College coach says no workouts until Late July

4.6/10

Got a lot of responses, some emotional.

Your coach is a smart person

First, are you a guy or a girl? I can't tell based on your time.

Second, your coach can outline workouts over summer but per NCAA rules can't start coaching until a certain point. I want to say it's late July or August. You can do whatever you want over the summer since your coach doesn't have direct control over you. But you should probably listen to them since they probably know more than you. Since the NCAA season ends November really no reason to be doing workouts over summer. If you feel good and want to do some Fartleks here or there that wouldn't be all that bad.

If you're a freshman entering college you're probably going to get beat up enough in your first college season. Focusing on getting some mileage under your belt and building up to the college level is more important than being sharp for workouts in August.

100% agree with this. Most college coaches are overrated. They don't know how, or unwilling, or don't have time to problem solve. 1 program fits all is there motto. No (or little) individualization. Only the strong survive (at least through college).

Sounds right.........Daniels starts his program off in phase one with just aerobic runs for about 6 weeks......for a college runner that would take you to late July when you would start phase two..........Get Daniels book to learn a thing or two but don't contradict your coach as all scheduled training must be adjusted/changed/adapted by a good coach......

just fckin run bro it's not that hard

let it rip once a week with a prog run or a tempo or something

do some fkn strides once in a while

you really want to be grinding out 8x800 @ vo2 in 90 degree weather? gtfoh

Lots of coaches don't advocate only slow running for off season training. Tinman, for example, says you can run the CV workouts year round, including off season.

I do not know if OP is male or female. Either male or female, OP will have to be able to keep up with others starting in August. 32:30, five mile runs, 70 minutes, ten mile runs and 1:52:30, fifteen mile runs will not be too tough for OP.

Old Man 2 Lapper wrote:

As an old college coach I wouldn't have recruited you if I saw this part of your character. Next time you whine (which I believe won't be long) just have an adult conversation rather than come on a message board to get validation. Best of luck this season!

I'm sure he would have dodged a bullet then.

Nothing worse than a one dimensional coach who thinks all athletes are the same, and have no say in their development. Clearly you are a linear thinker. Good that you retired.

Only one thing worse than college coaches.

High School coaches.

No workouts until late July/early August sounds about right to me... if you need to have workouts on the schedule in May/June to be motivated to train hard/consistent, then you’re not a kid I would want to coach. This is the best and frankly only time of the year where you can run base mileage for 8-10 uninterrupted weeks while and not having a heavy school load and back in the comforts of your own home. Take advantage of it and put the double days in, get stronger so when coach gives you the workout that is 25% more volume than you’ve done before(smart coach) you will be ready to handle it!

Is it bad that I'm a sophomore in HS running a 17 minute 5k doing my easy runs at 6:00 to 6:20 average pace with the last mile or two sub-6, because that's what our coach wants and he said it's the only way to get fast, but it leaves me exhausted.

Building a base is crucial for success. Summer miles work to build a bigger ceiling for the rest of the year. In fact, I believe summer base miles are the most important phase of the training year. I've seen people time and time again workout well mid-season but didn't build a substantial base in the summer and it never comes together in races. Strength is crucial, and the best way to build strength is to run lots of slow volume (with a hard long run thrown in every once in a while). I don't see much of a need for anyone, no matter what level, to run much faster than 7:00 pace. I think most people screw themselves over by running too hard and short on their easy days... slow it down and run more!!!

This article written by Eyestone of BYU captures the importance of building base....

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20840263/return-to-your-running-base/

Run Hills and fartleks until July l.. as for running 6:30-7:30 pace for training runs that’s completely in you range of fitness. I ran 16:20 in Hs and a lot of my training runs were done @ 6:30-7:00 pace

ParityCuber wrote:

Is it bad that I'm a sophomore in HS running a 17 minute 5k doing my easy runs at 6:00 to 6:20 average pace with the last mile or two sub-6, because that's what our coach wants and he said it's the only way to get fast, but it leaves me exhausted.

Depends. Read this.

And this.

There are more than two ways to skin a cat.

Look at Dick Quax base training.

And look at Henry Rono base training.

I did nothing but over distance running during the summer. I was a 9:30 guy and 6:30-7:00 pace was very comfortable for me. High mileage and waiting until the start of the season for intervals, still gave me plenty of time to peak too early.

The runners at Jesuit, Sacramento, who were coached by Walt Lange, would put in high mileage during the summer and not start interval training until a month into the season.

How would this "individualization" work? When I ran in college, everyone would run the same interval workouts, but at different paces. Our 14:00 guy would run within himself and idiots like me would try to keep up with him.

My advice would just be to trust your coach and buy into his training ideas. There is more than one way to get better and a lot of college coaches will try to have your summer training be conducive to what their in-season coaching style is like. Maybe your coach will absolutely hammer you with intensity at times during the actual season.

omygoodnes wrote:

Old Man 2 Lapper wrote:

As an old college coach I wouldn't have recruited you if I saw this part of your character. Next time you whine (which I believe won't be long) just have an adult conversation rather than come on a message board to get validation. Best of luck this season!

I'm sure he would have dodged a bullet then.

Nothing worse than a one dimensional coach who thinks all athletes are the same, and have no say in their development. Clearly you are a linear thinker. Good that you retired.

If OP is female, the XC coach may consider bending to the wishes of the runner a bit. If OP is a male, it would be ridiculous for a college XC coach to alter her or his training philosophy based on wishes of a male 16:44 5000m runner. When I was a college XC runner, my coach altered his XC training program for one guy, a 46.xx 400m man. Exceptions are made for elites and elites only.