Welcome To The Program

'Tis the season... to pick a new coach!

Yep, January 1 is right around the corner... this is a fun time of year since we get to dream all about our goals for next year and then figure out a plan to achieve them.

As a coach, I am excited about having picked up a few new athletes for next year... getting to know them and what makes them tick... good stuff.

As an athlete, I've found myself insanely quite jealous of some of you out there who have announced your plans to train with new coaches... and I was inspired... for lots of reasons. I don't even know if I could go into all of them here, but I found myself overwhelmingly curious about what a good coach would do with me in 2011. I had sketched out a general plan of how I was going to train myself for IMCdA and was excited to implement it, but then just couldn't stop thinking about what differences there would be if someone else was doing the planning...

Picking a coach of course is a challenge. I knew I needed one who I respected, and I wanted one who knows running. And who knows Ironman. And one who wanted to take me on as a little project. Long story short (thanks to Kerrie for the recommendation!) right before the marathon, I contacted my potential new coach. We agreed to talk the following week.

After the marathon I got a very short email from him. All it said was, "3:56 on Sunday? You need to be much better at CDA."

Period.

Gulp.

Ok. Put your big girls pants on, Michelle. You need this. I replied, "Yes. I know. This is why I want to talk to you."

I was nervous to talk to him on the phone after that email but turns out he's not nearly as blunt when talking live. He's actually really nice. But he was still blunt. Which is good. I need that. We communicated a bit about what I have done in the past both training and racing and what I want to do in the future. At one point he said, "I think I know what your mistake has been and I know how to fix it."

Say no more. You're hired.

Can I just say that sharing your Training Peaks account with someone is akin to giving your diary to your mother?

Anyway, we just got started but already I can see plenty of differences in what he is telling me to do vs what I would have been doing with myself. Mostly (so far) it involves an intensity level that is far below what I have (ever) done. But he doesn't screw around with volume. This should be fun.

Given how easy my bike and run workouts have been, I was quite surprised to see the swim workout for this morning. It included the words hard effort, max effort, uncomfortable and then some more max effort. Really? Wow. Ok. Seriously, I think every meter after the w/u was quality work. Looking at the whole workout, I did a bit of math in my head and counted 4200M. So apparently while we are building my bike and run fitness from the ground up, we're not going to be letting go of the swim fitness I built this fall. Perfect.

I dragged Nalani out this morning to accompany me for my swim (actually, she gladly agreed to come when I asked her). She saw the workout and was like, is this supposed to be an easy one? This doesn't look easy. Nope. I told her I think it's his way of saying Welcome To The Program. Lol.

So I'm feeling really excited about this new element I have added back into my training. I really enjoyed working with a coach in the past and didn't realize how much I missed it until I brought one back in.