Convert your time to other CA courses!

I found this cool little converter that gives a pretty good approximation for converting times from one course to another.

http://archive.dyestatcal.com/ATHLETICS/XC/CONVERTR/converter2007.html

I think I will start putting together data on how the Legion Park course compares to the rest.  It would be cool if you could pop your TVL time into the converter and get a legit prediction of what you should run at Willow Hills, or at Fresno!

Week 20 mileage is posted

We are up to 11,220.1 mileas as a team.  That is awesome.  I have not added up week 21 yet.  I'm really proud of the work you all have done this year.  All of the running is really starting to pay off with some seriously improved race results.  Let's keep it up and drive on through the championship season!

Go Huskies !!!

Hill repeat workout video

I have updated the team mileage totals.  Check the mileage page. 

Enjoy the video of our monday workout

If you don't like the music, tough!

Great day of racing at Hughson High. You're all invited next year.

Results page is up and running.

Time trial results and TVL meet #1 results are up on the results page.

Results page is up and running.

Time trial results and TVL meet #1 results are up on the results page.

Summer Period in the books!

The 100 day period leading up to our first meet is over. We have the biggest group ever to reach 500 miles (with one guy knocking out a 12 miler today after practice to get in the miles on time.)

Congratulations to all of the runners who put in the time this summer to make their fall seasons great.

I will post a full list and write up tomorrow after the meet.

Willow Hills Relays

Hughson Cross Country @ Willow Hills Relays

 

The Huskies traveled to Folsom this past Saturday to gain experience on the challenging Willow Hills Cross Country Course, home of the Sac Joaquin Section Championships.  The meet followed an interesting format which had schools enter their top 5 runners in each division as a relay team. The varsity relays were 5 x 5 kilometers, or about 15.5 miles total.  The frosh soph relays were 5 x 2.5 kilometers, or about 7.25 miles total.  The meet mostly featured division one and division 2 schools (with student populations over 3 times that of HHS).  Despite this fact, our runners ran very well and we brought home a number of medals.

 

In the varsity boys relay, Zach Morrett led us off with a strong first leg, that brought us to the first exchange in 2^nd place.   Last spring on the track, Zach was among the top 20 runners in the entire section, regardless of school size, so it is no surprise that we got out well.  From there, however, we were passed by division I power Folsom, then by a strong squad from Divison II Roseville.  The race was one by Division II powerhouse Del Campo, who returns 5 of their top 7 runners from a team that placed 5^th at the California State Championships.  There is no shame in us placing behind any of the three big schools in front of us. Furthermore, we were actually able to beat defending Division I section champion, Oak Ridge.  (I don’t think they ran all of their top guys)

 

We did not run a varsity girls relay.  As a matter of fact, we didn’t run any varsity girls at all. The meet was intended to be a low key intro to competition.  Our varsity girls who didn’t compete, simply ran a workout on the race course.

 

In the frosh soph boys relay, our team showed excellent depth.  Our boys placed 4^th (behind Oak Ridge, Del Campo, and Folsom). All 5 of our boys (Wyatt Mitchell, Jared Williams, Michael Sanders, Austin Zehr, and Daniel Yanez ran splits that were within 11 seconds of each other for the course that was slightly longer than 1.5 miles.   This shows very good depth that should allow our young guys to be extremely competitive once we get to TVL competition.

 

We did not run a frosh soph girls relay, but we did have some of our girls run as individuals.  Maddie Mays took home first place among the individual runners that toed the line.  Sophomore Kasey Renard had a solid race to open her season, while new runners: Taylor Gray, Gabby Mays, and Heavyn Heroz had good efforts in their first ever cross country races.

Practice Begins Tomorrow at 8:00AM

Meet in the back parking lot.  Make sure you have your physical paperwork up to date.

