My coach believes that "What won't kill you will make you stronger"

Sounds like you run for Ron Helmer. Get used to those seessions and the mediocrity that will likely follow.

The Dead Runners Society

Then there's "Dead Runner Sketch."

The high school runner prefers keeping on 'is back. Remarkable athlete, innit, squire? Lovely gastrocs.

The gastrocs don't enter into it, mate. 'E's stone dead.

Your coach should believe that what makes him smarter, makes the team better and they seem to have their mind made up and are not willing to learn that a distance base is the way to build successful distance runners. It worked for JK and WEJO.

Really? He had one young woman and one young man who did the workout you listed and they had some success?

Their office must be littered with awards, trophies and plaques for all the meets they won with that training regimen.

My buddy Dr. Phil might ask..."Is that working for you?"

and as the season progresses and you and your teammates start dropping out because of injury, maybe your coach will turn introspect and ask..."What was I thinking?!"

This is a great and common-sense plan. I have noticed that a lot of runners don't get the paces they should be running either. Your schedule is great as an example of paces. Repeat miles should be done slower than VO2max (4k best) but faster than LT (threshold - 15k pace). Your VO2max was about 4:35-38 (1600 pace) and your LT was about 5:10 (1600 pace - 5:12 per 1600 for 10 miles). So 4:50 on the track is just right.

Tempos should be done at LT-pace (15k best) or slightly slower (15k pace + 10-20 secs per mile) for 10-12 mile runs.

And there you are with a 6-8 mile run working down to 5:15 (which is your 10 mi PR pace) ... makes perfect sense.

Jim Stintzi (when he was at MSU) used a schedule like this even in the winter months. He produced about four 28:XX -something 10k runners in a short time in the late 90's.

Thanks, I give the credit to great coaching though. I was at one of the premier programs in the country (hint: ponytail) as a walk-on. We had some of the current great American runners pass through during my time there. Their mileage plan was similar but the paces slightly faster. Some guys did singles but I preferred doubles. I seem to recall the sub-14 5k guys doing the mile repeats at 4:32-35.

I like the schedule and is very similar to another great program I ran for on the farm. Funny how the top programs are all very similar.

After my competitive running day were done (I gave myself 4 year after college, I took 8) I brought this philosophy to coaching. The cross country team has done better than ever.

But then the head track coach ( a sprint coach who has been there for years) sounds like this idiot who wants the kids on the track every day. I was actually scolded by the coach for not having them run faster than race pace every day. After-all, how can they expect to run personal bests if they don't train that way right? Oh, and I gave them too little rest and was the reason they were running slow.

"If you train slow, you race slow" he said. Aparently the 1-2 interval sessions were not enough.

Does "Caveman mentality" come to mind? Wait, I've got more. I bet he says "No pain no gain" alot too. "No such thing as bad weather, just weak runners?" (That idiot never ran at 35 below like I have) "Fatigue is just the weakness leaving your body" Couldn't be your body telling you something by chance? No, I thought not.

Sorry dude, Coach Bad Cliche is just that. Hang on to this one however. "There's always next year." Maybe he'll leave.

I really shouldn't have read this thread this long, and I really shouldn't be visiting Letsrun right now, and, in fact, I have no reason to be on the Internet at all this afternoon. But, having persevered in the face of about a dozen obstacles to me wasting my afternoon, I am vindicated in my own inanity by this message from "Mugsy." I have never seen a "Mugsy" post on Letsrun before. I have not thought the name "Mugsy" in several years. But if this poster, "Mugsy," is referring to the late, great coach of a small, mid-Western liberal arts college, then all I have to say is "Red-tailed hawk...Red. Tailed hawk...Red-tailed. Hawk..."

If this poster, "Mugsy," *is* the L.G.C. of a small mid-western liberal arts college, then all I have to say is "Hi coach." And, "Stop reading right about now, okay?"

And if this "Mugsy" has no idea what the hell I'm talking about--if, for example, he (or she!) is the high-mileage grandchild of the great Russian composer Mussorgsky; or a marathoning manufacturer of steins, stemware, and other vessels--then, geez, we should still be best friends.

But if this "Mugsy" knows a little about going to meets dressed like scrawny Angels of Death, doing back-to-back days of 20x400 at the arb and 8x800 hill repeats at the Boy Scout camp, and generally being coached with an almost bovine clarity of strategy and knowledge of distance-running, then, um. Cool.

The worst thing that can be said about Mugsy? He did his best.

(Wow, a really bitter message. Ah, anonymity! Ah, Mugsy!)

Mugsy wrote:Does "Caveman mentality" come to mind? Wait, I've got more. I bet he says "No pain no gain" alot too.

Wait, maybe this coach is really using Paavo training!!

Paavo is truly the training method of the future and he's just a few decades ahead of his time. LOL

other wrote:

You're on the team till they strip the uniform off you.

Gatlin parades around in his USA gear, is he still on the team?

Intervals for every training? Thats doing you more harm than good. I suggest the guys should take turns banging your coach, let him have a taste of how it feels like.