Tell him to shoot for the 3 minute mile!
Tell him to shoot for the 3 minute mile!
malmo wrote:
You should seek employment in a job you are more suited for.
MALMO FOREVER
When I was a sophomore in high school I said to my teammates while stretching that by senior year I'd run 9:15 in the two mile, at the time my pr was 10:30, they all laughed and said yeah right and that it would never happen. While I never actually reached the goal of 9:15, I did run a 9:19 by senior year which got me a spot at a large D1 schools team. If I had set a more "realistic" goal like maybe 9:40 I probably would have never reached the level I am at today. If I were you I'd tell him to dream as big as he wants because he can make it happen if he wants to.
I started out my running career a minute slower in the mile than Jim Ryun (at a year older), and after working my ass off (getting injured trying to emulate his training, finally resigning to a more reasonable schedule and actually progressing) finished only 50 seconds slower. What do I win?
I still remember telling my parents that I wanted to run the Olympic marathon...I was 12. For a long time, this was a VERY distant dream and it looked to many that I would not be more than a good high school runner.
I remember my dad saying something to the effect that "you will probably not be a world class runner, but you could be a world class coach." His words fired me up to prove him wrong.
Time proved my dad was wrong. Raced in Atlanta and Sydney...just missed the team for Athens.
Be known as someone who nurtures seemingly impossible dreams.
ukathleticscoach wrote:
I once asked some Ethiopians what time the wanted to do 10km
Every one of them said WR
None of them did it ...
Clearly you asked the wrong Ethiopians :)
OldXCguy wrote:
I would tell him,
"just believe in yourself and put the work in, and we'll find out how good you can get."
+1
I know one guy who came out as a freshman in college who tried to walk on with a 11:50 for 3200. The coach let him practice with us and by his Senior year he was 14:30 for 5k and went on to run 2:13 for the marathon.
Learn to talk and mentor kids. I agree, get some help on the art of coaching.
Analyzing the improvement from a different perspective.
21:50 is approximately 8.53 mph
17:55 is approximately 10.41 mph
He improved 1.88 mph avg.
if he improved by the same amount 1.88 mph
he would run 12.29 mph = 15:11.
So to break 15 he would have to improve a little more than the previous year.
The fact of the matter is that as a coach your job is to moativate and assist kids in getting them to build some sort of self-confidence and satifaction. Let the kid dream, tell him he needs to step it up, and try to develop him into a good person over a good runner..
I would explain to the kid that the biggest improvements often come between the first and second years of running and it's very unlikely that he will experience that same amount of drop ever again.
I have a boy who only got serious about running this year (junior). Our team made the state meet and he ran pretty slowly. His PR for the season was in the high 18s. After the race, we were watching the awards ceremony and he said that he would do anything to be on the podium next year. I told him at the time that the best thing he could do was work with the team and try to be his best and get all his teammates to work hard with him. We have a pretty decent collection of talent and could put a team on the podium and I thought telling him what I told him was a diplomatic way of saying he wasn't going to go from 18:45 to 15:45 in one year.
He has been working pretty hard and improving quite a bit. Today, after reading this thread, I had a discussion with him about what he would need to do to get on the podium as an individual.
We shall see what happens.
Your inexperience and immaturity make me hope that you're just an assistant. Encourage him to set intermediate goals and teach him to revise his final goal based on his progress towards the intermediary. Your job is not to tell him what is improbable, but to help him reach the pinnacle of what is possible.
Don't waste his drive and ambition. I havent seen a kid go from 22 to 15 in one year, but I've seen 2:1x 800 kids go to 1:50 in a year. Weird things happen in puberty.
Explain the law of diminishing returns!
He's a 17:55 guy right now, right? PR is 17:55. Tell him to run 17:54 before thinking about anything else.
Don't tell him that's the limit, of course--just tell him what to focus on.
That won't help, of course, he'll still have a fire in his heart and daydream every day about being the next Solinsky... but it'll help ground him in reality. It's possible to compartmentalize, and have two sets of goals: the conservative/realistic, those which you know are going to go down just as soon as you get in the right race; and the ultimate, what you think is possible with superb effort and iron determination and want with all your heart.
I know of a girl who ran 22 min 5ks as a HS freshman, & 19-20 minutes for the next 3 years, literally had to beg to walk on to a college team.
In college:
freshman year: redshirt.
sophomore year: mid 18s (new PR)
junior year: broke 18.
senior year: ran around 17 flat
5th year: 16:2? in the 5k and sub 34 for the 10k.
Interestingly, she was told she was not "fast enough" and did not have "the potential" to walk on at UNC as a freshman, so she picked another ACC school to train with. By her senior year, she managed to win the 10k at the ACC championships and finish 10th at NCAAs in that event.
she also worked her butt off, including running 90-100 mile weeks over the summers (sometimes while working a 40 hour per week job).
so, don't tell your kid anything is impossible, but tell him he can't expect dramatic change OVER NIGHT, needs to set small goals, and be willing to COMMIT.
Tell him to keep his sub 15 min goal in the back of his mind, but first aim to break 17 or 16.30 firstLet him aim high. If he fails, he fails and learns.
Torn Coach wrote:
I coach Cross Country and track at a local high school and one of the kids on the team went from a 21:50 freshman to a 17:55 sophomore. However he wont shut up about being the next high school phenom and has already set his 2011 XC goal as sub 15min. Now, do I crush his hopes and dreams and tell him that the odds are overwhelmingly against him? Or do I lie to him and say "just believe in yourself and put the work in at you'll get there"?