Speaker 1: Welcome to Healthyish. Thank you for joining us listeners on
Speaker 1: this daily podcast from Body and Soul. I am Felicity
Speaker 1: Harley and joining us on the pod today is Alis Today,
Speaker 1: otherwise known as Ali Day. He's a five time Iron
Speaker 1: Series champion and whoop athlete, and we're picking apart well
Speaker 1: what his race series is all about, and also his training,
Speaker 1: nutrition and covery in preparation for these grueling events that
Speaker 1: he participates in throughout summer. Make sure you're listening to
Speaker 1: extra Healthy Ish, where we take a bit of a
Speaker 1: deep dive into his mindset and how he keeps going
Speaker 1: when things are getting pretty mentally tough. Ali, thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us on Healthy Today. How are you?
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm doing well well all the way from your
Speaker 1: kid's bedroom, although I probably wouldn't so, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Brannie's chair, it's extremely it's actually not too bad. It's
Speaker 2: pretty comfortable, Okay.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 1: I do love that we can do podcasting from wherever
Speaker 1: these days, even if it is our kids bedroom.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: So mean obviously not being living here on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 3: You down in Sydney, Yeah, I mean COVID and all
Speaker 3: those sorts of things. Although it was like a bit
Speaker 3: of a huge negative, but this has been a big
Speaker 3: positive out of it, the easy being.
Speaker 2: Able to do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, tell us about what you do. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's actually involved in an iron man iron woman race.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like a really good question.
Speaker 3: So the sport of ironman or iron woman racing was
Speaker 3: born out of basically, you know, trying to save someone's
Speaker 3: life as quick as you can in the ocean. So
Speaker 3: there's obviously the similarity between iron man like you riding
Speaker 3: a bike, running and swimming. And when I was at
Speaker 3: school or my teachers to ask, how is it, You're right,
Speaker 3: you're running and you're bike riding going, and so this
Speaker 3: that people get confused. Our iron man, as I said,
Speaker 3: and women sorry, is born out of saving people's lives.
Speaker 3: Is born from surf life saving. It involves four disciplinancy.
Speaker 3: Go a swim leg in the ocean, a board leg
Speaker 3: where you're sort of on achron board, either kneeling up
Speaker 3: or laying down. And then you're on a surf ski
Speaker 3: which is basically a kayak, and you use a rum
Speaker 3: transition to transition.
Speaker 2: All of those legs up.
Speaker 3: So, you know, because we race in mother nature, you
Speaker 3: can you can have races, or you can racing conditions
Speaker 3: like Musa where it's dead flat, or you can go
Speaker 3: down to Victoria and borts you like I have in
Speaker 3: my early days, and you're racing you six to ten
Speaker 3: foot surf sort of thing. So mother nature is I
Speaker 3: guess like has a huge part in our sport. And
Speaker 3: as I said, it was born out of being able
Speaker 3: to be the fastest person to get out in the
Speaker 3: water and save someone's life. And that's kind of how.
Speaker 2: The sport was born.
Speaker 1: And what are the lengths, just so we can determine
Speaker 1: the difference, because I think that was a really good
Speaker 1: point to make because often it can be very confusing.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: So there's two really good points there that you just ask.
Speaker 3: So in our like our formats are always different, so
Speaker 3: our austrain and iron. Then at the end of the
Speaker 3: year or i'm women, race is our national title. It's
Speaker 3: always roughly between.
Speaker 2: Twelve and fifteen minutes long.
Speaker 3: And you could turn up and they draw basically a
Speaker 3: paddle pop stick out of a hat and it could
Speaker 3: be ski, swim board or board swim ski. So like
Speaker 3: again it's there's no there's never any set order and
Speaker 3: then you look at a race that I'm about to
Speaker 3: do for the tenth time in October, the Cool and
Speaker 3: Get a Gold again.
Speaker 2: It was born out of the movie. It's its fortieth.
