Here is the transcript of the motivating interview with Elliott Cole, our budding triathlete training to compete in the 2016 Olympics, sharing his practical fitness tips to help others in maximising triathlon success to be successful in life.
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Kevin: Welcome back to the Maximise Potential podcast, the podcast which enables you to maximise your career, business, and life potential by listening to a range of motivating interviews.
So hello and welcome back to what is episode nine now of the Maximise Potential podcast. And before I get into our interview today which is what Elliot Cole who is our triathlete, who is back in the studio with us today to give us an update from last month also as well as giving us a review of his events over the last month Elliott is also going to give us a very practical fitness tip which he would suggest to everyone to consider. While the nights are lovely and long and while this weather has been very good to us this summer actually in the UK.
Before I get into that, I would like to say thank you very much to everybody for the support of the podcasts since we started, about two months ago! We have seen the audience base grow and grow. on a weekly basis and we have a lot of people connecting to us on Facebook, twitter, and now Linked In. Really I would like to say thank you very much. The response overall has been overwhelming. We were very much hoping that people would see value in the podcasts we are offering and that there would be people out there who are looking for original content to help them maximise their career, life, and business, and the feedback is showing exactly that.
So I just wanted to say thank you very much for your support and we really appreciate it. We have some great guests coming up in the near future.
Back today, and I’m going to put you over to Elliot calls the command he is doing.
Elliott, welcome back to the studio is always to have a little chat with us and give us a monthly update.
Elliot: : good to see you!
Kevin: : well you have had a busy month and some competitions that you’ve been getting stuck into. So give us your review of the month like you normally start up with.
Elliot: It has become a busy month with some intense training outerwear snap bang in the middle of the summer. I have just had the first two Olympic distance races of the year with the Windsor triathlon and the Soma triathlon which I did last weekend.
Kevin: How did that feel to step up? Because you have been doing half distances by now.
Elliot: It was noticeable. You get part way through the bike and you realize how it is kind of scary how quickly your body becomes comfortable with a certain distance. So although my training it has always been [indiscernible] because that is the distance I chose to do, having been nothing but sprint distances for last two or three months it is scary how you get into a routine. So Windsor was interesting. Because it was a race that was really looking forward to doing. Actually I watched it last year before I even started competing. It is in its 20th year and it is so famous. You have athletes all over the world coming to compete. So it was a really really interesting race.
Kevin: How Did You Fare?
Elliot: Not bad at all. I finished the race in two hours and 20 minutes and just to put it into perspective that is about 15 minutes quicker than my Olympic distance when I first started last year.
Kevin: Excellent!
Elliot: Which is a massive step in the right direction. There still a few bits that need some fine tuning. My run pace is really really strong at the moment. So it was a really good race. I think overall, I was eight in my group of about 150. And 30th overall out of about 2000 entrants.
Kevin: That is amazing. I still sit here and think this is your first season of competing with this apart from doing one trial triathlon which is the London triathlon last year. This is still your first season and you just said it was your first Olympic distance or first and second Olympic distances for this season again. Way to finish it up! I know you’re continually harsh on yourself, but even so you must be chuffed with the way things are going.
Elliot: Kathy has been hard this year because out of all the races I haven’t finished in the top 10. I had a few injuries over the last couple of months and some others are completely new to me because again it is my first year so my training levels… I’ve never pushed myself as hard as I have at the moment and these things happen to the best athletes out there. Alastair Brown has been out for a couple of months with a stress fracture in his world champion. So that is kind of to be expected.
Kevin: It must be a fine line at this time because of the various blogs I have been reading quite a bit on Dean Macy, and it seems such a fine line in trying to get your body and the performance and pushing of the top.
Elliot: Yet nothing most of the things with endurance sports be a triathlon or Ultra marathons is that there is constantly a pain barrier. You need to fine tune what becomes pain and what actually becomes your body telling you the need to stop and can’t take a break.
Kevin: Yeah! I read on the blog that you have tweaked back a little bit. I think that’s kind of what we are talking about, where you decided to push on… and then decided that rest was due. Tell us more about what you picked up on what you learned from it.
Elliot: One of the things that I learned through pounding out the bars and the Rhine is that sitting on the bike is really stressful for your back with the aero position that you are in for 50 minutes to an hour. That is really aggressive and it is something that you need a monitor. I had a bit of a twinge in my back during training and I didn’t think anything during it because I wasn’t going to sit on the sofa and put the television on. So I carried on, and in the end it kind of developed into something a little bit more serious. So I had to go and see a chiropractor couple of times and you looked at and it meant that I had to have 7 to 10 days of training.
