Originally posted in 2013 – Updated in 2017

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It has been a few months since my last entry. There is good reason for that – it was track season. All the winter training and prior seasons get put to the ultimate test on the track. High school runners are not training for the sake of training. They are training to get better and improve their times and finish higher in races and in some cases earn scholarships or spots on collegiate teams.  Track season is hectic with a lot of races in a short time and usually before you know it the season is winding down with barely time to breath.  It is around this time that many of our distance kids actually start to get excited for the summer running program to start up.  We must be doing something right if at the end of a hectic and stressful track season the kids are excited to start the training cycle again!

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Our program has had a lot of success and our top runners still have big track meets and the State Finals to look forward to but even as school is getting ready to get out the kids are looking forward – taking stock in how the track season went, using their successes and maybe even failures as motivation and at a time when you would think they are ready to leave it all behind for a while they are itching to start going – the reason I believe is that we have a challenging and fun (matter of opinion) summer program with variety and opportunity for improvement throughout the hot summer.  

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I start the season with a simple theme or slogan and the underlying goal to have our kids outwork their opponents and be proud of what they are accomplishing and of course a belief that what they are doing will pay big rewards.  About 10 years ago I saw talent on my boys team but it was unrealized, the boys were simply not working hard enough. The next summer I started 5:30 a.m. workouts. At first the boys were thinking there was no way they could get up and run at 5:30, but soon they found that they could and before long the girls team started showing as well – it was a point of pride amongst those kids that they were out working hard when it was still dark. In recent years we have moved the runs to evening and regularly get 20 plus runners a night (we also have the middle school teams meeting at the same times and locations) for runs throughout the summer.  A few summers ago our theme was the “Summer of Pain Tour” (leading to a Fall of gain) and I had shirts made like concert tour shirts with the dates and locations of our big workouts throughout the summer on the back. Kids that came to the required number of workouts earned the shirts.  I want to push the kids to new levels and make them actually want to make it hurt.

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Our summer workouts feature a couple workouts that definitely encourage them to push their limits. We have our signature 100 – 100s workout that has now evolved as the years go by to 101 and 102 etc... with the goal being able to do 100 plus 100 meter runs (6.2 miles) with just 20 seconds rest between each one.  Others limit-pushers are the 3-hour relay and Kill the Hill. In the relay workout the runners pair up with another runner of similar ability and alternate running an 800 meter grass-loop for 3 hours. We keep a running tally board for each group. Our top runners have run over 30 loops for each member and all of them end up with total mileage amounts for the night higher than they have ever done.  For the hill workout we set a number of hills for the team to accomplish and everyone runs them continuously until the team goal is met (usually around 1400). They take pride in telling their friends or kids on other teams that they did 800 repeats for 3 hours or did 25 800s or 102 times 100.  In addition to these workouts we measure our routes and monitor pace. We move the new kids up in mileage throughout the summer and have a goal of a 10 miles in a run at the end of the summer.

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At the end of the summer the kids who have completed the summer program are definitely ready for fall cross country.  The summer program has evolved and is constantly changing and has the help of a lot of parents and coaches who support the kids along the way and it has worked well for us. As I said earlier it started with the premise that my boys team did not work hard enough and needed to get tougher. Two years after we started it the boys program qualified for the State Finals for the first time ever at our school. They are now working on streak of 13 straight years to the Finals, seven straight regional championships, eight straight top-ten finishes at the State Finals (including four runner-up finishes and a championship) and in 2011 we were ranked as the 3rd best small school xc team in the nation. In addition our girls program has qualified 14 of 17 years and finished second in our State Finals in 2016. I credit a lot of this success to the hard work the kids are putting in over the summer. A summer of PAIN will lead to a Fall of GAIN.

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