Coach doesn't understand distance training

Well not to be rude but comparing your ideal week vs your coaches I’d argue that you both equally don’t understand training for a 3200m runner. Maybe your coach is inexperienced and arrogant, but this post also proves you’re inexperienced and arrogant. Not to be that guy, but maybe you need a reality check.

It’s not all threshold and Vo2Max. If you want to go D1 based off of your 3200m, you’d best be a sub 9:30 guy. To be a sub 9:30 guy you’d probably ought to be about a 4:20 guy. To be a 4:20 guy you’d ought to be about a sub 1:58 guy. To be a 1:58 guy you’d probably need to be a sub 54 guy. Can you break 55 in a 400m with a standing start tomorrow? Like willing to bet money on it? Not did you run 54 in peak shape during a relay last season… tomorrow. If your answer is no you need speed work.

Stay away from Vo2Max work, maybe do one session during indoors before a race you really want to do well at. You also don’t gain much more from doing threshold twice a week than you would once, gotta get your proper super compensation adaptation in. You’d be better off doing a speed session OR higher volume pace work instead of one of those threshold workouts.

Here’s a good sample week of what to follow now through indoors.

Monday: Mileage, 3x150m

Tuesday: 12x400m @5k working to 3k off of 2 minutes

OR

2x1000m @ 10k off of 2 minutes , then 6x200m attempting to smoothly progress from 32 to 27 off of 3 minutes. Always lift on tuesdays after working out.

Wednesday: Mileage

Thursday: 8x1k @ 10k off of 2 minutes,

OR

20-25 minutes at CURRENT 3200m pace + 30-40 seconds per mile. Always lift on thursdays.

Friday: mileage +3x150m

Saturday: vary week to week between an easy 90 minute long run and a 75 minute quality run. Quality run can be a progression, 8x3 minute surges, or a steady harder effort. Lift if not too fatigued.

Show this to your coach, and see if they approve. This should get you in a good place for 800m, which you probably need if you want to achieve your goals, but also start building the blocks needed to be a strong 3200m runner.

Copper Runner, interesting post, and I agree mostly with what you said, but isnt 12x400m @ 5k or 3k pace VO2 max work?

And OP, i was in a similar situation - we did 3-4x1 mile @ 5k pace 3 times per week! In addition to a 5k race! It was bad, so I wrote a long paper (over 10 pages) that included legit sources (people on an anonymous message board won't fly here), such as documents written by coaches, as well as training logs from athletes. I explained in a very respectful way why the training should be different, and the coach was very impressed and compromised a lot. Do it early on!!! Not after the season has already started! Good luck to you in your pursuit to D1. That's a big goal, but it sounds like you're on your way with that sub16

The idea is that it starts to dip into Vo2Max development, without being a true, ball busting Vo2 effort with long reps and 1:1 rest. I’d call it more of a Vo2Max prerequisite. This is much less taxing than say, 6-8x800m at 3k-5k off of 1:1 or less rest. You shouldn’t even really get into the pain cave off of a session like this, but it sets you up to be more efficient at doing it when the time comes. You don’t really get true Vo2 stimuli until the reps are longer than 2 minutes or rest time is significantly lowered.

Gift your coach a running book for Christmas.

Yeah, all you guys have it good. You have no idea what bad coaching is.

Why does my school suck in track/xc?

Here is the coach's response:

1) neighboring schools have higher enrollment

ans: sure 2-400 more students but all schools are under 2000 students total

2) other schools have more talent

ans: our school regularly attracts usatf/aau runners who do well at the jo. Here, they do well for a bit then they do poorly in that very first season. Other schools develop talent. For one thing, they do 60+ miles and we do 16-20. Girls do 10-12. Why?

3) you have missed 2 workouts this season. I don't see how you can make that up. They were BIG.

ans: no, really, I had a fever and the nurse sent me home with a Covid test kit. You can't expect athletes at the other schools don't get sick.

4) it takes time to be good

ans: I was good until I got you as a coach. Documented. Online. Did well in my first 2 races in HS and beat other schools' to runners as a freshman. Then your wisdom started taking effect. I think that's because you don't let us run enough. Yet, somehow I manage to waste 2.5 hrs every day with you.

5) you have to consider that maybe you just don't have enough talent

ans: maybe but the exact same thing happened to all 5 strong runners who came into the "program" over the past 3 years. How can you claim that other schools get more talent? Basis? Have you stopped to consider how you compare against coaches whose teams kill us? And, where in the world did you come up with 16-20 miles per week for varsity boys distance?

Note: this issue was discussed with the AD by the parents of the other runners. Nothing.

Run in the morning and then run the afternoon workout in a controlled manner. Move on.

do you still have that document? can you share with me?

iMO, high school runners shouldn't do anything but base runs, strength training, and simple speed efficiency workouts like 8x200 at mile pace until March. You can still race indoors but specifically training for indoor in high school as a 2 miler is a foolish pursuit unless you are already sub 9 for 3200 which you aren't.

In terms of workouts, 1 continuous threshold/ tempo run every two weeks is enough. Threshold work is great for long term development but it will not teach you how to handle 8 consecutive laps at 69-72 sec pace. A 16 min 5k runner can probably run a 55-57 minute 10 mile all out. That puts your threshold pace at 5:30-5:40/ mile. This pace is way too slow to be relevant to your goals in the two mile.

You should get the majority of your threshold work through fast finish long runs. Done that way there isn't any way to cheat the workout the way you can with threshold intervals.

Key workouts for a 2 miler would be things like

5 x 800 at 2 mile race pace with 2 mins rest.

8 x 400 at 1 mile race pace with 1 minute rest

4x800 with the first 600 at 2 mile pace and the last 200 at mile pace. 2:30 rest

6 x 600 starting at 5k pace cutting 2 secs every rep. 2 minute rest.

Meant to add that you should begin building up to those key workouts in late Feb, early March with shorter versions of those workouts followed by 3-4 mile runs. As the season, progresses, add workout reps and decrease post run duration.