Thanking Our Coaches

Year after year, season after season, Team in Training Coaches do a great job! Our Spring Team was no exception to this rule. I am not going to repeat photos in this post, because many previous posts have pictures of the Spring Team Coaches.

Coaches do so much in addition to having overall responsibility for each participant’s welfare each Saturday. Between our two events and the half and full marathon teams, we have people doing four different distances on any given weekend. The coaches plan the routes each week to accommodate this, keeping safety in mind. They run with different participants at different speeds, make sure that water stops are covered, make sure that the routes are clearly understood, deal with injuries, and make sure that everyone is back at the park. They often give us great mission moments as well.

Vicki was the head run coach this season. This is the fourth time that she has been head coach for teams I have been on, including 2007 when I was a non-fundraising mentor. She is fantastic, working with each person to understand their goals and come up with a plan for achieving them. I always know that it will be a special season when Vicki is coach. In 2006, when I was the only one on the team walking the full marathon, it was often Vicki who waited back at the park to make sure I got back in OK.

Chuck was the assistant run coach, and was the Virginia Team Coach in Nashville. He is incredibly enthusiastic about TNT, our mission, and each participant. He would put in extra miles most weeks, switching from teammate to teammate so that everyone would be running with a coach at some point. Plus, he led us in dynamic stretching – every Richmond participant should always remember “scraping the goose poo off our shoe” – and always had an original cheer for the team each week.

My intent at the start of the season was to combine running and walking, but if we had a large walk team, I could have been persuaded to walk instead. However, we only had one walker who was not a coach, so I went with my original plan. Even with just one walk team member, coaches Kristi and Cathy came out every week. Kristi is also a patient honoree and fund-raising participant who walked the half-marathon in Nashville in about 2:54 (not 3:54 as I originally typed following a bout with dyslexia), walking every step. Cathy walked the half marathon in Virginia Beach (Shamrock). And after her event was done in March, she still came out every week to walk with Kristi and support the rest of the team

Our coaches were amazing and did so much for us – both the big and little things. We were lucky to have them.