Ironman Ali Day will inspire your next workout

Welcome to Healthyish. Thank you for joining us listeners on this daily podcast from Body and Soul. I am Felicity Harley and joining us on the pod today is Alis Today, otherwise known as Ali Day. He's a five time Iron Series champion and whoop athlete, and we're picking apart well what his race series is all about, and also his training, nutrition and covery in preparation for these grueling events that

Thank you for having me?

Yeah, I'm doing well well all the way from your kid's bedroom, although I probably wouldn't so, Yeah.

Brannie's chair, it's extremely it's actually not too bad. It's pretty comfortable, Okay.

Cool.

I do love that we can do podcasting from wherever these days, even if it is our kids bedroom.

That's exactly right.

So mean obviously not being living here on the Gold Coast. You down in Sydney, Yeah, I mean COVID and all those sorts of things. Although it was like a bit of a huge negative, but this has been a big positive out of it, the easy being.

Able to do this.

Yeah, well, tell us about what you do. I mean, what's actually involved in an iron man iron woman race.

Yeah, that's like a really good question.

So the sport of ironman or iron woman racing was born out of basically, you know, trying to save someone's life as quick as you can in the ocean. So there's obviously the similarity between iron man like you riding a bike, running and swimming. And when I was at school or my teachers to ask, how is it, You're right, you're running and you're bike riding going, and so this that people get confused. Our iron man, as I said, and women sorry, is born out of saving people's lives.

All of those legs up.

So, you know, because we race in mother nature, you can you can have races, or you can racing conditions like Musa where it's dead flat, or you can go down to Victoria and borts you like I have in my early days, and you're racing you six to ten foot surf sort of thing. So mother nature is I guess like has a huge part in our sport. And as I said, it was born out of being able to be the fastest person to get out in the water and save someone's life. And that's kind of how.

The sport was born.

And what are the lengths, just so we can determine the difference, because I think that was a really good point to make because often it can be very confusing.

That's it.

So there's two really good points there that you just ask. So in our like our formats are always different, so our austrain and iron. Then at the end of the year or i'm women, race is our national title. It's always roughly between.

Twelve and fifteen minutes long.

And you could turn up and they draw basically a paddle pop stick out of a hat and it could be ski, swim board or board swim ski. So like again it's there's no there's never any set order and then you look at a race that I'm about to do for the tenth time in October, the Cool and Get a Gold again.

It was born out of the movie. It's its fortieth.

Anniversary this year, and that race goes for four hours, so it's again it's similar to I guess, like you know, like swimming races, like you know, fifteen hundred meter or you go fifty meter freestyle, where our Cool and Get a goal is four hours, our national title is fifteen minutes, and then our professional series, which we'll talk about today. Those races can go from anywhere from fifteen minutes to

Yeah, it does. I mean, it's a sport that really would challenge you on you know, whatever race you're turning up to and whatever you're doing on that day, in terms of not just your physical strength but also your emotional strength. What I mean, what drives you to do something like this?

Well, for starters, I think you know, I was. I was brought up by parents that loved the ocean and loved sports and would fit and healthy and still are to this day.

And they sort of.

Took me and my brother and my sister so many sporting events, and ironmn was sort of the thing that.

I love the most.

I love the fact that I was watching these guys on the weekend race at places like ports in eight to ten foot surf and we're able to sort of handle mother nature, but were so fit and running around in speedos and the Ironman top and on the back of the new train box.

So that's sort of that's what sort of kickstarted it for me.

I thought, wow, what a you know, I never thought I'd get to do it as a job or call myself an iron Man, but I thought, what a cool sport to get involved in them.

Now I think, yeah, the motivation has changed.

I've been very successful. I know that sounds really braggy.

But you have been You're allowed to own it.

And also at the same time, like it's think us about motivation, I think, yeah, I mean I'm still trying to perfect that perfect time in race, that have that perfect season, and I've got a young family now and as I mentioned off air to you, like I don't have that long left. So I just want to try and enjoy every every last minute of every last training session, every last race trip away and things like that. So very honor to have the career.

That I've had so far.

When it comes, I mean, it takes obviously a lot of training and management of nutrition and recovery. What are some of your just in a nutshell, non negotiable habits throughout the weeks when you're leading into the I mean you're starting a summer's coming, leading into summer.

Yeah, it's like I'm four weeks out at the moment of five weeks out from that cool and goet of gold, and it's a big one for me. As I said before, it's the fortieth anniversary. I'm going for my tenth title, which is crazy to actually think about. So I actually just had a conversation with my wife then, and she does basically all about cooking a hand on hard.

I can just basically the fair minimum in our.

House, the bar, she's your share for nutrition coach.

The psychologist's everything.

But she asked me, what do you want to what do you want to do in the next four weeks, And it's just really knuckling down on my diet. It's something I looked at almost ten years ago, when I was twenty four. I had a season out there, and I use that sort of season to look at areas I could improve. So diet will be a huge thing over it, and it always is, sorry in our lifestyle. It's something I'm really actually passionate about and will continue

Can I just talk about hydration for a minute. That's really interesting because I haven't had anyone mention that as part of their key pillars before. How do you go about making sure you're hydrated enough throughout day?

Yeah, so I'm pretty you know, I wish we could I could sort of show you my our water that we have, not our water, but at my routine.

So I drink like an athletic green supplement and the wrning the water that we actually drink is a company up here on the Gold Coast.

It's like pure flow water. So the water that we buy is delivered to us.

And I've always, like probably the last six or seven years, we've just always had that in our house. I've traveled with it, drank with it, and I've also got like a benchtop filter from a company called Hydration Health, a sponsor of.

Mine, and we've got shower filters.

We've got that in our house as well as the bench top filter that we drink.

Our water out of.

So it's yeah, it's a non negotiable again, Like again, it's something I'm really we're really passionate about in our household.

And I feel like it's a one percenter It makes me.

Feel I feel like I'm more hydrated throughout the day having that do you.

Keep a track throughout the day of what you're drinking. Do you like tick one glass, tick two glass?

Through just making sure like as I said, I have that that athletic Greens drink in the morning and then like before I get in the pool, presuming in the morning it's like having another thing of water with electro lts in it, stuff like that, and then post iting like I'm always sort of you know, we trained two three time today today, I've got three sessions and I'm just making sure that I'm carrying my Yeddie water bottle basically everywhere and along with just basically like I said,

I don't overthink it.

But again it's just if I'm hydrated, it means I'm going to sleep better. It means I'm going to feel better. And same goes with food, tango goes to sleep. They sort of all don't know, they're all sort of combined.

In one personal support water bottle. That's what we call them. Well that's what I call it. Ali. Thank you for coming unhealthy.

Thank you.

Well, my friends. Grab your emotional support water bottle, give it a sip, and remember hydration. This keeps coming up a lot more and more. Actually, I feel like we're valuing hydration more when it comes to exercise, fitness, and overall well being. Thanks for listening to this chat with Ali. We will be cheering him on in a couple of weeks the Goldie. Make sure you do too, rate and review this episode, or of course, subscribe to this podcast.