I can hold my own against most other runners on an uphill, but I am complete trash on a steep downhill. I get passed by multiple people almost every time. This could be a pretty big problem in the next couple of years because my team runs our league XC championships and state meet on a course with a series of extremely steep and long downhill stretches where you feel like you're not running, but in a somewhat controlled fall.
The fact that I suck at downhills might be because I'm tall, thin, and have a long, loping, midfoot-striking stride (think Asbel Kiprop). I'm 5'10" with long legs and weigh 135lbs to be exact. On a downhill, where shorter people can quicken their turnover and kind of "roll" down, I feel like my feet are flopping on the ground and causing a braking action because of my long strides. My coaches' advice was to get into a slight forward lean, try to land midfoot as much as possible, and quicken my cadence, but whenever I try that it turns out about the same. What else could I do to avoid getting dropped at league and state?
I should add that I have Osgood-Schlatters disease in both knees, making extended downhill running really painful, so any kind of specific downhill training (like what Seb Coe did with his graded 800m repeats) wouldn't work well.