Kona and Life Mastery with Mark Allen

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge and this is.

The tribe athlon podcast.

Dave sort of wrestled his way in front of me and he reached out and he grabbed for one last glass of whatever he was going to grab. And I started to reach in behind him and I just heard this something just like shout out from the universe. It said, go. And I pulled my hand back and I started sprinting. As best as you can sprint at the end of an Ironman. Not very impressive, but it was enough to start to open up a gap. And so literally as he reaches and then in those few seconds he looks back, I had started to pull away from him.

That was Iron man legend Mark Allen and this episode is Kona and Life Mastery. Oh my goodness, where do we start with this episode? Mark Allen is arguably the most successful triathlete of all time. And having won the Ironman World Championships six times, the Nice International Triathlon 10 times, and the first recognized Olympic distance triathlon championship, he went undefeated in 21 races for an astounding two year winning streak from 1988 through to 1990. He's been inducted into the halls of fame for Ironman USA Triathlon and the International Triathlon Union. And in 2012, Mark was voted the greatest endurance athlete of all time by espn. So across all endurance sports, we have the top performing endurance athlete of all time. Quite how they quantify that I'm not sure, but that is the level of guest that we have on with Mark Allen and post retirement. Mark has devoted his career to coaching athletes of all levels and sharing the lessons he learned about preparation, perseverance, athletic, living up to their full potential. So Claire and I wanted to chat to the legend that is Mark Allen about his infamous Kona performances, which of course include that race which is known as Iron War. And I talked to him a little bit about the book Iron War as well as the obviously getting the story of the race and his other incredible races as well, particularly his last. Kona is a fantastic story. In fact all of his stories are just brilliant. But also we wanted to chat to him about quietening the mind, about how shamanism helped him reach his full potential, and finally about how he is now using artificial intelligence to coach his athletes more effectively. So this is an interview I've wanted to do for ages. I was really excited about it beforehand and it lived up to and exceeded my expectations quite easily actually. So know you are going to love this interview with the legend that is Mark Allen, 33, fuel produce award winning natural sports Nutrition and everything they do is led by their philosophy for performance, for health and for a fitter future. 33 Fuel's awesome products have been fueling triathletes worldwide since 2012 as well as many of the world's best athletes. So from the England football team to Tour de France winners and triathlon world champions, including four times Ironman world champ Chrissie Wellington who's been using 33 fuel for years, 33 fuel also leads sports nutrition sustainability with plant focused formulas for reduced environmental impact, recyclable packaging and carbon neutral delivery on all orders which also got them rated by Runners World as one of the top 50 eco hero companies worldwide. Another reason why I love what Warren and Erica are doing at 33 fuel. So to find out more about 33 for go to 33fuel.com and if you use the code tribathlon or click the link in the show notes, you'll get an extra special discount when you purchase your amazing stock of 33 fuel. So Mark Allen, Legend of Triathlon I am delighted to have you on the the Triathlon podcast and really, really looking forward to hearing some of your stories and learning some of taking some of the wisdom. So, so welcome to the tribathlon podcast. I always like to kick things off with the stories. So firstly, can you tell us a bit about how you got into triathlon? Because it's quite an amazing story that in itself and of course it was at the early stages of triathlon, wasn't it? So tell us a bit about how you found your way into triathlon.

Yeah, great to be on. Great to see you guys. My, my entry into triathlon was purely by accident. You know, I was this, it was in 1982, I was 24 years old. I had graduated from university with a degree in biology and I was, I was hoping that somewhere in the world there would be a job related to that degree that inspired me, you know. And I had, I had taken the entrance exam to go into medical school and explored a lot of stuff and every time I would go down one of those roads it was a dead end. And, but anyway, so I was two years out of college and kind of feeling a little bit of that panic like what the heck am I going to do with my life? And one Saturday afternoon, it was In February of 1982, I was watching Wide World of Sports, which was like the sports program at the time. We didn't have a million channels back then and it was, they were showing the Ironman Triathlon, which I had never heard of Before I didn't know what a triathlon was. I had never heard of the Ironman. And the announcer told the distances, you know, I mean in, in our metrics, you know, 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, a marathon. And I'm thinking, how many days is it going to take these crazy people to finish that thing? You know, I thought it had to be like two or three days. And then he said no, they start at seven in the morning and they have, the last person has to finish by midnight, 17 hours later. And I thought there's no way a human body can do that. I, I would. And I came from sports. I was a competitive swimmer growing up from the time I was 10 all the way through college at 22, very mediocre as a swimmer, let me put it that way. I was, I was never Olympic quality, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't even qualify for Olympic trials. So anyway, but I'm watching this program and these seemingly ordinary people were crossing that extraordinary finish line at the Ironman in Hawaii. And about two weeks later I just, I just had this calling like I have to go there and see if I can be one of those people who crosses that amazing finish line. And that October I was on the start line of the Ironman in Hawaii. And back then in 1982, you have to understand it was a little bit easier to get in. Now obviously you have to qualify and to qualify you've got to get a slot and to get a slot you've got to be one of the best in your age group or a top pro. Back then you just called up the Ironman office and said, hey, I want to enter. And they send you the application. You sent it back in with your check and a headshot and you were in. So there, there were about a thousand people in the race that year and I was on the start line and I'm absolutely terrified. Like, you know, I had, I had only been training for whatever that little period was, eight or nine months and I didn't have any experience as a cyclist or a runner, but I figured, well, you know, starting with the swim, the best of the three and hopefully I'll be able to, you know, get out of the water and at least start the bike ride. And about halfway through the swim I found myself literally following this guy that I was, I, I'd been tossled and jumbled and hit and poked and jabbed and I was, you know, I was not used to this physical contact of this non, non contact sport. Right, I mean the swim start, you know how that is. And I, I had panicked at one point, right after the start because all thousand of us just like jammed up next to each other and we're trying to follow that line of buoys that goes to the turnaround boat. And you know, I just, I, I was like getting shoved under the water and held down and I'm like, oh my God, this is like chaos. And so I just started sprinting as fast as I could go to try to get away from people. Of course, you know, sprinting the opening moments of a race, that can take 17 hours, not the best pacing strategy, but anyway, you know, survival was trumping everything. And finally I got on the feet of a guy who seemed to be kind of in a steady rhythm and I just said, just relax, this is the only time you're going to do this stupid event. And so I was just trying to kind of enjoy the moment and enjoy the day. And we made the turn to come back for the second half of the swim and I stopped for a second just to kind of look around and I was trying to see where the leaders were and the only guy I could see was this guy in front of me. And I thought, man, those top guys are pretty fast. They're so far ahead I can't even see them. So, you know, come out of the water on the feet of this guy. And at the time when we came out, there was a timing clock that gave you your swim split and your position in the race when you pass underneath it. And when I passed under that clock, the number next to my time was number two. I mean, I was shocked. I'm on the feet of the leader of the friggin Iron Man. And I raced up and I thought, I wonder who it is that I'm following. I mean, I didn't know many people in the sport. The only guy I'd ever heard of really was Dave Scott because he was kind of like, you know, the best guy at the time. He'd won the race once and he was, he was there hoping to win number two. And I, I ran up and I looked over and I was on the feet of Dave Scott. I'm like, oh my God, this is a great sport. Anyway, so we, we made it, we, I stayed with them and we made it at the, to the turn at Hobby and we came back and I could see that we had about a five minute lead on the next set of cyclists and I, I was just shocked. Like, here I am, I'm in the Ironman my first time I'm with the best guy in the world. We have a five minute lead on the next guys. And I had never talked to Dave before, so I figured, well, you know, perfect time for an introduction. So I, I kind of wrote up next to him and I go, hey, Dave, when we're done with the bike, you want to go for a run? He's like, who are you? You know, very. He was not happy. He was not in a conversational mood. And I told him my name and then he goes, oh, I think I've heard of you. And he clicked his bike into big gear and he took off. And so I clicked my bike into a big gear to try to follow him. And I heard this huge clanking, ratcheting, metal on metal sound. And I looked down and my derailleur had snapped off and my, and my chain was stuck in the biggest, biggest gear. And I thought, that's it. My race is done. There's no way I can complete the bike ride in my big gear. So I didn't achieve that dream of crossing the finish line that first time out, but I'd been with the best guy in the world for a few hours of racing and that's really where the dream was born, that maybe, maybe if I just take my time and develop my experience, develop my skills, develop my fitness, learn about this sport, maybe I can be the winner of this amazing race. And so it was one of those life moments where something really bad happened, but something really good happened. And it seems like we've probably all had those kind of moments where there was a momentary failure, but it set you up for some success later in life or an experience in life that truly was fulfilling. And I had no idea how that journey was going to, going to unfold, but I just knew that there was something there for me. And as you know, it didn't happen overnight, but that was the, the true beginning of my, my triathlon journey.

Amaz. Absolutely amazing. If only, if only, Iron man triathlon was quite the same as that nowadays. Maybe come back to how it's, how it's changed over time, but that is absolutely incredible. And am I right in saying that that first, when the, the first year that you saw Iron man on TV was the Julie Moss? Yeah, was, is that right? So that, that was obviously. Was that a part of that pivotal moment or was it more seeing the man or, you know, how did that feature?

Yeah, that was the year that Julie Moss crawled across the finish line. And you know, I don't think any Any sports program had captured a moment like that before. And you know, for those of you who have not seen it, you should Google it and see it and watch.

It, but you must, you know, she.

Was, she was in the lead and then coming down, ali' I drive. She was faltering and she was walking and she would fall and stumble and try to get up and, and, and you know her, in her mind, she was thinking, I'm in the Ironman World Championship, I'm leading it, I can't walk across the finish line, I have to run. And so she would try to run and every time she tried to run, she would fall down. And so this kept playing itself and she's crawling and literally she was, she was just a couple meters from the finish line. And Kathleen McCartney, who didn't even see her crawling on the ground past her and, and won the race. And Julie, you know, moments later crawled across and threw her arm across the line and finished second. So it was probably about one of the most famous second place finishes, if not the most amazing. And it, you know, it just captured that, that thing of, of heart and, and I'm going to finish no matter what. And you know, it was, it was quite an emotional thing to watch. And that was what really, that, that was one of the things that really got me interested. Like, wow, I should, I, I need to go there and do that. But it was also, it's like I could feel the island of Hawaii calling. You know, it's a, it's a very powerful place in nature. It's a unique place. It's, it's, it's a live volcanic island. And I could just feel there was an energy about it that was calling me there. And of course, you know, after that first race, it kind of, it was kind of like a foreshadowing of what was going to happen. You know, the potential was shown that I could do something amazing there, but at the same time I was going to be challenged. And so the, the road to victory, the road to being the, the winner of the Ironman in Hawaii was not, it wasn't rainbows and unicorns, you know what I mean? Real life stuff. And it was filled with challenge and filled with setbacks and, and moments where I could have very easily said, I forget it, I can't win this thing. Because as you know, it took me, I raced there six years and had six races that were disappointing on certain levels for me before I finally went there in 1989 for the seventh attempt and was able to put together that race that I was hoping for.

