Average improvement from first meet of the year to districts: +2.71 Average improvement from first meet of the year to state: +4 Average improvement from first meet of the year to season's best: +7.85 (+6.71)
And people say that Rocky peaks at Caldwell
In that same post:
”One thing to note- the first meet of the year for Tuft saw him in JV. His first race in varsity would change the average numbers to +.85 from first meet to districts, +1.71 to state, +5 for first to best, and +1.71for start of season to average performance. Those represent improvements of 2.55 seconds from first meet to districts, 5.13 to state, 15 seconds from first to best, and 5.13 from first to average.”
If getting better by 2.55 seconds from Caldwell to Districts and 5.13 better to state isn’t being ready to run fast early and not getting much better over the course of the season, then idk what is.
That doesn’t mean that Rocky is peaking for Caldwell or isn’t a great team. Just that they approach the season very differently. I think it works, too. How many kids are scared of Rocky by the time Bob Firman rolls around and don’t trust that they can run near them? I bet a good amount of local kids.
Can anyone who has run both bob firman and the state course tell how much faster is this course than bob firman?
Should be a little slower if you run both optimally. The tricky thing is that most people don't run the Eagle Island course right. For a top level runner, expect to be a little slower, for Joe Schmo, similar or a little faster. (By little, I mean 1.5-3%)
”One thing to note- the first meet of the year for Tuft saw him in JV. His first race in varsity would change the average numbers to +.85 from first meet to districts, +1.71 to state, +5 for first to best, and +1.71for start of season to average performance. Those represent improvements of 2.55 seconds from first meet to districts, 5.13 to state, 15 seconds from first to best, and 5.13 from first to average.”
If getting better by 2.55 seconds from Caldwell to Districts and 5.13 better to state isn’t being ready to run fast early and not getting much better over the course of the season, then idk what is.
That doesn’t mean that Rocky is peaking for Caldwell or isn’t a great team. Just that they approach the season very differently. I think it works, too. How many kids are scared of Rocky by the time Bob Firman rolls around and don’t trust that they can run near them? I bet a good amount of local kids.
If they are actually measuring seconds, then improving by two seconds on average when your schedule is Tiger Grizz, Firman, Conley, and Conley again, then yes, very impressive off of a Caldwell time (lightning fast course).
If it's the average speed rating being measured (which I'm pretty sure it is) than an increase of ~3 is fairly substantial. Certainly nothing crazy, but nothing to indicate that they are peaking at any race in particular.
”One thing to note- the first meet of the year for Tuft saw him in JV. His first race in varsity would change the average numbers to +.85 from first meet to districts, +1.71 to state, +5 for first to best, and +1.71for start of season to average performance. Those represent improvements of 2.55 seconds from first meet to districts, 5.13 to state, 15 seconds from first to best, and 5.13 from first to average.”
If getting better by 2.55 seconds from Caldwell to Districts and 5.13 better to state isn’t being ready to run fast early and not getting much better over the course of the season, then idk what is.
That doesn’t mean that Rocky is peaking for Caldwell or isn’t a great team. Just that they approach the season very differently. I think it works, too. How many kids are scared of Rocky by the time Bob Firman rolls around and don’t trust that they can run near them? I bet a good amount of local kids.
If they are actually measuring seconds, then improving by two seconds on average when your schedule is Tiger Grizz, Firman, Conley, and Conley again, then yes, very impressive off of a Caldwell time (lightning fast course).
If it's the average speed rating being measured (which I'm pretty sure it is) than an increase of ~3 is fairly substantial. Certainly nothing crazy, but nothing to indicate that they are peaking at any race in particular.
Speed rankings account for course conditions, difficulty, weather, etc. The entire idea is to make corrections so that scores are equal across courses- a 180 on Firman is the same quality as a 180 at Tiger-Grizz and a 180 at Bob Conley and a 180 at the State course this year.
Improving 5.13 seconds in terms of quality from Caldwell to State is not a substantial margin. Look at Boise, and look at Mountain View, Eagle, and CDA when I post them a little later today.
Cody Lucas's quality of performance at state is .9 seconds faster than the quality of performance at Caldwell. He scored 177.53 at Caldwell and 177.83 at state.
Nate Stadtlander ran 182.33 at Caldwell. His quality of performance at state was 189.73- worth about 22.2 seconds. That same quality at Caldwell would yield a 14:45.8. You could also phrase it as Nate Stadtlander gained an additional 22.2 seconds on Cody Lucas from Caldwell to State. Relative to their peers, the Rocky Mountain boys did not improve as much as other teams did this season.
I don't believe the comment is at all that they peaked at Caldwell. It's that the quality of performance is relatively equal from the beginning of the season to the end. There has been some conjecture that Rocky would see big improvements towards the end of the season. As far as the data shows, only one runner showed a substantial improvement from the mid-point of the season onwards.
I'm more than happy to post trend lines from all 5 schools that I'm crunching data on and everyone can guess which line belongs to which school.
It seems like programs like Rocky and CDA are able to race well early off their strong summer base work full of tempos/hills, etc. and then they continue to race at a somewhat high level the rest of the season. Other teams have ups and downs or start very slow and aim for a huge peak or swing at State and then bottom out again at NXR.
