Coaching question--please help

If your goal is to have your best performances for the outdoor track season, then I recommend taking a low key approach to indoor, or better yet, skip it altogether. Take a 2-3 week break after cross country (no running mixed with some easy short runs), and then start building up your aerobic base with a good 6-8 weeks of running that emphasizes medium to long runs with some tempo running mixed in. Also include some fast strides a couple of times a week (6 to 10 x 100 meters with approx. 2 minute jog between each) 1 to 2 times per week. The more base work you can get in before you start the more intense running the better. Good luck.

runr wrote:

If the head coach wants to have his runners peak indoor and outdoor, after XC isn't that suicide. What do you think?

It's not suicide. It is, however, probably not optimal for long-term development.

The popularity of indoor track is an unfortunate side-effect of living and running in an affluent society that can afford to hold athletic competitions year-round by encasing the athletes in big, climate-controlled bubbles when the days get short and the weather gets messy. Three peaking cycles within nine months is not ideal. A really serious distance-runner should bag the indoor season and use that time to build an aerobic base.

I agree but I work with a coach(head) who likes to win these duel indoor meets for all-time record purposes. He does win them, but I think the distance crew has under acheived for years(many years) b/c of the lack of proper aerobic development. I am an assistant who happens to coach XC(head). This coach is a great guy and he has good teams but i think his ways are "the way" and i understand that but man there is so much more these runners can do.

I sympathize with you and your runners.

I remember watching Seb Coe get lapped by a bunch of Americans in an indoor 3,000 one winter. My guess is that he was the only one in the field who was following an intelligent training program.

If I had to run indoor track races to remain eligible to run outdoor track, I'd avoid all of the interval workouts during the indoor season and just show up for the meets.

oldguy wrote:

I sympathize with you and your runners.

I remember watching Seb Coe get lapped by a bunch of Americans in an indoor 3,000 one winter. My guess is that he was the only one in the field who was following an intelligent training program.

If I had to run indoor track races to remain eligible to run outdoor track, I'd avoid all of the interval workouts during the indoor season and just show up for the meets.

Point taken but that Coe 3000 was after his best years.

I tried that once. I'm not an elite athlete, and I was self-coached (well out of eligibility). I found that I did pretty well through cross and indoor - actually, did VERY well for me indoors, but only got to about the same "peak" or maybe not quite as good in outdoors because my body was just worn out. Or jaded. I was running every race within +/- .5 seconds of the last, even when I tapered (for the third time) in June.

I personally think that outdoors is the prime consideration, and XC (for a distance guy) comes second. Indoors is a flawed event purely for the reason that not everyone does it.

I know that of at least one top 10 DI program in which the distance people don't focus on indoors at all. They're good enough to qualify on their strength work, and they don't worry about it beyond that.

Coe also had the indoor WR in the 800 before Ereng ran his. Must have done some quality then. Agreed on the deemphasis of indoors, though.

I KNEW I'd get some responses to the Coe anecdote!

Actually, although I've never really focused much on Coe's training program, I understand that, throughout his career, he ran a number of low-key races during the winter months, in keeping with his father's view that one should never get too far away from speed. My own personal preference -- at least for long-distance runners -- is to avoid racing altogether during the base-building period.

All intolerant youngsters please ignore; these are just the rantings of some geezer.

Once upon a time the standard indoor track was an ?11 lap track,? i.e., 1 laps to the mile or 160 yards. The standard indoor distances were 50 or 60, 300, 600, 1000, mile, and something longer (usually 2 miles). Despite the longer distances being the same as outdoor, I always understood that the odd distances for the others were specifically to not reduce the emphasis on outdoor. Certainly they have no correlation with the length of the track. The odd distances meant: 1) Neither the fans nor the athlete would focus on comparing it with outdoor distances, and this lack of ability to compare meant that the athletes could focus on long-term training through the winter without sweating their comparatively worse performances, and 2) It allowed the athlete to work at distances other than their norm, and conceivably improve weaknesses. An 800m runner lacking in speed might opt for the 600; one lacking strength might opt for the 1000.

As you were.

ru4real wrote:

Point taken but that Coe 3000 was after his best years.

I believe it was before his second gold medal in L.A. He wasn't done yet.