I came to triathlon late and terrified, and I’d argue that’s my biggest qualification.
My first event was a duathlon. I sat in the van and watched it through the windscreen — like the lion in the Wizard of Oz. Two weeks later I came back with Oliver and crossed the start line. By 2015, at 55, I was representing Great Britain in age-group racing.
So when an athlete tells me they’re scared, or too old, or not built for this — I don’t have to imagine how that feels. I’ve stood exactly where they’re standing, including the bit in the van.
What I care about is sustainable progress. You can’t train if you’re injured, and you won’t train if the plan doesn’t fit your life. So I build plans you can actually stick to — around your work, your family, your energy. Steady beats heroic. Every time.
My first event was a duathlon — I sat in the van and watched it through the windscreen. Two weeks later I came back with Oliver and crossed the start line. By 2015, at 55, I was racing for Great Britain.
The empathetic skills that consider the whole athlete as a person, we take into account their lifestyle, mental health, if they’ve had a bad day or are not feeling great, we can spot these things and act accordingly.
We spend so much time on deck working with people and observing them and it means that we we can take that into our online coaching because we will know what athletes are talking about without really even having to see them.
There’s much that we have seen in real life that there isn’t anything that we can’t fix!
We are experienced with working complete beginners through to top-of-their-game athletes and everyone in between! We are straight-talking and will not try to bombard people with technical language they do not understand! We are busy people who have businesses and communities outside of triathlon, so we completely understand that people should have a life as well as take part in this amazing sport!
Even though you’d think that my favourite triathlon memory would be competing for Great Britain, strangely enough, it’s not! It is actually the first time we did the World Championship course in 2013 in Hyde Park, where the Brownlee brothers had won the year before and they were competing the day after we did ours.
Running on that carpet for the very first time doing an amazing bike and an amazing run, I absolutely loved it and I will never forget it!
I coached a middle-aged lady who became a silver medalist in the World Championship Olympic distance event
Representing Great Britain in a European age group duathlon, a 48-minute 10k.
British Triathlon Level 2 qualified, Iron Man U qualified, Trisutto Certified, and Training Peaks accredited.
ACL reconstruction, rheumatoid arthritis, colitis – and I am still going!
I really like running!
What annoys us in general about triathlon is the obsession that is people teach swimming for swimming, cycling for cycling and running for running, but it’s none of those things. Triathlon is triathlon, it’s all one sport.
You can’t separate them because what you do in swimming affects what you do on the bike. What you do on the swim in the bike effects what you do on the run. You can’t teach somebody a technique that marathon runners use for running because they just run a marathon – they don’t ride for 150 miles before or swim 3 miles before that!
And that’s why we look beyond what you’re taught in textbooks and look at what actually happens and put triathlon together as one sport so that we have a way of doing things that fits together.
Sport is the thing I care most about, and I wasn’t naturally good at it. That’s the making of a coach, that.
Getting my arms and legs to do what my brain wanted was never straightforward, so I had to study the how and the why of everything until I could do it. Then I kept studying. I’ve travelled to watch the best coaches in the world work. I used to spend lunch breaks watching Jessica Ennis-Hill train in Sheffield.
I started racing triathlon in 2012 and coaching in 2013, then worked through the qualifications: BTF Level 2, Ironman U, Trisutto certified — and mentorship, in person, from Brett Sutton himself.
My favourite quote is Arrigo Sacchi: “You don’t have to be the horse to be the jockey.” I’ve raced well — won my age group, gone 5:05 at half-Ironman — but coaching someone to a goal they didn’t believe was possible beats any race of my own.
2012, aged 24. I had seen triathlon on the Olympics and decided I must give it a go!
Knowing what to say and when to say it. Some athletes want to collect new information like a magpie — but that’s not coaching, it’s just handing over more than they can take in, and they end up in a mess. The skill is seeing what someone’s ready for, and holding back the rest until they are.
We work well with most people, as long as they buy into what we do and believe in us.
We do have a questionnaire and have a Zoom meeting before taking on new clients to make sure we are a good fit for each other.
My first half Ironman — Steel Man, 2016. The longest event I’d ever done, and everyone at my club underestimated me. I beat the lot of them by about half an hour. Chuffed doesn’t cover it.
Coaching a lady to a triathlon podium with only one hour of pool access a week. Another athlete completed an Ironman in 14 hours on seven hours’ training a week — alongside a part-time job and a family.
In terms of events I have performed well at – I I have won my age group, I completed a 5 hour 5 minute Half Ironman, a 2 hour 20 minute standard distance triathlon and a 1 hour 40 minute half marathon, I am proud of those achievements.
British Triathlon Level 2, Ironman U qualified, Trisutto Certified and Training Peaks accredited.
What matters more is what came after: I’ve travelled the world studying the best triathlon coaches at work — I used to spend lunch breaks watching Jessica Ennis-Hill being coached in Sheffield — and I apply everything I’ve learned.
Internal organ sepsis in 2018 and a RED-S diagnosis
I don’t really have one — it’s so course specific. The London Triathlon is brilliant for running: loops at the ExCeL, supporters everywhere, DJs, a proper atmosphere. Steel Man, where I ran really well, was the opposite — a two-loop course through a sheep field where you had to close the gate behind you or get a penalty! I do love running off the bike, but favourite depends on the course.
Triathlon ****heads, people who take themselves too seriously and people that try and split out the disciplines as separate sports!
Triathlon is one sport!
I also don’t believe that triathlon should be focussed on the most expensive bike/watch whatever other gadget is popular. It shouldn’t be about that stuff.
“You don’t have to be the horse to be the jockey!” (Arrigo Sacchi).
This is so apt because you often find that event winners do not necessarily make the best coaches! We have won events, but get far more out of coaching others to achieve their goals.
Book a free chat with either of us — or both. We come as a pair anyway.
