Frodeno launched a new podcast “Frodeno Going Mental” and his 1st guest was Alistair Brownlee. Anyone give it a listen and what were your thoughts?
Think it’ll take time to achieve traction. Obviously Jan can pull in the stars.
Buy ‘Relentless’!
Can you give us the exec summary and your thoughts first to get the conversation going? If not you send us off to a location that is NOT ST to never come back and share our views. Write us the book report so we don’t have to read the entire book and if we like the book report we’ll go take a look, but minimally you’ll get people talking about it (which is what you are asking for) before they go sit down and view the entire thing
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Fair @devashish_paul - Podcast is an exploratory interview between a couple of the greatest triathletes to ever race our sport. I am a fan of Frodeno and his renaissance attitude so naturally I gave it a go. The interview covers a ton of topics and my initial impression is this has legs but only time will tell. It raised a question of will he only interview triathletes or champions in other sports. The other thing that stood out to me was Ali’s “Prefontaine” attitude “I’d rather risk everything than turn up at 95%.” How does that fit in with today’s top tier triathletes? Are the ones winning going all in and is that the new norm?
Frodeno fan, so obviously biased. But Alistair was probably the perfect first guest as he’s so knowledgeable and versed in this field. Really enjoyed this episode. And for both of them it’s the same for me. When I hear their voices I’m thinking f* this Covid I’m currently going through and let’s go running
Let me think: an interview between two goats (can you have two goats?) with three Olympic golds and multiple World Champs and Konas between them. Recognised as super knowledgeable and intelligent with insights, views and experiences.
“executive summary” and “book report”
Probably not worth your time, @devashish_paul
ETA: Guess you can get a taster without “leaving ST forever”
Thank you @Ironmandad
Right now it kinda feels like Greg Bennett’s Be With Champions especially since both Jan and Ali have been in that show a couple of times with the same stories. I would have wanted for them to talk more about the past couple of years dealing with retirement and the corresponding adjustment/struggles. Maybe it’s because I’ve listened to countless podcast episodes talking about Beijing, London, and Rio so I kind of wanted something new.
I have a long drive today and excited to listen to this on it - thanks for pointing it out. Frodeno was walking on the run course when I was finishing up the T100 in Qatar and he gave us all a cheer, which was a neat experience. I remember the first time Alastair did Kona, he had a bad race and, I think, accidentally bumped into Jan at the finish area and Jan made an exaggerated face and was asked about it later and said something like, ‘Oh that. We don’t care for each other, we never have.’
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I listened. It’s not bad. It’s not great. It’s a bit difficult because the vision of the podcast doesn’t really stick to me. His question, “when was the last time you’ve gone mental?” is contrived. If it was not two of the greatest talking, I wouldn’t be interested. He needs to fully lean into telling war stories, of which we could all listen to for hours, or come up with better direction & material.
His last question, are you the Beatles, Rolling Stones, or Oasis is also meh.
That’s not to say there wasn’t a few interesting moments, but, and I suspect Jan didn’t want to fall into this routine, that the most interesting parts were some of their lived history.
I’m not sure how it would go over, but if Jan had a co-host and they played a little good cop bad cop. Where Jan gets a little critical or spicy that would be interesting. But you’d probably run out of guests if your bit is asking Alistair why he was such a jerk in races, and Lionel why he every coach including himself isn’t good enough to keep him from getting injured.
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Yup - that’s the way the Brownlee’s raced - particularly in BIG, DEEP and IMPORTANT Olympic Distance and Sprint Triathlons. They seemed to take the attitude - either I blow up or you blow up, and just relentlessly going for it.
I recall being at the Edmonton WTS Event a few years back and after dragging 4 - 5 guys around the whole of the bike course on his wheel, Jonny headed out onto the 5k run like he was running an 800m race. Dropped everyone and had a 50m lead in about 200m of running he was going so fast!
