Thoughts from….Nice Ironman Mens 2023 World Championships

Wow – what an incredible weekend! Super memorable.

From the buzz of the pro’s racing, the beauty of the location, the slick organisation but most of all the joy of supporting my first AG athlete at the event as a coach and as a fan. 

For those in the private coaching group, we shared much of the unfolding events live through the weekend, so I thought I’d capture some other reflections now I’m back home.

Let’s start with the event structure:

• IM Hosting/Delivery: This stood out. It was slick. Branding was everywhere. Carpeting, signage, flags etc. all spotless and being used for the first time. It felt really special. Like sitting in a new car vibe. Or unboxing a new phone. What was truly amazing was going to bed Saturday night to wake only a few hours afterwards to see the start-finish area transformed. Including building and branding a whole bridge! It was like snow falling overnight. Suddenly the world was different. Then by 6.30 am the following morning as I went out for a run the teams were already well through the pack-up process. Truly impressive.
• Expo – Also on the topic of organisation but on the flip side. The expo is high quality but small. Some of the key partners are there and it’s great for picking up merch but don’t expect to spend long there. I think there is a bit of a missed opportunity here. Especially with the media and using it as a meet-up. I used it as a venue to meet the Training Peaks rep, Tim and talk through ideas for evolving the product (watch this space). I also met with a coaching contact Diogo who is also a rep for Nirvana. I think others could do more of this and IM could leverage the stage to better effect. 
• Prize giving – Champions Banquet – This was a little strange but so worthwhile. Friends and family tickets were kinda pricey at 65 euros, which was the same for the Welcome banquet. I was 50/50 about going but thought I’d mentally blur the cost into total spend. I also got some advice from a fellow coach that the prize giving can be better for non-athletes than the Welcome. The venue was enormous and there were a lot of extra unfilled places. That diluted the atmosphere a lot. However, the upside was that i) we got ideal seats, ii) there was lots of great food with no queues iii) I got the opportunity to interact with the winner, Sam Laidlow; the broadcaster Bob Babbitt; and Tim Don (ex-pro and commentator). 

Next up, “fan time” and “pop-ups” – 

• Lots of opportunities to meet pro athletes throughout the weekend. 
• Jan Frodeno was swimming at the same time as me early Friday morning and doing some media so I got the chance to say hi and wish him luck. 
• Tim Don was outside the Canyon pop-up. The pop-up was also excellent as it was a display of Jan’s race-winning bikes across his career. 
• “The Triathlon Hour” – hosted x3 Q&A podcast-style interviews. This was a great pre-race atmosphere builder. It was a chance to speak with the host Jack Kelly, CEO of PTO Sam Renouf, CEO IM Andrew Messick, pro athlete and 70.3 World Champion Rico Bogen and pro athlete Max Neuman
• Jan was also doing a sponsored fan meet at the expo where I got a couple of photos.
• “Sam’s bike” – probably the weirdest one was on the day-after morning, I helped someone in our apartment block with their bike as they struggled to reach and push the “door-lock-button”. It turned out to be one of the canyon mechanics and Sam’s bike I was holding! We had a quick chat and I congratulated all of the team. They also took second place with Patrick. 
• Race watching, Pros-
  • Swim – we got free beach access for the swim start and were literally 2m away from the lineup. Great atmosphere. 
  • Bike – we headed off to have our swim and grab some food so watching the pros was via the YouTube streaming.
  • Run – On course supporting was brilliant. Again this is free, lining the run course with great viewing especially as it was a 4-lap course meaning 8x passing. 
  • Finish chute – we managed to get free finish line seats. The atmosphere was fabulous. The MC worked hard, there were sponsor freebies, and pumping music. It was hot but Lydia made a brilliant call to sit on the top seats that gave us some shade. Seeing Sam coming through the finish was amazing. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxGNWXcNyqx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Coaching – It was a real pleasure to be able to present for Dan. Every race holds something personal for us all, however, there is something particularly special about the grand nature of the world championships. 

From a coaching side, Dan had prepared amazingly well since getting his slot at Bolton. However, there were a few juggles. Primarily it was the balance in training whilst still enjoying his other life commitments that had been on hold to train for Bolton. 

Heat training had gone well. 

Course-specific preparation had also been comprehensive. 

A lot of the race was therefore going to come down to the very immediate pre-race items and the execution on the day. 

One thing I was aware of was my presence potentially disrupting race preparation. It’s also a further drain on energy with the small things like meeting up, conversations etc can become a bit much when you sometimes just want a bit of space and quiet time. Dan and I talked this through and we agreed that at any time Dan could pull the “%£$ off” card if anything got a bit claustrophobic. Lydia was superb on this front. We leveraged the podcasts for evening alternatives to give Dan space. Also, the race morning meet-up was easy. 

On course support – again hat’s off to Lydia. She was superb as a support lead. Completely on top of getting us to great locations for T1, keeping updates on the tracker for the bike, working out T2 arrival times and meeting Dan there (her Dad, Jamie and I held the grandstand seats at this point), selecting cheer zone for the run and timing our relocation to the finishing chute to cheer Dan in. 

