How to get female high school runners to pack up

I've been coaching 20 years, have finished top-5 in my state 7 times in the last 10 years.

The trick is to connect with them on their level. Speak their language. Listen to their music, interact with them on Twitter/snap chat/WhatsApp/kik.

If that doesn't work, bribe them with stuff they like: Lady Gaga tickets, pictures of Zac Efron, stuff like that.

I thought "pack up" in the subject line had to do with them collecting their stuff into a backpack or gym bag to go home. This one went in a different direction than I expected. Can't help you with the HS female psyche.

You might want to communicate with them about your philosophy and concerns vs. bitching on LR.

20 year coach wrote:

I've been coaching 20 years, have finished top-5 in my state 7 times in the last 10 years.

The trick is to connect with them on their level. Speak their language. Listen to their music, interact with them on Twitter/snap chat/WhatsApp/kik.

If that doesn't work, bribe them with stuff they like: Lady Gaga tickets, pictures of Zac Efron, stuff like that.

Alright, I do this stuff (friends with them on Instagram, follow on Twitter, but I don't snap and I think kik has like 50 thousand lawsuits pending so I'll stay away from that) but I'm not taking your post seriously. You're about 10 years behind with the Lady Gaga and Zac Efron reference. My coaching style does not cater to those who need to be bribed to want to do well. I did have to stoop to begging some athletes to come back to the team after teammate drama drove them away in the pre-season.

You might want to communicate with them about your philosophy and concerns vs. bitching on LR.[/quote]

Oh I did this. Only EVERY PRACTICE. Sigh. I knew I'd get the "why are you posting on LR instead of using real communication" from someone who is doing the same god damned thing.

What about tickling their backs and putting both of your hands on their waist during practice? Take pictures while they sleep and post them on your twitter. Really bond with them. Apparently that's normal now.

Lll

jamintrump wrote:

Can't help you with the HS female psyche.

They tend to respond well to positive encouragement, like most human beings.

Touch them wrote:

gubyenletsrun wrote:

Alright, I do this stuff (friends with them on Instagram, follow on Twitter, but I don't snap and I think kik has like 50 thousand lawsuits pending so I'll stay away from that) but I'm not taking your post seriously. You're about 10 years behind with the Lady Gaga and Zac Efron reference. My coaching style does not cater to those who need to be bribed to want to do well. I did have to stoop to begging some athletes to come back to the team after teammate drama drove them away in the pre-season.

What about tickling their backs and putting both of your hands on their waist during practice? Take pictures while they sleep and post them on your twitter. Really bond with them. Apparently that's normal now.

Wow, that thread was deleted for a reason! I think they view me a bit like a big sister or friendly aunt (yes, I'm a woman). I actually stopped running with them after I noticed that they viewed me this way last year. It was my first year as an assistant and I'm the head coach this year. I like to relate to them and listen to their individual needs but I found that I was having a hard time being authoritative at the times it was needed. So I backed off the friendly stuff just a little.

My plan for next year is to appeal to them with stats and examples of teams that were successful through packing (think New Mexico 2015, Colorado 2016). They are all very bright and will relate to logic. They want to do well as a team but when the workout comes up, they get rabidly competitive with each other and it turns into a race. I've tried to keep my cool but I've shown my frustration a couple of times by yelling things like "I asked for a 3:10 800 not a 2:50!!!"

gubyenletsrun wrote:

I like to relate to them and listen to their individual needs but I found that I was having a hard time being authoritative at the times it was needed. So I backed off the friendly stuff just a little.

0/10

Right, because the stereotypical woman has difficulty being authoritative and direct.

not the guy on the genius thrd wrote:

jamintrump wrote:

Can't help you with the HS female psyche.

They tend to respond well to positive encouragement, like most human beings.

Yes, I primarily subscribe to positive encouragement. I only point out faults in a workout or race after I've brought up the positives and I usually wait until the Monday after to point out what went wrong.

I go crazy when I see them packing up in a race though it is very rare. They know it is what I want to see. Every Monday we went through the stats and I would go over our "spread" and praise them if it shrank from the week before.

LR people, I'm looking for workout strategies that will encourage them to pack up. For example, I used an "indian run" workout on our grass loop where I had strict packs that everyone had to stay in for their workout. It was 1.5, 1, 0.5 with 2:00 rest in between. No pace requirement but the lead is constantly changing as the group stays intact. The boys loved it. The girls struggled.

tee hee giggle giggle wrote:

gubyenletsrun wrote:

I like to relate to them and listen to their individual needs but I found that I was having a hard time being authoritative at the times it was needed. So I backed off the friendly stuff just a little.

0/10

Right, because the stereotypical woman has difficulty being authoritative and direct.

Your reply confused me. But no workout suggestions I see. So helpful.

Ah, first year head coach...

