3x Ironman World Champion

Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper of the Catalyst Coaching Institute. And if you enjoy endurance sports today’s guest three time Ironman world champ, Craig “Crowie” Alexander requires no introduction. He is one of the legends in the sport of triathlon whose humility is as powerful as his generational physical gifts. We released an unedited video version of this episode previously at youtube.com/coaching channel. And it immediately shot to the top of the list in terms of views. You’ll love hearing from this true champion. You’ll soak, soak in the stories he shares, especially the one about missing his special needs bag at the turnaround point at Havi at the world championship and what happened next? It’s a story I will never forget the rest of my life. For those looking to pursue a certification as a health and wellness coach, our next certification fast-track weekend that’s part of the larger certification process is coming up March 20th and 21st. These programs usually fill early. So please don’t wait too long if this is a priority for you. All the details at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com, and we’re always happy to set up a call to answer any of your questions if that’d be helpful, email is Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com and we’ll get something set up. Now, it’s time to take a ride with three time Ironman world champ Craig “Crowie” Alexander on the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast, Craig Alexander five time world champion. Welcome to the Catalyst Health Wellness and Performance Coaching podcast.

Craig Alexander

Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah, it’s going to be fun. I have looked forward to this for a long time. You’ve had an amazing career since you towed the line, your first triathlon, December of 1993, let’s dig into the memory vault a little bit, most memorable race of all time. And I know that you’ve got a lot to choose from there, but if you’re going to go to one, what would it be?

Craig Alexander

Uh, it’s. It is hard, picking just one. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the obvious ones are the world titles, but each race has its own significance for different reasons. And one race that I always look back on fondly is the lifetime fitness race in Minnesota 2005. Yeah. So obviously people remember it as a, it was a unique format battle of the sexes and at the time was the highest prize per person, $250,000 or so. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a big payday, but that’s not the reason. Um, two reasons it stands out for me, firstly, it was an invitation only race. So just to get in, you had to submit your resume. It was a whole process and, and then you were racing the best guys and girls in the world. Um, and it was a unique format that they had this equalizer, um, formula that they use to, to look at all the Olympic distance triathlon results for the preceding 12 months and come up with one. And it was based on the average differential between first male, first female, the top 10 in all these different races and it spit out one number. That was what they called the equalizer. That was the headstart that the ladies would get. And then the men would stand on the beach, watch the chase. So you had to, it was one of those unique where you were racing the men, but you’re also racing the women, if that makes sense. Right. And so it was, it was a particularly good memory for me because it was one of the best fields I’ve ever raced in at that time. Triathlon had been in the Olympics in Sydney and Athens. So both, both Olympic gold medalists were there. Um, actually all the medalist from the year before in Athens with a gold, silver and bronze, it was a coming together of the short course guys, the middle distance and the Ironman, guys and girls. So it was a unique race in that aspect. And, and also I’d just become a dad. And I had just had just had our first child Lucy and she was eight weeks old. So all those things really just went into the blender to make it such a, just a unique recipe. And it’s, it’s a race that I always, I mean, I was walking on clouds anyway, being a new dad. Um, but from a professional standpoint, the validation I got winning that race. Um, and financially as well, I guess, you know, triathlon’s a niche sport, it’s not golf or football. And so when you win, you know, quarter of a million dollars in one race, particularly being a new dad, um, it takes a lot of pressure off, that’s right. Yeah.

Dr. Cooper

Wow. Well, and I’m looking at the dates you won the 70.3 then in 2006 and your first Kona in 2008. So that was kind of the springboard. Or did you feel like that was a springboard into, Hey, I’m the best in the world on this day and let’s do that again?

Craig Alexander

Yeah. It’s an interesting mindset, you know, when you think I don’t, I’d won a few big races up to that point. Like the year before in 2004 before I won lifetime fitness, I’d won what they call the triple crown. So that was Chicago, Boston and LA three big Olympic distance races on consecutive weekends. And you beat some big names, I’d won St. Croix a couple of times up to that point, I’d won a couple of national titles back home in Australia. But I think when you win a race, like the one in Minnesota that had the two previous Olympic champions or the world champions, just that high-end caliber field. Yeah. That’s something for your confidence and just makes you feel like you belong at that level. I mean, I think that’s what every athlete and every person yearns for in their life is sort of a sense of that they’re doing a good job. So yeah, I would say it was a springboard because it gave me a lot of confidence going into 2006 and you know, it’s interesting, you mentioned my first world title, you know, which was at the half Ironman distance. And when I won that world title, I don’t think I’d lost a race at half iron man for four or five years, but they had, there was actually no officially sanctioned world championships until 2006. So yeah. So fast forward one year in 2006 and winning that, and that, that gave me more validation and it’s just a nice feeling to really perform well. It wasn’t even the winning. It was, it was just as an athlete. I always felt I got the most satisfaction from really great performances on the big occasions. And so obviously I got that in 2006 with Minnesota and then in 2006, I had a couple of good wins culminating with that world title. So yeah, it was, I would say Minnesota was the mental springboard that I needed at that point in my career.

Dr. Cooper

Very cool. And then most discouraging race of all time. It was, as you think back, what was one where you just went, Oh, if only. You only get one of these too.

