What's Actually In Your Control This Season

Published August 31, 2025

Two weeks in a row, and I’ve gotten to watch some early season cross country.

The first week was a small, humble meet. The second meet was an big-ish invitational, with some great competition. I can't wait to see what my HS and MS daughters' teams can do this year!

If you took the time to open an email on Labor Day weekend, you’re clearly committed to having a great season. So let’s get clear about what’s actually in your control this fall and what you can do right now to set your team up for success.

Here’s a list of things that are squarely your responsibility - and maybe some phrases you haven’t heard before:

They Don't Care What You Know...

...until they know that you care.

I heard this from legendary coach Joe Newton. The point here is that your athletes don’t care whether you’re doing 1000s or 400s as much as they care that you genuinely want what’s best for them as both students and athletes.

This is the biggest difference I see between newer coaches - especially if they're young - and veteran coaches. Newer coaches think it's all about the workouts; veteran coaches know that you first have to have good communication, buy in for what you're doing, and a practice environment that's fun for HS kids.

The Daily Workout Why

You’ve got to have a clear rationale - that athletes can immediately grasp - for all elements of training.

• Why do you do your specific warm-up?
• Why do you do what you do for post-run work?
• Why do you do ____ workouts to build the aerobic engine?
• Why do you want them to focus on _____ during a race pace workout?

Related...

Why do you do ____ the day before a meet?

Why do you do ____ before a race and ____ after a race?

If you don’t have good answers to these questions now, that’s fine. But you need to experiment this week and next week. By mid-September, you should have settled routines for the day before races and meet day itself.

When Is The Next Danger Zone?

Two danger zones have already passed...

1. The first day of official practice
2. The first week of school

Those are times when the risk of injury spikes and when a coach who isn't taking the danger zone into account sets their team up for a rocky season.

When athletes meet for the first time, kids who didn't train consistently in the summer fake it, while kids who have trained all summer try to show off. Obviously, the first week of school is stressful for younger athletes.

What I want you to do today (or by Tuesday at the latest) is look ahead and determine how to adjust your schedule around homecoming and other school-specific events. If there are midterms one week, maybe dial back the workouts and let the training they’ve done carry them to the next race fit and healthy.

Identify the next danger zone and say, “When we get there, I’m going to trust that less is more.”

The phrase "I love," which makes sense to me, though not as many people have adopted it as I'd like, is "When in doubt, do less."

It's hard to imagine a time this year when things are challenging and you're not sure what to do, that the wrong thing is to do more - more volume, more intensity, etc. - and that the right thing to do is to do less.

Less is more.

That’s a solid list right there. And you and I both know we could come up with a dozen more things. That’s exactly the point - there’s so much to focus on in September.

What You Can't Be Expected to Be In Charge Of

On Instagram today, I saw one of the best teams in the country - a program that consistently qualifies for Nike Cross Nationals - doing visualization with their athletes. Their coaching staff knows how to do that.

But if you don't know how to lead a visualization - or if your kids aren't excited about listening to you lead them through - I’ve got a resource that’s going to teach you.

When it comes to nutrition, you don't need to be an expert. So, if you’re struggling to tell kids how their meal before a 5:00 PM race should differ from what they eat before a 9:00 AM race, I’ve got resources for your team.

And when it comes to college recruiting, you don’t need to be an expert. If you’ve been coaching for 5, 10, or 20 years, that experience might actually work against you, given how much the landscape has changed.

Finally, if you have athletes who need to cross-train - or are doing so as part of a return to racing after an injury - I've got a thoughtful progression to guide you from no running to full training, including various cross-training workouts.

You don’t have to be a nutritionist. You don’t have to be a mental performance expert. And you don’t have to have the latest information about college recruiting.

Tomorrow I’m introducing you to The Complete High School Runner. It covers all those bases for you. It’s tremendous value, and if you enroll this week, you’ll get the 2025 Boulder Running Clinic videos absolutely free (- it sold for $95 this February (the videos sold for $95 this winter).

This course is laid out simply - all videos are aimed at student-athletes, whether a coach or parent enrolls. All the PDFs that accompany the presentations are yours to print out and distribute.

Your job is almost overwhelming from September 1st through the end of season. Focus on what you need to focus on, and then get help with the crucial aspects that aren't part of your expertise.

Said another way...

You keep coaching them up, and we’ll take care of this important education.

Let’s go!

Jay

PS - “The amount of information that is covered in the course is amazing, and one would be hard pressed to find speakers that are at the top of their game and willing to share that information.”

Coach McMichael, TX