Jim Bibler

Head Coach

740-815-7119

Head Coach Jim Bibler
I grew up near a small town in northwest Ohio near Findlay. I ran track in eighth grade. I remember hating the 800 and focussing on the mile. Turned out I was a pretty good miler in eighth grade... I think I ran 5:19 at the last meet of the season. I never ran track after that. I thought that I was horrible at it because we had a really good miler on our team that Im sure broke five minutes as an eighth grader. None of the coaches ever asked me to run or told me that I was any good - so I just didn’t run anymore.. it seemed like a lot of work. I played basketball all through high school and even coached middle school basketball for six years. It wasn’t until I started running consistently and racing 5k’s that I abandoned basketball and focussed on running. I think I was meant to run and now its just natural to return to it. I have run four marathons - Columbus twice, Chicago and Cleveland with a PR of 3:26 at Cleveland. I’ve run numerous half marathons with my PR being 1:31. I think my 5k PR is 19:21 but that has been awhile. I would like to set new PR’s in all these races, but not sure If I have the motivation to run another marathon... its quite a big commitment, and pretty tough on the body. My coaching goals are to continue to learn how to coach distance runners effectively, and do my best to help each individual runner learn valuable life skills, run faster, and have the best experience possible as a member of the Hayes XC team. My coaching philosophy is that each runner should be coached as an individual because each runner is different. I have the benefit of not coaching the way I was coached...because I didn’t have a coach. Sometimes coaches will coach runners just the way they were coached, which is not good. I believe that a good coach never stops learning and that each runner should be coached as an individual. I can’t go back in time and run in high school, that opportunity is gone. What I can do is find that high school student that with a little encouragement might try running and find out that it changed their life... its happened before. So take my advice and take advantage of the opportunities you have right now.