Craig Alexander

How long have we got? Everyone wants to talk about the world titles, but that’s a long and distinguished list, that one for all of us. Yeah. You know, there were a lot of my being an athlete it’s like being in business. It’s, it’s like having a share in the stock market. It’s just a roller coaster. And your hope, your hope is that you’re trending up. But even if you’re trending up there’s peaks and troughs. And I remember it was the late nineties and I’d had a couple of races. I mean, I’d only just finished my uni degree in 97 where I qualified with a bachelor’s degree in physiotherapy. And later that year I went and raced internationally for the first time. And you get some good results like I had, but like a lot of young athletes, I was inconsistent. Like I would get a top five and think, Oh, this sport, it’s not so bad. And then I’d get a 25th next week and think, Oh, I think when you, you, when you’re young, you have, I guess, great physical tools, but mentally, maybe your mental development is not on par. And I know certainly for me, it wasn’t at that point in my career, I hadn’t quite figured out the training I needed to do to be consistent. And also just the thought processes in race week, um, how to taper properly the mindset on race day, making decisions in the race. I hadn’t figured all of that out. And sometimes when I had good results, it was almost good luck rather than good management. And I think the hope is in sport that you get to a place where physically you’re in great shape and mentally, you know, how to make the best use of that. Right. And you’re able to replicate the smart decisions and with experience, you learn certain things. So I remember in the late nineties, it was, it was announced that triathlon was going into the Olympic games and it was going to be in my own hometown of Sydney. And I never really gave myself a chance to make it cause I felt well, all these guys are better than me. You know, all the guys at the world level have there been racing championships for 10 years, some of them had won multiple world championships. My mindset was always, ah, you know, I’m, I’m behind the eight ball, I just graduated from university, I’m not, I’m not quite there. I started this sport late. Um, these guys are better than me. They, they started in the sport in high school, came through the junior ranks. I didn’t do that. I started as a 20 year old, a 21 year old. I don’t have that background. I’m not as good. I don’t have their experience. And in the end, like I was never good enough at that point to make that team in Sydney, the Australian team, but I wasn’t far off either. And I remember driving home after one of the leading races sinking, I was very discouraged because I clearly didn’t have an understanding of the sport. And that’s when I was starting to understand that there was a mental, a mental side to it. Physically, I wasn’t far off, but I’d written myself off months and months before it. And I’m thinking, well, why did I even bother turning up in, like, so that was very discouraging. That was discouraging and encouraging at the same time. Cause it was, it was a bit of a breakthrough as well. And that I was discouraged at how quickly I’d folded up the tents and gone home. And then seeing that, you know, what was I certainly, as I said, I didn’t deserve to be on the team, but I was in the ballpark and I just thought I’ve got so much to learn here. I’ve got so much improvement, still physically in front of me, but I’ve got so much experience I need to get. I’ve got so much in terms of mindset that I need to develop. Um, just to be even in the same conversation as these guys I’m racing. So, so to your point, it was initially before it became encouraging, it was very discouraging that I had just almost rolled over and played dead so quick. You know, I thought why, why was that? My natural reaction was, you know, I’ve gotta be more resilient than that.

Dr. Cooper

That’s so interesting to hear you talk about that because everyone knows you as they know you now. And to have you go back and talk about this was this big gap. That is, that is interesting.

Craig Alexander

Yeah. Well, I think some people are born naturally confident. I wouldn’t say I was a naturally confident person. I wasn’t lacking confidence either, but sometimes confidence comes with history and I didn’t have the history of a lot of my competitors. Who’d come through the junior ranks, making state teams and national teams having coaches tell them at 14 and 15 and 17 and 19, you’re a really good athlete. Yeah, I didn’t have that. So I remember your question was what was the most discouraging? And I remember just driving home after that race and just sitting, we went to McDonald’s my wife and I, and I was just sitting there. I was still sitting in my race kit actually. And I was just, and it wasn’t even the final selection race. It was a selection race for the selection race. And I was just sitting there thinking, you know, what, what just happened? And it was, it was really discouraging. And there were other discouraging times too, for different reasons. I mean, as a late starter into the sport, the one thing I did have on my side was that background in, uh, I guess, science and physiology from my physio degree. So I knew that with skill acquisition, and also with endurance fitness, it’s a long process. You don’t wake up and say, I’m going to be, uh, an endurance athlete right now and you’re not going to be world-class this year. It’s, it’s a long process of accumulating great habits and just accumulating fitness things that happen on a cellular level in your body that just do not happen overnight. And so I guess I had that on my side. I knew it was going to be a long road and that I was probably starting a little later, but what I also knew from my studies was that from an endurance standpoint or heart lung strength, you know, into your late twenties and thirties, you can still be better than everyone else. In fact, you might not even peak right until you’re 30. So I thought, well, I’ve got time. The discouraging part came when, you know, other people who had been in the sport longer were getting better results. And I guess our, our social network, my social network, other other couples, our age were doing things like starting families and, and just socializing more than we were because I was always training. I was always away on a training camp or at a race. And, you know, we, we sacrificed a lot, particularly my wife, you know, because I hadn’t come through the junior program.

Craig Alexander

I didn’t get much support from triathlon Australia. Um, they opened, they, they said to me early on, you know, we, we haven’t really invested in you. We haven’t invested a lot of money in you. Um, we have these other guys and girls who we see them as our investments we’ve been nurturing. And I, I sort of, I understood they’d been investing money and time and coaching into these other athletes. And since 15, 16, 17 years of age, and now they’re 21, 22. They want to see a return on that investment. So then again, they’re going to keep nurturing. So I didn’t take it personally. I understood the way sort of a government funded program, where they had people to answer to as well. And those people wanted to know, you know, where are the athletes who we’ve been spending money on? Um, I, I didn’t take it personally, but yeah, I just, I felt that, you know, we were having to, self-fund a lot of my trips and my wife was doing that. She was working double shifts as an ER nurse, and I felt guilty. I felt very guilty and I could still see my performance is getting better. I could, but I remember a couple of times once in 1998. So I’d only been out of university 12 months and I was still only early twenties and I went and did a well, um, I didn’t have a bad race. I think I finished eight or ninth. I thought I’d snuck in the top 10, which in a, in an it world cup race, pretty good result. A hundred, 110 guys. You don’t making a lot of money. Like I think I I’d made enough money to cover the affair and the accommodation. Yeah. I just remember traveling back to our training base in France and saying to my wife, yeah, maybe, maybe we’re just beating our heads against the wall here and she’d say no, no. Yeah. She could see that I was still improving as an athlete and that I was basing these rash decisions off other things, financial. And then I remember another 12 months later I did a race. And again, it wasn’t that it wasn’t a really a poor performance. I think I have finished around 8th or 10th, again in another world-class field and, you know, field that contain multiple world champions, then some of the iconic names in our sport who’d come through. And again, it was just chipping away and slowly improving, but not making a lot of money. And I said to, I said to her, you know, if you want, want me to retire, I’m happy to retire. I remember actually, we’re at a race up in Queensland and she was home in Sydney. And I said, no, I really appreciate your support, but if you want me to retire, um, so we can do other things in life. Yeah. And she said, no, no, not at all. We’re in it together. And you know, I can see, and she said to me, are you still improving as an athlete? I said, Oh yeah, I’m making some pretty good improvements. She said, well, let’s just, let’s just see where it ends. And so for me, it was important to have that validation and support emotional support, but also a voice of reason and common sense support, you know, that she could see I was going to make an emotional decision. She brought it back to, well, I appreciate your thinking that way, but how are you actually performing in this sport? Are you, you know, do you feel you’re trending in the right direction?

