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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2002 1:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whew, we got the results of the x-rays back. No break, just a bruise. The trainers say he's good to go, he hasn't even missed a workout. (Before anyone strings me up for running an athlete that might have had a fracture in his leg here is the logic behind it. If his leg was fractured his season would be over and he'd have a ton of time to heal, if it wasn't and it was just a bruise then so long as the discomfort didn't affect his biomechanics there was no reason to back off.) I always get concerned when this athlete admits something hurts because he is just about the toughest individual I've ever come across. Plus the fact that he's one of my two fastest male runners you can imagine my relief.
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Paul
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2002 1:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Glad to hear everything has come out OK, though it wouldn't surprise me if some residual soreness hung around for 2-3 days. Your comments on Micah's daughter mirrored mine exactly, and I was going to say something to that effect, but it carries more weight coming from you as a coach.
Paul
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Micah Ward
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2002 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The good news is that the daughter is still running and we have a road race scheduled to run together in Oct. Her coach told her to go let running become fun again and if she got the itch to compete then come back and talk to him. So we are all happy with how things have turned out right now.
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Distance_Guru
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2002 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Workout Update. The kids have had a couple of good workouts in a row. Today was a very hilly run on dirt road. Guys 8 miles girls 6, I didn't get times because I was bouncing back and forth in my truck on water bottle/cheerleader duty. The idea was to run this at what we call "brisk" pace. In other words it's not a tempo run (since it's to long for that) but it is oneof our quaility workouts and therefore is to be run hard. My first three guys looked good, and my fastest lady really looked good, as did my best female freshman. The rest of the team was solid.

Prior to this workout we've done a fartlek and some 400's (with a regular day of aerobic running between each). The fartlek went well and the 400's were a gut check workout. This spring I read the book Once A Runner, and we used the same format as the workout from that book. (I'm not going to say what format that is because if you haven't read OAR you need to RIGHT NOW!!!!). The ladies did between 12-15 with the guys doing 20-25, my two fastest guys ran the last one in 68 after averaging about 73 for the workout!!! It was pretty hot and that was our first interval workout of the year, so it was pretty tough. Prior to that we'd been doing tempo's, fartleks, hill repeats and strides for our intense stuff.
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Dan
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2002 2:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh man, you stuck them with the infamous Once a Runner 400's?! At least you didn't hit them with all three sets... Smile

Interestingly, those two workouts are very similar to some of the staple workouts we had at Whitman. We had a couple road routes up in the hills outside of town that we ran as one of our hard workouts at most once a week. They were 90-10 miles of steady inclines and rolling hills. Coach would be waiting at the midway point with water bottles. The other was 20x400 (heavily influenced by OAR) with 100m recovery that the distance guys did on a regular basis during the track season.

Dan
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Distance_Guru
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Joined: 09 Mar 2002
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Location: Nebraska

PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2002 2:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always find it amazing that so many programs do so many things a like. I remeber my college coach telling me that in talking to the other coaches at our conference championship meet that two other teams had done a workout almost identical to the one that we had done on our quaility day that week. Although I will admit that the brisk longer runs weren't as much part of my old coaches system as they are a part of mine. And we never did anything that resembled OAR 400's. But, hey I'm not out too be my old coach, I'm out to beat him Twisted Evil

The thing I like about those workouts is they are long and drawn out. It really forces the athlete to toughen up mentally. Like I told one of my guys today, just because you don't feel like a tiger in a workout doesn't mean you can slack. There will be races where you won't feel 100% and there, just like in this workout, you'll have to duct tape and bailing wire it together until you finish. Duct tape and bailing wire it together, a personal favorite coachism of mine. I've found that the athletes respond better to those country metaphores than to traditional advice, they usually stick with the athlete better and occasionally make them smile.
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Paul
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2002 3:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

But is it a real OAR workout if they are not urinating blood over the next 24 hours?? Confused Surprised Twisted Evil For my favorite line (coachism?), I would be paraphrasing one of Micah's lines. "Coach, I'm feeling like a truck pressed pheasant today".

My first impression of the brisk long runs is Wetmore!!

Dan, I propose an end of the year poll to identify everyone's favorite thread and post. This one's got my vote. I can't wait until racing season starts.
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Distance_Guru
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2002 3:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nobody complained of unrinating blood, but then again I didn't ask either.

wrote:
I'm feeling like a truck pressed pheasant today


I love that Exclamation Laughing

Is that like having legs deader than Vanilla Ice's career? Wink
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Paul
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2002 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vanilla Ice!! Some names just won't go away.

