What are strides? And why do cross country runners need to run strides to race faster?
Give me a few minutes and you’ll have the answer to both questions.
Let’s go!
A Stride is a Quick, Short, Controlled Sprint
A stride is simply a quick, short, controlled sprint — anywhere from 70m to 150m — that’s faster than your race pace and much faster than your training paces. To be clear, this is not all...
This article is for coaches of high school 800m runners, yet I’d use the same 800m workout for advanced middle school runners, as well as adult runners.
We want to do three things in an 800m pre-race day workout.
1. Get neuromuscularly ready to race 800m the next day.
2. Get mentally ready to race 800m the next day.
3. Avoid having any carry-over fatigue from this day to the race.
You won’t have to...
Here's how you can get an athlete to run fast indoors and outdoors.
It's hard to strike the right balance of training and racing indoors while setting them up to faster outdoors. Do these three things to help kids PR in both seasons.
You know athletes need to:
- Build the aerobic engine
- Strengthen the chassis
- Rev the engine most days
Here's what you need to do for each of those elements to make sure athletes race well...
The first 4-6 weeks of training following the end of the cross-country season is a crucial time for serious high school runners. The reason is two-fold.
First, athletes need to fully recover from a long race season. They need time off if they had a minor injury or a “niggle.” And they need to give their bodies time to recover and regenerate.
Coaches have always (rightly) insisted on some amount of time off...
Injury-free running is more than doing daily pre- and post-run work.
When I was a first-year coach, I was convinced that if I could keep athletes healthy throughout a season, they'd run PRs.
Twenty-three years of coaching have only strengthened my conviction.
Now I have a system that keeps kids injury-free.
I want to share it with you today.
You know that injury-free, consistent runners race faster. But what...
One of the biggest questions coaches and athletes have during the track season is what to do to properly warm-up when the athlete is running two races (aka "doubling").
Great question! Here's my concise warm-up for running track races on the track.
Quick Mobility Routine
After they finish the first race of the day, the athlete should take 10-15 minutes until they feel mostly back to normal. They can choose to jog for 2-3 minutes, though...
