Topics / Triathlon
Triathlon Podcasts
35 shows and 5,560 episodes sit under Triathlon.
The best triathlon podcasts for every lane: Ironman coaching, open-water swimming, age-group budgets, pro race analysis, and the championship calendar.
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Listening guide
A listener's guide to Triathlon podcasts
Ninety minutes into a long session on the indoor trainer, the voice in your ears can do several jobs. It can tell you who should win at the weekend, explain why your easy runs feel harder than they should, or keep you company the way a training partner would. The best triathlon podcasts know which job they are doing. The range is wider than three disciplines might suggest: pundits with points tables, professionals trading gossip between sessions, coaches running case studies on real amateurs, and long conversations with the women who built the sport.
Listeners argue about all of it. Some want a show to tell them how much training a first Ironman really takes, and others want permission to do less. Some love deep physiology, while others hear it as overcomplication. Governance keeps intruding on the fun. In July 2025, Triathlete reported that Ironman's chief executive, Scott DeRue, defended returning the Kona world championship to a single race day, a choice critics have questioned over racing conditions for women. The format is shifting too. Edison Research's June 2026 report found that 82% of U.S. weekly podcast consumers actively watched video podcasts in Q3 2025.
Race week, every week
Professional Triathlon News suits the listener who reads a start list like a box score. In Episode 268: The Biggest IRONMAN Field Ever + The Prize Money Debate, the panel sorts the Ironman Texas contenders and argues about prize money. One voice makes the case that Ironman sets payouts against the return it expects. The best moment is practical. Discussing Kona slots, one host announces "I'm bringing a whiteboard to the race," so athletes racing for places around 13th know where they stand. Episode 267: The Season Officially Begins has the hosts revising a community ranking system on air, correcting their own arithmetic as they go. It also delivers a blunt verdict on Oceanside pros who spent the bike gesturing at rivals: "keep your arms on your bars shut your mouth and get to the run."
German speakers get the season from inside the bunch on Buddy Talk. The former professionals Simon Henseleit and Nils Frommhold host alongside the rising pro Mika Noodt, and altitude camps get airtime alongside results. In 174 - Höhenluft mit Tjebbe Kaindl, two riders remember racing together in Karlsbad. A story about lost bottles is greeted with "Ja, die typische Ausrede" (the typical excuse). In 169 - Blummenfelt noch schlagbar?, a host thanks a listener named Rainer for correcting a Blummenfelt half-marathon time from Oceanside: 1:06:38.
Triathlon Mockery is two professional triathletes, Tom Oosterdijk and Max Stapley, talking the way people do on a long ride. In Pro Triathlon has changed! they agree that racing now runs from January to the end of the year, and they offer amateurs a sound rule: "don't be a champion in january". The banter is loose, and some of it lands crudely. For more race-weekend listening, try the Racing & Events page.
What access buys, and what it costs
Long interviews with champions are a pleasure of their own, with a trade-off worth naming. The Triathlon Hour with JONAS SCHOMBURG is good company. Schomburg explains that his father coaches him and sends the programme by WhatsApp, and the host checks a story heard at last year's world championships about Schomburg swimming every easy rep hard. The Triathlon Hour with KRISTIAN BLUMMENFELT goes deep on self-coaching and a calf injury from a track session. Near the end, though, the host calls him "the best triathlete on the planet right now." This is warm, revealing talk, and it does not set out to challenge its guest.
The World Triathlon Podcast is the federation's official show, and access is its point. In #111 - World Champion MATT HAUSER and coach Dan Atkins, Hauser describes rehearsing the Wollongong bike course on a training loop with similar climbs, hitting his best hour power there, then matching that number in the race. Atkins explains the motto of "fun health and happiness" behind their planning. Listen for method; don't expect scrutiny of the body behind the microphone.
Women at the centre
Feisty Triathlon is built around women's racing. We're Back B*tches #6: The Post-Race Show reconstructs a brutal Kona day. The gaps between groups were so large that one voice had "enough time that I went to get an iced tea in between." What 81 Ironman starts taught Meredith Kessler about life is quieter and richer. Kessler talks plainly about passing out at mile 22 at St. George and waking in hospital. She also explains teaching her children to finish what they start, with a caveat about not harming their health.
If We Were Riding, hosted by Kelly O'Mara and Sarah True, has no episodes listed after June 2023, so treat it as an archive worth raiding. In #243 "Letting it Go" on Race Day, the results round-up calls the Chattanooga 70.3 race "a field of mothers," and True recalls a fellow racer calling their shared run "a sunday mom's day out run". #228 How to Train Wreck picks apart another show's interview with Andrew Messick. One thread asks why spacing a single-day Kona start for fair racing pushes older women's start times later.
WITSUP women in triathlon, hosted by Steph, has listed episodes from 2021 that treat athletes as whole people. Jacqui Allen - That Suitcase Life follows a firefighter who took a year's sabbatical in the run-up to London 2012. Julie 'DIBS' Dibens - My Twin, The White Whale includes a Di2 battery dying with 60k to go at Roth.
