oldschoollearning wrote:
I will check out the freebies and consider. But honestly, I'm way more into buying a training book than a video. I wish more pros/coaches were putting out books.
Thanks to you, Jay, for putting out a book. I've gotten a lot out of it. And I think these seminars are cool. But I would so much rather have a book to consult than a video.
This is great information. Glad you found Simple Marathon Training helpful. The audience for that book and the audience for these videos are, at least before I read this, at opposite ends of the spectrum. The subtitle of the marathon book is "The Right Training for Busy Adults with Hectic Lives." So it's a book for people that want to be told what workout, on what day, they should do. When I asked Tom if he would do a one-day clinic - an endurance event in itself - my thought was, "the self-coached runner who loves writing their own training will want this information." Time will tell if that's true.
Writing is hard for me, and I hear it's hard for real writers too. Just finished my weekly newsletter and 1,200 words takes close to 2 hours at this point, another 20 minutes or so to get it sent. The videos for sale take more financial resources, yet I could do a clinic a month for the year and still spend less time than I do on a book (but again, writing is hard for me). I was hoping that over the course of a month or two there would be enough sales that it would justify the time Tom and I spent on the clinic. Now the goal is 1-2 years. That's fine. This is fantastic content. Sales from the 2018 HS clinic last January keep trickling in because it's great content and it features great coaches.
Having thought of the "why buy this when you can google it" argument for a day, it's obviously valid. As someone who was once hungry for training information, having Tom's thesis in one place, with examples, would have been a no-brainer purchase for me. I like to take notes and I would have watched these on a laptop and taken notes. Now I listen to a lot of audio and while his presentations rely heavily on the slides, listening to him is great. He's a coach's coach and that comes through when you listen to him.
I read through some of the information Tom has online, specifically responses with day by day training, and that's useful. I don't think it's an either or - that having that information means the videos are useless. I think this is more a "$32 is too rich for my blood" argument.
What I find odd - and I'm saying this now as "curious person who loves the sport" and not "person who is a long way from breaking even on this clinic" - is that I shared these the week after Loudoun Valley crushed everyone and a guy who the LR chorus doesn't talk about wins the US Marathon Champs, are either heavily influenced by Tom or directly coached by Tom, there doesn't seem to be any interest based on those results.
When I was a college coach I was sitting in the warm-up area and a coach I greatly respected gave me a compliment - "You're curious and that's going to help you become a good coach." Sadly, I'm less curious at 43 than I was at 23 and 33. But at both of those ages I would have spent the $22 (1998) or $29 (2008) on these videos.
Here's the reason not to buy these videos.
I learned more from sitting next to coaches at meets when their athletes were warming up than any clinic I've attended or book I've purchased or any of the VHS taps and DVDs I've purchased. If you're dying to become a coach who helps atheltes reach their gentic potential, then your plan should be "I live in ____ and I'm going to drive to ______ and ask Coach ______ if I can watch practice and take them out to dinner." Do that and you'll grow as a coach - and my guess is you'll end up getting a free meal if you're under 30 because the coach you've ask to learn from will want to pay it forward, as they were educated by older coaches. This isn't rocket science - ask the best coach, at any level, that is within driving distance, to attend a practice then graciously ask them to lunch or dinner. Or, as John O'Malley did, email the young basketball coach at Butler and see if you can talk coaching, which leads to 3 hours in Brad Stevens office. (Who's John O'Malley? See link below for stats).
Finally, obviously my hope is that coaches under 30 who believe there is a Wetmore factor and who are honest that they don't understand the best way to implement plyos, even though they've read the study below, spend $32 on the videos. When I released the videos I also wanted the self-coached masters runner to buy it. I want to break even, I want to make a bit more to justify the time on the project, then I want to help the next generation of coaches.
Young coaches: Can't afford $32? I'll assume your time is then worth $16 an hour - give me two hours of your time, I'll give you a running related, but boring, project to work on, and I'll send you the videos when you finish. This will be out of my part of the project - Tom still gets his portion.
Finally, thanks to the moderators for taking down the thread that I lack the LR knowledge to find funny or clever.
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Abstract/2006/11000/SHORT_TERM_PLYOMETRIC_TRAINING_IMPROVES_RUNNING.36.aspxhttps://highschoolrunningcoach.com/john-omalley-interview-november-2018/