Anzae Alexander II shares his Ironman World Championship 2025 journey
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Heat. Heat. Okay, welcome back to Focus Fusion Fitness. This is Nice Race World Championship. This is after the race is over. We’re actually in Monaco right now. Beautiful Monaco. You can see behind us the mountain range and the wonderful buildings. Gorgeous. We’re back with Anz Alexander and we’re going to be talking to him about the results of the race that just happened. Pretty exciting results we’re going to share with you. But first, uh go ahead and uh let us know how the race went for you. So, yeah, the race went well overall. Uh I’ll start with the swim. Uh there was no wet suits that were called to us in the morning and uh so I knew it was going to have to be a battle. It was my first mass start swim so that was interesting. Everybody was crowded together and doing a war cry uh before we started. So that was fun. I did swallow a little bit of water. I almost threw up during my swim, but I had a I just did a like a big cough and I just held it together and got through the swim. I actually PRD on my swim. So that went really well. Did an hour and 5 minutes with no wet suit. So I think that the swim went pretty well for me. And then we got So was you uh disoriented on the swim cuz you swallowed the sea water? Did you get dizzy feeling kind of nausea? Yeah, a little bit of nausea and I just held it together and kept pushing. So yeah. So, you did predict, I guess you’ve been doing triathons a while, so you did predict kind of where you would end up. Your predictability, your prediction actually kind of panned out to where you almost did a minute, right? Yeah, I predicted that I was going to get around an hour and 6 minutes. But yeah, and that’s what it ended up being. So, yeah, I did predict that. That was pretty good. So, let’s go on to the probably the most interesting leg of the race, which would probably be definitely the most interesting leg of the race, which is the bike. So, how was the bike? How were the views? How was the course overall? Yeah, the bike was amazing. The views were just amazing. Never seen anything like it biking up those mountains and yeah, it was just no words overall. It’s just the views were just fantastic. So, so how’d you train for the uh the hills? You knew the hills were coming. Texas is known for being more flat. How did you uh figure out or how did you strategize and use the terrain to your advantage as far as training for these gigantic hills? Yeah, so I didn’t really get too much hill training in to my training plan and that was kind of a lesson to be learned because I was not ready for the hills out here in East. Um, so that I know for next time that I will definitely train hills cuz we do have some hills around Austin that we can get some climbing in and but I just it just wasn’t in my training like that. So next time it will be for sure. No, no, that’s excellent. So what else about the course? Can you tell us in particular when you were actually uh seeing like accidents and ambulances and things of that nature? Yeah. So, after the climb and we started to get into the descents, I’ve seen a few people laying out on the side of the road and ambulance coming by and passing us. And it kind of gave me like a a fearful thought in my head just to be careful. So, I was being very cautious in the beginning of the descents heading back into Nice. But I think I got a bit more comfortable as I went on and took the turns with confidence and um towards the end I was actually going full throttle on those turns. So I guess yeah I got too too comfortable I think but it went well for me. So then we have the run. So the run seemed uh more straightforward than the other legs of the race. Tell us about the run and what you experienced there. Yeah the run course was uh fairly flat along the beach. Uh it was four laps. I think it was like uh 5ks each uh lap. Going down is a 5k and then back to 5k I think. Yeah. So yeah, the run was fairly flat. Um the for the first 10 miles I felt pretty good and then after that my legs started to get uh my hamstrings started to get pretty tight. So I was just battling through the last 16 miles just just wanting to get to the finish line. And I was just like, man, I need to finish this cuz the the the marathon after the bike the uh that huge bike was it was it was hard for sure. So, but yeah, we finished and finished strong. So, I was proud of that. No, no, that’s that’s excellent. You did really good on the race overall and the finish line. So you obviously at the very finish this is the culmination of everything that you’ve been training for. What was going through your mind when you crossed the finish line um world champion you know event at NE? Yeah. So the last like mile you just keep looking at the watch and just looking back of all the training that you did, all the hard work you did to get here and it was just yeah a lot of emotions going through your head and the finish line. You’re just you’re just so happy to finish and see that finish line. It’s like the best feeling ever. And as soon as I I crossed, I was just like, man, like I just got a a little tear teared up, tearful, and just finally made it. You know, it was it was a tough course. So, that was good. Yeah. And then we have some tentative um rankings for you. So, you want to share the tentative rankings? These are not official yet, but something that we’ve kind of uh uh deduced almost from the data and everything and what’s been presented to us so far. So, I’m in the 18 and 24 division. This will be my last year in