Lie to a high school runner or tell them the ugly truth?

You should seek employment in a job you are more suited for.

neither - he tells you his goal, you set up a plan to get him there, and he'll either get there or not. Your job is to teach him how to set up a plan and execute on it. Life lesson.

Point is to get him to set a plan and stick to it and push himself - that he will remember.

^ Nailed it right on

It's frightening that someone considered a "coach" seriously believes those to be the only two alternatives.

Tell him you need a team leader first and the team goals are more important.

With that in mind have him shoot to be your number 1 runner and sub 17 first. You got to set him straight that all his talk is not setting him up to succeed.

I would tell him,

"just believe in yourself and put the work in, and we'll find out how good you can get."

Torn Coach wrote:

I coach Cross Country and track at a local high school and one of the kids on the team went from a 21:50 freshman to a 17:55 sophomore. However he wont shut up about being the next high school phenom and has already set his 2011 XC goal as sub 15min. Now, do I crush his hopes and dreams and tell him that the odds are overwhelmingly against him? Or do I lie to him and say "just believe in yourself and put the work in at you'll get there"?

lead him through the math. compare the per mile time for a 5k to his present PR for the mile. if he then thinks it a reasonable thing to accomplish then just lay out a training plan to accomplish the goal. it will either happen or not. why pass judgement on his dream?[

agip wrote:

neither - he tells you his goal, you set up a plan to get him there, and he'll either get there or not. Your job is to teach him how to set up a plan and execute on it. Life lesson.

Point is to get him to set a plan and stick to it and push himself - that he will remember.

I think the issue OP is referring to is the fact that he doesn't want to set the kid up for failure by pursuing a "goal" that is very unrealistic. Does letting the kid fail to hit this goal do anything for him long term?

I would say to propose a different goal of sub 1630 or sub 16 and see whether that goal is met before going for sub 15. Or start it even earlier with track times and trying to run times that indicate a possibility of hitting those times.

The only problem I see is that if he does get to 15:00 as a junior, he will think he can run 12:05 his senior year. I would draw the line at that point.

Dream big, plan small.

Or, to be less brief but slightly more accurate:

When you plan big, you also have to plan small. You can't plan to run sub 15 in your next race when you haven't run sub 15:20, let alone sub 17.

If he just goes out and runs by feel his first race, he'll probably knock a huge chunk off. Don't let high school kids set out to run a huge PR or bust. This should be explicable. No training is like racing. Your body has to learn it.

Good luck.

Over the years I have found those kids who are willing to set big goals are pretty resilient with regard to how they handle missing them. They tend to believe in themselves and just reset big goals after missing them. They also tend to achieve pretty amazing things in life, far beyond what most people expected.

I think some of the first responses to the OP's message were spot on. I don't think it's ever a coach's job to tell an athlete they can't achieve a given goal. It is the coach's job to talk about what might be necessary to get there and to allow room for the athlete to readjust goals if they so choose without saying "I told you so".

Quite honestly, I find that too many kids don't set high enough goals and are too scared to fail. It's much easier to guide a horse that wants to perform than to pull a mule that wants to stay in place.

It is very rare to have a kid like that; he sounds like a real fire-eater. In all honesty, I wish I could bottle up some of that and feed it to some of the guys I ran with back in the day.

In reality, if he works hard enough, there is not reason why he can't get there. I've seen a freshman 7 minute miler run 4:2X his senior year. And at a completely unremarkable high school in Coral Springs, FL, there was once a young 400 meter runner who was DEAD LAST in EVERY race he ran his freshman year. At the end of the season, he decided that he was going to do everything in his power imaginable to be the best sprinter in the state of Florida. His name? Walter Dix.

Smeagol wrote:

And at a completely unremarkable high school in Coral Springs, FL, there was once a young 400 meter runner who was DEAD LAST in EVERY race he ran his freshman year. At the end of the season, he decided that he was going to do everything in his power imaginable to be the best sprinter in the state of Florida. His name? Walter Dix.

Neat story, but I'm pretty sure it's bogus. Got a link that documents that?

I was able to find that Dix was the son of a track-and-field coach and started competing at a young age, so I have a hard time imagining he was dead last in every race as a high school freshman. When he was 14 he long jumped 23'10", and when he was 15 he ran 10.82 to place 4th in the 100 at AAUs. So I'm thinking he did pretty well as a freshman, but would be happy to be corrected.

Tell him once he's winning races consistently, he can start worrying about times. Win races, be competitive, and the times will come. Tell him you're going to coach him to make him as fast as possible without injuring him or sacrificing his later improvements, and that if he just follows your directives, he'll do fine.

Another Option wrote:

Quite honestly, I find that too many kids don't set high enough goals and are too scared to fail. It's much easier to guide a horse that wants to perform than to pull a mule that wants to stay in place.

This is so true. So many of the kids I have coached have made goals that were so soft. For example, I have a girl who ran 6:11 as a sophomore and wants to run 6:00 as a junior. That would make her probably the number 15 girl on our team in the 1600. Why would anyone set that as their goal? Breaking 6 minutes should be her stepping stone to a real goal of 5:45 or even 5:30. If you don't set your goals high, there isn't much point in setting goals at all. If you just want to run a little faster, then you don't need a goal. You just go out there and run. To the OP, be glad you have someone with high goals. Now go out there and be his coach and figure out how to get him there.

I think it is harder to tell the truth to a runner about hygiene than about times.

I would be straight up honest with him. I mean, get down to business. Examine his training that brought him to the 17. Tell him you know what the phenoms do as far as say mileage. I trained 2 H.S guys last few years that went top 10 at Footlocker. What training has this kid done to 17. Tell him what it is gonna take to go where he wants.Maybe he needs say a 90 minute run twice in 8 days logged into his week. Different paces etc. I'd just be straight up honest and let him know your with him...but this is exactly what he has to do, when, food, recovery, glycogens, schedule, rest etc. Maybe he just needs to win the state mile and get into a great school and improve at that point. I don't know maybe he is a nutty kid, but maybe he would actually do the work. Tell him what that work is and how he might attempt it. Good Luck.

what was dat? wrote:

I think it is harder to tell the truth to a runner about hygiene than about times.

How very true. I had a very fast female runner who stunk to high heaven.

I once asked some Ethiopians what time the wanted to do 10km

Every one of them said WR

None of them did it but one did marry a millionaire!