How to get female high school runners to pack up

muddygirl wrote:

Girls are definitely different to coach than boys - and it's often detrimental to try to coach them the same.

Girls very much are competitive with the other girls on the team and the pecking order is very important. One year, I tried to shift the focus on the other teams' runners. Our conference was small enough that you could pretty much predict the order of finish based on previous times. I made a chart of that, using different colored dots to represent runners on each team - and then I told them that we as a team needed to get, for example, 3 girls in front of THIS team's #5 or one girl ahead of this other team's #2, etc. Then they would be working together to achieve a team goal - and as long as 3 of them beat that one runner on the other team, they wouldn't mind as much in which order they finished on the team because as a group they were successful.

My only other advice, is not to try to give special "privileges" to the top 7 girls as a way of motivating the others - almost always backfires as I observed with another team.

Coach G wrote:

"Packing up" = running as a tight group.

As a XC I understand that some coaches believe this makes for a stronger team and better result HOWEVER I believe that this strategy is flawed at the HS level.

Running as a pack only is advantageous if all the members of the team are of comparable ability. If your #1 runs a race a few minutes faster than your #5 why would you want your #1 to slow down so the #5 can keep up?

Your team scores will suffer using this strategy.

I coach running as a pack for only the first kilometer when the entire field is tightly bunched. If the course is narrow you can effectively block other teams from passing you. The danger is if you use this strategy and slow the field behind you eventually the field will thin and your top runners may be too far behind the front runners they have hurt their chances of a good personal result.

I've seen the following happen girls races where often they have less sportsmanship than the guys. Someone will run up into your tight little pack and trip one of your girls in the ensuing mayhem 2 or 3 of your girls will fall destroying your snug group[, probably a few girls will pack it in and you will fall far down in the standings.

It's very easy to "accidently on purpose" cause a group of runners to take a tumble.

My advice is let your best runners surge to the front and have your slower runners try to keep in touch to pull the slowest along.

Flagpole wrote:

gubyenletsrun wrote:

I coach a moderately successful DII high school program. Combined girls and boys.

I had great success packing up the boys this year and a program that should have been terrible (not a lot of talent) this year did quite well.

The girls are openly resistant to a packing mentality. They have some gaps in talent (30 seconds to a minute over 5k) but the real issue is that they do not want to do workouts together. The several times I tried packing our top four varsity girls the results were disastrous with the back two girls crying and nearly quitting the workout because the front two girls were pushing the pace. I separated them into packs of two after that and then the front girl in each duo pushed the pace.

Experienced high school coaches, what should I do for next year? Should I absolutely enforce pack running for the pre season? I'm worried it will piss the girls off and they will quit the team, that is how much they want to separate into their cliques.

I've used the boys over and over again as examples but the girls don't seem to care. The spread of our top 5 boys at districts was 10 seconds and we could get our top 7 in in about 30 seconds.

Pack running is ridiculous. You were "successful" in having boys pack run because they are all about equal in talent. If the gap in talent in your girls is so great that when you train them together the slower ones cry, then they don't belong in the same training group. In any given year, the top training group could be ONE person or three or seven or whatever. Your thought process and approach is so wrong it isn't even funny. The girls want to separate into "cliques"? No, they want to do proper training that is appropriate for their talent level. You using the boys who just happen to be of equal talent as an example is ridiculous. What do you do next year when some freshman on the team runs 14:58 for 5k? Do you make him pack run with the other way slower boys on your team? You are doing this all wrong.

gubyenletsrun wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Pack running is ridiculous. You were "successful" in having boys pack run because they are all about equal in talent. If the gap in talent in your girls is so great that when you train them together the slower ones cry, then they don't belong in the same training group. In any given year, the top training group could be ONE person or three or seven or whatever. Your thought process and approach is so wrong it isn't even funny. The girls want to separate into "cliques"? No, they want to do proper training that is appropriate for their talent level. You using the boys who just happen to be of equal talent as an example is ridiculous. What do you do next year when some freshman on the team runs 14:58 for 5k? Do you make him pack run with the other way slower boys on your team? You are doing this all wrong.

I'm not sure why you are so passionate about this. I don't think you have had much experience with high school cross country and definitely not with a girls team.

The girls are very close in talent and prs. Top 5 within 30 seconds and top 10 just outside a minute. But the top few girls like their pecking order and would push the pace in a packing workout to drop their peers. Push the pace as in they are going TOO FAST not just for their teammates but for themselves as well. That is why the crying ensued. I separated into further packs and it was better but not great. My main observation is that there are some egos getting in the way and hurting the team approach.

Yes, it is definitely cliques. Friends want to run only with friends, not with the girl who was talking to the ex at the spaghetti dinner (horrors).

Oh, and 14:58 would be one of the best high school runners in the country. Don't think we'll produce that anytime soon.

You should stay in the main forum. I feel like I'm wasting time explaining this to you and you didn't have any good advice.

