Coaching

Gidday everyone

Hope you are all fit and well. Nothing too major to peak for so hope you are all getting really fit. Big observation across the board is having really good condition. It's that Arthur Lydiard stuff from the 60s but it pays huge dividends on race day. I have been doing it myself and have lost 5kg (11lb) in 5 weeks and lowered my 16km TT from 26.40 to 25.00. 14kg to go for goal racing weight.

I am attending a Sports Nutrition seminar on the evenings of 1st and 2nd of December. Nick Kimber an exercise physiologist and cyclist is running it. It is $140 for the course so if anyone is keen to attend let me know.

Interesting news is that Bike NZ (Governing Body for all cycling in NZ) have appointed me a Cycling NZ (the road and track side of things) Junior National Selector. This is a huge opportunity for me to apply my knowledge of high performance cycling towards the vital area of selecting young cyclists for National Teams and for Development Squads. I start on the 1st of December.

I have a new toy. A hot Pinarello FP3 road bike with Shimano Ultegra SL componentry. Always wanted one and have to admit it is freaken cool to ride.

Congrats to Sharron Dawson for placing 2nd in the Molesworth Muster XC Race. Mike Smart for being part of the Teams Winning Section from Source to Sea RR and Simon Acker for being part of the winning team at Canterbury U17 TTT champs.

Still fair to say that I want more feedback from people on how their training is going and if you are feeling confident about your progress. Nothing more frustrating for a coach to hear after the fact or worse through the grapevine if you are unwell or feeling burnt out!

Hamish

The new toy!

Smashing myself in a local crit.

Updates

Gidday everyone

Been busy times with lots of big events happening. What didn't happen was the Bike NZ level 2 coaching course. A tad annoying as I sat this in 1997 in Sydney but was prevented from meeting course requirements to pass. The course will now be run after NZ Track Nationals in March next year. Had I know this was going to happen would have gone to Sydney for Masters Worlds as many of my friends from the US and Australia were there.

I am now getting in some base miles and trying to get the body fat levels down for Track Nationals planning to go sub 3.50 for 3000m. Been doing some time trials and criteriums to help but at present the bulk of training is hard aerobic rides on the hills.

Riders have been doing the bizzo as per usual...

Megan Blatchford-Peck made the most of trying circumstances preparing for World Masters Track Cycling Champs. Aiming to perform in all events meant a different approach to training than her standard sprint training but the results were astounding. FOUR WORLD TITLES!!! 500m TT in a new PB, Scratch Race, Sprint (riding .2 sec faster than last year) and Points Race. Megan also rode a PB in the pursuit.

Justin Leov finished 6th in the Austrian DH World Cup and finished 8th in the World Cup Overall. Justin was due to recommence training on the 1st but a Motocross crash left him with 4 broken ribs and delayed return to riding.

Taylor Olson was the 5th fastest qualifier in the sprints at US Nationals and placed 7th overall in the rounds. His team (that was thrown together on the day) took 4th place. Taylor has been taking a break and hitting the MTB trials in Minnesota for some R&R.

Allen Vugrinicic placed 12th in the Kilo at US Nationals behind the very well performed Taylor Phinney.

Tom Hubbard was part of the Christchurch Boys High School Team that won the Sir Bernard Ferguson trophy Teams Time Trial event. He unfortunately crashed in the Points Race around the Manfield Car Race Track going down hard at speed. This made preparation for road nationals difficult where Tom (as did many other NZ team riders) failed to finish the U19 men's road race.

Sharron Dawson was superb in taking the 6hr solo mtb event at McLean's Island. She started hard and maintained a lead over a strong field including the NZ XC Women's Champion.

Brooke Williams won her first Canterbury Championship taking out the U15 girls time trial over 10km. At road nationals she placed 7th in the time trial and 8th in the road race.

Will Bowman enjoyed his first NZ road nationals taking 11th place in the time trial and 12th in the road race. Great preparation for the MTB XC season. He will also been doing some track racing to complete his introduction to all aspects of the sport.

Good luck to those doing 5 Passes and K2 this weekend. Give it heaps. For those resting up enjoy the break.

Stay in touch! I'm only as good a coach as the feedback I receive!

Hamish

Lazy bugger

Been a bit slack posting so here is a catch up...

10 September 2008

My own riding has been pretty slow. Fortunately the personal trainers I challenged for the Festival of Cycling are having their own issues so may be a case of who goes the least slow. Will hit the windtrainer over the next 12 weeks as this is where I see real gains even if I am not doing a high volume of training.Good news on the coaching front. Canterbury Sport Academy are paying the course fees for the Bike NZ level 2 course. Also for me to attend a coaching course in Christchurch next week. The people attending is a real whose who of NZ coaching including John Wright (Cricket) and Mark Hammet (Rugby).

Riders been doing the bizzo...

