Coaching costs (Page 3)

I was trying to understand what you meant by value proposition, not that I couldn't answer the question

First off, I'm sorry you got hit by a car. I've been through that a few times, but not to your extent. I'm glad you're still with us.

As for your question to the coaches you've talked to, I agree that most coaches would say exactly what you've been told!

This is why over the past several years I've put together a team of coaches: Nutritionist, swim coach, bike fitter, PT, Strength coach, mental skills, run coach etc - so we can take an athlete, like yourself and have the team work with getting that person healthy enough across the board so that they can get back to doing what they love. In the past, I would say, "here's a PT I recommend" or "Here's a nutritionist we use" - then it finally occurred to me to bring all these skills on board to help the athletes we coach from head to toe.

Anyway - good conversation. Thanks!

What are we congratulating Mike about?

Ah....most excellent and well deserved.  Congratulations Mike! 

Some of the best advice I ever received as my son was starting triathlon came from Mike.....at no cost.  He was always willing to answer any PM and give his opinion/advice.  Great choice for the award!

DP - sorry

WOW - congratulations!

can I ask who it is? Thats really what is needed. References.  Not sure how this could be done, but a thread of real references would be most helpful.

Thanks LB! I appreciate it! Funny thing is, I didn't get the USAT Press Release. If someone didn't forward it to me, I wouldn't have known the news was public. Do you get the USAT emails?

Thanks Suzanne! I do owe you an email and should be back to by tomorrow at the latest.

Thank you Dina! Much appreciated!

Thanks Fred! I appreciate the kind words.

No school has moved on the NCAA movement - and certainly I have interest and would love to build a program from scratch. I helped do that at my first swim coaching job when I was 20 (as a very green assistant coach!). I'm not sure what's going to happen but I am guessing if schools are serious for 2014-2015, then would have coaches, budget, etc in place by the fall so they could recruit for the 2015-2016 season. Exciting times for sure for triathlon, but I'm hoping some schools get behind it and make it happen. 

I'd say you have a very unique situation. I think that coaching with power is a skill - it's easy to read a power file, but to actually know which workouts will help a rider isn't as easy as some people think. Sometimes it's science, but in my experience, many times, the difference comes down to being creative, going against the grain, and doing what your intuition tells you. I don't know that there is a $ that you can put on that, but experience goes a long way in coaching. The longer you coach, and for example, look at Jack Daniels, he's been at this for over 50 years - there isn't much that he hasn't seen. Not much is going to get by him in terms of 'new' issues.

That's why coaching is so much fun - you are constantly challenged by new athletes, new ideas, and being creative with workouts and trials/errors never get boring.

Actually, yes, I get the e-mails, but I've been too busy to read them the last few weeks.  In fact, I'm going to go back now and find it.

Mike -- First, congratulations on the USAT coaching honor! Well deserved. Any idea why schools are hesitating to move forward with the NCAA? Costs / budget constraints? Maybe they just need more time to set up a program? It does seem like a lot of work to get a new sport set up by Fall, 2014. Hopefully, the momentum doesn't get derailed because of unrealistic expectations...

I don't think $200-$400 is overpriced either if the value is there.  On average, I'm not seeing that value.  Most coaches are offering $50 worth of service for $200/month.  Why?  Because naive athletes pay it.  I implore athletes to do their homework if they make the decision to use a coach.  Would I pay good money to have Ricci coach me?  If I was inclined to find a coach then... Sure!   The problem is that the tri coaching industry is littered with coaches charging the same as Ricci but they have 1/10th his coaching ability and our sport allows this to happen.

As for participation, I'm in Houston which is a hotbed for triathlon.  Texas has the most USAT members of any of the 50 states.  More people live in Houston than in the entire state of Wisconsin.  I'm going to be very Texas-centric here and I can't speak for Wisconsin but I'd be surprised if Texas and Houston are seeing much different trends than everywhere else.  On the surface things look great.  Deep down they aren't.  The attachment rate/longevity for new triathletes is actually pretty low.  Participation is being fueled by first timers and bucket listers.  They have maybe 1-3 seasons in them and they're out and probably out forever.  We are not doing a good job creating lifetime athletes.  Those people are moving to mud runs and color runs and all that.

You're right, way more races exist today than they did 5 years ago.  That's also been problematic in that there are now too many races pulling from the same athlete pool.  I'd be willing to bet most of those races won't exist in a couple of years.  Triathlon exploded in popularity the last five years and people jumped on the bandwagon.  Problem was it was unsustainable growth and primarily fueled by very new participants.  That worked great for a couple of years but it seems the sport isn't able to hold on to those first timers and participation rates per race are dwindling.  That's certainly amplified by more races but it's also an issue of stagnant or lost athlete numbers from just a couple of years ago.

Problem is that much of the visibility of our sport is seen through Ironman colored glasses.  While smaller races are struggling for participants and struggling to stay alive, WTC just keeps rolling.  WTC is an enigma.  The parallels between what the UFC has done in MMA and what Ironman has done in triathlon are interesting.  They have both dominated and exploded in similar ways over the last 8-10 years.  Initially riding some kind of fitness and or fitness-entertainment (in the UFC's case)  trend and then continuing to thrive when the rest of the industry can't hack it.