More Thoughts on Coaching

There are a few different types of coaches, and what they offer is typically driven by their pricing model. You want a cookie-cutter plan? That in and of itself doesn't constitute coaching. Writing training plans is not that difficult if you are good with Excel. Building training plans for a person like me who has a few actual key races but then wants to mix in all this other ridiculous (to some people) stuff is a little more complicated, but I've learned how to do it. Has the fact that I've chosen to add these other things to my schedule impacted my ability to race to my alleged potential? Probably, but it's also made me strong and able to keep pushing my own envelope. OK, that was an aside...

It's what goes along with the training plan, be it cookie-cutter or customized to you, that constitutes the actual coaching. What can that person teach you about how to manage yourself to go along with the training itself that will enhance not just your performance, but your progression in sport and life, assuming you've chosen to adopt triathlon/endurance training as a lifestyle? There are many aspects to that lifestyle, including but not limited to:

• Nutrition
• Body composition management
• Technique (swimming, especially)
• Recovery management (stress management, stretching, massage, general rest)
  
• Season planning
• Cultivating resiliency (which to me would include things like supplemental strength or functional training)
• Mental focus
  
• Race execution
  
• Injury prevention and management
  
• Equipment choice and maintenance
  
• Measuring, monitoring and goal-setting
  

It all depends on how geeked out you want to be. It's entirely possible to train for and compete in triathlons without being overly geeked out, but you can't avoid the geekiness altogether simply because you are doing three sports and it's not just as simple as running, biking and swimming. I often laugh at someone who claims to be "relaxed" about their training, since what it takes to get to that stage is a pretty good dose of geekiness!

Now, there are many good sources of all that extra information--books, the Internet, triathlon clubs, your friends--but when you are first starting out, getting a handle on it all can be a daunting task, so it really helps to have someone who can act as a mirror to you so you can have an idea of how you are doing and know when to integrate the various facets of geekiness.

What it comes down to if you are going to work with a coach is understanding what beyond the basic season planning and training plan construction you can expect. Also, know that almost any change in your training stimulus is going to make differences in your performance. You only get faster and stronger by continuously changing things up, and then there comes a point at which you've achieved your, let's call it "allowable," maximum speed, and from there on out you mostly just want to remain uninjured. Like me, for example, I can't and don't expect to get much faster at this point, and my objective is to not slow down too much for another few years.

Now, to expect one person to teach you and give you guidance on all those other geeky things is probably unrealistic. It would require almost daily contact, at least in your initial stages. This is why all these forums and websites have sprung up to preach the gospel of equipment this and nutrition that. Which is a good thing! But it does pay to have someone help you synthesize all that information into something meaningful for you. There is no one-size-fits-all.

I guess what I'm saying is that you need to decide how geeked out you want to be and then how long you want to take to get there, and then through a combination of self-study, mentor identification and possibly coaching, ramp yourself up and see what happens. So to me this is really about studying your body and your mind and putting it all together in a way that supports a particular type of sports habit. So decide how much you want to invest in yourself and then have at it.

When you look around at other athletes, you will notice that those you would consider successful are, in fact, quite geeked out, at least about themselves. They understand that there's a lot to this and that the training part is just a small piece of the equation, and they see this as a holistic effort.

When a person says they are unhappy with their coach, what it means is that, like in any business, their expectations weren't met. You need to be very clear with someone who says they are going to coach you as to what they specifically will be able to deliver to you vs. what you are going to need to do on your own. Your ultimate success or failure (however you define it) is going to depend on the sum of those two parts. And then there's personality and your own style of learning. Some people are OK with "DO THIS." I needed (and got) "DO THIS BECAUSE..."

There are all kinds of coaches out there, and even if you use one, remember that you are going to need to do a lot of work on your own, that no single person can know or teach you everything, and that you should seek out your personal Zen masters to show you the way.

Enough for now. Not that I'm geeked out or anything like that...