Being all-knowing ...

Robert Grumbine said:

Well, I've finished the classroom portion of the RRCA coaching certification. Any illusion of
coaches being all-knowing is now thoroughly deceased. One of our exercises at the end was to work
out -- as a group -- a training program for 'joe runner'. The mind is still boggling at the
degree of variation in our thoughts, for a distance that we all had experience running ourselves.

Contratulations Robert. If you go on to USATF certification, you can enjoy whole levels of being
certifiable.

Quoted message said:

On the other hand, we did acquire a lot of good information. It's the translating that to a
program that is creative (= highly variant, though I still think some of the programs would have
joe getting carted off in a body bag. :-) )

An interesting tidbit from the USATF Level III lectures... When Jim Ryun ran track at high school,
his coach had 35 athletes on the same program. Only Ryun was successful. Something to consider the
next time somebody tells you there's only one way to train (their way, of course).

It's more like being all-questioning.

Lyndon

"Speed Kills...It kills those that don't have it!" --US Olympic Track Coach Brooks Johnson

Robert Grumbine said:

Well, I've finished the classroom portion of the RRCA coaching certification. Any illusion of
coaches being all-knowing is now thoroughly deceased. One of our exercises at the end was to
work out -- as a group -- a training program for 'joe runner'. The mind is still boggling at the
degree of variation in our thoughts, for a distance that we all had experience running
ourselves.

On the other hand, we did acquire a lot of good information. It's the translating that to a
program that is creative (= highly variant, though I still think some of the programs would have
joe getting carted off in a body bag. :-) )

As I am now coaching my second volleyball team, I can agree there are a lot of variations to
coaching, even in the same coach! I think it's great you got training on this. I think it is all
about information transmission. Coaching is teaching put to an extreme.

Hope you enjoy coaching. I know I do.

--
Ed Prochak running: faqs.orgrunning faqOpen ↗ family:
web.magicinterface.com~collinsOpen ↗
--
"Two roads diverged in a wood and I I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the
difference." robert frost

In article said:

Robert Grumbine said:

Well, I've finished the classroom portion of the RRCA coaching certification. Any illusion of
coaches being all-knowing is now thoroughly deceased. One of our exercises at the end was to
work out -- as a group -- a training program for 'joe runner'. The mind is still boggling at the
degree of variation in our thoughts, for a distance that we all had experience running
ourselves.

Contratulations Robert. If you go on to USATF certification, you can enjoy whole levels of being
certifiable.

One of my graduates from last year said I didn't need to go in for certification. They already
knew I was certifiable. (That was a compliment, right? :-)

I may well go for USATF certification later. The RRCA process had a heavy marathon emphasis and
barely even mentioned (to my biased perceptions) races as 'short' as 5k. Said up front that
shorter than that they wouldn't deal with at all. (Some times they take that 'road runners' part
of the name a little too seriously, imho.)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On the other hand, we did acquire a lot of good information. It's the translating that to a
program that is creative (= highly variant, though I still think some of the programs would have
joe getting carted off in a body bag. :-) )

An interesting tidbit from the USATF Level III lectures... When Jim Ryun ran track at high school,
his coach had 35 athletes on the same program. Only Ryun was successful. Something to consider the
next time somebody tells you there's only one way to train (their way, of course).

It's more like being all-questioning.

Yep. That was my bent in the first place (abetted by my day job's proclivities). We did have
mentioned a few examples of different runners' training, where some fairly major differences were
being accomodated.

A point mentioned a few times was that all training 'works', the questions being 'at what' and
'how well/efficiently'. A collateral question, when looking at runners' results, is 'did they
succeed because of, or in spite of, the training program'?

It was reassuring to me to have those points mentioned as they were items that I've questioned in
reading the group here, and in reading various of the running books.

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this
great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more
abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article said:

Robert Grumbine said:

Well, I've finished the classroom portion of the RRCA coaching certification. Any illusion of
coaches being all-knowing is now thoroughly deceased. One of our exercises at the end was to
work out -- as a group -- a training program for 'joe runner'. The mind is still boggling at
the degree of variation in our thoughts, for a distance that we all had experience running
ourselves.

On the other hand, we did acquire a lot of good information. It's the translating that to a
program that is creative (= highly variant, though I still think some of the programs would
have joe getting carted off in a body bag. :-) )

As I am now coaching my second volleyball team, I can agree there are a lot of variations to
coaching, even in the same coach! I think it's great you got training on this. I think it is all
about information transmission. Coaching is teaching put to an extreme.

Hope you enjoy coaching. I know I do.

Oh yes, much fun. I'd coached my daughter's baseball team, back when she was 12. That involved
going through the ASEP program at that time (much shorter version), and getting a sense of
coaching principles. It was quite amusing to me in starting last year with my beginning runners
group to see just how well the principles initially aimed at coaching young kids (mostly in team
sports) adapted to coaching runners from 6 to 80.

As to the teaching side ... I blame it (or credit, depending on situation) on my family. I can no
more avoid teaching than breathing. The challenge is to avoid overwhelming my athletes. (Remember
from a past thread: I didn't think that Noakes 200 page bibliography was excessively long. Also,
unlike most people, apparently, I _do_ think it's a nice book to read cover to cover. Seems most
read only selected passages.)

A flip side in the coaching is that, imho, it is also a learning process for the coach. Not
mentioned much, if at all, in our sessions. I also like learning (again a family trait).

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this
great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more
abstruse manner." Two New Sciences