The Benefits of Having a Coach

I've had this post in my "drafts" folder for a long time. After talking to some friends this weekend about whether or not they should consider hiring a coach, I decided to to clean it up a bit and post it.

This is my story. Having a coach works for me, but it wouldn't work for everyone. The most important parts of a relationship with a coach are trust and respect. You have to be willing to throw everything that YOU think about training out the window, and willingly give a block of your training over to them. For a control freak like myself, trusting someone else to tell me what to do (and probably more importantly for me... what NOT to do) was/is the scariest part. Which is why you have to really respect your coach: as an athlete and as a person. The fact that I respect my coach, means I trust her, and that means that I willingly follow her plans. (Not without some bitching and moaning along the way, of course. Speedwork by myself???? GROAN).

Not only do I get to piss and moan over email,

but I followed that bitch out to Cali.

Looking back, the decision was easy. I had been training on my own for years and... what did I have to show for it? A bunch of races that were basically endurance/training runs. I'm not an idiot, I KINDA know what I'm supposed to do in training (although, there is always so much more to learn), but putting training weeks together, figuring out paces, following through on the training, etc... that's really hard for me.

So, here are the benefits that I get from having a coach.

1. Someone to tell you "hell no, bitch."
If I didn't have a coach, I can assure you that my 2012 would have looked MUCH different. I would have ran the full marathon in Montana, the full in Santa Rosa, I would have ran the Stumpjump 50k and I would be signed up for the Monkey Marathon in November. And for what? Just to rack up some more races, because I am unable to say no. And what would I have to show for those races? More shitty race shirts and medals and a beaten down body? No, thanks. Am I disappointed about missing any of those races? Not really. I want a marathon PR way more than I want anything else.

If only I could have Ron Swanson as my Life Coach.

People ask me, a LOT... "do you always do what your coach tells you?" and I say "Not always." But, in truth, I really try to. Otherwise I'm wasting her time and mine. TRUST and RESPECT, bitches.

2. Accountability.
Obviously. I could use any plan on the internet and it might work... but, I'm pretty sure that Hal Higdon isn't going to be checking on my log everyday. When I know I've done something bad (last week's interval workout), I can almost hear her in my head, tsk, tsking. And when I wake up on a Sunday morning and am tired as fuck and don't want to run, I get up and get my ass out there. 

3. Giving up Control and just running.
So, yeah, it's hard to give up control... but once you do... it's so freaking refreshing. All I have to do is follow the plan. I don't have to worry about whether or not I should have done a shorter tempo run last week, or how many miles my long run should be 16 weeks out from the race. I just have to run.

4. Not getting overwhelmed or ahead of yourself.
My favorite thing about my training is that I get my training schedule one week at a time. When I had followed training plans in the past, I got so wrapped up in... Ohhhh.. well what happens next week, and what about that week that I'm going to be out of town, etc. And OMG how do I incorporate this half marathon I signed up for in my training? I am easily overwhelmed and I would get freaked out and that would make me lazy and since I knew that next week I was running 16 miles, I would just run 12 miles instead and sit on my couch for those other 40 minutes eating popcorn and drinking beer. One week at a time. So much easier to handle. 

5. Knowledge.
I understand certain things about running. I do not understand certain things about running faster. I have had to ask my coach MANY times what the hell a "stride" is. 

6. PRs.
In my first go around with my coach, I PRed in the 5K, 10K, and my goal race of the Half Marathon. Uhhh... hard to argue with the numbers.

7. Fun.
I could go on and on... My coach has stepped in as a therapist, she's become a close friend, and a teammate and running partner (Run Bitches!). And honestly, it's way more fun to be training "with" someone. I always talk about how it takes a TEAM to get me PRs and it's true. I am a slow and lazy dumbfuck on my own and it takes more than just ME to get me across a finish line in goal time.

Yay for coaches!

Running is NOT Bad For You!!!

Don't just take my word for it...

Heart Disease and Weight Control
Dr Peter Schnohr, chief cardiologist of the Copenhagen City Heart Study, says, "The strenuous activity of jogging offers great heart benefits. It increases oxygen uptake to improve cardiac function, lowers blood pressure and increases insulin sensitivity."

Oh yeah, and...
His team calculated that runners live five to seven years longer than non-runners.

Autopsies determine that heart failure and death that come when running are usually caused by an existing heart condition that had never been discovered.

Osteoporosis
Running increases loading on the femur, boosting femoral bone mass density (BMD). And you don’t need to run daily to see results. “Among our study's runners, 47% ran eight or fewer times a month yet still had higher BMD than non-joggers,” says researcher Michael Mussolino from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Brain Power and Stress Relief
German neuroscientists from the University of Ulm found that 30 minutes jogging sessions 3 times a week significantly improved concentration and visual memory.
“The runners who had taken the six week jogging course made fewer mistakes and could complete the tests much more precisely,” says researcher Ralf Reinhardt. It’s thoughts intense exercise manufacturers new hippocampus cells and protects existing ones. A study at Oregon Health Sciences University found almost all joggers experience mental and emotional benefits from their exercise.

