Larry Weber was named as a Washington State High School Cross Country coach of the year in 2011, 2012, and 2015 by the Washington State High School Cross Country Coaches Association. He was also named as the Division 2 National Coach of the year for the girls in 2014 and for the boys in 2014, 2015, and 2016. His teams won national cross country championships in 2014 (boys and girls), 2015 and 2016. Coach Weber has served as the head coach of 8 Washington State High School State Championship cross country teams in the last 7 years. In addition, he has coached 3 individual state cross champions during the last 7 years.
We discuss:
His career as a runner and how it lead into coaching
How at such a small school he recruits and keeps a successful program
How does he use what he learned as running at an elite level and use it in his program
Who did he learn from and what did he read that helped him in his coaching
What does he do to individualize programming to get the maximum out of each kid while not overtraining
How does he break up his team in workout groups
How does training vary year-to-year based on the group
His 30k foot overview of what the training cycle looks like for the season
How does he set pacing for his workouts
How he prescribes recovery workouts and paces
How he works on a mindset where they know they can compete with large schools
How often his athletes race during the season
What specific work he does to get ready for the state meet
Fun traditions he does during the season to build team bonding
He gives advice to coaches on how to build a larger program
His all-time record for the ultimate runner competition
His staple workout for the team
How he structures a week during a race week to get in enough quality