Are coaches pointless in track and field?

About time this lame troll gets banned from here.

david45 wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

Coaches serve as much point in t&f as they do in other sports. In fact, its absolutely essential that beginners learn the fundamentals from a good coach in xc and track because there is so much misinformation out there. How to run fastest is not obvious, thats why even 100 years after establishment of the sport world and national records are still falling. You would benefit tremendously from working with a knowledgeable coach David and your dissatisfaction with your success is very likely due to you never having had one.

Like what misinformation exists?

runnersworld offers advice on how to finish a run of a various length. Following their training programs may not even get a below average responder to the finish line of a marathon. I also see a lot of bad advice on r/running and r/advancedrunning as well.

Hey there, I'm not David, I'm not JS, I'm not a regular poster. I realize many of you consider the OP to be the biggest time-wasting troll in existence, but unlike Greg, he posts about running...

So, I thought I'd weigh in. I agree with the clown in this case. I am either self-coached or uncoached (not sure if there's a difference) and was also when I was 14. Now, I don't have any World Records, so you may say I'm leaving talent on the table, but I really think I've been able to get pretty close to my potential. My ultimate potential may not be any better than a lot of people's, so let me be crystal clear: no one claims I am the world's greatest runner.

Let's go back to my youth. This may not be saying a whole lot, but I was easily the best distance runner in my school district. Like any other random high school, being the best there is not to say one is breaking national records. But it IS saying something. Distance (I mean actual long-distance here as opposed to mid-D) running was very popular at the time and this was a real running area. It still is. (When I have run on my old grounds in recent years I have run into pro and semi-pro runners onthe trail. ) Half a dozen guys from school racing on a given weekend, going for my 10k record would not have been strange. 4 of us running the same marathon (all driven by my dad, frequently) would have been normal.

So I DID have guys to train with and push me in select workouts, (and, of course, we chased each other's race times) but 90% of my training was alone. Nevertheless, we were all uncoached or self-coached. I was under the impression that this was normal at the time. I STILL think it was common then, although I'm not sure teens running on their own exist anymore. Guys like Tinman (or even JS) didn't seem to exist in the pre-internet era back then. Quite frankly, none of could have afforded anything like that anyway. And I have to say, all that worked out perfectly!

Fast forward a few decades - even if David IS 45, I'm no longer in his age group - and I still train without a coach. Now, so do most of you at my age, so that's unremarkable. It's early in you 'career' that many of you say coaching is necessary. I disagree. I never have wished I had one, and with the internet these days, I sort of have guys like Canova to advise me. Most of you will disagree or even more strongly oppose what I'm writing. Here's why:

First of all, essentially all of you (I'm guessing, but from years of reading threads including this one, it seems a safe bet) were coached in high school and usually for several years thereafter. You did it right. To do otherwise is wrong. And you have numbers on your side - or so it seems, since you'd be hard-pressed to fill a list of American pros who did not have anything to do with their school's official teams. Look beyond US borders and you'll see a parade of medal winners and record holders who didn't. Your beloved coach who taught you everything you know did not help Geb get to the highest of highs.

Second, unless many of you are intentionally misleading as a way of bragging, you coach. On some threads, I'll go so far as to say most posters claim to coach. This one is close to that. 'I got 3 runners to the NCAA,' for example. Just slipping in 'my athletes' into a sentence is par for the course - bragging that you coach without really saying much about it. If 'your runners' realized you don't actually make them faster, you'd be superfluous and out of a job. This is why you oppose the very concept of a thread like this; it is an acknowledgement that you are unnecessary.

Nutsack McGee wrote:

david45 wrote:

How is that relevant? Besides, plenty of people in high school make fun of gays. That is just high school.

I tuned out of David45 posts for a couple days because they were getting a little too redundant. Can someone catch me up on where this development is coming from?

I remember many weeks ago the David45 character was upset about missing out on pasta parties with hot XC boys, so this seems like an interesting plot twist.

