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Camillus NY - Cross country is upon us. With official practices starting up last week, most teams have been solidified, meets been scheduled, and captains been named. One team in Northern Syracuse is preparing much like every other. Located in one of the state's toughest sections, the West Genesee Wildcats is looking for another breakout season. Head coach Jim Vermeulen has once again offered MileSplit NY readers a glimpse into the process of preparation and execution in the art of cross country. Last names have been omitted, but first names are retained to maintain authenticity. You can check back every week for another entry into the XC Journal entitled A Harrier Season. Cross-Country Journal – Week 13 November 11, 2013(Monday, Camillus): I’m early to this holiday practice, so I sit and think. We’ll be down one athlete today with Laura out sick, a doctor’s appointment the only thing on her schedule. The rest of the girls team, without their Federations long shot selection, have begun a short transition into winter sports. Some teams jump right on that indoor opening date; others stretch out the XC season. We go the middle route, though the base-building period extends well into December, whether as XC or Indoor practices. The boys’ team arrives about 2:25pm and takes off for their warm up run. An interval workout is on the schedule, 5x800 around the Outer Loop for slightly less volume than normal. The trail is in reasonable shape, with only one sloppy corner positioned into the jog zone of the 1000 meter circuit. The last thing we need now is a twisted ankle or knee. The runners get at it with a Monday’s sluggish determination. Some are still shaking out from the Sunday run—and it shows. There’s power to the strides, but not as much zip. Some of that has to do with the footing. Patterns. They are what the coaching eye—if attentive--should pick up. Bad days are bad days, but a string of so-called bad days is a pattern and suggests something else. In this case Matt has slide back toward the end of the pack in workouts since sectionals. The quiet after-practice queries—is everything O.K.?—have not provided answers and the question with these conscientious runners is always this: how much prying is appropriate? Usually, there are multiple layers to reasons for poor practice/race performances, and you’re not always going to get at the bottom layer—or guess correctly. And sometimes runners have a right to their own reasons and the consequences attending tem. I ask the Matt over following another practice where he’s lagged behind. We have eight guys practicing by choice and only seven can compete. “You know Mike’s been training better than you these past weeks,” I tell Matt, and give him time to respond. He doesn’t need the time. “I know,” he admits quickly, “I was going to talk to you about that.” So we talk and it’s a mutual agreement that Mike deserves the nod for Feds. “But I’m expecting you to go and serve as alternate,” I tell Matt.” If you’re needed, I know you’ll be there for us.” Which is true; he’s a team player all the way. The decision is fair; the race roster is set. I call Mike over, and he’s very excited but graciously constrained. He’s a team player too.
November 12, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus):
We wrap up the meeting, answer a few personal inquiries about this or that, then head out to the track. The timing is perfect; the squad is just returning from its GC run, and we meet at the head of the home stretch. Sean is grinning out from glasses half-filled with the white stuff. No, he assures me, no snowballs were involved. Mentally, I flash back many years to a local team that used a snowy training run before Feds to target local cars from behind a house. Following complaints, the coach did some investigating and the team was pulled from the championship. Sad way to end a season. But our runners are merely ending this day in winter fashion, with snow-prints left behind as proof of track-work. They hustle inside and, while the girls varsity basketball team fills the other two-thirds of the gym with practice noise, finish off with core drills. I drive home in heavy snow.
November 13, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): Running trails that a few days before shown green now resemble white ribbons coursing through browning fields. Snow on warm ground creates a mish-mash wherever bare soil is involved. Mike goes down on the warm-up, which leads to warnings for their fartlek run and a change of the LAT to sprint drills. That makes them happy and off they go. The ‘ups’ today are controlled more by topography than time. The rules: nothing too fast around slippery corners or down hills; use the grass loops as often as possible; keep the feet up through the woods. Again, the last thing we need is a turned ankle or hips bruised from falls. I count victory when they returned unscathed, with only minor mud-markings up and down the legs.
They tick off their snow strides as the night moon rises, then walk back contentedly from their final sprint, standing around in a loose circle and soaking up the last sunlight. Will, our astute observer, points out a distant jet etching a contrail high above in the northern sky. “What’s that?” Laura wants to know. “You don’t know what a contrail is?” Will asks. “I’ve never seen them,” Laura insists, which Will has trouble believing. Undeterred, he launches into an explanation of jet engine heat applied to moisture-rich upper atmospheric levels. Laura doesn’t necessarily appreciate the lecture. “Well thank you Mr. Science,” she says sarcastically. Will merely nods. “You’re welcome,” he says with a smug smile.
November 14, 2013(Thursday, Camillus): Right on cue, warmer weather rescues the day. The runners sport fewer layers and the light breeze has lost its bite of the past few days. Of course, fluctuations are what November is all about. “I’d like three weeks of this to start the indoor season,” I tell Coach. I’m an eager skier, but these kinds of late-fall days are just too nice. After the runners have warmed up and headed out for a GC run on the trails, Coach and I complete our last ‘walk’ of the season. Any more practices out here and they will be on indoor’s dime, something I hope to accomplish this November/December if the weather holds. There’s precious little grass around the high school where indoor teams train, and I’d like to ease the surface transition for the athletes. We hear them moving through the nearby fields with the occasional laugh or shout. With the leaves down, sound travels. The traffic along Genesee Street a half mile away is still unseen but now it’s heard distinctly. An occasional gunshot reverberates from fields across Ike Dixon Road. Someone’s readying for the hunting season, and as the runners let us know later, it’s a little unnerving. Yesterday’s snow has vanished from the school field where they re-group for strides. If the forecast holds, weather on the Bowdoin Park course Saturday should be just about perfect, news we’re only too happy to share with the runners once they’ve finished the work and cooled down. Nobody complains about that news.
November 15, 2013(Friday, Bowdoin Park) Half the month has already flown by. With the holiday season approaching and Indoor Track start-up, the rest of the days will accelerate. This day, though, assumes a casual pace. Plenty of bus time. The athletes assemble in the lower parking lot following several class periods and bundle into our small bus for the drive down to Bowdoin Park. They don’t--as is typical—need entertaining. I get track paperwork done while the upstate miles slid by. We make the park in plenty of time for Laura to give her teammates a tour of the course. I have to keep reminding myself that none of the guys have ever competed here before. I want to convince myself that’s an advantage, but still I ask Laura to talk them through the body-sense of coming off that hill with so much race left. I remind them of the long finish reach back around the start line and the mental strength it requires. They’ll understand soon enough. There’s no need to over-talk or hype this thing. As far as tomorrow’s race is concerned, the hay’s in the barn—and more pressure lays on other teams. These guys just need to go out there and have fun racing hard. After the course preview, we enjoy a casual dinner at our team favorite, the Coyote Grill. At one point, the waitresses and servers assemble to sing happy birthday to an elderly woman and her group. My runners decide to join in, and they don’t miss a note.
November 16, 2013(New York):
A full moon maps the last miles home from this year’s Federation Championship. Our small team bus barrels northward, but it has an empty seat. Nate went home from Bowdoin Park with his parents, his sprained ankle elevated and iced. Only a quarter mile out from the start, he rolled it amidst runner jostling. A gamer, he finished the race, but the team had no answer for his loss. Will and David had made the initial fast push to establish themselves where they needed to be, up in the initial surge of runners so they could use the momentum of that group to pull them to their best speed ratings of the season. The others, Nate included, got swallowed up in the mid-pack mayhem. “This is Feds,” I’d warned them earlier. “There will be a lot of runners battling close, and almost all of them will be very good.” None of our guys, however, had run the course before and were finding out the hard way what this championship demanded. With Nate effectively out of the race, we needed others to step up, but they were mentally and physically trapped too far back. “You know that’s your choice,” was my reply. We talked about indoor goals and the means to those goals, and it’s all do-able. So as the lights of Syracuse emerge over a hilltop, we put in the last travel miles—and the last minutes-- of the season. Despite my best efforts, this winter we lose Will to basketball and another runner to a work conflict. The rest, though, will take a short break, then resume their base-training amid the dwindling sunlight of approaching winter. Most already have their indoor goals in mind. Another door swings open…..
Cross-Country Journal – Week 12
November 4, 2013(Monday, Camillus): We go back to work, a smaller Wildcat unit surrounded by a gorgeous middle-autumn day. Aside from Laura, who’s states-qualified, the girls team will join us on Wednesday. Though they are an admitted long-shot for any Federation Championship consideration, you have play the long shots because it’s always about expectations—and unreasonable expectations are better than no expectations at all.
Some Monday’s are stronger than others. The trails are slimy today, and no one brought spikes, so slippage takes its toll and interval times drop off, though just a bit and not enough to affect the value of the work. Coach D. mans the timing at the start/finish points of the intervals. I move around the hill section, taking shots of the runners’ climbing form, and then dashing back down to shoot finishes. I share a few stills with Laura, who astutely—and critically--notes her thigh angle at toe-off. We set some drill and flexibility priorities for the indoor season, and she lines up for the next interval. When that work’s complete, they log some recovery running and meet us at the base of the rise. Five of the 120 meter tilts today—and I add some incentive. They’ll run two of them fairly strong, then go negative on the last three. I’ll time the first runner, but I’ll also time the last. Both have to go negative or they do it over. Nobody grumbles, though. It sharpens the drill, and everyone meets expectations. We decide to leave core for Tuesday, and they finish with a cool down. The day ends calm, eerily so. Everything’s muted--the skies, the colors, the temperatures. You can sense the changes coming. Winter is waiting in the wings.
November 5, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): Coach Delsole is MIA due to parent-teacher conferences, and flat, drab clouds have slid across a chilling sky. I show our small assemblage of runners the current team polls which has both teams ranked in the state top-25. They’re matter of fact about it, more intent on deciding the day’s work. That decision turns toward GC running with one short break, a variant of our segmented GC workouts. With warm-ups complete, they head out and I check the trails. The back school hill we use sparingly is a muck-mess at the bottom, and I try to visualize an alternate route we could construct. I walk the side field, imagining another trail if the local farmer decides next year not to lease and plant. The Woods Loop is carpeted with rusty fallen leaves, and in route to the Back Loop, a familiar alumni approaches along the woods path and stops to chat. Justin and I catch each other up, then I put out the possibility of him volunteer-coaching next fall if he’s determined enough to negotiate the current labyrinth of requirements. He promises to consider it and disappears down the path. By the time I return to the base of School Hill, the runners are assembled and waiting. They blast their hill sprints, then jog a short recovery back to the school field. The sky’s dimming, but Core Drills go quickly with our small, purposeful group. They’re walking off toward cars before five. By the time I’ve straightened the clipboard and geared down the back driveway, the sun has surrendered.
November 6, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): I stand astride School Hill, waiting for the runners to complete their warm-up run. The back field has been drained of its summer colors, but lacing through that drab is the persistent green grass of the runner’s loops. There’s a metaphor in there I suppose.
Sun and light winds have done their job in drying the trails through the woods, so a tempo run is in order. The athletes break into two groups. Laura pairs with the boys, Lindsay with the girls. Following a 10/23 clockwise run, they turn it back counter-clockwise, their more preferred direction. Coach Delsole and I stand on the Ike Dixon field trail near the power-line crossing. We can usually watch runners cross the line on the southern woods trail, but now, with the leaves down, we can spy them through the trees as they course around the Back Field loop and swing through where we stand. After a first loop, groups break and reform into smaller units. Laura winds up alone, following the boys group, and so does Lindsay after pushing the pace ahead of her teammates. Mike is on fire today. He’s charged out front with Nate, and they will hold that lead position throughout the run. I boom out the time count-down, and at twenty blast the whistle. Slowly, runners reassemble at Three Corners. Coach approaches Mike and says what we’re both thinking: “Whatever that was, Mike, bottle it for Feds.” That draws a smile. The boys banter amongst themselves; the girls, in contrast, looked relieved and mill around quietly. They all set off on a recovery run and then polish the day off with a solid LAT drill. Money in the bank….
November 7, 2013(Thursday, Camillus): It’s raw outside, just as predicted. I meet with the troops quickly, setting up the day and the rest of the week. Coach Delsole will hold Friday practice while I head to Queensbury with Laura for states. The runners have on extra layers. We’re about 8-10 degrees away from teeth-chatter weather. Following warm-ups, the runners agree they’d like an 8-8-8 fartlek with the choice of ups. The girls, with Lindsay and Laura, are going traditional. The boys stand in a tight circle on the basketball court, trying to do the math on their assemblage of varied up-times. It’s a hodge-podge of opinions and cross-arguments. “Guys,” I finally suggest, “why don’t you get started on your GC segment and figure in out then.” That strikes them as reasonable, and they set off. Coach D. and I head out on the Inner and Woods loops for monitoring. We talk the week ahead, assuming the best Federation Championship news for both girls and boys teams following states. The Federations selection processes for those teams differ. Boys selections are reasonably objective and generally fair. It’s a different story on the girls side, however, where politicking is the name of the game and ‘criteria’ are invented or discarded as needed to position teams. Each year, the procedures and rationales for selections seem to change. In those selection meetings, a solid resume and ranking doesn’t necessarily punch your ticket to Feds. Having sectional coordinators who enjoy good in-fighting is just as important.
November 8, 2013(Friday, Queensbury): I drive through 3-4 mini-snowstorms in route the Queensbury state championship site. Laura, our lone individual entry this year, is coming later with her mother and brother, so I get what writer Stuart Dybek called “the long thoughts.” Which is fine; time alone watching upstate landscapes pass can be very relaxing, even if some of them are enveloped in snow pellets and graupel. By arrival mid-afternoon, it’s just broken clouds and cold winds--not chilly but actually cold. After parking, I find a fellow coach who walks me in the right direction to our coordinators who’ve set up in the high school. One of them has very good news. The pre-rankings for Federation Championship at-large boys teams is finished and West Genesee is #2 on the list. It’s very encouraging because those team are not racing at states, so their positions will not change. I text Coach Delsole back in Camillus. Then I phone Jack, one of our seniors. He’s pretty excited, and I know word should spread fast. There will be some happy Wildcats this afternoon. Laura texts they are on their way, but it’s obvious she will not arrive before dark, so I take some time and walk the course with my camera, snapping shots at each new line of sight. The result, once downloaded to my laptop, is a pictorial tour of the course she’s never run. Hopefully, that plus a quick sneak peak in the morning before races start will do the trick. Truth be told, except for the end-hills at the far reach of the course, this one’s flat with predictable footing. Knowing where you are in the race is as important—if not more so—than knowing features. And since they’ve nicely marked both the kilometers and the miles, Laura should be alright. The boys squad, meanwhile, has hammered a shorter trial race back home, making their own unseen statement. That stage is set.
November 9, 2013(Saturday, Queensbury):
No, she’s not. She’s worn the game-face prior to the gun--as always--then she’s run feeling sick and weak, with expected results. She’ll spend the next two days either in bed or at the doctors, but then return the following day for a workout in a snowstorm. And if qualifying for Federations running sick is any measure(her fifth Feds), this is not the day it seems. On the ride home, I talk to our sectional coordinator to verify the West Genesee boy’s qualification for Federations. There are arrangements to be made, but it will be pleasant work. The season goes on…. Cross-Country Journal – Week 11 October 28, 2013(Monday, Camillus) We have a gorgeous mid-autumn afternoon on our hands—sun, clouds, comfortable temperatures. Before Coach Delsole arrives, the runners relax while I get my ‘speech’ out of the way as we head into championship week. “I put my game face on Sunday,” I tell them, “and it’s not coming off. We need full focus and full efforts not just this Saturday, but all week.” We talk a little about the positive implications of big performances at sectionals, and I send them on their warm-up runs. Intervals are on the menu, hard circuits on our tough Inner Loop trail. It’s been a year since we’ve used this workout. The athletes complete their runs and drills, then jog over to our start point on the Outer Loop. Will’s already into cheerleading mode, and it’s a good day for that. They’ll need it. They run the reverse of our race course direction around the loop, which means a short hill right out of the gate, a mix of twists and turns, then a tiring rise late in the circuit leading to a downhill finish on a curve. Not your garden variety trail circuit. The boys’ team mantra hasn’t changed: compression. I suspect that’s actually going to be difficult to achieve today because the nature of the circuit will expose runner weaknesses. The demand to power rough terrain, dictated gear changes, tricky turns—there’s more than one ‘test’ contained in those 800 meters.
All they need now is some recovery running, a few hill sprints and a short cool down. We serve those up.
October 29, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): All morning, frost outlines the shadows of the school, slinking away with the sun’s movement. By afternoon, the air temperature has climbed, the frost retreated. We have another beauty of an afternoon. The runners have arrived and lounge as we discuss remaining workouts and considerations for Sectionals. I discuss weather prospects and speculate that they may be dealing with muddy trails and racing in long spikes. Coach Delsole has his Droid working. He reads off the chances of rain: Wednesday—30%; Thursday—70%; Friday—60%; Saturday—50%. Images of mud and struggling runners roll through my mind—we’ve run the Jamesville Beach course like that before. “Well, I guess you’d better check on those long spikes,” I tell them. But for today, with some GC work under sunshine, it’s all good.
