Written By: Sandy Reid

   Here’s my deal- Altho’ I know I should, I don’t “do” race reports for my cycling team, nor do I write enough “thank you” letters and I don’t take time to fill out feedback requests from Amazon Prime. Am I a “bad person”? Nope- just too damn lazy. That said, once in a while something or someone really sparks my “inner pen”, and I haveta (well, wanna) make some words.
Henceforth, you will very likely find me right here on occasion…doing just that…….making words…because…..! 

   Long story in a nutshell, I have always been active, always been competitive, always been a hard worker. However, I am also stubborn, impatient and quick to turn a deaf ear to instruction. I met Derek. My name is Sandy, and I am a changed (for the better!) athlete… nice to meet you!

   I started working out and racing back in my teens. I ran and cycled all through my school years, competing in Track and Cross Country at the high school and collegiate levels, and, turning to cycling as my preferred competitive event once I graduated college. I started instructing a variety of physical fitness classes back in the 80’s (I KNOW, right!??!!), and continue to lead Spin, Boot Camp and Body Sculpt class formats. I am driven and hardcore, and, when I am leading a group, I thrive on pushing others to their limits. Same goes for my own training- I am hardcore and driven BUT I will now admit it,  I have not always been real smart about HOW I trained. 

   Before reluctantly (yes, true…I mean, I don’t like being told what to do and, moreover, PAYING for it sounded ridiculous to me!) climbing aboard with Dalzell Coaching, I trained a lot, without direction/purpose and followed the “no pain, no gain, 365/24/7 plan”. I hurt constantly, felt wasted on race days and lost my “spirit” before race season even reached a halfway point. 

   I remember my first month/ six weeks under Derek’s guidance. What follows is a typical rendition of the conversation that went on in my head:


‘Stubborn Me’: “what? How does this guy expect me to get stonger/faster if I only ride for 90 minutes today?”
‘Give This A Chance Me’:  “just give the plan a go;  he says he knows what hes doing.”
‘SM’: “this can’t be right…..a day OFF!????”
‘GTACM’ : “huh…might be just what you need!”

   Zoom ahead to today. I cannot imagine my active life without Derek’s well-thought out plans and constant willingness to accommodate my life’s crazy-ass schedule. I actually look forward to my workouts, and although there are plenty of “work-til-I-wanna-swear-at-Derek” days in my training plan, I appreciate that Derek has found a way to help me get stronger and faster on the bike while cutting the time I train in half of what I previously forced myself to do. I no longer have to plan how to develop a training plan that actually works- Coach D does it all for me. On top of the time / frustration saved, letting Derek plot my training enthused about racing again. I am super- eager to see what goals Derek can help me reach as we move ahead. For this chick, being a Dalzell athlete is an investment in me, not just physically, but mentally.  In a word- BAM!

By: Kyle Kennison

Training with Twins
My name is Kyle Kennison and I am a husband, proud father of 2 ½ year old boy/girl twins, and thanks to Derek, an IRONMAN. My journey to IRONMAN was a long one, with the idea starting to brew when it was first announced that Ironman was coming to The Woodlands, TX under a 5 year contact. I knew I had a window if I wanted to race in my backyard and have the most family and friends there to cheer me on. Since that time Ironman has renewed their contract and will be moving the date up a month so it isn’t as brutal. I came to Derek a little over 2 years ago looking to do my first ½ Ironman. We came up with a plan and got through the race pretty easily, and a few months later shaved 30 minutes off that ½ Ironman time once we started tweaking with what worked best for me. At the time of both those races my twins were under a year old and in hindsight training at the time was way easier. With all the sleeping they did at that age it was easy to sneak in a workout without being missed by them or my wife.

Fast forward to this time last year, I signed up for my first Ironman. I knew just the Ironman alone is a daunting task but factoring in all other responsibilities and it seemed a little crazy and overwhelming. Throughout all this time Derek and I had been working together so it was a no-brainier we would continue to do so. First thing we talked about was goals I had for the race. Looking back I don’t know how Derek didn’t just laugh in my face, I had HUGE goals especially for a first Ironman. All he said was Awesome, here is how we are going to do it. And with that we got started. Even though Derek is young, I truly believe he is wise beyond his years with his coaching techniques. He knew I could not be gone all weekend training, if I wanted to be married on May 17th (day after the race) still. He also was very aware of the fact that I am going to miss workouts and sometimes a few at a time. Derek also made sure to tell me regularly that I can miss a workout for family time if I need to. With all that said I did not have any “wasted” workouts, every workout had a purpose I was never (swim/bike/run)-ing because I needed XX amount of hours a week.

Derek was also quick to adjust my schedule and rein me back in if I felt like I was starting to become inconsistent. The biggest things we talked about was consistency and 1 hour a day workouts during the work week. I really found my groove and felt less guilty for taking on such a selfish endeavor by working out early in the morning or at night. I was basically working out when the twins were asleep. By doing this my wife didn’t have to be alone with them all the time and I wasn’t missing any family time. It was a win-win. It was still a struggle some days, like it is for everyone. Another mental strategy that Derek helped me with was not to focus on the week and how many hours I had put in but just focus on what I needed to do to get through today. This made the training process into bite-size pieces that were easier to work with and digest. I can honestly say without Derek this really wouldn’t have happened.

One last thing that really impressed me was how networked Derek already is in the triathlon community for such a new and young coach. Derek was able to set up a meeting before IMTX, for his athletes and a fellow coaching friends athletes, with a sports psychologist. Not to get into too many details but I ended having my biggest fear come to life, after 5 years of doing triathlons, I got my first flat in a race. Needless to say I was able to focus do what I needed to get back out there and finish. It wasn’t pretty after the flat but I have a time next to my name, not a DNF.