How To Choose The Right Coach With Dominic Guinto, CTS Athlete Services Director | Koopcast Episode 35

what's going on trail and ultra runners welcome to another episode of the KoopCast a podcast where we discuss all things related to trail and ultra running as well as have a little bit of fun banter along the way as always i'm your host coach Jason Koop and on this episode of the podcast we have none other than dominic unto who's the athlete services director for cts this episode of the podcast is for everyone listening who has a coach is thinking about getting a coach or who is a coach themselves and i know there are a lot of other coaches that listen to this podcast although dominic plays many critical roles within the company the one that is the most relevant for this conversation is that he is the person that is responsible for making sure that all of the new incoming athletes get the coach that is best for them and let me tell you this is no easy feat even when i have people request me specifically i still lean on dominic for counsel and if i'm not the right coach which many times i'm not i can trust that dominic will find the coach that is right for that athlete dominic regularly matches up between 50 and 100 athletes a month with our cts coaches and he

might be the only person in the entire world that has that much experience and that much practice ascertaining how athletes will best thrive with a new coach he also serves as a liaison between the athlete and the coach when things go awry and that happens every so often and we talk about when that goes awry at various points during this podcast dominic is also a personal friend of mine he's an avid mountain biker and if he's willing to admit it he's a recovering triathlete although dominic and i only live a mile apart we record this podcast remotely so at times you're going to hear his cute little dog josie rustling around in the background sorry josie had to throw you underneath the bus a little bit it's all good though finally before anyone's cynical side kicks in and thinks this is going to be an hour-long advertorial on coaching calm down give the podcast some time i would never do that to you guys my aim with this podcast which i think we did quite well frankly is to give any athlete guidance on if coaching is right for them regardless of if that's with one of our cts coaches another coach or you end up coaching yourself and as a bonus at the end of this podcast during the outro if you're so inclined to listen i will give you the same step-by-step guidance i give anyone who reaches out to me on this topic for how to find the right coach for you so let's get right into it here's my conversation

with dominic gunto all about coach athlete relationships your goal everyone's goal is different i mean this is where all this stuff goes let's face it so might as well let's get started yeah let's get into it man everybody's goal is different that's a perfect launch point man so i i mean at this at this point just to set the stage between you and i i will have given you some glowing intro about who you are what your background is specifically what you do to cts so you don't have to like run through the whole thing but you play a few different roles within cts and especially within the roles that you kind of interact with our athletes just as a like a like a short overview let's just take a quick punch list really quick on like your main interaction points within the athlete base that we have so so i'm i'm the first person that a new athlete or potentially new athlete would come to whether that's through a coach or through an email uh in the in the best situation i get the opportunity to speak to the athlete first uh answer questions uh and so forth but uh as far as overall duties are for me to speak to the athlete find out what they're looking for and find the right coach for them uh the other touch points i have with athletes are current athletes uh that uh that have either customer service questions and

need to change a credit card on their account they want to sign up for a camp they want to buy a cts kit they'd like to schedule a private camp with their coach whatever that may be um all those things typically come to myself or someone on my team and in athlete services um but primarily with coaching i'm i'm that first uh contact uh with all of the athletes and so for this conversation i want to focus on two areas is one just what you mentioned we're going to get into that first you're the first touch point and discuss what athletes ask you and then how you take that information to make sure that you can start to create the best coach athlete relationship possible specifically by matching them with the right coach and then the second one is is i do want to spend a little bit of time talking about when coach athlete relationships go awry and they do with any you know coaching business any with any relationship not just coach any relationship um that definitely has the potential for happen so we're going to dive into that a little bit more so when when when you first come into contact with a new athlete what do they ask you and what are your steps of trying to figure out what the best course of action is for that athlete to get them to the right coach it's an interesting question because there have been times and not often um that the person's not looking for a coach at all

so uh i i can't just assume that every time an athlete comes in the door and has a question about coaching uh so believe it or not those are some of my first questions is are you looking for a coach are you looking for a coach to work with because oftentimes it's a uh they want to spend a couple hours on the phone with the coach and just talk about their training plan that they've that they've set up in the future and so forth so just asking some general questions on my part uh is typically a good idea to find out where to start and that typically leads to to asking more detailed questions on what sport are you training for what sports are you training for have you worked with a coach in the past um and that allows the athlete to start talking and gives me most of the information that i'm going to need and then i can kind of refine things from there um but the initial questions that athletes will have for me are um i am this type of athlete i am this old i have this particular goal do you coach athletes like me which is always funny because we we've had this experience for years where everybody thinks that coaching is just for the elite athletes or just for the best of the best or just for the sponsored athletes and you know just as well as anybody else does that you know they might make up five percent of our entire athlete base maybe right maybe that the rest of it is it's everybody and so the answer to that question is it's it's always i'm going to put words in your

