#179 Getting Fitter & Faster Into the 50s, Club System, Community & Leadership at Work- Vicki & Hari

rThis episode is brought to you by www.thebikeaffair.com
If you are in search of a one-stop destination that caters to all your cycling needs, our today’s sponsor, The Bike Affair, is the perfect place to check out! With over 14 years of experience, The Bike Affair has established itself as a trusted source offering honest advice and exceptional service. They are offering a special treat for the listeners of this podcast. You can enjoy a 10% discount on your first order by using the code ‘BIKEYVENKY’ on their website. Visit their bike store in Hyderabad or shop online by using the link www.thebikeaffair.com

In this episode, I talk to my friends and teammates at Spectrum Racing, Vicki Nicholson and Hari Menon. I have known Vicki and Hari since 2011 and we have been friends and teammates ever since. Vicki is a leadership coach and was the very second guest on this podcast back in 2020. Hari has been on this podcast sharing his 4 decades of running journey in episode #74 as well. They both now live and race in Ireland. On their recent visit to Bangalore, I took the opportunity to sit down with them and talk about the riding and racing in Ireland. They shared excellent insights into the club culture, club level group rides, club races and a lot more. They also shared a few insights into leadership at work which is their area of expertise and how sport can help some to excel at work as well. It was lovely conversation with two amazing humans. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

0:00 Intro
0:04:30 About the first episode with Vicki and my nervousness
0:07:10 How the move to Ireland change things for them, COVID times, how they managed during 2020-2021
0:09:40 Getting into Brey Wheelers Cycling Club, it’s history
0:13:00 Group rides and how they work, volunteering at the club races
0:20:10 Two league races
0:24:50 Transition to Duathlons from bunch races
0:29:30 Getting stronger with age, importance of sleep, recovery
0:35:30 How sport helps with acceptance of outsiders
0:39:30 Being mindful of what works and what doesn’t help as you age, drinking, easy riding
0:41:30 Leadership at work, being aware, being vulnerable and transparent, dealing with setbacks
0:49:00 Not competing with your previous self, Self compassion and growth
0:52:45 Sleep and gratitude
0:53:30 Closing

About the podcast:
The working athlete podcast is a podcast with and for working athletes from all walks of life and various sports. The goal is to provide inspiration, training tips, mental hacks, time management and life-style advice through conversations with some of the best in sport, from athletes to coaches. If you think you can benefit from this, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell icon so that you don’t miss the weekly episodes in future.

Who is a working athlete? Someone working fulltime/part-time, entrepreneur or anyone who has to work to make ends meet and doesn’t let being busy to stop him/her from pursuing an active lifestyle is a working athlete. I consider stay at home moms/dads who pursue a sport, as working athletes because homemaking is a full-time job.

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A bit about myself:
I’m Venkat/Venkateswara Rao in my work avatar, working as a Chief Data Analyst in the IT industry in Bangalore. I’m Venky/Bikeyvenky for my friends in the cycling community.

All through my life I struggled with weight and health issues. After multiple failed attempts through the life to get fit and healthy, in 2008, I managed to lose 16kgs. My motivation was to be able to take care of my unborn son with the thought that “if I’m not able to take care of myself, how am I going to take care of my family?”. When my son was 6 months old, having lost 16kgs, I picked up a bike to keep that weight off and stay fit. That became a passion and lost more weight and became better at it. I continue to train myself not just to stay fit but also race competitively in races in and outside the country. I also have been coaching a few riders to get stronger and faster at cycling since 2016.

Group rides how it works is so for example in the yellow group every week somebody is a leader and that person will Design the route and they’ll send it out on WhatsApp and they’re responsible for making sure everybody’s okay in the group that we follow the

Route and you know it’s casual it’s it’s not regimented but every week somebody has to take on that role and you even do a training to be a ride leader so you know right what what taking on that role means I was riding with a common friend of us

Thebunker and we were both um not at the level that we were at a couple of years ago and I think like there was a beautiful stretch where we were sort of cycling along the highway and just comfortably because we created the space sta that comfortable conversation about

Not competing with your previous self uh because in in so many things in life you have these benchmarks we have these numbers we have a number of performance metrics you have to know when to use them because there are times when you know you especially if you are someone

Who’s even halfway good at something you will have probably done something really cool you can’t pull that off all the thing I am wki a working professional in it as well as an imature Master’s athlete and a coach for Endurance Sports you are listening to the working athlete

Podcast here I talk to working athletes from all walks of life and experts from various Sports to provide you with inspir pration training tips and lifestyle advice if this is something that interests you I have a small request from you please subscribe to the channel on YouTube Spotify Apple podcast

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You and me get better each day in this episode I talk to my friends and teammates at Spectrum racing Vicky Nicholson and Harry Mana I have known Vicky and Harry since 2011 and we have been friends and teammates ever since Vicki is a leadership coach and was the

