You have coached at every level you could coach at and recently retired from Team USA MN. Can you talk about that decision and recapping your time there?
You had a lot of success with Team USA MN. What do you think lead to the amount of success you had? Was it team atmosphere, Minnesota or what were the factors?
Where do you see the future of these post-collegiate groups in the next 5-10 years?
You mentioned the loneliness of the long distance runner. You recently wrote a book The River Road, a novel during the runner boom of the early 70’s. Can you talk about the premise of the book?
How was the training different for kids in the 70’s? - Jim Ryun trained like a swimmer.
Talking about the 70’s and kids runners not getting injured like they do today.
You are coaching 7-12th graders now. What has it been like to switch back from the post-collegiates to kids?
You have some really young kids, how do you get the kids started and keep them healthy?
Can you touch on your marathon philosophies and what worked where you had success?
We wanted to get the co-coaches of Coe Brown, Tim Cox and Brent Tkaczyk, on because we wanted to talk to some small school coaches who are having success. Some of the issues smaller schools of 700 kids have a much bigger difference than a coach at a school with 3000 kids and huge teams You also have a unique coaching situation there and that is where I wanted to start.
If you could both introduce yourself, give us the 2-3 minute background on your personal running history and how you ended up coaching together.
You have a unique program with two coaches, who deals with more of the handling of the kids and pep talks?
When you took over the program it was smaller, how did you start building it?
You talk about doing a lot of fun running games. Can you give us some examples?
At a small school what do you do with recruiting to make sure you maintain a big enough team?
Last year in 2015 you tied for second at regionals of NXR, but were passed over for at-large. Did you use that as a motivator over the summer?
You have shown that small schools can compete at the highest level. What advice would you have for small school coaches?
You are doing something right, when does your training start over the summer and what does it look like?
We have a lot of different training philosophies in these podcasts. You seem to really like to build and be on that upswing late in the season, is that your strategy?
What does your hardest 3-week cycle look like during the season?
Marist, a smaller school in Georgia in the last 9 years on the girls have won 9 state titles and boys 6 with a few 2nd place finishes, we want to dig into what you are doing to have this much success… first let's start out if you could give us a background of how you got involved in running and how you ended up the coach of Marist?
Is this your first coaching gig, or did you coach before Marist?
You have a small kid with under 1000 kids, and you have 80 girl runners on your team and 140 total. How has recruiting played a roll in what you are building there?
You also coach adults, how much is getting kids hooked on running the same as getting adults hooked on it.
You have a huge team for a school your size. You talk about the girl trying to earn their varsity letter and the girl trying to win state.. but I’m sure you also have the other, as head coach what do you do to make a connection to each of those kids vs just working with the better runners?
Being in Atlanta what training challenges do you have?
One of the great things about these episodes is hearing from different programs. You mention you have very tough academics, and are at a smalls school. Small school kids may be in the band, year book club and want to do cross country. How do you balance the athletes that want to do multiple activities?
What did you think the results were for this year with getting rid of weights, and will you go back next year?
Let’s jump into the training and your training philosophy. What are your expectations over the summer on what your athletes should be doing?
During midseason, what does a typical week in maybe late Sept look like?
You mentioned some of the things you changed over the years. What is the biggest thing that has changed since you started?
You mentioned the miles are higher than they used to be, is that because other teams are doing more work so you do it to stay ahead of the other schools or why do you think the reason the change happened?
You mentioned you do more core than you used to, where do you work that in and what does that look like?
What are your plans for NXR this week?
During that period between State and NXR do you hit the reset button or coach it as more of the same?
One more training question, after NXR when your season is done, what do you focus on during the winter to get ready for track?
State results and between 2000-2010 the girls team had qualified for state exactly 0 times. Then you take over in 2011 and in 2011 your team was 8th at state and since then they had a 3rd, 2nd, and now two firsts. Also I looked at the team size, and it wasn’t like they had a small squad in 2010, so what was the thing that really changed between 2010 and 2011 that allowed the team to make such a huge improvement and remain so consistent.
What changed in the culture?
What is threshold to Matt and how does he use it in his training and off seasons?
What is his pace book?
What does a week look like during the summer?
How has his past running experiences as an elite runner effected his coaching?
You don’t seem to be reinventing the wheel, you seem to be doing the basics and doing it all year around.
How do you take what you know and apply it to a 14-year old girl who maybe had never run before?
Matt talks about how the school system is supportive of all the teams including cross country and how they expect champions.
