For Nebraska Runners Only

If you want support, entry into races, travel funded, shoes, etc. look into team nebraska. If that doesn't interest you look into ndorfnz, but it is not the same sort of "team" as TNB is. Ndorfnz provides no travel, shoes, $$ of any kind, just an online log for you to share you day, thoughts, etc. with people who like to run.

Anyways you sound like you will clean house in Omaha with those kind of times, there are few who will be able to keep up with you.

www.omaharun.org

for races in the area, good luck finding prize money.

LNS, As a former NE runner, I'm interested about your ideas why NE running, especialy at the high school level, is sub-par when compared to other states. If I recall correctly, Kearney and Lincoln SE had consistently good programs. What did they do different? If I had to guess, I would say that the majority of programs emphasize interval training + hammering, and underemphasize aerobic mileage necessary for continued performance improvement. I don't have any factual evidence for this, other than my memory of doing way too many hard tempo runs and track workouts and never enough aerobic mileage. I knew other schools were working hard, too, but no matter how hard everybody worked, Kearney and LSE routinely destroyed everyone else.

LNS 2 wrote:

As for competition, it is not that deep here. For some reason times are just not that fast. This is from high school level to our competitive level. This is something that I have been trying to figure out for awhile. I have some ideas though. Just the way it is. Most of our really good runners move away for most of the reasons that are mentioned as bad ones.

"You get tougher by training here". Sadly, that doesn't always translate into faster. There is something to be said for slogging around in 30 mph winds and teens day after day, but I am not sure that is a skill that translate well into a fast 5k if one is relegated to that for too long.

The main problem with running in Omaha is just the way the city is laid out and it is really nobody's fault - it is very hard to do a road loop run without sidewalks and crossing busy streets all the time and outside of town, you just run big squares around corn and soybean fields. Cities the size of Omaha in the east (such as Greenville, SC) are just laid out differently so you can have multiple loop courses of a decent length through lightly traveled mixed/residential areas more often.

Also it is too damn windy in Omaha. If you are marathon training and have some natural speed and can run well off alot of strength stuff, no big deal, but forget about being able to go to the track for key workouts and hit times on a fixed planned schedule. Probably why everyone here seems to care only about running marathons. If you like racing a March/April track season, this is a very tough place to train for it.

By moving to Nebraska you will be represented by a Democratic Senator who will sell his votes in the Senate. He has no principles. He just votes depending on who pays him.

Herbert Husker,

I'm not LNS, but I've had a little experience with your question. I ran competitively for an Omaha high school and continue to run here on the collegiate level. I'd say you are spot on about the over-emphasis of interval training and not enough aerobic development.

At my high school, track season consisted of three hard track workouts every week from late February through the end of the season (or two hard interval workouts and a meet, which for most distance runners meant multiple races). My senior year I barely averaged 40 mpw during the season and no one else on my team was running anywhere near that mileage (this included 4:30/sub 10:00 guys running around 25 mpw). Distance days consisted of our coach telling us to just go run a few miles, so that is exactly what the vast majority of people did--jog 2 to 4 miles a few times a week between workouts. Talking with friends who ran for other Omaha schools, their training seemed to be fairly similar.

You mentioned Kearney as being a good program, Fremont is another one, so obviously there are some exceptions.

Brian's pont about the difficulty of doing track work here in the early spring is also definitely a big part of it. Not many high school kids just getting into running are going to find running hard intervals every other day in cold temps and 30 mph winds to be worth it. Those who do run consistently through the winters and continue to train hard through the track season are gong to come out as tough, dedicated runners. But those are pretty rare, at least in my experience.

Ben's been elected too many times to count. So you are in the minority opinion, live with it. Conservative tears on the rim of my margarita glass, how sweet it is.

Been a friend of Will's for years. You have made a good assessment of the clubs.

Herbert- I still am not sure, but I have my theories.

First of all I ran LSE varsity in the late 90s. While I did not know it at the time, our training was based heavily on Daniels and Vigil. A lot of Max V02, etc. A lot of our miles were spent at probably too fast of a pace. But we were definitely not doing speed stuff, you can look to our track results as evidence of that. Good but not outstanding.

That being said on the distance side, in XC at least, there are two main causes in my opinion.

One is lack of coaching. Many coaches in Nebraska don't have a clue as to how to train for distance events. I am still learning myself, but have my philosophy down pretty well.

