m. Central Time. So head to tridot.com/demo-tridot to get more information and to register for that.
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Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Andrew: Whether singing, dancing, cooking, surviving, looking for money, or looking for love, there are a slew of TV reality competition shows that you can go on. Many of them even have celebrity editions, where viewers get to watch their favorite celebrities compete very far outside of their comfort zone. Matt, Cody, for our warmup question today: If you could pull pro triathletes onto a season of a reality competition show, which one would you choose, and why? Cody Beals, you’re the pro triathlete on this episode, so I’m super excited to hear what you have to say here. What do you got?
Cody: You’re assuming I actually have time to watch TV on top of all the demands of my career. Full disclosure, I don’t watch reality, I barely watch much TV. But Matt keeps recommending “Too Hot to Handle”. I don’t know if this is an all‑ages podcast. I think it’s a pretty spicy show. But people trying to keep their hands off each other, I think that could be attractive to pro triathletes.
Andrew: You know, pro triathletes are typically attractive people, so some form of a show where everybody’s looking for a little action, yeah. That’s an interesting pick.
Cody: I don’t watch it, I’m just putting it out there.
Andrew: Okay. So Cody is going with the reality show, “Too Hot to Handle”. He wants to see some pro triathletes get a little spicy. He wants to see how that would play out. Matt Bach, what is this answer for you?
Matt: So triathletes tend to be resourceful, analytical, they tend to know food pretty well, they’re fast, especially when moving in a straight line. But some of them get pretty clumsy. We’re not very good when we’re not moving in a straight line. So I’d love to see a bunch of pros competing on “Supermarket Sweep”. I could just imagine Sam Long barreling down the aisle like a bull in a china shop, or Lionel Sanders pushing a shopping cart in a tri kit wearing a Camelback. The show producers might not like it; they would undoubtedly topple displays and otherwise make a massive mess of the store. But I think it’d be entertaining.
Andrew: Matt, do we think that Lionel’s run form would be any different with a shopping cart in front of him than it is when he’s on the run course?
Matt: Somehow it might be even worse.
Andrew: All right! My pick here, I’m going with – now I’ve never watched this show. My household is not a “Dancing With the Stars” household. We are a “So You Think You Can Dance” household. My wife grew up on that show, and so she’s loyal to that show. So I’ve never watched Dancing With the Stars. But once I got the visual image of Jan Frodeno trying to samba, or Heather Jackson rocking her way through a Broadway-style choreo, or Cody Beals dropping it like it’s hot to a hip hop number, I could not get past the idea of seeing a group of pro triathletes going on Dancing With the Stars. You would pair them with a professional dancer, and they would have to learn a bunch of routines. I think we would see a different side of the personality of a lot of our favorite pros, to watch them, watch Cody be outside of his comfort zone, trying something new, competing in something new. Matt, you talked about how competitive pro triathletes are. I think they would go all‑out. They would put forth max effort into learning those dance routines every single week. So that’s my pick, “Dancing with the Stars”. Cody, what do you think about that one right there?
Cody: Sign me up! I mean, I have to qualify that though. There’s a reason I’m a pro triathlete and not things that require more coordination. I don’t know what the results would be like, but it sounds like fun.
Andrew: All right, we’re going to throw this question out to you, our audience, like we always do. Make sure that you are a part of the I AM TriDot Facebook group. We throw our warmup question out every single Monday when the new show drops. I am curious to hear: I know a lot of you love the pros, you follow the pros, and you probably watch more reality TV than Cody Beals does. So if you could get a group of pro triathletes on a reality competition TV show, which one would you choose and why? Let us know on Facebook!
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
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There are a lot of gifted athletes and great all‑around people in the pro triathlon field. So it’s always a pleasure to have a member of the pro tri community join us here on the TriDot podcast. And today it’s Cody Beals, here to talk all about his tri journey and give us some insight into the business end of being a pro. Cody, let’s start with a journey down memory lane for you. You ran competitively in your youth, and raced your first tri at the age of 16. But even starting as a teen, you didn’t necessarily choose running and triathlon for yourself. So tell us how you got started in endurance sports in the first place.
Cody: Well, I certainly wasn’t a gifted athlete as a kid. I was sometimes last picked at recess for the pick-up team sports and stuff like that. I think that was mostly just a product of growing up in rural Ontario and not playing hockey or lacrosse, which were the two mainstream sports there that 95% of the boys growing up played. It almost made me a bit of a pariah, since I was more involved with skiing and riding my bike and swim team, thanks to my parents who got me to do solo sports. They’re lifelong avid endurance sports enthusiasts. Not really triathletes, though my mom has dabbled a little bit. But thanks to the background and the intro and the supportive family environment, those of our family vacations and quality family time, it all centered on doing these sports together. So I’m really grateful for that introduction to it. Then swim team was my first taste of competition and man, I absolutely hated it. Like, I literally ran away from my very first swim meet as a 9‑year-old. When they called my number, when the marshal called my event, I came up and decided this was too terrifying, and I was out of there. I ran out of the building and was done with it. So really, the irony is not lost on me that I somehow ended up as pro triathlete.
Andrew: So you didn’t even get into the pool on your first swim meet?
Cody: Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t something that I had any indication of doing, of wanting to do as a kid. Even in my early 20’s, it was just off my radar. So I feel like it’s this rabbit hole I’ve just tumbled deeper down every year.
Andrew: I can just imagine our audience right now, for any of the adult-onset swimmers for whom just jumping in the pool is the last thing they want to do on a Monday or a Friday. They probably just related to you a little bit, and they probably never imagined they would relate a pro triathlete when it comes to not wanting to get into the pool. Did it take a little while for you to finally get into that competitive spirit?
Cody: You know, it did. I was a really academic kid, and academics were really familiar for me and felt safe. There was a clear relationship between the work I put in and the results, whether it was marks, or prestige, knowledge, or any of these things. And before long, I guess I realized the same relationship existed in sports. It was delivered practice that delivered results, at least in endurance sports. Maybe not in the more explosive power sports, that at least in primary school are more just based on talent. So I made that connection, and that’s what clicked for me, and I guess the rest is history after that. It’s really shaped the course of the next two decades of my life after that.
Andrew: Yeah, so just talking about your propensity towards academics: you graduated college with a degree in physics, and when you were first graduating college, you were starting your professional career in the sciences while you were training and racing triathlons. What was that balance like, trying to pursue full-time work as a physicist versus training for triathlon and trying to improve in that sport? It seems in the end, being a full-time triathlete won out.
