Business of Endurance

Beyond The Finish Line: How Chrissie Wellington Turned Imperfection Into Her Perfect Race

• Charlie Reading • Season 10 • Episode 8

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Today’s guest is someone whose story will stop you in your tracks. Chrissie Wellington OBE is more than just a four-time Ironman World Champion - she’s an icon of endurance, resilience, and reinvention.

Undefeated across 13 Ironman races, Chrissie didn’t even turn professional until the age of 30, making her one of sport’s most extraordinary late bloomers. But her journey from international development in Nepal to redefining the limits of human endurance in Kona, is anything but ordinary.

In this episode, she opens up about racing through pain, overcoming an eating disorder, finding purpose beyond podiums, and why intuition, values, and imperfection have been her greatest teachers.

If you’re looking for real insight on fitness, health, work-life balance, or using your platform for good - Chrissie brings it all. Stay tuned for one of the most inspiring conversations we’ve had on The Business of Endurance.


Highlights:

  • Training the Mind First: Psychological conditioning, adversity tolerance, solitude tolerance, and learning to be alone with your thoughts - Chrissie's real secret weapon.
  • Intuition Over Ego: The choices she regrets, the ones she cherishes, and the power of listening to your inner compass.
  • The Shadow Behind Success: Her lifelong battle with eating disorders, Red-S, and self-worth - and the honesty, help, and reframing that carried her through.
  • Identity Beyond the Finish Line: The danger of defining yourself as “world champion” and the liberation that comes from purpose beyond sport.
  • Tools for Tough Moments: Recollection, reframing, music, mantras, and mental escape - how she moved through fear, pain, and uncertainty in Kona.
  • Legacy for the Next Generation: Resilience in children’s books, role-modelling through parenting, and redefining what strength looks like.
  • Resilience by Design: Chunking the unthinkable into tiny steps, trusting intuition, and controlling the controllables - her mental blueprint for world-class performance.
  • The Perfectly Imperfect Race: How a brutal bike crash, torn muscles and raw road rash set the stage for the most meaningful victory of her career.
  • Long-Term Health Over Short-Term Wins: Understanding fuelling mistakes, carb needs, hormonal health, and the consequences of “lighter is faster.”
  • A Life Lived on Purpose: “She seized every opportunity and made a mark on the world for all the right reasons.”


Links:

Connect with Chrissie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissie-wellington-obe-09184b228/

Chrissie Wellington's Website: https://www.chrissiewellington.com/

Get Chrissie's Book: A Life Without Limits

Get Chrissie's Book: To The Finish Line

Get Chrissie's Book: You're So Amazing

Get Chrissie's Book: You're So Strong

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Chrissy Wellington:

If all you ever think of yourself as is Chrissy Wellington full-time world champion, then that's suffocating but also limiting. And so I think having that purpose helped me effectively better transition.

Charlie Reading:

Today's guest is someone whose story should stop you in your tracks. Chrissy Wellington OBE is more than just a four-time Iron Man world champion. She is an icon of endurance, resilience, and reinvention. Undefeated across 13 Iron Man races, Chrissy didn't even turn professional until the age of 30, which is quite astonishing, making her one of the sport's most extraordinary late bloomers. But in her journey from international development in DePa to redefining the limits of human endurance in Kona, it's just anything but ordinary. And it's why I wanted to get Chrissy on the podcast right from the day that we launched it. But finally we've managed to make it happen. So in this episode, she opens up about racing through pain, about overcoming an eating disorder, finding purpose beyond podiums, and why intuition, values, and imperfection have been her greatest teachers. If you're looking for real insight in fitness, health, work-life balance, or using your platform for good, Chrissy brings it all. So stay tuned for one of the most inspiring conversations we've ever had on the business of endurance and dive into this amazing conversation with Chrissy Wellington. Do you know what? When we look at the back end of this podcast, then we see something really interesting. We see that 57% of the people that regularly listen to it haven't hit the subscribe button. So could I ask you a quick favor before we dive into today's episode? If you're enjoying Claire and I bringing you amazing guests, not asking you for patronage fees and not jamming the podcast full of adverts, then the best way you can help us continue to do that and to make it even better is to hit that subscribe button. And here's my promise to you when you subscribe, we'll make it our mission, along with the team that supports us, to continue to improve this podcast every week. So thank you so much for your support and for being a part of the business of endurance community. Let's dive in. So, Chrissy, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. I've been looking forward to interviewing you on the Business of Endurance podcast right since the day we kicked this thing off. So it's fantastic to have you here. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And I'd like to start, I always like to start these episodes with a story. And for you, the story I'd love to hear you kind of explain and tell is that story of how you described your last Kona. Because your last Kona win, you obviously came into it after a severe bike crash, but you described it as your perfect race because you overcame imperfections perfectly, which I absolutely love. So can you can you take us back to that race in Kona? What happened leading up to it? How did you find the strength? What kind of journey did you go on throughout that day, both mentally and physically? And you know, what does that mean to you?

Chrissy Wellington:

Yeah, thanks for opening with that question, Charlie. I I think it touches on a really important aspect of performance and and that's resilience. And that's what I guess I'm trying to explain through, you know, through my words of it being the perfect race, but overcoming imperfections perfectly. And it certainly wasn't the perfect race. It wasn't the race I necessarily would have scripted, but it was the most beautiful, uplifting, and gratifying of experiences and and reflecting back, I wouldn't have changed it for the world. So at that point, I was really fortunate to be three-time world champion. I'd missed the world championships the year prior. I'd been second in the lead up and made that really difficult decision in collaboration with my team not to race. However, 2011 had had started really well, as is often the case when you have a disappointment, you know, you take time to wallow and then and then you brush yourself off and come back, you know, faster and stronger. And I certainly was really fortunate to have to have done that. So I had a great race at Challenge Roth. I was really happy with the lead up to the world championships. And then two weeks before the race itself, I was on a training ride at a small group ride in Boulder in Colorado, where I was training at the time. And unbeknownst to me, I had a kind of deflated rear tyre and came off the bike and crashed and kind of severe, quite severe road rash. So kind of the superficial, but then subsequently becomes quite a deep injury and torn muscles, things like that. So it wasn't really small preparation physically, and certainly wasn't psychologically, and in those circumstances, you you know, you wallow, but then you have to face that adversity with positivity. So you have to you have to reframe, you have to be agile, you have to react to the situation as stands, you have to break that that process down into small, manageable steps and focus on what you can control your mindset, your actions, your environment to be conducive to optimal performance under the circumstances. We traveled to Kona later than planned. I knew that I wanted to start the race, but really never envisaged the outcome that materialized.

