Top mistakes that HS Distance Coaches make with their athletes' training

Zante wrote:

NotPC wrote:

The reason is because the kids aren't even doing enough running. To spend the time on lifting or drills when they aren't even doing enough running would be a waste of time and effort.

Disagree. You have time every week to pepper it in bit by bit each day without taking time away from running.

You are spending time working on something that might help squeeze the last 2% out of a runner vs running more, which is 98% of what is required to perform well in the sport.

It's great your team can do a bunch of push ups or plyo drills, but the team that runs the fastest is the one that wins.

I would say doing hard vo2 max intervals too soon. With the amount racing high schoolers do you can stick to tempos alone until very late September/early October.

NotPC wrote:

Zante wrote:

Disagree. You have time every week to pepper it in bit by bit each day without taking time away from running.

You are spending time working on something that might help squeeze the last 2% out of a runner vs running more, which is 98% of what is required to perform well in the sport.

It's great your team can do a bunch of push ups or plyo drills, but the team that runs the fastest is the one that wins.

Without taking time away from running is the key here. If you can squeeze the extra 2% and still do the other 98%, why not? That's what separates the winners and losers.

Great thread!

BuckleUp wrote:

Great thread!

OP here.

Thanks. I was just thinking about the programs that never seem to get anywhere and never improve. They very rarely have anyone that stands out at all. They never develop athletes and always have small teams. It’s sad really but those same coaches won’t be reading this thread or doing any homework at all, just show up and get them 2 miles and go home.

I just graduated high school and I agree with most of these points.

I'm just going to talk about my last track season because this is where it got a little out of hand.

1. When I was training on my own I was trying to build up to 40 miles a week, I was close to it, but when track season started my coach had us run less than 30 miles a week. It was frustrating to deal with since I know I could have ran so much faster during the season.

2. We did have tempos, but I was almost always to tired, but mentally and physically to be able to stay on pace.

3. Yes, yes, and yes. Our coach had us run three quality sessions per weak with only two easy days. This was the reason I wasn't able to stay on tempo pace, and also the reason why I was mentally and physically exhausted for three weeks.

4. We did have long runs, but she never told us to run a specific amount, so I was only one of the few people that would run 8-10 miles for a long run.

5. Like I said we only had two recovery runs a week, so after meets we would go back into running three quality sessions per week.

6. We raced on every Friday, for about 5-6 weeks, I forgot how many meets we ran. But anyways I think we did to many, if we would have done one bi-weekly that would have been a lot better. I think it would have gave us more time to recover and train more consistently.

7. When I was training by myself that was our off season, I ran on my own because or coach didn't give us enough mileage during that time.

8. One more thing to add I think more high school coaches should talk about is the reason why we run a specific workout. Not just, "ok today we have a long run." They should go a little more in depth about what it does for you, and maybe even get into what happens at a cellular level. I believe if the athletes knew more about why they were doing a specific workout they would hopefully put more effort into training. This also goes for running at the right paces, I've seen most of our guy runners compete more often then they should during training. They have to learn to save that for the race, sure its fun to compete during training once in while but not all of the time.

9. Adding onto training at the right pace, coaches should discus with their athletes that its not cool to go all out during a rep, or the whole workout just because they're trying to impress others. It would look a lot cooler if you got first during a race rather than a workout.

10. The last thing I would like to point out (there are more, but this post is turning into an essay) is coaches should talk more about pacing during races. I know this first hand since I've fell victim to this throughout my four years of high school. I would always run a positive split, either because I felt really good at the beginning of a race, or because I thought I could handle a faster pace. My coach never really talk to us about this, and if they did it was briefly.

Hopefully this helps out any high school coaches reading this.

Sorry for the typos, I didn't bother proof reading it. It would be nice if letsrun had an edit feature for replies.

Agreed, it was exhausting to train through meets every week during the season.