Wrap up

Well the big weekend of coaching is complete and I think I managed to do okay. Nine programs written including three tapers and associated race plans, three recovery weeks, two new athletes, one ex-pro, two with aims at the ITU world champs and two beginning their first Ironman journey.

There is just such a broad cross section among my athletes at the moment that the training they are doing is all quite different. The athletes range from 3:30min/km runners to 7:00min/km. I have a couple of people training for Ironman, a couple of people training for Olympic and everybody else looking at 70.3 and all at different phases of that training. Goals races include Austria IM, Busso Half, Cairns Half, Bintan Half and ITU Worlds. That means that I have some people just starting out, riding 60km on a Saturday and running 10km on a Sunday all the way up to people running half marathons and riding 130km.

All up it was a pretty varied set of programs, but I am happy with how they all ended up, I think I manged to do everybody justice and give them the attention they deserve. Phew, pretty exhausting though.

With respect to racing, this weekend was the State Olympic Distance championships where I had three athletes competing. Of those I had a 3rd, a 4th and a glad to finish. With that variation in results also came a variation in experiences.

One athlete is coming off a significant period of injury and just wanted to get to the finish line. It probably wasn't the best day out and I am not sure how much fun she had, but she showed amazing determination to push through despite her less than ideal lead up. Impressive stuff, also securing some vital ITU qualification points that she might want later.

For another athlete the day was just a training session and as such it was quite a solid experience. Nothing to write home about, but nothing bad either, a good experience to bank leading to Busso Half, which was exactly the point. Box ticked. Pretty positive.

For my last athlete she was after points for qualification and so she was happy with 3rd. More than being happy with the position she was happy with her execution and attitude during the event, saying she enjoyed nearly every moment and felt it was one of her best race experiences. If I am honest those words mean more to me than the podium. In the end we do this racing this for fun and if that isn't the experience during the events then you have to question the point. Having an athlete come out and say that the training and preparation that we provided allowed them to have a great race experience says to me that we are doing something right.