Charlie Reading:

So, how did that day materialise? What describe us what happened throughout that day?

Chrissy Wellington:

I mean, the lead up, like I said, is that process of of micro steps, especially when you're you've experienced a setback, you can't let yourself think too far ahead. So I was just taking each hour, each day, each hour as as it came. And so very much focusing on what I could control, like I said. So you can control your mindset, you can have a really positive reframing, you have that power of recollection of times when you've overcome adversity in the past. You can control your actions, your training, you know, the plans, the preparations that you have. So I just very much focused on what I could control, of course, leaning into my incredible support team, which were really the wind under my under my wings. And so I went through each stage of the process of as best I could, you know, eating breakfast at the time that I usually do, eating what I normally normally ate, you know, adapting somewhat my strategy to reflect the physical situation I was in, like my swim stroke, I had to change slightly. But to all intents and purposes, I approached the race as I as I would have done any other race. However, there was a tremendous psychological battle inside my mind that really wasn't there in races, races prior. So I think that's where the true test was. Yes, the physical test was made even more difficult, but it's difficult anyway. But it's that psychological test, that that's that self-doubt and that, you know, that fear of of pain and and and discomfort. So again, even in the race itself, that process of chunking, I talk about it a lot, I've talked about it a lot already on this podcast. We've only been going about 10 minutes, but that process of chunking, of breaking a kind of monumental endeavor down into manageable steps is so important because an Iron Man is inconceivable. It's inconceivable when you're a professional athlete, a professional athlete that's, you know, maybe 80% physically capable. So it's that breaking a process down into manageable steps that I think got me through.

Charlie Reading:

And what happened from a racing point of view, describe for those people that don't know what played out that day, how did it all actually sort of work through?

Chrissy Wellington:

I had a pretty diabolical swim. The swim wasn't my strength anyway, but you know, it was it was one of my worst, if not the worst, swims I've ever had in an Iron Man. But my mindset was at least I got out of the swim. So I got through it. Onto the bike. You know, experience tells me it's a long day and you can afford and should be incredibly patient. So whilst typically I'm quite an impatient person, when I'm racing, I am prepared to play that that long game. So I didn't ride to power, so I was a very intuitive, still am a very intuitive athlete. So I had a strong sense of the pace that I could sustain over the 180 kilometers and and very much rode to that. I, as with all races, had highs and lows. That's inevitable in Iron Man racing. And so there were periods where it was pretty uncomfortable, you know, urinating on the bike and having it trickle down your legs and going into your cuts. You know, probably not the most pleasant of experiences. But yeah, physically, psychologically, the race was a roller coaster. My biggest worry was, I think, was the run because of, you know, the the load and the fear that I just wouldn't be able to sustain that level of of or endure that level of of discomfort. But I think I I kind of lent back into the experiences that I've had previously, kind of using all the tools and the strategies in your toolbox that enable you to endure. So there's very much a focus on on the process, but there's also an ability to throw your mind from the action you're undertaking and put it somewhere altogether more pleasant. And I've always had that ability to do that to both be very present in the execution, but also to enable my mind to be somewhere a little bit less painful. And I I've never really been able to articulate that. And now saying it, I still don't feel that it makes much sense. But that process has always been useful for me. Having my team around me, having songs in my head that I identify with landmarks on on the race course. So all of these different tools and strategies that I used. And slowly, I think I came off the bike in sixth place. So I'd moved up from I think 20 something position to sixth off the bike. And so then I I I knew that if you know, if I could kind of sustain the pace I was running, that there was a chance I could be off on the podium. And I always say that confidence is built in the trenches of experience. So that marathon was was an experience, and my confidence grew in the trenches of that. So as the marathon progressed and I started to move up and overtake people, I started to grow in in confidence. As I neared the end and and went into the lead, it was a real battle. That battle within myself, but that battle with my competitors that I'd always craved. And I've never felt so annihilated as I did crossing crossing the finish line that day. And that's why it was my perfect race. Because I answered every question that I'd ever asked of myself. I overcame every imperfection as perfectly as I possibly could. And I think I proved to myself that I was worthy of being called a champion.

Charlie Reading:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it and it reminds me a little bit of listening to you talk about that. Reminds me of when Mark Allen describes his final win in Kona and he was like, you know, 13 minutes behind off the bike, and he's like, but the one thing I do have is the mental strategies and strength. I might not be as young as the person I'm chasing down, but I I I can I can I can I know I've got mental strategies that can get me there. And I know you say it's really difficult to sort of contextualize what that is, but if I were to put you on the spot and say, look, you know, you're you're coaching a younger athlete now and you're trying to get them to that mental resilience more quickly, what would be the the one advice, one piece of advice you would give them to try and kind of go through that journey more quickly?