Well, I was just going to say, actually, I think I've heard you say that you almost didn't. You know, people were trying to persuade you almost not to bother because you were having huge success everywhere else in triathlon except Kona, weren't you? So that you were almost tempted not to go back and have one more shot at Kona. So tell us about kind of the lead up to 1989 and that again, the. The incredible story that is. That that's documented in the book Iron War. And also you'd be interesting to know how accurate you think the. The book Iron War is on that story.

Yeah, well, the book Iron War was Dave Scott, and I actually had a lawsuit against the publisher and the author because there was so much in it that was fabricated. And he. He never spoke to either of us about any of the content in the book. And he. He actually contacted us and said, hey, I'm. I want to write a book and really tell the story of 1989, because it's a. It's an amazing story. And we're like, of course that we, you know, we'd love to be a part of it, but we. We knew the author, and we knew that sometimes he can sort of stretch the truth on things. And so, you know, we both said, but we want to be, you know, a part of the project. We don't want to just be interviewed for it, because we wanted to have a little bit of assurance that what he was going to put in there was accurate. And he goes, oh, no, I need journalistic freedom. And so he never did one interview with us. And finally we got a copy, an advanced copy of the book. And before it was actually published, somebody sent it to us, and I was going through it with a. With a yellow pen to sort of highlight the pieces that I. That were just. Just not true. And every page was like 3/4 covered with yellow. And I'm like, okay, this is. This is not good. So anyway, short version is we. We settled out of court, you know, but substantially, the. The only thing in there that you can be guaranteed is true is that I won and Dave was second. And the rest of it, I mean, it's a. It's a great story.

It is a great story, but so.

Much of it is just made up. And the way that he wrote it, it sounded like we'd poured our hearts out to him because he was talking about thoughts we were having the night before the race and just things that sounded like very intimate details that we had Shared with him. And he had actually put in an appendix after we brought the lawsuit, sort of showing where his sources were for all of these things. And so I started going through it thinking, well, maybe, maybe I said all this stuff and I just don't remember. And so I started comparing where the content was coming from and a lot of the interviews and programming and stuff that he was pulling as the source for each of these different pages. I remember what was said, and he interpreted what I had said. Anyway, enough of that. You know, the. The thing about 1989 is that that one day really did define a changing a switch point in the sport. And I'll get to it in a moment. But it was where Dave Scott and I really showed that the Ironman can be raced. It's not a survival contest. And prior to 1989, I think a lot of us, you know, even at the very top, were sort of feeling like, you go as hard as you can and hope that you slow down less than everybody else, which is a very different mindset than thinking, I'm going to race all the way to the finish line. And, you know, the. The. The tension had been building. You know, I. Before 1989, I had been to the Ironman six times. One time I didn't finish. I'd finished second twice, I'd finished third, third once, and I'd finished fifth twice. And I had shown that I could be in the lead at the end of the bike. I could be at the lead halfway through the marathon. I could be in the lead with just a few miles to go in the marathon. But I always was falling apart. And Dave Scott was the one who kept passing me. And, you know, at some point you have to sort of do a reality check and go, you know what? I'm not going to be the one to ever win this thing. You know, how many times are you going to beat your head against the wall to come up short? And my family and friends, those people that I rely on for that reality check, were kind of saying, you know what? You're not cut out for that race. There's something about it. Maybe it's the island, maybe it's the distance, maybe it's the weather. Go to the races like Nice, where you've shown that you can win. You know, you've never lost or you've beaten Dave Scott there, you've beaten everybody else in the world. Go to the other races that you truly seem to mesh with. There's something about Hawaii that's just not right for you. And don't get me wrong, I love Hawaii. But racing in Kona was, was very, very intimidating. You know, it's hot, it's windy, it's, it's tropical. The sun beats down on your skin and you feel like you're in a microwave oven just ready to cook. And most importantly, you know, every, every year when I would get off of the plane, you know, you don't have a air conditioned jetway that pulls up and you get to sort of ease your way into the island. You know, they open the door and they, they wheel these steps up to the plane and you literally walk down on this black tarmac that's from crushed lava and you're just going, oh my God, I'm gonna do an iron man in this. And you know, and just to warn.

You, Mark, Claire is racing in Kona for the first time in a few weeks time. So this is a great build up. I'm loving.

Well, don't worry, Claire. You know, there's, it's gonna be pops.

I get that.

Yeah, there's, there's a silver lining to it. So, you know, and I didn't have a way to go there and feel at home or at ease. And in 1989, as I was getting ready to, I was, I was finishing up my training in San Diego. I did the bulk of it in Boulder, Colorado up in the Rockies. And then the last couple weeks, I, I would come down to sea level and finish up. And then I was, I was going to Kona. And my last run before I went in 89, I thought, you know, let me back up a little bit. So each one of those years where I fell apart, I had to, I had to ask myself, do I want to go back? Can I, can I get better? Is there something that I can do to change this result? Because it's not satisfying. It's very disappointing. And I thought that I was ready a lot of those years and I wasn't. And that's, that's devastating. You know, we all have had those moments where we feel like we've done the work to achieve the, the dreams or successes that we're after, and we still fall short. And so in the winter of 1989, I really had to ask myself, am I going back? And I thought, there's no way. There's no way. There's nothing that I can do. You know, I've been trying to win that damn thing and Dave Scott's winning it, and it's, I don't know what I can do that would be any Better. But about two weeks into my training that year, in the middle of the winter, I could just feel the island. You have to come back. You have to come back. You know? And I'm like, God damn it. Yeah, you're right. You know, I have to go back, but the focus has to be different. And I thought, what would. What would be the ultimate success in Hawaii? And I realized the thing that would mean the most to me would be if I could have a really strong swim bike and run all the way through the day, forget about the winning part. And it really, that, that focus came from what gave me satisfaction as an age group swimmer. You know, I was never going to be world class. I was never. Nobody's going to write a news article about my swim times, but it was this. This personal satisfaction. If I could get just, you know, a second faster, a few tenths faster, that was fulfilling. That was satisfying. And that's what I wanted to do in Kona. I wanted to go there, forget about the wind part. I want to have a strong race. And that was actually a very different focus because I knew that only one person's going to cross that line in first place. So does that mean that everybody else had a failure day? Absolutely not. You know, you watch the age groupers who've given everything they have. That's inspiring, that has meaning and purpose. And so, Claire, you may win the race or you may not, but it can still be such an amazingly satisfying and purposeful day. And so that was my shift in Focus in 89. And I. And it.

I just.

I could just feel this. This ease because I stopped worrying about Dave Scott. I stopped wondering what he was doing in his training. And I said, what can I do to get the best out of myself? And the last piece that I needed was to be able to go there and feel at home or feel comfortable in Hawaii for the race, which is something that I'd never been able to do before. When I went to Nice, I'd get off the plane and it'd be like, ah, this is amazing. You know, And I get off the plane and Kona would be like, no. And so the last run that I did before I was going to be leaving the next day for Hawaii, I was in San Diego, and I was running along a little lagoon trail that goes inland from the. The ocean where I. Where I live, along the beach. And I. I realized that every time I ran on this one stretch of this trail, I always felt good. You know, there was something that had this, like, ease, like it, like Life is okay, you know, even if I'm running slowly, it's okay. If I'm running fast, it's okay. It's all the same. And so I thought, I need to bring this feeling with me to Hawaii. And so I. I just grabbed some of the little reed grasses that were dried along the side of the trail and just brought a handful of them, and I tucked them in my suitcase and I brought them. And when I got to Hawaii, there's a little. This little blue church that was right along the ocean along Ali' I Drive, where the marathon went back then. And I. I don't go to church, but I thought I need to do something that just offer this to the island. And so I walked in this. This little church. You could probably seat about 10 people. And it turns out it was actually right next to this very sacred Hawaiian place where the. The. The locals would leave offerings and ask, you know, give prayers for things. And I just stuck the reeds on this little altar thing, and I said, just. I'm just asking that I be here as me and race the way that I know that I can race and that I can feel at home here. And I just sort of closed my eyes for a moment and I. And I. It's like the. I just felt like the elders of the. The island were sitting right in front of me, and they said, you can have what you've come for, but it's going to take courage. And I thought, ooh, okay. But it felt like I had come home. It felt like. It felt like I had walked into a great sacred place, somebody's home that was really special. And I had. I had given them an offering, and they said, you are. You are welcome to be here. And it was the first time I really felt that. And as. As it turned out, you know, it was such an amazing day in 1989 with Dave Scott and I racing together side by side for eight hours.

It is that. That is. I mean, I've only seen bits of it, but it is incredible to see.

What was your.

That was your. That was your decision to race alongside him, wasn't it, rather than his?

Yeah, you know, I. I knew that I didn't know how to pace it. Right. Obviously, I could. I could go fast, but I couldn't go fast the whole way through without blowing up. I could. I could not blow up, but I. That came on the years where I didn't really push it very hard. And I thought, that's not a great race either. That's not the best. I can get out of myself. So I thought, stick with him. The guy knows how to do this thing. And so I. I stayed on his feet the entire swim. I stayed with. Right behind him on the bike. And, you know, there were points where I could tell he was trying to pull away from me, but his effort wasn't. Wasn't like, otherworldly. So I was able to just kind of stay with him. And we started the marathon. And, you know, literally every step of that marathon was. Was side by side. And. And people ask me, well, what did you guys talk about? Like, wow, what? There's nothing to talk about. Like, hey, Dave, can I get you another Coke? How about a Gatorade? You know, but you could. You're. When you're in a race like that, you're. You're in this sort of almost altered state where you're. At least for me, where, like, you're sensing things in a very different way than you do normally. And so I didn't need to ask him how he was feeling. It's like I could feel when he was strong. I could feel when he was maybe doubting some of his. His abilities, but he was. He was pretty strong and solid. And the further we went into the marathon. Marathon, I knew that the further we were getting into the territory where he was nearly invincible. Like he was from hour six onward in that race. By far, he was the best guy ever. And, you know, we're at hour six, hour six and a half, hour seven. At about the half marathon point, he started to surge. And it was getting harder and harder to stay with his surges. And finally it got so hard to stay with him that, you know, my mind started. Finally started going nuts. Like, oh, my God, Dave Scott, he's gonna win. I can't do it. My legs are killing me. I've got these blisters. I shouldn't have come back. You know, I was whining and Claire, you might find that you're. You might whine a little bit out there. That's okay.

