Working With A Coach

Something I never thought I would say….I have a running coach!!

It feels odd, rather surreal but also very exciting.  As someone striving to continually learn, grow and develop in the sport of running, the internet has been a key source of information.  However, like anything, there are lots of different opinions, contradicting pros and cons and way too many “training methods” to comprehend.

Up steps Doug from TMR Coaching…and before anyone says anything, no this isn’t part of any arrangement for me to write this, no i’m not being paid to write this and yes these are 100% my thoughts and feelings.  There….transparency as always!

Anyway, my development has always come from thriving on training plans, I love the routine, structure and progress that I made everytime I would undertake one.  However there was always this lack of fundamental understanding as to what I was actually doing.  Yes, I was clear that each session throughout the plan had structure, had a purpose and had its benefits, however I always felt slightly out of my depth when I was questioned about what I was doing.  My stock answer was always “my plan told me to do it”.

So when Doug came on the scene and we started working together things changed rapidly.  I think the most major improvement I have found in this short period of working with him has been my improvement in the “why” I do what I do.  As a competitive runner, I strive to be better, improve my times and become more resilient to what training throws at me but as I mentioned above, the lack of knowledge has always been my downfall.

Since working together we have targeted a very weak area I have… my cadence.  Being so tall and having such a long stride I could only dream of being able to “turn my legs over” closer to the “standard” 180 steps a minute.  However, this is slowly becoming more of a reality far quicker than I could of imagined.  Recent workouts have had massive improvements, comparing a 400m rep session from a few months back to my 15 x 2 minute rep session I did just yesterday, my cadence has increased from 166 up to 172/174.

A great coach can home in on your weaknesses and highlight them too you…often we don’t need to run further or faster to become quicker, but tune up our efficiency.  In some way shape or form we all have aspects of our running form that, if corrected, can shave seconds of our minutes per mile pace and result in far greater performances before any of the “harder training” even commences.

I cannot wait to build a closer relationship with TMR Coaching in the future, the first month has been a rapidly positive change and I cannot wait to continue on the journey!