What would you consider your main sport and highlights?
My main sport is Ironman triathlon racing. An Ironman includes a 2.4 miles swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile marathon. I love it because it requires 100% commitment in order to do well. In training, you need to balance three sports, family life, work, and also allow sufficient time for recovery.
Think about the the type of mistakes that beginners in your sport would make; for instance by taking short term gains over long term losses. How would this manifest itself?
The most common mistakes are actually exactly about that very thing – short term gains that lead to long term losses. Pacing is the perfect example. If you ride your bike too hard for 112 miles, you’re going to fall apart during the marathon. The correct pace often feels too easy, so beginners push harder than they should on the bike and then end up walking the marathon. On the other hand, if you bike too slow, you won’t be able to make up the lost time on the run. The successful athletes are the ones that ride at an intensity that is as high as possible to sustain without impacting their run performance. The same principle applies to training and preparation. The most important aspect of training is not what you can do once, but what you can do consistently across all 3 sports. For example if you decide to go on a 20 mile training run, but then are so tired for the rest of the week that you can’t do your bike workouts, then it was not a productive training session. You sometimes have to hold back in one area, in order to be successful in another. To do that, you need to prioritize the most important workouts at that specific point in time. So if I need to improve my run performance, I maintain bike and swim fitness and make sure those workouts don’t leave me too tired to run. If I’m short on time, I drop the swim workout in favour of running. It’s a delicate balancing act of time, energy and other priorities that all need to come together to help achieve your goal.
How can you prepare yourself to avoid this type of mistake? What separates an expert from a beginner?
Experience has a lot to do with it. Feeling like you’re going to die for 26.2 miles is not a mistake one likes to repeat soon! Knowing the potential pitfalls in advance is useful, and the best way to avoid making this mistake on race day is to really plan well, and dial in your pacing and nutrition in training. I often do race day simulations, executing my plan exactly to the last detail, in a long 6-7 hour training session. That way you really get a good understanding of how your body reacts to the plan and what you need to fine tune. Racing itself is a great way of validating my plan, and I usually fine tune my plan a bit more after each race.
How could you apply these skills or preparation to business?
In business we are constantly facing seemingly conflicting priorities. Often I see people trying to do everything, and they end up doing nothing well. Or they focus on really executing well in one area but completely neglecting another. Just as is the case with Ironman racing, in business you need to figure out the most important priorities, forget about things that add no value, and with the remaining priorities get the balance right so that you can do the best possible work without impacting another important thing.
How would someone go about getting involved in your sport
Just do it! Many people feel intimidated by the idea of an Ironman, but it’s really achievable for anyone who is willing to commit to doing the work. Most people are able to ride a bike and run, and learning to swim can be great fun (and a very useful skill to have in life!). There are local tri clubs everywhere in the world, and help is at hand from anywhere in the world. In fact with the online tools that exist these days, I am able to coach people without ever physically meeting them!
To find out more about Rob, follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robgray