I love endurance events
I am an Ironman athlete and Ironman Coach
I love the challenge of the day, the challenge of the training, the courage and strength it brings me.
I love the feeling of trying to ‘beat’ Ironman… when it feels like it is always trying to get you, stop you, knock you off course. In training, I love the structure, friendships, the sense of belonging to a group, the learnings I can extract and apply to racing.
And what I love even more is coaching people to get to the start and finish lines, with all the preparation they need – physical, mental and social. I love witnessing their courage and big heart on their journey.
I started racing triathlon in 2003 and am still competing. I continue to draw upon my own experiences for coaching, learning, and life purposes!
If I can do it, so can my athletes.
Coaching my amazing Braveheart Endurance athletes to grow their resilience while they train for their events is critical to their success for training, getting to the start line and crossing the finish line. Their resilience growth feeds straight into their self belief, not only within the sphere of endurance events, but also outside this sphere, in life. Believing in themselves is a huge part of the journey, whether they are a first-timer or a seasoned athlete wanting to improve. If I can continue to train, compete and keep growing my own capacity for resilience, then so can my athletes.
As of 2020, I have been on the start line of 10 Ironmans. They include one age-group win, six top 5s and three Kona Worlds Champs.
I have raced 13 Half Ironmans/70.3, including seven podiums and two Worlds Champs with a 4th placing at Worlds in 2016. I have competed in numerous open water races with podium finishes, as well as a 50k ultra (2nd), a Breca Swimrun event and multiple half marathons along the way. I also claim 1 DNF (did not finish) to date, which was worth its weight in gold in terms of reassessing why we do what we do, helping us to move on stronger and also understanding others who might DNF (so a huge resilience moment in my life).
I am a Triathlon New Zealand level 1 coach and have been coaching endurance athletes since 2014 to get the start line and finish line of a range of endurance events, mostly Half Ironman and Ironman Events.
As a coach-athlete, I have been able to break down and analyse the toughest/darkest parts of all my races, short and long. I have reflected on how I have been able to continuously train over the years, and move forwards towards each start line and finish line; how despite the many obstacles along the way, I always strive to maintain my mental focus and clarity. Essentially, I have been able to dismantle my resilience and what it is I am doing to keep believing that no matter what happens, I will find a way forwards and learn from it. This ability to analyse my own performance as well as the training and performance of my athletes, has given me the skills to grow my athletes’ own resilience strategies, both in training and while racing. I also attach a huge importance on extracting the learnings during their training and each of their races in order to apply these to their next race.
So what can I do for you?
I can coach you to become more mentally resilient during your race or event.
This isn’t about removing the actual obstacles (problems, situations, thoughts etc) - this is impossible, life is unpredictable! But rather coaching you to manage how you react to these obstacles. What we want is for you to have the ability to deal with these barriers in a calm and rational way, so that you find a way forwards and you learn from it. Because in a race, it pays to continuously move forwards towards your race goal, both mentally and physically.
I can also help you find the resilience gap that you might know is there, because it comes up time and time again, impeding your training or race performance. Each time, you ‘fall’ and have to ‘pick yourself up again’. This takes time, it doesn’t feel nice, you don’t even feel like you, but you don’t know how to change things. I can help you find the resilience gap and fill it, so that next time, there won’t be any ‘falling’ or ‘picking yourself up’ - you’ll move forwards and maximise your performance.
For Ironman or other endurance event novices, I can help you to identify what is potentially stopping you from believing you can actually do this.
In this case, it is only your self belief that is getting in the way. Together, we will reduce the fear, alter your mindset and increase your self belief - and you’ll be off!
Another reason you might not be performing is because you are not able to make the most of your training, because of how you are thinking, your mindset.
I see this often when people decide they want to do an Ironman but very quickly find themselves struggling with the incessant demands of training. Often, this has nothing to do with being physically able to train, but more about the things that ‘get in the way’. Sometimes you feel that your partner or family just ‘doesn’t get it’; you might have committed to training but are struggling because of a very busy life schedule, but you can’t seem to be able to change that, so you keep feeling that you not able to prioritise the training and are permanently disappointed with yourself; you might be setting such high goals for yourself (which you probably don’t tell anyone about), that you can never achieve them… and so spend a fair bit of time feeling crushed and worthless, as your fear of the event grows.
There are many reasons why you might not be making the most of your training. You could be limiting yourself just by your current mindset. Let me help you become more resilient in your thinking and find different perspectives in your training and life, so that you can really maximise your training and racing.
Not sure what you’re looking for?
If you’re unsure about where to start on your coaching journey, would like more information or have any queries, I’m here to chat.
I also offer: