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Harry Wiltshire is a pro triathlete turned barrister, his athletic achievements include being third fastest British athlete ever in the IRONMAN World Championship and winning Celtman.

We chatted the day before 2018 Norseman and Harry shares his journey into triathlon and his best advice for tackling any triathlon distance race!

{Click on the player above to listen to the podcast episode and/or read on for a detailed overview}

Adelaide: Hello everyone! With me today is Harry Wiltshire and we're currently at Norseman [2018]. It's the day before the race, which he is about to take compete in and we are sitting in the boathouse, looking out across Eidfjord and it's absolutely amazing. Welcome to the show, Harry!

So for our listeners who may not know you, could you tell us who you are and what it is you do in the world today?

Harry: So I guess I'm a professional triathlete. I started racing full time when I finished university. I won the world student games just before I finished uni and then I did three or four years racing, I suppose globally, I spent the best part of a year on a training camp in Brazil, on a kind of farm in the back end of Brazil.

Then I joined a training squad that were in Thailand and trained for six months in Thailand. Then I lived a year in Switzerland with an international squad that had some of the best athletes in the world. It was a coach who was sort of meant to be the the best coach in the world and I still think he is, he was absolutely incredible as a coach. But my aim was was London Olympics. He said to me, look you just don't run fast enough to win a medal at the Olympics and my squad is about people who can win Olympic medals. So you're not stupid, go back to England and get a job, you need to get on with your life.

So I went back to England and went 'nah, I don't make it a conventional job, I still think I can get a bit further.' So I was back in the UK, training as a runner in the UK trying to get my runtime down. I got my runtime down, but not quick enough for a Olympic medal. So that was sort of London Olympics out.

Then I had a bit of a think about what happened next and at that stage, the thought of the next Olympics was coming up and the British team were talking about having domestiques - athletes working to help another athlete win a medal, if they weren't good enough to win a medal in their own right.

The two people in the British setup who could win medals were Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee, and because I swam quite quickly, they said, 'Look, you could be someone who could help out for the Brownlees in terms of ability to win a medal.'

So I moved up to Leeds where the Brownlees were based and I was working with them, potentially to go to the Olympics as a domestique. In the end, that didn't happen and I kind of thought, that's probably the end of my racing career, I've been doing this for seven or eight years have not really made sensible money, I'm kind of getting a bit too old for it and I've not made my Olympic team, so maybe it's time to move on.

I then started doing a little bit of longer distance stuff and I went back to uni and did a law degree. So over the next three years, I was qualifying as a barrister so I had a job to do in the future and I was racing long course.

That kind of went okay for me and ended up going to World Championships three times. My last big race last year was the World Championships in Kona and I finished 20th overall and had the third fastest British time at the Ironman World Championships ever. So yeah, Olympic distance racing, short course, domestique-ing for British athletes and then on to long course and a bit of law. That's kind of where I am now having a year out of really serious sort of pro racing and just doing fun races. So I've done Celtman, Long Course Weekend in Wales couple of weeks ago, which was a kind of iconic Ironman distance race and then that brings here, to the edge of a fjord in Norway, looking out over one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen!

Adelaide: It is an amazing view! I always thought the water would be absolutely freezing, as that's what everyone tells you, but it's actually quite warm!

Harry: Can you hear that? We've got Nessun Dorma playing on a boat passing by us and we've got waves and salutes from people in luminous green tops.

Adelaide: That was slightly surreal, I don't that's happened on my podcast yet, suprisingly! So what drew you to triathlon in the first place?

Harry: I wasn't a very good swimmer and I quite like being good at things. I wasn't good at being a swimmer, so I lived on the south coast, just outside Bournemouth and they had a series of evening swimrun races. So just to swim in the sea and then run along the prom.

I think I had just been on the beach with my mates and I entered one of these things and quite enjoyed it. So I went back the next week and a guy called Tim Don and his friend, Stuart Hayes, had come down to do it and this was this was 1999.

So this kind of hero, everyone started whispering going 'He's going to the Olympics, do you know him? He's is going to the Olympics!' So I did this swimrun race, just off the beach, with a guy who was going to the Olympics and I was with him out of the swim, but I'm not a very good swimmer and I've just come out of the water with this guy who's going to the Olympics, so maybe I should try this?

