tempo runs for high school cross country

You should listen to your coach.

What?! Who do you think you are? High School coaches don't know what they are doing!? He should rebel and cut out workouts at his discretion and insert some of his own. Hopefully he can shake up the teams chemistry in the process. This is the only way to go.

For a serious answer, you can question your coach, but you have to act appropriately. If you have a relationship that is very open or if he is easy to talk to then ask him about his training for you. Maybe he knows more than you think. I think it is valuable to not disturb the team dynamic though, or openly shake things up. I've never seen good things happen this way.

You should listen to your coach.

Why is this advice repeated so often?

The cross country "coach" at most high schools is not chosen because he's competent. He's chosen because he's available.

To say, "You should listen to your coach" is like telling a toddler, "Always obey adults because they know more than you do." It seems like a good general rule at first glance, but blindly adhering to it is unwise. For example, when a fat man wearing a dress and makeup says, "Get in the back seat and I'll give you ten faaab-u-lous dollars," obedience might not be such a good idea.

shank wrote:

Are these tempos as effective as shorter repeats or should I mix it up one week tempo, one week short repeats.

You can't really compare and say that one is generally more effective than the other. They are different workouts that provide different training effects. I would do both every week. On race weeks, I would allow the race to replace the tempo run.

Al I would let the race replace the interval workout and do the tempo the week of the race

yeah, kind of agree, if you only do 1 workout a week i would do tempo, but it all depends what your racing schedule is likein daniels book he found that intervals tuesday, tempo wednesday and race saturday worked well with runnersi have found the same... so either you should be doing both if you are racing once a week or if you are racing twice in a week i'm not so sure you should be doing any other workouts that week apart from some strides and sharpening stuff

coach wrote:

Al I would let the race replace the interval workout and do the tempo the week of the race

Honestly, what's with this? Just because some other kid comes on here and questions his coach's training doesn't mean it's always necessary. Your coach knows what he's doing. A 20-25 minute tempo a week is good stuff. I wish I'd done more of that.

wtf are you talking about - and I mostly agreed with the coach. if the kid is only doing 1 run a week i said i agreed, make it a tempo runand what is wrong with the kid inquiring about if the training he is doing is right, maybe if you had asked questions when you were in high school you would have done more tempo runs as you indicated you should have

Ultramiler wrote:

Honestly, what's with this? Just because some other kid comes on here and questions his coach's training doesn't mean it's always necessary. Your coach knows what he's doing. A 20-25 minute tempo a week is good stuff. I wish I'd done more of that.

haha our coach has an exercise physiology degree. Its hard to argue with that

good for you, who says you should argue with your coach, if your coach is worth anything he shouldn't mind talking to you about why you are doing workouts... and by the way, hrunner - my name on here - does not stand for high school runner

hsrunna wrote:

haha our coach has an exercise physiology degree. Its hard to argue with that

for hs xc, tempo just isnt enough. the race is too short. but do what your coach says, or maybe quit the team join a local club and show him how much better you can be under proper training.

Is it better to listen to someone on a message board that has no idea of what your training is or were you are at in your season?

Absolutely nothing wrong with 1 tempo run a week. At this point in the season it's one of the best workouts you can do. Until October or so, I would actually recommend one aerobic threshold run and one anaerobic threshold run per week. You could occassionally replace one of the threshold runs with longer repeats but those shouldn't be your focus until you get closer to your championship races. Add some sprints to the end of 2 or 3 easy runs per week and you will improve speed without focusing on it or sacrificing aerobic development.

I know you weren't asking for all that but it sounds like your coach could be on the right track. Those tempo runs aren't such a bad idea.

Is it better to listen to someone on a message board that has no idea of what your training is or were you are at in your season?

Not necessarily, but some people make the assumption that the guy in charge at the high school deserves that position of authority. It really is true that some people are just appointed "cross country coach" without having ever been involved in the sport and without really caring about it. At some schools, the football coach reluctantly does the job as an afterthought and just has runners doing a 2 mile run here and there, mixed in with a full-fledged bulking-up weight program and some wind sprints. Don't laugh. There really are teams like that. If somebody on that kind of team figures out maybe there's a better way to get in shape for cross country and seeks out some pointers, to say "Just listen to your coach, dude" is to make a totally uninformed and costly assumption. The poor runner might as well listen to his cat.

shank wrote:

I have a tempo run almost every week (20-25 min)for my hs team. Are these tempos as effective as shorter repeats or should I mix it up one week tempo, one week short repeats. all of this is conjunction with either a race or VO2 workout.

it sounds like this is the coach asking the question.