October 30, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): Today we conduct an exercise in consensus building. I had told the runners on Tuesday that Wednesday’s first training bout—before the L.A.T. they’d also run—was not set, and if they had suggestions they should e-mail me. No e-mails. But Jack has a suggestion for fast fartlek running, a 15-15-30-30-60-90-60-30-30-15-15 ladder I can barely keep straight in my head. As soon as he suggests it, there are rebuttals and protestations. Some want a traditional fartlek. Some want to have a fartlek cart blanche, with the ability to pick the times. Others just sit there. Coach Delsole’s sitting next to me and I sense his irritation with all this indecision and confusion. I ask Jack to explain why he’d go fast up front. He makes an honest attempt, but I catch some rolling eyes. “So, you think this will replicate, somewhat, a bookend race that starts and finishes fast?” I suggest. He seems relieved to have it explained and agrees. “Well, I’m not sure about those first 15 second segments,” I comment to the group. “I think I’d take those out.” There’s more discordant discussion and calls for favorites, as though shouting something often enough or loud enough creates consensus. Coach is fidgeting. “Alright,” I finally announce, “how about this? Each group will run an 8-8-8 and decide how to set their ‘ups.’ But obviously all group members must be running exactly the same.” That does the trick. With the problem solved and consensus achieved—sort of—they head off on the warm-up. I turn to Coach. “You don’t enjoy that much you?” I say, smiling. He merely frowns. “Well, sometimes it’s fun to give them the decision-making power and see what happens.” The athletes disappear down School Hill into the back fields and within minutes, Coach Delsole and I are arguing. That’s not a bad thing because, with mutual trust and years of experiences to draw on, our arguments usually turn into problem-solving sessions. So it is today as we wait for the runners to. I’ve told him about another parent e-mail, again centered around missed practices due to family travel. This one’s less acerbic than last week’s but still, it stirs the embers. Coach favors a more hard-line approach to dealing with parents/athletes who don’t take our basic attendance requirements for what they are--requirements. I poise the counter-argument that benching or releasing those athletes creates firestorms and will hunker me in the AD’s office endlessly, explaining myself to him and parents. It’s all well and good that districts taut the need for athletic policies and standards, but when push comes to shove, it’s often the coach who’s hung out to dry for not being more ‘flexible.’ So we stand there, grappling with policies and scenarios when it dawns on us that we’re barking up the wrong tree. This is not about demanding attendance; it’s about expecting work to be accomplished. Why not focus more on that, we ask ourselves, and within minutes we have a consensus all our own--and plans for future seasons. Following drills, the athletes group for their fartlek runs, and we check each one to ensure their plans make sense. It’s nice to see the girls top seven head out together. Coach and I again walk and monitor, taking the time to both flesh out thoughts on a re-configured program and to worry about the weather headed our way. It doesn’t look good.
October 31, 2013(Thursday, Camillus):
As predicted, we have wet, but I’ve seen worse. Actually, we are enjoying the interlude between two storm systems. The first wedge of bad weather doused the region late morning/early afternoon. Now it’s just clouds and intermittent showers. No big deal. But advancing from the west is a huge and violent storm system. It looks ominous. Connor, our clear skies cheerleader, strolls down from the locker room, points the finger skyward, shakes his head and considers a comment. In jest, I tell him to just shut up. Thinking weather, I ask the troops: “What trail conditions do you expect on Saturday?” Despite some blank stares, it’s a reasonable enough question because for some aspects of teenager life(like weather), the future’s a pretty finite concept, extending outward—on a good day—mere hours. “Halloween’s been canceled in some mid-west cities,” I tell them. That get’s their attention. “The storm that did it is headed guess where.” From that point we discuss anticipated trail conditions, the gear needed, the spikes length that will make some difference. Practice goes smoothly. Low intensity GC running is followed by strides. The training sequence for this meet has wound down. The hay’s in the barn. Goal #1 for Saturday is fresh legs.
November 1, 2013(Friday, Camillus): All day the wind blows hard. With the storm clouds safely north and west, however, the wind races across a clear sky. Another stroke of meteorological luck. You can virtually see the grass and grounds drying. Sectionals tomorrow might not be the muddy mess we’d predicted for the athletes. Then again…. After school dismissal, I practice my winter/spring routine by rushing out--then rushing over--to the high school. Anticipating a rainy, windy day and a short workout, I’d switched the practice to our high school track. They could use the infield grass if they wanted to maintain surface continuity, but we wouldn’t be on the track long anyway. The athletes meet me in the hallway outside Cafeteria II. A quick glance and head count turns up all but two still in the locker room. “O.K. folks,” I begin and run through sectional logistics one last time—bus departure, gear, spikes, course considerations. Then we head out into the wind and sunshine. It’s remarkable; half the crew circles the track, comfortable in T-shirts and shorts for the first day of the turkey month. I take a few moments to check our storage areas under the bleachers for indoor track equipment and gear that we’ll be using in only matter of weeks. Following warm-up laps, they run through the pre-race routine of drills, tempo and some strides and sprints. I gather them a final time on the grass. “June 17th,” I say and look around. Nothing for a moment, and then someone utters, “Oh yeah.” “Six months you’ve been at this,” I tell them. “That’s a long time. Your bodies are ready. Tomorrow’s about the mind and what your mind tells your body to do—because it will if you tell it to. Bring your best tomorrow. Dig deep, and if it happens to be your last race, make it one you’re always proud of.” They drift off. Lindsay stays behind. We go over her competition for an individual spot in states, and what it will take mentally and physically to accomplish that. I tell her one more time, in one more way, what both Coach Delsole and I have told her before—you have it in you; you can.
November 2, 20013(Saturday, Jamesville Beach): Gear, athletes and coaches are packed on the bus, ready to roll by 10:25am. Clouds and sun with probable showers in the PM--the day’s a good-enough contrast to what it might have been. I’ll gladly take it. We arrive with ample time, unload and set up in the team tent area. The first race of the day, Boys Class C, has just hit the course. A friend with Leonetiming confirms what I thought. Most of the course has benefited greatly from the drying winds of Friday but ‘the bottoms’trail section down by the Butternut Creek in-flow to the reservoir is still mucky and slow. They’ll have to run that twice, so the course will race tougher than the one we encountered back in September. It’s a tough course to begin with, anything but flat and fast. Talk about drawing the short straw. Both squads will race late in the day, after things have been chewed up. The girls will face our defending national champion neighbors, F-M, and a strengthening Liverpool top-20 team. The boys have the daunting task of lining up against four other Class A state top-20 teams, with F-M and Liverpool ranked 1-2. Besides the agenda of running team-strong against those two power programs, Coach Delsole and I have been perfectly blunt with our front-runners about the challenge of making states as individuals: the start will be fast and furious—and then it will stay fast. If you sit and wait, you are sunk. The same holds true for the girls. They know who’ll be out front.
Hob-knobbing aside, we swing back into action amid the boys warm-up sequence and the appearance of blue skies. Coach Delsole heads to our start box while I make final preps with the boys at the team tent and then head them over. We’ve drawn start boxes 1-2, which means spectators and other athletes wandering in and across directional line along the start. I wind up playing traffic cop, shoo-ing them out of the way so the boys can complete strides and sprints without colliding. Five minutes prior to the gun, I head into the back field with the radio and wait for Coach’s call of the start. Within minutes, the opening stampede rushes by. Already, F-M has made it’s statement and strategy clear with Millar, Berge and Ryan up front. That never changes as anticipated F-M/Liverpool battle becomes a game of catch-up for the ‘pool’ runners. Our runners have done what’s necessary, but the pace is simply furious and unrelenting. With the exception of a lone Proctor runner, F-M and Liverpool own the top-10 throughout the race. Four of my five front-runners notch seasonal or all-time PR’s, but David comes closest with a 12th place, followed by Will in 13th. They distance all others convincingly for third place—and keep their third in the overall meet merge. F-M and Liverpool have demonstrating why they hold top state ranks. F-M takes the team title again, and Liverpool places four of its top five into the championship as individuals. It will be fun watching the section competition at states. As our guys gather near the finish, exhausted but pleased with all-out efforts, the sky opens and the rain pours down. I shoo them off to the team tent for dry clothes. “We would have won this in a couple of other sections,” Coach remarks wryly as we follow the runners back. “I know,” I answer, “but what are you going to do?” By the time the girls are on the line, the rain has relented, though darker clouds westward suggest only a reprieve. I am back playing traffic monitor so the girls can finish strides without collisions. After wishing them good luck, I head into the back field and am standing trailside there when Coach Delsole radioes the start. Within moments, another wave of F-M green approaches with Laura in the middle. That is expected; I’m scanning the phalanx of runners finding the rest of our front five back further than hoped. It’s an issue—or an mental inclination—that will have to be corrected during the track season. There will be no more XC starts for practicing. The field is fast, however, and everyone in the top 30 gets swept along. Coach and I alternately shout instructions to team members to make moves, to use terrain to their advantage. But we’re the sideline voices the runners never recall hearing. They’re on their own, making the race what they’ve decided it will be. They loop by me a second time, and I head back toward the finish at a trot, catching several of ours pumping up the final hill, then churning down the final incline amid the cheers of the close crowd. Laura places third, advancing to states, but Lindsay’s had a tough day, not the one she’d hoped for. Only Elise joins Laura in cracking the top-20, but Lindsay and Maria are top-25 and our freshman Alycia provides a strong #5 in 26th. Except for Laura, they’ve all run seasonal PR’s, logged our best team cumulative time of the season and matched the boy’s 3rd place sectional finish while placing 4th in the total meet merge. That’s something to smile about. The rain returns as the girls return from their cool-down run, but it’s only a mild drizzle. Our parent support group has set up post-race treats near our team tent, and athletes mill around with parents and coaches, enjoying the moment. I put the boys on notice. From what I’ve seen, their season’s not over.
November 3, 2013(Sunday, Syracuse): Two e-mails come in Sunday. One is from Andy. He did not make the sectional team, but when an alternate opted out, Andy asked to take his place. Coach V. Thanks coach for letting me stick around. I can tell the difference of the team atmosphere from the kids who want to be there and give it all 100%. I think sticking around the 2 extra weeks helped me notice how good of a runner I can be…. I am already looking forward to next year even though it’s a semi rebuilding year, I think we can still come out strong and be state-ranked again. I don't know if you are taking suggestions but I really think the lifting helped last summer. Also possibly doing a morning workout 1-2 times a week at like 6 AM--possibly a lift, insanity core exercising, or even morning swims to help our endurance! See you at the banquet… Andy
And Mike, one of our hardest working runners, did not earn a berth on the boys’ squad training in hopes of a Federation bid: Coach,
I am fully willing to continue training with the team for the next couple of weeks to serve as an alternate for Feds if you want me to. I promise I will put everything I have into training regardless of whether or not I will be running in the race. I just want to be with the team until the end. Mike
I’ll save both for the next time someone wants to know why I coach.
Cross-Country Journal -- Week 10 October 21, 2013(Monday, Camillus): Though over half of the teams have finished their seasons, everyone arrives decked out in singlets. It’s picture day. We have a lot to accomplish. The first order of business is to get them lined up—and serious enough—for group photos. As proved in so many meets this year, things go smoothly with this group. After the required photos, they ham it up for the ‘unofficial’ shot. Next, it’s balloting for team awards. Rather than vote by e-mail, they spread out on the basketball court macadam, penciling in their choices. Lastly, those finished and beginning their transition to winter sports hand in uniforms and call it a day, wandering off in clumps. I know those groups contain admixtures of disappointment, relief and satisfaction with the completed season. These staggered endings for athletes are the nature of our no-cut running sports—everyone learns to live with them. The sectional squads head out on a warm-up while I talk with a few of the departing runners about plans for the cold months ahead. Coach Delsole leaves shortly after. Our winter coaches meeting has been scheduled for 4:00pm because most of those folks are free in the fall. I’ve e-mailed that we are still very much ‘in season,’ but one of us has to attend. Warm-up and drills complete, the athletes head to the south corner of our Outer Loop. Today it’s grunt work—long hill repeats with a 1:1 recovery. This circuit is robust, a straight reach toward the Woods Loop before hitting a hard right into the side field and pushing up steep Narnia Hill. Then a quick drop down the back of School Hill before veering right back up Tunnel Hill and a long descent down the Connector Trail back to the start. Without Coach, I’m stuck at the start/finish, seeing little of the runners on the circuit until the clomp-clomp of trainers down the Connector Trail signals their return. They veer sharply at the bottom of the trail and push toward the finish cone. After interval #2, I notice spectacular mud steaks up and down both of Lindsay’s legs. She’s fallen on a corner but popped back up to finish a fast interval. What’s a little mud among teammates? The athletes are easier to monitor—there’s fewer of them—and they train with commensurate abilities. As a result, they finish tight, with no strung out or overlapping groups, and the work goes quickly. Almost all have improved on their averages from this workout a month ago. For Lindsay, the improvement is dramatic despite her fall. The runners are completing their final interval when Coach returns. His meeting has gone as advertised—short and sweet. A long recovery run ends at the base of the School Hill where the runners line up dutifully for 7 second hill sprints. They blast them off while I snap off a few photos to note form later. Finished, they head out on a short cool down while Coach and I both feel the chill in the air. There are weather changes ahead. That evening, I receive a long-winded and mostly critical e-mail from the father of a runner. We’ve had previous polite disagreements about taking family vacations in-season. He presents a few god points that will be considered, but the condescending missive mostly contains made-up quotes, contradictions and a simple ignorance of current physiology knowledge and common practices with scholastic runners. I simply acknowledge its receipt and thus allow him the last word. That’s been my rule for several years now because I don’t have time for e-mail range wars. Any protracted policy disagreements belong in the AD’s office with the runner in question present.
October 22, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): This is an easy day. With smaller groups of only our higher level runners, we switch to a ‘normal’ continuous GC run, building in one quick break. Del and I walk the Inner Loop and Narnia Hill, checking the runners, the trail conditions and the status of our team members. The disgruntled parent becomes a topic and rekindles an old conversation about appropriate roles. In my ‘old days,’ I was actually not old-school, with a stout firewall erected between myself and parents. Instead, I often chatted casually with them about the running lives of their kids, and things were called as they were without defensiveness or lengthy rationalizations. Great efforts were great efforts. Slacking was slacking. That’s changed. The reasons are varied, but I—probably like others--sense the shifting perception about what it means to be an athletic member of a varsity team, whether that be the athlete’s or the parent’s perception. For me, the bottom line has never changed. Since we are a no-cut sport, with the teams I coach adhering to a ‘big-tent’ operating philosophy, our base value is—and has to be--effort. The clock, over time, can objectively tell its tale, but it will not detect the athlete who, for whatever reasons, either believes 70% is 100% or who knows and is content with 70%. Effort is the measure of desire, and I suspect more athletes desire less because of the sacrifices involved. Sacrifice is not much valued these days. Running excellence is not only about what you are willing to give but about what you are willing to give up to fulfill your potential. Conjecture becomes reality when Coach and I determine through experience the potential of a particular athlete if the desire exists--and then it doesn’t. Back to the 70% and the athlete or parent who, over time and after all our best efforts, is still content with that. The effort runners are never, ever, the issue, whether they race up-front varsity or in the back of our JV pack. But there is no effective program for the 70 percenters which does not subtract limited time and attention from those with desire. Still, we’ll try again to fashion one next season or next year. The runners periodically stride smoothly by on their loops. They probably think we’re discussing the weather.
October 22, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): Today--at least to me--we definitely feel smaller. A lot of the ‘personality’ of the team has handed in uniforms and gone their separate ways. A number will return for Indoor Track—but not all. The advice and lectures the team hears all late spring, summer and fall is so often predicated on the assumption of year-round runners—great things than can be accomplished if you have the time and the commitment. These first days of a shrunken team are always reminders that, for some, the harrier days of summer and fall are only a percentage, not part of a total. Other sports or activities will now occupy their time. Most who of those can return for Wildcats XC in 2014 will. And some others, for whom the months have been just a long, hard haul, will not. For them, XC might have been more work than expected—or desired. Or it might have been the discovery that their coaches hold not only a loyalty to athletes, but a strong loyalty to the sport itself and what it demands of runners. Maybe it’s neither of those; we seldom know for sure. But the air is sharp and cool, with snow possible at higher elevations tonight. The day wears a November mood. Stiff breezes shake out the last leaves from trees. Everything is paring down.
Del and I walk into an opening between two section of woods and watch the runners powering by. The boys have again established a garrulous and focused front wagon. It will eventually splinter into several sub-groups, but the first four remain close. One of those—Sean—is still demonstrating a late-season surge, and it’s just when we need him, an encouraging sign for the team. With Laura in a faster quartet, the girls’ front group runs smaller. Lindsay, Elise, Maria—any are capable of leading, and the message to them is always the same: someone take charge and drive the pace. Sarah pushes herself to stay tight with teammates, though she’ll drop back further into the session. We are warned by the pundits that tempo running is a tough training type to master as a young runner. I’ve always agreed it’s that as well as an acquired taste. Mental discipline factors in considerably—as well as body sense. For the inexperienced, tempo’s the middle of an on-off switch that doesn’t want to stay there. The veterans, not surprisingly, come to these sessions more equipped, and these runners are showing that, though not all. I count down the minutes, bellowing into the woods where the runners circle unseen. Whistle blasts halts the circuitous convoys and slowly runners emerge and congregate at Three Corners. It has gone well. They have confirmed the suspicion of some that the same route reversed can be a very different route—in this case more difficult. Will has ‘discovered’ a slight rise where he never noticed one before. But the accumulated laps are similar for most—or slightly more.
The runners tick off their hills, then head out on a short cool down. Another good day.
