Coaching Confessions

As the number of people I'm coaching has grown from 1 (yours truly), to 2 (the wife), to 3 (my quasi-brother-in-law Chass Armstrong), and now to 5 (welcome to the team Liz and Caitlin!), I think it's good to reflect on my number one source of knowledge: mistakes that I've made. I like to think that part of the reason someone would trust me to plan their training and give them advice is that I fully accept responsibility for my own screw-ups. Being someone's coach, in my opinion, is more than just sending out some workouts and setting goal paces: it's keeping an eye on the big picture, and foreseeing problems before they happen. So with that in mind, let's take a look back at some classic Jeremy mistakes.

1. Coaching myself

I don't think this necessarily has to be a negative, I just haven't done a very good job on myself. I've changed I don't know how many workouts even after warming up, because there's no one else who knows or cares what workout I'm supposed to be doing. Don't feel like doing a tempo? Switch it to mile repeats. Supposed to do 6 mile repeats? Four is plenty. The fix for this is pretty simple. I need to bounce more of my own ideas off of Emily and Chass so that they're not crazy and/or stupid (if you give someone else a workout that's just dumb, they will likely tell you. But since I made the damn thing up, I might get halfway through it before I realize I'm being an idiot). I've also done a better job this year of recording what workouts I'm going to do in my log a week or two ahead of time, then sticking to that unless something major comes up. So I'd call this one improved.

2. Watch out for anemia!

More and more I suspect this has been an ongoing problem with Emily for the past year or so at different times. On July 20^th of last year she ran an 8 mile progressive run at 7 minute pace. This year on July 20th we did 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off and covered 9 miles at 6:39 pace. Her 5k race this summer was nearly a minute faster. Unfortunately it took a lot of struggling before either of us caught on that there might be a problem, as we would always put the blame on increased mileage, or needing more sleep. Around the same time that Emily got her test results back, Chass also realized that he was iron deficient. So that's two out of three athletes at the time who missed out on a big chunk of season. On the plus side, I will not make that mistake again. At the first sign of someone struggling to hit times they normally could, I am going to get to the bottom of it and make sure they don't spend any longer than they have to why things just seem a little “off”.

3. Remember strengths and weaknesses.

I can drastically increase my mileage and suffer nothing more than sore legs and drowsiness. This is not true of most people. It's easy to forget that things could go wrong when everything is going well, but you always have to be cognizant of what could go wrong. So I likely won't get a stress fracture. Neither will Chass. But he'll get sick if he trains a little too hard for a little too long, and I'll suffer hip and hamstring problems if I don't keep up with my stretching and general strength exercises. But damned if I don't forget to do those exercises when I'm running great, just like I forget which of my athletes is increasing their mileage just a little too quickly, because after all, their workouts are going amazingly well, so what's the worst that could happen? Well nothing this time, but I vow to always pay closer attention than I need to, because in my opinion the only way to have success in running is to stay healthy, consistent, and enjoy what you're doing, none of which is possible if your coach gets you hurt by upping the intensity and volume too quickly.

4. Be, dare I say it, inspirational?

I think the most important thing a coach can do is get their athletes to believe in what is possible for them: big things, even crazy, a little bit out there things. We've got five people now training seriously for fall races, and it is a distinct possibility that at least couple of them could run fast enough to qualify for the Olympic Trials Marathon in January. And even if that doesn't come to pass, I fully expect to see all five of us finish in the top 5 of our respective races at the San Antonio Rock and Roll marathon this fall (Liz, Emily and myself in the full, Caitlin and Chass in the half). When you're stuck in the down and dirty of day to day training, balancing working full time with getting your runs in, all the while doing your best to avoid the Texas heat, it's easy to forget that hard work can make magical things happen. Last year Chass ran PR's at every distance from 8k to half marathon in a single race! Emily once chopped 36 seconds off her 5k PR in one night! I think I need to do a better job of letting everyone know that they're doing great, and that big things are about to happen. Because I am completely confident that they are.