Coach Carter

There is a concept or “truth” in Buddhism that speaks about the temporary nature of all things and phenomena – whether it be certain emotions, situations or indeed on the biggest scale - human life. As sure as things come together, they all come apart. We get angry, it passes; we have pleasurable moments, they go; we make friends, we lose friends; we are born, we die. Nothing is permanent. Even my holiday in New York!!

Last week gave me the chance to reflect on the temporary of all things – not even Starbucks coffee is endless – although I did my best to test THAT particular theory! Whilst in the “Big Apple” I was fortunate enough to sit in a meditation with the IDproject – a group inspired by the Buddhist tradition. I wish I had discovered meditation whilst I was a competing athlete – I can think of nothing better for settling the mind than being one with the breath. That session inspired this blog post, along with an observation I made when checking over my athlete’s training diaries. Normally, my working day starts with the downloading and analysis of all my athletes training files. Each day, I look over how their training has gone against the session goal; read their training diary comments; and then feedback / engage in dialogue about the session. I might even go back to a similar session in the previous year and give them a lowdown on where I think they are in the bigger scheme of their physiological potential. On a Monday morning, the process also involves giving some feedback on their race performances.

I tend to plan my holiday time each year at a moment where my lack of availability will be the least impacting. This last week was a little different (I couldn’t exactly ask Andy to move his wedding!). Part of me felt a ‘tug’ because I have athletes entering the final build up to their second peak of the year. So, I met a compromise with myself – that I would stay in touch with my athlete’s progress by checking in on training diaries every other day. It was a chance for me to be a detached bystander: whilst I was reading their comments, I wasn’t feeding back or contacting them (unless I saw something that needed acting upon). What I observed was interesting: how each athlete would exhibit ‘ups and downs’ around their training. I noted their sensitivity; in some cases almost a fragility – one ‘bad’ session, and their confidence was knocked; sometimes full of vigour, and then the next day the stresses and strains of work had taking their toll; starting the week full of beans, ending the week with a cold. Fascinating for me – because normally I am a passenger on their roller coaster. It has made me contemplate how my going in there after a good / bad session can impact. Sometimes, being left to their own devices might be a good, sometimes a bad thing – I have to be able to judge which tact to take (depending on the situation and the nature of the athlete).

Going back to the start of the post, this is an example of how impermanence functions – illnesses come and go; bad as well as good form come and go; fatigue accumulates, it is alleviated. I am sure a few of my athletes will recall my use of similar words when I caught back up with them on Monday as I got back into the work routine. The skill is being mindful of this temporary nature of all things. Sometimes, the stress associated with the ‘bad thing’ is worse than the ‘bad thing’ itself! Maybe, just maybe, if we can learn that we just have to sit out the bad patch, it will pass (as long as we take the appropriate steps, like resting more if work is busy; taking medication or looking at our diets to get over illness).

I think as an athlete, the hardest challenge is being injured. Certainly, in the early stages of some of my injuries whilst competing, I was gripped by fear – “what is wrong with me”; “how did this happen”; “when will this be fixed”; “how can I be sure it won’t happen again”. Often, just getting an accurate diagnosis and prognosis can take away that fear. I remember in 2005 when I was sidelined for ~8 weeks because of a knee injury pre-season, once my sports medic had his diagnosis sorted and my rehab started, I felt very calm – like I was back in the game...even if I was only allowed on the turbo at ‘0’ watts for 45 minutes every other day! What comes, goes. Of course with injury the one caveat is that the injury WILL heal if you don’t ignore the body signalling its time to stop.

I’m relying on ‘what comes, goes’ as I get myself back on track following some pretty severe jetlag! I thought I had got away with my totally sleepless night flying back (as I went to bed at 10pm the night I got back to Eastbourne and slept through until 8:30am). No such luck – 2am waking has been a recurrent theme of this week so far! So, to speed the recovery up, I took to my bike this morning – exposure to daylight is one way to get the body clock back in shape. It was a gorgeous day, so I took myself up around Beachy Head to admire the view. It has been two weeks since I last touched my bike (NY exercise was running around Central Park – so funny to use the subway to get to a place to run! I tried running from my hotel to the park on Day 1 – pah, didn’t try that again – better than Eastbourne seafront as a slalom course!). Coming back to impermanence one more time – I am placing my trust in the fact my legs WILL stop hurting today L

As a coach, its one of the hardest situations to deal with – how do you help an athlete overcome the disappointment of losing out on a result by a handful of seconds? Yes, I can congratulate them on their effort, help them rationalise what has happened, ask what they have learnt from the experience and how it can feed it into the next race (and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t say all those things), but sometimes you can't help but join in with the disappointment.

I had that this weekend at the British Time Trial Champs – a couple of my athletes came SO close to the mark but just missed out. None closer than poor Seb, who lost out on the National jersey for his age group by one second. The BTTC isn’t his main season goal, but after coming 13th in the senior event last year, selecting to participate in the age group champs gave us both a sense of anticipation of what might be.

This is one situation where having been an athlete too is invaluable. In my cycling career I missed out on two podium places – by 15also at the British Time Trial Champs, and then 6s at the National 50 mile champs one year (believe me, 6s over that distance is VERY painful!). I was fortunate that I had reached a stage in my cycling career where I was more process orientated. The fact in both these races I felt my preparation was immaculate and I had done all I could, I could leave the race HQ to journey home with satisfaction. In fact I remember the drive home after the BTTC with such a huge grin on my face so pleased with the company I was keeping at the head of the field. I felt I had arrived.

Without that belief that I had done all I could (controlled all the controllables) and a true detachment from the race outcome, I could have been making that long drive thinking “now, where did I lose those 6s?” That is a dangerous game to play....because the person who took 3rd could also say that, as could the rest of the field. The racing is merely expressing what you have earned in training, in your nutritional preparation and the payback from good rest within the plan, and in the last few days of taper. I talked recently about “belief and conviction” being the core of success in elite sport – the defining characteristic of those who make it. “Sit on the start line and smile, confident in all you have done to be there”. This is something I often share with my athletes about to enter the ring of the fight. As a scientist, I wish I could ascribe a wattage figure to how much that belief is worth!

A good measure of where you are on the continuum of “belief and conviction” in what you do is how you react to the narrow defeats. If you find yourself coming up with a list of ‘reasons’ as to where you lost the time, where it went wrong you have to check in that these are not actually ‘excuses’. Time triallists are famous for it “I’ve had a cold, I’ve not trained”. This is not the same as taking some objective distance and critiquing your performance. “On the day, I gave what I had in the tank, it just wasn’t enough” – I love hearing that honesty. Focus on your performance, the result is not within your control and its wasted energy to grasp on to it. Maybe sometimes its just because the others were better than you? And that is okay – maintain focus on what you can control – your training, your nutrition, your recovery. Once you have taken some distance from the event, then is the time to reflect on the performance triad of training, nutrition and recovery - HAD you done all you could in your preparation? That is where the learning comes in.

