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

Episode Transcript
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Alistair Brownlee (00:07):
confidence I always thought was actually, on
the whole was a very kind offake construct.
You know, if anything gave youconfidence, that ultimately
wasn't hard work and preparation.
It was fake confidence and Iprobably wouldn't have used
those terms.
But self-belief came from thework and the preparation and
good decision making.

Charlie Reading (00:28):
What if the key to Olympic gold and a life well
lived came down to only astride?
Well, in this episode we sitdown with the complete legend
that is Alistair Brownlee,two-time Olympic champion,
endurance icon and someone who'sbeen redefining what it means
to win on the course and in life.

(00:49):
We dive into a decision thatperhaps changed everything
walking away from CambridgeUniversity.
We dive into the power ofbrotherhood and why helping his
brother over the finish line inMexico taught him more than any
medal ever could.
Helping his brother over thefinish line in Mexico taught him
more than any medal ever could.

(01:10):
We explore risk identity afterretirement and why winning
doesn't always feel the way youthink it will.
So, whether you're chasing yourown endurance goals or
navigating high-pressuredecisions in life or business,
this conversation delivershard-earned wisdom straight from
one of the sport's most drivenminds and most successful
athletes.
This is all about resilience,reinvention and finding joy in

(01:34):
the journey, even when thefinish line keeps moving.
So let's dive into thisincredible interview with
Alistair Brownlee.
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(02:41):
the Business of Endurancepodcast.
I am really looking forward tohaving this conversation and
really looking forward to kindof diving into both your
triathlon life but also yourbusiness life, which has become
an increasing portfolio fromwhat I've seen so far.
But I'd love to start off withthat Olympic victory in London

(03:01):
2012.
You know it was such an iconicmoment in sport, wasn't it?
And I know you must have spokento it about it so many times.
But I'd really like to kind ofstart with that and kind of
understand well, there's thisphrase that kind of keeps coming
out when I listen to you talkand listen to your books about

(03:22):
only by a stride.
So can you sort of take us backto that race in Hyde Park, the
atmosphere, the pressure, theexecution, and talk us through?
You know what was going throughyour mind as you approached
that final stretch and what didonly by a stride mean to you on
that day of course it's an awfullong time ago now, but I don't

(03:43):
mind talking about it at all.

Yeah, that really was the culmination of a
lot of years work.
I had known about the OlympicGames in London for seven years,
since I was at school and heardthat London had won the bid to
host the Olympic those OlympicGames in 2012.
And yeah, I probably thoughtabout it in almost every day in
those seven years.
I obviously worked very hard inalmost every day in those seven

(04:05):
years.
I obviously worked very hard inthe lead up to it.
I was expecting to win, I thinkis the right way to put it.
I put a lot of pressure onmyself to go out and perform on
that day.
And that particular quote onlyby a stride came from something
that my coach, malcolm, had saidto me many years before.
He said you know, you've got tobelieve you can win that race

(04:25):
in london, but only by a stride,which was just a a great bit of
advice.
So you know what he meant bythat and kind of a philosophy
that I took forward was that youknow you maybe I don't actually
believe in confidence, but havethe knowledge that you you can
win the imagination and to planto how to do it, um, but believe
that you know, keep working,keep relent to plan how to do it
, but believe that you know,keep working, keep relentlessly

(04:48):
working hard towards the goal,because you have to be prepared
to win by the smallest ofmargins.

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

was quite a lot of pressure, I think from a
triathlon perspective.
You know you don't really getused to kind of media pressure
and all of a sudden it felt likein the lead up to that people
would be asking me on the streetor in the local shop or, you
know, whatever I was doing, howare you looking forward to

(05:25):
Olympics, are you lookingforward to winning, are you
going to beat this guy or thatguy?
And so the expectation rampedup and felt enormous.
But it's a cliche adage insport that you know the most
significant pressure is theinternal pressure that you put
on yourself, and that was verymuch the case for me.
You know it was years of work,thousands of hours of support
from people around me, sleeplessnights, you know, stress,

(05:47):
everything else, and so it was.
It was very much about me and Iknew, you know, I put an
enormous amount of pressure onmyself.
I guess to that I knew that wasnot one day in every four years
but one day in a in a career Icould win a home olympic game.
So yeah, that was the pressurereally, and I was very lucky on
that day that I had a great day.
Everything had gone perfectlyin the few months beforehand and

(06:09):
I was ready to perform Talk usthrough the race.

So what happened that day?
What do you think were thedefining moments on that day?

It's obviously impossible to plan out
a triathlon because there's somany external factors that can
happen that you can't control,but we tried to plan it as as
much as possible.
The swim split to, I think, sixpeople and that was pretty much
perfect.
And then there was a group justbehind and johnny and me had a

(06:38):
third british teammate therecalled stew hayes, who was there
really to help and support us.
He was in that group and thenhe really controlled the race
for us and it came down to therun and on the run quickly,
there was three of us left ofJohnny, javier Gomez and me and
I think halfway through the runI started pulling away and I

(06:59):
just remember, I think, withabout two kilometers to go, a
coach saying you know you've gotseven seconds, and I was
thinking, yeah, two kilometresto you know, to win the Olympic
Games, and yeah, it was justamazing running down the last
few hundred metres.

Did anything ever get on all of your
successes?
Did anything ever rival thatmoment?

No, not even close.
It was, yeah, really special,obviously, being at home and
enormous crowds, incredibleamount of noise and, yeah, still
in all those crowds, being ableto see so many people and you
is really incredible brilliantand just to sort of come back to
that, only by a stridestatement from malcolm who, by
the way, has been on the podcastlike, I think, three years ago

(07:43):
or something.

Lovely, lovely guy and really kind of
insightful.
What does that only by a stridemean to you today, in your
current life?

It means very much the same thing, but I
think it doesn't really matterwhat avenue you're looking at.
To achieve anything, you needto work hard.
To achieve anything worthwhile,it's going to be hard work and
you know you need to work hardto achieve anything worthwhile
it's it's going to be hard workand you know you need to be
prepared to to achieve it by avery small margin.
So, yeah, kind of believe orimagine that you can do it.

(08:14):
I'm actually not a big believerin the importance of belief.
I think you've got, you've gotto imagine you can do it and and
kind of be able to come up witha path and a plan to get there.
But no, there's going to be upsand downs along the way.

Claire Fudge (08:29):
And ultimately it's going to be touch and go.
Yeah, I think back to watchingthings like the Olympics and
swimmers and the margin by whichthose swimmers are winning.
You know the tiny amounts.
So what you say really kind ofresonates in terms of that's all

(08:50):
it takes to.
I say that's all it takes towin, but that is the you know
the winning part.
So tell us a little bit aboutsort of how you got to where you
are.
That big sort of decision, Iguess, to either go to was it
Cambridge University, I think orpursue this career in triathlon
.
So how did that?
How did that happen?
Who were you guided by?
Was it your dad that helped youmake that choice?
Tell us a bit about that, yeah,it was a very big decision in
my life.

