How do I tell my coach about this

That definitely a great question. It depends on your perspective.

A private coach for one individual will be a problem for the entire team because the others will have no faith or buy in for what the team is doing when an individual is seeking expert advice to do something else. If that private coach is brought in to help the whole team out or just varsity that could would work well, otherwise it is likely to put a significant divide through the team’s culture.

In my case distance is my specialty and I have the knowledge and resources to reach out at the same or higher level than any private coach.

However, when I coach track and have jumpers and throwers, I bring in talent to my coaching staff to help all jump athletes with that. I watch the practices and get to learn quite a bit myself also.

No matter what I know that private coaches for certain individuals does not work in the team setting unless they help the entire team.

For an inexperienced coach they can benefit a great deal from having a good private coach help guide the team through the season.

Want to know if your coach is any good? Look up past results, if your coach knows anything they'll have had some level of success.

The same teams win every year because they have great coaches.

I’m coming to realize that with the private coach, I probably have less risk of injury, probably more chance of improvement, and therefore probably contribution to the team. I am going to tell my HS coach all of this. Thank you to the person who said to talk about how you want to be a part of the team and stuff — good idea.

My coach knows in the past that I have struggled a lot with injuries, and we have talked about making changes but not done anything, so this could be the “change” we make: me doing slightly different, more “phase” (like someone said) and threshold oriented training, which I have learned over the summer is the best type of training for me. Luckily, I am have a HS coach who is a good guy and does not have an ego.

Also, my private coach is not a scammer looking for money and I am not under a “spell”. There is a whole network of many kids all across the US who use him or two other coaches in the same company, and they have formed many state champions and successful athletes. That doesn’t mean that will be me, and being a state champion in my state is very difficult, but I think if I have a bit of a better shot at staying healthy with the private coach I can maybe then get better times, or I sure hope so!

I now can’t believe I thought to keep it a secret earlier. I’m still unsure of some stuff but I’m so glad I posted here because I got so much good advice and it woke me up.

Just keep what you do with your private coach private. Make sure you use protection.

EVERY experience of any significance has the potential to teach you something if you understand that and are open to learning.

It sounds like your school coach is having you do nothing but easy runs and the same intervals over and over. Rather than choosing either "team" or "online coach," why not have the online coach add onto whatever your school coach is having you do?

After all, this online coach works for you and you're paying him/her for a service. Tell them what you want to get in return for what you're paying.

Tell your online coach that you'll be doing _____ amount of easy mileage _____ amount of intervals and have your online coach add to that whatever tempos, threshold and fartlek to your schedule. You can run those by yourself before/after school (opposite whatever your team is doing) and then run school workouts with the team.

Thank you and theoretically a good idea, but I don’t think this will work in my situation. We already do too many workouts with my HS coach as is, and they’re way too intense. Adding to that would make things worse. What I need to do is replace or tone down the workouts appropriately.

I would never allow it, either, but I understand periodization, unlike her HS coach.

True. Most online "coaches" are actually just a college kid sharing the team's workouts for the week. I had a kid get one a couple of years ago during college indoor (we do not have indoor here). It was a college kid, and the workouts were what a coach would have for meet season, not in between seasons. The same kid ended up injured because his body was not ready for year-long hard workouts. He learned from it, and stuck to my plan from then on, and the injuries never returned, and the kid has improved since, instead of sitting on a plateau.

Do you have the talent to get on a D1 college team?

If not just be a good team player, and fake an injury now and then to later do your thing.

we have a terrible coach at our high school so my son does this. She couldn't even tell you one workout. Most the time it's just 3 miles runs with 10-15 milers stopping for water breaks every 1/2 mile loop then a post run stretch listening to her carry on about nonsense.My son runs his hard days away from the team and then a couple easy days he starts with them and just takes off for his easy day. Another option is run the practices with your team and your hard workouts in the morning or evening. My son did that the other day. He ran a 2 mile jog with the team and workout in the evening.

This is a VERY tough situation to navigate well to everyone's satisfaction. I wish you the best.

It is interesting how much people's experience / position shapes their perspective. From a coach's point of view, I can totally see the basis for a lot of the advice given. Of course, they are going to start with the assumption that the HS coach is halfway reasonable ( understanding the sport, desire work with you to accomplish goals and get along, etc). However, most HS XC coaches are not. It is a government position with little compensation. The less work the better. Anything that causes any effort needs to be eliminated. On top of that, there are additional dynamics that contribute toward most coach's utter crap coaching.