I’ve struggled a little since Sunday’s race – the 4am start and 10 hours of driving have taken its toll. I’m very pleased to have a holiday lined up next week. I am travelling to New York for one of my very best friend’s wedding. Andy is a fellow biker – he doesn’t race, he just enjoys riding his bike and indeed at times he has helped me find the love of bike riding when I have let it all get a bit “too heavy”.  My most recent ride with him was in fact his ‘Stag ride’ where we took it upon ourselves to ride from London to Brighton on a ‘quiet’ Sunday morning. It allowed us 5 hours to just share our love of being on two wheels (and a passion for Cafe Nero pain-au-raisin). Its a great pleasure to be sharing Andy’s big day next week, and the break has come at an opportune time as I know with the end of the season in sight; things will get busy again for me. That sounds paradoxical to some, but there is still about 8 weeks of the racing season to go, and then there will be the tying up of loose ends from this season. I take it upon myself to look over the complete training history of my athletes and try to assess what has worked / what could change for next year. Even if I know an athlete is leaving PBscience to move on to other challenges, I still go through this process for my own learning. I can feed that knowledge into other athlete’s prep for next season. October is primarily a month of review and planning for me, as November it all starts again - back on the road in Mobie as the lab testing tour begins!! I’m very excited to be starting that process again, especially as it will be year 2 of the business: just like an athlete, I learn from the experiences and feed them forward

“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!!

Sitting in Starbucks, Newcastle sharing thoughts on ideas for this blog post, I tell Dan of the title I am considering using. “Am I in it then?” he asks....that comment confirmed the selection of this title!!

When Dan and I first considered attending this conference, we looked at the keynote speakers and it won us over. It is not very often you get a group of sport scientists like this to watch and learn. I had the pleasure of listening to some of these people last year in Seattle at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference, but to get them in Europe is rare. Whilst completing my PhD, myself and Gary (a fellow PhD student) used to pride ourselves in collecting photos of us alongside “Sport Science legends” – sometimes the academics were very willing (if not a little confused at their fandom!) but other times we had to be a little more ‘subtle’. It was a lot of fun and I still have this collection of photos. I may have exchanged the photos with those of cups of the coffee I drink (!) but, my excitement of listening to these ‘wizards’ speak is still evident.

Dan and I thought it a good idea to take you through the key names of the 3 days, and share with you the odd “soundbite”: the one liners or comments that made us prick up our ears or feel left inspired. Certainly, that is the feeling I will leave this conference with – definitely worth the trip.

Dave Martin, physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport

Dan chose "Don’t get distracted focusing on the one-percenters". A very interesting quote given it is the philosophy of one of the Australian track cycling team coaches and is at the opposite end of the spectrum to BC’s focus on ‘The aggregation of marginal gains’. My attraction to this quote was its relevance to the working athlete or those with limited resources. The majority of performances gains come from ‘the basics’ – consistent training, considered recovery and solid nutrition. Don’t let the minor details detract from what’s really important.

Helen chose Dave's words around "belief and conviction". It wasn't the only time this concept was raised in the talks given by the key speakers. Matt Parker (see later) was also keen to bring this across. In order to hit peak performances, an athlete needs to belive not only in themselves and their ability, but to also possess the conviction that EVERYTHING they are doing is 100% right for them. We often hear of the 'placebo' effect - for example, if we are told we are taking carbohydrate drinks, we will probably perform better than if we are told we are drinking water. Likewise, if the coach presents a sound arguement for interval work, the athlete will probably engage more in that session. The application of this concept? Buy in totally to the training plan, the nutritional guidance, the recovery strategies - let doubt set in, and energy gets diverted. 

Louise Burke, sports nutritionist at the Australian Institute of Sport

Dan chose "Applying the sprinkles to the icing on the cake". Apart from the reference to cake (talks on nutrition always make me hungry!) this quote immediately struck a chord. We’re all guilty of searching for a ‘quick fix’ in this area. Louise reiterated how an athlete’s nutrition must be built from the ground up. First a good, mixed diet taking care of the basic macro (carb, protein, fat) and micro (vitamins and minerals) nutrients (the cake). Then, the introduction of correct feeding around training and racing ie pre-, during and post-ride nutrition to support the session and promote adaptation and recovery (the icing). Finally when all this is in place the introduction of specific supplements and ergogenic aids if necessary, for example sodium bicarbonate, sodium phosphate, carnitine, GAKIC or any of the other weird and wonderful substances we can use to find that extra improvement (the sprinkles). So, no more factsheets on the latest ergogenic aid until the basic dietary information is in place and the introduction of some basic meal plans and ideas to promote a healthy, balanced diet!

 Helen chose the concept of "periodizing nutrition" as it made complete sense yet is something so often overlooked. Nutrition should always be used in SUPPORT of the plan, Louise started with this precept before running in to the quote Dan has mentioned above. So, if we look at the training and consider the aims each training cycle may have, think about what your body might need in order to maximise the training gains. For example, if one of the aims of the training during the winter is to increase lean body mass, we might look at strategies to lessen overall calorie intake (if stripping back excess body fat), or to increase protein (if building muscle tissue). Enter the build towards the season, and carbohydrate needs might increase because of high intensity intervals which have a higher rate of energy turnover (quick access energy). There is a lot of research now directed towards how eating certain foodstuffs might actually augment training adaptations - we'll be sure to keep our athletes posted on these through our factsheets, workshops and talks on training camps.

Inigo Mujika, the physiologist and trainer for the Euskaltel Euskadi professional cycling team between 2006 and 2008

Dan chose "Overreaching is necessary for peak performance". Not to be confused with overtraining, overreaching is the idea of pushing the envelope or lifting the training load beyond that which is tolerable in the long term. Inigo described how his modelling showed increased performance if athletes were deliberately overreached in their final training block before competition. It is important to note using this strategy required a significantly longer taper than ‘normal’. This is not necessarily a new idea – elite athletes have known the importance of stepping very close to the edge in order to squeeze the most out of themselves but it was nice to see it scientifically (even mathematically) validated. I think this observation can give both coach and athlete confidence that it’s okay to be tired! Sailing a little close to the wind at times is important for getting the most out of your performance.

Helen chose Inigo's thoughts on an optimal "20 day taper" having spoken to him after his presentation. I won't say too much here - or we'll be giving secrets away that PBscience athletes can use to gain some edge over their competition! But, the headline is that there are some new ways to ensure the fine balance between being rested but ready to compete is achieved. Using a longer taper might enable that. I'm really excited to start applying some of my thoughts next season!