Cody: Yeah, well it wasn’t strictly physics. It was environmental science consulting work. I got super lucky. This really cool consulting job basically dropped in my lap, and the key thing in terms of compatibility with pursuing triathlon is that it was really flexible. My boss was really understanding, he knew where my interests lay, and I didn’t have to lie to him about anything. I could work anywhere from zero to 80 hours a week if I wanted to, although I never got up to that level. So it really put me in this enviable position where I could dial back that work as my triathlon career ramped up. And man, it took a lot of time. My first pro season – after years of amateur triathlon earning zero dollars, only expenses – my first pro season I barely broke even. We’re talking $11K revenue and maybe $10K expenses or something, so just a shoestring budget. It took many more years after that, probably four or five years in my pro triathlon career, circa 2016, 2017, to actually start earning a level of income that I could support myself. But that consulting gig set me up in a great position where I didn’t have to be really stressed about hitting the ground running and making money in triathlon right away.
Andrew: So with your background in physics, you’ve always had a data-driven approach to your triathlon training. Which is something that, here at TriDot, we can fully get behind. How is a better understanding of the data affecting the way the pro field trains?
Cody: Earlier in my career I had just reams of data I collected in spreadsheets, and I’d be tracking all kinds of metrics, all the algorithms I played with to gauge fitness and readiness to train. And I’m still quite data-driven to a large extent, in terms of how tightly-scripted my training is. If it’s in the pool, it’s all about the pace clock. If we’re on the bike it’s all power. Ride is GPS pace, and I played around with some other metrics. But you know, ironically I guess, when it comes to broader things like form, readiness to train, I’ve actually come full circle back to leaning on more qualitative or holistic metrics. Just some basic questions I can ask myself, like how’s my mood, how’s my sleep, how’s my sex drive, how am I executing my training, am I enthusiastic about triathlon right now? Honestly, I put more stock in those sort of wishy-washy, qualitative things than I do data that any device could give me. But I don’t think these two approaches are mutually exclusive; they’re complementary. Those holistic, qualitative-type things give some context to the data, which I still scrutinize on a daily basis.
Matt: That’s really interesting, and that’s something I can definitely relate to too, given that we’ve connected on RED‑S and overtraining and all that. The fact that my performance wasn’t going down, those numbers were still there in the hard data, but the way that I was feeling, like the things you just mentioned. I was experiencing several of those things, and I can absolutely see how those are just as important if not sometimes more important, to really feel where you should be.
Cody: That’s a good point, Matt. It’s almost an insidious aspect of the sport, that you can be performing at a high level while your health is turning in the opposite direction as your fitness. Not for long I’d say, but you can be on borrowed time, especially when it comes to something like RED‑S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport), where you’re exhausting your endocrine system health, and your body weight might be trending down, your bone density is trending down, yet you’re somehow still getting more cardiovascularly fit. You’re sort of borrowed time. So if you want to play the long game correctly, which is imperative if you actually want to realize your full potential, the fitness and health are more closely intertwined than you might initially think.
Andrew: Matt, you shared on podcast Episode .46 all about your season of overtraining back when you were real competitively racing and considering going pro, and you identified that you had Relative Energy Deficiency. It was in that journey you were rebounding from that you first connected with Cody, and you guys became friends. Tell us how your interaction with Cody made a difference for you, walking through that period of rebounding from RED‑S.
Matt: I’ve got to thank Cody for a lot of things, really. Cody, your blog and your radical transparency was a godsend for me. It’s thanks to you, your transparency about that topic – which a lot of people don’t really discuss very often – that I first figured out what I was doing wrong with Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. You wrote in multiple of your blogs about the impact of overtraining, under‑fueling. I had no idea that this RED‑S even existed, or that I was causing it upon myself, until I read your blog. But the symptoms that you experienced sounded so similar to my own that it caught my attention, and over the next several months my doctors confirmed that I was indeed burying myself and digging myself into a hole with RED‑S. And I was able to naturally restore my testosterone levels, renew my hormone balance, get back to a healthy state again, and in large part thanks to you, Cody, for sharing your own experience digging out of that hole.
Cody: Oh Matt, that’s great to hear. Thank you, I really appreciate that. There’s been a real paradigm shift over the last decade I think. At the time I was experiencing the initial plunge into RED‑S, it was still widely called the Female Athlete Triad, which was not descriptive at all. I was actually really fortunate. I had Dr. Margo Mountjoy here in Guelph, who was the lead author on the IOC consensus statement on RED‑S. So I got super lucky, it’s like the stars aligned. I was able to work with this doctor, and I was like a textbook case of it. I was making all these mistakes early on with self-coaching. To sum it up, my view on weight was that less is more, and that led to some very restrictive eating habits and disordered eating. And with training stress and other lifestyle stress, I had a more-is-more approach. I was just a glutton for punishment. So you could imagine how that went. So like you, Matt, it wasn’t long before I really suppressed my testosterone, I eventually developed osteopenia, which was low bone density, the type of bone density you’d expect to see in an elderly woman, except I was a 20‑something guy. It wasn’t until I saw all this plainly written in my blood test, and my bone marrow density scan, that was the wake-up call I really needed around shortly after getting out of college, so maybe around 2013 or 2014. I just launched myself into all this research, and there was barely any info available. Fortunately, through that relationship with the doctor and some other experts I consulted, I was able to get myself back on track. But there was this real lag between theoretically understanding what I was doing wrong, what it was causing, and actually being willing to invest and commit to this really holistic suite of lifestyle changes. That took about a year, I would say. Once I got into that, it was a matter of changing my training approach extensively, firing myself as my own coach and hiring a real professional coach, working with a dietician on nutrition, really reforming those disordered eating habits – which was an ongoing process for many years – dealing with sleep, dealing with stress. I could go on. There were just so many things that had to change to get that back on track. It wasn’t like, “Oh, take this medication and suddenly you’re fixed”. I wish the fix were that easy, but unfortunately, that would be doping.
Andrew: And of course you’re trying to make all those changes while you’re also trying to train to become competitive in the pro field. So how were you able to balance those two of improving as a young pro, but also trying to take care of your body and rebound from that journey with energy deficiency?
Cody: You know, I realized performance had to go on the back burner a little bit. It’s not like I took a big step backwards for a couple years, but I correctly deduced that health was the more important thing. Not just for well-being for the rest of my life, but I could tell that I was teetering on the brink of retiring myself from the sport through these poor decisions. And I actually had exposure to other pros who did end their careers prematurely. I feel so fortunate that I pulled through that period without permanently damaging my endocrine system or without having stress fractures that impacted the rest of my career. I saw enough other athletes that screwed that up even worse than me, or got more unlucky and ended their careers as a result, that I was ready to be more smart about it.
