Interesting scenario: Coach fired, and more trouble to come

If you have to, just run your main workouts in the morning and do his stuff in the afternoon. Doubles are the key to getting around bad coaching

No parent should ever coach their kid - only egocentric parents would even want to do that to their kid. Train with the team and the "real" coach or quit running - those should be your only options. Too many entitled kids who think they deserve different treatment from everybody else - if the coach is good enough for everybody else on the team, they are good enough for you.

That's Great! Thanks for posting!

Jerry Schumacher is one of the 3 best coaches in America and he doesn't coach his son, who is one of the top 20 high school runners in America. I'm sure he guides most of his offseason training and offers advice when it's called for.

You're worrying too much.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Jerry Schumacher is one of the 3 best coaches in America and he doesn't coach his son, who is one of the top 20 high school runners in America. I'm sure he guides most of his offseason training and offers advice when it's called for.

You're worrying too much.

Well, I guess that pretty much ends the theead. OP, it's all about Schumacher's situation. Thanks for posting.

Seriously though, supplement with doubles. And try to make a good relationship with the new coach, it might go better than you think.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Jerry Schumacher is one of the 3 best coaches in America and he doesn't coach his son, who is one of the top 20 high school runners in America. I'm sure he guides most of his offseason training and offers advice when it's called for.

You're worrying too much.

Yeah truth is i have a personal coach who isn't my dad, just didn't want to sound like a jerk.

But I know what you mean.

Hard not to think we know how this is going to turn out.

To the OP: Some more facts would help. For starters, where did your dad learn how to coach?

I think the real problem here is you not being a team player. If you want to go do all of your training on your own, you can run on your own also. Being part of an xc TEAM means practicing and working hard with a TEAM and of you aren't willing to go to their practices after the coach has told you to the coach is completely in the right kicking you off the team. I think you need to take a long look at what is really important to you because the new coach isn't the problem. Either a be a part of the team or don't.

OP you sound like an entitled little prince or princess. You want to be on the team, train with the team. You want to train on your own, then compete on your own.

Quit being a whiney little bit€h!

OP: so you are racing with the team, and not doing anything else with them?

I hate to say, I give the win to the new coach on this one.

If you want to train on your own, run in some open races. If you want to race with the team, you need to be spending more than just race day with the team.

That said, we need more facts b/c the above scenario sounds extreme. Are you doing warmups with the team? Cool down? Stretching? Weights?

These all seem obvious team activities.

How "off" is your schedule from the others? Is it just that you are running more miles? Or faster miles? Or are you off doing track repeats on their recovery days?

It seems that if you are the team stud and scoring at meets the new coach would want to encourage you to keep your mileage/tempo work at the pace you're doing, so there's some compromise to be reached interms of your workouts, but there still is a place for you to participate with the team.

Worst case, if new coach really does want you dropping from 8 to 4 miles or limit your tempo runs to set team pace or whatever, then yep, doubles are the easy short term solution. Get to know the new guy, show you're a good runner and want to be a team player, and things will probably get better as the season/year goes on.

Out of curiosity, what are your track times and what year in HS are you right now?

How do you know the girls coach's workouts won't help you?

Agree with this dude wrote:

OP you sound like an entitled little prince or princess. You want to be on the team, train with the team. You want to train on your own, then compete on your own.

Quit being a whiney little bit€h!

Wow. Seriously rude people.

First off the kid seems to like running under his dad's direction. What a great relationship. As a dad of two teenagers, I'm a little jealous.

Second, the kid clearly wants to be as good as he can be and he's smart enough to realize his goals could get sidetracked by poor coaching. He's identified a risk and is trying to determine a strategy to reduce that risk. This approach will be beneficial as a working adult in the future. I've seen too many people at my work just do what they are told to do.

When I was in school the coach that took our team to consecutive 3rd in the state finishes in both cc and track got a college gig as I was moving into junior year. The middle school coach who was primarily a track guy got the gig. We went from two-a-days and 60+ miles a week to 35 miles in the first week.

