Coaching and Panic Intervals

Now that things are rolling a little bit with this blog, I figured I would contribute a post about myself and my new life as an Alaskan ski coach:

Hey Everyone,

As you may or may not know, shortly after graduation I took up a job as a part-time ski coach in Fairbanks, Alaska with FXC.  After cruising around the East Coast on all the old ski van routes shooting a video for Maine Winter Sports Center, I hopped on a plane to Minnesota, bought a car, packed all my earthly possessions into it and drove the three and a half thousand odd miles from Minneapolis to interior Alaska.  I have to say, there's not a whole lot going on in Canada, at least not between the Twin Cities and Edmonton.

Once in Fairbanks, I started coaching right from the start.  Pete Leonard, the head coach, keeps a blog of FXC's adventures here.  It's a pretty awesome gig.  We have a lot of athletes, ranging from Juniors in college all the way down to kids in Elementary school.  They're organized into all different levels, Prep, Comp, Devo, Jr. Devo, but it really just boils down to two different groups and they do a portion of their workouts with one group or another.  I like working with all the athletes, but with the younger ones I have an especially fun time.  I'm outside all day and I usually manage to put a workout in, more often with the younger group than the older group.  With the older athletes I'm usually timing or video taping for technique work.  With the younger skiers I end up putting in a surprisingly good session.  We do all sorts of activities, everything from mountain biking and orienteering to ultimate and speed frolf (frisbee golf), so I'm always busy, in one way or another.

But, let me give you an example of the type of exercise I put in as a coach.  One of my favorite workouts is what I like to call "Panic Intervals." Last Thursday was a perfect example of a good, solid panic interval session.  We were mountain biking to an ice-cream shop, Hot Licks, for an end of summer celebration.  I decided to save on gas (really freaking expensive in Alaska) and just ride to practice.  As many of you will undoubtedly have memories of from college, I was running late.  It turns out that walking across the museum steps, diploma in hand, does not in fact magically make you a fully functioning adult, despite the Harry Potter-esque robes they make you wear or the Latin incantations President Mills recites.  So, much like pre-graduation Chris, I had put off some essential bike repairs until the last minute.  I hit the road fifteen minutes late on a route that usually takes me forty.  However, deciding to put in some good Level Panic work (somewhere between Level 3 and cardiac arrest), I managed to do the route in just thirty, rolling in only five minutes late.

The Class of 2012 in HP regalia

Soon after I arrived, we corralled everyone and had them moving in the same direction, no mean feat, and I started a nice rest period, playing sweep while we biked out to a field and did some drills.  Soon, we divided up into groups with me leading the six most confident riders.  It turned out that not only were the six of them, one of whom I nicknamed Danger earlier on in the summer, more confident on their bikes than the other athletes, but they were also more confident than their assistant coach (me).  My theory is that, unlike myself, they all started mountain biking before they developed a healthy sense of self-preservation, making them much better riders.  Regardless, before too long they spend off down a hill in front of me and at a quick intersection I went left, only to realize at the bottom that they had instead taken a right.  It was time for panic interval number two.

Now, I should preface, that even though I was going at Level Panic pace for what seemed like an eternity, at no point was I actually worried.  After having my little brother wanderer off on every family vacation for the first twelve years of his life, having a missing kid just doesn't phase me that much anymore.  On top of that I knew that these guys were the oldest in the group, they knew what they were doing on their bikes, and I trusted them not to do anything dangerously stupid, especially if they stuck together.  Regardless, I wanted to find, them, bad, because being coach does come with responsibility after all.  So, I tore all over the maze of trails owned by the University, shouting their names and taking both uphills and downhills way faster than I ever had before.  I worked my heart rate up pretty high, but all for nothing.  I neither found them nor heard a response to my yelling.  After about thirty minutes, Pete put my interval to an end, calling me and letting me know that my group had shown up at Hot Licks without me.  Everyone was just fine.  While they happily enjoyed their well earned ice-cream, I cooled down by pedaling my bike to the meeting point for our next practice.

Total Coach's workout time: 3 hours, 2x30min LP intervals.

All Best,
-Chris

Photo credits: http://www.urbanspoon.com/rph/137/911247/586091/fairbanks-hot-licks-hot-licks-photo Accessed 8/17/2012