Summer 2020 is Here

Hi Team!

After 2 "false starts" we finally get to start meeting, for real.  We have permission from everybody, but we're still going to obey physical distancing guidelines.  So, everything that applied for the last time we tried to start meeting, still applies now.  

We will be meeting in the stadium at 7:00 on Mon, Wed, Thu.

Running sessions will be followed by short strength / core sessions.  

On Monday, Black group will do their tempo runs, Gold group will do their fartlek runs, White group will run a 6 minute test.  

In order to educate you about the types of training efforts we'll do, I've made the following 2 videos.  These videos explain a LOT about the type of efforts we need to be putting in, but they don't explain EVERYTHING. So, I will be continuing to try and give you the info that will help you understand what we are doing 

Please watch these videos before the workout on Monday.

So, to summarize: 

1. To do anything well, you need to spend as long as possible doing that thing
2. Run too slow, you don't get a tremendous training effect, run too fast, and you can't do it for very long. 
3. Paces at the high end of zone 2 are in a sweet spot.  They are fast enough to create a good training effect, but slow enough that you can do them for a fairly long time.  The amount of time I'd aske you to run at each pace is as follows
• 75% - 30-70 minutes
• 80% - 15-40 minutes (could be broken into intervals of 5-15 minutes)
• 85% - 15-25 minutes (could be broken into intervals of 4-7 minutes)
• 90% - 12-24 minutes total, broken into intervals of 2-5 minutes
• Paces faster than that, we don't do too much of. 
• These paces are based on what you have already acheived on a 6 minute test.

The Covid 19 Lockdown Continues for High School Sports in Stan County

So, team. Let me offer my apologies.  Apparently, I had miscommunicated with my bosses and in reality we did NOT have permission to start working out.  ALL of the school districts in Stanislaus County had made the decision to re open (or keep closed) athletics as one group.  So, even though the County Health Comissioner said it was ok to resume outdoor activities, the county schools say, "not yet". 

I've laid out some guidelines for the month of June in this power point.  Check 'em out.

I've gone through the power point in this video I posted to youtube

Let me just summarize quickly, because I can see that the audio quality is not that good on the video.

• Black, Gold, White groups are based on how much you've been running these last 7 weeks and what your strengths are as a runner.
• All groups need to SPRINT once per week.  Something like 5 x 50 with full recovery.  Obviously warm up first.
• Black and Gold groups are doing one THRESHOLD type workout once a week.  Black group does it as a 30 minute tempo run, Gold does it as Fartlek at CV pace, something like 4-6 x 3 minutes at 90% vVO2 with 1 minute jog recoveries
• White group is focused just on building up their training mileage. How much? More than you are now.  A good guideline for training volume for athletes to aim for looks like this
• 1st year runners - 15 - 30 miles per week
• 2nd year runners - 25-40 miles per week
• 3rd year runners - 25-50 miles per week
• 4th year runners - 35-60 miles per week.
• These numbers can vary quite a bit.  I was running 50mpw by the end of my freshman year but I've had athletes be very successful off of 30 mpw during their 3rd or 4th year. 
• All groups should be running strides.  Black and Gold groups should do strides after their threshold sessions and then strides 1-2 additional times per week.  White group should just be doing strides 3 times per week in addition to their easy running. 

Since we can't get together and I can't actually COACH you for the next month, I'll be posting a number of different videos to try to teach you about the sport remotely.  

I encourage you to video yourselves doing your workouts.  Send them to me. I'll post them on this blog. 

Let's Run!!!!!

OK TEAM! We have permission to meet as a group again.

We'll be meeting M,W,Th @ 7:00 AM at the Dennis Wallace Memorial sign at the Hughson Sports and Fitness Complex.

Please view the attached video for instructions on how I expect that you will keep yourselves physically distant while training together as a TEAM!

Before we meet. I just want to say how PROUD I am of you guys!  Most of you have been grinding away at the very very early off season mileage.  Our girls team is putting up miles like very few other girls' teams that I've had, including our 2016 section champion team.  Keep up the great work.

I am so looking forward to seeing all of you wonderful people again and getting back to doing what we do best, representing Hughson!.

And if you think the pros are having an easy time with this, here's a quick video of Joey Berriuta of the Tinman Elite Team going through one of his training weeks without any of the big summer meets (olympic trials, olympics, European Circuit) anywhere on his horizon. 

Keep Grinding, Guys!

Group Exercise Restrictions Lifted in Stanislaus County

OK team, great news, the County Health Comissioner has declared that we are safe to begin outdoor exercise in groups provided that we maintain appropriate distancing and that we don't share any equipment. 

Sounds like a cross country practice to me.

This week, I will be checking to see if we are permitted to use HUSD facilities to meet and start our runs.  If we are unable to use school property, we will meet at Fontana Ranch Park

I plan to host group runs next week on Tue, Wed, Fri.  That is the 12th, 13th, and 15th of May.  We will  be meeting at 8:00 AM.  The focus of our first few weeks will simply be putting in mileage.  For those of you who have been getting in decent mileage, we may do something a little bit harder, but I will mostly leave that up to you guys.

See you next Tuesday!!!!

Setting Small Goals In Order to Reach Big Ones!

You guys are so far away from any races right now, it might be hard to get yourselves motivated to start running.  You're even further away from any races that count.  The connundrum is that if you aren't doing stuff now that will keep you in shape, or get you in better shape, you'll be in no condition to run any good races when it does count.

So, I'm going to write about my own training in order for you guys to see how small goals can be strung together to help reach large ones.

I'm almost 49, which means I'm basically one year away from 50.  I'm at an age where it becomes harder and harder to see fitness gains, simply becuase I've got less testosterone circulating in my blood than I did last year, and that year I had less than the year before....you get the picture.  However, since we've been on "Lockdown", I've been pretty consistent in my workouts.  I'll try to give you a picture of where I've been, how I got to where I am now, and where I want to try and go in the future.