Andrew: I will say, for our listeners, if you have not listened to TriDot Podcast Episodes .45 and .46, both of those episodes are dedicated fully to energy deficiency, to RED‑S: Episode .45 in women and Episode .46 in men. We had Dr. Krista Austin on the show just sharing what those symptoms are, what they can do to your body, and how to make sure you are fueling yourself properly, training properly, and rebounding from that if you go through it. Cody, with you on the show, that’s very cool to hear about how you train. You do look at the numbers and you do look at the data, but you also consider how you’re feeling day in and day out. How you’re training now got you to a very cool recent victory. Congratulations, you are the current reigning Ironman Lake Placid champion. At the time we’re recording this podcast, just a few weeks ago, crossing the finish line, breaking the tape. Tell us about your race, what was that race like for you?
Cody: Oh, it was an extremely tough one. I think it was by far my smallest-weighing deficit to second place, so the closest Ironman I’ve won out of the four that I’ve won now. Thankfully I brought really good form into the race, and man, I needed every bit of it to claw back right there, when the race spun really far outside of my control. I figured that was my race to lose. I planned a strategy that would have had me in the driver’s seat all day. It went off the rails minutes into the swim, so a really brutal day out there.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s comforting to hear that even for the pros, your plan can just get shot to hell minutes into the swim, because I think that happens to a lot of us when we get out. Did you go into the day thinking, was the goal to win? Or was the goal “Just hit my paces and see what happens on the day?”
Cody: Absolutely the goal was to win, and I even put it out there in a pre‑race interview, which by the way is terrifying to do. It’s tough, because it creates self-accountability to put it out there. I don’t want it to come across as cocky or something. I’ve done that for two races, where in the pre‑race interviews I’ve been the favorite, and I’ve said, “I’m going to win this race, that’s my intention here.” And I think there’s a difference than me saying – I had a coach that was really hammering this point with me – there’s a big difference between looking yourself in the mirror and saying, “I will win this race, period,” versus, “Yeah, I should win this race if it plays out like this or if I have a good day, blah blah blah.” You’re giving yourself an out then. So I think by psychologically committing to what you’re going to do, once the mental bargaining starts, late in the bike, those dark moments of the marathon, that really holds you accountable if you’ve already said, “No, I’ve already decided I’m going to be winning this today, thank you very much.”
Andrew: So when you say that your plan already went askew during the swim, what exactly happened that you weren’t expecting?
Matt: I was watching the race. I was fortunate enough to be there to witness this. I didn’t know that it went off the rails during the swim.
Cody: Well, I got it back on the rails for a little while before it really derailed again. But the pro swim is very tactical and dynamic in nature, as probably most of your listeners are aware. It’s not like an individual time trial. So I’m not a great sprinter. My swim threshold is pretty solid, but I’m not a good sprinter. Right away the lead pack I needed to be in with, all the contenders dropped me. That’s a devastating way to be, 20 seconds into an 8‑plus‑hour day. So I’ve lost enough races in the swim now, I was ready to commit to this big surge, and it took about 800 meters of swimming at threshold to bridge back up to that lead pack. It was worth it, and I’d do it again, but man, very tough first ten minutes of such a long day.
Andrew: Yep, so you get on the bike course and you came off the bike and took the lead out on the run, is that correct? How did the bike and run play out for you?
Cody: Yeah, I had a typical low point at the end of the bike. Every Ironman I’ve done, at the end of the bike, I’m so completely dejected that my head’s in a bad place. So I bled some time at the end of the bike, and really was starting to wonder if the race was lost at that point. There was that over six‑minute deficit, and I had to remind myself that Ironman is always big drama on the second half of the marathon. There’s always big moves happening then. It’s often coming down to who is well fueled, and who is paced well enough late in the run to still give a crap about the actual race, and not just have a death march to the finish line, even at the pro level. Yeah, sure enough, it’s the second time I’ve had an Ironman now where I’ve won where it’s come down to the last half an hour or so like that. Just utterly brutal. Justin Metzler had a fantastic day, and it looked like he had a commanding lead all day until he just completely fell apart with cramps. So anything can happen. You’ve got to tell yourself that late in the run.
Andrew: Matt, was it cool being there in person to see Cody win after you guys had connected and become besties?
Matt: It was really fun to see you come charging for the win, charging for the lead. I was out there on Mirror Lake Drive, watching you hunt down Justin. Justin looked like he was really struggling. I remember a couple times you came by and you were sort of like, demanding a split out of me. You were like, “How far back, how far back??”
Cody: I probably screamed at you with panic in my eyes. Yeah, I was running pretty scared at the end. But I was so appreciative to have you out there, you and a few other friends were out there, and just having familiar faces giving you accurate splits, it’s another one of those things that holds you accountable. We talked about self-accountability, but having other people right there on course, getting in your face when you’re hurting so bad you just want to retreat inwards and make it this private moment no one can see. It’s super helpful. I can’t understate that.
Matt: I was very comfortably from the sidelines like, “Yeah, he’s got this, no problem.” But I could see the desperation in your eyes for an accurate split, and you thought that it was closer than it was, but I was like, “No, Justin’s totally toast, you’ve got a minute on him.” But to you, in that seat, and all the suffering and pain that you were going through at the time, you probably were desperate just for it to be over.
Cody: Well, for context, I’d been run down for the last podium spot at 70.3 Mont Tremblant by my training partner, Jackson Laundry, in the last kilometer, the race before that. So I just did a gratuitous number of shoulder checks, and you never want to be that person who celebrates prematurely. And also, people on the sidelines, they give you the most notoriously inaccurate information. You’ll hear everyone go, “Ah, you’ve got this locked up,” to like, “He’s right behind you,” and most of it’s B.S. So Matt, to have people like you out there who I can trust, very helpful.
Andrew: So at the time, ironically we’re recording this, you’re a little bit aways from racing Ironman Mount Tremblant –
Cody: Close…
Andrew: Closer? I’m getting there?
Cody: Very.
Andrew: So the Monday this podcast episode comes out, you will have just raced it. So I introduced you as a four-time Ironman champion. There’s a chance, by the time this comes out, that I’m wrong and you could be a five-time Ironman champion. Is the goal in Tremblant to win?
Cody: Okay, I’m going to put it out there, I’m going to win Mont Tremblant. The whole season I’ve said it’s more than Kona for me. That’s a huge priority. I won that race as my debut Ironman, I came back and defended my title against Lionel Sanders the year after. No race has done more for my career than that one, and they canceled it the two following years, so this is the threepeat if I win it, and I’m all in on that.
