#3 My first guest!! Pawel Celinski | Ultra Triple Ironman CHAMPION!

In this episode I’m joined by Pawel Celinski, who shares his story about competing in Ironmans and triathlons. Pawel gave great insight into how he simulates race conditions into his training and how he achieves the right balance between his training and quality time with his family. Pawel’s ambition is to become a WORLD CHAMPION and, after listening to his story and witnessing his dedication, I have no doubt he’ll succeed. He's very inspiring and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did!

If anyone wishes to join Pawel on his journey and sponsor him, please get in touch with him below:

E-mail: p.celinski2018@outlook.com

Instagram: @pawel_celinski_im 

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If you would like to SPONSOR the podcast or an individual episode and promote your business then please DM me on Instagam @mskrunner.haz

If you have a question or a topic you would like me to cover then please put it in the comments below or DM me on Insta.

Thank you for listening and hope you enjoy it!

Transcript

0:03

Hello and welcome back to episode three of the podcast. Uh this is a very special episode because uh I've got my first ever guest on. Uh so the guy we've got on is Paul Selinski, who is a Iron Man uh champion and also a triathlete, and he also does swim teaching. Uh really inspiring guy. Really hope you listen to it as much as I enjoyed recording it with him. Uh Powell talks a lot about not just kind of like his uh success and his end destination, but also like the process that he goes through uh to get there with his training and his nutrition and how he like juggles it around his work and family life and things like that. Like I say, really inspiring story, and I'm gonna just like stop chatting out and let you guys uh listen to it. So yeah, really hope you enjoy it, and we'll see you on the other side. Right, hi Paul, thanks for joining me. How are you doing? Hi, how I'm good, you're okay. Yeah, I'm good, thanks, mate. So yeah, thanks for coming on. Um gonna get straight into it then and ask you about your Iron Man and all your training and everything. So when did you um when did you do your first Iron Man and what made you decide uh to take part in one in the first place? Awesome. Rahad, thank you. First of all, thank you very much for having me in. Yeah, it's a pleasure to you know speak to you and to all your guests. So thank you for that. Yeah, so the first Iron Man was an I ever did that was in 2019. So so many years ago, yeah, I did my first attempt to the to the Iron Man. Yeah, honestly, can't believe that was that long time ago. So what like um what made you decide to like get into taking part in one in the first place? Like what sort of made you want to enter one? Yeah, that was pretty funny because first of all, I start work as a swim teacher and I have been asked to help with like a triathlon club and with triathlonic in the water. So soon when I start working with triathlonic, uh I thought, oh my goodness, it sounds all really good. Then the people inspire me to start doing the triathlons, they teach me, you know, the values and ideas, and because when I start working, doing something, I always go in all in. So because I become triathlon coach, I start thinking like, okay, so what else I can do? How can I be a better swim teacher, better coach? And then I talk to the people, and then they inspire me to start doing cycles, start going out and do some running. So very slowly I build up my knowledge and passion, and then after yes, I became who I am. Yeah, but start it start from the people, people inspire me to do it. That's amazing. I do feel like you know, when you surround yourself with people who have like similar interests and like common goals, then it really you all like kind of push each other on, don't you? Absolutely, definitely. So obviously, like you've just mentioned like you were um swim teaching before I mean you still are, but you were swim teaching before you did your triathlons and your iron man. So out of the three disciplines, I'm I'm assuming swimming has always been the stronger point. So, which out of like the running and the cycling have was did you find like the most challenging in terms of like getting up to certain fitness levels? Yeah, so I I think I would surprise you because actually, as a swim teacher, everybody always thinking, oh, swimming is easy peasy for you, but actually it's other way around. My the most challenging, the most difficult discipline actually is the is the swimming. Because okay, because to be honest, my my background is not swimming. I am not a swimmer, I am a fighter, I am best coming from martial arts, not from the swimming world. And I found the swimming training pretty hard. And actually, my best discipline is is a cycling, cycling, is going on the bikes. And the funny thing is, as a teenager, I never was training properly any of those disciplines. I was just cycle around the town and stuff like that. And for some reason, the the old training for the for the bike became best. Uh, my best discipline is actually the bike. And then second is run. After many years of training, I managed to put up my technique, my power uh on the run, and now I can push a little bit harder. Um, but swimming is still pretty tough, even as a swim teacher and swim and swim coach. I still found the swimming pretty challenging. That makes me feel slightly better because I would definitely struggle with swimming by far out of all three of them. I found it from the uh from the experience. A lot of people like coming to the triathlon world from the from the running and cycle world, and they dream, become the Iomans, they uh dream about the triathlons, and a lot of adults people find the swimming pretty difficult. And I think swimming is a pretty technical sport, and if you don't have that flexibility, that muscles memory from the childhood, I think it's pretty hard to learn how to swim in a comfortable place and generate that crazy speed. Yeah, absolutely. I I think it like um when you see like uh swimming at the Olympics, for example, and you see how fast they go, it's just like mind-blowing. But yeah, like you say, touching on kind of like the technique being uh the most important aspect of it to like move efficiently