Very second guest on this podcast back in 2020 har has been on this podcast are sharing his four Decades of running journey in episode number 74 as well they both now live and raise in Ireland on their recent visit to Bangalore I took the opportunity to sit down with

Them and talk about the riding and racing in Ireland they shared excellent insights into the club Culture Club level group rides Club races and a lot more they also shared a few insights into leadership at work which is their area of expertise and how sport can help

Some to excel at work as well it was a lovely conversation with two amazing humans I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did this episode is brought to you by the bike Affair if you are in search of a One-Stop destination that CS to all your

Cycling needs our today’s sponsor the bike B Affair is the perfect place to check out I have known the founders of the bike Affair Krish and Gokul personally for nearly 15 years now in fact my first century ride was with Krish back in 2008 they are both exceptional human beings and

Entrepreneurs that believe in providing exceptional service to their customers and it shows with over 14 years of experience the bike Affair has established itself as a trusted source offering honest advice and exceptional service they are offering a special treat for the listeners of this podcast you can enjoy a 10% discount on your

First order by using the code biky wki on their website so if you are in Hyderabad visit their tour in Kapur or if you are anywhere else in India shop online by using the link the bike affair.com I will leave the link in the show notes now enjoy the podcast Vicky

Harry welcome to the working atlet podcast again thank you thank you so um a bit of for the listeners a bit of a background Vicki was my very second guest on the podcast and uh I have interviewed Hari maybe I had to get the number right but

Uh after a few episodes yeah um two years ago two years ago yeah and little bit bit of uh you know anecdote that I want to share uh with that was when I was getting started um I was very nervous as I am now

But but uh change that yeah so I I still remember that you know we were doing it on zoom and um I was like very nervous to kind of get started and where to start how to start and all that and like Wiki you immediately noticed that and said you

Know let’s do a little bit of breathing exercise to calm yourself down and then and it was like a breeze afterwards you know um it’s I I you know I knew that you were a good friend and all that but still I was very nerv was doing this

Because it was a new thing for me and uh you you were kind enough to you were sharp enough to notice that and kind enough to take me in and calm me down and then you know get it uh out and that’s the you know I saw that

Leadership kind of thing there uh and we’ll get into some of that but I want to you know touch a lot of things like you were here uh you lived in India for like 20 years nearly and then moved to Ireland uh moved back to Ireland um just

Before the pandemic right 31st January 2020 oh wow yeah just before and the lockdown kicked in about 6 weeks after we right set up house yeah yeah so how was the move and you know how how did did affect the how did it change your sport and

Life well the strangest thing about the move was I think um I left here on the 31st of January 2020 thinking that I’d be back in about six or eight weeks to do some work so um you know we knew that there was a virus in China somewhere but we

Had no idea how it was going to affect all of our lives right so um that changed obviously and we found ourselves very quickly you arrived what date Harry on the 12th of February yeah yeah so um you know by the end of February early March Co was really kicking in seriously

In Europe yeah and initially in Ireland we had a 2 km radius we couldn’t go beyond that so that obviously restricted um our lives um but they did encourage you to go out but not too far so our first um two years in Ireland I would

Say 2020 and 21 were very much dominated by Co um and we we did things right we still stayed Fair I’d like to sort of I might add that like U like many cyclists and Runners everywhere we worked very hard at finding Creative Solutions to these restrictions so we became experts

At finding good u i mean cycling is hard but even cycling we managed to find good Loops that only marginally teased out the 2 km limit and then when once we got a 5 km radius we could we could do a little more and we managed a bit more

And uh I must confess we may have cheated slightly you know Kil maybe a kilometer half a kilometer this way or that way as one does um it was hard but the thing is um one of the really nice things especially when you compare with Draconian lockdowns elsewhere um and

People really suffered so you know I have enormous sympathy for them is that um you did have some people people in positions of authority who understood that it’s important to get out into the fresh air and do something and and I’m glad we did because it it kept our

Sanity as well not is very important yeah and not just as athletes as people who are just keen on the outdoors it just matters so much so after the covid restrictions kind of easted uh I think you slowly kind of got into more group riding and

Also I see that you are taking part in a lot of uh doons and stuff so how how is that transition into back into racing take place well actually I’m going to take you in a slightly different direction for a moment because what was coming back to me was when you said you

Got into group riding and yes we were riding Just the Two of Us much of the time we didn’t really have a a community and one day I was out on my own um and I got flat and I was stuck on the side of the

Road trying to change this flat and this guy turned up and um he said can I help you out I said that’ be great um and and he did help me out and then he said you know what there’s a whole bunch of us riding together you shouldn’t be riding

On your own why don’t you come up the road and have lunch with us and a coffee well this was a member of Bray Wheeler’s Cycling Club and um I came home that day and I said to Harry okay I’ve met this guy called Mark we’re going to sign up