That's very good thing. I like that.

Yeah.

But.

And I. I was. I was really close to giving up. And finally my mind just. It was so hard to stay with him. And I knew that I had to stay with him. Like, if I just gave him, you know, a second or two, that might be the race right there. And so it got so hard to stay with him that finally my mind just went quiet. And literally in the. In the instant that my mind went quiet, I. I remembered an image that I'd seen in a magazine two days prior to the race. And it was in an ad for a workshop that was going to be taking place in Mexico, teaching about a way of life from an indigenous, indigenous culture that lives there, the Huichel people. And in this ad for this workshop, teaching about this way of life from. That's very simple. It's. It's connected with nature. It's. It's truly sort of like working with how we're hardwired as human beings to feel good outside and in honoring the sunrise, the sunset, you know, the seasons. It was. There were two shamans or medicine men that were going to be teaching this workshop. One was 110-year-old Wechel Shaman, Don Jose Matsua, and the other was his adopted grandson, Brant Secunda.

And.

And they both had a look on their face that was this magical combination of peaceful yet powerful. And as an athlete, that's the space that you're searching for. A sense of knowing that you have strength, knowing that you've done the training, but you also, you're very calm. Like, no matter. You know that no matter what comes across your plate, you know, matter, you know that no matter how good you feel or bad you feel, that you're going to keep going, that you're going to make it. You're going to make it through those moments, every moment where you start to doubt yourself. You're going to find a reason to keep going, and you're going to find a way to get back to that place of peaceful and powerful. And so anyway, in that instant that. That my mind went quiet, Don Jose's image came back to me. And it was almost like he was floating right next to me. And I could just feel this energy or life force coming from that. That image of him or that memory of him or that vision of him. And I could just feel that sense of peaceful yet powerful. And it's sort of like it just washed away all doubt about my ability. And it washed away any need to have that race turn out any way other than the way it was going to turn out by me giving the best that I had to give. And my shoulders relaxed, my breathing relaxed, and my stride opened back up. And I could just feel like all of a sudden it was just that little bit easier to stay with him. And we were. We were running side by side, you know, mile after mile after mile after mile. And he was stronger on the downhills than I was, but I was stronger on the uphills. And we both knew that just before you drop down into the town of Kona and do that last little stretch to the finish that there's one long, steep uphill. And both of us were waiting. We knew that that was the moment that the break was going to take place. And this is at about mile 24 and a half. And we got to the bottom of the hill, and there was an aid station at the bottom of the hill. And conventional wisdom says you take one last glass of whatever it is sport drink or Coke or whatever, because at that point, you really are pretty much running on fumes. And even a few calories is going to help propel you, you know, to the finish. And so Dave sort of wrestled his way in front of me, and he reached out and he grabbed for one last glass of whatever he was going to grab. And I started to reach in behind him, and I just heard this something just like, shout out from the universe. It said, go. And I pulled my hand back and I started sprinting as best as you can sprint at the end of an Ironman. Not very impressive, but it was enough to start to open up a gap. And so, literally, as he reaches and then in those few seconds, he looks back, I had started to pull away from him, and you can see it in the footage. All of a sudden, now his mind is blown because I am pulling away from him. In his territory, those last miles of the marathon where he was, he'd shown that he was always the strongest. And the gap got further and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I got to the top of the hill before him. I knew I had to get to the bottom of the Palani road, Palani hill before him. If I had it, I was going to have a chance to win because he was so strong on those downhills. I got to the bottom of the hill before him. And then I knew that there was nothing that was going to happen, that I was going to win the race. And I made that last stretch and was coming down ali' I drive. And, you know, my. I had this huge smile on my face and the tears were coming down my cheeks and people were cheering and. And I knew that they. They knew that this was not just one race. It was seven years in the making. And there were many disappointments that I'd had to overcome to get to the point where I could have that. That eventual victory. And. And I did. I did win the first of six Ironman titles that day. The difference between Dave Scott and I, he actually had his best iron man ever. He broke his previous world's record by over 17 minutes. And I did My best time on that day by nearly 30. But the difference in our times was a mere 58 seconds. Very small difference on a long day.

Amazing.

It is absolutely incredible. It's a wonderful, wonderful story and it's, it's, it's got to be one of the, like we mentioned Julie Moss, but that too has got to be one of the highlights of triathlon's history.

And if you're interested, my, my business partner, the CEO of Mark Allen Sports and a couple of years ago he got Dave and I to write a 10 chapter lead up to that race and including the race itself because you know, people saw that one day on TV and they saw this incredible battle, but there was so much that went into it on both of our sides and so many challenges that both of us actually had to overcome in that year leading up to it. And so if you go to a website, 1989 the story.com the number1989, the story.com you'll be able to read our sort of side by side build up and lead up to that race. Scott Zagarino is the one who put that together.

And that's like, that's like the truthful version of Iron War.

That's, that's the truthful version of Iron War. And so if you really, if you want to get the nitty gritty and, and probably read a lot about, of a lot of details about things. He had no idea that each of us had to actually overcome to get to that start line and then what actually went on during the race. And it was interesting because, you know, Scott sort of proposed the idea to both of us and we were both kind of thinking, I don't know, do we want to do this? And finally we both decided, okay, let's do it. And we had gotten the first nine chapters in and we got to the, the one where we had to recount the actual day itself. And you know, we had deadlines on when we needed to get this up so that it was up prior to the race. And Dave kept dragging his feet and he kept dragging his feet and, and I told Scott, I said I knew this would happen. He would get to, you know, as we're, as we're remembering and recounting the build up to the race, there's almost in our, in your brain this little possibility that maybe the outcome will be different, you know, but we got to where we actually had to write about the event, about the race and I knew that Dave would have to relive getting second place, which was really really hard for him. And. But ultimately, if you read that, you'll. You'll understand and see that it really wasn't. It didn't have impact because it was me winning and Dave getting second. It had impact because the two of us brought something into the sport. Like I said, that had never been experienced before, and that was showing that you can race Ironman from the first stroke in the swim all the way through the final foot strike when you cross that finish line. And that really changed the mindset, I think, of every athlete who's done the race since then. You know, that you can race it. It's not a survival contest. It's a race. It's a competition. And it just. It sort of really ushered in the. The new era of. Of Ironman racing. And it wouldn't have happened without the two of us. And third place Greg Welsh. He was almost three miles behind us. It was like we were in this bubble of potential and possibility that would have never taken place had it just been him or just been me.

I think there's the amazing thing about big rivalries in sport, and I can't think of a better example of your rivalry with. With Dave Scott. But the best. One of the things. I can't remember whether I heard you say it or I've heard other people say it, but that those perfect rivalries are where they're kind of. They're not. They're not seen as the enemy, are they? Because you're actually. You need that person to become the best that you can be. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, it was a really healthy rivalry. Healthy rivalry in the sense that, you know, some rivalries are kind of built on the fact that you think the other person's an absolute jerk and you want to beat them. But Dave and I were trying to beat each other because we had a deep respect for each other's ability, and we knew that each of us was sort of elevating the level of the game, and we wanted to rise to that and then go a little bit beyond it. And so it was. It was as healthy of a rivalry as you could possibly get. And, you know, now we're. We're great friends. We've obviously, we went through a big portion of our sort of adult maturing together, through the races that we had together and through the sport. And we have a lot of shared experiences in life. You know, we've both got kids and we've both been through divorce and, you know, just a lot of things. And we're part. Kind of part of that same era that's different than what's in place now. And so, yeah, we have a, we have a great friendship at the time. You know, we, we kept things separate and we didn't really, if we spoke to each other, basically, it was more like, hey, congratulations on that race that you did or this race. You know, it was. We were never like, do you want to go grab an ice cream? You know, that didn't happen.

You mentioned, you mentioned that, that that key moment in 1989 was where you could quieten your mind and kind of listen to the island. How as a coach, you try and let get your athletes to do exactly that.

I, I tell them that it's very any. Every day that you go out and train, you have the opportunity to also work with what's going on with your mind, you know, so, for example, a lot. Some workouts, you know, they're not that challenging. They're just bread and butter and nothing's sort of bothering you. But sometimes you have those workouts that they're a little longer than you hope, or maybe it's hotter, or maybe it's colder, or maybe it's more intense than you'd hoped. And you've got to deal with it. And you can. When you start to hear that little voice going off like, wow, this is too hard. I don't know. You know, Mark Allen, this coach, he told me to do this. I don't want to do it. I should have done. You know, anytime that's coming up, you just have. You have the opportunity to go take that breath, let go of that noise, let go of that chatter, get your mind to be quiet. And when your mind is quiet, then you have all the energy available to give the best that you have on that day. And when you start to understand that not every day is going to be stellar, there's going to be days where you're amazing, and there's going to be days where you struggle, but that's okay to try to learn how to get the best you can out of your. Your training each and every day. Then that translates into the race also. And so anytime you start to hear that chatter, just take a breath, get your mind to be quiet. Okay, there it is. Now you're able to just engage fully in that workout. And you might have to do that a bunch of times in the workout. And in, in an ironman, you're going to have to do that a hundred times. Because it's not like my mind's quiet now. I'm in nirvana. No you know, there's good 10 minutes later, you might find yourself whining again, and you have to bring yourself back to that quiet space. And when your mind's quiet, then you actually look around and you start to. You're. You're actually sort of enjoying the. The intensity, you know, it's. It's not affecting you in the same way. And your legs are still going to hurt. You know, if you have blisters, you're still going to have those blisters, you know, but the sort of. That negativity part will be gone, and you'll be able to experience your body moving at the best you can, being fully engaged in that moment, and then the next and the next and the next. And that's kind of how the day goes. Like, you know, when you're. When you're in a big race like that, you're. You're trying to get the best you can out of yourself. And so, you know, you get in the swim and you're trying to get yourself, like, fully engaged, right? You know, and you're going, and you're. You're trying to stay relaxed, but stay giving everything you can. And you're like, part of you sort of like, am I giving the best I can? And you're not quite sure, you know, and then you get on the bike and you're going along and you're trying to give the best you can, but you're. There's a part of you that's sort of like thinking, am I giving the best I can? Should I be going harder? Should I be, you know, what do I need to be doing to optimize this? And then you get to the run and you're sort of going along, and there's. There's still that going on. And you might have those moments where you're like, I don't know if I can keep going? And you're just like. And then you take the next step and you're. You're trying, like, am I giving the best I can? And all of a sudden there's this switch point where you go, oh, wow, I am giving the best that I have to give, and there is no turning back. That no matter what, how I feel, no matter how slow or fast I'm going, no matter how good or ugly this gets, I am going to get to that finish line. And no. And no matter what, I know that I am giving the best that I have to give. And there's this huge freedom in that because you're completely locked in. And the Moments where you're chattering sort of become less and less and you're just fully engaged in giving what you have to give. And it's. It's sort of like that flow type of state, you know, and you stop trying to make the race over quicker than it's going to take. You know, it's like you're not worried, you're not trying to get to that finish line quicker than you're going to get there. And, and it's like you're fully immersed and engaged in that experience, and that's so magical. And when people get into that state, that space, that's. That's what's inspiring and that's why it's inspiring at the finish line of Ironman to be there at 8 o', clock, 9 o', clock, 10 o', clock, 11 o', clock, because you're seeing people who have given everything they have to give to cross that finish line. And there's something about the energy of that that just sort of. It's so positive. You know, how many, how many things in life do we go through where we're really challenged, but we know that we're given everything we have to give. You know, it's such a defined thing. And, and of course, it's defined in the sense that there's a finish to it. You know, if you're going through a tough period in life, you don't know, you may not know when that's going to end. Is it going to be next week, next month, next year? The finish line is the finish line. So it makes it sort of easy to just pull everything you have out of yourself and to find things within yourself that you never knew you had, strengths that you never knew you had, abilities to keep going that you never knew you had. And there's this absolute freedom and joy that takes place when that happens.

