Coaches ignoring runners

the coach doesnt owe u a thing. no person owes you a thing.

u owe it to urself to get what u want.

Quit sucking. Seriously, Coach probably sees your faults clear as day yet you think you’re perfect. Figure it out.

Ugh, so do you

my 3 cents wrote:

Find a different coach. Especially with all the online private coaches available now. You don’t have to run for a school team if you’re in school.

The best post imaginable. So many these days figure if you run, it has to be for the official school team. When I was in high school the distance runners didn't have anything to do with the school's track team. I believed then, and with decades of hindsight still do, that this was not the best for the team necessarily, but it was for us. Look how many threads are started complaining about coaches. This one is certainly not unique. The assumption seems to be that you have 2 choices: be coached by this (often comically inept if the OP is being honest) joker; or don't run.

I suspect most school-based coaches are an impediment to success. I never met my high school track coach but if I remember right, I think he was one of the football coaches who needed a Spring semester gig. Also probably wanted to keep an eye on his team and sort of make them stay in shape the other half of the school year. I don't imagine these football guys were running distance, but I don't suspect they had a distance program at all. One of my training group actually approach the guy Senior year and offered his services. My buddy was turned down.

So what's the point? Imagine how bad my teenage running experience would have been if I had been subject to that clown's whims. I would have been like the dozen kids starting threads any given day during track season whining about their coaches. Well, it's only 'your coach' if you agree to be coached by him/her. Being ignored is the best thing they can do for you. My school's coach wouldn't have heard of or recognized me. Thank goodness!

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Channel your anger towards your coach into effort on the track.

That's the path to the dark side

How so?

blank wrote:

I used to make excuses for my coach when he ignored me during my races, realizing I wasn't performing well enough for his attention or energy. But after all the injuries and pain emotionally and physically I have gone through, for him to turn his back to me 2 laps into my race (consistently) is really starting to get me angry. You're a coach and I am your athlete. You should coach me regardless, especially when I am not giving up, and putting in my best effort every day. When he gives up on me, a part of me gives up on myself. Thoughts?

What is the context? Are you on a high school team one of 60 athletes? If so if you are not a high performer and there a lot of others better then you reality is they have to put attention elsewhere.

If you're in a race why does it even matter what attention your coach is paying? Your focus level on your coach should be minimal during racing. If that is impacting your performance you're part of the problem.

This is why I couldn't be a coach. I think being a coach requires you to have a certain level of pity for your athletes. In other words, no matter how terrible they are, you HAVE to be positive and say they're doing great. I can't do that.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

This is why I couldn't be a coach. I think being a coach requires you to have a certain level of pity for your athletes. In other words, no matter how terrible they are, you HAVE to be positive and say they're doing great. I can't do that.

This is not true at all

It is your coaches job to provide a positive environment so you and your team can work together, if he is not doing that for you leave. But it is also your job to contribute to a positive environment that helps your team grow and if you cannot do that leave. So leave!

Problems with this:

1. it makes it hard to be recruited in college. Most coaches want track results, not road results and running unattached as a high schooler really isn't a thing most places. Online coaches won't work for everyone.

2. A lot of kids don't have access to decent non school based coaches (any decent coaches are at a school somewhere) - as well as lots of bad coaches. Like in my area growing up the only out of school option would have been an aau sprints only team.

Just to be clear I think you're right that some hsers will benefit from going it on their own or with a club, but not most.

Any of the following?:

- You show up late for practice

- Do not run workouts as instructed

- Are negative at practice

- Miss a day or two of practice each week

So I don't run for my college team, although I used to. I find it's pretty common on the college level to find people who still run, but maybe not as seriously as they used to, although for me, I take it just as seriously as I did on the team, I have a different coach, I still race, I just have to pay for entries and gas and such.

My sophomore year I got injured, and I know the NCAA in general can be cutthroat with that stuff, but this is a small program that has no business being cutthroat. I was essentially told by my coach to figure it out and was let go without a word. On the outside looking in, I was able to step away and see how things really were with the team -- kids get injured, coaches do nothing to help (and sometimes make it worse), kids come back nothing like they used to be. Kids quit because the coaches don't have the athletes' best interests in mind. Kids burn out. I didn't have a great relationship with the guy to begin with, but I took all these as signs that it would not be best for me to return. It was also somewhat encouraging to know I was far from the only one in the position I'm in now.

But hey. At the end of the day, the "meat-grinder" mentality is sadly a coaching style that works for some coaches. It just didn't work for me.

absolutely not. never.

runner1818 wrote:

absolutely not. never.

How do you know if you are not the OP?

A coaches job isn't to watch you race or cheer for you. It's to prepare you to run your best.

As a coach, I can tell you that it is difficult to watch every kid all the time in every race. Some races have two or more of my kids in it at the same time, and races longer than two laps can cause a gap between all of them, (sometimes half a lap between the best and the worst) which can lead to a coach running back and forth to try to hit them at the 200 splits, or encourage one who is close to the winning spot. We would love to be able to be in every spot for every kid, but we cannot close ourselves.

Most coaches try. If a coach ignores an athlete, it shoukd not anger the runner. Then the bad oerson has won.