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Can clubs be a little irresponsible?

Lazare

A friend of mine, a masters runner, mid to late 40s recently joined a club.

He's a very eager runner, has been running years but up until now has never had any structure to his running. He's marathon focussed, has ran 6 but has never trained smartly for one, never followed a program or practised good recovery.

In the run up to DCM last year I passed on a few tips I had picked up, simple stuff like forgetting about his parkrun pb , slowing things down etc. He did well, a minute or so outside his dream sub 4 for a 20 minute pb.

I was delighted to hear he'd joined a club. With some good guidance he will do really well.

He's going down the last month or so twice midweek for sessions then a long run on Sunday. He's also attacking parkrun most weeks.

Sessions are typically hill reps, fartlek, V02max.

So the week is, long run, rest, session, rest, session, rest, parkrun hard.

Last Fri night I talked him out of attacking a parkrun pb the following morn.

I've been a little concerned about this tbh over the last couple of weeks.

Spoke to him today and he's complaining of tendon pain.

I totally understand and appreciate the positivity and value of running clubs and the role they play in the community. I've no direct experience of one as unfortunately meet up times don't suit me at this stage. So I could be well out of line.

This to me just seems like really basic stuff that shouldn't really be happening. Particularly with a masters runner.

Recovery doesn't seem to have an emphasis.

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28064212

I think you're massively overestimating the amount of individualised coaching that goes on, certainly if the club is of any appreciable size. There could easily be 50+ runners to a coach, they're not going to have any idea of how many sessions an individual is doing, and they're probably not expecting anyone to be doing them all, and definitely not also racing a 5k on top of that. While they are probably available for questions, that's going to be something your friend would approach them about, not something they're just going to pick him out and go over

Swashbuckler

Yep I agree completely with the response. Don't overestimate how involved clubs get with training specific individuals. I've lost count of the number of club runners I see training absolutely mindlessly.
And in a few cases, still refusing to take advice.

Lazare

Ok. That makes sense. As I said, I'm totally green to how clubs operate.

I'll have to try talk some sense into him. Have been but have felt it falling on deaf ears most of the time. Maybe the niggle will back me up.

Swashbuckler

Lazare wrote:

I've been a little concerned about this tbh over the last couple of weeks.

Lazare wrote:

Spoke to him today and he's complaining of tendon pain.

Just from my own experience, give the good advice and then let it be. People need to learn the hard way sometimes.

Murph_D

Completely agree with the above. Being in a club does not equate to being coached. You’re as likely (probably more likely) to be dragged into competing with a load of runners who train badly as you are to be taken in hand and told what to do by a knowledgeable coach. It’s not the club’s fault - there are far more runners than coaches, and unless you have standout talent you won’t attract one-on-one attention. Ask for advice, though, and it might be a different story, although again you’ll find the expertise and/or attention on offer may not live up to expectations.

It’s not a question of irresponsibility though, to reference the thread title. When you join a club, you’re joining a group of people with a shared interest, not signing a contract to be coached. And there’s nothing to stop any runner with an interest in learning or teaching to take a coaching course themselves and contribute to the club that way.

Lazare

Yeah, wrestled a little with the thread title tbh as I know some of the people involved with the club and they're wonderful people.

You've described the environment really well Murph, makes a lot more sense to me now.

Nuttzz

Some clubs structure their programs around a certain cohort of runners and certain races, following these especially when you are a newer runner can cause you trouble.

Kissy Lips

Three speed sessions is too much in a week for me and I would suspect it is too much for him in a sustainable way. It is a quick route to injury. He either gives up the parkrun or gives up the Thursday. Either way it's not the clubs fault he chooses to parkrun.

walshb

OP, the man is late 40s.....that is old as regards what he is putting the body through....

Maybe he needs to consider his age here? Is he being irresponsible?

El CabaIIo

Agree with everyone on groups not been individualised to one person and why. Coaches aren't psychic and can't know what anyone is doing if they don't know. I always think that clubs are what you make of them, when I first went back to club sessions and was completely green on anything about training, I'd ask the coach there if I should be such and such a session as I'm racing on Saturday etc or what pace should the session be run at. Just two simple questions that take two seconds to answer. Often he'd just say run some 200's instead if I was racing.

