Ironman Kona, KISS, and No Excuses: Coach Marty's story Ep 63

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Mm-hmm.

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I'll see you there. All right, welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Christina Fiumara Newport, and today I'm here with our most senior coach, Coach Marty. Welcome to the show, sir.

Thank you.

You are our final interview for our coaches, uh, soiree. Tell us a little bit about how you got into triathlon. Let's start there.

It goes back to watching 1982 Ironman, was the first year they had women, and watching it. And when Julie Moss, who did eventually marry Mark Allen, who won a bunch of them, was nearing the finish line— nobody expected her to be anywhere there. I believe she was a grad student, was doing it as part of her thesis. And 400 yards from the line, she starts crawling, and the camera stuck on her, and you almost miss the winner go by her like they were not paying attention. And I just remember turning to my family at that time and said, when I'm done playing college soccer and doing everything else, I'm doing an Ironman. And I still remember they all laughed. Now, and then you got to go back. It's almost 10 years after that I finally did my first sprint triathlon. Like I always did get in the pool. I mean, I became a certified lifeguard even when I was playing soccer. My soccer coach hated because I would train with the cross-country or in the distance squad, but I never actually competed for them. They always wanted me to, but I just never did.

That's good.

Well, and I'm glad I did because I mean, I burned out on soccer, jumped into triathlon. You know, that's just my nature.

Yeah. There you go. So how did you make the transition to coaching?

Funny thing is, after college, I did do at that time the Health, Phys Ed, and Recreation, which is now all called exercise science. You know, that really dates me now that I have a degree in HPER. I got into teaching for a year, realized that wasn't for me, went back to grad school, went to UNLV. Was having a lot of success in triathlon, so I kept— all right, I'll keep going to school so I can keep doing this at a higher level. You know, I did turn pro for one year in 1997, didn't last long. And then like I moved back east from UNLV and I was, you know, helping a store start up an elite running team. And because at that time I was taking a break from triathlons and got into more running, a local high school came in with their cross-country team and were talking to me and they're like, well, we don't have a coach for distance, would you be interested in coaching? So So I went and checked out the, you know, I went to their practice on Monday to see what would be involved. And I still remember because walked out there and, you know, living in Vegas, there's no such thing as a cinder track. They have a cinder track. I'm like, oh, is this the practice track? Like, no, we have meets on this. I'm like, I have not seen cinder in years. And so I got started there. And then after 2 years there, at that time, my ex— now at this time, my ex-wife got a job at Bucknell University, so I moved to Pennsylvania. And was lucky enough to catch on at Susquehanna University. Obviously, there was no triathlons at NCAA level at that time. So obviously I was coaching, you know, track and field and cross-country to distance runners. Probably a little bit after that, we're in our 10th year of NCAA triathlon, probably right when they were starting to make all the announcements, I decided to get the certifications for USA Triathlon.

Cool. So you always say in our coaches meetings, we have a lot of Marty-isms. One is just be a bag of potato chips, but that's for another podcast. But you like to at least tell us, I'm not for everyone. So piggybacking on that, what's your philosophy or style of coaching?

For me, it's definitely working individually with the athlete. Even though I coach a team here at Newberry, I still will do things individually within our plan. And a lot of that is based on what are your goals? What do you want to achieve? You know, I always tell my athletes here, like, look, I don't— whatever goal you have, you always have to ask yourself one question first: am I willing to do whatever it takes to achieve my goal? If you are, then I want to hear it. I don't care how lofty people might tell you, I want to hear it. Because to me, as a coach, I look at it— if an athlete tells me what their ultimate goal is and they're 100% committed, I look at it as now we're both committed to that goal and we'll work together on it. The part that I'm not for everybody is I think it comes from my coaching background and upbringing from coaches I had in high school, just that style. And even working with collegiate athletes, if I give you a workout and it's on your calendar, I don't want to hear excuses. Or you don't have to put a note on everything. If you did it, you did it. To me, that's okay. I see that. Or if I see a lot of red, I'm not going to check up on you. It's like, you do the work or that's it. I've had athletes within this group that don't like to use their phone calls at all, and they're some of the best in terms of, okay, I know they're doing their work, and if they're reaching out to me, you know, Mac did it this past week, you know, he had, he had COVID, and he was quick to say, you know, I know you see the red. I'm like, when I see red for you, I know it's something serious. But like, the other thing I tell my athletes too is, especially with collegiate, I don't sugarcoat anything. I'm honest. I'll be honest about what abilities you have in terms of your training, what it shows for a race. If you have a bad, like if something's off, I'm gonna ask you. I'm not gonna be like, oh, next time. It's like, well, especially if we, you know, if an athlete and I go over a strategy and they go away from it, what were you thinking? You know, we talked about all that. So maybe I'm more of a tough love type cuz that's my upbringing.

