00:01.48
Alyssa 
Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. My name is Alyssa Clark, and I will be your host today, along with a familiar and wonderful voice, Chantelle Robitaille. Chantelle, thanks for coming on again to the podcast and helping us dive into a very interesting topic that you know a ton about, and I’m excited to unpack a bit.

00:26.69
Chantelle
Awesome. Hi, Alyssa. I’m excited to get into this.

00:31.44
Alyssa
Yeah, so first off, I should say and I think I’ve said this before that Chantelle is our director of coaching uphill athletes. And so she actually I’ll let you say what you do specifically for uphill rather than me trying to go off and explain it.

00:50.48
Chantelle
All right, well, among other things, I am Director of Coaching at uphill athlete. And one part of that involves working with our coaches to um make sure that they have all the correct information and tools available to coach. That means leading education sessions with coaches, helping them work through any problems, ah fun part sharing in the successes that they’re having with their athletes,

01:18.63
Chantelle
and checking in um on them. So I’m kind of like the, I don’t know, mother hen. um Yeah, I’m the mother hen for our coaches in a sense. And on the other side of that is working with athletes and prospective athletes. So when athletes are looking for a coach, I’m working to match them with the coach that best meets their needs. So I’m a mother hen to coaches in a way, and I am a matchmaker as well for our athletes and coaches.

01:50.51
Alyssa
Awesome. Well, that definitely helps, um, give some insight into what you do. And I want to dive into the idea of basically like what types of inquiries do you get for coaching?

02:10.56
Chantelle
Um, let’s see, I’m going to preface this, Alyssa, with, um, kind of our pet name for this episode that we’ve deemed, I’m not worthy. I don’t know if we have any Wayne’s World fans, but, uh, you know, I’m Canadian.

02:24.50
Chantelle
Uh, I love Mike Myers.

02:25.64
Alyssa
So.

02:26.67
Chantelle
Uh, but I feel like a lot of people are inquiring. If I look at our list of inquiries, I will say out of many of them, someone will inquire about the typical stuff with their name and where they live.

02:37.57
Chantelle
And then they say, my objective is this. They don’t say, I need a training plan for my objective. They don’t necessarily say, I need a coach. Sometimes they do. um They don’t say, I’m struggling and I need help, although sometimes they do. What I’m really noticing is a lot of people are sharing what they are planning to do, but they’re not really sharing necessarily what’s their pain point.

03:03.18
Chantelle
what’s leading them to reach out to us in the first place are they coming back from an injury are they coming back from having a baby did they have a couple failed summit attempts or dnf or or whatever it is I feel like half the people are pretty clear about like i have a problem and i need help to solve it.

03:22.37
Chantelle
But what I’m realizing is a lot of people feel compelled to write and share what they’re doing, but they actually, they’re maybe not even sure what the problem is that they want to solve, or they’re maybe not even sure that they have a problem to begin with. So that’s kind of an interesting thing that I’ve been thinking about. And I think you know as we’ve been thinking about coming up with um putting together some podcasts to help our listeners and uphill athletes at large,

03:51.54
Chantelle
um This is something that we kind of wanted to bring out. It’s like, you know, what are the problems that you’re looking for help solving? So when people reach out with those questions, we have to do a little bit of detective work now, right? Figuring out like, okay, what might the problem be? And that takes a little bit of time. And figuring out like, what is the problem that you need help solving? And once we figure that out, the next thing is really, how much help do you think you need? And what kind?

04:19.49
Chantelle
And that’s maybe something that people don’t often think about because for many people, they have never been coached. We might have people who’ve coached in high school or maybe in college on a team, but they’ve never done any sort of one-on-one coaching or maybe they didn’t really consider themselves a quote-unquote athlete until they were 55.

04:40.74
Chantelle
So they don’t know what they don’t know, right? So this is what we kind of want to help people with today is figuring out if you have something that you’re preparing for and you feel like you need some guidance, support, advice, um what might that look like? And so although we’re going to focus on coaching today, you know, we’ll talk about some of the other options that we have for people who are uphill athletes as well.

05:06.82
Alyssa
Absolutely. And it’s interesting, I actually just had this conversation with someone last night who asked me, Oh, do you have a coach? I was like, Yes, absolutely. Ben proved that I should probably have a coach. I don’t know many pro athletes without a coach at this point. I feel like that’s definitely the minority. um But also we were just talking about how different it is to coach adults versus the experience you might have of a coach as a kid because as a kid, you’re definitely much more in kind of that like teacher-student

05:46.37
Alyssa
role when we think of the traditional teacher-student role. um Because I do think coaching actually is teaching and being a student. ah But it’s much more authoritative. It’s much more like, hey, I’m going to tell you what to do, and you just kind of do it. ah And we’re not going to ask questions. And as coaching adults, as a coached adult, there’s a lot more conversation. There’s a lot more back and forth. There’s a lot more um relationship building, because quite frankly, I can tell you that I don’t think you racing this race is a good idea.

06:22.71
Alyssa
but you can do it anyway, because you’re an adult. And so I think that ah some people approach

06:26.59
Chantelle
Hehehe.

