Business of Endurance

From Ice Hockey Dreams to Endurance Success: Colin's Journey of Transformation

• Charlie Reading • Season 8 • Episode 7

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Welcome to this episode of The Business of Endurance, where we dive deep into the extraordinary journey of Colin Cook—a man who has transformed his life from the grips of addiction to becoming an elite triathlete, a Sub 9 Ironman finisher, and coach to some of the sport's best. Colin’s story is one of redemption, resilience, and relentless pursuit of excellence, and in today’s conversation, he opens up about these battles. From overcoming personal demons to building a thriving business and competing at Kona many times, Colin shares the lessons he’s learned about grit, mindset, and balancing life’s demands. You’ll hear powerful insights into leveraging tech & AI in endurance sports, maximizing recovery, and how to shift from destructive habits to life-changing passions. Whether you're chasing your first marathon or balancing family, career, and athletic goals, this episode will inspire and equip you to push boundaries, endure challenges, and live your most fulfilling life.

Highlights:
 - Introduction and Early Sporting Life
 - Transition from Ice Hockey to Endurance Sports
 - Struggles with Addiction
 - Turning Point: Embracing Endurance Sports
 - Balancing Family, Coaching, and Training
 - Ironman Journey and Achievements
 - Winter Training Opportunities
 - Using Wearables for Sleep and HRV
 - Recovery Techniques and Gadgets
 - AI in Endurance Sports
 - Balancing Life and Triathlon
 - Future Goals and Reflections

Links:
Connect with Colin Cook on Instagram.

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Colin Cook:

I remember when I knew what he was doing, I told myself I would never do that. That was not going to be the path and seeing what it had done to him at that stage, I just had no intentions and swore to myself that I wouldn't do it. I do remember the first time I used and thinking of him.

Charlie Reading:

Welcome to another episode of the Business of Endurance, where we dive into the extraordinary journey of Colin Cook, a man who has transformed his life from the grips of addiction to becoming an elite triathlete, a sub-nine Ironman finisher and coach of some of the sport's best. Colin's story is one of redemption, resilience and relentless pursuit of excellence, and in today's conversation, he opens up about his battles, particularly with both alcohol and drugs, from overcoming these personal demons to building a thriving business and competing at Kona many, many times. Colin shares the lessons he's learned about grit, mindset and balancing life's demands. You'll hear powerful insights into leveraging both tech and AI in both endurance, sports and business, maximizing recovery and how to shift from destructive habits to life-changing passions. So, whether you're chasing your first marathon or balancing family life with your business and your athletic goals, this episode will inspire and equip you to push boundaries, endure challenges and live your most fulfilling life.

Charlie Reading:

This really is an inspiring story, so I know you're going to love this episode with Colin Cook. So, colin, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. I know we've got a real treat in chatting to you today. This is going to be a fascinating conversation and inspiring conversation, I know, but I like to take things right back to the start, and my understanding is that your sporting youth was more around ice hockey, or probably what you term hockey rather than ice hockey, but in the UK we would need to call it ice hockey around that sport in particular. So tell us about what your sporting youth looked like and the level that you got to within the world of ice hockey.

Colin Cook:

Yeah, for starters. Charlie, claire, thank you so much for having me on here. Really appreciate the opportunity and hope that everybody enjoys here. But yeah, kicking it back to when I was a kid here, hockey was definitely my primary passion but I really did just love all things sports. And not to start off bleakly, when I compare my childhood to the way my kids are coming up these days, where you don't just go outside and play with the neighbors and do whatever sport is out there, it seems like those days are more challenging to come by now. But I was out doing everything. I played baseball, I played basketball, obviously, hockey, but soccer, I guess when I was really young and just love sports and competing. I think.

Charlie Reading:

And where did that journey in ice hockey take you Tell us a bit about what your aspirations in that sport. What level did you get to?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, so, hands down, my goal for most of my life was to play in the NHL and I was not successful with that, but I did make it to the collegiate level. So I played NCAA Division I for a few years and it really was very transcending for me. I played on a very elite-level team, Starting in fifth grade. I was traveling. I was going to Canada and things for tournaments during the summer, playing in the Junior World Championships when I was in eighth grade, playing on a high-level private prep school when I was in high school, and trips to Europe to play all across the board. It really helped me also personality-wise. I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts but I think a lot of small-town kids get to know their surrounding area and don't get to see as much of other states, never mind the world, and get to meet other people. I think my comfort and personality really developed significantly being thrown into those environments all the time and really enjoying that.

Charlie Reading:

And so obviously, we're going to come on to endurance sport over the course of this conversation, because that's why we're all here. What do you think you learn from your foundation in ice hockey that you later to, whether that's mindset, whether that's discipline. What did you apply from the world of ice hockey into the world of endurance sport, and also, how did it help you physically, if at all?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, having that mindset of wanting to be the best and trying to be a professional hockey player, I think, was always something that pushed me into trying to be the best that I can be. Contrary to that, my grandfather played semi-pro baseball and so he decided that my dad was going to be a pro baseball player when he was growing up. So by the time, I believe, my dad was going to be a pro baseball player when he was growing up. So by the time, I believe my dad was 11, he never played a sport again until he was 30 years old. So my dad took the complete opposite approach with me. So everything had to come purely from me. There was absolutely no push and honestly, when I look back, I feel like I wish maybe there was a little bit more push, and they were.

Colin Cook:

Obviously my parents were extremely supportive, both my brother and I. Wish maybe there was a little bit more push, and they were. Obviously my parents were extremely supportive, both my brother and I. My brother was a pretty competitive dirt bike racer, so a lot of times on the weekends one of us was taking us to the rink and the other one was taking us off to the racetrack. That was the tremendous commitment from them, but the drive and the passion really always came from me. And as we look at kids sports now today and you see these kids going specific very early on and we're learning, really that may not necessarily be the best path, but I always had my parents saying you sure you want to go play on that team during the summer, you don't want to take it off, or something. I was just heck. No, there's no way I want to stop playing. I just absolutely love every moment I had on the ice and it was just all complete pleasure for me.

