Setting Cycling Goals

It's that time of year when the race season just seems to have been ages ago but next year seems a life time away! But now is one of the key times to review your previous season and make a list of what went right and what went wrong. Then to make a list of all your strengths and weaknesses and work out a plan on how you are going to improve for the year ahead. I've just done this myself and have decided for 2018 I'm coming back to race on my bike for time trials and a bit of road racing. The reason being the cycling and triathlon coaching company is growing so this has to be my main focus so trying to fit three sports in has become a little bit too much. I've learnt so much in this last two years to help progress my coaching but I love the process of training and then bringing it all together to race. We have recently moved into a new unit where we now do all our Consultations and Performance Reviews. We have also extended our coaching team to carry on offering bespoke one to one coaching, I said from the start when I set MBPC up I wanted to be able to offer a service that I would want as an athlete myself. Offering training programs is the easy part, it's the interaction and the one to one time that really brings the results in. This is what takes the athletes performance to the next level and trying to find out what makes them tick. It's also about how to fit the training in and around their day to day life with family and work. You also have to be adaptable for those last minute changes in day to day programmes when life or illness gets in the way, It's all about talking through and solving problems. Even if your really confident I always think it's good to have somebody to talk ideas through, I'm the same myself hence one of the reasons I still work with Bob Tobin at Cyclepowermeters to give me that support. My ultimate aim for the coaching business is to always keep this level of service to our athletes and one day to have a high performance centre where we can test and sort any problem, I just love finding all the marginal gains possible. I'd love to say it's just about training but there's so many pieces you need to complete the puzzle, but that's what I like to think from myself and our coaching team we are always looking at finding ways to improve and to never become complacent. So what's my mission in 2018? I guess it's to see if it's possible to go faster than I did before. I've got a list of my key goals and have a plan in place to get me there. I guess you could say I'm back in the zone. My Top 5 tips to get you in the zone! 1: Write your goals down and work back from them. Then decide if your going to self coach or work with a coach. If it's self coaching then the key is always to write your plan out on a daily basis. Your less likely to just ride on feel this way and get more quality out of your sessions. 2: Plan to work on your weaknesses and put small steps in place rather than trying to do everything in one hit. It's also much more rewarding if you start ticking progress off. 3: When training always think of the next session. Pre planning the training you're much more likely to hit the set the next day. So fuelling and hydration is key to performing in the next session so try keeping on top of this. 4: Consistency is key: that does not mean to train everyday but by training smart and making the most of your time. So if you have an easy day planned stick to it even if that means your mates half wheeling you, back off and likewise not going to easy when you should be doing some specific intervals. 5. Don't become a winter warrior! The amount of people I've met over the years that want to smash it through the winter them collapse in April still amazes me! So if this is you now IS the time to take one step back to take two steps forwards. If you're still confused and would like some advice on how you should be training we have one to one coaching but also offer our Performance Reviews where we can look at everything you're currently doing and we can give you a list of performance indicators and sessions that can take your performance to the next level.

Look forward to seeing some of you on the road next year and smashingitup!