Coaching philsophy.

Had an interesting chat while swimming with Debbie, in our Tri/SwimFit group.

She ran the Red Deer marathon on May 22, and had what she felt was a terrible race. I asked her what feedback she got from her coach, and the reply was "Nothing". Her coach had given her workouts, and little else, unfortunately.

As I am building my personal philosophy for coaching (and my focus is the late onset athlete, like myself), I think this this is an important point. I believe that a coach should guide you to the best race possible. and you can't start by making assumptions, like the most common, Lack of Fitness is the problem. Workouts is the solution.

A coach/athlete relationship should begin with a discussion and examination of the athletes goals, including examinations of past goals, and achivements or failures, and some quick evaluation of the potential causes.

Then you start with inventive goal setting.

One thing I found to work well for me is inventive Goal Setting. For example, when I started running marathons I had no specific goal, other than upright and smiling, and perhaps more injury free. As I got faster, I starting setting goal times, that ultimately were not based on my fitness level. Then I got a little inventive, and starting making the goal "run a good last 10k".

First time I succeded at this, I ran a huge PB, and near boston qualifier.

The larger point to be made is that coaching the late onset athlete requires you to look at fixing specific problems, that are keeping the athlete from reaching the goals. Look at all the areas. Diet and nutrition should be discussed, if a problem the athlete is dealing with is Gastric Distress, and Bonking. Sloshy Stomach is not caused by having the wrong fitness level, but it will make the athlete run slower.