Coach Carter

“I’m a cyclist at my core, but these days my life doesn’t revolve around my bike the way it did. I’m a cyclist, but I am also a business owner. I don’t have endless hours to spend building up the massive endurance base that characterises so many classic training programmes. I don’t have the time to be the cyclist I was, and I don’t have the desire to be. My life is fuller, more fulfilling than it has ever been, and although I am glad cycling is an important part of my life, I’m equally glad that it ranks behind my family and business in priority”

Not my words, but Chris Carmichael’s – the introduction to his book ‘The Time Crunched Cyclist’. They could be my words though, and reading them became the inspiration for this blog post. My priorities have switched from the pursuit of my own sporting goals to helping others achieve theirs. It is no less rewarding; and indeed I get the quenching of my own ‘challenge thirst’ by building a business helping others’ sporting pursuits.

Since completing London to Paris, people have asked me what my next goal is – and in all honesty I have not one cycling goal in mind. I have some ideas in terms of physical goals, but none of them involve cycling. I’m finding myself stepping back from structured ‘training’ and becoming an ‘exerciser’. The Great South10 mile run in October is keeping me on a loose plan right now, but come November the only thing on my mind will be doing exercise for health alone...that might change as the PBscience Spring training camp in Majorca looms on the horizon (I might be following Carmichael’s plan!)

I am stepping away from sporting goals because of a growing desire to move deeper into my coaching practise. Bike rides (other than those I share with my athletes) take me away from time I could be spending elsewhere; and as I approach the 1st anniversary of PBscience going independent, this has been valuable to reflect upon. I am excited about how the business can develop over the coming 12 months – and I want time, as well as the energy to devote myself to that. The projects Dan and I are creating will require my time, so the time spent on habitual exercise will be dropping.

I frequently observe in today’s society that we spread ourselves too thinly. We want to be good at everything we do: we want the perfect job, immerse ourselves in our passions / hobbies and still have time for our friends and families. The result is we either do everything to a mediocre level, or we run ourselves ragged trying to fit everything in! Emphasis has become on the quantity rather than the quality of the experience. The result? Burnout. Burnout is as common in working life as much as in sport. The part time-athlete faces both situational pressures and therefore is found to be juggling both sources of stress. A few of my athletes have been faced with the impact of work / life stress on their physical well being lately: new jobs, big events – exciting opportunities even create stress.

I was in Guernsey this weekend with my good friend and ex Science in Sport team mate Annie. Like me, she has also set up her own business in the past 12 months. Unlike me, she is still competing – due in fact to go to the Commonwealth Games in October. We talked about how we juggle the demands of work with our love of sport. How hard it is to make decisions about what is right for us vs what is right for the business. I for one have recently recognised that my life is too hectic to maintain at this pace – some might say inevitable in the first year of a start-up; but actually I don’t believe it HAS to be that way: as I shared with Annie, its perhaps just going back to the drawing board and being more imaginative about how I orientate my life with my business. For one, making exercise a stress release rather than a stressor is probably a vital part of that jigsaw for me. I sense Annie sees that too – but she still has a competitive desire that I wore out two years ago

I still admire the competitive spirit though – and this weekend’s British Time Trial Championships is one of my favourite events of the year. It is in South Wales this year, which means a long journey for me on Sunday morning and an early start. To watch my athletes compete makes it worthwhile, and that is backed up by a quality field in both the men’s and women’s elite races. My ‘ones to watch’ are Geraint Thomas and Wendy Houvenaghel ;-) I’ll be reporting back next week as to how the PBscience athletes have faired...and if I won any money at the bookies!!