The Rich Roll Podcast - Chris McCormack: Life As Ironman World Champion

Episode Date: April 9, 2013

I cannot tell you how excited I am to share today's guest — a man who needs no introduction — triathlon legend Chris “Macca” McCormack. This interview is PURE GOLD! In case you've been living under a rock and have never heard of Macca, he is one of the winningest triathletes of all time, dominant at all distances from sprint to Ironman. He is a two-time Ironman World Champion and victor in over 200 triathlon races, including 12 Ironman titles, the 1997 ITU World Cup Series and the 1997 Triathlon World Championships, to name just a few. If you are a fan of Macca, then you've probably heard more than a few of his more outspoken — but always entertaining — interviews. I didn't want to reap an over-plowed field, so I chose to instead focus on aspects of his life less well-known — how he handles the balance of training and family life; how turning 40 has impacted his always evolving perspective on training and racing; and how he is learning to leverage social media as a service tool to help better communicate with and educate his amateur athlete fan base. case in point – check out his MX12 Training Videos. I am super proud of this episode — Chris could not have been more candid, engaging and fun. I hope you enjoy the show as much as I enjoyed doing it! Speaking of enjoying the show — if you are, and inclined to help support what we are doing, then make sure you subscribe on iTunes and leave a comment on the iTunes page for the show. Thanks for listening! Rich

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 24, with Chris McCormack. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. My name is Rich Roll. Welcome back to the show. My name is Rich Roll. If you're new to the program, and I suspect we might have a few new subscribers that I like to go long, Ultra, which came out last spring. It's been an amazing journey traveling around with the book. The book's done very well. If you haven't heard of it, you can pick it up on Amazon. And as a matter of fact, the paperback drops on May 21st, and it's up on Amazon for pre-order now. So if you can go to Amazon and

pre-order it, you'll be the first person to get it. It's cheap. I think it's only like 10 bucks or something like that. So if you've been holding out because the hardcover is out of your price range or what have you, now's the time. We actually have an Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. So it would help the show out tremendously if you're going to buy my book or you're going to buy that way. And it throws a few pennies in our jar, which we use to keep the podcast flowing. It won't cost you a single penny extra, but it'll help us out. So it's a great way to support the show. As a matter of fact, you can, if you have an Amazon sort of hyperlink in your browser menu, you can just swap out that link with the one on our site. And that way you don't have to think about it anymore. And hey, you can feel good about

supporting what we're doing. We also have a donation button up on the website as well, which if you're feeling good about what we're delivering to you. It's just another way to support the show. You can do a monthly subscription or a one-time deal. It's up to you how much you want to give. And the bottom line is you don't have to do anything because we will always provide this podcast to you for free. It's absolutely for free and will always be for free. But if you're inclined to be supportive, that's a good way to do it. And we appreciate it a lot. In fact, I've been flabbergasted with the amount of support that's come through, through the Amazon purchases and through the donation button. And believe me, it does not go unnoticed. It means a lot, that people will are going out of their way to support what we're doing. And it makes me feel good about what we're doing and just more motivated than ever to

keep it going and turn it into a real professional thing. So I can continue to bring you great guests and great content, uh, which is really what I'm all about. I've had more fun doing this podcast than I ever expected. And if I could just do this all the time, I would be a happy camper. It's been really, really fun. So what else about me? I'm a plant-based nutrition advocate. That's a long way of saying that I'm a vegan. It just means that basically I eat plants, nothing with a mother, nothing with a face. I'm all about repairing health through incorporating more plants into the diet. And a lot of the guests that I have on the show and the subject matter that I kind of tackle and grapple with has to do with nutrition, repairing your health in a long-term sustainable way. I have a big passion for that.

And that's a big part of what my book is about if you haven't checked it out. What else? I'm a recovering attorney. I am a holistic lifestyle entrepreneur. What does that mean? It means I'm unemployed, I guess. No, it means that I'm passionately pursuing different avenues to put this healthy message out to the world. And that means I blog, I podcast, I'm working on enough to meet students there who have to read my book as part of their freshman curriculum, which was amazing. Coming up, I'm going to be in Worcester, Mass. on April 14th for the Worcester VegFest. So if you're in the vicinity, I'd love to meet you. Come by. I'm speaking in the afternoon that day. I believe at like 3.15

I'm going to speak for about an hour and then do a meet and greet and sign books so if you're in Boston, Worcester that general area I would love to meet you come on by and show me the love also I'm going to be in Ottawa, Canada the following weekend

for Plant Powered Ottawa and I think that event is sold out, but if you wanna learn more about it or maybe there's a way to squeeze yourself in, go to plantpoweredottawa.com to find out more. My goal with this podcast is to share the people and personalities that I've met along this path to wellness over the past couple of years,

inspiring voices, people that have motivated and inspired myself to push the boundaries of my own personal potential, my health, my athleticism, people that have inspired and mentored me, informed me and fortified me with the tools that have allowed me to kind of do the things that I've done. Forward-thinking people on the whole, you know, paradigm-busting personalities and minds in the fields of health, wellness, fitness, diet, nutrition, business, and entrepreneurship. So I've had doctors on, I've had nutritionists, trainers, I've had world-class athletes like our guest today, entrepreneurs, like I said. And the idea is hopefully to educate and inspire and empower you so that you can become your best, most authentic self and unleash your own personal power upon the world. And if you can do that, the world is your oyster. Today's guest, let's get into that a little bit, Chris McCormick, affectionately known

around the globe as Macca. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already completely familiar with who this larger-than-life personality is. He really needs no introduction. He has dominated the sport of triathlon for as long as I can remember. I think he's one of the most winning, if not the most winning triathlete in the history of the sport. He's won the Ironman World Championship twice.

I think he's won 12 Ironman victories under his belt. Could be more by now. Five-time international triathlete of the year. He's dominated the sport at every distance from sprint and Olympic all the way up to Ironman. He's also a very, like I said, larger-than- life personality. He's got a lot of vim and vigor. Uh, he's very passionate about triathlon and he's not afraid to speak his mind, which I think over the years has gotten him into trouble a few times, uh, because he, he does tend to be outspoken and, and he calls it as he sees it, which is refreshing to me. Um love the guy. He was really fun to sit down with and was very candid and open. And I got to tell you, I met him a couple of years ago. He happens to

pass through my area where I live generally in the spring or the summertime for a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months here and there. And I've had the good fortune to be able to train with him a little bit and spend a little bit of time with him, usually in the pool. Uh, and he's been a great training partner. He's always full of positive energy and very, very helpful. And he'll always, you know, get a crowd of people to train with him. And he's always, you know, the biggest cheerleader in the pool. And we always have lively breakfast conversations afterwards and and i really look forward to when he's in town to have that experience uh i don't take it for granted um and i gotta tell you i was like nervous to sit down with the guy even though i know him a little bit uh i was like

oh my god i'm gonna interview maca it's a big opportunity for me and for the podcast. And despite the fact that I, you know, know him a little bit, I was like, what am I going to ask him? You know, how's this going to go? Uh, and, uh, he could not have been cooler. And I think that this is going to be a phenomenal experience for you guys to listen to what he has to say. It was a really fun interview. And our mutual friend, Aaron Franklin, who sat in on the interview, who's known Macca for a long time said, you know what? I have known Macca forever. I've listened to basically every interview he's ever given, hundreds and hundreds of interviews. And this thing is pure gold. Like this is one of the best interviews I've ever heard with him, heard with him. So that was really good to hear that early feedback and hopefully you feel

the same. Um, and it would be great to hear what you think by leaving a comment, uh, at richroll.com on the podcast page. Uh, let me know what you think about the interview. Also, it means a lot to us when you guys take a moment to go to iTunes and give us a five-star ranking and maybe throw a comment up. That helps a lot with the sort of algorithm of iTunes, which gives us a better profile and helps us grow our listenership. And really, that's all I ask. Tell a friend, throw a comment up, and we'll keep doing what we do for you for free. How about that? Is that a deal? So all I can say is Maka does not disappoint. Maka is Maka, and he's in rare form today. We talked about a lot of stuff. We talked about the history of triathlon, his respect for the history, I know what the spiel is and I didn't want to

tread over that ground that we've all heard so many times. If you're a fan of this guy like I am, I wanted to know more about kind of how he makes it work on a daily basis. You know, we kind of project on him this idea that he's, you know, oozing with talent, he's traveling the world, he's winning all these races. It looks very glamorous and it looks easy, you know oozing with talent he's traveling the world he's winning all these races it looks very glamorous and uh and it looks easy you know for him but you know he's also uh a guy with problems just like like we have you know he's got three kids he's married he's away from his family quite a bit uh and he has to kind of grapple with that and make it all work to make his life run properly and you know those are challenges i think that we can all relate to. How does he get his training in when he's traveling so much? How does he keep his marriage functioning and his relationship with his kids intact when he's gone so much?

you know, real world problems that we all kind of, you know, have to deal with and grapple with if you're married or have kids. And, and also, you know, I think that we also look at him and say, well, it's, it's easy. He just wins all these races, you know, he's so talented, but you know, he's had his setbacks as well. You know, he tried to make the Olympic team twice. It didn't work out. And it took him years and years and years to kind of crack the nut on, on the Ironman world championships and win that race. Uh, and so he kind of walks the nut on the Ironman World Championships and win that race. And so he kind of walks us through all of that and how he makes it work for him. And it's fascinating and illuminating and of course, very entertaining. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time.

It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover

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When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Let's get into it. Ladies and gentlemen, Macca, Chris McCormick. Man, this is fully kitted. You like it? We're pro here, man. I sound like I'm in a radio station. I'm going to pull this thing a bit this way.

What do you need? Oh, yeah, that's got to go. There we go. Perfect. Cool. Right on, man. You're the voice, John. I can sing a song and everything here.

Yeah, we're already recording too. Oh, are we? We're on. Hello on hello everybody we can stop and start again if you want okay you tell me what oh we are on we're definitely going we're going oh how are you mate yeah good how you doing pretty good i'm at your beautiful abode yeah thanks for coming by the garage it's i'm always here taking it apart i know you're here you've been here quite a bit, actually. Yeah, this week. We did a video shoot, a photo shoot at your house. Sportoga. Sportoga, riding past your place, picking you up for bike rides.

That's right, man. You make it sound like we're hanging out more than we are, though. Man, you just don't answer my – you won't answer my phone calls. Yeah, that's it. You sleep in for swimming. We broke up. We broke up. I did oversleep today. But, no, it's been fun getting in the pool with you a little bit. You sleep in for swimming? We broke up. We broke up. I did oversleep today.

But no, it's been fun getting in the pool with you a little bit. You've been doing more than me. I've had this broken hand. No, no, no, no. No. You're a good training partner. When I'm in LA, you're a good training partner. Yeah, it's good.

You know, are we going to tell people about the big secret about training around here? Mate, it's terrible. You don't want to ever come to Los Angeles and train. It's just concrete and steel. That's right. It's Pico Boulevard in Lincoln and it's terrible. There's nowhere to ride your bike and nowhere to run. The riding here is some of the worst riding I've ever done and the running is all on concrete. Terrible. Yeah. And when you see all those guys on the Garmin team and the team BMC out there, what are they thinking? Well, they come here for their training camps, but it's predominantly they hit the nightlife and the restaurants. You can't train here.

