'Virtual' coaching - any experience/recommendations? (Read 853 times)

That's what this forum is for...... Open your log for viewing and start asking questions. I learned more here in 3 months than in the past several years by reading, asking, joining a user group with your goal, and posting. There are some seasoned runners here that are very open with their time and advice. And best of all its free. Well except for the donation we should provide Eric for such a great site. Save you coin for something improtant like a good IPA or Lager.

I learned more here in 3 months than in the past several years...

Amen to that!

Rlemert, What is your budget for an online coach? $30 a month or $100 a month? I asking not so much for me to coach you but to make some online recommendations of coaches I respect and have worked with. I mainly coach local people through word of mouth.

If all you are looking for is a schedule and someone to hold you accountable, you can accomplish that here for free. Online coaching has a few positive points, but IMHO many negatives. Usually the coach does not know you, no real good read on your history, and cannot see the results you get. So they cannot really adjust. Anything they can give you is more or less a canned schedule only paritally customized based on incomplete feedback. The first time I tried for the olympic trials I hired a former olympian. Things went pretty well, but when I got to the hard training where I was on the line between big gains and big overtraining, he could not see when I tipped over and could not see it based on my feedback. He got busy and our 2-3 times/week phone calls lapsed an the inopportune moment, further hurting his ability to read the signs. I overtrained and blew the race, fault on both sides but the communication barriers were one root cause. The second time I tried I hired one of the most well-known and reputable online coaches. What I got for even more money was pretty much a canned schedule, extraordinarily little communication, and training that was not at all adjusted based on the feedback I gave. Even as I overtrained the prescribed workout times got faster and faster. I gave up and cut him loose, recovered, and went back to training myself (resulting in PRs at every distance). What I learned from the experience was that I really knew what I needed to do and just needed to trust myself to execute. Now, you may not be in that position. However I'd highly recommend ANYONE local who knows something over a more reputable coach online.

RTW - I'll keep my eye's out for your when you "open your practice". I hope to set up a relationship fairly soon (while it's still cool enough to run comfortably), but you never know.

Good to hear! And @spaniel - I'm hoping when I offer my online coaching to be able to offer a customized enough experience to make it worth people's while. I haven't decided on an exact number of people that I'm going to coach yet, but it isn't going to be very many. I'll figure all that out in a couple weeks once my next marathon is out of the way and I have some time to organize everything.

Everyone - I can't open my log because I don't keep it here - it's currently on old-fashioned paper (you remember that stuff, don't you?). After the CoolRunning log debacle with Active, I've been very leery of keeping my log on-line. I have considered purchasing running log software to keep on my computer (where I have more control over it), but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

One nice thing about this site is that you can export your log on demand. If you want a good offline training log software, you don't need to buy it, you can just download it. Take a look at Sport Tracks: http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/ If you like it then I recommend sending them a donation. Not that there's anything wrong with paper. I used paper right up until a couple years ago and still have all of my old logs on my shelf near my desk.

Rlemert, If you want to communicate personally with me about this, please e-mail me: I can give you a couple recommendations based on what you want OR you may want to go local if you feel you can find a quality coach. Your call, just offering some feedback. Todd charnetski@earthlink.net

Blaine- Honestly assessing how much time you have to coach, and then limiting the number you coach to fit into that time, is a great first step. The problem of interactivity and seeing the results is still an issue however. I think for someone just looking for a schedule and basic guidance it is less of an issue. When working with experienced runners needing fine-tuning and full feedback it is a HUGE issue. Someone might tell you they did 8X800 in 2:30 each and it went well, but if you'd been there watching them you could have seen they were working it too hard. Stuff like that can make the difference. I think trying to coach too many was the issue with my 2nd online coach. The first went very well for several months while conversations for frequent, it was when he tried his own comeback that communications slackened and I ran into problems. I had a college teammate who took up coaching and I warned him that you should not coach until you were ready to give less than your best to your own running career. Sure enough he was a good coach but never PRed again. There is only so much time in the day...