It's been a year, and I still got nothing.

Have you told your coach the workouts are breaking you down? If he's like you describe, he might not listen, but at least give it a shot.

I'm doing two good workouts a week and I'm progressing really well, but three breaks me down like you described. If you can cut it to two, do a long run the day of the third workout, and you might see your strength come back.

If he doesn't listen, quit, but give it a shot before throwing in the towel.

I had a similar college freshman year and a similar in-your-face coach. My advice is to take the in-your-face approach right back to your coach and tell him that you are sucking and you think you know why. Then tell him that you want a change in your program before your whole season is lost. Back down on the hard stuff (especially on easy days) and make 2 workouts a week really count.

I had one xc season in high school that I thought was totally lost midway through. I asked our track coach (who didn't coach xc) what I should do and he told me to run with the jv guys for everything except the hard workouts (2-3 per week). It took about a month but I recovered and had my best xc race of my career at the end of that season.

I'm in pretty much the same situation, when we do repeat 400s at the end of a workout i can't even run my 3200 pace from high school

Mr. Point wrote:

I including near all out tempo runs.

Tempo runs are NOT all out runs.

Jocks A. Sempleton wrote:

Mr. Point wrote:

I including near all out tempo runs.

Tempo runs are NOT all out runs.

Absolutely right.

Sounds like maybe you are over trained. There are A LOT of factors that go into running well. Maybe it's the workouts, maybe it's not. I'm sure there are maybe guys on your team who are running faster doing the same workouts that you are doing, and you are not.

Try talking with your coach. Find out what your weaknesses are and what you need to do to improve them.

AdamLocked wrote:

Jocks A. Sempleton wrote:

Mr. Point wrote:

I including near all out tempo runs.

Tempo runs are NOT all out runs.

Absolutely right.

Sounds like maybe you are over trained. There are A LOT of factors that go into running well. Maybe it's the workouts, maybe it's not. I'm sure there are maybe guys on your team who are running faster doing the same workouts that you are doing, and you are not.

Try talking with your coach. Find out what your weaknesses are and what you need to do to improve them.

haha, being overtrained was kind of my whole point. I've been overtrained this whole year. Like I said, almost everyone feels the same way, but it isn't affecting them quite as bad. Most have not improved much (if at all) this year, but only one is hurting worse than I am. I've tried talking to the coach, but he insists this is the only way. If we run crappy it's because we're not in shape, so we do more workouts to get "in shape," which obviously just makes us more tired.

Thanks for the replies

make sure you take your time on the easy days as a group..

schedule a class that coincides with one hard workout day..ie. a lab...that will get you out of it and you can replace it with an easy/long run

I've pretty much made up my mind I want to transfer. I've tried to talk to the coach before and he didn't want to hear anything I had to say, so I don't think there's any way to solve the problem by staying here. It's not really even about running. It's about happiness, and this year, my coach has made happiness pretty hard to attain.