What distance will you be focusing on in College? 800 still, or moving up?
Are you concerned that moving to the much more mileage/extensive focus is going to undo some of the huge progressions you made in the last two years of high school?
Matt:
I think I am having some of the same fears you possibly are. He’s looking at 55+ miles when his previous high was in the low 20’s per week. The jumps in mileage wouldn’t concern me if he had ever done at least one 40 mile week in his life. Also, A hilly race course and symptoms of tightening muscles in his log from overuse usually equal trouble in my opinion.
While I think Aaron will make great strides in his aerobic conditioning which he needs, I don’t see his current training working out to his benefit right now. Many collegiate 800m runners struggle coming back down from the 8K/10K distance work done in XC. What I see in Aaron’s journal and his current struggles is what I see being done by many collegiate coaches. A lack of foresight in looking at the athlete with a 4 or 5 year development plan in mind. This lack of foresight I perceive in Aaron’s coach’s case is a major disappointment for myself in my hopes of Aaron finally being able to have a truly breakthrough year and collegiate career.
Generally, I bite my tongue about athletes I know and have helped or coached during their first seasons in college because it can be a rough transition. However, I think in Aaron’s case I see many things I would have done differently which I will list with the 4th year goal being a sub 1:50 800m runner and 5th year XC goal of being able to 70 quality miles a week in training.
1. His first XC season should have been redshirted, period end of story (let him participate unattached in shorter xc between 4-6k.
2. His mileage now should be something he hits in mid-november or maybe not at all this fall or winter.
3. Quality and Quantity are not an either/or proposition. All focus on quantity should be on the quality of said quantity and getting as much quality in quantifiable efforts is the basis for long term development.
4. 45 miles of quality effort should have been the goal this XC season with no reasonable expectations of being a XC letterman (45 miles would be a 2-fold increase in his maximum mileage which is more than enough to make an impact on his aerobic endurance and power). The goal should have been to make Aaron’s weakness from prior training, aerobic endurance needed to do enough quality training to be a competitive 800m runner on the D3 national level.
Let this be noted though, Aaron Springer is a gutsy and tough athlete who may very well be able overcome what I perceive and in my opinion is a route I would never take with a middle distance athlete without any previous XC training or experience and throwing him into the fire of competitive D3 running or come close to tripling his previous maximum mileage or even increase any runners mileage by more than 20-25 miles per season. I wish Aaron the best of luck and it is my hope that everything works out despite my fears.
Aaron:
I want you to remain positive, motivated and do as your coach says even if you disagree. I have no doubt you are doing this already, but there is a time and place for you to speak to your coach in private if you need to. If you do speak to your coach in private questioning your training do so with the intent of understanding how you are going to get from point A to point B with goals being met at points C, D, E, etc… along the way.