You are getting over 80 girls, what does a mid-season week look like and how do you break that up with such large numbers?
What do things look like from right before the State meet until the national meet because of the long time period?
What does the taper look like going into the national championship meet?
Minnesota is a great cross country state right now, what makes them so great right now?
Discuss the upcoming trip to NXN
On this call with Coach Soles we had some early phone problems where his phone kept cutting out, so we lost the beginning of the first question in the recording. We were talking about how he took over the program that was a brand new program and how he had ambitious goals from day one. People called him crazy, but he stay determined. The first you hear Doug here he is talking about how he grew as a coach in building the program.
Topics discussed in this episode include things such as how he uses ladder drills and hit training. How often his team doubles. How he structures his week of training. How he build the program from scratch and the future of the team.
Coach you won 6 state titles in a row in Arizona with the Xavier girls xc team then the next two years, you won back to back titles at Desert Vista. Last year you just missed your 9th state title in a row, but you are back on top this year ranked 3rd by Flotrack. How does the team look this year?
With the girls used to winning state titles and falling a little short last year, what did you need to do differently this year to get them ready?
How do you balance the science that you know with teaching the kids but not overwhelming them?
What does your HIIT training look like?
How often are you doing HIIT’s and how many do you do? 6x150 with full recovery 3x in a 22-weektraining cycle. After a moderate intensity or recovery distance run. One key is full recovery. You need full recovery so you can recruit more muscle fiber.
As soon as any coach becomes successful the peanut gallery starts talking about how the team is overtraining, recruiting or any other excuse for a teams success. In a few selected cases that may be true, but Ive talked to you enough about training to know that is not the case with you, can you talk about the type of volume your athletes are doing?
You have had a lot of runners who went on and had a lot of success at the next level and as professionals. How rewarding is it to see them go on and have success?
We are coming toward the end of the season where you just had City, getting ready for sectionals, then state and then two weeks later Nike Cross Regionals. How do you manage peaking and maintaining it for that long?
If you have a 20-week training cycle, how do you space out your workouts and how varied are your workouts over those 20 weeks? 2-week cycle will try to get in a tempo run, a progression run, two long runs and 2 repetition sessions. If we get in five, that is fine. At most six. in the Phoenix summer it may be 2-4.
What pace is your repetition workouts at? 7+7=7 workout, 7x800 plus 7x200 is 7,000m of work. Those 800s will be cut down pacing and the average may be 2:43 for a varsity girl. And 200s may be 34-35.5. Somewhere around goal race pace average on the 800s and faster on the 200s. 5600m of the 7k will be mostly aerobic.
On the 800s will cut down pace and cut down race so may start with 3:00 and end up 1:45-2:00 rest.
Compare your reasoning to what Tinman does with the CV pacing. - Early in the summer we spend a lot of time close to that CV range, the faster stuff will be later and we get there with the cutdown start 2:52 and end 2:35
Does this workout play into your race strategy of negative splits and how does a race strategy change for someone who is a mid-pack runner who’s strategy may not change based on who is leading the race? - Last mile, best mile, fastest mile.
How has it worked over the years when you get to a big race where position becomes so important and you may need to be more aggressive?
How big is your team?
Can you talk to us about the structure of your program and how you deal with those many athletes?
Talking to the coaches over the last few weeks what we notice is the coaches and the programs that work hard and have high goals and love to win and do hard workouts are the ones that end up with big teams, not the ones who relax and always only focus on fun. The kids seem to want to work hard, what are your thoughts?
You mentioned warm up routines. Most teams have a set of drills that they do, you have multiple sets, why do you change it up so much?
No one I know reads as many research studies as you do. You do it for your career as well as for your coaching. what have you learned in the last 6-12 months. that is new you have incorporated?
We all learn from each other, so talk about some of your influences in the coaching world.
Interview with Gaylerd Quigley, coach of Nerinx High School in St. Louis Mo. We talk about his daughter running in the Olympics and the coaching philosophy that has lead to three straight podiums in the Missouri State Race.
Tell us about this summer and Colleen’s Olympic experience.
What was it like as a parent watching your kid at the Trials?
At what point in that race did you realize that she was going to make the team?
What went into the decision to not coach your son Dan in high school, but you did coach daughter Colleen?
What was it like when your daughter went to college and your parent/coach relationship with her college coach?
How do you handle calls from your daughter or prior runners who have questions after they are in college?
You coached at an all boys school and an all girls school. What did you find the differences in strength training?
