Beginners in any/most sports are perhaps one of the most important groups to seek professional coaches. Typically least experienced and lower level of knowledge specific to the sport and training for it.

A good coach will take out all the confusion for you.

A good coach will assist you in building fitness with sound technique so that as you progress you can do so safely from both a health and injury prevention point of view.

Sure, if you can afford it, go for it.

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"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."

I would disagree and pass on the coach for the time being. It is much more important at this stage to just enjoy the process and improve your skills one at a time. With your fitness level and outside time demands, life and injury would likely get in the way of a large percentage of workouts. Having a coach out there at this point might make triathlon into work instead of fun. Wait until you approach the middle of the pack.

Just my opinion, though I am sure I will be trounced upon.

This question comes to this forum quite a bit. I am sure that the right coach could help you a lot. But also the wrong coach could spoil the soup - if you know what I mean. I am an anal engineering type who must investigate every aspect of everything I endeavor. That being said, I did a great deal of reading on the subject and found that in my first two years of training I was able to get a lot from some resources that required minimal commitment - books mostly. My SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes is barely recognizable because of my constant reference. Friel's Triathlon Training Bible is another one that never leaves my bedside. I would start with these. If you need more encouragement or more personal involvement, sure get a coach. But remember, at this stage for you it's pretty simple:

Build a strong endurance base through long slow distance - a vast majority of your workouts

Build strength through targeted weight training (especially for those of us over 35)

Limit speed work - mostly tempo runs and some short pickups to increase turnover (limited to a small part of overall training)

These concepts are well covered in both the above referenced books. It's great that you are psyched about tri. Keep on with what you are doing and make sure it stays fun. Best of luck to you.

Oh yeah, another thing. Run ... Run ... Run. And did I mention that you should run? Swim when you can, bike when you can, but always run.

Steve

Tricheermom,

I agree with an earlier post that novice athletes are the ones who need the coaching the most. You can train for years by yourself and you will improve as any activity is beneficial for a time. Then you will plateau. I took this approach and found myself doing fairly well in sprints and international distance races.

However, once I did get a coach I realized just how much damage I had done and had to spend the first three to six months with the coach retraining my body. I was not efficient as I spend too much energy b/c I did not train myself properly. With a coach I found that I do not overtrain and I do not undertrain. But most importantly I found that I train smart in my heart rate zone and rarely find myself injured or sick. For me a coach has been good to keep me from going to hard.

I suggest you do some basic web searches and ask around at some local events about coaches that are out there. You can spend as little or as much as you want on a coach. These days with on-line services you can find a good program tailored to your needs for $50 a month. That is one entry fee for a month of good training. Of course you can get a personal coach with one on one sessions that will run three times that or more. It really is up to you. But I think without a coach you will most likely do more harm than good to your long term triathlon progress.

Jeremey

P.S. - After reading this it may sound like I am a coach. I am not, just a triathlete who has benefited greatly by having one.

I agree and disagree with all the responses.

First, what are your goals? If they are to just train, race and have fun...then I think you would be much better served finding a training group or club, rather than a coach. If you want to take it further than that, then a coach may help, but finding the right coach is almost like dating---you have to be compatible for it to work.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Hey there,

My $0.02 would be to just get out there and enjoy yourself for the first couple of years without the coach and the added pressure of having to meet up with a coach/group at explicit times.

It does not sound as though you need motivation from groups etc, but it might pay to become a member of a club (some offer social memberships?) so you can tap into their resources?

Having said that, Slowtwitch is the closest thing you will find to a tri-club for people with different schedules. There is very little that a coach can tell you early on that you cannot learn from these very pages!!

And keep it fun. The best piece of advice that my coach gave me was to not let triathlon become a second job.

I'm with Straight on this one (sorry Art). I think the moment you decide you're serious about the sport, you should seek out a coach. They will set you on the path of triathlon righteousness, and stear you from the evil beset on both sides.... -Preacher Bob

in all seriousness - I'd get the coach.

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Animal!!!

Same as muppet. If you're at all serious about the sport, get a coach.

I started without a coach, thought I was doing well, then got a coach after my first race cuz he was a friend of my dad's.

What I got from him.

1. Better running, swimming and cycling technique

2. Information about refueling

3. Race strategy

4. Encouragment

5. Injury prevention

6. Weekly schedule with a whole a whole season in mind.

7. A friend

8. An outside point of view of my performance.

That is what I came up with in the last couple of minutes. There is much more.

jaretj

(This message sent with 100% recycled kilobytes!!!)

I don't understand how all these people can know if a coach would be right for you when they don't know what your goals are. Is your goal to qualify for the Hawaii Ironman as quickly as possible? Is your goal to lose weight, have fun, reach a specific time goal?

Besides your goals, how much effort are you willing to put into building your own training plan? Some people just want to swim/ride/run and want to be told what to do. Others want to control every aspect of their training. Where you fall in this spectrum will also help you decide if a coach is right for you and what level of coaching.

