Coach Mostert, aren't most of your kids LDS? Do they not have the morning "seminary" class before school that LDS kids where I live have? I want to do some morning practices but my LDS kids can't do it, plus they can't run on Sunday which is when my others get their long run in. We have very limited daylight in the winter afternoons since we get out of school at 4pm, so need to run some doubles in the winter especially.
Another HS coach wrote:
Coach Mostert, aren't most of your kids LDS? Do they not have the morning "seminary" class before school that LDS kids where I live have? I want to do some morning practices but my LDS kids can't do it, plus they can't run on Sunday which is when my others get their long run in. We have very limited daylight in the winter afternoons since we get out of school at 4pm, so need to run some doubles in the winter especially.
A lot of schools in Utah offer seminary as a class period. So instead of having seminary in the morning, we have it as en elective class.
Coach Mostert,
What time does school start for you & your kids?[/quote]
7:45 AM.
During the summer? Morning practices every day. During the school year? You're insane.
Another HS coach wrote:
Coach Mostert, aren't most of your kids LDS? Do they not have the morning "seminary" class before school that LDS kids where I live have? I want to do some morning practices but my LDS kids can't do it, plus they can't run on Sunday which is when my others get their long run in. We have very limited daylight in the winter afternoons since we get out of school at 4pm, so need to run some doubles in the winter especially.
Most have a release period during the day to go to seminary. If they have early morning seminary, they get their recovery run in before it (I did that my Jr. year in Illinois). We don't run on Sundays, so we usually do our long runs on Saturday. If there is a meet on a Saturday, we usually don't have a long run that week. Fortunately, a current trend in Utah is Friday afternoon invites, so we can race on Friday, and get our long run in on Saturday. There are times where I race my top JV at a Saturday invite in the varsity race and send the varsity on a long run.
VA runner wrote:
How many high school programs have double practices meaning before and after school? Also, does it correlate to the schools having better programs and performances?
I’m trying to get my coach to start having multiple practices to allow more time for lifting and running both, but he is not entirely convinced and he also doesn’t want to show up for just a few people at 6 am.
We didn't do it on a regular basis but found it very useful to do right before the cutdown for peaking.
It was a way to get a few extra miles on the opponent. A parent or I would buy donuts as further incentive. The kids loved it.
BYU Student wrote:
During the summer? Morning practices every day. During the school year? You're insane.
If this was directed at me, why is it insane?
Every coach I've had in both high school (Angelo Rinchiuso at Quincy and Dike Stirrett at Champaign Central, both in the Illinois coaches HOF) and college (Lee LaBadie at Parkland College - heard of him? - and Sherald James at BYU) had us do morning runs. Our program averages around 60 mpw, which is a moderate amount compared to many other ranked programs. Of that, about 30% is from morning recovery runs. The boys loosen up their legs, are fully awake for academics, have their bodies used to running mornings which helps at morning meets, and get the primo parking spots in our limited student lot, What's insane about that?
CoachMostert wrote:
Coach Mostert,
What time does school start for you & your kids?
7:45 AM.[/quote]
Coach Mostert, if this isn't actually some troll that registered Coach Mostert as a username:
How do you practice at 6:30 am? All of my Mormon kids are at seminary at 6:00 am.
As for my program, we deal with afternoon temps of 95-105 for most of August and maybe halfway into September. It was 99 for our mid season league cluster meet at the end of September this year. A couple of years ago, I started a 1 time per week morning run so the kids could get 1 hour of continuous running (which is hard to do when it's 105). It kind of petered out this year, mainly because a good chunk of my kids do seminary and others have stuff like zero period choir or jazz band starting at 7:15.
As to the coach who mentioned the value of morning runs vs. the value of sleep.....I think sleep is probably more important.
I went back and looked at some of my team's training from 2003 (a very good year for us). We didn't do any morning runs and still managed to get solid mileage in the afternoons. I don't know, it didn't seem like we had so many 100+ degree days back then, though. Damn you Al Gore!
OK, I didn't read some of the posts about Utah schools giving release periods for seminary during the school day. That makes more sense.
We’ve had 6:00 AM practice on Wednesday mornings for over a decade, cross country and track both. I expect all kids to be there, and they almost always are. We don’t double together—if they double, the second run is on their own. We have an early dismissal on Wednesdays, so they have a chance to do other things on Wednesday afternoons.
