Puttin' on the foil
Sup, fellas. This thread got my attention because my wife says to me the other day - "I think you should get a coach." I have been self coached my entire life and have always taken great pride in that. But here I am at the age of 43 and so far this year I have PR'd my 10k run time, my 12k run time, my half marathon run time and my half ironman time. Not trying to brag, but I feel like I am ready to take this shit to another level. I think my wife is right and I have decided to consider getting a coach. The big problem for me is getting to the decision that I am ready/willing to be coached. That I can get a schedule from someone and discipline myself to follow it. My problem will not be in missing workouts, it will be in adding them, or making a 15 mile run in a 20 miler and so on. Between you and me (and the rest of the internet) I think my wife feels like I do too much and that I would do better with a "train smarter" approach. Since I don't know exactly how to do that, I am considering her advice.
Right now I have narrowed my search down to two coaches. I had to weed out all of the people holding themselves out as "coaches" just because they finished an IM or maybe qualified for Kona once or twice. I'm not going to pay a "coach" if his PR is slower than mine. Of the two coaches in the running, one costs $150 per month and the other costs $189 per month. One guy (Keegan Williams) lives in New Zealand and just did an 8:14 IM with a 2:46 run split in 2010. The other guy (Scott McMillan) is retired from racing but had some spectacular results in the late 80s/early 90s. I will let you know how this all turns out. McMillan live in Penticton, which is about a 4 hour drive from where I live in Spokane. I would be able to go to some of his "camps" without too much trouble or expense.
About the swimming questions... First, I have struggled mightily to become a swimmer that can best be characterized a "slightly above average." My swim time at Boise 70.3 was the slowest out of the guys who were in the top 10 amatuers. I think I was 11th. I out ran all of them, but it's hard to start on the bike 5 minutes behind athletes like that and expect to make up that amount of time. My approach has been to treat swimming like running. Some times I swim long (500s, 1000s, etc) at a moderate pace. Some times (like once a week) I do a speed swim with 100 or 200 repeats. Just like running, they are almost all out, but I try to make sure that I start with a pace that I can hold for the entire workout. Last week the speed swim was 1000 warm up, then 15x100 w/ 10 sec. rest. The first few were fast but controlled. The last 5 I felt like I was going to puke. The times remained about the same throughout. This is another reason I am leaning toward getting a coach, to help me get faster in the water.
Hope all is well with everybody. I will let you know how this turns out. I signed up for Ironman Coeur d' Alene (2012) on Monday. I've got 1 year to tinker around. Hopefully toe the line with the goal for trying to top 10 (amateurs), break my PR of 9:45 and compete for the top spot in my AG. My wife is doing IM Canada on August 28. My hope of returning to Kona (as a spectator) rest on her shoulders. She'd better step her game up!
Don't be obsessed with your desires Danny. The Zen philosopher Basha once wrote, 'A flute with no holes, is not a flute. A donut with no hole, is a Danish.'
I do have to admit, one of the swim workouts I do (500 then 5 x 100, 400 then 4 x 100 etc) I stole from T-bone's log. So maybe I can just steal what everybody else here is doing and put together the race I want.... I am RA coached!
Hopefully when T-Bone gets that coach of his he continues to keep his log public and keeps detailing his workouts and comments for all us aspiring AGer's.
I too sneak a peak at what he's doing from time to time for some ideas of what I should be doing. Its pretty tough to disregard what a sub 10 hour Kona athlete is doing for training from day to day.
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
2014 Goals:
Stay healthy
Enjoy life
Please look as often as you like. I will always use RA as my primary log. I will always keep it public. The proviso is that I still make training errors. Usually in the form of making myself do a specific workout when tired or sick because I wrote it down in my plan months ago instead of taking a day off, etc. Live and learn. I think hiring a coach will result in me doing less volume actually.
That's funny, I saw it in your log and thought I was stealing it from you. Did it for the first time today-great hard swim.
MTA: Thanks T-Bone
Options,Account, Forums
I would have guessed that "X has decided to get a coach" would follow from "X is frustrated with lack of performance gains". I would have been completely wrong (yeah, that does happen!)
But when I think about it, I think I understand.
It's an interesting (to me) contrast to myself, because this spring I've PR'd almost everything (mara, 5K, 5mi, 10K, mi, 3200), but I feel like it's only a slight progressive across-the-board improvement, and I don't feel like I'm on the verge of moving up from "a decent hobbyjogger". I also am not anywhere close to good enough to go qualify for something serious like Kona*, or go there and score a really impressive time, so that may be the most relevant contrast. Plus, I'm probably not committed enough to train to a plan -- I enjoy group runs and running w/ DW too much.
I certainly wish you the best!
(*By analogy I mean, as I'm not even really a triathlete.)
