To be clear, I'm used to kids who want to sprint who aren't any good at it. That's pretty much the state of 80% of freshmen and sophomores who run track. The problem here is that our sprint crew is mediocre enough that he actually is capable of helping them and, further, that he's been way more candid about identifying distance running as "for white kids" than most of my runners.

This is a rising junior, who finished last cross country season (his first, played football his freshman year but his parents squashed that) as our #3 runner. He plays basketball in the winter, though my understanding is that he's a coin toss to make varsity this year. He ran outdoor track last spring, and in spite of his success during cross country, I ended up spending all season trying to have an open mind to his desire to be a sprinter.

He's not a sprinter. Watching him, you'd be able to tell this instantly. He's not explosive at all, but keeps a nice, efficient stride going pretty much interminably. He also has an instinctual sense of pacing that's extremely hard to teach, and has a blood-in-the-water sense for when people in front of him start to tire. Empirically, he topped out in the 24.high/54.mid range for 200/400 but ran 2:06.xx for us in the 800m without doing *any* distance work since the fall. I actually don't think he's even an 800m runner at the end of the day, but that was the compromise we agreed on this season.

As I've said, he's been pretty clear that he's not interested in the events for white kids. Part of me thinks this will just pass. Cross country races in our area are 90% white and that hasn't stopped him from being competitive and engaged. But I think he's got a chance to be a special miler/2-miler in track, like in the 4:15/9:20 range if he actually commits to the distance events.

I've learned over the last year that one of the worst mistakes a coach can make is wanting it more than the kids. So, I'm not going to push too hard. And I'm also really uncomfortable making arguments based on future promises like "if you run the mile, DI schools will start throwing money at you." Distance running is hard and boring succeeding at that level will take way more than just saying "yes, I'd like to do this."

But I'm a much better judge of talent than I am at actually coaching that talent, so I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. Anybody got any insight on this? I'm not really sure how useful it'd be for his white, middle-aged coach to engage his central argument - even if it's untrue at both the high-school and college level in the United States.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

its a sport that takes a very special mindset. i knew anything longer than a 400 wasnt for me the first time i ran an 800 (sidenote: ultimately track altogether wasn't for me. the objective didn't trigger my interests) and no amount of convincing attempts wouldve ever gotten me to think otherwise

but if you feel the whole "white kid" thing is his hangup and not the mindset i'd do some research on great black/african distance runners. maybe assign that to him as a personal project or something if you think it'd trigger his interest.

and try to maybe find him some black mentors in the local CC/distance running event/competition community. itd definitely help to see more similar faces and a path already ran that he can follow.

<--- Big Baller World Order

>its a sport that takes a very special mindset. i knew
>anything longer than a 400 wasnt for me the first time i ran
>an 800 (sidenote: ultimately track altogether wasn't for me.
>the objective didn't trigger my interests) and no amount of
>convincing attempts wouldve ever gotten me to think otherwise

This is pretty common, which means I gain most of my runners through attrition - they take a few years to realize their not made for other sports or even other track events and either find their way to the distances or out of the sport altogether. I cannot tell a lie: it's extremely difficult work even to be average and it's also pretty boring.

>but if you feel the whole "white kid" thing is his hangup and
>not the mindset i'd do some research on great black/african
>distance runners. maybe assign that to him as a personal
>project or something if you think it'd trigger his interest.

Right. I'm obliged to take him at his word because he says that's his hangup. But honestly it seems way more likely that it's a variety of reasons which include the fact that, almost exclusively at our school and other local ones, black kids run sprint events. I think, regrettably, assigning any of these goofs actual research will go over poorly - but I was thinking of making them stick around after a pre-season practice to watch some of the World Championships in August. His view here is objectively false, and maybe seeing Isaiah Harris or Justyn Knight make a run in the 800 or the 5000 will knock down his most explicit point.

>and try to maybe find him some black mentors in the local
>CC/distance running event/competition community. itd
>definitely help to see more similar faces and a path already
>ran that he can follow.

This... thanks for this. As soon as I read it I thought of two people who might be kind of helpful here. And neither one in an overly didactic way - an alum who ran 800m at an Ivy League school and a guy who's competing professionally whose track club has come by to do clinics for our distance group.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

And this is coming from a person that ran distance for a few years. Your training partners will be white or foreign. And god forbid you try to train distance solo as a black person, running through the wrong parts or places is just asking for shit. Add that on to the comaraderie of competition and white distance runners from my experience were some of the biggest assholes I ever ran against.

------
“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus

>And this is coming from a person that ran distance for a few
>years. Your training partners will be white or foreign. And
>god forbid you try to train distance solo as a black person,
>running through the wrong parts or places is just asking for
>shit. Add that on to the comaraderie of competition and white
>distance runners from my experience were some of the biggest
>assholes I ever ran against.

Hell, on this team simply not being Irish is pretty foreign. But we could compromise on 800m meters and that's a fair amount more diverse in our area.

Besides, the alternative is remaining a 200/400 guy who is just "meh" but good enough to fill out a relay here and there for our team. If he can put up with universally white training partners during cross country, then I'm hoping at some point ambition can take over. The idea being that being good at a sport is much more fun than being bad at a sport.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Long strides close to full speed, with a huge push at the end. The first 150 is tip off, the next 100 is the first quarter, the next 50 is the coach telling you what's going on, the next 100 is the second quarter trying to bring it close to single digits, the next 100 is your internal half time speech, the next 100 is the third quarter and the last 200 is the 4th, all heart.

------
“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus

>the next 100 is your internal half time
>speech, the next 100 is the third quarter and the last 200 is
>the 4th, all heart.

This is an extremely lovable analogy. Thanks for this.

I assume I'll end up happy if he just assents to being an 800m runner. The feeling of having usable-to-good 800m runners who I'd love to see take the mile seriously is something I've gotten used to over the years.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Sounds like father Ryan from the Irish comments maybe

From what I remember of Fr. Ryan's reputation though, the comparison is apt. Though my school is Jesuit and I'm not sure that Fr. Ryan is. Irishers *love* sending their kids to Jesuit schools. I've had two kids named "Seamus" on the team at the same point, relay teams made up entirely of Patricks, etc.

Somehow, I still feel weirdly paranoid talking about the school online - so if I'm being cagey, it's not for a good reason but still an intractable one.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

I can see it from an American perspective because sprinting is held on such a pedestal, but it was the polar opposite where/when I grew up... in the unevolved 80s any white kid in the UK who could run over 1500m was asked if they were a refugee saved from the Ethiopian famine.

Distance running idols are surely still largely Kenyan and Ethiopian?