October 24, 2013(Thursday, Camillus): A fartlek run is on the menu, a 10-10-10, which means about forty plus minutes of running, a goodly portion at GC pace and ten minutes around 5k. We give them license to pick the length of their fartlek ‘ups,’ but want a few fast 30-45 second intervals thrown in. Stay off Dirt Hill, don’t run the fast ups down the steeps, use all our training loops—we issue the standard directions. Off they go. Coach Delsole and I walk the Outer Loop as we monitor and consider next week’s work load leading into the Sectional Championship. Truth be told, we sneak in some talk about the Indoor Track season ahead and the possibilities there. Enjoying the back stretch of our Outer Loop, its green contrasting with the fall colors surrounding it, I can’t help but admire the work our building and grounds crew has accomplished with the trail. What was once a rough cut path wide enough for maybe three bodies is now a spacious thoroughfare you could drive a bus through. The combination of regular mowing and foot traffic has worn the rumpled field surface to a grassy smoothness. The workers have even cut a three foot beveled edge on each side to keep aggressive weeds and thistles from leaning over the trail edges. “This looks like a freakin’ fairway,” I tell Coach, who, also a golfer, acknowledges with a nod and a smile. I point to the edging. “And it even has a rough.”
Coach Delsole and I have told them to bring their spikes, though a few have forgotten or decided against them. Those will be the runners I later watch slipping around turns that remain a little greasy. We are finishing the week—a productive week free of race pressures—with a 3000 meter time trial. There were other possibilitie(and actually other training needs we could have met), but the idea is to keep the bodies attuned to racing efforts without the racing volume and stress. Well, there will actually be some stress. Coach and I will be at opposite ends of our 1000 meter Outer Loop, giving anyone who needs it an earful about pace and effort. And the slightly higher velocity of the trial—hopefully stored in mental/muscle memory—is intentional. We’ll surround that quick middle effort with ample pre and post mileage to make a good day of it. At the south corner of the Outer Loop, I direct the runners to a target sheet taped on the side of my Forester. It’s part of the Daniels’ VDOT chart. They can select a 5k target time, slide across to the 3k equivalent and divide by three for an approximate 1000m interval time check. Coach will be barking some of those out as they pass the start/finish. Through a stroke of luck, that loop measures exactly 1003 meters. We ignore the three meters.
The girls are without Laura, who is completing her college visits. Lindsay takes charge early, and the rest of the front runners pace off her. She powers the 2nd lap and finishes strong, with Elise nipping at her heels and Maria only a few seconds further off. Those three are training as strong as they have all season. Today, it’s Sarah’s turn to fall a little off, something that does not surprise me, with the faster sustained speed of the trial distance. Sarah, though, is a worker, and we’ve already identified, with the help of our new and knowledgeable trainer, the hip flexibility and stability improvements that will lead to smoother run mechanics. Indoor Track will be the season for those goals. On my jog back to the start, the last of the runners churn by. Most of the runners have congregated at the finish by the time I arrive. They mill around, taking water, content with their work. They should be. It’s been a good day—and a productive week. Cross-Country Journal – Week 9
October 14, 2013(Monday, Camillus) We are running an interval workout with hills, a demanding practice session that circles our Outer Loop, then climbs two hills near the school before dropping back down to our Three Corners field intersection. Mike’s GPS will confirm its mile distance, 1.04 to be exact. I have moved the start/finish lines of the circuit to include an additional short hill. Why not? The leg strengthening needs to continue. Same for the need to carry over strong while gathering and recovering. There’s no shortage of carry-overs on this circuit. The athletes approach it from a spectrum of attitudes. There’s the healthy bravado of runners who like to be challenged, runners who don’t mind discomfort and, in fact, seek it because they know what discomfort means. There’s the other side too, those for whom a full-plate quality day is something to dread or survive. I wish those runners would heed American actress Tallulah Bankhead, who once wryly observed: “There’s always going to be pain in life. Suffering’s optional.” Will is firmly in the former camp, so much so with the clapping and encouraging that I pull him aside and recommend his feet do most of the talking. He does just that, joined by plenty of others. I jog up and stand atop the hill behind our school, watching them labor upward, then disappear down the backside only to circle around and head back up Tunnel Hill, their final vertical challenge before descending and surging the last meters to the finish cone. Some groups remain tight throughout; others splinter. Some charge in on the ability to summon up speed even though tired; other labor with long, counterproductive strides, betrayed by genes. All are satisfied with the completion, however, take hits of water and start off on the recovery jog that will bring them to the playing fields for Act II, the L.A.T. drill we’ve ‘shortened’ to 8 minutes. When they’ve finished that, we’ll circle them in the wet grass for Core Drills and then, as they wander off, declare it a solid day, a good start to the week.
October 15, 2013(Tuesday, Syracuse): Nothing about the workout is particularly noteworthy. There are days like these—and most of them are good--days when you’re just ‘getting the work done’ with the adrenalin dialed back and the miles accumulating like leaves. They run three segments of GC, and the total is exactly five miles. The rest of the workout is beyond comment.
October 16, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): The day will end with a whooping one-of-a-kind mistake, but everything about practice leading to that moment seems perfectly in sync. The runners warm up and head over to Three Corners for a tempo session on our Woods Loop, now a standard run. The weather has gradually improved, and the footing is solid for the team members. They work to hold those precise paces on the edge of the anaerobic zone as they accumulate laps. Most groups run tight, and their efforts look ‘comfortably hard,’ just what we are looking for. With time up, I blast the whistle, which reverberates through the woods. The runners slowly congregate at Three Corners and set out on a recovery that is followed by drills and core exercises. As we break and they wander off to rides home, we know the day’s gone well and the workout’s has been an appropriate set-up for Saturday’s invitational at Marathon. Coach and I talk through the Thursday/Friday practices because I will be in North Carolina for my son’s wedding and have to miss those days. But everything’s set; everything’s fine. Back home, I play the phone messages. One immediately grabs me, a colleague asking urgently why I’m not on the starting line at our League Championship. There’s momentary panic, then the dreadful realization that I’ve fouled up big time, placing and arranging the championship a week later than actually scheduled. It’s been wrong on my schedule and web site all season, and neither myself nor anyone else has caught the error. But there’s no excuse. I immediately e-mail athletes, parents and the AD with my apologies. This whole mess is embarrassing on multiple levels, but more importantly it’s also a lost opportunity for some runners. They will have the Marathon invitational on Saturday, but no last championship and, for some, a chance to move up the team depth charts. So I will have to juggle the selection process for our Sectional squad. Like everyone else, I’ve made my share of coaching mistakes, but this one takes the cake.
October 17, 2013(Thursday, Chapel Hill, NC): I hold two long-distance phone calls with Coach Delsole, a short one in traffic leaving the Raleigh-Durham Airport and another later in the evening when we have time to talk. There’s fall-out, of course, from the leagues faux pax, but I let him know that’s my responsibility, not his. I’ll deal with it from a distance as best I can, and that will include apologies and plans. The fartlek workout has gone well, and the runners are now angling toward strong efforts at the Marathon Invitational. With the weekly polls out, the boys have held on to their bubble-position regarding Federation selections, and a strong Marathon effort will be critical in keeping their chances alive. If there’s any silver lining to my league championship foul-up, it’s that they won’t be on their third tough 5k in eight days when they step to Saturday’s start lines. I never would have scheduled a brutal sequence like that in the first place.
October 18, 2013(Friday, Chapel Hill, NC): Coach Delsole calls early in the evening. He’s double-checked on the buses for Saturday’s invitational and reminded the athletes to inspect their racing flats, inserting longer spikes if necessary. The hills of Marathon can get mushy, so spike choices are both important and made to personal tastes. Some runners go longer with all their spikes; others just in front for toe-off leverage. Coach and I discuss the top-10 athletes who will likely, baring major surprises at Marathon, advance to sectionals. We can enter 7-10 athletes, and we’ve always chosen ten. The top-7 for both teams have been pretty much set by previous big-meet performances. They sit atop the Excel depth chart based on meet finishes. The next three will be chosen by both the chart and the coaches. Two additional athletes will be invited to serve as alternates who will train the two weeks into the Sectional Championship and compete if someone is sick or injured. Over the long course of the season—and from the October meets in particular—there’s little subjectivity to this method. Each athlete’s ‘body of work’ speaks for itself. They might cite unique disclaimers for a lower-than-desired ranking; they might expect special consideration for this or that reason. And I might even--despite a team rule against discussing roster decisions with any but athletes--receive the occasional parent e-mail requesting an exception(those I have to refuse, not only because of policy but because they always mean denying another athlete their just rewards). But the numbers stand. I wish Coach good luck with his large contingent and head off to my son’s wedding rehearsal dinner.
October 19, 2013(Saturday, Chapel Hill, NC): At 7:58am, Coach Delsole delivers a text that both the buses and athletes have arrived at the school. That’s always the first big relief on meet day. The next ‘stress-point’ is usually arriving at the site with ample time to warm up properly and ensure all the bib numbers are there. At Manhattan, I opened our packet to find bib numbers for West Chester-Henderson. Fortunately, I was able to find their team tent before the coach opened his packet and gulped. The races unfold as I’m taking a pre-wedding walk hundreds of miles away. In my absence, Coach Delsole is pinned to the start line for our six competing squads. He calls mid-race from the boys seeded varsity. They are running strong, with most of our scorers in the top-20 heading into the middle mile. That’s the one, if you’ve been suckered by the fast first mile, that kills you. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of leaden legs being pushed through the final mile of that race, and we counsel our runners repeatedly to ‘stay smart’ in mile 1. That’s apparently what they’ve done. Shortly, Coach calls back again. “It looks pretty good,” he tells me as they surge into the final loop. And he’s right. They out-leg the field to take the race, with Will and David in the top-5 and our fifth in 21st. The 42 second gap is still too large, but it will shrink at Sectionals. When the girls toe the line for their varsity seeded race, the goal is simple. Run the first mile smart, then push and take risks. They encounter a considerable foe in New Jersey’s Mount Saint Dominic Academy and place 2nd, with Laura the individual winner running in front from the gun. The girls JV squads tacks on a second first place finish, and all groups place no lower than 2nd. With strong boys/girl varsity efforts, they win the meet’s Coed Award. According to Coach Delsole, the races go “like clockwork.” The athletes manage themselves extremely well. Squad captains deliver team members to their start-lines on time or early. They cheer each other; they cheer and congratulate competitors. Team members not racing handle the finish lines chores. Parents chip in. The demeanor of both the teams all day is positive and purposeful, so it’s appropriate they win the meet’s Sportsmanship Award. As is custom, Friends of Wildcats Cross-Country sets up their store of après-race snacks near the bus garage. As the site empties of teams and buses, the Wildcats one last time enjoy the splendid autumnal views, good food and their own company.
Cross-Country Journal – Week 8 October 7, 2013(Monday, Camillus): You could see it on the weather maps in the morning, a long border-to-border curtain being drawn eastward across the country, its deep green shade spoiled only by blotches of yellow where the really bad stuff was happening. Not far south of us, they were issuing tornado warnings. By mid-day, the deluge is on. Heavy rain lashes the playing fields outside of school and hollows became small wading pools. Modified sports get cancelled, and knowing how the rumor mills work, I call the AD to ensure no system-wide shut down of sports. “What, because of a little rain?” he chuckles. He’s an old lacrosse guy, one used to standing around in all kinds of weather. I text the team to remind them we’re on. It’s a good call because by practice time the rain has relented and I’m making a gentleman’s bet with Dan that we’ll see sunshine before they leave. Dan’s in the strange position of hoping clouds or rain. The competition trails are a mushy mess, so we decide to stay off and preserve them for Wednesday’s home meet against Fayetteville-Manlius. That leaves the Ike Dixon loop, a challenging .56 circuit with one good hill and some interesting slants. The team assembles atop a small rise by the side of the woods and begins the day’s interval grunt work. After the first comes the question: how many? “I don’t know,” I tell them, prompting some perplexed(and a few displeased) looks. But the honest truth is I don’t. We’re going to see what the soggy day—and the runners—bring on. There’s no clipboard for recording times, just the breaking weather and our desire to take advantage of a day that could just as easily have been a washout. As far as I’m concerned, these are serendipity miles. The runners surge off in groups at thirty second intervals. They’re running part of the Woods Loop, then veering left onto the Ike Dixon Loop, climbing a steep hill and circling the periphery. Unlike our traditional Outer Loop circuit, this one affords a limited view of the back stretch and the opportunity to see runners jocky for position halfway around. Their strides are like fingerprints; we can identify almost every one of them simply with the practiced memories of how they move. It’s obvious by the third interval that things are going well for the majority. One of the boys front group is away on a college visit, but the rest run tight and have no trouble returning to the start line following recoveries. The girls front group is spread out between two groups and Laura is not there, still nursing a foot bruise. “You’ll run further than twelve,” Coach announces dryly to the groups waiting on the next interval. A few eyes open wide, but the veterans just smile. Six solids ones are what we’re after, and they deliver those before recovery running and strides on the school fields. Several balk at core drills on the wet grounds, but I remind them of how dirty they are already. When the last push-ups are logged, and the athletes are milling around, I call Dan over to point out sunlight busting down through scattered clouds. He wants to wait a few more minutes and let things slide shut again, but a bet’s a bet.
October 8, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): We are not worried about managing a pre-race day. It’s back to Segmented GC--three longer loops--with some fast work on the playing fields to follow. The runners are by now old hands at this technique, and we’re still convinced of its validity. Three Corners quickly becomes a hub of comings and goings as the runners rack up segments, and the silences are interspersed with the noisy chatter of groups quickly grabbing a hit of water and then vanishing into the fields and woods. Some are already talking winter and indoor track. My mind can’t wander that far today. We have more immediate concerns.
October 9, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): On a gorgeous afternoon, we welcome the #1 ranked F-M boys and girls teams for our dual meet races that will both be, following exciting modified contests, exercises in anti-climax. I have already explained to the parents. The athletes, of course, have been schooled in the reasons for running their 5k race at tempo pace, and when I contacted Coach Aris with my intentions and reasons, his reply was succinct: my thoughts exactly. Neither of us want to bring still-recovering athletes to NYC for the Manhattan Invitational. In a nutshell, we run scholastic athletes too much, and they’re especially hobbled when we throw them into a hard Wednesday meet followed by an important Saturday invitational. This seasonal configuration is the result of an athletic mindset born in the rectangle sports where playing multiple games per week is perfectly normal—preferred in fact. Except for football. Football is physically demanding, hard on the body. Time is required for recuperation, and as a result someone smartly decided they should compete only once a week. So explain that, then, to the ligaments, the tissues and the mitochondria of my weary runners who require the same recuperation. Anyone who takes the time to understand human physiology knows that two days is inadequate for recovery from a hard 5k. But we’re expected to pretend it is. So we run our tempos and F-M’s front-runners complete theirs. The meaningless scores are later phoned in to the newspaper. Funny thing, though, I have a small group of runners who, while running their disciplined 5k tempo, set seasonal PR’s for our course. And their comments are interestingly similar: coach, it didn’t even feel like a full tempo pace. Hmmmm….. I will quiz them later on reasons but will then comment most on the mental and physical merits of even-paced racing. Friends of Wildcats XC puts on a big seniors-adieu spread following the meet. Sunset fires the underbelly of clouds gathering in the west. Parents and athletes relax and chat as darkness takes over.
October 10, 2013(Thursday, Camillus): Except for Mike, we have no after-race fatigue to manage. Senior Mike broke ranks at the Wednesday meet because he couldn’t stand the thought of graduating without a sub-18:00 on our home course. He took care of that by fifteen seconds and then apologetically agreed near the finish chute that a courtesy heads-up to myself would have been appropriate. But he still couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. The troops today warm up relaxed. Fartlek, some strides and some flat-land sprints are on the agenda—and a treat of sorts. For years we’ve fought the misimpressions of 8th grade modified runners who fear that the move up to 5k as high school freshman will be a Mt. Marcy to Mt. Everest leap. We’ve held meetings with them. Our veterans have arranged talk-times and informally encouraged their potential future teammates. Still, the sight of varsity members bending to quality-day workouts or pounding through the seemingly intricate loops on our 5k race course each year gives graduating modies pause. The words form unspoken on their lips: that looks really hard.
Serendipity strikes early. By the time the runners exit the Woods Loop and head around our Outer and Inner back field loops, it’s clear the boys front trio are not holding back. We hear the cheers of varsity runners egging them around the loops. When Tommy, Pat and Kyle descend the Inner Loop hill at the 2 mile mark, I glance at my watch. Their splits put them in our varsity top-15—and that the day after a hard race against F-M. On the girls side, front-runners Carly and Rachel are also pushing and proving a worthy match for our difficult circuit. When the course later clears of all the runners and we’ve hoofed back to the finish, we see a lot of tired smiles on the modies. I hand Coach Wojtaszek and Gangemi some recent course results for our varsity runners. As our teams prep for strides and sprints, their modified runners scan the varsity times to see where they would ‘fit in.’ Mission accomplished.
October 11, 2013(Friday, NYC):
My fingers are crossed as we enter the hotel. One year, the reservations for us had been totally scrambled and we’d stood in the lobby for over an hour while management sorted out their errors; another year we’d even been moved to a different hotel due to a bogus claim of “over-booking.” All coaches traveling overnight to the Manhattan have their war stories. But this day, everything is set, and it’s a quick meeting to distribute room keys and send the athletes off. We hold a cozy catered dinner in the conference center, one that eliminates additional bus trip, and at ten o’clock Coach Delsole and I are knocking on doors, checking the athletes to bed. It occurs to me I’ve been doing this longer than any of them have been alive.
