WTAFC Schedule & Reflection

Well, after about a month of piloting the WTAFC, I feel a need to reflect. I will be honest, I feel like the training has been excellent, but the continuity and direction of the club has been lacking. That is in no way any of the athletes fault, it falls squarely on my shoulders. AS I said to Coach Hawk in a text message on Saturday, I feel we have been like a ship with no rudder. In other nautical metaphors, the sailing has been great, but I am not sure where we are going or where we have been.

So, yesterday, Coach Hawk and I sat down and tried to figure some things out. We knew from the past month what workouts were good, what should be tossed, along with lots of other information about what type of training suits the WTAFC the best. That, along with all of my binders from the past four years, plus stacks and stacks of books on training and running, we hammered out a pretty darn good schedule.

The schedule is based on progression from week to week. We will do similar workouts every week, just make them harder in some way as the season progresses. We might do more intervals, or faster intervals, or have less rest, or run steeper hills, or run longer distances. There are a million ways to increase the difficulty of a work-out, we just needed to set it up so we can measure the increase in difficulty to make sure we are headed in the right direction.

A key to all of this is good record keeping. Not just by the coach, but by the athlete as well. I encourage all WTAFC athletes to get a digital running watch! This will be crucial for your Wednesday long runs, for checking yoru resting HR, and for doing intervals away from the group. I understand some of you hate wearing a watch, but I am asking you to give it a shot for the next ten weeks. This will make your training more precise and meaningful, allowing you to progress faster in your fitness.

Ever few weeks we will be participating in some road or trail races. These races do have an entry fee, and the WTAFC will not cover that. (Since we did not ask for any money in the beginning.) Although all of the workouts and races are optional, we would hope you can make it to the races. Not just for the sake of competing, (although that is very important one's training) but also for the coaches to use the races as a benchmark, to gauge improvement and progression. How else will we know if you are really getting fitter if you never truly test yourself? And races are the best way to do that. Live competition will bring out the best in you as a runner, not time trials or interval sessions, but real races.

I will continue to post the workouts in the sidebar of this blog, but I feel a million times more confident about it now. I feel we have a rudder, a direction; we have checkpoints built in to assess improvement; and we have an end goal (Nike Cross Nationals in Tempe on the 22nd). All of these things might not change how WTAFC looks on the outside, but it does affect the inside and allows us to proceed with a purpose. Plus, it makes me sleep a lot better at night!

See you Wednesday after practice for a long run. Bring your watches!

SEP