Claire Fudge:

From playing ice hockey. How do you think that has shaped you as an endurance athlete? What can you take from playing in a team sport and applying that to what is a very individual sport actually in the world of triathlon or endurance?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, I think there's a couple ways to look at this and how it's impacted things. The funny thing I've realized that's interesting is especially as I was a goalie in hockey. So ultimately I'm trying to obviously not let in any goals, and the goal was to try to have time go by as quick as possible, right, because you didn't want to let in any goals and so by the time the game was over, you didn't let any in. That was what you wanted. Obviously, I look at triathlon or endurance sports, and it's the same thing. You want to be done as quick as you possibly can.

Colin Cook:

I've often thought about how maybe that applies to the sport.

Colin Cook:

But one thing that is interesting and it transcends just ice hockey and goes into just competitive athletes excuse me, specifically collegiate athletes and kids that have played hockey or a sport their entire life and then you find yourself finishing, whether it is high school or college or wherever your kind of career ends.

Colin Cook:

I had a tremendously difficult time with that and when you've been playing sport for let's call it at least 15, 18 years and now all of a sudden it's just completely gone and you lose that structure, that can really be very it certainly was very difficult for me, and I'm certainly. I know that I'm not alone in people that struggle with the challenges of trying to move on when you've had those structured practices and the team and that environment for your entire life and, like I said, it's just all of a sudden gone. I think that my not to get ahead of ourselves but my drug use and things like that were really centered around being lost and ultimately, where I had this goal to make it to NHL, and I failed at that, and so I found myself really struggling to figure out what is next for me and really being satisfied with where my life was headed.

Charlie Reading:

Tell us a little bit about that next stage. So at what point did you decide your hockey career is over? And then how did that evolve into the problems with drugs and alcohol? That was the next chapter of your life, as far as I can see when I'm boxing it out yeah, the writing was definitely on the wall even, I could say, in high school.

Colin Cook:

You could tell by that point, I think, that I certainly did not give up on it, but that I was not at the caliber of of a lot of the NHLers and what their trajectory looked like in order to get to the NHL.

Colin Cook:

So I think the writing was on the wall there early on and, to be fair and transparent, my partying started towards the end of high school but was certainly my main focus, I would say, over sport, even in college. And I was, as I mentioned, a goalie, and I was actually the third string goalie when I was playing at the Division I level and both the goalies in front of me were better than me. So it wasn't a position where I felt like I was being treated unfairly, but it also opened up the opportunity where I knew I probably wasn't going to play Friday or Saturday night. So it opened up my ability to really let loose and do some things probably shouldn't have been doing, especially at that caliber of hockey, but I was doing that and I think that when the hockey completely closed there, it just made me feel very lost and just didn't have the direction or the desire to really find where I wanted to be next.

Claire Fudge:

It's really interesting to hear about that structure around sport and as athletes ourselves here, we certainly have that routine and we love that structure. I also see some similarities and actually there's some research behind addiction and also how athletes are. So that's really interesting. We'll come on to that, but tell us a bit more about, if you may, about the addiction to drugs and alcohol, like you talked about this slippery slope, like how it started, like how did that become from partying to where it was before you got into endurance sport?

Colin Cook:

I guess I would wake up every Sunday in particular, usually. So I'd still consider myself an addict, but I wasn't a daily and cocaine was my primarily drug. I would go a few days without consuming and then ultimately I'd feel terrible. I mentioned Sunday mornings because I would party all week. You know, start usually start usually Thursday night, party very hard. I usually go to to bed at two, three in the afternoon on Sunday because I was so exhausted. I'd work. On Monday, I'd get home from work five, five, I'd go to bed and I'd start to come around and by Wednesday I'd feel like, oh okay, I feel all right, and then I just do it all over again on Thursday. I can't tell you how many times I must have told myself, on that Sunday morning in particular, that I'm never going to do this again. This is the last time I've had it, I'm done with this. And then again, as the week would progress, I would somehow figure out a way to justify going in and just doing it all over again.

Claire Fudge:

From where you were like. What was the deciding factor of you suddenly making that big change Like it must have been extremely difficult. So what happened?

Colin Cook:

Yeah. So I do like to say that my endurance career started about 3 am, you know, a Saturday night slash Sunday morning actually, at my brother's house, very high and intoxicated, and I told my buddies and my brother that I was going to run the Boston Marathon that coming year and they all laughed at me and said, yeah, sure, colin, why don't you have another one here? And we'll keep talking about that, I guess. To go back on where I felt like I was lost, there was definitely those times when I knew I was better than what I was doing and that I was capable of more and that I needed to get myself into a better situation. And so, by saying that, even during those days, I like to be a man of my word and do what I said. And so I just started training very simple, like an online marathon training plan where I was running, I think, three or four times a week.

Colin Cook:

But the shift that made in me and the passion and the focus and really the purpose that that gave me, was just a complete shift for me.

Colin Cook:

To be fair, I did not cold turkey, just totally stopped drinking and partying and even to this day, I still struggle a little bit with feeling like I was letting my friends down and things like that that I wasn't partying with, and so forth. So there was definitely a transition period with it, for sure, but I felt so much better and my saying now is I like to wake up a little bit sore, a heck of a lot better than hungover, and so that just kept progressing, and it was. I did run the Boston Marathon. That was back in 2009. And actually I think it was a month or two before the race, I was looking at what would be the next thing in found triathlon as potential opportunity to do that, and so I started swimming and biking a little bit and I was just completely fell in love nearly instantly. Where that again, getting that structure and doing different things every day. I just absolutely loved it and really haven't looked back from there.

Charlie Reading:

So that leads us on to kind of a good segue in the sense of there's clearly. I often describe myself as having an addictive personality, and fortunately I'm now addicted to something that's good for me as opposed to something that's bad. Would you say the same thing? And also, how did you end up consuming? I know your dad used drugs and your brother used drugs at different stages. Was that sort of how you ended up down that path, or was it just totally?

Colin Cook:

unrelated. Yeah, so I guess my brother and I actually when I was in high school, we absolutely hated each other. He started consuming drugs before I did and so really the only time he would be at our house, for the most part when he was hungover and miserable, so he really wasn't that much pleasure to be around. I remember hearing that my brother was primarily using cocaine and he ended up going to heroin and worse things than in my opinion. But I remember when I knew what he was doing I told myself I would never do that. That was not going to be the path and seeing what it had done to him at that stage I just had no intentions and swore to myself that I wouldn't do it.

