Good idea. Sink or float. And you have done your bit. Keep us posted on what is going on. I love that he thinks taking a week off is going to help. Where is he going away to?
Or maybe he is going for some intensive rehab and training that only he knows about. Sorry this has to happen. Coaching can be so rewarding and then there are those who are not thinking at all for themselves.
Update on training
Finished his last planned competition before State Champs.
The plan was a 400 and then 4 x 200.
He run a 100, 400, and 1500m (I told him not to do that one, and go home and ice achilles)
He ran a seasons best in the 400m. Even though the 100 wasn’t on the program, I think it helps him get ready for the 400 (he seems to run better in the 2nd race)
This week training has been good.
Monday - his 400 was a season’s best and only 0.3 off his personal best (that being said the plan this season was to get closer to 50)
Tuesday - Weights and recovery (I have to assume he did it)
Wednesday - Not sure if he did tempo, as his car broke down earlier in the week so did a lot of riding on his push bike (close to 40km the day before).
Thursday - 1 x 300 in jogging shoes, about a sec off his best
I cancelled the planned Saturday and gave strict instructions of no other activity except an easy 20-30 minute walk (enjoy the scenery) if he is studying all day (final year and Honours together for Uni)
The session was 1 x 120m Block Start
The plan for next week is currently unchanged, but the program for the championships is not finalised yet - so 400 heats (currently Friday night) could be Saturday morning
What are “the championships” you are preparing for??
Tasmanian State Championships.
The likelihood is he will have to run a PB to even have a chance for the final, same with 200
Just got home from Day 1 of the State Champs, tonight they had 400 heats.
Too make the final he would have had to ran a personal best, alas he didn’t
He over raced the back straight, and probably went through 200 in 24 point. He ran 54.32, which I am happy with in regard to weather and wind, temperature was 13 degree with wind of 35km/h headwind in front straight.
He is reserve for the 4 x 400m, one of the guys in the team ran slower tonight, and has 200m on Sunday.
His conversion from 200m to 400m is double plus 3.5. He is suggesting he doesn’t have good enough speed endurance, and I am telling him he isn’t fast enough.
I am having 6 weeks off coaching, as I have to catch up on study and home stuff.
I wrote a blogpost on Extensive Tempo, using posts from Jim Hiserman, Derek Hansen, and CF.
Link http://darrenacoaching.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/extensive-tempo-sessions.html
Had an interesting conversation online with a coach, I post the conversation below. I didn’t get involved in rebuking his points especially about coaches (I don’t see the point in ridiculing other coaches)
My thought is he doesn’t understand the concept of tempo, and what it is used for.
Scott
I read your article on tempo, I believe that this is all old hat, and people follow along with these ideas as that is always how it was done,i believe you will get better results by at least halving theses distances and increasing speed, to do sessions of 1600 to 2200m 100m 1600-2200m 6000m
sorry , messed up to do sessions of 1600m to 2200 for 100m runners will just get them fit like a footballer and slow them down, jack hale is a prime example, russel has not done a session past 600m with me in 5 months and never will and I altready know he can run under 47.00 tempo is dead and gone for 100/200/400 m runners
Darren
Depends what you are trying to achieve. They are not speed sessions. My speed sessions are no more then 400m, specific endurance sessions for my 400m guys maxes at 1200m (ala Mike Hurst and Peter Fortune) Who do you read from andalign your philsophy on?
PS Thanksfor reading it. I take the approach that we don’t have to agree, but as long as we learn from each other
Scott
remember peter, mike and Charlie are all, (and I respect the first two) from the 1980,s and we live in the year 2015, a lot of charlies sessions where designed with the athlete on drugs, if you attempt to use his ideas on under20 athletes or over 20s not on drugs they will just get exhausted, as for peter and mike I think that if they did not coach in the 1970/1980 era and where born in 1970 not 1950 they would have completely different ideas and coaching methods. cam trained with Stacey taurami for two weeks and he told me I coach very similar to him and have similar ideas, we are trying to run fast over a short distance, train fast over a short distance. most read coaches john smith. ralph mann , pfaff , tellez , dodoo , geln mills, JOHN MEDINA , mangicotti, most talked to coaches gary bourne, peter fortune, evan peacock, bodan and vasilli. coaches I have watched are a) the most watched for hours days and weeks for doing things correctly are evan, peter mc and learnt just as much from watching rex and rosemary for learning how not to coach.
Darren
Thanks Scott. Have had a many a chat with Stacey, and i agree on your comments about coaches. Remember though it is the whole structure and not a part of the structure that needs to be put together. How do you structure a training weeks, month, year for instance. What recovery techniques do you employ. Are you saying you only do fast work? All my speed sessions for short sprinters are short sessions. I work on accelerataion, then max speed, and finally spec end. I am glad to learn and watch to learn.
*you not to
Chat conversation end
Interesting.
I do understand where he is coming from to an extent, because I admit I was skeptical about CF myself. But, like your signature quote is, “Continuing to learn is one thing in life that has to continue.” and at some point you just have to open up your mind and give different philosophies at least a good unbiased chance. Otherwise, I mean, you seriously are limiting yourself. I like how you responded too. You can’t just throw a bunch of random parts together and expect to form a structure. There are different things that work (CF: there’s more than one way to skin a cat!) but some of those “parts” go together, and some do not. Excellent point you made there.
Thanks Brett
I understand where he is coming from, he is opinionated and thinks he is right and others are wrong. I am not suggesting for one moment I am right and he is wrong, but there is more than one way to skin a cat even if we use the same philosophy.
