Coaches, do you have any tips to help someone who excels in practice but chokes in every race?

What's probably going on is this kid is murdering the workouts while his teammates are only giving 85-95%. Seen it a hundred times.

We did a 3 mile tempo early this week - he was only about 15 seconds slower than his 3 mile time at the race today. Today I told him that he was going too fast on the tempo run if his race time was only 5 sec/mile faster, but he said that during practice once he gets into a rhythm he can keep that pace. But during races he can't ever set a rhythm.

new coach wrote:

I have an athlete that does considerably better consistently in every workout, but seems to always do more poorly than his teammates in every race. Right now I suspect he is doing poorly under the pressure of the race. However I'd like to learn how to train him in order to make him do just as well as he is doing in practice. Does anyone have any tips?

Something I would like to know is whether or not his performances align with his intervals/times in practice or not. For example, without comparing him relative to his teammates, is he doing certain workouts that suggest abilities far beyond what he is actually running? (i.e. Is he running 4 x 1 mile repeats in 5:30, but somehow ends up running an 18:30 5k?).

I can think of several things that might explain this:

1-

As the poster above said, it's possible that he is indeed racing to the best of his abilities, but his teammates simply aren't trying as hard in practice.

2-

Is he treating every day like a hard workout? A lot of runners in HS will treat every day as a hard day, regardless of what it's supposed to be. For example, you may tell a kid to run 8 x 400m at 5000m pace, but find that he immediately pushes himself to run them all at his mile pace instead.

They might not think so, but they do need recovery. If this is the case, he may simply be running the races under such heavy bodily strain, that it hinders him more than everyone else.

3-

Figure out if he has any serious anxieties before the race. If he's nervous enough the night before that he has trouble sleeping or something, that might be it.

4-

Some kids just don't like to race. I remember a kid of Asian-descent who was like this. He would do incredibly well in practice, but he just plain and simple didn't like running in meets.

I remember his sophomore year, he ran a workout consisting of a 400m, 600m, 800m, 1000m, 1200m, 1400m, and 1600m. He ran the 1600m in 5:01 after a tremendous effort through the whole set, but his PR that season was only 4:49. Didn't make a lot of sense until he said he just hates racing.

#2 - Not every day. He does have recovery. This week, Monday was moderate-hard effort, Tuesday was a workout, Wedesday was 6 miles easy-moderate, Thursday was off/run on your own, Friday was 3 miles easy.

#3 - Not sure, I'd hope he has a good sleep schedule.

#4 - I noticed that you mentioned Asian descent - he's Chinese. I think he just feels a lot more relaxed and under no pressure in practice. That workout sounds similar to what this kid is capable of. We ran a 10x400 workout (5 sets of 2, 1 min rest between, 2 min between sets) on grass a few weeks back. He averaged 1:20 or 1:21 overall. (1:18-1:24 throughout, and last one was 1:14 or something). He only runs in the high 19s for a 5K though. Makes no sense. I think the kid has potential though. He might need better endurance?

new coach wrote:

#2 - Not every day. He does have recovery. This week, Monday was moderate-hard effort, Tuesday was a workout, Wedesday was 6 miles easy-moderate, Thursday was off/run on your own, Friday was 3 miles easy.

#3 - Not sure, I'd hope he has a good sleep schedule.

#4 - I noticed that you mentioned Asian descent - he's Chinese. I think he just feels a lot more relaxed and under no pressure in practice. That workout sounds similar to what this kid is capable of. We ran a 10x400 workout (5 sets of 2, 1 min rest between, 2 min between sets) on grass a few weeks back. He averaged 1:20 or 1:21 overall. (1:18-1:24 throughout, and last one was 1:14 or something). He only runs in the high 19s for a 5K though. Makes no sense. I think the kid has potential though. He might need better endurance?

Alright, if he's Asian, it will explain a few things. The area I'm in has a high percentage of Asian families, so I'm familiar with working with them and have learned a few of their distinctions.