Tom Hubbard won 2 stages in SI Schools Tour in the U20 grade and took the Sprint Ace and finished 2nd Overall. Brooke Williams also finished 2nd overall in U15 Girls taking the Sprint Ace and 1 stage win. Will Bowman was third overall in U17 boys and 2nd in Sprint Ace. Simon Acker keeps gaining experience with each race.

Tom Hubbard keeps building the legend with a solid attacking win in the Cat 2-3 Hummingbird Classic. A race he should win he made sure by going from the gun and keeping the break going even when the bunch nearly reeled them in.

Allen Vugrincic had an excellent US Masters Championships as part of his build up to US Nationals taking Silver in Kilo and Sprint in the 35-39 age Group. Ted Schmid took Silver in the Team Sprint where Allen took the Bronze. Ted takes a break now while Allen finally gets some speed work. Like Taylor Olson what will he do when we unleash him at Nationals.

Justin Leov held on to his top ten World Ranking in Downhill after the Canberra World Cup. He has one more World Cup in Austria before we can look back on a successful year and plan to move higher up the World Rankings in 2009!

Train hard, stay focused, aim high, race hard, enjoy life!!!

Hamish

18 August 2008

It's a coaching update today as I haven't done a lot of riding. With my goal event pushed back to December. Also picked up a cold with the very changeable weather in Christchurch. But with the Festival of Cycling in mind will need to get in some quality hill rides building up to a 2-2.5 hour event on an undulating course. Good base for the Canterbury and National pursuit events.

Good news is that Bike NZ has invited me to do their new level 2 course. Cycling NZ sent me to Australia in 1997 to do their level 2 but due to a poor coaching administration back then I was never able to gain the certificate. Hope everyone is working hard and setting big goals for their upcoming events. Many laughed in 2005 when Hayden Roulston withdrew from the powerful Discovery Pro Cycling team to focus on track and winning a medal at Beijing. Nice to see such a commitment and risk pay off. What have you committed to in cycling and what are you prepared to risk to achieve it?

I have logged back on to Skype. It's a good communication tool. Feel free to say hi when I am online.

hamish.ferguson

www.skype.com

4 August 2008

Been a busy week. Lots on and lots of hard decisions to make. With crashes and other setbacks know I will not be ready to race at my best at Masters Worlds. Also keen to do the Bike NZ Level 2 coaching course a week after Nationals. Not so much to gain new information (certainly not a weakness of mine) but to form some new coaching connections in NZ especially as it appears that candidates for the course are coming from XC, DH, BMX as well as track and road.

Allen Vugrincic won the California State Masters Kilo Title. Many of my local riders are getting back into racing after a winter break. Thanks for the feedback on where I should invest my wee coaching scholarship. Looks like the L2 course will be one area. Also need to work on a way to show the long term training and how each block builds towards the goal event.I'm still training and have refocused on the Festival of Cycling Event in December before the Mid South Criterium and Track Carnivals and then the Canterbury and New Zealand Track Cycling Champs.

Hamish

Weekly update

Bad week for training. Ribs were pretty sore and stomach tender after food poisoning.

But not all bad news. The Canterbury Sport Academy have chosen me and five other coaches from all sports to provide some money to assist with my development as a coach. So I am keen to hear from my riders about where you feel I can improve as a coach. My thoughts are working with a sport psychologist on improving communication and with a sports manager to work on enhancing my professionalism as a coach.

Well done to Simon Acker scoring a win in local U17 racing and Justin Leov taking 9th place at the DH World Cup in Mont Saint Anne in Canada.

Hamish

Bad luck comes in fours?

After a week of cars breaking down and DVD recording crapping out during TdF and associated stress was hoping for a better week. No chance. With working on Saturdays I don't get to road race so did MTB night racing for a good solid 60min workout. Ended crashing 3 times and have bruised my ribs again. Then on Saturday got food poisoning and spent a day of expelling everything and not sleeping.

Good exercise in tracking the signals of overtraining and the body not being fit for hard training. Resting HR went up 25bpm and temperature 1.5 degrees. Good news was everything was back to normal a day later although took care not to push it today.

Monday:

TSB -8.2, RHR 58bpm, temp 36.1, sleep 8hrs, qual ok, felt good.

Spent day messing around on stuff so not up for training at night.

Tuesday:

TSB -4.6, RHR 54bpm, temp 36.0, sleep 7hrs, qual ave, felt good.

1st trainer session in a while. 1/1min intervals at max aerobic power. Found it hard to get into it. Missing the snap. Hard work at high cadence. For last two reps dropped the cadence and power shot up. Heart rate was higher for high cadence efforts. Really worked on controlling start of efforts.

