Is my coach expecting too much out of our team?

Your coach is an idiot

A careless whisper wrote:

Your coach is an idiot

Amen.

I know guys who ran under 13:40 who did recovery runs at 6:20+ pace. 6:08 pace for a 16:00 guy is a tempo run, not a recovery day.

Even if by recovery day you mean just a general aerobic day then still 6:08 pace is way to fast. As someone above me said there are plenty of sub 15 runners that don't run even 6:30 pace for general aerobic runs, let alone recovery runs.

Rupp and Farah run 5:45 pace for their easy runs. There's no way any high school kids should be running 6:08 unless they are elite (Jim Rosa used to log long runs at like 5:45-6:00). No reason for just a couple of sub16 guys to be going out and hammering every day. The pace should be closer to 6:45-7:00 for those guys. The jump in mileage from 50 to 60 isn't a bad idea either, but don't do that all in one week obviously.

608? That's odd, you should have asked what would happen if you ran at 610 or 607?

yes, it's too fast. dont do it, what's he going to do, kick you off? (Just make sure you race well.)

I know this doesn't count for much, but ran 15:22 with most runs around 6:50-7:10 pace. Last time I checked 15:22 was under 16. Your coach is a moron.

yes your coach is an idiot. i ran 15:50 as a junior doing all my regular runs around 7:30 pace and some were even probably at 8:00 pace. We just did a lot of hard workouts. Before college I never ran faster than 7:00 pace for a normal run.

6:30 is way too fast...McMillan's calculator shows these paces for a 16:00 5k:

Endurance Workouts Pace/Mile Pace/K

Recovery Jogs 7:28 to 7:58 4:38 to 4:57

Long Runs 6:28 to 7:28 4:01 to 4:38

Easy Runs 6:28 to 6:58 4:01 to 4:20

Run 60 miles a week at 7:00 pace and stop complaining.

Your coach is trying to get you to bump your miles up to 60. Do that.

Recovery days are for recovery.

DeCastella used to make them as slow as he could. He ran with elderly people

bobonuts wrote:

Recovery days are for recovery.

DeCastella used to make them as slow as he could. He ran with elderly people

I had the pleasure of seeing first hand how DeCastella trained when he lived in Boulder, CO. He did the majority of his running at a pretty decent pace and was not running with elderly people on a regular basis.

With that said, I agree with the majority of posters that are saying this coach is wrong in the pace he wants his runners to go. I suspect his real motivation is for them to increase their mileage and go slower, but he just has a strange way of getting that point across.

Lets be rational here guys. Odds are this high school kid is confused and didn't understand what the coach was talking about.

Most high school kids can't read or figure out a workout and the coach needs to tell them interval by interval what to do. Too much testosterone blocking blood to the brain I think.

OP be trollin.

If you don't believe me I can take a picture of his pace chart he made for us. The guy is pretty ridiculous when it comes to what he wants us training at daily. I also meant to say we are doing 40 mpw not 50 mpw.

Since this is Letsrun, and you can't proof read the difference between 40 and 50 miles per week, you should be prepared for the flak you deserve.

I will take a wild stab in the dark to try to explain where your coach might have come up with this idea.

http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.htm

Since he wants 6:08 training pace for a 5:08 race pace, the most likely source is Coach Farrell's article.

60 mpw @ 7:00 pace is very reasonable.

50 mpw @ 6:08 pace, for kids around 16ish for 5k, is not reasonable... that's getting a bit close to "tempo run" pace, which is obviously not what you want for recovery.

Recovery runs are for recovery... run them as slow as you need to. Just don't make the mistake of trading in what should be normal (the majority of your days) "aerobic" runs for recovery runs.

9wan9f3ljkdfsa wrote:

Since this is Letsrun, and you can't proof read the difference between 40 and 50 miles per week, you should be prepared for the flak you deserve.

I will take a wild stab in the dark to try to explain where your coach might have come up with this idea.

http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.htm

Since he wants 6:08 training pace for a 5:08 race pace, the most likely source is Coach Farrell's article.

That guy is a total idiot. In the article he says that he gives awards for running streaks, just anouther guy interested in running and not RACING. You dont get a full ride for running 70mpw, you get a full ride for racing great.