Pactimo Performance Athlete of the Month...Boo Yah!

If you haven't gotten the news yet, I was voted in as the Pactimo Performance Athlete of the Month for October. Such a fitting month for my birthday and the start of my recovery.

Check out the article

http://pactimo.com/performance/athlete.htm

My coach, Shawn Heidgen, has been a source of great knowledge for me in training and learning how to race my bike better. As a coach myself, I always encourage people to seek out a coach because they can provide the tools you need as an athlete or person to reach the next level. When I sailed in college, I worked tirelessly to improve my sailing. Most of what i learned was through trial over and over until I got it right (i don't like think i was learning from an error). I also tried to sail against or with people that were superior to me. Sure it provides a lot of defeat, but I think I learned more than just trying to put myself up against myself or someone of less skill. For me, its always been about the challenge of doing something. When I started sailing, no one was around to really help me, but I looked at that as my challenge. I was going to do it differently and hopefully better than the rest of them. Looking back now, I see that it helped me build some great skills in sailing. Would I have excelled further in college sailing had I had a coach? I think so, but I wouldn't trade the learning experience of not having one. When I took up cycling after graduating college, I did in the beginning b/c my great friend Joey bought a road bike and was riding. I had always liked the endurance sports, so it seemed fitting b/c I couldn't let him outdo me. After a year of tooling around on weekend rides and the occasional ride during the week, I started looking at cycling in a new way. Thats when I bought my lemond and started riding more and more. Eventually a year later, I was moving from Chicago to Reno, NV so I could train more. Then I ended up here in California.

Since I moved to California, I have relied on several coaches. I think its more important for a coach to have the ability to understand your needs and motivate you then have a stellar palmares, but a nice palmares is helpful too, like the giro di donne. So if you are interested in getting a coach. I say, talk to a couple of different ones.

Adios,
Matthew