Speaker 3: Anniversary this year, and that race goes for four hours,
Speaker 3: so it's again it's similar to I guess, like you know,
Speaker 3: like swimming races, like you know, fifteen hundred meter or
Speaker 3: you go fifty meter freestyle, where our Cool and Get
Speaker 3: a goal is four hours, our national title is fifteen minutes,
Speaker 3: and then our professional series, which we'll talk about today.
Speaker 3: Those races can go from anywhere from fifteen minutes to
Speaker 3: fifty minutes. And as I said, we're in mother Nature
Speaker 3: and all the formats can be different, the orders can
Speaker 3: be different. So there's a bit there sort of digest
Speaker 3: and hopefully that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. I mean, it's a sport that really
Speaker 1: would challenge you on you know, whatever race you're turning
Speaker 1: up to and whatever you're doing on that day, in
Speaker 1: terms of not just your physical strength but also your
Speaker 1: emotional strength. What I mean, what drives you to do
Speaker 1: something like this?
Speaker 3: Well, for starters, I think you know, I was. I
Speaker 3: was brought up by parents that loved the ocean and
Speaker 3: loved sports and would fit and healthy and still are
Speaker 3: to this day.
Speaker 2: And they sort of.
Speaker 3: Took me and my brother and my sister so many
Speaker 3: sporting events, and ironmn was sort of the thing that.
Speaker 2: I love the most.
Speaker 3: I love the fact that I was watching these guys
Speaker 3: on the weekend race at places like ports in eight
Speaker 3: to ten foot surf and we're able to sort of
Speaker 3: handle mother nature, but were so fit and running around
Speaker 3: in speedos and the Ironman top and on the back
Speaker 3: of the new train box.
Speaker 2: So that's sort of that's what sort of kickstarted it
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: I thought, wow, what a you know, I never thought
Speaker 3: I'd get to do it as a job or call
Speaker 3: myself an iron Man, but I thought, what a cool
Speaker 3: sport to get involved in them.
Speaker 2: Now I think, yeah, the motivation has changed.
Speaker 3: I've been very successful. I know that sounds really braggy.
Speaker 1: But you have been You're allowed to own it.
Speaker 3: And also at the same time, like it's think us
Speaker 3: about motivation, I think, yeah, I mean I'm still trying
Speaker 3: to perfect that perfect time in race, that have that
Speaker 3: perfect season, and I've got a young family now and
Speaker 3: as I mentioned off air to you, like I don't
Speaker 3: have that long left. So I just want to try
Speaker 3: and enjoy every every last minute of every last training session,
Speaker 3: every last race trip away and things like that. So
Speaker 3: very honor to have the career.
Speaker 2: That I've had so far.
Speaker 1: When it comes, I mean, it takes obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of training and management of nutrition and recovery. What are
Speaker 1: some of your just in a nutshell, non negotiable habits
Speaker 1: throughout the weeks when you're leading into the I mean
Speaker 1: you're starting a summer's coming, leading into summer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like I'm four weeks out at the moment
Speaker 3: of five weeks out from that cool and goet of gold,
Speaker 3: and it's a big one for me. As I said before,
Speaker 3: it's the fortieth anniversary. I'm going for my tenth title,
Speaker 3: which is crazy to actually think about. So I actually
Speaker 3: just had a conversation with my wife then, and she
Speaker 3: does basically all about cooking a hand on hard.
Speaker 2: I can just basically the fair minimum in our.
Speaker 1: House, the bar, she's your share for nutrition coach.
Speaker 2: The psychologist's everything.
Speaker 3: But she asked me, what do you want to what
Speaker 3: do you want to do in the next four weeks,
Speaker 3: And it's just really knuckling down on my diet. It's
Speaker 3: something I looked at almost ten years ago, when I
Speaker 3: was twenty four. I had a season out there, and
Speaker 3: I use that sort of season to look at areas
Speaker 3: I could improve. So diet will be a huge thing
Speaker 3: over it, and it always is, sorry in our lifestyle.