October 12, 2013(Saturday, NYC): Everything about the day—rising, breakfast, site set-up, races, pick-up—goes smoothly. But it’s not merely logistical success we’re looking for. A previous(and very successful) modified coach of ours used to remind his youthful charges, “It’s a business trip,” and that’s how our day must ultimately be judged. The athletes get down to their business at 10:48am with the first boys JV race. Six JV races for us squeeze into the next hour and a half as the Manhattan mayhem ensues. Coach Delsole handles the start-line assignments while I manage finish-line groupings and quick post-talks before sending them back to the team tent for gear changes and cool-downs. The rapid-fire races leave little free time, but it’s gratifying to run across some old colleagues and enjoy a quick chat here and there. With the final JV race, we get a breather and walk back to the team tent to find a small army of parent supporters encircling the athletes. The varsity boys squad is well into the warm up for their 2:03pm “G” race and finish with drills that take them up and back in front of their friendly rival, Ithaca. It should be a tight contest between the two, but I worry about a strong Conestoga team from PA. Our tent area is busy and distracting, so I’m happy to see the boys lace up and head to the start line. I begin the long walk up to the bridge over Henry Hudson Parkway. It’ll be another sacrificed finish line so I can cheer on the runners early and late in the race. Soon enough, at my trailside perch, the walkie-talkie call comes in from Coach Delsole. They are thundering toward our small bridge crowd. The thundering allusion proves apt. A few minutes later, a solid phalanx of racers rush up to the bridge, kicking up a storm of dust. There are Wildcats in that swirl, but back further than I want. The line soon thins to the stragglers, so I walk back down the trail and spot up at the curve onto the main field. From there, it’s an exhaustingly long finish for the runners. Powering down off their back loop, the lead runners flash by, and the sight of four Conestoga runners in the top 10 confirms my fears. This one’s over; the fight now is for second. Will and David shoot past in the top 15, followed by Nate and Jack, both in the top 30. But it’s a four-runners-and-a-cup-of -coffee moment as runners stream by, and I’m wishing I’ve missed our #5 in the rush. I haven’t. An unexpected #5 comes flying by. One off-day in a top five is all it takes, and though we hold on for second, I know the team cumulative time will suffer—and with it our position in the merge. That total team race when it counts has yet to happen.
The energy expended weaving through—and passing—slowing runners saps the strength of my runners. They’d been warned of the unique challenges Vandy presents runners--and the risk it demands: get out or get trapped—take your pick. In the end, some of our top runners picked wrong. Lesson learned. Hours later , we’ve made our northern escape from the Big Apple, driving past a brilliant sunrise, through the dense Catskills and back into the mottled landscape of central New York. North of Binghamton, Laura appears from the back of the bus. Ostensibly in search of a warmer spot, she plunks down in the empty seat next to Coach Delsole and the chatter starts. There’s a relaxed relief to her voice, evidence that in spite of the nagging foot issue, she feels she mastered her race plan and ran a credible time. She did both. I’m across the aisle, attempting to doze because when the bus empties out at the high school, with athletes scooting to cars and their homes, I’ll aim my Forester northward, tacking another tiring hour and forty five minute to the day with a drive to the lake house to join my wife for some Sunday relaxation. But that’s my problem. Coach and Laura carry on over a range of topics as the charter rocks homeward through the dark upstate miles.
October 13, 2013(Sunday, Cape Vincent): All morning, the runners’ Race Analysis’ arrive:
I think that my performance yesterday was unacceptable. I started out the race poorly, I was far behind where I wanted to be and where I should have been, and by the time I decided to make something happen, it was too late. I had a very good finish from the end of the woods to the finish line, but it wasn't enough to make up for the previous two miles of poor racing. Before the race, you told us about the need of a complete 7 man effort in order to win. My performance was not up to the standards necessary to help the team to that level, and I know I could have and should have done better. Also, I know that I am capable of becoming that 5th man that we have been lacking and I will reach that goal. I assure you that you will see a much different runner than you saw yesterday in me during this week, and for the rest of the season. I completed a 7 mile long run today and I am ready to work hard and compete this week to prepare for Marathon and the rest of the season. My performance goal is to break 17:30 in both Marathon and Leagues, and my personal goals are to make the sectional squad, help the team to federations, and make the federation squad.
-Sean
Sean, I am confident you will deliver for the team. I know you consider yourself primarily a baseball guy. You should also consider yourself a runner guy because you've done everything asked of a Wildcats runner--and more. See you at practice Monday.
Coach V.
Cross-Country Journal – Week 6 September 23, 2013(Monday, Camillus) What a day at my day job. Rush, rush with multiple concerns. I am only too happy to pull up to XC practice. The weather has turned cool and intermittently cloudy, with sunlight poking through at regular intervals—autumnal weather. The teams collect around the car as I chat with individual athletes about absences and injury updates. Laura has returned from a very positive college visit, but Will is hacking with a nasty cough that requires medication. Lauryn is forlorn. Her lower leg problem had flared up over the weekend and a trainer’s visit prior to practice has sidelined her--again. I am sorting out such issues when Coach Delsole arrives. With a quick reminder to the teams about taking care of “the little things” this busy and important week, Elise picks out the warm-up loops and the runners are off. Coach and I walk up the hill to watch and discuss individual runners. I have the sense of growing team strength and cohesiveness on the girls side as fitness improves and individuals make decisions to tap their talents. A subtle shift is on, one that would likely re-configure the mid-pack in the weeks ahead. We just want to encourage that process, but it will be satisfying to wittness. They return to the basketball court, completing drills in such a relaxed manner that Coach had to warn them to pick up the pace. Time would be tight today with a tempo run around the Woods Loop, an L.A.T. session and core drills. Preparations complete, the runners move off to Three Corners to form workout groups. It is move-up day for a few, but I am focused on Megan to see what she could do with tempo-intensity work in the girls front group. Right away, the vision of that group pushing as they did together on the long run simply falls apart. Maria and Elise immediately let Lindsay go. I am upset and am joined by Coach on the far side of the circuit. We both yell at them to cut the 80 meter ‘gift’ they immediately gave Lindsay. After lap 1 of 5, Lindsay never gains another meter on them. When they finish, I pulled both aside for a ‘talk.’ “Do you know what happened to the distance between you and Lindsay in laps 3, 4, 5?” I ask them point blank. What I get back are blank stares, so I tell them: “Nothing. Nothing happened. In fact, you closed the gap in the final lap. Now what does that tell you?” Maria decides she’d better have an answer to this one. “That we went out too slow,” she offers sheepishly. “Exactly,” I agree. “And why did you go out so slowly?” Maria offers that she is afraid of blowing up. My answer is this: “Have you ever gone out too fast and blown up?” She has to admit she has not. Turning toward both, I say, “So you have no proof whatsoever that that would happen, correct?” They both nod. “O.K,’ I tell them, and we make a plan for Wednesday’s dual meet. They’ll take it out harder, see what happens. “And if you blow up, then you can come back to me with an ‘I-told-you-so’, alright?” I am perfectly willing to take that risk.
September 24, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): Tuesday always seems the longest day of the week, but this day not so much. Busy is the byword. The athletes bring in some athlete contact information that’s overdue and settle on the macadam before the Forester. I cover a few topics quickly: the acceleration of the season and moving up the depth chart; managing health with illnesses circling; the dual meet with C-Square which will be especially tough for the boys. The runners are soon on their warm-up way into the crisp, sunny afternoon. The practice session, in a reassuring manner, is non-descript. After a few minor group adjustments, we loop them out on their segments, three of them, which total an appropriate 5.5 miles. Sean Beney completes the warm-up and a 10 minute GC, feeling pretty good, but we don’t want to push the ankle he sprained on Monday. We end his day there. Sarah is back and comfortable on the segments, but I wonder if she will repeatedly face issues with more intense work or more volume. Cautiously optimistic right now. Strides finish up the day. Everyone is instructed to keep them relaxed, and I get the waiting lines in on the act, evaluating their teammates as they speed off. It’s a good way to inject a little ‘classroom’ about mechanics into the drill. They complete the short CD after and wander off. It is, after all, a comfortable day. Later I find the weekly NYS ranks on Armory.com. The boys come in at #9 in their class. The girls are absent from the list, but probably hidden off in that 20-30 zone. They need to train harder so they can compete harder. Simple.
September 25, 2013(Wednesday, Central Square): Meet day begins with an e-mail.
M, You have not, unfortunately, been able to maintain even basic attendance since then, so I have to remove you from our roster. Please turn in your singlet through a team member. Best of luck with school this fall. Coach Vermeulen
The runners are aboard their buses when I pull into the high school. Coach Delsole arrives shortly and we hit the road on a brilliantly clear and warm early autumn afternoon. Destination: Central Square and our third league dual meet. This will be our toughest yet for both squads. The girls will face an improving Central Square squad while the boys are looking at a match-up of state top-20 teams. They will have their hands full, a point we have pressed home for the past two days. The Central Square coaches have scheduled Senior Day activities and thoughtfully include ours seniors, who are called forward and presented flowers to the applause of the gathered crowd. Afterward, those are quickly gathered as the boys finish preparations, then lean to the start line and speed off at the whistle. I head in the other direction with the radio, into the back fields loops and the one and two mile marks. We know this: C-Square recently knocked off CNS in a dual meet with a 1-2-3 finish for the automatic win; they won the V-V-S Invitational two weeks back; and they are ranked 18th in the latest Class A state poll. We also know this: Sean’s sprained ankle seems better but he’s missed two days of practice; Will is still hacking with his respiratory ailment that requires medication, but he will give it a go for the team. The C-Square strategy is obvious and exactly what any coach would recommend. Their top three takes it out hard, hoping to shed WG runners and put themselves in a position to attempt another 1-2-3 finish. By the half mile mark, they’ve accomplished that with their threesome 10-15 meters ahead of the front pack. But there’s an interloper in their group. Nate, understanding the potential of the situation, has raced out with them. Jack, David, Will and Mike follow in the chase group. Up the rise, onto the abandoned railroad bed and then into the back field loop where I wait, they gradually sort out. Our chase group runners are slowly closing the gap, and Nate has made a decision to force the issue, pushing the lead group hard, harder perhaps than they want to run. It’s an interesting and courageous strategy. As they charge around the back field and through some side woods, I see the strategy developing as the C-Square threesome begins to string out. The runners churn down to the main field, circle around a rise and race back toward me and a long reverse the back loop. Nate has surrendered first place, but David, Will and Jack are nipping at the heels of the C-Square #3. By the backside of that loop, they’ve effectively negated any chances of their competitor’s strategy. Now it’s a footrace for places and scores. Around the back loop and then popping out of a short woods trail, they gun toward a second section of railroad bed that will empty them onto the main field for final loops to the finish. The order, however, has changed--and it’s not what I’d expected. The C-Square runner emerges first from the woods, but hot on his heels is freshman David. Jack, Will and Nate follow, with Mike not far back. They are in control of the race at this point but still charging hard. I cheer our other runners on, then jog down toward the finish. The leaders have, by then, already veered into the finish loops, with David measuring up the C-Square front runner as they round a turn for the final rise and dash back down to the finish. Coach Delsole is trailside, monitoring the girls warm-up. “Take him,” he quietly directs David. The freshman complies, powering up the rise into the lead, turning at the trees and flying back down to the finish. Thirty meters out, he quickly glances back as if unsure he’s actually winning—which is exactly what he does by a slim second. Will loses a sprint finish to the C-Square #2 but we grab four of the next five spots to notch the win. Nate’s exhausted by his strategic pacing and David’s strolling around like he just walked the dog. It’s been a great race and a great win. My mind, however, moves immediately to the scant two recovery days before McQuaid. The final race of the day—the girls varsity—lines up as the sun sinks into the tree tops westward. Laura’s not the only runner with an assignment. We want our next three running tight, which means a faster start for Elise and Maria. It’s also an opportunity for others to solidify recent gains in the team depth chart, and I am anxious to see how the top-10 for us shakes out on this relatively flat course, one more in character with McQuaid than our home course.
September 26, 2013(Thursday,Camillus): The question for the day’s training is how much and how fast? As the XC crowd gathers, I pull aside our senior leaders and relate my question—what’s the best workout to drive recovery and still achieve moderate training effect? Anyone suggestions? Laura’s hand shoots right up. Her idea: GC to a moderate amount of fartlek ending with some more GC. Everyone nods in agreement—including me--so it’s a bout of GC, then six minutes of fartlek with ‘ups’ under one minute, then another bout of GC. We will add core drills to maintain the continuity of that training since Friday will go light.
September 27, 2013(Friday, Camillus):
We return from our inspection to find almost all the runners returned. They form around us. Coach Delsole steps to the middle of the circle with what’s next with our pre-race day. “O.K.,” he announces, “we are going to increase to the 12 minute L.A.T today, which should fire you up for tomorrow.” Some of the faces remain blank; some jaws drop. “Then we’ll add another set of core so we keep that going.” He’s doing it all with a straight face. I shoot a glance at Lindsay, who knows us well enough and is already shaking her head and smiling. Coach cracks his own smile, and relieved OMG’s murmur through the group. We go over race-day logistics one more time and send them home.
September 28, 2013(Saturday, Genesee Park, Rochester): To the rhythms of a well-practiced plan, we load the buses, take a left past the Thruway toll booth and head west. Early fall glides by in the form of harvested farm fields and browning wood lots. Past Montezuma Swamp and the outlet stores, we approximate the course of the east-west canals, turn north at exit 45 and take the turns by memory until we’re pulling into the parking lot just south of Genesee Park. On the trudge in, I tell Sarah I’ve brought teams to this meet longer than she’s been alive. She acts dutifully impressed, then replies she’s feeling stronger and more race-ready with the consistent training. That is, after all, what really matters. The top boys and girls modies have joined us for this invitational, and they’re taking in the extended trip and the big-meet atmosphere as you might expect, slight intimidation mixing with a holiday-morning excitement. We tell them to go ahead and be nervous. Once the gun goes off, it’s just a race—a big one, but a race. While the runners set up and settle in, Coach Delsole and take a walk to check out some course markings and see who’s around. I stop to chat very briefly with the venerable Bob Bradley, former McQuaid coach and meet director. Now he’s the present announcer who is, as expected, very busy announcing. He wishes our teams well. There are some welcomed changes that make the modified course more visible to spectators, but the varsity loops are well-worn into tradition. The sun and temperatures have been doing their work. Mudfest memories aside, this is a day for fast times, as a course record later by Mickey Burke of Rush-Henrietta attests.
Soon enough the girls JV are responding to their opening gun, and our race day is off and running. There will be no roster surprises today, no JV’s unloading a big race to leap into the varsity ranks. While it seems I’ve cut an astute roster line between the top-10 varsity runners and the JV’s there’s a more accurate reason. As our racers leap out from the mass starts and then labor home down their long finishes, many are running on fumes, and the physiology we feared after Wednesday’s hard dual meet is on full display. They labor. David goes top-20 in the boys seeded AA race and runs the fastest freshman time of the meet, but even he admits to just “toughing it out” during the final mile. Both boys and girls varsity squads place below hoped-for target finishes. Neither runs poorly by any means, but they race demonstrably tired, and we are once again confronting the ill-conceived and forced realities of scholastic cross-country over-racing. College coaches just shake their heads at this. Walking back from the results table later in the afternoon, Coach and I make some executive decisions about meets that will play out in the weeks ahead.
By 5:10, the dust is settling from the boys JV race. Parents, alumni and athletes are gathering near the team tent, filling up on conversation and post-race snacks. Ryan is resting comfortably in the medical tent. Seems he was cut off in the bottoms during his JV race, veered too far left and head somehow met post. Wish I had that on video. I promise the paramedics we’ll fit him for a football helmet on Monday, and they assure me he is not concussed, just bruised and perhaps a little chagrinned. Another McQuaid moment.
Cross-Country Journal – Week 5
September 16, 2013(Monday, Camillus):
Today it will be hills. Welcome to Monday. Will Freeman of Grinnell College has often spoken of workouts as the most accurate indictors of progress. The variables are more controlled--though never completely—and, unlike race courses, you can come back to a workout at your own choosing. We ran the hill circuit practice this summer but with spotty attendance because it was, after all, summer. Today is a baseline for this particular hill session. They’ll see it again later with different trailside leaf color and more birds fleeing south overhead—and we will note differences.
The opening circuit is for the runners to intuitively sense and adjust pace based on some clock and body feedback. I use my perch to note hill form. I radio Coach that Nate came up the hill looking like a waiter, with arms too low and elbows ineffectively locked. He relates the information with my instructions for correction, and the next time through there’s a world of difference. I am also less than happy with the way Maria and Elise have gone to the back of their mostly boys group and followed dutifully along. Too timid for my taste. Over the radio, Coach agrees and concocts an interesting solution. They’re given a 3-5 second lead-out and told that if more than six boys pass them, the circuit doesn’t count. Suddenly, more power and drive appear, and the number of passes never exceeds two. In between the labored breathing and the foot pounding of passing groups, my back field goes eerily quiet and almost autumnal. I appreciate the contrast, but they are out there working hard today. It’s money in the runners’ bank.
September 17, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): On behalf of several runners, Laura successfully lobbies for a continuous GC instead of segments. She suggests 20-25 minutes. I agree but make it thirty with following drills and strides. One of our late August arrivals who has been balancing along the training tightrope due to very low summer miles completes the warm-up; but that’s his work for the day. It’s progress. Another late arrival with base mileage deficits is spied walking on the cool-down. Coach is steaming, and I don’t blame him. We are still perfecting a viable system for runners like that who seem overstressed from even the baseline workouts in our system. Putting them on rehab-type workouts is one solution, but where should we draw the line? It is the dilemma, I’m sure, that many coaches face as they attempt to keep their programs accessible to a wide range of talent while meeting the mandates of a varsity sport. We also have some girls weaving in and out of workouts, and I wonder, due to a lack of consistent training, if they will ultimately fashion productive, successful seasons. Time is passing. With no general conditioning segments to monitor, Coach Delsole and I set cones for tomorrow’s dual meet with Auburn while watching the passing groups and pondering the general health and strength of the team. Overall, our front runners are doing just fine, and some in the JV ranks are showing signs of making that internal decision to move up. Mid-season discovery time has arrived. The message we’ve related to a number of team members privately or as a group—the talent is in there, just tap it—seems to be resonating. On the girls side, we could be a very different team in a month.
