I'm pregnant. Due Feb 9.
So, what's changing now that i'm pregnant?
Very little, I just want to set some expectations. Clients at the $150/month price point or above will be unaffected as much as possible.
Everyone else, I overachieve for you. You know this. I don't intend to stop, I just need a bit of slack. I work 7 days per week so I don't have a weekend to play catch-up when I get behind. I know some of you are willing to pay me more, but LT doesn't yet offer a price point between $1/day and $150/month and likely won't be offering one before the end of the year. I may revisit this topic, but we have bigger fish to fry with fall group training and nudging everyone at Life Time to hire Kristen Schuldt's replacement at the moment.
What does that mean?
Usually my evenings are my productive time, I tend to wait until the end of the day and respond to all of the workout notifications at once, but lately I am falling asleep on my couch at 8:30. To give you perspective, I get an email each time you complete a workout, then a second email when you write your log. So from Training Peaks alone I get nearly 300 emails per day, a very small portion of which, maybe 50, require responses. Sorting through which ones can be trashed and which ones need a response can be a time-suck, so i'm constantly nervous about falling behind and once I do, I have limited ability to catch up.
I've decided to accept the earlier bedtime and try to work around it with a few rules:
New Rule #1: I still read everything. I reserve the right to Yesterbox when I am buried.
I will continue to read your workouts with the intention of responding to everything, but mornings like today when I wake up and realize I conked out early (8pm!) and received 72 TrainingPeaks emails after I fell asleep, 30 of which have comments that may or may not warrant a response, I may read through everything, check your charts, and not respond.
So here's rule #2: I will respond to comments that elicit a response.
"the sun was shining, all is good!" This is a very nice comment but there's nothing for me to say other than, "YAY!"
"My knee hurts and I don't know why this keeps happening when I run faster than 10:00 pace. I should probably see Alex Lanton." This comment was designed to get my attention. You will get a response. Expect profanity in there. (Unless you gave birth to Rebekah Mayer, you should never NOT expect profanity, you know who you hired, yo. I watch my mouth for Mary and no one else.)
So if I haven't responded to your comments for more than 3 days in a row, look at your comments and see if there was anything for me to say or add. if not, that's probably why. If you're not sure or are expecting something you haven't gotten, DO tell me. Remember I'm still reading everything.
Rule #3: If you want to stay in front of me, you have to get in front of me
If you don't log, i'm not going to chase you for it. That service was never promised to anyone other than the $150/month set. The run plans are self-guided with my input as necessary; if I realize I haven't heard from you in awhile I may reach out, but you are paying me for a run plan not to kick you in the butt daily to make sure you execute it. The price point for that specific daily butt-kicking is $250/month
I quietly stopped taking new run plan clients a year ago, and culled over 50% of my clients from my roster. So if you're getting this email, we have been working together for awhile and I truly enjoy working with you. I hope this email doesn't lessen any affection you have for me, but if it does I completely understand. Ryan Kroll is a terrific coach in our Westminster location and I hear he is taking new clients. I am happy to make an introduction.
FINAL NOTE: GROUP TRAINING
Finally, I wanted to address some recent feedback about my commitment level to the group runs. I gave my heart and soul to those runs in 2014 and 2015, growing the group to well over 100 participants. I was, and am still, very proud of that. I still don't know what happened in the middle of summer 2016 to kill our momentum. BRC wouldn't work with me on routes. I have no control over how or when the programs are marketed in the LT clubs. I suspect some of it was Denver RnR getting rid of the marathon, but I'll never know. I secretly blame Jenny for leaving; everything is better with Jenny.
I showed up to the store for warm-ups for 3 weeks straight and no one joined me. At that point, I decided to cancel the warm-ups for the rest of the season. I had been massively overachieving on Wednesday nights, but no longer had enough participants to justify the guest speakers for office hours so I stopped showing up early. I had been massively overachieving on Saturday mornings, arriving 30 minutes early and sacrificing my own long runs to warm everyone up and stick around foam rolling everyone until the last runner came in; I never made it home before 11am. Since I am only paid for one hour of work and despite all the extra I was doing had still managed to lose huge numbers of runners, more overachieving didn't seem to be the answer. At least, it wasn't an answer my family was willing to accept any longer.
Then the prices for group training increased. I had no control over that. I didn't even know it had happened until you guys told me. At that point it hardly seemed to matter. Then we lost Kristen, whose main job was to market and organize the group runs. Some days it feels like starting over from scratch.
My commitment levels have not changed. I'm working equally hard behind the scenes now to ensure that group training is properly marketed while we search for Kristen's replacement. I want to make sure the steps we take are effective; I can spend 12 hours a day volunteering at group runs for free and it won't do any good if existing Life Time members aren't aware that we offer half marathon training and don't know where to sign up. I don't like the recent changes any more than you do. It's not an exaggeration to say that it has absolutely crushed my spirit and I am determined to turn it around. Once we do, the overachieving will likely resume.
I am happy to discuss all of this offline with you guys at any time. Please remember that to reply directly to this email, you are replying to the entire group so I respectfully request if you must reply-all that your words are thoughtful, necessary and kind.
Cheers,
MK