PROthirteen athlete Shawnee Wandless has been crushing this season, and he attributes his success to PROthirteen cycling coaching and Head Coach Bart Lipinski. For today, Shawnee is all about the blog takeover…

Shawnee offers Praise for Cycling Coaching

Having been a cyclist for a long time, at times competitively I was struggling to find my purpose the bike (The Why) as one friend puts it. Having not raced in 4 years, and truly not knowing if I even wanted to race again.

I then took the tiny, but necessary step forward and started searching for a coach. If nothing else I had conceded that I needed to allow someone else to guide me instead of me guiding me and perhaps that would help me find (The Why) again. I have a busy stressful life and needed someone who understood that I'm 47.

I have a life outside of cycling. I might have a little fire left to be competitive but need help finding it. Most importantly I needed someone not to add unnecessary stress, yet would understand how to push me.

Insert PROthirteen and Bart Lipinski:

I found exactly what I was looking for when I was introduced to Bart. We met and set a plan in motion based on my goals (which were very vague) for the season ahead.

Bart put my mind at ease when he said "don't worry there is plenty of time, don't stress, you will be in good enough shape come summer that all WE will need to do is tweak your training and you will be ready for a race in only a couple weeks."

Wow, Ok, so all I have to do is trust the process and follow directions—sounds easy enough. That's just how simple I needed it to be!!!!

First Race:

Signed up for the local Wells Ave Training Crit Cat 3/4 B race which I had done many times when I was younger but hadn't raced it in 6 years for so. The mental battle of just signing up was brutal, wondering if I would even be able to compete with the group would I get dropped, what if I wrecked etc, lack confidence can be a serious killer.

Understanding that , I signed up regardless and set a plan in place to work out the nerves. Day of the race I rode 25 miles with my best friend to the race which really helped with the nerves and helped with the warm up for sure lol.

We arrived 5 min before the start with no time to think and off we went. The pace was a solid 25-27 mph with attacks and surges one would expect in a crit. I was tactically rusty, that's for sure, only more racing solves that. However, my fitness was not rusty, even after riding 25 miles to the race and trying to chase the break a couple times, plus the surges upon surges, the months of guidance and trust with Bart had without a doubt paid off.

I was in the mix and felt good for my first race in a long time. Although admittedly rusty and completely out of position I was able to sprint to a 10th place finish.

Goes without saying confidence has returned. Trust in the process is stronger, and the most important ( The Why ) is starting to become a bit clearer. Thanks Bart!

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