Episode 217 - Iron Cowboy: What It Takes to Do 100 Ironmans in 100 Days

Iron Cowboy: What It Takes to Do 100 Ironmans in 100 Days

 

Ever wondered how someone fuels 100 full Ironmans in 100 consecutive days?

This week, I’m joined by James Lawrence – the Iron Cowboy – to unpack the mental grit, physical toll and ridiculous nutrition strategy behind his Conquer 100 challenge. We’re talking 12,000+ calories a day, full pizzas on the run course, and what happens when you eat too many Costco muffins…

James shares raw, honest insights on consistency, resilience and why gut training matters just as much as your long rides. Whether you’re deep in Ironman prep or just trying to nail everyday fuelling, this episode will fire you up.

 

Links:

James Lawrence website.

James Lawrence book 'Iron Hope'.

Check how well you’re doing when it comes to your nutrition with our 50 Step Checklist to Triathlon Nutrition Mastery

Start working on your nutrition now with my Triathlon Nutrition Kickstart course 

It’s for you if you’re a triathlete and you feel like you’ve got your training under control and you’re ready to layer in your nutrition. It's your warmup on the path to becoming a SUPERCHARGED triathlete – woohoo!

Connect with me: 

To learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, head HERE | dietitianapproved.com/academy

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Episode Transcription

Episode 217: Iron Cowboy: What It Takes to Do 100 Ironmans in 100 Days

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

Taryn Richardson (00:00)
Today's guest is someone who redefines the limits of what we believe is possible for the human body and the mind. You may know him as the Iron Cowboy, and that's for pretty good reason. James Lawrence has achieved some of the most mind blowing endurance feats ever recorded, and a couple of the highlights include the 50-50-50, where he completed 50 full distance triathlons in 50 states in 50 days.

Insane. And if you thought that was insane, he also did the Conquer 100, his most ambitious challenge yet, where he did a hundred full distance triathlons in a hundred consecutive days. This guy's crazy. He is a two times Guinness World Record holder, father of five, speaker, author of two books, and has really just pushed the boundaries of what the body and mind can achieve with sheer determination and consistency.

But what I love most about James is that his message isn't about just being a superhuman and that he's anything unique from you or I. It's about doing the small things compounded over time, doing them well over and over, and building a foundation that compounds into something that is extraordinary, which is exactly what we talk about inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy all the time. He shares that philosophy in his new book, Iron Hope, which is really honest, it's practical, and it's deeply rooted in the everyday habits that create big performance outcomes.

So, welcome to the podcast, James.

James (01:34)
Thank you for having me. I'm actually really excited for this conversation.

Taryn Richardson (01:38)
Me too. I'm so glad that I can pick your brain on all the nuances of how you did that many triathlons in that many days.

Now, as an Aussie, I'm not one to beat around the bush, so firstly, I'd love to know why on earth did you decide to do 100 consecutive full distance races? Why did you think that was a good idea?

James (01:58)
Yeah, no, I never thought it was a good idea. It never ended up being a good idea. It was just, you know, it's crazy because we have been doing this when Periscope was on Twitter. Instagram didn't even exist. We were early, early days, and we were really just trying to chase a passion and purpose.

And then it turned and escalated quickly, and now I was trying to find my human limits. We just went on a couple of crazy journeys, but the whole thing started with literally a four mile fun run that I suffered through.

My wife, it was on Thanksgiving. Actually, we celebrate every year, which is actually this Thursday is Thanksgiving as of the time we're recording this, and every year we go back to that same four mile fun run. We run it as a family now, and it's kind of like respecting the beginnings of journeys and how everybody has to start somewhere.

You know, everybody makes mistakes along the way. It's part of the journey, no matter what you're doing. That's how you get better, and we made glaring mistakes from whatever to whatever. I always wanted to redo the 50 and some of the mistakes that we made, but my kids were five years older, I was deep into my career of speaking, and we released the documentary and the book. It was just a crazy time.

And then the pandemic hit and all that disappeared in 48 hours.

Taryn Richardson (03:17)
Hmm.

James (03:17)
So I always have this, like, I'm a big, big mindset guy, obviously, and I always had the knowledge that, okay, look, if we can put systems and a team together, remove all the chaos, the logistics, the confusion, could we not only do what we did better, could we double it?

And the concept became, could we double what everybody said was impossible? Could we defy logic? And so that's why we landed on a hundred, because I was bored. When I get bored, I get dangerous.

So it was over literally 15 years of building that foundation that you talked about in the intro, doing the little things consistently that compound. All of that mattered, and then you wake up one day and you're like, more is possible. And then you can continue going that road. At this point, I believe anything's possible.

Taryn Richardson (04:04)
Do you not own a TV or something?

James (04:06)
No, I do. I watch a ton, because I do a lot of riding indoors. I don't live where it's nice all year round. I'm looking out the window here, and we've got snow on the top of the mountain. We do a lot of our stuff indoors training. I watch some movies.

Taryn Richardson (04:17)
Yeah.

And when you did your first full distance race, how did that feel? Did you think, I could go again, I could do another one tomorrow, or did it just hurt like the whole way?

James (04:28)
No, it was a hurt locker the whole way. My first one I ever did used to be called the Vineman in California, and I think it was one of the longest North American races before Ironman bought it up.

It was my very first round in 2008, and man, talk about having no clue what we were doing: nutrition, equipment, pacing, all of it. I got it out in 11:32 Ironman in my very first one. No, I'm sorry, in 11:10. I got it out in 11:10.

Taryn Richardson (04:52)
Well done.

