Smiling Tri Coach was set up in 2015 by Kate Offord and Mel Hayes who are passionate about helping people to meet their triathlon and endurance goals. We are delighted to be a part of the Cycle Retreats family network.
Smiling Tri Coach offers something a little different than other triathlon coaching businesses. We aim to offer high performance coaching in an inclusive and approachable manner. The style of coaching is designed to respond to the needs of each athlete, learning how each individual responds to training load and ensuring that recovery is central to the plan. Our objective is to create athletes who can train consistently season after season, whilst balancing jobs, families and other hobbies without falling out of love with our amazing sport.
We coach triathletes on a one to one basis, communicating with them regularly and developing training programmes which meet their performance, health and social goals. This is our main focus. Alongside this we are trying to build an inclusive triathlon community where we provide mentoring to individuals, standalone training plans, one to one swim coaching, group swim coaching sessions, swim video analysis, run video analysis and group track running sessions. In 2020 we launched our first Triathlon Retreat in partnership with the fantastic Cycle Retreats.
We coach a mixture of men and women, and we are lucky to coach a range of age groups and lifestyles. We coach GB age group qualifiers, long term triathlon enthusiasts, and people who are brand new to the sport.
As female coaches, and athletes ourselves, we are extremely knowledgeable in the area of female physiology and how this relates to triathlon and endurance sport performance. We are proud that Kate is about to complete the Dr. Stacy Sims #womenarenotsmallmen ground-breaking Certificated Course and that Mel is closely aligned to this community for her work on perimenopause and menopause awareness for athletes.
Mel is an elite age group long distance triathlete. In 2017 she won the Long Distance Duathlon World Championship title in her age group, and was 3rd in her age group at Ironman UK. In 2018 she won her age group at Ironman Wales qualifying for the 2019 Ironman World Championships in Kona. In 2019 Mel came 2nd in her age group at the iconic Challenge Roth, and then topped off the year with an outstanding performance in Kona, Hawaii at the IM World Champs racing amongst the likes of triathlon stars like Lucy Charles- Barclay, Daniela Ryf, Jan Frodeno and Joe Skipper. She was lucky enough to be supported by and sponsored by Cycle Retreats throughout her IM World Championships journey and proudly wore her Cycle Retreats sponsored trisuit at all opportunities. She is a British Triathlon Federation Level 2 Coach and Level 3 Personal Trainer.
Kate is a British Triathlon Federation Level 3 Coach and ASA Level 2 Swimming Coach and Teacher. Kate is part of the Coach Education Team within the British Triathlon Federation and not only tutors Level 1 and Level 2 coaching courses, she is also privileged to be one of a small number of tutors selected to tutor the new Level 3 High Performing Coaching Programme. This is a huge honour as she is genuinely helping to shape the future of coaching in the UK. Kate is Assistant Head Coach at Altrincham Swimming Club which was Runner Up (Silver Award) in the National Swim England Club of the Year competition; Swim England North West Club of the Year; and Most Improved Club in Cheshire 2019. She coaches a squad of County and Regional level swimmers, and heads up the Clubs’ Development Squads. Until early 2020 Kate was also Head Coach at Manchester Triathlon Club, which was also voted Triathlon England North West Club of the Year in 2019.
We very much hope that you will follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/smilingtricoach/ and Instagram @smilingtricoach. We would love to be able to hear about and become a part of your triathlon journey too!
