High School Pre Season Plan

That all makes good sense. I agree with you that the sprinters will often resist the 400, esp if they have the speed to compete at 1/200. That's probably okay from both a team scoring and athlete development standpoint.

for what it's worth wrote:

CoachB, just curious, did both girls and boys do equally good off of interval type training?

More or less. I've had more "high level" girls, but the depth of performance with boys has been better. I think the group of boys I have right now is pretty well suited to go out and push the pace on longer runs and could probably get a lot out of themselves by doing so. I don't think I have a group of girls (despite their good cross country season) that would be well suited to going out and throwing down solid mileage every day. For them, the intervals are a mental break.

CoachB, asked you on your other thread, have you looked much at Coach Vigils training?

for what it's worth wrote:

CoachB, asked you on your other thread, have you looked much at Coach Vigils training?

Sorry if I didn't answer that on the other thread. I don't know a ton about vigil's training. I did go to a conference where he was a presenter. That was pretty informative.

for what it's worth wrote:

Coaches that fall into the trap of thinking they have to have lots of variance of different workouts to keep their runners from becoming bored or unmotivated, will get just okay results, but will never build an elite program. You have to be able to take your "average talent" runners and get them into mid 16 shape for 5 k , when you can do that, you will have the type of program you are trying to build.

Why do you think that you can't develop "average talent" with a program that incorporates variety?

I think Vigil's training would work very well for H.S. boys. His taper and workouts he does going into championship season are very good. Book is a bit pricey, his training is straight forward I and think he's got it right. I think your

interval type workouts for your girls is on the right track. Mile repeats with good amount rest between works well for boys.

Let me clairify, I am referring to 3200/ 5 k training or longer distance training. Mostly what a High School coach has to work with is "average talent" and " work ethic" is what needs to be instilled in them for them to become above average runners. Much of the type of training that builds the strength to hold faster paces is done methodically and over time. There are no short cuts. If a coach has to provide a lot of "variety" to hold their attention, usually meaning the shorter/faster stuff, then I believe they will not build a great distance program.

for what it's worth wrote:

Let me clairify, I am referring to 3200/ 5 k training or longer distance training. Mostly what a High School coach has to work with is "average talent" and " work ethic" is what needs to be instilled in them for them to become above average runners. Much of the type of training that builds the strength to hold faster paces is done methodically and over time. There are no short cuts. If a coach has to provide a lot of "variety" to hold their attention, usually meaning the shorter/faster stuff, then I believe they will not build a great distance program.

The variety in my program's training serves a number of purposes. Variety (or boredom prevention or holding their attention) is only one purpose. I generally agree that for 3200/5k training, there is no real substitute for tempo, longer race pace (or slightly slower) intervals, and solid mileage. However, I differ in approach from the traditional Lydiard style huge stedy state mileage build up/single periodized season. Here are the reasons

1. During the fall, it is really not possible for my kids to run longer sustained efforts for a number of reasons. For example, most of my beginners in cross country are usually unable to run 20 minutes continuously on the first day of practice. Usually, by the end of the first week of practice, most kids have been able to run 20 minutes continuously once, but for many of them, it is a real struggle, akin to the effort required in a race for my more developed kids. If I have the beginners run easier or less, these kids won't ever get very fit but if they run more they invariably get injured. By necessity, I have to mix stuff up with them. (we have a huge number of circuits and body weight/burpie type deals that they do) They simply cannot go out and run what amounts to race effort every day for the first 3-4 weeks of practice. Add to the equation the fact that when we practice, the temps are usually beteen 90-105 for the first 4-6 weeks. A day that doesn't crack 90 before the 3rd week of september is a rarity. By necessity, I've had to come up with a system for getting kids fit without doing a whole lot of continuous running early on in their development. I think in the fall this system works out pretty well for us. Our jv boys have won our league title for the past 6 seasons. We won with the JV girls this year. We were the only small school team this year to qualify all 4 main teams (varsity boys, varsity girls, jv boys, jv girls) to our section championship meet. We have 720 kids in our school and during post season competition, we are lumped in with schools with populations of up to 1750 for the jv competition. The fact that we have been able to develop enough depth to score well at the JV level against schools with a much larger talent pool to draw from should speak to how well the multiple modality training develops a larger number of fit, well rounded athletes.

2. I just don't think it is super effective to focus on only one stimulus for extended periods of time in training. Perhaps for older, more experienced runners this is the case, but this is definately not the case for the majority of my kids. When an athlete runs a cross country or track race above 400m, he is relying on all energy systems simultaneously. If you say, "OK, for the next 4 weeks, we are going to go out and completely neglect X component of our fitness because that what an Australian dude did successfully in the 60's", you are missing the boat. I think you can develop tremendous aerobic strength without neglecting the other aspects early on.

