Journey of an Outlaw with Iain Hamilton

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge and this is.

The tribe athlon podcast.

Surround yourself with people that are better than you, but not like you.

That was Ian Hamilton and this episode is Journey of an Outlaw. Ian Hamilton founded OSB Events as a college project and has built a business renowned for its brilliant and accessible races. A former elite triathlete himself, he won a lifetime achievement award in 2015 for his work developing the sport in the UK as organizers of the award winning Outlaw Triathlon Series and the Cambridge Half Marathon. And having raced many of those races ourselves, Claire and I wanted to chat to Ian about the positive changes that Covid brought about in the sport, the highlights and the challenges of running events both that are popular and that are profitable and also what it feels like to build a brand where people tattoo your logo onto their skin. This interview is with the outlaw legend that is Ian Hamilton. How would you like to grow your business whilst working less and enjoying your work life more? Well, that's how we help people at the Trusted Team. We do that through workshops which happen in person and online. We do that through regular online learning that you can just do from your desk at lunchtime and we do it through in person events that make fun tax deductible things like golf days, dinners, wine tasting, all of that fun stuff. They help you build stronger relationships and enjoy work more. So if you want to know how we can help you grow your business and improve your work life balance, go to thetrusted team to find out when our next free taster event or free webinar is so that you can find out how we can help you grow your business and and get your work life balance back. That's thetrusted team. Come join us at one of our events.

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So Ian, welcome to the Tribe Athletes Podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. I've raced in a few of the Outlaw races. I've got the Outlaw half Coming up this weekend. So great to get you on to find out a little bit about the man behind the, the races, but I always like to kick things off by asking a bit about the story behind where you've come from. So. And I know you were an elite triathlete in your racing days, so tell us a bit about how you found your way into triathlon and your triathlon career.

Okay, well first of all, thank you for having me. Yeah, looking forward to, looking forward to having a chat. And as I say, we've, well, yeah, I've seen what might be coming up. So yeah, we should be quite entertaining background wise. I was a failed from the age of, literally from age of 7, failed swimmer, about the age of 12 or 13, failed runner, came from Nottingham. And I'm not sure whether my parents are going to be watching or listening to this, but I came with me coming from Nottingham, everybody managed to get some kind of rally bike out of the back door and paid next to nothing for it. So I got myself a racing bike and hey presto, started doing triathlon in 1985 when I was 12 years old.

Fantastic.

And yeah, the, literally I, the first triathlon I did was down at the water sports center, which is obviously now where we still do most of our events and outlaw was born, etc. Etc.

And so, so tell us a bit about how you progressed through from doing your first triathlon to some of the pinnacles of your triathlon career.

That's quite funny. I'm not really sure actually I had any sort of benefit, was I always. And I, and I suspect that a lot of people are the same. I probably ended up finishing before I should have done so I probably finished when I was 24 or 25. Having raced pro from a, well in, in my day, pro wasn't such a thing. It was more of a full time athlete living at home and every now and again getting to go and then do some training camps abroad. But I was either full time or pro, dependent upon your terminology for yeah, four or five years and from the age of 25 when I, when I finished 25 years later, probably still that same frustrated, want to be wannabe athlete. Which is the fortunate thing is my theory is I've never really worked a proper day in my whole life because I absolutely love what I do. So from the age of 20 or 21 when I decided to give it a go and, and lived in, lived in France, lived in New Zealand, traveled and got some decent traveling done. Every day has been about swim, bike and run. And it still is and genuinely absolutely love it. And I have no, no ambitions to do anything else or anything like that. So. Fantastic.

And why did you. Was it, you know, your performances, was it the money? Why, why did you stop becoming. Being a pro or a full time athlete at 25?

I've always had a second driver which is not so much of a driver nowadays and after sort of like race results it was always sort of yeah that you know, becoming professional. So yeah an element of being financially driven as well. And it was as much as it was nice to, you know I had some great sponsors and that type of thing but the ambition of buying a house which is very strange for 25 year old but never had a job but wanting to buy a house and few so you know, other things like that was one of the reasons why I, I ended up sort of stopping entertainingly. I did get a job, I sold socks for a while with a brand called Thousand Mile and a chap called Dean Jackson who he says is. He's known for well various things but obviously now being the CEO of who.

He'S been on the podcast before.

Oh yeah. So yeah. So Dean and I go back to when I was 16 years old. We've been sort of like pretty close mates all the way along and it was him that sort of said oh I've got a mate in mind who, who needs a, a young person to go and sell some socks. And so that was when I was about 25 and but so I did that for a little bit and then, but all the time I was, I'd started to organize events. The nice thing at that point it was you didn't have to spend a great deal of time organizing events. They weren't a great, there wasn't a great deal to an event. There wasn't a great deal of people taking part in them and the expectations were relatively low and our. My first event was really, really small. My second one was the triathlon relays which is now. Yeah, well obviously headline sponsor actually and that was when I started organizing over 30 years ago and so still exists now still chaotic, unique. Everything that the triathlon shouldn't normally be. It's not about being an individual sport. It's obviously it's about, you know, it's about a team event. People will race in the morning and drink beer in the afternoon so it's completely different to anything else. But that was where I sort of like cut my teeth in trifle and organization. Really brilliant.

So when was the first outlaw event organized?

So.

We Delivered the first outlaw in 2010. We started thinking of it and had various conversations, including conversations with Ironman as well from 2008. Because at that point there was an obvious gap in the market and we, we got in at the right time. I was previous to that I was already organizing the Vitruvia, which Charlie might know. That was. Yeah.

On my doorstep.

Yeah, literally. Yeah, yeah. And amazing. Like, you know, we were one of the first people to sell out a thousand entries within 24 hours and that was in the early 2000. It was, you know, sort of like historic event from that progressed into Outlaw because I could see that there was an opportunity to for a full distance event and we couldn't. However much we ever we looked at retrieving, we could never double that distance. So hence the reason why Outlaw came along and we decided we had sort of like certain parameters that we wanted and you know what a simple thing was. We wanted people to get a tattoo. You know, that was like so like where the branding came from and all completely random things like that. We wanted you across the finish line and we wanted you to be something obviously you became an Outlaw. I, I, by that point I was already socially racing in Ironman events and so you know, that done a few spectated more and I knew really what, what I thought an Outlaw should, should look like.

