My HS coach's ego is getting in the way of my and my teammates training. What do I do?

I coached for over 20 years. I knew what I was doing and often had parents from other schools ask me to advise their child. I thought it would be unprofessional to try to undermine another coach so I respectfully declined.

Here was my take on coaches who really didn't know what they were doing:

They don't want the athletes and parents to know that they don't know what they're doing so they kind of act confident and won't take outside advice.

Even I would talk about the training with the better runners (I had a few as good as you).

I was always able to explain why we were doing what we were doing and I adjusted for age and ability AND for outside circumstances (like an AP test the next day).

Your coach is probably very insecure because he really doesn't know what he's doing (but it DOES look like he's trying to learn- the changing his philosophy week to week).

What I would say is hang in there. You're good enough to run in college and that is when you can reach your true potential.

I have a different take. I think the OP should stop whining and get on with it.

I'm sorry, but this whole post sounds a lot like "kids I race against are doing ________ on Strava, and I can't.

Maybe have a conversation with your coach about why they assign the training they assign?

There are some holes to your story.

You are sick right now and are either not running or if you are it can’t be very productive.

Sickness can happen but as a coach I have noticed that my athletes that get sick most often do not take care of themselves. I have athletes that are missing 2 months or more of training per year due to various physical reasons I associate mostly with their inability to allow themselves to recover.

Those who are eating well and getting 9 hours of sleep every night rarely are sick enough where they need a break from training.

Your coach is lucky to make 3k. I make 3k as the Athletic Director of our entire high school. Maybe you should try having a conversation with your coach.

For instance, in weeks where we are coming off a larger race and have a couple of weeks to go until the next big one, our mileage will come back up for a week or two to something closer to our summer peak. We're in one of those blocks right now. We had dropped to about 70-80% of our peak because we had races on consecutive weekends that I wanted to run well at. We're back up to 90% of peak volume for the next week, to week and a half. We have our league finals in 9 days (we scored 15 points in our last two league cluster meets), and then 10 days after that we get into our post season. So, 3 weeks without a hard race. This is the perfect time to bring the volume back up for a while.

My point is, maybe your coach has a larger, more long term seasonal plan that you haven't talked about with him. (her?)

Sounds like your own ego is what's getting in the way.

Also, make your post more concise, this ain't yo English class, there's no minimum word count.

Simply, this is not "the optimal way of handling this situation..."

Unfortunately this just the Era we live in now. Athletes have so much access to social media to see what other kids are doing and when they see them doing really well they question what their coach is having them do. I call this the "newbury park" syndrome. Yes, seeing what kids like Leo and Lex young do for training is fun, but it does not all work the same for each athlete. Coaches are hired for a reason, they go through their own training for a reason. Trust your coach, trust that he has a plan for you and what your capable of.....the moment thats gone, you might as well join the local running club.

There are so many hacks out there, telling someone to just "trust their coach" isn't good advice as a blanket statement

A high school kid and he’s questioning his coach?? 1: I think it’s a fake post 2: if not, sounds more like a know it all parent .

my little sister started elementary school and because of covid she hadn't built up much of an immune system. I will admit I don't get as much sleep as should and only 7.5 a night or so. Right when she started though she got sick and last 3 weeks I've had a festering virus or sinus infection my doctor said and it really peaked this weekend. I agree though it probably wouldn't have been as bad if I got my 9+ a night but it's hard with 5 APs, still possible though I do admit.

No, I'm just a running nerd and really looked into different training info. I mean my coach started me on lydiard and some other literature which was nice and it's taken off from there.

I agree that it sounds like that and I do do that sometimes. A lot of the time I'm more asking him about the why to different things and if it could be applicable and his answers most of the time are somewhat sound but then every once in a while it'll be something that goes against him too much and he'll give me an illogical answer or divert my attention.

Yea the public school system sucks and especially fails coaches who aren't teachers. We were going to try to get him a raise or at least an assistant at the next booster club meeting. The pay is really bad for him though because we're in LA.

I get the big picture thing and I made it pretty clear to him I don't really care about any of the meets in season and postseason is my main focus especially footlocker regionals and state especially for recruiting purposes. Of course I told him I'd race whenever he wanted because I have a responsibility towards the team but I don't feel like I need drop mileage every 1-2 weeks; maybe every 5-6 weeks or even 4.

true

Have you tried having a conversation with your coach?

It looks like you are in an unfortunate situation that many others have been in.

Just run and hope this coach doesn't ruin your training or your enthusiasm.

My dad and I have a rich time in our joint groupchat with him lol. I should publish it eventually.

Just thought this might be a funny add on to the thread. Freshman year during track I did a very freshman thing and I would get home from practice and then run 2-4 miles just for my mileage and then I pr'd by 10 seconds in the mile which validated my tiny freshman brain a lot bit after that I told my coach in a cringey confession type of way and he went off and off on me. The rest of the track season he brought our mileage up from 30 to 50 a week though and I never said a thing to him about our training for rest of the season.