Should I quit my D1 XC/Track team in order to train myself???

Thanks again for all the responses. I just got out of school last week and all the stresses and shortcomings of the year kind of hit me all at once when I got home. I believe what most of you are saying, and you're right... Quitting the team wouldn't solve anything, it would just be ducking a problem that would be near impossible to "solve" on my own anyway.

Staying on the team and continuing to work things out with my teammates and coach would be a far better decision than trying to do it all on my own without giving it a second chance. My frustrations and issues with my situation had been gradually building throughout the year, and once I finished my season it dawned on me that "I could probably do better myself".

It was a very scary experience for me to lose all motivation and drive for running towards the end of the season as a product of lack of faith for my team and its training, but in hindsight, most of that was all in my head. I think if I come back to school dedicated and ready to work hard, things will end up going my way in the end, regardless of whether or not I like my coach/buy into every detail of his training.

Besides, it will be worth it to stay with my teammates & friends, which is the issue I was having all along. I'll find a way to stick it out.

Thanks again

tough love wrote:

It isn't the coaches fault, unless you have Eddy Lee's coach (and I know you don't because he would have 15 out of 18 VO2max days).

Hold on a second. Eddy Lee's coach took him from 4:16.6 in 2007 to 4:01.4 in 2009. Give the man his due.

If I were you I think I'd throw in the towel, it sounds like that's what you're really leaning toward anyways. If you're questioning your decision to be on the team this much, then it may not be worth it to you end the end. College running can be a wonderful thing for many runners and it can be a disaster for others. Unfortunately for competitive runners in the U.S. it is basically the only option post-high school but most programs do a rather poor job at really developing a runner long-term (by long term, I mean more than the four years that a runner competes for a school). I had a solid running career in college, but also saw tremendous talent get destroyed due to our coach's one-size-fits-all-run-yourself-into-the-ground-everyday-let's-get-quick-results-now training regimen. Works okay for some, doesn't for others. Everyone's different. If you believe that you would develop better and enjoy running more if you train yourself as opposed to staying in the meat-grinder, then do it. True, college running is once in a lifetime, and it can be a great experience, and you'll probably miss the team aspect and the collegiate racing, but you can't have everything. Just depends on what you want to ultimately get out of the sport and what's most important to you. Just my two cents.

I ran almost exactly these same times within 3 months during college (4:33 and 9:03 indoors then 15:38 outdoors). They are also almost the exact same VDOT according to Daniels. By the way, you'd split 9:16 to hit 15:40.-quote

I was under the assumption that the 15:40 was a XC time, which he later clarified was a track time, and I'm aware that if you even split, 9:05 doesn't equal 15:40, but it's certainly in the ball park, esp. in HS races where people tend to go out hard as hell and hang on for life the last mile.

It may not be the case with this guy, but every state has a few courses that are notoriously short, or you have kids that run mediocre times, but because they're from a poor conference they get these inflated senses of competence...they think since 4:30/2:05 was dominant where they were in HS, it will translate into college, so they go to a big school, and get a rough reality check. His story had some similarities was all I was trying to point out.

hey man. Just want to say I totally feel you on this one. I am also at the back of the pack, but at a D III school. My times aren't comparable to those most people here ran in high school. I am not going to win any competitions, and my coaches are fairly incompetent. I go to a really academic school, though, so know that none of us prioritize running. If they started being hardasses, we'd all quit. So overall they're pretty laissez-faire. They offer a few kids monitoring but for most of us, if we don't actively try to get their attention, they give very little guidance.

I have found this works really well for me. For my freshman and sophomore years (I'm a rising senior), I frequently asked them for advice and guidance. Then I started to notice that they weren't producing good results for either me or anyone else. Our best runner, someone who was an all-american indoors, did soccer in the fall. Everyone else sees to get injured, peak at the wrong time, or simply not perform to their potential. Obviously we don't really know, but our head coach is often very inattentive to details so he misses a lot, details that I think we who run as a group each day notice.

