kaburns1214 Mentor Group 2011 Part 2 - CLOSED (Page 46)

Hagerstown, MD to DC - should be pretty hilly! We are looking forward to it - my husband is doing it with me and we are doing it together with a bunch of college friends!

I've actually been thinking about hiring a coach for next season.  Since I have so many time constraints and my children are so young, I've been looking into it.  I took my 2 oldest kids to the pool a few weeks ago and ran into one of the moms from Conrad's class.  We started talking about sports and triathlon.  Oddly enough, she's a triathlon coach.  LOL  I took a peek at her website.

Here are some of the things on her background page:

• 15 Years of Multi-sport Coaching
• 12 Years of Competitive Triathlon Experience
• 9 Time Ironman Finisher (including Hawaii)
• The Mohican 100 Mile Trail Run Finisher
• USA Triathlon Team Member-Long Distance World Championships Team
• United States Triathlon All American

Here are her certifications:

United States Triathlon Level 1 Certified Coach

United States Triathlon Level 2 Certified Coach

USA Cycling Coach

NESTA Advanced Personal Trainer

NESTA Certified Personal Trainer

She told me she KQd twice.  She wasn't trying to sell me on anything....I was just curious. 

How would I know if a coach were right for me? 

Oh, yes, here is what her coaching includes:

Coaching Program includes:

• One on One Coaching with Certified USTA Level 1 & 2 Coach
• Unlimited Continuous Communication via phone, email, text or appointment
• Customized Detailed Workouts Designed to your Individual Needs, Goals & Schedule.
• Posted Weekly Individualized Training Schedules
• Personal Weekly Intentions Posted in Training Peaks
• Review of Training and Racing Performance Goals as needed
• Mental Training from the inside out for Race Day (initiated by client)
• Training Peaks training log – your online Training Tool at no charge
• Heart Rate Testing for Bike, and Run
• Swim Stroke Analysis & Pacing
• Customized Swim Workouts
• Organized Group Workouts
• Race Day Nutrition
• Pre Race & Race Day Plan and Individual Race Strategy
• Post Race Evaluation

You hit the nail on the head

So I've been kind of down lately with work and a pending business trip in the near future.  I'm supposed to be going to the Philippines in August for two weeks.  It's 4 weeks out from my IM, and the middle weekend I'm there is the last (and biggest) volume weekend.  The timing couldn't be worse.  I'm being told that they have "state of the art" workout facilities in the hotel we will be at, but they don't understand that I need to be riding & running outside, not indoors.

At this point I can't really do anything about it, except figure out a way to make it work.  Any advice?

While I have never had a coach, I would add that it is a 2-ways street.  Don't hire one unless you can fully committ to the workouts - not worth the money if you can't or don't and a coach don't want to work with people who can't committ or don't make the efforts.  Also, you need to communicate with your coach on a regular basis so they know what is going on with you mentally, physically, psiologically, etc.  They can't help you get the most out of you if you don't communicate.

I only mention this because I have a friend that hired a coach I told her about at $250-$300/month.  She misses alot of her workouts and never leaves any comments as to how the workouts went.  Since she has not been communicating the coach hasn't really adjusted her workouts and now she is seriusly behind on IMWI training.

A coach can't possibly know what's going on if you don't speak --- the great thing about having a coach would be having the ability to focus on training without thinking about the training. 

You really need to talk to her athletes.  I think fit is hugely important.  Someone can be a fantastic coach but if the fit isn't there, its not going to work. 

I will say that the USAT Level 2 certification is a good thing.  Level 1 certification is a weekend long seminar with an open book take home exam, not a big deal.  Level 2, however, requires submitting portfolios of your client's performance, training plans and observation of the coach coaching.  Its a much higher bar and really means something.