And was there at any point any likelihood that it was actually going to be an Iron man branded event? Is that something you explored?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole hour itself was, was due to become Iron man. But those we never were never able to sort of like get that off the ground, which is fine. Things would have, things would look very different. But we sort of took it, took it on on our own, took all the risks and obviously he then take the rewards a few years later. But yeah, so the conversation actually started with, with Nottingham potentially being a host of an Iron man event.

Well, yeah, I mean and I think with the benefit of hindsight, do you, do you ever regret that not being what worked out or do you think it's been much better now that it's your own branding?

I have this really, really, really simple theory. Everything happens for a reason and no way would, you know, would we now be in a position that we're in. Obviously we went up to six events, we're now down at four and this year is a struggle. But we've had a lot of really good years as we've sort of like we've grown this brand and you know, we've sort of like we've had genuine conversations about going international and obviously Ironman is the pinnacle. Everyone knows the branding going in the world and saying, people know what we talk, what you're talking about. And I guess at some point, you know, Outworld might get to that stage but I've got no, no regrets whatsoever. So like we're, you know, we're in an absolutely brilliant place. I've been in the office all day today. Everyone's buzzing, everyone loves what they do, the phone calls that we get in, you know, everyone is just really, really positive about stuff. Brilliant.

Can you, Ian, can you tell us a little bit about sort of you, you talked about the events many years ago sort of in triathlon and I remember some of the, the first events that, that I did and you know, you're saying it was really easy to set up. You just turned up, you raced. There wasn't as much to it. You know, a big event like Outlaw had. There's so many things you have to think about and people often talk about, you know, the entry fees for whether it's Ironman events or challenge events or events like, like, like yours. Well, what are all the things that you need to consider? Because as us as athletes racing, I think sometimes we don't fully understand, you know, all those different elements in terms of road closures, in terms of, I mean insurance must be crazy. I would imagine in terms of having that many athletes on the road and in the, in the lake and things. Can you tell us a little bit about kind of what all that involves in terms of a bit, you know, making a big event?

Yeah, and I think it, sometimes, you know, it's, it's justified to question people equally. So we, for example, our offices now we've got, we're fortunate, we've now got brand new offices we've recently had which now been built. So we've got 4,000 square foot warehouse, we have a fleet of vehicles, we've got eight full time staff. So when somebody sort of demands their, their, all of their money back, well, realistically, you know, between 25 and maybe 30% of their fees are actually going on fixed costs. You know, for Charlie who said a customer service is for Charlie to answer the phone or for Alan and Steve that are part of our operations team, for them to take out one of the vans that we own, we like to do things correct. So our vans are all sort of what we call them Chapter eight. So they've got chevrons on and all that type of thing. So you know, there's a lot of like hidden costs. And people would never, you know, consider that we've just spent £15,000 on racking to put all the equipment into a warehouse. Because what people see is people think, well, it's a medal, it's a T shirt, it's a biodegradable cup which we now give away at the fee stations and that type thing. So there's a lot more to where entry fees go. And the question we don't get off often, criticism for our entry fees. The fortunate thing is iron manner within reason, sort of like double hours. And so I'm out of the people that are the ones that get a lot of questioning about their fees. You know, don't get me wrong, some, some events got decent margin. However, you could be working and looking at our bottom line at the moment and we are a nice sort of like 50, 50 split. We've got, you know, two of the outlaws this year should make money and two will lose money. And it is as sort of, it's as simple as that. And you know, we, but we've been around for a long time. We, you know, we're, we're pretty, we're sturdy in the business. We, you know, we've been set up well, we have, we now do have a, A Big Brother that helps us, advises us and that type of thing as being part of the CSM group. And so we are, you know, we're in a sort of like a relatively good place. But I just go back to answering the question. There are so many costs that people don't see. You know, whether it's barriers, whether, you know, whether it's portable toilets, whether it's vehicles that you're hiring in, whether it's your medical staff, whether it's your website, whether it's your live engagement, whether it's your comms, whether it's your sports comment or that type of thing. There's just so many things there and particularly so you can go and get another event where you don't have those things and then the fees will be much lower. So, you know, it's. Yeah. The question isn't as asked of us quite as often as our other events. Yeah, fellow organizers at High enough, thank you.

So I'd love to know, like, my story from the Outlaw. The Outlaw. So I've done the Outlaw half twice, an Outlaw Holcomb once, both absolutely brilliant races. Looking forward to doing the Outlaw half again on the weekend. The story that stands out for me of my experiences there was having interviewed Sam Perkins on the podcast, seeing him go through kind of while we were waiting to start our swim. Seeing him come through the crowd to be a part of that last year was just, I mean that totally, completely got me going. Is there, is there a story that stands out to you as the one that kind of. Of all the outlaw events that you've done that stands out to you as being your most memorable.

