I want to do some coaching,” I said to the chair of my running club as we lined up for the start of a cross country race recently. “I want to do a couch to 5K course for beginners, and I’d like to start in January.” “Okay,” she said.
It was more than 10 years since I’d first had a similar conversation. I’d gone along to a talk by the head coach at Serpentine Running Club, a club which had more than 1,000 members. At the end of the talk, I approached the coach to ask a question, not about my own training but about the plans of others. I wanted to become a coach and as scary as that moment was for me – asking a very experienced coach at a big club if I could help out – I knew I had something to offer.
Serpentine Running Club helped me to become a coach and when I’d qualified I knew I wanted to establish a new session for runners who lacked the confidence to go to some of the existing track sessions on offer. The club agreed and along with another Laura, I started coaching Monday night track sessions specifically for runners who were slower than 50 minutes for a 10K. I knew there would be demand for it because I’d been one of those runners. More than seven years on, those sessions are still going with other coaches leading them and I’m pleased to see them so well attended.
I joined a new club in a new city over a year ago and it has taken me this long to put myself forward to lead again. Partly this has been a selfish decision – after coaching for more than 10 years, I wanted to just go back to being a runner again. But it was also to get an idea of the club and the local running scene. I may have a lot more experience than when I
