Coach Carter

No doubt, life is a roller coaster – one day happy, the next day sad; and indeed why wait day to day? I’m sure we all experience dramatic mood changes in the course of a single day? When you work in the ‘people industry’ you notice this. In working with my 10 athletes, I see the ups and downs lived in a single week, sometimes even in a single training day / session: sometimes all 10 athletes I coach are ‘up’, sometimes all 10 are ‘down’; more often than not, some are up, some are down; the hardest is when I am not quite sure if they are up or down, and I have to tease it out of them! I was only talking to one athlete this morning who explained its easier to talk about the mechanicals he might suffer in training than exposing how he feels in a session. I asked him to tell me less about the bike and more about when HIS metaphorical chain falls off.

I have to admit, its not easy fielding the moods of my athletes, and I am sure my co-coaches Dan and Oli would say the same in the work with the athletes in their care. I don’t mean they are stroppy or unpleasant to work with, far from it. The challenge comes in holding myself steady while all around me ‘lose their heads’. I am the grounded one, the rock – whether an athlete performs a great session or race and thinks they have ‘cracked it’ – or, when they are shattered by their recent showings and think they will never crack it. Yes, I must celebrate successes and support their failures – but, I have to maintain a level of consistency about my perspective. This allows me to advise from a place of clarity, not affected by emotion. My stance remains objective, that’s my job.

Let me give you an example. In one week, an athlete might perform 4 to 6 sessions. My most consciousness athletes also upload training diary comments on their rest days (this is a REAL bonus to me, as I can pick up on physical issues based on the patterns I see in their psycho-emotional state: and often these come through stronger on rest days). Training diaries are like snapshots of an athlete’s life to me – and I have to use this information to not only analyse their training progress (the easy bit, comparing target with actual power, HR, cadence) but also their ability to handle the current training load – too much, too little. I use the confidence a rider exudes as a gauge of how they are coping with the overall load. Two riders might perform equally in a session – say, missing the power target by 10W or so. Rider 1 might be distraught, beat themselves up, convince themselves they will never get better; Rider 2 might see that they simply missed a training target – they understand targets are merely there to stretch them, and that come tomorrow, things might be different. Indeed, the biggest breakthrough comes when athletes realise training is about effort, and taking a ‘training hit’ – simply a stimulus to change. Missing a target in training is not a big deal; its about stressing the system, not falling short of a performance.

I can see great peaks, great troughs all in the course of those 4 to 6 sessions across a week. In it all, Coach stays as the rock. I don’t judge any rider on one session they perform; whereas a rider often does. I have seen complete turnarounds in an athlete’s perception of their performance ability in 24 hours. I try to counsel athletes to be more ‘flat line’ – to view each session as it is, and to try and avoid the trap of labelling it. Yes, as session CAN be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but it is only one small brick in a very big wall! No one session will make or break a performance year – but if doubts about one’s ability as an athlete begin to surface (and build), that certainly can wipe the wall away. A good session / race does not make a good athlete; a bad session / race doesn’t not make a bad athlete. It is what it is, just that single session (or indeed race).

A nice analogy is the mountain. Come rain, wind, sunshine – the mountain remains grounded, whatever the weather, whatever is thrown its way. Whether that’s an athlete treating all events with equanimity, or the Coach letting their athlete’s follow the ups and downs in confidence but keeping their own feet on the ground. For me in the latter role, like I say it isn’t all that easy. It is hard sometimes NOT to join in the triumph or tragedy!!

The peaks and troughs of the emotional roller coaster can only heighten come race season, so here we go again. This coming weekend is my first one on the road to watch some athlete’s race. I might let myself get a little carried away