Matt Parker, former Endurance coach for the men’s team of British Cycling, now their Director of ‘Marginal Gains’

Dan chose “Protecting the power stroke”. Matt described this phrase as his barometer for deciding which innovations to introduce to his high performance programme in the build up to the Beijing Games. The idea is simple – anything that risks interfering with the main focus of getting faster is left well alone. For instance it was suggested that using ice baths would be a good strategy for helping the athletes recover after hard sessions. Matt questioned whether this would interfere with the adaptation process – no one on the team could answer the question so the use of ice baths was kept out of the program. The key point – training was not the focus here, it was only a means to trigger the necessary adaptation. Improving recovery and being able to train more was pointless if it didn’t result in more adaptation and improved performance. This shows the importance for the PBscience coaching team in providing our athletes with clear, up to date information on the things that can support and improve performance but also those that might hinder. For the athlete it means recognising the effect that your ‘lifestyle’ has on your performance and making an effort to align that with your cycling goals.

Helen liked Matt's equation "Mental load + Physical load = Life load", in the main because it showed the necessity that even World Class athletes have to be aware of the total stress in their environment. We can only manage so much stress before signs of over-doing it appear - whether that is true over-training, or chronic fatigue through life stress. Either way, we can call it 'burnout'. Office workers suffer from it as much as athletes - in other words, you don't need physical training stress to burnout. When an athlete is training as well as living a life, they have two lots of stress to weigh up. Don't underestimate how much impact this has on you, and be open with your coach as to how the 'life load' is. Training carries a mental load that we must always be aware of.

Tony Minichello, coach to World Champion hepathlete Jessica Ennis

We were both struck by Tony's humility - he seemed genuinely excited to see that he was already doing what the scientists advocate in planning training. But the phrase that Dan and I liked was "Caging the tiger". One of the main concepts we try to educate our riders on is racing less in order to achieve higher peaks - this is essentially what Tony's phrase alludes to. Looking at the details of the plan Ennis followed up to the Worlds, she competed in heptahlon only once before the main season's goal. Of course, there is a balance to strike - it is good to practise race events (mentally as well as physically) but as the performer moves through the levels of experience, the need for these events should lessen, leaving more mental energy for competing. Following a discussion in this conference session, it seemeda general consensus was to leave competition level training / racing to the final 5 weeks of the competition period, but to cut back entirely 2 weeks out from the major goal. As 'caging the tiger' suggests, this is not necessarily easy! Tony explained this can be a fraught time between the coach and athlete.

Other talks by Martin Gibala, Nikolai Nordsborg, Roger Palfreeman and Angela Clow also provided some great information that Dan and I will be using in our coaching work in the next 12 months. This is a perfect time of the year to be getting new ideas, as there is time to read about them before integrating them in to the new training cycle that begins in the autumn. Over the coming week, we will be posting to our ‘Cutting Edge’ blog an update on some of the areas of research we were exposed to whilst in Newcastle.

I could write about the conference for the entirety of this blog post, but that would be wrong given the major news of my week: my athlete Craig completed the Leadville 100, it having been his season long goal. Craig entered the lottery to get in this (in)famous event and had his entry confirmed back in Feberuary. Since that time we had worked on the project, paying great attention to detail on his preparation: diet, training, altitude exposure. Despite a couple of setbacks and challenges (a broken wrist and the start of a new job just 4 weeks before the event!) Craig and his Dad headed out to Denver with my ‘consent’. I had told Craig all along that I would not let him stand on the start line of such a demanding event if I did not believe he had a chance of completing it. On the Tuesday before he flew out, Craig and I got together to watch the DVD of last year’s race – when Lance Armstrong won the race in 6h 28. While Craig’s goal was just under twice that, it was no less challenging – in fact, I believe the longer it takes an athlete to complete an ultra endurance event, the tougher it is (longer to tolerate the lower oxygen, the more fuel disturbance, the exposure to heat / cold cycles etc). As we shared coffee that morning and discussed pacing and fuelling strategies, it came across how anxious Craig was. It hadn’t been a perfect 4 weeks leading in to the event: but I also saw the desire – it was that element that made me believe he had a chance. If everything went to plan on the day, he could just about do it.

50 seconds, that was all that lay between Craig and his 12h goal. I had numerous emails from him whilst still out in Denver that he wants to go back, and hit 11 hours next year. As well as being so very proud of him, I am excited to be a part of this project again in 2011. We have learnt so much about what has worked / could go better – and I have the utmost confidence he will win through. Well done Craig, you exemplify everything that PBscience represents.

I am enjoying reading of the new look Procycling magazine – I have been a subscriber for all my years as a cyclist, but their recent overhaul of the look and feel of the magazine is one I welcome. In particular, there are more features written by people across the cycling industry. The rider diaries have long been in the magazine, and their stories of life on the road were my favourite to read each month. Now though, they have started to include guest contributions across the roles within the Pro scene – each month I read these and reflect on the similarities / contrasts of their world with mine.

This month, there is an article by Joop Alberda – the general manager of Cervelo Test Team. He comes from a background with the Dutch volleyball and Russian football teams. This is his first year with Cervelo, so is getting to grips with how the sport works. A few of his observations are worth comment upon.

“Goal setting, good programme, smart travelling, good equipment, good coaching, good nutrition, load and rest...these are the seven processes that all elite athletes have to use for training”

Pretty much an all inclusive list! But, they do apply to elite and amateur athletes alike, it is just a matter of scale and doing everything you can within your life constraints. I agree it all starts with goal setting  - this is the foundation of the whole journey and process. Where are you going, and when are you planning to get there? The good programme then plots the ‘how’ to get there. The other five are then the facilitators on route – its often these five that become the obstacles if not addressed sufficiently well. I’m pleased to see what I consider the performance triad to be included in this list – the nutrition, the load (training stress) and rest. Equal importance should be given across these 3 – too often we see training as the only input...but I guess this is where ‘good coaching’ comes in, as I need to educate my riders to understand this triad in bringing about adaptation and fitness development.

“Values and goals, you should always stick to these”

Underlying every athlete’s participation in sport is a desire, a motivation to do the sport. Why spend your leisure time (for amateur athletes) essentially involved in another ‘job’? An athlete should spend time looking at ‘why’ they do what they do – what is the motivation to participate? It is easy just to say ‘ because I enjoy it’....sometimes this IS the case, or at least part of the picture. But in my experience, many athletes have an underlying ‘need’ they are trying to meet through sporting success. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but we should be honest with ourselves, and even with our coach. Our needs often come from deep seated values learnt as a child, from our families or guardians. If we don’t know our values, or don’t live by them our goal setting becomes confused. I have noticed in my own life as a coach how if my goals are not set from my values I sense discomfort, a bit like a ‘fidgeting’. An itch that no matter how hard you scratch, it doesn’t satisfy. Check in with your own goals right now – do they fulfil you? If something isn’t quite hitting the mark, go back to think “why am I doing this? What is important to me?”