Ironically, the one at the moment is Sam and I. I saw that throughout the years when Samus was diagnosed with M.D. sort of like we, we would. We spoke early on typing. So obviously Sam is a previous outlaw had part of. He was actually he put some of the funding together to help Hoob start as well. So sort of like no knew of him. But I, I've seen the video. I wasn't there when Sam came through but at the start. But just seeing that actually teared me up as well. And I think seeing obviously I think he didn't. I think he did leads yesterday and also having a bit of time with some over the last couple of years. That's the one that comes sort of like back to me type thing. We've had some, we've had some amazing athletes. You know, sort of in the Kobe gym Outlaw X on we had a PTO event. We had sort of like likes of Cat Matthews, Tim Donovarious, other people. Lots and lots of names that came and it was sort of like we. I never imagined one of the things that we, we've always tried to do or we never out try and get the terminology correct. We're very much an age group event. We don't have a Kona, we don't have a niece. But realistically if you're going to go into Ironman, you got to, you got to go to Kona. So we don't have that. We, you know, so it's very much something like age group based. But then to get the, you know, sort of like the, the start. The start list. The male and female stylist that we had for Outdoor X because the PTO funding was absolutely amazing. But it's nice we still get the likes of Ruth Astor obviously now comes along. You know we've had Will Clark have this. Actually. No. I've had so many athletes and I'm not naming them all. I'm going to, I will get myself in trouble at some point because I'm fortunate enough to know a lot of these people first. So we've had some great performances from that point of view and some really, really fast people. But it's, it's the behind the scenes, it's the, it's the stories that people don't know about. I've only actually ever once been on the finish line when somebody's finished because I'm. I, I'm. I sit in a control room so I get that, I get the glory stuff. Like, I know if there's a portal that needs a toilet roll. So I sit in there, I sit in with like whatever, 10 different radios listening to. Someone's got a puncture and they need, they need a repair. We've got medical, we need to sort that out. We've got this and the other. So the only person I ever went down to actually see finish was friend of mine called Louis Dunn. His father was a close friend of mine who unfortunately passed away whilst he was cycling out of New York with his son. Louis at the time was, I think 11 or 12 years old and really wasn't getting his triathlon. However, he basically followed his dad's footsteps and sort of eight years ago finished Outlaw full. However, he finished out awful in roundabout nine hours and is actually turning out to be an amazing athlete and he's probably one that's probably teared me up a little bit, like Sam as well. Brilliant, brilliant.

And it's those sorts of stories. The other story which you've just reminded me of which also stands out in my mind was me beating Will Clark when he, he took your record. The only problem was I was just starting my first lap as he was.

Coming in for his third.

I did sprint down there just so that I be in Will.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it went about 3:48 or 3:49 or something, which in the UK was probably five minutes quicker than anybody else had gone at the time.

Yeah, no, I was. It was the time he did. They won the relay that, that I, that I paid.

Yeah, yeah. Similar kind of time. That was Ross Davenport and Matt Botter on the bike and then. Yeah, that's right, yeah. My, my brain sort of logs those and then remembers them randomly.

So with the benefit of hindsight, looking back at the COVID times, obviously, I mean, you were one of the races that managed to kind of put, you know, continue on more than. More than others, which was absolutely brilliant. Which is why you had such a fantastic race with the likes of Tim Don and people like that turning up. What, with the benefit of hindsight now, what were the worst impacts of COVID to somebody like, you know, to the race organizer? What benefits? What sort of advantages have come out? What, you know, what improvements have come out as A result of what you learned in Covid.

It's weird. It was. I mean, it was absolutely awful. I. We closed our office on like a Thursday and then had to start to make some relatively tough decisions about what we were doing with our events at the time. I was working, obviously we closed the office. So I came into this. I came home, sat in the study here. There was myself and Ella, who just started working. And as my oldest daughter, she just started working for the business. And we had. We'd always invested in decent technology, so literally what laptops home. We kept all of our phone numbers and we continue to operate as an office type thing. But behind the scenes, I soon came an expert on reasons, for reasons, to cancel an event but not lose the business. And ultimately that was it. One thing that we didn't choose to do and everyone had their own sort of individual reasons. We. We ultimately wanted to give the people an opportunity to race at some point. However, what we couldn't do was absorb all of the losses in one go and then just say to people, just come and race for next year. So we had lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of talk about with our insurers and all that type of thing in the federation. And I'm not the greatest fan of the federation at all, but they were great. During COVID we ended up canceling all of our events apart from Outlaw X, which was in September. And then we just rolled people on. We couldn't afford to give refunds because that literally would have just absolutely closed the business. We already had sort of hefty overheads, but we did. We thought, I've always had a simple fair and it's still the same theory now. Treat others as you. You would want to be treated. So that's what we did. So we rolled everyone forward. We continue to work closely with federation and we continue to work closely with Nottingham, predominantly Nottingham Highways Department there and their events department. And we lit and Boris the loudest, rightly or wrongly, but Boris would. Boris had allowed us to actually open up a little bit in September because we had a good relationship with the. With Nottingham County Council and the venue and the federation and the athletes. We then obviously, we then created Outlaw X, which became a PTO event. So one of the biggest drafts in the world that year. And there was a lot of learning. We were trying to. We were trying to take obviously then, if anybody remembers. But at that point, one of the. One of the reason what we had to do is we had to take people's temperature, so went out with all these thermometers and was trying to take temperatures by. You had to sort of like. If you remember you were sort of like.

Exactly.

Yeah. Well it was the end of September. It was about 3 degrees. Nobody had a temperature like literally not, not a single person. And we soon worked out after about five minutes. These are relatively pointless because no one has a temperature but one. The other thing that sort of like we've. We've now stuck to. I'm not a fan of it but some people are are individual starts. Individual starts makes the sport easier for certain people. So they. So you know if you're not necessarily not confident swimmer but ultimately if you're not confident getting in the water to everybody else. We're now doing starts of three people every six seconds. My point of view is I like to get everybody in. From an organizing point of view it's nice to get everyone in. Start them at 6:00', clock, 6:30, whatever. It makes your. It makes your cutoffs cleaner. It makes the whole event cleaning, get race and that type of thing. But ultimately Kobe stopped that. We then did a. A survey after the event. 80 of people liked individual stocks. So individual starts came and have continued to play a part in the sport on a day to day basis. And interestingly you know everyone seems to like it as it makes the elite slightly harder because the elites don't go off together and it's out. The wreck was an absolute classic example. I can't remember who. I'm trying to think who came across the line. I think Tim might have come. Come across the line third ended up being full because he was 7 sec. He started 7 seconds in front of somebody. So yes, I think I'm going to lit point. He's not so great. Things like we now do video race briefings rather than actual getting in the marquee together. I personally would rather stand up in front of people and have that interaction because I think it's just, it's. It's. It's a better thing to do. But that's gone sports as a whole. I think a combination of cash crisis Covid people ultimately just doing other things. I think it's been pretty negative for triathlon itself. We are everyone. People didn't race in 2020 but then in 2021 we had this massive bumpy year you know and everyone sort of like took their entries and we. And we did have you know we went to wherever we had a deferred entry form. We did our event 2022. I mean me as an athlete and also from, from an event organizer point of view, everyone saw their entries just absolutely cascade and we, we literally we sort of like we were, we were so back to 2017 numbers. And so you know, I think partly that is I think part of this Covid. I think, you know, sort of obviously everyone's in this sort of like financial crisis whether you're in it or not. I think that's the thing. I don't think triathletes are actually hit by it quite as much as everybody. I think the demographics of triathlete is slightly different. However, I just think people are now racing less. You know, they're selecting their races and I think that's one of the reasons why we're in a situation that we're only without Covid. I think people would continue to rate four or five times a year and we were seeing people doing sort of like four of our outlaw events as well as going to race in Ironman somewhere in Europe or something like that. So that's the sort of a bit of negative and, and positive really is.