Two is terrain. As you know our state course is a tough one. I look at places like NY or CO or IL where the state XC courses are incredibly fast and we just don't train for that kind of course. I am sure the top runners from other states would run fast, but I am not convinced you would see many sub 15s at Kearney like you do elsewhere. So we train for the state meet, which means training toughness, which like Brian said does not necessarily mean being faster.

This is one of the issues I would like to research more. That is see the history of times in Nebraska across all classes and compare some averages to other states. It is also an issue to present to our coaches association and see what they think and if we can collectively improve distance running in our state.

I fail to see how this issue involves Ben Nelson. Unless he has some 4k or 5k training advice.

Whoever you end up with, know that you'd be welcome to run with our Creighton crew. We'll be out there running come hell or high water. We don't have an official track team, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to train like it wherever/whenever possible. There's always a way... If you're looking to compete on the track, I may get out there a couple times this winter/spring and our team will as well a number of times.

The state of NE is a football state. It has and always will be. Kids from an early age to learn about "Husker Football Culture". And the kids that do decide to run, probably are playing football until they reach 9th/10th grade and then they take up running because they learn they are not good enough to play football or are too small or other various reasons.

Football State wrote:

Kids from an early age to learn about "Husker Football Culture". And the kids that do decide to run, probably are playing football until they reach 9th/10th grade and then they take up running because they learn they are not good enough to play football or are too small or other various reasons.

I don't think your "football as primary sport" argument holds.

"Husker Football Culture" is about how work ethic and consistency of purpose leads to excellence. See: walk-on program. This culture is embraced by the state and, yes, symbolized through the NU football program.

If anything, I would assume this would generate more quality runners because excellent running is predicated on long term commitment to development.

Devaney wrote:

Football State wrote:

Kids from an early age to learn about "Husker Football Culture". And the kids that do decide to run, probably are playing football until they reach 9th/10th grade and then they take up running because they learn they are not good enough to play football or are too small or other various reasons.

I don't think your "football as primary sport" argument holds.

"Husker Football Culture" is about how work ethic and consistency of purpose leads to excellence. See: walk-on program. This culture is embraced by the state and, yes, symbolized through the NU football program.

If anything, I would assume this would generate more quality runners because excellent running is predicated on long term commitment to development.

You obviously did not go to high school in nebraska

cornfed wrote:

I'd suggest you go the source, you can contact Will Lindgren at

runguru@cox.net

. Not sure about the other contacts. You'll likely get no good direction from a message board though.

Will is currently on suspension from the USATF for valid reasons. Run with the Creighton XC team for your shorter faster stuff and search out some of the faster male runners for your long runs.

"Valid reasons" is such a malleable term.

would anyone care go ellaborate what some of the reasons were? even in broad terms?

How do people come up with these ideas about people getting suspended from USATF? Does that even happen? How would one find a list of people suspended from USATF?

Seriously this does not need to be discussed over the internet. If people want to know go to the source.

Chas - I'll be in touch. My girlfriend is going to law school at Creighton. I'll be moving in the late spring or early summer. I'm thinking about running the Lincoln Marathon in May. I hear it is a pretty fast course, but am a little worried about the weather. Most the comments on marathon guide are pretty positive. I think I'll just do my own thing when I get there but I'd like to hook up with you.

As a former TNB member and someone who used to post a log on ndorfnz I can give an assessment of both.

TNB: there are a great bunch of guys and gals on the team. I would say there is lack of structure as a team feeling goes. This is largely due to families and jobs creating conflicting schedules. There are a few small groups that form (usually groups of 2 or 3) and those are nice to train in. There is some travel support and Will was usually able to get me comped entry into races around the country. You automatically get 40% off Brooks merch which is great. There is also some free shoes and gear on occation.

Now, Will. Will is very passionate about the sport but is good at making an ass of himself. He'll treat you well but if he perceives that you have crossed him he can be an inmature jerk. I would take him with a grain of salt. When you meet him for the 1st time i'd ask him about this. I left the team after leaving the state and getting frustrated by injury and am not running competitively at the moment.

Ndorfnz: all that thing is a website to log your mileage. They have uniforms but nothing else. The guy that runs the site thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and is forever seeking praise. There is a lot squabling and belittling on the message board of that site.

My advice: look into TNB but with caution. Avoid ndorfnz like the pleague. Look up some of the fast locals (both TNB & others) to run with. They're nice guys that work hard.

Alternative: look into the Brooks ID program. Good shoe discount and no crap to put up with.

Please excuse any spelling mistake. This was pecked out on a smart phone.