Ultraman Interview

PART 1: ULTRAMAN 2002

We'll start by discussing arguably your most notable victory, ULTRAMAN 2002…

* What do you remember about your training in the fortnight leading up to the Ultraman event? Did you train well? How long had you been in training for this three day event? How can you possibly prepare yourself physically for such an intense test of human endurance?

I have detailed logs that go back a decade so I had a look to confirm my memories against reality.  Sometimes we find that the two don’t always line up!

Turns out that I did a little more than I remembered.  I’ll go backward from the race:

Race Week – Four swims, One bike, Three runs – all of it pretty mellow with an average of an hour per day.

Five to Eleven Days Out – Quite a bit of cycling the last weekend before the race. I did ten hours of cycling, mainly Steady, with a few spontaneous accelerations in the group.  Eight days out from Ultraman, I did a progressive bike lactate test where I produced the highest end values of my life (14 mmol of lactate at 400w of power).

Other than those highlights, my preparation was very “normal” in an Ironman-sense.  The main adjustments concerned the swim where I did five swims that were at least three hours in duration.  For my running, I did double- and triple-long run weeks.  I tried doing a Mega-Run (five hours) but that trashed me so I didn’t try that again!

My cycling was very specific to Ultraman, back-to-back long rides where I would pull the group for hours and hours.  My biggest cycling block was 22 hours of cycling in four days, then an easy day, then a 2.5 hour run.

Thinking back, what is special about 2002 is not the training.  It is the forced recovery.  I completely wrecked myself with high intensity “speedwork” in May and had ten days off training.  The fatigue lingered, after a very poor Half Ironman race, and I had twelve days off training in July (average weekly volume ~12 hours). 

1. The lack of preparation for Canada meant that I didn’t take a long off-season in September and was able to get rolling with my training for Ultraman.

If I had been able to train “well” for IM Canada then I might not have won Ultraman that year.  Quite often, unexpected setbacks can help us in unexpected ways.

* What did you eat the night before the first day? Did you have set 'pre race' meal that you stuck to for each race, or was there something special for this one? (E.g any carb loading, super-hydrating etc)>

Ultraman is held on American Thanksgiving weekend so we roasted a turkey the day before the race (no joke).  So I probably had turkey with potatoes and salad.  It was a big bird and I remember eating turkey a lot across the weekend,

Athletes get far too worked up over the last few days of training as well as their meals.  What I try to do is make things as normal as possible and low stress.

* How were you feeling when you woke up on the first day of the race? What did you do in the hours before the start to prepare yourself for the test ahead?

10K is a long way to swim (!) so I tried to stay relaxed and headed down to the start with plenty of time.  In training, my ultraswims had completely wasted me – to the point where I’d go home and sleep for the rest of the day on some occasions.  As a result, I was pretty nervous about how much energy the swim leg would take.  I had heard stories about athletes being caught in the current and swimming in the same spot for over an hour!

I did as little as possible that morning.  I wanted to save energy for the day ahead.

* How did you prepare yourself mentally for the race? Is it a different process preparing for Ultraman compared to, say, a normal Iron distance race?

There are only a few people (in the world) that are fit enough to “race” an Ironman.  Of course, that doesn’t stop the rest of us from trying!  To be good at Ultra-Distance, fundamentally, you need to LOVE training.  That’s what I remind myself when it gets tough.  “I love this stuff.”  “I like to train.”  “This is what I do.” I repeat those lines to myself.

* What do you remember about the minutes leading up to the start? Who did you consider your main rivals for the title? What thoughts were going through your head? What were your expectations? Had you decided on tactics beforehand? Is it even possible to have tactics at the Ultraman?

I imagine that we all have expectations about our races.  However, I didn’t feel like I started to learn about Ironman until I had completed at least ten races.  So I knew enough to know that I was pretty clueless about Ultraman!

My main concern was how shelled I would be coming out of the water.  Needless-to-say, I was shocked to lead out of the water, and later, to discover that I had a half hour lead.

* Talk us through the race as it developed, as you remember it. What can you remember feeling during the different stages, and at the end of each day? What were you thinking about as the race progressed? Did you think about tactics, or just let the race unfold? What was your hydration/nutrition pattern during the race - what you ate/drank and when would be useful to know. How you ate/drank at the end of each day would be interesting, too.

To win Ultraman you need to treat it like a one-day race.  In other words, you swim strong then ride the first 90-miles as if it was a best-effort TT.  I rode the final thirty miles as fast as I could go.

On Day Two, a 175-mile ride, you mark the other riders (if you can) and ride all the hills strongly.  For the double-marathon, Day Three, you protect your lead and don’t do anything silly.  Easy plan, eh?

Because the race is so long, about eight hours per day, the average intensity is moderate.  As a result, fueling is straightforward and, surprisingly, easier than in an Ironman.  I ate/drank at a normal training rate.  The one special change that I made was a HUGE recovery shake about mid-way through each day as well as immediately after the finish.

* Also, any strange things you remember - incidents with other competitors, anything that has stuck in your memory about the day (the weather, things people said to you, incidents etc)

The strangest thing that happened to me was on the swim.  My goggle kept filling with water and I couldn’t see.  I tried to empty it for an hour and, eventually, gave up.  When I exited the swim, it turned out that I had been stung by a jellyfish and my eye had had swollen to fill my goggle.  I was trying to empty my own eye out of the goggle!