That what is that? So you were planning Woburn and Bowood as well, weren't you? Is that what happened to them? And you also mentioned that you'll have two profitable events this year and two loss making events. If you don't mind, if you're happy to share more context around that, that.

Would be really interesting. Yeah, well we don't plan to get a 68 series from an outlaw point of view. And 2019, 2020 numbers, 21 numbers look like we justify that. We'd got an opening to go to Woburn to work at Woburn Abbey which is absolutely stunning. The place was amazing. My, my most favorite site visits ever to go to an event that we never actually launched. We must have had 20. You know, over the years we've probably looked at 20 plus places and not been able to launch an event. But we managed to get to Woburn. The people were great. The location was just. It's stunning. It's in a good part of the country. Everything about it was, was good. The surrounding areas are good. It's going to be quite a tough bike ride. The run was really, really scenic. Was going to do a two leg swim. We have no idea why didn't we. So. But it was very, very simple. It was expensive to put on but we can handle that if we think we're going to get a return in three years. But ultimately the numbers we just, we never managed to, to get to anywhere near where we needed to get to so that was the reason why we never managed to deliver Wogan unfortunately.

Put your finger on why that was.

No, literally we just. I think we got to the point where we were starting to saturate ourselves and I think we've got a rough idea of how many people we think might do it. An hour half a 7.3 etc that sort of middle distance event. And we probably were at that point where we can handle. Hopefully we can handle four with enough and you know there people, people will still go and race Wayne Mural will go and race Swansea at Cod, something like that. But we actually, we. I don't know whether we got to the point we were actually our own saturation, one of those weren't enough athletes. And also there was. We then got to that dip in the sport where the spot was literally just. We were on this downward spire participation in triathlon. So I think there was that. We still delivered. So we still delivered bowel in 2021. One second we did it in 2021 and the numbers were really good. We thought right, we've got a great event here. Build House is fantastic. The lake was great. Took, took, took bike ride, really tough run. However, the numbers were good and I think we sort of like we were close to about 1800 in year one. Fantastic. Year two we went nod it we had in the region of about 800 entries which netted down to 500 finishes. That's just not what Outlaw's about. We need, we need decent numbers not only from a financial point of view, but to make it a good event. You need a lot, you know, you need, you need a decent amount of people to get a decent amount of people. The actual, the whole atmosphere is. It's a carnival atmosphere. The commentators, in the nicest possible way, they do a better job. You get more groups, you get more volunteers and that type of thing. So we had to make a tough decision to actually not continue doing Boatwood until we think we're at that point where we can bring it back and do it justice again. So hence.

Sorry, do you think, do you think people. You talked about sort of COVID and things because a lot of athletes started to do different things, didn't they? So there was a big rise in trail running for example, or ultra distance events. Do you think that's where athletes may have gone or gone to do slightly different. Different events like swim run, for example?

Yeah, no, completely. My. If that's today's saying. In my training group people are now doing. They're doing long distance swims. They're doing sportives, they're doing gravel riding, they're doing ultras. God, I trained with a lot. He's gone from doing outlaw Iron man and he's just doing 100k runs all the time. And I do think that's where the people have gone and part of it is down to money, you know, to go and do an ultra, it's much cheaper. You don't have to have a whatever a thousand pound, a ten thousand pound bike, your equipment, simple training, simple. And so yeah, I think that's where we've sort of hemorrhaged our, our athletes type thing and I don't really know how the age group scenes coping. Understand from a middle distance and long distance point of view where the athletes have disappeared to and I think it started during COVID because it was easy to, you know, we could go and do a run, we could go and you know, go, go on a bike and you know, find the sporty. As I say, one of our guys just doing long distance lake swimming now. And so I think, you know, when we're seeing a lot more of that, they might come in, they might do one, they might do two triathlons in the year whereas historically they're doing four or they're doing five. So I think, yeah, I think it's that sort of like endurance, long distance, single sport stuff where we, where we've lost people to.

And do you think you will kind of diversify the outlaw proposition as a result? So whether it be Aquathon, if that's how you call, I'm never quite sure how you say that one or, or any of the other types of formats, do you think that'll come into the outlaw branding or is that a plan or not?

If you'd asked me two or three years ago, completely not, no. However, I think we might have to because we, we need to get the brand going and there's no, there's no issues with the brand at the moment but if we want to continue keeping the brand going and pushing forward then yeah, we've probably got to look at other opportunities. I think from a mouth point of view it's probably more enduro running but maybe that's because I've got an interest in it. We did have a meeting about, I had a meeting at 3 o' clock about looking at another venue with another type of offer. We can see the sort of like the off road, the gravel Alistair Ax Tear at the weekend. Is that an area where, you know there's going to be opportunities where they're there, you know, is it, is it cheaper to put an event on? You know, do you, will you have a 20, 25 grand road closure bill?

No.

Guaranteed you won't. So I think, yeah, realistically, we're going to have to look at it and how successful we'll be or when we move into it. I, I, that's the bit I don't know. But yeah, we've started just to have a look and, you know, see, see where we think the opportunities are or is, is that market mature enough for us yet to go into? That's, that's probably what I wouldn't be able to answer.

