Coaching Teenagers with Fi Carter

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Tribathlon podcast finding out how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

If they're competing against themselves, then they're the person that they can control because they can't control the behavior of the other people.

That was Fiona Carter and this episode is Coaching Teenagers. I first met Fee Carter whilst cycling the Rutland Sickle, a hundred plus mile sportive around Rutland. And as a friend of a friend, we ended up cycling in a group together for the day. Now Fi is a mum, but she's also a passionate sports woman and she's an age group duathlete, having won bronze medal in both the European and the World Duathlon championships. But when Fi isn't training herself, she coaches and supports teenagers through a charity that she's a part of which is called Cass and Friends. And it's there to help these teenagers really make the most of their potential. And we all know that coaching teenagers brings a whole new set of challenges. You know, I'm a dad of a teenager and a wannabe teenager and so I really wanted to explore how she coaches young athletes in a range of different sports because this isn't just running and cycling and swimming, this is host of different sports and what strategies we can use to help them achieve their greatest success. Because I know that, you know, as a dad, they don't always want to listen to me. So getting a coach involved can be incredibly powerful for them. But there's also plenty of psychological principles that we talk about in this interview around mindset and around strategies and, and around sports psychology that are really powerful in terms of helping them make the right decisions and be happy in their sport and do the best they possibly can be. So if you're going to be coaching teenagers or you've got teenagers or really anybody that's young, then this is a great interview to listen to to understand how you can help them make the most of their sp. This podcast is brought to you by Brits Superfood. Now, I've been a big advocate of wheatgrass for many years, but I only in the last year or so switched to having fresh wheatgrass that's then frozen as opposed to the powdered stuff. And I found that to improve my health even more. Now I've been a big advocate of wheatgrass because I know it's kept me fit and healthy. Because when I've had spells where I've stopped taking it, I've started picking up the bugs and colds and things like that again, which I never seem to get when I'm taking wheatgrass. I know it Improves my immune system, my health, but also it gives me more energy and faster recovery. So loads of health benefits of taking wheatgrass, but Brits is field grown, organic, freshly frozen and they also do a load of amazing juices as well. So, so that you can combine the two like the beetroot ones so you can have your nitrates before or after an event. You can find out more@britsuperfoods.co.uk but at the end of this podcast I'm going to give you a discount code or a referral code that will give you loads of benefits. So a discount, some free products, some free shipping, but they also have, which is worth just mentioning here, 110% 30 day money back guarantee. So if you're not feeling better having taken this for 30 days, they'll give you your money back and an extra 10% which is absolutely bonkers. But that's how confident they are on the health benefits that you will see as a result of taking wheatgrass just for 30 days. So anyway, hang on to the end of this podcast and I'll give you a great discount code. This podcast is also brought to you by the Tribathlon app. Now have you ever been away and thought wouldn't it be cool to have somebody local that could show me the best cycling route, the best trail run, take me on the best wild swimming and also show me where to stop for coffee afterwards or during it? Because when you've got the local knowledge, you can actually find the best route, have the best experience and just enjoy the new surroundings better. So tribeathlon helps you find people to train with, whether that's your permanent training tribe or whether it's just a temporary group of people that because you're visiting a new part of the world. So if you go to tribathlon.com download the app and you can help your build your tribe of training buddies and also to find your next event. So go to tribathlon.com download the app and build your tribe. So fee. Welcome to the Tri Bathlon podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I know we've chatted loads over email since meeting on a on a sportive in Rutland probably a couple of years ago. So I know we're gonna have loads to chat about, but thanks very much for joining me on the podcast. Do you want to kick things off and tell people about a bit about you tell them a bit about your running and about how you've got to where you are now and the sort of things that you've been up to.

Yes. Yeah. Well, first of all, Charlie, thank you very much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. So, yeah, I guess I was fairly sporty at school. I ran school for the county. I think I was kind of more excited about getting the county best though. And I think I only did it once, once I got the tracksuit, I think it was quite hard work. It was cross country running so I think that was. That was it. Did that once, ticked that box and then. And then moved on from there. But I also did tetrathlon because I was riding a horse. So I was shooting, swimming, riding and running with the tetrathlon. So that was quite good. Really enjoyed the four disciplines of that. Learning how to shoot a pistol and learning how to swim, which is my downfall probably. So swimming is definitely not one of my key strengths. And yeah, so I did that while I was at school and a teenager went off to for my sixth form. Funnily enough I went to an all boys school. Haven't been to a girl's convent school. So I was quite sporty at a girls convent school with lots of girls wanting to play sports. But moving to the boys school there was only 22 girls who joined in that first year so there weren't enough of us to play sport so we never actually formed any teams. So bizarrely I had two years off sports. Didn't do anything, just did the work and then went off to university again. Didn't really do an awful lot. Went to Bath University which now has amazing facilities for sports people, as you probably know, but sadly again didn't make the most of that but came out of that, had my children and then I got into, into running again and I was just at the local gym when my, I think my little boy was at nursery or something. I was doing that, squeezing a couple of hours into while they're at nursery so you can do something for yourself when you've just had a new baby. And somebody came up to me on the treadmill and said, oh, you ought to do a race. So I did. I did a 10k race and really enjoyed it and then I did another couple of races. My husband then did a big bike ride across the pit, across the Pyrenees and the Alps and I thought that would be a fun thing to do and you got invited to do it again. So I thought well, if you feel going to do it again, I'd like to join you. So then I got a bike, got my first road bike. I had done mountain biking as A teenager. So I was kind of fairly sort of proficient on the technical skills, but had never actually ridden them out a drop handlebar bike and never used the clip in shoes. So we bought a bike, we then went off and did Delalio Cycle Slam, which was cycling from Paris to London. So that was kind of my introduction to cycling. And then somebody else said, oh, you ought to do a duathlon. So then I did a duathlon. And then another friend of mine said, you ought to try and qualify for Team gb. So then I went off to Rutland Water to do a race. Sorry, not Rutland Water, it was Graffam Water. To do a race in East Anglia for a qualifying race for the duathlon, which was a qualifying race for the European Championships. And I went there with a friend of mine. So she and I poodled off in the car with my bags packed. Really didn't know what I was doing. Went off on this bike course or first of all did the run, then went on the bike course. Thought I was going to die that day because it was so windy. People were falling off their bicycles. They had these like proper bikes with a full on wheels at the back and people were literally on the side of the road. So I got my head down, said to myself, relax, stay safe and enjoy it. Have fun. And so I kind of learned my first bit of sports psychology just by sort of having to survive because I just had to talk to myself, the whole thing. So my little cues and mantras were coming in. Yeah. And then I won that for my age group. So because I won it for the age group, it meant that I was able to qualify for the European Championships. Then I went off to Spain to do those. And then the next year I fancied qualifying for the longer distance, so I had to qualify for the Zoffingen World Championships and I had to qualify for that by doing a long distance duathlon. And I did a couple of crazy ones. I did one in Snowdonia where you ran around the lake and then you bicycled. I did about 70, 80 miles. Then you ran up Snowdon for the last part of the duathlon. So that was my qualifying race, I think. And then I went off to Zoffingen and raced in Zoffingen, which was amazing. Just a really fabulous experience with great people, really fabulous team. An amazing race. Quite an iconic race, I think a little bit like Kona, but yeah, that was brilliant. So I think that's a bit of a potted history of what I've done.

