Gettin' into summer with some good training videos and some info that needs to be repeated

Tempo Running

Other than regular, steady mileage, tempo training is perhaps the most important type of training in a distance runner's schedule.  The purpose of tempo training is to allow the athlete run fast without incurring fatigue.  The training sessions are fast but they should not be very hard.  The goal of the workout is to run as quickly as possible without the workout becomming very difficult.  This means that sometimes, in a tempo workout, you have to back off the pace.

One tempo run will not make you better overnight.  The way that tempo training will make you better is that every time you go out, your body adapts to the pace you are running.  The next time you go out, the pace that you ran on your previous tempo run will feel slightly easier.

To sum it up, run as fast as you can for the distance without allowing excessive tightness or tiredness build up.

Here are the University of Colorado teams doing an early season tempo run. Please note that most of these athletes could run this run much faster.  The top runners are probably 30-40 seconds slower per mile than their race paces for the same distance.

2013 Seniors at the Supercross

Long Runs

Long runs are another important aspect of training.  During the off season and the early season, these longer efforts prepare your body to endure the harder workouts that come later.  As a general guideline, Your long runs should be around 15%-25% of your weekly mileage depending on how many miles a week you are running and the distance of race for which you are training.

Here is the Air Force Academy team getting in a long run on a loop that was originally mapped out by 1500m world champion Jenny Simpson

General Body Fitness

Here is a good video from the Arizona Wildcats Womens' Team. Some of these exercises should already look familiar to those of you who have been coming to practice so far.  Coach Li, the man who is intereviewed first is also the coach of Bernard Lagat, a multiple world and olympic medalist.

The focus on this workout is on strengthening the muscles that create stability and balance.  The focus is not on trying to lift a lot of weight one time, nor is it on getting big, bulky muscles.  Bulky muscles are great if you are playing football or throwing the shot, but they don't help in cross.

Our focus is on getting stable, lean, and strong.

Nutrition

Please visit and read the Nutrition Page of this blog. It's not new, but I wanted to make sure you are all reading and digesting (pun intended) the material.

General Guidelines For Beginners or Injury Prone Athletes

The number one goal for this group is to build as much fitness and general athletic ability as possible.  If you have not seen the Girls Progression, please follow the link and check it out.

Right now, you should start to experiment with running, push ups, lunges, sit ups, and any other basic conditioning activity you feel you'd like to do.  We don't start practicing for another two weeks, so this is a good opportunity to gain a little bit of fitness prior to meeting with all of your teammates for the first time.

If you can do a 3 mile run comfortably, you should do some of those.  If you can run only 1 lap around the track comfortably, you should do that.  Do not feel the need to rush into any specific level of fitness.  You have the summer to build up and get stronger. However, DON'T WAIT to start.  If you wait, then you will feel like you are behind the rest of your teammates when we start practicing in a couple of weeks.  If you wait all summer, then you will be far behind and you might feel like it is impossible to catch back up.

If you wait all summer and don't run, you will be prone to injury once we start training.  Your body needs the summer to prepare for the hard training in the fall.

A week for a beginner might look like this early in the summer

• Monday (Practice): 1 lap warm up, extensive core and drills, bleacher runs, 1 lap easy, short sprints, 1 lap easy
• Tuesday: On your own: Push Ups, Sit Ups, Lunges, 1 mile easy around your neighborhood
• Wednesday (Practice): 1 Lap warm Up, Ramp Sprints, Game Day, Running drills, Core, 1 lap easy
• Thursday (Practice) 20 minutes of continuous running, go as far as you can without stopping.
• Friday: Take a day off or do some sort of other activity
• Saturday: You might go to the hills with your more advanced teammates, but focus on running uphill without stopping then walking back down.
• Sunday: Day off.

Totals 10 ish miles for the week.

Later in the summer, your weeks might be creeping up to 20-25 miles total.  Don't rush to get to bigger mileage totals.  Make sure your body can handle what you are doing before increasing.

General Summer Running Guidelines, Boys and Girls, Intermediate-Advanced (1 or more years of experience)

OK, Boys

Here we go. 2 days into summer.  Hopefully, you've had two good days of running so far.  I hope you've already perused the Boys Summer Progression.  I'd like to fill in a few more deatils about the progression.

1. Any athlete with aspirations of making the varsity team, or of being a good JV runner, should shoot for a 500 mile club shirt this summer.
2. We are meeting 3 days a week.  Each of those days will have a different focus: Tempo, Intervals, or Long Day.
3. Those meeting days ARE NOT the most important days of the week.  The most important day is EVERYDAY.  Your fitness will come from a steady, daily, diet of runs done at a comfortable pace.
4. The other days of the week, you should fill in with as much mileage as you can comfortably do.
5. The mileage should come in runs of 4-9 miles, depending on your ability, experience, point in the summer, and how you feel for the day.
6. I encourage you all to meet up on days that we don't have practice. I know that Alumnus and former captain, Wyatt Mitchell, is interested in doing some runs out in the hills this summer as he prepares to run in college. Go with him.