Craig Alexander

So I had that and that made it a lot easier for me to keep pushing on and to keep doing the work that I had to do. And, uh, because you know, you, and you alluded to it before people want to talk about the, the world championship victories and the, and the pivotal race wins and they are important in your development, but equally important are the sort of developmental stages. And the, yeah, they’re, they’re really tough moments where you galvanize yourself and think, okay, well, what actually happened there? And you, you know, you have, those sort of honest self evaluations or the postmortem call it what you will, and you think well, sometimes you say you have those conversations with yourself or with your, your, your training partners or your coaches. And, the performance was quite good. It was, it was about where it needed to be. And sometimes it wasn’t, it was it’s nowhere near where it needs to be. And you think, okay, what are some changes that need to be made? And, and that’s just part of the whole, you hear people speak about the cliches of the journey and the process. And, um, that’s, that’s what they talking about. And that’s the really good stuff. That’s actually where the magic happens. You know, how many times do you see in sporting events or in business, someone has a huge win or a huge success, hugely successful moment. And they really just want to share it with the people who have been along for the ride the whole time, because, you know, there’s so many moments where it can go one way or the other and the people closest to you see that.

Dr. Cooper

Well and just the story of your wife. I think the same thing my wife has been there so many times when I’m ready to just cash it in. I’m sure a lot of people listening are thinking of a good friend or a parent or a brother or whatever. And it’s, that’s powerful to know that you have that kind of a support in your life is, is immense. All right, let’s, let’s touch on this. You, you are in rare air, my friend. I mean, you’ve talked about your discouragements and your struggles, but you’ve won Hawaii three times. You’ve won 70.3 twice, five time world champion. What makes you different as an athlete? Because there’s really good, there’s great. And then you’re in there with a handful of five or six other people that have done this thing three different times. What makes you different?

Craig Alexander

You know, the difference is I’m probably not that different. Well, you know, I often I often reflect and you know, when, when you’re, when you’re in the midst of your career, sometimes you can’t see the forest through the trees. You, you know, the things you need to do day to day to breed success and to cultivate success mentally and physically, and you do those things. And you’re always fine tuning, finessing, evaluating, outsourcing for other opinions and advice. So I think one of the first things is I, I did that well, I didn’t, even though I had this physio degree also, I had a mindset that I’m late to the sport and I need help. And I wasn’t scared to get help. I wasn’t scared to ask for help. And I wasn’t scared to go right to the top either. I would go to the athletes who I admired and try and train with them. And I was lucky some of the greatest athletes, our sport has seen have become personal friends and were mentors. So, uh, I had access to good people and people were always so gracious and wanted to help me as well. And that’s never lost on me. I, you need good help. You need good help. You, you hear people talk about the strength of the team and that’s so important over a long journey. You need to surround yourself with the right people and with good people. And I think I did that and it started at home, but then there were layers and layers of really good people who helped me, coaches, my manager, training partners, sponsors who became friends and who became very invested in the journey. And I just got great help. And when you feel that love, it inspires you to be your best and to overcome. You know, initially my motivations were very, um, personal, um, fulfilling potential. And then later in life, as you, I think as you change as a person, motivations changes. Becoming a husband and a father, I was very aware of the sacrifices the family had made. It was very, very easy for me to push myself every day because of that, that was very easy for me to, you know, squeeze every drop out of every session every day. And in races, I would often think of particular moments and hardships that the family had had when we were away from home and away from family. And I knew what a sacrifice that was for my wife and the homeschooling for the kids. Wasn’t always easy. And so I think I was always aware of the people around me and what they contributed.

Craig Alexander

And I think to your question, what differentiated made me, I was self-aware as well. I think I understood myself and what I needed, and that’s a twofold need what you need physically to improve because every athlete’s different, but we’re also different emotionally and mentally. And I think I got an understanding pretty early on from training with different athletes who won world titles. That there’s a lot of similarities, but there are also differences as well. So it’s not a one size fits all approach. Um, you know, one of the things I kept hearing when I first broke into the pro ranks, and then after 10 years racing, Olympic distance and half Ironmans predominantly on the US and Europe circuit, then I stepped up to Ironman racing. I would seek advice from other athletes who had won the races that I wanted to win. And you would hear the same theme when I would ask some questions, which was, we can tell you what we did. You’re going to have to tweak it and work out what works for you. And that’s not only with the training, that’s been everything. So I think I understood it’s not going to be a one size fits all approach. And then I’m going to need to be very self-aware of the kind of training and physical preparation I’m going to need. But probably more importantly, because again, having that, that physio and, and that, that journey of physiology, I understood that at the highest level, in any sport, you know, the physical characteristics are very similar amongst all the people vying for the world titles. The top 1% of the top 1% are all the same, pretty much. And they’re training the same way, often trained together, some of them. So, um, there were many times I was training in San Diego or Colorado or in Europe, and you’d be training with the people you actually have to go on and race.

Craig Alexander

So I became aware that there’s going to have to be something else that differentiates me from the others on the start line. And part of that is, I think is, is an awareness of race dynamics and tactics. But for me, the biggest part was, well, we’ve already seen each other so much. We know our strengths and weaknesses, and we know our opponents strengths and weaknesses. And, you know, everyone always talks about, I guess, the result and the results of a wonderfully made sport, like business it’s results driven. And that’s what we, I guess, grade ourselves on. And, and ultimately, I mean, that’s why I’m here talking to you because I had some good wins and, you know, I was able to win some world tours and I’m not just talking about a couple of top 20 finishes. It’s more than that, but I guess what you understand and what I understood was the only place that I can really make a difference to the result is in the front end, the process of preparing physically and mentally. So I think the biggest thing that I knew right from the beginning, even as I was learning about the sport of triathlon, was that I just, I’m not the kind of person who wants to have regrets ever. So I’m going to do everything I can while I have an opportunity. And then looking back in 10, 20, 30 years, I’ll be comfortable that maybe the results didn’t always play out the way I wanted them to. And it’s interesting because people always talk about the five world titles. I most often think about the two or three silver medals of what should have been, I think more about those than the gold medals.

