RRCA Class, Deal, NJ

Last weekend we attended the RRCA Coaching Certification course.  It was really informative and the amount of information was extremely overwhelming. I would have liked to have seen the class be 3 or 4 days instead.

We attended the course in Deal, NJ.  We drove down on Friday and stayed for the weekend.  On the way down we stopped at The Crossings Premium Outlets in Tannersville, PA.  There's a candy store there that has the best candy apples ever!  We were just there in November on our way back from my marathon yet when we arrived, it was closed!!! I wanted to cry. I'd been looking forward to one but the store was completely empty.  Oh well....

We stayed at a hotel that clean-wise was really scary but at least all the employees were really nice. I seriously was afraid to put my bags on the floor. We had packed our bathing suits for the heated pool but after seeing the pool we decided to skip that activity.

We checked in and headed to Deal to locate where the class was and to go to the ocean.
 Deal is breathtaking.  The houses are incredible.  I was surprised though, how dirty the beach was.  My sister, who lives in NJ, said a lot of debris from NYC washes up on the Jersey Shore and that with it being the off season, the beach wouldn't get cleaned like it does in the summer. It was really sad to see and made the environmentalist in me really angry for our sea life. Anyway, with it being off-season the beach was covered with shells. We found a couple really nice ones we brought home for Tink.

I have an obsession with waves

I can't wrap my mind around having a home like this on the ocean

We drove down the beach to Asbury, walked the boardwalk and had dinner.  The weather was getting colder (it was almost 80 the day before) and we knew it was going to be a long weekend so we didn't stay at the shore long.

Saturday and Sunday proved to be very long days.  Lots of information to absorb. Some of it went against all that I've learned to date and some of it was really eye opening.  There were some very experienced runners in our group. Some, like us, are planning on being coaches and others were taking it to have a better understanding of running for their own benefit. Parts of the weekend were challenging, like dealing with certain personality types in class. The instructors were wonderful, very educated, highly experienced yet were willing to listen and debate with us when we had opposing opinions on the material.

After the class on Saturday, my Musician and I couldn't stand the thought of sitting in the hotel to do our homework so we drove to Long Branch, stumbled upon a cute little boardwalk area and stretched our legs there. I was thrilled when I found one of the candy stores (it's a chain) that sells the candy apples.  My dinner was basically an Apple Pie candy apple.

We found a cute little cafe to sit at and do our homework.  We have a case study, Robin, who wants to BQ and we have to create him a training schedule.  Our homework is to progress his long run and weekly miles according to the rules of training.  Then in class on Sunday we will work with a team to create a full 12 week schedule for him.  It was interesting sitting with 3 other people who have very different ideas and creating a plan we could all agree on. There was a lot of give and take.   It was also eye opening to see 7 groups, who all just went through the same training material, create seven very different training plans for our case study.

Long Branch, NJ

As much fun as it was, I was happy for us to get back on the road to home!

We have been studying all week and working through the book. I submitted my first 10 questions Saturday. The questions seem really easy at first but as I dug into them, some were a bit tricky.  I'm glad they give us a whole month to do the 100 questions. I'll need it.

I can not wait until we have Meraki Running fully set up and launched. My Musician and I have begun putting personal experience, previous knowledge and newly gained knowledge into action for both of my marathons this year.

Working on my training plan