If someone had occasionally told 13 year old me he could've been bumping into women that look like Tirunesh Dibaba at meets I would've stuck with the shit a hell of a lot longer.

_______________________________

))<>((
forever.

>If someone had occasionally told 13 year old me he could've
>been bumping into women that look like Tirunesh Dibaba at
>meets I would've stuck with the shit a hell of a lot longer.

Well done.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

I can't wait to see how it somehow gets ruined or thrown off track.

>But I
>think he's got a chance to be a special miler/2-miler in
>track, like in the 4:15/9:20 range if he actually commits to
>the distance events.

I don't think it'd be overstepping your role to inform him this in conjunction with the possibility that he might be D1 scholarship good. If he's a blood-in-the-water kid in races, and he's interested in getting to college/alleviating family financial burden, he probably needs to hear this from *someone.* I know firsthand from working with a lot of kids with D1 potential in California that the degree to which the schools will relax strict academic standards for an athlete they want is *astonishing.* Astonishing enough that, if he has collegiate aspirations, hearing he could potentially do D1 might be enough for him to see the big picture and motivate him to pound through the hardness, the whiteness, the boredom, etc.

Worst-case scenario, he hears that he has D1 potential and decides, "Nah, still not my thing." In which case, cool, you've done your part and subsequently respected his wishes. Best-case scenario, it opens his eyes to some real future possibilities that maybe he simply didn't understand upon first consideration. "Big picture" stuff *is* notoriously difficult for high school kids to picture (IIRC, there's a study that says people under 18 literally can't grasp the concept of time in terms of longevity, their brains simply aren't wired yet to do so).

>I've learned over the last year that one of the worst mistakes
>a coach can make is wanting it more than the kids. So, I'm not
>going to push too hard. And I'm also really uncomfortable
>making arguments based on future promises like "if you run the
>mile, DI schools will start throwing money at you." Distance
>running is hard and boring succeeding at that level will take
>way more than just saying "yes, I'd like to do this."

You downplayed your coaching ability below, but this tells me you're a hell of a coach, because you're absolutely right re: the coach wanting it more than the kid. Referencing once again my D1 kids, I have kids who are all about their sport, and I have kids just riding it out for the money-- and the latter group is *fucking miserable.* I've had swimmers and water polo players all tell me, "... yeah, if it were up to me, I wouldn't play anymore." Because swimming is really hard and boring and generally fucking sucks.

Just this morning, I had a student who's a brilliant classical pianist-- he's played Carnegie Hall, other impressive venues, etc. His GPA isn't great, but his dad is pushing him to go to all of these top-tier schools with big music programs, because they'll overlook his below-average-for-the-school GPA to get him into the music schools... but he told me in private that he's not sure he wants to study music in college. He likes playing, but he just isn't into working on it *like that.* He just happens to be naturally brilliant. And he doesn't really know how to tell his dad, because that would knock down his tier of university considerably, and the dad is crazily invested in getting the kid's music noticed. Just a shitty, shitty situation.

I think you can find a way to level with him and give him an honest appraisal of his potential without pushing the issue. If he knows fully what good judges of talent know he's capable of, and he *still* chooses to want to do something else... then as you said, it'd be doing the kid wrong to hold a gun to his head and say "I KNOW BEST." Even if you do know best.

I've made this mistake before btw. I got a kid with an absolute shit GPA into a prestigious acting conservatory. Full ride scholarship. Worked my balls off. Delivered all paperwork, wrote all recs, talked endlessly to people at the school. Got him in. 1.4 GPA in HS, then in a prestigious conservatory. I was so goddamn proud. Then, the kid dropped out five months in. Didn't want to be a professional actor anymore. Just "wasn't feeling it." I took it INSANELY PERSONALLY (privately, of course), but then I realized, as you alluded to, I'd cast myself in the role of "student savior" when ultimately his choices are his own to make. Personal investment can never trump letting a kid make his own choices, even if the kid ultimately makes mistakes. I think as long as you've done your part in fully informing him where his maximum potential lies (and the above advice of having another outside influence who's traveled the same path as him to add credibility to your argument is strong, imo), that's what you can do. That's what a good coach does. The bad coach is the one who screams and stomps his feet when the kid isn't interested.

tl;dr: you're doing the right thing, support the decision he makes once you feel he's been sufficiently informed by you and others

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
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>I can't wait to see how it somehow gets ruined or thrown off
>track.

Yeah, I've written like four versions of this over the past few days, with varying degrees of background about my crazy school, and then deleted them with the expectation that it will just go south. But the variety of life experiences of people on this board never fails to surprise me, so I may as well just ask in good faith and let people chime in.

>I don't think it'd be overstepping your role to inform him
>this in conjunction with the possibility that he might be D1
>scholarship good. If he's a blood-in-the-water kid in races,
>and he's interested in getting to college/alleviating family
>financial burden, he probably needs to hear this from
>*someone.* I know firsthand from working with a lot of kids
>with D1 potential in California that the degree to which the
>schools will relax strict academic standards for an athlete
>they want is *astonishing.* Astonishing enough that, if he has
>collegiate aspirations, hearing he could potentially do D1
>might be enough for him to see the big picture and motivate
>him to pound through the hardness, the whiteness, the boredom,
>etc.

This is good reinforcement, and it's definitely the hope. There's a pretty small amount of scholarships that DI schools have to give out for track (I think it's 12.5) and relatively few schools are even permitted by their administration to use that full amount. But we've had a few good-but-not-scholarship-level students get the exact bump in admissions that you're describing here, and that's no small reward. One of my first years, I had a kid getting stone-walled by a bunch of Ivy League schools who then dropped a great 800m time and all of a sudden coaches opened up to him and admission was a breeze.

>Worst-case scenario, he hears that he has D1 potential and
>decides, "Nah, still not my thing." In which case, cool,
>you've done your part and subsequently respected his wishes.
>Best-case scenario, it opens his eyes to some real future
>possibilities that maybe he simply didn't understand upon
>first consideration. "Big picture" stuff *is* notoriously
>difficult for high school kids to picture (IIRC, there's a
>study that says people under 18 literally can't grasp the
>concept of time in terms of longevity, their brains simply
>aren't wired yet to do so).

Oof. This is helpful. I am obviously really cautious not to overstep, but the result has been a lot of policies (by me, for me - not external ones) that mean kids don't feel a ton of pressure from me but are MAYBE not being pushed quite hard enough.

>You downplayed your coaching ability below, but this tells me
>you're a hell of a coach, because you're absolutely right re:
>the coach wanting it more than the kid. Referencing once again
>my D1 kids, I have kids who are all about their sport, and I
>have kids just riding it out for the money-- and the latter
>group is *fucking miserable.* I've had swimmers and water polo
>players all tell me, "... yeah, if it were up to me, I
>wouldn't play anymore." Because swimming is really hard and
>boring and generally fucking sucks.

