Post
by runthe8 » Sun Sep 22, 2013 2:59 pm
Wow, you guys made me feel better and a lot more confident. Here are some responses to your comments...
Kevin, I don't plan to increase his mileage this season, but hold it steady. Right now, I am not resting him before meets for the most part, though Friday I only had him run 35 minutes which was very low for him. But he hasn't had a day off since June and mentally I thought it would be good for him since he was very focused on doing well in this particular meet. I plan to increase his mileage next year, at least slightly, and again the following year.
Zach- On a week where we have two meets, I don't add any hard workouts, except maybe a few one minute pickups in the middle of an easy run. I just make sure he turns the races into big mileage days with the big warm ups and cooldowns. Here is what Drew did the week before Oatlands:
Sat: Combo workout of 6x 1000 at CV on grass, with 200 jogs, followed by 6x 30 second hills with 1:30 jog rest. Including warm up and cooldown, it was about 9 miles or a little more.
Sunday- easy 51 minutes
Monday-75 minutes
Tuesday- 4 mile tempo run at 5:54 pace followed by 4x 200's on track with 200 jogs, all between 31-33 seconds. Total workout, about 9 miles
Wednesday- 6 miles easy (almost 50 minutes!)
Thursday- 43 minutes with 4x 1 min hard, 1 min easy in middle.
Friday- 35 mins plus strides on grass.
Saturday- race
I didn't like having him run the long run the day before the tempo workout but couldn't fit it in anywhere else, so the week was really front-loaded with a lot of running. We actually had a race scheduled for Wednesday but I convinced the head coach to hold out the top 5 kids so they could do the tempo work on Tuesday instead. Both my husband and I are assistant coaches this fall and are trying to change the culture and practices of this program from one of jogging to the creek and playing ultimate frisbee and being done with practice in 45 minutes to something that will get the kids out of the bottom of the league! But with a head coach who resents us and seniors who hate that they can't jog with their friends anymore, it is not very fun right now. But the younger kids are on board and improving. The head coach agreed to let me write the training, but she is now trying to take back the reins from me and it is a really unpleasant power struggle right now. I hope we make it through the season.
gman- funny you should mention the 30 meter runs- I wanted to do that about 10 days ago, before an easy run, but couldn't make it work because of our head coach. The finishing kick is the thing Drew is lacking- I complained about this last spring too. He just doesn't have that extra gear yet. I'm not too worried about it but it is curious to me. He should have more leg speed (both of his parents have good leg speed, plus he has a good vertical jump) but we just don't see him running guys down at the end yet. As for the other stuff, Drew is the most focused kid we've ever coached. Well, we coached Alan Webb his freshman year of HS and he was quite focused too, actually, but was quite injury prone so he couldn't train like Drew is training. Drew eats great, mostly whole foods, low grain, grass fed meat, eggs, minimal junk food. He hydrates every day properly, sleeps about 9 hours a night etc. His strength program doesn't include any olympic lifts except bench press which we know is completely worthless for a runner but we let him do it because it makes him happy and feel 'buff.' He does kettlebell swings, single leg deadlifts with a kettlebell in one hand, lots of hip and glute stability/mobility work, stolen from the Oregon Project, planks, Indo board balance stuff, etc. I like the idea of doing cleans but I don't think I could teach them properly. Deadlifts might work.
Jeff- yes, I am the MOM. It's lonely being one of the few females who ever post anything on the runzone!
ap- he gets the big time drop thing. We talk about this a lot. I think he has realistic ideas about improvement right now.
Tinman- I understand. I definitely will not drop his mileage and start piling on the speed work. I am fortunate that Drew is always willing to run EASY on his easy days. He doesn't seem to have that ego problem thing that a lot of good high school boys do, turning every run into a race among teammates. Some days he will run close to 8 minutes per mile if he's tired. As for pacing, he is pretty good at pacing. He has an instinctive ability to race well, it's almost weird. And so far, he seems to enjoying the journey and not stressing about this stuff at all.
I'll keep you all posted as the season unfolds. We will stick with what we are doing and ignore the nay-sayers.