mouth it seems like it's always yes yeah absolutely i mean yeah sure it looks good on paper when you know we we can advertise elite athletes and uh you know world champions and so forth those those things are great those are not the majority of our athletes we have uh we have over 1200 athletes at any one time that we coach uh but they're they're five percent of those would still be a lot of elite athletes so outside of the sports specificity part of that line of questioning right what sport are you training for how old you are the demographic information and things like that what are the like key pieces of intel that you get on each athlete that start to give you a direction on i think this person would be the right coach for that athlete i think that person would be the right coach for this athlete as as unscientific as this sounds uh a lot of it is uh personality athletes personality um the way that they describe their goals the way that they that the passion in which they speak about their sport um some of their past experience um a lot of that has to do uh helps me in picking a coach that fits a personality that's similar uh again i you and i've talked in the past about this before you've got to assume that all cts coaches for instance have got the the scientific and education background

and um and the athlete also have to assume this athlete has told me you know what level of coaching they're looking for um that monthly payment wise communication wise and so forth i can now start thinking about the coaches that fit into that category and now start matching the personalities um i take that information and then i will always outwardly ask what what type of athlete do you think you are and and what type of motivation works for you do you need a drill instructor or do you need a cheerleader again we've talked about this before group and uh and and everyone responds differently and a lot of that information that um the athlete gives and talking about their goals and their passion and so forth uh what will come through in that and then i like to i like to clarify with asking uh do they want a drill instructor or a cheerleader it's it's interesting that you mentioned like the workflow of how you go through that because a lot of times the way that we describe this is that you're assigning athletes to coaches coaches but in reality that works out part of the time meaning you get an athlete and you know hey this is the right coach for you 100 i already know it whatever the circumstance is this is that right person they requested the coach specifically would be a good example of that or that coach has a really

narrow area of specificity that the athlete is is particularly keen on but in most cases what you're actually doing is steering the athletes right you're collecting this information you're figuring out what their personality looks like and things like that and you're kind of like steering them into the right direction and like one of the tools that that has emerged over the last few years is this coach consult tool that we tend to tend to use why don't you describe that a little bit well it's interesting let's let's go let's go a little bit further past the coach consult tool and when i started with cts almost eight years ago now when someone signed up for for coaching you were a cycling athlete and you got assigned to a cycling coach and you know you mentioned that some of your goals were you know uh leadville or a road race whatever it is and we picked a coach that had some some similar backgrounds and people just got assigned over the last several years um the market has kind of pushed us that way and and athletes have pushed us that way and that would be i'd like to interview can i interview my coach can i talk to the coach uh can i see if this is a good fit and uh and based on that that request or need from the athlete uh we kind of refined our system and and changed things up to to give athletes the opportunity to speak to of course you got to have some basic rules but that would be to speak with two coaches um that that we assigned to them to speak with uh we schedule an appointment uh

we schedule we make an introduction i should say between the athlete and the coaches uh through two individual emails and then directly that athlete and each individual coach will set up their uh set up a call to speak for 15 or 20 minutes um to see whether this is a whether this is a good fit or not um and i tell the athletes that the goal of this call is not to find out what your what every day of of coaching is going to look like or whatever day of training is going to look like the goal of this call is to have a 15 or 20 minute human to human conversation to see if this is somebody that you would look forward to speaking to each week more often than than not more than 50 of the time i get calls back from the athletes after they've had both of their coach consult calls with the question of i don't know who to pick can you help me out which coach should i choose and i come back to them the same question each time you should pick the coach that you organically just got off that call with and thought to yourself i look forward to i would look forward to speaking to them each week to sharing with them my uh details about my training uh details about my diet details about my sleep uh i trust the the answers that they're going to give me can you do you know all of that for sure in 20 minutes of course not uh but again we we've all uh we've all done this enough whether it's in in business or in our personal lives or you meet new people

and uh and you would you can immediately decide whether this is somebody that you'd like to spend a little bit more time with it's so funny because even in even in the ambivalent situation you get it you get a new athlete and you you know you set up the consults between these two coaches and it's really more of a it's a social interview versus a technical interview for all intents and purposes should be should be should be absolutely i mean i think that's the right way to to counsel people absolutely and then when you get the feedback from that athlete hey i still don't know and that's a completely reasonable piece of feedback based on meeting somebody for 20 or 30 minutes for the first time still the direction is steering not assigning right it's not you and you know in all fairness you know our coaching group are 50 some odd coaches better than anybody else in the company including the ceo including myself including everybody marketing director whoever else you want i'm confident of that yeah 100 100 still even at that despite the the kind of intimacy which you know our entire coaching staff you're still leaning on the athlete to make the decision why like why is that why is that so important for the athlete to make the end-all be-all decision uh so i can't be to blame later on i'm kidding uh i think uh i think it really is best um for the athlete to go through this process and the athlete by posing additional questions to this athlete the