Kevin: Impact now? Pretty good?
Elliot: Yes, back to full fitness and again it is one of those learning curves from pushing yourself so hard and is going to happen training on a daily basis.
Kevin: What else to say on your Facebook page that you are pimping your bike out? Or something like that?
Elliot: I am! I had it delivered to the flat last week I was like a kid at Christmas. Now that I’m fine-tuning and training in the the the performances there, I’m looking at areas I can shave time off through the bike. So have gone for some really top in its carbon fiber will wheels and carbon fiber aero bars which for people who aren’t or don’t really understand what those are, those are the bars that you put your arms under the handle bars and get your head down into a more aerodynamic position. So have gone for some top and aero bars as well.
Kevin: Good man! What do you think the impact is going to have our time?
Elliot: It varies and it depends on what kind of blocks you run. A set of decent carbon wheels can be from 2 to 4 minutes over a 40km bike.
Kevin: Considering the times that you have told me about how far you’ve been behind the leader, that could be the difference between finishing in the top 10 in finishing first!
Elliot: Yes, absolutely!
Kevin: Of the last month, what would you say some of the lessons that you’ve particularly picked up work?
Elliot: Just to listen to your body. It is always a fine line between pushing yourself too far and not doing enough. I think as an endurance athlete, and everybody out there is probably the same. You are always harder on yourself and thinking that you could’ve given it a little bit more. It is literally listening to your body and understanding a little bit better.
Kevin: Good! Meant to ask you. Work wise. How has it gone? How are you finding the actual work life balance and commitment to work and everything else?
Elliot: Is very good. It is definitely juggling it. But as I have said in previous podcasts it is just about kind of getting the balance right. And making the most of every opportunity. I keep the bag on me at all times. So if I literally have an hour or half an hour a day I can get out of have a run or jump in the pool and have a swim. So it is hard work and it is a lot of hours, but it is about taking a structured approach you can do both.
Kevin: So Now were into July and what you have in place for yourself in terms of goals and events and everything else for the next month or so?
Elliot: It is really an exciting month coming up they are two of the biggest races of the year. The Dextro energy race over at Hyde Park which is the Olympic venue for 2012, and it is a race that launched last year and elites from all over the world came over because it is the first Glance of how the Olympics is going to be in 2012. So it is the same course, the same swim course, bike course, and run course.
Kevin: Of that must be excellent! Because everything that happens in that race you can directly compare it to the Olympics. How superb!
Elliot: I’m looking forward to that and if that wasn’t exciting enough than two weeks later it is the London triathlon which is the biggest triathlon in the world and last year there was about 13,000 entrants. So it is absolutely huge. Even if you are not interested in triathlon is something the going watch just to see the amount of logistics to go into delivering an event of this size. And it takes over the whole of the XL Center over the docklands and it is really a spectacle.
Kevin: And of course that means it is your anniversary!
Elliot: It does indeed. I have been doing it a year.
Kevin: Cannot believe it is your first year anniversary.
Elliot: I might buy myself a cake, after the race of course.
Kevin: Only afterwards [laughing] Oh superb. So were you going to focus? We think the area of improvements could lie?
Elliot: Now that I have been doing in the year I have some clear goals over what I want to achieve over the next month or so. In terms of time I’ll like to do both of the next races in less than two hours and 15 minutes. The kind of approach to that will be some really structured training through focusing on my sessions from bike to run and making sure that the minute I get off the bike I can literally explode out into the run.
Kevin: Yes, you were talking to me about that before we came on and saying that probably an area they haven’t focused on… because you have been focusing on since you were getting the basics like swimming, the bike, the run, you haven’t focused on the transitions which were now all of a sudden it is becoming a bit more important.
Elliot: I am looking for where I can save time all over and it is easy to focus on the three disciplines so you can look at your swim time, bike time and run time and know how you fared in previous races on previous courses in those kind of things. But one of the things that gets neglected quite a lot is the bit in between which is the transition from swim to bike and from bike to run.
And it is a really, really small amount of time in terms of the race itself. It is three or four minutes depending on the course that you’re on. But, it can be something that you get down to a fine art and you are literally in and out and onto the next discipline or it can be something that goes really horribly wrong.