And so yeah, I'm not for everybody, but that's a good thing cuz we all aren't for everybody. And I love that you're very forthcoming about that style. So I appreciate it for sure. And you've had a lot of fasties on your roster that I think speaks to your style of coaching. So speaking of that, and I know you mentioned Mac, but has there been a memorable success story or achievement or situation that you've had either for yourself or one of your athletes or group of athletes for that matter?

I would say since working with this group, I would have to go with two, John and Holly. Even though they're not with us anymore, you know, went in with certain goals. So when I started working with John, who never did a triathlon, he was thinking 5:30 for Wilmington was possible. You know, at first we're like, okay, maybe, you know, we, you know, gradually brought him up to that point. And then next—

and he did— he like didn't know how to swim.

Yeah. And all of a sudden, you know, he breaks 5 at Wilmington, you know. And Holly was like getting ready for Chattanooga, her first. It was supposed to be a practice a half Ironman before Wilmington, you know, thinking that, okay, maybe I can go 5:50. She was thinking break 6, it goes 5:25, you know, it's like, and qualify for Worlds. She did take the spot, you know, but it's like, those are the best stories like that. Have had a lot of huge PRs from people, but they're probably the two probably most successful, went way above what their goals were.

Yeah, that's really cool. What do you enjoy about coaching?

It probably goes back to coaching in college and everything else. It's just the look on an athlete's face, you know, because obviously when you're coaching track and field and cross-country, you're right there with them or the athletes at work, you see them right after a race. You know, maybe I don't see these athletes right after some of the races being more remote, but you can tell by their messages is the smile on their faces when they hit their goals. I mean, that just keeps me going because I'll admit I personally haven't raced really in 2 years, haven't enjoyed racing prior 5 years prior to that. I kind of almost live through them because I just don't enjoy doing that part of it anymore.

Yeah. And that's okay. And before we got on the call, I asked permission. Do you think this is related perhaps to some of your mental health struggles that you have shared, at least on Instagram?

Oh, it definitely is. Haven't been diagnosed. Granted, it was late diagnosis. Um, I wish I would have known in high school because my therapist thinks it goes all the way back to that. But, you know, being diagnosed persistent depressive disorder, which means you really never have a high point. It's just you're up and down, up and down, but you're below what you would even call happy. With that, like, nothing's ever good enough, you know? I mean, I could— if I could find it, it's somewhere in my house. It's one of the few things I've kept over the years. Like, I do not have any of my race numbers, any of my trophies, nothing. You know, every time I move, it's like, okay, more time to unload it and get rid of it. I think I only have stuff from '95 and '97 Hawaii. That might be the only stuff I still have left from racing. But even if you were to look at the picture from 1995, I have the most miserable look on my face after finishing. It's like, okay, what's next? It wasn't, it wasn't the race beat me up, it was just, okay, what's next?

Yeah.

And then the modern era of racing, I just don't like it. I don't like being— got to the point where I hated being tracked all day.

Yeah, like, like afraid of being seen or something in a way.

