With last weeks race cancelled due to the gale force winds and torrential rain I thought I would give you some insight into the training I've been doing and the some of the types of workouts we use to enable our athletes to reach their goals. Training is such an individual process and I’m a big believer in training to look at the whole picture rather than just the focus of the training. What I mean by this is its a matter of looking at each plan individually so an athlete might be struggling with holding a position, or have an injury or imbalance.They tactically might not be aware or it could be their struggling on bike on their skills. I have a lot of my own problems so a big part for me ha

After a long winter of training it’s that time of year when triathletes start dusting off their race shoes in preparation for early season races and seeing how the winter miles have paid off. This winter has been a slightly different one for me, since the sale of my business Aldridge Fitclub, I’ve settled in to my new role offering Triathlon coaching at Matthew Bottrill Performance Coaching, which I’m absolutely loving. Working alongside a team of highly experienced coaches and highly motivated athletes was just what I was looking for at this stage of my career. The new role has also free’d up more time for training / camps & recovery! So no excuses right? ;-) My winter has included training

Chris, you’ve been part of Team Bottrill since the early days, but recently we’ve seen you switch from TT to Triathlon, talk us through your reason for changing. Since the early part of 2015 I joined Team Bottrill with great pride knowing that a legacy Matt had created will continue to get stronger to push the best out of the team and the individuals. Most of my goals were Time Trial specific and as the years progressed working very closely with Matt I specifically aimed my training around longer distance racing. One specific goal was to compete in Ironman Wales before announcing my retirement from competitive multi discipline sport. Obviously, I have not retired, and every year Matt seems r

Winning the Eddie Soens memorial handicap road race 21 years after I first won is a special moment in my career. To be honest I thought my cycling at this sort of level was done. After suffering with a back injury for most of last year I had to step away from putting pressure on myself and just found a new love for riding my bike. From October last year I’ve been working and training hard with Bob Tobin at Cyclepowermeters setting my training. Like most people I just need the support of not having to think about my own training (one of the reasons it's so helpful to find a cycling coach). We’ve been hitting 8-10 hours a week then I’ve consistently been doing two cycling strength and conditio

Coming up to six weeks before the event now and training has gone well and everything is in place for the trip, there was a new kit delivery arrived at the beginning of last month, which is always nice, and a bit like Christmas arriving early (or late, depending on your perspective). With 10 weeks to go I finally succumbed to one of the winter bugs that are going around and picked up one of the worst cases of man-flu ever recorded by the medical profession. As soon as I told Gareth what was going on, my plan was amended and sets adapted to account for my illness. I get asthma and tend to suffer with this quite badly when I get a cold (oops, I mean man-flu), so need to be very conscious of my

As the time trial season has kicked off for many people now and the tri season is imminent I thought it would be good to follow on from my previous blog on early season training and racing with my top five reasons to get a cycling coach. Well I say 'my' top five reasons, these actually came from someone I coach but also have the pleasure of racing with in team time trials. These are Team Bottrill rider Stephanie Post's top five reasons to get a coach! CONFIDENCE: A coach is some one to see your potential and get the best out of you as an athlete MOTIVATION: A coach provides motivation through feedback and planning but also provides that crucial accountability for your training FOCUS: Having