Name: Nicholas Hughes
Age: 17
School: North Rockland School
COACH: Barry Baloga
Personal Bests:
2.5 miles – 12:17 Suffern HS CR*
5k – 15:50 Plattsburgh
Accolades:
Two NYS Class AA Championship appearances: 56th sophomore year; 6 th junior year
One NYS Federation Championship appearance
Team: 7th
Individual: 15th
One NYS Cross Regional appearance (26th place)
Typical Training Week
a. Pre-Season
Monday: Off
Tuesday: (Double session) 15 miles total: 8-9 miles in the morning/6-7 miles in the afternoon
Wednesday: 12 miles
Thursday: 25 x 400m with 1 minute rest, 1-3 seconds faster than 5K pace
Friday: 8 miles
Saturday: 2 mile time trial in the morning/5-6 miles in the evening
Sunday: 11-13 miles
b. Season
Monday: Speed Workout (repetition) ex. 20x400m
Tuesday: Moderate length run, more up tempo than long run.
Wednesday: Endurance Workout, ex.1min at a hair slower than race pace, 1min jog, 2min just off race pace, 1min jog, etc.
Thursday: Moderate length run, more up tempo than long run.
Friday: View course, run course and end fast with a couple of 200s on a certain part of the course
Saturday: Race Day
Sunday: Generally a long run consisting of 12+ miles
Goals:
TEAM: Battle for top spot in both class AA and federation championships, participate in a regional qualifying race and go to either of the cross nationals. (Let’s get it!)
Individual: Finish every race saying, “I gave it my best.”
Coaches’ Philosophy (by Baloga): Over the last few years Nick has developed the “student first, athlete second” mentality that is demanded out of our athletes in the classroom. Our guys know that the quickest way to be scratched from our next race, or lose their season entirely, is to slack off in class or be anything less their very best as a North Rockland Cross Country Runner. We have guys walking the halls of our school, who were with us at one point and could’ve been great runners, but just couldn’t get their acts together academically or knew they’d be held accountable for their conduct. There are so many ways a coach’s hands can be tied nowadays with school policy and such, but I never get disagreement when it comes to a runner realizing he needs to sit one out and put things in perspective. It works more often than not. Nick comes into our team study hall sessions after school and quietly sits down with 40 minutes-plus of course work to finish before he hits practice. I never take this approach to schoolwork by my athletes for granted: it’s infectious.
My team is made up a bunch of great kids to begin with and need very little prompting to begin their studies, but it doesn’t hurt for them to see their two-year captain not wasting any time either. Last year, Nick used to be served his team dinner in his usual rank as an upperclassmen, but now he waits until everyone has been served and receives his dinner last. I always liken it to the four-star general who won’t eat until his all of his men have eaten. I like gestures like that no matter how demonstrative. Whatever his motivation is, the kids on the team look up to that and will end up modeling that same behavior. While he hasn’t lost his appreciation for making lame jokes at practice or sharing his love of bad adolescent movies, he has channeled his energy to make every workout count for his teammates. I believe this mentality has essentially made his training and racing goals more meaningful to him. He’s seen, in a very short period of time, that improving yourself as a student will motivate you to become a better runner.
Nick came off a great cross country season, but due to numerous factors had a very erratic indoor and outdoor season which was frustrating for the both of us. He knew coming into this season that he could become an elite runner so we made sure his mileage levels started early and increased gradually until he was running consistent 70-mile weeks and hasn't gone too far from that since the start of school. Typically, I set up our cross country season in three, four-week phases and while the mileage decreases gradually as the bigger races grow closer, the format of these weeks don't really change from one phase to the other. It does allow the athlete to see their improvement because they ran something similar a few weeks earlier, only now they are more fit and have had some racing thrown in. The workouts we do are pretty standard, far from revolutionary, but they are heavy on intensity and duration and the kids have to complete them without looking to me to cut them short before they're over.
The biggest difference in Nick's training this year happened by coincidence. Our track was dug up and resurfaced in the first week of September (which was long overdue) and forced us to run all of our workouts on grass, which we don't always do. Like most large suburban Section One high schools we are not blessed with the rolling pastures of Warwick, so we would go on long runs on the roads around our school, which affords us space but can catch up on the legs if the mileage is high. Since I grew accustomed to having them run on softer surface this season, I kept them on grass for their long runs too but gave them a break every few minutes and started another timed run shortly thereafter. Not only could I see all of my kids at once, but I noticed I could regulate their pace easier. They were actually running faster than they ever were on the roads! Nick will throw in a 40 minutes that started easy and got progressively faster and then after a few minute break could go into a real quick 35 minute run where he could work on catching all of his teammates. By the end of the session he'd cover more ground at a faster pace than he ever could on the roads. I've seen a big difference in his interval work because of being forced to stay away from the track and roads.