Coaching an Autistic Athlete

So to answer you no. But I do understand both training and working w/people on the spectrum.

With respect to training, you should do the things you do w/any of your mid-distance runners including deepening the base and specified speed. That's evident and you know that.

I also suggest you bring your question to the kid's IEP team. How does he learn? What strategies are used to give him feedback? For instance the use of video feedback and instruction via an iPad is used in many settings for instruction. Would that help inform your athlete? But rather than guess here, bring this to the folks that understand instruction and see if you can modify your approach to help.

Good for you for working the problem. Good luck.

Call Mike Brannigan's coach.

I've been coaching for a lot of years and have worked with some very talented and successful kids, all the way up to the national level. But one of the most rewarding situations I've ever had was an autistic kid who went from not being able or willing to jog a lap as a freshman to running a 3200 in the low 12s as a senior. Not fast of course, but the night he broke 12:30 both he and I were in tears. The four years I worked with him changed my life, and more importantly, changed his.

Number one, work with his parents. Not just talk to them, but work with them. Get them more involved in the process. The normal rules don't apply here. You don't want them to just be supportive and otherwise keep their distance. Trust is key, and he's used to trusting them. They have logged a lot more years with him than you have. Every time my kid raced, his dad was right at trackside on the second turn. The connection was there, and the kid knew it.

Number two, be patient. Incredibly patient. You can't get frustrated. You can't even begin to show frustration. And you can't try to force anything. Keep telling him what to do and what not to do, over and over again, but very calmly and methodically. You never know when the breakthrough might come. But it will come when he's good and ready. Not before.

One specific idea you might try, but only if he's capable of grasping this concept. You and his parents will have to be the judges of that. Have him run some "at pace" 200s in practice. Work with him to get them to the pace you want him to start his 800 with. The idea would be to get him to know what it should feel like to him for the first 200 of the race, regardless of where the competition is. It will take some time, but if you could get him to understand a target effort level for the first 200, that might be a way to get the first part of his race a little more under control.

And of course number three, don't give up. Don't ever give up.

27-30 is perfect range to run 2:02.

As a coach your problem is inability to judge talent.

First off, there is so much variation with autism that there is no way to say, "this worked with 'x,' so it will work with 'y.'"

That being said, your only hope is to forget about actual pacing and get him to follow a specific person or place. This has worked for me with the only severely autistic kid I ever coached. "No matter what, follow this specific person." or "be in third place exactly through the 500." are the things that could work. "Pace" leaves room for to much judgement. Specific, objective instructions are very helpful.

great pacing wrote:

27-30 is perfect range to run 2:02.

As a coach your problem is inability to judge talent.

What this person said, but in a less dick way of saying it.

Good advice below. One additional item. Show don't tell. And if you can't show perplex. The kid probably wants to impress you, his parents, and peers. Show him, perplex him, in some way, without telling him, that to impress you, them, the most his best interests is relaxing a bit in the opening of a race. Actually, maybe that's it. Relax. Laugh. Joke, Play. In the 30 minutes leading up to the gun.

Ex Phys Guy wrote:

First off, there is so much variation with autism that there is no way to say, "this worked with 'x,' so it will work with 'y.'"

That being said, your only hope is to forget about actual pacing and get him to follow a specific person or place. This has worked for me with the only severely autistic kid I ever coached. "No matter what, follow this specific person." or "be in third place exactly through the 500." are the things that could work. "Pace" leaves room for to much judgement. Specific, objective instructions are very helpful.

The performance of my athletes is sufficient to ignore such comments. I currently coach a kid ranked in the top 10 in World as a Youth.

Thanks. There are some good suggestions here. The parent (former elite MD runner) is on board and we are working closely together to try to encourage better pacing. We tell him to follow behind someone else in our group, but sure as rain he dashes to the front at the gun.

Running is so important to him and provides his only friends, so we are committed to finding solutions.

Ex Phys Guy wrote:

That being said, your only hope is to forget about actual pacing and get him to follow a specific person or place.

Thanks! We have tried that with very limited success. The exception is a time trial scenario when there is no one else there to distract him. If there are faster runners, he doesn't seem to have the discipline to hold with his mark. Did you experience this with your athlete?

The athlete I worked with had OCD down to a science. I could have told him to go out in 17th place in a 100 person field and he would have been 17th at 50 meters. Pacing in and of itself was terrible though. Sorry that didn't work.

If it were not an 800, but a scratch start, you could do the "count one one thousand before leaving the line" thing. Then the athlete is forced to drop in. I don't think that will work in an 8 though.

Squirel wrote:

The performance of my athletes is sufficient to ignore such comments. I currently coach a kid ranked in the top 10 in World as a Youth.

He's probably a top 5 kid.

800 is going to be a problem because its confined to lanes at the start. Get this kid focusing on the 1500. Have him sit on another athlete for the first lap or even 2. Pick an athlete around his pr with good pacing, or even the guy who will probably win the race. No matter how slow he feels he is going, he must sit on that athlete until x amount of distance. This is the only way your runner is going to stop playing prefontaine and imagining with just a little more talent he can hold a crazy pace. What's going through his mind is, "the first 200-400 feels easy, surely I can hold it til the ending sprint."

Thanks! You may be right about the 8. I'll try that in some of his 1200s and 1500s.