Beyond the Finish Line: How Olympic Champion Alistair Brownlee Redefined Winning

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Confidence, I always thought was actually on the whole was a very kind of fake construct. You know, if anything gave you confidence that ultimately wasn't hard work and preparation, it was fake confidence. And I probably wouldn't have used those terms. But self belief came from the work and the preparation and good decision making.

What if the key to Olympic gold and a life well lived came down to only a stride? Well, in this episode, we sit down with the complete legend that is Alistair Brownlee, two time Olympic champion, endurance icon and someone who's been redefining what it means to win. On the course and in life, we dive into a decision that perhaps changed everything. Walking away from Cambridge University, we dive into the power of brotherhood and why helping his brother over the finish line in Mexico taught him more than any medal ever could. We explore risk identity after retirement and why winning doesn't always feel the way you think it will. So whether you're chasing your own endurance goals or navigating high pressure decisions in life or business, this conversation delivers hard earned wisdom straight from one of the sport's most driven minds and most successful athletes. This is all about resilience, reinvention, and finding joy in the journey, even when the finish line keeps moving. So let's dive into this incredible interview with Alistair Brownlee. Do you know what? When we look at the back end of this podcast, then we see something really interesting. We see that 57% of the people that regularly listen to it haven't hit the subscribe button. So could I ask you a quick favor to before we dive into today's episode? If you're enjoying Claire and I bringing you amazing guests, not asking you for patronage fees and not jamming the podcast full of adverts, then the best way you can help us continue to do that and make it even better is to hit that subscribe button. And here's my promise to you. When you subscribe, we'll make it our mission, along with the team that supports us, to continue to improve this podcast and every week. So thank you so much for your support and for being a part of the business of Endurance community. Let's dive in. So, Alastair, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. I am really looking forward to having this conversation and really looking forward to kind of diving into both your triathlon life, but also your, your business life, which has become an increasing, increasing portfolio from what I've seen so far. But I'd love to start off with, with that Olympic victory in London 2012. You know, it was such an iconic moment in sport, wasn't it? And I know you must have spoken to it about it so many times, but I'd really like to kind of start with that and kind of understand. Well, there's this phrase that kind of keeps coming out when I listen to you talk and listen to your books about Only by a stride. So can you sort of take us back to that race in Hyde park, the atmosphere, the pressure, the execution, and talk us through, you know, what was going through your mind as you approached that final stretch and what did only by a stride mean to you on that day?

Of course, it's an awful long time ago now, but I don't mind talking about it at all. Yeah, that really, it was the culmination of a lot of years work. I had known about the Olympic Games in London for seven years, since I was at school and heard that London had won the bid to host the Olympic Games, those Olympic Games in, in 2012. And yeah, I probably thought about it in almost every day in, in those seven years. I obviously worked very hard in the lead up to it. I was expecting to win, I think is the right way to put it. I'd put a lot of pressure on myself to, to go out and perform on that day. And that particular quote, only by a stride, came from something that my coach, Malcolm had said to me many years before. He said, you know, you've got to believe you can win that race in London, but only by a stride. Which was just a great bit of advice. So you know what he meant by that and kind of a philosophy that I took forward was that now you, maybe I don't actually believe in confidence, but have the knowledge that you can win, the imagination and to plan to how to do it, but believe that, you know, keep working, keep relentlessly working hard towards the goal because you have to be prepared to win by the smallest of margins.

And what was it like? I mean, there was so much pressure building up to that race, wasn't there? You know, you were going to be expected to win. So what was that pressure like? And tell us the story of what actually happened on the day.

There was quite a lot of pressure and I think from a triathlon perspective, you know, you don't really get used to kind of media pressure and all. All of a sudden it felt like in the lead up to that, people would be asking me on the street or in the local shop or, you know, whatever I was doing, how are you looking forward to the Olympics? You look forward to winning? Are you going to be beat? This Guy or that guy. And so the expectation ramped up and felt enormous. But it's a cliche adage in sport that the most significant pressure is the internal pressure that you put on yourself. And that was very much the case for me. It was years of work, thousands of hours of support from people around me, sleepless nights, stress, everything else. And so it was very much about me. And I knew, you know, I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself, I guess, to that. I knew that was not one day in every four years, but one day in a. In a career I could win a home Olympic Games. So, yeah, that was the pressure, really. And I was very lucky on that day that I had a great day. Everything had gone perfectly in the few months beforehand, and I was ready to perform.

Talk us through the race, sort of. What happened that day? What do you think were the defining moments on that day?

It's obviously impossible to plan out a triathlon because there's so many external factors that can happen that you can't control. But we tried to plan it as much as possible. The swim split to, I think, six people, and that was pretty much perfect. And then there was a group just behind, and Johnny and me had a third British teammate there called Stu Hayes, who was there really to help and support us, and he was in that group. And then he really controlled the race for us. And it came down to the run. And on the run quickly, there was three of us left of Johnny, Javier, Gomez and me. And I think halfway through the run, I started pulling away. And, yeah, I just remember, I think with about two kilometers ago, a coach saying, you know, you've got seven seconds. And I was thinking, yeah, two kilometers to, you know, to win the Olympic Games. And, yeah, it was just amazing running down the last few hundred meters.

Did anything ever get on all of your successes? Did anything ever rival that moment?

No, not even close. It was, yeah, really special. Obviously, being at home, an enormous crowds, incredible amount of noise, and, yeah, still in all those crowds, being able to see so many people and you is really incredible, brilliant.

And just to sort of come back to that, only by a stride statement from Malcolm, who, by the way, has been on the podcast, like, I think three years ago or something. Lovely, lovely guy and really kind of insightful. What does that only by a stride mean to you today in your current life?

It means very much the same thing that I think it doesn't really matter what avenue you're looking at to achieve anything. You need to work hard to achieve anything worthwhile. It's going to be hard work and, you know, you need to be prepared to achieve it by a very small margin. So, yeah, kind of believe or imagine that you can do it. I'm actually not a big believer in the importance of belief. I think you've got to imagine you can do it and kind of be able to come up with a path and a plan to get there, but know there's going to be ups and downs along the way and ultimately it's going to be touch and go.

