Coaching Cross Country

distance running is actually very complicated.

think of all of the workouts that sprinters do, they are much more frequent, and i'm sure you do a fine job thinking of and preparing those workouts.

distance runners on the other hand, especially if they run cross and the longer events in track deal with A LOT more volume of a different kind of training.

they get better not just from workouts but from running, running is what makes them better at running.

cross country/track runners deal with macrocycles in their training, it is thus the coaches job to deal with the beginning middle and end of each cycle. he wants his athletes to peak at the right time just as in sprinting and not burn out.

i may have a bias being a long distance guy, but i feel like since there is so much volume involved and by just the general nature of the sport, there are more pitfalls in the training and conditioning of a long distance athlete, injuries, peaking too early, knowing which workouts are best for the athlete to run well, and importantly AT WHAT TIME you do a workout in season.

sprinting focuses on form and muscle development, and in the long sprints tolerance to fatigue while distance running involves all those things on top of the main thing of training your body's energy systems, it's a huge physiological thing.

chances are, your head coach's office is filled with books on distance running and he has certifications by the USATF (1,2,3)

Any decent distance coach spends hours timing the numerous reps his runners must complete trackside on cold dark evenings every week. Supervising hills and getting the right balance between steady and tempo runs is also an individual task that needs skill and experience as well as knowing your runners individual styles etc.

Supervising training schedules and organising races as well as motivating to beat the boredom are all time consuming.

Perhaps your guy is just lazy then!

$ wrote:

Is it really tough to coach distance runners? I ask this because I work at the college level coaching all the other events with the exception of cross country while my Head Cross Country and Track coach works with the distance guys. From an outsider looking in all he does is has our guys do X amount of mileage a week with the occasional track workout one to two times per week. His job basically consists of telling our guys hey run this many miles this week while I sit in my office and do jack sh!t. In the sprints, jumps, and throws there is a lot of technique involved unlike distance training. Am I way off on this? My Cross coach is very lazy and admits to disliking track.

If the distance runners are fast then you probably shouldn't complain, but if they stink then you have a point. There are a lot of bad distance coaches out there who think they know everything cause they've read a few running books and read letsrun.

Also, distance training really is not that hard, it basically is what you described above but with little intricacies that may not be obvious to an outsider.

Like so many things, coaching distance runners WELL takes a lot of work. However, doing it at a level of basic competence is a good bit easier and less technical than most T&F events. If I had to take a rookie assistant with zero background and give them one area, distance would be the one where they could follow a cookie-cutter plan and do the least damage. I'll bet there are a good many football and basketball coaches who can earn a stipend and be respectable in XC with decent people skills and a copy of Daniels' tables. On the flipside, the technical field events require a great deal of knowledge. And sprints (counting blocks, relays, neuromuscular drills, plyometrics, etc.) are closer to the technical end than to distance on the complexity scale.

That said--you can be "respectable" or "not embarassing" with pretty basic coaching in distance, but you're not going to beat anybody who's a real pro. And whether it's coaching, auto mechanics, or brain surgery, the very top end transcends competence and becomes art.