¶ Running Coach Qualifications and Techniques
So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step . My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help . Welcome to Brian's RunPod . Welcome back to the podcast , and it's me , brian Patterson , to give you an insight into all things running .
Well , on the second part of this episode , with Merrilee Ferreira , we start to talk about how she started taking her running journey one step further by taking out running qualifications . Later in the episode , we talk about the process of writing her new book .
I really do hope you enjoy our interview as much as I did , and I really do encourage you to buy the book , as it's written by someone who has a real passion for her sport . So , moving on briefly , you've obviously really got into it , really enjoying it , and you think you're doing your half marathon . So what made you want to take it ? That next step ?
Because I know you took up some running qualifications . Is that right ?
Yes , well , after I got that IT band injury that I have spoken today , I felt that I needed to learn more about running , and more than I could get from internet and from books . And well , instead I could have just booked a session with a running coach .
Instead , I thought that , well , I would like to actually understand it myself , and so that was the driving force to wanting to become a running coach , to learn more about the running form and you know how to do it right .
Yes , much , because I thought that then I can help myself , I can help others , for , for my suffer , the similar things and and yeah , it , somehow it , it happened , because it's it seemed something that I couldn't do , because , to start with , I started to look where I could do my mandatory bits for the training , because you need to deliver some sessions and I
wasn't even a member of the running club at the time , but close to where I live there is a brilliant running club .
I contacted them , I joined the club and with their help I was able to first get a run leader certificate I needed to do at the time everything was via video , so I had to do a session , take a video of it and send it to England Athletics and then we went through it during the session .
And what I liked about running a coach course because that was actually face-to-face sessions so we were with a small group at Sheffield and on indoor track we did our sessions there was like learning as well , but I loved the practical part because there were a lot of people with a lot of experience .
I was a newbie , really , and I learned so much from those people really , and I learned so much from those people and I cherish that experience because it just taught me what to look out for , because one thing is when you watch a video and you think that you know what you learn , but the other thing is to actually monitor other coaches and get feedback for
your running , give feedback for their running , and it was a really good experience . As a part of the running coach training , I had to deliver a session at my running club as well . I'm somebody who worries a lot about things and find things .
I did too .
I'm the same about things and find things I did , so I'm the same no , even doing the podcast .
It's something that I worry about , but I think the more you do those kinds of things and you place yourself into challenging situations , then more resilient you become , and I'm pleased that I did it , because I think it has taught me some important skills that I can use in like business life as well , not just running , yeah , I mean I totally agree with you ,
because even I don't know in my things that I've done , where maybe I failed at .
I think you can learn a lot from that . Yeah , definitely can learn a lot from that . You know . It's like , yeah , definitely , um , you know , I know , I know it's , yeah , it's , it's .
Maybe it's a little bit off topic , but I mean I think you know , if you were , if you're not afraid to fail at something , you know you can find there are a lot of it's quite empowering that you can learn quite a lot of things even from failure itself .
So you know , I think it's very , very much applicable to running , because if you , if you have , like your , your small goals , maybe it's to run your 5k and maybe you fail . But but you learn from it and next time you , you do better . That's why it's important to track your runs and reflect back to them that you could learn from it .
Doing that course , was there any one thing or a couple of things that really spoke to you that you could take away from ? You know , let's say , oh , I know that was one thing I learned or a couple of things .
If it's just one thing , then it was the proper arm drive .
Oh , right , okay , yes .
So it's really simple and really important and proper arm drive could help you to improve your running technique so much . And so if I'm on a race and maybe I'm not doing that , well then I'm remembering that . Focus on your arm drive , and even that just helps , because I'm focusing on that one aspect and I know my form is getting better and and .
But the bad thing is that after knowing the good arm drive , now I'm looking at other runners and then you kind of want to go to them and say that well , you should be doing it a bit differently .
But well , I'm keeping it to myself so I get a bit I don't know . Lately I've been getting kind of a bit I I don't know it's confused or kind of very getting a bit stressed about sort of running , running technique .
I mean , you've just said you know about , you're talking about running , about getting a proper arm drive , but I've been hearing a lot about you know cadence . You know you should be doing 180 or 170 cadence , that kind of thing . What your your opinion on that ? What was your opinion on that ?
well , I understand that that . Yeah , ideal would be that if you have that faster cadence then you would would be more efficient . But in reality there are a lot of runners out there that maybe don't have that ideal cadence and they do just fine , so you can try to improve your cadence .