This may sound nuts but try cross training while may lose some volume you will shock you muslces into growth. Bring a copy of the p90x and get one of those trx straps and train hard with little rest between sets and you may be happy with the results. Anyway just a thought.

and if they are physically present , they yell insults at you during the workout and then tell you you did great after.  Also, they can comment on form and technique which suffer when you are tired, and tweak your gear. 

I've done some coached group training whcih are great but having someone email me plans and have text message chats about my power curve would have limited utility IMO.

I think this is the key benefit of a coach.  Not someone to tell you to do the things that you already want to do, but to tell you to do things that you don't want to do.

Coaches....Oh boy....I don't even know where to start, this will be a long post. Lets start with "I am self coached or lack thereof", that is about as neutral a statement that you will ever get out of me, my world operates in black or white, the only gray is between your ears. A quote that gets tossed around frequently and I know is dear to Bryan's heart comes from a movie character, Yoda, and he so eloquently put it to Luke "do or do not, there is no try". That being said, and this may seem a bit arrogant, but i am never one to split hairs, i am different in genetic makeup than most people, and believe me genetics has more to do with ability to perform than any level of work ethic will ever have. Not to say that those who work hard won't be successful, there are lots of those. I come from an athletically gifted family on the physical level, mentally my family has always been on the short side of genetics, me included. A little background on me from early in rudedog days, bear with me if i have not lost you yet, I was small, usually the smallest in my class, i was ADD and hyperactive as a child, and still to this day the people who actually know me know i run hot and fast, my mother reminds me of this to this day. I was on multiple medications as a child, some of which i believe stunted my growth early on, i hit puberty late and was always the little dog in the fight, from an early age, i was constantly reminded that i lacked the physical makeup to be a good athlete, i used this to motivate myself to achieve things i should not have been able to do. I found that whatever sport i did, i could excel. When i was small i would excel at things that my lack of physical size would otherwise allow me to, i could run like a deer i was the HS miler and ran mid 4 minute miles, i also weighed 105lbs, got into racquetball and wrestling, started each on the bottom of the food chain, my wrestling coach even told me i would never be a good wrestler and i should seek another sport, I was playing low level pro racquetball by 18 and i loved wiping the grin off my coaches face as he awarded me the "wrestler of the year" award my senior year, knowing full well he did not want to give it to me but had to, i was 130lbs. As i got older, my body started to catch up to everyone else, too late for college, but not too late to make a run at top level adult athletics, i played "A" semi pro softball, i was the power hitter and cleanup man on the team (i was approaching 200lbs), after 7 years and a lot of traveling i took up golf, by my fourth year i was a single digit handicap, the effect of complacency and life put on a lot of weight to my body, i was up to 262lbs by the time i realized what had happened. Lotsa money and time spent in bars and doing stupid stuff. When i started Tri's, that is where i was, but the template was always there, the genetic makeup that i was gifted to have from my parents had to persevere, so i started training...alone.

Now to the point of the post and to answer Kelly's question.

