My apologies in advance, but it must be said: the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, has to be the hardest (and stupidest) endurance event in the world.
Yes, that means I’m saying it’s harder (and stupider) than the Western States 100, or UTMB, or even the Barkley Marathons. Sure, the DNF rate at Barkley is much higher, but if we’re looking at sheer quantity of suffering Kona takes the cake.
I was talking to my PT about it this morning. He treats one of this year’s IMWC champions and also a runner-up at the 2026 Western States, and he agreed:
In Kona, you’re sizzling from the inside out—no amount of water cools you off in 90% humidity. The level of competition pushes pros and age groupers beyond their own limits. And unlike in most ultras, you don’t have a crew or pacers to take care of you—just dixie cups of water boiling on the highway.
I’m not saying this because earning the title of “hardest race” is a good thing. It’s also the stupidest race, after all. I’m saying it because these conditions are a prime testing ground for learning about endurance sport. And this year was no exception.
ICYMI: After collapsing with less than 2 miles to go last year, Boulder’s Taylor Knibb nabbed major redemption. This time, it was her turn to pass defending champ Solveig Løsevth—who in turn was on the ground with just a kilometer to go—to fulfill her childhood dream. The island giveth, and the island taketh.
In the men’s race, short course superstar and three-time Olympian Vincent Luis secured his own form of redemption after getting snubbed for Team France at his hometown Paris Olympics. (“My name is Vincent Luis and it seems that my Federation doesn’t need me anymore,” he wrote on Instagram at the time.) It was a pivotal moment that ultimately catalyzed his move to long course triathlon and eventual win on Ali’i Drive last weekend—what he claims was his final race in the sport.
As I mentioned last week, I was on the hot, sticky ground covering the race for our sister publication, Triathlete, and also getting to the bottom of Salomon’s new title sponsorship of the race. (I know I said I’d cover what that means for endurance sport—and I will—but it has to wait until next week because this race was just too damn good.) Here’s what I learned studying the 2026 Ironman World Championship and talking with the top finishers minutes after they crossed the line:
1. It’s not over ‘til it’s over
Kona, like basically any ultra, is a very, very long day. And yet, in both the men’s and women’s races, the winner didn’t move into the lead until the very end: Denmark’s Magnus Ditlev led off the bike and looked to be running within himself for nearly 20 miles of the marathon. But Vincent Luis looked even stronger, and when he blew by Magnus in an aid station at mile 19 Magnus imploded and eventually DNFed. Vincent of course went on to break the tape.
In the women’s race Taylor Knibb was in the lead for much of the day—which made it even worse, one would imagine, when defending champ Solveig Løsevth steamrolled by with less than 5 miles to go. Solveig’s title looked all but assured as she ran down Ali’i with a kilometer left … until she collapsed. Perhaps even more remarkably, Taylor had kept her cool after watching the title seemingly slip through her fingers and was able to indeed run to victory.
Ultimately, the men’s and women’s Ironman World Championship titles were decided 96% and 99.5% of the way through the race. It’s a reminder that no matter what your goals, how badly you feel, or where you are in the race, choosing to stay in the fight always pays off in one way or another.
2. Run your own race
See-through white tri suit aside, Vincent Luis flew under the radar all day. He didn’t lead out of the water or post the fastest bike split. He didn’t even run the fastest marathon. But he practiced one thing better than everyone else: consistency. An exceptional swimmer, Luis probably could have led the swim. But he chose to remain in the chase pack, conserving energy in the uncomfortably hot and choppy waters of Kailua Bay. He let the likes of Magnus Ditlev ride nearly 10 minutes faster on the 112-mile bike. And on the run, he saved two matches, he told me: One to shake Kristian Blummenfelt (the strongest runner in the field) and one to hold off Gustav Eden for the win.
In other words, he ran a patient, unflashy race—a somewhat remarkable feat for a man walking around Kona in this outfit. A little humility now leads to glory later.
3. Take care of yourself
When Solveig passed Taylor with 5 miles to go, most athletes in Taylor’s position would have crumbled. (In fact, that’s exactly what we saw happen in the men’s race—at exactly the same spot!) But Taylor did what she had been doing all day: She focused on herself. It was advice she received from eight-time champion Paula Newby-Fraser.
“My priority was getting to the finish line, that’s what Paula taught me,” she said in a moment of seriousness during one of the wildest finish-line interviews I’ve ever conducted. “Even when Solveig was passing me, I’m like ‘You got to keep taking care of yourself.’”
Taking care of herself meant that Taylor walked through the aid station to maximize fluid intake while Solveig jetted down the road. As Taylor said to me after, it would be helpful if Ironman provided more, colder water. But her strategy is a poignant reminder that spending a little extra time hydrating, fueling, taking care of blisters, or what have you, now saves you big chunks of time later.
4. The best shoe isn’t necessarily the fastest shoe
I was out on the run course taking note of what shoe models all the pros were wearing for our Fastest Shoes at the 2026 Ironman World Championship story. My biggest takeaway is that the fastest shoe on paper isn’t necessarily the fastest shoe for you on race day. Even among the fastest runners in the field, those in tippier models had a whole lot of wobbly ankle syndrome going on just a few miles into the marathon. And no wonder, they were 6-7 hours into frying themselves. Those in more stable models, such as Taylor Knibb (who wore the Hoka Rocket X3) looked far more fluid than, say, eventual eighth-place Hannah Barry, who elected for the ultra lightweight and fast but ankle-crushing Asics Metaspeed Ray.
It’s a PSA that in a sport like triathlon, or trail running, the best shoe is highly variable depending on your stride, the terrain, and how long you’re running. A carbon-plated trail super shoe may make you feel like you’re flying up a dirt road—and may leave you in a ditch descending a scree field.
5. Carbs are changing the game in a new way
I really don’t want to write about this point, but I did promise this newsletter would include my most unfiltered thoughts, so here goes. If the narrative over the past few years has been that high-carb fueling has unlocked the next performance frontier, I wonder if we’ve reached the next phase. And that phase is carbs allowing athletes to push too far. Take Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt, arguably the greatest current male Ironman triathlete who looked poised to run his way to the win on Saturday—until he hit the wall and faded to eighth.
“I felt good on the swim, good on the bike, good [for the] first 15-20K on the run. … Energy Lab, I guess I was a little bit short on liquid. I guess I had enough carbs. I was feeling the lack of liquid,” he told me after the race.
Did carbs allow Kristen to push himself to the point of severe dehydration? I wonder the same about Solveig Løsevth, who famously downs 140 grams of carbs an hour.
Far more controversially, Vincent Luis told me at the finish line he went to some dark places in the build for this race: “It’s a really hard commitment,” he said. “I don’t think I can do it again. The last 12 weeks were really, really hard. I committed to the sleeping, the training, the nutrition. That’s many, many nights when you’re going to bed hungry. That’s not really good for the people around you. But I really wanted to do it one last time.”
My inference from that statement is that fueling in training let him get away with underfueling outside of it. In the lower carb era of yesteryear, underfueling almost inevitably led to injury or overtraining. And granted, that still may be the case; Vincent said he “only” went to bed hungry for this training block and he never wants to do it again.
But that’s far too dark of a note to end this piece on what was an electric day. So let’s look at the flip side of Vincent’s point: To do endurance sports indefinitely, one does need to eat enough, not ruin relationships, and ultimately have fun. Even if that fun is Type II or Type III.
Until next week,
