My First Post: I've Got a Coach!

Welcome to the new blog!!!

Joy here...Back in July 2010 when Nomi and I started co-writing our East and West Running blog, we figured that we would chart our progress from running a 10km race together to being able to conquer a 21km half marathon.

Well, 2 years later and Nomi's gone on to complete TWO half marathons and TWO full marathons since that day in May 2010 when we laced up our running shoes and headed out there for our first ever running race.

In the meantime, I improved my running, but it was during the summer of 2011 when I hopped on my bike and found that I enjoyed cycling even more than running that changed things...So I've moved my little blog insights from a blog that was supposed to be about "running" to this one here...where I can write with abandon about all the ways that I'm trying to incorporate sport and fitness into my regular, every day life.  Sometimes that might include running...but for now it's going to be pretty cycling heavy!

My new cycling coach,
Andrew Randell.

One thing that I've just done as a fitness game changer for myself is that I've just signed up with a cycling coach to help me take my sport to the next level.  As I got into running with Nomi, I learned all about amateur sports.  There's equipment; there's high-level competition; there's nutrition; and there are a plethora of coaching options.  You can get an online coach.  You can coach yourself.  You can get a one-on-one coach.  You can find a coach as part of a group.  Really, the options are almost endless.

For me, I was out for my first 100km bike ride of 2012 when I met an ex-Canadian pro cyclist who had just retired and was starting to take on coaching clients.  I figured that it was a sign from the cosmos that I should take advantage of this chance meeting and sign up with him and see what he can do with me on my bike.

Me pedalling as my coach looks on and tells me what to do.

Now one little thing about coaching:  it's actually most helpful if you can identify your goals in advance, and the more specific those goals can be, the better.  So it's not enough for me to tell my coach, "I wanna be faster" or "I wanna be better," although, of course, I do want both of those things.  I have to be much more specific.  In the pursuit of specificity, I have chosen an event at the end of August (on August 26th, to be precise), which is a 20km Time Trial.  My coach and I will look at my training numbers--heart rate, watts, speed--as a baseline, and then he will develop a plan for me to work at for the next few weeks in the hopes that I can improve in time for this end-of-the-month event.  More importantly, it'll give us both a chance to see if we work well together, and I can gauge whether or not I want to keep him (or anyone) as my coach as I move forward and come up with my fall fitness/racing plan, and try for the very first time in my life to train systematically throughout the winter by periodizing.*

So I'm now throwing my hat over the fence and promising to race the 20km Time Trial in just over 3 weeks...let the countdown begin!

Bye for now,
Joy

*A note on periodizing:  Periodizing is a way of training through phases up to one's peak--ideally a specific race or set of races--and this way of training follows certain set principles in order to build different kinds of fitness or ability at different phases of the training schedule.  I don't know a whole heck of a lot about it, but my husband--an avid cyclist--has had great success periodizing throughout the winter and being ready to race come the spring time.  Since I usually spend much of my winter depressed on the couch, I'm looking forward to a more coherent plan this year!