2021 World IRONMAN 70.3 Champion Calvin Zaryski, and coach to host Bryon Howard, chat about their recent success racing. On Sept 18, Coach Cal became the 50-54 Age Group 70.3 World Champion in St. George, Utah and on Sept 26, Bryon won (breaking the course record by 5 minutes) the 55-59 Age Group at Ironman Chattanooga. They discuss the Mindset, Preparaton and Execution.
Reach out to Coach Cal Zaryski:
https://www.instagram.com/zaryskicalvin/
https://www.instagram.com/criticalspeedracing/
https://criticalspeed.com/
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/calvin.zaryski
Team Critical Speed on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/8379221334
Hey everyone. My name is Brian Howard. I'm a Calgary realtor who has sold an average of a house a week since moving to this great city in 2003. And this is Calgary living real estate and lifestyle. I'm interviewing Calgary's top performers as it relates to living and lifestyle in our great. Some of the podcasts will be real estate decisions specific, but most will be about life in Calgary and why we choose to live here or at least why.
Thanks for tuning it.
Hey folks. Welcome to another edition of living in Calgary. My name is Brian Howard, your host, and tonight we have cows are rusty on the, on the call co cow coach Cal. Thank you so much for, well, so much for being on the show. Absolutely. It's pleasure to be here. My friend, Cal who? 10 days ago, roughly you became a world Ironman [00:01:00] 70.3 champion age group athlete, 50 54.
Congratulations. Thank you so much. You know, it's been a dream of mine. Taxi went in iron man, world title. And as we've talked about in another broadcast is I have a nine X Tara world titles, but the elusive Ironman world brand, I I'm, it's a dream for me to win that. So I'm, I'm thrilled. I'm still happy.
I'm still getting. That is amazing. And I mean, thanks to you. I'm giggling as well. I guess it was how many sleeps ago? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday with three or four sleeps ago, myself and Ryan Armstrong, fellow teammate with critical speed. And I traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee as a result of iron man, Canada getting postponed and canceled, and we both killed the course as well.
Tickling and extremely happy as well. Yeah, exactly. And watching you guys act from afar by the Ironman app was just so thrilling to see again, the [00:02:00] progress that you made that Ryan made and the technology nowadays to watch somebody's race from on a thousands of miles into potentially, but in this case, hundreds of miles away, it was just, it was thrilling.
It was really cool to see you doing. So we decided to do this podcast a little bit. Well, I wanted to do it to celebrate you. And I think you want to do, to celebrate ni in a Ryan's Ryan's achievement. But a little bit more about what we've gone through this pandemic. What have we gone through the last year, two years and and sharing with you all, you're lost your light.
That's okay. And and, and share sharing a little bit about, I guess, maybe you as a coach and your mentality, but I want it to me as a veteran Ironman, having done it, you know, this was my seventh in the last 20 years. My first was 2001. We having this, a newbie, Ryan, his very first Ironman. He finished fourth in his age group in the very competitive age group, 35 to 39.
And in time of 10 0 8. Having him along with me as a newbie newbie eyes and very, very coachable [00:03:00] would be your experience. It was like we were, he was a tremendous asset to me. Tell me a little bit about your perspective of our training in the past year and how we were able to, how, how you, and how we were able to execute these great racists in the last.
Yeah. I mean, obviously it took a lot of work. I mean, when we look at a first-time iron person like Ryan Armstrong, you know, we started this process say 14 months, And during that time, we're in the pandemic. So I had to be super creative to create a program that would be sufficed and prep and preparing someone for an Ironman say within eight to 12 months, we didn't know sure when the iron man was going to happen.
But you have to believe in that type of training. And we did some training that I would say is, is pretty. Pretty advanced in some ways, but most often training is just kind of the same repeated thing. Day after day, it's repeating and it's consistency. That's critical for these types of successes. And so you just have to believe in that.
And I think what we did was really, [00:04:00] really effective lots of dry lines stuff, a lot of swim band poles when we weren't swimming. And I think that's the key for both you and Ryan and myself for that matter to have strong swims in our races. So we did a lot of the work in the off season and then. When you do have a newbie and you mentioned this is that for you and I who've been in the sport for however many years.
We don't want to label ourselves as the old guys, but we've been in this sport for a long time and we tend to get a little bit complacent about the details and high performance and insert in terms of achievement that, that you did myself did. And Ryan did, it's all about details. So details about execution of the race details about execution of your training day in and day out.
Recovery load recovery. Managing how you feel, what your state is. Making changes. Always communicating with me is one, one of the big assets that we had working together, we were all very, very close doing a lot of the same workouts. And so I think that was pretty much the model that we were able to achieve.
