What does "run as a team" mean?

It is a dumb statement that is meant to be ignored.

You see cross country as an individual sport and I see it as a team sport. That's fine. We can and will disagree.

I am not a college coach but a high school coach, although I'm not sure I would change much of my approach at the college level.

Coaching is as much about relationships as it is about anything. I don't pressure my #1-#2 into this philosophy. They are understand the philosophy, and quite frankly, over the years, my runners have helped my adapt it and evolve it. I've had runners who have questioned what we were doing, tried to go off on their own, even threaten to leave the team. I work it out with them because I do have a relationship with the runner that I can fall back on when their is a disagreement. When I talked about Verzbicus and Webb, what I meant was a coach looked at times and didn't really establish the relationship necessary to understand if the kid fit the program. Might not be the coach's fault, but in most cases, it is. You have to talk to kids and get them to talk back and be honest/comfortable.

Nobody is tricked about what we are doing on my team. I am very open about what our approach is and it will make us successful (which it has).

He wants you to run 6 abreast on the course so you block everyone else. ;) Bonus points if you lock arms and run in step.

Only the coach can tell you what he means. Might be as simple as encourage the other runners to step it up.

That's just the kind of stupid sh** coaches say. It's what they do. That particular phrase is a favorite of many.

It means "I need to say something ambiguously motivational, and this seems as good as anything, but somehow after years of saying it I believe this statement to be truthful even though it never meant anything to begin with."

It means that 2,3, & 4 should try to run together as much as possible.

Then either you need to speed up and stay with 2,3 & 4 as long as possible, or slow down a bit and have 6&7 speed up a bit.

It also depends on the meet. For an easy dual meet he might want the top 4 or 5 running together for 2 miles. For something important you might want groups, and some of you might just be in no-mans land.

Really, though, as others have said, the coach should tell you what he expects. Some runners do well starting fast and hanging on. Other better starting slow and picking off stragglers. Whether you slow down or speed up depends on what type of runner you are...and, of course, some are just natural even pace guys.

- wrote:

That's just the kind of stupid sh** coaches say. It's what they do. That particular phrase is a favorite of many.

It means "I need to say something ambiguously motivational, and this seems as good as anything, but somehow after years of saying it I believe this statement to be truthful even though it never meant anything to begin with."

I don't think it's ambiguous. Running as a team means that if the fastest guy on the team gets busted for drugs, you are expected to take the blame to save the start athlete. That's what true teamwork means.

Ha. My college coach, who was a damn good coach, would always yell at us to "pack it up". I always found this statement absurd. Nothing about running in a pack with my team mates made me a faster runner. If you need to run next to 2-3 teammates to run your best race then you need a sports psychologist. Cross country is a team sport but the team does best when the individuals perform their best. Go out, compete against everybody and set an example as a guy who guts it out and always gives 100%. If a teammate ever slows down to help me out I'll tell him to toughen the F$$& up and run harder - for the sake of the team.

Are we sure he doesn't mean on easy runs? Or help each other out when possible? Because if he means in races that's ridiculous, but on easy runs and the occasional workout it'd be fine.

I would say there are times to have a top runner "slow down" and help other runners on the team. It matters when the race is and what the overall plan is for the season. On the team I coach we have one last small regular season left before the championship races. We are having our number 1 kid run for two miles w/ our 4-5-6 runners. We know he is ready for the championship races, we, and he, also know that with the make up of our team we need to try and get our 4-5-6 runners closer to our 2/3 if we stand a chance in the bigger meets. So we are having him run wth them for the first two miles to try and pace them a bit quicker. I'd never do this at a championship meet but 1 week away I think it makes sense.

It's simple. The slow guys need to push harder to try to stay with the top guys, not the other way around. If they die, they die. Work harder.