Matt: Bam. On the record.
Andrew: On the record. It’s going to come out the day after. So go check out Cody’s result and see if he was true to his word. I’ll be rooting for you on the day, that’s for sure.
Cody: I’m going to be regretting those words late in the marathon, probably.
Andrew: Well, you won’t have Matt out there giving you splits, so hopefully there will be some other folks out there to lend you some accurate information. So Cody, as we shift to talking about the business of being a triathlete, your calling card – Matt said it a little bit earlier – is that you are radically transparent in all things regarding your pro career. A lot of athletes keep a veil over what they’re doing in their training. They guard their power numbers and their paces. They keep their finances to themselves. You’re the opposite. Why did you decide to conduct yourself so openly when you turned pro?
Cody: I would say there’s three reasons. One is that openness has come pretty naturally to me, at least over the last few years. I kind of socially isolated myself in college and was a real training hermit, but after that, dealing with all the struggles I mentioned earlier, I had to deal with all these people. I had to get all this advice, I had to lean on other people a lot, family, experts. That really made me a lot more amenable to being open and transparent with people. It was a really positive development in my life. On top of that, there was just no road map for how to become a pro triathlete. So once I decided I wanted to embark on this journey, it was like, “What’s next? How do I actually carve out a career in this crazy weird industry that only a few hundred people could actually do?” So by putting some of this out there, documenting my mistakes, successes, everything, maybe I can help the next generation a little bit, or help people avoid some of the pitfalls that I just sprinted into. So that’s one intention. And also, I’d say it’s bit of a way to set myself apart. If I’m honest with you guys, there’s a couple other dozen professional male triathletes right now with my level of results, my caliber of fitness and so on. How do you set yourself apart in a sea of otherwise similar athletes with respect to personal branding or sponsorship opportunities? So this was kind of a no‑brainer for me, since it was such a natural fit, just to be open and transparent about a lot of this.
Andrew: Cody, within the pro ranks, is there any chatter amongst pro males, pro females like, “Hey how are you shaping up this part of your career, how are you shaping up that part of your career?” Do newer pros coming into the sport ever reach out to some of you that have been around the block a few times to pick your brain and see how to do that? Is there any kind of natural mentoring, or are people not open in that way with each other?
Cody: I love this question. I’ve had extensive conversations with other pro triathletes. I’ve got a real network of other pros who I lean on quite a bit for everything from, “Help me assess this sponsorship offer, does this seem to be in the right ballpark,” to “Let me bounce this training plan off you, what do you think about this?” The guys I train with every day here in Guelph, Jackson Laundry, Taylor Reid. I see kind of three types of relationships. There’s mentoring-type of relationships – at this point of my career it’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for almost a decade professionally – I have junior, like 23, younger athletes getting into the sport, rookies, who will reach out for advice. Some are going through some of those RED‑S circles we talked about. I’m not an expert on any of this, but I can share what I’ve learned and what I’ve screwed up at least. I see peer-to-peer-type relationships, like with my training partners. One of my best friends, Jackson Laundry here in Guelph, I’ll get him to assess my training all the time, and ask him what he thinks my next workout should be. That kind of objective perspective adds a lot to the self-coaching experiment I’m in the midst of right now. Then there’s also elder statesmen of the sport who I look up to tremendously. At the end of last year I thought I was ready to retire from triathlon. Turned out to be wrong, but I had really profound conversations with a whole bunch of these former and current champions of the sport, people I look up to a lot, and it was really invaluable to hear their perspectives after a career that’s been far longer and more successful than mine.
Andrew: Yeah, how do you decide in this sport when to walk away and when to call it? Do you think you have a couple more years left in you? Has your perspective shifted on that?
Cody: Great question. I was wrestling so hard with this last year. Earlier in my career I just came up with this idea, maybe I’d win ten professional races and then just get bored of the sport and be done with it. I won my tenth pro race in 2019 with Mont Tremblant, and then Eagleman and Lake Placid this year were eleven and Placid made it a dozen. You know, I’m not done. I’ve don’t have this list anymore with these boxes that I need to tick to decide when I’m ready to throw in the towel. What I’ve arrived at is, if I’m still hungry, if I’m still enjoying myself at least most of the time, the majority of the time, I’m just going to keep rolling with this. It’s been such an adventure, I feel so privileged to do this. It’s brutally hard a lot of the time, most of the time. But I wouldn’t really want to have it any other way. I’m addicted to the autonomy of it, first and foremost, I would say. Every day I’m calling my own shots. I wake up and the day stretches before me, and I can fill it however I want. The flip side of that is that the buck stops with me. If I under-perform, if I screw something up, I’m almost solely responsible for that. So big freedom, but big pressure. I love that though.
Andrew: So one of the really unique things with you as a pro, like you said, you’re trying to set yourself apart. Honestly, Matt messaged me and was like, “Hey, I think Cody Beals would be a great podcast guest because he does this.” You publish, every single year, your annual budget as a pro triathlete. And you display for the world to see how much money you’re bringing in through race winnings, through sponsorships, through this. You’re putting on your budget where the money is going. So for you, as a pro triathlete, where does your income come from? How much do you rely on race winnings versus relying on sponsorships?
Cody: This is a good question too. There’s a lot of misconceptions here I think. There’s five main revenue streams I see, at least in my career. There’s prize money, which I think a lot of people overestimate. That’s actually not usually the largest item for me. There’s sponsorship, which usually is the largest item for me, although it took a long time to ramp that up to being the dominant revenue stream. Sponsorship though, can be subdivided into pay salaries, bonuses, in‑kind product sponsorship, even equity in some cases. The third main category would be appearance fees; we’re getting into smaller slices of the pie for me at least, maybe not if you’re Jan Frodeno though. That, and don’t underestimate reselling that used equipment at the end of the year, if your contract allows it. That’s actually decently lucrative. And the last item, for me, is really small. I do a little bit of consulting work, if people really insist. I don’t really do any coaching. I get some interest, but a lot of pro triathletes, that’s how they get by, basically. That’s their bread and butter, is supplementing their race earnings with coaching.
Andrew: That’s very interesting.
Cody: I sort of look at it as a diversified investment portfolio. Matt, with your background, you probably would know a lot more about this, but basically I could have seasons where I’m leaning more into social media content creation, and there’s revenue to be made there. I could have seasons where I’m performing better on the race course, earning prize money, earning bonuses. But by diversifying among those five revenue streams, I’m ensuring that even if I’m injured, or it’s a really bad season, I’m not going to be failing to pay the bills.