Yeah, only funnily enough, only this morning I was one of the guys I swim with was, I think I mentioned I was racing at the weekend. He said, oh, is there, he's injured and can't run at the moment. Is there an Aqua song there? I said, I'm pretty sure there isn't. So it, it's, it seems to be that's the one that, I don't know, maybe I just, because I train with a lot of people that are older than me, but a lot of them can't really want to run, but they just can't run. So it seems to be a good sort of default option for, for those people that aren't able.

Yeah, and I, I sort of, I saw that I bet there was an acrob World champs and there was, there was all sorts of things. So if we've been asked for it a couple of times and you know, it's always an entertaining sort of debate these days about when electric bikes are going to be allowed and all that type of thing. And I can, I personally, I can see that we'll have to allow that at some point because we need the sport to move forward. And I think you're aware I, I partly live in the UK and I live in Manzarote and I would say out of the bikes that we see out on the roads in Lanzarote now, there's probably maybe 10 or 15% of the road, sorry, 10 to 15% no electric. And if we need to continue to bring the numbers in, then there's at some point, and obviously I think there's a world championships, but mountain biking, it's electric and so I do believe that we're going to have to, or hopefully the Federation will make it an early decision on what is fair about bringing electric road bikes in as well.

Yeah, that one to me is a really interesting one, isn't it? Because surely then it Comes down to how good your bike. You know there's going to be one electric bike that's better than another electric, but then it becomes like Formula One. It all becomes nonsense. If this guy can.

And you can.

Yeah, you can even chip the things, can't you?

So, yeah, yeah, you can, yeah. But it's the same as sort of like running shoes. Years ago, nobody would have ever thought that. That every man and his dog would be wearing carbon running shoes because you run more efficiently, you run quicker, this, that and the other. So, you know, like 10 years ago they didn't exist. 10 years later, not only do they exist but they're now getting banned because for whatever reason the band. I don't fully understand them, but. So I do think given time that, yeah, I think we will get electric. Electric bikes within the sport.

Well, that will be an interesting race to see.

Yeah. Interesting debate.

Yeah.

So one of the, one of the things I think Claire spotted that you had use an AI camera as part of the. Part of the setup at Outlaw. I think that's right. And there's a lot of talk in business at the moment about the impact that artificial intelligence will have on all businesses. Where do you think that. We've talked to Mark Allen a bit about the artificial intelligence in the coaching side of things. Can you see artificial intelligence adding any value or any impact on your side of the sport?

I don't think we're affected by it positively or negatively at the moment. I think given time it certainly will do, whether it's going to add some or whether we are. I think you're thinking the face recognition stuff that we, that our photographic partners, AWOL use. I think given time it is going to affect things. How quickly, I don't know again. And I suppose in some ways we sort of like Iron man will quite often follow or maybe the PTA will follow. Oh, sorry, Iron man will go first and then. Or PTO will go first then, and then we'll follow. I'm not against new things coming in at all. I think it's. It'll add, it'll add to the sport presentation so that, so that, you know, not necessarily how the competitors are affected but how the actual presentation of the Sport. I loved sub 7 surveying. Woke up on, on the Sunday morning. The weather wasn't great. I thought I'd stick it on. I thought I'd probably watch the swimming, see our sort of like Joe's getting on or Cat's getting on and you know, the, the commentary, the data, the stats was just absolutely Amazing. And I ended up glued to the whole thing for the, you know, for all seven hours, all eight hours. And I think that was just such a sport presentation, absolute perfection. And I don't know how we can roll bat across to every athlete, but I think as time comes on and then get that sort of like that interactive commentary, I think as time was on that that's going to be there. And I think that I can see that affecting the sport in some ways. And that's for the. That's really good. One thing that we can possibly do, and hopefully AWOL won't take his wrong, we could publish live photographs instantly and we can push it through people's whatsapps and we can literally, we can, you know, we could send one photograph or 50 photographs to somebody live, which can then push it out. So, you know, that type of thing, the technology is there, you know, the likes of London Marathon and that type, and they're already doing it. We use it for Cambridge Half marathon and I think we got 7, 7 million views for Cambridge half marathons. That's like 12, 000 runners. And we get 7 million views because the amount of imagery and the shareability and that type of thing. Wow. All of that's really, really positive. We could have a bot that sits in the office and that responds to everyone's questions on messenger and that type of thing. And that exists already, not necessarily for us. I think we're slightly different to that. You know, I don't want to ever really say it's not something we do, which is not something that we're certainly planning and planning currently, but a lot about. Certainly some of our suppliers do.

Yeah, brilliant. Really interesting. It's just clearly, it's a. It's a hot topic at this moment in time in business, but it's interesting to think about how it would impact different sports and different sides of the sport. So one of the things that we do on this podcast is we ask the previous guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that is. So our previous guest was Karen Smyers. Claire's got Karen's question for you.

So Karen's question is, growing up, what coach, parent or other adult influence, influence in your life had the biggest impact on your athletic career and why?

I did see that.

Yeah, I did, I did.

I did know the question. And I probably don't remember who this was, but I was once. I've been given two bits of advice. One, when I was really, really younger, when I was much younger, but not from an Athlete point of view. But it was really, really simple. But I can't remember who the person was, but they basically said to me, surround yourself with people that are better than you but not like you. And if anybody knows my, our team, they're all absolutely amazing and they are very, they are very, very different to me. And I drive them completely nuts. And they're all better than me. They're great at each job they do. And I will. I frustrate the hell out of them in the nicest possible way. And so that's probably the one piece of advice that. Yeah, one or the. Yeah, the one piece of advice I would say is probably affecting me most. And that's just generally sort of like in life type thing. I haven't got a question yet for the next person though, so if I can think about that one for a.