Colin Cook:

I do remember the first time I used and thinking of him I was intoxicated Alcohol. Not to make this all about substance abuse, but alcohol is a gateway drug when you start making poor decisions. Once it got a hold of me, definitely it was something I was drawn to and had a very difficult time stopping. But yeah, his use and my father's use definitely were what I thought motivators to not do it. I told myself that those were things that were going to prevent me from doing it, but they didn't.

Charlie Reading:

Do you think it had the opposite effect? Did it normalize it, or was it nothing to do with it?

Colin Cook:

That's a good question. I'm not sure on that one. I was still, for the most part, living with my parents throughout this stage and outside of when I was at college for school, and I think they were relatively accepting of me doing it, which that can go two different ways as a parent. Right, if you go too strong, then maybe that just pushed the person off into the wrong direction. Or obviously you want to be there and they were always there for me when I was ready to change. But I think it was accepted and something that was just my brother and I were doing and they, you know, were very, again, loving of us but didn't really do much to try to stop us.

Claire Fudge:

It's really interesting. Like you, having grown up in that environment and then where you are now as well, I talked a little bit or mentioned a little bit about actually my interest in addiction in terms of from an exercise perspective and I wonder, as a coach, but also as an athlete yourself, do you see any relationship in either mindset or patterns like what athletes do in terms of this addictive nature and endurance sport?

Colin Cook:

completely. Yeah, so I didn't answer Charlie's question directly on that as well either, but I wholeheartedly believe that triathlon is just another addiction. It just happens to be a lot healthier one and it is making sure that I'm keeping that balance. Especially now as a father of four and other businesses and things that I'm involved with, I have to make sure that I find that balance and to be fully transparent again. This year I had a really successful year and I think I felt a pretty good balance, but I was definitely pushing the envelope there as my big races were approaching and, I think, driven to succeed and I want to be successful but really, at the end of the day, it is about that lifestyle and hopefully being a good role model to my kids for first and foremost, and also to my community.

Claire Fudge:

There's two parts to balance there, isn't there? One from a family perspective, but one from an athlete perspective? How do you help your athletes with balance when you see them maybe going down that more kind of exercise addiction, if we term it that?

Colin Cook:

It's a great question and I think to me what really makes true coaching or, as a coach, what you can really do to help an athlete. Sometimes I'm just a glorified babysitter because you're just giving people workouts to do and if they follow those, that's going to help them. But when you're in regular communication with your athletes you can start to gauge when things may be going astray. And if you're just following a plan you don't really have anybody overseeing things, then I think that gets lost and there's nobody there to keep you in check on that.

Colin Cook:

I guess kind of twofold. I always put myself in the athlete's shoes, so when I'm writing the workouts or something like that, I obviously know their circumstances are different than mine, but I always like to keep that athlete mentality and if it's ultimately not something I would do, then I'm not going to give it to them. But at the same time I think that it can be difficult, especially when you're competitive or you're really in the midst of things and it's a challenging part of your journey to whatever race line you're getting to. We need that outside reflection and somebody to be able to give you that guidance that you may not be able to see yourself. Definitely really try to stay keen and communicate regularly with my clients to help prevent that.

Charlie Reading:

I think it's really interesting, and you talking about that made me think back to what you said about what your grandfather did to your father and then your father's approach to you. So this balance is also in terms of how hard you push. So, now that you're a parent, how hard are you pushing your children towards?

Colin Cook:

sport Very minimally, I guess I should say. My daughter is six now. She's just turned seven. She has not done a triathlon but my other three have done triathlons and certainly give them the opportunities to do that and we'd love to see them doing that. But currently there's really minimal youth programs, especially around me and in this area. My second child is pretty severely autistic. Sports aren't really something that he's doing much of these days. Hopefully that'll change at some point here.

Colin Cook:

But my first and my third child they play flag football when they're out on their bikes just having fun and if they show any interest in a sport or doing some kind of event like we did a turkey trot here in the States and in Thanksgiving a couple of days ago I'm going to encourage those things and support them as best I can. But I really wish they were swimmers right now and part of a swim team. But my oldest did do that for, I think, a season but he wasn't enjoying it so we pulled the plug on that. I'd say that I'm going to leverage what I know as a competitive athlete growing up and make sure they know what it takes to get to that level so that if they want to really be there.

Colin Cook:

Actually, my seven-year-old wants to be an NFL player at this point and I try to remind him of these kids. There's a serious amount of work that has to go into doing that, so I'm not going to make him do that by any means. But if he wants to get where he wants to be, he's going to have to put in the work. I think I hopefully am finding a happy medium there Brilliant.

Charlie Reading:

You want to nurture them towards stuff, but ultimately if they're not motivated to do it, there's no point in enforcing the issue for sure. I want to dive into more of your sort of transition from the Boston Marathon into doing Ironmans, and you've achieved huge amounts in the world of Ironman. What's your highlight of your Ironman and triathlon journeys so far?

Colin Cook:

There's definitely a few out there, but I would have to say, so far being the overall amateur winner at Ironman Lake Placid this past season and going under nine hours on that course, it's got to be up there for sure.

Claire Fudge:

And I guess when you did your Ironman event. Tell us a little bit about that, because you've done, obviously, multiple Ironman events, now multiple world championships. We were just talking about Kona before we came on today. Tell us a little bit about your first Ironman event. What made you go back?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, great question. So first Ironman or full Ironman was Ironman Arizona back in 2010. I think that my goal there obviously was just to finish, but I did get hit by a car about six weeks before the race. I had some labral tear that got developed Actually I think it was already there but got distinguished and determined officially at that accident. So there was definitely some question of whether I could achieve it or not.

Colin Cook:

But I will say, even by that point I already had Kona aspirations on my mind. I knew it wasn't realistic, that I was probably going to qualify at that race, but there was the drive and the inspiration to keep going. And I guess actually it's interesting, I would say maybe the last few races I haven't felt this way. But almost during every Ironman I've done, I've said all right, this is going to be the last one. And during it, at some point, right when you start questioning things and you have your doubts in your mind, and right after the race with the soreness and things, but always within a few days I'm back and I've gone away from. I used to tell my wife that, all right, I think this is going to be the last one, no more Ironman. And I've stopped saying that because I just enjoy the journey and what I think it really helps, and I guess what she will also agree with that I need this kind of training in my life to keep that structure and keep me on point.