through the water, which is something I definitely cannot do. But um that's um that's to be honest with you, I had no idea you did martial arts, so that's a new one. Um did you um did so did you like do you still do that now or have you completely sort of like put it to one side and focus on your on your Iron Man and your triathlons? So currently I'm just training for the triathlons. Uh for the triathlons. I was trying to I was trying to combine these two disciplines together, and my daughter is training kickbooksing in a local club, and I was trying to join to them and train with them because I still have a dream to have a mic black belt, uh, which one which one of the you know of things on my list to do. But I found that both training they don't work together as good because the martial arts, the motions on the legs are totally different to the to the triathlon worlds, the knees and ankles not working in the same way, and that impact from martial arts is not helping with performing on a high level with the triathlon. So I decided to finish in the triathlon world first, and then back to the martial arts later on. So we're still on the we're we're still on a triathlon journey, and for now, I like to I can I still believe I can I can do better, I can do more, and when I will know I'm done, I will back to the martial arts. Oh amazing, that'll be really good. Yeah, I can I can totally see why you would train like one um one or the other rather than both of them, because you want to put all your eggs in exactly the basket to give you that best chance of succeeding, don't you? Absolutely, yes. When you've like competed in triathlons and iron manns over the years, have have there any been have there been any like barriers that you faced or anything that you found particularly challenging? Yeah, sure. There's always something, you know, when you're growing, when you're training, you're mind changing. And I think on each level you're facing like uh different walls, different demons you can call them. And usually for me, the biggest wall, the biggest demon is myself. It's always myself because I'm always some ambitious, I always trying to see and go as far as I can, and that's it's not always good, really, uh, because you know the triathlon is an endurance sport, so you need time to perform. And if you if you burn yourself very quickly, then you are struggle on the end of the race. So I think that for me, the always the most difficult thing is to face myself and don't ban myself on the beginning of the race. You know, uh from the experience, I know it's always something happened during the race during the race. Things will break down, something will go wrong, uh, something will happen. Always, if you can stay calm and don't go as hard on the beginning of the race, you will perform better on the end of the race, especially if we're talking about longer distance. There's a lot of time, there's a lot more time for things to happen, and you need that energy mental or physical, you need that energy to perform well. Yeah, definitely. I think like um, I've obviously never done trioff once, but I've done like marathons, and I think definitely um like not setting off too fast has definitely been like my Achilles seal. I think it's easier said than done because especially when you're like waiting on the start line, you're just like full of adrenaline and excitement and anxiety and all those things, and then you kind of get like five or ten K in and you're like, oh I've gone a bit too fast here. And then yeah, you're right, it does it does affect you like in the latter stages, doesn't it? And I guess it's even more important when you do like multi-discipline events as well. But so speaking of like um speaking of the events sense, so you've done um you did a triple Iron Man last year in Germany, I think it was, and you actually won it. So, yeah, first of all, like um in terms of like the three disciplines, what was the distance for each one? Was it literally like three times the the length of a normal Iron Man? Yes, pretty much. Yeah, so pretty much the the distance is uh Iron Man times three, and in the Ultra Ward, those are different variations of this sort of races because you have uh Iron Man time two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, and thirty in different combinations. So, for example, you can do this was I did like a continuous version where you're doing the whole swim together. So that was in my case, that was have a little notes. So I did 7.1 mile swim in the one go non-stop, no, you know, no time for break for tea or anything, just a continuous swim. Then after that, I did uh wait a minute, that was 335 miles bike non-stop, okay, non-stop, and then on top of that, that was one run, which was 78.67 miles. Yeah, oh my god, yeah, in one go. So this is what I did, but some people doing this in a slightly different combination, okay. So my was continuous without stopping, basically, at all. This all that takes me 36 hours, 31 minutes, and 47 seconds. Yeah, one go months. That is insane. So you and you literally did all that non-stop. That's that is pretty incredible, and the fact that you won it as well is yeah, is mind blowing. So, how how many like um do you know roughly how many people took part in that one? Yeah, so the the ultra triathlon is not as popular like a standard triathlon or the or the standard Iron Man race, of course. There's not many people which one are kin or can work train as hard as long because it's it's unbelievable hours to uh to train. So on my race, that was I think about 25 people, something like that. About 25 people did that competition, yeah, altogether. Um, because we when we're doing this sort of race, we're doing this on the little laps, so it's not like a big marathon event where you're doing a one lap of the marathon, and that's it. We did have plenty, plenty laps. So uh to make sure everybody has a space and it's comfortable uh place to run, go on a bike. You can't have that many people on the on the course, so this is why the numbers allow to make it safe, comfortable, and you know, good to go. Yeah, definitely. No, that's incredible. Like, congratulations to that, because that really is like unbelievable. Are you um in terms of like this year then, have you got any more plans or any um like any more ultra irons or any