Track coach called me "aerobically underdeveloped" at practice today.

Sham 69 wrote:

Coach is super arrogant. On our first practice he started summarizing his running career to the team (as if we gave one). He was too proud of his 2:50 something marathon. He then babies us for the next half of practice about how to train, talking about different types of muscle fibers, VO2max, running economy, etc. etc. (yawn). He then proceeds to pass out a condescending article from Runner's World about "track lingo" and "track math".

We had a 1600 time trial today where, to my surprise, I PRed. The coach may be mediocre at marathons, but I take it that he's more ignorant when it comes to the track. Now I admit, I have no idea why he called me "arobically underdeveloped" after the third lap. I think it was because that lap was slower than the first two, but anyone who runs track knows that the third lap of the 1600 is always the slowest, so I'm still confused.

For whatever reason, he comes up to me instead of the winner of the time trial and tries to talk about training. In short, he tells me that I've ran too little mileage over the Winter break and that I could be way faster.

1) How the heck does he "know" this?

2) A mile is only 4 laps around the track. There is no need to run more than 40 miles per week in my mind.

He tells me that he wants to increase my mileage to the 40s for a couple of weeks and then see if I can hold 50s for the next month. That's literally cross country training, not mile training. I assume that would mean way more intervals which would be impossible to do at an adequate miler training pace.

How do I get out of this situation? The coach seems hard to get through and I'm targeting a 4:20 mile this season...

Sham 69 wrote:

Coach is super arrogant. On our first practice he started summarizing his running career to the team (as if we gave one). He was too proud of his 2:50 something marathon. He then babies us for the next half of practice about how to train, talking about different types of muscle fibers, VO2max, running economy, etc. etc. (yawn). He then proceeds to pass out a condescending article from Runner's World about "track lingo" and "track math".

We had a 1600 time trial today where, to my surprise, I PRed. The coach may be mediocre at marathons, but I take it that he's more ignorant when it comes to the track. Now I admit, I have no idea why he called me "arobically underdeveloped" after the third lap. I think it was because that lap was slower than the first two, but anyone who runs track knows that the third lap of the 1600 is always the slowest, so I'm still confused.

For whatever reason, he comes up to me instead of the winner of the time trial and tries to talk about training. In short, he tells me that I've ran too little mileage over the Winter break and that I could be way faster.

1) How the heck does he "know" this?

2) A mile is only 4 laps around the track. There is no need to run more than 40 miles per week in my mind.

He tells me that he wants to increase my mileage to the 40s for a couple of weeks and then see if I can hold 50s for the next month. That's literally cross country training, not mile training. I assume that would mean way more intervals which would be impossible to do at an adequate miler training pace.

How do I get out of this situation? The coach seems hard to get through and I'm targeting a 4:20 mile this season...

The Truth.... wrote:

You know, exactly what you wrote wasn't terribly important. You think the school coach sucks. This joker knows less about running than you do. He prescribes ridiculous workouts, etc, etc. Like I said, what the exact instructions he was yelling at you isn't really important. This is:

School-employed coaches are generally clowns. Some will say Wetmore is not. Maybe not Eyestone or Mike Smith either. (Although, to be honest, they all coach at high altitude.) There may be a handful of exceptions, but darn few in public high schools.

Here's the best advice you can get:

Ditch the coach. Most folks believe have 2 choices in high school. One is not to run, or at least not train specifically to compete. The other is to obey the coaches hired by your school district.

This is not the case. I made it through high school without even meeting a track coach. I trained and raced. Did pretty well. Wouldn't have if I had listened to the coach. My case was different, though. I never signed up in the first place. I never quit a team nor left my friends in the lurch. I unwittingly showed up at a practice once. They happened to be where I was running. I knew one guy. One. (Still didn't see the coach.) So I had no social reason for joining that stupid team. In fact, my friends trained and raced with me.

Will you listen to this? Take the best high school running advice you've been given? Maybe not. At least maybe not this season. But you could be running on your own after the school year ends. You're out there hammering away and wondering what you'll do once school starts up again. What will happen then? Perhaps you'll remember this advice. You'll know what to do.