For the bray wheelers Cycling Club so that was that was how we got into the bray wheelers nice um yeah and I actually got two flats that day another flat after I joined the group and I remember somebody even lended um loar me a tube so um yeah that’s that was how we

Got there that was the first club that we joined and a little background on the club it’s it’s actually um one of the older clubs in in Ireland and it was founded in 1949 so we actually celebrating our 75th th anniversary this year um and uh with many clubs um there

In um the club sporting culture is really important in countries like that um so one thing is like when you’re competing you you often compete in your in your Club colors and you’ll find regular people cheering you on because they recognize the club um and that that

That’s quite a lovely thing and um the history of the club also matters a lot I mean we now we have a few competitive Riders uh at various levels but uh one of the early members of the club was a man called sheay Elliot who was a legendary um cyclist and Island very

Good Classics Rider and maybe an even better Grand Tour Rider he’s actually the first Irishman to have ever won the yellow jersey red jersey and the big Jersey he’s yeah at some point he’s he’s won them all nice u a very sad story probably worth looking up because as

With many Geniuses the genius did not exactly fit the opportunities available but a brilliant Rider and um it’s lovely to have a little bit of that history and a Club because um you also realize that these clubs do a fabulous job of accommodating everybody from a raw

Beginner uh in my running club for example one of the biggest programs is a couch to 5K program which is like really people have no experience of running and then we have in my running club the fastest runner is a five-time Olympian and similarly the Cycling Club has

People like this one of the members Sons Cycles with Jambo visma so you know you who has ridden with us so you have that level but you also have people who just beginning um and they do find a lovely welcoming way to sort of get you in but

Also struct and this is important also structured way to make sure that you ride roughly with people who will um that you will fit in with that you’ll not pose a danger to anybody else with and importantly you will have a fun ride with as in you’re not killing yourself

Just to stay with them and I think that’s important I think Vicki can add a few more things about the dynamic about the of how the clubs work and then you may have a few questions yeah yeah yeah well say with the bray wheelers I um we have five different

Groups categories ranging from Red being the slowest orange yellow green and blue so um you know people who ride red would be very Leisure Riders doing short rides just people who want to get out in company people in the blue group would be pretty serious R they read in the

Nationals a few of them would have raced internationally so it’s it’s it’s a crazy level don’t don’t even try and stay on their wheel yeah so we ride with the yellow group Harry could probably ride with the green group actually but he chooses to ride with the yellow group

Because sometimes you pick the company that you enjoy as well and group ride I think that that matters a lot yeah um and we’ve talked about you know these group activities and I think you talked a little bit about it in your opening remarks and questions um something that

We didn’t I regret now we may not have done enough of was just working together nicely in a group and as an experienced cyclist yourself you know what a difference it makes when you’re very confident that the person this close to you is also a good bike Handler and

You’re going around a corner at a reasonable speed or you’re descending at a reasonable speed and you it’s fine it’s okay and that takes a while to build get used to yeah to build and to get used to both both sides of it and um I think that’s really important being

Able to you know learn the skills of writing in a in a in a group where you can build that sort of skill and learn from people around you yeah and so what I I’m kind of interested because I see a few clubs that are you know quite a few

Clubs coming up in Bangalore as well uh I’m kind of interested to know how the club culture works there how do they kind of structure these um you know various group rides or actually I I I gathered they organize Club races as well and stuff like so can you uh you

Know touch up those aspects a bit Yeah I think what’s really key is the volunteer you you can’t join the club if you’re not going to volunteer into helping to organize events or you know take races marshalling so for example um and all the clubs are affiliated to the go

Governing body so cycling Ireland is the Irish governing body so you join cycling Ireland and then you can select the club you want to be part of and when you say you want to join Brave wheelers every year you have to agree to at least volunteer for one of their two big Races

They have two big races where they you know invite um top cyclists across the country so you have to do that and then they have a two Club leagues every year through the summer and if you want to race in those you have to you have to

Marshall for one One race a minimum of One race so it’s absolutely dependent on that the races can’t happen without the community of Club members right um coming in and volunteering and then you’ll always have a committee you know which changes over some people serve over several years some of those positions

Rotate yeah and then some enjoy doing that kind of work as always happens as you know and the group rides how it works is so for example in the yellow group every week somebody is a leader and that person will Design the route and they’ll send it out on WhatsApp and

They’re responsible for making sure every everybody’s okay in the group that we follow the route and you know it’s casual it’s it’s not regimented but every week somebody has to take on that role and you even do a training to be a ride leader so you know right what what

Taking on that role means yeah and safety issues are are important and some that we would not have thought of here for example you can’t um ride a flat bar bike in a uh Road group because of the danger of hooking a your bars you can’t

Go with trials M and you can’t bring a juvenile into the race without special permission you actually have to have uh if you want to bring a child because you know a lot of people are building up youngsters um and trying to get get them

Into riding uh and some of them join us uh you have to be somebody who is affiliated with the police uh as in like you know has a has a sign off sign on and approval so you know you have all these safety measures built in which

