The Hoff is Back! (Even Though He Never Really Left!)

Photos: Kevin Mackinnon

His last IRONMAN race might have been a couple of years ago. At 41, it’s also fair to say that Ben Hoffman’s career is winding down. But, contrary to what many thought, the eight-time IRONMAN champ didn’t call it a career after his runner-up finish in Lake Placid in 2023. (And, it’s worth remembering that he won IRONMAN Texas in 2022, beating Magnus Ditlev, no less.) After Lake Placid, though, Hoffman disappeared from the long-distance triathlon world as he became a guide for American Paralympian Owen Cravens – the pair would finish fourth in Paris last year.

So how did Hoffman end up on the start list for the race renowned as the world’s toughest IRONMAN this weekend?

“It just actually kind of came together,” Hoffman said in an interview yesterday, a few days before the race in Lanzarote. “We were driving up to Colorado from Tucson to see my family over Thanksgiving last year in November. I was chatting with Kelsey (his wife), it’s a long drive, 10 hours or something like that. I said, you know, I feel like I need to do something for myself. I had just done this. year and a half of guiding … and it felt like this sort of slow motion, unceremonious retirement that was happening. I mean, I’m 41 years old now, but I also felt like I still had some fight in me and I had some hunger to do something for myself again. I said, I think I need to do at least one more race.”

With two young children at home, a decision like that requires spousal support. Kelsey was all in.

“She’s doing the heavy lifting at home … when I do this, when I commit to an IRONMAN build and a cycle like this, then it’s like I’m not going to be as present and as available and helpful probably as I could be otherwise,” Hoffman said. “She was on board. We worked backwards from what I thought would work in terms of a time frame. I feel like I need a longer runway now that I’m older. And I knew I wanted to do most of my training in Tucson. I didn’t want to go too deep into the summer because it gets really hot there … Texas didn’t really get me that excited, even though I won it. It just didn’t seem like it was the right one. I wanted to do something that felt honest and real and very individual. So here I am. Lanzarote fit right in the schedule and it’s an iconic race … I knew it was one of the toughest, if not the toughest, IRONMAN races out there. And that’s where I’ve built my career, too – doing the hard ones. It felt fitting, whether or not this is the last one. I did kind of joke with people that I thought picking this one made sense because if it was hard enough, maybe I would cross the line and say I never want to do one of these again. And that might be how I feel on Saturday. Really, what it came down to, was I wanted to put in the effort to try to be excellent one more time and just to really enjoy the process and not to focus on the outcome or the race specifically, but more on the process of getting to the race. And I did that.”

Hoffman feels that he’s arrived having done all the work he can, and he also doesn’t feel like he’s under any pressure to perform at a certain level – “it’s not do or die for me,” he said. Even if he has a great race and he decides he’s not “fully done,” Hoffman does concede “that time is coming.” His original plan had been to “take 2022 really seriously, then have 2023 be a ‘fun’ year where I did some gravel events and whatever I wanted to.”

That plan all got derailed with the Paralympic guiding, an experience that Hoffman found to be a welcome change and satisfying. Rather than be completely focused on his own fitness, he was suddenly contributing to the development of another athlete. Not being in control of everything that was going on in the race environment forced him to “increase my patience, understanding and compassion.”

“The ability to travel around the world and to be part of these events and to be inspired by the Paralympic community was really cool, and that that was great perspective, too, for my own racing,” he continued. “The things that you take for granted as a fully able bodied human … I don’t think these athletes are asking for our pity, but I feel like you have to recognize that there are challenges that they’re overcoming that are significantly harder, in certain ways, than some of the things that we deal with.”

Then there was all the excitement around the Paralympics in Paris.

“The city just did an incredible job” he remembered. “It’s such a cool venue. I mean, I can’t describe to you what it was like to be on the Champs-Élysées on a tandem bike riding at 30 miles an hour on the cobbles. And you’re just like, how is this real right now? You have all these iconic landmarks … in this environment that you’ll never probably get to experience in that way again. It was really, really exciting and the crowds were just crazy. So yeah, all in all, It was something that I’ll cherish and also hopefully learn and grow from.”

So as he returns to racing, I can’t help but ask if he feels like there’s been some changes in pro racing over the last few years.

“I think when it comes to the performance side, everyone’s just riding so fast,” he said. “I mean, that’s one of the biggest differences. The bike splits we used to do are just not anywhere near what the guys are doing now, on average. And there’s so many of them doing it … It’s exciting to watch, and I’m at the point now where I want to be in there and I want to compete and be in the mix, but mostly I’m just excited to watch it unfold too. I’m not so obsessed with beating all of them. I’m kind of in awe of it, too.”

He might be impressed by the competition, but that hardly means we shouldn’t expect to see Hoffman competing at the pointy end of the field on Saturday. It’s a course that’s ideally suited to him – to do well at IRONMAN Lanzarote you have to be able to be acutely aware of your strengths and limitations, and you have to be extremely patient. Here’s hoping it’s not the last time we see him race, but if it is, he’ll have ended a storied career on his terms.

Ben Hoffman’s Cervelo P5

Hoffman is racing on the Reserve Turbulent Aero Disc/99 Front with Schwalbe Pro One TT Aero tires. The bike ie equipped with Shimano Dura Ace components.

Hoffman rides with 170 mm cranks, and has 56/44 chainrings. He’s riding Shimano Dura-Ace Pedals and uses the Dura Ace power meter.

The rear casette is an 11-30.

He’s using the Gebiomized Stride saddle.

In addition to the Cervelo aero bottle on the down tube, Hoffman has a BTA mount up front.

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