What. For sure. Yeah. Interesting. [00:05:00] And maybe to like talk to you like to talk to our audience a little bit, like my experience, I'm actually going there again to the Ironman. with Ryan who came from like a, you know, a sports background, like hockey player kind of guy. Sort of seem to be the captain or the assistant captain of his team meaning sort of, he has a history of being very coachable.
So as a realtor, I've you know, I try to be coachable and I would say that I am coachable, but like not to the extent of Ryan and and for me to experience being with him, sharing a room with them, traveling with them. And him just getting it and getting it and getting it. In terms of your athletes that you've been working with you know, maybe recently, how important is it to have that, you know, that athlete be like really coachable and what is actually, what is coachable mean to you as a coach?
I mean, coachable just as is the state at which. They're interested in learning for sure. They're very keen. They believe that they have the [00:06:00] potential for greatness and greatness is whatever they feel like they want to achieve, you know, reach their own physical potential, mental potential, that sort of thing.
But I think it's just the willingness to learn and to be. And, and often and I certainly don't mind anyone that's willing to actually come back and say, well, what do you think of this? I work with my athletes in a way that we work together because it's often sometimes difficult to, to ask people to do certain training loads.
When they have, you know, responsibilities. You know, but in this case, Ryan was definitely full. He was all in, he was committed and commitment is critical for an Ironman athlete, for sure, because there are so many moving parts to it. And again, the details are really critical and it, the details, as I said, they're important even in the training cycles and through the training cycles, we also have four seasons, you know, we have.
The summer of last year, and then we had fall and then we had winter and then we got back into spring and then right into the race season. So each season had a [00:07:00] challenge. And so with the keen first time, what I would say, I'm a rookie type triathlete and he certainly didn't perform like. In addition to of course you know, they, they are just so good at, at executing the details and that's really where you and I maybe get a little complacent, but we have to keep in mind.
And Ryan was a good person to remind you and I, that those details you can't. I mean, you get blisters on that run because you forgot to put Vaseline in your socks. That's going to make the last 10 or 15 miles very uncomfortable. And you don't want to be thinking about your feet. You want to vote. You want to be thinking about running more, to get finished sooner.
And that's really what Ironman is about in terms of the success. I mean, you've had lots of. This past four months out of your team, your, your, your, you know, our, our teammates. What do you think it takes to like, have that kind of success that you've been getting actually years and year over year, over year?
You know, as like, [00:08:00] as like, if you're, if you really want you know, the sick results again I, I met you at the world championships in. In Edmonton in 2005, the first time you guys seem like a bunch of fast people. And I said, I want to be fast and sort of started to rub shoulders with you, man. And get this join you with as a, as a coach, you know, soon after what do you see about how do, what do athletes do to have that success?
Well, they do the work day after day, but then in terms of the preparation, like what is the rest? What is a race date execution? Oh race day execution. I mean, it's a list basically. It's again, before all the races, these big races, I sat down with every one of you and I basically spelled out the 48 hours leading into the race, of course.
And so the details of what do you do in preparation? How do you get your entire. Race organized with race bags, the bike bag, the swim bag, all of those sorts of things. And those things are pretty [00:09:00] straight forward. But, but I mean, the details about what do you eat the night before, you know, what you expect in terms of asleep?
You're not going to sleep well, maybe even not even two nights before that was my case. The, for my world championships, I was extremely anxious and I didn't sleep well leading in. And so you need to realize that it's totally acceptable. You don't need to freak out, but and you should be able to execute on the day.
And then of course the race day itself, there's so many things that you all had to do, particularly in the full length iron man about eating and drinking and electrolytes and pacing and heart rate and power and all of those specific details. So this successful athlete really can execute those things.
They listened to them, they write them down, they memorize some, whatever it is, they put sort of sticky notes, so to speak on their bike and they, and they just remind themselves what they need to do in order to get there. And they trust the news. Now I always will give an, a plan, a, B and C, because things can go wrong in an Ironman specifically.
So of course, if something goes wrong with your stomach, what is your plan? B [00:10:00] all of those sort of things. So being prepared, being prefaced so that you can sort of problem solve on the fly. I'm not there riding with you. That's for sure. And you can't ask me when you're. The heat of the battle. So we try to cover all those potential issues that might come up in the race itself.
So preparation execution. And then after that, it's more about letting go, letting go in the race and feeling the flow of the race. So to speak. Don't don't necessarily try to fight to go fast. You going fast is about ease is about being easy, going like you really need to get in that flow. If you're pushing too hard, specifically in an Ironman.
