So far remote training has not really worked for me. I’ve had the chance to meet a great coach and to work with him in person once, but with the arrival of the new baby I have been unable to take a plane to bridge the 1800 km that separate us. It is like a long distance relationship, not easy to maintain.
I’ve learned a lot and really enjoyed having biweekly training plans like this one, but communication is not easy. Instant messaging and email are asynchronous by nature: it can take very long to have a full conversation. Things that could be solved in a minute or less in person take forever by text exchange and don’t always get solved.
You have to remember to take videos and pictures in every training, but these are usually from a single point of view. If you focus too much on the video recording you end up being too distracted for training. The whole set up can get too complicated. When you meet in person the trainer positions himself wherever he wants and can get a lot of information really quick.
So I’ve spoken with the coach and stopped our ongoing training. Whenever I travel back to Spain, I will meet him to train. He’s been very open and supportive troughout training and still is. I know I have an open door to ask questions and talk to him if needed.
What I’ve done now is relaunch my search for a local trainer or at least someone that is not too far away. I may have found a couple solutions at 1h and 3h drives and I’m really looking forward for a few sessions to see if there’s a good training match.
Have you been able to make remote coaching work? How?