Greater Wanup Triathlon Club: Coach's Message to club, "Six weeks out from Ironman Canada. Taper Strong."

Greater Wanup Triathlon club (GWTC) head coach Bob Arnold delivered a stirring motivational message to his athletes on the clubs weekly video call this past Sunday. With 6 weeks left before the clubs ‘A’ race of Ironman Canada, the coach's job would be to motivate and reassure athletes as they percolate with nervous energy.

In the video, the coach was seen to sit at his kitchen table, his now well familiar club training journal, and appeared both ponderative and reflective, but firm. A transcript of the video call follows:

“Athletes, circle up.

The Greater Wanup Tri club set the multisport world on fire by harnessing the performance and therapeutic power of The Mantra; a technique that has come to be known as ‘The Wanup Method’¹. The 2023 club mantra of “Stay Hard” has proven to be both weaponized awesomeness, and a useful affirmation for our aging male athletes. Staying hard has driven our club to even higher levels of recreational sport performance, and this year has already seen several personal bests.

Last year we saw a strong club showing at Ironman Canada, and we’re looking to repeat much of that performance, but with the addition of some new faces to the team to bring purported ‘skinny-dick energy’. And now that we’ve perfected our special Spunk(™) energy supplement recipe, we’re even more excited with what the future holds.

With six weeks left until Ironman Canada it’s time to put the icing on the training cake, and execute on the all important final phase. For this, we announce the club mantra for the next 6 weeks:

Taper Strong.

Whether that means journaling with the intensity of a 14-year old school girl experiencing her first crush, binge watching the Gilmore Girls and loading up on jube-jubes and oreos, or putting on those running shoes for the first time in months. Taper Strong.

Anything is possible in the taper, and miraculous turn-arounds are the norm. Heck, I even heard a story of a guy who did Ironman Canada last year, on a gravel bike, with zero hours of training, but a strong taper of suntanning and tantric meditation allowed him to power his race entirely through visualization.

Anything is possible in the taper. Taper Strong.”

With that the video faded, and the lyrics and music of Juvenile’s 1999 smash hit Back that azz up (sic) continued to play in the background.

Shortly after social media was buzzing with the #taperstrong hastag, spawning a new Tik Tok video trend, of people posting videos of themselves tapering strong.