Coach and I have different philosophies..help

Give his way a try. If it doesn\'t work out then transfer. Or sneak in some extra mileage.

Same exact thing happened to me when I was in HS (I'm assuming you're in HS due to the seperate XC/track coaches). I'd suggest just running twice a day, and adding a little bit extra to the afternoon run outside of practice if you need to. As for the repeats, as long as you aren't hammering repeats every day it wont be a big deal. If you came into the season off of 80 mile weeks, than more than likely you wont burn out from 2-3 speedworkouts a week. Don't quit the track team because you have a differnt stance.

Good luck with your season! Just run extra outside to keep the aerobic systems alive, and I bet youll do great!

are you sure your coach doesn't read letsrun? my college coach did

The way to make it work? You've answered your own question. Either do it his way or take the highway. That doesn't mean he's right and you're wrong, it simply means you don't have much choice.

Do your AM runs, and dog his track sessions. He may have you doing ton of repeats but that doesn't mean you can't sand bag them. Then show up at race time and kill everyone.

Absolutely, my HS XC coach had us doing 16x400 standing recovery, to get us ready for the 5k, so a friend and I would do them in 77-78, try to jog on the recoveries (until he figured it out and yelled at us), and got up early every day for an extra 5-6 mile run. It takes balls to stand up to the peer pressure, but come race time everyone else would end up running 17+ while my friend and I ran low 16's. Surprised the hell out of my coach, who thought I was really trying my best on the repeats.

Oh, but there is a time for repeats, especially longer ones. Towards the end of the season we'd actually try on the workouts to sharpen up for state.

Not a high school coach. And transferring is not something I want to do. The advice is good, I just don't want to be that guy who does his own thing and hides everything from everyone.

ok, you are in college...that makes it easier. just run 6 miles every morning before clases. I always did.

Since you are in College then the coach should have no problem with you running doubles (am runs). That will get you milage up and you won't have to hide anything from anyone.

As a previous poster said... you may have to run the repeats on the track... but the coach can't force you to do them at a high intensity. Just run them at 90% effort compared to what he is asking you to do. That with the added milage in the am seems to be a good solution you and the coach can live with.

Also, go for runs after the workouts. If he has you doing repeats and you want more, then go for a 7 mile cool down jog. I used to do that on occasion.

Best of luck.

2-3 workouts a week in the pre season is tough but not so bad you need to transfer. I was in the same situation. In the pre-season our coach had us do tempos, one hard workout a week and a good amount of mileage (70 low, 90 high). Then when the season started he cut it down to 30 mpw.

One workout I remember is he had us do 2 x 1200 + 2 x 800 + 4 x 400 @ 80 seconds (that was slower than my 1/2 marathon pace) with one to one recovery. We had no races for weeks and had not been working the track too hard so I was baffled and decided to bust it out.

Our first rep was 3:29 and he was pissed and cut the recovery to 3 minutes ("good" I thought...). Then we ran 3:26 on the next one, so he cut the recovery to 2 minutes. So we answered by running the 800 in 2:16. "One minute recovery!" he was turning red at this point. Though we were tired we ran a 2:14. He kept us at 1 minute recovery and told us if we slowed down he would keep the recovery at one minute...so we hit 66. Oops, that pissed him off again and we ran another 66. He was steaming but gave us 30 seconds thinking we would break. My friend said he couldn't do any more but I told him we couldn't let him win. So we ran a 64. He gave us 15 seconds for the next one and we ran a 63. I was sprawled out in the track dead and could barely do the cool down but it felt good to be right. On the drive home (we practiced off campus) he said he was impressed with the workout. You would think that would have had him train us harder...nope.

So I feel for you, just try to do your best and fit in what works for you. Persoanally, now a coach you have to be flexible. I have a girl now who is very talented (a footlocker finalist) who runs 4-5 days a week and cross trains the other days because she gets injured easily. So while I promote high mileage I have to understand her body can't handle it. So it goes both ways...

he is the coach. you are the athlete.

He coaches you. You do what he says.

Get it??

good life philosophy there chief, always obey authority figures regardless of whether they are right or wrong...Can't go wrong thinking like that. What's that Mr. President, we should throw all the poor children into a pot and make a nice stew? Oh well, you're in charge....

How about growing a pair, figuring out what is the right kind of training (i.e. similar to what the best runners do) and then adapting that to your own situation. If you don't have the nuts to run a few extra miles in the morning, you don't need to transfer, you need to just quit. You don't want to keep secrets, fine, tell your teammates what you are doing. But don't come on here whining about your terrible coach and then bitch about the best solution because you're afraid to be a man and do it yourself.

My own experience of college was pretty similar. I came from a solid distance background; the college coach was an ex-400 and 800m guy who believed in super-low mileage and hammering short intervals with tons of rest. I thought the program was stupid, so I half-assed all his workouts, and tried to cut down the rest whenever he wasn't looking. Not surprisingly, I ran like crap for my first two years. (I'd run 4:02 for 1500m in high school; in my first two years of college I ran 4:04 and 4:02.)

I didn't want to transfer, and being part of the team was important to me. So finally, after my second year, I decided I'd quit worrying so much about doing the "right" program. I showed up for practice every day and did what the coach asked, as hard as I could. I ran 3:44 as a junior, and 3:42 as a senior, and I also ran some decent 800s (I'd always thought I had no speed and needed to move up to the 5000).

So do I think my college coach was right after all? Definitely not. I think his program was short-sighted and didn't set us up well for running rounds. BUT I also realized that believing in what you're doing, rather than undermining it with your doubts, is more important than the details of exactly how much rest you take or how long the intervals are.

That doesn't mean I stopped thinking or caring about what we did. I still did more mileage than the coach realized, and I'd adjust workouts whenever possible to be more aerobic. But I stopped wishing I was somewhere else and just tried to take advantage of the situation I was living in.

You love your school and XC team, but not your coach?

well two out of three ain't bad.

Anyways, you don't have to tell him how many miles you run. You can find ways to fit the workouts around your training.

I agree everyone is different and a good coach will take this into account. Unfortunately there are "my way or the highway" control freaks in all walks of life, and sometimes we just have to deal with it.

I had two coaches during my brief college career and one was a pure big miles type of guy, the other was an ex 400m guy. Funny thing is that the team groused and gripped about both guys (the first coach " we shouldnt be doing this, we're not marathoners!" second coach, "We dont run enough miles, all we do is intervals, we're not sprinters1".) I guess it's the nature of collegiate runners, are they all premaddonas?

If you like your team mates and the school, then do what you can to adjust the workouts. Don't be so short sighted to change your entire life over something that is this easy to change.

You aren't going to the Olympics, more than likely you will never earn a dime from running. It's more important that you concentrate on your school and getting a decent job once you graduate.