06:30.51
Alyssa
coaching much more like that high school type relationship where it’s like the coach tells me what to do and that’s it. um And then others are like, well, I’m an adult and I’m going to do whatever I want. And so I think there’s definitely, there’s an art, as coaching is an art in the science, there’s an art to the relationship building um within that that I’d like us to move away from the idea of the high school student, but also maybe listen to the coach as well as as kind of a preface.

07:03.61
Chantelle
Yeah, and I think that’s a good place to start, Alyssa, is to kind of frame out what the coaching style might look like differently for adults. And maybe before we get into the weeds, because man alive, we could do a whole series on that, couldn’t we? um Maybe we’ll start with thinking about like, once you’ve identified that you need some help, what kind of help do you need? And so this is something that I work with people all the time through different inquiries and consultations.

07:31.33
Chantelle
So ask yourself if you’re in a position, listener, thinking like, oh, I’m planning this climb or I’m planning this race and I feel very unprepared and I need some help. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and ask yourself a couple of questions. What do I need help with? Do I need help with scheduling my workouts? Am I limited with time? Do I need accountability? Do I need structure?

07:59.90
Chantelle
ah Do I need to balance my training more sustainably like I’m constantly getting hurt? um So think about those are some of the main things I want you to think about and then the next thing to think about like how self-motivated are you?

08:15.59
Chantelle
Is budget a sensitivity a concern for you? Very valid concern in this day and age. What’s your training background like? you know Are you new to whatever it is that you’re doing or do you have a lot of experience with it? Have you ever been an athlete or is this something that you’re coming into later on in life? Again, as I always like to say, there’s no right or wrong answer. right It’s no good or bad, it’s just information.

08:44.20
Chantelle
So if you are self-motivated, if you are maybe budget sensitive and you have a good training background and you just need a bit of structure, then maybe purchasing one of our training plans is a great place for you to get started.

08:57.10
Chantelle
um you can you know We have plans for all different sports um and some of these you can layer together. you know We’ve got climbing, mountaineering, trail running, ice climbing, skiing. We have some cool new plans, ah shameless plug, in the pipeline that we’ll be releasing throughout the fall as well. So maybe following a plan and going off on your own is going to work for you.

09:20.30
Chantelle
If you feel like you need a little bit of community support or you cannot nail down just one training plan, maybe joining our training membership where you have access to a variety of plans plus some strength training and yoga videos might be your jam. um Maybe group training is helpful for you because you’d like to have a little bit of community support and you like the idea of having lectures from a coach.

09:47.82
Chantelle
But still, this means you need to be really self-motivated, you need to be really self-accountable, you have to be good at following instructions, and you have to be willing and able to make changes and training decisions for yourself. So you know those are some options for people if you sort of fit into that category.

10:08.04
Chantelle
However, if you also want to learn a little bit more about yourself and your own physiology, and you want training that is tailored to you, your specific needs, your lifestyle, your goals,

10:22.40
Chantelle
where you live, ah you have some injuries that you’re dealing with or health concerns that you’re dealing with or you really need accountability and I could probably name 10 other things. um Considering coaches is a great thing and coaching is honestly the best way and the most supportive way to be able to train sustainably and prepare in the most specific way for whatever your objective is. So you’ll have someone overseeing your training and planning out your training to make sure that your training load is tailored for you to not only get the best performance out of you and have the best success at whatever that objective is, but also to prevent injury.

11:03.64
Chantelle
to have make sure that your overall health and well-being is in a good place. It also helps to feel a little bit less lonely. Right you have like Your coach is fully invested in hearing about your training or the excitement over a piece of gear or new shoes, whereas your partner may have reached their limit hearing about this stuff. Having someone who’s kind of like on your team, I think is also really great. That’s another great feature of having a coach. And like Alyssa, you started off with like, this is not a matter of like, okay, Alyssa, you’re my athlete, I’m your coach, Alyssa, go do these things. We’re actually co-creating this experience together. So together, we’re going to develop our own communication style. Together, we’re going to determine how much do you want to know about training philosophy and training science.

11:50.91
Chantelle
maybe it’s a little, maybe it’s a lot, maybe it’s none, but it’s up to you. And I like to think about coach-athlete relationships in terms of like, if you think about a race car driver, you know, like some of these long distance car races, you have a driver and you have a copilot. So if the driver and the copilot agree on a goal, right, maybe it’s a time goal, maybe it’s a destination, and then they agree together on that. And then The driver gets in the seat and starts driving. If they make an unplanned left turn, it’s not right or wrong. It’s the copilot’s job to course correct and make sure that they’re still going to end up at the same goal. Coaching is the same thing. If we agree on what the goal is, we talk about the plan, we come up together with overall, you know, here’s our goal. Here’s where you’re starting from.

12:41.12
Chantelle
The coach comes up with some building blocks to determine how you’re gonna get to the end destination. But ultimately, the athlete is the driver. The athlete is in charge. If they make a left turn, the coach has to figure out how to get them back on track. And a left turn could not be even, not necessarily something intentional, right? It could be an illness. It could be a new job that’s taken up a lot of time, right? So it’s the coach’s job to figure out how to constantly keep things on track.

13:08.62
Chantelle
And that takes a lot of strong communication from both sides. So that’s why I say we are co-creating this experience. It’s not just doing this. It’s, you know, we are going to do this. This is the plan. This is why we’re doing this. And we are training with intention. That’s the difference, I think, to you know having a co-creative relationship between athlete and coach.

