Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

📷

High School XC/long distance track runner. My teammates are trying to get me to lift with them. The days they usually lift are the recovery days after workouts or our long run days. Our coach has not said anything about lifting. I am wondering if lifting actually has that much of an impact on how well you run. In track, I run the mile and two mile, and in XC I have about a 19:00 5k as one of the top JV runners, if that helps. Thanks!

This is going to be a half injury, half training question and may be a bit long but bear with me because I am really struggling here.

I am a senior in high school and it’s approaching the end of the school year and my college decision has been weighing upon me heavily. Half way through my cross country season I hurt myself really bad. At my school, our summer workouts are super tough to prepare us for the season and it gets even tougher when you’re fighting for varsity. Being my last year, I pushed harder than I ever to protect my spot on varsity and it was going pretty well until my shin splints turned into me taking 4+ tylenol pills per race just to have pain right as the adrenaline wore off. I thought this was normal because for as long as I could remember there was pain with running but never this bad. For the preceding 10 months of track and cross country, I had shin splints which sucked a lot but I always powered through pain and that wasn’t going to stop then. So at a meet half way through this past season, I collapsed post-race (after doing decent).

I got an x-ray and MRI which showed severe damage and small fractures on my shin bone. They classified it as a “stress reaction” and made me wear a boot and quit running. I missed the whole rest of my season including my team going to states but I stayed there the whole time. This was all back in October/November and I haven’t ran more than 7 minutes so far but still I have pain even from walking around too much during the day let alone attempting a “return-to-running” program and have been doing PT where they have been progressively loading the bone and trying to get it to heal (even using acoustic shock therapy every week to attempt to stimulate bone healing), taking large amounts of vitamin D and resting them at home instead of doing more laborious work. While it has certainly improved, I cannot run very long without pretty tough pain.

TLDR: I have a handful of NAIA offers which greatly play into my college decision but I am worried about 2 things;

1. Getting my cardio and speed back to what it was when they first started looking into me so they don’t feel like they’ve lost value.
2. Actually be able to run by the time their summer workouts start and get rid of stress reactions and shin splints for good.

So what I need to know is how do I fix this without waiting for forever as it feels like life is passing me by and how do I keep my cardio up so my offers aren’t worth anything?

Hey guys how’s it going? I’ve never really posted anything like this online but I’d like to hear what some have to say regarding this.

So I started coaching distance at a local high school track and field program. The head coach and I are rebuilding and shaping the culture here because it was in shambles years prior.

My group is young (mostly freshmen and sophomores), are new to track and field, did a sport in the fall, and have a lot of potential especially if they truly commit to summer training post spring track. But most of them immediately reject the idea of cross country or say that they’ll do soccer or football and perhaps do XC later in high school. I ask them why and they either say they just don’t want to or because they don’t like the thought of running a 5k OR because they think they’ve got a varsity spot reserved for them in the sports they played in the fall. Most played soccer or football back in the fall and if you look at them you’ll see they’re clearly built for XC rather than tackling or bodying other people on the field. The guys for the most part are lean and naturally quick. The girls are also hard workers and aren’t afraid to push themselves. I’m really proud of everyone’s progress. Behind the scenes, other coaches and the AT implied that they’re better off doing XC because they’re not really doing much in the other sports mentioned compared to their progress in track thus far.

Their progress has been great and some of my guys are already wanting to go sub 5 (they’re currently in like 5:20-5:30 shape right now) I also have 2 girls with alot of potential too and aren’t afraid to feel pain. They’ve all been responding great to the steady mileage build and track workouts. So I would hate to train them and have it all go down the drain because they decided to go play on teams with toxic coaches and sit on the bench most of the time. I realize I enjoy coaching especially because these kids are the future so I want to be able to help them be successful and feel fulfilled.

XC is a rewarding sport and underrated when talking about the more mainstream sports like soccer, football, and basketball. I’d love to train them and continue aiding in their progress. I know they’re young and their priorities and decision making aren’t the best at 14-16 so I want to try and steer them in the right direction. I know that as long as I’m around they’ll always have someone wanting the best for them.

I’ve been pondering on this for awhile now and I figured I’d ask you guys for some tips or something. They’ve got their first dual meet tomorrow so hopefully that will encourage them to continue working hard like they have been. They’re goofy and young but also put in the work once they get going.

Don’t really know what to expect but any response would be greatly appreciated. Cheers to track and field and XC. I hope everyone has a great season.

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

My son runs HS CC and distance races and needs a runners watch. Ideas?

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We've all heard athletes who say they want to run D1. What do you mean by that statement? Lets look at three examples of D1 teams: Oklahoma State, Charleston Southern University, and Louisiana State University. I'm looking at men's teams specifically but the question is open to the ladies looking to run at a D1 program.

OK State has been an elite D1 program for years. Coach Dave Smith has lead the team to 4 National Titles in XC during is tenure there. Great athletes like German Fernandez and Isai Rodriguez have gone through the program.