athlete can start to make that decision on their own which which lends to the beginning of of kind of the basis of the reason why all people want coaching and that is to gain some confidence and they need to know that they made this decision on their own they go into it confidently some some athletes once they've selected their coach they don't start for a week or two weeks or three days whatever it is during that time i think by asking them questions and allowing to make that choice on their own and just guiding them uh they will feel more confident that they've gone through the right process rather than hey take a look at the coaches that we have on our bio page pick the coach that you want and uh and we'll get them assigned to you um i don't think that they would feel that confidence there um but but it's almost like you're giving them some homework to do and and forcing them to uh to really think about what they their their wants and their and their needs are after they've spoken to the coaches so i think it's really important that they uh are vested in that um that decision yeah and it also helps create buy-in with the whole coach athlete relationship if it's i've always found that if it's some third party whether it's you or what we kind of more commonly see in the coaching world is a friend or a friend of a friend vouch for another coach and then that that third party is then creating

the buy-in when it's the athlete the person who's directly involved with the relationship when they're the one that is ultimately having to create that initial part of the buy-in the connection is a lot more valuable and it honestly it makes the it makes the coaching more efficacious as well because belief is a big part of how how coaching how coaching works yeah you got to have correct training structure and it has to be you know based in sound science and proper methodology and blah blah blah but if the athlete truly believes that they have the right coach for them they believe in what the coach is doing that is a that is a just gigantic part in their development as an athlete and to your point to for them to develop a lot of confidence i was thinking of something when you were talking and it's a perfect example but i never recommend a husband and wife um or spouses or best friends immediately accepting the same coach we get that husband and wife request a lot how how often do you see that uh i i would say often i would say you know uh once or twice a month it's either a husband wife or uh father and son we get often um but people that are or or or two training partners that are maybe doing a a duo type event yeah and it's seen and it always it's always well intended those those requests the husband wife requests but we always steer them away from it

because you can insert your athlete services hat or you can put on your athlete services hat again what like we we we specifically recommend that or recommend against that because of why because all athletes should feel like they are the first priority of the coach and it it is it is human nature and inevitably the coach has their call with the husband or the wife um or both of them together one person is dominates the conversation and the other person doesn't get their questions asked or answered um the training ends up being looking like it's kind of being copied but they're just using some different zones and so forth um i i tell them all the time that if they're going to be paying for coaching service for two people if they use two separate coaches they're gaining twice the amount of knowledge as well that's true uh so i i've always recommend that they have different uh that they have different coaches because they both feel like uh they're getting uh they're getting the attention that they that they need dunk uh duncan callahan and i coach a husband wife duo i coach the wife and he coaches the the husband and you know them they've come to our they've come to our camps before but inevitably we always have these like in parallel hilarious coach athlete calls me with my athlete and duncan with was hit with hit with his athlete that has some sort of crossover with the

other party's training but and to your point i can say yeah that's a smart thing for duncan to do okay or okay let's rearrange the schedule in this other way to kind of accommodate for your training plan as well as your husband's training plan or whatever it is well i i think hey there's there's something else that just you just kind of brought up there that made me think of uh again it just being human nature you're going to work a little bit harder and duncan's going to work a little bit harder because he knows that the information is in the same house and you're like wow my coach didn't do that or my coach didn't do that and uh yeah it's actually it's a it's um it's a good situation to be in well when you know your work is being checked like it's all students know you know their thesis checked or their homework checked or whatever it is you're always going to put in a little bit extra effort when you've got that little bit of oversight in our like our coaching group this is not related to the conversation we're having but our coaching group has that a lot where we're you know where we got each other's backs and we're going to check each other's work to a lot of extent right um let's kind of let's circle back to the to this coach athlete match and continue to run through the scenario of you have an athlete contact you you have you've got you've gathered some basic information and steered them towards two coaches they have the they have the coach consult at that point i want to dig a little bit deeper into how you would advise the athlete not only to handle that

conversation as you mentioned you're looking for the personality match i want to get a little bit more detail there but also after they've had this compare and contrast what are some things that they can do to make sure that they are getting the right coach for them because there's going to be a lot of people that are listening to this podcast that are trying to do a form of that across a lot of different like more more or less platforms they're looking at coaching websites and they're saying okay i see what this coach brings to the table they're interviewing other coaches and in a very similar format to how you steer coaches and athletes with those coach consults and i think that there's some information to kind of further be gleaned on how that how that interview process can be best handled by an athlete who's evaluating a few different coaches so why don't you go back and dive into that a little bit more in terms of what the athlete should be specifically pulling out of that info or out of that uh out of that initial interview the athlete should be pulling out of it what they have decided ahead of time that they're looking for from coaching and the coach the athlete needs to decide am i looking for a relationship with somebody to speak to each week uh am i looking for a pr on a particular race i've done in the past um am i simply looking to be uh the most fit i've ever been i want to i want to keep up with the front group on the saturday morning ride um i want to run a certain hill without stopping whatever it may be