Yeah. I think back to watching things like the Olympics and swimmers and the margin by which those swimmers are winning, you know, the tiny amount. So. So what you say really kind of resonates in terms of that's all it takes to. I say that's all it takes to win, but that is the, you know, the winning part. So tell us a little bit about sort of how you got to where you were. That big sort of decision, I guess, to either go to. Was it Cambridge University, I think, or pursue this career in triathlon. So how did, how did that happen? Who were you guided by? Was it your dad that helped you make that choice? Tell us a bit about that.

Yeah, it was a very big decision in my life. I started studying medicine at Cambridge University, which was obviously absolutely incredible opportunity. And, yeah, you know, I'd worked hard through my school years to, to get there, to be honest. And at the same time, or very similar time, I'd. I'd won the, the World Junior Triathlon Championships. I was thinking, oh, wow, you know, all of a sudden there's a chance here that I could actually do my, my dream, which is to be a professional triathlete. I mean, you've got no idea if it's possible to be a professional triathlete, to be honest. But I thought, you know, I. I'm the best junior in the world. There are, you know, a few sponsors coming on board and, And a bit of lottery funding. This is really special. That path has opened up to me. So I just had a big, big decision to make and actually started studying Cambridge for six months or something and really decided that I had to kind of pursue that dream in sport. And that's what I did. I went, went and made the. Made the decision and it was a massive decision. It was. It was really, really tough and I'm very thankful for it. It turned out well, to be honest. But I had great support from people around me, great support from my parents. You know, my dad literally told me, you have to follow your dreams, which was. Which was really special. And yeah, I think, if anything, you know, both my parents, more than anything, the kind of mantra was it doesn't really matter what you do, just do it to the best of your ability. So yeah, I think that was always kind of in the back of their mind as well that, yeah, okay, you know, academics and everything's important, but as long as whatever you're doing, you're really doing well, I think that's more important.

Sounds like a huge decision which paid off ultimately. Like how did you. That decision making and those conversations with your mum and dad, how did that shape potentially your mindset or how you went about your career in triathlon?

It was a very important decision for me because I think, you know, it meant that I always felt like I owed it to myself to do triathlon to the best of my ability because I could have been doing something else and I had a really viable other option that I'd turned down and made kind of a big sacrifice, among many other sacrifices, of course, for my sporting career. So it kind of felt really important that I, I did it to the best of my ability. Whether that, you know, whether it did make any difference or not, I don't know. But I, I remember thinking that a lot that, you know, I've got to really do this well to, to not let myself down and, and so they're kind of. Yeah, the principles of that decision definitely really stayed with me.

And we're going to come on to your businesses in a second. But how do you view risk now? Because obviously it was a risk to make that decision, I guess, you know, either way. Do you think you view risk differently now?

I don't know if I'd view risk differently. You know, risk that has many components, doesn't it? Obviously the size of the potential outcome and what you're losing. And all of us deal with the heuristic of loss aversion in there. And I think as a young man, what I was perceived to be losing, probably that point wasn't that much because I thought I could always go back and study at this point. And so it felt, even though it was a massive decision, it felt like the actual potential loss was relatively small. Yeah, for sure. As you get older, things get a bit tougher and what you could lose gets a bit bigger.

Good answer. Is there sort of one thing or a couple of tips that you might give to young up and coming athletes who may be faced with this decision? Is there sort of one thing that you might advise them?

It's really tough because not One size fits all. I do think, I generally think, you know, pursuing academics and having things outside of sport is really important. So, you know, I actually kind of recommend that a lot and I, I did keep on studying outside my sport and I think that was important for me. And. But yeah, I think, you know, ultimately if, if it does come to the point where you have to make a decision like that, you can sit down and you can weigh up the pros and cons, but it just has to be a very instinctive decision at the end of the day and you, you have to just go out and make that decision.

But I think it's also. So I think what's really interesting is that your dad gave you permission to make that decision. There's a lot of parents that, having got you to that point, would have felt like you were wasting all of the hard work that you'd done elsewhere in medicine. And I think that's amazing that he did that. I actually, you know, I grew up on a farm and a lot of farming families would have put pressure on me to go into farming. But when I saw an opportunity in the world of finance, I was also given the freedom to make that choice and basically give it a go. And I think that's just really empowering. So I think that's amazing. One of the other statements I think also came from Malcolm Brown was pressure is a privilege. And competing at, you know, London 2012. Absolutely. There must have been like huge expectations. We've already, as we've already said, so what's meant by pressure is a privilege. I hadn't heard that term and until I think I, I think it was in relentless that I heard it for the first time. So what do you mean by that and how do you turn pressure into performance rather than fear?

I think to me it means that, I think Malcolm basically said this, that you know, you only have pressure because you've achieved something before and achieving something before is better than not achieving anything. And that was the kind of. So, so it's a privilege to be in that position and it's, yeah, it's better than the alternative. And that was something I talked to me in terms of performance, kind of tell a very straightforward anecdote about it. You know, I remember obviously being quite overwhelmed with the pressure around London. I remember going out onto the course before the race to have a little warm up and go for a bit of a bike ride and there's already crowds on the side of the course and just looking around and there's tens, hundreds of Thousands of people there, you know, signs, flags, everything. And the noise was incredible. And thinking, oh, wow, you know, this, this is enormous amount of pressure. It's very nerve wracking all these people here. And then almost it's something flipping in my kind of mind and just thinking, wow, what an incredible thing that actually 99% of these people here are here to support me and, you know, and try and help me and just want to see me do well. How special is that? And the whole thing of actually pressure and expectation and it being a positive, it. Yeah, thankfully, rightly or wrongly did, did a complete 180 in my mind when I heard it.

I thought that. I can really relate to that. I think, you know, like the moment I thought of was the first time I spoke in front of a huge audience, like 11,000 people, which I probably isn't a particularly big audience for you, but it was a big audience for me. I was like, I tried to position it that this wasn't nerves I was feeling, this was excitement. And then when I heard that, I was like, actually, yeah, that's the way to kind of almost position that in your mind is. This is, you know, I think this is a huge privilege to now have to be here. So I really like, I thought that was really, really powerful. If we fast forward to Rio, you and Johnny have this, this, you know, your front of the race and you tell this story of him giving you a tell which was kind of what allowed you to, to, to go on and win another gold medal. What was that moment like between the two of you and what did it reveal about your relationship, not just as brothers, but also as competitors?

