Kid passes the eyeball test, hasn't put up great times yet.

CoachB wrote:

Yes, this is what I'm thinking, he just doesn't know how to manage the race. I don't think he's afraid of the pain at all. He seems to be pushing pretty hard when he races. I think he just needs to do some stuff in training where he comes through the 200 in 26 then has to accelerate for 50m. I did that exact workout last weekend with a different soccer kid who does not have the raw speed of this kid. That second kid dropped his PR from 57 2 weeks ago to 56.3 last week, then led off our 4x4 with a 54.4 in the same meet. So, there's a lot that can be gained just from figuring out the rhythm of the event without any actual improvement of fitness.

Learning to “float” fast from 70-200m+ is key. As a dumb high school frosh I couldn’t break 60 secs in the open 4 or relay split even with a low 12 and 25 in the open sprints and very good endurance. Turns out I was sprinting all out and trying to muscle through every stride. It took a crazy first lap of a 4x800 relay for me to break 60. I ended up running a 54/78.

Flagpole wrote:

Runs like 29's at a crappy college wrote:

Jesus, people on here acting like a 53-54 is really slow in a high school dual meet, thousands of schools would love to have another guy who runs that time on their team. Not everybody is fvcking some suburb of LA high school.

1) Who cares about dual meets? Those are for younger runners and just slow runners to get some experience and get to race.

2) The OP said he ran 55. Not really that impressive for a high school boy. If the kid is one of the top 4, then that's fine. He can help the 4x400 and maybe get faster, but no one should get excited about a 55 second 400...unless it's a girl, and even that time wouldn't win a state D1 title in Ohio.

Well I ran a 57 (lol, obviously was a distance runner) in high school and was on fastest 4x4 team before, so we would have been excited about a 55.... Our overall team isn't bad either, pretty average school in southeastern PA

We have 50 kids who can run these times. This must be a really bad team if you are working this hard with this kid. A fast soccer player should show up and run 23 on the first day due to natural speed and his other training. It sounds like you hav a future 52 second and 23 second guy, not a 47 second HS phenom.

Predictor wrote:

We have 50 kids who can run these times. This must be a really bad team if you are working this hard with this kid. A fast soccer player should show up and run 23 on the first day due to natural speed and his other training. It sounds like you hav a future 52 second and 23 second guy, not a 47 second HS phenom.

BS. You do not have 50 kids who can split a 55.

I’d be perfectly happy with a 53-53 and a 23.x this year. Both times would score at our league finals (small schools, central California)

Runs like 29's at a crappy college wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

1) Who cares about dual meets? Those are for younger runners and just slow runners to get some experience and get to race.

2) The OP said he ran 55. Not really that impressive for a high school boy. If the kid is one of the top 4, then that's fine. He can help the 4x400 and maybe get faster, but no one should get excited about a 55 second 400...unless it's a girl, and even that time wouldn't win a state D1 title in Ohio.

Well I ran a 57 (lol, obviously was a distance runner) in high school and was on fastest 4x4 team before, so we would have been excited about a 55.... Our overall team isn't bad either, pretty average school in southeastern PA

Wow.

This. The issue seems obvious to me. Kid comes from regular sport, can run a decent 100m relay, puts up terrible 400m and 800m times. 800m requires some endurance, but the 400m is just guts and speed. Kid has no guts/will. Can he start from the blocks? Otherwise seems like you are stuck with a relay specialist. We had many football players at my HS like this. We put together some decent 4x1 teams with it but they never could do much in any open event.

CoachB wrote:

He seems to be pushing pretty hard when he races.

IMO, the kids who seem to be pushing hard are probably pushing the least. The kids who actually can endure will appear to be pushing the least. The exception being kids/people running exceptional times and pushing hard. They are actually suffering, while everyone else is acting.

I am currently an asst coach for sprints, hurdles, and relays at a small college that competes in the NAIA. I come from a high school track and soccer—mostly soccer—coaching background, so the following is how I read your situation with this kid:

Soccer demands both serious sprint capacity and stamina to keep running throughout a game. A lot of players and frankly plenty of HS coaches don't seem to get this: many train their players only in terms of stamina, not understanding that the time involved in getting to a ball can be very very short, so sprinting ability is key. If this athlete came to track to improve his running, I would stress to him that sprints/mid-distance can improve him as much or more than anything else. It is no surprise he is focused on distance however, his coach probably instilled that focus in the team.

