Runners_Dad wrote:
I've kind of been at odds with our CC coach. He seems to want to taper before every meet. We've talked about it, but I don't think it sinks in. We have a race Friday night late, and he's moved practice tomorrow so that they'll run about 3 miles at most. If the kids don't run on their own on the weekends they're getting 25 -33 mpw at most. What kind of milage did/do you run the day before a race?
Are the kids supposed to run on their own over the weekend?
An easy day before a meet is not tapering in any conventional usage of the term. If these kids are running 25 miles over 5 days, they're averaging 5 miles per day, and if they're doing proper warm-ups and cooldowns, race day is 7-9 miles (which is a massive number for someone doing 25mpw), and we'll just assume their long run is 6-7 miles. That leaves 10-12 miles over 3 other days in the week, so a 3 miler the day before a race isn't even a 'taper', its a normal distance day.
As for what others do: The lowest mileage (men) on my team do around 50mpw at this point in the season. They do 25 or 30 minutes plus some drills and strides the day before most meets (we'll train through some meets and do more the day before, but not often). Another group will do about 65mpw, and they go 40 minutes the day before an early season meet, while our 80+mpw'ers do around 50 minutes. 5 or 6 of the other days in the week, I've given my athletes a serious stimulus through volume, intensity, or both, at the very least I'm going to make sure they're most rested for the day they have to compete against people. So that's athletes doing 2, 2.5, and 3+ times your child's weekly mileage, and they're doing maybe 1.5, 2, and 2.5 times your child's pre-meet totals.
The worst coach I've ever been around was my coach while competing as an undergrad. One of their most poignant shortcomings was doing way too much the day before races where we athletes were expected to perform at a high level.
None of this is to say the training situation you describe is ideal, but what they're doing the day before the meet would be about the last thing I'd look at in their current schedule.