Up to a year ago, I was running in a track-team. It was fun, but I was already feeling my age and stopped in the summer of 2007. Yesterday, I decided, for the second time this summer, to join my former team in one of their infamous 2-3 hour training-sessions.

What made this team great was its coach. He was recruited a few years ago, is in his 40s, and is a master of his sport. What made him great is that he was somehow able to target all of us: the quick 18 year olds and the slower 30 year olds and above. He planned the route well, placed us into fitness-categories 1-3, did an extremely slow warm-up to get us all ready, and used “vacuuming” to keep us all together. It is a term we use over here, meaning that the quickest, once reaching a certain distance, turn around and dribble back to the slower ones.

That’s all excellent, but there is one flaw in placing to much faith in a coach: he’s just one person. Last night, another co-runner of mine took over the training. He planned the route well, warmed us up slowly, used vacuuming, and made us run 13 km (ca. 10 miles)! You should know that my top mileage is usually about half that, and hadn’t trained much the weeks before. We even had a girl, whose knees gave out after 10 km, and were still able to train around her, while she walked. Somehow, we all came away satisfied.

In my opinion, the important qualities of sports-coaches are these three things, and I hope they translate to other disciplines as well:

• Knowing your craft really well;
• Planning for different abilities in your team;
• Making your craft transparent so others can take over.

More tech coming this weekend, I promise!

Vincent

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