Sometimes seems fussy but if you think about it these are these are good things um just to touch a little bit on um what Vicki said about the you know the volunteering and stuff like that um also the nature of our races here is a little different from the ones

Um that we had in Bangalore which is that um they’re not straight up and down a highway um they are often fairly technical courses on on graval roads lots of descents lots of climbs lots of twisty you know tricky turns that are often taken at high speed U so you have

To have Marshalls often often you have sometimes and and there’s you know there’s traffic you can’t stop traffic so sometimes turns will have three to even four Marshals you actually asking for a fairly significant commitment um so therefore this roster is taken very seriously and and there’s

Even a system for you know if you want to do a particular race and you’ve been signed on as a marshal for that um there are options for signing out of that and swapping with somebody else so that you can do a race that you really want to

And they can swap with you instead so that’s quite a big thing so it’s actually not that different from what you for example had set up many years ago with B racing and you know what the the regular crew had done with bangal B championships um it’s just that I would

Say um because more people are there and uh because people have been doing this for a while there’s an element of structure to it and there’s a degree of commitment in that people understand and and I’m talking about even the best Riders and these guys compete at you

Know at the national championship level even they understand that one day they will be sitting on the side to the road waving a flag and saying stop car please let the let the let the Riders go through which and here like sometimes we would hesitate to ask you know some of

Our you know respected or what we call in India senior Riders to do that no they will do it and they’re happy to do it and they understand that they will do it because that’s their way of giving back right yeah I mean I that kind of

Reminds me of uh you know instances where na John used to turn up uh you know help me sweep the corners and gra and stuff you know so yeah but I did notice like for example there were a couple of races where it was just you doing all the work

Which is a bit unfair I mean you know you want few more no that’s also the reason I want to kind of understand the this so that I can bring in you know more people and structure so that it is this is something that should go on even

If I am like not in town or not not there at all and all that right so I that that is the reason you know selfish reason to kind of uh you know trying to get that Knowledge from you guys um on those so you mentioned uh uh two two

Club races and stuff what two league is what is that okay so each league would have what six races or seven races something like that yeah spring and summer yeah there’s a spring league and a summer league um and I think the summer league comes for the club

Championships if I remember right I could be wrong on this I might have to be corrected on it um and each league we have uh we we’re fortunate enough to live in an area where there’s um sort of multiple race routes and they all they’re not quite crits um they are road

Races raced in the countryside on back roads um but they’re slightly slightly different circuits each of them and they they’re not hugely long races like you know here in Bangalore we often do massive races that are what is the longest 160k 160 something like that that never happens except for the big

Ones which the pros right um and pros and the absolute top level what are the typical distances you I’ll get i’ll get to that these vary from 25 to maybe 45 km oh nice yeah so it’s run at a really high Tempo um and they often um uh Thursday Thursday evenings evenings yeah

So they often run in the evenings in summer because like you know because we’re so far 5 55 53° North we’re so far north that the the evenings are really really long and summer so you have the luxury of starting a race at 7:30 in the

Evening and even the when the last Rider finishes which might be 9 it’s still bright light so it’s safe that’s that’s that’s the important thing so there’s enough time to go home after that no problem um so um there would be maybe four races on different circuits

Each of which has you know once you ride them because they’re also the rides that we do our Saturday uh regular Saturday rides on each of them has slightly different characteristics which you after while get to know oh this particular bump this particular climb this this tricky turn

Etc um so these are four circuit races um there is one time trial um which is um well one of them is on on it’s actually on a highway but they’ve done it in in a in a fairly safe way that like you’re not you don’t actually have

To cross any road and you can go through an underpass and through a roundabout so so it’s a loop um the other one is also on a access road to Highway where again you can do the sort of straight up and straight down and you can go reasonably

Fast um and there is one Hill Climb and the hill climb is again a time trial but it’s a Time Hill it’s it’s it’s a bit of a beast it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s very short I mean like Bangalore I think we’re so used to these massive length

Like 50 km time TR this is 2 km But Water 2 km because the first kilometer is rolling and the second one well it reaches 23% yes uh there’s one thing I wanted to add about the races they’re handicapped yes so um there’s usually up to four to

Six categories yeah depending on the number of people who turn the idea is to to level everyone up right um and the handicap in the spring season will be slightly tilted towards the slower Riders and in the second season perhaps slightly tilted towards the fast Riders

Yeah and you have a time trial at the beginning of the season usually April May uh which roughly establishes the handicapping groups right so your 46 categories you say four to six four to six four to six okay it depends on how many people up for the race also

Yeah there’s a lot of skill in that you know we’ve got a couple of older club members who’ve been doing this for years they know what time to send off the first group the next group the next group and of course the best guys are chasing you know the people who’ve gone