Fantastic. Well, I suppose let's start with the whole, you know, representing Team GB as an age grouper, how was it, how easy was it to. Not from a getting fast point of view, but how easy was it to go through the qualification process for those people that don't understand that? And then what was it like representing Team gb?

Well, I think the qualification process is quite straightforward. You just go onto the British Triathlon website and find the qualifying events for the race that you want to qualify for. You have to register your intent to qualify before you qualify. So you have to pay £10, I think, to register your intent to qualify. Then you race the race and if you come in the top four in your age group, you then qualify for that qualifying race.

And then what was it like to actually succeed in qualifying and going out and putting a Team GB suit on?

No, it's really great experience, to be fair. You kind of join a Facebook group and you kind of get to know people before you go out, and that's brilliant. And then you get to buy your kit and you see it online and then you choose your kit that you want, different types of tri suits or whatever. So that's exciting, getting the kit. And then you go out, you find somehow to get your bike out there, a lot of people put them in bike boxes or there's a company called Nirvana that would take your stuff for you. So you take your bike to a drop off place and then it would all arrive in the location for you, which is a really nice way to do it. There's often a pasta party or a party the night before the race you're doing and there's like a little presentation session where you kind of everybody comes together and they give you a flag for your country and you walk behind your flag. So it's a really special thing. And often there's professional races or elite races the days before, so you can watch the elites do their races as well, which is. Which is always brilliant to see.

Fantastic. And how did you get on in the race?

I came third in Spain and I came third in Zoffingen.

Amazing. So bronze medals in both.

Yeah.

That must have been really special, wasn't it?

It is really special because I guess, you know, anything would have been great. But I think if you get the opportunity to be on the podium, that's even more special because again, there's a really lovely ceremony for the medals and there's lots of music, all that sort of European music that I really like because it kind of gets you all fired up. And so, yeah, you go and get your medal and everybody else is there from the different countries and, and it's just a really nice atmosphere.

And being duathlon, is it the cycling that is, do you think your strongest piece because I know you came to cycling later or is it running because you've been running for much longer?

I would say probably my running is definitely my strongest piece. So in the Zoffingen duathlon, when I did the long distance one in Zoffingen, it's quite a hilly course and I came, when I came off the bike, I was in fifth place and I managed to overtake a couple of girls on the run of the second run and the second one was about 18 miles and it was pretty hilly. So yeah, that's definitely my strength.

And what's the first, what's the distance of the first run then?

In Zofingen it was a 10k run, 150k bike and then a 30k run afterwards.

Okay, okay, fantastic. And do you think you'll do the whole team GB thing again?

Yeah, I think I will. I'd love to do it again because it is really special, but I'm just waiting for my kids to leave home. I mean I shouldn't say that like I'm just waiting to do it, but you know, it's just really nice having them at home at the moment. In about four years time they may be off our hands so we might have a little bit more time to travel and do that sort of stuff again.

So that leads me onto a question then. How, how have you found balancing training to get to the level of both cycling and running that you've got to whilst also spending sufficient time with the family?

Yeah, well, I was listening to your podcast with Brian this morning and he tells you that he gets up at five o' clock in the morning to do his training. And I did as well when I was training for that very first bicycle event when we cycled from London to Paris or Paris to London, I got up at 5:30, did it before the kids got out of bed. My husband was working in London so I needed to do it while they were asleep and before, before they got up out of bed because then once they were up it was kind of a full on day with two toddlers. So yeah, I used to get up very early. Now I don't work, I do a little bit of charity work but I don't work full time. So I have a lot more time to train now so it's a lot easier. And the kids are older so they don't, they can be left in the house and I can go for nice bike rides with my husband or with friends.

Fantastic. There's a brilliant book called the 5am Club. I don't know if you've ever read it, but I read that while I was training for my ironman and I was already getting up fairly early. But there's something I haven't quite realized until I read that book, how magical those first few hours are. Those first couple of hours are in the day. And how if you. If you get up before anybody else, you can achieve so much more, whether it's sport or business or whatever it is. It's incredible how. How powerful getting up early seems to be. And it's such a simple thing, isn't it? But I suppose worked out after, over time, is that you basically end up losing an hour in the evening of which you might have been watching an extra episode of a TV series or something like something that didn't gain you anything. But what you gain is so amazing. It's, you know, one of the best principles I've ever picked up on. Anyway.

