bicycle.net -- cycling news, product reviews, original essays, podcasts & video :: Tour of California 2009

Written by: Colin Batchelor
http://onthebanking.blogspot.com

Today’s training session, was just like that training what we used to do in the 80’s. Before power meters, before Speedos, before heart rate monitors and before sat navs. Anyway the Speedo packed up and got chucked into a field and I gave up with the HRM months ago once I had established that being able to ride a bike seemed to coincide with my heart beating.

As a result of this lack of technology I actually had a very productive and well structured session, maybe there was a coincidence, maybe not. But it got me thinking that ‘this was how we used to train in the old days’ Riding on feel, doing hill sprints, sprints to lamp posts and repeat intervals based solely on the second hand on a watch.

So this got me thinking about the times I’ve been coached and the times I haven’t. I did notice a long time back that my most productive seasons were when I coached myself. I guess I knew exactly how I responded to specific training programs, what type of riding suited me and what didn’t and certainly I felt happiest when I was at ease with the training program I was running, something I never did with a coach.

I think the problem was that back then anyone could call themselves a coach, and OK, there were coaching qualifications about but let’s be honest, who had them? Certainly not anyone I came across. As a result what you got given was a training programme based on personal experiment, hearsay, guesswork and something the coach had once read in Cycling Weekly! Sometimes it worked most of the time you just felt lost and confused. Not to say there weren’t good coaches around; it was just in mid Kent I never found one.

Unsure:

It all started with the first coach I ever had, now I know he was a coach ‘cos the club I was with had a coach and the two blokes seemed to be the same person. His first advice was taking a cheese sandwich with you when you race. Now at the time I was using some new inventions from the USA, electrolytic replacement drinks and energy bars. Needless to say you couldn’t get such stuff from a bike shop, I found a shop that dealt with marathons and used to buy them in there, along with protein powder for my breakfast muesli, this was oh I guess 1984? And I bought in bulk, often cleaning out their stocks, much to the confusion of the staff who couldn’t work out why a cyclist was buying such stuff.

Now whilst I’m as partial to a cheese sandwich as the next man (assuming the next man isn’t a vegan or my brother in law who doesn’t like cheese) Cheese sandwiches make a bad choice for race food, they’re hard to digest, they can leave a nasty film in your mouth, if you’re using white bread it can stick to the roof of your mouth. And there’s a very good chance that during extreme effort you’ll see them all over your handlebars.

At one point, I thought I might have a go at Time Trailing, he told me that I was wasting my time, as I couldn’t turn a big enough gear, well that was right, can’t turn big gears, never could. So I entered, thinking, I’ll give it go and see if I enjoy it. I won, in fact I caught my 4 minute man. I also enjoyed it, but I had a row with one of the race officials, but that’s another story.

I dispensed with his services soon after that.

The next one thought I would be a great climber, now I like climbing, but I’ve never been a great climber. So he drew up a list of races the length and breadth of the South in an effort to get me into races he thought I could win. When I didn’t he suggested that I needed better wheels and to change my diet. I bought some new wheels but balked at his suggestion of fish for breakfast ‘It will clear the toxins out of your system and your mussels will respond to their full potential’. So I tried it once, my system did indeed clear out - all over the handlebars.

I then had a period of what can in my own modest way be classed as success, a few placings and a win. But I didn’t learn my lesson and was soon suckered back into being coached.

This next joker had obviously just got as far as chapter 2 in the coaching manual before he realised that he couldn’t read and there were n pictures too look at. So when I argued that a hard ride of 20 miles more than the race on the day before a race wasn’t a good idea he sacked the rider. Mind you he’d also suggested that I give up track league, which to my mind was a heresy so I was none too cut up about that one.

What all this did however teach me was how to become a good coach. The lessons seem fairly obvious, get a coaching qualification and study the subject, learn from other coaches and get to know your rider, agree a plan you can work to it, be supportive and if the goals are unrealistic don’t go there.

So thinking of getting coached? Want to know if the coach you’ve selected is the one for you? Simple, just ask about cheese sandwiches.