The harder questions
Doping talk tests whether hosts can hold nuance. In TUE's - a short cut to Legal doping?, Triathlon Mockery mixes first-hand detail with speculation. One host describes giving urine and blood at six in the morning, and the hosts also argue that some athletes treat doping as a career decision. In #239 Join Our Group Ride, If We Were Riding asks whether triathlon is clean and resists the tidy version: "did you think everyone was clean". Both episodes are opinion rather than reporting, and they work best heard that way.
Coaching for the hours you have
Get Fast Podcast - Triathlon, Ironman & Cycling Coaching Advice is a father-and-son show with Jordan and Gerard Donnelly. Our 14 Week Ironman Program Disaster is a case study of Mitch, who wanted to do his first Ironman, at Busselton, in 14 weeks. He was injured running early in the build. On race day he still rode 5:20 averaging 191 watts and split his marathon 1:50 and 1:52. Despite the title, it is a lesson in compromise rather than catastrophe.
Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast, from coach Rob Wilby, speaks to busy age-groupers. In How Michael Successfully Trained for His First Ironman While Working at Sea | Ep 562, Michael describes 16-hour days, seven days a week, and a transition built around a two-litre bottle of water to rinse off the salt. Winter Training That Actually Works: Real Athlete Questions Answered | Ep 566 explains how ERG mode can trap a tiring rider in a "spiral of death".
Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast - Presented by TrainerRoad is the most technical choice. It is cycling-first but takes triathlon questions. KETO AND LOW CARB FOR CYCLISTS | Dr. Kyle Pfaffenbach | Ask a Cycling Coach 535 compares fast-twitch fibres to a Ferrari before working through the electron transport chain. Near the end, as on the coaching shows, comes a sales pitch. The Triathlon Training page goes further. So does the Cycling page. Swimmers can also try the Open Water Swimming page.
Where to start
- For race-week punditry: Professional Triathlon News, Episode 268: The Biggest IRONMAN Field Ever + The Prize Money Debate. It is opinionated and quick, and it is useful if you are following Texas.
- If you want an athlete's working week: The Triathlon Hour, The Triathlon Hour with JONAS SCHOMBURG. You get coaching by WhatsApp, the swim story and the baguettes.
- For a veteran's perspective: Feisty Triathlon, What 81 Ironman starts taught Meredith Kessler about life. It is frank about failure without wallowing in it.
- Facing a first Ironman on short notice: Get Fast Podcast - Triathlon, Ironman & Cycling Coaching Advice, Our 14 Week Ironman Program Disaster. Hear it before you sign up.
- If you speak German: Buddy Talk, 169 - Blummenfelt noch schlagbar?. Expect friends, splits and a listener keeping the hosts honest.
Pick the conversation you want on your next long ride. Listen for one idea about pacing, fairness or rest that you would otherwise have missed.
Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.
Featured shows
5 shows, described rather than listed
Each has a short write-up and a note on what it does best here.
A practical solo coaching voice that works through Ironman training decisions — session priority, bike pacing, swim mistakes, taper — without dressing them up as lifestyle content.
Blunt, funny, and technique-heavy: coaches talking poolside about how to stop fighting the water and reach the bike with enough left to race.
Built for athletes fitting triathlon around normal life — covers budget, gear decisions, open-water skills, and the real jump from 70.3 to full Ironman.
Fast panel energy with insider race-policy talk, pro-life texture, and enough casual profanity to feel like a group thread that happens to be recorded.
Covers the championship season and women's pro circuit — Kona previews, WTCS debriefs, and athlete interviews that sit close to the race calendar.
Where to start
5 routes in, one per reader
Starts with session priority and race execution, then adds taper, pacing, and the couch-to-Ironman frame — practical enough to act on after a single episode.
Goes straight at the technique and body-position problems most triathletes carry into the water, without gatekeeping or unnecessary polish.
Episode 38 on Ironman budgets and Episode 31 on whether you need a tri bike cover the questions most athletes Google before signing up.
Assumes you already know the sport and the names — drops straight into draft zones, burnout, and race-week realities without stopping to explain.
Kona previews, WTCS debriefs, and athlete profiles that sit close to the pro calendar rather than general training advice.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing before you listen
An Ironman-branded half-distance triathlon: 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run — the most common stepping stone before a full Ironman.
Functional Threshold Power — the highest average power output a cyclist can sustain for roughly one hour, used to set training zones and race pacing.
A training session that combines two disciplines back-to-back (usually bike then run) to condition the legs for the transition fatigue unique to triathlon.
The regulated area behind another competitor's bike where drafting is prohibited in non-drafting triathlon; violating it results in a time penalty.
Transition 1 (swim-to-bike) and Transition 2 (bike-to-run) — the gear-change zones that count as part of total race time and reward practiced routines.
Critical Swim Speed — a training pace derived from timed swims, used to set effort zones in the pool the way FTP sets zones on the bike.