What to Ask a Coach Before You Hire One

Knowledge Hub, Choosing a coach

Who is this for?

This is for the runner or triathlete who is thinking about a coach and wants to choose well. Maybe you have used a plan from a book or an app and your progress has stalled. Maybe you have a race booked, a full job and a family calendar, and you want someone to help the training fit. Maybe you have trained for years and want each session to have a reason.

You don't need to know the science to ask good questions. You need to know what to listen for. That is what this article is for.

Why the questions matter more than the sales page

Every coaching page says the training is individual. Most of them mean it. The difference shows up in the details: what the coach does in your first two weeks, what happens to your comment after a hard session, and what changes when your week falls apart.

Those details decide whether a plan fits you in week nine, not just in week one. Your fitness changes. Your job changes. A race goes better or worse than expected. A coach who can tell you exactly how they handle those moments is a coach who has a system for them.

So the useful thing to do before you hire anyone is to ask about the work itself. Not the price, not the app, not the number of athletes they have. How they will coach you, week by week.

The questions, mapped to how we coach

We answer these questions for every athlete, in the same order. You can ask them of any coach, and you can hold us to the same answers.

The nine questions at a glance

What it measures. The nine questions in this article, in the order we answer them: where you are, your training numbers, your block, how we check in, how we read your week, a week that goes wrong, changing the plan, after a race, and whether you understand why.

The athlete story at this point. Katy Walmsley went through all nine in one season. We learned where she was that December, set her numbers in January and February, fit her plan around a busy family calendar all season, and changed her plan in March and April on the way to Boston.

How to read it. Read the list top to bottom. Each line is one question, numbered in the order this article answers it.

You might see this in your own training if you can answer some of these questions easily but not others. The ones you can't answer are often where your current plan is thin.

These questions are not a one time checklist. Learning where you are happens before your first week and again every week after. Changing the plan starts the first time a session goes differently than planned. A good coach should have a clear answer for every one of them.

Question 1: How will you learn where I am before you write my first week?

Why ask it. Every decision after this depends on the starting picture. If a plan starts from your best remembered week, the first block is too big. If it starts from your goal race alone, a sport that isn't ready gets asked for work it can't hold. If it misses how full your week is, the load is set for someone with an empty calendar.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach asks about your last few weeks of training, not your best ever week. They ask how many hours are realistic for you. They ask what you use, heart rate, power, pace, and what equipment you have. They ask about your races and your schedule. They look at your recent training data if you have it.

How we answer it. Before we write a week, we look at what you have really been doing in each sport, how your week works, where your fitness is strong and where it is still building, and how you respond to training and life stress.

For Ben Creswick that picture showed an athlete who was already training a lot. In the four months before he joined, he ran about 45 to 65 km a week and trained roughly 10 to 16 hours a week across swim, bike and run. He is a health sciences student, a personal trainer and a former soccer player, and he rides to work. In his words: "I love to train and take on big challenges."

So the question for Ben was never whether he could work hard. It was whether we could point that work at two races three weeks apart without letting it spill over. That question shaped every block after.

Question 2: How will you set my training numbers, and when will they change?

Why ask it. Your zones decide what every session costs you. If they come from a generic chart, an easy day can be too hard and a hard day can miss its target. If they never change, they drift away from who you are as your fitness moves.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach tells you where your numbers come from and when they will be updated. Listen for a plan to update them after a block or after a race, not once a year.

How we answer it. Your zones come from your own Critical Speed and Critical Power, and we update them when your training or a race says a number has moved. Heart rate is always read with power, pace and feel. That is the one line on testing you need here. The rest of this article is about what we do with those numbers.

Question 3: Why this block, right now?

Why ask it. A plan is a series of blocks. Each block should have one job. If a coach can't tell you what the current block is for, the plan is probably following a calendar rather than you.

What a good answer sounds like. "This block is for X, because Y is what is missing right now, and it ends when Z." The coach names the job, the reason and how they will know it is done.

How we answer it. We pick the block that fixes what is missing, and we end it when the gains flatten, not when a date says so. Our order for that choice is the same for every athlete: anything that overrides, then the timeline, then your test results and limiter, then your recent history and readiness.

Katy Walmsley is a busy mom of four in the 45 to 49 age group. She coaches athletes. Her run moved through five blocks on the way to Boston, and each had one job.