So, for me, the long term goals are: 1, Break 6 in the mile again. 2. Break 20 for 5k again.  I'm super far from either of those goals, but I'm close now than I was at the beginning of March.  At that point, I was barely able to run 2 miles without any pain.  When we went on lockdown, I set myself 2 goals

1. Try and exercise 2 times per day
2. Get to where 2 mile runs didn't hurt anymore.

It took me a couple of weeks to get where 2 mile runs were easy and pain free, but on March 30 I was able to run 3 miles. So, I had reached one goal.  I still wasn't worried about how fast I was going.  A couple of days later, I tried a "tempo" run.  I went 1.75 miles in 16 minutes (slower than 9 minutes a mile).  So, my next goal was to try and be able to run "tempo effort" without any pain.

I'll show you my last 10 days of my log so you can get an idea of how I got to my current state of fitness (which still isn't very good).  And how I want to progress to my next fitness level.

On 4/11 I ran a 6 minute test and got 1350m. This gives me a tempo pace in the mid 8:40's per mile.  So, that was my goal, get to where that pace feels comfortable for 20 minutes 

4/13:
AM - Hike 5 miles at Red Hills
PM - 13 miles on my mountain bike on the canals

4/14
AM - 1 mile WU, Drills, 4 x 3 min on, 1 min off
PM - 10 minute core workout

4/15
AM - 3.5 miles easy
PM - Weights

4/16
AM - 4.2 miles total. 1.75 easy then 1.75 @ 8:47 pace on canal. + 4 x 120m strides
PM - Weights

4/17
AM - 2 miles super easy then mountain bike 1 hour
PM - Weights

4/18
AM - 19 miles on my road bike
PM - Weights

4/19
AM - 5.1 miles with Miguel Nuci (former national class marathoner)
PM - 4 mile hike in Mariposa (steep hills)

Totals for week
17 miles of running
50 + miles of cycling
5 days of strength training.

4/20
AM - 2 mile wu, drills 4 x 120m strides (tight hammy, tired)
PM - Weights (put up 210 on the bench!....best in years, 5 pounds off of lifetime best)

4/21 (super tired today)
AM - 1 mile easy, planned to try again later, never felt good, took the rest of day off

4/22
AM - 1200 warm up, 4k tempo @ 21:42 (splits of 8:43, 8:41, 4:18 last 800), 3 x 100m stride, 1200 cd.
PM - Weights.

So, over the course of  3 weeks, I was able to achieve a short term goal of comfortably running 20 minutes of tempo @ the pace predicted by my 6 minute test.  My next goal will be to comfortably extend that tempo effort out to 3 miles.  Once I can do that comfortably, I'll run another 6 minute test to establish a new, faster pace for my tempo runs and start the process all over again.

21 weeks is a long time to train on your own,  break it up into chunks, set small goals....you'll get to your big goals eventually.

COVID 19...No Track...Here Comes CROSS COUNTRY!!!

So, I'm changing the picture at the top of our team page to two of the greatest cross country runners in United States History. 

Pat Porter is the man
Lynn Jennings is the woman

Porter won 8 consecutive US Cross Country Championships.
Jennings won 9....and 3 World Championships

Both ran at a time when EVERYBODY ran in the national cross country meet (today, many of the top runners skip the national meet because they're pansies).

I'm putting them both up on top of the blog , in their muddy Nike gear because I want you all to think about the late fall, when it's starting to get cold and rainy and you are in great shape because you took this extra time to lay down a tremendous base for next year.

This is how the next 8 months are going to go down with the teams that we compete against.

• Many of the teams will fall apart without the daily motivation of seeing their teammates.  They will get to August completely out of shape.
• Some of the teams will be able to restart their programs during the summer, but will have lost a ton of fitness since we shut things down on March 18.
• A small number of teams whose athletes have the desire to be great and also have the sportsmanship, leadership,  and cameraderie to keep eachother motivated while they train themselves in isolation.....Those teams will be GREAT in the fall. 

Which one of those teams do you want to be? 

We finished last cross country season with about 25 boys who would be in the running to make our varsity top 7 in any given year.  Any one of those 25 could make the varsity top 7 this year.  It's just a matter of working for it.

We finished last year with most of our best girls as seniors.  They will not be back next year.  It's up to someone else to step up and fill the void.  Who will it be? 

Each one of you has a hand in determining where we will end up....and it's not just the projected top 7 who will determine it.  

• If you are going out and running on your own, you're making the team better even if you never score this fall.
• If you are texting your friends and encouraging them to run, you're making the team better, even if you never make the top 7.
• If you're reaching out to athletes that ran cross, but didn't run track, and encouraging them to run, you're making the team better.
• We're going to start keeping track of mileage again. You'll see I updated our mileage page

Most of you are safe to meet at a park or in front of the school to go for a run.  You just need to make sure to stay plenty far apart.  Huge shout out to the people I've seen out running in the last week or two.

Diego

Elizette

Silvano

Joe

Owen

Emely

I saw a girl in the distance, I think it was Perla

Marcos

You guys are studs!  Keep it up.

CoachB's Covid 19 Workouts

Hey guys. Time on my hands.  Trying to stay fit.  I thought maybe my training journal might motivate you.  Once it was announced that we were going to be out of school, I went back to keeping meticulous records of my training.  I'd eventually like to get back under 6 minutes for a mile....we'll see.  I said that last year but kept straining either my calf or my hamstring.  I had a brief hamstring tweak last week doing squats, but had a great run today.  I'll just have to be careful with squats not also :(

The day 1, day 4 stuff is from the 40 Workout Strength Challenge

here you go