13:34.47
Alyssa
I love that, especially the connection with the race car driver.

13:34.50
Chantelle
um

13:40.39
Alyssa
That makes so much sense. And I think that that is one of the biggest pieces I’m also very involved, as are you, with writing training plans.

13:50.98
Alyssa
And when you have a set training plan, the thing I always say to people is like, this is a framework. for you to take and make specific to you. This is not just like, Hey, this is the only way to do it. If you don’t follow the exact minute, you’re, you know, wrong or anything. It’s like, no, this is to give you an idea of how this should look in a, in a gradual progression that should keep you healthy. But ultimately you are one of them. You should take this and make it your own.

14:27.14
Alyssa
And some people are really able to do that. Others, it’s very hard for it. They just don’t have the experience or knowledge to take that training plan and make it their own. And I think that’s kind of the beautiful thing about a coach is that it’s like, no, we’re here to help you tailor that to you.

14:45.10
Alyssa
Um, as opposed to just total, oh yeah, decision fatigue.

14:45.40
Chantelle
Or maybe even the time, right? Maybe they don’t even have the time, right?

14:52.06
Alyssa
Yeah.

14:52.35
Chantelle
You have a lot of decisions to make every day. So if you have to miss your workout on Wednesday and you don’t know how to rearrange the rest of the week, you could get hung up on making it perfect and then actually not even doing any workouts for the rest of the week. right And this is the issue that we see. So if you have a static plan that you’re following,

15:11.90
Chantelle
We do, ah I think we do a really good job of creating some great general plans that people can use as templates to follow. Following any plan is going to be better than following no plan, but following a plan that is specific to you and your needs and your lifestyle.

15:27.68
Chantelle
um that is adapted to real-time scenarios and real-time information and data, because as you’re training but the coach, your coach is constantly reviewing that information and adapting the next training ah accordingly, um that’s, you know, you’re gonna have the best results from that. So again, it’s not that, um you know, everyone needs a coach, ah but a coach can be particularly helpful for those reasons.

15:56.68
Chantelle
One thing that I feel like I i get a lot, and Alyssa, I know you have a lot of these conversations with two people too, is they feel like, I don’t think I’m good enough to deserve a coach, or I’m not your typical athlete, I’m not a pro, or I don’t think my goal’s big enough. So this is where I’m not worthy comes in. And let me let you all in on a not so secret little secret.

16:25.14
Chantelle
The vast majority of our athletes are not professional athletes. They are athletes who are professionals. They are newly retired men and women who suddenly have a lot more time on their hands and the kids are out of the house and they finally have some time and energy to invest into their own ambitions.

16:50.74
Chantelle
That’s a typical athlete. It is a new grandpa who’s planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with his grandson. I could go on, but these are really incredible.

17:06.16
Chantelle
regular people. So let’s get that out of the way. We are not only for professional athletes. Yes, we do work with some amazing professional athletes. But the vast majority of people that we work with are everyday people with, I like to say, ordinary people with extraordinary goals. And choosing your own extraordinary doesn’t have to be Everest. It could be that you want to just be able to hike in on your trip that you’re taking with your family to Colorado. That’s a really amazing goal. So we don’t rank these goals. We don’t judge your goals. Your goals are personal to you and whatever your goals are, we’re going to get excited about them too because we’re excited to be part of that. So I want to get that out of the way for people. um Another one is like, well, I don’t really have a specific event or goal in mind, but I am retired and I just moved to Telluride and I like to ski, bike, swim, climb,

18:06.23
Chantelle
do all these things and I feel like I’m just tired all the time and I don’t know how to balance it out. So, you know, being fit to jump into any activity that comes across your path, perfectly reasonable goal. What other ones could you think of, Alyssa?

18:27.60
Alyssa
Yeah, so that’s such an interesting question because I don’t know as I think so often there is a very narrow idea of what that goal can be where it’s like it has to be a race, it has to be a huge mountain.

18:39.02
Chantelle
Okay.

18:42.88
Alyssa
And actually it can be much smaller than that. And so I like to be an athlete. Like we talk about it where it’s something, whether it’s like, Hey, I’m going to go run this 10 mile loop and I’ve only ever run eight miles before or six miles. Like I do like to have some kind of goal. I just think the term goal is perhaps not as wide or as broad as a lot of people think it is.

19:13.48
Alyssa
And so I like to have some kind of check piece because that also helps us to figure out like, is this working? Is it not? And that could also be in the weight room. That could be with a number of pull ups. It could be, hey, you go into your gym and you’ve never led a 511 and that’s what we’re going to work towards. like It doesn’t have to be hanging off the face of a mountain or running the furthest you’ve ever run. like there’s ah There’s a lot of other parts that can fit as a quote unquote goal. Would you agree with that? or

19:48.76
Chantelle
Yeah, I think one thing that is important is that with all goals, it should be perp it should be ah personal and matter to you, right?

19:58.48
Alyssa
Yeah.