Dr. Cooper

We all do my friend.

Craig Alexander

But yeah, I just, I just understood that, you know, I didn’t want to have the kind of shoulda woulda, coulda I would have done it. I just knew my personality. I didn’t deal with regrets and I didn’t want to have to deal with them. So I have an opportunity now to lay a great platform and foundation where I won’t have to do that. I mean, there’s always going to be situations where you look back and say, well, you know, we’ve learned a lot since that race. And maybe the decision making might be a little different hindsight is an amazing thing. You learn a lot with experience, but at that time I was as physically and mentally prepared as I could have been. And that’s one thing I think I can stay with pretty much every race I did. Certainly there were mistakes made and, you know, races play out a certain way. There’s, there’s luck involved too, but you have to be in a position that where if you do get some luck, you’re able to capitalize on it. There’s no point getting lucky. If you come in 200th and you also have to be in a place where you’re good enough to overcome bad luck as well, because you get equal measures of those things. So I just felt, you know, I’m not even going to worry about the good luck in the bag. It’s going to come. What I’m going to worry about is the things that I can do to be in the absolute best place I can be. And for me, every race was a world championship. So that was another thing with my mindset. I didn’t, I didn’t, uh, as much as you, you set a race schedule and you have your A races, every time I got on a start line, for me, it was like a world title I had to. Yeah. I, I didn’t want to be the kind of athlete who used races to prepare for other races. I could do simulator training sessions for that. Um, I wanted to, I raced to race and there’s no question racing, bumps your fitness up a little bit. And you know, you schedule a season so that when you get to that very, very peak of fitness, you want it to be in September, October when the championship races are on. But if I was racing in March at a regional championships or June didn’t matter to me, it was, it was a world championship. I, that I had to win, or I had to perform at that was always my mindset. I have to perform at every single race. So there were no.

Dr. Cooper

You’re saying what I’m hearing, so that probably made me more successful on the big stage, because it was always a big stage. Kona, wasn’t different for you? Kona was another race, the 70.3 champion, it wasn’t. Oh my gosh. It’s the champions. It was here we go again.

Craig Alexander

Yep. Yeah. And that’s, I think I conditioned myself physically and mentally exactly that. So there was never, as I was going to say, just cruising through a schedule, waiting to get to the bigger races or going through the motion. And that even extended back into training, there was never just going through the motions. It was always with purpose and intent. You know, some sessions are hard, cardiovascularly, others are more technical. Um, in terms of you’re doing drills and technique based work, some are speed sessions, some are strength, whatever it was, each session had its its purpose and its goals and its parameters. And I was hitting them a hundred percent. Um, I was in that mindset because yeah, you practice that. I mean, I think, and maybe you can enlighten us because this is your area of expertise, the way the mind works and we’re all different again. But I guess there are a few people who can just get to the Superbowl and turn it on, flick it on and off like a switch. But we learn with routines and habits and, and I just want it to be in that groove of where I’m in a lead up to a race. I have to do everything every time. I have, I have to check all the boxes every day from training to sleep nutrition. I’m checking all the boxes and I’m not going through the motions. I’m not coasting. And then I get to this race. My taper has to be on point, um, race preparation the day before race day. And it just becomes autopilot. And Kona is a big thing. And it’s, it’s, you know, it’s like the Superbowl of triathlon if you want to use that analogy, but always, I always took comfort in that. It was just part of my routine and it was practiced to a high level every single time, even in training, if I was doing a race simulation, you know, I would set my nutrition out and my gear bags out the day before, just like I used to do for the big races and for all the races. So I think there’s comfort in that when you know, you’re leading in race week in Kona and everybody’s nervous for me, there was a lot of habits and routines that were very similar. I took comfort in all of those things. Cause I thought, you know, this is just another week. It’s a big week, but it’s a week that I’ve lived through before and I know exactly what to expect and what to do. And yeah.

Dr. Cooper

Very cool. Very cool. I love that. All right. Speaking of, of different athletes, I’m intrigued. I didn’t realize you and Mac were born in the same year in Australia. So obviously your careers were destined to, to parallel each other a little bit and I don’t know how you feel about it, but I think a lot of folks feel like you gave us the Dodgers Yankees rivalry, probably the best since Mark and Dave we’re battling out there. Uh, can you pull back the curtain, just share some, some things that maybe people don’t realize about that relationship or, or some of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes that maybe folks that aren’t familiar with?

Craig Alexander

Yeah. I mean, Chris was a great athlete and we had a rivalry on the course, but we had a, we had a rivalry off the course as well, which made it even more fun. Like I said, I guess, I guess it did for those watching and then people who are in the know knew, um, you know, we used to train together and we were friends and then we weren’t friends. We had a business that didn’t end well. And I mean, I’m not going to go into the details. You know, they say usually somewhere in the middle, so, um, but yeah, we just went our separate ways and um, I don’t think we liked each other. I certainly, I didn’t respect Chris. On the race course, I respected his ability for sure. But I think it’s like any workplaces is, you know, you have to go to work and you try and respect people, but sometimes you just don’t like them. And you know, I would like to think at some point maybe in the future we can get together. It’s just, it’s a shame because as you say, we, um, we live in the same suburb now. Yeah. And we, we just, uh, I catch up with a lot of the guys I used to race and the girls I used to train with and that’s been one of the hardest things for me this year with not traveling is seeing a lot of the friends on the, on the circuit who you trained with and raced against and became friends with shared weddings and the birth of children. And, you know, you form really good life, lifelong friendships and relationships with a lot of people. But yeah, Chris and I didn’t have that. Um, we just went our separate ways and yeah, which was a shame. And there was a lot of stuff that went on in the media too, that Chris was always very vocal in the media and PR couldn’t be any more different. I mean, at least from an outsider’s perspective. Yeah. And people handle things differently and deal with things differently and are different.