Charlie Reading:

I'm noticing that you said exactly the same thing about your drug and alcohol of.

Colin Cook:

this will be the last time I do this, then on Thursday you said it, charlie, but you're absolutely right, hence agreeing that it is indeed an addiction here.

Charlie Reading:

Yes, I think there's. The proof is in the pudding. I think we're all nodding our head going yes, that's me too. So you've obviously done a lot of Ironmans. So for me and I was, having just done Kona as well I was looking forward to the next year going am I going to, am I not going to? And the thing that I concluded was, as soon as it became about the time, it became less interesting when it was about the experience in the adventure qualifying. Firstly, would you agree with that?

Colin Cook:

And secondly, yeah, great questions. So I think that answer has actually changed for me over time. I qualified for Kona for the first time back in 2012. And I do remember everybody telling me that, okay, congratulations, you qualified, now just go to Kona and just enjoy it. And I did do that, had an incredible trip, but went over a little over 11 hours on that first trip to the island.

Colin Cook:

And I think that it's important to have yes, goal number one has to be completing the event.

Colin Cook:

I think for everybody right, that's got to be the priority one here.

Colin Cook:

But to me, and I think for highly motivated people, if you keep it that ambiguous or you don't give any more detailed goals, that when you're out on the lava fields at mile 16, when you need to find that extra gear, that you need to dig deep to continue to push yourself, it's a lot harder to do that.

Colin Cook:

Because unless you're I guess you're pushing up against the 17 hour cutoff or something like that, then maybe that's going to motivate you to get your butt in gear. But if you don't have something driving you with a little bit more granular goal, I think that it can make it tough when you're already pushing your limits and so forth. So I think that it can make it tough when you're already pushing your limits and so forth. So I think that has changed quite a bit over where. That's how I was thinking of things and approach things back then, and I think you always have to keep that grander scheme and make sure that you're content and happy with whatever happens on that day. Specifically when it comes to racing, and for most of my people, especially the higher level people, it's having some more detailed goals within that.

Claire Fudge:

I think you know your experience as an athlete and then being able to coach is really important. You talked actually about coaching right at the very beginning in terms of actually being there for your athletes and being able to really understand them. So how do you use your experience as an athlete to really coach your athletes?

Colin Cook:

So I guess I'll start that by saying I do think it's very helpful to be a strong or competitive athlete, but just because you're a fast athlete or successful athlete doesn't mean you're going to be a good coach, right? So there's a big differentiator there. But I certainly practice what I preach and I like to lead by example. For sure, to me it is really getting in my athlete shoes and figuring out, all right, what is really going to be best for that person to help them be successful and not to get too much into the weeds of that.

Colin Cook:

I think that for most people and I do focus primarily on competitive, higher-level athletes that are doing Ironman or half Ironman distances but typically have families on full-time jobs and all the things that come along with that, and so finding that balance, like you talked about we hit on a little bit earlier is really essential, right, because I certainly don't have any magic workouts or special workouts that are going to get people to where they need to be. It's that consistent workload and being healthy and remaining there. But you have to be both physically and mentally able to absorb that and be able to do that. If you're not able to do that, you may have some short-term success or get to some shorter goals, but again transitioning to where really, to me it's all about that lifestyle and hopefully having success along the way. You really need to make sure you're finding that balance.

Claire Fudge:

Balance seems to be the key word coming out of this. I'm interested to know how do you measure balance? Do you use any particular technology? Does that help you to be able to coach an athlete, to really give them evidence as to where they are and help them with that balance?

Colin Cook:

Yeah.

Colin Cook:

So I guess I'll answer that for myself as an athlete first, and I'll say that while I'm trying to maintain relative balance among what I really consider to be the three aspects of my life that's my family, work and then that's me as an athlete there's going to be shifts in time where one is a little bit skewed or is taking up more than others.

Colin Cook:

For example, after now completing Kona a little over a month ago, I have been doing next to no training. I've been keeping movement and things like that, but I am really focused on giving back some of the time that maybe I was taking away. I do think, relatively speaking, I keep my volume on the lower end side compared to a lot of the guys I'm competing against, but making sure that I'm doing extra things with the family and enjoying the holidays and those. For me it does sway a little bit and it's going to be different throughout the year and where it pertains to my races, but when I think about my athletes, I guess I do think of it in a similar fashion. But it's also really making sure that you're focused on some kind of short term goals, and I think that a lot of people can, especially during the winter, and what I actually refer to as the committed season as opposed to the off season, is a real good opportunity to improve on things, but you don't necessarily have to go crazy with the volume in order to do that.

Charlie Reading:

And is it also about so do you get your athlete doing, encouraging them to do other sports or other activities, or are you just trying to say, dial it down and spend more time eating breakfast or having coffee in the cafe with your mates? What's your approach?

Colin Cook:

I think it depends on the person there. I would say in general, yes, I am a huge fan especially during the winter here of cross training, but even during the season, whether that's mountain biking or cross-country skiing, you know anything that somebody's in. Actually I have a. I do have a client now that's just starting to learn to play hockey. We're dealing with the adult hockey of 11 5050 pm games and things like that and how much that's impacting his sleep and the rest of his training. But yeah, it's definitely doing those things. We need the specificity of swim, biking and running as certainly as our races approach, but we can get a lot of gains out of doing different things and especially during the winter, I think it's a tremendous opportunity to do that.

Charlie Reading:

And you mentioned sleep. There I heard that you use an aura ring from another podcast. I was listening to you on as Claire and I do, so how do you use that with your athletes? And is it just sleep, or are you dialing into things like heart rate variability? And, if so, how are you using that with your athletes?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, great question. So I'll start with sleep. But you know I'm certainly not convinced that everybody needs eight hours of sleep or nine hours of sleep or whatever it may be. I think everybody's different there and you need to figure out what your body responds best to right Using something like an O-ring to be able to do that Quick tangent there.

