|
We've spent the last two months exploring our summer training structure. But with our team moving into that training, the focus of the blog will be more as a newsletter. It made sense to have the multitude of posts and announcements consolidated into a one-stop shop for the week, much akin to our school's Sunday message. This structure is still very much a work in progress, so we'll see how it goes. This first one will probably have a bit more (at least new) information than later weeks, but here we go! Recap of Last WeekOur summer training kicked off last Monday and made a tour of town, with sessions at the high school, lake trail, soccer park, and Higher Education Center. We saw lots of strength and mobility work, plenty of time with our shoes and socks off, and even some running at race effort. We also learned about teamwork, trust, and dependance with help from blindfolds and a few jars of peanut butter.  Last Monday we kicked off our summer training. We were able to dodge the storms and saw some quality turnout that held up well through the week. We had 18 different students make it to at least one day of training. In addition, four of our freshmen made it to all five days and earned their summer training shirt.
There were plenty of treats as well, from protein-packed peanut butter bars to some Luna's to close out the week. Overall it set the tone for a lot more food, fun, and fast running to come!  The Week AheadThis week sees many of our runners away at Operation Overhaul. The commitment to faith and service there aligns perfectly with our team culture, and so we pray they have safe travels and a transformative experience! We'll also see a few of our senior runners turn cross country into cross globe as they depart for our school's trip to Europe. We wish them the best as well. Maybe they'll even run into a few Olympians to glean some training tips from! For those remaining in town, there will still be plenty of running. However, our contact days will drop down to the standard summer pattern of Tuesdays and Fridays to comply with MSHSAA regulations. You can read more about that here.  Our workouts will move to the morning, but we'll see more circuit work and another long run, plus some pickleball for fun. We'll close out the week with a team breakfast following our long run. Runners should bring $2 to enjoy games and plenty of nutritious and delicious food.  Home Meet ChangesOur home meet is one of the first races of the season. And while I know this year will feature another great experience for teams, there will be a few changes from previous meets. Those include a move from Wednesday to Thursday, a slightly adjusted course, and the addition of middle school races. These changes were made based on practical considerations as well as on the feedback of parents, athletes, and other teams. You can read more about all of that here.  One of the cool things about using our course all season last year is that now you can see it from space! PhysicalsMSHSAA requires the completion of two forms before athletes can participate in official practices when the season kicks off on August 12. The first is a pre-participation form giving consent for a student to participate in athletics. This is completed by the student and a parent/guardian. The second is the actual physical form. The first two pages are completed by the student/parent prior to the physical examination. The third and fifth pages are completed by the physician during the examination. The fifth page is all the school needs. Athletes may bring these forms to training at any point this summer and I will get them turned in, or you may bring them by the school office when it is open. Ferritin TestingMSHSAA (as well as numerous top names in distance running) encourage high school runners--especially girls--have their iron levels checked through a ferritin blood test during the summer offseason. I wrote a full post on the topic several weeks ago that I would recommend reading. There are two ways to go about testing. The first is to bring it up with a runner's physician (perhaps during the physical). The physician can then order the test. This letter might be helpful if the physician is less familiar with the issue. This is the route you must take to get insurance coverage. However, my experience so far is that many insurance providers will not cover the test unless a runner is exhibiting symptoms of severe iron deficiency. By that point, you probably don't need a test, and it would take the rest of the season to get a runner back to adequate iron levels. The second option is to purchase a test through a lab. The test must be paid for out of pocket, but it is often still far less expensive (around $30). Some labs have restrictions on tests for minors, but one that doesn't is Ulta Lab Tests. The test is purchased online and then the test order is taken to a Quest Diagnostics location (Farmington and Cape both have them) to have an athlete's blood drawn. Results can eventually be accessed online. If you have questions about this, I would start with the post linked above, but feel free to reach out to me with any questions as well.  Missing PracticeOur school provides two weeks without any sports practices or other school activities from June 22-July7. In a perfect world, all of the trips, family vacations, and other activities that might conflict with summer training would all fit nice and neatly into that dead period. However, we all know that between work schedules, availability, costs, etc., this simply isn't realistic. At some point just about every athlete is going to miss training. That's life. The ideal would be to make it to training as frequently as possible, but that still probably isn't every day. So when a runner is going to miss training, here are some good steps he or she should take:
What Coach LearnedDuring the summer, I have a lot more time to learn and grow as a coach through books, videos, podcasts, and conferences. In this last segment of the newsletter, I want to share one thing I've learned in the past week and how it can be helpful to our athletes. Last week I finished Matt Fitzgerald's The Endurance Diet. The author boils down his experience living and training with some of the top endurance athletes across the world into five key principles related to their dietary practices. Toward the end of the book, Fitzgerald gives 22 "superfoods" that consistently showed up on the plates of elite runners, cyclists, and triathletes. I've listed them below:
Short of teff, all of these are readily available at a typical grocery store. I've tried to incorporate more of them into my own diet and the foods I bring for post-practice treats or our team breakfasts. I'd encourage our runners to try to find a way to eat a few more of these as well!  The recovery cookies we enjoyed last week contain 6 of the superfoods listed above. Comments are closed.
|
RSS Feed