Natalie Van Coevorden- Australian Triathlete

  Arriving back from Noosa, I reset my mind into 27 days of hard work before 70.3 Western Sydney. I sat down with my computer with training peaks infront of me and put in everything I knew I had to do, to be best prepared for race day. Having already been on my TT for the last month, I didn’t have to change my training around too much. I was excited and motivated to dip my toes back into the long distance triathlon scene with it being something that I wish to pursue more regularly in the near future. To break up the month of training, I headed to Hamilton Island for the first time as an ambassador for the triathlon and ocean swim. I decided not to taper as I wanted to go in fatigued under a week of training stress. It was definitely pain in paradise as I never expected the course to be so hilly. It’s such an iconic race with riding on the airport runaway a standout feature. The smaller race atmosphere makes it a great community event and I was happy to take the win...

October is a month I really look forward to with two consecutive weekends of hard racing at home in Australia! I was feeling good leading up to Nepean and Noosa. I had a month of consistent sessions and I could see improvement every week especially in my running speed. This time of year I can train when I want and you certainly appreciate the skill involved in coaching when you are under your own guidance. I put old fashioned pen to paper to detail my training weeks and then set about ticking off each session. The morning of the Nepean was absolutely freezing. I had gloves, tights and headwear on just to keep warm and I was still shaking. It was a wetsuit swim for the first time in the 6 years that I have competed and I was glad of the added protection. The women’s field was pretty small and I lead out with five of us exiting the water together. I was a little disappointed with the swim based on how well I have been swimming but the cold was definitely a factor. In the fi...

In the last week of my overseas trip for 2016, I jumped through six time zones to get back to my final destination - home. There was a lot of travel this year to places I have never trained or raced before but this year was probably the year I enjoyed the most out of the five years I have been away. Being happy training in the environment that you are in, I think reflects on performances mentally and your results at the end of the day. World Championships in Cozumel was a great experience and I am very grateful to be the 42nd woman to represent Australia at a World Championships. Training in Florida was perfect to acclimatise to the weather conditions and to get some final hard sessions in for the year with the Wizards. Cozumel brought a lot of positives to take to the 2017 ITU season and prepare for a big two years leading to the Commonwealth Games. I have become confident in my swim and my ability to have processes in place to get me out near the front. By Cozumel, I lea...

A relatively short stay, leaving Vitoria Gasteiz, I was happy with the hard work that was done over the past two months. This year has given me a great foundation and base to build and maintain upon. I went into every session with a different attitude this year, wanting to leave every session with positives and processes that can build upon for the next session. If your mind wasn’t truly focussed on the session ahead of you, you were going to get left behind. I think this year more than ever, I took benefit of training with some of the best girls in the world and tried to work together with them so that we got the most out of each other. My first race was London Triathlon. I knew having a good swim was going to be key to having a good race here. The funniest part of the race was as soon as we got out of the water we had to strip off our wetsuit and put it in a garbage bag. We then had to run about 400m with it over our shoulder up stairs into the transition area. A classic Nat...

Heading back to Stockholm for the 4 th time, I was motivated to put the preparation we had done behind the scenes into a performance on race day. Training like always has been hard but I have been seeing everyday as a chance to progress. I knew the course and I was excited to see the few technical changes that have been made this year. Having self confidence in the process was going to be vital for me to have a good performance. Before I left Vitoria Gasteiz, I wrote down 5 quotes that meant something to me leading on the theme of confidence. One of them was "one important key to success is self confidence. An important key to self confidence is preparation".       Standing on the pontoon, listening to the heartbeat music play, I looked out and the water looked like a chaos . The under current pushing the water one way and the gusty wind creating massive chop and waves on top. I never really think about my start position. I think about swimming as ...

Over the past two months, three words have been the key to getting me back on track. Getting through an injury is not only physical recovery but mental healing as well. Resilience is something that I see as being really important as bouncing back from some downtime can either be positive or negative. I tried and looked at my injury as a time I got to focus on other elements of triathlon rather than running and gain strength in those areas. I am not going to lie, it’s hard. Being in an elite environment on a day to day basis, you have to put all on focus into yourself and plan how you will build back and learn from your mistakes, rather than worrying about what others are doing around you. A constant reminder for myself was a quote "remind yourself that you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing!". Leaving Australia, I headed straight to Paris and spent a week with my French team in Poissy, just outside of Paris. I had never been there before and I was ex...

      It has taken me a long time to write this. I actually wrote a blog about a month ago then deleted it. I didn’t want questions because I didn’t have the answers. I wanted to focus on what I needed to do to get better without the influences and drama from people around me. No one understands your body and yourself better than you. You have to look at all these challenges that we face as an athlete as an important part of a learning curve to becoming the best in the world. After doing my first half ironman, I jumped straight back into training with my normal group down in Wollongong getting ready for WTS Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi was a race I was looking forward to for a while because I knew if I did the basics right, I would be back up in the game where I should be. I found a new confidence in my training and I really think this helped me focus on what I needed to do this year. I was swimming some of the best times consistently in training and ...

Over December and January I decided to discover the unknown. I have never done a half ironman before but I was excited to give the challenge a go. With the decision to stay home and not go to Falls Creek this year, it gave me something to train for whilst being at home. I gradually started to build up the km’s on the bike to more specific TT efforts and longer tempo runs. Every week was a similar session so I got plenty of consistency to see how I was improving. I also added 3 days a week of gym at NSWIS into my program which has helped me build a lot of strength. Challenge Melbourne came around a lot faster than I ever thought as I felt like yesterday I was counting down the days till I could taper. I was feeling good and had confidence in the training that I had been doing. I took the week leading in quite easy with a small Aquathon race on Australia Day. The thing that hurt me the most was probably the 4am start on race morning. The weather was perfect for us as predicted...