How many of you that run for your college team have mandatory Sunday runs and, if you do, is there a time of the year (like now, between cross & indoors) when it isn't mandatory?
I was surprised to learn of one nearby school that made it mandatory. Seems like enough to give the runners one day off to do as coach suggests or do as they like but not have to show up somewhere to run w/the gang.
During the season, this would probably be in violation of 17.1.5.4, which provides for one day off from athletically related activities per calendar week.
Yeah, there is that rule. That's why our coach would give us one of the weekdays on our own....usually Monday since that was almost always a shorter, easy day between the long run and a big workout on Tuesday. Also, I'm not so sure giving Sunday as the day of no contact is a good idea. I would think that would encourage kids to stay out until all hours of the morning partying, and then who knows if they'll end up even doing their long run. Having a Sunday long run scheduled anywhere from 9-11 in the morning (or earlier, though not at my school) sort of helps to keep the runners in check a little.
tqx wrote:
Having a Sunday long run scheduled anywhere from 9-11 in the morning (or earlier, though not at my school) sort of helps to keep the runners in check a little.
or it helps them hate their coach. college kids are going to drink no saturday night no matter what they have in the morning. also, if the coach isn't creating an atmosphere where the kids want to succeed on their own and have the dedication to get out and run on their own sunday (regardless of the time of day) then he's got a problem.
See, this is what is wrong with kids today, they can't drink hard the night before and manage to get out of bed in just a few hours to go for a run. Once, I stayed out till dawn drinking like a fish, pulled on my running shorts and blasted a 10 miler in 57:00.
bmc pool strikes back wrote:
or it helps them hate their coach. college kids are going to drink no saturday night no matter what they have in the morning. also, if the coach isn't creating an atmosphere where the kids want to succeed on their own and have the dedication to get out and run on their own sunday (regardless of the time of day) then he's got a problem.
I don't really agree with your first statement - I certainly drank less knowing that I had to be up early for a long run. And also that I needed sleep to recover from Saturday's race. Absolutely no one disliked the coach for Sunday long runs. We all knew it was in our best interest, even if on Saturday night we didn't really feel like going to bed at 2 am rather than staying out and getting in at 4.
I will agree on your second point though. That's a whole other issue, on how a coach can motivate certain athletes to do things on their own. I won't entirely blame the coach, some kids on my team just weren't very dedicated and nothing the coach could do was going to change that. In a perfect world, yes, all the athletes would be self-motivated enough to do a long run on their own on Sunday without an official practice. Most coaches know the reality, however.
Right now our coach is letting us have Sundays as our rest days. We do our long runs on Monday, workout tuesday, easy wednesday, workout thursday, easy friday, sat = cruise run or meet. It works really well and the week's workouts always feel really good. This is for track only however... for 800-milers.