* Now for the big finish. How did you feel the moment you crossed the line (emotionally and physically)? What do you remember about the hour or two following the race? What did you eat and drink?

With 5K to go on the run, I arrived at the point where I could walk-it-in and still win the race.  That was a great feeling.  Never having thought of myself as an “athlete”, winning Ultraman changed my self-image as well as my view on what my body could do.  It took me a couple more years to go “fast” but the race showed me that I might be able to compete at a high level, something that I had never considered.

PART 2: ANOTHER GREAT SUCCESS

* We'd like you to talk a bit about another race you consider to be one of your finest. You don't need to go into as much detail, but highlight what you think you did right, your thought process during the race, how the different sections panned out, and so on.

Ultraman was a good race for “me” but my finest race was Ironman Canada 2004 – I went 8:29 and ran a 2:46 marathon (following a flat tire late in the ride).  It is a time that stands up well with Peter Reid’s performances on the course.  As a Canadian, Peter set the standard for all of us to follow.

I was incredibly fit for that race.  I went through my day and executed exactly like I had done in training.  The summer before the race, I studied/trained with Dave Scott’s elite team and had learned a tremendous amount from The Man.  To prepare for the summer with Dave, I had completed a nine-week tour where we triathlon’ed across the United States (human powered for every meter from Pacific to Atlantic).

PART 3: YOUR BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

* We'd like you to talk a bit about the race you consider your biggest disappointment. What went wrong, and why? How did the experience compare to your greatest triumph? Guide us through the race, how you felt physically and emotionally, what your mental process was, how you dealt with the disappointment and the difference in performance (i.e not being able to perform quite as you had at your peak). What did you do to get over this bad race?

I think it is important to remember that disappointments are neither wrong, nor bad.  They are just disappointing!

I have been through a lot of disappointing situations and they have been my best teachers.  We don’t learn a whole lot when everything goes smoothly.  Likewise, if we think that we’ve triumphed then, outside of World Champs, we might be fooling ourselves.  For most of us, myself included, a race victory simply means that nobody faster turned up!

My most public disappointment was completely wrecking myself at Ironman Canada 2007, while wearing Bib #1!  I was throwing up on the side of the run course and my day was in tatters.  In facing my greatest fear, I saw that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I imagined.  Even with public “failures”, most of us are so wrapped up in ourselves, we quickly forget about other people.  Life went back to normal surprisingly quickly.

PART 4: TIPS

Tips To Be Your Best

These tips are simple, but not easy.  Most of your competition will NEVER be able to do them.  They are how a 30-year old finance-guy became a world-class triathlete.  These are NOT the secrets to a happy life but they will make you a better athlete.  Use with caution!

1. The greatest predictor of success is long-term workload.

Fit needs to come before fast.  In order to benefit from the training that you think your “need to do” it is important to spend an apprenticeship of several thousand hours.

1. There is no easy way.

For any achievement with value, expect to work hard towards your goal daily.  The athletes that rise to the top are those that make a habit of doing the things that their competition find too difficult.

1. Surround yourself by people that share your goals and ethics.

The journey towards your ultimate potential is long and, if successful, there will come a time when you need to make ethical choices.  Choose wisely.

1. Run every day.

Comes back to my first tip.  Build your workload through frequency, rather than intensity.  Eliminate the decisions/workouts that prevent you from accumulating long-term workload.  You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve from simply running often.

1. You can’t coach motivation – the main role of a coach is to prevent you from doing something silly.

Look for a coach with a knack for preventing self-sabotage and gently pointing out areas that you might prefer to avoid.  Generally, we are attracted to people that reinforce our existing patterns – most often truly breakthrough success requires us to move past limiting patterns.  There’s value in having advisors that see the world differently.

1. Schedule recovery.

Far too many athletes train until they fall apart.  As you progress up the performance ladder, your recovery periods need to be deeper.  Schedule recovery in your weeks, months, years and multi-year cycles.  The capacity to “peak” multiple times in a year is an illusion.

1. In your life you will have moments where you need to make ethical choices, choose wisely.

Live with honour, you’ll feel better about it once the glory of athletic success is gone.

1. The pain of losing is mild compared to the pain of regret.

When you give your absolute best to a cause, you will feel deep pain if you fail to achieve your goals.  However, that will pass and you’ll be left with the peace that comes from having the courage to follow your dreams.

1. If you start, then finish.

10. Build a decent weekly schedule – repeat it.

You can waste tremendous time focusing on the minutiae of your plan.  Train smart, eat well and recover.  Keep what works and remove the choices that hold you back.  Be sure to keep the fun in your program!

* We're also interested in tips on recovery - particularly about the best advice for those who have just done one race (probably olympic distance) and need to peak again for another race in, say, a month or six weeks. How should they get the balance between recovery time and training?

My best advice would be to forget about “peaking” – focus on building a deep fitness base and recovering from your key races and sessions.  When we think about “peaking” we tend to do far too much high-intensity training. 

If our main goal is to “get fit” and recover then the first race will handle all the “intensity” necessary to lift the athlete for the second event.