High schoolers SUCK at easy runs

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

I wish there were more coaches like you, thinking about long-term development and injecting the love of the sport in his runners instead of going for short-term success and throwing training that's way too hard for HS girls at them just to hope a few of them will survive and be able to score more points.

How did you make sure they actually run the assigned pace? Assigning 7:45-8:00 is one thing, but making sure they run this pace on their runs and in the summer were they might train alone is just as important.

Is it the coaches fault if he prescribes 7:00-7:15 min pace to his top boys (15-15:45 5k) but they turn each easy run into a race that ends with sub 5:50 miles and they start underperforming in workouts and races?

We don’t actually assign a pace on most easy runs, but we are very proactive about teaching our younger athletes how to monitor their bodies during their first year. I run with my first and second year runners quite a bit and we teach a variety of tools to monitor effort- paying attention to how much you can talk, checking heart rate and using a watch to track pace. We also talk daily about the purpose of a given run. By the time they are all-state or all-American caliber runners, those habits are all they know.

We emphasize assigned groups a lot too. We have 25 girls on the team and have anywhere from 6-10 pace groups on any given day. Our team expectation is that you stick with that group for the day. We monitor kids fairly closely and can make adjustments mid run if needed, but usually don’t need to.

When I started out as a coach I only did distance and was the assistant so it allowed me to do easy runs with my runners when my easy days lined up with theirs more. Its a good way to figure out if their running to fast which of course some were. Thats what coaches are for. Of course some still don’t listen. But thats a fact of life. Her coach could be telling her to run differently but i’m not going to kick off a kick for running to hard either.

Obviously you’re not fit enough to understand that elite athletes run off feel and extensively monitoring pace is detrimental to any runner training for any distance. You sound like the person that also lives and breathes off of a Garmin watch. Way to over analyze a high school runner. Good job bro.

Yea , I’ve seen Willis on his easy days they are very easy ! 7:30 is probably about right . Slow slow slow .

To the poster that mention 18 min girl is equal to a 15 min boy is off !

I would say 18 is roughly equal to a 15:45 boy .

Found this excellent post by Cam Levins when asked about his best advice:

"Best Advice: Don't get too competitive with your teammates when you aren't racing. As freshmen we were essentially racing our easy runs, which made it really tough to run as well as we could in workouts and in competition. Plus, it wasn't healthy for the camaraderie that you should feel as teammates. There is nothing wrong with being competitive, however. I think it's a very helpful tool in motivating yourself and being able to push your limits in races."

Think he is spot on.

This was basically me in XC and I sucked. I was not improving that much. The workouts were hard and our easy days were still 90%+ for me. Burned out and lots of injuries.

Later in life when I found a club to run with they wanted to do the same thing - run 38- 40min or 10ks on what would have been my off day so that was a big nope. I guess I got a bit wiser.

I'm more of the late bloomer runners. Far more competitive in my late 30s than I was in my 20s. Probably due to fewer injuries so more consistent training.

For high school or younger runners with a good base I like their easy days to be at 40 minutes at 8:00/min pace. Maybe a few strides afterwards.

Long enough to get some aerobic benefits without compromising upcoming workouts.

I also use this run as a benchmark for developing runners before they begin more strenuous 5k and under speed work.

One of my friends had the worst coach when it came to easy runs. The coach believed that to get better at running 5k races, you run 5k races. So everyday at practice they did an all-out 5k with no warm up and cool down was optional. He was the fastest guy on the team by over a minute and I don't think he ever broke 20 minutes.

Easy days easy wrote:

I remember reading a story about Bill Bowerman who would time his athletes through the first mile of their easy runs, if they were under 6 minutes, they had to stand their till 6 minute mark.

And then pee'd on them.

Good female runners almost always race closer to their training pace than any good males do.

Does this mean they're not pushing as hard as males when they race?

hipil wrote:

Good female runners almost always race closer to their training pace than any good males do.

Does this mean they're not pushing as hard as males when they race?

I think most females push it harder than males do in both races and training. Not sure if it's true, but I heard they have a higher pain threshold compared to males. This may explain it. I don't know. But watch the end of a girl's XC race vs a boy's XC race. The boy's on average tend to finish more fresh. While girl's on average tend to push it harder and collapse more often across the line.

Race like a girl? wrote:

hipil wrote:

Good female runners almost always race closer to their training pace than any good males do.

Does this mean they're not pushing as hard as males when they race?

I think most females push it harder than males do in both races and training. Not sure if it's true, but I heard they have a higher pain threshold compared to males. This may explain it. I don't know. But watch the end of a girl's XC race vs a boy's XC race. The boy's on average tend to finish more fresh. While girl's on average tend to push it harder and collapse more often across the line.

I've coached national-level boys and girls. I assure you girls are not tougher than boys. There are some amazingly tough girls, but boys on average are way tougher racers. Girls collapse at the finish line because they overreact emotionally to discomfort that the boys deal with without the hyperbole.