Colin Cook:

If we dive into gadgets, making sure you have a reliable data source Glad to hear you guys are on the Oura Ring board. I think there's some other options out there that are risk-based, which I'm not a fan of just because I don't think they're a reliable source. And if you're going to make that much rely, that much for your training and your life based around that data, you better make damn sure that it's actually accurate data. That's priority one to me and making sure that we're finding what works for that person. But 100% using really primarily HRV. On top of that, sleep, yes, we can look at the sleep scores and things with aura and the readiness.

Colin Cook:

Hrv is a tremendous resource and I've found to be invaluable over the years and it's something certainly again as me as an athlete and also as a coach I'm looking at and I've been amazed over the years that there's been times when I've gotten indicators that, hey, maybe you should slow down a little bit. Or even clients has said and they overlooked that or they disregarded say, ah, I'm fine. And then, sure enough, a day or two later they're sick or something bad happens that affects their training as a whole. I think that usually you're better off going slightly easier or toning it back and ensuring that you're able to continue, as opposed to pushing a little bit too hard, and I think a lot of people end up making that mistake.

Charlie Reading:

And so if a listener is thinking about just getting into buying aura rings and any other gadgets around this, and particularly with heart rate variability, could you give them an idiot's guide as to what they should look at to avoid overtraining and getting injured, please?

Colin Cook:

I guess the way I like to really quickly explain HRV heart rate variability is you look at your heart rate and let's say it's for simplicity here it's 60 beats per second. Right, that would obviously equate to one beat per second, but the reality is that not every beat is happening exactly every second. There's going to be some that are 0.9 seconds, the next one's going to be 1.1 seconds, and there's that variability and the research has shown that when that variability is too significant there, that can definitely have an impact on your readiness to do anything really, but especially when it comes to training here. So I would just encourage you to. You have to get a baseline right. Everything like, just like with sleep, the HRV is completely independent and personal to that person right? My score versus yours, charlie, is completely irrelevant to each other. I think it's setting up and understanding what your baseline is and then making educated movements and adjustments based on that what your baseline is and then making educated movements and adjustments based on that.

Claire Fudge:

When you're training with HRV, what do you suggest to them in terms of potentially like recovery techniques? If they are really pushing themselves, they need to step back a bit. Tell us a little bit about recovery and your ideas around recovery.

Colin Cook:

Yeah, I guess one thing I'll mention here if it it hasn't come out yet is I do own a wellness center here in New Hampshire, so we do things like cryotherapy, float therapy, light therapy, infrared sauna and different things like that. But I always start the conversation if I ever talk about recovery is that sleep is hands down. You can come to me and I can offer you some services and, yes, they will help. But if you're not sleeping well, you need to figure out and work on that as priority one, because and it's just amazing to me yes, you have to impress or encouraging to people that are willing to push through sleep deprivation. But most of the time if I hear, oh, I only got four hours of sleep last night, but I still got that workout, and I'm shaking my head saying, oh, why do we do that? And again, that dedication and it is impressive and it is a mindset thing at the same time. But what's that doing to the next day and the day after that and the long-term issues that's going to result in here, I would say, most of the time, especially when you're working with dedicated people like myself, it's more trying to figure out how to convince people to tone it back to make sure that they're not overdoing it and they're not running the risk of a burnout or injury.

Colin Cook:

But yeah, I'll say my favorite recovery tool is our float therapy. So people that aren't familiar with that, it's a pool of water, typically about 10 inches of water, and it's got over a thousand pounds of salt in it. So what you do is you go in there and you just float. Ideally, you turn the lights off, you can have some meditative music on. But it's the one place, especially in again, we can dive into gadgets here, but where technology is taken away from us and we're just able to settle and just let our minds decompress. And the salt is great for our bodies and can definitely help speed up recovery. But it's more about that mind reset here and how valuable that is. I try to float at least once a week and find it to be extremely valuable.

Claire Fudge:

Is there any research or evidence around floating and the chiro therapies? If there is, tell us a little bit about it.

Colin Cook:

There is. There's definitely more around the float therapy than there is. There's definitely some studies going on still around cryotherapy. It depends who you talk to, to be perfectly honest, whether that's beneficial to you or not. But with the float therapy, even things like post-traumatic stress issues and things like that they have proven. So they're trying to get veterans and people that have had most of us have had some kind of PTSD issues in our lives here that we need to work through. But yeah, there's a lot of compelling stuff around that, primarily again from our minds and what it can do there, but also again physically to a certain degree, just being in that space and floating.

Claire Fudge:

As you said, you're away from gadgets, you're away from technology, and having that time and space is so important, isn't it? What other gadgets do you use with your athletes or technology? So charlie's the big tech guy here. You know you've talked about the aura ring and other kind of wrist wearables. So Charlie's the big tech guy here. You know you've talked about the Oura Ring and other kind of wrist wearables. What's the number one wearable or gadget do you think that athletes really benefit from?

Colin Cook:

I would assume most of the listeners are probably already doing this, but you have to start with the watch. I'm a Wahoo guy, so I'm wearing a Wahoo your garments, whatever it may be To me. It's almost comical to me when people start complaining about the price of watches. When we say it's five, 600 US dollars or something like that for a watch, I'm sure it's not cheap, but when you think about if you're using that every single day, oftentimes multiple times during a day, and the amount of data and how relevant and helpful it is, to me, it's a bargain.

Colin Cook:

But yeah, I think that if we want to get to where we, if we haven't decided or we haven't found out where we want to go, we're never going to get there. We have to have benchmarks and we have to understand what it's going to take to get to that place, and so having the proper data is the place you got to start there. So to me, the number one requirement is to have a watch for sure, Certainly on the bike. I'm a huge fan of power meters. We still don't require power meters with our clients, but I think 98% of them do have them and we certainly encourage everyone to have one for sure.

Charlie Reading:

Looking to the future and I don't really mind whether you answer this from a recovery point of view or from anything else, but where do you think the most exciting technology is around the world of endurance sport? That's coming down the pipeline.

Colin Cook:

I'll talk a little bit about Tridot, maybe for a minute here, and HumanGo is another one that's up and coming here, and so I actually I used Tridot last season for my training just because I was so intrigued by the AI elements of that and what that could do for us, and so I really wanted to experience it myself, and there was a lot of talk about people drinking the Kool-Aid that the TriDot people really drink the Kool-Aid.

Charlie Reading:

You're talking to a TriDot convert.

