Are my coaches in the wrong

...time to transfer

It's just you.

If you are starting to question if adding 10 minutes of running to a 6 mile training run is helping or hurting you, you might want to stop overthinking some things so much. I'll save you the time - it will have zero effect on your performance.

Some coaches yell, some don't. Some athletes get motivated when their coach yells at them, some don't. My point is there will never be a perfect balance. You know your coach yells, so get out there tomorrow and run the race of the year.

Be a man and do what your coach asks you to do. If you don't like it transfer or don't compete on the team. Your coaches are in charge and tell you what to do. Get over it or get out of it.

He had every right to yell. He wrote a workout. You took it on yourselves to cut it short. He's the coach, you're the athlete. If you have a reason to not want to do the extra 10, bring it up before the workout. If he agrees to change it, you're fine. If not, and it hurts your performance on race day, it's on him. That's his job.

gamecock wrote:

He had every right to yell. He wrote a workout. You took it on yourselves to cut it short. He's the coach, you're the athlete. If you have a reason to not want to do the extra 10, bring it up before the workout. If he agrees to change it, you're fine. If not, and it hurts your performance on race day, it's on him. That's his job.

This mentality of college running pisses me off. I don't run to please my coach or my team; I run because I love running. If the coach tells me to do something that I know will hurt my performance, I am not going to do it. It is not logical for me to do something that I know will hurt me. If the coach wanted to kick me off the team for this mentality I would be fine with it and run unattached. I know my self better than anyone else and have had enough expierience to know what works and doesn't work for me. Fortunately our coach works with us and is flexible on the workouts so its never been a problem. You should go to your coach and speak your mind. Hes getting paid to help you not hurt you. If professionals disagree with their coach then they change coaches.

Jaysus, the kids these days!

One question: Will your boyfriend be lubing up tonight before he pounds your mangina raw?

All good runners do exactly what their coaches tell them to.

Get even. And be creative.

If you're following everything he tells you to the 'T' and still aren't improving, then transfer. It's not that hard. You'll never know if his program works if you don't follow it.

Calm down a little, everybody.

OP, you said it yourself: tomorrow's the conference meet. Not just the athletes get a little on edge as the big meets approach; so do the coaches. They want so much for you to be successful and have a great meet, and they want you to feel, as you go into the meet, like you did everything possible to get ready. They want you to feel like you'll run great because you've earned it.

I heard a good quote from Mark Wetmore some years back, to the effect of "Don't listen to anything I tell you in the last 48 hours before the meet." Smart idea: coaches can respond to the tension of the situation with inappropriate (dumb) comments.

As for the screaming at your #1: I'd be willing to bet there's been some history between him and the coach(es); that he knew he was flouting their authority; and that he did it anyway (maybe as *his* response to the tension).

Anyway, it looks like you guys are all probably feisty and ready for a good meet. After the meet's over--maybe a couple days after--you can *privately* go to the coach(es) and say why this incident bothered you. Between now and then, however, you can ask yourself why it seemed important--knowing your coach(es) as you do--to cut a measly ten minutes out of today's run.

By the way, I liked this advice from gamecock: "If you have a reason to not want to do the extra 10, bring it up before the workout."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This reminds me of a true story: I know of an excellent (former) small-college coach whose teams were consistently competitive at a national level. One year, in the last practice before they were going to leave for Nationals, he assigned an easy run around a particular loop. He noticed that some of the guys finished 10-15 minutes behind the others, and got upset--there was a fair amount of intrasquad competition, and some guys liked to outwork their teammates, but they all knew how he felt about tacking on extra mileage during the last couple weeks of the season.

So he started to ream the latecomers for not following the workout, and they told him that they *had* run the loop, and nothing extra. Turned out that the "early" crew, without checking with the coach beforehand or saying anything at all to him when they got back to the track, had bailed on the workout.

Bear in mind, this was the coach whose workouts and coaching had gotten these guys (basically a bunch of no-names in high school) to the point where they were national contenders, and who no doubt had paid more attention to their running and recovery during the season than they had; yet in the last practice of the season, the runners decided that they knew better than he did.

