One month
ago a mate died, most of us who knew him were shocked to hear he was even sick.
I’d known him for twenty years, both competing in the same age group. He worked
as a doctor, he was a great athlete, World Champion at least three times.
Even though
we only met at races, it’s been hard to not think about him often, it’s just a
bit close to home. It makes us appreciate life even more. I always have lived a
life of appreciation, but this event has caused me to live it a …

There’s no point in practicing bad habits. I often see
athletes out running when I’m on my way to the pool or out for a ride. Two
hours later I see the same athletes still running. Or should I say plodding
along, dragging their tired bodies along with the most inefficient form you
could imagine.

What they’re doing is practicing exactly what they’ll do on
race day as soon as they get tired. They unconsciously tell their body, this is
the way we run when we’re tired.

There’s a much better way. Simply never run with bad form.
Never …

Sandy and I had the dirtiest training bikes in the club, they were a disgrace. They creaked when we climbed, they barely stopped us when we braked. They needed help.
I usually service them myself, I owned a bike shop for ten years and did thousands of bike repairs. But I have a habit of overcommitting myself, and not having enough time to do all I plan to do.
Anna came to train with the Cycos, one day she asked if her partner Jimmy could come on a weekend ride with us. …

So often athletes training for long course races get so used to being tired, they no longer know what it feels like to be fresh. When I had a bike shop I’d sometimes have guys come into the shop who are training themselves for the Ironman. Often they’d have a look in their face like they had watched 48hrs of TV straight. Or like they had just driven down from Mt Isa with a broken windscreen.
There’s a belief out there that more is better, when it comes to Ironman training. …

Running is the most basic of all human movements. Swimming and cycling are skills that have to be learned. Humans have been running down their meals since before we began measuring time.
It’s such a natural movement it should just happen while we travel from A to B. Triathletes are great at complicating things. Analysis – paralysis is an easy affliction to catch. We have heart rate monitors, GPS watches and pedometers measuring every step we take.
In long distance endurance races controlling what goes on in your head can be the difference …

Lets face it, training can hurt at times. That’s no secret. But have you ever stood at the sideline of a marathon and watched the winners run past. Most of the good ones, show no pain. Remember video coverage of Lance Armstrong climbing the mountains in the Tour de France, he didn’t look like it was hurting. But if you look at the power figures he was producing, it had to hurt. Lance was very good at accepting the pain as part of the game.
The world class marathoners are very …

So often I hear the guys talking about their bike times in an Ironman. It’s like they categorise each other on what their bike splits are. Really, when they hand out the Hawaii qualifying spots, it doesn’t matter much what the bike split was. It’s the overall time that gets the place. The combination of swim, bike and run times.
When you look through the result sheets of the next Ironman, there are a lot of five hour bike times followed by run times over four hours. Maybe there’s a better …

If Lance Armstrong did what he has done in his cycling career with only one, what would be possible if we used our own to their full potential. Imagine the possibilities if we discovered that we had one more?
I ask for weekly feedback from all of my athletes. Some like to get real technical, some I have to squeeze the information out of them. The feedback is a really important part of our coach/athlete relationship. As soon as someone sends me their feedback, I copy the important bits I want …

If we were to train to race a 100m swim or a 100m running race - the aerobic energy system would be of far less importance than strength and explosive power. If we look at the bodies of athletes who train and compete at these events and compare them to Ironman Triathletes, there’s quite a difference. The sprinters are often quite muscular and as much as twenty percent heavier than endurance athletes.

The typical elite level Ironman triathlete is lean, almost skinny looking. He often eats more food than a sprinter, but he …

 
I’ve been coaching Ironman athletes for around twenty years now. One of the crazy things about them. Many are not as smart as a dog.
I’ve always had good dogs. They’ve always been females, and either Australian Cattle dogs or cattle crosses. Many years ago I bought a book on dog training. It’s simple stuff. To have a good dog, one who’ll defend the family, stay up all night watching your property, and do what you tell them. All you have to do is treat them like a dog. A …