There must be a day - maybe you can do it over the course of a week - when you have to go to the gym or multi-purpose room or somewhere to sign up for sports. Let's just say, theoretically, that you don't go over there. Never even walk in the door. The coach will be asking the other guys what happened to you. They'll say you were at school today. Nothing happened to you as far as they know.

What next? You'll train smart. Hard, but smart. No 3 hard days in a row. Race when ready, and only then. No nonsensical dual meets. None of the old 3 races in a day jive. You'll wonder why you didn't see this as an option earlier. Like the first day at that school. Because you never heard of anyone doing it, that's why. Everyone you knew who could run a mile without stopping was on the team. You actually got the idea from a guy on the Board who trained and raced on his own. So did a lot of folks back when he was your age. This rando was the best distance runner at his school.

You may run into the other guys. You go to the same school, right? Some might actually join you once they see how well you're racing. They'll hear you talk about the cool workouts you did last week. Better yet, the even better ones planned next week. They hadn't realized that you could run, but not for the glory of the school. All coaching problems solved, period. This is like one of those flash-forward scenes in a movie. Fictional? It could be. But you could make it reality.

Can I get an AMEN!? wrote:

The Truth.... wrote:

You know, exactly what you wrote wasn't terribly important. You think the school coach sucks. This joker knows less about running than you do. He prescribes ridiculous workouts, etc, etc. Like I said, what the exact instructions he was yelling at you isn't really important. This is:

School-employed coaches are generally clowns. Some will say Wetmore is not. Maybe not Eyestone or Mike Smith either. (Although, to be honest, they all coach at high altitude.) There may be a handful of exceptions, but darn few in public high schools.

Here's the best advice you can get:

Ditch the coach. Most folks believe have 2 choices in high school. One is not to run, or at least not train specifically to compete. The other is to obey the coaches hired by your school district.

This is not the case. I made it through high school without even meeting a track coach. I trained and raced. Did pretty well. Wouldn't have if I had listened to the coach. My case was different, though. I never signed up in the first place. I never quit a team nor left my friends in the lurch. I unwittingly showed up at a practice once. They happened to be where I was running. I knew one guy. One. (Still didn't see the coach.) So I had no social reason for joining that stupid team. In fact, my friends trained and raced with me.

Will you listen to this? Take the best high school running advice you've been given? Maybe not. At least maybe not this season. But you could be running on your own after the school year ends. You're out there hammering away and wondering what you'll do once school starts up again. What will happen then? Perhaps you'll remember this advice. You'll know what to do.

There must be a day - maybe you can do it over the course of a week - when you have to go to the gym or multi-purpose room or somewhere to sign up for sports. Let's just say, theoretically, that you don't go over there. Never even walk in the door. The coach will be asking the other guys what happened to you. They'll say you were at school today. Nothing happened to you as far as they know.

What next? You'll train smart. Hard, but smart. No 3 hard days in a row. Race when ready, and only then. No nonsensical dual meets. None of the old 3 races in a day jive. You'll wonder why you didn't see this as an option earlier. Like the first day at that school. Because you never heard of anyone doing it, that's why. Everyone you knew who could run a mile without stopping was on the team. You actually got the idea from a guy on the Board who trained and raced on his own. So did a lot of folks back when he was your age. This rando was the best distance runner at his school.

You may run into the other guys. You go to the same school, right? Some might actually join you once they see how well you're racing. They'll hear you talk about the cool workouts you did last week. Better yet, the even better ones planned next week. They hadn't realized that you could run, but not for the glory of the school. All coaching problems solved, period. This is like one of those flash-forward scenes in a movie. Fictional? It could be. But you could make it reality.

Amen Brother! Or Sister! High school coaches 99% of the time suck. Blaze your own path! Be a clicker a roller, a midnight controller, the exhaustion bestower! Scald dogs! Strike fear in mediocre runners everywhere!