Thanks! I had to learn it the hard way though. I spent all last year battling with other coaches over the event allotment for an extremely all-around talented kid on our team, and then realized around April that I was contributing (hopefully minimally, but any amount is too much) to making this already-a-tough-sell sport kind of a bummer for him. Backed off, which meant he was done running any distance events, but he'll be around to help during cross country and he seems to be really enjoying himself just being good and running.

It would bum me out entirely to hear kids describe their sport as a grinding obligation like that - though it would be worse if they felt that way and were hiding it. Blargh.

>Just this morning, I had a student who's a brilliant classical
>pianist-- he's played Carnegie Hall, other impressive venues,
>etc. His GPA isn't great, but his dad is pushing him to go to
>all of these top-tier schools with big music programs, because
>they'll overlook his below-average-for-the-school GPA to get
>him into the music schools... but he told me in private that
>he's not sure he wants to study music in college. He likes
>playing, but he just isn't into working on it *like that.* He
>just happens to be naturally brilliant. And he doesn't really
>know how to tell his dad, because that would knock down his
>tier of university considerably, and the dad is crazily
>invested in getting the kid's music noticed. Just a shitty,
>shitty situation.

Fuck. That's tough. Good luck? I have nothing for that.

>I think you can find a way to level with him and give him an
>honest appraisal of his potential without pushing the issue.
>If he knows fully what good judges of talent know he's capable
>of, and he *still* chooses to want to do something else...
>then as you said, it'd be doing the kid wrong to hold a gun to
>his head and say "I KNOW BEST." Even if you do know best.
>
>I've made this mistake before btw. I got a kid with an
>absolute shit GPA into a prestigious acting conservatory. Full
>ride scholarship. Worked my balls off. Delivered all
>paperwork, wrote all recs, talked endlessly to people at the
>school. Got him in. 1.4 GPA in HS, then in a prestigious
>conservatory. I was so goddamn proud. Then, the kid dropped
>out five months in. Didn't want to be a professional actor
>anymore. Just "wasn't feeling it." I took it INSANELY
>PERSONALLY (privately, of course), but then I realized, as you
>alluded to, I'd cast myself in the role of "student savior"
>when ultimately his choices are his own to make. Personal
>investment can never trump letting a kid make his own choices,
>even if the kid ultimately makes mistakes. I think as long as
>you've done your part in fully informing him where his maximum
>potential lies (and the above advice of having another outside
>influence who's traveled the same path as him to add
>credibility to your argument is strong, imo), that's what you
>can do. That's what a good coach does. The bad coach is the
>one who screams and stomps his feet when the kid isn't
>interested.

Yep, which means you've exposed the nasty little dilemma at the root of this: the traits that make you really, really good at caring about these kids (which you clearly are) are the same things that will lay down a ton of little traps that use your commitment to make you feel like shit.

Edited to add: The one nice thing my coaching situation offers, which makes this job pretty lucky is that all of these kids are probably going to be fine. The school is goofy as hell, but it's extremely good at both preparing kids to be admitted to good schools but, further, to actually succeed academically there. Track can be a useful way for some of that to happen, but if I find the right frame of mind to approach it - the job can potentially be pretty low stakes for me. Kids find me and want to run fast, and I try to help them run fast.

But until I'm perfectly zen about it, any amount of wasted potential, even if it's just potential on the track without any larger meaning or consequences, is going to bug me.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Have them invite him to events when they hang out and come to practice. A lot of kids at that age want two things:

Somewhere to belong
Someone or some people that believe in them

There are so many different paths in life that kids can't take out of fear, lack of resources, lack of environment to sustain them, and or lack of opportunity. Just be somewhat consistent but not too pushy and gradually bring the young man into the fold.

https://www.amazon.com/Pride-Charley-Story/dp/0688126383/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500076148&sr=1-2&keywords=charley+pride

Tell him, "this sumbitch played COUNTRY music, won four Grammys, sold tens of millions of records, and has a house the size of Delaware. You can't run distance? The fuck you can't."

That's one way to go, anyway.

That autobiography title might be a bit cute though.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Like at least when you're average at something and in your element you can have fun. Like pick up ball.

I ran a single 1500 in hs, I had been an average at best 400 runner and a pretty good 800 runner. So I tried my hand at the 1500 in a meet just to get a medal 4:30.82 at the age of 15 and having never run that race. After that I got a lot of push to go up. But I stuck with the 800. I did CC for two years after that. But that was just to stay in running shape. I had fun doing the 8, I was interested in it and it was a challenge. But I just wouldn't have had any fun doing the 1500. The practice, the grind, the elbows, the role models (Pre Pre Pre) ... distance culture is just not really diverse.

I think walleye is doing well with finding compromise. The 8, is becoming a bit more cooler than it used to be. The dude out of Texas A&M really opened some eyes. And as long as the 400 keeps becoming the elite of the elite, you'll get more diversity in the 800.

------
“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus

and I don't think that's likely. The distance mono-culture you're describing is real, and the only alternative that our school seems to cultivate is for kids who are good at track (distance events included) and more or less indifferent to the sport as a whole. My actual #1 miler right now (4:35ish) could make the jump to garnering some college interest, but he'd rather spend the summer swimming and playing pickup basketball.

We've had some really self-assured kids who are into the sport without feeling the need to fully buy into the distance identity, but that's a personality thing that I don't have the ability to grow. So, his options are buy into the comically white distance sub-culture, pursue it aggressively but passionlessly (which is extremely difficult for anybody, let alone a kid at an age where carving out a distinctive identity is a full-time project) or the third way:

>I think walleye is doing well with finding compromise. The 8,
>is becoming a bit more cooler than it used to be. The dude out
>of Texas A&M really opened some eyes. And as long as the 400
>keeps becoming the elite of the elite, you'll get more
>diversity in the 800.

So, I'm not sure he'll have the speed for even an elite 800m, though if he grows up a bit physically that may change my outlook. But I think he can get into the 1:53-1:54 range and that since pursuing that would get him some substantial 400m duty as well (particularly on our really shallow team) and let him look at the much more diverse field of 400/800m talent (2/3 of the United States' 800m team being sent to WC's this year are black and are more the 400/800 mold than the 800/1500m) as a workable niche.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

aka bribe.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

we had a few basketball players every year just getting their endurance up.


