Like clockwork, with six week until race day I’m feeling like a rag. The miles are piling up and I’m feeling it, but I also know that’s all part of the process. So I’m not letting it get to me.
You want to know what helps the most, though? Having a coach. It absolutely, positively removes any self-doubt I might have about how my training is going, whether I’m doing too much or not enough, and whether I’ll be ready on race day. It’s simple: I trust my coach that he knows what he’s doing. I know that barring any unexpected setback or injury over the next six weeks, on April 18 I will toe the start line at Hopkinton as prepared as I can be. That, to me, is worth every penny and then some.
Whether to hire a running or triathlon coach is a personal decision. Much of it has to do with cost and coaching style. Depending on where you live and how involved the coaching relationship will be, it might cost you anywhere from $100 to $250 a month. Some coaches will work with you one-on-one, sending you a training schedule weekly and communicating with you at least a few times a week, making updates to your schedule as needed. Others will send you a monthly schedule and check in with you up to once a week.
Either way, working with a coach can be beneficial for runners of all ability and goals, from running their first marathon to qualifying for the Boston Marathon, or more.
A coach brings to the table:
1. Experience.
Let’s say you’ve been running for a year, have roughly 500 miles of “experience,” including a few 5K and 10K events. You’re ready to tackle your first half marathon. Should you hire a coach?
Maybe. For your first long-distance race, assuming you will not have a specific time goal, you might use a cookie-cutter plan you found online and do just fine. But things happen. Travel, family events or a busy schedule at work might prevent you from doing a key long run. You might have to skip a week or two because of illness. What to do then? A less experienced runner might, for example, decide to “make up” for a missed long run by doing it a few days later, not giving themselves enough time to recover for their next long run.
Working with a coach will, at the very least, adjust your training plan properly to accommodate missed training in a way that will not get you injured. Not to mention, you have someone to ask questions: and we know that when you are faced with the gargantuan task of running 13.1 or 26.2 miles for the very first time, you have many of those.
2. Objectivity
Let’s say you’re an experienced runner. You’ve run several marathons and have improved your finishing time with each one. But now you’ve hit a plateau. You know what you’re doing — or you think you know what you’re doing, but for some reason your times are not improving. A coach will be able to objectively review your training for the last weeks or months and see things you might be unable to see or admit. Maybe you’re running your easy runs too hard, maybe you’re not running hard enough. Maybe you’re racing too much. These are things that we, as runners, often refuse to admit because they’ll force us to change our habits. A coach will have no trouble pointing out where and how you need to change if you want to improve.
3. Accountability
There’s nothing like knowing that your coach will be reviewing your training week to motivate you to go out and nail those intervals or hill repeats, right? And yes, friends can be great motivators and running with them is free. But have you ever found yourself talked out of a hard hilly run in favor or an easier one because your running partner isn’t feeling like hills today? Working with a coach will keep you motivated and accountable.
4. Planning
It’s priceless, really, to not have to think about your training. Every day, you know what you need to do — and you know that if for some reason you cannot do it, your training schedule will be updated to accommodate your life. You don’t get that from cookie cutter training plans, and you certainly don’t get it when you make your own training schedule.
I’ve been running races for 13 years and running for nearly 25. I coach runners myself (I’m an RRCA and USATF Level 1 certified coach). But when it comes to my own training, I put it in the hands of my coach. I trust him completely.
Now, let’s say you’ve decided to hire a coach. Month after month, you pay a person to tell you how to train. Both of you have a vested interest in you succeeding. So how do you make the most of your relationship?
1. Be honest and transparent
Tell your coach everything that is relevant to your training. Past injuries. Current injuries. Tiny pains that you think may be turning into an injury. Dietary limitations. Schedule conflicts. Goals. Hopes and dreams. If it has anything to do with your training – anything – do not hide it.
2. Be accurate and update your training log on time
Just as it is important to you to have your weekly training plan on time, it is important to your coach to know how your training is going! When you work with a coach, you will share a training log document of some sort, where you will log all your sessions. Do it as often as possible! Don’t wait for days or weeks to report how each run has gone, and be as detailed as your coach has asked you to be: pace, time, effort level, tell all.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions
There is no such thing as a stupid question. Really. Depending on how often you communicate with your coach, write down and send him or her any questions that come to mind about your training. If it is within their scope of expertise to answer, they will. If it isn’t, they will refer you to the appropriate specialist, be it a registered dietitian, chiropractor or physical therapist.
4. Do what your coach tells you to do
Trust your coach. You hired them because you believed that they can help you get better. But they cannot do that if you’re not following their plan. If you find yourself questioning your coach’s decisions and don’t really trust them – it’s time to break up and seek help elsewhere.
Boston Marathon Training, 6 Weeks to go
Speaking of trusting the coach and the process, here’s what I did last week:
Monday: Long run, 17 miles. I didn’t do one the week before because of travel, so we moved it to Monday. (See? Flexibility.)
Tuesday: Easy day: morning swim (2000 yards) and an easy 45-min run in the afternoon, 5 miles.
Wednesday: Morning: 60-minute fartlek. After a 15-minute warmup, I did 4x 1:30 min on (tempo effort), 1:30 min off; then 4x 1 min on/ off; 4x 45 sec on/off, and finally, 4x 30 sec on/ off. A total of 7 miles.
Afternoon: A very easy 40-min run, 4 miles.
Thursday: Hilly run, 1 hour – 7 miles. First 45 minutes at steady pace in the hills, followed by 15 min cooldown on the flatter road, and a few strides.
Friday: Easy day. Morning swim (2000 yards) and an easy 45-min run in the afternoon, 4.7 miles. Felt slow, sleepy and sluggish all through.
Saturday: Trail run, easy effort; 8.2 miles in just over 1:20 hrs, and 780 ft of climbing. It started raining, too; though luckily the real downpour did’t begin until I got back into the car!
Sunday: I was supposed to do another long run here, but as my coach correctly observed, I was looking pretty dead on Saturday, so we pushed it until Monday. An easy 45-min run instead, with a few strides at the end, for a total of 5 miles.
Total mileage: 58.4
This is the most miles I’ve run in a week, ever. So it’s little surprise that I’m feeling fatigued. (Although, as I write this, I’ve already done the long run that got postponed, nailed it, and feeling much better. Tell you more about that next week!)
Do you work with a coach? I’m curious to hear about it!
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