You've been coming to this area for several years now at this point. You pretty much come here every spring or summer for a stint. I find training in California, in Los Angeles in particular, my favorite training ground in the States. It's easy flight from Sydney. I'm back home in Australia, so you get the direct flight into Los Angeles. And when you get out here, it's a shock. All jokes aside, the bike riding is some of the best riding in the world. You have so many options. The hills are here.

You have the valley. In the middle of summer, you've got the heat in the valley. So if you're preparing for hot weather races, you can access that heat. You can pop back over the Santaanta monica ranges onto the pch and the temperature drops 30 degrees it's spectacular so it's become a real solid training ground for me and uh i think it's my seventh year here i moved up from san diego to los angeles and i've never looked back right yeah it's it is pretty epic and i think most people don't know because we are on the outskirts of LA. I mean, we're a good 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic from

Santa Monica or Hollywood. And it's a little bit too far out of town for most people to live who are kind of commuting every day. I mean, I do it. I'm used to the drive and all of that, but, um, and I lived in town. I lived in West Hollywood and I lived in Santa Monica for years before I even ever came up here. I didn't even know this existed up here i came up here i was like oh my god you know and i'm out on these remote trails running and i'm thinking why isn't everybody up here there's nobody up here i had the same experience years ago i was living in san diego because it was a triathlon mecca and um you you come as an Australian across it seems to have shifted to Boulder a bit but back in the day it was San Diego San Diego San Diego and I had a friend move

up here to Santa Monica and he's like you've got to come up and train it'll blow your mind out in the valley and I was like Los Angeles right you know there's 20 million people in that city I can't even imagine getting out on the bike and I came up and he brought me out here through Calabasas and, you know, up through Westlake and I was blown away. Just the options available for riding and running, which I don't think San Diego has. You're very limited in your bike riding in San Diego. Well, you've got to get through all the traffic lights and all that kind of stuff

to get to the good riding there. Yeah, well, you're straight out here. So we moved up through Calabasas like you said got out of santa monica came up this way you walk out the door one trusset of traffic lights and you're done right right out your back door all we need is a 50 meter pool here and i think it would become the next boulder we can build it well now yeah we should if you build it they will come right right get all your uh your business partners out here and put some deals together yeah let's pull that off anyone out there you are a wheeler dealer man

you're doing all sorts of stuff i want to i want to talk about the the mx12 and the video series and the kind of online community that you're building it's it's really interesting i think it's really forward thinking and you know aaron who's sitting over here has been telling me all about it and uh you guys shot that yoga video here the other day. So what's the story? I think, you know, I think with social media, everything coming out, I was right on board with that because I felt, for me as an athlete, coming through this sport, that a lot of people's perception of me

before social media was given through what other people had written about me. I used to read some of the magazine articles and think, man, I'm not really like that. But he really created this character that was me. In what respect? Like the smack talking kind of thing? Yeah, I did like to do the smack talk, but I used to read this stuff that I was arrogant. And I'm like, man, I'm not arrogant.

I'm competitive or I'm passionate. And a lot of people's perception was skewed because I felt like I never had the opportunity to explain to a lot of the amateurs out there. They just really got a snapshot of who I was as a person and an athlete through what other people had written about me. And then social media came along, Twitter and Facebook, and I saw that as a wonderful opportunity for me to present me, what I was like and who I am. And that really softened people's perspective of who I was. And off the back of that, you know, you started to build a community through your social media networks. And a lot of people started to connect with you. And the talk was, hey, you know, what are you doing that's different?

And I teamed up with Aaron, who I've known for a long time. He's a Kiwi boy living out here in LA. And we decided to bring out a product which was a digital product no one in triathlon had ever done that and just gave me the opportunity to explain to people certain sessions I'd done in my career you know things that had worked for me and we we sort of tapped that together as a bit of a fun you know a fun exercise and it was really warmly received and uh you know it's sort of gone from there we created the Macarex community and uh basically it was really warmly received and uh you know it's sort of gone from there we created the macro x community and uh basically it was an opportunity for people to to ask questions i felt

like a lot of the coaching here was very expensive and and a lot of the stuff if we could build a community in the same way that i'd done it throughout my career in the sense that when i came to los angeles i'd land in a town, I'd plug in, I'd start training with guys like you. I'd leave. You sort of have your connections here. I'd leave Los Angeles. I'd go to Boulder.

The same thing would apply. I'd leave Boulder. I'd go to Europe. The same thing would apply. I'd have my friends and the groups I could train with. I figured, why couldn't that be the same with amateurs? We all train. We just needed to create a team or a group of people that were friends and helped each

other. And we sort of developed that with MacRX.com. And we've got 600 athletes around the world. And we're starting to see that happening. I did a run in Santa Monica with seven or eight of our members the other day. And it's really, really cool. It's very organic. It's growing. And it's, I think, something I'm proud of.

I think it's also really true to the spirit of triathlon, in the sense that triathlon is the only sport where the pros get to compete in the same race at the same time as the amateurs and the pros are together, and then to be able to extend that relationship to your online community and being able to meet up with these people and develop a real relationship and a bond. And I've been on the site, and I've seen the community and being able to meet up with these people and develop a real relationship and a bond.

And I've been on the site and I've seen the community and all of that and I did that spree cast with you. And you've got passionate followers and they're psyched. I mean, they're so psyched that they feel like they have this kind of unique access to you and can pick your brain and you make yourself available to them. Yeah, and the other thing, I want them to rely on each other and motivate each other. I think that the great thing about that, our sport is that we all tend to be relatively motivated individuals. We're looking

for a challenge. So we all share that common, I think, common characteristic. But I think all of us are looking to motivate and help each other and within our community and you saw a lot of the athletes we have in the community all different abilities they're really helping each other and we give away prizes and awards for people who pay it forward basically athletes within our community are helping other athletes in the community it's been very organic and i like right that's a word i like to use a lot but it's it's far surpassed what I expected it to be so quickly. And the people, we did a spree cast last night, which was a, it's like a video conference with a lot of the guys.

I sit in very much like a podcast and a lot of the athletes come in and we talk to them on the computer screen and they ask their questions and everyone, you're starting to see the chatter around the spree cast on the screen. They're friends, which is what we were hoping to achieve. They're all asking when we're going to do an end of season camp together and you're starting to see the chatter around the Spree cast on the screen, they're friends, which is what we were hoping to achieve. They're all asking when we're going to do an end-of-season camp together and they're planning awards dinners. Well, I saw, I think, was it yesterday on YouTube, they put a YouTube video up where they collected all the happy birthday songs

together from all the people that are members of the community. Yeah, they did that on their own merit. I was blown away. Yeah, they all sung on their own merit. I was blown away. Yeah, they all sung me a happy birthday. You're such an arrogant prick. I'm so arrogant. But no, they're a really cool crew. I'm really proud of it.

I was sitting down with Aaron a year ago, driving to Wildflower, we were discussing this and he came up with this idea of hey why don't we sit in front of a video you're doing it all the time and and and start helping people digitally it's very difficult to access individuals but if we put out something that allowed them to download and watch and it could be very very successful and that was mx12 right and so it started off with basically a Facebook community, like a closed Facebook community. And then this series of videos, the 12 kind of training videos and, and what's the next phase? Like, where is this going? Like, where is it going to be in a

year from now? Like, how do you continue to build on what you've done today? Well, we, we left it. The thing we wanted to make very clear when we started it, it was, uh, when we started the Facebook community, we said, okay, guys, fire away. The rule of this series is there's no stupid questions. So whatever you think the question is, ask away and we'll find the answers for you. If I have the answers, I'll give it. And we developed MX-12, which was 12 training sessions for them to do. We gave them three bonus sessions, one with Terenzo.

And actually, you appeared in one of them. You did the track set. And we said, give me the feedback. How can we make this better for you? What are you guys looking for? And the feedback was they loved the sessions and they wanted more. But how could we plug that in to a training plan? How do you take these sessions and use them?

And a lot of people had their own coaches, but a lot of people out there in our sport are longing for knowledge. So I said, okay, let me- And it's such an alone sport. I mean, you're doing most of this in a vacuum where if you don't have a coach, you're kind of on your own to figure it out. And all the training sessions are by yourself unless you're a member of a club and- Yeah. And a lot of people don't know when to actually do things. You know, they're like, okay, I wake up on Wednesday morning, I have an hour in the morning, what would you recommend I do in that hour?

They don't have any system in place that enables them to basically plug in training sessions of their own or mine or other athletes. And so we decided to put a product together called MX Plus, which we just finished doing a lot of the filming the sportoga at your house a lot of other things outside of swimming biking and running and the big difference was at the end of it we give a simplified version of some of the systems the training systems i've seen around the world that have been very very successful and then we're trying to highlight the certain sessions we've given so they can take one

of those sessions and just plug it immediately into a Monday, day one. They might do a foundation day, which involves longer training sessions. So here's five sessions you could plug in for yourself on that day. and how they can use their coach, if they have one, to help them plug certain sessions in. I'll say this has been successful for Lisa Norton, Olympians, for world champions, for myself. And I'm pretty proud of that. It's very simplified. We're going to build on it. But I think it's going to come out really well.

It's cool. Well, congrats on that. I mean, it's already wildly successful. And it's a great product. So I'll put the link in the show notes for the show. But it's Macax.com. Is that the best place for people to go to check that out? Macax.com is the community platform and come and join us.

We're a fun crew. There's some outlandishly funny people in our sport from all around the world. We have members in Finland, in Germany, a lot in Miami, heaps in Australia and all around the world. And we've enabled people to build tribes. So we've got all these tribes around the world. We've got a couple in Japan. And that's the big thing. When you're traveling, you come into one of these Macarex tribes. And I know next month I'll be in

Europe. I'm meeting five or six members of our community. They're all coming down and we'll all be racing in Barcelona, the European tribe. It's pretty cool's, it's pretty cool. It's cool. And, and, you know, it's an extension of this kind of entrepreneurial spirit that you have that you bring to the sport. I mean, most people, professionals or, or top flight amateurs, I mean, they're just training all the time. They're super focused on that. That's, that's essentially what they're doing 24 seven. Uh, but you seem to always be kind of forward thinking, like, how can I make this better? What should I be doing next? And, you know, I've seen you on the phone, man, you're cutting deals and wheeling and dealing all the time and, you know, trying to think

outside the box of, you know, how can I put my imprimatur on this sport? And what do I want to leave behind? I mean, you just turned 40, you know, you'll continue to compete, but then there's going to be a next phase of your life and and what is that going to look like and how are you going to kind of capitalize on this you know sort of experience that you've had in this sport to you know carry on for the rest of your life i mean what is what is that next chapter going to look like for you do you think you know i think my my personality i grew up in this sport you know i discovered it in the 80s. I was a big fan first. So athletes like Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Tinley,

these guys were demigods to me as a kid. And I used to want to be these guys more than anything. So I think what drove me through this sport was always passion and a respect for the history of the sport. And I've always hung on to that. And I think a lot of the athletes more recently who have come to the sport are triathletes because they're good at triathlon. They don't really understand where the sport came from, nor do they care.

