How do I talk to my coach about this?

Do what's best for yourself and not for the HS coach. Go unattached and run meets on your own if you have to.

Your coach is insecure. But he's allowed to be. So either listen to him and do what he says, or go solo and see if he balks.

I can't imagine forcing a runner that fast to run unattached just due to ego.

Does your coach oversee everything, like does he make the workouts for everyone on the track team, or does he delegate it out to a sprints coach, jumps, throws etc? If he is not directly coaching the distance guys then hopefully he will be open to it.

I would just be very humble and very open about wanting to run fast, perform your best, and your goals for the team and for yourself (college etc..)

Just don't be confrontational and insulting to the HC.

Sounds like you want to run for Tinman - so run for Tinman.

Why straddle the fence?

Here's your approach: "Coach, since track is more of an individual sport, do I have any more leeway to keep training with Mr. Schwarz during track than I did in XC?"

If your coach says no, that's fine. Your results with your HS coach and Mr. Schwarz are just about the same anyway.

If 15:04 makes you 2-5 minutes better than the #2 guy on the team, you might have a case, but if you're not the #1 guy or you're barely ahead of #2, just stick with your HS coach for track. Learning multiple approaches to training can be good.

14:51 with zero pressure on what was likely not a cross country surface could very well be inferior to 15:04 during Cross Country. Tom’s program while very beneficial to getting fit is not co tested but not comparable to the demands that HS Coach’s face. Mass numbers at practice. Many long and intense uninterrupted training blocks without having to race and be put under the scrutiny of a full HS schedule, makes it much easier to see development. private and personal ( Paid ) Coach’s are constantly filling young runners mind full of negative garbage in the hopes to continue getting a paycheck. during HS season you run the school, out of season you run for Tom. If you want Tinman full time you Mace have to decide if you want this more than running for the HS. Serve two masters and drama is certain to follow.

Unfortunately there are selfish coaches who get butt hurt about things like this. They don’t think of what is best for the athlete. Why wouldn’t they want their athlete to be the best that they can be?

Run unattached. Run a multitude of XC meets on your own. There is a big invite every week in every state. Yes, you’ll miss your state high school meet but you can run FootLocker, Nike, USATF, AAU, etc too.

I would like to stay on the team for my senior year as it's really expensive to just be traveling the country. I hope to talk to my coach this weekend before practice starts Monday. I plan on sending him a text message this Saturday. I don't know if I should say "Hey, could we talk sometime Saturday or Sunday about the upcoming track season, goals, meets, etc?" Or say "Hey Coach, I know we had this conversation in the fall before the XC season but I thought since track is much more individualized training, would it be possible or would you be open to me working with Coach Schwartz this track season or working with him, he has agreed to be in close contact with you and me for all of my training." Is the second too direct? I am just trying to figure it out, I need to do it soon because practices start on Monday. I don't wanna be too confronting but obviously would like to work with Tom for my final season.

Sounds like a recipe for inserting drama into your final season of high school.

The performances you referenced in your original post dont make a slam dunk case for proving that Tinman is providing superior guidance/training. If you value your membership on your school's team than respect the rules of membership. Your coach made his position clear in the fall - you shouldn't expect that it has changed several months later.

Life is full of tough decisions.

Both of those are worded well enough. I wouldn't text the second one though. That should be an in-person (or at least phone) conversation. The more important consideration should be how you will handle the No response. Are you going to quit the team or stay on the team? If you're going to stay on the team, and coach says no, then you're going to need to follow-up with something that helps your coach understand that you're not going to be a thorn in his side for the rest of the season. Something like, "Thanks, coach. I figured that was going to be your answer, but I Just wanted to check to to be sure. Anyway, I'm all-in on whatever it takes to improve and help the team. I think it's going to be a great season."

Remember that the coach's job is not just designing the workouts and training plans. There are lots of organization and administrative tasks too. Anything that adds to his workload is not going to be received well. Sometime it's not about the coach's ego - thinking he can coach you better than Tinman - it's because his responsibility is coaching a team and having a similar training plan is way easier than having individualized plans for everyone. This is especially true for large teams.

As someone else pointed out, your time trial with Tom may not have been a superior time to that 15:04. You really should keep that in mind. And you also could keep in mind that it could have been the work you did with Tom that got you fit enough to run both times and what your coach did just kept you at that level of fitness. You should look at what you did under each coach and evaluate how different the work was.

I say this because there can be an allure to things like working with a big "name," with standing apart from the masses, to being different. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Nietzsche once said "If you would be better than the rest of men be different from the rest of men." But sometimes being different is just affect. Anyway, you know your coach better than anyone here does so you're in a better position to know how to approach him. There is no harm in asking again. Frame the discussion in a way that doesn't criticize what he does. Acknowledge that you got a very good result doing his sessions and then add that you still are interested in seeing what you could do with Tom's coaching. A decent coach will understand your interest here even if he's not willing to indulge it. If he's nasty about the discussion maybe it will make your decision easier.

stick with the high school team. its your senior year. running isn't all about the times. its about learning how to be on a team and trusting your coach. enjoy high school running while you can because you can't ever go back.

if he runs like garbage then he may be done running for good. times matter, especially your senior year.

How would one season's worth of performances result in him being 'done running for good'?

Seems overly dramatic.

You should consider talking to your coach about a type of training that you think worked for you rather than needing to run for Tinman.

Tinman, much to his credit, has never hidden anything about his training philosophy or even specific workout/pace prescription.

Your coach likely doesn’t want you running for Tom because that’s a pretty quick snowball to bad team culture. When the #1 guy has success with a different coach, high schoolers jump to the assumption that the coach is the magic pill and the team coach isn’t good enough for them. That’s horrible for culture, and teams fail when culture fails. So talk to your coach about being YOUR coach, and prescribing you a system that you think gives you success.

How do you think I would offer this to him?

You need to just bite the bullet and run with the team for your final year. However, Saturday and Sunday are pretty much yours unless you have a Saturday meet. I'm thinking that most Saturday meets, at least where I am, are usually the bigger meets at the end of the year except for a few invitationals. That leaves all of March and a good part of April open. You could still get Tinman workouts to do on the weekends to supplement your Mon-Fri workouts.

There are no magic workouts. There are good training philosophies and bad ones. Throwing an extra "quality workout" in the mix every week without the coach knowing about it is a recipe for incomplete recovery, lackluster results, and injury. If your high school coach is halfway decent, go all in with his plan and don't look back. Otherwise, cut ties with your high school team and do your own thing.

As a previous poster said, you doing your own thing and remaining on the team will destroy the team culture. Your buy-in to what you do is the number 1 key to your success. If you are fully committed to your high school team, you will continue to improve. If you are partially committed and always looking back, you will have subpar results. YOU are the answer, not Tinman or anyone else.

The question you need to answer is: “Just how bad is my coach’s training?” If the hs coach solely has you running vo2 workouts and disgustingly low mileage, then I’d say tell him it’s your way or the highway.

If you get worse under his training then you’re wasting your time. But if your coach has a pretty solid program, maybe go with it. I personally don’t think Tinman’s training is amazing. It just doesn’t SUCK the way that 80% of highschool programs’ do. Then there’s the ones like CCG which strike me as just absolutely hammering kids with work and, duh, they get better (or injured) at the cost of long-term development.