19:59.13
Chantelle
So if it matters if what matters to you is climbing Mount Everest, that’s awesome. well We’ll help you get prepared for that. If what matters to you and what kind of drives you is um being able to you know You have a local hiking group that you hike with every Wednesday and you always feel like you are winded at the top of the climb or you’re slower than everyone else and you want to get a little bit faster and a little bit fitter. That’s the goal. That’s a personal goal and we’ll work with you to look at that, break it down. And again, sometimes people like have something in their mind but they don’t always know how to

20:37.90
Chantelle
ah conceptualize it and that’s what we do right is is part of like asking you questions that’s part of coaching is helping you find your why what’s what drove you to write that email in the first place maybe you didn’t really quite know or have it fully formed right if the baby wasn’t fully formed when you at at that point in time but we’ll work with you to try to figure that out and even if it isn’t like you say like okay well my goal is just to be you know mountain fit or whatever that doesn’t mean that your your plans are not going to have a goal we’re going to look at those different things that you like to do and we’re going to find a way to challenge you and make it fun and make it rewarding because it could be just like i want to get better at mountain biking how are we going to measure that

21:20.16
Chantelle
And it’s more motivating when you see progress. So I want to get better at mountain biking. Okay, how can we evaluate that progress? What are the trails that, for one example could be, what are the trails that you typically ride now? I ride these trails. How do you feel on those trails? What are some trails that you know that your friends ride that you’re afraid to ride? Okay, let’s pick one of those and we’re going to break that trail down. And by the end of the summer, you’re going to be able to ride that trail and feel like a rock star.

21:50.70
Chantelle
That’s the goal. That’s rewarding. That’s special. That’s going to make you feel awesome. And that is a personal goal to you. So again, it could be something as small as that. It could be climbing your fur, it could be, you know, climbing your, hiking your first 14er in Colorado on your vacation. And it could be any number of things that we could dream up in the middle. um So,

22:15.24
Chantelle
If you’re thinking that your goal is not big enough or you’re not good enough or you don’t deserve it, let’s get rid of the mean girl talk. We get that mean girl out of our heads and we think about if there’s something that you care about that you feel that you need help and guidance with, then you deserve a coach.

22:35.11
Alyssa
Absolutely. And I think that one of the greatest gifts that we get as coaches is that we, I think, are often the first people who get to hear people’s big and scary goals.

22:49.03
Alyssa
Like that, if someone has dreamed of climbing Denali and they’ve thought about that since they were a kid and they saw a poster, they saw a movie, oftentimes that dream because it’s so scary or it’s so crazy or whatever to everyone else in their lives, like we might be the first people to get told that.

22:49.10
Chantelle
Mm-hmm

23:10.19
Alyssa
And I think that that’s so special and so lovely as a coach to get to share that with someone and say, hey that’s possible and here’s how we’re going to do it i’ve always thought that was

23:22.61
Chantelle
Yeah, that’s ah that’s a big one.

23:23.56
Alyssa
like

23:26.40
Alyssa
Yeah, I always felt really lucky with that. It’s how I felt teaching too. And, you know, you have a student who’s like, well, I really want to do this. You’re like, yeah, that we can do that. It’s going to be hard work. And that’s okay. But that’s a real gift that you give to us as well as a client. We want to hear that. And it’s our job to figure out how to help you get there.

23:51.81
Chantelle
I think a good ah good point um there, Alyssa, and I think sometimes for people, they have this crazy goal and everyone around them thinks that they’re nuts. Like, you’re 62. What do you think of trying to climb Denali? They might have heard that 15 times and they’re getting a little bit discouraged. And just to hear someone say like, you’re 62 and you want to climb Denali, you’re a badass. That’s awesome.

24:19.90
Chantelle
And as you say, Alyssa, it’s gonna be hard work, but awesome. Now it’s our job, like let’s put our heads together and let’s figure out how we’re gonna make this work. What are the skills that we need for you to be successful on Denali? What skills do you already have that you know lead to that? And what skills are missing? And again, not good or bad. Awesome. That’s information, right? Now we know what we need to work towards to make that a possibility for you. Now you feel empowered. And now when that person says to you, that’s nuts. How are you ever going to do that? Like, I’ll tell you how I’m going to do that. Right? I have a plan.

24:59.99
Chantelle
this is how I’m gonna do that. So that helps to, you know it’s it’s so powerful for us for ah to be able to help you see that you you do have that within you, that there is a plan, that there is a clear path, and to help build your confidence week by week, day by day, month by month, until you you know get to the base camp and you’re looking up at that summit and you think, I have everything that it takes to get up there.

25:27.68
Chantelle
I need mother nature on my side and a few other small things, but I did the work that I needed to do to get here and I deserve to be here and I have everything that I need to have the best chance of success.

25:40.26
Chantelle
And so that’s, you know, that’s what coaching is. And it’s difficult to say like, you know, to explain it in five bullet points, what coaching is because coaching is a, it’s a really individualized experience.

25:50.73
Alyssa
Thank you.

25:54.46
Chantelle
And I think that’s also something that a lot of folks don’t understand is like, okay, well, what do I get when I hire a coach? What don’t you get when you hire a coach, right? Like we, I feel like as a coach, we end up wearing a lot of hats, don’t we?

26:11.30
Alyssa
Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there is a wide, like yeah every coach, like every person is going to have their strengths and their weaknesses. And so part of finding that right fit is figuring out how that works and also realizing like there might be an evolution to that fit as well.