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

We've had a pretty good track record getting basketball players to come out for track, though AAU commitments tend to thin out their availability. It's a good idea, but I have a weird concern with it:

I've actually had coaches of sports with high cut rates (and basketball cuts the highest percentage at our school) try to feel out which kids are good at track so they can sleep a bit easier giving them the axe. A couple years ago, one actually tried to get me to push a kid even harder on track so that he wouldn't have to bother cutting him. It's such a weird dynamic, but I'm actually incredibly nervous about costing any kid a spot on a team he actually enjoys.

If he makes the varsity team, though, I'm definitely doing this. Good call. Just have the coach lean on him for distance events something that will help him next year.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

I ran track for one year, and I had played basketball, so I wasn't exactly starting from scratch, but my coach was also my psychology teacher, so he played up the 'building your internal discipline to match your physical discipline' angle to convince me to try it. First meet I was great as a 'rabbit' during the first half of the race and then I finished dead last, LOL. I ended up running the 200, but I ran the 800 in practice to build for the 200. So in short, play it up as a strength thing, because in my mind, that is the hardest race. Anything beyond 800, you are running different, but 800 is really the threshold between sprinting and distance...

------------------
One Hundred.

>I ran track for one year, and I had played basketball, so I
>wasn't exactly starting from scratch, but my coach was also my
>psychology teacher, so he played up the 'building your
>internal discipline to match your physical discipline' angle
>to convince me to try it. First meet I was great as a 'rabbit'
> during the first half of the race and then I finished dead
>last, LOL.

This is an absolutely brutal assignment that I have definitely given to 400m runners before. It was awful, and I regret nothing.

>I ended up running the 200, but I ran the 800 in
>practice to build for the 200. So in short, play it up as a
>strength thing, because in my mind, that is the hardest race.
> Anything beyond 800, you are running different, but 800 is
>really the threshold between sprinting and distance...

This would work really well, as our sprinters seem terminally un-prepared for even the strength necessary for 200m. Honestly, a lot of my initial post would have been unnecessary if our current sprint coaches were more interested in successfully building endurance for their own group.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

At my high school, the 400 has and seemingly always will be the most coveted event. The coaches are obsessed with it. My freshman year our 4X4 team finished top 3 in the state with a sub 3:20 and most of the subsequent teams were state qualifiers too. The girls team has produced some really good 400 runners too. My school has never had a problem with convincing kids to commit to the 400.

There's so much emphasis on this event though and imo, very little attention given to the 800. I always felt like the 1600/3200 runners always had their separate regime as they were mostly cross-country runners. Middle distance 800 runners though? They were on the own island it seemed.

There was a very, very good runner I graduated with who went on to run at Cornell. He was mostly a sprinter, but would run the 800 when it came to the post-season. He ran about a 1:55 and I believe placed at the state level. I can't imagine how fast he would have been if he had fully trained for the 800.

As far as your original post, I'm struggling for any good answers. I've worked in education as a teacher/counselor for the past decade plus and can tell you that every kid is unique and is motivated in different ways. I'm sure you already know that, but I don't want you beating yourself up searching for the perfect sales pitch.

The kid I referenced above was motivated by the idea that the 800 gave him the best opportunity to compete for a state medal. With that said, he still mainly trained for the 400.

It's really hard to get inside the mind of a high schooler. I know just myself, I really had an irrational way of viewing things. I'll forever hold guilt for allowing one bad injury and confrontation with a coach stop me from continuing to play baseball in high school. I was too hard-headed to play the sport I excelled at most. I 100% committed myself to football only - which I experienced a lot of success in. However, I really wish I would have approached things differently and committed myself to basketball and baseball more. I ran track btw - but was just a marginal contributor.

>At my high school, the 400 has and seemingly always will be
>the most coveted event. The coaches are obsessed with it. My
>freshman year our 4X4 team finished top 3 in the state with a
>sub 3:20 and most of the subsequent teams were state
>qualifiers too. The girls team has produced some really good
>400 runners too. My school has never had a problem with
>convincing kids to commit to the 400.

We have a strong individual history with the 400m, led primarily by an alum who is a volunteer coach and our school record holder in the event. His record is strong (sub-47) but we've actually never put together a team that's run under 3:20. That's primarily a depth issue, because we've definitely had the runners to do it but they're usually burdened with 2+ other events by the time the 4x400m rolls around.

The 4x800m has a similar appeal to our distance crowd, as we've put together some very strong (via Penn and New Balance performances) teams there, but the pull hasn't spread to the sprinters at all.

My hope is to build up a tradition where this kind of legacy takes care of itself, with a little custodianship from coaches. That sounds a lot like what you're describing at your school.

>There's so much emphasis on this event though and imo, very
>little attention given to the 800. I always felt like the
>1600/3200 runners always had their separate regime as they
>were mostly cross-country runners. Middle distance 800 runners
>though? They were on the own island it seemed.

Yeah, it's a lot clearer in college where the presence of 5K/10K guys effectively excludes 800m runners from the distance group with the exception of the occasional crossover workout. High school is different, though, unless you have a big enough team - which we don't. 800m runners pretty much have to be either/or at our school and the answer is pretty much always "distance" for us.

>There was a very, very good runner I graduated with who went
>on to run at Cornell. He was mostly a sprinter, but would run
>the 800 when it came to the post-season. He ran about a 1:55
>and I believe placed at the state level. I can't imagine how
>fast he would have been if he had fully trained for the 800.

Some 800m guys really seem to benefit by working one side of the road or the other for awhile. A lot of our event-group lines are dependent on the very mutable off-season habits of high schoolers. The kid in question in the OP and another sprinter who I'd love to focus on the 800m (but who has more potential at 200/400 than his teammate) are both on the cross country team. In a hypothetical world where they both do the summer running that we recommend (35-50 mpw) and work through cross country, I'd actually be in favor of them training as sprinters and living off of that base all the way through May. But the base has to be there for 800m, in my view.

>As far as your original post, I'm struggling for any good
>answers. I've worked in education as a teacher/counselor for
>the past decade plus and can tell you that every kid is unique
>and is motivated in different ways. I'm sure you already know
>that, but I don't want you beating yourself up searching for
>the perfect sales pitch.

Yep. I wouldn't have brought this one here if it weren't for his explicit appeal to an implicit racial divide in the track distances. I don't actually think that's the sum of his reasoning, particularly when the far easier answer is that training for and racing the 800m is a pretty unpleasant way to spend one's time.

The push for him to move up is going to be an ongoing conversation and not a silver bullet. But because I've literally never had a runner specifically say "nope - that event is for white kids" I wanted some tools for taking him at his word. You're right, of course, that whatever the right approach is - it'll be weirdly and carefully designed to the individual kid. And it might fail anyhow.