James (04:55)
And I was like, that was incredible. I made so many mistakes and I can do that better. That put me on the road of just dissecting the iron distance and Ironman and the quest for Kona, all of it. I was all in, completely fascinated and wanting to conquer it.

Taryn Richardson (05:14)
It is a very addictive sport, isn't it? Because there's always something that you can do better when you are training for three sports and trying to piece them together. Everything has nuances and little one percenters and getting a performance edge across three sports. It is so addictive for that reason. And then there's always Kona at the end of the road.

James (05:30)
Well, yeah.

And that's just on the surface. Really, it's a six discipline sport. It is swim, bike, run, mobility, strength and nutrition. You have to get all six of those things right in order to perform.

I've done 197 full distance Ironmans now, and I've had a perfect day once.

Taryn Richardson (05:47)
Jesus.

James (05:50)
That's how rare and special it is to put all of those pieces together. In fact, I'm turning 50 this coming year, and for the first time in our career at 50, I'm going to have the perfect race. It will be my last one, and then I'm going to go golfing. That's all I'm going to do.

But I'm going to do my last one. Anybody that wants to come join me in Sacramento, California, on October 18th and 19th, my goal is to go sub 10. I'm going to say it right here. First time I'm declaring it as a 50 year old.

Taryn Richardson (05:50)
Okay.

Okay, heard it here first, people.

James (06:19)
Having not raced in a very long time between now and that race, I'll get myself ready to go sub 10. Anybody wants to join me, let's go. See you in Sacramento.

Taryn Richardson (06:27)
Let's go. We're going to Santa Cruz in 2027, so we might miss you, but I think you'll have a lot of people that will come and do that race just to see that.

We're doing Cairns Ironman or 70.3 in Australia here in 2026, so maybe you should come do that too.

James (06:34)
No, I'm on 226.

Okay, I can be convinced. That was easy. Yeah.

Taryn Richardson (06:44)
Yeah, it's a good race.

So what was it about that perfect day that made it perfect? Can you distil any facet of it that you can look back on and go, okay, this is why this was the perfect day, or did it just happen naturally?

James (07:02)
Yeah, no, perfect days do not happen naturally. There are a lot of things that have to go right. It first started with nutrition and also preparing my body properly: the right amount of recovery, the right sets, the right endurance, all of those things.

But really, I was learning how to do nutrition, and I still, I've improved a lot since then, but I got it right on that day.

In fact, this is probably a bit of a terrible story, but I was on the bike, third lap. It was in Ironman Cozumel and I'm on the third lap and my stomach wasn't sitting right. I had made a nutritional mistake and I had a GoPro on my bike. I actually still have the footage, but I just threw up tons and tons as I'm riding, flying down the road. I'm just throwing up tons of orange liquid.

It was because I went off my game plan from what I'd practised that I knew worked. It was hot, and everyone was like, okay, you're going to be thirstier than you think you are and your sweat count is going to change.

I tweaked all these things, and so I deviated from my game plan. On that third lap, I just threw up everything. Then, because I made that adjustment and recognised the mistake that I had made, that I deviated from my plan that I'd practised, I went and had my fastest run ever in an Ironman and then PR'd the day.

So it was all nutrition that I practised leading up to it. Made a mistake, quickly recognised it, fixed it and then got right back on track, and it brought the best out.

Taryn Richardson (08:20)
You must have learned so much from doing so many full distance races that you can have that ability to change things on the fly.

As a sports dietitian, I'm super interested in diving into all the details around your strategy that got you through your hundred full distance races in a hundred days. Can we talk a lot about that, please?

Did you get any professional help by a sports dietitian, or was it all trial and error? How did you survive?

James (08:42)
Yeah, please.

Yeah, you know, initially I was like, okay, I'm going to get professional help. I'm going to ask people. And frankly, nobody had the knowledge base to say, you're burning, you know, 140 miles worth of calories a day and you're going to do it again tomorrow.

So not only do we need to keep up with the burn, we cannot go into a deficit and we have to think about fuelling for the next day. It was just a puzzle that nobody could solve.

So my...

Taryn Richardson (09:11)
I'm here.

Hello?

James (09:13)
Yeah.

I know. We missed you. We could have used you.

So it came down to my wife, Sunny, and I.

Taryn Richardson (09:18)
Next one, next one, James, when you do 200 in 200 days.

For the next one, when you do 200 or you do an Ironman distance race every day for a year. I'm ready. Let's do it.

James (09:23)
Stop it, yeah. Yeah.

I promise if I do that, you are my first call, because it does come down to nutrition and everything that you know that I don't.

It ended up being me and Sunny just trying to figure it out because I know my body more than anybody. We had learned a lot during 30 in one year, 50 consecutive, and then heading into the 100. In theory, we knew that we needed to keep sugars down, low volume high calorie, we needed proteins for recovery, we needed fats as a fuel source. I was never out of zone two, right, and so I did not need the amount of sugars.

Well, as you'll get deeper into the story, a lot of my inflammation and my problems came because I started to eat a ton of sugars because I developed thrush.

I had massive blisters on my lips and it became incredibly, incredibly painful to eat. So now I'm trying to consume 12,000 calories a day and the thing that hurts the most inside of doing an Ironman every single day, the thing that hurts the most is to eat. So I've got a huge conundrum.

The two things that I ate a ton of before we really had to fix things were crumble cookies and Costco muffins, because I could break off smaller pieces and get them past my lips so that I could digest them. There was low volume and high calories.

When you're doing 140 miles a day, you become so metabolically efficient. By the end, I was six and a half percent body fat, consuming more than 12,000 calories a day.