they need to decide what that is they need to think about a little bit about how they communicate and how they like to communicate um and again keeping it simple go into the call with those things in mind don't get uh necessarily distracted by those shiny things oh this person won the bear this person you know uh has has has completed this particular event more times than anyone else it does not mean that elite athletes can't be great coaches but it also doesn't mean that mediocre athletes can't be great coaches either so don't to not get uh distracted by those things and truly go into it with uh what they are looking for because what and this kind of comes back to that husband and wife thing what my goals are are not the same as yours so the greatest coach in the world might not be as effective for me as they would be for you and the athlete should come into a call um with those things in mind what are my goals what am i looking for how do i communicate and how do i like other people to communicate back with me well it's so funny you mentioned the bright shiny things one one of the brightest shiniest things that athletes will point to when they come in and this is i feel that this is more prevalent in the triathlon world and in specifically the iron man triathlon world but

it might be just as prevalent in the ultra marathon world where the shiny thing is my coach should have done the race that i am preparing for i'm training for iron man lake placid and i'm looking for a coach that has done iron make lake placid themselves i'm training for the western states 100 and by golly i have to have a coach that has run themselves the western states 100 and i always kind of i kind of i have a little bit of a like an elite athlete bias on this which you know i'll fully i'll kind of fully admit but i always point out to uh one of uh one of our former coaches nick white who coached craig alexander to multiple iron man world championships not just one multiples of them and he hit at the time he had never run an iron man before ever but because of like how good he was as a coach he was able to take craig from a 70.3 world champion to an iron man world champion so i'm wondering what your viewpoint is on this very specifically on this bright shiny object that is core specific like the coach has to have done the race that the athlete is training for how important is that it's interesting because i have i have the same i've been in the same situation obviously never been an elite athlete or anything else like that but i i come from that same world of

how helpful is it going to be if this coach doesn't know where the transition area is or where the aid station is or how much climbing there is and there's those there's that little rocky section that mile 60 if they don't know about that how could they um i i think those those thoughts are are very normal but i think they're very short-sighted for for an athlete uh i do think i i i don't agree that a coach has has has to have done the event i do think familiarity with the event is helpful um i think uh i think more so from a a completely different sport uh side of things that would change things so if a if a if an athlete is a a training for a triathlon and a non-triathlon coach is coaching them for it that i can see them not understanding transition in a triathlon or or having pacers in an ultra marathon those type of things are things that that really add to the sport and are going to change things dramatically uh as far as having a coach that has done those things i think that's important um having done the same course i don't i i never think is important although

the athlete does yeah so there's there's meeting that that that halfway um and i will uh on a daily basis i go out of my way to find coaches that have either run or coached a specific event that an athlete is doing um and i will typically try to have a coach that has is familiar with the event um but there's there's there's not always an opportunity to have i think there's a downside to to having a coach that has done the event and that would be they have their own biases on that particular event and the athlete may not have that experience at all yeah it's from a coaching perspective and i can tell this having mentored a lot of coaches it is far more valuable to have coached many multiple several dozens 20 30 40 however many athletes for a particular event than it is for the coach to have run even the same amount of that particular event so let's say the coach has run an event 10 times right i'm a 10 time ledville trail 100 finisher the coach that has coached people for 10 ledville trail 100s will have a better like just the experience within that event because they've seen it through so many they've seen it through multiple angles and multiple eyes they'll have better experience specifically related to the event than the coach who's done it 10 times themselves now of course

the the best we don't have to you know it's not an either or situation the best is both i mean it is good as you mentioned to have experiential knowledge on certain things and if you have done an event and are smart enough to not let that over bias your coaching and you have coached multiple athletes for an event personally you can tell me what you think since you're the expert here personally i think that's kind of like the goldilocks from an experience standpoint and then you get into the knowledge and all that other stuff but from an experience from the event if you have had done it and then you can remove the bias and then you also have multiple athletes that have trained for it i think that that's the that's the that's the best of all worlds there it is the best of all worlds and i but i think that i think that as this relates to the coach consults um but which is it's kind of nice to bring us back to the beginning here and that would be uh the personality of the coach you're you're going to know in the first 10 minutes if that coach is a hey i've coached 10 athletes to leadville trail 100 i've got so much knowledge on their experience going through the training and so forth um that we can really apply to your experience out there this year from a nutrition standpoint from uh from uh an aid station standpoint those type of things um rather than uh the other coach would be so you know i've done leadville 10 times i know everything about this event and this is how it's affected me and this is how

