Looking for Advice

how are you going to be able to enter these meets if you're not on the team? in my state i'm pretty sure you can't just show up to HS races unattached. what state are you in?

if what you've written about your coach and his silly x-fit style workouts is true then i do think you made the right call quitting. the best way to get better at running is to run and stay healthy. good luck to you.

I'm in Texas and all the preseason meets here are open to club, unattached, homeschool, etc. My parents know most of the coaches. 2 of the races are hosted by a college and they're open to anyone. Those 2 my parents emailed the coach yesterday and I'm already in. Theres a 3rd race I can get into. The other 2 probably not bc one is hosted BY MY SCHOOL and the other by a big UIL member school and they're more strict. The 6th race was just the stupid intrasquad race he had planned that I wasnt going to go to anyway. So, I can get into half of the preseason meets. I cannot get into district, regional, or state.

Also, the one hosted by my school is the one that's the same date as my SAT. I wouldn't have made that one either way.

I have a sibling in college cross and I'm trying to decide if I want to follow their workouts or the ones from our prior coach. Our mileage was always kind of low and I had to add to it, but on the other hand the college workouts are catered toward a longer race.

Our school runs the 2 mile cc course. Women's college will be 5k. I would be free to run some 5ks now though.

Find a good coach. In person or online. It sounds like you could really use one. Reach out to your old coach maybe? You need to learn what really works. Every piece of training you have posted is bad so far.

You think the 400s I did today, which was my workout for the last 3 years with my old coach, was bad?

like 3.6 roentgen it's not great, not terrible. it's kind of early in the XC season for 400s. that's a good workout for the mile or sharpening at the end of XC.

Over the Hills and Far Away wrote:

Only the best is good for you wrote:

Looks like a troll thread to me. But if authentic I would advice you to ask your parents to hire a good online coach.

5/10 due to the surprising number of bites.

The "school purchased shoes" bit was a bridge too far here - team uniforms yes, shoes no, never happens.

Wow, based on the ongoing banter and "sleight of handle" (re: enter SeniorGirl2) I must humbly admit I was far too harsh in my initial assessment. We're looking at solid 9/10 territory or better here, good job!

This coach sound like an old PE coach trying to coach XC. Maybe you should have him watch McFarland to learn how to be a better coach. Jumping Jacks and sit-ups while running bleachers? WTF, is this guy from 1950’s, jumping jacks...really. Maybe as a warm up exercise in a PE class. I have my own perspective on core work, should be done in a session separate from a running session. Besides, running by itself is good core work.

I am a traditionalist about running and nothing makes a better runner than running just by itself. Want more endurance, run more long mileage. Want speed endurance, run paced intervals with rationed rest intervals. Want more fast twitch , sprint drills and quick hill repeats. Want more strength, medium distance with rolling hills. Maybe add in couple weight room or plyometric sessions but nothing too stout, we are runners not cross fit athletes. This is my simplistic philosophy on training there is a lot of detail that goes into specifics.

Your coach does not seem to know how to coach XC and you are stuck in an a tough spot. Have you tried to reason with him? A good coach would listen to their athletes and a least try to accommodate individuals, as long as your concerns are too off base. Having the team run together on longer easy days makes sense. Some coaches push the team dynamic over individuals. In true team sports that may make sense, but cross country is only a team sport in the sense of scoring in a meet. You still have to cater to the individuals because the team only succeeds when each runner performs at their best.

My advice, if you can’t change schools, you may have to suck it up and work with this guy. There may be no alternatives if you want to participate in cross at this school. Make nice with him if possible. Tell him you are sincere about representing your school in the sport and want to be a team player but reiterated the importance of your individual needs. If he is a complete douche bag about it, quit and join a local track club if possible. As mentioned by others on this thread, seek private coaching on the side in addition to staying on the team. You will have to balance the work load between school practice and your private coaching on the side. But at least you will be able to compete in the scheduled meets.

Over the Hills and Far Away wrote:

Over the Hills and Far Away wrote:

5/10 due to the surprising number of bites.