 “In my experience, the worst thing you can do is to change tack dramatically partway through a programme...this leads to short term gain, long term pain”

I observe this a lot in my athletes. We start with a plan built in the autumn of what is to come that season. By January, things are being refined as we approach the season itself: the athlete is at first excited and then becomes resolute through these two phases – they know their goals, they believe in them. Related to what I have just spoken about above, the goals have been based on their own values. Then Spring arrives – and suddenly, those goals are altered. I watch this with interest. In many ways, this is totally understandable and underlies our tendencies as humans to always be looking at what other people are doing, what other people have. And, we want some of ‘it'. We are then living our lives not by our own values, but by other people’s. Let me give you an example: a rider may wish to spend the season building to the National championships, let us say the 50 mile distance. But, come March, they look at the fixture handbook and they get attracted by the opportunities for a ‘fast 10 mile time’. They then go on to the internet forums and listen to others talking of how this is the last time this course can be ridden because of traffic lights being built. It’s easy to smile at this, but you would NOT believe how often I am spending time re-aligning people back onto their original goal. It is not because I dictate what they should be doing, but because they have spent so much valuable time preparing for the 50 mile champs, and I want to protect them against now sabotaging their preparation by grasping at the short term. As Alberda comments “this often happens when you’re responding to perceived opportunities”. If you want peak performance, set your goals, stick to them – ideas might change, but let those temptations go. Write the ideas down and come back to them later in the season, or even next year....there IS always time.

“My philosophy is athlete-centric, coach-driven, performance-orientated”

This actually follows on nicely from the preceding point. The goal setting is made by the athlete, the programme is then driven by the coach – their job is to then orientate everything around helping the athlete obtain peak performance. Peak performance is the shared project – goal setting is the role of the athlete, the plan to get to that goal is the coach’s role. Using the example above, the athlete brings the goal of the 50 mile time trial championship in June; the coach then puts together a training programme to take the rider to that goal. This will also include a race programme to use as stepping stones towards the ‘50’. In practice, I do negotiate this process with my athletes – but I am noticing that I am becoming stricter with my athletes about this planning process – ‘tough love’! If our shared aim is peak performance, we must stick to our roles and respect each other throughout the process.

“I put a question mark against everything we do. I think its crucial to question why you do things in a certain way and to ask if the reasons for doing them are still valid”

I love this particular comment – its something so close to my own philosophy of how I coach. Across my 20 or so athletes I will never prescribe a programme just because its the way things have always been done. I won’t even give an athlete the same training each year because “its what we did last winter”....even if it seemed to work. In the last few weeks during rider mid-season reviews I have had several conversations with riders about how we might strip back to basics this winter and approach that period differently. We have questioned the logic behind traditional approaches. For example, if a rider wants to do well over long distance events does it always mean we have to focus on long endurance rides? Could ‘shocking’ the body using different types of training bring us some extra watts? Or, rather than follow traditional periodisation, what would happen if we started training with high intensity work in the autumn (the so called "reverse periodisation" model); likewise, we could rotate through the mesocycles faster, so rather than a 24 week approach to the new season building up through the zones, why not perform 12 weeks of faster rotation which you repeat in a second 12 week block (the "block periodisation" model).

Reading and reflecting like this is my chance to step out of the day to day activity of ‘coaching’ itself and keep myself moving on, progressing. Self development is important to me – it is the goal I have set myself based on my own values. In fact, the coming 3 days are providing me an opportunity to expand on this: Dan and I are heading off to Newcastle later today to attend the International Sport Science and Sports Medicine conference – we are both really excited as there is much centred on cycling performance, including a symposium led by many of the British Cycling coaching team. We’ll be reporting back from the conference in the Cutting Edge blog on the website – stay tuned!

A week of holiday was just what I needed – good weather, nice cycling rides, plenty of time with my books and journal, and most of all, the time and space to let ideas come together.

Its incredible how the pace of life and work life in particular prevents creative thought. Often, we end up working on projects with a known, expected outcome. It cramps the innovation, the free-flowing nature of the process. We set ourselves targets by which point we want the product; and because we are often our own worst critics, we want THE perfect product. I know I can often be guilty of this. Because of tight time schedules and / or high expectations, rather than letting the creative juices flow, and I am forcing towards the end product. Getting away from it all this past week gave me the space to just relax into things with the need or expectation of an end result.

It may sound like a working holiday, but I assure you it wasn’t! But I did have time and space to let things flow into my head. I am sure I am not alone in contemplating “how can I capture this holiday spirit when I am at home?” during an annual break. Having worked on my own, and PBscience’s coaching philosophy just before taking the holiday, this was at the forefront of my mind. I have had lots of internal dialogue about how I work: how to improve service to my athletes yet also maintain the perspective of time / space you get whilst on holiday. I firmly believe the more relaxed and in tune the coach, the better the coaching each athlete receives. Work is such a big proportion of our lives that it is important to enjoy it. I am fortunate that I do. What I am conscious of is how that enjoyment can often mean me working too long hours at the expense of other things - so I am intent on finding a better balance. I’ll let you know the answer when I find it!

The need for this balance hit home when I visited the home of Leonardo Da Vinci in Amboise, near Tours. Amboise was his home for the last 3 years of his life, and they now have a wonderful museum of his art and his inventions. I was truly inspired by the visit: Da Vinci was THE master of contemplation leading to creativity and innovation. It is argued whether he was an artist who loved science, or a scientist who loved art – if that wasn’t enough, I found out in this trip that he was also an excellent athlete and accomplished musician...some people! He even invented the bicycle, so what is there not to like about this man? What Leonardo cracked was the ability to contemplate (through prioritising time and space for his thoughts) and convert his experiences into end products. Maybe the reason we don’t find this success in today’s world is that we have too many distractions – we seem to work more hours, but be less productive. Having had a week of no email, no internet I found days longer and certainly more relaxing.

No emails whilst away meant a lot to deal with when I got home – 192 in my inbox when I logged back on using my iPhone in Dover...yikes! Momentarily, the whole tranquillity of my week ebbed away. But, true to my promise pre-holiday, I set about getting back on top of things in my first 2 days home. It was nice having that space. Aside from 6 training plans to write and ensuring I got to grips with where all my athletes were in their training, I didn’t put any pressure on myself: no meetings, no phone calls, no deadlines. “Back to school” feelings were delayed until the following Monday!

