While R&B/disco great Barry White has no longer been with us for three years, there's still an opus of work which has not seen the light of day. Well, not any longer. His long-time friend & producer saw fit to release a three-disc collection of alternate tracks, unreleased tunes & (to borrow from Steve Taylor) some stuff which initially didn't make the cut...just in time to celebrate what would have been Barry's 65th birthday.
The interview on NPR's Morning Edition brought out some really neat stuff which could relate to your own training:
1. If you're smart enough - knowing your strengths & limiters - you can take anything & make it your own. 
One of White's greatest songs was originally supposed to be a country song, called 'My First, My Last, My In-Between.' Expand what comes between the first & last to everything, hey, Barry, this turkey just might fly! NPR's Steve Inskeep & White's producer then went off the rabbit trail & into the weeds, mentioning the potential of taking a song as simple as Mary Had A Little Lamb & Barry Whiting it. I almost had to pull the car over, I was laughing at the sound in my mind.
The smart athlete considers a training plan more as a road map & less as an itinerary, because we are all an experiment of one.
2. Do One Thing. Do It Well. 
When you listen to Barry White's songs, they are all about love between two people. There are no break-up songs, no songs about fighting or the hard parts of a one-to-one emotional relationship. Okay, that's why I could never stand to listen to more than one or two Barry White songs at a sitting. It was kind of like doing lunch at an all-you-can-eat pizza joint; the first plate was fantastic, the second one pretty good...after that it's self-abuse.
Focus on a particular range of distances. Try the others if you like, but keep it in perspective. While you can not suck at most everything, you aren't going to be good at everything...all at one time.So, here's to you, Barry. We can learn how to be good athletes, and good people, perhaps, by listening to your stuff every so often. Oh, yeah...I never thought I'd hear a better version of Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are, but somehow you did it.
I had a sneaking suspicion the other morning when I saw more birds flying and landing around the porch roof, which was reinforced after I saw something that looked a lot like an open mouth peek out from the entry. Lots more chirping going on, plus lots more bird flights, plus at least one opened mouth, definitely equals little birds.
While I love my d-a-w-g, I have an affinity for birds. To me, they're humans with very funny feet. We all have to have a soft spot in our hearts for something, I guess. Some old curmudgeons, like my paternal grandfather, transmogrify into peanut butter-like substance in the sight of their grandchildren. Well, that's what my mother once told me. (I occasionally saw the softer side of my grandfather, but it seemed more common in the years after my grandmother was gone.) 
There's the challenge of coaching; sometimes you want to let your guard down in order to prove you are as human as the athletes you coach. But then it becomes hard to remain consistent in your communications. Seriousness does have its place in the coach-athlete relationship, especially when it comes to communicating fatigue, pain & injury. Most athletes don't want to let on how badly dinged up they are; some harbor the compulsion to exercise. Not like I've ever been in that situation, personally...
When I'm asking about what & how badly something - or more than one thing - is hurt, I have absolutely zero time or tolerance for long, drawn-out tales. I want, no need to know in an objective manner what hurts, where, for how long, & to what degree. And while that 'one to ten scale; one means "what ache?" & ten means "shoot me now"' comment may sound flippant to the casual observer, I know how many points to add or subtract for the individual athlete.
For example, one of my teammates was the kind of athlete who would run until you told her a bone was sticking out of her leg, at which point she would ask, 'who's bone is this?' Tough little gal. Shame she's once a runner now.
The main thing is to not be bad @$$ in three easy lessons or dumb @$$ about running & physical fitness. It's to teach people how to be a smart @$$, at least smart enough to know when and how to back off so they don't spend the next year sitting on their @$$ watching it get fatter because they are injured & cannot exercise.