I think it's just a great way of seeing so many people hit such a massive goal right in front of your eyes, isn't it? It's.

There's.

There's not many opportunities. You can see people hitting, you know, a. A major life goal time and again, you know, in. Over the course of several hours. It is an amazing visualization of that. So let's move to this, the final Kona. So you had five consecutive wins in Kona, a year off because you. I think you need. Felt like you needed a bit of time to recover and then decided to go back one last time. So tell it. And, and again, that was an iconic race. So. So tell us A bit about that one.

Yeah. At that point in my career, I knew that I was. I was coming close to the end of my. My Kona string. I knew that there was a little bit more I could pull out of the bag of tricks to try to get a little bit better than I had ever been before. And going into that final race season in 1995, I knew that win, lose or draw, that race was going to be the best that I could pull out of myself. And for me personally, that had been the journey, to try to get the best I could out of myself. It wasn't to try to amass a string of victories. It was knowing that each year that I was going back, that I had a chance or an opportunity to. To put a little bit more on the table and to pull a little bit more out of myself. On race day. And going into 95, I knew this was it. This was the best it was going to get. And so, you know, I had. I had done a lot of special preparation that year, especially studying with Brandt Secunda, who I had met shortly after that 1989 race and was incorporating kind of a lot more of a, I guess, spiritual preparation in it. You know, a race like Hawaii is. It's physical and it's personal. It's spiritual in the sense that, like I said, you have to deal with yourself and you have to deal with the energy of the island, and the more you can mesh with all of that, then everything just goes smoother and better. And so I had done a lot of extra workshops with him that year. Retreats where I would not swim, bike, and run, to work sort of on that internal landscape, that internal space, to learn more from him on how to get my mind to be quiet, to connect with the energy of the island and to, you know, continue to really feel at home there, and to. To ultimately have a sense that no matter how the day was going to turn out, that it would be okay, that my life would be okay if. If I won. Great. If I didn't win. That's just the same. It's sort of all the same, but more importantly, to just put out the best I could on that day. And so when I went to Hawaii that year, I. I left offerings again, and I asked that I had a. That I have one last great race. And. And, you know, in my mind, having a last great race meant that, oh, it'll just be kind of like the parade lap and super easy and no big deal to win that thing. Well, the problem was that I was 37 years old, which wasn't a problem necessarily, but I was a lot older than the other guys and I knew that throughout that year, I could tell that my body was, was not able to absorb the same amount of training that I had done in the past. So I actually really had to. To pair my training load down to have any chance of recovering from the key workouts that I knew I had to do no matter what. And I, I really felt like I had been able to do that. And, you know, Brandt had done a bunch of stuff to help my, my body get stronger also.

I think I'm right in, I think I'm right in saying that in August, so peak training season in the lead up to Kona, in, you took eight days out where you did no swim, bike or run to do the work with Brandt, is that right?

Yeah, it was early August and he had a retreat and up in Alaska, Juneau, Alaska. And you have to understand that, you know, my season would start training in January and, you know, I'm slowly getting myself in better and better shape. And then by the time you get to about August, then I'm in good. I'm in good enough shape to actually do a kind of like an eight week, super ironman focused, high volume load. And so right at the point where I was in good enough shape to then go into my Ironman training, that's when I took eight days away from swimming, cycling, and running and my training partners, and basically everybody in the Ironman world was on that program of like, okay, it's August 1st, it's time to, to bump it up and you're gonna go do no swimming, biking and running for a week. Are you nuts? I'm like, no, I'm not nuts. I'm smart, you know, and, and so that's what I did. And when I came back, you know, a lot of the Huicho tradition, the practices that are, they're very simple. They help you to quiet your mind, they help you to feel at home no matter where you are, on this beautiful altar of mother Earth, we're meant to be here. And, and the. We told people have a saying that, that says it's never over until it's over, meaning no matter how difficult or challenging something might seem in the moment, take that next step. Because you never know, things might turn around for you. And that's. That had stuck with me since the first time I met Brandt right after that race in 89. He said that. And that really is such a great thing to keep in the back of your mind. When you're in a tough race, like, yeah, it's tough in this moment, but keep going because in the next things can turn around for you. And you know, that sustained me in a lot of those earlier wins because there's never a race in Hawaii, even the ones where I won, where everything went perfectly all the way through. You have down moments, you have up moments, you have moments where you don't think you can keep going. Then you have moments where you are going. And so going into the race that year, I felt supremely prepared on every single level I could possibly be. I had dialed in my training. I did the work with Brandt, I, I was ready and I, I actually came out of the water ahead of guys that I'd never been able to beat before. And so I was thinking, wow, you know, this is going to be pretty cool. And I, and I took the lead earlier in the bike than ever before. And I'm thinking, man, this is going to be like the parade lap, you know. But right when I felt how easy it was going to be to, to win it, this was early. Like 15 miles into the bike. The first guy to pass me was Jurgen Zach, who was one of the great cyclists in the sport at the time. He'd never won Kona, but he'd won other Ironmans. And you know, he always set the pace on the bike and he passed me. And then right behind him was a 24 year old countryman of his, Thomas Hellriegel. He was a soldier in the army and super tough and so fast on the bike. And he passed me looking like he was on a motorcycle. And I thought, oh my God, I can't let these guys go this early. And so I tried to stay with him, but my heart rate just started to skyrocket and I thought, I have to let him go. It's too fast, too early, I'll blow up. I have to stick to my plan. And so I let him go. And I thought, you know, they'll get maybe five minutes on me on the bike ride. And I know that because of my running and the way they run that I'll be able to make that up. Well, fast forward to the end of the bike. I came in. Thomas had put this massive gap on us, on everybody, including me. And as I'm in the transition area and I'm throwing on my running shoes, somebody yells out, he's 13 and a half minutes ahead of you. Go catch him. And I'm thinking, okay, yeah, that'll be so easy. Thirteen and a half minutes. That's like. And I, you know, I did the math and I realized I had to make up 30 seconds a mile, every single mile of that marathon if I was going to catch him at the finish line. 13 1/2 minute gap seemed impossible. I was trying to win as a 37 year old. Nobody had won as a 37 year old at that point in time. Nobody had won six Ironmans and six starts. Dave Scott won six titles in his career, but he had a loss in there. I, in my five previous starts, I had won and I was hoping to win number six on this sixth start. And nobody had closed a 13 and a half minute gap to be the champ. So as I started that marathon, I had three levels of, of trying to do something that was impossible, that nobody had ever done before. And there was, there was, there was no playbook that I could go by. I was going to have to figure this out on the spot. 13 and a half minute lead, I couldn't wrap my mind about that, around that 30 seconds a mile, every single mile of the marathon. If I failed one mile and only made up 20 seconds, I was going to lose. I couldn't wrap my mind around that. I said, what can I grasp? And I thought, let me see if I can make up an inch or a second every step of this marathon. That was, that was a small enough chunk that it's like, okay, I can wrap my mind around that. And usually I start, I try to ease into the marathon. Well, there was no easing that year. I had to just, you know, go from the first step. And I was, I was I slow. I started in fifth place. A few miles in, I, I moved into fourth and then eventually into third and then into second place, passing Jurgen Zach. At around the half marathon point with eight miles to go, I was told that Thomas Hellriegel was four minutes ahead of me. Let me do the math for you. I was making up 30 seconds a mile, but I was still only on pace to catch him at the finish line. And the guy's 13 years younger than me. And so catching a guy who's 13 years younger than you at the finish line, when you're sprinting for the world championship, it's not going to happen. And so I, you know, I was, when I got that, that time split that, you know, I was trying to keep my mind quiet. And there were a lot of moments already where I just felt like I didn't know if I could keep going. But I kept sort of, sort of regrouping and then relaunching. Regrouping and relaunching. And you have to understand, regrouping is not giving up, you know, and it's important. Like, maybe it takes one breath, maybe it takes five minutes, but to regroup and to really start, continue to give what I had to give. Four minutes back, Eight miles to go. I was running out of gas. I was running out of turf. There wasn't going to be enough time, and I knew I needed something extra. But, you know, my mind was like, ah, hell, Regal. I can't even see the guys. He's. You know, he's going to win this thing. I don't know if I should have come back. You know, I've already won five. I don't need this. And finally, I uttered those two very, very powerful words that can help everybody out of those kind of situations. Shut up. I thought.

I thought there was going to be some words in between that, those two.

Finally, I got my mind to be quiet. And then, you know, Brandt had said something. He. Before, just before I left for Kona, I went and he. He did a final blessing for me. And he said, if you need help, call out to the island. It will hear you. It's. It's alive, and it will hear you. And so I just. I just brought all my energy back here. I stopped focusing on Thomas Helrigo, and I said, big Island. I'm going to give everything I have, even if I blow up, even if I come in an inch or a second behind. Hell, Regal, even if I end up having to walk on this marathon. But I need something extra. I gave it everything I had. I. I knew that I. I had been holding back a little bit, just hoping that there'd be some guarantee that if I gave everything I had that it would turn out the way I hoped. Well, life doesn't give you those kind of guarantees, does it? You know, life is asking you to give everything you have, and then let's see what happens. And so that I just stopped focusing on trying to win. And I said, I'm going to give everything I have, but I need something else. The next mile, I made up 40 seconds. The one after that, I made up a little. A little over 50 seconds. And the mile after that, I made up a minute and 15 seconds on the guy who had been leading for over six hours. Finally, at mile 23, I came up behind Thomas Hellriegel, and I made the final pass of my Ironman career. And I went on to win that sixth title, beating Thomas by about two and a half minutes. And it might Sound like a big gap, but if you figure it as a percent of the total amount of time that we race each other, the difference in our times was less than one half of 1%. Again, a very, very small difference on a very, very long day.