Fitness = Racing Options

Watching the Olympic 10ks it was obvious to me that the best prepared athlets are the ones who medaled.  This was especially true of women's gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba.  She had the best closing speed in the field AND she was the most fit.  As the race progressed and the lead pack dwindled from 15+ to 8 to 6 then to 4, Dibaba sat comfortably in 3rd or 4th position.  With about 550m to go, she decided that she was ready and simply ran away from the field.

Normally, great kickers need to rely on a slow pace and runners without a great kick need to rely on a fast pace.  The non kickers hope to tire out or completely break the kickers before the end of the race comes around.  Dibaba, because of her fantastic fitness, could have run away from the field at any point during the final 5 kilometers of the Olympic final.  She could have won from the front, won with surges to break the field, or won the way she did, with a 25th lap of 62 seconds.

So, how can we apply this idea to our own racing?  Simply, we must become as fit as possible and prepare to race using as many different tactics as possible.  Each race and each course calls for a sligthly different strategy.  Do we go out hard and try to break our competitors?  Do we run a steady, even race and try to catch our competitors as they die in front of us? The answer is simple, we prepare to do WHATEVER IT TAKES!

As a team, we have had the best summer of training we've ever had.  Now is the time to start taking those miles we've run and using them to prepare us for the stresses of the racing season that lies ahead.  We have the potential to have great success at every level this year: Boys, Girls, JV, Varsity.  I am excited for the possilities presented by this season and hope to inspire all of you to achieve great things.

Let's have a great season, Huskies!

Camp Video

I can't quite top the Katie Parody.....I just don't have the pipes nor the editing skills.  Hope you guys  enjoy the little video we made at camp.

IF this doesn't make you want to run, then.....

Katie Perry is wishing she wrote this.

Camp was Great, now its time to get ready for the season

We had a wonderful camp this year at Henry Cowell State Park.  This camp and this summer has been the best pre-season that we have ever had as a team.  I cannot wait to see the results when you guys start racing in a month.  I took a bunch of video while we were there and will post a link to youtube once I'm done editing it.

Now.  There are a couple of things we all need to do before practice starts on August 6th.

Get Your Physicals.  You will not be allowed to work out with the team until you have a physical and turn in the paper work.  Pick up the required documents from the office if you don't already have them.

Volunteer to Recruit at Freshman Roundup. This should be the most important day of the year for our cross country program.  The more solid, dependable kids we can get into the program on day one, the better we will be in the future.  Freshman round up is August 9th.  We will talk to the freshmen after our morning practice.

Sign up for the Fundraiser.  We will be doing a new fundraiser this year and I will need everyone to participate.  Through the month of August, we will be washing windows for 3 bucks a pop.  I expect that everyone will sign up for at least 2 shifts of 4 hours.

Another Oldie But Goddie

On Monday, we had probably our best practice of the summer...2 x 2 miles at tempo effort.  I'm going to post a workout done by Arcadia High School during their 2010 pre-season camp.  You will notice that they are also doing 2 x 2 miles (top guys doing 3).  This Arcadia team went on to twice break the team time course record at Woodward Park.  Based on those two performances, they should be considered one of the best teams in the history of the western United States.

http://www.flotrack.org/video/360636-WOW-with-Arcadia-High-School

You will notice on this some similarities to The Woodlands High School workout

Similarities

1. Good team unity and cohesion....athletes supporting each other
2. Solid work ethic.  The athletes seemed positive about what they were doing.
3. Although it isn't stated in the video, the Arcadia team was also in a heavy mileage/base phase when the video was shot.

Differences

1. I noticed Amar Moussa (one of the top runners in the country that year) encouraging his teammates not to over run the workout, not to go too deeply into difficulty
2. The coach controlled the workout, making sure that the pace was not too difficult.
3. I didn't notice any of the top runners falling apart in this workout, as happened in The Woodlands workout.

Bear in mind that we only saw one workout in an entire season from each team and that we don't really know what these teams did on all of their other days.  Both teams have a great record of success, so I can't really criticize either program.  However, I have to say that I like the feel of what I see from the Arcadia team a little more than what I see from The Woodlands team.

