Thursday: cold outside
Warm up
Tempo: plan was 10x200, but quickly the group faded and it turned into 3x200,100,100,2x200 for 2 sets. Being indoors we are very unfit, which makes me nervous.
Hurdle walkover series
Technique runs on hurdles
Plank circuit
Ab circuit
Long jumpers did run throughs since pit us frozen still.
Friday temp cool but tolerable
returners: 300+4x60; 250+3x60; 200+2x60; 150+60
non-returner boys: 60m blocks time trial, 150m standing time trial
non-returning girls and all youngsters: 4x150 (rest: jog, walk, jog), 2 sets total
Monday : temps in 50s! beautiful outside
Was told I had from 230-415 to finish all the practices. Normally I’m done by 5pm with everything.
Boy hurdler had low back pain flare up and didn’t do anything but warm-up.
Girl hurdlers did 3 hurdle rhythm for about 8 reps over 20 inch hurdles, then did about 6 standing starts to 3 hurdles, then block starts to 5 hurdles x 5 times.
Two returning girls from last year did 300+60,50,40,30; 200+60,50,40,30, 150+60,50,40,30 (another did the session Sunday).
One returning girl spent hour pole vaulting, did 2x200, 2x150 fast, then did some long jump.
The rest of the group did 4x20m resisted sprints pulling tires, then 5x10m block starts, then 5x200 (2 min rest) at specified times. This is a tough session but like it for developing ability to improve fitness.
After, I had quite a few high jumpers practice that.
Was a full day, but needed to get stuff done, and as the week goes on, kids will start disappearing because our spring break starts next weekend.
Tuesday Temp: 55, but very windy!!
Group: big circuit (2 senior girls 400m did double big circuit)
Field event practice: long jump did run through work
High jump did 4 step jumps
Indoor Meet tomorrow for some, rest get day off.
Wednesday: Indoor meet
Overall was a good meet. Kids couldn’t wear spikes, so times are in running flats.
D: 60m prelim 8.32 (previously ran 8.39 in spikes in Feb), Semi 8.39, final 8.37 (3rd place)
J: 60 prelim: 8.67 (not good time for her), 8.90 semi (felt terrible overall)
Boys ran terrible:
J: 8.19
A: 7.67
Neither advanced.
Hurdler ran poor times but took second overall.
girls 4x200 relay made up about 20m to come back and win on the anchor leg. Was very exciting.
Girls 4x400: We have 3 solid runners, need a 4th. I put weakest 2nd and the last 2 girls went from 5th to second, with the anchor having a 7 second deficit to come back and lose by 2 seconds taking 2nd.
The last runner, B, ran 300m in 45.92 for 3rd. A bit slower than I had hoped, but considering missed practices etc, what can you do.
Thursday:
Temps were in low 30s. Decided to stay inside. Since most were going to be gone for 10 days, did acceleration stations:
Resisted sprints on towels
Wall posture drill
Box jumps
Hurdle mobility
Medball throws (found in GPP download)
Did that for about 10 minutes each station, then did 1 set of 10x45 basement tempo, then plank circuit.
Friday: high 40s, raining hard.
Did the the hurdle stride drill to work on mechanics. Then did 150+150, 100+80, 80+60, 60+60 with 30 seconds/5 minutes rest.
Spring break practices starts now. Will be interesting to see who all shows up.
Monday
Temps: high 40s, but cold
Spring break practice #1: record number of kids today…25. Typically I have 6-10 in the previous years. There is a meet this Friday for the grade 9 and 10 kids, and I think that explains a big part of it.
Resisted sprints x 20m done in groups of 6, for about 10 minutes (~5 reps each)
Hurdle technique drill x 5-6 reps
Long jumpers did 5-6 run run throughs from their marks. We are trying to get really consistent on the board this year and to work on hitting the sand better. I think those two will give us the biggest jump improvements throughout the season.
Sprint workout: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, all with walk back recovery.
Felt this was a good way to work on technical aspects from earlier in the session. Given the time spent in the hallways doing accel work, it was clear that is where the kids technical strengths are. They all struggle upright in the 40m+ distances. Too many lose front side focus and cannot get knee lift.
Plank circuit x 1 set
High Jumpers: 8x full aproach jumps at a very low height.
