Athlete in Profile: Nicole Wilson

An athlete with 30 years experience in the sport still chasing the high of racing, the love of training, the challenge of balancing family, work and training and the ultimate love of feeling strong, fit and healthy. Starting her Triathlon days in the 1990’s Nicole has seen the sport change, and take shape over the years to where we are today and we can’t wait to continue the triathlon journey with her….

Name: Nicole Wilson

Nickname: Nic. Nice and simple!

Age / Age Group: Old Hen! ;-p

Lives: Malvern, Vic

Targeted Sport: Triathlon

Years in the Sport: 30 years (on and off) (told you I was an old hen…)

How did you get started: Monash University Tri Club. Like minded people who even made a Saturday night swim squad session fun!
(I do not know ANYONE who swims on a sat night – so there’s a first!)

Why I choose CPC: I was introduced by another CPC athlete Caroline Houston. 🙂
(would of mouth is fab – thanks Caroline!) 😉

What I ‘get’ from my sport: I love the challenge and diversity of 70.3 Triathlon racing. With more self-sufficient teenagers at home it’s been great to invest in consistent training and hopefully greater life longevity. I aspire to keep racing and training for a long as my aging body can keep up.

Ultimate Goal:  Swimming, riding and running for as long as my body will allow – at at least until l get my pensioner card.

What I couldn’t live without: A family who are very understanding & flexible.

Biggest love: My boys (husband, 3 teenagers and dog)

Pet peeve!: Wasting time.
(ohhhh that’s a goodie! We’re with you on this one!)

Interesting fact about me: Country girl who grew up in Cobram.

Athlete in Profile: Jacqui Graham

A new comer to the sport of triathlon who is already making her mark. Podiuming in her first Ironman and qualifying for Nice 2024, she’s ready to embark on coaching to see how far she can take her racing. As a shift worker, she is also keen to continue to buck the trend of traditionally poor health outcomes for not just shift but also health care workers – so continues on her quest of participating in competitive sport and making good lifestyle choices. Keep an eye on this athletes. She truly is just getting started….

Name: Jacqui Graham

Nickname: Cracker Jacq – less frequently used these days!

Age / Age Group: 30-34

Lives: Yea, Vic

Targeted Sport: Triathlon

Years in the Sport: A very loose 1 year !

How did you get started: In 2022 a very good friend signed up for an Ironman as a bucket list tick off, prior to his first child. My wife and I decided we would do the 70.3 as support. I enjoyed the day with no real intention of doing another. However 6 months later I had forgotten that, then deciding to do a full IM in Dec 2023.
(and Jacqui conveniently left out the bit where she qualified for the IM World champs at said race!)

Why I choose CPC: I’ve not had previous coaching and I am super excited to work with someone who has the expertise to get the most out of myself. I’ve only heard of good things re CPC and the match just felt right.

What I ‘get’ from my sport: Sport/being active has always been a main priority for my wife and I. Being a shift worker, which is associated with poor health outcomes, I have always been determined to not let that stop me from participating in competitive sport or making good lifestyle choices. The exception to the rule hopefully. Or maybe the rule could change!

Ultimate Goal:  Ultimately, it would be to never stop getting better. However, Sub 10hr IM and sub 5hr 70.3 would be equally ace.

What I couldn’t live without: My wife & doggos + homemade hummus. 🙂

Biggest love: The above + exercise!

Pet peeve!: Dirty floors (two floofy dogs makes for a regular occurrence).

Interesting fact about me: I’m vegan. It would be un-stereotypical of a vegan if I didn’t mention it. ;-p

We can’t wait to see what is instore for Jacqui – as we know it’s going to be an exciting ride!

Athlete in Profile: Heath Lowry

Relatively new to the sport of triathlon, but not new to setting big goals! ‘Heater’ is preparing himself for the heat of Busso and tackling his first Ironman. But the journey hasn’t been without it’s challenges, including working on his mental health, keeping niggles at bay and doing the hard yards solo! But he has a story to tell – including one that involves the great Michael Schumacher ! . . .

