Coaching 101
Congratulations Nancy - All world athlete of the year
This year Nancy Cullen was able to live out a dream, becoming a World Ironman, age group champion. While we all see Nancy train and respect how hard she works, I thought I would add a few extra insights to the mix.
Before Kona this year Nancy was plagued by an ongoing back complaint. All we could do was create a management strategy and work within the pain barriers; although Nancy’s tolerance for pain would appear to be a lot higher than most. There was a real risk that Nancy would not be able to ride aero for the entire 180km, which would cost her at least 2kmph and who knows what effect it would have on her run.
So we had plenty of fears and self-doubts leading in to race day.
These were also compounded by a heavy workload in addition to her training, which left her feeling pretty tired and in need of a break when she jetted off to Kona. Her training in Kona was quite light, especially compared to others around her, however she accepted that this was the right path to follow, had faith in what we were doing and just focused on relaxing – and sleeping as much as she could !!
While Nancy trains as hard as anyone she has also been smart enough to learn that it is okay to miss the odd session – just adapt and move on. If she doesn’t feel 100% she will modify the session to suit, but generally she will hit every session humanly possible to do. While she still has self-doubts about her ability/training (she always thinks she has never done enough long runs for instance) she still has faith in the plan. The focus is always on good quality, purposeful training, she simply doesn’t have the time for mega miles.
Even after all these years of coaching Nancy I still focus on the race day plan as a priority leading into the race. The 3.8km ocean swim a week out from the race was the perfect chance to test Nigel’s #1 goal for race day, do everything in your power to draft the entire swim. So Nancy made this her goal and nailed it. This gave her a clear focus for race day.
So come race day she felt rested, and ready to go. Her back was going to be an issue but she was ready for it.
The swim execution was perfect; she positioned herself towards the front and then worked super hard to find feet and then cling onto them the entire way.
The bike was tough. While she could only stay aero for short stints her focus was simply on riding to Heart rate and dealing with the environment/situation. Even though she was frustrated with the time (not being aero probably cost her 1kmph) she remained positive.
The run was ugly from the start, having to walk some of the early kilometres, but then she accepted her fate, gritted her teeth and got running. Nancy simply locks in the desired Heart rate ignores the pace and just runs. She also had to ignore her Husband and Andrew Short’s constant updates about where she was placed. She knew where she was at- even if the boys didn’t!!
After clocking a 2.10 first half she had a stern word to herself not to waste all of those long runs in Belair and was determined to make the next 21km better. Which she did, running a 2.03 last half to run down multiple world champion Laura Sophiea over the closing stages.
She pretty much wanted the day to be over from half way through the bike but there was no giving in, whenever she got tired she kept finding a way to move forward- mental games, playing with cadence. Stopping was never an option. Embrace the pain and find a way J
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