“I first met Ray when he was crewing for one of his athletes, John Humphries at Ultraman Australia in 2016.
After Ray befriended me, I started noticing that he had significant knowledge, experience and qualifications setting him apart from many other Triathlon coaches.
After the tragic passing of my then coach, Craig Percival, in December 2016, and my training stalling over the holiday season while I moved interstate, I sought Ray out to get me back on track for Ultraman Australia 2017.
Ray is very knowledgeable when it comes to utilising Training Peaks, both as a platform to deliver training programs, but more importantly he understands all the numbers and parameters to know exactly where an athlete is at, and how they have actually carried out a session. He then provides feedback within Training Peaks after reviewing athletes comments about the session. During our weekly phone calls Ray discusses key workouts from the previous week, and provides an overview of the upcoming week highlighting the purpose and desired execution of future key workouts. He also has a good chat to ascertain where I am at generally, and is happy to discuss and answer questions about past and future training. Ray is extremely responsive and promptly provides answers to my questions about sessions via message or email, and provides feedback to sessions soon after they are carried out.
I find the detailed and timely feedback very important as it shows me my coach is looking at all the data that I generate through my training and upload onto Training Peaks, and that he is subsequently tailoring my training program to suit my goals and where I am currently at, actively navigating the way forward to get me in the best condition for my primary events.
Ray has put together a very well structured swimming program that has gradually increased my swimming speed and duration, without introducing any overuse injuries from ramping me up to fast.
Likewise, he has initially had me developing my cycling and running endurance, and then introduced more intensity to increase strength, power and consequently speed.
Early on, Ray had me carry out swim, bike, and run time trials to determine my threshold pace and/or power for the three disciplines: Pace for swimming and initially running, and power for cycling.
Ray has a high level of experience and knowledge when it comes to cycle training with power, and has tailored my cycling sessions to have me training in the right power zones to achieve the desired training affect. He has reviewed each bike session providing feedback on how I’ve carried out the session, encouraging me to stay in zone more, and giving me pointers on how to achieve that. Prior to starting with Ray, I purchased a running power meter, which is a relatively new “gadget” and Ray has been very supportive, and even bought a book on run training with power to bring his knowledge of running with power up to the same level as his knowledge of cycling with power. Ray now has me training to goal power zones during running as for cycling.
We recently carried out a swim time trial, followed by bike, and power Functional Threshold Power (FTP) tests to determine the maximum speed or power I can sustain for 1 hour. During my time with Ray, my swimming threshold speed, and running and cycling threshold power have all increased significantly, together with significant gains in endurance, and zero over use injuries.
I highly recommend Ray for athletes of all levels, training for events at any distance, as his knowledge, experience, attention to detail, communication skills and frequency, work ethic, positivity, and application are superior.“
– Dave Carroll
If like Dave you have got a big goal you need assistance to complete, apply to join Team Qwik Kiwi.
Click here for more information: https://www.coachray.nz/get-coached-coach-ray/coaching