Then after that, I guess I just didn't realise how bad I was, if I'd known how useless I was I might have gone and got on with life. But I'd sort of got put on to a development programme and it was actually because they didn't have any funding in the centre and they had to have athletes in a centre to get the funding.

So I moved to Bath University, which was the National High Performance centre and was put on this programme. So I thought, wow, I must be good at this. Then I was taken to a world championships in Cancun and I was 18 years old, on a beach in Cancun watching, I guess 5000 people cheering someone out of the swim in the senior race.

Then I did the junior race and led out the swim there, and my swim time was faster than the guys in the senior race. So I kind of got in my head, like, awesome, I can do this, this can be my job. Then the next sort of seven or eight years, were realising that actually I needed to learn to ride a bike and run if that was going to be my job.

Adelaide: So the swimruns came first and then the development programme was for triathlon?

Harry: Yeah, that's right.

Adelaide: So have you now fall in love with the sport?

Harry: Well I guess, I was 15 years old, 18 years old, and I'm still here. So something must of happened!

Adelaide: What do you love most about it?

Harry: See, I don't think about this very often, because I guess it has become what I do, and no one really asks me those questions. Why are you actually doing it? I like being out and being fit I think. If there wasn't any racing to do, if there was a never another race and I was back in Leeds, I'll be meeting the group at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning for the ride to the cafe and back. Because my job was effectively meeting my mates and going for an easy ride and having a chat. And then a couple of times a week we do some efforts. I enjoyed the fact that I was just out in the Dales riding a bike or out anywhere riding a bike.

And I love swimming, I just like being in the water, I like moving through the water. It gives you a buzz of being fit, of being able to do something. It's weird to be able to put your hand on the water when you're swimming and pull it through and actually go somewhere and get into a rhythm and go, 'I'm just moving here and I'm ticking along'. It's just a cool thing.

Yeah, so the simple version is I just like being out and I like doing it. And then if I can be good at something, can I can be winning races? And I don't know if you meant to say this, but if you're actually in a race and there's two of you head to head, and you've got the upper hand and you're going right, I could actually turn the screws now and I can put the pressure on and I'm in control of the situation and I can make the race work for me, that's a bit of a buzz as well. That's quite good fun.

Adelaide: What does that feel like when that's happening?

Harry: It doesn't happen very often. It's probably only a few times that you're actually in a race and you go, 'I'm in charge of this, I can decide how it's going to work'. But it's awesome. When you know that someone else is hanging on and it's your decision on how you're going to work the race and when you're going to push it and what you're going to do with it, it gets cool.

Adelaide: So you did Celtman 6 weeks ago? And now we're here at Norseman! Could you tell us about Celtman?

Harry: Yeah, again, it was just a different experience. You know, I've done years where I've raced 12 Ironman races in a year and I've been chasing points for selection to a race, or I've been chasing coverage for sponsors. To just step back and go, you know what, I'm just going to go to the north of Scotland, in the middle of nowhere and hire a little cottage that's at the end of a five mile road that goes to nowhere up in the hills and look out over the sea and just enjoy being there was a cool experience in itself.

Then I guess, because I've got a big background in racing, without stressing too much about it, I was able to just go and enjoy the race and get into... well, I didn't get into a rhythm on the swim, I was so cold, I just swam as hard as I could so I didn't get hypothermia. Then yeah, I got into a rhythm on the bike, just really enjoyed being up in a cloud, riding through some really beautiful scenery, some gorgeous bits of coastline. Then getting onto a run that sort of naturally splits itself up, it was basically a flat off road half marathon, followed by a really big climb, followed by an obstacle course descent. So it's just four hours of playing about in the mountains. I had a really good support crew there and guys who really looked after me. Just a fun day out of trying something a bit different and it was really adventure racing, this extreme running, scree slopes, it was conditions that you wouldn't normally be competing in. So I had a great time!

Adelaide: How does that mentally compare, to other races like Kona and pro races?

Harry: I'm chilled this year. Last year was work, I was going to the World Championships and it was my job to get the best result I could for my sponsors. Everything was about how to nail that performance. I'm here to race and I'm here to give the best performance I can, but there's no prize money here. I'm not here for the cash, I'm not going to suddenly launch a career out of my result here. This is for me, because it's a fun thing to do and racing is good fun and racing in a cool place is to be an experience.

