What do D1 coaches look for in athletes other than their mileage?

What do you mean by under the hood? Is this like aerobic engine?

Who knows, that was the most unintelligible word salad I've ever read.

A nice personality, a sense of humor, and someone that likes dancing and long walks on the beach? Loves dogs and treats his mother respectfully?

where'd you go to college, it wasn't that hard to get.

there is objective stuff, time, finish place, how far you progress, and if they watch tape or see you live, the sort of racecraft of the performance.

there is subjective stuff, or stuff on which coaches disagree, or stuff where the same "nugget" might be taken in opposite directions.

mileage is in box 2, the subjective box. i've seen people mileage makes fast, or slow, or healthy, or broken. so in reality they might circle back around to the OBJECTIVE results of that work. i've heard of coaches viewing undertrained as unspoiled and healthy, i've seen them say i don't trust that he won't be soft.

box 1 you can control. your times are your times. coaches respond accordingly.

box 2 you can't control and it might have perverse results. you think the fashion show portion wants miles. the coach you're talking to doesn't care, or maybe even likes them underworked. guy down the street maybe doesn't trust them unless they did miles. since you can't predict which, you might as well focus on whatever approach gets you the fastest time and best finishes -- box 1. because box 2 is a crapshoot.

in soccer terms, in HS i won some personal honors and 2 club state titles. i worked on my game. however, i came out of a particular scheme where people who played my position played it a particular way -- more defensive. this bothered coaches who wanted defenders who took offensive risks. but it appealed to coaches who wanted pure defense.

the OP is trying to pretend mileage is key to reaching a coach when it's highly subjective how it's received. in other words, not a particularly predictable or useful aspect to focus on. you're better off doing whatever makes you faster meet day. and if that approach makes you more or less attractive to a coach, is what it is. if you are good enough at your job, at some point in the pecking order, you will find coaches who like how good you are at that function, and stylistically see it your way. like will find like.

in which case, do what makes sense to you, assuming it works, and assuming it's a respected school of thought, and you will find your tribe. only a clown or sheer follower does miles because he thinks coaches want miles. what you do is do whatever makes you fastest and that's going to attract your best crowd anyway.

i mean, my experience was tons of mileage made me sick and slower. last thing some HS kid needs to hear is ignore that you're getting slow because the "college coach will be so impressed with how far you run." sure, whatever.

my recruiting experience was the better you are for the place, the more they are selling you, the worse position you are, you're explaining yourself, you're putting on a show at a game or meet they scout. think about which one might get nitpicked about "under the hood." the sub 4 kid everyone wants. or the 4:15 kid begging to walk on.

only a certain stickler type is turning down the fastest kids because they don't seem prepared for some training concept. i found the opposite. they might adjust the program your direction. i mean, my college soccer coach soph year adopted the system i played in club.

this also underlines my belief, expressed in the other thread, that you should aim to be one of the better players, offered the most incentives to go to your school choice, as opposed to be the weakest walkon at the best school, where you are in a submissive role, and either sink or swim doing exactly what the coach wants.

the broader implication here, is when you are in a more servile situation recruiting wise, and you're trying to appeal with vague subjective stuff, it might come down to unpredictable crud like does the coach like your training or not. but ideally you have done better and they simply want you for objective success -- times, places. only a silly person aims to be in a weak position begging based on how hard a worker they are. but do continue selling it.

plain. and. simple.

lol You didn't understand what the point of my post was if you think I'm saying that... you wrote an entire essay based on something I never said.

Times are all that matters. Mileage is irrelevant.

i'm trying to decide whether you're just being one of those posters who throws up malarkey then fights with people for pages about anything they say.

your original post listed a bunch of tertiary subjective crap whose importance (a) reflects you have screwed up on the objective primary factors and (b) are walk on material begging your way on a team by trying to tell the coach how big a leader and prototype body and hard worker you are -- when you are gunning for a walkon slot which will at least initially be a follower slot.

it's like you're being deliberately obtuse or argumentative. common sense is run fast. common sense is place high. the fastest runners are going to be second guessed on training by very few coaches. or it will be anecdotal. or as i hinted at on soccer, they might even bend their program to you. you want to be in the power spot.

as a sprinter/hurdler, not a darned person ever looked under the hood and asked me about workouts. this is a fetish argument of walkon level distance runners. maybe if i run mileage sensei will notice me. it's inherently servile and tertiary. but by all means, mock anyone who disagrees.