Yes.

So you mentioned your charitable work. Tell us about your charitable work.

Well, about. Well, in 2014, my kids were having some swim coach lessons from a really brilliant guy called Richard Goode, who, funny enough, was also an amazing triathlete himself. And he introduced us to a girl he was training called Kasserina, and she was 14 at the time and she was just a brilliant triathlete and she was training with the West Midlands Academy, but her parents didn't have a huge amount of money to fund what she needed to do. So all the travel, the new bikes, because she was growing all the kit that you need for triathlon. So we started a small fund for her and we called it Cass and Friends because we knew we wanted to support more than one person. So in 2015, we had a few more people and in 2017 we became a charity. So we support local kids. There's just a huge. Well, I wouldn't say a huge amount, but there's some really, really talented local people, local children, sports children around our area. And it just seems a real shame that they can't fulfill their potential because they're thwarted by financial pressures. And so we wanted to set up this charity so we could support. We could support them with some funding for their equipment and for their kit and for their travel and for them to see the benefit, because I truly believe there's so much benefit in sport that will then take them through to later in life. And I wanted to hopefully help them achieve that and not to be, to not able to be able to fulfil their potential because of being financially disadvantaged.

I think that this is absolutely brilliant. And I was listening to a podcast fairly recently by Sir Chris Hoy. In fact, actually I think it was you that shared it on social media. And I listened to. Yes, I'm sure that was. So thank you for that. But he talked about how he was, he was struggling for funding when he was. When he was actually on BMX cycling, wasn't he? And he ended up literally writing hundreds of letters to local businessmen. And I think, I think it was the guy who. Was it Wicks or was it Wicks or Screwfix or something like that?

Or something like that. Something like that or whoever it is.

He'S going to hate us for not.

Related to cycling anyway. Yeah.

But he basically ended up sponsoring him and had he not done so, maybe Sir Chris Hoy wouldn't have had the success he had. So that's absolutely fantastic. Is it just for triathlon? Is it for any sport? Tell me a bit more about what that looks like.

Yeah, it's for any sport. Well, yes, it's for any sport, bar equestrian and sailing. And we've said that because I kind of think, I think we're presuming that people who've maybe got horses or boats, yachts are maybe financially don't necessarily need the funding. Now having said that, if somebody did come to us and they had a horse on loan and they really needed the funding because it is extremely expensive, then we would look into that. But at the moment it's kind of Olympic sport particularly so. We have a boxer. We have a young girl who's 14 and she's a boxer. She's brilliant. And she got a national bronze medal in boxing last year. We've got a darts player who's been to the World championships. We've got a fisherman who's got a silver medal from World Championships. We have a couple of runners, two amazing runners. Well, we have three of them. We have four runners but we have two sort of what I'd say long distance cross country runners. One of them, well, they've both in lockdown, done 1500 meter time trials in 4:36 and they're 15 and 16. So I think that is pretty impressive. The 16 year old did a 5k time trial a week ago and she did that in 1711. So again, just like phenomenal runners. And then we've got some sprinters, we've got a couple of sprinters. We've got a cyclocross guy. We've got a road cyclist who's just gone into the army. She's 16, just gone into the army. A trampolinist and two triathletes. So all sorts of sports. We've got a fencer and we've also got an archer.

Wow. So you've got a proper. That's a proper spread of different athletes, isn't it? And is it purely financial help or do you give them other help as well?

Initially it was just financial help and our charitable objectives are to give them financial help for equipment and for coaching. But we kind of realized that actually for the children, I think what they get, we'd send them good luck cards or well done cards if they were going to race or compete. And the parents feedback was that actually they really enjoyed that kind of something a little bit extra than just the financial support and somebody else being involved with their progress and, and sort of being interested in how they're doing outside of their families and not their parents and not their coach. So together with my son's hockey coach, actually we put together an eight week sporting success mindset program. So we're just rolling that out and we're coaching a number of the athletes over that. So it's an eight week sort of how can they set some really good goals? How can they think about their mindset, how can they look at sleep and nutrition, all these sorts of strategies that you and I would probably do in order to perform and race better and just giving them a little bit of help in that area as well.

Because I think this is brilliant, isn't it? Because this is the sort of stuff that we learn as adults long beyond, long after our school years. You know, the idea of setting goals and kind of a more scientific approach to nutrition was something that only came to me long after, after my school years. But introducing this at such an early stage is. I'm actually coming back to that Chris Hoy podcast. He talks about the power of him setting those, those first. Those first couple of goals and set, saying that he wanted to be a. You know, I think it was originally it was just to get to the Olympics, wasn't it? It was to get into Team gb, but incredibly powerful. So how, how do you, how do you, have you any particular approaches to getting these youngsters setting goals? Are there any particular tricks to get them to do it? And also any approaches to make it work better?

Well, we use the theory of the chimp paradox. STEVE Peters CHIMP paradox theory So I think that is just a really nice way to underpin the whole of the eight week program. So that, because I think the children really understand how their bodies work, they know how their muscles work and they understand a little bit about their heart and their lung capacity, but they don't really probably understand how their brain works. So we try to use that model because I think it is quite a nice simple model for people. And because they're 12 to 18, the children we support, if they're sort of a little bit younger and probably the 14, 15 year olds are at the earliest we would do this sporting success program with. But they can really understand that model and we can use that in every aspect of the program, whether it be to do with sleep or nutrition. We could say, you know, it might be your chimp saying, let's get on Instagram and let's look at a few more posts and let's stay up too long or let's stay in bed, let's hit the snooze button. Same with the nutrition and food. They might want to eat the wrong thing. But if you say to them, you know, rationally use human side of the brain, not the chimpanzee talking and jumping into quickly, you can rationalize with it and understand why it would be more sensible to have something a little bit healthier rather than, you know, eating the biscuits or whatever it might be.

