The coach
David Chalfen
David is a runner with over 30 years experience, and a decade in coaching with a focus on longer distances. Qualified at Level 4 (Performance - 10k to Marathon) within UK Athletics coaching system, he has covered a range of practical and technical modules. Since 2009 he has worked as one of ten England Athletics Area Coach Mentors in Endurance, covering the North and East London, Hertfordshire and Essex area. His book 'Improving Marathon and Half Marathon Performance' will be published by Crowood in summer 2012. He is also supported by England Athletics on the National Coach Development Programme, one of about 30 endurance coaches in England who are mentored by the leading elite coaches in the UK.
England Athletics - Area Coach Mentor Team
The Area Coach role has evolved from previous coaching with the England Athletics London Region Performance Squad, assisting the capital's best Under 17 and Under 20 distance runners. He recently served as National Team Manager for an England Marathon Team competing in Denmark. He has also coached a group of national level 16-18 year old endurance runners at Oaklands Athletics Academy in St Albans.
As a runner he achieved a 2.32 marathon and 10 sub-2.35s. He is a member of Serpentine Running Club and is part of the club's well organised progress towards being one of the country's leading long distance squads.
In a professional capacity, he has picked up much best practice from working on Sport England’s and UK Sports World Class Programmes that support elite British sport.
To complement his coaching commitments, he has managed numerous elite runners, both African professionals and GB internationals, at big city marathons such as Berlin, Istanbul, Seville and Odense.
He says:-
- By a mixture of luck and design my early running, from age 14 was with the mighty Shaftesbury Harriers and then 3 years at Oxford University Cross Country Club where my 'achievements' included being not good enough to get near Blues level and struggling with TS Eliot. But I had the running bug far more embedded than any actual athletic ability, and I stuck to the task and was pleased to earn some Middlesex vests in my late 20s.
I started coaching 10 years ago after over twenty years of training and racing through the age groups. As a self-coached runner I was always very keen to put in plenty of miles but underachieved through not training smartly enough and not having an objective external guide to shape the training and recovery as sensibly as it could have been. I made the typical errors of neglecting almost all non-running preparation to focus solely on getting the miles done.
The progress made by the runners I continue to coach as a volunteer in the traditional club environment (see below) led me to extend the coaching commitments via this website. In varying and sometimes unpredictable ways, the technical knowledge and experience I have developed with some quicker runners is also applied effectively to runners of all levels.
I also provide running programmes that dovetail with triathlon training programmes, with a balanced running plan to combine with the cumulative training load of the swimming and cycling commitments. With the growth in ultra distance running, and the longer term ambitions of one of my most ambitious runners, I am developing my knowledge and application of best practice in ultra marathons as well.
I stress variety and progression across the programme so that, whilst one can never avoid doing the underpinning volume and regularity to make progress, there are an infinite range of different ways of structuring the training sessions to achieve the required physical challenge.
Photo - Maren Urner