I have thought about quitting as well. Frustrations with the coaching are secondary, for me, to the lack of time I have for other things and some unrelated frustrations with running as a whole. But I've decided to stick it out,for a few reasons. Running on the team provides structure to my life. Exercise makes me feel good. And, in an important way, I value the team and it members. They are my best friends.

So I run for my own enjoyment. I don't particularly care about how well the team does (which is good because we just got in last at our very uncompetitive conference anyway). I also do not seek out the coaches any more than absolutely necessary, and they reciprocate by basically leaving me to my own devices. They plan Tuesday and Thursday workouts and that's about it. You can probably create a similarly inattentive relationship with your own coach, taking increasing charge of your own training. My advice is to not quit the team because you'll lose a lot, but rather to change your expectations of what the team can provide you. Take running seriously: your coach, not so much.

P.S. you don't by any chance run at Liberty do you? If so, your post name was perhaps an undiplomatic choice.

There was an interesting discussion between Cabral and Hadd I believe about 2 different kinds of runners (simplified but trustworthy explanation in my experience). I have a coach that is very considerate but then let a militaristic runner from the 70's who had never coached (but who was very good himself and passionate about the sport) start to coach us basically. We did all of his workouts and began to run very fast in practice but not so much in races. After being injured for 5 months after that program I began to train myself, I broke all of my PR's and en-routed a 10k PR in a half marathon (back to back 32:xx). I was enjoying it much more being by myself on those tempo runs and found my passion for running again.

I felt like I lost a lot of time with the philosophy of running at my college program, but it wasn't the worst thing ever. I hung in there for the remainder of my years in the NCAA and enjoyed helping my team with points in both cross counry and track. The militaristic coach came and went.

I think that you can get faster training yourself because it will be on your own time, but I think that you can also work around the system so that you are applying some of the principles that you know. Stick with the team, you won't regret it, but no one can control your body when you are running workouts, just listen to it run the basic structures of the workouts but tweak it a little bit.

Best of luck to you.

More important than the program/training that you are given is that you WORK HARD and are CONSISTENT with your training. Not every training program is scientifically sound.

For example, in a recent issue of Running Times, there was an article about a Japanese marathoner who was running mid-2:30's for a marathon at age 60. When asked about his training, he said that he would do 5x1000 cutdown @ marathon pace twice a day with a long warmup and cooldown. Same thing, every day, no days off. Now according to Daniel's/Lydiard/etc., that program should not deliver any positive results. But if you look at from a different perspective, he gets about 20 miles/day in with 10k @ marathon pace. And it works! He is the world record holder in the 60-64 age group and has put up extremely consistent results (a string of 2:3X marathons).

All I'm trying to say is that the training system doesn't have to make perfect scientific sense in order for it to work for you.

Instead of quitting the team, you should refocus and re-energize your training, starting with the summer. Several months of CONSISTENT HARD TRAINING will do wonders for you.

If a workout doesn't make sense do you, do it anyways. Make it work for you. Even if its not the workout you want to be doing, it will still give you benefits.

hold the phone wrote:

the precise details of workouts are a very minor component of running success. Working hard (which you can control), staying healthy (which you can control) and attitude (which you can control) are the keys.

It's always nice to find a gem like this on the message boards.

I was in your shoes once. I totally disagreed whith how the coach did things. I was on a 75% ride with the promise of a full ride if I qualified to nationals. After my 1st year when I was either hurt or ran these killer workouts but then was horrible when it mattered I finally accepted that I would not get to nationals under that coach.

I transferred to a smaller school (still D1 and ironically a a program that had a stellar distance history as in D1 cross and track champions and names that are always mentioned in the same sentence's as people like Pre). I never did make it to nationals, but I never regret leaving the 1st school.

So I would tell you to look elsewhere into other programs even D2. Don't coach yourself and give up the opportunity to race at the NCAA level. Get yourself to another school and you will learn to love your new team and still get the awesome opportunity to compete in the collegiate system.