Taryn Richardson (10:52)
Mm. Your energy expenditure is just so high.

James (11:10)
Yeah.

Taryn Richardson (11:12)
What did a typical day look like? Talk me through from wake up to passing out at the end of the day. What did you do? I love it, I'm here for it.

James (11:20)
Okay, this is going to be gross.

Yeah, so I would wake up and obviously I knew I had to swim first thing. I would do just a protein drink and kind of like a pre-workout to wake myself up, get myself some vascular dilation. I'd jump in the water and swim.

Once I was done with that swim, I got out and in the transition area there was a personal shower at the facility. As I was showering, I would typically eat about six pancakes, and then I would stuff two breakfast burritos inside my bike jersey.

Then I would take off on the bike, and within the first hour, I would eat both of those breakfast burritos. Then I'm consuming enough liquids to stay hydrated with all of my electrolytes and everything in it.

Just snacking, eating along the way, anything that anybody would hand us. We would do a break between the second of three laps on the bike. There was a gas station there. I always had a support car following me, and at that juncture, I'd usually eat a sandwich, a protein drink and another bar or two.

Once I got to the run, I would want to start moving as quickly as I could, but I would eat one, sometimes two full pizzas out on the run course. I'd come home, then as I'm on the massage table getting worked on and rehabilitated, I would eat a full plate of chicken Alfredo and then go right to bed and pass out. Rinse and repeat the next day.

Taryn Richardson (12:49)
Oh my gosh. And I heard that you had someone feeding you that through the donut hole that you put your face in for your massage.

James (12:55)
Yeah, so I was so, like, any energy expenditure after the day was over was just a waste of energy.

And so, yeah, in order to, because at certain times they were working on my neck and my shoulder because of the swim or whatnot. I actually had two therapists on me for about three to four hours every night during that Conquer 100 because we were just problem solving as much as we could.

So, yeah, there would be a person underneath that would feed me through the massage table hole to make sure that I was getting food, because I'd fall asleep. So the first thing they had to do was force feed me, because once I was asleep, I was unconscious till the next morning.

Taryn Richardson (13:14)
Yeah.

How many hours of sleep did you get a night?

James (13:29)
Yeah, during the 50, when it was all the logistics, all the travel, all the chaos, we averaged less than four hours of sleep a night. So four hours of sleep a night for seven consecutive weeks doing an Ironman a day.

During the 100, because there was not any travel, my home was home base and we did it all around here in Utah, I'd say I averaged at least five, sometimes six. So probably five and a half hours for 14 weeks, for a quarter of a year doing that output, covering over 14,000 miles.

Taryn Richardson (13:37)
My god.

James (13:58)
Probably between five and six hours a night. But it's not restful sleep either because your body is like, I would have night terrors, I would have panic attacks, I would have hot sweats because my body's overheating, trying to heal itself.

I would have massive full body contraction tremors. My wife would have to jump and hold me down because my adductors would grab and lock and she's digging elbows into me and I'm flailing on the bed.

So you say five hours of sleep, but it was like two, because your body is still burning calories all night long. That's why I'd wake up starving.

Taryn Richardson (14:13)
Yeah.

James (14:31)
That's why I'd just consume all day long, because I would wake up just burning. I'm literally burning 24 hours a day. It's not just during the 140 miles.

Taryn Richardson (14:37)
Mm. Yeah, it takes a long time to recover and you don't have enough sleep to recover properly, so you're almost just getting yourself deeper and deeper into a hole.

Did that strategy that you just ran through, did that change much from day one to day 50 to day 100?

James (14:58)
So we started off really good, trying to control the food. I was trying to make everything organic, gluten free, high calorie, all these things.

Then I went sideways and I was actually hiding pallets of Costco muffins and boxes of crumble cookies. Wingman Aaron, he knew I had this trap door in my closet, and so his mission, we'd go to the swim location and swim and he'd be loading up the car for the bike. He'd go into my house, go into the secret cubby hole and grab a muffin and a cookie so that I could eat it on the bike ride when I first started going, because I just was so hungry.

That created all the inflammation and the over saturation of sugar and so many different problems. Then the back third, we really had to clean it up and they started to monitor really closely what I was consuming.

Taryn Richardson (15:44)
It doesn't sound like you had any form of sports drink or sports nutrition gels or anything like that. It was all real food.

James (15:50)
It was all real food.

Yeah, you just get such palate fatigue. I mean, you experience that just in one Ironman. I could not imagine doing that. We trained eating real food because what we learned from the 30 and the 50 was just that you have to. You cannot get that amount of calories if you stop.

I had to train my body in order to consume an insane amount of volume while moving down the course. I mean, you would just get palate fatigue. And again, the speed that we were going at, especially once we hit the run, I was so injured. Most of it was power walking. We were in zone one and I did not need those fast burning sugars and whatnot.

I was getting my electrolytes through just mineral drops, like the purest form.

Taryn Richardson (16:15)
Mm.

James (16:35)
Right out of probably the friggin Egypt lake or whatever. So that was our strategy. We did not do traditional gels and packs and goo.

Taryn Richardson (16:46)
Yeah, and that is some serious gut training, being able to eat two brekkie burritos in an hour on the bike while moving. Some people really struggle just getting a gel or two in, in that small volume.

James (16:56)
I remember this. If there's one thing I learned about nutrition during these big challenges, it was just that if you're craving something, it's your body telling you it needs it.

I remember I was on the run course on the 50, I think we were in South Carolina, and this total random stranger comes up and he's like, dude, I got you whatever you want. I'm your guy.