I started studying medicine at Cambridge
University, which was obviouslyan absolutely incredible
opportunity, and you know, I'dworked hard through my school
years to get there, to be honest, and at the same time, at a
very similar time, I'd won thethe world junior triathlon

(09:28):
championships.
I was thinking, oh wow, youknow, all of a sudden there's a
chance here that I couldactually do my dream, which is
to be a professional triathlete.
I mean, you've got no idea ifit's possible to be a
professional triathlete, to behonest.
But I thought, you know, I'mthe best junior in the world.
There are, you know, a fewsponsors coming on board and a
bit of lottery funding.
This is really special.

(09:49):
That path has opened up to me.
So I just had a big, bigdecision to make and I actually
started studying Cambridge forsix months or something and
really decided that I had tokind of pursue that dream in
sport.
And that's what I did.
I went and made the decisionand it was a massive decision.
It was really, really tough andI'm very thankful that it

(10:12):
turned out well, to be honest,but I had great support from
people around me, great supportfrom my parents.
You know, my dad literally toldme you have to follow your
dreams, which was really specialand, yeah, I think, if anything
, you know both my parents morethan anything.
The kind of mantra was itdoesn't really matter what you
do, just do it to the best ofyour ability.

(10:32):
So, yeah, that that.
I think that was always kind ofin the back of their mind as
well, that, yeah, okay, you knowacademics and everything's
important, but as long aswhatever you're doing, you're
really doing well, I thinkthat's more important.

Sounds like a like , a huge, a huge decision which
paid off ultimately, like.
How did that decision makingand those conversations with
your mum and dad, how did thatshape potentially your mindset
or how you went about yourcareer in triathlon?

It was a very important decision for me
because I think, you know, itmeant that I always felt like I
owed it to myself to dotriathlon to the best of my
ability because I could havebeen doing something else and I
had a really viable other optionthat I'd turned down and made
kind of a big sacrifice, amongmany other sacrifices, of course
, for my sporting career.

(11:22):
So it kind of felt reallyimportant that I did it to the
best of my ability.
Whether that, you know, whetherit did make any difference or
not, I don't know, but Iremember thinking that a lot
that you know I've got to reallydo this well, to to not let
myself down, and and so the kindof you know, the principles of
that decision definitely reallystayed with me.

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

I don't know if I view risk differently.
You know risk has manycomponents, doesn't it?
Obviously, the size of thepotential outcome and what
you're losing, and all of thosedeal with the heuristic of loss
aversion in there.
And I think, as a young man,what I was perceived to be
losing probably that pointwasn't that much, because I

(12:15):
thought I could always go backand study at this point and so
it felt, even though it was amassive decision, it felt like
the actual potential loss wasrelatively small.
Yeah, for sure.
As you get older, things get abit tougher and what you could
lose gets a bit bigger.

Good answer.
Is there sort of one thing, ora couple of tips that you might
give to young, up-and-comingathletes who may be faced with
this decision?
Is there sort of one thing thatyou might advise them?

It's really tough because not one size fits
all.
I do think.
I generally think you know,pursuing academics and having
things outside of sport isreally important.
So you know, I actually kind ofrecommend that a lot and I did
keep on studying outside mysport and I think that was
important for me.
And but yeah, I think you know,ultimately, if, if it does come

(13:09):
to the point where you have tomake a decision like that, you
can sit down and you can weighup the pros and cons, but it
just has to be a veryinstinctive decision at the end
of the day and you have to justgo out and make that decision.

I think it's also so.
I think what's reallyinteresting is that your dad
gave you permission to make thatdecision.
I think it's also so.
I think what's reallyinteresting is that your dad
gave you permission to make thatdecision.
There's a lot of parents that,having got you to that point,
would have felt like you werewasting all of the hard work
that you'd done elsewhere inmedicine, and I think that's
amazing that he did that.
I actually, you know, I grew upon a farm and a lot of farming

(13:44):
families would have put pressureon me to go into farming, but
when I saw an opportunity in theworld of finance, I was also
given the freedom to make thatchoice and basically give it a
go, and I think that's justreally empowering.
So I think that's amazing.
One of the other statements Ithink also came from Malcolm
Brown was pressure is aprivilege and competing at

(14:06):
London 2012,.
Absolutely there must have beenhuge expectations, as we've
already said.
So what's meant by pressure isa privilege?
I hadn't heard that term untilI think it was in Relentless
that I heard it for the firsttime.
So what do you mean by that andhow do you turn pressure into

(14:26):
performance rather than fear?

I think to me it means that I think Malcolm
basically said this that youknow you only have pressure
because you've achievedsomething before and achieving
something before is better thannot achieving anything, and that
was the kind of so.
So it's a privilege to be inthat position and it's yeah,
it's better than not achievinganything, and that was the kind
of so.
So it's a privilege to be inthat position and it's yeah,
it's better than the alternative.
And that was something I talkedto me in terms of performance,

(14:52):
kind of tell a verystraightforward anecdote about
it.
You know, I remember obviouslybeing quite overwhelmed with the
pressure around london.
I remember going out onto thecourse before the race to have a
little warm up and go for a bitof a bike ride and there's
already crowds on the side ofthe course and just looking
around and there's tens,hundreds of thousands of people

(15:13):
there, you know signs, flags,everything, and the noise was
incredible and thinking, oh, wow, you know this is an enormous
amount of pressure.
It's very nerve wracking allthese people here, very
nerve-wracking all these peoplehere.
And then almost it's somethingflipping in my kind of mind and
just thinking wow, what anincredible thing that actually
99% of these people here arehere to support me and you know,

(15:34):
and try and help me and justwant to see me do.
Well, how special is that.
And the whole thing of actuallypressure and expectation and it
being a positive it yeah,thankfully, rightly or wrongly
did it did a complete 180 in mymind when I heard it I thought
that I can really relate to that.

I think you know, like the the moment I
thought of was the first time Ispoke in front of a huge
audience like 11 000 people,which I probably isn't a
particularly big audience foryou, but it was a big audience
for me.
I was like I I tried toposition it that this wasn't
nerves.
I was feeling this wasexcitement.
And then when I heard that Iwas like actually, yeah, that's

(16:13):
the way to kind of almostposition that in your mind is
this is, you know, I think thisis a huge privilege to now have
to be here.
So I really like I thought thatwas really really powerful.
If we fast forward to Rio, youand Johnny have this.
You know you're front of therace and you tell this story of
him giving you a tell which waskind of what allowed you to go

(16:35):
on and win another gold medal.
What was that moment likebetween the two of you and what
did it reveal about yourrelationship, not just as
brothers but also as competitors?

Yeah.
So the story, very quickly, isthat the race in the Rio Olympic
Games was going perfect forJohnny and I.
There's just the two of usfirst and second in the race,
with quite a gap to the thirdperson, I think, with five
kilometres to go of the run.
You know, just, perfectscenario, um, absolute dream.
And we're running for an aidstation and Johnny kind of says

(17:09):
to me, relax, slow down, youknow, don't overheat.
And I just, you know, knewstraight away that that meant
that he was struggling andspeeded up to to pull away from
him, which ultimately was therace winning move.
And he likes to say you know,this is proof of us to being,
you know, the most most ruthlessand selfish competitor there is
, which is true to an extentAmara taught is always well, if

(17:31):
you can't be very ruthless witha few kilometers left of the
Olympic Games, I don't know whenyou can be, doesn't need to,
doesn't mean you need to be veryruthless the whole time.
But yeah, I think it alsospeaks to the kind of depth of
understanding we had as brothersthat, you know, I kind of knew
that kind of cue from Johnnymeant that he was struggling and

(17:53):
of course I would exploit it.