i've done it and this is how i've handled those things if if if the athlete is doing their coach consult interview properly um they're going to hear that and i i will say as an aside uh one of the really cool things about my job and and working with the coaches at cts is i almost never ever hear that i almost wish our coaches were a little less humble um there have been times where i've told athletes certain things about coaches uh after they've been there with them for six months or a year and they had no idea that that coach had uh you know had the accomplishments that they had which is great but uh the point here being is that in that interview you're going to feel hey do i relate to this person is this person coaching me are they talking about their accomplishments are are they are they sharing with me what they've learned from their other athletes uh or are they dictating to me um what they feel like they know uh and that will be that's that's part of that uh that's part of that selection criteria well the it's it's so funny that the humbleness i think comes from two areas it comes from one they don't have to be the salesperson like coaches who are also selling themselves are definitely prone to overselling themselves coaches that don't have to sell themselves they don't have to mention all of the things that they've done the degrees that they have the experience that they have the you know the things that they've done personally and things like that because they have

good folks like you to lean on to like help that kind of help that sales process but the second piece of it and i'm i'll have to apologize to you dominic if if them if our coaches being so humble is is impeding your processes in any way shape or form but it's a little bit of a byproduct of our training because we we are relatively uh difficult on our coaches during their initial training uh part of it and part of that difficulty and kind of putting them through the ringer and making them like prove their their worth and kind of show their stuff it definitely it definitely humbles even the best of coaches to where they realize they don't have to go out and you know beat their own you know beat their own drum or blow their own horn or whatever um let's not go down that rabbit hole any further because this is going to end up being a sales podcast which i don't want to have happen um there's this other there's this other coach athlete um aspect that um that you have to manage that i find absolutely fascinating because you are the you are the feedback filter within the company everything that goes good bad or indifferent between a coach and an athlete you harness that feedback and you make sense of it somehow the making sense of it somehow is more back-end procedural stuff that i don't really want to get into but i think the relevant lesson to the audience is when it goes really good and when it goes really

sour so let's take both of those two parts so first off what what whenever you get feedback i love my coach i accomplished all my goals they're awesome we have athletes that have been with us for 10 years i couldn't imagine you know accomplishing this with without my coach so and so and such and such how does that like how does that what are the common themes from either the coach athlete relationship itself or things that the coach is doing specifically that you see when you get that type of feedback the common themes with giving positive feedback for coaches and having a really successful uh relationship experience and accomplishment of goals is absolutely 100 percent identical to the reason that people call and make a complaint have a problem with the relationship and everything every single time it's the same as every single relationship in your entire life and it will be communication that is all it comes down to it comes down to and and again it comes down on several different levels communication did they did they did they conduct the consult the proper way did they ask the questions that they wanted to ask did they listen to the answers that they got or did they just say what do you think a week of training would look like for me i'm training for

you know high lonesome you know whatever it is and and and the coach will gives out some things and that they're not even listening at that point they're just i'm talking to a coach and and that's it and did they did they conduct that interview the proper way and then did they continue that building the the kind of boundaries for the relationship and communication once they uh once they finally got together uh with the coach that they selected uh and that happens to be a really important part of this process is one of the things that i tell athletes after they've selected their coaches their first call is so important you have this opportunity like we all would probably say in the back of our heads with every relationship we've ever had in our life man if i could go back to day one and again that's whether that's what that's with a running buddy or a club or your coach or your husband or wife it doesn't matter if i could go back to day one i'd start everything out as honest as possible hey how do you like to communicate would you rather me email you or text you do would you like me to give you a compliment each day or would you like me to really tell you the truth like yeah your intervals looked a little you know all of those things and that and i tell them that that should be done from the athlete and from the coach you should both have expectations uh that you should both be very clear on and yes that coach is getting paid to be a coach should have expectations for the athlete and uh and they should say hey i can't be a good

coach if you don't share the information with me i can't be a good coach if you don't do your workouts i can't be a good coach if you don't tell me how you want to communicate and those things are all so important um and to say that those things don't happen if everyone's done it properly uh they do because we're humans well but the interest the interesting dichotomy that we have within coaching is that we give our coaches the flexibility to handle that communication we give them great flexibility to handle that communication bit whether it's a text a week a phone call a week looking at every training file on tuesdays and thursdays you know they we we give them the flexibility to kind of assess up each athlete situation and say this is how i'm going to communicate with you is that good with you yes no okay now we're this is how we're going to kind of shuck and jive and and change it as things go along the the other part of that dichotomy is that in a lot of in athletes that are evaluating coaches are having to navigate this as well is that on the front facing piece of the service delivery this is what i'm doing for the coaching package you get a training peaks account you get x amount of my time or whatever that communication piece some people try to fit into

