Warwick Dalziel Interview
Imagine training an athlete for years to race against the worlds best. It’s big time. It is the Rio 2016 Olympic games. How would your head be? Would you heart be in your mouth? Listen to this podcast to find out what is the difference between elite and professional performance.
Warwick Dalziel is an Olympic and High Performance Triathlon Coach with a Bachelor of Science in Human Movement with honours in bio mechanics. He also has a Masters Degree in Sports Coaching.
Highlights
[3:40] How Warwick gets his athletes to relax in the race moment and make event lifelong memories.
[6:00] How sports excellence extends to lifewide excellence.
[7:01] The environment that brings out the best in athletes.
[9:10] The formula for a great event success.
[10:10] The training stages an Olympic athlete goes through.
[11:26] The different race day approach that is 180 degrees away from expected.
[12:28] Different coaching approaches for different athletes
[15.22] How competitive intelligence is important for preparation.
[17:00] How fluid and electrolytes are precision dosed like fuel in a formula 1 car.
[19:35] What studying human movement and biomechanics helped Warwick discover the #1 thing to improve all aspects of Triathlon technique.
[21:25] The correct running posture. Angle of Attack | Forward Lean.
[24:50] How to stay on the leading edge of the sport science / best practises.
[26:00] When is the best time and place to learn about pain & pressure.
[27:00] How to get better focus and accountability.
[28:05] The role of sports psychology.
[29:30] Software that coaches & athletes use to review and analyse their performance.
[30:10] Favourite books:
- Graem Sims, Why Die? The Extraordinary Percy Cerutty ‘Maker of – Champions’, Lothian Books, South Melbourne, 2003.
- The Coach by Ric Charlesworth
- Wayne Bennett – The Man In the Mirror
[32:00] Where to get a hold of Warwick if you want some online coaching or join his squad if you are an aspiring elite triathlete.
You can find Warwick on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Transcript
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Intro: Welcome to the Fitbits.com podcast where we show people who want to be happy and healthy how to get the maximum from their training and nutrition even if they hate to exercise or diet.
Anthony: Imagine training an athlete for years to race against the world’s best. It’s big time. It’s the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, how would your head be? Would your heart be in your mouth? Listen to this podcast and find out what the difference is between amateur and elite professional performance. Warwick Dalziel is an Olympic and high performance triathlon coach with a Bachelor of Science in Human Movement and an Honours in Biomechanics. He also has a master’s degree in sports coaching.
Hi Warwick. Thanks for joining us on the Fitbit.com podcast today.
Warwick: Thank you Anthony. It’s a pleasure being here.
Anthony: I remember we were speaking about, back in September you’d just arrived back in Australia from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to get through the ranks of coaching up to the highest elite level of coaching at the Olympics?
Warwick: Yeah. It’s a long road. It started for me in triathlon coaching way back in 1997. I was coaching back then with a group of kids and loved coaching the sport and being involved in the sport. It was a good way of coaching to work in the morning and afternoon and study during the day. I probably started a little bit different to a lot of other coaches where I was coaching because I was enjoying it and I liked helping people, but it certainly wasn’t a goal to begin coaching and coach at the highest level. It fell into that across the journey.
Anthony: What about in your coaching career? Had there been some major times that could have gone a different way? When you look about over, since 1997, when you started working with kids to then in 2016 coaching Olympians, was there a couple of times that you might have gone and said, “Why am I doing this? What should have I done with it?”
Warwick: Yeah, there’s always times you do that, especially for me. I’ve studied in physiotherapy and the likes so there’s always time to question why you’re coaching and what do you want do it for. There’s always ups and downs in every coaching year. You wouldn’t do it if the ups didn’t outweigh the downs across a period of time. Mate, that certainly has been my experience in coaching. There’s lots of times when there’s been school kids and that that have wanted to make a regional triathlon team or wanting to make junior state team. I’ve seen kids that really have to struggle to make their goals and work hard and do everything right, and then achieve their goals. That’s really satisfying as well and something I’ve really enjoyed across the term of my coaching.
