a plus

Spring has sprung like you wouldn't believe here in the Northeast, and with Luc in school again, I have hit the roads for all my rides. How good it feels to be off the trainer! More importantly how good it feels to have had three amazing school days for Luc.

I try to put myself in his shoes form time to time, and I have to wonder what it felt like to have three good days of school..... after three years of fight and struggle. No pink slips, no phone calls. No threats.

"The teachers don't yell at me mom!" He exclaimed on day two.

Some things just break your heart. The very school I was afraid to go to is the very place he's had three of the best school days of his life. We're still on the honeymoon phase, but after this year to have these three days of great..... is the biggest gift we could have been given.

He's been absolutely over the moon all week!

Go Luc, that's for sure!

The third week of training is coming to a close, and I am settling in to my own routine with Coach Jesse. The first quarter report card is due and I have to give him an A. You always worry with a coach if you are going to be just a number and the recipient of cookie cutter TrainingPeaks workouts. Not only does Jesse not use TrainingPeaks, his workouts and terminology is his own. That's important to me, when I am paying the big bucks for a big coach. You will always have repetition in these basic weeks, but you don't feel like you get a cookie cutter plan with Q2T.

My volume is about 16 hours right now, I love the balance of my basic week. I love the attention to detail that Coach Jesse provides and asks out of me.

I have never worked with a coach I didn't know. So this coach athlete relationship is a developing one. I am trusting someone I don't know that well, but whose coaching results speak for themselves. Jesse is learning to trust me as well, that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and providing honest feedback.

Alicia recently wrote a very article on trust in coaching. She beautifully hit on all the right points in my opinion. As someone who rides on both sides of this relationship I feel that trust in the athlete, is equally important in the coach / athlete relationship. As I am venturing through a new coach / athlete relationship I realize how important it is that this two way street flows evenly.

As a coach you have to trust that your athlete tells you the truth. That's the plain and simple of it all. They can record a 60 minute zone whatever endurance run, but if what they really did was head out for an hour and play grab ass on the track....... who does that benefit?

The advent of downloadable data makes that relationship stronger and more honest, data doesn't lie. When I worked with Coach T the rule was "If it wasn't recorded, it didn't happen."

We as athletes have to be just as honest and especially accountable as coaches do. If I don't hit my targets in a particular race I can blame my coach or I can take a look at the four things that affect the outcome of my race (training, recovery, fueling and pacing). Assuming responsibility for ourselves should be something that's easy. For many people it isn't. Especially when it is easier to blame the coach when things aren't going right.

As I build this coach / athlete relationship with Coach Jesse..... I so need a nickname for him..... I have set my priorities to make that trusting relationship a very strong one. To me it means I stick to my basic week, I record all workouts, I recover from each workout properly, and I follow the plan that we developed.

Thus far Coach Jessee gets an A Plus. For all of it. I always wondered what a fancy big time coach was like to work with, and now I know. The fun part hasn't even begun yet....... and I can't wait for that!