I'll post something quite a bit different on this point. You are ready for a coach when you make a committment to go to the Olympic Games or win an Ironman. I guess I have a slightly different view on this whole coaching scene. Most of us won't make a penny off this sport, so why not just have fun and get whatever results come out of a healthy lifestyle.

I got into the sport in 1985 when there were no coaches, no HRMs no CT's no PC's no powertaps nor SRMs and no programs and no packaged nutrition. I love the sport and use all the toys except for coaches. For most, doing tris, is about getting out there and enjoying exercise, training and racing. In the past, I found that coaches in general took the fun out of sport, be it baseball, soccer, football, hockey or track in my youth. I only had a few coaches in 25 years of competitive sport who were in tune with my body and could make the sports really FUN and left me uninjured.

So when I started tris, I did it because there were no coaches and I could compete on my own terms and have fun. Push myself when I felt good, take it easy when my knee or back felt bad, rather than be a slave to a training plan. Seems to have worked. I've raced every year for 18 years and have only had to take a month off training due to injury. In the process, I've seen the world, raced 11 Ironmans and raced for Canada at the World Military games tri (OK, I got hammered by Hellriegel and Stadler by almost 15 min in an Olympic tri, but I was on the same course :-) ).

Dan talked about climbers in the sport. People who enter and leave tris in 2-3 years. Personally, I see lots of folks become slaves to the training plans laid out by coaches. Many of these are watered down versions of pro plans and do not take into account your work and family committments. Pretty soon, they get burned out by all the juggling and pack it in.

Don't get me wrong, there are many good coaches out there, but if you are an attorney, you can speed read through all the great tri literature out there and come up with a personalized program that is in tune to your personal needs from a physical, professional and family life perspective.

I've used a coach, and can identify with two points made above:

1) Works best if there's some goal in mind. Absent that, a good training group can push you right along.

2) It does reduce - if not eliminate - the confusion.

A third point for you might be the benefit of working with a coach who can give you real-time advice on adjusting your training to an unpredictable work schedule. And then again it goes back to goals.......

Above all, have fun!

I agree with training on your own mainly but I have found that if I get a coach at this time of year for about a 12 week program it helps me refocus and plan for the upcoming year. I find that this time of year is the hardest to personally manage and the coach helps me get through this period without slacking off too much (not including my 'off-season'). I have only been doing this for a couple of years but I find it helps.

Here's my take on it (please note that I'm a 3rd year triathlete, so my experience level is minimal, but here's my take anyway). I've been able to build my own training plans very easily using info from Joe Friel's "Triathlete's Training Bible", Gale Bernhart's "Training Plans for Multisport Athletes", and Gordo Byrn's "Going Long", along with tons of valuable information from this website, Gordo's (www.byrn.org), Crucible Fitness, and many others. When it comes to training plans, I think it's far more important to understand the reasoning behind the plan rather than just blindly executing a canned plan that someone else laid out for you. So, as far as training plans go, save your money, do your homework, and build your own plan. It will fit you much better than something someone else made for you. As others stated, some coaches simply take a generic plan and change workout times/distances and call this a custom plan. You can do much better yourself and you'll be a much more informed triathlete in the process.

Now, I think a coach can be extremely valuable in skills teaching- especially swimming, but also in cycling (technique and fit), and even running (but to a lesser degree). Money spent here is money very well spent IMO.

Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. I have Joe Friel's training bible for triathlons and cycling, Triathlons 101 and a few others. My goals, to get out of the BOP and at age 50 do an Ironman. Weight loss and a better sense of well being is certainly a wonderful by product. And one of the big goals is to HAVE FUN! I have had the most fun I have had in years. I have met the most wonderful people after taking up this sport.

What made me think about a coach was the improvement I have shown in swimming. When I decided to to my first sprint last August. I could not swim 10 yards. I got a swim coach, I work out with him 2 times a week and it has made all the difference in the world. I was afraid of the bike after I got clipless pedals and took an ugly, ugly fall. But after getting back on that horse, it has improved; this doesn't sound like much, but I can ride 20 miles almost in the time that it used to take me to do 10! Running....well what can I say. I can't really, but went from barely being able to run a mile this time last year to being able to run 5.

I think I'll keep reading and pondering. I do worry about the cash. No one told me when I got into this that it can get a tad bit pricey!

Robin

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"I have read voluminous amounts on training."

There are a lot of good books on tri training. How much more will a coach tell you? I thought about getting a coach until 1) investigated the cost 2) realized that I'm in this only for fun and fitness and the occassional AG podium 3) a coach would likely have me running more and cycling less. If my goal was to qualify for Hawaii then I might feel different.

It sounds like you are doing great. Swimming is the one sport where a coach is most useful. However, swimming relies on technique far more than cycling or running. You most likely will not see the improvement from coaching in cycling and running like you saw in swimming.

Stick with the books you've got, continue reading and just keep on going.