26:36.71
Alyssa
that maybe someone who worked really well for a time period of life, actually, you two have grown in different ways and that’s okay too.

26:37.38
Chantelle
Mm

26:46.89
Alyssa
So yeah, I think… Like personally, I was with another coach um who it just, we, are I don’t know if outgrew, but it just, it didn’t work anymore.

26:56.91
Alyssa
And so I moved to a different coach and that was great. And also a coach can give you a different perspective on that training.

27:03.60
Chantelle
-hmm

27:06.49
Alyssa
I know Chantel, you’ve had a couple of athletes. come on that are newer and I’m sure they greatly appreciate just the way that you explain workouts is different. And the way it’s, it’s exciting to see like, um I can say from the king of the, from my perspective, it’s like 95% of what my coach prescribes me, even I’d say 97%.

27:17.29
Chantelle
Mmhmm.

27:30.01
Alyssa
I’m like, yeah, that makes sense. But what’s exciting is that three to 5% that I’m like, I wouldn’t have thought of that. That’s cool. like ah that pushes the boundaries of that pushes the edge of the box that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. And I think that’s kind of speaking to perhaps a more experienced athlete. But it’s also incredibly fun to work with someone who is like, I never knew that if I slowed down and ate food every 30 minutes, I could feel this good. And you’re like, that’s so cool. I’m so glad that we were able to make that connection and able to

28:09.38
Alyssa
help you to see like this hour hike doesn’t have to kill you actually with good fueling and like slowing down a little bit and then speeding up you’re you can do super well on it and you don’t have to be dragging behind other people

28:24.01
Chantelle
Yeah, I think, and we all have our own, you know, blindnesses about ourselves. There are things that we feel that we’re good at, and there are things that we feel that we’re not good at. And sometimes we can get in our own way about stuff, right? And so the revelations that, you know, even though we are coaches, we have coaches, there are revelations that we get from our own coaches that we wouldn’t see within ourselves. And so I think that’s um That’s important and for those of you who are maybe thinking about if we’ve helped you get over the fact that you’re not worthy and you’re thinking okay, you’re right I Deserve this I want to learn more about myself I want to see what kind of hidden potential might be lurking under the surface or I want to make sure that I’m really well prepared for my adventure you might be wondering like

29:10.55
Chantelle
Hey, well, how do I, you know, how do I get a coach or how do I find a coach or what do I look for? And again, this is you know this is a really personal relationship. And so the connection that you have with a coach is really important. So think about it, like be really clear for yourself. I like Think about it. Again, if you’ve ever coached before, um have you had some good coaches in your life or have you had some not-so-good coaches in your life? What did you enjoy or not enjoy about that experience?

29:42.50
Chantelle
What do you know about your personality that you would need from a coach to drive your relationship in a positive way? You know What kind of expectations you would have? Are you the kind of person that would be like, I just want you to give me my workouts and tell me what to do and I’m going to go do them and to give me some good feedback on whether or not I’m following correctly? you know So that could be one end of the spectrum.

30:07.48
Chantelle
Communicate that clearly. like I’m really not interested in training theory. I don’t care about science. I just want it to work. Right, I just want to get faster. I want to get better. I want to get prepared. Yeah, sure. There are some of those athletes, but I feel like most people should really think about this as an educational experience. You’re investing in yourself. You’re investing in self-knowledge.

30:29.05
Chantelle
Think about this as an opportunity to learn from yourself. So what kind of person do you generally communicate best with? What kind of things might you want to learn about yourself that might drive life? Well, then it could be helpful to have a coach with if it’s, for example, if you’re a woman going through Perimenopause, I would like to work with a woman who has some knowledge about that, or it’s maybe important for me to work with a coach who has particular education in this area, or it’s actually really important for me personally to work with a woman who’s been through it. like That’s important to me. It may or not be important to you. So think about your situation, what you may know about yourself, what you may want to learn about yourself,

31:15.92
Chantelle
And then think about, for a coach, like what’s important for you? Is there a particular type of education that you would like them to have or experience you would like them to have? Maybe it’s communication style. um You should also be concerned about how many athletes they are working with. And you know I feel like I have worked in other coaching companies. I can say very strongly that our uphill athlete coaches are compensated well for the work that they do.

31:44.50
Chantelle
That means they’re well compensated. Therefore, they are not overloaded with the amount of athletes that they coach to be able to earn a living as a coach. That’s really important. So our coaches are not working with 40 to 50 athletes. you know They’re typically working with, you know some of our coaches are working with 10 to 15 athletes. Some of them are working with around 20 athletes.

32:09.12
Chantelle
And there’s no reason for any of our coaches to need to work with more than 30 athletes. That means you’re going to get good attention from your coach. That means your coach is going to have the, you know, I could ask any of our coaches, I could pick someone on a list, Alyssa, I could say, Hey, I’m looking at your list of athletes, Alyssa. Tell me about it.

32:27.61
Chantelle
Tell me about Steve. And Alyssa would be able to very confidently without skipping a beat, tell me how old he is, where he lives, how many kids he has, what his job is, what he’s preparing for, what his strengths and weaknesses are, where he’s at in his training plan, what his next event is.

32:43.35
Chantelle
If you’re coaching 50 athletes, 40, 50 athletes, that’s not going to happen.

32:44.76
Alyssa
Well.

