peaking too soon

Yes you can only do specific workouts for so many weeks before you plateau and then eventually it starts to burn you out in most cases so by the time you taper its already got you in the hole. So with high school in XC, indoor and outdoor track we only did this for five weeks. I used to do 6wks when i started coaching and when i added one more week of strength phase we peaked better. We competed against a lot of schools who were doing those hard anaerobic works from the start if the season and they ran great and beat us most the season until the second half and state meet etc. If you run 9:30 2mi mid season and running 10:00 the last few meets you messed up.

Anaerobic stuff can work well for HS kids who come into the season out of shape. Gains in speed endurance don't take that much time and you can then hold onto them for about 6 weeks. This covers most of the HS season. So, coaches of kids who come into the season out of shape can point to their training program and say, "look at what we're doing! Our kids PR early in the season and then hold on to them until league finals! Clearly what we are doing is working"

However, most of their kids won't progress past league finals because they're being beaten by kids from good programs who have a more long term outlook.

Try talking to your coaches and see if they will allow you to tweak your training plan. Don't tell them that they're incompetent or anything, just tell them you think some longer, slower reps with short recovery would work for you.

There's nothing wrong with 400s per se. They won't even really make you "peak early". I've had my guys do 12-15 x 400 @ 3200 pace early in the cycle, but they take up to 2 min recovery. Some of the best runners in the world incorporate them early in a training cycle. However, they don't run them very hard early on and they keep the rest of the volume pretty high. If you have to do a lot of intense stuff early on, maybe sort of sandbag back to your 3200 pace and then throw in an easy 4 miler before school.

I had that exact situation my first season coaching as with no coach the kids had no direction and didnt train and did that approach and it was a disaster. Even the JV kids get in a 10-12 week season in my state each season. And usually taper them a week early so they can get a similar peak the varsity athletes get. Thats just my experience.

10-12 weeks, that's what I'm saying. 4 weeks of "getting some anaerobic fitness" and 6 weeks of holding on to it. Our season runs early feb - early may. Lots of programs around here don't have great off season programs, but their kids PR all season long (they don't ever run THAT fast though). The good kids run all the way into June....CA state meet, NON, stuff like that.

if you're a skilled soccer player conditioning expands how many play per game you can try and how long you are useful to me in a game. but if you are a sloppy soccer player conditioning over skills leaves you a sloppy bench level hustle player. a lot of second rate school soccer coaches obsess about conditioning and defensive tactics, on the theory they can make their team hard to score on and fit. but to actually improve you need to do skill work. it was amazing to me how little schools work on dribbling, tricks, shooting, passing accuracy. they just cherry pick players who already have them.

anyhow, you give us no times. if you are slow as molasses i am with your coaches. LSD on big mileage isn't making you more competitive. you even told us your XC times got worse. which to me is my signpost on is what i am doing actually working. you don't say what you've done this season which is weird.

you also strike me as contradicting yourself with the 400 complaints then supplementing outside.

you can modulate practice effort over a season. or even within a workout.

whatever you did frosh-soph didn't work if it made you slower. so maybe have some humility.

Im referring to the situation of doing it for 10-12 wks from the start not including tapering for states etc. If your only doing it for 6 wks I don’t think theres an issue there.

“Peaking too soon”

No such thing

Please explain your thinking

i think you can peak early and it not matter too much. but if you want to make long term improvements you can't if you are always peaking because you won't be able to run often enough.

if you just want to race every weekend and you are content maintaining your fitness and aren't bothered about improving, then perhaps it's possible to 'extend your peak' across many weeks or even months (or a racing season), just by easy running a few times a week, some strides, maybe a tempo, and the race on sunday is your workout.