I’m a self-coached athlete who has been wandering through the Oly realm for a few years trying lots of things, making some good improvement (and some not so great too). I don’t have the resources to hire a coach full on but am considering some of the other options available. These include things like Endurance Nation, Tridot etc… or simply purchasing a plan.
I have concerns with the idea of just purchasing a plan as, having devoured Joel Friel’s Triathlon Bible and re-read 5 times, it is pretty clear that training should be responsive to progress (or regression) rather than set in stone in November for the next 12 months.
To be clear I do enjoy the process of working on my plans and workouts but am not always sure that I’m setting myself up for success as well as possible.
Finally, I’m moving up to 70.3 for next season and am excited for this but really curious what folks think about ideas like Endurance Nation etc. and what you think would be the best way to get coaching for a self-coached athlete.
There are coaches out there that will do a consult. You pay a fee to talk to them for 30-90 mins and go over anything you would like. That is one idea.
The most valuable thing a coach provides is an experienced, qualified and OBJECTIVE point of view. The last part is what an athlete can’t provide to him or herself, but makes all the difference.
I have twice purchased a ‘plan’ from two different coaches that were both well-respected and had coached many successful athletes. Both times I was like, “Really?”
Then I started coaching high school runners for a few years and realized the value of a coach is not in the plans but in the consistent guidance and adjustment over time. I still made plans but they were like rough drafts and I constantly altered them over the course of a season. It was not overly complicated either. The boys and girls who stuck with my coaching became faster; the ones who applied it inconsistently did not.
If you can’t afford the cost of actual day-to-day coaching then just keep studying and learning and listening to your body. I’m not going to say it is a better solution, but it does not cost you anything.
There are coaches out there that will do a consult. You pay a fee to talk to them for 30-90 mins and go over anything you would like. That is one idea.This. ^^^ Especially if they are coaches who have written tri training plans for sale.
I currently have only running training plans available, but one of my most rewarding experiences as a coach has been to consult people like yourself who come loaded with good questions and who have had some experience (or have at least looked at) with a plan I’ve written. The tweaks and customization made to many cookie cutter plans can take the plan from being “it works fine” to “that was literally perfect.” Knowing how to adapt it to get the most out of it for yourself is highly valuable.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m your man here, but I’d investigate coaches who have plans for sale, and who also do one-off or periodic consults.
They can also connect you with folks in the industry that have expertise in specific areas (bike fit, physio, nutri, mental stuff)
Writing up workouts and checking what you have done is just the “mediating artefact” that sets up the basis for the athlete / coach relationship. Once that is established, the real magic can happen.
I’d just caution to the OP that while Friel’s book is chock full of great info, when it comes to plan-building according to his recommendations, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds of less-critical details and lose sight of the big picture. I mean, have you seen the chart he has and the number of checkboxes for what each workout accomplishes? I don’t know how anyone can realistically manage that mentally, let alone plan it in a meaningful way as an AGer with varying schedule, life fatigue, etc.
I haven’t worked with a personal coach but I’ve been very happy with book plans supplemented with the wisdom of good podcasts like Purplepatch. The two most effective for me have been the book 80/20 Fitzgerald and Matt Dixon’s Fast-track triathlete. Both gave equally good results to me, and both pushed me to personal bests and multiple AG wins in local races that I definitely was not able to accomplish in the past without a plan. I would definitely take a look, you can’t go wrong for $15-20 of the book. My Strava buddy local training partner also uses 80/20 and has gotten hellaciously fast with it.
I’d just caution to the OP that while Friel’s book is chock full of great info, when it comes to plan-building according to his recommendations, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds of less-critical details and lose sight of the big picture. I mean, have you seen the chart he has and the number of checkboxes for what each workout accomplishes? I don’t know how anyone can realistically manage that mentally, let alone plan it in a meaningful way as an AGer with varying schedule, life fatigue, etc.
I haven’t worked with a personal coach but I’ve been very happy with book plans supplemented with the wisdom of good podcasts like Purplepatch. The two most effective for me have been the book 80/20 Fitzgerald and Matt Dixon’s Fast-track triathlete. Both gave equally good results to me, and both pushed me to personal bests and multiple AG wins in local races that I definitely was not able to accomplish in the past without a plan. I would definitely take a look, you can’t go wrong for $15-20 of the book. My Strava buddy local training partner also uses 80/20 and has gotten hellaciously fast with it.
I an in a similar boat - don’t have resources for a coach and have made the most of what resources there are out there.
I would really recommend 80/20 if you are “stuck” without a coach. They offer canned plans at various levels and also teach you how to design your own using their workout structures.
Plans don’t replace a coach but any means (for reasons mentioned above) but 80/20 offers as much DIY coach support as you can get.
Here is my experience, and it’s only mine…… have been a self-coached athlete for 25+ years, and am also a coach of running and tri. I am 54 and have completed 16 ims, and 20 Bostons. I have always used Joe Friel’s bible to set up my season, but have sought out sport specific coaches to help with limiters/weaknesses. This has worked for me. If you are looking at some published plans, Be Ironfit is good, as are The plans in Gale Bernhardt’s book, Training Plans for Multisport Athletes. Good luck, and be sure to have fun!
I just did a consult with Brian Stover, would recommend it. I have self coached for 20+ years to the success of being ~top 10% usually. So bouncing ideas of someone was great.
They can also connect you with folks in the industry that have expertise in specific areas (bike fit, physio, nutri, mental stuff)
Writing up workouts and checking what you have done is just the “mediating artefact” that sets up the basis for the athlete / coach relationship. Once that is established, the real magic can happen.
But how many coaches actually provide this…any? Seems many just pump out the plans and only give feedback when you chase them for it…and even then the feedback is limited.
I’d love a coach who checked in with me to see how I was feeling, questioned my performance and to discuss where we are at with the plan etc…
It really depends on who the coach is, and what you signed up for. a good coach should do all of the above 5 points. But often if you sign up for lower tier (less expensive support) from the coach, you’ll tend to get the plan, and limited interaction for the butt kicking, bs calling, in reigning and sober second thoughts…
Honestly for the self-coached with limited resources for hiring a coach, I like the idea of consulting with a coach in a consultant type role, rather than to provide you with a program, since that can be helpful to guide some of the directionality. The other good option is actually taking the money that would buy a plan or have a session with a consulting coach, and take a coaching course… That will give you some more of the theory and science behind coaching, that is less explicit in books for the masses. Grasping the basics can help to improve how you structure your training. Where I find that many self-coached individuals struggle are:
Periodization, not properly breaking your season or years into distinct phases with different foci, and instead treating the season in two periods race season and off season…
Recovery, not including adequate recovery, and not thinking about recovery weeks where training volume eases back a bit during a build…
Boring-intervalitis - I see this a lot in rookie coaches, where they have a few go to workouts, and not much else, so their athletes do the same workouts over and over… We all have our favorites, and it’s good to revisit some workouts to assess progress, but otherwise, once you grasp the basics, the possibilities are infinite, and there’s no excuse for dong the same workouts over and over and over again week in week out…
Adapting (to injuries, life-events, etc.) we tend to err on either being too hard or too soft on ourselves, neither of which are good, but we do need to learn how to adapt workouts to energy levels, obstacles, etc. while maintaining alignment with the goals and objectives of the phase and the overall program.