Learning from Craig Alexander and Mirinda Carfrae

On July 19th, 2010, Nikki and I spent some of our vacation going to see Craig Alexander and Mirinda Carfrae. The event was put on by Mark and the other great people at Runner’s High n Tri in Arlington Heights, Illinois. You can find their facebook page here : Runner’s High n Tri Facebook page

It was a great couple days in a triathlete’s life as we were able to watch the Racine 70.3 race on Sunday, where we saw Craig Alexander getting into mid season form along with a great women’s race between Samantha Warriner and Kate Major. Then spending the night listening to Bob Babbitt interview two of the top professionals in our sport. The only thing that could have made it better was actually racing on Sunday ourselves. I hope that we’ll come back to Racine in 2011 to do the race.

The discussion was more about getting to know the athletes and their introduction and involvement in the sport than it was about “how to” do the sport. The flow of the interview was appropriate because it allowed participants to enjoy the discussion without getting too technical. Plus, I imagine that professionals like Alexander and Carfrae are a little quiet about their current training programs and fitness as they get into final preparations for Kona.

Here are some take away thoughts I had after last night:

1 – Ironman is about strength. I don’t mean strength in terms of weight lifting strength, but both athletes talked about how they took time to get into Ironman because they felt they were getting stronger over the years as their experience increased.

One thing they talked about was being able to hold form late into the run, something they both proved last year at Kona.

2 – Ironman can take away from your body. It is interesting that both these athletes have limited full 140.6 distance experience. In fact, Alexander has done 4 Ironman races in his career:

2007 – Ironman Austrailia (3rd place)
2007 – Ironman Kona (2nd place)
2008 – Ironman Kona (1st place)
2009 – Ironman Kona (1st place)

If you look at Carfrae’s Ironman history, she has one Ironman race on her resume:

2009 – Ironman Kona (2nd place) – set the run course record, running 2:56:51

The one thing that age group athletes can learn from this example, in my opinion, is that we shouldn’t be in a hurry to get to an Ironman – if you are interested in racing well at the full 140.6 distance.

One thing that you will find in both of these athlete’s history and current schedules is a lot of racing at the shorter distances. They both raced ITU for Austrailia, then started doing olympic distance races in the U.S. like Chicago, Lifetime Fitness, etc. Then they moved onto racing many 70.3 races. Their current schedules are still set up in this way. They both do many 70.3 races throughout the year and focus on only one Ironman race a year.

Carfrae discussed how she noticed how doing even one Ironman race limited some of the racing she might otherwise do.

The one thing that will be interesting to watch in the future is the path that professional triathletes take with the new WTC rules to qualify for Kona. The new rules will not allow most athletes to focus only on Kona and will require them to race at least one other full Ironman race a year.

Nikki and I have discussed this topic a lot this year as she took the exact opposite approach to getting into triathlon. This is her first year doing sprint and olympic distance races (after a couple Ironman races and many marathons). Therefore she’s trying to learn to go fast. She’s actually picked up the shorter distance racing well, probably from all the years of competitive swimming – but it would have likely made for more successful Ironman racing if she would have learned to race a triathlon prior to trying to survive an Ironman.

Not only has Nikki been on this path this year, but in my own way I’m trying to learn to be “fast” again. One thing that is true within my racing is that my swimming, cycling and running is all slower than it was 6 and 7 years ago, prior to making the decision to try Ironman.

My hope is that after 3 or 4 years of learning to race fast again, I’ll be able to make another attempt at Ironman with a higher ceiling and then lift my Ironman efforts to a higher level. The one change I will make within my training next time around is that I will not be so focused on “the distance” and will spend more time within my training focused on the “strength” and “speed”.

3. Alexander had one workout he talked about doing 4 to 6 weeks out from Hawaii (don’t remember exact timing):

115mile ride / 12 x 1mile repeats on the track leaving on 6mins

He had two training groups for the ride. One group rode the first half of the ride with him, while the second group rode the second half with him. Primarily so there were always fresh legs around him.

This workout would ruin every triathlete I know if they tried such a workout (he is the 2x World Champion) – but it is an example of what he means by having strength late in the run. Most people I know that do long bricks don’t get much benefit out of their off-the-bike runs.

4 – Family is primary focus. After watching Alexander at Racine 70.3 run through the finish line with his daughter, along with seeing his family around him after the race – it is obvious that Alexander puts family first. I lost count of the times that he mentioned decisions he made that included the involvement his family had, the impact it would have on his family and how he structured his career to facilitate family.

This is very inspirational as an aspiring family man and father. Family issues and priorities are also the single most important variables that I have to navigate when working with most of my athletes.

Final Thoughts:

It was a great experience to listen to these two athletes. The take away message that I had going away is that while they live at the top of the sport, they still face many of the same issues we all face.

- When to race
- Where to make a living
- What our family has to say about our participation
- Do we have sex before a race (it was a question someone asked)