Yeah, look, it is a range of things, and the same thing if you get the average punter that wants to do an Iron Man. They come to you and they have a full-time job and they have a young family, and you’ve got to manage them towards their goals. That is extremely rewarding as well and I’ve done that a number of times and certainly enjoy those different aspects of coaching as well. It hasn’t all just been elites.
Anthony: Yeah, fantastic. I imagine that coaching someone to do an Iron Man would be more pleasurable that actually doing the Iron Man.
Warwick: It definitely becomes a long day watching. Yeah, we’ve been to a few and, look, it becomes a long day, an emotional day, but I’ve always tried in my coaching, if you’re on the run and see your family, stop and give them a hug. Thirty seconds in a 10 or 12-hour race is not super important. Make sure you enjoy and enjoy while you’re out there and saying thanks to the people that support you. That in itself is always fairly rewarding.
Anthony: I imagine that would make it such a lifetime memory. It would be so important to do things like that.
Warwick: Yeah and certainly is to the athletes. There’s people that can afford to do Iron Mans every year, and those that will do it three or four years, and those who will just do it once. Once they’ve ticked that box that’s it. You come across all types.
Anthony: Yeah, interesting. You clearly have a love for the sport and in the development of all levels of athlete. Yeah, an extremely broad range from, what, school kids through to Olympians. Could you share with us the story of an athlete you’ve been coaching through some time and seeing them blossoming into an optimal competitor?
Warwick: Well, there’s always different people that you’ve seen across the journey and people move to different groups at different times. Athletes move through their career were they might go short course, long course, or in a group you mightn’t have the age bracket that’s helpful. You might have all 17, 18 year olds and you’ve got someone that’s 23 that wants to train with you. That becomes a little bit harder. You see that from time to time blossom into optimal, but it really depends what someone’s goals are. The guy that really tried over the last five or six years be in that short course racing, and you often see athletes that might move through that you’ve coached that go into long course events. You follow, but it’s not what you really do every day.
Anthony: Let me expand that a bit. I guess, specifically, if you think about … Is there one person …? You know how there is always someone that’s got that extra spark of competitiveness, they’re just that little bit more edgy than your traditional athlete. Can you think of someone like that? Have you coached someone who is like that?
Warwick: You do and you might see them blossom other fields, be it in their professional life, as they finish a triathlon. You see people blossom into their work positions, or being solicitors or project managers and that and been in this sport for a long time. Those people have grown up and we’ve seen them move from children into adulthood. Seeing them being successful with their lives, even though it’s not triathlon anymore, is extremely gratifying because that hopefully the values that you’ve instilled in these guys have helped then in other walks of life. Yeah, I always take a lot of joy from that as well.
Anthony: Do you think that that’s actually coached into them? Like the values of the triathlon community and the triathlon competition, do you think that gets trained into from the outside, or is it something that is inside these people that comes out?
Warwick: I think sometimes it’s the family environment, how they grown up, how their family life was. It’s the clubs and that that they’ve joined and the people that they’ve met and influenced them. It’s also their sport, that you’d often find that those people in [inaudible 00:07:15] have excelled in multiple sports, be it cross-country or they’re still playing touch football. They’re competitive in whatever they take on. I think triathlon certainly attracts the A type personality that are competitive. There’s so much opportunity to measure yourself in times and wanting to see yourself getting better all the time. I think it certainly attracts that type of person that likes to gauge their improvement and chase improvement.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s an elite athlete or a 60-year-old age group, whereas they’ll often come and ask you first up, “Can you get me through this race?” As soon as you’ve got them through the race the next thing they’ll come and ask you is, “Oh, can I do it faster?” That, it’s the same across the board. No matter who you meet, that’s what someone’s always chasing. It’s a whole of life sport. There’s not an endpoint. You don’t get to a sport where you’re too old. You can progress through the age groups into your 80s if you’re still in the sport. There’s not an endpoint and I think that’s what makes triathlons such a really whole of life engaged sport, is that you don’t finish when you’re 40 or pull out. There’s plenty of opportunities and there’s always another race, and there’s another destination to travel to or there’s a new course. There’s always something that’s exciting about the sport.