• Base and durability, November 19 to January 4. Easy Z1 and recovery runs, Z1 runs with short pick ups and Low Z2 intervals. The job: get joints, tendons and run legs ready before speed work arrives.
• Aerobic Expansion bridge, January 5 to 31. 8 Sweet Spot interval runs and Z1 runs with progressive Z2 finishes. Instead of jumping straight into threshold, we bridged. Most of the stress stayed aerobic while a smaller share moved up. Her weekly running rose from about 21.5 miles in December toward the 33 she averaged across January and February.
• Build to threshold, February 1 to 22. 6 Sweet Spot interval runs and 4 Z1 runs with progressive Z2 finishes. The job: raise sustainable speed, the staying power a marathon needs.
• VO2 Max, March 1 to 22. Intervals and over unders. Her sustainable speed was now close to her top end, so the top end had to move.
• Marathon specific and the final two weeks, March 24 to April 19. Race intensity work, a 27.6 km long run on April 6 and three race plans matched to the miles she could really run.

Her bike made its own decision. It stayed in base and durability while the run took the new load, then moved up to threshold once the run was set.

Katy's run and bike blocks, December to Boston

What it measures. The block Katy was in each week, run on top and bike below, from November to Boston on April 20.

The athlete story at this point. Each run block ended on what the last one showed. Her late February retest put her sustainable speed close to her top end, so VO2 Max came next. Eleven days after a VO2 Max session she called "definitely pushing the top end of my abilities!" she ran a 1:34:09 half marathon best.

How to read it. Each colored bar is one block. Read left to right for the order. The dashed markers are the checks that decided what came next, and the last marker is Boston.

You might see this in your own training if your plan has the same kind of week for months at a time. A block with one job, and a clear end, is often what is missing.

That is what a good answer to "why this block?" looks like in practice. Every block had a reason Katy could repeat back to you.

Question 4: How will you check in with me, and what happens to what I tell you?

Why ask it. The numbers show what you did. Only you can say what it cost, how you slept, what happened at work and whether a session felt controlled or desperate. If that information has nowhere to go, the coach is coaching a spreadsheet.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach tells you how often they read your training, how you should tell them how a session went, and how quickly they reply. They tell you they want short comments after sessions and a message when life changes. Then they show you that the comments change decisions.

How we answer it. We read your comments next to your numbers. A short note after each session, and a message when life changes, is some of the best information we have. We reply to it, and it shapes the next week.

Ben's comments are a good example. His easy and steady work kept coming in hot. Angela's notes from those weeks were short and specific:

"A little faster than intended."

"We need to keep some reins on you."

"We are hitting very specific zones physiologically. Save it for race day!"

Each zone has a job, and the job only gets done inside the zone. A Z1 run done in Z2 isn't a bonus. It is extra fatigue that takes quality from the next key session. Ben heard that and changed. By mid September he wrote: "I made sure to stay on the slower side of my race pace on the intervals! Feeling good!"

Check ins also catch the small things a plan can't. Indoors on the bike, Ben's effort felt higher than his watts suggested. Angela read his heart rate against his power and asked about the room. It was much warmer inside. The fix was a fan, not a zone change.

Holly Koksel's comments told us when a block was landing. After a long run in July she wrote: "First time I feel like I was finally actually able to hit the paces at the end." When she asked about the intensity in her race specific block, "I'm definitely not doing an ultra at that pace haha", Angela explained: "It's more the block type you're in which is a hybrid approach." A check in is also where you learn why.

Question 5: How will you read my week?

Why ask it. One session tells you very little. A week, read as a whole, tells you whether the training is being absorbed. A coach should be looking at load, recovery, how the week fit your life and what you said, together.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach names what they look at before setting the next week. Listen for fitness and fatigue, how your sessions went, how you said they felt, how you slept and what is happening in your life. Listen for the word "together".

How we answer it. Before each week we look at where you are: your fitness, fatigue and form, the direction your form has been moving over the last five days, how your sessions went and how you said they felt, how you slept and what is happening in your life. From that we pick the week's load.

Each week, each sport gets one of five calls:

1. Increase by a lot.
2. Increase by a little.
3. Hold steady.
4. Decrease by a little.
5. Decrease by a lot.

Hold weeks matter as much as push weeks. A hold keeps your load where it is so your body can catch up with work it has already done. In a building phase, fitness should rise steadily, about 3 to 5 points a week. Bigger jumps come only once you have shown you can absorb them.

