One Year Ago Today

As the title suggest, one year ago today, we had our first competition of the 2009 season. It was a a scrimmage, against Heritage HS and Littleton HS.

I kept the data from that scrimmage, and here is how we compare to last year. A plus next to your name means you ran that many seconds slower this year than last. A minus sign means you ran that much faster than last year.

3200

Lake: +16

Heard: +33

1600

Wojan: +35

Hine: +30

Waite: +10

Neilsen: +8

Mansfield: +42

Vargo: -5

Purdue: -5

Burt: -2

Bull: -18

Richards: -21

Heitmeier: -58

800

Purdue: -10

Burt: -5

Bull: -21

Richards: -28

Lake: +5

Hine: -3

Waite: -17

Heard: +12

Overall, some great improvements, but some slide-backs as well.

It is just as scrimmage, though, the real racing starts in a week!

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Dates to Remember

This Thursday (2/25), 6-8 pm, CHAP Night at Boulder Running Company. Get some new kicks!

This Friday (2/26), 3-6 pm, Intra-squad Scrimmage at the CHS track, spectators welcome!

Next Friday (3/5), 3-6 pm, JV Meet @ Ponderosa HS, our first competition of the new season!

Next Saturday (3/6), all day, League Relays @ Littleton HS, going up against some tough competition, let's see what we got!

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Important Points

Wow, the first day of practice is already upon us, welcome to the 2010 CHS Track and Field season!

Practices will begin, either at the bottom of the main stairs, or at the track bleachers right after school! We will not wait around for latecomers, so make sure to be early!

The intra-squad scrimmage that determines the line-ups for the League Relays will be on Friday afternoon. Using the top results from this scrimmage, the coaches will determine all of our relay teams for the following week. If your time does not get you onto a relay team, don't worry, the JV meet on the fifth of March will give you the opportunity to get a better result and work your way onto the varsity squad.

At the intra-squad scrimmage, all distance athletes that have been working with me are expected to compete in two distance events (800, 1600 or 3200) and at least one sprint event (100, 200, 400) for a total of three events. I do not believe there will be jumping/vaulting at the scrimmage; there will be "jump-offs" for those events later next week. All distance athletes must confer with me by Thursday as to what events they feel the strongest in.

The distance kids will not have practice on Saturday, it will be a long overdistance run on your own. (I figure that by running three events on Friday, you need an easy day Saturday!)

Uniforms, sweats and the like will be handed out to varsity and junior varsity athletes next week.

A s usual, I will be setting the line-ups for the all athletes (varsity and JV), in both individual events and relays for the meets. All winter long you raced in the events you wanted to race in, but now that changes. You are racing for the name on the front of your singlet, "CHAPARRAL" and that means you will do whatever it takes to get CHS as many points as possible. That usually means running events you are passionate about, but every once in a while, it means running events for the benefit of the team. Remember, we have always raced for our TEAM, and we will continue to do so. If athletes cannot understand that, we will find athletes who can.

So, now back to watching skier-cross qualifying. How boring! Bring on the nordic skiing!!!!

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Another Great Saturday Practice

Sub-freezing temperatures, snowy icy conditions, and a bit of a breeze from the northwest did not deter us this morning. The following athletes did six 4-minute intervals, with reducing rest in-between! Great job to Brenden, Nathan, Keagan, Ryan, Josh, Jonny, Cam, Alec, Caroline, Kendall, Matt and Hanna!

This was a great workout for us, because we did not run based on extrinsic factors, (watches, flags, coaches), but rather we ran based on intrinsic factors. All of the athletes decided they wanted to push themselves, and the certainly did. Sweat was spotted frozen on faces, hands were numb, teeth were uncontrollably chattering. But, the athletes pushed through the pain, and in doing so, put an extraordinary workout in the books!

Excellent job everyone, see you for the first day of official spring track practice this Monday!

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Testing Week

The new training schedule has been posted on the left sidebar. We are doing some more testing, to see if we have gotten stronger since we did the testing in December. After this week, spring track starts up in earnest, even if the weather does not seem like it, so the coaches want to know what we need to focus in the athlete's training.

I suggest any athletes that have been lifting regularly due to their chosen events should participate in the testing on Tues/Thurs/Fri. If you have not been lifting regularly, then you should not attend the testing. You should do the longer running workouts.

Sierra MS has Parent/Teacher conferences on Tuesday and Thursday, so you will not see me either of those days. I will be there Monday and Wednesday, as well as Saturday morning early at Medeema Park for 43's!

