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?