Friday, August 26th, 2011
I’ve ranted about my distaste for triathlon coaching but eventually decided I needed one and convinced John Hirsch to take me on for the last 2.5 months as I let up to Age Group Nationals. And how did it all work out?
To review things, let’s break it down by what I was looking for in a coach in the first place:
Allow me to put wedding planning first
- The training plan that John built for me was actually pretty conservative volume-wise. He put in key workouts with only 60-90 minutes on weekdays, and I agreed to sprinkle in run workouts whenever I could since that was my weakness. I still had plenty of time for wedding planning without feeling too stressed about balancing both schedules.
Be flexible
- John was really understanding if when it turned out that I needed to shake up my whole schedule that he built. When I wasn’t able to finish out my Sunday long runs as planned and my legs weren’t cooperating, we changed things up. No questions asked, we sat down and figured out how to make it work.
Be “high touch” when I need it
- He wasn’t hounding me every day to make sure I got the work done, but when I had questions, issues or anything else, he was just a phone call or email away.
Make me try new things
- I had no desire to pay someone to tell me to do the same thing I was doing in the first place, so variety was kinda important. Getting some different long workouts and intervals was key. They made me work hard, but prevented me from getting too bored.
Call me out on my weaknesses
- Not only did he call me out on my known weaknesses (a little swimming and REALLY running), John helped call me out on the ones I wasn’t paying attention to. After our first phone call to talk about my plan, he instantly called me out on my weight. Not that I was overweight, but that every pound I lost between then and nationals would be a HUGE help with my run, which was both my biggest weakness and opportunity to gain some ground.
- Without doing anything completely different, I just started paying more attention to what I ate (focus on more veggies and water and less junk food) and I dropped from 173 to 168. Five pounds apparently makes a big difference, especially in running. He was right.
Make me faster
- In January, I hoped I would beak 2:30. That was my “reach goal.”
- In August, I raced a 2:25 and felt like I’ve still got some untapped potential. ‘Nuff said?
While there were plenty of limitations in our way, from wedding planning, restricted training volume, starting untrained and starting with only 2.5 months until the race, we figured out a way to make it work. I wonder what would’ve happend If I started in January?!
Tags: triathlon coach, triathlon coaching | Posted in Triathlon | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
Yesterday I made the final call and committed to a new triathlon coach.
I’d love to say it was a really fun or easy process, but it wasn’t either of them. It was actually pretty stressful. But in the end, I’m happy with my decision.
I threw a lot of really smart and proven coaches into the mix along with a bunch of friends/coaches that I know and trust. They each know different ways to push my buttons (and get me to work HARD and get fast). In the end I looked at some of the good friends that were still in the mix, but started to worry about the possibility that the coaching relationship impacting impacting our personal relationship.
And one man left standing was none other than John Hirsch.
Now, not to say John isn’t a friendly dude, but it is just that over the last few years of following his blog and Twitter, I’ve come to know him as a person first. We both recognize the limitations of trying to start a coaching relationship two months out from an A race, but we’ve got a good plan set up to tear me down and build me back up.
Over the next two months he’ll be testing my limits and getting closer to owning the course at Nationals.
P.U.M.P.E.D!
Yeah, this is gunna hurt so good.
Tags: john hirsch, triathlon coach | Posted in Triathlon | 7 Comments »
Sunday, April 25th, 2010
I started off a solid weekend of training with my old pal, Kim. I read her blog pretty regularly, so it feels like I see her all the time, but last week we realized that it has probably been three years since we’ve actually ridden together.For someone that lives 5 miles away from me, that is unacceptable. Time flies, eh?
We immediately amended this with a 50 mile ride on Saturday morning. Besides just catching up on all the “life” that happens between each other’s blog posts, I did some major brain picking about tips for ironman training. She rocked a major PR at ironman at Cozumel last year and I absolutely respect her training dedication. I tried to act like a sponge as much as I could during the whole ride.
This is what we decided.
- I admitted that I NEVER pee on the bike during races, even half ironmans. Nver. This is apparently a problem. I know that I need to get better about my pre-race hydration, and if I’m not peeing on the bike, I still probably haven’t fixed it. The goal is to have to pee somewhere around mile 35-45. This needs some testing, but should give me a good idea of how hydrated I actually am so that I can adjust my intake on the fly and I can rock the run.
- Don’t spend the day before bumming around the expo without a bottle of fuel in my hand (and probably another in my back pack) to make sure I’m properly pre-hydrated.
- Keeping a semi-normal social life while rocking an ironman is possible. She is proof. Now I’ve just gotta repeat what she has proven.
- Pre-lubing with chamois cream is essential.
- Dropping some $$$ on swim stroke analysis will probably do me way more good than the same amount on coaching, V02 max testing or anything else. My swim stroke is almost definitely the low hanging fruit of places I can improve on to get my finishing times down.
We shot the shit about local triathlon club gossip, her latest boy stories and It also gave me a chance to show off my new Trakkers cycling kit that came in the mail this week. Gotta love some fresh threads.
Playing with my camera while Kim “takes care of business” off in the woods.
Here is to hoping that all these lessons learned transfer into some faster race times this year! I’m starting to feel a little more confident about making the potentially insane decision to coach myself to my first ironman.
Tags: ironman coach, triathlon coach | Posted in Cycling, Ironman, Life, Nutrition, Running, Training Log, Triathlon | 5 Comments »
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
As I started planning for the 2009 triathlon season, I started looking at three main races. The Hyannis half marathon in February, the Rev3 HIM in June and the Timberman HIM in August (my A race).
This year I did a pretty decent job building my my own training plan and setting weekly goals, but upping my game in ’09 with two HIMs, especially with one so early in the year, was a little intimidating to handle on my own. I started looking around at triathlon coaches, at least to build a training plan that I could run with on my own for the rest of the year.
After being unpleasant surprised by how much some people pay for tri coaches, I asked some friends over at Triscoop for advice and alternatives, and luckily enough Brett offered to coach me! What freakn’ luck!
Brett is a pretty bad-ass triathlete, used to be coached by Mike “Coach To The Stars” Ricci of D3 Multisport and followed his workouts really strictly when training for IM Wisconsin last year. I know he took his coaching really seariously when he was on Race Athlete, so I’m psyched to see how much of that rubs off on me.
Brett is looking to test out his coaching skills, and I’m totally into being his guinnea pig for a season. We had a long chat on Monday and I can tell he has some big plans for me. I’ve got some serious workouts ahead of me, I can tell.
I feel like he is stirring up some evil plans to tear me down and build me up again so I can destroy the Timberman course next August.
Needless to say, I’m totally psyched about this new experiment. 2009 should be a crazy year.
Tags: triathlon coach | Posted in Training Log, Triathlon | No Comments »