Anthony: It’s interesting. I was talking to someone a couple of weeks ago who has done about 70 different races all around the world. It dawned on me that it’s this person’s lifestyle. That’s how they go on holiday. Their holiday is going and doing a marathon or triathlon somewhere in the world, or a tough [mudder 00:08:55] event. That’s how they live.
Warwick: Definitely, and you come across that a lot. I think it’s a good thing and the race organisers have certainly, in my time, very much improved to be inclusive, where there’s junior races, there’s kids events, there’s some fun runs or some open water swims. There’s something for everyone. If you’re not just wanting to do the triathlon, there’s engagement for the whole family. I think that makes it a lot easier to justify the travel and to take your family for events everywhere when there’s something else on offer. I think the sport’s done a really good job of doing that.
Anthony: At the Olympics you were coaching Ron Darmon, who I understand is a future star we all need to watch. Can you tell me a little bit about his coaching programme? How long did you start training together and had there been particular stages in his development?
Warwick: Definitely. Ron and I first started to work together in 2009, into the Gold Coast World Championships, which is back again next year in 2018 on the Gold Coast, so it’s come the full circle. When Ron and I first met we had to work on some techniques and we had to work on getting him injury-free to handle some training load. We just did that slow and steady for a number of years, about making sure he could handle the training load and not break down. Unfortunately, as a young athlete he’d had as few injuries that we needed to make sure weren’t going to reoccur as we did some more training.
For him, slowly we needed to develop a European training base for where we wanted to race and train. We did that over a number of years by shorter trips first, and then building that longer trips, and then building our contacts in Europe to be able to race. Every country has different challenges but the one thing for Ron is he needs to do some army service, which he’s currently doing. That can interrupt his career a little bit. It’s something the Australian athletes don’t need to go through but in many country in the world, Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland, all have army service that their athletes needs to fit into their professional lives.
Anthony: How did you feel in that moment before the gun started for Ron’s race?
Warwick: Well, because it’s the Olympics, it’s an endpoint and the expectation for him is to beat 35. We approached the Olympics as … The way some of their country gets is really crazy. We approached the Olympics as let’s enjoy this. It’s part of getting to [2-20 00:11:45]. We want to learn stuff. We want this to be a positive experience. After the shoulder and everything else we were okay, but we had to really work to achieve this. You want to make sure that you’re enjoying that moment and we approached it that way.
We were both very relaxed. I’d been a little bit sick the two days preceding the race, which wasn’t great. I don’t know, something flying or something … It’s unusual for me but I was a little bit [ill 00:12:19]. Race day, we were just out there to enjoy it and do the best day we can. That’s the way we approached it. Every athlete’s different, but he works much better in a relaxed, let’s go out and do the best job we possibly can and not have all these measures and numbers and everything else going in his mind. We tend to work best that way and he tends to work best that way. That’s the way we approached the games and we were able to control the environment to do that.
I think it comes down to knowing the person and having a long-term relationship with the person. That’s the way we function best and that’s how we were able to create things at the end there.
Anthony: It’s amazing to say, “It’s the Olympics. I’ve done all the hard work. I’m going to enjoy this.” You know when people are in flow and they just achieve things and make it look effortless. That takes a lot of work to get to that point and that’s what you guys do.
Warwick: When you’ve got a long term coaching relationship with someone, you know what buttons work best for them. If someone needs to be relaxed before the race, that’s what you need to do. If someone needs space, you give them space. Yeah, Ronnie still likes space. We didn’t sit together on the bus out to the venue or anything else. He sat and chatted away to Richard Murray because he needs his space. He didn’t need me in his environment, hovering around, but I’m there in the background. If he wanted to talk to me, he would seek me out.
