Last weekend I travelled to Cyclopark in Kent to take part in my Level Two Road Cycling Course with British Cycling.
The two day course started with a development day and then assessment on the Sunday. Before the course start date we had an online learning platform where I completed a online assessment on road cycling (86% yay!) and also has to plan for a 10 minute coaching session on development day. This was also an opportunity to meet the other participants which was very helpful.
I chose countering an attack as my technique and worked on a 10 minute session which included seated and standing attacks as well as countering attacks from a bunch.
On development day we each had a chance to learn as a participant in sessions and to coach our own session. When it came to my turn I decided to leave out my first activity worried that I had packed in too much content. I started my session with an introduction which in hindsight was probably too long and then set my riders off. Sadly my session over ran as I tried to pack in far too much content. My session needed a clearer goal and refining for assessment day but I understood where I could improve it to make a more active.
The rest of the morning was spent being a participant in other people’s sessions this was really valuable as being a rider in a coaching session you can learn different ways of being coached and also look at coaching from a rider’s perspective which helps me to improve my own sessions. It was very wet and cold but the learning experience was so valuable.
In the afternoon we went through how to really drill down and create specific goals that related to types of road races and the components of fitness. This really helped me think about my own sessions and how I can create better coaching sessions with specific goals to be reached by riders by the ends of sessions.
My brain active and full of ideas I went back to my hotel Saturday ready to adapt my session plan ready for the 15 minute assessment on Sunday.
Sunday arrived and luckily the rain didn’t! My assessment went well instead of my goal being around countering an attack I looked more specifically at how riders can gain free speed. I focused on keeping my riders doing the same type of activity with subtle changes and adding in coaching points and checking for understanding as I went along.
My session went very well and I got good feedback from Richard and also lots of ideas on how I could adapt and progress my session further.
In the afternoon we did coach led racing which is different from ‘normal’ coaching sessions as you set up scenarios which could happen in a race, let it play out and then come in and discuss tactics and get feedback from the riders on what they did and how they would improve their performance. This was a really interesting way of coaching and I think with older kids and adults could work very well for coaching road and mountain bike sessions as it puts learning into practise in a more realistic setting.
I am really glad that I passed my Level two Road qualification it was a good weekend and I learnt so much and have loads of ideas for road racing sessions, now all I have to do is put some times in the diary to run some.
If you are interested in road racing coaching sessions in Hampshire and West Sussex please contact me.