Questions speaks for itself but I’ll be more specific.
Do you think a big reason why college runners may be frustrated with lack of improvement from season to season is because they don’t have a lot of time to rest, recover, and build base for their next season since they are always racing something? Like I could never imagine running indoor track when I’ve spent my HS career using the winter to just get easy miles to build a base.
cold weather
look, if you ever ran on a particularly cool day outdoors in the south in february, we would call that chilly, and it would probably be balmy by northern standards. it might be 0 out. or 15 and snowing. the track might literally be under feet of snow.
also, a lot of schools use indoor, at least initially, more like competitive practice.
that being said, i think you have somewhat of a point where i think college kids would benefit from purposeful downtime or multiple peaking, where, say, a soccer player starts back up in january and not november for TF, ditto XC, maybe even some time off in march after indoor. i believe in rest. i don't think the human body is designed to be training hard and competing from july or august until may or june.
and that's even acknowledging that in reality most college runners are "rotated" and don't run every meet, or maybe have relay duty.
the comparison i would make is to pro soccer. in europe a guy who plays in the world cup or euros, and misses their vacation time from the summer, might literally be told to go on vacation a couple weeks, start training camp later, and be brought into the lineup later in september, knowing they will still be able to play 30-40 games after resting. TF to me can have a workhorse mentality and athletes can be disposable.
matt_c wrote:
Questions speaks for itself but I’ll be more specific.
Do you think a big reason why college runners may be frustrated with lack of improvement from season to season is because they don’t have a lot of time to rest, recover, and build base for their next season since they are always racing something? Like I could never imagine running indoor track when I’ve spent my HS career using the winter to just get easy miles to build a base.
I can't speak for college but indoor track is a great way to keep HS runners motivated in the northeast. You can use races as workouts, no one says you have to peak for indoor track.
Indoor track has incredible history in NYC. while XC runners might build their base up and prepare for outdoor track, sprinters and jumpers have their own competitve block.
You never know what type of weather you'll get in early Spring, very often you'll run faster indoor in March than outdoor in mid April. It's often easier to qualify for a June invitational with an indoor race time than an outdoor time.
If you know what you are doing it is a great way to keep kids interested, teach them how to race, keep them improving and still build strength. Problem with too many HS coaches is that they treat each season as if it is the only season. Think about each season as a building block.
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