June 17 News and Notes

Recap of Last Week

Our second week of training saw a much smaller crowd with many gone on Operation Overhaul or the Europe trip.  There aren't too many things I would rank above running, but it seems like they found a few.

For those of us in town, there was still plenty of action.  Our veteran runners stepped up big to coordinate runs on our non-contact days.  I was a bit worried going into the summer that these days would amount to very little running.  But when I drove past the soccer park on the way home from Rozier's Monday night and saw the cars of our runners in the parking lot, it was honestly one of my proudest moments as a coach.  I would put it right up there with our performance at state last November. 

Medals and trophies end up in closets.  Race times end up archived in some website or spreadsheet.  But leadership, initiative, and self-accountability will serve our runners the rest of their lives.  We have some rockstar individuals putting these virtues on display within our team, and that's really cool!

There was plenty of fun mixed in as well, whether that was pickleball on Wednesday or our first team breakfast on Friday, where several of our freshmen were introduced to the team fixture that is Chameleon.

The Week Ahead

Next week mark's our final week of training before our summer dead period, and we should see most of our athletes back in action.  Once again we'll have contact days on Tuesday and Friday with a fun day on Wednesday.

Our Green and remaining Blue runners will complete their last circuit workout and earn graduation to straight-running aerobic work.  Our more experienced runners will see some of our advanced strength and mobility routines.  And hopefully everyone will have some sudsy fun with our slip n' slide on Wednesday.

Dead Period

The two weeks after this one constitute our summer dead period.  You can find a fuller explanation of that here and a snapshot summary in the image below.  But to hit a middle ground, students can still train, even with each other, just not on school property or in the presence of coaches. 

I know many families will use this time for trips and vacations.  That's the intended purpose, and in those cases, please adhere to my suggestions in last week's post.  However, for runners that are going to be in town just hanging around, I strongly recommend that they still train.  The popular rule of thumb is that for every day of training a runner misses, they move backwards a day.  That means for many of our runners who have shown up to summer training consistently so far, doing nothing for the next two weeks would leave them fairly close fitness-wise to where they were on June 3.

By the end of this week I should have some training suggestions here on the website.  Our veteran runners should also be organizing some opportunities to train together, so interested runners should keep an eye on the athlete group chat.

This blog and other channels of team communication will take a break for the next two weeks.  Parents are still free to contact me and get a response, but there won't be any communication otherwise.

​Meet Schedule

At this point I am 99% sure our meet schedule is set.  While I'd prefer 100%, it's probably high enough to release something official.  

I did post a tentative schedule a few months ago.  A few changes have transpired since then.  First, the date of our Homecoming shifted.  The dance was originally scheduled on the same Saturday as our Conference Meet, which obviously created some issues.  However, that is no longer a concern, and so currently the plan is for all of our runners to race at Conference.

We had originally added the Northwest Last Chance Meet the Wednesday after Conference as a race opportunity for those who didn't run at Conference.  However, now it will be used--true to it's name--as a last race for those who won't be competing at Districts.  

The new dates of Homecoming Week do create a different conflict.  Like last year, Bonfire will fall on the same date as the Woodland Meet, and so once again we will not be racing there.  I know many of our runners really enjoy that meet, so hopefully next year we will be able to return.

Lastly, this year Perryville moved their meet from Tuesday to Monday.  I'm not a huge fan of Monday races, and it does create a shorter break following the Van Buren Meet the Wednesday before, but we can make it work.  As I discussed in our season recap, my preference is always at least a week of rest between races.  The current schedule of Van Buren, Perryville, and Notre Dame now has consecutive races on five days of rest, which I think is inadvisable.  

To avoid overtaxing our runners, most of our athletes will only run two of these three races.  As these races approach, we will work with runners to determine which ones they will compete in.  All runners will still attend all three races.  If they aren't racing at a meet, they will complete a workout on the course.

Progressive Overload

This section is really meant as a prologue to the next two.  The purpose of summer training is to build up to the distances and paces our races demand in a way that is likely to produce the highest ultimate performance when it matters most and the lowest risk of injury.  

This is often referred to as progressive overload.  Runners overload by training at volume and intensity greater than their current fitness level.  This requires the body to adapt and rise to a new fitness level.  But that overload progresses in manageable increments so as not to give the body more than it can handle.  