But for me, it was always driven by passion and respect for the Peter Reeds and all the athletes that came before me. You know, every Ironman World Championship I won, I always thanked those athletes that came before me because for me they were a huge part of who I was, why I was here in the first place and what motivated me in this sport. And as you get older, you start to reflect on your footprint, on how you influenced the sport in your small way and how you can make

the sport better moving forward and what changes you think can be made. And a lot has changed since I've been in the sport. The races, the corporations that have come in, the growth of the sport, and some of it's been great and some of it hasn't been so great. And I've always been very, very vocal about the future of it because I feel it's been my life. It's something that I love. What do you think are the big problems right now that need to be addressed?

I just think the people in power to some degree. I understand it's big business and it's quite difficult, but, you know, when you have hedge funds owning a sport, they're here for different reasons. And I think, you know, you just, we're moving more away from that community feel that was fantastic about the sport in the first place where everyone knew each other. Of course that happens as every sport grows, but you can still hang on to that lifestyle element of triathlon.

And I think in some cases we're losing that. It's more about a brand as opposed to an experience. And yet it's still, it still growing at a breakneck pace. I mean, these races sell out instantaneously, and it doesn't matter how many new Ironmans there are, they sell out immediately. And there's no shortage of demand for participation. Well, the thing I always say is that the growth is exponential,

but you're only going to sell 3,000 slots to sell out a race. So, of course, you need to multiply the amount of races as the popularity grows. It's just a common, it's a normal growth curve. But I think what you do need to hang on to, and I know the sport is making some errors, is those events that have had history. Without understanding where your sports come from,

you have no future without respecting the past and how do you how do you move forward with tennis wimbledon is wimbledon because it has a hundred years of history there's thousands of other tennis tournaments that come but everyone watches wimbledon everyone watches the u.s open everyone watches the french open they're their grand slams because they're the most historic events on the tour on the on the calendar the same can be said about triathlon but i feel that some of the brands have come in and they've sort of muscled their way in and made events that are marquee events in our sport, Escape from Alcatraz, Wildflower.

They don't have an Ironman brand on them, so they're dissed. And when a company comes in, they own the brand, they own the sport, they own the magazines, they push a message. Yeah, and it's completely vertically integrated totally from top to bottom totally and that's that's the biggest change i've seen and they're the things i i think a lot of people are here for the same reasons i came for in a long time ago but they need to to find their way there and that way is being pushed aside by corporations so i've always hoped that by embracing the history and by by encouraging old school thinking in the sense that we're a community, let's work out together, let's have a good time, let's exercise for fun,

let's be social, let's form relationships, marriages and everything out of what interests us. If we can keep that core passion, mate, the sport will continue to grow exponentially. And if we can keep reminding people of where we've come from then we've got some idea of where we're headed is there a is there a hall of fame for triathlon like a physical location for that none there should be no they they announce it every now and then they put someone in the hall of fame and i've always asked where is that where is this is that a canton ohio i thought kona would be i've always thought when i went to kona it'd be a

a fantastic place to have a coffee shop or something with all the old pictures, you know, like an Ironman, you know, shop where people could go, whether they get off the cruise ships. You know, that Alihi Drive, that finish at Alihi at Kailua Pier, it's a monumental place in triathlon history and triathlon in the sport. We should have something there. And every couple of days, a huge cruise ship pulls up and there's people walking up and down that

street. So. Bit of respect for the guys who have done it. Come on. And, and, and also, you know,

sort of organizing the professionals, you know, into some kind of union or something like that. I mean, there always seems to be talk about that. And is there any movement there or progress with that? Or, I mean,

what are your thoughts on, on sort of, you know, the collective power of the professionals getting together to kind of have their voice be taken more seriously with respect to, you know, paydays and, and,

you know, I mean, some of the, some of the sort of, you know, prize money is just, it's, it's,

it's ridiculously low for the amount of energy and time and commitment it takes to win these races. I mean, you can only do so many Ironmans in a year. And then to invest all of that to be at that level and the prize money isn't worth the effort in terms of being able to support yourself. Like I look around, there's you, but then there's a whole other tier of professionals trying to make a living.

And I'm like, how do they even do it? Because they have to travel to all these races. It's a very, very expensive sport. I don't know how they make ends meet. Yeah, there's always been discussion amongst the professionals about a union and what are they going to do. um about a union you know and what are they going to do but i think you know any big corporation that likes to uh that likes to control the game will always create disharmony amongst the pros you know amongst the people who are who uprising it's just you know it's it's part of history you know and uh you know you need people there who are prepared to stand up for you know for a union to

work a true athletic union to work then the guys at the top need to be as respectful of the guys at the bottom. It can't be, well, this works up to a point, but I don't want to go without anything. It needs to be all in. And that's the dilemma you have in this sport. It's been dog-eat-dog for the last 10 years, longer or even longer, where you take what you can get. So that mindset amongst a lot of the pros, it's a pipe dream.

Let's form a union but only if it doesn't really affect me or if, you know what I mean? So if you can, when you see, when the powers to be see this underlying current happening, they just look after a couple of the top guys and then it goes away. And then it goes away and that's always going to be the case. And you need someone in place. And, you know, I've always been singing along, but, you know,

you need someone in place who's prepared to make the stand, and we all stand united. And it's just I think the pros are at fault. There's no one – they're not prepared to make that stand. If you don't go, if we all stood up this year and said, we're not going to Kona unless you do this, someone will go. Some young guy will go. Somebody will go, right.

Someone will go and Ironman will promote them as the Ironman World Champion and it will march on and then everyone will go, oh, and then they'll go back to the game. We did it years ago with Chicago. We ultimately got the result we wanted with the prize money being increased from $5,000 to $12,000. But everyone stood out but still some of the pros went. And that result is on many people's resumes. Those pros that went won Chicago, which was annoying to me at the time

because they shouldn't have won Chicago, which was a huge race in the day. But they did. And in the history books, they're recorded as Chicago champion. But ultimately, the stand down of many of the big pros at the time saw an increase in the prize money. And, you know, it's not always about increasing prize money. And I'm not here to defend all the pros because the pros need, a lot of the professionals are semi-professional.

They're not professional across the board and they're their own worst enemy. There's a lot of events out there. They're always crying poor. There's not enough money. But there's a lot of events out there. Challenge, for example. You have rev three and you have a challenge i mean they're they've you know it used to i mean kona is always going to be kona but but for a while it was just iron man was pretty much it but now you know with with the challenge series and with the rev three series you really have

you know that competition against the iron man brand is is gaining steam and that's going to be interesting to watch to see how that plays out. Well, you've got to blame a lot of the pros there too. I can give you five events that Challenge have this year that are paying five times more prize money than many of the Ironman races, yet they're struggling to get pros. And then in the next breath, the professionals will say there's not enough money. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You need to support the people who are going to support the sport.

And that's what I'm saying about the change in the mindset. Back in the day, it didn't matter what the brand was. An event was an event because an organizer came along, he put a prize purse on, the great athletes chased the money. And so the greatest athletes in the world back then were the people who made the most money. And they were racing all the time and they were racing all different distances from sprint to Olympic to Ironman and all of that. It wasn't as specified as it is now.

Yeah, they followed the money. Now a lot of the guys are following the KPR points and they're racing an Ironman for $4,000 and they're $3,000 out of pocket. And then you speak to them at the end of the year when they have a $30,000 credit card debt and they complain to you that there's no money in this sport when I could have pointed seven races had they done those seven races they would probably be $50,000 up right it's like sometimes guys you're your own worst enemy interesting yeah cool so uh I want to get into a a little bit of a different topic and this this, this is personally interesting to me, which is, you know,

how you, how you balance your professional athletic career with being a father and a husband and all of this travel that you're doing. It seems like you're constantly on the road. You're in a different city all the time. Like, how does that, you know,

for me, I would, I would feel like if I was focused on my training, it would be destabilizing, like never to be in the same place for a while to get into a rhythm and a schedule. And then you have these really extended periods away from your wife and kids. And like, how do you, you know, I think there's a lot of amateurs out there that, you know, they work jobs and they're trying to figure out how to balance their triathlon training or just getting fit with all the other obligations they have in their lives.

It's a very relatable thing and a relatable problem. And just because you're at the top of the game doesn't mean you're immune from that same thing. You have other things in your life that are important to you. Yeah, well, that has been the most difficult thing for me in the last couple of years. I think it really became an issue when my oldest daughter, Talia, started school. She started school here in the States and we were chasing a green card at the time. And, you know, you're sort of weighing up where, you know, we're foreigners. Even though this was always our home for many years, your heart is at home.

In Australia, and my wife was here, and we were like, do we move to the United States? Do we go home? And we opted to go home. You know, Emma had her family there. It gave us the opportunity for me to do events and travel and made the load lighter for her while she was home. So we made that decision in 2009. And that made life difficult for me because my commute suddenly became,

you know, 15 hours by plane to Los Angeles and 24 hours to Europe. I think for a lot of the guys in the Southern Hemisphere, when we talk about those athletes and we compare them to the athletes in the Northern Hemisphere, this sport is a Northern Hemisphere sport. So for a lot of us that move away from home, we have to relocate an entire family. It works up until school starts and then you need to make a decision. Are you moving here?

Are you taking the citizenship or are you going home? And when we made that, it made things very, very difficult. And I think that's been the most difficult part in this part of my career, the latest. I've gone into my late 30s. I'm a father. I love my children. I miss them.

I'm gone for three weeks, the tears at the airport. And when people talk about how can you remain competitive into your 40s, I've got to match the motivation of the 25, 26-year-olds. I think physically in endurance racing, I'm as good as I was in my mid-30s. I've got no niggles, no injuries. I think the way… No niggles. What's a niggle?

A niggle. Do you not call them niggles? No, you know what? I heard that way- No niggles. What's a niggle? A niggle. A niggle is a, do you not call them niggles? No, you know what? I heard that word for the first time. I was supposed to go running with Dan McPherson. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. So Dan was going to join me and this other friend of ours to go running. And then he sends me a text the last night. I got a bail, man. I got a niggle. A niggle.