Good Lucit

If your coach is as bad as our's was...you could do what we did....GET YOUR COACH FIRED!

Bro, your coach, and his workouts almost look the same as OHIO STATE. What conference are you in

Your coach will continue overtraining you. And yes, you should leave. Most D-1 coaches are recruiters, not coaches.

dsrunner

dsrunner@juno.com

If I were you I would quit the team and focus more on road races and do a marathon at some point. I was a D1 runner and wish I had done this. Sure, it's good to be on a team, but let's face it distance runners tend to be pretty weird. You'll get laid a lot more joining some kind of co-ed soccer league or something.

Get used to running doubles and just enjoy running and putting in the mileage. I think most D1 runners would be better off doing this than hammering themselves to death on the track all the time, which is what many coaches have their runners do in the NCAA. Hammering yourself on the track to run a 14:20 5k is a waste of time. 14:20 sucks in the grand scheme of things. Marathon running and road races you can really enjoy into your 40's without doing shitloads of stuff on the track.

Hahaha, thanks but I currently don't have a ton of problems getting laid.

If I were in some way to not be on the team in the future, I would start off doing something similar to your suggestion. I'd focus on running more miles with much more doubling while still being able to get in good quality work over all energy systems. I mean, I'm still young, I just turned 19, so I would probably stick to the 3k-10k on the track side of things for the duration of my college years, but having the high mileage (>90mpw)background would certainly help the transition to being able to run a competitive half/full marathon out of college. My highest ever week has been 82, but my highest consistent mileage total has only been around 70.

For now I'm gonna man up and really go after the XC season. Maybe I'll check back in on this thread in the fall to let yall know how it plays out? Actually I will definitely do that, I didnt expect many responses but you guys had a lot of honest insight so I'll be sure to validate your advice and experience.

Again, thanks so much for the responses

Happy Running

dont throw that stone wrote:

Hold on a second. Eddy Lee's coach took him from 4:16.6 in 2007 to 4:01.4 in 2009. Give the man his due.

Eddy was a sophomore in COLLEGE running 4:16 ... he would have improved over TWO track seasons to 4:01 on any terrible, counterproductive program ... and he did!

BTW, he is supposed to race tomorrow ... we shall see how training on his own has served him.

Liberty Hound,

If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would have quit during my sophmore year. I came in as a 24:30-25:30 8K runner as a freshman based mostly on my training during the summer and I never beat that again. I stuck it out even though the hand writing was on the wall that the coach/s were beyond crap. All I got out of sticking it out was frustration and injuries. Some of those injuries remain with me 15 years later. Life is too short to take abuse by no nothing abusive coaches who could care less about your future. You can join a club and get the team experience there as well as control your training. NCAA D1 is not the end of the world. Nobody will give a shit that you ran NCAA D1 10 years from now, so just enjoy yourself and focuss on what is best for you.

First of all, why would you ask letsrun for advice, we really don't give a shit what you choose, it's a personal decision. Yeah, if you had a decent IQ it would not be hard to realize that other people have no clue what means more to you, let alone people in the online community.

Second, posting this on letsrun is very unprofessional and will not solve anything rather it will just make matters worse.

Third, your a division 1 runner and you run 15:40 and 9:05, is this a joke? Sorry to break it to you but you are not going to make it anywhere post collegiate running 15:40's and should therefore move on to other things in life and keep running as a social component.

So, my advice this is your own damn problem and you should be able to figure out this shit by yourself. Never post anything of this nature on letsrun again, we dont give a shit. Really would you ever post anything on here asking for peoples advice on whether you should have sex with your sister or your brother, no, therefore do not ever post anything of that nature on here again.

"know-nothing"

"be-all end-all"

"focus"

There is no such thing as a good college coach. None of them know the difference between there ass and a hole in the ground. After Hart and McDonald left that was it. Don't let these talentless pussies tell you what to do. You are definitely right to train yourself. College track is all about running faster than the metro next to you. Do what you need to do brother.