Name: Heath Lowry

Nickname: heater

Age / Age Group: 35-39

Lives: Moama, Vic

Targeted Sport: Triathlon & AFL !

Years in the Sport: 2-3years in Triathlon

How did you get started: My uncle is in the sport and he encourages me to get involves, and the local triathlon club in Echuca/Moama has been great.

Why I choose CPC: Sarah was recommend to me many years ago, and now that I have a couple of big goals thought it would be smart to get the right coaching! A good decision, because now I don’t have to just be in my own head, I know what’s planned and I can bounce things off her – especially any doubts I may have along the way !

What I ‘get’ from my sport: In recent years I have struggled with my mental health and by getting outside training it has helped massively in this space. The benefits of it have been huge on my journey.

Ultimate Goal:  To complete the Busselton Ironman in December 2023!

What I couldn’t live without: My Coffee Machine

Biggest love: Vietnamese pho soup

Pet peeve!: Bad Manners!

Interesting fact about me: I once cooked a meal for Michael Schumacher and the Ferrari F1 Team. (I think we will all need more details on this Heath!!)

Motivate in May

A THIRTY (ONE) DAY Challenge in May !

Choose your challenge.
Make a habit. Or break one.
Spark personal growth
Build mental resilience.
Or try something new.
Motivate in May is for you!

If you are off the back of a long season (regardless if you raced or not), or embarking on a new season / training program, then this is the perfect time to lay the ground work for your best 2023/2024 performances. It can be easy to lose the rhythm of training as it gets colder and darker outside. Or you may be without a key race to inspire you to jump out of bed in the morning… SO I INVITE YOU – join us in a challenge to help continue to build your physical resilience and positive daily habits.

 NO ONE is immune to the allure of wanting to stay in bed on a cold, dark, early morning. That’s where accountability matters. And that’s where our CPC community will join together, encourage each other, share your daily ‘wins’, – and maybe even your struggles! Set yourself up NOW – and your winter / base preparation will set you up for the weeks and months to come….

THE CHALLENGE:

This challenge falls in line with our learnings of setting goals (in this instance a challenge) and defining your why, so we can measure our success (read more here). Our May challenge involves you choosing a goal (challenge) to complete over/during the 31 days of May.

Some examples:

Swim /Run/Ride 25/50/75/100k in May
Train every day in May
Strength / Mobility / Pilates/ Yoga Challenge in May
Try a new way in May (ie commit to finding a new training route week/each session)
Try something new in May (ie a new gym, a new exercise/sport/hobby)
Zwift route challenge in May

The ideas are limitless, the benefits endless !

You want to make it specific (and challenging) for you. Something to drive you in May, and encourage you to make (or break) a habit, spark personal growth, build mental resilience, or simply try something new!

So get thinking, get creative, have a WHY and share with our CPC Community. Nothing like sharing your goals to stay accountable !

CHOOSE your goal | CHALLENGE yourself | SHARE your wins | EARN points | and WIN !


POINTS & PRIZES

EARN POINTS
10 points for joining the challenge
15 points for sharing your challenge
5 points for each social tag & share
20 points for completing your challenge
BONUS points awarded each week

PRIZES UP FOR GRABS!
CPC Socks
CPC Trucker Caps
Movie Voucher
Book Voucher
Surprize prizes!


SET YOUR GOAL. DEFINE YOUR WHY. DETERMINE YOUR SUCCESS

This time of the year for many athletes is the perfect time for reviewing your past season, setting new goals, but most importantly defining what success is to you. Then building a framework to measure your success. In sport (well in life really!) the performance journey goes well beyond simple concepts of becoming faster, stronger, finishing or winning…  Results are important. However, a broader perspective provides a healthier and more productive framework to measure success over the long term. And that’s where an athletes WHY comes into it….

Most athletes start their goal setting process with a goal. It makes sense right? ! Set a goal, and lay out the stepping stones to help you achieve that goal…. 

But what if I got you to look at goals from a different perspective? What if I said, without a WHY your GOAL won’t be able to determine your success? What if I got you to first determine your WHY before you set your GOAL and in return then determine your SUCCESS? How do you think this would differ?