Adelaide: So have you mentally prepared at all for Norseman, because it's so different to anything else?

Harry: I don't think you mentally prepared overnight, I've mentally prepared from racing for 15 years, I know how to do a race and how to approach it. I know what goes wrong, I know that there's going to be times when I'm thinking this is not gonna work, or I can't get this right. I know what my head is going to say to me at those points. Also preparation, knowing you can do it takes a lot of that mental element out.

I'm not here going, I don't know if I can get around that course. I'm wondering how quickly I can get around that course, and how hard I can push without crossing the line and falling to pieces. So I suppose it's a long term thing of knowing how to race and what my body can do. And I suppose I'm in a position where I've spent years training 25, 30, 35 hours a week, so it's closer to my comfort zone than I guess it is for people who are just here as a race.

Adelaide: When you're thinking 'This hasn't gone quite right', or 'Am I close to that red zone?', what do you say to yourself to rein those thoughts back in again?

Harry: Well close to the red zone is kind of where you want, the person who wins this race will be the person who can kick where the threshold is, and stay as close to that threshold for the whole day without going across it. But if you go across it, you're going to fall to pieces. So if you cross it in the swim, or you cross it on the way up the first climb, you're on borrowed time, it's going to go wrong somewhere. So early on in the race, it's not going to be about how hard you can push, it's going to be about judging accurately where that threshold is, being prepared to get really close to it, but not making a mess of yourself. Because if you go wrong too early, there's no coming back.

Adelaide: How does it feel when you think you're at your threshold?

Harry: Well, I've got numbers. So on the bike I know roughly what power number I'm looking for and I'll look at the number on the bike. The swim, I've been swimming competitively since I was about 10. So I've just got an idea of what the sustainable pace is. I'm not very good at surging, I'll find that there's people who can just hammer me over the first two hours, I just can't touch them and then they start to fade, but I'm, I'm able to hold on to it.

So I guess I've just done a lot of learning what that feels like. That's not to say that I won't get it wrong, because probably, I don't know, 8 out of 10 times you do get it wrong. Then it's just dragging yourself home the best you can. At that stage, you're thinking, well, the chances are that everyone else has got it wrong, too. So, okay, I'm dragging myself home, but can I drag myself home better than they can?

So it's a kind of three stage approach: Can I get it right? Can I stay the right side of the line? And can I judge my effort for the whole race? Which is a skill and I'll probably get it wrong. But if I get it wrong, what's the best way to deal with it? And how do I deal with it better than other people?

Adelaide: They're such great questions to be asking yourself, because so many people, if they're dragging themselves home, they might think that okay, this is race over for me now.

Harry: And that happens, but because I've raised a lot before, I know that there will be a time in my head, where my head goes, 'Harry you are a better athlete than this. It's gone wrong, this isn't your day, you might as well just bin it now, because you shouldn't be performing at this level and it's not right, and if you stop now, everyone will say, Oh, you were just having a bad day, because you're better than that. That's a great way out of this.'

And that's just what your head does to you when you're smashed and it's gone slightly wrong. I know from experience, that 20 minutes later, you've got some carbs back in, you've let your heart rate come down a little bit and sometimes you just find that you bumped back into the leader who's blown up, and is having the same thought process. Suddenly you're back in the race and you feel great.

So I think part of it is knowing not to believe what your head says to you at that stage. Just saying, 'Look, I'm committed the whole day, and I'm doing it anyway. So I might as well do it as quickly as I can. I know I'm struggling now, but let's get back in control of it, have a little sort of mental checklist of the things I can do to get my body right, and then push on again and see where I get to.'

Adelaide: What's that mental checklist?

Harry: In a race like this, if you get too cold, you're in trouble. If you've run out of carbohydrates, you're in trouble. And if you push too hard, you're in trouble. So if it's gone wrong, I need to get warm, I need to get enough food in and I need to get my heart under control. So trying to keep it really simple like that.

Again, I think it's experience that if I blow up as I probably will, it's knowing why I've blown up and what I can do to best remedy that situation. So it'll be different depending on what's happened, but just being able to pick it early, going I'm getting cold now and if I let this carry on for 10 minutes, I'm not going to be able to perform. So is it better to push on, because I'm coming to another climb and I'll warm up on the climb? Or is it better to stop, lose a minute now and get warm, make sure I'm okay for the rest of the day?