Joints
Sports medicine specialist, Dr. William Chan has this to say: "As a general rule of exercise, running and walking do no damage to the knees nor will it cause arthritis of the knee when you grow old. Studies done on marathon runners have shown no evidence of degeneration or arthritis of the knees as a result of long distance running."

A team of researchers from the department of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University in southern California recently reported in the Arthritis Research and Therapy journal that adults who run consistently have 25% less musculoskeletal pain and arthritis than non-runners when they get older. Bonnie Bruce, the study author, followed more than 500 runners from a local club (called “ever runners” in the study) and 300 inactive people (“never runners”, but not necessarily sedentary) in their 50s and 60s for 14 years. Dr Bruce and her colleagues found that the “ever runners”, who ran at least six hours a week on average, experienced less joint pain by their 60s and 70s and only 35% of the joggers got arthritis (compared with 43% of non-runners).

Most knee pain that comes with running is caused by a previous knee injury.

In Conclusion...
So as you can see, runnin ain't bad, folks. (But we all know that already, don't we:) Maybe one day my nurse will stumble across this blog and gain some knowledge about the benefits of doing something great for your body.

The key is to be smart about it. Of course, not everyone is meant to be a runner...there are so many other great forms of exercise, but if you DO run, just remember to :
Wear proper shoes (and get new ones when they are worn out)
Don't push yourself on injury (listen to your body!)
Stretch
Try to get off the road and onto a softer surface once in a while
At least once a week, lift weights and do strengthening exercises

And HAVE FUN!!

Halfway There...1/2 Marathon Training Report

Our training for the 1/2 Country Music Marathon has been pretty much on track. I say pretty much because Greg was sick the week before last so we didn't do much running. And of course I didn't run when Greg was sick! Do you think I am that much of an inconsiderate jerk? He would have been crushed, seeing me go out there and run without him!! I'm a good wife/coach like that.

We are now half way done with Hal Higdon's training schedule and up to mile 7. Even though we skipped a week, we're still ok because we were ahead of schedule to begin with. So the building of MPW and long run distance has been very good. The part that we're not doing so well on is the strength training and cross training. Since our gym membership expired and we don't have bikes or anything, our cross training options are kind of limited. I'll do pilates every now and again and Greg decided to do Billy Blanks Tae Bo workouts as his x-training, but he hasn't done it yet. I guess I need to be a better motivator.

And Man! I've been like a bottomless pit lately! What's up with that? I feel like I can eat and eat and eat and never get full. That's not such a good thing. Yesterday, we were going to run right after work, but I felt like I HAD to eat as soon as I got home. So I ate like double my weight and then took a nap and then ate another snack. We finally started our run at 9:45pm. Today we have a 5 miler to do and I don't care how ready I am for dinner. We are running right after work!! And my reward will be watching American Idol. I'm not ashamed to say it.

The Sickness

For the last 4 days, I've been shacked up in the house with The Sickness. I guess its going around...or so I hear. (Doesnt it always seem like "it's going around" ?? I feel like people are always saying that...) So anyway, I got a good run in on Friday afternoon and then it was downhill from there. It's frustrating because when I miss a scheduled run, it's most likely because of work or being busy, but then when I'm home all day long and I have all the time in the world to run, I can't because I'm sick. So unfair.

But because I'm a very dedicated coach and my student is prone to slacking (Sorry, honey, but its true and you know it), we went out on Monday night and ran for almost an hour. The Advil had kicked in and I was feeling ok enough, plus I was dealing with a serious case of cabin fever and I needed some fresh air. The run was great! Right until I stopped running. I guess I overdosed on the fresh air cause my lungs felt like they might just collapse on me at any moment. I seriously felt like I had just chain-smoked a pack of menthol cigarettes. It hurt. But like I said before...I'm a dedicated coach and I was just doing my job...

I also sneaked in a strength training workout last night. I've been doing one that I found in Fitness Magazine. It's supposed to be a "see the results in 4 weeks!" kind of thing so we'll see how that goes. I usually just do my own thing, but I decided to give this one a try...mostly because it has some new and interesting excercises that I've never done before. Gotta keep it fresh!

On a side note...I've been listening to The Cure while I run. The Cure is good running music.

P.S. Spellcheck on Blogger hasnt been working for me lately (is it just me?) so I apologize for any misspellings in the post!!

Coach April

I've got some bad news and some good news...which do you want first?

Well, I'm giving you the bad news first because it's better that way...
I'm not running Eugene. It just turned out that the timing isnt right and I can't be as hardcore/serious about running right now as I'd like to be. While I'm really dissapointed, I guess life is sometimes like that.

Now for the good...my husband has decided to run his first Country Music 1/2 Marathon in Nashville and I'm the coach! And I'm excited! We kicked off the training on Saturday with a nice 2 miler. We ran again yesterday and today is a strength-training day.
So far, he's doing great! Go Greg!

short and sweet:)