So here's the deal, my younger brother has been running for about 3 years. I have coached him for about 2 and a half. He first started running to lose weight as he was obese, and then found himself really liking the sport. When I first started coaching him, he was a 35 min 5ker. After a year he ran his first sub 25 and was showing a lot of potential now that he had lost more weight and was starting to develop some strength. When he ran sub 25, it was the May before he went to high school. He was super excited to finally run on a team and I was as well. Training was going very well with only a few minor hiccups. He ran his first XC meet in low 23's, and felt like he had more to give. We were excited for the season.
I tried to keep my coaching to a minimum so as not to be disrespectful to his actual coach, but it was a disaster. He did not improve one second throughout the entire season. His coach had no clue what he was doing, and would have then run erratically. Once that horrific season was over, I developed a winter program (his HS does not have indoor track) that focused on strength and consistency. He improved tremendously by late January, and was tempoing his 5k PR. This was very exciting because he was still in the base phase, and was clearly showing a breakthrough in fitness. I then constructed the second phase which focused on plenty of threshold work and speed introduction. However, a sudden torn growth plate stopped him in his tracks. Luckily, it wasn't that bad and he only had to take 5 weeks off of running. In the meantime, he cross trained on an elliptical and kept the aerobic intensity up.
Once he was ready to run again, outdoor track practice had started up. Thankfully, the XC coach did not coach distance for track, and he was told that he would be able to do most of his own training. Boy was that not the truth.
The first practice was fine. He was able to do easy mileage as he had planned, and everything seemed like it would be ok. The next practice is where it started to go downhill. The track coach, who coaches sprints, jumps, throws AND distance, had the distance runners do a lap warmup, then rip a 400 and two 200s with a combined 20 minutes rest. The next practice was even worse. The coach told them to NOT DO A WARMUP and run an 800 METER TIME TRIAL. This is what set me off the edge. Following the 800 they did a 400 and two 200s basically all out. THE VERY NEXT DAY (sorry for caps but I must convey my anger) the coach had them do a ONE LAP WARMUP and rip two 200s, an 800, and one 200. This is outrageous. The only time my brother can get mileage is when there isn't practice, and he has practice 3 days a week. He only runs 6 days so that is only 3 other days for a long run and easy miles. This is not sustainable. Every single practice is like this, one lap warmup then rip some ridiculous short interval. My brother had to beg the coach to let him warmup today as they were doing another 800 "time trial." Coach only let him do one lap.
My brother is very frustrated and so am I. His XC coach was bad enough and now this guy? My brother has so much potential as I was and still am a very good runner, but it is very difficult to reach that potential with such inconsistent, sporadic, and downright idiotic methods of training. It pains me to even call what his coaches are doing "training." My brother even confronted him about the daily workouts and the answer he got was "I'm making cuts at some point," THERE ARE FIVE DISTANCE RUNNERS ON THE TEAM. And if you couldn't tell, they guy is a sprint coach pretending to coach distance. I'm sorry for the long post but this I had to vent this out. If you read the entire thing please tell me what you think and what you would do in this situation. I feel like I should meet with the coach to discuss training. Not only do I want my brother to have good training that makes him better, but I want other kids to as well. None of the kids on his team have ever had any real training and it shows. How are they to ever appreciate the sport when they associate it with inconsistency and lunacy?