Tell me what you think of my coaches training plan: Track & Field Week 1

There are phases to training. Generally you start out with "base building" or "injury prevention" phases and transition towards race specific workouts.This is what your coach is doing. It is difficult to maintain peak fitness for a full season. Your friend who is doing a lot of speedwork and races will likely burn out by April when you will be hitting your peak.Those hill sprints are important, they'll start to develop the strength you need. You can't run yourself into the ground every week for the full season.In a few weeks you'll start doing repeats, your early season races will sharpen your fitness. If you hit your first meet in peak form, you'll lose it by the state meet.Trust your coach.

My Coach Sucks wrote:

Ok like yesterday. We ran 2 miles to the park, ran 8 hill sprints, jogged around the park for recovery 2-3 min, then went on a 5 mile run. Some guys out of shape only ran two back to school. I really don't see how that will help me run 67 second laps for four laps. You guys are all nuts.

My friend at another school has been doing intervals all January and is in the best shape of his life. He is already running all comer meets. Our coach doesn't want us running in them. I think he's lazy and doesn't want to go since he's not paid to be there.

What are some of your race times and training paces?

My Coach Sucks wrote:

Ok like yesterday. We ran 2 miles to the park, ran 8 hill sprints, jogged around the park for recovery 2-3 min, then went on a 5 mile run. Some guys out of shape only ran two back to school. I really don't see how that will help me run 67 second laps for four laps. You guys are all nuts.

My friend at another school has been doing intervals all January and is in the best shape of his life. He is already running all comer meets. Our coach doesn't want us running in them. I think he's lazy and doesn't want to go since he's not paid to be there.

I think your coach is absolutely doing the right thing. You can't stay at a peak level for an overly extended period and after awhile improvement will begin to plateau. I would say you're well positioned to add more track specific work later in the cycle. For now, hills are a perfect for developing raw speed prior to getting on the track. I suspect your buildup timing and approach is better than what your friend is doing for races still months away. There's nothing wrong with what you're doing. My suggestion is to trust your coach and go with it. I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised that you'll be more ready for race specific work down the road than you think.

I would agree with many of the posters on this thread:

a) the training seems perfectly appropriate. From a training perspective, you're well positioned to achieve your goals. I ran 4:12 off early season training that was not as well thought-out as this.

b) your attitude is the limiting factor. If you have a problem with training, I encourage athletes to approach me directly and you should do the same with your coach. Maybe there are adjustments to be made, and maybe you talk it through and move forward. Trying to get others to help prove that your coach is wrong is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's you who aren't holding up your end of the bargain. I'll be interested to hear how your teammates who listen to what is being asked of them do in comparison to you who think you know better.

I think everyone has pretty much nailed it but I was so annoyed by your attitude and lack of knowledge that I wanted to chime in as well.

1) Your attitude is sh*t and you don't know nearly as much as you think you do.

2) You didn't do the strength work so you already show that you aren't committed to excellence.

3) You say you need to be getting in more miles, well you had all winter to do that so hopefully you did. But you were probably too busy complaining and making excuses.

4) 50 miles for week one is adequate especially if you ran this winter like you should have.

5) You keep bitching about speed work. Why do you think your coach has you scheduled to run those hill sprints?

Pull your head out of your ass. Shut your mouth and get to work. Trust your coach. You can't succeed if you don't trust in the system. There is more than one way to run fast but as luck would have it your coach has a good looking system.

PS- I've never seen LetsRun come together in agreement like this. Makes me think you were trolling all along. So well done either way.

I'm very impressed by the agreement of the letsrun community. I also believe its a troll. However, I'm surprised doubles hasn't been mentioned yet.

My Coach Sucks wrote:

I'll post my coaches training, you rip him apart!

We were supposed to run 4 weeks pre-season building up to 45 miles per week. We should be doing 2-3 lifting sessions with the strength coach (no one does tho). I think we need more miles and more quality. What do you all think?

Monday-

20 min run, 8x100 strides, 20 min run, 8x100 strides, 20 min run.

Tuesday-

60 min run on hilly trails.

Wednesday-

2 mile run, 8 x hill sprints 15-20 sec, 5 mile run

Thursday-

60 min run on hilly trails

Friday-

1 mile @ Tempo

5 mile run

1 mile @ Tempo

Saturday-

Long Run, 10-12 miles

Goal Mileage: 50

He says it's week one and it will get harder but I just don't see how I'm going to get better running like this. I want to run in the 4:30's this year.

I'm with you. Your coach does suck.

You've got Guy Fierie when you should have Gordon Ramsey. All these keyboard coaches chiming in are clueless.

Monday and Fridays workouts are useless. why not just do a continuos run then finish with strides or tempo? You're not getting the proper aerobic stimulus.