Plan B’s / Amber risks – Something I’ve shared and discussed with several other coaches in advance and now here are the plan B’s / actions-on. 

• The biggest risks I prepared for pre-race were travel problems or bike issues. This was solvable with the range of bike stores available that I’d researched.
• Sickness / Food issues – Dan had access to his own kitchen set-up and meal planned ahead of time to minimise any risks.
• Swim jostling – We talked through pacing T1. In part, this is to recover from any swim issues. Also, we talked about staying as calm as possible if jostled during the swim. 95% of this time this is unintentional and reacting to this can escalate the situation spike HR and have a race impact making the swim even harder. The wide line start meant a tough course as people then merged for the U-turn buoys. Pre-thinking a course is important to anticipate this. The adrenaline can be roaring through athletes during and post-swim/T1. We watched a lot of minor issues that could have been much worse – everything from getting lost, running into others, dropping bikes, kit, visors, shoes, bottles and dangerous bike mounts. Taking your time in T1 can mean it’s smoother and smoother is generally faster and safer. Keep it simple. 
• https://youtu.be/dcn6ZGgylEw
• Bike – This had 2 highest-risk items. Either from a downhill accident or over-cooking the climbs given the peer calibre and the higher chance of overbiking generally when climbing. Again we talked both of these through ahead of time. Safety on descents was a priority. Dan chose a road bike set-up for this reason rather than a TT cockpit. 64kph+ can be pretty sketchy on TT bars, especially on long downhills. We used technology to recce the course – google earth, gpx files, fullgaz videos and the YouTube course reviews. The overbiking we knew was a high probability. However, given the race objective of having fun we agreed to keep it sane but at the same time not overthink it too much.
• Run – This was where the key mental preparation and heat training came to the fore. The plan was to take the run super steady. All about settling into the first half. It was a tough, tough run. The heat was pretty relentless. 100% admiration for Dan. It was mental resilience all the way. The 4 lap set-up was ideal to cheer him on. Keeping a calm, effective, determined mind is crucial. Staying on top of nutrition and hydration whilst having a rock solid, immoveable self-belief. 
• Finishing – I have to put my hand up here. It was pretty emotional for us all, including myself to hug Dan at the finishing area. He put himself through everything. https://youtube.com/shorts/nTz3sK0hMRI

Other highlights:

Watching Jan on his final race. He’s such a superb ambassador for the sport.

It was brilliant to be able to meet up with Andrea for a great chat on Saturday while our athletes were out on the bikes. Also to see and cheer her Dad in T1. 

I met other athletes, Pete Williams (very briefly) and Alison Williams who is heading to Kona with Lydia. Alison is a PT and nutritionist (again watch this space for future opportunities). 

Nice is a glorious location. I banked a couple of easy dips in the water and a beautiful sunrise run to explore – checking out the billionaire boats. My AirBnB location 50m from the expo was diamond.

I’ve come back with some great memories, met Dan and Lydia in person, have a new merch hoodie (thanks Dan/Lydia) and a huge excitement for everyone’s next races!

Coach Inner Thought: Here’s a bit of the internals as a coach

I was quite uncertain how to respond to any disappointments that may happen. As a coach it’s can be the one that fills you with most doubt. Did I do the best on coaching? Should I mirror the athlete emotion? The desire to fix versus to listen and hold space for the athlete. Minimise downplaying the disappointment but not to let it overwhelm.

Prioritisation of wider coaching goals, like networking, with individual athlete focus. Dan was really good about this but I still had some personal doubts especially tbh about being present or not in T2. Thanks Lydia for helping me rationalise through this internal debate.

Adding value as a coach. Where is the greatest value once you are at a race? Too much input and it’s overwhelming. Too little and it’s too distant. Finding the balance I found hard.

Finding the right balance / reflection for how much of your coaching success is within the athlete success. If the athlete does well or not, how much is attributable to the coaching? Therefore how much of your emotion / ego(?) is linked to the athlete success? I know this is a real debate and challenge amongst many of my coaching colleagues.

Reader Actions: 

1. Feel free to reach out with specifics if anyone wants more info on the performance levels required to get a Q into worlds. Or also to talk through any of the protocols or approaches for preparation for this race.
2. Pre/Post race execution: Have a think back to your last race. What takeaways can you either change, continue or improve upon? It was amazing how well many of the athletes had prepared physically but had huge gaps in their transfer of that potential into execution due to a lack of race-specific skills. These were most evident in transition and the bike course – handling and set-up of gear sizes. What can you do to make the best use of your training time?  Train smart not just sweat.

Finally some thanks to some great coaches that I took pre-race advice and discussion with. Everything from activities like networking, creating space and energy for serendipity and on athlete support at a worlds.

Simon Ward https://www.simonward.co.uk/

Philip Hatzis https://tritrainingharder.com/

Jenny Blake https://itsfreetime.com/ & https://www.pivotmethod.com/

“THANKS!”