And I'm like, yeah, all right. I want a porterhouse steak, mashed potatoes and grilled broccoli. I was doing a lap, came back, sure enough, he was there with a giant foam thing and it was a porterhouse steak. I was just like, thanks, dude, and I just ate it the next lap doing the marathon.

Taryn Richardson (17:22)
Legend.

James (17:31)
I do not have any gifts, but if I do have one thing, I have been able to train my gut really well and I do not get massive amounts of GI issues. I could go run ultras in the mountains and eat whatever and I never have that GI distress.

We did an eight day race, a navigation compass race, adventure race through Fiji, and we had to live off just back jungle type of food and whatever village people would give us and the random stuff that we could carry. But I never had any stomach issues.

So if I do have a talent, I think it is that I have developed this iron gut of sorts.

Taryn Richardson (18:04)
Iron Cowboy with an iron gut. I like it. It's a good tagline for you.

James (18:06)
There you go. I'll look at that.

Taryn Richardson (18:10)
What happened on days where you didn't get any of your fuelling or things were not working?

James (18:18)
Yeah, it's interesting. When we got fuelling wrong, it affected my mind, and when my mind was off, it led to fatigue and it led to mistakes. Inevitably, on those days where our nutrition was off, we saw immediate correlations with drop of power and rise of heart rate. So getting the nutrition wrong, we were like, it's got to be that, because we learned all those things on the 50. So we were like, it's paramount on the 100 that we're doing.

Taryn Richardson (18:44)
And did you not tear your rotator cuff or something, and you hurt your spine and you ended up doing the swim one armed? Like, what about all these stories? You've just forgotten all the hardship that you went through to get through a hundred and the head hole you put yourself into.

James (18:56)
I know.

You know, I think as humans we're naturally, it's innate, to forget the bad things and remember and have the good memories. I think that's the way I feel about the 50 and the 100 and everything we've done. I really remember the good moments and you forget about the bad ones.

On the 50, day number five, I'm in Santa Cruz, California. I'd had shoulder problems leading up to this because I grew up a wrestler and I've always done a ton of racing and I do not have the best swim form, so it's my fault.

Day number five, I'm in Santa Cruz and I remember the moment where it tore.

Then I had to go to Vegas next and I ended up doing that swim with just one arm. I was trying to figure this out, and that's really where I grew to become more mentally tough, because I recognised that with pain in our bodies, it gets to a certain threshold.

If you can manage that certain threshold, you can just hold on for a long period of time. So I just started swimming with the pain because I figured out it only gets so bad and I can manage that current “so bad” and we'll just see how long it holds on.

During the 50, the swim was the most painful part of the journey. During the 100, the run became the most painful part, and the swim became my safe haven because it was in such a controlled environment. So I had opposite problems during the 50 and the 100 that created complications for us.

On the 100, on day 59, we were in a very bad bike accident, or I was, and I was knocked unconscious and had to figure out how to do 41 more Ironmans.

Especially because we later found out that I cracked my L5 in that crash. As we were progressing, everything was normal pain and whatnot, but my back was just killing me, and then we figured out we had that crack. So that was super painful, super difficult to manage.

But again, I knew, okay, I can handle this pain and manage that in my mind. We'll just keep going and see how we do. It just became the new normal, and the baseline changed, and I could manage that pain.

Taryn Richardson (21:06)
How do you keep your motivation alive when you are in that much pain and your body's just saying, I'm done?

James (21:12)
Yeah, that's a great question, because a lot of people are just like, you're stupid, just stop. And I'm like, I get that. I'm not looking for sympathy or attention. I do this stuff myself.

Taryn Richardson (21:19)
No, you're stubborn and you set out to do 100 and you were going to get it done regardless of what happened.

James (21:23)
I was going to go. It was different because my...

Have you seen the documentaries?

Taryn Richardson (21:31)
I've seen parts of it.

James (21:33)
Yeah, so the 50, we made a mistake. We used a machine one day. We were pushed indoors because of the hurricane. The public went all crazy and said it doesn't count. That was a huge mistake.

I wanted to not make those same mistakes. I wanted to do it better. I learned from those mistakes, but I'm the kind of person that's like, I know what the target is, and sometimes it is not always going to look the way we want it to look to get there.

But I'm going to do the best I can given what I have been given. Because of the mistakes we made, there was a lot of criticism about the 50. So when I was doing the 100, it was a huge career dice roll for me.

Because I do a lot of public speaking. I do 80 plus events a year. We've got two documentaries, we've got two books, we're working on a feature film. There was so much that we were rolling the dice on.

So the motivation was like, no, I know who I am and I can prove myself right.

We always throw a bigger cause towards it. I've always got in the back of my mind that I have five kids I'm trying to set an example for. This is in the book, but I talk about it as a “bag of whys”. The bag of whys is not just your one why, because I promise you, when you are crashed or knocked unconscious in the middle of the road, you look at your one why and it is not big enough.

You have to keep pulling into that and reaching into that bag of whys and pulling them out. Eventually you have your purpose and your passion, and there is a myriad of reasons why you are doing something.

If you are doing anything on any journey that is big and real and scary and trying to make an impact, you're going to come to that crossroads. So you have to have put a lot of thought, a lot of meditation and dream time, whatever it is, into knowing why you are doing what you are doing and all the purposes and reasons behind it.

Taryn Richardson (23:18)
And it's bigger, it's bigger than how much pain you're currently in.

James (23:22)
Yeah, see, and that was the thing too. During the hundred, we were raising money to eradicate sex trafficking. So I knew my suffering would end in 41 more days from when that crash happened, but these individuals that are being sex trafficked have no idea when their suffering is going to end. They are slaves right now.

