firstoffthebike.com - Interviews

A conversation with Craig Alexander

Craig Alexander is the last of a dying breed, a triathlon renaissance man, in every sense of the world. The reigning world champion decided early on in his career he would race all comers over all distances. And he credits the fact he last year added a win at Kona to his debut second in 2006, to his early philosophy of racing all distances.
“I met Greg Welch early on in my career and he said the best athletes are those who do all the distances and are versatile. In the late 1990's, most people were focused on the Olympics and just trained for that one specific draft legal style.

I never just stuck with that style and always did non drafting races, half Ironman races, I guess in that regard it hampered me in the short term on that draft legal stuff, over the long term it made me a more well rounded athlete. I always focused on all the distances equally I would train over all the distances from sprint to half ironman. And I think that sort of training gives you the grounding for a long career.

In 2006, the distance I was best at was half Ironman distance, I was unbeaten for three and a half years over that distance. Then in November 06, I won the world championships at that distance and qualified for Hawaii, so I took then spot. I thought then that I would definitely do it, Nov 06 was when I made the conscious discoing to step up and race Hawaii in 07.”

His debut second was one of the best first up efforts the usually unforgiving big island had seen for many a year. But going into that race Alexander was confident that if he approached it with the same attention to detail I just thought, to me it seemed like a race, I had played close attention to Macca and one thing I have been good at is observing other people, I never judged myself from what other people do. If you do that you only ever achieve what they achieve.
I went to people who I respected and had done well there like Welchy and Dave Scott. I sought their advice and Macca kept sprouting off about paying your dues and paying an apprenticeship at Kona. Alexander says.

But speaking to the guys who had won there, and in particular Dave Scott who had won six times, he said mate you will be one of the most talented guys on the start line and if you prepare properly I am not going to say you will win, but you can have a chance to win. I told him what my prep was and what I was planning to do, and he said if you maintain that you'll be fine.It was a pretty arduous set of tasks I had set myself.

In particular I spoke to Dave Scott, because I was up in Boulder, and that is where he lives. Every other day I had a question to him and I had never been to even watch let alone race. There is no substitute to doing the race and I look back at my first race compared to my second race and the second one was 15 per cent better just because I knew what to expect. In 2008 I went three minutes quicker in conditions that everyone was saying were five to ten minutes harder.

It was Mark Allen who I spoke to after the race, he said to me it is great to win in a year that is tough like that because it gives you the confidence to win in any conditions. Going in 07 I did not have any expectations other than I had the expectation on myself to prepare meticulously, to do my home work and that is what I did. All I wanted was a good performance, that was my goal and that just happened to be second.”

That good performance would be second, not too shabby for his second ever Ironman race.
Second on debut, not many people do it and people were raving about it, I was happy with it but I knew I had made a lot of mistakes. I knew if I could get in similar shape the following year I would be better equipped. To win was unreal, in the 30 year history of the race on 12 men have won it because you have had so many multiple winners. And you think of all the greatest athletes of our sport have gone there, sacrificed everything and more often than not walked away empty handed. To go twice and get second and first is humbling.

Alexander’s name will be forever on that honor roll of triathletes lucky enough to reach the Everest of the sport. He thinks the days of an all round athlete winning world championships at more than one distance are long gone.

I just think the ITU has stagnated a little with flat races. he says. You get to a point when the rides become so tactical no one works on the bike. Sometimes it is not even the best runner who wins it’s the guy who did the least amount of work. So the short course guys are doing less work on the bike because they don’t need to. I am a runner, everyone thinks I am, when I was short course people thought I was a more of a biker.

But now I am in Ironman they think I am a runner, Norman and Thorbjorn think I am runner because I can't ride 4.15 for 180km I can only do 4.30min. There are only two guys that can ride that quick. The whole thing about our sport is it is the unique blending of all three sports, that is why I liked multi sport, it showed someone who was an all rounder. In the drafting races flat courses take that away.

I used to really enjoy some of the ITU races, the bike rides were so difficult because you would have Miles Stewart and Craig Walton hurting everyone. I remember some races we would average 45kmh an hour. The progression from sprint to Olympic to half to Ironman won't happen as much. I was speaking to a few people, the days of people being well rounded and race all distances are long gone, people will just specialize in one sort of race.

So says the last of the truly great renaissance men.