Jenny

If you're reading this and you're a high school distance coach, you're probably a pretty good coach, from the simple fact that you're reading on Twitter. A college head track and xc coach - who is exceptional, by the way - just told me his friend's daughter was assigned 40 x 100m sprints week 2 of practice. She's injured. So if you think coaching in our country is where it needs to be because you read some thoughtful discussions and comments here or elsewhere, it's not. As John O'Malley would say, that's malpractice. And even with the coaching is that bad/dangerous/inappropriate, we need to move towards a more nuanced place where everyone rejects the outdated idea that injuries are part of the sport for HS runners. There are too many coaches who either come out and say they think injuries are part of high school running or secretly think they're part of the sport because not every kid on their team is healthy. Obviously, we're not talking about trampoline injuries or pickup basketball injuries. If you want to take your program to the next level, you need to aim for 100% healthy runners from the first day of practice to the last race. Okay, back to championship season XC posts! 😀