September 18, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): Today’s a winning day, but an awful one too. Before we even get to warm-ups for our dual meet, I have to send one of our runners home for a critical infraction of our Code of Conduct. Whether he will be allowed to return to the team this season will be the A.D.’s decision. Coach and I feel bad for him, but he’s broken both school and team policy. I pull the boys team aside to explain the situation and them get them started on their warm-up. There’s a meet to administer. The Auburn modified runners have already arrived, so we are assured of an on-time start. Coach Delsole gives them course preview information while I go over directions with the meet-scoring crew. This day, it consists of team members not competing. A crowd begins to build, and by the time Coach sounds the horn for the modified boys race, they’re two and three deep along the start. Both boys and girls squads are able to race home to cheering crowds and convincing wins. By the time I return from monitoring the modies in the back fields, the boys varsity squad is on the line, completing their final warm-up. We’ve already had the talk—compression—and reminded them of the primo conditions for racing. During stride-outs, I tell them to pick a new team cheer, something with lower decibels that conveys the right message about self-confidence. About 5:10, Coach blows the start horn, and I pedal again into the back field. Some races produce a fair share of drama, some don’t. By the time they speed by me at Three Corners, headed toward the Woods Loop, the race has shaped up about as it will end, with a batch of Wildcats surrounding Auburn’s talented front runner. Will is fighting a cold, but he manages to stay with Jack and Nate at they go 1-2-3 to seal the win. Our thirty-eight second compression is mediocre, but it’s an improvement, so we’ll take it. The girls are next. At the horn, Laura tears off. There will be no strategy race today. We’d talked the previous day, and I’d reminded her of the missing quality days due to college visits and how we both needed to know her race-fitness level. With no Saturday invitational, this would be the perfect day to determine that. The only drawback would be the lack of competitors or teammates to pace her. By the top of the opening loop of the rise, she is twenty meters ahead of Lindsay and another twenty on the WG lead pack. This will be a solo time trial. At Three Corners, I do what I frequently do the early going of races—I yell at the girls front pack trailing Lindsay to get moving, to trust their training and push the front mile harder. But this is a game that will not be won in the mind so much as in constant demands to practice harder so that their perceived ‘full effort,’ whether it’s 85 or 90 percent of actual potential, is still faster. You shall race as you train, says the old adage. I bike to the Woods Loop exit. Laura shortly comes barreling out, under control and steady. Lindsay follows further back, and I knew the gap will steadily widen. Laura is in a pace zone nobody is matching. After most of the girls had gone by, I thrash through high weeds to the back field’s inner loop, hearing the cheers of spectators in the outdoor spectator area. Laura soon circles into the inner loop and comes driving by. Still precise, still under control. “Run this strong,” I tell her and thrash back to the other trail overlooking the two mile mark. A sporadic groups of runners veer into the Inner Loop, fighting mounting fatigue. The Wildcats among them are only too aware of the toughness of that section of our course. “It’s where we win races,” Coach Delsole has often told the runners.
I wait for the others. Three minutes later, Lindsay, Elise and Maria descend the hill and push their way across the back field with me yelling and encouraging them to power early along the terrace. Lindsay is hurting but persevering. Elise and Maria overtake her on the terrace section and finish slightly ahead. I bike to the finish, where Laura is all smiles and wants to know, “Did you hear what I said in the field?” I confess I had not, so she tells me. “I said I was running like a metronome.” A pretty fast metronome is all I can think. Laura, however, has already turned her attention to Lindsay, who is crying and holding a hip. “You’re fine,” Laura is insisting as she hugs Lindsay. “You’re O.K.” Laura is mother duck this day.
September 19, 2013(Thursday, Camillus): The Wednesday dual meet results tell us there are few surprises on the boys side, but the puzzles pieces for the girls have shifted—again. Things are getting interesting, and images of the team have changed significantly from what we imagined in the weeks of July--not in the top positions, but in those important spots that come after and provide critical team depth. Alicia seems to have made a statement with her team sixth place, and Maggie continues to race and train near the top. Megan also has moved up with two consecutive team top-10 finishes. On the workout depth chart, however, she’s still further down, but during the stride session she makes a humorous statement by bursting through the finish like a track runner reaching for the tape. “Way to go,” I tell her jokily. Over her shoulder she says, “Finally.” There’s an faint edge to her voice so I call her back and give her a quick shoulder hug. She walks away with arms raised and a “Yes.” Later, following practice, we have a more serious discussion, one that touches on the expectations and the responsibilities of potential. All in all, with a solid fartlek session and drills in the book, it’s been a good day.
September 20, 2013(Friday, Camillus):
The evidence is there that it’s time for summer to surrender. Golden-rod blazes in the back fields; corn drains its green from the bottom up. The runners will take a familiar route today among the drumlin-rippled countryside, clocking themselves to see what the training has accomplished since last time through. Coach Delsole monitors the shorter route this day. I watch the longer circuit. To assist the runners, I’ve coned out several pace-miles. The longer course has three--beginning, middle, end—with each to its purpose. “Someone in your group needs to check your averages,” I tell them, “because I’ll be asking.” Then we make several adjustments to groups and stagger the starts. They stride off up Ike Dixon Road, this time in the neat single files ordered by us in clear commands. There had been consideration given to other faster or more intense workouts. That’s always that temptation while watching other teams catapult off to quick starts and impressive wins. But this is about November and the realities of our runners, so we stick to the plan. Megan gets her chance. I’ve shifted her to the girls’ front group. Here group glides in neat single-file fashion up and over the rolls of Ike Dixon, heading out. It’s a gorgeous afternoon, warmer than necessary but clear. At the Gilly Lake intersection, the groups separate for their individual loops through the countryside, and I get first reports about their paces. They’re moving well for the opening stages. Megan is firmly ensconced in her lead group. So far, so good.
Despite the great efforts by a number of team members, the run has again left some disappointed—and a few riding back in our cars with tight calf muscles or sore hips. These runs force history back into the faces of runners. Things left undone in the summer or mechanical issues left unsolved are almost always, on these runs, ‘returned to sender.’ I tell them just that as we assemble for core drills in the shade. None of the words, of course, are about this day, this week, even this season. They are aimed further afield--into next summer. Let’s hope they hit their intended mark.
September 21, 2013(Saturday, Baldwinsville): With one eye on the sky, I drive out to watch our modified runners compete in the Baldwinsville Invitational. On the start line, the girls are a giggly bundle of nervous energy. But the starter’s gun solves that problem. Carly and Rachel negotiate the twists and trails well, finishing third and fourth individually and pulling their team to a third place finish. Coach Wojtaszek brings his boys team to the line, and they put all their scorers in the top-20--including the 2-3 spots--to capture their fifth straight Baldwinsville title. I leave as storm clouds mass for arrival from the west, satisfied with the future of Wildcats XC. Cross-County Journal – Week 4 September 9, 2013(Monday, Camillus): Crystalline cloud-laced skies and cool temperatures greet the runners who start a busy week. I hand out—for the last time—the athletic policy sheets to about 12 who’ve failed to submit them. Tomorrow’s the deadline. After that, they sit from competitions until the documents are submitted. School policy. As Coach Delsole arrives, I outline the day’s work. On tap is something new: tempo around the Woods Loop.
While they warm up, Coach Delsole and I discuss group changes. We decide to place Lindsay again as mother duck to her girls group. The boys front group remains, of course, the boys front group. Other names came up. Megan and Maggie are potential ‘movers’ with the potential to practice higher. They will join a faster group. Others are considered but left where they’ve trained. We will use meets this week for evaluations. At Three Corners we group them, issue final instructions and set them off in tightly packed groups. Once the last group exits, I blow the whistle to start the tempo. For the next twenty minutes, they surge corners and power the wooded circuit while Coach Delsole and I rotate through sections of the trail. We like what we see. Our busy week is underway.
September 10, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): Thunder, lightning and torrential rain sweep through the area during the morning, but the big show has moved on by afternoon, replaced by rising temperatures and humidity. The heat index warning arrives from the AD via e-mail, and I make practice adjustments. When the teams arrive, we go over logistics for Wednesday’s dual meet at Oswego and provide a very condensed version of the standard hydration lecture, one the veterans know by heart. It doesn’t take the teams long to warm up on their warm-up, and when they return we move to the small back field of the school grounds where a natural bowl is shadowed by tall maples. They are only too happy to complete drills in the shade before their GC run. This day our GC segments will serve double duty, keeping the pace proper while providing opportunities to re-hydrate. Some of the runners who have read or listened to the weather report smartly brought two water bottles. As they circle out into the heat and back, Coach Delsole and I discuss a variety of topics that invariably swing back to who’s training well, who’s struggling and whether certain neophytes have yet ‘figured out’ this sport of ours. Some have done so quickly, some are taking more time, and some—well, we’re not so sure what, exactly, they are actually thinking. At this point in the season, however, it is probably more imperative that they know exactly what we are thinking. And the critical we is the collective team philosophy, the one that expects a loyalty to the sport reflected in commitment and effort. Some struggling neophytes can surprise you, but because of time and experience, Coach and I can usually identify who of the newcomers may not be there at next year’s team pre-season meeting. “We may have a few one-year wonders,” I suggest to Coach as runners return for water. Then I correct myself. “Well, they might not exactly be wonders.” “Yes they are,” he assures me. “They are here a one year and they wonder why.” Practice over, I hit the road on a forty mile drive to Rome for an Outdoor Track sectional representatives meeting. Our sectional coordinators obviously like things done in advance. When the meeting breaks at nine, I head home along the thruway with a crescent moon sinking to the dark horizon. I shuffle in the door at ten, the end of a hot and tiring thirteen hour day. My wife did not check the message I left. “Where have you been?” she wants to know.
September 12, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): When I slip behind the wheel at 6:45am, the car thermometer already reads 80o. That’s the low point of the day. All morning the temperature climbs. About eleven, the AD’s heat index warning comes in. By noon, Oswego has called to postpone our meet. A half hour later, with the heat index at 98 and still rising, all afternoon athletics are cancelled. I text the runners to get some miles in later after the predicted storms roll through. Maybe things will have cooled by then. This is crazy. By seven, a broken front has moved through with scattered storms and temperatures have, in fact dropped. The evening feels normal—except we’ve lost another practice. An hour later, another loss arrives via e-mail:
Coach, It’s a shame. J was liked for his level head and quirky sense of humor. He was a contributor in ways some might not have fully understood or appreciated.
September 12, 2013(Thursday, Oswego): We’re on the bus by 3:00pm and headed north. On the agenda is our postponed meet at Oswego, and I’m glad we could quickly re-schedule. It squeezes the team a little with the Chittenango Invitational on Saturday but better that than something wedged in down the road in October.
With the whistle, the boys take charge immediately, running efficiently and tight. The top Oswego runner sticks with our front group, but goes down on a turn halfway, wrenching an ankle and pulling from the race. That leaves a long line of Wildcats to charge across the finish for a comfortable win. The girls follow suit. Laura’s on assignment and once past the mile mark, she pesters Lindsay and Maria mercilessly to monitor and maintain pace. “She was soooo annoying,” Lindsay tells me later with a wry smile. But Lindsay’s not feeling well either. She’s coming down with what’s been going around. The surprise of the day is Elisabeth. Two years ago, she was last on our depth chart. Today she finishes fifth. I just roll my eyes and return her tired but very satisfied smile. Better late than never. You gotta love this stuff.
September 13, 2013(Friday, Camillus): They are sitting arced around the opened back of my Forester. Some are too lightly clad and shivering in the chill. “Guys,” I tell them. “Think back forty-eight hours. This is the real weather, so plan accordingly.” The first order of business is to watch the warm-up. As a result, Lindsay and I come to the same conclusion. Sick, she’s pulled from the workout and, being the realist, I mentally subtract her from Saturday’s race. With Laura out for a college visit, others will have the chance to lead the team. Not my favorite invitational scenario, but it’s early in the season. Coach Delsole takes the opportunity to deliver his ‘germ lecture’ after drills--and he gets pretty graphic, evoking images of infested stairwell handrails and water fountains less antiseptic than toilet bowls. I know he’s making the point, but judging from some squeamish reactions, it’s also great theater. I’m standing off to the side trying not to laugh. The day goes light, with some GC running and strides. Laura completes a mono-fartlek workout and is encouraged with the training to date. It’s the best she’s felt since her sophomore year, and we let her know we are very happy for her. The team finishes strides, and we discuss Saturday logistics. It will be an early start, with races in marginal weather. We send the athletes off, and I take a few minutes to watch the modies dart, weave and giggle around the school grounds on a timed run. They’re squirrels. I’m reminded—again—of that benefit to varsity coaching.
September 14, 2013(Saturday, Camillus): As predicted, it’s an overcast, drab morning, with clouds occasionally spitting rain. Things could be worse. It could be pouring. Lindsay drags herself from bed long enough to e-mail that she won’t be on the team bus, which does not surprise me. But I leave too much to the last minute and drive halfway to the high school before I realize my wallet and cell phone are sitting back on the kitchen table. No turning back, though. And later I’ll realize I’ve left the the team tent ground cloth out of the equipment bag. I’m hoping the runners are better organized. And they are. We load up the buses and are off at 7:00am, arriving at the meet sight with ample time. Coach Delsole picks a tent site and team members proceed to stand around listlessly in the gloom until he becomes the drill sergeant barking orders. The boys erect the tent while the girls suit up and leave on their warm-up and course preview. Most know the race course and pay closer attention to the few changes they’ll be thankful for later. Certainly no one complains about the new down-slope finish. With things under control, Coach and I chat with our colleagues and catch up on the latest news, keeping an eye on the clock and the course for the return of the girls.
And anything does. By the time the start reaches me in the back field, it’s apparent our girls have taken it out too cautiously. Our front-runners have been swallowed by the opening pack. Nothing to do but shout them up and see what happens. When they circle the perimeter of the field and return for the first of two loops, some team runners have moved up slightly, but we are certainly not in contention with the top teams. Encouraging signs do present themselves, however. Elisabeth is again running top five today—and she will be needed. As our front-runners disappear down into spongy/mucky bottom trails, I’m already taking mental notes on other runners and specific training that should drive improvements. The runners climb from the bottoms, take a hair-pin turn midway down the long finish chute and return for their second loop in the back field. Mental maturity and faith are what mid-races are all about. Runners who have used team members for pace-sense in practices or dual meets either can’t use those crutches in large races or they simply ‘clump’ with those teammates as their proper race-places stretch out ahead of them. Our front-runners lost their race-places early and are slowly gaining some of that position back, but it’s apparent to me they will not finish where they belong. This is a good experience for all, however, we will have things to talk about. As we greet the tired racers out of the finish chute, Coach is suggesting a possible third place, but my intuition says otherwise. Fifth, we find out just prior to the boys race. Our races are a tale of two cities. Where the girls approached their opening tentatively, the boys immediately get down to business. Surging by me into the backfield loop, our ‘cats’ are filling the top-7, with Nate leading the charge. They circle down into the bottom trail, as I shout on our other runners and then wait. When the leaders return, we are still tight. I radio Coach Delsole that, for now, it’s looking good, with our other senior-surprise, Sean, running a strong fifth for our team. Freshman David is putting aside any doubts others might have as he surges along in the top 3. And Will, who’s been lurking comfortably in the front pack, pulls up to Jack as they loop out of the back field. The CNS front-runner is ahead, pushing third place. “We get him on the bottom trail,” Will tells Jack. And that’s exactly what they do, surging past their competitor and Nate. Emerging onto the main field, Will barrels down toward the finish in the lead, with Jack in pursuit. The team goes 1-2-4-5-11 for the short score, the win and a satisfying start to the invitational season. They hang around the finish with parents in a contented cluster until we shoe them toward the team tent for gear changes and the cool-down. The Friends of Wildcats Cross-Country group is waiting with post-race snacks. Coach Delsole offers a handshake and a smile. “Step one,” he says.
September 15, 2013(Sunday, Cape Vincent):
Later, the Race Report e-mails begin to pile up, and I know I’ll be busy with replies. One abbreviated report makes me smile:
David: I felt I had a very mentally tough race. I ran right through a cold and I did positive self-talk so I would not fall off. Unfortunately, I gave up 3 places at the end. I know they are 5 inches bigger, but I felt like it should have been two places instead of three. I don’t have the heart to write our diminutive but speedy freshman that some of those guys are a lot more than five inches taller. And the two places he didn’t mind surrendering so much were to his teammates.
