What to do with XC kids that can't run without walking?

I say tell them to start running at a slower pace they can handle without stopping or they're off the team. I've never had a kid who couldn't physically run at least one mile straight without needing to stop. Explain to them that you need to train your body to not crave walking when it's tired. "Active recovery."

All these people saying not to cut them must have that "everybody is a winner" hand-holding b.s. atmosphere.

I know it seems harsh, but what kind of coach do you want to be? The pushover who is constantly worried about hurting feelings or the leader who motivates kids who actually want to work hard and get better. Kids show up to practice for a reason. The reason is either to bust their balls and get faster or it's to screw around and insult your sport.

It's one thing to kick a kid off without giving them a chance, but you can't have this culture on a cross country team. If you're worried about ruining their lives, you can always start a hiking club or maybe encourage them to try powderpuff.

Publicly shame them. Common now, you are coaching high schoolers so that means you got to play the role of a character building hard ass coach. You owe it to the kids. Just think where you would be now if it wasn\'t for those ultraordinary teachers and coaches that grew your character.

Feel you bro. Local high school team near me is like a daycare team. Most of the kids are slightly overweight and trying to use the sport to get in shape for volleyball or basketball in the winter. None of them run during the summer (save one or two that want to be good). So they aren't really ready to race/be competitive until it's too late. Plus, if kids don't get those base miles in, they plateau real quick and don't get faster.

I think cutting is fine. You've got to have standards, mainly for safety's sake. You need to tell the kids coming in next year, "Look, we are holding tryouts like every other team. After two weeks we run a time trial and I take the top ten, plus two alternates. That's our team. If you don't make the cut you are free to come train and try for next time, but you will not race or travel because you are not at the level of fitness that I feel you can safely race at without getting hurt." I think if you approach it from that mentality, the "my first priority is to keep you physically whole/safe", then it will soften any ego blow to them or their parents. Plus a smaller team is easier to manage as it were. Good luck.

Call me crazy but maybe it would be a good idea to grab a couple of the ones walking and ask them why they are running cross country. Maybe they are being forced to be there or maybe they enjoy it but don't know how to get better or keep going when they get tired.

As a coach myself, I live for those moments where you can truly help a kid whether it be to just let him walk through practices to get his/her parents off their backs (for the time being until you can help them resolve the issue that has them doing something they have no desire to be doing) or to help a kid who just doesn't know how to make him/her self better. Isn't your job to coach? So maybe give it a shot considering some of these parents and kids may want to get better but don't know how.

I understand you can't help them all, but I think you could give some more time to these "walkers" and figure out which ones want help and which ones don't at the least.

have them do some sort of Oregon Circuit. short burst of running mixed with drills or body weight exercises.

beentheredonethat wrote:

I think cutting is fine. You've got to have standards, mainly for safety's sake. You need to tell the kids coming in next year, "Look, we are holding tryouts like every other team. After two weeks we run a time trial and I take the top ten, plus two alternates. That's our team. If you don't make the cut you are free to come train and try for next time, but you will not race or travel because you are not at the level of fitness that I feel you can safely race at without getting hurt." I think if you approach it from that mentality, the "my first priority is to keep you physically whole/safe", then it will soften any ego blow to them or their parents. Plus a smaller team is easier to manage as it were. Good luck.

How do you develop a consistent program with that approach? Short-term, it would be easier for me to keep 12 kids around, but I usually have 1-2 kids a year that progress from low JV kids to top 7 kids within a year. Usually these are kids that have zero athletic experience, but have some amount of natural talent, so it takes 6 months to a year to see what they are really capable of. Having patience with that mid level group has done great things for our depth and consistency as a program.

You may have the title of coach,

But if you are a physical education teacher, you should resign your position .

You are traching kids a life long sport...

Accept who they are, its their choice to be out there.

Make them love it enough to work harder

My son in doing MS XC; he is one of those kids you're talking about. I beg you not to cut them. The discipline to do this will come, eventually, for at least some of them. They are a coach potato generation; you have to start somewhere.

Be patient. Invest in the sport and the kids

Make it mandatory for everyone on the team to wear an electric collar. When you see somebody walking, send them a little jolt as a reminder that you're the coach.

Thank god you weren't ever my coach. I think the thing that will serve these kids best is for you to quit. You clearly aren't even close to the type of person that should be in charge of coaching kids. Please do what's best for the kids and leave.

Too late for you now, but we instituted a summer running program (The 200 mile club), and the difference between the kids now, versus where they were a year ago is amazing. kids who couldn't do a full workout a year ago are real runners now. In the short term, make your workouts shorter for the beginners. For some kids, just running a mile is a workout.