Sunday gave me a chance to get back to basics as a coach – its been a few weeks since I have attended a race to watch my athletes. So, when I knew I could catch up with five racing at the same race, I was intent to do so. Anyway, I love team time trials, so the opportunity to jump in my car Sunday morning with a coffee by my side didn’t really feel like work. I really enjoyed being back road side, cheering on the teams; and I also caught up with quite a few athletes who I have worked with in the past – so it felt very sociable. And when Paddy and Seb formed part of the winning 4-up team it really made the 4 hour round trip worthwhile. It is nice to be back :-)

Well, its been a busy 3 weeks catching up with my riders - lab tests, rider mid year reviews (and copius coffee drinking). One thing that has really struck me this year is how many of the riders have 'matured' in their approaches to the sport, their training and their racing. The majority are now looking further into the future than before, indeed many of them developing 5 year plans. They appear to be less in a rush - very appropriate given some of the comments I wrote on last week's post. I'm really excited about some of the projects the riders have entrusted me with. I sense it in the riders too - in fact, some gave me the distinct impression they would be quite happy to quit racing for this season and start prep for next year!

This level of process can only be achieved by giving yourself chance to take stock. The athletes have used July to re-charge their batteries, and its time for them to re-build toward second half of the season goals. Having set them on their way, its now MY turn to re-charge the energy reserves as I head off on holiday for a week. I have to confess, its hard to let go - I was speaking with a friend tonight who is also self-employed. Although I am excited to be heading off on holiday, and I definitely need the break, I will miss my work, and miss the interaction with my athletes. I also know many of them will be racing, so there is always a part of me wondering how they are getting on. At least going away and coming back mid-week, I only sacrifice one weekend of race updates!

But, as with each training athlete, no matter how much you love doing something, to back off allows you to miss it in your life and re-enter with new rigour and motivation. I will re-start work on the 5th with that: and its a nice thought to be settling down in front of my PC that morning with a cup of coffee and a whole two days to catch up on training files and training plans to create. I've deliberately planned it this year so that I have two days to get settled in to work 'behind closed doors': returning to work on a Monday feels too much like 'Back to School'!

So, no blog post next week - but I am sure my week away in France will give me plenty of space to reflect in time for a wonderfully creative post on my return....no pressure!

The Times recently published a series of articles on the philosophies of five coaches working with top athletes in UK sport today. Dan passed them on to me, and I have been spending some time reading them and reflecting no how my approach differs / overlaps with theirs. What I have done in this week's blog is to take one quote that really resonated with me from each of the five articles in the series, and give you my perspective on it.

Its always good to keep open to new approaches, and in particular, I think its always worth looking outside your own sport. It would be easy to only read around the sport of cycling - but each sport is steeped with its own tradition(s), so dipping into other sports can bring a fresh approach. I've done this previously, reading a lot of work by Clive Woodward - my work with teams in the past has been heavily influenced by his methods. Therefore, I found it very appropriate that the series kicked up with his take on coaching....

"Coaching is about the skill in how to educate your athletes"

Sir Clive Woodward, Performance Director for the British Olympic Association

I've thought a lot about this lately. I see part of my role as coach to 'empower' the athlete - to become less dependent on me almost to the extent that over time they can coach themselves. My role becomes as 'advisor'. Indeed, I have a few athletes developing that way now. It means we are working more as a team: they bring their self-expertise; and I bring the latest knowledge in sport science. We share the responsibility of their goal. In order to bring that about though, I know I have to give the athlete the tools - it might be helping them understand why I structure the training week the way I do; or introducing tools like measuring heart rate variability to monitor their state of 'rested-ness'. Overtime, if they understand the WHY, they can then buy wholeheartedly into the programme. And, if they know what I am trying to achieve in each training block, they can give me specific feedback on if we are hitting the spot.

But 'educating' means more than just knowledge transfer - I also see a responsbility for me helping the athlete gain a bigger perspective. In this sense, educating takes on a more reflective nature. Helping the athlete to self-assess, review and then feedback. To see pursuit of their sporting goal just as a way to challenge: the attainment of the goal is not just the be all and end all of their athletic career....its about getting curious - what is limiting performance, and how do we get around that. I think that is what brings an athlete to a sport scientist for coaching. 

"A talented person is like putty...if you coach correctly you can end up with a beautiful vase"

Andy Banks, coach to Olympic diver Tom Daley

I liked this analogy, because it gets across the 'moulding' that we coaches can apply. Yes, we need good material but we also need to be creative and to handle the material carefully. What is coaching 'correctly' though? That is the difficulty, there are no rights and wrongs that you can apply across the board. For me, this quote made me reflect on my coaching method, 'coaching style' as most of the textbooks refer to it as. I am different in all of my coach-athlete relationships. I play the roles of advisor; assessor; counselor; demonstrator; friend; facilitator; fact finder; fountain of knowledge; instructor; mentor; organiser and planner; role model; supporter. Also, the role is never static - one day I can be the fact finder, the next day the same athlete might need 'the supporter'. I have to be open to what the athlete needs right there and then. Interestingly, sometimes that might conflict with the role I think they need there and then!

What do I take from this? I think its about being honest and open - for the coach and athlete to have the space to have open dialogue. I will ask my athletes how they think I am doing; what can I be doing better for THEM. The athlete needs to tell me what is 'coaching correctly' as applied to them.

"As an amateur, you are a sprinter; but as a pro, you have to be more like a marathon runner"

Jim McDonnell, coach to Olympic middleweight boxer James DeGale

When we pick up a new hobby or in the case of the athlete, a new sport, there is a tendency of wanting it all 'now'. We spend hours reading about our new passion, surfing on the internet to pick up the best tips, or contemplating the all the new kit we can buy to make us better. In some respects, we seek instant reward - in cycling I see this a lot. A rider starts the sport, and they follow the tradition of falling into the race season. When you start riding your bike, you also start racing it. I'll come back to this a little bit later...

The difference with the pro level rider is that they see the sport as their career. When we start at the bottom of the career ladder (may be as a University graduate, or a school leaver) we look at the years ahead and consider how we will move from A to B to C to D. We see it as stepwise: and while we might sometimes wish to speed the process up, we generally accept it will take us time to reach 'the top' - we appreciate we have things to learn through experience (you can't put a wise head on young shoulders!). A young cyclist entering the pro ranks will probably have this view. However, I think the aspiring 'domestic' cyclist can learn something from this - turning their focus from short term gratification (PBs this season please) to a longer term view. There is nothing wrong with setting personal bests each year (or my business name would be misleading!), but sometimes I counsel an athlete to think longer term - to be less sprint, more marathon. Longevity is often rewarded - an example would be seeing a block in a performance that needs something different being applied. Throwing a familiar training / race programme at someone might not be the answer; instead they might need to strip back and rebuild the blocks in a different way in order to reep higher gains. Going back to the pottery analogy above - maybe the putty needs some time to be moulded into a different vase?

 "Some athletes can tolerate tremendous physical pain a few times; but she can do that consistently, every single session. Its that steel she has both physically and mentally"

Bill Furniss, coach to Rebecca Adlington, double gold medallist at the Beijing Olympics

Not so long ago, my athlete Juliette passed on to me an article talking about how athletes typically fall into categories. Essentially it dealt with the differences between naturally talented athletes and those 'work horses' who had to strive for what they wanted. I have always seen this 'work ethic' as a talent in itself. After all, if you don't want to work hard (and sometimes that might mean compromising the 'now' in order to get the bigger picture later) then sport is probably not the right place for you - training is hard, sometimes it even hurts.