Few minutes, we'll give you time to think about that. Don't worry. But I actually think that's great advice and that, that tunes quite in with Henry Ford's advice. He's, you know, he would, he was actually, I don't know if you know the story, but at one point Henry Ford was brought into the courtroom for something that I can't exactly remember. And the, and the challenging lawyer said, you know, give me the answer to this question. And he was like, why would I want to fill my brain with that sort of stuff when I have a team of people that would know, you know that far better than I, I do. So I think it's, I think it's really powerful to. Yes. Surround yourself with excellent people that aren't like you. So. Yeah, and I think that's really, really good advice. What's, what's in the, you know, what other things are in the pipeline for Outlaw? We talked about maybe variations, maybe other events. You know, is there anything else that you're excited about and planning in the future?

No, it's quite strange, actually. It's not. It's a, everyone's positive. This works in the business. We all want to put good events on, but because of the state of the sport, because of the state of the economy, a lot of our time now is spent doing the crap stuff. We, we are literally, we're revisiting budgets all the time. We're looking at forecasts and all that type of thing. So that's where we sit. It's, it's not a, it's not a great place. And, you know, I think I said it before. I've been in the game for 30 years. We've had Outlaws in 2010 and it's only in the last couple of years and we've sort of, you know, we've had to juggle quite a bit. So our sort of short term aim is to get back to ideally four and then five and then six events that we're doing well and then definitely we, we want to go abroad. Where we go, which part of the world? I don't know. We have opportunities to go somewhere, but I don't know whether it's right for the brand. We, it would, it would, you know, it'll be something that's completely unique that Outlaw's never done. It's a bit more PTO than outlaw type thing. But because we're now part of the CSM group, we have opportunities to go within reason, anywhere in the world. But I don't know whether it's right for our brand and the future of a brand. And it's probably the only time I'm going to be a little bit cagey about what we're doing.

I'm assuming Lanzarote might be one of the countries that's fairly high up the list, though.

No, no, no, no. Lanzarote. Lanzarote is without doubt my, my sort of like. I wouldn't say holidays. It's not holiday from my point of view, but no, I love, I love the Ironman. I love the 70.3, then I love the Island. It doesn't have the economy to cope with Outlaw and Outlaw probably wouldn't be successful. They've got ocean lava across there. So I'll stick training in Lanzarote and. Yeah, but, but, but probably not, not any races, but yeah, the ultimate aim after the next couple of years, grow the brand back in the UK to where it was and then hopefully successfully and appropriately launch something offshore, let's say. Brilliant.

Well, that sounds exciting. I look forward to hearing, hearing about that. Now we ask everyone that comes onto the podcast for book recommendations. So that's books that you've read that you found yourself kind of finding value in or recommending to others. So if there are any particularly good books that you've recommended or found over the years.

There'S.

Do you know the Cheese book? And I'm trying to think what it's called.

Oh, who Moved my. Who Moved the cheese?

Is it who Moved the Cheese?

Who Moved my Cheese? Something along those lines.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely that one. And at the moment I've got it with me, actually. I like, I like Andy McNabb stuff, so. But that's one. But I'M not. I'm. I'm a big person. I'm a big sort of podcast listener. So of anything actually last few weeks because of what's happened with drugs and testing and all that sort of thing. I've been on the rather triathlon ones which have been quite entertaining.

Is there a particular podcast that you. That you find delivers the most value other than the tribath one obviously, but that's a given.

I don't know actually really. And predominantly because I flip from one to another at the moment. I don't want to say one because I'm potentially going to go on to another. And then, and then you said this was the best so possibly sit on the fence as far as.

Okay. But you mentioned drug testing there. So that's an interesting topic at the moment. Is there any. Are you guys, what are you guys doing in this space as a, as an event organizer?

And that's the thing we once ticked off about five or six years ago about somebody taking epa. We spoke to federation and asked what, you know, what procedures we should have in that topic. And ultimately at that time there was, there's not, there was nothing in place. I guess it's slightly different from our point of view because we are, we're not. We don't attract many pro athletes and our prize money is really not the greatest. But we sort of like more of a conversation I've been having around a dinner table, so to speak. Unless you're, you know, sort of like that. That real, you know, probably top 20 in the world and you know, you're ranked P2 and that topic, I don't really know how much testing there is that's going on. Interesting. Obviously there was one in February and someone's now got caught. It'll be interesting to see if that it's the end of it whether there's any repercussions for more athletes or coaches from that. But from our point of view there is there. You know, we've never had anybody turn up to one of our events and as high profile as they are, you know, we've, we've literally read no, no drug testing ever. But it will be conversation that I think will be having with the federation because we've got the British Mid listings champs at Holcomb in start of July and you know, and this weekend it's one of the gateway events to getting a pro license. And so, you know, we don't know. We have no idea. I'm sure I'm relatively confident that everyone's clean but now people know that you can go onto Amazon or whoever it is and buy your EPO and administer yourself and nobody ever knows because you don't need to tell your doctor, you know, Will, does that mean other people are going to. Now, you know, now, now try and now do it?

Yeah. Yeah. It's really difficult, isn't it, because you want to trust the whole sport, but clearly the whole sport isn't clean. And, and yet, I mean, you're right. Unless you're. Unless the top pros are racing. How much does it really matter in the grand scheme of things?

Yeah, it's nice that. I don't know, I think maybe naive, naively, I thought our score was clean and you hear rumors every now and again, but on the whole you have to just think, well, it's not true, is it? You know, so, like, these, these people are tested, they end up with their black blood passports. And, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure everyone's absolutely perfect, but I guess the reality is that they're not. And there is a lot of money to be made and, you know, winning a PTA event is worth 100,000 or so nowadays. And so, yeah, you can see why people potentially are looking at enhancing their natural ability, so to speak.

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, that's always going to be the case, isn't it, as the sport becomes more popular. Ian, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you. I'm really looking forward to racing the Outlaw at the weekend. First race of the year for me, so. And the weather is looking good. And so, yeah, by the time this goes out, this race will have long finished and hopefully I'll have got my PB at the Outlaw half. But. But I think, I think one thing that I have spotted, which I think is amazing, I've said for a while that in business, you know, when you're successful, when people are tattooing your logo onto their skin. And I've seen Outlaw tattoos in the same way that people have Iron man tattoos. So that is a massive endorsement for what people think of the, of the brand and what you're doing. So, yes, huge congratulations on that.