this division. Um, I did 48th in the world, number nine in the US, and number one in Texas. It’s not official, but I’m still trying to find out. But I think I’m number one in Texas cuz I we know the Texas group that went from Austin, but uh let us know in the comments or whatever if I’m not number one. I just I want to know for sure before I say it, but I think I am. But yeah, um trained in Austin, Texas, and made it to Worlds and I think I did a really good job. That’s really cool. We’ve heard a lot of you been watching the channel. You’ve been seeing a lot of people that you would think that they would, you know, be training for 5 10 years in order to reach these heights. And some people are just if you dial it in, it just shows that you can really um take it to the nth degree in terms of you know success. And each age group is different. Obviously you’ll be changing age group next year. So it’ be good if you can capitalize this year on uh you know on being number one hopefully. Yes, for sure. Um yeah, just being consistent in your training and just you just got to keep moving on every day with your plan and don’t change on your plan. stone trainer your nutrition nothing new on race day and yeah so what’s new what’s next for you I should say as far as I asked this question before but you know after the race things change you know so what’s next for you in terms of the next race you’re thinking the year cuz you kind of got to keep pole position so to speak so you know you can continue to compete at a high level so what races do you have you know pencile in this year coming up in uh 2026 cuz I know you’re done for this year 2026. Yeah, 2026. We’re we’re still figuring that out. Uh definitely. I thought I was going to be done with doing full iron mans, but I think I do want to try to qualify for Kona. So, we’re going to find a race in the North America somewhere and try to qualify for Kona for sure. Yeah, Kona is a little bit difficult this year before. Um just to let the audience know it was women in Kona and men in Nice. They kind of split them up. They’re going back to both so there’s less slots. So, whoever makes it this next year, it’s like you can call this like the bubble, right? People are in the bubble right now, like the NBA bubble if you don’t not familiar with the reference. Um, but next year is going to be like you have to qualify because you have to qualify. There’s no like really rollovers or anything like that. You’re legit legit legit if you get in. Um, yeah, the last one’s in the bubble if you know the reference. What is the most important aspect? Like, if you drill down, is it waking up early? Is it diet? Is it all the above? Like if you can put a hierarchy of what you know is the most important to least important. They’re all important, but what would you recommend? I would say definitely sleep is huge for recovery. And also for me, I I like taking uh I know some triathletes like to train every single day, but I do like taking some rest days, letting my body recover fully before I keep training. Um, I noticed that if I keep trying to go every single day that injuries occur. But for me, I think, uh, taking a one or two rest days a week actually turned out to be a lot better for me in training. And in terms of diet, um, I pretty much eat anything I want carb wise because I just burn everything so fast. And you got to be careful of the red S that, uh, Lionel Sanders was talking about. um cuz I think I experienced that a little bit uh last year, but as soon as I started to just eat eat whatever carbs and I didn’t have any of those symptoms. So yeah, of course Nice is really cool. Kind of um the food is really good. We went to a few restaurants, had some really good food there, I’d say. Yeah, Nice is a really cool uh town in France to check out for sure. Uh the beach is gorgeous. You got the rocks on the beach and um yeah, everything is just gorgeous here. I mean, I love it here. I think um different different experience for sure from the United States. Wait, did you want to speak any about anything about give a shout out race? Uh any kind of uh people that have actually helped you um you know places where you got your equipment from, supplements, things of that nature. kind of give them a shout out for helping you along the journey. Yeah. Um number one is um shout out to Salt Sticks. Uh they actually saved my life on the bike. I ended up I was on a hill and I ended up cramping on both of my quads at the same time and I was like, “Oh no.” So I pull out I got like three salt sticks and then popped those and the cramps went away right away. So salt sticks saved my life there. Um I want to shout out Britain’s Bicycle Shop. uh they got gave me a tuneup and hooked me up with some race wheels there and bought a arrow helmet from them last minute which I shouldn’t have done but still did anyway but yeah shout out Britain’s and um I also want to shout out Squadron Racing um been training with them all summer and yeah it’s been really great to train with them so they help me get through the the hot days and just the hardness of the training. Oh yeah, great. That sounds good. And you have your own brand that’s coming soon. they people should be aware of and what is it and tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, it’ll be uh it’ll be called Natly. It’s uh based on pretty much the the nattiness of athletes and being clean when you’re racing and that’s just important to our the brand that we’re creating. So, yeah. Cool. Well, thanks a lot for having the interview and congratulations on race results. Hopefully, we get number one in Texas.