Culturally, first-generation Asian kids tend to be taught to value hard work to a much greater extent than most other ethnic groups. Because of this, a lot of them tend to push themselves very hard in practice (often too hard), since it makes them feel like they're accomplishing a lot. Racing is a totally different matter, more like a source of pressure, like you said.

Basically, they see practices as the means by which to make themselves better, and since it's often heavily ingrained in them by their parents that they should always work hard to make themselves better, they handle it well. The race on the other hand, is the end to those means. It's not an opportunity to "work hard" so much as it is the "showtime" for everything they've been working for up to this point. This tends to mess with their heads a bit more than you'd expect, and enough to completely throw them off. One thing that's very common is that the pressure they're feeling makes them go out in races way to fast, resulting in splits like 5:30, 6:00, and 6:30 or something of the sort.

Another, and possibly even more important detail, is that Asian kids REALLY like structure and controlled situations. i.e. If you tell them to run 8 x 400m or 4 x 1600m and aim for a certain split or interval with each, they're golden. But if you say "go out there and race", they won't do it nearly as well. They need a very concrete goal, and usually prefer having as much control while achieving it as possible.

This is probably why he did well with that 10 x 400m workout. Every element is there. He has a goal, the intervals require enough exertion that he's working hard, and 400m for each repetition is short enough that he has a large amount of control, and knows exactly where he is relative to his goal.

In a race unfortunately, most of these elements are missing. If you can find a way to make your kid see the race itself as more of a workout, or give him a VERY specific racing plan, he might do better. For example, if there are mile markers, tell him to try and hit each one at a certain time

these tempo run rules are about as obsolete as the science that goes with it.

yes he might be overreaching but then these standard formulas are generally simplistic lack sufficient individualization.

look for other issues. I'd consider letting him train in the gear he chooses and incorporating short rests. or racing him in his training shoes. or listening to what he says about the race and how it's feeling and think about what that means in terms of individualizing his training.

my guess is you have a kid with talent and you might want to keep it simple

and let him trust his own instincts. pacing in xc can be tricky and a negative. maybe instead of telling him to hold back, you tell him to go after it. the world doesn't come to an end if mile 2 is slower than mile 1.

Interestingly you didn't tell us what his splits were during the races. This is the single most important aspect when evaluating high school runners. There is a huge difference between running 6:00/6:25/6:50 than a kid that runs 6:40/6:40/5:55. They both are ending up at 19:15. They should both be running 6:20/6:20/6:10 and ending up at 18:50

new coach wrote:

We ran a 10x400 workout (5 sets of 2, 1 min rest between, 2 min between sets) on grass a few weeks back. He averaged 1:20 or 1:21 overall. (1:18-1:24 throughout, and last one was 1:14 or something). He only runs in the high 19s for a 5K though. Makes no sense.

Makes sense because they have almost zero relation to each other. Actually high 19s is typical for high school with 400s like that.

A better predictor would be 4x 1250 with 2' recoveries

Boy, don't know where to begin with this. Have coached at predominantly minority, low income schools for many years. The Asian-American kids make up the core of the team. Some are fast, some are slow; some race well, some do not; most work hard, some are just along for the ride. In other words, they tend to be like the rest of the kids who come out for cross country. I have seen no indication that being of the Asian persuasion leads to any stereotypical running behaviors like the ones suggested. Better to treat people as unique individuals.

If it's a mental block, he needs to learn how to care not to care

Free yourself!

I feel like I was this kid my first two years of HS. Posters have hit on the reasons but I'll offer my thoughts.

Running workouts too hard is often a by product of feeling like you have to run the workouts to the best of your ability and in effect race your teammates. I used to think that the best way to get better was to run intervals all out. Add to that the low pressure environment of practice and I left my best performances in practice.