I remember asking Mark Allen the impact of,
you know, did Dave Scott makehim a better triathlete and a
better athlete of any sort?
And he said absolutely.
I'd have never have got towhere I got to without having
Dave getting me, forcing me toget to that point.
How much do you think thatJohnny's played that role and

(18:18):
how big a difference did it makethat he was, you know, your
brother and therefore growing upin that house?

Oh it's's, it's enormous, without a doubt.
I think there's the kind ofpragmatical importance he's had
to me and we've had to eachother, which is being able to
train together.
We were each other's probablybest training partners for a lot
of those years, being able topush each other in the right
sessions, um.
But then there's the the other,probably kind of emotional

(18:45):
support thing.
We were young people travelingaround the world, going to races
and training camps all over theplace and dealing with similar
levels of pressure andexpectation and stresses, and I
think all of that actually waswas really important maybe,
maybe sometimes more importantthan than being able to train
together all the time socontinuing on that theme of like

(19:07):
your relationship with yourbrother, both from a sporting
perspective, living together,and also brothers the very
well-known story of cozumel andyou helping johnny over the line
.

I know you've probably talked about this a
hundred times over, but what I'dreally like to know is what do
you think people maybemisunderstand about that moment
where you helped Johnny over theline?
Um, is there a question that noone's actually asked you, but
maybe um should have asked you?
What do we not know about thatmoment?

that is a good question, like what's the
question?
You've not been asked about itbecause, because I've been asked
about it so much, is theresomething that people should
know that don't already I don'tknow, maybe there's, maybe
there's probably a lot morebackground to it than people
realize.
So that was at the end of aseason.
Johnny had actually had anotherheat episode earlier in that

(20:00):
year in australia and as aresponse to that I'd actually
looked up the world triathlonsheat policies at the time and
basically found out that theyhadn't applied any of their own
heat policies at that race.
So I'd been quite on it.
And then the.
It was very clear that the racein Cozumel was actually going
to a certain time of day I can'tremember the exact times, but

(20:22):
it was very clear that actuallyit was going to be that
basically not allowed on, or orat least kind of there'd be a
debate over is allowed on the onthe heat rules, and so it would
already been actually put backa few hours to a slightly cooler
time of the day.
And yeah, I'd raced in the worldaquaflan championships a few

(20:42):
days earlier and, like told the,the, the organizers I just said
, this is, you know, crazily hot.
It's like no conditions I'veever raced in, I've only done in
the craft alone, and it wasbrutally warm.
And then seeing some junior andyouth races earlier that week
where people had struggled, um,so yeah, the kind of context was
that I think there's it wasprobably relatively dangerous

(21:04):
anyway, and then, yeah, for theworst to happen in the last few.
Well, 100 metres was a bigshame.

Thinking about the question that people didn't ask
, I guess, was like what werethe conditions?

you know, like, but from what you're
saying, actually potentially therules, actually whether they
maybe nudge those a little bitin terms of it being actually
too hot to take part yes, theconditions, the rules based on
something called wet bulb glowtemperature, which is a
combination of ambienttemperature, humidity and the

(21:36):
strength of the sun, I think,and it's kind of all of those
are brought together to havethis, this kind calculation, and
if it's over a certain amountit's rated as black and you're
supposed to shorten it.
But there's all kinds ofdecision with the technical
official and the medicalofficial, I think, and I can't
remember the exact numbers, butif it had been earlier in the

(21:58):
day the race would have been100% and probably too hot, and
this keeps coming up again andagain now in races, I guess in
hotter places, like you know,the Tokyo Olympics, it was hot
and potentially an issue couldhave been an issue in the Paris
Olympics as well, and it's allabout keeping athletes safe.

Just thinking about that actually, in terms of
, like, the environment and thechanging weather, whether that's
, you know, downpours of rain wesaw that in the the olympics
actually, didn't we?
In terms of people coming offthe bikes.
Do you think they're going tohave to rethink triathlon in
terms of being more flexible,like water quality, time of day
of racing?
What are your thoughts on that?
I don't know if you've thoughtabout it in terms of environment

(22:38):
well, the water quality issueis slightly different.

I think.
If you want to host a race in acity centre, water quality,
unfortunately, is always goingto be an issue.
It doesn't matter what countrywe think it's a uniquely British
problem, I can guarantee it isnot.
And so if you host a race inthe middle of a capital city,
front of great landmarks wherepeople can watch it, and you've
got that risk, or do you want itsomewhere where you can

(23:08):
guarantee clean water?
So that just is a kind of thepragmatical approach of where we
are In terms of the climatewarming up.
You know, I guess, as areaswarm up, yeah, it's going to be
have to be an issue that peoplelook at and like what time of
year to host events and whattime of day.

I think yeah, it's going to be really
difficult, isn't it?
And I think, yeah, you wantthat spectacle, but that
spectacle, you're right, I'venever really thought about the
fact that the spectacle is inthe city centre and that's kind
of not the best place to bedoing it.
Just to stick on the heatsubject before we move on,
obviously.
So you obviously studied this.

(23:45):
You raced in Kona, as Claireand I both have.
What did you eventually learnabout the best way to deal with
the heat?

Yeah, I mean really I think that, dealing
with the heat, your body adaptsto heat in the same way it
adapts to heat and the, the, thekey adaptions that you get in
the short term increasing yourplasma volume, potentially

(24:16):
increasing your sweat rate anddecreasing the sodium you sweat
and then some longer term,chronic adaptions of heat shock,
proteins and various things.
Um, and then I think, even muchlonger term adaptions where you
can potentially get even moreefficient in the heat, the kind
of the.
My understanding of thescientific literature on it is
that you can get a lot of themain kind of global adaptions

(24:39):
with it quite quickly.
I think, probably between sevenand 10 hours of having a raised
core body temperature.
And so I did find that.
I found personally, even thoughmy ability to exercise in the
heat started at quite a lowlevel, I felt that I actually
adapted quite well to it when Idid, when I did train in it.
And, yeah, you can do that athome in heat tents and saunas,

(25:01):
which isn't a lot of fun andthat's referred to as
acclimation, or you can gosomewhere warm and do it, which
I much preferred.

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

well, I wouldn't.
I don't know if I've learnedanything yet apart that I didn't
already know, which is just Istill love being active and
exercise.
The definitely thing I actuallymiss most about racing actually
the simplicity of life there is.
I still think there is nothingin life which is probably quite
as simple as existence has beenan athlete.

(25:47):
You have one north star goal,which is, on a daily basis, to
train as high as you can and getphysically better, and, on a
slightly longer term basis is toperform at the best of your
ability in the next event youhave.
You know you got the excuse tobe incredibly selfish and do
only what you want to do andreally your life is
fundamentally about training,eating, sleeping, resting and

(26:11):
trying to get better every day,and actually that simplicity is
actually really nice.

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

Still very much working out at the moment.
I feel like, well, I have beenon a various bunch of prolonged
holidays over the last fewmonths and, yeah, I've kind of
worked hard over the last fewyears to put a few things in
place to have to keep me busypost-career, and, yeah, I'm
working out how much more I wantto do of each.