Cross-Country Journal -- Week 3 September 2, 2013(Labor Day, Camillus): Driving Howlett Hill Road to our late afternoon Labor Day practice, I am straddling two weathers. To the south, sun and clouds. Turn the view north, though, and the vision is blocked by a big black ugly moil of storm enveloping Lake Ontario. But the call-off point for practice—with team e-mails and a group text message—is passed. We’re committed. Coach Delsole’s sitting in his car when I arrive. “That’s weird,” he says motioning upward. A low layer of clouds, almost touchable, is sliding the wrong way, south, like frightened birds escaping early. A heavy rain erupts, and we move under the school bridges to join some team members to wait. Thunder booms, and I set my watch. Now we’re on delay time. As minutes pass the rain relents, then stops while the team assembles. It’s not a bad time to reiterate the sports policy on thunder and lightning. Not that they need to be told. Athletes who would probably gab with friends through a tornado become hyper-vigilant about a distant clap of thunder when a break from training is in the offing. But we use the time to go over some team information and set out the practice week. I instruct them on the warm-up loops as the delay ticks down and then send them off. The runners reassemble astride the soccer field, at the southeast corner of our outer loop. “Let’s get it going,” I shout as they find trees or the shoulders of partners for their active stretches. The clouds to the north are still boiling and the weather map on the Droid doesn’t look promising, with storm cells moving east. I don’t need a Droid, though. A monstrous thunderhead looms westward, somewhere beyond Auburn. We’re halfway through sending groups out on their hill interval circuit when thunder rattles the sky. Done, Coach Delsole walks down-trail to direct the runners back to the school while several team members and I pile water bottles in my car and I drive them back. Expecting the worst, only a moderate rain falls, but the two delays have effectively nixed the workout. So, protected by the bridges of the building, we circle the runners and conduct core drills. Of course, the rain stops as soon as we begin core, our thunderhead arcing harmlessly north across the lake. I bark out the exercises while circulating. The athletes joke and jockey with a snow-day relief, but they do look much more polished with the exercises than on day 1. By the time we finish, the sky stretches clear and blue, a gorgeous late summer evening. As the runners walk off to waiting cars, Coach and I just looked at each other and shake our heads.
September 3, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): I don’t pull any punches. “This will be one of your hardest workouts so far,” I tell the runners prior to their warm-up. Then we lengthen the warm-up. School-Hill Circuits is, in fact, a tough one, so it’s managed as to not dip too long into the high stress zone. Still, there’s an element of will-power workout to this one, and because it loops and circles for a half mile around the open school grounds, we see everything. That’s part of the plan. They were scheduled to run it Monday, but thunder delays snuffed that idea—and shifted the week’s progression of work. David ran a hill workout on his own Monday due to a conflict, so he’s conducting a fartlek run while his teammates labor. And I finding that two weeks of foundation training and knocking on wood didn’t totally work because we have several runners complaining of this problem or that. They’ve been quickly pulled from the workout pending a trainer’s exam. No sense compounding a problem or lengthening a recovery. They mope about, watching. They’d rather be training. Coach Delsole and I rotate about the course as the runners work their shorts hills and try to ignore my pointed commands to run the flats between those hills. Pedal to the metal. I also yell at them to let gravity do some of the work on the way down those hills. And I warn them repeatedly not to slow around curves and to get the arms and legs driving up the final steep rise. That’s the supportive stuff.
Russell, though, has requested a move up to the front group for the first set. Why not, I’ve told Coach, his workouts have gone well; let’s see what the freshman can do. Russell does more than merely hold his own, powering home the first three intervals with several top runners. I catch him during the set recovery, and he says he’s ready to try the second set up front. Same result. My eyes are widening as he goes third set with the front group and finishes with the eighth best average. This is impressive. The only thing more impressive is watching Sean on all fours at the end of his final hill, spent after a monster workout, his best of the young season. The intervals pile up and the images accumulate: Lindsay staring off into the back field, steeling herself for the next set; Connor congratulating himself with a quiet “yes” following a good interval; Maria and Elise wide-eyed following an on-the-spot ‘lecture’ about driving the flats more; Chris hammering the final hill of each circuit; Laura off, somewhere, throwing up before logging more intervals. Gradually, the groups complete their targets and tiredly log times as they sip water and recover. Coach Delsole returns from the far side of the hill circuit with our boundary cones. “I like that,” he says and points. The runners have indented a visible path on the grass, up and down their short hills, across their long reaches. It will disappear with a few days and some mowing, but for now they’ve painted proof of effort on their glazed-green practice canvas.
September 4, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus): “If we scheduled three or four more workouts like yesterday,” I tell the runners prior to practice, “within a week all of you would be broken and out for half the season. That’s not going to happen, of course, but it’s a good thing every once in a while to ‘go to the well’ and see what you can pull from yourselves.” We talk about recoveries and the time needed to super-compensate properly and what the practice ahead holds for them. They already know it’s a longer run, but this one’s been adjusted downward. “The first mile or so you will piddle along,” I tell them. “Start slow. When you feel refreshed, you’ll get back to normal pace. And the watches,” I add. “Forget them. You’re just getting in the run.”
Though an idyllic afternoon, some in my groups have retreated to the long-run shuffle. But I say nothing as they pass. The miles are the miles, and those say more than I need to. I ‘jump’ a few runners a half mile or mile to try and keep the front reasonably close to the last finishers, but by the last miles they’ve strung out considerably. Coach Delsole and I take time out from our monitor duties to have polite and separate conversations with the same concerned elderly lady. On her drive home from the store, she’s spotted runners out of our sight spread three abreast up rises that hide cars. It’s a clear violation of our road rules, rules that have been repeatedly revisited with the runners. So we thank her and plan the next ‘talk’ with team. It won’t be a friendly talk and may involve, for a few repeat offenders, boring alternatives to long runs on roads. Runner safety doesn’t allow anything else. By the time I’ve ‘cleared the road’ of the final runners, Coach has the others circled and ready for core drills. “Seven push-ups” he starts……
September 5, 2013(Thursday, Camillus): 4:32am. Sleep’s not working, so Harley and head out on a morning walk. Time to think. We are testing the limits of the Big-Tent philosophy this season. The goal, of course, is to accommodate as wide a range of athletic ability as possible. What you are forced to do in the end, however, is to triage your time and efforts with the various abilities levels. Coach Delsole and I can only be spread so thin each day. And our mandate has been spelled out concisely in the school’s Athletic Handbook and reinforced by the Athletic Director at the Fall Sports Parents’ meeting. As a varsity sport, one of our primary functions is to compete and win. Another function is to prepare athletes who are capable of succeeding on the next level—college—to do so. However, we are not just a varsity sport. We are a freshman sport, a JV sport and a varsity sport all rolled into one. Some ‘invisible’ freshman become varsity mainstays if properly developed. But what about the runners who, despite all attempts, so little growth or interest in improving? The answer is to find some manner for them to become contributors or…..I leave the thought hanging. Harley dutifully sniffs the bushes. He could care less.
With their first full day of school, the runners arrive in two clumps. Those lucky enough to drive or hitch a ride are circled up by 3:00pm. Then we wait. The shuttle bus arrives at 3:20. That will likely be our schedule for the remainder of the season. I’ve taken attendance of the early arrivals and quickly fill in the remainder when the bus group arrives en mass. Jon declares the warm-up loops and they are off. The day is, almost to a runner, sluggish. They are still recovering, but Coach Delsole nails it correctly later as he speaks to the team following drills. “I know the Tuesday hill circuits were tough and then you had your long run yesterday--but some of you took today off.” It is true. Some of the slower runners had simply slopped along on their segmented GC. And that wasn’t the only disappointment. Following a hip injury that sidelined her all spring, I had put Cassie on progression workouts in early August, and she had doing well with them for a month. She’d run pain-free all those weeks, and with a successful low-level 8-10-8 fartlek two days ago, I was thinking she could run the GC pace for one or two segments. So I included her with a girls group. But as I was instructing some runners between the first and second segment, I saw her talking with Del and gesturing toward her hip. Being cautious, we pulled her from the workout immediately. Pain-free rehab had gone on a long time, but it was obvious that something was not being properly addressed with her current drills.
September 6, 2013(Friday, Camillus):
A late afternoon sunshine slants down through the hardening leaves of the Woods Loop trees. The day is clear, crisp and cool, an autumn preview. We step aside as a group barrels by and disappears down-trail, to be followed shortly by others. “They’re running really well today,” Coach observes. The hard Tuesday hill session has finally been shaken out and a positive synergy grips most of the groups. “Yes they are,” I agree. By the time we crest School Hill and descend to the basketball court, most of the runners have returned and are watering up while they lounge in the sun and wait for teammates. They know there’s more. A number are quietly apprehensive about their first L.A.T. drill of the season and its need for speed. They have a right to be. L.A.T. is a tough way to end the day. “The ultimate goal,” I had told them earlier, “is an L.A.T. where we cannot tell the difference between your thirty second surges and your floats. We’ve never seen that happen, but we’ve seen something very close. So that’s always the goal.” There is, of course, a smaller group—400 and 800 meter track guys like Jack—who are licking their chops. It’s not even five but the shadows have begun lengthening eastward with the slow drop of the sun. As the modified runners circle on the basketball court for their drills, we call our teams up to pace around the coned, lopsided circle. “The first whistle is a down!” I boom from the approximate center, “A down!” I whistle and start the watch. No one bolts out this time. Anyone who did would have been laughed back into place. The rhythm is simple. Blast the thirty second ups to stay with the fastest member of your group, then hold as much of that momentum as possible while recovering in the downs. “Get ready!” I bark near the first up, then whistle and shout “Pick up!” Almost everything you need about your runners is revealed in this drill. Who’s got the TWT(turn-over when tired). Who’s not afraid to lead. Who tries to push with their shoulders instead of their hips. Who can stay on the wagon when the clock reads seven minutes and it’s mental decision time—and who can’t. And who has the guts and the desire to push the floats. A few of our boys front-runners do because they are weaving through the others during floats, passing the less experienced or less conditioned with their wide-eyed when-will-it-be-over looks. We note the runners with ‘issues’ and call out instructions. Now’s the time to make corrections and practice improved form. Generally, though, we love what we see, runners who look like they are getting ready to race. They are not there yet, but they are getting close. I whistle them into their final surge. Some are just hanging on, but a lot have notched up, reaching inside for that little extra. Jack has sat behind Nate for most of the surges, letting him carry the load. This last one Jack flies by Nate. Coach Delsole just laughs
September 7, 2013(Saturday, Cape Vincent): Our teams are not racing this weekend, but the invitational results are pouring in with Bill Meylan of Tullyrunners.com pumping out the Speed Ratings. Yup, it’s cross-country season……
Cross-Country Journal – Week 2
August 26, 2013(Monday, Camillus): It’s 6:50am. Many other athletes are turning over. Ours are turning out, approaching the team meeting spot under gloomy skies and spits of rain. They’re bleary-eyed, sleepy, but there. With a 9am Freshman Orientation on the schedule, team members have opted to go early. We dispense with attendance. The workout records will show who’s showed. I have little to discuss except to briefly outline the day and remind the freshman and ‘ambassador’ workers to get the main work done and take off. I also explain again why I changed from a favorite interval session called Manhattan Miles to 5x800 surge intervals with a 200m float. It’s a concise, more race-specific workout. All can, by controlling effort levels, participate. It will also go fast. Coach Delsole announces a warm-up route, and they’re off while we drive down to the trails and wheel out 200m, leaving the 800m interval section on our near-perfect 1000m outer loop. We end their warm-ups at the workout start point and complete drills and strides. I quickly explain the essentials of putting together training groups that will run tight. Time is ticking. We need to get going. For coaches, a workout validates, reveals, suggests and warns—all at the same time. There is seldom that perfect workout where all runners are hitting on all cylinders. We simply have too many runners, with too many different lives, to expect statistical uniformity. Someone’s bound to have forgotten breakfast; someone’s bound to be coming down with something; and someone’s bound to go MIA for one reason or another. This morning Logan’s missing.
Most of the girls are quiet and content with their early morning efforts. Laura’s neither. Laura has a lot to say about her splits and her mental strategies, which are not working to her satisfaction. We talk the possibilities of imagery or positive self-talk. She describes the advice of one coach to focus on things she ‘sees’ on the trails: trees, flowers, grass. It sounds like a diversion strategy to me. Did you try it, I ask? She had. And did it work? “For about three seconds” is the answer, and I manage to suppress my laughter. I have a few articles she’ll want to read. The last runners bring themselves home. 7:59am--we’ve cut it pretty close for the freshman and the helpers who scramble off while the rest re-group. They have more work, but Connor’s pleased with himself. “I’ve started plenty of workouts at eight,” he declares with satisfaction, “but I don’t think I’ve every finished one that early.”
August 27, 2013(Tuesday, Camillus): Dense mist and choking humidity bear down like a heavy blanket. The troops slowly mass on the basketball court, a few wandering in even as the morning conversation begins. “Be on time,” I interrupt myself to tell everyone with a little edge, then move back into a description of the day’s work. That will be general conditioning running, but with a twist. They will record their total time while Mike tallies mileage on his GPS watch. Divide mileage by time and you get GC pace. How will it stack up? The back-door practice VDOTs will tell. Coaches are familiar with Jack Daniels and the usefulness of his short-hand VDOT numbers to gauge race efforts and to control the practice paces of various training distances. We turn those around by generating interval or mile averages from workouts, then work backward through Daniels’ tables to find associated VDOT’s. Their validity as stand-alone numbers is questionable, but once an athlete generates a sequence of workout VDOT’s, you can see patterns that suggest increasing/stagnant fitness levels or incongruities such as training intervals conducted at a more effective level than long runs. We’re not a controlled college team or the tightly cloistered Oregon Project. We need tools that are readily applicable to 60-80 athletes of all abilities. This one works. It will turn out to be a day of spot conferences held on the fly in and around the morning’s session. A question about why Logan missed the early Monday practice (didn’t re-set the alarm) leads to a quick lecture on “taking care of the small things.” I need to check on Eva and her knees. There is the matter of a girl on the sign-up roster who’d gone MIA all summer and through week 1 only to show on week 2. The story is incomplete but involves special family circumstances, so I work out an entry strategy for her. Wrapped up in this or that ‘issue,’ Mike has to remind me that the runners need to complete their “30 seconds” hip stability drill before the main workout. Preparations finally complete, they assembled at Four Corners. Lou announces the runners’ first segment, then says he will walk the inner loop with his clippers to ‘groom’ overhanging branches and sticker bushes from that section of the course as he monitors passing runners. But not before rearranging a few groups. Cathryn needs to match her potential and gets moved up. Will is kept a group down from the front, which is fine. We don’t need to rush him, and there’s a big enough front wagon anyway. Laura hooks up with him and Andy. A good trio. With a flurry, the runners leave on their first segment. Coach leaves on his grooming mission. Suddenly I’m alone. Everyone’s off and involved. We have absolutely no one this day on the injured list—no one. It’s a fingers crossed, knock-on-wood moment, one that doesn’t go unappreciated. They churn out the intervals in the high humidity. Some sweat like pigs. Some struggle with breathing. I quickly counsel Delaney on rhythmic breaths to remain relaxed. A quick hit of water as they file back in, then instructions on the next segment—“around Ike Dixon loop backward, reverse the soccer fields, then the course finish”--and off they go again. The miles accumulate as we manage to lengthen the segments and shorten the pauses. A 1.35 mile becomes a 1.61, then a 1.64 and finally a 1.81. It seems an odd way to run GC, but it works. Most in the foundations group have their final interval shortened while some have it eliminated. Everyone eventually finishes on the basketball court. They take in more water, then wander onto the grass for strides. “Shoes off,” I remind them. “This is a shoes off drill.” The strides go smoothly. More spot conferences are held. With Jack about upper body sway(“drive the elbows back harder; drive them instead of your shoulders”). With Alicia who wants to know whether her feet continue to splay slightly on toe-off. The workouts and the strengthening/coordination drills have generated more hip stability, because she already shows improvement--that news is greeted with a smile. Lindsay is reaching for speed instead of generating it with turn-over. We talk briefly. There’s too much to analyze and discuss in one day, but every little discussion helps. They glide in on their last stride, then set off on a short cool-down. We are out of time. I meet briefly with several boys seniors to discuss a team situation. Then Coach and I talk with Lindsay, who is dissatisfied with her workouts because she doesn’t “feel fast.” They’ve been good, we tell her, considering the workout types we’ve focused on and knowing that Lindsay is sometimes her own harshest critic. What she’s really talking about, we all agree, is turn-over when tired. I promise some drills and future workouts that will drive improvements. Runners file around us, heading home. For an ‘off day,’ it’s been busy.
August 28, 2013(Wednesday, Camillus)
Aesthetics, however, only carry you so far. In the end, there’s simply no faking a long run. Teammates can’t grant you extra seconds during recovery periods. An entire group won’t slow the pace just so you can keep up. And it’s tough to forge shortcuts through the hills and farm fields of Camillus. So the day’s longer mileage and additional topography is a rude awakening for some team members. They struggle. The scenery refuses to come to their rescue.
