Week 1 - William Gates - Cycling/HWC

Cycling
My first week working with LWC Cycling has been fun and challenging. I have been put outside of my comfort zone several times with some of my duties, but that allows personal growth. The first week I was given the duty to contact potential recruits via facebook, email, and if need be by telephone. I have been in touch with over 15 potential student-athletes so far.
Another one of my duties and projects is to clean and prepare one of the cycling facilities, a shed, which will be turned into a station for LWC cyclists to work on and clean their bikes. The building is behind the Career Services Center and is a little white shed. There was a tree that had branches that were overlapping the entrance, so I had to contact the workers at Plant Services and have them trim down the branches to allow for easier accessibility. The shed was filled with leaves, garbage, and random junk. This past week I spent time cleaning the facility to make it look decent so we could continue onto the next phase of work in the shed. One of the next steps is going to be move all tools and things necessary for a bike work-station from the Cycling Center under the Project Success Center to the shed and arrange things in a manner that will allow for as much space as possible, while proving storage for home race items such as timing equipment, cones, flags, etc.
The fall mountain bike schedule is now prepared and the LWC home race is going to be the season opener in September. This means that there is much preparation to be done to our racing facilities to make sure that things are in good order when riders come back to school for the fall semester. I have also done logistical work submitting vehicle request forms for the fall mountain bike season, too.
One of the big projects I am working on is a record keeping system to keep track of every conference point that every student-athlete has ever earned while being a part of Lindsey Wilson College Cycling. This will let past, present, and future athletes know that they do matter and their efforts help the team. One issue that has come about is that our cycling team has been around for many years and the conference only has a recorded points archive from fall 2005 to present. Coach Grigsby and I are still working on how to get around the small road block because we would really like to include everyone that we can in the LWC conference points archive.
The special project that I will do for cycling is to develop two separate videos. One of the videos will provide footage of the roads and mountain bike terrain that is around here to show potential recruits that we have great training ground here. The second video will include a facilities tour. It will showcase the Holloway Health & Wellness Center, the weight room, the group exercise room, the hot tub and pool, offices for cycling, the Athletic Training offices, and more. There will also be some shots of the beautiful areas on campus, including the new dorms. There will also be a video interview with Dean Schmidt, who is a huge supporter of the LWC Cycling program. The idea of the video project is to show people who may never get the chance to visit exactly what we have available here.
The first week with Cycling was a success, now moving forward.
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Holloway Health & Wellness Center
I knew right from the get-go that my internship with the HWC was going to take off in a sprint. That is exactly what happened during the first week. I immediately knew that I was going to do for the internship since Joel and I talked about it what I would do. I would have three main projects: create a fitness incentive program, create a 5K training group, and create an actual 5K event.
I am creating an eight-week “Biggest Loser” type competition that is available for HWC members; the only catch is that only about 16 participants will be chosen. One of the first things that I had to do was come up with a name for the program. I came up with a couple different ideas, presented them to Joel, asked input of other HWC workers, and even asked some members, just to have feedback from all different sides. The name that stuck out the most and caught everyone’s eyes and ears the most was the “Flab2Fab Fitness Challenge”. Since the program starts May 31, 2011 all of the details need to be created and reviewed during the first week, and then finalized during the second week.
I created a flyer for the Flab2Fab Fitness Challenge and set the dates for the program, as well. It will be going from May 31, 2011 until July 26, 2011. I learned how to edit the Lindsey Wilson website, as well, and changed the Fitness/Wellness page and included the F2F challenge information and flyer on the website. During the first week I had to develop a fitness journal log that participants will use during the program. I also developed a sign-up sheet, an add-on to the personal training application that everyone who participates must fill out, parameters that contestants must agree with in order to participate, a list of informational seminars and team building exercises that will go on during the fitness challenge, and a program satisfaction evaluation survey.
Some of the challenges I faced during the first week included learning how to create a program that will be beneficial for participants but at the same time limit the number of participants that are allowed. During the first two days that we advertised the program and had a sign-up sheet available, we had 19 people put their name and information down. This means that there will have to be some sort of ‘challenge’ during the first night to find the 16 participants. In the program we are not looking for someone who has about five to ten pounds to lose and just needs help with it, although that is important, the program is intended for the people who have obesity issues and want to take a step in the right direction towards shedding the weight and learning how to make good, healthy life decisions.
The details of the 5K training program are still in the works, but it will be a six-week training program from June 11, 2011 until July 23, 2011. The actual 5K has been tentatively scheduled for July 23, 2011. The program will be intended for anyone in the community who wants to take a step towards completing a 5K or who wants to better their 5K time.
One of the things that makes me somewhat uncomfortable with my internship at the HWC is that for the programs I will have to contact numerous companies to ask for prize donations for participants. I will contact companies, but I might be nervous the first couple times I contact them, but I will get past it and get used to it, too.
Week two will provide new challenges and be equally as fun.