There have been a number of mythical milestones in sport: the four-minute mile, for instance, which was first broken by Roger Bannister in 1954, or the 10-second 100 metres, which Jim Hines achieved in the rarified air of Mexico City in the 1968 Olympics. Then there are those that remain unbreached, such as the sub-two-hour marathon, which will require someone to shave 90 seconds off the current world record. As with every record, of course, it’s only a matter of time.
The magical mark in triathlon’s Iron Man discipline – 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42.2km run – is seven hours. At least, that is the number that Great Britain’s double Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee has settled on, and one that will form the basis for a challenge that has been dubbed the Pho3nix SUB7 – and which, pandemic-permitting, he and half-Iron Man world record holder Kristian Blummenfelt will attempt some time in 2022.
For comparison, the current record is 7hrs 35 minutes and 39 seconds, meaning they’ll have to be almost eight percent better over the course than Jan Frodeno’s 2016 achievement. The fact the Pho3nix SUB7, and SUB8 for the women athletes, is being promoted under the banner of “Defy the Impossible” underlines the scale of the task.
When Arabian Business sat down with Alistair Brownlee to talk about goals, targets and motivation – all of which sport, particularly endurance sport, shares with the corporate world – it’s clear that monumental things can be accomplished if you aim for somewhere between the achievable and the outlandish.
So where did the idea of completing an Iron Man in under seven hours come from?
A few of us were sitting around the table in Bahrain after training camp thinking about different challenges that would get people excited about triathlon – something that might inspire people, capture people’s imagination. It was not long after the sub two-hour marathon challenge and that got us thinking about how fast you could do an Iron Man.
It’s interesting you went straight to seven hours, though – which is a major chunk to shave off. Did you start with the figure and work backwards or build up to seven hours piece by piece?
We started by looking at the fastest times across the three disciplines in the race – the swim, the bike, the run – and got an idea about what was possible from that. But, yeah, it is a bit arbitrary in the sense that it’s a catchy name. It’s not going to sound very appealing if you say “we’re going to go under 7 hours 21 minutes!” So seven hours is definitely on the cusp of what’s possible but that’s what makes it exciting and enticing.
Is setting targets that seem out of reach an important part of finding out where your limits are?
It is. That’s what the essence of this sport is all about. You give yourself a target and you go out there and train and, to best of your ability, try to achieve it. That goal has obviously got to be something that is possible but at the same time it’s also got to excite you and, as a result, motivate you to keep you going through all the training sessions. If you only set easily achievable goals there isn’t that drive to push yourself.
The mental component is obviously huge for endurance athletes. At the start line, you know you’re about to do something that is hard, probably painful and that’s going to take a long time. So, how do you keep your brain from focusing on the difficulty of the task?
In any long-distance or endurance event you can’t really contemplate the whole thing – you have to break it down into little bits. So, in an Iron Man it’s about what do I need to do to get through the swim, what do I need to do to get the next buoy, what do I need to do to catch the people at the front. All these things. You try to be in the moment of what you’re doing at each point. If you’re standing at the start line thinking, “Wow, I’ve got seven very hard hours in front of me”, you’re going to struggle!
You had a bit of chastening experience at your first full-length Iron Man at Kona back in 2019, when you dropped back to finish 21st. But within six weeks, you were in Western Australia winning an Iron Man in a record time. Is failure a motivation for you?
That was a strange one. The morning after Kona I woke up feeling really disappointed with myself, knowing I could have done a lot better. So, I decided to go out there straight away and show everyone what I could do. It’s probably the opposite feeling you should have after completing an Iron Man, but I’d trained well and messed up for other reasons – nutrition was a main one – so I realised I needed to do a better job than that.
Are you able to find moments in a race when you things are so going well, you’re so in the zone, that you don’t actually know where the last hour has gone – that it’s almost meditative?
You can do. I guess that comes down to how you’re feeling. If the race is going well, it’s perhaps more of a hyper-focus on what you’re doing: is my pace right, when is the next drink, who is around me, can I take a shorter line, all those things. If it’s not going very well, I tend to lose focus. I’ll be thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner tonight or whether I know that person in the crowd! That’s when I know I’m not 100 percent in the moment.
We talk about “races”, but are these events competitions with other athletes or really about going out there and doing what you need to do to come first?
Ah, that’s the million-dollar question! Most of what you do is focusing on yourself. You can only really run your own race once you’ve put in the preparation and training beforehand. In the race you’re thinking, I just have put in all I can and perform to the best of my ability. But obviously tactics do come into play, and you are influenced by the people around you. But 95 percent is about maximising your own ability.
You’re 33 next birthday, so there’s obviously a limit to how much longer you can compete at this level. What does a triathlete do next? Climb Everest?
I think a combination of things. Sport and the Olympics have been such a huge part of my life and I want to stay involved somehow, whether in administration or sports politics. But I’ll always have to do something physical, even if it’s just getting involved in the local mountain or fell races – things I haven’t had the chance to do over the years. I’ve been a professional athlete for so long it’ll be nice to run just for the fun of it again.
For more details on the Pho3nix SUB7 and SUB8, please visit this site.
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