Realities

Coaching down with the Front Runners again this morning. This morning I was in Front Runner HQ to run a few folks through a trainer session using the sweet new Front Runner indoor trainer set up.

Sweet

As good as the session was this morning, it was also a nice little dose of the reality that coaching can be sometimes.

The session that I was coaching was down for 6:30am at Front Runners in Wembley, which is about a 25 minute drive from my house. I haven't run the indoor trainer session before, so my plan was to get to Front Runner at 6:00am to give myself a chance to set the trainers up and familiarise myself with the technology. No worries, even getting there at 6:00am would actually be a bit of a sleep in. Very nice.

That was the plan anyway.

Unfortunately about 9:30 last night I got a message saying there was a booking in the system for somebody to attend the 5:30am trainer session which had previously been unbooked. A 5:30 start meant getting to Front Runners at 5:00am, which, as I said above, is a 25 minute drive from home. You can do the maths, but the upshot is that I didn't get a hell of a lot of sleep last night.

All that wasn't too bad. A last minute booking is better than no booking and so I was happy to get down there to run the session. Except....

You guessed it. No show.

So there I was, 5:30 in the morning, all set up, good to go, but nobody to coach. Blerch.

Frustrating no doubt, but it actually wasn't all doom and gloom. Getting there early meant I had plenty of time to get well and truly acquainted with the technology, which meant that when the 6:30 session came along it all ran very smoothly. Not a single technology hiccough, which is always an achievement when you are using something that you aren't familiar with.

The other upside is that I managed to read a bunch of a book that I have been trying to finish. Win.

As frustrating as the situation was, I am fully aware that what happened this morning is just part of the reality of coaching. People don't turn up to sessions all the time, it comes with the territory, so it isn't something I am overly annoyed about. If I did find it too frustrating it might be time to question my decision about coaching. I guess rather than being annoying, it was more of a reality check. A reminder that this is part of what coaching is. Hopefully not a regular part, but a part all the same.

Still, the session that did occur was a good one. A nice solid strength endurance session in the warm dry interior of Front Runners while the rain fell outside. I could think of worse places to be.