Chrissy Wellington:

It needs to be done on the training ground. It's too late in a race to realise that you haven't utilized training to develop yourself both psychologically and physically. So training is as much about training the mind as it is training your physiology, your body. And so I think athletes of all calibers at all levels should be investing in developing that psychological strength. And that means learning to test your limits and step outside your comfort zone in a safe managed way in training, because it's only then that you have the confidence. Like I said, that confidence is built, or not innately confident, but that confidence can grow when you've tested yourself in training, that you've shown you can do more than you ever think possible. And you put yourself in situations where the outcome is uncertain. That might mean you fail, but you grow through that. It might mean you succeed and you grow through that too. So I think growth is in that testing of one's limits. And that psychological strength, I think, is multifaceted. So we need adversity tolerance. So we need to know and be able to overcome adversity. So that means testing yourself physically, pushing your limits, you know, above what you think is possible. But then there's also, especially in Iron Man racing, there's solitude tolerance, which is really important. You have to be able to be in your own head for an extended period of time. And so all athletes, whilst there's definite value in training with others, there's also incredible value of training on by yourself because you learn the art of solitude tolerance. And I think often amateur athletes understandably spend a lot of time training with other people, which is beautiful. But in a race, you haven't got that camaraderie, you haven't got that shared motivation and support. So you've got to be able to be in your own head for extended periods of time, be without music, be without stimulation. So solitude tolerance, the training of to endure that border is really, really important. And so that that again is part of training. Motivation, incredibly important. You've got to know what your intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are. There'll be those that are within those that are external and knowing what they are and holding those close are again really important. But all of that reflection, all of that processing has to be done as part of training. And that's that's so beautiful. That's what's amazing about our sport. It's as much psychological as it is physical, and that's why it amazes me that people place so much value on their training log, their swim bike run, maybe strength and conditioning, and that is it. But it all unravels if that doesn't encompass that that psychological strength, because that's such an important pillar.

Claire Fudge:

I think it's really interesting what you I mean, absolutely, in terms of spending time on your own in that solitude, we've a number of guests that we've we've interviewed have you know gone into quite a bit of depth in that area, and I think it's it's really interesting. Whilst you were speaking there, I was thinking of the generation that are coming up that may have spent some solitude in COVID times on their own. But what do you think from the younger generation, maybe, of athletes coming into the sport who maybe, I mean, what you know, what are your thoughts? Do you think the younger generation are more concerned with making mistakes and putting themselves out there in terms of learning from mistakes? And also that solitude of being on their own because there is so much social media now, isn't there, and connected to people the whole time. I don't know what your thoughts are on that in terms of the next generation maybe coming through.

Chrissy Wellington:

I think there are two parts to that. There's a risk aversion, I think, whether that's generational. I certainly think that hand in hand with the growth of social media and the fact that everyone, regardless of who they are, has a public profile and a public persona, means that your head is permanently above the parapet. So I think that no longer can you make a mistake and be incognito or anonymous. So I think people feel very exposed and very visible due to the fact that they're living their lives in a public space. So I think that means that you're less likely to want to take risks and be much more secure in your comfort zone because of that, that fear of judgment from others. And then obviously linked to that, but but separate, that interconnectedness, whilst beautiful, is a double-edged sword, isn't it? As you've quite rightly said, I think there's a tendency towards wanting a silver bullet, wanting a quick win, wanting an easy fix, and also needing to be constantly stimulated in in every in every sense. So whether that's through music or visually through videos or through connection with other people, all of those different types of stimulation, I think we're increasingly conditioned to need. And my hope, including as a parent, is that we try to carve out space for ourselves to listen to what we need and want, listen to our intuition, listen to our gut instinct, and be comfortable, you know, in our own company. I think that's that's tremendously important. But also as a parent, encouraging our daughter to test herself and to be celebratory of her trying, failing, making mistakes. And if we if we think about the example, the phenomenal example of Lucy Charles, Lucy Charles Barclay coming back from the disappointment of Kono, it demonstrates that resilience that comes from failure and disappointment and adversity. And that's a really great, very topical contemporary example, but one that we can all lean into, I think, that shows that you've got to put yourself out there. You might not always get what you want, you might not always achieve your goal, but that's a springboard to success.

Claire Fudge:

Absolutely. And I think you know, you you and you know, many other athletes sharing these stories of not just resilience, but putting yourself out there and be willing to fail to succeed almost as well. I just want to jump back to Kona. And I was wondering, like, out of your wins in Kona, which do you think was the most memorable win? And why?

Chrissy Wellington:

Every race I've made memories, phenomenal memories. And each one is so special to me for different reasons. I think I bookended my career with two phenomenal performances, not in terms of of the titles, but in terms of what I learned and what what they gifted me. You know, the first one gifted me an awareness that I could achieve so much more than I could ever have imagined. It gave me a platform that meant so much and really changed changed my life forever. And the last race, too, enabled me to divide limits of of what was possible and almost completed me. But the three races in between, and I say three because the one that I didn't race is also important for different reasons. But 2008 was incredibly important. It was an opportunity where myself and Rebecca Keat were able to demonstrate sportsmanship in in a way that I think just encapsulates all that's beautiful about the sport. I had a flat tire, long story very short, but I had a flat tire. A fellow racer gave me a CO2 cartridge. Using that, I was able to get back on the road and was able to reclaim the lead and win win the race. So for me, that that's an incredibly special moment, not just for myself and and Rebecca, but also for for the sport and encapsulating all that's so beautiful. The making of memories is well, I did the sport, and and each one of those races is is so incredibly special.

Charlie Reading:

I was going to ask you about that moment with with Rebecca Keaton handing you the CO2 cartridge because it's an amazing moment. How do you think that experience shaped your view to rivalry within sport? I mean, I love the triathlon community because it's it is such an amazing community. But how did how did that moment shape your approach to the sport and your competitors?