32:49.78
Chantelle
Right. Um, and then also how, how available is that athlete, is that coach going to be for you, right? To, to ask questions or review your training files and things like that. So those are some important things to think about. And then finding a coach, obviously it’s a little bit different. Uh, for our process, as I mentioned, I am both, uh, you know, den mother and matchmaker. That means I know our coaches extremely well.

33:15.97
Chantelle
I know what their education is, their experiences. I know how they communicate. I know the differences between the different ones. And so when I’m working with someone who’s looking for a coach, I’m learning about you too. I’m learning about you a little bit as an athlete. I’m learning a little bit about what your pain points and your needs are. And then I’m working to match you with the coach from my objective view of both sides, trying to match who’s going to be a good fit.

33:42.34
Chantelle
And I will say I have a pretty good success rate, but I mean, I’m not, I’m not perfect. Uh, if that doesn’t work and for whatever reason you and the coach you meet and it’s just not gelling, um, then we work to make another match. And you know, the reason why we don’t, you know, we don’t typically do like an interview process. Sure. Maybe it’s nice to talk to that person for 20 minutes, but in 20 minutes, you’re not going to get to know each other. So we feel that it’s better for us to try to make an objective match based on ah Goals needs and personalities give the coach and the athletes some time some real good time to connect to speak to do a proper intake call for the coach to review some training files to um Have a couple of workouts going on first before you really know whether it or not it’s going to be a good fit So we’ve kind of developed ah an intake system to support that which you know, I’ve i’ve seen other models and I you know, I you can all have feel free to have your opinions. But I see actually this working really well for both sides, for both the coach and the athlete um to get you started. And then right from the start, you can get going on like, what are your expectations from the coach? What is your coach expecting from you? And getting things, you know, really doing a job of like jumping in and and and getting going, rather than spending a couple of weeks, you know, needing to interview, you can kind of

35:06.81
Chantelle
get into the good stuff right away, um which I think is really helpful.

35:13.07
Chantelle
um

35:14.21
Alyssa
Yeah, absolutely.

35:14.31
Chantelle
Gosh, what else is there?

35:14.65
Alyssa
I think it’s helpful to…

35:16.12
Chantelle
Alyssa, you would want to share?

35:19.35
Alyssa
I think that was really useful to cover that. I can say Steve lives in Austria, with two kids, strengths and weaknesses.

35:30.43
Alyssa
Oh, I don’t know. No, I’m kidding. We love you, Steve.

35:33.31
Chantelle
so

35:35.12
Alyssa
um But yeah, I think it’s helpful to know that process. you know This is how uphill works, but at other companies it’s going to be different. Also, you know there’s going to be different price points for coaches and I think it’s very good to understand what you’re going to get from a different price point. You know you might see a coach that’s maybe $80 a month and that’s going to be a much different experience than

36:06.41
Alyssa
a coach that is three, 400. And you might need the $80, like the $80 coach might work for you, but I think in this day and age of the variety of coaches that are out there, it’s good to verify and also just understand what the expectations are as well as from that experience.

36:31.22
Chantelle
Yeah, great, great point, Alyssa. I think some, ah you make me think of one other question that I often get from people as they say, like, Oh, well, I don’t think I need to talk to my coach every week, or I don’t need that much attention. And the way that coaching is priced is not necessarily for, you know, the minutes that you’re going to be talking. So think about, you know, what’s important to think about is not just the interaction that you’re having with the coach, but like, what is the coach bringing? What education do they have? What experience do they have? Take a look at the coach bios and and ask them, you know, and and ask those, ask some of those questions. You know, if you look at our coaches, we have a wide variety of coaches who have a range of experience in terms of educational knowledge. So we have coaches with, with master’s degrees and, um,

37:25.46
Chantelle
other graduate degrees, um you know, and who are continuing to work towards PhDs even, which is pretty awesome. We have coaches who are certified International Mountain Guides. That’s a whole other level of experience. We have coaches that have multiple certifications in strength training.

37:44.61
Chantelle
women’s health, psychology, all of those things. So think about like not, it’s not just about a number of like, I need X number of minutes with a coach. Um, but think about what that coach is bringing beyond the minutes that you’re speaking with them.

38:00.83
Chantelle
It’s the time that they are taking to review your training files. It’s the knowledge that and intention that they put into every workout that they’re prescribing. And all of that, um I feel that um should be mentioned too. For someone who maybe doesn’t have you know doesn’t have the ability to commit to monthly coaching, and that seems out of the realm, um it doesn’t mean that you don’t have access can’t have access to a coach. At uphill athletes, we also do coaching consultation. So if you’re following one of our training plans or you’re working on a training plan by yourself and you just want some input or you want to ask some questions, you can actually talk to a coach and you know um through a consultation and ask some questions. We can’t make a training plan for you over the phone. I guess that’s not how a good training plan is made, but we can answer questions, we can give some guidance, we can give some advice. um so you know there there are more There are multiple ways of

38:55.16
Chantelle
getting some coaching input um if you’re not in a position to work with a coach one on one right now.

39:05.61
Alyssa
Yeah, absolutely. And I can say I’ve done a fair amount of consultations in my day and I think they’re awesome. It’s really useful to just often tell people they’re not crazy or find something where you’re like, Oh yeah, that’s why you feel so terrible.

