Should I hire a coach?

It's been in the back of my mind for a while now. I know I would benefit from a structured training plan. And if I had a specific plan for every day, over an entire month, I think I would stick with it.

As many of you know, my husband, SR, has been my coach. But there were 3 simple problems with this: the training seemed very good for getting faster at 5ks to half marathons. But I personally want to improve at marathons and ultra marathons. 2. I want a coach who can train me up to a good Ironman and SR doesn't have experience with this. 3. I need a detailed plan, including what I should do on the days I'm not training as hard, and this takes a lot of time. SR is not going to spend the time to make this training plan if he doesn't think I will follow it (for the two above reasons).

So I was suddenly excited when I learned from May-Britt's blog that Ole Stougaard, who won the 6 hour race with over 80km, and former winner of the Norseman Ironman, was a coach. I mean, how often can find one find coaches who are both successful ultra runners and triathletes?

So I wrote to him, explaining what I was looking for. I should mention that the company, Multicoach, which he owns, has pretty expensive fees for coaching (about $150 per month). I very quickly received a very nice and informative email from him about what he would recommend, but he said he had too many athletes at the moment to take on more. He then recommended another guy he works with. Well, I googled this guy and could only find one race result from a short triathlon and already knew I needed to say no. I really don't want to pay for a coach who doesn't have experience with ultras and ironmans(men?). Because then I would doubt the training plan and not follow it. But I'll write back to Ole and get more info on the other coach.

So I googled training plans for ultras and an Ironman and really couldn't find anything helpful. But then I ran across Lisa Smith Batchen as a coach, who seemed absolutely perfect. I was sold, until I saw that she charges $325 per month(!) if you want tri training included ($275 for just ultra training). That would be like renting an extra apartment. Wow. As step-daughter, Natali, might say "it's not like it's rocket surgery." Or is it?

As of now, my solution is to take an Ironman training plan from the internet, but make the long training runs longer. I will probably make other modifications so I don't peak for a specific race. But another part of me is averse to following any plan at all and simply doing what I want to do and what I can make time for on that particular day. Anyway, I'm open to suggestions.

Little update

I'm feeling much better after my total ultra breakdown. I got scared when, the day after I wrote the last post, I had such frequent palpitations that I had to stop on my bike ride multiple times to wait for my heart to beat normally again. It occurred to me that my potassium was low, so I started eating bananas. I haven't had any palpitations since and, now in spinning/pulse training, I have no trouble getting my pulse to rise and fall. I have to wonder if the potassium helped. It just seems to weird, though, that the solution was so simple.

30k run

In the week after the race, I ran a total of 2 miles, so today I was ready for something big. I had considered the local 10k race, but opted for a nice, easy 30k instead. It's kind of rare I stop and take pictures, but today I did - and what a beautiful fall day!

After 7.5 miles, I arrive in Appenæs.



And finally get to enjoy the bayside trails. It's difficult to tell, but this is salt water connected to the nearby ocean.

Here I am on my way home, along Slagelsevej in Næstved. (This is also where I run my intervals.)

12:24 pm - and look at the length of the shadows (I subsequently spent way too long trying to figure out when exactly the sun's zenith was and had to give up). This is the forest in our backyard. I'm almost home.

Time to watch the New York City Marathon. I'm rooting for Christelle Daunay of France.

Running songs of the day:

Can you tell by Ra Ra Riot (thanks, Steve Q, for introducing me to this band)

Drain You by Horse Feathers (beautiful remake of the Nirvana song)