high school xc coach wrote:
A lot of what's changed over the past 10 years, as Magness said, there used to be a few good coaches. athletes lucky enough to get them could run near their ability level. Call it maybe 5 or 10%. In 2026, most coaches know how to use the internet. There is more coaching info out than ever. There are probably 10x as many capable coaches as there were even 10-15 years ago, so 10x as many kids getting opportunities to train properly.
And I also think more kids are going to bigger and more competitve invites than ever. 15 years ago, everything was local. Now EVERYBODY is travelling 5 to 10 hours to face approprite competition. pushing expectations and results higher than ever.
Coaching in the 00s was so easy. Just do whatever you have to do to bribe your kids to run over the summer. Most XC kids didn't.
Kids train so much more now, and they're a flywheel effect because there's enough of a critical mass to make it social. Lately I see groups of high school runners out on trails constantly, all year, at all times of day.
I also think there's been a cultural shift around wellness. Gen Z is seriously concerned with sleep, diet, alcohol, etc. I think a downstream effect of that is that it has normalized endurance training. I was talking to my younger cousin who is just graduating from college, and he said half the football team goes running in the morning a few times a week. They don't even see it as "conditioning." They just think, "I'm an adult human being, so I should get at least some aerobic exercise." I went to the same college as him, and I promise you, I never once saw a football player going for a sustained run of longer than 100 yards.
