First off if your daughters coach has little or no experience, listening to anything she has to say is stupid. However she IS your daughters coach and your daughter will have to learn to live and train under a coach. It seems like you are in a good position in the sense that this coach knows she isn\'t that great and is willing to work with you to create a unified front. Do everything you can to have your ideas given to your daughter through her coach(with you re-enforcing). I also think that it is important to include your daughter in the \"why\" part of her trianing so she can make educated decisions about her training in the future, but not bog her down in the specifics which can quickly become a slippery slope.
Next I would suggest you read up on trainning children. There is a lot of literature out there. But, not all kids are the same not all people are the same and you are going to have to understand the fundementals to understand what is best for your child. Having said this the following statements are a meant to get you started.
1. Children theoretically should be able to handle an infinite amount or aerobic mileage. African kids run 10 miles a day without shoes. In practice this doesn\'t work and varies from kid to kid, but as long as your daughter is still excited to run more mileage and it stays pretty un-structered and you are sure that it is the desire to run and not the desire to please than I see no reason why she shouldn\'t be able to handle more mileage. But both her and her body should be excited about more, and anything over 30 should be added REALLY, REALLY slowly and should be periodized.
2. Young teenage woman have little or no testosterone threfore lots of hard \"strength\" workouts do little good and can lead to injury. Weights should be completely ruled out until at least 17 (or until she starts looking like a woman). However, her aerobic system can be built into a true power house at this age. If you notice this contradicts a lot of other posters who warn against \"junk\" miles. I am actually suggesting all of her training essentailly be junk miles until she is fully into puberty. This doesn\'t mean she should run fast but it should be in the context of play. such as \"race you to the next stop light\" or soccer games, or something of that nature. Notice: I love soccer for young runner, ultimate can also be good. Makes a strong well balanced runner and is essentially un-structered speed work. Peter Coe, who has a great book, said that when Seb was young he kept all of his runs playful. That seb would run a lot but little of it was truely structured. To this end something like runnig to and from a soccer game for a total of ~ 6 miles would be great for instance.
4. Good running form should be stressed at this point. Beware this contradiscts the above points somewhat, since I am suggesting lots of unstructred running, but good habits learned early are very important. So encourage good form in the most unstructered way possible.
5. Polyometrics can add good balance and can add fun to a running for a younger person.
6. Run with, play with and genrally participate in your daughters running/playing. She may even say she hates you right now. But getting together with her to run and participate in polyometrics games such as racing to the tops of the bleachers or such things will not only make her a stronger runner but will be quality time that you can spend with her and she WILL be happy that you are showing an interest and participating even if she doesn\'t want to be caught by her friends.
7. Be careful not to push her. Stress enjoyment, be supportive, let her know her potential but that potential should remain an excitement and not a burden. When she loses encourage and praise her, when she wins praise her and critque her last loss if you catch my drift. Little girls have extremely fragile ego\'s keeping that ego intact is far more important than any critque of a race could be. On this note, make sure sure she loses occasionally. It is as important that she learns to lose as it is that she learns to win. I once had a coach who said \"The biggest barier to being great is being really good\". Never have I heard anything ring more true. at this age handling the pschology of running is important as handling the physiology of running.
8. While stressing responsability let her skip training every once in a while. She willl have plenty of time to sacrifice for her sport. This is not the time. Also good daily nutrition is important and how to eat should be stressed for ALL families; ice cream is not from the devil Let her have snacks and be a kid. Teach her about her weight and what is sensible daily nutrition, how to diet in a smart way etc. The important thing is that the whole family learns to eat in a lean effecient ejoyable healthy way and that she just takes that kind of stuff for granted. Ice cream should be a treat for everyone, not just runners. Good habits as well as bad are hard to break. Studies have shown that what you eat as a kid is more less what you eat as an adult for better or worse.
9. It is important that you keep good track of her running if you intend to push the envelope at all. You have to know how she is feeling, how she is responding and how she is progressing. To do this you must keep very accurate notes. However, your daughter shouldn\'t be aware of this. It isn\'t that you have to be sneeky about it. But you don\'t have to be overt about it either. She doesn\'t need to know that you are backing off her training because she you fear she might be overtraining a bit, because her times have been slipping a bit and she has been groggy in the mornings. She can just think it is a a light week. Having said this she should participate in her own training and planning and learning, but on a very light fun level. If you do happen to put in any real interval training it should be VERY minimial and she should only be vaguely aware of progress. stay away form times if possible. As she groes older she can be more and more aware of specific\'s and as she goes off to college she should have the whole package in hand but you have four or five years to ease her into this. Right now she needs to understand the fundemental theory and the pure enjoyment of running about, laughing with her friends, and if your lucky run and laughing with her fauther, and the pure enjoyment of occasionaly running with all she has in her.
Notice that this plan isn\'t a quick fix. It requires you to spend time learning and researching and honing and participating. It requires you to do a lot of thinking. But it is your daughter, and your daughters future. Most people won\'t buy a car with out doing a 10 or more hours of research, I would think a daughters future would be infinitely more important and should be treated as much. If your going to participate be informed and do it right else you are doing her a diservice. The internet is your friend so is the library. but be warned not everything you read is true, peer reviewed articles are good sources of info as are well cited and respected books. but you must read voraciously from all these sources and then boil it down into a real plan that works for you and your daughter.
I hope this helps and remember this is just my opinion. As you do more and more research and reading you will form your own.