Spencer Pecha, a Campbell County Camel, on Magnolia Road
The 2009 Boulder Running Camps was a success. I’m tired and glad to have some down time (no more emails regarding our complicated and confusing registration process – yippie!!!) though the track season is not over and there are a couple of intriguing road racing opportunity for the athletes I work with.
One of my goals for the fall is to make the blog a place that cross country fans come to for an alternative view on training. Couple that goal with the fact that while I’ve not posted much in the the past two weeks, my brain has been focused on training theory during camp. I will post often in the coming weeks, in part to simply review and reflect on what I want to change for the 2009-2010 racing year.
That said, let me share a quick story from camp. At different points during the week I asked both Dave Racey of Naperville and Adam Kedge of Albuquerque Academy if they minded that the kids were running a mile or two less each day then they might at home, due primarily to the fact that the faster boys are always chomping at the bit to see who’s the fittest (and for Naperville, the challenge of training hard at 5,200 ft. had to be factored in). Adam and Dave had identical answers. “As long as they run each day, I don’t care what the exact mileage is. We’re here for the experience and we know our training will be a bit different this week.”
This was my seventh year directing the camp and every year I have to take athletes and coaches aside and explain that the only way camp will fit into their macro training is if they are willing to compromise a bit. For example, we run a fartlek on Friday morning, yet I don’t want to athletes to add on as we then go on a 4 hour hike that afternoon. Running 10 or 15 more minutes to hit a mileage goal is, in my humble opinion, much less important than the chance to enjoy a hike from the CU campus to the top of Green Mountain; having accomplished high school coaches – in this case two coaches who have guided teams to the Nike Team Nationals – say that unprompted was reassuring.
