Tim Heemskerk

The past week we had a successful EC in Haifa, Israel, with a bronze medal in the junior men's race and a silver medal in the U23 men's race. All races were performed in hot conditions but we were well prepared and acclimatized for the races. In the Team Relay we came about 30 sec short for bronze. Personally it was an overall positive experience for me during my first EC XCO as a coach.

Man..I do look tired!

The past few months I have been busy with my new job meaning I did not have much time to update my homepage. I suggest following me on Twitter since I do update my Twitter account more regularly. Check it out: http://twitter.com/TimHeemskerk

As of January 1st I will start my new job as National Coach MTB of The Netherlands. As a result of that I will cease my activities related to TTP. I would like to thank everyone that was part of the TTP venture in the past. It was really nice to see almost everyone reach their set goals for the respective seasons, and perform at their best potential (for the presented circumstances) while being part of our trip. I will carry all these memories with me in my new job! Take Care!!

Nieuwegein, 17 december 2009 – De Koninklijke Nederlandsche Wielren Unie (KNWU) stelt Tim Heemskerk (33) aan als nieuwe bondscoach mountainbike. Heemskerk scout, coacht en begeleidt vanaf 1 januari 2010 de nationale selectieleden in het Olympisch traject richting Londen 2012. “De KNWU heeft gestreefd naar een talentvolle jonge groep bondscoaches rond de Olympische disciplines. Met de aanstelling van Tim Heemskerk is deze compleet en kunnen we vooruitkijken,”vertelt technisch directeur Thorwald Veneberg.

Heemskerk is afgestudeerd bewegingswetenschapper en is de afgelopen vijf jaar in Edmonton, Canada actief geweest met zijn eigen coach-bedrijf TTP. Renners die hij heeft begeleid zijn onder andere Yvo Custers (NL), Ryan Hopping (CAN), Cody Canning (CAN). Daarnaast is hij in Canada actief geweest als organisator van verschillende wedstrijden voor jeugd. “Tijdens mijn verblijf in Canada ben ik het Nederlandse mountainbiken blijven volgen. Ik heb diverse talenten aan het werk gezien en zie erna uit om met ze naar mooie prestaties toe te werken,” aldus Tim Heemskerk. In zijn actieve carrière als renner was Heemskerk onder andere lid van de Nederlandse selectie voor EK en WK in 2002 en in Canada won hij diverse prijzen waaronder de Alberta Mountainbike Cup en ongeveer 60 wedstrijden in 4 seizoenen.

bron: www.knwu.nl

A difficult thing to coach is Self Motivation: the initiative to continue a task or activity without another’s prodding or supervision.

Today Maarten and me and our team helper Lars traveled all the way to the south to participate in a MTB race over 1 hr in Meijel. It was a very FAST course without any technical riding but still fun to fly low on this course with many corners. Due to no previous participation we had to start behind the riders with a classification and a resulting call up. It took me about 1.5 laps to get to the lead group of about 8 riders and 2 laps after that the group split in 2 and we got away with 4 riders with about 20 min to go. The next lap I accelerated through the trees and we were left with 3 people. During the last 2 laps the pace went down and the winner was going to be decided between the 3 of us. I was not riding so smooth anymore after not being in competition for a while now, see previous post. During the last lap Gody Jacobs accelerated and I made one small mistake which cost me and Leon Crienen the win. Gody rode fast over the last long stretch of the course and it was impossible to close this gap in the last 1 km of the course so we settled for 2nd and 3rd. Leon finished 2nd and I rolled in right behind in 3rd. A fun race and good competition especially by Leon Crienen who is a real specialist in these winter series winning quite some race lately in this winter series. As for myself I am happy I was able to be in the mix this time of the year. I have not been competing much lately and am following a "new and sophisticated" periodization plan according to the latest training models and cycling research. In summary: it is the usual and common base training during base period for the spring and summer time, alternated with boosts of aerobic, anaerobic and explosive (lactic and a-lactic) efforts. It is really important, however, to apply those in the right ratio's. This formula has already proven to be really successful for pro- athletes. Maarten, our team manager, raced really well too. With only a few hrs of training a week he was able to finish 6th after not competing for months. It also show the new plan works greatly! Maybe a career shift for him?