Official Idaho 2024 Track Thread

Do we know of any time trials that will be happening before outdoor gets into swing?

Those were Simplot times from the prelims. In the finals for the 3200 Simons 8:48.08 Max CS 9:13.40 Helder 9:17.61 Sheesley 9:24.30

Finals for 1600 Stadlander 4:13.12 Zack CS 4:18.51 Stockett 4:19.31 King 4:26.08 Carr 4:27.70 ( new all time freshman record for Simplot ) Athay 4:35.24 Goss 4:35.45

Last year Idaho had 6 sub 4:15 and 8 sub 9:20 in outdoor track. Predictions for this year?

Here are the ones who already met one of those marks in an earlier season, unless I missed something:

1600 - Heemeyer, Kemper, Stadtlander

3200 - Heemeyer, Lucas, Ringert, Max Cervi-Skinner, Athay, Helder

Others who seem very likely to hit one or both - Zac Cervi Skinner, Stockett, Sheesley, Blaser, Goss

Also King and May both have speed ratings that suggest sub 9:20. Corbin Johnston seems close. Maybe Carr?

Who am I forgetting?

FWIW, using the speed rating to 3200 conversion on tullyrunners, these 7 hit an equivalent sub 9:20 in XC: Heemeyer, Athay, Ringert, Helder, King, May, Stockett

I think that’s pretty much the list. I could see Tuft, Carr, Rietze, Sam Jensen running into the high 9:20’s, and Ben Jensen sniffing 4:15.

Freshman and sophomores in 5A that could break 9:40, in no particular order- Tuft, Taggart, Kurtz, Carr, Rietze, Hymas, Donahue, Jensen of Centennial. There will probably be just as many that run in the 9:40-9:55 range as well.

Sam Jensen in high 9:20s? He hasn’t broken 10 yet

I think Sam Jensen ran 9:39 at Rocky’s HOKA 2 mile in the fall.

I would be curious to see what the training of all of these guys looks like, especially Heemeyer/Lucas, Ringert, Helder/Kemper/Sheesley, Stadtlander, and Max CS/Zach CS/King/Carr/May.

I wonder what elements they have that are common and which ones are unique and what they emphasize when. Most of them don't post anything specific about their workouts if at all, and when their teammates do, they don't appear to be the same workouts.

Any ideas on what they do? I know this question has been asked of the Rocky Mountain boys before and they get on here and give a bunch of troll responses. I do know that some of those borderline varsity boys were hitting around 45 miles a week this offseason. I would guess guys like Lucas and Heemeyer are hitting 50-55 miles. I can see that most of the boys that I named above are likely 50+ miles a week.

I’ve heard Wil Ihmels from Timberline ran a few 80 mile weeks this winter. I think the top 3 Boise boys run somewhere around 50 a week. Rocky boys range since some of them cross train a decent amount, but the volume is somewhere around 50 miles a week. The Meridian kid is a unique one, his Strava shows lower mileage in the 35-40 mile per week range which shows how talented he is. CDA boys look like 50-60 miles per week. I’m sure they all do similar things just slightly different based on their coach’s style.

There were some posts in the Idaho XC thread last year that covered some of this, with some of these guys having more detail on them.

Ringert is around 50-55 per week. Lots of threshold and tempo until the season starts, and for last cross season, about a month into it, but not much that's specific before then. Short recovery or active recovery on pretty much every workout. He gets a good amount of climbing in, roughly 4k per week. The workouts look like they can be long and they have different paces inside of them. The race specific stuff started in early September for him in cross according to the Idaho XC thread, so I'm guessing it's about 8-10 weeks out from the end of the season that they start doing specific work. That would mean that it's roughly mid March when they start targeting that, which holds up as he ran 2:02.25 for his first 800 on March 17th in a well beaten 5th, and then ran 2:00/4:22 on April 8th, as well as 4:29/9:35 on March 31st and then 4:20/9:33 on April 15th. The quality of the same day doubles reaffirms that timeline for specific work in my mind.

CDA boys run around the same, with lots of long tempo efforts with some appearing to have short recovery in the middle or late in the tempo. I haven't seen too much on their training that goes into detail, or they don't post it that I can see. They don't get much climbing in, but that's a product of where they are at geographically. I'm sure they've been hitting workouts to run as fast as they have in indoors. I'm not sure if past training will be much of a predictor for them as they didn't race as heavily in previous years in indoor as they did this year.

Boise guys get lots of climbing done, which is a given considering where they are at. They are around 50-55 miles, and it looks like pretty much everything they do for a workout has at least a couple of paces in it. It looks like a good amount of tempo and hill reps for the top 3 guys. There hasn't been a ton posted about their track stuff in the past, but they have great training grounds and utilize them well with the amount of hard efforts they appear to get on rolling or climbing ground.

