I like your style KevininMD. I'd like to think that most coaches do what you do - I actually think a lot do.

But again, to put it in perspective:

I work in the medical field. When you're in your first 10 (yup, 10!) years of training and then your first few years of actual practice, very often it will take you HOURS (sometimes the whole day) to make a single decision. In part because of complexity, in part because of fear, and a lot because of lack of experience. You can literally overthink all the variables. If you think triathlon has variables, just try the medical profession, where a wrong decision usually means the difference between thousands (often tens of thousands) of dollars of treatment, and even a lot of pain a suffering for wrong decisions.

Now with a lot of experience, I can do what I do very quickly. VERY quickly. Even the most complex cases require real startup time, but then it fits in. All the extra variables are greatly simplified by experience and knowledge. Not to say I know everything - far from it - but you get much more comfortable with uncertainty based upon your proven results and don't waste as much time on it.

Much of what you describe in your 'thought-process' is exactly like what I went through in my early years and training mode. Not to say that you don't know what your doing, but just by seeing what you wrote, I'm sure that a uber-experienced coach with tons of great results could look at a lot of those athletes who waffle this, miss workouts this, etc., and within 5 minutes cut through all the 'BS' and adjust the plan appropriately. In less than 5 minutes.

My recommendation would be too look around and find a coach who is local. I knew my coach personally before I even took up cycling, so I had a bit of an advantage when selecting one. With someone who is local you have the ability to see them at races, go on training rides together and I think build a greater bond which in turn will result in someone who hopefully will actually give a crap about how well you do. Thats just my opinion though.

I'll throw my buddy out there...Ken Lundgren. This guy LOVES coaching, he can be a bit extreme and over the top, but its just his love for the sport and coaching that is coming through.
http://www.eliteendurance.com

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Titanium faces rock!

So you've not got coaching experience yourself; feel comfortable telling me how long it should take to coach athletes even though you obviously have no idea how much experience I have or my results; and you think coaches are taking 5 minutes per athlete per week.

I'm sure your opinion on the matter is given the attention it deserves.

Now, where's the link for the message board in your work so I can sound off on how long it should take to do your job, I've been alive a long time so I feel confident in being able to say how long it should take to make decisions on medical care. I want my opinion on that to be given the weight IT deserves.

You seem annoyed... do you mean to tell me there's someone WRONG on the Internet???

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The Triathlon Squad

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Yep

Heh heh. No need to get mad. We all can have our own opinions on ST.

And for folks who insist they know how to do my job better than I do and post about on forums - you'd better believe that there are patients, lawyers, doctors, insurance companies, and politicians who are ALL trying to tell me - actually, force me to do my job a certain way, even if it goes against best medical practice as shown by evidence. On forums, and in public, all the time. At least you just have to do with the guys who are paying you to be coached - I get to deal with everyone from the person who's seeing me to their entire extended family, insurance company, and god forbid, lawyers if anything goes wrong.

You don't even want to know how much I have to pay in insurance just to be able to do my job. Let's put it this way - it's over 10x the startup cost for a coach someone mentioned earlier.

Every time I read one of your posts, this comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqeC3BPYTmE

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The Triathlon Squad

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Thank you for explaining why medical care is in the state that it is.

So you would equate being a triathlon coach to being a doctor or lawyer, how modest of you.

I would think after spending 4 years of undergrad, and then either 3-4 years in professional school and then passing major exams that doctors and lawyers have a little
bit more cause to demand high levels of compensation than triathlon coaches. I would put hiring a triathlon coach more along the lines of hiring a plumber.

The only reason a triathlon coach would make anymore than a run or swim coach at the university level is that they have a favorable
demographic, namely wealthy egomaniacs.

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"When I first had the opportunity to compete in triathlon, it was the chicks and their skimpy race clothing that drew me in. Everyone was so welcoming and the lifestyle so obviously narcissistic. I fed off of that vain energy. To me it is what the sport is all about."

Hopefully your level of reading comprehension will allow you to realize that what I wrote is in line with your last sentence. Everything else you wrote might have something to do with some personal baggage, but that's really not my business.

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The Triathlon Squad

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Apparently your business is plumbing or something similar.

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"When I first had the opportunity to compete in triathlon, it was the chicks and their skimpy race clothing that drew me in. Everyone was so welcoming and the lifestyle so obviously narcissistic. I fed off of that vain energy. To me it is what the sport is all about."

You sound grumpy, looks like you haven't had your daily meal yet...

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The Triathlon Squad

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I think you underestimate how much a good plumber can make or how hard it is to become one. I for sure know people that hold themselves out to be tri coaches that did the weekend certification thing and do now know crap. It would be obvious really quick if a plumber did that as there would actually be consequences. It would likely be far easier to just read a book and declare yourself a lawyer and get away with it than a plumber.

Do I think tri coaching is expensive, sure seems like it can be. What isn't. People also seem happy to pay it. Good for them and the coach. I think that being a tri coach would be pretty annoying as I imagine that a large percentage of the clients are a total pain in the ass, have unrealistic expectations, are quick to question the money they are paying, ask stupid questions on internet forums or of other "experts" and then second guess the results when they F'd it up because they did not follow the advice or did something else stupid.

Kind of the same reason why I only zealously defend the rights of large unfeeling corporations. People are just a pain in the ass.