Andrew: Cody, when it comes to sponsorships, how do those even normally come about? How do those formulate? Is it normally companies reaching out to you and saying, “Hey, you’re a pro that really aligns with our brand, we want to give you some gear and get you in it,” or is it companies that you’re already using their stuff, and you just kind of end up in a relationship? How does that process usually play out?
Cody: Well, maybe I’m at a luxury now almost ten years into this, but I don’t cold call. I haven’t updated my triathlon résumé or media package for almost five years now. So I typically have a roster of eight to ten sponsors. Usually two are on their way out for whatever reason at any given time, and two I’m trying to develop. I really enjoy that aspect of it, actually, self-representing. I’ve started working with a manager a little bit, but it’s quite enjoyable to develop those relationships.
Andrew: Very cool. I’ve always wondered, because on social media especially, we all as fans of the sport see the pros throw out social media posts clearly plugging this brand or that brand. And it’s always the question, as a consumer, of is this pro putting this post out – clearly they’re sponsored, but are they sponsored because this is a product they believe in so I should check it out, or are they sponsored just because this person threw some money their way so they’re going to do a couple social media posts. What’s that balance for you?
Cody: I think people are a lot more discerning than some social media content creators give them credit for. We’re in an advanced age of social media now after it’s been a huge part of our society for a decade. People see right through blatant ads. So when it comes to evaluating sponsorship, I like to ask myself, “Is this a product or service I would genuinely be using on my own if they weren’t paying me to? And would I genuinely be recommending it to people? Is it good value? Is it actually delivering?” And that weeds out a lot of the crap. And frankly, I’ve turned down some decent money because those questions don’t really jive. Thankfully we’re not talking huge sums of money, so I’m not too tempted to compromise on the ethical side of it. But no, I think it’s really fundamental, because then you can represent these companies in a genuine, authentic way that people actually vibe with. I’ve screwed this up all the time. I find social media extremely challenging. It’s the anti-consumerist, minimalist in me that sometimes struggles with shilling these products. Even if they’re great products and they facilitate doing a sport we all love, it doesn’t always align perfectly with my values, and sometimes there’s been tension there. But ultimately, I’m really grateful that companies are willing to basically bankroll this career, and share in my successes with me. A lot of these relationships have transcended just the business side of it, and have actually become personal relationships and friendships. So that’s pretty great too.
Andrew: Yeah. You don’t have to name products, and you don’t have to name names, but do you ever see on social media a pro throw out a post and just kind of roll your eyes, because you can tell, “Goodness gracious, there’s no way that’s an authentic product endorsement.”
Cody: Oh, absolutely. I’ve had contracts in the past that have forced me to do stuff like that, and the engagement on it is terrible. People see right through it, they don’t want to engage with content like that. I can try and tell companies that, but sometimes they don’t listen. Yeah, I think we’re at an age where the blatant ads, beating you over the head with the product, that’s kind of passé. What I’m seeing now among the more advanced, savvy companies who are ahead of the curve is that they’re finding a way to weave their product/service into the athlete’s story in a pretty seamless way, and those are the best content pieces that are being put out.
Andrew: Matt, as our Vice President of Marketing, any thoughts on that, any feedback, reflections? Are you jiving with what Cody’s saying?
Matt: Absolutely, I’m like nodding the whole ways. I mean, I’ve worked with several different pro athletes while I was at UCAN, and now here. But the authenticity is such a key thing, and it’s something that, as a marketer now on this side, if I catch even a whiff that it’s not authentic, that they’re using whatever it is because they love it or not, it’s just off. It’s a red flag. It may in the short term work out, but in the medium- to long-term, it just doesn’t work out unless it’s authentic. So to be able to hear you speak to that – and I’ve known you for years now, so I know that you are a man of integrity – that you stand by the products of your sponsors because you use them, and it’s an authentic endorsement from you because it’s something that, like you said, you would be using even if they didn’t sponsor you. One thing that came to mind was you wrote a blog at one point about Ventum, and why you went to Ventum, and it was a fantastic blog article because it really explained why is it that you chose Ventum. It was about the wind tunnel, and it was about how it fit you and the different aspects of it, and you could tell you put a lot of really good thought into why you selected Ventum, and it shows that it was an authentic endorsement.
Cody: Thanks, Matt, that means a lot. Here we are seven years later, I’m still with Ventum, and they’ve been one of my top sponsors all along. I rode the first two years of my pro career, maybe even three seasons, on a bike that I bought myself, and just held out for the right opportunity, and thankfully it came knocking eventually.
Andrew: So Cody, on the other side of the equation, how much does it cost to be a pro triathlete? Obviously there’s some travel, there’s the gear and training expenses. What is your monetary investment simply to exist on the circuit as a pro triathlete?
Cody: Oh man, my answer would differ a lot from other people’s. This could vary by two orders of magnitude. I’m not inherently wealthy, I don’t have a partner supporting me as do some pro triathletes. No judgment there, more power to them. But I have to run this like a business, so I’m very, very lean and frugal with my expenses. Sometimes to my detriment, I would say, to the point where, even before Placid, I booked such crappy, cheap accoms because everything in the village was $500 a night and I couldn’t stomach that. The place didn’t even have A/C when I showed up. So that was a poor decision, obviously, during a heat wave. So I still mess this up, but to answer your question directly: yeah, the expenses have ranged from about $10,000 to $30,000 a year, which could be anywhere form 100% of my revenue my first season almost, to a smaller fraction like 10% or 20%. It’s quite variable. At this stage of my career, I think I’m actually on track for my lowest expenses ever this season, because I’m pretty well established. I have sponsorships to cover most of the big‑ticket items. Thankfully I’ve been able to drive to a lot of my races, I’ve got lasting connections with Home Stays, so the accoms budget is pretty limited. I’ve got a sponsor that helps me out with travel. So I’m in a really privileged position where a lot of these things are covered. I’m also self-coaching again, so I don’t have a coach who I’m paying a fortune to every month on top of a cut of my winnings and stuff. So it breaks down: typically there’s home office expenses, there’s travel, obviously there’s equipment, there’s vehicles, vehicle expenses, there’s coaching and other professional services. I’m pretty lean in that category; like I think I’ve had one professional massage in my life, and maybe one or two physio appointments. Others, their recovery and massage and physio budget is like a $1,000 a month, easily. So quite variable there.
Andrew: That would be nice to just have $1,000 to throw towards physio every single month. And if you need it, you need it. If it helps, it helps. If it works, it works. So when we’re talking about gear, obviously Ventum is a sponsor of yours that takes care of your bike. What are the big-ticket items for you that you have to cover yourself that aren’t covered by sponsors?
