Honoré Hoedt: I don't coach athletes, I coach people

My interview with Honoré Hoedt can be found here: Episode #84: "I don't coach athletes, I coach people".

Coaching, methinks, is an art of balancing structure and looseness. The running becomes a space where multiple agencies interact. Coaching is also question of method and specific adaptation to based on the flesh-and-blood athlete. 

***

I took the train from Leiden Lammenschans, changed at Utrecht, took the next connection to Arnhem Centraal where upon arrival I bought an AH sandwich for lunch, borrowed an OV fiets and cycled the distance of a little under two kilometres, up a hill to the home of Honore Hoedt. 

After leaving Leiden in the cold wind and rain, I had arrived in a new place where the sun was out and there was no wind. It was that confusing seasonal time when one can experience the last burst of summer warmth. 

Honore opened the door, seemingly almost surprised that I had navigated my way successfully to his house. I delayered down to t-shirt; removing my two jackets and scarf and he gave me a quick tour of his backyard. ‘This house was built by my grandfather during the 1930s. Recently, we have put this extra sheltered space in the garden, where we can sit outside when it is warm. We’ve added some plants to the garden also which come from coastal areas.’ There was a left-over dog kennel, for it seems the dog is gone. The garden is cared for, without being manicured and fussed-over. There is room for messiness. 

I plugged in my computer, microphone and set up the Go Pro to film the conversation. Honore took out a printed copy of the run down sheet I had sent him the previous week upon which he had made comments and highlighted different passages. He was prepared. We agreed that the conversation would be open as possible. I wasn’t nervous but I did want to make sure that I would remain concentrated and focused throughout the conversation. 

Honore had already sussed me out through two prior WhatsApp video calls before he provided his definitive availability. This was no problem for me: for I could already sense his positive curiosity about who I was. This was also an essential part of the rapport making process for me. I’m only realising now, however, in the process of writing this up, that not once did Honore care to ask me questions to do with my running or coaching pedigree. I liked this. He was more curious about my personal trajectory: how I had ended up in the Netherlands, my family life, my other work and what impressions I have of the Netherlands. 

So, we did the interview at the kitchen table. The table was narrow and this created its own atmosphere. Indeed, I have done enough interviews via Zoom, where communication and body language becomes more difficult to read. Here, Honore could easily look directly at me and sense whether or not I was following his lines of thinking and if I would get his sense of humour. 

***

Honore is a young guy of 65, but when he started coaching, he was much younger. His own running was interrupted in his late-teeenage years owing to lung issues. So he came to coaching at age 20. He quickly formulated 120 rules for his pupils before realising that this a needless and unhelpful complication. What I like is that this ‘rookie error’ remains part of his narrative about his coaching practice. 

“So gradually I found out, it is important to keep it simple. And to give people the freedom to make mistakes. They have to be in charge to bring in the motivation. You can give them direction and if they can’t do it, or don’t do it, then I think the co-operation ends.  The [motivation] needs to come from them and I am more like the conductor of the orchestra that helps them to tell them, ‘this is the way we want to go.’ That is what I learned about coaching in the first years.” 

“Over my first ten years, I did all the travelling and learning I could do about coaching. I took all of the courses I could in Holland and then also went to the States, Morocco, Spain and other places. I was wondering, ‘why do all of these people have national-level athletes, and mine are only making it to the regional level?’ So, with all of this came a ‘mountain of knowledge’. My poor athletes. If I visualise my training approach back then … it was like a Christmas tree with so much decoration on it, that you can’t see the tree itself. I had to find which of the training sessions - the ones that make all the difference - were the important ones.” Honore’s athletes appreciated his motivation, but he was in the process of whittling away the extraneous sessions. 

“Another important moment came when I met John Smith - a 400m track coach. He said to me, ‘you’re from Holland right? That’s close to Germany? That’s where we get our knowledge from. Maybe, there is one small difference between us and you Europeans is that, when I read a book about intervals, sprints whatever - I read the book, close the book and then I throw it away from me, 100m. I then focus on the athletes in front of me. You Europeans have the book in front of you and the athletes. You stick to the method [too much].’ That was 1987. He helped me a lot in terms of me fine-tuning how to become a better coach.”

And then Honore tells me about his current practice as a coach: “I have had so many athletes to train, but every new athlete you start from scratch. And I don’t know anything. And, [hypothetically], you and me, as a coach and athlete, will go write a book, a travel guide to your success. I would not be good if I know exactly how to do it and I don’t even know you. I have to get to know you and then we finally come to a nice way of running and then it is our method. […] There are many methods. Every person has his own method. And we will find a method, if I would train you. We’d find a method that you like to do. That’s comfortable for you. Sometimes hard. But there is a good balance and you have a good daily life. You have to have the right balance. Everything at the right moment and right order.” 

During our first WhatsApp call, I told Honore that I would ask him about his coaching method to which he immediately said, ‘I have no method’. I believe this - based on what he says about the engaging with the ‘flesh and blood’ person he is coaching. He also said to me, “my coaching is not complicated. I don’t have any secrets. If your method is too difficult to understand, I think you are hiding something.” Honore’s relationship to the idea of method is loose: it is not entirely absent nor is it something he has a fixation about. Upon agreeing to the interview Honore easily shared a pdf of one of his recent presentations in which he outlined the basic ingredients to his coaching. Each athlete requires six different kinds of stimulus (training zones) and these are adjusted to suit each athlete. He uses the imagery of glasses, filled with liquids of different colours: depending on the athlete, each glass can be filled to different levels. Honore, instead, prides his practice on working with the athlete to write the best story they can together. 

One of the more multilayered narratives is the story he created with the Netherlands’ most famous athlete, Sifan Hassan, whom Honore worked with for several years and saw her reach a world title. “I spent half of my holiday one year, working to make sure that she got her passport. I was on the phone with the mayor regularly. And I still have this beautiful photo of her with her passport. It was November 2013. I invited the press. By Dutch standards she was already great; but internationally she was ‘interesting’ - not more than that. I was really impressed by her potential. So on impulse, I said ‘this girl will be in the Olympics and she will medal in both 1500 and 5000m.’ And all the press were laughing. But I just had the idea that she could make it.” Honore then tells me a few more Sifan-stories where she comes across as both incredibly charming, talented and difficult to read. I’m not going to recount them here. Sifan has already gone viral on social media with her unscripted post-victory interviews and her seemingly chaotic racing. It must have been a tough pill for Honore to swallow when Sifan left his coaching for Nike; but he shows no bitterness. 

***

The clock is ticking and Honore soon has an appointment at the nearby track. I’m needing to get back to Leiden for my evening agenda and the podcast episodes are generally only maximum one hour anyway. I’m trying to find a way to bring the conversation to a nice point of closure. But then Honore does it for me: 

“If you ask me, ‘what is more interesting: the medals or the process with persons?’ The book you write with them. The funny moments you have together. The process is what makes me, even after 40 years, I still like to work with new people, to find a way to improve. And your improvement point, from A to B is the question. And it is different from Sifan, different from Bram [Som] or with the others I helped to make medals with. Of course I appreciate all of the medals - but the way to it is the most important thing for me.”

So, it’s true after all: Honore Hoedt - former national coach and coach of Sifan Hassan - has no method. Just process.