Always backfires. So when I saw your swam, I went good swam. And then I saw that you wrote all the way up to first place in your age group. I thought. Fantastic, great ride fingers crossed he didn't override. And then when I saw your running pace, particularly after he got past the 10 mile mark, I thought he.
[00:11:00] He's on, he, if he's running this pace, it's perfect. His execution is on, I'm just hoping that he's you know, ingesting fluids and fuel every mile. That sort of thing that we talked about and pretty much the rest of it is up to you. And the rest of it is certainly mental toughness. And. You know, that's all you can do is try to, again, walk an athlete through it specifically, in Ryan's case, I tried to convey what it's gonna feel like and in Ironman and you know, like talk is cheap until you actually do one, then you really understand what it's about.
Can you tell us a little about your race day, your experience? So, I mean, obviously you, you know, you let up, you have your checklist and, you know, you had some nervousness, it always surprises me that you can be nervous going into a race and I know you can be, and that's just, yeah. I mean, you're so ultra competitive, I guess.
But, but you're, you're following your own advice in terms of checklists. What had happened to walk us through a little bit about your your swim bike run. Did everything go perfectly as [00:12:00] executed or were there things forgotten and you dealt with like the plan B? Yeah. You know, I think the one thing about racing and maybe a reason why most.
May not want to race is because of the pre-race anxiety and the nervousness. And I think people really enjoy the actual aspect of racing and they love the post race glory, of course. But I mean, if an athlete can handle the pre-race anxiety and all the details that need to be done, often they enjoy racing.
And so in this. I actually had two course records age group records St. George. And so I put a lot of heat on myself thinking, okay, I'm, I'm coming into this sort of the number one ranked guy, and that's kind of the wrong thing to do. And I think it heightened my anxiety, unfortunately. And so I really tried to calm myself.
And then I really, as soon as you get to race morning, Brian, as you, you know, once you're at race morning, you're fine. Because then you feel like you've got to do certain things. You got to get up, you got to eat breakfast, you got to do all your [00:13:00] business and your actually. State of doing, but when the night before, it's a little bit difficult when you're waiting around for the race and not most people don't really enjoy that aspect of racing.
So my execution was great. As soon as I got up in the morning, I was ready to go. I got on the bus, I went to the race side, I got all the things sort of figured out. It was mentally rehearsing where all my transition bags were. I mean, that was really tricky this year at worlds. And so I kind of made sure I rehearsed.
I had a great swim. I was right out the front. I had the perfect strategy. I made sure that I was at front of the line in a seated start, so that any swimmer that was faster than he would have to come around me. And that's exactly what happened. I had two American swim by me. I'd gone on their feet and I swam roughly 30 minutes for the 1.9 kilometers with a net without a wetsuit.
So that's a great swim for me. I was very thrilled and I think I was about the eighth fastest swim and then got on the bike and just started to ride as smooth and as fast as I could. You might've heard though, in our race, we had a desert storm [00:14:00] blow in and I was thinking I was 30 kilometers or so into the bike.
And we had around 60 kilometer, wind gusts. We had rain, we had hail, we had sandstorms, we had tumbleweeds blowing across the road. We had just one of these states where it was difficult to keep racing. I was still in race mode. It was difficult to hold air position, but many of the guys that were around me actually pulled off the side of the road because the wind gusts were so strong.
They were getting blown off. Feeling very safe. So that was one of the things where I made the decision that I'm going to do. It's going to keep racing hard and see if I can push through this. And then we, unfortunately, we had a headwind through the rest of the bike and that's not my strength. So my statistics on my bike, my ranking was a little bit lower than what I would hope for.
But as you heard, my run was fantastic. And so the execution was more about making sure that I had the weapon that I normally would have, which was on the run. So I was fifth off the bike. I was three minutes or so back from first place. And I had 13 miles or 21 [00:15:00] kilometers to try to run these guys down.
And basically I had the run of my life. I dug in deeper than I ever had, and I won by two minutes. And so you know, there's something about giving all of you. You know, and crossing the line in it, honestly, it wouldn't matter if I won or not. I was just so, so thrilled that the, the level of commitment and, you know, the discomfort that I endured, I was, I was really thrilled to actually say, okay, that's all I had and whatever the results were, they were, you know, so that's what.
Curious when you pass the guy who was like ahead of you, the only one guy ahead of you. And and did did you know when you were passing him, like you had him, you knew that. Yeah, no, you know, here's the thing like iron man, unfortunately they did not get their number tattoos or their age group tattoos.
