I'm a high school runner and my team is very mediocre. Most people on the team have barely improved over the past few years and some have gotten worse. I'm starting to think its my coach. He has a really negative attitude most of the time and doesn't really have us do much. He's been coaching for a while but I still don't seem to think he knows what hes doing. Whats going on?
Bump.
Most slow high school XC runners are slow because they don't do enough over the summer. The best high school coach can't do much with you if you slack off for the first half of the season before team practices start.
Examples of what you do?
ScottDye wrote:
Examples of what you do?
Today we only did 6x200m (we have a meet tomorrow). That was it. I really don't think anyone on my team has improved.
Accept it ain't gonna change overnight.
Work WITH him and be supportive. Half the battle is BELIEVING in what you're doing (assuming you're running at least 30-40 miles per week). Key to basic level of success in our sport is getting a group committed to train and live smart on weekends and do that year-round.
Buy him a copy of Daniel's book immediately and 2-3 team leaders meet with him and ask NICELY if you can start following this "training program". If he just follows this alone you can get better soon.
Relax. Have fun. Make good decisions. Work hard.
Talk is cheap. Get on the same page (or, at least, work out of the same book) with your coach and key teammates and take action every day. You may be surprised how quickly you turn it around (by track?).
Check back with us in April on same thread.
Really we would need to see the whole training program and even then it would be hard to tell. School culture, academics, attitude of the coaching staff, etc. has a lot to do with it.
I try my best to give my team every oportunity to succeed. We have a team camp, meet 6 days a week in the summer, focus on being a good student and teammate. Our training is based off periodization from the best coaches around and personal experience. I send out weekly emails to parents to keep them involved, run our team website so they can feel recognition by family and peers.
I had a full ride on a top 25 team and even ran sponsored for 5 years after college so I think I know a thing or two but I still read every book I can and go to clinics with a humility and attitude to learn. I stay positive, fundraise money so we get busses to trails 4 times a week so we are not running on pavement and stay late so the kids can ice bath because the trainer goes home after football. I am there early every morning workout, we have team dinners, and I bring my wife and son around to build family.
Still, there are kids who don't improve or get hurt or quit. And it hurts as a coach when ghat happens, for everyone of them. I try to do it right, be the coach I wish I had and still kids miss practice, don't try, ask to go home early. Some days I wonder if it is all worth it, we have had lots of individual champions but at a small school never won as a team as we'be lacked depth of schools three times our size.
So there is a lot more that goes into success than just coaching or talent. But I do think as a leader you need to be positive. The minute negativity becomes part of the team it is hard to fix.
Best of luck to you!
bad reputation wrote:
Today we only did 6x200m (we have a meet tomorrow). That was it. I really don't think anyone on my team has improved.
What do you do when you're not resting up for a race?
I like that 6x200 idea, as long as they're not too fast. You'll hit the ground running when the race starts.
Better luck by track season wrote:
Accept it ain't gonna change overnight.
Work WITH him and be supportive. Half the battle is BELIEVING in what you're doing (assuming you're running at least 30-40 miles per week). Key to basic level of success in our sport is getting a group committed to train and live smart on weekends and do that year-round.
Buy him a copy of Daniel's book immediately and 2-3 team leaders meet with him and ask NICELY if you can start following this "training program". If he just follows this alone you can get better soon.
Relax. Have fun. Make good decisions. Work hard.
Talk is cheap. Get on the same page (or, at least, work out of the same book) with your coach and key teammates and take action every day. You may be surprised how quickly you turn it around (by track?).
Check back with us in April on same thread.
We're only maybe running about 20 mpw. I've asked him what he thinks about running extra mileage and he said definitely do NOT. I have decided to go against this and run extra mileage and have improved a lot. I have moved up to number two on the team. I just wish the rest of the team was better. 20 mpw can't be enough?!
Actually I always considered some extended striders (200m for example) are good pre meet workouts along with a 20-30min light jog
Although I liked the workout the day before the race. Weekly mileage of 20 miles per week is way too low for high school. Freshmen should be 40=45. sophomores 50-55, juniors, 60 to 65 and seniors anywhere from 70 to 80. Any more than that is too much, save the 100 plus for college and later. They runs should include a long run of 25-30% of your total mileage, tempo runs of about 10% of your mileage, VO2 max runs at about 8% of your mileage and speed at about 5% of mileage. The rest of your mies should be easy. Tempo should be at 10k race pace, if you don't know what that is, use 5k plus 30 seconds and done in steady runs of 15 to 25 minutes, VO2 max runs should be at 5k pace and about 800-1000 meters. with the speed workouts anywhere from 200-400M, mix them up.