Great times at the three day BetterRide cross country race camp in Phoenix last weekend. I’m not as fit as I used to be but I still crave that feeling of railing corners and ripping down a trail. I learned skills and drills I can work on to improve from coach Gene at camp.

Gene and me (Lynda).

Genes goal is to teach as much as he can in three days. This means for campers more listening time than riding time. Oooh…that was a tough one for me because I want to ride more than listen! Learn for three days in camp then drill and practice for the rest of your life at home. This does make sense.

Daily flow at camp went like this; talk over a skill, do a drill, move on to the next skill, drill, repeat for most of the day then a short ride on trails to practice what we learned that day.

Camp started with the fundamentals of body position and balance. Simple stuff. Gene stripped it down to the basics. Every advanced skill  builds on a base of perfect core skills.

One drill had Gene holding us in place and adjusting us into perfect position until we were balanced enough to be track standing. It was really cool to feel so balanced once everything had been put into place and corrected.

Look up…….   Elbow up…..   Chest down…..    Look up again…..

Gene: “Lynda, do you have a stiff neck?”

Evidently it takes so much force for me to get my eyes up it looks like I have a stiff neck! Target fixation is a bad habit of mine.

On the trails at the end of each day we rode with a single focus, stopped to review then moved on with with a new focus. Putting all the different parts together at once was too much; look through corner, elbows up, weight in feet, chest down etc

We learned and practiced skills in a safe environment so we could focus all our attention on the drills without fear taking up brain bandwidth.

Gene demos a switchback.

Wheelies was a fun one. I have never put much effort into being able to wheelie before. Now I have a goal to be a wheelie queen by the end of the year! Gene taught us two different types of wheelies.

We filled the camp with LW athetes so had a nice focused group. That made it fun.

At the end of camp wrap up, we discussed what we learned in camp and what our #1 take home lesson was. It was an interesting exercise as no two were the same. My #1 thing – look through the corners not at the corners. I’m excited to make that a good habit. It certainly smooths out the corners for me.

Next weekend a group of LW Coaching athletes and I are headed to the Better Ride mountain bike skills camp in Phoenix taught by coach Gene Hamilton. I’m attending as a student not a coach. I’m excited to be coached rather than do the coaching this time. To learn, to improve and to ride my bike are three of my favorite things. Yes, I am excited!

I love riding my bike and especially love riding it well. I often work on improving my tech skills. Studying photos and video and coaching from friends helps me improve. There is quite a bit I can see in this photo below that I could do better. I’m pretty sure I slammed my rear wheel into the ledge here, lost all my momentum and got a nice big push from my friendly spotter! My weight is too far back and I had no power over the pedals.

When I clean a new technical move I feel like a winner The feeling of floating through a tough section of trail is delicious.

Even though I have been mountain biking for 24 years I know I can still improve. The Better Ride camp in Phoenix we are attending is a three day camp. It’s is going to be great having a skills coach like Gene watch me and correct any bad habits. Instant feedback. I’m expecting to learn a lot of drills too so I can come home and practice, practice.

Our camp is a cross country race focused camp so we will learn to ride faster in addition to better. Fast is always fun too, especially in a race. Efficiency in corners and downhill puts you higher in the field with more energy every time. That translates into race results.

Best of all our camp is filled out with friends and clients of LW Coaching so we can have post camp get-togethers to practice, practice some more.

In 2013 my LW Coaching crew and myself are going to ride better at BetterRide.

Now available on TrainingPeaks or in PDF format

The follow on Masters Cross Country Build, Peak and Race plan will be available mid-December.

I recently took a webinar by another coach I admire Gordo Byrn, owner of Endurance Corner, a triathlon coaching company. The webinar was titled “The Business of Coaching”. I love coaching but I admittedly struggle with and easily ignore the business side of it. However to be a successful coach you have to produce revenue or you are out of business. Coaching is decidedly my business, not my hobby. I am a professional coach. I am 100% in and dependent on coaching revenue to support myself and my family. I do not have a second job or treat coaching as a hobby. I was pleased that after the webinar I learned I was mostly on track and doing a lot of the right things. I just needed a kick up the behind to take action on a few things I know I should be doing but have been ignoring.

One piece of advice Gordo gave out in his webinar was to “Keep it Fresh“. By that he meant (or I interpreted he meant anyway…) keep learning, try new things, re-experience being a newbie. Gordo, a long time triathlete, kept it fresh this summer by switching to mountain biking. He raced Leadville 100 finishing in an ripping 7:29 on his first try at the race.

Keeping it fresh is something I have a passion for and am always switching peak races, bikes, race divisions, distances and sometimes even sports. I ran a marathon and have completed an Ironman in the past. Recently I have taken up CrossFit where I get my ego crushed to pieces on a regular basis and I absolutely love it.

Here is the latest and greatest addition to my stable of ponies in the interest of Keeping it Fresh.

Meet my new bike! This one has spunk!

I am learning how to ride really fast on dirt I learned  what ATGATT means.  I am definitely experiencing being a newbie . There are so many things to think about at once; gears, clutch, rear brake at my foot, front brake on my right bars where I am used to the rear brake being on my mtb, indicators, watching out for traffic, not stalling the engine – wow! After railing through a big sandy wash during a 90 mile ride I was so excited about it I wanted to fist pump but I couldn’t take a hand off the handlebars – LOL

So far it is a BLAST!!! There’s so much to learn out there.