Holly's blocks, fitness and freshness through the summer

What it measures. The block Holly was in each week from May to race week, with her fitness and freshness trends from her coach's analysis drawn underneath.

The athlete story at this point. Holly has trained for more than ten years across triathlon, cycling and ultrarunning. Her body already knew how to go long, so more volume was never the answer. Her weeks stayed moderate, the bike carried much of the long aerobic work, and race week was a decrease by a lot, the taper she told us she hates: "I hate tapering lol."

How to read it. The colored bands are the blocks: Base and Durability, Build, Aerobic Expansion, then Specificity. The line underneath is her fitness, which stays high through the summer. The freshness line rises at the far right, in race week.

You might see this in your own training if every week of your plan goes up. A plan with holds and pull backs in it is a plan that is being read, not just followed.

Holly won the women's race at the Anchor Down Ultra and finished second overall, in the hottest Anchor Down on record. Her longest training runs were a fraction of race day. The weekly calls, and a bike that carried the long aerobic work, are why she didn't need them to be longer.

Question 6: What happens when my week doesn't go to plan?

Why ask it. It will happen. A sick child, a work trip, a late meeting, a holiday at a relative's house. A plan that only works in a quiet week only works some of the time.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach starts from your real week. They ask which days you can train, which day you want off, which days can hold a long session and how much time you have. When the week changes, they move the work rather than asking you to catch up on the weekend.

How we answer it. Work, family, travel, sleep and training all draw on the same recovery, so we plan them together. Your physiology sets the direction. Your life sets the dose.

For Katy, pre dawn was her window, so the plan fit around it. When basketball took the afternoon, the session moved to the morning. Over the holidays she wrote: "At my mom's house so had to ride outside." The bike and the pool slotted in where the run could not, and easy days really were easy. Her total fitness rose from 93 to about 110 while her run fitness held steady. The bike and pool carried the gain.

For Ben, the life fit was different. He rides to work and studies on a full course load. His commute is training, so it counts toward his week instead of sitting on top of it.

A good answer to this question is never "do your best". It is a description of how the coach rebuilds the week with you.

Question 7: When and why will you change the plan?

Why ask it. The athlete in week nine is not the athlete the plan was written for. You might be fitter, more tired, or racing somewhere new. A coach should be able to tell you what makes them change course.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach names the signals. Sessions that were hard start to feel controlled. A short check rises. Your comments change from "that was tough" to "that felt good." Then a test confirms it. They also tell you what makes them pull back: fatigue that stays deep, or comments that turn.

How we answer it. Ben is the clearest example. He had two A races three weeks apart: IRONMAN 70.3 Tri Cities on September 20 and the Victoria Marathon on October 11.

From September 1 both sports were race specific for the 70.3. After Tri Cities, we split them. The run stayed race specific and turned toward the marathon. The bike went back to base and durability, because his next bike race was eight months away and race intensity bike work would have added fatigue with nothing to aim at. Two races, two needs, two blocks.

His running rose on purpose, to between about 50 and 90 km a week in the build, with his biggest week the week after the 70.3. Two days after Tri Cities he wrote that his "legs seemingly have bounced back well," and the marathon build carried on.

Ben's sports split after his 70.3

What it measures. Ben's run and bike blocks from September 1 to the Victoria Marathon, with his two races marked.

The athlete story at this point. Ben was third in his age group at Tri Cities. The next day the plan changed shape: the run kept its marathon focus and the bike dropped to base, so his legs could take the run work.

How to read it. The top band is the run, the bottom band is the bike. Both are race specific up to the first race line. After it, follow each band on its own.

You might see this in your own training if you have two races close together that ask different things of you. Each sport can need its own block.

Ben ran 2:46:42 at the Victoria Marathon, third of 299 in his age group and 33rd of 3,817 overall, seven weeks after joining ANC. None of those decisions could have been written in August. Each was made in the week it was needed, from what his training and comments showed at the time.

Question 8: What do you do after a race?

Why ask it. A race is the best test you will ever do. It shows what you can hold for hours, not minutes. A coach who uses it will update your numbers and choose the next block from it.

What a good answer sounds like. Recovery first. Then a clear decision about what comes next, made from the race result, the timeline to your next goal and what the race showed was missing.

