After injury recovery, do I need to hire a running coach? Well, that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
Today’s episode comes from a question that I got during a consultation call, a second opinion webcam call where we were talking about an injury, and she is doing great. She is running, she is doing fantastic, and she wanted to know, should I hire a running coach? This by the way is a very experienced, very fast marathon runner.
We had an interesting discussion about this, and I am probably going to get lots of hate mail for this. So, post in the comments if you disagree with me and if you are a running coach and you disagree with me and you want to come on the Doc On The Run Podcast and you want to discuss this with me and argue about it, have a, let’s say a friendly discussion, not an argument, friendly discussion, post in the comments and let me know who you are if you disagree with me.
My short answer was, at first, I said, there are two reasons you should hire a running coach after an injury. Number one, you have no discipline. Now, she being a very fast, very qualified, very experienced, very motivated runner does not fit into that category. She knows how to train, she knows how to run, she knows how to go fast. What she does not know how to do is to do all of those things without getting injured because she got injured.
It stands to reason in her case that although she doesn’t need it from the motivation side, she might need it from the restraint side because a coach should be able to look at your training program and go, this is trouble. This is what you need to do, but this is what you need to not do. So sometimes it’s very helpful to have a coach just to direct you in terms of what not to do.
The second reason is I said, yes, you need a running coach if you are not achieving your running goals. Now, in her case, she is always achieving her running goals except for when she gets injured. So, she says, I have no problem qualifying for Boston. I have no problem running a sub three-hour marathon, but I do have problems not getting injured. And I said, well, you might want to think about hiring a running coach, preferably one that also understands running injury. I really do think that you don’t really need a coach if you are achieving your goals and if you are not getting injured unless you have no discipline.
So, if you are highly motivated, you are achieving your goals, you are not getting injured, I don’t really know why you need a coach. But if you are a coach and you disagree with me, I would love to hear your answers why and I would love to talk about it on the Doc On The Run Podcast. So, if you as a runner disagree with me, if you have a coach, if you don’t have a coach, post your comments.
Let me hear what your story is. Let me hear why you have a coach or why you don’t have a coach or why you think every runner does need a coach. If you liked this episode, please like it, please subscribe, and I’ll see you in the next training.
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