I don't post these videos so that you can see how far away from the top of the mountain you are.  I post them so that you can get an idea what the top of the mountain looks like, then strive to get yourselves there.  You guys should be happy to know that we do a lot of the same stuff as the top teams do.  We have been doing 2 mile tempo intervals for years.  If we really want to break through to the top levels at the state meet (which I believe is very possible over the next 3 seasons) we need to begin to develop the other traits you see in these videos.

1. Team unity, the ability for the team to come together as a unit and work toward a common goal, realizing that as new runners improve, they are not a threat to the more established runners, but an asset that can make the whole team better.
2. Priorities.  Our younger group is doing a great job of getting their miles in.  As a team, we are 1500 miles ahead of where we were at this point last summer.  We need to continue this and build upon it.  Keep the summer mileage up, keep the tempos going.  Encourage ALL of your teammates to get out there and run.

Oldie but Goodie.

I posted this video a couple of years back and it has been sitting on our video archive page.  I don't know if you younger guys have seen it, so I'm bumping it back up on the main page here.  The Woodlands High School, along with York High School (in Illinois) consistantly produces some of the top cross country teams in the nation.  They do it through hard work and dedication, building their athletes from the time they are in junior high.

http://www.flotrack.org/speaker/6486-juris-green/video/319098-wow-with-the-woodlands

I'd like to make a couple of comments for you guys, especially you freshmen and sophomores looking to develop over your next 3-4 years at HHS.

The Good Stuff

1. The athletes are at school ready to run before the sun is up, and heading out on their 6 mile cool down as the school busses are getting ready to go and pick up the students for the rest of the high school.
2. You see the athletes taking careful notes on their training after the workout is finished
3. The athletes are (mostly) able to run even splits for the workout.
4. The Woodlands regularly has over 20 boys run sub 10 for 2 miles every year!

The Bad Stuff

1. I don't really like to see athletes blowing up like Tom and a few other kids did in such early season workouts.
2. The Woodlands has been criticized for the fact that many of their star athletes fail to improve once they get too college, the main criticism is that the kids are pretty much burned out or injured by the time they finish high school.  I don't know if this is due to the fact that their high school training was so good that they more or less reached their potential as runners before graduating, or that they were truly burned out by the time they finished high school running.
3. I like high volumes of training, so long that you athletes can handle it, however, I'm not a huge fan of saying, "Group 1 has to get 84 miles this week".  I feel that we need to have flexibility in our training in order to avoid injuries and keep improving.

I feel that this is an excellent video at capturing a slice of how hard the elite high school programs in the U.S. train.  I think that you guys can learn from this video.  I think that you younger runners, with the mileage you are currently running, will see tremendous improvements like the runners at The Woodlands.  You are currently finding out that increased mileage = increased running strength.  Keep gradually building and see how far your hard work can take you.

Long Tempo Thursday

So, after canceling practice Wednesday due to bad air quality and opressive heat, we combined our tempo scheduled for wednesday with our long run scheduled for Thursday with excellent results.

Thursday's workout was probably our best workout as a team so far this summer. Great job guys.

Take a look at this video of Ryan Hall (top US marathoner for the past 4-5 years) doing a long tempo as he prepares for the London Olympics.

http://www.flotrack.org/speaker/78-Ryan-Hall/video/645471-Ryan-Hall-12-Mile-Tempo-WOW

July 4th in Atwater...racing time!

Not the greatest of racing days for us, but fun none the less.

Finding the Time

This week, I'd like to go into a topic which maybe, I should have done the first week of the summer.....prioritizing....making the time to run.

I know some of you are busier than others, but I can assure you, that no matter how busy you are, someone who is busier, is also running more than you.  Many adults who continue to train to be excellent find the time to run 70,80,....120 miles per week before work, after work, at lunch, whenever they can get the time.