It is a incredible story and a. Like just one of those races that you. Well, I would love to have been, you know, on the sidelines watching. Clearly the, The. The impact that. That Brant Segunda has had on. On you in your racing has been significant. Can you kind of sum up what I think shamanism is? The. Is that correct? Tell us a little bit about what that is and kind of explain to the layman what. What it is.

Yeah, shamanism. I mean, there's. There's many shamanic cultures. Any kind of indigenous culture all around the world has them, from Russia to Thailand to Australia to, you know, North America, just to Central America, South America. And basically, it's. It. It's a tradition that. That truly tries to connect with the energy of nature. And so you might ask yourself, what does that mean? Well, think about those moments where maybe you. You went on vacation in the winter and you went. Went to the Alps, for example, to ski, and, and you showed up and you're in. You know, you look up and there's Chamonix or wherever you're at, and you look at Mont Blanc with all the. The snow on it, and you just go, wow, look at that. You know, in. And in that moment where you go, wow, you've made a connection with that place in nature and you. You feel the beauty of it and it becomes part of you. And, and in that moment, you also. You forget about your credit card debt, you forget about every problem that you have. You just feel good. And the more times we sort of focus on connecting with that energy of nature and feeling good, as crazy as it sounds, it's important to practice feeling good. You know, then that becomes a place that we can go to more and more often because it's someplace. It's. It's a place within ourselves where we feel good and we know that we can trust in life when we're in that space. And so in those moments, you know, and so that's there. There, you know, they're simple practices that, you know, you go. You watch a sunrise, you watch a sunset, you sit by a river and listen to the sound. You. You go to the ocean and just, you know, feel the energy of those waves or whatever it is, you know, and the more you. The more I did that with Brandt, the more that was Also where I was able to go when I was in need of feeling good in the race. So, you know, I'm feeling like crap. My legs are killing me, my quads are killing me. I don't know if I can take another step. And I look around and I, I realize this place, the big island, where I for many years felt like I was trying to push away that intensity and that rawness. I could like, I could just like embrace it and feel that strength. And it was like inside of me as well. And that gave me just this energy or life force similar to how I was experiencing that with that image or vision of don Jose in 1989. And so in the moments, especially in that last race against Hellriegel, you know, I knew as a 37 year old that I physically, I didn't have the same reserve that the young guys did. But I also knew that every single athlete out there was going to have moments where they doubted that they were going to be able to keep going. Their legs were killing them and they might be start whining to themselves. And when you're whining, whining so much energy is being distracted from giving your the best effort that you can. And so the young guys, I was hoping that maybe it would take them two minutes or five minutes to sort of regroup and get back to that real race place within themselves. And I wanted to be able to do that in one second because I was going to have those moments. But I also knew that the more time I spent just engaged, given everything I had, that that was going to be the best race that I could possibly have. And so that's how it sort of evolved into, you know, and I knew that I had to do the training too. I mean, you can have the most positive attitude in the world, but if you haven't done the work, forget it. You're still going to have a crappy race, right? You might have a great experience, but your race isn't going to be the same. And so, you know, I did the training physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and ultimately that's, that's what gave me that race. And, and you know, in the, in the broadcast, Phil Liggett, one of the, one of the announcers, you know, at one point on the marathon, he's like, Mark Allen is like a robot in perfect control of his functions and he's, you know, closing in on Thomas Hellriegel. And you know, he made it sound and I looked like I was just in control the whole time. But ultimately, and I tell this to the athletes that I coach, I say the greatest victories can never be seen. And those are the victories you're going to have over that lesser part of yourself that so easily could have just given up or thrown in the towel or said, it's not worth it, it's too painful, I don't need this. And every time you overcome that and you get back into that peaceful yet powerful feeling, grateful to be out there looking around and feeling the amazing power of that island, you know, that's a victory and you have another one and another one and another one, and nobody will be able to see that. And nobody but you will truly know what it took for you to get across that finish line at the end of the day. And you'll, you'll look back and you'll reflect on that. And, and I think that's why the Ironman in Hawaii is so special, because it's, it's a tough day, it's a challenging day, but people can look back and reflect over the years and go, wow, that truly was amazing. Truly was amazing.

You've spoken quite a lot and I'm a big fan of, you know, sort of the like, mindset approach and reflecting on races and, you know, learning a lot from every race that you do and sort of training that you do. And obviously when you first started out, compared to now, we've got so many things like noisy things in our minds, but also, you know, you can sit on a Turbo trainer in front of Zwift or whatever, you can sit and watch a movie, you can put loud music on. How much do you think that sort of affects athletes now? Because to get into a quiet sort of mindset and this kind of quietness that you're talking about, do you think that has a big effect on athletes that, you know, because in a race you can't listen to music, you can't sit in front of Zwift. So, you know, what, what are your thoughts on kind of how athletes train now with so much, I call it noise, but like noise around their training?

Yeah, I think that's, that's one of the, the challenges. That's sort of the, the double edged sword. You know, people are able to dial in their physical training a lot better than I was able to because of power meters and heart rate monitors and things that measure your sleep and all that kind of stuff. However, it's, I, I feel it's super important to still develop sort of the intuitive sense about yourself and, and to develop that ability to manage and deal with yourself, you know, and so, you know, one of the reasons that, let's say you're getting ready for an ironman, one of the reasons you do long days is part of it obviously is to physically get your body ready to be able to keep going hour after hour. But also it's to learn how to sustain your focus for a long period of time and to not let yourself get distracted, distracted from the task at hand. And to learn how to get into a space where you have a certain level of patience. Like I said, you're not wanting the thing to be over, you're just willing to just be there hour after hour after hour. And you know, like some of the, some of the, you know, research stuff where people are doing high intensity workouts and they're saying, oh well, all you got to do is like these 10 second like super all out things and you get the same changes in your mitochondria is like as if you wrote for six hours. Well, maybe your mitochondria will look like a super endurance athlete from doing that kind of training, but your mind will not be anywhere close to as strong as it needs to be to, to learn how to just stay with it. And so you know, one of, one of the things like people ask me, well, did you listen to music when you trained? And I go, no, I never did. Except I would, I would if I was on a stationary trainer because I didn't want to drive myself insane. But most of the training I did was actually outdoors and, and when I was outside I wanted to tune into my body. I wanted to compare pair the feeling in my body to what numbers that I did have, like my heart rate so that I, I started to develop that sense, sense of an intuitiveness about myself. And when you're just in your own silence, you're able to, to, to know when you're quiet and when you're chattering and when your mind's going off and so you can practice getting into that race mind space where you know, you're focused and you're just there and you're giving everything you have. And like I said, giving everything you have is going to look different on different days. So some days giving everything you have is going to have you run your run loop faster than ever before. And other days it's going to be a lot slower than it was before. But learning how to give 100% in a 20% situation is a valuable tool so that when you're in a race and you have your up moments and your down moments, the down moments don't distract you. You still give 100% in that 50% moment or that 40% moment. And then your body comes around, you make some adjustments, maybe you slow down a little bit or you take in some sodium or you get a little extra few more calories in, and then things start to come back up and no matter where you are, you're giving 100% of what you have to give in all of those up and down moments. And that's when you have your best race.

Brilliant. Absolutely fantastic advice. One of the things that. So you've obviously got so much experience of Kona both as an athlete and having coached athletes through Kona. For somebody like Claire, it's their first Kona. Is there any. Is there any other advice that you would give to somebody that's doing their first Kona to try and get the most out of it? Not just from a performance point of view, but also from a. From a spiritual point of view?

You made a big mistake going to Conan. You know, for me, it's. It's funny or not funny, but interesting. Like, the people that seem to cross the line and have the biggest smiles on their faces are the first timers. And I think it's because you don't really have anything to compare it to. And so it's like you don't really know if you had a good day or bad day. You just know that you had the day that you had and you cross the finish line and that's ultimately why you're there. And those who cross the finish line and, you know, their shoulders go down and their, their head and they're going like this. You know, a lot of them are the ones who've been there before, and it's like, oh, gee, my time wasn't what I had hoped it had would become. You know, I didn't set a PR or whatever it is. And, and so, you know, ultimately it's sort of like just experience it for what it is and, you know, where did you qualify? How did you. How did.

In South Africa.

Yeah. So, you know, the race and the conditions in the course in South Africa are going to be different than they are in Kona. And as best as you can as a first timer, try to not gauge how your day is going in Kona based on the experience that you had in that race in South Africa because you compared to South Africa, it may feel like you're not having the best day. However, you may be having an amazing Kona day. You know, they're just, they're two different Kinds of things. And when I competed, I didn't do another Ironman for a few years. And so I never had any other experience other than racing in Hawaii. And so I knew what a good day in Kona felt like and I knew what a bad day in Kona felt like. And when I actually went to another Ironman, it was actually Ironman Japan. I'm like, wow, this is actually a lot easier, you know, and had I gone to Japan first and then gone to Kona afterwards, I would have felt like, oh, this is. I'm having a lousy day because this is really hard and I'm not doing very well. Ultimately, I could have been having the best Kona day ever, but I wouldn't have known it if I had compared it. So, you know, as best as you can, just have that day be what it is and then, you know, the biggest sort of second piece of advice that I always tell people for their first time is have it planned out what you're going to do when you get there with your training and don't deviate from it, because you'll get there and you'll see, you know, this year especially, there's going to be like 5,000 athletes out there, swimming and biking and running, and everybody's going to have so much energy and they're going to be going so fast and you're going to be like, oh, my God, I've got to do one more long something or do something super fast. And. And. And it's like, no, stick to your plan. You know, use that excitement to elevate your race on race day. But when you're in your training and in your taper, stick to what you have planned and just have confidence in that you don't need to do one more thing to just prove to yourself that, yeah, I am fit enough to be here and to do it.

I think that's good. That's very good advice in terms of, yeah, sticking to your plan, doing your own thing and not being distracted again, not being distracted by. By noise and other things. So, yeah, thank you for that.