Chrissy Wellington:

I think rivalry is is manufactured somewhat by by the media. I think competitiveness is innate in competitive sport. I think that goes without saying. So we are competitors, but we are also many of us friends. You know, the Latin root of competitor is strive together, and I believe that's what we do. We strive together and we elevate each other. And I was a better athlete because of them. But I think different athletes would have approached competitiveness in in different ways. And it's Rebecca's selflessness that really struck a chord with me and should strike a chord with with others listening to this story. The fact that she was aware that in giving me the CO2 cartridge, that that could be, you know, the stick that I used to beat her and everyone else with. And she was willing to do that. And and that's that's absolutely incredible. And and like I said, and and you've said, it epitomizes the sport where we're competitors, but you also want to win with integrity. Want to you want your competitors to be able to be performing at their very best. So yeah, I I'm still indebted to Rebecca, but I also think that it it tells a bigger story than just she and I and and speaks to the camaraderie that exists in our sport.

Claire Fudge:

What do you I think that the camaraderie is just amazing still, I think, in the in the triathlon community. With regards to your the way that you trained, the way that you competed, when you know, we looked from the outside in, you really were pushing to the, you know, to the limits, pushing to the edge. What did that look like for you in your training, your, you know, your racing competing, but also in life as well, in terms of pushing those limits, pushing the edge?

Chrissy Wellington:

I don't know whether I was pushing the envelope any any more or any less than than anyone else. I wasn't hampered by any preconceived knowledge or ideas, so I came into the sport very green and so was very much open to experimentation and exploration of those limits. Would I say I was a masochist? I like to push myself. I like to hurt in a in a managed way, want as all athletes do, want to know that we've fulfilled our potential. But that has to be done strategically and deliberately. So it's not just a process of kind of self-flagellation where you're annihilating yourself during every session. It's much more sophisticated, I'm sure you know, than that. So it's a combination of sessions, but when I go hard, I I I go I go hard. But when I need to go easy, I go hard at being easy. Does that make sense? You have to, as a as an athlete, be purposeful in your training and know when to go easy and know when to go hard. And both are incredibly, incredibly important. When I was racing, I think we were blessed in not having the public profile necessarily that people do today. So so I wasn't aware of other people's training, and other people weren't necessarily aware of mine aside from the people that I trained with. However, I do know that I was a very low volume athlete relative to many of the athletes that I that I trained with. So I would do perhaps 30 hours of training a week, and every single session was purposeful. So there was no junk in there. But for me, training was 24-7. It's not just about swim, bike, and run, it's your strength work, your mobility work, it's physio, it's massage, it's your nutrition, it's your rest, recovery, sleep, etc., etc. So you need to invest in all of those. And I think I expect I had high standards for myself, and I was very much focused on that holistic approach to training as much, you know. So focusing on all the other pillars as much as I did.

Charlie Reading:

Brilliant. And I think I wonder whether that's a a segue into my next topic. I'm not sure that the the sort of masochism side of it, I wonder is whether that's related to where I'm going next, which is in your first book, which by the way is an absolutely brilliant book. I read it right at the start of my triathlon journey, and it was it was like hugely, hugely impactful for me. But I remember reading in that that you had an eating disorder as as a as a youngster, and actually, I think you still had it as you came into triathlon, if my memory serves me correctly. And it's a topic that's very close to my heart, but it's also a a topic that Claire helps a lot of people with in her nutritional world. And so I wonder how did endurance sport help you because uh my understanding of eating distortion is it often it can lead to an exercise addiction in almost instead of or in addition to. So, how did endurance sport help you deal with that, do you think?

Chrissy Wellington:

Yeah, just maybe to just give some give some context to to those that aren't aware of my story. Yeah, as a young person in my teenage years, as a young adult too, I had an eating disorder, anorexia and bulimia. I just really had a very disordered approach to food. For me, the the body was aesthetic. I judged myself very critically relative to others. At that time, sport was not really part of my life, and the control that I wanted to exert over myself and and my body, I did through restricting what I ate. And it was when I was doing my MA that I, inspired by a friend, started running. And there was the realization, slow realization, both through educating myself and speaking to others, that if I was going to enjoy running most importantly, or fulfill my potential at running secondary, I needed to fuel both for health and for performance. And so that coupled with the impact that I knew it was having on those I loved the most, enabled me to have a much healthier approach to food. But as you quite rightly said, it came at a time when the the amount of sport that I was doing at that time running was was increasing. And so I think you're quite right in saying that the kind of psychological attributes that I had that manifested an eating disorder were then channeled, exhibited through sport. But reframing, sport did give me the channel through which to address a very disordered approach to food. It enabled me to have a better relationship with food, to see it as something positive. That's continued to this day, but the relationship hasn't always been an easy one. It ebbs and flows depending on the context. It's something that I still find challenging and have developed strategies to deal with. At times, I don't want to well, suffered from red S, so relative energy deficiency in sport, basically where you're not eating enough or the nutritional or food with the nutritional value necessary to sustain the activities that. That you're doing and to sustain normal bodily function sometimes. So that manifested for me in disturbed sleep, hormonal dysfunction, amenorrhea, in other words, irregular or no periods. So it had a multitude of short and longer term impacts. And so I think the the disordered eating behaviour is a manifestation of my desire for control. Like I said, it's something that I have to I have to still deal with. And I'm 48 now, but also being a parent for me has been a revelation. Like it's just enabled me to have a much better, much healthier relationship with my body, with food, particularly due to the kind of role modeling aspect of parenting. So it's it's a journey, it's been a journey. And I think it's important that athletes like me are honest. And there's a lot of shame and embarrassment attached to talking about this type of thing. But I unless we do, I don't think others in similar situations will have the confidence to reach out for help and that support and that help is out there.

Charlie Reading:

Well, you know, I I I thank you for being as honest as you know, that's that's a very honest and uh and heartfelt answer. And you know, I I thank you for sharing that. Is there any advice that you if there's a lot young person listening to this that I mean we've you know we've talked about Red S quite a lot on the podcast, is there any advice that you would give a young person that's strove struggling either with an eating disorder or sort of self-esteem or body image issues? You know, what what advice would you give them?

