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.