Track at FCPS

[Anonymous]

How is the track program at your FCPS public? Our child is talented but we are frustrated about the lack of meets/events/practice. To be sure, they practice 3x a week and attend a meet once a week. Is that typical? Should we join a club?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is the track program at your FCPS public? Our child is talented but we are frustrated about the lack of meets/events/practice. To be sure, they practice 3x a week and attend a meet once a week. Is that typical? Should we join a club?

More information is needed. What level? Middle school? High school? If your child is talented there will be plenty of meets in high school. I am thinking the child must be good and young because he or she appears to want more of it (I was a D1 All American who ran a 4:10 mile at age 15).

In high school, my brother and I (both accomplished) raced ourselves into shape in a competitive suburban area like the DMV. I am not so sure that is all a good idea today, but underscores the fact that in high school in these competitive areas an athlete can race often.

The coach at South Lakes High has coached world class runners and gets a lot out of his people without over training. He was mentored by John Cook who had great teams at Edison in the 70's, and world class athletes at George Mason in the 80's and 90's. There are other coaches like him, and if you can briefly connect with one, you can get some idea of the right kind of development path. My college coach is in his 70's and still coaches at the North Carolina School of Math and Science in Durham. He absolutely knows his stuff and has great results at a school not inclined to sports. Again, connect up with a good coach for a chat.

Track is not swimming, Training a lot in younger days typically does not work out well. Good luck. I wish I had the coaching gene, but I do not.

[Anonymous]

South Lakes, West Springfield, Lake Braddock, Robinson, South County- all have great track programs. Some of the others are terrible.

Our HS practices 5 days a week but the coach is terrible.

[Anonymous]

OP here--track in HS. HS offers only 3 practices/week and a meet. Most practices run less than 40 minutes. Is that typical for FCPS or does our school just have a weaker program?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is the track program at your FCPS public? Our child is talented but we are frustrated about the lack of meets/events/practice. To be sure, they practice 3x a week and attend a meet once a week. Is that typical? Should we join a club?

More information is needed. What level? Middle school? High school? If your child is talented there will be plenty of meets in high school. I am thinking the child must be good and young because he or she appears to want more of it (I was a D1 All American who ran a 4:10 mile at age 15).

In high school, my brother and I (both accomplished) raced ourselves into shape in a competitive suburban area like the DMV. I am not so sure that is all a good idea today, but underscores the fact that in high school in these competitive areas an athlete can race often.

The coach at South Lakes High has coached world class runners and gets a lot out of his people without over training. He was mentored by John Cook who had great teams at Edison in the 70's, and world class athletes at George Mason in the 80's and 90's. There are other coaches like him, and if you can briefly connect with one, you can get some idea of the right kind of development path. My college coach is in his 70's and still coaches at the North Carolina School of Math and Science in Durham. He absolutely knows his stuff and has great results at a school not inclined to sports. Again, connect up with a good coach for a chat.

Track is not swimming, Training a lot in younger days typically does not work out well. Good luck. I wish I had the coaching gene, but I do not.

How does one connect up with a coach for another school? South Lakes track had a fantastic winter record.

[Anonymous]

The south county coach is now on staff at the St James. You can reach out to him there.

What do you want to reach out to the south lakes coach about??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here--track in HS. HS offers only 3 practices/week and a meet. Most practices run less than 40 minutes. Is that typical for FCPS or does our school just have a weaker program?

The teams I'm familiar with practice every weekday. Our team's practices typically go from 3:30 to 5:00 or 5:15. There may be a meet during the week which most athletes compete at, but the top athletes often run a workout instead that day and then compete in a larger meet on Saturday. It sounds like your school's program is not as strong.

Is your child a sprinter or distance runner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here--track in HS. HS offers only 3 practices/week and a meet. Most practices run less than 40 minutes. Is that typical for FCPS or does our school just have a weaker program?

We are in Arlington County and compete against FCPS schools. Most of them have really good programs. We have practice 4-5 days a week and they expect the kids to run on the weekend as well. The only exception is if you run in a meet, you don’t run the day after so there could be weeks where you only have three or four practices Depending on how many meets you run. There is an A meet and a B meet and an optional weekend meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here--track in HS. HS offers only 3 practices/week and a meet. Most practices run less than 40 minutes. Is that typical for FCPS or does our school just have a weaker program?

What school? That doesn’t sound right or maybe your kid is skipping out

[Anonymous]

Our FCPS track coach only cares about the field events and totally ignores the runners. But the runners outperform the entire field crew.

On the surface it probably looks like our HS has a good program because they win a lot and have one runner who is nationally ranked. But it has nothing to do with the coaching.

[Anonymous]

Kid can run a 5.5mile and wants to compete in major meets to get recruited but needs to improve by leaps and bounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here--track in HS. HS offers only 3 practices/week and a meet. Most practices run less than 40 minutes. Is that typical for FCPS or does our school just have a weaker program?

That's VERY strange. I've never heard of a high school program like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kid can run a 5.5mile and wants to compete in major meets to get recruited but needs to improve by leaps and bounds.

Is this a boy? What age? 5.5 mile is not very fast. He is nowhere near being recruited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here--track in HS. HS offers only 3 practices/week and a meet. Most practices run less than 40 minutes. Is that typical for FCPS or does our school just have a weaker program?

We are in Arlington County and compete against FCPS schools. Most of them have really good programs. We have practice 4-5 days a week and they expect the kids to run on the weekend as well. The only exception is if you run in a meet, you don’t run the day after so there could be weeks where you only have three or four practices Depending on how many meets you run. There is an A meet and a B meet and an optional weekend meet.

We are at one of the FCPS schools that competes against Arlington (Liberty District).
Practices at our HS are broken into specialties - sprinter, long distance, hurdles, throwers, jumpers, etc. Our head coach is also the sprinting coach.
District meets are on Wednesday nights, so practices normally M and Th with additional ones sometimes on Tuesdays/Fridays. Practices are at least 90 min, and some also add weight room times.
And there are lots of invitational meets on the weekends, where the Varsity-level athletes compete.

[Anonymous]

I’m impressed with my DS’s track team.
They do a great job accommodating a ton of different kids and skills. Seems like there are kids who just want to enjoy a chill sport, kids who are working really hard to improve and then a handful of super talented kids who want to run in college.
Plugging everyone in to meet events seems like a gargantuan task.