I really picked up on the word 'consistently'. I have had many conversations with athletes around whether it is better to have 3 sessions applied each week: week in, week out, 52 weeks per year compared to 2 sessions here, 6 sessions there. You might end up with the same total number of sessions in a given season with both approaches; but I know where my money would be on backing the most successful outcome. The body needs a consistent stimulus to shift it from its current 'comfort zone' to a newer level - over time, that stimulus needs to be bigger to achieve more adaptation. I also sense a big part in success is committing to each session with mind, body and soul. There is a temptation to go through the motions - to see 6 x 3 minute intervals and tick off the reps. Recently, there has been a Specialized advertising campaign using Alberto Contador doing his mountain climb intervals. OK, its only an 'ad' BUT, I think you get my point - look at his face, his body: he is living, breathing and eating that training session - as if his life depended on it. Better to do 3 sessions per week like that, than 6 which you just cruise?

"There is a classic piece of training theory - that it takes 10 years / 10,000 hours to produce something. A child prodigy still needs to put in the time...people are too much in a rush"

Tony Minichiello, coach to Jessica Ennis, World Heptahlon Champion

This goes back to the point made earlier. We start a new sport, and we want success as soon as possible. We talk of what we want this season. I do my best to ask athletes to think further ahead - what is the ultimate goal? For some, they need a few years in the sport to understand what that might be, and I fully understand that. But to achieve the very most you can get from your body takes time. And, targeting PBs (instant gratification!) might compromise the long term ambition and potential peak in physiology.

Dan and I met last week to talk through the process of tapering, peaking and periodisation. We touched on this '10,0000 hours' concept indirectly. In the programme, the athlete needs a multitude of abilities - which the coach must help manage the development of. Sometimes it can feel like the racing actually gets in the way! Now of course, racing IS the reason we train (or at least directs our training) - but, what periodisation allows is the planning of the route towards the goal. A luxury would be for an athlete to give me licence to have those 10 years / 10,000 hours to bring them to a peak - okay, that's extreme, but hopefully you get my point? The Candian's developed the concept of 'Long term athlete development' - it talks of a series of stages which the athlete travels along as they become an expert in their sport: training to train (developing the engine); training to compete (learning more sport specific skills / abilities); training to perform (where things get really specific and racing frequency is less because higher peaks - wins - are sought). When I start with a new athlete, I encourage them to give me a long term plan: whether it be 3 years, 5 years (okay, I won't push my luck and ask for 10!). In all honesty, these coach-athlete relationships can be the most satisfying to both parties: you feel a real sense of sharing the road together.

This week’s post is being created at the wind tunnel facility in Brackley. My athlete Chris is on the rig – hoping to find some more seconds to take him further down into the “19 minute” bracket: he set a new PB for 10 miles last weekend – 19:59. From the data rolling up on the screen in front of me, he might be seeing those faster times pretty soon!

This type of experience is exciting for me – not only seeing performance potential being revealed in front of me, but also the time shared with an athlete (and other experts) working on the shared project of performance. The work of a sport scientist is not just about training plans – it is about looking at EVERY aspect of the athlete lifestyle and seeing what can be refined.

The month of July gives me a great opportunity to reflect on the coach-athlete dynamic. Most of my riders are taking some kind of break from the racing scene – whether it be full rest, or even just a mental breather from structured training. Although I am not a dictatorial coach, this is one phase of the yearly cycle I insist on – without a mental and physical discharge, the battery cannot be taken back up to full capacity. It is a long season – and a couple of weeks off now can help the athlete not only maintain intensity, but enable a stronger peak in the back end of the year.

As the athletes aren’t racing with as much frequency, it allows me to use this window to get the mid season lab tests completed. “Mobie” has been out on the road, clocking up miles, whilst I clock up Costa / Nero / Starbucks* loyalty points! Alongside the tests, we have time for 1-2-1 discussion and review: how has this year been so far? And how can we adapt the plan and process to bring even more in the second half of the season? The mid season review is important for the coach-athlete process. I like to explain to my riders that I do not have all the answers – they will ALWAYS be a better expert on themselves than I will be. They know themselves and their experience; I know the theory and can bring innovation. It is essential we work as a team – sharing the responsibility toward the common project goal. Of course, it also gives plenty of quality time together – coaching is all about relationship: and the more time you spend together, the connection and understanding of each other can only grow. As I get to know an athlete, I can begin to read between the lines, watch body language, listen to the tone of voice – as whilst the athlete is their own best expert, they have to learn to be honest about what they are feeling and experiencing; and I have to bring a level of objectivity and probing. It also means I have to be open to receive the information and indeed, feedback. I think Pro rider Amber Neben sums this dynamic up nicely on her recent blog post. I really relate to what she says.

(I’ve just looked out to the wind tunnel rig from where I am sitting, and Chris looks like a poised arrow, brilliant!)

Appropriately, Dan and I have spent some time this week considering our own coaching philosophies, as well as that which we want to put out to the world as the combined ‘PBscience’ philosophy and practices. With Dan studying for his British Cycling coaching award, and our launching of the new PBscience member package it was an ideal week to schedule this as our ‘Continuing Professional Development’ session. Read any Coaching Science textbook (and there are a HUGE number of such texts coming onto the market now) and they explain why developing a coaching philosophy is so important: it allows a framework within which the coach-athlete can work; and it allows the athlete to assess the effectiveness of the coach and coaching process. I would add another – by developing a PBscience coaching philosophy (which we will publish for people to see) it allows potential clients to choose whether we are the right coaching team for them. Whilst it is easy to develop a list of our key values, we have to be authentic.

I’d like to thank everyone for their kind words post my London to Paris ‘ordeal’! I have recovered now (physically at least) although it did take a good week of steady riding and TLC. Even then, I was aware of a more general fatigue – another useful lesson to take on board: how even though the obvious physiology recovers, things can lurk in the system for a considerable amount of time. Last weekend, some of the miles I speak about were out with Craig – though they were far from easy / steady (as having watched Nathan race at Tenterden, we were on a mission to catch a train at Hastings and the last hour turned into a 2-up time trial!). Craig is off to do the Action Medical Research version of the L2P next week – its an event he did last year, so my account of the L2P ride really resonated with him. He thanked me for my honesty and openness of the blog post: its so easy to just say ‘yes I enjoyed it thank you’ and keep the bad stuff hidden away. We talked about how its important to be honest with others and ourselves when we are challenged. Especially in my role as coach – if I can show ‘weakness’, my riders are more likely to open up and share with me when things aren’t going to plan for them.