What specific exercises are you doing with these girls to help with injury prevention and shin issues?
When you have injury issues, what is your go to cross training exercise?
You use Jack Daniels training, if you could give us a basic outline of your training philosophy.
How do you work the long run into that system?
What have you taken from Colleen and how she has been training, have you changed anything with your system?
What are you doing besides workouts to get the kids to really peak well at the state meet?
We talk about low Ferritin levels.
Coach of Loudon Valley in Virginia. Drew Hunters mom. Her and her husband Marc coach the team. Took over cross country program in 2014 so going into third year. Never had a state title in 50 years of school, won last year and second on girls side. School about 1200, have 120 kids now on team.
We know you as a successful coach and the mother of some successful runners. How did you get started in running?
You mentioned you used to be high intensity, low mileage. When did that change?
You had a lot of success as a masters runner, tell us about your achievements with this training.
You took over the XC program at Loudon Valley in 2014. What lead you to wanting to get into coaching?
How was it taking over with Drew on the team, was he on board with it?
You took over a program and turned it around quickly, what were some of the things you changed when you took over the program?
One of the things we are seeing from doing this podcast, in people taking over programs you are getting a good bump in the number of kids coming out, tell us about your numbers?
120 kids is a lot to deal with, can you tell us how you structure your workouts with that many kids?
Last year your boys won the first ever state title for the school and the girls were second at state. For those wondering if all that success was just because of Drew you opened this year at Great meadows invitational which had 28 teams this year your boys won and to compare that you were a distant third last year. Walk us through what your team did this summer to get ready to defend the title.
What type of mileage did your boys and girls get up to over the summer?
Can you walk us through what a typical week may look like?
Were you happy with your Great American meet results from last week?
When you are #1 in the state, you have your eyes on the Nike Regional meet, how do you structure training for what will hopefully be a long season.
You mentioned critical velocity, can you explain it a little bit as it is the backbone of your training plan?
You mention you are doing them most of the year, what is changing, is it volume or duration? And what does your add on speed look like?
Do you run CV workouts on a track or a course?
So Drew decided to not run at college and turn pro, what is he up to right now?
Talk about how Adidas has handled the decision for him to go pro and how they are supporting him.
Going forward will he remain with Tom Schwartz and maintain the same coach?
You coached Alan Webb at one point and remained friends with him. He has served as a mentor with Drew. Was he an influence at all in making this decision?
When you were working with Alan and Drew, what was the moment you knew they would be really good?
Having 120 kids on the team is a lot. And then you have 9 of your own kids. How do you work on that time balance?
Where do you see Drew’s future, more of 800-1500 or more 15/5k?
Big weekend where your boys won Woodbridge Invite and your girls were 4th, tell us about the weekend race.
Woodbridge is unique because it is a big meet and it is also very early in the season. Do you taper and really get ready to peak at this meet?
You were originally in Missouri, how did you end in Colorado?
What was the program like before you got there?
Tell us about Mountain Vista as a school
You took over in 2007, how long was the turn-around before you started having success?
That is a quick turn around in a state like Colorado. What did you do to get the culture changed so quickly?
With a large team of different commitment levels, how do you deal with keeping everyone on the same page and not having resentment?
What is your philosophy for training there and maybe include some talk of mileage?
Give us a sample structure for a 6-day week.
What is the focus this year? State? NXN?
Do you notice any difference between the girls and boys when getting them ready for a big meet like state?
You had a very young team at Woodbridge on the girls side with a sophomore and three freshmen. Is that the team you expect at NXN this year?
Do you have a staple workout or a favorite workout?
How do you prep for when you need to come down to sea level?
Matt Lincoln is the cross country and track distance coach at chandler high school and has completely turned around the program. First Matt lets talk about your running. Can you tell is about your career as a mid-distance runner at Penn State.
What did he learn at Penn state that he has taken into his coaching career.
After he graduated, what was his running career like.
He took over the Chandler High Program in 2014, a year after they did not make state and lead the girls team to 10th at state. What were some of the big challenges taking over a program that had not been dominant in a while?
How did he get buying from the athletes?
For a large school the team was not that big, what did you do as far as recruiting and growing the numbers.
In 2015, your second year, there was not a lot of talk about Chandler pre season. We train together so I saw what was happening, and a few coaches were starting to recognize your success. But in your second year you ended up winning the team title. Jeff Messer had coached 6 state championships in a row. How did you get your athletes to believe they could knock off Desert Vista or Xavier and win?
