The Relationship
The relationship you have with your coach is like no other. They support your development and celebrate your successes alongside you.
You put your faith in them to get you to the start of a race, over the finish line and beyond. And they’re as invested in that journey as you are. Your achievements are theirs. That’s what makes your relationship with them unique.
It is trust that lies at its foundation and, as coaches, we appreciate that’s something we need to earn from you, the athlete.
We begin to lay this foundation by making every effort to ensure that our journey together begins face-to-face, allowing us to build a stronger connection, understand your motivation and discover what it is that is driving you forward.
It’s this first meeting where we ask the two questions that shape the journey we’re embarking upon with you: what feelings do you want to experience, and how good do you want to be?
Understanding the scale of your ambition and what it is that drives you enables us to create an experience and a training programme that allows you to realise your full potential.
And getting to know the person behind the performance allows us to know when we need to push you further and when we need to down tools. It’s this human level of understanding that is at the heart of helping athletes break boundaries.
“Over time, it’s started to dawn on me that the relationship you build with your coach can be, and should be, a far more personal experience.”
The responsibility we hold within this relationship isn’t something we take lightly. After all, you’re putting your faith in our knowledge and experience to help you fulfil a goal. The goal.
The relationship we’ll build is integral to your ability to exceed even your own expectations. That’s why we allow it to grow organically. There’s no set limit on communication, it’s a process that is free-flowing, dependent on and driven by the person, not the numbers we write on a piece of paper. Of course, there are communicative protocols, like injury reporting, to make sure we don't miss a trick, but this should never be where our dialogue ends
We inform our conversations with knowledge gained from our interactions. To us, you’re not just a set of performance statistics. We take the time to understand commitments you have away from the sporting arena and priorities that lie elsewhere. We build upon what we observe, infer and know, and never allow ourselves to be caught in the trap of asking questions that we should already know the answer to. Like everything we do, our relationships are intentional.
“"Including rest and recovery days under ‘family time’ shows that my coach understands the priorities I have elsewhere that outweigh burying myself on TrainerRoad. They also mean that, when the time comes to clip in, get my head down and work, I’m ready, motivated and determined to push myself."
We continually build upon what we have built before by making ourselves available whenever you need us and by creating a safe environment where feedback, positive and negative, is always encouraged. And while that environment will often be inhabited by only you, through our Weekenders, Camps, Challenges and Seminars, you will inhabit it with others, helping us better understand you as a team player as well as an individual athlete.
While we build our relationship with you by earning your trust, maintaining it requires a raw honesty. We never shy away from it and we don’t expect you to either.
It’s something that can result in difficult conversations, but we know that avoiding them would be inevitably detrimental to your success. It’s why the relationships we build are bulletproof, designed to withstand conflict; sport is, after all, an emotional arena to spend time within.
And this honesty is a responsibility you must be ready to accept as well if things aren’t working as they should be; if the process doesn’t fit the person and the relationship comes to a natural end earlier than expected. We know break ups are never easy, but honesty is, at least, the cornerstone of amicability.
As well as the responsibility we have towards you as an athlete, we also have a responsibility towards you as a person. Part of fulfilling that is being mindful of the type of relationship we’re building. We never cease to care on a human level, but we never allow the connection we’ve nurtured to fall solely into the category of friendship. Perhaps it’s a harsh truth, but we are nothing if not honest. A boundary must exist for us to fulfil our role, and for you to fulfil your potential.
“Anyone who follows sport of any kind, professional or amateur, knows that mindset is essential to both physiological and psychological progress. So far, working with RÁS has provided me with both. And after all, isn’t that why we’re all here?”
Ultimately, it is only you that is on this journey. But when you’re supposedly the sum of the five people you surround yourself with the most, the importance of having the utmost faith in the people around you becomes apparent.
It’s about building trust, and it’s as true within sport as it is with life.
That’s why we’re here to live your journey alongside you.