August 29, 2013(Thursday, Syracuse): It’s time for tailgate talk, and as I begin to address the teams seated on the basketball court around my Forrester, a misty cloud suddenly rolls in, dropping the temperature and replacing the pale morning sun with a drab, damp overcast grey. I suppose that is apropos to the subject at hand. “Just a few notes on yesterday’s long run,” I began. I hit the positives—of which there were many—and then swung the conversation to a smaller percentage of runners who remain nameless. They seem, I explain, to approach those runs with trepidation--and some actually appear to change stride profiles, applying stiff-legged or short-reach shuffles to get through the longer miles. “This is foundational running folks,” I tell everyone. “Our long runs aren’t going to go away, so we all need to appreciate what that training is doing for us and approach them positively—as healthy challenges rather than trials to be endured.” I’m never certain what actually penetrates or how much sense I’m making, but the message needs to go out. It is, anyway, prelude to the more important message. I explain the logistics of Friday’s Blue-Gold Challenge, our home course time trial and this first chance to feel 5k race velocities. “But it’s also going to be decision day for you—all of you. You’re going to ask yourself after this week whether you’re fully in this for the season, whether you are prepared to do all that’s expected of you--and all that you can accomplish--to make this a successful team season. Many of you already know the answer to that question, but I think some of you need to give it more thought.” There is no need to beat that drum any longer. The runners warm up, conduct drills and then group for their fartlek run. While they cruise the trails, Coach Delsole and I walked the Woods Loop with limb loppers and clear the course’s final section of overhanging branches and encroaching weeds. The boys’ front group hammers by on one of their ‘ups.’ I count only four. Fifty yards back, Logan labors, and we let him pass without comment. “I wish I knew,” I tell Coach, “what goes on inside his head when this happens.” But Coach Delsole has a more practical question: “I wonder how much sleep he got last night.” After they’ve finished, the side conversation goes like this: Logan, did you work yesterday? Yes, until 6. Did you have dinner? No. What time did you get to bed? About 11:30.What did you have for breakfast? A cup of yogurt. I walk away. Coach can finish that conversation because he’s the calm one of the two. At home later, I receive another athlete’s e-mail: Coach V, After giving it a great deal of thought, and with many conversations with my parents, I have decided to take a break from Cross Country for this season. I will be devoting more time to my school work as well as being involved with student council activities. Also, I will be participating in a fitness program. I hope to return for track in the spring. I hope you understand. Good luck to you and the team. I do understand. She has the courage and the maturity of her decision. “If it’s not worth doing,” Syracuse professor Michael Freedman used to say, “it’s worth not doing well.”
August 30, 2013(Friday, Syracuse): The Blue-Gold Challenge “I think Laura and Will are going to hammer today,” Coach tells me as the teams warm up for the 9:00am start of our annual course time-trial. We enliven the event a bit by dividing into Blue and Gold teams. Hand-crafted uniforms and special group-cheers are always evident, but this day there’s also an ample amount of face paint. A small crowd of parents has assembled for the fun, but on the serious side, the winning team gets in line first for the post-race brunch organized by Friends of Wildcats XC. Will Run For Food—I haven’t seen that show up on a shirt yet.
They’ve effectively schooled themselves. No one succumbs to the moment with a too-fast start. If anything, it’s a conservative bunch that passes me at the mile mark in the woods. I bark out splits to all but the final runners, then hustle to the two mile point located near the exit of our difficult inner loop trail. Across the field, I hear parents and non-competitors cheering runners along the perimeter trail of the field. Soon, Nate, David and Jack come barreling down the field hill. I wait out a gap, but Will soon circles down. He’s running under control and faster than I expected. Logan, though, is off the pace with Mike behind him. Not good. Our #1-7 compression time will suffer for it and fail to achieve the 40-45 second span I think they can accomplish at this point in the season. Predictably, the girls top 5 finishes with a larger spread. Laura, the outlier, is followed by Lindsay and then the more closely packed trio of Elise, Maria and Rachel. Delaney chops an impressive four minutes off her 2012 time to race sixth for the girls and Sarah, coming off a rehab summer of alternate training and mileage progressions, is a pleasant surprise in 7th. By the time I pedal in from the back fields, most of the racers have crossed the finish. As they walk slowly back to their water, they’re a mixture of pleased and relieved, with some disappointment thrown in for good measure. The Race Analysis’ will come in this weekend, providing their impressions of the day. We have another baseline, with good data to consider. And Gold has turned back the Blue team. First dibs on the brunch food for them.
August 31, 2013(Saturday, Cape Vincent): Harley and I slip away from family at the lake house for a short run. He darts in and out the passing fields, happily conducting dog investigations, then circling quickly back at the approach of cars to tuck in beside me and match my turtle pace. I trudge along, grateful for the time as I mentally choreograph coming practices to advance what we’ve seen from the athletes so far and to begin addressing racing needs. The time trial has made it clear--to at least me--that we’ve sacrificed some things to achieve others. As the landscape slowly rolls by, there’s a chance to weigh the reality that neither team is anywhere close to what they will need to be in our tough league and our tougher section. There’s work ahead. But as the saying goes, good things don’t come cheap. And nothing about the potential ‘good’ of our teams deserves to come easy.
Cross-Country Journal – Week 1August 19, 2013(Monday): Day 1 It was, of course, really only day one for a few of those runners massed before Coach Delsole and I on this clear, comfortable upstate morning. The shouts of soccer players bent around the building that separates sports at our middle school training grounds. Everyone was excited, but most of the runners had been here all summer, assembling several nights each week in the coolness of evenings to run trails or head out on long runs through farm-land fit for Rockwell paintings. Those were the months of relaxed anticipation and comfortable expectations. Steady miles and school-less tomorrows—some on the team considered it a separate and very special cross-country season of its own. And some, unfortunately, missed a lot of those miles for one reason or another. So now, fueled with a desire to power into our official team practices and prove their mettle, we had to protect them from themselves. If we didn’t, eager minds would lead unprepared bodies directly to injury. So I was standing before those runners, relaxed in the shade following their warm-up run, and explaining(again) the rational and requirements for those who would be placed in our Foundations Training Group. Runners who failed to complete at least 50% of their summer mileage targets, runners who never reported any mileage, runners coming off injury or those who joined the team late—those would form our ‘FTG’ for the first month of the season. Training mileage would be progressively monitored. High intensity training would be virtually eliminated. They would, in effect, complete their own mini-summers.
“This is not punishment,” I reminded them. “We just want to ensure that you develop fitness steadily and safely. We don’t want you hobbled on the sidelines in three or four weeks. Once we see you can train safely, you and Coach Delsole and I will talk about whether you are ready for Earlier, during attendance and introductions, I had quietly noted some MIA’s. We were not surprised by most of the no-shows. Those were the names without faces who had not attended the pre-season meeting in June, had not joined us for any summer runs, had not submitted summer mileage logs. They were gone before we started. A few others had been quietly removed from the roster when I received e-mails that began something like: Coach, thanks for the opportunity, but…. Calling cross-country a no-cut sport is a misnomer. We simply have a longer try-out period leading to self-selected cuts. It’s called summer. All the girls on the injury log, however, were already moving back toward full workouts. I had only to announce that Kal, a top runner for us as a 2012 freshman, would be out for the season. A recent bone scan had confirmed what was already suspected. He had suffered a non-running back injury late in spring and would be in a back-brace well into October. The boys’ team were offered their first significant challenge. Updates and introductory information finished, we arranged them in groups for a course run. The instructions were specific. “This is not a time-trial,” I told them, “Start under control at 70-75% effort. Build into the distance. You want to see what summer’s done for you.” Some didn’t listen to either me or their bodies and ran too hard. Some found summer hadn’t done enough for them because they hadn’t done enough that summer. But a sizable number looked pretty darned good. At the end of a moderate volume day, we had our starting point.
August 20, 2013(Tuesday): Mileage – 1
Only two days in, we didn’t know where we were as teams, but there was no need to ask because it really didn’t matter. Mileage mattered, and that was always a controllable commodity. Laura had reinforced the tone for the teams when we talked about her fall season following a summer team run. “I don’t want racing goals,” she had insisted. “I want training goals first.” Coach Delsole and I had said about the same to the runners in June. Don’t expect us to talk about what kind of teams you’re going to be this fall, we told them. During the summer, we’ll be talking about what kind of training we expect you to complete instead. On the menu for the day was a training goal: a well-run segmented GC session. It was another lesson learned from finally paying attention. Take a 30-40 minute GC run that for some runners too easily degenerates into a talking jog session. Break that work into segments, with runners launching out on a 1.5-2 mile loop, then returning to a ‘base’ for 30-40 seconds before launching on another. Do that and the paces improve. We get to prescribe routes and check on runners after each segment. They wind up with more quality mileage. The weather was perfect—cool, sunny, no bugs. From our Three Corners base in the back field, the groups surged out, returning to take a quick hit of water, re-group and then listen to Coach Delsole describe their next segment. The FTG group went three segments, everyone else four. They zipped them off like clockwork. We had only two athletes sitting out the practice. One was still waiting on a mandatory physical, feeling slightly chagrined—as he should have. The other had managed to flip off a boating tube that weekend and suffer a concussion which meant a week at least on the sidelines. That was a new one for my list.
August 21, 2013(Wednesday): The Long Run
One February evening, while watching our athletes warm up for an indoor invitational at the Onondaga Community College track, Coach Delsole and I had come to two decisions. One was that we meet the cross-country team for only two days a week during summer instead of our previous four. We wanted to give back to athletes the opportunity to develop self-initiative and discipline, knowing full well that some would and some would not seize the golden ring of summer training. The other decision involved workouts. We thought about the two best to conduct as a group. One choice was easy: intervals. The other made me think back to a previous sectional steeplechase record-holder and national top-10 finisher. Kerry had trouble finding long run partners, and she also had no trouble explaining why when I asked. “I run them too fast,” she told me. But after years of gathering Monday reports about team members’ Sunday independent long runs--a staple of many programs--I concluded Kerry was simply running hers correctly. The long run is foundational. We needed to ensure the foundation, so we decided to arrange a weekly team long run, all the way through cross-country season if necessary. For those who showed on Thursday for our summer long runs, the results had been sensational. By the two mile mark, as team members approached my monitor spot, the running groups had already strung into discrete clumps along the early morning shade of Thompson Road. As each passed, busy with its particular topic of conversation, I reminded them to check their time and calculate approximate paces. I was also on the look-out. Coach Delsole and I had talked to several runners beforehand about challenging themselves to faster paces--and this would be the last chance to make adjustments. One runner, however, didn’t need any adjusting. Elisabeth had taken a huge step forward in hooking up with Nicole, and she was running at least thirty to fifty seconds faster per mile that she’d ever paced on a long run. When I let her know that, she just smiled and continued on her way to a potential runner ah-ha moment. Hiding in the next huge group, however, were Maria and Bridget. I drove up Warners Road a half mile, pulled the car over and waited on the runners’ side. Elisabeth and Nicole strode by, still running confidently. When the clump arrived a hundred meters back, there was no way to discretely present the directive. “Maria, Bridget, I want both of you to pick it up and join Elisabeth and Nicole. Get going.” By the time I’d returned to my car, they had pulled away from the group and shortened the gap by twenty meters. When I passed them, heading out to check other groups, the four were together, joined by Rachel. And just as quickly they split. Maria, Rachel and Bridget had found the new gear to their liking and pulled away on their own. They would run their fastest paces ever for a long run. Discoveries seemed the order of the day. By the time I had checked everyone through the three mile point and then driven up to join Coach Delsole at the VanAlstine Road cut-off for the Foundation Group runners, the boys front group was long gone, arcing off into the small town of Warners for their circle-back along the western tow path of the canal. “Nat was hauling,” Coach reported. Nate would finish the morning eight miler two and a half minutes ahead of the next runner, but the top seven would all come in at or under seven minutes a mile, a good start to the training season. Laura, running her own seven minute pace, had nothing to say to Coach when she passed except “I feel great.” Exciting efforts were not in short supply. Maria, Rachel and Lindsay all ran strong together, but Bridget had pushed a minute ahead of them in the final miles, surprising both us and herself. After striders, I congratulated her and asked how it had felt to increase the pace after the two mile mark. She merely smiled. “It felt better,” she said.
August 22, 2013(Thursday): Mileage - 2
On the main agenda for the day was fartlek. The FTG group would go 8-10-8; the rest would run 10-12-10. The bookend numbers were minutes of GC running. The middle number was the total time spent ‘up,’ running at about a 5k pace. The jog time between ups was whatever the group needed and went untimed. The boys group, thanks to Mike’s GPS watch, came out at 5.25 miles. I thought there might be more, but the total was right in line with my estimate on the Running Log. Coach Delsole and I walked the trails to monitor runners and take stock of maintenance needs. We were struck again by the difference in lead groups. The boys, led by the senior quintet of Nate, Mike R., Jack and Matt Z., had coalesced and almost fully developed a group identity. They pulled each other along, but also expected each other to either stay ‘on the wagon’ or get back on after a hard day. Years of shared seasons, summer run partnerships, Aim High Camps, senior-season urgencies--you cannot always put your finger on the causes or origins of such groups, but you know them when you see them, and they are always a pleasure to watch at work. As they continued to draw others into their circle of shared expectations, the team would simply get stronger and all the athletes would have more fun. A rising tide….. The girls were definitely still a work in progress, characterized both by significant overall athletic potential and also disparate circles of friendships that at this point often do not overlap. The gregarious, count-me-in attitude of most of the boys is contrasted by the more reserved nature of girls’ team members. Slowed by the re-entry of previously injured key runners and the gradual emergence of some new potential front-runners, the team’s uncertainty is, ironically, intriguing. “Hope had kept him going, but it was the doubt that gave him joy,” Christopher Tilghman once wrote of a short story character. That’s an apt description of my attitude toward the girls’ team. But I seriously doubt they’ll be anything by season’s end but pretty good.
August 23, 2013(Friday, Cape Vincent): Lake Day Following a rainy Thursday, I was up early Friday morning mowing the lawn at my Cape Vincent lake house. There was a grill to clean and lawn chairs to arrange, tables and the EZE-Up tent to erect. I was fishing inflatable rafts and other water toys from the shed when the team bus rumbled up and emptied out its forty runners and parent chaperones who had made the two hour trek up from Camillus. Two girls immediately made a mad dash for the bathroom. Lake Day was officially under way.
After team members settled in and completed a warm-up run, Coach Delsole checked the groups for their run and staggered their starts. “Earn your food,” I told them as they launched off. The day’s work load was reasonable: a mile of GC running, then a three-mile block of tempo, followed by another mile and a half of GC with some 200 meter cut-downs near the lake house before their cool-down. The flat-road course followed a large country block out and around a swamp, with the tempo zone ending along a local beach. With a light breeze and cool, clear skies, we had again conjured up that lake day magic. Moods matched the weather, and the runners took strongly to the new miles in a country/lake environment. In past years, inexperienced team members had gravitated more toward a glorified GC pace, but this group pushed their tempo zone diligently, with newer members segmenting the distance into mile increments with a short thirty second rest between. The occasional car passed, driver necks always craned to inspect this mass of motoring teenagers. The boys front group, packed tightly through the first tempo mile, splintered as Nat and David pulled out ahead and refused to look back. Brittany, Maria and Rachel had found something in their strong long run effort Wednesday. They moved confidently as a group while Laura, coming from way behind with her staggered start, caught them by running negative mile splits as the road slanted down to the blue waters of Lake Ontario. Everyone responded well to the work. Coach Delsole and I greeted them as they finished their tempo zone on the beach road, then monitored their return to the house for cut-downs and a short cool-down followed by core drills. They would tack on some easy regeneration miles Saturday, and Sunday’s individual GC runs would polish off a solid opening week, but at that point it was time to swim, eat and relax. None of those required instructions.
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This is an overlap day. Our two eighth-grade modified runners have enjoyed superlative fall cross-country seasons, seasons that have led them to selective classification and the varsity indoor track team. They are part of a boisterous group of hopeful athletes massed in the high school cafeteria, listening to Coach Delsole and I explain the basics of that indoor season ahead. Midway through the meeting, with the paperwork complete, our federations XC runners leave for their run just as the snow outside intensifies. It’s great mood weather for indoor track--all that swirling stuff outside the large plate-glass windows—but not so hot when thinking of a XC championship.
Coach Delsole is off today, penciled in for parent-teacher conferences at his school. That’s fine. We’re small and routine drives the day effectively. This is an interesting crew. I’ve coached top-20 teams before, and all levered their fortunes with three—sometimes more—superior, front-running type athletes. This is an eclectic blue-collar group. Three of the top five won’t even be year-round runners for us; two count other sports as their primary pursuit. And one of our top runners sat out the season with injury. It’s a testament to their commitment and tenacity that they’ve driven themselves this far.
Our 2-3 runner gap was huge, insurmountable. Will and David would post medal finishes, and David would clock the best 9th grade time of the meet, but the others placed well back. Walking back from the finish, I thought about attrition. The team had lost a top runner in Kal before the season even began. It had lost another top-5 runner to a code of conduct violation in September. Still they’d made Feds, but Nate’s in-race injury was just too much. The worst thing about these kinds of seasons are the what-ifs. I felt especially bad for Nate because he wanted this XC race—his last—so badly. And following her tough state championship day, Laura improved to a top-20 finish. The sustained speed, though, was still not there, a simple reflection of compromised training. As we walked back to the bus, she issued an animated and objective post-race assessment of her current running weaknesses and training needs. “I’m thinking of ending my season now,” she told me, “so I can train really well for indoor.
The runners are tackling our mile intervals, from Three Corners around the Outer Loop to the hills, then back to Three Corners. We’ve called them Manhattan Miles, but in reality it’s more like a miniature Bowdoin circuit, which is both fitting and useful. We’ve tried to choreograph the work closely since returning from Manhattan, blending the necessary practices with some variety to keep the athletes happy and to have the legs fresh when the races arrive. If you coach more than two people—which is all of us—it’s always a delicate dance. One person’s perfect sharpening session can be another’s misery. But what we’ve found in the boys’ group is a strengthening blend of purpose and outlook on the work. That old adage about being ‘on the same page’ applies to these guys, even more so as their numbers shrink. Back in the heat of July, having lost Kal, our probably #2, to a non-running back injury, Coach Delsole and I openly wondered about the team’s Feds chances. There were fits and starts, sortings and re-sorting along the way, but the entire group has remained resilient and committed and fun to be around. You can’t ask for more, and they will deserve the shot if they get it.
The girls team has arrived to finish out the practice week and then wait on Federations selections. The team has again swelled, though only slightly, and the girls know the slim chances they chase.