Maybe you use metronome or playlist that have like 180 , but if it gets to that that it just makes your running as a show that you don't enjoy it anymore , then I would say that other aspects of your running yeah form are much more important . Yes , you know my cadence is not ideal , but I I do some exercises , I , to get it faster , like I .
I do drills where I run around downhill as fast as I can like okay hill sprints , but downhill hill sprints and then I recover to the top and that helps to get your cadence really up . So just to get the do those kind of things , or or I do strides in the end of the run . So maybe I do a long run and then I do some some strides .
It means like they're like maybe 100 meters you , you run as fast as you could and then yeah yeah , and again , and that's another thing that can help you get your cadence up so maybe just just can , can do things like that , but in the end of the day , if your cadence is not ideal , it's nothing wrong because I know some watches .
I think garmin have a sort of cadence thing and in fact well , I have the upper watch but there is a cadence app on there so you can just sort of listen to the thing . So that sort of a metronome .
But do you ever ever get and I know I do sometimes you well , obviously you're being a runner and being a coach or whatever but do you ever look at other people running and you're kind of analysing them or you kind of look , I kind of look at other runners , you know , when they're running along and you're out with your family and that kind of thing , and
then you're thinking , oh , I wish I could run like that . They look effortlessly , that sort of thing .
Yeah , all the time , all the time . It's like a curse after the running coach course that you just go is . Although I am a running coach , it's far from perfect and there are times when I run with better running form and there are times when it's not as great .
But I have learned , especially during the past maybe two years , that your runs is is way more important because I I mainly run for my mental health that you feel good and keep my thoughts yeah thoughts manageable and everything like that .
so I think , um , if , if you , if you yeah start focusing too much of all of those aspects and then the enjoyment goes , then that's not a good thing either .
So maybe just yeah , yeah , before I move on to the motivation to write the book , I know when I do kind of interval sessions book what I know I , when I do kind of interval sessions , um , I always find that because of the intensity I I kind of get that you know runners high to the end of it .
I mean , is that the same with you or you know doing interval sessions ? I know , I think before we started recording you said you weren't a big fan of speed work , but I , I , I do do interval sessions because , yeah , you do , you do get that .
¶ Inspiration From Running and Writing
I . I like my little hill sessions because I know that they make me faster and and it's it's , it's it's rather challenging to do them as well . Yeah , I , that's true , I'm not a fan of fast running , but intervals are a bit different because you have a bit time to recover yeah , so yeah , so you don't have to go .
You know everything that you have for 5k you do a little bit , you have a bit of recovery and then you go again . So it's more manageable . And plus , you know that however many intervals you have planned to do , like if those eight ones are done or if those 12 ones are done , then you're done and you can just jog .
Yeah , and also I think , from a mental point of view and sort of improving your know , improving your determination , I think they're brilliant . I mean , it's not just about you doing getting faster , but I think it's great because you know , it's like you know , even on a treadmill I think the treadmill is great , I mean treadmills .
Doing normal runs on treadmill is terrible , but to do a dental session on treadmill , I think that it's great . Do you agree ?
yeah , I agree , because a treadmill is is good . I'm just looking on a site because I'm just sitting next to it oh yes , you said you got your own treadmill .
I remember you .
I remember you saying in the book yeah , yeah , because , um , yeah , yeah , I have a treadmill and the indoor bike . My husband mostly used the treadmill , but I do use them for some of the interval sessions because I , like you , can do that hill part as well on a treadmill like treadmill hills , because it was so hard .
You kind of get the same effect like you would run far , but that hard comes a lot sooner .
Yeah , and I really admire you because I know you're in the book you were really good at just leaving your watch behind and just going out and just running , and either you were going to run , let's say , from lamppost to lamppost . That kind of thing . I find that really difficult , I would really difficult to do . It's like oh no , I haven't logged my run .
How did you find that ?
Until some point I was a Strava user . Well , I still have an account , but I don't record my runs there anymore . Count , but I don't record my runs there anymore . And I found it really freeing , because before I was , I was worried that I have to kind of explain myself that I had a bad run or I just did or something like that .
But then it , it doesn't matter , you , you just go for the . Well , I don't do those kind of runs where I leave my watch behind or I cover my watch very often .
But I went for one of these this morning because I had a difficult run on Sunday and I found really difficult to motivate myself and I felt kind of like I'm a runner who doesn't like running suddenly . And so today I thought I will do it differently .
I didn't take my phone , I didn't take any music , it was raining , and so I just went , because I went for my usual route , where I pretty much I know how far I am because I have done it so many times anyway , and I really enjoyed that run .