Chrissy Wellington:

First and foremost, speak to someone. Very important. Speak to someone you trust. There's a wealth of resources out there now. Project Red S is a phenomenal site that I would signpost people to. So definitely speak to someone you trust, access the resources that are available, not just you as the person with Red S, but also encourage those that are around you to access those resources to seek support if necessary in challenging the underlying perception of yourself as inadequate and your body as inadequate. Because I think that's a lot of where it stems from, that that feeling of of inadequacy. And what I've come to realize is my body is so much more than its aesthetic appearance, you know, it's it's the external, but it's also the internal. And it's enabled me to do some absolutely phenomenal things. And if we think back to what I said about, you know, the perfection and imperfection, I think the same can apply to our bodies. Like our bodies might not be perfect, but they're absolute, but they're absolutely perfect in every way. And so I think it's trying to reframe the perspective of ourself so that it's a lot more positive, but often that's hard to do alone. So again, it it's reaching out to support in enabling you to understand the the causes and those and look at the root of those underlying perceptions. But I think it's also important to say that Red S is not always a deliberate act linked to disordered eating. Sometimes it's a lack of awareness about when we need to eat, how much we need to eat, what the nutritional density needs to be. So it's it's not always linked to disordered eating. And that's important to say. I think some athletes they they start training and they simply do not know what they need to eat and and when. And that creates a disequilibrium between their intake and their energy expenditure. And so I think an awareness about that is important too.

Claire Fudge:

And thank you for being so open and honest, as Charlie said to, you know, just listening to your your kind of journey from where you were to where you are now and and managing things still. So working with eating disorders and disordered eating reds in in sports, what do you see as, you know, when you were competing in sport, what did you see as one of the biggest mistakes, maybe that maybe particularly the girls that you were around a lot, but the men, the males and females making when it came to nutrition. So did you see a lot of disordered eating, or was there just a lot of underfueling the kind of eating less makes you faster? You know, lighter is faster, lighter is better. Like what did you see?

Chrissy Wellington:

I didn't see as much of that in in triathlon. It's a very different sport to a sport like running, where I think you hear that messaging a lot more. I certainly knew that lighter was not faster, especially when it came to swimming, because my strength and my buoyancy changed in the water. I think two mistakes. I'll I'll speak to myself. I don't want to speak to others or or be more general in my comments. I'll I'll speak to myself. So the first is the lack of awareness about the amount of carbohydrates that I needed to be ingesting. And I think science has changed, and there's an awareness now that we need to be taking on board a lot more carbohydrates in training and racing than we may have thought 10, 15 years ago. So when I was I was racing, I would ingest about 60 grams of carbs an hour. Now athletes are definitely expecting to ingest, you know, 80, 90 grams. Depending, obviously, there's so many different variables. So again, we can't generalize, but for me, I if I was racing now, I would probably look to increase that to you'll know better than Claire, but you know, 80, 80, 90 grams. And and that's that's trainable, and that needs to be done in training so that it's tolerable on racing. So I think number one, I was I wasn't ingesting enough carbohydrates. And secondly, I think is the philosophy is that short-term approach. It's almost sacrificing health at the altar of performance. So as an athlete, I had a short-term approach. And so I wasn't looking far enough down the road sometimes, of the implications of my actions, not just for performance, but for long-term health. Something I'm incredibly conscious of now as you know, as I'm nearing 50. So, what are the implications of my lifestyle 20 years ago for hormonal health, for bone density, for body mass, you know, all brain health, all of those things. They're just so important. But I think when you're in your your 20s, you're not thinking about brain health. And you might not even be thinking about conception and fertility and things like that. So I think shifting that, shifting the approach from short term to factoring in that that longer term, the longer term impact of our actions is is really, really important.

Claire Fudge:

And I I think definitely, you know, helping people understand, you know, from a nutrition perspective, actually what their body needs. And like you say, actually the education about it's not just the here and now, it's actually what happens, you know, later on in life as well. So it's it's really good to hear you talking about that, that, you know, that whole spectrum. I've heard you talk, you know, before and and written about purpose. And you've said or mentioned before that that your purpose is to drive a positive change. Since you've stepped away from your life in professional sport, how how has purpose changed for you? And and how has it changed in the work that you do today, such as park runs and and the other things that you're doing?

Chrissy Wellington:

I don't think my purpose has changed. I think that's the point of purpose, but I think you have different goals attached to that, under underpinning that. So I've always been driven by that purpose to kind of empower, energize, energize, and elevate others. And I've just been really fortunate to have had many different channels through which to live that purpose, whether it's through sport, whether it's through international development, whether it's through parenting, or whether it's through my career subsequent to sport, including at Park Run. So I think the the anchor or the North Star or the compass has not changed. I think that the channel through which I can achieve that has. But certainly on retiring from professional sport, you question your purpose. You question so much, you question your identity and your goal and your structure. And it's a very discombobulating time. And I think holding tight to that ambition or that life mission is really, really important. So knowing who you are, what you're about, what excites you, what your contribution is beyond the world of sport, beyond the moniker of world champion is really, really important. Because if all you ever think of yourself as is Chrissy Wellington, full-time world champion, then that's suffocating but also limiting. And so I think having that purpose helped me effectively better transition to a life outside of sport.

Charlie Reading:

Brilliant. And I think for from what we can see, you you have achieved that in what you're doing and the message you're sharing, and you know, being nominated for female sports person of the century and and all of this sort of amazing stuff. Uh so I think I think you've achieved it. One of the things I've heard you talk about on this on this subject on another podcast that I was listening to as part of my research was how you've have or sometimes should have used your own values to make decisions. So talk to me a little bit about how you've reflected back on decisions that maybe you didn't make in line with your values. And maybe you give us an example of one time that it didn't, you didn't make a decision based on your own values, and another time where you did, and that that that proved to be more successful.