What was the training like leading into the Championship season?
If you could go back and share a few words of advice with that rookie coach in 2014, what would you tell him?
All the talk has been about the girls team, what about the boys, how are they looking?
This summer at Portland Track Festival, one of your athletes Morgan Foster broke the state record with a 2:07 in the 800. The amazing thing about that is Morgan is a Freshman. How do you deal with an athlete like that who obviously has a bright future?
Team culture, anything outside of workouts/meets you guys are doing socially?
CBA training in depth, pressure of taking over a solid program.
Let’s start out with getting to know you a little bit. You were a successful runner at Princeton, can you tell us about your high school years and what you learned from those years that you are using now?
Coach Tom Heath was the long-time legendary coach who won 26 state titles, an NXN title and 343 dual meets in a row. He has announced his retirement and the program is now under your helm. You had a successful coaching career yourself before joining CBA a couple of years ago, so what is going to be the biggest challenge in carrying on this tradition?
What will you change and keep from tradition
Dual meets are interesting because while they are going away, it is a great way to learn how to race for younger kids without as much experience.
Run the same 1.5 mile loop every day for your distance runs?
A lot of the preseason writeup have you as one of the favorites in the NE this year. How did you train this summer to get ready for those expectations? - Great conversation about his training philosophy.
Your daily runs have a fairly good amount of quality to them, and if you are asking your kids to run that hard on the daily runs are your ‘workout’ days less intense or what does that look like for a program that goes pretty hard every day?
Can you walk us through this time of year when you may have a weekly meet what your week looks like?
Have you found that this type of training is better preparing them for college running?
You guys seem to be fit all year round with your training. Does it make it easier to always be ready for a big meet like a national meet and postseason over those who vary their training more?
How big of a school and how big of a xc team do you have? - Their freshman story and when they start is really interesting.
You have over 10% turnout, what unique are you doing that may help build the team?
Do you still do your big 2-mile time trial and how does that work?
If that went so well, what are the goals for this year?
To be successful year around you need to stay healthy, so what are you doing for core, strength work?
Host Bern Rosario and Dean Ouellette
Coach Joe Newton decided he was going to make this his last year, how did you hear about the news? - Coach Kern talks about how this is not the first time Newton has talked retirement.
How has the news been received among the York community?
Are there any big farewell events planned at upcoming meets so Newton gets the Jeter/David Ortiz treatment?
The Chicago metro area has to be one of if not the most competitive metropolitan area in the country. With that landscape how hard is it for you guys to going to go out on top?
It is getting harder and harder to win in Illinois. You will be taking over a legendary program. What changes may be coming or what is your vision for the future of the long green line? - Coach Kern focuses on rest, course workload and some of the training will change because his training philosophy is a little different.
You mention rest. Some of these high school kids are not getting enough rest and are getting sick. What do you do to encourage them to get the rest they need? - Coach Kern does a great job in talking about how legacy plays into this. You can have fun doing the things you do for the next 70 years of your life. This is going to be your one time to achieve whatever you achieve this year. So let’s sell out and work on that now.
By creating this culture and legacy you have affected all those around you. Talk about how good things are right now in central Illinois. - Any one of the top 4 from our conference could win the state championship.
Do you think the reason that things are flourishing there right now is because the notoriety that York has achieved?
You mentioned your son who is one of the great runners in that area. A lot of coaches end up coaching their own kids what advice do you have for coaches who end up coaching their own kids?
With him being into running and you obviously being into running how do you step away from it at times with your son?
The college recruitment process will start soon with him. Do you see him staying around home or going away to school?
For your runners who are not your son, what advice do you give them about heading off to college with academic vs. athletic considerations?
Part of the success has been because you have a large team. With that are challenges. So can you tell us what a week may look like at York under Coach Kern. - He uses groups to organize 168 kids on the team right now. Each group has their own coach. He also talks about some of the changes he is making after Newton.
You talk about the importance of the long run. What is a long run for York.
Was there a time in the 70’s-80’s when York was doing 100 miles a week like the rumors have it?
How did the 1000 mile club really work at York over the summer?
A big part of what we do is injury prevention, so what is your strength/core/plyo routine like?
One of the reasons kids can’t handle the mileage they used to and one of reasons need more strength and core work is because kids don’t play as much. Do you agree or what do you think?
Are you going to continue the nicknames?
It seems almost like a family atmosphere, is there anything you plan on doing to keep that culture at York.