How we answer it. After the Victoria Marathon, Ben's week was a decrease by a lot, pure recovery. His marathon told us what he can hold for hours, so we reset his run anchor and his run zones now come from the number that matches race day. With 70.3 Victoria about 30 weeks away, both sports went to base and durability, the time to build an engine, not to sharpen it. Ben put it well: "A bigger engine, more durability, and a higher ceiling for the hard work later."

We also film. This winter we filmed his freestyle, scored nine parts of the stroke and found that his breathing was his main limiter. His drills fill the first ten minutes of each swim, his main sets stay the same, and he has a clear gate to pass before we film again in 4 to 6 weeks.

Holly's next step after Anchor Down was rest first, a short reset, then a return to Specificity for IRONMAN Maryland with a fresh run test to update her zones. Since mid October she has been back in Base and Durability, building the engine for next season.

Question 9: Will I understand why?

Why ask it. If you don't know why a session exists, you can't make a good call when life gets in the way. Understanding your training is part of getting better at it.

What a good answer sounds like. The coach explains the reason for each block and each key session in plain words, and is happy for you to ask.

How we answer it. Every block has a reason, and you know it. Katy could tell you why the bridge came before threshold. Ben could tell you why his bike went back to base while his run kept going. Holly could tell you why her long runs stayed short. When Ben wrote "I know i get a bit carried away sometimes lol", he already understood what the ceiling on his easy days was for.

What a weaker answer can sound like

There is nothing wrong with a well built plan from a book or an app. For an athlete whose life is steady and whose recent training already matches the plan, it can work well. Fixed plans are clear, and they are easy to follow.

The limits show up when you need something the plan can't know. Here are answers that tell you the coaching may not reach that far:

• "Just follow the plan and we'll check in at the end of the month." Your week changes faster than that.
• "Your zones come from a chart based on your age." Your zones should come from you.
• "If you miss a session, make it up on the weekend." That puts hard work on tired days.
• "We'll add volume every week until race day." Without holds and pull backs, the fitness from the hard weeks has less chance to stick.
• "Don't worry about why." You will make better decisions when you know why.

None of these answers make someone a poor coach. They tell you how much of the coaching will be about you.

Three situations, and what a good coach does

You had a great race two weeks ago and feel sharp. A good coach doesn't just add more. They ask what the race showed, update your numbers and choose the next block from your next goal. Ben's great marathon led to base and durability, because his next A race was 30 weeks away.

Your work week just doubled. A good coach moves the key sessions to the days that can hold them, shortens or removes the rest, and keeps the direction of the block. Katy's sessions moved around basketball games and school runs, and the block kept its job.

You keep going faster than planned. A good coach tells you, kindly and clearly, and explains what the easy day is for. Ben's notes said "Save it for race day!" and by mid September he was doing it himself.

What a coach can't promise

No coach can promise a time. A race day has weather, a course and a body on that day. Holly raced in record heat and humidity. What a coach can promise is how they will make decisions with you: from your numbers, your comments and your week, made in the week they are needed.

A coach also can't read what you don't tell them. The check in only works if you write the short comment and send the message when life changes. That is your half of the work.

How to use these questions

Pick three or four that matter most to you. If your week is unpredictable, start with Question 6. If you have stalled, start with Question 3. If you have two races close together, start with Question 7.

Ask them on your first call. Listen for answers that name what the coach looks at, how often and what they do with it. Ask for an example from an athlete they coach. Then ask us the same questions.

If you're training for a marathon, a 70.3 or an IRONMAN, our marathon, 70.3 and IRONMAN coaching pages show how we coach for each of those races.

What this means for you

You don't need to know the science to choose a coach well. You need to know what to ask and what a specific answer sounds like. At ANC we answer them the same way for every athlete: we learn where you are, set your training numbers, fit the plan around your life, and change it as you change. Katy, Ben and Holly each got different blocks, for different reasons, from the same way of coaching.

Keep reading

• How Katy Walmsley got faster with age
• How Ben Creswick ran 2:46 at the Victoria Marathon
• How we analyze a freestyle stroke: Ben Creswick's swim review
• How Holly Koksel won the hottest Anchor Down Ultra on record
• How We Coach, Part 1: StressLogic in four steps
• Part 2: learning where you are
• Part 3: setting your numbers with CP and CS testing
• Part 4: fitting training around your life
• Part 5: changing the plan as you change

Coaching built around you

Ask us these questions. Tell us about your races and your week, and we'll show you how coaching would work for you.

See how we coach triathletes and runners, or start a free coaching consult.