Jef Mallett on His Book Trizophrenia

Life is better when you're a triathlete. That is what author Jef Mallett believes, and millions of triathletes around the world agree. Matt Fitzgerald caught up with Velopress's Dave Trendler to learn more about Mallett's latest book, Trizophrenia.

Introducing the 2010 Trek/K-Swiss Triathlon Team Matt: Hi, this Matt Fitzgerald for Competitor.com. I’m here in Austin, Texas at the running event and here with me is Dave Trendler from VeloPress. We’re showing off a brand new title recently released from VeloPress it’s Trizophrenia? Dave: Well to be honest, we’re not really completely how to pronounce this book ourselves. In house, we’ve been calling a Trizophrenia but I think that the pronunciation guide on the back actually mentions Trizophrenia and its called Trizophrenia Inside the Minds of a Triathlete. It’s by Jef Mallett. Matt: It looks really interesting. Tell me a little bit about what’s inside the covers. Dave: Well this is Triathlon lifestyle book. It’s really a sort of an explanation of why we do the things we in Triathlon. What’s with the two a day workouts, what’s with getting up early in the morning and going to the swim masters class. Why do we, why are all these crazy clothing here with the super tight leg or shirts. And Jef Mallett is a pretty funny guy. He’s the illustrator of the Nationally Syndicated Frazz Comic Strip and he’s been you know, an endurance athlete for a long time. He started out in cycling and then got into Triathlon. And he’s been doing Triathlon since I think the 80’s and he’s finished two Ironman distance races now. So he’s been in the sport for a really long time and he sort of felt this need to explain why Triathletes are the way they are. Matt: So this is not your typical how to race Triathlons faster sort of book. It sounds like its entertaining and pretty funny? Dave: Yes, we do books on both training and history and human interest. This is definitely on the human interest side. This is really an entertaining book. It’s fully illustrated. It has 60 to 80 illustrations that are all by Jef Mallett. He’s drawn them all and you’ll see that same kind of humor that he’s known for in Frazz Comic Strip. Matt: So this is a very unusual type of a book. I can’t think about any other quite like it. Where did the whole idea come from? Dave: There is actually one book like it, there’s a book called Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer. Jamie Smith is a biker-race announcer and he came to us a couple of years ago with this idea and we thought it would be pretty hilarious to illustrate it so we asked Jef Mallett to do the illustrations for that one. So out of that book that was written by Jamie and illustrated by Jef, we had all these really entertaining illustrations that are very amusing and decided, hey, Jef knows a lot about Triathlon. He could do this book too. And so we gave him a chance to write his own full-length text. Before he’d done a couple of books that were all collections of his Frazz Comic Strips but this one’s all Jef. Matt: I hesitate to use the phrase Bathroom Reading but it seems like at least it’s the perfect stockings to offer for the Triathlete in your life? Dave: Yes, that’s right. It’d be great for the off-season too. You’ve got a little extra time. It’s a good way to start reconnect with why you’re involved with Triathlon. Matt: Alright, well I can’t wait to read it myself. I’ve actually scanned a little bit of it. It does look very funny and very entertaining. Dave thanks for your time. Dave: Thank you.