Cody: The biggest thing I’ve bought the last couple of years was a smart trainer last year. I didn’t have a sponsor for that. It’s kind of this running gag between me and my partner that as soon as I shell out to buy something, within the coming month there’s going to be an opportunity to get one for free, just like clockwork. I also, during the pandemic, treated myself to a home gym setup, so some rubber flooring, some nice Olympic weights and stuff. That I think has paid dividends. But yeah, generally the equipment’s not crazy. Since I haven’t had to buy my own bikes recently – that’s the big-ticket item – it’s usually around $2,000 to $3,000 a year, just bits and pieces here and there. I did spend – I didn’t have a running shoe sponsor last year, and I spent well over a thousand dollars just testing out half a dozen super shoes. That was a fun experiment as well.
Andrew: I believe it. What shoe are you in now after all that testing?
Cody: I’m in the Asics Metaspeed Sky, and hopefully the Sky+ in time for Tremblant. Definitely it was the category-killer for me.
Andrew: So Matt, you qualified for your pro card a couple times over the years, and you thought about taking that, you could have taken that. I introduced you on this episode as an almost-kinda-sorta pro because you could have been one, but you just never went that route. When you were making that consideration, obviously you had to weigh the financial side, I’m imagining. Did the money play a role in that? What drove your decision to not turn pro?
Matt: Yeah, money definitely played a big role in that. Especially for me, I came from the world of Wall Street, so I was making good money. I was a trader, I’d just spent nine years there. Living at the certain level that I was living at and then reducing that dramatically would have been painful. And I would have been fine with that if I was pursuing the dream just for myself, but because at that point I had already married my beautiful wife, I didn’t want to drag her down to that with me. It was also partially related to the RED‑S situation, which I was managing okay from a hormone standpoint, but what was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was that I discovered, like you Cody, that I had osteopenia. I was very close to osteoporosis, and the low bone density was a result of having imbalanced hormones over many years. Bone density doesn’t just pop back like testosterone might over the course of months or even over a year. Low bone density takes a long, long time to restore, if you can ever restore it, and it usually doesn’t get back to fully normal. If anything, you might make some progress, but you’re not going to get back to where you were or could have been. So that kind of took me out of the sport. And I had a stress reaction in my femoral neck in one of my legs, so that kind of took me out of the sport for a little while. Then the whole money side of things. So between those two things, it just pulled me away from the sport enough where I was able to get level-headed enough, and feel like I was filling my time with other things, and we wanted to start a family. So with all that combined it was like, “All right, I think the right decision here is to maybe make a living in the sport like I am now, but not be a pro triathlete.” I get to talk, breathe, and live triathlon all day long anyway.
Cody: I respect that decision-making process a lot there, Matt. And I’ve been really fortunate with respect to the low bone density situation, where mine’s actually improved well over a sigma score upwards as I’ve gotten older. I’m now in my 30’s and due for another bone mineral density scan soon, and last time we checked, my doctor was shocked. It’s very rare to see that.
Matt: Yeah, that’s incredible. I’ve heard after about approximately age 30, you’re basically not going to be able to improve your bone density by much. At that point it’s pretty much plateaued, and you just want to preserve the bone density that you have. But it sounds like you’ve been able to keep going with it, which is fantastic.
Andrew: So Cody, watching the pros in triathlon, I’m always reminded of the pro field in tennis, which I grew up a big tennis fan. Our listeners have heard me talk about that probably way too much. I remember watching the pro field in tennis, and there’s an article I read one time that was breaking down the financial journey of the average pro tennis player. Because sure, the Roger Federers and Raphael Nadals of the world are doing great, but you scroll down to 20th, 30th, 40th-best player in the world, and they’re struggling to break even. I mean, sure they have tournament winnings, they have their endorsements, but by the time you throw in the travel and the training and the coach and the equipment, the nutrition, all the things we have in triathlon, that all adds up really fast, and it becomes very hard to make a living being a pro tennis player. Only the top dozen or so on the men’s and women’s side can even make it a profitable living. So I know in our sport, the PTO is trying to turn the tide for a lot of pros right now, just in terms of making the sport more financially viable for a pro. So Cody, right now, with what the landscape is, what does it take in triathlon to turn a profit and make this a full-time career?
Cody: I think the comparison to tennis is a really good one. My understanding is it’s pretty analogous except even harder. Analogous in terms of the distribution. It’s like a big pyramid, basically, where you have the very tippy-top making good money, and the rest are struggling to get by. There are probably several hundred male pros in the PTO rankings. Based on my conversations and knowledge of the industry, I estimate that only a hundred are making a living primarily from triathlon. Maybe there’s more you could include who are mainly going through coaching, but that’s kind of tangential and not strictly just through training and racing and sponsorship and stuff. And we’re talking middle-class money, so maybe $30K to $100K kind of range. Just getting by or a little above the median perhaps. Maybe within that number, ten are financially quite comfortable, let’s say around $200K net kind of situation, and only the top five triathletes in the world are getting wealthy by any stretch of the word whatsoever. And even that, we’re not talking like major league sports money. It might be like, $500,000 or something, or maybe a million dollars if you’re the very top in the world. So you know it’s tough, and I’m grateful the PTO is actually taking their cues from tennis and golf, because it’s easy to think of these sports as just emerging as fully-fledged, lucrative pro sports in the past, but that’s actually not the case. If you go back a few decades, there’s this road map of very deliberate decisions to make the sports marketable, to generate TV revenue, so that’s what the PTO is trying to follow right now. That’s a conversation you could go into for a whole other podcast. I think it’s smart to look at those as kind of a blueprint for how to make triathlon more marketable, and how those dollars could eventually flow to the pro triathletes. So what does it take in terms of how to put together a successful pro career as a pro triathlete? Well, it’s some combo of being really fast, and also really consistent. You can’t just win one race a year and expect to get by. You have to be consistently doing really well. Also being marketable: whether it’s your personality, social media, your branding, or whatever. Some combo of being really business-savvy with respect to the sponsorship side of it, or at least willing to hire someone on who is. And like we already touched on, being really frugal or willing to delay your retirement or anything like that.
Andrew: So it’s definitely a “for love of the game” type thing for most pros. You’ve been in the sport almost ten years, do you think the steps that PTO, Super League Triathlon, these things that are trying to market the sport more, are they making a difference yet?