Chrissy Wellington:

I believe really strongly in the power of intuition and gut instinct. So I think we have an incredible compass inside us that tells us what's right or wrong. Sometimes we drown it out and we don't listen to it. And I think some of the mistakes that I've made in my life are when I haven't listened to that internal compass or haven't done something that's, like you said, aligned with my values. There have been several. The I guess one I'll lean into is connected to my autobiography. So when I was when we were publishing my autobiography, the publisher wanted someone to write a forward, someone high profile, because obviously that would help with book sales. I was put in touch with Lance Armstrong, who had dabbled in in triathlon. And in communicating with him directly, he was open to writing the forward to my book. Now, at that time, nothing had been proven with regards to his use of performance enhancing drugs through his cycling career, throughout his cycling career. However, you'd be naive to think that he'd performed clean. And I certainly knew that there were red, many red flags and there were question marks in my mind about his integrity. Um, I didn't listen to my intuition, I didn't listen to my gut instinct, and I was swayed by the needs of the publisher and the desire to have a high-profile person writing the forward that I accepted his offer and we published the book. And then, as everyone knows, subsequently it was proven that he'd taken performance-enhancing drugs. And I felt that that brought into question a lack of credibility on my part by association, that people would then call into question my integrity because I had been associated with him. And in hindsight, it was it was a mistake. I should have listened to my intuition and I and I didn't. And it was, it was, it was a lesson to me. But you know, you can't change what's happened. But I know that going forward, I need to take accountability, to be responsible for those decisions and make them my decision.

Charlie Reading:

Is there an example of of the flip side of this where you have used your intuition and your values to make a decision that now that you look back on you go, that was absolutely the right decision because of my intuition?

Chrissy Wellington:

Um becoming a professional athlete, moving to, you know, moving to Nepal, you know, even like micro decisions that that you make, you know, each and every day are guided by gut instinct about this is right or this is wrong. And so yeah, I think I've I mean, even as even in sport, I was a very intuitive athlete. I listened to myself. I had a very deep understanding of of myself and and my body. So that so I didn't necessarily lean into technology to tell me what I already intuitively knew. Sometimes it's you know, it's it's great to kind of cross-check, but yeah, as an athlete, I was very, very intuitive.

Charlie Reading:

I know Nepal was a was a big life moment for you. Why, why was it such a pivotal moment?

Chrissy Wellington:

Because I stepped outside of my comfort zone. I was exposed to abject, abject poverty and deprivation juxtaposed against phenomenal beauty, beauty of landscape, beauty of people, beauty of community. And it enabled me to explore and and develop physical and psychological strengths that I never knew that I had, you know, in some of the kind of bike rides and things that that we went on. But just as importantly, it showed me that power of collaboration, true development really means that coming together of a group of diverse people, that culture of meritocracy where no ideas are off the table, where the Westerner needs to listen and respond to the needs and wants of the local community rather than imposing a solution and then together co-creating that solution to a problem that they've identified. So it made me think about a lot more deeply about community, about collaboration and about development as a practice.

Claire Fudge:

I was thinking how that might have also your experience now challenging, challenged, channelled into the community of things like Parkrun as an example, but but also your that relationship that you have and trust that you have in a coach as well, being able to listen, understand, be part of a group. You you've trained under two of the most, I guess, iconic coaches. What do you think that each of them brought to your your own development into your sport? And how did that kind of I guess shape your evolution in in your sport as an athlete?

Chrissy Wellington:

Yeah, I've been really fortunate through my life to have many coaches from the swimming coaches as a as a youngster, Frank Horwell, who was my running coach, phenomenal man in Battersea and in London. And then, like you said, the two coaches I had as a professional athlete, I had a wonderful support team, and and my coaches were a really important part of that. However, like you said, that the two coaches I had, Brett Sutton and Dave Scott, were two very, very different people, different personalities, different coaching styles, different philosophies. And to contextualize it, I came to Brett as a a new professional athlete, very new to the sport, very naive, and stayed with him for two years and then went to Dave for the last two years of of my career. Brett is a very was, is a very authoritarian character, very top-down, very imposing, dogmatic, trolling. So he took control of every aspect of of training and and made sure that my team was as narrow as it possibly could be. In retrospect, he was quite divisive. You know, he used to encourage friction between athletes very deliberately. It wasn't a very consultative approach and it was not incredibly it wasn't empowering. I succeeded under him. However, in my mind, it wasn't sustainable and it and it wasn't healthy. And that's why after two years I knew that I needed to sever the relationship and moved to Boulder, Colorado, and was coached, like I said, by Dave, who had an altogether different style. It was very reciprocal, quite consultative. We were friends first and foremost. He was expansive in his approach to team. So I had a different strength and conditioning coach. I had input from a nutritionist. I was able to have many of my own sponsors, whereas Brett had challenged my decisions in that area. So it was it was altogether a very, very different relationship. I mean, I've had an email from Dave two days ago. So he and I are still very close friends. We might not always agree on every aspect of training, but it was it was a relationship grounded in trust and in respect and in support. And feel really fortunate to have been coached by him. And yeah, I think it also demonstrates that there are many different coaching styles. And again, it's about understanding yourself, your goals, your approach, your needs, and then matching those to that of the coach. And then if it if it doesn't work, either immediately or over time, then not being prepared, then not being afraid to to sever that relationship and and and to evolve and step away. I think that's that's really important as well.

Charlie Reading:

Brilliant. I I I think it's um I think it's fascinating, isn't it? Because I I remember reading your interpretation of of the Brett Sutton coaching. And there's still things that I kind of stick in my brain, like one of the guys I swim with always has a bottle of water on the side of the pool, and all I think of is Brett saying, You can't swim in a race, you can't drink in a race, can you?

Chrissy Wellington:

No, but that that's exactly what he said. I don't know if you read that in my autobiography, or someone else has said that.

Charlie Reading:

Yeah, yeah, no, it was yours.