So I was like, I can endure one more day with the hopes of raising one more dollar.

Taryn Richardson (23:39)
Mm.

James (23:45)
So those are the kind of things. And then it always helps when messages are coming in from around the world that say, “Hey, you don't know me, but my son just tried to take his own life and watching you wake up every single day intentionally has given me the strength and the hope to fight the battle that we're fighting at home,” and all these different things.

So I always ask myself, okay, if I quit on myself today,

Taryn Richardson (24:02)
Mmm.

James (24:07)
Who am I truly quitting on? Because we have no idea who's watching us at all times. For me, it's easy. I've got five kids that are watching me. If you're a parent and you're like, my kid does not care what I'm doing, trust me, they care.

They're watching your every move. That's why as adults, we need to not do “as I say,” but “do as I do” and set that way because the kids are watching.

You start stacking all of these different reasons why you are doing something and it just becomes a non-negotiable. You just show up and you do the best you can and try to get through it.

Taryn Richardson (24:36)
Yeah, it's so true and so important.

One of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast, and I talk with my athletes a lot about, is just how unsexy consistency is, but how powerful it can become over time. Your book talks a lot about that and that same idea.

What are some of those not so sexy things, the small daily habits that keep you going every day?

James (25:01)
Yeah, I call those days the blue collar days, because when you start on a journey, you're super excited, you've got a lot of excitement. Then you get to a point where you're past the excitement but nowhere close to the finish line.

I tell my kids all the time, we can control our attitude and our effort. Those are the little things on a daily basis that I make sure that I can do. Those little tiny things that I can control.

There's going to be days where I'm not going to get the best workout in that I wanted to, but I can control my attitude about that. Or there's going to be days where travel happens because of one of our events, or the gym, when I got to the location, was a circle pool instead of a lap pool, and now I cannot get my swim in, but I get to control how I act in those.

So for me, it's setting up a good game plan, having a bare minimum that I require myself to accomplish every day and then an optimal situation. Either way, I'm going to be successful in that day.

But it all comes down to my attitude around all the things that are happening to me. Those are the things that I focus on most in terms of when it gets monotonous, when it gets boring. I just focus on the things that I can control and how I perceive what's happening in that moment, and I get to choose how I navigate that.

Taryn Richardson (26:15)
I love in your book that you talk about anyone can accomplish their goal. You just have to put in that foundational work first, which I align to nutrition all the time. A lot of triathletes love to do the shiny objects and the one percenters first before actually putting in the groundwork with getting enough carbohydrate, getting enough protein, eating enough fruits and vegetables, those not so sexy things.

So can you explain to us a little bit about what your nutritional foundation looks like? For somebody that's done a lot of endurance events, what are some of those things that you do day in, day out to make sure you have success on race day?

James (26:52)
Yeah, for me now, obviously the sport has a lot to do with power to weight ratios. The lighter you are and the stronger you are, the better you're going to go.

I do not want anybody to develop an eating disorder and you can be a little bit thick and you can still be fast. Do not mishear me on that.

But I know I'm a hell of a lot faster when I'm 165 pounds than when I'm 185 pounds. So for me, if I'm going into a season like this coming year, December 1st is kind of my go-to. I've taken the last three months off.

I had a cool opportunity to go do the Ötillö swim run world championships in Sweden. I worked really hard towards that. We cleared the course and then I've been taking some time off.

As I'm heading into this next season where I've got some bigger personal goals, I'm going back to where my passion and my journey started with racing and speed and the excitement of competition. Like I said at the beginning of the podcast, I'm trying to go sub 10 for the first time as a 50 year old.

So for me, getting down to a very competitive race weight where I can perform my best and have a chance at that goal, my rules are super easy. I follow macros and I prioritise protein.

If I can keep those things until I get to my set point, I'm just focused on a 500 calorie a day deficit.

In the past, I've tended to over fuel.

Depending on the person, this really works for me, but when I'm in a 500 calorie deficit, despite what I'm doing, I can really control my weight. I can control my strength, I can control my power, and then I adjust from there.

Once I get back down to that 165, then I'll just sit and make maintenance. For me, it's about prioritising protein for recovery because of the volume and the intensity that I'm doing these days, and then also just making sure I'm eating a well balanced diet.

I always fill my plate first with as much fruits and veggies as I can if they are being offered, then a small amount of carbs. I'm not saying carbs are the devil, this is just my dinner. Then a big portion of protein.

In fact, I'd love to hear your opinion on this, because I've been doing this for a long time and everybody freaks out when you have carbs first thing in the morning or whatever before a workout.

I have about 320 calories of rice when I first wake up. Everyone says, you're going to get a glycogen spike or whatever. And I'm like, why does it matter if I eat it first thing in the morning or at noon or whatever?

So you tell me, am I making a huge mistake by waking up and eating 320 grams of carbs the very first thing?

Taryn Richardson (29:13)
The Iron Cowboy is asking me for nutrition advice.

James (29:16)
Dude, I need to. I'll listen to anything you say. That's probably my weakest spot.

Taryn Richardson (29:22)
So it depends what sort of training session you're doing, but yes, absolutely, carbohydrate before you go out in the morning is a great idea. It does not have to be rice, it could be other things, but you can fast and do some fat oxidation training.

If you're doing a performance type session, then you definitely need to fuel with carbohydrate as a priority.

James (29:40)
Even if it's a low effort, but say two to three hours?

Taryn Richardson (29:45)
Then yes.

