- Right, today I have come to meet
a professional triathlete, Joe Skipper,
who is an incredible athlete,
but, in his own admission,
has made a fair few mistakes over the years,
some that are really quite funny.
Anyway, he has agreed, very kindly,
to share some of those mistakes with us
so that you guys don't have to make the same ones.
(logo whooshes)
So, Joe, any mistakes that you would
be able to help our age-groupers out with,
that you've seen or maybe done over the years?
- That's quite hard for me, this one, Mark,
because I haven't made any mistakes, myself.
(laughing)
- I know I've come to the right person here, Joe.
- Don't forget your passport before you go to a race,
that's a good one for starters,
otherwise you won't be competing.
- I've heard this story before,
can you talk us through it?
- So, once I forgot my passport,
or the first time I forgot my passport,
we got a friend to put my passport on the train,
because I'd gone to see my parents,
because I was flying from an airport
near where they live,
and I was at uni in Manchester,
so it was a five hour train ride away,
and the flight was the next day.
- And I guess it's hard to get
a courier to send it in that time.
- We couldn't get one, yeah, we looked online,
and we couldn't get one,
so the only way we could get it
was if my friends got into the house,
put the passport on the train.
- Just on like on the --
- Yeah, on the luggage shelf,
in a envelope or something,
and then I intercept it in Norwich.
- It's almost like MI5.
- Yeah, and, so they did that,
and it worked the first time.
- And I got to the race. - It's kind of genius,
actually.
Yeah, but unfortunately,
I didn't learn from my mistakes,
so the second time when we tried it,
they put it on the train,
we went to Norwich,
and then it wasn't there.
And we thought "Oh my God,"
I rang them up and I said
"Did you put the passport on the train?"
They said yeah, yeah we put it on there,
and we rang up the train company
and had to say I left a bag on the train,
I don't know where it's gone, and they said,
"Oh, well it split at Nottingham,"
and it took about two or three weeks
for them to find it.
- And then you had to own up that actually,
it was my passport in an envelope, not a bag.
- Yeah, and then they wanted us to go
a couple of hours to pick it up,
but we managed to persuade the guard to take it,
and then us pick it up,
but that was how I ended up doing my first Ironman.
Because I never made it to the 70.3,
what I was training for, - Oh yeah, I remember that.
- So the only other option to do a race was
to do Ironman Barcelona.
So, I didn't want do it,
but that was how I ended up doing it,
because it was either end the season up for nothing,
or just give it a shot.
- Well, maybe a blessing in disguise,
but probably wouldn't recommend that
to everyone out there.
- Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it.
(laughing)
- This is great, though, this is gold,
so any other mistakes like this?
- What other mistakes have I made?
- [Joe's Mom] Vaseline on your goggles?
- Oh yeah.
- [Joe's Mom] And you followed the wrong lead.
- She's unlucky for me, (laughing)
because every time she comes to a race,
something seems to go wrong.
So I'm hoping it's going to break the trend.
- Yeah, I'm sure this is going be the one.
- [Joe's Mom] You followed the canoe instead of the pack.
- Yeah, yeah I've done that.
- Alright, talk us through this one, go on then.
- [Joe's Mom] That was in London.
- Was it?
- [Joe's Mom] Yeah.
- Oh, right, she knows it.
Yeah, so one one mistake is,
when you Vaseline yourself up so you don't chafe,
don't rub your goggles with it afterwards.
- [Mark] Okay. - Because, you won't see
where you're going.
(laughing)
And if you can't see the buoys,
you're going to be out there for a long while.
- So what did you do?
- I just rubbed my goggles,
and then when I got in,
you can't get it off, can you?
Because Vaseline just smudges, don't it?
- So did you take your goggles off
during the swim, or how did you find --
- No, I just kept them on, this was years ago
this was when I was a kid,
and I just did it,
and I had a terrible swim.
- You swam probably 3.8K, you probably did
your first Ironman swim. - Yeah, I'd like to tell you
where I swam,
but I don't know where I swam
because I couldn't see.
- Brilliant, and I believe you got
another swimming mistake
that you'd like to share with us.
- Oh yeah, don't follow the canoe,
follow the buoys instead.
So I followed the canoe once,
and ended up going the wrong way.
- You mean the lead kayak, though.
Or is it a lead kayak?
- I wish it was a lead kayak.
I've never experienced lead kayak.
(laughing)
- Did you cut the course, or where you adding more on?
- I probably added more on, - Okay.
- I've definitely never got out of the water,
like we're cutting the course.
- Reccie the course, practice your sighting,
- Yeah. - and follow those buoys.
- God, what other mistakes have I done as well?
