Alex Hinton decided he wanted a coach to help him prepare for his first Ironman: Ironman France, 27 June 2010. He approached Fiona Ford of Triathlon Europe. Fiona won her age-group at the race in 2007 and finished 9^th woman overall (see her race report here). The two invited Tzero to follow and report on Alex’s progress. Here is Part 1 of what will be a regular series over the next few months.

In the beginning

As a coach, Fiona believes the essential first step is for her to build a thorough understanding of her athletes’ aspirations, life-style and athletic history. She met Alex after a swimming training session. This is what she found out:

Profile

Alex has an endurance sport track record that makes Ironman look quite tame. He once completed a rowing race across the Atlantic (79 days) and a trek to the North Pole. On top of that, he cycles the 28 mile round trip to work every day (except when he runs in), he has a marathon PB of around 3 hours 30 minutes (and thinks he could have gone 20 minutes quicker if he didn’t have to stop to stretch out his cramped calf muscles) and is a keen surfer and kite surfer. He works with Royal Bank of Scotland in Central London, is married and has a one-year old daughter. He competes in the 35-40 age group.

If only all training sessions could be this easy

Triathlon background

Alex stumbled into triathlon when he took part in a work-related sprint distance event in 2007. Hooked immediately he went on in 2008 to complete a hotchpotch of sprint, standard and half-ironman distance races, with a best result of 36^th at the OneLastTri half-ironman in a time of 4:51:58. He currently trains about 10 to 15 hours per week.

Not all journeys begin with a single step: a triathlon starts with a single stroke

Triathlon goals for 2010

A respectable finish at Ironman France 2010. Sensibly, Alex has decided to make the ironman his sole challenge for the first half of the year.

Why does he want to work with a coach?

Like many triathletes, Alex tends to train his strengths and neglect his weaknesses. He cycles a lot, runs a little and hardly swims at all. He has become increasingly frustrated by his lack of progress in swimming while training alone and wants help to improve his technique. Fortunately, despite his lack of speed, his water sports experience means he has no fear of open water swimming.

Work needed on that high elbow

Secondly, he needs to improve the balance of his training and incorporate some structure to prepare specifically for the ironman challenge. Additionally, he feels he neglects stretching and flexibility and wants to incorporate that into his programme.

Then, although he already eats healthily, he’d be keen to review his diet and possibly drop a few kilograms, particularly given the mountains he will have to scale at Ironman France.

Finally, Alex knows he has lots to learn about triathlon, especially ironman triathlon. He rather benefit from someone else’s experience than learn by trial and error.

Next steps

How do you remember all that stuff?

Fiona will create an account for Alex with TrainingPeaks, the software package she uses to communicate training sessions with athletes and to monitor their progress. In the meantime, she has asked Alex to complete a detailed questionnaire to make sure she has a complete a picture as possible of his requirements. Questions cover his current body metrics (height, weight, resting heart rate etc.), general health, detailed race results and best times at various distances in each discipline where known.

Then, sometime over the next few weeks, Fiona hopes to persuade Alex to do some baseline testing to estimate his VO₂ max and heart rates corresponding to his aerobic and anaerobic thresholds. She is also able to arrange for comprehensive laboratory testing of these parameters, if Alex wants to do so.

Meanwhile, Fiona will set some basic sessions to fit around Alex’s life-style. Importantly, she wants Alex to designate one day per week as a rest day, a somewhat alien concept. The answer to his first question: “is it OK to cycle to work on my rest day?” was no!

Look out for Part 2 shortly.

Related posts:

1. Ironman Training: Journey to Ironman France (Part 2) Aspiration meets actuality Tzero supported athlete Alex Hinton is preparing...
2. Ironman Training: Journey to Ironman France (Part 3) Injury, frustration, doubt and resolution An Ironman athlete once told...
3. Journey to Ironman France (Part 5) – Mission Completed Over the last few months T-Zero has followed Alex Hinton’s...
4. Journey to Ironman France (Part 4) – The final countdown As we publish this, we already know how Alex fared...
5. Personal journeys: winning Ironman France Thinking about doing Ironman France? Fiona Ford won the women’s...