Adventures of the Northwest

Trio of Track Divas taking on new jobs: track instructor

Sunday was fun! What a blast! The trio of track divas (Jane, Jill and myself) along with Pat and Rolf assisted John in teaching 26 riders learn how to track ride. What an adventure as we all took on our first efforts of teaching a class and in blazing HOT heat! (As John said - we did all the work - having to bicycle for 4 hours around the track, round up the class participants, etc. while he barked out instructions!) It was a lot of fun helping those that were timid feel more comfortable with getting on their bikes, stopping, starting, standing up, sprinting, get the feel of the whole track and so on. Prior to the actual class beginning, we had a couple of minor crashes/falls with people just trying to get on the bike, push off the rail as well as on the track. I encouraged some timid riders to use the warm up circle to get used to starting/stopping, pedaling, make sure their seat was adjusted properly and to use the grass to slow themselves down to stop. We then did exercises of riding around the track, pacelines, partner work where one person places their hand on another’s hip or shoulder and then the elbow bumping exercise. We did have one small accident where someone fell, for an unknown reason, and came down track. It happened within 25 meters ahead of me. I was able to stop with some others and assist her. She thought she just pulled a ligament; however, we saw her Monday night, since her daughter participated in her first race, and she had cracked her collar bone. :(

Jill really did a great job coming up with some good exercises/drills to go through like follow the leader. We split the girls up from the guys and we took turns leading out different groups – up the embankments, down the straight aways, using all areas of the track so they would feel more comfortable, pacelines, sprints, etc. We did a double paceline cool-down. I did not participate but rather took pictures. The 12 girls that showed up – wow! They showed tremendous improvement by the end of the 4 hour class! And what an improvement it was. Many were psyched to come out and race on Monday night and some weren’t sure. We really tried to encourage them to come out and get psyched to continue for next year. It is impressive to watch how in 4 hours those girls that didn’t feel comfortable even going on the track and/or going on the track around a turn (staying on the apron) improved by 100%.

I believe everyone had a lot of fun helping teach the class. I know the trio of track divas are wanting to do it again next year – and hey, bonus! - It will count towards our ‘community service’ for the Byrne team! And hey, it gives us a chance to harrass John - we know he likes all the attention - he's a great sport dealing with us! :)

The trio went out to dinner at Big Time Pizza. It was a lot of fun as we sat there for a couple of hours to talk about track, winter training, having fun, relationships, work and so forth. It was a blast just chillin' with the trio of divas and having dinner to supplement the workout we just did. I hope there will be more times like that in the future - as well as great coffee rides through the winter. :) I am sure there will be tons more "chillin'" times for us.

posted by Seattlebiker @ 10:24 PM