He knows what to do and he was there to execute his plan, which he took great trouble. I didn’t want to be in the way of pressuring him. That takes a lot of control as the coach to come back and go, “Hey, this guy’s all right. You just need to stay out of it,” and that’s the way we approached it. That’s what works for him and that’s the way we did it. Ronnie’s had a long break because we stopped straight after the Olympics. We didn’t keep racing. He was actually in Cape Town this weekend, so interested to see how he goes. Yeah, he’s looking forward to being back racing.
Anthony: Yeah, very cool, excellent. I guess all those different environments have different impacts on athletes. Talking about the Olympics in particular, I know that that Rio 2016 course was … I guess it got a bit of criticism as being a really challenging course. Can you tell is a bit about that course and how did you prepare Ron to deal with that?
Warwick: Yeah, it was certainly a challenging course and we were very glad it didn’t rain near race day because the water quality if it rained was a little bit different to the water quality when it hadn’t rained. They did a fantastic job of clearing all the streets and making the road feel safe. The hill the on the bike … Because unfortunately, we didn’t have the budget to head down beforehand, so we were lucky enough to work with some other coaches that had been down there from test event and get some really good information. [Inaudible 00:15:30] coach who won the Gold Medal, Jamie Turner was able to help Ron and I with some gradients on the hills that we were going to encounter. We trained over those hills specifically for the course.
We’re out and wanted to go up the hills in training far exceeded what we were going to require for race day, and they’re over the same hill. Because it was an unusual hill but it was very short and very, very sharp. Then there was a second hill in the course, but that short sharp hill got sort of the coverage, and the other hill at the back not quite as much. I think in Olympics, it’s a smaller number. Each nation can only have a maximum of three of the first nine nations. At World Championships that number is a lot higher. We have five, six, seven. Often in Olympics the bike speed’s a lot faster because there’s a smaller number of athletes. We spent a lot of time preparing to do that.
There was only one crash on the course, which was really good for us. We were happy to be positioned in the second pack on the way round. Ron did drop his water bottle on about the third climb. In the back end of the run, we cramped with about a K to go. It would have been great to be able to get that full fluid load on, but that wasn’t to be. He exceeded what he thought he was capable on the day. We exceeded the targets of their federation so it was good day all round.
Anthony: It’s a really fine line, isn’t it? If you say you dropped the water bottle. If that’s got your electrolytes and that then has a flow on effect to that cramp in that last kilometre. That’s a really fine line. It’s such a … Yeah I don’t know what say. It’s so marginal, isn’t it?
Warwick: Well, the reason every athlete responds differently and Ron is a very heavy salty sweater, which is what had worked out in some sweat tests early on when we were working things out. Ron often has salt tablets and fluid on the bike because he sweats out so much salt. Yeah, it’s a very fine balance about how to maximise performance. Once you drop the water bottle, it was gone and you can’t change that on the day.
Anthony: Just to get a little geeky for a while, I understand you’ve got degrees in human movements and biomechanics, as well as being a chiropractor. Can you tell us what that’s taught you about techniques for cycling, running, or swimming?
Warwick: Anthony, I have to correct physic, not a chiropractor but-
Anthony: Oh sorry, yeah.
Warwick: No, that’s okay.
Anthony: A big difference, yeah.
Warwick: Yeah, a little bit of a difference, but that’s all right. Look, human movements and in biomechanics side, that was the area I enjoyed in movement, and looking at people’s movement and analysing movement. As a coach, you move to … Well, once you analyse movement you’ve got to know how to change movement. You’ve got to know what you want to change, why you want to change it, and how you’re going to do it. Well, human movements is the background of what are you and why you’re seeing it. The coaching, as you move forward, is how are you going to change it.
For physio, I always had an interest in doing physio, regardless of coaching. It’s a great skill for coaching that you have models of your techniques that go right back to the basic core stability exercises and your basic reflexes. It mean that if then you’re stuck somewhere in some way out place and someone has an issue you can contribute positively to making sure you fix that. I always enjoyed learning. I did a master’s degree in sports coaching in the early days of the sports coaching courses and just looking at coach behaviour and analysing why coaches make decision in coaching process. I’m a fairly analytical personal naturally so those skills come into your coaching and come into your physio.