You need to make it clear to him that there is a physical and mental benefit to running workouts at 85-90% of his ability. The best way to get him to do this is to have him pace workouts such that be gets progressively faster. At a minimum he'll run the early part easier and can then go balls out for only a portion. He probably has a desire to please so make it known that it's important to you that he run workouts this way and praise him after.

Anxiety may also contribute to his race day woes. I remember being obsessed with races. I could think of little else the day of a race and wasted a ton of mental energy that left me spent come race time. Sound stupid but anxiety can physically drain you.

The solution I came up with was to force myself to forget about running. Any time anxiety would come on I'd think on something completely unrelated to running. If he's doing special prep leading up to race day (eating different, sleeping earlier, changing his routine) then tell him to stop. Race day should feel lie any other day within reason.

My coach often made the point that many of our best runners were the guys that seemed to care very little about running outside practice or were just not all that smart to begin with. They have the advantage of being mentally "free and easy" and don't think, just run. The kid in question probably has an overactive mind and he needs to find a way to calm tnat energy and release it on race day.

1. I would consider running him and your team in the order he and they finish the races when doing workouts. It may keep him fresher or more relaxed and ensure he does not race the workouts while still getting in good work...unless the entire team races the workouts.

2. Check for other issues: eating, compulsive exerciser or doing another intense activity when he goes home.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The splits were something like 6:05, 6:50, 6:35. He said that in the second mile he felt like he was jogging but he couldn't go any faster. I told him he went out too hard the first mile but he said he didn't want to get left in the back of the pack.

I'm actually commenting on this thread purely to enforce the accuracy of the statement made by "TTHS", and to partially refute this point.

I am of Chinese descent and attended high school in a suburb of Northern Illinois with a 20% Asian-American population (I can provide a link for proof if anyone would like it), and approximately 30-35% of our high school cross country team during all four years I participated was Asian-American.

The poster "TTHS" basically hit the nail on the head for describing a HUGE proportion of Asian-American cross-country athletes who actively seek to improve themselves in the sport. I can attest that I personally felt this way about cross country during my freshman and sophomore years, and that the majority of the Asian-American runners who actually "tried" during practices and races did to some extent as well. And let me point out here that I am specifying runners who "TRIED" during practices and races. I have no idea as to whether or not this was true for the guys who didn't put any effort into running to begin with.

Basically, I would run all my practices faster than many other runners on the team, but come race time, 5-6 of them who would always run slower than me in practice would always manage to beat me, sometimes by as much as 30+ seconds. For example, one of my favorite workouts was 12 x 400m repeats with a 200m jogging recovery in between each. Midway through my sophomore XC season, I could perfectly hold the 400s at 73-74 seconds each, while other guys were back at 76-78 seconds per rep. Come race time though, I would run a 17:20-17:30 while some of them would manage to break 17:00. This kept happening all throughout my entire freshman year, and almost through the whole sophomore cross country season. All but two of the serious Asian runners on our team had the exact same problem.

Our head coach was very new at the school, was 29, and had only been coaching high school cross country for 3 years when I started my freshman year. He had basically been trying to figure this out the entire time, and finally managed to do it during my sophomore season. In short, I was really nervous about my races, as were the other guys who had this problem. The best way I could describe it is that I would try and plan out the entire race in my head, start out at some pace that usually would not align perfectly with my imagined pace, hear my first mile split, panic that I had gone out too fast or too slow, panic the moment it started getting hard to hold the pace, and then crash and burn over the second half of the race.

What my coach did for us is that finally fixed it was that he basically turned the entire race into a set of 400m repeats by having a bunch of the injured guys and some members of the girls team stand EVERY 400m along the course and give 400m splits to us on the way so that I could adjust my pace accordingly. The first time he did this, I ran 16:48, and after that 16:28 on our home course.

Basically, it was just like what "TTHS" said about how Asians like having large amounts of control over our performance. I would always psych myself out during every race when I heard the splits at each mile because something would always be off with respect to my plan, but once I got feedback every 400m, the whole panicking problem basically fixed itself.