Craig Alexander

I mean, I, I can say categorically, I never had a problem with, with Chris’s confidence at all. I mean, you have to be confident. Every athlete who performs well has a self competence and they get the job done. Um, my confidence was just an inner confidence. I didn’t feel like I had to, you know, go to the press conference and pump myself up or, or break others down. And that, that was one of the problems I had with Chris too. I met the first, the first press conference I went to in Kona in 2007, he was just, he was unloading on Ferris and he was unloading on Norman and I’m sitting there thinking, well, you know, they’ve both won here. And he and I had at that point, at that point, he and I had not one encounter. And I both had, and you know, I had thoughts about those guys as athletes. I thought they were very good. Of course they were they’d won. Um, but I didn’t feel I had to denigrate others to build myself up. I knew where my confidence came from. And, and you know, maybe that maybe Chris had to, I don’t know, only he can answer those questions, why he said some of the things he said in those press conferences or, um, yeah, but we were just different people. And again, I’m not better or worse, just different. It comes back to the self-awareness. Maybe Chris felt that that’s how he would get the best out of himself to put it out there and make it public. And then he felt more of a pressure to live up to that then. So, and it certainly worked because he was able to perform on the biggest stages. So, um, yeah, I think part of my, um, I guess opinion where it, where it comes to Chris was based on a lot of the personal stuff and the stuff that people didn’t see, you know, when you train with someone and you’re racing against them, you see things that others might not see. And certainly our relationship up to the point where we raced in the U S and we didn’t race a lot, to be honest towards the, I mean, when I, when I came to the U S the first time in 2002, that was, he, he stepped up to Ironman racing. So we didn’t really race all that much. I was more racing guys like Craig Walton, um, Greg Bennett, Simon Whitfield, Simon Lessing, Matt Reed. They were the guys who were Haymitch, Carter, Bevin, Daugherty. They were the guys racing, lifetime fitness. Um, they were the guys racing in Chicago, in LA Javier Gomez sort of started coming over and I think, 2005 or 2006. And then that was a year that I then stepped up, was 2007. I stepped up to Canada. So we certainly didn’t race each other too much. And we didn’t cross paths too much.

Craig Alexander

And, but yeah, you’d hear things in the media. And there was always you mutual friends, you’d hear things. And yeah, I think it’s a bit of a shame that post-career now, I mean, sport was a big part of our lives, but it’s not, it’s not the only thing in life. There’s so many other things that are important. Um, you know, when I look back on my career, one of, one of the things that I guess I miss is the interactions with other athletes and, you know, your peer group, the people you race and training with become your colleagues and your peer group. And, and then when you go in other areas of your life, um, yeah, you miss those people, you form good relationships with them. So that’s one of the things I miss. And I also miss the feeling of just being a high performance athlete and preparing that whole preparation and thought that goes into it. And it becomes your day-to-day priority of, you know, sharpening your tools physically, mentally, every single day. And every thought is about that. And I miss that, I miss that mindset. And, but back to the, back to the, the situation with Chris, I mean, hopefully one day we can sit down and I think things are more amicable now than perhaps they once were, but we’re certainly not friends in the end. It is a shame because we did a lot of the same things in sport. And it’s an interesting story. We, we trained in the same areas. We live in the same suburb and maybe that’s why the rivalry was what it was. Maybe you can’t have two big fish in a small pond and not enough room.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. Could be. All right. So mental toughness, we’re going to chat about this a little bit, you and I have traded some emails about it. I remember in 2011 when you were heading for the all time course record, and suddenly you have these cramps in your legs. Walk us through what was going through your head when you’re thinking. And I don’t know if you were thinking about the time, but I know people had made you aware that you had a chance at it. And all of a sudden you get these cramps in your hammies. And you’re just like, Oh my gosh. I’m like, I don’t remember. You were like two miles out or something. You were right at the end, walk us through that. What was going on and what was going on in here?

Craig Alexander

Yeah, I was aware of the time and I wasn’t, I was sort of in other places mentally, and it was a tough race because it wasn’t as easy conditions as has I’d experienced at that. Right. And it’s never easy conditioning. And you hear people talking about the conditions encounter it’s relative. It’s always at the heart end of the spectrum. I’d raced in hotter conditions. Um, but that year just seemed to be a combination of a little bit of heat humidity and the wind up, we got the Maui winds out of the North that year, and I was having a good race. I was, I was in a good place. I’d won the 70.3 worlds a month before I knew the fitness was good. And I had used a different race tactic, that day as well, which was very satisfying. I’ve gone off the front, on the bike with a couple of other guys. And I think I hit the run course in second place. And the front, the front group, which was the group I used to get off the bike with, or typically I would was about six minutes, six minutes behind getting off the bike. So, and I felt comfortable early in the marathon, but yeah, Andres Rayleigh made the run very uncomfortable in the middle. Um, and he went at a pace that was a crazy pace. It was suicide pace, but I responded, he kept closing the gap. And you talk about the mental side of sport. I Andreas is a guy who had the utmost respect for had incredible work ethic. Um, his training regime was often talked about amongst all the other pros, how much training he used to do. He performed at all levels of the sport. He’d been to two Olympic games, maybe three, I think he had a couple of top fives or a couple of top tens, at least at the Olympic games. He’d, he’d podium that 70.3 worlds. Now we’d stepped up to Ironman. And, you know, in 2011, I think that was his third racing Kona. And usually someone’s second or third or fourth racing counted as their best. Yeah. So I’m thinking, okay, he’s in the sweet spot. He’d already had a third and a second as well. So he was trending in the right direction. And I just, and he was just making this concerted charge at me in the middle of the marathon. And I was getting the splits. Actually, I was getting the splits from his younger brother, Michael, who was out on the course who was one of my competitors as well. I’d had a couple of really good duels with Michael at half iron man distance. And Michael was giving me splits. And, um, he was, he was closing the time down rapidly. And I was running at a pace that was already, I was the pace I was holding. The marathon was course record pace for the marathon I was running at about 2:36 marathon pace. And this guy is taking actually, it was even quicker than that earlier on. And he was taking time out of me.

