Interview with coach Marcel Obersteller | Triathlon: "The mind is always stronger than the body"

Marcel, you're coaching me as a complete beginner who wants to run a triathlon in two months. What's the most important thing when coaching beginners?

For most beginners, you have to slow down. First of all, this is the most important thing to know: Your mind always wants more than your body can deliver. The body is subject to certain adaptation processes that cannot be accelerated. The mind often overlooks these adaptation periods. Therefore, as a coach, I have to bring structure to training and ensure sufficient recovery time.

And what does that look like?

You can only ever improve one of the three disciplines. You maintain the second at the same level, while neglecting the third. That's just the way it is. For you, for example, it's swimming that we're putting on the back burner. You can already do the crawl—whether you're two minutes faster or not is irrelevant. Now we're focusing on metabolic training, that is, energy supply and the optimization of your individual future competition speeds.

What does this mean specifically for my training plan?

With the sessions, I'm trying to give you a sense of what you're capable of. What can you do in an hour, what can you do in ten minutes? That feeling isn't even there. If you get on your bike and I say, "Find a speed you can ride for an hour!", you don't know whether that's 30 or 35 km/h. With our training, I'll give you some guidance.

How do you control the training – do you push me to certain limits?

There's the endurance limit, the FTP value, that all coaches work with. It indicates the maximum average power an athlete can maintain for an hour. You're currently below this threshold. We're slowly working our way up to it. If we go too fast, you'll be out of action for a week or get injured. The trick is to adjust yourself so that you're not on the verge of dying by the end of the competition in September. People are often over-motivated in competitions, start off too fast, and then it backfires.

You're coaching 20 athletes. Are there any top athletes among them?

Yes, really good people, but not professionals. One of my protégés was a professional for four years, but now he has a family. I haven't had any Olympic athletes under my wing yet, but I have had some very fast people.

What is your philosophy as a triathlon coach?

You can't impress me with performance, but with your willingness to perform. I treat everyone equally—whether they're beginners or elite athletes. You can impress me with your willingness to work on yourself. People have to come to me with a goal, otherwise it's pointless. It can be ambitious, too. If in doubt, you just have to work on it longer.

Is triathlon an elitist sport?

Yes, I always say, triathlon is the golf of endurance sports. None of the triathlon enthusiasts buy a bike for less than 10,000 euros anymore. If you want to compete in the Iron Man in Hawaii (the unofficial long-distance triathlon world championship, editor's note), it'll cost you at least 8,000 euros in total just for you as a participant. Just the entry costs 1,200 euros, and you have to go for two weeks. With a 12-hour time difference and an hour of acclimatization per day, it simply takes that long. Plus the flight costs. If you take your family with you and plan a vacation around it, that easily adds up to 20,000 euros for the whole trip.

Still, why should anyone start triathlon?

An Ironman is like giving birth. You go through hell, you're in excruciating pain. But then there comes a point, usually the last two or three kilometers of the run, when you don't know anymore: Am I crying from pain or from joy? That point was always the best for me. When the pain turns into joy, into happiness. That was a thousand times better than crossing the finish line, where I didn't feel much at all.

What was your best competition as an athlete?

It was a race in Podersdorf, Austria, after I had stopped competing a long time ago and I was competing again in the long distance. I had only done half the training beforehand because I felt like I was in good shape. I started without a speedometer, without a watch: I didn't know where I was or how fast I was going the whole time. I was just enjoying myself, I was having fun the whole time, I really was. And in the race I finally set my best time – 8:40 hours. When I looked at the finish clock, I was totally surprised. Why was I so fast? I asked others: Is the distance shorter here? But no: everything was fine. Then I asked the judge: What place did I come in? And he said: Well, fifth! Didn't you notice? Congratulations!

What do you miss from your time as an active player?

The training camps! Honestly, I never lived for the competitions, but for the training camps. I loved being anywhere in the world, getting up, meeting with my friends, and discussing: What are we going to do today? First run, then bike? Or just swim? And then we'd cycle across the island, and somewhere we'd have a cappuccino, wonderful.

What is your strength as a trainer?

Without meaning to be disrespectful: Training science has actually reached its limits; it's no longer rocket science. There are many good people out there. My strength is my holistic perspective as a sports scientist and aspiring naturopath. I can always push my athletes to their limits without overtaxing them. I know my people well; I know who has how many children and who might be going through a difficult phase in their lives. So I call at the right moment and say: "Hey, let's take a break from training." I always get the response: "You did that at exactly the right time."

Is this perhaps the advantage that a trainer will always have over artificial intelligence?

Yes, exactly: The AI ​​already adapts training plans to your current performance level. But the AI ​​doesn't know: Do you perhaps have children who need more care, or are you having trouble with a colleague at work? I can always react. My athletes are open with me because I don't judge them. If you tell me today that you can't manage your training, then that's just the way it is. You don't need to feel guilty. My athletes can be honest. This allows them to retain their enjoyment of sports much longer.