COACHING PHILOSOPHY
Communication
​​As your coach I will be available to you at all times throughout training. We can communicate via your choice (Phone call, video, text, email, etc.) The most important thing will be for you to communicate the way you felt for each workout, as well as rest days. The more detailed notes you provide, the better. I'll also ask for you to share whatever you're comfortable with in terms of life stresses, not just athletic training stress (i.e. muscle fatigue or tightness). If we have a fluid and communicable relationship we can establish trust in one another. The more I know about how you're feeling, the better I can coach you and adjust your training appropriately. I will explain why you're doing everything that I prescribe instead of just telling you what and when. Keeping a training log and being thoughtful about each run and workout will also help you understand your body better and your mind-body connection will improve. I aim to teach my athletes as well as coach them.​
Harmony
Hard interval workouts are important. Hill sprints are important. Strength training is important. Long runs are important. But that's not all! The rest and recovery days, as well as the easy runs and cross training are just as important. The key to becoming a better, faster, and stronger runner is balance, or as I like to call it, harmony. Rest and recovery is part of training, NOT separate from it. We can't go 100% all of the time and more isn't always better.​ I want to help you find the harmony between hard work and rest that works best for you.
Adaptability
Everything is in pencil! This means that each week I don't just give you a schedule and then you're left alone to take on the week. I'm with you throughout the week and because of the communication we establish we are able to adjust things on the fly. Whether work gets in the way, you get sick, or you're just feeling extra fatigued for any reason we can change the week's flow and move things around on the calendar. We will always be able to identify the priorities for the week based on the circumstances presented.​
Mindfulness
My athletes start their training by running with a rating of perceived effort (RPE) before getting into specific paces. You'll also be prescribed runs and workouts by time instead of distance at first. Not only will this help you understand what certain workouts should feel like, but it is an excellent way to get in touch with your body so you learn how to adjust a workout on the fly and use your better judgement when needed. If appropriate, these metrics will evolve, to both distance and pace, but in the end they don't need to.​
Longevity
Our strength training approach is meant to support your run training. It is not meant to take away from the running in any way. This goes back to finding harmoney in training. Our focus will be on making you a resilient and injury resistant runner with all aspects of training. The most important thing for me is to get you to the starting line feeling healthy and ready to go! I also aim to teach you how to continue your running journey in a healthy way so that you can do it for as long as you desire.
Foundation
Over the course of your training, we will progress from least specific to most specific to your race goal. The less specific training can be thought of as acclimation or a "training base."
Aerobic Development: Building a strong aerobic base for distance runners is very important. It's the first and biggest building block to build every other aspect of specific fitness on top of. We'll build up your mileage in an intelligent way so that you remain injury free and strong. Then we start to sprinkle in aspects of the workouts that will be the 'bread and butter' of your training. When we establish an understanding of those efforts with a comfortable volume of mileage we can then add in the tough workouts and narrow your training to more and more race specific fitness. Think about this as a 'top down' approach to honing your race pace goals.​
Speed Development: "Base building" is not only about slower, easier aerobic running. We also want to simultaneously build a base of speed to extend our efforts upon. Think of it as a 'bottom up' approach to honing speed that will also funnel/narrow toward your goal race paces.