Chrissy Wellington:

The first day I arrived, we were training out in Thailand. I arrived, typical Brett, I arrived in the middle of the night and I got a taxi from Paquet Airport to where we were staying. No one had been told that I was arriving, not least the person I was sharing a room with. So I turn up, I I sleep on the floor in the room, and then wake up in the morning. She has an argument with Brett because she obviously didn't know that I was coming. We all go to the pool, and then the first thing I hear is, you don't need to drink, you don't drink in a race, and this water bottle getting launched over over this wall, and I'm just shell-shocked, you know, and this is me as a as a as a new athlete coming into this environment. I'm glad you said it, it's my your interpretation because it is, and other people will have different perspectives, and I respect that. So this is very much my interpretation and my recollection and my experience. But there were things that happened that were, you know, not up for debate. And and yeah, it it was an approach that worked for a while but wasn't.

Charlie Reading:

Yeah, I mean, it it's interesting. I mean, it obviously got you to being world champion, which is amazing, but interesting to hear that you say that it wasn't sustainable. Now, as we come to the end of this interview, we always ask our guests or talk to our guests about books. Um, now you've you've written two amazing books from from a triathlon point of view, but you've also written two brilliant books from from for the next generation, which I love. I think that's I think that's fantastic, and we're and we're gonna run out of time to talk about them much. But I would love to know what books or if not books, other sort of resources. I have a feeling I know what your answer to this question is gonna be, but we'll see where it goes. What books or other resources have helped you on your journey or do you find yourself recommending to other people?

Chrissy Wellington:

The first is a poem gave to me, and it's a poem called If by Rajard Kipling. Slightly misogynist because it's about you know a son becoming a man, and it's as applicable to, you know, a girl becoming a woman, or that aside, to me, just it encapsulates what it means to live your very best life, a life where you fulfil your potential, but a life in service to others. And that's a poem Brett gave me, along with a book called Art of War. But the poem I and the book actually, but I have I still have both, but the poem I carry around everywhere, and I used to write it on my water bottles before a race, and it was quite meditative, and and that became like you know, a routine for me before, you know, before every race. And I used to give one of those water bottles to a child if I could find one before the before the race starts. So that was that poem's really um to me. So I think if I were to pick one, it would be that.

Charlie Reading:

Brilliant, brilliant. I had a feeling that that might be the one. It's a brilliant, brilliant recommendation. And then finally, we always get the last guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing that it was going to be. And our last guest was Ryan Sands, the ultrarunner. So I think Claire has Ryan's question for you. And this is gonna be an interesting question, I think.

Claire Fudge:

But these conversations are meant to be fun, aren't they? Yeah, it's not a test, we promise you. Okay, so Ryan asked, if you had to write your own obituary, what would you want it to say and why? Can I plunder the words of my father?

Chrissy Wellington:

Of course. Uh when he dropped me off on my first day at university, he said, Chrissy, seize every opportunity and make a mark on the world for all the right reasons. So it would be she seized every opportunity and she made a mark on the world for all the right reasons.

Charlie Reading:

Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant. And I thought I don't think there's any doubt that that is uh absolutely true.

Chrissy Wellington:

So deep sense of relief now that I've I've had this. Great question, isn't it? And and I think it is important to to reflect on what you want your your impact to have been, your impact on the world and the impact on on those around you. And and I do think about that a lot. And it is what it is that compass for me to make sure that that we talked about I'm making the best decisions I possibly can.

Charlie Reading:

Brilliant. Chrissy, it I want to say a huge thank you for for not just coming on the podcast, for your honesty, for your inspiration, for that right right from the start of my triathlon journey, it's been a it's been a huge thing for me. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. And yeah, we wish wish you every success with whatever comes next.

Chrissy Wellington:

Thank you so much. Thanks for taking me down there. I always love reflecting on what has been, but also thinking about what is still to come. Thank you.

Charlie Reading:

Thank you. So, what did you make of the interview with Chrissy?

Claire Fudge:

Amazing. I mean, we have been wanting Chrissy to come on the podcast for such a long time, been inviting behind the scenes, have you for a long time. It was amazing. And do you know it was amazing because we have so many different guests, and she was a guest who is a little bit of a throwback to the past. And it's so great to hear her story told in her own in her own way again. So it was fascinating. It was a fascinating journey from kind of where she was when she was racing through to kind of where she is now. And I think extreme, like we were saying, you know, at the end of end of that that interview, like she's so authentic.

Charlie Reading:

Yeah, I I agree. I think she was her honesty was brilliant. I mean, she actually said afterwards she shared some stuff that I don't know that she's ever really shared. And I thought it was brilliant. And there was so much wisdom in there. I wrote like so many notes. You know, within the first few minutes, we were talking about controlling the controllables and chunking it down, and you're like, there's so many brilliant lessons here, regardless of triathlon. You know, that those things just in itself are just so brilliant. And stepping outside your comfort zone, and we sort of came back to that a few times. Just so much brilliant stuff in there. What what what did you take from the the conversation?

Claire Fudge:

You know, I think I mean she talked obviously a lot about resilience, didn't she? Because where where we started in that conversation was around her uh 2000, was it 2000? I can't even remember which which race it was that she won't be.

Charlie Reading:

Her final, her final conversation.

Claire Fudge:

Final her final race. And I think that what really came across is her how she got through not only her racing but her training. And she she taught, which some of the again, you know, we've heard guests talk about, is being able to come compartmentalize like what she's doing at that moment, whether it's the pain of getting through the training pain or the racing pain, or in this instance, actually real, you know, real pain before the race even started, and being able to sit it somewhere else. That is a skill to be able to do that. And it also came back around when we were talking about, you know, what does an athlete need to learn? It's not just about the training, of course they need nutrition, of course they do. But it's not just about the training, you know, it's about learning to be with yourself, learning about the silence, which you know I'm a big fan of, like actually train with other people, but learn to like be with yourself and train yourself. And I think that's a really interesting concept for that younger generation coming up. Like, do they have the capacity to be able to do it now, or would they have to really learn to be able to do that?