a box you'll and you'll see that across coaching services you get two texts per week or 30 minutes of my time or five emails or whatever they try to put that communication into a box or it's ambiguous and therefore the athlete is kind of left is is kind of left well i don't know what exactly what i get so to your point of defining it from the onset and it's always been really interesting because i know that we've we've batted back and forth a lot on how to present that communication piece in a frontward facing manner like on our website knowing that on the back end we give our coaches tremendous amount of latitude on actually how to how to handle that piece right and it's funny i didn't know that you and i have had this conversation several times a hundred times on you know is it five texts and two emails and and it's funny because each time and i remember when i first asked you that question and i remember you saying um we'll never put that on the website um because the ultimate that being that being quantifying the amount of like putting the amount of communication in a box right putting a number to it yes yeah and your response was there isn't a number we'll we'll do what we need to do to provide the athlete the training that they need of course within reason if that athlete needs to go to a higher package with with more communication sure but what we all really know is

sometimes you've got to sometimes you get 10 texts from any an athlete one week and then you don't you don't get any texts for the next three weeks and then there's two texts and then there's 10 the following week uh it all works out to to spending the amount of time with the athlete that that you should be spending but the biggest thing is you're giving them what they need at the time yeah i always present so when when we bring our coaches on board they always ask well how much time do i need to spend with each athlete and you know i studied this within our uh with our within our company this was uh before you uh before you came on board and i looked at all of our coaches across all of our athletes over it's like a year 18 month type of period and i came up with an average i'm not gonna you know i'm not gonna publicly i'm not gonna publicly release the statistics of this particular very informal study uh informal study that i did but the relevance of the conversation is is i will tell the incoming coaches this is the average and nobody believes me because they always think of the one specific situation that's different than that it's either 2x of that or half of the number that that i mentioned and then i go into the dialogue of that's the average over many many athletes over many many years not the instantaneous real-time athlete coach usage right that's why it's called an average yeah exactly well that's not that's not divulged to any math so it's interesting that that this

communication piece creates both the great relationships and also the sour ones what specifically though on the great ones because i want to focus on how people can actually do it right what specifically what specific like communication points on the great ones do you find as like a consistent theme of feedback that you uh that uh that you see when you're getting uh feedback from athletes uh the the biggest one is is that the athletes knew why they were doing what they were doing um and i think i i i don't think that that ultimately leads somebody maybe to a you know their fastest time ever or whatever but what it does is it on a weekly or daily or bi-weekly whatever it is however your relationship is set up um and your your uh whatever package you're on you're getting constant uh feedback on uh and i'm doing the right thing i'm i'm ready for my event i'm this week i am 13 weeks to being ready for my event i am exactly where i need to be i know what i'm doing i know why i'm doing it and i know what i'm going to gain from it and that is probably the biggest thing especially from uh from athletes who have come from other coaches in the past um that's one of those

things they have that opportunity to kind of compare the two things and they say wow i never got this i never uh or what they're asking for going forward i've been with a coach in the past but what i really need is remember i'm really looking for is i'm looking for feedback i want to know why and i want to know why i'm doing what i'm doing yeah it's interesting that you mentioned that that piece of experience as well because whenever i have gotten athletes from other coaches that mirrors the experience that you just mentioned is is like the biggest change is i would describe it as moving from a static training program to actually coaching so we're looking at the training files we're communicating on what certain pieces of training mean what we see in the training files we're getting on the phone every week and things like that as opposed to and this would be the situation of the athlete that is that that was working with another coach they got a schedule and there was like okay go do the schedule and we'll meet in another month when that schedule runs out essentially so it's that consistency of communication and like setting it up from the get-go that i think creates a lot of like great coach-athlete relationships yeah and then that's what that's what ultimately builds that that that that bond um it is not specifically i talk to a coach for 10 minutes a week he puts a plan in my training peaks i do it he gives me a thumbs up and then we move on to the next week that doesn't build uh that's that that's not a relationship that's uh

again it's no different than buying a canned program yeah it's schedule it's schedule building not coaching that's the way i describe it um so the next thing i want to talk about is we're not perfect right dominic you would agree with that we are not perfect you're talking about coaches not me right no that's right that's exactly what our coaches are not perfect you on the other hand you are you are the shining beacon of light that we should all aspire to oh brother oh no uh this is a little bit too much inside joke uh dominic you're a good guy but you're not perfect i'm sorry to tell you um but our but our coaches specifically are not perfect and some sometimes that coach-athlete relationship goes awry to the point where you have to say i think a better i think another coach is better for you correct what what are the bigger driving points behind you having to make that decision and let's remove the situations of the the the athlete comes in and says i have to have another coach let's let's set up the stage or set up the scenario where the athlete comes and hey listen i'm having this problem with my coach you're kind of evaluating it what things would you take into consideration to say you know what because your your role is and i think this is an important piece of context with this conversation your role is athlete services you're there to serve the athlete not serve the coaches you're there to serve the athlete to do what is in the best interest of the athlete so in that scenario where an athlete

