William (Gill) Schumaker — Senior Instructor

Coach Gill Schumaker – RRCA certified running coach, ACE certified personal trainer, certified Chi Running Instructor & SEASONED endurance runner.

One of my goals as a running coach was to help runners to avoid injury.  Year after year I was always a failure.  Sure my runners got faster and they won their age group in road race of all distances, which most of the time was their only goal.  I was still a failure because sooner or later most of the runners with a time-based goal got injured. 

It wasn’t until I receive a book from another coach that I found a way to become a really successful coach.  That book was Chi Running written by Danny Dreyer.  I studied and I practiced and soon I shared it with everyone I knew that was a runner.  Teaching and coaching others in turn made me a better runner, so I became a certified Chi Running/Chi Walking instructor.  Now I’m reaching my goal to help runners avoid injury and helping more people to become runners that thought they couldn’t run because it was painful.  I now have the best job I could possibly have.

But what made me write this success story is what I really owe to Chi Running and Danny Dreyer.  One Labor Day I fell down the stairs on my deck, I don’t really know why, just lost my balance and fell.  The fall ended up breaking my leg in two places and also did some damage to my knee.  Before the surgery I ask the surgeon how soon will it be before I can run.  His comment was, “never, you will never be able to run again.  A couple of weeks later I went to see the surgeon and asked the same question again, he answered, “why are you asking this again I told you that you will never run again.  You now have a six-inch metal plate in your leg how can you possibly run and you will probably have pain just to be able to walk.” 

But I knew I had a secret weapon, Chi Running and Chi Walking. 

Sure it wasn’t easy, but I wanted to run and I wanted to coach again.  I started coaching again in late January and teaching the Chi Running techniques.  I didn’t run very much, just enough to be able to teach.  By June I was running up to two miles, walking a few minutes and running longer each time I went out to run.  If it weren’t for the form focuses of Chi Running, especially the lower body focus of not using your legs for propulsion, I would not be running today. This method has given me back my running, my coaching career and the confidence that I really can run forever. 

The Chi Running way is really the “no pain way”, thank you Danny Dreyer

-Gill