Racing Season!
- Coach Coy
- Mar 30
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 30
I wanted to give some updates as we get enter the busiest part of the school year: track and field racing season. We just had our first meet of the season last week and from here on out, things go really fast as we'll have students going to all sorts of meets on all sorts of days in the week.
With that being said, make sure to follow along on our D-Crew Remind (join by texting: @stevensxc to the number 81010) so that you get all of the updates on practices, meets and everything else.
Runners: if your parents aren't on the D-Crew texts, please have them join so that they are in the loop.
Practices, Training & Workouts
I appreciate all of the work you have done (students and parents) in getting to all of the practices. We have, and will continue to have, some morning sessions designed for specific types of training that I want to separate from the evening session. We also practice on Saturdays.
Please continue to communicate if you need to be absent for practice and we can work something out.
Each day of training is important. The image below gives some purpose behind the different types of work we do; I added some descriptors to give meaning and clarification. It's important that you do not add any additional type of training as we operate with a delicate balance of stress and recovery to promote improvement and adaptation.
If you are interesting in taking a deeper dive into our training, you can check out some of the recent presentations and webinars I have delivered at coaching clinics around the US.
What I love about distance running is that, for better or worse, you get what you deserve. More than any other sport, you choose your own destiny.
This winter, we had a consistent group of kids that worked hard every day from essentially December through February. They met at our off-season program in the dark, cold, snow and everything else the winter months dealt us- and it's paying off.
The off-season- summer and winter- is voluntary for everyone (myself included) but it's the only way to see yearly personal improvements and be competitive at the state, regional and national level. I ran XC/Track in college, but in high school I also played football and basketball. It was easy for me to get back into football or basketball at the same level (or even better) with a few workouts or practices...but running is different.
Training for distance running is a physiological task. The majority of success requires the body to efficiently move oxygen to the muscles through a network of capillaries and mitochondria. This "aerobic system" requires consistent training over the course of weeks, months and years. Running fast isn't a miracle and you don't have to hit the genetic lottery: you just have to work for it.
It's important to understand that if you only showed up 2-3 times per week or just stated running a few weeks before practice, you may have been ready to train, but you didn't do anything that would make improvements in your performance.
You'll always improve throughout the season, but if you want to see big jumps and yearly progression, you need to train consistently in the summer and winter.
So, if you didn't like the results you got from the first meet, lets maximize this season and then fix your off-season.
Here's a simplistic way to look at it. If you want to improve as a runner, your Strava should look like this >>>>
(This is 19 weeks from Simeon Birnbaum's junior year when he became the youngest Sub-4 Miler in US history).
West River Preview Highlights
Miles Brekhus- This is from a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to share that Miles finished 14th @ the Nike Indoor National Meet in the EE Mile, running 4:18.76. That's a huge accomplishment and is the product of diligent, hard work.
3200m runners @ the West River Preview-
Wow...these were (by far) the best marks we've ever posted at this meet. The 3200m is a hard race to open up with, but we had some athletes that I thought were fit enough for the challenge and they delivered.
Several of these runners went through the first mile of the 3200m faster than they ran in the 1600m at this same meet last season- or all season.
Take off 12-15s from these times to see what these times would look like at low-elevation (ie. East River).
Big PR's in the 1600m
We had a group of freshman boys who that trained their tails off this winter and a couple of them already cut a minute from their best middle school times. Weston cut off 1:12 and Sam cut off 54 seconds. Gavin also had a big improvement, cutting off 31 seconds...Josh and John placed in the Top 6 with really good early season marks and Noah joined the Sub-5 Club- Awesome stuff!
Abigail made the biggest jump for the girls, PR'ing by 30s followed by Kayla and Bella who continued their improvements from XC.
The 400 Meters
Whenever we can take advantage of running a 400m, we do it.
It was good to see our speed is already in a good spot. Our weekly speed development sessions play a key role in improving out 100-400m speed as well as raising the ceiling for performance.
The 400m also provides guidance on how you can run the 1st lap of the 800m. Simply take your 400m and add 4-5s and that's the1st lap of your 800m.
Example: 60s for 400m = 64 to 65s for the 1st lap of the 800m with the goal of hammering the last lap so that it's just 2s slower than the first to get you at 2:10-2:12.
Plan on cutting at least 2s off these 400m times by the end of the season.
Making Sense of the First Meet
Don't compare times from the first meet from times you ran at the end of last season.
December, January and February will tell you all you need to know about your results.
Inexplicable performance? Like, you trained everyday in the winter and you didn't see the results. Check Athlete Health, particularly Iron/Ferritin.
Keep your eyes on your goals and continue to work hard to meet them.
Upcoming Meets Schedule
As always, this depends on the weather, but I wanted to post the link regardless.