Anthony: I bet you see a lot of, for us weekend warriors and us punters that like to go out on our bikes and have a ride. Is it common technical or technique mistakes that you see in either running, swimming or cycling that punters make that …? Have you got any tips for us punters that you might be able to help us correct?
Warwick: Definitely. One of the things I always see first off with your age group is that you always want look at is you just want to make sure they can hold a good body posture. Whether they’ve got their core right or whether they need to work on some balance exercises, they need to make sure they can hold their body posture at each discipline. That posture flows into each bit and that can make the biggest change overall in making sure you can hold your postural stability in the swim, bike, or run, because it affects all disciplines.
When I’ve been coaching, most people come to see you because they can’t swim, as an average punter. They come to start with swimming because they often believe they can bike and run. It’s just natural you don’t … A lot of people don’t ever get taught how to run. I do think there’s lots of skill areas for that for the punters to learn in running, and also biking, but especially running. If you can run pain free, injury free, and keep your consistency up with good technique and good recovery methods you’re going to go a lot further across the sport in two to three years time, and then coming in and going to hard at it and having shin splints or tearing a calf muscle and then not being able to run again.
I do think people learning their basic run mechanics is really valuable and important. People don’t often think about it because there’s no danger. They’re not going to drown while they’re running so they don’t usually seek coaching help.
Anthony: Yeah, just on that, just for me the run technique or the posture, how far forward are you leaning? Do you believe you should lean forward or is it upright, or what is the body position?
Warwick: I do believe you need to lean forward from your ankles, not from your hips. You must keep your body in a nice straight line as you lean forward because what that does it’s puts the centre of gravity in front of you and then it helps you keep your full momentum going because you have a centre of gravity in front of you. In different literature it’s called the angle of attack. It can be called the forward lean. It depends on what part of the literature you read, but just getting that angle right I think it really, really important.
Anthony: Yeah, that’s great. Thanks for that tip. What about just thinking about where you are at the elite level, is there anything on the horizon that you can see coming forward that any, whether it be techniques or sports science, is there anything that you can see coming that is going to make a different to athletes or competition?
Warwick: Oh, there’s always new innovations coming in every sport. In competition, in triathlon, there’s actually been announced today there’s a new super league series.
Anthony: Oh, fantastic.
Warwick: It’s a one-off race starting up in Hamilton Island in March. In the USA there’s a new series called Major League Triathlon. This French GP series that all have different races all the time, and the ITU series is having a number of different short sharp sprint races this year and [inaudible 00:22:59]. There’s different innovations happening all the time with racing and I think that’s really good and generates interest and generates people talking about different things. That’s fantastic for the sport.
With regard to the coaching sport science, there’s always innovations coming on, from how people do movement patterns and how do people teach skills, to bike technology, wheel technology. There’s so much stuff that’s always on the move and you certainly can’t dismiss it out of hand and just wait for the science. You want to make sure that you keep working on the cutting edge, but it’s got to have some scientific background in what you’re doing. Certainly, we’ll always keep investigating everything that comes on. Sometimes in a resource limited budget we’ve just got to make sure we just make the right calls and spend the money at the right time.
Anthony: It’s interesting. I’ve heard other coaches talk about this where they almost talk about the sports scientist actually confirms what the elite coaches are experimenting with. Because you guys have got so much experience over so many years that you’re constantly pushing the boundaries forward, trying things to get different results. Sometimes it’s a case of you guys are way out in front of the sport scientist and they’ve got to play catch up. Do you find that’s a bit of the case with you and triathletes?
Warwick: In some areas, yes, in some areas, no. In some areas sports science will be in front. In some areas you’ll be in front of sports science, and I just thing that changes. As coaches, we all have our areas of that we’re better at. We all have our strengths and we all have our areas we need to work in. You might find in an area of strength you’re ahead of where the sports science is and you might find area you’re behind. I think if you’re continually talking to people and learning from people, you’ll keep progressing what you don’t know.