Fantastic. And how do they, how do they access that, that program? Is it a series of videos? Is it something you do on a one to one basis? What does that look like?

We do it initially we were doing it face to face, but because obviously we can't do it face to face anymore, we do it over zoom. We do it over zoom so that the parents, they can record it on their side and their parents can see what we're doing with their children if they would like to be involved. And so yes, it's basically an eight week thing. The first week is an introductory chat. I already know a lot about their background anyway, having sort of supported them, but it's just kind of like a recheck on their, their sporting background. And then the next week is all about the setting goals and the chimp paradox. So that's what we do. And I send them a little chimp in the post so they have a little keyring chimp and they can have that to remind them. I also send them other little bits and pieces in the post that are little tools that we can work with during the course of the whole series. So if we're doing an Exercise about confidence. Say I send them a little tin and they can put like a list of all their fantastic achievements from their training sessions or their competitions, or things that their coach might have said to them so that the night before race they'll be able to look at their confidence booster tin, open it up and see what they've written down on that. Just to remind them that all of the things they've gone through in their training, they've got to trust that process. And once they get to race day or competition day, they know they can relax and focus on the actual event. So, yes, it's eight weeks, it's over zoom rather than face to face. And there's lots of little tools and strategies and worksheets that we do with them. So we do a sort of conversation and then they have action points afterwards, so they go away and do their actions. Another example might be we might do a session on self talk and positive self talk or unhelpful self talk. And then I'll ask them to do a diary about their thoughts in each day of the week. And at the end of the day, maybe just journal or diarize what they've been thinking, if any negative thoughts or unhelpful thoughts came up, how they were able to reframe those and how it made them feel. If they were able to reframe them and come at something a little bit more positive.

These are incredibly valuable life lessons that they're getting as part of this program that I suspect that they're not. Maybe schools are introducing more of this stuff now than they were when I was at school, but I suspect they're probably not. And I think that there's a lot of the stuff that you've just said about, I think is incredibly powerful that. Do you find it's having a significant impact on these, on these children?

We have had some super feedback, but it's interesting because the feedback is coming directly from the children. So I wonder whether they would feel confident enough to say, actually, Fiona, that was really not very helpful at all. But at the moment I'm coaching a triathlete who's 18, 19, and I'm pretty sure that he would be really honest with the feedback. And he's said so far it has been really helpful. And in fact, a number of the athletes that I've coached, even though the course is eight weeks, three or four of them have said, can they continue because they've enjoyed the sessions and want to keep going. So I suppose that's good feedback in itself. They don't want to just stop at eight weeks, they want to keep going.

And actually, realistically, we're not going to find out the Ben. I mean, the sort of things that you're instilling them now. I mean, if we looked back at Sir Chris Hoy and said, well, how, you know, if we'd asked him two or three weeks after he had that session with his coach that made him write down a goal, how important was that? Well, it was probably quite a nice afternoon for him, wasn't it? But the impact 20 years later was quite incredible. So that. I mean, that's brilliant. How do people get involved and get assistance from this charity if they're. Because it's restricted to the area around the Cotswolds, is that right?

It is. It's called Cass and Friends because the first girl was Katarina, who we set it up for. And then now, as we became a charity, it's called Castle Friends, Cotswold Athlete Support Scheme. So, yes, it's just children who live in Gloucestershire or Worcestershire that we can see support. And they apply. They apply. If they've heard about us, maybe through Instagram, they would apply, they'd send in an application form and then me and the other two trustees would look at the applications that we receive and make a decision as to whether we confirm them or not.

Brilliant. Well, it sounds fantastic. And you've got quite an interesting patron involved as well, haven't you?

We have. Eddie the Eagle is an amazing guy. He is our patron and he's just wonderful. So he epitomizes everything that the charity is about because he literally just worked so hard to achieve his dream of going to the Olympics. And you've probably seen the film, which is brilliant. And he just did whatever he possibly could and truly did, eat out of bins to stay out in Germany or Switzerland or wherever he was, Helsinki, wherever he was training in order to stay for another few days, to race a bit, to jump a bit longer. And so, yes, he's a great patron. He comes to a number of our events and is great with the kids and talking to the kids and hopefully inspiring them too.

Okay, so if you could give some advice to parents who are mentoring teenagers, what do you think it would be?

Well, I would always encourage parents to tell their teenage athlete before a race, a match or a tournament that you're proud of them, no matter what makes them special in your eyes. So it's nothing to do with their performance, they're just special in your eyes because of who they are, because they're Your daughter, they're your teenage athlete. I encourage parents to think about how they praise their children. If they tend to watch and play a match and afterwards they're giving them some feedback, they tell them that they're the best on the team, that they're a natural, that they're born to play. That's probably not the best approach because it's a very ego centered approach to giving feedback. So ideally what I'd encourage parents to do is to focus on the skills that they're trying to do within the match or the game or their sport so that they can then learn from that and they can grow and develop using the feedback they've been given. So for example, with a hockey player, you might say fantastic effort, passing the ball and looking for space. You really did that well in game today. So focusing on mastery of skills, I think when they praise their teenage athletes.

As opposed to saying, you're a good hockey player.

Yes. Just because that's too, just too much, just single dimension and it's just going for their ego. You're a brilliant hockey player, you're the best on the team. It's not really giving them any developmental feedback.

And this comes back to this fixed versus growth mindset, doesn't it?

Yes, I think it does. It's exactly that. So you're encouraging them always to learn and develop from what they're learning and the skills they're trying to apply and from.

And is that to do with kind of what you don't want them to do is to think that they're a good hockey player because then they've almost got to defend that reputation as opposed to, as opposed to being. That was a good pass. Then they can think. Right, okay, now I can continue to improve on that.

