Challenge Roth

Leading up to Challenge Roth, I’ve chatted with Fred Funk’s team. As last year, they’ll have a booth at the Roth expo with a guessing game for Fred’s 2026 total finish and each of the legs (swim, T1, bike, T2, run). I was asked to provide a data-driven look at the numbers he has posted so far and what can be expected from Fred at Challenge Roth 2026. If you’re in Roth, make sure to visit the Fred Funk booth and lock in your guesses for a chance to win some nice prizes!

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The three legs aren’t equally easy to predict, so it’s worth knowing where the uncertainty sits before you lock in your guesses. The swim is the biggest unknown: Roth 2025 was Fred’s first long-distance race, and all three of his long swims came off injury-disrupted builds, so there’s no clean read on where his swim really sits. The bike is partly a tactical decision: which group he’s in after the swim, how hard he rides, knowing a faster bike can leave him less for the run. The run is the most variable on the day: it’s where the weather bites hardest and where a hard bike shows up. Across all three, the biggest single swing is whether Fred has a good day with the weather conditions close behind.

Guess-the-time game: think you can call his splits? Lock in a guess for swim, bike, run and total — closest in each leg wins. Enter your guesses by visiting the Fred Funk booth at the Challenge Roth expo.

Fred’s long-distance results

Race	Date	Swim	Bike	Run	Total
Challenge Roth	Jul 6, 2025	0:49:21	4:04:45	2:43:04	7:40:07
IM Switzerland	Aug 24, 2025	0:49:43	4:21:20	2:41:21	7:57:38
IM New Zealand	Mar 7, 2026	0:49:46	4:13:22	DNF	DNF

Challenge Roth 2025 was Fred’s first long-distance race; New Zealand 2026 was a DNF. To account for slower courses, the two non-Roth races are course-adjusted to Roth in the sections below.

Swim

This is a big unknown: Roth 2025 was Fred’s first-ever long-distance race, and all three of his long-distance swims came off injury-interrupted builds (a bike crash before Roth, a broken elbow before New Zealand) – so there’s no healthy benchmark to measure him against.

• No clean reference. His three long swims sit course-adjusted between 49:12 and 49:32, but that’s three compromised swims agreeing with each other, not a settled level.
• Last year’s Roth swim: 49:21, without a wetsuit. This year is his first clean swim build, so an improvement is on the table and his half-distance results hint that way — but with nothing to calibrate against, the size of any gain is open.
• Wetsuit unlikely. It wasn’t allowed last year and looks unlikely again this year, so banking on a wetsuit swim and the time one could save is a risky assumption.
• Group dynamics. The start is effectively a sprint. What matters is how fast the lead group breaks clear and the pace settles into a sustainable rhythm. A long hard opening forces a recovery and costs time; an early split lets him settle into his pace sooner.

Bike

The bike split is as much a pacing decision as a fitness number — how hard he rides, knowing a faster bike can leave him less for the run. His two completed races point to that trade-off.

• Range so far, with room to grow. Course-adjusted, his three long-distance bikes sit at 4:04:45 (Roth), 4:10:07 (New Zealand) and 4:11:33 (Switzerland) — roughly a seven-minute window, and all of it from less than a year at the distance. A stronger engine can show up as a faster bike or as the same bike with a fresher run.
• Wind impacts bike times. Roth’s bike is fast but exposed, ridden as two loops, so wind direction and strength matter. A windy day makes everyone slower, not just Fred.
• Solo or with company. A good swim impacts his initial company on the bike. With a better swim, he could start the bike with a faster group rather than having to focus on making up time to the leaders on his own. Whether he rides alone or has others around to share the pace-setting shapes his bike split. A strong, well-working group often pulls a quicker split than a lone time-trial, even with everyone observing the 20 m draft rule. 
• A fast bike isn’t free. At Roth he rode 4:04:45 and ran 2:43:04; in Switzerland he rode 4:11:33 and ran 2:37:39 (Roth-adjusted). About 6:48 quicker on the bike at Roth but about 5:25 slower on the run, so his combined bike-and-run time didn’t change much.

Run

The run is the most variable leg. It’s where the weather bites hardest, and it’s impacted by how hard he rode the bike. It’s also the leg with his thinnest data: two finishes from his first season at the long distance.

• Two finishes, one DNF. His Roth run was 2:43:04 and his Switzerland run adjusts to 2:37:39 — a window of about 2:38 to 2:43. He didn’t finish the run in New Zealand, so his usable data for the run is just two races.
• The run often tracks the bike. His faster run (Switzerland) came off his easier ride; his slower run (Roth) off his fastest ride. The bike and run splits often move together with how hard he rides the bike, rather than independently.
• Heat can play a big role. The marathon is where temperature, sun and humidity do the most damage. A hot Roth midday can add minutes to anyone’s run, and the back half of the race is the most exposed part of the day.
• Most room to move — both ways. Running well off a hard bike over 42 km is a skill that builds with experience, so a second year at the distance could lift his run. On the other hand, it’s the leg most sensitive to a hard bike or a hot day, which makes it the most variable split.

Transitions

Roth’s transitions are quick, and Fred’s were efficient last year. Expect much the same in 2026, with one wrinkle: in 2025 he put on his socks in T1. This year he might look for a quicker T1 to stay with a group, which would shift 20–30 seconds from T1 to T2.

2025 transitions: T1 1:53 · T2 1:06.

Total

The total is gun-to-tape: his three splits plus time spent in transitions. What moves this time most isn’t only how he distributes effort between bike and run, but also whether the day itself is a good one for Fred — his legs on the day matter most, but also the race around him and the conditions.

• Gun-to-tape. Start line to finish line: swim + bike + run + ~3 min in transition. (Splits are rounded up to the second, so they won’t sum exactly to the published total — expect a second or two of slack.)
• What he’s shown: 7:40:07. His actual Roth total last year; his other long-distance finish in Switzerland adjusts to about 7:44, roughly the same. That’s his demonstrated level in his rookie year at the distance.
• A big day lifts everything. The largest swing in the total is whether Fred has a good day. The per-leg upside — a clean swim, a fast and even bike, run durability — can arrive together and step him up across all three at once. A close fight for the podium tends to pull more out of an athlete than a solo race for fifth. The weather matters too, but a good day for Fred can move the total more than the conditions do.
• The bike/run trade tends to cancel. Across his two finishes the bike-and-run total shifted less than 1.5 minutes even as the two splits each swung 5–7 minutes. For the total, how he distributes effort looks to matter less than it does for the individual bike and run guesses.

Data at a glance

Reference ranges, not predictions — the race decides!

• Swim — around 49 min, off three injury-disrupted builds. A faster swim is on the table if his first clean prep delivers, but by how much is open.
• Bike — ~4:05–4:12. In his second year on the long distance he could go faster — maybe even close to four hours — though some of the bike gains may surface as a fresher run instead.
• Run — ~2:38–2:43. Experience could improve it, but it’s the leg most exposed to a hard bike or a hot day.
• Total — ~7:40 last year; a genuine step-up day, with sharper form and pushed by a fight for the podium, could bring that down across all three legs at once. Can he get closer to the German record set last year in Copenhagen by Finn Große-Freese at 7:27:34?

Play along: lock in your guess — swim, bike, run, transitions, total. Closest in each leg wins. Lock in your best predictions at the Fred Funk booth at the Challenge Roth expo.