Here’s an example. An athlete set a goal of breaking 5hrs in their next Half Ironman. They loved the idea of going ‘sub 5’! Their previous best was 5:30hrs. They laid out the steps they thought they needed to get there, they trained hard, their family / training / life balance was a bit out of whack, they were managing a little niggle, but they had a goal so stuck to the plan….. Come race day they finished in 5:10hrs. 10min off their goal time. What feelings do you think they had? Disappointed in their result? Because they didn’t hit their goal time…. DESPITE still hitting a 20min PB! 

But what if that same athlete was asked the question – what is your WHY ? Why do you want to do a sub 5hr? Why do you train hard, and push yourself and why do you race? After some thought, the athlete wrote down a few things such as: to inspire my children to work hard, to not give up on a goal, to be a better version of myself at work and at home for my family. Their WHY was far more than simply hitting a 5hr time barrier. This doesn’t mean they couldn’t aim for both. Of course they could. But their WHY is what is deep, it gives purpose and means much more than a time on a clock…… That WHY is what should also help drive you – not the goal itself…. Read on >>

A WHY is a statement of purpose that describes why you do what you do and why you live the lifestyle you do. 
A GOAL is the object of ones ambition or effort; an aim or a desired result. 
SUCCESS is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. 

Success cannot thrive without a goal (aim) and a goal cannot thrive without a why (purpose). So when setting a goal, to determine your success of achieving your goal, you want to know the WHY behind it. 

Why do you want to achieve X?
Why do you push your body to train every day? 
Why do you do triathlon / cycling / running? 

“Your WHY is what will set you apart. It will help inspire you to take action. It will also drive you in your training and your racing.”

So as you sit and ponder your WHY, here are some action steps on helping you to determine your WHY: 

1. The first step is to ask yourself what your ultimate goal is. This could be related to your sport. Ie I want to complete an Ironman, or, I want to qualify for a World Championships, or I want to have a balance in life and training etc….

2. When you determine what this/ these are, the next and most important step is to ask yourself … WHY do I want to do / achieve this?

Now, there are some key things to remember when developing your WHY.

  1. Your WHY should be powerful: When setbacks or obstacles (such as an injury or a bad race) arise, use your WHY because it is powerful enough to overcome the setback/obstacle. 
  2. Your WHY should be deep: Having a shallow why can be easily broken. (ie I train because I enjoy it)  Instead, you should focus on a deeper meaning. (ie I train because it helps my mental health and makes me happier)
  3. Your WHY should be intrinsic: Don’t base your WHY on extrinsic factors (ie I want to do an Ironman because my best mate is) instead look inside and feel your WHY (I want to do an Ironman because I want to test my own physical capabilities)

Developing a WHY is the best way to ensure you are avoiding setbacks and continually making progress towards your goals. AND the best way to then measure your success – which I will touch on in my next instalment….

So I encourage you firstly to take some time to write down your GOALS AND YOUR WHY. Remember to make them powerful, deep, and intrinsic. And you need to write them down. Not just have them in your head. Find some paper and write (or type) it out and have it where you can see it. In your phone, beside your bed, on the fridge… Somewhere you can visit them regularly. And if your why truly means something to you, then you will find a way to make your goals happen and you will more likely lead to a happier success…..

Are you a self aware athlete?

I recently wrote an article on Recovery and how it can be the key to your success. I received lots of comments and feedback that it was very well timed, and a good reminder for all endurance athletes (well really any athlete!) to ensure they take a step back and allow the body to actually recover and adapt so it can grow and become stronger.

This lead me thinking to conversations I have had with a few athletes over the past couple of weeks and there seemed to be a common theme that was starting to pop up. A comment or conversation that had the same underlying thought pattern. “I feel like I didn’t quite nail the session“, “I didn’t hit the numbers on that session” some even included the word failed!

And so it got me thinking, what was leading these athletes to think this way? Because they didn’t hit a particular number in a session, that they had failed at that session… That even though the intent was there, and the effort was there, but because they didn’t hit a particular number that they had ‘failed’.

