Fixed Frequencies.

It's a strange quirk of my training program that I see far more of my gym trainer than I do my coach. I'm in the gym twice a week, and between sets there's a lot of time for us to chat. Most of the time this consists of idle gossip about other cyclists and occasional dissertations on physiology, but on Monday he asked me when track season finished. I told him it had finished on Sunday, and that I'm currently in the midst of two weeks rest before road season begins.

Today I found myself with a new gym program. Put simply, it's squats plus core, with a sprinkling of arms here and there. This may sound counter-intuitive, but I went beyond questioning his wisdom a long time ago. There is no blinder faith than mine, and I'm being rewarded with race results and plummeting TT times.

He's a seventy-one year old pensioner, thin as a whippet, who occasionally breaks into song. He once danced for Australia in some international competition. He trained in the modern pentathlon and was the Hawks running coach. He was a jumps jockey. He can still outlift me. He worked most of his life as an exercise physiologist, specializing in rehabilitation, and can name more muscles than I thought I had. He's fit more into one lifetime that most people could in five, and when he talks I shut the hell up and listen.