I would put him where he seems talented. If he has issues with the blocks, I would work with him on the blocks. With the athletes I coach, first few weeks I had this this spring it was mostly tech work on block starts, relay hand-offs, taking curves on the track—that sort of stuff. I knew the head coach is a distance guy and they had good strength and endurance training for sprinters but little tech work already. If you can get this guy accustomed to the blocks you may be able to groom a good sprinter out of him; he's only in tenth grade, right? You've got time if you can keep him.

I like to listen to athletes per what events they wish to compete in and let them try new things. We had a girl this year who tried steeplechase out and is a real natural for it and doing beyond great. But these are college athletes who at least know track events well, whereas you have an athlete from another sport who is around 15 or so. He needs input, he's not likely to figure this out by himself. As others here have already noted, he needs to understand the pain involved in track—in the running done in the sprints events—is worse than in soccer, it's very different. He will have to get used to different demands in his workouts and races than he encounters in soccer, just as a if a sprinter went over to soccer, he also would have new demands to encounter.

There are quite a few large schools that have 50 runners who can go 57. That was the time that he mentioned. He said the 55 was a split which I never believe especially from a coach who is grooming a 57 second 400 runner. Coaches don't know how to take proper splits. So, we have close to 50 guys who can run a real 57 and split close to 55. Look at these results for the first indoor 300 with 40 guys running 41. https://www.wayzata.k12.mn.us/cms/lib/MN01001540/Centricity/Domain/2975/Wayzata%20opener%202018.pdf

Wayzata rules wrote:

There are quite a few large schools that have 50 runners who can go 57. That was the time that he mentioned. He said the 55 was a split which I never believe especially from a coach who is grooming a 57 second 400 runner. Coaches don't know how to take proper splits. So, we have close to 50 guys who can run a real 57 and split close to 55. Look at these results for the first indoor 300 with 40 guys running 41.

https://www.wayzata.k12.mn.us/cms/lib/MN01001540/Centricity/Domain/2975/Wayzata%20opener%202018.pdf

Well, that list is impressive. Here's what has been going on in the sac joaquin section so far this outdoor season.

The kid's relay split, if applied to the open, would put him about 175 of over 900 times recorded (there are about 200 schools in the sac joaquin section.) If you take away say .5 seconds for the running start on the split, he's in the low 200s.

For one of the posters above, I know how to take relay splits, take the split when the baton crosses the start/finish line.

CoachB wrote:

Well, every time he sprints in a relay, he beats people, as in blows by them. But, in his open 400 debut, he ran 57 something. The two times he's run a 4x4, he's split a 55.x. That time is still slower than it seems is possible based on what I've seen in practice and on 4x1s

Hence the thread.

All that means is their people are slower than almost all of your people.

Focus on what his goals are and you will never be disappointing. (no, I did not say disappointed)

Wayzata rules wrote:

There are quite a few large schools that have 50 runners who can go 57. That was the time that he mentioned. He said the 55 was a split which I never believe especially from a coach who is grooming a 57 second 400 runner. Coaches don't know how to take proper splits. So, we have close to 50 guys who can run a real 57 and split close to 55. Look at these results for the first indoor 300 with 40 guys running 41.

https://www.wayzata.k12.mn.us/cms/lib/MN01001540/Centricity/Domain/2975/Wayzata%20opener%202018.pdf

??? The enrollment at Wayzata is 3500, most high schools are not even remotely close to that size. My high school is slotted in the highest division for XC/track (AAA) in Pennsylvania and 5A out of 6A for football. Our enrollment "might" have been close to 900 a few years ago but I think it's only around 800 now.

Seriously why wrote:

There is no such thing as the eyeball test when it comes to running. Why are you having a kid who can only run the 400 in 57 train with the sprinters? That is not even enough speed to put him in the 1600. You should be training someone that slow for the 3200, not the 4 and 8.

Well I know a few HS coaches who talk about walking the Freshman hallways the first few days of classes and looking for the skinny kids and inviting them to run XC... :)

What you're missing is good sprint training. Your SPRINT group is running 500m repeats in 90 seconds? Why? That's horribly slow and long. Make have the sprinters, oh I don't know...SPRINT?!

