High School Cross-Country Team Captain Hosts Secret Practices Excluding His Slower Teammates: 'Aren’t The Slower People The Ones Who Need More Practice Anyway?'

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High school cross-country runners competing in a race

Am I the bad guy for excluding some of my slower teammates from extra running practices?

For context I'm the cross country captain at my high school. Some of my teammates are significantly slower and less experienced then others so I created a separate groupchat so I could host additional practices for the more
experienced runners on the team because our coach isnt providing that for them. I never brought up the groupchat around the people not in it and haven't added them because I thought it was not suited for the level they are at and they would likely end up
significantly behind everyone else and being unable to do everything the more advanced group is doing. I'm also hosting the additional practices on my own and our coach is not telling me to host these practices. So AITA?
Edit: the slower teammates are still practicing under my coach. They are still practicing normally, the advanced group is just doing more.
Edit 2: Running is a little different from other sports in that the better you are, the more you tend to train. The best runners run the most mileage but if you havent built up the experience for your body to handle that then you will likely get injured.
browsing_crocodile yta. the slower someone is or the worse someone is at something, the more practice they require. by excluding them from extra practices you are simply hindering them further and not allowing them to practice and develop further. this seems to me that you're just selfish, and trying to earn ur team a few medals without thinking about each team member's development, which is quite literally your responsibility as team captain. if you'r ehosting additional practices, make it a no
candycupid YTA if you're holding exclusive extra practices without your coach's knowledge... aren't the slower people the ones who need more practice anyway?
turkeybuzzard4077 YTA creating a clique inside the team is always a terrible idea, your coach is right to shut that down. If you or anyone else feels they need more practice they can either talk to the coach or do so independently on their own time.
GimmeQueso Since you're the team captain, YTA. You're supposed to be leading the team not just the ones that you think are good enough. As the captain if you wanted to invite everyone to optional extra practices and have two levels, that'd be awesome. That way faster people can practice at their pace and slower people can improve and get better. The slower people need more practice too! I'm sure it's super disheartening to be left out by the team captain!
abeversg Came here to say this. Be a leader.
Ok_Thing5957 ΥΤΑ If they fall behind during the workouts, who cares? How does them being behind hinder the rest of the group? Are you just unwilling to stick around an addition 10 minutes or however long it takes for the other slower members to finish?
I was captain of my high school volleyball team. Voleyball is one of those sports where a lot of people (especially men) don't really try until the get to high school. Naturally you end up with a lot of people at different skill levels when that happens.
We always invited the new players to extra practices so they could put in the extra work if they wanted to. They would participate in all the drills and when it comes time for a scrimmage towards the end, they sit for the most part and just learn by watching, but we also let them play a few points here and there as well for the experience. How does having inexperienced runners with you hinder your practice in any way?
CaptainMalForever YTA Creating division within a team is never the right move. Adding additional practices, without the coach's knowledge, is not okay either. If someone gets injured, at either regular practice or a meet, that could be the fault of the extra practices. If someone gets hurt while at the extra practice, that's on you.
AssistanceDry7123 When I've joined running groups, we self organized by pace. A faster group would get ahead, I was in the middle group, and a slower group took up the tail. The first half mile sorted things out.

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