What are you talking? A niggle is an annoying little, you know, an injury's coming, like you might have a tight ITV, a little niggle. It must be an Australian term. It's got to be. Yeah, so no niggles and no injuries. So the body's there, but you really need to match that motivation and you need to match the intensity. And when you start laying family pressure time away from home, you're in a training camp and you miss your kids and you're like am i doing this they're the things that i've noticed in these last few years because you know as a father i you know i say openly i miss my daughter's first soccer goal that's for some people who cares to me it's everything you know when you're a dad you know what that yeah you know what that means and you start to question whether you're doing the right thing so you know i've i

after i won kona in 2010 for the last time i i i handed the reins over to my family i said okay look from now on you know my life has been so selfish and you guys have sacrificed so much and you've given up everything and it's always been about me me me me me and and when you decide to have kids and get married it can no longer be that way and uh i said the the reins are now yours if i i'll do kona again if you green light if and so all the decisions within my athletic career now i leave to the family so most of the time you see me traveling on three weeks which is why you see these hectic schedules you know and uh But I feel more at peace with that now as a father and as a husband because I think, you know, that my kids are involved in the decision-making,

my wife's involved in the decision-making, as opposed to my coaching staff going, this is what we're doing and kids have to deal with it. And that's been hard. And I think, you know know people can relate to that yeah it can't be easy and uh you know i think it's easy to look at your life from an outsider perspective and think oh it's the guy's got it made you know he's so talented and he gets to travel all over the world and do these races and and you know you, the guy's got it made. You know, he's so talented and he gets to travel all over the world

and do these races. And you have the same struggles that we all have and these issues with balancing your life and am I making the right decision and the gut checks that come with that. You know, it's a human thing. And so when you made that decision with your family this year for 2013,

I mean, what was that decision? I mean, what is your priority this year in terms of racing and training and what are your goals heading into the fall i'm home a lot more this year i'll be uh you know i'm up here for this for my birthday weekend i'll knock over a couple of races we come up to do some filming for the mx plus video i'm home next week i'm taking my daughter to vietnam with me um i have a race next weekend so i come back home and then I prepare for Ironman in Cairns, which is in June, and that will ratify my Kona position.

If I want to take a Kona slot, if I was to do that, I would prepare in Australia for that. But I have a lot of challenge commitments. I'm racing Javier Gomez in Barcelona in May. Right, right. There's a lot of talk about that. People really want to see what's going to go down there. I'll tell you what's going to go down.

He's going to swim past me, bike past me, and run past me. That kid's the future, man. That guy is the most amazingly gifted multi-sport athlete I've ever seen. For me, it's an honor for me to be in the same race as him as he's making his long course debut. And I said that to him in a video message. I just think it's the most exciting triathlete I've seen. The Brownlees are as exciting, but I think as a well-rounded athlete

in the future and the ability to go up in distance, I think Gomez is brilliant. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, as a guy who loves the history of the sport I said that to him in a minute message it's just a honor for me to be in his first ever half Ironman I said just go easy on me mate but uh well I think you might have a deeper appreciation for you know for those guys because you spent last year you know 2011 you know early 2012 with this this attempt to make the olympic team and

you were immersed in that it world and got to see up front you know up close and personal how unbelievably fast these young kids are and in the shorter distances it's it's remarkable and it's it's revolutionized you know what it was you know 10 15 years ago the progress of the it's the progress of the sport you know I remember coming in on the short course racing when I was in the, you know, in the mid-90s racing my first World Cups and I was racing the Tinleys and the, you know, these guys are at the end of their career and you're like, far out. These guys are slow.

And then, you know, it was just a different era. Then I stepped out and did Ironman and I've come back and seen just how far that short course racing has come. When I was doing it, we all had a weakness to some degree. I wasn't the greatest swimmer, but I could make up for it in the bike and run. Nowadays, these kids have started triathlon at five and six years of age. There's no weakness. They can be champion swimmers.

They can be champion track stars. I mean, there's no weaknesses. Zero. You've got a kid like Gomez who can swim, you know, eight and a half minutes for 800 meters in the pool, and he goes and wraps out a high 28-minute, 10,000-meter run time on the track. What are you supposed to do with that? How do you beat that guy?

And the irony is he's a phenomenal bite rider. You're like, oh, please. You know, it's just amazing. And it's the natural progression of our sport. Our sport's sport's very very young and it's exciting the future of where these guys are going to go and that again that's going back to what we're talking about before it's how do we set this sport up for the next wave of athletes the pete jacobs the ivan ranas the gomez's and the brownlees i'm sure their names are going to be fantastic and secured in the sport but unless we leave something solid behind for them,

why would they come to Ironman racing? What's over here, $5,000? They win $20,000 doing the Olympic distance race. Right, and they can race all the time at that distance. 100%. They're only going to come over here to win Kona because it's such a benchmark event in our sport, but are they going to stay here?

Are they going to remain in this sport? I always think you don't want ironman racing or 70.3 racing to be the when you're finished on the the elite circuit the olympic circuit it's sort of a fallback option which i feel like it is becoming you've seen bevan docherty chase at olympics he's he's been to three olympic games he's 35 years of age he's like oh they're too quick for me i'll i'll drop over and do 70. You know, it's become the safety net to keep your career going until you're in your 40s. I think the distances and the Ironman racing should be specialist in itself. And we should be encouraging these high-end athletes to come across in their peaks so

we can see where this endurance sport can take us. And that's what was happening in the Mark Allen and Dave Scott days. They were at their peak at this distance. And it'd be great to see what gomez could do now exactly at 30 years of age in kona when you kind of compare iron man to other sports whether it's you know even you know look at itu racing look at the sport of swimming look at track and field and look at the progression of world records and, you know, sort of how, you know, unbelievably better athletes are now than they were 20 years ago or whatever. When you look in Ironman and you look at what Mark and Dave were doing, I mean, people aren't really that much better than those guys. They're eating bananas and, you know, riding on bikes that no one would even consider riding

today. And what do you think, what do you think that's about like why isn't there been you know sort of you know you look at the sport compared to the sport of swimming you know even some of michael phelps's times are getting eclipsed right now by kids that are in high school and college and and there you don't see that in ironman there isn't the same it's i honestly believe you're not seeing the guys coming to Ironman anymore in their peak years. Mark and Dave were hitting this at 31. Mark at his peak was 31 years of age. He was the king. He won later.

He won his last one at 37. But the best ever Mark Allen was 31, 32, 33. These guys, Gomez is 32. If we saw Javier Gomez come to Kona right now, it would be scary. But why would he come to Kona? You give him one race, he's got to qualify. He's got to do some Ironman somewhere else in the world for $5,000. He's then got to go and do some 70.3 races in the world where he might get paid $3,000

to get the points up to qualify for Kona where he wins $100,000. He can do that doing the short course racing. And he would have to completely change his training. Change his training. But there needs to be, you know, they're making executive decisions as professional athletes. And the Olympic carrot is now bigger for a lot of the young kids coming to triathlon than the Ironman carrot.

When I was young, there was no Olympic carrot. You couldn't go to the Olympics. Triathlon wasn't in the game. So Ironman was where you're headed. You did the short course, it was a progression. To be the king, you wanted to win Kona. That mindset's changed. I just did a year on the ITU circuit and to see that different mindset.

Most of these kids don't care about racing Hawaii. They're like, who won that last year? I don't even, it's just completely, their focus on the Olympics, Alistair Brownlee is the king. His brother Jonathan Brownlee is a demigod. You know, Javier is Superman. And Craig Alexander and myself are dinosaurs that do some different sport. It's basically he who runs the –

That's what you do when you're an old man. Yeah, totally. And that's – it's really the perspective. It was interesting. I was like, wow, Javier's going across all the way through to Rio, so you're not going to see Gomez come to Ironman until he's 36 years of age. And Ironman loses out. We don't get to see what a guy like that could do at his peak.

Yeah, I know. Alistair told me in Abu Dhabi a couple of weeks ago that he'd contacted Ironman last year after he won the Olympics. He was keen to do the 70.3 Worlds, and they rejected it. You had the Olympic champions saying, hey, I've never done the half. I haven't met your qualification criteria, but can I do the Las Vegas World Championships? They wouldn't give him a bye like he was going to have to do. Wouldn't give him the wild card.

They said a lot of the professional athletes were complaining about it i'm like come on guys if it's a world championship you want the best in the world there you can't it's better for the sport it's better for the sport you don't call yourself a world champion unless you're racing the best and uh yeah you didn't get that so oh they're amazing they're incredible athletes right and just speaking about the olympics um you know again sort of comparing kind of, you know, your public persona and what people kind of sort of identify with you, you know, you're just this, this reigning world champion, you know, arguably the most accomplished triathlete of all time. I mean, you've won, you know, a bazillion races and, and you know, everybody in the sport knows who you

are. And yet, you know, you've also had your struggles. Like you haven't won every race. You made two attempts to make the Olympic team and missed them. It took you years and years and years to get on the podium in Hawaii. You know, it wasn't an overnight thing. And you've had these setbacks and disappointments in your career. And, you know, I think it would be good. You know, we have a lot of triathletes listening to the show or just marathon runners or just fitness people. And I think it's good

for them to know that, you know, even at your level, you have to deal with the same things that they do. And how do you sort of emotionally manage, you know, those disappointments and stay focused and stay energized and excited about your training and what you're doing? Oh, I honestly think that your disappointments, it's how you rise from the ashes, you know, without being melodramatic. It's how you deal with the disappointments that ultimately shapes your character as an athlete. And, you know, I've, like you said, I expected to go to Ironman Hawaii, my first attempt

to win it. Just kill it. I hadn't lost a race for three years. And I felt like I'd watched this race since I was a kid. I'd paid my dues on this island. I'd never been there. But, hey, I know Ironman better than anybody. I'm going to win this race.

And I got... And you had won an Ironman prior to that, just not in Hawaii, right? Yeah, it was my first ever Ironman. I did one half Ironman, Wildflower. I won it, broke the course record. I went and did one Ironman after that against the current world champion and peter reed all these world destroyed them at iron man australia and thought it's just a natural progression i'm going to win hawaii i haven't lost in three years i don't even know how to lose i lost not only did i lose i was walking embarrassed on that island i

got decimate 13 minute lead off the bike highived my father as I came out of transition, said, bank the check, Dad, I'll see you in a few hours. And by five miles, I was walking. By 10 miles, I couldn't put one foot in front of the other. I was out. And the sport loved that story. So not only was I out and disappointed, the media jumped on board. Here's this cocky kid, thought he was going to come here and win. It was great to see him humbled by the island.

So you had to deal with that disappointment. And i came back the next year failed again i came back the next year just like slowing it down and saying all right the next year you came back the second time thinking all right i got my ass handed to me i gotta get my shit together train hard focus go back i learned my lesson now i'm gonna win and then to have it happen again yeah but this time i i was you know you you reset yourself after that first disappointment and you try and justify in your own head we all do what went wrong but looking back you have to be absolutely honest with yourself you know a lot of people try and plug in an answer that isn't the real answer it's an answer that makes them feel good what was the

mistake i made my first year round was it i was too was too cocky? Was it that I was too skinny? Was it that I was over-raced? And you find an answer that you think is right, and that's how you justify it in your head. But you have to stand up and go again. So in 2003, when I came back, I thought, you know what? I need a little bit more experience. That was what I blamed my failure.

I've done two races in my life over two hours. Maybe I need to do a few more and get the experience. So I registered for two Ironmans that year. I won my first one. I won my second one. I've done four Ironmans in my life, three wins, one DNF. I went to Kona again saying, this time I've worked it out. They're all dead.

