Steve Trew is one of the best-known names in triathlon as a coach, race commentator, journalist and novelist. He was at the Sydney Olympic Games as part of the British coaching team and also as race commentator for triathlon. He has provided both live and TV commentary at many ITU World Cup events and World Championships, the Commonwealth Games in Manchester for both triathlon and swimming and at the Athens Olympic Games for BBC TV. At the Melbourne Commonwealth Games he even combined being Wales Triathlon team manager with commentating for the BBC. Like many events, and even a well-known triathlon magazine, Steve is celebrating his silver anniversary in the sport this year.

Five years ago I wrote about being in this funny old sport for twenty years... Five years ago! Where did that go, let alone the 20 years before! What’s made me put pen to paper (not too tough to encourage me to do that) this time was meeting up, and then getting an e-mail from Mark Kleanthous. I bumped into Mark (and Clare K) on the Tri and Run stand at the TCR Show and we started catching up. Then the e-mail arrived and I tried to get my head around twenty-five years in triathlon!

My first triathlon in Liverpool back in September 1983, the Big K by name, pure hurt and memories by nature. But let me tell you about Mark Kleanthous first. Mark wrote me the e-mail below (all expletives deleted of course).

I remember the time when a real training camp was me cycling from Dagenham to Reading, with half-hundredweight in my rack sack! I rushed all the way there arriving a few minutes late and was so hyped up and astonished as nothing was happening!

It hardly seems 25 years ago when we first met up at the Reading Triathlon 1983 and Ibiza in 1984 at the first ever tri training camp. How the sport has grown, amazing! I still have the original volume one, edition one, British Triathlon handbook. I showed it to British Triathlon at the TCR Show and they asked for it so I plan to take some digital photographs before sending it off.

Where have all the last 25 seasons gone! I am much older and wiser, having done 10:32 in Ironman Switzerland last year, compared to 10:57 back in 1987 for Hawaii, still a little life in the old dog yet?

I used Ironman Switzerland to celebrate my 25 years in the sport. While I knew Sarah Springman was based in Zurich I thought I was hallucinating to see her as I crossed the finish line, sitting there watching! I recall an elderly guy (he was probably only 40 while I was 24) saying to me when I crossed the Ironman finish in the 80s you will not be doing this and those times in 25 years, how wrong could he have been!

I would never have dreamt it way back then. Triathlon gave me a new purpose, running from Dagenham to Kings Cross and back home again, 30 miles a day (the 'more is better' brigade). I would have been crippled for life had I not discovered triathlon. I have had some great memories and hope to have some more in the future. I still see Dick Poole results in some time trials.

What an incredible guy Mark is; did you see those Ironman times? 10.32 twenty years after a 10.57, now that is amazing!

All those years back

My first event was the Big K on 18th September 1983 up in Liverpool; a 1000m pool swim, 20 mile cycle and 6 mile run. I think there were only around five or six events in the country at that time, so you traveled wherever, loved it and hated it, I’m pretty sure Peter Howard was racing back then as well? All the stuff you ever read about, I did it; falling over after the bike section, complete change of clothing between disciplines, all that stuff.

I’ve got no idea of the final time (although, I’m pretty sure I’ve got the finishing certificate somewhere). I have this memory of dismounting from my bike and then literally falling down as I tried to change my shoes for the run! I’d half-tried transition training, but the real thing was entirely different, I learnt quickly.

So how did I get into it? I had had a few good years running on the track in the early seventies, and then gradually started moving up the distances, eventually getting caught up in the ‘marathon bug’ in the eighties. I decided to do a triathlon after racing in the Wolverhampton marathon in March that year. As we were running along, this guy started telling me that he was running the marathon as training for something called a 'triathlon' which he was doing later that year, this was where it all began. I really got quite thrilled at the idea and asked questions for the first 20 miles of the marathon. I was so buzzed up by the idea that my final six miles were the quickest of the whole marathon. Then I got sick and had to take a lot of time off training. When I re-started I needed an aim and rather than picking a running race where I thought I might be disappointed with my time, I focused on the Big K.

Early days - early races

I raced a lot the next year, including doing the London to Paris triathlon relay - and now look at what Eddie Ette, Andy Mouncey and Julian Crabtree (and more) have done, the whole deal by themselves! We had teams of four and had to split a 100 miles running from London to Dover on day one, swim the Channel on day two, and then cycling the 200 miles from the French coast into Paris on day three. I slept a lot the next week! Actually, we were not very well prepared at all, although we thought we were, it was a huge learning experience coupled with a pretty poor performance as a team, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. On the triathlon circuit in Great Britain there weren’t too many events so we used to see the same athletes at most of the races; it was a good atmosphere, almost a club scene.