3. Transitioning from one phase of training to another is problematic if an athlete has not been "staying in touch" with all aspects of her fitness. If an athlete does nothing but easy runs/tempo for an extended period of time, when that athlete tries to transition to the faster, race pace or repetition type training, there is a larger chance for injury. Added to the injury risk is the possibility of an athlete failing in a workout as we start to transition from the "pre-season" to the "competitive season" type training. There really aren't that many opportunities to actually get kids to do harder, race pace type workouts and if a kid pooches out on some of the transition workouts because she hasn't been exposed to higer level stimuli, then I've wasted training time and set the kid up mentally to fail.

I don't know if I'm even making the right argument here. Let me break down how a week of training might look on the pre season schedule I've posted. (We'll stick with the distance kids). Bear in mind that we won't be officially practicing at this point of the season, so I cannot force kids to stay after school. I have them during our 7th period of classes, which means that allowing for time to dress out and take roll, I have about 35 minutes where I'm assured that I have them.

Ideally, this is what a week in January might look like for a varsity boy

Mon: quick dynamic warm up, Easy run of 5-8 miles, strides, 3 core exercises (one for anterior chain, one for lateral stability, one for posterior chain)

Tue: quick dynamic warm up, easy-moderate run of 6-10 miles

Wed: quick dynamic warm up, progression type run of 4-7 miles + 8 x 40m stadium ramp for form/power (not run all out). Weights, heavy low rep (squat, clean, squat press, bench, etc...) + 3 core exercises

Thu: quick dynamic warm up, easy run of 6-10 miles

Fri: quick dynamic warm up, easy run of 6-8 miles with 4-6 fartlek type segments of 2-3 minutes inserted, 10-20 min of general fitness, body weight type of exercises

Sat: 7-9 miles in the hills

Sun: Off or easy up to 1 hour.

CoachB, no one would argue your points that you've put forward here. I also give great value to the hand's on expirience that you have gained in your years of coaching. Your base build is solid.

I lived in a valley area of So. Cal most of my life, the last 10 yrs. in N. Texas, so I understand the heat that you have to deal with.

Southlake Carroll H.S. is year in year out a top XC/ track nationally ranked program. They run Paavo training. Paavo training is very demanding. Look up results for JV team, JV would beat most H.S. Var. teams. Okay here's why I mention them. S L Carr. is in an affluent area and has a large enrollment. How do they get these soft kids with heavy class loads, to do this hard demanding sport at such a high level year after year?

like some other elite programs: brainwashing.

localboy wrote:

like some other elite programs: brainwashing.

Haha....to some extent, all good coaching has a brainwashing component to it. Your athletes have to believe in what they are doing to really buy into it....to really live the lifestyle that leads to success rather than just going through the motions of going to practice and meets....to become runners, rather than kids who run. Building the culture of hard work and belief in the process is 90% of the battle.

I honestly don't know that much about Paavo training other than it is hard and that the training is somehow tailored to the individual kid. Past internet searches haven't really turned up a whole lot of specifics for me...then again, I haven't really looked that hard either.

I try to avoid comparing my program to schools like South Lake Carrol, or Great Oak, or Dana Hills, Saugus, etc... It is more realistic for me to compare my program to those of other similar schools. For us, McFarland has always been the measuring stick. They have the same climate, same air pollution, a demographic that has less advantages than ours, similar school size, similar town size, one high school town. Interestingly enough, in the state meet divisional power merge, my girls team finished one place behind McFarland this year.

It's funny that you use SLC as an example of a school that succedes despite their demographics. In my experience, it is precicely those large affluent suburban schools and private schools that traditionally turn out the best CC teams. I'm sure people could find examples to the contrary, but I think if I looked at the CA state meet results, my point would be born out.

Funny you mention McFarland, got the movie as a christmas present. If the story is accurate, how did coach White with no expirience get such good results?

That part of the movie is innacurate. He started the team in 1980. Summer. Mileage was 80mpw. His "secret" is absolute dedication to his team. I've had the opportunity to meet him a few times. A genuinely good man.

Just thought I'd mention, I'm no fan of Paavo. I have worn out Jack Daniels book, but believe that he does too many hard workouts a week for H.S. runners. Girls seem to do better than boys with JD's training, imo.

I think two of the most important intangibles that great coach's have is the ability to motivate and the skill of running the right amount of training stimulus before championship racing, ready to run fast and feeling good when it really counts.

Update

We met for a hill run yesterday. 5 of top 7 boys from CC were there (the other 2 were out of town still). Point to Point run, mostly uphill, about 1000 feet of climbing with maybe 100 feet of descent. 8.5 miles.