I think we're going to come on to some of the
things that you have been doingactually, but interesting that
you know taking time out afterbeing a full-time professional
athlete.
I'd be interested actually tounderstand when working with
professional athletes, someathletes get a lot of support
when they are retiring fromtheir sport or they're, you know
, ready to leave their sportbecause of injury.

(27:04):
How much support did you getwhen you decided to retire, if
any Like?
Did it help you kind of shapeideas about what you might want
to do, or?

I guess no actual technical official
support, but an absolute ton ofnon-official support from a
great network of people aroundme, whether that's family,
friends, people that I've metthrough triathlon, coaches,
people in business.
Yeah, I feel very, very luckyto have had tons of support,

(27:38):
plenty of people to go onholiday with and plenty of
people that have given meopportunities to try and
experience other kind ofbusiness ventures, ways of
working and experiences, and Ithink that has been really
important to me and that networkof support, yeah, it's
something I'll always be verygrateful for.

I guess actually you know working in a in a
environment where you've gotlots of athletes around you and
then lots of support team.
You've been used to likeworking in that environment
where there's everyone's helpingeach other out as well.
One thing that you have done isin Relentless in your in your
book Relent, you discussed withI think it was with Michael Owen
the difference betweenconfidence and self-belief, and

(28:17):
actually you said right at thebeginning of this interview
about you don't believe inconfidence.
So for you, like, what's thedifference?

Tell us a bit about where that comes from um,
tell us a bit about where thatcomes from.
Yeah, michael owen had thislike great way of articulating
that for his him, the differenceof confidence and self-relief
was that confidence is verytransient, can come and go and
you know can.
If you miss a couple ofpenalties it goes and you you
score a few goals, it comes backin abundance, whereas

(28:49):
self-belief is much lesstransient and much more
important.
You know, if you havefundamentally self-belief is
much less transient and muchmore important.
You know, if you havefundamentally self-belief in
your abilities, that's what'simportant to be good on the
field.
And yeah, I mean I think thatthat is important.
For me, confidence I alwaysthought was actually, on the
whole, was a very kind of fakeconstruct.

(29:10):
You know, if anything gave youconfidence, that ultimately
wasn't hard work and preparation, it was fake confidence, and I
probably wouldn't have usedthose terms.
But self-belief came from thework and the preparation and and
good decision making and theweeks, months and years leading
up to an event.
That that, for me, built myphysical and mental ability to

(29:33):
go out and perform and anythingthat added onto that.
That ability to perform, orsubtracted from it, was a was
was fake anyway, and so that'show I would kind of.
I know that's not necessarily astrict definition, but that's
how I felt what confidence wasabout, and I guess self-belief
was a much more deep-rootedconstruct.

It's a really interesting way to think about
it.
When you're at the the startline of a race or, you know,
preparing yourself like ready torace, is that what you had in
your mind and, in terms of thisself-belief that you could do it
like, did you have that vision?

um, I think it's important.
I always discriminated betweenbelieving I could win the race
and imagining how I could winthe race, and I really I didn't
believe that confidence in myability to win was important.
I always stood on loads of startlines thinking I've got almost
no chance here, or I've got aone percent chance here, but the

(30:32):
one percent chance I've gotlooks like this and I'm going to
try and execute it anyway.
And I guess I was very just,had a very pragmatical approach,
like it doesn't really matterif I believe I can win this or
not.
This is, if there is a way towin it, this is the most likely
way of doing it and that's whatI'm going to try and do.
And so, yeah, I guess there'seven like self-belief, that you

(30:54):
could say well, you could seethe path, you could imagine the
path to get there, and I thinkthat for me, imagination was
always much more important.
Can I imagine myself doing thisand and then create a plan of
how to get there, rather thanactually you can do that and
have zero belief or or like a0.1 belief that you can actually
do it?

interesting I was.
So I'm in london at the moment,which is why my lighting is
awful, because I shouldn't.
I'm not in my normal location,but I went on my did my long run
of the week this morning and Idid it through hyde park and
along serpentine and I waslistening to relentless all over
again, because it's a brilliantbook and there's so, and I love
the conversation with michaelowen, but actually there's so
many brilliant conversationswithin there.

(31:35):
So who was the person that youinterviewed within relentless
that surprised you the most andum and kind of what struck you
about that particularconversation in particular?

it's hard to pick one out.
I tend to like categorize themin in different ways and in
conversations and and things andconcepts that I know and could
really relate to.
You know, talking to PaulaRatcliffe and and Mike Cavendish
, chris Froome, like sports, asyou can imagine that were quite
familiar and ways of thinking.
There was stuff like theMichael Owen thing where I

(32:10):
probably understood and butwouldn't articulate like that.
So I really enjoyed hearingsomeone else's ability to
articulate and explain a concept.
And then there was somethingthat was like a completely
different approach and I waslike, wow, you know, that's
completely contradictseverything that I thought.
And there's actually moreexamples than that than you
think.
You know, some really out there,ones like you and both some of

(32:33):
the things that he said verydifferent, you know, complete
self-belief and confidence andconviction in everything.
This amazing analogy of once Ican't remember exactly what it
is, but basically once you startgoing down the cannon, you're
convicted and you, you, youstick to it and that's kind of
very different to to my thoughtprocess.
But you know, in certain sportsit's very different and I think

(32:56):
one of the things I was reallyinterested in is that approach
to in triathlon you start andthen you crack on, um, but if
you're cricket or or golf oractually many other things,
you're constantly resetting, andso that pressure and the kind
of mental preparation you gothrough is completely different.
But, yeah, another one that Ilike talking about was talking

(33:16):
to AP McCoy at Jockey, which iscompletely different world,
obviously, to my world.
And to talk to him because whenI was researching it, trying to
come across someone who had beensuccessful consistently over
the longest period of time Icould find, which in his case
was 20 years.
And, yeah, it's just amazing totalk to someone who's yeah, had

(33:37):
thousands I think four and ahalf thousand race wins under
his belt and to talk to his hiskind of approach to being so
consistent.
And he basically said, yeah, Imean, I won a lot of races, I
lost a lot more, I ended up inthe ambulance a lot of times as
well, and you've got to take thehighs and the lows.
Never get too excited by thethe best days and never get too

(33:58):
upset by the worst when you lookback.

Was there one overriding theme that kind of
shone out of all of them thatyou weren't maybe were or
weren't expecting, or have toconfess.
When I listened to it againthis morning I didn't get quite
to the end, so I I can'tremember whether you draw one
single conclusion or not, butwhat was?
Was there one overriding themethat you, you pulled out from

(34:22):
all of them?

there were some things I tried to pull out,
but I like, on reflection and Ikind of hinted this that it's
definitely easy to overfit there, you know, and that one of the
things is is actually howdifferent people's approach
approaches are.
To an extent, everyone believesin hard work.
You know Ronnie O'Sullivan.
That's why I started the bookwith him.

(34:45):
He's the first interviewee andsaying that you know, when you
think of someone who's we talkabout so much as having an
incredible innate talent forsomething you know, he says no,
that's ridiculous.
These people don't see theamount of effort and work I put
in on the practice table.

