Sam Long talks improving swim technique, T100 mental challenges and Kona dreams

Sam Long once proclaimed he had the strongest legs in triathlon. While that might be up for debate, what’s less subjective is that he’s one of the biggest personalities in the sport and whenever the Colorado-born, self-proclaimed ‘Big Unit’ appears on a start-list he adds an extra dimension to the racing. 

If you’re not yet familiar with the 29-year-old, Long is a larger-than-life 6ft 4in figure who crashed on to the pro scene by making the most of limited racing opportunities (and Strava KOMs, naturally) during the pandemic and loves to gee up the crowd at every opportunity with his “Yo! Yo! Yo!” chant. 

He also has 19 professional victories to his name and counting and a bike-run combination to rival any athlete in the world. 

Now a father to two-year-old Leo, with a second child on the way, we caught up with Long near Venice in Italy, where his wife, Lara, is visiting family and her husband is putting in the groundwork for an assault on the Ironman World Championship in Nice. 

Whether it’s his raucous laugh, crowd interaction, or epic training days and racing duels with Canadian Lionel Sanders, Sam Long’s popularity shows no sign of dwindling, and he believes part of the reason for that is his relatability.

 “I try to be authentic and show who I really am, and I guess I’ve tried to let the ego go,” he says.

“I mean, every athlete has an ego, you know, but I try to be honest, show the highs and the lows, and I think maybe it feels more relatable.” 

Work in progress

If there’s one part of his make-up that is more relatable to the amateur triathlete than any other, it’s the swim. 

We’ll get into more detail later, but it’s been a constant work-in-progress (social media comments are often less charitable) ever since Long found triathlon as an 18-year-old when a knee injury put team sports on the backburner. 

“My childhood was more traditional sports,” he reflects. 

“I was skiing, playing American football and soccer, and I didn’t really know about triathlon. I started to get into cross-country at high school, and wanted to run track in college, but I tore my medial collateral ligament in my senior year, and the only rehab I could do was swimming.

“So I basically started in triathlon, almost as a mistake, but I would say it’s the sport I was most talented at, and then I was able to pursue it.” 

Pro beginnings

Having completed more than 20 full distance Ironmans before reaching his mid-20s, including winning an age-group title in Hawaii in 2015, his initial forays into the pro ranks were marked by steady if unremarkable results, and outside of his home town of Boulder, his profile was low. 

That all changed during Covid, initially thanks to some rapid ascents of Mount Lemmon in Arizona, the highest point of the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson – where the equally popular Sanders was dethroned. 

With no official racing in sight, the Canadian had sped up the 20-mile climb, pushing out more than 400 watts in around 76mins. 

Long made it his mission to take the Strava segment, and the chest-poking all played out over social media.

 “I was much younger, raw and just full of energy, and I was trying to get some attention, because I knew if I couldn’t get attention, and get some sponsors, I would have to get a job!” Long explains.

“I needed people to notice me because I wanted to be in this sport for a long time.” 

Racing resumed 

Mission accomplished, Long’s next public relations push was when the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) put several thousand dollars behind a little known race in Idaho, the Bear Lake Brawl in September 2020. 

Naturally, this was an attractive proposition to the young athlete. 

“It was the first triathlon race back,” he adds. “If not in the whole world, then certainly in the USA, and the PTO put money behind it and basically sent an entire media team. 

“That’s where I said: ‘I’ve got the strongest legs in the triathlon, I’m gonna smash you all’ and everyone replied: ‘Absolutely no way!’

Again it worked out. 

Long beat the best of a domestic field by over 4min at the middle distance, and went from strength-to-strength. 

The following summer he placed second to Norwegian Gustav Iden in the Ironman 70.3 World Championships and according to the PTO rankings hasn’t been out of the top 10 in the world for the past five years. 

Ending the US men’s Kona drought

Still the No 1 ranked US man, Long represents the best chance of ending the long wait for an American man to win an Ironman world crown. 

Andy Potts was 70.3 world champion in 2007 and you have to go back a further five years for Tim DeBoom’s success over the full distance. 

To land the title in Hawaii remains his ultimate goal, but partially as a victim of circumstance (he was the first pro qualifier for the 2020 event, which was cancelled due to Covid), he has never raced there as a pro. 

“My dream has always been Kona, and I feel like next year (when both men and women will race in Hawaii) we’re finally going to go back to normalcy. Like, okay, we can depend on it every year.” 

For context, to be victorious, he’s likely to have to race almost an hour faster than DeBoom did in 2002. 

Playing to the crowd

Results are one thing.

Just as many fans will remember the on-course interactions, often as Long emerges from the water minutes behind the leaders, still with a huge grin and gesticulating for more encouragement from the sidelines.

“If you feed the crowd love, they feed you love back,” he says. “So it takes some energy, but I feel like I normally get it back 10 times as much. I come from American football where there’s always touchdown celebrations, first down celebrations, and interception celebrations. It’s just what I was used to. 

“I remember reading a quote from Eliud Kipchoge saying he tries to smile in the marathon because studies say if you smile, you feel less pain. 

“So it looks like, okay, I’m wasting energy and I’m not focused, but I’m just taking a moment to be a little more lighthearted, especially because we’re not the Tour de France – we usually have one big patch of fans on the whole course and maybe see them for a couple minutes at the most in a four or eight-hour race.” 

There were times, particularly last year, when Long certainly needed the love. 

