Coach has assigned me to pool runs for the next month. Is this a good strategy?

You have a month left to your season unless you improve a lot to go far in the postseason. You may be better off just taking a very solid down week millage wise or start tapering earlier, but his plan isn't horrible if your legs aren't responding and you don't have much time to turn it around.

It probably wasn't wise to not race until a few weeks ago. That only makes sense if you're a pro whose season goes all summer.

Well....... wrote:

You have a month left to your season unless you improve a lot to go far in the postseason. You may be better off just taking a very solid down week millage wise or start tapering earlier, but his plan isn't horrible if your legs aren't responding and you don't have much time to turn it around.

It probably wasn't wise to not race until a few weeks ago. That only makes sense if you're a pro whose season goes all summer.

Thanks for the response. The reason I didn't race indoors is because I had a lot of ankle issues last indoor season, which my coach believed was caused by banked tracks. Our entire team raced less indoors this year, focusing on the spring season. My dad who was a good runner himself said he feels that i might be clsoe to a breakthrough, and that runners will often feel tired or have dead legs before breaking out. I don't know how much truth there is to that. My dad agrees with taking some time down, but he does not agree with taking the whole month easy. For what its worth, our season goes pretty deep. I am already qualified for the state qualifying meet, which is in early June, so I will have a couple weeks on my legs again before that race, which is my goal race. I want to make states in either the 800 or the 1600 and 1:53/4:15 would most likely get me there.

Along the same lines as the other response a month in the pool isnt quite needed and honestly if you will take two weeks of 50% milageso im guessing around 30 to 35miles a week taking one day fully off while keeping your intensity levels the same, not only will you get that pop back in your legs but you will also maintain your full fitness. You wouldnt have lost it in the pool but that would possibly effect leg turn over. After those two weeks do one week at 75% current milage and then the next week go back up to full training load. That will get you to the end of your season in good form and hopefully allow you to run some quicker times.

I don't know if this is the best idea for you or not, as usually pool running is used to work around injuries. A friend of mine is an Olympic medalist and she did pool running in her competitive career while managing injuries and supports it now as a coach for injured runners.