Yeah, so the, the story very quickly is that the race in the Rio Olympic Games was going perfect for Johnny and I. We're. There's just the two of us, first and second in the race with quite a gap to the third person. I think with 5km to go of the run, you know, just perfect scenario, absolute dream. And we're running for an aid station and Johnny kind of says to me, relax, slow down, you know, don't overheat. And I just, you know, knew straight away that that meant that he was struggling and speeded up to, to pull away from him, which ultimately was the race winning move. And he likes to say, you know, this is proof of us to being, you know, the most, most ruthless and selfish competitor there is, which is true to an extent. Amara taught is always, well, if you can't be very ruthless. With a few kilometers left of the Olympic Games, I don't know when you can be. Doesn't need. Doesn't mean you need to be very ruthless the whole time. But, yeah, I think it also speaks to the kind of depth of understanding we had as brothers that, you know, I kind of knew those. That kind of cue from Johnny meant that he was struggling and of course I would. I would exploit it.

I remember asking Mark Allen the impact of, you know, did Dave Scott make him a better triathlete and a better, you know, athlete of any sort of. And he said, absolutely. I'd have never have got to where I got to without having Dave getting me, forcing me to get to that point. How much do you think that Johnny's played that role and how big a difference did it make that he was, you know, your brother and therefore growing up in that house?

Oh, it's. It's enormous, without a doubt. I think there's the kind of pragmatical importance he's had to me and we've had to each other, which is being able to train together. We were each other's probably best training partners for a lot of those years, being able to push each other in the right sessions. But then there's the. The other probably kind of emotional support thing. We were young people traveling around the world, going to races and training camps all over the place and dealing with similar levels of pressure and expectation and stresses. And I think all of that actually was really important, maybe, maybe sometimes more important than them being able to train together all the time.

So continuing on that theme of, like, your relationship with your brother, both from a sporting perspective, living together, and also brothers. The very well known story of Cozumel and you helping Johnny over the line. I know you've probably talked about this a hundred times over, but what I'd really like to know is what do you think people maybe misunderstand about that moment where you helped Johnny over the line? Is there a question that no one's actually asked you, but maybe should have asked you? What do we not know about that moment?

That is a good question. Like, what's the question? You've not been asked about it because. Because I've been asked about it so much. Is this something that people should know that don't already? I don't know. Maybe there's. Maybe there's probably a lot more background to it than people realize. So that was at the end of a season. Jonny had actually had another heat episode earlier in that year in Australia, and as a response to that, I'd actually looked up the World Triathlon's heat policies at the time and basically found out that they hadn't applied any of their own heat policies at that race. So I'd been quite on it. And then it was very clear that the race in Cozumel was actually going to a certain time of day. I can't remember the exact times, but it was very clear that actually it was going to be that basically not allowed on or, or at least kind of there'd be a debate over there is allowed on the, on the heat rules. And so it would already been actually put back a few hours to a slightly cooler time of the day. And yeah, I'd raced in the World of Cruise Championships a few days earlier and like told the, the, the organizers, I just said this is, you know, crazily hot. It's like no conditions I've ever raced in. I've only done a nicathlon and it was brutally warm and then seen some junior and youth races earlier that week where people had struggled. So yeah, the kind of context was that I think it was probably relatively dangerous anyway. And then, yeah, for the worst to happen in the last few, well, hundred meters was a big shame.

Thinking about the question that people didn't ask, I guess was like, what. What were the conditions? You know, like. But from what you're saying, actually potentially the, the rules actually whether they maybe nudge those a little bit in terms of it being actually too hot to take part.

Yeah. So the conditions, the rules based on something called wet bulb globe temperature, which is a combination of ambient temperature, humidity and the strength of the sun, I think. And it's kind of all of those are brought together to have this kind of calculation. And if it's over a certain amount, it's rated as black and you're supposed to shorten it. But there's all kinds of decision with the technical official and the medical official, I think. And I can't remember the exact, the exact numbers, but if it had been earlier in the day, you know, the race would have been 100% and probably too hot. And this keeps coming up again and again now in races, I guess in hotter places like, you know, the Tokyo Olympics, it was, it was hot. And potentially an issue, could have been an issue in the Paris Olympics as well. And it's all about keeping athletes safe.

Just thinking about that actually, in terms of the environment and the changing weather, whether that's downpours of rain. We saw that in the Olympics actually, didn't we? In terms of people coming off the bikes, do you think they're Going to have to rethink triathlon in terms of being more flexible like water quality, time of day of racing. What are your thoughts on that? I don't know if you've thought about it in terms of environment.

Well, the water quality issue is slightly different. I think if you want to host a race in a city center, water quality unfortunately is always going to be an issue. Doesn't matter what country we think. It's a uniquely British problem. I can guarantee it is not. And so if you host a race in the middle of a capital city, water quality is always going to be an issue. And so you have to decide do you want it in the center of the city, in front of great landmarks where people can watch it and you've got that risk, or do you want it somewhere where you can guarantee clean water? So that just is a kind of the pragmatical approach of where we are in terms of the climate warming up. You know, I guess as areas warm up. Yeah, it's going to be, have to be an issue that people look at and like what time of year to host events and what time of day.

I think yeah, it's, it's going to be really difficult, isn't it? And I think yeah, you want that spectacle, but that spectacle, you're right. I've never really thought about the fact that the spectacle is in, in the city center and that's kind of not the best place, best place to be doing it. Just to stick on the heat subject before we move on, obviously. So you obviously studied this. You, you know, you, you raced in Kona as Claire and I both have. What did you eventually learn about the best way to deal with the heat?

Yeah, I mean really, I think that dealing with the heat, your body adapts to heat in the same way it adapts to everything else, which is a dose response relationship. The more time you spend with your body being hot, the better it adap to heat. And the, the key adaptions that you get in, in the short term, increasing your plasma volume, potentially increasing your sweat rate and decreasing the sodium you sweat. And then some longer term chronic adaptions of heat shock proteins and various things. And then I think even much longer term adaptions where, where you can potentially get even more efficient in the heat. The kind of the, my understanding of the scientific literature on it is that you can get a lot of the, the main kind of global adaptions with it quite quickly. I think probably between seven and 10 hours of having a raised core body temperature. And so I did find that I Found personally, even though my ability to exercise in the heat started at quite a low level, I felt that I actually adapted quite well to it when I did, when I did train in it. And yeah, you can do that at home in heat tents and saunas, which isn't a lot of fun and that's referred to as acclimation. Or you can go somewhere warm and do it, which I much preferred.