comes to you and says you know what i you know i've been having these issues with my coach i can't quite figure it out blah blah what would what were what are some of the things that would lead you to start to go down this decision making process of of saying ultimately saying to the athlete you know what i think i think another coach would be a better option for you so the very first thing without without question that that leads me to to that is uh is i've already heard from the coach oh really so coach contacted you as well i'm having trouble communicating with this athlete i don't feel like they're listening to me or or whether they're that whether they agree with you know some of my methodology or whatever it is um they're they're not giving me the feedback that i'm looking for and i can already feel from them that this is uh you know where it's going now again the the that that tightrope that i walk in in it or anybody walks with it in a real customer service position is uh you can't just get on the phone with the athlete and say i talked to the coach and he already said you're a problem uh that's uh which would never happen by the way um but uh with that i i now know that that is the direction that we should be going down and kind of lead on some of the things that that that they've uh that they've that they've shared with me and i'll

and again lobbing that out there and throwing that out there and say hey i would you be interested in speaking to a couple of different coaches see if there's a different match out there for you and with that uh you find out immediately from the athlete with their response it's either one of two things oh no i don't want to leave my coach and they'll come right out and say to you i i really i know i said all those other things i really just want to make sure that i get a full hour on the phone with them each week okay well great you know what if you're okay with it i'd like to share this with your coach and talk to them about it 100 of the time coop i have spoken to coaches and they say you know what you're absolutely right i need to do a better job with with scheduling that call with that coach and i get i have multiple emails from athletes that have emailed me back and said hey thanks so much for doing that that's all we need to do things are going so great with us you know that now so sometimes it really just comes down to asking a couple of questions and finding out what that what that need is now there have been times where i've gone in the other direction said would you like to start talking about talking to a different coach and the athlete immediately says yes i would like to do that i think that's i think that's the best um course of action also if i get two or three emails that are eight paragraphs long from an athlete typically it's not a good idea regardless of the willingness of the coach or the athlete to kind of come back together uh in

reality it's not the best choice after a scenario like that has already has already happened yeah but you're basing your response based on like the intensity of how mad the athlete is essentially if they're kind of mad then there's some conflict resolution that goes on if you're hearing it from both parties which would you know that kind of escalates the intensity certainly you're going to shift more towards hey i think a new uh coaches uh uh is is the right choice for you and then if you're getting the multi-paragraph here's you know here's the laundry list of things that the coach has screwed up which does happen i've had that happen to me you know i've been coach for a long time i've certainly i've certainly made my number of mistakes those are those types of things are your clear indication that okay we're not going to pass go we're going to find you a new coach here's some options let's talk what went wrong how how can we remedy this but you're i guess the point that that i'm trying to re-emphasize here is that you're the intensity of which you're of how you're solving that problem or how quickly you're moving uh an athlete from one coach to another to another is based on the situation correct is there are there any times where you've uh been able to do like since some successful conflict resolution in those situations and like what do those look like it's probably one of the coolest things to be able to to see it from uh email another email call with the athlete

angry exchange gathering information i talk to the coach i go back to the athlete and we get them together and they and they decide they want to talk and next thing you know uh they've been together for the last three or four years and and have had tons of success and again it just comes back it comes back to communication and two individuals that are willing to say i'm willing to listen and i'm not always right and you know i didn't realize that you were saying that it's amazing what happens if we're willing to listen uh and and understand the other side uh rather than immediately assume that we're correct i think we need to just change your title to like communications aficionado between coach and athlete or something like that i'm gonna be like cyrano i uh i i i i i i also break up for athletes as well i've broken up with uh with athletes old coaches for them as well so i i've described you i've colorfully described you as match.com for athletes and our in our coaches what's what's the other service there's another service out there that will break up with your significant other for you you can hire them to do it totally yeah uh i i don't know what that is but um i'm i'm i'm i'm sending them a resume right now no please don't we like you here at cts dominic um all right man uh we're gonna we're gonna let you go i really appreciate the dialogue around