So if there maybe was one thing to draw, I think
that's probably a good place togo I think it's really
interesting to hear, like aboutyou interviewing lots of
different sports people andthose kind of, I guess, probably
some of those main themes thatcome across but difficult to,
like you know, draw thatconclusion now within your kind
of where you are in life.
You've started lots ofdifferent businesses.

(35:21):
Tell us a little bit aboutBrownlee Racing, because you
know now you're working withteams in a slightly different
way.

Yeah, so various things going on.
I think at the the center ofall of this is the, a management
agency called Blue Carpet thatwe started nearly 10 years ago
with Johnny and my long-termmanager who had already worked
with for about 10 years beforethat called Richard, and so
really the kind of premise wasthat we'd worked with one person

(35:51):
for a long time.
I thought a lot aboutmanagement was you saw people
out there who quite often, youknow, you're managed by your
mate or your brother and it canbe a bit of a dodgy world and,
yeah, I just think Richard haddone a really good job for us
over a long period of time,someone I trusted and and
thought, yeah, having starting abusiness in in this area was it

(36:12):
was a good thing to do so.
Now that Blue Carpet is a likea full service management agency
and it's all about helpingdeveloping and, you know,
providing commercial advice andwork for athletes.
And, yeah, we we have a fewemployees and managers working
across various sports, includingtriathlon, athletics, football,

(36:32):
football, cricket, otherOlympic sports, which is really
cool, and as part of that, youknow, obviously one of the big
opportunities in triathlon atthe moment is potentially league
, which is, for anyone whodoesn't know is kind of exciting
startup sports content propertycontent property trying to kind

(36:53):
of make Triathlon a new versionof Triathlon that's short and
interesting for the viewer andthe fan.
And a couple of years ago Superit's called Super Tri now
actually Super Tri decided topursue a franchise model of
franchising off their teams,obviously to help fan engagement
as a different kind of revenuesource for sponsors and people
to be involved with, and bluecarpet wanted to get involved

(37:15):
and and have a the britishfranchise which fulfills kind of
a number of aims, one of whichis obviously helping working
with athletes on that front andthe commercial relationships,
and the second is to have abritish perspective and to be
able to give british athletes,and especially young ones,
opportunity to race at thatlevel.
So that's where the idea forbrownlee racing came from.

(37:37):
It was the first season lastyear the team didn't wasn't
massively successful, actuallycame last, but we're very
optimistic about this year andyeah, it's exciting.
It's obviously got some, gotsome great athletes racing in
British colours and somethingI'm looking forward to.
It made me more engaged anywayin watching Supertri and

(37:58):
following it, so I'm lookingforward to this year.

Super exciting actually.
We've been.
We've been lucky enough tointerview a couple of people
actually involved in Supertriand it looks just so exciting,
so really exciting, for you tohave a team and be racing.
You mentioned about like havingthe UK athletes, but also like
some younger athletes as well.
So how do you look for talent,what are you looking for and how

(38:22):
do you nurture that?

Well, I think there's two questions there.
When you're looking for talentto start with in sport and
talent ideas an incrediblydifficult thing to get right.
But you know to an extent, ifyou, if you spend time with
really talented young people,you definitely get kind of I I
think kind of work ethic andtheir approach, or you seem to
anyway.
Um, but the second question isyeah, how do you, how do we

(38:46):
select for the for brownieracing team and that's, yeah,
done by a number of ways kind ofa core of some of the top
british elite athletes who wantto race.
So people like alex, beth,johnny and then outside of that
who's performed well at racesrecently, that that want to be
part of the team and can helpthe team and fit into the kind

(39:09):
of structure and tactics.

Brilliant and yeah, I think it's a really
interesting kind of way that thesport is diverting and I think
it's going to be certainlymaking the viewing of the sport
brilliant.
One of the things that, so oneof the things you created is the
foundation and to help, youknow, introduce kids into sport.
So tell us the story around whyyou created the foundation and
to help, you know, introducekids into sport.
So tell us the story around whyyou created the foundation.
And and what are you?
What are your hopes?
What do you hope the legacywill be of the foundation?

we started the foundation at our first
event in 2014, which was justone one free triathlon for about
a thousand kids and leads, andit was very much borne out of
the fact that johnny and me weregetting asked to go to every
school in yorkshire and and andtalk, and and try and inspire
the kids, but the, the pupilsthere post the london olympics

(40:02):
and yeah, we did.
We felt kind of a sense ofresponsibility to do that and
and and.
You know that was enormousprivilege and we thought, wait a
minute, we can't be going toevery school, but maybe we can
try and scale that to someextent.
And that's where the idea ofthe foundation came, and now it
is over 10 years old.
We we had to have two yearsbreak during covid and it's

(40:23):
grown and, grown, and grown andthis year we'll have 15 plus
events all over the country andbe well over 15,000 children do
free events with those primaryschool aged children come, do
free triathlons.
Just in the last few weeks,actually, we've opened up our
our registration for for schools.

(40:43):
All children come in theirschools and and yeah, it's
amazing to see now our eventsfill up within 24 hours with
over-subscribed, you know up to2,000 children subscribing for
some of them.
So you know that's really good.
And the second part of that isyou know we work hard on
follow-on opportunities to helpthose young people that do

(41:06):
really love triathlon to be ableto swim, bike run more in their
local area, and we've done thatby supporting clubs, putting on
new sessions, providing bikes,helmets, etc, etc.
So it's good, it's.
It's quite an organization.
Now we employ three or fourpeople, have trustees and people
that help us, 100% privatelyfunded.
So we have to work hard for theand for various ways and have

(41:30):
some some great people thatsupport us on it.
And, yeah, I hope it keepsgoing from strength to strength.

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

sums up why you're doing it.
Yeah, they're the similar onethat we've now heard a number of
times, to be honest, which was,you know, jimmy came to the
event last year, never done atriathlon, loved it, went away.
He's joined a club.
Now he's joined a club and isas is doing triathlon, and then,
a few years later, has joinedthe local regional academy and
taking it more seriously.
So so that.
But actually, at the same time,just seeing some of the

(42:16):
children's faces as they crossthe finish line, they're
thinking, you know, they neverthought they could finish, but
they're being cheered over thefinish line by their classmates
and you know, it doesn't matterthat they've maybe been a bit
slower, they're just happy to bethere and completing something
they didn't think they could dobefore.
Um, that's really special.

I think it's brilliant that you're in schools
and you're getting more peoplenot only involved in triathlon
but involved in sport andenjoying being competitive,
because I think that over theyears has maybe been lost from
schools that you're not allowedto win anymore.
So it's it's really lovely tohear how much the the foundation
has grown and that you're notallowed to win anymore.
So it's really lovely to hearhow much the foundation has
grown and that you've got youknow that you've got support for

(42:55):
it as well.
Of particular interest to mebeing a dietitian and a high
performance nutritionist, myunderstanding is you're
developing or have developed aor some nutrition products, one
of which is a gel that's comingout soon.
Is that right?
True Fuels.