>It's really hard to get inside the mind of a high schooler. I
>know just myself, I really had an irrational way of viewing
>things. I'll forever hold guilt for allowing one bad injury
>and confrontation with a coach stop me from continuing to play
>baseball in high school. I was too hard-headed to play the
>sport I excelled at most. I 100% committed myself to football
>only - which I experienced a lot of success in. However, I
>really wish I would have approached things differently and
>committed myself to basketball and baseball more. I ran track
>btw - but was just a marginal contributor.

Yep. Our weird high school brains just aren't often enough put together for the simple logic of "you can be very, very good at this sport and therefore should maybe pursue it most seriously".

Now that I'm old and my body is increasingly creaky and useless, I'm SUPER smart about what I should have done when I was sixteen. Blargh.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

The 800 is a chess match and it builds up your strength and endurance like nothing else. It will definitely improve his basketball endurance. The HS basketball coach used to force his players to run track for part of the year. Great conditioning.

Pitch to him that the 800 is a hardcore race that most 200 and 400m runners are afraid of and that long distance folks get squeamish over. When I was in high school, we had one of the top 4x800 squads in the country. It was nice to be feared.

*America's Favorite*

how accomplished and heroic they were and how it's in his nature to conquer long distances...

particularly Abebe Bikila seeting Olympic records running through the streets of Rome in his bare feet...

I ended up having six kids do it throughout the year.

The first guy graded out. Second guy took a shot to the head and then his mom said no more goalie. One of our captains filled in for the second half of that game. Next kid took one in the plums in a game and then another the following day's practice. Then we finally had a decent middle/attackman take over and save one game that he had to miss, fill in admirably.

---------------------------------
Photo zine(some images NSFW): http://bit.ly/USaSPhoto

"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

Few weeks later I took one right on my thigh and my entire quad was purple for a week

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

His parents signed him up. I should have added as context that his parents are pretty big fans of both the team environment in cross country and the fact that he's already pretty good at it. Plus, I think his dad is a morning-before-work kind of runner and they do it together in the summer.

In any case, we are treating this as very good news.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

-----

I really need to figure out my password.

Nearly all of my kids say that too me too. It's been my biggest problem getting any of them to latch onto the 2-mile on the track (which is a different, way too boring for this forum, post).

I hated cross country, even though I ran it through college. I wasn't a very good distance runner, but I could fake it on a nice, smooth cross country course. On the track was perfect. Shorter distances, nice predictable laps.

This is apparently a very small minority view.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

-----

I really need to figure out my password.

I grew up in Maryland (I actually coach there too) and even though this isn't a particularly hilly state, there's a weird sadism that runs through course design here. The course for the state meet actually became a topic of concern for local coaches in the early 00's because they were worried that Maryland kids weren't getting recruited due to running so slowly at the state meet. I ran two minutes slower than my previous best XC race, and still passed kids on a hill 1/4 mile from the finish who were literally crying. Crying was a fair response.

In any case, college was nice. The upper midwest is pretty fast and smooth. I wasn't anywhere close to a good cross country runner, even by the adjusted standards of D3 in a "meh" program, but I loved a good race on a golf course. A few rolling hills so we could pretend we weren't on the track was just enough.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

The 800 was the upper limit of what I was willing to do in High School. But I was the rare hurdler that preferred the IH to the Highs.

---------------------------------
Photo zine(some images NSFW): http://bit.ly/USaSPhoto

"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

>But I was the rare hurdler that preferred the IH
>to the Highs.

That's nuts to me. Intermediate hurdles is such a brutal race. And watching those same guys move up to 400m IM's in college (it seems like more states are racing at 400m now, but it was pretty rare in the late 90's) was hilarious. They looked just awful in the homestretch.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

LOVED that race, because there was strategy. 110s, if my first hurdle was off, my whole race was fucked. 400 I could hang in lane 2 or even 1, see how I'm doing through the first 100, adjust through the middle 2, and bang the home stretch.

---------------------------------
Photo zine(some images NSFW): http://bit.ly/USaSPhoto

"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

track is wild boring, also you can get lapped in the distance events


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The 3200m in our conference is extremely shallow, but I'm so sympathetic to my kids' "that's incredibly boring" argument (particularly during indoor, when you can get lapped and actually run an okay race) that we've done a terrible job developing 3200m runners.

I'm putting my foot down on that one this year. As a specialty, the mile is for kids I can actually imagine running under 4:30. I'll punt away entry slots at real meets if it means sticking to this. We're going to have two milers this season.

But you're not wrong. Longer events on the track are crazy boring.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Did you talk to the parents at all in the vein you did in the original thread or did they make that decision to sign for cross country on their own?

My apologies if you already answered that in another post, but I'm just skimming this thread right now.

"Sean sparks like John Starks, nah, Sean ball like John Wall" - Rest In Power Forever Sean Price.

The only thing that we did, as a program, was forward an email advertising the camp. I think the other assistant who sent it added a plug, since it's run by some people we know at a rival school (rival to the kids - I like their coaching staff) but no personalized sell to them in particular.

The mother is supportive of her son, but is pretty wait-and-see when it comes to full enthusiasm for his extra-curricular interest. Which seems like a prudent choice with a sixteen year old son, but it means I'm just friendly with her without having any expectation that she'd take my advice on anything. The father is a bit more into it. But the last time I talked to him was at the very end of track season. The kid had a nice day, running as a substitute in our 4x800m and doing a good job in a winning relay. And so we talked about the push/pull all spring with the sprints and distances. And I mentioned I think he has a lot of potential in the longer track events, but never got into the wholly unhelpful specifics of "I think your son can run a 4:15ish mile, which would get him some D1 attention" because he's still so far away from actually doing that.

The dad is actually pretty receptive to his son getting a strong push on this. I think he knows he can be pretty good but also appreciates that it's something they can do together since he's kind of a fitness jogger. My guess is that he saw the email and thought it was a good opportunity to give his kid a pit of a kick in the ass on this sport he enjoys *while* he's doing it but doesn't really seem to regard as a serious pursuit.

Plus, my understanding is that if they've got the money, parents LOVE camp. Otherwise, you've just got your teenage son sitting around all summer. Nothing good ever came of that.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

it makes the most sense to have a conversation with the student and the more supportive parent together and let them know your expectations. That way there isn't any room for disappointment for either party and you'll know sooner rather than later what level of interest and attention to invest in him. It doesn't make too much sense to me to keep your thoughts and insights completely hidden from them.

But that's just from me looking and judging the situation from afar.

Again, my apologies if anyone else gave you similar advice already and I'm wasting your time.

