As you know, I am a C26 Triathlon Coach.  Today, I was able to do part of my bike ride, with one of my coached athletes.  She is a special athlete to me, because she is also my wife.

With my race coming up next weekend, I didn’t have a particularly long bike ride today.  The first hour or so, was scheduled to be a gentle warm up. I would then be doing three, high intensity intervals of ten minutes each.  In talking with my wife, we decided that we could ride together for that first hour.

We took our bikes up to Moraine State Park, where there is a really nice bike path.  It is an asphalt path, through the woods and along the lake shore.  It is also an ideal place for my wife to ride, because she is relatively new to cycling.  The path is very safe, has a few hills and lots of corners.

Riding with my wife enabled me to coach her on bike handling skills, and other aspects of cycling, in a real world environment.  We covered cornering safely, the effective use of gears and a number of other things.  It was a lot of fun and I could see improvements almost immediately.  I could also see her getting more confident and becoming comfortable on the bike.

It got to the point, where she told me to go off and ‘do my thing’.  She wanted to finish the ride alone.  That made me a very happy coach.  We will definitely be doing this quite a few more times in the coming weeks, ahead of her upcoming race.

It is rare for me to ride with one of my coached athletes.  After today, I want to do it a lot more.