James (29:46)
Then yes, carbs.

Taryn Richardson (29:48)
Yes, because even if it's zone two, you are still using muscle glycogen and burning carbohydrate. You're never only burning one fuel source. You're not just burning fat or just burning carbohydrate. You're always burning a combination of the two, but the higher the intensity you go, the more carbohydrate you burn per hour.

If you're still at zone two, you are still using all that carbohydrate and you're doing it for an extended period of time. Go for it.

James (30:06)
Can I ask you another question?

So, you're seeing a lot now, because of who's winning the world championships, the Norwegian way of training and measuring your blood lactate and the different blood lactate levels when you're doing it.

That type of monitoring and setting up those zones properly, that's really going to aid in setting up your fuelling strategy as well. Is that right or wrong?

Taryn Richardson (30:34)
Yeah, they have a lot of funding. They have a lot of money and they are professional elite athletes. A lot of the listeners are age groupers that work full time and have family, and I do not think that methodology is necessarily going to serve you if you have all that going on.

But for someone like you, James, potentially, if you've got the funding and the time and the will, then doing that testing in a lab can be beneficial to understand your oxidation zones and how much you're burning per hour in each of them.

James (31:04)
But cannot you buy at home strip testing things that you can do here?

Taryn Richardson (31:06)
Like lactate testing? Yep.

Yeah. The beauty is in understanding what to do with that data though, because you can do anything. You can do lots of testing yourself at home these days, but it's what you then actually do with that that is important.

James (31:14)
Yeah.

Do you know what to do with that?

Taryn Richardson (31:24)
We can talk about it offline if you like.

James (31:26)
All right. But can you, does that data help in any form of nutrition? Can you parlay that knowledge and benefit you nutritionally, like on how or when to fuel?

Taryn Richardson (31:39)
Yeah, but there's lots of things you can do before you even get to that stage without needing to do that.

James (31:42)
Okay.

I'm trying to overcomplicate it then.

Taryn Richardson (31:47)
In a way, yes, because if you do not know how to eat pre training, then I have got lots to teach you.

James (31:55)
Great.

Taryn Richardson (31:57)
Maybe we should get him into the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program. Although if you're hanging up your boots after, no, got one and done. Maybe we could talk.

James (32:05)
I have one year left, so any knowledge you want to dump on me so that I can hit some lifetime PRs this year, that would be great.

Taryn Richardson (32:13)
All right, we'll talk.

So you've said the word “we” a lot in this podcast. Who do you mean by “we”? Who is in your corner, and who have you got in your support team?

James (32:24)
Yeah, obviously my wife Sunny. We're celebrating 25 years. She knows me well, I know her well, we work well together, but we are definitely opposites.

Then we've got five kids and they've been a part of the journey the whole time. Each one of my kids have played pivotal roles at different parts of my journey, different moments, different memories.

And then the two wingmen, Casey and Aaron, which we call wingmen. They've been instrumental too.

The fascinating part was these two young men did not know each other going into the 50, and we just got so lucky with the connection between them, them having different strengths and weaknesses. It became kind of the four horsemen.

It was me, Sunny, Casey and Aaron who were really out there on our own spearheading this thing, trying to figure it out. When I say “we”, really it's the four horsemen and our five kids.

Then obviously we've got a phenomenal friends support group. We keep our network really tight, really small, but there is a massive level of trust and loyalty here.

Taryn Richardson (33:10)
Yeah, you need that. It takes a village.

What about things like physio, sports dietitian, massage, ex-phys, podiatry, any of those sorts of health professionals?

James (33:21)
Yeah.

So I do regular chiropractic and have my entire life. I'm huge on deep tissue massage, manual manipulation. Mobility is huge. One of my weaknesses as I age is I need to really focus in on that.

I have all those people on my team. One of my requirements, there's a gentleman named Hayden, and he worked on me leading all the way up since 2010, through both world records, got me as prepared as we could for the 50.

He's very busy during the football season because he works on a lot of the NFL players. He's contracted individually. So when we were planning the hundred, he was my first call.

We were originally going to do it in the back half of the year to give me more time to prep, and Hayden said, I can start in March and I have got to be done by June. I was like, okay, that's when we're doing the 100, because I cannot do it without you.

Him and my other full time massage girl, Felicia, they are the two that really worked on me every single night and just tag teamed problems and problem solving.

Hayden, man, the amount of sacrifice that guy made. Every night, three or four hours for 14 weeks. You talk about commitment to the cause, to the team. I could not have done it without those guys.

It's crazy because during the 100, Aaron did all 100 112 mile bike rides with me. Casey did half the swims and all the marathons with me. At the same time, Casey was a second grade school teacher and has five kids of his own.

These young men are unbelievable, and that's why we're so close and the friendship continues to grow. They both work for me and we work together. We race together, we have a blast together, so they've become family.

So when I say “we”, it's my family.

Taryn Richardson (34:56)
Yeah, that's amazing. It's so good to have those people in your life and in your team. Just that trust and confidence that you do you and they've got everything else handled.

James (35:20)
And it took me a while to learn that lesson, because early on I was trying to, you know, I didn't know them very well and they didn't know me. Whoever put up their hand for the 50 to help, we took.

I was trying to control every element of the team. I was micromanaging, and it was putting such a huge stress on the team because I wanted it to go perfect.

Just like you said, as soon as I let go of that control and I trusted in the people around me,

Taryn Richardson (35:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

James (35:41)
That's when we started to get better. That's when we started to develop systems. That's when people were really able to thrive with their strengths instead of trying to make people do what their weaknesses are. We really started to come together as a team. From 30 to 50 is when we really caught momentum during that campaign.