"Sean sparks like John Starks, nah, Sean ball like John Wall" - Rest In Power Forever Sean Price.

I would appreciate the insight even if it were redundant or I disagreed with it. But even luckier for me, it's not and I don't. Thanks for that.

>That way there isn't any room for
>disappointment for either party and you'll know sooner rather
>than later what level of interest and attention to invest in
>him. It doesn't make too much sense to me to keep your
>thoughts and insights completely hidden from them.

The open-ness in this approach is pretty appealing. As is the aim of certainty over his actual interest. I don't really like meetings or conversations with strangers that last longer than five minutes, but in the interest of one of my kids succeeding I'd be pleased to do it.

We have a "spike night" promotion with a local running store where we get a good rate on racing shoes and parents typically attend. At that point, I'll have had about two weeks to see how seriously he took his summer running. I'll make sure to get my adult-conversation voice up and get a word with his parents then.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

------------------
One Hundred.

We're only two practices in, and my usual 1/2 runners are typically kind of slow starters when it comes to early season workouts, and the kid in question showed up ready to pounce on them. We had a pretty nasty storm during yesterday's workout, so we kept it short - a bunch of 500m repeats on short rest. I was pleased with how badly he worked the rest of the team, but wasn't ready to ready that much into it because he's so on-record about preferring short stuff that maybe beating up on some distance runners in the shortest reps we'll do all year isn't that big a deal.

But today we did 4 x 1.5 mile repeats and it was just rude what he did to everybody. Just routinely finishing 10-20 seconds up on the next closest runners. The 1.5 miles was spread over two loops, and on the last repeat there was another kid (a swimmer, very strong - not very fast at anything below two miles, definitely a type) who had put a little bit of space on him during the first loop. I did my usual "close up that gap" attempt to get them to run together, but by the time they came back around he'd caught the front runner and, again, put about 100m on him.

Afterwards, he joined up for a looooooong cooldown with our #2 runner, who favors fairly rigorous cooldowns. And then added his own on the track, finishing with a mile of jog-the-curves-and-stride-the-straight all by himself.

This is, at the very least, extremely encouraging. If the updates continue to be good and I'm not lazy, I'll be back with more. Plus, the chance that in two months this conversation will be "how do I convince a kid to give up the sport he really loves (basketball)". Selling kids on track is one of my least favorite things to do, but if he runs under 16:00 this XC season then there's a real chance of him dropping something in the <1:55 and <4:20 range this outdoor season, which would set him up to get a bit of college attention his senior year.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Nothing better than seeing something click with an athlete.

---------------------------------
Photo zine(some images NSFW): http://bit.ly/USaSPhoto

"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

<--- Big Baller World Order

BBall season. His fitness going into BBall is going to be through the roof and his vertical has surely increased, so its going to be hard to get him off the court (unless he is riding the bench)...

but Kudos, because this is going to serve him well no matter what he ends up doing.

------------------
One Hundred.

Whatever the basketball team does to keep kids fit, it works. We've actually got a pretty good program, producing one current NBA player and 2-3 division one prospects annually. Our best 400m runner a few years ago played basketball, and though it would have been nice having him in indoor, he was always ready and able to work when track rolled around. Basketball and soccer are the two sports where I never worry if a kid takes a season off of running.

He also might switch to running full time. I'm not really looking forward to trying to sell him on indoor track, but if he runs as well as I expect during cross country then it may not be an issue. That would actually be nice. My policy is to not hard sell underclassmen, just a simple "we'd love to have you" for winter and spring track. But I am duty-bound to push a bit harder on juniors and it's a conversation I really don't like.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

He began the season as our number one, running extremely well early on even outside the context of our team that routinely starts very slowly. In addition to it being a nice surprise, it was a good kick in the ass for our returning #1, who got pretty competitive over the displacement. But it happened it in a pretty affirmative way, and the two of them just spent all of September going after each other in workouts.

Regrettably, he got a kind of weird injury in early October that tabled him for a couple weeks. It had an effect on his fitness, but a way more lasting one on his racing confidence. You could see him become more conservative in workouts and then in races. We worked pretty hard to pull him out of that, but it never quite took. He finished the season running as a strong #2 for us (our #1 took a nice leap and ended the season as our best XC runner in a half-decade) but it wasn't his best.

The good news is that he's running indoor instead of playing basketball. He also seems pretty comfortable (though we'll see once practice starts and the allure of sprinting becomes more real) with the 800m. I actually want him in the mile and two-mile, but he'll be a good half-mile guy for us and he's more comfortable with that.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Winter was a wash. The kid in question stuck to his "I want to be a sprinter" stance, but was still up for 800m duty when we needed him for a relay. The difficult thing that I didn't anticipate is that our sprint crew as a whole took a pretty big step forward and so the previous dynamic that I was hoping would persuade him - wherein our distance runners were the most successful track athletes on our team - became somewhat blurry. It's still largely the case, but our single best runner (and a likely recruit for any number of decent-to-good D1 programs) is a 100/200m guy and that's going to overshadow any "see how the distance crew as a whole wins shit" argument.

Throw in some injuries and a variety of other issues that caused him to miss some time and we're basically starting from scratch. I can't make the case that I can make him a noteworthy 800m runner this year anymore because he's lost too much of his base, so we're mostly just hoping he gets through the season fine so we can restart this process for our (rebuilding, after this very senior-heavy) cross country season.

As I said previously: you can't want it more than the kids.

The good news is that the push/pull between sprint group and me is getting a lot better. The success of our sprinters has led the sprint coaches to concede that they don't actually need twenty freshmen/sophomores who think they're 100m runners and we've been able to cooperate a lot more. What that means practically speaking is they're looking at kids who aren't ever going to run faster than 24.xx and saying "maybe you should give the 800/1600 a try." That's going to help a lot going forward because I'm losing a lot of seniors this year.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

It's a great quote.

My dad's job required him to eat a lot of shit sandwiches, but his way of seeing the world was pretty much exactly what 16 year old me (this basic theme was a common one for him, but this exact line came while he was teaching me to drive) needed to hear.

He's still alive. I realize it's important to clarify that since the above was entirely in past tense. He just reminds me that I'm dumb with less regularity.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

After reading O_E's endorsement I'm kind of curious.

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

on a more competitive team this year.

my daughter, soon to be 14, has done a lot better than what she's done in the past. she won the 400 by a good 2 seconds, coming in at 66 secs. she's doesn't start well, but finished up pretty good. I'm not sure that's a good time or not, but I was impressed, lol.

this is the first race she's ever won at track. this team's training has helped a lot. she also seems to have a better understanding and wants to get better now.

my son ,8, isn't doing so well. I suspect he'll end up like his sister at some point. as in, he'll get better with maturity.

