How do I tell my coach about this

I didn’t make this clear enough: I want to stay with the private coach and do their workouts. I would still go to school practice, but just do my assigned run.

What do you guys think

What is the training partner situation at your school?

Do your real private coach training before school. You could just jog 30 min after school with your teammates.

keep it to yourself don't cause drama. Just run with the team and be a good team-mate. Be respectful to your coach. And do your workouts, etc with your private coach.

Last year me and the 2nd girl were separated by about 2 or 3 minutes in the 5k. However there is a girl who was faster than I was in the 2021 season but she was out last season. There are definitely people to train with. We have a full team, it’s not like I’m the only one on it.

What do you do with your private coach if you don’t do tempo, threshold, Fartleks, or hard intervals? Those are all good things that make you fit. Why wouldn’t you want to do those?

I should add: we were really good in 2021 with our old coach, but then everything kind of fell apart when we got a new one. Everyone on the team got worse from 21-22 cross seasons.

I think you misread. I agree it makes you better! I do that stuff with my private coach. I never do it with my HS coach which is a problem.

I said “I don’t want to go back to never doing that stuff” because I know it helps you improve and is vital. But we never do it with my HS coach so I want to stay with my private coach who knows how to train and incorporates that stuff.

Ok thanks! I 100% do not want to cause any drama. Do you think I should tell my HS coach about the private coach? Or keep it a secret? What would I do on workout days/how would I get out of doing these? So unsure

Oops my bad! Yeah that’s a pretty bad situation. If the new coach only has you running easy then you could do your workouts in the mornings and do an easy double in the evening at school with your teammates?

Once he has you doing the intervals in season, though, that might be hard to get around so you might just have to suck it up and do those.

Have you talked to your private coach about the situation? Do they have any advice about this?

Not sure why this is being downvoted. Just sandbag the easy 3-4 mile run option with the team in the afternoons and keep the private coach thing to yourself. Unless he's a completed control freak or his fragile ego is threatened by you not being a practice champion (both are perfectly possible with a high school coach in what I assume is the US), your good race results should get you and keep you on the varsity squad.

If people ask, just play dumb. "Hur dur, I don't know why I'm so fast. Derp, derp"

Yeah unfortunately we hammer hard reps year round. We do do easy runs which is not a conflict between my HS coach’s training and private one, so that is not the issue, it’s the terrible workouts that destroy us and I’m not sure how to get around.

You are certainly not going to improve the way you want to if you are doing team workouts and also workouts with your private coach. Either pick the school team or run for your private coach.

The other thing not mentioned that should be asked is, are you alone with your private coach or part of a group?

I would never do team workouts and private coach workouts, I agree.

It is an online coach. The coaches on it coach kids all over the country, so I guess it’s a group, but not an in-person one.

That’s a tough one as there are no opportunities to run for a team with the private coach. I think you have to be honest with your school coach.

I coach a high school team and would never allow it for several reasons but you never know.

dont tell anyone and get your online coach to assess what your HS coach is doing and have him make your running plan around your HS coach's activities if possible, that way you can reap the benefits of your online coach whilst still being able to do what your HS coach wants you to do, as well as keeping it secretive

Just don't show up the first day of practice.

If your coach is that bad and that inflexible you need to move on.

Hopefully there's AAU or USATF races in your area that you can run in until the post season races.

My kids don't run for their school because of the ridiculously bad coaches. We have to run road races and travel to meets in NYC but it works out. We pick and choose our races and are usually able to peak for regional or national championship meets.

Out of curiosity, from the POV of a coach, what's the issue with an athlete running workouts for a private coach while competing on your team? I'm open minded here and legitimately curious.

Unless you're willing to be honest with the coach about a private coach or get your them to alter their training. You might just have to suck it up. But also, if your new coach is really that bad, and you're just doing really low mileage with speed intervals I'm sure your private coach could find a way to mix up the training in a way that could still benefit you.

You could do a threshold workout on your easy days, sandbag the speed workouts early in the season(might be awkward but also youre the one trying to have two coaches). Then drop the threshold late in the season when speed development/peaking is intended.

You could do a threshold run after a weekend race, or Sunday when unsupervised, etc. Seems like more work than it may be worth. If you got really good training in all summer you may be able to manage for a 3 ish month xc season with bad training and still run about the same as you would with current training.

And lastly you could conveniently skip a practice every couple weeks with a parents lie or what not and just go do a workout you actually want to do.