Coaching Beyond The Data

What does it mean to coach endurance sports in the current, technically advancing environment? Newer devices every year provide ever-increasing details about our bodies. The result is metrics and data are everywhere in modern endurance sports. The classic counterexample to metrics is that you cannot measure heart, grit, mental toughness, etc. Traditional metrics also create blind-spots for measuring athlete fulfillment, understanding, and fidelity to big picture goals. Knowing that data and metrics don’t solve all coaching problems is a crucial observation, but so what? It might be a pithy talking point, but this observation alone doesn’t provide any structure to help a coach evolve their coaching approach. How would you design a coaching style that uses data and metrics, not as a substitute, but as a support for coaching experience and judgment? I think the answer starts with the athlete’s story¹.

In my conversations with coaches, I frequently explore how they manage the non-workout elements of coaching.

• The relationship between an athlete and a coach.
• The emotional elements that drive the fulfillment of participating in these endurance sports in the first place.
• The athlete’s extenuating circumstances that might impact success.
• The use of multiple perspectives to encourage coaching creativity and…