Yeah, that was definitely the route I would prefer. So moving on to retirement then, you know, stepping away from elite sport is like a real challenge for a lot of athletes. So what's the most surprising thing you've learned about yourself in retirement and what do you miss most and least about racing?

Well, I don't know if I've learned anything yet apart that I didn't already know, which is just I still love being active and exercise. The definite thing I actually miss most about racing actually the simplicity of life. There is, I still think there is nothing in life which is probably quite as simple as existence has been. An athlete, you have one North Star goal which is on a daily basis to train as hard as you can and get physically better and on a slightly longer term basis is to perform at the best of your ability in the next event you have you got the excuse to be incredibly selfish and do only what you want to do. And really your life is fundamentally about training, eating, sleeping, resting and trying to get better every day. And actually that simplicity is actually really nice.

And so what's the big goal now? What is the focus that you're looking forward towards?

Still very much working out at the moment, I feel like, well, I have been on a various bunch of prolonged holidays over the last few months and yeah, I've kind of worked hard over the last few years to put a few things in place to, to, to have to keep me busy post career. And yeah, I'm working out how much more I want to do of each.

I think we're going to come on to some of the things that you have been doing actually. But interesting that you know, taking time out after being a, you know, full time professional athlete. I'd be interested actually to, to understand when working with professional athletes. Some athletes get a lot of support when they are retiring from their sport or they're, you know, ready to leave their sport because of injury. How much support did you, did you get when you decided to retire, if any? Like did it help you kind of shape ideas about what you might want to do or.

I guess no actual technical official support but an absolute ton of Non official support from a great network of people around me, whether that's family, friends, people that I've met through triathlon coaches, people in business. Yeah, I feel very, very lucky to have had tons of support, plenty of people to go on holiday with and plenty of people that are giving me opportunities to try and experience other kind of business ventures, ways of working and experiences. And I think that has been really important to me and that network of support, something I'll always be very grateful for.

And I guess actually you know, working in a, in a environment where you've got lots of athletes around you and then lots of support team, you've been used to like working in that environment where there's everyone's helping each other out as well. One thing that you have done is in Relentless in your, in your book Relentless, you discussed with, I think it was with Michael Owen the difference between confidence and self belief. And actually you said right at the beginning of this interview about you don't believe in confidence. So for you like what, what's the difference? Tell us a bit about where that comes from.

Yeah, Michael Owen had this like great way of articulating that for his, him the difference of confidence and self relief was that confidence is very transient, can come and go and you know, can, if you miss a couple of penalties, it goes and you score a few goals, it comes back in abundance. Whereas self belief is much less transient and much more important. You know, if you have fundamentally self belief in your abilities, that's what's important to be good on the field. And yeah, I mean I think that that is important for me. Confidence I always thought was actually on the whole was a very kind of fake construct. You know, if anything gave you confidence that ultimately wasn't hard work and preparation, it was fake confidence. And I, I probably wouldn't have used those terms but self belief came from the work and the preparation and, and, and good decision making and the weeks, months and years leading up to an event that, that for me built my physical and, and mental ability to go out and perform. And anything that added onto that, that ability to perform or subtracted from it was a, was, was fake anyway. And so that's how I would kind of, I know that's not necessarily a strict definition, but that's how I felt what confidence was about. And I guess self belief was a much more deep rooted construct.

It's a really interesting way to think about it. When you were at the start line of a race or you know, preparing yourself like ready to race, is that what you had in your mind in terms of this self belief that you could do it, like did you have that vision?

So I think it's important. I always discriminated between believing I could win the race and imagining how I could win the race. And I really, I didn't believe that confidence in my ability to win was important at all. I stood on loads of start lines thinking I've got almost no chance here or I've got a 1% chance here, but the 1% chance I've got looks like this and I'm going to try and execute it anyway. And I guess I was very, just had a very pragmatical approach, like it doesn't really matter if I believe I can win this or not. This is, if there is a way to win it, this is the most likely way of doing it. And that's what I'm going to try and do. And so yeah, I guess there's even like self belief that you could say, well, you could see the path, you could imagine the path to get there. And I think that for me imagination was always much more important. Can I imagine myself doing this and then create a plan of how to get there rather than actually you can do that and have zero belief or like a 0.1% belief that you can actually do it.

Interesting. I was listening. So I'm in London at the moment, which is why my lighting is awful because I'm not in my normal location. But I went on my. I did my long run of the week this morning and I did it through Hyde park and along Serpentine and I was listening to Relentless all over again because it's a brilliant book and there's so. And I love the conversation with Michael Owen but actually there's so many brilliant conversations within there. So who was the person that you interviewed within Relentless that surprised you the most and, and kind of what struck you about that particular conversation in particular?

It's hard to pick one out. I tend to like categorize them in, in different ways and in conversations and things and concepts that I know and could really relate to. You know, talking to Paula Ratcliffe and, and Mike Cavendish, Chris Froome, like sports, as you can imagine, that were quite familiar and ways of thinking. There was stuff like the Michael Owen thing where I probably understood and, but wouldn't articulate like that. So I really enjoyed hearing someone else's ability to articulate and explain a concept. And then there was something that was like a completely different approach and I was like, wow, you know, that's Completely contradicts everything that I thought. And there are actually more examples than that, than you think. You know, some really out there ones like Ian both, some of the things that he said, very different, you know, complete self belief and confidence and conviction in everything. This amazing analogy of once, I can't remember exactly what it is, but basically once you start going down the canon, you're convicted and you, you stick to it. And that's kind of very different to, to my thought process. But you know, in certain sports it's very different. And I think one of the things I was really interested in is that approach to, in triathlon you start and then you crack on. But if you're cricket or, or golf or actually many other things, you're constantly resetting. And so that pressure and the kind of mental preparation you go through is completely different. But yeah, another one that I like talking about was talking to AP McCoy at jump a Jockey, which is completely different world, obviously to my world. And to talk to him because when I was researching it, trying to come across someone who had been successful consistently over the longest period of time I could find, which in his case was 20 years. And yeah, it's just amazing to talk to someone who's had thousands, I think four and a half thousand race wins under his belt and to talk to his kind of approach to being so consistent. And he basically said, yeah, I mean, I won a lot of races, I lost a lot more. I ended up in the ambulance a lot of times as well. And you've got to take the highs and the lows, never get too excited by the, the best days and never get too upset by the worst.