Egun wrote:

You may have the title of coach,

But if you are a physical education teacher, you should resign your position .

You are traching kids a life long sport...

Accept who they are, its their choice to be out there.

Make them love it enough to work harder

Help me understand your perspective here - hopefully he is 'coaching' athletes differently than the students in his P.E. class (if he is a P.E. Teacher). They are mutually exclusive.

Why should he, as a coach, accept lifestyle choices of his walkers? Cross Country is a sport no different from football, soccer, swimming, tennis, etc. Those sports cut so why shouldn't XC? By attempting to develop the walkers he is using up valuable resources that should be going to the athletes.

The OP has two choices here; cut them or find a JV coach who can try to bring them along (the type of poster that I'm replying to sounds like and excellent candidate) in a caring and nurturing environment.

That being said, I do believe that there are probably some diamonds in the rough in his slacker group that could be tricked into becoming an athlete. I like the breaks to check heart rates but try to do it individually because I remember we used to lie about our heart rates all the time; usually by saying they were lower than they really were.

Ah, the age old problem of cross-country. While there might be a few who want to be on the team but are so woefully out of shape they can't make a half mile, most of the walkers are kids who don't really want to be on the team but their folks made them sign up or kids who signed up havingno idea what they are getting into. We had one kid a few years ago who claimed she couldn't run further than a hundred yards . Misery loves company and if one kid walks , he or she is going to pull down 3 borderline kids to walk with him. We have a simple rule: if you can't run a mile in 2 weeks and 2 miles in 3 1/2 weeks, you are cut . Not too tough but the kids who don't want to be there basically cut themselves . The kids who want in will fight their way through.Of course you may on occasion run into the kid who is really trying but can't. Make an exception for him but your gut will tell you who is trying and who isn't.

Freshman year I ran 25:00 for 5k and 6:20 for mile, sophomore year I ran 54, 2:00, & 4:42

Thankfully I wasn't cut, I always worked hard, just wasn't in shape to begin with, lifting helped

My slowest kid ever would walk in some workouts. He could finish 5k in almost 30 minutes and he was always the DFL kid or next to last, but he loved the sport.

he was over 300 pounds and a danger to himself. After a lifetime of being overweight. He shed the pounds and is a now a certified fitness trainer with a 6 pack and pr of 18 minutes for 5k. He also turned into a pretty neat person.

Don't cut the kids, but challenge them to finish the race. They will find a way to get it done on race day.

Cross Country is a sport hugely different than football, basketball and baseball...

Hugely different than track also .

If the kids come to practice everyday and do the work, they deserve to run the races .

The sport isnt just for the best, or most dedicated or talented.

I've coached hs athletes who finished in the top 5 at nike cross

Nats, as well as had 30 minute 5k runners

(On the same team) and been a long time school board member.

I would challenge your claim of mutual exclusivity of these two leadership positions .

I am not convinced you have a cogent perspective on this matter .

Cut them. Encourage them to develop their fitness on their own and show up next season better prepared for the sport (maybe give them some sort of a general training plan and a pirated copy of Without Limits). You could touch base with them a few times throughout the fall and see if they're progressing.

I guess you could keep them on the team if you have help from other coaches, but in the end the kids who put in the work (regardless of talent) are the ones who deserve your attention.

Thank you for all the replies.

When I wrote cut them it was a knee jerk reaction to a kid on a 1.9 mile run turn around, not tell anyone and leave coaches searching for him out on the trails for well over 30 min before someone spotted him around the corner.

For the record I consider XC a self cut sport and we keep everyone who comes to practice and wants to improve. Even the walkers.

I guess my real conundrum is how do we train? I generally keep the whole team together but with a group so different is it ok to split up into two groups that train at different locations?

We have 15 really solid boys, 12 solid girls. In past years we take them to local trails and parks for our workouts. In the past the beginning runners did a modified run or workout at the same place.

But with a huge split (25-30

min runners for 2 miles) is the 30 min ride to the trails and 30 min ride back worth it? Would they be better off running from campus and doing their training?

Every other sport trains JV and varsity separate. I never have but I have never had a team of such polar opposites.

I was thinking of 1-2 days a week everyone goes to the trails. The other days we do our individualized training based on what group we are in.

Thoughts?

Splitting the team allows you to do much higher level training with the faster kids. Stuff that is just impossible for slow kids. However it's easier to split a 100 person team than a 20 person team.