Adelaide: And getting warm for you is that putting on an extra layer?

Harry: Probably a dry layer. If I'm wet, then it'll be having the right clothing and having something dry, which is where this race is all about your support crew. If my support crew are close by and they know the key moments where I might be in trouble, and at that stage when I'm starting to think I could do with an extra layer and someone is standing by the side of the road with an extra layer, that's what will make the big difference in this race.

Adelaide: Do you have the same support crew for Norseman as you did for Celtman?

Harry: 50%, support crew of two. So I had a guy who I used to run with when I lived down in Dartmouth for Celtman who fetch from 50, but a really decent runner and a great mountain runner. So he took me over the top of the mountain and was fantastic, because I was just safe. He knew the mountain, he knew how to run in the mountains. I was pretty shot at that stage and couldn't really think straight. I was able just to say to him, you're in charge. He told me what to do. So he would say drink, he would say eat, he would say turn left, turn right, push on now, ease up. And because I knew him well, I knew that he knew what he was up to, I didn't have to think about it.

I've got Linda here, she's my girlfriend. Don't say that, she doesn't doesn't like admitting to it. She's really good, because she's raced with me loads and she knows that I start to shut down and I just say single word instructions. I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm not trying to be harsh. But if I say energy drink, that's all the conversation we have to have. And if I say gel, she knows it's gel, and she'll kind of know before I do. Linda is here with my brother who's really keen, ex-marine, so he's good at kind of organising stuff, but hasn't had a lot to do with racing. So we've got a little sort of system where Linda will say what needs to happen, how it needs to happen and Tim will make it happen. We'll see how it works. But we've had kind of a day of prepping and they're pretty good.

Adelaide: Have you practiced like a section of the course with them as your crew?

Harry: Yeah.

Adelaide: What's your nutrition like? What have you gone for?

Harry: So I'm sponsored by OTE and even if I wasn't, and I know I have to say this, but even if I wasn't I'd be using their products. I've tried to do a race like this where I thought more solid food would work. I coached a guy who did this about five years ago and I remember saying to him, 'Look, you're going to be out for a while, you just need a proper breakfast, find yourself a bacon sandwich after the swim. Just make sure you've got proper food in.' And he did and he got his t-shirt at the top of the mountain. So, if you're trying to get round, that's probably quite a good scenario in a race like this. You're out for 11, 12 maybe more hours, just make sure you eat properly.

I tried that in Celtman and just vomited it all up. That wasn't going to happen for me. So I've come to the conclusion that I'm basically energy gels, energy drink, banana, and then caffeine with about an hour to go. If I can get round in 9,10 hours that might do for me and any longer than that, then I'm walking and I'm going to be looking for sausage rolls and half decent things like that!

So yeah, I mean, I've got bottles of energy gels and I'll swig them from the bottle. I'll try and get three gels an hour for the second half of the ride. Mars bars are awesome. I'll try and eat Mars bars because they just go down easily. They're quite good for carbohydrate content, it gives you quite a quick burst of energy, that if you keep eating them you can sustain. So yeah, combination of gels, Mars bars, energy drink, bananas and then just eating little and often the whole way through the race.

Adelaide: Is the energy drink the OTE carb electrolyte drink?

Harry: Yeah, so I use a carb electrolyte drink and I mix up with a little bit stronger than it says in the instructions for weather like this, and I put a spoonful of the carb extra powder in. So I've made it up really quite strong. I don't think I'll get too dehydrated in weather like this, probably 300-400 millilitres an hour of liquid will do me. If it was a hot race, I'd be looking at 750 millilitres an hour.

Here, I can make it up a bit more concentrate and get the energy in. I'd prefer to overdo the energy on the bike and get to the run and go 'I'm good here, I'm all right for an hour', rather than risk it. My stomach's normally quite good with stuff. If my stomach's going to be okay with it, then I might as well get in as much energy as I can and just keep that pushing, and if you get to the bottom of the hill with two hours of racing to go, and you haven't had a wobble, you can maybe be a bit more risky with it. But I think the whole race is getting to the bottom of that hill in really good shape.