Speaker 3: It's something I'm really actually passionate about and will continue
Speaker 3: to be passionate about post iman career. Sleep is another one,
Speaker 3: you know, like making sure that I'm getting just enough
Speaker 3: and so yeah, between sleep, hydration, and food, they're kind
Speaker 3: of like my three pillars. And off the back of that,
Speaker 3: I think that's when you can really start to like
Speaker 3: add in like I've got a sauna at home, I've
Speaker 3: got an ice bath, I've got a Plartes reformer and
Speaker 3: things like that too. So again, very fortunate with the
Speaker 3: other things, but you've got to you've got to do
Speaker 3: the foundations. You've got to get those things right, like
Speaker 3: I said, to sleep, the hydration, the food, and off
Speaker 3: the back of that you can start doing I guess
Speaker 3: like the you could almost call like the sexy stuff,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, exactly correct?
Speaker 1: Can I just talk about hydration for a minute. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting because I haven't had anyone mention that as
Speaker 1: part of their key pillars before. How do you go
Speaker 1: about making sure you're hydrated enough throughout day?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm pretty you know, I wish we could
Speaker 2: I could sort of show you my our water that
Speaker 2: we have, not our water, but at my routine.
Speaker 3: So I drink like an athletic green supplement and the
Speaker 3: wrning the water that we actually drink is a company
Speaker 3: up here on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 2: It's like pure flow water. So the water that we
Speaker 2: buy is delivered to us.
Speaker 3: And I've always, like probably the last six or seven years,
Speaker 3: we've just always had that in our house. I've traveled
Speaker 3: with it, drank with it, and I've also got like
Speaker 3: a benchtop filter from a company called Hydration Health, a
Speaker 3: sponsor of.
Speaker 2: Mine, and we've got shower filters.
Speaker 3: We've got that in our house as well as the
Speaker 3: bench top filter that we drink.
Speaker 2: Our water out of.
Speaker 3: So it's yeah, it's a non negotiable again, Like again,
Speaker 3: it's something I'm really we're really passionate about in our household.
Speaker 2: And I feel like it's a one percenter It makes me.
Speaker 3: Feel I feel like I'm more hydrated throughout the day
Speaker 3: having that do you.
Speaker 1: Keep a track throughout the day of what you're drinking.
Speaker 1: Do you like tick one glass, tick two glass?
Speaker 3: Through just making sure like as I said, I have
Speaker 3: that that athletic Greens drink in the morning and then
Speaker 3: like before I get in the pool, presuming in the
Speaker 3: morning it's like having another thing of water with electro
Speaker 3: lts in it, stuff like that, and then post iting
Speaker 3: like I'm always sort of you know, we trained two
Speaker 3: three time today today, I've got three sessions and I'm
Speaker 3: just making sure that I'm carrying my Yeddie water bottle
Speaker 3: basically everywhere and along with just basically like I said,
Speaker 3: just some hydrolight tablets and stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't overthink it.
Speaker 3: But again it's just if I'm hydrated, it means I'm
Speaker 3: going to sleep better. It means I'm going to feel better.
Speaker 3: And same goes with food, tango goes to sleep. They
Speaker 3: sort of all don't know, they're all sort of combined.
Speaker 1: In one personal support water bottle. That's what we call them.
Speaker 1: Well that's what I call it. Ali. Thank you for
Speaker 1: coming unhealthy.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, my friends. Grab your emotional support water bottle, give
Speaker 1: it a sip, and remember hydration. This keeps coming up
Speaker 1: a lot more and more. Actually, I feel like we're
Speaker 1: valuing hydration more when it comes to exercise, fitness, and
Speaker 1: overall well being. Thanks for listening to this chat with Ali.
Speaker 1: We will be cheering him on in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks the Goldie. Make sure you do too, rate and
Speaker 1: review this episode, or of course, subscribe to this podcast.
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Speaker 1: Healthy is