Out for yeah and and the what and that group it’s it’s it’s something else to see because you know these guys will be you know four to five of them a pack who many of them would have been Racing for years and they know exactly what to do

And they’re like it’s like wolves hunting that sheep yeah a wolf back an operation yeah really we I mean we have uh been doing handicap races in at and uh I mean they are actually uh they are enjoyed by almost every everyone who was who is part of it

Like the slowest to the fastest they are like done by the end of it so they are very well received I must say um coming coming to uh you know the uh more more on the racing and cycling so you are now taking part in

Jans and stuff so how is yeah so um so I’m I had a bad crash um about 2 and a half years years ago racing on um a motor circuit and I didn’t just break my collar bone I also damaged all the ligaments in my shoulder and I hit my

Head quite badly um and ended up in hospital overnight so at that point I said to myself maybe I’ve reached an age where I don’t need to be in a bunch on a corner and put myself at risk on the way this is on the finishing State and I

Will I will add for the benefit of any couple that does sport please do not watch your spouse crash I was actually lining up to take a picture show the finishing Sprint and then I saw this um yeah well it’s it’s a site I will live

With for the rest of my life and and you know the truth is um because you don’t have all the age categories in in women cycling in Ireland you might have one or two but actually this was everybody together it was a small race but I was

Not going to be winning anything so even putting myself in that position was probably a bit silly so um I decided to stop Bunch racing at that time and um to sort of cuz I have this I like to be doing something competitive so one thing was duathlons the other thing was to

Improve my um run times which you know I never had run that much and to put those two things together in the and to time trial yeah so that’s how I’ve ended up being in three clubs the Cycling Club the Triathlon Club for doing duathlons and the kill cool athletic so the wilo

Triathlon Club and the kill cool Athletics Club so right now it’s duathlon season that starts before the triathlons and we have a national series um their Sprint duathlons that they start with so they typically be 4 or 5K run 20K bike 4 or 5K run and um again

Great range some really good athletes doing these you know in 50 something minutes um and you know there’d be people doing them in an hour and a half um and you know I fall somewhere in amongst all of that and they have age categories so every five years so you

Can race against your age category I will point out that last year she won the national series so she is a national champion in her AGC yeah but still I mean this is a country that takes it seriously so you are up against people are very good I as in the the good

People in her age group have finished midback or thereabouts at World Championships level so they’re not it’s not trival they are good the best guy in my age category has come thir in the world Champs wow so we’re up against some serious that’s the level is a little bit more than what is

Is but you know the thing about that is it lifts you it’s two things actually one is you’re just not going to win that much um but you’re also going to lift you’re going to race alongside people who who there will always be someone better than you and you know age

Categories they’re kind of random things right but um you know to race I mean even in for example we did a fem running race a few weeks ago it’s called rahini 5 Mile and in my age category there were 60 women running so you know 60 60 women I mean

You know here you just don’t get that you know um and that’s in that was you know in a fiveyear age category so you’ve got a great opportunity in there to you know um to ra race against yourself in a way to better your own times and you’ll probably always have

Some women that will be you know going a lot faster than you and it just shows what someone at that age can do yeah yeah that is both simultaneously humbling inspiring and just beautiful to watch I mean for someone who likes sport you know I mean for me it’s not even The

Humbling and inspiring it is just just I love this this is beautiful to see right yeah talking of age and age categories right now uh all of us are getting older and uh so it’s a fact you know pandemic feels like it was yesterday now

We are in 2024 and you know kids are like my my older one is in 10th it’s like when did this happen so coming to this and you know age and Sport so how how are you guys um you know what are your learnings uh that kind of helped you cope with recovery

And you know doing continuing to do uh these races and continuing to uh stay active and you know at a competitive level the Aging working athlete yeah what we’re talking about here yeah though I think it applies to everybody um well I’ll start with a couple of

Points and then Vicki can add to it one was that uh we became very very conscious of uh of a number of things um one of the biggest was sleep sleep I mean I would normally have clubbed that with recovery but like i’ keep that keep that separate because sleep was such a

Huge factor I struggled a lot in Bangalore because and I think this would apply to anybody in any major Indian Metro a simple reality is the only time that you can peacefully run or cycle or well do anything even a simple morning walk is early in the morning which means

A commitment to waking up fairly early which in turn means a commitment to going to sleep Fair which in means negotiating all kinds of things with your family with your friends with your social life and with work right and that’s really not easy and in fact to be

Honest for many of our circle of friends it’s actually nearly impossible right one of the luxuries of living in a place where the weather is more um conducive and I don’t and uh bad traffic is taken out of the equation because we live in a fairly small village is that we can

Adjust these timings a little bit so getting getting a good it to 8 plus hours of sleep has been a colossal thing the second really important thing is um as we’ve grown older we’ve become much more conscious of diet we both uh people our friends

Joke about us that like we we we are a couple that apparently we love our treats and we still do as you well known know very well because we talk a lot about food that we still love love our nice things to eat uh we’ve just become

