This was linked on BT, and I thought I’d share it here.
Thoughts?
Great article, thanks for sharing. I think there is a lot of merit to the coach’s approach. I like the approach of high mileage/low intensity training with a lot of racing. But what really stood out to me is the amount of faith his athletes had to have in him to be patient and trust the results to come to them. I think the approach has a lot of merit, but that on 9 teams out of 10 (at least with high schoolers) half the squad would have quit by halfway through the season. I think if you gave most high school athletes the choice between working to be pretty good at the local dual meet next week or working to be great at the state championships in 3 years, the vast majority would take next week. Good on the coach for inspiring long term buy in from his athletes.
In some rare cases, like my xc team junior year we had both. State Runner ups and great race results all year long…Next year didn’t even make top 10 in state, so much burnout. 3 of our top 7 guys quit within the first month of senior year.