What’s it like to be coached by your boyfriend?
I am often asked this question. And while the relationship feels so natural from the inside, I can remember posing the same question myself to friends in similar situations in the past.
My first thought is always the same; it only works because we are a true partnership. I don’t deal well with being told what to do. After many years in the sport, I know myself fairly well and I find I have the greatest confidence in the training program when we write it together.
As such, the coaching relationship becomes an extension of our total partnership. We make decisions together about how to get me to peak fitness in just the same way that every couple makes decisions together about important things like buying a house, or parenting a child. We discuss all the issues and then we decide. Its really very simple. More often than not we are thinking the same thing anyway.
In all honesty, I think of Clinton as my boyfriend pretty much 100% of the time. I recognize that he is a good coach because I get to watch him coach others, and as a result, I respect him and his opinion on matters of training and racing.
In his post, Clint said I made him feel like he has the final say. I suspect he is just sensing my respect for him, because in all honesty, he makes me feel the same way.
After my bike ride went poorly in Lake Stevens, he questioned whether he gives me his best, but I have no such question. He does.
Accountability runs deep when you are dating your coach. If things go badly, I am not just letting down someone who I pay a couple hundred bucks a month online, but I am letting down my partner. This both adds pressure and is motivating on a new level for me.
I really wanted to race at Lake Stevens last weekend because at the Calgary 70.3, I got a taste of what I might be capable of, but felt I was really affected by the altitude. I wanted another shot at the distance. So, we agreed that Lake Stevens could fit into my training plan and off we went. In the few days before the race, it became apparent that I wasn’t recovering as well as we had hoped.
The outcome was that I had no power on the bike and the hilly course spanked me hard. I came off the bike 20mins down, worried that I might be crushing myself with view to Ironman Canada in 2 week’s time.
One downside to being coached by my partner is that the whole process carries an emotional weight that it might not otherwise. For example, out on that bike course, I was worrying about him worrying about me. I knew he would be thinking that I might have crashed. I saw him as I pulled into T2 and tears welled up in my eyes. I also didn’t know what to do. I needed a coach who could read my mind and tell me if I should run or not!!
Though good, Clint’s not that good, so I started running thinking it was a ‘transition run’ in my ‘training session’. ‘I’ll just do 5k.’
But, after 5k, I knew I was moving well, so I continued, 5km at a time, until I hit the finish line.
As a coach myself, I know that it’s fairly easy to make a beginner faster. Its not really too difficult to take someone who has been training poorly and to make them faster. It is quite a bit more difficult to take someone who has been training well for 6 years and find that extra 5% that will raise that person to the next level. So, it is this difficult task that we are working on together, and frankly, I wouldn’t change a thing.
At a family wedding.
Next stop IMC.
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