I never said anything about "hot XC boys". I just said I miss the possible fun that comes from pasta parties. I also just said people make fun of gays in high school.

Nutsack McGee wrote:

david45 wrote:

How is that relevant? Besides, plenty of people in high school make fun of gays. That is just high school.

I tuned out of David45 posts for a couple days because they were getting a little too redundant. Can someone catch me up on where this development is coming from?

I remember many weeks ago the David45 character was upset about missing out on pasta parties with hot XC boys, so this seems like an interesting plot twist.

It came from his thread entitled "What's It Like To Run In NXR"

Someone accused him of making anti-Black, pro-communist and homophobic comments.

Here is what he said at one point on Reddit.

"I don't like gays, I am not gay, and I will never be gay."

There is another a little further down in the thread that I don't want to dignify with posting here.

You can read it all for yourself.

Because I am sick and tired of gay rumors against me in HS

maybe you didn't run for a competitive team in hs or college but when it comes down to championship season and your team is serious abut winning, a good coach will spend hours going over possible scenarios that other teams could run and how to best utilize their runners to maximize the chance of winning. they are definitely necessary on the team level, and on the individual level some other people have already made compelling points

david45 wrote:

In other sports, coaches are important for planning in the game and all sorts of other things. In running, coaches just tell you what training to do. Such training can be done by the athlete themselves without a coach. So, are coaches pointless in running?

Dave, your life is really a pit isn't it? THIS is what you get off on, trying to be popular on a website by asking moronic questions day after day after day after day...congrats, you've really figured out the secret of life. Pathetic 45 year old man.

Foolish disrespectful question. What’s wrong with people? Virtually every track n field Olympian since long before you asked a mean question has had a coach.

Actually, yes, compared to other sports you can get away without having a coach in track.

I coached myself for a year in my prime.

And I coached myself before ever going out for track in the first place.

You do need a coach to be part of a school track team.

You clearly don't know what all a coach actually does, so here is what track coaches do and why they are not pointless:

-As you mentioned they plan workouts. Good coaches actually understand the physiology behind training and put a lot of effort into write good training plans designed to get athletes to peak at the right time. Yes, you could read a book and possibly get good results, but a good coach will write plans customized for their specific athletes and circumstances which you can't get from a book. Good coaches also have developed the art of coaching and know which adjustments to make and when. Majority of high school and college track athletes do not have an adequate background to be able to do this effectively. Most of those that do have some understanding of this, learned it from their coaches.

-Coaches have to motivate their teams to come together and perform their best when it counts and get them in that right mind set. This includes both helping pick people up when they're down and also channel energy when people might be overpsyched. They also help manage team relations and personal issues on the team. The right approach is different for each person.

-Coaches manage the team. This includes strategically designing the schedule, gathering meet information, signing up for meets, paying entry fees, communicating information to the team and in some cases parents as well, some will manage team websites, manage the captains, awards banquets, plan meal stops or order/purchase food for meets that require that, book travel arrangements including buses and hotels when required, communicate with athletic trainers and athletic directors, organize and manage fundraising in some cases, hire and manage assistant coaches, manage equipment and uniform inventory and order new stuff when required (which often includes purchase forms and approvals etc)

-Coaches manage skill sessions as well. In track and field there is more than just running. Field events need a well trained coach to plan both workouts and skill sessions and give feedback on the athlete's technique. This requires being able to spot what is right or wrong in each performance and give feedback in an effective way that the athletes will be able to use to make adjustments. They have to be clear without overwhelming them with too much feedback at once. This is harder than it sounds and takes practice. Even for running events, coaches should be giving technique feedback or incorporating some drills and stuff to work on running form, starts for sprinting, or relay handoffs.

-If your team does weight lifting, so athletic associations or schools have rules that a certified weight lifting coach must be present to supervise. In some cases, this may be your coach with the certification allowing the team to lift at at that time.

