Throughout this clinic that I’ve been coaching, I’ve been inviting guest speakers to come in to speak to the group on specific topics. Yesterday, with the topic of speed training on the schedule I decided to perform the talk myself. From my experience, a lot of people just simply go way too fast for their abilities. As a result, people burn out too fast and get to the point of exhaustion far too soon. Then, all that’s left is a horribly bad impression of speed training. Back then I felt the exact same way. Oh, if I only had a dollar for every time someone said “I hate speed training!” Well, about a year ago I had my eureka moment with this type of training. With a bit of technique, everything finally clicked. All of a sudden, I actually grew to love speed training. Crazy, that. So, I knew that if I could explain the training properly to my group, I would be able to gain at least one convert among the group.
The talk itself went well. I kind of think though that I was rambling. Either that or I was speaking at a little bit of a fast clip. I had everyone’s attention though. Frankly, I think that not everyone was used to the message that speed training isn’t about going all out until you feel like puking. When we were out there I could tell that no one was going egregiously fast for their abilities. I had stressed to them that they should be going a little bit faster than their anticipated race pace. Everyone paid attention and went according to their abilities. For myself, I was going at a good speed–faster than I’d gone last year at this time, for sure. Yes, it was tough, but that’s expected for this type of workout. By the end, I was just happy to have completed it all. I waited around for the group to finish before we headed back to store.
Back at the store, we were all stretching out at the side. I polled the people in my clinic to see how the felt about it. Everyone told me that it wasn’t bad at all. Upon hearing that I was pleased with myself. I knew that I’d transformed people’s opinions. What really blew me away was when a couple of them told me that they actually enjoyed that more than hill training. That kind of thing doesn’t happen! Except it did! I rock! For me, this was entirely an unexpected triumph. It’s definitely something that I will hold with me from this coaching experience.
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