It was too much pressure because everybody expected me to excel every time I stepped on You know, because everybody saw what I did in the past. I'm like, I'm not that person anymore. My philosophy has always been, it's just at the end of it was just, it's me and the clock, me and the course. We'll see what happens. You know, I never ever went into a race thinking that, okay, you can qualify for Kona or you can qualify for World Championship 70.3. Because I learned, and playing to my current athletes, is you can't control what other people are doing. Like, I can go to Lake Placid and go 10:15 But it might be a year where, you know, a bunch of guys are going sub-10, you know? So you really should never— I really didn't go into races that way with Tracker and everybody else is like, oh, you could do this, you can do that. You know, I just got to the point where I just hated racing.

Yeah.

I liked old school where you just signed up, showed up, you had to go to the back of Triathlete Magazine to find where the races were. There really was no online place to look. You paid by check or cash day of the race.

Yeah, for sure. Old school. Well, we are very lucky to have you, I would say, Marty. And I think one of your other skill sets, which I haven't asked any of the other coaches this, so this is unique to you, is some of your knack for programming and writing workouts, which that's not to say that the other coaches can't do it. That's literally our job. But I love how you, you keep a little bit of old school cuz we use TrainingPeaks now and there's the ability to like build out a workout so it like spits over to Garmin and you know, whatever. I like how you keep it old school. You write it in the description. It's like, this is what you're supposed to do. Do that thing. Why do you like to write them that way? Other than the tech part.

I think when I write it out that way, it's easier for them to follow.

Mm-hmm.

Than looking at the build, like, you know, there's nothing confusing now. Okay. I got 3 minutes at this, 2 minutes at this, 3 minutes at this, 2 minutes at this. And, but then like, you know, I got athletes who do work by FTP. Some we do it by percentages. Some are zones. You know, I had a few that are RPE. I just think if you can write it out in the simplest way. The KISS method— keep it simple, stupid.

Totally. Simple is better. And I think sometimes as coaches we feel an expectation to like always be flashy and new and complicated, and it's like, no, no, no, there's only so many things you can do with endurance.

That's like in the professional world, like collegiate coaching and stuff. You got to— you got coaches that would be very open about what they do. We share ideas. Then you got some that would be like, hey, you know, I'm not going to tell you, or They'll tell their athletes, do not share our workouts. You can take pictures, but do not share what we're actually doing. And I look at those coaches and be like, look, nobody's reinventing the wheel right now. No, we're just making it better. So there's no need to hide. You're doing the same thing as everybody else. You just do it differently.

Exercise physiology, right? There's only so many ways that you can do a workout. We only have so many energy systems. I think the beauty of where an athlete can really excel And you can piggyback on this if you'd like, is having a good relationship with a coach who believes in them and believing in themselves and doing the work and knowing that there is so much uniqueness to the individual because everybody is unique. Everybody has different genetics and different experience levels. So yes, there are only so many energy systems and only so many different types of workouts, but How does that fit more specifically to you?

I don't do it as much with my triathlon team here, but there are once in a while where I could have like 6 to 8 women and some of them might be doing one workout and some are doing another just because they're struggling with a particular part of the race or one of their energy systems. I did it all the time in track and field. Like, I used to have so much fun with my teams at Susquehanna because I was coaching, like, you know, between men and women, like 40 to 50 distance runners during track. Wow. You know, and in track, it's— there's a lot more opportunities to do this because you have, like, I was so specific, I would do have my 800-mile group, mile to 3K group, 3K to 5K group, and then I had my 10K group. But when I wrote their workouts, there was quite often there would be 2 or 3 workouts for each group on the calendar. My favorite part was to sit there on Monday and watch them try to figure out which ones they're going to be doing and asking me, and I would say, you find out tomorrow. I would never tell them. But you really have to understand your athletes. What are they struggling with the most? Or knowing when an athlete will respond respond better to sprint work. Like, I have some of my swimmers respond better to going faster, and then some respond to better, like, more speed endurance work. That's what gets them faster. They cannot sprint. Yeah, I watch them in the pool and like, when my one fastest swimmer is getting beat in short sprints, it's like, okay, you're not the sprinter, you're going to be more of the speed endurance type.

Yeah.