I've got to – I need to – yeah, I learned a little bit about nutrition. I had no idea about nutrition before that. So I thought, yeah, I'm going to eat on this bike now. I'm going to win again. Came in, blown away again. It was one of the windiest years ever in Kona, and I'd never experienced conditions like that in my life. It just hollowed me out, but I swore that I would finish the race,

so I walked to the finish line, 72nd place, humbled, humbled, humbled, humbled. But I was determined to cross the finish line that year. And again, you sit down after the race and you're like, man, how do I do this? I've thrown my life into this. You know, what do you do? My wife labeled that time of year the October blues because I was difficult to be around because I was in my own thoughts trying to work out what was going wrong. I felt like I was doing to be around because I was in my own thoughts trying to work out what was going wrong. I felt like I was doing everything right.

Yeah, how could you win all these races and be undefeated and then just be unable to deal with this one race? And the other thing is you're trying to come to terms with that in your own head and you're reading the press and other people's answers to why you're failing. Oh, I'm too cocky or he overraces or he, you know, and you're looking at that. Maybe that is the answer. He's too skinny.

He doesn't, you know, so you're trying to find answers because you think you have them because you've been successful. And, you know, you need to, around that time you start to become, with Fahy, you start to become a little bit more insular and you're trying to sort things out for yourself and you start to put people around you that you think can help you. And I, uh, I started working a lot, a lot more with a lady Suzanne Krafner in Germany, who's a,

she specializes in schizophrenics actually. She was a mental doctor and, uh, we started looking more at the mental side of things because I was starting to get scarred with the failure and, um, you know, doubting yourself. Doubting yourself. They become your biggest demons. When I went back the next year, I failed again.

2003, DNF'd. I was going into the energy lab in fifth place and I just could not make it to the finish line. And I got into the car that year, in 2004 that was, as I got to the energy lab, I saw one of my sponsors in the car and i opened the door i just saw the car i was i had 10 miles left to run i opened the car door i said i am out i am done i'm retiring and of all it was like it was meant to be the person driving the car that day was was mark allen and uh he had preon Sandusky from Kestrel,

my agent Scott in the car. And I've jumped in, you know, you sit down, the air conditioning is on, they can't believe you've pulled out of the race. I was in fifth place. They're like,

what are you doing? I said, I can't make it. I'm done. They're like, you're nearly home, but they didn't realize I'd been suffering for 10 miles before that. Right. And I said,

can you just drive me back to the hotel? I'm retired. I'm done. And Mark Allen, can you just drive me back to the hotel? I'm retired. I'm done. And Mark Allen said to me, Mark. Like, you're thinking retired, retired. I am quitting triathlon. I'm going back to short course. I'm going back to the Olympic distance racing. Ironman's not for me.

I can't win this race. It's third year in. I can't even finish the thing. And Mark Allen said, no, you're going to watch this race unfold. You're going to see what happens. Peter Reid went on to dominate and Mark had been working with Peter Reid and Peter, I'd beat him up all year. All year I'd beat this man.

And when we're driving back, it was one year, it was Chris, I've forgotten the amateur's name, he crashed his bike out on the lava fields and he had to run 20 miles with his bike on his shoulder, covered in blood. He ran all the way back to the transition area with his bike and we pulled up next to this guy. I've been all over the magazines that Macca's going to win this event this year. He's won, had the most dynamic year all year and this guy's covered in blood and I was

sitting in the back seat and we pulled up asked him if he wanted to lift back to transition he was three miles out he still had to run the marathon yet right so he's he's running with his bike on his bike probably barefoot right because he has his cleats covered i mean covered head to toe in blood like just unbelievable i'll never forget it and i pulled up next to him and uh they said mate, do you want to lift back Mark Allen and Preston? He's like, no, no, I'm going to, this is Hawaii. I'm finishing this race. And he glanced in the back and he went, Macca.

And I have never in my life felt so little. Honestly, it was the most, I was like, oh, man, here is this amateur. This is what our sport is. I was like, oh, man, here is this amateur. This is what our sport is. I was so caught up in the goal. I forgot that I should have walked it to the finish. We all suffer in Ironmans.

And I swore. I got back. I watched Peter Reid win. And that vision has always stuck with me. And I was like, I'm coming back here next year. I don't care about the result. But I'm going to cross that finish line. And I'm going to be like, I think it's Chris Zielinski was his name. I'm going to get to the finish line.

So my mindset changed. Instead of being so goal-focused, I've got to win, I've got to win, I've got to win, I've got to win, for me it became I'm getting the finish line. Forget the process. Forget the goal. No, it was the process. It was the process. You let go of the destination or your attachment to a certain outcome

and just saying I'm going to engage in this process no matter what happens. Yeah, yeah. That's a powerful lesson, I think. And I was taught by Amina. And that's what's fantastic about triathlon. That, despite 10 years in the sport at that point, despite winning everything, world championships, Ironmans, one person's race showed me what the

true spirit of the of the sport was because sometimes at the pro level an amateur athlete at that like that couldn't happen in any other sport other than triathlon yeah you start to get caught up as a pro at the high end in focusing on the other professionals on focusing on that goal on winning the race that you start to lose you start to forget that what brought you to the sport in the first place was the challenge and what Ironman racing really is, it's about a personal test. And at the end of the day, anybody, you know, you're out by 1% in an eight-hour race, you come fifth. That's, deal with it.

And the following year, I finally executed with the fastest marathon on the course. I had a really tough day. I was vomiting on the bike. I got my nutrition out. But I was the furthest I'd ever been behind in a race in my life, Ferris at the halfway. Ferris was all time. When I got to halfway at Harvey, it was 10 minutes in front of me.

I had a terrible swim. I was just struggling from the onset. I don't know why. But I said, no, forget about it just race your own event by the time i got off the bike i executed the fastest marathon ran myself into sixth place four minutes from the win and thought man things are starting to click it's all about a mindset and from then on i embraced that kept the competitive spirit and was second first and went on right and on a preparation level i mean the big seismic shift was that you

started to work with mark allen who kind of took you in and and and kind of reconfigured your approach to the race i mean what what were some of the specific things that he changed about not just mentally but you know in your actual physical training to prepare for the prepare for hawaii well in that yeah in that year that i jumped in the car with mark and chris gave me that lesson i pleaded with mark to if he could sit down with me after the race. I pleaded with him. He was working with Peter Reid at the time. He was one of my main competitors.

And he said, look, I'll give you 10 minutes after the race, but I want to go and watch my athlete win. Mark was my idol, so he was true to his word. He had a coffee with me after the race. I hid. I was so embarrassed. And I hid. was true to his word he he had a coffee with me after the race i hid i was so embarrassed and i i hid and uh i said what what i can't even finish this race mark what would you suggest i do and he said look when you won ironman australia peter rang me he'd race that course you broke his record and he was like wow mack is finding his way i posted a very good marathon i went up to wildflower in may and i dominated wildflower i won my third title and and ran away from peter

and peter rang mark and said man he's finding his way he's huck said it's may stop don't worry about it no one cares what happens in may he said then i went to roth i broke eight hours i ran a 240 marathon peter rang him again we're in trouble it's now july he's like this kid's gonna win the the boxes are being ticked he's worked out this iron man and now he's going to deliver with his talent and mark allen said his exact words to peter were forget chris mccormack he will not finish kona he's peaked. It's a downward slide. Too many races. Too many races. Too fit too early.

Too lean. Too strong too early. And I said to Mark, really? You said that? And he's like, mate, if you want to win Hawaii, it needs to be a four-year commitment. You need to give up the racing you're doing. You're over-racing. You don't need to win everything.

You can't win everything. You want to win everything. You're a competitor. So your best bet if you have that I need to win everything mentality is race less pick the ones you want to race and race less but i was a big racer i enjoyed 13 14 races a year and uh so i dropped an ironman from the equation i'm in australia i just raced germany and and hawaii and boom the success came immediately right yeah it's great it's interesting and and and uh and a good lesson in being flexible and nimble with your training and not being too attached to a certain way of doing things and being willing to surround yourself with people

that know more than you and and and taking their advice we're just being open to new ideas I think the one big change when I ultimately went from the 2005 race, I'd always been a very aggressive biker. And speaking with the guys around me, they were like, look, you need to have faith in your marathon. I was always scared of my marathon because it was so foreign to me. So their plan was to become a sit-in-the-front-group guy and run a fast marathon, which when you're a certain beast,

a biker, and you've got people telling you to back a marathon that you don't really have faith in, but you've empowered these people to give you the advice, it was a difficult shift. So in 2006, when I ultimately finished second to Norman, I gave him a big lead. I just sat in the group and did nothing and ran the fastest marathon again, but I finished second. I reinvented myself. I became a runner. 2007, that same approach took me to a title. It wasn't popular with the pros. If you remember in 2006, I had a big fight with Stadler and Farris because I'd always ridden with these guys and been a workhorse with them. That year, I decided I'm not doing anything.

Let them go. Let them go. I'm going to sit in the I decided I'm not doing anything. Let them go. Let them go. I'm going to sit in the group. I'm going to run with the fastest marathon. That was the Mark Allen approach. It's one cone or more approach. This running approach is one cone or more than any other approach. So we went with that.

And that takes patience and it takes confidence. So all of that eroded confidence that you had in those years when you were having trouble in this race, you had to regain that confidence to have the poise to sit back and trust that your run is going to be there and watch them right away from you i mean that's got to be a scary thing very scary because you know i talk about that period and people it's easy to talk about in reflection but i hadn't won the race yet you know in 2006 when i'm backing this new strategy i still without a kona title and i and

you got the people around me saying we need to back your run we need to work on your run i'm like you sure i've been so successful winning ironmans around the world with this bike approach and hanging on in the run you want me to ride softer back off the bike give these guys a big lead they're pretty good runners as well and and execute the fastest marathon what if i can't do that and we we ultimately built this new engine that that took me to the title now when crowey came along craig alexander is a faster runner than me in hawaii when you turn the heat up i had to reinvent myself again it was uh i cannot get off the bike with this guy i was successful in 2007 in a in a match race, but the man hurt me. And then he progressed as an Ironman athlete, became the best runner in Kona, I believe,

we've seen since Mark Allen. I couldn't pack that approach. I had to go back to a riding approach and be a different racer again. They're difficult decisions to make because you've got to reinvent yourself and you've got to back that approach. and that's the biggest message i want to say to people is that if you have a training strategy or plan you can't second guess it it's it's you're all in and you know this is the approach i'm going to take to my next race i'm not going to second guess it i don't care what my my training partners are doing this is my approach and and uh yeah craig alexander made me reinvent myself and go again and now he's at that phase now where he has to look at what he's doing. He had to become a better biker. He's given up a bit of his run.

But the racing is always evolving. So you have to be able to evolve with the racing. Interesting. And going into Kona this year, I mean, what are your picks? Who are you looking at? And how do you think that race is going to play out based on what you're seeing right now? There's new players.

You've got Ivan Rana. He's a two-time ITU world champion. He's three times top ten at the Olympics. He debuted with his Ironman in Cozumel last year, ran away with the win. The guy's gifted. He's the first one of this generation of ITU races coming across, and he's flawless.