That looks a little different from runner to runner, but our summer training is structured with the intention of helping each athlete progress suitably to new levels.  You can read more about that here.

​Summer Camps

I think this notion of progressive overload provides the right backdrop to address two interrelated topics.  

Some athletes look to attend summer running camps.  I want to start by saying there are good elements to these.  They help athletes connect with others (sometimes from across the country) who are also excited about running.  Numerous times at meets I've seen our runners cross paths with athletes they met at camps, and it is evident that a lasting bond was formed.

That being said, more and more I've developed some substantial reservations about camps.  First, these camps are often quite expensive.  Some are only a couple hundred dollars, while others cost over a thousand before even taking into consideration travel and in some cases food or lodging.   That's a lot of money, and I often wonder whether in most cases it's actually worth it.

That's because of the other concerns.  Quite often the training philosophy/approach of a camp doesn't align with that of the program an athlete comes from.  I don't personally believe there is one right way to train, evident from the differences amongst the top programs in the country.  There are certainly inadvisable ways to train, and sadly many camps incorporate them.  But even if a camp has a sound approach, it has runners coming from dozens if not hundreds of programs.  Its approach is almost certain to be out of alignment with what many of these runners have received, and understandably very few camps adapt or accommodate to a runner's previous training. 

The number one common element of every successful approach is consistency.   When a camp's approach is at odds with a runner's summer training, it introduces inconsistency.  That places runners at decreased likelihood of improvement and much greater risk of injury.

This dovetails into my final concern.  Because of their high cost and limited duration--some last as little as two days and very few more than a week--the pressure exists to jam pack quantity.  A camp might have runners doing two-a-day workouts.  Runners often want to prove themselves in front of other athletes, so they end up running at volumes and intensities way higher than in the weeks leading up to the camp.  Some camps even conclude with what is explicitly or implicitly a race (see more about that below).  Without a lot of discipline and discernment, a runner's experience at camp can send progressive overload right down the drain.

To make matters worse, camps can get runners really excited about running.  That's actually great, but it has to be channeled.  Many runners associate the community and passion they found at camp with the workload.  They come back from camp and immediately want to maintain the same intensity and volume they experienced there, if not worse yet amplify it.  Most runners can probably survive a week of overtraining if they respond with additional rest.  But if that overtraining continues or even increases, they are on a runaway train toward injury and burnout.  

Does that mean runners shouldn't attend camps?  I'm tempted to go that far, especially with camps where the primary focus is training.  Very few runners in elite programs go to these sort of camps.  If they do, it's probably one of a handful of camps in the country with costs that would make our school tuition seem very affordable.  More often, elite runners seek out experiences that can support a wide array of training approaches, like clinics that address nutrition or sports psychology.  

If an athlete does attend a running camp, my two suggestions are to 1) be conservative and 2) allow oneself additional rest afterwards.  Ambition is going to steer a runner to a certain intensity or volume at camp.  They should take a step or two off of that.  They'll still meet lots of friends and leave excited for running, but without the strain of overtraining.  After camp, an athlete should take the next day or two off of running, and make the day or two after that easy days.  They can see how recovered they feel at that point and return to running at the levels before camp, not during it.

One of the few camps I've seen repeatedly mentioned by elite coaches is Project Gold on the campus of Northern Arizona University. Check out that price tag!!!

​Summer Races

The other event that can introduce inconsistency to a runner's training is summer racing.  Like camps, there are good aspects to these races.  Generally they are fun ... probably more fun in most cases than a fartlek workout.  The majority of local 5ks also serve as fundraisers for great causes worthy of support.

However, many people don't recognize that a 5k race run at max effort is effectively a really hard workout ... a redline, go-to-the-well sort of workout.  In my post on our hard summer workouts, I explained why these are generally workouts to avoid, especially in the summer. 

One reason is that our training so far hasn't progressed to that level of overload.   Right now even our most experienced runners are only doing workouts with around ten minutes total at 5k effort, broken up into 2-minute chunks separated by easier running.  To think that a runner can safely handle the roughly 20 minutes of 5k effort at this point in the summer with no consequence betrays a belief that summer training isn't important or necessary.  We might as well just show up in August a week or two before our first race.  Instead, top runners know they have to build up to that level of demand if they want to stay healthy and reach optimal performance at the right time.
 