Adelaide: What are you most looking forward to about Norsemen? What most attracted you to the race in the first place?

Harry: Just that it's different. I mean I haven't done a podcast sat looking out over fjords from the edge of a boat house. This is kind of a cool place to be, it's just the whole vibe. I'm pretty relaxed about it. I'm going to race, I'm going to do the very best I can. When I get out my bike, I'm gonna get my head down. I'm going to ride as hard as I can. But, you know, the world's not going to change if I blow the doors off and have to walk home. It's not like a Kona experience where everyone has just got you under a magnifying glass and seeing what you can do. It's for shits and giggles, that's what we're here for. We're here for shits and giggles.

Adelaide: Have you practiced your jump off the car?

Harry: No I haven't! I'm worried about losing my goggles!

Adelaide: In one of the videos I saw a guy do a backflip off the ferry and wondered if he practised!

Harry: I'm doing a back flip off, it would end in tears!

Adelaide: This morning Helen, Editor of 220 Triathlon, and I pencil jumped off the small pontoon with our hands on the goggles!

Harry: Yeah, at that stage in the morning. I'm just trying to get to the start. I don't want to lose my goggles, that would be horrible!

Adelaide: That would be so bad! Obviously bad. You've briefly mentioned Kona, can you talk to us about that experience? You've done it three times now?

Harry: Yeah. It's seen as this pinnacle of racing and I guess it is, as you've got all the best guys in the world there. It's hard because of the conditions and because of the race, and because of the heat and all of that, but what's really hard, is that you've got the 50 best guys in the world who are all racing for a win. No one wants to finish fourth there. So almost everyone, probably apart from the winner, maybe the winner as well are pushing too hard. So you get in this race and you're outside of what you know you can sustain, but if you don't sustain it, the race is gone. So you're all in this line on the bike or pushing going, 'I know I can't keep this up, but if I don't keep this up, I'm out of the race'.

It's a bit of a poker game of people trying to hang on, or someone being really clever and saying, 'Look, I'm not going to win this, but I might let them go for five minutes now and pull them back for 20 minutes later on.'

So that kind of what I enjoy about the racing, you've got to know your body and you've got to make a decision about what your body is going to be able to do. Then back the fact that what it can do will get you the the result you should get. So that's the Kona experience.

There are a lot of people there who are just triathlon crazy and it's definitely a bit under a magnifying glass. I suppose I don't think I get stressed particularly, but it is a sort of stressful experience. Everyone is really on it there and really serious. It's the only place you go out for a job before the race and you'll have kind of 10 people come past you and they'll look around and go, 'He's got a pro wristband on, how is he running so slowly?'

So yeah, it's unlike anything else that I've done the Kona experience. I'm glad I've done it and it's really cool. Equally, each time I go back and think this isn't quite like the races I started doing, which were kind of a bunch of people who were happy to be doing something, with all other like minded people, probably in a car park, in the back of nowhere, just enjoying it. So I've kind of been there and thought, well, how have I got here? This is a bit different.

Adelaide: Being in that environment, did you get pre race nerves?

Harry: Yeah, I always get a little bit nervous pre race. I guess people deal with nerves in different ways. So I try and keep it under control and make it to the right level of of nervousness.

Adelaide: How do you do that?

Harry: I don't really know. I think it's probably just having just been there before. I remember I was sat waiting for the start in Kona, just sort of getting my kit ready and sat on the beach, looking out over the start. One of the girls who I've raced with a lot came up to me and said, 'I never know how you're so calm before a race, you look like it doesn't cost you at all.' And I'm sat there thinking, 'I'm absolutely bricking it!'

And equally, the guy who won last year, we were on the start line together and he was he was really nervous on the start line. He wanted to swim with me, because he knew I'd be able to find the line in the swim and he was sort of hustling for that position. I just said to him, it's alright, it's fine, there's loads of room here, we've got a long day, just get on my feet and we'll find a way to the front. Trust me, I'm going to get there, don't panic about it, we'll be fine.

He came up to me after he'd won, which he really didn't need to do, because he just won the biggest race in the world. And he said, 'Thanks for that Harry, you really calmed me down. I was just getting a bit caught up in it and what you said there made a difference.' So I don't know, I mean, I was super nervous as well and I was thinking, I'm not sure if I'm going to get to the front. I don't know how this is going to work. I've got this wrong before, but I suppose it's a bit of positive self talk and presenting yourself as you want to be.