He's going to be difficult, Bevan Docherty. I think Crowey still, Pete Jacobs and Crowey, I think Crowey, you know, I've had so many wars with this man. If there's ever been a race that was built for an athlete, it's Kona and Craig Alexander. The guy is the perfect size, the way the races unfold are perfect for him, and he just executes a beautiful marathon. The way he runs his marathons, I think last year he was vulnerable,

but this year he's been a lot smarter. Last year I think he left his best in Melbourne. He had a great race in Melbourne. This year he was a bit softer in Melbourne. He's had the birth of his third child, which will soften his racing a little bit. Crowe's biggest mistake, if he's ever made any, in his failures, is he loves to race. And he's starting to work out his Ironman thing that, as you age,

that over-racing can be detrimental at the back end of a year. I think he can be dangerous. You know, I think Sebastian Kienle. He's a beast on the bike, that guy. He's a beast. And we were talking about him this morning at breakfast He's the best frontrunner I've seen since Norman Stadler The guy doesn't want to be anywhere else

And they're a special beast in themselves Frontrunners, you know There's a lot of people that like to make the claim Of being a frontrunner Or Lieto and these guys But they're uncomfortable there Marino Voenacker Where Sebastian Kienle couldn't

Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I think, you know, Chris Lieto was a front runner because he couldn't execute a run, so he used to lay out the bike ride and hang on. It was more a desperate attempt to win, but with all respect to Chris, an amazing athlete, but Sebastian Kienle isn't, he goes up a level when you put him in front, and, you know, he'll run just as quick as the guys behind. If he's in front, if he got off the bike with them, he may lose four minutes. But if he gets off the bike in front, he may only lose 30 seconds. He's just a beautiful front runner there.

They're the exciting guys for Ironman racing because it sets an event up that is very, very different. You're going to have a lot of pace on the bike. You've got guys like jacobs and crowey and rana that can run very very fast doherty that's what's so great about kona every year we start speculating but they're the guys i'll be looking at the railer so really at that point where i was were you five years into your kona campaign are those demons starting to bubble up is this ever going to work out yeah you're starting to question whether you can ever win this race because the press is starting to say it.

I'm reading a lot of the press, and I've been that guy, where they doubt you, your sponsors start to doubt you, the people around you start to doubt you. You know, there's new champions coming along that are showing a lot of, showing a solid hand, and they're starting to say, well, maybe you can't win. So it's how you deal with that within your own head, it can ultimately determine whether you win Kona.

And where do you see yourself in that equation? I mean, you said earlier, like, well, Kona, maybe I'm going, maybe I'm not. Like, you know, what's going on there? Like, are you making the bid this year or are you leaving your options open? I'm going to ratify. on there like are you are you making the bid this year or are you leaving your options open or i'm going to ratify so you know as a picona winner i get five years of i just need to ratify so i ratify in june and cans and then i'm keeping it open i it's such once this race gets into your blood it's very hard to turn your back on it because you know regardless of whether you're

racing for the win or you it's it's just a beautiful, beautiful race. It's ugly, but it's so beautiful on a personal level that, you know, last year I was very disappointed. I was in great form. I won a world championship and I made some errors in my prep by using altitude for the first time. I think I identified with what went wrong there because I was hopeless. with what went wrong there because I was hopeless. And I just have too much respect for the race and too much respect for myself, I guess, to have my last experience,

whether I win in Kona again or I never do, but my last experience on that island to be in the back of a car because I swore I'd never not finish that race again. And last year I didn't finish. So I'll be back. We'll see if it's this year or next year, but I'll be back. Cool.

All right. Well, we're coming up on almost an hour here, so I don't want to take up too much of your time. Oh, man, I love this. We're talking my favorite topic. We'll go all day. I tweeted, hey, tweet me your questions, and somebody tweeted, make it the longest podcast of all time.

Let's keep going. We can go all day. We'll go for three days. See who drops first. I can just leave, get in my car and drive away. I'll just leave you talking here. I don't have to do anything. We'll see who drops first.

We could have an- I'll drop first, believe me. I got to run some errands. I'll be back in a while. So what do we talk about now? No, but I do want to get into one thing. I mean, sort of the biggest theme and all the questions that were tweeted all have to do with nutrition. And people are seemingly insatiable when it comes to this discussion of, like, what do you eat before a workout?

What do you eat after a workout? How do you fuel during a race? How is that different from training? How is your personal nutrition both on the bike and off the bike, how has that evolved over time? And I know you've just, you've talked openly about issues you've had with hydration and things like that. And, and I don't know, that's just what, that's what people want to hear about. So let's get into that. I think, I guess on the nutrition front, that was the biggest learning curve for me. I think the first thing is think vegan, think vegan,

you know, that was my, that was my approach last year think vegan and that was a that was how that worked out for you i thought i was thinking vegan all the time and a lot of people laughed but i decided after watching forks over forks over knives the the documentary on veganism and uh i was fascinated by it we watched it in kona last year in camp and I went, that's it. I'm tidying up my diet a lot more than I always thought that I was eating very, very well. But you have these, you know, I guess these marketed philosophies on what is actually healthy and what actually isn't healthy. And I realized after watching this documentary, I was like, man, I thought I was eating healthy. But technically, you know, just because you're not eating McDonald's doesn't necessarily mean you're eating the right thing.

So I decided to adopt a think vegan approach, which was meant that when I went out, if there was vegan options there, I would always choose those options. But if there wasn't, if I was at dinner and I was at a steakhouse, I would know a piece of meat but i wanted to predominantly sort of mold my my nutrition around everything on on being as as close to vegan as as i possibly could be without being fully vegan right and uh so i got rid of you know milk and dairy and i started doing soy and and these sort of things and just felt you know why not it just seems to be good so that was uh my think vegan philosophy and i still sort of implement that to some degree. But I had a steak only five days ago. But my consumption of meat is more than halved. Right.

I saw a documentary last night at Pepperdine called American Meat, and I sat on this panel, and there was a bunch of panelists to kind of discuss this film and kind of the meat industry. And this documentary kind of took you through what's happening with the American farmer and how these sort of conglomerate meat companies like Tyson and these huge companies that control chicken and beef and pork farming have sort of enslaved these farmers. And it's almost indentured servitude where the huge companies will sort of provide the livestock and the farmer kind of houses it and raises these,

you know, in these tiny cramped little houses where there's, you know, disease is rampant and all this sort of thing. And then the economic crash happens. All these farmers are out of work. They're in debt and it's a terrible situation. And now you have this kind of uh influx of organic farmers that are cropping up and they're realizing how they can sort of harvest uh the land in a more sustainable way and there's all these young

people like people with college educations kids that have options and choices about what they want to do with their life and they're interested in like getting involved in farming like when i was a kid nobody you know i don't know what it was like in Australia, but like, I didn't know anybody who was interested in that, whether it's, you know, livestock or just agriculture. But, you know, I think there's things are, you know, things, things are changing and people are rethinking how their food is made and produced. And when you look at how, you know, factory farmed meat is sort of, you know, delivered to your table via the system that exists, I mean, you've got to think twice about what you're putting down your throat. That's why I was thinking vegan, see?

Yeah, there you are. It worked. be pretty good outside of, you know, like I was definitely attentive to what I was eating. You know, I wasn't a monk by any means, but I was definitely attentive, especially in training camp on trying to tick the boxes, you know, watching, you know, watching what you were eating instead of just eating. Like being, okay, I will take the salad. Actually, I need to hydrate a little bit more. I need to do these things. But it was a learning curve for me because when you're young, you don't think these

things. You just, for some reason, can race well where there are, you're young you don't think these things you just you just for some reason can race well whether you know you don't in these things aren't thinking so it became more important as you started to age i was starting to think well i need to tick the boxes a little bit more now i need to be more attentive to to things like that and hydration when i moved across to iron man was a huge issue for me i i never realized until i raced in the humidity and I spent some time at the Australian Institute of Sport and I was cramping all the time in Hawaii. It was crippling me and I couldn't work it out. And I went down to Canberra, ALS, and we did all these

tests within a humidity chamber and realized that as my heart rate rose above 148 to 150 beats a minute, I was losing more fluid than I could possibly take in. And, you know, you can only absorb X amount. Your body has a – you can increase that over time, but it has an absorption rate. And so the game for me changed, which meant I had to become that runner we were talking about, keep my heart rate as low as possible for as long as possible so I could execute a solid marathon. And then I had to be attentive to the hydration I was taking in before the race and the hydration during the race where I used to just drink on the bike.

And I go, okay. I became more meticulous in drinking, making sure that within that hour I was drinking 1.25 liters of fluid, okay, and I was attentive to that. So those little principles, you know, a lot of nutrition plans, they're plans. You need to be a little bit flexible with them, but you should have a set guideline. attentive to that so those little principles you know a lot of nutrition plans their plans you need to be a little bit flexible with them but you should have a set guideline but you need to understand that that you develop those guidelines through your training and through understanding yourself a little bit better right i mean it's a personalized thing and you've got to work that

out yourself what works for you what doesn't and that's that's a huge part of training it's not just going out and executing the workout it's paying attention to how your body feels how it's responding how it's different when you eat this or that versus some other thing and and and keeping track of that so that you can adjust accordingly that is 100 the difference was you know your mindset needs to change like you said you need to to assess you know whether it's in a training diary, just how you felt after the big steak meal the night before. Was the swim set terrible? And you start to find these patterns within how you react to certain things and how you

feel in certain things. And I was definitely more attentive to that. So when I started using certain nutrition, you know, when I was hydrating, when I was ensuring that I was taking electrolytes in and taking the protein shake after training, little things that i neglect in my 20s how did that make me feel overall and you can't look day by day you need to start weeks months exactly you find these patterns you're like well that works or that doesn't or this doesn't work with me and this this does and i you know people are people are hoping that i'm going to come along or you're going to come along and go there's the formula.

Just do that and you're going to be successful. It just doesn't work. Yeah, it's sort of like what's your morning smoothie? Totally. That's the answer. It's like it's not the answer. 100%. And I don't do the same thing every day anyway, you know.

You need to find your way. And it's actually an enjoyable process when you start to venture down it and you're more open to that and you start getting more in tune with just how you feel. And I think as athletes, we are more in tune than the normal person because you feel differences in how you feel in training. We need to record those differences and look at why that could have been the case. Yeah, I think as an athlete, you're sort of attuned to paying attention

to how you feel and making mental notes about that. I mean, any great athlete, you know, can tell you exactly how he feels. And, you know, a perfect example that I always use is, you know, if you're swimming a lot and you know how you're feeling in the pool, and you're doing, let's say you're doing a set of 10 times 100 or something like that. If you're, if you're fit, you've been swimming a lot and you're in touch with your body, you don't need to look at the pace clock. You know, when your hand touches the wall, you know exactly what your time was for that 100 but that only comes with experience and sort of mentally logging that all the time like how am i feeling what am i doing you know and being able

to gauge that and the better you are able to do that like when your hand hits the wall and you know oh that was a one-on-one for that hundred you know that you're connecting with your your system yeah your engine 100 i often find talking to a lot of amateurs and we're saying you know that you're connecting with your your system yeah your engine 100 i often find talking to a lot of amateurs and we're saying you know they're hoping that i'm going to say well you know get out of the swim do this this and this i think we're so quantitative with things that you know that i'm going to give you a killer system you know you take two gels and have a have a drink here and try this and try that and And, you know, I think the only thing we can do is give guidelines, you know, like, look, try this, but you have to be as attentive to this side of the sport.