Colin Cook:

This is great, keep going, yeah.

Colin Cook:

Where I think that AI can really come into play is with weather and adjusting your training based on the weather, assuming that you're going outdoors, and things like that, because I like to consider myself a pretty good coach, but using myself as an example or my coaching, if I was coaching one of you guys sorry guys, I'm not going to go into the weather app every single day to look at your training and make adjustments to it, for that it's just not feasible for me.

Colin Cook:

So when we can start to help the AI, or the AI to help us as coaches, to be able to learn what adjustments we need to make and making those adjustments for us if we can be confident with them, I think that's really the future. And where I see the real value is in AI. I still think that there's so much mental to triathlon coaching, and having a human being in your corner is extremely valuable. Again, obviously I'm biased as a coach saying that, but I think that as we continue to leverage that AI to help us as coaches, it's really going to be impactful for the community and, in general, where I see a lot of value coming.

Charlie Reading:

I couldn't agree with you more. I think that this is the so. I've had a lot of conversations around AI, not just about TriDot, but AI in business as well and it's allowing the humans to do more of the stuff that they're good at, which is the empathy, creativity and leadership, and it's allowing the AI to do what it's better at, which is massive amounts of data and repetitive more. I've never been a triathlon coach, but how many times have you pasted the same kind of workout into different athletes? I should be spending my time talking to the athletes as opposed to programming a computer.

Colin Cook:

Exactly right. Yeah, I think again, not to go too far off a tangent, I think that a platform like TriDot for newer coaches is tremendously valuable because they may say, oh geez, charlie, how long of a ride should I give you this Saturday? Or something like that, where maybe more experienced coaches may not be able to do that a little bit more naturally. But it really sets that footprint and you're 100% right. I certainly like to do testing as a coach and trying to figure out what strengths and weaknesses athletes have and things. But you can't skin an endurance workout too many different ways, right when you just got to get in that appropriate amount of effort, and maybe the volume certainly changes depending on the person.

Claire Fudge:

I think it's going to be interesting, isn't it? Well, even the next year how quickly AI is advancing and what we see in the world of endurance sport as well. To help us. So, thinking about the more human side, you have recently set up an elite triathlon team, so tell us a little bit about your reasons for doing that and how you create that team spirit.

Colin Cook:

Yeah, there is a new team. We just finished up our first season. It's called the Top Guns Triathlon Team. We do actually have a few professionals and kind of newer professionals on the team, but it is primarily an age group triathlon team and really our goal is, yes, we want people and most of our folks are quite fast and do very well placement wise, but to me the goal is to try to showcase that it is possible to be very successful on the race course while still being, in my case, a great dad and very successful in professional life.

Colin Cook:

I guess, going back to that word, balance right, and so finding balance and being successful across the board and also trying to show our failures. We do encourage our athletes to talk about their failures and things that don't go well. You know, I will say I'm not a huge social media fan and I wish I could be a little bit more present on there, but it just doesn't come all that natural to me. But what I don't like about it is most people are only posting about all the good things in their lives, right, but life isn't perfect and life isn't all good and we have to encourage our people to share those challenges they have, because we all have failures and failure is what breeds success and how we learn and those kinds of things. We try to hopefully share that side of things as well.

Claire Fudge:

But I love that idea of learning from failure and sharing that and I think in a group environment it's always so supportive to share your failures. And obviously you do so many different things. You're a coach, you're an athlete and you've got your own podcast. You're a dad. How do you balance everything?

Colin Cook:

And, if it wasn't clear, I actually have a full-time job as well, so I'm in the cybersecurity world as well, so I have a full-time gig there. So, yeah, I do get asked quite regularly how do you do all that you do here? And I think the biggest thing I always start out that answer with is planning right. I can already tell you what time I'm going to work out tomorrow and what things I'm doing. I live on Google Calendar and making sure that everything's there and, yes, I have four or five different Google Calendars that I'm trying to collaborate all together to make it all work. But it's really about figuring out what, prioritizing what's important to you and then making sure that you're putting those in the appropriate windows. And if you do that, I think a lot of people are amazed at what you can do.

Colin Cook:

But I guess also I mentioned there's three priorities in my life when I talk about there's my family, there's my work and there's triathlon. I am one at this point with the things that I have going on. I can tell you there's really not much else to my life these days. With the things that I have going on, I can tell you there's really not much else to my life these days. That's what I care about and that's what I focus on. I'm not doing much other things, and I'm totally good with that, but that's also a key aspect to it, too, as well.

Charlie Reading:

What I'm sitting here thinking is we've only mentioned, really in passing, the fact that you not only have you got a full-time job doing the cybersecurity, but you run this other business on the recovery clinic. I'm assuming that means that you've got a team, or at least a group of people that are running that business for you. So what's been the secret to your success? To have a business that is successful but that you're not working in on a day-to-day basis?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, you have to be able to delegate. That is absolutely critical. I almost consider myself more of an investor in peak recovery and health center the wellness center these days than a true business owner, because, yes, I'm contributing and giving feedback and things like that, but I'm never at this point a recovery technician on the clock covering our services and things like that, and it's more just making sure that we're doing things efficiently, operationally and those kinds of things Across the board. Actually, we talk about whether, being the winter now and not doing as much training, since Kona I've been looking at what I can do to automate tasks and things like that, to eliminate those things or at least reduce the amount of time that I'm consumed by those kinds of things. So I guess efficiency is a word that I'm also a very big fan of and like to really focus on and making sure that I'm being as efficient as possible.

Charlie Reading:

This is a whole other conversation, isn't it? Because there is so much potential there, and obviously, tridot is a way of using AI to accelerate the training process, whether it's as a coach or as an athlete, but in business. I'm just nearly finished delivering a course on how businesses can grow using the power of AI and the chat. Gpt is the most incredible tool, but it's one of many tools that you can use. Let's dive a little bit deeper on that. How do you see that you're going to use AI in those businesses to help grow and be more efficient?

