What We Feel as Coaches when Races & Training are Cancelled

“Coach….what do I do now?”

As a coach I have received this text, email, and voicemail every day for the past few weeks. With race after race being cancelled from March through May and beyond, runners are in a quandary of what is next. And coaches are asking the same thing, “Is this really happening?”

As a coach you have the same proud feelings you get when your children, friends or family do something outside their comfort zone. When a trainee decides to do a race for the fist time; when they run longer than they ever have; or when it is 28 degrees and you have every one of them shows up for the run, you are so proud of each one of them. And then it hits you like it hits them, “Oh no, all that hard work and we don’t get to share the glory of the finish line with them.”

At first is was the smaller local races, so we were not so worried about our trainees. Then it was the big one, DC Rock ‘n’ Roll and soon after that they came rolling in with cancellations from all the spring races we have been training for since December.

So we jump up and say no worries we will set something up for you. We will make an unofficial race for all the groups. We will celebrate crossing our own finish line together, CCR strong. We will make it great for every one of them. We will not let them down. This is who we are, this is what we do; we take care of our groups. Let’s pick the date and get the word out.

Not so fast! Now, we aren’t allowed to run as a group. No more than 10 runners in one place at one time, and the list goes on. We are now put on pause – no training groups, no group finish lines. What an end to a season.

No worries, we will train them virtually! We got it. We will continue doing what we do, communicate, track, and continue to motivate each runner and we won’t let them stop running. Let’s get the word out and get started.

We did it! We have been coaching virtually for the past few weeks and it has been good. It is not the same as meeting twice a week, but we are making it work and it is working for now.

Running is not cancelled and our coaches are not done doing what we can to inspire runners every day to set a goal, work for it, and if they need to readjust we will be there for them, always.

Keep running. Running is not cancelled.

The CCR Coaching Team is (virtually) cheering for you every step of the way.

– Written by Kelly Maurer, CCR Training Director & Annapolis Coach