Taryn Richardson (35:53)
Mm.

That is good advice.

For any age group triathlete that is listening and they're really struggling with consistency and maybe motivation, whether that is training or nutrition, what is the Iron Cowboy's advice for them?

James (36:12)
Yeah, if you're overwhelmed by it, you may need to scale back the volume or intensity. A lot of times, because triathlon training is so repetitive, it's great to throw some variety in there. Do a trail run, go mountain biking, just switch it up. It helps a ton mentally.

The hardest part of any workout is starting. It's cliché, but as soon as you start moving, motion creates emotion and you'll start to feel different. Then you'll question why you even thought about not doing it.

I always joke, I've never regretted a workout that I started and finished versus staying in bed and not doing it.

Taryn Richardson (36:48)
Yes.

James (36:48)
So the hardest thing and the best advice is just be consistent over time. You're not going to have your best workout every time, but doing something every single day, you build that belief system in your mind that you're consistent, that you're going to show up.

You adapt to it and you do the best you can. Like I said earlier, you have to have a minimum, the bare minimum that is going to allow you to say, “I checked the box today,” and then an ideal situation.

Taryn Richardson (37:11)
Yeah, I love that you just get started and see what happens. Often those days we feel terrible, just starting, you get warmed up and you're like, actually, I feel all right, and then you end up smashing a session. It's just that habitual stuff, isn't it? Same as nutrition, same as training. It just needs to become almost automated so that you don't have to think about it and it just happens day in, day out regardless.

James (37:23)
I love it.

I was just going to say, that's the most important part, having a game plan in place, having a system in place so that it's just what you do. It's a non-negotiable.

It's part of the system and having that game plan written out so you just wake up and you're like, okay, I'm running today. Great. It's best even to look at that the night before. If you have TrainingPeaks or whatnot, just get some organisation in there and lay your stuff out for the whole week, or for sure lay it out the night before, because then you wake up and it's part of the routine.

It's habit stacking. We've probably all read James Clear's book Atomic Habits, and then it becomes easier and easier. You're right, it's about removing the difficulty or the barrier to doing those things and just being organised about it and having a system, especially with nutrition.

I speak all over the world and everyone always has a financial game plan, they've got all these different things, but you ask them what their eating plan is, and they're like, “Oh, no, I just eat what's in front of me.”

I always ask people, do you know how many calories you're eating in a day? They say, well, it's probably around blah, blah, blah. When I first started talking to people about it, I was just like, step number one is you have to understand where you're at.

Taryn Richardson (38:29)
Yeah.

James (38:42)
So you have to track and monitor and then come up with a game plan in order to fix whatever's wrong or whatever you're doing. It's the same thing with training, same thing with being a triathlete. Have a game plan. Whether it's a right plan or a wrong plan, you're going to start to develop that consistency by doing the plan.

Taryn Richardson (38:58)
It is a key element that I think all successful people have, a plan of attack. Nobody's winging it. Everybody knows exactly what they're doing day in, day out. It does not have to be perfect to start with, it is something that can evolve over time, but as long as you have a plan, that's the first step.

James (39:16)
A bad plan is better than no plan, because you're doing something.

Taryn Richardson (39:19)
That's right.

So James, what other crazy shit have you got lined up next?

James (39:26)
Oh man, I do not know. A lot of people just started following my journey after I was doing some crazy things. I've ridden my bike up Mount Kilimanjaro. I've done Race Across America. We've run across Greece. I've done Kona. I've checked all the boxes. I've done Challenge Roth. Did the Fiji World's Toughest Race. I'm just satisfied with what I've done.

And I do not know, you know, I say that, so what's exciting for me is...

Taryn Richardson (39:34)
Yeah.

Are you? Are you actually?

James (39:54)
I'm not a big social media guy, and I keep getting asked, why do you not have a YouTube channel? Why are you not doing a YouTube channel?

So, as I'm turning 50 going into this year, I'm going to start a channel December 1st and it's going to run for one year through that sub 10 Ironman that I'm talking about. Every month I'm going to do a fun challenge, something unique.

I'm going to do my very first Hyrox race or just something different, fun, cool every single month to celebrate my 50th year on earth and maybe my last triathlon season.

Taryn Richardson (40:23)
Maybe. And so you're just going to transfer your skills into one of the other more expensive sports out there. Is it going to be car racing next?

James (40:31)
No, it's going to be golf. I already know this. I had an unhealthy addiction with golf before triathlon, but I had two little babies at the time, I was trying to figure out life, I was chasing the American dream, and that was just a really hard path. So I decided to do Ironman.

Yeah, I know.

Taryn Richardson (40:46)
Yeah.

James (40:48)
But it changed my life. So I'm going back to golf, but I'm going to do it for enjoyment. I just love the game.

It's kind of fun. We just became grandparents this year, so I'm going to hyper-focus on my business, my kids. We're celebrating 25 years of marriage, and I'm just looking for amazing experiences with people that I love.

Taryn Richardson (41:00)
Congrats.

That sounds amazing. It sounds like a great life.

James (41:09)
I think so. I'm not complaining. I like my life.

Taryn Richardson (41:14)
What if there was a new thing that came on the scene, like Hyrox is relatively new and you're already like, I'm doing it. What if there was some other sort of crazy thing that ends up coming out in the next, I don't know, five to 10 years? Are you definitely going to do it, or are you going to hard pass?

James (41:28)
So the real answer to that is I believe in lifetime health and fitness. It's just like, you have to be half Ironman ready.