Charleston Southern University has had a lot or success in the past decade. They've won the Big South for years in a row. To my knowledge, CSU has not sent a full team or individuals to nationals, though a few have earned All-Region awards. To say this team has had a huge turn-around would be an understatement. The D2 team I ran for (07-11) used to beat CSU routinely and it was never close.

LSU is bottom of the pack in the SEC. They would be an average D2 team if they were D2. To my knowledge, LSU has never sent a men's team to nationals or any individuals.

What do you mean when you say you want to run D1? Or be good enough to run D1?

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I feel so lucky, if anyone is wondering I was at the Indoor Champoinships Semi Finals at the New Balance HQ in Boston. I would post the pictures but I get a little self conscious when putting myself on the internet. They were all so nice and fun to talk too. Congrats to Nico on his win today!

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Back in December a high school runner came to me with with some issues no one at his school seemed to be able to help him with. Not his coaches or the school's athletic trainer. The issues were shin pain and pain in the lower calf. He'd finish his easy runs feeling like his calf muscles would explode. He worked with me mid-december to mid-january

First thing I did was watch him run for 15 minutes to get a good look at his form. Kid has a really strong stride but he came down really hard on his toes. The primary reason for the hard toe strike was his coach teaching him form drills specifically for sprinters and hurdlers.

The second thing I did was lower his mileage to reduce the pain and teach form drills to shift the runner to a mid-foot strike. After a few weeks the shin pain went away but the calf pain did not.

From the start of his time under me, I encouraged the runner to get into a PT clinic to get his calves checked out. I'm a workout and conditioning guy. Not a physical therapist. I know what I can do and what I can't do.

The way he described his pain (like they're going to explode) I thought it could be compartment syndrome. A condition where the calf muscle is trying to expand but the fascia is not expanding and just acts like a vice grip on the muscle. B/c the calf can't expand, blood starts pooling in the muscle, adding to the pressure being felt. Runners can go as long as they can tolerate the pain but there is a chance of developing permanent nerve and muscle damage if left untreated. That was not the problem though. It was the Achilles tendons.

Once the runner got into the clinic, he discovered that his Achilles tendons were too short as a result of running on his toes for a long time. The shortened tendons were the reason for the calf pain and caused him to struggle with dorsiflexion as well. He started rehabbing at the clinic and gained flexibility back in the Achilles tendons. As a result of the rehab, this runner opened his outdoor season with a new PR of 4:33 after running 4:58 at an indoor meet in January.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to teach proper form and mechanics to young runners. It's unfortunate most of the ADs in my area only hire yes men and "one team" philosophy bs minded people to coach distance runners. The general assumption is that distance is just long sprinting and it's causing irreparable harm. 3 girls from the same school, over the last 8 years, have dealt with injuries that permanently keep them from running ever again. One had a complete tear of the IT band and two others have permanent knee damage. One AD told me during an interview he was tired of seeing his runners come in 2 minutes behind everyone else and then hired someone incapable of changing the situation. I have nothing but antipathy for these ignorant creatures.

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Background info: I currently coach cross country for my K-8 Catholic school. Cross country is for runners in grades 5-8. Our league runs two seasons (fall and spring) and is the only sport at our school which has two seasons. Our fall team is always much larger because baseball, softball, and our school play take up a lot of students during the spring season.

I want to do something at the end of the spring season to celebrate all our runners! This will consist of runners from both seasons, so a total of 18 runners as of now. However, this is my first time doing this and would love any suggestions. I’m currently thinking of a pizza dinner and cake, but am open to all suggestions. There are no students with behavioral concerns, so that’s not an issue.

My Dean has already given me permission to do whatever I choose. Being a private school, I have a lot of leeway without going through all the channels to get permission, so I have plenty of options. I simply need to make admin aware of what we’ll be doing.

Thanks!

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Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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I being from Boston area love twilight meet (on the cape at night running through cool barns+ just an overall fast corse with great food after races) and Martha’s Vineyard meet ( I’m just a sucker for cool locations

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I’m a high school junior and I’ve been base training all winter starting mid November running around 55 miles a week with 2 workouts a week, one being either a 4 mile tempo or tempo intervals (something like 5x5 mins 1 min jog or 3x8 mins 90s jog) and the other workout usually being 12x200 hill repeats with a jog down rest, trying to work on some speed with enough rest as to not enter lactic overload. This workout would also sometimes be replaced with an indoor meet, where I would either run the 3200 or double in the 1600 and 1000. I also did a couple fartleks, one was 544332211 with 1 min rest, and another was 7x3 on 1 off. I think these workouts have helped me, as I have ran prs of 9:50 in the 3200 and 4:41 in the mile. However, my question is, as I transition into outdoor track, how can I start progressing into doing some interval and rep style workouts? I have built my base, done hills and tempos all winter, so how should I transition from those kind of workouts into something like 8-10x400 towards the middle-end of outdoor? I usually train on my own or with my friend because we wanted to base train instead of peak for both indoor and outdoor, and our coach’s workouts are not very good. Any help is greatly appreciated!

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