MTA: This was all in response to T-Bone's post. I was a dummy and forgot it wasn't the original post.
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
For T-Bone
Keegan Williams just finished 3rd at Roth in 8:16. He might be too busy kickin' ass himself to help you.... HA!
As for me, I've decided to not base my whole worth as a person on the outcome the Philadelphia Triathlon. I will instead base my whole worth as a person on Timberman 70.3 next month, and will try another warm up race this weekend to see how things go. Thanks to everybody for helping me save $100+ bucks a month
It's official. I did end up hiring a coach. After years of taking great pride in being "self-coached," I decided I need to try something different. It took awhile to come to the mental state of being ready/willing to be coached. For me it's about trusting the coach and the plan. I'm there now and off we go...
The goal behind this is two fold. First, I want to continue training at a high level, but I want to reduce stress and change my focus from volume based training to more specific/targeted training to minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. By placing my trust in a coach, I will spend less time dealing with scheduling. I will just do what he says (that's where the trust comes in). Second, I want to see if I can take my racing to another level and possibly win my AG group at an Ironman.
During the vetting process I have interviewed (seriously) 3 different coaches and I did end up with Keegan Williams. As mentioned by muebele, he just did an 8:16 and his PR is an 8:12. He is presently racing and he is coaching 20 athletes. He trained under Brett Sutton, who is somewhat of a controversial figure in the sport (for his training philosophy and his criminal past). We've talked on the phone several times and had a 1.5 hour Skype meeting wherein we got to know quite a bit about each other and simply put, there was a good chemistry.
Anyway, my plan starts next week on the 18th. I have the first 4 weeks of the plan in hand. I like the volume. It is a little less than I am used to but it is still a significant time commitment. I some respects, the training is quite different than anything I have done in the past. I am using the new training feature on RA to organize my schedule. I am going to keep that private but I will promptly log my workouts once completed.
One thing he asked is that I make my log password protected so as to not give my competition any free advice. I don't think any of my "competition" are lurking on RA. I had to think hard about the password. My son's name is "peter".
I'm not going anywhere and I will check in often with updates on how this experience is going. I am going to commit to this for 1 year. Will reassess after that.
Cheers,
Troy
rectumdamnnearkilledem
Troy, I wish you all the best. I am really excited to see where this may take you. Way cool!
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
Best of luck with you and your new coach and training plan.
By all means T-Bone, keep us posted. I'm anxious to see how this goes and even more I'd love to see you hit that goal !
Good luck Troy!
I ended up getting a coach too. A friend of mine who is about my level (I'm weaker on the swim, stronger on the bike, and about the same on the run) used him for his first Ironman and finished well. He was pleased with the results, and I was tired of the stress of every day feeling like I needed to be doing more of something... but not knowing what.
I'm on my second week, and it's no surprise to me that I'm running quite a bit more than I was before. (The bike is just so much more fun!)
I feel pretty good so far, and I think part of it is the stress level of wondering if I was doing what would get me ready for October.
My goals are: 1. To finish, 2.To finish with a respectable time
I have about 15 weeks of training ahead to define "respectable". We'll see how it goes.
It's official. I did end up hiring a coach. After years of taking great pride in being "self-coached," I decided I need to try something different. It took awhile to come to the mental state of being ready/willing to be coached. For me it's about trusting the coach and the plan. I'm there now and off we go... The goal behind this is two fold. First, I want to continue training at a high level, but I want to reduce stress and change my focus from volume based training to more specific/targeted training to minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. By placing my trust in a coach, I will spend less time dealing with scheduling. I will just do what he says (that's where the trust comes in). Second, I want to see if I can take my racing to another level and possibly win my AG group at an Ironman. During the vetting process I have interviewed (seriously) 3 different coaches and I did end up with Keegan Williams. As mentioned by muebele, he just did an 8:16 and his PR is an 8:12. He is presently racing and he is coaching 20 athletes. He trained under Brett Sutton, who is somewhat of a controversial figure in the sport (for his training philosophy and his criminal past). We've talked on the phone several times and had a 1.5 hour Skype meeting wherein we got to know quite a bit about each other and simply put, there was a good chemistry. Anyway, my plan starts next week on the 18th. I have the first 4 weeks of the plan in hand. I like the volume. It is a little less than I am used to but it is still a significant time commitment. I some respects, the training is quite different than anything I have done in the past. I am using the new training feature on RA to organize my schedule. I am going to keep that private but I will promptly log my workouts once completed. One thing he asked is that I make my log password protected so as to not give my competition any free advice. I don't think any of my "competition" are lurking on RA. I had to think hard about the password. My son's name is "peter". I'm not going anywhere and I will check in often with updates on how this experience is going. I am going to commit to this for 1 year. Will reassess after that. Cheers, Troy