Challenges of Summer Running and Coaching

Sunday, July 12, 2015 · Mike Davis

Good morning! Hope your weekend is going well, my weekend is going super as we got our boy Roy back yesterday after his 3 week stay with my brother. Kathy and I both love our dog dearly even if he is as high maintenance as a spoiled movie star. We muse at what he must think about our current life style of swapping from parent to parent and on occasion staying with a third party. No doubt he thinks he’s a child of a broken marriage. Roy’s friendliness with every human certainly endears him to just about everyone but his Velcro trait can be test your patients some times. We are now in the heart of the summer and the weather has certainly been nice for the beach and challenging for running. People have commented plenty of times about our move to North Carolina and how hot it is, but having been there in July I can confidently say that New Hampshire is not that much cooler at times. Definitely more days on the plus side of 90s in North Carolina but I’ll take that as a tradeoff for the longer fall and shorter winter. Either location can be a challenge in the summer for running but challenges are one of the elements that contribute to the joy of running. Running in either state during the summer requires both physical adjustments and metal fortitude. As a running coach we have to help navigate our runners through both and that can be challenging for both us and our runners. In some ways working with others helps my running as well as my running helps our runners. The real challenge of coaching runner during either the summer or winter is when they are either working toward either a half or full marathon. Training for either a half or full marathon allows little opportunity for reining in mileage or substituting runs for other cross training on extreme days. There are obvious times where extreme conditions call for adjustments and as a coach safety is always paramount but consistently adjusting can eventually compromise training more than we would like. When meeting with potential clients that have certain goals we always have to consider their goals versus the potential challenges. If a runner wants to run a spring half or full marathon and they reside in the north they have to consider the challenges of winter running. If a beautiful fall half or full marathon is the goal then enduring long slow and “hot” runs will be required. Personally I have done both and I am still unsure of which I prefer. I had a person come to me many years ago who wanted to run their first marathon in October of that year. The good thing was that this person came to me early enough to have ample time to train. However when summer rolled around this runner started missing long training runs and when I questioned them the response was “I hate running in the heat.” Despite my best attempts help this runner get the necessary mileage in I ended up having to end our working together. This runner was not happy but as a trained certified running coach I will not compromise healthy running and if that means terminating a partnership so be it. As “No Finish Line Running” has continued to grow I have become even more adamant that while we want to help runners, we will never compromise safe and healthy running. It can be extremely difficult to turn someone away but if the circumstances aren’t what they should be we do our best to offer alternative thinking. Caring about people often means putting them before our business. This week is another typical week at “NFLR,” we have a three training groups going currently, Jasmin has his two strength & conditioning classes Monday and Wednesday at 6:30 and Erica will be moving up “Pilates in the Park” class to Tuesday at 6pm as she is going to be out of town on Thursday. We are really excited about all we have going on and are having a lot of fun! If you are looking for a run to jump in on but can’t commit to a training group by all means you can drop in for $5 and enjoy a run with us. We will be at the Dover track on Tuesday nights at 6pm, the 7th Settlement on Wednesday evening at 6pm and at the “NFLR Coaching & Endurance Resource Center on Saturday morning at 8:30am. Any of these runs are great for anyone so come on out! I have finished 2 cups of coffee already so that tells me that I have chatted enough. Hope you have a great Sunday and an even better weekend! God Bless! Mike