Change of Pace

You want to make yourself dizzy? Try following the current series of threads on Mike's Running with Lydiard blog. He's a pretty fervent acolyte of Sir Arthur and naturally responded to Greg McMillan's thought provoking marathon training article in the current Running Times. I read the article and Mike's responses and all the comments and I've got to agree with brand new blogger Chad:

Wow! This is getting pretty theoretical for me. I better go for a run to figure it out...but what kind of run? How fast? Crap, I better go for a run to figure out what kind of run...aarrggg!

This may be the best argument for why to get a coach...let him figure this out and then you can go out and enjoy the run.

Some may point out that technically, I already have a coach, but 1. I don't think he has the time to invest in giving me thorough training advice and 2. I don't believe that he really believes in my potential. I think of him more as the person who runs the team that I'm on. If I want someone to sit down with me and devise an effective, workable plan for jousting the 2:47 windmill (and really, why aim lower than that?), I think I'm going to have to pay somebody to do it. This past summer the New York Times published an article about the ins and outs of online coaching which I saved and am going to have to go back and read carefully. I've played around a little bit with some online coaching plans, but have never really seriously poised myself to take the plunge. At the very least I should contact a few of them by email and see if they think I'm someone who would benefit from their methods. Of course, if they stand to make some money off of me, some coaches are probably predispositioned to say I would, whether it's true or not.

I've said a few times over the past year that I wouldn't look into this until I broke three hours doing it all by myself, but if I really want to aim for the kind of improvement that I dream of, I might need a little help. I suppose it's a little silly to even start planning this next training cycle until I've dealt with my injury, but I have no idea how long it takes to find a good coaching situation, so I might as well start looking now.