"It wouldn't have happened without Tri Training Harder"

When David Sweeney, an amateur age group triathlete got on a flight to Faro, he thought that he was just going out to get a solid training week in, little did he know what would come of his trip out to Portugal and the huge rewards that lay in store by working with the Tri Training Harder Coaching Team to successfully complete his Ironman journey after only 3 months of working with them. Here is his account of the experience he has had this year.

'I owe my Zurich 2014 Ironman finishers medal to the Tri Training Harder Team.'

'When I came on a Portugal training holiday about 3 months before the race I had been training 9 months already for the race. At that time I had a coach and had been following a weekly custom training programme for about 6 months. About 2 days into the training holiday I had a moment where I realised “oh, so this is what PROPER coaching is!” I also realised that with 3 months to go I was nowhere near where I needed to be to finish an Ironman before the cut off time. My coach at that time was training me at one pace: slow. My issue was becoming not whether I could finish an Ironman, but rather if I could finish before the cut off time, so this approach was not optimal. 

On my first ride into the Algarve with the Tri Training Harder team!

During the training holiday the Tri Training Harder team found ways to push me in a fun way far past what I thought I was capable of. I finished the training camp with a new sense of confidence, but also a strong fear and realisation that if I didn’t significantly change my training routine, I would not finish the Ironman within the allowed time. So, I took the major step of sacking my old coach and engaging a Tri Training Harder coach as my new one. He devised a new training plan centered on a strategy designed to get me a finisher’s medal. My training was revamped and I started doing the right things in the right way. More, I felt it was a partnership where I listened to and respected his point of view, and he listened to and respected mine, which unfortunately was not the situation with my previous coach.

I had so much more fun on a training holiday than I was expecting!

The end result was that I finished Zurich Ironman 31 minutes before the cut off time. Without my Tri Training Harder coach there is little doubt in my mind that my result would have been finishing 31 minutes after the cut off time. It was a highly emotional moment for me crossing the finish line and being declared an Ironman. It made all the training worthwhile, and I told my friends and family that it wouldn’t have happened without Tri Training Harder.'

    - David Sweeney, Tri Training Harder training holiday guest 2014.

If you would like to find out more about Tri Training Harder training holidays then please visit the website.