Injuries, illnesses and early setbacks

Today we're joined on the podcast by 5-time Ironman World Champion, Craig ("Crowie") Alexander.

Crowie was the 2008, 2009, 2011 Ironman Triathlon World Champion and previous course record holder (8:03:56 in 2011), and the 2006 (inaugural) and 2011 70.3 World Champion. In 2011 he won both the 70.3 and the full Ironman World Championships. Needless to say - he's a beast, but best of all, he's an absolute gentleman too!

Craig was humbled when Ironman legend and six-time World Champion Dave Scott lauded him as “the first true men’s champion the sport has seen in years.”

The most important thing to Craig is family. He is beyond proud of his wife (and the love of his life) Nerida, and his three amazing kids, Lucy, Austin and Lani. Everything Craig does starts and ends at home with his family. Crowie’s won a lot of titles over the years but the one he likes best is ‘Daddy’. As an aside from us, we've only met Crowie once face-to-face but recall how genuine and approachable he was and when the opportunity to record this podcast with the great man came up, he didn't hesitate, such is his show of great character - he's very much "the people's champion" as you'll hear in the first 60 second intro.

Post-retirement, Craig now runs his highly successful coaching program SansEGO (which basically means "without ego") which we believe, at it's heart, is a philosophy we can all learn from (details at: https://www.sansego.co ). A lot of people talk about “life balance” but Craig really does walk the walk, not just talk the talk and his information from his website below is well worth a deeper dive, especially at this period in time of extreme uncertainty and worry:



"His load was extraordinarily heavy but he carried it with methodical focus and balance…and Craig seemed to find more and more comfort with his confidence in simply letting be, be. Alexander’s most impressive talents are not found in his swim, bike, or run competence. Instead, his unique ability to clear the mind’s clutter and make good decisions has been the key ingredient to his success on and off the racecourse. And this key to finding clarity for the 5 x Ironman/70.3 World Champion was getting the life balance right. He put the right people around him and understood that the whole was only stronger than the sum of its parts when the clutter (ego) was removed from the equation."

We really hope you enjoy this conversation with Crowie and a big thanks and shout out to Coach Chris Southwell for arranging!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.swimsmooth.com/subscribe