These guidelines should be able to accomodate all of our boys who have run at least one season at the high school

This is what a week for our top dogs might look like.

• Monday AM: (Practice) - 2 mile warm up, drills, 2 x 1 mile @ 8k pace, 1 mile cool down, core. Monday PM: 4 miles easy
• Tuesday: 7 miles easy + lunge matrix
• Wednesday: AM (Practice) 2 miles warm up, drills, 3.5 miles tempo, strides, Core, Stretch.  Wednesday: PM 4 miles easy
• Thursday AM (Practice): Long, 9 miles.  Stretch
• Friday: 5 miles very easy + lunge matrix
• Saturday: Meet with team for hill run, 8 miles hills
• Sunday: off or very easy 3-4 miles.

Total 48-52 miles depending on if the athlete ran on Sunday or took a day off.

This is what a week for a 2nd year runner might look like

• Monday: 2 mile warm up, drills, 2 x 1 miles @ 8k pace, 1 mile cool down, core
• Tuesday; 4 miles easy + lunge matrix
• Wednesday: 1 mile warm up, 2.8 miles tempo, strides, core, stretch
• Thursday: Long 6 miles
• Friday: off or easy 3-4 miles
• Saturday: Hills with teammates 5 miles
• Sunday: off or easy 3-4 miles

Total 24-32 miles depending on if the athlete took days off or not.

2015 Progression, Boys

OK.  First time I've updated the CC blog in a long time.  I'm putting this up here so you guys can peruse it prior to our end of the school year meeting.

Here is the deal.  We have a good top 2.  2 guys should be able to get in there and be frontrunners at the section meet.  Unfortunately, about 5 other teams also have at least 2 good frontrunning types.  Christian Brothers, Bret Harte, Calaveras, Sonora, and Riverbank all will have 2 guys who could be in the top 10 at the section meet.  So, our front runners are going to be a bit neutralized.

How do we win then?

We have what only one other team has: Depth.  I believe we have AT LEAST 14 guys who could make our top 7 squad at for the championship season. I also believe that we will have the best #7 man in the section and likely the best #5 man in the section.

If we are going to win, we will win because our #3, #4, #5, men are better than everyone elses' runners at the same position. and we will win because our #6, and #7 men jump ahead of some other teams #5 and act as displacers.

Don't get me wrong point #1, Our #1 and #2 are as good as anybody else's.  They could potentially go 1-2 at the section meet. Daniel is the #2 returner from last years meet and Logan is a total wild card who could be better than everybody....or he could be in Virgina by that point.

Don't get me wrong point #2 We are not the only team that has depth. Christian Brothers, right now, looks like they will be the strongest team in the section by far.  They have good front runners and they have 4 more guys who are not that far back from their front guys.  If we are going to beat them, we need to have a great summer and continue to progress.  We can beat them. We just have to work to do it.

2015 Progression

You'll have to forgive me, but Google Docs keeps sticking in a mystery #1 above Christian Brothers in my rankings.  I assure you, there are no better teams in our division at this time.

Rock River Run

In what I hope will become an off season tradition, 6 of our athletes tested themselves against Rock River Road this past Saturday.  Rock River Road starts in the middle of nowhere at the base of the foothills and after 8.5 miles of flat and uphill running, tops out in the middle of nowhere in the lower foothills.

I plan to begin keeping all time best lists for this run.  To get on the list, you need to be able to finish the run. To be able to finish the run, you need to be doing your off season mileage.

This year the 3 who finished the run on foot were:
Tristan Edwards
Jared Williams
Wyatt Mitchell

Two more athletes,

 Dalton Santiesteban and Jaymie Jackson,  made the climb on bikes, as they are nursing knee issues.

Garrett Hartman sacrificed his chance to get on our innagural all time ascent list.  He, along with me, had to first drive to the top of the road so that the team would have a way to get back down. Garrett instead ran to the top of Rushing Mountain then returned to the truck.

End of Season Honors

Maddy Mays, Daniel Yanez, and the Varsity Boys' team all earned "All County" Honors from the Stanislaus County Distance Website

Great job once again to these athletes who've worked so hard.  Earning county wide recognition compared to all schools, large and small, is a very nice accomplishment.  Keep up the good work.

 The Boys Pack runs relaxed early in the section meet












Maddy, hanging on to a tough pace late in the Section Final

Daniel, running strong at sections and earning a state meet berth.

Huge Upset @ TVL #2!

Zehr, Williams, Mitchell, Edwards run as a pack

The big story is that our Varsity Boys upset Riverbank 40-43 after they had beaten us by almost 40 points 3 weeks ago.  But, the bigger picture is that almost every runner on the team had a great race and is now taking a well deserved mini break from organized training.