Y'all buy those labels, I was born supreme

I used to be pretty ambivalent about kids getting seriously involved with track below high school. The usual arguments about specialization, combined with my own experience where I sort of backed into the sport after flaming out in others, ended up doing the trick. But one of the teams in our conference has become one of the best sprint programs in the country based largely on kids who, surprise, have been involved in the sport for years.

It's made track start to seem like a real sport, which has had trickle-down effects for the kids I coach who haven't run club track since they were eight. They don't look at track as the thing they do because basketball or baseball or lacrosse aren't options. It's a real thing to be dedicated to and to work at.

>my daughter, soon to be 14, has done a lot better than what
>she's done in the past. she won the 400 by a good 2 seconds,
>coming in at 66 secs. she's doesn't start well, but finished
>up pretty good. I'm not sure that's a good time or not, but I
>was impressed, lol.

That's rather good for a 13 year old girl. If I were her high school coach, I'd be thrilled to have a kid come in who had experience in the sport, run pretty fast already, but wasn't maxed out (see: "doesn't start well") before she even got to 9th grade. I hope she sticks with it.
>
>my son ,8, isn't doing so well. I suspect he'll end up like
>his sister at some point. as in, he'll get better with
>maturity.

Yeah, I'm still kind of in awe of how kids that young even try the sport. It doesn't jump out in grab you the same way that team sports do.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

He is in the mindset that is not a fast sprinter so he "obviously" cannot run. I keep telling him distance isn't about how fast you sprint.

I think he could be a monster in distance with his long ass strides but he is just not interested.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>He is in the mindset that is not a fast sprinter so he
>"obviously" cannot run. I keep telling him distance isn't
>about how fast you sprint.

I didn't end up great (let's go with "useful D3 400/800 runner") but I wasn't involved in it at all until I was sixteen. It took awhile to really want to run longer events, having a small amount of success there to get me interested, and then to grow into my body a bit and discover that I had more sprint value than I thought - but it was in maintaining that 4th gear for a longer sprint race.

We called the 800m a distance event in high school, but whatever. Point is, I backed into the sport. Wasn't my first or second choice at all.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqNYQmpJZnM

___________________

Mar-A-Lago delenda est

Easily in my Top 5 of all time.

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

... of Donald Glover getting a jump on Michael Vick for exactly one stride, a nod to that episode?

I'm probably reaching, but it reminded me of that.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This giant, gangly kid started taking the sport seriously last summer (this is his junior year) and started to figure out the technical aspects of the 100/200 and LJ a bit more rigorously. He's an incredibly pleasant young man, and it's been really fun to watch him become good.

It's crazy useful for our team too. The short sprints are kind of our of control in our conference for at least one more year (our overwhelming, defending conference champions just had a kid pop one of the best 100m times in the country this weekend) but we can go into pretty much any meet and expect to score highly in 100/200/LJ and the 4x100m is coming along because of kids trying to compete with him in practice.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

I mentioned some of the other issues, and I think he largely cleared the issue of thinking of himself as a sprinter - but when you have a team where training groups are so necessarily separated, kids want to work with their friends. He improved a fair amount in the 400m, but not at all in the 800m and didn't race any 1600m. There was a couple small injury problems too, and I'm kind of coming around to the idea that being able to deal with an injury is a way more important skill than I used to think it was. Being able to:

a)tell where your body is on some continuum of discomfort/pain/injury
b)recognizing when to go hard and when to dial it back
c)shifting gears from workouts to injury rehab
d)following through on rehab with the same rigor as you workout

can really make or break seasons.

Anyhow, he knew he didn't race well and wants to get better. I had a really long talk with his parents about what he needs to do if he wants to run in college, but everybody recognizes you can't just make people move up in distance. You have to want the different volume/type of work. Everybody involves understands that his skillset is way closer to running an attention-worthy 800/1600 than a 400m but nobody is ready to just switch focus. Blargh.

He's running club track this summer, which makes me slightly nervous about cross country season but all of our kids are so hard to keep track of over the summer that my question for all of them isn't so much "will he get enough base mileage in" as "did he run or not". This guy's running, so he'll be fine. Plus, with respect to the rather rigid racial dynamics that governed this post - club track in our area is, like, 90% black. Furthermore, club coaches absolutely don't fuck around. It'll be a lot harder to say "white kids run distance" when there aren't any white kids.

We'll see, I suppose. It's going to be an odd season because I just graduated a large batch of pretty good seniors. For XC we're losing five of our top seven, and the kid in question here is the only senior of note for cross country (and will be one of two useful seniors for track). It's going to be harder to focus on him when I've got to do a larger rebuild, but the necessity of a leadership role might do some good. I pushed for him to be made captain, so there's no subtlety involved.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Or is he fully healed?

------------------
One Hundred.

Just some shin splints during late indoor and early outdoor that were:

a)less serious than a stress fracture
b)more serious than some slight discomfort

It's the sort of thing every runner has to learn to deal with (not run through, necessarily) but you need to do so in an organized, careful way with the guidance of coaches and trainers. He wasn't real great at it, and if it flares up again I don't know his club track folks well enough to say they'll be helpful. But he's healed now and finished the year healthy.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

So last week my son decided to run cross country for the first time ever. Great since I've been trying to get him to do it; bad that he hasn't been training all summer and practice started yesterday.

First practice, he liked it. Coach told him it was going to be hell first week or two but if he stuck with it he'll be good. Even set the pace on the short run.

Fingers crossed.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's always tough for the first couple weeks, then easy when you get used to it, and then tough again when you start realizing what you need to do to be good. We've got a crop of freshmen and first-timers that are all absolute goobers right now, but a few of them look like they might have something eventually. The one thing that will start barking in a few weeks is shins. I'm starting early on my new batch of nerds - every night, pick up ten pencils with your toes while you do your homework. Works... pretty okay for keeping away shin splints.

Let us know how it goes this season.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

We have a local running company. I took him there and got him fitted for training shoes and race day spikes. I'm hoping this will lessen the degree of shin splints but we shall see.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We typically start the season with about a dozen kids who are totally new to distance running. Shin issues are probably the source of about 80% of our first-timer attrition.* Avoiding them altogether is the best solution.

*our first-timer attrition isn't 80%. it varies pretty wildly from year to year.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

The gentleman in question is our clear #1 after two days of pre-season. I kept in contact, though with a light touch, this summer and he's one of only three kids I *know* did the summer work, even if his was a bit more track-oriented since he was running some AAU events. He also had a school trip to Senegal (this is ... not a normal school) that he literally just got back from, so the performance in spite of jet lag and some apparent stomach issues has been pretty good.