Having dedicated his focus to the T100 World Tour, pro-only small fields over a punishing 2km swim, 80km cycle and 18km run, Long would invariably find himself facing Olympians and would finish the swim looking like his chances were in tatters. 

It makes it all the more remarkable that he fought back to finish second in both Miami and Singapore, and would end the series placed sixth overall. 

It’s tough at the top

But it also took a toll, with an emotional breakdown on camera after the final race in Dubai in November, where the tears flowed. 

“The T100 has been a serious mental challenge,” he explains.

“It’s pretty well an ITU (sic) level swim, so I’m losing a lot of time, and on one hand it’s trying to turn the brain off and just keep going, and find positives because I’ve had some amazing comebacks. 

“It’s harder though. When you’re in the lead, you’ve extra energy, the crowds cheer more, you’re confident and more in control. 

“In contrast, every single person I pass [on the bike] gets an opportunity for a ticket to the front [riding in the slipstream], and they all know that. 

“If I’m 40th out of the water, I’ve got 39 people to get rid of on the bike. That burns the legs and makes it harder to run.” 

Swimming faster

It’s worked at lower tier races, but for the sport’s biggest prizes – the Ironman world crowns he cherishes – Long knows he needs to improve his swim. 

As he puts it, spotting Kristian Blummenfelt 4mins into T1 and still trying to be competitive is not an option. 

The current focus has been to team up with fellow US athlete Greg Harper, an elite swimmer, who has only once failed to lead out of the water in eight Ironman races. 

“I’m working on trying to be more of an open water swimmer and less of a pool swimmer,” Long explains. 

“In the past, I’ve really tried to learn swimming, but a lot of this is increasing distance per stroke with a really high elbow. 

“Yet if you watch me in a race, my cadence is so much slower than everyone else. 

“I was spending so much energy getting this high, perfect recovery that wasn’t working with my flexibility, so now we’re trying to just throw those arms over, grab the water and get going.

“The pull feels a bit better because I’m entering a little wider.”

​​Head position is another piece of the puzzle. 

Constantly being told to look straight down, Long has realised that the extra rotation to breathe is compromising his stroke, and he was finding it harder to orientate in open water. 

“It’s a hard fix because I’ve taken however many strokes like that in my life, but if you watched Alistair Brownlee, the guy’s head was practically coming out of the water. 

“If he wasn’t swimming fast, coaches would look at that and be like: ‘That’s horrible, we gotta fix this.’ But obviously it worked incredibly.” 

Balancing priorities

Finally, as he approaches his 30th birthday, Long’s enthusiasm shows little sign of waning, but how does he keep his head in the game? 

“This is actually the biggest and most complicated question,” he reflects. 

“When I first started the sport, it was blissful because it was just about being outside on my bike, and the margin of error was much bigger: Whatever I did, I’d improve. 

“There was also less pressure and responsibility. Now I provide for my whole family and while I still love pushing and finding my limits, I guess I have more of a purpose. 

“I have this fire inside of me to provide and to be the best that I can be, and that’s also what fuels me to be professional. 

In search of motivation

He cites a Muhammad Ali quote: ‘I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ 

“I remember thinking that’s nonsense, training is the favorite part of my day. Well, that’s before I had a girlfriend and nothing else in my life but training and exploring the world. 

“Now I would rather be spending time with my two-year-old son than out riding my bike, but finding other joys in life actually makes me train smarter. 

“Being a dad is such a blessing. Maybe short term I don’t get as much training in, but I think long term it allows me to have better recovery and a much longer career.” 

It all makes perfect sense, but then Long explains that his triathlon bike was stuck in transit for a week following the flight to Europe.

“Then I lose my bike for a week, and I realise there’s nothing I love more than riding my bike and when I’m not riding my bike every day, I start to go mad!” 

Complicated beasts, these triathletes.

Three of Sam Long’s favourite races

Ironman 70.3 Pucón, Chile. January 2026

This is truly the most stunning place you’ll ever see. It’s an awesome race course and the food is great. 

Challenge Kaiserwinkl-Walchsee. June 2026. 

Austria is such a beautiful place with great crowd support and you won’t be disappointed making a vacation out of it. 

Ironman Chattanooga (70.3 (May 2026) or 140.6 (September 2025)), May 2026. 

It’s the race venue with my highest winning percentage, but I can’t quite guarantee you the same!

Sam’s top tips for crushing long-distance racing

Don’t over emphasise the swim. Become efficient, but never forget it remains the smallest part of the race. 

Focus on aerodynamics AND comfort on the bike. Being streamlined can save you energy, but you still have to pedal for 112 miles.

Build that long run up. You’ll thank me in the final 10 miles of the Ironman marathon.

Make sure you enjoy it. We’re doing it for fun, but studies have proved that if you keep smiling, you’ll finish faster anyway. Win-win. 

Don’t ruin your marriage for an Ironman personal best. My most important piece of advice!

How to handle big volume days

Watch Sam Long’s early YouTube videos and you’ll see there are some mind boggling training days. 

“Probably bigger days that I could tolerate and part of my problem with inconsistency,” he says. 

“But now, I’m not willing to sacrifice performance for a YouTube video – which is a problem because otherwise I could do much cooler things!”

Long still believes in the multiple-session days as a cornerstone of improvement, but says his approach has evolved. 

“While the big days have gotten harder, the easier days have gotten easier, so the overall stress of the week is about the same.” 

The advice is to know your limit. 

“Even now, I’m constantly asking myself is doing another 10-minute bike interval worth it? Is it at the point where I can actually absorb and make that training better or will it just add fatigue for no benefit?”