39:21.78
Alyssa
And so it’s nice to also have that option of just like that kind of bigger picture, Hey, here’s what’s happening or why.

39:32.64
Alyssa
Um, but I guess, yeah.

39:32.97
Chantelle
Yeah. As I think, again, really coaching coaching is education, right? It’s it’s learning learning a little something about you learning a little something more about yourself or having an insight that you know you’re coming against the same pain point maybe again and again, or there’s a lot of confusing information out there on the interwebs right and on Instagram with all these influencers and I don’t know, funny diets and things like that. So sometimes you just want to have a little check-in right about something and a consultation is maybe all you need at this moment for where you’re at.

40:09.11
Alyssa
Definitely. So if coaching, what’s kind of a possible typical coaching look like and what can an athlete hope to come out of a coaching relationship with?

40:25.38
Chantelle
So first of all, I think there’s no typical coaching relationship because every coach and every athlete is going to be different in their needs, communication style, et cetera. However, upfront, you should be establishing with your coach what your communication is going to look like because really coaching goes far beyond a coach you know scheduling workouts and just saying good job. So you know a coach will be doing a you know spending some time, particularly when you’re getting upfront to learn about you, your lifestyle, any kind of limitations, whether that is um functional limitations, movement limitations, injuries, time limitations, medical issues, et cetera, and figuring out how to you know come up with the, yeah, where do you live, right?

41:11.26
Alyssa
Living Living…

41:14.60
Chantelle
There could be all kinds of things.

41:14.97
Alyssa
living in a flat…

41:15.88
Chantelle
so

41:16.41
Alyssa
flat? Yes.

41:18.71
Chantelle
Yeah, living in it yeah you live in a you live in Texas and you’re preparing to do a high altitude adventure, right? So those could be limitations. um you’re not. It’s not a situation where you’re going to be, you know, as we talked about, you’re just going to be blindly following something, right? So come on let’s think back to the sort of co-creating things. um It’s really, I feel like coaching is often kind of an experience. And if it’s done well, you should be every day, every week, learning a little something about yourself.

41:52.27
Chantelle
and about the training methodology. So when you do each workout, you should have a clear sense of why you’re doing it, how you should be doing it, and your coach should be able to give you some clear feedback on, yes, you followed what I asked you to do. No, you didn’t follow what I asked you to do. And here’s why, right? And then you just keep repeating the process. We’re going to continually reevaluate how you’re doing. We’re going to continue to evaluate whether we’re on the right path. Because just like if we come back to our driving analogy, right? We’re trying to get from destination point A to destination point B. We might have to take some detours. We might be able to take some shortcuts, but we always want to reevaluate our route to make sure that we’re going on the right plan. And if we’re doing things correctly,

42:43.90
Chantelle
ah It’s a terrible business model, but you may not need us forever, right? um Because you’re going to be learning along the way. You’re going to be understanding about the methodology. You’re going to be understanding about what works for you, your body, your lifestyle, your circumstances. So maybe you get to a point where you feel like, I don’t need that anymore. But I feel like for a lot of folks, once they get into coaching,

43:07.31
Chantelle
It’s so nice to have someone overseeing what you’re doing. We all spend a lot of time planning things all day long, whether it’s in our jobs, it’s planning stuff for your kids, it’s planning stuff, um other things in your life. It’s so nice to know that you can trust that someone is overseeing the training and that just gives you a little bit more space in your brain to think about other things.

43:31.46
Chantelle
And so with a coach, you’ll know that you’re doing enough of the right things. You have many opportunities to continually question and learn. And I really you know ah encourage people to question, question, question along the way. That’s the only way to learn.

43:52.44
Alyssa
Absolutely. And speaking of which, we actually have to wrap up because I’m chatting with a client soon to talk about his experience. But I think our last question, and I love this is, are you coachable?

44:07.63
Alyssa
We’re saying you in the broad sense.

44:08.40
Chantelle
Yes, are you?

44:09.92
Alyssa
I know Chantelle is coachable, but are you coachable?

44:10.69
Chantelle
Yeah.

44:14.52
Chantelle
That’s right. so like Another one of those things where you should take a deep breath, close your eyes and ask yourself, are you coachable? Yes, your coach is going to make a plan for you. Yes, you’re going to talk to your coach probably once a week or whatever time frame you feel you need to talk with your coach. However, the coach is not doing all the work, right? We are not going to push you up the mountain. We’re not going to push you around the track. We are not going to be there with you. We might be there in spirit. We might be there in your pocket through training peaks on the app or on your watch.

44:45.98
Chantelle
um This is a way for you to learn about yourself as much as your coach is learning about you. So are you receptive to taking in new information? Just because you’ve always done something doesn’t mean that that’s the best or correct way for you to do it.

45:00.90
Chantelle
Are you clear about where you are now? So that’s really awesome that you were a college soccer player 30 years ago. Time has changed. Circumstances have changed. Your life is drastically different from then. So are you willing to be really crystal clear about where you are now?

