Welcome to TriSpecific

You have landed on my passion, my web page, my blog and my other baby… yep I have a real one of those and his name is Mack and he rocks. How could he not rock with a name like Mack!

From this site I’ll be sharing my views and philosophies on triathlon training, nutrition, body maintenance, coaching and a whole bunch of other random stories.

So who am I? Who is John Galt? (if that makes no sense you must read this book).

My name is Kristian Manietta, and I’m one little persistent bugger….

I wanted to say bad-ass but I’m not really, even though I’d like to be
…well I used to be kinda bad-ass when I was a pro snowboarder.

And where was I?

Oh yeah, I am a triathlon coach, a triathlete, husband, father and budding author.

Over the past several years I have helped hundreds of triathletes achieve and even greatly surpass their goals using methods both traditional and unconventional… with the balance more skewed to unconventional.

I have been fortunate and have had the opportunity to talk shop, train with and train number of top professionals in this sport to get a thorough understanding of how they get good. I’ve never been afraid to ask questions.

But way more importantly, I have worked with and helped people from all walks of life achieve their goals. Most commonly I work with time poor athletes, most of them with families (not all) who want to increase their 70.3 (Half) and Ironman performances while reducing the time spent training.

As a budding author ,my articles have appeared in numerous online and print publications such as Australian Triathlete, Run 4 Your Life, Triathlon.de, Xtri.com, TriFuel.com, FirstOfftheBike.com an the like.

Anyway you’re going to be hearing a lot more from me because changing the game of triathlon training and coaching is a definite purpose of mine.

I’ve always led a life of sport. I’m definitely not the most gifted but when I put my mind and body to something, I’m going to go out there and get it. I played rep football and got pissed with the politics and then I saw snow for the first time at 17 and that led to a pro snowboard career- I wouldn’t say I jumped on and was talented… I just thought- I can do this, and then went to work refining my craft at that time and made shit happen.

Then I literally SCREWED up a bad-ass lifestyle of being a pro snowboarder. How? I lost my belief, my confidence and let my mind destroy a freaking cool life. But, it taught me a valuable life lesson and I wouldn’t be here right now, with a truly awesome business showing mostly age group athletes how they can get their goals. Even those super lofty ones.

In late 2000 I broke my back- the week before X-Games which I was meant to be competing at in the Big Air event. That was the start of a plague of injuries and my eventual out from the sport. It wasn’t the injuries why I quit- it was my head.

My last time on snow was early 2002 and then my wife (fiancée at the time) said she was bored with going to the gym and running on a treadmill. She wanted to join a run squad and run a marathon. (fast forward 9 years and she still hasn’t ran a marathon… by itself. She has ran 21 of them off the bike!).

So we started using the googleplex and searched run squads. Charlotte thought they looked full of old geezers, so we kept looking and this triathlon thing kept popping up. I remembered watching Welchy (Greg Welch) win the Hawaiian Ironman in ’94 and thinking one day, I’d have to do that.

We found the BRATS, which is a triathlon club from iconic Bondi Beach. We got ourselves a coach and were going to do some sprint distance triathlons. I had to sell a ton of snowboard gear to pay for the all the triathlon gear we needed.

Problem was- the group and coach we joined was very much geared towards Ironman and it was bloody infectious. In October 2003 we did our first Triathlon- the Kurnell Sprint series, then we signed up for Canberra Half Ironman (learnt some valuable lessons here and figured the carb-loading stuff was bogus) in December and qualified for Ironman Australia the following April.

Yes, we fell hook, line and sinker for triathlon but especially the long stuff. I had high aspirations for that first Ironman (come on, I’m a male with a healthy ego and LOVE competition), but I made SO many mistakes and that was even before I got to the race. Charlotte on the other hand just did her thing, pretty much trumped our whole group and qualified for the Hawaiian Ironman. (she didn’t even know what it was).

I love to read, so I immersed myself in triathlon, training, nutrition, so we could have a better shot of being good. I wanted to learn from the mistakes. I wanted to eventually get to Hawaii- I was a long way off. I did my level 1 triathlon coaching accreditation- not to become a coach, but to learn more. I was pretty disappointed in that course.

Back to the mistakes… Best thing that ever happened.

I started learning from many sources, applying, making more mistakes and through this experiential learning, I stumbled onto training methods I would have never been aware of. These mistakes have helped me come up with training systems that allow me to accelerate performances with less training, Using these training systems, I’ve been able to go from a first time Ironman split of 11:27 and take that down to an 8:57 and put an age group title to my name. I have gone under 9 hours twice now.

Furthermore I’ve been able to do the same with my athletes and help them avoid the pitfalls I did while reaching their goals in record time. Even those that have experienced the pitfalls, we have been able to return to health and injury free and attain those exceptional performances.

As one of my popular blogs posts says- It’s simple but not easy. but it is damn effective.

What’s more important is that I’ve had a hell of a time doing this and I love living and breathing triathlon and refining my craft- especially the longer stuff. 70.3 (Half Ironman) and Ironman distances.

I am just a regular guy who fell in love with triathlon and it has become a life passion. I don’t pull punches, I’m a go-getter and want to see people succeed. Period.

So hang out here, and I guarantee you’ll pick up some stuff that you can use to achieve your goals, whether they be for getting faster, fitter, healthier and attaining that elusive Kona spot or for breaking those hour barriers. (you know the 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 ones)..

What I want to do is build a community, a tribe. I want you to post comments on whatever you’re thinking about whatever I’m saying. You’ll definitely need an open mind- I wouldn’t be here today without that attitude.

If learning unconventional innovative ways to make great progress is not something you want to do then this might not be the place for you. That’s cool. We’ll keep on performing without you.

So welcome to TriSpecific.

Cheers,
Kristian

P.S. A few other things you may like to know about me or not.

I’m a voracious learner. I love books so feel free to gift me some kindle books , I don’t watch much TV. Surfing is cool when I find time to do it, snowboarding- I can’t wait to go back to the snow, I have a Deus motorcycle on my dream-board (so buy one of my plans or apply for my coaching to help me buy it .

I love good food, Bali, baking my own bread from scratch, I don’t mind a talk and coffee, ahh great coffee is one of my little treasures in life.

I’m going to talk more than just triathlon training, you’ll get some of my life beingkristianmanietta.

I have a wife who rocks more than I do, super humble and she has kicked more triathlete guys butts then you care to know. Fastest marathon split (male and female) in 50 Degree Celsius heat when she won Ironman China… but I still hold the family title by a mere 2 minutes and 53 seconds… Just Saying.

I’m a lucky guy…