So I would work out and do things anyway, and strength training is a huge part of my daily training. For me, if at any given time someone walked up and said, “Man, you have to do this race, it's a half Ironman, it's tomorrow,” I'd be ready and able to do it.

If I keep that in mind, if something really cool comes along, like if someone says, “Dude, eight of us are going to run rim to rim to rim. Go.” I'm like, all right, let's go.

I'll do stuff like that. I'm now to the point where, again, I want experiences with cool people and friends that I know, and if it happens to be a hard challenge while we're doing it, awesome. I'm all for it. I really like it. I think it makes you feel alive.

I talk a lot on stage about the bully inside of our heads, the conversation that most everybody is losing, and I just find if I'm not hearing from the bully in a long enough period of time, I'm not showing up in my life.

Taryn Richardson (41:59)
You...

James (42:21)
So I like it when he appears. For me, it's about managing that conversation. I mean, it's called living life. So I'll probably continue to do fun things all the time.

For me, it's just like, what's the sacrifice to do something and then what's the benefit or uptick to my family, myself, my community and others? Like you said, “Let me know when you do 200 Ironman.” There is a price tag because the sacrifice would be insane. I just cannot make it make sense right now.

Taryn Richardson (42:51)
Yep.

James (42:54)
It would not change what I get to do or how I do it, and so there would have to be a major reason behind it. I believe I could do it though.

Taryn Richardson (43:04)
Yeah, I love that, being half Ironman ready. I feel like that is just a good goal for parenting because it is so physical, and to have that baseline fitness to tackle something like that is really important for life.

James (43:17)
Yeah. Well, it's crazy because the amount of training that we do as triathletes and ultra endurance running and the big cycle races, it's a huge time commitment.

Now that I'm “just” getting ready for a half Ironman or a marathon, I'm like, man, I cannot believe people complain about doing a 45 minute daily workout. This is amazing, to only have to train for a marathon.

So it's all perspective on how much, because we were doing four, five, six hours a day for the longest time.

Taryn Richardson (43:26)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah, easy.

James (43:46)
It just demanded that kind of volume to be durable enough. Now I do two hours a day. That's kind of my minimum, and I'm like, this is amazing. I only have to do two hours today.

So I'm always baffled when people say, I just do not have time to do my one 45 minute workout. I'm like, fam, you have time. Everybody knows what they want. What are you willing to sacrifice?

Taryn Richardson (43:50)
Mm.

What you value.

Yeah, where is it in your value list? Is it high? It's obviously not if you cannot make that space.

James (44:12)
I love this quote. It says, “If you're not changing it, you're choosing it.” So stop freaking complaining about it.

Taryn Richardson (44:17)
Damn.

Yeah, I love that. See, I think we get along.

James (44:23)
We for sure would. Yeah, we can hang.

Taryn Richardson (44:25)
Let's go get it done. Stop whinging about it.

James, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. What you've achieved physically and mentally is massive. What I love the most about you is that it does all come back to, “I'm not this special superhuman type thing. I just know how to show up every day with those small, simple daily things and compound those over time,” which I think is a message a lot of triathletes need to hear.

Because we often just want to wake up and be the best triathlete tomorrow, but it's a journey that is a long period of time and it's compounding those little things over time. So building the momentum, showing up, fuelling well and stacking those basics, I think, is a really nice message.

James (45:10)
I was just going to say, it's crazy, because I do not know many people that have crossed as many finish lines as I have. I wish early on somebody would have had the wisdom to tell me, it's not about the finish lines.

It's everything in between. It's the discipline you learn, it's the people that you meet, it's the connections, the suffering, the tears, the laughter, all the moments, the good, the bad, the highs, the lows. It's those.

The finish lines are just kind of benchmarks and stepping stones along the way to becoming an amazing different version of who you are.

I tell all my clients when I'm coaching them, the goal is to get to the start of the Ironman healthy, and the day is a victory lap. If you've done everything right, all the small things, the nutrition, the mobility, trusting the process along the way, you're going to have an amazing time.

On our first Ironman, we do not have time goals. How can you possibly give yourself a goal having never done the distance before?

Taryn Richardson (46:05)
Mm.

James (46:06)
Our goals are always: show up as fit as we possibly can, have a game plan and do your best to stick with it, and whatever else happens outside of that is what the day is.

Taryn Richardson (46:15)
Yeah, I do like that, because we set these really high expectations of ourselves, don't we, and then we set ourselves up to fail and then we're disappointed, even though only 0.01 percent or something of the population has even finished a full distance race.

James (46:23)
Yeah.

If you're on the cusp of doing your first Ironman, I'm going to give you your challenge. You have three goals.

One, put a dang smile on your face all day long, because what you're doing is unique, it's rare, it's special. Please recognise that.

Two, thank every single volunteer that you're able to on that day, and when you see your spouse, that 15 seconds is not going to kill you. Stop, acknowledge your person. Just check your ego. It does not matter if you do an 11:34 or a 13:10. Nobody gives a shit.

And then, when you cross the finish line, pound your chest, stick your chest out, be super proud, and just appreciate the moment for what it is and congratulate yourself for doing something freaking awesome.

Taryn Richardson (47:22)
Great advice.

Thank you so much, James. Thank you for tuning in, and if anybody wants to go and hear more, go and grab James's latest book, Iron Hope. It's a nice six hour listen on Audible and read by James too.

James (47:34)
Yes. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Taryn Richardson (47:36)
Anytime. And we'll get you in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, I think. That's your next goal. That's your next challenge.

James (47:42)
It's got to be. 

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!