Bad Workouts

High School Running Distance

9 years ago 03/17/2015 8:18am EDT

Do any other coaches experience a day where none of your athletes hit the times in a workout and you just stop the workout early? Seems I get one of these each Spring, normally towards the beginning of the season and yesterday was it. 800 runners couldn't hit the times on their 400s or 600s, 1600/3200m runners were off on their 1000s. Times were based on their recent indoor season times so it's not like they were reaches or educated guesses as to what times should be run. This happens once a year in March when the weather starts turning nice and it's maddening.

9 years ago 03/17/2015 11:10am EDT

re: Why???

Why is it maddening? If you only have one of those a year, you must be doing something right with regards to coaching. One workout is meaningless, and even if the kiddos are doing half what you intended, they're still getting some kind of stimulus.

9 years ago 03/17/2015 11:19am EDT

re: grizz

I have a theory that the "spring warm up" can actually have a negative impact on a runners physiology for a day or two before the body adapts.

9 years ago 03/17/2015 11:53am EDT

re: Why???

there can be a million reasons why your athetes had a bad day at the beginning of spring practice. Mostly it would boil down to a decision you made.

Did you have them take time off now they are rusty? Are they coming off of just mileage? Were the paces based off of PRs and now they aren't in that kind of shape? Was wind a factor? Did you do a hard workout a couple of days before?

9 years ago 03/17/2015 4:42pm EDT

re: Why???

Why??? wrote:
Do any other coaches experience a day where none of your athletes hit the times in a workout and you just stop the workout early? Seems I get one of these each Spring, normally towards the beginning of the season and yesterday was it. 800 runners couldn't hit the times on their 400s or 600s, 1600/3200m runners were off on their 1000s. Times were based on their recent indoor season times so it's not like they were reaches or educated guesses as to what times should be run. This happens once a year in March when the weather starts turning nice and it's maddening.

You seriously set times for your athlete to hit? I've been privileged to know some of the best coaches in the world and NONE of them coached that way. Why do you think you know more than them? Setting time goals are just very general objectives.

There is no such thing as bad workouts, only bad expectations.

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