Yeah, thank you. Completely randomly, as I say, it was one of the things where I've had a list of five and I can't remember the five at the moment, but sort of like the crazily put, we want people to get a tattoo. And I remember quite quickly was in. Was in a start. There we go. The kids at the time were swimmers. They were swimming at Ponsworth in Sheffield was in a Starbucks next to Pondsworth in Sheffield, and there was somebody with an outlaw tattoo. And it's the first one I'd seen and I was like, I was like, well, you know, you can imagine what I would like. I didn't know what to do, so I, I just stood behind them for ages and then sort of like when they got to the front of the clear, I just, Akira just said, look, can I, can I buy you coffee? They never clear. I was completely crazy, man. And I just said, you're the first outlaw tattoo I'd ever seen. And he'd done the first one, wanted to do Iron man, hadn't an Iron Man Hammond it outlaw, and just wanted to show that what he'd done, type thing. Yeah. So that would have been in 20. Yeah, 20. 2011, I think it was. So within sort of a year or so after the first event started.

Brilliant. Well, I, I, none of my businesses have ever led to anybody having a, a tattoo done of the logo, so that is an awesome achievement. I think that's, there's not many companies that can say that they've achieved that.

No.

Yeah, but brilliant, brilliant. Good luck with the races for the coming year and, yeah, really looking forward to seeing you in, in Nottingham.

Yeah, well, I may be at the relays because that's always fun to see.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Love the relays. It's. It's nuts as it gets, but, yeah, I love it. So, Charlie, good luck this weekend. Hopefully I'll, I'll see you. And thank you very much for having me on. I've absolutely loved it.

It's been great. Thanks, Ian.

If you want to find out more.

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So what did you make with the. Make of the interview with Ian?

It was great. You know, it's really good, isn't it? Like, we're lucky that we have so many different types of people in terms of athletes and in terms of business owners. And I thought it was really interesting to kind of hear where their brand started. And we all know the brand of, you know, of Outlaw. And I thought it was really interesting as well him describing about COVID and the impact and, and I think we all saw that explosion, didn't we? Of everyone like chomping at the bit to get back into racing. But it's really interesting what he said now in terms of where the current climate is with racing. I don't. Have you. Have you seen that in any of the. Have you. I can't remember if you've done any races yet this year.

Well, no, I haven't done any races yet this year. My first is I was supposed to have done South Africa but obviously that didn't happen.

Yeah.

But I think, and I can see it, and I actually see it in the guys that I'm training with as well. You know, of the guys that I train with that historically were going off to do Kona and Ironman's all over the place. They all seem to have lost their mojo a bit for it. You know, like two of them were doing a 400k ride Saturday and Sunday and then mostly Saturday but it rolled into Sunday and then they're doing another like 600k ride this coming weekend and others are doing different things. And yeah, like I feel like I've come to the party really late because I just. As I'm kind of doing more and more triathlons, they're all giving up triathlons and either because of injury or because of just kind of losing their mojo.

A little bit for it.

So I do wonder whether he's right in that it was this kind of massive pent up demand post Covid and then suddenly that's now kind of fizzled out and people have gone off and done other things. Um, but I mean like I think, I think it's incredible what he's done in this space in terms of, you know, these are really good races.

Yeah.

And I genuinely think that anybody who's getting running a business where people are tattooing your logo onto their skin, doing.

Something right, you know, and people, you know, based in the uk, for any listeners kind of outside, but based in the uk, you know, you see people now walking around with Outlaw T shirts, Outlaw bottles, Outlaw bags, you know, and actually if you think about that against the big brands, you know, that's amazing, isn't it? For a brand based in the UK to be able to do that. And I think it'll be really exciting to see what he was talking about in terms of where they may go next in terms of something new or maybe in a different location as well. And. Yeah, and I imagine, you know, quite a few companies are probably thinking in a similar vein in terms of other races that they can. They can do if there is this kind of void in people.

Well, it reminded me a bit of a conversation we have with Bob Babbitt in terms of blue oceans of kind of. Right. How can we, like speed golf, People like golf, people like running. Like, we'll bring those together and. Yeah, and all of the other things. And you race the outlaws in the past. So. So what's. What have been your experiences?

Actually, I. I've raced well. Ian was talking about the relays. They are amazing. For anyone that hasn't done them, it is pandemonium. Absolute. But they design it like that. I'm pretty convinced they design like that. Nobody ever really knows what they're doing, but it is such good fun. So that has been amazing. And I think to me, their events are. And then I. I did a. I was part of a relay before and then the after Covid. I was one of the people that went in the explosion of the COVID event. It was huge. The transition was massive. I didn't make it last a swim because I couldn't run. I couldn't run out the swim. I mean, I couldn't get out the lake. So, yeah, that was my experience. But really friendly, amazing commentary. I was saying just before our call today, you know, the commentary was hilarious and it was really good and I just think it. To me, it was a very fun and inclusive event and I think with a little less stress in terms of. It didn't feel overwhelming or stressful to go and rack up or. It's a bit more friendly, I guess, than some of the other big events.

It is a bit more laid back, isn't it? And I think you commented when we were having that conversation, you commented on the things that people had stuck to their bike. Tell me about that.

Honestly, I. I actually do have some images of it, but I had to think twice about whether I could post it or not on I. It. It was amazing. I mean, with my background in sports nutrition, I mean, essentially it wasn't wrong. There was definitely carbohydrates attached to some of these bikes. But, you know, people may. Many years ago, there was a way that you could kind of tape. People used to tape things like gels to their bike and things that's kind of disappeared a bit with the, with these kind of bags and things. But pizza. But the funny thing was they were.

Taping pizza to the right, pieces of.

