firstoffthebike.com - Interviews

Leon Griffin - back in town

It was an interesting season for you last year. There were some highs, there were some lows; it was a real season of contrasts.
It was certainly a different season that's for sure mate. It was definitely different taking a step back and jumping into full-time work. I needed to do that for personal reasons. But I kept in pretty good shape the whole time, I never let myself go and that showed with a couple of good race results not too long ago - the win at Shepparton even though half the field fell over or got disqualified. But the time was still great, still going around in 3.50 considering I was working full-time. And then the implosion in Busso (IM WA where Leon had a forgettable run leg); I was good for six hours. But it was an interesting year and this year is going to be different again.



I want to take you back to Ironman Western Australia. We saw you after the event and you looked very disappointed and a little annoyed. At the time you said the ironman caper didn’t hold a lot of fun for you. Was that just something you were thinking on the day and has since change once the dust has settled?
No, no it's a very emotional sport doing the full Ironman. I think I was walking on the course and my wife was trying to cajole me to start running again and I said "No, that's it I'm quitting, I've had enough of this, this is stupid."

But by the time I got back to the hotel I was already plotting the next race at Melbourne with the new Ironman that's coming up. I was disappointed, but I knew that I didn’t have the preparation that I needed to go toe to toe with guys who are top 10 in Kona. There was a couple of those guys in Timo (Bracht) who won the race and Luke McKenzie (9th) and then Clayton (Fettell) out in front all day.

There was a whole bunch of good guys, most of them training full time and I was trying to squeeze my 25 hours of training in around my work and just didn’t happen. I suppose I didn’t get the preparation I needed. I had a great run preparation in the lead-up so I guess what I was disappointed with was that I had a good bike with very little effort put in, and a bad run with lots of effort put in. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul, I over-extended myself on the bike to get back in touch with those guys after such a bad swim and six hours in the big piano fell on the back.

It was interesting, I've only done two Ironmans, and the point where I started to struggle where my heart rate was going down and usually your heart rate would be going up until you blow to pieces. I take a lot away from that race and hopefully I can have a better preparation for Melbourne.

You were developing a speciality in the 70.3 world and in your 2008 season you were really on it. Now you're about to return to the fold where it all began for you.
Yes it's funny I've had a couple of people want to do magazine interviews lately and send me their questions and they said you had a great season in 2008 and the next question is what happened. Well yeah, life happens I suppose, things pop up and you've got to take them on the chin and deal with them at that time and that's why I had to take a backwards step from the sport. But I've always kept in good shape with that hope of returning and life is about opportunities and an opportunity has popped up for myself going forward.

I guess I can say a little bit about it, not too much about it, but I'll be moving back to my old sponsor Orbea. They're putting together a team which is really exciting and I was in the right place at the right time.

I'm 31 so I think there's plenty of juice to squeeze out of this old lemon and I'm really excited to be getting back at it full-time. I've got a few more weeks of work, that will take me up until the Geelong race (Geelong MultiSport Festival), and then I'll have six weeks of full-time training for IM Melbourne,.

Hopefully I can punch a ticket to Kona with enough points there and we'll see what happens see if I can get back to where I was; I definitely think I can. I don't think you lose potential overnight and I haven't lost the belief overnight as shown in Shepparton. So we'll see how it pans out.



What do you to get yourself mentally back into the frame to go and race Ironman against a field that already as we know is going to be an absolute cracker?
It's all about the belief in yourself I think and like I said I haven't lost that belief.  If anything it's fired me up and made me even angrier. I sometimes think I should be a redhead with the anger that I've got inside that obviously you can't see from the outside. And I'm as fired up as ever.

I finished just behind Craig (Alexander) a couple of years ago in Geelong, he's obviously won a couple more Ironman titles since then! And I know I was almost there so I've got no problems whatsoever mentally, it's just a matter of physically staying on the track in preparation.

The mental side for me has always been the easy side, people talk about numbers and watts and all this stuff in the sport but you can't measure a person’s determination and I certainly think I've got that in spades and it will come out and show before too long.

You mentioned that the goal is to get to Kona - is that what your sponsors Team Orbea are leaning on you to do?
It all comes on myself, that's part of their interest in getting you on. They've had Craig winning all those World Championships and I'm not just going to step in and replace Craig Alexander. They're replacing Craig with a whole team so they're going down a little different route.

Team Orbea are certainly incentivising me to get to Kona and perform well there, but it's got to come from yourself. I watch Kona every year thinking "why aren't I there yet?" Every year I'm sitting in a café or something like that eagerly watching the race unfold on the computer wanting more and more every year to get there. And turning 30 last year I think I've got five or six years to do it, but I want to start doing it now and I'll do everything I can and put all my focus towards that.



You're an honest bloke and we always loved that about you, what for you is going to be an acceptable pass mark for a season of full-time training?
My goal is to get to Kona. In the lead up to Kona and even post Kona there might be a couple of other races, so I reckon I'll race six or eight half Ironmans as well. I'd be bitterly disappointed if I didn’t win one if not two and place in two or three others.

The nature of your racing is that you have a couple of crackers, you have a couple of pretty good races and you have a couple of shockers. So if I sat down and said "Right, I've got 10 half Ironmans plus Kona, plus Melbourne, plus maybe Cairns", which I'm pretty interested to do as well, if I didn’t come away with a win, a couple of seconds and a couple of thirds I'd be disappointed. And that's setting the bar high for a guy who's done sweet jack all for a year. But I guess that's how much belief I have in that if I can have the preparation everyone else has that there's no reason why I couldn't.

Exciting times for 2012. Leon thanks for spending five minutes with us.
Could be in trouble there mate - I've put the benchmark out there now and I have to live up to it, but I look forward to chatting in one year’s time.