Top California runner quits track team because the new coach made the team run less than 10 miles a week

luv2run wrote:

Just sayin it wrote:

Oh, man, what time machine did they get this new coach out of?

I had a track coach in high school, in NorCal, that would show up to practice with a stopwatch around his neck, a mug of coffee in his left hand, and a cigarette in his right.

Splits were called out of one side of his mouth, while the cigarette was held in the other.

I kid you not.

Was he a good coach? I recall sitting with some old timers that talked about all the Soviet bloc coaches drank and smoked.

He was a nice guy. He didn't know much about training, but that was common in the day.

A year later we got a coach who had been a runner in college and he knew more...but both of them gave us way-y too much recovery time between intervals and sets. But with the second coach my times went from 5:20 to 4:20 in a year. I ended up with every school record from the 440 to the 3 mile. ...As a miler with no real sprint or speed training I was totally shocked to discover I could and did run down the school record holder in the 440 and broke 50 on a dirt track, lol.

We ended up having a top regional 4x4 team, I started out as the weak link on that team and ended up the anchor. I had an insatiable desire to win.

Went to college and was literally shocked by how hard the workouts were and how short the recovery time was.

Expert Coach wrote:

8 miles a week is plenty! My team has won conference title after title only running 8 miles each week. Here is our weekly breakdown.

Sunday- Long Run 3.1 miles

Monday- Easy recovery .5 miles.

Tueday- 400 meter repeats 2x400 with 1 minute rest inbetween.

Wednesay- Rest Day

Thursday- 2 Mile Tempo Run

Friday- 1 Mile timed speed run.

Satuday- easy recovery 1 mile.

Using this tactic your distance athletes on your team can help you achieve title after title like ours has in the Louisiana Swamp League.

You are stupid.

OK, so I've read the whole thread and have some questions and comments.

1. Why was the former coach fired?

2. It would seem that the new XC coach was basically driven out of the job because the old coach still had influence on the athletes. My suspicion is that the athlete contract was implemented due to what occured in the fall.

3. 8 miles is certainly not enough BUT .......

4. 80-90 miles a week for a high school girl? I'm a proponent of high mileage, but I'm sorry .... that's nuts. To my mind, that MIGHT be a mileage total you'd be shooting for your senior year in college.

5. A game sport coach needs autonomy in order to get the group to perform tactically. If a high school coach in an individual sport does not develop a mutual decision making process with his athletes you will not maiximize performance. Having said that, the acidic situation at this school may have driven the current coaches to become autocratic.

quote]JohnnyO wrote:

In defense of the new coach, he's probably trying to prevent burnout. These HS programs running more than 30+ mpw are just asking for long term problems.[/quote]

what a horrible uninformed statement.

I'm a high school coach and I've run a pretty good program during my 7 years of coaching with my boys team finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, and 15th in the State CC meet. I believe in high mileage, but I believe it has to be a progression. I rarely have any injuries and have the future of my runners in mind. The girls coach hammers his runners, no recovery days, and mileage is nearly the same as the boys. Although they make it to State, the highest they've finished is 7th and they always have an abundance of injuries. The top girl on the team has a private coach who also has this "hard training" philosophy and recently started coaching her younger brother who is a sophomore and runs for me. This past week, he told me that he does not want to do what the rest of my runners are doing because he doesn't agree with it, he thinks I'm an idiot, and he wants to do what his coach wants and what his sister does. I will not compromise and I will not run him in a varsity race until he runs with the team. He is not even the top runner on my team and is only in his second year of running. Am I in the wrong?

As an earlier poster stated (luv2run?), this is symptomatic of the problems when school coaching predominates over club coaching. What coach in their right mind assigns training based on a group dynamic. Everyone is an individual and should be treated as such, or please don't coach, you aren't competent enough.

As to the former coach. These kids aren't on scholarship (as in a College setting), they didn't fire the previous coach (presumably) and so should have a choice as to who they choose to influence them, without recrimination. Sometimes American society is worse than any socialist/communist one could be - as in this situation. This is the kid's running careers we're talking about here, the coach can screw up any numbers of people, but the athletes have only one career.

As to the mileage for this individual - perhaps on the extreme side, but again perhaps this is the groundwork for this individual to develop to their potential. Too often Americans complain that foreigners must be on drugs to beat them, and yet certainly some African women do higher mileage quite young - the potential danger (other than injury) is that the athlete might shorten their career. So what, maybe they want to peak at 25, and not continue on until their 30's. Shouldn't that be their choice - as long as informed choices are presented to them.

A couple of facetious (8mile/week program) posts made me laugh, and definitely there is little mention of the physiological variables (LT,VO2max, etc.) involved in training that are actually more important than the authority of a coach. Rather hypocritical for a society that seems to pride itself on the value of the individual and democratic rights of said individual.