In the beginning (3 years ago) because of size and lack of physical endurance that is required from this sport, i had many setbacks, disappointments and multiple injuries due to running. I was going too hard too soon, basic mistakes a newbie makes, my mind would tell me to do something that my body could not achieve, so I ignored the body and got hurt again. At some point in your life you mature, for me as in my childhood, it took me longer than most to achieve this, but at that point i realized that in order to do what my mind is telling me i "could" do, i would have to better prepare my body to get there, so i did, and am still doing. This is where i believe a "coach" would have been beneficial, he could have told me to do things differently, and i would more than likely have avoided set backs and injury, but I learn from my mistakes, or would hope to believe i do. The problem i have with a coach is because of my past, too many have told me i "could not or should not" so there is always that shadow of doubt in my mind about a coach, they do not normally know your genetic makeup, your mental ability, your desire to push through the barriers in your mind to get to the next level, over my life i have always found a way to dig just a little deeper, especially when it mattered most, i still dig to this day. I do fail, if you do not, you do not learn. I always try to prove someone wrong if they doubt what i can do, it is what I am, it is how i trained my mind to think, it is what is ingrained in my genetics. I personally would require a very special coach, they would have to be more than a payment and a plan and how do you feel today type person, it is something that i know i cannot afford right now, and it will be a limiting factor in my progression in the future. I have picked the easy fruit from this sport, i have lost most of the weight (currently 210), worked on base fitness so that i don't get hurt when i push myself, and continue to try to improve myself as a Triathlete and bike racer through hard work and mental reserve. But genetics only gets you so far, at some point you need someone to step in who realizes your potential and say "lets take a few steps back to go multiple steps forward". Someone who "knows" you, as a person and an athlete, i do not believe that you can get that from a general virtual "coach" and that is where my mental deficiencies of my genetics take hold. At this point in my life I am not sure if i want to make that leap of faith, as i get older I realize some things are just more important than others (family and life in general), maybe it is a sign that i am still maturing. Where i used to be in "tunnel vision" mode in my pursuit to become more than good, the flame is dimming and the fire is not quite as hot as it used to be, but it still burns pretty hot. I hope you enjoyed a look into the enigmatic window of my life.

Short answer to a very long post is yes a coach can be very beneficial, but you have to have the right coach for YOU, otherwise you are wasting time and money.

Rudy's post (in an easier to read format):

Coaches....Oh boy....I don't even know where to start, this will be a long post. Lets start with "I am self coached or lack thereof", that is about as neutral a statement that you will ever get out of me, my world operates in black or white, the only gray is between your ears. A quote that gets tossed around frequently and I know is dear to Bryan's heart comes from a movie character, Yoda, and he so eloquently put it to Luke "do or do not, there is no try". That being said, and this may seem a bit arrogant, but i am never one to split hairs, i am different in genetic makeup than most people, and believe me genetics has more to do with ability to perform than any level of work ethic will ever have. Not to say that those who work hard won't be successful, there are lots of those.

I come from an athletically gifted family on the physical level, mentally my family has always been on the short side of genetics, me included. A little background on me from early in rudedog days, bear with me if i have not lost you yet, I was small, usually the smallest in my class, i was ADD and hyperactive as a child, and still to this day the people who actually know me know i run hot and fast, my mother reminds me of this to this day. I was on multiple medications as a child, some of which i believe stunted my growth early on, i hit puberty late and was always the little dog in the fight, from an early age, i was constantly reminded that i lacked the physical makeup to be a good athlete, i used this to motivate myself to achieve things i should not have been able to do. I found that whatever sport i did, i could excel.

When i was small i would excel at things that my lack of physical size would otherwise allow me to, i could run like a deer i was the HS miler and ran mid 4 minute miles, i also weighed 105lbs, got into racquetball and wrestling, started each on the bottom of the food chain, my wrestling coach even told me i would never be a good wrestler and i should seek another sport, I was playing low level pro racquetball by 18 and i loved wiping the grin off my coaches face as he awarded me the "wrestler of the year" award my senior year, knowing full well he did not want to give it to me but had to, i was 130lbs. As i got older, my body started to catch up to everyone else, too late for college, but not too late to make a run at top level adult athletics, i played "A" semi pro softball, i was the power hitter and cleanup man on the team (i was approaching 200lbs), after 7 years and a lot of traveling i took up golf, by my fourth year i was a single digit handicap, the effect of complacency and life put on a lot of weight to my body, i was up to 262lbs by the time i realized what had happened. Lotsa money and time spent in bars and doing stupid stuff. When i started Tri's, that is where i was, but the template was always there, the genetic makeup that i was gifted to have from my parents had to persevere, so i started training...alone.

Now to the point of the post and to answer Kelly's question.

In the beginning (3 years ago) because of size and lack of physical endurance that is required from this sport, i had many setbacks, disappointments and multiple injuries due to running. I was going too hard too soon, basic mistakes a newbie makes, my mind would tell me to do something that my body could not achieve, so I ignored the body and got hurt again.

