Aug 27, 2026 · 40 min · 10 segments
Episode #155 Meet Top Step Training new coach - Zack! In this Episode Jesse chats with his new assistant coach, listen on to hear about Zack! Zack Benedict has been immersed in long-distance…
Zack BenedictGuest
Jesse VondracekHost
Well, I also think it depends on the athlete and what their background is as far as as far as what their goals are for race.
There's some people that come into the sport that were like, I want to do a 70.3 and I want to finish.
But also we need to, you know, extract that a little bit more because, you know, are you going to swim once a week and do four bike sessions a week and run twice a week for this whole period, you know, like survive the swim, get on the bike, smash yourself as hard as you can, and then survive the run.
And, uh, I mean, for 99% of like people that get into the sport, they, uh, they don't have a good starting place.
They don't have a good idea of like what they want to do for their first race.
Not everyone needs to be like, Oh, I want to smash six hours for my first race or whatever.
Um, but you know, kind of working backwards with all the, everything training related, it's super important, you know, like, if someone comes to me and they're like, Hey, I need a coach.
The athlete might not need to know every detail of those 12 weeks at this, at the beginning, but they should know that, you know, there's going to be a good chunk of that training that whether it's four weeks or five weeks or whatever, that you're going to be having peak weeks and, you know, really honing in on what you're going to do for a race.
Um, you're going to have build weeks and, for most athletes, they just need to get to a point where, um, get to a point where they can, you know, start to wrap their head around all this training.
And, you know, for a lot of people like, Oh, I'm going to do a couple of workouts at the gym.
It's a whole different thing, you know? Um, so like kind of take it one step back and say like, okay, where are our priorities for the race? Where are we going to make the most time? Where are we going to might lose the most time and kind of working backwards from there.
And and I guess, you know, I'm going to highlight a few of the things you said that I think are good, are really good coach qualities that, you know, if someone, again, is looking for a coach, the things I would highlight that I think you do really well and you led with basically listening to the athlete.
Listening to where their athlete's at, listening to where the athlete wants to be, what their goals are.
And sometimes they don't know that, but you can help guide them in that process.
You can say, you don't need to have these clear goals, but we can talk about, we can massage them out over time as far as where do you actually want to be? And they might not even be there in the first race, But that's something you can kind of keep coming back to and listening to kind of what they're saying and using that to help say, oh, well, if this is how you feel, then maybe we can work on goals that make sense for that.
Well, I also think it depends on the athlete and what their background is as far as as far as what their goals are for race.
There's some people that come into the sport that were like, I want to do a 70.3 and I want to finish.
But also we need to, you know, extract that a little bit more because, you know, are you going to swim once a week and do four bike sessions a week and run twice a week for this whole period, you know, like survive the swim, get on the bike, smash yourself as hard as you can, and then survive the run.
And, uh, I mean, for 99% of like people that get into the sport, they, uh, they don't have a good starting place.
They don't have a good idea of like what they want to do for their first race.
Not everyone needs to be like, Oh, I want to smash six hours for my first race or whatever.
Um, but you know, kind of working backwards with all the, everything training related, it's super important, you know, like, if someone comes to me and they're like, Hey, I need a coach.
The athlete might not need to know every detail of those 12 weeks at this, at the beginning, but they should know that, you know, there's going to be a good chunk of that training that whether it's four weeks or five weeks or whatever, that you're going to be having peak weeks and, you know, really honing in on what you're going to do for a race.
Um, you're going to have build weeks and, for most athletes, they just need to get to a point where, um, get to a point where they can, you know, start to wrap their head around all this training.
And, you know, for a lot of people like, Oh, I'm going to do a couple of workouts at the gym.
It's a whole different thing, you know? Um, so like kind of take it one step back and say like, okay, where are our priorities for the race? Where are we going to make the most time? Where are we going to might lose the most time and kind of working backwards from there.
And and I guess, you know, I'm going to highlight a few of the things you said that I think are good, are really good coach qualities that, you know, if someone, again, is looking for a coach, the things I would highlight that I think you do really well and you led with basically listening to the athlete.
Listening to where their athlete's at, listening to where the athlete wants to be, what their goals are.
And sometimes they don't know that, but you can help guide them in that process.
You can say, you don't need to have these clear goals, but we can talk about, we can massage them out over time as far as where do you actually want to be? And they might not even be there in the first race, But that's something you can kind of keep coming back to and listening to kind of what they're saying and using that to help say, oh, well, if this is how you feel, then maybe we can work on goals that make sense for that.
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