When you look back, was there one overriding theme that kind of shone out of all of them that you weren't maybe were or weren't expecting or have to confess? When I listened to it again this morning, I didn't get quite to the end. So I, I can't remember whether you draw one single conclusion or not, but, but what was, was there one overriding theme that you, you pulled out from all of them?

There were some things I tried to pull out, but I like on reflection, and I kind of hint at this, that it's definitely easy to overfit there, you know, and that one of the things is, is actually how different people's approach approaches are to an extent. Everyone believes in hard work. You know, Ronnie o', Sullivan, that's why I started the book with him. He's the first interviewee and saying that, you know, when you think of someone who's we talk about so much as having an incredible innate talent for something, you know, he says no, that's ridiculous. These people don't see the amount of effort and work I put in on the practice table. So if there maybe was one thing to draw, I think that's probably a good place to go.

I think it's really interesting to hear like about you interviewing lots of different sports people and those kind of, I guess probably some of those main themes that come across but difficult to like, you know, draw that conclusion now within your kind of where you are are in life. You've started lots of different businesses. Tell us a little bit about Brownlee Racing because you know now you're working with teams in a, in a slightly different way.

Yeah, so various things going on. I think at the center of all of this is the management agency called Blue Carpet that We started nearly 10 years ago with Johnny and my long term manager who had already worked with for about 10 years before that called Richard. And so really the kind of premise was that we'd worked with one person for a long time. I thought a lot about management was you saw people out there who quite often, you know, you managed by your mate or your brother and it's, it can be a bit of a dodgy world. And yeah, I just think Richard had done a really good job for us over a long period of time. Someone I trusted and, and thought yeah, having starting a business in, in this area was a, was a good thing to do. So now that Blue Carpet is a like a full service management agency and it's all about helping, developing and you know, providing commercial advice and work for athletes. And yeah, we, we have a few employees and managers working across various sports including triathlon, athletics, football, cricket, other Olympic sports which is, which is really cool. And as part of that, you know, obviously one of the big opportunities in triathlon at the moment is potentially league which is for anyone who doesn't know is kind of exciting up sports content property trying to kind of make triathlon a new version of triathlon that's short and interesting for the viewer and the fan. And a couple of years ago, super, it's called Super Try now actually Super Try decided to pursue a franchise model of franchising off their teams obviously to help fan engagement as a different kind of revenue source for sponsors and people to be involved with. And Blue Carpet wanted to get involved and have the British franchise which fulfills kind of a number of aims, one of which is obviously helping and working with athletes on that front and the commercial relationships. And the second is to have a British perspective and to be able to give British athletes and especially young ones opportunity to race at that level. So that's where the idea for Branley racing came from. It was the first season last year the team didn't. Wasn't massively successful actually came last. But we're very optimistic about this year and yeah, it's exciting. It's obviously got some great athletes racing in British colours and I'm looking forward to it. Made me more engaged anyway in watching super try and following it. So I'm looking forward to this year.

Super exciting. Actually. We've been, we've been lucky enough to interview a couple of people actually involved in supertry and it looks just so exciting, so really exciting for you to have a team and be racing facing. You mentioned about like having the UK athletes but also like some, some younger athletes as well. So how do you look for talent? What are you looking for and how do you, how do you nurture that?

Well, I think there's two questions there when you're looking for talent to start with in sport and talent ideas, an incredibly difficult thing to get right. But you know, to an extent if you, if you spend time with really talented young people, you definitely get kind of, I think kind of work ethic and their approach or you seem to anyway. But the second question is, yeah, how do you, how do we select for the. For Branley racing team? And that's, yeah, done by a number of ways. Kind of a core of some of the top British elite athletes who want to race. So people like Alex, Beth, Johnny and then outside of that, who's performed well at races recently that, that want to be part of the team and can help the team and fit into the kind of structure and tactics.

Brilliant. And yeah, I think it's a really interesting kind of way that the sport is diverting and I think it's a. I think it's going to be certainly making the viewing of the sport brilliant. One of the things that. So one of the things you created is the, is the foundation and to help, you know, introduce kids into sport. So tell us the story around why you created the foundation and, and what are you. What are your hopes? What do you hope the legacy will be of the foundation?

We started the foundation at our first event in 2014, which was just one, one free triathlon for about a thousand kids in Leeds. And it was, it was very much born out of the fact that Johnny and me were getting asked to go to every school in Yorkshire and talk and try and inspire the kids, the pupils there post the London Olympics and we felt kind of a sense of responsibility to do that and that was enormous privilege and we thought wait a minute, we can't be going to every school but maybe we can try and scale that to some extent. And that's where the idea of the foundation came and now it is over 10 years old. We had to have two years break during COVID and it's grown and grown and grown. This year we'll have 15 plus events all over the country and be well over 15,000 children do free events. With those primary school age children come do free triathlons. Just in the last few weeks actually we've opened up our, our registration for, for schools. All children come in their schools and yeah it's amazing to see now our events fill up within 24 hours with over subscribed, you know up to 2000 children subscribing for some of them. So yeah, that's really good. And the second part of that is you know we work hard on, follow on opportunities to, to, to, to help those young people that do really love triathlon to be able to swim, bike run more in their local area. And we've done that by supporting clubs, putting on new sessions, providing bikes, helmets etc etc so it's good, it's, it's quite an organization. Now we employ three or trustees and people that help us 100% privately funded. So we have to work hard for the, and for three various ways and have some, some great people that support us on it and yeah, I hope it keeps going from strength to strength.

Is there a single story that stands out for you from you know, within all of the, the events that you've done through that that kind of sums up why you're doing it?

Yeah, the similar one that we've now heard a number of times to be honest which was you know Jimmy came to the event last year, never done a triathlon, loved it, went away, joined a club, now has joined a club and is doing triathlon and then a few years later has joined the local regional academy and taking it more seriously. So that, but actually at the same time just seeing some of the children's faces as they cross the finish line they're thinking, you know, they never thought they could finish but they're being cheered over the finish line by their classmates and you know, it doesn't matter that they've maybe been a bit slower, they're just happy to be there and completing something they didn't think they could do before. That's really special.