It seems like programs like Rocky and CDA are able to race well early off their strong summer base work full of tempos/hills, etc. and then they continue to race at a somewhat high level the rest of the season. Other teams have ups and downs or start very slow and aim for a huge peak or swing at State and then bottom out again at NXR.
There is a huge variance between programs in terms of whether the season planning and training from the coaches includes NXR. I’d guess most Idaho schools train for state and then just kind of wing it for a couple more weeks, often with kids making up the training plan on their own.
Orton: 163/159/167/174/173/169/155 Jensen: 164/160/168/165/166/169/170 Chamberlain: DNR/150/159/158/150/158/157 Riley: 146/154/154/152/161/158/161 Vandahlen: 145/145/152/159/163/151/165 Ryan: 140/127/140/143/152/143/148 Pritchard: Removed due to not racing @ state
Average improvement from first meet to districts: +6.85 Average improvement from first meet to state: +8 Average improvement from first meet of the year to season's best: +12.16 Average removing the high and low: Orton: 166.2 (168) Jensen: 166.4 (165.75) Chamberlain: 155.75 (155.33) Riley: 155.8 (154.5) Vandahlen: 154 (151.75) Ryan: 142.8 (141.5) Average improvement from first meet to average performance: +5.5
Current order of improvement from first meet to districts: Mountain View: +6.85 Rocky: +2.71 (+.85 if you go from Tuft's first varsity race) Boise: +.57
Current order of improvement from first meet to state: Mountain View:+8 Boise: +7.28 Rocky: +4 (+1.71 same thing)
Current order of improvement from first meet to average: Mountain View: +5.5 Boise: +2.71 Rocky: +2.42 (+1.71 same thing)
Average improvement from first meet to districts: +10.28 Average improvement from first meet to state: +12.42 Average improvement from first meet of the year to season's best: +16.85 (+13.28 before) Average removing the high and low: Ringert: 180 (179.33) Stevens: 162.25 (161.66) Taggart: 155.5 (153.33) Porter: 150.25 (150.33) Glenn: 138 (137.33) Collins: 138.75 (138) Vittoe: 136.75 (137) Average improvement from start of season to average performance: +8.71
Current order of improvement from first meet to districts:
Eagle: +10.28 Mountain View: +6.85 Rocky: +2.71 (+.85 if you go from Tuft's first varsity race) Boise: +.57
Current order of improvement from first meet to state:
It seems like programs like Rocky and CDA are able to race well early off their strong summer base work full of tempos/hills, etc. and then they continue to race at a somewhat high level the rest of the season. Other teams have ups and downs or start very slow and aim for a huge peak or swing at State and then bottom out again at NXR.
Do you think that guys like Helder, Sheesley, Kemper, and Ringert didn't have good summers of training?
What about Stadtlander? Each one of those guys I would put in the same caliber of runner as Heemeyer and Lucas. First meet to state, those two guys saw 1 point total of improvement. Helder saw 11, Sheesley 14, Kemper 14, Ringert 17, Stadtlander 8. That's a lot of top end guys that show big improvement.
It’s worth mentioning though that their first speed ratings from Cardinal Classic were criminally low for the times they ran on that course. Putting 4 guys under 17 on that course (hilly grinder at very high altitude) was worth much more than the speed ratings they were given.
It’s worth mentioning though that their first speed ratings from Cardinal Classic were criminally low for the times they ran on that course. Putting 4 guys under 17 on that course (hilly grinder at very high altitude) was worth much more than the speed ratings they were given.
Aaron is one of the best in the game. Boise has had a couple of years of looking eh at districts and then looking awesome at state. I’d be curious to see their last two weeks of the season.
Look at their strava stuff. The workouts seem to go from various fartlek style workouts and tempo (progressive, or reps, it looks like) in early to late August to adding in race pace stuff on September 5th, so a few days after Caldwell. The workout yesterday looks like it was long reps at I assume close to 5k pace (Ringert was running around 6:15 for 2000m reps) with 400m jog recovery and 400s at mile pace (or faster). That's pretty different than what they were running in August. Unless he didn't record a bunch of stuff, Ringert also ran way less mileage the week of Caldwell. Maybe he was sick that week. It just looks like the focus shifted on what they were doing to me. The big jump could be just getting more comfortable running at faster speeds without much change in fitness actually happening and racing better.
Speaking of the difference in the way that teams approach training, I remember seeing this. Ringert's slow start at Caldwell (170) to his finish at state (187) is probably pretty attributable to this. By early October, he was doing a lot of stuff at 4:45-5:00 pace.
So fartlek and tempo until around September 5th, race pace stuff until early October, either faster than race pace or race pace in October. It looks like they keep volume fairly high- 60 miles Sep 4-10 with 4300' of climbing, 40 the week of Woodbridge (no race recorded, so probably closer to 45), 58 the week of Firman (again, no race, so 61-62 miles) with 2300' of climbing, 52 the week of Portland (55 with race) with 2400', 54 the following week, 52 the week of their HOKA race, around 33 for Districts, and 35 the week of state.
Maybe the most interesting part of it is that the lightest volume that he did was Woodbridge and that had a pretty significant amount of travel. 60+ miles the week of Firman looks like he just trained straight through, especially with the workout in the comment above and what looks like a progressive tempo two days before with almost 700 feet of gain on it, although the actual fast part was on flat ground. 15:32 off of that week is pretty impressive. Jumping from 180 at Firman to 187 at State is understandable with a taper in that scenario.