45:19.99
Chantelle
um You’re gonna have someone to be accountable to, right? So of course the coach is gonna be seeing whether or not you’re doing workouts. We will check in on you like, hey, Alyssa, I see that you haven’t ah you didn’t do this workout from Wednesday and it’s Friday. Did you do your watch just not upload the workout or did you not do it? So we’re going to be accountable, but we are not going to be… you know you You’re not a little kid. You are an adult, so you have to also be accountable for getting the work done and for communicating when you need changes to the plan. ah Because overall, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

45:56.68
Chantelle
But if you can be 100% consistent, 80% of the time, you’re gonna be able to make it happen. um What others on this list, Alyssa, do you have for people to ask themselves about being coachable?

46:15.06
Alyssa
Yeah, I mean, the biggest question or the biggest piece I think is, do I want to listen to someone also who might tell me this is not the best idea right now?

46:28.60
Alyssa
Do I want, which goes into the accountability, like, do I want someone to tell me, hey, that’s not the best decision.

46:29.31
Chantelle
Mm.

46:38.13
Alyssa
And if you don’t want that, then it might not be right for you. But for me, I think the most impactful my coaches have been when they have told me, No, I think that’s a bad idea. I don’t think you should do that. And I need to know, personally, I need that. ah And I, my number one thing with coaching is to keep my athletes safe.

47:01.68
Alyssa
and to keep my athletes healthy. And I try to keep those at the forefront and everything we do. I want you to reach your goal, but I want you to be safe and healthy going into it.

47:13.17
Alyssa
And if that is where I will get, we’ll say fierce with my athletes is if I think they’re gonna hurt themselves or if they’re gonna put others or themselves in danger.

47:19.68
Chantelle
it

47:24.57
Alyssa
And that’s when I will be very blunt and say, you haven’t done the work to, or not you haven’t done the work, but like we haven’t put together the pieces for you to do this in a safe manner, I would highly recommend you don’t do that.

47:41.23
Alyssa
um And most of the time, we’ve had those conversations.

47:41.66
Chantelle
Yeah.

47:45.63
Alyssa
So that’s not like a mic drop to them. It’s like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Because you know, for the past few weeks, I’ve laid out like, Hey, we need to hit this mileage. And that hasn’t happened. And so it’s like, Oh, yeah, you kind of knew that. um So I think it’s like, are you willing to take that honesty? Are you willing? Are you willing to listen to it? And also realize, like, yes, we have these goals, but that’s not a be all and end all, especially in the mountain world where there’s a safety piece to it.

48:17.82
Chantelle
Yeah, I think that’s really important. you know is like are you Are you going to be receptive to that? Because you know yes, you will be paying us to coach you, but you’re not paying us to be the yes, ma’am along the way. We will challenge you. We will make you think. And it’s because um you know maybe it’s like your parents might have said to you, like I’m doing this for your own good, Alyssa.

48:44.98
Chantelle
you know You might not like it, but it’s really the right decision to make. You know You might not always like what we are suggesting, but know that it’s coming from a good place and wanting to keep you safe. and It’s not maybe that you can’t do this thing you know this weekend. It’s maybe just not yet, not now.

49:03.06
Chantelle
And if that’s really important, right?

49:03.35
Alyssa
Yeah. Yes.

49:05.13
Chantelle
Here’s the steps. And also like sharing how it’s going. Like, you know, it’s not a one-way, coaching is not a one-way street. We wanna know how you’re feeling about it.

49:16.27
Chantelle
If there are certain workouts that you don’t like, tell us. It doesn’t mean that we’re never gonna prescribe that workout, but is there a way for us to make that fun? Like Alyssa, I remember you once saying like, I’m really struggling with this one athlete that doesn’t ever wanna do their strength training.

49:31.58
Chantelle
And it wasn’t a matter that they didn’t like the strength training. They weren’t comfortable in the gym or they weren’t comfortable with certain exercises. So communicate with your coach. Don’t be afraid. like You’re paying us for this experience. Help us understand. If you are considering coaching but you still feel after listening to this that you don’t feel that you’re worthy, ah you’re welcome to book a 15-minute free consultation with me and I can talk about coaching and what that might look like for you.

00:33.92
Chantelle
ah what coaches might be suitable for you. um That is always an option that’s open to people. I’m here as a resource for all of you in our community. If you do decide to go forward with coaching, you know hopefully we’ve given you some good things to think about in terms of what to consider in a coach and what to look for when you’re evaluating potential coaches for you.

01:01.15
Chantelle
And don’t forget to evaluate yourself. Are you coachable? How open-minded are you willing to be going into this um into this potentially new relationship? How ready are you in your life to take this on and potentially make some changes? What kind of support systems do you have around you, family-wise, work schedule-wise, whatever, to get the most out of your coaching experience to set yourself up for success?

01:31.45
Chantelle
Any last things Alyssa that you would add?

01:36.23
Alyssa
I think you, you really nailed it. I would say it’s so fun to build that relationship. We want to, we want to help you be your best. So let us, let us know, send us an email, speak with Chantal and we’re excited to help you reach your goals. I think that’s really why we do it.

02:00.62
Chantelle
Yeah, we have the coolest jobs in my own humble opinion.

02:02.16
Alyssa
So we do. I agree. Well, you can reach out to us through our website or write to the coach at uphillathlete.com. Thanks for listening to this. We hope that you have at least a little bit more insight into what happens with coaching. And we’re here to help. It’s not just one, but a community. We are uphill athletes.