A Firm, But Gentle Hand

Last week, I mentioned Jim Schlentz in this post. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing two of Jim's athletes place well at the regional Footlocker race, but almost as significantly I saw Jim coaching in action. While I was talking with him, one of his girls came up and asked to take a few days off from practice. Jim's response was immediate, "Sure, you've been working hard for weeks, a few days to let you recover is reasonable." (paraphrased) She went on to mention that she wanted to run a race the following weekend, and it was here that the real message was sent, "No", if you're too beat up to practice, then running a race would certainly negate the recuperation the rest engendered. There seemed to follow a bit of negotiation, and Schlentz seemed to relent, at least slightly. If I understood it correctly, his runner explained that she wanted to run the race for reasons other than racing and would do it as a training run with a friend. This seemed to satisfy him that it wouldn't be run as a race. The message was sent clearly, "follow a plan", yet remained flexible. It was both nice and instructive to see.