Inside the Mind of Coach to Olympians Dennis Barker

I try to listen to your requests for podcast guests. One request that comes up often is to interview other coaches who are interested in sharing their coaching philosophies. Another is to hear from elite athletes to find out what life is like for them. In this interview we will be doing both. So expect to hear about what the life of an elite athlete is and how our guest coach prepares his group of elites for their races.

Dennis Barker has been the coach of Team USA Minnesota since its inception in 2001. Team USA Minnesota is a team of professional runners based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Coach Barker oversees the training of both male and female athletes for short and long distance running up through marathons, whether they are on the road, indoor or outdoor track or cross-country. His athletes have won 23 US championships and he has coached individuals who have qualified in 29 National Teams. Aside from this, he has trained 72 top 3 finishers for the sport last year.

We will be discussing some interesting views involving a coach’s perspective that includes:

• What the life of an athlete is like for someone who belongs in Team Minnesota.
• Why he prefers that an athlete get some kind of a job or hobby outside of the sport.
• Emphasis on the importance of individualizing the training plan, to see each runner’s strengths, is going to be tackled.
• The reason why he thinks Minnesota is the best place to train for the sport.

Overall, Coach Barker will help us to understand what it takes to be an elite runner. How having an alternative focus aside from excelling in the sport does not make you less of an athlete. In the course of this interview he will show us the ‘why’ it should be considered. This is really interesting to learn what life is like during and after training for a team of elite runners.

His specialty on the how-to’s so you can train to be an excellent athlete is as extensive as the number of trained champions under his belt. This also gives him the authority to talk about today’s topic with sincerity. And for those listeners with career aspirations to be a champion runner, I hope you’ve gleaned something valuable from this episode.

Inside the Mind of Coach to Olympians Dennis Barker