Welcome to Episode 40 of the Final Surge Podcast where we talk to Jonathan Marcus, the coach of High Performance West, about the subject of coaching. Many of you may know Jonathan as the co-host of the Magness and Marcus on Coaching podcast. We talk to Jonathan about his podcast, and then he dives deep into subjects like training and racing strategy as well as what the word “coach” means to him.
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How did you get your start in running?
At what point in high school did you decide to stop the other sports and focus on running?
How did you get into coaching and then form your group High Performance West?
Are you looking for only elite athletes or would you accept anyone, even a local 5k runner, if they were serious enough?
You and Steve Magness, who was our guest in Episode 18 of our podcast, have a podcast together called On Coaching. Why did you start a podcast on coaching?
When you think “coach”, what is the first thing you think about and how has that changed since becoming a coach compared to when you were running?
You have coached at every level from high school to elite professionals, what would you say are some of the more common mistakes coaches are making in developing runners?
You talk a lot about the latest science and the little things that people are doing to get that extra marginal increase. We have a variety of listeners from high school coaches and age-group weekend 5k runners. So knowing the wide variety of people listening, do you think many people are making a mistake of focusing too much on the small things before getting the basics down?
You recently did a podcast on interval training. When we are looking at interval training, what should we be looking for as far as putting together a training plan?
Let’s talk about the art of racing which was one of your podcast episodes. Playing devil’s advocate, if your goal is to win a race, and there is a one best way to run the race the fastest, isnÍt that how you should execute it?
That’s if you are in the position to win. What about the person who may be mid-pack and may end up in ñno-man’s landî all by themselves in the race. How do you advise that person who is looking to run a PR and not necessarily a win in a race?
Going back to that quote of “the goal of preparation and practice is to perform and compete.” Can you give us a few examples of a few workouts that you have done recently with some of your athletes and what your goal was as far as transferring that to racing?
The Final Surge… 5 questions in under 1 minute
Favorite running book? – Unforgiving Minute
Current trainers you are wearing? – Sketchers GoRun 5
Favorite race? – Cross Country
Favorite meal or recovery drink? – Self-made Smoothie
Your favorite workout – Acceleration Session
You can find Jonathan in the following places:
Team Final Surge
