How do I tell my high school coach his training is crap while trying to be nice? n(o he's not just doing for volunteer)
How do I tell my high school coach his training is crap while trying to be nice? n(o he's not just doing for volunteer)
What is the training so we can judge?
Whatever, I make more in most weeks in the stock market than I get for 6 months of coaching. For anything less than div 1 and some div 2 schools, it is basically volunteer.
I'm sure your 14-18 years of life experience have you knowing better. Good luck to all the bosses in your future life.
And given your vast knowledge, I'm shocked you came to an anonymous message board for advice. Surely, given how smart you are, you also know the answer to the simple question you posted.
You tell him by quitting, training yourself and become an Olympian.
Or what most do is pay to train with a private coach sprint coach who pitches they are experts but are worse than the coach the had.
You can't. It's like asking how you can tell your mother she's ugly, but in a nice way.
It is possible that there are severe flaws in your coach's training plan, but you need to think about why you feel it is necessary to share your opinion with him. What is your goal in doing so?
Attacking a person in a position of authority will normally put them in a defensive posture and is unlikely to result in them changing. If that's your goal, I would avoid criticism.
I've been involved with track and field for more than 40 years and can't think of any coaches who weren't interested in improving. It will serve you well to become a well-educated student of the sport and to share what you are learning, but do it as part of a dialogue where you are genuinely seeking to understand your coach's plan rather challenging it or disparaging it.
As much as you might think you know everything regarding running/training, you don't. No one does. The smartest and wisest people I know also tend to be the most humble.
The tone of your initial message lacked any sense of humility that will be necessary to broach this topic in a constructive manner with your coach. Hopefully, that's just because this is an anonymous messageboard, and it isn't the way you normally interact with your coach.
If your coach has a record of success, it may be that your impression of what's crap may be flawed...
Basic day of training if it's Race week Friday
Monday- .25wu, 6x800 @2:18-20 with 8min recovery, optional cd(I do like a mile)
Tuesday- 4miles moderate
Wednesday-3Miles
Thursday- 20mins and strides
Friday- Race
Saturday-off
Sunday off
I don't know what I should do. It's obvious that this isn't the most ideal training- We do the same things as the middle school and all the women on the team. Since covid has hit I have worked with a private coach and have gotten my times down a lot so it's tough on what to do...
,.................. wrote:
I'm sure your 14-18 years of life experience have you knowing better. Good luck to all the bosses in your future life.
I was not trying to come off arrogant I just know that it isn't the most ideal training style. Got two jobs rn and have never had a problem w any bosses ;)
While that's probably not ideal training, for a high schooler it's not that bad. There is some research that shows that 2 workouts in a row followed by 2 recovery days is beneficial. Just do some extra work on your own and you'll be fine. Defini
Accidentally hit post before I finished.
Definitely don't take both Saturday and Sunday off either.
That Monday workout is pointless. 8 minutes recovery between reps?!
Yeah it’s not ideal training, but you’re stuck with it for now.
Make sure you do the Monday workout hard. With 8 minutes recovery you should be trying to run these at 95% of your 1500m pace. If the workout is in the morning I would do a run later in the evening. Make it a big day. If the workout is in the evening, then do 3-5 miles in the morning.
Wednesday I would do some longer strides after the 3 mile run like 4-6 x 200m relaxed with rest recovery at personal sensation (not rushed, walking across the field, starting when you’re ready again)
I would also do a longer run on Saturday and take Sunday off since your workout day is Monday. You don’t need to be running 7 days a week yet. I don’t know what type of mileage you were doing with your private coach but 8-10 miles on Saturday would be plenty (if you’ve done runs of that length before). If
you live in an area with undulating terrain and some hills it is perfect for your long run.
While I do not know much about the high school training. I will say that the few schools locally for me and a few of the runners I follow train much harder, with higher mileage weeks. They run 15-16min 5ks. In their off season they are hitting 30-50 miles per week. If curious, this is just south of St. Louis area.
OP, these are really great ideas. If you implement 100% of these suggestions, you can convert your current training regimen into something that will help you improve.
Piggybacking off the above post:
- You may want to start the suggested Sat long run as just a normal easy run, say 4 miles. Then increase from there.
- If you aren't still tired on Wednesday from your big Monday (double and workout), you could possibly do that 3 mi as a tempo. But don't push it, if you are still recovering from Monday.
I had a sh1t coach my first two years of HS. Everyday was a timed 5k followed by either hills or interval training. Our long run in XC was 5-6 miles. Managed to run low 20 5k as a freshman and then got marginally slower as a sophomore. Improved a lot when we eventually got a coach who knew what he was doing.
I would discuss your feeling with your coach. If he does not listen, I would try to train on my own and race in the team's meets.
Runner Boy, here's the deal. The last poster as I'm writing this was getting close to good advice saying 'train on your own'. Exactly! He also said 'run in the team's meets'. I would say that is not a good idea.