Running is a wonderful sport.  It is incredibly simple to train for.  All you need to do is plan a time that you are going to run and stick to it.  Some days, you may only have 30 or 45 minutes to squeeze in a run.  That is fine, we all have those days.  Get your shoes on, head out, and after a short period to loosen up, hammer for the short period of time you have.

If you are telling me or telling yourself that you do not have the time, you are not being honest.  You are lying to yourself.  I know fair is coming up and many of you have FFA or 4H projects.  Those are no excuses.  Wyatt ran 50 miles last week and Jackson ran 46.  Both of them are getting ready for fair.  Traveling is really no excuse either.  Before his senior year, David McKay spent the summer in the Netherlands, but managed to come back in good enough shape to set the still standing team record for the pre-season time trial, then go on to become TVL champion.  Personally, I look at travel as an opportunity to run in new and exciting places.  At the very least, you can try this old stand by of mine, run up and down the stairs of your hotel for 20 minutes and do sprints in the parking lot.

There are a number of "varsity" runners who are putting up very weak and "un-varsity" type of numbers so far this summer. 

I've been watching the swimming olympic trials.  There are 3 teenagers qualified for the finals of the 800 freestyle, beating out olympic veterans.  I think some of you may learn a very hard truth this season, the same truth that some olympic swimming veterans just learned.  It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done in the past.  There is always going to be someone who is young and hungry ready to knock you off your pedestal.

Now, some of you are hopelessly far behind pace for our 500 mile club.  That is OK.  My high school coach didn't have us start running officially until July 1st.  Today is July 1st, and it is not too late to still build a very strong base for the upcoming season.  We have 6 weeks until we have to do anything truly hard (our first time trial) and another 4 weeks after that until our first race.  This means that if you've been slacking off, you still have 10 weeks to gradually build a strong base.

Some of you are ahead of schedule for 500 miles also.  That is great.  Keep up the good work.  Those of you who are consistantly running in the 40 mpw range are setting yourselves up for a great season.  Some of you are even touching into the 50 mpw range.  It is this type of consistancy which will allow you to make a quantum leap in your running abilities.

Week 4 mileage totals updated

For those of you who got your totals to me, thanks.  For those of you who didn't, a fat slap to the back of the head.

Weight Management and Nutrition

We compete in a sport where carrying as few pounds as possible, while still remaining healthy, is tremendously important.  If you don't believe that losing an extra couple of pounds can help your racing performance, put on a backback with 5 pounds worth of books in it and see how much slower you run with the extra weight!  This relationship between body weight and performance has led many an athlete down the road toward disordered eating.  If you take the time to do a little internet searching, you will find plenty of information out there about runners who have suffered from disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.

So, the question is how do we maintain optimal racing weight while keeping our bodies healthy and strong?  The answer is surprisingly simple for most American athletes, make a few dietary modifications and you are golden.

First let me tell you what not to do.  DO NOT deny yourself any of the major nutrient groups.  There is always some kind of diet fad: low carb, no fat, paleo, and many others have recently been popular.  While these restrictive diets may lead to short term weight loss, they are difficult to stick to and do not promote the type of life long healthy eating habits that we need to develop.  Your diets should have plenty of protein, carbohydrates, and fats.  Do not try to eliminate any of these groups.

If you are looking for an easy place to start with healthy eating for athletic performance, look in the garbage can.  In the U.S., most of us have plenty of wrappers from garbage food in our garbage cans.  Soda, candy, chips, and other fatty snack foods are a huge part of most our diets.  If you are looking for an easy place to start eating healthier, eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) the junk food you eat and replace it with healthier choices.  Instead of grabbing a soda (or Sunny D, or sugary iced tea)when you are thirsty, have a glass of water, or a small glass of milk or fruit juice.  If you want a salty snack, chose a handfull of nuts.  If you are in the mood for something sweet, grab some of the central valley's bounty of fruit.  Many of you can cut out 500 calories a day with those simple steps.  An added bonus of replacing junk food with healthy snacks is that you will be getting valuable nutrients such as vitamins and minerals if you make the switch.  While snack foods are almost empty of nutrients, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and milk are full of them.  So, in your garbage at home, you should be seeing less soda cans, chip bags, and candy wrappers and more apple cores and carrot tops.

