Disagree with hs coaching philosophy

Man those coaches take shortcuts to success by running less but faster stuff saying, "quality over quantity."

Sounds like al lot of his philosophy comes from a well established coaches book. I'd say 30-45 would be a good amount for a freshman. 2 days off seems about right too for younger kids. Quality over quantity can be misleading and geared more for the older runners. For younger runners I'd say any run is quality as long as they don't jog every run or race every run.

Pappy wrote:

Sounds like al lot of his philosophy comes from a well established coaches book. I'd say 30-45 would be a good amount for a freshman. 2 days off seems about right too for younger kids. Quality over quantity can be misleading and geared more for the older runners. For younger runners I'd say any run is quality as long as they don't jog every run or race every run.

True 30-45 is good for a freshman with 1-2 days off per week. Any coach that says "quality over quantity" is probably one that does hard 200m repeats more often than tempo runs from personal experience.

Talk to the AD and get him fired. Then have the LRC Hive Mind coach your team.

I'd see how it goes first. Athlete buy-in to the coach's program is important, so don't knock the program to start off with. What's also important is how the coach individualizes the program.

A lot depends on your son's running background. If he's new, then 30 mpw may be too high for him starting out and he'll need to work up to it slowly, starting at 15-20 mpw and increasing from there. A good coach will know this and start runners off at the right level. Two days a week off sounds fine for a newer runner, but handling the long run will take some time. Even at 30 mpw, that would be 6-5-6-5-8, and new runners will need quite some time to get there.

If the coach emphasizes quality over quantity, my guess is he also emphasizes track over cross country. But see how the summer and fall go.

Before each of my son's first high school seasons I had them running 30-35 minutes a day starting a month before the first practice. They each had a good season. Thirty to forty five mpw seems a good amount for a beginning high school runner over the summer, and I'm a big advocate for volume, but if your son wants to do more he should do it.

I think it is legit to ask for clarification on the "quality over quantity" statement. It is vague to me. For instance, I can read it as avoiding a run just to reach some arbitrary mileage goal. Each run should have a purpose (that can include a recovery run).

I would take issue with the strict statement of one run being 25% of the weekly mileage though mainly because I am not a fan of blanket recommendations like that.

You should definitely rip on/make assumptions about the coach's training without even trying it first or even talking to the coach about it. Who cares if the kid enjoys the sport or not, THE TRAINING IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

I'd give the coach the benefit of the doubt.

Too many HS runners want to log miles even if they're LSD.

You should do some running at 5K pace, even if you don't know your 5K pace as a new runner. Maybe shoot for 21:00 5K. That's 6:45 / mile pace. Run easy for 10 mins, then run a mile at 6:45 pace, then run for 10 more minutes at an easy pace. How did it feel?

If it was too easy, wait a few days and try 6:15 pace. If it was too hard, try again at 7:15 pace. And so on.

The point is that you shouldn't just run LSD to hit a goal of 30 mpw. Throw in some race pace running.

The long run guidance is pretty universal, so the coach is by the book on that. I would just say to 'run an hour'. When you can do that comfortably, add 10 mins until you eventually get to 90 mins. Then you can pick up the pace a little, but the goal of the long run is to not run fast.

The world class coach says.....the coach are right! But depends of course how he plan the quality workouts and the individual best pace.

Exact coaching

LRC Hive Mind wrote:

Talk to the AD and get him fired. Then have the LRC Hive Mind coach your team.

I laughed out loud.

What would you do differently? Is it really worth undermining the coach (and therefore the entire team) if you think they should run 6 days a week instead of 7?

Too much work in high school track is about coaches ego.

The reality is that a kid will get better on his own in HS. Its called growing and maturation. Coaches schedule more often cos they think they are growing the kids.

High school should be about learning how to run and race, pushing the limits with good recovery between workouts. Quality running. Not slog. No one got better on the Bataan Death March.

Keep a kid interested and healthy. That's all that should be done. Look after the technical stuff. Develop good habits.

John Utah wrote:

I laughed out loud.

Thee "John Utah" from Point Break? Wow...how's that bad knee?