I don't know how old you are. Seven comes to mind from your post but I'm guessing you're in high school. I'm not sure this is even a serious post. If so, I'm not sure where to begin with all the problems you're creating for yourself.

The obvious one to start with is your assumption that because you've followed Letsrun or something that you must know more than your coach does and so any difference between what you think you should do and what he's telling you to do must mean he sucks. Another is that you're complaining about an entire schedule based on one week. Has it occurred to you to find out what the rest of the schedule calls for? Has it occurred to discuss the plan with your coach? It's really possible that he actually knows something. Maybe he's had success with other runners doing what he does. Maybe not, but hey, why bother to check when you can get onto the Internet and flame?

I'm not a fan of lifting myself. But if I had a coach who made it part of my program I'd do it. So sure, ignore a part of the program he prescribed and then blame him if you don't get the performances you want.

Finally, if you talk with enough successful coaches and runners about why runners succeed a recurring theme is that they have confidence in their training. If you're as convinced that this program is going to fail there's a good chance it will, for you, not necessarily for someone who believes in it. If you really think that your coach sucks you probably should not run for him.

I am not a troll and that really is my coaches training. I obviously am in the minority. I don't know why but I just can't buy into this.

My Coach Sucks wrote:

I just can't buy into this.

Quick, you gotta quit your team and train yourself while you still know it all.

My Coach Sucks wrote:

I am not a troll and that really is my coaches training. I obviously am in the minority. I don't know why but I just can't buy into this.

It's probably because you read letsrun enough that you think you have to run mega miles (and possibly an absurd amount of 400 and 800 repeats) to be good at any distance, despite the fact that 50-60 mpw with hill sprints leading into track work later in the cycle is definitely more than enough to run great mile times.

Maybe it is time to realize you can learn something from your coach, as he has probably been at this longer than you have.

My Coach Sucks wrote:

I am not a troll and that really is my coaches training. I obviously am in the minority. I don't know why but I just can't buy into this.

So you have more than one coach and they collaborated on this plan? That's even more of an endorsement for it.

Yes, we have four. Next week is more of the same just adding on distance, he wants us to run 55 next week. He has us take Sunday's off but I think we should run. It was raining yesterday so I skipped the pointless workout he had and just ran all tempo. It was crappy weather anyways and I heard the sprinters didn't even run in the rain.

I don't know why you all are hating on me, I just don't understand. You all, except one, say it's good but can't tell me why other than "its a long season." Why does running slow except for a mile of strides and a couple short hills make you faster?

I'll post week 3 when it changes. He says it will get harder but we aren't really going start pushing hard until March. So I don't even know what that means and now I'm only going to have 2 months of real training?

I have talked to my coach by the way. He just tells me how this is better than hammering right now and the jerk called our aerobically weaklings. Well we'd be tougher if you let us actually do a workout.

My Coach Sucks wrote:

My friend at another school has been doing intervals all January and is in the best shape of his life.

I can tell you, and mark these words: he'll be in worse shape in April than he is now.

And don't come whining how he "was just ready to beat everybody but got injured" - staying healthy is part of the game, and hammering intervals for three months isn't going to help with that. Even if he survives the intervals somehow, he'll have long lost the peak come April.

I will spell it out for you: you don't know what you are talking about. Stop harassing your coach(es). They know much more than you do.

If you don't trust our collective judgement, go read a book on training. ANY BOOK.

How long have you been a coach?

Doubles wrote:

I'm very impressed by the agreement of the letsrun community. I also believe its a troll. However, I'm surprised doubles hasn't been mentioned yet.

I too read this post days ago and assumed it was a young coach trying to get honey feedback about his plans.. Young runners will reply with their misinterpreted desire to bust a nut quicker and seasoned runners and coaches will agree with a safe season start.

Monday and Friday should be optional depending on the athlete. The coach shouldn't run some of the kids into the ground.

as the poster who has coached many elites said, you need to sack up. these workouts are just fine not to mention you're not even doing the complete workouts that are prescribed. let's be honest, you're not going to make state with a 4:20, you'd be luck to make your section finals with that time. i'd focus on killing your workouts and accept responsibility for your track season. you sound like an entitled chump with a coach who know what he is doing.

It's really hard not to think that you're one of those guys who start threads here about how kids today are useless, entitled, know it alls, and decided that posing as one is the best way to make that point. If you're legitimate, the people who start those kinds of threads must love you.

Everyone is "hating on you" because you started a thread asking opinions and you've been given remarkably consistent ones that support your coach. If you didn't want opinions why did you ask for them? There have been loads of threads here about why easy running makes you faster and there's plenty of material about it in other places. Maybe you could do some research. No, you're not having just two months of real training. You're doing real training now but are just unable or unwilling to understand that because you've either got some grudge for your coach or are really some geezer who wants to make kids look bad.