I think it's brilliant that you're in schools and you're getting more people not only involved in triathlon but involved in sport and enjoying being competitive because I think that over the years has maybe been lost from schools that you're not allowed to win anymore. So it's really lovely to hear how much the foundation has grown and that you've got, you know that you've got support for it as well. Of particular interest to me, being a dietitian and a high performance nutritionist, my understanding is you're developing or have developed a, or some nutrition products, one of which is a gel that's coming out soon. Is that right? True Fuels?

Yeah, True Fuels is something that, yeah, I've been thinking about nutrition for doing something in nutrition for a few years. I mean the last few years I was developing my own fuel to race on and like playing around with stuff and my kind of theory of nutrition is that what where most people go wrong is they just kind of over complicate it and actually trying to provide guidance and support to help people just understand what they need and when is, is is 99% of it. You know, people are trying to take massive amounts of carbs in and a product that they've never used before and all of a sudden you try and take it two hours into a marathon. I mean the chances of it going wrong are just really high, aren't they? And actually but by guiding people through the process of getting there and doing that, the vehicle through the vehicle of a brand just seemed to be a really good idea as well as simplifying the products. And so yeah, I had the idea and about six months ago met a few people at a business event. One guy, Goran, who's a ex tennis player and had a really successful business career and he also had an idea of wanting to build a kind of ground up nutrition brand all about kind of brand and community and I just really like the confluence of those ideas. So we decided to give it a go. Any True feels the first product is a simple gel where we're kind of working at breakneck speed and, and just kind of that that first product will be in the market in May which is very exciting. And yeah, then, then some other products to follow that up quickly.

I'm very much with you on the knowledge and education around nutrition but also the simplicity. I, I absolutely agree. I think it can be way over complicated. It needs to be practical and easy. So what, what makes True Fuels different like what are you trying to, I guess achieve with, with your products? Because I know you mentioned about, you know, obviously over the years you've probably used lots of different products and you were developing them for yourself. So what is it that you're, that you're kind of really looking at changing or these types of products that you're bringing out?

So I think those two fundamental philosophies, the first one is only what you need in the product and kind of nothing else. So in the first gel combination of carbohydrates, one to one, fructose to multidextrin, and we're actually doing two salt versions, a high and low salt version that allows people to adapt what they're using and when just to have a one product solution. And the second thing that comes with a level of kind of guidance of what to use, which product to use, how much of what to use and when and, and, and that's it really kind of keep getting told off using the word simplify nutrition. But I just think it sums it up so well that that's the principle behind it.

I, Well, I totally agree with you. I think, I don't think it needs to be complicated. And I like the idea of you having products that you can kind of use individually or you've got one that you can use together and you kind of know where you are with it as well. So can I ask, what are the other products coming along? Are you allowed to tell us?

Yeah, well, so in no particular order, I mean, not that it's as massively different I guess out there. A higher volume gel product, electrolyte products, and some like simplified, really cool recovery products that I'm really excited about. Yeah, please do. Yeah.

By that. So I also wanted to, to ask a little bit about, I mean, talking, talking of nutrition, of course, you know, good training, good nutrition helps in terms of getting you over the finish line. And I wanted to talk a little bit about winning and you've mentioned in various sort of places that winning doesn't always feel as good as it should. What do you mean by that?

I think it's something that most people can understand that anything that is an achievement requires a lot of work over a long period of time. And the actual achievement itself, you know, which is so fleeting, quite often, you know, you cross the line in the triathlon and you know, you feel great about it for a couple of hours, maybe, maybe a few days if you're lucky. I don't think it's ever going to be worth all the effort that you put in purely in its own right, you know, as a. On, on the balance. And so for me that's just an argument that you have to do something hard like training for any kind of sport or I think anything or in business for, for much more kind of intrinsic and, and day to day reasons. My approach to training was that, yes, I enjoyed training, but I enjoyed trying to get better and I enjoyed feeling, getting to the end of every day and feeling that I'd done my best that day to get better. And I think it kind of. A lot of people, when they talk about process and enjoying the process, that's really what they mean. Just enjoying the small wins along the way, understanding what those wins are and appreciating those wins. Yeah, and I think that is an important approach. That's not to say, of course, that every so often in the process you can't motivate yourself by the bigger goals. Of course you can do that. But I think you have to be able to motivate yourself in lots of different ways for lots of different reasons during that process. You know, not just have one absolute. Yeah, you know, I've got the Olympics go up and three years and six months. That's why I'm going out for the third session today. I, I don't think that's sustainable.

So did you chunk it down when you'd got a goal like that? Did you decide you wanted to break that goal down into smaller bits? How did you go about that process?

Yes and no. I think I, I had firstly had a pretty set routine of what I was doing day in, day out. So, yeah, you know, I wasn't giving myself the option of not getting up on a Monday morning to go training or not. It's just what I did it as my routine, it was my habit is who I was. And I think that automating the processes is very important. I think removing the barriers to doing what you need to do is really important. So simply, that's making sure you've got working bike, making sure you've got kit and equipment ready to go, all of that kind of thing. And I think it's something I learned actually from writing the book and I would have never articulated like this before, that people who are really good over really long periods of time are just brilliant at understanding what's going to motivate them through what they need to do today. And that, you know, it could be the goal, it could be because they're going to do a session with friends. So it's social, it could Be actually the sense of completion they're going to get from that session is enough anyway. You know, there's, there's literally hundreds of forms of motivation and you can use many just to get through one activity. And yeah, I think the people who are good over long periods of time are instinctively really good at understanding what they need to go through that day to, to do that and the power.

Of building those habits. And actually it surprised me when I read your, the, your autobiography or I don't know whether you call it an autobiography when it's you and Johnny. I don't quite understand but the semi biography, what, what fascinated me was when you described the, your training plan and you said well, you know, the training plan. You think it was a carefully, carefully crafted training plan. But actually I did the long bike session on a Monday because I had a double free from school and I did and I still. Absolutely amazing that you know, we, you know, we, we're in a day where we're using AI created training programs are all carefully designed around this. You weren't, you were just. That's because that's how it was and I thought that was fascinating. So, so kind of focusing on books and we've obviously talked about both of yours. What, what books have helped you on your journey and why or you know, what did you learn from them and how did they help you?

