What every endurance athlete should understand about getting the most from their coaching relationship.
Hiring a coach can be one of the best investments you make in your training, particularly if you're preparing for your first triathlon, half Ironman or marathon.
You get a structured training plan, someone to guide your progression, help you manage your workload and prepare you for the demands of your event.
But there's something that's often overlooked when people start working with a coach.
Coaching isn't simply about having someone write your workouts. It's a relationship, and both sides have responsibilities.
And how well that relationship works can make a significant difference to your training experience and your results.
There's a reason your training plan looks the way it does
When I build an athlete's programme, I'm not just filling seven days with swimming, cycling, running or strength training.
I'm looking at the bigger picture. Your current fitness, training history, strengths and weaknesses, available time, recovery capacity and the demands of your goal event.
Every session has a purpose, but so does its position within the week.
A hard bike session might be followed by an easy swim. A demanding run might be scheduled after a lighter day. A recovery week might arrive just when you're feeling strong and keen to do more.
That's deliberate.
And the intensity and duration of each session matter just as much as the session itself.
If your plan says 60 minutes at an easy aerobic intensity, running 75 minutes at a faster pace isn't necessarily an improvement.
You've changed the training stimulus, increased the recovery demands and potentially affected your ability to complete the next session as intended.
Do that occasionally and it might not matter much. Do it consistently and the programme you're actually following can become quite different from the one your coach designed.
More isn't automatically better, and faster isn't always the goal.
Completing the workout isn't the same as executing it correctly
It's tempting to judge training success by whether you've ticked off every session.
But there's a difference between completing a workout and achieving its intended purpose.
If you're prescribed an easy run, the goal isn't to see how fast you can run while still calling it easy.
If you're prescribed threshold intervals, the goal isn't to smash every repetition as hard as possible.
And if you're prescribed a rest day, that doesn't automatically mean there's room to squeeze in an extra workout because you're feeling good.
Training is about applying the right stimulus at the right time, then allowing your body to adapt.
That's why I encourage athletes to pay attention to the details of their sessions, not just the headline workout.
And if you don't understand why something is prescribed, ask!
I'd much rather explain the reasoning behind a session than have an athlete quietly decide to change it because they think something else would be more beneficial.
Your coach needs to know what's actually happening
This is probably one of the most important parts of the coaching relationship.
I can only coach what I know.
Training data is useful. I can look at pace, power, heart rate, duration and training load. I can see whether a session was completed and, to some extent, how it was executed.
But data doesn't tell me everything.
It doesn't necessarily tell me that your calf has been niggling for a week, that you're sleeping badly, that work has been particularly stressful or that you're starting to dread your training sessions.
And those things matter.
If something hurts, tell me.
If you're feeling unusually tired, tell me.
If you're struggling to fit everything in, tell me.
If you're losing motivation or training is starting to feel like a chore, I definitely want to know.
None of that is a failure on your part. It's information that helps me make better coaching decisions.
The earlier I know something isn't quite right, the more options we have to adjust your training before a small issue potentially becomes a bigger one.
Life happens. Your training plan can change.
I don't expect athletes to organise their entire lives around a training plan.
Work commitments change. Families need attention. Holidays happen. Sometimes you're simply exhausted and need a break.
That's normal.
But moving sessions around without considering how they fit together can create problems.
Three demanding sessions spread across a week might be perfectly manageable. Move them onto three consecutive days and you've created a very different training load.
If you need to rearrange your week, let's work out how to do it.
Sometimes we'll move sessions. Sometimes we'll shorten them. And sometimes the best decision is to drop one altogether.
You don't have to make up every missed workout.
Consistency matters far more than trying to squeeze everything into an already busy week.
Accountability works both ways
So far, I've talked quite a bit about what athletes need to do. But the coach has responsibilities too.
My job isn't simply to deliver a plan and expect you to follow it without question.
It's to provide training that's appropriate for your ability, experience and goals. To explain what we're trying to achieve, monitor how you're responding and make adjustments when they're needed.
It's also my responsibility to listen when you tell me something isn't working.
If you're consistently struggling with a particular session, feeling overwhelmed by your training load or finding the programme difficult to fit around your life, we need to talk about it.
And sometimes I need to recognise that I've got something wrong.
Coaching involves judgement, and no training plan is perfect. Good coaching means being willing to adapt as we learn more about how an athlete responds.
But that only works when there's honest communication from both sides.
You're not expected to know everything
If you're new to working with a coach, you might not understand training zones, recovery weeks, periodisation or why some sessions feel ridiculously easy.
That's absolutely fine. You don't need to become an exercise physiologist either.
But I do want you to understand enough about your training to recognise that the details matter.
Ask questions. Challenge things you don't understand. Tell me when something feels too easy, too hard or simply doesn't make sense.
That's how you learn, and it's how we build a better programme together.
And please don't feel that you need to impress your coach by doing more than what's prescribed.
I'm far more interested in seeing an athlete execute a session well, recover appropriately and turn up ready for the next one than seeing someone smash every workout.
The best results come from working together
A good coaching relationship should give you more than a collection of workouts.
It should help you become a more knowledgeable, confident and capable athlete.
Someone who understands when to push, when to back off, how to recognise fatigue and how to make sensible decisions about training.
As your coach, I'll bring the programming, experience, guidance and support.
What I need from you is honest communication, feedback, a willingness to learn and a commitment to following the intent of the training, not just completing the sessions.
Because ultimately, we're working towards the same thing.
Getting you to the start line healthy, prepared and confident, and giving you the best possible opportunity to achieve your goals.
And that's a team effort.