Tuesday: April 8 Temp: high 50s, beautiful. I wore a t shirt today!
Warm-up
Stations:
Medball throws
Box jumps (and box jumps into high jump mat, as shown in GPP download)
Jump rope 10 x 50 jumps
Hurdle walkover series
Vaulters/Long jumpers did specific work.
Running: Big Circuit
It nearly killed half the kids. They are not very fit. I have never had a team this unfit, except maybe my first year. When it gets a bit tough, the kids just give up instead of push for the bit more to make the time. My varsity girls struggled to make their times of 17/36 for the 100s and 200. Partly my fault, but on days they do this, I am often doing field event coaching and the kids run on their own with my watch. It was clear today they have been jogging.
High jump followed: we did some skips and simple jump drills on a curve I chalk lined.
Abs: 30 seconds fast ab circuit (found in GPP download)
Wednesday April 9 Temp: 60! Absolutely gorgeous outside
Workout:
Jump rope: 300
Tire pulls 4x20m
Skip for distance 6x50m
Block starts 6x10m
3x60m (4 min rest)
Thursday April 10 Temp: 60, very very windy
Warm-up
3 stations:
Hurdle mobility
Foam rolling
10x tempo 100s
Repeat x 2
Kids were a bit beat up. Some days I think doing just a warm-up is all they could tolerate. Today was disguised as a workout when really it was just an extended warm-up! Many kids race tomorrow, the others are off until Monday when the madness breaks out with everyone returning from break and school starting up.
Friday:
9th/10th grade meet: Kids were nervous, many had their first meet ever. And some their first big meet, with 9 schools there. One comment from a 9th grade boy “Coach, are ALL these kids in 9th and 10th grade? Like those guys over there?? They look like they are in college” IT was a good eye opener for many.
OVerall the times were starting points. I was pleased overall
Saturday/Sunday: I met with a few select kids to do some things while T Slow was in town visiting.
Monday: Needed to get a better idea where my boys were. I have 12 boys all similar levels. It’s great, but a pain too. We did 80 and 180 time trials. I don’t like doing trials over race distances as kids can easily compare. I use average velocities to predict race times over 100 and 200m this way.
The girls did block starts, 4x20m tire sprints, 3x20 standing starts. Then 2x50m turn sprints running the line into the turn, then 2x50m off the turn. Then 4x150 (tempo, fast, tempo fast: jog, walk jog rests)
Tuesday: Temp: 32, snowed all night and early AM. Practice temp was tolerable, but still cold.
Warm-up
Tempo 10x100
Hurdle mobility circuit
Relay groups did batons, all others did 10x100
Too cold to do anything wild today, I would have liked to done big circuit, and then 100s tomorrow, but plans are often changed due to circumstances beyond ones control.
300mH did a few reps to H1.
Wednesday: Temp: hi 40s, cool but pleasant
Tempo: 14x100
Field event practice
Baton exchange checks.
Spent over 6 hours this week doing line ups for Thursday (tomorrow) and Saturday’s meets. Kids can’t go because of family trips, work schedules etc. It’s rather frustrating. Then have to work on next weekends line ups to see if kids are running because of weekend work shifts. Since I took this job at this school, I have not had this problem before. What makes things complicated is I have 10 boys all about the same ability, unlike years past where it was clear who my top guys were.
Meet Thursday, Practice Friday, Meet Saturday: Sunday off, Monday Pre-meet, Tuesday Meet
Busy week!
Thursday: Meet weather was great. High 50s, headwind.
Kids ran well considering. My girls started off sluggish and lost in the 100 and 200, the first time in 2 years we lost those events. Coming off spring break, a few were not race ready, unfortunately. Both boys and girls won the meet.
Friday was easy 10x100 tempo and batons for Saturday
Saturday had great weather, great competition. On the girls side, my 4x400 went 4:09, with B splitting anchor 58.x and D lead off 60.x. Overall very pleased with them. Both 4x100 and 4x200 girls ran faster than any times last year. Guys had a nice needed wake up to what being fast means.
Monday: pre-meet 10x100, baton practice, field event walk throughs.
Tuesday meet: temp 40, very windy, very cold
Meet results were good considering. Guys lost, girls won by a lot. Great times again.