Much more uh what’s the word mindful about you know yes I love my Biryani but I will not eat it every day I you know maybe once a month or once in two months I have one and I’ll truly enjoy it and savor it but otherwise you know we really try and

Keep um whole grain fresh fruit good vegetables you know this these are the basics eat eat food mostly plants and like you know just good produce and that just takes care of an enormous um sort of factor Michael poen right that that the original quote um I I would also add

Now to bring in recovery a sort of awareness that please do not go out and Hammer every ride and every every run even though we enjoy this because there is a joy to riding first there is an even greater joy as a runner will tell you to riding running at a particular

Pace you have to learn to just please just save that for one or two small interval sessions and your races rest just chill and enjoy it yeah and that discipline is super hard to do but I think we’ve kind of got there so that recovery like never back to back hard

Days you know just give yourself if if you want to give yourself an extra day of you know easy um sort of active recovery give it you know give yourself that huge huge that makes a enormous difference and then maybe one more because of the clubs and then Wick can

Add is because of the clubs and because of the nature of the clubs you do meet people who are kind of that you like and that you whose company you enjoy but who are that little bit better than you and so when you do your hard stuff they are

There to push you and I think I think both of us have got a little better and a little stronger just because of this yeah yeah yeah yeah yes to that I mean it’s really about creating an environment I think as best you can around you you know to support what you

Want to do um and I mean a couple of other things for me personally is you know by nature of Personality I’ve always wanted to do everything and um I’ve really let go of that with getting older because what I’ve realized is recovery becomes really important and being more selective about

What I want to do um you know my goals are to get better at things that’s very important to me so if I want to get better at something then I’ve got to let go of some other things and get quite clear about what is it that really

Matters to me and I think that could be very different for each of us right I mean you know for me it might be I want to run 10K faster for some somebody else it might want it might be that I want to have really good social life through

Cycling or running um for somebody else it might be doing certain distances but but know what is important for you and and prioritize that because otherwise you can end up sort of not achieving anything for yourself so I I think that awareness of what are you looking for

From the sport and I would add that many of the people that we cycle and run with are not interested in racing M but they love the sport and they’re out there every every week doing it and it’s part of their lives right so you know we both

Happen to still um have some competitive Ambitions you know and Harry hasn’t had a chance to to talk much about his so far um but you know you’re still Keen to race yeah I do enjoy it um I think like Vicki um I have become a little uh wary

Of um massart bike racing much as that is an enormous sort of um adrenaline it’s it’s truly wonderful I mean you’ve done enough so you know what it feels like and you know it’s it it really is one of those things um that unless you’ve actually done it it’s very hard

To describe and and sometimes I often feel that like please don’t criticize Racers that you see on TV because like it’s this is something else going on you really have to have been there um anyway um but the the time tring I’m keen on the the running and the dland I’m I’m

I’m really keen on and it’s it’s been um very useful um and um you know positive in terms of of the the specific context of me you know um an Indian guy moving to a completely new country um and island is still you know the the big cities and

And a couple of the University towns are pretty homogeneous because you have all kinds of people from um no but not heterogenous there lots of people from all over the all over the world um but other than that it’s you know especially when you live in in more rural areas

Everybody is Irish so like you you know you you do tend to stand out and um and yes sure if I was an IT guy or a nurse or a doctor or something like that they’re used to seeing Indians but a runner or a cyclist not many okay I’m

The guy or the one or two you know people out there there are a few um but it’s wonderful because this like um several other competitors Sports it gives you an instant access into a into a world and a society that like for many people you know you see other migrants

Who come there and like you know they could spend a generation there and they won’t have been accepted the same way here like you know you do a hard race or you or like you know brutal training session and you know somebody just Taps you on the shoulder and says well done

Made and yeah that that acceptance will not happen anywhere else not even in the workplace and so for me as an outsider that is phenomenal is I mean we could do that with with people who came here and I think to some extent we’ve done that

With you know who have come but that’s that’s us I don’t know how many else would feel accepted right no that that is I think a bit Universal in some sense you know the guys who um are who come here and not afraid of the you know uh

Of the traffic and actually make an effort to get out and find you know groups like us yes they have uh they have a different completely different um perspective of what India we were just talking about a couple of mutual friends yes so I mean that that is very true and

Like Michael tberg comes to mind who like you know toured all over India and come back multiple times likes it yeah and um you know the other day we were riding um uh in heser and the route was curated by a Swedish in right talking about that yeah it’s like

Amazing the you know he lives in that area and rides every day and he comes up with these beautiful routs that we neglect you know we we were mostly you know struck on the highways out and back kind of thing is like no these beautiful country roads to explore and so I think

The acceptance kind of comes in when the sport brings us together in such a good way and also the great things that you talked about you know when aging they talking about sleep the importance of sleep and uh uh the recover how it helps the recovery also the prioritizing right

