How Do I get my coach to realize I'm not as fast as they think?

You could run your workouts/races at appropriate paces and just act tired? I've flirted with this idea before.

who cares what your coach thinks.

stop running for your coach.

run for yourself.

if he yells at you ignore him.

run even splits in races, and run controlled in workouts.

keep doing what they be making you do and you'll never get better, and will end up hating running and everything about it.

so many stupid coaches in this country. they think it's all about "toughness" and "balls" and "guts". no. it's about improving your endurance, slowly and gradually.

Way to be ambitious, my friend.

Do more morning runs.

Sounds like you have a bad coach.

U may not have a choice but to do what he says until you race, and then once he sees what your fitness is really at, hopefully he will have the common sense to back it down a bit. If not you're in trouble because you can get wrecked.

When I was a sophomore in HS I ran low 18s on a notoriously slow 5k course in 90degree weather. Because of this, my coach estimated my vdot at 60 (which is meant for a 1705 5k athlete in the jack daniels book) and I got really beat up/overtrained and was running 19s by the end of xc. My coach still kept me at 60vdot insisting that hed been watching me like a hawk in workouts and believed it was the right intensity for me. Finally, after plantar faciitis in both feet, sick all the time, blood in my stool, and anemia and 12:04 indoor 3200m run (which I later found out I was severely anemic when I ran), I took some time to recover and finally adjusted paces to reflect current fitness.

Obviously I was slow back then so not sure that helps you, but its important whatever your fitness to work with your body rather than against it, just like JK says you don't want to go sailing through a redlight

Who is "they?"

ya man wrote:

who cares what your coach thinks.

stop running for your coach.

run for yourself.

if he yells at you ignore him.

run even splits in races, and run controlled in workouts.

keep doing what they be making you do and you'll never get better, and will end up hating running and everything about it.

so many stupid coaches in this country. they think it's all about "toughness" and "balls" and "guts". no. it's about improving your endurance, slowly and gradually.

I used to think this way, that running was just all about getting fit and showing up to the line on race day. Running D1 cross country and track has shown me otherwise. I've seen a lot of really fit people just have straight up mental blocks when it comes to getting it done in the last k. Obviously fitness matters more but you can't forget your balls at home either.

My advice to the OP. Its probably never a good thing when the athlete wants to take things slower than the coach as it should usually be the other way around. The thing of it is though, if you want to be a 9:15 guys someday you have to buy into the possibility that you can be. Yes, maybe you should try to run more controlled, especially in practice, and just get some pr's, but be very careful not to sabotage yourself and start thinking you're not as good as you can be.

Is them coach update?

DocLove wrote:

Is them coach update?

Apologies for digressing here, but I'm new to this board and I see this fairly frequently: "Is XYZ update?" Is that some kind of inside joke or something? What am I missing?

And OP, I can sympathize; it's hard when coach(es) think you're better than you actually are, so you work yourself too hard in workouts relative to your actual fitness. Certainly been there, and come race day, there's nothing left.

OP - perhaps looking at 9.15 as a goal pace, and 9.35 as Date pace, try to run workouts (a la Pre) with initial segments at GP (69's) and later segments at DP(72's). If you were doing 8-12x400m (whatever recovery you have for an aerobic session), try and run a few in 69 (like 3-4), and the rest in 72, then gradually do more of them in 69 and fewer in 72, until you you can do 8x400m in 69 or 4x800m in 2.19, etc. This might take a while, but maybe the coach can get the hint, and you can still survive sessions while looking to run the faster time - which would make you both happy. Races may be another matter, but then HS (if that's where you are) races tend to go out too fast anyway, so at least you will also be prepared for that - even if it means some slower times than running optimally even paces.

puddle of consciousness wrote:

Apologies for digressing here, but I'm new to this board and I see this fairly frequently: "Is XYZ update?" Is that some kind of inside joke or something? What am I missing?

Someone made a typo a few weeks ago, and it seems that one or two kids here can't get over it. You're not missing out on some hilarious inside joke, but welcome to letsrun anyways.

Well, basically your coach is not so good. I coached a post-collegiate who progressed in her college running while the rest of the team burned out -- one of the worst coaching jobs I've ever seen. It was a real war crime really, what this coach did to his athletes. Her save that final season was she had a lab schedule that kept her from training with the team. On her own she realized what her coach had written down for her was predictably foolish; she realized dividing the reps prescribed in half, then adding 5 sec/400m worked very well. Because she was relatively new to running she had no misconceptions that her coach was knowledgeable. Later on she became national class, conversational at what was once her 5000m race pace. You gotta think for yourself kid. Truth is you are probably much better than 915, but not with this coach, not now. Recalibrate and save your season.