JESSE: There's like, just from the outside looking in, it looks like there's kind of a divide. Some people are obsessed with helicopters and other people are obsessed with planes. Have you seen the two groups a little more close up? Do you notice all this kind of personality really likes this or that? Or is it less that-- ZACK: I think aviation is a very strong path. If you kind of get that bug, it's a lot like triathlon actually. If you get that bug, it's really hard to kind of let go no matter what. And whether that's in fixed-wing, whether that's in the rotary helicopter stuff, I think it's really hard to kind of get out of that. And I think it's whatever you kind of fall into first. I think most people are going to fall into flying plane because it is cheaper if you're going to learn, way cheaper. But if you happen to be, you know someone that maybe takes you on a helicopter ride, they have their helicopter pilot license, and they won't take you out, and you might think that's the coolest thing ever. Maybe that's the path you go down to. Either way, they’re both aviation, but it's just kind of a different side of things. Yeah, I don't I think there's a lot of common ground. I don't think there's any sort of rivalry. But there definitely is-- I haven't seen a whole lot of, I guess, major difference in personalities. I've known helicopter pilots, and they're all tend to be kind of the same cut from the same cloth, I guess. At least in my experience, I don't know, I honestly don't know, a ton of helicopter pilots so that’s...it too. JESSE: Well, you probably know more than I do. So, that's why I asked because it's like, in my head, I want to paint this like caricature of two different people. I'm always trying to figure out how do people get down the paths that they get down? How a while where I am versus where you are versus somebody like, how do we even-- Aside from, I’ll say the lottery of birth, that puts us different places, how do we each find our own way into these various places? ZACK: Yeah, it's a really-- and my path, in particular, has been really, has gone a couple of different directions that, especially, recently, having gone into the finance side, just completely different path than where I thought it would go. And so I don't know, if it's a personality thing, I think a lot of it is a means to an end, for me, in terms of I do enjoy-- Obviously, I'm not a big math guy, in fact, I've never really ever enjoyed math. Enough, there's a ton of math involved in my job, but I work with numbers all day now. 10 years ago, I never would have considered a career in finance, like that was probably the last place I expected myself to be. And then just found my way into this and turns out actually kind of enjoy. And it's not fun, per se, but it's rewarding in its own unique way. And then to have the coaching side where I do like really working with people and mentoring people and mentoring, particularly like the college age group that 18 to like 21 year old age group, I really found like working with the group. They're old enough. I haven't worked a lot of juniors so I wouldn't-- I don't have a lot of experience in that. But they're very at that point, especially in the collegiate club team, they’re there because they want to be there. They're not forced to be there. A lot of times and I've been told this by, like my friend, who coaches swim, swimmers, in particular, will come to a university on a scholarship, and they get very burnt out, they're already burnt out running from high school, and then they get to college and they realize that they don't necessarily have that passion that they used to. And they might even be in a full-ride scholarship and they'll quit the team just because they just can't do it anymore, they don't like it. But everybody that joins the team at ?? 4:03> wants to be there, obviously. If they didn't want to be there, they're not going to be here. There's no incentive for them to be there. In fact, the pain to get this - because we don't offer any scholarships, they're paying for everything out of their own pocket, we get discounts, but by and large, they have to want to do it, they have to be willing to pay and put in the time and put in the effort to come to practice and to train hard and race hard. And I like that kind of-- that's the kind of athlete that I really like. A lot of juniors, in particular, sometimes their folks are triathletes, so they kind of just fell into like, oh, I guess I'll be a triathlete. And then they get to be 16-17 and there's not a whole lot NCAA development yet. But I'm interested to see how that's going to go with athletes that were triathletes from when they were kids because that's such a rarity nowadays. Hopefully, that becomes less and less a rarity. But that'll be interesting how that transitions, but I really enjoyed working with that group. And the club group is nice, because you don't have that pressure of high performance and really, really achieving, I guess, earning your keep for the school, because you're giving out scholarships, you kind of have less of that pressure. And so you can kind of you have a lot of freedom to kind of trend the program in the direction that you want it to be. And so, yeah, so that with coaching, in particular, it's just been great to have that kind of have that group of consistent young athletes that I can mentor and help achieve their dreams, their goals, whether that's competing in the first triathlon, which a lot of them do on the team or maybe they want to go top 10 at Nationals, and I can help them do that, too. So, having a wide array of athletes in that age group from that are beginners to borderline elites, being able to train those, and everything in between, being able to train all of that in one setting, it's really, really awesome. JESSE: So, I want to ask you a little bit of a kind of esoteric question. And I like to talk to coaches about this because I mean, you see it firsthand. And I mean, you have a large impact on the athletes, you kind of have under your care, but I'm wondering if you have an idea or thought about what the purpose of sport is? ZACK: It’s a good question. I think, for me, sport is it's kind of almost primal if you put it in that way. It's very, in competition in general, it's competition. But it's also in particularly in anything like endurance sports, where it's like a race, it's very-- For me, when I started triathlon, what really appealed me was the racing and the competition side. And that's still what drives me today is I like obviously, seeing my times get faster is cool. But I really like being able to basically go and beat other people at something where it's measured, we're all fighting the same triathlon and endurance sports in general, everyone's going the same distance but who ?? 