Endurance sports and Triathlon in particular have been instrumental in helping me develop personally and also professionally. I believe that endurance sports are an amazing tool for discovering limits that you didn’t think you had as well as improving weaknesses that you didn’t think could be improved. Endurance sports teach you about yourself and how to improve and work towards goals, learning about yourself and how to develop is the only way to be successful. As well as racing at Elite level I’ve been fortunate enough to Coach at Elite level for the same amount of time. Coaching and racing have always been hand in hand for me, but when the time came to focus the best of my time and energy in one direction, coaching was where I knew I could be most successful. Now my focus is on the improvement of my athletes and developing as a coach. Coaching at Elite level is extremely difficult and rewarding, but so is working with amateurs who often have more complicated and diverse boundaries to work within. The truth is that as a coach the lessons you learn coaching athletes of all levels are relevant and can help you make the best decisions.

As a coach I find the best way I can help an athlete is by understanding the person and their psychological make up. There are obviously numbers that need to be known as well as sessions and testing that have to be completed, but ultimately finding out how a person functions mentally will inform me how they function physically. Having worked within fitness and sports for over a decade I’ve been lucky to see 100s of athletes of all levels, and the understanding I have of how an athlete functions best is based on how I feel their body is built. The Cardiovascular system is the engine the runs the show and training this is a priority, but as a coach if you don’t understand the muscular system and its relationship with the Cardiovascular system you will never maximize performance. This relationship is my specialty, and although athletes may complete the same sessions at the same time, every athletes Cardiovascular and muscular system functions differently and every athlete will require a different journey.

Its important that training is stimulating both mentally and physically, so it’s important to challenge the body in different ways, but at the same time creating fitness is a process of building and things need to move in a specific direction and this does require repetition. I aim to make this as varied as I can but certain repetition at certain times is essential for building fitness and if you are serious about progressing as an athlete it’s important to except this.

I’ve had success and failure as an athlete and coach and one is not possible without the other, but discovering how to come back from failures and peak at the right time is where I get the most satisfaction as a coach, and although it can be very painful when things don’t go your way the most important thing is to understand why. Very rarely does bad luck alone create failure, and looking for the positives and molding them in to success is what I do with every athlete I coach. Its important to except that within endurance sports very small margins can decide success or failure but also that there are far more variables that can be controlled than not, and that together coach and athlete need to control these variables and share responsibly for them. I aim to coach athletes how to make the best decisions, listen to their bodies and to be disciplined but also flexible. A plan is there as a guideline but what really matters are the daily decisions that add up over weeks and months. With my help I am confident every athlete can make them better.

I choose to Coach a small number of athletes so I can give all the time and energy I believe is necessary to help somebody work towards their potential. If you believe you have the desire and commitment to be disciplined with your training, but to also develop the patience to learn about yourself, how to be flexible and how to make make the correct decisions for the correct reasons, then we could work together. I don’t believe in providing programs without regular guidance, but if you’re looking for a committed working relationship with regular communication then we could work together successfully. You don’t have to be an elite athlete to be coached by me but you do have to be prepared to be open, honest and committed.