I Give Other Runners Great Advice, but I Struggle to Apply It to Myself

About five years ago, a few friends knew I ran marathons and had run in college. They knew that I had been running since I was 12 years old and had been running for a very long time, and they were familiar with some of my mediocre personal bests: 15:36 in the 5k an 2:40 in the marathon at that time.

They asked me to coach them because they wanted to start running.

They were a very loose, very informal relationships. I was very reluctant to give any advice. I told them things like “just run when you feel like running” and “have fun” and did not give any specific, concrete advice like how long they should run on their long runs or how many miles they should run a week.

One of those friends got himself another coach, whom he paid for. Another didn’t really run after a while. I didn’t take the role as a coach because I was someone who had just come out of college and had a somewhat strained relationship with running. I had been running very seriously for several years continuously, since I was a freshman in high school, and I was burned out. I wanted other people not to take running as seriously as I did and just have fun with the sport.

On the other hand, my friends were looking for more concrete, actionable advice as new runners looking to figure out an activity they didn’t know much about. I had a huge aversion to giving advice to my friends and still wanted them to have fun and enjoy running.

I didn’t see that they were looking for guidance from someone who was a lot more experienced. I didn’t see that they were looking to run faster, unlike me. They wanted to push themselves to new heights, and I didn’t give them that.

A couple of months ago, several of my friends from high school who were not runners and wanted to pick up running asked me for advice on running. My initial inclination was the same as five years ago — tell them to do what they want and be a little more chill about their running. I don’t have a super imposing personality, so this was my natural inclination, and I am a big believer in not giving unsolicited advice and respectinfg everyone’s ability to

However, I knew they were looking for more specific, concrete guidance, and they were extremely receptive.

I wasn’t too overbearing, but I told them to run around 10–15 or 15–20 miles a week as new runners. I warned them not to overdo the training and not to increase the mileage by too much on any given week. This helped them a lot — some of them had big mileage weeks, but they struggled to maintain this mileage consistently. I emphasized the important part was that they got in mileage and ran consistently, rather than running a lot one week and not running at all the next. I emphasized that life happens, but improving in running is a game of consistency, not blind intensity.

I have given these friends so much running advice when they asked that now I’m colloquially known in this high school group chat as “Coach Fan.” It is flattering, but the most rewarding parts are when they start to run times that are much faster week after week in workouts or race times they previously did not think they were capable of doing. One of my friends just ran a several-minute-long personal record in the 5k and thanked me for all the help.

I don’t want to toot my own horn as a coach, as a lot of this is the beginner’s blessing. We improve much more when we’re beginners at something than when we’re very experienced.

My first year of running during seventh grade, I ran a 9:56 mile. Every run felt like I was going to die. Within a couple of months of pushing myself to the wall every day, I ran a 6:50 mile. The next year, I improved this time to a 5:42 in eighth grade. In ninth grade, I ran a 4:59. The time was improving by almost a minute every year, but then I spent three more years to only run 23 seconds better — my senior year, I ran a 4:36 mile. From my first year of college to my last year, I trained tirelessly just to improve by 47 seconds in the 5k.

It’s so much easier to improve when you’re just starting as it is to fine tune when you’re closer and closer to your limit. I told most of my friends the very simple message of “run more miles and be consistent.” They executed it themselves, and I’m very happy for my friends’ success almost as much as I am for my own.

Beyond the very simple training strategy of running more miles, I also noticed different easy fixes that slowed my friends down, which were easy fixes from my 16 years of running 16 years. I saw that one of my friends was wearing far too many layers of clothes while running — in 80 degree Fahrenheight weather, one friend was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. I knew this stemmed from a fear of being cold while running, so I told him to wear fewer layers while running. The moment he just wore shorts and a T-shirt, running became a lot easier for him.

My friends also just did easy runs with occasional long runs, so I told them to start doing intervals and paced them on an interval workout. I first showed these friends 8×400 meters with a 400-meter jog rest as an easier type of threshold workout. A lactate threshold workout is a workout where the body starts producing more lactate than it can clear, which helps a runner increase aerobic capacity.