I'll post a bit more on the Rocky guys as their stuff is more cryptic. They are likely in the same mileage range. Their long run is ~12 miles, so just general rule of thumb on percentages, that would get them to 50-60 miles, unless they cross train for one or more runs, which could push them down into the 45-50 range pretty easily. It's been posted before that they run somewhat specific stuff earlier in the year than a lot of other teams.

A recent workout that was run was 2 miles at 5:30 pace, 2 x 1 mile at 5:25, 1 x 800 @ 2:32. That's a 10:10/high 16's boy. A freshman boy ran 1 x 2 mile, 1 x 1 mile, 2 x 800. The recovery time in total for the second boy was roughly 14 minutes, so longer recovery. Those paces look to be on the fast end of threshold/slow end of VO2, and the recovery time makes it seem like it's more specific, even if that's not what is intended. They were running faster than race pace 6 x 800 in the first week of practice during XC, and there was the whole analysis on how much faster the teams in 5A District III got over the course of the season based on speed ratings, so that seems to hold up that they hit that stuff earlier. See also last season where Landon Heemeyer ran 1:57:88 on March 17th and improved .16 over the rest of the season, and 9:03 on April 8th in Boise and then ran 8:57 at sea level 2.5 months later. It's not a criticism of Rocky at all, just pointing out that there's evidence that's what they do as far as training. However, neither of the workouts above are from their top end guys, so it could be pretty different with a different focus. Landon's season will continue on for another 3 or so weeks, so it wouldn't surprise me if his workouts are all bumped back just slightly. For reference, going 15 data points deep on Rocky, speed ratings increased from Caldwell to end of season by 2.8 points, or roughly 8.4 seconds, which was the lowest out of the 5A teams at the state meet.

As mentioned by the other poster, Stadtlander doesn't do a lot of volume, but a bunch of his normal runs are faster and the intensity is much higher on average than other guys. Not sure if that's reflective of his coach's overall training philosophy or not. He has a few runs that he's clearly running on his own in the 6:40-6:50 range. He also doesn't post his actual workouts, so he's likely right at 40 miles.

I would imagine that Ihmels, while not necessarily in that top group of guys, is more reflective of a college program, given that his dad is the Boise State coach, but I don't know anything else about his training. Since he was mentioned, I think it's worth commenting on his stuff.

Basically, most of the really good guys are likely 50-55 miles, with a true long run, and workouts that have multiple paces inside of them. Outside of that, the coaches will probably have ideas that overlap, but my best guess is that these guys are probably not even in a one size fits all program within their own teams, much less each other.

Of course, the other option is just to message Jeff Howard (Rocky), Emry Carr (CDA), Nick Hampton (Eagle), Barak Watson (Meridian), or Aaron Olswanger (Boise) and ask. Those are the coaches for all of those athletes. Not sure if anyone would tell you anything that's detailed, but they might give you high level ideas.

CDA boys have been hitting indoor track sessions twice a week at The Podium in Spokane.

I've seen Rocky hit 4-5 miles of "threshold" broken into 2 mile, 1 mile or 800 reps...some kids run faster than they should, but the rest is 90 seconds between.

I see Boise with a ton of varied pace workouts and consistently hitting short all out hill sprints.

Is there anyone who can confirm this?

I have a buddy who knows a lot of the Rocky guys, and he told me that a bunch of the top rocky guys and girls have been doing lots of running (and apparently even workouts) on their own because they are mad that the coaches won’t let them do high mileage and the kids think that it cost them several shots at NXN

Can confirm that is a completely made up claim…pretty funny troll though

I like how you say “I think” here but then can confirm a rumor is false about the Rocky team a little bit later. Either you know full well what Sam Jensen ran, or you don’t know if the rumor is true.

What!? This one might be even wilder than the other troll post

Maybe they are borderline rebelling because Jeff has made his feelings on which Christian sects are true and which ones are false religions known on Strava.

I don’t have any insight about Rocky, but it wouldn’t surprise me that a top national runner as a senior would be training mostly on his own in the offseason before his last track season. His teammates for the most part shouldn’t be running paces or distances that he should, and Rocky didn’t have an indoor season. I wouldn’t call that rebelling.

Grace - unmerited favor, something that can not be earned. The moment someone tries to earn something from God, it is no longer the gospel presented in the Bible, the gospel of Grace. Christ died to save sinners.

Ephesians 2 says we were dead in our trespasses and sins. A dead man can do nothing spiritually, thus grace came with a once for all sacrifice and offering of Christ atoning for our sins on the cross. We are given Christ’s righteousness (the only way to have right standing before a holy and just God) by accepting and believing that Christ is our savior and we receive eternal life. Anything added as a requirement is a different gospel, and is ultimately not good news as it places people back under bondage as they attempt to climb the ladder of “rules.”