Monday, November 17, 2008

Call me Coach

This weekend I took the NCCP - Community Coaching course in Edmonton. The course is now actually considered level one of the competition stream which seems to make sense. All that aside, it was a great course and I learned a lot. The facilitators were excellent and had a great amount of relevant experience. We also had a great class which only helped to enhance the learning. There were pro's, elite level runners, swimmers and cyclists as well as people like myself just hungry for more knowledge about the sport. Some really good discussion and sharing of training methods, drills, and workouts. In the end I came away with some great ideas to incorporate into my own training as well as a sound foundation of coaching principles and skills. Well worth giving up a weekend and shelling out a couple hundred bucks.
The workouts last week were all pretty intense for some reason. Short but very intense, with the exception of a couple of slower runs. Tuesday I did another brick and that was a killer. Now with the treadmill and the bike trainer in the same room I am able to really do some interesting workouts. For this workout I did 10 minutes easy spinning, followed by 10 minutes at 8 mph on the mill, and repeated it four times increasing the intensity on each rep. It was a gooder!
Wednesday I was in the city to bring Francesca back after an extended long weekend. I also had some personal business to take care of so that worked out even though I didn't get any workouts in. Thursday I ran 8.5 miles in a little over an hour and followed it up with a quick 40 minutes on the bike, covering just over 12.5 miles. Friday was a swim and a hilly run after work. Saturday and Sunday were both down days due to the course in Edmonton.
Today I was back in the pool, but it was a disaster! After a weekend of listening to all kinds of great technique suggestions I promptly tried to weave them into one workout. After 1,200 metres I had myself completely confused and struggling to complete each length of the pool. That's when you know it is time to call it. So call it I did, and I will write myself up a more structured workout for Wednesday that blends in a few of the learnings from the weekend.
I ran tonight and did a nice, even paced run of 5.5 miles in just under 39 minutes. Felt really good and loose, with strong legs.
This week I will continue just mixing things up and having fun, because on Friday I am really going to have some fun. As a bit of a surprise I booked a week in the Mayan Riviera at the Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda. Yes this is in addition to our already booked trip to Cancun in January, but I really need a break from work and the price was right. So it will be one less week of winter to concern myself with which suits me just fine!
Have a great week!

2 comments:

Love2Run said...

Hey Coach! I need help with my program. How can I get fast like you with a bum hamstring that won't mend? Just kidding but boy, you certainly buzz along.

Becky H said...

would you be willing to share some of your newfound swimming knowledge??