Dr. Cooper

Pause just for a second for the non triathletes out there. He’s he just said 2:36 pace. That’s after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike starting in the middle of the day. You’re not starting a marathon at 7:00 AM. He start in the middle of the day after doing all this stuff. So, okay. Back back to our regular scheduled show here.

Craig Alexander

Yeah. So, um, I’m getting these splits that Michael’s running, I don’t know, 15 or 20 seconds a mile out of me. And I’m thinking, you know, we are both going to pay for this. But one thing that was front of mind for me was he’s a very hungry guy. Who’s had a third and a second at this race. He’s very experienced now. And he’s making a charge. He knew what he was doing. And I just, I had just a lot of belief in the power of the mind. And I thought, forget what the record book show, no one’s ever run this pace before. If this guy gets in a position. I mean, he’s, he’s not so crazy either that he’s going to hold that pace, the whole marathon. I just thought he’s going to hold that pace and get close and get within striking distance. And then he’ll regulate his pace down a little bit. But my fear was once he gets in a position where, you know, the victory is in sight, people lift mentally. I’ve seen it. My whole career. People do superhuman things where you think the body is certainly not capable of that, but the mind just takes it to a place that, you know, you see it in all sports, you see histories of people talking about super superhuman strength at car accidents and moving cars. And I just have a lot of belief in the power of the mind, the mind rules, the body, the mind has all these governors that, you know, everyday lives coming here. And he said that we don’t hurt ourselves, but the very good athletes in all sports override those and go to a place that most other athletes don’t go to. And these governors often kick in where there’s going to be no damage, but they they’re set so that you, you know, you don’t hurt yourself. I guess, as an endurance athlete, you don’t push yourself so hard for so long that you have a heart attack or, but they’re really good athletes are able to override these governors and really just push themselves into a place that others don’t even get to. And I’d seen it. And I thought Andreas is, he just had that look in his eyes. I thought he’s, he wants to get within striking distance. And then he’ll regulate his pace. And, and, you know, I don’t want him to get anywhere near where it’s even a possibility that he may win. And I had the six minute buffer that came down to about, I don’t know what it was three minutes. So I thought I’m going to hold it there. So I ran at his pace to hold it at three minutes and we ran like that for six miles. It was, it was, a prolonged painful race and I thought I’m going to pay for this, but behind Andre, Andreas was about seven or eight minutes back to third spot. So I thought where I am, I’ve just got to get to about mile 20. If I blow up at mile 20, um, I’ve held off Andreas and he’s already blown up, then I think I can get to the finish from there. So I saw off Andreas’s push lasted about six miles. Um, and I remember it was at about mile 15. I finally got started getting splits if it gets now going out again and was going out again at a rapid rate. So he’d blown, he’d completely blown up and was still at 10 miles to run. And I thought, I can’t, I can back my pace off now. So I backed it off to the pace that I’d planned on running. And I thought, Oh, this is not comfortable either. Cause I’ve, I’ve gone into the red here. I’ve been in the red, a little too long.

Dr. Cooper

Those matches are burned.

Craig Alexander

Yeah. And I thought, you know, there’s no need to panic. I mean, I’ve so I just sort of consolidate it for the next five miles and got to mile 20 and started feeling okay again. But your question was what was going through my mind when I started cramping, the first thing that went through my mind is how unprofessional I had been, because I’d run about a mile at about mile 20, we go through special needs and I just started feeling good again, I’d, I’d seen off Andreas, a six mile push. I’d had another five miles on the back of that, where I started feeling okay again. And I ran through special needs. I didn’t grab my salt tablets and I just started feeling good. We get to the turnaround in the energy lab. I had a big lead. So I’m not even thinking about the record. I was so relieved I’d seen of Andres, It was, it was a world-class chance at the title he had that year. I mean, and you’d expect nothing less. I had a lot of fondness from Andres because in 2009, I’m going to tell a little anecdote here, but in 2009, I’d won the year before. So I’m defending champion and it’s his first Kona. So he’s raised in, I think he, he comes second. You know, the one will come second at 70.3 worlds the year before, you know, and I knew he was record at ITU. He’d meddled it well, junior champs in Olympic distance racing. He had top 10 finishes at Olympic games. So I knew he was pedigree and we’re in the we’re in the midst of the race, you know, 2009. And there was a little front group of us away. And there was a few guys off the front that was when Chris really took off, off the front. And so we get, we get to the turn at Harvey. We’re about 60 miles in the bike ride, a hundred kilometers into the bike ride for those who work in metric. And for those who know the race, when you make the turn at Harvey, you come up a little rise and that’s where special needs is on the bike. And we had a little group of, it was a little group and it always happens usually the year after an Olympic year, when a lot of the ITU guys and girls come into Ironman racing and half I’m in racing, the swim gets gets quicker and on you, what would so I’d plan for it accordingly and up my swimming a little bit for 2009. And it was a little breakaway group in the swim that had a lot of the guys who’d come from the it that year before so Andy Rayleigh, Rasmus Henning from Denmark. Bacl Andy Potts from the U S who’d come from the ITU circuit and a lot of really elite swimmers. So I did a lot of swimming that year and was able to get myself into that front group.

Craig Alexander

I think there was six or seven of us and at different parts of the race, you know, Christ came through and took off. And I think Marino from Belgium, he rode through as well. Um, so we get to have a, we’re still a group of six or seven guys. And there was another group coming from behind the second group, which typically happened in Kona. And that was a group that had Norman in it. So they’d got out of the swim about three, three minutes behind us. So we go through special needs. And what you do is you call out your number as you go past them on the way into Harvey and they get your special needs bag. So I was number one I’ve called out, number one, go through a special, uh, Harvey come out and normally you get eye contact with one of the volunteers and this guy grabbed my bag and he hold it up. He saw it was me. And then he looked and he realized he grabbed bag number 11, not bag number one now. And so he’s run back and grab my bag. But as he was running back, I’d gone through because I was on the front of the group. And so I thought I’ll, well, I’m not going to get special needs this year. Anyway, about half a mile later, as we just crossed this little hill, we’re about to start the big descent out of Harvey. Andy Rayla comes peddling up next to me with my special needs bag. He had his own special needs bag around his, like, he put it over his head, like a domestique that you see them doing the tour to France. And he put my bag in his mouth and right up to me and yeah, those sorts of things, you never forget. And he didn’t have to do that, but he did it. And we talked about it after the race. I thanked him obviously. And he said, you know, that’s he said, it just so happened that the guy who had your bag came back just as I was getting there and I could see the next guy had my bag. It was, you said it was, I mean, he played it down. Obviously he’s a gentleman, he’s a gentleman, a very, very humble human being. But he said it was, it was very easy for me to grab both. And it was no problem at all, but it helped my race enormously. So you don’t, you don’t forget those things, you know? So I had a lot of respect for Andy.