And having just done Ironman Wales, I would say, yeah, it's very. I totally buy into the don't compare to a previous race mantra because having gone Talon before that, and that's a fast track. And then Wales was just brutal. Amazing, but brutal. Yeah, I would definitely buy into that advice.

I think Wales has the most vertical of any iron man. If you combine the bike and the run together, I think. I'm not sure.

I think you're Right. I think you're right. And it felt like, was, it's amazing. I mean, the atmosphere is incredible, but it was, was very hard work. Now one of the things that I'm always super keen to learn more about is technology. And so as soon as I saw that you are working with a tridot, which is artificial intelligence coaching, I was really intrigued by that. So tell me a little bit more about how that works and how you've brought that into your coaching.

Yeah, Tri Dot is a, it's a coaching system that is, it's about 15 or more years in development. And the founder, Jeff Booer, was coaching athletes and keeping track of how specific workouts were affecting an athlete's fitness and performance and measuring it based on, you know, doing FTP tests and stuff like that. And he's developed some really pretty cool algorithms that are able to really look at so many aspects of, you know, your age and, and your, your current fitness and, and doing assessment tests and, and really dialing in, dialing in your training so that you get the most out of it. And it's, it's very predictive in the sense that based on where you're at right now, you can kind of, it shows you, you know, sort of what to expect when you get to race day. And, and that race day time will change based on your fitness and training that, that you get will change based on a lot of different factors also. So like if you do, let's say a run at seven in the morning and it's cool, you know, your, your, your heart rates and everything are going to be, are going to be different than if you do it, let's say, you know, three or four in the afternoon and it's hot. And so, you know, you can input the time of day that you're going to do your workouts and based on, it draws weather data from, you know, wherever you're at your location. If you change altitudes, it'll change it also. So it's really pretty cool as far as being very predictive in how to change your training zones. And there's a lot of factors that go into it, even including genetics. You can input, you can have a DNA test and it'll, you know, some people are going to respond better to doing very low, low volume, higher intensity, other people by doing higher volume, lower intensity. And, and so it's it. In my coaching I have always used sort of software AI to generate training plans and to get people going and then obviously helping them with a personal touch of coaching. Because no AI is Going to be quite as good as ultimately as a human brain and ultimately also. Excuse me. Now, there's so many ways that athletes are. There's so much data coming out of each training session that it's. It would be nearly impossible for me as a coach to really assess every little bit of it and then use that to modify and change training as you go along. Try it out. Does that for you. It's sort of like the difference between, you know, a doctor, 50 years ago, they got. The doctor would show up at your house and they'd hit. They'd have a stethoscope and they'd, you know, okay, breathe and cough, you know, and then they try to figure out what's wrong with you. Now they do an mri, you know, and they can look inside your body. This is sort of like that difference between how we used to train and coach athletes years ago with maybe speed and a heart rate monitor. And now you've got, you know, you've got power meters and you, and you've got GPS and you, and you can measure altitude up and down and you can, you can do great adjusted paces so that, you know, if you're in a hilly place, obviously you can't go at the same pace that you would go if you're running on the flats. And so Tridot factors all of this in and, and really helps dial in the training for the athletes. Super cool. It's something that I knew that I needed to integrate into my coaching. I didn't have the resources or the, or the knowledge to do it. And Tridot's done that, so it's like, oh, my God, this is match made in heaven.

Brilliant. It sounds fascinating and something that, yeah, I need to learn more about, I.

Think, yeah, there's a couple options there. You can have Mark Allen Premium, which is you get me as a coach. And then there's also Mark Allen Edition, that's. You can go and try it out and sign up for that. And that's going to launch just before Kona this year. And it's integrated into that is just a ton of content that we've recorded with me personally, you know, giving tips and advice and, and also explaining a lot of the workouts for the athletes and, and actually doing demonstrations with athletes showing drills that you can do for swimming, for cycling, for running, for, you know, strength training so that you're doing all of the strength moves correctly also. Super cool. That's the Mark Allen Edition. So check out. You can get on the waiting list for that.

And where do we where do people find that?

That's on Tridot and, and I'll send you the link so that you can include that. But yeah, it's a Mark Allen edition in within Tridot. Super cool stuff that's going to launch right before Kona this year.

And you, you used to do, I don't know if you still do seminars on the kind of more spiritual side of what we've been talking about. Are you still doing those?

Yeah. Branch, the CONDA and I do workshops called Fit Soul, Fit Body and it's based on our book Fit Soul, Fit Body nine keys to a Healthier, Happier you. And those nine keys actually are kind of like the, the roadmap that got me to cross that finish line in first place. You know, we, we talk about quieting your mind. We talk about connecting with the spiritual world of nature. We, we explain one of the keys is no one set your quest. You know, why are you doing this? Are you doing it just to win a race? Are you doing it to set a pr or is there. Why are you doing all this training? Maybe it's more of a journey that each day you're seeing that this is enhancing your life because one, it's helping you reduce stress. You're getting that experience of becoming more fit and proficient physically. And then there's another key that's called so known, set your quest and then lift what you ask for. So often, you know, athletes, I want to win Ironman, but winning Ironman is not, it's not a glorious journey. It's doing very simple work day in and day out, being consistent and, and not having every day day be a PR have but living what you ask for. You know, having healthy habits, getting enough sleep, getting enough recovery. You know, all the things like that. And so it's, and then we also talk about how to, how to train smart, how to integrate strength training, how to craft your diet so that it actually works for you and your body. Great great tools and information in the book. And then also that we impart in the workshop. And you can go to Brandt's website, shamanism.com and that has a lot of. That'll show the, the upcoming, any of the upcoming Fit Soul Fit Body retreats that we have along with his.

Of course I wasn't until I started doing my research on the fit for you on the podcast, I wasn't aware of that book otherwise. I, I've, I've just added it straight to my basket and I will, I'll be going through that very quickly because it Sounds brilliant. But those workshops, do they happen in the UK at all or are they in Europe or in the States or.

We've, we've done them all over the world. Yeah, we don't have any planned in the Europe or UK at the moment. The next one, I think, is in February here in Santa Cruz, California. Okay, so bring us over. We'll do it.

Excellent. Sounds like a good plan. I think we need to team up on that. Claire, don't. We will drag them over here. Now, having touched on your book, I always ask every guest of the podcast for any books that they found really impactful that, that they find themselves recommending often. Are there any books that spring to mind that you found really helpful in life?

You know, I, I read a, a book a number of years ago called Good to Great by Jim Collins. And it's, it's business oriented, but it's, it's really an interesting read as far as, you know, what, what makes, what brings about success. And I guess a lot of books about success are. They're all interesting. They each have a, they each have a message. You know, some of Malcolm Gladwell's books, you know, just Talking about the 10,000 hours and, you know, things like that. Each one has a, has a unique little spin on it. But the one by Jim is really interesting. And I guess partly it's because I know him, his wife, one iron man, and what, 1982 or 83? 83, I think it was. Anyway, he's, he's actually a rock climber and for his, his 50th birthday, he wanted to climb El Capitan all in one day, which is a, it's a feat. It takes a lot of training and just the preparation that he went in getting that together and so that he could climb it all in one day. It was super cool. And you know, the way that he does his research to, to come up with the sort of the business principles showing why certain companies have gone from good to great and why others never made that leap. And of course, there's so many parallels, whether you're talking about, you know, an athlete who goes from good to great or those who never quite make it and, or even, you know, sort of fulfillment in life. Like, how do you, how does your experience in life go from good to great? And you know, a lot of it's, a lot of, it's just the hard work. There's no, there's no magic recipe. You know, there's no shortcuts and the big challenges or the big goals in life. Will have big challenges, but that's okay. Those challenges teach us the lessons we need and provide us with the skills we need to go to that next level. And, you know, just as an example from, for, from my racing, after I won in 1989, I. I kind of asked myself, why did I have to go through those first six? You know, why couldn't I have won on the third time or the fourth or the fifth, you know, and, and in looking back, I reflected on the really tough moments that I had and what I learned that enabled me to keep going and make it through those moments. And it was those skills that I brought with me into 1989 that kept me fully engaged even during the down moments in 1989, because I didn't feel great all day long. I had doubts during the race, running next to Dave, I had moments where I didn't think I could hang on. But those skills from those really, really tough races enabled me, in those 70% moments, to give 100% of what I had to give instead of being in a 70% moment and giving up. And so, you know, I, and I tell athletes this all the time that I coach. I say the only bad race is one that you don't learn something from. So whether you set a pr, get first place, or completely blow up, all of those are going to be bad races unless you learn something from them. And if you learn something from them, they are all good races. And so that's, you know, kind of maybe a parting thought for everybody out there. What is it that you're learning from this journey? What are you learning each day? How is this, how is this journey of. In the sport of triathlon, in the world of fitness, how is that enhancing your life? And ultimately, you know, when you have your races, those are, those are, those are kind of like the, the college exam at the end of the quarter of the semester or whatever. You know, what did you learn from it? Forget the result. Forget the, the number associated with it. What did you learn? And ultimately, that's what's going to enrich your life and change you as a person. Fundamentally brilliant.

I think, I think it's Tony Robbins that says there's good experiences and learning experiences, and yeah, I think it's, it's a great way to, to think about every race is right. What can I learn from. From this race? What, you know, what can I take into the next race to make me better and better? I've read Good to Great. Good to Great is a, is a, A brilliant book. I want to Say, great book, but that didn't sound quite right. I didn't, I didn't know the backstory between behind Jim and also his wife being. I don't think I knew that she'd won Iron Man.

So, yeah, Joanne, Joanne Ernst was his wife. She, she, she won it once. She didn't, she didn't race it again, I don't think, after that first time. But anyway, she's an amazing athlete and, and both of them are brilliant people.

Yeah, I, I will, I will kind of revisit that book, actually, because I think, I suspect I might look at it with a different light now. I only, only really had a business hat on when I listened to it. So now one of the things that we've introduced to series four of the podcast is we asked the previous guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who the next guest is. Guest is. So the previous guest to you was Sam Bewley, who is a professional tour cyclist. So, Claire, have you got lined up Sam's question?

So Sam's question for you is, what gets you excited by life? Not a small question.