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me an email!

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Great Thought on Recovery

Even though I have met Frank Shorter and thought he was a little bit of a egocentric running snob, he is pretty knowledgeable about training and what it takes to be a true champion. I mean, the guy won a gold medal in the Olympic marathon in '72, and would have won the gold in '76 if the guy who beat him wasn't such a doper. So, when I was re-reading Running Tough, a great resource for designing tough training runs by Boulder author Michael Sandrock, and stumbled upon this passage about Shorter, it struck my interest. I had even underlined one section of it, and I want to reproduce it here.

"This was one of Shorter's secrets: running his easy days easy, and his hard days extremely hard. A simple concept, but so hard to implement for some reason. Most of us make the mistake of going medium-hard all the time. In doing so, we then become the medium runners and not the champions we could be. I am reminded of the neutral angels whom Dante, that great Florentine poet, places in the first circle of Hell, because, he writes, they were neither hot nor cold. In other words, medium. In striving to run and race our best, we should sometimes be hot in our training and other times cold. Hot and cold, hard and easy, stress and recovery."

-Michael Sandrock, 2001

I love that idea, hot and cold, hard and easy, stress and rest. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? :)

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P.S. If I am a coach of an athlete who makes the Olympics, and they have an event the day after the Opening Ceremonies, I am making them skip it and go to bed early. Maybe I will let them watch it on TV in their room. Because these things last forever! No way am I letting a lifetime of training get messed up by one long night of listening to Jacque Rogge spout his political BS for five hours.

P.P.S. And that poor luge athlete that died?!? That is so sad, his poor family and that poor team from Georgia. Just horrible, horrible. I hope that country wins a medal, that would be awesome.

Last Free Weekend

It's that time of year, time to celebrate your last Seppala-free weekend until June!

I would suggest celebrating it by doing an easy 15-20 min active recovery jog today, then by going on a super long, off-road run on Saturday. Go for at least 90 minutes, but go nice and easy, at pace that will seem easy at the beginning, but taxing at the end. Speed is not the stressor, time spent running is. Call up a buddy or two, and run together. (Or do what I did in high school, drag your father out on the bike and make him ride behind you, smoking a cigar, and telling all passerby that he is your coach and you are training for the Olympics!)

Good places to run for a long time include the Bluffs, the dirt roads out by Josh or Kendall's house, or a deserted golf course. Incorporate some hills into it, stretch extensively afterward, and you will have a great work-out!

Sunday is an easy 45 min aerobic run, and Monday afternoon, at the track, at three o'clock, I will be there to run you through some recovery intervals.

The plan for this upcoming week is still to be figured out. I have Parent/Teacher coferences Tuesday and Thursday, and I know we want to do some kind of fitness testing this week as well. I will talk to the other coaches, figure it all out, and check back again later this weekend to see exactly what the plan is for training.

Enjoy your Seppala (and BPA, I hope) free weekend!

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Boulder Running Company

We have a new supporter of CHS running, the newest Boulder Running Company store on Arapahoe & I-25. Brock Quimby, the general manager, has graciously offered us a fantastic deal on shoes, spikes, clothing, orthotics, anything in the store for any member of CHS Track and Field.

Brock has put together a CHAP TRACK night on Feb. 25th, the night before our first scrimmage and a week before our first official meet. From 6-8 in the evening, there will be plenty of staff to help you get shoes, an Olympian to talk to about how to reach the highest level of your potential, free pizza and lemonade, and what I think is really cool, the chance to buy any racing, jumping, hurdling, vaulting, or throwing spike you can dream of. That is what sold us on the BRC.

Coach Maroney and I went to the store to check things out, and we discovered a dizzying array of high quality Nike, Adidas and Brooks track spikes. Brock has also assured us that if there is a certain spike that you want but they do not have the size or specific model, he can order it for us at a price much cheaper than you see online or in the catalogs. I know how difficult it is to find size 5 distance spikes, or size 15 throwing flats. Throw in the uncertainty of ordering online, without being able to handle or ask an expert about them beforehand; along with the potential delivery issues, and finding the perfect track spikes could become a daunting proposition. With this resource at our finger tips, you will be guaranteed the spikes that you want, without having to worry.

Good shoes are the most important piece of equipment you can have for track and field, and this is a great opportunity for us. So, if you need shoes, spikes, anything, hold off for a couple more weeks. Make your purchases on the 25th, and you will get the best equipment at the best prices around!

