Camillus NY - After the success of Jim Vermeulen's XC Journal
in the many falls of Cross Country, we've asked again for him to
provide some news and notes once a month this summer. Think of these as
the thoughts that cross the mind of your average coach. Up from Section
3, we present you with "Thoughts From Three."
The Big Sort
Forget Reality TV. How about some Reality Running?
"I just want to explain this," I said to the team member I had pulled aside after practice. She'd been directed to train this particular day with teammates faster than those she typical chose--if given the choice. And she hadn't been happy about it. All afternoon, as her group came and went on their segmented assignments, facial expressions and body language spoke louder than words. "You need to understand that we coach toward a runner's potential," I explained to her. "We don't change the work because of a person's personality or attitude. We train runners toward what we know they can accomplish, not what they might want to do on any particular day." She stared back. At least for the time being, she wasn't buying any of it.
This is that time of the season where, for a number of the less experienced team members, 'being a runner' gets hard. It follows those first weeks of initial excitement and that headlong rush toward envisioned mastery. "Nothing good comes cheap," they've already been warned--and now they know that as a personal fact. An accumulation of mileage, most of it low intensity, is still an accumulation of mileage. All of it, for those wary runners, usually comes on the heels of too little of it in June, July and August. Time on feet, one way or the other, requires decisions. Some of those newbies are now working on minor or nagging aggravations, and when I review their summer mileage charts, I am again reminded why. Training time or intensity thus is being lost by them, compounding the problem and creating the danger of the downward cycle of broken--back but out of shape--broken again. No way to enjoy a season. But even for the healthy others, the parabolic curve of fitness-gain has begun to force the commitment question. More work for less gain--do you have that in you? Is it worth finding out?
Not surprisingly, some balk at the suggestion that even more is possible. They immediately distance themselves from those others whose heads are down and ready for what's next or from those few odd-balls who can actually take pleasure from pushing into pain. Like many coaches, this 'sort time' is when I'm most likely to come under criticism from runners or parents. I am expecting too much. I am unrealistic. I don't understand the larger picture of youth today. I don't know how to train runners. Things like that. What I do know, however, is that most parents will accept the physical pain their athlete endures in the sport. But it's many of those same parents who will quickly attempt to shield their runner from ANY of the mental pain that may result from confronting "unreasonable coach's expectations" or race disappointments. Somehow, kids today are expected to grow into adults without learning to manage that kind pain.
Our annual 'sort' is, in some ways, very objectively quantifiable. When we conduct specific quality-day practices, intervals or totals are recorded. We generate per/mile averages for the different training types on those quality days, and I rank the runners for each type. Excel makes it easy. I average places for all the training types--and then I rank those. To be honest, those practice rankings tell me far more than rankings from meet performances. Those two taken together and compared, however, create the stories of runners and generate intriguing questions. Why, for instance, does Runner A race four team places higher than he/she typically trains? It's not difficult to draw a reasonable conclusion.
But they plug on. The veterans continue to strengthen. Their seasons are gaining momentum. Others are discovering those reservoirs of effort heretofore hidden even from themselves. They've begun believing they actually are tougher than they thought. That is, after all, one of the reasons for this sport. And, as always, better late than never. All those personal notions of what a season can become will settle in with several more meets. October will, unbelievably, be upon us soon and some of those still unsure runners may actually start contemplating their end-games even as others gear up for the stretch runs. A lock-step mentality seldom characterizes our teams.
One brilliant early autumn afternoon, the runners wandered in to our meeting place from their high school shuttle bus drop-off. We had a lot on the agenda for the day, so I dispensed with the long-winded stuff. "I have a question I want you to think about. Give it some of your time because I might ask you to write it down in a couple of days. It's not necessarily about training or race goals or any of that. The question is this: what do you expect to learn from this season? Think about that."
Heads nodded. Then we got about the day's work.