Tag: Running coaches

Why Lying To Your Coach Is A Terrible Idea
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Whether intentionally or not, everyone lies to their coach. This is a terrible idea. Why do we do it?

What’s that? You’d never lie to your coach? Are you sure? Because there are a few different ways it can happen. You might not even be aware you’re lying!

There is lying by commission, such as:

  • Yes, that pace felt quite easy! When actually you were huffing and puffing.
  • My foot is fine. Well, there was that one little twinge, but I won’t count that.
  • I ran too far because I got lost. Which you knew would happen, but it was a beautiful day and you just felt like running further.
  • Strategically stopping and starting the watch to manipulate how the workout appears.

Then there is lying by omission, which is even easier:

  • Failure to mention that recurring hip pain.
  • “Forgetting” about a local 5K and racing it anyway.
  • Simply running too far (or not far enough) but not saying anything about it.

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How to Interview a Running Coach
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Chicory, far right, with coach Matt Ebersole (the one without a medal) and other members of the Personal Best Training group.

New year, new you! Is this the year you take your running to the next level? And maybe that has you considering hiring a running coach to help you get there. But how the heck do you pick one?

Since 2016, I’ve gone “coach shopping” five or six times and I’ve worked with four different coaches. I’ve talked to about 20 coaches on the phone and looked at countless websites. I thought I knew what I was doing at the beginning of this process, but it turns out I did not. I learned an awful lot along the way, however, so if January has you asking yourself how to go about hiring running coach, here are some of the lessons I learned.

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Why I Decided to Work With a Coach
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Is it a midlife running crisis? A cry for help? An acknowledgement of defeat? All I know is that this spring, after more than 20 years of training solo, I was ready for a change. I just wasn’t sure exactly what kind.

I’ve been running consistently for years, sometimes casually and sometimes more structured or high mileage training, but always self-directed. Sometimes my self-coaching led to PR’s, and sometimes the results were not so hot: over-training or injury.

This year, I decided it was time for change.

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Denny Krahe of Diz Runs on Writing, Running, and Coaching
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The internet has allowed more runners to work with coaches and for more people to become coaches themselves. Just like runners, the story behind each coach is different. The how and why they decided to coach, their training philosophies, and how they see their role in the coach-athlete relationship differ among each.

Salty Running contributors have appeared as guests on the DizRuns podcast, and when host Denny Krahe announced he was publishing a new kind of training guide, it seemed like a great time to flip the conversation around to him to find out about his secret coaching sauce.  Read more >>