Cody: Yes they are, definitely in the short term. It remains to be seen if it’ll have longevity. I sure hope so. And I also have to make the point, I have to tease apart two things: what is good for the sport as a whole, personally me as a fan of the sport, and also what is also good directly for my career. So the PTO so far has done a lot of good for the sport. They haven’t directly benefited my career tremendously. I’ve definitely made some money from them, and even indirectly like the Lake Placid win was the same weekend as PTO Edmonton, so I was racing a somewhat depleted field in Placid, admittedly. That’s kind of a fringe benefit of what the PTO is doing. But as a long-course specialist, specifically Ironman, PTO doesn’t even have their 200K race yet. Even the 200K race isn’t as long as an Ironman. So how will that benefit me personally remains to be seen. As a fan of the sport, though, I’m really gung-ho for it, it seems to be a really positive development.
Andrew: So going back to thinking about your pro triathlon budget, I found it very interesting looking through it, and I’m not a super-detailed numbers guy. Matt Bach is a super-detailed numbers guy. So Matt, I’m curious, because I know you looked through Cody’s financials as well. The most recent one was your fifth-year pro triathlon budget that you posted on your website. It was your first one with your finances bouncing back from the Covid off year. Matt, what stood out to you as you looked through all of Cody’s financials for being a pro?
Matt: There was a lot of things that stood out, but I’ll highlight a few. The first thing though, from an overall standpoint, it’s just so cool that somebody puts that out there. This is like somebody saying how much they’re getting paid to everybody in the world, and what all their living expenses are. Nobody does that, let alone what career they’re in. But part of what you do, Cody, we can figure out. Like if you win Ironman Lake Placid, we could look at the prize money chart and say, “Okay, he won this amount of money,” so we can piece together the prize money piece of it. But that’s just, like you said, one of five pieces of revenue that comes from it. So the sponsorship side is definitely held close to the vest for the most part, and you’re willing to disclose all that. And I just think that’s so cool, that radical transparency. I know every time you put one of those blogs out, it goes viral around the triathlon world. People are soaking it up, because they just don’t get that kind of window into what it’s like to be a pro triathlete. It’s just very, very cool to be able to see that, and thanks for putting that out there.
Cody: Oh wow, thanks Matt. You’re tempting me to actually release another one this year. I wondered if I was done with those, but –
Matt: I don’t think you should be.
Cody: I thought maybe it was the rebounding from the pandemic. I’ve wondered too if I sometimes hamstring myself with respect to sponsor negotiations. I can’t actually break down detailed sponsorship as a result of confidentiality clauses and contracts. But you know sponsors can read that. I know they do, and they can kind of get a ballpark on what my title sponsorship might cost, what an entry-level sponsorship might cost. You can kind of infer that from those posts. I wonder if that prevents me from landing the moon-shot six‑figure sponsorship that I’m still chasing.
Matt: I’m curious, when you talk to a new sponsor, does that come up? Are they ever bothered by the fact that you just completely disclosed – I mean, you’re not disclosing everything, but you’re disclosing enough that people could kind of sense how much the sponsor is paying you in order to have you as one of their sponsored athletes. Do they ever get bothered by that?
Cody: No, I haven’t had any blowback at all. People seem to like it. It’s in line with the whole transparency schtick. People like that, and if there’s been negative reactions, I haven’t heard them yet.
Matt: One of the other things that stood out to me is that pro triathletes don’t make as much money as people think. I think most people, they’re like, “Oh, well you’re a pro athlete, so you must make bank,” like you’re making MBA or football money. But as you can see from Cody’s financials, and there’s only a couple dozen in the world – he gave us all the stats on that – that are making a solid living. It’s not like in pro football or basketball where you make many millions and you’ve made it, and after you’ve made all that money for your career you can retire at age 40, or 35 or whatever it is that some of these pro athletes do. A career as a pro athlete, it only lasts for so long. For triathletes, it might be a little bit later than some other sports. You can really compete until 40‑ish, give or take, and still make a living at it and be competitive. But you need to make enough in those years when you are competitive so that you can save to be able to have a retirement. Or you do what most do, and you have a plan for what you will do for work afterwards. I know there’s a lot of pro athletes in other sports that don’t need to plan like that; they just need to take the money that they’re making, invest it decently, and then they can live off that for the rest of their life. But as a pro triathlete, I imagine it’s much more difficult. Actually I should ask you, Cody, while we have you here, what’s your take on that? Are you going to move into industry, are you going to go back to environmental science, are you going to work in triathlon? I don’t know if you’re able to live off of what you’ve made in triathlon for your whole retirement.
Cody: It’s going to hinge a lot on how many more years I have and how successful those years are. I’m not at a point now where I’m even close to being independently wealthy where I could invest it carefully and coast for the rest of my life. I don’t even know if that’s necessarily the goal. I think I’d get bored after a couple years. Ideally I’d want to set myself up to be able to take a year off and build a house, and not immediately throw myself into more income-generating activity. But one of my compromises I was unwilling to make early on was that I wasn’t going to short-change retirement saving and financial security. So I’m always making sure I’m paying my future self, even when it’s a bad year, and that’s part of why I’ve been so extremely lean, is that I’m trying to save 30% to even 50% of my take-home pay from triathlon every year. And you referenced major-league sports: apparently there’s extremely common bankruptcy after a lot of these people retire. After a career in the sport, they’ve become accustomed to a lavish lifestyle. An asset of pro triathlon is that it’s kept me really lean. I don’t need a lot of money. I could live very comfortably off $30,000 a year. It wouldn’t be a high standard of living, but I’d have my house, I’d have my car, I’d have all the necessities here. So learning to get your kicks that don’t cost a lot of money, that’s been something that triathlon’s given me, and something I can credit my parents for as well.
Andrew: Cody, something else that you’re very open with, and not every pro is open with, is your training numbers. You’re very open with your paces and your power. This morning I saw an Insta story from you where you had, I believe it was a five-hour bike ride today. And just for reference, some people, Cody, don’t believe me when I bill myself as Andrew the Average Triathlete. They’re like, “No, you’re faster than average.” No, I’m very average. My 20‑minute power, when I’m going all out for 20 minutes, FTP test, is right around the 200‑watt range. Cody, today, on his five-hour ride, held 200 watts essentially as his relaxing, for 2 hours and 38 minutes. So what I can do as my high end for 20 minutes, Cody can do comfortably for 2 hours and 38 minutes, per your ride this morning. You also spent some time at 360 watts I think it was, and then 300 watts doing some over-and-under kind of stuff. But right there, on Instagram, you posted the numbers from your workout this morning. I’ve seen some pros do a little bit of that. What’s your take on how people play the numbers openly or close to the vest?
