Body and Mind

As I mentioned in a previous posting, I'm studying to a be a certified USA Cycling Level 3 coach. I'm amused by how easy it is to be "certified".

Unfortunately, the process is taking me longer than I'd like. The coaching manual is a good, though poorly formatted read, but I only have about 40 minutes a day on my commute for reading it, and it reads like a good textbook: slowly and carefully. It's a big, heavy monstrosity, and I can't always read it too well on the awful F train in the morning. I'm looking forward to some long bus rides in the near future, so that I may get through more of the book.

In reading the manual, I'm still amazed by the quality and thoroughness of much of the information in there. I can tell that many cyclist, coaches, and physicians with at least 25 years of experience in the field conspired for a while to put that book together. I'm learning all about quantitative sports drink preparation, best practices for road rash (hint: treat it like a burn), and good tips for routing cyclists on public roads (avoid bike paths). Sure, you can figure most of this out by reading Pruitt, Friel, Daniels, and Forrester, and I've perused all of those books and more, but a review and an additional point of view is always nice.

It's amazing how technical a sport cycling is! I love it. I'm a huge geek, I'm an IT professional for crying out loud. Details are my specialty. I'm horrible at sports that require any interaction with a projectile, and not great at sports that require depending on other people. I'm pretty good at sports that require a world of pain and are technical. (I should try sculling or skiing, but they're just not as practical.)

So, here I am, a cyclist of 10 years, still learning plenty about bicycling, and about myself. It's a fun process.

I wonder if USA Cycling would let me LaTeX their coaching manual. It would look awesome.