Thoughts from the Turbo - Coaches

As yet another turbo session takes its toll on my brain, I try to focus on what I’m going to be doing during the session, that’s when it dawns on me that in years past I simply did what I thought was best during the winter, endless hours spent meandering around with no real purpose or direction. “Get out and do some hard miles” was what they all said and generally that’s what I did as a kid. You still see it now guys out thrashing round on long hard fast winter rides at almost the same pace they achieve during the summer months and taking three days to recover from it, that may work for some but certainly not me. Things for me have thankfully have moved on, which kind of brings me to my opening point. On each day through the winter I know exactly what I’m setting out to achieve during the training session. How? I hear you ask. Well it’s quite simple my coach told me.

If I could offer one piece of advice to aspiring cyclists it would be this, get yourself a coach. It sounds such a simple concept, but there are a few pitfalls

Things to avoid are

1. Someone picked at random from the internet.
2. Someone who will charge you an arm and a leg.
3. Someone who only contacts you once in a blue moon.
4. Someone who has a stable of cyclists.

I’m sure there are many, many more. Things to look for are

1. Someone who is qualified
2. Someone local.
3. Someone who will spend time listening to you.
4. Someone who you trust.

Your coach can make the difference between being a talented bike rider who never quite fulfils their potential, to being a winning talented bike rider. It is as simple as that, they identify what you are good at and probably more importantly not so good at and show you how to improve it. A good coach not only plans training schedules but offers advice on bike position, nutrition and can tell you when to slow down and avoid overtraining. They can boost your confidence and show you how you are improving. All of the above are things that I have fallen foul of in the past, but with the benefit of a second set of eyes watching over you and stopping the rot before it sets in all the negatives can be avoided and your goals achieved.

There are many different thoughts on training available on the internet and I like many of you reading this will have read over them and not really made head nor tail of the finer points of the articles. There is a reason for that and it’s simply that the author has not published them as they want you to sign up to their program which I think I covered in points 1-4 on my things to avoid list. I can’t advocate any particular type of training as things that work for me may not work for someone else, we are all different.

Good coaches are worth more than any piece of lightweight kit you can buy. If you are prepared to explain your goals, take on board their training plan, work hard and have an honest working relationship with them, you will realise your potential.

That’s enough from me I don’t want to give everything away!