Adelaide: So those who do have pre-race nerves, how can they get that zen like state that people seem to admire in you?

Harry: Well, it's not real is it?! I think that's a lot of it. Accepting that it's not necessarily going to be right. Not saying how do I stop myself being nervous, just saying, 'Well, I'm going to be nervous and that's okay.'

These are the things I need to concentrate on to make it work, but there's no problem with having some nerves in that. I like to know the things that I have to have sorted out and practically, this is what's going to happen next. This is what I have to do right at this stage and then everything we'll move forward as it should. As long as you know that, then you kind of try and let the other stuff wash over you. You know, it's there and you know it's happening, but is that zen like? You know it's there and you know it's happening, but you accept it.

Adelaide: That sounds very Zen..

Harry: I'm not sure I'm that Zen, but how I try and go for it.

Adelaide: Well you seem very chilled now, very Zen like. Earlier you mentioned about needing to know your body, for someone who's new to triathlon, how can you get to know your body well enough so that you can judge what you need to do and when to maybe go for it? Or maybe when to hold back?

Harry: That's training. I mean, if you go out on a training ride and you're only going to do an hour ride, you push as hard as you can, you go 'Great, I can do that for an hour.'. You're going to come unstuck when you get on a seven or eight hour bike course and you try and head out at that hour pace.

We find it a lot in the group of athletes that train in Leeds, they're some of the best guys in the world and occasionally, we'll have someone who comes out with us and they're always a bit nervous, because they're riding with this good group. They don't want to let anyone down and we hate it, because we spend the first hour basically getting our heads kicked in. We don't ride this hard, this is not fun at all! Then after an hour, you guarantee they're going to blow sky high and we have to go and put them in a cafe and leave them there. It happens every time, 'Oh God, have we got a ride with someone, okay? Right, take a deep breath, this is going to be an hour of really painful, uncomfortable riding before we have to find them a cafe and sit them down and get them some sugar.

So if you can just get over that, I supposes as a message that the pro riders don't go that hard. They pick a number that's sustainable. If you ride up this first hill at a pace that you've never ridden before, the rest of the day is not going to go well.

If you've done five, six hour rides, and you've practice putting an hour of race pacing at the start and at the end, and you know that your race pace is the same at the start and the end, then that's brilliant. Just know that you're there for a long time and it has to be a pace that you can sustain over that amount of time. That's practice to find out what that is.

Adelaide: Thank you so much and now we're onto the Wildfire Round!

Harry: No!

Adelaide: I promise you it's fun! Are you ready?

Harry: Okay, go for it!

Adelaide: What's your favourite piece of kit that you've brought with you for Norseman?

Harry: My HUUB Varme Thermal Balaclava.

Adelaide: What's that?

Harry: It covers the whole of my head and down onto my shoulders, which keeps the back of your neck warm. It's the big difference between getting cold and staying warm?

Adelaide: What's your favourite snack you've brought with you for the race?

Harry: I should be saying my OTE energy gels and I'm going to lace that with some Mars bars.

Adelaide: Do you have a race mantra?

Harry: No, I don't think I do. Well you've heard it over the last 40 minutes, but not like a little saying in my head.

Adelaide: What book have you gifted the most?

Harry: I do a bit of law and when I was at school, I read To Kill a Mockingbird and I hated it, because it was a lesson. I read it again a couple of years later and then I read it again. I know it's the answer that everyone gives because it's so read, but that is an awesome book! Just to read through that and think about life, and how you treat people is a good thing to do.

Adelaide: When you think of a triathlete, who do you think to be successful and why?

Harry: When I first went to train in Switzerland to be part of a group to support an athlete called Andrew Johns, who was world number one at the time. He was a British athlete who was looking to go to the Athens Olympics and needed someone to train with. AJ was the most phenomenal athlete. I turned up and he just looked after me so well, he was a nice guy and just kind of encompassed being really, really good at what he did, and not being asked about it. So if anyone says what should a triathlete be like? I kind of think of AJ, just because of the way that he was brilliant at what he did and really good about it as well.

Adelaide: Well, thank you so much for coming on!

Harry: See you in the morning, thank you!