Coach Carter

In Roman mythology, Janus (represented with two faces looking in opposite directions) was the god of thresholds, presiding over beginnings and endings. Before writing this week’s blog, I took time to look back at the first post of 2009. Writing about ‘goals’ is always easy (and relevant) at this time of the year – even those of us who don’t make / believe in New Year’s resolutions can see the merits of how using the year turn to start afresh. Goals are ‘better’ than resolutions – whilst resolutions can feel restricting, goals can be exciting and even liberating.

On New Year’s Eve I sat down and reviewed by goals for 2009 – interestingly, whilst I have achieved and even surpassed many of my milestones (starting my own cycle coaching business for one!), some I have not been as successful at. It would be easy for me to now feel downbeat about that: and indeed, I have had conversations with athletes I coach who fear goal setting because they feel it sets them up for a fall – no goals, no chance to fail. However, as I went down my list, I simply reflected on the “why” of not achieving them – some I never got started on probably because they didn’t inspire me enough; and then others are more ongoing – attitudes I want to keep adopting, systems I want to keep improving. Goal setting doesn't work because of achieving the goals; it works because it stretches you outside your comfort zone, and onto better things: regardless of whether you "succeed" or "fail".

One of my “life wishes” (an exercise I was inspired to do this time last year when I read Gay Hendricks book, Five Wishes) is to be the best coach I can be to all the athletes in my charge. As you can imagine, it is quite a hard ‘goal’ – I think I have asked before what makes a great coach, and although I can come up with a list of good attributes, measuring if I am hitting my mark or improving is tricky. I know I want to be a visible coach, one with a very hands on style, accessible and very present – I love being at races, I love meeting with my athletes for rides, coffee etc. It is at the very core of my desire to be a cycling coach. Communication is a big thing for me, and although again its hard to measure, I have given a lot of thought about how I can spend more time speaking with, meeting up with all my athletes. I have recently updated the process by which I speak with my athletes, encouraging them all to now speak with me at least once a week; I’m also now using Skype, so people even get to see me if they so wish!

I’m speaking with most of my athletes next week, so I am excited to catch up on the past two weeks of their training. Although I have been keeping an eye on training diaries / data, over the Christmas period I have been working on tasks that normally fall lower on the list of priorities. For example, I have returned to search engine optimisation, and also learning about some new training analysis software. In between my own bike riding, I have been doing more than enough to keep me busy, but this week sees me returning to my normal working patterns. Like most of my athletes, although I have enjoyed Christmas, it is now time to end the ‘silly season’ (as one of my athletes Mark referred to it!) and get back to normal. I think most of them are also hoping that the New Year will bring a different weather system to the UK – I am impressed how many miles have been clocked up on the turbo these past 2 weeks; but also, how many of them have continued to get outside....a group of VERY inspired athletes in the PBscience camp!