HS Coach Overtraining

Why does your coach's age matter?

Your coach is asking you to run LESS than 20 miles per week. I think he may be under-training you!

chill-pill wrote:

Why does your coach's age matter?

Your coach is asking you to run LESS than 20 miles per week. I think he may be under-training you!

"We have been doing hard days back to back," doesn't that ring a bell in your pea-brain?

45 minutes of running (6 miles) is an easy day. The 3M practice race is a short tempo. The 1 mile Friday is nearly an off day. So, during that week, you had a solid workout M, a short tempo W, a brief, easy interval workout Th, and a race Saturday. Essentially, you are not doing much at all in the way of base and doing limited but frequent quality work. Get more sleep.

The volume is absurdly low, but the intensity is very high.

Just do what coach says, then build a big base in the offseason. Come back here on letsrun after xc season is over. Take a 2 week break after xc (that's what the cool kids do) then you'll be fresh and ready to train smart on your own over the winter. And you have your 2 week break to make a thread, ask questions, and figure out what to do.

You'll come back for track in exponentially better shape and run circles around everyone.

In your situation, listen to coach and train smart in the offseason on your own. In track after a good winter, you'll be fit enough to start running twice a day to keep your mileage up in-season.

If he won't respond to reason--

Run slowly-moderately on Tuesday, Weds, Thursday & Friday (or three of those). Limit HARD days to 2-3 per week, depending on your recovery abilities.

My HS coach overtrained us. Here's what I learned to do:

1. Do your thing at practice. Don't worry what other people think, do what's right that day even if it means going faster or slower than the people you "should" be ahead of.

2. I'm going to agree with the other posters, that is low volume. It's not the 1990s anymore! Run outside of practice but bring up miles slowly. If you don't want it to take up the whole evening just run in the morning on easy days. Make a running playlist to listen to on your iPod.

3. Once again, bring miles up slowly, but steadily until you're hitting 40-50 a week. At least for now. You'll get in the groove.

JuniorRunner wrote:"We have been doing hard days back to back," doesn't that ring a bell in your pea-brain?

I am well aware of what the OP wrote, but I do not agree with his assessment of the situation. What the OP calls "hard days" are barely hard at all due to the very low weekly volume.

The OP gave us both his opinion as well as the facts. And based on the facts, I do not agree with the opinion that those are hard days. I also do not agree with the opinion that there are no days off considering the very low volume (especially the 1 mile on Friday).

I believe the un-warranted name calling on this site has gotten out of control, and it has really helped to create a poor environment for serious questions and answers by people who actually know what they are talking about. And for the record, my brain is average size.

the 90s slam is just stupid. tons more kids now, tons more invitationals and the only kids getting near records these days are not running especially high volume.

the big change is more kids realizing 6 minute miles beat 7 minute miles.

and more kids with 52/58 sec 400m speed trying the 3200m.

there are no long races in HS

dsrunner wrote:

the 90s slam is just stupid. tons more kids now, tons more invitationals and the only kids getting near records these days are not running especially high volume.

the big change is more kids realizing 6 minute miles beat 7 minute miles.

and more kids with 52/58 sec 400m speed trying the 3200m.

there are no long races in HS

I agree about the 90 slam being kind of dumb but please explain what you meant by the rest of your post?

I ran XC in HS in the early 90's in CT. We went to 3 in state invitationals, had 4 dual meets, ran against teams of 100 kids (Xavier).

What do you consider not expecially high volume? The athletes at the top are running a LOT more than what the OP was complaining about.

The rest of it doesn't make any sense?

what's the problem? in the 90s runners didn't run enough

dsrunner wrote:

the 90s slam is just stupid. tons more kids now, tons more invitationals and the only kids getting near records these days are not running especially high volume.

the big change is more kids realizing 6 minute miles beat 7 minute miles.

and more kids with 52/58 sec 400m speed trying the 3200m.

there are no long races in HS

what I'm saying is we don't have the context here

to say one way or the other. the program may not be very good and this is where they are at in terms of volume. given the pressure to race this might be a reasonable approach, though another approach would be to forget the races and train for spring.

yes most of the best HS runners put in 45-65 miles/week but at this volume and experience level (and likely limited summer base) the adaptations could be fairly good on 30 miles/week, not optimal perhaps but respectable at least for now.

