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.