I mean I agree. Maybe (definitely) I was a bit too wordy. I thought that paragraph share by Rojo was 100% on point. I just think it's easier to run a bit quicker on easy runs the more fresh you are. What an obvious statement as I read that back. I agree that they should not be looking at a watch and running at an easy effort on easy days. I was just trying to explain why maybe it's not the end of the world. It's summer so I doubt she was doing workouts yet. If she's just running mileage in the 50ish range but with no workouts and has gone sub-5 I don't think it's unreasonable to be running sub-7's. I don't think it should happen everyday or maybe at all but I'm more concerned what her pace is the day after a 6 x 1km workout. A good coach makes sure she doesn't run 6:40 pace that day.

Here's one for Seth Hirsch from a few years ago. The kid runs his easy runs at 5:40-5:45 pace everyday and is hitting 70-75 mpw. He does a 5 mile race one of the weeks in 24:52 (4:58 pace), does a 3 mile tempo at 5:05 pace. The kid is practically racing his tempos and his easy runs. No wonder he burnt out and got slow in college.

bunmore wrote:

Race like a girl? wrote:

I think most females push it harder than males do in both races and training. Not sure if it's true, but I heard they have a higher pain threshold compared to males. This may explain it. I don't know. But watch the end of a girl's XC race vs a boy's XC race. The boy's on average tend to finish more fresh. While girl's on average tend to push it harder and collapse more often across the line.

I've coached national-level boys and girls. I assure you girls are not tougher than boys. There are some amazingly tough girls, but boys on average are way tougher racers. Girls collapse at the finish line because they overreact emotionally to discomfort that the boys deal with without the hyperbole.

I would agree the girls are not tougher.

Where I disagree is the misconception of why girls collapse more than boys at the line. They have a physiological disadvantage to boys in their inability to correct low blood pressure in the brain. For this reason far more girls will get dizzy, disorientated, and pass out at the finish line.

It saddens me whenever a coach, parent, or even "medical professionals" say that girls are being dramatic when they collapse and sometimes pass out at the finish line when they are at an effort that is the cause of this condition.

otter wrote:

Where I disagree is the misconception of why girls collapse more than boys at the line. They have a physiological disadvantage to boys in their inability to correct low blood pressure in the brain. For this reason far more girls will get dizzy, disorientated, and pass out at the finish line.

This is ridiculous. When you are running an all-out effort, you do NOT have low blood pressure. In fact, your blood pressure INCREASES during exercise. These girls collapse conveniently RIGHT at the finish line. If they are truly experiencing these phyiosological anomalies, these girls would collapse equally DURING run, or 50m from the line, or 500m from the finish line. But they don't. They almost always collapse right after crossing the line. Which makes no sense from a physiological perspective, UNLESS you buy into the theory that they are in fact working harder and pushing harder than the boys (which of course they are not).

As to girls not being overly dramatic, let's no forget a certain Suzy-Favor Hamilton who decided to collapse DURING THE OLYMPIC FINALS. She later confessed it was intentional. What a disgrace.

It's simply to explain why HS kids suck at easy runs.

The slow kids try to run fast to keep up with the Varsity. The Varsity kids see the slow kids and get pissed off and decide to go faster because they're "too good" to run with the slow kids (they're not). So what ends up happening is both the slow kids and the Varsity kids end up going too fast, and end up running separately from each other as they would have been if the slow kids had gone slow to begin with.

It's like all things in life. The B student decides to study really hard to become an A student. The A students then see this and study harder to maintain their A status. In the end, everyone ends up just studying harder but they get the same exact grades.

Or a guy who used to make things for $10/hour, and another guy offers to make them for $8/hour. So the first guy agrees to a paycut for $8/hour, or agrees to make more things for the same $10/hour. The second guy still doesn't have a job, but the first guy has to work longer hours (or take a pay cut).

formerD1 wrote:

otter wrote:

Where I disagree is the misconception of why girls collapse more than boys at the line. They have a physiological disadvantage to boys in their inability to correct low blood pressure in the brain. For this reason far more girls will get dizzy, disorientated, and pass out at the finish line.

This is ridiculous. When you are running an all-out effort, you do NOT have low blood pressure. In fact, your blood pressure INCREASES during exercise. These girls collapse conveniently RIGHT at the finish line. If they are truly experiencing these phyiosological anomalies, these girls would collapse equally DURING run, or 50m from the line, or 500m from the finish line. But they don't. They almost always collapse right after crossing the line. Which makes no sense from a physiological perspective

This is correct. Anyone who has already pushed his limits knows the signs the body tells you when it wants you to stop running or slow down - you get disoriented, your legs start hurting, your heart starts hurting, you get blurry vision, you start seeing black, etc. If you ignore these for too long, eventually your brain will shut you down to prevent further damage - that's a safety mechanism.

Here you see the safety mechanism in action - people mainly collapse like that in 400/800/mile/3k, maybe 5k races (at end). They also do in longer races, but that's a different type of fatigue/body shutdown (often due to depletion of carbohydrates or dehydration).

The collapsing AFTER finish line has NOTHING to do with the brain shutting down the body, that happens voluntarily. Many of these girls are just experiencing mild discomfort and not the real warning signs of the brain like a hurting heart. Yes these girls are fatigued/exhausted at the end of the race but they could just as well take it and be standing.

These threads are idiot and 6:40 is slow.