Having a few beers last night with some friends, two of whom are doing IM CDA in 2008. There was a heated discussion about coaches and the main thrust of it was that some great coaches are not great athletes and the opposite is also true that some great athletes make shitty coaches.
But for an IM it just seems to me that if the person has not been through the experience themself how can they possibly know what they are saying about how hard it is or what lessons will need to be learned to really have a great IM.
So, slowtwitch armchair coaches (and actual coaches especially), would you pay a coach for 9 months to train you for an IM who has not crossed the line themself?
We will be getting together for beers again next week and I’d love to have some points to bring up for them to hash out.
I would not expect them to be a great Athlete. Like you said, some of the best coaches were not the best Athletes. Personally I would prefer that they are not involved any longer in racing competitively, but I would have expected them to experience the particular distances at one time or another in a competitive fashion especially an Ironman.
*would you pay a coach for 9 months to train you for an IM who has not crossed the line themself? *
No, and not because I don’t think they would be able to train me physically for the event, but because so much of the training is mental, I would rather have someone who had been there, done that and was familiar with the head stuff that can/will make all the difference.
That doesn’t mean that a coach with experience in other ultra-distance type events besides IM might ot be just fine.
Not me. I had a choice between a pretty reputable coach who has not done one and one who has done many of them. I chose the later and was very grateful that I did. Every problem that I ran into in training, nutrition issues, ITB issues, burnout, etc., she had faced many times herself and had great advice on how to overcome them. Her experience was invaluable to me. And my time was an hour-and-a-half better than my target time going in to the race. I’m definitely going back to her for my next one.
I think the more relevant question you and your buddies should have asked yourselves is not should the coach have done an IM or not. But how does Coach X’s athletes do in their races?
Completing an IM is not a guarentee of being a successful coach for athletes racing an IM.
Tom evans: coach by joel filliol(never done a ironman)…tom as won 2 ironman and finish second at 2 ironman championship…
great coach know about this stuff from experience with so many athlete, they dont need to have experience it… and guy like joel and PAulo as some of the best coach in the world with the most expertise and experience…
often athlete that have race ironman try to coach athlete the same way they have trained themself and that is not very smart coaching…
and like desert dude said… look at how the coach’s athletes are doing… that is the best guide to how good a coach guidance is…
I would definitely hire someone who hasn’t done an IM before. I don’t think you need to have completed an IM in order to be a good coach for one. In fact, what the hell does a 8:xx Ironman know about coaching someone like me to get faster? What made them fast isn’t necessarily going to work for someone like me. I’d rather they understand the physiological reasons behind coaching and getting faster and then apply those concepts to me.
Sorry, but I, for one, am NOT going to do a complete and thorough search of any and all previous mentions of any issue that I may have a question about. This forum alone has 1,283,913 posts and counting. I am sure just about every conceivable multisport topic has already been covered at least once. So why don’t we all just stop posting now and use the search function from now on?
If people want to respond to a question I have, fine; if not, that’s fine too.
Why you hire someone with the following career pitching statistics to be a manager of your major league baseball team:
Year Ag Tm Lg W L G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO HBP WP
±-------------±–±–±–±–±–±–±–±-±-----±—±—±—±–±—±—
1954 26 BRO NL 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 9.0 8 5 5 2 5 5 0 0
1955 27 BRO NL 0 0 4 1 0 0 1 0 4.0 5 6 6 1 6 4 1 4
1956 28 KCA AL 0 4 18 5 0 0 7 1 45.3 40 38 31 6 45 28 3 7
±-------------±–±–±–±–±–±–±–±-±-----±—±—±—±–±—±—
3 Yr WL .000 0 4 26 6 0 0 9 1 58.3 53 49 42 9 56 37 4 11
Not a single win and only one save? 56 walks, 11 wild pitches and 9 home runs given up in only 58 innings. If the guy can’t actually win a game as a pitcher, then he couldn’t possibly be a good manager, could he? Especially if he only had one hit as a batter too.
Well, then, you would have probably made a pretty big mistake as these are the career playing statistics of Tommy Lasorda, who made it into the Hall of Fame as a manager.
On the other hand, one of the worst managers of all time was also arguably the greatest baseball player of all time: Babe Ruth.
Coaching and performing are two very different things. If I were hiring a coach, I would want someone that has done well in coaching people whose background was similar to mine and who has similar time to train to acheive goals similar to mine. Whether that person had ever done a triathlon or done would be irrelevant to me.
Yes, if the coach was accomplished in other areas that are more important. Maybe I’m biased, but I’ve seen too many athletes-turned-coaches who try to make you train for an IM the way they used to, not the way that is best for you. As many have stated, look at how the coach’s athletes are doing, and if possible, talk to them directly.
but I, for one, am NOT going to do a complete and thorough search of any and all previous mentions of any issue that I may have a question about
Thats too bad, there is some good shit in some of the older posts. I know I still search through a read a few treads from time to time.
“So, slowtwitch armchair coaches (and actual coaches especially), would you pay a coach for 9 months to train you for an IM who has not crossed the line themself?”
If you were to list and rank qualities/criteria of a good coach, having actually done it would be very low on my list.
In looking at local coaches that have been around in my area, there are good ones and not so good ones who have done IMs and not done IMs. One who had never done an IM had a 100% success rate. From what I could gather, the one who had done a lot of IMs trained people just like he trained, which may not have been the best for ALL the athletes. No coach is perfect, so like any purchase, you have to do your due diligence and pick the one that’s best for you.
but I, for one, am NOT going to do a complete and thorough search of any and all previous mentions of any issue that I may have a question about
Thats too bad, there is some good shit in some of the older posts. I know I still search through a read a few treads from time to time.
Sure! I search through and read a few of the older posts from time-to-time too. You’re right, there is a ton of good stuff there. But I think it’s silly to sarcastically tell people to “go do a search” everytime there is a remote possibility that the subject has been touched on before.
It reminds me of the nerdy brown-noser at the front of the class nasally responding “We’ve ALREADY discussed that,” anytime somebody has a question.
The ability to coach an athlete to an 8:xx IM and the ability to coach a first timer to a 13:xx IM takes different skill sets that a coach may or may not have both skills. Again looking at the coaches athletes performance probably shows more than the coaches performance.