Seriously?? Most GOOD coaches, at least have a bachelors degree, and their knowledge of the human body is extensive. Paulo has his doctorate, imagine his knowledge of the human body.


EDIT: What you're paying the extensive fees for is their knowledge, and access to it. Which I would agree is similar to a lawyer or a doctor in terms of what they need to know.

i have a doctorate and i took anatomy. i even got a A. who wants to pay me?
side note, i have no desire to ever coach people. i'd just get mad at them.

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Fruit snacks are for winners

Since I recently e-mailed to one of our coaches on this topic, cut-and-paste makes my comment very easy for me (otherwise, I would just lurk... after all, both perceptional and reality gaps between those who coach well and those who gets coached are too far apart to bridge even on ST forum post). And this is to compliment CJAthey's "What you're paying.... is their knowledge." post.

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1. We live in a capitalist country, where free market exists. Meaning that athletes who interested in working with you, will pay you for your work. And more such athletes desire to work with you, and more of them, the more you will be working, getting to the point where your services will have to be priced UP to decrease the pool of potential candidates for your services (and also increasing your economic position).

2. No shame in charging what market will support. Think of some of the athletes we work with (software developers, consultants, art & design folks, etc. - people who can do a very specific and valuable work, quickly, accurately, professionally, etc.) - some of them, just like us, enjoy the work they do. But it seem to not present a dilemma to them or their clients or market that they are charging significant fees for something they enjoy to do... If you are confused on this - rather donate your time and skills to worthy cause than keep your coaching fees artificially low (because the demand for your services will grow, and you will be unable to meet them).

3. Do not try to discuss with potential clients (who require such discussion) on why you charging certain coaching or instructional fees. I never had good time, or been very successful in explaining to athletes how certain fees are priced. You know your concrete costs (pool rental, studio rental, travel costs, etc.) but trying to price and explain other professional component fees are dead end... How do you even start creating a common reference platform to explain why you charge $$$ for something that seemingly you can do in a short time and clearly pationate about and enjoying doing it? How can you explain that it takes your whole life to do the current job? Yes, one hour for you is the same as one hour for athlete client but client would not be able to do the required work and in the required time frame because it will take one hour PLUS a whole lifetime you already accumulated related to coaching. You spent most of your life being performance/elite level athlete, learning and observing and accumulating experience and skills that were fine tuned by years with us, learning more formal coaching trade (risk management, skills and technique instructions, client communications, narrative development, logistics skills, etc.)... so now you possess a platform of abilities and skills necessary to complete work athlete-client requires. So, view your fees not only as "per hour" costs but also (increasing with your experience) as fees for saving athlete years of self-learning, training and racing, getting things right and wrong, reading, studying, observing how instructions gets perceived and what results. But do not try to explain this to your potential client. You are a professional, and professional coach, and if such explanations about your professional value is required by client - fire him, it is not worth it. Productive coaching relationship does not contain constant underlying stress about economic value of such.

Supply and demand.

Mainstream sports churn out a 10000:1 ratio of amateur vs pro-level talent.

So for every pro, and pro coach, there are 9999 other people almost, but not quite, as good.

And most coaches try to hold onto their positions, or move up.

Soapbox? Oh, wow, sure.

IMHO, for beginner ironman coach should surround his plan around injury prevention. I used a modificaiton of the Jeff Galloway system of marathon training for my Ironmans, and it seems to work pretty well on me and two other guys I train with. Sure, a coach might help for the last couple percent of performance.

Problem is in triathlon, like all other things, people make it seem like they go harder and longer than they really do, and beginners in anything can't tell the fish stories from reality. I guess a coach can help with that, if they don't have honest veterans to talk to.

I think a professional coach should know how to instruct injury prevention, proper volume management and rest, and initial injury diagnosis. Intervals, lactic threshold, high volume, that's for your second Ironman. The first training cycle priority should be:

1) get to the line able to do the race
2) finish
3) finish without much run-walk

Disregarding that there are often times discrepancies between the cost of a coach and their ability to actually perform the job, it should not surprise anyone that good coaching costs a significant amount of $. If you want someone to commit significant personal resources to guiding you toward your goals, you ought to expect to pay them a decent wage. It's kind of similar to the photography market where some people choke at the idea of paying $400 for a few hours of a photographer's time and $500-multiple thousands for prints. The first thought is that Uncle Bob can do it for free. But the truth is that unless Uncle Bob is also a pro, he cannot give you the same effort and experience. He doesn't spend his days honing the craft, learning, investing and all other aspects of performing such a service at a professional level.

If you want to pay low prices for triathlon coaching....just go buy a book at Barnes and Noble and follow one of the canned programs in there. The effect will be the same and far lighter on your wallet. When you pay several hundred dollars a month to a coach, you're paying for a significant portion of their available resources, including their depth of experience and results in guiding athletes to achieve their goals.

I think most of the time when people take umbrage with coaching fees that they are really saying they don't have any idea what they want out of the relationship. And usually what they really want is just to NOT have to think about preparing for an event or season. For those people...any free canned program on the internet, or few dollar book are going to net similar results to just about any low-cost "coach" out there. If you really just need someone to blame for your less-than-satisfying results, I'll happily charge $50/month and I guarantee you not to have to think. I'll send you a canned email with what to do every day along with about 1000 other athletes. Just don't ask me to have to put any of my time into you personally. You didn't pay for it. I don't have time for it. Maybe Paulo does. But you're gonna have to pay him.