If you mean "virtual training" in the sense that we only communicate over DIS PMs or email, yes. I've got 47 runners on current plans at the moment and have worked with well over a hundred different runners coming up with custom training plans based on them. It's essentially like our communication over the last day or so, but just over PMs/email as to not clutter up other threads. I've only worked with a handful of people in person (at my work, my sister, my wife, and my mom). Helped my mom go from a 5k, to 10k, to HM, to M, to Dopey over the course of 5 years at just over 62.
LOL!
And by no means are the intervals that I suggest a golden ticket. They're a starting point that I like to use and see how you react to the training. From there, we continuously tweak the training to hone in on something that works best for you while simultaneously trying to keep in mind physiological responses from training.
I am not a full time coach. It's just a hobby for me. I'm not accredited or classically trained in any way. I'm a researcher in a vitamin D Biochemistry lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So my background is in science and interpreting scientific articles/information. The short version is, I wasn't happy with my progress back in the Spring of 2015. I was putting in so much work and not yielding the race results I felt I could achieve. So I took a step back and re-evaluated everything I knew about running. I read countless books by other coaches, training plans, and as many scientific journal articles as I could get my hands on. I switched the mindset to "Train slow race fast" and "Train smarter not harder". Followed a completely counterintuitive training plan and suddenly everything started to click. Dramatically dropped my PRs. Knew I was onto something and had to shout it from the mountain tops. I'd been a lurker on the DIS for years, but in late 2015 joined up and started to share what I had learned. People started reaching out to me for help on training plans. It's my goal to share my knowledge so that other people can have the same epiphany in their run journey as I experienced back then. Running/racing became significantly more enjoyable when I started achieving things I knew I was capable of but had yet to actually get. As he finishes writing this "
short version" paragraph.... (I've got a verbage problem as my Principal Investigator would tell you). But essentially, running is a passion. And I enjoy sharing that passion with others and mentoring them to love running as much as I do.
You want the long version, go here (my training journal):
1922 days, 100 pounds, 8511 miles, 180 minutes and it all started with a single step…
To Infinity and Beyond - Becoming a Better DopeyBadger (Comments Welcome)