My god. How don't you get it?

Do you think that a 4:10 miler who played soccer through his sophomore year, didn’t run indoor either, so who only began running year-round as a junior at a ‘random’ school has the same upside as a 4:08 miler who ran youth track and attends peak Loudoun Valley or Newbury Park? Do you not think coaches know HS powerhouse schools?

Yes. Coaches love powerhouses like Newbury Park..They are afraid of kids who didn't take running seriously. They lose interest. They get injured. They quit. They aren't dedicated.

Well... yes... the every coach is looking for 'talent' but I hate to say it no one can accurately define objectively what talent is and even if you were able to give me some objective measures the most obvious of which would be times/PRs... i can sit here and list exceptions to your list .

btw, having grit and determination is a talent... I can list you several kids i ran with (and those I coached) who had some type of talent who didn't have a work ethic and weren't very tough... the other talents they possessed only carried them so far

you say grit and determination can change in college... sure it can but a kid with 'talent' can also get into other things in college...

yep we are all looking for talent... whatever that is...

I want kids who want to win more than I do... i want a kid with some sort of leg speed... a kid who is tough and works his/her butt off... a kid who doesn't shy away from an opportunity... someone who will embrace the opportunity... who isn't afraid of what happens if they don't win... someone who believes in themselves... sure I look at times too... and maybe ask about mileage but unless they are doing some crazy amount of mileage in HS i'm not super concerned...

(And one thing I avoid are kids from those super/over the top successful HSs with the overbearing coaches who fry the kid in HS for their own personal glory.)

btw, there is lots of jibberish in this thread and this was my jibberish. :)

Stop posting under multiple different names, Moran

My 1st post in the thread. You were reported.

dude, i explained it multiple times.

(1) it's not just "talk about mileage," it's to do that you'd have to "do the mileage."

(2) "doing the mileage" has varying results. some get faster. some break down and get slower. some get fitter. some get hurt or sick.

(3) and then likewise "talking about mileage" has varying results. i agree that some coaches might seek out the faster kid who had trained less. but i disagree that the coach down the street, unless the kid is very fast, might only want kids who train heavy.

my point is that unlike running the actual time, the training method is inconsistent and has downside risk, and the idea of using it as a recruiting tool is inconsistent and has downside risk.

to repeat myself on the soccer thing, every coach i talked to was eager to hear about my state titles, international tournament experience, individual awards. that was objective catnip. when they would come watch me play, however, i had been trained up as a pure stay at home defender (though i did get a few goals and assists a year), and that channeled my appeal towards coaches who wanted to play defensive systems.

to me, this is not just that some coaches might ask you about training -- and the track coaches didn't ask the sprinters/hurdlers, to be clear -- it's that the more important part would be (a) how you actually did. progressed to state. ran x time.

(b) training programs in and of themselves are more likely to be used as tiebreakers among similar objective choices. or by highly particular coaches. your own post essentially admits we're already comparing times and HS programs before we ever even talk training.

at which point, do whatever works for you. the icky implication of the OP, to me, is one should reflexively do the mileage to impress sensei. before worrying about results. this is backwards. you go fast enough most coaches won't care. like i said, they will tend to care if you are in a precarious spot fighting to walk on. that is when all this tangential or usually subsumed character and personality "beauty pageant" stuff matters.

to remind folks, the other suggested items he thought coaches would look to were build (i buy some), leadership (not from a walkon), work ethic (meh).

my point is these are data points and not likely primary ones. and as i explained, some of the data points have contradictory or perverse results. you're missing my point that the guy who runs less mileage might be attractive to some coaches as the upside guy. the contradictions suggest that these tertiary subjective factors are coach-specific and the effectiveness depends who you talk to -- like me being more appealing to a defensive soccer system coach.

