USAT Level One Coaching Clinic...as a speaker this time!

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to speak and teach at the USA Triathlon Level I coaching clinic in Tucson. It was a last-minute deal, as the regular speaker was unavailable. USAT trains up new coaches through their 3 levels of coaching certifications, and it was an honor to be thought of as one who could teach the new budding coaches—regular speakers are world renowned coaches and/or those who coach at the US Olympic Training Center.

There were about 40 in the group from all over--everyone from local triathlon standouts to national champions to non-triathlete personal trainers and sports scientists looking for triathlon knowledge. One fella in the class was even in the first-ever triathlon (the year I was born—and the year of the first F-16 flight…’nother story).

I spoke first on cycling training and how to effectively coach to get the most from an athlete and making their training effective and safe. We spoke on some differences between triathlon bikes and road bikes, how to train on each using both heart rate and power, how to manage a group of cyclists from advanced to newbie, and what some typical solutions are for the common cycling training weaknesses.

I then spoke on triathlon-specific training, or how to take a series of stand-alone swim, bike, and run workouts and turn that into a triathlon. As much as we like to brag about having the fastest bike split or T2, the true race is to the finish line and the rest frankly doesn’t matter that much. (You can have a great bike split, but if you fall apart on the run your fast bike split doesn’t mean much.) This was a fun class to teach and really made me think about how to do this most effectively.

After my part, world champion running coach Bobby McGee spoke on running. I sat in on his as I always learn from Bobby’s talks.

I’m into coaching because I love to teach. That’s also why I’m a flight instructor. Teaching the newest USAT Coaches was another opportunity to give info and enable those who will be teaching down the road to do so more effectively, and I was grateful and humbled by the chance to do this.

Brian