NIKE HEARTLAND
We had an outstanding group race at the Nike Heartland Regional Meet in Sioux Falls last Sunday. The Heartland Region is the largest and deepest competition in the US with over 5,000 runners competing in the event.
Class AA is incredibly deep and nationally elite, as the Sioux Falls Lincoln boys qualified for the Nike National Meet in Portland by placing 2nd in the Nike Heartland Championship race. Libby Castelli (SF O'Gorman) qualified individually (Top 5 individuals qualify for nationals) and was followed by the two Harrisburg girls in 6th & 7th who obviously just missed qualifying for nationals.
We are looking to have individuals make it back at Nike Nationals (we had Simeon Birnbaum and Tamara Gorman qualify) and the long-term goal is to have teams that compete for national spots in the Nike Heartland championship races.
THE OPEN RACES
Our boys and girls raced in the Open Invitationals and had plenty of time in the spotlight if you were watching the live broadcast.
The boys raced first in the Open #4 race, which had 46 teams and 371 individuals. The races was about three times as big as our state meet. Our boys raced with poise in the large field and finished an impressive 2nd place, just behind Two Rivers, MN and head of Dubuque Senior out of Iowa.
Miles Brekhus was aggressive and went right with the front pack with a couple of guys from Kansas and Nebraskan. Miles ended up finishing in 4th place, clocking 15:58 to crack the 16:00 barrier in his final high school Cross Country race. Tate Van Beek had a break-though race, setting a massive PR of 16:00 to finish 7th. Aaron Letner ended his high school Cross Country career on a high note, setting a big PR of 16:28 to finish 23rd. Behind him was Evan Perrigo who set a PR of 16:42, who was also the 2nd fastest 8th grader in the entire region. Isaiah Geffre (17:10), Jeriah Alexander (17:13), John Achter (17:56), Dominic Wurdeman (18:01), Josh Uhre (18:36) and Brady Peck (19:06) rounded out the boys.
Brinna Sheldon led the girls race through the mile in a blistering 5:41. I loved seeing the risk-taking and Brinna was rewarded with a huge PR, finishing in 9th place in 19:03. Continuing her rise back to the top was Kadance Holso who had another improved race, finishing 13th in 19:06. Abigail Eisenbraun finished in 23:58 in the first big, varsity-type race of her career.
I'm super proud of this group as it's always tough to regroup after the state meet and set new goals for the Nike meet.
ATHLETE HEALTH
The off-season is a great time to get into habits that will not only enhance your performance, but enable to you enjoy a healthy life long after you're an athlete. So, get back on a quality sleep schedule, hydrate consistently and make sure you're eating enough food to fuel your activities.
Another essential issue unique to distance runners is the importance of iron in the diet. Taking iron supplements blindly isn't smart or safe, so if you're concerned about your iron levels, you need to get a test and the best time to get Iron/Ferritin levels tested is before you start training again.
90% of distance running is being able to move oxygen to muscles and if your iron (hemoglobin) is low and your reserves (ferritin) are low, it doesn't matter how hard you train or how much you try in races, it's not happening for you.
If you have experienced any of the following, it's a good idea to get tested:
general lethargy and fatigue
shortness of breath during routine tasks like walking up the stairs
negative mood
difficulty concentrating in school
reduced work capacity, ie. you might have noticed your running times are slower than expected or just be finding it harder than normal to train
poor adaptation to training
poor performance
All of these topics, including Iron/Ferritin, are covered in-depth on our Athlete Health Page. Look into each of these topics as small lifestyle changes can have a big impact not only your running career, but your general health and well-being.
Being a good runner is as much about what you do in the 2 hours a day of practice as it is the 22 hours you're not in practice.
OFF-SEASON TRAINING
I hope that if you've learned anything about running, you know that the most important part of the year is the off-season!
The best thing you can do for yourself and your team is to show up & work hard everyday. Don't worry about motivation, the weather or whatever excuse you might find....just do it. I've coached 20 years and no one has ever regretted showing up all of the time in the off-season.
Long-Term Development
One of the ways to ensure that YOU improve every year and that our TEAM improves every year is that we add a little bit of volume each year. In fact, we add just 5 minutes per run each year. It doesn't seems like a lot, but over the course of 48 weeks of training, it adds up.
We assign training- and progress training each year- by minutes, so please be accurate with how many minutes you are running each day; no more and no less.
Off Season & In-Season for XC & TF
I made this chart as a visual to demonstrate the positive and negative consequences of training in the off-season for Cross Country and Track has on an athlete.
The #1 key performance indicator (KPI) for high school kids is training volume; ie. how many minutes you accumulate each week. If you miss an off-season, or have an off-season with sporadic training, it's going to be monumentally difficult to catch back up to those that are training everyday.
There's one way to build your engine and that's through training volume. It takes time and there are no shortcuts; you just have to "Pound the Stone".
BREAK
You're required to take a two week break after the season. Take at least one week completely off from physical activity. If you wanted to bike, swim or hike the next week, that's fine. If you don't take a break, your body will take one for you later in the season and it will probably be longer than two weeks.
TRANSITION PHASE
We're in the transition period right now. We're just running. For this week, continue to run 20-35 minutes per day.
We'll starting adding ancillary training (speed, strength, suppleness, skill) next week.
GENERAL PREPARATION PHASE
Here is a link to the first 8 weeks of our general preparation phase which starts December 16th. You'll want to train consistently during the transition phase so that you can handle this important foundational work where you'll start building speed, endurance, strength and everything else needed to become a complete runner.
TRAINING INTENSITY CHART
Some of you will be moving up groups due to exceptional Cross Country seasons or you're just simply motivated to improve.
You can look at the training pace chart and use your best mark to determine where you'll be training for the first part of the season. The main "Varsity Groups" will always train at a level to place at the state track meet and then we adjust faster or slower off that.
You can also use this chart to see where your new XC fitness aligns with the 3200 and 1600m
GROUP MEETING TIMES/DATES
Our off-season training group will meet daily and I will give racing jerseys to anyone that's competing this winter. More information later!
Please let me know if you have any questions-