Charlie Reading:

Like, like she described racing without power and racing purely on feel, you know, that that again is a great lesson to learn. And I think, yeah, I think you're right. I think there's there's there's so much in that. And and I loved the way she described that growth is through testing your limits. You only really know, you know, only really get growth when you're sort of pushing to the absolute limits, to the edges of the boxes as you described, which I think I think that's brilliant, you know, and and pushing essentially to the point of failure. You only know how far you can go when you get to the point of failure, don't you?

Claire Fudge:

And that's the course where you where you learn as well. Yeah, you know, and she was willing to put herself in that position and look where it got her, you know, actually being willing to put herself out there.

Charlie Reading:

And we didn't get a chance to ask her. Um, I'd hoped she, but we we ran out of time before she'd had to go and do the school run. Like, if you think about Kona this year for the ladies, you know, you had Lucy pushing to the absolute limit, and you had Taylor pushing to the absolute limit. And it's actually a really fine line between pushing to the limit and not having then the the enough in the tank to get to the finish line, and also, but then you know, not pushing to the limit and not having a chance of winning the race in the first place. So it's a really fine line to get get that right. And Chrissy was obviously a master at doing that.

Claire Fudge:

And that is professional sport, you know, working in professional sport, you know, I always talk about you're walking a tightrope between falling off the edge of not being at your peak and falling off your edge with pushing yourself too hard. And that is the game of professional sport, isn't it? Is that that ultimate line? And I can imagine, I haven't read her children's books, but I'd I'd actually love to from from just the the you know the detail about it, what's written about them. I can imagine that in those books. Have you read them?

Charlie Reading:

No, I haven't actually. Uh because they they came out when my girls were probably too old for me to be introducing them to that.

Claire Fudge:

They look like such lovely books built on, you know, talking about resilience and obviously in a in a childlike way. So I'm gonna I'm actually gonna get them. I think they'd be amazing to read. Like some yeah, teaching children how to do that.

Charlie Reading:

I I th I think I think that's right. I think I should do the same actually. And I think I think what was I thought was amazing was how honest and authentic she was when she was talking about eating disorders. Because I think she I mean, I have to admit, I I because she talks about it in a book, but it only really is a thing in the lead up to her becoming a professional triathlete and how honest she was about how it's always still a challenge going going through. I mean, what would you you obviously you talk to lots of people currently battling an eat eating disorder? What what did you take on on that part of the conversation?

Claire Fudge:

I think that you know, her honesty around this is her being able to talk about it is also the acceptance of what it is and how she's able to manage it. And I think that's you know what she said at the end of actually peaks and troughs, she didn't use those words, but you know, sometimes it's worse than others, and even now she still experiences it. And it's about her being able to manage that. So I I think she was very honest in actually is this good for the sport for me to be talking about it? And actually, I think it's a fantastic thing because for other athletes to be able to see that she has been able to manage an eating disorder and put herself in a position. Where she's been well enough to not only race but be able to compete and win at a really high level and be able to, you know, have a family. And talking now about actually it's really important about the longevity of not only your sport, but the longevity in terms of your, you know, your lifespan, your bone health, your brain health. So I I think she really has kind of put herself out there to, you know, maybe this is her next area of helping people change and helping people succeed as well.

Charlie Reading:

Yeah, I mean, I th I think it's it's obviously still way more of a problem in sport than than I think I realize realised. I think, you know, I know we've talked about Red F on on the podcast a number of times, both in female athletes and in male athletes. And I, you know, I see the help that Bromin's getting, for example, with her cycling and how they're trying to keep her away from ever having that problem. Is it it must be a what more wide? I know when we were chatting to Chrissy briefly after we stopped recording, there was people that have been contacting her about this subject. How big a problem is it in sport, do you think?

Claire Fudge:

I think this is one of those classic questions of is it that we we're more aware of it now, which is good, and we see it more and therefore we're picking up on it more, not only as professionals being able to see it, but many coaches now are very aware of reds, probably more than an eating disorder, but certainly more aware of reds. And also parents have a little bit more understanding of it. They might not understand everything, but they do have more of an understanding. And I think we are seeing it more, but I think it's always been there. It's always been there, but it's it's probably never been talked about in the way that it's talked about now. I think also the the you know, competitive mindset of an athlete is a very similar mindset to people who often end up having an eating disorder as well. So they're very like aligned in terms of like often perfectionistic or competitive, wanting to maybe sort of prove themselves or do their best, the control nature, like this all is wrapped up in what often an athlete is is like, and certainly an endurance athlete actually.

Charlie Reading:

And and and the reason I mentioned the segue from the previous topic topic is is there an element of wanting to suffer actually? Like, is that a thing as well?

Claire Fudge:

I don't I don't think so. I think wanting to win, wanting to prove oneself, the control that it's possible. I think that more than the suffering, although for some people with an eating disorder, it's self-harm essentially. It's going through putting themselves in in that place where they're actually harming themselves through restricting their eating. So I I guess for some people it yeah, it sits in that.

Charlie Reading:

But it's interesting how it certainly her seeing fueling for her sport seemed to be a significant part of her learning to manage it, even if it's not, you know, even if it's never going to go away. But I mean, there was just so much like there's so much wisdom in in her talk. I love I I thought she was gonna say Rogard Kipling's If as her resource, only because I've heard her talk about it quite a few times, and it is it is an amazing poem. And I love the way she describes it about just sort of you living your best life, basically. And I think that was really cool. And and also how she how she answered Ryan's question. I thought that was that was beautiful in terms of the words of her her dad. So yeah, a crack a lot like a brilliant episode or last interview of the season, but of course, we'll have our catch-up, our season catch-up to finish off season 10. So, yeah, just like I said at the very start, it's one of the people I was approaching right at the start of the podcast journey. So absolutely brilliant to get her on, and she easily lived up to the expectations and exceeded them as well. So, a really, really cool interview. And for everyone at home, keep on training.