Yeah, I've always loved reading and actually I've probably had less time to read over the last few months being retired ironically enough than I had in the previous 20 years of my life. And so yeah, book books have been important and I for long periods I tried to read a book most weeks and I was cycled between something that was fictional. Quite often big series of fictional books like series of Bernard Cornwall books or probably my favorite fictional, semi fictional book is something called Shantaram. And it would read things multiple times, even read some classic literature, but never really enjoyed that like Bronte, Bronte, Charlotte Bronte books or, or anything and then try to read more factual stuff whether that's like political, current affairs, economical, sports based stuff. Yeah, I think from the, the sports based world. Yeah. The most interesting book probably of recent times is the kind of the Brad Studelberg range of books. Really enjoy that peak performance among other things. And what else from trying to think from another point of view. That's a very kind of one.

One book I remember hearing you mention in one of the podcasts I listened to as part of the research was Daniel Kahneman's thinking fast and Slow and You kind of referenced it, but I don't think you went into a lot of detail. What did you get? That's a brilliant book and obviously he won the Nobel Prize for the work that went into that. What did you get from thinking fast and slow and how did you apply it?

Yeah, I, I really enjoyed a lot of the, of that kind of genre of behavioral economics, that book and then kind of nudge. And there's kind of a lot in that kind of series. I, Yeah, I love the approach that we have two systems of thinking, obviously the very automated subconscious, very powerful thought processes and system one and two, and then the very conscious, slow thought processing. And I guess what I took from that is really trying to automate as much as you can. And that's kind of. It is quite popular in the world of like sports psychology and performance of actually automating as much as you can, you know, not overthinking things. Because if once you start overthinking and, and un. Automating, if that makes sense, processes you definitely at much bigger risk of, of kind of failure and overthinking events and things psychologically going wrong. And I definitely think that's true. So kind of automated processing, I guess, a kind of understanding of heuristics and our decision making, which always fascinated me, and, and trying to work out when I was doing things heuristically and why my decision making might, might be going wrong there. And I think that probably led me into the, the kind of thoughts of metacognition, of working out and thinking about, well, why did I make that decision at that point? Could I have made a better decision? How much emotion came into play? Would I do it differently another time? And processing and my approach to sport performance was that outside of racing, so inside of racing you have to be a very kind of instinctual decision maker. You don't have the, the, the energy or the mind space or the time or anything else to make really good conscious decisions. It has to be very unconscious. But, but outside of that, if you're trying to make really good conscious decisions, you know, all those decisions were ultimately my responsibility in that you can have all the best information to go into that. Experts, coaches, whoever it might be, but ultimately, and the responsibility of making that decision yourself is good. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could kind of maximize the chances of success of those decisions. Brilliant.

Really interesting. So one of the closing traditions we have on this podcast is to get the last guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that is going to be now. Bizarrely, our last guess was my AI clone. We, the last episode was my AI clone which we interviewed, which was fascinating. And if you want to learn more about that, you'll, you'll need to go listen to it when it's, when it's live. But Charlie's AI clone asked next guest a question. So Claire, I think, I think you've got that question.

He had some great comments and questions and this is one of them. So what's the single most important lesson you've learned from failure and how has it shaped the way that you approach challenges today?

Yeah, failure is a part of life. I talk a lot about resilience and it's such a in vogue word at the moment. But being resilient is to me is just life because we all come across challenges every day. Everyone fails all the time. And yeah, the, the determinant is just getting back up and getting on with it. And of course we have big failures as well as long as, as well as many little ones. And I think quite often they are the, the most important things that we go through, as cliche as that sounds because how quickly we get back from those, the processes we put in place and, and, and the lessons we learn I think are, are really kind of what make you as a person. Brilliant.

Interesting. Very. And I couldn't agree with you more. I want to finish with one question and it's. And I hadn't planned to ask this but just listening to Relentless this morning, there was a throwaway comment in there about beefy both them and drinking. And I remember having the conversation with Charlie Spedding about a beer drinker's guide to sports psychology. So where do you see alcohol and professional sport? What's the relationship between them? Is it. No, you shouldn't, you should be purely focused on the best performance. Or does alcohol help in some ways?

My strategy has always been everything in moderation. Yeah, I think there's no harm in whatever. A bit of alcohol, a bit of chocolate, a bit too much cake every so often. Just not a lot of it and not very often.

I think that's a very good approach and I think, I think what came out of Relentless is the kind of the bonding that, that provided though that Ash's team was, was probably a key part of their success and it, it would have over outweighed maybe the smallest of loss of performance from having, I mean I'm not sure was it Derek Pringle? 17 pints in a rest day in the middle of a test I'm not quite sure that's the right approach, but.

No, well, maybe it was.

Well, compared to Boone's 52 cans of VB or whatever it was, that maybe is moderation. Alistair, it's been absolutely fascinating chatting to you. Loved, loved hearing those insights, loved hearing the stories. Where's the best place for people to find all of the things out about your new businesses, about the foundation, about what you're up to next?

Yeah, I guess, really follow me. On social media. I haven't necessarily talked about that much about the other side of my life. Up till now, I've been very focused on my sport, but one of our plans is now I've got a bit more time and energy is to talk a bit more about some of my. Yeah. About the foundation, about a bit more of my wider interests and about my business interests as well. So hopefully you'll see that coming soon.

Brilliant. Well, I certainly will be following the story. I just want to, you know, I just want to say a huge thank you, not just for coming on the podcast, but being such a. An inspirational person in this sport. It really has been an amazing, amazing journey. It's been a joy to watch and. Yeah, and I've certainly, certainly you've loved. I've loved being a part of following that journey. So. So, yeah, and I just, you know, wait with excitement to see all of these other things coming down the pipeline. Great.

Thank you very much. Thanks both.

So what did you make of the interview with Alastair?

It was excellent. I was excited to, or we both were excited to have. Have him on. And, yeah, he didn't, he didn't disappoint. I think, you know, one of, one of the really great things is I thought we'd talk quite a lot about, you know, some of his stories, but actually what came across is all of the other parts to being a professional athlete. And what I mean by that is, you know, we talked around goals, we talked around his understanding of what, you know, not believing in confidence. Like, I loved all of that conversation because it's the kind of conversation that you wouldn't necessarily expect to have from, you know, from a retired athlete. I particularly was really interested in this. I don't believe in confidence. I just thought it's, you know, it's all about self belief and that really resonated. I thought that was excellent, the way that he describes that.