I got home I was soaked from the rain , but it was a really enjoyable run and I don't mind that it's not recorded on my car or anything like that . Because does it matter ? Yeah , exactly it on my Camino or anything like that . Because does it matter ?
Yeah , exactly , it doesn't really matter all of the Strava users .
But it is difficult to get to that stage because I was like that I was recording everything and I just when I made that decision , it definitely freed me .
Yeah , yeah , and also I mean I think when I looked at my I'm not a very quick runner or whatever , you know . You look at your past pace , it's roughly the same . You know it's . It's not going to change or whatever .
And then , or maybe you kind of just look at , you know what you've done before , whether it was a tempo run or an interval session or that kind of thing , so it's not going to change a lot at the end of the day .
But the other thing , what was I ?
going to say . I was going to say something else , but I've forgotten what it was . I think it'll probably come back to me in a minute . So then you've got all of this experience and you think , hmm , I'd like to write a book about it .
So was that something that kind of you had this revelation overnight , or was it something you'd been thinking about for a while ?
Well , I kind of wanted to write a book since I was a teenager , but I never thought that I could actually do it . It was never the right time or I didn't have anything to write about . And then suddenly came that running . I started running .
I ran my first marathon five months after I started running and it seemed something that well , it's , it's impossible me who who didn't cut along in at school with physical education , and and then I'm suddenly running a marathon . And well , I run my first marathon and it was less than five hours . So I fought for somebody who is for the first marathon .
It wasn't that bad .
Yeah , yeah .
Especially running , running solo and with heavy winds . So so I felt that I want to write about it , and initially I thought that maybe it will be a blog post although it didn't have a blog , but I thought that maybe I could write to somebody else's blog or something like that . And so it started to evolve .
From there I started writing and then I went for the runs and then during the runs I got some brilliant idea , and then I came back and wrote it down , and during some of the runs I just recorded those ideas on my phone just speaking to my phone that I wouldn't forget what brilliant revelation I had during the run . And so that's how it evolved .
The beginning took a while , but my book evolved with my running , so as I was writing it . Then I went for the next goals and to start it , I thought that I will finish with my second marathon . Then I thought that I finished with my first ultra and I still didn't finish . Yeah , it just evolved over time .
Because I thought it was quite inspiring . Right at the beginning you said you kind of wrote , you kind of set a goal as to how many words you were going to write and that kind of thing .
Yeah , and then so over you know , was that easy to to get into a rhythm of you know writing , you know were you doing , were you recording it or you know , and then you type it down , or type , you know , write it down , or how did you do it ?
to start with I I I opened like a private blog for myself without anybody having access to it , and so it gave me easy option to if I had like a topic maybe I just had a title and then I wrote whatever I had on the topic . And then I had another topic and I wrote a little bit again and then at some point I became more systematic .
I copied them all in a Word file and I tried to build up my book structure and build in the gaps and then I started systematically work on it . I think at that stage , because I have been working as an internal auditor for 10 years , it kind of reminded me of the structure of writing an audit report , because that one has all sorts of structure as well .
That means that you have to write and I do want to tell you something is that internal auditors were the bane of my life and in a job that I used to do .
Yeah , I can imagine . I kind of see that myself now .
Anyway , yes , carry on . Sorry , I was interrupting .
It's all right . So , yeah , so I started to systematically work on it . So I started to systematically work on it and a lot of work went into during the past year , when I hired an editor and she did a manuscript appraisal for me as a first thing . And yeah , the book that went for manuscript appraisal was 52,000 words and we ended up with 66,000 words .
Wow .
So it's .
And how long did that take ?
Well , she did the appraisal , you know , gave her feedback and you know her ideas where I should expand , and then I worked on it for the next few months and then she edited it . So , yeah , it's from November to March roughly .
Wow , okay , that's impressive yeah .
Yeah , I was working hard , but Especially over Christmas the original editor was definitely something that pushed me forward , because , although I had some friends and family who had read my manuscript , but having somebody whose job is to recommend things and say that where I should expand , it's a lot better because more work goes into it than just from the friends
and family's feedback Although that was all very useful as well , because as an author , you could often overlook some inconsistencies because you're so used to your text . So it was definitely helpful that friends and family read it first , but I'm ever so grateful for my editors , yeah so did you ?
um ? So were you saying with , did you kind of build the structure first and then you kind of like fleshed it out or did that kind of organically ?
so , yeah , I um , yeah , I first wrote those small bits and then I built the structure and added those small bits to that structure and then I just tried to expand and maybe I had already a chapter title , and then I wrote the chapter and so it wasn't written like from the beginning to end .