-Coaches make strategic game time decisions. This includes things like deciding the best relay order and which athletes to use in the relays, deciding which athletes to put in which events to score the more points, and giving feedback during events to help get the best out of athletes. Having a second set of eyes to tell you someone is sitting on you waiting to kick or closing hard on you can be helpful when you're racing and can't see behind you.

-Good coaches serve as mentors for athletes that help teach them things that go beyond sports and prepare them for later in life. In the cases of youth sports, the coaches also provide supervision to athletes when parents aren't there.

-Some high school coaches will help walk their athletes who wish to compete in college through the recruiting process. In the case of college coaches, recruiting is 50% or more of their job and the reason you have a team each year and the coach keeps their job. Recruiting in itself involves identifying prospective recruits and getting their contact info, sending thousands of emails or letters to prospects, following up with interested recruits, making lots of phone calls to high schoolers, going to high school meets, communicating with admissions, assisting with admissions process, marketing team to recruits, and organizing recruit visits.

All of this stuff takes a lot of time and effort and requires knowledge and specific skills to do it well and thus why coaches are needed. Yes, you can coach yourself and some people will do okay that way, but having a coach certainly helps and track coaches do as much work as any other coach.

Yes. Coaches are entirely pointless. Rupp, Duplantis, and Christian Taylor all would have achieved the same levels of success if they were self-coached. Next question.

In all seriousness, I believe that if you know what you're doing, the benefits of a coach will be fairly minimal. A bad coach will make you worse, and a good one may turn you from a 14:30 guy to a 14:15 guy, but it wouldn't make a major difference.

I train by myself, and mostly I am happy with the sessions I do alone. But sometimes I unintentionally bang out a rep too fast or too slow, since I'm only human. I often think that if I'd had a coach present while I was running that rep, they'd have told me to slow down/speed up and I could've had a slightly better session.

david45 wrote:

In other sports, coaches are important for planning in the game and all sorts of other things. In running, coaches just tell you what training to do. Such training can be done by the athlete themselves without a coach. So, are coaches pointless in running?

No. Having seen a team fail to place because they didn’t enter the events correctly, I would say a coach can directly impact the outcome of a season. Also, having seen teams make questionable decisions about relay teams, same answer.

Serious Guy wrote:

In all seriousness, I believe that if you know what you're doing, the benefits of a coach will be fairly minimal. A bad coach will make you worse, and a good one may turn you from a 14:30 guy to a 14:15 guy, but it wouldn't make a major difference.

I train by myself, and mostly I am happy with the sessions I do alone. But sometimes I unintentionally bang out a rep too fast or too slow, since I'm only human. I often think that if I'd had a coach present while I was running that rep, they'd have told me to slow down/speed up and I could've had a slightly better session.

The average runner will never be a 14:30 guy. The high school freshman who wants to get from 20:00 to 16:30 so that he can go to state may benefit greatly from having a competent coach. Just having a program that you believe in and a mentor that believes in you can be invaluable.

You are the worst person on these boards. So freaking annoying.

Damn it, you're right! I'll never coach again. Instead, I'll brag about my long gone glory days as a high school runner on an internet forum. If you're that good, get your ass down to the local high school and see if they have room for a volunteer distance coach. You might find, as I do, that there is value in helping young people to find their potential. And yes, I get a great deal of satisfaction from seeing one of my kids go on to run in college. Is there something wrong with that?

The best part of having a coach is that you have someone who stands next to you who understands the work, understands the struggle, and (hopefully) supports you and your goals wholeheartedly. A coach should be an extension of your support network. Imo I think a good coach makes a much larger positive impact on their athletes mentally and psychologically than they do with regards to what results athletes post.

Any coach is pointless, if their athletes are unwilling to follow their wise prescriptions.

David, like I said, spend the summer RUNNING, not posting about it online, and then we might see some progress. Your mother is in the loop on this.