Responding to change.

At a training session the other night at the velodrome we were using one of the pace bikes to do 500m sprint efforts. We had a good experienced coach that night , so when the motorbike broke he was prepared to change the course of the session. We were told to put smaller gears on so that we worked harder to keep the same pace and then the session was changed due to the fact that we no longer had the ability to do above max efforts. This reminded me for my own coaching how a good coach needs to be adaptable. Our coach would of course had his own plan for the night , but with the change in circumstances the session needed to be adapted but still needed to meet the target aims. This was a reminder that although it is good to create a session plan you must have more knowledge and ability than this. Anyone can read off a sheet and move through bullet points , but a good coach needs to think on their feet and react to situations quickly , so this was a good reminder to think of back up plans and alternate methods / sessions for the future.
Not preparing is preparing to fail.