Teach, Train, Inspire, that is going to be my mantra for this year. Or maybe Learn, Train, and Be Inspired. This weekend was a great start on that path. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Barrie Shepley Former Canadian National and Olympic Triathlon Coach. In over 25 years of coaching, Shepley has helped to create over 100 national and international medallists in a number of sports. As a coach, Shepley led Canada into the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games where Simon Whitfield won his historic Triathlon gold-medal.
Barrie was in town as the keynote speaker at a dinner for the Canadian Club of Houston. The Houston Racing Triathlon Club “HRTC” also arranged for Barrie to lead a run workout and give a lecture afterward. Because I am still recovering from my recent surgeries I was unable to run during the track workout, but that actually worked out to my benefit. I followed Barrie during the workout and got to hear his comments and observations on the HRTC participants that were running. This is the “Learn” part, One of the philosophical distinctions he made to me was about the time ratio of dynamic warm-up to training session (20-25%), and his general observation that people train too much, and the quality of their training is poor. This couple hours shadowing Barrie reinforced many concepts, and theories that I had previously been exposed to, and have been using with our team. (Also, it was kind of funny because Barrie kept calling me “Coach”. I had forgotten that I was wearing our team windshirt that said “Coach” on it.)
Sunny and I attended the Dinner that evening as VIP guests and got a chance to spend more time with Barrie and have our picture taken with him and the Olympic torch he carried as part of the kick off for the 2010 Winter Olympics. His “rags to riches” coaching story, including a photo of Simon Whitfield’s broken down car, were very inspiring. I look forward to keeping in touch with Barrie and following his team.
