Learn How Andy Williams Achieved Back to Back World Qualifiers
Trusting your coach and process can unlock an athlete’s potential. The athlete and coach relationship is always an ever evolving and dynamic partnership built on trust, progression, and, ultimately, results. When the progression and results don’t come, the question becomes what is going wrong? Where are the areas of disconnect in the partnership, and what needs to change? Is it the athlete? Is it the coach? Or, some combination? This case study is about what happens when an athlete let’s loose the reins and instills complete trust in his coach and the process in order to shake off past shortcomings and achieve results never thought possible
The Athlete:
Andy Williams is a 36 year old business executive and triathlete with the long-term goal of qualifying for the Hawaii IRONMAN World Championships. He had a swim background and was a solid athlete growing up, but no real experience in the sport. He started out with a marathon and quickly jumped to IRONMAN triathlons. He got himself a coach and was off and running. Metrics were the focus - power, pace, etc. Unfortunately, ‘putting in the work,’ was not producing results. He constantly struggled with issues in races that would keep his performance far from his goal. Race after race was GI distress, systemic breakdown, and fatigue. Andy’s answer was more volume, more hard work. He convinced his coach to add workouts and volume to the point where he was logging 30 hours a week in training. Needless to say, something had to give.
Andy described it as the feeling of being ‘overcooked,’ and was mentally thinking performance results may never come. He definitely felt he was operating way under his athletic potential. In need of a new direction, Andy turned to the Purple Patch team and Matt Dixon.
The Challenge:
The first challenge for Andy was to get his race day performances cleared up and feeling fit and fresh as an athlete. Plus, 30 hours a week of training was not sustainable in Andy’s life. And, Andy had to become a more intuitive athlete. From there, it was the long-term journey qualifying for the Hawaii IRONMAN World Championships. Fortunately, for Matt Dixon, Andy came ready to make changes, find answers, and put his faith into the Purple Patch process.
The Solution:
“I don’t want to evolve much in your approach, just everything.” - Matt Dixon
This was the centerpiece of motivation for Andy’s solution. Andy had a few things that needed to be addressed, but the very first thing was putting trust into the Purple Patch coaches, the Purple Patch philosophy, and the Pillars Of Performance. Andy allowed himself to be more intuitive, and less analytical, putting emphasis on the balance of life and being an athlete.
The second part of the solution was training volume and focus on quality. As mentioned, Andy was training upwards of 30 hours a week, leading to an overall feeling of fatigue, where Andy would arrive at races both beat up and flat. Matt immediately scaled back his volume to 15-20 hours a week. This shift sharpened Andy's focus. He became faster because he had ample recovery time. And, he was executing training blocks with plenty of easier weeks.
After solving for those, the rest of the puzzle fell into place quickly. Andy acted like a CEO in his approach to training. He had high passion and commitment, but was highly inquisitive and coachable. This mindset applied across all facets of his training. Matt also worked with Andy on his bike technique, nutrition, and strength.
At the end of the day, what really led to positive change -- Andy being open and receptive to change, trusting his coach and the process, and taking the long view on progress..
The Results:
After a year of training with Matt and Purple Patch, Andy became his own best case study in unlocking your athletic potential. In just a period of months, Andy went from barely being able to finish an IRONMAN, to qualifying for not just one world championship, but both the IRONMAN and 70.3 Worlds. And, he did it in back-to-back races this Spring with IRONMAN 70.3 St George and IRONMAN Tulsa. He was Top 10 overall in St. George and finished Tulsa with a time of 9 hours 32 minutes, 4th in his highly competitive age group, and three hours faster than he ever had before! What an incredible result.
Andy arrived at both races fit and fresh, had no GI issues or experienced systemic breakdown, and allowed himself to have fun and enjoy the experiences. His mindset was through the lens of each race just being a big training day without all the qualification pressure. It worked.
Andy committed to coaching, built the relationship through collaboration, and achieved his initial important steps on the performance journey. Being coached is about a commitment to the process, and trusting in the direction of the coach, and Andy benefitted from his high coachability.