Triathlete and Coach Craig Alexander - CoachCast with Dirk Friel - Season 4 Ep9

Craig Alexander, or "Crowie" as many know him, has formulated an approach to triathlon training through many years as a professional and now as a coach. He talks with Dirk Friel about his approach to hitting peak fitness while balancing a restorative taper for the best performance racing long course triathlon.
Crowie and Dirk consider the schedule changes to the Ironman World Championships in Kona for 2022 and who could take home the men's and women's titles after seeing recent performances and results from the championships in St. George earlier in the year. Plus, should the world championships always be hosted in Kona?
Alexander is a true legend of triathlon and is a three-time Ironman champion and two-time 70.3 world champion. Winning both in 2011, He has held the Ironman Hawaii course record and was recently inducted into the Ironman Australia Hall of Fame. He started his coaching company, Sansego, in 2014, which serves hundreds of athletes worldwide through training plans, clubs, personal coaching and more.
Standout Quotes:
"The main [thought] for me was always, you know, [about] your tapering; it should be more replenishment. It’s replenishing rather than depleting."
“Peaking is really just bringing your form up to a crescendo so you’re in your best physical and mental shape for your events in your plan. Tapering in and around that is…I think they sort of go hand in hand. Because, you know, you don’t want to be fatigued going into your racing. You want to be fresh, you want to be sharp. That’s the whole point. I would always bring the volume back about 30 to 40%, and with my intensity, I would always keep my intensity and my taper at my target race intensity level.”
“Not only does a great coach coach you up and get you fit, but part of that hopefully is a confidence that you have…and again, none of us are immune to that because I used to sit there on race week and see people doing sort of high-intensity stride-outs down Ali’i Drive in race week, you know, at midday and think maybe I should be doing that.”
And again, it came back to that overriding or governing thought I always had before I did any session in my taper was, you know, does this fit in with the mindset of replenishment rather than depletion? Like what is the goal of this session? And that’s a question you should ask yourself before every session, whether it’s in your taper or not.”
#coachcast #triathlontraining #ironman

[@julinievergelt9725]

Craig has all the right answers. From the women’s race being on a Thursday to his answer on whether Kona should remain the venue for World champs. He is a superb spokesperson for the sport of Triathlon. Thank for the great interview with him!

[@AlexRochette]

That was really good! Thank you!