Most likely you can't change your top 4. Packing starts during the two weeks in August of their freshman year. My daughter's pack is the most important thing that kept her from quitting this fall as she went from thinking she knew what training was about (some MS experience) to actually training like a HS runner.

One advantage both of my kid's HS teams have had is that guys and girls run together. This makes the packs larger, more fun and less competitive because they don't all actually race each other.

Another thing I have noticed but I don't really know how it plays with the kids, is that until the kids get REALLY good, they all do the same workouts, every day. The varsity runs faster reps or further out on the out/back loop but the stated workout is the same. I think this helps the packs to improve at the same rate and grow closer.

Are you watching them? Just stop them and make them restart the interval. Keep stopping them and restarting them until they do it right. If there is someone who keeps pushing the pace, sit her out and restart without her. Why is this hard? They should be doing what you say.

Thank you for this helpful post! Yes, I'll definitely work on the underclassmen. The sophomore class is already better than the splintered upper classmen runners. I noticed that last year when I was an assistant. The freshman are outstanding with their packing but only one was in our varsity.

The training uniformity is the first thing I changed when I became head coach this year. The only difference is a slightly lower mileage/volume for underclassmen, especially freshman. Everyone essentially does the same workouts. We have no stand out front runners so that made this easier to achieve.

Take control wrote:

Are you watching them? Just stop them and make them restart the interval. Keep stopping them and restarting them until they do it right. If there is someone who keeps pushing the pace, sit her out and restart without her. Why is this hard? They should be doing what you say.

I was tempted to do this a couple of times but if you just consider how unpleasant this would make the workout I think you'll see why I didn't. I did yell at them a few times as they came through the mile with 30 second gaps when they were supposed to be packed up in a tempo run. They responded by slowing up a bit, but it's all over at that point. The loop is either a mile or a half mile and I stand at these points with a timer and clipboard so I can get all the runner's splits.

It is hard for the kids at least to be sure how slight or great the volume difference actually turns out to be.

Sometimes the team will break into packs and run for a certain amount of time. The weaker packs may take walking breaks, the stronger packs may add a loop at the end of the out and back that the other don't know about. There usually are captains practices on Saturdays that the younger and/or less experienced kids skip.

I'm sure most of the top 7 run on their own on Sunday and at least one state class kid runs in the morning but the younger/less experienced kids would never even guess this is happening. That is OK. They NEED to take Sunday off to do their best to stay somewhere near the faster packs during the week.

Another thing is this seems to work better for the women than the men, maybe because they all have a group to chase in front of them.

"The only difference is a slightly lower mileage/volume for underclassmen, especially freshman."

The posters who have said this needs to start in August are correct. If your goal is to sell them on this as a successful strategic approach to the season, it needs to begin right at the beginning of practices. You also need to make it clear that this is the deal now, and they have two options - buy in or bail out. Even if you lose a girl or two, which would suck in the short term, you need to lay down your marker if you are really fully committed to making this happen. Focus on the overall and the long term. The little stuff will mostly take care of itself along the way.

Having said that, here's an at-the-moment idea that you can try as a tool to help implement the overall plan. Break up the better kids into sub-groups that aren't too far apart in ability. (It sounds like you're already doing that to some extent.) Then pick the slowest (or least confident) girl in each sub-group. She is the designated leader of her sub-group. She sets the pace, and no one in her sub-group is allowed to pass her. This won't solve every attitude problem overnight, but at least it will enforce what you want in the short term - keeping the sub-groups together. The hope would be that, after giving this a fair trial, they would begin to get the idea, realize it's not the worst thing in the world, and maybe even start to buy in a little. Phase two would be to begin to merge the sub-groups into one full varsity team.

One last, but very important, point. My reference to "or least confident" in the previous paragraph was not incidental. Confidence, or lack thereof, is often the most critical factor in determining success, or lack thereof. This is especially true with high school runners, and ten times more so with girls. So as you work through this whole process, keep that in mind. Some of the difficult attitudes you're encountering may really be more a function of lack of confidence issues than unwillingness to cooperate.

Best of luck!

Force them to run together and learn to run with different paces and different people on the team leading. Let them bomb the workouts and cry like babies afterwards because different people were pushing the pace. Let them fail as many times as it takes to actually start ruining their running and performance. If they only care about their running and their own race results then they will get the idea pretty quick if they keep up with that attitude they are going to fail at the sport. If they are so self obsessed with the pecking order, that stuff like that throws them off in workouts tell them "they are going to be way to easy to beat, and should maybe try a new sport. One where they can do their own thing and not be in a team environment. They just can't be successful because they are so mentally weak that they can't run and be good in this type of environment." Be harsh and bruise their egos a little bit and see who is really on board with your teams philosophy. The one's that truly care will be offended that about what you said but work harder to try to prove you wrong.