If you are entered into an event, do you need to hire an IRONMAN coach? Or can you train without?
The short answer is no, you do not need to hire an IRONMAN coach. But doing so will make you much faster, give you better balance, and send your chances of finishing skyrocketing. Let’s look at how a good IRONMAN coach will transform your IRONMAN experience.
Fast track your development
If you are entered into a race, the clock is ticking. You don’t have time to mess around trying to work it out for yourself out of a stubborn sense of pride. The cutoffs at IRONMAN events are ruthlessly enforced. If you do not start training now in an efficient fashion, you run the risk of not being able to even ride the bike you sank so much time and money into.
You won’t waste time training like a cyclist, thrashing up and down a pool endlessly or risk picking up an injury due to inappropriate running volume, you will be dialled in from the start of your training, giving you the best finish time possible.
Saves you hundreds of hours
The training for an IRONMAN event is gruelling and incredibly time consuming. Most IRONMAN athletes will be dedicating 12-15 hours a week to training as they approach their event. Some will do more, some will do less, but it’s still a serious time commitment.
So why add several hours each week to plan your training, researching how to swim faster or working out what to eat? By hiring an IRONMAN coach you outsource all that legwork to someone else, allowing you to spend more time with your family, and train with total confidence.
An IRONMAN coach will help you cut through the ocean of noise
Whatever your industry is, there will be well established best practice. Think about the bulging onboarding manual at your workplace, or the training videos you skip through every quarter. Most of the information isn’t relevant to you at all, it’s just a box ticking exercise.
A good IRONMAN coach will help you differentiate between what will actually help, and what is just noise. There us is so much conflicting information out there, it’s difficult to know when to listen and when to move on. A qualified, experienced coach such as myself can help you differentiate between fact and fiction.
A training plan built around you
If you’re single, work 9-5, have weekends completely free and are equally proficient in all three disciplines, then a free training plan you found in a book or in a magazine may suffice. But most of us have far more moving parts in our life. Childcare, business trips, visits from the in-laws, hospital appointments, dog walks and lots of other responsibilities prevent us from being able to train whenever we want for as long as we want.
Not only this, but we’re all at different places in our triathlon journey. You may be an experienced marathon runner who swims like a brick. There is no programme out there written for you, you need something bespoke.
As an IRONMAN coach, I can build a training plan around your ability and your schedule. If you sign up to be bespoke programme, I can even edit the training mid-week if you fell unwell, heavily fatigued, or there’s a last minute deadline at work.
Nutrition Guidance
Knowing what to eat and when is key to performance. Not only on race day where we need to carefully plan our fuelling, but also what to eat to support our training and recovery.
Eating the right kind of carbohydrate, getting enough protein, hitting your micronutrient targets, supporting your immune system. These are all critical for success. As a Certified Nutrition Coach, I can help you navigate all of this to ensure you’re not leaving performance on the table.
This isn’t about setting someone a restrictive diet or counting calories, it’s about education to ensure you’re sabotaging your training with the other 23 hours of your day.
Strength training
Most of those who sign up to an IRONMAN don’t know their way round a gym. This is very understandable, but the result is that athletes find themselves convincing themselves they don’t need to do strength training, as they don’t understand it. The result? Increased risk of injury and reduced performance.
As a Strength and Conditioning Coach, I can help guide you through this process. I can provide you with videos and coaching points for every exercise. All sessions are designed to have minimal effect on the rest of your training. This ensures that our strength training complements our training, so the tail doesn’t end up wagging the dog.
An IRONMAN coach an save you money in the long run
There is a huge amount of marketing aimed at triathletes to help them get faster. This ranges from nutrition supplements to bike upgrades and wetsuits to carbon plated shoes. A highly motivated triathlete with a credit card can quickly find themselves surrounded by expensive gadgets and upgrades which don’t really do anything.
While I can’t speak for other coaches, I spent three years working in a bike shop. I can help guide you through what actually works, and what’s just marketing.
In addition to money saved on unnecessary purchases, there’s also the reduced risk of injury when you work with an IRONMAN coach. Through intelligent planning and thoughtful strength exercises,
Conclusion
People have been completing races long before the invention of the IRONMAN coach as we know them today. You can absolutely muddle through yourself. But if you have the budget, a coach can help you take hours off of your finish time relative to self coaching. Take a look at my coaching packages to see whether I’m the right coach for you. Alternatively, take a look at my podcast for weekly training tips.
