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Lionel Sanders: “The number one thing I’m changing for 2017 is I’m going to get a coach”

Lionel Sanders at the 2016 Ironmen 70.3 World Championship pro press conference in September. Credit: Kevin MacKinnon.
Lionel Sanders at the 2016 Ironmen 70.3 World Championship pro press conference in September. Credit: Kevin MacKinnon.

Last week, Lionel Sanders went on his swim coach Gerry Rodrigues’s podcast, Be Race Ready, and gave triathlon fans the answer to a question they’ve been asking for a while. Reflecting on his season, he says that the number one thing he’s changing for 2017 is that he’s going to enlist the help of a coach for not just his swimming, but his entire training program.

In the podcast, coach Gerry Rodrigues references the large Slowtwitch forum with posts exclusively pertaining to whether Sanders should/will get a coach.

“I’d like to work with you, Gerry, because I think you’re the best swim coach around,” Sanders says in response to the question. “But, it’s difficult because I live in Canada and you live in California.”

Rodrigues has provided swim consultations for Sanders since 2015, but the two rarely get to see each other in person as Sanders spends his year training at home in Windsor, Ont.

He goes on to say, “It’s one of those things, I’m not sure who said it but you can’t go on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results. I have not had a coach who I’ve worked with consistently, who’s been able to see me… that’s the major thing for someone who is not naturally gifted in the water… I’m wasting time creating ideas, testing them, finding out they don’t work.

“The number one thing I’m changing in 2017 — and this is not only for my swimming, but for my running and biking as well — is I’m going to get a coach.”

Sanders had two back-to-back disappointing finishes at the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 world championships — ninth and 29th respectively. His focus of the year had been 70.3 worlds, while he acknowledges on his blog that his Kona prep was not where it should have been. Sanders had a winning streak going on starting with Ironman Arizona in 2015 and ending with Ironman 70.3 Racine where he took second. One of his most notable wins during the five races comprising the streak was his title at the 2016 Ironman 70.3 North American championship in St. George, Utah.