A girl in my program, SooHyun (“Soo”), is preparing for her first 10K next weekend as part of the Illinois Marathon. This morning, Aileen and I met up with her to help to cover the full 10K distance as mental preparation before the race.
Soo was a trooper and went the entire way with a smile on her face. I hope this boosted her confidence for next week’s race.
I can’t speak for Aileen, but I thought is was amusing to be a running coach for someone. I still feel relatively inexperienced when it comes to running and racing, and I still don’t consider myself very “in shape.” Still, Soo was full of questions for us about our training, and she honestly seemed shocked that we get up early most days of the week to run.
Afterwards, we took pictures. As Aileen noted, you could tell that it was humid because she started getting a funny curl in her hair:
A lot of my friends ask me for running advice, and I’m always excited to share what I know with them, but it’s usually just whatever has worked for me in the past. I think it’d be really fun to be a running a coach for real…
Awwww I love the pictures. I’m wondering if anyone ever feels “experienced’. The people I look up to all consider themselves inexperienced too but I consider them masters
I’m kinda Joe’s “coach.” It feels weird for me to be the one planning the workouts/runs because he’s clearly in better shape than I am and does better than me at all the things I schedule for us to do.
Soo is so cute. And you would make a great coach! New runners just need to be assured by experienced runners like you