This feeds in to the whole reviewing process in some ways – I sometimes sense riders are desperate to stay ‘on plan’, often at big cost to themselves. It is worth noting that all coaches plan training on known principles – but, these are principles and NOT fact. I’ll say it again – I don’t have all the answers and I WILL be wrong from time to time. By engaging IN the process with the coach and sharing how its going day by day, week by week, the plan can be refined. There is no such thing as a perfect training plan; so an athlete needs to let go of this perspective and remain open to communicating the issues at hand. Don’t keep things from your coach - anything that helps bring together the jigsaw puzzle is useful information. Work as a team – don’t hand over full power or responsibility to the coach.

*delete as appropriate!

I’ve set myself some challenges in my time as a cyclist: competing in time trials, riding up mountains, travelling long distances, even 4 hour turbo sessions! But, I don’t think I have ever experienced anything like the 3 days cycling from Esher, West London to Paris.

I had prepared pretty well for the London to Paris bike ride, my goal for 2010. I had been putting in the miles consistently since before our PBscience training camp in Majorca, and kept that momentum going well through March, April and May. I set myself small stepping stones along the way including hitting the race stage distance of 100 miles, putting together back to back rides, and ensuring I practiced my fuelling strategy. My bike was ready too, having been in at the Tristore for a service; whilst my body has been serviced by Luke at Sportswise and good friend Tracy manipulating my somewhat dodgy back (long miles and long desk hours - a dangerous combo for my lower back and neck). Not to be in danger of not taking my own advice, a kit list was created, and by Wednesday lunchtime I was all packed and ready to register up in Esher. As Juliette and I collected our race numbers (and obligatory race t-shirt!) in the sun, I should have been tipped off by what was going to become THE biggest obstacle for me: the searing heat.

(you can click on the power file pictures to get a closer look at them)

Day 1: Esher to Dover

My Dad, ever the faithful taxi driver, dropped me off at Esher at 6:45 am. I had been awake since 5am, so plenty of time to get a good breakfast and coffee inside of me. Despite concerns of needing the toilet as soon as I started (!) I had already drunk 2 litres of electrolyte by the time I got on the bike for the 8am start. The forecast was for temperatures in the mid 20s – and they were right. I was grateful for the prompt roll off – it felt like a headstart on the heat. I was nervous but excited as Juliette and I lined up in Group 2 – around 80 of us were due to complete this journey together; another 300 riders were also strung out on the roads of Surrey, Sussex and Kent. I was confident in my fitness, and believed that keeping within a group so big would be well within my control. By the lunch stop at Lamberhurst after 56 miles, the excitement turned to anxiety – I was realising that a lot of the ride was to be well OUTSIDE of my control!!!

We had an hour for lunch, and that was quite tricky to deal with in itself – too long to keep nimble and loose, too short to recover: awkward length of time to eat well but digest the food. Originally, I thought it would be best to skip lunch and just rely on my normal carbohydrate drink, gel and bar diet to fuel myself. But the length of the stop made that tricky – and after 3 hours of sports supplements (knowing another 15 hours were to follow!) you crave ‘normal’ food, salty food (okay, I had a slice of cake!). The hour also gave my anxiety chance to rise – the morning had been tough – not the distance, but the way the group were riding. The ride captains are given pacing to keep to; and in a group of men (Juliette and I were the only two women in our group) the intensity of the ride was understandably ridden to their pattern: intensity goes up on the hills, easing off on the downhills – I would train in reverse of that: steady on the up, maintain the same effort on the down i.e. even effort, not even pace. Like I say, this is really understandable for men to ride this way – they have bigger power output ranges, even if their endurance is the same as mine. This means if they ride 100W above their lactate threshold over a small rise, its a smaller % of their total range, maybe to 80% of their maximum. Going 100W above LT for me means being at 100% of my maximum aerobic power for that period. Of course, we can sustain maximum for a few minutes – but try repeating that several times, and fatigue follows. Especially in a long ride, especially in a long ride in the growing heat. I was really reluctant to follow the ‘digs’ so I started to ride closer to the back of the group, leaving Juliette to battle it out at the front – she was doing a superb job, her superior power to weight ratio and training status winning out. She was showing the men a thing or two! I was ‘happy’ at the back of the group, using the tortoise and hare approach – letting the men surge up the hill, and me coming back into the group on some of the descents. However, in the twisty lanes of Kent, I lost touch of the group and ended up time trialling to get back on – the risk of my strategy. I knew I had to think again for Day 2 – and on the ferry to Calais, I gave thought as to how the next two days probably needed me to be ‘braver’.

Day 1 stats

Day 2: Calais to Amiens

I slept fairly well over night, and the anxiety of the day before had subsided a little overnight – Juliette was doing a good job in keeping my confidence up. That is the weird thing about self-talk: whilst I had fears, I knew I would complete the ride – in some ways I didn’t believe my own doubting voices, it just felt like the day ahead was going to be incredibly hard and unpleasant. But, I decided that most of my Day 1 problems had been through a lack of courage – if I resolved to stick with the group even when my powers were looking out of my reach, at least I wouldn’t get dropped which had required me to TT my way back into the group – I believed tracking the wheels would be more efficient, even if I was burning more ‘matches’. I explained to Dave, our ride captain, how on Day 1 I was limiting myself, riding within my comfort zone. In a way, I knew too much – I knew what was happening when I was riding at 400W; I knew the amount of muscle bound carbohydrate I was burning up, the rate of it happening, and how improbable it was that I could sustain that effort. I didn’t have the physiology of the male riders, nor the glycogen store size. I reckoned that I would just up the fuelling going into my body to compensate.

I was enjoying the ride Friday morning. The countryside in France was magnificent. Yes, Britain was beautiful too, but the terrible road surfaces meant you were hesitant to look anywhere beyond 2 m in front of you for fear of hitting the potholes! Two hours into the ride, and I was having fun. The surges were no less challenging, but my resolve to stick with them was paying off – I was spending more time in the shelter of the bunch. On the longer climbs, I sat back and climbed steadily, knowing I would reel the front runners in – I loved it, and I remembered how much I love climbing – at that point I was even considering an Alpine or Pyrenean challenge for my next outing. My new ride strategy was making me hungry, so I was glad to be greeted by lunchtime supplies: the half-expected French baguette, rounded off with Apple tart and Ambrosia rice pudding

I was a little ‘blocked’ after the lunchtime feast, so it took a while to get back into the ride. The heat was also building, and by 2pm in the afternoon, temperatures were soaring. I pressed my SRM computer button to see 31 degrees...the English girl was roasting. Thankfully, Juliette had reminded me of my own advice, and a lunchtime running wrists under cold water helped immensely – as did immersing my head and neck too (did nothing for my helmet hair though!). Mid afternoon though, and the heat was now coming back off the tarmac at me – I was suffering. As well as my core temperature rising, I could sense my glycogen stores were getting very low: one side effect of heat is increased glycolysis for energy – the body strips the glycogen away faster in the heat as it searches for any water it can to offset heat production. My power was dropping in my efforts to keep with the group. My only saving grace was the lead car slowing to keep the group contained on the smaller French roads – it gave me enough time well below my sustaining power to preserve myself to the end of the stage – but I knew I was in trouble, and things were not looking good for Day 3

