MHS Track Weekly Update

I am transferring my seasonal weekly updates to my running blog. These are notes I take on a weekly basis during Moorestown high school's XC and outdoor track seasons. Previous seasons are at www.moorestownxc.org.

This past week
This was my first week back with the team. We are trying to do several things this track season. The first is try to raise the expectations of mileage on a more consistent basis. The basic thought is that for most high school runners, they basically run out of air in a distance race and that is the key thing holding them back. So we think that distance at an easy pace is the key to developing the cardiovascular system. We've done some simple things like the minimum run is 5 miles for everyone unless you are injured. Also the typical day is now 7-8 miles for the guys who have been around for over a year. For track workouts and races we make sure we do 2-3 miles before the hard work and 2-3 miles after the hard work. So today for example, most of the guys got in 7-9 miles on a track workout day.

On Monday we did our long run. This is about 9-10 miles for the group that will be leading us next fall. 6-7 miles for newer guys. We are going to try to fit the long run in once per week since we can not count on everyone doing it on their own on Sundays.

On Wednesday we had a scrimmage against Cinnaminson. Most of the guys ran the 1600. It was the last race they get to choose, and there seemed to be avoidance of the 3200... Ringwood and Friedman ran a nice steady 4:44 at an even pace. Matteson, Weintraub and Wolff were all around 5:00. Many of the guys from XC have slipped back from their VDOT level of the fall by 2-5 points. This makes them about 10-30 seconds slower for the 3200. This is mostly due to a lack of mileage over the winter. We need to make sure we do not make that mistake again this summer leading into XC season.

We did a solid VO2Max workout on the track on Saturday. This is work done at the 3200 meter pace. Today we did 6 X 800 at their 3200 pace with a lap jog between. This might be a little early for this workout, but I think there was a need to get the guys in a controlled environment where they could rediscover their ability to work hard and run together. It should build some confidence as we move into the racing season next week.

This Coming Week

We begin our season this week at the Hall of Fame Relays at Maple Shade. We will be entering teams in the 4 X 800, the Distance Medley and the 4 X 1600. We will make the specific decisions about who runs in which race later in the week.

We will be doing a long run on Monday and probably a threshold workout on Wednesday with long 400 meter striders on Thursday to get a little feel for pace before the Saturday meet.