Hi All,
First of all welcome to my Blog and I hope you will find my articles interesting.
At the moment I am during my active rest between seasons. After such a long and stressful season I needed a complete 3 weeks recovery. I know that 2010 will be another hard season especially now that I have a new job so I need to recharge my batteries well. Everyone knows the results of the National Championships, another 2nd place. Everyone congratulated me for my performance but personally I am very disappointed. I only wanted to win. It is very frustrating to miss out so narrowly on another championship. It was kind from people to praise my guts, my courage and my spirit, but I don’t just race for praise or admiration, I race to be the best that I can be.
It is hard for me to accept another second place. Many say that I did a great race but it was a bad fall. However, I have to get up and fight my challenges. I know that there are many championships both in Malta and Abroad for me to win. Our greatest honour is not that we never fall down but that we pick ourselves up again each time we fall. It is in such moment where certain athletes make the difference.
On a more positive tone, last August I was chosen by the Malta Triathlon Association to attend the Level 2 Triathlon Coaching Competitive Coaching Course held in Croatia, Pula. I flew to Croatia 4 days after the Nationals,. The course consisted of a very hard and intensive five days of Lectures starting from 8.30 till 17.00 with an hour and a half break at 12.30 for Lunch. The lectures were conducted by Alan lay, Head of ITU Sports Development, Luc Morin, Zeljko Bijuk and Coach Sergio Santos who is the head coach of Portugal Triathlon Team and also of World Champion Vanessa Fernandez.
22 of us new couches, attended this course where various nationalities met from different countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Slovenia, Cyprus and of course, Malta! Few of us were not only athletes, but also professional and even ex professional athletes who now want to excel in their coaching carrier. The course focused on how to train Juniors and U23 properly and how associations have to work to attract more people into the world of Triathlon. The lectures of the first two days were all conducted by Sergio since he had to fly back to Portugal to work on their National Championships. Sergio’s Lectures were the most interesting ones and it was a privilege to follow lectures of such a great coach with a vast experience. Sergio talked about Triathlete Development, how to aim to High performance in Triathlon, Cycling and Running in Competitive Triathlon and Planning and Periodization. He also conducted a Running Practical were he gave us an example of how a good warm up for a track session with the appropriate drills. The other lectures were about Sport Psychology, Safety/Risk Management, Nutrition and Anatomy.
Thanks to this course, I managed to get all the contacts of those who attended the course and the coaches who lectured as well. At the end of the course, we were divided in 7 groups and each was given a title to present on the last day of the course. An Irish, a Hungarian and a Maltese made a nice mix to present a Warm Up for a 10K track race/track training session. It was incredible to see the different Ideas that each and every coach has in certain training concepts.
Although I am back in Malta with more coaching experience, the course is not over yet.. In order to get the qualification, I have to go through assessment. In 6 weeks I have to present a take home examination where I have to answer in great detail questions on topics discussed during the course. In addition, I have to prepare a detailed training programme aimed at juniors and also a practical one were I have to prepare a detailed plan of a training programme for juniors with all the necessary planning.
Now, Back to work! I am working as a PE Teacher at St Benedict Collage in Hal Kirkop. Teaching is a very challenging job but I am enjoying each and every moment at school. Soon I will restart my training to achieve the targets set for the 2010 season.
Yours in Sport,
Keith