other events of any sort? What yeah, there's always a plan in a head, that there's always that vision. If you have that vision, if you have that imagination, if you can see that next step, you can train harder, you can find a way out, you can you know progress up, stuff like that. So then my dream is to finally become the world champion in uh in an ultra-triathan world, you know, uh chase the times, change, chase the records, stuff like that. There is uh few races this year which one I dream to do it, but currently I'm still looking for some sponsorship uh to do the training, to do the races, because everything costing unbelievable money. And I don't want just yeah, it's it's always the same. It's I don't want train to train, I want to train to win. So if I will have that sponsorship, I will do it again and I will win that again. Yeah, absolutely. I love that, and I guess like, yeah, it's different when like um you're not here to take part, you're here to try and win. So yeah, that that makes that makes like the support from other people like even more important, and guessing um it's crazy. Yeah, the thing is when you when you train to train and you want to compete the race as a challenge, you want to do your best, is the one thing. Then actually, like last year I did when you're training to win, you're thinking I'm doing this, so what else I can do, and then you're thinking again I did that, what else I'm doing? That's the way how how we built all my training last year. You will think about any aspects of the training basic from the PT training, all my basic training, plus, for example, what we did, we was uh we were doing like a nutrition plan where actually we were training my stomach to absorb unbelievable amounts of the cups per hour, where actually we were testing how much I can eat, how much I can absorb to make sure my stomach not stops, not slow down. Because I think a lot of athletes, a lot of like an age group as they're training and they don't have uh much knowledge or ideas about how they're supposed to eat to generate that high power. And one of the biggest plan goals was to make sure that diet, nutrition is in a place. Another one different training, which I did, that was a breathing training. Every single day I was I was basically working on strength of my lungs and muscles around my ribs to make sure my breathing is as much official I can. Can you imagine that just by doing a breathing exercise after 10 minutes, you will fall sweating like after half an hour of the room? That was that was that hard. Plus, yeah, a lot of other aspects of the training. So all this is like a huge machine, which when you're trying to combine together, so fingers crossed, I will be do it, I will be able to do it again, do it better, and show what actually I can do. That's really that's really incredible. That I mean, even the stuff about like you know, putting your body through, you know, simulating different scenarios with your body to try and prepare yourself physically and mentally as best as you possibly can for when it does come uh to race day. Um, yeah, even like practicing breathing exercises that wouldn't have even been on my radar for anything. That's quite incredible, really. It's really cool, like how you know, obviously you did your you know, you won your race last year and you're not even like content with it. You just you your next thought is like, you know, how can you um how can I like um push myself even more to do even bigger and better things? So that's like that's really cool, yeah. Yeah, thank you. I think like everybody, if you will have a vision, if you will have a vision, this is what you like to do, this is what you dream about, slowly. If you will have a nice reliable plan, nice reliable plan and go step by step, do that little steps, you will get there. You need to have a vision and that reliable plan and like enjoy enjoy your journey towards that goal. Keep looking, don't worry about you know, um about not great dates because everybody all of us have not good days. But I think the key thing is what I did that was that consistently, day by day, training by training, session by session. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not as great. It's just another one day. And if you can carry on, if you have that vision, that next challenge, the next race, you will get eventually you will get there and you will succeed. This is the this is the main goal, you know. Have that vision, have that plan in ahead. Definitely, and I think having that, um I think consistency is definitely like the key words, like when it comes to your training, because I think like, you know, even I think even on days where you know naturally you're not gonna be feeling up to it, but as long as you just like keep showing up and sticking to the plan, then yeah, you're gonna be on to a winner. Um I remember you telling me a f a while ago actually about you were um when you were training, you were like um you were like on a spin bike at in your house at like two o'clock in the morning because you wanted to like simulate training hard, but like whilst feeling fatigued. Yeah, like um how do you do that and like not wake everybody up in the middle of the night? Yeah, that is the good one. Yeah, I yeah, I did many, many stuff like that to simulate, yeah, to to to to do well during the race. I said, I thought I need to replicate the time and the race to make sure my mind, my head, and my body get used to with everything, like I you know, get ready for for anything. So yeah, this is why I decided to train through the night. Uh do the laps like we did during the race on the on the race day, the lapse on the bike that was around 8k lap. So we did 8k laps during the night for so many times on the room that was about me think less than a mile, I think 1.3k. That was a one loop. So I did that so many times during the training. So obviously, you ask about the spin turbo training. Yeah, I many times I did that training in the home to make it safe, to make it slightly easier, but slightly it's slightly is a good world because it's still the hours of the training, hours, hours. So for one reason it's easy, for other reason it's harder. So to make sure uh the family is happy, they need to first of all accept the way, uh, accept the fact that you're actually doing that. Uh, so my