I’m a self-taught runner and coach. As I never wanted to join a running club I had to figure out for myself how to get my parkrun under 19-minutes, run 10K in 40 minutes and half marathons in about 1hr30. To do that I read a lot of books and explored a lot of different training methods – some worked for me, some didn’t. All of them contributed to my knowledge but more importantly I gained a thorough understanding of how to train and what’s going on.
I’ve got the qualifications from UK Athletics – I’m both a Leader and Coach in Running Fitness – but there’s no substitute for experience. I coached at a local running club – Littledown Harriers – for a year while completing the CiRF qualification. But before that I’d coached friends and work colleagues informally and spent fifteen years coaching volleyball teams. Along the way I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons on how to become a better coach.
Initially I thought coaching was just about passing on information and telling people what to do in a session but over the years I’ve learned there’s a lot more to it than that. Making it fun, enjoyable and different is just as important. Now it’s time for me to pass on my knowledge so you too can become a better runner.