Then, on the athlete's side, obviously a developing teenager is going to be poor at some aspects as well. ALL 14-18 year olds are immature to one degree or another on some things. Typically, they have a hard time communicating well in a productive manner, especially on a topic that means a lot to them. They often come off as very disrespectful and selfish. Further, in regards to keeping things to themselves, they often appear practically incapable of keeping things close to the vest. The lack of nuance and agility that young people often display in these situations is maddening.

If I were in your shoes, I would do the following:

1) I would schedule a meeting with your HS coach where you could spend a good amount of time to express your appreciation for them both as a person and a coach. Include how you know that there is a lot of time and effort required to do what they do (often unseen by anyone). Give them 1 or 2 specific examples of where they did something good or coached well. Finally, let them know of some way that they personally helped you and how you really appreciate it. Spend some time thinking about this in advance to make sure that what you express is genuine. Even if they totally suck, you can find a few good things to praise. Then, I would transition into letting them know that while running is pretty niche, it is very important to you. I would go about it somewhat sheepishly - almost apologizing for it (because you're the "weird" one). Of course, no apologies are necessary, but you are relating and establishing a working relationship. I would include that you really want to run collegiately, but you are concerned because you have a long way to go (even if you are actually somewhat close). So, you feel you really want / need to take your training to the next level. Explain that, again, you appreciate their coaching and the "good" training that the team does, but that you also strongly feel that you need to do a little more (and a little tweaked) than what you've been doing. At this point, you will need to observe how all of this is landing with the coach. If he appears to be a little defensive, then you have probably already gone a touch too far, and it would be best to more-or-less end the meeting there and let him think on what you said a little so that he can get used to the idea of where you are coming from. If he appears to be receptive and happy, then you could maybe continue by saying that this summer you've found some training that really feels like it is good for you. I would not in any way convey that his training is poor and that yours is good... just express that you REALLY like it and strongly believe it is working well for you. As a brief aside, I definitely would NOT say that you got this from anyone else's influence - not another coach, friend, family member, or parent. You got this from your own research and experimentation (which is true, unless the online coach contacted you first). THEN, if he is still tracking, say something very close to, "Do you think that it would be ok if I could slightly modify the training here and there - maybe run a little outside of school practice on my own from time to time?" (This may be a little difficult for you to do well, but I would come across like the coach is in complete control.) You could also add a little extra no-brainer request for permission for improving your diet or something like that. You could add, "I also read that drinking something with electrolytes a couple of times a week is good, and I've been trying that as well. I think it's been good. Is it ok if I continue to do that?" Then, I would finish with saying something nice (and that's true), and be effusively thankful that they are working with you. By the end of this meeting, the coach needs to remember being appreciated, feeling like they are no doubt your coach who you respect, that you have goals, and something something about you wanting to train a little differently and/or by yourself from time to time. BOTH of you MUST be smiling at the end of this meeting in order to consider it successful.

2) Follow up with the coach a week or two later to have your permission to do a little extra. ANYTHING other than him saying, "No, we are going to do what we do and if you can not do that, then you should run elsewhere" should suffice well enough.

3) Consider very thoughtfully the tweaks you believe you can pull off to train well and not raise alarm bells. Can you get out of one of the school's workouts once a week? Can you run some of the workouts at 75-80% and then run a tempo later? There are so many ways to creatively do this, but it needs to be good training, AND you must be able to keep the coach and team happy.

4) Be VERY encouraging to all of your team members. Be the absolute best teammate you can be - even to the ones who aren't initially nice to you.

5) In regards to the numerous races, consider racing them differently (start one at a slower pace and then run the last mile extremely, and then the next week, start out fast and hold on, etc etc). By changing things up, you can make the race schedule work and learn a lot through experience in the process.

6) Implement and execute to your plan. Stay focused. Don't get injured. Give good effort, and trust in your plan. Choose to be a winner.

7) DO NOT ever ever tell anyone else (ESPECIALLY ANYONE RELATED WITH THE TEAM) that you've had this plan and figured out how to effectively run on your own (as much as possible) and still run on the team. If / when you screw that up, and things go south, you can thank yourself for not having the discipline to carry this out.

Good luck, have a great season, and running "career" (collegiately and beyond)!