Pizza taped so that you could peel them back and take a bit. So they were in triangles even. I mean, it was amazing. Triangles of pizza. But not only that and the thing that I guess really upset me about it slightly burnt. So, you know, not only was their pizza Snapchat, but slightly burnt, but I mean, hey, you've got carbohydrates, you've got a bit of sodium from the cheese. I mean, what's not to love? And I'm sure that person, that was going to be their highlight on their bike. Baguette. I saw some white ham and cheese baguettes also take to bikes. I mean, amazing. I'm not quite sure how you get all that out with things falling out, but, yeah, and that made my day. I mean, the fact that this was at the race, I couldn't finish and, well, I couldn't really start, but having limped out the swim and back to my bike, it made my day. It was amazing. It really was. So, yeah, I should have asked him because I'm sure there's many, there's many stories like that.

Yes, I, I would imagine there are some amusing stories amongst it as well, but I think, I think that, you know, so I've had some good moments at the Outlaw. I didn't talk about the, the Holcomb race. The, I had a nightmare when I did Outlaw Holcomb. She's a beautiful place to race. It's really lovely. The swim was, the water wasn't the best. It's in a lake that's. So the swim, I was kind of not sure that was one of my favorites, but the bike was beautiful. Really lovely bike. Run is beautiful, but he. And tough. But I, I just, I remember talking about this at the time I had, it was a few days after I had my Covid job and I just, and with the benefit of hindsight, the COVID jab clearly had an impact because, yeah, I just had nothing in the tank when it came to the run. And all I can remember was there was a, there was this lady in a, in a pink tutu that had got bored and she was kind of cheering me on. And, and after the finish, I, I, she was walking past me. I said, thank you for the, thank you for the encouragement. I needed it. And she said, yeah, I'm not going to lie. You look like you were on death's door. Oh, thank you. I thought it was really internal, but no, apparently I looked as bad as I thought.

At least you looked unwell.

It was dreadful.

There was validation for how you were feeling, at least.

Yeah, exactly. So I just, I blame the COVID job, but no, I think there was, there was loads of really good stuff there from Ian and I think it's, it's interesting how, yes, there were some positives that came out. I mean, clearly, if you're an event organizer, Covid was a massive traumatic experience for your business and one that they're still not getting over now. But also there was some positives to take away from that that, you know, and whether, whether the mass start is a good thing for the kind of uber keen triathletes that like, you know, having an elbow to the face is, is another question. But clearly the majority of people, from what Ian has said, don't like, you know, they prefer the kind of gradual start, which I can see the logic in.

I think from a safety perspective, you know, that, that, that comes, that also comes from a good place, doesn't it, as well? I think, yeah. I also think it was interesting and just kind of want to loop in about the, the testing side of things because, you know, interestingly, obviously we've seen some high profile cases in terms of people being caught from an anti doping perspective. And what does that look like in the UK in terms of testing? And actually, for anyone that does want any more information, if you go to the UK ad website, so this is our UK anti doping website, you can find everything you need to know about testing. And maybe that's something we can drop into another podcast because actually any of our national governing bodies can request that we have testing at any of these races. So unlike professional athletes, we don't have our passports and we don't get randomly tested at any point or be notified. And then you have to be at home to be tested. But as age group athletes, we can be tested at any event, so there is no reason why anyone thinks that they could get away with using any sort of banned substances in terms of.

Testing, which is actually reassuring because, you know, people spend a lot of time and money and effort to do things like qualify for Kona. Yeah, and, and, and so to think that you, you would be robbed by, by that, okay, it's slightly different when it's your career, but still it's, it's really important to people and to feel like somebody's cheating their way through would be, would be Awful. So, I mean, I think, yeah, it probably needs to be more of it, but some random testing.

And there are, there are. So any sort of the big, like international federations and big event organizers will be able to conduct that kind of testing or have the people on site to do the testing. And one of the things from experience, but also working with different athletes, so non professional and professional athletes, but from an age group perspective, you could come in, in first place and be on the podium and get tested, or you could actually be in 17th place and be randomly tested. So we, we should expect as athletes to know what nutritional products we're taking on board and have they been batch tested. So to avoid any substances that might be in them, but also any medications that you might be taking and things you might have not taken and taken just before by accident, even. So you can check things like Global dro, which is on an app. Global DRO will tell you all about your medications. So as an athlete, that's your responsibility to check those. And then you can also look for batch testing. So some of the companies like Inform Sport in the UK and NSF Sport in the US and also in the uk and every country has their own sort of, some of their testing bodies as well, and different testing companies and there's also private testing companies that will test products as well. So there's no reason for us to randomly think, well, not randomly, but accidentally dope in any way, because the information is. The information is there.

Yeah. And it's our responsibility to make sure that.

Absolutely. And even if you work with a coach, a nutritionist, a dietitian, a medical doctor in sport, we can all give you that advice and we can tell you where to look and we can help check that with you. But ultimately that it sits with you as the athlete to make that informed decision as well.

So the decision to resist stealing some of my wife's testosterone is, is the right one.

Correct. Correct. Correct. And if you go on to uk, if you go on to Global dro, and it is Global dro, there's an app you can download and you can go in as a, you can select whether you're a pharmacist, a medical doctor, a dietitian or nutritionist, an athlete, you select your country and then you, then you can, you can put in even generic names. You don't necessarily have to put the actual name of the drug. So you could put in something like iron, for example, without putting in ferrous sulfate or ferrous fumarate, and it would come up with whether you can take inside of competition and outside of competition, really simple to understand. And if you don't understand it, if you go to your pharmacist with that information, they can go in as a pharmacist and check that for you as well. So, you know, it is worth just knowing that these, these sites exist for us to be able to, to check and also check, checking, you know, batch testing of your, of your nutritional products. And that includes the gels that you take and the drinks that you have and the collagen or the, any other supplements you take, multivitamin, minerals, vitamin D. They should all be batch tested.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's really, really good advice.

Right?

Let's wind this episode up. But another good episode of the Tributal podcast. Good luck with your race this weekend. Of course, by the time this goes out, it will have long since finished.

And good luck with yours as well.

First race, I'm just hoping my ankle holds out for it. And then yeah, for everybody else, keep on training.

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