Yeah, two fuels is something that I've
been thinking about.
Nutrition for doing somethingin nutrition for a few years.
I mean, in the last few years Iwas developing my own fuel to
race on and like playing aroundwith stuff they just kind of

(43:39):
overcomplicate it and actuallytrying to provide guidance and
support to help people justunderstand what they need and
when is is is 99 percent of it.
You know, people trying to takemassive amounts of carbs in in
a product that they've neverused before and all of a sudden
you try and take it two hoursinto a marathon.
I mean, the chances of it goingwrong are just really high,
aren't they?
And actually, but by guidingpeople through the process of
getting there and doing that,the vehicle for the vehicle of a

(44:03):
brand just seemed to be areally good idea, as well as
simplifying the products.
And so, yeah, I had the idea andabout six months ago, met a few
people at a business event Oneguy, goran, who's an ex-tennis
player.
And about six months ago I meta few people at a business event
One guy, goran, who's anex-tennis player and had a
really successful businesscareer, and he also had an idea

(44:23):
of wanting to build a kind ofground-up nutrition brand, all
about kind of brand andcommunity, and I just really
liked the confluence of thoseideas so we decided to give it a
go Anyhow.
True Fuels the first product isa simple gel.
We're kind of working atbreakneck speed and, and just
kind of that.
That first product will be inthe market in May, which is very

(44:45):
exciting.
And yeah, then then some otherproducts to follow that up
quickly.

I'm very much with you on the knowledge and
education around nutrition, butalso the simplicity.
I absolutely agree.
I think it can be way overcomplicated, but it needs to be
practical and easy.
So what?
What makes True Fuels different?
Like?
What are you trying to, I guess, achieve with with your
products?
Because I know you mentionedabout.
You know, obviously, over theyears you've probably used lots

(45:12):
of different products and youwere developing them for
yourself.
So what is it that you're kindof really looking at changing,
or these types of products thatyou're bringing out?

So I think those two fundamental
philosophies the first one isonly what you need in the
product and can nothing else.
So the first gel combination ofcarbohydrates, one to-one
fructose, to maltodextrin andwe're actually doing two salt
versions, a high and low saltversion that allows people to
adapt what they're using andwhen, just to have a one-product

(45:44):
solution.
And the second thing that comeswith a level of kind of
guidance of what to use, whichproduct to use, how much of what
to use and when, and that's itreally kind of keep getting told
off using the word simplifynutrition, but I just think it
sums up so well that that's theprinciple behind it I well, I

(46:05):
totally agree with you.

I don't.
I don't think it needs to becomplicated, and I like the idea
of you having products that youcan kind of use individually,
or you've got one that you canuse together and you kind of
know where you are with it aswell.
So can I ask, what are theother products coming along?
Are you allowed to tell us?

um, yeah, well, so the in no particular
order.
I mean not that it's asmassively different.
I guess out there a highervolume gel product, electrolyte
products and some likesimplified, really cool recovery
products that I'm reallyexcited about.
Yeah, please do, yeah by that.

So I also wanted to to ask a little bit about I
mean talking, talking ofnutrition, of course.
You know, good training, goodnutrition, helps in terms of
getting you over the finish line, and I wanted to talk a little
bit about winning, and you'vementioned in various sort of
places that winning doesn'talways feel as good as it should
.
What, what do you?

(47:01):
What do you mean by that?

I think it's something that most people can
understand, that you knowanything that is an achievement
requires a lot of work over along period of time and the
actual achievement itself, youknow, which is so fleeting quite
often.
You know you cross the line inthe triathlon and you know you
feel great about it for a coupleof hours maybe, maybe a few

(47:24):
days if you're lucky.
Um, I don't think he's evergoing to be worth all the effort
that you put in, purely in itsown right, you know, as a on the
balance and, and so for methat's just an argument that you
have to do something hard, liketraining for any kind of sport
or, I think, anything or inbusiness, for much more kind of

(47:45):
intrinsic and day to day reasons.
My approach to training wasthat, yes, I enjoyed training,
but I enjoyed trying to getbetter and I enjoyed feeling
getting to the end of every dayand feeling that I'd done my
best that day to get better.
And and I think it kind of alot of people, when they talk
about process and enjoying theprocess, that's really what they

(48:07):
mean just enjoying the smallwins along the way,
understanding what those winsare and appreciating those wins
yeah and I think that is aimportant approach.
That's not to say, of course,that every so often in the
process you can't motivateyourself by the bigger goals.
Of course you can do that, butI think you have to be able to
motivate yourself in lots ofdifferent ways in for lots of

(48:28):
different reasons during thatprocess, you know, not just have
one absolute yeah.
You know, I've got the olympicsgo up in three years and six
months.
That's why I'm going out forthe third session today.
I don't think that'ssustainable.

So did you chunk it down?
When you'd got a goal like that, did you decide you wanted to
break that goal down intosmaller bits.
How did you go about thatprocess?

Yes and no.
I think I had firstly had apretty set routine of what I was
doing day in, day out.
So, yeah, you know, I wasn'tgiving myself the option of not
getting up on a monday morningto go training or not.
It's just what I did, it was myroutine, it was my habit, is is
who I was, and I think thatautomating the process is is
very important.
I think removing the barriersto doing what you need to do is

(49:16):
really important.
So, simply, that's making sureyou've got working bike, making
sure you've got kit andequipment ready to go, all of
that kind of thing.
And I think and it's something Ilearned actually from writing
the book and I would have neverarticulated like this before
that people who are really goodover really long periods of time

(49:36):
are just brilliant atunderstanding what's going to
motivate them through what theyneed to do today, and that you
know it could be the goal.
It could be because they'regoing to do a session with
friends, so it's social.
It could be actually the senseof completion they're going to
get from that session is enough.
Anyway, you know there'sthere's literally hundreds of

(49:57):
forms of motivation and you canuse many just to get through one
activity and yeah, I think thepeople who are good over long
periods of time areinstinctively really good at
understanding what they need togo through that day to to do
that and the power of buildingthose habits.

And actually it surprised me when I read your,
the, your autobiography oh, Idon't know whether you call it
an autobiography when it's youand johnny, I don't quite
understand.
But the semi-biography what?
What fascinated me was when youdescribed the, your training
plan, and you said, well, youknow the training plan.
You'd think it was a carefullycarefully crafted training plan,
but actually I did the longbike session on a monday because

(50:35):
I had a double free from schooland I did and I still, and I
was absolutely amazing that youknow we, you know we, we we're
in a day where we're using aicreated training programs are
all carefully designed aroundthis.
You weren't, you were justthat's because that's how it was
and I thought that wasfascinating.
So, so kind of focusing onbooks and we've obviously talked

(50:56):
about both of yours what bookshave helped you on your journey
and why or what did you learnfrom them and how did they help
you?

Yeah, I've always loved reading and
actually I probably had lesstime to read over the last few
months being retired, ironicallyenough, than I had in the
previous 20 years of my life,and so, yeah, book books have
been important and I for longperiods I tried to read a book
most weeks and I would cyclebetween something that was

(51:26):
fictional, quite often bigseries of fictional books, like
series of Bernard Cornwall books, or probably my favorite
fictional, semi-fictional bookis something called Shantaram,
and it read things multipletimes, even read some classic
literature, but never reallyenjoyed that, like Bronte,

(51:49):
charlotte Bronte books oranything, and then try to read
more factual stuff, whetherthat's like political, current
affairs, economical,sports-based stuff.
Yeah, I think from thesports-based world.
Yeah, the most interesting bookprobably of recent times is the

(52:09):
Brad Studelberg range of books.
Really enjoyed that peakperformance, among other things
and what else from trying tothink from another point of view
that's a very kind of one.

