Athlete Stories: A year of Coaching - Michelle Hiland

Michelle Hiland was the winner of the 2019 Dirty 30 50k, 5th overall female at the 2019 Pikes Peak Ascent, and all-around stud of a mountain athlete. She joined Lifelong Endurance as an athlete, coached by Andrew Simmons, in the spring of 2019, but shifted over to Curated Coaching during her off-season. She graciously shared her perspective of using both mediums of coaching.

Coaching in general has been a new process for me over the past year. My original thoughts around getting a coach were how can I take my racing to the next level and how can I save time. I was looking forward to having my training planned for me, so I could focus on doing the workouts. 

What I didn’t expect was to find even more value in the relationship with my coach and our interactions along the way. These interactions went beyond accountability, which is a huge benefit; some of my most memorable moments are my coach calling me before every race and mentally preparing me for the next day. I recalled our conversations countless times when I was struggling during a race and it kept me moving and pushing forward. I could hear his voice telling me I have trained, prepared and that I can do this. This relationship is rooted in communication throughout training to find success and learn. From a comment on TrainingPeaks after a workout to a phone call to talk in more depth, being honest and open was key to improving and you can only get this level of communication with one-to-one coaching.

Here is an example of how personalized coaching helped me win a race. I was fortunate enough to have my coach at the start line of one of my races when I was panicking and feeling down because I had been struggling with an injury for months prior to the race and I wasn’t feeling confident. I did a lot of cross training on the bike but I just didn’t know how that would transfer to running. My coach was honest with me, he told me to stop obsessing over my injury and what I didn’t do and to instead  focus on what I did do. He reminded me that I did train, I worked hard, I cross trained to let the injury heal, that I am ready to run this race and I have fitness. He also told me if my foot hurts to walk some and to not think about my injury the whole race, but rather to just run and have fun. During the race I didn’t really feel any pain in my foot, although I was more cautious on the technical downs and I felt better than the previous year when I ran this race and didn’t train as much. I had fun, enjoyed the scenery and just ran like my coach reminded me to do. Crossing that finish line as the first female was an emotional moment not only did I accomplish my goal but I had my coach there to see it and all our work together had paid off. This moment and many others like it are why I choose to have personalized coaching.

I think one of my biggest strengths is I am mentally tough and my phone conversations or in person conversations with my coach helped prepare me mentally more than I realized throughout my races. Your attitude and thoughts during the race will make or break you so having someone believe in you and further increase your belief in yourself is invaluable. I also tend to believe I am superhuman and I have realized I need someone to help keep me in line, tell me to take recovery days and to actually take a rest day, which has been a valuable learning opportunity for me to listen and trust my coach. 

The more my coach gets to know me the more we can work together to increase my ability, work through challenges and accomplish my goals. I highly recommend one on one coaching to work through how you personally need to train, to learn and improve in your areas of weakness and to capitalize and grow your strengths. I have found that racing is a piece of a larger journey and having someone looking out for you makes it much more enjoyable.

I think curated coaching is a great place to get an introduction to what coaching is like. I have enjoyed the community support, a place to ask coaches questions, the events and learning opportunities, and a focused training plan. However, my greatest successes have come when working one-on-one with my coach.