And so, and then when she's with our second best swimmer and they're doing more speed endurance sets, she's normally inching ahead towards the end of a longer rep.

Cool. All right, Marty, are you ready for rapid fire?

Sure.

And I have a feeling that this actually will be rapid fire. We'll see though. Bike brand or bike?

Oh, it's always gonna come down to whichever one I can afford. Like, I've really never been particular. I've ridden Giant, Trek, Specialized. All comes down to what can I afford? Oh, there's bikes I would love to try, but what can I afford?

Well, you're on gravel now, right?

Yeah, so I have a Specialized Diverge for gravel. I have a Giant for my tri bike. My road bike is a Specialized. And if you really want to know, I do have a fourth bike. I have a fixed gear slash single speed from Iro Cycles in Pennsylvania. So when I want to be hipster, I can get my fixed— yes, I do.

But you can— how often do you ride that thing?

I haven't ridden in years.

Oh, okay.

I used to ride it all the time back and forth to college when I was like, when I lived like a mile and a half from school.

Which I know that you're not racing. See, look at me, that I'm the reason why this isn't rapid fire. Um, but that's okay. Share everybody, while I know that you're not racing, you have a goal that you've set yourself with your gravel bike. Do you mind sharing what that is?

It's insane, but I don't know why I did it, but just beginning of April decided.

Yeah, but people go to you to, you know, like do Ironman. That's insane. I mean, let's be real.

Between indoor riding and getting outside, my goal is to ride 1,000 miles per month. I've hit it for the last 5. I'm slightly behind, but not by a lot this month. So, but I think I still have a shot at getting it, but the average will be over 1,000 over 6 months.

That's awesome. The average is what makes the difference, right? It's just like fitness. If you miss a workout here or there, it's not gonna be so meaningful in the big picture. What is your favorite distance?

I've always been an endurance person, so it's like full Ironman, 140.6.

Okay. Right now, what is your favorite discipline?

Uh, cycling. I'll be honest. Yeah, I got into it with a good running background, but I was always a strong cyclist. Sometimes I do think that, like, kind of along the lines of Lance, I may have missed something because I just can go all day on the bike. Always been able to generate power and tiny and been climber. And I always tell people, like, haven't been able to— I think my first time at Lake Placid with 6,000-plus feet of I averaged close to 21 miles an hour on that course.

Nice.

So I'm like, so cycling, yeah, really was my true strength.

That's cool. What is your favorite race?

Oh, it's always going to be Kona, even though they watered it down a bit. But it's always going to be— when I hear all these stories about people going to Kona and this and that, I'm like, okay, yes, I can be an elitist with triathlon. It's not the world championship anymore.

In what way?

It really is. When I went in '95 and '97, it was 1,500 people total.

Wow.

Between men and women. And you had to qualify. No such thing as really roll down. Now we had lottery, but it was so elitist over there that like you never told anybody you got in by lottery. Now I have a lot more respect for people who get in by legacy because at least you're doing the work. Because lottery, you just had to finish any Ironman sponsored race. And at that time they had St. Anthony's in Florida. So you could have qualified for Kona with the lottery by doing an Olympic distance.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, obviously my qualifying was all halves because there was no other Ironman in the US at that time.

Yeah.

But like I said, back then it was 1,500 people, men and women combined. It was treated like a world championship. It really was the elite of the elite.

Yeah. What— oh boy, this is going to be a fun one for you. I am so excited for this question. We might be here for a while though, y'all. What is your pet peeve as a coach? And if you have one, and what's your pet peeve as an athlete?

Let's start with athlete.

Okay. I, I kind of figured you would, which is why I asked you the coach one first, but you know.

Okay. My biggest pet peeve of triathletes in general could be two. One, I think too many triathletes take themselves way too seriously. You know, our sport is absurd. It really is. And people who aspire to do the Ironman, like I explained to my team, they had no idea that. It's so absurd that the Ironman got started over a drunk bet. You know, that is a true story. Hawaii had the 2.4-mile swim, they had the around-the-island bike, and they had the Honolulu Marathon. A bunch of guys drinking, were arguing who is the better athlete. Of course, one of them's gonna go, what if we— they could do all three? And that is how the Ironman's born.

