Team's Weekly Activity

Training and Racing Videos

Elizette Ysias 2017 & 2019 TVL Champion

Instructional Videos

  • Videos that explain what WE do as a team. These are screencasts I made referencing info on this blog. 

  • Quality Training Circuits - All of my athletes should get to know these circuits.  They can make great cross training and are pretty handy when you can't train outside. 


  • An excellent series of strength and mobility (SAM) videos created by coach Jay Johnson of Boulder, Colorado


Quality Training Videos - Tempo/Steady State/Threshold Runs

  • We talk a lot about tempo runs.  Tempo runs should be done at an effort that is comfortably hard. This means they should feel difficult but controlled.  You should get to the end feeling that you could have done more.    
  • We may do Continuous Tempo Run as 3 time national champion Northern Arizona University is doing in this video.  Since the temperatures are so hot in Hughson for much of our season, we genearlly save these for later in the year, or we meet in the mornings to do them. Note that the NAU team is running at about 5:30 per mile, while their race paces for the same distance would be closer to 4:50 per mile. So, they are significantly faster than normal training pace, but significantly slower than race pace. 
  • Early in the season, we will break up our tempo efforts into chunks of 800-1200 meters, like National Champion, Louden Valley High School is doing in this video.  They are running at a pace that is slightly faster than their anaerobic threshold, but still slower than race pace.  Because they are running slightly faster than threshold, they are taking quick 1 minute breaks in between reps.
  • Here are the Kate Murphy and Lake Braddock HS doing a workout which is very similar to stuff we do early in the season.  Threshold (or critical velocity) intervals with short rest.  We will do this stuff early in the season instead of longer tempo runs because the heat after school doesn't allow a continuous tempo run.

Quality Training Videos - Repetitions

  • The purpose of repetitions is to get your nervous system and muscles used to running at race pace.  With repetitions, we get a relatively long rest so that we can comfortably run at higher speeds. 
  • This video with The Woodlands High School is a decent example of repetition running.  Although their paces may seem fast, the top group of kids is running at somewhere between their 2 mile pace and their 5k pace.  
  • Sometimes reps can be easy and sometimes they can be very hard.  It depends on the goal of the workout for the day.  Professional runner and coach, Sage Canaday explains how to do Hill Repeats.  Our hills in Hughson are very short, but still long enough for us to get the strength benefits of running the hill. 
  • At Hughson, we don't have many hills, so when we do get a chance to get into a hill workout, we need to practice all aspects of running hills.  Here's our 2012 team doing a "cresting" workout.  The goal of the workout is to run 2 mile - 5k race pace effort up the hill then maintain that effort and accelerate into the down hill. Please excuse the fact that everyone is stretched out.  I tried the "widescreen" setting. 
  • Repetitions are also a great opportunity to work on racing skill and tactics.  Here's a Workout Wednesday from University of Virginia where the athletes are doing cut down 600s.  This is a great late season workout once the fitness is already built because it gives us practice running faster as the race goes on. 
Quality Training Videos - Long Run

  • An old coaching adage says, "the long run puts the tiger in the cat".  Long runs are a staple of almost every successful cross country and track distance program in the United States
  • Here's an old one of a Stanford University Long Run. Interestingly enough, they're at their running camp and doing their long run at Sugar Pine Point State Park in Lake Tahoe.  This is the same place we run when we go to our camp at Lake Tahoe as well. 
  • Here's a guy named Soren Knudsen who made cross country nationals talking about Tips for having a good long run
  • NN running team has been putting out some great videos with world class Africans.  You'll notice a couple of world record holders / world champions in this video on long runs
  • Sometimes, we can do Long Progression Runs These runs won't be as long as a true long run, but some or all will be done progression style, at a higher intensity. 
  • Timo Mostert of American Fork HS in Utah, talking about the physiological adaptations that take place during a fast paced long run.  He calls them Capillary Runs

Great Races

  • Usually when a kid starts on the back row of the state championship with hip #22, he's just supposed to be an also ran.  Don't tell that to Jesuit sophomore Matt Strangio.  From the 2018 California State 3200 Championship...a pretty big upset!
  • 2018 was a GREAT state meet for the Sac Joaquin Section girls with Caitlyn McIntosh winning the Girls 800m in 2:05 for the 3rd fastest time in the nation.  Maddy Denner, Olivia O'keefe, and Elena Denner went 1,2,4 in the Girls 1600m.  Elena Denner, Olivia O'keefe, and Maddy Denner went 1,2,3 in the Girls 3200m, but there is no video of that race online yet. 
  • In 2011, it had been 27 years since an American woman had medaled at an Olympic Games or World Championships.  Jenny Simpson changed that in the 1500m World Championship Final.  She was so under-rated for this race that even as she was moving to the lead in the last lap, the British commentator from this video thinks it's the other American (who was more highly favored) Morgan Uceny
  • The Race of the Century - 1954 - in 1954 Roger Bannister and John Landy were both trying to the best first man in history to run a sub 4 minute mile. On May 6th in 1954 with perfect pacing from his training partners, Bannister finally broke the seemingly mythical barrier. In previous years the best doctors in the world thought it was beyond the limits of the human body. They genuinely thought that if a man were still on pace for a sub 4 minute mile, that their heart would explode causing them to die sometime in the middle of the race. It was believed that the then world record of 4:01.4 was the limit of the human body. Bannister proved them wrong. A mere 6 weeks later, Landy lowered the record to 3:58.0 in a race against one of Bannister's training partners. Not long after, at the 1954 Empire Games, the first 2 sub-4 minute milers in history would square off. A showdown between arguably the 2 greatest athletes in the world. It was called the "mile of the century", a bold claim for it only being mid-century, but it completely lived up to the hype. Bannister had a brutal finishing kick. Landy was more of a strength runner who won races by setting a consistently fast pace to run the kick out of men like Bannister. Both men ran a perfect race that played to each of their strengths. The result was the first race in history in which 2 men ran sub-4 in the same race. Bannister managed to out kick Landy to win, but it so completely exhausted himself that he collapsed immediately after finishing and briefly lost consciousness, he truly pushed his body to the limit and perfectly measured out his performance to run the best race possible.

Some good generally inspiring running videos

  • McFarland, USA Movie Trailer McFarland High School's cross country team has won more California State Titles than any team in any sport, ever!
  • Here is a little more realistic look at some of the athletes in McFarland  USA.  McFarland's Family of Champions
  • "Once a Runner" movie Trailer  Once a Runner is considered the best running novel ever written and is practically a bible to many elite runners. This was never made, but you can borrow the book from me if you want.
  • This Ain't Easy One run of a thousand in the training of an elite runner.
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