SUBIC BAY LIES ABOUT a four-hour drive northwest of Manila. Since the Navy left in 1992, the local government has attempted to transform the area into a tourism destination. Today, for the most part, it's a partially developed ghost town, with various casinos and hotels, including the Grand Seasons, where Sutton and many of the athletes are staying.

I watch the team train for three days. Rumor has it that Sutton runs a torture academy—there are tales of athletes sprinting in wetsuits and of nine-hour bike rides. Those things can happen, but what I see is fairly simple. The team swims an hour and a half per day, bikes two hours or so, and runs more than an hour. A five-hour training day, with the occasional day off, is standard. The really hard part is doing this week after week. Belinda Granger, a 37-year-old tri veteran from Australia who's been working with Sutton for the past two years, tells me that when a new athlete joins the program, the raw volume can be a shock. "They go backwards before they go forwards," she says.

"If it's not long, it's got to be hard," Sutton quips about the workouts, underlining his belief in interval training—repeats of fast-paced efforts interspersed with short recoveries. Then there are Sutton's infamous "black" days—Black Wednesday, for example—when he issues a virtually endless succession of intervals. During one session, the team swims six miles' worth of them: 100 meters, 100 times. I was told of another challenge in which the team ran 35 miles in 100-degree heat.

"What fascinates me about Brett is this emphasis on the mental side," Wellington says. The value of a Black Wednesday, she says, is psychological toughening. For this to work, the athlete has to trust Sutton completely. He demands and gets total submission. If he doesn't, the athlete can expect to be booted.

"There is a procedure to becoming a world champion," Sutton says. "It's not a natural one. It's not normal. If you want to be a civilian, be a civilian. My athletes are soldiers. This is the jungle. The lion gets up every day. If he doesn't catch the gazelle, he doesn't eat. If the gazelle doesn't outrun the lion, he's dead."

Another Sutton admirer is Alec Rukosuev, a former pro triathlete who coaches at the National Training Center in Clermont, Florida, a site for athletes from around the world. For him, it's simple: Sutton's methods work. "Guys like Brett are the ones doing it right," he says. "He has a strong personality. All the great coaches do. They are like Napoleon. People will do anything he says."