At some point in your life you mature, for me as in my childhood, it took me longer than most to achieve this, but at that point i realized that in order to do what my mind is telling me i "could" do, i would have to better prepare my body to get there, so i did, and am still doing. This is where i believe a "coach" would have been beneficial, he could have told me to do things differently, and i would more than likely have avoided set backs and injury, but I learn from my mistakes, or would hope to believe i do.

The problem i have with a coach is because of my past, too many have told me i "could not or should not" so there is always that shadow of doubt in my mind about a coach, they do not normally know your genetic makeup, your mental ability, your desire to push through the barriers in your mind to get to the next level, over my life i have always found a way to dig just a little deeper, especially when it mattered most, i still dig to this day. I do fail, if you do not, you do not learn. I always try to prove someone wrong if they doubt what i can do, it is what I am, it is how i trained my mind to think, it is what is ingrained in my genetics. I personally would require a very special coach, they would have to be more than a payment and a plan and how do you feel today type person, it is something that i know i cannot afford right now, and it will be a limiting factor in my progression in the future.

I have picked the easy fruit from this sport, i have lost most of the weight (currently 210), worked on base fitness so that i don't get hurt when i push myself, and continue to try to improve myself as a Triathlete and bike racer through hard work and mental reserve. But genetics only gets you so far, at some point you need someone to step in who realizes your potential and say "lets take a few steps back to go multiple steps forward". Someone who "knows" you, as a person and an athlete, i do not believe that you can get that from a general virtual "coach" and that is where my mental deficiencies of my genetics take hold.

At this point in my life I am not sure if i want to make that leap of faith, as i get older I realize some things are just more important than others (family and life in general), maybe it is a sign that i am still maturing. Where i used to be in "tunnel vision" mode in my pursuit to become more than good, the flame is dimming and the fire is not quite as hot as it used to be, but it still burns pretty hot. I hope you enjoyed a look into the enigmatic window of my life.

Short answer to a very long post is yes a coach can be very beneficial, but you have to have the right coach for YOU, otherwise you are wasting time and money.

Kelly Burns is banned, is Kelly Gallagher banned also?? Just a minor technicality.

Rudy also makes really good ribs. 

Thank you for sharing, Rudy. 

I often wonder if it would be fun anymore if I hired a coach.  It's great stress relief, and I'm in the best shape of my life.  

I am such a newbie at cycling and running though, so it's appealing to me to have some local support to help me learn these sports.  I want to make good use of my time, because it is time I am taking away from my children and my husband.  I am VERY competitive though, and it's hard sucking so bad at these running races.  I just have to tell myself that it will take years of running for it to feel natural.  Anyway, these are the thoughts running through my head.  

Okay so on the coaching....  For the last 4 or 5 years being a personal trainer has been in the back of my head.  I'm not much for the office life, I just do it because it draws a check and I'm supposed to.  Since then I've been waiting to see if this enjoyment of all things fitness related and the science/art of excelling at fitness related endeavors would go away.  It hasn't.  It's grown.  Before tris I started researching lifting programs and why they worked.  Fitness regiments and why they worked.  Now I'm really into the art and science of tri training.  So NASM has been on the table for years and is something you can sustain yourself at if you get outside the big box gym realm.  Triathlon is a fairly new addiction for me and USAT certification isn't something that costs an arm and a leg, so why not.

As far as coaches go, I've had good in my life and I've had REALLY bad.  The way I see it good coaches make an assessment of clients.  What their goals are, what their potential is, and find a way to help them accomplish what it is they want if at all possible.  There will be times client's can't accomplish what they want to (see 20 min mile girl) or there are times they have the ability to accomplish much more.  I like having coaches.  A second pair of eyes to look at what I'm doing.  Someone to push me to do work when I feel like being lazy because honestly I need a good kick in the rear end sometimes.