If you had a real sprint program, maybe you'd see improvements and kids reaching their potential.

Wayzata rules wrote:

There are quite a few large schools that have 50 runners who can go 57. That was the time that he mentioned. He said the 55 was a split which I never believe especially from a coach who is grooming a 57 second 400 runner. Coaches don't know how to take proper splits. So, we have close to 50 guys who can run a real 57 and split close to 55. Look at these results for the first indoor 300 with 40 guys running 41.

https://www.wayzata.k12.mn.us/cms/lib/MN01001540/Centricity/Domain/2975/Wayzata%20opener%202018.pdf

3500 kids?!! My school had around 200 kids and we had six guys who run 57 or better. Many other schools in our conference with slightly larger enrollments had around a dozen. So relative to size your stat isn’t impressive at all.

Gary Glitter wrote:

What you're missing is good sprint training. Your SPRINT group is running 500m repeats in 90 seconds? Why? That's horribly slow and long. Make have the sprinters, oh I don't know...SPRINT?!

If you had a real sprint program, maybe you'd see improvements and kids reaching their potential.

Not your best effort, 0.5/10

A: we do sprint. It’s in the thread

B: everybody does overdistance strength stuff with their sprinters. We’re goimg a little deeper into the season with the strength than other teams maybe, but this is because our kids are pretty weak at that type of stuff and we don’t feel that their overall fitness is where it needs to be. was likely one of the last times we do so all season. We have about 6.5 weeks until league finals.

Iowa800 wrote:

3500 kids?!! My school had around 200 kids and we had six guys who run 57 or better. Many other schools in our conference with slightly larger enrollments had around a dozen. So relative to size your stat isn’t impressive at all.

Obviously we had more than 3 or 4 guys who could drop a 57 or faster. In fact probably as many as 10-12 (Still not overly impressive, i realize) but they were generally preoccupied with other events they could get more points in, mile 2 mile distance guys, and sprinters who did 100, 200 and hurdles. One kid on our team (Who is d1 now) would take first in LJ, HJ, TJ and 300H every meet. he could probably run a 51.xx 400 but ran did it as we were only allowed 4 events.

Going back to OP's post, for schools who aren't that large or talented, having another guy who can run a 54 or 55 is pretty nice from a depth standpoint

About a year later.....

This year, the kid ran cross, but wasn't super enthusiastic. Then he went and played soccer. They had a bad season. From what I understand, he was saying stuff like, "I can't wait for track". Track came around and he went with the sprint group, but his heart really wasn't in it. This is how it went for the first 5 weeks of the season.

First meet was a distance carnival. He ran a mile, because he wanted to and we let him. He went 5:22. Then he went and trained with the sprint group for 4 more weeks. During that time:

He split a 63 for 400 on a DMR. At that point, I'd seen enough and I jumped all over him. I was tired of pats on the back and decided to go for the kick in the ass. Later that evening, he split a 55 on the 4x4. He ran a few more meets with the sprinters, putting up numerous splits in the 54 high 55 low range. He ran 11.78 in the open 100 (his start is terrible). Sprint coach refused to put him on 4x1 because the kids attitude and work ethic have been pretty bad.

Tuesday, as we were getting ready for our first league dual meet on Wednesday, he announced that he was going back to run with the distance crew. Sprint coach was super pissed because we needed him to run the open 4 against a tough league rival. Distance coach entered the kid in the mile and sprint coach entered the kid in the 400 (which are back to back).

Kid went

5:01 (21 second PR)

54.5 (A PR for the open 4)

Split 52.3 on the 4x4. This was 2 seconds faster than he'd ever split a 400 before

Very good results, but the frustration continues! Those results lead me to think that he can go 50.x on a split this year and perhaps mid 51 for an open. In our league and small school section, those are very good.

High school swim and dive coaches, for the most train 50 yard splash and dash swimmers and 500 yard freestyle swimmers nearly the same. Choices: 1) Train the entire team as 400m athletes; 2) break the team down into more sub-groups. It's never best to lump 800m/1600m/3200m athletes all together. 3) Make a 400m/800m group. He'll race 200m okay as a a 400m/800m athlete.