That’s one of the most important things about trying to be an elite coach is you don’t know what you don’t know. If you don’t talk to people and you don’t ask questions, you don’t continually push yourself forward. You might find out how someone is learning altitude differently and you’ve not thought of that way before. Or you might find some run or swim sets that you haven’t thought of before that are really physiologically good that if you don’t talk to people you don’t learn.
Anthony: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I know you’ve got a reputation for helping athletes remain calm under pressure. Triathletes know a lot about pain. Can you tell us about ways that you train athletes to deal with the pain and why is that important to their performance?
Warwick: I think triathlon is a sport that you’re in pain for a long period of time, or multiple periods of time into a race. I think you have to practise it in training. You have to put the athletes under pressure in training. You have to demand in training more than the demands of competition. If you can do that in training then race day becomes a fun day and you’re able to show what you’ve developed in training and use those skills and what you’ve been through in training and do it race day.
In training there might be four people and no crowd and you’re not excited on a bigger stage with a few thousand people watching you or 10,000 people watching you. I don’t know. It’s a lot easier doing it that day than doing in by yourself in the middle of nowhere in some trail somewhere, working hard.
Anthony: What about your actual mental …? I guess this is a personal interest of mine. When you’re training someone for that mental toughness, for that ability to shut out the distractions and for them to focus, as a coach, how do you train someone? What are the specific techniques or drills that you might give to someone to train that focus into them?
Warwick: In this day and age, with so much going on, you’ve got to try and keep it simple. It might be a couple of simple things to work on within race. We’ll cover key messages to work on in the race to make sure you bring that [inaudible 00:27:31]. Over a period of time, with racing week we tend to do a lot more review racing. “In this situation, would you make that same decision? What could you do differently? What could you do better?” Just make sure that they’re simple in the moment, and then afterwards having a thing about it so that there’s not too much analysis right at the time of when they need to perform.
Mostly, athletes, in a period of time, are exposed to our sports psychology in our groups, and probably are lost across the board. There’s always something you can work on, and for different athletes that will be different things. It might be calmness under pressure. It might be dealing with distractions. It might be another competitor that gives him a bit of a vibe look, but there’s always a way to work through it once you’ve [knocked down 00:28:26] what the actual problem is.
Anthony: That’s interesting. It’s almost like a risk manager approach, isn’t it? When this situation arises, what choices have got? What’s the best choice to make and how do you deal with it?
Warwick: Yeah, and the athlete has to be in control of that process because race day you could sit at the side line and shout at them, but when they’re coming past you on the bike at 40 K an hour or sprinting past you on the run, other than two or three words, not much is going to go in and be able to bring about a change in the athlete. It has to be just short and sharp.
Anthony: Do athletes at the elite level, do they keep a journal when they’re reflecting back on things like that? How are they I guess-?
Warwick: Everyone is different. There’s a number of software programme like Training [inaudible 00:29:14] that athletes use to keep track of their data, that’s integrated. Other athletes will keep Excel files. Other athletes will just keep diaries and notes. It just depends on the person. Often I will try and take the positive approach with the athlete. Pick a day they’ve done really well and pick out what they were thinking, what they were feeling, how they were doing on that day and focus on trying to replicate that. Rather than just look at trying to change a negative, just emphasise what you did right on the right day.
For every athlete that might different. Some athletes like talking on the start line and some athletes need to be there super early. Some like being there super late. You’ve just got to let them have their space to operate the best way that they can to race well.
Anthony: Yeah, fantastic. Could you tell us about some of your favourite authors, books, whether they be in sport or not. Why are they important to you? What do you like to read?