Cody: I will never understand why pros are unwilling to share training data. Show me how this can be used against me in a race by my competition. I would say most of the time it’s out of context when it is published, one workout, like that. But I even published the complete context. There’s a blog post, two blog posts now, where I’ve shared the entire lead-up to some winning races. Like, 16‑week leadup, basically every workout, broken down the training, the approach, and I challenge people to copy it. I mean, you guys know enough about the sport, that’s not how training works. That’s individual for me. I process my needs, my weaknesses and strengths. So I’m happy to put it up there. I don’t know how useful it actually is for other people, but at least it’s a curiosity I guess.
Andrew: Cody, at the time of this recording, you are ranked #37 in the PTO rankings. For every pro, PTO gives a percentage showing how strong that athlete is relative to the field. The scale is 0 to 100, so if you score 100 in the swim, for example, you are the best swimmer in the pro field. Cody, you have some pretty well-rounded scores, with an 87% on the swim, 86% on the bike, and a 94% on the run, with an 88% overall. Now when I see PTO show these scores – sometimes they show them on social media, sometimes they’ll show them during the broadcast. when everybody’s making their pre‑race predictions or whatnot – I’ve always wondered, how do the pros feel about being quantified like this? Do you feel like these scores are pretty accurate, or do you just kind of roll your eyes, ignore them, and move one?
Cody: Oh, I think it’s fantastic. I think the ranking system and the scoring for each discipline is probably the most valuable property the PTO has right now. In fact, it’s kind of become my de facto info source to scope out my competition before a race. So the ranking system’s come under some criticism, I’d say mostly because it’s a black box that lacks transparency. And also we’re all a little bit self-serving, and pros that aren’t benefiting from it or feel like they’ve been short-changed, they’re going to be vocal in their criticism about it. I think though, one of my friends Jackson sits on the PTO committee that’s working on reforming this or making adjustments, and conversations with him have shown me that it’s really easy to criticize this ranking system, but it’s very hard to come up with algorithm that is superior or captures everything more accurately. So I’d say you can debate, you can nitpick over what’s going on exactly, but it’s a little bit invisible right now because it’s proprietary and they don’t share it. But it arrives still at roughly the right outcome. So I would say within the top ten, it’s very accurate. Those athletes belong there. Ten through twenty, it’s still pretty accurate rankings. Outside the top 20 gets a little bit fuzzier. I kind of look it at it more as brackets. Like athletes ranked 20 through 50th, roughly where I am, they’re all of a similar caliber. Probably not inside the top 20 yet. But 50th through 100, same thing, similar caliber. It’s a little bit fuzzy, I wouldn’t consider that definitive. It’s also encompassing multiple different distances, specifically the middle distance and the full distance, there’s some ambiguity there. It’s based on only your best three races, so you can argue about consistency versus an athlete who’s really dominant at one race of the year. There’s a matter of luck too, how many points a race is going to pay out. You never really know exactly. So it's not definitive, but it’s certainly a useful tool. Yeah, I’m proud of those, that well-rounded score across three disciplines. It wasn’t an accident, that’s been very deliberate. Early in my career I was strongest on the bike, and now it’s my weakest discipline, and I think that’s just a product of continually, systematically addressing your weaknesses and turning them into strengths.
Andrew: Okay, so all three of us on this conversation, we are now 30‑somethings, where we’re basically all old men just sitting around on microphones doing a podcast. Cody, you’ve been a pro you said for nearly ten years, and the future is still bright and full of promise. You’re racing strong. As our listeners follow your career, and hopefully they’re more attached to who you are having heard you today, hopefully they’re going to cheer you on, hopefully you won Mont Tremblant yesterday. What’s the next big goal for you? What’s the future look like for pro triathlete Cody Beals?
Cody: Well, at the time we’re recording this, I’m laser-focused on Mont Tremblant. After that, I’m going to not set the rest of the season yet. I qualified for Kona, but it’s not the be-all-end-all for me. The sands are shifting in triathlon, and I think there’s a lot of other opportunities right now. So I’m going to wait and see about that one. And you know, the cool thing is we’re not old in triathlon. At 32 right now, I’m kind of just coming into my peak Ironman prime years. That’s really awesome, because other sports, you’re washed up by the time you’re in your early 20’s. So if you play your cards right, and you stay healthy, injury-free, focused, engaged, you can have two decades of elite performance in triathlon, and far longer at enjoying it at a lower level. So I really appreciate that aspect of the sport.
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Andrew: Tons of great stuff from Cody in the main set today, but for the amount of racing he has under his belt, we didn’t hear all that much about his race experiences, and it would for sure be a shame not to. So Cody, as our cooldown on today’s episode, from all your race experience, I want to hear three things, one, two, three. Number one, your favorite moment on course as a triathlete. Number two, what would you call your biggest blunder on course as a pro triathlete? And number three, your #1 race tip for our listeners as triathletes.
Cody: Favorite moment, easily, was taking the lead for the very first time at a professional race. Rookie season, 2014, 70.3 Muskoka, I took the lead on the bike. Seeing the vehicle up front with the huge number board on it, the clock there, it was this electric feeling, and it was kind of in a hot moment where I was like, “All right, this is my drug, this is pretty amazing.”
Andrew: That’s cool.
Cody: Biggest blunder, oh, this is embarrassing. Again, going back to before I was even a pro, maybe my first pro season as well, something like that. I rode off the course at the Ontario Provincial Championships, as the defending champion, on a course I should know like the back of my hand I’ve raced on it so many times. I took the wrong turn, and almost rode off someone’s dock into a lake. Rounded the bend going way too fast, very, very embarrassing. That was the end of the day for me. And one tip, I’m going to borrow one from Andrew York, Canadian Olympian, ex‑pro triathlete now: he always insisted. you have to make it fun. And I kind of scoffed at that. I was like, “You’re an Olympian, this is not fun, you’re at swim practice at 5:00 in the morning, this looks miserable.” But he did have a lot of fun, and fun is what makes it sustainable. You need it to be sustainable in order to even achieve some fraction of your potential, because it takes so much time and patience. Even the most driven person’s motivation is going to dry up and flag eventually if it’s not fun. So this year, I’ve reaffirmed my commitment to making it fun, being in it for the long haul.
Andrew: Well that’s it for today, folks! I want to thank Ironman champion Cody Beals and TriDot’s own Matt Bach for talking about the business of being a pro triathlete. A big tanks to 2Toms for partnering with us on today’s podcast. To make the switch to 2Toms, head to medi-dyne.com and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. Big thanks to DeltaG for partnering with us today. Head to DeltaGketones.com and use the code TRIDOT20 to get 20% off your ketone drinks. We’ll have a new show coming your way soon. Until then, happy training!
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