Business wise, lets face it whether or not coaches are needed for the vast majority of triathletes the business is out there if you hustle.  I moderate a fitness board and see run of the mill Joes hire high profile trainers on a daily basis hoping just to look better, not even compete.  It's the same here from what I've seen over the past year. 

I have to disagree with you on this Jeff.

When you think about the sports that most frequently involve live coaches, those coaches are there to either coordinate movements among a team of competitors or to finesse an athlete's fine motor skills.  You are correct that you likely would not benefit from someone emailing you hitting instructions but you wouldn't want to waste a coach's time to sit and watch you spin your pedals either.

Once your bike is properly fit, your primary focus is on maximizing your muscular endurance not tweaking your pedal stroke.  Watch a swim coach working the pool deck.  They aren't critiquing every swimmer's stroke on each lap.  They are coordinating the proper workout to maximize swim fitness.

When you are dealing with swimming, biking and running, the only difference between a coach physically being alongside you versus being remote is a matter of who hits the lap button on the stopwatch. 

If Molly wants to see how my workouts went, she simply has to look at my GPS data.  From my Garmin file, she can see whether I was slowing down b/c I was climbing a hill or because my body was shot.

Look at the association of Chris Carmichael and Lance Armstrong.  Carmichael was able to train Armstrong remotely simply because Armstrong sent his Garmin file to Carmichael after every key workout for analysis.

More information can be gleaned from a single GPS file than you may think.  After major races, Jesse has each of his athletes provide their files for grading and can tell exactly what was happening to them, even though he was not right next to them.  It's not magic.  It's knowing what to look for and how different pieces of data fit together to create the whole picture.  (Here is Jesse's analysis of Cait Snow's 2:56 Kona marathon from 2010. Link )

On the other side of the equation, I have seen a number of coaches who have neither the ability to interpret data files nor the capability to adapt an individual athlete's training structure based on the physiological responses of that athlete.  I knew 3 athletes in Tampa (a 240# guy, a 105# female and a 170# female) who had the same coach and all of them had the exact same training plan.  After seeing what they were doing, I immediately recognized that the coach was doing nothing more than copying the workouts verbatim from the Triathlete's Training Bible without adjustment.  For those simple secretarial skills, he was charging them over $150 per month.

Recognize though that my examples of Molly, Carmichael and Jesse are all high-end coaches with specific experience.  That is something you will not find in every coach and that is why selecting a coach requires more than just a question of what pricing plans the coach offers.

Amusingly enough, I think your situation is a really good reason to have a coach.  You need to move things around to account for the fact that you'll be in the Philippines (how much would it cost to bring your bike and a trainer?) and its tough to make those types of decisions yourself. 

I'll take a look at the Don Fink plan and see if I can offer any suggestions -- my guess is you'll need to "peak" before you go, try your best to maintain while you're gone and NOT over do it when you get back, remember this is a 20 week plan, nothing you do in a week is going to make or break you out there).  What I would suggest right now is to invest in a set of swim cords (they're like $30) and you can use them to replicate swim workouts, which will probably be the toughest of all three to get in. 

I believe it costs the same as IMTX and you don't have travel costs for IMTX.  I mean, wouldn't it look good on your coaching resume that you had a solid IM finish?

Good one!!!  Sign up, sign up! =)

I thought the same thing about a coach, now would be a good time for one.  I just can't afford it, we've got a kid in college, and I really can't see spending the money on a coach.

I received an email today that the recommendation is 4 weeks minimum now, so I'm either going to have to say NO, or tell them if they want me to go it's going to have to wait until mid to late September.  I don't think that will go over very well, but I have been planning this since Sept. last year and this trip was never remotely discussed until recently.  So...I'm going to stop stressing and stop losing sleep over.  (It's just unfortunate timing because I think this could be a really cool opportunity to visit a place I probably would never visit.)  It will all work out somehow.