My coach is telling me to back off, what should i do?

This is my last chance to get a scholarship at a good school, im a senior

Socialanxietyrunner wrote:

This is my last chance to get a scholarship at a good school, im a senior

Sounds like you need to start trusting your coach more because you are all over the place and that is why you are not running well. Everybody tapers, they do it differently but they do it. Your coach is giving you good advice and more mileage isn't always the answer. 70 is pretty good but it doesn't mean anything if you weren't running fast.

Also it seems like you are doing a lot of hard workouts during the season and maybe the reason you don't peak well is because you were burning yourself out too early (hence why coach wants you to do a little less)

Spot agree 100% with Winnny ^

Trust your coach or find a new one.

This is a mental game. If you don't trust your coach you will perform bad on purpose when he asks you to taper.

If you trust your coach, taper and run the heck out of it in a race, it might work. More miles is almost never the right answer.

Good luck.

Your poor race at regionals was likely because you didn't mentally prepare yourself. You convinced yourself you wouldn't be able to succeed after cutting down the mileage, so you didn't. Alternatively, you were burned out and you need to take a week off to recover.

It seems like a mental thing. Just don't overthink it, make sure you really listen to your body. And don't convince yourself you need 70 mpw to succeed. You could likely run just as fast off 20 mpw less. Remember to take recovery seriously. Don't push through workouts if you're feeling like crap just because you think they will make you better.

Socialanxietyrunner wrote:

This is my last chance to get a scholarship at a good school, im a senior

Why does everything have to be such a drama with you?

Thanks for helping btw, you guys are telling me to trust my coach yet the evidence says otherwise, even if i was training to hard i was doing so well for the entire season that it wouldve been worth maintaining, i dropped from 60 mpw at that time to like 35 and i went from being a sub 16 guy to 17:10 in just 2 weeks of doing no workouts, barley mileage and no longrun im a strength runner so if i don't use it, i loose it.

Socialanxietyrunner wrote:

im a strength runner so if i don't use it, i loose it.

If that was true then marathon tapers wouldn't work.

There may be physiological reasons why you might not be doing well with tapering rather than mental reasons that previous posts seem to be focusing on.

If you are hypoglycemic the training, or lack thereof, can effect your blood sugar levels. If your blood sugar gets too high your body will overreact and bring the levels down to feeling lethargic come race day.

What is one man's taper is another man's peak mileage so talk with your coach about this. You can try to compensate by not carbo loading for the 2 days before your race when tapering or use easy running to keep your blood sugar levels in check.

This is just one example of why one size does not fit all with training.

Socialanxietyrunner wrote:

Thanks for helping btw, you guys are telling me to trust my coach yet the evidence says otherwise, even if i was training to hard i was doing so well for the entire season that it wouldve been worth maintaining, i dropped from 60 mpw at that time to like 35 and i went from being a sub 16 guy to 17:10 in just 2 weeks of doing no workouts, barley mileage and no longrun im a strength runner so if i don't use it, i loose it.

Evidence?????????? You are a clown the real evidence is in the world class programs and athletes with real results only doing 1-2 workouts a week or 10 day cycle your couch knows what he is talking about and your body can’t handle it back off.

Challenge your couch to a race. Whoever wins gets free RunGum!

With your speed-side limitation, you are right, tapering is a bit silly.

Worst thing you can do is cut intensity and volume.

You need to come into the race relax and riding a blood volume wave.

Minimal taper and quality work piling up. But any running fast than 3000m

speed should be limited as well.

All of the training terminology you and your coach are using is outdated.

Your coach's biggest mistake though is not moving up. If you are going to do your own taper and take more control in general, be assertive about it.

I am doing 2 workouts a week if you don't count the long run, i do one tempo and one interval. My longrun is not taxing. There are world class atheltes that don't believe in tapering as well.

i think ur coach is right bro if ur not gonna listen to him get a new coach

Sham 69 wrote:

Challenge your couch to a race. Whoever wins gets free RunGum!

Does it have caffeine in it? Won't that make him even more anxious?

dsrunner wrote:

With your speed-side limitation, you are right, tapering is a bit silly.

Worst thing you can do is cut intensity and volume.

You need to come into the race relax and riding a blood volume wave.

Minimal taper and quality work piling up. But any running fast than 3000m

speed should be limited as well.

All of the training terminology you and your coach are using is outdated.

Your coach's biggest mistake though is not moving up. If you are going to do your own taper and take more control in general, be assertive about it.

"You need to come into the race relax and riding a blood volume wave."

Is there no limit to your pretentiousness? How does a large plasma volume improve performance in a 1600m race? Reduced max heart rate and hemococentration, how does that improve performance in a race where you barely sweat a drop?

Socialanxietyrunner wrote:

I am doing 2 workouts a week if you don't count the long run, i do one tempo and one interval. My longrun is not taxing. There are world class atheltes that don't believe in tapering as well.

If this is your last shot, then you need to plan it out in your head with positive emotions. Then execute the plan.

A race is an emotional response. That's what fight or flight is, an instinctive emotional response. When you do it right you don't feel the normal level of fatigue you perform on autopilot.

I have like 4 or 6 races left, my plan was to focus on getting 1:59 down to 1:55 for 800m, once i have the speed necessary then i will focus for 3 races on the 3200m to get and get that down to 9:19 to get v02 max necessary, then my final races give it all my soul and get 4:15.