One book I remember hearing you mention in
one of the podcasts I listenedto as part of the research was
daniel kahneman's thinking fastand slow, and you kind of
referenced it, but I don't thinkyou went into a lot of detail.
What did you get?
That's a brilliant book andobviously he won the nobel prize
for the work that went intothat.
What did you get from thinkingfast and slow and how did you
apply it?

yeah, I, I really enjoyed a lot of the of
that kind of genre of behavioraleconomics, that book and then
kind of nudge and there's kindof a lot in that kind of series.
I, yeah, I love the approachthat we have two systems of
thinking.
Obviously they're veryautomated, subconscious, very
powerful thought processes andsystem one and two and then the

(53:04):
very conscious, slow thoughtprocessing and I guess what I
took from that is really tryingto automate as much as you can
and that's kind of it is quitepopular in the world of like
sports, psychology andperformance of actually
automating as much as you can,you know, not overthinking
things, because if once youstart overthinking and and on

(53:25):
automating if that makes senseprocesses, you're definitely at
much bigger risk of of kind offailure and overthinking events
and things psychologically goingwrong.
And I definitely think that'strue.
So kind of automated processing.
I guess a kind of understandingof heuristics and our
decision-making, which alwaysfascinated me, and trying to

(53:49):
work out when I was doing thingsheuristically and why my
decision-making might be goingwrong there, things
heuristically, and why mydecision making might might be
going wrong there.
And I think that probably ledme into the, the, the kind of
thoughts of like metacognitionof of like working out and
thinking about well, why did Imake that decision at that point
?
Could I have made a betterdecision?
How much emotion came into play?

(54:09):
Would I do it differentlyanother time?
And and processing, and I, myapproach to sport performance
was that in outside of racing.
So, like inside of racing, youhave to be a very kind of
instinctual decision maker.
You don't have the, the, theenergy or the mind space all the

(54:30):
time or anything else to makereally good conscious decisions.
It has to be very unconscious,but but outside of that, if
you're trying to make reallygood conscious decisions, it has
to be very unconscious, butoutside of that, if you're
trying to make really goodconscious decisions.
All those decisions wereultimately my responsibility, in
that you can have all the bestinformation to go into that
experts, coaches, whoever itmight be but ultimately the

(54:55):
responsibility of making thatdecision yourself is good.
And so I spent a lot of timethinking about how I could kind
of maximize the chances ofsuccess of those decisions.

Brilliant, really interesting.
So one of the closingtraditions that we have on this
podcast is to get the last guestto ask the next guest a
question without knowing whothat is going to be.
Now, bizarrely, our last guestwas my AI clone.
The last episode was my AIclone, which we interviewed,
which was fascinating, and ifyou want to learn more about

(55:24):
that you'll need to go listen toit when it's live.
But Charlie's AI clone askednext guest a question.
So, claire, I think you've gotthat question.

He had some great comments and questions,
questions, and this is one ofthem.
So what's the single mostimportant lesson you've learned
from failure and how has itshaped the way that you approach
challenges today?

Yeah, failure is a part of life.
I talk a lot about resilienceand it's such an in vogue word
at the moment, but beingresilient is, to me, is just
life, because we all come acrosschallenges every day.
Everyone fails all the time and, yeah, the the determinant is
just getting back up and gettingon with it.
And, of course, we have bigfailures as well, as long as, as

(56:07):
well as many little ones, and Ithink quite often they are the
the most important things thatwe go through, as cliche as that
sounds, because how quickly weget back from those, the
processes that we put in placeand the lessons we learn, I
think are really kind of whatmake you as a person.

Brilliant, interesting, and I couldn't
agree with you more.
I want to finish with onequestion, and I hadn't planned
to ask this, but just listeningto Relentless this morning.
There was a throwaway commentin there about beefy both them
and drinking, and I rememberhaving the conversation with
Charlie Spedding about a beerdrinker's guide to sports
psychology.
So where do you see alcohol andprofessional sport?

(56:50):
What's the relationship betweenthem?

Is it?
No, you shouldn't.
It should be purely focused onthe best performance.
Or does alcohol help in someways?
I am.
My strategy has always beeneverything in moderation.
Yeah, I think there's no harmin whatever a bit of alcohol, a
bit of chocolate, a bit too muchcake every so often, just not a
lot of it and not very often.

I think that's a very good approach, and I
think I think what came out ofrelentless is the kind of the
bonding that that, providedthough that ash's team was was
probably a key part of theirsuccess, and it would have over
outweighed maybe the smallest ofloss of performance from having
I mean, I'm not sure, was itderrick pringle 17 points in a

(57:36):
rest day in the middle of a test?
I'm not sure.
Was it Derek Pringle's 17 pintsin a rest day in the middle of
a test?
I'm not quite sure that's theright approach, but that's not
no well maybe it was wellcompared to Boone's 52 cans of
VB or whatever it was.
That, maybe, is moderation.
Alistair, it's been absolutelyfascinating chatting to you.
Loved, loved hearing thoseinsights, loved hearing the
stories.
Where's the best place forpeople to find all of the things

(57:56):
out about your new businesses,about the foundation, about what
you're up to next?

yeah, I guess really follow me on social
media.
I haven't necessarily talkedabout that much about the other
side of my life.
Up till now I've been veryfocused on my sport, but one of
our plans is now I've got a bitmore time and energy is to talk
a bit more about some of my uhyeah, about the foundation,
about a bit more of my widerinterests and about my business

(58:22):
interests as well.
So hopefully you'll see thatcoming soon brilliant.

Well, I certainly will be following the
story.
I just want to, you know, Ijust want to say a huge thank
you, not just for coming on thepodcast but being such an
inspirational person in thissport.
It really has been an amazing,amazing journey.
It's been a joy to watch and,yeah, and I've certainly,
certainly you've loved, I'veloved being a part of following
that journey.

(58:46):
So so, yeah, and I just, youknow, wait with excitement to
see all of these other thingscoming down the pipeline.

Great, thank you very much Thanks both.

So what did you make of the interview with
Alistair?

I was.
It was excellent.
I was excited to or we bothwere excited to have him on and,
yeah, he didn't disappoint.
I think, you know, one of thereally great things is, I
thought we'd talk quite a lotabout you know some of his
stories, but actually what cameacross is all of the other parts
to being a professional athlete, and what I mean by that is,

(59:23):
you know, we talked around goals, we talked around his
understanding of what you know,not believing in confidence,
like.
I loved all of thatconversation because it's the
kind of conversation that youwouldn't necessarily expect to
have from, you know, from aretired athlete.
I particularly was reallyinterested in this.
I don't believe in confidence,I just thought it's, you know,

(59:46):
it's all about self-belief andthat really resonated.
I thought that was excellent,the way that he describes that.

Yeah, I agree, and I think I think if anyone
hasn't listened to Relentless,it's really.
It's really not the book thatyou expect it to be.
You expect it to be all ofAlastair's stories kind of,
because the the, the biographywith with Johnny, was released
kind of early, you know, afterLondon 2012, so it, you know,
doesn't even have the Rio win inthere or anything like that.