Is that I think it does. And you know, I always encourage the CAS athletes that I'm working with to play against themselves and compete against themselves. Don't compete against the other people on their team, perhaps. Or don't, if they're running races, don't compete, compete against the other people in the, in the race. If they're competing against themselves, then they're the person that they can control because they can't control the behavior of the other people.

And I think that's fantastic advice in itself, isn't it, that you know, focus on what you can control, not what you can't control. Whether you want to, whether it's to be, you know, ultimately it's the key to being unhappy is focusing on what you can't control as it.

Yes. Yes. Okay, so what else? I do a couple more things. I definitely encourage parents of teenagers to be as best role models as they can. I think our children are much more likely to do what we do, not what we say. This could relate to anything though. This can be good sleep patterns, good nutrition, being healthy and active ourselves. I'd encourage parents of teenagers to have time to listen. I just think we're all so busy doing what we do and not spending enough time perhaps with our teenagers. You know, they typically quite quiet, so if we can find a time when they want to talk to us, then we should be prepared to listen to them. So my son would like to talk at bedtime. My daughter, I get the best chats with her when we go for a walk. So find out when your teenager is more amenable to chatting and find time to listen to them. I'd encourage them to help their teenage athletes make the right decisions and not the easy decisions. So if we can think about ourselves, maybe going out for a training run and sometimes we just don't want to go because it's wet outside or it's raining and it's a bit miserable and we're tired, it's the end of the day and we don't want to go for that training run. That's exactly the same with our teenage athletes. So, you know, there's been times when my son said he doesn't want to go all the way to Bristol to do some high level training in Bristol for his hockey, but we've encouraged him to go, we've encouraged him to get there, do the training and invariably nine times out of 10, if not 10 times out of 10, he'll jump back in the car two hours later, be buzzing on a high and then you can't shut them up. So that's definitely a good thing with a teenage athlete, for them to be talking to you after their training. So, yeah, I think we're programmed to make the easy decisions. I think it's all part of our evolution as humans. We sort of want to or have always been programmed to take easy decisions and that's how we survived. But I think sometimes it's helping our teenage athletes make those difficult decisions which are actually probably the right decisions. If obviously they've gone to training and they haven't had a good time and that's happened significantly and quite often, then I would, I would, maybe that's another time to have a chat and are we doing the right thing? But, but if it's just because they don't really feel like they have the energy to do it because they've had a long day at school, then encourage them to go. And then the other thing I would say is, and this is kind of related to an interesting theory called self determination theory. And self determination theory says that we, in order to feel really motivated to achieve our goals, we have to meet three criteria. And the first one is have some autonomy. The second one is to have a feeling of relatedness. And the third element is to feel like we're competent. So in particular, with our teenage athletes, I think we need to make sure they have a choice in what they're doing and a voice, and that's related to the autonomy that they hold. So we can think about things like, have they been part of understanding what their training plan is going to look like? Have they investigated the races or the tournament they might want to enter? So have they got a choice and a voice in terms of their sport and their training and what they're actually doing to achieve their goals? And then the next bit is relatedness. So that's a sense of belonging. Do they feel like they belong in the team, the club, the community around their sport? And then finally the sense of competence, which is, do they feel like they're progressing and do they feel like they're mastering the skills required to be effective? So I think as parents, if we can ensure that our children or teenage athletes are meeting those criteria, they're much more likely to be motivated to do their sport.

Fantastic. And thinking about motivation, you know, how can I've tried getting my teenage daughter and my wannabe teenage daughter to set goals. How can we get them to set better goals?

Well, what we do with the CAS athletes in terms of goal setting is we set three stages of goals. We do outcome goals, performance goals and process goals. But we do always talk about the fact that sport is very much a meandering path and there's going to be detours along the way, and they need to be prepared to see these detours as opportunities and to see change as possibly a constant. So we change. Reframing change is something that could be quite constant, but going back to the setting of the goals, the outcome goal, and that's where it is sometimes a little bit out of our control. So the outcome goal is like the big goal. So, for example, a hockey player I'm working with, his goal is to wear an England vest. So that's a fantastic goal to have, and I wouldn't never discourage it, but I would say to this person that it's not necessarily in his control to achieve it. No matter how brilliantly he plays on selection day, the other people may just play better and they may have their best day as well. So I then encourage athletes to consider different options. So with the hockey example, just going down what's called this sort of talent pathway, the England pathway, to get the England best is not the only option. You can go through a club level. So they don't necessarily need to be fixed on that one particular pathway. It's always going to be linear. It's never going to be linear, it's always going to be a bumpy ride, forwards, backwards, sideways, maybe injuries. So that's something that we really do talk quite a lot about when we're starting off with the outcome goal. And then when we get into the performance goals, those are the goals beneath the outcome goal that are more easily measured. So for example, with a hockey player it would be things like getting onto the county team, then getting into the regional teams, then getting into something called performance centre. From performance centre you get selected to play for something called Futures cup, which is like this massive tournament. But another key performance goal they have is they have to hit a 900 meter run test time. So it's kind of like a qualifying time. I think they have to do it like 3, 3, 3.05 seconds, 3 minutes and 5 seconds, sorry to do this 900 meter run test. So that's a really good performance goal because it's very measurable. And then we roll down into process goals. And the process goals are the things that they need to do on a day to day basis. They're kind of like the habits and the things they need to keep doing in order to get their performance goals and their outcome goals. So for the hockey player it would be going to training regularly, it would be learning new skills, it will be keeping up with the fitness test and the running intervals in order to be able to do the fitness test. Lots of strength and conditioning and all of the processes that they need to go to in order to do their other performance and outcome goals. And then finally to kind of answer the question, I suppose those process goals need to link to your daughter's values. I guess they need to link to what she loves doing on a day to day basis because if they're misaligned with her personal values, she's not going to enjoy doing them and therefore she's not not going to be motivated to keep going.