Top 2 boys ran 61:40, which is almost 2 min faster than the top boy last year. The boys that showed up looked really good. No girls showed up. So far they have not embraced the off season stuff. The girls group has a LOT of talent. If they embrace the grind, they will be very, very good.

I am really starting to like the idea of a very hard group run placed smack dab in the middle of the off season. It is a nice motivator for kids to be out doing their mileage when they know that they will be meeting their teammates for something very hard in a couple of weeks. I think the next step is to make t-shirts for kids who attain certain time goals (possibly sub 60 on that run for boys and maybe 45-60 sec per mile slower for the girls), and/or create all time lists for the fastest kids up the hill. The only danger of putting too much incentive on an off season run like that would be that kids do specific hard training just so they can get on a team "all time list" or get a t-shirt. I wouldn't want to create an incentive to overtrain in the off season.

Map of the run

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=6774279

American Fork does something like that, but it's "only" just over a mile.

localboy wrote:

American Fork does something like that, but it's "only" just over a mile.

http://cavemanxc.blogspot.com/2012/06/grinder-and-other-news.html

I guess the're pretty good ;). Always nice to see an idea that you have being applied in a very successful program.

First week back to school went kind of like this (generalizing here for well over 20 kids, and multiple ability levels):

T: 3-7 miles pouring rain (some kids wimped out and ran 1 mile). 8 x 40 up the stadium ramp.

W: 5-8 easy + core (the weakest were more at about 2-3 miles)

Th: 3-7 miles with surges of 2-4 min inserted. This one was interesting. Top boys did 7 with 4 x 3 min at about 5:30-5:45 pace according to GPS watch of an alumnus who ran with them. Averaged 6:50 pace for whole run. Girls group hadn't run much over the break and was pretty tired already and only went 3 with some 2 min surges, but they said they felt pretty fast.

F: Team game day with all event groups. Did a decent wu then 20 min of elementary school type relays (bear crawl, crab walk, shuffle step, backpedal, etc...) with teams consisting of kids from each event group. I opened the weight room after school, but only 4 out of 48 kids (all from the distance group) took me up on my offer.

On Wednesday, I had a sit down with my more serious kids after their run was done and laid out the scenario for the next couple of months. It goes like this

Starting Mon, 1/11

1. 3 week block where they try to exceed their highest achieved 3 week mileage total from the cross country season by 5 miles per week. For instance, if a boy had a highest achieved 3 week block during the summer of 150 miles, he would try to go 165 over this three week period coming up. During this time, the focus will be simply putting in the miles with a little bit of core/strength training and 1-2 runs per week where they push the pace a little bit, either progression style or fartlek style.

2. 1 down week of mileage. I'll probably use that week to also bring in some more varied stimuli (more strides, more general conditioning, etc). This takes us to the first day of "official" practice for fall sports in California.

3. Try to replicate the mileage achieved in the previous 3 week block, but have a little more intensity built into the sessions and have a higher amount of general conditioning type of activities.

4. (first week of march)1 week backed off a bit. We will have a practice meet on 3/2 and then either a distance carnival on 3/4 or a relays meet on 3/5. Some of our kids will go to the relays meet and some will go to the distance carnival. All will run the dual meet on 3/2. Mileage will be lower that week for obvious reasons.

5. The next 3 weeks are a bit more unclear. We have a few low key invitationals during the rest of March and our league season doesn't start until the first week of April when we return from spring break. Ideally, We can get a 3rd 3 week meso cycle of big miles and solid aerobic gains before spring break. Spring break would be the 4th week in that cycle and ideally, would see some of our hardest sessions of the year (either that week or the week leading up to break). We'll also see a real differentiation of the training between the mid distance groups and the distance groups during this time period.

6. When we return from break, we are in a Wednesday dual meet / Saturday invitational mode all the way until league finals on 5/12. Races will provide the bulk of the "quality" sessions during this time. I want to try and limit the number of invitationals the kids run during this time to 2-3. It would be easy to race the good ones every weekend. Some of the good ones may sit out dual meets against week opponents.

7. The week prior to league finals will be mostly tapering / maintenece type stuff. The kids that qualify to go past league finals will stay in that maintenece type mode until they either advance all the way to state (would require 4 more rounds of racing after league for the 800m kids and 2 rounds for the mile 2 mile kids), or are eliminated somewhere along the way. The week after league finals is big for us, as it is our sections "Divisional Championship". Ideally, we'd advance some good kids from league to that meet and score some points at that meet with our distance kids. Right now, we have a lot of talent in the other event groups and should be able to compete for the small schools title with the girls team. The boys team could certainly score a fair amount of points at that meet too. League Finals and the Divisional Meet are the ultimate goal for most of my "good" kids. We'll have 1-3 girls go past that level in the distances and maybe 2 boys go past that level.