Warwick: I read a lot of biographies. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction but I read a lot of biographies. I always like reading about old coaching stories and things that happened in the ‘60s and ‘70s, be it swim, run, coaching. I always like reading some of the old Percy Cerutty books, who was Herb Elliot’s coach. They’re always fairly interesting. I like human ranger things, people that have overcome obstacles. I’ve just finished ready the Jimmy Vines book and I found that really interesting. I always like reading how people have overcome difficulties in their lives to succeed. That’s probably what I read, but it could be sport. It could be a human element but they’re the ones I read.
Then at home there’s plenty of textbooks and plenty of books from university and plenty of books on anatomy and physiology. Sitting there at home and sometimes I just flip back through those to just revise a question I might have going around my head. They always become very useful.
Anthony: If there was one that you could recommend to use punters, what would be that one book?
Warwick: A good question. Probably … There’s a book called Why Die by Graem Sims. It’s a book about Percy Cerutty. That would probably be my favourite book at the moment. Yeah, there’s all different ones over a period of time. The Coach by Ric Charlesworth is another great book. I enjoyed that and a few of Wayne Bennett’s books, like The Man in the Mirror; they’re really good as well.
Anthony: Yeah, I haven’t read that. I’d like to read that. I’ll have to grab that one.
Warwick: Yeah, no problems, feel free.
Anthony: Cool. Lastly, I understand you run a number of different coaching clinics in and around Brisbane. Where can people find out more about you and your coaching if they want to engage with you?
Warwick: I’m slowly putting all that together. I should hopefully have a website done in the next period of time. At this point in time, the best way to contact me is my phone number, 0411615474, and have a chat. I’ve been doing a few one-on-one rebuilds of running techniques and we’ve been running our coaching group. We’re out for about 10 or 11 sessions a week and being doing a bit of physio in between. We’ve set our professional programme for the year so we’ll work out in Brisbane until mid June. We’ll do a few races from Brisbane, around here in New Zealand and [inaudible 00:32:37] and China, and head to Europe mid June. We’ll base in Europe mid June until World Championships in September, and then come back and race in a few races here.
Then the process will start again in mid November. In the middle of the year there’s a few races in North America. We’re still working that out and see how everyone races early in the season and then we’ll go from there. That’s our usual pattern for the year, is be down under for about that nine months and then be in Europe for about three months. It works well. It’s much easier to travel to Asia from here. We just fly out and fly back, the same time zone. It’s not too bad.
Anthony: Do you have a squad and people can actually join your squad or apply to join your squad, and then travel that year and compete those events with you?
Warwick: Yeah, we do. This particular year, it’s [2-17 00:33:36,] it’s early in the cycle, so we collect our opportunity. If anyone wanted to join me, we’re not being exclusive at all at this stage. We’re just seeing people want to like stuff and they want to train full-time. There’s quite a few people coming down over the next month to have a trial in our group to see if they like our group and like the way I coach, and then race an Australian race as well while they’re on this side of the world.
Anthony: Yeah, fantastic. I guess you’ve got your socials too. I know you’re on Insta, on LinkedIn. I don’t know, where else do you hang out online?
Warwick: Just Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter are the main things I use. Yeah, I always try to put a couple of photos we’ve been. It’s always interesting places when we travel. On the Instagram, try and put some photos for you. There’s always some interesting spots you have as a coach and St. Sebastian or something from the [inaudible 00:34:28] is a lovely beach we get to go to every year. I always try and post a few things and that’s one of the joys of coaching internationally.
Anthony: Yeah, stunning. I’ll put those links in the show notes for people to follow you along there.
Warwick: Oh, thank you.
Anthony: Yeah, cool. Well, thanks very much for your time today. Is there anything that you’d like to say to people, leave with people before we sign off?
Warwick: No, just get out there. It doesn’t matter where you start in triathlon. There’s plenty of good beginner programmes that operate around the country and get out there and give it a go. You’ll find that it’s a very inclusive sport and it doesn’t matter if you have to walk the run, or you know you’ve got a mountain bike or whatever else. Just get out and give it a go and see if you like it.
Anthony: Yeah, fantastic. Thanks Warwick. I look forward to talking to you soon.
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