Short version: My coach has us doing 4-5 hard track workouts a week starting in early November leading to almost the entire distance crew being severely injured and/or burnt out by outdoor state in May. He completely disregards any concept of building a base during the winter. Because of this the distance crew is considering training on our own during winter even though this will likely make our coach very angry. I need advice about what to do!
Firstly, I realize that indoor track is almost 6 months away. I want to make this decision now.
Basically my problem is I don't know if I should do indoor training with my coach. I know there are tons of posts on here a week saying something along the lines of "My coach sucks and I want to run unattached!" I have not gotten to that point (yet at least), however I have some serious concerns about the training we do during indoor.
If it matters I ran sub 4:50/ sub 2:10 for the 1600m/800m in 8th grade. I am hoping to run sub 16 in the 5k next year, and 4:25/9:30 for the 1600/3200. Currently I am doing 50 miles a week with a tempo run, a fartlek/progression run, and a long rub once a week.
Now that all of that is out of the way, here is my problem: Starting in November, almost immediately after state XC, my coach has us doing 4-5 HARD track workouts a week. An example world be something like 8x200 at faster that 800m pace with very short rest. This continues for 4 months with the distance crew usually actually having a decent peak for indoor state in early February. However after that, it almost always goes downhill. The entire distance crew (including me) is injured and burnt out by state in May. My XC teammates are still hurt over a month after state and are missing valuable base training. Luckily I recovered from my injuries, but I was still out for most of March and April and fried by May.
As you can see, my coach's training during winter has lead to some very poor results, and he doesn't seem to realize it. Would it be better for me and my teammates to simply build a base next winter even though our coach will likely be very angry about this?