Anyone with a computer can come to this site and learn as much as they wish. The information is FREE. 16 years and counting. Thank you to so many.
Thinking will never be free.
Thinking is hard work.
Charlie never adopted anyone’s ideas without thinking, trying, experimenting, talking, wondering, failing and not giving up.
Post 2015 , more thinking will be required to succeed at all things or anything. And this in part is because INFORMATION IS FREE. And thinking is hard work.
The danger of any person making conclusions based on a few facts they believe they know something about, is they fail to take the good that might be hiding. ( They throw the baby out with the bath water if you will allow me to make this comparison)
Bingo.
This coach is well read, and asks questions of coaches he respects and think knows more, but is blinded by what he thinks he sees.
Am I a good coach, I would like to think I am, am I a great coach - hell no - I am a work in progress.
All I can do is learn, adapt, and do the best I can do.
I am closing this down as the athlete informed me last night, due to his University commitments he is unable to commit to training consistently.
I am not surprised, although still upset. That on top of letting go an athlete due to her parents, and losing another athlete as it made sense to go (she is a training parent of the girl I let go) I am left with not many athletes - one sprinter (who I suspect my not return) and a female distance athlete for weights.
Choices have to be made by everyone and I am okay with that, still feel shit though. Time to rebuild and see if people want to be coached by me.
Thanks for the support everyone much appreciated 
Lots of people need people and coaches like you DMA. Just because some are not able to commit does not mean anything. You work very hard at what you are doing and you care an awful lot about the athletes you coach.
Are you close to any schools that might be interesting for you to coach at ?
I have to try and get pass the feeling like it is a kick in the guts. I am not having a go at the athletes, they made the decision and told.
I need to plan my next steps, schools is an option (unlikely though due to my work commitments)
Back into coaching, taken a slightly different tact with it but have picked up a Master’s athlete (he is my age) who is focusing on World Masters in 2016 and 2017. I have also had an athlete recommended to me by another coach.
I am working through planning with the master athlete at the moment with the intention of doing two high CNS days every 10 days, with a technical hurdle session in between days. A little freaked out about hurdles, but will read and learn as quickly as I can with it.
This athlete last year, basically cooked himself with too many high days and ultimately injured himself four weeks prior to the National titles.
DMA,
I think you will like working with a Masters athlete. He is a lucky person to benefit from your passion.
We started our business in a few different ways post 1988 as I had quit school due to the controversy and Charlie not only lost his job as a full time paid coach but on a world scale he lost his reputation. ;(
First we started finding ways to pay for the time we were at York for my training. After some time past ,we also found outside clients to work with.
John O’Neil was a soon to be 70 year old masters athlete who was already competing and had been doing quite well.
Johnny became my biggest supporter and the best training partner I had ever had. ( For the most part, I trained alone. Charlie had been banned as a coach for his entire life. My university track coach attempted to kick Charlie of the York Track Center for watching me run one of my first university races. )
Johnny as we knew him, was an amazing man and I miss him dearly. He had been a boxer but once he married and had 3 kids he worked very hard to own a company that became very successful. Eventually he sold his successful company but continued to work there as he knew all aspects of this business and he loved to work. His financial independence is what enabled him to hire ( Charlie) and be trained by him.
You could see the progress Johnny made in one week. His sagging skin turned to solid muscle. Charlie also did routine massages as part of the training just as he had done with his own athletes.
It was at this moment I knew muscle could be built at any age and people could improve no matter what with the proper training and circumstances.
Johnny broke records for his age groups routinely. He exemplified what a coach would want from an athlete.
I will help you with the hurdles.
What event?
Remember , Charlie never knew much about hurdles.
Your athlete needs to be fast, strong and fit. The technical issues sort themselves out once you cover off the priority training variables.
There will be specific warm up exercises as well as specific drills you need to routinely prescribe. Hurdle walkovers are a must and on top of the speed training you will be adding in or trading off some speed with speed over hurdles. To some extent, it depends on what this person responds to best.
The primary gains will come from your knowledge.
Thanks Ange. I am looking forward to the adventure, the athlete isn’t sure which event is his focus but I suspect 110m hurdles will be his event. He would like to be able to run the longer sprints as well.
We are going to concentrate on 100, 110H, and 200m this season (we are starting training in two weeks).
We will look forward to hearing how it has been going for you and for him.
If the general ideas espoused here work with " every day" people, it speaks volumes to the quality of methodology.
You , as well as others on this site have been working with success with individuals but unless you have large groups it’s difficult to show a pattern of the successes to be had.
We have been training once a week for the past few weeks, just to get in the groove after four weeks off and getting over some issues.
I reviewed his training from last season and in essence he was an injury waiting to happen, he was doing four high CNS days a week (basically in a row). I am actually surprised he got through most of the season.
The plan initially is as follows
Sun - Active Recovery: Warm Up and easy tempo (no more then 1000m of running)
Mon - Off
Tue - Speed: Acceleration
Wed - Active Recovery: 10-15 minutes on bike or rowing machine, 4 options of each
Thu - Speed: Technique: Hurdles or sprints
Fri - Active Recovery: 10-15 minutes on bike or rowing machine, 4 options of each
Sat - Hockey Game
Weights are Tuesday and Thursday, with Tuesday being technical work and Thursday the high CNS session.
So we are still aiming for two high CNS sessions a week, but as the athlete is inexperienced with weight the fatigue hopefully will be less.
The Active recovery sessions are optional