No , it was written here and there .
Yeah , but that's how it worked for me .
Yeah , yeah , yeah .
I think when you're busy and you can have time to do maybe little bits at a time , that's what works the best .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , I have said about my sorry . And also it kind of gives you know kind of an overview of the book itself as well .
¶ Writing, Running, and Self-Publishing Journeys
Mm-hmm , are you thinking of writing a book ?
No , Well , there is a saying , there is a very famous saying of you know , there's a book in all of us .
Yeah . So you should try it , it's difficult , it's not easy . I can't lie , but it's first in them .
Yes , I mean , you know I wasn't , I didn't do very well at school , so you know . But then again , you know your story is quite inspiring because you know exercise and running was natural to you and you have . You know it's become a hobby for you , you've written about it , you know you've sought to gain knowledge professionally about it .
So you know it's amazing how that's kind of turned around . Thank you so , and do you think you will write another one ?
Yes , I actually have plans for another one . I have started the file , but I haven't got very far , so it will happen . It might be a while .
Yeah .
When I first finished I thought that never again . But then I got this idea and I just couldn't let go .
Oh right .
Okay , okay , let go , oh right .
Okay , okay . And do you think , because you've gone through a process of you know , you've gone through the process of writing a book , do you think you do things differently ? You know if you do another one again .
Yes , definitely . Some things will be easier because I now know what I need to do , as with this one , it has been a deep learning curve . Self-publishing is difficult and learning all about all the different platforms and what you should be doing , and what time and everything like that .
It's not made easy for self-published authors to to compete with traditional published authors , but it's possible yeah you have to learn a lot to to make it happen . It definitely will be easier second time and that's also in this world .
You know YouTube videos and you know people you know , watching movies and screens and whatever you know it is quite a welcome sight that you know people can take a book and then read and gain from that .
Yeah , I personally really love reading . So I think if there wouldn't be coming new books out there because of the movies and people's short attention spans , it would be really sad .
Yes , that's true .
Because I still appreciate the paper book . I rarely read on Kindle , but I prefer the paper yeah , okay .
Well , I mean we've coming up to the end of our podcast . I'd just like to say a big , big thank you for coming on the podcast . I'm eternally grateful and really privileged that you've come on . You know , I thought it was a wonderful , wonderful book and I'd just like to say list anyone listening .
Please do go and buy it wherever you can buy it you know , amazon or wherever .
And is there anything , any links you'd like to promote or um , it would be great if , if , if readers would , if they would like to follow me on Instagram . My handle is merilyruns .
Yeah .
And Do you ? Have a website , my book is available on Amazon . It's also on Apple Books , Google Books and Barnes and Noble Brilliant .
So check it out . Annie , I just got a couple of things I'd like to ask you . Is there any one piece of advice you would give to new runners ?
What I would say ? That with all that advice out there , don't get overwhelmed . Just focus on one piece of advice at a time . Just focus on one piece of advice at a time . So if you want to improve your running form , don't take every aspect of it all at once .
Just maybe ask a friend or a family member , take a video of you that you could go home , look back to it yourself and maybe just choose one thing . Maybe it's my favorite arm drive , Maybe it's how you hold your head or feet . Just focus on one thing at a time and it will get you results . Don't forget to enjoy your runs .
Exactly .
This is the most important part , because if you're getting like too stressed about all that running form cadence , you know pace and you should be doing this and that , and and don't focus any of it . Just go there and feel good and and it doesn't matter how slow you are , it doesn't matter how far you go .
You go out and you run , and you run and that's all that matters . So don't compare yourself with others . You own that run .
Important lessons .
Do what works for you , so you can do it .
¶ Running Icons and Inspirations
And do you have a sporting icon ? Do it . And do you have a sporting icon , someone who you look up to , either in running world or whichever ?
any sport . I haven't even thought about it like that . There are many runners I admire , but because I'm currently training for 100 miler , I see anybody who has ever done that distance is an icon for me because it's something , seems something so unattainable , so so big .
So for me , that person who I would admire wouldn't wouldn't have to be that top , top athlete , wouldn't have to be that top athlete . It doesn't have to be Scott Jurek or Rich Roll , who I do admire a lot , but I admire those regular people who have done extraordinary things .
Great , I think that's a great place to stop . Okay , I'd like to say thank you very much again and , as I said , if you follow the links I'll put in the description , then I'll put a link to your book as well , and also some of the other books you've talked about today . But it's brilliant . Thank you very much .
Thank you so much for having me . I really enjoyed it .