Coach and I return to the base of School Hill and spot the two groups finishing their session across the now-deserted soccer fields. Soon, they are assembled in two lines, with me standing camera in hand atop the hill. Coach shouts starts and I take the opportunity to click away. Typically, hills force form, so if you’re seeing something awry with a runner powering a hill, it’s probably pronounced elsewhere and deserves attention. Alycia charges up the hill near the front, and it’s true that a picture’s worth a thousand words. I am channeling Jay Dicharry who, if he was standing there watching what I am photographing, would probably insist, ‘yup, you got a hip issue there.’ A promising runner, Alycia and I have something fundamentals to work on during Indoor, but it will be fun to accelerate her potential improvements.
The entire day--all the excitement, anticipation and exhilaration of this state championship--is reduced to a few moments in the finish paddock. Laura is walking over toward me looking drained, exhausted, spent. Something’s not right, made obvious by her disappointing finish. There may be the prognostications and the presumptions from others who will feel privileged to pontificate from the sidelines, but those won’t matter. When Coach Jenson once insisted, “it’s about the athletes,” his was not only a reminder but something of a warning. So when Laura reaches me, the only appropriate question is: “are you O.K.?”
We’re small enough to line up four groups. At the west entrance to the Inner Loop, Coach Delsole sends them off in 30 second intervals, then we hoof over to the other entrance and the finish cone. As expected, the on the first interval our top boys come in tight, within three seconds. But it’s the first interval. They jog back to the start, take a hit of water, walk and jog to stay loose, then answer Coach’s call to the line. A second effort stretches the gap to seven seconds. On the third interval, it jumps to eleven, but that’s Will’s fault. He’s hammering out in front of the others. By the fourth, he’s established himself as the front outlier; the other’s rock in behind him, in a tight 3-4 second bunch. Not surprisingly, Jack chips away at Will’s gap in the final interval, but there’s no catching him this day. Our rabbit has pulled them to a good day.
The boys are playing some pre-practice game again against the side of the school building--and since I’ve never paid much attention to what they are trying to accomplish, I wander over. A narrow one inch ledge juts out from the building façade about twelve feet up. It’s little more than an indentation, but someone sometime got the bright idea that a perfectly thrown peddle could be lodged up there. They don’t even have a name for their game, but every day as they wait for remaining team members to arrive on the sports shuttle, up go the pebbles, with their launchers hoping perfect throws and soft landings. Judging from the few small rocks on the ledge, it’s a lot harder than one thinks. It’s their Wildcat version of a midway game. Between tosses, they enjoy arguing points and the most successful throwing techniques. Our girls, bored by the whole idea, ignore them.
While the boys prepare, Coach and I take a few moments to watch parts of other races and chat with fellow coaches. I greet Oscar Jensen, former coach of Marcellus, a school district that ought to be embarrassed by their unprofessional and shabby treatment of this dean of Central New York coaching. A few others who I’ve not seen since my leagues mess-up either commiserate or share been-there stories. It’s a good group of people I’ve have the pleasure of coaching against all these years.
Our remaining runners, conversely, gear up. Today, they choose to run the Woods Loop tempo workout in clockwise fashion, opposite of normal. Variety, I’ve told them in breaking a team voting deadlock, is the spice of life. The rules are the same: pace properly, stay on your ‘wagons’ and keep your feet up because we don’t need anyone twisting an ankle at this point. Fallen leaves on our woods trail are soft and attractive, but they can hide obstacles.
We send them off on recovery running and reconvene at the base of School Hill. The runners line up with Coach Delsole at the base of the moderate hill while I stand near the top. At his command, they blast upward until he loudly announces “time!” These few 7-second sprints fire up the fast-twitch muscles without greatly stressing that system. It also allows me to watch and quickly photograph runner form. The next day, I’ll show Sarah a photo of herself trying to hill sprint while heel-striking, a counter-productive ‘technique’ to say the least. We will talk root causes—lack of hip strength/flexibility—and make winter plans. Alycia, also, has been impressively quick on these drills. We can’t spirit her away from a favored spring sport, but she’s been convinced to run indoor track and will join Coach Delsole’s sprint squad.
With spikes laced up, they continue their warm-up of tempo running, strides and sprints while I hoof over to the far side of the field and the top of the loop’s small hill. Coach radios the start as I near my spot, and it’s not long before the boys front group is approaching on lap one. Will, normally a ‘lurker’ in practices and meets, has decided to take the lead this day. David and Jack are the ones in danger of being gapped, and I give them a shout to close up. By lap two, they’ve done that and we have a top six within a few seconds. Eventually, they will finish with an 11.7 second 1-5 gap. Something around 20-25 at sectionals is what they need, so this is good reinforcement.
Coaches Wojtaszek and Gangemi, who wants all their 8th graders moving up, throw out a new event for the cause. The previous week, our modies had already completed a course run on the 5k. Today, even though a post-race day, they will tackle the 5k race on clock time. They bunch at the start line, most curiously loose and excited despite the circumstances. Our runners are circulating the trails on their fartlek run and will offer encouragement. Coach Delsole and I will monitor several of the junctions to prevent misdirection.
All day I knock on wood. By the time I roll into the high school, my car loaded with tents and team gear, many of the athletes are assembled curb-side, watching with no small satisfaction as their classmate trudge in for a long school day. Harris returns to charter us for a third year, arriving ahead of schedule, and we are on the road early. Once in the Big Apple, he drops us off for the always enjoyed walk through Rockefeller Center and up 5th Avenue to FAO Schwartz where our ‘sophisticated’ teenagers clump their way through toyland for forty-five minutes. Even in route to VanCortlandt Park, our detour through West Bronx due to a clogged Major Deegan proves an educational eye-opener for some who gawk from the bus windows. A quick and efficient course preview increases in value as Coach and I score carrot-cake wedges at Loyd’s across Broadway.
During a second break before the girls varsity race, we tidy up the site, and I contact the bus driver to prepare a departure scenario. By the time the girls break from the line, it’s closing on four, the park population has shrunk and the crowd at the bridge has thinned. The girls kick just as much dust as the boys, and the positions of the Wildcats that stride by in the cloud tell me they’ve gone out conservatively. What happens in the back hills will tell the tale.
The first mile presents no surprises, only the tell-tail sign that this may be a tough day for Elise. In the second mile, the runners stretch out from their original opening pack, and Laura moves into a lead position and steadily pulls away. Behind her, the C-Square front runner opens a gap on Lindsay, but Maria has hooked up with her for a tight 2-3—part of the plan. The runners circle into the back field, now locked in the small battles that determine race outcomes. Elise has dropped off Maria and Lindsay but holds her place as they stride onto the railroad bed, headed for the final loops. Our Wildcats take seven of the first ten places to notch their third dual meet victory, and everyone’s in a good mood. I hustle them out on their cool-down so the boys have not consumed all the post-race food by the time they finish. They complete the run day with strides and smiles. As daylight fades, parents and athletes mingle around the Friends of the Wildcats tent, eating, chatting and soaking up the evening. It will be a comfortable ride home for them.
The painfully beautiful weather continues. The troops are out on their short GC while Coach Delsole and I following sporadic droppings of crushed stone on the back field trail. It leads like bread crumbs to the finalized work of our maintenance crew. They’ve filled and smoothed out a Woods Trail rut carved by some idiot 4-wheeler late one evening. “Nice job,” I tell Coach, admiring the fix. We head back, eyeing other sections of the trail system. Almost our entire five mile system has been gradually carved out of old farm fields and woods by those maintenance guys in the past ten years—and we appreciate it. “I love this course,” Coach observes as we walk the bright September sunlight. Ditto.
Back at the team tent, the girls JV runners are midway into race preps, and the alumni have begun arriving. At some point in the long years of trips, McQuaid became an unofficial gathering of former runners who were either nearby or decided to make the journey to soak up the atmosphere again. As time allows over the course of the afternoon, I’ll chat with Justin about volunteer coaching, Anna about college life at Brockport, Alycia on running XC at Nazareth, Kelly and Emily, Tim about clearing out a home trail with his landscaping equipment, Zander and then Tom, who’s finishing at Cortland and for years has made it know he eventually wants my job. Fine by me. We talk strategies and transitions.
It’s not, of course, all glass half-empty. During the week, we’d talked with our modified front-runners, Carly and Rachel, about aiming for top-5 finishes in their big race. Their comeback was “how about 1-2?” And wouldn’t you know, they wind up chasing the cart down the final stretch to go exactly that and pace their team to a 4th place finish. The boys modified finishes 2nd, sandwiched between two teams that run all 9th graders. Coach and I understand the history and rationales of those allowances, but that doesn’t mean we agree in any way with them. Still, it’s been a great day for the modies.
Just enough mushiness on the trails and dampness in the air prompts me to alter the workout. I’ve done that before often enough to irritate a few of the runners who don’t like plans changed. Some others have made a game of second-guessing my second-guessing. They’re the ones in the group who, as the change is announced, turn to a teammate with a smug smile and proclaim loud enough, “Told you.” We consider them the students-of-the-sport, runners paying attention to the rhymes and rhythms of season and weather.
Coach Delsole is handling the comings and goings of groups at the start/finish down on the Outer Loop. I hike up School Hill with the walkie-talkie and plant myself atop the Narnia trail that courses through and up a small field separating our Ike Dixon Loop and the school grounds. I hate the name that the runners insist on applying to the place, but they’ve warn down my resistance. So be it—Narnia. 
Shortly, Laura descends the hill past the two mile mark, yells something at me and jets back into the woods. The wait for Lindsay this time is, as expected, longer. When she speeds by, I decide that for once, after years of home meets working the back trails, I want to actually see a finish, so I bike back up the Connector Trail, down across the basketball course, weaving around spectators, and into the back playing field by Tunnel Hill. The hoots of spectators and boys team members up on School Hill marks Laura’s ascent of that final challenge. Soon she’s descending toward me, with three hundred meters of course left. I have no idea of the time but am hoping something around 19:00. “Work the Terrace!” I shout. “Start your finish early.” I don’t notice any major gear change, but that is because she is powering so strongly. Across the terrace, through the tree gap and down onto the school grounds for the final meters, she speeds to a cheering, applauding crowd. Knowing I have a few moments, I radio Coach Delsole for her time. 18:42, he tells me. It is the fourth fastest course time ever, with her owning the #1 spot. She’s run that as a solitary time trial on our tough circuit. Gritty stuff.
Other teams are prepping for Saturday invitationals. We’re hitting the roads instead, riding out summer on warm winds and sunshine, pacing the season by limiting 5k’s. Their Saturday will be sleep-ins and light, restorative miles.
The long-course runners dip down into the Gilly Brook drainage, then climb again once on Bennetts Corners Road. The miles accumulate through farm lands of brightening crops before the long drop off the north side of their hill toward the hamlet of Memphis. Nate, Jack and David are firing along, and the girls front group strides by still as a single file unit, headed toward the downhill. I drive off to the Gilly Lake Road intersection, where Coach Delsole waits for the final runners of his shorter circuit group to come through. As he drives off to check on runners, I wait. Nate flies by. He’s gapped Jack and David; he’s on fire, reminding me that this is one of those fine sights of middle distance running. Down the road, however, reality looks different for Megan. She’s hit the wall, falling from the pace of Maria and Elise. But that’s O.K. She’ll back off the pace to finish steady—and she’s taken a big step forward by challenging herself to train that far up the depth chart. I have the feeling she’s making an important decision that will benefit herself and the team.
I toyed with the idea of running the tempo on the high school track. Very easy to watch runners, and just as easy for them(and me) to give splits to control paces. Running on the flat canal tow path, of course, is also a viable option except that it requires special bus transportation. Neither, though, is cross-country. So I mentally shop our training trails. The outer loop is too long for splits, too angled in several places and has a hill that interrupts rhythm. The runners could make grassy circuits around the soccer fields, but who wants to join someone else’s practice? They’re going Woods Loop, and they like the idea.
Rain clouds are still lurking today, but thunder and lightning are unlikely so we’ll get this one in. Off the bus, the boys hurriedly set out to warm up and check the course, which has changed slightly since our last meet here. They’ll circle a big playing field loops and an invisible back hill but still with enough view points to monitor what we’ve planned for both teams. We’re looking for compression on the boys side and some pack running for the girls. But we don’t want to over-prescribe. We need to see how they can race and who is going to race above his or her typical practice places. Some always do, and that information goes in the memory bank.
By 8:50am, with final preparations complete, they are on the line, Coach directs their start-line sequence while I head out into the back field where I can monitor mid-race developments and radio back. The new course configuration allows more sightings, but it also means I’ll never get back to see a finish, which is fine; the back field’s more important. As I glance about to enjoy the surroundings, Coach comes on the walkie-talkie and announces the start. I’m anxious to see how the others respond. With our two top runners out—one leaving for a college visit, the other home sick in bed—this is an opportunity to hand over leadership to the younger runners and see what happens. It’s our first invitational, and we have a bunch of neophytes. Anything could happen.
Early morning. I’ve driven up north following the meet for a short weekend at our lake house. All the runners back in Camillus are probably rolling over, consciously intent on sleeping in. I’m outside, enjoying a leisurely sunrise.
Truth be told, I can be somewhat schizophrenic on quality-day workouts. There are high-fives after a good interval and pats on the back for observed effort. There are smiles and compliments when runners challenge themselves to run with a higher group or to go negative on a set of intervals. But I also pull a few aside and get in their face about the lack of whatever. “Find the race in the workout” has been the mantra, but some have not done so because they’re not looking inside deeply enough—or don’t want to. But they know by word or by experience that if you can’t show it on a quality day, you’re unlikely to unload the big one on race day. Still….
Sunny and mild--it’s another picture-perfect upstate afternoon; and if I didn’t envy them yesterday, today’s made for cruising the miles without a care in the world. In clumps they set off. At the end of Ike Dixon Road, a few miles up, they’ll split. Runners going longer head left toward the hamlet of Memphis; runners going shorter take the right fork and head down Sands Road. Eventually, tracing large circles, those clock and counter-clockwise groups will reunite on Gilly Lake Road for the reach home. I take the short route today while Coach Delsole motors off to monitor the long runners.
“We want you to run with the girls’ front group today,” Coach Delsole instructs Lindsay prior to our practice. “You need to pull them out to a faster pace and start closing that gap.” Normally running with a different boys training group, Lindsay embraces her assignment. Coach and I walk the back trails, monitoring the runners on their mono-fartlek session. Every time the girls group passes, Lindsay’s surging out front, with the others pushing to keep up, a cross-country version of Make Way For Ducklings. Is the pace working? One of the girls pulls out as they go by the third time and asks to shift to another, slower, group. It’s working.
The rest of them go at it. David and Nate take out the front group that includes them, Jack and Mike. Jack and Mike fall back slightly after the second interval, then Jack opens a gap on Mike. I’ve seen that before. We need to solve the problem if they’re going to contend this season. Sean, a pleasant surprise, grinds out the 5th fastest total. And Will continues to cautiously move up, finishing with the 9th best average. That strategy is working.
This week’s long run gets longer. A mile is added to both the run and its shorter cut-off and, for both groups, there are more hills too. Picturesque hills maybe, but hills. I’m old school about that. I believe the aesthetic of the long run matters almost as much as the miles—and a flat long run is about all it is. Contours add character. That’s the legacy, I suppose, of my own high school long runs along rolling New Jersey farm roads, some of them glorious dirt. Most of those are, sad to say, long gone now, with corn, wheat and woods replaced by mini-mansion developments. Nostalgia aside, our Camillus long runs compare favorably. This week’s routes are not hurting for aesthetics.
“Don’t be surprised,” I caution Coach, “if times are a little off last year’s.” With the initial focus on foundational runs, the high-intensity training needed to race effectively has been in short supply. In a pre-race meeting, I warned the troops to avoid going out too fast or gunning any pace in the heat of the moment that would push them into anaerobic racing. “You’re not trained for that yet, so if you do, it’s going to hurt.” Holding back and even pace racing are the orders of the day for everyone. Under sunshine and building temperatures, Coach assembles the teams on the start line, gives final instructions(no tripping or grabbing your ‘opponents’ in the back loops) and whistles them off.
racing. This is going to mean you will miss some early races, but we want you running well at the end of the season, not broken. Missing the mileage this summer does, however, mean that you will not have the season you could have had. That’s just the way it is, so remember that for next year. You will, however, have a safe season.”
As the joke goes, a hot-air balloon enthusiast drifts off course over a Maine farmer standing in his one of his back fields. “Can you tell me where I am?” the ballooner shouts down. The crusty old farmer squints skyward. “You’re up in a balloon you damn fool,” he shouts back. 
“Hey guys,” Nate announced to his boys’ front group as they exited the canal tow path, “you know we just went through the first mile in 6:30.” Coach Delsole was smiling after hearing that. The morning’s team long run was off to a good start.
This was a moderate day. I brought my dog Harley to practice, and he was his usual bi-polar self, either leaning contently into my leg or racing through clumps of runners trying to make new friends. He amused most of the runners and annoyed only a few. Better him than Coach Delsole and I.
A year after my wife and I swapped monthly college tuition payments for mortgage payments on a summer house just south of Tibbets Point, I had started bringing team members up for a day at the end of our first practice week. The team run, the waterfront fun, the food and even the bus ride had all served to both reward the summer work and foster team comradery. That lasted four good years before the district grew concerned about liability. Lake Day promptly disappeared, leaving the upperclassman to merely tell stories of their once-enjoyed tradition. Through time, diligence and district cooperation, however, we were able this year to revive the tradition. It was worth the effort.