communication that we've had here is there anything that you want to leave the listeners with that are out there trying to navigate this landscape of getting coaching for their ultra marathons their athletic event anything that you can leave the listeners with it in in terms of how to how to set this up correctly yeah i i i would say that if if at any point in time you've considered the need or want for accountability in your training for somebody else to make sense of of everything if i had a nickel for every doctor or engineer who who said you know i could i could build a power meter and i i could i could tell you everything about the human body i just don't know what to do with the information to get me to peak for an event in nine months um if all of those things uh if those things go through your head or or or or what is your time worth uh are you willing to try to put this plan together um schedule an appointment to talk to a coach ask them the questions um but i will say if you decide to do that come into it honestly and come into it with a with a plan of uh of how you want this to look and uh you can do anything you want as long as you let everybody know what uh what you're doing and um uh coming in and speaking to coaches first and asking some honest questions of the coach and of yourself is really the most important thing i love it i love

one of your quotes that you uh just alluded to there is you can you can do anything you you can do anything you want you just got to tell them what you're going to do just let everybody know what you're doing that's it there's no surprises then even if they don't totally agree with it they know what's going to happen and it works with coaching and in many other areas of life absolutely all right man all right dominic appreciate your time i i usually ask my guests before before they get off the horn where they can find you at but they're going to know where to find you because we work together and this i i do i do not intend to to to have this podcast be a total sales pitch for our coaching i really do want it to serve a certain serve a broader broader audience so we're going to skip that in reference to that in reference to that goal yes dude all right man that's how i roll man all right and there you have it thanks to my homie dominic for coming on the podcast with us today i've always appreciated dominic's counsel and insight over the years that i've worked with him as a little bit of an adjunct to this podcast i had a great conversation with a longtime athlete of mine dylan bowman for his podcast the well the link to that will be in the show notes if you are inquisitive about what a long-term coach athlete relationship looks like how it looked like at the beginning middle and even now seven years down the line that conversation was a good one and i had a

lot of fun with it as i alluded to during the intro of this podcast i'm going to leave the listeners with five questions that you can ask any prospective coach if you're thinking about coaching to up your ultra running game and i'm also going to include why those questions are important not necessarily how i would answer those questions myself as a coach if you can't tell throughout the course of this podcast i've been trying really hard not to make this a super hard sales pitch i just want to get information out in the front of athletes and i hope that everybody is appreciative of that so here we go question number one i think that athletes should ask potential coaches it is how much time do you spend coaching and how many athletes do you coach and this starts to set the framework with how much time per athlete a coach will spend as an athlete you're going to want your coach to do certain things for you you're going to want them to look at your training perhaps you're going to want to communicate with them over the phone you're going to want to send and receive emails from them update your training log look at your training log and all of that costs time time is not an infinite resource and so by asking this question how much time do you spend coaching and how many athletes you coach you can start to get

a fix on how much time per athlete they are actually spending working with individual people and then you can match that up with what your expectations are as an athlete the second question is how do you get better as a coach you are most likely going to spend some of your hard earned dollars acquiring a coach to get you better at ultra running and how a coach becomes better is really the difference between simply getting advice and getting professional coaching and by asking this question it kind of dovetails into the answer to the first question of how much time do they actually spend coaching you can figure out as the athlete is this something that the coach does on the side a few hours a week do they do it as a profession or is it somewhere in between and does that match up with your expectations question number three what should i expect as an athlete and if anything this underpins dominic's crucial point of communication is key you should know from the onset as an athlete how much the coach is going to communicate with you when are they going to update your program is it monthly is it weekly are they going to modify it during the week are they going to be able to answer your phone call at 8 p.m on a friday before a race all of those things are completely valid questions

to ask and you should match them up with what you expect as an athlete the fourth question is are you the right coach for me and i think that athletes should kind of ask this from the get-go as i alluded to the beginning of this podcast not every new athlete is right for me and there are many times where i know that there's a better coach out there for them and i believe that athletes are well served to ask this question of a potential coach in order to start to flush out is the coach actually thinking about that is the coach actually thinking on behalf of the athlete and what is indeed best for that athlete the final question and this pairs up with question number four is what athletes are not good fits for you as a coach coaches should have a keen awareness of what athletes they work well with and what athletes they do not work well with and by asking this final question as an athlete you're able to ascertain how the coach has actually flushed that question out in their mind and do you fit that particular bill of somebody who is not a good fit with that particular coach so there you have it five questions not necessarily how i would answer them but why they are relevant to you as an athlete looking for a coach just to recap question number one how much time do you spend coaching and how many

athletes do you coach question number two how do you get better as a coach question number three what should i expect as an athlete question number four are you the right coach for me and question number five what athletes are not good fits for you ask those questions if you're thinking about getting a coach or if you already have a coach i encourage everybody to discuss these aspects with your particular coach it's just good for communication people and there you have it there you go appreciate the heck out of everybody listening today to the podcast we will see you out on the trails video Thank you.