Early Season Track Training

By

Daniel C. Gruber

Our practice officially starts on the first Monday of February. This means that the runners have had the whole winter in a loosely supervised running program. The coach should be kept aware of their winter running but should not be spending time working them out. Most high school runners need a rest from their coach and shouldn’t be in a rigid structure during the off-season. When your runners show up for the first day of practice you want them to be fresh (watch their mileage over the winter and make sure they had a good rest between seasons), injury free, and hungry for the upcoming season.

We are not coaching college runners. During the course of an average high school racing season the longest race is going to be 3200meters (two mile). So for the most part the high school distance coach is training runners to race the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. Therefore, the training mileage requirement is much less than the requirements of a cross country season where most races are 5K.

The central focus should be on speed development rather than strength. It is my belief that racing strength can be developed over the length of the season. I believe that many excellent cross country runners "disappear" during the track season because they lack the basic speed, or it isn’t being developed properly. Many will concentrate too much on using mileage to get them to the front of the pack rather than working on speed. Mileage can work in cross country but speed is the most critical component in track racing.

I will start runners with interval workouts as soon as I think they have enough running base so that the workouts won’t take so much out of their body that they can’t recover. What I like to do as early as possible with my runners is to establish a workout rhythm. Get them used to the same amount of recovery days before hard workout days that they will be experiencing before their races throughout the season. It is also important to teach a good pre-workout warm up. Stretching, jogging, strides should all be included. Establish a routine for the warm up and maintain this throughout the season. The runners should also use a similar warm up routine for their races. I also talk about pre race meals and post workout meals. Have kids experiment with foods that they are able to eat prior to races or workouts that won’t upset their stomach. I stress the need to stay away from milk, citrus or acidic juices during race days. Also important is that I emphasize the need to re-hydrate post race and also the need to keep up food consumption for the recovery period. For example, the runners need to replace iron that they burn up and potassium (bananas, peaches) is necessary to fight the lactic acid build up in their muscles. The American Medical Association says that it is best for an athlete to consume food within twenty minutes of strenuous exercise. This helps speed recovery and rebuilds strength. This is usually difficult to get a tired athlete to eat right away but I try to push them into getting some kind of solid food within an hour of the end of exercise. You will be amazed at how well kids bounce back from a hard workout if properly refueled.

I often start workouts with an estimate of how fast a kid is capable of running on that date. I consider this their "date pace." This is not always precise but a coach generally knows a runner might be capable of running especially if he or she may have coached the kid for two, three or four years. For example, if a 4:30 1600m runner from the previous year comes to workout at the beginning of the season I might estimate that his date pace is 5:00 for 1600m. So I make his date pace at 75 per 400. The longer of a workout distance you run the slower the pace gets. You don’t want the kid to be running intervals at 100% of his date pace (i.e., don’t have him run 3 X 1600m @ 5:00; if you run 3 X 1600m you will have to run them at 5:20 – 5:16 – 5:12). Then I also have "goal pace." If the kid has a goal of running a 4:20 1600m by the end of the season, I try to have something each week where he will run some part of a work out at 4:20 pace. It might just be a few 200s at 32.5 seconds, but he needs to be exposed early to that pace and begin to feel comfortable with the pace. When determining pace for workouts throughout each week continue to refer to "date pace" (this will change almost weekly, especially when you get into racing) and "goal pace." These pace guides are not set in stone and frequently runners will exceed one or the other. When that happens, adjust the workouts and the pace. I believe that workout paces should gradually get faster from the beginning to the end of the season. This sounds very simple but if you take a look around at some of the coaches in your area, many are starting the season with workout paces at goal pace and by the end of the long track season the workout paces seldom drop. My philosophy is again, set goals, when do you want your athlete ready and be patient. Consistency of workouts, in my opinion, is often more important than intensity of workouts. Which is not to say that intensity shouldn’t be included occasionally but keep in mind the track racing season is much longer than cross country racing season.

Day 800m 1600m 3200m

Mon 4 miles 4 miles 6 miles

8 X 100m 8 X 150m 8 X 200m

Tue warm up warm up warm up

5 X 500m 5 X (800-200) 5 X 1000m

1 X (200-150-100) 4 X 150m

Wed 6 miles 8 miles 8 miles

Thur 6 miles, 2miles 6-8 miles, 3miles 8 miles, 4miles

AT run AT run AT run

Fri 6 miles 6-8 miles 8 miles

6 X 100m 6 X 100m 6 X 100m

Sat Race or mileage Race or mileage Race or mileage

6-8 miles 6-8 miles 8 miles

Sun 6-8 miles 8 miles 8-10 miles