From Final Four To Ironman (Repost)
Crushing Iron Triathlon Podcast
Mike Tarrolly
4.8 • 739 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(With March Madness upon us and C26 Swim School in progress, we thought it was a good time to revisit an old podcast with Zak Showalter and how he started training for Ironman after playing in the Final Four). Sorry about the intro music. haha.
Imagine playing basketball in front of 70,000 people and millions on TV. Today's guest, Zak Showalter, did just that for the University of Wisconsin. His career took him to 2 different Final Fours and four Sweet 16's and now he's tackling Ironman.
He's graduated, stepped away from basketball, and turned his sights on Ironman Wisconsin. Our goal for this podcast was to see how many lessons learned from Zak's days at Wisconsin under Hall of Fame coach Bo Ryan translate into triathlon. As it turned out, a lot of them do.
We start with some of Zak's endurance background and early training challenges. Then go into how what he learned on the basketball floor can be translated into Ironman training:
- Were you ever into endurance sports before?
- What it's like hanging out with Packer's QB Aaron Rodgers
- What it was like to work with Michael Jordan's strength coach
- When he decided he wanted to do an Ironman
- How he deals with Winter training in Wisconsin
- What's it like going from a high exposure team sport to an isolated training world?
- A coach's message "Play hard, play smart, play together, and have fun."
Race like you train - Zak tells us how what he learned from the daily grind of college basketball practice and how he thinks it can be applied to triathlon training and best set him up for the race.
Ups and Downs - How to stay level headed and on the same path when faced with setbacks of a big loss or the the high of a big win.
Patience - Wisconsin basketball is built on patience, both in execution and sytem. Zak gives us a perspective on how they looked at a long season or career and how the philosophies can apply to Ironman training.
Emotions- He takes us in the locker room before Wisconsin faced off with a 38-0 Kentucky team at the Final Four. How is it possible to stay calm when you're running out in front of 70,000 people to play a game watched by millions? He gives us a very simple solution.
Diet: How did you guys eat? Was there a big focus on nutrition or were you just kids? Has that changed as you train for Ironman?
Here are a couple videos of Zak in his playing days:
- His salute to Aaron Rodgers after hitting a buzzer beater against Florida
- High School State Championship Opening Tip Dunk
Zak on Instagram: zshowalter3
Zak on Twitter: @ZShowbball333
Facebook: CrushingIron
Twitter: CrushingIron
Instagram: C26_Triathlon
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, Coach, Robbie. |
| 0:15.6 | How are you? |
| 0:17.8 | I'm good, man. |
| 0:18.5 | I was just waiting to see how long you stay silent. |
| 0:20.9 | Yeah, interesting podcast today, I might say'm good, man. I was just waiting to see how long you would stay silent. Yeah, interesting podcast today, I might say. |
| 0:23.8 | Oh, man, I am, that was awesome. |
| 0:28.1 | I will say, you know, we tend to always go in with like a rough outline of what we want to talk to, |
| 0:36.2 | and then 99% of the time never stick to it. |
| 0:39.6 | And this would follow into that category. |
| 0:42.7 | So, man, this is a great podcast. |
| 0:48.2 | I mean, it's always good to get into the mindset of an athlete who's been to the level that Zach has collegiately and |
| 0:55.4 | you know and on some of the biggest stages and how he translate you know that to you know |
| 1:01.8 | taking his off you know on the court talent and experience to stuff he's doing now off the court |
| 1:07.1 | with life and then obviously with triathlon with his said on iron man wisconsin and uh and then |
| 1:13.7 | the great little challenge we had at the end but it was a yeah it was a great podcast and always a good |
| 1:18.3 | learner yeah we went into uh basically how it translates from being a high level college athlete |
| 1:24.5 | into deciding to do your first Iron Man with no endurance experience. |
| 1:29.8 | You know, practice like, or race like you train, confidence, ups and downs, his patience, |
| 1:35.5 | emotions. |
| 1:36.1 | We talk about a college athlete diet and how that translates and all kinds of stuff like that. |
| 1:40.7 | Plus, of course, like you said, the big challenge. |
| 1:44.1 | The big challenge. Which is unveiled within this podcast. We hope that you enjoy this little |
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