So when I delved deeper into these conversations, almost all of them came back to how flexible, adaptable and self aware an athlete was (or in these cases weren’t).

So what does does that all mean, and how can you become more flexible, adaptable and self aware to ultimately become a better athlete?

Well if you look up these words in the dictionary you will find something along these lines…

Adaptable: “able to adjust to new conditions
So being an adaptable person / athlete means “being capable of being adapted. able to adjust oneself readily to different conditions
Flexible: “able to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances. ready and able to change so as to adapt to different circumstances.”
Self Aware:knowing and understanding yourself, surroundings, sensations and thoughts“.

How does that relate to you as an athlete? And how do these traits lead to either your success or your potential demise as an athlete?

Firstly I will put it into context to see if you are LACKING in these traits.

Scenario #1 You review your program at the start of the week, plan your week accordingly, down to the day and time you will complete your session. But something comes up, you are running overtime at work, an unforeseen issue comes up and you can’t get out the door when you had planned. You get a little angry, maybe start to take it out on others, or resent the person or situation that caused your plans to be changed.

Scenario #2 You head out for a key run interval session. You know what paces you can hold for this session as you have done it before. So you head out in good spirits. But right from the first step you feel heavy and lethargic. ‘I’ll get through the warm up and see’ but you still don’t feel it. And then you start to feel a little twinge in the hammy. You know your form is off, you know you are feeling tired, and the hammy isn’t happy, but ‘I have to do this session as planned’. So you push through it, unhappy with how you performed, and finished with a sore hammy as a result. You now feel frustrated and annoyed.

Scenario #3 You plug your bike session into zwift, a key session you really want to nail. Your computer tells you the power number you ‘need’ to hit, but you have had a stressful week at work, sleep has been below par and you are feeling tired. ‘But I’m going to nail this session no matter what’ you tell yourself. But you don’t. Your body wasn’t having any of it, but you keep trying. A zone 3 effort feeling like a Zone 4. You are working way harder for the effort you should be doing but you soldier on regardless… But you finish the session feeling worse than when you started AND you feel like you failed the session because you didn’t hit the numbers you planned.

Scenario #4 You just got the kids down for a nap, everything is set up and you are ready to hit a session on the bike. You are excited! But 20min into the session your youngest wakes up – gah noooo. You get angry at him. Why do you have to wake up now you curse to yourself. You try to ignore the cries, but know you have to get off. So you tend to him, get him back to sleep and jump back on the trainer. Only to have 10min later another interruption. Really?! Not again! arghhhh. You have a 1.5hour session planned and only 30min in and already you have been interrupted twice. You are annoyed and frustrated at your child. You get off and let the session go, but you remain angry for the rest of the day.

Scenario #5 You can’t swim due to pool restrictions (sounds familiar?) 😉 So you first get annoyed, but then you soon forget about swimming and just think you will worry about it when you can swim again. So you don’t plan anything else into your program that can supplement your swimming, you simply stop.

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you? You could replace any session or any scenario, or any disruption in the above and I’m sure you will bound to find one that you can relate to. The key message in these was that the athlete in each scenario didn’t allow flexibility or adaptability into their planning and/or sessions and let this carry through into the remainder of their day (maybe even more than one day!) either in life, in their session or in their program as a whole.

It can be hard I get it. Particularly for athletes that love structure, routine, following a program, not missing a session, ‘doing as the coach told me‘. These type of athletes are fantastic, they will always get the work done. They don’t search for excuses, or the easy way out, they grit their teeth and get the work done. BUT at the same time, this COULD be their undoing.

If things don’t go your way, you need enough self awareness to acknowledge this, but not let it get to you. If you are tired, become adaptable enough to change, if your time availability changes, have enough flexibility to work around it and not let it get to you.
THESE are key qualities that can really help an athlete achieve their full potential. Not just an athlete that can hit every session prescribed or every number planned.

So how can you draw from and develop tools for self awareness and self management from unexpected fatigue or unexpected situations?

