My Coaching day

This is my first Blip in a week! It's been a hectic one with training, my personal coaching stuff and planning for this weekend, a coaching day with my cycling club Edinburgh RC.

Rosemary was up before me, a very rare occurrence. It was Open Adventure's first ever round of the Open 5 series to be held in Scotland and she was course planner. All of ~40 check-points, covering almost all of The Pentland hills area had to be placed with pinpoint accuracy. The logistical complexities were such that it took several months of planning to get to the point Today was simply about placing the controls in the correct positions but it was still a dawn until dusk task!

I set off around 8am taking the roundabout way to Ingliston so that I could get a coffee and a scone at Wellington Coffee. I was too early for scones but my double Red Brick espresso was consolation enough. I can't believe that the Starbucks opposite was far busier! Ign?r?mus comes to mind!

I arrived at Ingliston just before 10am and although the grass was still frosty, the circuit was clear of ice. It was a beautiful day and the sun was getting just about high enough to warm the air! Wow.... Neil from the club who was co-ordinating the day said there would be around 22 riders but we had close to 40! There was an initial panic as the laptop for my presentations didn't have powerpoint on it. I had resigned myself to doing everything old stylee but we managed to get Open-office loaded. Formatting was a bit skee-whiff though! Hey hum!

My Flickr pics are here

The 1st two hours shot by! I was having fun and it was great to have such an age and ability range of riders. After the initial reticence in answering questions from the audience, I decided to employ the "no hands" rule in which I'd pick someone at random...well not quite random. I picked on those with a mouthful of food..... watched them try to eat quickly and then demanded that they didn't talk with their mouth full! Ha ha! The morning ended too quickly, with me having to rush a little towards the end of the presentation.

Then, it was outside for Phil's Go-ride session for everyone. The sessions are primarily designed for younger riders to develop good technique. However, most older riders have simply learnt to ride through trial-and-error (me included), resulting in many not being able to do the basics well. The youth and juniors excelled, being able to balance and manoeuvre their bikes at slow speed and in tight spaces, close to other riders. Many of the older ones looked so nervous. Objective achieved.... to demonstrate that fundamental skills need to be developed before progressing on to the "marginal gains" side of training.

Then it was to my session, with the other club coaches assisting. We did some more advanced group riding, a fun activity taking musettes from the side of the road and then into racing activities. There were no crashes, everyone seemed to have a good time and learn something. Then it was a few more classroom activities, a meeting with coaches, parents and riders to end the day. The bus journey was epic as I missed my stop... Ingliston to Trinity isn't the easiest journey at the best of times.

Then, it was a very quick cuppa as Rosemary had Tom and Dawn, two Open 5 Competitors, staying at the house and we were going out for dinner. Tom was down in The Harbour Bar at Newhaven 'hydrating' for his race and had to be dragged out as we were starving. We didn't have a booking and weren't surprised not to get in Jonny Kane's The Roseleaf! Lynn, his missus, looked at me "did you really think you'd get a table Kirky?" face on. We settled for Guilliano's which was ok.....but just ok! I can't even remember my head hitting the pillow when I got home.