7:27> the best. And so it was kind of almost like a-- I guess, yeah, like I said, a very primal thing of like, I want to be the best at this. And here's-- everyone gets the same course and you all have to go do it, but I want to be the first to the other end. And so having that kind of-- I don't know if it's an instinct thing and I think some people are very much in tune with that, and others aren't so much. I know plenty of people that even in the sport triathlon, that are not in any way competitive and they do it because they enjoy training, and they enjoy the social aspect and the lifestyle. But I've always particularly enjoyed that competition. And so in sport, it's been really about proving, I know, it's proving yourself against everybody else, or a lot of times you go back and forth between that and proving something to yourself that you worked hard, you earn this, and now go prove it against the other people who also worked hard. So, that's kind of, I guess, it's kind of hard to-- A roundabout way to answer that question. But I think it comes back to that need to be the best. That's what it's for me, at least. I think that definition, obviously, varies vastly from people that something that's fun versus something that I want to be the best. JESSE: Yeah, I don't know if you see variations, so like, say, so I’m gonna call them kids, but they're not really kids. The kids are like, they're not elite, they're not ever going to be anywhere near that. But they're still out there just like working their butt off. Do you see a different motivation for them? Like what is or like learning life lessons? Are we just getting in shape? Or you know what are we even out here doing? ZACK: Yeah, I mean, I think you learn a lot, especially when-- you learn a lot about yourself. And triathlon, in particular, is very because it is so physically and mentally demanding, and not even just with racing, but with the training, especially like I said earlier with kids having to balance their school life around the sport that plays such a big role in just like, making sure that your priorities are straight. And making sure that everything-- you're doing the best you can in the moment in whatever it is. And some people have the motivation that they just-- maybe they want to better themselves, and it's very internal. And they don't care if they’re last place, they just want to go and finish that race. And I've had athletes that are like that, they want to do-- they're 18 years old, and by the time they graduate, they want to do an Ironman. I've had several athletes that want to do that at some point. And they ?? 10:30> do sprints one year at the Olympics, the next year, half Ironman, and then the Ironman their senior year or something. And that's 100% internal, they don't want to go and they don't really care about being competitive, they just want to go and finish that. And so if they can go and finish that, and cross that off their list; I've done my job as a coach, even though maybe I thought that they should focus on this or that because that's kind of my own personal goals for the team. But if they want to do this, I'm going to help them along the way anyway I can. So, I think there's so many different motivations for people and athletes, in particular, they're just-- especially with mass participation, sports because there's not a huge-- And I'm fortunate that I have a team environment to work with, like my own private kind of practice coaching with athletes that are in their mid 30s, late 40s and up. They tend to be a lot more intrinsically motivated versus I'm going to do this because my team, my friends doing it and do this because-- and maybe their motivations change. But a lot of times, the older athletes are very much I want to go and finish an Ironman, I want to go and maybe get this PR, maybe I want to race this race, I want to do Alcatraz or I want to go to 70.3 worlds, or whatever it is, or maybe I'll even want to go pro. But they're very, a lot more intrinsically motivated, versus my younger athletes can get a lot more external motivation from teammates, and from just being around a lot more athletes that are similar to yourself. So there's a lot of...change. JESSE: Yeah, it's just amazing to see the progression from, like younger athletes to older athletes, and the people that stay with it. I mean, I recently saw a lot of my college teammates and my college coaches. And I always felt bad like I was doing something wrong. It was just this weird experience where so many people kept being like, Oh, do you still do triathlon like when you can get to it? And I just want to be like, no I'm still training more hours than I was in college and I'm still trying to be better than I was. And like, I'm still after it, here eight years after graduation. Whereas a lot of them are kind of settling into life and having kids and getting married and you know, just kind of compartmentalizing things down. So, yeah, I still likes, it's definitely interesting to see who makes that transition, why? And like where does that post-college career basically stop for so many people? ZACK: Yeah. And triathlon, in particular, I've seen that and that I've had-- It's interesting, actually, I should do a follow up one of these days and just go back to a lot of prior athletes and kind of just see where they're at, and maybe how they benefit from the team, how they benefit-- how triathlon has benefited their life. I would say of the ones that I know, I'd say only about half of them, you ever do triathlon after college. But the ones that do, I think almost every single one of the athletes on my team that has done triathlon in college, even if they don't do it seriously, in terms of they're never going to train 10 to 15 hours a week again. And then - for any, almost every single one of them will still do some sort of races, whether that's a 5K on the Fourth of July, whether that's going in. And maybe you're trying to run a marathon in five years or trying to go by that time, they're in their 30s, they want to do an Ironman again. As long as they came out of that program, and they developed some sort of a love for the sport and something being active and being healthy. That's also a big benefit that I've tried to I feel like having done my job as a coach for that for years, if nothing else, they still have that and wanting to lead a healthy lifestyle, that's a part of it, too. But yeah, it's interesting to-- It’d be really interesting to go back and see what a lot of these athletes are up to nowadays in terms of sport because a lot of them do post-grad, they don't really do much of it anymore. And just by nature of having a having now working 40 to 55 hours a week, having a full-time job, it gets really, really hard to continue to really want to do this on limited time, especially when you have a family, sure I give the utmost respect for guys that are working crazy hours and are still going you know, trying to go to like 70.3 worlds or go to Kona on 10-12 hours of training. Utmost respect for those guys, those age groupers. Because unlike the pros, they're fitting in training, just like my student-athletes, they're putting in training on top of everything else in their life, family life, and work-life all in one where the pros don't have it easy in that way, but all they have to focus on is...
Smart Athlete Podcast Ep. 16 - Zack Hamner - COACH BY EXPERIENCE - Part 3 of 3
There's like, just from the outside looking in, it looks like there's kind of a divide. Some people are obsessed with helicopters and other people are obsessed with planes. Have you seen the two groups a little more close up?