Understand what successful training is: Being consistent is first and foremost. So to be consistent is not going too hard on easy sessions / days. It’s not taking on too much in terms of your training load in the context of your life as a whole. Sometimes training needs to take a little backseat and that is OK. We can plan around that. That isn’t failure. That is life! Sessions are designed to challenge you, but they aren’t designed to break you – physically OR mentally. Fatigue is ok. Yes. Some sessions should be really hard. Yes. But you should still feel accomplished overall.

Give a little: Don’t always go chasing a set power, pace or speed in your sessions without having the ability to shift these on a particular given day. If you don’t have that flexibility you WILL see it as a failure, even when it’s not. So don’t lose the ability to be intuitive, to know what it ‘feels’ like. What does zone 3 ‘feel’ like. What does Ironman pace ‘feel’ like. Data, watches and programs tend to take away the feel if you rely too heavily on them – listen and learn from your body. THAT is your greatest measurement.

Use your program as a guide: Your program is a guide. I program with intention, with purpose and with your goals in mind, but it is up to you as the athlete to listen to your body, train with intent, ask questions, adapt and be flexible within the realms of the program.
Not every day will be a great training day. Some days you head out for a hard interval session and your body just does not want to respond. This is the time you need to listen to your body and understand whether it is best to continue with the session, or change it. Athletes who tap into their intuition and understand their bodies will ultimately become better athletes as they manage a more consistent training base. Successful athlete’s don’t just train for the sake of training, every session has a purpose – even when that purpose may change for the greater good of the overall training plan.

Don’t feel like you have to hit EVERY session: I include a mixture of key sessions and supporting sessions into athletes programs so they know which sessions to focus on, and which session support those key sessions. If an athlete can complete them all AWESOME. But if in a given week they can’t, that is ok. Remember, we train and compete in our sport because we enjoy it. Our training shouldn’t control our lives. Our training should mould around and integrate into it, not the other way around. We are aiming for consistency over the long term, not short term.

Have scalability: I used to coach with really detailed metrics in training peaks, but I have now moved the other direction. Providing scalability within sessions based on how an athlete may be feeling. So without guessing, if an athlete had a key session planned, but they ended up running short on time, or they are feeling super fatigued due to late work nights, or a harder than planned session the day before, then they have prescribed scalability within their sessions. So if they can’t obtain X, then then can do Y, or even Z. So regardless if they completed the session as X or Z, they still completed the session with it’s purpose in tact and with adaptability around their life. Hows that hey!
So don’t feel like you have to hang on to a particular number or metric EVERY single session. Give a little when it’s needed.

Have the courage to recover: If you are feeling the accumulation of fatigue. GREAT that is from your hard work. Job well done! So in saying that, without any guilt or hesitation, step back and allow the recovery. Growth comes from when the body is allowed to recover and adapt. So don’t be afraid (or feel guilty) if you are feeling fatigued, to take it easier for a day, or two, or three! Really give your body a chance to absorb the training, trust me, you will come back fresher AND stronger.

Change your mindset: Learning to be adaptable really comes down to your mindset. The simpliest way to build adaptability is to practice in life as well as training. Become self-aware of your thoughts, and shifting them. For example. You miss an exit driving down the freeway and you feel angry at the situation. Instead, how can you look at this an opportunity? Maybe you can learn a new route to where you were getting to….
If you look at your program and you have a 1.5hour long run plan, but work / family only allows for 1 hour today, instead of being annoyed at your work / family situation think of it as you will be fresher for your session tomorrow! Literally anything you do on a daily is an opportunity to practice your adaptability. Give it a go! 🙂

ADAPTABILITY COMBINES FLEXIBILITY WITH VERSATILITY. FLEXIBILITY IS YOUR WILLINGNESS TO ADAPT. IT’S YOUR ATTITUDE. VERSATILITY IS YOUR ABILITY TO ADAPT. IT’S YOUR APTITUDE. ~Dr. Michael O’Connor

So there’s a challenge for you. How can you become more adaptable, flexible and more self aware? When things don’t go your way, what can you do with the new situation? Does it create new possibilities? Can it potentially be an opportunity? Can it actually lead you to be a more sustainable, robust, successful and ultimately happier athlete…. I’ll let you decide. 🙂