Yeah, I agree. And I think if anyone hasn't listened to Relentless, it's really not the book that you expect it to be. You expect it to be all of Alistair's stories kind of because the biography with Johnny was released kind of early after London 2012. So it, you know, it doesn't even have the Rio win in there or anything like that. So it felt like there was the next book would be the kind of next chapter in the career but it's not at all. And it's brilliant in terms of listening to him just asking fascinating questions and getting really interesting insights from unbelievable sportsmen. And of course Alastair is one of them but in a very kind of downplays what he does in comparison to all these other people. But I mean what he's done is absolutely incredible and I agree. I think the Michael Owen piece around and how he explained it today around the difference between confidence and self belief I think is. Is fascinating. It's really valuable lesson for people that, you know, because we all have those days where we're standing on the start line going I don't think I. I'm not gonna do well today. But.

And, and the not being confident in yourself or supposedly not being confident in yourself as well. I, I also thought we talk so much about, you know, resilience with people and he's absolutely right that it's, you know, the word resilience now is everyone's banding it around. Right. But what he was saying about, you know, actually life. There are failures like we have to be. That's. That's life. I wrote a note down actually resilience equals that's life. You know, like actually, you know, sing. And I think he brought it back also to the story with the jockey as well, didn't he? In terms of.

Yeah. A.P. morcoy.

Yeah. And it does make me think like, you know, when you're thinking about the mindsets of athletes that have, you know, truly excelled in their sport that actually this is some of their thinking, you know, this is. Is that how they've got. Part of how they've got to where they've got to. Because they're thinking well I mean yeah.

I think this is right and I think so actually and I think he would have said this after, after the book Relentless was written. But Federer said, Roger Federer says did this commencement speech and he basically said that he lost 45 or 48 of the points that he played. You know, that's insane. Win like so many of his games, but lose such a ridiculously high percentage of his points. But of course it's about winning the right points, isn't it? And that, and that is. And I think this failure concept, I think it's really powerful in the sense that people often see failure as the opposite to success, but actually, failure is the stepping stone towards success, isn't it? And it's kind of an important part of the process. And. And to go back to AP McCoy and falling off, yes, you don't want to fall off, but it's actually part of the process. And it hurts. Yes. And in fact, in the. In relentless, he says, AP calling me and says, you know, I. I fell off and broke my arm. And he said, I haven't broken my arm for about a year and a half. So it's probably about time. It's just a different mindset, isn't it? Yeah, but. But, yeah, no, I think that was really interesting. And I think the resilience piece, and I think this is, like, resilience is a very, you know, moment. I remember we kind of started that conversation, I suppose, with Joe decenna, didn't we?

Yes, but.

But it does. It is real. The reason it's being used a lot is because if we can learn to be resilient through. Resilient through sport, we can actually be resilient then in the other areas of our life better, can't we? When business becomes difficult or when, you know, life becomes difficult, if you've built up resilient things in sport, it actually really helps you deal with hard things in all the other areas of our life. And it doesn't really make a huge amount of sense to me why it does, but it does.

And also that, you know, thinking about kind of business, that you've got to get to that point where you're failing a little bit to make you stronger, to make you think, actually, that's not going to work. I need to do something different. But also, you know, the other thing that came across, and I'd be really interesting to know your thoughts on this, is he was talking about goals like, not having that big, like, got that big. And he called it, like, you know, that North Star goal of, like, it's the Olympics, but you can't put everything on four years down the line to your next cycle, and that's going to be, you know, the Olympics. That actually, it was interesting to hear him saying about. Actually, sometimes it's the training, it's going out and socializing with your friends, you know, going out for a nice bike ride or getting through a really hard session. So it was interesting to see how he kind of. I mean, you talked about just sort of chunking it down, but how he Sort of split it up almost into. It felt quite different to me in terms of. Sometimes it was getting through hard sessions, sometimes it was actually fun. What were your thoughts on his ideas and goals?

I think it was interesting because it didn't sound that structured to me in the way that he was going about it. But equally, if you dug deeper, I would always say you should set goals in different areas of your life. One of those areas is relationship. Well, if. If one of your key relationships is hanging out with your mates and that's your training tribe. And so it's absolutely right that then some of your training should be more focused on, like, could. Could he have more accurately executed a training plan on his own or on the Turbo trainer? Almost certainly. Did he cycle harder and have the camaraderie of cycling with his tribe when he went out with. With, you know, his equivalent of the posse? And yes, he could. And actually that becomes more important. And I remember chatting to Sir Nikki Bartlett one of the early episodes. So, you know, I skipped the cafe. You know, how can you be a professional athlete and. And stop at a cafe?

And.

And I completely agree with that. But then I thought, I'm not trying to be a professional athlete, actually. Yes, getting to Kona and getting to an Ironman and all that sort of stuff is important. Enjoying this stuff is just as important. And therefore, actually, I should stop at the cafe most of the time. Maybe they're not in a few key sessions, but most of the time I should.

So I think Charlie.

Yeah, absolutely.

But.

And that's why I actually. So I finished with this question of the. Of alcohol versus professional sport. Because if you wanted to be the ultimate professional athlete, you'd have no alcohol, you'd have no fun. You don't know fun. But. But actually there is a place for doing things sometimes suboptimal in a. In one performance sense. But actually.

So I think, I guess it's moderation and at the right time, like all of these things, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. And. And seeing that sometimes if. If that, like. Well, it comes back to that three, two, one taper, doesn't it, that we've talked about before? You know, for those that haven't listened to that episode and I'm struggling to record, was it Karen Smyers that had the 3, 2, 1? I think it was, but I might be wrong. But three, two, one taper was three nights before the race.

Yeah.

Two beers two nights before the race. One beer one night before the race. That three. You know, if that relaxes you and helps you sleep when you might not have otherwise slept. Helps you chill out, kind of defrag the brain then actually, that might be a good way of doing it, even though people are like, you know. Well, that sounds counterintuitive, but, yeah, I think it.

Sometimes it's definitely still your tactic, by the sounds of.

Yeah, I love it.

I love the tactic. Still coming up.

But yes, no, I think, but I think ultimately it was a, it was a great episode. Just like brilliant, brilliant inspiration. I mean, he has to be the single most impactful person in, in, in the world of, in of triathlon, doesn't he? Certainly, if you're a Brit. Anyway, I just think it's, it's absolutely incredible. So, yeah, loads of amazing lessons and for everyone at home, keep on training.