Kevin: [laughing]
Elliot: I’ve seen instances where guys have been out there really top elite guys that have just had nightmares and been stuck in their wetsuits for 2 to 3 minutes and just trying to get out of it. It is one of those things that kind of relates to absolutely everything that people do. You wouldn’t go into a sales pitch and give a sales pitch to a big blue-chip company or client of yours without knowing that you could deliver it. So why would you focus on the three disciplines and then neglect the bit that holds it all together?
Kevin: Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah
Elliot: I have noticed some real improvement in terms of being more organized and knowing where my kits are layout and knowing how it is all going to work.
Kevin: I suppose if you are seeking that level of perfection that you are after to become a true elite triathlete,It is every single part of it is that? It is a bit like what you’re doing now with the carbon fiber bike elements. Finds in absolutely all of it.
Elliot: Now I know that my fitness is there and I’ve done some really good work of the last couple of months of training and now it is about honing in absolutely everything to make sure that I’m getting the maximum amount of myself and the conditions and my kit.
Kevin: That is superb! So now you have had four Olympic distances under your belt and you really have a flavor for how the season is going to go. And you will have the option to try out all of the stuff on your bike and a really fine tune some of that stuff.
Elliot: Yep! Looking forward to and albeit would tell you that I did it under two hours and 15 and tell you that I hit my goal’s exhibition point
Kevin: That is what I want to hear exhibition point so, to finish up as well as two, what is your tip this month?
Elliot: A fingertip of this month is to do with the weather. This has been shopping since the beginning of April and we have been very lucky we only had a couple of rainy days. One thing I really noticed in training outdoors and being out there is since the London triathlon has come and gone there are so few people out there running, training, jogging, cycling, and I have noticed a real decrease in the amount of people out there. So I think my tip for this month would be just to get outside excavation point it can be anything from changing your routine to walking or cycling to work or walking to the shops, and literally just doing 20 to 20 minutes to half an hour a day out about. Just come and enjoy the summer before it is gone. Because we are brilliant at blinking in the summer is gone. And we have really had about four or five months of really nice weather. So get outside and just enjoy the weather. Like I said, it doesn’t have to be a religious exercise or out of six o’clock every night under the go for a 20 minute jog, it could literally be something as simple as walking to the shops and back.
Kevin: I was going to ask you what is the recommended amount… how intense it doesn’t have to be? How easy can it be?
Elliot: The recommended amount I’m pretty sure is about 20 minutes a day. It doesn’t have to be a religious jog, but it has to be something against her heart rate up and gets the blood flowing a little bit quicker.
Kevin: So brisk walk?
Elliot: Literally.. or a slightly longer walk if you are used to walking about 20 minutes to half an hour, the slightly longer but keep the pace the same. But it just has to be something that gets the blood flowing a little bit quicker.
Kevin: I know what you mean about, because the weather is great. Well it is light until about 930, but all of a sudden it will be gone and we have missed it. It will be an awful shame if we’ve missed that. So that is a very good point. Is there anything else that you want to add, or is it time to say goodbye and let you go back into more of that crazy traffic…?
Elliot: I’ve actually got my running gear in the car, so I’m going to nip out of here and get out on the pavement.
Kevin: Well thanks very much, and well done on those Olympic distances. I really can’t wait for the two big London events for you to give us feedback on that. That sounds really really exciting!
Elliot: Brilliant.
Kevin: Okay, Elliot, thanks again. Take care!
Elliot: Thanks!
Kevin: So there we go… another great interview with Elliot Cole and I’m sure that you as much as myself are Wishing him all the best for those events that are taking place in the next couple of weeks. I’m really hoping he’s going to achieve those goals you set for himself and because personal best. Before I finish off today, I would like to say that since last time we have launched an episode, we have now developed a group on Linked In called “Maximise Potential” so anyone who is on there just search the groups and you will be able to find us on there. You will be able to join and anticipate a lot more discussions and gain access to a lot of additional resources you can maximise your career, business, and life potential.
Also, a big favor I would like to ask everybody if you are enjoying the podcast and are a subscriber of us from iTunes it would be a big help to us if you would go to iTunes and rate and review the podcast. If you do have a moment, it would be very much appreciated. Before I sign off, I’m going to leave you with another track from our friend Xerxes called “Bent out of shape” from his volume one album. Thanks again!
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Thanks for viewing the transcript of this motivating interview. The latest podcast uploaded to Maximise Potential (Max#10) we interview more inspiring people. Pen Hadow, Record Breaking Polar Explorer dicusses how he learnt to train himself to deal with failure on his challenging journey trekking Solo to the North Pole and turning it to his advantage.