And so we were racing completely blind. So for every guy. I'm seeing guide because there was no women on the course at the time for every guy that I passed, I had no idea what [00:16:00] age group they were in. There was no indication of their age group on their calves. And so you were literally doing your own personal time trial, right?
So I just knew that for every person that I would pass. Potentially could have been someone in my age group. And I really didn't know that I was fifth off the bike. I thought it could have no, no idea. I had no clue. I was just running as blind as I possibly could, but you know, going as hard as I possibly could any, and really you don't want to have any regret, right?
You want to be in a position where you're going to go and give everything you possibly can. And then in the end I was fortunate enough to win. So yeah, it was pretty. Yeah. Did did you were you hoping that you'd know someone or like have a volunteer on the course to let you know where you were and you didn't have that?
It sounds like, or what, like you didn't see them. Can you share with that? Yeah. You know what? It's always nice to have a partner companion on the course, giving you some feedback. I mean, today's technology with the Ironmen app. They should be able to log in quick and give you feedback. But in this case I didn't have anyone.
So. You know, you [00:17:00] just can't use that or, or say that that's a disadvantage, like you just have to go and race. And for that matter, even if I would've gotten a feedback, I don't think I could have gone any harder, Brian, to be honest, like if someone said you're two minutes back, you can catch them. I, I wouldn't have had another gear.
I was going as absolute, as hard as I possibly could. So. That's the way I viewed that. And I thought about that. I wish I could have had somebody out there spotting for me, but I thought, you know what? Don't let that bug you, you just go out and race. Every moment that I had on that course, I was going basically as hard as I can.
Yeah, right. When I was so it was a two lap run course for ourselves and at the, at the second lap I heard from friends that I was in first place. And I had, I had no idea how, how high the lead or what the lead was. And of course there, and there was no tattoo marking. And I got passed really by one guy who was a little nervous cause he looked as old as me.
And I was like, so when I crossed the finish line, I didn't really know. And I [00:18:00] tried to respond to that guy. It was a three, two or three miles from the finish line, but I had nothing in me. I always just, you know, I was not responding in the end. He was age group younger and so interesting. And how about yourself, Cal?
Do you use. Like, do you use a heart rate monitor? Do you use a power meter? What are some of the, and, and did, did they work if you did use them? You know what, Brian, I'm a rare kind of a racer. I don't even wear a watch. Especially in ex Tara, because the, the watch data doesn't mean anything in Xterra, but in this case, you know, I, I still didn't really wear anything.
I didn't work for heart rate. I have a good sense of, of my own pacing and effort level. I didn't even have a power meter on my bike. I was basically riding within my own limits and the race, the race changed so much again, when the winds changed in that storm blew through really whether or not you had a power meter or anything, you were just kind managing the, the environment in the, in the crosswind since.
So and then when I headed out on the run I knew I was running strong. I didn't really know the pace, but of course, St [00:19:00] George's run course. I think there was 1200 feet of vertical gain and loss on it, which is substantial over 21 kilometers. And so, you know, you're going slow up because as long as you keep moving forward and you're still running and then on the downhills, I was letting it go.
I was running five 30 minute miles, probably on the downhills. Wow. Yeah. And so I averaged out almost running seven minute miles on it, extremely Healy, a 21 kilometer loop. So I ran. On heart, I guess is what I'm saying. I know I've done the preparation. I kind of have a good feel for what power zones they would be.
I don't look at heart rate. I'd just go now to qualify that though, when the distance goes to the full Ironman, like you guys did, I think heart rate and powered. This is critical, but the 70.3 distance in my mind is just it's long enough that it gives you that an endurance component, but also it's short enough that you can actually go pretty hard.
So that's just my example. But remember I have 35 years of racing in my, in my repertoire. So.[00:20:00] Just a rare person that way I get, I get the feeling of racing, but for a rookie, definitely data guidance would be really critical. Yeah. I haven't shared with you. So I was hoping to to train with, or I train with power for the past year and and the on the bike my power meter.
I should over the last 10 days prior to the race, my power meter seemed to be in and out and not working that well and kilometer 19 on the bike, it stopped completely. So and so, and I was, you know, I had an idea of attention of what power I would hold, but on the end, you know, I guess I think it was experienced.
I was like, okay. I kind of know what it is then, but going by feeling hurt, I got passed by two guys on the. Yeah, they get some point, maybe it was 80 K in or something or a hundred. And and I let them go and I still regret letting them go. But in the end, probably I wouldn't have gone. I wouldn't maybe have a successful as a success, a successful run.