And it's interesting actually because I've always, everything I've done around goals has always been sort of long term, medium term and short term. So it might be a five year goal, a one year goal, or a three year goal, a one year goal, and then a quarterly goal. And it sounds to me like your outcome goals, your performance goals and your process goals are similar in that sense. In that one is probably longer term, one is probably medium term, and one is short term. Is that how you see it as well? Or could it be that would you have each of these goals for different time frames?

I think you can definitely have them for different time frames. So sometimes when I'm working with the CASS athletes on the eight week mindset program, they would just set a goal to achieve within that eight weeks. So. So their outcome goal could be. It could be to run a 5k time trial in a certain time.

I see.

And the reason that might again be out of their control because the day that they do it, the wind could be blowing. It could be blowing Hooli or it could be raining or for whatever reason that could again be a little bit out of their control. But they would be able to set performance goals underneath that they can measure to see they're on track and then lots of process goals underneath that to make sure they hit the performance goal so they don't have to. They can be longer term, but they don't have to be.

I see. So you're kind of breaking down, regardless of whether it's a short term goal or a long term goal, you're breaking it down into those three chunks and then or three systems and then also aligning them with their values and coming onto their values. Is that something you get them to document? Do you get them to sort of write down clearly, these are the values that I hold. Most importantly, I do.

I get them to do a short exercise. Well, it can take a little bit of time, but I can describe it very quickly. And that's to ask them to grab five or six post it notes and I ask them a question and I just simply say to them, what is really important to you? And I get them to write that down on the post it note with a number one next to it. And then I ask that question another five times saying, okay, what else is really important to you? And they write that down on the piece of paper and we do it five or six times. And then we do a second part to that exercise where we get them to dig a little bit deeper into their subconscious. So I say to them, okay, you have to give me one of those post it notes back. Which one Would it be first? Which one would you take away first of all? Then give me another one and then give me another one, and then they end up reorganizing them. So triathletes I worked with the other day, her value that she identified as the sixth value when we did it, the first in the first round became value number two when she reorganized them and she had to give me them back.

Oh, that's interesting.

99% of the time they reorganized them.

So. Yeah, just because you thought of something first doesn't make it your most important, important value.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting.

That's.

That's really good. And go on.

I was just about to say, because those values. So we know that our values link very closely to our belief systems, so then that links very much into our thought processes and our feelings and emotions, and that links to our actions. So if we don't have our process goals aligned to the values, then we're not likely to want to do our process goals.

Right, I see. Okay. Yeah, it makes complete sense. And something that I dare say, I mean, this isn't just advice that would be applicable to teenagers. It's clearly very applicable to adults too, but really powerful for teenagers if you're getting them to do this at such an early stage.

Yeah, I think it's great. I mean, I think we can definitely do it in all walks of life. So you might want to set instead of it, the outcome goal could be sort of like a fulfillment goal. So you want to be fulfilled by travel. So I want to travel more. So then you'd have that as your outcome goal and work down from there.

And it's similar to a system. I'm struggling to remember who it was that was speaking. It was, but something that I saw. It was an event where Dave Brailsford spoke. But it wasn't Dave Brailsford that was speaking about this particular thing. But it's a similar approach to that. But that was being talked about in a business sense. But I think it's really a really interesting approach to goal setting that I can see being really valuable and will happily try with my girls. And teenagers are challenging, aren't they? I mean, sometimes it's a bit like having a ghost in the house, isn't it? You know, you sort of catch something out the corner of your eye and then there's this sort of groaning sound and then a door slams. And so they are challenging. And so what are the key transition times for young athletes? And why do these cause such anxiety?

Thinking of the teenage athletes that we work with, Cass and friends, it would be things like joining a new club or being part of a new team, moving into a new age group for their sport, running different distances and say swimming or running, joining the new school academic year, dealing with puberty, maybe looking at GCSEs that transition into GCSEs and A levels and onto university. So lots and lots of transition times. And I think if we can think of our own situations where we've had transitions. So for example, when I 13 years ago, when I stopped sort of my full time work, I felt quite a big sense of loss of identity. So I think that's exactly the same with these teenagers. They've been the top of the pecking order or they've mastered the new skill, or they've raced at that distance and found it quite comfortable. And often the age groups may be in two year age groups, so they're under 14s or under 16s and then they have to go into the under 18s group. And it's quite a challenging time. So lots of anxiety around that. And what parents we can do to encourage that is to help through that is really just talk to them again. You know, think of those skills that we need to apply as mentors and chiefly as communication listening skills. So listen to their fears and their worries, their anxieties. They're all going to be very valid to them. Try to unpick them, try to understand the rationale behind those thoughts and feelings and worries and try to help them come up with their own solutions to deal with the situation. Because then they're going to have a lot more buy into working through that.

Fantastic. Sounds like brilliant advice. And coming on to nutrition again, something I'm sure that I know you have a passion for, kind of a very healthy approach to your nutrition and I'm sure you share that with the children in the charity. But what would you say your approach nutrition is not during an event but just in normal everyday life. Have you got a specific way that you try to approach your nutrition?

Yeah, I just, I do, to be fair, I do try to eat as much healthy food as possible. I have to say, you know, a food that looks like food or as close to, you know, as food as it should be, like a potato rather than chips or, you know, so really just straightforward, nothing scientific particularly, but just getting a healthy selection of, you know, the macronutrients, micronutrients, lots of vitamins and loads of vegetables, loads of fruit. But yes, just, just being a little bit mindful about, you know, the sugar intake, maybe. And I used to drink an awful lot of alcohol, and I don't drink quite so much alcohol anymore. So that's maybe one on big, big nutrition change. But I kind of like to talk to the athletes about it in terms of fuel rather than food, so that they can really see that it's actually just something that will benefit them and their performance. And just. I'm not a nutritionist, I'm not a sports psychologist, but I just share what I do with them and try to be as healthy as possible, drink as much water as possible, stay hydrated, but also enjoy food and really, you know, have treats whenever they want treats. But they're doing so much exercise and they're so young, they're burning it all off anyway.