52 400m speed for HS males / 58 for HS females as a predictor of success in longer races, and overall a shift to quality training, not quantity.

no long races as in get in shape to run a good mile, you'll do fine in HS XC which is 5km or less.

basically at the HS level, the work is more about setting kids up for long term success, not training them like collegiate.

OP, when you mentioned your coach's age as being an issue I immediately knew you were wrong. You are not overtraining. If you can't handle what is being thrown at you, don't do the workouts at 100%.

"52 400m speed for HS males / 58 for HS females as a predictor of success in longer races, and overall a shift to quality training, not quantity."

This rule sounds INSANE. Please explain how you would use this rule. For the teams I was on 30+ years ago and the teams my son and daughter are on now, all at HSs with 2000+ students and respected programs, only one person met your criteria. That person started winning at national level track meets at 9 years old.

SomeBlokeFromTheInternetz wrote:

If you can't handle what is being thrown at you, don't do the workouts at 100%.

This. Two things:

a) Stop trying to "win" the workouts. If this schedule is wearing you down, I'd bet my bottom dollar you're competing in training (and/or not getting enough rest and sleep--try getting off the computer 45min earlier every night). Save the racing for the meets!

b) It's still September. Hang in there; do the training with moderate effort, and the racing all-out; and see where you are in 5-6 weeks.

I agree this is not the 90s and that statement was very valid. 90s US runners did more high quality work less mileage. This has changed to more mileage and our results are showing this was right. You showed us one week of low mileage and quality work. We cannot see a true picture of training. What you are missing is a long run for a good week. I often train my runners to dead legs at different points in the season because these regular season meets mean nothing! all that matters is the Region meet and the State meet. All other meets are practice meets to train through. If you have dead legs you are not overtrained but underrested. Get more sleep and watch your diet. Diet is very important for recovery.

While your mileage is pretty low, the amount of hard running in those 20 miles is a very high percentage.

There are several schools of thought here.

One, he assumes you all (team) did your base work this summer (ha ha), since that's a big laugh. About 50% of all teenage xc runners do little to no running at all over the summer, and the ones that do, well, they exaggerate. They lie. They say they did 4 miles, when they did around 2 1/2. etc, etc.

So, I would tell him the truth if that's the case. Tell him you guys did NOTHING this summer, and you need to start from square one.

The second scenario is that your coach is doing it wrong. He should have a few easy days every week, and allow for recovery.

Everybody wants another coach when they are doing as well as they would like. It's always always the coach's fault. Parents blame them, students blame them. Yet when the team does well, who gets the credit? The athletes themselves!

Have a team meeting. Power is in numbers. Unless scenario one is accurate, then you have no leg to stand on.

Even an athlete who has a solid summer base, will struggle with a workout that is way out of their current fitness ability. I see coaches give paces and recovery's that far exceed the runners fitness. The 7 x 800 is commonly run too fast and with too little recovery in between, then is followed with a workout at a pace or distance that is not full recovery pace. Doesn't matter how little or how much the runner currently runs, if the workout doesn't fit their ability.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. Monday 3 x 2 mile W/90 sec. rest between at current 5 k fitness followed by Tues. 12 x 400 w/60 sec rest at 5 k mile pace -60 sec. so if you are 7:00 min. 5 k = 6:00 = 400s at :90 for a 14 year old girl. No recovery between workouts.

I think we are getting closer to the problem. The OP did not post paces. for what it's worth posted paces that make an inappropriate week. For example, if the OP doesn't insist on winning the repeat 800s, the practice race, the repeat miles and the weekend invitational then the week could be ok. This often happens with someone who self identifies as being hard working. The coach may have set up training for a team that he is sure will only run at 80% effort unless they are in a race.