So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's very true. Like sometimes you'll [00:21:00] expand it or burn what they call a match on the bike and who knows what that could mean on the run. And I think the way you executed your bike if I were to look at a power trail trace in this case, it was kind of funky. We would hope that your power was just steady and consistent all the way through the bike with not many spikes.
If you want to call it that now on the run, it's just a matter of the, more of the run. The more you run the sooner. That's a good mantra, actually. It is very good. Yeah. Well, Calvin night before the race, it kind of threw it in our critics speed, a racing team Facebook group some mantras that, you know, might be helpful.
And I know like people say, you know, race, your own race or whatever, but I find what other people's advice. And I want to thank you for your mantra that day, Ryan and I can repeat it. And I think we both stuck in our heads when others are fading, dig deep, and that worked for me on Sunday. That's what makes the difference with you versus your competitors?
For sure. Because you know that you're all in the same hurt locker, so to speak, but that's when you feel that you [00:22:00] need to believe that you have an advantage and that's, you have to embrace that and you have to actually except it. And I actually try to go even deeper into that. Well, cause that's when people are going to give up or start walking or whatever it is, and then that's where you're going to make the move, you know?
So, and you guys did exactly that. Well, thank you, Kelly, I guess when, you know, I think you have a swim practice just to get to any thoughts or you know, I want to say just, Kugo kudos, so happy to see you doing the you know, get that world championship. I think you're hoping, or we're all hoping that the external world champions that's happened in December in Maui where we're I'm going to be there with you where I'm going to be cheering you on for your 10th.
I hope 10th world champions, world champions, exterior. Is that going to happen to you? Well right now, I think they're going to make an announcement on the 8th of October. And so they are still looking or suggesting that it's very promising. So, and I would agree it would be a real coup for me to actually win a world title at the [00:23:00] Ironman 70.3 distance, and then follow it up with an Exterra.
And in your case, winning your age group in an Ironman event, and then hopefully at Xterra worlds. So Well, you know, high-performance, it's tricky. I mean, you have to make sure you do the work and the preparation and plan at all. And as we talked about, look at all the details, but on race day, anything can happen.
And you know, the true mark of a champion is repeatability. Can Kenny champion repeat sort of like you going back to the same iron man in Chattanooga, can Brian Howard win his age group again? And my question to you though, actually, Is why don't you tell the listeners what your thoughts were about you qualified for the most prestigious ultra endurance event on the planet, Ironman, Kona, and you turned it down.
Can you lift the words about that? My friend, you know I like most triathletes you know, the, want to have a dream, like if they're doing Ironman distance to potentially qualify and get to Kona, and I did it when I [00:24:00] started racing training with. Seven. I was a six. We had a great group in your club and I got there in 2008 and came third at main Canada and the age group, that's sort of the 40 to 45 group and got to Kona and I went hard and Kona, and I wondered if I could do well.
And I didn't have, there was six weeks Africana. And I hit a sub 11 hour day there, but you know, there's nothing in terms of Merck Merck's. So I don't want to go again to Kona. I want to Ironman every five years. I want to always train to train, to win. So train as best I can with the goal of a podium finish, not win podium finish.
And and so yes, I can go to Kona or I could have gone. I turned. But because I'm not prepared to go to, to win Kona at this point, but I would like to someday. So would that be, might be in the 70 age group or the 90 age group or the a hundred to 105 year age group. We'll see. Yeah. I, with you, I mean, I'm waiting until I get into that 78 category until I even [00:25:00] contemplate going up to the Ironman world.
Championships with the goal of maybe being on the podium, because in my mind, that's just not my expertise and I don't feel confident that I could have done that type of performance. So but who knows as we get older, right? The the age group becomes a little smaller, right, Brian. Right. But the other thing is we get the gain, this fitness from training in the sport of triathlon, but then there's so many more things and fun things to do.
Like, well, where were you? There's mountains to be explored. So my next year focus will be more on, you know, our mountains nearby versus having to train another year. Yeah, I'm with you too. Next year, I'm taking a little bit more of an adventure year of, of as opposed to high performance racing and results.
I agree with you. I'm with you for sure. Yeah. Cal congratulations. Any last minute thoughts you want to share with the audience and how do people best reach out to. Yeah. I mean, if they have any questions or comments or they're looking for some guidance in their endurance coach realm and in their performances and [00:26:00] such, they can reach me@coachcalatcriticalspeed.com.
Even if you just Google coach Cal you'll find me. And other than that, let's all stay healthy. Let's stay safe, let's stay consistent. Let's do our training with a smile and let's make sure that we have great people in our lives. And that's really what it comes down to. Absolutely. Thanks for being on the show.
Kal. Thanks, Brian. Cheers. My friend, absolutely.