Furthermore, max-effort workouts require too long of a recovery for an ideal sequencing of training stimuli, effectively introducing inconsistency to summer training.

These sorts of workouts require a fully recovered runner.  They also typically demand at minimum 2-3 days recovery afterwards before anything difficult.  Very rarely have I seen this structure adhered to with summer races.  Most of these races are on Saturdays.  Our long runs--a moderately difficult workout in themselves, are on Fridays.  If a runner races the day after a long run, they're asking for a terrible race, if not an injury.  If they skip the long run, they've forfeited an important training stimulus for endurance and resilience.  At this point in the summer, a runner might not even be able to fully recover in time for the workout the following Tuesday, which also creates injury risk and/or compromises progress on the back end.

Lastly, summer races tend to lead runners to peak too soon.  The common opinion among coaches is that distance runners can only maintain their peak fitness for 2-3 weeks before falling off.  For most of our runners, we want those two weeks to be districts and state.  Racing all out in the summer will push forward the onset of that peak.  We've raced against teams that go too hard too soon.  They beat us (often handedly) early in the season, but at the big races that matter late in the season, we generally return the favor twofold.  

So am I saying runners should avoid summer races like the plague?  Not necessarily, but like camps, I would offer some guidance:

1)  Run, Don't Race:  If there's a 5k for a worthy cause or that sounds fun, sign up.  But don't run it as a race.  If one's training has progressed to that duration, they could do it as an easy run (or maybe if it's Saturday, as a day-late long run).  If someone's not there yet, maybe walk part and run the other part easy.  

2)  Be Mindful of MSHSAA Regulations:  During our official season (August 12-November 9), runners are only allowed to participate in two non-school competitions.  That includes community 5k races like the Mid-America 5k.  Those restrictions don't apply during the summer, but the state's policies on amateurism are in effect year-round.  These are serious policies that carry potential penalties for violation like forfeiture of school races or up to a 365-day suspension from cross country. There are a few things worth noting in them:

-At no point should a runner accept cash, gift cards, or cash-equivalent prizes in conjunction with their running.  If a community race offers a runner cash or a gift card for finishing in a certain place or even as a door prize, they should not accept it.  That includes giving it to someone else.

-If a race offers a physical merchandise item (shoes, gym bag, shorts, etc.) as a prize, a runner may accept such a prize(s) once a month so long as the total suggested retail price of the items does not exceed $250. ​

-Medals, trophies, ribbons, certificates, etc. are all fine to receive.

These state policies drew national attention last fall when MSHSAA required Houston High School's volleyball team to forfeit its district title because three of its players had participated in a fundraiser volleyball tournament. Even though in the end the school got to keep its title, that came after a media firestorm, a court-issued restraining order, and an emotional and financial cost that our school would much rather avoid.

​What Coach Learned

Last week I got to listen to an interview on the Strength Running Podcast with Jay Dicharry, author of Anatomy for Runners and Running Rewired, as well as developer of the MOBO Board.  The discussion focused primarily on bone and tendon health.  As someone whose biggest running injury was a metatarsal stress fracture in high school, I took a great deal of interest.

From my own injury journey, I knew that running put strain on a bones, but I had also been taught that progressively building up one's running volume could strengthen bones and make them less susceptible to injury.  According to Dicharry, the latest research indicates otherwise.  The combination of load (the amount of force the bones are experiencing) and time-on-ground (how long they experience that force) doesn't trigger strengthening responses at the cellular level of the bone.

Instead, Dicharry recommends plyometrics for this end, but he specifically encourages exercises done at low heights with quick explosion.  An example he gives his a split-stance alternating jump using a curb or something of comparable height.  He also insists that these must be done prior to running to see considerable benefit.

For tendon improvement, he suggests the opposite approach of slowing down the motion.  This might mean a heel raise/drop that takes 6 seconds per rep ... much much more time than in our warmup.  That might be more reasonable to insert on the back end of a run, though I'm still thinking through what that would look like.

And the line from the interview that got me to laugh:  "You don't blame your shorts because your butt isn't strong.  Your body needs to show up.  Don't blame your shoes for your lack of foot coordination and stability."  

Hopefully our barefoot routines provide some opportunities for our runners' feet to show up!