"stereotypingisdangerous". You probably do not understand this because you are not an Asian-American, but in this case, the stereotyping is for the most part correct. An enormous proportion of us have parents who basically drill us in laborious memorization tasks related to math, geography, etc. from the time we are children. In fact, I was taught how to perform long division in kindergarten, and was forced to spend several hours each week before first grade repeatedly working on "division problem sets" with my mother watching. Tests, even in grade school, always put some degree of pressure on me since my parents would often be upset with anything that wasn't up to their standards.

The result of this is that, similar to what "TTHS" described, we frequently view many aspects of life as "prepare for the test and take the test". We often try out for sports like cross country because it's no cut, and requires virtually no athletic coordination to succeed in. All we have to do is put one foot in front of the other over and over again, which is considered a repetitive chore for most people, but something many of us tend to be much more comfortable with, since we grew up performing repetitive chores. Since we also grew up being overwhelmed with a large wave of dread every time the tests came around, that carries over too, and race day is basically the day we hate the most.

To the OP, I apologize for the long-winded comment, but if anything, just listen to what "TTHS" said and find some way to try and relieve the nerves of your runner by making the race itself seem more like a practice. It worked for myself and a dozen or so other guys experiencing the same problem while I ran in HS, and since your runner's problem seems virtually identical to our problem, I'm certain it will help to some extent.

ILXC 2011 wrote:

An enormous proportion of us have parents who basically drill us in laborious memorization tasks related to math, geography, etc. from the time we are children. In fact, I was taught how to perform long division in kindergarten, and was forced to spend several hours each week before first grade repeatedly working on "division problem sets" with my mother watching. Tests, even in grade school, always put some degree of pressure on me since my parents would often be upset with anything that wasn't up to their standards.

You're just proving that Chinese can stereotype too. I learned to multiply and divide in my head in kindergarden and enjoyed it. The same for spelling in the primary grades. I have always liked doing tests, but don't care for studing, prefer to be left to my own inclinations. However I do like taking practice TESTS! I like the competition. Running is a bit different for me, as I am able to enjoy all aspects of it, the practice as well as competitions.

mando wrote:

I would consider running him and your team in the order he and they finish the races when doing workouts. It may keep him fresher or more relaxed and ensure he does not race the workouts while still getting in good work...unless the entire team races the workouts.

This is great advice, and I was going to post the same thing before seeing your message.

I would have the young man run practices based on his placing in races, and no faster. I recall the runners at Wichita East doing the same thing, which surprised me at the time. They would run single file behind Ryun, and no one would try to pass anyone else. Ryun himself would usually start slower than his average pace for whatever he was running, and similarly for the others.

In the OP's case, I would suggest to have the young man start behind his designated placing, and gradually work up to it, either for each rep, and/or for the entire session. For example if he is 7th on the team, have him start at 15th or the back, and work up to 7th by the finish, the key being to be relaxed at the pace, and coordinated for the pace that will be run in the race.

Recall Carlos Lopes running 400's much slower than the rest of the Portuguese team, basically at his 10k pace, then a few days later running away with the World Cross Country Championship.

Simple case of a kid racing his workouts. A tempo run isn't supposed to be a time trial. If you treat a tempo run like a time trial, your race times will look crappy by comparison.

Workout paces should be based on actual race times. Set his tempo pace to the proper pace based on the times he has actually run instead of having him time trial his tempos.

I don't think that the idea of "choking" really applies to the average high school XC runner. Pressure effects focus, not physical ability. And the time that you are able to run is mostly a function of physical ability. A small handful of elite runners who have a legit shot at winning a given race need to think about timing kicks and surges. The other 200 kids just run as fast as they can and hope to finish as close to the front as possible. Nerves aren't really going to impact this. Either you can run the pace you've set or you can't.

This. If you can't figure this out on your own and just assume its some ancient Chinese curse, you are a bad coach.

Jesus F. Christ Charlie!!! This thread isn't an essay test!