Coaching a Slow High School Freshman

marcomacaroni wrote:

Hi there letsrun! this is my first time posting on here (a friend recommended it), so I hope it goes well!
Basically, my mom's best friend has a son who is going to be a freshman in highschool in the fall, and his mom wants him to join a sport, and my mom basically told her that I would LOVE to coach him in running (I am a D1 college runner, and I also ran throughout highschool). I really was not crazy about this idea (I will already be pretty busy this summer), but I don't want to disappoint my mom, so I agreed.
However, I don't know how to help the kid. He's a nice kid, but he really is not very sport-oriented, and he doesn't really want to do either xc or track. Also, my highschool actually has a pretty strong xc team, and the coach does cut, so I am not sure if he can even make the team.

He has never ran before, and I told him to go out on the track and have a friend time some different distances (over a couple days ofc) so that I could see what we are working with. Here is what he said his times were (I I didn't actually see him do it, but he's an honest kid, so I don't think he lied about anything).
100: 13
200: 41
400: 1:36
800: 3:39
1600: 10:13
3200 & 5000: he did not want to even try these after the mile, which I guess makes sense, probably dumb of me to even put those on the list, but I thought why not try.

Anyways, as you can see, his times are pretty bad, and obviously he won't be able to make the team with them. However, I want to try and help him (I owe his mom too, she's a physiotherapist and she really helped me out through the years), but I don't know how to approach it, since I have never coached anyone, and I have also never seen someone who is at that level before (I obviously can't give him workouts that I did in highschool, and I don't know what would be appropriate for him). Also, I want him to not just get better, but also to enjoy the sport, since that is the only way he will actually continues with it and have long term progress.

All suggestions are appreciated!

marcomacaroni wrote:

Hi there letsrun! this is my first time posting on here (a friend recommended it), so I hope it goes well!
Basically, my mom's best friend has a son who is going to be a freshman in highschool in the fall, and his mom wants him to join a sport, and my mom basically told her that I would LOVE to coach him in running (I am a D1 college runner, and I also ran throughout highschool). I really was not crazy about this idea (I will already be pretty busy this summer), but I don't want to disappoint my mom, so I agreed.
However, I don't know how to help the kid. He's a nice kid, but he really is not very sport-oriented, and he doesn't really want to do either xc or track. Also, my highschool actually has a pretty strong xc team, and the coach does cut, so I am not sure if he can even make the team.

He has never ran before, and I told him to go out on the track and have a friend time some different distances (over a couple days ofc) so that I could see what we are working with. Here is what he said his times were (I I didn't actually see him do it, but he's an honest kid, so I don't think he lied about anything).
100: 13
200: 41
400: 1:36
800: 3:39
1600: 10:13
3200 & 5000: he did not want to even try these after the mile, which I guess makes sense, probably dumb of me to even put those on the list, but I thought why not try.

Anyways, as you can see, his times are pretty bad, and obviously he won't be able to make the team with them. However, I want to try and help him (I owe his mom too, she's a physiotherapist and she really helped me out through the years), but I don't know how to approach it, since I have never coached anyone, and I have also never seen someone who is at that level before (I obviously can't give him workouts that I did in highschool, and I don't know what would be appropriate for him). Also, I want him to not just get better, but also to enjoy the sport, since that is the only way he will actually continues with it and have long term progress.

All suggestions are appreciated!

marcomacaroni wrote:

Hi there letsrun! this is my first time posting on here (a friend recommended it), so I hope it goes well!
Basically, my mom's best friend has a son who is going to be a freshman in highschool in the fall, and his mom wants him to join a sport, and my mom basically told her that I would LOVE to coach him in running (I am a D1 college runner, and I also ran throughout highschool). I really was not crazy about this idea (I will already be pretty busy this summer), but I don't want to disappoint my mom, so I agreed.
However, I don't know how to help the kid. He's a nice kid, but he really is not very sport-oriented, and he doesn't really want to do either xc or track. Also, my highschool actually has a pretty strong xc team, and the coach does cut, so I am not sure if he can even make the team.

He has never ran before, and I told him to go out on the track and have a friend time some different distances (over a couple days ofc) so that I could see what we are working with. Here is what he said his times were (I I didn't actually see him do it, but he's an honest kid, so I don't think he lied about anything).
100: 13
200: 41
400: 1:36
800: 3:39
1600: 10:13
3200 & 5000: he did not want to even try these after the mile, which I guess makes sense, probably dumb of me to even put those on the list, but I thought why not try.

Anyways, as you can see, his times are pretty bad, and obviously he won't be able to make the team with them. However, I want to try and help him (I owe his mom too, she's a physiotherapist and she really helped me out through the years), but I don't know how to approach it, since I have never coached anyone, and I have also never seen someone who is at that level before (I obviously can't give him workouts that I did in highschool, and I don't know what would be appropriate for him). Also, I want him to not just get better, but also to enjoy the sport, since that is the only way he will actually continues with it and have long term progress.