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Hydration Movie

Coach Whitenack sent me this link to a movie about the importance of hydration. It loads a little slow, (or maybe that is just my network connections at home), but it has lots of good points about staying hydrated and keeping your body humming along at an optimum speed.

Crossfit Hydration Movie

Hydration is one of the little things I am always talking about, and if done properly. can make the difference between reaching your goals, and falling just a little bit short. Deliberate preparation is the only way to become a champion, hydration is key to that!

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Athletic Breakthroughs

We had a pretty stressful week of training last week. From racing on Sunday all the way through to 43's on Saturday, we hit our legs pretty hard. Now is the time for a recovery week, a week of easy running, mild intervals, and lots of H-N-R. It is this recovery week, coupled with the previous stressful week, that will allow us to get faster as runners.

But, getting faster does not happen with one spectacular workout, or with one stressful week. It is the culmination of many ordinary workouts. Being a success at anything does not happen overnight, and no one is "born with it." Anyone can accomplish anything, if they believe they can do it and they take all of the necessary steps to get there. Track season is a grind, plain and simple, and if you keep working hard (and working smart), then the breakthroughs will come. The sub 6:00 miles, or the sub 2:00 half miles, they will come to you when you least expect it.

I liken it to my daughter's teeth. You can see them coming in, you can sense they are on their way, and then one day, all of a sudden, she has got these big white chompers when she smiles. I guess growing teeth is a grind, just like getting fast on the track.

So, Chloe doesn't get frustrated when her teeth don't pop through, and you should not get frustrated if you can't finish a workout or you are not hitting your times, If your legs feel dead, or you are fighting through an injury, don't give up or lose hope. Keep fighting, keep working as hard as you can, and the fruits of your labor will definitely show up sooner rather than later.

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Medeema Park 43's II

At the end of a very tough week (hard workout Wednesday, brutal workout Thursday), we ran more 43's this foggy, frosty morning at Medeema Park.

We had another excellent turn-out, with over a dozen athletes showing up. Chloe also came along to hep me set up the course.

Here are the results, no pictures though. :(

Matty Ice 950 x 5

KarlieL 950 x 2

HannaB 975 x 1

KendallW 975 x 2

CHine 1000 x 5

KWojan 1000 x 2

Jonny Bacon 1050 x 2

AlecR 1050 x 2

CHeitmeier 1050 x 9!!!!!

RyanB 1150 x 2

MarkI 1150 x 1

JBills 1150 x 1

NateP 1175 x 2

KeaganV 1175 x 5

BrendenB 1175 x 5

Like I said, excellent job today. To compare against how we did at this workout two weeks ago, you can click here. Next week is an easier recovery week, you all have earned it!

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Directions to Medeema Park

Saturday mornings, we meet at Medeema Park for some really tough long intervals.

We will start warming up at 8:00 right at the park. We will not be meeting at Coach Whitenack's house, he is at the Track Coaches Clinic that morning. The park is on Dry Creek Road, behind Tony's Market. To get there, take I-25 North, then exit 196 for Dry Creek Road. Head west on Dry Creek Rd, past the Yosemite, Quebec and Holly intersections. Tony's Market is on the right, there is a white sign, and the park is right behind it.

After the intervals, we will head up to Einstein's on I-25 & Arapahoe for a nice bagel breakfast, so don't forget some cash!

See you all Saturday morning!

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Yearly Improvements

I was looking at some data from last year at this time, we had a couple of athletes who have made some significant improvements this past year.

In 2009, our February race was on the 14th, a full two weeks later in the training calendar than what we did this year. That is two more weeks of speed training, as well as aerobic miles. That makes the improvements outlined below even more impressive, and a testament to the training and work ethic of these athletes. Congrats!

Ryan B.

2009 - 5:25 1600, 2:26 800

2010 - 5:17 1600, 2:18 800

Brenden B.

2009 - 5:08 1600, 2:21 800

2010 - 5:00 1600, 2:11 800

Nate P.

2009 - 2:16 800

2010 - 2:08 800

Josh L.

2009 - 5:16 1600

2010 - 5:10 1600

Patrick B,

2009 - 57.94 400

2010 - 55.21 400

Wow, that's some awesome improvement! Woo-hoo! I think everyone has been training super hard this year, and if you did not improve as much as you had hoped, don't worry about it. Trust in your training, work hard every day at practice, and the results will fall right down to where you want them too.

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