His response? "Fine. We're not going to Nationals."

So the Big Revolt followed. Team meeting with all the athletes and the coach; raised voices; general griping about the team, the school, the weather, the universe, etc. (And this was BITD, when protest and general questioning of authority were "in the air.") Finally, one of the team's better runners (who'd run the correct loop) just stood up, turned to his teammates, and said, "Hey! Coach didn't do anything wrong or different from what he's done all season. [Team policy: if you don't do a practice, you miss the next meet.] You guys are the ones keeping me from going to Nationals. If anyone's got a complaint, it's me, and it's with you." That pretty much ended the meeting. Anyway, the coach held his ground and the team didn't go to Nationals.

A few years later--same coach, same policies--his cross-country guys were DIII national champions.

If that's your attitude, then you ought to train yourself and run road races for fun and t-shirts. If you're a member of team, and especially if you've accepted a scholarship, the team is bigger than you. I agree that there should be communication between coaches and their athletes. But at the end of the day, somebody has to have the final say, and that's his job.

+1

a disturbed college runner wrote:

This bothered me a little bit because he likes us to run our "easy days" at 6:20 pace. We are a decent D2 school but our easy pace is not 6:20. So its nice to take a day easy, and I didn't think the extra 10 was necessary. Is this right? Like I said this bothered me a little but I got over it easily enough.

How does he know how fast you run? Is he following beside you? I feel and have always felt that race preparation is very individual. Could you not have ran around the corner and finished all of your stretching and stuff there? Easy days are whatever you have to do. You have to do your 2-3 workouts a week and your long run. Morning runs and the filler stuff you should feel easy, comfortable, fun and you should be chatting with your teammates; that's why they are called easy days. At the collegiate level you should be trying to improve, and not just show up, like a bad high school team who would rather goof around instead of running. Your coach is a control freak, I think he/she gets off to it.

lease wrote:

This reminds me of a true story: I know of an excellent (former) small-college coach whose teams were consistently competitive at a national level Blah Blah Blah...

Lease, I found your post up to this point intelligent and agreeable.

That having been said, and not to hijack a thread here, but that's one of the stupidest f***ing things I've ever heard. There's such a thing as a proportionate response. Having done a number of team sports seriously in high school besides track (though only xc and track at the collegiate level), I understand severe punishment for the entire team based on the actions of a few. It makes sense. But that is beyond all reason.

I feel like there must be more to the story than this. There simply has to be. If I'm the AD at that school, I fire the coach on the spot, no matter how competitive he has been, and I'd be sure to let any future potential bosses of his know about the situation were they to contact me. On that same note, if I were one of the athletes who cut the run short, I'd quit too. Not because I was punished - yes, the punishment is disproportionate, but that's between me and the coach - but because my other, obedient teammates were held to the same disproportionate response. Again, I understand punishing all for the actions of a few, but not like that. Finally, and perhaps most egregiously, if I were one of the guys who had done the right thing and still not been able to go to nationals, I'd have probably quit as well. I'm going to have my chance to run at the meet I've been training for all season (year, career, etc) blown by a couple f***-up teammates? If that's how it's going to be, there's gonna be hell to pay, that's for sure.

I believe that this guy may be able to coach track and field, but I question his ability to coach athletes generally. That's why I think there's more to the story than this. I'm shocked this has flown under the radar.

I'm sure I'll get flamed by some "take some responsibility, stop blaming other people, etc etc" posters. Believe me, I'm all about personal responsibility. But, as I said before, this has to be one of the stupidest f***ing stories I've ever heard in my life and the coach is a dumbf***.

another college runner wrote:

I know my self better than anyone else and have had enough expierience to know what works and doesn't work for me.

If you are between 18-22 years old you don't know anything about anything.

Chances are good you will never be a professional athlete and have the luxury of dumping your coach when disagreements arise.

Grow up.