You know, it's one thing to ask for. You have to take ownership of it. You have to take personal responsibility for how that works. That is the word I was looking for, ownership. I'm going to use that word when I talk to people. You need to take ownership of this part of the sport. As much as you focus on your swimming, your biking, and your running, and you count the miles each week,

and you look at the different training sessions you can do, the same needs to be applied to how you use nutrition and understand how your body reacts to certain types of nutrition. Does multi-dextrin-based gels work better for you than other gels? Are you better off eating free? There's millions of ways to feed the body in a race and all of them work for different people. And you need to find that way and, you know, listen to shows like yours, talk to professionals, talk to other amateurs, try things and work your way through and you'll find the perfect eating plan

for you in a race. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's good sound advice. Um, what are some of the things that you see, uh, you know, are kind of common mistakes that amateurs make amateur triathletes or marathon runners or runners just in your observation, you know, with all the experience, professional experience that you have and you go out, you know, and you, you run with your, your Maca X crew in Santa Monica and you just kind of observe what people are doing or talking about, or you go to these races and you watch amateurs race or how they're preparing you know the week before a race you know what what are some of the things that you look at and go god if they just knew that they if they should just did this instead of this they'd be so much better off i think a lot of amateurs are time poor you know a lot of and they read a lot of the the

articles that are written very broadly in the magazines and they feel like they have to hit certain quantitative miles on a bike ride or certain sessions in a week in order to be good. And I think they don't take into consideration that life in itself is tiring and you need to, you know, you've got family, you've got work commitments, you know, you don't sleep well certain nights. And having these rigid training programs can be detrimental to some degree. You need a little bit of flexibility in things and you've got to not hold on to missing sessions.

A lot of amateurs get very, very guilty. I didn't swim yesterday. They played chase up, catch up. And I think, you know, what the pros do and what the amateurs do, the difference between a lot of the amateurs I see and the pros is that they're doing the same amount of work as we are, but they're also fitting in, you know, an office job and a family. And the difference between a pro and an amateur is we sleep more. You know, we do less. We have the day to do the training. We have more recovery time. And, you know,

that's one thing with amateurs. They're very, a lot of the have more recovery time. And, you know, that's one thing with amateurs. They're very, a lot of the high-end guys are very, you know, they're slaves to technology. They're slaves to the equipment. They're slaves to set training sessions. They're very, if the track set is set for tonight and you turn up and you're tired, you still bash through that track set because it was written.

And I think pros, they tend to have the coaches around or they've been in the game so much longer that they can release a little bit. You know what? It's not working tonight. I'm going to move to this session instead. And just being your own CEO, making those executive decisions and more so trusting them when you make them,

that's the biggest thing, not feeling guilty that you've changed the session because it was written. Let moving forward being consistent and you seem like you have a really good grip on that i mean you don't you know from what i've seen at arm's length like you don't look like you're a slave to the power meter and you know you're not always wearing a heart rate monitor when you're running and i'm sure part of that is just you've been doing it so long you know exactly what you need and how you're supposed to feel, and you can gauge that specifically without those devices that maybe an amateur kind of needs in order to learn more about themselves. But you do seem flexible.

And I think for your lifestyle, you'd have to be because you're traveling so much. It seems like you're never in one place for long enough to get into a routine where it's not going to be interrupted with an airplane flight. Well, I think that the one thing about power meters, heart rate monitors, you know, garments, these sort of things, they're tools, they're training tools. And I use them without doubt, but it's how you use them. You can't become a slave to them because racing is an organic

experience. You need to get a little bit more in tune with your perceived exertion, you know. And I often say there was a study done in Germany two years ago, and I found it fascinating when I was reading the results. They had these people that were using the garments and stuff all the time and their heart rate monitors, and they compared them to these old-school runners in their 50s and 60s who grew up with nothing but a watch. And they asked, there was a sample group of 100 athletes,

and 50 used the equipment, 50 didn't. And they asked them to go sample group of of 100 athletes and 50 used the equipment 50 didn't and they asked them to go out and run for an hour take everything off and just go out and run for one hour what they thought was an hour and they came back and see how far people would miss that miss this time by now the garmin group the people who were always running with the they were missing it by 10 minutes some were doing 45 minutes. Some were the group that were organic runners that just ran for enjoyment. They were within minutes of the hour. They were much more in tune with their pace, with their feeling. And this is what I think is imperative, that you use these tools,

but you also don't lose that connection you have with yourself because it's important come race day. When you're suffering in an Ironman or a half Ironman, any race, it is all about that. It's how you can control that moment. The Garmin, it's telling you that you're going slow. You know that. But how do you build yourself and get out of that within yourself?

And I think in a racing context too, it can be a limiter. Like if you look at your watts and you're racing and you're like, oh, I can't go any higher because I'm going to blow up. And yeah, there's logic in that. Like you have to be judicious and smart in how you allocate your energy, but it's still a race. And you've got to, you know, you have an opportunity to break the ceiling on what you think is possible. And in order to do that, you might need to put a piece of tape over that garment or not use it. And how many times when you've used the gum or used the power meter i've had sets you know certain parts of the year where i've had a structured powered set on the bike and the week before 350 watts felt easy

and this week i am really hurting at 350 watts now how do you know if you're in a race that you're not having one of the if you're so in tune with the numbers if i was relying on that you know the week before 350 watts felt easy i could have probably ridden 360 watts and if you if you're so enslaved by technology which it can be the biggest limiter you know it can be your biggest enemy so you need to mix that up a bit and i encourage people to to you know once or twice a week just just let it go and let it go and do it for the joy do it for the joy go for a run i'm gonna go and run until i don't feel like running anymore right no watch it is funny though because i i fall prey to that for sure like the other day my i forgot to charge my garment for my bike and i went of course i still

went out and rode i thought about well well i can't ride my garment doesn't have a charge i have to call the workout off then i went out and rode without the Garmin, and then I finish it, and I go, well, does that workout even count? It's like, oh, yeah, because I can't upload it on Strava, so it didn't happen. It's like, no, I did the training. And a lot of the time you go further than you wanted to go, and it doesn't – sometimes the information can be tiring in itself

because it shows that you didn't get from the session what you were probably after, where if you don't have that information, sometimes you talk yourself into being a better athlete. I know that early in the season when I'm doing a lot of my base work, we use heart rate and power meters, and I find in that period that if I'm not hitting those targets or I found it uncomfortable, I should have felt better today.

Those numbers don't add up to where I should be. Where had I not used the equipment, I would have ridden the bike ride and gone, I felt great today. So the mindset's like, oh, I'm on track. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. You start to feed a different, you create a different beast mentally. Or if you go out and you have a good ride and you hit, like,

let's say I hit this threshold level of watts for that four-hour ride. That was awesome. Then there's the pressure every time you go out to ride to either hit that or exceed it. And if you're below it, then you're like, what's wrong? Yeah, what's wrong with me? I'm going backwards. And if you never knew that, if you were just, if the feeling felt right,

then you convince yourself and you talk yourself into this i'm on i'm on track and you don't second guess which can be as i say information can be your biggest enemy sometimes and the body's complicated you know it's easy to say well watts are watts and and that's true but you know there's a lot of things that go into how you feel that day and you know sleep and food and a million other things that you know we can't even think of. So you have to release that judgment about each workout in its isolation like that. And I think it gets into another big issue with amateur triathletes and runners, et cetera, which is this idea of going too hard on easy days

and not hard enough on hard days. And as opposed to approaching each workout, what is the specific purpose of this workout? What am I trying to get out of this? And that's a big, I know that's a big thrust in your MX 12 program. And what these videos are about that, yeah, you want to go out and go out for that ride or that run just for the joy of it occasionally. But when you're time crunched, especially, you know, these amateur athletes, they have to make it count. So when they approach a workout, a lot of people just say, well, I have an hour, I'm going to go out and run as hard as I can,

I'll just do that every day, and there's not a lot of thought or strategy that goes into that. So can you speak to that a little bit, sort of using that time effectively and understanding what it is that you want to get out of a particular session? Yeah, well, that was the focus of the digital videos we put out, the MX-12 and the MX-Plus was understanding that, okay, as an amateur, you have less time, you have three hours a day, say, to do it. So what are the most effective sessions you can do to give you the same bang for your buck without the fluff? And we put together those training sessions. We put together

a swim set called The Elevator, which is a set i use and we we modified it a bit for people who haven't had to swim we just filmed a set called loose ends which is the session we use a lot it was developed by brett sutton and uh all the pros he's taking he's trained 10 world champions we use this style of session multiple times like multiple times a week you're using equipment it's how you can get the biggest bang for your buck as an amateur when you're a time crunch your family commitments you have all these things so that was what i was saying earlier when we're talking about about plugging them in how you plug these sessions into a training plan you need to show how much time you have and you can get the most you can get the same um the same, meet the same goal from a session

by doing it multiple different ways. So you can do a strength set. There's lots of ways to build strength. How much time do you have? That's the first question. How much time can you give me? Okay, you've got an hour. Well, here's a session that works for you in that hour.

If you gave me three hours, maybe we'd do some time in the gym and we'd run a bit out. So it's all about understanding how much time you have, what you can give, and then pulling the sessions that deliver what you're looking for. And that was the main focus of the products we developed because it was probably the most common question I was asked whenever I travelled around the world. How do I do this?

How do I do this? Well, I don't have five hours, so how could I do that in one hour? You're like, well, you could do it like this or you could do it like this. And that was what we're really trying to build out over the next few years with a lot of the stuff we're putting out is getting the feedback from people. Okay, you executed an elevator set. Well, a great one to go from there is this session is to do a loose end set or just do an ACS as an aerobic conditioning session

and just plugging these sessions in and you can do it these 10 ways. And it's imperative. That's the biggest thing for amateurs. And how do you do that for yourself? I mean, are you working with a coach now that helps you structure your program or are you just, you've been doing it so long,

you know what you need? I mean, you seem like a guy who you could just, you know, your knife gets a little dull and you pull it out and sharpen it a few times and you're good to raise. That's my sort of jealous outsider perspective. No, I've had the same crew around me for more than a decade. I've always overseen my own training. I think earlier in my career I worked with some of the best coaches in the sport that came out of Australia.

I worked with Cole Stewart, who was Miles Stewart's father. He coached three world champions and just had an amazing squad when I was younger. And then Brett Sutton, who is famous in triathlon now. He coached the current Olympic champion in the women's. He's coached Chrissy Wellington. He was our national coach in Australia. So we had no choice when I was in my early 20s than to fall under his regime, which was brutal. He's really hardcore.

Very, very hardcore. I don't encourage his workouts for anybody. Basically, his approach was throw 12 eggs at a wall and one doesn't crack. That's a champion. And it works on the pro end. And you were able to learn a lot. He's a very intelligent guy, that being said. But you were able to take a lot from them.

