Colin Altevogt, the boys XC coach at Carmel High in Indiana. Colin has been coaching in Indiana for the past 11 years, the last six years as a cross country coach at Carmel. The team has captured four state championships and two state runner-up titles with two qualifications for Nike Cross Nationals (2014 and 2017), including a tenth-place finish in 2017.
Background
- Ran in high school and college
- Taught at Avon right out of college
- 2011-2013 moved to Carmel as an assistant
- 2012 we trained training
- 2014 became head coach
- In the 6 years, we have 4 state titles and 2 runner-ups
Why did you get into high school coaching
- Always wanted to be a teacher and loved track
- When I was in college did volunteer coaching
- Always wanted to be a coach since he was in early teens
Speak to cross country and the traditions in the mid-west
- Our winters are fairly mild with just a few exceptions
- Summer we meet in the mornings so good running conditions
Summer Program
- June 2nd was State track meet
- June 4th was first practice for XC for those who did not run State
- We call threshold runs PPM's we don't give them a set pace
- Paces are based off hard threshold workouts we do once a week over summer
What is PPM
- Pace Per Mile
- Big difference with us is threshold workout
- They run it 'all-out' at a pace they can handle well
- We keep it simple instead of giving paces
- Need to learn how to run hard
Example 15:30 5k guy runs 5:00/mi what is this PPM workout for him?
- Varies a little by runner 800 guy may not be as fast as 3200 guy
- On a good day 5:20-5:30 for 8 miles
Workout structure
- Pace per mile is what they do is calculated after the workout
- The structure is to do best you can
- Senior boys maybe junior are doing 8 miles
- The freshman does maybe 2 miles hard and builds up to 5
- We had 2 boys this year build up to 9
- Week 1 may do 6 at 5:40 pace, then next week 7 at 5:45 pace then the next week maybe 7 again at 5:40
- They figure it out the hard way how to do these
- Ok with them going out too fast and adapt over time
- Paavo training technique
Thresholds are an important part of your program, once in the season can you give us a weekly schedule?
- First meet right around Labor Day
- Up until first meet Long Run Monday, T/W milage, Th PPM, F milage, Sat building up volume
- July on Tuesday we may do short PPM in the middle maybe 2 miles for veterans
- Will work in repeat miles in August
- Once in season 400 intervals are CI, always the same pace for the season.
- Low set and high set
- 2-3 cycles.
- Low set 4 less than high set
- High set 1/2 distance of PPM so 8-mile PPM is 16x400 w/ recovery 3:00 jog rest to start
- Find recovery loop and loop time will come down over the season on loop
- Monday high set, Thursday low set is what do before big meet in season
- 400 pace 6-8:00/mi is about 1:00/mi faster than that
- 5:30 is 70second 400
- On big race weeks go to the 2 CI and no PPM that week
- Once get to tournament week go from 1/4 to 1/3 of a mile so same pace for about an extra 25 seconds
Do you get requests for more variety?
- Not really
- They buy in
- Sometimes will do repeat miles or 2k's
- Report their times for 400s as 0, +2 or -1 not as 79 seconds
Racing during season
- Will run mileage on race day so can be a long run day
- Will sit the top 7 rotating at different points
- Races are already all out
- Racing is part of training
Carmel team Culture
- When season over and only 12 left for tournament roster encourages people to keep training
- Friday night before regional track time trial for those not running regionals
- 800 one week, 3200 next week, 1600 following week
- 2/3 stick around for that
- Not who wants it most, it is who is most prepared
- Become best-prepared team we can be
- Team supports each other, will take anyone still training to sectional, regional and state
- Let kids know they are wanted all the time
- Team grew 50%, but those taking it seriously grew 200%
Coach closes talking about the outlook of State and NXN
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Ben Rosario
Dean Ouellette