I've got a kid who loves the long run.

@thoughts wrote:

"1.) Next year, have a rule that your athletes can only do one sport at a time"

Here's a thought. How about not making up rules that benefit you and not the student?

And don't come back with "concentrating on one sport will benefit the student". Life is way more complicated than that.

This is true, when I was a senior a few years ago I was able to run a 15:45 for 5k in xc as well as 500 receiving yards on varsity football at a school with 1500 kids. This was way more enjoyable than only doing one and at the end of the day that's what hs sports are all about; working hard to compete at a high level while making memories that will last a lifetime. Don't limit your athletes just to make you look better.

If you're worried about him being too exhausted you should ease up on speed training because he is doing plenty of sprinting in football. Also, if he is even moderately good at both sports and you make him pick he will probably go to football simply because it is the more enjoyable or at least more popular sport. You have to think if you want a more talented runner at 80-90% or a less talented runner and less depth at 100%

Smoove wrote:

For what it's worth, if my children decide to be runners, I hope they get a coach like you; and that has nothing to do with the success I've seen from your privately coached athletes. You clearly care about your athletes' long term development (both as runners and as people) and clearly have their health and best interests at heart. On top of that, you consistently comb these boards for new information, clearly never assuming that you already know it all.

We need more youth coaches like you, across all sports.

I agree with Smoove. I have seen many young kids ruined by well-meaning parents and teammates who wanted to push them hard too soon. Let them have fun and success first. Gradually you can insert them into the varsity lineup.

I think anything extreme too soon is bad. This includes Long Runs, Intervals, Sprints, Hill Runs, Downhill runs, Plyometrics, Tiddley Winks or whatever. As Bill Dellinger said they need callousing as they move along. He also wisely said being a good distance runner is a gift the same as being a baseball, basketball, football, golf, etc., star. It's possible that distance running might be a little more fair as to the "more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it," approach. But I think we get way to caught up in that.

I bet any coach who has been around for at least ten years could tell you of a kid who should have been a star if only...

dsrunner wrote:

Conventional thinking is wrong in many respects, including this.

Just remind him there are no long races in HS.

And cap his running long run at 8mi until he can run those miles in < 1 hour .

No long races? What do you mean by that, no ultras? There were marathons when I was in HS. And we ran them. 4 of us would ride there with my dad. OK, we were all from the same school and friends, so was it just this outlier gang? No. There were dozens of other HS kids at these races. I went under 3 and made top 10 in our age group but not close to top 3. Does that mean I was lousy? Perhaps so, but it definitely means that kids ran long races. During the school year. And it can happen now. All you're really saying is that YOU didn't run long races in HS, which certainly doesn't prove that no one does.

On another topic, isn't OP breaking several laws by having contact with student athletes during the off season?

Nothing longer than marathon? wrote:

On another topic, isn't OP breaking several laws by having contact with student athletes during the off season?

I should give a little more context. My athletes are assigned to me for 7th period sports P.E. Currently, I have most of the kids who will be on the track team who are not currently in a winter sport (soccer, wrestling, basketball, cheer). I have 58 kids on my roster. About half of them are kids who will run distance in track. The other half will mostly be doing the other 13 events for CIF track and field. Some of the kids that I have will not be in a sport this spring and just need a home 7th period for the remainder of the fall semester.

For the kids that know they are going to be running distances in the spring, I've worked up some training guidelines, including mileage goals based on what the kid's previous distance totals looked like. After I take roll at the beginning of the period, the distance kids take off on a run and I take the rest of the athletes for general athletic conditioning (circuit training, bleachers, etc...) By the time I've taken roll, we have about 35 minutes left in the period. So realistically for a kid who has to run then catch the bus, there is about 1/2 hour. Our school district extends 35 miles to the east, so missing the bus in order to do a longer run is not an option for some of my kids. Most of my kids live in town, within walking distance of school. Many of them will do runs that bring them back to school 10-15 minutes after the bell rings. They all sign out with me on a mileage tally sheet. This way I know: a. they made it back from their runs and b. the distance of their runs.

