On Coaching

Words from some great coaches
If you are going to spend any time thinking about how to motivate runners, with something other than your own passion for the sport, it is far better to study the past and present history than it is to reinvent the wheel. My love of running ties nicely into my habit of reading nearly everything, and to this end I’d like to share with you some tidbits of what I have learned from two great running coaches. I think that there two individuals offer applicable tidbits for every runner and you can learn more about these folks at their web sites, or a quick Google search. Phedippidations (one of my favorite running podcasts) has an episode about Arthur Lydiard that is also very well done.

Joe I. Vigil, Ph.D.
As a physiologist and scientist Joe Vigil has risen to the top of his profession and been named coach of the year 14 times. He has coached international athletes and the US Olympic team. He has guided athletes through a number of regimens and set the path for what have become many of the “standards” in coaching runners today.
He has argued that most distance runners have an iron deficiency and that especially goes for women.
He has tailored training stimuli for the individual athlete being training (an advanced method of periodization).
He has advocated run more miles (his athletes run about 140 per week) just as Arthur Lydiard did, so that athletes achieve a tireless state for their chosen race. [remember that how you run them is very important]
He has advocated for more speed workouts in order to boost cardiovascular reserve and respiratory reserve in his athletes.

What might be most interesting however is that despite all of the intensive, specific and well researched science that Dr. Vigil has put into his athletes he has found that the final polish in getting them to a higher state lies in the Zen of personal improvement and that he insists upon this as part of an athlete’s progression to excellence.

As with all members of Team Running USA, we required that all athletes strive to:
1. Improve Personal Relationships
2. Improve Achievement Motivation
3. Improve the Quality of Their Mini and Macro Environments
4. Improve Their Athletic Maturity
5. Show Integrity to Their Value System
6. Display a Commitment to Their Mission
7. Practice Abundance by Giving Back to Their Sport and Team
This is great news for the adult runner because of the fact that even though we can all personally improve, many adults are already quite good at the above seven core ideas of Coach Vigil.

Joe Vigil currently coach for Team USA in California and one of the most impressive athletes in this great team is Olympian Dena Kastor. Vigil describes Dena Kastor, “If I were to operationally define the qualities an athlete must possess to be successful, Deena would epitomize those qualities. She is a great example of mind/body autonomy working in harmony to reach set goals. She truly believes and adheres to the principle of unending improvement and the setting and achieving of even higher goals.”

In interviews and articles his wisdom continues to shine through on how to motivate the inner athlete for performance. Some of his adages, paraphrased, follow here.

Friendship is the thing to cherish and respect the most from the sport you are involved with.

Challenge: you have to make a difference in your team, finding your gift or element of leadership that you can give to those around you. Be an impact person.

The journey: every day you need to accomplish something, incrementally in the process, you have to think and plan how you will incrementally get better.

Courage: you have to have the courage to not do, what you should not do, when the current leads you astray. Be considerate of your teammates and fellow runners and look for chances to pick them up.

Goddess of wisdom vs. the goddess of wealth -
"We all have two goddesses that complete for our hearts in life. You cannot chase the money – if you give all your attention to the goddess of wisdom and cherish her most, the goddess of wealth will become jealous and follow you." I think that I like this one the best and anyone who has been caught dancing like no-one is watching is onto this idea. You should be doing the important stuff first, the rest comes along if it will.

Arthur Lydiard
From his beginnings as a cobbler who began running as a means to rid himself of a few pounds, Lydiard’s name became synonymous with great coaches. He began a coaching philosophy in the 1950’s that was tested in his neighborhood in Auckland, New Zealand, with non-athletes and even bypass patients. As Garth Gilmore writes in the preface to Lydiard’s book Running to the Top, (reprinted in numerous languages) “So ingrained is the Lydiard philosophy now, we almost have to force ourselves to recall that before him, the coaching was 180 degrees the other direction. Lydiard was the beginning of a magic era; jogging became acceptable if not godlike…Lydiard was the keystone and he never lets us forget that, as an unschooled layman, he did what physiologists, theorists, and professional coaches were not able to do. He was unsophisticated but he was smart.”
Lydiard enjoyed an equally long list of mentored champions. He has too many keen insights about running to list in a single essay and his imprint on coaching is clearly still felt today. I’ll share a few of those insights here, from his book that which are relevant to your program.

“Athletes need to enjoy their training… You have to hurt yourself a little but at the same time you must enjoy it” he is also the person who gave us the adage “train, don’t strain”. While Lydiard never said it would all be easy for athletes, he emphasized that one should “try to run each day in such a way that (you) would want to run again the next day”

Our sport is largely a solitary one and thus there is a very large mental aspect, where the athlete is driven internally to flourish and move forward in their journey. On this matter Lydiard states, “athletes need to be told why specific aspects of training are being used, both physiologically and mechanically. This is the best form of psychology and motivation to use…The coach should appeal to an athlete’s intelligence, explain clearly what every training session means & what they are trying to achieve. ”

“One of the remarkable aspects of jogging has been the discovery by so many who have taken up running, even late in life, of potential they didn’t know they had to be quite successful athletes”. He follows this through with, “when it comes to endurance, we can develop that in anyone” and if you have not caught my bias yet – I believe him on this one.

I like the change in perspective these guys have and offer it to you so that you can A) understand where I am coming from when I offer you advise about your program B) So that you can begin to explore further some of the great minds in the sport that have a lot of sound advice to offer. See if you can find the influence of these folks in the modern viewpoint of Tom Holland and his book. I feel that in terms of running’s history we are all standing on the shoulders of giants.