What other mistakes, then mum,
you know them all, don't you?
- [Joe's Mom] I'm trying to think.
- You were reeling them all off
when we were in Wales
to someone. - [Joe's Mom] I know.
- [Joe's Mom] I can't think at the moment.
- You've obviously been round the wrong way.
- [Joe's Partner] What about when you put
your bike shoes the wrong way round
on the pedals in Weymouth? - Oh yeah!
- Brilliant, brilliant, okay.
I didn't expect that, I was thinking
- And that was when you went - back to the passport
- on to win Weymouth. - and maybe whatever.
but that's --
- [Joe's Partner] No, there's been loads.
- Oh, okay, cool, we'll keep going,
keep them coming, this is brilliant.
- [Joe's Partner] It is Joe remember Mark.
Yeah, okay.
- Yeah, so another mistake what I've made as well
when I clip my shoes on in transition,
I once put the right foot on the left foot,
and the left shoe where the right one goes,
and I didn't realize,
and someone had seen it in transition
and posted it up on Facebook,
and said "Ha, look who's done this."
I thought "Bloody hell, it's like my shoe,"
because this was when the swim
was delayed in Weymouth,
so I saw it, and I was like "Oh bloody hell,
I've put the shoes on the wrong way,"
so I got a heads up,
and then when I got to my bike,
luckily I just had to quickly take them off,
put my shoes on, but --
- So you didn't actually get on your bike
and end up riding 180K - No, luckily.
- or something, with them the wrong way round
and then realize after, "Why can't I run?"
- Yeah, no, yeah luckily I didn't.
But yeah, don't ride 180Ks
with your right foot in the left shoe.
- Yeah, that's a very good tip.
- Yeah.
What's another one? - What about Almere
when you missed the turning?
- Oh, yeah, that's a good one as well.
- Yeah, I did Challenge Almere back in 2017,
I had a really good swim, got out the water,
well, really good for me, I got out the water
two and a half minutes behind the lead swimmer,
in just behind a big pack,
so sweet, this is on for me,
I'm going get a good result here,
and it was really narrow, the section out,
and it had been raining leading up to the race,
so I didn't really want to reccie
the first part of the course,
because it was chucking it down,
and it was freezing cold,
the race is in September in Holland.
So, got to the end of the cycle path,
and although they're only about 30 seconds ahead,
I couldn't see where they went,
and there was no marshal there,
because they'd gone,
because the weather really cold,
and there was a choice of three options,
there was a left, a straight on, and a right.
So I went straight on,
luckily the road ended after about a kilometer,
and it was a dead end,
and I was "Oh my God,
I've just gone the complete wrong way."
So I had to turn round, come back,
and then when I turned round,
one of the spectators who had obviously
been standing on the corner says
"It's this way, it's this way."
And I went there, but then I had a good swim,
I've lost five or six minutes.
- [Mark] Yeah, you just add 2K on.
- Yeah, and I found myself then
six minutes behind, - Aww.
- behind the leader, and I'm like,
"Oh God, I'm back to square one,
this is where I normally am."
- In fairness, I probably would've gone
for the straight on option there, as well.
- I know, that's what - But
- I thought when in --
probably the take-away advice here is
to try and reccie, yeah. - reccie the course,
that was in the first 5K
as well, so I could've done it,
you know, no excuses.
- [Mark] I'd always say try
and reccie the start and the end.
- The one thing what I have found out,
which is a good idea as well is,
if you download a GPX file,
and you put it on your Wahoo or something,
you know, you can see it.
- Yeah. - And I've done that
in races, and that's made a massive difference.
- [Mark] So you actually have
the map on your Wahoo to --
- So I have the map, and I have
the elevation profile. - [Mark] Cool.
- So I can see, wherever I've got a turn,
and I can see when the hill starts
and when it flattens out.
- [Mark] And you just flick between that
and your key power and stuff on --
- No, I don't even look at the power now.
- Oh, okay,
- I can see what my free second power is,
but I don't look at my average power for the ride.
- Oh, okay.
- But I've got it all on the same screen,
so I can see my power anyway,
if I wanted to, I could see average power,
the map and the elevation profile,
all on the same screen.
- I'll be honest though, it's going to be
a boring map out here though, isn't it?
- You don't need it out here.
(laughing)
- If you miss that turning for Harvey, then...
- Yeah, exactly, but for other races it's really handy,
so that's always a good technique as well.
You know, download the GPX file.
- Well, Joe was a great sport there
and we hope you had a good chuckle.
It's actually quite nice to hear a top pro
like Joe making these silly mistakes,
and hopefully you can learn from them too.
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