So he'll be fine if he stays healthy. Don't know what's going to happen with the rest of the team. I haven't had a true rebuilding year before, so this is all new. The shame of it is that we have a very winnable conference for the first time, as the traditional winner is in a down cycle right now and there are a bunch of good but partial teams that should drive everybody's score up. That should help us, but I doubt we'll be good enough to take advantage.

It'll probably take this kid running like a true ace instead of just number one on our team. Or a nice, tight five person pack. I can imagine the first one a little, and 4/5ths of the second one. I don't think we have five. Sigh.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

f'real tho- this is compelling, makes one look back (at personal athletic failure/success) and forward (how can i help my kids find their zone?)

POEM-CEES
KOKAYI/CAESARZ
SPP WAXWORKS (DC)

THAYLOBLEU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=701fChgN9H4

The kid in question has been one of the more frustrating I've coached, but not necessarily in a bad way. He's just a bit too smart for my usual sell for 800/mile and it's made me have to search around, unsuccessfully, for different angles.

The odd thing is that the general issue - black kids in a predominantly white sport - has changed dramatically in the year since I posted this. There's now a pretty solid representation of black American kids in the 800/1600/3200m/XC around the DC metro area. In our tiny, stupid conference the returning XC champion (a sophomore last year) also won the 3200m in track and is just as skinny and nerdy as his competitors, except that he's black. Ditto for his teammate, a freshman who went 1:57/4:34 last year. And we're almost certainly still whiter than the public school leagues.

It's good. More kids running distance events is fun.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

*Of course, Walleye is a long distance runner and doesn't drink
beer. Also: I'm black American and don't really drink beer, and
yes, I just realized the irony while typing

We've "known" each other for, like, fifteen years now? And I've never had anything but genuine fun meeting okayplayers in real life. Next time you're in DC, send up a flare. We can figure out what to drink on the fly. Or eat. I do that too.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

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You too. Hit me up sometime. I'm only getting lazier as I get older, so it'd probably take a couple tries if you come into town once and awhile. But you're in that same "shit, I've pretend-known these guys on the internet for about as long as I've been married."

May as well get a drink sometime. I'm forced to spend time socially with people I barely like all the time, so it seems dumb that I actually like you but you're disqualified because you're FROM THE INTERNET.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

But I'm already really impressed with his maturity this preseason. It's an oddly shaped team as I've already mentioned we're rebuilding but it's an atypical rebuild because we've actually got quite a few seniors. They're just mostly terrible. The kid who spurred this post is the one exception to that, and he's probably going to be the only senior that runs top-7 all year.

I knew before this season that he was good with younger runners. Seemingly inconsequential stuff like learning their names EARLY without making a big deal out of it and making sure to let them know he saw when they run a good workout. But it wasn't entirely clear to me how well that would translate to being a BIG, FAT CAPTAIN because he's always been able to defer that responsibility to the large, pretty good class that we graduated in May.

Anyhow, so far so good. And, to dovetail with the larger theme of this post, there's probably going to be a higher-than-average black representation among cross country freshman this year on our team, including two brothers who've been privately trained by one of our sprint coaches for the past two or three years. That's a whole other weird situation that could possibly keep this post going even after this year, but for now having our subject-line senior around will probably help.

It's definitely making my job easier. My dream has always been to have a team that runs itself, mostly because a lot of the most important parts of the sport are outside my control: a good base of summer miles and a good training group that pushes each other. No amount of magic workouts can replace those two things, and a good captain probably can accomplish more to make them happen than a good coach.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

He's actually ahead of our 2017 #1 runner at this point in the season. That guy got an All-Met honorable mention, which is tough to do coming out of a Maryland private school. The system is perfectly fair, but Virginia is still a vastly better state for distance running and the silly, small conferences that most private schools (us included) compete in mean our runners don't really get many opportunities to prove themselves against public school counterparts. That's not a complaint, just an observation.

So being ahead of him at this point is good, though that guy had a pretty remarkable close to the 2017 season. One step at a time.

The issue now is getting our first runner out aggressively. Our race on Saturday was in an EXTREMELY talented field and he was swamped pretty much from the gun by guys who got out more competitively. Wanting to avoid a death march for the final mile is prudent, but there's a chance he's leaving a lot on the table by not pushing early.

The one upside of the aforesaid small, silly conferences is that most private school AD's take the conference meet very, very seriously. Sometimes it seems like we may as well not compete in anything else for all my boss' boss cares. But in our case, it's an opportunity to tell this kid to take a gamble one of these weekends. Hit that first one in 5:15 or so and just... see what happens. May not work. Or, it may only partly work and feel terrible. My high school XC breakthrough came when I hit the first mile in 5:10 (literally faster than I'd run for a mile at that point), felt like absolute dogshit for the entire rest of the race, but still stumbled across in a big PR. The next week I broke that mark by :30 seconds (on a hilariously easier course, but still) and kind of felt that it was partly due to finding out, with severe, physical certainty, how fast was "too fast" for the first mile.

In short: there's a lot to be said for trying things and feeling them out experientially. Coaches can't tell you everything.

As a sidenote, this is not a good team right now. Except for the subject of this post, we are very, very young. Next year might be special, but I don't think the rest of the squad is going to get there in 2018. Still, a lot of stuff can happen in the next six weeks. Breakthroughs don't really happen on a schedule.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

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https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/hulu-details-new-season-veronica-mars-727218/

----
bshelly

"You (Fisher) could get fired, Les Snead could get fired, Kevin Demoff could get fired, but I will always be Eric Dickerson.” (c) The God

From my (sometimes) hard-working community college weirdos I tell about Augustine to the (mostly) millionaire's sons I exhort to run in ovals, there's going to be a whole new flock of 16-25 year olds who will be told, loudly and frequently, about the plucky teen detective who brought true hardboiled noir fiction back into the American mainstream.

My rebellion against the adjunct system is being exactly as professional as I'm paid to be, which isn't very much. Crafting a series of lectures around Veronica Mars probably doesn't even scratch the top five least relevant topics I've entertained. And the highschoolers? They don't have any idea what good TV is. I consider telling them about that (in between 500m repeats, so they can't leave) a cultural obligation.

I'm obviously incredibly excited about this. When the rumor broke two weeks ago, I kept my giddiness under my hat because, as you're aware, being a Veronica Mars fan means having your heart broken by revival rumors. But this is so cool. And it's nice that it clearly means so much to Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell, who don't need it. Because I bet Francis Capra and Percy Daggs and even Jason Dohring to a degree would really appreciate some of that Hulu cash.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad