Do I have the worst hs coach in the country?

Short answer - no.

The U.S. NAVY SEAL guide to fitness and nutrition, ACE personal trainer manual, Daniels running formula (not really a textbook) and a few others with little/no focus on running that you probably wouldn't know. P.S. this really isn't a troll.

Maybe not worst in the country but he's up there yeah. "I would have expected better after 3 years..." in a speed workout, wtf?

Need help wrote:

We do our warmups at 7:00 pace. Rarely stretch.

Well, at least he gets something right.

The snap LRC answer to your situation is to get additional miles on your own, but that's often very difficult for a high schooler to do--if, say, you're already getting up at 5:45am just to get to school on time, it's pretty tough to fit in a morning run. And evening runs present their own problems, in some people's situations.

I know it's tough, but have you tried talking to the coach? If you do try, make sure it's NOT at practice, particularly with a bunch of other guys around. Maybe tell him that you've heard from some pretty good runners, who seem to think a somewhat different approach might have you in better shape (or at least healthier) when the conference meet comes around. (I'm assuming your coach doesn't look beyond conference--and if the conference title, as some are, is determined by dual meets during the regular season, it's a little easier for me to understand his approach.)

But yeah, you don't have anywhere NEAR the worst HS cross coach in the USofA. Not even close.

my highschool track coach was a football coach who resented me not going out for football. I didn't have a cross country coach and was basically my own as I was the only runner at my school to run cross country.

Your couch sounds bad but not the worst.

Mine's worse. Never ran, he was a football player/sprinter in high school and college. Never sent a runner to states. Of 16 years of coaching, we've won ONE, yes ONE, district title. That wasn't because of his coaching though, it was because they were all pretty talented guys and everyone else sucked that year. Claimed that when I was running 35 second 200's with a 1:00 jog rest in-between reps that I was "only running 6 minute mile pace", when the workout clearly didn't point to that at all. I've been training by myself all of summer, then he appoints a kid with a criminal record and failing grades, that finished horribly last in track in both his events (he got lapped by 4 runners from the opposing school, finished slower than a girl) to the title of team Captain. Also got me sidelined for 3 months by forcing me to do a workout that I knew would get me injured (I told him I shouldn't do it) yet he insisted. When I brought it up, he blamed me for it and said I just shouldn't have done it, despite his insistence.

He's probably thinking from a football perspective.

The thing is, Football is just about pushing pushing pushing your athletes.

Running is obviously about pushing, but in all honesty only in the "right ways" and at the "right times". Push hard through intense training every day and you will not only not improve but you'll end up hurt.

It's much like singing. Many times "less is better" and as a coach you need to realize this. The best runners aren't always the hardest workers, despite what guys like Brian Sell will tell you. The best ethiopian runners are not pushing hard everyday, in fact some run their off days in the 7-8 minute range.

I feel ya. My coach made me run in a 400 race (I'm a distance guy) a day after I was cleared to return to running after a month hiatus. That turned out GREAT. We have no titles btw, although a lot of our athletes seem to be pretty naturally talented. And you'd have to throw something at him to get him off his cell phone.

Oh, and to "lease" with the stretching comment, the 3 month injury I mentioned above was caused by inflexibility during growth spurts combined with my preposterous workout schedule. I don't feel like arguing about adults stretching, but suggesting that growing children should rarely or never stretch is ridiculous and harmful.

LoL 3k total distance workout with sprinting and mile pace recovery! Big PRs everywhere!

I know I would be a much faster runner without his shitty training.. I ran a 16:45 5k last year off <35 mpw when I was healthy.

Football coaches usually know nothing about how to train their athletes physically. They might know football, but not many of them understand physiology.

'but that's often very difficult for a high schooler to do--if, say, you're already getting up at 5:45am just to get to school on time'

Is the school in another state?

You must take a long time brushing your teeth!

You can run 3km in intervals at mile pace unless the recoveries are really short. Just get out and do some long runs on your own and stop moaning

The recovery from the sprints was at mile pace.

You could do that for 3km?

In HS we had a cross country coach whose interests were biology and tennis. He didn't know anything about running. But we were a group of guys who had run together over the summer and knew each other and thought we knew what we needed to do. We pretty much paid no attention to the coach. We went undefeated in 12 meets (yeah, that's a lot of meets) and won the conference championship. And the coach graciously accepted congratulations for being a genius.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Well uh. Send the coach by email

a youtube link to AC/DC's "hell ain't a bad place to be".

That ought to do it.

My HS track coach was also the football coach. One day, we were warming up for practice and he swung a broom at us saying we were not running hard enough. Warm-ups not run fast enough, hahaha. What a moron.

Your coach is nowhere near that bad.

DocLove wrote:

'but that's often very difficult for a high schooler to do--if, say, you're already getting up at 5:45am just to get to school on time'

Is the school in another state?

You must take a long time brushing your teeth!

You can run 3km in intervals at mile pace unless the recoveries are really short. Just get out and do some long runs on your own and stop moaning

Well I have split custody with my dads house being an 1:15 drive from the high school (another state). So coincidentally, I do get up at about 5:40 for half my year.

Need help wrote:

'but that's often very difficult for a high schooler to do--if, say, you're already getting up at 5:45am just to get to school on time'

Well I have split custody with my dads house being an 1:15 drive from the high school (another state). So coincidentally, I do get up at about 5:40 for half my year.

Right, which was my point: we on LRC typically just say "run additional miles on your own," but that's not necessarily realistic. You need a solution, not a workaround, and I hope other people will make helpful suggestions--your situation is a difficult one.

As for the stretching: I'm the one who always says that different things work for different people. But for lots of people, static stretching is not a help (and sometimes harmful); and for nearly all, doing it as part of your warmup (as the OP implies) is counterproductive.

Better to stretch *after* the workout--or, for some, even better to do the stretching in the evening (though not right before bedtime). As a warmup, some easy running, mobility exercises, and accelerations work better (for most, anyway).