(01:00:14):
So it felt like there was thenext book, would be the kind of
next chapter in the career.
But it's not at all and it'sbrilliant in terms of listening
to him just asking fascinatingquestions and getting really
interesting insights fromunbelievable sportsmen and, of
course, alistair is one of them.
Them, but in a very kind ofdownplays what he does in

(01:00:38):
comparison to all these otherpeople.
But I mean, what he's done isis absolutely incredible and I
agree, I think the michael owenpiece around and how he
explained it today around thedifference between confidence
and self-belief, I think is isfascinating.
It's a really valuable lessonfor people that you know,
because we all have those dayswhere we're standing on the

(01:00:59):
start line going.

Claire Fudge (01:01:01):
I don't think I I'm not gonna do well today but
and and the not being confidentin yourself, or supposedly not
being confident yourself as well.
I?
I also thought we talk so muchabout, you know, resilience with
people, and he's absolutelyright that it's.
You know the word resiliencenow is everyone's banding it
around, right?
But what he was saying aboutyou know, actually life, there

(01:01:25):
are failures, like we have to be.
That's life.
I wrote a note down actuallyresiliency equals that's life.
Like, actually, you know.
I think he brought it back alsoto the story with the jockey as
well, didn't he?
In terms?
of AP McCoy yeah, and it doesmake me think, like you know,
when you're thinking about themindsets of athletes that have,

(01:01:47):
you know, truly excelled intheir sport, that actually this
is some of their thinking, you,you know this is is that how
they've a part of how they'vegot to where they've got to?

Charlie Reading (01:01:59):
Because their thing, well, I mean, yeah, I
think this is right, and I thinkso actually, and I think he
would have said this after thebook Relentless was written.
But Federer said Roger Federersays did this commencement
speech?
And he basically said that helost 45% or 48% of the points

(01:02:23):
that he played.
You know that's an insane win,like so many of his games, but
lose such a ridiculously highpercentage of his points.
But, of course, about winningthe right points, isn't it?
And that and that is, and Ithink this failure concept, I
think it's really powerful inthe sense that people often see
failure as the opposite tosuccess, but actually failure is

(01:02:44):
the stepping stone towardssuccess isn't it, and it's kind
of an important part of theprocess and and.
To go back to ap mccoy andfalling off yes, you don't want
to fall off, but it's actuallypart of the process and it hurts
.
And it hurts, yes, and in factin the, in, relentless, he says
ap calling me and says you know,I I fell off and broke my arm.

(01:03:05):
And he said I haven't broken myarm for about a year and a half
, so it's probably about time.
It's just like.
It's just a different mindset,isn't it?
yeah but but yeah, no, I thinkthat was really interesting and
I think the resilience piece andI think this is like resilience
is a very you know moment Iremember we kind of started that
conversation, I suppose, withJoe DeSena, didn't we?
Yes, but it does.

(01:03:27):
It is.
The reason it's being used alot is because if we can learn
to be resilient through sport,we can actually be resilient
then in the other areas of ourlife better, can't we?
When business becomes difficultor when life becomes difficult,
if you've built up resilientthings in sport, it actually

(01:03:48):
really helps you deal with hardthings in all the other areas of
our life, and it doesn't reallymake a huge amount of sense to
me why it does, but it does andand also that you know thinking
about kind of business thatyou've got to get to that point
where you're failing a littlebit to make you stronger, to
make you think actually that'snot going to work, I need to do
something different.

Claire Fudge (01:04:08):
Um, but also, you know, the other thing that came
across and I'd be reallyinteresting to to know your
thoughts on this is he wastalking about goals, like not
having that big, like got thatbig, and he called like you know
, that north star goal of, likeit's the olympics, but you can't
put everything on four yearsdown the line to your next cycle
and that's going to be, youknow, the olympics.
That actually it wasinteresting to hear him saying

(01:04:30):
about.
Actually sometimes it's thetraining, it's going out and
socializing with your friends,friends going out for a nice
bike ride or getting through areally hard session.
So it was interesting to seehow he kind of I mean you talked
about just sort of chunking itdown, but how he sort of split
it up almost into it felt quitedifferent to me in terms of
sometimes it was getting througha hard session, sometimes it
was actually fun.
What were your thoughts on hisideas and goals?

Charlie Reading (01:04:57):
I your thoughts on his idea and goals.
I think it was.
It was interesting because itdidn't sound that structured to
me in the way that he was goingabout it.
But equally, if he did, if hedug deeper, it was.
You know, I would always sayyou set goals in like different
areas of your life.
One of those areas isrelationships.
Well, if, if one of your keyrelationships is hanging out
with your mates and that's yourtraining tribe, and so it's

(01:05:18):
absolutely right that then someof your training should be more
focused on, like, could he havemore accurately executed a
training plan on his own or onthe turbo trainer?
Most certainly did he cycleharder and have the camaraderie

(01:05:39):
of cycling with his tribe whenhe went out with with you know,
his equivalent of the posse?
And yes, he could.
And actually that becomes moreimportant and I remember
chatting to so nicky bartler oneof the early episodes.
So I know I I skipped the cafe.
You know how can you be, you bea professional athlete and stop
at a cafe, and I completelyagree with that.
But then I thought I'm nottrying to be a professional

(01:06:02):
athlete Actually.
Yes, getting to Kona andgetting to an Ironman and all
that sort of stuff is important,enjoying this stuff is just as
important and therefore,actually I should stop at the
cafe most of the time.
Maybe they're not in a few keysessions, but most of the time I
should.
So I think South Charlie, yeah,absolutely, and that's why I

(01:06:26):
actually.
So I finished with thisquestion of alcohol versus
professional sport Because ifyou wanted to be the ultimate
professional athlete, you'd haveno alcohol, you'd have no fun.
You don't want to have no fun,but actually there is a place
for doing things that aresometimes suboptimal in one
performance sense, but actuallyI guess it's moderation and at

(01:06:51):
the right time, like all ofthese things, isn't it?
Yeah, it is, and seeing thatsometimes, if, if that, like,
well, it comes back to thatthree, two, one taper, doesn't
it that we've talked aboutbefore.
You know, for those thathaven't listened to that episode
and I'm struggling to recordwas it karen smires that had the
three, two, one?
I think it was, but I might bewrong.

(01:07:11):
But three, two, one taper wasthree nights before the race.
Yeah, two beers two nightsbefore the race, one beer one
night before the race, thatthree, you know, if that relaxes
you and helps you sleep whenyou might not have otherwise
slept, helps you chill out, kindof defrag the brain, and
actually that might be a goodway of doing it, though people

(01:07:33):
are like you know, well, thatsounds counterintuitive, but
yeah, I think it sometimes it'sdefinitely still your tactic, by
the sounds of yeah, I love it,I love the fact it's still
coming out but, yes, no, I think, but I think, ultimately it was
a.
It was a great episode, justlike brilliant, a brilliant

(01:07:54):
inspiration.
Um, I mean, he has to be thesingle most impactful person in
in in the world of in oftriathlon, doesn't he?
Certainly, if you're a brit,anyway, I just think it's, it's
absolutely incredible.
So, yeah, loads of amazinglessons and for everyone at home
, keep on training.

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