Someone mentioned Pete Tegan - to some (Suzy F for example) he was great, to others he was an asshole who ruined their College and sport experienece (I personally know of a some). This is part and parcel of the College "scholarship" experience. He is by no means the only coach with this disparate affect on athletes - one of the problems with scholarship/sport development processes, is that not everyone is on the same page when it comes to athletic developnment, and the athlete is too often in a poor situation (almost as indentured servitude - see tripling at conference meets) for their own personal development in the sport. The price is that they can get a free (or significantly subsidized anyway) education out of it. This isn't the ideal model upon which to lay a sport development process.

innocent standing by... wrote:

all the replies to this post....how come none of you referenced the energy systems that need to be trained? How come none of you reference different methods and theories related to this issue?? No talk of lactic threshold, special endurance, red blood cell count related to VO2 and what type of training increases that...

There is absolutely no scientific arguements in any of your posts...so all of you subscribe to the common MISconception of "if I don't win...run more, then run more again..."

and what does it get you??

What does it get you? How about big PRs?

There is no replacement for mileage.

There was more than one reason why the former coach was fired... one was that he yelled at an athlete who reported it to authorities (there is sketchiness on this one) and the other is that he ran an ineligible athlete in a race.

And it's your attitude that is the reason why American distance running isn't good. Sure, for some people (okay, most people) it is too much but if someone like Petersen can do it without having problems and consistently improving, then go for it. To have a mileage "cut off" is stupid.

To everyone on here, there is no argument here. Eight miles is just stupid. It doesn't matter what the plans of the team are. Eight miles is just stupid. There is no reason for a limit of Eight miles. We are talking about Eight miles. That's just over one mile a day. Eight miles. Eight miles. Please let that sink in. Eight miles.

uhhhh?? wrote:

There was more than one reason why the former coach was fired... one was that he yelled at an athlete who reported it to authorities (there is sketchiness on this one) and the other is that he ran an ineligible athlete in a race.

And it's your attitude that is the reason why American distance running isn't good. Sure, for some people (okay, most people) it is too much but if someone like Petersen can do it without having problems and consistently improving, then go for it. To have a mileage "cut off" is stupid.

No, it's not my attitude why "American distance running isn't good". I'm a a proponent of high mileage, but even more so of "right" mileage. As a high school coach my job is, in part, to hand off an athlete to a college coach who will hopefully then build off of the mileage done in high school. You have to have somewhere to go, so to speak, to be able to continue to improve in college and beyond. When you start to do the math for eight more years of milegage increases, the numbers start to become somewhat staggering for a female distance runner.

And let's talk "time on feet." I coach HS boys, and have had boys run between 80 and 90/week as well. Let's do some quick math .... let's say this girl runs 45 seconds per mile slower on average per mile than a boy of comparable ability ... not a stretch. That puts the girl between 90 and 100 miles/week. Now, I'm not her coach, maybe she can handle that and still look at maybe hammering 140/week someday. But I still have to wonder if her past "coach" wasn't more worried about his program's success rather than his athletes overall, career development. Just my three cents worth .....

innocent standing by... wrote:

all the replies to this post....how come none of you referenced the energy systems that need to be trained? How come none of you reference different methods and theories related to this issue?? No talk of lactic threshold, special endurance, red blood cell count related to VO2 and what type of training increases that...

There is absolutely no scientific arguements in any of your posts...so all of you subscribe to the common MISconception of "if I don't win...run more, then run more again..."

and what does it get you??

PRs and medals.

There's a lot of places you can go besides just increasing mileage too. There are a lot of other things to work on.

gv10k wrote:

makes kids sign a contract stating among other things that they won't go and do (more intelligent) training on their own outside of practice

A contract with a minor is unenforceable.

Is there ever going to be a resolution to this..

How so? Just how is this a horrible, uniformed statement? Regardless, I stand by my statement.

Well it does say for 2 weeks only. Even elite runners have a few weeks off per year. You would really need to know more about it to see what's really going on

JohnnyO wrote:

In defense of the new coach, he's probably trying to prevent burnout. These HS programs running more than 30+ mpw are just asking for long term problems.

You are probably a troll, but the general point is believed by many people. But do you ever hear of anyone accusing the basketball, football, soccer, or wrestling coaches of burning out their athletes because they make them practice hard for hours every single day, and often from elementary school? Why should running be any different?

8 MILES IS PLENTY FOR HIGH SCHOOL.

YOU RUNNING F****** THINK YOU ARE COOL RUNNING 100 MILES?

NO ONE CARES!!!!!!! GET LIVES!!

And the hits just keep coming......