Last week a new initiative called Reach launched to encourage more women into coaching. Women are hugely under-represented in coaching, and as there’s a lack of volunteer coaches across the country, it makes sense: more women coaches = more coaches.
By sheer coincidence, last week I started coaching a new session for the Serpentine running club where I’m a member. I did my coaching training and observations down at Paddington track every Tuesday night, learning from some very experienced coaches and working with a broad range of athletes.
Since I qualified as a coach at the start of the year I’ve been thinking of ways to give something back to the club that has supported me and help a group of athletes that need a bit of guidance. After a few chats with other members, a new track session was born catering for athletes who are new to interval training and track running.
All coaches have a particular group of athletes that they are most interested in working with – for me it’s beginner and foundation level athletes. I like helping people achieve things that are a big deal to them. Helping someone get that 10k PB of 59 minutes after months of hard work means as much to me as it does to my runners.
So on Monday night, assisted by my friend and run leader Laura, I headed to Paddington to see who would turn up for our first session. I’d had a few emails from people expressing interest but you never know how these things will go. 19 runners turned up, mostly women with a couple of guys. Many were nervous and excited about training on the track for the first time.
At the end of the session a lot of the runners thanked us for putting on a session that was ‘just for them’, by which they meant pitched at their level. Laura and I cycled back up to North London chatting about the session and with big smiles on our faces. This week we had 23 runners with many from last week coming back.
We’re heading into winter. It’s dark and often cold standing by the side of the track holding a whistle and yelling out encouragement. But there’s nowhere I’d rather be at 7pm on a Monday night, (or on a Wednesday when I coach my runners in Hampstead) than helping other people run.
Great Initiative, nice post