Colin Cook:

in those businesses to help grow and be more efficient. So far, to be transparent, I can't really say I've gotten too far along the way. I think there is that learning curve is when you get started here. Where you got to figure out and what is the heavy lift is obviously at the beginning, and once you get over that line then it's going to be super easy. But to me, I think it's making sure that my calendars and all those kinds of things are intact and automating some of the kind of follow-up and things that we do, especially when we look at Peak Recovery and Health Center with new customers coming in and then the follow-ups and educating them about our products and those kinds of things Drip email campaigns, if you will is what I'm focused on right now with improving what we're doing there. But there's so much that we've done with that automation. It's just, yeah, a matter of really figuring out the structure and getting it actually implemented.

Charlie Reading:

That is exactly it. It's this concept of faffoing around, fuck about and find out. Basically, you need a lot of that with this AI. But yeah, no, awesome. I just think it's such an incredible opportunity and obviously I can recommend a good course for you if you're looking to expand your knowledge. So one of the things that we asked every guest on the podcast is about books that they found that they've either helped themselves or they find themselves recommending regularly to others. So any books that you would recommend to your clients, or any books that were transformational in your journey.

Colin Cook:

Still, if I have to pick one, I would go with David Goggins'.

Colin Cook:

Can't Hurt Me, I just think that he just shows what is possible if we set our minds and our intentions correctly. I always say for those that have listened and certainly not to get into his story too much you got to take David Goggins with a grain of salt because if you look at relationships and other things, he's not maybe the ideal mentor there, but he has proven what we can do when we put our mind to things and how, when we're going through those hard things, making sure that we're in the right mindset, it's a game changer. I think that it's an incredibly powerful story and shows what we're capable of for sure, so I'd have to go with that one. I was going to also mention I'm currently. I'm a big audio books guy, so I am in the process of reading Just Add Water by Katie Ledecky here, which has been really good, and as somebody that I guess I'll call myself a decent swimmer, but not quite where I want to be in the water, I'm trying to soak in as much of the swim experience as I can.

Charlie Reading:

So this is not a book I've heard of actually, so I love David Goggins as a recommendation. Claire and I did an ultra marathon a couple of years ago and as we were in the last couple of miles, I was quoting david goggins. I won't repeat that bit now, but yeah, you'll know which bit that was. But tell me about just add water so it's really just.

Colin Cook:

It's the audiobook version. Is actually katie delivering it herself, which I always like. When obviously it's the person delivering, it is really nice. But it's just all about her journey and how she's gotten to where she is and I'm still. What am I about halfway through? And it's still. It's primarily talked about her childhood and the dedication it took and her experiences throughout that. The success she had is just unbelievable and at such a young age I can't even imagine. Having to be able to handle that at that age is absolutely incredible. But it's really neat to hear her story.

Charlie Reading:

And we have a tradition on the podcast where the last guest asks the next guest a question without knowing who that is. So our last guest was Joseph Spindler, who obviously coaches Rico Brogan, who's a big Q-Cycles guy as well, and I know you're a fan of the Q-Cycles. So I think Claire's got Joseph's question.

Claire Fudge:

So Joe asks when was the last time you did something for the first time, and what was it?

Colin Cook:

Well, let's see here, that's a tough question, isn't it?

Charlie Reading:

That is a good one. I'm going to give you some thinking time there, because that's tough.

Colin Cook:

This is actually going back a little over a year now, but I'm going to share an experience where I really got out of my comfort zone. So we were actually having my oldest was having his birthday party. We had it here at the house and we had a reptile guy come in with all these snakes and other reptiles and things like that. And I love turtles, I love those reptiles, but I am petrified of snakes and I actually have a picture of me with a python like a six or seven foot python around my shoulders that I still can't believe I did that. I still actually. We were talking about it recently and it came up and it was. I'm not even sure I'd be willing to do it again. Is that really how scared I am of snakes and things? But yeah, that's something that was definitely a first and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the last.

Charlie Reading:

And to finish off, I'd love to know how many times have you done Kona? Now I just did seventh time in Kona, seven times in Kona and completed so many Ironmans gone under nine hours. What's next? What are you looking to do? What would excite you about 2025?

Colin Cook:

So I was still in negotiations with the wife about what the calendar will look like in 2025, but I am definitely. I'll admit I did come up a bit short. So I finished 10th in my age group in Kona this year. I really wanted to be in the top five, but I think I got eighth when it was in St George. I guess I've done the world championship eight times, but seven in Kona, so I have not gotten Airman world championship podium. That's definitely something that inspires me or something that I'm hopefully working towards, but as a 42 year old soon to be 43, I really want to continue. I still just finished what would be my fastest year, I would say continue. I still just finished what would be my fastest year, I would say, and continue to get faster, and I want to redefine and disprove a lot of that as slowing down as we age here. I do recognize it's coming at some point here, but I still feel like I'm in my prime and I want to enjoy that and keep pushing the boundaries.

Charlie Reading:

And having done St George and Kona, does that mean you're going to do Nice, so that you've got the sort of trilogy there may be some motivation to go as well.

Colin Cook:

I think it looks like a beautiful course, beautiful venue. Arguably for me on the East Coast in the US it's actually closer to me than Kona is. Yeah, I would love to get over and complete the trifecta. I guess I'm gonna have to use that. That's a good one. I'll talk about that with my wife there.

Charlie Reading:

I always think that the Europeans consider Nice to be easier for them and the Americans consider that Kona would be easier. But how do you feel about the fact that the World Championship now bounces between Kona and Nice?

Colin Cook:

So I am actually a big fan of it and I think that we should continue to rotate the championships and primarily and that's actually more for the professionals than even the amateurs the Kona course. Don't get me wrong, spending a week in Hawaii is you can't beat that, and I'm not sure any of these other venues are going to be able to top that. But that type of environment definitely suits certain athletes better than others, right? So if you really want to see who a true champion is, put them in different environments and prove that in different places. So I think, for the sport, in the interest of the sport, I think there's a lot of value in doing it in different venues.

Charlie Reading:

I think it opens it out to a lot more people as well that as a Brit, you need a pretty deep pocket to justify the Kona trip. It has a lot of benefits as much as I only wanted to do Kona. Now that I've done Kona, it's like, well, now I'd quite like to do these, but it was always Kona first.

