I’ll go ahead and give away the payoff right at the start – Ian took home a bronze medal at the 2024 World Triathlon Standard Distance World Championship in Malaga, Spain in the men’s 45-49 age group. And that’s not the only feat he accomplished in 2024 – he also set a personal best time for the half-distance at Challenge Gran Canaria in April, and raced his first IRONMAN at IM Hamburg in a stunning time of 9:21:45. These are no small accomplishments for any athlete, but when you hear about Ian’s training setup you may have to give him a bit more credit. A lot more credit if you ask me! In fact, Ian’s training setup is the most difficult and complicated of any athlete I’ve ever coached.
Meet Ian Johnson, a a mechanical engineer working for Tengizchevroil on the Future Growth Project in Kazakhstan. He works 28 day rotations, meaning that he works for a month at a time in Kazakhstan, followed by a month of home leave when he will return home to Yorkshire in the UK. Ian got in touch with me after listening to my appearance on the Diary of an Age Grouper Podcast with Jamie Edwards of JET Coaching. Jamie and I chatted about all things coaching and racing concerning age group athletes, and it was the part about managing complicated work and life schedules that caught Ian’s ear. Click the link below to listen to my episode (if you have a spare 78 minutes).
Diary of an Age Grouper – Episode 15 – Kevin Collington
For me as a coach, I consider managing available training time to be one of my strengths. I’ve coached varying levels of ‘time-limited’ athletes for years now – anyone from 9am to 5pm employees, to busy executives flying all over creation for work. But Ian’s schedule took ‘time-limited’ to a new level. I have to admit: I was intimidated by the task at hand.
Let’s start with the challenging part first – Ian’s training setup while at work in Kazakhstan leaves much to be desired. He works seven days a week for 12 hours per day. We have a one hour window in the morning and a one hour window at night to get some training in. The pool is a 20 min bus ride so if Ian has a swim we have to keep the commute time in mind. Once at the pool, the aquatics staff doesn’t allow any swim equipment on the side of the pool. This means no pull buoy, paddles, fins, etc. – just pure swimming all the time (one could argue that this is, in fact, a good thing, but as a coach I prefer access to swim equipment just for the strength endurance component of paddles/buoy). For cycling, Ian has a Feedback Trainer in his room. This means he can do almost any type of training except, once again, no strength endurance! Strength endurance being low cadence/high torque work that is a mainstay for the athletes I coach. The Feedback trainer is a great training tool, but it doesn’t have enough resistance to do SE work. On the run, treadmills at the gym are always available, and outdoor running opens up as an option when the weather gets warmer in the summer. The gym is passable, too, so we can get gym/strength work in. When you take all of this into account – working most of the day, short training windows in the morning and evening, time consuming commutes to and from the worksite – to call Ian a “time-limited” athlete is a massive understatement. I also have to keep in mind that Ian is averaging four to five hours of sleep each night. Sleep is an athlete’s primary recovery tool, so this is a key factor in the training plan so I don’t leave him overtrained or injured.
Onto the good news! When Ian is back home in the UK he has carte blanche to train as much as he wants. Swim equipment is back on the menu, strength endurance riding becomes a key focus, he can get a full night’s sleep, and he can even train for more than one hour at a time. We get a lot of work done in these UK training blocks, the only limiting factor being the moody Yorkshire climate.
As I alluded to at the start, I’m happy to report that we were successful in our endeavors this year and Ian absolutely smashed all of his races in 2024, despite the training limitations. A few highlights:
Challenge Gran Canaria – 4:29:27 – 2nd place AG
IM Hamburg – 9:21:45 – 13th place AG
World Triathlon Standard Distance Worlds – 2:06:57 – 3rd place AG
Big Lime Triathlon – 2:01:28 – 2nd OA
Of course, I have to give massive credit to Ian. He gets the work done whether he is in Kazakhstan or the UK. He trains hard, executes sessions to perfection, and does his best with the recovery time he is given. He’s a model athlete and a joy to coach.
Working a demanding 12-hour day a 28-day on, 28-day off rotation schedule in Kazakhstan, I needed a program that could maximize my training efficiency with minimal time to spare. His ability to adapt the training to fit around my demanding work life has truly made a difference in my performance and progress. We began the season with a 70.3 Ironman, moved on to a full Ironman in Hamburg, and wrapped up with a standard distance race at the World Championships in Torremolinos. Kevin adjusted my training as we transitioned from longer to shorter distances, keeping me motivated and injury-free throughout the entire season.” I’m already excited to see where another year under Kevin’s guidance takes me. He certainly understands how to make every session count!
Watch this space in 2025 as we set our sights on the World Triathlon Long Distance World Champs in Pontevedra, Spain, as well as the 70.3 World Champs in Marbella, Spain (pending qualification).