We spoke to club coach Marc Fitzgibbon about why he decided to become a Triathlon Coach
Tell us a little bit about your triathlon background.
By background I've always been a runner. I used to run in school and through my teens, though nothing serious or of any notable standard. I had the usual sedentary phase whilst I went through university and starting work, but after my daughter Ella was born in 2011 I decided to start to get back into running. Like a lot of people involved in triathlon I also had friends who were runners and a couple of them were also regular bike riders. After a fair amount of nagging I picked up a bike through the Bike 2 Work scheme and before I knew it I had two of the three disciplines covered! I suspect lots of athletes will confess to the same feelings as me when they realised that if only they could just manage to get around a bit of swimming then they'd be able to call them a 'triathlete'! So I started to dip my toes back into the pool (no mean feat for a boy who was so scared of the school swimming teacher he pretended to be unable to swim!) and got on with signing up for my first triathlon in 2016. I'm not one to do things slowly so I signed up for the Titan series race in Brecon and followed that up with another half distance event. This year I have competed in the Cotswolds 113 before turning my attention to Ironman in 2018. And despite all the torture I can honestly say that taking that jump from experienced club runner to fully fledged triathlete was the best thing I've ever done!
What made you want to become a Coach?
I've always been very keen to learn and I'm naturally a reader so I'm the type of athlete who reads absolutely anything that might be vaguely relevant to triathlon whenever I can. I'm also what I would describe as a 'thinking athlete' so I'm always wondering how I can use what I've learnt to improve my own performance. Over time that approach has given me lots of knowledge, which combined with a love of talking, has led me to help out a number of fellow athletes on an informal basis - something I really enjoy doing. The opportunity to do this on a more formal basis as part of a club was something I jumped at without even thinking twice!
What are the main benefits to your club having you as a Coach?
Lots of athletes will complete most of their journey solo and aren't able to get anyone else, be that coach or friend or family, to observe what they're doing. They also have to rely on their own acquired knowledge, potentially from many sources to design their training plan and can't get any real feedback, whether that's positive or otherwise! For the athletes at our club, in having a coach they have access to that resource. For the novice athletes that can mean almost being a teacher in the sense that they're likely to be coming from a very limited knowledge base. So we can give them help in all manner of ways from skills sessions, technique advice or nutritional guidance. For the more experienced athletes you're often just that sounding board for when they're unsure of something or offering that little insight they may otherwise have missed. So you become a really useful and flexible resource for athletes to utilise as they, and you, see fit.
What do find most rewarding about being a Coach?
The most rewarding thing is being able to play a part in the joy of success your athletes have. That might be something from completing 4 consecutive lengths of a pool all the way up to someone's 10th Ironman. But watching them succeed really makes me happy and is the best part of being a coach. Secondly, I enjoy the responsibility. Ultimately, as a coach, you're responsible for your athletes being able to train safely, happily and being able to reach their potential. That means an amount of pressure – making the right decisions about training session structure, making sure the advice you give is well supported by evidence etc. You also have to enjoy the challenge. You can't simply adopt a boilerplate approach that works in your own training – you need to be sensitive to how different athletes train best and what works for them. Sometimes that means having to be innovative and imaginative in your solutions and really challenging yourself to come up with the best answer.
How did you find the Level 2 Coaching Course?
I was a direct entry candidate to the Level 2 course so this was my first experience of the courses offered by Welsh Triathlon and it came as a real eye opener! The level of expected knowledge is pretty high, and I found myself genuinely challenged in several areas. But the challenge is great because the amount I learned in two days was immense! Also I was really surprised by how quickly we got into the coaching side of things – within ten minutes of being in the door I was coaching how to make a paper aeroplane without using my hands! The coach development officers are excellent and their depth of knowledge of coaching and triathlon is really clear. They're hard task masters at times but very fair and they were always willing to help whenever any of us needed anything. The other thing I really found beneficial was the networking that the course brought me. I've made some really useful contacts with other coaches from across Wales and England and being able to learn from their experiences was really valuable. In fact, I'm going to visit one of the clubs this week!
Do you think it is important that your NGB (Welsh Triathlon) run courses and give CPD opportunities?
I do. It's really important for coaches to have an NGB that is bought into their development pathway and helps coaches to constantly improve. Anything which can widen the coaches knowledge base, develop their ability to work with athletes and challenge their thinking has to be a positive and as coaches we should be clamouring for those opportunities.
How do you fit family, working, training, managing Club finances and being a club coach into your everyday life?
I won't lie, it's really hard work! My main thought is to really make sure I don't have any ‘dead minutes’ in a day. So I tend to do most of my training early in the morning when I would have otherwise been asleep or straight after work so that I can make the most of time spent commuting and have as little impact on the family as possible. On the other days, when I'm not training I use my train journey to catch up on admin, send emails, do some of the club accounts work. In my lunchtimes I tend to pick up more of that sort of stuff or I'll be working on plans for the club sessions or advice for some of our athletes. Once I'm back from work it's back to being Dad again until the kids are asleep and then after that I'll either relax for an hour before bed or fire up the laptop again. The weekends consist of my own training and coaching at our club sessions in the mornings before doing the usual fun family stuff in the afternoons. It sounds pretty full on, and it is, but it's hugely rewarding. In my mind I get the best of all worlds – developing and working with great athletes, focus on my own training, brilliant personal development whilst still enjoying quality time with my family.
Level 1 and 2 Triathlon Coaching Courses are now available to enrol on.
For more information about becoming a Triathlon Coach contact: amyjenner@welshtriathlon.org
Or for more information and to enrol on an upcoming course click HERE