Colin Cook:

It's interesting, right where it does shift. Once you said, all right, I've done Kona, whereas maybe if you were trying to qualify for next year you'd be like oh, and there's no doubt, so far in St George anyways, I was not in Nice for last year's men's race or any of the women's races, but of field as it is in Kona, with the exception of the professionals, for the amateurs it doesn't seem like everybody's amping up and really shooting, for whether it's in Kona or Nice that they're treating things differently.

Charlie Reading:

Although even with the professionals, we didn't get Lucy Charles defending her title this year, but I dare say she'll be back to Kona to defend it next year maybe, who knows?

Colin Cook:

Yeah, no doubt she will. She's healthy for sure.

Charlie Reading:

Yeah, colin it's been absolutely brilliant chatting to you. It's an inspirational story around being in a very dark place and getting yourself out of that, and I love the way that it's endurance sport that took you from what could have been a life-changing habit into a different life-changing habit, but a good one. So it's amazing. And then to see where, by 42, the quality of the level of triathlete that you are and how you're embracing the coaching is absolutely brilliant. I wish you every success. Hopefully I'll see you in these, hopefully we both get a sign off from the missus and, yeah, I hope the team have an amazing year as well and we look forward to following you with a keen eye.

Colin Cook:

Thank you so much for having me Really enjoyed the conversation here, so thanks so much.

Charlie Reading:

The best place to find out about Colin is at Instagram, where he is at Colin Wesley Cook that actually, if you go to his link tree on there, it will give you the link to Peak Triathlon Coaching, which is his coaching business, top Guns Tri Team, which is the elite team, peak Recovery and Health Centre, and some of his other business and sporting links. So what did you make of the chat with Colin?

Claire Fudge:

It was great.

Speaker 4:

I think it's really interesting to we talked about mental health football, haven't we, and had quite a few guests on talking about their mental health. But this was just another side to it in terms of coming from an addiction into being an extremely competitive world championship level athlete or competing at world championships in ironman. So I think it was fantastic and fascinating actually to hear where he's been and actually how he managed to get out of his addiction and potentially into another.

Charlie Reading:

I was going to say arguably, replace it with another, but at least one that was good for him, as opposed to one that was bad for him.

Charlie Reading:

I think I think it's. I've had several conversations over 130 plus episodes we've done, but one that stands out was flora, college the extreme ironman athlete who, who also studies addiction or teaches addiction at a swiss university and studies it, I think, and so where the boundary lies between just enjoying an addiction is difficult. But what I thought was really good about colin was the fact that he clearly realized, like I did a few years ago, that I needed to earmark certain things so that I yes, I'm, I can be addicted to endurance sport, but because I've earmarked the family time and the business time, I can actually get all of them done, so the addiction doesn't take over the rest of it. And other than lying on the sofa exhausted on a Saturday afternoon when possibly you should be engaging with your children, it's not the same as doesn't take over the rest of it. And other than lying on the sofa exhausted on a saturday afternoon when possibly you should be engaging with your children, it's not the same as being addicted to drugs or alcohol, is it?

Speaker 4:

no, I think the addiction to exercise is really interesting and I can see how my experience also of working from a clinical perspective in eating disorders is totally related to an addiction as well as you think about it.

Speaker 4:

So it's really interesting to me how a lot of these things merge and how an exercise addiction if someone's pullback or support something that they're not getting in their life or can't control in their life well, I think it's really interesting. I'm really interesting as an athlete myself because I can see how easy that is to get into overtraining. And where does overtraining and addiction cross over? But I guess one of the things also he was using and this comes into the use of software and tools coaching. He was talking about tridot, wasn't he? And using tridot as a coaching tool, and I think there definitely is a use here for really good evidence for an athlete showing them that actually maybe they're doing a bit too much. So I think actually, when you think about addiction, that's a really good evidence for an athlete, showing one that actually maybe they're doing a bit too much.

Charlie Reading:

So I think actually, when you think about addiction, that's a really good way to actually show somebody that potentially they're not doing enough or doing too much and, interestingly, as obviously as I'm a big Tridor advocate, I didn't know that Colin used Tridor before we started the interviews, but one of the big selling points of Tridor is the fact that they reckon that their average athlete trains less hours in total but gets better results because tridor is trying to eliminate that over training problem.

Charlie Reading:

So, yeah, I think that's, I think that's um great and in fact, that just actually kind of segued nicely into the conversation about ai, didn't it, which I thought was brilliant. I thought I really enjoyed chatting to him about how he was looking at trying to learn how he could use AI more in his business, and in fact, I mentioned our AI workshop and course. If any of the listeners out there are interested in that, we have a free webinar. It's called Unleash the Power of AI. I'll put the link in the show notes, but if you go to thetrustedteam, you can find it listed under the online events, because I think it's such an incredible opportunity and risk to businesses. You're either embracing AI and you've got this incredible opportunity to accelerate way faster than ever before, or you're ignoring it and your competitors are accelerating faster than they have ever had before. So what did you make of that part of the conversation?

Speaker 4:

I thought it's interesting. Actually, it ties in from it. You talked at the beginning of having these segmented times that you don't. So you're not addicted to exercise, but you have time for your business and for your family and I think, actually, the use of ai does free up time. If you know what you're doing and I think being able to understand and navigate that ai world in terms of using the right ai tool for the right job, that you can free up your time. So I think that's maybe a really interesting thing that came out of that for me in terms of, yeah, freeing up time yeah, ultimately it's about getting the.

Charlie Reading:

It's freeing up the human to do what the human does best, isn't it? So the humans are best at empathy, leadership and creativity. And, in the same way that in the industrial revolution, we had the machines taking over the work that we previously did with our hands, we now have AI taking over some of the work that we did with our heads. That just took time and was repetitive and boring, and yet it frees us up to do the stuff that we are best at as a human, which actually you could summarize, is really what we do with our heart. It's all about the empathy, creativity and leadership. So, absolutely and try it as a great example of that it's freeing up the coach to do the empathy piece and the leadership piece, where because and the AI is taking over the bit that it's best at, which is all of the kind of data and kind of repeated building the program and multiple times if you're trying to pick which race you want, and all of that sort of stuff. So I think it's really fascinating. But a great interview, really interesting guy really enjoyed chatting to Colin and, for everyone that's listening at home, keep on training If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the Business of Endurance podcast.

Charlie Reading:

We don't ask for you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple. Give us a five-star rating because it shows us you care and, if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much.