So towards the end of last season I was begining to think about coaching after getting a few inquiries. So after some debate I decided to take on a few athletes for the 2009 season and donate the coaching fees to a charity I support called Charley's Fund. So I have a few athletes I'm coaching this year and I got my first test yesterday with one of the athletes I coach racing at Ironman New Zealand.
I'm calling it a success. I wasn't too excited when James told me he wanted to do this race for a couple of reasons. First it's early season (for us in the northern states) and second he lives in Detroit which, well frankly is known for it's snowy cold winters which is not great for training.
After some discussion and negotiations we agreed that he should race with the expectation that this be a "get your feet" wet first Ironman. James goal is to qualify for Kona but given the training conditions in winter, the timing of the race and his swim and run fitness, looking at the history of the qualifiers from this race and the fact that he is also planning on racing at Ironman Lousiville later this summer I didn't think this was the one to go after.
So we set up a plan to focus on some basics and focusing on James weak spots to ensure he had a balanced race. I believe if we hadn't taken this approach it would have been such a success as he would have been relying on his strength on the bike which I believe doesn't set you up for a great overall Ironman. The work he put in over the past couple of months has been fantastic and the improvement in his swim and run has been great and he's done just enough this winter to be balanced on the bike. Above all he's stuck with the plan and been consistent which is key to any good Ironman program.
I haven't talked to James since he finished but it looks like he executed the race plan just as we discussed. He had a great swim it appears finishing the swim in 1:05 which is significantly faster than I would have expected given his swims in the half distance races last season. He had a solid bike effort given the fact that most of his riding has been on the trainer with the exception of 1 week in Florida posting a bike split of 5:05. The big unknown for me was how the run would go. I think the cooler temps and not expending too much energy on the bike really helped him limit his losses on the run. He finished up the run in 3:42 (not sure but this might be his marathon PR), I honestly wasn't expecting this great a run from James but a coach always likes being surprised by their athletes performances.
Overall James just missed going sub 10 in his first Ironman finishing up in 10:00:52, good enough for 23rd in his tough 35-39 age group and 106th overall. Way to go James, take this week off and by the way you'll be paying in the upcoming months for sandbagging the swim and run.
The takeaways is have a good training plan (an engaged coach is recommended), be consistent in your training and train with focus (most of us don't have unlimited time to train) and success will come.
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