Craig Alexander

And so when we made fast forward two years back to our story, I digress. I know I’ve seen off his charge. Now we’re in the energy lab. I’ve made the turn and I could see he was hurting and I was starting to increase my lead again. And I just thought, well, I hope he hangs on for a second. I hope he hangs on for second. I mean, he’d rolled the dice and tried to win. And he was now hurting and we still had, we had a bit more than six miles at that point, yet the bottom of the energy level, you probably got eight miles to go. So yeah, I thought I still had a long way to go. He’s hurting. I hope he hangs on. I really want him to hang on and get second as it was he did, he held on and got third. So he’s still got the podium. And, but I, I was starting to feel good at that point at the bottom of it, the energy lab. So I’ve run through special needs on the run, which comes a little bit after the turn in the energy lab and on you, it was a mistake almost immediately. I got to about half a mile past, and I started getting twinges in my legs. You know, before you get a cramp, you get the little, the little heads up that you are about to get a cramp, the muscles are twitching and quivering. And I was like, why did I not grab my special needs? I mean, just a mistake, a mental mistake that I made. And so that’s what I was thinking when I started to cramp up, I thought, well, you know, you, you deserve this, you deserve, you deserve this. I mean, this is you reap what you sew. Um, so I just thought I’d just have to manage it. So I was trying to slow my pace down, do all the little things that you can, you can do to prolong the period before the cramps sets in. So I slowed my pace a little bit. I shortened my stride, so I wasn’t putting as much length through the muscles. I wasn’t taking them right through their range. And I was slowing down through the aid stations, trying to get a lot more electrolyte drink. But once you get into that, that position where you’re really depleted, it’s a slippery slope after that. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I started cramping probably seven kilometers from the finish, but I was able to just run, run with it, but yeah, I had to stop and stretch out a mile and a half from the finish. And then again, a mile from the finish, two K from the finish at the top of Palani. And at that point, I wasn’t even thinking about the record. I was just

Dr. Cooper

We were, I’m yelling at the computer screen. I’m like, come on, Crowie. You got this buddy!

Craig Alexander

I had a good friend who was right there. He just happened to be watching the race at the top of where Palani and the queen K, met at that intersection. And he’s like, come on that, you’ve got the record and it’s right there for a minute. I didn’t even, it didn’t register. I’m like record. What’s he talking about? I’ve just got to get to the finish. And then when I got down on the Alii drive I heard Mike Riley say, Oh, it’s still in play the record is still in play. So I really picked it up the last 400 meters. Um, yeah, it was, it was painful. And you know, I always try to take ownership in those situations. It was my fault. So I was like, you got to deal with it buddy boy, I mean, you brought this on yourself and there’s things you can do, you know, to manage it. And it was just, it wasn’t pleasant. And it was quite painful because I had to stop a few times and running down Palani. I had to stop in the motorbike. The TV made a bike, nearly ran up the back of me that, yeah, I just, I just had to deal with it and manage it. It’s part of racing. It’s something that you hope doesn’t happen, but it does happen a lot. So it’s like getting a flat tire in the car, you know, it can happen. You don’t want it to happen. It’s not ideal. But if it does, you got to change the tire. So I was trying to change the tires.

Dr. Cooper

Well, so, all right. Speaking of changing tires, we’ve got a lot of masters athletes listen to this. You’re I believe 47 right now. So you’re, you’re approaching that 50 you’ve raced very successfully, even the last several years. What, what different things are you doing now as you approach 50? What are you planning to do as you move through your mid fifties, uh, to continue to be as successful as you are?

Craig Alexander

Yeah. I think first thing is understand mentally, you know, the things that you need to do and the things that will make your experience a happy and successful one for you and only each person knows what those, what those benchmarks are. And for me, it was, it was accepting that training’s not my day-to-day priority anymore, but performance is still important to me. So my whole life and my whole year is not geared around racing anymore. But when I do race, I get that opportunity to do it the way that I want to do it, make sure I, I, I, you know, check all the boxes that have always been important to me because performance and particularly high performance is still very important to me. I don’t just want to be making up the numbers. I want to get the very most out of myself and I know what I’m capable of. So I need to be able to do that. So that’s the first thing, you know, and then prioritize, understand, you know, the things that you have in your, your week, your weekly routine, your daily routine, and in your life that are important. And for a masters athlete that’s family, that’s work commitments. You need to be realistic about the amount of time that you can commit to your training and stick to that. You know, consistency is important. So understand how your days and your weeks are going to be spent and the things that you have to do your commitments. Um, and I think you’ll find a much more sustainable outlook mentally and a much more manageable life. If you’re just realistic about the things that are important and the things that you have to do and plan accordingly. Um, so that’s, that’s the first thing, the mental side of it, and the planning side of it from a physical standpoint where we’re not what we used to be. That’s not to say we’re not good. We can still in a cardiovascular sport in an endurance sport, you can still into your late thirties, forties, and even fifties be world-class. Yeah, the body has to be managed though. You need more recovery, you lose strength and speed. So you need to put a focus on that in your training because endurance will be there the years and years of training, the endurance will be there. Um, and, but you need to look after your body. So that might mean more sleep eating a certain way, um, supplemental recovery, whether it’s massage compression therapy or spas, but you need to be real, think of, think of the, the masters athlete, the forties and fifties athlete as a, um, a Pinto Shazzie with a VR, with a Jaguar V12 engine, the engine is going to be, you need to, you need to make sure the Pinto Shazzie is, uh, is looked after and needs a lot of body work. And a lot of TLC, the engine will be strong. So, you know, I, yeah, you just need to be mindful of more sleep and we don’t need to train the way we used to in terms of volume, because what volume and that aerobic training does is build a huge aerobic platform, which you need, which now you have, hopefully if you’ve been doing triathlon for five years or 10 years, some athletes are made in their fifties and sixties. I mean, you’re in triathlon for 25 years. So if that’s, you, you have a lot of aerobic conditioning. And now if you’re new to the sport at that age, you’re going to have to do some aerobic conditioning, which you can’t fast track, and you’re not going to be able to do the strength and speed that you might’ve been able to do in your twenties either. And that’s okay. That’s okay. We all working within the realms of our own limitations and our own strengths as well. So, um, I would just say that the engine is, is good. So it’s no real reason to be despondent and lower your expectations or your goals in terms of thinking, yeah, I’m an older guy now or an older lady even now set the bar high, set the bar high, but manage your body, your training, manage your recovery.