They loved this workout and did it twice a week, several weeks in a row, but I knew that they wouldn’t benefit as much from doing the same workout over and over again as they would from switching it up and stressing different parts of their aerobic system. I eventually helped these friends move up to 800-meter workouts at this threshold pace with one minute of rest so they could get more of an aerobic benefit.

I also taught them the importance of pacing — they wanted to evenly pace or run faster miles throughout a race, instead of starting as fast as possible and then hanging on for dear life.

Lastly, there was the shoes. My friends largely wore heavy, clunky training shoes on all their runs, including their workouts and races. I told them they would greatly benefit from lighter shoes, and the famous carbonplate shoes that gave an extra boost, if they were willing to spend the money on it. With these shoes, one friend was suddenly running paces on workouts they’d never run before.

These all seem like very small, nitpicky things, but to me, I was someone very deeply ingrained in the sport and who knows the tricks of the trade. I don’t think I’m sort of guru as much as I can get my friends past all the gatekeeping new runners stumble upon.

There are certainly ways I could be more effective — the biggest is that I live in Baltimore while most of these friends live in New York. If I could run with them or actually watch their workouts live, I could have more input into their running mechanics. I know every runner can tell me how something feels and how easy a workout is, and they genuinely believe it and I will believe it. However, when I’m actually there and see the look on their face or hear how hard they actually breathe during a workout, then I might get a better gauge.

I’m sure every coach feels this, but I am not the best at coaching and guiding my friends through injuries. I know injuries suck and I just tell them to rest, back off, and take some time off. If they are worried about maintaining fitness, I preach the bike, elliptical, or pool to maintain some sort of cardio stimulus.

I try to reach out as much as possible, but as much of an expert I am on what it takes to build aerobic fitness, I am not the biggest expert on injury rehabilitation — I was never good at it myself as a runner. I often advise going to see a physical therapist, but perhaps this is where I’m a bit hard on myself — there’s only so much someone can do when they’re injured, and less is often more in times of injury.

While my friends think I’m great at my loose coaching and advising role with them, the ironic part is that I have a much harder time following the same advice myself. I am training to run under a 2:30 marathon and I have been running 80 miles a week pretty much every week. There were two weeks I ran 100 miles a week.

I tell my friends, “don’t build up your mileage too much at once.” But I went from 39 miles a week to 80 miles the next week. I felt fine, and I was used to that kind of mileage before, so I knew given my past experience, I could handle it.

I tell my friends to always stop an interval workout when they feel like they can do one or two more so they don’t go too hard and aren’t too trashed for the rest of the week. In my own running, I hammer the last rep and go one more interval because I’m feeling good all the time.

I tell my friends to split high mileage days into two runs if they have a big mileage day. I know I should do this with running 80 or 100 miles a week to decrease injury risk and stress on my body. Instead, I run 18 miles at a time and marathons on the treadmill for my long runs to avoid the logistical stress of having to run twice a day, showering twice a day, and planning several meals during the day around running.

I have found that it is so easy to tell other people what to do, so easy to give advice and spectate on what other people are doing right or wrong in their running (and in their lives). However, when it comes to myself, I act more on impulse than logic, heart over brain. I live through my mistakes and learn through baptism by fire and trial by error much more than I do from just listening to others’ advice. I am still 28 and young, and often, I take risks and live a more exciting life through running than I do my professional life.

Every single coach I have had has told me the same things — stop going so hard in workouts. Stop going out so hard the first mile of races. Get more sleep. Stop taking running so seriously so you don’t get so nervous on race day.

I am much, much better at all these things than I have ever been. But old habits die hard, and I still lapse into old mistakes or thought patterns once every once in a while.

There are many other areas of my life, and probably a lot of others, where the same principle applies. As a former teacher, I cannot count how many times I have told students and friends, “don’t wait until the last minute to do this assignment,” and then did the same exact thing myself. I try to do better, but I don’t always do.

This does make me a hypocrite in a lot of respects. But I would not know as much as I do, be as insightful about ways I can help other runners, if I did not stumble so much and make so many mistakes myself.

Of course, there is also a natural human paradox that it is so much easier to help others than it is to help yourself. Perhaps it is a part of the human experience as a whole. Coaching my friends has been fun, rewarding, and has deepened our relationships in many ways. The bigger challenge is going to be practicing what I preach in coaching myself.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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