and bringing it back to the meta layer -- since i see this as not just a rhetorical discussion but implicit pressure for people to run more -- repeating myself, do whatever works and makes you faster. that will attract more coaches than mileage for the sake of saying you did mileage. if mileage works for you, great. but i also know i broke down doing mileage and kids routinely come on here discussing how to get recruited despite limited competition or missing seasons for injury.

so it's not just "rhetoric" but also "concrete payoff." and to me concrete results matter more. even in your theoretical comparison, the 4:08 or 4:10 kid is in that battle (a) because he aspires to a certain type of school where those times are marginal and (b) he did those marginal times for that school and not a 4-flat where anyone in the country wants him. and i realize that's harsh for a kid that fast, but my point is this subjective nonsense comes in more as you are in a less powerful position to get a scholarship, walk on, make the roster.

and i do think a lot of coaches recruit "types" for soccer or running.

i also think you missed my point about relative power and how recruiting goes. if the coach loves you, they do selling and they are more interested in you to connect and to sell, and your comments -- unless sending up a red flag -- are taken more as anecdotes about you and less as decisive data.

to me it's more when you are in a precarious spot, do i spend an admissions chit, does he get to walk on, that you the athlete have to sell yourself as opposed to be sold by the coach.

repeating myself, you run 4-flat, the coach is in love and wants to hear the stories as patter and engagement. and loves whatever answer you give. "wow, you run that little? amazing." but it's amazing because every school wants you.

my point is it starts really mattering when you're 4:10 at a great school or 4:20 at a weaker one, begging onto the team, and there are several like you, and it's which one, and since you're convincing them, mileage might matter one way or the other. along with a list of things. how tall, how built, their stride, etc. etc. and then as i said, the sales item is unpredictable. what impresses one might not another.

i think where the thread goes awry for me is it reeks a little of someone telling women, don't worry about if you have a pretty face or fun personality, what you need is silicone boobs, because "all" men like "big boobs." all men don't, and even though some do, they very well might prefer the more organic version of getting there, which you can't fake.

i buy this is a data point a distance runner might be asked to discuss. i think advising it as a training method is mixed bag. i think arguing it to get into a team is mixed bag. you can physically blow and never really get recruited, or do it from a weakened standpoint. and even if you come out healthy with solid times, you don't know how it plays out, what that coach in particular wants. so to the extent the meta argument buried under the question is, do i do mileage? the real answer is i dunno. you kind of have to do what the team does. after that, whatever works. and you should be prepared to discuss it and your work ethic, but with unpredictable meaning. in which case, no, i wouldn't hang my hat on my times are ok but my work ethic and leadership is special. especially when your initial job will be the weakest apprentice at the shop.

Good counterpoint to the point he was trying to make.

Furthermore how many super talented multi sport athletes just happen to run 410? 1 or 2 a year in the whole US? Yes coaches will take that athlete. And the 4:08 athlete as well.

Coaches aren't staying up fretting about whether any given athlete will run 359 or 355 when they aren't even running for the team yet.

Yes Lana, I'm aware of the meaning of the term of "running economy". To get my point across I conflated running economy and efficiency. Sorry to offend the technocrats.

Setting aside sprint speed, running fast over longer distances is a tremendous talent that is mostly innate but can be taught. I came from a HS program that did accomplished turning donkeys into race horses through mileage, commitment, and motivation. Most did not achieve the same level of success at the collegiate level - which should come as no surprise. Still, we all were better people by going through the process of achieving success in this sport.

When I squeezed in coaching middle school track in between my day jobs, I started out thinking that I could turn anyone into a successful mid distance/distance runner. I quickly found out that, in most cases, it was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

I migrated to a strategy of finding an event that fit their running efficiency (happy now?). Of course every runner starts out as a sprinter regardless of their talent. Any coach worth their salt can take an efficient runner and back fill it with economy if they have the right kind of athlete and properly place them in "their" event in track.

In cross country it's all about extracting competence without sacrificing the events they were born to run in track.

So I'm guessing because I don't know what collegiate coach's recruitment strategies are I would think that how well they cover ground would be an integral part of their process, ergo my response to the coach who mentioned mechanics.