My coach is pissing me off. I’m a marathoner at 100mpw. Today was only 12 in morning. Surprises me with afternoon 6 x 400.

Why do you complain so much? All I want to do is to help you be the best runner you can be. If you don't want that we can stop right now and you can tell the whole world that you're a weak runner and don't have what it takes to be great. Or you can stop complaining, do your training, and be great.

I did his quad band activation before this afternoon 10 miler. It’s complete BS. Made my legs feel more tired. I texted my coach and let him know I need to see research based evidence before I am going to do the fringe crap he is asking for. Show me a research based paper on benefits of quad band activation before everyone run for marathoners doing 100mpw or I call BS.

1) Glute activation is a pretty common thing; afaik quad activation isn't. I say give it a fair swing for a couple weeks but stick with your run routines that are tried and true otherwise.

2) Being mad at your coach for a random workout is often less about the workout and more being annoyed about your set plans being changed on a whim. I've been there, just know it is usually fine.

Hell yeah brother. Always good to give up on things after one session.

Best of luck to reach your goal of 3:20 in your next marathon. You can do it!

I think this is silly. The athlete should have visibility into his/her training plan and at least some decent trust relationship, and 'surprise' work like this violates both those ideas IMHO. Yes, a certain amount of 'functional antagonism' can actually be a good thing as a previous poster alluded to, but this should be taking place during discussions about training plans, the efficacy of certain workouts, etc. If the coach has some issues with the athletes turnover, fine, let's add some stuff into the plan to remedy that. No ridiculous 'surprise' workouts; that's simply not professional imho.

Unless you're maybe around 2:08 level, why are you bothering with a coach? Sounds like you can use Coach Google to much better effect.

Why do you have a coach?

I'd hire another coach. Maybe two more . With multiple options, you can pick the workout the want to do that day

As long as he doesn't prescribe you to eat burritos, you're going to be just fine bro!

I want to thank everyone that has supported me on this thread. I finally took a stand last night and let my coach know that I’m no longer going to be a puppet and let him take me on a ride with his fringe workouts and actions. I let him know I’ve been getting support from other runners on this. I told him I will need to see research based evidence to back any workouts/fringe activation crap he sends me going forward.

Why not just send him the workout that you want to do on a particular day and then instruct him send it back to you.

You get the workout you want and it's sent to you by your coach. Seems like that's what you really want so win/win!

Your competitors thanks you for taking a stand against surprise workouts - and they will show their gratitude towards you by never, never, ever do any nasty surges or any other kind of surprise moves when they race you. ;-P

You sound like a nightmare to coach tbh

Okay, so after today's workout, my coach asked me if he could give me an inner thigh rub to help me recover. I thought it was weird since my inner thigh doesn't hurt, but he's my coach.

I will say I feel really loose and relaxed afterwards. Not sure what he did with that inner thigh rub, but it worked.

Is this guy a quack? Thinking of dropping him.

This is an impostor post above. My workout today is not until 5pm. I’m current resting before my double.

This an imposter post above. I am the real "May be firing him after this".

I don't have a coach.

If you're running 100mpw and can't figure out the training, you're either a slow person or not that bright.

He could coach you alternate weeks and half the fee.