Yep.

So there's no reason to take ourselves so seriously. Think about all the— especially when we got started, we had to have flashy colors, this and that. You know, it was, it was insane. And then my other biggest pet peeve, this might be more as a coach and maybe not the athletes I coach, because I think sometimes they don't, they don't think the volume we might do is enough.

Mm-hmm.

I believe triathletes and coaches overtrain way too much.

Yeah.

Like I know athletes that were training 5, 6 hours longer than me for an Ironman and they're finishing barely before midnight. I'm like, why are you out there at long one? Diminishing returns. You're beating yourself up. I think triathletes overdo everything.

Yeah. And then likely higher rates of burnout. Mm-hmm. Or injury for that matter.

Yeah. And I, I don't get, like, I hear people like, oh, I'm training 16, 17 hours a week. I'm like, that's how long you're gonna race. Why are you doing that? People who do 20, I'm like, or people are like, yeah, I'm doing 300 miles on the bike. I'm like, for what?

Or 1,000 miles a month. Although granted you're not racing, this is more your self-challenge. Yeah.

You know, it's like I always tell my athletes and I tell everybody, you know, all my recruits too, it's, it's train smarter, not harder.

And like I said, we've got a great success trail, so that's pretty cool. Do you have a favorite workout that you like to program or that you like to do?

Do right now, I just get on the bike and I ride. If I feel good, I hammer. So I mean, it's just, so there's no workouts I like to do.

Go as you feel is what I heard there.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do. Yeah. But I do it smartly. I don't hammer every day if I feel good. Oh man, it's, that's a tough one because I've created some really good swim workouts, obviously years of coaching track.

Oh, let's— okay, let's do that. What is your favorite track workout?

We used to call it our PR workout for the 5K, and it worked every time. Yes. And I still remember the first time we did a workout. It was two guys were trying to break 15:30 for the first time, or basically sub-5-minute miles for the 5K. Wow. But this workout would actually work for the 1500 and the 800. There's ways to break it down. But we did— it was an 800,000, 800,000, 6. Everything was run at your 3K effort, but you only had 2.5 minutes after everything, which technically speaking, 2.5 minutes after 800 was slightly too long of a recovery, but after the 1,000, it was slightly too short of a recovery. And so we did that Tuesday of our big 5Ks. Thursday, they're like— because they were racing Friday night too, and they were like, Thursday, coach, man, my legs, you know, we weren't sure. We sat down to devise the race strategy. I said, look, you're going to negative split this. I did. Let's go 5:02 to 5:04 first mile. Let's drop down to 5 and see whatever you got for the last mile. So their first mile was 5:01. They go 5:0, they go 5 flat for the second mile. One had a little bit better kick, one went 4:53 and the other went 4:55. So two guys under It was 15:23 and 15:27. Wow. You know, and after that was done, that just became our PR workout. It's like, okay, big 5K. They were like, coach, can we do that workout?

And then it turns into like a lucky charm.

Yeah, it never— it really— that workout never failed. So basically they had 4 days of recovery. If they raced Saturday, I still might have done it on Tuesday. And if they recovered enough, we might have done a little bit of quick work on Thursday just to tune up the legs. but a lot of times that was the only workout they did that week.

Yeah. So that's like the icing on the cake, right? They built the cake the whole season.

Yeah. And I'm gonna admit I didn't create that one. I found that workout talking with a coach.

Yeah.

He gave me an idea and then we went with it.

Again, that's the fun part about coaching, I think, and exercise physiology is you're always kind of tinkering.

So when the men and women who were running the 5K saw that on the schedule, they're like, okay, this is a big race week. I'm gonna PR this week.

That's cool.

You know, we were Division III, no scholarships. I think by time I left there, we had top woman went 17:14, and, and then we had— I think our entire top 10 might be under 18:30, so sub-6-minute miles for the women. I believe it was a total of 8 or 9 guys broke 15 while they were at Susquehanna with me.