Prioritizing what is important to you and kind of finding out and all these things are really important and I am discovering that uh I am learning now as I’m getting closer to 50 that sleep is massive hug difference and then like you know I just wanted to add um in the

Context of diet um well you don’t but like you know several of us enjoy a drink a couple of beers and stuff like that which is fine um and then we you know we live in a country that like you know where where you get wonderful

Beers but you also learn you also learn that um know if you want to do a you know hard effort or you know just have a sort of steady um um you know mileage uh pattern over the you know the following few weeks or months or whatever or

You’re building up for a big race uh you you have to be much more mindful about these things so it’s also and the thing is like um you know this would not be a factor for somebody in their 20s and 30s because you are almost indestructible at

That age but at our age you really have to be quite mindful about this and say no I mean I I will not go to the pub with my friends yeah right and and also the thing that you mentioned about uh keeping the rights very easy which most

Of the time yeah keep the easy stuff easy make the hard stuff harder right very little of the hard stuff yeah yeah so that is super important because you know over the years we have seen every group R becomes a hammerfest right so that and I I kind of noticed that

Getting out into the country and doing these back roads actually doesn’t give so many chances for these ham you know but that hammering so I’m I’m kind of leaning towards that from multiple perspectives because it also gives you a chance to explore uh get off the traffic

Trafficky stuff and also keep it easy like endurance stuff endurance truly endurance not like another race yeah well as a coach you know I mean like the single biggest thing and and that that is happening with a number of sports scientists that I follow on social media

People are just sort of realizing this thing just build that engine first just Build That Base then do all these other things you’re most welcome because I’m sure all these tweeks and and things will will give you that little Edge but without the base they mean nothing right

Yeah yeah excellent and now I want to uh move to your specialty of uh leadership and you know how uh sport also kind of helps in that right so I you know what what are your thoughts on uh that you know the work and the leadership how and

How is Sport important then maybe a line of to to give context to anybody who’s watching this about you know in in leadership what is it that we do as a as an organization yeah yeah um Welly kind of started with that when he talked about um me noticing that he was nervous

And I you know I was thinking about as a coach um that’s so important right um when you start a coaching session your focus is on the person in front of you and how are they arriving into that session and what can you do you know to

Really help situate and land them in that space so it becomes a productive time with you so our work is in leadership it’s in in develop in leaders mainly in corporate environments um we coach one-on-one and work with teams as well and we do a bit of learning in

Areas like um influence communication and sort of broader leadership capability strategic thinking as well yes um and I I often reflect on you know what are the parallels um that we see between you know H being an athlete or you know being into sport and being a

Good leader and I think there there are a lot um I think particularly if we contextualize it right now we look at the world that we’re living in it’s not an easy place um we’re living in a time of such un uncertainty ambiguity War climate layoffs um leadership is so

Important right now and while many people might have sort of linked you know being strategic or being a good team player um between Sport and Leadership the one that really lands for me goes back to what we spoke about earlier which is being able to create the right environment so we talked about

How as an older athlete you need to create the right environment for yourself as a leader you know what are you doing are you really trying to get people to want to follow you and you need to create the right environment for that and essentially for people to be

Able to show up at their best and work at their best and in many ways it’s these qualities of self-awareness um resilience that’s certainly something that we learn as athletes right it’s full of ups and downs right um and you know we’re all in this for the Long Haul right I mean you

Know how how long have you been cycling there 15 and a half years I think right um and hopefully you’ll be doing it for more than another 15 years yeah yeah hopefully 80 plus or wherever the day till the day I breathe and actually you’ve been you know quite transparent

And vulnerable at times I think in your blog sharing you know your own personal ups and downs along the way and and I I think that’s really linked to leadership because I think good leaders are people who can navigate themselves through those with self-awareness and have the

Ability to articulate them and then help other people go through that too and and Sport stretches us in many ways it stretches us when we’re trying to climb a mountain but it stretches us just to get up every morning balance everything else in our lives so I think we learn a

Lot of the skills that will essentially draw people towards us as Leaders right so I love to draw those parallels yeah setback setbacks in particular because I think anybody who has a regular sort of um practice with with sport you know runnner cyclist multiport athletes you

Know any that where you get out and do something four to five days a week but if you’ve been doing it for some years you will 100% have had one or two major setbacks you know you might have broken a bone you might have injured something and as you know with many of

These setbacks it’s like you know 6 months training gone down the drain or 2 years of training gone down the drain or like you know um a forced you know 3 to 3 to 6 months bit of inactivity yeah and you know these can be almost Soul

Killing um but I think most of us have found a way through them or at least trying in our best own oh best way to somehow negotiate a sensible path through them and I think the the resilience that Vicki talked about that you draw upon to do that as important

Lessons elsewhere in life also the you talked about the importance of being aware right the awareness so what are some of the things that you know one can do to become a little better at you know being self-aware to kind of recognize these um you know the ups and downs and try to

