The best is yet to come!
In May 2015 I watched Saleta Castro racing the Lanzarote Ironman, not her best result and obviously something was going wrong.
Saleta contacted me through a mutual friend, Gunter from Osteo43.
He told me that this girl had the dedication, the character and the mental and physical power to do everything it takes to reach her goal.
As with all my athletes, I first checked the actual and past condition so I can estimate what the individual potentials are and what we need to improve.
This generally implicates several specific tests as for example repeated lactate tests on specific moments through the first months.
By measuring VO2max, VLA max and psychological reactivity, I am able to make an athlete’s blueprint which provides me all necessary information I need to know to start with.
Sometimes you need to train slow and long to race fast on short distance, but other moments you need to train fast and short to race faster on long distance! As a coach, I need to know what we need to trigger (energy, power, speed, distance, rest,) to get the effect we need at every specific moment. This is a combination of testing, knowledge, experience and psychology.
Step by step we reach our short, middle and long-term goals that we need to achieve. One of the middle term goals is paying off, with Saleta right now, repeating 3:04 marathon in 2 Ironman races with only 1 month of difference in between. We can’t skip one step; if you want to reach your goal you need to be patient and trust in the proved science we work with.
Patience is the mother of science!
Qualifying for Kona as a pro is not an easy task, especially for the PRO women in this sport. Only the top 35 girls are allowed to race the Ironman World Championship in Kona.
Choosing the right races at the right time is a tough task. In sports 1+1 is not always 2 and when you miss some of your goals, coach and athlete will need to do the homework all over again. There’s not a lot of space for qualifying for Hawaii and the later in the season, the more difficult to adapt training.
Now, after little more than 1 year of coaching her, Saleta’s dream came true, she will be racing the Ironman World Championship in Kona this year!!
However, as her coach, I know for sure: “the best is yet to come“!
Luc Van Lierde
professional triathlon coach.