Yeah, no, that's a, that's a really good question, and it's one that I think should be asked, that people should ask a lot because, you know, you. I know personally, I go through periods where I wake up and I'm like, so excited. Like, I can't wait for the day to start. And then there's other periods where I wake up and I'm like, oh, God, you know, I've got to do this again. Or, you know, my to do list is. Feels like a big elephant sitting on my chest. And those are especially the moments where it's like, you know, what, what excites me, what, what gets me going. And ultimately it's like when, when there's something that I, that I know that I'm. A couple of things. When I, when there's something that I know that I'm sinking my teeth into, that maybe it's a big project and maybe it seems overwhelming, but I know it's going to have a positive impact that gets me excited. And then also, so that's. It's sort of like what I'll be pushing out into the world, you know? So, like when I wrote with Brandt Fitzel, Fit Body, that was a big project, but it was exciting because I knew it was going to be pushing something out into the world that was exciting. When I put together the book the Art of Competition, it was the same thing, a big project, but I knew it was going to be doing something exciting. When I got involved with Tridot, with all of the content that's going into the Mark Allen edition, I knew that was a big project, but it's, it's going to be put out into the world and that's exciting. The second thing that is exciting to me is when there's stuff that I'm doing that I. Where I'm just learning a little something and I know that it's helping me to be a better person each and every day that nobody else is ever going to see, you know, so maybe it's something as stupid as making sure that, you know, when I leave the house in the morning, everything's just kind of like clean and nice and in order. There's. There's no cabinet doors still left open, you know, some. Who cares? It doesn't matter what it is. Or maybe it's just learning a new skill of some sort. Or for me, you know, the sport that I do many days now is surfing. And I've surfed for over 40 years, but no two days in the water are the same. No two waves are the same. Those two swells are the same. And so that gets me excited because each day that I'm out in the water, I'm learning something. It's like I'm learning this thing that has a. Never ending. There's no ending to it. And that's kind of like, you know what Brandt says about shamanism. He said, you never graduate, you're always learning. And, and he actually said, he's, he's emphasized many times. He said, the day you stop learning is the day you start dying. And so, you know, that's, that's really something that, that I, that I reflect on a lot. Like, I still feel like I'm learning and so hopefully that'll keep me going for a while.

Fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. I, Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. I think it's absolutely brilliant. Now, I am really conscious that we. This has been an amazing episode. I've really, really enjoyed chatting to you. I can't let you go.

We.

We are. We're coming up to Kona. Although this episode will actually go out post Kona, so I appreciate I'm about to put you on the spot here, but I can't let you go without asking for a prediction for what you think is going to happen in Kona this year.

I will say since, and who knows if I'm going to be right or wrong, but you'll know by the time this comes out. For the women, I'd say Daniela Ryf. For the men, Christian Blumenfeld, you know, they've both been super on top of their, their game this year. But I also, you know, expect surprises. Kona is not predictable. You know, Daniela, she, she didn't win the last time she was there in 2019. She's, you know, whatever four years older than the last time she won it and so. But she's had such an amazing year this year coming on the heels of pretty lousy season or two prior. Kristen Blumenfeld is not infallible. He does have bad races. He has, things go wrong where he doesn't win, sometimes doesn't even finish. But you know, his performance in May at Iron man World Championship 2021 was just incredible. So strong, very difficult course. You know, he's shown that he can race in the heat. He won Cozumel. Obviously Cozumel is not the same as Kona, but I think he'll be pretty tough to beat. But again, you know, surprises happen and Kona is different than any other race out there. It'll, the thing that'll be interesting for me is just the fact that it's two days of racing. You know, the women on Thursday and some of the age group men and then the rest of the men on Saturday. And it will be interesting to see how, what the quality of the live broadcast is. For example, you know, it's hard for those announcers to fill an entire day of 8 hours or 9 or 10 hours or whatever with stuff. And that's when men and women are together and there's a lot going on. It'll be interesting to see if, if it's easier or harder to have just the women be the focus on one day and just the men be the focus on another day. And it will be interesting to see the impact of two days of racing on the volunteers and the staff of the Iron Man. And I mean it, when they, when 70.3 worlds went to a two day format, that was super cool and it worked really well and it really was a great innovation. Doing a full Iron Man 2 days, that's a different beast. So we'll see. We'll, we'll, by the time this comes out, we'll probably have a lot of those answered.

We will, we will. And having just seen Joe Skipper race in Wales and he won that with a 20 minute stop, a mechanical issue. So he's stationary on the bike for 20 minutes and he still won it. I think he might be giving Kristen a run for his money. And he looks in really good shape at the moment. But yeah, well, I'm going to be there to win. I'm looking forward to being on the, on the sidelines watching Claire and some other friends race and just kind of watch taking in the atmosphere but from the side and so yeah, it's going to be amazing. But Mark, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Thank you so much for your time. Best place to find out about your coaching is the website which is, yeah.

Try dot.com and then I'll send you the links to just the premium and the Mark Allen. So you have that list also. But yeah, Tridot is where all my coaching is at now and a great place you can go to markallensports.com and that also has all the links up for that and information on other aspects of the business that I do. I, you know, I work with a number of companies. One of them is Tennant products that it has amazing nutritional supplements and products that really support your recovery and your training on a very cellular level. Tenant products. I work with a company called 4th Frontier that just developed a heart rate monitor that actually measures your electrocardiogram. So a lot of athletes have been having kind of heart issues that they don't show up in a 15 minute test on a treadmill in the doctor's office. They show up when you're under a lot more strain, like a three or four hour bike ride or something like that. This will detect it early. To help athletes have better health and also dial in their training. I work with Inside Tracker which was super interesting stuff they do. They, they do a blood test and then look at a bunch of health markers in your blood to show what's going on. And out of that they give you what they call your inner age. And so the first blood test that I did, I figured, you know, I'm, I try to do everything right, so my inner age should be like way younger than I am. Right. And so I did the blood test and the results came back and they go, congratulations, you're younger than your real age by four months. I'm like four months, okay, there's no.

Hope for any of us.

Yeah. And I thought oh my God. And they go, no, that's actually really good for your first test. And, and based on all of the different little elements that they're looking at, you know, your cholesterol, your lipids, your glucose, I mean a million things they give you very easy to follow things that you can do to support the areas continue to support the areas where you test really well and to correct areas where things aren't looking so good. And so I, I did those corrections and also at that same time I started taking the tenant products. And about six months after that I did a second blood test and my inner age was now, it is now six years younger than my chronological age. So in, in six months I basically added six years to my life, which is, that's pretty significant stuff.

So can you keep doing that every six months?

Yeah, you know, I'll be like Benjamin Button by the time I'm 80, like three. So there you go.

Fantastic. Mark, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time and I know people are going to absolutely love this, so thank you very much.

Thank you.

Great. Thanks for having me on, everybody. And we'll see you all in Kona.

That was the incredible Mark Allen. If you want to find out more about Mark on with regards to his coaching, the best place is try dot.com forward slash mark dash Allen dition. I'll put that link in the show notes or you can find him@markallensports.com and that's that page. Our website's got all of his social media links and if you want to reference his, his version of the Iron War, the true version of Iron War as he described it, then that is 1989 the story dot com. But I'll put all of those links in the show notes. So, Claire, what did you make of that interview with Mark Allen which, by the way, we recorded before we went to Kona but we've since been to Kona. So what did you make of that interview?

I mean, it was, you know, it was, it was great to, first of all, it was great to speak to him and, you know, speak to kind of the person that you've read so much about and you know, that holds, you know, so much of the history that we, that we read about behind Iron man as well. And I think it was, it was fantastic to be able to chat to him, find out, you know, a little bit more about him and his story sort of behind, behind Iron man and racing and some of the deeper stuff. I think that you maybe we maybe didn't know as well.

Yeah, I thought, I thought it was brilliant. I loved kind of hearing his version of how he got into triathlon. The whole Julie Moss kind of inspiring moment which inspired so many people. But to hear that that was what inspired him was really cool. And the whole Iron War, I know, I thought it was interesting getting his take on the book Iron War. But then hearing him tell the story of Iron War and also his last win at Kona, I just thought it's just brilliant. They're amazing stories. And it's. Yeah, it was really, really cool to listen to. Were there any bits of. Was there one thing that kind of stood out for you in terms of the. The advice that he gave and the. Or kind of. Yeah, what he talked about.

I think, like, particularly for me, because I. I'm kind of of that mindset that I think it's really important when you're doing endurance sport that you're able to have that. We talk quite a lot, don't we, on this podcast, about mental resilience, and that comes. Comes through as a theme, particularly in endurance. But he talked quite a bit about quieting, quietening the mind. That's kind of what he terms it as. And actually that was really interesting, the way he talked about. And actually he talked about it, didn't he, in the, in the, in the race, you know, that he had to really sort of think about really keeping his mind quiet to get him to where he needed to be without, like all of these different thoughts kind of going around. But actually, I sort of took that into, you know, how do you. How do people train? And, you know, one of the things is we often use so many different devices to keep ourselves stimulated. You know, on a turbo, just as a pure example, especially since lockdown, there are so many different ways to stimulate us to get us through a turbo. And actually how many people can actually be in their own headspace when things get tough and what do we think about? And so I think that for me was really, really interesting. And he kind of brings that in, doesn't his. Doesn't he. Into his way of thinking and also teaching as well. And I just thought, yeah, that to me, sort of really, really sat kind of really well and rang really true for endurance sport. But also I think you can use it throughout other aspects in life as well in terms of dealing with certain situations.

Yeah, no, I agree. I thought. I thought it was really good listening to him talk about that. And Paul, shamanism side of things and the. The fit body or fit soul, fit body type mindset I'm really interested in. I think I might go and do one of his courses at some point or one of the brunts are going.

To take the exact same. I was like, I think I'd quite. I think I would quite like to do that actually. Yeah, I think another trip to Kona.

Yeah, actually they're not in Kona. They're mostly in Europe.

Oh.

Or some of them are here in Europe anyway. Actually, there's no. They're in the US and there are some in Europe there. I can't remember. I did look, look them up after we interviewed him, and I think there was some in Germany or somewhere like that, but then they are in, in the US as well. And the other thing that I'm really intrigued by was the Tri Dot, because the whole AI coaching platform, because I, I totally buy into that, in that, you know, these watches and all of our gadgets are kicking out so much data. But I know you've said it before, you know, data is all very well and good, but what are you actually going to do with it? And of course, there's so much data that, yeah, no human being, no coach is going to sit there and go through all of your data and look at, oh, okay, what temperature was it when you did that run and what time of day was it and all. Whereas actually, that's what AI can really do the grunt work on. And I'm doing a bit more digging into tridot because I think it's really, really interesting.

I think it's really exciting where we are at the moment, isn't it? Because we do have so much data, but having, having a way to be able to utilize all of that, and I think for some of it, we don't really know what to do with it right now. I think there's, there's, you know, aspects of it that we don't really know how to fully utilize it, I guess, as well. So it'd be really interesting to see how something like that platform is able to start doing that and actually what it, you know, what does it become in, you know, six months, a year's time as well.