Sessions, tempos and long rund often turn into pissing contests when you get a group together and just because everyone is doing the session and hammering it doesn't mean that was the idea behind it. There's an inherent fear among new runners to ask questions too as they might not see themselves as worth the time of the coach, getting a fully fledged individualised training attention is one thing but asking a simple question is another and most coaches are more than happy to amend a session or answer a simple question if asked in my experience but the bulk of the responsibility lies with the runner to bring their situation to the coach. Trying to individise all the needs of 50 people is a different story altogether for a volunteer club coach.

Clubs are also in a dire situation of recruiting really knowledgeable people as there is no real pay and clubs can't afford it anyway so it is often a case of getting someone who is willing to do it rather than being able to find the best person as those really knowledgeable people who are also able to put in time voluntarily are very rare. The majority of club coaches are still more knowledeable than the average runner though so they do help a lot.

I'll also add on here that runners in general are some of the most stubborn breed of people I've seen when it comes to training advice and if most clubs had a coach of Nic Bideau's caliber in place, most of them wouldn't listen and call him an eejit in their head which is much more rare to see in other sports, alot of that probably lies in the how counterintuitive some good training advice is.

EC1000

Sounds like your friend needs to decide what he wants from the sport and joining a club. It can be tempting to go and hammer every run but if is interested in times, he needs to pick particular races and train to target them. Even with expert coaching, if you race every weekend you will plateau very quickly and most likely get injured...

average_runner

For me its responsibility of the runner to recognize when you need the breaks etc.

In our club we have gotten into the habit where we keep reminding each other what the session is about, making sure no one is racing the session.

Basic Rule for Me, if you do a hard session and can't do a easy run the next day, you went too hard. And if it drags into two days, give yourself a good talking.

Flynnboslice

average_runner wrote: »

Basic Rule for Me, if you do a hard session and can't do a easy run the next day, you went too hard. And if it drags into two days, give yourself a good talking.

It depends on the hard session and how it fits with the overall season? Sometimes you need to do very hard sessions which require more than 24 hours recovery.

In terms of club responsibility the numbers of runners which have trebled in the last 10 years has coincided with the decline of active coaches. Most clubs these days (especially in newer established ones) don't have coaches they have athletes who have achieved more than the ones they are advising.

Quality coaches tend to be found at kids level simply because these are the athletes most receptive to good coaching qualities (they aren't the ones coming into clubs making demands to suit there needs i.e "I want to run a marathon in X by Y, what workouts do you have for me"

average_runner

walshb wrote: »

OP, the man is late 40s.....that is old as regards what he is putting the body through....

Maybe he needs to consider his age here? Is he being irresponsible?

Jaysus 40 is not old:mad:

Plenty of miles in the legs still

walshb

average_runner wrote: »

Jaysus 40 is not old:mad:

Plenty of miles in the legs still

Mid to late 40s is the age.

40 is not old in terms of life. Mid!

But depending on the activity.......may well be....

Singer

My own experience of running with a club is both very positive but also not entirely positive at the same time

- The official club marathon plan would be ruinous for me. Maybe if I were younger, or more dedicated, it might make sense. But for the majority it seems like a bafflingly aggressive plan.
- During club sessions I'm not the fastest... But I seem to beat a lot of people who outpace me at club sessions at actual races.
- I'm comfortable enough doing my own thing, including occasionally showing up and running my own session. This is not uncommon for more experienced folks, but isn't particularly obvious to a lot of others, who just seem to do the club session no matter what. For all my recent target races I've done the key sessions on my own away from the club. As such the club is useful to me to provide the base of my training, but race specific stuff is better off done on my own.

Of course, different people react differently to the club environment, and I'm in a big club where I'm very much a hobby-jogger so the experience may differ a lot. All this said, I've gotten a huge amount out of being in a club and love being part of it

woody1

unless someone makes a point of seeking out actual advice from a coach, clubs tend to be just big meet and train groups, which is fine, as long as you pick and choose who and when your meeting to suit what your aiming for ..