So we come toward the end of another year of coaching – some new clients, some long term and others returning after a gap. All with super, meaningful challenges. How rich and rewarding it has been to be alongside each and every client.
In this post I want to draw out three common themes from the year, told from the experiences of some of those I’ve worked with. On the Stories page you’ll also find a few individual accounts, retold in clients’ own words.
In summary, the themes that come to mind, looking back on the year, are:
recognising that the unexpected is all part of what can happen, no matter how well prepared we are
finding a stilling easiness and an animating energy at the right time
and questioning how we measure success and what really counts.
Expect the Unexpected
So the first theme is about an acceptance of uncertainties in all we do.
Two of the athletes I’ve been working with this past year were both aiming to qualify for a place in the GB triathlon teams next year in their age groups. Early on we mapped out which qualifying events each wanted to aim for – some overlapping, some not. We planned out their separate training to be in peak condition for each key event and identified specific features to prepare for. All with the aim of being as well prepared as they could possibly be for each key event.
Going into the first race for one of the athletes we knew there was an element of uncertainty as his training had been interrupted by illness in the key weeks before. With no time for testing his fitness, neither of us knew for sure if he had fully recovered. He decided to go ahead as he was feeling good and up for the challenge.
To add to the uncertainty, in the days before there was a blistering, early summer heatwave, temperatures way above what we had been used to. Navigating a chaotic swim through jellyfish to emerge in a good position, looking strong on the hilly bike, everything seemed to be going well. Then out on the run the full on sun, no cooling wind or shade caught up with him and painfully showed he wasn’t fully recovered. An alarming collapse at the end added to an experience far from what we had planned and the GB placing just out of reach. Oh.
On the bike… as you’d expect in a triathlon
A few weeks later and now properly recovered, both athletes in great shape set off for the next qualifier, ready to give their all on the swim, bike and run… only the bike leg didn’t happen because of flooding on the course. What we’d carefully planned for as a triathlon became a swim and muddy cross country run.
I shared their cautionary tale with others I was coaching – not to unsettle or take away from how well prepared each athlete was; more to encourage a composed awareness that the unexpected is likely to be part of their experiences and will add to the stories they are about to create.
And as if to rub it in, for one of them in the final race of the season the swim was cancelled because of thick mist – yet he still came home exhilarated by what he had done. In the meantime the other firmly secured his place in next year’s Team GB (without any dramatic finish line collapses) . Great stuff all round.
A Time for Everything
The second theme is to do with a right time for our different endeavours – a time to go for it and a time to hold back.
One of the new clients I’d been working with got in touch around this time last year for support to prepare for her first Ironman triathlon toward the end of the season. From a training point of view everything was going really well, some early low-key events confirming her super progress. But other pressures crowded in and it was getting hard for the impending race not to become yet another source of stress. She decided to defer her place to next year.
With at least some of the pressure off, she went on to do some extraordinary events, each time relaying a sense of joy to me as she recounted her experiences: a 10k road race, an Olympic distance triathlon, doing the swim and run legs at a half ironman relay, a fantastic SwimRun with her husband and finishing her year with a Half Ironman (including overtaking her son on the run!).
What an amazing year! What a heartwarming smile in that last event. And what a powerful lesson in the rightness of stepping back. I feel privileged to have been able to accompany her through it all.
Another athlete had a more laid back approach from the outset. He had completed an Ironman event last year. With a big 0 birthday looming in 2025, what to do this year and the next?
Having done so much last year and work commitments weighing heavily, he had little appetite for yet another big challenge this year. Yet at the same time another Ironman seemed to be calling him and one that is notoriously hard – as if last year’s achievement wasn’t enough. But when to do it?
Over many conversations he eventually settled on this year being, in his words, a “sorbet year”: something light to refresh the appetite for the next hefty course. And why not do the Ironman in this coming year to round off his decade, rather than as something to prove at the start of his next one (as if it were about proving anything to anyone)?
Looking back, I think there’s something quietly powerful about having an unhurried, calm easiness in finding the right time for all we do – however light or hard. It’s too easy to get caught on a treadmill of relentlessly pushing from one challenge to the next. And how much more exciting and rewarding are likely to be those challenges we face with a sense of being in the right place at the right time.
Measuring Success by Surprises
A final reflection and common thread in the experiences of everyone I have coached this last year has to do with how we think of success.
I recently had a great conversation with Cath Bishop, former Olympic rower, diplomat, business consultant and passionate advocate for a healthier, more human way of thinking about success and winning. In her book The Long Win she highlights the damage done by a relentless, narrow focus on performance and end results – and shows a much more rewarding approach, grounded in a clear perspective on meaningful purpose, on a mindset of continuous learning and a depth of connection in our relationships. All themes close to my heart and great prompts to reflect on how this past year has gone for me and those I’ve coached.
A phrase I use a lot is that my aim is “to help people surprise themselves with what they can do.” So not necessarily an array of medal winning performances, qualifying places secured or other high performing targets achieved – though these obviously have a part. Sometimes the seemingly mundane can have a magic of its own.
I think back to a one to one run session early in the year with a woman who wanted help with her running form and speed. She happened to mention in passing that all the photos of her in big run events show her as if shuffling, never both feet off the ground.
After the session I put together a Training Guide, capturing what we’d worked on and included the photo here. She emailed me to say “I have just been jumping around the room, I am so thrilled at that photo you have of me with both feet of the ground - what a surprise! I can't believe we achieved that in one session with one key coaching suggestion. As I said, I have been wanting to achieve that for years, thank you so much!”
Another heart-warming, meaningful surprise I look back on came in work with a young woman who wanted to do her first triathlon by the end of a gap year, before going to university. Pretty much new to both cycling and running, initially she was hesitant about doing any training ride without either her brother or dad - something extra for me to take into account in agreeing the weekly training schedule. At one point she doubted whether she would be able to do the triathlon – a long climb checking out the bike route triggering deeper doubts. She questioned whether to just stick to the swimming that she felt good at.
Talking it through she decided to stick to the original plan, though still a little unsure. Then on one of her training rides – without making any special effort or even being aware of it at the time – she found herself at the top of a long hill and having to wait for her dad. And wait. I had the impression that this moment of surprise had a bigger, revelatory impact than a few weeks later successfully completing the triathlon with a big contented smile.
Cath Bishop’s Long Win makes me think about what else lies beneath the accomplishments that make for rewarding experiences - and to consciously seek out and nurture these in all the work I do: whether with novice triathletes, Ironman men and women or GB Team members; swim sessions with disabled children, one to one improvers or would-be Channel swimmers.
At the same time I hold in mind a client who was aiming for a marathon PB. On the day it just didn’t happen for him, a slow and painful time from around the half way point . Understandably he decided to discontinue with the coaching support. Not everything works out as hoped and even the most revelatory, sensations rich, meaningful journeys are expected to deliver an end result too.
Without in any way playing down the disappointment, I’m brought back to:
recognising the uncertainties, that results can’t be guaranteed and to expect the unexpected
a humbling sense of wonder when people do extraordinary things, alongside a humility to admit we don’t know why they don’t always work out
the depth and meaningfulness of the challenges people take on, measured in seemingly random moments of pure joy
and the immense privilege of being alongside as they go beyond what they believed to be possible.
With enormous thanks to all who have made it such a great year.