I think this approach sounds great. It is very important to be transparent, and from my experience works out for the best even if the conversations in the moment are uncomfortable.

If your coach doesn't agree with you continuing with your private coach during the season, then I recommend you have a really honest conversation about how the interval work impacts you and how it is unsustainable. Try to discuss alternative workouts that you - and others on the team - could do to try and preserve your body while also getting important training stimulus. You could consider having this meeting with your coach and Athletic Director or even another teacher who could listen and represent your best interest and safety. If you and other athletes are getting burned out or injured because of the training intensity, that's a problem in itself. Your school needs to be aware of those concerns.

Also, to add - your private coach likely has some ideas on how you can approach your school coach, so talk with your private coach too.

Actually, it's not tough in the least. I didn't read the thread. Didn't need to. LRC MB posters value participating in school-sanctioned running. I don't. They think it's a valuable experience and they are nostalgic about it decades later. Not me. The school brings nothing to the table. I don't miss it. I didn't miss it when I was in high school training on my own without school permission or knowledge.

So what's the point of all that? It's the warmup for the best advice you're going to get. Don't talk to the school coach. Why the peanut gallery here doesn't find that to be incredebly easy is beyond me. I remember someone pointing out the track coach from about 50 yards away. This would have been Sophmore or Junior year. That was the extent of my contact. Never spoke to the guy.

I know you're going to say, "but I was on the team last year and they all know who I am." It is true that my coach wouldn't have recognized me or known my name. That made a similar situation to yours very easy to navigate. Nobody was going to approach me about anything track-related. Anonymity made this all painless. I ran without the coach's input and it never caused any problems. Your situation is different.

But how different really? All you have to do is NOT sign up on sign-up day. Isn't there a time and place to get on the roster for a Fall sport? There may be tables set up in the gym or lunch room...maybe even outside. Then the same for a Spring sport? If you don't even walk by the tables, much less put your name down, you're completely off the hook.

You know what I did? Let's say Senior year - by then I was well-established as the school's leading distance runner. Nothing. Didn't go to the sign-up place. Didn't offer an explanation. No awkward conversation. No excuses. Proceeded to set possibly still-standing school records. It really is that simple.

I am pretty independently oriented, so I completely understand what you are suggesting. In some situations that may work out just fine and not be difficult at all (as you've described). However, I think you might be glossing over that there are some dynamics that can make it hard.

1) Even if you don't want to do the same training, even having some people to run with for the first mile of an easy run (or just starting out together) can be beneficial. Some struggle to run on their own more than others, particularly when they are young.

2) Running on a team and trying to do well as a team is fun. Long lasting friendships occur amongst team members. That's not nothing.

3) Where I live, a lot of xc meets will allow club teams or homeschooled teams, but unattached by yourself is not as easy. Then, the best championship meets at the end of the season (district, regional, state) are impossible to get into. Then, in track, it is VERY hard to get into meets as an individual (even when you are well-connected). A runner going their own way absolutely needs to recognize that their racing options will be much more limited and likely not as good.

4) Although not important for a very focused runner, running with a team school offers more "carrots", such as school records, being the team MVP, recognition from peers, etc.

5) There are college coaches who would wonder what's up with not running on a team, and they might shy away from looking at unattached kids. I think there are more who would be receptive to unique situations today than 10 years ago, but there would still be some with hesitations.

So, in my opinion, it is not quite as simple as you make it out to be. However, I agree wholeheartedly that a dedicated runner can absolutely do it on their own, and sometimes high school coaches can suck so bad that it warrants that. I am also happy to hear that you were able to make it work for you. Great job - seriously!

I disagree with this

high school sports are one of the greatest things about the school system in America . You are right when you say people on here have great memories from times on high school teams - I am sorry you didn’t but you cannot speak to what you don’t know . Also tables set up in a gym ? We live in the age of internet , or eligibility checks of social media use - college coaches will check things like this before recruiting a kid . Also you can use the internet to see if your records still stand or not …

Go look at all the greats and see how many were coached by high school coaches - all of them ? No - Galen Rupp went right to a pro coach - but MOST pro runners ran for high school teams , most high school runners - if not all - did too - we have a great system here that allows free or close to free participation in sports

keep your integrity , keep a chance to run for your school , give your HE coach a shot and be on a TEAM - that’ll teach you more then going from a 440 to a 430( or whatever you might be doing )