Coaching a mega-talent sophomore - Am I right to think he could run ~4:10 over 1600m this season?

younger private coach AM wrote:

Note: I've changed some details on his profile so he can't be identified, but I have a feeling most of the country will know his name soon.

History

Freshman year: Kid did not run a step until summer of 2021 - his first XC season he comes out opens up at 18:02 and PR's at 17:16 mid season on 15-20mpw and with no summer base. Takes a month off, joins the indoor track team, goes 5:06-4:50 in 2 indoor races (is still running with an inept high school coach having him do 15mpw doing all sorts of little things wrong). Goes right into outdoor, opens the season at 4:40, drops down to 4:28 in his last race in May on the same training. He also split 2:01.x on a 4x8 at some point and ran 10:00 for 32 on a double. Not too surprising seeing as he had zero aerobic development. Never ran a 400 of any kind unfortunately.

I heard about this kid and reached out to him because, honestly, what private coach wouldn't want to get their hands on such a talent - the school he goes to is notoriously bad at middle distance/distance running development, the school records are 4:20/9:20 from over 15 years ago - and I really wanted to see what he could do on something other than 15mpw with 8x400 every week during base phase. I've been working with him since this June.

I had him take a few weeks off after track then started base building. The second week back, he got into a moderately bad car accident. His injuries were non life-threatening but he was still out for 6 weeks late June to early August on doctor's orders with a concussion, an internal laceration and a fractured ulna (point being he got pretty banged up). I had thrown in the towel at this point on the XC season, I told him that it would be best to start from scratch and start a long build towards outdoor season, maybe hop in a few indoor races to break up the monotony and stay hungry and whatnot. However I realized it was best to just let him race the XC season as he is young and I don't want to keep him from that team experience - after all, he had success last year off of no summer as well.

He opened up the first race at 17:04 and ran 15:55 a month later on the same course (flamed out a little at the end of the season but that wasn't entirely surprising given that he ran less than 100 miles before the XC season started.

And now, I have finally got him doing an uninterrupted, full cycle buildup for the outdoor season, and the results have been absolutely spectacular even this early.

Recent workouts:

30 minute flat-ish tempo @ 5:26 (yes, a tempo, I tell him not to run all out but "comfortably hard")

25 minute extremely hilly tempo @ 5:25 (I personally was running this route @ 5:28 pace a month out from a 4:01 1500)

60 minutes @ 6:15 pace. on paper the workout was "1 hour uptempo" - he says 6-7 perceived effort.

5x1200m w/ 2 minutes recovery on trail at 3:42

7x1k w/ 90 sec recovery on trail at 3:02

14x400m w/ 1 minute recovery on trail @ 69.1 avg

A boat load of hill repeat workouts as well that won't have any meaning to any of you but seems are similar to things a few 3:5x-4:0x 1500m guys I've worked have done.

I know I've got him training like a 5k guy but it is only December, and I know that this kid has an absolutely unlimited aerobic reserve in there waiting to be tapped into. I've got him doing weekly pure speed stuff and speed maintenance strides as well so he'll be alright when we start running faster in February.

Every single workout I throw at this kid he knocks it out of the park and gets faster seemingly every run. I'm not having him blast these workouts to pieces either, he is running within himself and the next day is perfectly fine. In fact, I tell him to reign it in on the easy runs, he always wants to run sub 7 pace but I tell him to back off a little even if it feels easy.

I've built him up nice and slow since November from 20mpw to 40mpw and we have been holding steady there. Once February rolls around that figure will be ~30-35 with some more quality speed endurance injected. and yes, don't worry, strides after easy runs, he's doing core, etc.

Honestly I'm just excited that a talent like him has fallen to me, it seems like I can do no wrong with this kid and he will improve no matter what. I sort of already have an idea, but do these workouts seem like the base phase stuff you'd expect from a 4:10 miler? I've just never coached a young high schooler of this caliber and I can hardly believe my eyes - and I feel strange telling a 15 year old his season goal should be in the 4:10 range - I don't want to put expectations too far out there but I also really feel like he's bound to be knocking on the door of 4:0x this season. Thoughts?

P.S. any thoughts on his training? I don't proclaim to be a genius but I do feel like I have a pretty good grasp of training theory, but any feedback on how to optimize this further would be appreciated. I just want to avoid messing this kid up as much as possible, I've read too many stories of potential sub-4 talents gone to waste from shoddy high school coaching.

M 40-50 min easy run and strides

T tempo run (been 22-30 minutes for the most part, it's a little different every week). maybe a fartlek every third or fourth week

W 40-50 min easy run and strides

T long interval or hill repeat workout (usually totaling about 6-7km, stuff like 8x800 with 60-90 rest)

F 40-50 min easy run and strides

S - off

S - 65-80 minute easy run and pure speed

Regards,

Coach AM

SprintDude wrote:

va coach wrote:

One more thing. I'd advise responding to the earlier questions about how he and you are interacting with his school team and coaches. If you want this thread to be meaningful and substantive, you need to be transparent on this. There are a lot of very good high school coaches on the LR boards. But many of them are sensitive on issues with private coaches, and rightly so. If you want their honest and best advice, be honest about what you're doing and how you're working with this kid and his team.

Good luck.

This is very important. It seems like you may already be filling his head with big and possibly unrealistic dreams of success, as it appears he has decided to leave his indoor team in order to train with you.

You definitely need to be in contact with his high school coach, and you probably need to prepare yourself to take a backseat approach. If you do anything to undermine the coach you could create a bad situation for this young athlete. The kid does seem to be improving under the current coach and he seems to be otherwise healthy and having fun with teammates.

Honestly, it would probably be best if you backed away and gave him advice to follow his coaches training. You don't want to deprive him of non-training elements of the high school running experience, such as learning social and leadership skills and how to compete as part of a team.

va coach wrote:

This could be not just an interesting thread but also a useful one. Keep us posted and keep up the good descriptions and details. Pay no attention to people who can't or won't read more than three partial sentences. They'll go away and the thread will be better for it.

Regarding 4:20, no it's not a formality or a given. There's more difference between 4:28 and 4:20 than many realize. As others have said, a lot depends on what kind of speed he either has or can be developed. It's not easy, but a talented aerobic monster can break 4:30. Breaking 4:20 is a different story.

Maybe that's your answer and compromise to the indoor season question. Rather than race him in "important" events that would end up being too much of a focus at this point, give him a couple long sprint opportunities. Like a 400 and a 500. Basically just a little something to have some fun, break up the boredom of training, and get a better idea of what his speed is like. Keep it low key with no pressure or expectations. He'll enjoy it and you'll know what you need to know to plan his training.

One more thing. I'd advise responding to the earlier questions about how he and you are interacting with his school team and coaches. If you want this thread to be meaningful and substantive, you need to be transparent on this. There are a lot of very good high school coaches on the LR boards. But many of them are sensitive on issues with private coaches, and rightly so. If you want their honest and best advice, be honest about what you're doing and how you're working with this kid and his team.

Good luck.