Wednesday: big circuit, foam rolling/stretching/ hurdle circuit. Team meetings
Big meet this weekend. Only running a few events each person and looking for huge performances. Weather forecast appears nice so far!
As long as everyone is healthy and no one is getting injured eventually the weather has to improve…
ESTI
I thought you would be particularily interested in seeing this
April 25th 1995 ( omg that was 20 years ago)
2 x 30 meters
Weights
Bench
10@ 45lbs ( bar)
10 @ 65lbs
6@ 85lbs
4 @ 95lbs
2 @ 105lbs
1 @ 115lbs ( a bit of a stall but I got it)
( rest between sets would be 2 to 4 minutes with stretching in between)
Notes
My last competitive meet was in Africa in Madagasca for the Francaphone Games in 1997 September. The Saturday before I ran ( I think I ran on the Monday) we got news that Lady Diana had been in a car accident.
1995 was sort of in the middle of my training. After not making the Olympic team for 1996 I continued to train.
Typically I was very fast over 10, 20 and 30 meters but my speed endurance was not very good as said by Charlie. Why? He was never sure but some of it was back ground and some of it was genetic likely.
Typically I was strong in my lower body ( squats etc ) but it took me most of my career to get upper body strength and more importantly translate that upper body strength into the running. I would say it took me most of the time I trained with Charlie to use the upper body strength I developed. I became quite good at arm pulls, seated arm pulls and we did routine amounts of med ball throws as well as all drills to do with the medicine ball.
Thursday:
With the warm-up issues I have observed in meets, I printed off each runner a card, laminated with a warm-up sequence. I had each do it on their own so I can see they knew how to do it. Then the workout was logistically chaoitc:
Those running Friday did batons (relay meet) with my asst.
Those running Saturday did session with me. 2x50m run the first half of the curve, 2x50m run off the curve. A modification from KitKat where runners work on curve mechanics. We followed with 4x150 (tempo, fast, tempo fast) (rest was jog, walk ,jog between reps). B and D ran the fast 150s in 20.0, tempo were in 28.
Friday: Saturday group did 20x100 tempo, foam roll. Others did relay meet. We sent most of our lower kids to this meet to let them experience a weekend invitational meet. We got last in many events on the girls side. The boys were fairly competitive with other teams. I think all kids had a blast, which was the goal.
Saturday: This meet goal was to have kids individally run fast times, and my girls 4x4 to run fast. The wind was very strong with temps in the high 40 low 50s. It was very cool. The wind favored fast 100m times. D ran a season best 13.02 in the finals to take 5th. The winner was 12.52. B ran the 400, in an attempt to go sub 58. She got out sluggish, split 30/32 and ran 62.20. Not sure if motivation, temperature or what happened but she wasn’t herself.
MY boy hurdler, N, has missed a lot of time. He left for spring break, barely did anything track related, came back home and got sick, missing 18 days training since end of MArch. On Monday of this week, he told me he couldn’t go to this meet cause of some family thing. Being frustrated with the past month, I said, “sucks to be you to miss a big meet” Two days later he said he could go. The state runner up in the 110s would be there, and this is likely the biggest competition he would have all year until regionals. He ran 15.60, 15.52, 15.52 in his 3 rounds. All of which I believe are PRs for him. He then ran 300s in a sluggish 44 seconds. I think the 18 days off will hurt his 300s more than 110s. Last year he ran 40.0 for 3rd in regionals, just missing state finals by 0.1 seconds. This year there are many others are competing for the spot.
The girls 4x4 ran a sluggish 4:15 (4:09 last week) and took 2nd. They didn’t appear motivated to run, maybe the cold was getting to them. Maybe the lack of fast teams there too. They hardly warmed-up and were slow to get up from the team tent to get going. I guess lesson learned.
This coming week, Tuesday/Saturday meets with a focus on relays this weekend.
Thanks for posting Ange!! Always so many things valuable in your detailed journal entries.
More than anything else Esti just keep repeating yourself about preforming the routine warm up, keeping warm , wearing layers and mention while not focusing on the cold that performance in the cold is tough. You don’t need to talk about the cold as a problem but as a reality and your job is to train them to do everything they can to neutralize the weather.
My bet and thoughts are the coldness is huge and it sounds like everything you are doing is excellent and falling into place and you are trying to control all that you are able to.