SomeCoach,
North "Choke" Hill is North Oak Lane in a residential neighborhood in State College, PA. There are actually two hills going in opposite directions. You start at the bottom and run the steep hill, which is about 0.2 of a mile. Then jog back down, and continue in the opposite direction on the "flat" hill, which was 0.3mi.
I can't remember if it was 10 loops (20 hills) or 5 loops, making it 10 hills. I'm leaning towards the latter because 14 loops would be 28 hills and I just don't see us ever doing 28 of anything. One thing for sure, it was a very challenging workout.
While I agree with you that todays programs run fewer races, I would have preferred to run 2-3 fewer times than we did. Had I asked, Groves would have trusted my instincts and let me skip as many races as I wanted. After all, I had only missed 3 races during my entire college career.
A summation of Harry's schedule over the course of the season. Other than a couple fewer races, I can't think of any way that I would have changed things. That's probably one of the reasons why we were so successful. In the four years that I was at Penn State we finished 10th, 10th, 4th, and 13th at Nationals. That's with only one blue-chip recruit over the course of four years, and he wasn't a cross country runner. Take away the teams that relied heavily on foreign recruits and we become 6th, 6th, 1st and 9th. My senior year we lost Bob Snyder, our #2 runner to injury, a guy who would be 34th and 9th in the next two NCAA meets. It was a solid group of walkons that didn't take shit from anyone.
Hills
1) 10x North Choke Hill
3) 12x North Choke Hill
4) 12x North Choke Hill
7) 14x North Choke Hill
Fartlek
1) 3.5 miles fartlek
6) 4.5 mile fartlek
9) 4 miles fartlek
10) 4 miles fartlek
11) 3 miles fartlek
Repeat 400s
1) 10x400 (65) w/200 jog
5) 10x400 (63.5) w/200 jog
8) 15x400 (63) w/200 jog(60)
11) 10x440 (61,61,62,60,60,61,60,61,60,59) 60s jog
Repeat 800 XC
1) 6x800 XC 2:30 w/2:00 jog
2) 8x800 XC (2:10, 2:20, 2:12 ,2:28, 2:17, 2:15, 2:13, 2:10) w/3:00 jog
6) 8x800 XC (2:14, 2:17, 2:10, 2:21, 2:13, 2:14, 2:18, 2:07) w/2:00 jog
9) 10x800 XC (2:14, 2:16, 2:08, 2:22, 2:12, 2:13, 2:16, 2:07, 2:32, 2:15)
Mile repeats
7) 1 mile (4:34), 4x400 (66), 800(2:16), 400(62)
10) 1 mile (4:28), 2x800 (2:12, 2:15), 1 mile (4:37), 2x800 (2:15, 2:12), 1 mile (4:53), 400(61)
1.5 mile repeats
5) 2 x 1.5 mile XC (7:00, 7:06)
8) 3 x 1.5 mile XC (6:58, 7:36, 7:55)
10) 4 x 1.5 mile XC (7:07, 7:17, 7:14, 7:24)
Tempos
2) 5 mile time trial in 25:03
3) 3 mile XC in 14:43
4) 9.5 mile by-pass loop in 49:00
10) 9.5 mile by-pass loop in 53:10
12) 10 miles hard
Races
3) vs Villanova 5 mile XC in 24:21.6
4) vs West Virginia 5 mile XC in 24:39.2 course record
5) vs Kent State 6 mile XC in 29:01 course record
6) Penn State Open 5 mile XC in 24:01
7) vs Georgetown, William & Mary 5 mile XC in 23:54.7 course record
8) Central Collegiates 5 mile XC in 24:19 course record
9) vs Pittsburgh 5 mile XC in 24:03
10) USTFF XC 10k race in 29:33 course record
11) NCAA XC Championship 10,000m XC in 29:07
12) AAU XC Championship 10k race in 30:44