Day 2 Stats

Day 3: Amien to Calais

I normally like Ibis hotels – and, the breakfast WAS up to normal standards. But, the night receptionist burning his Croque Monsieur at 1am and setting off the fire alarm was NOT part of our preparation plan for Day 3! It meant a sleepless night for me – I have always had that tendency: if I wake up, I stay awake as my brain activity starts. I tossed and turned, and with each movement I could feel my quadriceps cramping up. The day 2 riding, going into the red zone frequently, meant my muscle fibres were short on glycogen and had been hunting around different fibres to support the power output needs. My vastus medialis (often called the sprinters muscle) was almost ‘raw’. As I got up out of bed, I knew I was in trouble. And, unlike Days 1 and 2, today was to see a long morning of 80 miles before breaking for lunch (as the organisers have to get all riders in one group for the final 25 mile precession into Paris). My anxiety was now actually fear and dread. I knew no matter how well I ate at breakfast, I was in deficit – I had done all I could to maximise glycogen replenishment overnight, but the levels to which I had gone would require 48h for full recovery.

The legs improved a little with the 2 hours or so between breakfast and getting astride the bike. The first hour was also pretty steady so I started to think I might be okay. But once again, the temperature was rising. I had heard the forecast was for even hotter conditions as we approached Paris. Indeed, by late morning I was cooking. One of the challenges of the event was keeping with the group while they contested the 'GC' sections each day - on Day 3, this was a 12km section on mainly uphill terrain. I hung in the second bunch, but my efforts were taken me over the edge. I have NEVER worked so hard on the bike - I was being taken to a level of pain I had not experienced before, even in my racing and training days. Mainly because of the heat and accumulated fatigue - but mentally, because it was out of my control - I had to hang on to wheels, the pace was not being set by me - and it destroyed me. We stopped for a quick break after the GC section, some 10km stood between me and lunch (effectively, the end of the challenge because of the roll in to Paris en mass). On paper, it was just a steady climb, but I was in trouble. I rested in the shade of the lead car: as I crouched down, even after 5 minutes my heart rate was sitting at 135bpm – the skin on my arms had goose bumps and no sign of sweat. I had the first signs of heat stroke. Looking back, I realised how close I was to collapse – many athletes have suffered this fate going through that level of exertion in the heat. The most dangerous thing you can do is stop, as at least when you are moving you have a skeletal pump pushing the blood back to the heart. The high heart rate whilst resting shows how much stress I was under; and the dry skin told me I was thoroughly dehydrated. The English rose wasn’t just wilting, she was toasted and uprooted. Juliette saw me and knew I was in trouble – I asked her to pour a bottle of water over my neck, and I contemplated the next 10km. It was about survival, I had to climb at my own pace and just make it to the lunch venue. Twenty-one minutes later, I had made it: as i rolled into the lunch hall it reminded me of the time I descended Sierra Nevada having got altitude sickness at the summit. I wanted to kiss the floor, back on terra firma. But, I didn't have the energy - I simply parked my bike up, edged my way into the lunch queue to collect my baguette and rice pudding. I sat there with my food unable to gather the energy to eat it at first. I knew I had made it, but I didn't have the slightest feeling of relief or satisfaction - I had no emotion, a very odd feeling indeed.

Just 45 minutes later, I wheeled back into the sizzling heat - a little more gathered now. Only 2 hours to go, knowing all we had to do was tap out 15 miles per hour in a group of 350 riders. However, it then ended up with Juliette and I leading that group! What an honour - that perked me up. Joined by my ex-Science in Sport team mate Tanja Slater, the 3 of us led the peloton. At one point Tanja said to me "Look back H" - i was scared to, knowing I might bring down the whole group with my mental capacity being somewhat lower than normal with a fried brain! But when I did, i was astounded - what a site, the colours of 350 cyclists in the sunshine. That, and hitting the cobbles on the Champs Elysee will stay with me forever.

Day 3 stats

Naturally, since I have returned home, many people have asked how I got on - "Did you enjoy it?", "Will you do it again?". No, I didn't "enjoy" it - sure, I had some great moments and I met some lovely people who helped me get through the event BUT, I don't think the 3 days was pleasurable. Would I do it again? Too early to say, but right now the down moments feel to have outweighed the good moments - and anyway, I think I would need a new challenge: now I have completed it, the next step would be to complete it faster, or ride with Group 1....that doesn't necessarily appeal to me. However, I have learnt "jamais dire jamais"! The appeal of these events is the completion rather than competition. However, when we consider the Latin base of the word, competere means to strive together. I felt that, a group of people sharing a common aim of getting from one European capital to another.

Reading this might appear very negative on the whole, but it was far from that. I would not change a single moment of it - I learnt so much about myself mentally, physically and emotionally. I had some amazing realisations as I cycled through the most beautiful scenery in France. Going through periods of suffering is important for our growth as people - the size of the satisfaction is always in proportion to the size of the challenge: so you can imagine the sense of achievement I feel now, looking back. I feel that also helps me in my role as a coach. I think any athlete can understand that training and racing is not always about enjoyment. You don't have to love every pedal stroke you make for it to be worth it overall. Its the bigger picture, what it brings to you that keeps us going out there, that keeps us looking to the next goal.

As I travelled back on the Eurostar on Monday afternoon, I felt incredibly fortunate to have had this experience. I also felt excited to be going home and getting back to work with my athletes. I received many texts of support from them over the weekend; and also lots of nice news about weekend performances and personal bests. This month is all about 'rider reviews', where we take a look back over the first half of the year and plan ahead for an even better second half of the season. Mobie and I will be on the road conducting lab tests too. I enjoy July because it means a lot of 1-2-1 time with the people I work with - that and Tour watching means a happy coach. Oh yes, and the odd ride - but nothing like 330 miles in 3 days: that might be my monthly total from now on!

I'd like to finish with a few thank yous. Firstly to Jane Blanco and all her team crew at Hot Chillee productions for laying on the event - its truly amazing to be on closed roads, have all your kit shiped from bike parks to hotels seamlessly. A brilliant organisational / logstical effort. The motorbike outriders on both sides of the channel did an amazing job, and kept my humour at some low ebb times - especially when they clocked my rider number! To the ride captains on Group 2 duty, Will and Dave (they gave me some much need pacing!); and to my fellow riders in group 2 (thank you to Ian, Marcel and Charles in particular).

The biggest thank you goes to my athlete and friend Juliette. I know you felt guilt for putting me through all this pain "Robot", but I can't thank you enough for your support and company. Can I at least have one year off this?