Get better at navigating them yeah I think articulating them is a starting point I notice a lot of leaders I work with Will um you know when they come into a coaching space it’s the opportunity for them to talk about how are they right now how’s their week been

Um and and you know it’s easy to think you should be a superhero but sometimes just being able to say wow I’m really tired or it’s been a stressful week or it’s been a great week to acknowledge that um and to notice it and articulated you know that’s a very key

Part of being self-aware and when you develop that kind of awareness of yourself and your own emotions and you can articulate them you’re going to notice it in other people too because it’s the same part of the brain that works right so if I know what’s happening with me I will also notice

What’s happening with you yeah and that’s going to enable me to show up better as a leader and and sometimes you know in pretty high stakes meetings you may be able to get Beyond just what is the content of the meeting and just observe what’s happening in this meeting

Who’s getting a bit agitated who’s checked out who’s engaged you know and by noticing those Dynamics around you you can address them and and often be a lot more influential and and get a lot more outcomes from meetings right yeah yeah this is really uh important right

Because we we spend a lot I think majority of our life in our workplaces and if you are kind of checked out or not really at your 100% you’ll not be you’ll be kind of wasting a lot of time and yours as well as others yes I think um you know

Being aware and working on yourself uh to get kind of get better there would definitely help uh you know in the long term as it is with sport right we always work towards getting that FTP up or that pace up and all these and there are maybe different metrics at workplace but

You know it all kind of comes down to that your inner gauges right that awareness and stuff that awareness I can add I mean one thing because it came up in conversation conversation at yesterday’s by ride um because the context was I was writing with a common

Friend of was the banka and we were both um not at the level that we were at a couple of years ago in fact significantly less um and I think like there was a beautiful stretch where we were sort of cycling along the highway and just comfortably we because we

Created the space to have that comfortable conversation about not competing with your previous self uh because in in so many things in life you have these benchmarks we have these numbers we have a number of performance metrics you have to know when to use them because there are times when you

Know you especially if you are someone who’s even halfway good at something you will have probably done something really cool you can’t pull that off all the time so learn not don’t give yourself a hard time because you can’t achieve that today today you can do something else

Right just never feel bad about it and who knows maybe tomorrow something even better will be achieved that learning that peace of mind to to accept it and it’s not easy I think because both of us had struggled with it because we found ourselves competing with our few

Previous s yeah no that is that is a big big thing you know it is as we get older uh I mean with like 15 years of in cycling we like you me just mentioned that you know there there are things like you know that subt sub 25 on

Nandi all these things right and maybe that the that raise you where you are a Monster pulling the whole Paton along and all that but these those things are things of past you know you got to you you you got to be at peace with it you

Got to understand that there are a lot the levels have changed and your life has changed yeah and there’s so many other wonderful things that you can still do correct correct so it is very important that you uh accept and that you know you should you need not be

Always competing with your older self not not just with the younger a lot but also with your older self also you kind of have to be aware of that it also comes back to that awareness again and acceptance yeah it’s hard it’s not I

Mean I will say that you know if you if You’ got a competitive streak in your body it is hard it is very terms there just sort of two last things that come up for me and that the self compassion which I think is one of the hardest

Things for us as human beings particularly if we’re a bit driven and high Achievers right but the science shows us that um self-compassion enables us to B back quicker so things may not go the way we want if we can say okay I did my best I’m going to let go of the

Rest we will B back much much quicker and then I think growth yeah growth is not just getting out nundy faster yeah you know growth is so many different things and if I link that back again to you know the the corporate world right now where people are not getting

Promoted so much the traditional metric of growth right promotion but how else are you growing on the job you know what else are you learning about yourself and your work and and how you’re showing up so we’d always try to get people to to look at it through that lens as well

Yeah that is beautiful you know what how well are you growing is it’s not the just the traditional metrics right yeah yeah there much more to it yeah yeah amazing uh I think we we uh you know touched upon so many things uh any last uh parting comments and you know words

Of advice for working athletes before we end the session you have anything to say I think we have we covered quite a lot I mean I would only sort of reiterate that um don’t forget to sleep yeah please the rest the rest follows yeah I think mine

Is just gratitude I think um I’m I’m learning to be grateful every day I can get out there on the bike get out for a run um I’m grateful to be able to do it right that’s very true I am you know that in fact you asked right at the

Beginning like you know something relating to you know what’s changed in in this new environment I have over the last four years developed this thing of I every run it doesn’t matter whether it’s a small J to the you know Village to buy something or whatever or a

Serious uh bike ride I actually feel thankful yeah that’s it awesome that’s a great note to end on thank you for taking time thank you grateful to you too thank you that was my conversation with Vicky and Harry I hope you enjoyed that if you are enjoying these podcast

And are finding them useful please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to it on YouTube as well as on your favorite podcasting app it really helps thanks again for your continuous support see you next week with another guest