For The Coach...

In the past year I have achieved so much in the sport of triathlon. Yes; I’ve done the training needed to get me where I am but; but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my coach Heather Leiggi. Though I should be taking most of the credit; Heather deserves a smidge of the credit for giving me some real good challenging workouts as part of my training plans. I wouldn’t be where I am in so many areas without her. So Heather; here we go, a blog post dedicated to an all -time favorite coach.
Unlike most triathletes; I had never even heard of Heather and I didn’t know who she was. Through the Tri Equal Equally Inspiring Team, I was matched with Heather as my coach as I got ready to take on Ironman 70.3 Atlantic City mid-September 2017. I was coached by Heather through the Equally Inspiring Team from June 17th to September 17th; when I completed Atlantic City. Because the match was so wonderful; I knew I wanted to continue having Heather coach me.
A little bit about Heather first. She’s been a Professional Triathlete for 10 years if not a little longer than that. She’s not one of the top ranked pros but she’s pretty bad ass when it comes to being a triathlete. She’s a duel Canadian American citizen. She lives in Delaware with her husband and two cats. She loves pizza; a little too much but that’s ok. Besides being a Professional Triathlete; she’s a Triathlon Coach and a Licensed Physical Therapist.
Now I’ll start blabbing about why she’s an amazing coach. Of all four coaches I’ve had over the past Ten Years; she’s been the easiest to approach about anything and everything; and I’m not scared to tell her what I’m thinking. I’ve had a few days over the past year where training hasn’t happened for some reason or another. I’ve been easily able to text or email her and explain the situation as to what happened on that particular day. With all that; she’s so very flexible. If I missed a training day over the weekend for whatever reason; Monday which is usually my off day will become a training day instead. As long as it’s just a regular training week; she’ll let me switch up days. I really like that about her. She takes no negative crap from me and will just plain old ignore me if I start getting all negative. Sometimes she’ll just send me an email and tell me “The negativity has to stop”. That particular email I have saved and for good reasons. When I get feedback from Heather in my TrainingPeaks (the program where my training plans and workouts are) Log; she always has good feedback for about my workouts based on the data she sees and even my comments I write down about each workout.
I don’t just see her as a coach; I also see her as a friend, something not expected but something I don’t take for granted. It’s just as simple as that. Because Heather is a pizza lover; whenever I see something about being National Pizza Day or something similar to that I always send her a text. I dunno it’s just something I do. Speaking of pizza; Heather is such a good and bad influence on that subject. I’ve truly been craving pizza and eating pizza more often because of Heather. I’m looking forward to the day this summer where I go out and train with her and then we go eat pizza together. It might sound silly and hilarious; but I’m looking forward to it. It will be something special. I don’t know what else to say to say about Heather. She’s been such a positive influence in my life; and I thank her for that. She’s my coach, a role model, an inspiration, a friend, and well the list goes on. I adore her and am so happy to have her.

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