what to do with a high school cross country runner that is way better than everyone else

Yes, let her train with the boys. One of the best things about being a fast girl is that it is very rare to have nobody at the same speed.

If races are easily winnable, create different goals depending on the race. For one maybe have her focus on having perfect form, another go for even splits, another have her focus on running hard for 30 seconds after cresting a hill. Figure out what she struggles with (even pacing, form, hills, whatever), and set goals based on that. You can have her do workouts if it fits with the training, but the best training for racing a certain distance is racing that distance.

The best thing for this girl, though, is figuring out how to get her to races with better competition. There's only so much you can do running up front by yourself. Next year, find a race or two to travel to that will challenge her competition-wise... even if it's a little further away.

Pray that puberty doesn't hit her too hard.

Great ideas. Thanks!

If she keeps up the superiority advise her to seek out the council of Almaz Ayana on how to deal with all the false doping allegations that may come her way due to "tall poppy" syndrome 😀

Have her run with the boys on hard days. Most easy days, have her run with the girls to keep the team together.

She can train through most meets. But don't let her run away all the time. For some races, have her sit in the front pack and tell her not to lead, then finish the last 800m as hard as she can go. Practicing changing gears hard will pay off in the big races.

If she's running higher volume than the other girls then I guess it will help make the easy pace tolerable... not sure if you want to go that way.

This

praying atheist wrote:

Pray that puberty doesn't hit her too hard.

Lol, too true

If her race pace is much faster than the other girls, then her easy pace is much faster than the other girls. We wrecked our team in high school by having our 3, 4, 5 try to keep up with us on easy days.

Try handicap Intervals. Start her behind the others and slower ones ahead.

On hill reps you can blow a whistle when the first runners gets to the top. At that point everyone jogs back down.

In races she should just run for time course records etc.

Wait for championship season to race seriously and if she is still dominant let her enjoy her success. College and post college will level the playing field but for nowlet her be admired and respected by her peers who will remember her as one of the greats. All sports need their heroes and legends.

All sports need their legends and heroes.......baseball has Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ted Williams etc etc.....American running has Jim Ryun, Frank Shorter, etc....they validate the greatness of our sport.

This is true.

Allie O trained with a guy. That worked out ok. There is a gal in our state on a really small combined team; she has to train with the guys and she is top 5 in state.

If you coach both sexes it is easy to mix sexes. I only break up by pace and not boy and girl. I would let her run with the girls on easy days unless she wants to run with the boys.

I was like this in High School- I won XC Region three years in a row by about 30 seconds each year, similar domination on the track. My coach would do stupid stuff like make me carry rocks on intervals to make them harder and stuff like that. He had no idea what he was doing. I felt so much pressure to win by huge margins that I was a nervous wreck at most meets.

My PRs barely changed through high school- I ran 4:27 as a frosh and 4:24 as a senior in the 1600, for example. I feel like the lack of competition really slowed my growth as an athlete. Get your girl in as many big post season meets as possible where she can run against better athletes from faster regions of the country.

I agree with setting specific goals for each race as was mention above, especially the sit-and-kick practice. When I finally got to the NCAA level, it was a HUGE adjustment to have so many people around me in races and workouts.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Try handicap Intervals. Start her behind the others and slower ones ahead.

On hill reps you can blow a whistle when the first runners gets to the top. At that point everyone jogs back down.

In races she should just run for time course records etc.

Another thought (if you can pull it off without the workout getting out of control) is if you are running on a track or multiple loop repeats of a short course, is to have a VO2 Max type workout for your top runners while working on speed for the 2nd tier. Let the other girls join for say 1 lap of a 1200. I wouldn't see this working every week, but it's a creative idea for involving everyone, particularly when it comes down to sharpening.

I did a workout in HS where a coach paced me through a fast 1st 400, I'd cruise on the 2nd 400, then a teammate jumped in and I would try to kick him down in the last 400. It was fun, and I think we all benefited.

Many good suggestions here, particularly training with the boys. In fact, as one poster said, forming training sub groups by ability rather than gender is the way to go.

Do the rules allow you to race her with the boys in some pre champuonship meets? If so, maybe try that once or twice.

A) tell her to find a coach that knows WTF he's doing.

B) give her a list of meets where she can face competition.

C) get out of the way

With my high school XC teams, we had boys and girls together in a large team and we put them in groups by pace for workouts, all the way through the team.

This meant that when we had a really good girl, she'd have people to run with - and the guys at that pace always saw it as an honor and a responsibility to have her in their group - she was their teammate. One year our top girl advanced to the State meet as an individual, and the guys in her training group drove 200 miles each way on their own to support her.

This structure meant we would also have girls and boys together in several of the other slower training groups. Neither the girls nor the guys ever complained. Both were inspired - the girls to do their best work and the boys to run fast enough to move up to a group that was faster than the girls.