Coach Teddy Running

Hello friends,

I hope this finds you well.

My goal for this is to be as honest as possible, because I have recognized that hiding parts of the truth and showing what I "should" doesn't give people an accurate representation of life and challenges we experience in life.

A few months ago, I did a lot of pondering about how my life and coaching intersected together. Coaching came to me when I was an 18-year-old who still struggled daily with chronic and acute pelvic pain caused by an undiagnosed hip tear. This took away my capacity to workout in most ways, because it caused intense pain. Exercise was a huge coping skill for me, so anxiety and depression skyrocketed during my college years. When the injury happened after my junior year, I declined the offer to be a manager on the team for my senior year, because the emotional pain was too high for me to be around something I couldn't do. Coaching gave me the privilege to continue participating from one level removed, and I'm grateful for the joy it brought me.

My favorite part was interacting with the kids. I really appreciated their honesty, authenticity, and willingness to try something new. Running is a hard sport, and even when they didn't feel like running, their presence was refreshing to be around. I feel lucky to have been able to mentor them at that stage of their life. Our discussions after the daily story were fun and insightful from an adult perspective. To be honest, parents are a coin toss with the amount of joy brought, but ultimately I think there concerns come from a place of love for their child - even if was communicated in a s**t way (pardon my language, I have had some rough experiences with parents).

When I began independent coaching, I started it as a way to bring my passion to be my full-time job. I worked in a finance job that I hated, and balancing coaching with it was overwhelmingly exhausting. The undiagnosed ADHD didn't help, but transitioning to adulthood is hard on its own. That journey has been about five years of my 9.5 year coaching career, and while I've had a lot of ups, there was a lot of downs. "Selling" myself is not enjoyable to me. There isn't a large market for private cross country coaches, and having to prove my worth gave me more self-doubt and insecurity that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Aside from that, it's been lonely. After coaching >800 kids in my lifetime, I thought it'd be easier to get word of mouth referrals or help in the marketing realm, but it didn't work out for me. Lonely, sad, frustrated, self-conscious - all over something that I put a lot of focus in to try and mentor teens for the world ahead of them.

Now, I'm in a career that I enjoy and that requires a lot of mental energy that I can't afford to ration, as I plan to start a family eventually with my fiancé. It's not an easy decision by any means. It's the right one for me at this time though. It's been nice just focusing on the professional career. I even want to do a private practice down the line, and at the moment, I can't fit coaching in there without sacrificing things that are more important to me.

I'm not sure when I'll step back into the coaching side of things - maybe in a few years, maybe once my kids are old enough to participate, but whenever that may be, I'd like it to be with a renewed joy.

Take care,
Teddy

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