Coaching Anyone?

I used to run training programs for my old running club centered in the District until some incredibly offensive behavior by a clique of boorish and puerile  20-something  board members towards me and my programs caused me to leave that club behind for good.  Last year I helped the program director of the MCC, an Arlington club, coach its Walk-To-Run (WTR) training program. 

That was a little tame for me, run/walking four 15-minute miles every Saturday but I actually believe helping other people get off the couch and get moving to any degree out there is a way of giving back.  Those Alpha jerks in my former running club (one of them is now its president) used to sneer that taking groups out and actually running with them was "chaperoned running" but screw them.  As we used to refer to certain types when I was in the State Patrol, they're Adam Henrys.

On Saturday morning I dropped in on the MCC director's current WTR program and took his star pupil, who wanted to push herself, out for four miles on the Mount Vernon Trail at a 2/3 "modality" (walk two minutes, run three minutes) while the director went with the rest of the group at a 4/1 modality.  It took us 62 minutes to go the four miles and twice we had to cut back a little from our three-minute run intervals but it was a fun outing, it was good to be out there moving early on a Saturday morning. 

The program director spoke with me beforehand about being the pace-group leader of the MCC's 10K Program, a true running group, which is firing up in May, and I said I'd consider it.  I'm back!