ironman without coaching? (Page 3)

ONE of the criteria I used.  If I get to choose between someone who has horrible times vs. good times, then heck yes I will use someone who has good times!

- Years of tri coaching experience

-  Good feeling when communicating, seems to read everything (some people don't!)

-  Good reviews from others re their coaching

-  Others have had good results with their coaching

-  Actually races

-  Has done multiple Ironmans (since my goal is an Ironman)

-  Good finishing times

-  Within my price range

There's a lot that goes on into choosing a coach.

Doesn't matter what talent you have, look at Lance, Lieto.  Push too hard, screw up the nutrition, get a bad race.  A sub-12 Ironman implies that you --probably-- know a thing or two about racing, at least enough to get to spend a month on you and see how it goes.  It definitely puts you in the radar to give you a try.  Someone who can run 50 miles straight probably knows a thing or two about pacing, listening to biological feedback, and endurance nutrition.

Talking to previous coachees and hearing that they improved after their coaching implies you probably know a thing or two about coaching.  There's great athletes who can't coach and coaches who don't know what they're talking about.  And viceversa.  But if you can take someone, coach them in triathlons, and they get better in triathlons, you just may know what you're doing in terms of coaching.

I really don't know why the above paragraphs are being so hard to get across.

Thanks, bought it!  $8 at Amazon I figured I'd get at least one good tip out of it  And I love triathlon books.  I've made a list of all tri books mentioned and plan to look at all of them.

My main reason for wanting to stick with a coach is that I have a "deadline" so to speak and it just makes me feel better to have some knowledge and experience to rely on.  I figure I have better changes of both finishing and finishing strong with a coach than without, not necessarily that it's the only way.

PSA

So I come home from work and am in the library and see the cover of the March issues of Triathlete magazine on the floor.  On there cover I read, "How to choose a coach".  How timely.

The article list things to consider such as does the coach communicate wll, has the coach worked with athletes in your AG and where are they located.  It then talks about qualifications, university education, certification from USAT, how long they've coached and how successful are they, experience, tri background, etc.

Not sure the March issue is still on the newstands....I think the April issues is out already. 

~Mike

 I think a part of being a coach is having experience doing what you're teaching.  So while good finishing times don't mean you can teach, they mean you have experience in the subject area.  It gives them hands-on experience, and gives you a feeling that they know what you're going through, so to speak.

So no, doesn't mean they can teach, but it means they have gone through it, and successfully, so it gives another dimension to their coaching.

You could make an argument that some of the BEST coaches in pro and collegiate sports today and in the past...most of them did not have very good athletic careers.  They may have played Division II or III, maybe a bench warmer at a powerhouse college...but a lot of them didn't even smell the pro ranks.

If you're going to pay someone like Bill Belichick millions of dollars to coach your pro football team...wouldn't you think having some knowledge of what it's like to play pro football would help?  I suppose 3 super bowl rings and 5 super bowl appearances says it doesn't have anything to do with having coaching success.

I have the same book.  I refer to it all the time.  BTW, I have taken the time to import a couple of the plans into BT (including an IM Level 3 Plan).  If you become a member, you can import them into your training logs like you do with the BT plans.  Just PM me and I can send you the CSV file.

Maybe you didn't say the exact words "fast racing means she's a good coach" but looking at those two sentences I read "fast racing means she's a good coach". The point people here have expressed, and I will repeat. You are making the typical rookie mistake of thinking race results of the individual has any impact on their coaching ability. You are implying a causality that does not exist. We can say it 100 times and unless you can accept that fact your opinion will not change. But as one of many data points, here are some quotes on a triathlon coach (from wiki)

 "the coach with the most formidable résumé in triathlon",^[2] "widely recognised as one of the best triathlon coaches",^[4] and "widely considered to be the best and most unorthodox coach in the sport".^[5]

I cannot completely confirm since his resume is not online but I am pretty sure has never even tried to do a triathlon. Wiki lists him as a bad swimmer at age 10 .. this same guy has multiple world champs in all distances. This list of coaches who have never raced or raced slow could be 100 deep, in all sports.