Britain's favourite sporting brothers recently took on a rather different endurance challenge when Alistair and Jonny Brownlee tried to outlast the battery of the Sony Xperia Z3 smartphone in the #gothedistance challenge.
The London 2012 triathlon medallists came up against one of their toughest opponents yet as the device's unprecedented battery life survived two days of swimming, cycling and running from Leeds to Scotland.
While Jonny marvelled at the Xperia Z3's 20 megapixel camera, life-logging application and PS4™ Remote PLAY capabilities, Sports Mole spoke to Alistair about his race with technology and the road to Rio 2016.
The Olympic champion is already preparing to defend his title, and also has his sights on World Triathlon Series glory in 2015.
Your #gothedistance Xperia Z3 two-day challenge was different from most of your normal endurance tests. Tell us a bit about what that involved.
"Obviously it was a long two days. We set off from Bramhope on Wednesday morning and ended up in the Northern part of Scotland, a place called Tain the following evening. So it was a long couple of days and they both involved a swim, a cycle and a run."
The phones had 4% and 8% battery life left after two days. How much did you have left in the tank after what was a gruelling challenge?
"The idea of it was to test the endurance of the two-day battery life that is talked about with the phone and put it to the test, and to be honest with you I was really impressed. After a long two days without any rest I don't know how much longer I would have wanted to go on for! The battery life was really impressive and we were playing around with it in Loch Lomond. It was waterproof, I was really impressed. It was brilliant."
Do you use devices like this in your regular training and how do they benefit you?
"We tend to record things, if we do, by Heart Rate Monitor. But you have to have a phone with you when you are training and even just the fact that it is waterproof means that you can put it in your pocket and not worry about it. I have been lost plenty of times abroad and have had to get the maps out so that's important too! And one of the best things about the Sony phone compared to other phones is that we spend our lives cycling and running round beautiful places, and to have a phone with a really good-quality camera, a 20 megapixel camera, means you can just take your phone out of your pocket and take a shot wherever you are."
The fog in the Scottish Highlands may have obstructed your photos! It was wet and cold, too. How difficult are those kinds of conditions?
"It is difficult when you are training in them day in day out. In Scotland it was tough because we were in them for most of the day. The swim was cold. Loch Lomand was very cold on a chilly October morning, so that was a bit of an experience for us! The air wasn't too cold, but the cloud was down, so we didn't get to see some of the scenery which was a shame, but we are used to some very, very bad weather. We train in it pretty much every day, so at least we felt at home."
Do you balance the type of weather conditions and climates that you train in, because you race all over the world?
"A little bit, yes. We have got to be used to racing in hot, warm conditions so we have to be careful that we don't spend all of our time in cold conditions. Although we both like being at home and we train well at home, it has to be a really careful balancing act this time of year between enjoying being at home and going somewhere warm enough to train in hot conditions. Once we get into the New Year, maybe we will spend a couple of weeks in Spain a couple of times to train in hot conditions."
The next World Series event is not until next March. What is on the calendar between now and then?
"The next World Series race is in March, so if we actually do that, we will be at home over most of Christmas and do our first real hard training camp of the year in the beginning of December. I have got a little trip to Ethiopia before that to do the Great Ethiopian Run, which I am really excited about, and then once the New Year comes around it all gets a bit more serious so we will be going away on hard training camps to Spain and really start preparing for the first World Series event in Abu Dhabi."
Obviously there is a lot of travelling involved on the series, and yet they are talking about expansion. Is this a bit of a double-edged sword, because clearly triathlon is growing rapidly, but perhaps putting too much demand on athletes?
"Yes, definitely. It is a really difficult risk to run. Obviously it is brilliant that triathlon is getting all over the world in different cities, but it is making it harder and harder for the athletes to be able to travel to all of the different places and race all over the world. There are short turnarounds and the travelling is harder than the racing a lot of the time so it is tough, and you have to balance that very carefully. The World Series is a fairly new concept and hopefully over the next three of four years it will become a more consistent format with less travelling."
You've previously indicated that you won't be chasing the world title in 2015 because of the schedule. What are your goals then for next year?
"The number one goal now is we are looking towards the Olympics, mainly preparing for the Olympics properly and qualifying for the Olympics, which will hopefully happen in the Rio de Janeiro test event for the Olympics. So I am hoping that I will have a really good race there and that will qualify me for the Olympics. That's the biggest thing, but I would like to have a crack at the World Series next year, probably. I'll see how it goes, in terms of being able to being able to fit the number of races in, but the priority will be on the Olympics."
When will you begin preparations for Rio 2016 and defending that gold medal?
"You are kind of preparing all along. You are doing a season to see what you could have done better, and then at the end of the year you are evaluating to think 'how can I do better next year?' And you hope that process leads you to the Olympics in the best possible shape. You are always preparing, but it comes into focus about now. We know the course at Rio, we know what time of year it is going to be and we have been studying the weather conditions, so it is really starting to come to focus now."
There was a lot made about conditions and humidity prior to the football World Cup in Brazil this summer. Do you expect triathletes to be affected in the same way?
"Looking into conditions, it could be almost anything, but the likelihood is that the conditions won't be too bad, so I am not too worried about it particularly. I'm going to do all I can to make sure I am in the best possible shape for a hot weather race, but it is not something I am overly worried about."
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A lot is made about the competition between you and Jonny, but it must be great and really beneficial to have each other as training partners particularly ahead of big events like the Olympics?
"Of course. I don't think either of us would be where we are without being able to race each other, and push each other in training every day. I think that has been very important to both of us. We are very, very lucky, and going into the Olympics, hopefully we will be racing each other for a medal, or a gold medal. We are very lucky to have each other."