I imagine what he is actually trying to say is to run for your team. Running for yourself during a team race will never be as rewarding as running for your team. When everyone on the team is running their best and thinking about more than themselves, success will wither away. But, when you are running for your team, the fatigue you will experience will mean much more, in general you will get much more out of running than you ever would just running for yourself. I guess it's harder than I thought it'd be to explain it, on my team we all consider each other family and would do anything for one another.

If he's talking about literally racing all in a group, then yeah, the gaps are too big do so without slowing the top runners down. However, my coach put a huge emphasis on "running as a team" my sophomore year high school, which ended up being our best year as well as mine personally. On workouts and race days we'd all run our asses off, but we all ran together on long run days. Guys, girls, varsity and JV. Sometimes we'd have a fast and a slow pack, but for the most part we all stayed in a group. What this did was make a very strong team as well as creating intense competition within the group, with everyone trying to move up in the pack. I know it helped me with pacing too. Anyway, I wish we had kept that up all through high school - I think it's a really productive strategy with the right team.

Wrong.

I see XC as a team sport. You see it as a means for pumping up your CV so that you can say that "in spite of not having any Star quality runners, I got the team to a stellar performance". That fits, doesn't it?

I would help the slower runners catch up to the faster ones by providing them with focused help. Example: one #5 I have seen recently was in desperate need of hamstring work and a #3 was badly over-striding while the coach was screaming "stay with him". They were both overemphasizing effort over mechanics.

Helping the not so good runners improve and catch up to the faster runners maintains the motivation level in the team. Internal competition is healthy. Your method kills the will to succeed. So, no, I do not think you view it as a team sport. I think you view it as what the team can do for you, personally.

There is no science behind the perception that slowing down your top runners will help the team. If you believe otherwise then point us to the study.

Also, I will call you out on that one thing about being open about your philosophy. I think your judgement is deficient, period.

You may be sharing that philosophy in August but that is too late for athletes to transfer to another program and, in many states, may waste 1+ year of eligibility. The penalty for the runner is much greater so you are betting on that and hoping the runner will take your BS and work towards your personal goal of building the coach's CV.

Put that crap up on your website so they can see it the year before when they can still make a choice.

If I were your boss and knew that, I would fire you.

Man up!

Runlion05 wrote:

However, my coach put a huge emphasis on "running as a team" my sophomore year high school, which ended up being our best year as well as mine personally. On workouts and race days we'd all run our asses off, but we all ran together on long run days. Guys, girls, varsity and JV. Sometimes we'd have a fast and a slow pack, but for the most part we all stayed in a group.

So your 26 minute girls ran long runs with your 15 minute guys? And that worked? Did you have to slow down to 11 minute pace or did you make them speed up to like 8:00 pace? I would be astonished if the entire team ran the exact same mileage at the exact same pace and produced such different results. Am I understanding you here?

whose locker wrote:

everybody takes up a body position. You could be the left leg, for example. Instead of running, you jump when it's your turn (alternate with the right leg). The "body" stands on your shoulder, and holds onto the two "arms". The "body" person needs to have really strong upper body strength.

This is the classic "Voltron" workout. We usually had a freshman (lighter weight) on top. Coach would make us start over if he didn't think he screamed "And I'll form the head!" loud enough.

Usually done 10 days before regionals: 2 x 2 miles voltron, with drink a half gallon of milk as a team rests

I'm going to plead ignorance. What's CV?

Also, I coach at a public high school, so your transfer issue is not really an issue. Any kid could choose to transfer at any time, and as long as he hasn't started official practice with us, could immediately run for another school. I have an athlete and parent meeting at the beginning of each summer outlining the expectations and training/racing philosophy. No one comes into the program/season blind unless they choose to come in blind.

Think of how a meet is scored. If the #2 runner slows down but pulls the #3 and #4 runners to go a bit faster, the TEAM may be better off. Maybe the #2 finishes back 3 spots from what they would have done running for themselves. As long as #3 and #4 each finish 2 places better, the team benefits.

Oh, so the sport of XC is all about altruism?

If you are running on a team, it's about the team winning.