The next place where you can easily drop a large number of calories from your diet is in chosing lower fat options at meal time.  Avoid breaded, fried foods at meal time.  The breading on these foods, although deliscious, acts like a sponge for the grease in which the food is cooked.  I will admit that the orange chicken and sweet and sour pork at Panda Express is very tasty.  However, the broccoli beef and green bean chicken is equally tasty with less than 1/3 of the calories per serving.  If you replace fatty fried foods with grilled meats and vegetables, you will not only chop out a huge amount of calories, but you will once again replace them with something that your body needs, fiber.  Dietary fiber is crucial for digestive health, yet most of our processed foods lack it.  Orange chicken and sweet and sour pork have zero fiber, but the vegetable dish options are packed with it.

Countless books have been written on optimal nutrition for athletics.  My purpose here is not to write another, rather to provide my team with a few easy steps to take toward better health and performance.

If you are interested in learning more about nutrition for performance, follow some of these links below

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09362.html

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/document/imported/42817.pdf

2010 camp video...Good Stuff.

Many of you probably know that in 2010, a young Scottish/Welsh lass named Scarlett McPhillips came over to Hughson with her dad for our annual training camp.  Her dad, Tom, demonstrating fine filmmaking skills, has posted a pretty cool little video of the adventure on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvS_1zWJj20

Enjoy the vid, and get those week 4 mileage totals to me.

1st Practice

Frist practice of the summer was Monday.  Second one is tonight.  Pretty typical first practice for you guys.  Run time was relatively slow compared to what you will be doing in a few months, but a solid day none the less

Gravel Pit (6.4 miles)
Caleb - 57:43
Mason - 57:43
Jared - 59:28
Michael - 60:00
Wyatt - 60:24

Aldrich (4.4 miles)
Trent - 40:11
Leo - 40:15
Adam - 40:31
Maddy - 41:45
Jackson - 41:45

Geer and Back (3.2)
Danny - 26:58
Tasha - 28:58
Carli - 29:53
Kady - 31:33
Heavyn - 33:05
Kasey - 37:27

Some of us didn't quite get the start easy and progress to steady at the half way point concept.  A couple of you guys were going too hard when you came in and a couple of you guys barely looked like you were working at all.  All in all, we are off to a very good start this summer.

Keep up the good work!

The Importance of Recovery

A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to see Jackie Joyner-Kersee speak at Cal State Stanislaus.  For those of you who don't know, JJK holds the heptathlon world record and is considered by many to be the greatest female track and field athlete of all time.  Toward the end of the presentation, one of the athletes from the college track team asked JJK if she ever worried about getting burned out of over trained.  As a coach, I was very interested in her answer.

She said, "I don't believe in burn out". She said she loved doing what she was doing and that she couldn't get burned out doing something she loved.

I've also heard it said, by a number of top athletes and coaches something to the effect of, "it is very hard to over train, but it is easy to under rest." With that in mind, lets look today at how our bodies adapt to the training that we throw at them:

Training stresses your body.  The immediate reaction of your body to the stress of training is to become fatigued.  As a result, right after a training session, you are in worse shape than you were before the session.  Your body doesn't really adapt to that training session until night time when you are asleep.  During the first two hours of sleep, the pituitary gland will release a dose of Human Growth Hormone (actually, it releases HGH all through the night, but the greatest amounts are released in the first two hours).  If you have undergone a training session earlier in the day, your body will release more HGH than normal in order to repair the dammage done during the session and become stronger so that it can handle more stress in the next session. 

