No Limits Map to Triathlon Podcast · Todd Malcolm - Ironman specific triathlon coach

196 - Johan's next adventure The monster 300

·29 min

Todd opens by greeting Johan like someone who has been gone for a bit but never really left the conversation. He jokes about the red recording light and whether the gear is actually working. From there he pulls Johan back to Moab 240 in 2017 and to an aid-station moment Johan still had on video. What starts as a joke turns into a reminder that hard things can start to feel normal if you keep showing up. From there, the two settle into the way endurance athletes talk when they trust each other. Todd remembers being crew for Johan and watching the next leg begin. Johan laughs through the recollection and admits some of the details are fuzzy, but the feeling still lands. That looseness is part of what makes the exchange work. The conversation drifts into camping and into how sleeping in strange places changes what you think you can handle. Todd says that once you spend a week sleeping in the back of a truck, hotels and Airbnbs stop feeling like the only way to travel. Johan takes that thread and connects it to a New Zealand Ironman trip where a canceled Airbnb turned into a simple campsite solution. The point is not comfort. The point is proof. Todd keeps pressing on that idea because it matters to him as a coach. He treats these awkward travel moments as small training blocks for the mind. Johan agrees that each one makes the next strange thing feel more ordinary. The show stays in that lane without getting polished or overworked. Then they get into the new event, the Monster 300 in Arizona. Todd describes it as a run from Superior to Patagonia, Arizona. He corrects himself as he goes, which fits the rhythm of the show. The distance and elevation are treated as real work, not a marketing line. Todd lands on the numbers with the kind of surprise that makes sense for an athlete who has seen plenty but still respects the scale. He says the course is around 304 miles and then settles on about 40,000 feet of climbing. That turns the whole thing into a giant, leg-by-leg problem to solve. Johan hears that and immediately compares it to the Grand Canyon, which becomes the shared measuring stick for effort. The exchange keeps folding memory into ambition. A past race becomes evidence that a bigger one is possible. A canceled plan becomes a campsite. A wild idea becomes a real start line. Todd and Johan do not separate those things much, and that is the shape of the episode. The closing eases out with the usual friendly sign-off and a reminder that this show is built on small invitations to keep going. The coaching pitch stays there, but it sits inside the conversation instead of hovering above it. That makes the episode feel lived-in rather than packaged. It is a simple, encouraging listen about testing yourself, adjusting fast, and saying yes to the next hard thing.

As heard by us

A familiar triathlon chat that turns logistics and discomfort into a case for bigger adventures.

Johan's return gives the episode an easy, good natured shape. Todd keeps circling back through Moab 240, camping in the back of a truck, and the Monster 300 in Arizona, and the conversation lands because it treats endurance as something built over time, not sold as a thrill ride.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a real talk about taking on bigger miles in triathlon and ultra-endurance.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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