As a co-captain we sat down with the coach and talked about our prior training details of the types of workouts and their purpose. I had written up a two month training plan for the remainder of the cross season that included the morning workouts. The man did not want to come in before school to supervise our workouts. Eventually he relented and he would show up just as we were completing our workout so that none of us got into any trouble with the school.

As for the workouts he adopted a lot of the plan but of course changed things so that it could be his plan. Some days we ran easy when he told us to run hard; since he wasn't out there on the road he never knew. We did strides even though he never told us to.

Once or twice during the indoor track season coach caught me on the outdoor track doing repeats by myself because he didnt have a plan and I did. He was upset. It passed. I PR'd and basically met my goals and the coach became a friend of the family.

So my advice is absolutely talk to your coach. Show him your plan. Explain the benefit of each workout. Make up a plan for the less advanced on the team and show him how they will benefit. Then ask if you guys can work together. You can always change some workouts to more align with your plans. You can go just a touch easier to turn a hard workout into moderate. You can go easy on a long run to get in a recovery. You can be 'sick' and go easy.

Best of luck.

silly sally sullies sam wrote:

No parent should ever coach their kid - only egocentric parents would even want to do that to their kid.

That's pretty extreme talk. In some situations a parent can be a very good coach. Most of those situations don't get much press vs. the horror-story stage parents.

Another post nailed it. Do two workouts. One with the team, one without. Be very careful about racing the team workouts. It's pretty easy to do.

FasttimesatHS wrote:

The new coach was talking to my good friend, who is captain for the team and told him "that shit X does training by himself won't fly with me, he's either going to train with you guys or get kicked off the team"

The workouts would not phase me, as I could "adjust" any workouts to suit myself and do them my own way, i.e. convert them into something else entirely.

But yelling. trying to tell me when and where to work out, who to train with, trying to sabotage me behind my back and/or any other type of abuse would be totally not acceptable.

I would report him for abuse, and continue to do things my own way.

No one has really has asked the OP, but what are the main concerns with being coached by the coach instead of dad? Are you worried about too little volume? Easy workouts?

My dad didn't coach me in high school, but I didn't think we did enough mileage so I'd get up at 5:00am every day and run 7 miles. At practice we'd usually max out around 5, so it was perfect. On the days I overslept I would go out around 8pm and run.

Op needs to identify the concerns and work from there. New coach may not be as laid back and it might work well for OP.

In my experience as a hs runner, d1 college runner and volunteer d1 coach, I've found the parent/coach relationship to be driven by the parent's ego more than what's best for the kid. As much as it bothers us all, coaching isn't rocket science... Especially hs running.

Man, I know what you mean. Coach is talkin' bout practice, not the race. Not the race. He talkin' bout practice. He talkin' bout practice man

And, for the record, yes I ran a 4:20 mile in basketball shoes.

-A.I.

Centro. Like father like son. You have never talked to him if you actually think Salazar is his coach.

4/10 Good premise, but made the HS kid too smart.

Thanks for all the replys, interested what people had to say. Some hurt, some were reassuring. So thanks.

To be perfectly honest, I have a private coach who gives me workouts and stuff. My Dad is just basically my mentor, being a long time runner.

I myself am pretty new to the sport.

Realized I wanted to run fast last December, gave up Lacrosse, started training. I worked hard, didn't put in a ton of miles at first, but was able to run 4:28 mile and 2:00 flat my first year running. Realized I'm a 3200/5k guy.

This will be my first cross country season ever.

I found my own coach, because at the time, the program was very lax, it was run 30 minutes on easy days, and maybe an easy workout once a week. Like some 400s, or 200s.

Just thought I needed more.

I'll be a senior this year (really wishing i started running earlier).

I've done so well with my own coach, I'm in 16 flat shape right now which is awesome, never dreamed of it.

This summer was the first summer I really put in miles (average of 45), we did workouts all Summer.

I know some people think I'm rude and selfish, but the kids on my team just don't care as much as me, and don't want to work as hard. And I'm sure the new coach will be good, but I just don't want to give up what i have going on. So I guess I am a little selfish.

I will do anything and everything to run as fast as I can and get across that line as fast as possible this year. It's my main priority.