Flagpole wrote:

gubyenletsrun wrote:

I'm not sure why you are so passionate about this. I don't think you have had much experience with high school cross country and definitely not with a girls team.

The girls are very close in talent and prs. Top 5 within 30 seconds and top 10 just outside a minute. But the top few girls like their pecking order and would push the pace in a packing workout to drop their peers. Push the pace as in they are going TOO FAST not just for their teammates but for themselves as well. That is why the crying ensued. I separated into further packs and it was better but not great. My main observation is that there are some egos getting in the way and hurting the team approach.

Yes, it is definitely cliques. Friends want to run only with friends, not with the girl who was talking to the ex at the spaghetti dinner (horrors).

Oh, and 14:58 would be one of the best high school runners in the country. Don't think we'll produce that anytime soon.

You should stay in the main forum. I feel like I'm wasting time explaining this to you and you didn't have any good advice.

No, my advice is excellent, and your approach is wrong. You are using the boys team as an example to the girls team, and those girls all (rightly so) think you are a fool for doing so because they are not as close in ability as your boys team. That kind of approach doesn't work in parenting or in coaching. I hope you don't call it a "packing workout" to the girls. That actually sets the tone for competition in the workout, because they think, 'ok, I'll show you who the best in this pack is' because it implies that you might want them to run as a pack in the meets. They are TRAINING GROUPS. If you have girls of similar ability in a workout and they don't do what you tell them to do, then that goes to your leadership. They are not allowed to push the pace. You tell them that if they run X at the next meet, perhaps the workouts will change accordingly or a girl might move up to another training group. Until then, they need to run what you tell them. You sound like you are afraid of them. You can be a coach and be nice at the same time.

Yes, 14:58 would be one of the best freshmen in the country. Outliers happen and that's the point. You can have 4 girls run a workout together, and you tell them, "Mindy Sue and Chantilly Lace, the two of you run these 400s in 90 seconds. Flobotta and Willa Jane, you two run them in 95. No pace pushers! We are training to run faster on race day, not to beat teammates in workouts. Your standing on the team only counts with regard to how you do on Saturday."

And, if there are girls who only want to run with their friends, then don't ever expect anything from them.

blahbaba wrote:

You can't force a group to "pack up". They have to want to "pack up", specifically the lagging runners need to have the fight and competitiveness.

That's the thing with packs, each member has a different motivation. The best runner has to have a team mentality, changing their running still to help others, and be confident enough in their ability to overcome that modification. Or confident enough in the pack, that they believe that they are helped by it.

The middle runners need to do their jobs as well. Middle runners need to encourage, and position themselves so that the back runners don't lose contact.

And the back runners need to be willing to run over their ability, and realize that its either feast or famine, they will hang-on and run a good time or die and really hurt at the end.

...My guess is you don't have very competitive 5 runners, and your front runners aren't confident in their ability. Sounds like a young or inexperienced team.

kellyoc519 wrote:

No direct coaching experience, just observational:

"Packing up" tends to have to come from the girls themselves. There are ways to encourage it, but girls can be finicky.

My daughter runs for a historically good cross country team. This year, the girls have an excellent rapport. There are no real standouts, the top girl is being recruited by an excellent D1 school, but the other senior at the team is solid but not a star. However, their top seven girls have about a 60 second spread in races and have been really impressive this season, winning merges in huge invitationals. The next three runners are also pretty strong, so the top 10 trains together. Last year, the story was different. There was an exceptional top runner and a solid second runner but the next 5 were nowhere near these two. Added to that is that the top girl was a bit of a diva, HAD to win every race, even dual meets, never allowed anyone else to lead in practice and generally was not a team player. It was a pretty miserable season.

The coaches encouraged bonding by having the girls rotate hosting spaghetti dinners the night before meets, attending the same summer camp, and participating in captain's practices throughout the summer. The girls wear their uniform to school the day of meets or they dress alike, things like that helped them form a team identity. Girls need that kind of thing to keep them together I think. But again, if there is a divisive personality or personalities, it can be hard to galvanize the all for one and one for all mentality.

Another CA Guy wrote:

Seems much too late in the season to try various workouts that might help these girls run together. Here are a few suggestions that would probably work better early season and then could be built upon throughout:

Long intervals where the stated goal is to run a particular time, set so that it is relatively easy for the #5 girl, even with a short rest period. For each interval, select a different girl to lead, with instructions that no one can pass her. Start from the back - #5 leads first, #4 second, etc. Make certain every runner understands that the goal pace is more important in this workout than running faster than goal pace.

Variation on above. Same workout strategy, only last quarter of each long interval can be run faster and individually, with all knowing that short rest will be a problem for anyone running too fast. With this workout, you get packing for most of each interval and the faster girls get to run faster at the end.

Shorter intervals in which the goal pace again is set for #5 runner and the group goal is to finish together. Could be run in a line with instructions not to pass.

If there's a way to make these workouts a "game" of sorts - trying to hit the goal exactly - that might encourage packing.

Reading these over, they do seem like early season workouts.