The way Micah used it was "flatter than a truck pressed pheasant". Which would pretty much describe your athletes after the OAR workout. Surprised

Paul
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Micah Ward
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2002 3:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have been on runs that were so tiring I ended them feeling like a sack full of beat d*#ks. Laughing
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2002 4:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That has to be about the funniest thing I've ever heard Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing

Crued but very funny Laughing Laughing
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 04, 2002 4:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mid Week Team Update:

Well, things are starting to fill out as far as the team goes. I've got a pretty good idea where everyone is in relation to each other. The guys we've had little bit of a surprise in that a walk on freshman right now is my fifth man. And maybe my fourth because the runner that was in that spot has had some problems with his hip and IT band and is having to bike and re-hab them. (He's got one leg longer than the other which causes him all kinds of problems with his knees and IT bands.) Although it will be interesting to see if the walk on can hold off one of my other freshmen who was a state champ last year and is famous for really improving a ton over the coarse of the season.

On the girls team we also have a freshman that could be as high as fourth on the team. She's an absolute nut, she is always cutting up and makes practice an absolute blast. The one thing that I can't say I'm happy about is that the ladies team seems to be forming clicks (or is it spelled clich?) with two seniors and the freshman in one and most of my sophmores and juniors in the other. The same thing happened last year and was rather annoying although it never really became a problem. I just would like to see one team as opposed to a couple of groups.Bt hey I should probably shut up and just coach them to run faster and quit worrying about who is friends with whom.
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Dan
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 04, 2002 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
is famous for really improving a ton over the coarse of the season.

As a competitor, that's the type you always worry about...

Quote:
forming clicks (or is it spelled clich?)

Clique, I believe. I haven't had to deal with much of that in my coaching, fortunately. Let's see the Guru wrap his head around that challenge! Smile

Dan
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Distance_Guru
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Location: Nebraska

PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2002 8:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

At the moment the plan is to address it by not addesssing it. There is no law that says that everyone on a team (especially in an individual based sport like running) has to be friends. And generally the worst thing you can do to two people that don't really get along well is force them to be together for more time than they have too. There are two main causes for the cliques first is something that is rather unusual, running surface. A lot of the aerobic runs I have the team do I leave up to them. In other words I say "get in 6 miles at a steady clip" and they run from the gym. Being in the middle of a town of almost 30,000 people it's about a mile and a half to the nearest dirt road. One of the cliques really likes to run on dirt and therefore runs the same run to the dirt road most of these runs. Where as the other group doesn't really like that run so they go do their own run around town on the pavement. The fact that the groups split according to who was friends with whom was of coarse the other reason and also predicatable. So unless it really becomes a problem I plan on leaving well enough alone. That and taking the team in a van out to dirt roads as often as possible, thus eliminating any choice on the athletes part.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 07, 2002 9:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Team Guru Race Update, Race #1. We has our first official race today. Although it wasn't so much a meet as it was an glorified inter-squad. The coarse was 5k for both men and women it is very hilly and slow. Coarse records going in (from a road race I held on the same coarse earlier this summer) Men 17:55 (by a guy that usually runs in the 16:20's) and Women 24:09 (a pretty weak record).

First the men. My front three went 16:19, 16:22, 16:25. All looked good although with no outside comp I think their focus wasn't what it will be once we get into real races. Still I figure that all three would have gone in the 15:40's or better on a typical coarse. Our fourth man didn't run,he's still having IT and hip problems but should be back for our next meet. The rest of the team is really young and it showed they went 18:14, 18:20, 18:25 and 19:36. And one of those runners is a 400/800 guy that won't get much better the longer the race goes. They will improve as the season progresses but the gap in between my older guys and my newer guys is going to give me ulcers for the remainder of the season.

The women were, as always, tough as nails. My top runner went 19:44, lead the entire way and looked like she could have gone a lot faster. The rest of the team followed her nicely going 20:36, 20:50, 20:58, 21:27, 21:33, 21:42 and 24:19. The biggest surprise of the day came in the fact that a freshman was the second girl to finish. I had her about fourth on the team in my mind and I think some of the girls had her figured to be around sixth. I think she snuck up on the girl that finished third, we'll know for sure next week. Also my fifth girl was sick and hardly ran all summer so she should have plenty of room to improve. All in all I was very pleased. But I'm not going to get to pumped up until I see how we do against someone other than ourselves. We should see some tough teams next week, and that will help me clear up the picture of how good we are.
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