Well, it's interesting, actually. I was chatting to a guy called Dan Miller on a podcast that's not released yet, and he was saying that this whole, you know, triathletes or endurance athletes often use food as fuel. And he said that's, that's fine, except they don't then understand the micro and the macronutrients so much. And so they're getting the fuel, but they might be missing out on. On certain elements. And I know when we've chatted on emails before, you kind of use things like chia seeds quite often, don't you? How, how do you use chia seeds to try and fill in some of those gaps or any other sort of, you know, are there any other things that you use regularly?

Well, the chia seeds I would put into overnight oats and stuff like that, or chia seed pudding. I've even made a chia seed seed omelette. So basically like chia seeds soaked overnight, stirred with some oats and some egg, and that makes nice chia seed omelette. And then you can put some tahini and some honey on top and a few berries, which is. Which is a favorite breakfast. I'm a fan of peanut butter, I have to say, or any nut butter. I'm a fan of sourdough toast. So I can put any nut butter on sourdough toast. Lots of avocados. Just trying to think of things that I eat normally. Stir fries, things like that, I guess.

And anything when you're actually in an event that you particularly, you know, because it's so difficult finding endurance fuel that is also good for the body, you know, it's. They're often very, you know, very much packed full of rubbish. Are there any particular products or any particular food types that you, you use when you're competing.

Well, I think Charlie, I'm probably a little bit like you with the gels. I do find the gels quite difficult to stomach. Lots of gels. So I, for a marathon I would probably take three gels and I take a Martian gel. So I think they're very good. So those, that's what I would use if I was just doing a marathon. If I was doing a duathlon, especially the long distance distance or cycling long distances, I would probably take on the Velo forte bars which I know you've tried and like. Or I would actually take on some food. You know, I again relating back to the interview did with Brian, he said that he couldn't eat food on the bike. I guess I'm cycling an awful lot slower than he is. So I, my body can digest it no problem. And you know, I would, I'd stuff a peanut butter sandwich in the back pocket or something as well. So I'd kind of mix it up a bit. And I'm always interested about the people that you interview about the post race meal that they like to have. And yours I think is the same as many, which is a pizza, whereas pizza is my pre race meal. So that's what I would always have the night before race and I would always have two bagels and a banana and a lot of honey and some avocado in the morning of a race.

So if Pete's, if you've blown your pizza opportunity as your pre race meal, what's your post race meal?

My post race meal is always ridiculously healthy. It's always like green vegetable Y because I haven't had vegetables or green things for three days before the race. So I'm always craving something crunchy and something green and salady. And then it would be the day after the race. I probably have something not so good. I do remember doing, I did the Manchester marathon about two years ago and literally the day after or two days after we went off to Copenhagen for a family sort of four days. And I think I replenished all of those calories or the glycogen with Danish pastries for about four days. So that was quite good.

If ever there was a time you can enjoy some treats, it's after you've done a long endurance race, isn't it? And what about going back to the young people that you help? Is there any particularly bad advice that you've seen given to youngsters that are training, trying to get, you know, get into a particular sport?

Well, I wonder Whether we parents can be the people who give bad advice, sometimes it's really hard, isn't it, being a parent and a parent of a sporty teenager, perhaps, or a sporty child. And so maybe we can give them the wrong advice. And I'm sure I sit in that camp as well. Maybe we might encourage them a little bit too much or we might not listen to them enough if they've got problems or if they want to talk about their team or the umpire or the referee hasn't been fair. You know, what do you say to them in that situation? So I think maybe it's us as parents that we might give the bad advice or not behave perhaps as we should do sometimes.

I'm pleased you flipped it around and blamed us, because it's also very easy to say, oh, the children never listen to, you know, they never listen to their parents, but they'll listen to the coach. But actually, I think you're right. It's often the advice is not great either. Which I suppose is why having a coach at a young age is really powerful, isn't it?

I think so. I think a coach and a mentor for children is just really, really important because I think, as we've just said, you know, maybe teenagers don't want to listen to their parents so much, and having somebody independent is just really nice because they might open up to them a little bit and listen to their advice a little bit more.

Other than the Chimp Paradox, which we've obviously already talked about, are there any other books that you think would be. Because I'm guessing you'd say that would be a great book for a young person to read, but also for a parent to read? Are there any other books, you know, as a. As a father of two girls, are there any books that I should be thinking about reading that would help me in this, or indeed the books I can give to my girls that could read them for them, to inspire them?

Yes. Well, we've touched on the within the Sporting mindset program. We do talk. We do encourage the athletes to have the growth mindset, which is obviously the Carol Dweck book, isn't it? And so we encourage them to take risks and to be open to new ideas and to look for challenges. But to be honest, all the athletes that we support and Cass and friends, they're all like that anyway. They're all just such special children and really, really passionate about what they do, prepared to put in so much effort. You know, we've got our triathlete, one of our triathletes he gets up in the morning, he cycles off to his swim training, he then does a paper round. He then goes and does a full day at school. He then gets on a what bike and does serious sessions on a what bike? And you're like, oh my God, these, you know, so these kids are really, really, you know, they've kind of got it already, think.

But that's a great book for parents. I recommend that quite often for parents because it's also about how you talk to the children, isn't it, in terms of how you can induce a growth mindset as opposed to kind of almost planting them with a fixed mindset, isn't it?

Yes, yes. Now there's another one as well that I read. I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote it, but it's called Atomic Habits.

Oh, yes, it's James Clear. James Clear, yes.

So that's a good book, isn't it?

I haven't read it. It's on my reading list. I just haven't read it yet. But I've seen him speak and that his, his talk was very good. But that you. And is that one for parents or for children or for both, I would.