All suggestions are appreciated!

marcomacaroni wrote:

Hi there letsrun! this is my first time posting on here (a friend recommended it), so I hope it goes well!
Basically, my mom's best friend has a son who is going to be a freshman in highschool in the fall, and his mom wants him to join a sport, and my mom basically told her that I would LOVE to coach him in running (I am a D1 college runner, and I also ran throughout highschool). I really was not crazy about this idea (I will already be pretty busy this summer), but I don't want to disappoint my mom, so I agreed.
However, I don't know how to help the kid. He's a nice kid, but he really is not very sport-oriented, and he doesn't really want to do either xc or track. Also, my highschool actually has a pretty strong xc team, and the coach does cut, so I am not sure if he can even make the team.

He has never ran before, and I told him to go out on the track and have a friend time some different distances (over a couple days ofc) so that I could see what we are working with. Here is what he said his times were (I I didn't actually see him do it, but he's an honest kid, so I don't think he lied about anything).
100: 13
200: 41
400: 1:36
800: 3:39
1600: 10:13
3200 & 5000: he did not want to even try these after the mile, which I guess makes sense, probably dumb of me to even put those on the list, but I thought why not try.

Anyways, as you can see, his times are pretty bad, and obviously he won't be able to make the team with them. However, I want to try and help him (I owe his mom too, she's a physiotherapist and she really helped me out through the years), but I don't know how to approach it, since I have never coached anyone, and I have also never seen someone who is at that level before (I obviously can't give him workouts that I did in highschool, and I don't know what would be appropriate for him). Also, I want him to not just get better, but also to enjoy the sport, since that is the only way he will actually continues with it and have long term progress.

All suggestions are appreciated!

AD99onr wrote:

Clearly he has no endurance. Here’s an eight-week schedule with ample rest (and taking
advantage of his reasonable speed) that should get him ready to begin team practices
as a freshman. (This starts at about 7 miles a week and progresses to about
12). Above all, be positive, encouraging, and flexible! Get him also to play some basketball or soccer or anything else to build athleticism. Former JUCO coach here and D3 All American.

Week one
DAY 1: 1.5 mile. Walk as needed.
DAY 2: 1 mile. 3x100 easy
DAY 3: 1.5 mile
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 1 mile. 3x100 easy
DAY 6: 1.5 mile
DAY 7: off

Week two
DAY 1: 2 miles. Walk as needed.
DAY 2: 1 mile. 4x100 easy
DAY 3: 1.5 mile
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 1 mile. 3x100 easy
DAY 6: 1.5 miles
DAY 7: off

Week three
DAY 1: 2 miles. Walk as needed.
DAY 2: 1.5 mile. 2x200 easy
DAY 3: 2 miles
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 1 mile. 4x100 easy
DAY 6: 2 miles
DAY 7: off

Week four
DAY 1: 2 miles. Walk as needed.
DAY 2: 1.5 mile. 3x200 easy
DAY 3: 2 miles
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 1 mile. 4x100 easy
DAY 6: 2 miles
DAY 7: off

Week five
DAY 1: 2 miles.
DAY 2: 400-300-200 ladder
DAY 3: 2 miles
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 2 miles. 3x100 easy
DAY 6: 2 miles
DAY 7: off

Week six
DAY 1: 2.5 miles.
DAY 2: 3x300
DAY 3: 2 miles
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 2 miles. 3x100 easy
DAY 6: 2 miles
DAY 7: off

Week seven
DAY 1: 3 miles.
DAY 2: 400-300-200-100 ladder
DAY 3: 2 miles
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 2 miles. 3x100 easy
DAY 6: 2.5 miles
DAY 7: off

Week eight
DAY 1: 3 miles
DAY 2: 3x300
DAY 3: 2 miles
DAY 4: off. Do some push-ups
DAY 5: 2 miles. 3x100 easy
DAY 6: 3 miles
DAY 7: off

that's crazy wrote:

boomer6969 wrote:

Sounds like this kids needs the classic summer of malmo. If the team actually cuts it's his only shot to actually get some endurance. What doesn't make sense is why doesn't he just run with the team? Surely they have some sort of summer program to get new kids interested and try to develop talent. That's what I would suggest. Why waste your time if better options are available? The kid can't run with you so he's gonna need others to run with anyway.

Summer of Malmo isn't bad but it isn't designed for runners who need immediate results (says so himself). This guy needs to get fit, FAST so that he can start doing easy runs at paces that somewhat resemble running. Malmo's workouts consist of two threshold runs. This guy's threshold pace is like 11min a mile... He needs hard VO2 max sessions right now. Something like 4x400 would be a good start. I would also argue hills especially for XC but also because it's good injury prevention.