Good morning,
I have been a personal running coach for over 10 years and I have spent much of that time developing a personal coaching business that helps beginner to intermediate runners become stronger and find greater joy in their running. When I started No Finish Line Running, I was the only personal running coach on the Seacoast of New Hampshire, and not long after that, Kathy and I became the only certified running coaches in the area. As running became more popular on the Seacoast and across the country, the coaching business has surely changed since those early years.
In the time since we begin coaching, the lure of coaching increased because of the increased volume of runners and with volume came greater financial opportunity. Even personal trainers saw the numbers of people in the running community and added running to their services. With apps and online programs available, it has become easy to offer coaching services. Now an individual can offer coaching services, without even needing to understand the difference between cadence and propulsion.
From the beginning, NFLR has approached personal coaching as more than a formula that can be provided by anyone. We have focused on learning the science of our training plan development and any program we create is based on the individual and our technical expertise, not a generic formula. Apps are wonderful tools and they certainly make it easy to forego expertise. However, when we work with runners, our goal is to help them based on factors that an app cannot possibly take in account.
Jack Daniels has been one of the great running coaches of all time, and now he is marketing a training app that many coaches are using to offer coaching services. Plug in numbers and, Vwa-lah, you can create a training plan. This app is a wonderful tool, and I might even recommend it to certain runners, but as a personal running coach, I would never use it to develop training plans. There is far more to training a runner than using an algorithm. Understanding the individual runner, and considering important details are important factors that go into a sustainable and successful training plan.
There are many great running coaches that have invested time (education) and money into developing their ability to help individual runners. However, there is now a trend of those that call themselves coaches, when all they are providing is a conduit for a formula. If the goal is to get personal coaching that helps you run for life, I highly recommend that you seek out a professionally trained coach that will help you the individual.
Hope you have a great week!
God Bless!
Michael