Yeah. Well, as I learn more about tridot, I will happily share on with you on the podcast because I think it's, it's definitely the future. I mean, it's like, I can't remember whether I use the analogy in the interview or not, but, you know, like having a, having a, an electric car, a Tesla that's got Autopilot. I know that if there is a kind of car screeching across the motorway, I've. I've got a much better chance of dealing with it in that moment in, you know, of getting out of the way, but the monotonous of just staying in the lane, following the same speed, I know that AI is better at that than a human because humans get tired or get distracted and, and the AI will do a far better job of it. And it's, it's kind of getting the AI to do the grunt work that I think is, is really has huge potential. So one of the things we talked about remark was you, you were going, you, you were going to race in Kona. So tell us about how, how was racing in the Ironman World Championships, the home of Ironman in Kona. How was it for you?

Hot.

Tell you it was going to be hot.

Actually, funnily enough, when I stepped off the plane to the. When I say airport, I mean you're. For anyone that's been to Kona and for you sat there, Charlie, you'll know what I'm talking about. It was, it was tiny, wasn't it?

It was like it's how an airport should be.

Yeah, I know, I saw that as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was hot. As soon as you, you know, he said about, you know, getting off the plane and it just kind of, kind of, you know, the heat just rose from the black lava. But it was an absolute experience and it. And I think, you know what. And actually this kind of rings true as well. One thing that I always say about sort of endurance events is you have to respect the distance and you have to respect the temperature and you have to inspect the environment and other people around you. And I think this race more than any, you absolutely had to respect that race because it will just take you in and spit you out, basically. You know, if you don't kind of respect the facts and listen to your body, the fact it's going to get hotter and hotter and actually how you deal with that as well. So actually coming back to Mark Allen and talking about quietening the mind and dealing with things, that was a race that you absolutely had to, at certain points just deal with thinking about how you were feeling and what you're going to do with that and rather than thinking about competing almost because, I mean.

Being on the sidelines, I particularly the day that you guys raced on the Thursday, it was absolutely scorching hot. But what, what I don't think I had grasped until I was there was the impact that all of that lava has on the heat. Because when you were in any of the parts of Hawaii where there was greenery around you, it felt hot, but it wasn't unbearably hot.

But you really hadn't it.

Yeah, and there's rain, of course, but. But when you are surrounded by the lava, it just acts like this massive radiator doesn't it? It just. The heat comes at you from every angle and.

Yeah.

So I think, yeah, you absolutely had to respect the heat. And I, I thought it was, it was incredible to see so many people racing you, you included, in such challenging conditions. So it was. Yeah, it was awesome.

Yeah. And you, you were a great spectator is what I'd say.

Well, I've got beer in my hand, so. Yeah, it's nice to be on that side of the fence for a change.

I think, I think it's. It was great in so many ways because, you know, there was the retirement of the voiceover iron man voiceover guy. I forget his name, which is really terrible.

Now that you've put me on the spot, I'm. I want to say Mike Riley.

Yes. That is who it is, isn't it?

Yes.

So that was amazing. And also it was the first year that they've obviously had so many or double the amount of athletes on the island. And I mean it, you couldn't get away from it, really, could you? And I think, you know, again, managing your anxieties and fears and being around all those people, that is very different to any other race you do. You know, I think, I think again, coming, coming back to, you know, what Mark was saying about having the ability to be able to quiet your mind, I think in that instance is actually extremely important in those kind of races and those kind of conditions, I think.

And I've used, I've caught myself saying it a few times since I got back, but what is absolutely incredible, incredible about this sport, and particularly about that event in this sport, is what, you know, like you're, you're a very good athlete and you're, you know, you, you know, you've won age group, your age group in races, but let's be clear, you're not a professional athlete. And yet you are racing on the same day in the same race, on the same track as the pros are racing the World Championship. I mean, in golf, you can, you often say golf's quite special because you can go and play St. Andrews or you can go and play, you know, Royal Burkedale or whatever it is, and that's the same golf course that the pros play, but you can't play it on the day of the Open.

Yeah.

Whereas the fact that you were competing in the race against the top athletes from around the world that are competing for the World Championship, I just think it's incredible. It's. I can't think of another sport that's like it.

And Actually, it was pretty amazing because I guess because of the nature of the course as well, you could actually see a lot of the pros on the day as well. So that was actually, that was something to keep your mind busy for a little while.

You were going up Polani almost around the time that the. The pro ladies were coming down Polani to. To win the race. And because we actually laughed that Kerry ran up to you to kind of give you a few words of motivation and we were worried she was going to take out Annie Howe because she was running down for third place. But it's just. I think that's incredible. I think.

And then.

Yeah, I just think it was. Was amazing. But what was. What was. It was really good for me because obviously I. I would have preferred to have been racing, but it was inspirational to see and it's kind of driven me much harder to. To get there for next year. But it was also quite cool. Having had the interview with Mark Allen on Zoom, I then went and obviously had a chat with a met. Met up with him, had a chat with him. Really lovely, lovely guy. And then I went down on the day that you flew out in the morning and I flew out that evening. I went for a bit of an explore and. Oh, no, no, it was. I think it was the. It was the Sunday. But I went down for a surf, didn't I, at Kalua. But I went and saw the Blue Church where he paid homage to the. The island gods and it was like, I just.

Yeah, really, really nice, doesn't it? You know, I think everybody talks about everything and yeah, you just see all those iconic things and the things that people talk about. So, yeah.

So for those people that are hoping to race Kona next year, myself included, what would be your top tips for knowing what you know now? What would be your top.

I think. I think one of the first things is make sure that you acclimatise as much as possible before you get out there and then do the rest of your acclimatisation because you. I don't think anything can prepare you for what that feels like. And actually what it feels like in even training over there is different to how it feels like on the day. So definitely be prepared for that. I think number two is no matter how many races you've done, and I would say, you know, I didn't get nervous to race anymore. I don't know why, but I think maybe I've just done so many races, I am a bit how sort of Mark Allen speaks. I can quiet My mind, I'm really good at being quiet in my head, so I'm usually quite good at that. But. But Kona is overwhelming. It really is overwhelming. So I think having the ability to be able to train yourself, to not get anxious and overwhelmed by it is. Would be useful. And also having time to get away from everybody as well, because, as you know, you know, there were twice as many athletes this year, male and female, and it's a tiny town and it's packed and it's very difficult to actually get away from everybody. So definitely spending time away from other people and not worrying what training other people are doing and looking after yourself and doing what you need to do is, you know, is really, really important. So I'd say those are the top three. Definitely the top three things that I would.

And you've got. There's got. You've got to throw in one that's related to nutrition.

Well, apart from don't try anything new. I think one of the things I would say is. And one of the things I always talk to athletes about is I usually say have an A B plan. Have an A, B and C plan, because you are absolutely pushing every single button for. For possibly putting yourself out there for GI distress in terms of environment, length of events, anxiety, swimming in the sea, like all of those things, losses of sodium, dehydration. So there are so many factors that play into how we might get GI distress. Like listen to your body and have a really good idea of what your plan is and stick to it, but be flexible. I know that's two opposites, but you have to have a flexible plan for these things for sure.

Did you.

With your. It occurred to me recently. Did you. So I'm normally racing with PH1000, but in that sort of temperature. Should I. Should I be switching up to using 1500 because you're sweating so much, or should you be just sticking to a thousand, but just trying to drink way more?

But essentially because you're. Because we work out sodium requirements and you would know your sodium losses per liter of sweat. So if you are sweating more, which you're likely to be sweating more, unless you really adapt it, in which you're. In which case you're likely to reserve some. Some of it and you will. Is actually sodium to a certain extent, because you'll be drinking more and we talk about the amount of sodium per litre, essentially, you're then drinking more sodium. Does that.

So you should stick to your thousand.

For me, but you'll be having it more regularly.

Yeah.

And you also have the stronger amount before but you know, it's very obviously depending on your sweat, sodium rate. It depends on how much sodium you're going to be taking in. So it'll be different for different, for different people. But you know, big. I think the number one thing is listen, like being open to listen to your body because your body really will slow you down. I mean, on that run there wasn't. I don't think I could have run any faster and yet I knew I was running slowly. There just was nothing, I think more than anything because you get so hot and I. And one of the things I mentioned to you afterwards is I don't feel like I do after racing. Like I didn't feel as tired probably because I couldn't have raced as hard.

Yeah, it's. It's physically demanding but in different ways, isn't it? It's, it's. Yeah, the heat is pulling away and.

I think that's, that's also, you know, something to be open to and learn more about yourself in terms of how you keep like coping the heat, but also other ways of how you'd, how you'd cool yourself down. So I, like, all in all, like I, you know, I. Personally for me, that race I, I managed to finish and I managed to not get gi. Distress. I managed to keep myself cool. Like I think I. For a first Kona race, I think I managed to tick most of the boxes I needed to. So. So next time, next time competing a bit more.

Excellent. No? Well, it was fantastic to see it happen and see you race on Thursday to see James Giles, Paul Gary. Loads of, loads of people I knew racing on the, on the, on the Saturday. See, Zoe was racing on Thursday as well. It's just really cool to see that.

So many people weren't there.

Yeah, all. Amongst all the pros doing it. It was, it was absolutely brilliant. So I've got to get myself a slot there for next year. Hence catch canceling this ultramarathon that we.

Yeah, it was a good idea. I mean, now as I'm listening at the rain pounding down, it's dark outside. To be honest, if I was racing this weekend, I'm not sure I'd want to do.

You know, I did just look at the weather forecast actually and it would have been. If we'd started lunchtime on Friday, it would have been nice until about midnight on the Friday and then it's going to be drizzling all the way through from midnight Friday through till the finish on Saturday. So I'LL be.

There'll be another Ultra today. It's all about timing and getting it right for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think. I think I've got to wait. I'm going to park the concept of ultra running until, until I've ticked the Kona box at least. But anyway, we shall see. Right, let's wrap that up. But yeah, I just really loved that interview with Mark Allen. I hope the rest of you guys did too. And until the next episode, keep on training. And remember, this podcast was sponsored by 33 fuel, so rethink your sports nutrition with 33 fuel award winning natural Sports nutrition for your performance, health and a fitter Future. It's the 33 Fuel Fuelosophy. Get yours at 33fuel.com and if you use the discount code Tribeathlon or the link in the show notes, you'll get a discount at the checkout. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do review it and share it because it helps other people find what we think is really valuable learning lessons from amazing athletes. So please do that. You can also find the whole back catalog at Tribath and you can also find out about the Tribe Athlon app which helps people find events, find people to train with and enjoy their events through their tribe. So check out tribathlon.com.