I was better at ignoring self-proclaimed authority figures at your age than so many people are. My high school track coach was one of the football coaches. Or so I believe - we never met. My impression was that the track and field team existed to keep an eye on the football guys Spring semester. And I guess, the coach needed a Spring gig. I have to think his distance training knowledge was appallingly bad. But I can tell you my own training wasn't terrible. I could bang out a decent 10km without any input from school coaches. That's right, no input at all. Easy when you have no communication with them at all.
So my advice is to not say anything. Don't talk to the joker again. Indeed, 'train on your own' is the best advice. As far as going to the team's meets, I don't think you'd be allowed. I never tried such a move - just showing up and running unattached. I imagine getting dragged out of there by some security guy, maybe cops get called if things escalate. I'll admit I'm not sure what would happen, but I can tell you I never tried it. I didn't even know when and where such events would be, and I was never tempted to run one.
My friends and training partners weren't on the track team and I didn't feel left out. They often went to the same races as I did, and no coach or school official was aware of any of that. The distance between us and them was great; we weren't bothered, pressured to join the team, or ever given a talking-to by the principal. I suspect problems WOULD arise, however, if you showed up at school-sanctioned meets. Just run on your own and forget them!
Runnerboyseekingadvice wrote:
Basic day of training if it's Race week Friday
Monday- .25wu, 6x800 @2:18-20 with 8min recovery, optional cd(I do like a mile)
Tuesday- 4miles moderate
Wednesday-3Miles
Thursday- 20mins and strides
Friday- Race
Saturday-off
Sunday off
I don't know what I should do. It's obvious that this isn't the most ideal training- We do the same things as the middle school and all the women on the team. Since covid has hit I have worked with a private coach and have gotten my times down a lot so it's tough on what to do...
As others have said, you could add doubles on easy days (Tuesday, Wednesday and the weekend).
Another possibility is to play around with the pace on the 6x800m. How many people are running this session? Are they all running about 2:18-2:20? Is everyone running even pace? Is the coach monitoring you very closely? Would he notice if you varied the pace?
You could run something like 72-66, or 36-33-33-36. Or you could run bends in an outer lane (especially on the bend furthest from your coach), so it's more effort to keep up.
What does everyone do during the recovery? Does the coach watch you closely the whole time? Could you do a few 100m fast (e.g. around 800m pace, or even faster) shortly after each 800m when the coach isn't looking? Or could you do some fairly high quality aerobic running for part of the recovery (e.g. walk or jog at first, then run faster, like temp/threshold, then walk or jog again before the next 800m)?
Is there anything near the track? Sometimes I've missed a rep during a session as I had to run the toilet. Could you towards the toilets, but instead go out of sight and run another rep during the recovery?
Another option is to feign an injury for a couple of weeks and do some more appropriate sessions on your own (it's probably a better idea to do this early in the season, when the sessions matter, rather than later when sessions are more about pre-race sharpening).
I would have thought it's best to remain part of the team as that will give you the most racing opportunities and it's good to have team mates as well.
Runnerboyseekingadvice wrote:
How do I tell my high school coach his training is crap while trying to be nice? n(o he's not just doing for volunteer)
What do you know, first of all? Why is the training crap? A lot of people say that because they aren't running well.
Maybe pick something you'd like to try differently and ask in a productive and kind way to do it yourself. Like, "hey coach, I was curious if I could start trying to run more mileage and see what that might do for me, what do you think?"
Being combative will get nothing productive done. Also, if you aren't doing all of the extra thing outside of practice to improve, like good diet, sleep, hydration you can't truly say any training works. It's not always the 2 hours you spent at practice that are the only factor.
WinnytheBish wrote:
Runnerboyseekingadvice wrote:
How do I tell my high school coach his training is crap while trying to be nice? n(o he's not just doing for volunteer)
What do you know, first of all? Why is the training crap?
I think the 6x800m with 8 minutes recovery stands out as crap. What do you think is the purpose of this session?
You could do 6x800m at 5k pace, but then the recoveries should probably be very short (e.g. 1 minute, or 30 seconds if very fit). It might be better to do 8x800m at this pace.
You could do 6x800m at 3k pace, maybe with something like 2 minutes recovery.
If you are doing 800m at 1500m/mile pace, I think 6 is very hard. I'd probably suggest doing 4x800m instead and something like 3 minutes recovery (maybe a range of 2-4 minutes is reasonable).
Recoveries can be a bit longer for inexperienced runners, but 8 minutes is excessive.
8 minutes is a very long recovery period. I've only had recoveries that long when doing long reps at 400m or 800m pace. For example, 3x300m at close to 400m pace, or 3x600m at close to 800m pace. Or 2x2x400m (short recovery between 1st and 2nd 400m and long recovery between sets), or 2x(600m, 200m) (short recovery between 600m and 200m and long recovery between sets).
The other runs are OK, though it's not clear what pace they are at. He should probably be running at a variety of paces and efforts on these runs and he should probably be doing a weekly long run (a little over 60 minutes, perhaps up to 90 minutes), or building up to this gradually.
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