Many of the kids have no desire to run one step after the bell rings at the end of 7th period. The kid in question has buddies who fall into that category, so he ends up running with them 3-4 days per week. In our small town, it is likely that the kid who I've been writing about has been in the same classes as his buddies since kindergarten. So, if I told him, "hey, I don't want you running with your friends anymore, they are too slow for you and aren't putting enough effort into being good". I might get a short term victory in that the kid would decide to go out and run on his own at his own pace every day. At the same time, I might be sowing the seeds of discontent with the sport which would eventually lead to him losing interest. If I had to choose one way or another, I'd say let the kid train less than optimally for the next couple of months as long as he is enjoying what he is doing. Hopefully, he comes to the conclusion on his own that he needs to step up and run with faster kids.

The varsity guys that I mentioned earlier is coming to that same conclusion. That kid was #2 on my team in cross. #1 is doing soccer now, #3 is out with a knee injury, #4 is in basketball, #5 is wrestling, #6 is in soccer. My varsity guy has been doing his runs with the #7 (almost 2 min slower over 5k) guy and some slower jv guys. He is just now coming to the conclusion on his own that he can run with those guys for half the run but then he needs to go a littler further and faster on his own once those guys finish.

f*ck the Eagles, man, and this kid. some "Coach" you are!

thoughts wrote:

No experience, but my thoughts are:

1.) Next year, have a rule that your athletes can only do one sport at a time.

This rule isn't always the best idea. A school in our area has had multiple athletes with the ability to contribute at a high level in two sports during the same season. When coaches are willing to work together, this typically isn't and issue and can actually be beneficial to running performance. Also, when we're talking about high school kids, making them "choose" at an early age may cause them to miss out on an opportunity to realize their potential in the sport they're forced to quit. The emphasis in HS should be about development. Playing multiple sports doesn't hinder this (probably helps) and if the kid is willing to put in extra work and keep grades up while contributing to a positive team atmosphere, preventing he/she from playing both sports is ridiculous.

I ran a little bit like this in high school and can tell you that you won't see improvement unless he still does some fast efforts once in a while. All that slow running is great if it fills out your volume surrounding occasional faster things. He needs to at a minimum be doing strides after several of those easy runs if he's just base building. But if you have him doing an actual workout or two per week then I wouldn't sweat most of his runs being like that.

If he's a freshman like you say, then don't sweat his winter mileage too much. Keep in mind, too, that he's likely to always run with slower kids if his peers are slower, so you need to work on bringing up the quality of the people he's hanging out with, too.

Today was the last day of fall semester that I met with my P.E. class. We had 2 hours for our "final". I told the kids they should all go between 45-60 minutes, progression style. The kid went 6.4 miles. He was ahead of my versity #2 guy for the first 3 miles, then my varsity guy caught him. The varsity guy went 8, but at least I know that the freshman was running a solid pace this time. He says he picked up his last 1.5 miles, no watches, so I don't have a time, but if he had been running up ahead of my varsity guy, I know he was picking up the last 1.5 off of a pace that was already solid.

CoachB wrote:

Today was the last day of fall semester that I met with my P.E. class. We had 2 hours for our "final". I told the kids they should all go between 45-60 minutes, progression style. The kid went 6.4 miles. He was ahead of my versity #2 guy for the first 3 miles, then my varsity guy caught him. The varsity guy went 8, but at least I know that the freshman was running a solid pace this time. He says he picked up his last 1.5 miles, no watches, so I don't have a time, but if he had been running up ahead of my varsity guy, I know he was picking up the last 1.5 off of a pace that was already solid.

I would tell the kid that you think his training plan is suboptimal for the goal of running well in high school cross country. During the season, tell him how he WILL be training; in the offseason tell him how you think he SHOULD train.

"I recommend at least 35 miles this week, with a max of 10 and everything at 8 minutes per mile or better. If, instead, you want to play football, or run 20 miles in 4 hours, or rob 7-11s, you probably won't improve as much as I think you want to."

I like log runs tok