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My angle here is we know who these guys are. In the exec summary, what is the 7 bullet list of what they talked about (for example Alistair’s 2019 Kona blow up…which was racing in the Prefontaine mode…or maybe their battle in Port Elizabeth, or maybe Alistair getting inspired racing Jan at Beijing 2008 and wanting to be that guy…etc). I would be interested if Alistair talked about some key losses in his life that motivated him, or someone else’s trash talk, or what got him interested in tri in the first place etc etc. Just knowing Jan talked to Alistair is not really enough bait. I have other things to watch in the finance world, or the tech world or the politics world that I want to read up on before another tri discussion that may be uninteresting.
We know the players, so if this was the book what was the title of each of 7 chapters is what I am asking for.
I really have not gotten the gist of the interview scanning the comments so far. I’d like to read the analysis of the smart commentators on ST even before watching it.
@Ajax_Bay most of us know their pedigree. That’s not the point. What did they talk about ? OK they talked about racing like Prefontaine? What else?
As I advised:
Certainly not worth my or others’ time offering a tl;dr. Not enough content; and none of your wish list: far more cerebral. Compare that with @Kyleglass91 chat/stage for Ditlev, Knibb and some other swimmer to explain why they think a 20m draft zone would be better for pros and better for the sport.
Hey Steve, tactically it is a bad strategy at 140.6 distance. The place to race like Prefontaine in 140.6 is not out of T1 before Alistair got out on the QueenK. It would be more like once he gets partway on the QueenK on the run is the time to race like Pre !!!
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I liked the podcast and agree that “mental” and “music” questions were kinda forced.
My take is that he’s trying to make this appeal to a wider audience than just hyper-focused triathletes and will have to go through some trial-and-error before he figures it out.
I feel almost a little bad throwing shade on his new project over something so intrinsic as the title that he’s trying to make more than just a throwaway phrase. It seems like he’s trying to make, “going mental” as some kind of thing. Alistair himself seemed a little at a loss for how to respond. Maybe to him there’s a strong emotional connection?
I think if the title of the podcast is going to be significant, he needs to do a better job introing the concept from his perspective and talk about himself a little more and how he sees it. Obviously, he’s looking for whatever response the question evokes from you, but, “When was the last time you punched a hole in the wall out of frustration?” or “when was the last time you yelled at your kids” or “kicked the dog” or something like that is the area where the question seems to be. But I think he’s thinking or hoping also along the lines of, “going all in and obsessing over something”. Which is a reasonable opener for the conversation.
I actually think if he leaned into triathlon, and then pivoted gradually as his audience evolved with him that would be interesting. Or if he just did the Joe Rogan thing and talked a little about their story and history and spun in whatever flavor of the day conversation that relates it’s better.
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Thanks for sharing! Appreciate it
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Had some time to think a bit and while I enjoyed the podcast, I was wondering about a co-host. TTH has Vicky Holland and she adds just the right amount of spice. But maybe that’s a Season 2 Add. In the meantime, I was thinking about guests I would like to hear him talk to (in no particular order)
- Hayden Wilde - Could go off the rails
- Javier Gomez - Reflecting on lots of drama during racing days
- Flora Duffy - Shares a shiny gold
- Chrissie Wellington - Untarnished Kona Gold
Who would you like to hear?
The question of “is it Triathlon only” has been answered…
I give this episode an A as the pilot episode. It helped that he had Ali as his first guest. Some of my thoughts:
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I am not exactly sure what he means by “going mental.” I don’t think Ali understood the phrase either. Jan needs to make it more clear what he means by that.
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Ali and Jan are such affable people, but each in their unqiue way. Jan is effortlessly interesting. He is speaks off the cuff most of the time and he’ll have an answe for just about anything. Ali puts a lot of thought in his answers and won’t answer if he really doesn’t know.
The best interaction between the two was when Jan told Ali what Ali allegedly said to him in 2008. Per the interview, Jan claims Ali told him, “you only won because I had a bad day.” Ali said, “that doesn’t really sound like something I would say,” and I couldn’t tell if he meant it.
The podcast can be improved. Though Jan is effortlessly charming, I do think more structure is needed. But I am going to keep listening.
Finally, in the Triahlon world I’d like him to interview Simon. And in the real world, Phil Collins. Trust me on that last one.
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