5 Things With Room for Improvement

Progress Before Perfection

In Part 1 of this series, I highlighted some of the things I thought our program got right last season.  There was a lot of good, even beyond what made the cut, but a few things still stand in need of some adjustments and improvement.  These areas weren't all bad.  I think we got many aspects of them right.  However, I want to highlight some of the imperfections and some ways we can hopefully address them going forward.

#1:  Weight Training

Let's start with the good news.  Last year weight training was in the list of things missing from our program.  As I mentioned in last year's series, in 2023 we mainly focused on body weight exercises, as mastery of those is in some sense a prerequisite for loaded exercises.  Strength and conditioning are not one of my areas of expertise, and so my hope was to find someone locally who could support that work.  

I did make some efforts and reach out to a few individuals who I thought could help in this department.  Unfortunately those hopes fell through.  I'll take ownership for not being more persistent, but I knew that the only thing worse than no weight training was incorrect weight training.  For that reason, we mostly continued with our body weight exercises.  We did throw in some medicine ball routines in the summer, and our isometric holds took body weight to the maximum level.  

And in the meantime I did what I could, which was to buy some books on strength training and start to learn.  That only gets you so far, but by the middle of the season I was able to trial run a few of these exercises with athletes sidelined from running.  In December we also hosted a strength program in the weight room that many of our athletes attended.  Since then I have read and learned even more.  And while I would much prefer someone with a background in weight training who specifically understands how that pertains to running mechanics, I do think we can incorporate a solid system next year, though I'm still working out the logistics of its final format.  

If there's any consolation, at the Boulder Running Clinics I spoke with Dr. Jeff Messer.  Dr. Messer not only possesses a PhD in exercise physiology but has coached multiple teams and individuals who qualified for Nike Nationals, including 2023 boys champion JoJo Jourdon.  In terms of developing strength, Dr. Messer actually listed weight training as a lower priority than things like plyometrics and hill sprints, both of which are part of our training to at least a moderate degree.  Dr. Messer did insist that weight training was impactful if you could fit it into a program.  Hopefully we can do that more in 2025.  

Our med ball throws on a neural days were a step forward in our strength training, but there is still room to improve.

#2:  Hills

Hills are a topic where my thinking continues to evolve.  We made some progress in 2024, implementing hill sprints throughout the summer and continuing them into the season.  We did a dedicated hill workout on the newly opened Fr. Biondi Way in the middle of the season.  

That being said, I think there was still room for improvement.  As the season went on, we made the hills for sprints progressively steeper.  I've since become convinced we should move the other direction and lower the grade to allow for greater speed.

In talking with coaches from some of the top teams in the country, I'm also not convinced by a workout of strictly hills.  Some of these coaches do a two-part workout of hills and tempo.  They also incorporate more hills into their long runs.  But none of them really spend a day strictly focused on hills.  A few of them also incorporate stadium stair ascents into their strength-building routine within the hill bucket.  I think these are all things our team could look into incorporating going forward.

While the hill workout we did last season was challenging, I'm not sure it was the best way to incorporate hills into our training.

#3:  Long Runs

Speaking of long runs, these are another area with room for improvement.  In 2024 the long run was a staple of our summer training.  We ran them all over town each Friday, following out-and-back routes and focusing on a progression element in the second half. 

As the official season got underway, we dropped the long run.  Our last one was in late August.  Some of that was due to our race schedule and the school calendar, but a coach I trust recommended phasing it out as races got underway to focus on race-pace workouts.    In hindsight, I think it would have been better to keep it in our training, even if on a less frequent basis or reduced volume.  Several of the coaches at the Boulder Running Clinics carried on with long runs up until just over a week before their biggest race.  That might mean being a bit flexible and creative with our training plan going forward.

I also think it would be better to move the majority of our long runs off of pavement.  The long run is the workout that by far includes the most ground contacts, and so striking a balance between unforgiving asphalt and spongy grass becomes important.  Dirt or crushed gravel would be the ideal middle ground.  The obvious challenge is finding a long stretch of that surface, but I think that should be a priority goal.

JoJo Jourdon currently runs at Wake Forest, but in 2023 his last long run came just eight days prior to his victory at Nike Nationals.

#3:  Supporting Female Athletes

If there is one item I hope to see in the "we got it right" category next year, it's how we support the girls on our team.  I think we made some strides here.  Last July I attended the Wildwood Clinic in Naperville.  That provided a lot of insights.  Some of those--like the Snocker--made it into our program.  I also shared information about RED-S and ferritin levels, and a few of our athletes did get tested.  Keeping in mind that in 2023 this was in the lacking column, I would say those are big wins.

That being said, I do think there is still work to do in this area.  That begins with connecting our female athletes and their parents with more education and resources.  Hopefully we can help them better understand topics like nutrition, mental skills, developmental changes, and the importance of a regular menstrual cycle.  I'd also like to find a way to make ferritin testing accessible and affordable.  The goal is to help the young women on our team become not only successful athletes but confident, healthy, and happy individuals.

This was one of the athlete sessions at the Naperville Wildwood Clinic last summer. The plan is to bring some of the girls from our team in 2025.

#5:  Mental Skills

Of the five items in this post, mental skills is the one I'm most disappointed about, as this was in the room for improvement category last year.  That's mostly on me.    At the 2024 Boulder Clinics, mental skills were a primary focus, and I came back convinced that this was the next cutting edge of our sport.  I learned about loose plans and visualization.  I even worked through a course on mental skills.  But when push came to shove in our training, not much changed.

There were some small wins.  The imitation Mizzou Tiger logo we used the week before state was a good mental image for preparation. We did visualizations before the postseason, but this should have been a regular element before every race.  I gave some general race plans for the entire team, but outside of a few special cases, I didn't help athletes customize these individually.  I did introduce strategies like "10 quick steps"  but skills require practice, and I didn't build them into our race-pace workouts.  

Going forward, mental skills need to be a primary aspect of our training that we work on regularly.  This became most evident to me while watching the boys race at Nike Nationals in December.  Given the immense rains, course conditions in Portland--which are always questionable--were absolutely horrible, making our state meet on Saturday look like a dreamland.  As the race entered into the last mile, the lead pack rounded a somewhat sharp turn.  Carroll High School's Caden Leonard--who's been featured on this blog before and was a potential favorite to win--was at the front of the group when his feet caught the mud and went out from under him.  He went down to the ground hard, as you can see in the video of the race below.

Caden was able to quickly get back on his feet.  While clearly a bit shook up, he rejoined the lead group and was a part of the final separation, ultimately finishing third.  In his post-race interview, Caden was asked about the fall and credited his regular practice of visualization with helping him be ready for anything.

While Caden Leonard's fall might have cost him an NXN title, his time spent visualizing prior to the race allowed him to recover for an impressive third place finish.