I went on what I’m pretty sure was the first British warm weather training camp in 1984, it was in Ibiza, at Easter time, and it was there that I met the infamous Mark Kleanthous. This was very much pre-wetsuit times and a lot of the swimming training was getting used to dealing with the cold. Roger Parsons from the LDSA was the swim coach and he had this rule; ‘if you feel yourself getting cramp, or you’re in difficulties, put your hand up and shout out, and we’ll get a boat to you’. Very straightforward and safe, so I thought... We were swimming late afternoon, water temperature was so cold, about 55 degrees, and Mark got cramp. As per instructions, up went one arm and out came a shout, so far so good, but then Mark got cramp in the other leg as well. Being a logical chap, the thought process went something like, 'one leg cramp, one arm up, therefore two legs cramp, two arms up', so up went the other arm, Mark exits stage beneath, under the water! Actually, we need another article dedicated just to Mark, the guy is a legend and has done more than anyone. Much respect!

The Europeans in Milton Keynes in ’86 was great, I won my age group and race day was also my wedding anniversary. We were flying out to Malta that night for a holiday and the only flight we could get for an evening departure was from Newcastle. I have this memory of driving up the A1 in a bit of a haze, just reliving the whole thing. The year after, the Europeans were in Marseilles and I was convinced I’d win; I didn’t! I finished 6th, totally gutted, and humbled.

The first World Champs in Avignon was also very special. Can you imagine, the first ever triathlon World Championships! Qualification was very tough; it was nothing like as big as now and countries were very restricted on how many athletes they were allowed to take. I squeezed into the age group team and finished 10th at Avignon, but I raced as well as I could, so no disappointments. Glenn Cook, of coursec took silver here for the Brits behind Mark Allen (USA) and in front of Rick Wells (NZ). Robin Brew, one of the big names, also should have raced, but we had a one-off selection race and Robin punctured, end of, sadly. Bernie Shrosbree did race, as did Sarah Coope but not Sarah Springman.

There were the bad races as well, but you need the bad ones to remind you of how good the good ones are! One year, I think 1987, I had two awful ones back to back. I raced in Rotterdam in a weird distance event, it was about two-thirds Ironman; just under two mile swim in a canal, 75 mile ride and then about 18 mile run. I had a great swim, came out in top ten overall and a good ride, but this was where it started to go wrong. New tribars, very much an innovation then, meant that my position was radically altered and then I got into transition ready for the run. The run was two-laps around Rotterdam airport, completely flat and open, you could see everyone spread out in front and behind you in the entire field. I felt great, definite win in the age group, so I thought until the bear jumped on my back! I spent the most excruciating two hours plus watching athletes passing me and being able to do absolutely nothing about it, it was a real battle of wills to get through that one.

Just one week later at Bath – the swim then was in the sports centre down by the rugby pitch - I lost my goggles as I dived in, loosened my handlebars on the ride and had all sorts of problems trying to negotiate the hills (remember Brassknocker?) as I couldn’t get out of the saddle for the final five miles of the cycle, and then came the run. I had been given my first free pair of running shoes! Wow! And, of course, like your average idiot, I chose to wear them for the first time in the race. Big mistake. Added to the hurt and pain on my feet from the previous week, this one really got to me. I ended up trying to run barefoot as the blisters got to me, and then eventually walking the last half mile carrying my shoes, the shame of it!

Coaching

I’d been involved with the BTA for some time and started to do some coaching for triathlon. At that time it was still very much a matter of ‘more is better’ and, coming from a coaching background in swimming and running, I really questioned how athletes were going about triathlon training. Frequently it seemed to be miles and miles without any idea of the principles of interval training. There is obviously a lot of carry-over in the three disciplines, but there are also a lot of differences. If you tried to translate the hours and the intensity of a swimming programme to running, you’d end up with a whole lot of injured athletes very quickly.

The books followed the coaching (I do hope that I had a constructive input in getting things started), in 1989 Triathlon, skills of the Game, then, Triathlon, a training manual and later this year, Teach yourself Triathlon. Along with the coaching books there were a couple of triathlon novels, A Long Day’s Dying and A Moment of Suffering (first one sold out, second one’s still trying) and a DVD earlier this year, Technique of Triathlon.

I’d like to think that triathlon coaches generally are the new breed of coaches, trying new things, evolving, setting new limits and boundaries while we’re breaking old ones. You never stop learning from other coaches, and that is why the opportunity to meet up with other coaches from all over the world at events like ITU Worlds, is so valuable. I have totally enjoyed working with Chris Jones, Bill Black and Glenn Cook over the years; lots of laughs, too much wine, and hopefully some innovation in coaching techniques.

I have a special interest in social and group dynamics and diametrics (people watching) and its application to working with squads and groups of athletes. When you’re away on camps it can be a case of not ‘if’ something happens but rather ‘when’ which can really affect a group, and if you haven’t planned for that and developed strategies to deal with it, then you’re fire-fighting instead of moving forward. There’s a lot of stuff you can work on; zero loss games, strategies where you can’t develop yourself without contributing to someone else’s success, it might sound a bit trite when you see it in print, but if you plan it and do it properly, then it does work.

This is the first in a two-part series; next week we continue twenty-five years in triathlon and find out about camps, more ancient memories, books and stories, the Sydney Olympic Games and, lastly, a little bit of Trew philosophy.