Dr. Cooper

I love hearing you say that. Um, I’ve got one more question for you, to be kind of a closer, but before we do that folks that are hearing you, and they’re saying, man I’d like to have this guy coach me, you’ve got coaching going. What’s the best way to, for people to look you up or track you down or keep track of what you’re up to?

Craig Alexander

Yeah. Follow us on social media. And I’ve got a website www.sansego.co. I’ve just, I’ve actually just taken over the business myself the last six months. Um, I was a partner in it and now I’m, I’m running the show I guess. And that’s been a learning experience, so yeah, I’ve just redone the website. So check that out. It’s only just gone live and we’re still making some little final changes with those things as is always the way. Um, but yeah, check it out. We’ve got some good things going on. I’ve got some great coaches who work with the business. So I think some of the best endurance coaches in triathlon and in all endurance sports I’ve had experience with Olympians and world champions, but I’ve had just as much or more experience with, with age group athletes and masters athletes and first timers, which was for me, that’s what makes our coaches really good. And a really good coach has obviously has a wealth of knowledge and they know the science, but they have experience implementing that in each individual situation.

Dr. Cooper

With people. Yeah, yeah. Personal side. Yeah.

Craig Alexander

Yeah. Yeah. Because as I said, all athletes, we’re all people and we’re different emotionally and mentally, and we’re different physically. We have different backgrounds in terms of our length of years in the sport. And also we’re different in terms of how many hours per week we can commit to the sport right now and what our goals are. So, you know, we’ve got some good coaches. We’ve also got an online community, which is fun. Um, yeah. And I’ve written a lot of generic programs, some athletes don’t want to coach, you know, I’ve noticed in, particularly in the U S a lot of athletes who are, who are college athletes and quite high level in, in other swimming, cycling, or running, and then go off and work and come back. A lot of people find our sport in their thirties and forties, which is one of the, one of the great things about triathlon. It’s a, it’s a sport for life. Yeah. So those, those athletes have quite an they’ve attained, quite a high level in maybe one of the individual sports. And they know the discipline of training and they know how to follow, uh, a training regime or training plan. And a lot of those athletes just want a plan. They just need a guide. They don’t need somebody looking over their shoulder. So we have training plans as well, and, you know, pre pre COVID. We actually had a lot of training camps. You know, I’ve run, I’ve run training camps in North America, in Kona, in Boulder. Um, we’ve had some in Arizona. We’ve had some in Canada. We’ve had some in South America, Colombia, South Paulo. We’ve had camps in Europe, in New York, in Spain. So our plan again next year, or whenever all the international boundaries open up is to run just training experiences, training camps, where I bring one or two coaches with me and we go to a place and we train for two or three days. And, you know, I, I let you in on the secret, which is, there’s no secret. It’s consistent training over time. It’s making it manageable and sustainable. It’s having fun. It’s understanding as an athlete, what you need in terms of your sleep patterns, your nutrition, um, whatever event you’re training for making a training specific to that, and making a sociable and fun as well. I mean, we talked about 10,000 hours or how many hours it takes to, to improve and become world-class, you know, it’s a long commitment, so you want to make it fun as well and manageable. So, yeah, our coaches and camps help do that.

Dr. Cooper

For anybody who has not tried a camp like that in some format, it is so powerful. I can’t even tell you it’s, it’s, it’s a great experience. All right. Parting words of wisdom, those looking, and you don’t have to go triathlon here. You don’t even have to go fitness. Just your parting words of wisdom, pull it into a tweet length or whatever you want in terms of people looking for better than yesterday. People looking to make tomorrow a little bit better than today.

Craig Alexander

Always be learning, always be a student. Don’t be scared to ask questions, know yourself, understand what’s worked universally for others, but make it specific to you. Be self-aware surround yourself with good people, always and understand what makes them tick. You’re going to get the best out of each other. If you understand what makes the people around you tick and what, what lights their fire.

Dr. Cooper

Love it. Crowie, thank you so much. This is a lot of fun. Really appreciate it.

Craig Alexander

Man, thank you for having me on it’s has been good, fun, and I appreciate your time.

Dr. Cooper

Absolutely take care. There are plenty of great athletes who disappoint when you meet them, but I have a feeling most of us now feel the exact opposite about Craig Crowie, Alexander, such a class act on so many fronts. Thanks for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week’s guest is Dr. Kyrin. Dunston. It’s a big time, right turn for us from this week’s episode, she’s a functional medicine physician who specializes in the healthy treatment and optimization of menopause. It’s a discussion packed with practical, healthy insights. And we frankly expect it to be one of our most downloaded episodes. So stay tuned for that one. Thanks for all your support. One way you can really help us out is to share the podcast with friends, we completely depend on word of mouth for the growth of what we’re doing here. And so we really appreciate it when you do. As always feel free to reach out to us with any questions about your current or future coaching career Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com or check out the website CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. This Dr. Bradford Cooper, of the catalyst coaching Institute. And now it’s our turn to get out there and be a catalyst. I’ll speak with you soon on another episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness and Performance Coaching Podcast, or maybe over on the YouTube coaching channel.