Say, I would say sort of teenagers, I would say.

Right, okay, okay, fantastic. And I suppose coming on to the last question, what most excites you? Looking forward, what are you excited about for the next year or so?

Well, with regards to the charity, I'm really excited about the kids maybe becoming a little bit more of a community. So at the moment it's not been going for very long, but I would love the athletes to build a little community amongst themselves and hopefully facilitate that and will facilitate that over the next few years. But I think it can be hard for teenage athletes who are really good at what they do and they get to the age 15, 16, 17 and their mates start to go out and they're drinking and they can't understand why they're not coming to the parties and they're not staying out all night and they don't want to do it because they know they've got to get up and train the next morning. So if they can form like a little band of buddies, a bit like your triathlon, I guess. So they feel like they've got this sort of little support group and like minded people they can talk to, I think that would be a real goal for the charity. Maintaining the number of athletes that we support is a goal. So we can support up to 15 athletes at one time because otherwise fundraising is just too difficult for more than that number. And personally I think still want to crack my sub 3 hour marathon. So that is still on the horizon.

Remind me, how close are you so far?

I'm three minutes off that, three minutes off that, but I'm getting a bit old each year. But again, I was quite inspired by your chat today because you said something about don't you hit the same peak endurance age 60 as you were when you were 18 or something?

Yeah, that's right, yeah, we. Yeah. So you've got loads of time.

I've got plenty of time.

And actually the Mitch Phillips conversation I know you listened to, I mean he had quite a lot of cracks at it and got so close to getting sub three and then he eventually got there, but. But yeah, he missed it by seconds on a number of occasions, didn't he? But I'm sure you will get there. So sub 3 marathon in the next year and taking CAs from strength to strength. And do you think Cass will ever expand beyond that? You know, in terms of what would. What would you want to see happen for it to be able to expand? Is it more about funding or.

It would be about funding. There's not. There's very little funding for athletes in the uk. Really there isn't. There's a charity called the GLL foundation and they provide some grants for athletes across the country, but you have to be in a specific area for that to work. But it is pretty much across the country, but funny enough, not here in Cheltenham. So GL foundation works with ledger centers and provides support by leisure centres and our Cheltenham Leisure Centre isn't in their sort of catchment area. So it would be good to expand the charity and to make it a little bit bigger so that more athletes can get this really, really necessary funding. Because as you know from doing your sportive. So your events, your Ironman events, they're so expensive to enter. The travel costs are expensive, the kit is expensive, the accommodation costs. If you get to the sort of level that these children are, because they're all. They're certainly regional level, most of them are national level. A lot of them are now international as well. We have a tennis player who I forgot to mention, but she has to compete all over the world to get a British ranking and if she just competes in the uk, she doesn't get a world ranking. So tennis is one of those ridiculously expensive sports. You have to travel all over the place to do it and to do well. So yes, you know, that would be nice at the moment. It's nice to keep it small. It's nice to, to just be able to grow it and it's really nice for me because I know all of the athletes really well, but. But possibly a long term thing will be to expand it. I'm not too sure about that at the moment though.

Well, fantastic. Hopefully there's some wealthy patrons listening that say, you know what, we would love to get involved in that. Another one of Sir Chris Hoy's Wicks or Screwfix or whoever that particular person was. Just wanting to help some young athletes. So, Fee, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you as always. There's so much wisdom in there and I particularly love, you know, as, as a father of two, I love just trying to understand what you're doing to help these, these young kids go on and take their sport to a whole other level. So thank you so much for coming onto the Tri Bathroom podcast and I can't wait to see how the charity goes from strength to strength and also look forward to hearing you tell me that you've got your sub three marathon in the coming 12 months.

Oh, well, thanks, Charlie. It's been a pleasure to talk to you again. And yet good luck with your training and your fantastic race in January. Brilliant.

Thank you. Thank you, Phi. Well, it was an absolute pleasure chatting to Fi. As always. It's so lovely to hear somebody that's so passionate about helping young people achieve the most they possibly can within the sport. And there was so much great advice in there around the tactics and the mindset and the psychology around how we can help young people achieve the best they possibly can. If you want to find out more about Cass and friends, it's C A S so www.cassandfriends.org and you can find out more about that there. That obviously only applies to athletes that are in the Cotswold area. But Fi also said that if you, if you are looking to be coached and particularly, you know, younger people, then she personally does coach quite a few younger people that are outside of the, of the catchment area. Cass. So if you are a teenager or you have a teenager that's looking for a sports coach, then by all means track Fee down through Cass and friends. And whilst you might not be able to get the support of the charity, Fee's really keen to help people in that situation. So I hope you took something from that. I took loads from that. I know there's a number of things I'm going to be trying to do differently with, with my girls and there's some really good stuff to be aware of, some pitfalls that we need to avoid. So anyway, I hope you got a lot from that interview. Have a great training week. Keep up the good work. And if you enjoy these podcasts, please do review and share them. My name is Charlie Redding and if you also know of anybody that you think would be really good to get on the Triathlon podcast, trying to explore different ways that we can improve as kind of individual athletes, then please send me your recommendations. And you can find tribathlon@tribathlon.com or on Instagram. So keep up the training and keep up the good work. And remember, this podcast is brought to you by Brits Superfoods. You can find out more at BritSuperfoods.co.uk, but if you use the link in the show notes or you use the Referral code of Tribeathlon, you'll get 10% off your orders. You'll get a free bag of juices worth £15 with every order. Those will happen forever. As long as you buy from BritSuperfood having started with that referral code, you'll get those forever. In addition to that, you'll also benefit from that 110% money back guarantee. So if you don't see the value in it, then they'll give you your money back and an extra 10%. So go check out the link in the show notes or go to BritSuperfoods.co.uk and use the referral code Tribeathlon and you'll get that 10% off free shipping and free juice on every order. And don't forget to download the tribathlon app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.