Entire workout (175 watts):
.Duration: .49:08 (51:20)
.Work: .513 kJ
.TSS: .76.4 (intensity factor 0.97)
.Norm Power:.216

Peak 1min (350 watts): (effort 7/8)
.Power: .226.493.350 .watts
.Heart Rate: .140.184.165 .bpm
.Cadence: .58.102.96 .rpm

Peak 1min HR (177 bpm): (effort 4/8)
.Power: .143.491.325 .watts
.Heart Rate: .164.185.177 .bpm
.Cadence: .58.116.108 .rpm

Peak 1min cadence (116 rpm): (effort 1/8)
.Power: .51.379.308 .watts
.Heart Rate: .140.181.165 .bpm
.Cadence: .83.124.116 .rpm

Wednesday:

TSB -7.2, rhr 56, sleep 8, qual ave, felt good.

MTB Night racing. Very hard work. Only had heart rate to go by. 180 on the wide section and about 160 in the singletrack. Crashed three times. Twice on left side. Hurt ribs again.

Was able to push pretty hard all the way but lack of skill in singletrack set me back. Would pass people on the straights but lose them on singletrack.

Man Entry

Entire workout (245 watts):
.Duration: .51:00
.Work: .750 kJ
.TSS: .102.6 (intensity factor 1.099)
.Norm Power:.245

Thursday:

2min effort on tacx fortius as part of Pegasus club development rider evening on devp bike. Very painful.

Entire workout (340 watts):
.Duration: .2:19
.Work: .42 kJ
.TSS: .7.7 (intensity factor 1.525)

Friday:

After setting up new road bike spent 20min on rollers.

Entire workout (164 watts):
.Duration: .25:06 (25:28)
.Work: .245 kJ
.TSS: .22.9 (intensity factor 0.742)
.Norm Power:.165

Saturday:

TSB -6.1, RHR 56, Temp 36.0, Sleep 8, Qual Ok, Felt Ok.

After work started to feel really bad, Diarrhoea by 8pm and vomiting my 11am, lasted all night, bugger all sleep. Must have been a Souvlaki that I had for lunch.

Sunday:

TSB -4.6, RHR 82bpm, Temp 38.0, Sleep 0, Qual Very Bad, Felt Awful.

Felt really bad in morning, didn't eat anything till 10pm. Monitored temp and heart rate all day. Very high. Started feeling better in evening although HR and Temp hadn't come down so had a small bite to eat.

Monday:

TSB -5.1, RHR 56, Temp 36.0, Sleep 6, Qual Ave, Felt Bad.

Temp back down and RHR down to normal levels. Stomach still a bit iffy.

Easy cruise to Sumner and home with a little bit of threshold work.

New bike Fuji Team Pro 54cm. Narrow bars but feels good. Back on 172.5mm cranks.

Entire workout (151 watts):
.Duration: .1:16:52
.Work: .689 kJ
.TSS: .79.2 (intensity factor 0.789)
.Norm Power:.176

Hard time!

Missed a week. Had one of those shocker weeks where things didn't go to plan and lots of little things have conspired against me. But I have kept training, kept in touch with my support network. Stuff happens but some days you just roll with the punches.

Brooke Williams took two Bronze medals at SI Schools Champs, Will Bowman took a 5th and 7th place and managed to lock too many gears out and did the road race on a 53x19 when a 53x17 was the legal gear. Tom Hubbard had a good ride at the Tour of Canberra placing top ten in all three road stages against hard competition.

At MTB night racing Will won the junior category and Sharon Dawson took out the Masters Women's grade! I sold my road bike so have been doing some MTB rides and will take part on Wednesday night!

SI Schools Cycling

While I wait for my bed to warm up so I can get a kip before watching tonight's TdF stage 2 thought I would report on the SI Schools Cycling Champs held at Ruapuna over the weekend.

Missed the racing on Saturday as was working. Lucky as it was snowing by midday. They still go the TTs run although the weather was varying form bad to blizzard that times meant little and even then it looks as if the time keepers made quite a few mistakes.

Brooke Williams took a Bronze in U15 girls and Will Bowman 5th in U17 boys. Sadly for Will and his Christ College teammates the teams event was cancelled. They would have been highly favored to win.Sunday was cold but the sun was out. Brooke put up a good show holding on to the well performed pair from Dunedin till the penultimate lap and easily held on for Bronze.

Will put up a good fight in the U17 boys but at the end ran out of legs in the sprint for a low top ten placing. On checking his gears he was locked into a 53X19 after changing out my deep section wheels. Good for U15 racing but two sprockets shy of U17 who can use a 53X17.

Also good to see young George Hubbard (whose big brother Tom is gained some top ten placings in Tour of Canberra) take out the U15 boys from the son of former NZ champion, 3 time Olympian and World Ice Skating Champion Chris Nicholson and Michael Phillips take the U19 Boys event. Got the thumbs up with three laps to go. Sadly no TAB on site!

Great to see Harriet Smithies out and about at the event after her horror crash in Taranaki. Can't wait to see her back racing. Sure she watched the U19 girls event thinking about how she could have torn them to pieces!

Money is on Big Thor Hushovd for stage 2 tonight!