CoachMostert wrote:
Another HS coach wrote:
Coach Mostert, aren't most of your kids LDS? Do they not have the morning "seminary" class before school that LDS kids where I live have? I want to do some morning practices but my LDS kids can't do it, plus they can't run on Sunday which is when my others get their long run in. We have very limited daylight in the winter afternoons since we get out of school at 4pm, so need to run some doubles in the winter especially.
Most have a release period during the day to go to seminary. If they have early morning seminary, they get their recovery run in before it (I did that my Jr. year in Illinois). We don't run on Sundays, so we usually do our long runs on Saturday. If there is a meet on a Saturday, we usually don't have a long run that week. Fortunately, a current trend in Utah is Friday afternoon invites, so we can race on Friday, and get our long run in on Saturday. There are times where I race my top JV at a Saturday invite in the varsity race and send the varsity on a long run.
Release period? During the school day? How do they get across town to Church and back and how do they make up their school classes?
This post was removed.
Nor Cal 80 wrote:
We have a rule for our region that you can not have double days on consecutive days. Also max time spent for practice & competition is 18 hours a week. Not that anyone follows it but it’s the rule.
I echo the coach who struggles to get kids to practice. We have a policy that if you have an unexcused absence you don’t race. (A field trip is excused, you have a friend who needs a ride home right after school is not). We have 50% not race on a regular basis. Recently Parents complained about the strict standards and the administration said as long as they come to practice once a week they can participate. (I asked if this was also true for volleyball & football and their response was “those are cut sports and cross Country is a participation sport).
That aside I am doing by best to teach the love of running and am trying to create a competitive environment they want to be a part of. We have one optional morning practice a week the day before a race (they don’t need to come that afternoon). About 5-10 show up out of 60.
I started a thread where I gave some advice for new coaches in XC. I was immediately shot down by several coaches who claimed that "it is rare that football coaches take over a track & field head coaching position and oust the distance coach." Hey, any idiot knows that it's rare but it does happen and more often than people think. Please coaches the next time someone offers help do not shoot him down with posts meant to intimidate. What that will do is discourage good discussions because who wants to spend time devising a thread that will get past the LRC comedic juvenile team?
simple answer wrote:
... all the good ones.
yea, all the ones that take HS running too seriously. The same ones that ruin more talent then they develop, but those wonderful coaches are the same ones at NXN every year. They are legends in their own minds.
Terrytopps wrote:
Release period? During the school day? How do they get across town to Church and back and how do they make up their school classes?
In Utah, due to the student body being between 30% and 90% LDS, most schools have a seminary building typically across the street from campus.
It is generally understood that when a new Utah school is being built, the LDS church will buy land and build a seminary building within walking distance.
It should be noted that these seminary classes do not give credit, and so students may have to make up more credits to ensure they graduate.
Let me have the track in the am before work, otherwise its 6:45pm or later...and thats not fun.
we did summer 2 a days in XC, and XC/TF athletic period was first period and we would often get in some work there. for a couple years i would do all my hurdle work during the athletic period because i was doubling as a soccer player with after school practice in that sport. [they then insisted on after school work when i shifted to soccer period, at which point i got punted to sprints full time.]
personally i thought the AM period workout was overkill in XC but served as an interesting way to have two-sport athletes in TF.
at times XC wanted us dressed and ready when the period hit which meant getting to a school that was signficant drive away, unusually early, which i think denies your kids some sleep in exchange for what was usually a rote workout like cruise a 2 mile loop, run some strides, do some stretching. if you're later going to have me do 2x2 mi loops, 6xmi intervals, 1 mi strides, do i need that 2-3 mi in the morning?
i did think the morning summer practices had value, as it beat the summer heat where i grew up. but at that time when climate change was less, there might have been a hint of 65-70 chill in an august morning. now it might be 75-80 at dawn and rapidly heat up during the practice.
personally i think for a 2-3 mi, 5k race, a lot of what y'all do is overkill or pushing the point you make people sick. at minimum if we're pushing kids that hard, two practices, tons of miles, kids who might have other sports, there should be more attention to the nutritional/diet end.