That's cool. Do you have a least favorite workout, or that you just are like, never would I ever program XYZ, that maybe somebody might get from like AI or something?

I think in the world of triathlons, I am not the biggest person that will schedule a lot of bricks, especially if you're working with an experienced triathlete. They've done enough, they know what it's like to run off the bike. Will I put some bricks in? Like, I do give people optional bricks. Most of the time they will take it, or if somebody psychologically will do better in a race or mentally do better in a race and they ask for it, I'll put it on there. But I'm not always the biggest proponent of bricks. Yeah, they are good at getting used to it, but I've also learned to shorten bricks as I've coach longer. Or like, obviously in collegiate format, it's— you're redlining most of the time. So we do more on the trainer, run, back on the trainer, run, back on the trainer, run. So I don't do— with my teams, I don't do a traditional brick in that regard.

That sounds real fun, by the way. That's my jam.

We get intense with that one because we're lucky enough that our building that our bikes are in and our trainers are in has a ramp. So they run— they're not tripping down steps, they're running down the ramp. Have anywhere from a 3/4-mile loop to a mile loop that they hammer and then come back on and get on the bike. But I would say the way everybody uses, uses bricks, I'm not the biggest fan of them.

Is it because of the excess overload?

Yeah, I killed myself on some of my bricks, but like I learned, like, okay, so you haven't raced in a while. I've had clients like, once the season starts, we'll stop bricks. And then as the season gets closer, we might throw one in. They know what it's like, but they just need to experience once before race season starts.

So it's more— you mentioned it as more of like a race-specific prep.

Yeah, because once you start racing, like, look at it, most of the clientele are racing 6, 7, 8 times a year. You know, they don't need to do a brick that often. Yeah, you're already doing it every other week.

Is there a workout that you maybe are like, never would I ever do that workout again?

No, not really. Myself personally, no. I think, you know, you gotta look at workouts as, okay, you learn from it, and then, okay, maybe that version didn't work out right, but if you tweak it, it, you know, maybe lowering the volume or lowering the intensity, it could work what you want. I'll use the example, it's listening to your body. Like I, my cross-country team, you know, in Susquehanna, we were about to start a workout. It was cloudy all day. I went out to mark the course, you know, we had a slight mist and then like an hour before the workout, sun comes up, gets humid. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. And so we were just doing lactate threshold work and they all had their heart rates and stuff like that. We knew, like we, we were very scientific. The first interval, they all hit their times, but I looked at 'em like they're red in the face. That should not be lactate threshold. And so when I told 'em, I said, okay, I want everybody to take an extra 30 seconds rest and I want everybody to slow down by 5 to 6 seconds. And they're getting mad at me. No, you're making it easier. No, I'm making it more efficient. So what happened then was the next day I went on one of their Stravas and pulled their heart rate chart and put it up on the, on the bulletin board. I said, does this look like our chalk talk at the beginning of the year? Would that heart rate look like that if we kept trying to do what you wanted to do? And they were like, no. Okay then, if I make adjustments, it's not that the workout was bad, it's just the conditions dictate something. So yeah, if I was to keep you at what you're supposed to do, I would have ran you into the ground because you're bad execution.

Bad execution. Oh, I like that. Very cool. Uh, and Marty has come up to some of our camps That's been super fun. Coach Peter will always give you a hard time about bombing downhills because that's Marty's thing and not Peter's. And that's okay. Everybody's got their thing and that's yours.

If I'm ever at a camp with him, I will make sure that he's on my wheel the whole way down.

That's so funny. Well, like I said, we're lucky to have you, Marty. I think there is so much genius in both your head and in your heart as a coach. So I think Anyone would be very lucky to be supported by you.

So genius or madness?

I mean, let's put them together in this situation. So if you guys want to work with Coach Marty, head over to our website, theenduranceedge.com, and apply there because we are taking athletes for 2025 season. So if you want to work with Marty, which I highly recommend it, then head on over and apply there. Marty, thank you again.

Thank you. Enjoyed it.

Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again. And we'll catch you next time.