goal was to engage them, uh, to show them that positive side of the doing this sort of events, and same like I did. I was growing through the races from the very, very short course up to that ultra-huge race. So they were growing with me. My daughters were running with me, you know, supporting me during the events. Say my wife, my mom, you know, my friends were supporting me during the short events, and then when I was training, I was trying to motivate everybody and support me during the events and training. So we were all growing together, so shorter distance, shorter trainings, that was less annoying. And then because every single time when I'm planning something, I discuss that with my wife, with my kids, with everybody, and we're thinking, should I do it or should I not? And then everybody always blaming me as other person, which I'm doing all this stuff. Actually, not many people realize I didn't make that choice by myself. That was choice my wife, my kids, that's actually we're going ahead. And when I'm going, when I'm saying we're going ahead mean we will do all that training, we will we will again push hard, we will again looking for another one way how we can do it. So, in the moment where we decided to go ultra, everybody was what was aware, oh my goodness. It will be crazy. It will be extreme. And always all best coaches in the world saying if you if you race hard, you need to train hard. I was racing extreme, so I was training extreme as well. So when I did all that training during the night, I think my family accept that before I even did that. Close the old doors, you know, don't play TV loud, have a headphones on my ears, and just behavior quietly to make sure I'm not annoying them as much. Then I think what is important after, for example, tough nights like this one, it's good to, it's necessary to compensate that to the family, spend time with them, talk to them, do something together, do something great, and then they don't feel that left them alone. So if you can try, if you if you can keep that balance between your training world, and then you leave your world and you spend time with your closest friends, family, then I think it's easier for them uh to accept it, and as well, it's better for you to train because you know you have your one life, you have your second life, and then you're trying to keep that balance. And I think as well, what is really important to stay honest with yourself, stay honest with your other half, with the children, everybody, to make sure everybody know what's your thing, what's your feel, and then if they will like it, they will support you. If not, you will know you need to make a choice. Yeah, no, that's really that's really good, mate. That's really inspiring because I think like, you know, um, like you say, finding that balance is the key. Um, but then also like as your as your kids grow up and they and you know, when they become adults, you know, you you will have like inspired them to kind of like have those habits of like um you know being like physically active and kind of like living that kind of lifestyle on whatever it is they want to do, like you know, whether they carry on with like the MMA stuff or whether they want to go down your route, just whatever they enjoy doing, really, because they see that because they see you doing it like first hands, then you know they know it's possible. And that was the plan. That was the plan. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's just like you're saying, Harold, yeah, exactly like that. To show them the way, to show them that actually you need to dedicate, you need to sacrifice yourself, work hard, and then if you have a that great support people around you, you can you can you you know, uh you can do whatever you like. Yeah, it makes a massive difference, definitely. Um, gonna ask you one final question. So you touched on it earlier about um about sponsorships. If anybody listening um would like to get in touch with you about sponsoring you, um what would be the best way for them to get hold of you? I think it would be great to just drop me a message on my social media or send me an email uh about the information, then I can I can show what is the what is the plan, what we can do, how we can cooperate together, which kind of benefits uh these people can have, you know, how we can work, stuff like that. There's plenty of things which we can do, uh plenty of opportunities. There's all sorts of races around the whole world, a lot of opportunities to you know grow up together, prove that there's no any limits. There's no any limits, is on limit is only in the head, in the imagination. If you can create something in your head, you can create something in the real life as well. That's amazing. Um, really good that, Paul. Um, I'm gonna like wrap it up here. Uh thank you very much for your time. I've really enjoyed this. Uh finding you and your story really inspiring. And I think yeah, we'll definitely have to get you on again like later in the year, like after you've uh after you've done some of your races and we'll catch up as well, mate. And uh yeah, what I'll do, I'll I'll put like your um I'll put like your email and your social media links in the description so anyone listening can literally just scroll down and and click on it and they can if they want to support. My pleasure, mate. Right. Cheers Powell, thanks a lot, mate. So have a great day. Thank you very much, guys, have a good day, cheers. Cheers, Powell. Thank you. Okay, so yeah, again, a massive thank you to Powell for his time and for coming on to the pod. I found this like really insightful and I hope you guys did too. Um please remember to um like and subscribe, uh whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify or Amazon or whatever it may be. Um as I said, um for the next episode, if there's any questions you want to ask me, any topics you want me to cover, then put it in the comments below or DM me on Instagram. All the details are in the bio. And like I said earlier, if anybody is interested in sponsoring Powell, then I've put his social media links and his email address in the bio of this episode. So please do get in touch if you do want to join his journey. Right, so every episode is every Sunday at 6 pm. I will see you all again next week. Thank you for listening. Ta-ra!