The point is this.  If you give your body rest, it can adapt to tremendous amounts of training stress. As your body adapts to that training stress, it can handle greater levels of training stress. As you become stronger and stronger, you will race better and better.  I have a friend, a national class marathoner, who has trained at over 200 miles per week for up to 6 weeks straight.  While he was in college, he was only an above average runner at the NCAA division 2 level, but he gradually transformed himself into one of the best marathoners in the United States.

Here are some tips that will allow you to train hard AND recover this summer.

1. Keep a regular schedule.  Avoid staying up really late and sleeping until afternoon.  This type of sleep pattern reduces your body's ability to make HGH.  Set a limit for yourself.  After a certain time, say 10 PM, turn off all your movies, video games, computers, and cell phones and get some quality rest. 
2. If you do your running in the morning, consider a nap after that session.  You will actually get some of the HGH benefit from that nap that you would get sleeping that night.
3. Avoid too much caffeine.  If you consume caffeine throughout the day, your body will have a difficult time dropping into the deep, restorative sleep that you need to adapt to the training you are doing.
4. Eat low calorie, nutrient dense food.  If you don't understand this last statement, don't worry, next week's article will be on nutrition.

Let me be clear on one point.  Over training is a real possibility for athletes. It is really a very simple equation.  If your training stress, life stress, and the physical demands of your day are greater than your body's ability to adapt, you will begin to break down and your performance will suffer.  I cannot tell you exactly how much training your body can handle because each one of you are different.  However, I can tell you that your body will handle more training if you take care of it than if you don't.

I've just added a video regarding post workout recovery techniques

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=18221

By the way, Grace is 40!  See what happens when you take care of yourself??

Week 2 mileage totals are in the books!

OK. Week 2 of the summer is done. So far this year, our team has totaled 737.5 miles. At the same time last year, our team total was barely over 400 miles. Last year at this time, our individual mileage leader at this point was Ian with 67 miles. This year, an upstart sophomore who has never run cross, Austin, is our mileage leader through 2 weeks. Austin has run 62 miles so far this summer. So, our leader this year has less total miles in than our leader last year, but our team total is over 300 miles better than last years total for the first 2 weeks. What does this mean.... It means that more of you are buying in to the summer program that will eventually make us great.

Look at it this way guys:

The more mileage out team runs, the better chance that our team will be excellent.
The more mileage you run, the better chance that you will be excellent.

Right now, as a team, we are on the path to being excellent.

Run Fast, not Hard During the Summer

OK, guys.  Week 2 mileage totals are coming in.  I will have them updated by the end of today.  As a whole, we are doing a good job with our summer running.  I still have not heard from a number of people yet, but I'm sure that many of them are running.  I will add their miles to the total as soon as they get them to me.

Now, for this weeks training topic.

Cross Country running can be very hard.  Training to be excellent is very difficult.  Despite the fact that the sport requires such intense effort, some of the most effective training you can do during the summer months is not difficult at all.  In last week's article, I discussed the proper pace for your training runs (please read it if you have not already done so).  Today, I will talk about running FAST.  Specifically, the focus will be on development of speed, power, and efficiency. 

There are a number of ways to develop speed without actually running yourselves into the ground.  Here is a brief synopsis of the things that you can do to give yourselves a boost in speed without overtraining.

1. Drills and Striders:  This is very simple, you know what this is since we do these often during the season.  After an easy run, spend an extra 5 minutes doing drills and then run 4-10 strides of 70-120m at a pace about equal to your mile race pace.  Make sure that you take plenty of rest in between strides so that they do not start to become too much like a workout.  You are only focusing on being as smooth and relaxed as possible.
2. Easy repetitions at race pace.  Think of these basically as long striders.  Once again you will be running these after a normal easy or steady run.  After the run, do 800-1600m worth of reps ranging in distance from 150-300m.   There is no need to go faster than mile race pace on these.  These are obviously a little more difficult than shorter striders, but if you keep the repetition distance below 300m, you will not experience that much fatigue.  Once again, make sure to take plenty of rest between reps because the purpose is to keep your legs used to running at race pace without actually having to do hard workouts.
3. Max speed short sprints.  This is something we have not done too much of during cross country season, but we will do more of this year.  After a good warm up, or after a short, easy run, do 6-10 sprints of 40-70m.  Make sure to take full recovery.  On these sprints, make sure to focus on your running mechanics (landing on the balls of your feet, good knee drive, etc...) but run as fast as you can without your mechanics breaking down.  Although these runs will not really leave you feeling winded, they will stress your muscles and nervous system, so it is important to do them on fresh legs in order to avoid injuries.  You can do your easy progression run after that.  These short sprints can also be done on the stadium ramp at school in order to develop more leg power.

