How I Coach

Context matters

And, your needs matter too. Any training program should be placed within the context of your short and long term goals, your experience as an athlete, and any other demands or priorities that exist within your life.

What this looks like within each innate running partnership:

  • Developing a deep understanding of why you’ve chosen to seek out the guidance of a coach
  • Understanding how running fits into your life next to other obligations or stressors
  • Knowing that any plan should plan to change. Every programme should be required to adapt in response to unforeseen circumstances that are bound to have an impact on how you interact with - and respond to - your training load

be a student of the process

Every coaching partnership, regardless of the athlete or their goals, should be built on the basis of continual learning. Similarly, each day of running presents an opportunity to learn more about your self, your body, and how you’re experiencing your current training load. The deeper your understanding of how different modes of running impact your body, the better positioned you’ll be to effectively manage the demands of each programme.

What this looks like within each innate running partnership:

  • Developing an understanding of how the physiology of endurance exercise can play out in practise
  • Learning when to trust your own experience of effort against the rigidity of pace numbers and heart rate zones
  • Frequent communication on how you’re interacting with the program
  • Knowing when and how to lean toward rest and recovery

know where you are, know where you’re going

Training for any big physical goal involves walking a fine line between where we are (your current strengths and weaknesses) and where we want go. Eventually, you may want to land on running a marathon under 3hrs, or traversing a local mountain pass. Regardless, training progressions involve iterations of smaller cycles, built to get you to the next step along the way; no matter how big that goal is.

what this looks like within each innate running partnership:

  • Knowing where you want your running journey to take you - what do you see yourself doing? What type of runner are you? 
  • Careful acknowledgment of your running history to determine a safe starting point in the programme
  • Establishing smaller benchmarks that are closely connected to your superordinate goal
  • Understanding the difference between training-to-train vs. training-to-race