And then more recently, I was working with Darren Smith prior to last year when I won the ITU Long Course Awards. Darren Smith is considered the best ITU coach in the world now at the moment for women. And he's a sports scientist. So you take from a lot of these coaches and you take from a lot of the athletes you train with, Simon Lessing. And so you get a broad understanding of the sessions.

We're all doing a very, very similar. And how we tweak those in our own way was was key and then i just put smart people around me so i thought you know what i think this works here this works here this works here get a swim coach i use dick kane in australia dick you're a swim coach tell me what i need to do on the swimming front i don't want to do a a threshold set today i've got a bike ride in the afternoon so give me something today that is an aerobic conditioning set he does that i have uh you know i have mg does all my strength stuff and yoga he's drilling that into me because i'm the most inflexible person in the world but he's got me in the gym for the first time in my career as you age he believes a lot of weight work is good. So I have these people around me, but overall picture I helped develop, but I've ensured that the people I have around me, Suzanne as well,

are brutally honest. My running coach, Helen McGuckin, who I don't access as much as I used to because she's moved further north in Australia, but she's always a phone call away. So when I'm struggling with things, I have these go-to people, but I ultimately put the package together myself, and they're absolutely honest with me. That's imperative.

They're not tap dancing around me telling me how wonderful I am. You're inflexible at the moment, Mikey. You're not strong enough. You're not swimming well. You've lost your run technique. So we need to fix those. Because if you're always looking at it yourself, you miss those things. Right.

Yeah, I had a guest on the podcast the other day who's an entrepreneur, and he was hammering home this idea of surrounding yourself with top-level mentors, people who can give you the bottom line and sort of have your back and direct you. And essentially he said, your wealth as a human being is determined you the bottom line and and sort of have your back and direct you and essentially said is you know your wealth as a human being is determined by the quality of people that you surround yourself by right so you have this team you're the ceo of chris mccormick but you have this team of people that you trust that will tell you straight the way it is and keep you you know on track yeah 100

and i am my own ceo that's what i always try and preach to people is be open to – when you close yourself off, you limit yourself. You really limit yourself. You need to be open, take things from everybody and borrow ideas and borrow things and try them and implement them because you don't know what's around the corner. You could adopt something that you learned from weightlifting, a certain approach to training,

and I can execute that in my bike sessions and see how that works. I've always been very, very open to that. So you find a system that works. I think you were saying I just need to sharpen my knife and I tend to get it right, but I think I always hold a base level of fitness all year. Yeah, you've been doing this for so long. I mean, that endurance base is enormous. It's not going not going anywhere yeah and you just need to really you do you just need to tap

in a couple of sessions or a block of work if you're looking at certain races and you can you can really sharpen that and come up very very quickly but it's a bit wobbly towards the end of the season you do need to lay some foundation so it's it's quite easy to get to into a racing condition when you follow the certain pattern for so long. Right. I have seen some triathletes get into trouble when they have, like they'll say, all right, I'm going to get a swim coach, I'm going to get a cycling coach, I'm going to get a running coach. But then those coaches aren't communicating amongst themselves. So you have the cycling coach who's just killing you on the bike

and then the swim coach who's pushing you at threshold every day and they're not communicating. And then ultimately these athletes inevitably over train or get injured or you know that was too tired to do anything that is the big let me ask you the question about the biggest mistake a lot of amateurs make that is one of them and i've seen that a lot and that's 100 right you if your if your team is not communicating and these swim these coaches are your team. You've empowered them. So you take a swim coach, you take a bike coach, and you take a run coach, and they don't communicate, then that's your poor executive decision.

If you're not comfortable in putting together your actual training triathlon plan, because this is one sport made of three disciplines. Right, and an amateur triathlete is going to go to a master's swim workout, but that master's coach is just a made of three disciplines. Right, and people will, you know, an amateur triathlete is going to go to a master's swim workout, but that master's coach is just a master's swim coach. That person doesn't know what it is that you're training for specifically or what else you have planned for that week other than that you show up at that swim practice a couple of times a week.

Totally, and if that is the case, and I say this to a lot of people, and you are in a master's program and you're like, look, I was only supposed to swim easy today and I know Tuesdays is a tough swim, you can swim easy in a master's program and you're like, look, I was only supposed to swim easy today and I know Tuesdays is a tough swim. You can swim easy in a program. Put yourself at the back of the group. Use fins sometimes. I saw you do it the other day.

Totally. You saw me cut the wall and take control. You know the drill. Throw some pool boys in, use the equipment. I cut half that session you had set for us the other day. But that is what I mean about making executive decisions. And if you get injured because your team is not communicating or you haven't put someone in place or you don't have the knowledge

to understand how to plug these things in, then that's what you should be looking for. And that's part of what we did with MX Plus now is giving people those guidelines. If they do have the three coaches, well, just how would you formulate a triathlon training plan? Because the mistake people make is triathlon is one sport. It's not one sport done with every single discipline relies on the other

and we fatigue in one body. So by building yourself on the track in a run set on Tuesday night, to wake up and think, I only exercise my legs, I'll do a hard swim set on Wednesday morning, that's wrong because we fatigue as a single entity, as a body. So you need to make sure you understand how to structure a basic foundation of what tends to work, and that's what we did with MX Plus. structure a basic foundation of what tends to work and that's what we do with mx plus yeah and in the coach that i work with uh when i sort of upload my workouts or you know he'll say

you know i don't i don't really care about the numbers you know that's that's on you you know you know you know what your zones are you know what you're supposed to do uh but what i'm interested in is how you feel because that's how i'm going to adjust or tweak what you're doing it's based on the feedback that you're giving me about what your body is telling you like i can look at the numbers and draw my own conclusions but i don't have a context for that unless i know what you feel like when you're showing me those numbers 100 and that the flexibility in the training plan is and and being out if you aren't using a coach and you're sitting there thinking, oh, but it says I have to run hard this afternoon and you're tired. And because we know, we all know within our self whether we're being lazy or if we're

really tired. Yeah, but denial is powerful. You know what I mean? If you give somebody the opportunity to say, hey, you know, you can, you know, if you feel tired, you can, you can take the day off. You know what I mean? A lot of people will just, they'll hold onto that. You know, they're not as, they're not as self-driven as, as maybe you are. You know what I mean? Like they, I think some people need a kick in the ass. So no, you know, like you'll be happy when you're

done. You're not over-trained. You're only training eight hours a week. Come on, get after it, buddy. But the way I i find motivation i think is when you're in that case you've come home from work and you've got a one hour run set to do and you're like oh man i don't really want the stars is on yeah dancing with the stars on i'm hungry and you know you just i always say just just throw the shoe throw the shoes on and that's your target the goal isn't the one hour run what i would set the goal as I'll throw the shoes and I'll run to the end of the street. And you find that once you get out there, you'll do it. So don't make the decision on the lounge or don't make the decision when you hit the alarm clock in the morning

and I've got to go swimming, I don't really want to do it. Change that to, look, I'll make that decision when I'm at the pool or I'll make the decision at the end of the street with the shoes on. So if you really are tired, you really don't want to do it and it's not there, I bet you nine times out of ten, because I've been that person too, when I've got to the pool, I swim the session and every single time I've done it, I've never regretted doing the session ever, ever, ever.

No, never, ever ever ever ever thousands and thousands of workouts yeah yeah thousands of workouts if it's not if it's not there you know you can you start running and you're like yeah it's really not happening but i try you i you know now i know but you have to get out there and try it 100 and that's how you change the mindset of the decision making when you are being lazy don't think of the hour run because it seems daunting or the 5,000-yard swim set. You're like, oh, I can't swim 5,000 yards. Just think of getting to the pool.

That's the goal. Get to the pool and stand there and go, I'm not going to do it. I bet you get in. Put Dancing with the Stars on TiVo and you're good. Exactly. Just watch it later. Exactly. All right, man.

Well, that was good. Let's wrap it up it up we got an hour and a half here oh my i thought we're going to a sunset dude we can we'll do another episode before you leave you want man yeah anytime sunday it was a pleasure the champ always in the house man i really appreciate you taking the time oh thanks for having me cool big fan so uh how much longer are you in town you're here another week or something like no i leave sunday after benelli and where are you going next to vietnam oh good is that just are you racing there or you just are you gonna race there so you're bringing your daughter

yes yeah yeah she's coming up and uh i do vietnam and then um i'll do some training in vietnam i'm gonna do a seminar that'll be cool yeah it'll be a seminar in in thailand so'm going to do a seminar. That'll be cool. Yeah. There'll be a seminar in Thailand. So we fly to Thailand and I'm into Bangkok and do a training seminar for a lot of the expats because the sport is exploding in Asia. Right. And then I'm home and a big block of work before I have to face Javier Gomez in Barcelona in mid-May. Oh, good luck. I need it.

Yeah. You'll be good now. Yeah. I think you're going to be just fine. If I beat him, he'll never hear the end of it. Think about what that would mean. Think about that, Harvey. It would be huge.

If you're listening, Harvey, if I beat you. Of course, he subscribes to the podcast. Of course, he does. Harvey, I'm going to kick your butt at smack talk. Yeah, right on. All right, cool. So if people want to connect with you, you're at MacaNow on Twitter and the website's MacaX.com. And you've got a podcast too.

Is that just for the members of your community? No, no, we've got it. It's on iTunes. I saw it up on iTunes. It's a bit crass. It's a bit uncensored. We decided that a lot of the podcasts in triathlon that talk about triathlon-specific stuff were very serious, so we brought a flavorable element to it.

I know. I've listened to a few of them. I like it, man. It's only getting better. We've got a few new guests coming on. It's called Macca Uncensored, right? Or Macca X Uncensored? Macca Uncensored.

We're totally uncensored. So if you're easily offended, don't listen. And it's you and MG, right? Oh, MG is a special beast. He's been around the sport in Australia since I can remember. And you've got to meet this guy. He's a special beast. Yeah, cool.

And anywhere else people should go to learn more about what you're doing? That's the main places, right? No, come and join us. Come and join our team. Come and join the – I'd love to have you on our team. You guys got the stickers now for the bikes I saw. We got stickers. You hit your name.

Yeah, you get your name on your bike. You get visors. We send you off sunglasses. What we've done with the team is try to engage all my sponsors to make sure we can, you know, I find this sport very expensive. So we thought we'd initiate that team, the Macarex.com team, and it's great. We've got, you know, 500 people on the team.

It's a global team. So come and join us. Pop past the site, send me an email and ask, and you'll love it. If you don't love it, then leave. We don't hold you there, so it's pretty easy. Right. Cool. All right, man.

Hey, Jonathan, are you going to take us out with some piano? We've got Jonathan Toker here, the CEO of Salt Stick. He's chomping at the bit to play a little piano. You can take us out. Come on, buddy. Play something. I know. There we go.

All right. What is that? Can't you play body? I don't know. Play something modern. Piano man. All right, everybody. Cheers.

Peace. Fear plants. I can't do anything modern. My wife takes me. I sing out the keyboard. My wife takes me home you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you