Here are the Summaries.

JV Girls Race

We were a little depleted in this race.  Normal top JV girl, Evelyn Gonzales was feeling sick and was not able to give a 100% effort but ran a brave effort to finish as our second runner.  Also missing from the group were 2 of our normal top 5 JV girls, Diana Brown and Karla Vega, both out with minor injuries.  Melissa Alcazar stepped up and took the top spot for us, beating her previous best time for that course by over a minutes.  As a matter of fact.  All of the girls who ran in the JV race set personal best times.

JV Boys Race

Our JV boys once again showed that they are far and away the best young group in the Trans Valley League.  Once again, our boys: Carson Boice, Jaymie Jackson, Logan Seagle, and Dalton Santiesteban placed 1-4 in the JV race.  The difference is that all of them ran faster than the winning time from last season’s TVL championship meet.  But, the JV team has more than just those 4 good runners.  We had a huge second pack, finishing between 12:41 for 2 miles and 13:06.  Jeffery Jackson, who finished as our 11^th runner on the day, would have been in the top 5 for each of the last 5 years’ teams.  Corbin Eccles was our 5^th runner on the day, and his time would have been good enough to place him as our 2^nd or 3^rd runner on the JV teams in each of the last 5 years.  Clearly we are chocked full with good runners at the FS level.  Hopefully we can translate the depth of our talent in the younger group into future success with the varsity group.

Varsity Girls Race

Once again, a race day scratch kind of sabotaged our chances for team success.  Heavyn Herroz has been battling calf issues since track season in the spring.  She has been running well lately, having good workouts, but tightness in her troublesome calf led me to scratch her from the race.  Once again, though, the girls who did run performed very well.  Maddy Mays beat her best time on the TVL course by a second, moving her up to #6 on our all time list of runners on that course.  Behind her, Taylor Gray and Sarah Daugherty significantly improved their times from the first TVL meet of the season, while newcomer Stephanie Garcia (formerly of Grace Davis HS) helped fill in our varsity pack.   Gaby Mays was our 5^th runner on the day, also improving her time from the first TVL meet by almost a minute. Our girls were 4^th on the day, but should be much more competitive at TVL finals at the end of October.

Varsity Boys Race

This race was a huge surprise for not only us and Riverbank, but for Scott Durham, who runs the Stanislaus County Distance website (the link I’ve sent takes you to the site.  Photos of the meet are linked at the bottom of the article.).  At the TVL opener meet, we were without two of our Varsity top 5, Austin Zehr and Jared Williams.  Both runners were back and eager to race at TVL meet #2.  To help us even more, one of Riverbanks twin stars, Emanuel Chavez, had injured his hamstring at a meet in Orange County over the weekend.  With us being stronger and them being weaker, I knew it would be a close meet between the two of us.  We got solid contributions from all of our top 5 runners.  When the score is as close as it was, 1 runner outkicking another will provide the deciding point that either results in victory or defeat.  We managed to win the most critical of those individual battles and come away with a victory.

Daniel Yanez ran the best race of his life, finishing the 3.1 mile course in 17:16 (a time that ties him with 2003 TVL champion David McKay for 6^th on our all time list for the TVL course).  He hung tough with the other Chavez Twin (Adan) and Alec Norling of Ripon for 2 miles before losing contact in the last mile. Still, his 3^rd place finish got the ball rolling for us in the team scoring.  More importantly, Daniel finished 26 seconds ahead of Ruben Paredez of Riverbank who had beaten him the last time the two raced (9/6 in Folsom).  Zehr finished 1 spot behind Paredez and 2 spots ahead of long time nemesis Kenzye Spears of Hilmar.  Tristan Edwards had a massive PR on the day to finish as our 3^rd runner in 9^th place overall (1 place behind Riverbank’s 3^rd runner Carlos Martinez).  Edwards improved his time over 1:20 from the first TVL meet and placed significantly higher in the field than at at the TVL opener.  If there is one performance that I can credit for our win, it is his.

We lost the individual battles for positions 1-3, but the depth that we have with our 4^th and 5^th runners was the deciding factor on the day.  Wyatt Mitchell and Jared Williams both beat Riverbank’s #4 runner Diego Ruiz.  At the end of the race, Diego was kicking hard and closing in on Jared and Wyatt, but our two guys found an extra gear and held him off.  That position battle sealed the win for us.  If Ruiz had outkicked our guys, Riverbank would have prevailed.

Our team is now enjoying a break from organized training.  I told them to take 4 days and just run how they feel.  If they have any small injuries, fatigue or soreness, they are just going to run easy, or even rest a bit.  Some of our kids are feeling great and have decided to use these 4 days to increase their training mileage.  All of our top 5 varsity boys were out bright and early Saturday morning for a relaxed 9 mile run.  We know that Riverbank will be better when we get to TVL finals and that we need to be better too!