Lets look at how a week for this point in the summer, including some easy speed training, might look on paper.

• Monday, 6/11: 4 miles easy + drills + 6 x 100m strides (jog back recovery)
• Tuesday, 6/12: AM 5 miles with progression to steady state, PM 3 miles easy
• Wednesday, 6/13: Warm up 1 mile, stretch, drills, 5 x 60m @ 95%  + 3 miles easy run.
• Thursday 6/14, Bear Valley Run, 5 miles uphill, steady state effort
• Friday 6/15 Off
• Saturday 6/16: AM 4 miles easy + drills + 4 x 200 @ mile race pace (walk across infield recovery) PM 3 miles easy
• Sunday, 6/17: 6 miles with progression to stead state effort.

Total: 35 miles
3 days of fast running
3 days of progression or steady running.

Note:  This is the MAXIMUM amount of fast running and steady state that you should do at this point of the summer.  It is perfectly fine to have only 1-2 days with each.

The Pace of Your Training Runs

One factor that very often gets left out of the picture when coaches talk to their athletes about training is the pace that the runs should be done at.  Many coaches just say, "Go out and run easy on the mileage days".  This is OK, to a point, but if easy is the only pace you ever run, then you will not be getting the most out of your summer running.

There are many different books and internet calculators that can tell you what kind of pace you should run on your training jaunts.  You can google Daniels's VDOT tables or McMillan's pace calculator, OR, you could do this:  2-3 times per week on your runs, gradually pick up the pace to the point where you feel if you were going any faster, it would start to get uncomfortable.  For the more experienced runners out there, you may hold this pace for 5-6 miles.  For you beginners, you may hold this pace for one mile or so.  You will know that the pace is getting too fast, if you start to feel any discomfort.  If the run starts feeling like a tempo run, or a race, you are going too hard.  You are looking for a pace that you could go out and do day after day, for miles and miles.

There are many names for this pace.  I will use the term Steady State with you guys.  You may also see the terms "Highest Steady State", "Sub LT", "Zone".  The term steady state refers to the fastest pace you can run before your blood and muscles start to accumulate lactic acid.  This is perhaps the most important physiological variable in training runners.  Think about it this way.  When you race, you will be going very fast and you will be accumulating lactic acid.  However, if I am racing you, and I can only run at 6:30 per mile without accumulating lactic acid, while you can run at 6:00 per mile without accumulating lactic acid, and we are running at 5:30 pace; Who is going to get tired first?

During the summer, in your base mileage period, the more you can touch on this steady state training pace, the better you will race in the fall.

One word of caution.  Be vary careful not to exceed this pace more than two or 3 times per week.  When you are running at steady state pace, it is very easy to let the speed continue to pick up and progress into the tempo zone or even faster.  Running faster than steady state on a regular basis is one way to insure that you will be tired and injured during the fall racing season.

Remember, run fast but stay comfortable, if discomfort is starting to set in, back the pace down just a hair.

Welcome to Summer!

   OK guys, we are now into the summer training phase.  It's time to start getting those miles in.  I've sent home all the info you need to get you started this summer.  Now it is up to you to make it happen!  Let's rock and roll this year, guys!

Something to Stay Entertained

Hard Core Runner This is pretty funny. You've got to have a sense of humor about yourself...