Words by Alana Levin
Coach Alana is a dedicated coach and athlete who specializes in triathlon, swimming, and running. For more information on Alana’s coaching services, or to schedule a coaching consultation with her click HERE.
A Coach’s Perspective
As unimaginably tragic as this time in history is, this period has also had positive and profound effects on my work as a coach and my life as an athlete. As a coaching group, TEC has collaborated in order to help our athletes cope and develop during this time. We have worked to uncover their intrinsic reasons for racing and what’s really behind setting goals. This collective team approach has had a profound impact on me as a coach and the athletes with whom we work to come out better and stronger because of this collective effort.
Being tasked with the challenge to coach athletes without the end result of a race has opened my eyes to how I work with athletes. Previously I understood my job as a coach was to prepare individuals for races. In fact, if they were injured and couldn’t race or were training during the off-season I found our direction, and how they utilized me as a coach, more challenging to measure. As much as I knew these periods required a change of focus, I did not weigh these training blocks as substantially as I do now.
When an athlete begins to work with a coach to prepare for a specific event say 12 weeks away, the countdown begins immediately. We often don’t have the time to build fitness, improve pace, and dial in efficiency. Instead, the main focus is to develop a build and taper program so the athlete feels as best as possible for that given day with their current state of fitness. The pandemic forced events to be postponed or canceled this season. But it also gave us the gift of time. With this extra time, we had the opportunity to refocus: in some cases, the athlete opted to do mock races on their own the day of the original race. In other cases, the athlete looked ahead to longer-term goals. With both situations, the pressure of the outcome was removed. The athletes carried the unique ability to shift and reevaluate what was truly important for them to achieve.
The athletes who raced on their own displayed a new level of commitment to the sport they loved. They truly desired to achieve their individual best. The race was only against themselves, no one else was watching, no finisher’s medals or t-shirts were given, there was no podium on which to stand. Instead, the goal of the day kept them focused and gave them a purpose to train through the competition season.
One athlete I coach took an even broader approach to an “A” race cancelation. She chose to do ride the course on the actual event day and to instead approach this year as more of a practice trial. Her performance now would serve to help her better understand what areas she would need to improve for next year and how to time and develop our annual plan.
For other athletes, this reset provided the opportunity to re-evaluate and focus on their true goals. These were long-term and we now had a longer trajectory to reach them. We re-set our training blocks to develop fitness. In certain cases, we reduced training volume, worked on limiters, focused on strength and mobility, and incorporating cross-training. In the short term, we replaced this season’s races with creative challenges such as benchmark workouts, adventure days in the mountains, and pace goals. In some cases, this meant we changed the actual sport we were preparing to race short term and returned to train for our primary discipline.
However, each athlete chose to respond to the changing season, each individual cultivated athletic maturity. The ultimate goal is self-development and although usually placed in the context of competition, it was now repositioned as the root of why we train.
An Athlete’s Perspective
Personally, the current global situation also gave me time to re-focus as not only a coach but as an athlete and ultimately as an individual. Always drawn to individual sports, I was now consistently training alone and I felt more connected to myself. Instead of heading into the mountains for big run days with my girlfriends or leading a triathlon club workout, I was confined to solo runs, walks with my dogs, or rides with my husband. I was returning again and again to the same trails, roads, and hills close to my house.
I am fortunate that my backyard is a vast mountainous wonderland but by staying within a certain range I developed consistency and comparability for my workouts and for the natural world around me. My repeated trail runs, mountain bike rides and hill climbs all served as a ground for methodical testing. I noticed the same ride felt different depending on the training that directly preceded it or how I approached it. The same hill climb pushed my aerobic capacity one day if I started fast and then worked to maintain. The next time I rode the same hill I could emphasize muscular endurance if I paced evenly at the start and test my capacity by finishing as hard as I could for the last uphill mile.
Each time I begin my rides and runs and walks, I notice everything around me and how it all is progressing through the seasons. This spring and early summer, I watch a red-tail hawk nurse her two chicks. She builds this her nest each March in a high spot in the rocks above where I start many of my runs and mountain bike rides. I first saw her tend to the nest until the chicks heads pop out, then I got to see their white-feathered bodies peek out of the nest. Now their larger brown feathered bodies appear on the edge of the nest as they lift their wings. Soon I will see them fly into the blue sky with their mother.
For the last three months, I watched the aspen, birch, and poplar trees go from leafless silver stalks to bright bursting green medallions shimmering in the breeze. This happens every spring and summer, but this year, I watched the same trees in the same place day after day and was able to appreciate each day and the transformation of my surroundings day after day in a new and rich way. Time has slowed down. This has been a true gift.