The "school purchased shoes" bit was a bridge too far here - team uniforms yes, shoes no, never happens.

Wow, based on the ongoing banter and "sleight of handle" (re: enter SeniorGirl2) I must humbly admit I was far too harsh in my initial assessment. We're looking at solid 9/10 territory or better here, good job!

I had to change the handle bc I used a different device and it gave me a message that someone else had used that name today.

Today I just took a 30 minute recovery jog. The team was jogging on the football turf. They would jog the long side forward then the touchdown zones backwards. They did that for maybe 15 minutes then did core and were done.

SeniorGirl wrote:

Over the Hills and Far Away wrote:

Wow, based on the ongoing banter and "sleight of handle" (re: enter SeniorGirl2) I must humbly admit I was far too harsh in my initial assessment. We're looking at solid 9/10 territory or better here, good job!

I had to change the handle bc I used a different device and it gave me a message that someone else had used that name today.

Today I just took a 30 minute recovery jog. The team was jogging on the football turf. They would jog the long side forward then the touchdown zones backwards. They did that for maybe 15 minutes then did core and were done.

Contact the very best online LRC coach, the magic Swede JS.

This post has been nagging at me all day! I finally realized where this guy is getting his workouts. His brother-in-law owns a crossfit gym! I have googled like crazy trying to find any training plans like what he's doing to see if I could find anything that would indicate he knew what he was doing. Granted, I've seen pics on facebook of the people he works with and they mostly look amazing. That doesn't tell me how fast they can run 2 miles. But, at the very least, I now know why he's making them do all those random exercises.

I was telling my parents that I thought every runner would be slower than last year but part of me is kind of scared that his workouts will actually work and they'll do fine without me.

The 5 remaining runners PRs

Franny-13:05

Nat-13:08

Skyler-16:25

Jules-14:40

Aryanna-13:34

Me:12:26

The other quitter: 13:18

I miss my old coach so much. I didn't know how very bad the grass would be on this side.

The great wrote:

SeniorGirl wrote:

I had to change the handle bc I used a different device and it gave me a message that someone else had used that name today.

Today I just took a 30 minute recovery jog. The team was jogging on the football turf. They would jog the long side forward then the touchdown zones backwards. They did that for maybe 15 minutes then did core and were done.

Contact the very best online LRC coach, the magic Swede JS.

The scammer?

LOL

Don't do it, OP.

Lol, this is so fake. No one is named “Franny” anymore.

On TxMilesplit there are 6 of them.

SeniorGirl2 wrote:

I was telling my parents that I thought every runner would be slower than last year but part of me is kind of scared that his workouts will actually work and they'll do fine without me.

The 5 remaining runners PRs

Franny-13:05

Nat-13:08

Skyler-16:25

Jules-14:40

Aryanna-13:34

Me:12:26

The other quitter: 13:18

I miss my old coach so much. I didn't know how very bad the grass would be on this side.

What your coach is doing is unorthodox but it won’t hurt your overall fitness. In some way it may benefit you in ways you wouldn’t expect. You already have running talent to work with and some racing experience. Go along with what he is doing and trust your own fitness and instincts. Your may surprise yourself with your own determination.

SeniorGirl2 wrote:

You think the 400s I did today, which was my workout for the last 3 years with my old coach, was bad?

Depends on how you did them. It’s not that easy.

SeniorGirl2 wrote:

On TxMilesplit there are 6 of them.

... and none of them match the description of your “Franny”. They either graduated HS already, were/are not XC runners, or didn’t run the specified 2 mile time. Plus there’s only four “Franny”s. The other two are a “Franni” and a “Frannie”. In other words, Franny doesn’t exist, your team doesn’t exist, and your terrible coach doesn’t exist.

7/10 for the amount of bites you got, plus a decently funny story.

1. I was just proving you wrong

2. Do you think theres someone named Nat also or do you think maybe those are nicknames?

So my avg time last year was 88.9 but this time it was

93.6.

To be fair, it's harder to run them on my own and I wasn't in the best frame of mind.